By John Gilstrap

Big Brother breathed on my neck yesterday, and I confess it gave me a serious case of the willies. There’s some movie stuff going on that can can’t discuss in detail yet, but it all looks very promising. Extended email exchanges last week culminated in a 4-person Zoom call yesterday afternoon (for me, morning for the other three) that was essentially an opportunity for us all to get to know each other and share some creative ideas.

I’m old school about timeliness (on time is five minutes too late), so at 12:55 I follow the Zoom link and I wait in the virtual waiting room until our host, Cory, opens the meeting. At the top of the hour, the screen blinks, and there’s the Brady Bunch Zoom screen with my face, plus three others from the production team. As we’re about to say hello, a fifth window opens, announcing itself to be me and saying, “Recording.”

“Whoa,” I said. “What’s that?”

“It says it’s you, so I let it in,” Cory said. “I figured you wanted to record the conversation.”

“I don’t mind if you want to record,” said Josh, the director. “I’ve never done that, but I don’t mind.”

“It’s not me,” I said. “I have no idea where it came from. Can you dump it from the meeting?”

“Maybe it’s the Russians,” Adrian, the producer, joked.

After some more cross-talk, Cory found the dump button, and the intruder was excluded from the call. The meeting went well.

That would be creepy enough. But then, I found this in my email, sent to me by Otter.AI:

During a Zoom call, Cory XXX and others discuss an unexpected recording request, initially thought to be from John. There is concern about the presence of Russian hackers and the privacy implications of the recording. Cory suggests exiting and rejoining the meeting to address these concerns. Despite the unease, they decide to proceed, as there are no significant secrets to protect. Cory then instructs to remove an AI note-taker associated with John from the meeting, indicating a preference for transparency and control over the recording process.

But that’s not all. The email goes on to present a more detailed summary of the part of the discussion it listened to, and then there’s a link to the actual recording.

Has anyone else experienced the uninvited arrival of AI bots in their business lives? At least this one had the decency to announce itself before recording, but when I put on my thriller writer hat, it’s easy to see a world where that won’t be necessary.

The creepiest part of it all isn’t the recording, actually. It’s the narrative summary of the recording that freaks me out. Now I have to figure out how to make sure that Otter.AI doesn’t bother me again.

There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer. — Ansel Adams

By PJ Parrish

Got a lot on the brain today: So the time has come to talk of many things: Of slip-on shoes, Scottish ships and ceiling whacks — of cabbage-heads and kings.

Shoes? I have to decde whether getting a pair of Skecher slip-ons will make me look like I’ve given up and am content to slip into old bat-hood.

Scottish ships? I’m just glad Jamie and Claire are heading back to Scotland because the last season of Outlander begins soon and I miss the moors and half-naked men in kilts.

Ceiling whacks? I have to find someone who can repair my bathroom ceiling because the plumber poked a giant hole in it while trying to fix the toilet. (Don’t ask).

Cabbage heads and kings? Politics….nope. We don’t go there here.

But politics is my jumping off point today. I was reading a column by David Brooks the other day wherein he posed an interesting question about election campaigns that relates to us novelists: How do you keep an audience’s attention?

Here at TKZ, we talk often about how a book is divided into acts. We all know how crucial it is to capture a reader’s attention early and set up Act. 1. We all know how easy it is to get bogged down and lose our way in Act. 2. We all know how horrible it is to get to that Act 3 and realize we’re barreling toward a plot abyss.

David Brooks suggests campaigns have a similar structure. So he asked novelists and screenwriters, how they do it. How do they build momentum and keep audiences in their grip? The answers were illuminating.

Playwright David Mamet says that no one tunes in to watch information — they crave drama. What is drama? Mamet: “It is the quest of the hero to overcome those things which prevent him from achieving a specific acute goal.”

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin tells us that a fictional hero, like a good campaigner, must be seized by a strong, specific desire and they need to face a really big obstacle. A hero/campaigner also needs a clear and compelling plot. Here is the threat. Here is where we’re going. Here is what (me, the hero) is going to do about it.

Brooks then cites Christopher Booker’s book Seven Basic Plots. Booker writes that there are only a handful of iconic storylines in fiction — and in real life.

1. Overcoming the Monster.
2. Rags to Riches.
3. The Quest.
4. Voyage and Return.
5. Rebirth.
6. Comedy.
7. Tragedy.

He then links these plots to politicians, saying that a good politician tells a story about himself or herself. They create narratives that propell their campaign forward and help them connect with audiences. (Remember Mamet’s words: drama = good. information = boring)

Allow me one brief political aside: Brooks gives several examples of politicians who found their “plots.” For Ronald Reagan, it was rags to riches. For George W. Bush it was redemption: beating alcoholism and finding faith. Nixon, he suggests, saw himself as the classic David taking on the monster. (the establishment).

Likewise, as novelists, our protagonists need a life narration: They can’t know what to do (plot) until they know what their basic need is. (motivation). You, as a writer, can’t create a compelling plot until and unless you understand what your character wants, at her most basic level. (Hint: It’s not to solve the case).

Brooks wraps up his article by saying that politicians, like fictional heroes, can’t hold our attention unless they reveal something honest about their core. The hero cannot hold back. The hero has to let the reader into his inner self. He points to Obama as an arms-length overly-cerebral politician who failed to connect with voters — until he made his speech on race in 2008.

The novelist E.M. Forster said that there is only one overriding imperative in fiction: “Only connect.”

An audience — be it at a political rally or browsing in a bookstore — needs to feel a connection with the character, needs to understand what they want, needs to empathize with what they feel.

Which leads me to my last point.

You, as a writer, can’t find your audience, can’t connect with readers, until you find your own courage. Courage to do what? To open your an emotional vein and bleed a little on the page. Readers crave drama, not information.

I came across another article recently with this off-putting title: How To (Not) Think Of Your Audience As You Create. Click here for full article.

Don’t get huffy. It’s not as bad as you think. The writer was asking novelists and screenwriters who they wrote for — themselves or their audiences. All the respondants came down on the side of the audience. The one answer that most intrigued me, though, came from novelist Wiz Wharton, author of Ghost Girl and Banana. Listen to this:

Beginning writers often forget that rather than gatekeepers lying on the bones of aspiring authors, agents and publishers are also an audience for your work. Although the bottom line might be whether they can sell your material, they’re also looking for something that appeals to them on a heart and gut level, i.e. something they’re investing in personally. And I honestly don’t think it’s as simple as replicating what’s already out there. Yes, you should have a good grasp of structure and language and all those tools, but more than this, it’s the emotional truth of a project that will ultimately get you noticed.

One of the greatest joys of stories is how they vicariously allow an audience to rehearse emotional and physical scenarios, and when you write with truth you can take something specific and make it absolutely universal and resonant, whether you’re writing a Spartan epic, or a space western, or a domestic noir. Great ideas are everywhere, but it’s the authenticity of the world and its characters as seen through your unique voice and your unique perspective that’s going to make an audience stick around to see how things turn out.

I love that last part. Anybody can come up with a great idea. But it is the realness of your hero’s narrative — as filtered through the realness of your own life-plot — that captivates an audience.

Which leads us back to David Brooks. Cardboard politicians are a dime a dozen, cabbage-heads and would-be kings. The compelling ones? They’re rare. Like great fictional heroes, they hold our attention because they connect.

Write with truth. They will find you and follow.

We post a lot on this blog about the craft of writing, but today I want to concentrate on reading, and building readers.

Mrs. Latimer, my first grade teacher, sparked my interest in books with the Dick and Jane series. Each day after lunch, we laid our heads on the table and listened to her read. Their dog, Tip, was always my favorite and as I almost dozed off on the desktop, I pictured myself playing in a grassy park with that pup, and still recall to this day a story about the color violet in one of those stories.

Interesting, because I’m colorblind, but I’ve always like the sound of that word.

Fast forward to second grade, and Miss Russell the school librarian. I adored that redhead, and quickly became the teacher’s pet. She recognized my love for reading and while most students could check out only one book at a time, she allowed me two.

And then each grade after, I could check out the corresponding number of books to my grade level. By seventh grade, I’d read almost everything in that library.

Cowboy Sam, the We Were There books, Will James and Smoky the Cowhorse, sparked my interest in history that soon lead to biographies of Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and here in Texas, the Alamo legend and all the fiction that gathered around it. After that, it was everything I could lay my hands on, and by the time I was in junior high, I was reading books intended for adults.

Those two educators inspired a reader to grow, and by the time our daughters came around, they were surrounded by books, because the Bride reads, too. Those who know me have seen the bookshelves and cases in our home, and I often get the question, “Did you read all these?”

They wouldn’t be on our shelves if I hadn’t.

Books were available for our daughters and today they’re both educators. The Redhead is a high school librarian, and the One Known as Taz is an elementary school counselor. Each Sunday we all get together for dinner at our house, and most of the time the girls discuss whatever they’re reading at the time.

Now we have the grand-critters, and from day one they’ve had access to books, beginning with those to chew on, tactile books that absorbed them with crackles and textures, to cardboard picture books.

Of the seven, not all are readers, though we’ve tried. As you can tell from this photo, they’ve enjoyed books together, though some are more enamored with the printed word than others.

One will need a chiropractor someday from carrying around a backpack full of books, even when she travels with her parents the full eight miles to our house. When she goes on weekend trips, a second suitcase is necessary.

The others aren’t as addicted, but they still read and look forward to the public library at least once a month, and weekly during the summertime. They love to attend signings, and each time they’re in a bookstore, these guys go home with a new book.

This past weekend at the Will Rogers Medallion conference, I heard some disturbing news that physical books are in jeopardy, but eBooks are the new way to go. I hope that’s not true, because we’re caught in a Catch-22 issue. My girls and their husbands work hard to keep the kids off their devices, but everything in our world is dragging them in that direction. I’d rather them read on their pads, though, instead of spending valuable time on social media and games.

Which leads me to a side discussion, and that’s getting them away from those devices and into the outdoors. We’ve taught them all to enjoy nature, and getting outside is even more important these days as school, competitive sports, and screens absorb so much of their time.

And here I sit, staring at this screen and typing words that will never see a physical page.

In my opinion, a book within reach is the best way to pass the time (instead of scrolling through inane social media platforms that do little more than capture an individual’s interest for a second between swipes), and the adventures inside those pages are pure educational gold.

Kids will soon forget the games on those devices, and the videos which seem to be taking control of their time, but the stories they read in books will remain forever.

Let’s concentrate on building more readers, and the time to start is when they’re sitting in our laps. Turn off your damned devices and read to them, because those days are fleeting.