Tag Archives: writing craft

Time Warps and the ING Construction

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Time Warps and the ING Construction
Terry Odell

UPDATE: My audiobook narrator, Steve “Captain” Marvel was unable to respond to comments on the post where I interviewed him. He has now replied to those who left comments. You can find the post here.  He’s graciously left his email address in a reply should anyone need to follow up.

 

 

Time WarpI’m on my way to Montana to attend the Authors of the Flathead Writing Conference. I did a Zoom presentation for their group at Debbie Burke’s request, and had a good time talking to people who understood the “writer’s mindset.” So much so that I registered for their conference and am looking forward to meeting Debbie in person.

I’m revisiting a topic I’ve addressed before, triggered by a recent read of a traditionally published author’s book. (Why do we feel it’s necessary to differentiate between traditionally published and indie publishers?) Anyway my guess is both the author and the editor didn’t grasp the fine points of the “ing” construction, and this book had countless misusages of the ‘simultaneous action’ that goes along with those “ing” clauses, resulting in numerous time warps.

You don’t have to read science fiction to run into a time warp. At the very first writer’s conference I attended, an agent said she would reject a query with more than 1 sentence beginning with the “ing” construction. Her explanation—it’s too easy to make mistakes with that sentence structure.

But is it wrong? No. You have to be careful, and you have to pay attention. There are different reasons to avoid, or minimize use of those pesky “ing” words.

First, the inadvertent time warp.

Unlocking the door, Fred dropped the mail on the table and poured himself a drink. Using that “ing” phrase shows simultaneous action (or it’s supposed to), and Fred couldn’t have done all that while he was unlocking the door. Time warp!
Better to write After unlocking the door, Fred dropped the mail on the table, then went to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a drink. Time moves forward in that one.

What’s wrong with these sentences?
“Running across the clearing, John rushed into the tent.”
“Opening the door, Mary tripped down the stairs.”

John can’t be getting into the tent while he’s running across the clearing. And Mary needs to open the door before she goes downstairs.

Next, the misplaced modifier

Time Warp
In my first critique group, I held the prize for creating an answering machine that gave neck massages. In my draft of Finding Sarah, I’d written, “Rubbing her neck, the blinking red light on the answering machine caught Sarah’s eye.” Ooops. (But I would like a machine with that function!)

Make sure the noun or pronoun comes immediately after the descriptive phrase. Thus, the above example could be “Rubbing her neck, Sarah noticed the blinking red light on the answering machine.”If your “ing” verb follows “was”, take another look. “John was running across the clearing” isn’t a strong as “John ran across the clearing.” Of course, you’ll want to use stronger verbs, such as raced, sped, or barreled, but the idea is the same.

When you’re looking over your manuscript, you might want to flag words ending in “ing” and take another look to be sure you haven’t made any of these basic errors.
Here’s a quick way to spot them in Word. Click the image to enlarge.
Time WarpIn your document, click the drop down arrow by “Find” then select “Advanced Find.”
Click “More” and then check the “Use Wildcard” Box. Type ing into the find field, then click the “Special” Option, and “End of Word.” This will add a > character. You can use the Reading Highlight to see all of them, and the “Find Next” to deal with them one at a time. You’ll get more than just verbs ending in ing, but it’s still a quick way to spot them. The hard part is determining whether you’ve got a problem!

What grammar “conventions” do you have trouble with? Which bother you when reading?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

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

How Right Do Your Characters Have to Be?

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How Right Do Your Characters Have to Be?
Or, who are you going to upset or offend with this book?
Terry Odell

Clichés are to be avoided, they tell us. So are stereotypes. (Still haven’t figured out who “they” is, but my grandfather apparently knew them well, as they were always making mistakes he’d get blamed for.)

But a cliché can provide a shortcut to understanding or visualizing a scene, and a stereotype might offer a shortcut to getting a handle on a character. Nothing is all good or all bad.

Publishers are looking for diversity these days. I’m going out on a limb here and saying very few of us belong to more than a small number of different ‘groups.’ Gender, ethnicity, religion, age. If we want diversity in our books, we’re going to be writing about people different from ourselves.

How do we get it “right?” Is there even a “right?” Can we say all golden retrievers are happy, people-loving dogs? Are all Staffordshire terriers dangerous? Same goes for people. Yet we categorize and generalize.

Years and years ago, my mom became good friends with our next-door neighbor. The two of them went to the beach one day, and the neighbor found out my mom was Jewish. She was surprised—maybe even shocked. Her words: “I’d never have thought you were Jewish. You’re so nice.” The neighbor wasn’t from Los Angeles, where we lived, and her exposure to diversity was obviously limited. Her perceptions were ruled by her experience. I still wonder if she and my mom would have been friends had the neighbor known at their first meeting that my mom was Jewish.

In my Mapleton books, Sam and Rose Kretzer are Jewish, and I’m sure many people think some of their behaviors are wrong. They’re bringing their own perceptions and experiences, and making generalizations. Rose is a conglomerate of many of my relatives. Trying to get a Jewish character right is next to impossible, one simple reason being there are so many different sects or denominations, and there’s diversity within each.

Today, there are warnings about getting diverse characters right to the point that some authors are hiring sensitivity readers, or at least running pertinent sections by members of whatever group their character belongs to. I have a trans character in one of my Mapleton books, and I approached a trans author to make sure I got it right. Was it right for everyone? I don’t know. I haven’t seen any negative comments, so maybe I did. Also, the character was a minor one, and didn’t have a lot of page time.

I do know that after my first few books, which were (and still are because I’m not updating them) populated predominantly by white cis characters, I began including more diversity. Would I ever try a protagonist who’s substantially different from me? Other than writing males, I don’t think so. There’s too much to get wrong, and too many people who are offended by mistakes.

Something as simple as age is another thing to try to get right (which is what sparked the idea for this post).

I get the New York Times’ daily digest in my email, and a headline saying It’s Fun to Be Alive’: 13 Older Photographers Show Us Their Work — and Themselves piqued my interest, so I opened it. Older, eh? I’m older than most of them. I’m not pretending to be any age other than mine, but it’s being put into a box that’s the problem.

A while back, I agreed to read a chapter that was giving an author acquaintance trouble. He’d included a secondary character who I’m sure was meant to be a mood-lightener. Stereotypical elderly woman. Hairnet, orthopedic shoes, walking stick, thick glasses—the works. Her age? 65. I came down fairly hard on the author for that one. I’m ten-plus years older than that character, and that kind of a stereotype bugs the heck out of me.

That, for me, is what we as authors need to consider when we’re creating and describing any character, be it their age, gender, ethnicity, religion, dietary habits—the list is endless. And these days, people are eager to jump down your throat if your description deviates in the slightest from their perception.

What about you, TKZers? How do you get things right for your characters? Or don’t you care how readers will perceive them because you’ll never please everyone?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

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

How Are They Talking?

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How Are They Talking?
Terry Odell

This topic has come up here at TKZ before, but I recently read a book by a best-selling author, traditionally published, that had my teeth on edge, so I’m revisiting it.

Dialogue. Characters are talking. It’s up to the author to make sure the reader knows who it is uttering those gems. The terms I’ve learned are “tags” for things like he said, she asked, etc., and identify the speaker.

“I’m hungry,” Gordon said. “What’s for lunch?” she asked.

Note: It’s also considered acceptable to use “said” for questions.

Beats show a character’s action. Gordon opened the refrigerator. “I’m hungry.”

Note: It’s better to use either a tag or a beat, not both for the same dialogue line.

What was my problem with the book I read? The author (or her editor) seemed reluctant to use the word “said.” Reluctant? It was as if she thought a rattlesnake would strike every time she did, and she used more “creative” words instead.

While there’s nothing creative about said, it has the bonus of being invisible. I was reading novel by the late Robert B. Parker when I was a beginning writer, and I stopped to evaluate his dialogue. The man tagged almost every single line of dialogue with “said” and yet I realized I’d read three full pages and hadn’t noticed a single one.

What do these creative tags do for the reader? For this reader, they jump off the page. Instead of simply letting me know who’s saying the line, they’re making me stop and think. They’re distracting. After a few chapters they become downright annoying.

What word choices did this author use? Let me count the tags.

corrected, allowed, accused, argued, tossed back, explained, grumbled, muttered, murmured, suggested, noted, offered (that was a favorite), interjected, reminded (him), insisted, implored, urged, warned, added, demanded, agreed, promised, explained, tacked on, allowed, pressed, put in, pointed out, challenged, ordered, urged, agreed.

And this was in the first 5 chapters, after which I stopped tracking them. I counted a whopping 8 uses of said in these chapters, and one of asked. Most of the “said” uses were connected with action beats, as in “She said as she poured the coffee.” Both aren’t needed for the same line.

Although this was a good story, the read was an effort for me as the creative tag words made me stop and think about them. I’d rather be thinking about the story.

What about you, TKZers? Do you prefer the invisible said or do you enjoy the creative alternatives? Why?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

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

Octopuses and Accuracy

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Octopuses and Accuracy
Terry Odell

First, for those of you who are interested in my recaps of my recent trip to Norway, the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Svalbard and more, I’ve been posting them on my personal blog, Terry’s Place. I’ve also been working on my gallery. Lastly, I did an interview about expedition cruising with the travel agency that arranged our trip. You can watch the replay here. The cruise part starts about 5 minutes in.

Next, the new computer setup went relatively smoothly. Wiping the old computer was more troublesome, but as of now, I consider myself back in business.

Okay, enough personal stuff. Today’s TKZ topic: Accuracy. I’m not talking about the stretches of truth we often make for the sake of the story. Readers suspend disbelief to an extent when they read fiction, but we don’t want to make glaring errors. Their willingness to suspend goes only so far.

I belong to a local book club, and most of the time the books they choose aren’t my standard reading fare, but I’m willing to read and attend meetings when I can. Yes, there is wine involved.

A recent book choice was Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I usually get my book club books from the library, and this one arrived too late to read in time for the meeting, so I missed the discussion. I’m not doing a book review here. It’s a popular book, and I found it engaging enough. It was written in present tense, which I don’t care for. It was on the predictable side, but the main protagonist—the human one, Tova—was interesting, and easy to care about. I was happy to keep reading to see how the author brought everything together. The non-human POV character was a Giant Pacific Octopus, Marcellus, captive in a small town aquarium. The two of them, as expected, became “friends.”

As the title indicates, Marcellus was a very intelligent octopus. A bit more intelligent than science studies would indicate, but I was willing to suspend some disbelief for the sake of the story. The author took behaviors that have been observed in some octopuses and kicked them up a notch. Or three.

What I couldn’t get past, and the reason for this post today, was that Marcellus was described as having one eye. Octopuses have two eyes. And yes, I looked it up to make sure I hadn’t missed out on a piece of octopus anatomy. Now, this species is very large, and it’s possible that Tova would see only one at a time. Or maybe he’d been injured prior to his rescue. I guess the author thought a rescue octopus would be better than having the animal captured for the sake of a unique display exhibit, but that’s not the issue. Nowhere in the book was there an explanation of the single eye. So every time there was a reference to his “eye” I was yanked—forcibly—out of the story.

Stretching the behaviors I could buy, but why mess with reality? All it would have taken would have been a credible reason for only one eye. It was obvious the author had done her homework based on the behaviors she described, but it’s not like she would have missed how many eyes the creatures have. They have nine brains and three hearts, which she got right, but they have two eyes. Did he always have his head turned so only one was visible? Why make it seem that he has only one?

At the end of the book, we see a new statue outside the aquarium, and the author points out the two eyes on the statue. But nothing I saw—and nothing in any of the reviews I skimmed through—seemed to care that Marcellus wasn’t described anatomically correctly. I asked my book club members, and none of them remembered anything about the eye/eyes jumping out at them, so maybe it’s just me. One said she noticed it, but shrugged it off and kept reading. It bothered me enough to pose the question to you.

When facts are presented, and you know they’re wrong—perhaps the old safety on the Glock mistake, or smelling cordite—what’s your take? I’m not talking about a one-off mention. The mention of Marcellus staring at her with his one eye is repeated numerous times in the book.

Or, has someone here read the book and can tell me there was a mention of it, slipped in somewhere and I missed it? Maybe at the bottom of page 127 when I sneezed?

Have you ever been dinged for something a reader said was wrong when you had it right?

Have you been pulled out of a story due to inaccuracies? How glaring do they have to be before you put down the book?

*Note: The word octopus comes from the Greek, not the Latin, so the plural is octopuses, not octopi. For my science nerd friends, you can learn more about the Giant Pacific Octopus here.

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

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

Tips for Distant Settings Redux

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Tips for Distant Settings Redux
Terry Odell

Map showing a Norway Cruise RouteIf all goes as planned this time, when you’re reading this, I should be somewhere in the skies between Frankfurt and Oslo. Or Bergen, where our cruise begins. Therefore, I won’t be able to respond to comments, but I trust you’ll play nice and keep things going.

One of my retirement goals is to travel, and even though Antarctica didn’t (and probably never will) happen, I’ve been fortunate enough to see parts of the world I’d never thought I’d be visiting. A lot of this is because our son is a photographer and his “specialty” is leading photo safaris all over the world. This current trip is to Norway and beyond. I’m revisiting a post I did some time ago, with my tips for writing about distant settings, based on a trip to the British Isles.

When the Hubster and I decided to celebrate our 50th anniversary with a trip to the British Isles, of course I had “book” in the back of my mind. However, an international setting wouldn’t have worked with any of my existing series, and since I never plot in advance, I decided to enjoy our tour, taking pictures and notes of what we were seeing and doing and just wait and see what might bubble to the surface.

When we got home, I decided I’d write a short and sweet romance. Write it quickly, understanding that it’s not my true “brand” but that I had to publish something to justify writing off at least part of the trip.

Well, I soon discovered I’m not a short and sweet romance author, and mystery elements insisted on working their way into the story. What I ended up with is Heather’s Chase: an International Mystery Romance which is closer to my brand, although it’s a stand alone and still a bit of a one off. Nevertheless, it was an educational experience. Since then, I had another major trip, this one to Croatia, which led to the book Cruising Undercover.

Things I’ve learned about setting a book in real places, especially distant ones.

Less is more. My first drafts went into phenomenal detail about absolutely everything. Airports. Train stations. Hotels. Food. All the places we stopped, what we saw on the drives. Given we were traveling for well over two weeks, that would have been a LONG book. A sense of place is good. Overwhelming readers is not. I had to keep reminding myself to make sure everything related to the plot and characters. I wasn’t writing a travelogue.

Stay true to time. Readers familiar with the area will know that you can’t get from A to B in two hours, or that when you’ve had your characters on their bus for five hours, it’s really a twenty-minute drive.

You’ll always miss something. Unless you’ve got your plot mapped out before your trip, once  you start writing, you’ll have a scene to write and—lo and behold—you missed taking a picture, or didn’t take the right notes. I spent a LOT of time on the internet rechecking facts, looking at maps, and refamiliarizing myself with some of the attractions we visited. If I couldn’t find exactly what I needed, I reminded myself I was writing fiction—another reason not to name real places. On the occasions where my characters were eating in real, named places, I made sure I had pictures and menus. Same for attractions.

Don’t make up real stuff. One of the reasons I made this book a stand alone was because our trip didn’t include visits to police departments (although I snapped a picture of a vehicle in Ireland, “just in case”). Also, it would be unrealistic for my American characters to have any access to law enforcement in several different countries.

Be nice. I also opted not to name the specific hotels or restaurants (mostly). For one thing, it gave me the freedom to change the décor, layout, amenities, or the restaurant menus. And, if something “bad” happened, I wasn’t going to incur the wrath of those establishments.

It’s about flavor. Although my characters didn’t visit Northern Ireland, I did include a character from the same town we’d visited when we stayed with my daughter. I made sure she vetted all his dialogue. For example, people in Northern Ireland use the word “wee” as a meaningless adjective. I was asked for my wee credit card, given a wee receipt, offered a wee bag for my purchases. My British critique partner was very helpful with vocabulary as well.

All in all, I had a great time ‘revisiting’ my trip to the British Isles while I was writing the book, and being able to incorporate my experiences into Heather’s Chase. I did a little better with the Croatia trip, although there were lapses in my note-taking. At least, since it was a photography trip, I had plenty of pictures to nudge my memories.

Any tips to share, TKZers?

And a little BSP. I’m going to be teaching some writing craft classes via Zoom, hosted by my editor.
12 Steps to Intimacy on June 17th

Creating Armchair Adventures on July 15th

Into the Heads of Your Characters, on July 29th.

The links will provide more details.

Please spread the word. Friends, writing groups, libraries … wherever you think there might be people interested in learning more about the craft.

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

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

What’s The Big Deal About Was?

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What’s The Big Deal About Was?
Terry Odell

When I finished my first novel, the only paths to publication were vanity presses and agents. When I found my first, last, and only agent, she returned my first chapters with every use of the word was circled in red. Everyone said “Was is passive writing. Don’t use it.” I might not have been an English major, but I knew enough to know that “was” is the past tense of “is” and there’s nothing wrong with writing in the past tense. Now, it might not be the strongest of words, and when paired with an “ing” verb, might not be the most exciting way to express something, but it’s not passive. (I wrote about the dangers of using ‘ing’ construction in another post.)

Passive voice is something else again. Consider The dog bit the boy versus the boy was bitten by the dog. The former is active voice, the latter is passive voice. (I know someone out there is saying, “But what about The dog was bitten by the boy? That’s passive voice, but unexpected, and therefore more interesting.)

The following are passages from books written by best-selling authors. I wonder if their editors circled all their “was” usages in red—and “were” as well. Yes, there are  a couple of passive voice sentences in there. Their editors didn’t cut them, either.

The body was crumpled beside a Dumpster midway down the alley, but my view was blocked by a woman in a T-shirt and shorts, and two men in dark sport coats. The woman’s T-shirt was fresh and white and made her stand out in the dingy alley as if she were on fire. The older suit was a thick man with shabby hair, and the younger detective was a tall, spike-straight guy with a pinched face.  The Forgotten Man, Robert Crais

The shooter was trained, the shooter was a killing machine, but he was still human. Now, breathing hard, he tasted blood in his mouth like you might after a tough run; and all the time, he was looking for lights, he was looking for an alarm, a cry in the dark.  Heat Lightning, John Sandford.

Sheriff Goodman was into his thirtieth hour without sleep. He was dazed and groggy and barely upright. But he kept on going. No reason to believe the abductors had stayed in the vicinity, but he had his guys out checking any and all vacant buildings, barns, huts, shelters, and empty houses. He himself was supplementing their efforts by covering the places they weren’t getting to. He had found nothing. They had found nothing. Radio traffic was full of tired and resigned negativity.  A Wanted Man, Lee Child

The general public was for the most part under the impression that the gang wars that gripped most of South L.A. and claimed victims every night of the week came down to a  Bloods versus Crips battle for supremacy and control of the streets. But the reality was that the rivalries between subsets of the same gang were some of the most violent in the city and largely responsible for the weekly body counts. The Rolling 60s and 7-Treys were at the top of that list. Both Crips sets operated under kill-on-sight protocols and the score was routinely noted in the neighborhood graffiti. A RIP list was used to memorialize homies lost in the endless battle, while a lineup of names under a 187 heading was a hit list, a record of kills. The Black Box, Michael Connelly.

Now, if you want to know a usage that bugs me, it’s using “start” where it’s not really needed. “The phone started to ring in Bob’s pocket.” What’s wrong with “The phone rang in Bob’s pocket?”

Or, “He started to walk away.” Unless he turns around and comes back, why not “He walked away.”?

What about you TKZers? Any “rules” you disagree with? Words or usages that bug you?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now in Digital, Paperback, and Audio
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

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

Tell Don’t Show

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Tell Don’t Show
Terry Odell

Something we’ve all heard since we took writing seriously was “Show, Don’t Tell.” It’s been called the “Golden Rule” of writing. Showing gets readers involved with the characters. Showing connects readers to the characters. Readers will experience things along with the characters instead of just watching. All that is true enough, but as with any rule, there are exceptions.

Showing everything can be exhausting for the reader.

I was reading Michael Connelly’s Desert Star. I think the man’s earned enough kudos over the years to be considered someone we can learn from. Although I prefer reading a deeper point of view, Connelly’s an exceptional storyteller, and I don’t mind stepping back. He still draws me into the story. And you know what? He’s not afraid to TELL his readers stuff.

Michael Connelly

Image from Wikimedia Commons, by Mark Coggins

While showing might create a connection, there are times when you don’t need to show things. Times when your shouldn’t show things. As Lee Child (and probably others) said, “Write the slow parts fast and the fast parts slow.” Telling is a way to get through the slow parts. The parts where there are things the reader ought to know, but not in the same way as the action parts of the story.

Example:

Harry Bosch is looking at a cold case file. This is how Connelly writes it:

The crime scene photographer had been thorough and had taken dozens of “environmental” shots depicting the victim’s entire home—inside and out—at the time of the murder. These included shots of the contents of closets and cabinets and drawers and of photos framed and hung on the walls. All of this allowed the case investigators ready access to the entire environment of the killing location. It also allowed them to better understand the victim by seeing how she had set up her home. It gave them an idea of the things that were important to her in life.

Did we need to see every picture? See Bosch’s visceral reaction to each of them? Experience what it feels like to turn pages in a binder? How much would it add to the story? Probably very little. But now, when we see the term environmental shots later in the book, we’ll know exactly what the term means.

It’s tough to “tell” well in a close POV, because you’re deep in the head of the character, experiencing everything as though there’s a movie camera embedded in his brain. Getting information across to readers when you’ve got characters on the page who already know the terminology, or how something works, ends up being “As You Know, Bob” speech. I’ve worked my way around it by bringing in a naïve character if possible, so she can ask questions and my in-the-know characters can answer them. There’s also no rule that you can’t step back from deep POV a little when it’s necessary for pacing.

Here’s a way Connelly dealt with the issue. Ballard is bringing Bosch up to speed.

“… Back then, the ODs were leaning on the theater director, a guy named Harmon Harris, because they heard he and Wilson had an affair a year before her death. They thought maybe there was bad blood between them. Harris denied the affair and they dropped it when he offered up Beecher as an alibi.”

She knew that Bosch would know that OD was cold case lingo for original detective.

OK, so we get a quick peek into her thoughts, and we readers now know what OD means and Connelly can use the term whenever he needs to.

And another, this from Echo Park:

“I have no idea, Olivas. What?”

“Your fifty-ones from Gesto.”

He was referring to the Investigative Chronology, a master listing kept by date and time of all aspects of a case, ranging from an accounting of detectives’ time and movement to notations on routine phone calls and messages to media inquiries and tips from citizens. Usually, these were handwritten with all manner of shorthand and abbreviations employed as they were updated each day, sometimes hourly. Then, when a page became full, it was typed up on a form called a 52, which would be complete and legible when and if the case ever moved into the courts, and lawyers, judges and juries needed to review the investigative files. The original handwritten pages were then discarded.

Harry would think of this in far less time than it took me to type it, but readers can accept that the simple reference to the “fifty-ones” would send his mind to what they were. Readers have the information, and it’s presented a lot more efficiently than using “show.”

Throughout his books, Connelly gives readers a lot of information about how the police department works, and he manages to keep readers—at least this reader—willing to accept that Harry Bosch is thinking these things, be it the history of the Parker Center in LA, where the chief’s office is, or how the desks are arranged in the homicide department. And that, to me, is the skill. Get the exposition in there without the reader feeling like you’re stopping the story to tell.

What about you, TKZers? Showing? Telling? How do you balance them? Do you even notice, or can you keep things seamless?

Any authors who do telling well?

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now in digital, paperback, and audio
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

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

How Critical Distance Improves Writing

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The conversation about critical distance doesn’t come up often in writing circles. If someone does raise the point, critical distance is usually mentioned in passing as though other writers should inherently know what it is and why it’s important. Let’s change that today.

What is Critical Distance?

The phrase stems from researchers who lost all subjectivity in their analysis. To regain clarity (critical thinking), they had to step away from the project for a while.

Practitioner researchers have often been criticised for a lack of critical distance from their work often leading to conclusions which can be, in the field of objective research, critiqued for a lack of creditability and validity (Saunders, 2007). Also inherent in this type of research is the fact that the types of practitioners who come to this kind of research often have been thinking about the research topic for several years bringing with them a host of assumptions and ideas of what they want to find out and usually already having a theoretical stance for the project (Drake and Heath, 2011; Wellington and Sikes, 2006).

—Michelle M. Appleby, University of Derby

 

  • Surgeons aren’t allowed to operate on family members.
  • Cops aren’t allowed to investigate a family member’s murder.
  • Judges aren’t allowed to preside over a loved one’s case.

These rules are in place because the surgeon, cop, and judge cannot be objective if a personal connection exists.

What’s more personal than writing?

While drafting, we wear love goggles. We’re so wrapped up in our characters, we lose all objectivity. It’s only after we’ve gained distance that we can view the story through the proper lens. Also, we may miss plot holes or leave threads dangling while drafting.

I’ll give you an example…

When I wrote the first draft of Restless Mayhem, one of my anti-heroes mentioned two characters from a previous book. I’d originally planned to have these two characters play a critical role in the story, but then the plot twisted and turned and my original plan changed. Well, I forgot to change the conversation at the beginning of the book. Even though I read the manuscript a few times, I still missed it. After I set it aside for a month, those two names popped right out. And I thought, gee, why are they there?

At that point, I couldn’t recall what my characters did with that information, so I left myself a note and continued on. Guess what? No one ever mentioned those two names again. Never. Whoops! I ended up changing the names to two characters who did play a vital role in the plot. But what if I hadn’t set the manuscript aside? I’d have a lot of confused readers.

Does your character have an accent in chapter two that disappears in chapter twenty?

Does someone have green eyes that turn brown by the end of the book?

Did you name the cat Henry and then change it to Harry?

Did your character have a left arm injury that moved to the right?

Even though most of the above you’ll include in your story bible—you made one, right?—we can still miss seemingly insignificant details if we forego the critical distance stage. I know you’re excited to release your new book baby, but that puppy will shine even more if you allow it to sit a while. I’m amazed by what I find once I return to the manuscript.

How can we view our creations through an objective lens?

After you’ve written the first draft, set it aside for x-amount of weeks. The length of a break varies between writers. For some, two or three weeks may be enough. Others may need a month or more. There’s no right or wrong answer here. Whenever you’ve gained enough distance that you don’t recall every scene. The best way to do that is by working on a different project while the draft cools.

Benefits of critical distance…

  • Easily fix writing tics.
  • Catch typos and grammatical errors.
  • Seal plot holes.
  • Tie-up dangling threads.
  • Swap weak verbs for strong ones.
  • Correct passive voice.
  • Fix clunky words, awkward sentences, and/or phrases.
  • Deepen characterization.
  • Better ground the reader in the setting.
  • Strengthen your theme.
  • Make your writing more expressive.
  • Paint a more vivid mental picture.
  • Infuse more emotion.
  • Change body cues (1st drafts often include obvious or less-than ideal body movements).
  • Convey emotion better.
  • Rewrite to remove some dialogue tags.

Do you let the manuscript rest once you complete the first draft? How long do you let it sit?

Amidst a rising tide of poachers, three unlikely eco-warriors take a stand to save endangered Eastern Gray Wolves—even if it means the slow slaughter of their captors.

Preorder for 99c!

*Please note: 99c sale is only available on Amazon.

Restless Mayhem releases in ebook and paperback on April 26, 2023. Can’t wait!

 

Becoming a Writer by Mistake, or How I Traded Needlepoint for Writing

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Becoming a Writer by Mistake, or How I Traded Needlepoint for Writing.
Terry Odell

**Note: We’re having new windows installed and they’ll be doing my office today, which means moving my desk and disconnecting electronics, and I’m not sure when I’ll have connectivity to respond to comments.

At reader-focused conferences, such as Left Coast Crime, most panelists are asked the question, “How/When did you start writing?” regardless of the panel topic. Readers are interested in learning more about the person behind the book. I listen as everyone else spouts off their histories of wanting to write since before they could talk, or how they wrote their first manuscript in crayon. Then my turn rolls around, and here’s my answer.

I was a card-carrying AARP member before I considered writing anything. How did I get started? The short answer: I ran out of room on my walls for needlepoint and had to find another creative outlet. But the real answer is, “By mistake.”

I never had any dreams of being a writer. Creative writing classes weren’t my forte. I knew all the rules of grammar, got A’s in English, but I was a reader. I devoured books. I read anything, from comic books to cereal boxes. My parents tell everyone that we moved when I was 12 because I finished the library. I made up stories, but they were in my head. I never thought about writing one down. They were usually daydreams, or continuations of books I’d read, or stories about characters on television. The closest I came to writing was two pages of a story I’d had running around in my head—something featuring MacGyver. But the actual typing was a total drag. Punctuation mattered. You had to start sentences with capital letters. There were quotation marks to deal with. All that use of the ‘shift’ key was a total drag.

Years later, my son was visiting. He, as all men are wont to do, was “watching” television by flipping the remote. He stopped on a show. “This one’s cool,” he said. “It’s all about these guys who can’t die unless you cut off their heads.”

My son went back home. Being a good mother, I decided to watch the show so we’d have something “cool” to talk about. I found “Highlander” in the listings, set the recorder, and watched an episode. Okay, I’m not proud. Watching Adrian Paul was no hardship. But the show also raised questions about what these Immortals could and couldn’t do, and I got curious. There were no Yahoo groups then, or even Google (I think, anyway). There were CompuServe forums. I found one about Highlander and discovered the world of fan fiction. It seemed right up my alley. I discovered one author whose voice resonated with me. (Of course, back then I had no clue it was her “voice.”)

We hooked up via email, she connected me with some of her friends, and I did some beta reading for them. Just because I wasn’t a writer didn’t mean I wasn’t a good reader, and I definitely used all my English skills to hone their stories.

Then, one day, hubby was out of town, and I decided to see what would happen if I tried to write a story. The beauty of fan fiction is that your world and your characters are all there. You can work on the skills of the craft in small increments. I cranked out my little story—actually, sweated it out, because it still didn’t come easy, what with getting all those quotation marks in the right place—and bravely sent it to the writer I’d befriended.

I’m sure she got a good laugh, but she came back with advice and comments. What the heck was POV?

I accepted the challenge. After all, I did get all those A’s in English, and surely I could learn how to put a story on paper instead of sucking up what others wrote. She had immeasurable patience, and when I finally had her approval that it was done, she insisted I post it to one of the Highland fan fiction forums. I got positive feedback, and like any good puppy, kept trying to please. (Had I known then how low the bar was for positive feedback, I might not have kept going, but since I didn’t, I did.)

Eventually, I found another writing group at a site called iVillage, and thought I’d try writing some original fiction, just to see if I could. I recall an exercise, where we were supposed to write a “hook” in under 200 words. I sent mine in, and got lots of “Wow, what happens next?” comments. How did I know? So, I kept writing. 143,000 words later, the first draft of Finding Sarah was finished, and I’d hooked up with a local, in person, critique group who drove me to consider the “get it published” side of the writing craft. And one of my Highlander fan fiction short stories eventually provided a starting point for the next book I wrote, What’s in a Name? There’s a lot of Duncan MacLeod in Blake Windsor.

And somewhere along the line, I was talking with my son. I asked him what he thought of the writers killing off Tessa. He said, “What?” I said, “You know. Highlander. Tessa. Duncan’s girlfriend. They killed her character.”

His reply. “Oh, I never actually watched the show. I just thought it was a cool concept.”

And that’s how I became a writer by mistake. I don’t think I’ll go back to needlepoint.

Cover image of Deadly Relations by Terry OdellAvailable Now
Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

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 you Lying or Laying Around

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Are you Lying or Laying Around
Terry Odell

lie or layAnalytics from my own website/blog shows that consistently, one of the top three search terms (after my name) ended up on a basic grammar post I did a number of years ago. If that many people were searching, I thought some of our TKZ readers might find it useful. If you’ve already got a handle on the usage, enjoy the picture of the cat.

Years ago, when I was tutoring for the Adult Literacy League in Orlando, one of my students was a native Korean speaker. She’d been in the US for almost two decades, but she needed a lot of help with grammar. I relied on a book my kids had used in elementary school, Scholastic’s A+ Guide to Grammar by Vicki Tyler. I don’t think you can find it anymore, and I’m glad I kept the book. The pages are yellowing, but it’s a great quick reference, explained in easy to understand terms.

One problem my student had, and one that I still see when evaluating manuscripts, is the “Lie vs Lay” usage. So, here’s your grammar tip for today:

LIE (Not the fib-telling usage)
Means to rest or recline, and also to remain or be situated.
NEVER takes a direct object.

LAY
Means to put or place something.
Usually takes a direct object that tells what was placed

Confusion arises when you change tenses.

LIE is present tense. Past is LAY

LAY is present tense. Past is LAID.

Here are some examples in a variety of tenses which might clarify things. Or give you something to refer to.

LIE

  • If you’re tired, lie down and take a nap
  • I wonder what lies beneath the pile of clothes in my closet.
  • Your sweater is lying on the couch
  • Last summer, we lay by the pool every day after lunch
  • The envelope from my sister lay unopened for a week
  • I have lain in bed all morning

LAY

  • Lay the grocery bag on the table
  • I was laying the new hardwood floor in the dining room.
  • I laid the grocery bags on the table before I answered the phone.
  • I have laid my cards on the table.

So, in answer to the question posed in the title of this post — you’re lying around.

I don’t know if this helps. I tend to rely on the “takes an object” rule if I’m not sure. Of course, there’s always the write-around option. Use a different word!

What about you? Any grammar issues you have to stop and think about? Any you’ve noticed while reading?

Image by Mabel Amber from Pixabay

Available for Pre-Order
Paperback format available now.

Deadly Relations.
Nothing Ever Happens in Mapleton … Until it Does
Gordon Hepler, Mapleton, Colorado’s Police Chief, is called away from a quiet Sunday with his wife to an emergency situation at the home he’s planning to sell. A man has chained himself to the front porch, threatening to set off an explosive.

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