Heroic Words of Wisdom

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What is a hero? One answer is a legendary figure, such as Hercules, who accomplishes great deeds. Yet another is an ordinary person who does the right thing, no matter how lonely that might be. This being the Kill Zone, the answer to the above question is the principal character of a story. A character who strives to right a wrong, stop a threat, or protect the weak, who faces and overcomes challenges despite the odds to triumph in the end, sometimes at great personal cost.

We have three excerpts dealing with heroes today. Joe Moore ponders the role of beauty and intelligence in a hero. PJ Parrish looks at the different sort of supporting characters who team up with heroes. Larry Brooks considers how the hero’s role changes over the course of four-act structure.

As always the full version of each post is worth reading as are the original comments, date-linked at the bottom of their respective excerpt. Joe’s original was short enough I included all of it, but it’s worth checking out the comments.

This summer I attended an interesting workshop by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who discussed his approach to crafting thrillers. It was his opinion that main characters need to be handsome (or beautiful, if female), intelligent, and successful. As he described his approach, “I write a main character that women want to sleep with, and men want to be. ” In other words, more James Bond than Monk. His reason for his writing main characters that way? “I like to write books that sell.”

It’s an interesting thought. I’d always assumed that a main character didn’t need to be particularly genetically or intellectually gifted. I always assumed that overcoming adversity was what made a hero appealing to readers.  But when I think back about books I’ve particularly enjoyed–SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, COMA–I have to admit that those protagonists were handsome and brilliant. I just never thought of those characteristics as being requirements for popular appeal.

What do you think? Is physical beauty, in particular, central to creating an appealing main character?

Joe Moore—August 19, 2014

If you are considering a series, it’s a good idea to think hard about second bananas. First, they have great appeal. (Sorry, I had to get that out of my system before I could go on). But they are also very useful. More on that in a moment but first, it might be useful to examine the different types of pairings you might create:

The Teammate: This is actually a dual protagonist situation, wherein there are two equally active case solvers. The classic example is Dashiell Hammett’s Nick and Nora Charles. (Maybe Asta the dog was the sidekick?) Modern examples are Paul Levine’s Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord, and SJ Rozan’s Lydia Chin and Bill Smith (who appear in alternating books and sometimes together).

The Sidekick. This character is not an equal to the protag but almost as important in propelling the plot. He or she is a fixture in a series, a reoccurring character. The classic example, of course is Holmes and Watson. But others include Nero Wolf and Archie Goodwin, or Cocker and Tubbs from the old Miami Vice series.

The Confidant: One step lower on the totem, this character might not actively work a case with the hero, but acts as a sounding board for the hero. My fave confidant is Meyer, who sits on the Busted Flush sipping scotch and spouting wisdom about chess and economics as he listens to Travis McGee ponder out the case. (or his latest lady problem) Meyer serves as an anchor of sorts when McGee’s moral compass wanders. More on that later!

The Foil: Some folks use “foil” and “sidekick” interchangeably, but I think the foil deserves its own category. This a character who contrasts with the protag in order to highlight something about the hero’s nature. Hence the word “foil” — which comes from the old practice of backing gems with foil to make them shine brighter. We can go all the way back to the first detective story to find a great foil: In Poe’s The Purloined Letter, the hero Dupin has the dim-witted prefect of police Monsieur G. Some folks might even say Watson is a foil for Holmes because his obtuseness makes Holmes shine brighter.

Or consider Hamlet and Laertes. Both men’s fathers are murdered. But while Hamlet broods and does nothing, Laertes blusters and takes action. And the contrast sheds light on Hamlet’s character. Hamlet himself says, “I’ll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star in the darkest night, stick fiery off indeed.”

PJ Parrish—August 18, 2015

In her book “The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By”, Carol S. Pearson is credited with bringing us life’s hero archetypes, four of which align exactly with the sequential/structural “parts” of a story.  (For those who live by the 3-Act model, know that the 2nd Act is by definition contextually divided into two equal parts at the midpoint, with separate hero contexts for each quartile on either side of that midpoint, thus creating what is actually a four–part story model; this perspective is nothing other than a more specific – and thus, more useful – model than the 3-Act format from which it emerges.)

Those four parts align exactly with these four character contexts: 

Orphan (Pearson’s term)/innocent – as the story opens your hero is living life in a way that is not yet connected to (or in anticipation of) the core story, at least in terms of what goes wrong. 

And something absolutely has to go wrong, and at a specific spot in the narrative.

The author’s mission in this first story part/quartile, prior to that happening, is twofold: make us care about the character, while setting up the mechanics of the dramatic arc (as well as the character arc) to come.  There are many ways to play this – which is why this isn’t in any way formulaic – since within these opening chapters the hero, passive or not, can actually sense or even contribute to the forthcoming storm, or it can drop on their head like a crashing chandelier.  Either way, something happens (at a specific place in the narrative sequence) that demands a response from your hero.

Now your hero has something to do, something that wasn’t fully in play prior to that moment (called The First Plot Point, which divides the Part 1 quartile from the Part 2 quartile).  In this context, and if your chandelier falls at the proper place (in classic story structure that First Plot Point can arrive anywhere from the 20th to 25th percentile; variances on either end of that range puts the story at risk for very specific reasons), you can now think of your hero as a…

Wanderer – the hero’s initial reactions to the First Plot Point (chandelier impact), which comprise the first half of Act 2 (or the second of the four “parts” of a story).  The First Plot Point is the moment the story clicks in for real (everything prior to it was essentially part of a set-up for it), because the source of the story’s conflict, until now foreshadowed or only partially in play, has now summoned the hero to react.  That reaction can be described as “wandering” through options along a new path, such as running, hiding, striking back, seeking information, surrendering, writing their congressman, encountering a fuller awareness of what they’re up against, or just plain getting into deeper water from a position of cluelessness and/or some level of helplessness.

But sooner or later, if nothing else than to escalate the pace of the story (because your hero can’t remain either passive or in victim-mode for too long), your hero must evolve from a Wanderer into a…

Warrior – using information and awareness and a learning curve (i.e, when the next chandelier drops, duck), as delivered via the Midpoint turn of the story.  The Midpoint (that’s a literal term, by the way) changes the context of the story for both the reader and the hero (from wanderer into warrior-mode), because here is where a curtain has been drawn back to give us new/more specific information – machinations, reveals, explanations, true identities, deeper motives, etc. – that alter the nature of the hero’s decisions and actions from that point forward, turning them from passive or clueless toward becoming more empowered, resulting in a more proactive attack on whatever blocks their path or threatens.  Which is often, but not always, a villain.

But be careful here.  While your hero is getting deeper into the fight here in Part 3, take care to not show much success at this point (the villain is ramping things up, as well, in response to your hero’s new boldness).  The escalated action and tension and confrontation of the Part 3 quartile (where, indeed, the tension is thicker than ever before) is there to create new story dynamics that will set up a final showdown just around the corner.

That’s where, in the fourth and final quartile, the protagonist becomes, in essence, a…

Martyr (Pearson’s term)/hero – launching a final quest or heading down a path that will ultimately lead to the climactic resolution of the story.  This should be a product of the hero’s catalytic decisions and actions (in other words, heroes shouldn’t be saved, rather, they should be the primary architect of the resolution), usually necessitating machinations and new dynamics (remember Minny’s “chocolate” pie in The Help?), which ramp up to facilitate that climactic moment.

This is where character arc becomes a money shot.  Because by now everything you’ve put the hero through has contributed to a deep well of empathy and emotion on the reader’s part.  This is where the crowd cheers or hearts break or history is altered, where villains are vanquished and a new day dawns.

Larry Brooks—November 2, 2015

***

  1. As Joe asked, “is physical beauty, in particular, central to creating an appealing main character?”
  2. Do you have a favorite type of supporting character AKA second banana? Personally, I love a great sidekick. Do you have a second banana of any of the type’s Kris listed from your own fiction you’d like to share?
  3. Do you agree that a fictional hero can go through a sequence of roles over the course of a novel or movie? Any thoughts on Larry’s mapping that to four-act structure?

Reader Friday-Caption This!

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Don’t you just love playing with words and ideas? I do! As authors, one skill we work hard to develop is using words that evoke pictures in the readers’ minds. This morning, let’s flip that around a bit, and use a picture to evoke words. Photographers and painters are masters at that, right?

There’s a game going around social media called Caption This! I thought it’d be fun for us to compete this morning, and come up with some original captions for this picture.

Caption This!

 

 

Go ahead. Stare at it for awhile and let your creative juices flow. What is this image saying to you?

 

 

 

 

What Good Are Your Cracks?

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Some days, I sit down to write and wonder what the hell I’m doing.

The words don’t flow. The structure feels off. My confidence has left the building and is probably sitting at a pub somewhere ordering beer, wings, and nachos without me.

You’d think after years in law enforcement, forensics, and now crime writing, I’d be bulletproof by now—impervious to self-doubt and rejection. But nope. There are days I feel like a cracked pot.

And that, my fellow Kill Zoners, brings me to a story I want to share with you. It’s an old one. A quiet one. But it says everything a writer needs to hear.

The Story of the Cracked Pot

There was an old man who lived in a village in India. Every morning, he would place a long stick across his back, hang a water pot from each end, and walk several miles to the river to get fresh water for his family.

But the two water pots were not the same. One had a series of small cracks in its side, causing it to leak.

The old man would fill both pots at the river, but by the time he got back to his home, the cracked pot would be half empty, the water having leaked out during the walk.

The cracked pot grew increasingly ashamed of its inability to complete the task for which it was made. One day, while the old man filled the two pots at the river, the cracked pot spoke to him.

“I’m sorry. I’m so embarrassed that I cannot fulfill my responsibilities as well as the other pot.”

The old man smiled and replied, “On the walk home today, rather than hanging your head in shame, I want you to look up at the side of the path.”

The cracked pot reluctantly agreed to do as the old man asked. As they left the riverbank and started on the path, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

On his side of the path was a beautiful row of flowers.

“You see,” the old man said, “I’ve always known you had those cracks, so I planted flower seeds along your side of the path. Each day, your cracks helped me water them. And now, I pick these flowers to share their beauty with the entire village.”

We All Leak a Little

That story gets me every time.

Because if you’ve ever tried to create something from nothing, to sit at a keyboard and bring life to characters who don’t exist yet, then you know what it means to question your usefulness. You know what it feels like to compare yourself to someone else’s perfect pot—and wonder why your own words keep leaking out, incomplete, imperfect, maybe even irrelevant.

But what if your cracks are the very thing that make your writing beautiful?

What if the years you spent doubting yourself taught you empathy—and now your characters breathe with it?

What if the rejections, the self-edits, the tough critiques… what if those watered something beside the path you just haven’t noticed yet?

I’m not here to hand you a participation ribbon or pat your head and say, “You’re special.” You already know writing is hard. It takes guts. It takes sitting with discomfort and pushing through.

But I am here to tell you that those imperfections you think are holding you back?

They’re feeding the flowers.

Keep Leaking

Maybe your story structure feels like a mess. Maybe your plot sagged in Act Two and hasn’t recovered. Maybe someone told you you’d never make it—and part of you believed them.

Here’s what I want you to remember.

There is no perfect pot.

Even the bestselling author you admire struggles with the page. Even the literary genius has doubt gnawing at the back of their brain. The difference is, they kept walking the path. Cracks and all.

And if you do the same—keep showing up, keep pouring yourself into the process, keep leaking a little water every day—you’ll be amazed at what grows.

You don’t have to be flawless to be useful. You don’t have to be brilliant to be beautiful. And you sure as hell don’t need to write like anyone else to make an impact.

You just need to walk your path.

Let the seeds you’ve planted over the years—your discipline, your voice, your scars, your strange and wonderful perspective—be watered by your imperfections.

Keep writing.

You have no idea how many flowers are blooming because of you.

Kill Zoners – Show us your cracks.

Plot As A Utility

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By John Gilstrap

Today’s Killzone post will reappear as a handout in a couple of weeks at the end of a panel entitled, “Settings and Secrets” at the always-terrific Creatures, Crimes and Creativity conference in the Washington, DC suburb of Columbia, Maryland. Here’s the setup, what the moderator has sent to us:

This weekend I researched “setting in novels” and found the following varying, although accurate depending on one’s viewpoint, definitions:
  • The setting of a story is defined as the time, duration, and place an author chooses to write about.
  • The four types of setting are: physical, social, historical, and psychological.
  • The five types of setting in fiction: realistic setting, fantasy setting, science fiction setting, historical fiction setting, contemporary setting.
  • The core elements of setting are time, place, mood, context.
  • There are three different kinds of story setting: temporal, environmental, and individual.

As a self-schooled pantser who’s seen considerable success in the novel writing business over the past three decades, the one rule I preach the loudest to anyone who will listen is that there are no rules in the world of fiction. When I see definitions assigned to the elements of creativity, I feel my jaws lock. Then, when a hard number is assigned to those elements, I growl. Creativity defies numerical value, and I think it’s a mistake to set struggling writers’ minds wandering on a journey down that road.

Stories are about interesting characters doing interesting things in interesting places in interesting ways. There you have the traditionally accepted three elements of story: character, plot and setting. But they are not separate elements and they cannot be addressed separately. (Okay, that sounded like a rule–but it’s what works for me.)

Setting, per se, in most modern fiction, is important only to the degree that it establishes the place where scenes unfold, since every scene has to happen somewhere. All else being equal, a scene that occurs in an interesting location is inherently more engaging than a scene that occurs in an uninteresting one. Rocket science, right?

The secret sauce in making a setting pop lies in its presentation. I believe in filtering everything through the perceptions of a character with enough detail to orient the reader, but without so much description as to stop the action of the story. I like to stay with suggestive terms that let readers fill in their own blanks.

Irene crossed the threshold into a marble monument to money and poor taste. The footprint of the foyer equaled that of her first house, with pink veined walls that climbed thirty feet to an arched ceiling adorned with images of mostly-naked cherubs swimming through the heavens. Twenty feet straight ahead, at the head of the first flight of the grand staircase, at the spot where the risers split to form a giant Y, stood a stone carving of Carl Adams himself, dressed as Caesar, and looking far more fit than Irene imagined Carl had ever been.

In my mind, as a thriller writer, that setting is a utility for the future. Yes, it’s the place where the rest of the scene unfolds, but note that there’s no detail on the type of marble or on what the cherubs are really doing. There’s a dismissiveness to the tone of the description that lets the reader know that Irene is not a fan without having to actually articulate the fact.

Note that I said the setting was a utility. It’s a storytelling tool. It’s a leverage point for advancing plot or character. In my head, that foyer with the statue seems like a great place for a climactic gunfight, but because I truly am a pantser–I write without knowing what’s coming next–I don’t yet know if the story will take me back around to the mansion to make it happen.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I decide that I do want a big scene of violence in the mansion and I want it to involve the structure being on fire. Well, okay, no big deal. Since marble doesn’t burn, I would go back to the description of money and poor taste and replace that veined marble with mahogany and ebony. Maybe there are vaulted wooden beams and the statue becomes something tasteless in the vein of a cigar store Indian. That would make a great fire. If that was that was the way I went, then I’d have to plant something in the setting that would provide a means of escape for my heroes.

In my stories, setting serves the character and the plot, and is the easiest element to mold to every other component of good storytelling. Depending on your genre and you character, be mindful of the level of detail. If your character is lost in the woods, is he going to be noticing the difference between pin oaks and live oaks and white oaks and red oaks? Or even the difference between oaks and maples? Hardwoods versus evergreens, maybe?

The key questions for you as the writer are, do your descriptions of setting advance both the plot and the character without upsetting the pacing? That’s the test.

Story Structure: The Case For Building A Ranch, Not A Tri-Level

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By PJ Parrish

A couple weeks ago, I posted about a writer who was having problems taming her backstory beast. Click here to review. She was really struggling because she was beginning to realize she actually had TWO main plots but one was disguising itself as backstory.

It got me thinking about simple story structure. Which is never really simple.

Simple explanation: Story structure (also known as narrative structure or plot structure) is a way of ordering all of the events in your book. Every story has a beginning, middle and end.

Not so simple part: There are myriad ways you can present your events in a story. And that’s what got my writer friend in trouble. She was having a really hard time figuring out how to structure her story. I suspect many of you out there have fought the same battle.

I often think of plot structure as architecture. There are countless ways to build a house. You can have a simple ranch. This is your basic whodunit, thriller or romance with a solid linear plot. You go in the door and progress easily through the rooms. It might be a small ranch house; it might be a grand one. But it is always built to lead you through with logic, harmony and balance. Call it fictional feng shui.

COTE DE TEXAS: Total Renovation for a 1960's Houston Ranchburger

You can have a three-story filigreed French colonial. Twisting subplots, big cast of characters, high intrigue, multiple points of view, complex time-shifting narrative, unreliable narrators, multiple suspects. (James Ellroy’s LA Confidental comes to mind) See photo below!

French Colonial Architecture | French Colonial House Design Style

Then there are the butt-ugly houses. Maybe they started out as a basic ranch but the writer lost control and start just tacking on action scenes, distracting subplots, and dumb secondary characters, hoping this would dazzle readers and hide the sad fact that the writer didn’t really know what the hell they are trying to say to begin with. (See this mess below)

When Bad Additions Happen to Good Homes

Or sometimes, writers can’t figure out what KIND of book they’re writing. They deperately mix sub-genres (am I writing a a cozy or hardbioled? Should I give my hero a girlfriend? Maybe he needs a dog who helps him solve cases!) and they end up with something like this:

r/CrappyDesign - This monstrosity of a house in my town.

And then there are the tri-level builders. This is where I see writers mostly fail. You remember these houses from the 50s and 60s. You go in the door but you can’t decide whether to go up, down or sideways. Is that the basement or the rec room? And where the hell is the john? This, I think, is what happened to my writer. She had two main plots, a couple subplots and she just couldn’t figure out the best way to get in the door.  1960's Split Level Renovation - Contemporary - Atlanta - by Pythoge Custom Homes and Renovations | Houzz

I love ranch houses. They are simple, linear, and you can’t fall down the stairs or get lost in them. For all you scholarly crime dogs out there, this basic ranch house plot structure has a fancy name —  The Fichtean Curve. John Gardner usually gets credit for this in his 1983 book The Art of Fiction. But this sturdy structure has been basis for countless novels, especially commercial fiction.

The Fichtean Curve: Examples of This Basic Plot Structure

Let’s break down the architecture. (I’m going to rely on Jaws as my example, because it’s a basic thriller plot that all of you know.)

Step 1: Rising Action

The story starts with some kind of inciting incident. What our own James calls a break in the norm. A murder, an abduction, a crisis of some kind that gets the narrative ball rolling. In Jaws, in the opening scene, a skinnydipping girl is devoured by a shark on Amity Island.

The main character has to WANT something. (to solve the case, save the child, catch the serial killer. And the WANT relates, in the best fiction, to some inner conflict for the hero. In Jaws, Chief Brody needs to figure out how to catch the serial killer shark.

The plot progresses through a series of crises wherein the protag faces set-backs that raise the stakes and things become more personal to the protag. In Jaws, Brody faces myriad obstacles, including the dumb mayor, free-lancing yahoos in skiffs, his own fear of water, and eventually the Ahab-ian shark-hunter Quint. Quint also represents one of the most effective tension-creating devices in rising action — a riff in the team.

Step 2: the Climax

Rinsing action is the bulk of your structure, but the climax is the apex. It could be a final battle or confrontation, a big reveal or giant plot twist. In Jaws, of course, the climax builds as the Orca slowly gets destroyed, Quint gets eaten, Hooper is lost, and Brody becomes isolated on the sinking mast, praying his last bullet will hit its target. Which it does in spectacular fashion.

The Shark Is Broken: Jaws feud was 'legendary'

Step 3: Falling Action

Also called the denouement. The bad guy is vanquished. The child is saved. The case is solved. We get to take a well-earned breath. Any plot loose ends are wrapped up. (Although not all stories have an extended falling action. Jaws’s denouement is brief.) But beyond tying things up, the purpose of falling action is also to give you the writer an opportunity to emphasize the theme of your story, and stress how the hero has been impacted.  It’s not how the detective works the case. It’s how the case works on the detective.

One last point, because I’ve gone long here today. There are many other ways to structure your story. And depending on how firm your grasp is on your craft, you might be comfortable with more complex architecture. We can talk about that another day.  But when it doubt, bet it all on the ranch.

 

Revisited: Can Writers Lose Their Fingerprints?

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This subject arose again when I was trying to log into a device with fingerprint technology. I hadn’t used the device for a few years, so I had no clue of the password. And since the technology couldn’t get a good scan of my fingerprints, it remains locked.

Ah, well.

Thankfully, my iPhone uses facial recognition software. There may be a way to break into the locked device through my phone… if I recall why I wanted into it in the first place. Sigh.

If it sounds like I need some R&R, you’re right. Hence why I plan to head south and unplug till Wednesday. Still might work on my passion project WIP in between play dates with chickens, crows, and fur-babies.

In a recent chat with Jordan, she mentioned that when she went for her TSA pre-check ID for her trip, they couldn’t detect her digital fingerprints.

They said, since she spent so much time at a computer keyboard as a writer, she’s deteriorated her ridge detail.

Could this be true of all professional writers?

As you might have guessed, this question sent me down a rabbit hole of research, because I’ve had trouble with my iPhone’s digital fingerprint scan. It only recognizes my thumbprint, not any other finger. Which I figured was just a glitch with the phone. Now, I’m not so sure.

Before we can prove or disprove TSA’s conclusion, we first need to know the basics.

What is a fingerprint?

A fingerprint is a pattern of friction ridge details, comprised of ridges and valleys. A ridge is a high point, a valley is a depression or low point. Friction ridges are also found on our palms, feet, and toes. “Pattern” equals the unique characteristics of the ridges and valleys that make up the print, defined by the spatial relationship of multiple lines, their beginning and terminating points, and the unique pattern they create.

Each ridge contains tiny pores connected to sweat glands beneath the skin. When we touch an object, sweat and oils release from these pores and leave behind a print, latent or visible. The genes from our parents determine the general characteristics of the pattern.

 

Fun fact: Like human fingerprints, a dog’s nose has a unique identifiable pattern. In fact, many dog clubs now keep nose prints on file.

If you’d like to learn how to print your dog’s nose, see this post. 🙂

 

 

Sir Francis Galton was the first person to classify fingerprints into different types based on the three basic features: loops, arches, and whorls. Learn more about points, types, and classifications HERE.

Fingerprints form before birth and remain unchanged until the body decomposes after death.

There are two exceptions to “remain unchanged”…

If, say, someone sliced the tip of their finger with a knife, it may leave behind a scar. But then, their fingerprint would be even more distinguishable because of that scar.

Along similar lines, severe burns can also damage the deep layers of skin and obliterate the ridge detail. However, much like the knife injury, the scars that form would become the injured party’s unique identifiers.

The other exception has to do with the elderly. As we age, we lose skin elasticity, which may affect ridge detail. The fingerprints become wider; the spaces between the ridges narrower. Even though the fingerprint still exists, fingerprint technology may find it more difficult to detect.

Can someone be born without fingerprints?

In a few rare cases, yes. One condition called adermatoglyphia — also known as “immigration delay disease” — can result in a child being born without fingerprints. In some cases, these infants have almost no other health issues. In other cases, this condition could cause skin abnormalities, including tiny white bumps on the face, blistering of the skin, and/or a lack of sweat glands. Adermatoglyphia has only been documented in four families worldwide.

Naegeli Syndrome is another rare condition that halts the production of fingerprints in utero. Said syndrome is characterized by reticular skin pigmentation (meaning, mottled, purplish, and lace-like splotches), diminished function of the sweat glands, and the absence of teeth. Individuals with Naegeli Syndrome have sweat gland abnormalities. Not only do they lack fingerprints but they also suffer from heat intolerance due to a decrease or total inability to sweat.

Do Twins Have the Same Fingerprints?

No. Twins do not have identical fingerprints. Our prints are as unique as snowflakes. Actually, we have a 1 in 64 billion chance of having the same fingerprints as someone else.

Sci-fi writers could potentially take advantage of these odds, but it’d be tricky to pull off.

Who’s most at risk for losing their fingerprints?

Patients undergoing chemotherapy — such as capecitabine (Xeloda), for example — are most at risk. With prolonged use of this medication, the finger-pad skin can become inflamed, swollen, and damaged to the point of erasing the ridge detail, according to DP Lyle, MD, author of Forensics for Dummies. Chemotherapy may also cause severe peeling of the palms and soles of the feet. The medical term for this condition is called Hand-Foot Syndrome.

Skin diseases like scleroderma, psoriasis, and eczema also have the potential to obliterate the ridge pattern.

Which professions cause the most damage to fingerprints?

Bricklayers and other heavy manual laborers can wear down their fingerprint ridges to the point where no pattern is visible. Secretaries and file clerks who handle paper all day can have a similar thing occur. Typists (Writers!) and piano players can suffer the same alterations. Hairstylists, dry cleaning workers, and those who work with lime (calcium oxide) are often exposed to chemicals that dissolve the upper layers of the skin, thereby flattening the ridge detail.

So, to answer our initial question, was TSA correct?

Yes! Pounding on the keyboard can wear away a writer’s fingerprints.

How might the lack of fingerprints cause problems?

Losing one’s prints can cause issues with crossing international borders and even logging on to certain computer systems.

Fortunately, fingerprint technology is always evolving and improving.

As more and more careers require hours of keyboard time, someday retinal scanners, facial recognition, and voice prints will replace the current technology.

Have you ever been told you have no digital fingerprints? Have you experienced any problems with fingerprint technology?

Happy Labor Day! Can you believe it’s September already? Where’d that summer go?

Don’t Leave Out the Good Stuff

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

It’s First Page Critique time. Here we go:

THE END OF THE SUMMER

TEN YEARS AGO

November. The rain started first thing that morning and Marc Newman listened to the fat drops splatter against the window panes. He sat at his desk, diddling with a pencil, watching the rain and ruminating. She was still on his mind. About nine-thirty the Sheriff and two deputies knocked on the front door. They were there to arrest him for murder. He had been expecting them for months.

He didn’t resist and didn’t say anything.

At the Sheriff’s office, Newman endured the fingerprinting, photographing his mug shot, and watching a deputy type up the arrest form. He was allowed to call his attorney, Harold deLuca.

That afternoon, he was taken from his cell to an interview room. A woman introduced herself as Assistant District Attorney Melonie Edgars.

He wondered why deLuca wasn’t there.  

She told Newman that he was being charged with the first degree murder of Lya Marie Reynolds. She wanted him to sign a paper indicating he understood his rights under Miranda v Arizona. He didn’t respond to her request.

“Mr. Newman, I’m here as a courtesy. We already have enough evidence on you to put in prison for the rest of your life. This is your chance to get your story on the record and that might help you during your trial. Tell me what happened on August 13th of this year.”

“I’d rather wait for my attorney to get here before I answer any of your questions.”

Edgars leaned back and sighed. “Guilty people always say that. Are you guilty of murder, Mr. Newman?”

He wanted to tell her to go screw herself but remained quiet instead.

“Did you know Lya Reynolds?”

He said nothing.

“She was only three weeks from her sixteenth birthday when you murdered her. Did you know that?   Her sweet sixteen. Turned out to be pretty bitter for her didn’t it.”

He looked away.

“Did you know she was pregnant when she was murdered?”

A tear rolled down Newman’s cheek. He didn’t try to wipe it away.

Edgars laid out several eight by ten glossy prints. “These were taken when we found her body. It was a vicious attack. Only someone who really hated her could have done this.   Look at them Mr. Newman. Look at what you did.”

“I . . . I, huh.” Newman gulped for air.   “I didn’t do this.”

“You’re a liar, Mr. Newman. And I can prove it.”

JSB: Writer, we have some work to do. Let’s roll up our sleeves.

Give Us the Good Stuff

There are two ways to render action on the page—scene and summary. A scene is showing us what’s happening in real time. Summary is telling us what happened.

In Stein on Writing, Sol Stein explains:

Narrative summary is the recounting of what happens offstage, out of the reader’s sight and hearing, a scene that is told rather than shown.

An immediate scene happens in front of the reader, is visible, and therefore filmable. That’s an important test. If you can’t film a scene, it is not immediate. Theatre, a truly durable art, consists almost entirely of immediate scenes.

Just as every form of writing that is expected to be read with pleasure moves away from abstraction, every form of pleasurable writing benefits from conveying as much as possible before the eye, onstage rather than offstage.

The first half of your submission is all summary. Summary does not grab or engage. In fact, it should only be used to transition from one scene to another. Let’s say a guy has to leave his house and drive to the office. Unless the character is going to get into an accident, get shot at, or find a snake in his car, just write: John stormed out of the house and drove to the office.

But when there’s real conflict, real purpose, do not summarize it. Here, you open with a fellow getting arrested, taken to the station, and booked. All that is fodder for suspense, tension, worry. But you can’t create any of that in summary form.

She told Newman that he was being charged with the first degree murder of Lya Marie Reynolds. She wanted him to sign a paper indicating he understood his rights under Miranda v Arizona. He didn’t respond to her request.

Again, summary. Give us the good stuff! Interrogation scenes, like courtroom scenes, carry conflict by definition. Show show show!

All that being said…an author with a strong narrative voice can open with summary, as in To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), or with description, as in The Time It Never Rained (Elmer Kelton). Just know it takes some real wordsmithing to pull that off in a way that draws readers in.

Research the Good Stuff

We’ve got a lot of work to do here. The scene is implausible and needs the help of an expert (see Terry’s recent post and the comments). When you write about legal procedure and courtrooms, you need to nail the details (which often differ depending on state and local settings).

Our trouble starts with this: Here’s a guy who is suspected of murdering a pregnant teenager. The DA has “enough evidence” to put him away. How is this guy not in the clink? If the DA is involved and the case is heading for trial, that means there’s been an arrest, a booking and an indictment.

So we have the booking, and he watches a deputy “type up” the arrest form. Even ten years ago I doubt typewriters were used for this. Everything is computerized. And they wouldn’t let the suspect sit there and watch. He’d be in a cell. If he wants to call his lawyer, there’s usually a phone in a semi-private area they’ll allow a suspect to use.

As to the questioning itself, no ADA is going to tell a defendant she’s there to help him with his trial. Indeed, this ADA would not be talking to Newman at all because he has not signed a Miranda waiver and he’s asked for his attorney to be present before questioning. And yet the ADA goes on with her interrogation. She should be disbarred.

Perhaps you are setting up a later court hearing where the statements are thrown out by a judge. Most readers aren’t going to buy that. After years of Law and Order and myriad other TV shows and movies, we are well aware of Miranda and its meaning.

Side note: Unfortunately, there is a legal clinker on every episode of Law and Order. Whenever the detectives slap on the bracelets they immediately advise, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say…” Etc.

Problem is, in real life police do not give Miranda at the point of arrest. Miranda only comes into play when they begin to interrogate the suspect. Indeed, if the suspect starts mouthing off or says something incriminating on the way to the station, those statements are admissible in court. The cops want them to talk.

The bad effect of this trope is that some readers will object if you write the scene correctly. I enjoyed this thriller, but the author makes a huge mistake. When the police arrest Alan they do not read him his rights! How can the author not know that? 

That’s why, in my thrillers, if someone’s arrested I include a line or two, or an internal thought explaining the actual procedure.

End of rant side note.

Write the Good Beats, Cut the Useless Ones

A useless beat is redundant and makes a sentence flabby:

He wanted to tell her to go screw herself but remained quiet instead.

“Did you know Lya Reynolds?”

He said nothing.

We don’t have to be told he remained quiet instead. It’s obvious from the action.

He wanted to tell her to go screw herself.

“Did you know Lya Reynolds?”

He said nothing.

Reads better, doesn’t it?

Further, emotional beats need to be woven into the fabric of the scene in a plausible fashion.

“She was only three weeks from her sixteenth birthday when you murdered her. Did you know that?   Her sweet sixteen. Turned out to be pretty bitter for her didn’t it.”

He looked away.

“Did you know she was pregnant when she was murdered?”

A tear rolled down Newman’s cheek. He didn’t try to wipe it away.

It’s much too sudden for a tear to roll. It’s only been seconds from He wanted to tell her to go screw herself. What we’re missing are the beats where the inner turmoil heats up enough to start the waterworks.

How you write this depends on what you’re doing with the character. Did he do it? Is he feeling remorse? Or is this human pity for a victim of foul play? Whatever the answer, we need more to justify whatever he’s feeling, especially when it’s the opposite of what he felt a few seconds ago.

One minor note: You’re using the old-school double space after a period. No longer done.

Assignments

  1. Rewrite this opening without any narrative summary. Present-moment scene only. Put the good stuff in.
  2. Do your research on arrests, criminal referrals, and in-custody interrogations.
  3. Read the first chapter of Michael Connelly’s The Last Coyote. Bosch is on involuntary stress leave and forced into a counseling session with a police psychologist. It’s twelve-pages long. That’s how it’s done.

Let’s help the writer out further in the comments.

Camping and Writing Go Hand in Hand

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I’ve been an outdoorsman all my life, and camping has always been an integral part of those experiences. I’ve slept on the ground with nothing but a blanket over me and an ocean of stars stretching from horizon to horizon. I was sick that frosty night in South Dakota, and full of fever, which limited movement to only my eyeballs. Everything else hurt. Propped up against a fallen log, I could do nothing but watch the Milky Way.

I think it healed me in a way no drugs could have touched.

I’ve slept in the back of a pickup truck, wrapped in a sleeping bag, and in a canvas tent so hot the July humidity drove me out onto a concrete picnic table that felt better than any five star hotel bed. One night beside a gurgling stream, I retreated to save my life, chased there by a million mosquitoes determined so suck every drop of blood from my body. As the sun settled below the pine treetops, I peeked out the door flap and realized it wasn’t as dark as I thought. The yellow nylon was so thick with those little winged vampires, the sunset in reality was a living horde of insects.

As the years passed, we owned pop-up trailers, small campers, Class C campers, bumper pull campers, and 36-foot fifty-wheel that was larger than my first apartment. They’ve all been a learning experience, and the memories we’ve shared in those shelters still come up in pleasant recollections.

The Bride and I have pulled off into national forest campgrounds and spent both hot and cold nights in the back of our conversion van. We’ve cooked over hardwood fires, charcoal, small pump-up backpacking stoves, Coleman stoves, and even over the heat of a homemade stove made from a tin can.

It’s been so cold, that our water froze in the tent with us, so humid the breeze from a passing hummingbird felt good, and so hot we couldn’t rest. There was one sultry night in East Texas where we lay in pools of sweat, laughing at the symphony of tiny frogs that sang until an agreed-upon moment when they paused for a buffalo-size bullfrog to croke one deep bass note, and then the music continued.

So why are you telling us all this on a writer’s blog?

Because writing is much the same. You’ve found what you like doing, and that’s creating worlds that either don’t exist, or are based on a character you developed from firing synapses.

Many writers search for that magic formula to help them get words on paper and create the Great American Novel. It’s the same as what I described above, experiments and experiences that finally solidify into your own personal recipe. We all have, or had, our idea of what a writer’s life might be like, and it usually isn’t what we’ve seen on television or in the movies.

On Thursday night, the Bride and I attended a wine tasting fundraiser for my old alma mater, and I was introduced to a former Texas senator who has donated a gamebird research facility to determine while bobwhite quail numbers have dropped to alarming numbers in the past thirty or forty years. They’re working hard to bring them back to our state, and as I discussed my recent visit to the Lyon Center for Gamebird Research, he asked about being an author.

“Do you get up and write every morning?”

How many times have we heard that? “I try to write at least five pages every day. It sometimes comes early, at noon, or whenever I can find the right time to sit down and work.”

I didn’t tell him it was because I found what works for me, and what I enjoy.

A few months ago I had a long talk with a fellow bestselling author who hit the market like dynamite with her first novel. As our conversation meandered down unfamiliar trails or the same old paths authors follow when they get together, we discussed how far our manuscripts progressed in a single day. She was awed by my output, see above, and shook her head.

“I do good to write a single paragraph in a day. Sometimes I lock up on a single word and it takes forever to find the right one.”

Fine, then. That’s her working day, but like the camping discussion above (see, here’s that page a day thing), everyone is different. The only truth is that we all aspects of this world in different ways, and in terms of writing, we all have different goals. Just be inspired.

I’ve written newspaper columns on a yellow legal pad in front of a tent as lightning moved across the valley below. My best day of writing so far was one day in a 36’ fifth-wheel as rain thundered on the roof and it was impossible to go outside. It’s not where or how I produced my books, it’s the fact that I found a comfort zone somewhere that spoke to me.

There are hundreds of books on how to be a successful author out there. Read them if you want, but find the process speaks to you and follow that unexplored road, just the way the Bride and I experimented with camping, be it good or bad.

Find your comfortable place and get that first draft finished. At least put down page a day, but even that’s not for everyone. Then agonize over the post production, if you want or need to, in a figurative four-star hotel somewhere.

Quit talking about it, and over-thinking the process, and write.

Reader Friday-Those Characters Who Charm Us

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We talk a lot about characters here at TKZ.

  • Development of said.
  • Protagonists vs. antagonists.
  • Relationship-building.
  • What makes them tick.

 

But what about those characters in books and movies who are usually in a supporting role, waiting in the wings to charm us, perplex us, and teach us? I’m talking about those other species of characters–the non-human ones.

 

Here’s mine…

 

 

Real charmers, these two!

 

 

 

TKZers: What (or who) is your favorite non-human character in book or movie? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

True Crime Thursday – “Insider’s” Jury Duty Scam

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by Debbie Burke

Jury duty scams have been around for a couple of decades. Despite frequent warnings by law enforcement, the FBI, and consumer protection groups, jury duty scams continue to snare people. According to the FTC, last year they cost victims an estimated $790 million.

Scammers send an email or text message that looks as if it originates from a court. The notice claims you didn’t appear for jury duty as ordered.

Contacts are also made by phone with the caller claiming to be a U.S. Marshal. The caller ID appears genuine from a real court number. However, the number is spoofed.  

The email, text, or phone call threatens arrest unless you immediately pay a fine.

They demand payment by gift card, wire transfer, or other suspicious methods. 

All these payment forms have one thing in common: any money you send disappears into the scammer’s hands, untraceable and never to be recovered.  

Today’s True Crime Thursday case has a twist: the accused scammer sent the demand from inside a Georgia prison.

In January of this year, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Tampa, Florida, indicted Anthony Sanders  (AKA “Slanga”), 28, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud in the case of a Sarasota, Florida woman who was scammed out of more than $12,000 in a jury duty fraud. Also indicted was Sanders’ suspected accomplice, Marlita Andrews, 28, of Macon, Georgia.

According to the complaint, Sanders used an illegally-obtained cell phone to call the victim from inside the prison where he’s incarcerated. He purportedly claimed to be a U.S. Marshal and told the woman she needed to immediately pay a fine for missing jury duty or she would be arrested. He allegedly instructed her to go to a “Bonding Transition Center” and deposit $12,000 in cash to the machine.

Despite an official-sounding name, there is no such thing as a “bonding transition center.” The machine was in fact a bitcoin ATM used to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.

After the victim deposited the money, it was routed to a bitcoin wallet Andrews owned, then quickly transferred to other accounts and disappeared. 

Sanders reportedly instructed Andrews to buy pre-paid cell phones that were illegally smuggled by drone into the prison and directed her where to send the profits.  

The FTC warns that scammers sound convincing because they often know personal details about victims like date of birth, social security number, and home address.

Because of the epidemic of cyberhacking and identity theft, unfortunately our personal information is widely available on the dark web.

Courts use postal mail to make their initial contact about jury duty, NOT text or email. They may later communicate electronically but usually only after setting up a password-protected account. 

If you receive an email, text, or phone call from someone claiming to be a marshal, verify the communication by going to the court’s official website. Do NOT click on links or attachments in the email or text. Report suspected fraud to law enforcement.

If convicted, Sanders and Andrews face up to 20 years in prison. At least Sanders won’t be inconvenienced by moving since he’s already there.

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TKZers – have you or someone you know been targeted by the jury duty scam?

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Book Binge Bundle Coming Soon! Books 1-3 in the Tawny Lindholm Thriller series will soon be available in a box set! Three full novels for only $7.99. A lotta thrills for a low price.