Landing the Novel – The Story of the Gimli Glider

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“If you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it’s an outstanding landing.” – Chuck Yeager

* * *

In July 1983, Air Canada Flight 143, a Boeing 767 airliner, took off from Montreal to fly to Edmonton with an intermediate stop in Ottawa. The trip ended somewhat prematurely.

Now, when you get ready to take a road trip, how do you handle the fuel? I’m guessing you go to the gas station and fill your car up, even if it’s a short trip, right? But airlines don’t do that. It’s common practice to load enough fuel into the plane to get it to its destination, and then on for another 45 minutes or so, to take care of any unforeseen circumstances. The reasoning is that filling the fuel tanks all the way adds a lot of weight to the plane, thereby making it more expensive to fly. There are tools to determine the amount of fuel to add to the plane before take-off.

That’s where the problem for Flight 143 began.

The fuel quantity indicator on the Canadian airplane was found to be defective, but there was no replacement available, so the crew manually determined the amount of fuel needed to fly all the way to Edmonton. This involved measuring the amount of fuel with a floatstick and doing some mathematical calculations and conversions. Mistakes were made. The plane took off on its journey and made the intermediate stop in Ottawa. As it departed Ottawa, no one knew that it didn’t have enough fuel onboard to make it to Edmonton.

The Boeing 767 is a two-engine aircraft. Flying toward Edmonton, it was at an altitude of about 41,000 feet when the left engine fuel pressure alarm sounded. The cockpit crew assumed it was a fuel pump problem and silenced the alarm, knowing the system was gravity-fed in flight. A few seconds later, the right engine fuel pressure alarm sounded. The crew decided to divert the flight to Winnipeg, but still had no idea about the real problem they were facing.

As they began their descent, the left engine stopped functioning. The crew began procedures for a single engine landing, but almost immediately, the right engine also failed. Air Canada Flight 143 was now a glider with a crew that had never been trained on a total engine-out emergency. The 767 emergency manual had no information on an unpowered landing.

Giving out of fuel in an aircraft at 35,000 feet is a problem. You can’t just pull over onto the nearest cloud and think things through. You have to land the plane. Whatever it takes, wherever you are, you have to put the plane on the ground, preferably in one piece.

Fortunately, an aircraft that has lost all power will not just fall out of the sky like a rock.  Even in a heavy airliner, the wings will provide enough lift for the plane to glide, however clumsily. Fortunately, the pilot of Flight 143 was also an experienced glider pilot, and he calculated what he thought was the best glide speed at 220 knots. That would give the plane a glide ratio of around 12:1, meaning the plane would fly forward about twelve miles for each mile it lost in altitude. Flying at 35,000 feet, they had a radius of around 80 miles to find a place to land.

The pilot instructed the first officer to locate the nearest airport.  They decided on the Royal Canadian Air Force base at Gimli. The base was closed, and the runway had been decommissioned, but the runway still existed. What the crew didn’t know was that the runway was used by car enthusiasts for racing, and there was an event in progress.

As the plane approached Gimli, the pilot realized they were coming in too high and too fast. One way to handle that in a normal airplane is to go around the field and approach at a lower altitude, but without power in the aircraft, the pilot didn’t think he had enough altitude to execute a complete turn, so he opted to perform a forward slip to land. This maneuver requires the pilot to cross-control by turning the rudder in one direction while the ailerons are turned the other way. The result is the aircraft continues its forward trajectory, but the nose is pointed at an angle to the side. The air hitting the fuselage will slow the plane and cause it to descend rapidly. The pilot will undo the cross control just before landing so the plane will be back in its correct configuration. It’s a maneuver that’s well-known to pilots of gliders or light aircraft, but is rarely to never performed in a passenger jet.

Fortunately, the people on the ground saw the 132-ton silent behemoth bearing down on them and were able to scramble clear of the runway in time.

Although the crew managed to get the landing gear down, the nose wheel did not lock in place. That turned out to be a bit of luck because, when the plane touched down, the nose wheel collapsed, and the friction helped slow the plane to a halt. It did not run off the end of the runway, and there were no serious injuries.

The aircraft was repaired and put back into service where it flew until its retirement in 2008. That airplane would forever be known as the Gimli Glider.

That was one awesome bit of flying by Captain Bob Pearson and First Officer Maurice Quintal. They deserved a medal for their piloting skill and calm in the face of imminent disaster, and they got one. In 1985, they received the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship.

* * *

There are similarities between flying an airplane and writing a novel. In order to fly an airplane, there are two things you have to do:

#1 – You must take off

#2 – You must land

According to Heinlein’s Business Rules (and I hope Harvey Stanbrough is reading this) there are certain things you must do when writing a novel. The first two are:

#1 – You must write

#2 – You must finish what you write

But whether you’re flying or writing, there can be some turbulence and maybe even a few surprises in between those two steps.

The writing journey will certainly include a months-long effort of plotting, drafting, outlining (or not), editing, revising, and getting feedback. But eventually, the writer has to bring the novel in for a landing.

The checklist for putting it down safely may be long. There are final edits, cover design, formatting, endorsements, copyright, ISBN, Library of Congress, and so on. It may be stressful, but at some point, you just have to let go and land the thing.

Several of us are on final approach or have recently landed our novels. Terry Odell just published Deadly Relations and Debbie Burke’s Deep Fake Double Down is available on pre-order now. My novel Lady Pilot-in-Command is in the hands of the copy editor, and beta readers are sending me feedback. Other TKZ authors have recently touched down or are approaching the runway.

Whatever the status of your work, I wish you a good journey and a happy landing.

* * *

So TKZers: Have you ever run into problems with a novel in mid-flight? How did you solve them in order to land the book? Are you on final approach or have you landed a novel recently? Tell us about it.

Put Some Saga in Your Stories

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Around 850 A.D. a crew of Scandinavians was sailing around and got off course. They saw some land, and decided to check it out.

They didn’t know how cold this land could get, for if they had they might have turned right around and headed home. The place was packed with ice. “Let’s call it Iceland,” one of them said. And so it was claimed for good King Fairhair.

When word got to the king, he said, “The future is all about real estate. So let’s put in some family homes, a fish market or two, and a boat yard.”

The settlements began. It was hard at first to find a hospitable spot to set down roots. Whoever designed Iceland had put in lots of lava streams and glaciers, rocks and crags, and one strip mall with a tattoo parlor and the offices of the physician Dag “Dr. Leech” Gunnarsson.

Nevertheless, after several exploratory ventures, they found a place where at least the modicum of a village might be established.

But there was a modicum already there—with some strange fellows in cowls. These were Irish monks, who’d been there for over 100 years. These early inhabitants of Iceland were “Culdees.” Culdee comes from the Celtic Céile Dé, which means “God worshipper.” These monks lived lives of asceticism apart from human society, seeking entire sanctification. They had learned early, at least as far back as the 700s, that there’s not much sanctifying taking place in the world of human passions. Thus, they eschewed all video games, smart phones, talk shows, and Twitter.

The new settlers had to come up with their own form of entertainment. Life was taken up with catching foxes and ducks, reindeer and mice, whales and seals. These were often eaten at great feasts, where the conversation revolved mostly around the development of table manners. A century of this kind of palaver grew boring. So one night someone suggested, “Can somebody please tell a story?”

Thus was born the saga:

The original sagas were Icelandic prose narratives that were roughly analogous to modern historical novels. They were penned in the 12th and 13th centuries, and blended fact and fiction to tell the tales of famous rulers, legendary heroes, and average folks of Iceland and Norway. And they were aptly named: saga traces back to an Old Norse root that means “tale.” The English word first referred only to those original Icelandic stories, but saga later broadened to cover other narratives reminiscent of those, and the word was eventually further generalized to cover any long, complicated scenario.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1947 ed., the saga “in its purest form, extolled the life of a hero, governed by fixed rules, and intended for oral recitation.” The fixed rules were “simplicity of plot, chronological order of events, set phrases used even in describing the restless play of emotion or the changeful fortunes of a fight or a storm. The absence of digression, comment or intrusion of the narrator’s person is invariably maintained.”

Here you have plot, structure, restless emotions, and no author intrusion.

Further, these sagas display “the keen grasp of character, the biting phrase [style], the love of action and the delight in blood which almost assumes the garb of religious passion.”

The most popular of these oral tales were eventually written on scrolls. We have none of the originals, but copies that passed through various iterations: Editing and compounding (1220-1260), padding and amplifying (1260-1300), and the collection in large manuscripts (14th century).

Among the most famous Icelandic sagas are Vatzdaelasaga (890), relating to the settlement and chief family of Waterdale [historical fiction!]; Hord’s Saga, originally composed around 980 and telling the story of an outlaw named Hord [Anti-hero!].

We also have Havard (c. 1000), which recounts the titular character’s revenge for his son, murdered by a neighboring chief [revenge plot]; Heidarvigasaga (1015), the tale of a great blood feud [The Godfather, anyone?]; Eyrbyggia (1031), political intrigue; and Laxdaela (1026), a love triangle. Laxdaela features a female lead, Gudrun, who is the most famous of all Icelandic heroines. (Laxdaela spent forty weeks on the Icelandic Times bestseller list.)

All this goes to show how the fundamentals of storytelling seem innate throughout various cultures, and are still valid:

  1. A hero with whom we identify.
  2. A plot complication.
  3. Restless emotions.
  4. Action.
  5. Death stakes.
  6. Style (absent author intrusion). 

Saga has come to mean novel or series of novels that take place over a long period of time, usually in a historical context. The Trials of Kit Shannon is my saga series. I also wrote a long historical that covers World War I and takes us into 1920s Hollywood.

But the essence of saga, like that of myth, can apply to all genres of fiction. Think hero. Think big. Think action. Think emotions. Think death stakes (physical, professional, or psychological).

Most of all, think about telling a story to an audience that has worked hard hunting or fishing all day, and will fall asleep if you bore them!

Three Different Sorts of Readers

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I’m at the tail end of revising my cozy mystery (AKA “crunch time”), having gone over the helpful feedback from my beta readers, and preparing the novel for my copy editor, which inspired today’s trifecta of Words of Wisdom from the Killzone archives. Not only is what we write read by book buyers and library patrons, but our fiction can also be read by fellow writers in a critique group, and by copy editors going over our novels before publication.

First up is an excerpt from James Scott Bell’s 2015 post on The Five Laws of Readers, followed by another 2015 excerpt, this one from Debbie Burke on critique groups, and finishing with one from John Gilstrap’s 2019 post which provides a rundown on copy editing.

As always, check out the full posts, which are date-linked at the end of their respective excerpts.

 

  1. The reader wants to be transported into a dream

Fiction writers often hear from agents and editors that a reader wants an “emotional experience” from a novel. Or to be “entertained.”

True, but I don’t think those go far enough. What a reader really and truly longs for is to be entranced. I mean that quite literally. The best reading and movie-going experiences you’ve ever had have been those where you forgot you were reading or watching, and were just so caught up in the story it was like you were in a dream.

It’s like one of my favorite shows as a kid, Gumby. Remember Gumby and Pokey? (If you want to keep your age a secret, don’t raise your hand).

My favorite part of any episode was when Gumby and his horse jumped into a book, got sucked inside, and became part of the story world. I wanted to do that with the Hardy Boys. Jump in and help Frank and Joe solve the mystery.

The point is, when you read, you want to feel like Gumby, like you’re inside the story, experiencing it directly.

Hard to do, writer friend, but who said great writing was easy? Maybe a vanity press or two, but that’s it.

When I teach workshops I often use the metaphor of speed bumps. You drive along on a beautiful stretch of road, looking at the lovely scenery, and you “forget” that you’re driving. But if you hit a speed bump, you’re taken out of that experience for a moment. Too many of those moments and your drive becomes unpleasant.

One reason we study the craft is to learn to eliminate speed bumps, so the readers can forget they’re driving and just enjoy the ride.

  1. The reader is always looking for the best entertainment bang for the buck

In this, readers are like any other consumer. If they are going to lay out discretionary funds on something, they want a good return on that investment. Their judgment is based on expectations and experience. If they have experienced a writer giving them wonderful reading over and over, they will pay a higher price for their next book.

If, on the other hand, a writer is new and untested, the reader wants a sampling at a low price, or free. Even then, however, they desire to be just as entertained as if they shelled out ten or twenty bucks for a Harlan Coben or a Debbie Macomber.

That’s a challenge all right, and should be. But here’s the good news. If a reader gets something on the cheap and it enraptures them, you are on your way to a career, because of #3, below.

  1. If you surpass reader expectations, they will reward you by becoming fans

Fans are the best thing to have. Fans generate word of mouth. Fans stay with you.

So your goal needs to be not just to meet reader expectations, but surpass them.

How?

By doing everything you can to get better, write better. To do what Red Smith (and NOT Ernest Hemingway) said. You just sit down at the keyboard, open a vein, and bleed.

That’s not just romanticized jargon. It’s what the best writers do, over and over again.

So what if you don’t reach that high standard with your book? No matter. You book will be better for the trying, and you’ll be a better writer, and you next book will be better yet.

Jump on that train, and stay on it.

James Scott Bell—January 18, 2015

 

What are critique group strengths?    

Support – A CG provides much-needed camaraderie in this oft-lonely business. They throw us a lifeline when we get discouraged, nag us when we’re slacking off, and lend a shoulder to cry on when we receive rejections. They serve as our cheerleaders, therapists, and comrades in the trenches. They’re the first ones to open champagne for our successes. CG members are not only writing colleagues, they often become close friends. We develop a high level of trust and respect for each other, both professionally and personally.

Brainstorming – Here, critique groups really shine. If two heads are better than one, six or eight heads are exponentially better at throwing out suggestions. Feeding off each others energies and ideas, CGs solve many dilemmas that stymy a writer. I can’t count the number of dead ends CGs helped me work through.

Accountability – CGs exert pressure, either subtle or overt, to produce a certain number of pages for each session. They act as a de facto deadline for writers who don’t yet have an editor or agent breathing down their neck. If you show up empty-handed, you’re not meeting your obligation. Dozens of times, I’ve heard writers say, “I wouldn’t have written anything this week, except I needed to submit to the group.”

What are some CG limitations?

Diagnosis – CGs generally do a good job of homing in on a manuscript’s weak spots. If two or more people mark the same passage, you should pay attention. But while they recognize there is a problem, they can’t always diagnose exactly what it is or how to fix it. If CG suggestions don’t help enough, consultation with a developmental editor may be worthwhile.

Overlapping relationships – CG friendships may cloud our judgment of the story. A member of my group, psychologist Ann Minnett (author of Burden of Breath and Serita’s Shelf Life) recently offered a perceptive observation: “When I read A’s chapter, I hear her voice and accent. When I read B’s chapter, I think of her sense of humor, and can’t help but laugh.”

Which made me wonder…Does your CG like your story or do they like you?

When you’re face-to-face with your friends, you hear her charming British accent, see his playful wink. However, when a book is published, most readers will never meet the author, meaning the words must shoulder all the work. They need to be effective by themselves, without explanation or amplification.

Here is where online CGs might give a clearer, more “book-like” perspective. Without personal, visual, or auditory cues, their effort focuses entirely on the words.

Time constraints – My CG meets every two weeks, submitting 15-20 pages per session. At that rate, reviewing a novel-length manuscript takes six months to a year. By the time the group reaches the climactic chapter on page 365, no one remembers a subtle, but important, clue on page 48 that set up the surprise twist. This piecemeal approach is the most vexing limitation I’ve experienced with CGs.

Micro vs. Macro View – A corollary to the time constraint problem is the micro view by a CG. They examine your 20 pages per week and help polish each passage till it shines. When you string all these perfect chapters together, the resulting book should be excellent. Right?

Not necessarily. Close examination under the CG microscope may not adequately address global issues of plot development, pace, and momentum that require a macro view from an airplane.

Debbie Burke—November 17, 2015

 

Appropriate use of commas seems random to me and the commas themselves complicate language.  For example, the copy editor changed this sentence to include commas that I did not: “He and his brother, Geoff, were being driven . . .”  To my eye and ear, the meaning is clear without the commas, but I let it go because they tell me they’re correct.  (That comma before but shouldn’t be there either, should it?)

Then there’s this edit: “. . . scrolled through his contacts list, and pressed a button.”  Why? What does that comma do that its absence does not?  Aargh!

Comma Splices

First of all, I didn’t know that a comma splice was even a thing.  Here’s the note, verbatim, from the copy editor:

“There are some comma splices in the book, where two complete thoughts, that is, separate sentences, are separated by commas rather than periods.  Some people accept this in dialogue but not in descriptive text.  I have highlighted those I found like this (word-comma-word highlighted) so you can see where they are and decide what to do.  In many cases, the comma splice can be fixed by adding “and” or “but” after the comma.”

Here’s an example of what he’s talking about: “Questions never changed bad news, they only slowed it down.”  For me, it’s about the rhythm of the sentence and I think the passage flows better with the comma instead of a period.  Apparently, I do this quite a lot.  In most cases, I kept the passages as I originally wrote them.

Another example: “Their mom was just arrested, their dad is dead.”  The “and” is silent and I think the sentence is better for it.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I clearly need a good copy editor, and this one (the same as I had for Total Mayhem) is very good.  He’s just going to have to get used to me not comprehending the role of the comma.

With every set of copy edits, I also receive a “style sheet” that gets deeply into the weeds of my writing style, and that of the publisher.  The sections of the style sheet include:

Characters (in order of appearance).  With each character comes a brief description, based upon what I wrote in the book.  Here’s an example: Soren Lightwater: head of Shenandoah Station, smoker’s voice, mid-forties, built like a farmer, more attractive than her voice;

Geographic Locales (in alphabetical order).  Here again, there’s a brief description of the role the location plays in the story.  For example: “Resurrection House/Rez House, in Fisherman’s Cove, on Church Street, up the hill from Saint Kate’s Catholic Church, on the grounds of Jonathan’s childhood mansion;

Words Particular to Text.  Examples include A/V (audio-visual), ain’t, Air Force One, all-or-nothing deal, asshats . . .

John Gilstrap—November 20, 2019

***

  1. What else do fiction readers want? How much do you think about what readers want when putting together a story or a novel?
  2. Have you been in a critique group? Any tips?
  3. If you use a copy editor, what sorts of things do they help you with, beyond catching typos and missing words?

Reader Friday: The Difference

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Rumer Godden, author of Black Narcissus

When my last novel was published, I received from the publicity department one of those biographical questionnaires sent to authors these days. Some of the questions were impertinent, especially, I thought, the last: “What makes you feel your books are different from other peoples’?” I did not have to ponder over this because there is really only one answer: “What makes my books different? They are written by me.” Every author ought to be able to say that. – Rumer Godden

What do you try to bring to your books that is different?

Into The Breech

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By John Gilstrap

During a book signing event a couple of weeks ago, a gentleman named Don handed me his card and introduced himself as an official with the West Virginia Writers Association, representing the Eastern Panhandle–the slice of heaven where I now live. I have since joined that group, and plan to attend their annual meeting in June.

As a recent emigree to the Mountain State, I’m working hard to establish as many connections as I can as quickly as I can. Don told me that there’s a writing group in Charles Town (nearby city) that meets regularly and he suggested that I give it a try. I reached out to the nice lady who runs the group, and I was invited into the fold.

Not sure what to expect or what I was getting into, I went to the designated spot at the designated time and we were off and running. It’s a small group, and it’s dedicated to workshopping WIPs. (WsIP?) Among the members, the levels of enthusiasm are high but the command of the craft varies widely. About ten minutes in, I realized that I’d entered a potential minefield.

It’s not my group.

The lady who runs the meetings–we’ll call her Dorothy–has worked hard to wrangle participants from disparate backgrounds and abilities into what seems to be a cohesive group–of which I want merely to be a part. The last thing I want to do is steal anyone’s thunder. That said, I have the answers to many of the questions bandied about the members, especially with regard to the book business–stuff like copyright law. As the new guy to any group, my inclination is to sit quietly and get a feel for the room, but when people are guessing at answers, I feel an obligation to set things straight. I realize now that that’s a lot like stealing thunder.

Critique group etiquette is alien to me.

For a quarter of a century now, I have taught writing sessions and seminars in which I am the presumed authority. When those seminars have included workshop sessions, I save my input until everyone else has had their say, and then I express my agreement or disagreement with those opinions and then offer my own. I’m something of a blunt object when it comes to offering critique–never cruel but always direct. I point out what I like and dislike, and I give my reasons why.

The new group brings a different structure. First point out the good, and then lay out the critique smoothly and with light brush strokes. Listen as the writer explains what they meant to say, often couched in the tone of, “It’s all there, how could you not see it?” Apologize if the honest assessment has offended.

The phrase, “In my opinion”, must be stated aloud before a critique can be given.

“It’s only a first draft.”

When the criticism comes, an oft sought safe harbor lies in the act of pointing out that the sample people have dedicated time and effort to read and critique is only a first draft–the implication being that the writer could have done better if they’d cared to make the effort. I want to point out (but haven’t yet) that no, your submission is not a first draft. It is the final draft of the version that you chose to submit for input.

“I don’t care about ever getting published.”

Those were the words of one of the members of the group. She went on to explain that she expresses herself exactly as she likes, and is not all that concerned if it makes sense to others or if they like it. It hurts her feelings when she hears negative feedback, but has no intention of internalizing that feedback or making any changes. Being a writer is who she is, she says. It’s her entire purpose in life. I’m not getting in the middle of that one.

Soon it will be my turn.

If I have seemed a bit snarky in the above paragraphs, please find none in this one. I really do want to sink roots into the local writing community, and while I feel a bit like a fish on the shore with this new group, I enjoy the interaction. I will do my best to live by the rules. And among the rules: you’ve got to pay to play. If I’m going to critique others, then I must submit to critique myself. That’s one hundred percent fair. And it will feel really, really weird.

I will submit my best work on my work-in-progress, and I will receive blunt input from real readers–a live audience to what is usually a recorded performance. I will sit quietly and I will absorb what they have to say. I will learn some things, and maybe they will, too. Or maybe not.

What do you all think about critique groups? What works? What doesn’t? Is it helpful or harmful in a group to have a wide range of writing experience?

Mystery Cover Trends:
The Bold And The Beautiful

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By PJ Parrish

Maybe it’s my art background — or more likely because I write books that I hope get noticed — but I really pay attention to book covers. I’ve been known to pass by a good book with a what-the-hell? cover (Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted) or get seduced by a meh book with a sexy cover (Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight)

Cover design is also on my mind because I’m working on my Edgar banquet stuff this week. This is my 15th year as banquet chair, and one of my duties is to put together the PowerPoint presentation of all the nominees’ book covers. I’ve seen a lot of trends come and go over that time. Some have become classic. Others, well, they belong down there with Juicy tracksuits and Nik Nik shirts. (Score yourself 5 pts if you wore a Nik Nik, 10 if you went out in public.)

Most authors are at the not-so-tender mercies of their publishers when it comes to cover design. But a lot of us also do our own covers or hire someone. A bad cover can really torpedo a book. I’ve seen some butt-ugly covers among the Edgar nominees. This year there doesn’t seem to be a dog in the bunch. So, I figure this is a good time for a quick survey course of what’s hot. (I’m covering only fiction here).

I’m thinking that fiction cover trends have stabilized in the last couple years, maybe because the industry seems to have figured out what a marketable cover should look like. Why reinvent the wheel? But then again, that kind of thinking gave us years of black covers. (Après Amy Dunne, le déluge). Those of you who publish your own stuff know the drill: Make sure your cover looks professional, reflects your book’s tone and meets genre standards. Those of you traditionally published — pray.

For a couple years now, we’ve been seeing minimalism in crime fiction covers — nothing fussy, maybe a plot-symbolic graphic, and strong typefaces with author name and title. This is baked in now, but there are some interesting break-aways as well. Here’s my rundown featuring this year’s nominees from the Edgars and the specials (Mary Higgins Clark, Lilian Jackson Braun and Sue Grafton awards):

San Serif Type. This has become the default design. Note that this approach translates well when reduced to a thumbnail on Amazon. Although I’m not sure about the white type against that pale background.

Written Type Faces. This trend emerged a couple years ago, and is still with us.

Note: All three are from the young adult category. Looking pretty scary, there.

One Strong Graphic. Another evergreen trend that has become a hallmark of crime fiction. It is seen as being symbolic of the plot usually. Many strong examples in this year’s mix. (Click any image to see larger)

Sense of Place. Conveying the story’s geographic place also continues to be popular. Some authors revel in setting (William Kent Krueger brands all of his book covers in this way). We used to do this with our Louis Kincaid series, but it started to feel dated, so we repackaged around the symbolism idea. But setting remains a favorite this year.

A Building Block. A similar device — tried and true for decades now — is to use a house or cabin as the central graphic. I’m not really crazy about this, as it always feels sort of vague to me, like the designer couldn’t quite grasp what the writer was doing. Our worst cover had a house graphic so maybe I’m just prejudiced.

But what if your setting isn’t all dark and creepy? Well, beneath that Don Johnson pink Armani lies a black heart, wouldn’t you know. I love both these covers. I’d rent a VRBO in these towns, even if there was a serial killer a-lurk.

There are also some eye-popping pure graphic design going on this year:

And some successful attempts to capture a book’s tone. Notice the nice marriages of color, typeface and graphics that convey a mood. You know immediately what kind of books these are.

One of my favorite categories, as far as cover art goes, is juvenile. One trend that remains classic in this genre is use of protagonists’ images. Maybe because kids like to identify with them so closely? Hey, I was dark, chubby and had to babysit the Heller brats, but in my dreams I was that blonde in the blue roadster.

Which leaves us with some splendid covers that defy categorization. There’s a retro vibe this year, redolent of Gorky Park, shivering spies, dicks with gats and those fun-loving Corleone boys.

To see all the nominees on Mystery Writers of America’s website, click here. And that, crime dogs, is a wrap.

 

Writing Etiquette Redux

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I’m republishing this post for three reasons:

1) I mentioned I bought back my rights to the Mayhem Series. Without fellow writers lending advice and sharing their experience with me, I’d probably still be tryin’ to figure out how to Indie pub the first five books, never mind be ready to publish book 6. I have a new editor, whom I adore, and my favorite cover designer jumped on board, too. Wait till you see my new cover. So exciting!

2) I had the misfortune of reading an author’s “bad behavior” list on Twitter. This woman tweets out an ever-growing list of bad behavior by authors. Some of the things on that list of 100 is downright shocking. So, a redux seemed like a good idea.

3) I’m reading book 6 one last time before creating my ARCs. This is my neurotic stage, nitpicking every single word, and ignoring any compliments from my editor. Almost done, so I can probably shelve the crazy long enough to respond to comments. 😉

Writing Community Etiquette

One of the most amazing things about being an author is mingling within the writing community. Writers, as I’m sure you’ll agree, are some of the most generous, supportive, and kind humans on the planet.

That said, there are a few unwritten rules within the community. Let’s discuss to enlighten the newer members of our family.

Other Writers are NOT Competition.

They are our people, our tribe. The longer we’re in this business the more it becomes a kinship. I can’t even imagine working without other writers by my side. We share successes, as Joe so beautifully demonstrated last Saturday. We also share failures (privately, btw, never rant on social media). We lift each other up and try to help where we can.

Without other writers, imagine how lonely this profession would be? As it is, we spend countless hours alone at the keyboard, hanging with our fictional homies or burrowing down one research rabbit hole after another. What if we had no one to share our discoveries with? Or to bounce ideas off of? Or to help us celebrate a new release? Or to knock some sense into us when nothing seems to go right?

We’re better because of, not in spite of, our relationships with other writers.

Lose the Ego

If this business hasn’t taught you humility, you haven’t been part of the publishing industry long enough. You might be soaring now, but you will fall one day. It’s inevitable. Yes, celebrate your successes. Don’t let it go to your head, though. A reality check now and then is an important exercise. Chances are there’s plenty of writers who sell more books than you, who are more loved by readers, who has rocketed to heights you (or I) might never reach.

John’s recent post is the perfect example of success and humility. It’s one of my favorite posts he’s written because of its honesty and realness.

Don’t be a Jerk

Do you really need to point out a typo in a tweet? We’re all fallible. Smile and move on.

Do you really need to say how much you disliked a fellow writer’s work?

What you put out in the universe has a way of boomeranging at the most inconvenient times. It may not be today, but eventually Karma will bite back. Count on it.

When you first join the writing community, it may seem endless. Here’s the thing about skewed impressions. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear. Cross a fellow writer, and that circle can and will get downright claustrophobic. Why? Because writers protect other writers. It’s what we do; it’s who we are as a community. Just ask Disney.

Give More Than You Receive

Did a fellow writer blurb a book for you? Great! What did you do to help support them? I’m not saying you need to match the gesture by blurbing their next book. Maybe you’re not at that level yet. What should you do? Here are a few suggestions:

  • Review one of their books
  • Offer to beta read
  • Share their good news, new release, book cover(s), blog posts, interview, etc. on social media
  • Better yet, pay it forward to a writer farther down the rungs of the ladder—most writers will love knowing by helping Writer X, they also helped Writer Y.

The worst thing you can do is to ask for another helping hand when you’ve showed no appreciation for the last favor. And for the love of God, NEVER ask a fellow writer to fund your writing career because, in your eyes, they’re successful and you’re entitled enough to think you shouldn’t have to work a day job while you hone your craft. Yeah, those people exist. And they all seem to have my email address. Lucky me. 🙂

Common Courtesy

Treat fellow writers as you would like to be treated.

  1. Respond to blog comments. If someone has taken the time to comment on your article, don’t treat them like they’re invisible. Reciprocate with a response. Common courtesy is not rocket science. How would you feel if one day everyone stopped commenting on your blog posts? If you continue to ignore your audience, that can and will happen. If chatting with your audience isn’t important to you, then close the comment section. By leaving it open you’re obligated to respond.
  2. Share a fellow writer’s posts. Let’s take Twitter, for example. If someone retweets everything you share, or even if they only share one post, return the favor. They didn’t have to take the time to share your tweet with their audience, but they did. Do the same for them.

But Sue, what if their books have sex acts on the covers? If you don’t feel comfortable sharing their pinned post with your audience, then scroll through their timeline until you find a more appropriate post that you can share.

  1. Never hijack another writer’s social media timeline. We’ve all met the writer who thinks it’s acceptable to tag 90 authors in their book promos. It isn’t. If anything, said writer looks unprofessional and desperate. I have a few followers on Twitter who do it constantly, and it drives me crazy. The only ones I haven’t blocked (yet) are the writers who also RT my tweets. Does that make tagging okay? No. Unless you’re having a conversation with someone or sharing their work, pretend tagging doesn’t exist.

Lose the Automated Message

I admit, when I first joined Twitter, an automated message to greet my new followers seemed like a good idea. Let me set the record straight—they are never a good idea.

Nothing screams amateur more than an automated message. I once followed this writer whose automated message read: “I want to be your favorite author!” I wrote back: “I want to be your favorite author, too!”

Surprise, surprise, she unfollowed me. Good riddance.

I can think of only two possible exceptions for sending a private message.

  1. If you’re extending an offer that will benefit them, not you. And it’s free. You wouldn’t ask someone you just met at a party for money, right?
  2. If you’re having trouble finding their books and are asking for a link.

In both these non-automated scenarios, most writers won’t mind. But first try to find their email address. Email is less intrusive than private messaging.

Auto-Add Email to Newsletter

If a fellow writer accepts your friend request on Facebook or follows you on Twitter/Instagram or subscribes to your YouTube channel, that does NOT mean they’ve signed up to receive your newsletter. I’ve had friends add me to their list, but they’re actual friends who I chat with all the time. For everyone else, there’s a big difference between showing support for your fellow writers and signing up to receive their newsletters.

Think of it this way. I have over 12K followers on Twitter alone. Imagine if they all added me to their email list? My inbox would explode! The less-informed writer may be thinking: But Sue, you can unsubscribe at any time.

Oy. I hear that excuse all the time. Newsflash. Unsubscribing from a newsletter you never signed up for in the first place annoys most writers. Plus, it takes time away from writing, researching, marketing, or the gazillion other things we do daily.

Read the room, dear guppy (new writers a la MWA). A follow-back or an acceptance of a friend request is just that. Nothing more.

Final Thought

As I said at the beginning of this post, writers are some of the best people on the planet. Most of us would agree that without other writers, this profession would be a lonely one. But we’re never truly alone. There’s always another writer who’ll be there when we need them, just as we were there for them. We’re blessed, and that gift should never be taken for granted.

Over to you, TKZ family.

Did I miss anything? Add your tip! If you can’t think of anything to add, then share a story of a writer helping you or vice versa.

Discover Your Scene

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

We’ve often discussed here the different approaches to writing a novel. In dualistic terms, we sometimes use the terms “plotters” and “pantsers.” Or, “outliners” and “intuitive (or discovery) writers.” There are some ’tweeners (“plantsers”), too. Doesn’t matter, as long as the author creates a finished work that’s the best he or she can do.

But that’s on the macro level. Today I want to focus on the micro level—the scene—and make a pitch for the mini-outline.

A scene is a unit of action, usually defined by a single setting and linear time. To work as dramatic action, there needs to be a viewpoint character with a scene goal—the Objective—who is met with conflict—the Obstacle(s). The scene ends with the Outcome, which can be failure, setback, or portent.

The occasional success is allowed, but should lead to more trouble. Like in that great pet-the-dog scene in The Fugitive where Kimble, posing as a hospital custodian, checks a kid’s x-ray and determines he needs the operating room, stat. He changes the orders in the elevator. And saves the kid’s life. Success! Ah, but a doctor saw him looking at the film, confronts him, and calls security. Trouble!

All right, you’re about to write a scene. You know who the viewpoint character is.

You can pants it. Or you can plan it. This is our micro issue.

Some simply start writing, letting the scene unfold in their head as they take it down. Like transcribing a movie playing in the mind.

The other way is to take a few minutes to think about the three Os listed above.

Objective—Who is the viewpoint character? What does this character want to achieve in the scene? (As Vonnegut once said, a character has to want something, even if it’s just a glass of water.)

Obstacles—Brainstorm possible areas of conflict, e.g., another character with an opposing agenda. Or physical barriers (the bridge is out; the building is locked). Make a list, push past the familiar, then choose the best ones.

Outcome—I see five possible scene endings: 1) success; 2) success, but with a cost; 3) failure; 4) failure with a setback (the situation gets worse); and 5) open-ended (we have to wait for the outcome. This is a staple of multiple POV thrillers, cutting away from one scene to another scene with a different POV).

Writing with this mini-outline enables me to pick the best course among many possibilities. It also helps me to avoid clichés and stereotypes, which are often the first things that come to mind when you simply start writing a scene.

In short, I dig up the best nuggets with a few minutes of brainstorming instead of writing a scene, seeing what I came up with, and doing a lot of fixing. I’ll still have things to fix, but I do that with light editing of my previous day’s work. (Whatever approach, it’s the fixing that is the key to writing books that actually sell and not just take up space. That’s why I wrote a new writing book up for a pre-sale deal now.)

I’ll give you an example from my WIP, my next Mike Romeo thriller. I have a scene where Romeo goes to a house that used to be owned by a key witness. His Objective is simple: find out where the guy moved to.

In my head I had Mike knocking on the door and hearing a voice ask what he wants. Mike lays it out, but the voice refuses to answer the question, tells Mike to go away. There’s an Obstacle. Despite his best attempts at persuasion, the Outcome is failure.

That was my first thought, and it wasn’t enough. Had I written it out and moved on, I know I would have been disappointed upon revision.

So I brainstormed. First, more Obstacles. I thought about the setting. What else was there? How about a smell? Maybe dust…or smoke…ah! Popping into my mind: the odor of marijuana. The “sweet, skunky” smell of burning hippie lettuce. Where would that come from?

Why, the house next door. I brainstormed who it might be. Not one, not two, but three young guys, in folding chairs by a car they are presumably working on, passing around a pipe.

Mike asks them if they knew the guy who lived next door. Their answers are less than helpful, but sure does make them laugh. Mike tries the house across the street and this time it’s a thin old guy on a lawn tractor holding a hoe like a lance. Reminds Mike of Don Quixote. They guy is a misanthrope, not helpful at all.

So after three Obstacles, the ultimate Outcome was failure. Mike doesn’t get the answer he’s looking for.

What follows is a reaction beat. A full reaction beat is made up of Emotion, Analysis, and Decision. (Many of you will recognize all this as the Swain/Bickham “scene and sequel.”

Which we can go into another time.)

Point is I came up with a scene that works for my WIP, with ideas formed with a few minutes of brainstorming.

So I ask: What is your approach to scene writing? Fly into it? Plan it out? Something in between?

Marketing

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Nobody ever told me when I got into this writing business that I’d have to peel off time for social media. Honestly, back in 2011, I barely knew what that was.

Buy my book.

I recall one conversation with the guys I work with not long before my first novel came out. I made one of those declarations that came back to bite me. “I’ll never have one of those MyFace pages. I don’t intend to waste my time on it. And I don’t understand this tweeting thing. It makes no sense.”

Lesson learned. Never say never.

Social media still doesn’t make sense in many ways. It’s a time-suck that takes that wastes hours, and pulls us away from real life and what we should be doing. Like writing.

Buy my book.

But when I got my first contract, there was a paragraph insisting on a social media presence. So I got myself a Facebook personal page (I soon learned that My Space and Face  book were two different things) and an author page, and a Twitter profile.

I knew nothing about those platforms, and didn’t want to do it in the first place. (Buy my book) I’m still not sure what to do with social media, but I’m working on it. Years ago John Gilstrap and I attended a panel on using Twitter at some conference and picked up a few things. We downloaded an app and soon had about 20,000 “followers” each.

I’ve since learned about half were bots (which I still don’t understand), and suddenly found myself following people I didn’t know or care about.

The problem is that I’m an old guy playing with new technology. Young people are natives in this world of electronic relationships and I’m an immigrant lost in a mysterious world I don’t understand. It’s a wonder I haven’t triggered some nuclear device and melted down the entire internet, if not the world.

I wrote a book. Buy it.

Then one day I noticed that when I posted on Facebook with an accompanying photo, more people were interested. Hummm…so I made it a point to include some kind of image or art. That gained a few more followers, but nothing to write home about.

I still needed interaction. I talked to a few successful authors with substantial herds of “fans” hanging on their every posted idea and asked what they did to interest people.

Most shrugged. “I don’t know. I was interviewed on this blog and people started finding my page.”

“I post pictures of my dog (puppies, kittens, cat, fish, squirrel, monkey) and people got interested.”

“I tell people I wrote a book and to buy it, but I’m not getting far with it.”

“A writer friend suggested on their page that people should take a look at my page.”

“Beats me. Stephen King mentioned one of my books and now I have about a bazillion followers. You think that’s a coincidence?”

All this is as mind numbing as the first suggestion I ever heard from an editor on a panel at my first writers conference in 2011. “We’re through with vampires and the living dead. Those books as passe. Don’t send us anything else like that.”

I’m not sure any of us know what works in this writing world, only what works for us. It’s the same in utilizing social media.

In my case, it was my youngest daughter who helped me gain Facebook followers. I told her one day in the truck that the Bride nearly had a rigor when she saw a snake in the back yard, and young Meg frowned. “What does that mean?”

I had to explain that old-timey saying. “It’s a running fit.”

“What’s that?”

We disappeared down a rabbit hole, and I had to explain how the “old folks” talked when I was growing up. The old folks who were then younger than my current age.

I talked while my then-thirteen year old daughter pretended not to listen. “For example, when we say someone let the gate down, it means that traffic is heavy and it’s hard to get on the road. That comes from the old days when let the gate down on a pasture or a corral, and the cows ran out. It referred to those old floppy wire gates we had to drag out of the way and lay on the ground.”

She looked out the truck’s window as if I was driving Miss Daisy. Used to such adolescent behavior from my years as a teacher and dad, I continued to inform and annoy. “Or if someone had a “falling out,” it was a disagreement that usually resulted in the silent treatment at the worst, or little or no communication for a long period of time.

“Then there are words few people use these days. Like ‘hob’ which is a flat metal circle on top of an old wood burning stove. It’s where people would put the pans to cook and eventually became burners on gas and electric stoves. Then there’s the word ‘tote’ to carry something, or ‘dykes’ for wire cutters…”

She finally looked at me from the corners of her eyes to see if I was telling the truth, then went back to her examination of the passing landscape, or maybe silently asking the Lord why she was saddled with a daddy who droned on and on about nothing.

“Or ‘sashay’ or ‘mosey’ or phrases, like ‘well, dog my cats’ or ‘tuckered out.’”

“You’re still talking, aren’t you. And you’re breathing my air to do it.”

“Just explaining what I grew up with.”

“Why don’t you put those on your Facebook pages? I bet older people might be interested. It’s better than talking about your books all the time and asking people to buy them.”

With that backhanded slap and suggestion, I started posting Old Timey Words and Old Timey Phrases, which are likely the most popular posts I make.

As I said, I am no expert at this, but I can tell you one thing, if authors using any social platform post nothing but reviews and information about their books…

…Buy my books! Buy my book! I have a new book coming out. It’s a doozy. Buy my book! Here’s a link where you can buy my book…

…they’ll drive followers away in droves. Folks today want to be entertained (hence the photos that accompany my posts), and require fairly short posts so they can read them quickly and move on to the next and the next and the next.

Followers love to hear about your writing life, what you’re doing, or how you’re doing it. They seek advice on how to get published, but don’t want pages of info. Think sound bites. But they don’t want you to post every day about buying your books.

I also get a lot of comments on photos and discussions about my grand-critters. Followers love it when I share my oldest daughters’ life with her seven and nine-year-olds in Conversations on the Couch.

Daugther, addressing seven-year-old Parker: Did I hear you say you want to go to Ohio? Why?

Parker: Reasons

Or Conversations in the Car.

Daughter: What was Captain Hook’s name before Hook?

Nine-year-old Riley: Captain Hand.

Readers want to know about how you write, what makes you tick, your favorite movie/book/television program/author/actor or Life its ownself. You can mention your writing space, what you’re working on, what you’re reading, and on occasion, announce the release of your upcoming book, or reviews, or blurbs for said novel. Fans like to see covers, and read flap copy.

I heard a speaker estimate posts about life vs. books at 20 to 1. Personally, I think over 90% of my posts are things other than selling books.

Being on social platforms is like making soup. Throw in all the ingredients that personalize your own delicious creation, but don’t add too much of any one spice or ingredient. And don’t tell folks about it every time you boil up a pot (buy my book), because they’ll soon tire of it and drift on to other pages and platforms.

Post away!

 

Reader Friday – Side Hustles for Writers

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Marketing Strategy or Writing Distraction

The number of new books published each year has been estimated to be about 4 million (estimate for 2022). In 2010 Google Books calculated that the total number of published books in the world, since the invention of the Gutenberg press, was 129,864,880 books. And that didn’t include self-published books. So, based on the number of new books in 2022, we could safely add another 40 million to our 129,864,880 number.

That’s a lot of books. We’re metaphorically swimming in an ocean of books and authors, and it’s hard to get noticed. So, what do we do to be noticed? How do we keep from drowning in the ocean of obscurity?

The parallel data to the numbers above have to do with the percentage of writers who can support themselves with their writing.

The Guardian estimated that just over 77% of self-published writers make $1000 or less a year.

Another survey revealed that 54% of “traditionally-published” authors (and nearly 80% of self-published authors) earn less than $1,000 a year.

Bottom line – a small minority of us will be able to earn a living publishing books, and will therefore require a partner who is working, retirement funds to survive, or a second job for living expenses.

So, let’s discuss a side hustle for writers – “work performed for income supplementary to one’s primary job.” (Merriam and Webster) And let’s look at ways to address both problems – the need for money, and the need to be discovered.

 What are some of the best jobs for writers to get noticed? What side hustle could complement our marketing efforts? And what hobbies and interests could we turn into a profitable part of our writing-business model for marketing and supplemental income?

I recently resurrected a hobby – pen making – as a way to rev up my marketing and supplement income. Over the years I have collected a selection of lumber that is historical – white oak that was growing in 1776, black walnut that dates back to 1815, and white pine that had originally been used in 1870 for the construction of our local county courthouse. I use that lumber to hand craft “legacy pens” as part of my Legacy Words and Wood business model. I get a much better response to newsletter sign-up requests when readers learn that there will be a drawing for one of the pens. The model also allows for customers to provide their own “legacy wood” for a custom-made legacy pen. You can see my pens at – https://stevehooleywriter.com/legacy-pens/ – Enough advertising.

Time for Questions and Discussion:

  • What interests/hobbies do you actively engage in that could be called upon to benefit your marketing? Tell us about it.
  • What hobbies have you been interested in but not yet had time to pursue? Could they be used as a side hustle? Explain.
  • What other ideas for a side hustle can you think of? Help with suggestions for those who haven’t explored this idea.