By John Gilstrap

We’ve discussed in this space before the burden of the Muddled Middle or Page 200 Syndrome, where the writing process gets hopelessly bogged down in critical exposition that is strikingly un-fun. Today, let’s talk about other un-fun writing: I call them transitional scenes.

Say Detective Jones has discovered what he thinks he will turn out to be a key piece of evidence, and he needs to hand deliver it to Dr. Parker to get his input. The transitional scene in this circumstance would be the process by which Jones gets to Parker’s office.

You could just cut to a new scene where the detective and the doc are in mid-conversation, but if this is their first interaction, in medias res could leave the reader unsatisfied. In my style of writing, the reader needs to know the nature of characters’ relationships. Did they go to school together? Do they like each other? What is Detective Jones’s mode of transportation?

Here comes the balance of backstory and data dump. I’ve got to set up the scene without boring the reader. This means doing the reveal in the midst of some kind of intriguing action. I’ve got to reveal backstory without losing momentum on the front story.

Dr. Oscar Parker knew more about art and art thievery than anyone Flannery Jones had ever encountered. The professor’s tastes had always run toward the modern stuff–the random splashes of color and shapes and mis-assigned anatomy that Jones believed were practical jokes inflicted on the snooty rich. Judging from the ornateness of the gold-tipped iron gates that blocked access to his driveway, his expertise had elevated him from geeky eighth grade nose picker to a gentleman of means and influence. As Jones drove into the frame of the CCTV and pushed the button on the intercom, he wondered if he should start with an apology for the swirlies he’d administered back in the day.

The pacing of some stories require that the reader perceive the passage of time. Early in Nathan’s Run, there’s a section where 12-year-old Nathan decides in the morning that he’s going to execute the next part of his plan that night after the sun goes down. Following that decision comes a chapter about the parallel story of the police who are chasing him, but at this point, the cops don’t have a lot to go on, so the plot is dependent upon them acting on what Nathan does, so there’s not a lot for them to do, either. The trick is to keep these characters alive on the page even when they don’t yet have meaningful tasks to perform. Herein lies the beauty of sub-subplots. In the absence of real action, I inserted political turmoil within the police department itself.

Great. Now, that has to somehow payoff later.

Next came a short scene that might have felt like a non-sequitur at first because it introduces an important character who has exactly one very important task to perform within the story. But he can’t just walk onto the page, do his thing, and disappear. He has to feel real. So, Todd first joins the story as a stressed out professional (I forget what his job is) who’s sweating over a very important presentation that he needs to make the next morning. The reader needs to like him, and he needs to have a reason to be awake at a certain hour the next morning to see the thing that then sets the third act in motion.

Back to Nathan. It’s finally time to pull the trigger on him executing his plan. As the eponymous character, though, people want to know what he’s been doing for the past fifteen or twenty pages.

Now, finally, it was time to get the true action of the story moving again.

As I write this blog post, I am in the middle of a multifaceted transition for Scorched Earth, the Jonathan Grave book for 2026. I’ve got a good guy dead, another good guy wounded and in the hospital, a bad guy in a different hospital, while Jonathan and his team are just now in the process of unpacking who is the power behind all of this. In thirty pages or so, the story valve will open wide for about 50 pages.

And then, I’ll arrive at the Muddled Middle and the joy of writing will once again become less joyful. But only for a little while.

What say you, TKZ family? Have you all walked this same walk? Got any tricks to share?

By PJ Parrish

I am gearing up for my annual gig as chair of the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Awards. This year is pretty special because it’s the 80th birthday of the venerable organization itself.

Digression: You’d think if you make it to your 80th anniversary, the appropriate gift would be something cool like diamond or platinum. Nope, the 80th is oak. What, for a coffin?

Well, maybe a coffin is apt, considering what we here all do — putting bodies in the ground. Anywho, we are going to honor MWA’s eightith by taking a look back to celebrate what was unique about each decade. So I’ve been boning up on crime fiction history this week. I am rather ashamed at my ignorance on this subject. Believe me, I have been trying for years now to get up to speed on my reading of our classics. But the MWA celebration is also forcing me to dig deeper into the less obvious writers and books.

And I’d like to pick y’all’s brains for some help on who and what books we should be including. More on that in a sec.

But first: Let’s review.

I suspect most of you know already that Edgar Allen Poe’s 1941 short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue is considered the first detective story. But do you know what is considered to be the first full-length mystery novel? That would be Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, published in 1861. Here’s the opening:

Chapter One

In the first part of Robinson Crusoe, at page one hundred and twenty-nine, you will find it thus written:

“Now I saw, though too late, the Folly of beginning a Work before we count the Cost, and before we judge rightly of our own Strength to go through with it.”

Only yesterday, I opened my Robinson Crusoe at that place. Only this morning (May twenty-first, Eighteen hundred and fifty), came my lady’s nephew, Mr. Franklin Blake, and held a short conversation with me, as follows:—

“Betteredge,” says Mr. Franklin, “I have been to the lawyer’s about some family matters; and, among other things, we have been talking of the loss of the Indian Diamond, in my aunt’s house in Yorkshire, two years since. Mr. Bruff thinks, as I think, that the whole story ought, in the interests of truth, to be placed on record in writing—and the sooner the better.”

Not perceiving his drift yet, and thinking it always desirable for the sake of peace and quietness to be on the lawyer’s side, I said I thought so too. Mr. Franklin went on.

“In this matter of the Diamond,” he said, “the characters of innocent people have suffered under suspicion already—as you know. The memories of innocent people may suffer, hereafter, for want of a record of the facts to which those who come after us can appeal. There can be no doubt that this strange family story of ours ought to be told. And I think, Betteredge, Mr. Bruff and I together have hit on the right way of telling it.”

If you didn’t get through it, don’t feel bad. I tried to read this book to give it an honest chance but the sledding was too tough. If I were doing a Kill Zone First Page Critique on this, well, let’s just say I would try to be kind.  I did come across one phrase I liked:

Your tears come easy, when you’re young, and beginning the world. Your tears come easy, when you’re old, and leaving it. I burst out crying.

Such was the style of the age, right? Things got easier, thank goodness. About 25 years later, two guys named Holmes and Watson showed up in A Study in Scarlet. You might have heard of them. Probably the best-known detective and sidekick in the modern period. Without them, would Nero and Archie exist? Would Spenser have his Hawk? And how could Michael Knight manage without his Kitt?

Then we jump forward to the 20s and 30s, the so-called Golden Age of crime ficiton, dominated by the grande dames Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. In researching, I found one of the writers of this time, Ronald Knox, whose day job was Catholic priest, came up with his Ten Commands of detection fiction:

1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.
8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

I especially agree with number ten. One should always be prepared for twin brothers.

In something of a backlash to Christie et al, some writers, mainly Americans, began to reshape the detective formula. Puzzle-solving novels were too…clean. The thirst for realism begat the hardboiled school. It was every man for himself and nobody trusted nobody.

First out of the gate, I discovered, was Carroll John Daly. His pulpy stories – The False Burton Combs (1922), It’s All in the Game (1923) and Three Gun Terry (1923) – all became instant hits with readers, especially his PI Race Williams. Après lui le déluge of the usual suspects —  Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy B. Hughes, Ross Macdonald, Jim Thompson. The list is long, and you still hear echoes of them in much of today’s crime fiction. Without them and the characters they created, the world would not have been blessed with Dirty Harry.

Here’s a paragraph I wish I had written, from Dorothy Hughes’s classic In A Lonely Place. Which was also a helluva movie starring Bogart and Gloria Grahame.

Once he’d had happiness but for so brief a time; happiness was made of quicksilver, it ran out of your hand like quicksilver. There was the heat of tears suddenly in his eyes and he shook his head angrily. He would not think about it, he would never think of that again. It was long ago in an ancient past. To hell with happiness. More important was excitement and power and the hot stir of lust. Those made you forget. They made happiness a pink marshmallow.

Where did things go from there? Wow, that’s a topic for another post, maybe part II, since this one is running long. And I am still heavy into research mode, only up through the 60s so far. I have learned that our genre has grown many, many twisted and bountiful branches. I’ve been doing this Edgars banquet gig for about 25 years now, and every year, when I see the new list of nominees come out, I am amazed at the variety and vitality I see. It seems to me that crime fiction, since the 2000s, has become ever more inclusive, exotic, richly textured and, yeah, I’ll go there — less dependent on cliches, stereotypes, and worn tropes.

So, now I turn to you guys. I am putting together the program and will be asking some authors to write about a particular decade in crime fiction — 1940 to the present — why they love it. I’m also having a video made that celebrates each decade of MWA’s remarkable history, which includes not just the influential books but also the standout crime TV shows and movies of each decade.

Tell me what you gravitate to — authors, characters, eras — and why it moves you. You’ll be doing me a solid, bims and fellas.

Fifteen years ago, a coworker pushed into my softly-lit office one Monday morning and settled herself in one of the two chairs on the opposite side of my desk. I knew she was irritated by her body language and the way she sat on the edge of the chair, as if preparing to leap across and tear out my throat.

I didn’t like overhead lights, so they were off, and the room was lit only by two standing lamps and a green one on my desk.

“It’s too dark in here.” She pursed her lips like the SNL church lady. “This doesn’t look like an office.”

My first thought that I somehow held back was, Your mouth looks like a cat’s ass.

“It does too.” (I wonder if I meant her mouth, or the office.) Here’s a desk. There’s a computer, and I have an electric pencil sharpener. It’s a real workspace.”

“You know what I mean.”

You don’t know what I meant, though. Then I spoke aloud. “I thought I did.”

She got right to the point. “So just what do you do all day?” She hammered that word hard.

My puckered visitor was a director in another department, and apparently didn’t like the fact that I was behind my desk late one morning, pounding on my computer keyboard, instead of sitting in some other inane meeting like the one she’d just left.

I also knew she was miffed because I’d refused to attend her “mandatory” 4:00 PM meeting the previous Friday afternoon. In my opinion, the meeting was only a way to flex her administrative muscles over those who worked under her so they couldn’t go home until 6:00.

I was the Director of Communications and crisis management for the then tenth largest school district in Texas. We had 7,500 employees and 56,000 kids, and someone was messing up every single day.

Considering her question about my work ethic, I leaned back and propped my feet on my desk for emphasis. “What I do all day is exactly what I was doing when you rolled in.”

“And what’s that?”

“Keeping your people out of trouble and dealing with the media. Your people need direction that your coordinators aren’t providing, and since I’ve been in this business for almost thirty-five years, I have a little experience in crisis management to handle these issues so they won’t wind up on the shoulders of your building administrators where they can’t do their job.”

She glared. “You look like you’re just sitting there, twiddling your thumbs every time I go by, and you’re always on the phone. It never looks like you’re doing anything.”

“That’s because I’m good at my job. Looks easy, don’t it?”

“I think you make it appear like you’re working.”

“Okay.” As a visual aid, I reached over and sharpened a pencil. She stomped out and though we’re still “friends,” that day has never come back up in conversation.

Our little exchange came back not too long ago in a writing workshop when a young lady raised her hand when I asked for questions.

“So now that you’re an author, what do you do all day?”

“I sit behind a desk, or sometimes on the couch, or on the bed, or on a table-cum-desk at our cabin and think a lot of the time. Then I pound on the keyboard, making stuff up.”

“So you write all day?”

“Some days. But I don’t always look like I’m working. Sometimes I read, or look out the window. When I lean back and close my eyes, story lines, bits of dialogue, and descriptions roll past. Sometimes I watch TV. Writers are always thinking, so sometimes I have to pause the movie or program to take a note or two. They sometimes trigger a bit of dialogue, or a plot line, or even an idea for my weekly newspaper columns.”

“Isn’t that stealing?”

“Nope, according to academics, there are only seven basic storytelling plots that we all re-work, though a couple of overachievers say there might be as many as thirty. The basics are overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, rebirth, comedy, and tragedy. We all just build those same stories and do it in our voice.”

“Can your wife tell you’re working?”

“Why, have you been talking to her? Did she say something?”

Thankfully the conversation moved on.

I’m always working, though there are times when this author’s mind needs some relief. There are days when words flow from a firehose, but at other times I run into hills and the pace slows as I  struggle to the top. Good or bad, my mind wanders. I suffer distractions.

Squirrel!

After 37 years, I still write a weekly newspaper column that allows me to go in an entirely different direction in my writing. Changing lanes freshens my mind, and the little 900-word stories get me onto a different track.

There are other times, though, when I write a scene and need details I haven’t seen or experienced for myself. That leads to the Google and The Rabbit Hole. It isn’t a bad thing. As I research, or surf, I find ideas, stories, and anecdotes that make their way into my plot. But as all writers can tell you, it’s a huge time-suck that can impact your page or word count for that day.

But I’m still working, though I might not look like it.

Sometimes I need to put myself in that place. That’s when I watch a movie set in the period I’m working on, looking for details that might not have occurred to me.

I also feel guilty most of the time. I want to write, but at the same time, I really want to read whatever is in my TBR pile. That’s where books come in. For example, I’m working on my fifth western at this writing and needed some real cowboy lingo. While the Bride and I were in Alpine, Texas, for their annual Art Walk back in November, she found me a copy of We Pointed Them North, by Teddy Blue. That book is an encyclopedia of the cowboy way of life.

Within those pages he once referred to himself as a cow catcher, instead of cowboy. That went into the manuscript.  He also explained the origin of cow puncher. When a cattle drive was over and they finally got the herd to the railroad, the stock had to be loaded onto the cars. To get the cattle moving, the boys used long poles to punch them in the rear end, forcing them forward to make room for more.

Who knew?

So just what do authors do all day?

We noodle around on the internet, make things up, daydream, stare out the window–––

Squirrel!

––– find things to do in order not to work, read, think, stare out the window some more, and sometimes attend conferences where we interact with others, thereby finding inspiration to string words together when we get home, hopefully choosing the ones that carry readers along with us on the fictional journey created in our minds. Then we write.

Yeah, lady, I was working then, and now, but sometimes you just can’t tell it.

By Elaine Viets

          What the heck?

Lately, reading has been a painful experience. Especially online. One story after another has some outrage against the language. I wanted to rant like a pedant and point out each mistake, but I showed some self-restraint. After all, pedantry is still outlawed in most southern states.

Instead, I put these errors into a short story. There are at last 30 mistakes in the story. See if you can spot them all.

A Horrifying Tail of Murder and Mutilation

The Corliss boys, Billy and Justin, created a rein of terror in the town of Blister Bend. The thugs would exorcise their ferocious Dobermans in the town square. The snarling dogs were all teeth and mussel. The very site made mothers grab they’re children to protect there tots.

Sherriff  Sam Wich said, “The Corlis’s are the most callus outlaws in the county. No regard for anyone’s feelings.”

Deputy D. Awg said, “Billy tried to bribe me when he didn’t break at the red light on Main. Pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and waived it in my face. I said I wasn’t for sail.”

“Billy keeps a loaded weapon on his mantle,” Sheriff  Sam said.  “What I wouldn’t give to test that. I bet its connected to at least three grizzly murders.”

“Ever thought about going to the staties?” the deputy asked.

The sherrif glared at him. “What good would that do? I should complain to the state troupers? About Billy Corlis? Whose been paying off the Colonial for years? Are you trying to get me killed?”

“Uh, no, sir. I forgot.” The deputy gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sure one of the Corlises will slip up and we’ll catch them.”

Sheriff Sam snorted. But Deputy D. Awg showed real forsight. Less than a week later, he suprised Billy and Justin burying a body at a construction sight on the edge of town. The deputy got the drop on the killers, and handcuffed them both.

Turned out the decreased was the town butcher.

Sherriff Sam arrived on the seen and staired sadly at the dead meet man. “Its a gristly end  for a good man,” he said.

Then he growled at the cuffed killers. “But those two . . . Now their an arresting site.”

“Why, Sheriff,” the deputy said. “I had no idea you were homophonic.”

A Horrifying Tail of Murder and Mutilation: The Reveal

The Corliss boys, Billy and Justin, created a rein of terror in the town of Blister Bend. The thugs would exorcise their ferocious Dobermans in the town square. The snarling dogs were all teeth and mussel. The very site made mothers grab they’re children to protect there tots.

Sherriff  Sam Wich said, “The Corlis’s are the most callus outlaws in the county. No regard for anyone’s feelings.”

Deputy D. Awg said, “Billy tried to bribe me when he didn’t break at the red light on Main. Pulled out a hundred-dollar bill and waived it in my face. I said I wasn’t for sail.”

“Billy keeps a loaded weapon on his mantle,” Sheriff  Sam said.  “What I wouldn’t give to test that. I bet its connected to at least three grizzly murders.”

“Ever thought about going to the staties?” the deputy asked.

The sherrif glared at him. “What good would that do? I should complain to the state troupers? About Billy Corliss? Whose been paying off the Colonial for years? Are you trying to get me killed?”

“Uh, no, sir.” The deputy gave him a rueful smile. “I’m sure one of the Corlises will slip and we’ll catch them.”

Sheriff Sam snorted. But Deputy D. Awg showed real forsight. Less than a week later, he suprised Billy and Justin burying a body at a construction sight on the edge of town. The deputy got the drop on the killers, and handcuffed them both.

Turned out the decreased was the town butcher.

Sherriff Sam arrived on the seen and staired sadly at the dead meet man. “Its a gristly end for a good man,” he said.

Then he growled at the cuffed killers. “But those two . . . Now their an arresting site.”

“Jeez, Sheriff,” the deputy said. “I had no idea you were homophonic.”

***

As you probably guessed, most of these mistakes are homophones, words that sound alike but are spelled differently. These words have tripped up many unwary writers:

tail/tale

exorcise/exercise

rein/reign/rain

mussel/muscle

callous/callus

break/brake

sight/site

seen/scene

waive/wave

sale/sail

mantle/mantel

troopers/troupers

grizzly/gristly, and grisly

stair/stare

meet/meat

whose/who’s

Misusing it’s for its drives me crazy, (and that’s a short drive). My teachers pounded this helpful hint into my head: “It’s” is a contraction of “it is.” Replace “its” with “it is” and if the sentence makes sense: “It is a gristly end . . .” you’re using it correctly.

Ditto for whose/who’s. Whose is a possessive adjective, as in “Whose book is that?” It also identifies someone or something: “I haven’t seen my ex-boyfriend, whose name I forget, in years.”

Who’s is a contraction of “who has” or “who is,” as in “Who’s a good boy?”

If you’re not sure, replace “who’s” with “who is” and see if it works.

As for the grisly business of grizzly, gristly, and grisly: Innocent grizzly bears and gristly, tough T-bones are being accused of grisly murders.

Misspellings include forsight, colonial for colonel, decreased and surprise. I worked for a newspaper that printed an expensive color Sunday magazine. The printed magazines were delivered early in the week.

On the color cover was a huge one-word headline: “Suprise!”

“Sheriff” confuses me so badly, I have to write down the correct version on a Post-it note to get it right.

“Sheriff” with one R and two Fs is the correct spelling for a law enforcement officer.

The double-barreled “Sherriff”  (two Rs and two Fs) is an English author, screenwriter and playwright, R.C. Sherriff, best known for “Journey’s End,” based on his World War I experience.

Version 1.0.0

Last, but not least, are the perilous possessives for a name ending is S.

TKZer P J Parrish has warned us to avoid using names that end in S, but sometimes we can’t help it.

I had the evil Corliss boys. This line: The Corlis’s are the most callus outlaws . . .” should not have any apostrophe.

What if you want to say something belongs to the Corlisses? That’s depends on what style you or your publisher uses: Mine prefer Corliss’s. Others use Corliss’.

Both are correct.

Enjoy these tips to become better writers. Or is it righters?

My new Florida Beach mystery is due out in June. Preorder Sex and Death on the Beach here: bit.ly/3W6Y2Rp