By John Gilstrap

I returned to my home last Saturday after spending the better part of a week at the Midwest Writers Workshop in Muncie, Indiana, where I was part of the faculty. MWW is one of my favorite “working” conferences–that is, a conference dedicated specifically to writing technique, as opposed to other confabs that are weighted heavily toward social interaction. When you sign on to teach at MWW, you’re signing on to work. This was my fourth or fifth tour with the conference, and I’m anxious to go back when invited.

As part of my duties, I agreed to review ten, 5-page writing samples and discuss them with their authors, which I hammered out back-to-back in half-hour increments. I mentioned here last week that I’d noticed an overall decline in quality from my previous experience with MWW. None of the samples I reviewed were truly awful or beyond redemption, but none of them jumped out as sparkling with potential.

The experience did, however, provide me with the topic for this week’s TKZ missive: How to make the most (or trigger the worst) out of manuscript reviews. Presented in no particular order . . .

My opinion of your writing is merely my opinion. It’s the opinion you paid to hear, and the one that I am obliged to give. You are free to dismiss any bit of guidance that I provide. The opinions from your friends, family and beta readers, while in opposition to my own may very well be definitive. Go with them–with my blessing–but know that the fact that your Aunt Betty was an English teacher and says your characters are vivid and exciting will not cause me to change my assessment that they are neither.

If you listen to anything I say, listen to everything I say. The positive things I note about your work are every bit as honest as the negative things. I understand that we don’t know each other very well, but those who do know me will assure you that I am not a blower of unearned sunshine. Give yourself a break.

“The first five pages” actually means the first five pages. Of the ten manuscripts I reviewed, three of them were hunks of story excised from the middle of the novel, in each case chosen because the author thought those pages represented their “best writing.” Yeah, let that settle. None of the good writing happens before page 48 (and presented to me either as unnumbered pages or as “page one” of the sample). Let’s save that rant for later. Assessing a manuscript is more than just copy editing. In fact, copy editing is the last thing this kind of assessment is. If I’m going to evaluate your story, the elements of plot, setting and character all have to make sense. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I cannot think of a simpler, more understandable way to issue the instruction to “submit the first five pages of your work.”

Quit worrying about someone trying to steal your idea. If you want my help, you’re going to have to share critical elements of your story. In many years of doing this, I’ve never once heard a premise that was truly unique. I’ve seen a thousand different squints on romances and mysteries and murder weapons, but never a plot point that was unicorn-unique. When you demand that I sign a non-disclosure agreement before you allow me to dedicate my time to your writing, you double-dog guarantee that I won’t look at a word, and won’t lift a finger. Well, maybe I’ll lift one finger.

Okay, Killzone family, what’s your experience with giving or receiving critiques. Did you enjoy the experience? Hate it? Have any more tips to add?

If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear? — Stevie Nicks

By PJ Parrish

So I competed in my very first pickleball tournament on Sunday. How’d I do? Eh…

About as well as I did the first time I had to play the piano in front of real people. Sweaty hands, dry mouth, pounding heart. Then lots of dumb little mistakes, missing the notes, not watching Valerie, my violinist friend I was accompanying. So it was at the pickleball gig. Hitting too hard, no soft touch on the dinks. Too hung up on the folks watching me. And the worst — feeling like I was letting my partner down,

I kept flashing back to that piano performance. I was so sure I was going to screw up that I forgot to just stay in the moment and have a good time.

Which brings me to our topic today: You guys just have to relax!

By you guys I mean all of us crime dogs. We’ve got to get over our performance anxiety.  Yeah, we get it, just like actors, dancers, speechifiers. I mean, look at the clinical definition:  Performance anxiety is fear about one’s ability to perform a specific task. People experiencing performance anxiety may worry about failing a task before it has even begun. They might believe failure will result in humiliation or rejection.

Sound familiar? No matter where you are in your writing career, long-published to working on your first manuscript, you’ve probably had feelings of doubt. And you may have even (like me at several points in my decades-long career), worked yourself into a lather over the idea that you will be rejected, or worse, humiliated.

We writers don’t get stage fright of course. But WRITERS PERFORMANCE ANXIETY (WPA…I made that up) can manifest itself in some very real and harmful ways:

• Fear of confronting the daily task of writing itself. (God, this is so bad! What am I even thinking? That I can actually write something someone wants to read?)
• Fear of letting someone read your stuff. (I can’t face feedback from a critique group. I don’t want anyone to see this because they’ll know I’m a fraud)
• Fear of finishing. (Because what comes next?)
• Fear of sending your work out into the world. (Because that opens you up to possibility of…)
• Fear of rejection.

Is WPA the same as writer’s block? I don’t think so. Writer’s block is a temporary lull in your momentum. It comes usually because you’ve plotted yourself into a blind alley or you’ve lost touch with your characters. It can be fixed. You can go back and find the true path. You can delete. You can rewrite.

But WPA goes to something deeper, I think. It comes from a fear that what you’ve made isn’t good enough. And, by extension, that who YOU are isn’t good enough.

And lest you think you’re unique in your WPA, get a load of this confession from novelist Anne Lamott:

I love readings and my readers, but the din of voices of the audience gives me stage fright, and the din of voices inside whisper that I am a fraud, and that the jig is up. Surely someone will rise up from the audience and say out loud that not only am I not funny and helpful, but I’m annoying, and a phony.

So first, you have to separate you and your work. I know, I know…that’s tough because your work comes from your heart and soul. But you’ve got to get away from the idea that this is personal. If your book isn’t working, it’s not because you’re not. If your story is flawed, it isn’t because you are.

Second, you have to let go of the idea of being perfect. (Trust me, I know a lot about this one). We all try to write something we hope everyone will love. We sweat every sentence, masticate every metaphor, spinning our wheels in mid-rewriting muck instead of moving forward. We try to be too writerly, too clever, too neo-whatever-is-popular-now. We forget that our first task is to tell a cool story that connects with readers.

I love this quote from screenwriter Robert McKee:

When talented people write badly, it’s generally for one of two reasons: Either they’re blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove or they’re driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They’re moved by a desire to touch the audience.

Okay, so maybe you’ve got WPA. What do I think you should do about this? Well, to be blunt, you’ve got to grow a pair. You’ve got to be brave about letting others see your stuff. We’ve said this here at TKZ a million times but here it comes again: Find someone you can trust to tell you the truth. Listen to them. Then go back to work.

When you’ve finished — and I mean really finished, like your seventh or twelfth draft, and you’ve turned it into a beautiful manuscript with the best grammar and formatting you can manage — send that baby out into the world. Playing the piano alone in your little room is what amateurs do. Writing just for yourself is pointless. You’re a pro. You need an audience. They’re out there. Go find them.

I’ll let the therapists have the last word here. Because I think the “treatment” they suggest for stage fright is good for us writers.

• Stand in a relaxed but confident pose. (You the writer need to relax, then face that blank page every day with faith and conviction)
• Make eye contact with the friendliest faces in the audience. (Find a great beta reader!)
• Maintain momentum rather than dwelling on mistakes. (Don’t keep rewriting the same chapters. Move forward through your plot and go back only if you really need to correct something that is making forward momentum impossible. And remember that REWRITING is where the hard work is done)
• Focus on the act of performing rather than the audience’s reaction. (Try to remember why you got into this weird business in the first place — the joy of putting words to paper and making readers feel something.)
• Visualize success. (Your slot on the bestseller list? Your book cover-out at Barnes & Noble? Hordes waiting for you to sign your book? Okay, how about your finished book, with a good cover, finally up for sale on Amazon?)

And remember: As Stevie Nicks says, a little rational fear is a good thing. It keeps you on your toes. Just don’t let it define you. Or ruin your game.

Postscript: Yesterday, the second day of the Friendly Pickleballers Charity Tourament, my partner Keith and I won our game, 11-4. Things are looking up. I’m visualizing a trophy. Stay frosty out there, friends in the heat zones.

I’m up against a looming deadline and am living on coffee and burritos, so today’s post is a cheat because it originally appeared on the online version of Stand Magazine in a different form.

My works are always set in small-town Texas. Though I live near the DFW metroplex, I’m no fan of cities, and only a couple of chapters in a twelve-year career as a novelist have occurred in those canyons of concrete and steel.

Maybe that’s because my roots run deep in rural Northeast Texas, and it all stems from deep ancestral family anchors and my maternal grandfather who was a farmer and constable in Lamar County from the 1940s through the mid-1980s. I mine these stories and memories from long ago, because he made a statement when I was ten that I’ve never forgotten.

We were in his old farm truck, heading toward one of the two general stores in Chicota to pick up a loaf of Ideal bread, and Dr Peppers. In warm weather, he drove with his left elbow hanging out the open window. Always in faded blue overalls, light blue shirt washed so often it was soft as a baby’s bottom, and wearing his ever-present LBJ hat, he threw a glance at an unpainted farmhouse sagging under the weight of past years.

“Another one of my old uncles lived there when I was a kid. It won’t be standing much longer. He was in the pen once, but got out and married and then that ol’ gal up and run off on him and he just withered away.”

He considered his statement for a moment. “You know, son, small towns are like ponds. Up on the surface there’s not much to see, but underneath, there’s a world of life and death going on.”

Those two sentences stuck, and have been the basis for much of my mystery and thriller writing career.

Back in the 1960s where my Red River series is set, there were few secrets in our community. Throw in the fact that we were all related in some way, news traveled fast over party lines. It just occurred to me that I had nearly a hundred relatives living close to both sets of grandparents in a two-mile square, including third and fourth cousins with a couple of double-cousins thrown in for good measure.

In the country there’s always someone watching out the window, and despite today’s social media platforms, the ol’ grapevine still exists and the uninformed are surprised to find that folks living in rural areas have very little privacy in a general sense.

Small town folks know all about each other, and what they’ve done, good or bad, just as my running buddy John Gilstrap postulated in a post earlier this month.

For example, when I was a kid here was one instance when a strange Cadillac pulled up to a relative’s farmhouse looking for directions (decades before GPS) and soon the community buzzed that “someone” was visiting the Widow Davis.

It took a while for that bit of excitement to run its course, and Widow Davis in her late eighties was tickled pink to find out people were talking about her interest in something other than watching the daily stories (soap operas) on the one channel she received on her portable black and white television.

I guess the main reason I still visit these small towns in print, or in person, is because it reminds me of a simpler time. In fact, I based a novel on a 1960s mafia hitman from Las Vegas who wanted to escape his criminal life and start anew with his new girlfriend in the fictional Northeast Texas community of Center Springs.

But you can’t hide in a small town, and especially a smaller rural community. People know the minute you get there, and the ensuing plot of that novel rests firmly upon that misconception.

After another novel came out, one of my oldest aunts called me from her assisted living quarters, mad as an old wet hen. She launched into me the moment I answered. “Reavis Zane, I have a crow to pick with you!”

Where I come from, you’re in serious trouble when an older female relative begins a conversation with your first and middle names. I immediately felt like an adolescent boy again. “Aunt Irene, I’m sorry I haven’t called you in a while…”

“It’s not that. I’m talking about that new book of yours that I just read. Young man, you shouldn’t be telling family secrets!”

“I haven’t…”

“You did! You wrote about Leroy and Lizzie running off together and leaving their husband and wife.”

“No, I made that whole thing up. Those are fictional characters and… wait, what? I didn’t know that. Uncle Leroy and Aunt Lizzie were married to someone else before? Who were they married to?”

She grew quiet on the other end of the line and then snapped at me. “Well, those are family secrets and I’m not gonna talk about that!”

And she hung up on me.

Thinking back, a large number of successful authors set their plots in small towns and pastoral communities. Maybe that’s what I look for, a sense of quiet desperation, limited numbers of characters, and the skeletons that seem to accumulate in all our closets.

So if you move to a small town to escape the busy city and some crime real or imagined, visualize a pool, which is where livestock gets water in Northeast Texas, (it’s a pond in East Texas, and a tank in central and west parts of the Lone Star State). Whatever you call it, remember the surface is peaceful and calm as dragonflies circle and birds flit over.

But underneath, where you can’t see, there’s a world of life and death going on, and you’ll likely be shocked at what you find under there.

Kenora is a small town of about 15,000 on the Lake of the Woods at the west edge of Ontario, a prominent province in Canada. Normally, Canadian towns are pretty quiet and orderly but on May 10, 1973, a masked gunman robbed a Kenora bank and then blew himself to smithereens with a bomb strapped to his chest. I call it a bombery.

You’d think this was something on a movie set, but it’s a true crime story with no ending. The bombed robber has never been identified. That’s beside having a full set of fingerprints, some twisted teeth, and a beautiful DNA profile available. Briefly, here’s what happened.

At opening time, the robber entered the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce on Kenora’s main drag. He wore a black balaclava and was armed with a pistol, a rifle, and packing a homemade bomb built with six dynamite sticks. The detonator was a clothespin device which he could operate through his mouth.

Instead of just “grab the money and run”, the robber made a huge spectacle He took the bank employees hostage and began negotiation with the police. This resulted in a plainclothes officer exchanging himself for the hostages. The robber demanded a get-away truck be supplied and for the vault to be opened. About $100,000 in bills were stuffed into three duffle bags the robber brought with him.

This ordeal lasted two hours. During that time, word quickly spread, and a large crowd assembled outside the bank with the police holding them back. The media arrived, and the outside scene was reported live on radio and filmed for TV.

When the robber and the officer came out of the bank, a police sharpshooter shot him— the bad guy, not the cop. He went down and the bomb went off, with blood and body bits and bills flying everywhere. It was chaos. The officer was injured—no doubt saved from death by being shielded with the money-filled bags strung on his back. Remarkably, most of the $100,000 was recovered and not scooped by frenzied folks.

To this day, no one knows the robber’s identity. His description was a while male about 45-years-old, 5’6” to 5’8”, and around 160 lbs. Despite his fingerprints being circulated through Interpol, dental records checked, and when DNA came along in the 1990s – there was no lead. Today, his body lies in a Kenora graveyard, and the case of the Great Canadian Bombery is closed.

Now, this case hits home for me. I grew up near Kenora and was in a Grade 12 class when it happened. My girl-friend-at-the-time (now known as she-whose-name-must-not-be-mentioned)—her mother’s car was parked outside that bank. Rosie’s Impala got splattered with the blood and the bits and the bills.

Watch the explosion on film as it happened.

Listen to the live radio broadcast.

Kill Zoners — Have you ever experienced a close-to-home crazy crime? Do you know anyone who has? Or can you think of a crime that can top this? Tell us about it in the comments.