Yo! Muse!

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O Muses, O high genius, aid me now!
O memory that engraved the things I saw,
Here shall your worth be manifest to all!
— Dante, The Divine Comedy

By PJ Parrish

I am dipping a toe back in the fiction waters this week because I got an assignment to write a short story for an anthology. Man, my gears are rusty because I have officially retired from novel writing and without the daily routine, everything sort of freezes up.

Apologies to those of you who struggle with these demons every day. But shoot, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to do this. Which means I am going to resort here to yet another metaphor.

Writing is like sailing in the ocean in the middle of a squall. I know because when I was young and living in Fort Lauderdale, I used to sail Hobie Cats competitively. The day is always sunny when you launch your Hobie from the beach and you’re all aglow with hardy-har-har-endorphins. So it is when you sit down and type CHAPTER ONE.

Then the storm hits and there you are, hanging onto a 16-foot piece of fiberglas and vinyl, hoping lightening doesn’t hit the mast and fry your ass. You are out there alone in the storm, out of sight of land, riding the waves and the troughs, hoping you can make it home. You might even throw up. This is usually around CHAPTER TWENTY for me.

End of metaphor.

I often wonder what keeps writers writing. Tyranny of the contract deadline? Blind faith? The idea that if you don’t you might have to do real physical labor for a living? All of those have worked for me in the past. But today, I am sitting here staring at my empty screen waiting for my muse to show up.

Now, let’s get one thing clear here. I don’t really believe in WAITING for a muse to show up. I get really impatient with writers who claim they can’t write until they feel inspired because frankly, 90 percent of this is writing DESPITE the fact your brain is as dry as Waffle House toast. Or as soggy, depending on which Waffle House you frequent. The last one I was in was off the Valdosta Ga. I-95 exit in 1995 and the toast was so dry it stands today as my singular metaphor for stagnant creativity.

But I do believe that sometimes — usually when your brain is preoccupied with other stuff — something creeps into the cortex and quietly hands you a gift. And these little gifts are what get you through.

There are nine muses in mythology — Calliope, Clio, Erato, Melpomene, Polymnia, Terpsichore, Urania, Euterpe, and Thalia. (who was Dobie Gillis’s unobtainable ideal woman, btw). The muses ruled over such things as dance, music, history, even astronomy. No muses for crime writers, unless you count Calliope for epic poetry but James Lee Burke has her on permanent retainer.

I don’t have just one muse. I’ve figured out I have a couple who specialize in particular parts of my writing.

First, there’s my dialogue muse. I call him J.J. because he sounds like Burt Lancaster’s gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker in The Sweet Smell of Success. Always chewing at my ear saying oily things like, “I’d hate to take a bite out of you, you’re a cookie full of arsenic.” J.J. makes my skin crawl but man, can this guy write dialogue.

Then there’s my narrative muse. I call her Cat Woman because she slips in on silent paws, sings in a fey whisper and visits just as morning has broken. I sleep with blackout drapes, a white-noise machine and the A/C turned so cold the bedroom is like a crypt. So as I wake, there is icy air swirling and a soft swoooshing sound. And Cat Woman, whispering a long segment of exposition. I have learned to lay there, very still, until she is done, because if I get up to write it down, she vanishes.

My third muse is Flo, named after the waitress who worked in Mel’s Diner on the old Alice sitcom. Her voice sounds like the door of a rusted Gremlin. Flo’s Greek name is Nike (the goddess of victory) and her slogan is “Just Do It.” Because whenever those other muses fail me, Flo is there. She is the muse who knows that the only way I am going to get anything written is through plain old hard work.

I’d be lost without her. Who, or what, keeps you going?

Let’s Talk Turkey #WriteTip

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I moved into my new place last week. Hence why you haven’t seen me in the comment section. It took two weeks to pack. I’m now unpacking. I found a cozy little abode on the New Hampshire seacoast, near the Massachusetts border. It’s the best of both worlds — two minutes from anything I might need, yet a quiet country setting with plenty of wildlife.

As I gazed out my kitchen window for the first time, five huge male turkeys stood sentinel in the yard. Soon, twenty-five more joined them to socialize, feast, and play. The original five Toms guard the property all day. There’s also an adorable opossum and three albino skunks — stunning all white fur — who come nightly to eat alongside the resident stray cat. All four share the same bowl.

Why can’t humans put aside their differences like animals can?

For my fellow crow lovers out there, a murder of crows arrived on day two. Or Poe and the gang followed me. Sure sounds like Poe’s voice, but I can’t be certain until I set up their feeding spot and take a closer look. My murder has white dots, each in different spots, which helps me tell them apart. Plus, Poe has one droopy wing.

As I watched the five Toms this morning, it reminded me of a post I’d written back in 2017 (time flies on TKZ, doesn’t it?). So, I thought I’d revamp that post a bit, and tweak for our pantser friends.

***

Clare’s recent post got me thinking about craft and how, as we write, the story inflates like a Tom turkey. If you think about it long enough and throw in a looming deadline, Tom Turkey and story structure have a lot in common.

Stay with me. I promise it’ll make sense, but I will ask you to take one small leap of faith — I need you to picture Tom Turkey as the sum of his parts, constructed by craft. And yes, this light bulb blazed on over the Thanksgiving holiday. We are now having spiral ham for Christmas dinner.

But I digress.

Story beats build Tom’s spine. Think of each milestone as vertebrae. Pantsers, let the story unfold as it flows. You can always check the beat placement after the drafting stage.

The ribs that extend from Tom’s spine liken to the equal parts that expand our beats and tell us how our characters should react before, during, and after the quest.

Broken into four equal parts, 25% percent each, this is the dramatic arc. It’s a natural progression that many writers do instinctually. If you want to check your work after the drafting stage, pantsers, the dramatic arc should look like this…

  • Setup (Page 1 – 25% mark): Introduce protagonist, hook the reader, setup First Plot Point through foreshadowing, stakes, and establish empathy (not necessarily likability) for the MC.
  • Response (25% – 50% mark): The MC’s reaction to the new goal/stakes/obstacles revealed by the First Plot Point. MC doesn’t need to be heroic yet. They retreat, regroup, and have doomed attempts at reaching their goal. Also include a reminder of antagonistic forces at work.
  • Attack (50% – 75% mark): Midpoint information/awareness causes the MC to change course in how to approach the obstacles; the hero is now empowered with information on how to proceed, not merely reacting anymore.
  • Resolution (75% – The End): MC summons the courage, inner strength, and growth to find a solution to overcome inner obstacles and conquer the antagonistic force. All new information must have been referenced, foreshadowed, or already in play by 2nd Plot Point or we’re guilty of deus ex machina.

Tom Turkey is beginning to take shape.

Characterization adds meat to his bones, and conflict-driven sub-plots supply tendons and ligaments. When we layer in dramatic tension in the form of a need, goal, quest, and challenges to overcome, Tom’s skin forms and thickens.

With obstacle after obstacle, and inner and outer conflict, Tom strengthens enough to sprout feathers. At the micro-level, MRUs (Motivation-Reaction-Units) — for every action there’s a reaction — establish our story rhythm and pace. They also help heighten and maintain suspense. If you remember every action has a reaction, MRUs come naturally to many writers. Still good to check on the first read through.

MRUs fluff Tom Turkey’s feathers. He even grew a beak!

Providing a vicarious experience, our emotions splashed across the page, makes Tom fan his tail-feathers. The rising stakes add to Tom’s glee (he’s a sadist), and he prances for a potential mate. He believes he’s ready to score with the ladies. Tom may actually get lucky this year.

Then again, we know better. Don’t we, dear writers? Poor Tom is still missing a few crucial elements to close the deal.

By structuring our scenes — don’t groan, pantsers! — Tom grew an impressive snood. See it dangling over his beak? The wattle under his chin needs help, though. Hens are shallow creatures. 😉 Quick! We need a narrative structure.

Narrative structure refers to the way in which a story is organized and presented to the reader. It includes the plot, subplot, characters, setting, and theme, as well as techniques and devices used by the author to convey these elements.

Now, Tom looks sharp. What an impressive bird. Watch him prance, full and fluffy, head held high, tail feathers fanned in perfect formation.

Uh-oh. Joe Hunter sets Tom in his rifle scope. We can’t let him die before he finds a mate! But how can we save him? We’ve already given him all the tools he needs, right?

Well, not quite.

Did we choose the right point of view to tell our story? If we didn’t, Tom could wind up on a holiday table surrounded by drooling humans in bibs. We can’t let that happen! Nor can we afford to lose the reader before we get a chance to dazzle ’em.

Tom needs extra oomph — aka Voice. Without it, Joe Hunter will murder poor Tom.

Voice is an elusive beast for new writers because it develops over time. To quote JSB:

It comes from knowing each character intimately and writing with the “voice” that is a combo of character and author and craft on the page.

That added oomph makes your story special. No one can write like you. No one. Remember that when self-doubt or imposter syndrome creeps in.

If Tom hopes to escape Joe Hunter’s bullet, he needs wings in the form of context. Did we veer outside readers’ expectations for the genre we’re writing in? Did we give Tom a heart and soul by subtly infusing theme? Can we boil down the plot to its core story, Tom’s innards? What about dialogue? Does Tom gobble or quack?

Have we shown the three dimensions of character to add oxygen to Tom’s lungs? You wouldn’t want to be responsible for suffocating Tom to death, would you?

  • 1st Dimension of Character: The best version of who they are; the face the character shows to the world
  • 2nd Dimension of Character:  The person a character shows to friends and family
  • 3rd Dimension of Character:  The character’s true character. If a fire breaks out in a crowded theater, will they help others or elbow their way to the exit?

Lastly, Tom needs a way to wow the ladies. Better make sure our prose sings. If we don’t, Tom might die of loneliness. Do we really want to be responsible for that? To be safe, let’s review our word choices, sentence variations, paragraphing, white space, grammar, and how we string words together to ensure Tom lives a full and fruitful life.

Don’t forget to rewrite and edit. If readers love Tom, he and his new mate may bring chicks (sequels or prequels) into the world, and we, as Tom’s creator, have the honor of helping them flourish into full-fledged turkeys.

Aww… Tom’s story has a happy ending now. Good job, writers!

For fun, choose a name for Tom’s mate. Winner gets bragging rights.

How Chandler Overcame “Plot Constipation”

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Raymond Chandler

I’m having fun reading the selected letters of Raymond Chandler. He’s as entertaining in his correspondence as in his fiction. Plenty of opinions, yet also aware of his own foibles.

In 1945 he was under contract to Paramount (he had just written the classic screenplay for Double Indemnity, which was ironic as he loathed James M. Cain’s writing. “Everything he touches smells like a billygoat.”) The money was good, but the demand for original stories plagued him. That’s because Chandler was never one to grind stories out of “the sausage machine.” He believed that style and voice were more essential than plot, precisely the opposite of what Hollywood wanted.

But to keep a paycheck he needed to produce, and did, with mixed results.

A letter from this period talks about a method of writing Chandler happened upon out of necessity:

In less than two weeks I wrote an original story of 90 pages like this: All dictated and never looked at until finished. It was an experiment and for a guy subject from early childhood to plot-constipation, it was rather a revelation. Some of the stuff is good, some very much not. But I don’t see why the method could not be adapted to novel writing, at least by me. Improvise the story as well as you can, in as much detail or as little as the mood seems to suggest, write dialogue or leave it out, but cover the movement, the characters and bring the thing to life. I begin to realize the great number of stories that are lost by us rather meticulous boys simply because we permit our minds to freeze on the faults rather than let them work for a while without the critical overseer sniping at everything that is not perfect.

Here at TKZ we’ve talked a lot about the tyranny of the “inner editor.” The writer, whether plotter or pantser, needs to get that first draft finished to truly know the story trying to emerge. Only then do you get to the “fixing” of it. In another letter Chandler wrote: “[Y]ou never quite know where your story is until you have written the first draft of it. So I always regard the first draft as raw material.”

I’ve told my students to write a first draft “as fast as you comfortably can.” Do a quick edit of the previous day’s work, then move on.

That broke through the “plot-constipation” for Chandler (although there’s no record of what became of that story; likely it went to the story department for an assessment and never got the interest of a producer).

In the same letter, however, Chandler identified a potential weakness:

I can see where a special vice might also come out of this kind of writing; in fact two: the strange delusion that something on paper has a meaning because it is written…Also, the tendency to worship production for its own sake. (Gardner suffers badly from this…grinding the stuff out of the sausage machine.)

Chandler nailed it. Just because you write something doesn’t make it good. And publishing junk over and over doesn’t make a career (it does make a persistent and rather annoying hobby). He believed that style (the writer’s “individual mark”) makes all the difference. Style (or voice) is a “projection of personality” but “you have to have a personality before you can project it.” Thus, if you’re cranking things out of the machine, or using a machine to crank things out for you, you may create something with, in Chandler’s words, “an immediate impact of competence,” but it will be “hollow underneath.”

Two lessons to draw from this:

  1. Write fast first drafts

When you get to a point of constipa…er, when you get stuck, jump ahead to another scene. You can go back to this spot later. Get to know your story first.

  1. Concentrate on voice as you write

Voice is not something you can fake. Neither can AI. I wrote a book about ways you can pan for the gold of your own voice. Put that on the page. It’s what will set you apart in this sea of conformity.

It’s also why we still read Raymond Chandler today.

Comments welcome.

Don’t Use Exclamation Points, Ethyl Cried!

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We all talk. Some of us too much, but good writers understand cadence and pacing in dialogue and you can tell because the conversation is smooth and familiar. I’ve judged a number of contests over the years, and below you’ll find a couple of my pet peeves. One pet peeve I have is the idiom, pet peeve, so let’s move on.

“Jack, I think we need to take over this train! The engineer’s dead! If you don’t, we’ll crash into the some stalled train in front of us, or maybe the end of the line where there’s a lot of concrete and maybe a big steel thingy that will crush this tin can!”

“What makes you think I can stop this train, Ethyl?”

“I don’t know, Jack, but you’re a man and all men think they can fly airplanes, so why not a train!!!???”

“Of course I can, but Ethyl, why don’t you do it?” Jack asked without shouting like his partner.

Ethyl exclaimed. “Oh, Jack! My role is to stand aside while you fight the Bad Guys and look frightened! Maybe I can cover my mouth with one hand, too, while you decide between blue and red wires.”

“Good lord! Pay attention, Ethyl. Wires are only an issue when a bomb is about to go off,” he hissed.

“This train is a rolling bomb!”she shouted, fearfully, “but I’m beginning to think you’re a dud. Pretty soon people are going to think we hijacked this train –––.”

“Hi yourself, Ethyl, but this isn’t the time for pleasantries. As we race down this track they’ll soon call some alphabet group to stop us.”

“I’m confused, Jack.

“So am I, Ethyl, but at least we know who’s talking!”

I distilled this from an entry and changed enough of the story for you to get the idea. Writers should imitate the way people speak in real life.

For one thing, we don’t use a person’s name in every sentence when we’re talking. I think the original author watches too many movies or sitcoms, where scriptwriters repeat names to excess in order for the audience to keep up. It doesn’t work in print.

At the same time, , we don’t need tags and attributions like “hissed” in this sentence, because are no sibilants, and for crying out loud, avoid exclamation marks! And if you do use one, there’s no reason to explain that he or she exclaimed or shouted!!!

“One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke.” Either Mark Twain or F. Scott Fitzgerald said that, and there’s some question about which one, but it’s a true statement.

That’s something I’ve seen when I judged humor writing in newspapers many years ago. The exclamation point comes up way too often in the punch line, or as emphasis at the end of a story. One example is so bad it makes my teeth ache, but it was the last line in what I figured was supposed to be a joke…I think.

“And I looked up that day as the storm approached and saw a squirrel laying flat and holding onto the tree limb. I kept going, but gave him a word of advice. ‘Hold on tight, Mr. Bushytail, it’s a good thing you’re in a pecan tree, because this is gonna be nuts!’”

Maybe he read too much Swiss Family Robinson (1812) when he was younger! It looks like he caught some of Johann Wyss’ bad habits! This except from Wyss is a good bad example of what to avoid.

The setup. A ship sinks, the family survives and winds up on a beach to salvage what they could.

“Well done, Franz!” I cried; “these fishhooks, which you, the youngest, have found, may contribute more than anything else in the ship to save our lives by procuring food for us.”

“All these things are excellent indeed,” said I; “but my friend Jack here has presented me with a couple of huge, hungry, useless dogs who will eat more than any of us.”

“Oh, papa! They will be of use! Why, they will help us to hunt when we get on shore!” (No tag here for some reason.)

“No doubt they will, if ever we do get on shore, Jack; but I must say I don’t know how it is to be done.”

“Oh, look here, father!” cried Jack, drawing a little spyglass joyfully out of his pocket.

All right. I know this was written two hundred years ago, and the issues I’ve highlighted are more for tongue-in-cheek fun than anything else, but I’ve seen examples that are just as bad in contest entries, and the sad part is they’ve been published.

You can dissect and rewrite the scene above in a million different ways, but avoiding all those literary death traps of attributions, the overuse of the exclamation point, and for the love of god…semicolons, is step one.

So let’s review.

Don’t overuse names in dialogue.

Write dialogue as real people would speak.

No exclamation points!

Fewer tags (and I know this steps on toes). Instead, give your character something to do.

Cut as many adverbs as possible.

Learn to drive trains and diffuse bombs, just in case.

 

Reader Friday-Fun With Words

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Let’s face it, words are fun. Readers and writers alike love the sound and feel of words. Words are to readers and writers as paint is to a painter, or metal is to a fabricator.

Speaking of, I ran across (not literally, of course!) a website that I’ve been playing with. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe not.

It’s called Random Ready. You’ll find lots and lots of word fun there, along with other categories of randomness for your word pleasure.

Click on “Words” at the top of the Home Page and you’ll be able to find synonyms, funny words, weird words, words to use when playing Charades, and on and on and on.

Who knew there were so many synonyms for mustache?

There’s even a tab called Fake Words! Here are the first fake words I saw:

Specons, Disatilingers, Preoriandy, Onoutpout, Outweing, Hypoplate, Memodecruit, Elocratonics, Bergeagers, Scologicts

Wild, huh? I dare you to go to Random Ready and have a bit of fun. And don’t forget to let us know what tickled your fancy!

 

The Two Types of Status

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When you’re developing a character, how much thought do you put into their status? If you’re like me, probably not a lot of concentrated effort. I have a good handle on their personality, looks, motives, dreams, fears, desires, insecurities, strengths, quirks, and smarts or stupids, but I don’t flesh out their status—at least not consciously. I tend to let that evolve or stand on its own.

I follow Sahil Bloom, a thought leader and motivator, who has significantly grown his audience in the past year. Sahil hosts a site called The Curiosity Chronicle and has a twice-weekly newsletter with some great content. On Tuesday, his subject was How to Play the Right Status Games citing the difference between “bought status” and “earned status”.

The status subject hit home to me about a recent decision. It was time to buy a replacement vehicle for our old Suzuki hatchback. I hinted to my wife, Rita, that we should splurge and finance a new Range Rover. That didn’t go over well.

“That is nothing but a status symbol. It’s like those leased Beamer SUVs Karens drive,” Rita said. “They’re for people who want to be seen. What? Do you want to start hanging around Starbucks, too?”

Rita made a point. We cash-purchased a low mileage, Kia four-door sedan and grabbed a McDonalds coffee for the ride home.

I flashed back to that Rover moment when I read Sahil’s column and felt it was worth a share on the Kill Zone. So, I sent him an email to which he quickly responded. With full attribution to Sahil Bloom and his kind republishing permission, here’s the piece.

How to Play the Right Status Games by Sahil Bloom

There are two types of status:

Bought Status is the improved social positioning garnered through acquired status symbols:

·         The expensive car, watch, handbag, or jewelry acquired for the sole purpose of showing others your financial wealth

·         The club membership that makes you a part of the scene

·         The private plane flight or boat trip taken more for the Instagram photo than for the utility

Bought Status is fleeting. It may improve your relative position, but only until the next level is unlocked and you’re right back at the bottom. It will keep you trying to enter what author C.S. Lewis famously referred to as the inner ring:

“As long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion; if you succeed there will be nothing left.”

Earned Status, however, is the real respect, admiration, and trust received through hard-won treasures:

·         The freedom to choose how to spend your time (and whom to spend it with)

·         The healthy, loving relationships made possible by years of present energy

·         The purpose-imbued work and mastery within a domain, built through years of effort

·         The wisdom accumulated through decades of lived experience

·         The adaptable mind shaped through a steady mindfulness practice and thoughtful introspection

·         The strong, fit physique built through hours of movement and disciplined eating

·         The professional promotion or company sale achieved after an extended period of hard work in the dark

Earned Status is lasting.

It will elicit the durable respect, admiration, and trust that you seek from the people who matter to you, those whose opinions you value and cherish.

Earned Status is what we should all be after.

The Status Game Tests

Here are two simple tests you can use to assess the games you are playing:

The Bought-Status Test

Would I buy this thing if I could not show it to anyone or tell anyone about it?

If the answer to this question is NO, you’re playing a Bought Status Game.

Asking this question cuts through the noise to determine if the item itself provides happiness or utility, or if its sole purpose is to signal your success or achievement to others.

The Earned-Status Test

Could the richest person in the world acquire the thing I want by tomorrow?

If the answer to this question is NO, you’re playing an Earned Status Game.

The world’s richest people cannot build a loving relationship any faster than you. They cannot forge a healthy mind and body any faster than you. None of them can buy their way to expertise, wisdom, or purpose.

Playing the Right Games

Status games are a part of life.

They are critical for establishing your position in the relative hierarchies that govern your personal and professional worlds.

You will never escape them—you simply need to play the right ones.

Remember: In your work, relationships, and life, focus on what must be earned, not what can be bought.

*   *   *

Thanks to Sahil Bloom at The Curiosity Chronicle whose new book The Five Types of Wealth is about to be released.

Kill Zoners — How much attention do you pay to developing your characters’ status?

Good Book Followup and Writing News

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Good Book Followup and Writing News
Terry Odell

Last time, I talked about a book I read because it was a book club choice, and gave my reasons for not liking it despite all the accolades it had received. Last week, our book club met. (Note, the club’s name is Wine, Women and Words. Needless to say, we enjoyed our libations as we discussed the book. And there’s food, too.)

There were eleven of us present. Most of us are well beyond our 50s. I may have mentioned previously that one of the reasons (beyond the wine) that I enjoy our meetings is because it’s a good look at how “readers” read, which is very different from the way authors read.

Our discussion was lively, and opinions were widespread. Some loved character X (I think there were 7 POV characters, all female), others disliked her, and often for totally different reasons. Some liked the way the timelines bounced around from decade to decade, others complained that a character’s thread was abandoned until much later in the book. At the end of our discussion, which went on much longer than usual, everyone scores the book from 1 (terrible) to 10 (loved it) and gives reasons, which in this case ranged from “I was a camp counselor, so I could relate to that part of the book,” to “I thought the ending was totally unrealistic,” to “I didn’t like the time jumps,” to “Why didn’t any of the POV characters stand up for themselves?” The last one led to more discussion, because she eventually did stand up for herself, but then did something everyone thought was totally stupid at the end of the book.

The book’s average score was 6.5, with nothing higher than a 7, which is unusual for our group. Usually there are 8s, and often a few 9s. I don’t recall ever seeing someone rank it a 10 or a 1, but I haven’t been a member as long as many in the group, and my memory isn’t that great these days.

Does not liking a book make it a ‘bad’ book? Does liking it make it ‘good?’ I confess I was surprised to see that this book is a finalist for a major mystery award. Given the judges are all authors made it all the more surprising to me, but apparently they’re seeing things differently. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

Now, a little on the writing front.

I have a title! For me, that’s one of the last things I manage to come up with. Danger Abroad.

And a tag line: When breaking family ties is the only option.

I sent my cover designer potential backgrounds for the book from the pictures I took in the Faroes. I might share the process in a later post, once everything is finalized. For now, this is the image she’s working with, and she’ll apply her artistic talents to making it appropriate for a book cover.

Picture of the Vagar Waterfall, blowing from the wind.

I’ve gone through my manuscript from my printout, run it through SmartEdit, and it’s almost ready to send. I have a tendency to start sentences with But, I overuse back and there are a lot of unnecessary thats. In the adverb department, only was another culprit. My critique partners are just past the halfway point, and despite all my efforts, they’re finding little glitches. If the manuscript was perfect, I wouldn’t need an editor, right?

I’ve started bits and pieces of the dreaded marketing process. As I read through the manuscript, I made notes of potential quotes to use in promotion. Then, using Canva, I can turn them into little promo images, such as this one.

quote from Danger Abroad by Terry Odell

Another source I use is Mockup Shots, which will create images using your book cover. Although they have ways to manipulate the images, I’ve found I’m more comfortable taking them over to Canva, since I’ve been using it longer and am familiar with its menus.

I also have to come up with the description for the distribution sites.

Somehow, writing the book is easier for me than distilling it down to its essence. As an indie author, I am glad I no longer have to deal with query letters and synopses, although the book description is similar. The big difference, for me, is that the description doesn’t have to cover the whole book. I prefer not to mention anything that shows up after the fifth chapter, and usually try to have it not go beyond chapter three.

This is what I have so far. (It’s a romantic suspense.)

Madison Westfield has information that could short-circuit her politician father’s campaign for governor. But he’s family. Although he was a father more in word than deed, she changes her identity and leaves the country rather than blow the whistle. All seems fine until her father hires Blackthorne, Inc. to find her. All they have to go on is that her passport was used at the airport in Copenhagen.

Logan Bolt is happiest when he’s designing security systems for Blackthorne’s wealthy clients. When the latest installation in Copenhagen keeps him from receiving the last text his sister would ever send, he uses his vacation time to find out more about her death. Because he’s already there, Blackthorne taps him to track down Madison. When he finds her in the Faroe Islands, her story doesn’t match the one her father told Blackthorne. The investigation assignment quickly switches to personal protection for Madison.

Madison’s not convinced she needs protection, but learning her father wants her found has her reluctantly accepting Logan’s bodyguard duty. She thinks of herself as being Logan’s ball and chain, but they slowly learn that working together benefits both of them. Soon, they’re involved with a drug ring and a kidnapping attempt. Will working together spark a relationship?

Comments welcome on any aspect of this post.

New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Double Intrigue
When your dream assignment turns into more than you bargained for
Cover of Double Intrigue, an International Romantic Suspense by Terry Odell Shalah Kennedy has dreams of becoming a senior travel advisor—one who actually gets to travel. Her big break comes when the agency’s “Golden Girl” is hospitalized and Shalah is sent on a Danube River cruise in her place. She’s the only advisor in the agency with a knowledge of photography, and she’s determined to get stunning images for the agency’s website.
Aleksy Jakes wants out. He’s been working for an unscrupulous taskmaster in Prague, and he’s had enough. When he spots one of his coworkers in a Prague hotel restaurant, he’s shocked to discover she’s not who he thought she was.
As Shalah and Aleksy cruise along the Danube, the simple excursion soon becomes an adventure neither of them imagined.

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.”

The Comic Villain

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Photo credit – Pexels, cottonbro studio

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

 

Why do we love comic villains?

In a real world full of genuinely evil villains, comic villains are a welcome relief because they make us laugh.

Humor is their superpower. They literally and figuratively DIS-ARM us. As reprehensible as their actions are, we can’t be all that angry with them because we’re laughing too hard.

Comic villains are like the bratty little kid caught stealing sweets. They are more often impish than truly malicious.

Readers and movie viewers typically don’t take comic villains seriously because they’re often lousy criminals. They’re buffoons whose sloppy schemes go awry. Their supposedly clever strategies explode in their faces. Their mistakes get them knocked on their butts.

The crime they set out to accomplish rarely succeeds. When they’re caught, they try to explain their way out with silly rationalizations and hilarious justifications.

Because comic villains are so unskillful at their profession, they reassure us that bad guys will be caught and held accountable for their crimes. Yet, because they’re entertaining, we don’t wish harsh punishment on them.

American author O. Henry (1862-1910) created a pair of memorable comic villains in “The Ransom of Red Chief,” a short story first published in 1907 in the Saturday Evening Post. I wrote about it here.

Bill and Sam are two smalltime criminals who concoct a ransom scheme to earn quick, easy money. They kidnap the 10-year-old son (nicknamed “Red Chief”) of a wealthy businessman and hold the kid for $2000 ransom. But Red Chief proves to be a “forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat” who torments his captors so viciously that they soon reduce the ransom amount.

Turns out Red Chief’s father doesn’t particularly want his son back and makes a counteroffer. Ultimately, instead of getting rich quick, Bill and Sam pay the father $250 to take the brat off their hands.

Danny_DeVito_by_Gage_Skidmore cc by sa3.0

Kidnapping plots gone awry became popular films, including Ruthless People (1986), starring Danny DeVito and Bette Midler; Raising Arizona (1987) with Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter; and Dog Eat Dog (2016), Cage again and Willem Dafoe.

Film is a natural medium to showcase comic villains because humor depends a lot on timing, facial expressions, and gestures. But skilled authors can do that on the page.

Have you ever sat next to a reader on a plane who chuckled throughout the flight? They might be reading Janet Evanovich, Carl Hiaasen, the late Tim Dorsey, or other authors who carved out niches with funny crime novels. Some of the most enjoyable book recommendations I’ve received came from seatmates.

Past and present Kill Zone contributors deliver laughs from Michelle Gagnon (what’s funnier than being the target of a serial killer?) and Elaine Viets (after working at a bridal salon, she wonders why there aren’t more murders).

 

Crime isn’t funny, especially if you’ve been a victim. But laughter in the face of danger is an effective defense mechanism that makes the trials of life more bearable.

~~~

This post is a chapter excerpted from my upcoming writing craft book, The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Memorable Villains Readers Love to Hate. Publication Summer 2025. Please sign up at my website for news and updates on The Villain’s Journey.

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TKZers: who’s your favorite comic villain in film or books? Why do they make you laugh? Please share in the comments.

 

The Art of Misdirection

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“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” — Soren Kierkegaard

* * *

One of the most interesting aspects of mystery novels for me is the author’s ability to construct a story that leads the reader “down the garden path.” Then when the truth is revealed, the reader smacks him/herself on the side of the head in recognition that they picked the wrong person as the villain. They should have seen it coming.

When I told a friend of mine about my interest in constructing novels that use this technique of misdirection, she was astonished. “It sounds like you’re deliberately manipulating what the reader is thinking.”

“Right,” I said. “That’s the point. If the author can present information to the reader so they react to the scenes in the story in a predictable way, it will produce an entertaining and satisfying experience for the reader.”

My friend said she didn’t like the idea of being fooled, but I think she’s fooling herself.

At its heart, a mystery novel is a game, a challenge to the reader to see if they can put the puzzle together correctly. The reader has all the necessary information, but the author uses several devices to misguide the reader into putting their trust in the wrong characters or the wrong clues.

Foreshadowing, Clues, and Red Herrings

In his article in Writer’s Digest,  Robert McCaw put it well:

“Misdirection also requires subtlety. The reader will feel crassly manipulated if the surprise ending arrives without sufficient hints or foreshadowing. Ideally, good misdirection makes the reader look back at various telltale clues peppered throughout the story, hopefully leading them to admire the author’s skill in setting up and obscuring the ultimate surprise.”

Perhaps the cleverest red herring of all time was created by Agatha Christie in her novel And Then There Were None, in which ten people on a remote island are being killed off one by one in a way that mirrors the nursery rhyme Ten Soldier Boys. When they get down to three people left alive, one of them (Vera) says

“You’ve forgotten the nursery rhyme. Don’t you see there’s a clue there?” She recited in a meaning voice: “Four little Indian boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.” She went on: “A red herring—that’s the vital clue. Armstrong’s not dead… He took away the china Indian to make you think he was. You may say what you like—Armstrong’s on the island still. His disappearance is just a red herring across the track…”

A clue that references the very words “red herring” is clever. But it turns out the clue itself was a red herring. Now that was really clever.

The Unreliable Narrator

In a novelsuspects.com article, Emily Watson writes

The term “unreliable narrator” was introduced in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in his book The Rhetoric of Fiction. Typically, for a narrator to be unreliable, the story needs to be presented by a first-person narrator. And since first-person accounts of stories and events are often flawed and biased, you could argue that all first-person narrators are by nature unreliable. But Booth explains that for a narrator to be unreliable, they must either misreport, misinterpret, misevaluate, underreport, under-interpret, or under-evaluate.

Once again Agatha Christie claims preeminence in misdirection with the unreliable narrator Dr. Sheppard in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

The False Ending

Robert McCaw also addressed the topic of false endings in his article in Writer’s Digest.

“Another of my favorite techniques is the false or penultimate ending. In this case, the narrative comes to a neat close. The protagonist solves the mysteries and identifies the culprit. There are no loose strings. The story is over, except it’s not. Instead, another chapter surprises the reader with a new and different take on the ending, often creating the opportunity to begin a new story, perhaps in another book.”

An example of this is the French film He Loves Me… He Loves Me Not directed by Laetitia Colombani. While not exactly a mystery, the movie’s unusual structure is a good example of misdirection, unreliable narration, and a false ending.

The movie was released in 2002 and starred Audrey Tautou, the actress who had previously been best known for her performance as the main character in the movie Amelie. Casting Tautou as Angelique in He Loves Me was a brilliant way to manipulate the viewers into immediately trusting the adorable girl.

In this movie, Angelique is an accomplished young artist in love with a married man, Dr. Loic Le Garrec (Samuel Le Bihan). The movie begins in a flower shop where Angelique is sending a pink rose to Le Garrec on his birthday, and it tracks the plot through scenes where Angelique appears to get closer and closer to her goal of breaking up Le Garrec’s marriage so the two of them can go off together.

Then something goes awry. Angelique realizes her plan has failed, and she decides to commit suicide. It seems this will be the sad end to a young woman’s life, but that’s the false ending. The movie is only at the halfway point.

As Angelique lies down on the floor in front of a gas stove, everything changes. It looks like the movie is rewinding in Fast Backward mode, and suddenly we’re all the way back to the beginning at the flower shop.

But this time, the movie presents the actual events, not just Angelique’s fantasy, and the viewer comes to understand Angelique was suffering from a mental illness called “erotomania.” The first half of the movie showed only a partial truth, but one that convinced the viewer of a lie.

In the actual ending, Angelique has survived her suicide attempt and is incarcerated in a mental institution. The final end of the movie is yet another false ending that I won’t spoil for you.

* * *

So, there you have it. Red herrings, unreliable narrators, and false endings. All devices to trick the reader into enjoying a wonderful story.

“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

* * *

So TKZers: There are many ways to lead the reader astray. Have you been fooled by misdirection? Have you used misdirection in your books? What books or movies would you recommend that gleefully mislead the audience?

* * *

Was it a clue to murder? Or just a small child’s fanciful note? Private pilot Cassie Deakin must find her way through the labyrinth to solve the puzzle.

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

Staying Afloat in the Roiling Sea of Books

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Blue-footed booby

I had another post I was working on, but life got in the way. So I thought I’d rerun a column on discoverability. It seems apt in this age of AI. Has anything changed? Where we go:

Discoverability is becoming as rare as the blue-footed booby.

According to Bowker, the outfit that registers ISBN numbers, over a million self-published books were issued ISBNs last year.

That’s a one with six zeros after it.

And understand, this does not include traditionally-published books, nor all the ebook-only titles without ISBNs.

Which means there’s a whole lotta books out there, and more added every year. (Most of which are bad. See Sturgeon’s Law.)

Industry observer Mike Shatzkin added this:

I had reason to learn recently that Ingram has 16 million individual titles loaded in their Lightning Source database ready to be delivered as a bound book to you within 24 hours, if not sooner. So every book coming into the world today is competing against 16 million other books that you might buy.

That number — the number of individual book titles available to any consumer, bookstore, or library — has exploded in my working lifetime. As recently as 25 years ago, the potential titles available — in print and on a warehouse shelf ready to be ordered, or even to be backordered until a next printing — was numbered in the hundreds of thousands. So it has grown by 20 or 30 or 40 times. That’s between 2000 percent and 4000 percent in the last quarter century.

Of discoverability, agent Rachelle Gardner recently observed:

How can any single book stand out in that large of a field? It’s very difficult. The problem is known as discoverability and it means the odds are stacked against us when we want to bring readers’ attention to our books.

This is why the publisher needs your help—it’s important to find your audience, that specific group of people who will like your book. They need you engaging with your audience, connecting with them, doing your part to make them aware of you.

Even with all this work, it’s still hard to make your book discoverable. It’s not anyone’s fault. Publishers are not conspiring to make life difficult for you. They’re not being unreasonable by requiring authors to participate in marketing. It’s simply the situation we find ourselves in—there are too many books, so we all have to work so much harder to each one stand out to its unique audience.

One line that jumped out at me is: the publisher needs your help. It used to be the other way around. A writer needed a traditional publisher to get into bookstores. If there were some marketing dollars in the budget, the publisher might arrange to have the book placed on the New Release table at the front of the store.

But now, with bookstore space shrinking, and marketing push going almost exclusively to the A list, authors writing inside the walls of the Forbidden City are expected to do audience building themselves (which has some authors wondering why the publishing houses still take the same royalty split as when they did all the heavy lifting. But I digress).

So how do you build an audience these days? The old-fashioned way. You earn it. (Hat tip to John Houseman).

Book after book. And more than one or two titles. You don’t hit a stride until you have several books out there to go with a steady pace of future production.

Another agent, Steve Laube, also reflected on the Bowker publishing numbers, and offered this advice:

  1. Write the very best book you can.
  2. Build an audience who will support your work (i.e. platform).
  3. Decide whether to self-publish (but only do it the right way) or go the traditional route (get an agent).
  4. Figure out how to launch a book.

The fundamentals don’t change, do they? That’s why they’re called fundamentals. I’d modify the list a bit this way:

  1. Write the very best books (plural) you can, at least one per year.
  2. Keep learning and growing in the craft.
  3. Decide what kind of writer you want to be. If self-publishing is on your mind, consider:
    1. Can you be sufficiently productive?
    2. Do you have the discipline to learn basic business practices?
    3. Are you willing to invest between $500 and $2,000 for cover design, editing, and proofreading for each book?
  1. If traditional publishing is your goal, ask:
    1. Am I patient enough to wait up to 18 months for my book to come out?
    2. Will my agent fight for more author-friendly non-compete and reversion-of-rights clauses?
    3. Am I ready with a plan should my publisher drop me?

One word I do wish we’d get rid of is platform. For non-fiction a platform is desirable because there’s a built-in audience for a subject. But agents and publishers push this amorphous concept on unpublished fiction authors, which only adds to their stress and detracts from their writing time.

The best time for a fiction writer to build a platform is 2003. That’s when we weren’t so blog saturated that a new author might actually gain a following. That’s when we weren’t tossing away good writing time on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram (and, worse, thinking that the latter venues are good places to sell books!)

As I argued a couple of years ago, we need to get out of “discoverability thinking” and into “trustability thinking.”

You should be thinking that each new offering is an opportunity to prove to readers that you deliver the goods. As you do this, time after time, trust in you grows. Consumers buy more from businesses they trust. Readers are consumers and you are a business.

This applies whether you are traditional or indie, commercial or literary, tall or short.

Or have blue feet.

So … are you about to dive into the cold Atlantic of content, knowing full well how vast and choppy it is out there? Have you taken swimming lessons (studied craft and market)?  

Or are you already swimming?

How’s the water?