How I Went From Idea to Story

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James Scott Bell
Twitter.com/jamesscottbell

I used to say this: It’s not a lie if somebody isn’t owed the truth. I don’t say that anymore. – One More Lie
I am pleased to announce the publication of my new suspense collection, ONE MORE LIE. It’s available on Kindle, Nookand Smashwords.  You can view the trailer here.
This collection includes the title novella and three new stories. I thought it might be instructive to tell you how I went from idea to story for the novella.
There are various creative exercises I use to come up with story possibilities. One of my favorites is the first line game. You make up a bunch of intriguing first lines all at once and see where they lead. I learned this from Dean Koontz in his classic HOW TO WRITE BESTSELLING FICTION. Koontz himself once wrote the line: “You ever killed anything?” Roy asked. He didn’t know anything else, but the line grabbed him and eventually he turned it into the hit novel The Voice of the Night.
For ONE MORE LIE, I actually got a first chapteridea. So I wrote it. I liked it so much I put it in my “active file” to noodle on later.
It stayed there for about a year as I worked on other projects, primarily those for which I had been paid, the publishers having the perfectly quaint notion that I therefore owed them a book.
But every now and again I’d return to that opening and think about it.
The day came when I had a window of time and decided to give it a whirl. So what I did was this:
1. Fleshed out the main characters. In this case there were four, and I spent time coming up with relationships and backstory. That in turn suggested further plot developments. I call this “orchestration” and it’s one of the most important things a writer can do with a new idea.
2. I experimented with POV. I had originally written the opening in 3d person. Sometimes I’ll switch POV to see how it feels. In this case, I decided that First Person was a better fit. My previous novella, WATCH YOUR BACK, was written in that sort of James M. Cain style I like, so I went with the same for ONE MORE LIE.
3. I let the plot unfold as I wrote, but took notes and outlined as I went. This is a “rolling outline” that enables you to think ahead during the writing process itself. It allows a certain freedom in plot while at the same time you’re building a solid structure. One benefit is that a particular twist happened out of the blue that completely changed the direction of the story and gave it the deeper dimension I was looking for.
4. I completed a first draft, let it sit, then printed it out in hard copy for my first read through. I take minimal notes at this stage, wanting to have a “reading experience” first. Then I assessed the big picture and revised it.
5. I gave it to my beta readers, starting with my lovely wife, who has a great editorial eye. I got terrific notes back. One of the readers did the copy edit for me.
6. I prepared it for e-publication, sent it out to be formatted. My son wanted to take a stab at designing the cover, and who was I to argue? The price was right. As in zip.

7. My son, a film grad, also did the trailer. For that I bought him dinner.
The result is a novella that got this advance copy blurb from Ane Mulligan of Novel Rocket: “James Scott Bell is at his best in One More Lie. Fast paced, this novella will leave you breathless to the unforeseen end. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put it down. Novel Rocket and I give it our highest recommendation. It’s a must read!”
And I still love that first chapter. So I’ve put it up online and invite you to read it. If you feel compelled to read on (and I think you will be) then for $2.99 you can get the whole thing, plus three other stories to boot. No contests. No gimmicks. Just bang for your reading buck. That’s what I’m going for every time out.
Now I want to know about YOU. How do you like to generate and nourish ideas? When do you know you’re ready to take one to the max and write? 

Paint Me Blue and Call Me Stupid, But I Want One

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Paint Me Blue and Call Me Stupid, But I Want One

I was in New Orleans and Baton Rouge for several days. The high points of the trip included hanging with my new friend Doug Woolfolk, who very kindly took time out of his extremely busy schedule to give me a tour of the state capitol building, including the hallway where Governor Huey Long was assassinated (or accidentally shot by his own bodyguards, depending on which story you care to believe) in 1935, and to visit Spanish Town, a revitalized neighborhood on the edge of downtown. When I reached New Orleans, I was able to visit with my dear friends Toni McGee Causey, author extraordinaire, and her husband Carl Causey, who may well be among the five most brilliant minds on the planet. Seriously. I also attended a legal seminar, had lunch with video and film director Jason Furrate to discuss a new project, and made some new friends. Oh, and I discovered that Louisiana sells Barq’s root beer by the glass bottle, and it’s different from what they ship in cans to Yankees up north. All in all, not a bad ten days. The downside was that my computer’s motherboard fried on the second night of the trip so that I was reduced to operating my practice and writing by swipe-typing on my smart phone. This is not recommended for those of us on the wrong side of middle age; I am hoping that at some point very soon my left hand comes out of the claw configuration in which it seems to be frozen.

My computer is replaced (it was actually cheaper to buy a new one than to have the old one repaired) and I am busily uploading dis, dat, and de udda to it so this is going to be a short offering this week. So, I’ll take the easy way out and just ask a question: are you going to buy a Kindle Fire, the soon-to-be-released multi-media tablet? Do you want it? Do you need it? To answer my own questions: I am not going to buy one. I might when a 3G version comes out but it really doesn’t do much more than my phone does, from an application standpoint. Do I want one? Yes. Do I need one? No, and hell no. How about you?

A Lesser Me

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Well, it’s author photo time again.  The one here on the left is the one that my publisher likes best.  Truth be told, I’m not entirely sure that I agree.  I don’t like the sloppiness of the shirt in the front.  I wish the photographer had told me that the shirt was all bunched up.

The exciting part of the author photo this time around is that for Damage Control (July, 2012), my ugly mug will dominate the back cover of the book.  I wish I were modest enough to say I didn’t care about that, but we all know each other too well for me to pull that off.  I think it’s very cool.

Now, if I had my ‘druthers, the chosen pic would be the one in the sports coat.

I just think it’s a sleeker look.  It also shows me in the first Armani jacket I have ever owned.  Trust me, it was bought at a steep discount, but still.  Armani!  Note to the uninitiated: I learned a long time ago that while expensive clothes are, well, expensive, they also fit better and last longer.

For me, though, this particular author shoot is a milestone event for me.  As you read this post, I will have officially crossed the one-year mark for having kept off the fifty pounds that I lost.  Not to get all sappy, but in May of 2010, I had emergency gallbladder surgery that didn’t go entirely well, but left me alive.  I didn’t enjoy looking mortality in the eye.  On the day I left the hospital, I vowed to my wife, Joy, that I would take life’s warning shot for what it was, and change my gluttonous ways. 

I understand that no one is more annoying than the recent convert who presumes to preach to others.  I, too, remember that moment when Oprah celebrated her weight loss by rolling a wagon full of animal fat onto the stage to show what a wonderful thing she’d done, only to apply all of that fat back to her waistline within a year or so.  Having been prone to weight issues my entire life (I’ve been way more self conscious of my profile than I ever was of my hair line), I know better than to boast, because I know that I could backslide anytime.  Still, it’s a good sign that I like vegetables now, and that they don’t have to be fried for me to get them down.

Does it help a weight loss regimen to spend a few months barfing up food that annoyed your gallbaldder?  You betcha.  It’s God’s ultimate diet plan, and I credit Him with half of the fifty pounds.  The rest of it, though, is on me, and I’m proud of it.

My pride and narcissism aside, let’s turn this into a discussion about books.  Do author photos matter to you when it comes time to buy a book? 

Does the fact that Bob Crais looks like a friggin’ movie star make you more likely to buy his books than if he were, you know, more Gilstrapian?  Does putting an author’s mug on the outside of the cover where it can be seen by the casual observer make any difference at all?  Or is book buying really about the quality of the writing?

There’s a Story in Every Picture – Come Tell Us Yours

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By Jordan Dane

I still get chills on release day. Officially released September 27th, Reckoning for the Dead (HarperCollins) is book #4 in my Sweet Justice novels, my second series with Harper. My thriller novels have the feel of being ripped from today’s headlines because real crime inspires me. With an international setting, these books focus on a covert vigilante organization called The Sentinels that wields its brand of justice on a global scale, without the hindrance of jurisdictions or courts of law.
With a starring role, Jessica Beckett is a former bounty hunter from Chicago with mad skills in outsmarting fugitives on the run. She has a no frills, tenacious pit bull personality, with a Colt Python and a dark past that never stops punishing her. International operative, Alexa Marlowe, is the polar opposite. Living in New York City, she’s sophisticated and into high fashion. She’s well-traveled and loves the good life and pampering, yet she can be fearless when it comes to leading the men in her tactical unit through the fiercest of hostage rescue scenarios on foreign soil. Her strong sense of loyalty makes her willing to take risks by putting her own life on the line. These women give Lady Justice a whole new reason to wear blinders and their brand of justice is anything but sweet.
In Reckoning for the Dead, Jessie and Alexa’s worlds become embroiled in upheavals stirred from their shadowy pasts. For Alexa, her former lover and Sentinel’s chief, Garrett Wheeler, is reported dead, killed in a mysterious covert op that’s “off book.” When a new leader suddenly assumes control of the elite vigilante organization overnight—a man Alexa can’t afford to trust—she isn’t buying anything he tells her. In search of Garrett and the truth, she goes rogue and off the grid, following a deadly trail that leads into Mexico, behind the fortress walls of a murderous drug cartel boss. Alone, Alexa has no one to watch her back, not even her new partner, Jessie.
Ex-bounty hunter, Jessie Beckett, has troubles of her own. When her DNA turns up as evidence in a gruesome murder committed when Jessie was only a child, before her life was shattered by an infamous killer, Jessie’s world is turned upside down. Solving a very cold case may hold the key to who she really is or kill the only memory she has of a woman she believes is her mother.
For Alexa and Jessie, the dead must have a reckoning.

In celebration of my new release, I thought it would be fun to post some images and have YOU tell US a short story. Pick an image and tell a brief tale–the start of a story. Think of it as ZUMBA for the brain. Inspiration can come from anywhere. Tease us and make us want more. Are you up for the challenge?
Cry Baby Creek Bridge – Every town has a legendary bridge

The Dungeon – The Stuff of Nightmares

There’s definitely a story here. Please, no booking photos.

Book Giveaways

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As Writers, we want to get our books into the hands of as many readers as possible. One of the easiest ways to do this is to give away books for free. Here is a sampling of sites that promote giveaways plus some other suggestions.

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/ Click on Visit your Dashboard, then scroll down to where it says Giveaways. Note that your book must be available on Amazon before you’re allowed to list it or it’ll deny your request and say your book doesn’t match anything in their database.

International Thriller Writers: You have to be a member to offer a giveaway. http://thrillerwriters.org/

Library Thing: http://www.librarything.com/er/giveaway/list
Or scroll down right column and click on Member Giveaways, then sign up to participate in the program

MWA: http://mysterywriters.org/ Mystery Writers of America offers monthly reader book giveaways. You must be a member to participate as an author and donate your book.
Who else should you consider?

  • Your Service People

Give your book as a holiday gift to people who serve you, i.e. the hairdresser, doctor, dentist, accountant, etc. Include a chocolate treat or Starbucks gift card with a nice coffee mug.

  • Speaker Engagements

When you give a talk, give out a book or two to folks who ask questions or for door prizes.

  • Key Niche Market People

Send a free copy of your book to key people in your niche market along with a cover letter explaining why your book matters to them

  • Book Club Leaders

If you can find book club leaders who are willing to accept ARCs, and you have enough to spare, you might see if you can interest them in reading your book and recommending it to their group.

Giveaways are fine when you receive author’s copies from your publisher but not so cost effective when you have to pay for a POD book yourself, so economics may not always make this a feasible tactic. However, even a free ebook edition will be welcome by many readers.

Contests are another way for you to offer your book to a lucky reader. As an example, often I will offer a signed book from my collection to a blog commenter during a certain month. I use the Random Integer Generator at http://www.random.org/integers/ to pick the winning numbers.

**Chance to win a free book! Leave a comment on this blog, and I will enter your name into a drawing for a free signed book of your choice from my collection of fifteen novels (if available). Winner will be announced as a final post on this site.
What other suggestions do you have for book giveaways? Does the format of your book make a difference? As a reader, do you prefer print or ebook editions?

FISHING FOR READERS: It’s all about the Hook

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By: Kathleen Pickering  http://www.kathleenpickering.com

Some hooks look like this: 

fishing tackle 

Other hooks look like this:

– I bared my balconet-supported breasts on the grocery line to see if they matched the bosoms the gossip magazine hanging on the rack featured as mine.

– Stella broke his arm with a thought; the sickening snap thrilling her like a deep, wet kiss.

– Leaning forward in their chairs for his next answer, the audience remained clueless to the fact that Rodger Heller no longer stood before them. (Future hooks by Kathleen Pickering)

Fishing tackle 2Not just for fishing any more, hooks are considered the number one lure for catching readers.

Your first line—your highly polished bait–attracts readers and gets them to bite again and again, turning pages and creating fans.

imagefishing tackle7

While ancient fishing tackle and cave paintings suited small communities and worked for plying waters close to shore, today’s audiences are huge and are easily distracted by flashing media and super-speed technology. Today’s hooks, although still the ultimate writer-tackle of choice, must be sharper than ever.

Hooks–so many types! Of the various suggested techniques, I’ve listed my five favorite hooks below.

1. Three-Pronged Hook. This is a wonderful approach using three sentences to pull the reader deeper into the story.

Here are three, expertly crafted Three-Pronged Hooks:

“I sleep with the dead. I don’t remember the first time I did it and try not to think about why. It’s just something I do.”  (In the Arms of Stone Angels, by Jordan Dane)

fishingtackleA

Or:

“Two Whom It May Concern: My name is Wilfred Leland James and this is my confession. In June of 1922 I murdered my wife, Arlette Christina Winters James, and hid her body by tupping it down an old well. My son, Henry Freeman James aided me in this crime, although at 14 he was not responsible; I cozened him into it, playing upon his fears and beating down his quite normal objections over a period of 2 months.” (Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King)

fishingtackleB

Or:

“The boy stood naked in the middle of the road. Sam Hall’s headlights caught him there, frozen in position, like a deer. He was covered in something slick and it dripped down his flesh.”  (The Evil Inside, by Heather Graham)

fishingtackleC

Makes you want to read more, yes? You’ll also see that expertly composed hooks manage to combine techniques to create a masterful atmosphere. With hooks created by the guest authors I’ve featured here today, if readers were fish, they’d be jumping into the boat.

2. Startle Hooks. These hooks capture audiences quickly because the readers can’t quite believe what they’ve just read (like those hooks above). Folks will keep reading to discover what is really going on. Another example, and shameless plug, is in Mythological Sam-The Call, where Sam Wilson starts the first chapter with a surreal visual:

"I steer around the bend and my breath catches in my throat. A hideous, mythological hydra suspends across the bay, clawing each shore with twin, snarling heads straining towards the sky." (Mythological Sam-The Call by Kathleen Pickering.

fishingtackleD

Couldn’t help but include myself here, especially in such good company, but  I hope you’ll agree that no normal dude driving along the road is going to see a snarling, mythological beast where a bridge is supposed to be. I’d like to think the startle factor will keep the audience reading to learn what’s really happening.

3. Describe a personality and elicit emotion.  See how a master handles this one:

“Myron lay sprawled next to a knee-knockingly gorgeous brunette clad only in a Class-B-felony bikini, a tropical drink sans umbrella in one hand, the aqua clear Caribbean water lapping at his feet, the sand a dazzling white powder, the sky a pure blue that could only be God’s blank canvas, the sun as soothing and rich as a Swedish masseur with a snifter of cognac, and he was intensely miserable.” (The Final Detail, by Harlan Coben).

fishingtackleE

Superbly done. (Applauding from my chair!) This hook flashes Myron as a law enforcer of high caliber who knows danger, attracts sexy women, lives life like a hedonist and is bored out of his gourd, eliciting both envy and concern from the reader over a intriguing personality. All done in one sentence. Amazing.

4. Establish a Setting. Mr. Coben also combines setting into the above hook, so I will cite the same quote. While establishing a setting is a gentler hook, when professionally cast as Coben has done, the results reel readers in hook, line and sinker. (I just know you were waiting for me to use that cliché!)

5. Introduce the Main Character. This hook is most effective when working with character driven plots, especially if the author is establishing a series with a particular character. Here, F. Paul Wilson’s character, Repairman Jack, has developed a cult-like following by portraying a darkly dangerous Jack with a quirky yet endearing, under-the-radar life style.

"Jack looked around the front room of his apartment and figured he was either going to have to move to a bigger place, or stop buying stuff. He had nowhere to put his new Daddy Warbucks lamp." (Conspiracies – Repairman Jack Series, by F. Paul Wilson)

fishingtackleF

Paul told me Repairman Jack was only supposed to be a few books. Instead, Jack’s huge success spawned fifteen Repairman Jack novels. Paul recently released a Repairman Jack young adult series to explain Jack’s formative years. Yes, indeed. Dr. Wilson must own a pretty snazzy tackle box to hook such a huge fan base.

So of the various techniques for creating hooks, including use of dialogue, and introducing conflict and/or problems, these are my top five picks. What are your hooks of choice? Feel free to give examples. I’ll check back later because I’m off to bait another hook. I’m going deep sea fishing, this time!

The Big Apple

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I’m off to New York today to attend a friend’s 10th wedding anniversary party and to see my agent. I’ll be back online (I hope) next week. In the meantime, any pearls of wisdom (?) – I am saying ‘a few words’ at the anniversary/renewal of vows ceremony and hope not to sound too soppy, sentimental or dull. Any advice??

An Open Letter to Traditional Publishing

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James Scott Bell
Twitter.com/jamesscottbell

Dear Traditional Publishing,
You’ve been taking it on the chin pretty good over the last year, so I wanted to write you a little letter and buck up your spirits. You’re an old and good friend. I want you to know that.
We’ve had great times together and they’re not over. We’ve done almost 30 books, you and I, and we have more in the pipeline. You send me royalties and never once has one of your checks bounced. I appreciate that!
But your head must be spinning like Victor Ortiz’s after Floyd Mayweather coldcocked him. With the e-reader revolution hitting harder than virtually anyone predicted, you’ve really hardly had time to get up off the canvas. I don’t want you to be counted out (and I certainly am not one of those in the cheap seats shouting for your demise!)
There is, however, something you need to understand. A lot of my writer friends are suffering right now because you’re dropping them. Yes, this is business, and the cold hard truth is you just haven’t got the dough coming in you used to. This limits the amount you can spend on new and midlist writers.
But there are lots of writers who signed contracts back in the day, before 2005 or so, whose books you’ve let go out of print. These writers would like to bring out these old books as e-books to try and make themselves some much needed scratch, but you are in most cases steadfastly refusing to give back any “electronic” rights. You’re going to hang onto those forever and just let the books sit there in digital land hoping they bring in a few beans.
Can I make a suggestion? Don’t play hard guy on this just because you’re bigger. Don’t pummel the struggling authors. Let them have their books. You’re not going to make a ton of lettuce on these. Being generous at this point would go a long way toward re-establishing some good will.
As for me, I am glad that it’s not either/or with us. I have you and I have self-published books that complement what we’re doing together. In point of fact, I’m doing what you always tell your authors to do: increase their platform, increase their readers. I’m making hundreds of new readers each month with my e-books, and that will only increase. Any author making new readers who feed into traditional offerings is creating a win-win situation. You can use a little more of that, I daresay!
Well, I know there’s a lot on your mind and you’ve probably got meetings to attend (watch out for those three martini lunches, though. Things aren’t that bad), so let me just give you some props and thanks. You let me have my dream. You have treated me fairly, and even though we’ve had a few disappointments, I am grateful that I get to be a working writer because you once took a chance on me.
Which is why I am hoping for your recovery. Of course we both recognize that things will never be the same. Too much has changed and will continue to change. But we still need people who love books —  yes even books printed on paper! — collectively working toward the production of quality literature. You’ve been doing that for a long time and I’m pulling for you to keep on doing it in some form or fashion in the future.
Hope this helps a little. Keep in touch. Maybe next time I’m in New York you can buy me a drink.
Yours truly,
a.k.a. K. Bennett

The Zombification of Miller

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John Ramsey Miller

I’ve been reading a lot of Zombie books lately, and I’m not truly remorseful. A guilty pleasure. There are so many, and so many authors writing in that horror sub-genre write great books indeed. Damn it, people just like Zombie hoards. It seems to me that before NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, Zombies were unfortunate people brought back to life by a Voodooie priest to become a slave of some sort. Usually there was a secretish herby drug involved that accomplished this and (supposedly) there have been actual cases of Caribbean-based people who were once dead, and had no memory of their prior existence. Whatever. But the point is (as far as I know) they didn’t spend their time above ground, looking to eat flesh and brains until John Carpenter’s low-budget Chittlin’ yard party outside the old farmhouse near Pittsburgh.

James Scott Bell’s Zombie lawyer, Mallory, breaks the mold, and it’s an hilarious book. A Vampire’s trial held at night is a hoot I know he thought his book through, and made his zombie more realistic than most authors writing about Zombies. But his book is comedy and not horror so much.

Each Zombie book, like the Vampire ones, is different but shares certain similarities. There are lots and lots, but I’ll list a few.

1) Some sort of virus (celestial based or scientific experiment gone bad) gives the dead their locomotion fuel

2) The physical sharing Zombie Juice, or the airborne Zumbo-dust that covers the world, makes you become one upon dying

3) Being Zombified cuts IQ toward single digits. They can move around mostly in a shuffle, but can’t open doors, or use ladders, although steps are not a problem.

In some of these books Zombies learn tricks like opening doors and even setting up ambushes.

4) only opening the skull and scattering brains stops the things. They can see other Zombies get their brains scattered but (in denial like living people) do not think it can happen to them.

5) They do not respect old relationships and will eat their immediate family as soon as they’ll eat a politician

6) They begin to rot out and decay which adversely affects their appearance and gives them an unpleasant odor

7) They can walk if they have retained their legs, or crawl if legless, but wheelchairs are too complex to operate. If immobile, a zombie head can lie waiting like a rock until an ankle or a finger finds its way into its mouth.

8) All they think about is eating flesh and or brains

9) They have a keen sense of smell, see and hear well above the average living human

10) They often repeat old habits like going home to eat their friends and family, or go to the mall

10) They tend to gang up

11) The children zombies are usually faster moving than the adults

12) They coexist peacefully until preying

So this got me to thinking about how much disbelief I should suspend. I was asking a Chiropractor the other day how if tissue and muscle was rotting normally, how long could a Zombie walk around before critical disconnection and failure of the ability to locomote. If they can “live” just fine for years without eating, why do they go to so much trouble trying to eat something they can’t digest or pass? He said, “None of it is possible.” He wasn’t willing to theorize. I can believe all of it in a well-written story, but I do have questions galore that I often wonder how the writer can deal with. Bodies decay to bones, which are connected by living tissue and not even a reanimated brain can make tissue regenerate.

I think people are so into Zombie books because it appears society could degenerate and the institutions that keep us safe, break down. When anarchy is the norm, the strong will try to subjugate the weaker members of the non-society. I suppose that is a big factor in the surge of popularity. Plus, I think people just like seeing Zombies get it, more than they do ghouls or politicians.

If you want to read two very good series, try Stephen Knight’s GATHERING DEAD series, or Joseph Talluto’s White Flag of the Dead series.

What’s your guilty pleasure in novels?

Reader Baggage

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By John Gilstrap
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a “fan” who loves my books, but is deeply annoyed that I allow my “left wing liberal politics” invade my work. I’ll give those who know me well a moment to stop laughing.

As evidence of my “politically correct bullshit” he notes that in Threat Warning, my fictional terrorists are “God fearing Christian men and women” when “we all know” that the true terrorists are Muslims. In my reply, I ignored the substance–including his assessment of who my fictional terrorist truly are–and thanked him for reading my work. Some conversations are just not worth having.

For the record, I work very hard to keep politics out of my writing. It just doesn’t belong. I’ll leave that subgenre of the thriller market to Brad Thor and Barry Eisler—between the two of them, the ends of the political spectrum are well covered. Still, I guess it makes sense that because Jonathan Grave is a former Delta operator and he uses a lot of weaponry, people might assume that he’s a right-winger, but that would be based only on the clichéd assumptions made about groups of people. Truth be told, I don’t think that Digger would have much time for any politician.

This email got me thinking, though, about how much of our reading is informed by the baggage we bring to the material we choose. We’ll all give a second (or third or fourth) chance to a writer whose earlier work impressed us, but think about how hard it is to give that same break to the same author who everyone loves, but whose first effort you experienced was sort of meh.

And it’s not just true of books. I like just about everybody, but there are a few folks on my shit list whose email correspondence always seems snide or hurtful. I have to remind myself that it’s entirely possible—maybe likely—that no offense was intended, and that where there’s no intent, there’s no foul, right?

When I was in junior high, I read my first Great Novel: Lord of the Flies. I was a better than average student, and as I read it, I remember being so proud of myself for catching on to the social subtext—the symbolism—of the book. My cousin was a high school English teacher at the time, teaching Lord of the Flies to seniors. When he told me that the pig-killing scene had Oedipal overtones, I thought he was making it up. Even after he explained it, I didn’t get it. That’s because I was reading an adventure story while he was teaching literature.

In Threat Warning, I wrote a thriller that my fan apparently read as a political treatise. At a book signing years ago, a very enthusiastic fan lauded Nathan’s Run for its symbolic depiction of the plight of the American Indian. She meant it as a compliment and I took it as such.  I never told her that American Indians never once entered my consciousness as I wrote the book.

I’ve come to the conclusion over the years that once my words are published, my opinion of what I meant to say has no more validity—perhaps even less validity—than the opinion of those who read the words through their own filters. That’s the nature of art in any form, I think. I get my shot when I create it; after that, it’s all up to the observer/consumer.

What do you think? If a book arouses in you an intense emotion, does it matter that it might never have been the author’s intention to do so? Do authors’ intentions for their own work matter at all after the book is published?