There’s Something Bigger Than Amazon

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner had a routine called The 2000-Year-Old Man. Reiner played a reporter interviewing the world’s oldest man, who would tell him all sorts of things that happened in the distant past. One time the subject was religion:

REINER: Did you believe in anything?

BROOKS: Yes, a guy, Phil. Philip was the leader of our tribe.

REINER: What made him the leader?

BROOKS: Very big, very strong, big beard, big arms, he could just kill you. He could walk on you and you would die.

REINER: You revered him?

BROOKS: We prayed to him. Would you like to hear one of our prayers? “Oh Philip. Please don’t take our eyes out and don’t pinch us and don’t hurt us. Amen.”

REINER: How long was his reign?

BROOKS: Not too long. Because one day, Philip was hit by lightning. And we looked up and said, “There’s something bigger than Phil.”

I’ll return to this later.

I was too busy to give a thoughtful reply to Terry’s post about Amazon and their new “Ask This Book” feature. Enough has been said about it there—and everywhere—that the issues are clear.

Most pressing for authors and publishers are copyright and permission. Does this feature, which provides plot summaries and character analyses, violate copyright? Or is it more like a flexible version of CliffsNotes?

Or is ATB different in kind? The Authors Guild thinks so. It argues that what Amazon is doing is creating an interactive book from the original material, i.e., another iteration of an author’s intellectual property, for which the author should receive compensation. I suspect there is a lot more to come on this matter.

It should be noted that someone can go straight to AI now and ask for a summary and analysis of a book. I went to Grok and asked for a summary of a thriller by one of my favorite authors. I got it. Accurately, too. Without spoilers. When I asked specifically for the spoiler answer to the ultimate mystery, I got that, too. I then asked for an analysis of the main characters. Check. (In deference to the author, from whom I did not seek permission, I will not post the answers.) Is ATB merely a more convenient way for a reader to get the same information?

And speaking of permission, this feature is being rolled out by Amazon without giving the author or publisher the choice to opt in or out, as with DRM. This has raised the temperature in many a discussion. Given that, what should an author do? I don’t think many will pull their ebooks off Amazon in protest, because Amazon is their biggest revenue stream. It’s irrelevant whether one is wide or exclusive.

Which brings me back to Phil. Because there’s something bigger than Amazon in all this. And that is Artificial Intelligence itself. We all know it’s here, it’s growing, and it’s here to stay. There have been innumerable discussions, debates, and jeremiads on how writers use this borg. For me, the firm no-go zone is having it generate text that is cut-pasted into a book, even though AI can now replicate a writer’s particular style (see Joe Konrath’s recent post and the examples therein).

What I’m most concerned about is the larger issue of melting brains. Using AI as a substitute for hard thinking atrophies the gray matter. “Use it or lose it” is real. In the past, a reader who wanted to know what’s happened in a book had to “flip back” actual pages to find out. That was work, and therefore good for the noggin. AI bypasses that neural network.

This brain rot is bad for the species, especially among the young. It tears my heart out to see a man or woman walking down the street, looking at their phone, while pushing a stroller with a toddler in it, who is likewise staring at a device full of dancing monkeys or pink rabbits. That child’s brain is being robbed of essential foundations built only by looking around at the real world in wonder.

The school years used to be a daily session of ever more complex thinking. Learning to write a persuasive essay—with a topic paragraph and supporting arguments—was once a major goal of education. Now AI can do that for you in seconds, so you can go back to playing Candy Crush.

We all know this. But what can we do about it? Take responsibility for our own actions. Don’t let AI do all the work for us, or for our kids and grandkids.

And if you’re upset with Amazon’s ATB, cool your jets and register a polite response to KDP customer service. There’s enough vitriol out there. We’re awash in so much Ghostbusters II mood slime now that we don’t need to add to it.

Because as bad as brain rot is, soul rot is worse. And a hate-laced, click-bait habit will inevitably turn your soul into the picture of Dorian Gray. Don’t go there.

And those are my myriad thoughts. Help me sort them out in the comments.

This Ain’t Your Grandaddy’s Western

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Good morning to you all!

Today’s post is a little different than usual. The link below will take you to Saddlebag Dispatches Magazine and an article I co-wrote with Roan and Weatherford publisher, Casey Cowan. He called me one day several months ago and asked if I’d work with him on an article about westerns and their survival as viable genre. Of course I jumped at the chance.

We reached out to other authors such as Marc Cameron, Craig Johnson, and the creator of Rambo, David Morrell who are writing modern westerns today, bringing in different viewpoints about these books that once entertained, and eventually brought many authors into the writing world.

This is the result.

Enjoy!

https://issuu.com/oghmacreative/docs/saddlebag_dispatches-january_2026/s/152135644

P.S.

Here’s the link to the entire January issue of this fine magazine, where you can find an in-depth interview with David Morrell, fascinating articles on the new and old west, and my ongoing column, along and much, much more.

https://issuu.com/…/docs/saddlebag_dispatches-january_2026

Reader Friday: What’s in a Name?

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Here’s an oldie from TKZ emerita Jordan Dane:

JSB’s favorite short story collection

Answer any one or all:

1.) What’s your favorite way to select a character’s name? (Do you have any favorite GO TO resource links?)

2.) Do you care about name origins or meanings?

3.) How do you select names for a character with different ethnic backgrounds?

Show Up: The Discipline of Writing

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When I first started writing way back in the dark ages, even before the internet was dial-up…What’s dial-up, you ask? For readers who aren’t familiar with the term, back in the late nineties when you connected to the internet, first you heard a dial tone, then a series of screeching, beeps, and static as the modem connected to the ISP that might go on forever while the user sat there waiting and waiting for everything to connect…

Oh, and this was before Word, so everything was DOS…and even before that, it was an electric typewriter, and before that, a manual one (that’s what I started on), and the only critique groups were—gasp—in person. Only in my corner of the world, there were no critique groups. I wrote and wrote and kept getting rejections because I made the same mistakes over and over because there was no one to tell me what I was doing wrong.

Writing was hard. It took a lot of discipline to show up and keep going.

Let me tell you a little secret. Writing is still hard, even with all the shortcuts and conveniences we have. Need to research gunrunning? Instead of getting in the car and driving to the library and looking through the card catalogue for books or articles on the subject, just put your research question in Giggle, I mean Google, and instantly there are hundreds of articles on gun running at your fingertips. Off you go on a rabbit trail. Not only that, there are a gazillion books on writing.

When I started, I had a handful of books from my local library, and probably the best thing I could’ve had—the Writers Digest Magazine featuring a monthly column by Lawrence Block. Each installment felt like a masterclass in creative writing. Here’s a link to one of his columns—columns he wrote every month for fourteen years–talk about discipline! Later came Nancy Kress and then our own James Scott Bell.

However, books and articles don’t teach discipline, and in MHO, discipline is the difference between wanting to write and actually writing. Here’s my definition of discipline: Showing up and doing the hard work when you don’t feel like it.

I’ve known writers who love to talk about writing and who love to have written, but when it comes to actually sitting behind a computer and actually putting something on paper, they are MIA. Unfortunately, no one can give you the discipline to write. Only you can do that, and if you don’t have a deadline, either from a publisher or a self-imposed one, it’s hard to make yourself sit at the computer and run (or plod) toward the finish line unless you have that drive to create a story and put what’s in your head on paper.

So TKZers, what advice do you have on developing discipline? And if I don’t show up to answer comments, then you’ll know the ice storm brought down the power lines in my area…

Amazon’s Latest Rollout – And Controversy

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Amazon’s Latest Rollout – And Controversy
Terry Odell

Amazon is rolling out a new feature, “Ask this Book,” a new feature that allows readers (of Kindle books) to interact with the book. It’s currently available for thousands of English-language books on the Kindle iOS app in the U.S. The feature will be enabled on Kindle devices and Android OS next year.

Forget a character’s name? Can’t remember where a scene took place? Instead of searching, which can be a tedious process, you can now ask the AI genie inside the book and it will answer you, also inside the book. No scrolling, no losing your place.

That seems harmless enough. Helpful, even. But you can also ask more general questions, and AI will answer in a paragraph, and that’s where the controversy begins.

This example is from a Kindlepreneur article written by Kevin J. Duncan, Head of Content. Using the book “Alice in Wonderland,” he asked what was the role of the Cheshire Cat.

The response:

The argument continues that these sorts of answers are the “opinions” of AI. To quote Duncan, “the system is giving you its version of what that thing means. It decides what matters, what doesn’t, what’s central, and what can be glossed over.”

My own test. I don’t own a Kindle, and I buy almost all my books from Barnes & Noble, but I do have a few books from Amazon, admittedly. Most of them are the freebies that come with my Prime membership, with occasional purchases from authors I’m familiar with. I didn’t have access to the Ask This Book feature when I opened a book from my Kindle library to read on my PC, but I did get the feature on my phone.

(Personal note. Reading on my phone is a last resort. I have a Nook tablet and an iPad mini, both of which are much more eye-friendly, but sometimes I’m stuck waiting unexpectedly and don’t have one of those devices with me.)

The Ask This Book feature is activated by tapping the page and getting a menu of icons at top of the screen. Ask This Book is the diamond shape with the little +.

Or, you can highlight a word or portion of text, which should give you the option to ask your question.

You can also choose between having AI look at the whole book, or only up to as far as you’ve read, which is supposed to avoid spoilers. I used the whole book option and asked the question, “What kind of person is Mike Romeo.”

This is the response I got. (Sorry, but my phone wouldn’t let me shrink the text to get the entire answer on the screen, but you can probably figure out the first sentence.)

**If you’re reading this, JSB, what do you think about this characterization summary?

The Author’s Guild is pushing back. This is what they had to say:

“The Guild is looking into whether the feature, which was added without permission from publishers or authors, might infringe authors’ and publishers’ rights.

“Ask this Book, which is slated for a wider rollout in 2026, allows readers to query an AI chatbot about books they have purchased or borrowed. So far there is no way for publishers or authors to opt their books out of the feature, though as of this writing the feature is not available for all ebooks. It allows a reader to highlight text and click on an “Ask” icon to ask the AI to “explain” the selected text or enter their own question in the chatbot. All responses are generated from the book itself.

“The Guild is concerned that Ask this Book turns books into searchable, interactive products akin to enhanced ebooks or annotated editions—a new format for which rights should be specifically negotiated—and, given Amazon’s stronghold on ebook retail, it could usurp the burgeoning licensing market for interactive AI-enabled ebooks and audiobooks.”

Writer Beware isn’t too happy about the feature, either. They say, “Agents and publishers broadly regard anything to do with generative AI as a separate right reserved solely to the author, and publishing contracts are increasingly addressing this issue. The primary focus has been on preventing unpermissioned AI training, but with the technology embedding itself at warp speed in all aspects of the book business, the rights implications are expanding just as fast…especially where, as here, they sneak in under the radar.”

Should this be considered yet another format of a book? If so, what are the author’s rights?

As of now, there is no opt-out choice. Ask This Book is included automatically. It operates independently of the author, so they don’t get to review answers, suggest changes, or flag problems.

Your thoughts, TKZers? Are authors and publishers getting shortchanged?

**Note: if you’re upset with Amazon, my books are available wide.

New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Deadly Ambitions
Peace in Mapleton doesn’t last. Police Chief Gordon Hepler is already juggling a bitter ex-mayoral candidate who refuses to accept election results and a new council member determined to cut police department’s funding.
Meanwhile, Angie’s long-delayed diner remodel uncovers an old journal, sparking her curiosity about the girl who wrote it. But as she digs for answers, is she uncovering more than she bargained for?
Now, Gordon must untangle political maneuvering, personal grudges, and hidden agendas before danger closes in on the people he loves most.
Deadly Ambitions delivers small-town intrigue, political tension, and page-turning suspense rooted in both history and today’s ambitions.

 

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

Celebrating Public Domain Day – Part 2

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Montage of 1929 Works

by Debbie Burke

Y’know what they say about great minds?

Well, Kay DiBianca and I independently had the same idea this week: Public Domain Day 2026.

When I went to schedule my post, I noticed Kay had already scheduled hers. So we put our great minds together and decided that1930 was such an exceptional year for books, films, and music, there was enough to cover without duplicating each other.

So here is Part 2 featuring music and recordings.

George and Ira Gershwin published four great tunes:  I Got Rhythm, I’ve Got a Crush on You, But Not for Me, and Embraceable You.

More hummable earworm songs: Georgia on My Mind, Dream a Little Dream of Me, Body and Soul, Just a Gigolo.

Music and lyrics have their own copyright dates as sheet music but recordings of those songs by particular musicians may fall under different later dates. For 2026, these specific performances entered the public domain:

In an interesting side note, the soundtracks for a number of cartoons were built on musical compositions that had earlier gone into public domain. For boomers, our first introduction of these tunes often came from cartoons, singing along to: “A Hunting We Will Go”, “The Farmer in the Dell”, and “Pop Goes the Weasel”. I have clear memories of several  cartoon heroes playing a flute to coax a cobra from a basket with the “Snake Charmer Song”.

How many of us boomers were called to the TV by the siren song of the “William Tell Overture,” the theme for The Lone Ranger?

Want to stroll farther down memory? Check out Duke University’s annual public domain summaries.

~~~

TKZers: Did any of these characters, books, films, cartoons, or music inspire your writing? Which ones and why?

Would any of these songs play well for the soundtrack of a movie based on your book? Which ones?

~~~

Tawny Lindholm Thrillers will probably enter public domain around the beginning of the 22nd century. Meanwhile, you can read them at this sales link.

Debbie Burke website.

What’s New in the Public Domain in 2026

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Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. —Mark Twain

* * *

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution grants the U.S. Congress the power “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”

Congress has used that power to define the “limited time” for authors’ works to be placed in the public domain. According to Google AI

Current U.S. law generally puts works into the public domain 95 years after their publication (for pre-1978 works) or 70 years after the author’s death (for post-1978 works, or 95/120 years for corporate works), with new works entering each January 1st, so as of January 1, 2026, works published in 1930 entered the public domain. This means works from 1930, like early Mickey Mouse cartoons, are now freely usable, while works created today will remain protected until 70 years after the creator’s death. 

* * *

The Center for the Study of the Public Domain on the website of Duke University Law School has a good explanation of the notion of the public domain. Here are a couple of quotes:

When works go into the public domain, they can legally be shared, without permission or fee.

The public domain is also a wellspring for creativity. You could think of it as the yin to copyright’s yang. Copyright law gives authors important rights that encourage creativity and distribution—this is a very good thing. But the United States Constitution requires that those rights last only for a “limited time,” so that when they expire, works go into the public domain, where future authors can legally build on the past—reimagining the books, making them into films, adapting the songs and movies. That’s a good thing too! It is part of copyright’s ecosystem. The point of copyright is to promote creativity, and the public domain plays a central role in doing so.

* * *

Fortunately for us, as of January 1, 2026, thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 entered the public domain in the U.S. Sound recordings from 1925 are also included.

Here are a few that entered the PD this year (with some interesting trivia):

  •  The Maltese Falcon  by Dashiell Hammett – Even though the gold- and jewel-laden Maltese Falcon wasn’t found in the story, the statuettes used as props in the movie turned out to be very valuable indeed. In 2013 a buyer paid $4.1 million for one of them.
  • The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie – Although Miss Marple had appeared in short stories before, The Murder at the Vicarage was her first role as the detective in a novel.
  • As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner – Faulkner claimed to have written the book in six weeks (!) while working at a Mississippi power plant. The book has 15 narrators over 59 chapters. (The title comes from a quote in Homer’s Odyssey where Odysseus has traveled to Hades and meets his old pal Agamemnon who complains about his wife’s behavior as he lay dying.)
  • The first four Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene – As most of us know, Carolyn Keene was the pseudonym for the group of writers in the Stratemeyer Syndicate who produced the Nancy Drew novels. The first books were penned by Mildred Benson, a woman whose adventurous life as a journalist and pilot (I hope Patricia Bradley is reading this) contributed to Nancy Drew’s persona.
  • The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper (pseudonym of Arnold Munk) – The tale’s basic idea appeared in a Swedish journal in 1902. Early versions were published in American newspapers around 1906 as sermons or moral tales. The themes of optimism, perseverance, and service over status have captured children’s (and adults’) imaginations for decades. (I wonder if I could write a good book with those themes. I think I can. I think I can.)

A few more books on the 2026 list:

  • Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
  • Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
  • Private Lives by Noël Coward
  • Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot
  • The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell

And several movies:

  • All Quiet on the Western Front, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture
  • Cimarron, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture
  • Animal Crackers, starring the Marx Brothers
  • Soup to Nuts, featuring later members of The Three Stooges
  • Hell’s Angels, Jean Harlow’s film debut, directed by Howard Hughes
  • Murder!, directed by Alfred Hitchcock

A more comprehensive list can be found on the Center for the Study of the Public Domain site.

* * *

So TKZers: Have you read or watched any of the new public domain additions? What other artistic works that have recently come into the public domain do you recommend?

* * *

 

Forty years ago, Lacey Alderson died—and the truth was buried with her. In Lacey’s Star, private pilot Cassie Deakin lands in the middle of the mystery and discovers old secrets that refuse to stay hidden any longer.

Click the image to fly with Cassie.

This Book Brought to You By

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Today’s post is brought to you by Romeo’s Way. Yes, with Romeo’s Way you’ll be the envy of every reader on the block. And for a limited time only, Romeo’s Way can be yours for the low, low price of 99¢.

No on to our blog and your host, JSB!

In the early years of television, most shows had a single sponsor paying the bills, e.g., Colgate Comedy Hour, Texaco Star Theatre, Goodyear TV Playhouse, Kraft Television Theatre. The shows that were “brought to you by” often featured the stars in a commercial.

“Father Knows Best, brought to you by Maxwell House Coffee. Good to the last drop.”

“Leave it to Beaver has been brought to you by Ralston Purina, makers of the eager eater dog food.”

“The Fugitive has been brought to you by Viceroy cigarettes. Viceroy’s got the taste that’s right.”

Speaking of that ubiquitous weed, a plethora of shows were sponsored by tobacco companies.

The sponsors hoped the brand would be associated with a quality show and its stars, week after week. Not just quality, but consistent quality, directed to a target audience.

The most popular show of 1953 was I Love Lucy. It worked because Lucille Ball was a brilliant comedic actress, Desi Arnaz a perfect foil and also an astute producer.

The second most popular show that year was Dragnet, the very opposite of Lucy. A police drama, it had a consistent style developed by its star, Jack Webb. That style featured staccato dialogue and underplayed acting. It became famous and easily parodied. (Fortunately, Jack Webb had a sense of humor about it.)

There have been innumerable articles for writers about developing their “brand.” What that is is not really complicated. It’s an expectation in readers’ minds about what you, the author, can deliver to them. It’s a mash up of the type of books you write, your voice, your visuals (book covers, website, etc.) and your online presence. What you want to communicate is that you are capable of producing work of consistent quality. You want to be seen as a “trusted brand.” This is why traditional publishing invests in promising new writers. They hope to create a long-term, profitable “product line.”

Now, what if a writer wants to write something “off brand”? In the traditional publishing world, this is problematic, for obvious commercial reasons. The brand helps bookstores know where to shelve your books. It is protection for the publisher’s investment.

This is what hamstrung early John Grisham, whose massively popular legal thrillers made big bucks for all. But Grisham wanted to write literary fiction, too. It was only when he had sufficient leverage that he was “allowed” to write A Painted House.

Indie writers have more flexibility, though they want to build a brand, too. But if they hanker to try something a little different, why not? The world’s largest bookstore will “shelve” your book in the right places (categories). So JSB can offer thrillers, historical fiction, even crime fighting nun stories, and not miss a meal.

The most important part of a brand is delivering the goods. That’s what you want your name to be associated with. All of the razzle dazzle of covers and marketing and ads might get you a look from an interested buyer. What you want is to entice them to come back for more.

When Lay’s Potato Chips were introduced in the 1960s, they ran an ad campaign featuring Bert Lahr (of Cowardly Lion fame). He’s reading the paper when his little boy comes in with an open bag of Lay’s. He asks the boy what that is. The boy says, “Lay’s Potato Chips. I bet you can’t eat one.” Burt takes a chip, eats, tells his son to go do his homework…but then the taste kicks in and he says, “I’ll have another.” The boy says, “Uh-uh, I said one.” At which point Bert grabs the bag and starts munching chip after chip. The boy turns to the camera. “I knew he couldn’t do it.”

The Lay’s tagline: “No one can eat just one.”

This is the hope of all series writers, too!

Thank you for reading today’s post, brought to you by Romeo’s Way, the thriller that builds strong bodies twelve ways. Nine out of ten doctors who read thrillers prefer Mike Romeo.

Do you have an author brand? How would you describe it?

Two Kinds of Cats

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Today’s post is a call back to “Pet Words of Wisdom” from March 2024, posted just after we had to say goodbye to our beloved cat, Mittens, who was nearly eighteen when he passed. He was the last of the six cats in the many years my wife and I have lived in our little house. All of them brought great joy and liveliness to our home. After he died, we decided we needed a break.

That break ended last Saturday when we adopted Maeve and Moxie, pair of nine-month old kittens, who were part of the last litter born to an outdoor colony. The two were very underweight when they went into foster care, but now are glowing with life, love and energy.

Maeve in a rare moment of rest.

Moxie imitating a work of art, with the window frame serving as a faux picture frame.

Suddenly our quiet house has returned to an earlier time, with cat toys strewn about and the thundering of small paws down the hallway at 2AM when the wee furry ones have zoomies in the wee hours.

Now, despite being a lifelong “servant to cats” as well as a friend to dogs, I hadn’t included a pet in any of my books until my second Meg Booker mystery, Book Drop Dead, which sees Meg adopt a stray kitten she finds outside the library. However, little Honorius does not help solve any murders.

Writing a cozy featuring pets that are involved in solving a mystery is enticing, but of course there are already many such mysteries out there. Not that that’s ever stopped me before when an idea takes hold, but, just as I did with cozies in general, I’d want to read a stack of pet mysteries.

I’m already huge fan of Jeffrey Poole’s Corgi Casefiles series which give much inspiration for a potential pet-centered mystery, with his clue-detecting corgis Sherlock and Watson.

Now if I were to write a “pet helps solve mystery” novel it would of course have to star a cat or cats.

With that in mind I have Rita Mae Brown’s Mrs. Murphy cat mysteries, Shirley Rosseau Murphy’s Joe Grey series, Lillian Jackson Brown’s Cat Who books, and Miranda James’ Cat in the Stacks series on my to-be-read list of cat mysteries.

In honor of cats in mystery fiction, today we have an excerpt a from 2024 post by Elaine Vets on including pets in mysteries, as well as a 2016 post by James Scott Bell, on herding very different kinds of “CATS.”

Both post are well worth reading in full.

We all know that getting a reader inside a lead character’s head is one of the keys to compelling fiction. But it has to be done seamlessly so it doesn’t jerk us out of the narrative and put a crimp in the fictive dream.

Which means we have to learn to handle what I call “Character Alone Thinking Scenes” (CATS) in a deft manner.

The first issue is whether to begin the book with a CATS. As last Wednesday’s first-page critique demonstrated (in my view, at least) the answer should almost always be No. 

Why? Because we have to have a little personal investment in someone before we can care deeply about their feelings.

Imagine going to a party and you’re introduced to a fellow with a drink in his hand. You say, “How are you?” and the guy says, “I’m really depressed, man, I wake up every day and the room looks dark and the sun never shines, even though it’s out there, and I don’t see it because of the dark dankness in my soul, and life has lost its meaning, its luster, whatever it was it once had for me when I was young and ready to take on the world. Ya know?”

AHHHH!!!!

Well, the beginning of a book is like walking into a party. The reader wants to meet interesting people. And interest is aroused by what people do. The way you catch readers from the start is through action and disturbance, not feeling and expounding. 

I can’t tell you the number of manuscripts I’ve read over the years that did not begin with a real scene, but instead opted for the inside of a character’s head. What I usually do in such cases is flip the pages until I get to some dialogue, because that automatically means we’re in a scene. And 98% of the time that is the best place to start. (Sure, an argument can be made that a great style might be enough to carry the opening pages. But it better be truly great and truly brief.)

So, re: the opening—save your CATS for later.

Once you’re into the novel there are two types of CATS to herd—active and reactive.

In an active scene, the character is alone but with a major scene objective (something that materially relates to the plot), and thinks while trying to overcome whatever scene obstacles are in her way.

In a reactive scene, the character is alone with a chance to reflect. She may be thinking about what’s already happened in the story, or her current psychological state, or the other characters. When done well, reactive scenes strengthen our emotional bond with the character.

James Scott Bell—October 1, 2017

 

I’m writing a new mystery series set in South Florida. Here’s one of the hairiest problems I considered: did I want my protagonist to have a pet?

I like pets, and they’re popular with mystery readers. Especially cat and dog mysteries.

Many cozy readers are familiar with Laurie Cass’s Bookmobile Cat series. And that’s just the start of the good felines. There are series with Cat Cafes, Klepto Cats, Magical Cats, witches’ cats, library cats, bookstore cats and more.

Cats who talk and solve mysteries aren’t my cup of tea – my cats can’t even open a can of food for dinner. But what do I know? Readers love felines who can perform semi-human feats.

I could also give my new protagonist a dog. Dog mysteries are definite people pleasers. There’s a pack of them, including David Rosenfelt’s series, featuring work-avoiding, dog loving lawyer Andy Carpenter and his golden retriever, Tara.

Tara is a lovable companion. Other mystery series feature working dogs, such as FBI special agent Sara Driscoll and her search and rescue Labrador, Hawk.

Here are more good reasons to have pets in mysteries:

Walking a dog is a good way to meet people.

Animals are good judges of character. Dogs (and some cats) can rescue or defend you, warn you with a timely bark or hiss, even uncover a clue.

A pet in your mystery can be plus. Readers identify with pets. “Your cat reminds me of my orange tabby, Ginger. She loves to . . .”

But there are major downsides to consider. Pets need care. Your detective can’t be on the track of a killer and suddenly stop the investigation to make a phone call. (“Psst! Mark. I’m staking out the killer’s house. Will you walk my corgi? I just got a new living room rug.”)

Dogs also have to be fed and groomed. Cats are a little more easy care. Your detective can open a big bag of dry food and leave out a bowl of water, but sooner or later the litter box has to be cleaned.

Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series has a unique, easy-care animal, a hamster named Rex. Rex lives in a cage on her kitchen counter. Rex sleeps in a soup can and runs on his hamster wheel. Stephanie occasionally tosses him a grape for a treat.

But she’s such a good writer, Rex seems real. Once, some thugs held Rex for ransom, and I genuinely hoped the little critter would survive.

For this new series, I decided to go pet-free.

Elaine Viets—August 8, 2024

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  1. Do you enjoy reading mysteries about pets? Any favorites?
  2. Have you included pets in your fiction? If so, what sort and in what fashion?
  3. How do you herd JSB’s “CATS” when you write?