Zoning in the Zone

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Joe Moore

Someone once asked: “I’ve heard writers talk of being ‘in the zone’ regarding their writing, which I take to mean being in an altered state of extreme creativity. But how, without drugs or other stimulus, do they get into that state?”

In fact, we hear the term in the zone used often, not only with writers, but athletes, artists, and just about any activity that requires skill, creativity and especially concentration.

So what is “the zone” and how do we enter it? Why is it so hard to remain there for extended periods of time?

Being in the zone can last for a few minutes, a couple of hours or a whole day. For those that never seem to enter the zone, it might be because they try too hard to do so. Sort of like when we stop trying to solve a problem, the solution suddenly comes to us through our subconscious—what Jim Bell calls the boys in the basement.

Let’s try to define what being in the zone means, especially when it relates to writing. For me, it’s a mental state where time seems to disappear and my productivity greatly exceeds normal output. It might start after I’ve finished lunch and sat down at my PC to work on a new chapter. Without any feeling of the passage of time, I suddenly realize a couple of hours have gone by and I’ve produced 1000 words or more. I don’t remember the passage of time or anything that deals with my surroundings. I only remember “living” or becoming immersed in the story’s moment, having the words flow from a deeper source, and “awakening” from the writing zone as if only a few moments have passed.

I’ve never been hypnotized, but I can assume that being in the zone is somewhat like self-hypnosis. My body remains in the here-and-now, but my creative senses somehow find a hidden room inside my mind, a place normally under lock and key. And I’m able to enter it for a short time to let what’s there emerge into the light of day.

It can also feel like driving down the Interstate on a long trip deep in thought and suddenly realize I can’t remember the past few miles.

I’ve also never been athletic, but I bet it’s a similar scenario: a pro golfer is able to tune out the surrounding crowd of tournament spectators, the dozens of network cameras, the worldwide audience, the cheers from the distant gallery as his opponents make a great putt, and he’s able to enter a place where only his game stretches out before him. The rest slips by in a blur. Personal mind control.

So what is a good method for getting into the zone? Some writers use the “running start” technique by reading the previous day’s work or chapter. It gets them back into the story and hopefully the new words start to flow.

Others listen to music. This is something I often do. Nothing with lyrics, though. I listen to movie scores or piano and guitar solos. I find that it can help set a mood or become background “white noise” that blocks out other audible distractions. That’s because, for me, the biggest obstacle is distractions. It’s important to reduce interruptions and distractions by creating an environment where they are minimized. This means shutting my home office door, closing the drapes on the windows, unplugging the phone, disconnecting Internet access, and most of all, choosing a time to write when those things can be fully managed. Doing away with distractions is no guarantee that I will enter the zone at will, but it does give me a fighting chance to at least knock on the door to one of those dark, hidden rooms upstairs and let my story flow out.

So, my fellow zoners, have you ever entered the zone? Do you have a secret method that you’ll share with us?

John D and Me…And All The
Other Writers I Owe Big Time

Posted on May 24, 2016 by PJ Parrish

First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college. ― Kurt Vonnegut

By PJ Parrish

I had been storing this blog to run around Thanksgiving, but John D. MacDonald forced my hand this week, so I’m posting early. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the books and thank the authors who have helped me along the way.

Recently, I was asked by a writer friend Don Bruns to contribute to an ongoing series that has been running in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune called “John D and Me.” Cool beans, I thought, since other contributors included Stephen King, Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, Heather Graham, JA Jance, David Morrell…the list went on and on. Click here to read my article. Don’t worry…it’s short. I chose to write about MacDonald’s short stories because, truth be told, I hadn’t read many of the guy’s novels back then. But I had found a yellowed dog-earred copy of his short story collection The Good Old Stuff in a used book store, and at that time, I was struggling mightily to write my first short story.

Actually, it wasn’t my first. My first short story was way back in eighth grade. I was an inattentive student, but I had a lovely teacher Miss Gentry, who made us write a short story. The only touchstones in my little life at that point were The Beatles and my only dream was to run away to London. So I wrote about a lonely cockney boy who painted magic pictures. It was called “The Transformation of Robbie.” I got an A on it.

Miss Gentry

After class, Miss Gentry pulled me aside and said, “you should be a writer.” Twenty-five years later, I dedicated a book to her.

It should be noted that my sister and future co-author Kelly was also churning out short stories in those days. Her most notable effort was called “The Kill.” It was about a serial killer who knocks off The Beatles, one by one. We joke now that nothing much has changed: She still likes to write the gory scenes, I like doing the psychological stuff. I don’t have my early efforts, but she kept hers – see photo below right for the stunning cover she designed at age 11.

Fast forward to 2005. I am trying to write a story for the Mystery Writers of America’s anthology, edited by Harlan Coben. In addition to the big-name writers the editor invites, the anthology holds out 10 spots for blind submissions from any MWA member. I had a good idea for my story and four published mysteries under my belt. But I couldn’t get a bead on the short story’s special formula. What came so easy at age 14 wasn’t coming so easy at age 54.

So I cracked open The Good Old Stuff. Maybe it was because I had been reading Cheever and Chandler and was getting intimidated. But MacDonald made it look effortless. His stories, culled from his pulp magazine career, had an ease and breeze as fresh as the ocean winds. I realized I had been fighting an undertow of expectations, so I flipped over on my back and floated. The words flowed, the story formed. My first adult short story, “One Shot” got picked for MWA’s anthology Death Do Us Part. It was the second proudest moment of my writing life, right after Miss Gentry’s A.

Writing about MacDonald this month got me thinking about the debts I owed to other writers. Here are a couple I should thank:

E.B. White. Charlotte’s Web remains my favorite book of all time. I love it as pure story, but it taught me a very valuable lesson that all novelists should take to heart: Sometimes, you just have to kill off a sympathetic character.

Joyce Carol Oates. Lots of lessons from this woman about productivity and having the courage to write outside the boundaries of whatever box they try to put you in. But one book of hers had a huge impact on me — Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart. From this murky violent story of murder and race, I learned about the power of ambiguity, about the need to leave room in a story for the reader’s imagination to breath, to resist the urge to tie everything up in a neat bow. Also, she just makes me want to write with more metaphoric power. Check out her opening paragraph:

“Little Red” Garlock, sixteen years old, skull smashed soft as a rotted pumpkin and body dumped into the Cassadaga River near the foot of Pitt Street, must not have sunk as he’d been intended to sink, or floated as far. As the morning mist begins to lift form the river a solitary fisherman sights him, or the body he has become, trapped and bobbing frantically in pilings about thirty feet offshore. It’s the buglelike cries of the gulls that alert the fisherman – gulls with wide gunmetal-gray wings, dazzling snowy heads and tails feathers, dangling pink legs like something incompletely hatched. The kind you think might be a beautiful bird until you get up close.

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I still think about this story years after I read it. From it, I learned about spare writing and especially the power of one indelible image. Michael Connelly talks about this, too, about how one gesture, word or image can have so much more impact than an avalanche of description. Connelly talks about how he wrote about a cop who seemed the paragon of cool, how nothing about the horrors of his job seemed to bother him. Except for one telling detail – the stems of his glasses were chewed down to the nubs. In The Road, the image I can’t get out of my head, the one thing that stands in my mind as the symbol of post-apocalyptic survival, is canned peaches.

In the story, a man and the boy discover a cache of supplies in an abandoned farmhouse. Among them is canned peaches. Yes, it’s a delicacy in a time of starvation, but McCarthy also uses it as a symbol marking the split in the world between the fruit-eating “good guys” and the cannibalistic “bad guys.” Here’s an exchange between man and boy:

He pulled one of the boxes down and clawed it open and held up a can of peaches.
“It’s here because someone thought it might be needed.”
“But they didn’t get to use it.”
“No. They didn’t.”
“They died.”
“Yes.”
“Is it okay for us to take it?”
“Yes. It is. They would want us to. Just like we would want them to.”
“They were the good guys?”
“Yes. They were.”
“Like us.”
“Like us. Yes.”
“So it’s okay.”
“Yes. It’s okay.”
They ate a can of peaches. They licked the spoons and tipped the bowls and drank the rich sweet syrup.

I can’t eat canned peaches anymore because of this. I want to cry just thinking about.

Neil Gaiman. When I was working on our latest book She’s Not There, I needed to find just the right children’s book that resonated with my adult heroine. It was happenstance that I found Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. It follows the adventures of a boy named Bod after his family is murdered and he is left to be brought up by a graveyard. Which metaphorically is what happened to my heroine. I just started Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which, like my own book, is about the fragility of memory. I think what I am learning from Gaiman is the need to be original, to not follow the pack, to be true to yourself as a writer. He sums it up in this quote:

Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that – but you are the only you.

David Morrell. Several years ago, David was the guest of honor at our writers conference SleuthFest here in Florida. This talented teacher, prolific writer, and editor of the anthology Thrillers: 100 Must Reads, and creator of Rambo no less, had tons of great advice. But here is the single line that impacted me as a writer.

Find out what you’re most afraid of, and that will be your subject for your life or until your fear changes.

David credits this lesson to another writer Phillip Klass (pen name William Tenn) who told David that all the great writers have a distinct subject matter, a particular approach, that sets them apart from everyone else. The mere mention of their names, Faulkner, for example, or Edith Wharton, conjures themes, settings, methods, tones, and attitudes that are unique to them. How did they get to be so distinctive? By responding to who they were and the forces that made them that way. And all writers are haunted by secrets they need to tell. David talks about this in his book The Successful Novelist: A Lifetime of Lessons about Writing and Publishing. Click Here to read the first chapter.

And last but not least…

Unamed Romance Novel. I read this eons ago as part of my education back in the days when I thought I was going to make a million bucks writing for Harlequin. This novel (I won’t use the title here) taught me perhaps the most valuable lesson of all, one that every writer – published or un – should take to heart. Here is the line from the book that did it:

She sat on the sand on Miami Beach and watched the sun sink slowly into the ocean in a blaze of orange and pink.

When I read that line, I threw the book across the room. But then I picked the book up and put it on my shelf, where it still sits today. (Well, on my bathroom shelf). Because this book taught me that no matter how brilliant your metaphors, how original your story, how beguiling your prose, how deep your unexplored fears, if you have the sun setting in the east, nothing else is gonna work.

So who were your teachers, what were their books, and what did you learn?

The 5th Grade You

Posted on May 23, 2016 by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

This week is my sons’ 5th grade continuation ceremony – an event that didn’t (at least when I was in 5th grade) have an equivalent in Australia – we simply said goodbye to primary school without much in the way of fanfare! Although, I didn’t grow up with this ceremony, I do appreciate the American way of recognizing milestones such as this, as it provides a welcome opportunity for reflection as well as a celebration of all that has been accomplished (so far, at least…).

Marking the end of elementary school education is obviously a rite of passage and one that got me thinking about my own ‘5th grade’ self. What would I tell that girl if I had a chance to go back in time? I seem to remember that during my elementary years (primary school, as we call in in Australia) I was obsessed with becoming a scientist of some kind. I had chemistry kits, a microscope, telescope and various collections of minerals, stamps and coins. I adored animals, dinosaurs and couldn’t wait to learn about the stars…then came middle school and real science classes…which I loathed. So I guess the end of 5th grade was the end of that career dream! Although all through primary school I wrote stories and plays and poems, being a writer didn’t seem much like a career goal – more like a fun activity to while away the hours. Now elementary school is much more serious, with standardized tests, homework and far greater expectations than I ever had to deal with (we certainly had no formal state-mandated tests or homework!).

In some ways I mourn the loss of the elementary education I received – more because it seemed so unimportant at the time (I never worried about report cards or grades). If I could go back and talk to my 5th grade old self I would tell her to continue to enjoy the fact that school was something fun and (relatively) stress free – I would remind her how lucky she was to have the freedom to fail. I was fortunate I didn’t really need to concern myself with grades until much later in high school. I’m hoping to try to instill the same sense of perspective in my own boys but, sadly, it’s a much more demanding world out there now.

As part of their 5th grade continuation ceremony, I was supposed to chose an appropriate dedication but, rather than embarrass my boys with typical ‘mum’ mush, I asked them to chose a quotation they thought was appropriate. Funnily enough they both chose a quote from Douglas Adams (author of a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy). Jasper chose “The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” While Sam opted for: “I may not have gone where I intended to go but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

I think my 5th grade self would have been pretty happy with either of these quotations!

What about you? What would you say to your 5th grade old self if you had the chance to go back in time? What quotation would you chose for your 5th grade continuation ceremony?

Story and the Power of Connection

Posted on May 22, 2016 by James Scott Bell

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

In an article over at Aeon, Elizabeth Svoboda writes,

The careers of many great novelists and filmmakers are built on the assumption, conscious or not, that stories can motivate us to re-evaluate the world and our place in it. New research is lending texture and credence to what generations of storytellers have known in their bones – that books, poems, movies, and real-life stories can affect the way we think and even, by extension, the way we act. As the late US poet laureate Stanley Kunitz put it in ‘The Layers’, ‘I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was.’

As storytellers, don’t we all have that hope? That what we write will have this kind of impact on a reader?

Even if our genre is a commercial one, we ought to consider the power of the wiring in our brains, which seems to be uniquely designed for the reception of a story. It has always been so!

One reason the epics had such staying power was that they instilled values like grit, sacrifice, and selflessness, especially when young people were exposed to them as a matter of course. ‘The later Greeks used Homer as an early reading text, not just because it was old and reverenced, but because it outlined with astonishing clarity a way of life; a way of thinking under stress,’ wrote William Harris, the late classics professor emeritus at Middlebury College, Vermont. ‘They knew that it would generate a sense of independence and character, but only if it were read carefully, over and over again.’

When our writing hooks into these universal themes (e.g., grit, sacrifice) there is a connection with readers that is an essential component of long-term writing success. Again, genre does not matter. To Kill a Mockingbird makes that connection, but so do the Perry Mason novels. Erle Stanley Gardner, Mason’s creator, recognized this early on. He called it finding a “common denominator” for the reading public, and boy did he ever get rewarded for that! Perry Mason was a “knight” fighting “injustice,” Gardner once wrote. The same can be said of Atticus Finch.

There is scientific proof that our brain circuitry works exactly this way:

When the University of Southern California neuroscientist Mary Immordino-Yang told subjects a series of moving true stories, their brains revealed that they identified with the stories and characters on a visceral level. People reported strong waves of emotion as they listened – one story, for instance, was about a woman who invented a system of Tibetan Braille and taught it to blind children in Tibet. The fMRI data showed that emotion-driven responses to stories like these started in the brain stem, which governs basic physical functions, such as digestion and heartbeat. So when we read about a character facing a heart-wrenching situation, it’s perfectly natural for our own hearts to pound.

The late Dallas Willard, whom I was privileged to know, spoke of the power of Jesus’ parables thus: “He ravished people with the kingdom of God.”

Ravish is the perfect word. It means to overtake with indescribable delight. Jesus wooed the crowds with stories, like The Prodigal Son. He taught what love looks like in The Good Samaritan. These stories tap into circuits that pre-exist in our brains and zap us with emotion.

Maybe the other way to put it is that readers, being actual people who live in this world, seek connections –– with friends, family, and at the table of a worthy cause. A cynic may manage to convince himself he needs none of these things, but he will be the unwitting foe of his own wiring. Get him into a ripping good story, though, and at the very least he’ll be out of the abyss for awhile. And maybe that story will be the lifeline that pulls him back into the light to stay.

When Abraham Lincoln, a first-rate storyteller himself, met Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in 1862, he reportedly said, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” Stowe and Lincoln both knew how to unleash “the better angels of our nature.” They used story power.

Do you ever think in those terms when you write? Do you have a potential reader in mind, knowing he or she desires connection? What “common denominators” do you think about when you write?

Playing to Your Strengths

Posted on May 21, 2016 by Joe Hartlaub

My wife Lisa’s greatest joy — after her husband, of course, and our ungrateful, unappreciative daughter — is her enjoyment of wild birds. We (well, she) has a couple of large, impervious-to-squirrels feeders set up outside of our kitchen window, and Lisa will spend hours photographing the birds that come to take advantage of the seemingly endless supply of seed that is there for the taking. One characteristic of birds, however, is that they are slobs. They drop seed, they leave husks, and…well, you know the rest. We as a result get a nightly show in the form of nocturnal creatures gathering at night beneath the feeders in a heartwarming tableau. The opossums are first to arrive. They get there early to begin eating the seed that has been left on the ground. They eventually, however, are rudely shoved aside by the raccoons, the neighborhood bully boys who push aside the opossums as if they aren’t even there. The collective attitude of the masked bandits changes quickly, however, when the skunks arrive. Their “outta my way, kid” demeanor quickly changes to, “Oh, my, hello, Mr. Skunk! How nice to see you! We’ve been saving this pile of seed just for you.” Skunks are just so gentle and shy and cute as they walk up and begin eating. They don’t take any mess, however. I did see a young raccoon, one who apparently didn’t get the memo, try to nudge a skunk out of its way. The skunk engaged in some non-violent resistance, turning around and putting his tail up, resulting in three raccoons setting new distance and reaction records for standing side jumps. I didn’t know raccoons could jump sideways. They apparently can, if properly motivated.

What do those cute vignettes have to do with writing? Quite a bit, actually. After you’ve been writing for a while, you’re going to get the sense of what works and what doesn’t for you. Write what works for you. If you are good at writing action scenes but poor at writing dialogue, go with the explosions and karate and make you characters strong and silent. If you’re not able to write a convincing love scene without embarrassing yourself, don’t entangle your character in anything other than barb wire. If you can write great sex scenes but drop the thread on complex mysteries, keep the mystery simple and secondary to the amorous scenes in the bedroom or elsewhere. Our friend the opossum’s main strengths are to convincingly play dead (we’ve all run into folks like that, haven’t we, heh heh) and get places early. If you are good at writing action scenes, start with a strong one and jump from one to another. Your story may be best served by letting the plot drive it. As far as the skunk goes, we’re talking cute but dangerous. “Dangerous” isn’t too strong a word; making that midnight run out to a Sam’s Club for several five-gallon cans of tomato juice to erase the scent of skunk spray will make a believer out of you. So…the character is going to drive your story. Cute but dangerous? Think of Jack Reacher as played by, uh, Tom Cruise. If you are blessed with the ability to let plot and characters drive your novel, you’re like a raccoon. You can sense your story’s weaknesses and strengths, and sense when something can play out a bit or, alternatively, when it’s time to wrap it up.
Which animal are you when you write? One of the above? Or another? And why?…oh, and the animal at the top of my humble offering today? To paraphrase Raymond Chandler…”What. The owl? Oh. I forgot about him.” Not really. Owls are skunks’ natural predators. The reason? Owls don’t have olfactory glands.

Reader Friday: A Question About Discoverability

Posted on May 20, 2016 by Kathryn Lilley

How did you discover the most recent book you read or purchased? Was your choice guided by a review? Word of mouth? Or something else?

Infusing Emotion into Every Scene and Chapter

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Jordan Dane

Jordan Dane
@JordanDane

Creating a book is inventing a believable world the reader can step into and escape. Your characters must seem real, as if the reader can hear them and see them. The conflict and what’s at stake must be strike a chord with readers. Readers are voyeurs who want to be taken on a journey. Since emotion is a key way to pull readers into your book and keep them there, I thought that should be the topic for today.

10 Key Ways to Infusing Emotion into Each Scene

1,) Put the reader into the scene using the senses – If you expect your reader to “feel” the world you’ve created, put them into every scene. If your protagonist is walking down a dark alley with gun drawn, you have to be there alongside him, author. What sounds can he hear? What does he smell? What are his physical reactions to his surroundings and how does that play on his fear that’s building? Anticipation is a key element in creating suspense and building on tension. Have patience to let the tension mount.

2.) SHOW don’t TELL – If you truly write the scene as if the reader is looking through the eyes and body of your relatable character, that will put them into the scene. If you only “report” what the character is thinking, it distances the reader from your character. ‘Telling’ takes all the unexpected discoveries from the reading experience and it stifles what the reader can imagine. The reader doesn’t have to think. They’re ‘told’ what to think and imagine. Focus on the action of your character and give them a physical reaction. Rather than ‘telling’ the reader that your character is afraid, show how that fear manifests itself in trembling fingers, trickling sweat, and a punishing heart beat.

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekhov

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” E. L. Doctorow

3.) Make your characters relatable and sympathetic – Dare to give your villain an odd sense of humor or have her fight for a cause she cares deeply about, so her wicked obsession feels real. Your mercenary could be a loner, but give him a dog to take care of. Load up the emotional baggage in your character’s past and force him or her into a conflict where they have to face their worst fear. Dare to make your perfect hero vulnerable. All these human frailties create relatable and sympathetic characters and will have readers rooting for them.

4.) Reach for the emotion/Make it over the top – Milk the scene for every drop of emotion. It’s not just about choosing the right words. It’s about creating effective imagery triggers that will connect with readers. If you think you’re done with a scene, go back over and layer in MORE of what that scene is about. Ratchet up the emotion beyond where you might normally go. The added touch pays off when you’re using words to put the reader into the scene.

5.) Foreshadow the danger or the obstacles ahead – If anticipation ramps up the suspense, foreshadowing helps the page turning pace of your novel and keeps the reader invested. It creates ‘flow’ between scenes and chapters. Don’t waste a scene ending or a chapter ending. Make it work for you. If a scene or chapter ending fizzles to a close, that gives the reader a chance to put the book down. Tease them with a hint of things to come and they won’t want to let go of the story.

6.) Pepper each scene with descriptive words and choose wisely – Word choices have always mattered to me. I take great pains to squeeze every ounce of emotion or sensation from the words I choose. I particularly like words that enhance the scene by the sound or imagery of the word: slither, sizzle, skitter, hiss, bam, punch, clang, klunk, snap, splat, etc. You can almost ‘see’ the action with the ‘sounds’ of these words. I didn’t realize this was one of my things until readers started to point it out as a good thing.

7.) Make the stakes high enough and make them real – Give your character something meaty to fight for. What would he or she die for? It’s not enough to ‘battle evil or fight for the good.’ Make their reason come from a personal place or sprout from their worst vulnerability. Force your protagonist to give up something he or she values most in the world in order to earn the status of hero in your book. Give your character a journey through your book so there is real change in him or her.

8.) Make your reader fear for your character as time slips away – If you’ve set the foundation for a reader to care about your protagonist and the world you’re creating, now introduce a short fuse burning—and suddenly pull the rug out and make that time table shorter. It will make for a breathless plot but will force the reader to care even more about what will happen.

9.) Savor the Twist – Do the unexpected. If the story appears to be going a certain way, surprise the reader with a well-planned twist that will force the protagonist to rise to the occasion with added conflict or will showcase his or her brilliance. Readers love to be surprised by a plot they didn’t see coming. I enjoy setting the reader up in different ways, especially when the clues were always there. Again, word choice or well-positioned elements of mystery, like red herrings, can enhance the effect of a good twist. Readers get excited when they are fooled and often will go back to reread passages. This is another way to trigger many levels of emotion in your reader.

10.) Wrap it all up and make the ending satisfying – A well-written ending, where the characters have been through hell and have come out of a very dark tunnel, can force the reader into that same feeling of having survived along with them. If there needs to be closure at a grave site, where someone didn’t make it, squeeze out every tear and make the ending a satisfying experience. Don’t squander the opportunity to leave your reader with a fulfilling ending to the

For Discussion:
1.) Did your writing tips (on layering emotion into your scenes) make the list? If not, share what works for you.

2.) What books have stuck in your mind as unforgettable emotional journeys?

Croco Designs

Tough Target – The Omega Team series (Book 2 of 2) launches May 24th as part of Amazon Kindle Worlds. Read book 1 – Hot Target – and catch up. Both ebooks are priced at a bargain of $1.99. (The book page for Tough Target won’t be posted by Amazon until May 24.)

When a massive hurricane hits land, SEAL Sam Rafferty is trapped in the everglades with a cartel hit squad in hot pursuit—forcing him to take a terrible risk that could jeopardize the lives of his wounded mother and Kate, a woman who branded him with her love.

Omega Team Launch – Facebook Party with GIVEAWAYS on May 24 at this LINK.- I’ll be online at 5pm CST. Join the other Omega Team authors most of the day.

Old Dog, New… Whatever

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Robert Gregory Browne

This post isn’t about writing books, but it is about writing—a couple different kinds of writing, in fact.

That said, it has less to do with writing than it does with our willingness to adapt and change and never being afraid to chase our dreams.

When I was thirteen, I read my first “adult” book, which was serialized in a magazine, called SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY by Donald Westlake. Reading that book, a comedy murder mystery about a cab driver named Chet who simply wants to collect his nine hundred dollar bet, only to find his bookie stabbed to death, was a revelation to me. And I can say with certainty that it is the reason I became a novelist.

But I wasn’t always a novelist. In fact, I didn’t even start writing my real first novel until I was in my late forties (a considerable distance from thirteen), although I had written and published a handful of short stories. Before that, I was a screenwriter, and not a particularly successful one at that. I won the Nicholl award with my first script and turned around and sold it to Showtime shortly thereafter, but it was the first and last movie script I sold and I wound up writing for animated shows like Spider-Man Unlimited.

All of that started when I was well into adulthood, at the age of thirty-five. Before that I had been struggling to make it as a musician, first as a performer—I suffered too much from stage fright to make that happen—and then as a songwriter. I came very close to selling a few songs, was often praised for my music, but never was able to quite get over the hump. And then I felt I was too old to make it in the biz, so I fell back on my second love, writing, and wrote that first script I mentioned above.

I’m now approaching sixy-one, and can happily say that I’ve become a semi-successful novelist who has made some decent money and even seen one of his books make it to the small screen. I’ve talked about that before, I’m sure, so I won’t bore you with it now.

But at nearly sixty-one, despite my “success,” I’ve found myself feeling unfulfilled by only writing novels, and the lifelong musician (and screenwriter) in me has been yearning to do something different. Something I’ve never done before, but have been thinking about for many, many years.

So for the past several months I’ve chased an old dream. What, you might ask is that?

I’ve written a musical.

Yes, that’s right. It’s an “intimate” musical called Cradle Song, centering around a fractured family that desperately needs to heal.

And I went crazy and not only wrote the “book” (play script), but also the music and lyrics for the thing.

I’m told that this isn’t often done by one person, but, hey, I’m always up for a challenge. So I did it and it’s done and I can go to my grave knowing that I have fulfilled at least part of a dream. The other part, of course, would be seeing the play get produced. But that’s pretty much out of my hands.

So why am I telling you this, you ask?

All of this rambling is merely my way of saying that no matter how old you are, you should never deny yourself of the chance to fulfill a dream. To turn in a different direction and fly.

And if you want to be a writer (or a singer or a painter or a fill-in-the-blank) at eighty-seven but have never gotten around to doing it, don’t for godsakes let your age stop you. Don’t let anything stop you.

The world is full of people who love to tell us no. “You can’t do that. You’re too old. Too young. Too white. Too black. Too fat. Too thin. Too female. Too…” whatever.

Don’t listen to them. If you have a passion, follow it. And don’t worry about the naysayers and the rules. Just do it, as they say in the TV commercial.

Nothing and no one can stop you if you let your passion be your guide.

If anyone is interested in what I’ve been doing to fulfill my passion for the last few months, check out http://cradlesongmusical.com. And, of course, if any of you are play producers, feel free to use the contact page… 😉

Question: what dream would you like to fulfill that you haven’t yet chased after?

Remove A Letter, Spoil A Book Title

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Kathryn Lilley

By Kathryn Lilley

I invite you to goof off with me today by playing a game that’s been making the rounds of social media: #RemoveALetterSpoilABook. Here are some fun examples I’ve run across to date:

Silence of the Labs

The Ale of Two Cities

A Wrinkle in Tim

Goosebums

Update: Inspired by some of the comments, adding a few more

Jurassic Ark

THE DAVINCI COD (Credit: Chrissie, Friend of Zone)

Hard Ties (Credit: JS Bell, Zoner At Large)

*MMA (Credit: Phil G, Friend of Zone)

Of Mice And Me (Credit: George S, Friend of Zone)

How about you? Can you think of any other titles to spoil by removing one letter?

The Story Coach Who Came In From the Cold

Posted on May 16, 2016 by Larry Brooks

by Larry Brooks

I’ve always suspected that we remain totally alone with our stories.

Which means we live and die by what we know and believe to be true (which are different things) about storytelling, too often either shutting out or not comprehending any incoming feedback that smacks of being to the contrary.

As a story coach, I’ve tried to disprove this – that we aren’t alone with our stories, because craft is always there to help us, and when we get it, we join a huge community of the enlightened – by offering input and solutions to stories in need of patching up, hoping the author will see and believe what craft tells us when it is put in front of them.

But alas, this remains an uphill battle. Writing effective stories is hard, always has been. But sometimes writers make it harder.

Today’s take away: don’t be that writer.

On the flip side, some of my clients do just that. They see it and they recognize it as The Truth. It’s not me, it is craft triumphing over bad input, old tapes and blank spaces in understanding.

These are the wins, and they are few and far between. And totally worth the work.

Many writers, though, when they ask for help with their stories, are actually seeking affirmation. They’ll talk for hours about their characters and why it all actually works, even though it doesn’t. We write what we write for reasons that seem solid at the time, so when challenged, that reasoning demands to be heard.

Fair enough. But you can’t defend a sow’s ear, if it is truly a sow’s ear in a silk purse endeavor.

That’s the thing about craft, once you get it, it shifts our standard of reasoning. It raises the bar on what we choose for, and within, our stories.

I’d say half my clients fall into that category, one that recognizes a better path when it is shown to them. The other half, while perhaps open, aren’t yet fluent in the nuances of storytelling craft, which means they actually need to step away from the project and immerse themselves in that learning.

It’s really hard to coach an unenlightened writer.

Trying to understand story craft as you implement it is like a doctor trying to save a patient with a scalpel in one hand and a copy of Grey’s Anatomy in the other. Better to go into the lab and work on a cadaver until you truly get it.

Nobody wants to write a cadaver. That’s why writing a novel without a solid grasp of craft rarely – as in, almost never – works. Even then, when the feedback comes (and it will), one needs to understand what the feedback even means.

Don’t be that writer.

Sure, most writers are open to hearing about possible here-and-there tweaks, but when the story is flawed at the most deeply fundamental levels of dramatic theory and rationale – which it so often is in the story coaching game; consider that 990 out of every 1000 manuscript submissions get rejected… it’s not because the writer can’t write a decent sentence, it’s because the story isn’t working – they shut down.

They don’t want to hear it. Or they can’t hear it, because they don’t understand it.

“Wait, let me explain further.” Then, when that doesn’t work…

“It’s my story, nobody can tell me it doesn’t work.”

Ultimately, agents, editors and readers will tell you just that.

Don’t be that writer.

That further explanation – which is actually a defense – in the hands of a less-than-enlightened author, is how what should be a three sentence premise becomes a 1000-word plea for mercy. The clinging to dysfunction (because they’ve been sold this very thing, that you can write anything you want, any way you want)… that’s the very definition of – if you will allow me to mangle a word here – unenlightenment.

Unenlightened writers are everywhere, in packs and droves. They fill the halls of writing conferences and clog the servers of the best writing blogs.

Don’t be one of them. Go deeper. Really strive to get it. Because there are certainly very specific things you need to get. Principles of storytelling physics that are as consistent and non-negotiable as… well, as gravity.

And you know what happens when you mess with gravity.

An effective story has criteria.

There are bases that must be touched. Qualitative standards and aesthetic decisions that spring from an evolved story sensibility, rather than, simply, the original idea. Which, by the way, to be worth anything at all, needs to be original, or a new twist on something familiar.

Let me say it again: don’t be that writer. Learn the criteria. Understand those bases. Own those qualitative standards… and then, mix, stir, repeat… until your story sense hikes up the learning curve.

It can take years. And while you’re on the path… listen for the truth. It’s out there. Along with a bunch of truly toxic old school truisms that have outlived their veracity, and complete nonsense from people who should not be talking about writing – they should be listening – in the first place.

The reason this happens is that the writer doesn’t recognize the principles of craft with which they have heretofore played loose. They haven’t absorbed and integrated the fundamentals of craft, leaving them open to the fatal attraction of writing an un-vetted idea, while trying (unknowingly, certainly, but this is what it is) to narratively imitate what they read from their favorite authors, making it all up as they go, without truly understanding how those authors do what they do.

There has to be a better way.

The notion that all first drafts must fail miserably… that’s just not true. And yet, you hear this from some of the biggest names in the game… because their first drafts fail miserably.

That’s not conventional wisdom, that’s just the consequences of one’s chosen process. The difference is huge, and toxic if not fully understood. The initial goal of the storytelling process is to find the best available story from an initial spark on inspiration. \

If you develop a weak idea (in other words, hit all the narrative bases with it), it will still be a weak idea.

Some writers require a draft to find their best story… they’ll just sit down and actually begin writing about that idea… and yes, even if they know a lot about craft, it’ll probably suck.

Chances are a new writer may not know the criteria for a story that works in the first place, no matter how they go about finding it.

But that’s not the only strategic approach. The more you know about craft, the more of it will be applied to an idea (this knowledge becomes the vetting tool), even in a first draft, but certainly before that draft is written, resulting in a better outcome.

Too often the writing conversation is about process.

And yet, all processes subordinate to the nature and specifics of narrative and structural craft, every time. The very same criteria apply.

You can back into a great story, or you can build one from the ground up. Both can work. But usually, only in the hands of an enlightened writer.

So there’s your first, next and best goal: to become an enlightened writer, one who knows what to do with a killer story idea — how to make it into one — and understands that there are certain things that must be done to it before it will work.

What are those basic fundamentals?

Here are a few that you can never rationalize away. There is more – much more – to learn, but these are the most common sins of the newer writer who doesn’t get it.

This is so entry-level it is seldom discussed. It’s like pro athletes working on their strength and footwork and eye-hand coordination in pre-season… the pros do it, but the news doesn’t cover it. Same here, we don’t talk about what we need to talk about, at least often enough. Even in terrific blogs like this one, where we assume the readers understand these basics… too often they don’t.

So this is me, the story coach coming in from the cold to shine a light on these entry-level truths what are absolutely essential to a story. I hope you warm up to them quickly.

Too often your story idea isn’t strong enough. Nobody tells you that, so you keep pounding on a too familiar, too thin idea. Half the reason for all the rejections out there stem from this. Stories that have been done to death. Premises that simply define a genre (“detective is given a tough murder case to solve…” really, I’ve seen that one submitted as a premise… ). Ideas that make too little sense.

In so many cases it’s not the writing that holds a story back, it’s the idea that becomes the premise that tanks the project.

In genre fiction, everything hangs off your core dramatic thread. Story world, characterization, all the great scenes… they are all literally narrative, forward-propelling expressions of an unspooling core dramatic thread. Some of you reading this don’t know what that means… go find out (there’s a full post, even a book, in that issue alone).

It’s simply defined: what does your hero want or need in the story, and how do they go about getting it, and against what odds, with what stakes in play?

In other words… what is the plot? Plot drives commercial genre fiction (the hallmark of which is story world/arena, which is a different thing than plot), no matter what your MFA friends tell you.

You’d be shocked, if you were a story coach or an agent, how many writers mess this up. That aren’t clear on their core dramatic thread, or what that even means. Stories that have several dramatic threads, without one of them emerging as the defining essence of the story. Stories with thin dramatic tension. Stories with no stakes, that are by intention slice-of-life narratives and episodic character studies (which never work in genre fiction).

Logic and credibility trump your idea. No more 15-year old heroes who can do what the FBI, CIA and Superman himself cannot do. Like, hack into the NSA database to find out the truth. Like, out-smart and out-fight a gang of ruthless killer drug dealers. Like, the hero bolting upright in the middle of a third act night to remembers something that turns it all around. Like, massive coincidences piled on necessary further coincidences that conspire to create impossible situations. That can out-wit a crime lord.

Stories may be about situations, but it’s how the hero credibly navigates the situation that is the stuff of a good story Know the difference, and do it credibly within the physics of your story world.

Soft hero’s goals aren’t as compelling as specific hero’s goals. Don’t confuse goal vs. action required to reach that goal. Don’t pitch your hero’s journey as, “The hero must reunite his family so everyone can be happy.” That’s an outcome. A trite, non-specific outcome, by the way, that will bore an agent to tears. Rather, pitch what your hero must do to achieve a stated goal… your story is about that, far more than it is about the goal itself.

When both the goal and the journey toward it are compelling and fresh and logical and dramatic and character-testing, now you’ve got something to work.

It’s about what your hero does, illustrating who they are in the process. Rather than just showing us who the character is. Oldest rule in the book, right? Show, don’t tell. And yet, this remains one of the most common fumbles… a story that is all about who a character is, drenched in backstory, without giving the character something compelling to do.

Carve this into your forehead: Story isn’t just about something (a character, a theme, a time or place, a culture)… but rather… a story is about something happening.

If you can burn this alone into your story sensibility, italics included, you will vault into the top ten percent of new authors working today.

In a good story, structure drives the narrative. The notion that “story trumps structure” is complete hogwash… that’s like saying “chemistry trumps medicine” or “strength trumps motion.” Huh? That assertion is really more about process than it is story, and becomes an example of the toxic nature of some corners of the writing conversation.

Structure isn’t something you make up. You make up a plot that unfolds across a universally proven and omnipresent structure. You can’t really find a successful commercial story – book or movie – that departs from that structure to any significant degree, so it’s folly to think that yours can and will.

Story and character setup… 2) hero compelled into response… 3) hero attacking the problem… 4) hero resolving the problem. That’s the four-part essence of story structure (with much mission-driven enhancement required, including the critical transition story points, hero’s arc, stakes, antagonism, final conflict, etc.)… every time, every story. Your plot won’t work until it aligns with that sequence, in roughly equal proportions.

Don’t know that universal structure? It’s out there. There are different names and pieces for it, which is exactly like different languages delivering the same message… the IRS code in English or French or Aramaic is still the IRS Code. Violate it, and trouble happens.

These are pre-requisites of a professional-level story.

The 101 of the trade.

Don’t be the writer that pursues the craft outside of an awareness of, and integration of, these and other core principles.

Don’t be the writer operating below the 101 level of story sensibility.

You’re here, reading the Kill Zone, so you’re on the path. Everything you read here, and on my site and the sites of our authors, is in context to these basic tenets of craft.

I’m tired of writers defending their stories when they are already dead. It breaks my heart more than it pisses me off, which it does, because they insult the craft itself by believing it is unnecessary. Maybe you hear them in your critique groups. Or if you’re a story coach or editor, maybe you hear them every day.

I’m hungry for writers who get it, who are on the path toward a higher understanding of craft, which can be expressed and explored in so many ways, always leading toward an evolved story sensibility.

So are publishers. So are readers hungry for the next great story.

I hope you can be that writer.

You have to be, if you want to find readers and a career as a storyteller.