What Writers Can Learn From L.A. Confidential

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I love my home town (although the relationship is strained these days). I love classic film noir shot on location in the City of Angels. A lot of detectives went in and out of City Hall, where the department was headquartered until 1955. Edmund O’Brien stormed into the homicide division in the famous opening tracking shot of D.O.A. (1949). “I want to report a murder,” he said. “Who was murdered?” they ask. “I was,” he says…and off we go.

The only movie in recent memory to capture the look and feel of 50s L.A. is L.A. Confidential (1997), directed by Curtis Hanson from the novel by James Ellroy. The sunny climes and palm trees during the day are juxtaposed against the corruption and vice of night. Good cops and bad cops. And some who are a little of both.

The film garnered critical praise and was Oscar nominated for Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Cinematography. Kim Basinger took home the statuette for Best Supporting Actress.

The plot centers around a mass slaying at a diner called The Nite Owl. The movie is a lesson in how to handle shifting POV as we follow the case through the eyes of three Lead characters.

Bud White (Russell Crowe) is known for violent, sometimes out-of-control behavior. But his rage is in the service of his sense of justice. He’s driven by a compulsion to save vulnerable women from abuse. (There’s a backstory reason for this that is revealed in Act 2).

The movie opens with an off-duty Bud White watching a home where a man is beating his wife. Bud pulls down the Christmas lights on the house, the man comes out and tries to clock Bud. Bud beats him up and handcuffs him to the stair railing. He gives the wife some cash and makes sure she has a place to go.

Thus we are drawn to Bud’s motive, but a little unsure about his methods.

This cross-current of emotion is a key to our wanting to watch Bud’s story. He’s not all good. He has a flaw which could be his undoing. This emotion intensifies in Act 2, when he is given a secret duty by his captain—beating up out-of-town mobsters trying to move in on L.A. territory. Here Bud is no longer a cop; he’s a thug, albeit on the “right” side.

Lesson: Memorable heroes should have strength, but also a flaw that could become fatal. That makes us interested to know which side will prevail.

Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) is the opposite of Bud. Slender, thoughtful, smart, political. He goes “by the book,” which does not endear him to his fellow cops, because it means he does not look away when some of them bend the rules.

So why should we watch him? First, because he’s an underdog in his community. We like underdog stories (e.g., Rudy, Rocky). Second, because he’s good at his job. We like to see characters being competent in their work. This comes out as Exley questions three suspects in the Nite Owl shooting, getting admissions with skill, not violence (IOW, the opposite of Bud).

Lesson: A good Lead should have a skill or power that can be his deliverance at a critical point.

Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is slick, a charmer. He knows how to skirt the system and rake in a little illicit dough on the side. He takes money from the slimy Sid Hudgeons (Danny DeVito) to bust the victims of Sid’s amorous setups to feed his scandal magazine Hush Hush. But Jack’s favorite side hustle is as the technical advisor on the TV show “Badge of Honor” (i.e., “Dragnet”).

Lesson: A Lead who skates along the dark side should have some charm. We like lovable rogues.

Mirror Moments

Each one of these Leads goes through a personal and positive transformation. As I watched the movie again, I naturally wondered if there would be any mirror moments.

Turns out there’s three of them.

Not only that, two of them involve actual mirrors! (I love it when that happens).

For Bud White, it’s when he’s at the abandoned motel with his captain and some other strong-arm cops. They’re beating up another out-of-town gangster. Bud goes into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. And looks at himself in the mirror. He’s thinking: “Is this who I am? Is this what it means to be a cop?”

Jack Vincennes has just taken another fifty-dollar-bill to show up at a motel where Sid has engineered his biggest scoop yet—the District Attorney of Los Angeles in bed with a handsome young actor (Simon Baker). Sid has paid the kid to seduce the D.A., but also enlisted Jack to promise him a nice part on an episode of “Badge of Honor.” A promise Jack never intends to keep.

While waiting for the appointed hour, Jack sits in a bar and looks at himself in the bar mirror. He’s disgusted. “Is this who I am? Is this what it means to be a cop? Do I really care nothing about lying to an innocent kid who just wants to make it in this town?”

He lays the fifty down on his unfinished drink and leaves to go warn the kid to get out of the room….but instead finds him slain. The consequences of this will lead to one of the great shock twists in cinema (you’ll have to watch the movie to find out, and please, if you know what I’m talking about, do NOT spoil it in the comments).

The mirror moment for Edmund Exley comes when he is awarded the Medal of Valor for his part in slaying the suspects in the Nite Owl murders. In the script he tells his Captain, Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) something feels wrong about the case. Smith tells the new hero, “Keep it inside. Between you and you.”

The very definition of a mirror moment! Exley considers his medal. The script says, “It’s an appealing thing.” He can stay a hero by keeping quiet. But at the cost of justice. Which way will he go?

That’s the question a mirror moment asks.

Lesson: Done skillfully, the mirror moment subconsciously deepens the viewing—and reading—experience.

Dialogue

Period slang and cop jargon are sprinkled throughout, though not so much that it’s distracting. A good lesson there when your write a period piece. A little slang goes a long way. You’re not going for total authenticity (you never are when you write dialogue). You’re trying to create an effect for the reader. Don’t let jargon get in the way of the story.

Speaking of which, my views on the ol’ F bomb are well known, and while this is a James Ellroy, I think the film would’ve been helped with more restraint in this area.

And with that, I turn it over to you.

Have you written a novel with more than one POV? How’d it work for you?

Have you written about your home town—or a fictional place just like it—in a book?

Thumbs up or thumbs down on L.A. Confidential?

Shelf Space

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When I was a kid, there were four places to get books, the public library, the bookmobile that came on Saturdays and parked only a block and a half away from our house, the drugstore, and finally, a small independent bookstore. The last two were within biking distance.

My connection in the bookmobile was a long-haired older guy, somewhere in his early twenties, who helped me over that invisible hump between juvenile books and straight into the adult section (which meant something completely different back then). On his recommendation I moved from Fred Gipson, August Dereleth, Beverly Cleary, and Andre Norton to hard hitting novels such as Slaugherhouse Five, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Dirty Dozen, and In Cold Blood.

Libraries are an outstanding starting point for readers who can’t afford to spend money on books, or are frugal with their expenses. My first job was as a “page” in a local branch library, and besides being the best salaried job I ever had, gave me access to a world of authors. Many of those I read back then were only available in the library, and I haven’t seen their books on any shelf since. I also figuratively met Robert B. Parker in the Casa View Library, along with Clive Cussler, Colleen McCullough, Ayn Rand, and Jean Shepherd.

The drugstore carried a vast selection of current mass market paperbacks, and many reprints, on revolving metal racks. There were half a dozen spin racks near a two-tiered display of magazines that seemed to stretch half the length of a football field.

There I spent my 35-cents, (and finally 95 cents by the end of the decade) on westerns by Max Brand, and Louis L’Amour. Sometimes there were the added bonus of two novels in one.

Glory!

It was about that same time I discovered Donald Westlake, Micky Spillane, and Donald Hamilton on those wire racks. They all taught me how to write dialogue, and the art of pacing. Of course there was science fiction, too, and I learned how to trade those paperbacks with my friends to expand our reading world.

By the time I got my learner’s permit to drive, an independent bookstore opened half a mile away and they provided a wonderful blend of library shelves and spin racks. It was dizzying in more ways than one, and I spent hours, and most of my lawn-mowing money, on paperbacks and a few second-hand hardbacks, the beginning of the collection in the floor to ceiling shelves behind me now.

Back then books were everywhere! Grocery stores had shelves full of fictional worlds and time periods. Those authors who hadn’t started in the fifties and made names for themselves in pulp magazines suddenly exploded onto the scene in a wide variety of genres.

In my part of Texas, shopping malls sprouted up like daisies and brought B. Dalton that sold books next to Chess King, and Waldenbooks opened not far away, across from Spencer’s Gifts. Then add in Gibson’s, Sage, K-Mart, and finally, Wal-Mart department stores, and there were books and magazines everywhere.

That’s where this discussion takes us today, because most of those bookstores and discount box stores have faded from memory. The long shelves of books no longer stretches into infinity, and I recently learned one of the largest publishers of mass market westerns has been informed that the mere eight feet of shelf space they once had in Walmart (the largest chain store in the U.S.) is now cut by half, which means that only westerns from William W. Johnstone or Louis L’Amour will be available for purchase.

Let me put it another way. 8 feet, 96 inches, of mass market space allotted to the largest publisher in the country for that genre is the size of a grave plot. eark humor at its best. To make matters worse, Johnston and L’Amour have been dead since 2004 and 1988, respectively. L’Amour is all reprints, though the Johnstone franchise is still alive and well.

So there be dragons beyond this point, for this is only my opinion and it’s probably worth less than two cents in this discussion.

I’m a browser. I like books on shelves. I like looking at covers and reading the inside flaps. I like the smell of a bookstore, and the leisure pace of meandering from one section to another, finding treasures there in the form of excellent books and new, exciting authors.

I know it’s easy to fire up that infernal machine full of circuitry powered by lithium ion batteries and look for releases from those you follow. Yep, algorithms are always offering up the “If you liked John Smith’s books, you’ll probably want to order these from Jane Doe.” That’s fine, but I can’t hold those in my hand, flip a few pages in search of descriptions and dialogue that strike a chord with me.

The last time that happened was in an independent bookstore and I discovered a now-award-winning Texas boy named James Wade and found myself saying, “This kid can write!”

It seems to me that publishers and distributors are shooting themselves in the foot, saying “sales are down, and because of that, we need to ship less books to put in front of potential buyers.” I’m no businessman, but good lord, if there are no books to choose from, or very few, then sales will be down. If I have choices, then the reverse is true.

The Giant Box Store near my house carries a limited number of books, and most of the selection these days are only the heavy hitters. Go to any box store, search for that tiny section that still contains books, and look at the authors. There aren’t a lot of fresh new faces there.

This isn’t sour grapes, though I’d love to see my own titles there, but when I stop by the book/magazine sections of any store I’d like to see books by other, lesser-known authors. Books that take chances on new material, advancing genres, are calling to me, and I can’t hear them.

I’d like to see novels by my esteemed colleagues on this blog out there. Oh, I once saw a Sonny Hawke novel by some guy named Wortham, and another by Gilstrap who seems to be a pretty decent sort of guy and a good author, but nothing since.

I often need a bookstore fix, or at least a section of the Rexall where I can spin a rack, hold a book, and read the back cover as the scent of ink and paper wafts upward. If they were there, I’d buy ‘em.

So that’s what I have for you on this cold, snowy day in Northeast Texas. What do you think about these current trends?

Thirteen Strange Superstitions About Death

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Death is an uncomfortable subject for many folks. Perhaps it’s the severe emotional reaction people have to death—especially if it’s someone close—that makes the living act in bizarre ways. Or maybe it’s because death’s process is not well understood that causes normally rational individuals to believe in irrational concepts.

Recently, I looked over notes from my coroner understudy days. One training segment was in understanding various cultural practices and traditions about death. This was valuable information, as a difficult part of a coroner’s job is interacting with the deceased’s family, and those relatives can come from a diverse ethnicity with some pretty peculiar beliefs.

For today’s Kill Zone piece, I thought I’d share thirteen strange superstitions about death.

  1. Coins on the Eyes

The practice dates to the ancient Greeks who believed the dead would travel down to Hades and need to cross the river Styx in order to arrive in the afterlife. To cross over, they needed to pay the boat driver, Charon, so coins were placed over the eyes of the dead so they’d be able to pay the fare.

Secondly, and more practically, many people die with their eyes open. This can be a creepy feeling, having the dead stare at you, and it was thought the dead might be eyeing someone to go with them. Coins were a practical item to weigh down the eyelids until rigor mortis set in—coins being round and fit in the eye sockets as well as being relatively heavy.

The most famous set of eye coins is the two, silver half-dollars set on Abraham Lincoln, now on display in the Chicago Historical Museum.

  1. Birds and Death

Birds were long held to be messengers to the afterlife because of their ability to soar through the air to the homes of the gods. It’s not surprising that several myths materialized such as hearing an owl hoot your name, ravens and crows circling your house, striking your window, entering your house, or sitting on your sill looking in.

Birds, in general, became harbingers of death but somehow the only birds I personally associate with death are vultures.

  1. Burying the Dead Facing East

You probably never noticed, but most North American cemeteries are laid out on an east-west grid with the headstones on the west and the feet pointing east. This comes from the belief that the dead should be able to see the new world rising in the east, as with the sun.

It’s also the primary reason that people are buried on their backs and not bundled in the fetal position like before they were born.

  1. Remove a Corpse Feet First

This was Body Removal 101 that we learned in coroner school. We always removed a body from a house with the feet first. The practice dates from Victorian times when it was thought if the corpse went out head first, it’d be able to “look back” and beckon those standing behind to follow.

It’s still considered a sign of respect, but coroners secretly know it’s way easier to handle a body in rigor mortis by bending it at the knees to get around corners, rather than forcing the large muscles at the waist or wrenching the neck.

  1. Cover the Mirrors

It’s been held that all mirrors within the vicinity of a dead body must be covered to prevent the soul from being reflected back during its attempt to pass out of the body and on to the afterlife.

This practice is strong in Jewish mourning tradition and may have a practical purpose—to prevent vanity in the mourners so they can’t reflect their own appearance, rather forcing them to focus on remembering and respecting the departed.

  1. Stop the Clock

Apparently, this was a sign that time was over for the dead and that the clock must not be restarted until the deceased was buried. If it were the head of the household who died, then that clock would never be started again.

It makes me think of the song:

My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf
So it stood ninety years on the floor
It was taller by half than the old man himself
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more

It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born
And was always his treasure and pride
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

  1. Flowers on The Grave

Another odd belief is about flowers growing on a grave. If wildflowers appeared naturally, it was a sign the deceased had been good and had gone on to heaven. Conversely, a barren and dusty grave was a sign of evil and Hades. The custom evolved to putting artificial flowers on the grave although it’s now discouraged by most cemeteries due to maintenance issues.

Additionally, it’s always been practice to put flowers on a casket. This seems to have come from another practical reason—the smell from scented flowers helped mask the odor of decomposition.

  1. Pregnant Women Must Avoid Funerals

Ever hear of this? I didn’t until I researched this article. It seems to have come from a perceived risk where pregnant women might be overcome by emotion during the funeral ceremony and miscarry.

That’s pushing it.

  1. Celebrities Die in Threes

Most people heard that Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson died three days in a row. It’s an urban myth that this always occurs with celebrities and it’s the celebrity curse.

To debunk this, the New York Times went back twenty-five years in their archives and apparently this is the only time three well-known celebrities died in a three-day group.

  1. Hold Your Breath

Another popular superstition is that you must hold your breath while passing a graveyard to prevent drawing in a restless spirit that’s trying to re-enter the physical world.

That might be a problem if you’re passing Wadi-us-Salaam in Najaf, Iraq. It’s the world’s largest cemetery at 1,485.5 acres and holds over five million bodies.

  1. And the Thunder Rolls

Nope, not the Garth Brooks song. It’s thought that hearing thunder during a funeral service is a sign of the departed’s soul being accepted into heaven.

Where I grew up, thunder was thought to be associated with lightning and being struck by lightning was always a sign of bad luck.

  1. Funeral Processions

There’re lots of superstitious beliefs around funeral processions.

First, it’s considered very bad fortune to transport a body in your own vehicle. And approaching a funeral procession without pulling over to the side and stopping is not only bad taste, but also illegal in some jurisdictions. It’s said if a procession stops along the way, another person will soon die, and the corpse must never pass over the same section of road twice. Counting cars in a procession is dangerous because it’s like counting the days till your own death. You must never see your reflection in a hearse window as that marks you as a goner. Bringing a baby to a funeral ensures it will die before it turns one. And a black cat crossing before a procession dooms the entire parade.

One thing I know to be true about a funeral procession is what happens when you leave the back door of the hearse unlatched and the driver accelerates going uphill.

  1. Leaving a Grave Open Overnight

I don’t know if this is a superstition or not, but I see it as good, practical advice to not leave a grave open overnight. According to the International Cemetery, Cremation, and Funeral Association, the standard grave size is 2 ½ feet wide by 8 feet long by 6 feet deep.

With a hole that big looming in the dark, one could fall in and seriously harm oneself.

Kill Zoners—What other strange superstitions have you heard about death? Have you used any of these in your writing? Feel free to add to this list.

What Would Your Characters Do?

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What Would Your Characters Do?
Terry Odell

In my last post, I talked about some of the mishaps on our recent European trip, and how a writer might use them. “Only Trouble Is Interesting.”

What do your characters do when things don’t go the way they want them to? You don’t need to be writing about travel. Stuff happens anywhere and anytime.

Image by Peter H from Pixabay

Take our neighborhood. We live in a rural area, in a housing development established back in the 70s. It was designed for weekend getaways. Time marched on, and more and more people decided this was a great place to live. Now, almost everyone lives here all the time, which puts a strain on the water system. Pipes from the 70s are wearing out, developing leaks. Cutting to the chase, there was a major leak that drained the entire system. We have people in charge of this, and they haul water as needed, but between how much water was needed, and the freezing temperatures and snow, we had no water for about five days. The loss showed up late on Christmas afternoon, and I feel for the people who were left with the aftermath of a Christmas dinner and no way to wash the dishes.

Most of us take it for granted that when we turn a tap, water will come out. That toilets will do what they’re designed for. Take all that away, couple it with a community Facebook page, and people’s true colors are waved for all to see.

There were those who said, “This is what rural mountain life is like. The people in charge are working long hours in miserable weather searching for the leak. They will find it, and all this will pass.

In a show of community, nearby RV parks, even though closed for the winter, opened up their showers. Places like Walmart donated cases of water.

Was this enough for some? There were those who demanded minute-by-minute updates. Wanted immediate solutions. “Threatened” to put their homes up for sale. (Good riddance, IMHO). Ranted and raved about how nobody was doing their jobs (they’re all volunteers, btw) and they should be replaced. These were probably the people who made no efforts to conserve water year round, I’ll bet.

Image by César Mota from Pixabay

Other colors were waved when one company’s trash pickup didn’t happen on schedule because of extreme weather (the first time they’ve missed since we moved here 13 years ago), posted their fury and immediately changed trash companies.

Regensburg

An example from our recent cruise. Because of a lot of recent rain and snowmelt, the Danube waters rose to the point that the riverboats couldn’t get under the bridges, even though they had wheelhouses that could be lowered to some extent. The authorities closed the river.

(You can click on the images to enlarge them)

Our ship couldn’t get to its next stop. A sister ship was coming the other direction and faced the same problem. Our cruise director—who probably had very little sleep for several days—and the other ship’s crew coordinated a swap. All our passengers would be bussed to the sister ship, and vice versa.

Yes, it was an inconvenience. We had to pack, but the cruise line took care of transporting our luggage. We got to our scheduled cities, but it required longer bus rides. The ships were in canals now, not in the Danube proper.

I’m glad to say that most of the passengers accepted this as something nobody could have predicted, and praised the crews of both ships for their efficient handling of the unexpected swap.

Historische Wurstküche

The cruise line did offer compensation. They gave us vouchers for lunch at a landmark restaurant. The next day, as we disembarked for the buses to the Nuremburg Christmas Market, they gave everyone thirty euros in cash. And, they refunded everyone the equivalent of 25% of one day’s travel, which was realistically about the only time we lost.

Yet there were some passengers who thought the cruise line should have known about the river rising and should have refunded everyone’s money for the entire trip.

Melk Abbey Courtyard

And then there are the rule breakers. We toured the Melk Abbey, and taking pictures inside was prohibited. Yet there were two people in our group who felt that this rule didn’t apply to them, because … they were photographers with expensive cameras? The guide was very polite, and said, “Please, no photography” but did nothing to stop them. Part of me thought she should have demanded their memory cards (or taken their cameras until the end of the tour), but she let it go.

What about your characters—or people you know—TKZers? Can you use the way they respond to “times of trouble” or “rules” in your stories? What about how other characters react to them? Have you already done so? Have you read books where this was handled well? Or not?

And two more things, totally unrelated to this post. Character naming caveats. Don’t name a character Al. I’ve read two books recently with this name, and my brain insists on reading it as AI, as in Artificial Intelligence. Depending on the font, the reader might not be able to tell the difference. At least if that reader is me.

And don’t give your male character a last name that’s a female name if you’re going to refer to him by last name. If you call Bob Patricia ‘Patricia”, you’re likely to give your reader the hiccups until they adjust. At least if that reader is me.

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 for preorder 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.”

Are Writing Contests Worth It?

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Photo credit: Danny Howe-Unsplash

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

I’ll confess right up front. I like writing contests. A lot. 

They’re not for everyone but they’ve helped my career.

Why enter writing contests? Here are six reasons:

  1. Contests are incentives to finish your work and submit it to the outside world;
  2. Some offer valuable critique and feedback;
  3. Encouragement, recognition, and validation;
  4. Money and/or prizes;
  5. Awards help marketing;
  6. Intangible rewards.

Writers are often timid about sending their stories out into the world.

Contests however aren’t quite as scary as cold-submitting to agents and editors. You pay an entry fee and judges read your short story, novel excerpt, or screenplay. Some contests offer critiques to improve your craft and pinpoint what needs work.

If you don’t win, heck, neither did most other entrants so it’s not that humiliating.

Photo credit: Museums Victoria-Unsplash

If you do win, terrific! That recognition boosts confidence and increases credibility when you approach agents and publishers.

There are many reputable contests, but others are questionable or downright dodgy. 

Please note: contests mentioned in this post are not endorsements or recommendations.

Contests may be opportunities for the sponsor to expand their mailing list, offering their advertising and marketing services.

Some competitions require the author to give up all rights to their work. What happens if you create a character who later becomes a merchandising goldmine? Depending on contest terms, your earnings may be limited to a  one-time cash prize with no rights to future royalties. Victoria Strauss’s article cites a contest that solicits writers who want to become Manga scriptwriters. She writes:

Copyright surrender in a work-for-hire situation isn’t necessarily a “beware”, as long as the contract terms aren’t exploitative and you understand the implications of what you’re agreeing to.

In this case, however, the one-time money prize is the sole compensation you’ll receive for your copyright transfer, from which [the sponsor] can then profit indefinitely. Be aware also that if you win and your script does not get developed into a series, [sponsor] will still own your work. Winning, therefore, has potential benefits–but also potential costs.

Before entering, check out contests with reliable sources like Writer Beware, The Write Life, Poets & Writers, ProWritingAid (this list is a year old and may be out of date), Kindlepreneur, Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).

Run a Google search entering “[name of contest] scam” and look for red flags.

Before entering, always, always, always read the fine print.

What about entry fees? They typically range from free to $100+.

High entry fees raise questions:

  • Is the contest’s purpose to recognize excellence?
  • Or is this another scheme to take advantage of writers?

Valid reasons for higher fees are:

  • Pay honorariums to judges;
  • Fund prizes;
  • Support nonprofit organizations that help writers.

Research the contest, then use your own judgment whether or not the fee is worth it.

On the other end of the spectrum, “free” isn’t necessarily free.

You’ve seen the ads in magazines and online popups. Aspiring writers, especially poets, are seduced by dreams of publication and thousands of dollars in prizes.

Reality check: nobody, nowhere, nohow pays big bucks for poetry.

But it doesn’t cost anything so why not?

When you enter these contests, sponsors are thrilled to notify you that your outstanding poem was one of a select few that will be featured in their anthology. And…a beautiful gold-embossed hardcover with your published poem only costs $59.95. You can proudly pass this heirloom down to your grandchildren. In fact, buy a copy for each grandchild! And the rest of your family, and friends, and neighbors, and coworkers, and the mail carrier…

You get the idea. Such contests have endured for generations. Why? Because they make money from the dreams of writers who are hungry to be published.

Many legitimate contests are out there. Here’s the Urban Writer’s list of most prestigious awards.

Contests affiliated with writing organizations and conferences can be great career springboards because judges are often agents and editors. Examples:

Speaking of judges, here’s a little-known trick to give you insight into contests.

Volunteer to be a judge.

You don’t have to be Margaret Atwood or Dean Koontz to judge. Some writing organizations actively solicit their members to be volunteer judges. If you are a member of a group, you may qualify.

Reading and assessing entries takes a lot of time. Some contests pay small honorariums.

A few contests I’ve judged are Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Pikes Peak Writers, Authors of the Flathead Student contest, etc. Several TKZers have judged the Edgars, Agathas, and Nebulas. Please chime in with your experience.

As a judge, you’ll receive score sheets of criteria that show exactly what qualities and skills contests are looking for. Not coincidentally, those are the same qualities and skills editors and agents seek.

Scoring may be done numerically, by written critiques, or a combination of both.

As a judge, you gain a much broader perspective than the writer’s often-narrow point of view.

After reading a few entries, you notice a wide disparity among them, ranging from:

  • Downright awful, sloppy ones that weren’t even run through spellcheck;
  • Grammar? I don’t need no stinkin’ grammar;
  • Needs work but shows promise;
  • Professionally presented with competent writing skills but not compelling or imaginative;
  • A very few are OMG WOW!!!

Reading entries gives you a taste of what editors and agents go through every day when reviewing submissions. That added insight will help you pitch and submit more effectively.

Especially study the OMG WOWs. Figure out what the author did and how they did it. Learn from their strengths. Analyze how they handle pacing, point of view, and critical scenes. What makes their voice special and unique? How do they create a character you’re eager to spend time with and get to know better?

Then apply those lessons to your own writing.

My personal experience with contests began in the 1990s, when I entered the Colorado Gold contest, sponsored by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. I won the mystery category. As a result, an agent at the conference offered representation. Although we later parted ways and that book was never published, winning the contest was a major boost for my career that led to freelance work, editing jobs, and great friendships (more about intangible rewards in a minute).

In 2016, I entered the contest sponsored by the Pikes Peak Writers Conference. My thriller, Instrument of the Devil, won the mystery/suspense category.

Momentum from that propelled me to enter the Kindle Scout contest, sponsored by Amazon. Book excerpts were posted online, and readers voted for ones they wanted to see published. IOTD was selected. I received an advance and Kindle Press published the book that became a bestseller in Women’s Adventure. I

I was on my way to fame and fortune, right?

Uh, no. A few months later, Amazon closed down the Scout contest and the Kindle Press imprint was shuttered, leaving me orphaned.

But I’ll always remember they gave me that opportunity and I’m grateful.

My other books have been finalists for the Eric Hoffer award (Flight to Forever) and Best.Thrillers.com (Until Proven Guilty).

Can you tell I like contests?

Most recently, I entered my latest thriller Deep Fake Double Down in the BookLife Prize contest sponsored by Publisher’s Weekly for indie books.

The contest receives hundreds of entries in five categories: general fiction, romance, YA, sci-fi/fantasy/horror, and mystery/thriller. Entry fee of $119 is high but includes a critique that authors are free to use for their own promotion.

The grand prize is $5000. Finalists in each category receive a $1000 marketing package.

Photo credit: Joyful-Unsplash

 

In November, Deep Fake Double Down advanced from quarterfinals to semifinals. Yaay!

Then in December I learned DFDD was the mystery/thriller finalist. BookLife magazine featured interviews with each of the genre finalists.

Although I don’t generally count my chickens until they’re fried, I started to fantasize about how I’d spend $5000. Hire a publicist for dreaded marketing. Go on book tours. Attend Thrillerfest in NYC.

 

Well…

Deep Fake Double Down didn’t win the grand prize. The winner was Downpour, a horror novel by Christopher Hawkins. I just read it and it’s beautifully written, compelling, and terrifying, Congratulations, Chris!

Bu I gotta confess a little envy. I really would’ve liked to attend Thrillerfest.

However, I’ll still receive the $1000 marketing package. In the long run, that might be more valuable since I need all the help I can get with marketing.

Now, about those intangible rewards I mentioned earlier. Through contests, I’ve met writers who became friends, made lasting contacts with editors and agents, received invitations to speak, etc. When you put your work out in the world, you never know where it may take you.

Back in the ’90s when my book was a finalist for Colorado Gold, I flew to Denver for my first Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference. At that time, it was biggest writing event I’d ever attended. I was intimidated, not knowing a soul among 400+ attendees. 

One of the anonymous judges had scored my book a perfect 10. At the conference, I learned her name was Julie Kaewert, author of the Alex Plumtree series and a novelization of The Avengers movie. She graciously introduced me to many fellow mystery authors and her critique buddies who made me feel welcome and right at home.

At the banquet dinner, winners were announced in various categories and all received applause.

Then my name was announced. Wild whoops, hollers, and whistles erupted from tables full of my new friends.

I turned redder than the tomatoes on the salad.

I still cherish the memory.

From that contest, close friendships were born that endure to this day. Several became trusted critique partners and beta readers.

Contests give me much-needed reassurance that writing is worthwhile in spite of disappointments and setbacks. 

Are contests good for you? Enter a couple and find out. Then come back to TKZ and share your news.

A big thank you to Elaine Viets who suggested this post!

~~~

TKZers: What contests have you entered? Did they change your writing? Which contests do you recommend?

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Read the mystery/thriller finalist for the BookLife Prize at this link.

The Chronology of Story: Flashbacks

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Time, like an ever-rolling stream,

Bears all its sons away;

They fly forgotten, as a dream

Dies at the opening day.

–Isaac Watts

 * * *

We live in a four-dimensional world. For most of us, the three dimensions of space can be manipulated at will because we can move around and change our position on the Earth. We can climb the stairs in our homes, sail across oceans, or fly through the air. However, we have no control over the fourth dimension: time.

Albert Einstein famously told us that time is relative, and I sort of understand that. But the clock on my office wall doesn’t know anything about relativity. It just ticks away, recording one second after another. And despite what our friends in quantum physics tell us, my time goes in only one direction. Yes, I’ve heard of Kurt Gödel, worm holes, and theories that say traveling backwards in time is possible, but to my knowledge, no one has accomplished that feat. I know I haven’t. So, for the purposes of this post, we’ll use this definition from dictionary.com:

Chronology – noun – the sequential order in which past events occur.

Unless you’re writing a time-travel fantasy book, the events in the story you’re creating occur in a chronological sequence. But the telling of it doesn’t have to. Authors are a lucky bunch because we can tell a story in any way we want to. Even in a non-fantasy novel, we can take time and twirl it around our little fingers, make it do somersaults, or leap forward and backward in great bounds.

But why would we do that? Well, to keep the reader interested, of course. And how do we do it? One way is by the use of flashbacks.

* * *

What is a flashback scene?

Smartblogger.com defines a flashback as

“a literary device where a story breaks away from the present narrative to delve into the past, by showing us a past event or a scene from the past.”

 

According to novelist James Hynes in his Great Courses lectures entitled Writing Great Fiction,

“One of the fundamental principles of plotting is the withholding of information.…  A plot is the mechanism by which the writer decides what information to withhold, what information to reveal, and in what order.”

If the reader knows there was some disturbance in the protagonist’s past, but doesn’t know the full story, he/she will be compelled to keep reading to find out. When the author decides to reveal that fact, it may be effective to use a flashback scene.

The Power of a Flashback Scene

According to writingmastery.com,

“The beauty of flashbacks is that they give writers the freedom to fully show instead of tell the details of a traumatic or significant event in a character’s history, at the moment when it will be most powerful.”

 

How to move from the present to the past

Transitioning to a flashback scene can be achieved by a character remembering something from his/her past. Or it can be a break in the story that presents some important background information that is crucial to the narrative. In either case, it’s important that the reader understand where he/she is in the story. To that end, transition can be accomplished in several ways:

A change in verb tense: If the story is written in the past tense, switching to past perfect will clue the reader in.

The use of italics: Although some readers don’t like long passages in italics, I’ve seen this device used and found it effective.

A specific date: A flashback can be a separate chapter or scene that is clearly dated to indicate a previous time.

However you decide to handle a flashback, it’s a device that can add strength to your story.

A Word of Caution

In his book Plot & Structure, James Scott Bell warns us about the overuse of this plotting device.

“There is an inherent plot problem when you use flashbacks—the forward momentum is stopped for a trip to the past…. If such information can be dropped in during a present-moment scene, that’s always a better choice.”

But if you feel the flashback scene is necessary, then JSB advises to make sure it works as a scene.

“Write it as a unit of dramatic action, not as an information dump.”

* * *

Examples of flashbacks in literature

The entire book is a flashback

Most of the articles I read about flashback scenes describe a character who remembers something, and the flashback scene ensues from that. One example is The Catcher in the Rye which starts with Holden Caulfield’s first-person account of his current situation. “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like,…”

Then the second paragraph begins with a transition to a flashback: “Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep.” The rest of the book is a continuation of the flashback.

Other examples of stories written almost entirely in flashback are Wuthering Heights and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Flashback scenes sprinkled throughout the book

Another type of flashback is used by Jane Harper in her debut novel, The Dry. The story begins when Federal Agent Aaron Falk returns to his hometown to attend a funeral. As the story progresses, we learn that Falk left his hometown as a child after being suspected of the murder of one of his friends. As the reader gets more and more intrigued about Falk’s history, Harper fills in backstory through the use of flashbacks dropped in strategic chapters to show Falk and his friends as youngsters. These scenes are written in italics so it’s easy to know when you’re reading a flashback scene. The main narrative is written in Falk’s third-person POV, but the flashback POVs vary.

A single flashback scene to describe a life-changing moment in the plot

I included a flashback scene in my latest novel, Lacey’s Star. When Cassie Deakin’s uncle regains consciousness after being attacked and seriously injured by thieves, he explains that the assailants stole a package he had recently received from his unreliable and long-lost Vietnam war buddy, Sinclair. I wanted to include a flashback scene at that point in the narrative as a powerful display of Sinclair’s drunken despair changing to hope when he finds what he thinks is proof that his young sister was murdered 40 years earlier. In order to ensure the reader understood it was a flashback, I subtitled the chapter “Alaska – Three Weeks Earlier” and wrote it in italics. The novel is written in Cassie’s first-person POV, but the flashback is in Sinclair’s third-person.

* * *

And just in case those guys are right about time travel, here’s a clock that might be useful:

* * *

So, TKZers. What do you think about flashback scenes? Have you used them in your stories? What’s your opinion of the power of the flashback?

* * *

When Sinclair Alderson wakes up from a drunken binge to find himself in the home of a kind stranger, he pours out his despair over the death of his young sister 40 years earlier. Only then does he discover the note that could identify her killer.

Buy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play. or Apple Books.

 

The Trapdoor on Top of Your Skull

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

In his early years as a writer, Ray Bradbury made lists of nouns based on childhood memories. Things like: The Lake, The Night, The Crickets, The Ravine.

“These lists were the provocations,” he wrote in Zen in the Art of Writing, “that caused my better stuff to surface. I was feeling my way toward something honest, hidden under the trapdoor on the top of my skull.”

I love that metaphor of the trapdoor. We need to flip that door open and shine a light down where all the “better stuff” is.

What did Bradbury mean by that? I think he meant what comes from deep, emotional resonance. It’s what you can’t put into words to define it; but what you must put into words to create it—first for you, then for your reader.

I’ve written some scenes that I’ve gotten emails about. When I look at those I find inevitably they came to me after I opened the trapdoor.

How do you do that?

You make a list like Bradbury’s. Find some time to get alone, take a some deep breaths, and just start remembering….write down all the images and smells and sounds that come to mind. Don’t judge any of it. You’re recording, not fictionalizing. When you get tired, take a break, then come back and add to this list. Put it aside for awhile. Then read it over and highlight the words that generate the most emotion inside you.

I guarantee you’ll find story gold. You can transmute those feelings into your Lead character. You can create moments in your book that will connect with readers in a powerful way. You can also mine the list for short story subject matter. That’s what I like to do most with my own list. (Hat tip to Dale for yesterday’s post which prompted this one.)

I was looking at my list a few years ago when I stopped on The Cigar. That word was there because of my father. To this day when I get a whiff of cigar smoke, I think of Dad. This time when I read the word I flashed back to a scene from my own life, involving me, a liquor store, and a box of Dutch Masters. The emotion of what happened—embarrassment—gave me an idea for a short story called “My Father’s Birthday.”

I published it. And apparently that emotional resonance I mentioned above was there for many readers. If you’ll allow me two clips from the reviews:

Then, in only 12 pages, he ties all his plot threads together to impart an emotional impact that a lot of authors wouldn’t be able to do in a book-length memoir. Indeed, other writers could have turned the bares storyline of “My Father’s Birthday” into an entertaining short story. Few could produce one with the same lasting impact.

***

I’m telling you, this author has the power to take a person on an emotionally resonant trip down memory lane.

I show you those simply to demonstrate what opening the trapdoor on top of your skull can do for a story. If you’d like to read the story itself, I’ve made it free today for your Kindle or Kindle app. Click here. Outside the U.S., go to your Amazon site and search for: B081THHSYL

Try this: Right now, write down three nouns from your childhood, pictures under your trapdoor. Go ahead. I’ll wait. 

Now pick one of them and share it with us. Why that word? What’s the emotional resonance for you? Have you used it in one of your stories?

Short Story Words of Wisdom

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One of my writing goals for 2024 is to write more short stories, something I used to do regularly. Early on, that was all I wrote. My first sales were with flash fiction, and my first indie publishing efforts were with short stories in 2012.

Today’s Words of Wisdom gives advice on writing short stories, and ways to publish it. First, PJ Parrish looks at Kurt Vonnegut’s tips on writing short stories. Elaine Vets follows with thoughts on how to get past being blocked when trying to write short. Finally, James Scott Bell shares what a good story does and where to publish short fiction today.

As always, the original posts are well worth reading in their entirety, and are date-linked from their respective excerpts.

When I started this post, I had forgotten that Vonnegut had — despite his disclaimer of having nothing to teach other writers — issued his Eight Tips For Writing a Good Short Story.  So of course, I looked them up. I think they work well for any kind of fiction, actually.  With a few caveats for us crime dogs, maybe. Some you might have heard before, but they bear repeating:

  1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
  2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
  3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
  4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
  5. Start as close to the end as possible.
  6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
  7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
  8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The first one is great advice no matter what you’re writing — even a memo.

The second one I believe in wholeheartedly. Which is why I gave up on The Americans.  

Number three we’ve quoted many times here at TKZ when we talk about motivation. And the deeper you can plumb the depths of what a character wants, the richer your story will be.

Rule four is important. Every sentence should do something, be on the page for a reason. I read somewhere that Vonnegut disliked television, except for Cheers, which he called a comic masterpiece.  He said, “I’d rather have written Cheers than anything I’ve written. Every time anybody opens his or her mouth on that show, it’s significant. It’s funny.”

Now, we get to number five, which is critical for short stories but troublesome for novelists, given that we like to flap our gums sometimes before getting to the dramatic point. (ie weather, description, backstory).  But if you really think about it, you should never start your novel at too early a juncture. You should always find that prime dramatic moment to drop your reader into the action.

Six is a given. As James says here often, something must be disturbed in your protagonist’s world.

Number seven is about authenticity. If you set out to be James Patterson, you will fail. Yeah, be smart about today’s market, but write the book you were meant to write.

Now the last one is tricky. I am not quite sure what Vonnegut is talking about here. Because on its face, it goes against much of what we talk about here about NOT larding your early pages with too much information. You want some mystery in the beginning. You want to pose questions that beg answers. Maybe Vonnegut is just arguing for clarity in the writing itself?  The choreography (moving characters through time and space) must be clear. Confusion should be avoided. Maybe you all can help me out on this one.

P.J. Parrish—March 26, 2019

 

That happens to every writer. It certainly happens to me. Short stories are hard to write. In some ways, they may be harder to writer than novels. Here are a few tips for when you feel blocked working on your short story:

Think small – and think twisted.
There are good reasons why you can’t continue your short story. You could be blocked because you have too much going to on. In short, you may be writing a 5,000-word novel instead of a short story.
In a short story, you don’t need long, dreamy descriptions of the scenery.
You don’t need six subplots.
You don’t need to tell us your character’s awful childhood – unless it’s vital to the plot.
It’s a short story.
Think small.

Here’s another reason why your short story may be blocked: How many characters does it have?
If your short story has more than four major characters – you may — accent on may –have too many. It’s like being in a small room with too many people. You can’t move.

The short story is a small world.
Don’t make work for yourself. Giving all those people something to do is hard labor.

Think small. Cut back on your characters.
If your story is going nowhere, consider some pruning. Clear out all the extraneous details, the unnecessary characters, the descriptions of the weather.
If you’re still not sure, read the story out loud. Read it to your spouse, or your dog, or your wall. But tell the story instead of looking at it on the page.
That’s a good way to find out what works – and what doesn’t.

Lawrence Block is a master of the traditional short story.
Let me show you what he does in one paragraph – one – in a short story called “This Crazy Business of Ours.” It’s in Block’s anthology called Enough Rope. If you’re interested in traditional short stories, I recommend this anthology.

 “This Crazy Business of Ours”
The elevator, swift and silent as a garrote, whisked the young man eighteen stories skyward to Wilson Colliard’s penthouse. The doors opened to reveal Colliard himself. He wore a cashmere smoking jacket the color of vintage port. His flannel slacks and broadcloth shirt were a matching oyster white. They could have been chosen to match his hair, which had been expensively barbered in a leonine mane. His eyes, beneath sharply defined white brows, were as blue and as bottomless as the Caribbean, upon the shores of which he had acquired this radiant tan. He wore doeskin slippers upon his small feet and a smile upon his thinnish lips, and in his right hands he held an automatic pistol of German origin, the precise manufacturer and caliber of which need not concern us.

See how Block establishes a character in one paragraph? That is true economy of writing.
Make sure your story is about what it’s about. In a novel, you don’t have to get to the story right away. You have time to develop it. Time to build. Slowly.
In a short story, you have to hit them and run.

Elaine Vets—December 9, 2021

 

So what does a good short story do?

To make one strong impression on the mind of the reader, and to make that impression so powerfully that it will leave the reader pleased, convinced and emotionally moved is the principal aim of a good short story. To the production of that one effect everything in the story—characters, action, description, and exposition—points with the definiteness of an established purpose. All else is omitted, and thus all the parts of the story are both necessary and harmonious. Centralizing everything on the production of one effect makes every short story complete in itself. The purpose having been accomplished there is nothing more to be said. The end is the end.

Well now! If I may modestly mention my own book on the subject, How to Write Short Stories and Use Them to Further Your Writing Career, this affirms the “secret” I found by analyzing thousands of short stories. I call it “one shattering moment.”

What that moment is depends on the type of story you write. If it’s a crime or mystery story with a “twist,” that’s one kind of moment, and usually comes at the end (see Elaine’s post on that subject here).

Another type of story is the one that lays you flat with an emotional punch. Here the shattering moment may happen in the middle, as it often does in a Raymond Carver story. The emotional shattering can come at the end, as in Irwin Shaw’s classic “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses.”

Keeping one shattering moment in mind gives you all the direction you’ll need to write a short story worth reading. Just add your own stamp and creativity.

A good short story can be a gateway for readers to discover you and your full-length books. So where can you publish? There are established venues, like Alfred Hitchcockand Analog. These can be hard to crack and take a long time to hear from.

Some authors, like yours truly, use Patreon. (Hey, can I urge you to give it a try? No obligation, and I’d love to hear what you think!)

Many more use sites like Wattpad, Medium, and Comaful. Heck, you can start your own blog just for short stories.

Or why not go right to Kindle? Publish it in Kindle Select, price it at 99¢, and run a free promo every 90 days. Make sure you have links to your website and books in the back matter.

James Scott Bell—January 16, 2022

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  1. Do you write short stories? What tips do you have?
  2. How do you “think small?” How do you get around blocks in doing so?
  3. Where do you publish your short stories?

My story collection Rules Concerning Earthlight is available in ebook and print. Stories of the science fictional, and stories of the fantastic including:

  • A young man lives alone on the far side of the moon, an artificial intelligence his only friend and companion.
  • A hex-slinger encounters his dead wife, sword in hand, standing at a twilight crossroads.
  • A young woman in prison for having superpowers is tested.
  • A former Martian marine and her brilliant husband investigate a mystery on a colossal space station orbiting Saturn.
  • A traveling medicine show where real magic happens faces evil in a frontier boomtown in 1901.