Have you ever been involved in some intense situation and your account doesn’t match up with others who were there and involved?

The human mind and memory is a curious thing. When I’m with the family members I grew up with, it’s always fascinating to hear their stories about growing up, but each of us remembers the anecdotes differently. They spin these tales, I watch their lips move, and wonder what the hell they’re talking about.

Case in point. Let’s talk about eye witnesses, but not from a legal standpoint. Let’s simply discuss what we see, and why it’s different, likely resulting from different backgrounds and worldly experiences.

John Gilstrap and I were in Indianapolis a few years ago, along with our wives, attending Magna Cum Murder, a small writing conference full of heart and camaraderie. On that October day in question, the four of us were having drinks outside a grand old club on Monument Circle, enjoying the company and cool weather.

John made dinner reservations at a steakhouse within walking distance, but we’d been out there for a couple of hours and it was necessary to visit the hotel’s facilities first. I’m not sure why we both decided to go at the same time, and I really don’t want to discuss that here, but….

…his wife, Joy, and my bride, Shana, continued their conversation as we left. The current Columbia Club was built in 1925, and the restroom at the far end of the grand lobby of marble and tile was some distance from the front entrance, monitored by traditionally well-dressed doormen.

I reached out to Gilstrap, who two-fingered his version of that clear Indianapolis day and sent it over. I promise, the skies were bright and blue, we all agree on that.

*

Murder At The War Memorial

The lobby of Columbia Club in Indianapolis reeks of Old Money, from its elegant carved wood moldings and soaring ceiling to the dark wood bar to the massive walk-in fireplace. That golden eagle in the corner once stood guard over Abraham Lincoln’s funeral bier. It is the perfect location for a mystery writers’ conference, and so it served for one of my annual favorites, Magna Cum Murder. The conference started on Friday, so Thursday was all about arrival, checking in and meeting up with new friends. My wife, Joy, doesn’t always go to these things with me, but a few years ago, she came along because my buddy Reavis’s wife, Shana, was accompanying him. You haven’t seen trouble until Joy and Shana knock around together.

Somehow, Rev and I found the bar before the ladies did–by the span of a couple of drinks and a dozen war stories–and because it was such a nice early autumn day, we partook of our libations on the patio in the front of the hotel, across the street from the towering War Memorial obelisk. From this vantage point, we could watch the valet parking team do its work and wave hello to writers and readers we’ve seen year after year at Magna.

Finally, the ladies joined us, and after a little while, those early libations caught up with Rev and me and certain biological realities kicked in. I’m not sure which one of us excused ourselves first, but the trip to the men’s room became a dual effort.

We left our wives at the table to catch up with each other.

The restrooms at the Columbia Club are not conveniently located. It’s a bit of a hike to get to them. So, having left the ladies alone for five, maybe seven minutes, as Rev and I are heading back to the front doors, I notice a lady and a little boy on my left, pressing themselves into a corner by the luggage closet, and the valets are in the opposite corner. How odd. Then, when we stepped out into the sunshine, I glanced at the table where we’d left our wives, saw that their chairs were empty, and then, from across the street, at the base of the obelisk, I saw two men running, one behind the other. The one in the rear was a cop. The cop yelled, “Police! Don’t move!” Then took a shooter’s stance, fired, and the runner face planted onto the concrete. In that instant, I thought he’d shot with a pistol, but it turned out to be a Taser. That explained the quietness of the report.

Like most violence, the whole scene transpired over maybe ten seconds. I said to Rev, “The ladies missed the whole show.”

He replied, “No, they didn’t. They’re in the middle of it.” He pointed to a scrum of activity centered around a screaming lady, and sure enough, there they were.

*

His recollection ends here for the purposes of this discussion, but different viewpoints and proximity, as well as several minutes of extra knowledge, can sharpen the event.

“Eyewitnesses can provide very compelling legal testimony, but rather than recording experiences flawlessly, their memories are susceptible to a variety of errors and biases. They (and that’s all of us) can make errors in remembering specific details and can even recall whole events that did not actually happen.” Cara Laney and Elizabeth F. Loftus, Reed College, University of California, Irvine.

*

John’s view ends his story at the perfect place. Now my Bride picks up the narrative.

She is a former degreed journalist and as an old-school newspaper reporter, deals in facts, less emotion.

(She quickly came over from the dark side and moved into public education where we met.)

If she hears a story, or half of one, she’ll ruthlessly drill down until she discovers the truth. Both daughters can vouch for that from teenage experience. The truth is, I’d prefer to spin my stories when she isn’t present, if you know what I mean…

*

“Well, since the girls were there the whole time, we saw and heard much more.

“The screaming and yelling moved us toward the melee to see if we could help. The man, who was not wearing dark clothing, was hitting a woman who was crumpled on the ground next to a raised wall. I believe he was wearing a t-shirt. I guess his pants were dark. He then ran across the monument area looking for another victim. As we moved toward where he was going, we saw a man with a white dress shirt with blood on it standing near a man who was hurt and laying on steps. He was obviously trying to make sure the assailant did not return and cause more harm to the man on the ground that he had apparently targeted earlier.

“We later learned the blood on his shirt was that of the victim – he was a doctor trying to render aid. Later that night we were told that the victim sadly did not survive. Also near the area was a group of people who had come down to bring food to the homeless. All were prepared to intervene in some way, but the police arrived quickly and confronted the assailant. He did not heed their warnings and kept moving. They tazed him as he moved away from them, but the direction was not toward where we were standing with the guys at this point. If we were facing north, he was running east.

“It was all very unsettling. Joy later mentioned that she would not have felt as confident in our moving in closer to the tragic events unfolding if she had known I was not carrying protection. I normally do, but since we were with the guys, I was not. Lesson learned.”

*

We’re all susceptible to erroneous accounts for a variety of reasons. I think mine differs because like John, I’m a storyteller and have related this event over and over, likely embellishing it because of audience reaction whenever I give a talk. Or maybe because I simply like my version better.

*

The girls were settled on an outside settee as two fairly well-known authors headed for the necessary room. After the hike back, strange activities at the front doors caught our attention. I woman huddle with her little one (age between four and eight) to our left, burrowing into the luggage coat section. The woman gave us a fearful look, and ducked back down as if an artillery barrage was about to ensue.

Exchanging puzzled looks, we pushed past a tense-faced doorman and into the covered entrance where I heard shouting.

Orders came fierce and strong. “Stop!”

“Get on the ground!”

Men and women screamed.

A huddle to the right across the street caught my attention and action to our left moved fast. A man raced in our direction, in my memory wearing dark running clothes, and one of two pursuing officers shouted again.

“Stop!”

The brain slows. Too much information. Something bad.

I looked past the assailant and down the barrel of what I thought was a handgun as the closest officer took a stance and fired. Instead of the report of a firearm, the fleeing suspect stiffened and fell hard on his face. Tazed.

Blinking, I looked to the left to see another man down, surrounded by good Samaritans who’d gathered to render air. That’s when time kicked back and concern swept over me.

 John frowned. The ladies missed the whole show.

*

As they said, they didn’t. The instinct to protect others kicked in and both our wives rushed in to help defend others against a demented criminal who’d just been released from jail that morning.

Misinformation can corrupt memory in the aftermath of an event. When more than one person witnesses a crime and discusses it with others before officials arrive, they are likely to have noticed different things because witnesses have different personalities and that individuality shows up in recollections. Together they reinforce those shared memories and contaminate them with information from others.

The differences here are subtle, but collecting the three accounts…(and forgive me, because due to time limitations writing this at the last minute, I didn’t get Joy’s take, which had a little twist that made her participation even more interesting)…shows the reader that eyewitness testimony will never be exact.

The Old Man told me growing up not to believe most of what I hear, and only half of what I see. The older I get, the more I realize how smart he was.

I’m rushing to finish the rewrite of my new novel.  Will the reviewers like it? Here’s a repeat of an interview with a reviewer.

Confessions of a Book Reviewer

By Elaine Viets

A reviewer for a major print magazine complained to me about a novel he was reading, when it dawned on me – this was news writers could use. If we know what’s wrong, we can fix it before the reviewer writes about it, for all the (mystery) world to read.
This reviewer is not some crank who looks for excuses to rip writers. If he has to give a book a bad review, he agonizes over that decision.
But here are some writing wrongs that upset this reviewer.

(1) Padded Middles. This is my reviewer’s number one problem – novels that slow down in the middle. “The padding doesn’t advance the narrative,” the reviewer said. “It’s pages and pages of the thoughts and feelings of people who aren’t very interesting. They offer no valuable insights. Sometimes, I wonder if editors make writers add this unnecessary information because big books are so popular. Most books I’ve read recently are 20 to 30 pages too long. Often, there’s a good book buried in that excess fat.”

(2) Switching names. “The character is introduced as Joseph Smith. Then the author proceeds to call him Joe, Joey, Joseph, and sometimes just Smith. It’s hard to figure out who the writer is talking about.”

(3) Who’s talking? “A character is introduced in the first 50 pages, and then shows up 200 pages later with no ID.” Take tax accountant Mary Rogers. She has a brief scene in Chapter 2 and then in Chapter 25 we see this line: “I think the suspect embezzled half a million dollars,” said Mary Rogers.
Huh? Our reviewer said, “I’m frantically pawing through the book, trying to figure out who Mary Rogers is and why she’s saying that.

“It would help if the author gave us a hint who Mary was. Something like this:

‘I think the suspect embezzled half a million dollars,’ said tax accountant Mary Rogers.’ That two-word take makes it easier for readers.”

(4) Writers who fixate on a certain word. “Like ass. I read an author who used ‘ass’ constantly. His character fell on his ass, showed his ass, got his ass kicked and had his ass handed to him. He dealt with asshats, ass clowns and of course, assholes.”

Cuss words are necessary for realism, but don’t overdo it.

(5) Dumb and proud of it. “Writers who want to assert their real-people identities trot out lowbrow snobbery. Their favorite phrase is ‘I don’t know anything about . . .’ Then you can choose one or more of these – opera, classical music, gourmet food, Shakespeare.”

Assume your readers are intelligent – after all, they bought your book.

(6) The hero with the drinking problem. He – or sometimes she – “is haunted by the awful things they did when they were on the sauce. Yes, people drink. And some authors handle this well. But most of these characters are tiresome cliches.” Reading these novels is like getting your ear bent by the garrulous drunk at the end of the bar.

(7) Writers who don’t do their research. If you really want to frost this reviewer, have your hero open a Heineken with a twist-off cap – there’s no such animal. And Jack Daniel’s whiskey always has an apostrophe.

If you’re writing a thriller set in Nazi Germany, you’ll score extra points with this reviewer if you don’t say “Hitler was elected president in a democratic election.” You’ll find plenty of people who’ll write that, but the Website Mythfact.com says it’s complicated.
“In America we hear ‘Hitler was elected President in a Democracy’ a lot,” the website says, “but the sentence is so semantically wrong . . . In summary, the whole thing is almost too complex to apply the ol’ ‘Hitler was elected democratically’ quip to, but since it is important, perhaps it is best phrased as, ‘Hitler and the NAZI party seized power in a democratic system.’”
Got that? Good.

(8) Basic copyediting errors. “These are turning up in books by major authors,” our reviewer said. “I’ve seen ‘grizzly murders,’ when I’m quite sure the local bears are innocent. Clothes are tossed down a ‘laundry shoot,’ and people ‘tow the line.’” If you really want to see steam come out of this reviewer’s ears, mix up “it’s” with “its” and “your” with “you’re.” Granted, we all make mistakes, especially when we’re writing quickly. But somebody should catch those errors before the book is printed.

(9) TMI in the first chapter. Nearly every one of us at TKZ has written about this problem. Overcrowded first chapters slow the pace of your novel. Our reviewer said, “It stops a good book dead when the first chapter has an overlarge cast of characters and I can’t keep them straight.”

Reader, what stops you when you’re reading a novel?

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Enjoy A Scarlet Death, my new Angela Richman mystery. The hardcover is $4 off here: https://tinyurl.com/mts557z5

By John Gilstrap

I spent last week in Nashville, Tennessee, at Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, where I got to commune with dozens of writer buddies, many of whom I had not seen since the pandemic. In case you’re not familiar with how these conferences work, the official program is filled with various speeches and panels, where writers pretend to understand this thing we do, and the evenings are spent in the bar, where all real business is conducted. I had a wonderful time.

One of the panels I served on was called “Shoot to Thrill,” where I had the honor to share the stage with Brad Thor, Andrew Child, Marc Cameron, and Boyd Morrison, with the mission of discussing how to write action scenes. I shared that I find the choreography of fight scenes to be some of the most tedious writing I do, and Andrew Child was on the opposite end of the spectrum, professing to enjoy writing those scenes.

One of the most interesting questions of the session came from an audience member, who brought up the iconic chase scene from the 1968 movie, Bullitt, starring Steve McQueen and a Ford Mustang. While a bit dated now–in part because I’ve watched it dozens of times–it’s a riveting sequence, featuring great camera work and lots of squealing tires and exciting engine noise. The questioner asked how one would write that sequence for the page and achieve that same level of excitement.

I had never thought about writing in those terms before, but as I thought through my answer, I realized that I had stumbled on the topic of my blog post for this week.

First, to get yourself oriented to the topic, here’s the sequence I’m talking about.

Notice how little storytelling occurs in that chase scene. Lots of adrenaline pumping camera work plus an outstanding sound track, but not much else. This is where writing for the page trumps writing for the screen.

I’m not going to attempt to write the sequence here, but consider all the opportunities for drama if you were to decide to do so:

• What do those aerial hijinks feel like to the driver’s spine?
• What is he thinking as be blasts through stop signs?
• How intent is he on keeping track of pedestrians and other vehicles as he speeds through the streets of San Francisco?
• What are his intentions if he catches up with the fleeing car?
• What do those downshifts feel like?
• How does he keep control when he loses the back end in a turn?
• What does all that burning rubber smell like?

The list goes on and on. The trick in writing an action scene for the page is to bring the reader into the protagonist’s head and body. Every action has a reaction–Newton’s Third Law of Writing. Focus on those reactions because that’s where the humanity of your character resides.

I wrote above that I find it tedious to write action sequences, and the reason is the delicate choreography of the action and the humanity, while still advancing the plot and not breaking the rhythm of the storytelling. After clearing a room and shooting bad guys, Jonathan Grave may change out a magazine before moving to the next room, even though the mag is half-full because, as he says, you never bring old bullets to a new gunfight. (More bullets are always preferred to fewer bullets.) That mag change would be just a few hand motions on the screen, but that sentence on the page provides an opportunity for characterization that advances the storytelling.

What say you, TKZ family? What’s your secret to writing effective action scenes?