Dealing with Doubt Words of Wisdom

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In my experience doubt is one of the greatest obstacles writers face. Doubt that you have the chops to finish your latest book. Doubt that you have the skills to even start. Doubt when you find yourself stuck, whether you are an outliner or a discovery writer, or a hybrid of both.

Doubt and I are old acquaintances—it wasn’t until I had been studying and practicing the craft of fiction writing that I began to overcome it, but, even then, doubt continued to get in my way.

My late friend and mentor Mary Rosenblum told me in no uncertain terms I needed to figure out a way to vanquish the inner “demon” of self-doubt or I would never progress as a writer. She told me one of the most talented writers she ever knew had been crippled by intense self-doubt after initially writing some promising work and had not written anything since. I took her advice to heart.

It took me several years after her urging to finally begin to get a handle on overcoming doubt, but I did.

I learned you never banish doubt completely, but rather, you figure out how to write and finish despite the doubt. Today’s Words of Wisdom looks at doubt and how to overcome it before and during writing, as well as when you are stuck not knowing what happens next, with excerpts from James Scott Bell, Joe Moore and PJ Parrish.

Another reason excellent writers experience doubt is, ironically, excellence itself. Because these authors keep setting their standards higher, book after book, and know more about what they do each time out. That has them wondering if they can make it over the bar they have set. Many famous writers, unable to deal with this pressure, have gone into the bar itself, and stayed late.

Jack Bickham, a novelist who was even better known for his books on the craft, put it this way:

“All of us are scared: of looking dumb, of running out of ideas, of never selling our copy, of not getting noticed. We fiction writers make a business of being scared, and not just of looking dumb. Some of these fears may never go away, and we may just have to learn to live with them.”

Yes, you learn to live with them, but how? The most important way is simply to pound away at the keyboard.

You write.

As Dennis Palumbo, author of Writing from the Inside Out, put it, “Every hour you spend writing is an hour not spent fretting about your writing.”

If a writer were to tell me he never has doubts, that he’s just cocksure he’s the Cheez-Wiz of literature, I know I will not want to read his work. That’s why I think doubts are a good sign.

They show that you care about your writing and that you’re not trying to skate along with an overinflated view of yourself.

The trick is not to let them keep you from producing the words.

Don’t ever let the waves of doubt stop you. Body surf them back to shore, let the energy of them flow through your fingertips. That’s the only real “secret” to this game.

James Scott Bell—July 10, 2011

 

So when you get stuck, what can you do? Here are some suggestions that I’ve used. Perhaps they’ll help you, too.

  • Change your writing environment. I have a home office with a desktop PC. I also have a laptop. Sometimes I need different surroundings so I grab my laptop and move to another room or outside. Just the act of breathing fresh air can fire up your brain.
  • Listen to music. Often I write to background music, usually a movie score (no distracting lyrics). But sometimes setting down in front of my stereo and rocking out to my favorite group can clear my head and refresh my thoughts.
  • Get rid of distractions. TV, email, instant and text messages, phone calls, pets, and the biggest offender of them all: the Internet. Get rid of them during your writing time.
  • Stop writing and start reading. Take a break from your writing and read one of your favorite authors. Or better yet, pick something totally out of your wheelhouse.
  • Don’t decide to stop until you’re “inspired”. I’ve tried this. It won’t work.
  • Open a blank document and write ANYTHING. It’s called “stream of consciousness”. It worked for James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust. It can work for you.
  • Write through it. Beginners sit around and hope for a solution to come to them in their dreams. Professionals keep writing. The solution will come.
  • Finally, do something drastic. Bury someone alive. Works every time.

Joe Moore—July 20, 2016

Maybe there are writers out there who never have any doubts. Maybe Nora Roberts or Joyce Carol Oates never break out in a cold sweat at night. But I suspect there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of you out there who are in the same sweaty boat as I am. Because getting published is the easy part. (I know, those of you who aren’t don’t want to hear that, but it’s true.) Staying published is what’s tough. That means consistently writing good books that people want to read. And did I mention trying to always become a better writer?

Here’s Chuck Wendig on the subject of self-doubt. He’s my favorite go-to-guy when I am feeling alone and fraudulent:

You’re sitting there, chugging along, doing your little penmonkey dance with the squiggly shapes and silly stories and then, before you know it, a shadow falls over your shoulder. You turn around.

But it’s too late. There’s doubt. A gaunt and sallow thing. It’s starved itself. It’s all howling mouths and empty eyes. The only sustenance it receives is from a novelty beer hat placed upon its fragile eggshell head — except, instead of holding beer, the hat holds the blood-milked hearts of other writers, writers who have fallen to self-doubt’s enervating wails, writers who fell torpid, sung to sleep by sickening lullabies.

Suddenly Old Mister Doubt is jabbering in your ear.

You’re not good enough.

You’ll never make it, you know.

Everyone’s disappointed in you.

Where are your pants? Normal people wear pants.

You really thought you could do it, didn’t you? Silly, silly penmonkey.

And you crumple like an empty Chinese food container beneath a crushing tank tread. 

There’s no easy way to cope with this. But here are some things I have found that have helped me over the decades. If you have some remedies, pass them on. We can all use the help.

  1. Talk to other writers. Be it through a critique group or at a writer’s conference, or just hanging out at blogs like this — make human contact with those who understand. One of the hardest lessons I learned was that, although writing is a solitary pursuit, it’s not a good idea to go it alone.
  2. Get away from your WIP.  Which is NOT to say you should abandon writing for days or weeks because it you do that you lose momentum and risk being exiled from that special universe you are creating in your head.  But it is a good idea, when you a stuck or in deep doubt, to feed your creative engine. Go for a good hike (leave early and take the dog). Read a good book or better yet some poetry. Go see some live theater  or a concert. You will come back refreshed. It’s like doing a crossword puzzle: You can sit there and stare at 19-across for days and not get it, but if you put the puzzle down for awhile then pick it up, you see the pattern and can move on.
  3.   Stay in the moment.  Don’t project your fears forward or your regrets backward: What if I spend the rest of the year working on this story and it turns out to be a heaping pile of poop? What if no editor ever buys it? What if I only sell four copies on Amazon? If only I had started doing this when I was younger or before I had kids (or fill in the blank) I might be successful by now.  As a therapist friend of mine once told me: If you stand with one leg in the past and the other in the future, all you’ll do is piss on your present.    
  4. Don’t be afraid to fail.  Because you will, at some time and at some level. If you spend all your energy worrying about this, you will never be a writer. Failure can often lead you in new directions. Margaret Atwood took a vacation to work on her novel but six months later, she realized the story was a tangled mess with “badly realized characters” and she abandoned it. But soon after that, she began her dystopian masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale. As she put it:

Get back on the horse that threw you, as they used to say. They also used to say: you learn as much from failure as you learn from success.

PJ Parrish—March 14, 2017

***

  1. Is doubt an obstacle you face as a writer?
  2. Do you feel doubt when starting or finishing a project?
  3. If you get stuck while writing, is doubt part of your creative struggle to unstick your writing? What techniques do you use to overcome doubt and unblock your writing?
  4. How do you overcome overcome self-doubt in general regarding your writing?

Pushing the Envelope – Lighting Your World

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“Pushing the envelope means testing limits and trying out new, often radical ideas. The expression comes originally from mathematics and engineering, where an envelope is a boundary, but was popularized by test pilots.” (Termium Plus)

It has been said that Thomas Edison tested 10,000 different materials before finding the right filament. In reality, “Edison tested sixteen hundred different filaments—everything from coconut fiber to human hair—before settling on carbonized bamboo fiber.” (theartof.com)

Throughout history, it has been creative efforts and experimentation that have brought us all the great new inventions. By definition, all creative endeavors involve creation – definition – “the action or process of bringing something into existence.” (Oxford Language Dictionary)

Writing fiction is no exception. In the beginning of Jack Bickham’s book, Scene and Structure, the author summarizes the history of changes in the structure of fiction from epic poetry, to personal letters, to journal or diary entries, to a personal “conversational” structure, and finally a sequence of scenes played in the here and now as if they were taking place as the reader reads and imagines them.

We sometimes forget that most inventions continue to change and improve. Just look at your personal experience, especially with computers and telecommunication, from the time you started a job to the present.

Readers change, and books have changed. As writers, we are involved in a creative occupation, and it is good (Dare I say our responsibility?) to continue to experiment, to learn what works, and discover what doesn’t. Maybe even try something truly different.

We must learn the rules before we try to break them, but never stop pushing the envelope. Never stop testing the boundaries. Never stop learning!

Questions:

  1. What major changes (inventions) have occurred in your occupation prior to becoming a writer?
  2. What do you think are the most significant creations/inventions in story telling?
  3. What experiments have you done (or do) to create improved ways to serve up a story for your readers?

Don’t Let The Old Man In

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Country music master Toby Keith has left us for the Grand Ole Opry in the sky. Mr. Keith was only sixty-two when he passed last month after a brave battle with cancer. It’s a sad loss not just for America but to the entire entertainment world. A brilliant singer, songwriter, producer, actor, and businessman is gone.

Toby Keith started his career in 1998 with his debut super-hit How Do You Like Me Now? Over the next twenty-six years, he recorded five albums that went gold or better. Outstanding are the songs he wrote: American Soldier, Should’ve Been a Cowboy, Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue, and I Love This Bar.

Of all the songs Mr. Keith wrote, played, and produced, there’s one I think is superb. Just outstanding. Don’t Let The Old Man In.

Story goes that Toby Keith met Clint Eastwood at an event. (Eastwood, now ninety-three, is currently directing and producing his newest upcoming movie titled Juror No. 2.) Keith asked Eastwood what the secret was for staying so active and healthy at his advanced age. This is what Clint Eastwood said:

Every day when I wake up, I don’t let the old man in. My secret has been the same since 1959—staying busy. I never let the old man into the house. I’ve had to drag him out because he was already comfortably settled, bothering me all the time, leaving no space for anything other than nostalgia.

You have to stay active, alive, happy, strong, and capable. It’s in us, in our intelligence, attitude, and mentality. We are young, regardless of our ID. We must learn to fight to not let the old man in.

That old man awaits us, stationed and tired by the side of the road to discourage us. I don’t let the old, critical, hostile, envious spirit in—the one that scrutinizes our past to tie us up with complaints and distant anxieties, or relived traumas and waves of pain.

You have to turn your back on the old murmurer, full of rage and complaints, lacking courage, denying himself that old age can be creative, determined, and full of light and projection.

Aging can be pleasant and even fun if you know how to use your time if you’re satisfied with what you’ve achieved, and if you still maintain enthusiasm. That’s called not letting the old man into the house.

These words immensely resonated with Toby Keith. They inspired him to write Don’t Let The Old Man In which is dedicated to the legend who is Clint Eastwood. Here are the lyrics:

Don’t let the old man in
I wanna live me some more
Can’t leave it up to him
He’s knocking on my door

I knew all of my life
That someday it would end
Get up and go outside
Don’t let the old man in

Yeah, many moons I have lived
My body’s weathered and worn
Just ask yourself how old would you be
If you didn’t know the day you were born

Try to love on your wife
And stay close to your friends
Toast each sundown with wine
Don’t let the old man in

Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm Hmmm Hmm Hm

Yeah, many moons I have lived

My body’s weathered and worn
Ask yourself how old would you be
If you didn’t know the day you were born 

 

When he rides up on his horse
And you feel that cold bitter wind
Look out your window and smile
Don’t let the old man in

Look out your window and smile
Don’t let the old man in

This story—the lyrics, the music, and the video—resonates with me. I’m sixty-seven, and to some, I’m an old man. But I don’t see myself that way. To me, I’m more productive/busy than I was in my thirties and forties. And my productivity/busyness keeps increasing.

I’m blessed with longevity genes. I lead a healthy lifestyle. I don’t smoke. I’m a social drinker. And I’ve never done drugs in my life. Not even inhaling second hand weed.

I’m active. My wife of forty-one years and I stick-walk with weights and aim for 5K steps per day. (On ambitious ones, we’ll do 10-12K.) I have a proportionate weight-to-height ratio and get proper sleep. My stress level doesn’t exist, I have no worries, and at my last medical checkup the doc said I was operating like a 30-year-old.

And I have a purpose. This is the key to senior survival—way, way beyond worries. A definite purpose with a burning desire to achieve it.

I never gave much thought to why I’m like that. Not until I heard Don’t Let The Old Man In and understood the lyrics. I guess I’m this way because I won’t let the old man in.

Kill Zoners — I know there are contributors and followers who top my place on the seniority chart. How do you deal with the old person at the door? Let’s hear from those junior and senior to my 67th-out-of-100 rank.

Dedicated to my 75-year-old life-long friend and mentor Ed Hill www.edhill.art.com 

When To Gag Your Bad Guys

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“If you’re going to shoot, shoot, don’t talk!” — Tuco, from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

By PJ Parrish

Man, I was this-close to loving the book. It was a bestselling thriller. It leapfrogged from Rio to Paris. It had a terrific manly-but-vulnerable reluctant hero. It had more plot twists than Père Lachaise.

I get to the climax. The hero is in jeopardy, trussed up like a turkey by the bad guy. All looks grim. This being a thriller, I know he will prevail but I was hooked because I had to find out how he was going to worm out of this. But then came…

The speech. The villain spent two and half pages telling the hero why he had to kill him.

Argh! Just kill me now.

Gawd, why do writers do this? Why do we have to get, in otherwise good books and movies, grandiose monologues where the villain tells how everything unfolded since their rotten childhood and ends with why they are hell-bent on detroying the good guy to get even.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I adore a well-rendered black hat. Directors love them because they light up the screen. Actors love to play them because it’s a chance to be remembered. James Cagney smashing a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face in Public Enemy. Robert Wagner pushing Joanne Woodward off the building in A Kiss Before Dying. Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber before he shoots the executive: “That’s A Very Nice Suit, Mr. Takagi. It Would Be A Shame To Ruin It.”

But a good villain is not an easy creation. We have many great posts on this subject in our archives, so I won’t belabor the usual how-to points here. I just want to make the case for why you shouldn’t let your bad guys flap their lips at the end. And forgive me for using so many movie references, but they tend to be more universal and easy to excerpt here.

Evil gloating is one of the worst tropes in fiction. It s a crutch to prop up a lack of solid character-building. All good villains, as we’ve said here often, have their own backstories and complex psychologies. It is your job as the writer-in-charge to lay this all out over the course of your story rather than depending on a tiresome monologue in the third act.

There are some variations on this trope:

Revealing the Evil Plan: This is where the villain lays out exactly why he had to A.. Invade Fort Knox. B. Find the Holy Grail to prove Mary Magdalene had a daughter living in the south of France. D. Put Hitler’s brain in a jar so he can be revived and take over the world.

Emotive motives. This shows up alot in mediocre TV cop shows. After the killer is caught, he whines about his past, usually in a long, self-pitying speech about why he had to do it. “My brother stole my girl and kilt my dog, so he had to die!”

I won’t quote it here because it’s way too long. But one speech that really irked me in both the book and the movie comes at the end of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The hero Mikael Blomkvist is being tortured by the murderer Martin Vanger. Vanger goes into a monologue that actually starts with, “Sit down, relax, have a drink. I like that part a lot. Having a chat when both of you know that one of you is going to die.”  Ugh. Well, it does give Lisbeth time to sneak up and whack Vanger with a nine iron.

Why you suck. This time it’s personal. In a speech, the bad guy just can’t help telling the good guy how pathetic he is. There’s a great site called The True Tropes Wiki (hat tip to them, by the way, for helping me research this.) They call this one The Hannibal Lecture after this great dialogue tidbit: “You’d like to quantify me, Officer Starling. You’re so ambitious, aren’t you? Do you know what you look like to me, with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube.” But in lesser hands, this trope is really tiresome.

Sometimes, as with Hannibal Lecter, a villain speech isn’t a bad thing. Inserted in the right moment, and kept short, it can illuminate character and propell plot. The “Greed is Good” monologue that Oliver Stone gives to Michael Douglas in Wall Street is a prime example.

And I love this bad guy speech from The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. It turns the trope on its head. Watch the very brief video. It’s worth it.

There’s also a wonderful villain monologue in Shane. Yeah, it’s a speech, but it works. The set-up: Shane, the gunfighter with a mysterious past, rides into town and is hired by hardscrabble rancher Joe Starrett. He tells Shane that a war of intimidation is being waged on the valley’s settlers, led by a ruthless cattle baron, Rufus Ryker. At one point, Ryker gives a long motive speech trying to justify his actions:

Look, Starrett, when I come to this country, you weren’t much older than your boy there. We had rough times, me and other men that are mostly dead now. I got a bad shoulder yet from a Cheyenne arrowhead. We made this country. Found it and we made it. With blood and empty bellies. The cattle we brought in were hazed off by Indians and rustlers. They don’t bother you much anymore because we handled ’em. We made a safe range out of this. Some of us died doin’ it but we made it. And then people move in who’ve never had to rawhide it through the old days. They fence off my range, and fence me off from water. Some of ’em like you plow ditches, take out irrigation water. And so the creek runs dry sometimes and I’ve got to move my stock because of it. And you say we have no right to the range. 

Boo-hoo, you might say. But it works here because it humanizes the black-hearted Ryker and gives the turf war context. You need to do this for your bad guys.

I can’t let this post go without one last thing. We have to talk about the evil laugh. It’s a very old trope, dating back to 17th century literature. But we think of Vincent Price, at the end of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. Or the Wicked Witch of the West. Or Hedley Lamar in Blazing Saddles, just before he chokes on his candy. Sometimes, the evil laugh tapers off into the wicked chuckle. But at it’s finest, it’s just…

Muahahahahaha…Hahahahahahaha… AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And nobody does it better than Glenn Close. I leave you with Cruella:

How To Use White Space

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When I was first learning the craft, I studied many novels, searching for how the author drew me in, held me in suspense, and propelled me to turn the page. Still do. 😉 One of the things I noticed was their use of white space — the blank field around the words and paragraphs.

White space can help create drama, emotion, or add a quiet pause before the storm hits. With so many “rules” or guidelines, sometimes white space can get overlooked. Yet it’s a powerful tool when used with intent.

Let’s look at a few examples. The first two are from our own James Scott Bell.

Last Call from JSB:

“Yo,” she said. “Go back to your table, okay?”

He stiffened and his smile melted into his beard. “Real friendly.” He shook his head as he went back to his table. He turned his laptop around then sat with his back to her.

Just like the rest of the world.

Long Lost from JSB:

With the wind blowing outside, Stevie fell into a calm sleep. Deep like the desert night.

He woke up with a rough hand over his mouth. Pressing him down. Maybe it was Robert playing a game. But it wasn’t. It was something big.

A monster.

 

The eye is drawn to the last line in both examples. They’re sharp and dramatic when sectioned by white space.

In the Eyes of the Dead by Jordan Dane:

I wanted to fight it, but I couldn’t. The hopelessness of becoming a victim rushed over me like a floodgate opening. I nearly choked on the magnitude of it. Images of my ordeal bombarded me. I caught glimpses of another face. It all happened too fast, I wasn’t sure I could retain what I’d seen.

Just like last time.

Again, Jordan could’ve set the last line in the same paragraph, but it would lose its punch there.

We can also use white space to break up dialogue.

Here’s an example from Skinwalkers by Tony Hillerman:

“Then you know that if I was a witch, I could turn myself into something else. Into a burrowing owl. I could fly out the smoke hole and go away into the night.”

Silence.

“But I am not a witch. I am just a man. I am a singer. A yataalii. I have learned the ways to cure. Some of them. I know the songs to protect you against a witching. But I am not a witch.”

See how “silence” added to the drama? Had he put all the dialogue into one paragraph, it wouldn’t be as effective, even with an intriguing conversation.

The Killing Song by PJ Parish:

The cold nub that had formed in my gut was growing. I was never one to trust vague feelings. I was a reporter and trained to believe only what I could see, what I could prove.

But the feeling rising up and putting a choke hold on my heart now was real.

Mandy was gone.

That last line smacks you in the face — because it’s separated by white space.

Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes by Karin Slaughter:

The line finally moved, and Julia went into the first stall. She felt her pager vibrate as she started to unbutton her jeans. She didn’t scroll the number right away. She sat down on the toilet. She looked up at the ceiling. She looked at the posters taped to the back of the stall door. She finally looked down at the pager. She pressed the button to scroll the number.

222.

Her heart broke into a million pieces.

222.

Julia looked up, trying to keep her tears from falling. She sniffed. She counted to a slow one hundred. She looked down again, because maybe she was wrong.

222.

 

The repetition also draws you in. If the author were to continue too long, the rhythm would lose its value. When done with intent, it’s dramatic and effective.

The last example is from my new thriller, Savage Mayhem (releases once my designer completes my cover).

A hair-raising screech stopped me mid-stride, my heartbeat quickened to a fast pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter. Quaking aspen leaves trembled as we passed. Night owls slalomed through the trees, oarlike wings emitting a whoosh with each stroke. To my left, sticks crunched under heavy paws. Or hooves.

Bear?

Moose?

Wolf?

Here, I used white space for a dramatic pause and to draw attention to each individual threat. Which allows the reader to wonder. I also used Onomatopoeia words to deepen the scene.

White space can help fix long, rambling passages of text, pacing issues, and story rhythm. It’s a tool we should never overlook. Use the precious real estate to your advantage.

With the exception of mine (this is NOT a shameless plug), I recommend all these books. They’re fabulous.

Have you read any of them? Did you notice the white space while reading? Do you pay attention to white space in your writing?

Major in Minors

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

W. C. Fields as Wilkins Micawber; Freddy Bartholomew as David in MGM’s David Copperfield (1935)

When it comes to minor characters, what you don’t want is the bland leading the bland. That’s why I call minor characters “spice.” Just the right amount can turn an average reading experience into a tasty delight. It’s the difference between plain yogurt and Rocky Road, or chicken broth and mulligatawny.

Minor characters, as I use the term, are to be distinguished from Main and Secondary characters.

Main characters are Rick, Ilsa, Laszlo, Louis in Casablanca. They have the most to do with the plot.

Secondary are recurring characters who have some importance to the plot, like Major Strasser and Sam the piano man.

Minor characters are those who appear for various reasons to complicate or relieve matters (comic relief is a great tool in thrillers and suspense). In Casablanca there are a number of these, from Ugarte (Peter Lorre) to the desperate Bulgarian wife (Joy Page) to Carl the waiter (S. Z. “Cuddles” Sakall).

A subset of minor characters are those who appear once, necessary to a scene. Taxi drivers, doormen, barbers, and the like.

Consider now the uses of minor characters.

Essential Plot Information

There are any number of times when a main character needs some inside information. The cliché is the shoeshine guy who knows what’s happening on the street.

My favorite send-up of this trope is from the old TV show Police Squad, starring Leslie Nielsen as the cop. He gets into the shoeshine chair and slips Johnny a bill to tell him what’s what. The hilarious part is that while Johnny knows everything going on crime-wise, he also knows everything about everything. So when a priest sits down and asks, “What do you know about life after death?” Johnny answers, “I wouldn’t know anything about it.” The priest slips him a bill. Johnny says, “You talking existential being or anthropomorphic deity?”

It is Ugarte in Casablanca who delivers the MacGuffin to Rick—the letters of transit.

Deepening Main Characters

How a main character interacts with a minor character can reveal a great deal.

Here’s some advice from James “The Love Doctor” Bell. If you plan to get married, observe how your intended treats the server in a restaurant, or the checkout person at the grocery store.

What I call the “Pet the Dog” beat can be used for this. Think of Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive (see my post here). He takes a risk to help a dying boy in the hospital, even though it leads to more trouble.

Or Rick, who helps the husband of the Bulgarian wife get the money they need to buy papers, instead of her having to sleep with Louis to get them. Louis observes this and makes note of it. More trouble for Rick.

Setting Richness

A minor character can lend color to an unfamiliar setting. This is a good addition to description. Seeing and hearing characters in their element adds to the tone and feel of a scene.

In the Harrison Ford movie Witness, John Book (Ford) is a cop who has to hide out among the Amish to avoid assassination and protect the Amish boy who can identify a murdering cop (played by Danny Glover). His interactions with various characters and their ways are evocative:

Scene Tension

Here’s an underused tip: put two minor characters in opposition in a scene as the main character is trying to advance the plot. In Long Lost I have two elderly women who volunteer at the reception desk of a local hospital. As my main character attempts to gain access, the two of them, dubbed Curls and Red by the main, snipe at each other, adding a further obstacle. I got this idea from my great aunts, one a widow and the other a divorcee, who lived together. When I’d visit, they’d put out the See’s candy and give each other little verbal jabs as they recalled family stories.

Plot Juice

Raymond Chandler famously said that if things get slow, just bring in a guy with a gun. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a guy or a gun, but a minor character with something of importance.

Hammett does this in The Maltese Falcon. Spade has had no luck finding the black bird. Then one night a man riddled with bullets stumbles into his office, hands him a bundle, and dies. Turns out the stiff is the captain of a ship and the bundle is, you guessed it, the falcon.

Wrapping Up a Mystery

Sometimes you get to the end of a book and there are plot threads that need to be accounted for (you pantsers know what I’m talking about!). Now what?

Well, a minor character can show up with the essential information. You can create such a character on the spot. But then you have to do something else—go back into the book and find a scene or two to plant this character. Otherwise, it will be a Deus ex machina.

I’ll leave you with a couple of tips for creating memorable minor characters.

Avoid stereotypes. They are usually the first picture to spring to mind because we’ve seen them so many times before. The bartender wiping a glass. The truck driver in boots and cowboy hat or baseball cap. Just take a moment to change things up. Maybe the bartender knits. Maybe the truck driver is a woman who likes dresses. You’re the writer, come up with something new.

Tags of manner and speech. Give each minor character one unique tag of manner and one of speech. Dickens was a master at this. Think of Uriah Heep, always rubbing his hands together and smarmily talking about how ’umble he is. Or Wilkins Micawber, who always uses twenty words when five would do. David describes him as—

a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat,—for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn’t see anything when he did.

That’s how you major in minors.

Who are some of you favorite fictional minor characters? How about in you own fiction?

Public Speaking

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No one told me when I first got into this writing business that I’d be standing before large and small groups and organizations these past thirteen years, talking books and this art form I’d chosen to pursue. It comes easy to me, because I’m a natural born BSer, but some find standing before the public to be a daunting task.

Through the years I’ve learned that different audiences have their own personalities. Some small groups are in a party mood, ready to be entertained and full of questions and comments. On the flip side, I’ve talked to groups who stared at me as if I owed them money, only to have the attendees swarm the signing table saying I was the best presenter they’d heard in years.

Go figure.

Large audiences are typically more open and responsive. You just never know.

Civic organizations always need speakers, and I’ll talk to them all. Dinner clubs are fun, and those folks are usually full of questions, which I love.

I have no set talk. I verbally wander around like a toddler lost in Walmart, starting out with one idea and getting distracted by a recollection only to bounce onto another anecdote or  writing tip. I watch people out there with pen and paper, scribbling furiously to keep up as I offer suggestions ranging from authors I like, to those who influenced me, to books on writing and publishing.

Talking about books and writing is almost a hobby for me. I look forward to different groups interested in learning the trade. In fact, this coming September I have the honor of being the first author to appear in the inaugural Garland, Texas, community-wide reading program called One Book, One Garland. According to organizers, the goal is to get as many community members to read Hard Country as possible and to hold a three-day series of programs and events.

Saturday, September 14 at 6pm – Evening with the author: Talk on Reavis’ personal journey to publication, followed by book signing.

Thursday, September 19 at 7pm – (More exclusive event) Author visit with our book clubs: This will be a collection of at least three book clubs in the Garland area. They will be combined for one meeting to talk with the members and the Friends of the Library about Hard Country.

Friday, September 20 at 6pm – Writing workshop

Hard Country is my most recent novel, featuring a contemporary special ranger for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. These agents investigate rural crimes, and my characters, Tucker and Harley Snow, are based on two brothers who worked undercover narcotics here in the state back in the 80s and 90s. The novel is based on a real meth house that was across the gravel road from our ranch in Oklahoma, and it debuted as one of Amazon’s picks for the month of August, 2023.

My talk for the Evening with the Author, “The Road to Publication and Other Great Disasters” is the most popular presentation I have, and it’s full of information, humor, and anecdotes about writing.

I’m excited to speak before any group. This past week I met with a retired teachers association to discuss my early career in public education, and then this second career as an author. Another such organization in a different part of the state is on the books next month.

On the day of this post, I’ll be in Dallas, part of a panel discussing literature as a whole, publishing, and “common misconceptions people have about being an author.”

Now that’s funny.

It takes time from writing, but in my opinion, it’s an essential part of being a successful author.

So what do you think? Is this difficult for you? Do you take the Cormac McCarthy path and avoid talking in public, or are you like me, do you set your soul on fire for the sheer joy of talking with readers and fans?

Reader Friday – Fiction is Better than Reality

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“Truth is Stranger than Fiction” may be the case, but “Fiction is Better than Reality” is quickly becoming evident as we look at the world scene. It is hard to think of a time in history when there were as many hot spots of chaos and disaster as there are now.

It is comforting to find a fictional story world where problems are solved, justice is served, and the good guys win. When we’ve found such a world, it’s hard to return to reality.

Today, let’s share the books we’ve read (or are reading) that have provided shelter from the storm, a place where the barrage of news or world events cannot reach us or drain us of happiness.

Here is your opportunity to promote your own books or tell us about another author whose books have provided a refuge.

What books have you read (or are reading) that you have found to be a healthy escape from the chaos that surrounds us? Promote your own books or tell us about a favorite author’s book(s).

Sneak Preview

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By Elaine Viets

       
          Hey, there, TKZers. A Scarlet Death, my latest Angela Richman, Death Investigator mystery will be published April 2, and I can’t wait for you to read it. This is what TKZ is all about: getting our writing published. It’s why we work to improve our plotting, pacing, even our proofreading. We put a lot of time and money into our work. Let’s not forget to celebrate our success.

It’s easy to become blase after we write multiple books. A Scarlet Death is my 34th mystery. When it arrived, I danced around the house, then showed it off to my friends and family like a new baby. Even my cat, Vanessa, came by to check it out.

Let me tell you a little about A Scarlet Death. Angela investigates the bizarre death of socialite Selwyn Skipton, found strangled on black satin bedsheets, with a red letter A stapled to his chest. Selwyn was a good man. He gave to charity, supported local causes, and was married to his wife for more than twenty years. What were his dark secrets? What did he do to deserve such a terrible death?

Also, what’s going on in Angela’s personal life? Will she be a new bride? Or a new widow?

Here’s a look at the first chapter. Enjoy.

         A Scarlet Death Chapter 1

Selwyn Skipton’s murder scene was one of the strangest, and I’ve seen a lot of them in my job.

The seventy-year-old CEO was buck-naked on a bed with black satin sheets. A silk tie, in a muted shade of blue, was knotted around his neck. There was nothing muted about the large, red letter “A” stapled to his gray-haired chest.

Yep, stapled.

 

I thought Skipton would be the last man to die on black satin sheets. He was a devoted husband who made big donations to charities – unfashionable causes that helped the illiterate read, the hungry eat, and the homeless find shelter. In short, a good man.

Selwyn was strangled in an apartment above the Chouteau Forest Chocolate Shoppe. My town is so rich, we don’t have shops. We have prissy shoppes.

I’m Angela Richman, a death investigator for Chouteau County, a fat cat community forty miles west of St. Louis, Missouri. Chouteau Forest is the largest town in the county.

Selwyn’s murder was discovered by Maya Richards, the chocolate shop owner. When she opened the store that morning, Maya smelled something that definitely wasn’t chocolate. She followed her nose up the back stairs to the apartment, where the door was unlocked, and poked her head in. One look at the strangled Selwyn, and she sprinted downstairs. When Maya recovered her breath, she wailed like an air raid siren, then called 911.

That’s how Detective Jace Budewitz and I wound up at the scene at eleven o’clock on a freezing December morning, an hour after the place usually opened. The chocolate shop was chaos. The front doors were locked, with the three responding uniformed officers inside. Mike Harrigan, an old pro, was guarding the back door. Scott Grafton was drooling over a rack of chocolate Christmas candy, and Pete Clayton, the new hire, was at the front door. Crazed chocolate lovers stormed the place, oblivious to the falling snow. Jace shooed them away, and had Pete string up yellow crime scene tape.

Maya Richards unlocked the door with shaking fingers, and let us in. I was familiar with the interior, thanks to my craving for sea-salt truffles. The decor hadn’t changed since 1890. Curlicued dark wood framed mirrors behind mahogany counters. The chocolates were displayed like jewels in beveled glass cases. The cases were empty today. Maya knew her shop wasn’t going to open for a while.

Maya was about forty, wearing a chocolate-brown suit, the same color as her hair. Her face was pale as paper and her red lipstick looked like a bloody slash. Maya was shaking so badly, I was afraid she’d collapse. She was clearly in shock, and could barely talk.

Jace was worried about her. He made sure Maya sat in a chair and called 911. I went back to find her a cup of coffee. I couldn’t find any, but there was plenty of the shop’s double-dark hot chocolate. I heated a mug in the microwave, and brought it to her. Maya wrapped her hands around the mug, and nodded. After a few sips, she recovered enough to talk. There were long pauses between her words, but she forced them out. Then the words tumbled out in a rush.

“I . . . get . . . here . . . about seven . . . to set up the shop,” she said.

“I have a very keen nose, and something didn’t smell right. I thought a squirrel might have gotten into the store and died. I checked everywhere, and finally decided the smell must be coming from upstairs.

“Mr. Selwyn Skipton has the entire apartment upstairs. I thought he kept it as a second office, or a pied-à-terre for when he worked late downtown. He owns the building, you see, and he’s a regular customer. He loves our bear claws.”

“Me, too,” I said. Jace frowned at me for interrupting.

Maya took another sip of hot chocolate and kept talking. ‘I’ve never been upstairs in the apartment. Mr. Skipton’s kept it for years, and he likes – I mean, liked – his privacy. I was afraid he might have had some kind of accident. He has his own entrance in the back of the building, and I need a special key to open it. I also need a key to open the door at the top. The upstairs door was left unlocked.

“I ran upstairs and knocked on the door. No one answered. I jiggled the handle and the door swung open. All I saw was this giant bed, covered in black satin, and Mr. Skipton in the middle of it. Dead. And naked. With bugs crawling on him!”

Now Maya’s teeth were chattering. Her breathing was rapid and shallow and her skin was clammy. She set her mug on the floor.

“Are you OK, Ms. Richards?” Jace asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, and fainted.

“See if she has any family, Angela,” Jace said. “I’ll call 911.”

I found her cell phone and ran back. It needed the owner’s fingerprint to unlock it. I grabbed Maya’s limp hand, used her index finger to unlock the phone, scrolled down to an entry that said “Sis,” and called the number. Her sister Anita answered, and once I calmed her down, Anita said she’d leave her office and meet Maya at the hospital.

“That’s the ambulance,” I told her, as the siren died with a squawk. Doors slammed. Pete opened the shop door, and four paramedics rushed in, bringing a blast of cold. Jace explained what happened. They checked Maya’s pulse. “Do you know if this has happened to her before?” the biggest paramedic asked. He looked like he bench-pressed Buicks.

“No idea.” Jace shrugged.

“It could be a panic attack,” the paramedic said, “but we’ll take her to the ER to make sure.”

Jace asked Pete to stay with Maya at the hospital until her sister showed up. The young crew-cut mountain gave Jace a sour look and stomped out the door.

I raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“Pete’s got a bad attitude,” Jace said. “He tried to get hired by a big force, and wound up here. Thinks he’s too good to do scut work.”

I nodded, and let it go. Some detectives wouldn’t have bothered taking care of Maya at a murder scene, but Jace had a kind heart.

Meanwhile Mike, the responding officer, had set up the crime scene log. Jace and I gloved up, put on booties and trudged up the dark, narrow private staircase. I dragged my death investigator’s suitcase behind me.

The apartment door was open from when Maya fled downstairs.

Jace looked in and said, “Good lord.”

******************************************************************

A Scarlet Death will be shipped April 2. Preorder your hardcover or ebook at: Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/bde2c7ks

          Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/yhtvzns7

          Hardcovers only:  Target: https://tinyurl.com/5xnrx5n4

          The Penguin Bookshop, https://tinyurl.com/67nvm4j9

          RJ Julia Booksellers, Madison, Conn: https://tinyurl.com/4drh288c

          Please note that prices may vary. Check before you buy. 

Four-legged Detectives: Bringing K-9s to Life in Fiction

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Four-legged Detectives: Bringing K-9s to Life in Fiction
Terry Odell and Kathleen Donnelly

As you read this, I’m be in New Zealand. I’m delighted that Kathleen Donnelly agreed to cover for my post this week. I first met Kathleen years ago at a writer’s conference where she did a fascinating presentation on working dogs.

Kathleen, Gracie, Sparky, Boomer, and Willow

Thank you so much, Terry, for inviting me to guest post on the Kill zone! I’m excited to be here today to share information about one of my passions—working dogs. Whether you’re a reader, writer or both, I’m happy to share a behind the scenes look at how I developed my fictional K-9 Juniper, based on my real-life experiences.

Dogs are man’s best friend for many reasons, but their ability to help us solve mysteries by using their noses make them invaluable for law enforcement, military, private sector work and more. They also make great fictional characters. I’ve been lucky to have worked for a private company for the past 19 years called Sherlock Hounds Detection Canines. Our dogs are trained to find drugs, alcohol and gunpowder. The goal of our program is to help deter these items at schools. Over the years, my dogs continue to amaze me and it was this work that led to me adding a K-9 into my National Forest K-9 series.

I had many decisions to make when I decided to add in a K-9 character to my series. What breed should I use? Which agency would employ my main character? What language would my main character use to give her K-9 commands? I wanted the K-9 work in my books to be authentic and so before I even chose a breed, I had to decide on the agency. Why? Because each agency has different requirements, commands, and training styles.

Knowing the agency would determine all of that plus help me decide on the breed of dog. For example, my private company uses Labrador retrievers because we work in schools. We want a non-intimidating breed. However, a police department who’s tracking a suspect wanted for homicide needs an intimidating breed that will also be happy to apprehend (the polite way of saying bite) the bad guy. Dogs who are known for apprehension are usually shepherds. One other breed I’ve seen used more and more for this work is the Giant Black Schnauzer.

These two very different breeds below are both searching for narcotics. The Fox Terrier was one of our non-intimidating dogs while the shepherd was in training for law enforcement. Your character’s agency will make all the difference in the breed you choose.)

When I determined that my protagonist, Maya Thompson, would be a US Forest Service law enforcement officer, I knew she would have a Malinois. They are my favorite shepherd breed. They are also high-energy, intense, love their work (especially apprehension) and loyal to their handlers. I was asked once why I chose a female Malinois. My answer was simply for “Girl Power.” In real life, for most agencies, the sex of the dog doesn’t matter, only the characteristics needed to be a good working dog. Some of those characteristics include a high-retrieve drive, high prey drive, and extremely high energy.

Knowing the agency and breed allowed me to determine all the different jobs my one fictional dog would be able to do. As a law enforcement K-9, I knew she would be a dual-purpose dog. Dual-purpose means the dogs have more than one job. In this case, I knew that like other law enforcement K-9s my dog would find narcotics, track suspects, locate evidence and apprehend. I also researched how my dog would alert. There are two types of alerts—passive and active. Passive is when you see a dog sit or lie down to tell their handler they’ve found something. Passive alerts are becoming more common because there tends to be less destruction. Active alerts are when a dog scratches at an item they’ve found. The type of alert is very important when it comes to creating an authentic fictional dog. For example, for obvious reasons, a bomb dog will never do an active alert. I chose to have my dog do a passive alert. I was talking to one of our trainers and even took the alert a step further. When our trainer was a deputy, she taught her German Shepherd to sit when he found narcotics and down when he found evidence. I loved that and my fictional dog soon had the exact same alerts.

When I had these factors worked out, I also had to create a realistic handler. Once again, girl power. I knew I’d have a female protagonist and Maya came to life. I wanted Maya to already have training as a K-9 handler and there were a couple realistic ways to go about this—she could have a past in law enforcement or the military. I chose military for my character as that lent itself better to the storyline of my character having PTSD from losing her dog in Afghanistan. On a side spoiler note—no dogs will ever be killed in my books. This is just a part of my character’s backstory.

As I wrote my first book, CHASING JUSTICE, I enjoyed incorporating my fictional K-9 into solving the mystery. Juniper tracked, apprehended, cleared a cabin and found narcotics. Through some of these storylines, I enjoyed also dispelling some myths about working dogs. How many times have we seen in a movie where the bad guy gets away because he ran through water? Or the dog missed the narcotics because they were hidden in coffee? While in real life dogs can miss something or lose the scent of someone they’re tracking, these ways of deterring a dog are not real. Dogs can smell just fine through water and have even been known to find drowning victims. There’s nothing that will cover the scent of narcotics, bombs, or anything else a dog is trained to find.

One of my last decisions was what language to have Maya give Juniper commands. Many people think that K-9s are automatically trained in German or Dutch. For some dogs this is true. Our trainers would keep commands in a different language if the dog came with previous training in a different language. Otherwise, they train the dogs in English. This is because officers in a high stress situation (which is when a dog is being deployed) often forget the foreign language. It’s much easier to recall your native language. Officers have also found that when a suspect hears the command for the dog to go bite, the person is more inspired to give up and start complying with arrest. For those reasons, plus the ease of writing, I decided to have Maya give Juniper commands in English.

If you’re thinking of incorporating a K-9 into your writing, these are just a few of the things to think about as you research. I’ve enjoyed not only working with my dogs, but learning more about other K-9 jobs, handler qualifications and how other agencies train. Have you thought about a K-9 character? What would your K-9 character’s superpowers be? What else would you like to know about K-9s? I’ll be around all day to answer your questions and discuss further. Thanks again for having me as a guest on the blog!

P.S. Every month I write a story for my newsletter about my experiences as a K-9 handler. If you sign up for my newsletter, you’ll also receive my free eBook “Working Tails: The Stories Behind the K-9s.” You can sign up on my website.

I also wanted to let you know about a special pre-order campaign through my favorite indie bookstore for my latest book, KILLER SECRETS. If you order KILLER SECRETS or any of the other National Forest K-9 books through Old Firehouse books, you’ll receive a signed books and you’ll be entered in a drawing for a National Forest K-9 Gift box which includes a gift card to the bookstore (can be used for online orders), dog treats from a local biscuit bakery, and coffee. Go to Old Firehouse Books today to buy your copies and be entered in the drawing.

Thanks, Kathleen, for stepping up while I’m away. TKZers, I’ve read her award-winning Chasing Justice, and it’s obvious Kathleen knows her dogs!

How can he solve crimes if he’s not allowed to investigate?

Gordon Hepler, Mapleton’s Chief of Police, has his hands full. A murder, followed by several assaults. Are they related to the expansion of the community center? Or could it be the upcoming election? Gordon and mayor wannabe Nelson Manning have never seen eye to eye. Gordon’s frustrations build as the crimes cover numerous jurisdictions, effectively tying his hands.
Available now.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”