Should You Write a Prequel?

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When Dexter: Original Sin came out, I had my doubts. The ending of Dexter: New Blood left a bad taste in my mouth (I won’t spoil it for you).

Jeff Lindsay isn’t to blame for that. New Blood and Original Sin are based on the characters from Lindsay’s long-standing series but don’t have a direct novel equivalent. The television franchise creator, Clyde Phillips, made changes to the story for the show.

Dexter: Original Sin is also a prequel that shows Dexter’s early years… how his father created “the code” to keep his “dark passenger” under control, his internship at Miami Metro Police Department, and his first kill.

Without basing the prequel on a Lindsay novel, I was more than a little reluctant to watch it. But I love Dexter! Which is a great reason to write a prequel. If you have a beloved character, readers might be interested in their early years.

Upside of Prequels

Character depth: Write a prequel to show the origin story of a beloved character or cast to explain their motivation and how they became who they are in the original series.

World-building: Write a prequel to provide a deeper look into the world before the main events i.e., history, politics, culture, etc.

Fresh perspectives: Write a prequel to showcase lesser-known characters and their perspectives.

Downside of Prequels

Unnecessary recap: Don’t write a prequel to rehash plot points from one of the original novels or the series as a whole.

Disappointing character portrayals: Don’t write a prequel to capture the essence of an established character or cast, or you’ll risk undoing all the characterization in the series.

Quality: If you don’t believe the prequel can live up to the high standards of the series, write something else.

The last thing you want is for readers to think:

  • “Was the prequel necessary?”
  • “Meh. It was okay, not nearly as good as the original novels.”
  • “What did I just read? I feel tricked, like everything I believed was a lie.”
  • Or the fatal blow: “Doubt I’ll even buy the next book in the series now.”

Too many franchises use prequels to pad the bank account, and few live up to the original series. While it may be fun for readers/viewers to revisit the characters and story world they love, too often prequels fall flat. Either they’re filled with inconsistencies in characterization, or they attempt to skew previous storylines to fit the new narrative.

Neither apply to Dexter: Original Sin.

Phillips did a masterful job of showing Dexter’s early years. A young actor named Patrick Gibson plays Dexter, but Michael C. Hall — whom we all grew to love in the original television series — narrates Dexter Morgan’s inner voice. Genius! The main reason I waited to watch the show was because, in my opinion, no other actor could play Dexter Morgan. ’Course, I never thought anyone could play a believable Hannibal Lecter, either, but Mads Mikkelsen proved me wrong.

From the first episode of Dexter: Original Sin, the screenwriter captivated me with how he portrayed the origin story. Let’s look at everything he did right.

In the first five episodes, Phillips never tried to change the character of Dexter Morgan. Instead, he merely filled in the blanks of what we missed in the original series. Patrick Gibson (young Dexter) didn’t overplay his role. The trailer misled me by zooming in on young Dexter’s evil expression — and not in a good way — when in fact, 20-year-old Dexter is simply learning to deal with the duality within him.

  • He knows he’s different from other people.
  • He questions why he’s different.
  • He fights the desires of his “dark passenger.”

Conflict, conflict, and more conflict.

Discussions between Dexter and Harry Morgan turn almost heartwarming. Regardless of subject matter, the love between a father and his adopted son shines through. They’re doing the best they can under impossible circumstances.

As a homicide sergeant at Miami Metro PD, Harry taught Dexter “the code” shown via flashbacks in the original series.

For years, Dexter believed Harry created the code, but in season eight of the original series, we learned he had help. Dr. Evelyn Vogel, a neuropsychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of psychopaths, noticed Dexter had psychopathic tendencies as a child. So, she and Harry developed the Code of Harry as a way for Dexter to safely satisfy his needs and help rid society of dangerous predators.

Dexter: Original Sin provides an in-depth look at the code in real time, as the prequel takes place fifteen years before the original series.

Code of Harry

  1. Don’t get caught.
  2. Never kill an innocent.
  3. Targets must be killers who have evaded the justice system.
  4. Killing must serve a purpose. Otherwise, it’s just plain murder.
  5. Blend in socially to maintain appearances.
  6. Fake emotions and normality.
  7. Control and channel the urge to kill.
  8. Be prepared. Leave no trace or evidence.
  9. Never make a [public] scene. Stay calm and collected.
  10. Don’t make things personal because it clouds judgment.
  11. Don’t get emotionally involved.
  12. No preemptive killing.

The prequel never tries to rewrite the well-established Code of Harry. Instead, Phillips shows mistakes by both Harry and Dexter as they attempt to navigate their new normal. We also see Dexter’s first kill, which broke several rules for a valid reason, and learn more about Dexter’s birth mother and her relationship with Harry.

Dexter: Original Sin succeeds because it enhances Lindsay’s original series. And that may be the best reason of all to write a prequel. Otherwise, writer beware — penning a decent prequel is not an easy endeavor.

Have you ever considered writing a prequel? 

If you’ve written a prequel, what was your deciding factor? What did you hope to achieve? How did readers respond?

Have you read a prequel that blew you away?

What prequel failed to meet your expectations, and why?

New Year’s Diminutions For Writers

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

So we’re off and running into 2025. We’ve had some discussions of goals and resolutions, as is to be expected. Today I want to talk about something else—New Year’s diminutions. The things you should resolve to do less of in your fiction. Here are three.

  1. Ditch Marshmallow Dialogue

Check this exchange:

“Hello, Becky.”

“Hi, Kelly.”

“So, how is everything at home?”

“Oh, you know, the same.”

“I do! I totally know about that. It’s like that at my house, too!”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“It’s good to know I’m not alone.”

“Yes it is. Awfully good.”

“Well, listen, I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Really? I’m all ears.”

Unfortunately, at this point readers are not all ears. If they’re not asleep, they are wondering why they are bothering with this story.

Dialogue without conflict or tension is squishy and sweet.

Like a marshmallow.

Marshmallows are for hot chocolate and S’Mores, not fiction.

There is no sign of trouble anywhere in these lines. This is the kind of talk that goes on every day in countless coffee houses and kitchens, bus benches and laundromats. It’s the talk that comes out of people without any care or worry at the moment of speaking.

Or, if they are worried, are good at hiding it.

Which is precisely the kind of talk we don’t want in our stories.

We want care. And worry. And we want to see it, or at least sense it.

Make sure all the characters in your book, from the majors to the minors, have both an agenda, even if it’s as simple as (as Vonnegut suggested) getting a glass of water. Put agendas in conflict. Boom. No more marshmallow dialogue.

  1. Avoid the Expected

What makes a novel boring? I think the answer is easy: the reader expects something to happen, and it does. There is no surprise, no intriguing turn of events. And the characters are all out of the stereotype casting office. We’ve seen these people and this story before!

So try this:

Pause every now and then and think about your plot. Ask yourself what the average reader would expect to happen next. What are the stereotypical story tropes that immediately spring to your mind?

Take your time. Then ponder the list. All you have to do now is take the most obvious turns and do something different, maybe even the opposite of what’s expected.

When writing a scene, I always try to put in something unexpected. This can be as big as a new character or as small as a line of dialogue that is makes a reader think, Why on earth did she say that?

  1. Fumbled Flashbacks

The first question to ask about a flashback scene is, Is it necessary? Be firm about this. Does the story information have to come to us in this fashion?

A flashback is almost always used to explain why characters act a certain way in the present story. If such information can be dropped in during a present moment scene, that’s usually the better choice.

Be very wary of starting your novel in the present and going too soon to flashback. If the flashback is important, you should consider starting with that scene as a prologue or first chapter.

These are guidelines. In the hands of a good writer, a gripping first chapter, followed by a compelling flashback, can work—see the first two chapters of Lee Child’s Persuader for an example.

If you’ve decided that a flashback is necessary, make sure it works as a scene––immediate, confrontational. Write it as a unit of dramatic action, and not as an information dump. Not:

Jack remembered when he was a child, and he spilled the gasoline on the ground. His father got so angry at him it scared Jack. His father hit him, and yelled at him. It was something Jack would never forget . . . [and more of the same]

Instead:

Jack couldn’t help remembering the gas can. He was eight, and all he wanted to do was play with it.

The garage was his theater. No one was home. He held the can aloft, like the hammer of Thor. “I am the king of gas!” he said. “I will set you all on fire!”

Jack stared down at the imaginary humans below his feet

The gas can slipped from his hand.

Unable to catch it, Jack watched as the can made a horrible thunking sound. Its contents poured out on the new concrete.

Jack quickly righted the can, but it was too late. A big, smelly puddle was right in the middle of the garage.

Dad is going to kill me!

Jack looked around for a rag, anything to clean up the mess.

He heard the garage door open.

And saw his dad’s car pull into the driveway.

A well written flashback scene will not detract from your story. Readers are used to novels cutting away from one scene to another. They will accept a cut to a flashback if it is written with dramatic flair.

My “rule” of thumb is: One flashback scene in a novel is enough.

Over to you. What do you want to avoid in your own writing?

Carpe Typem in 2025!

(This post adapted from 27 Fiction Writing Blunders—And How Not to Make Them!)

 

Get After It!

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If you’re like most writers, (me included) you’ve been off your game for more than two weeks during thus past holiday season. In a perfect world, we should write every day, but myriad distractions can keep the keyboard cool and gathering dust.

But it isn’t over, though the ball drop is history. There are decorations to store, food to finish from the fridge, and people still in the house and seemingly putting down roots. Others drop by to visit or exchange one last present or two. Then, the weather demands a different mindset. It’s windy and too warm here in Texas to get comfortable with writing again, while those who live in cooler climates are shoveling snow or hugging the potbelly instead of adding pages.

Then that manuscript that’s been sitting unattended all this time smells stale. Listless, you go back and tinker with a sentence or two, or punch up a paragraph. Bits of dialogue come to mind and you idly scroll up and down to find a place to plug it in.

One character has been ignored to this point, so half an hour is wasted on considering whether he or she needs more attention, and where. Then something comes up and you wander away to stop and wonder why you went into that particular room.

Around here I’m still picking up behind grandcritters, changing batteries in thousands of devices because everything in the world works on those expensive little cylinders. It seems they all run dry at the same time, and just in case, I went ahead and changed those in the manual smoke alarms before they start beeping at two in the morning. Light bulbs are the bane of my existence. I don’t care how modern they are, or how long they’re supposed to last. I change them with alarming frequency, and have a couple way high out of reach that need attention.

That one might wait until 2026.

Each time I finally sit down to work, an email pops up demanding upgrades for web hosting, cyber security, lawn services, pool services, registrations, and memberships. Everyone has been waiting for the work world to get back on schedule, so emails and phone calls are coming in at firehose volume.

The TBR pile beside the bed and chair is significantly shorter, and I need to finish that last book before writing consumed all my time. Here at the Wortham Ranch, I plowed through all my McMurtry books, and the output to date by James Wade and Taylor Moore. Mark my words, these two Texans are destined for greatness.

It’s been a great break from manuscripts, though in my world short stories took precedence for a while. I finished the third act of a serialized novella and sent it in. The first two installments have been released in Saddlebag Dispatches, a fine quarterly magazine from Roan and Weatherford publishing. In fact, follow the link below the first installation entitled Anniversary.

https://issuu.com/oghmacreative/docs/summer_2024_digital_final/s/55208784

The January, 2025, edition also contained a long feature on my life and writing. You might enjoy it and the photos on page 81. A couple of the shots are by my brother, John Gilstrap. Click the link below.

https://issuu.com/oghmacreative/docs/winter_2024_digital_final/59

These magazines are also available as hard copies. Simply order them from your favorite online bookseller, and speaking of books, if you’re gonna be a writer, write. Get back in the groove before you look up and find February is knocking on the door and your book is still on high center.

While we were off, Saddlebag Dispatches kept my own creative spark alive and now I’m hammering away at What We Owe the Dead, book three in the Comancheria series. The excitement I feel for this new fictional adventure feels as fresh as when my first novel came out fourteen years ago. I

This isn’t a New Year’s resolution, it’s a job full of possibilities if you can bestir yourself and get to work.

Just do it, and have a productive new year!

 

 

 

 

Reader Friday-King of the Mountain

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Happy New Year, TKZLand!

Simple question today:  What book is King of the Mountain on your TBR pile?

 

 

 

Meaning, what is the first book you intend to read in 2025?

For me, it will be to finish Against All Enemies and start the next in the series, Friendly Fire, by our own John Gilstrap. Great stories!

So, how about you? Do tell . . .

 

 

Whew! We made it…

 

 

Welcome to 2025

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Welcome to 2025
Terry Odell

fireworks above the numerals 2025

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Hello, and Happy New Year TKZers. I have the honor of being the first to post in 2025. I hope you’ve recovered from any celebratory events at your place.

What did I do during the annual TKZ hiatus?

Unlike Mr. Gilstrap, the holidays aren’t a big thing in our household.

I continued my weekly yoga practices. Had a hair salon appointment. Took the dog to the vet for her checkup. Had a massage. All of these are ordinary, everyday type events. Hanukkah began at sundown on December 25th, so while most of you were probably having a Christmas turkey, ham, or whatever, we gathered and had latkes, courtesy of our son. Host has the pleasure of having their house smell like grease for days afterward.

white plate with 5 potato latkes

I brought the requested rugelach, which was a little easier this year because one of my daughters was in town and helped with the assembly.

glass platter of rugelach cookies

**Those of you who are subscribed to my free Substack, “Writings and Wanderings” received the recipes for both of those dishes in my holiday post.

Tonight, we’ll light the last candles.

And I worked. Since my last post of 2024, I added about 25,000 words to the current manuscript.

stack of printed manuscript pages

I also checked with my editor, and I’m on her schedule for February 1st, which means I’ll be busy in January, finishing the draft and then getting it whipped into a shape I’m comfortable sending her.

As I write this, I still have no title or cover image selected, but I’m planning to pick an image from our trip to Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands last August.

Speaking of images, I put together a gallery of my favorite shots of 2024.
**My Substack subscribers have already received that link, too.

The Hubster and I welcomed the New Year in our own traditional fashion. An early dinner (late lunch) out, and then a bottle of bubbly at home for a quiet evening. I can’t remember the last time we managed to stay awake until midnight, and since fireworks are outlawed in our community—in fact, in the entire county with the exception of organized displays—it is a quiet night. If we were so inclined, we could go up the street a hundred yards or so and watch the annual Pikes Peak display, assuming there’s no cloud cover, and it’s not snowing. Or too cold for us. And we managed to be awake. So far, we’ve been here 14 years and have never seen the display. Not even the 9 PM test. Every year a group of climbers ascend the peak to set off fireworks. For them, it’s a two-day ordeal starting the night before when they climb to Barr Camp and spend the night. They climb to the summit the next day, and set off a fireworks display at midnight.

If you want the history and more details, you can find them here.

Note: When we lived in Orlando, we could stand in our driveway and watch the fireworks from the theme parks. It was never cold.

Okay, that’s the holiday summation. What’s next?

A thought has been niggling through my brain as I think about the year ahead. “May you live in interesting times.” I was curious about the origin and meaning of this statement, and I paid a visit to the Google Machine. I found this article at Wikipedia, and I’m blatantly copying and pasting it here. I’ve redacted the footnotes. If you want all the references, you can find the article in its entirety here.

“May you live in interesting times” is an English expression that is claimed to be a translation of a traditional Chinese curse. The expression is ironic: “interesting” times are usually times of trouble.

Despite being so common in English as to be known as the “Chinese curse”, the saying is apocryphal, and no actual Chinese source has ever been produced. The most likely connection to Chinese culture may be deduced from analysis of the late-19th-century speeches of Joseph Chamberlain, probably erroneously transmitted and revised through his son Austen Chamberlain.

Origins

Despite the phrase being widely attributed as a Chinese curse, there is no known equivalent expression in Chinese. The nearest related Chinese expression translates as “Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos.” The expression originates from Volume 3 of the 1627 short story collection by Feng Menglong, Stories to Awaken the World.

Evidence that the phrase was in use as early as 1936 is provided in a memoir written by Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the British Ambassador to China in 1936 and 1937, and published in 1949. He mentions that before he left England for China in 1936, a friend told him of a Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

Frederic René Coudert Jr. also recounted having first heard the phrase in 1936:

Some years ago, in 1936, I had to write to a very dear and honoured friend of mine, who has since died, Sir Austen Chamberlain, brother of the present Prime Minister, and I concluded my letter with a rather banal remark “that we were living in an interesting age”. Evidently he read the whole letter, because by return mail he wrote to me and concluded as follows: “Many years ago I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is, ‘May you live in an interesting age.'” “Surely”, he said, “no age has been more fraught with insecurity than our own present time.” That was three years ago.[7]

The phrase is again described as a “Chinese curse” in an article published in Child Study: A Journal of Parent Education in 1943.

“Chamberlain curse” theory

Research by philologist Garson O’Toole shows a probable origin in the mind of Austen Chamberlain’s father Joseph Chamberlain dating around the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Specifically, O’Toole cites the following statement Joseph made during a speech in 1898:

I think that you will all agree that we are living in most interesting times. (Hear, hear.) I never remember myself a time in which our history was so full, in which day by day brought us new objects of interest, and, let me say also, new objects for anxiety. (Hear, hear.)

Over time, the Chamberlain family may have come to believe that the elder Chamberlain had not used his own phrase, but had repeated a phrase from Chinese.

That’s it from me. Any thoughts, traditions, events you’d like to share. The floor is yours.

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.”

Auld Lang Syne and Taking Stock

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

 

Happy New Year, TKZ friends!

Tonight, all over the world, millions of people will sing “Auld Lang Syne.”

So what the heck does “Auld Lang Syne” mean?

The literal translation from Scottish is “old long since.” In 1788, Robert Burns wrote down a Scottish folk poem that he claimed came “from an old man’s singing.” The poem wasn’t published until after Bobby’s death in 1796.

The melody was from a 1782 opera but had different lyrics.

In 1799, the tune was combined with the Burns poem to celebrate Scottish Hogmanay (New Year’s celebration):

“Hogmanay celebrants traditionally sing the song while they stand in a circle holding hands.” (source: Britannica.com)

The last verses from Bobby’s original poem read as if a cat scampered across a keyboard:

“We twa hae paidl’d i’ the burn,
Frae mornin’ sun till dine;”

“we’ll tak a right guid willy waught,
For auld lang syne.”

Here’s the English version of the later verses:

We two have run about the slopes,
And picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,
Since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,
From morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared
Since auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give me a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
For auld lang syne.

The last day of 2024 seems like a good time to take stock of writing progress during the past year.

My 2024 goal list was seven items. I can check off four as completed or making substantial progress. Those are:

  1. Publish the ninth novel in the Tawny Lindholm Thriller series. Fruit of the Poisonous Tree launched October 1, 2024. Checked off.
  2. Start an editing business. For years, writer friends urged me to go pro with editing services. Last January, I hung out a shingle. Through word-of-mouth recommendations, I earned more in the first two weeks of editing than I did the entire previous year in book sales. Check that off as a big success.
  3. Do more teaching and personal appearances. I talked with book clubs, taught workshops, participated on panels, and sold books at festivals. These are fun activities because I love to meet readers and writers. Check this off as a success with plans to continue in 2025.
  4. Work on my nonfiction craft book The Villain’s Journey. This is a long-term project. In 2024, I made substantial progress with research, writing, obtaining permission to quote sources, and refining the structure. This project rolls over into 2025 with a goal to finish and publish The Villain’s Journey by summer 2025.

What items on my list were fails?

  1. Do more marketing, advertising, and promotion. For years, this goal remains my perennial failure. Will I do better next year? We’ll see.
  2. Create box sets of my Tawny Lindholm Thriller series. I didn’t get around to this project and will roll it over into 2025.
  3. Start a Substack. Another project I didn’t get around to. Rolled over into 2025.

Goals are important for writers because we’re often working toward a nebulous, uncertain future where progress is hard to quantify.

Unless you have a set deadline, it’s easy to fall back on Someday. Someday I’ll finish my novel, or learn Scrivener, or run Amazon/Facebook ads, or [fill in the blank].

At the start of each year, members of my critique group submit a list of goals we want to accomplish. At the end of the year, we review the lists to see how we did. We’re usually pleasantly surprised by how many items we checked off.

When you write down specific goals AND show them to others, that’s a small but effective step to make you more accountable for your progress.

TKZers, want to try an experiment? Write down your 2025 goals and share them in the comment section. Next year at this time, we’ll review the comments and see how we did.

While Rod Stewart sings “Auld Lang Syne,” I’m raising a toast to The Kill Zone community.

Wishing you a happy and creative 2025!

~~~

Start the New Year with new reading at a bargain price. 

Tawny Lindholm Thrillers – select titles are 50% off !!! Today is the last day of the sale. 

Sales link

Finishing Strong with Aspects of the Novel

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“Everything ends; you just have to figure out a way to push to the finish line.” —Jesse Itzler

* * *

Welcome back, TKZers! Isn’t it wonderful to be back in the Zone after the two-week break?

Now that we’re approaching the finish line for 2024, it’s time to look back at lessons learned in the past year. In addition to the great content posted here, TKZ contributors lent their voices to other platforms. One of those was The Craft of Writing Blog on my website at kaydibianca.com.

The theme of this year’s blog was Aspects of the Novel, and each month I interviewed an accomplished author on a different facet of novel writing. Five of those authors are TKZ contributors whose thoughts were so instructive, I wanted to share an excerpt from each interview in this post.

So enjoy finishing the year strong by walking with our wise friends through various Aspects of the Novel. To see the entire interview for any of the choices below, click on the link.

* * *

VOICE (James Scott Bell)

How does an author go about developing his/her own voice?

It’s really a matter of learning ways to let the voice run free. Let it come out naturally as you, the author, are concentrating on the emotion and action and internal lives of the characters. There are various exercises I give in my book on voice, such as the page-long sentence. When I come to a place of high emotion in a scene, I like to start a fresh document and write a single, run-on sentence of at least 200 words. It is free-form, wild text in the character’s voice, not thinking about grammar or structure. It’s just pouring out the emotion as fast and intensely as possible.

What happens inevitably, like panning for gold, is you get a few glistening nuggets. It may even be only one sentence, but that sentence will be choice.

There are other methods, but the great point is that doing this begins to develop a strong “voice muscle” in your writer’s brain, and you get better and better at it the more you exercise it.

 

ANTAGONISTS (Debbie Burke)

How does a good writer approach creating the antagonist character? Are there exercises a writer can use to develop their villain-creating talents?

A technique I like to use is James Scott Bell’s voice journal. Let the antagonist write out their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. What are their deepest, most secret desires? Give them the opportunity to express their frustration, anger, and hatred. Putting their emotions into words helps the author get inside their skin and understand why they feel their behavior is justified.

Interview the villain/antagonist. Ask questions. What is their background? How did their parents treat them? Were they bullied or abused? What early losses or failures scarred them?

Another Jim Bell tip: have villains argue their case before the jury that will decide their fate. What compelling arguments can they offer to save themselves from the death penalty?

 

DEEP POINT OF VIEW (Terry Odell)

Now, on to Deep POV:

Deep POV can be thought of as writing a first person book in third person. You are deep inside the POV character’s head, providing the reader with not only the character’s five senses, but also their thoughts and feelings. Because you’re deep into their heads, your readers should feel closer to the characters than if you have an outside narrator, as is the case in shallower third person POV. A test. You should be able to replace he, she, or the character’s name with “I.”

When writing in Deep POV, it’s also important to be true to the character. What would they notice? Two characters walk into a room. (No, that’s not the start of a joke.) One’s a cop; the other is an interior designer. They’ll focus on very different things.

 

ANTI-HEROES (Sue Coletta)

How do you define an anti-hero?

An anti-hero is the protagonist of the story, who straddles the law. Good people doing bad things for the right reason. Nothing is black and white. Anti-heroes thrive in shades in gray.

 

DESCRIPTION (P.J. Parrish)

How would you define descriptive writing?

Wow. That’s a toughie. Well, let’s start with a distinction. There’s explanation and then there’s description. Explanation is you, the writer, just dealing with the prosaic stuff of moving characters around in time and space. Explanation example: The man walked into the room. Simple choregraphy. Gets the job done but pushes no emotional buttons.

But description? That’s where the magic happens. When you work your descriptive powers, you engage the reader’s senses and imagination, maybe tugging on their memories and experiences. The man didn’t just walk into the room.  Rewrite:

The old man stopped just inside the door of the café. He was in his eighties, that much was clear. But as he stood there, erect and with a small smile tipping his lips, heads turned to him. It wasn’t just the panama hat or the seersucker suit. Because the hat was yellowed and his sleeves were frayed. No, we were staring at him because the air around him seemed to vibrate with an aliveness. He caught my eye and started toward me, and my throat closed. It was like looking at my father, the one I had seen only in photographs.

See the difference? The main purpose of descriptive writing is to show the reader a person, place or thing in such a way that a picture is formed in their mind. It means paying close attention to the details by using all of your five senses. Explanation vs description. When you explain something, you try to make it clearer and easier to understand. But when you describe, you’re tugging on their emotions.

 

* * *

As we come to the end of the year, I want to wish you all a Happy, Healthy, and Successful New Year!

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So TKZers: How are you finishing strong in 2024? Any lessons learned you can share? What are you looking forward to in 2025?

 

“A delicious murder mystery” —Readers’ Favorite Reviews

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

See You Soon!

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Today commences our annual two-week hiatus here at TKZ. This blog has been hale and hearty since 2009, which is a testimony to the quality of our writers and commenters over the years. 

Blogging began back in 1994 when Justin Hall, a student at Swarthmore College, started publishing personal content on his website. He called it “Justin’s Links from the Underground.” This was his “log” on the web. A web log.

The term “weblog” came from Jorn Barger, a bearded James Joyce fan. Later, tech billionaire Evan Williams coined “blog” as both noun and verb, and “blogger” to designate one who blogs. As co-founder of Pyra Labs, he helped design the site Blogger which went public in 1999. (Williams would go on to co-found a micro-blogging site called Twitter.)

In 2004, “blog” was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year.

Blogs took off in the 2000s, with professional and monetized blogs like TechCrunch, Gawker, and Huffington Post becoming major players in media, offering insights into technology, gossip, and news.

Writers started blogging, too. One of the most influential blogs was Joe Kontrath’s A Newbies Guide to Publishing, which gave practical advice to writers trying to break into traditional publishing. At the end of 2010, however, his blog morphed over into leading the charge for indies. 

On August 7, 2008, a date that will live in fame, a group blog for writers called Kill Zone made its debut. Of its original cast, only our great founder and admin, Kathry Lilley, and a fellow named Gilstrap remain. I looked up John’s first post and saw this:

I faced a storytelling crisis last weekend. Staring down the throat of an August 15 deadline for Grave Secrets (coming in June, ’09), I needed an ending. 

So the first Jonathan Grave thriller was coming. It came (with a title change to No Mercy).

I mean, I already had an ending from the initial drafts, but I needed an ending. A kick-ass final sequence that would leave the reader exhausted and satisfied. The one I already had took care of the satisfaction part, but it didn’t have the roller coaster feel that I wanted.

So I shot one of the characters.

What a great tip. It’s another side of Raymond Chandler’s advice: Bring in a guy with a gun.

And that’s what we’ve always been about here. Tips and techniques and advice and encouragement for our fellow writers. God willing and the crick don’t rise, we’re going to keep on trucking (Okay, Boomer) in 2025.

While you, dear writing friends, keep on writing.

Merry Christmas and Carpe Typem. See you soon!

Social Media Words of Wisdom

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Sue’s post this past Monday on the upcoming changes to Meta got me to thinking about social media.

For all the changes in the landscape since MySpace, social media continues and authors are still expected to be on at least one platform. I started with Facebook in 2009, and then added Twitter when I bought my first smart phone in September 2010. I tried Instagram but it didn’t work for me. Does anyone remember Google +? I was active there in the early 2010s. A few years later it closed down.

Now I’m on Bluesky, and in fact, my first TKZ post in 2025 will be an introduction to that platform.

Social media let me connect with other writers, make new friends, helped me be a guest blogger at a few sites and led to my first podcast appearance in 2017, and yes, helped me a sell books, though personally as an author that’s not it’s main value, rather, connection is, both with other authors and readers.

With this in mind, today we have a pair of insightful excerpts from the TKZ archives for your consideration by Laura Benedict and Sue Coletta on dos and don’ts of authors using social media. The full posts are each linked at the bottom of their respective excerpts and well worth reading in their entirety.

While many people in the writing/publishing business strongly believe that social mediadoesn’t sell books, some folks disagree. I’ve put up a lot of links here, but if you want to save a few clicks, here’s the gist: Social media is there to build relationships. The aspect of building relationships is key, no matter on what industry you work within. Take a look at examples of Digital Transformation to see why this is important and how you can use it to your advantage.

People with whom you have relationships will like you. If they like you AND you spend at least 80% of your time giving them great “content” they will tolerate the 20% of time you spend promoting your work. But the conversion rate will be less than 2%, which means you’re selling yourself and your time very, very cheaply. But folks truly dislike a hard sell. Many of the people who say you can sell books through social media want you to pay them to tell you how to do it, and they won’t give you quantifiable forecasts.

(Traditionally published books still sell best through tried and true methods like word-of-mouth, tv, radio, magazine, and web ads, vertical marketing to influencers like librarians and booksellers, hand-selling, and peer reviews. But almost none of those methods is free, and it’s only rational that publishers would prefer free methods that rely on author execution to methods that cost money.)

What is content? Content is added value, often in the form of information: lists, quizzes, articles, expertise, audio or video entertainment, memes, blogs, observations. Given the 80/20 rule, if you do fifty posts in a week, the theory is that at least forty of them should be content and not mention your work at all. Ideally, the content should be at least tangentially related to your field of expertise or the lifestyles of your audience. But even if you automate those posts with Buffer or HootSuite or some other social media-scheduling program, it takes time to curate that content.

A brief cautionary tale: A self-published writer I know spends a lot of time posting on Instagram, but I’d say 80-90% of the writer’s posts are specifically about the book. They’re quotes formatted as memes, or pictures of the cover, or bits of dialogue taken out of context and framed with artistic graphics. The posts are careful and attractive, but I gloss over them, and even find myself a little angry at having to scroll past them every time I log onto Instagram. If the 80/20-percentage figure is at all valid, it’s completely upside down. And the writer uses a blue million hashtags, but only ever gets 10 or 11 likes. I can only imagine how much time the writer spends creating those posts (or perhaps the writer pays for them). Plus, even though it almost looks like content, it’s not, and is off-putting.

There are two big dangers for me when it comes to content. I spend a lot of time crafting my blog posts. This one (I’m adding this bit in editing) has taken me about 3.5 hours, and I’ll spend at least another 45 minutes editing and posting it. On my own daily blog, it’s a challenge to come up with fresh concepts. Then there’s finding the right photos, adding links, and pumping up the SEO. Unfortunately there’s no way to quantify the ROI on publishing blog posts. Another particular danger for me is rabbit holes. Ideally, I like to spend about thirty minutes online in the morning checking out news stories and resources for my own amusement and edification—but I often spend an hour or more. Usually, I’ll manage to bookmark only one or two links to pass on to social media. But which ones to choose?

I read a lot of crime news stories—many are too sensitive or explicit to share without grossing people out over their morning coffee. But I also read some politics (no, never post about that), bits of history and archeology, and stories about textiles or architecture. I’ll occasionally post about writing and books. Nearly everyone likes books. But I don’t think of my personal blog audience as being full of writers. I’m not selling books on writing, and few people who aren’t writers care about writing motivation, or how to build a character. So I save the writer-centric stuff for here or my own blogs about the writing life.

Laura Benedict—June 28, 2017

Whether we like it or not, social media is here to stay, and writers are expected to have an online presence. To help you navigate these turbulent waters, I’ve compiled the top 10 mistakes I’ve seen writers make over the years.

#1: Don’t talk at your audience. Chat with them. 

Social media is about making connections, engaging in conversation. It is not a soapbox, nor are you the most important person in the room. People will have opinions that don’t align with yours. And that’s okay. Talk it out. Get to know them.

#2: Don’t try to be something you’re not.

I see this all the time. If you’re not passionate about a subject, don’t try to fake it because it’s trendy. This isn’t high school. Share something that excites you, and your passion will shine through. Folks want to know the real you, not some made up version.

Which brings me to…

#3: Chill out, dude.

You cannot hop on social media for five or ten minutes and expect to see instant results.

Building a community takes time. If you rush it, your “buy my book” activities will reek of desperation.

#4: Don’t copy a famous author’s social media style. 

What works for a thriller or noir writer might not translate well to cozy, HEA romance, or sci-fi fans. If you write in a similar genre, you can emulate that author, but add your own special flair.

#5: Don’t spout orders. 

We’re told to have a clear call to action in social media marketing, that’s true, but less is more. Don’t ask for multiple favors at once.

Buy the book.

Rate the book.

Review the book.

Repost the review on Goodreads, BookBub, Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Apple, etc. etc. etc.

Tell all your friends to buy the book.

Choose one. Once you build trust, move on from there. 

Otherwise, it feels a lot like this:

Read everything I’ve ever written. Don’t think about time. I’m more important.

When you’re done with that, rate and review all my books, but don’t say anything negative. I will only accept four or five stars. Don’t forget to repost the review everywhere books are sold. And I mean everywhere.

Oh, btw, I need a few things at the grocery story. Grab a pen and write this down. You’ve got time, right? ’Course you do. After all, I’m the almighty author.

Clean my house.

Walk my dog.

Feed my wildlife.

Check in on my elderly parent.

Can you cook? Great. I’m far too busy writing my next masterpiece to waste time in the kitchen.

Come to me when you’re done, and I’ll give you the next task. You’re welcome.

#5: Don’t take before you give.

We’ve talked about the 80/20 rule before. I think 90/10 works better, but you’re safe with 80/20. For those who don’t know, it means 80% of what you share should be about life, pets, passion (not writing), or goofing around, 20% book news. Sounds easy enough, right? Yet some authors can’t seem to wrap their head around it. Every post is a version of “Buy my book!”

To the writers who struggle with the 80/20 rule, let me rephrase in simpler terms. I know you’re excited—we all do—but you are not the first person to write a novel, nor will you be the last. What if an Avon lady knocked at your door day after day after day to buy her products, would you be more or less likely to whip out your credit card? Don’t act like the Avon lady.

Sue Coletta—April 18, 2022

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  1. Do you find social media useful as a writer or as an author? If so, how?
  2. What are your own dos and don’ts about using social media, especially as a writer or author?
  3. Do you have an advice on connecting with other writers and readers on social media?
  4. Do you have a favorite social media platform?

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This is my last TKZ post of 2024. Wishing everyone Happy Holidays and all the best in 2025.