KN Magazine: Articles
Fact into Fiction / Andrew Welsh-Huggins
You’ve come to that horrible moment in your writing journey when, just as you’re leaving the harbor, a dark and ominous cloud front rolls across the sky. Rain starts to fall, big cold plops of realization that you are totally unequipped for this story, that no matter how much you think you know about coal fracking off the top of your head, you have nowhere near the expertise you need, and that Wikipedia is going to exhaust its usefulness pretty quickly (if even reliable, at that).
It’s a common moment for all writers. But for journalist-turned-novelist Andrew Welsh-Huggins, it’s a moment he knows how to navigate, thanks to his years of experience doing research. In this week’s blog, learn from a professional fact-finder, so that the next time you come to an “I-have-no-idea” moment, you have the skills to help you sail straight through. And for me, the 10-minute rule he cited on research and writing long are pure diamonds.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Fact Into Fiction
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
“How much research do you do for your books?”
It’s one of the questions I’m asked most often at signings and talks, even more than the tried-and-true, “Where do you get your ideas?”
My usual response—“A lot”—should come as no surprise. By day, I’m a full-time reporter with The Associated Press, and my first two books were nonfiction on the death penalty and domestic terrorism, respectively. Both involved hundreds of hours of reporting, from poring over documents to conducting numerous interviews.
Despite all that, I’m the one sometimes surprised by my own answer. As a novelist, I figured, things would be different, a welcome break from my job as a fact-gathering journalist. You just make stuff up, right?
Wrong.
For starters, I found myself relying on my work experience more than I expected, whether setting scenes in courthouses or coffee shops, or loosely modeling characters after cops, lawyers, and politicians I’ve interviewed over the years. One of the subplots in my first mystery, Fourth Down And Out, involved a health-care financing company run like a Ponzi scheme. Incorporating that storyline was easy, based on weeks I’d spent covering the real-life $1.9 billon fraud case of suburban Columbus-based National Century Financial Enterprises.
Experiential writing only gets you so far, however, as I learned when it came time to write the book’s climactic scene, in which my hero, disgraced ex-Ohio State-quarterback-turned-private eye Andy Hayes, enters Ohio Stadium for the first time in twenty years to confront an old nemesis. Sure, I’d been in the famed stadium plenty of times, both as a reporter and as a civilian watching a game. But I quickly realized that neither casual knowledge nor Internet trolling was going to cut it. Trust me: when writing about the fanaticism of Buckeye fans, you don’t want to screw things up.
So I put my reporter’s hat back on and arranged a stadium tour. Thanks to that hour-long expedition, I timed Andy’s walk to a specific gate entrance, took pictures of the views he would see inside, and most importantly, counted the number of steps he’d have to climb to reach a particular luxury suite.
In a 2014 interview with The Daily Beast, Michael Connelly discussed researching his Mickey Haller books, “until I feel that the books feel of authority and have some realism to them.” When I left the stadium that day, I felt a similar sense of authority. Readers partial to the scarlet-and-gray might not appreciate my portrayal of rabid OSU supporters, but they can’t argue with that scene’s layout.
The reporting load was even heavier in my second book, Slow Burn, in which I combined a ripped-from-the-headlines arson fire near campus with another subplot, this time involving hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” a drilling process used to free previously off-limits supplies of natural gas from deep underground.
I’d written a bit about the controversial extraction method as a reporter, since eastern Ohio, home to the Utica Shale formation, is a fracking hot bed. But I hardly knew enough even to be dangerous. Soon, I was trading emails with a retired state geologist who taught me everything I needed to know and more about permeability, magnetic resonance, and piggyback logs. My happy challenge became integrating all those facts into the story without interrupting the novel’s pace.
In mystery writing as in journalism, the one thing research shouldn’t do is slow down the creative process. “Make one quick effort to get the answer,” wrote Stuart Kaminsky, whose many novels include the Sarasota-based Lew Fonesca series. “If you can’t find it in ten minutes, keep writing and go back for the answer when you finish your manuscript.” I often write longer articles while I’m still reporting them, finding it easier to fill in gaps as I go than start from that awful blank page. Similarly, I plow through my mysteries’ first “vomit drafts” regardless of the facts. It’s good to be right; it’s also good to have something completed and in hand to be right about.
My life as a hybrid journalist-novelist shows no sign of abating. Despite years spent in and around the Ohio Statehouse, I turned to the building’s able historians, my notebook and pen at the ready, when writing Capitol Punishment, the third volume of Andy Hayes’s adventures, coming in spring 2016. After ten years in print journalism and another seventeen with a wire service, it’s the only approach to writing, fiction or otherwise, that I know how to do.
Andrew Welsh-Huggins, a legal affairs reporter for The Associated Press, is the author of the Andy Hayes mystery series, set in Columbus and featuring an ex-Ohio State quarterback turned private eye, including Slow Burn and Fourth Down And Out; and the nonfiction books No Winners HereTonight: Race, Politics and Geography in One of the Country’s Busiest Death Penalty States and Hatred at Home: Al-Qaida on Trial in the American Midwest. He enjoys running, reading, watching movies, spending time with family, and trying to remember why having a dog, two cats, and two parakeets seemed like a good idea at the time. He can be reached at https://andrewwelshhuggins.wordpress.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Fact into Fiction / Andrew Welsh-Huggins
You’ve come to that horrible moment in your writing journey when, just as you’re leaving the harbor, a dark and ominous cloud front rolls across the sky. Rain starts to fall, big cold plops of realization that you are totally unequipped for this story, that no matter how much you think you know about coal fracking off the top of your head, you have nowhere near the expertise you need, and that Wikipedia is going to exhaust its usefulness pretty quickly (if even reliable, at that).It’s a common moment for all writers. But for journalist-turned-novelist Andrew Welsh-Huggins, it’s a moment he knows how to navigate, thanks to his years of experience doing research. In this week’s blog, learn from a professional fact-finder, so that the next time you come to an “I-have-no-idea” moment, you have the skills to help you sail straight through. And for me, the 10-minute rule he cited on research and writing long are pure diamonds.Happy reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Fact Into Fiction
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
“How much research do you do for your books?”
It’s one of the questions I’m asked most often at signings and talks, even more than the tried-and-true, “Where do you get your ideas?”
My usual response—“A lot”—should come as no surprise. By day, I’m a full-time reporter with The Associated Press, and my first two books were nonfiction on the death penalty and domestic terrorism, respectively. Both involved hundreds of hours of reporting, from poring over documents to conducting numerous interviews.
Despite all that, I’m the one sometimes surprised by my own answer. As a novelist, I figured, things would be different, a welcome break from my job as a fact-gathering journalist. You just make stuff up, right?
Wrong.
For starters, I found myself relying on my work experience more than I expected, whether setting scenes in courthouses or coffee shops, or loosely modeling characters after cops, lawyers, and politicians I’ve interviewed over the years. One of the subplots in my first mystery, Fourth Down And Out, involved a health-care financing company run like a Ponzi scheme. Incorporating that storyline was easy, based on weeks I’d spent covering the real-life $1.9 billon fraud case of suburban Columbus-based National Century Financial Enterprises.
Experiential writing only gets you so far, however, as I learned when it came time to write the book’s climactic scene, in which my hero, disgraced ex-Ohio State-quarterback-turned-private eye Andy Hayes, enters Ohio Stadium for the first time in twenty years to confront an old nemesis. Sure, I’d been in the famed stadium plenty of times, both as a reporter and as a civilian watching a game. But I quickly realized that neither casual knowledge nor Internet trolling was going to cut it. Trust me: when writing about the fanaticism of Buckeye fans, you don’t want to screw things up.
So I put my reporter’s hat back on and arranged a stadium tour. Thanks to that hour-long expedition, I timed Andy’s walk to a specific gate entrance, took pictures of the views he would see inside, and most importantly, counted the number of steps he’d have to climb to reach a particular luxury suite.
In a 2014 interview with The Daily Beast, Michael Connelly discussed researching his Mickey Haller books, “until I feel that the books feel of authority and have some realism to them.” When I left the stadium that day, I felt a similar sense of authority. Readers partial to the scarlet-and-gray might not appreciate my portrayal of rabid OSU supporters, but they can’t argue with that scene’s layout.
The reporting load was even heavier in my second book, Slow Burn, in which I combined a ripped-from-the-headlines arson fire near campus with another subplot, this time involving hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” a drilling process used to free previously off-limits supplies of natural gas from deep underground.
I’d written a bit about the controversial extraction method as a reporter, since eastern Ohio, home to the Utica Shale formation, is a fracking hot bed. But I hardly knew enough even to be dangerous. Soon, I was trading emails with a retired state geologist who taught me everything I needed to know and more about permeability, magnetic resonance, and piggyback logs. My happy challenge became integrating all those facts into the story without interrupting the novel’s pace.
In mystery writing as in journalism, the one thing research shouldn’t do is slow down the creative process. “Make one quick effort to get the answer,” wrote Stuart Kaminsky, whose many novels include the Sarasota-based Lew Fonesca series. “If you can’t find it in ten minutes, keep writing and go back for the answer when you finish your manuscript.” I often write longer articles while I’m still reporting them, finding it easier to fill in gaps as I go than start from that awful blank page. Similarly, I plow through my mysteries’ first “vomit drafts” regardless of the facts. It’s good to be right; it’s also good to have something completed and in hand to be right about.
My life as a hybrid journalist-novelist shows no sign of abating. Despite years spent in and around the Ohio Statehouse, I turned to the building’s able historians, my notebook and pen at the ready, when writing Capitol Punishment, the third volume of Andy Hayes’s adventures, coming in spring 2016. After ten years in print journalism and another seventeen with a wire service, it’s the only approach to writing, fiction or otherwise, that I know how to do.
Andrew Welsh-Huggins, a legal affairs reporter for The Associated Press, is the author of the Andy Hayes mystery series, set in Columbus and featuring an ex-Ohio State quarterback turned private eye, including Slow Burn and Fourth Down And Out; and the nonfiction books No Winners Here Tonight: Race, Politics and Geography in One of the Country’s Busiest Death Penalty States and Hatred at Home: Al-Qaida on Trial in the American Midwest. He enjoys running, reading, watching movies, spending time with family, and trying to remember why having a dog, two cats, and two parakeets seemed like a good idea at the time. He can be reached at https://andrewwelshhuggins.wordpress.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Fact into Fiction / Andrew Welsh-Huggins
You’ve come to that horrible moment in your writing journey when, just as you’re leaving the harbor, a dark and ominous cloud front rolls across the sky. Rain starts to fall, big cold plops of realization that you are totally unequipped for this story, that no matter how much you think you know about coal fracking off the top of your head, you have nowhere near the expertise you need, and that Wikipedia is going to exhaust its usefulness pretty quickly (if even reliable, at that).It’s a common moment for all writers. But for journalist-turned-novelist Andrew Welsh-Huggins, it’s a moment he knows how to navigate, thanks to his years of experience doing research. In this week’s blog, learn from a professional fact-finder, so that the next time you come to an “I-have-no-idea” moment, you have the skills to help you sail straight through. And for me, the 10-minute rule he cited on research and writing long are pure diamonds.Happy reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Fact Into Fiction
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
“How much research do you do for your books?”
It’s one of the questions I’m asked most often at signings and talks, even more than the tried-and-true, “Where do you get your ideas?”
My usual response—“A lot”—should come as no surprise. By day, I’m a full-time reporter with The Associated Press, and my first two books were nonfiction on the death penalty and domestic terrorism, respectively. Both involved hundreds of hours of reporting, from poring over documents to conducting numerous interviews.
Despite all that, I’m the one sometimes surprised by my own answer. As a novelist, I figured, things would be different, a welcome break from my job as a fact-gathering journalist. You just make stuff up, right?
Wrong.
For starters, I found myself relying on my work experience more than I expected, whether setting scenes in courthouses or coffee shops, or loosely modeling characters after cops, lawyers, and politicians I’ve interviewed over the years. One of the subplots in my first mystery, Fourth Down And Out, involved a health-care financing company run like a Ponzi scheme. Incorporating that storyline was easy, based on weeks I’d spent covering the real-life $1.9 billon fraud case of suburban Columbus-based National Century Financial Enterprises.
Experiential writing only gets you so far, however, as I learned when it came time to write the book’s climactic scene, in which my hero, disgraced ex-Ohio State-quarterback-turned-private eye Andy Hayes, enters Ohio Stadium for the first time in twenty years to confront an old nemesis. Sure, I’d been in the famed stadium plenty of times, both as a reporter and as a civilian watching a game. But I quickly realized that neither casual knowledge nor Internet trolling was going to cut it. Trust me: when writing about the fanaticism of Buckeye fans, you don’t want to screw things up.
So I put my reporter’s hat back on and arranged a stadium tour. Thanks to that hour-long expedition, I timed Andy’s walk to a specific gate entrance, took pictures of the views he would see inside, and most importantly, counted the number of steps he’d have to climb to reach a particular luxury suite.
In a 2014 interview with The Daily Beast, Michael Connelly discussed researching his Mickey Haller books, “until I feel that the books feel of authority and have some realism to them.” When I left the stadium that day, I felt a similar sense of authority. Readers partial to the scarlet-and-gray might not appreciate my portrayal of rabid OSU supporters, but they can’t argue with that scene’s layout.
The reporting load was even heavier in my second book, Slow Burn, in which I combined a ripped-from-the-headlines arson fire near campus with another subplot, this time involving hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” a drilling process used to free previously off-limits supplies of natural gas from deep underground.
I’d written a bit about the controversial extraction method as a reporter, since eastern Ohio, home to the Utica Shale formation, is a fracking hot bed. But I hardly knew enough even to be dangerous. Soon, I was trading emails with a retired state geologist who taught me everything I needed to know and more about permeability, magnetic resonance, and piggyback logs. My happy challenge became integrating all those facts into the story without interrupting the novel’s pace.
In mystery writing as in journalism, the one thing research shouldn’t do is slow down the creative process. “Make one quick effort to get the answer,” wrote Stuart Kaminsky, whose many novels include the Sarasota-based Lew Fonesca series. “If you can’t find it in ten minutes, keep writing and go back for the answer when you finish your manuscript.” I often write longer articles while I’m still reporting them, finding it easier to fill in gaps as I go than start from that awful blank page. Similarly, I plow through my mysteries’ first “vomit drafts” regardless of the facts. It’s good to be right; it’s also good to have something completed and in hand to be right about.
My life as a hybrid journalist-novelist shows no sign of abating. Despite years spent in and around the Ohio Statehouse, I turned to the building’s able historians, my notebook and pen at the ready, when writing Capitol Punishment, the third volume of Andy Hayes’s adventures, coming in spring 2016. After ten years in print journalism and another seventeen with a wire service, it’s the only approach to writing, fiction or otherwise, that I know how to do.
Andrew Welsh-Huggins, a legal affairs reporter for The Associated Press, is the author of the Andy Hayes mystery series, set in Columbus and featuring an ex-Ohio State quarterback turned private eye, including Slow Burn and Fourth Down And Out; and the nonfiction books No Winners Here Tonight: Race, Politics and Geography in One of the Country’s Busiest Death Penalty States and Hatred at Home: Al-Qaida on Trial in the American Midwest. He enjoys running, reading, watching movies, spending time with family, and trying to remember why having a dog, two cats, and two parakeets seemed like a good idea at the time. He can be reached at https://andrewwelshhuggins.wordpress.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Filling the Well / Dana Chamblee Carpenter
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the process of writing. There are so many things to remember, so many different rules to keep straight. Find a distinctive voice. Write what you know. Show, don’t tell. If we’re not careful, we may get so lost in craft that we never actually get a chance to do what we love: create.
In this week’s guest blog, 2014 Claymore Award winner Dana Chamblee Carpenter draws upon her expertise as a creative writing teacher in reminding us all to take a step back. Not just away from the keyboard, but away from our sensible grown-up selves, back into a time where it was possible to just play.
Find the magic again. Isn’t that why we do this, anyway?
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Filling the Well
By Dana Chamblee Carpenter
Often, we writers talk and blog about the WORK of writing—the craft, the discipline, the marketing, and the industry. We all know that a relentless assault on mastering this work is what leads to success.
But PLAY is as vital to a writer as any work we do.
When I taught my first Introduction to Creative Writing course, I really hammered the idea of working on craft and discipline, and my students turned in pieces that were polished and on time—every teacher’s dream, right? Not really. Not for me anyway. None of the stories took risks; none of them took me anywhere I hadn’t already been.
I wanted my students to write with courage, not to play it safe. But they were coming to the writing process with empty wells and looking at the world in the way they had been taught to see it. I wanted them to see it the way a writer should—uniquely, imaginatively, playfully.
Despite the many cranky, old memes out there suggesting that “kids these days” don’t know how to work, I realized pretty quickly that my students didn’t know how to play. But play fills our wells, lets us look for the magic in the world, frees us to see and feel and learn in new ways.
A.A. Milne’s Christopher Robin confesses this secret of childhood to Pooh when he says his favorite thing to do is “Nothing,” which he defines like so: “It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” Immediately after embracing this nothingness of play, Christopher Robin discovers an enchanted place that no one else has been to, that is not like the woods he and Pooh thought they were in, and in this new place “they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was with them.”
That’s where we want to be as writers.
But that kind of inspiration takes a certain kind of play—unstructured, aimless, without boundary or expectation—the play of “Nothing.” So I set about teaching my students how to play this way.
We discovered that we had to be intentional about setting aside time for play, just as we set aside time to write. Play won’t happen spontaneously as when we were children, because there are so many THINGS we do that there’s little unstructured time left (sadly this is true for many kids today, too). So we rearranged activities, pushed back against social demands, and took vows to constrain our tech time (email, texting, social media) until we had at least a couple of chunks of unclaimed hour-long periods each week just for play.
Ideally, playtime for writers should be solo time. Kids can play together and it stays play. Put a couple of grown-ups together and pretty quickly talk turns to serious matters of utmost importance that will scare away any playfulness.
My students were out of the practice of playing, and wrestled with the idea that they were wasting time when they could be doing SOMETHING. So I made them pretend at first—pretend to be kids full of wonderment at the world.
But soon, they were kids again. My students came to class talking about colors and coloring books, bubbles, silly string, playing on the playground, and making clover crowns. They talked about adventures at the zoo, the triumphs of eating a snow cone down to the syrupy good stuff at the bottom, of discovering some hidden path on a once-familiar walk.
They were alive, awake, and seeing the world like writers—beyond what was, imagining what might be; all the world over was with them.
And the stories they wrote—wow. Uniquely their own and most definitely inspired. (And we still worked on craft and discipline. They were still polished and on time.)
Too often I forget what I learned that semester. I let deadlines and word counts and worries over keeping up with all the social media and publication evolutions consume me. I give over solely to the WORK of writing, and my writing suffers. So do I.
When I was writing Bohemian Gospel, I sometimes worked myself into a frenzy, pushing life to the margins and focusing solely on crafting perfect sentences or burying myself in the historical research. At those times, I would get so frustrated because I felt like I wasn’t making any progress despite my frantic endeavors. And then one of my kids would come tug at my hand and ask me to play. We would go dance in the falling leaves, paint silly pictures, or build masterpieces with Legos.
When I went back to the work, I realized that what had seemed like stepping away from writing was actually stepping into creativity, into story. I had fresh ideas and new energy.
Even if you’ve never had kids or if the kids have grown up and moved away, you can still go play like a kid.
Remembering to PLAY is hard for most of us managing writing lives alongside all our other duties and distractions. But it is crucial that we fill our wells back up again, that we equip ourselves to see the world new every day.
Anyone up for a little bit of Nothing?
Dana Chamblee Carpenter's award-winning short fiction has appeared in The Arkansas Review, Jersey Devil Press, and Maypop. She has a short story in the new anthology, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded. Her debut novel, Bohemian Gospel, won Killer Nashville's 2014 Claymore Award, and Publisher’s Weekly called it a “deliciously creepy debut.” Bohemian Gospel, published by Pegasus Books, releases on November 15, 2015.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Filling the Well / Dana Chamblee Carpenter
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the process of writing. There are so many things to remember, so many different rules to keep straight. Find a distinctive voice. Write what you know. Show, don’t tell. If we’re not careful, we may get so lost in craft that we never actually get a chance to do what we love: create.In this week’s guest blog, 2014 Claymore Award winner Dana Chamblee Carpenter draws upon her expertise as a creative writing teacher in reminding us all to take a step back. Not just away from the keyboard, but away from our sensible grown-up selves, back into a time where it was possible to just play.Find the magic again. Isn’t that why we do this, anyway?Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Filling the Well
By Dana Chamblee Carpenter
Often, we writers talk and blog about the WORK of writing—the craft, the discipline, the marketing, and the industry. We all know that a relentless assault on mastering this work is what leads to success.
But PLAY is as vital to a writer as any work we do.
When I taught my first Introduction to Creative Writing course, I really hammered the idea of working on craft and discipline, and my students turned in pieces that were polished and on time—every teacher’s dream, right? Not really. Not for me anyway. None of the stories took risks; none of them took me anywhere I hadn’t already been.
I wanted my students to write with courage, not to play it safe. But they were coming to the writing process with empty wells and looking at the world in the way they had been taught to see it. I wanted them to see it the way a writer should—uniquely, imaginatively, playfully.
Despite the many cranky, old memes out there suggesting that “kids these days” don’t know how to work, I realized pretty quickly that my students didn’t know how to play. But play fills our wells, lets us look for the magic in the world, frees us to see and feel and learn in new ways.
A.A. Milne’s Christopher Robin confesses this secret of childhood to Pooh when he says his favorite thing to do is “Nothing,” which he defines like so: “It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” Immediately after embracing this nothingness of play, Christopher Robin discovers an enchanted place that no one else has been to, that is not like the woods he and Pooh thought they were in, and in this new place “they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was with them.”
That’s where we want to be as writers.
But that kind of inspiration takes a certain kind of play—unstructured, aimless, without boundary or expectation—the play of “Nothing.” So I set about teaching my students how to play this way.
We discovered that we had to be intentional about setting aside time for play, just as we set aside time to write. Play won’t happen spontaneously as when we were children, because there are so many THINGS we do that there’s little unstructured time left (sadly this is true for many kids today, too). So we rearranged activities, pushed back against social demands, and took vows to constrain our tech time (email, texting, social media) until we had at least a couple of chunks of unclaimed hour-long periods each week just for play.
Ideally, playtime for writers should be solo time. Kids can play together and it stays play. Put a couple of grown-ups together and pretty quickly talk turns to serious matters of utmost importance that will scare away any playfulness.
My students were out of the practice of playing, and wrestled with the idea that they were wasting time when they could be doing SOMETHING. So I made them pretend at first—pretend to be kids full of wonderment at the world.
But soon, they were kids again. My students came to class talking about colors and coloring books, bubbles, silly string, playing on the playground, and making clover crowns. They talked about adventures at the zoo, the triumphs of eating a snow cone down to the syrupy good stuff at the bottom, of discovering some hidden path on a once-familiar walk.
They were alive, awake, and seeing the world like writers—beyond what was, imagining what might be; all the world over was with them.
And the stories they wrote—wow. Uniquely their own and most definitely inspired. (And we still worked on craft and discipline. They were still polished and on time.)
Too often I forget what I learned that semester. I let deadlines and word counts and worries over keeping up with all the social media and publication evolutions consume me. I give over solely to the WORK of writing, and my writing suffers. So do I.
When I was writing Bohemian Gospel, I sometimes worked myself into a frenzy, pushing life to the margins and focusing solely on crafting perfect sentences or burying myself in the historical research. At those times, I would get so frustrated because I felt like I wasn’t making any progress despite my frantic endeavors. And then one of my kids would come tug at my hand and ask me to play. We would go dance in the falling leaves, paint silly pictures, or build masterpieces with Legos.
When I went back to the work, I realized that what had seemed like stepping away from writing was actually stepping into creativity, into story. I had fresh ideas and new energy.
Even if you’ve never had kids or if the kids have grown up and moved away, you can still go play like a kid.
Remembering to PLAY is hard for most of us managing writing lives alongside all our other duties and distractions. But it is crucial that we fill our wells back up again, that we equip ourselves to see the world new every day.
Anyone up for a little bit of Nothing?
Dana Chamblee Carpenter's award-winning short fiction has appeared in The Arkansas Review, Jersey Devil Press, and Maypop. She has a short story in the new anthology, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded. Her debut novel, Bohemian Gospel, won Killer Nashville's 2014 Claymore Award, and Publisher’s Weekly called it a “deliciously creepy debut.” Bohemian Gospel, published by Pegasus Books, releases on November 15, 2015.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Filling the Well / Dana Chamblee Carpenter
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the process of writing. There are so many things to remember, so many different rules to keep straight. Find a distinctive voice. Write what you know. Show, don’t tell. If we’re not careful, we may get so lost in craft that we never actually get a chance to do what we love: create.In this week’s guest blog, 2014 Claymore Award winner Dana Chamblee Carpenter draws upon her expertise as a creative writing teacher in reminding us all to take a step back. Not just away from the keyboard, but away from our sensible grown-up selves, back into a time where it was possible to just play.Find the magic again. Isn’t that why we do this, anyway?Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Filling the Well
By Dana Chamblee Carpenter
Often, we writers talk and blog about the WORK of writing—the craft, the discipline, the marketing, and the industry. We all know that a relentless assault on mastering this work is what leads to success.
But PLAY is as vital to a writer as any work we do.
When I taught my first Introduction to Creative Writing course, I really hammered the idea of working on craft and discipline, and my students turned in pieces that were polished and on time—every teacher’s dream, right? Not really. Not for me anyway. None of the stories took risks; none of them took me anywhere I hadn’t already been.
I wanted my students to write with courage, not to play it safe. But they were coming to the writing process with empty wells and looking at the world in the way they had been taught to see it. I wanted them to see it the way a writer should—uniquely, imaginatively, playfully.
Despite the many cranky, old memes out there suggesting that “kids these days” don’t know how to work, I realized pretty quickly that my students didn’t know how to play. But play fills our wells, lets us look for the magic in the world, frees us to see and feel and learn in new ways.
A.A. Milne’s Christopher Robin confesses this secret of childhood to Pooh when he says his favorite thing to do is “Nothing,” which he defines like so: “It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.” Immediately after embracing this nothingness of play, Christopher Robin discovers an enchanted place that no one else has been to, that is not like the woods he and Pooh thought they were in, and in this new place “they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was with them.”
That’s where we want to be as writers.
But that kind of inspiration takes a certain kind of play—unstructured, aimless, without boundary or expectation—the play of “Nothing.” So I set about teaching my students how to play this way.
We discovered that we had to be intentional about setting aside time for play, just as we set aside time to write. Play won’t happen spontaneously as when we were children, because there are so many THINGS we do that there’s little unstructured time left (sadly this is true for many kids today, too). So we rearranged activities, pushed back against social demands, and took vows to constrain our tech time (email, texting, social media) until we had at least a couple of chunks of unclaimed hour-long periods each week just for play.
Ideally, playtime for writers should be solo time. Kids can play together and it stays play. Put a couple of grown-ups together and pretty quickly talk turns to serious matters of utmost importance that will scare away any playfulness.
My students were out of the practice of playing, and wrestled with the idea that they were wasting time when they could be doing SOMETHING. So I made them pretend at first—pretend to be kids full of wonderment at the world.
But soon, they were kids again. My students came to class talking about colors and coloring books, bubbles, silly string, playing on the playground, and making clover crowns. They talked about adventures at the zoo, the triumphs of eating a snow cone down to the syrupy good stuff at the bottom, of discovering some hidden path on a once-familiar walk.
They were alive, awake, and seeing the world like writers—beyond what was, imagining what might be; all the world over was with them.
And the stories they wrote—wow. Uniquely their own and most definitely inspired. (And we still worked on craft and discipline. They were still polished and on time.)
Too often I forget what I learned that semester. I let deadlines and word counts and worries over keeping up with all the social media and publication evolutions consume me. I give over solely to the WORK of writing, and my writing suffers. So do I.
When I was writing Bohemian Gospel, I sometimes worked myself into a frenzy, pushing life to the margins and focusing solely on crafting perfect sentences or burying myself in the historical research. At those times, I would get so frustrated because I felt like I wasn’t making any progress despite my frantic endeavors. And then one of my kids would come tug at my hand and ask me to play. We would go dance in the falling leaves, paint silly pictures, or build masterpieces with Legos.
When I went back to the work, I realized that what had seemed like stepping away from writing was actually stepping into creativity, into story. I had fresh ideas and new energy.
Even if you’ve never had kids or if the kids have grown up and moved away, you can still go play like a kid.
Remembering to PLAY is hard for most of us managing writing lives alongside all our other duties and distractions. But it is crucial that we fill our wells back up again, that we equip ourselves to see the world new every day.
Anyone up for a little bit of Nothing?
Dana Chamblee Carpenter's award-winning short fiction has appeared in The Arkansas Review, Jersey Devil Press, and Maypop. She has a short story in the new anthology, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded. Her debut novel, Bohemian Gospel, won Killer Nashville's 2014 Claymore Award, and Publisher’s Weekly called it a “deliciously creepy debut.” Bohemian Gospel, published by Pegasus Books, releases on November 15, 2015.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
The V8 of Legal Thriller Writing / John F. Dobbyn
All right, so thrillers and mystery novels don’t always get the best rap from the high-falutin’ literary crowd. Can’t say I’m all that bothered: I don’t think Stephen King is losing much sleep over the opinions of the so-called elite.
All the same, we want to do more than entertain, don’t we? We want to give readers a thrill-ride, but we also want to share with them something memorable, something that will linger long after the adrenaline rush fades. In this week’s blog, mystery novelist John F. Dobbyn shares his strategy for making a lasting impact on readers’ minds.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
The V8 of Legal Thriller Writing
By John F. Dobbyn
There’s a commercial on television that squarely hits the mark. A man or woman is just finishing a glass of sugary, flavored, carbonated soft drink. A slap on the forehead registers the realization that “I could have had a V8!”
This article is not a commercial for liquid vegetables, but the parallel to thriller or mystery fiction writing is on point. It is not difficult to find fiction in each of those genres that are the equivalent of a standard three-act drama. Act one is the set-up, with the introduction of a murder or threatening situation that one way or another sucks the protagonist into the plot. In act two, things go from bad to worse–or even seem hopeless. In act three, the mystery is solved, the killer is caught, the tension is defused, and the good guys win. The end.
In some ways, that’s the fictional equivalent of flavored soda water—not by any means to undermine the talent of the writer who has gripped the reader and provided absorbing entertainment for some three hundred pages plus. The reader’s thirst has been creatively quenched. But as with the soda in the ad, the story is missing something. There could have been so much more by way of nutrition, without sacrificing the taste. This will come, however, at the cost of sometimes-elaborate research.
There are three elements to a novel: setting, character, and plot. Each one has the potential to carry a cargo of education to the reader in an unobjectionable, unobtrusive, and even enjoyable way.
The setting, for example, could introduce the reader to the bizarre, the exotic, or even the familiar, seen in a new light. In each of my legal thriller novels, from Neon Dragon through Deadly Diamonds, the bars, back alleys, historic sites, and ethnic neighborhoods of Boston play prominent roles, as the action weaves in and out of them without slackening the pace. Readers have told me that they found themselves picking up “the feel” of Boston—one unlike any other city on earth.
The trick is what Spencer Tracy once advised Robert Wagner about acting: “Don’t let the audience catch you at it.” For a writer, this means that you should blend the sense of location into the action of the plot so seamlessly that the reader doesn’t realize he/she is being “taught.”
In each of my last three novels, as well as the next, Deadly Odds, I deliberately shift the action from Boston to areas of the world that could introduce the reader to previously unexplored countries or cities. I see the inclusion of local customs or peculiarities of art, or food, or wealth, or crime, or poverty, or any other kind of cultural insight as a gift to the reader. But it must be given invisibly as an integral part of the uninterrupted plot. It cannot sever the tension. If the book becomes a travelogue, setting has hindered the primary purpose of storytelling—don’t let the reader catch you at it.
The second element, character, can explore any aspect of human personality or psychology that the writer knows well enough to “demonstrate” through the words and actions of the fictional people. This can be tricky ground. Careful research here is essential; amateur psychology can be shaky if pushed too far. As Mark Twain said, “The difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to be true.”
The third element, plot, has the most potential to carry disguised education. In my latest novel, Deadly Diamonds, a young native of Sierra Leone is abducted by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and forced to work in the diamond pits. Eventually, he escapes, and has to find his way through the world of West Africa, which is consumed with the blood diamond trade. Instead of facing the tedium of being “taught”, the reader simply lives through the fictional action of the novel, and comes out the other end with knowledge that will long outlast the experience of reading a thriller.
The cost of providing the reader with this bonus is additional research on your part—perhaps even travel—that must precede the writing. But this education can be a bonus, particularly if the writer has chosen a compelling subject: the work will become a pleasure, and it will show in the writing.
One last thought. I’ve found that when I give book-talks at libraries or book clubs, the audiences don’t want me to focus as much on plot or characters or setting per se, but rather on the elements that I was hoping to teach without “teaching” through the novel—subjects like the Chinese Tong (Neon Dragon), horse racing (Black Diamond), international art theft and forgery (Frame Up), and blood diamonds (Deadly Diamonds). That is always a joy, because the reader has taken the bait of disguised education in a way that could lead to discussion and interest far beyond the present moment. That is what lasts beyond the reading, like the nourishment of a glass of V8.
John F. Dobbyn was born and raised in Boston. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Boston College Law School. Prior to entering law school, Dobbyn served in the Air Force as a radio and radar director of aircraft in the Air Defense Command. After practicing law for several years as a trial lawyer, he obtained a Master of Law degree from Harvard Law School, and subsequently accepted a position as Professor of Law at Villanova Law School. Dobbyn’s short stories have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and he is the author of two previous Knight and Devlin novels, Neon Dragon, and Frame-Up. “Jack” and his wife Lois live in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Reach him at @JohnDobbyn on Twitter.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
The V8 of Legal Thriller Writing / John F. Dobbyn
All right, so thrillers and mystery novels don’t always get the best rap from the high-falutin’ literary crowd. Can’t say I’m all that bothered: I don’t think Stephen King is losing much sleep over the opinions of the so-called elite.All the same, we want to do more than entertain, don’t we? We want to give readers a thrill-ride, but we also want to share with them something memorable, something that will linger long after the adrenaline rush fades. In this week’s blog, mystery novelist John F. Dobbyn shares his strategy for making a lasting impact on readers’ minds.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
The V8 of Legal Thriller Writing
By John F. Dobbyn
There’s a commercial on television that squarely hits the mark. A man or woman is just finishing a glass of sugary, flavored, carbonated soft drink. A slap on the forehead registers the realization that “I could have had a V8!”
This article is not a commercial for liquid vegetables, but the parallel to thriller or mystery fiction writing is on point. It is not difficult to find fiction in each of those genres that are the equivalent of a standard three-act drama. Act one is the set-up, with the introduction of a murder or threatening situation that one way or another sucks the protagonist into the plot. In act two, things go from bad to worse–or even seem hopeless. In act three, the mystery is solved, the killer is caught, the tension is defused, and the good guys win. The end.
In some ways, that’s the fictional equivalent of flavored soda water—not by any means to undermine the talent of the writer who has gripped the reader and provided absorbing entertainment for some three hundred pages plus. The reader’s thirst has been creatively quenched. But as with the soda in the ad, the story is missing something. There could have been so much more by way of nutrition, without sacrificing the taste. This will come, however, at the cost of sometimes-elaborate research.
There are three elements to a novel: setting, character, and plot. Each one has the potential to carry a cargo of education to the reader in an unobjectionable, unobtrusive, and even enjoyable way.
The setting, for example, could introduce the reader to the bizarre, the exotic, or even the familiar, seen in a new light. In each of my legal thriller novels, from Neon Dragon through Deadly Diamonds, the bars, back alleys, historic sites, and ethnic neighborhoods of Boston play prominent roles, as the action weaves in and out of them without slackening the pace. Readers have told me that they found themselves picking up “the feel” of Boston—one unlike any other city on earth.
The trick is what Spencer Tracy once advised Robert Wagner about acting: “Don’t let the audience catch you at it.” For a writer, this means that you should blend the sense of location into the action of the plot so seamlessly that the reader doesn’t realize he/she is being “taught.”
In each of my last three novels, as well as the next, Deadly Odds, I deliberately shift the action from Boston to areas of the world that could introduce the reader to previously unexplored countries or cities. I see the inclusion of local customs or peculiarities of art, or food, or wealth, or crime, or poverty, or any other kind of cultural insight as a gift to the reader. But it must be given invisibly as an integral part of the uninterrupted plot. It cannot sever the tension. If the book becomes a travelogue, setting has hindered the primary purpose of storytelling—don’t let the reader catch you at it.
The second element, character, can explore any aspect of human personality or psychology that the writer knows well enough to “demonstrate” through the words and actions of the fictional people. This can be tricky ground. Careful research here is essential; amateur psychology can be shaky if pushed too far. As Mark Twain said, “The difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to be true.”
The third element, plot, has the most potential to carry disguised education. In my latest novel, Deadly Diamonds, a young native of Sierra Leone is abducted by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and forced to work in the diamond pits. Eventually, he escapes, and has to find his way through the world of West Africa, which is consumed with the blood diamond trade. Instead of facing the tedium of being “taught”, the reader simply lives through the fictional action of the novel, and comes out the other end with knowledge that will long outlast the experience of reading a thriller.
The cost of providing the reader with this bonus is additional research on your part—perhaps even travel—that must precede the writing. But this education can be a bonus, particularly if the writer has chosen a compelling subject: the work will become a pleasure, and it will show in the writing.
One last thought. I’ve found that when I give book-talks at libraries or book clubs, the audiences don’t want me to focus as much on plot or characters or setting per se, but rather on the elements that I was hoping to teach without “teaching” through the novel—subjects like the Chinese Tong (Neon Dragon), horse racing (Black Diamond), international art theft and forgery (Frame Up), and blood diamonds (Deadly Diamonds). That is always a joy, because the reader has taken the bait of disguised education in a way that could lead to discussion and interest far beyond the present moment. That is what lasts beyond the reading, like the nourishment of a glass of V8.
John F. Dobbyn was born and raised in Boston. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Boston College Law School. Prior to entering law school, Dobbyn served in the Air Force as a radio and radar director of aircraft in the Air Defense Command. After practicing law for several years as a trial lawyer, he obtained a Master of Law degree from Harvard Law School, and subsequently accepted a position as Professor of Law at Villanova Law School. Dobbyn’s short stories have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and he is the author of two previous Knight and Devlin novels, Neon Dragon, and Frame-Up. “Jack” and his wife Lois live in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Reach him at @JohnDobbyn on Twitter.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
The V8 of Legal Thriller Writing / John F. Dobbyn
All right, so thrillers and mystery novels don’t always get the best rap from the high-falutin’ literary crowd. Can’t say I’m all that bothered: I don’t think Stephen King is losing much sleep over the opinions of the so-called elite.All the same, we want to do more than entertain, don’t we? We want to give readers a thrill-ride, but we also want to share with them something memorable, something that will linger long after the adrenaline rush fades. In this week’s blog, mystery novelist John F. Dobbyn shares his strategy for making a lasting impact on readers’ minds.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
The V8 of Legal Thriller Writing
By John F. Dobbyn
There’s a commercial on television that squarely hits the mark. A man or woman is just finishing a glass of sugary, flavored, carbonated soft drink. A slap on the forehead registers the realization that “I could have had a V8!”
This article is not a commercial for liquid vegetables, but the parallel to thriller or mystery fiction writing is on point. It is not difficult to find fiction in each of those genres that are the equivalent of a standard three-act drama. Act one is the set-up, with the introduction of a murder or threatening situation that one way or another sucks the protagonist into the plot. In act two, things go from bad to worse–or even seem hopeless. In act three, the mystery is solved, the killer is caught, the tension is defused, and the good guys win. The end.
In some ways, that’s the fictional equivalent of flavored soda water—not by any means to undermine the talent of the writer who has gripped the reader and provided absorbing entertainment for some three hundred pages plus. The reader’s thirst has been creatively quenched. But as with the soda in the ad, the story is missing something. There could have been so much more by way of nutrition, without sacrificing the taste. This will come, however, at the cost of sometimes-elaborate research.
There are three elements to a novel: setting, character, and plot. Each one has the potential to carry a cargo of education to the reader in an unobjectionable, unobtrusive, and even enjoyable way.
The setting, for example, could introduce the reader to the bizarre, the exotic, or even the familiar, seen in a new light. In each of my legal thriller novels, from Neon Dragon through Deadly Diamonds, the bars, back alleys, historic sites, and ethnic neighborhoods of Boston play prominent roles, as the action weaves in and out of them without slackening the pace. Readers have told me that they found themselves picking up “the feel” of Boston—one unlike any other city on earth.
The trick is what Spencer Tracy once advised Robert Wagner about acting: “Don’t let the audience catch you at it.” For a writer, this means that you should blend the sense of location into the action of the plot so seamlessly that the reader doesn’t realize he/she is being “taught.”
In each of my last three novels, as well as the next, Deadly Odds, I deliberately shift the action from Boston to areas of the world that could introduce the reader to previously unexplored countries or cities. I see the inclusion of local customs or peculiarities of art, or food, or wealth, or crime, or poverty, or any other kind of cultural insight as a gift to the reader. But it must be given invisibly as an integral part of the uninterrupted plot. It cannot sever the tension. If the book becomes a travelogue, setting has hindered the primary purpose of storytelling—don’t let the reader catch you at it.
The second element, character, can explore any aspect of human personality or psychology that the writer knows well enough to “demonstrate” through the words and actions of the fictional people. This can be tricky ground. Careful research here is essential; amateur psychology can be shaky if pushed too far. As Mark Twain said, “The difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to be true.”
The third element, plot, has the most potential to carry disguised education. In my latest novel, Deadly Diamonds, a young native of Sierra Leone is abducted by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and forced to work in the diamond pits. Eventually, he escapes, and has to find his way through the world of West Africa, which is consumed with the blood diamond trade. Instead of facing the tedium of being “taught”, the reader simply lives through the fictional action of the novel, and comes out the other end with knowledge that will long outlast the experience of reading a thriller.
The cost of providing the reader with this bonus is additional research on your part—perhaps even travel—that must precede the writing. But this education can be a bonus, particularly if the writer has chosen a compelling subject: the work will become a pleasure, and it will show in the writing.
One last thought. I’ve found that when I give book-talks at libraries or book clubs, the audiences don’t want me to focus as much on plot or characters or setting per se, but rather on the elements that I was hoping to teach without “teaching” through the novel—subjects like the Chinese Tong (Neon Dragon), horse racing (Black Diamond), international art theft and forgery (Frame Up), and blood diamonds (Deadly Diamonds). That is always a joy, because the reader has taken the bait of disguised education in a way that could lead to discussion and interest far beyond the present moment. That is what lasts beyond the reading, like the nourishment of a glass of V8.
John F. Dobbyn was born and raised in Boston. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Boston College Law School. Prior to entering law school, Dobbyn served in the Air Force as a radio and radar director of aircraft in the Air Defense Command. After practicing law for several years as a trial lawyer, he obtained a Master of Law degree from Harvard Law School, and subsequently accepted a position as Professor of Law at Villanova Law School. Dobbyn’s short stories have been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and he is the author of two previous Knight and Devlin novels, Neon Dragon, and Frame-Up. “Jack” and his wife Lois live in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Reach him at @JohnDobbyn on Twitter.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
If I Lived What I Wrote, I'd Be in Prison / Carter Wilson
It’d be pretty tough to write a compelling thriller if we all were limited solely to our life experiences. Sure, a few lucky (or unlucky) folks would have truly exciting tales, but for the most part, we’d write stories about paying bills, buying groceries, and coaching rec league soccer teams. Guest blogger and award-winning author Carter Wilson reflects on dealing with the amusing but tricky moments when readers start analyzing the disturbing parts of his books for insights into his personal psychology.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
If I Lived What I Wrote, I'd Be In Prison
By Carter Wilson
I hate the adage “write what you know.”
Hate it.
But I don’t hate it because it’s wrong. As an author, there are plenty of things about your life woven into your fiction, and most of the time, this is done unconsciously. The car your character drives has a striking resemblance to your own. A few choice turns of phrase that you've been known to use pepper your manuscript. Your protagonist’s drink of choice is, coincidentally, a margarita on the rocks, two parts tequila, one part lime, touch of orange liquor, and a drizzle of agave nectar. No salt, not ever.
No, I hate that phrase “write what you know” because too many readers take it as an unalterable truism. By readers, of course, I mean family members. They mean well, God bless ’em, but boy, do they want to know where all that darkness comes from. It has to come from somewhere, because, you know, you write what you know, and if the villain in your book fancies choking out hookers and making totem poles out of their torsos, well, we may need to revisit that time you went to summer camp when you were sixteen. What exactly happened at Lake Chumpagawa, anyway?
My mom always wants to read my manuscripts before they go to a publisher. In an early manuscript, I struggled mightily with the protagonist’s motivation for the way he behaved in the arc of the story. Then it hit me that a lot of his actions could be better appreciated in the context of him having lived through a traumatic childhood event, and I added in a fairly disturbing scene in which said character, as a ten-year-old, is molested by his teacher. (Full disclosure: unless I'm suppressing something, that never happened to me or anyone I knew).
So my mom reads the story and, in perfect Mom-form, graciously tells me she likes it and notes out a dozen or so typos, but otherwise says nothing. A month later (A MONTH!) I’m visiting with her and she says she needs to ask me something. What is it? I ask. Of course, she asks if I’ve ever been molested. Now, at this point, I don’t even realize we’re talking about my book, so the question hits me like a foul ball hurling at my head out of the blinding sunshine. What? Did you seriously just ask me that?
Well, she says, it was in your book. And authors only write what they know.
Imagine that. She had been holding that in for a month, trying to find the courage to ask me. Apparently, she had been calling my sister to recollect anything that could have happened. Of course, my sister recalled to her one time when she vaguely remembered a stranger asking me to go for a hike (and maybe this is the suppressed part) and thought the guy was a little creepy. That story, apparently, was the tipping point for my mother to finally ask. God, I felt horrible. I assured her that, to the best of my memory, the creepy hiker merely wanted to go hiking.
I've had other questions from family members, including, “who was that person based on?” Or, “why don't you like to write happy things?” And once, “What are you hiding?”
Maybe there is a deeply rooted psychological answer for why thriller/suspense/horror writers gravitate toward the dark, but I think the truest answer is this: darkness begets tension, and tension begets a good story. If I truly wrote a book based on what I know from my real life, it would be boring as shit.
So, just to make sure we can be clear here, the following is a list of things I have never personally done:
Crucify someone, literally (Final Crossing, 2012, Vantage Point Books)
Participate in the murder of a child when I was fourteen (The Boy in the Woods, 2014, Severn House)
Talk in my sleep about rape and torture fantasies (The Comfort of Black, 2015, Oceanview Publishing)
When I get gently worded questions about where all my darkness comes from, and how much of it is based on my life experiences, I usually just smile and politely mumble something about the book being fiction and relying mostly on my imagination. After all, an author’s imagination is their greatest tool.
But sometimes, when the mood hits me just right, I don’t reply at all.
I just look at them and smile.
Award-winning author Carter Wilson was born in New Mexico and grew up in Los Angeles before attending Cornell University. He is a consultant and frequent lecturer in the hospitality industry, has journeyed the globe both for work and pleasure, and as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. The Comfort of Black is Carter’s third novel. Carter lives in Colorado with his two children. Reach him at carterwilson.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
If I Lived What I Wrote, I'd Be in Prison / Carter Wilson
It’d be pretty tough to write a compelling thriller if we all were limited solely to our life experiences. Sure, a few lucky (or unlucky) folks would have truly exciting tales, but for the most part, we’d write stories about paying bills, buying groceries, and coaching rec league soccer teams. Guest blogger and award-winning author Carter Wilson reflects on dealing with the amusing but tricky moments when readers start analyzing the disturbing parts of his books for insights into his personal psychology.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
If I Lived What I Wrote, I'd Be In Prison
By Carter Wilson
I hate the adage “write what you know.”
Hate it.
But I don’t hate it because it’s wrong. As an author, there are plenty of things about your life woven into your fiction, and most of the time, this is done unconsciously. The car your character drives has a striking resemblance to your own. A few choice turns of phrase that you've been known to use pepper your manuscript. Your protagonist’s drink of choice is, coincidentally, a margarita on the rocks, two parts tequila, one part lime, touch of orange liquor, and a drizzle of agave nectar. No salt, not ever.
No, I hate that phrase “write what you know” because too many readers take it as an unalterable truism. By readers, of course, I mean family members. They mean well, God bless ’em, but boy, do they want to know where all that darkness comes from. It has to come from somewhere, because, you know, you write what you know, and if the villain in your book fancies choking out hookers and making totem poles out of their torsos, well, we may need to revisit that time you went to summer camp when you were sixteen. What exactly happened at Lake Chumpagawa, anyway?
My mom always wants to read my manuscripts before they go to a publisher. In an early manuscript, I struggled mightily with the protagonist’s motivation for the way he behaved in the arc of the story. Then it hit me that a lot of his actions could be better appreciated in the context of him having lived through a traumatic childhood event, and I added in a fairly disturbing scene in which said character, as a ten-year-old, is molested by his teacher. (Full disclosure: unless I'm suppressing something, that never happened to me or anyone I knew).
So my mom reads the story and, in perfect Mom-form, graciously tells me she likes it and notes out a dozen or so typos, but otherwise says nothing. A month later (A MONTH!) I’m visiting with her and she says she needs to ask me something. What is it? I ask. Of course, she asks if I’ve ever been molested. Now, at this point, I don’t even realize we’re talking about my book, so the question hits me like a foul ball hurling at my head out of the blinding sunshine. What? Did you seriously just ask me that?
Well, she says, it was in your book. And authors only write what they know.
Imagine that. She had been holding that in for a month, trying to find the courage to ask me. Apparently, she had been calling my sister to recollect anything that could have happened. Of course, my sister recalled to her one time when she vaguely remembered a stranger asking me to go for a hike (and maybe this is the suppressed part) and thought the guy was a little creepy. That story, apparently, was the tipping point for my mother to finally ask. God, I felt horrible. I assured her that, to the best of my memory, the creepy hiker merely wanted to go hiking.
I've had other questions from family members, including, “who was that person based on?” Or, “why don't you like to write happy things?” And once, “What are you hiding?”
Maybe there is a deeply rooted psychological answer for why thriller/suspense/horror writers gravitate toward the dark, but I think the truest answer is this: darkness begets tension, and tension begets a good story. If I truly wrote a book based on what I know from my real life, it would be boring as shit.
So, just to make sure we can be clear here, the following is a list of things I have never personally done:
- Crucify someone, literally (Final Crossing, 2012, Vantage Point Books)
- Participate in the murder of a child when I was fourteen (The Boy in the Woods, 2014, Severn House)
- Talk in my sleep about rape and torture fantasies (The Comfort of Black, 2015, Oceanview Publishing)
When I get gently worded questions about where all my darkness comes from, and how much of it is based on my life experiences, I usually just smile and politely mumble something about the book being fiction and relying mostly on my imagination. After all, an author’s imagination is their greatest tool.
But sometimes, when the mood hits me just right, I don’t reply at all.
I just look at them and smile.
Award-winning author Carter Wilson was born in New Mexico and grew up in Los Angeles before attending Cornell University. He is a consultant and frequent lecturer in the hospitality industry, has journeyed the globe both for work and pleasure, and as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. The Comfort of Black is Carter’s third novel. Carter lives in Colorado with his two children. Reach him at carterwilson.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
If I Lived What I Wrote, I'd Be in Prison / Carter Wilson
It’d be pretty tough to write a compelling thriller if we all were limited solely to our life experiences. Sure, a few lucky (or unlucky) folks would have truly exciting tales, but for the most part, we’d write stories about paying bills, buying groceries, and coaching rec league soccer teams. Guest blogger and award-winning author Carter Wilson reflects on dealing with the amusing but tricky moments when readers start analyzing the disturbing parts of his books for insights into his personal psychology.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
If I Lived What I Wrote, I'd Be In Prison
By Carter Wilson
I hate the adage “write what you know.”
Hate it.
But I don’t hate it because it’s wrong. As an author, there are plenty of things about your life woven into your fiction, and most of the time, this is done unconsciously. The car your character drives has a striking resemblance to your own. A few choice turns of phrase that you've been known to use pepper your manuscript. Your protagonist’s drink of choice is, coincidentally, a margarita on the rocks, two parts tequila, one part lime, touch of orange liquor, and a drizzle of agave nectar. No salt, not ever.
No, I hate that phrase “write what you know” because too many readers take it as an unalterable truism. By readers, of course, I mean family members. They mean well, God bless ’em, but boy, do they want to know where all that darkness comes from. It has to come from somewhere, because, you know, you write what you know, and if the villain in your book fancies choking out hookers and making totem poles out of their torsos, well, we may need to revisit that time you went to summer camp when you were sixteen. What exactly happened at Lake Chumpagawa, anyway?
My mom always wants to read my manuscripts before they go to a publisher. In an early manuscript, I struggled mightily with the protagonist’s motivation for the way he behaved in the arc of the story. Then it hit me that a lot of his actions could be better appreciated in the context of him having lived through a traumatic childhood event, and I added in a fairly disturbing scene in which said character, as a ten-year-old, is molested by his teacher. (Full disclosure: unless I'm suppressing something, that never happened to me or anyone I knew).
So my mom reads the story and, in perfect Mom-form, graciously tells me she likes it and notes out a dozen or so typos, but otherwise says nothing. A month later (A MONTH!) I’m visiting with her and she says she needs to ask me something. What is it? I ask. Of course, she asks if I’ve ever been molested. Now, at this point, I don’t even realize we’re talking about my book, so the question hits me like a foul ball hurling at my head out of the blinding sunshine. What? Did you seriously just ask me that?
Well, she says, it was in your book. And authors only write what they know.
Imagine that. She had been holding that in for a month, trying to find the courage to ask me. Apparently, she had been calling my sister to recollect anything that could have happened. Of course, my sister recalled to her one time when she vaguely remembered a stranger asking me to go for a hike (and maybe this is the suppressed part) and thought the guy was a little creepy. That story, apparently, was the tipping point for my mother to finally ask. God, I felt horrible. I assured her that, to the best of my memory, the creepy hiker merely wanted to go hiking.
I've had other questions from family members, including, “who was that person based on?” Or, “why don't you like to write happy things?” And once, “What are you hiding?”
Maybe there is a deeply rooted psychological answer for why thriller/suspense/horror writers gravitate toward the dark, but I think the truest answer is this: darkness begets tension, and tension begets a good story. If I truly wrote a book based on what I know from my real life, it would be boring as shit.
So, just to make sure we can be clear here, the following is a list of things I have never personally done:
- Crucify someone, literally (Final Crossing, 2012, Vantage Point Books)
- Participate in the murder of a child when I was fourteen (The Boy in the Woods, 2014, Severn House)
- Talk in my sleep about rape and torture fantasies (The Comfort of Black, 2015, Oceanview Publishing)
When I get gently worded questions about where all my darkness comes from, and how much of it is based on my life experiences, I usually just smile and politely mumble something about the book being fiction and relying mostly on my imagination. After all, an author’s imagination is their greatest tool.
But sometimes, when the mood hits me just right, I don’t reply at all.
I just look at them and smile.
Award-winning author Carter Wilson was born in New Mexico and grew up in Los Angeles before attending Cornell University. He is a consultant and frequent lecturer in the hospitality industry, has journeyed the globe both for work and pleasure, and as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. The Comfort of Black is Carter’s third novel. Carter lives in Colorado with his two children. Reach him at carterwilson.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
The Pizza Guy / David Putnam
Public Service Announcement: A team’s only as strong as its weakest link.
Great. Glad we got that cleared up. Now we can move on to the really revolutionary stuff.
But wait, how are you going to make that cliché into an interesting story structure, or even just a memorable scene, for your groundbreaking police procedural thriller? Sure, it’s true for a group of cops the same way that it’s true for a sports team, but you can’t hold a reader’s attention by just telling them flat out. You have to find a way to make it interesting and new, through specificity. Longtime cop-turned-author David Putnam offers some real-life examples from his experience with weak links, or, as he creatively calls them, “pizza guys”.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
The Pizza Guy
By David Putnam
Throughout my 31 years in law enforcement, I have run into many Pizza Guys. This is not necessarily a derogatory term; it’s more a classification, and one I coined out of necessity for officer safety. Other agencies, I’m sure, have their own names for them. Not only do they exist in every law enforcement organization, but they’re in every business as well.
I’m an avid reader, and have never seen an author make use a Pizza Guy as a main character—not in the way a Pizza Guy operates in real life. I have pondered using a Pizza Guy in my novels, but as yet have not found a place for one. And if I wrote the events in which I was personally involved with these guys, the reader might call foul and say, “That would never happen.”
For most of my career, I worked SWAT, narcotics, special teams, Violent Crimes, and Criminal Intelligence. These teams were mostly comprised of men and women who’d proved their ability or competence, and were lucky enough to be chosen out of a crowded field of competitors. These teams can be highly technical, and it’s dangerous if every member is not competent and always paying close attention to details.
In a dynamic SWAT entry where the team has to cover and move, cover and move, each member has to be able to depend on each other. An error, even a small one, could be fatal. This applies to high-risk search warrants in narcotics as well.
The unfortunate circumstance in law enforcement—in any job where humans are involved—is that people are chosen for these positions, not because of their competence and ability, but because “He’s a good guy.” Or the guy did a special favor for a Deputy Chief, and the chief is repaying a debt.
The Pizza Guy moniker came about during a briefing on a big operation. As the case agent, I was designating team members and team leaders to execute search warrants at multiple locations. When I finished giving the instructions and asked if there were any questions, one member I had forgotten about, maybe subconsciously, raised his hand and said, “Hey, what about me?”
I looked around and said, “You’re going to get the pizza.”
Henceforth, whenever we had an operation and assignments were given out, there was always one slot left out for “The Pizza Guy”. In most cases, the Pizza Guy, if he were smart enough to figure it out, didn’t mind. He liked the status of being on SWAT, or on Narcotics, but not necessarily going through the door on a high-risk entry.
Here’s a classic example of a Pizza Guy. My team was running down a homicide suspect and we hit a house where the suspect had been minutes before. We’d just missed him. Inside the house, we found another male who was on parole and in possession of a firearm—a felony. We handcuffed him and set him on the couch, pending transport to jail.
When you have multiple Pizza Guys, you try to spread them out, put them on different teams, one each. That particular day, we were running with two. I asked the sergeant to step outside away from the parolee so he couldn’t hear us, leaving the two Pizza Guys to guard the parolee. Pretty soon, one of the Pizza Guys shows up outside to listen in on what the plan was going to be. A couple minutes later, the second Pizza Guy shows up outside and the sergeant says, “Hey, who’s watching the crook?”
We ran back in and the crook had fled with the handcuffs.
In another incident, our team worked a highly sensitive narcotic surveillance, a high profile conspiracy. We rotated the “eye”, the point on the surveillance. Our Pizza Guy took his turn. After a few minutes, I tried to raise him on the radio. He didn’t respond. I had to break from my position to check on him. He was asleep in his car, his seat back. I took a Polaroid picture in case he ever complained about running for pizza.
On the Violent Crimes team, I ran an operation trying to snare a crew of serial bank robbers. I had six teams of two, set up on possible bank targets that the crime analysis unit had given us. Each team of two sat in their cars in the bank parking lots, and if the robbery crew pulled up to rob the bank, the team would put it out over the radio and wait for back-up.
We’d been set up for three hours. Around lunchtime, dispatch advised of a silent alarm at one the target banks. Every team broke from their location and drove like hell to the bank being robbed. The team sitting in the parking lot of the bank being robbed was comprised of two Pizza Guys, and they wouldn’t answer their radio. When we got there, the Pizza Guys looked surprised. They hadn’t seen a thing. They were both eating tacos right in front of the bank.
A plumber driving by saw the suspect run from the bank, spewing red smoke from the dye pack in the bank money, and followed him. The plumber took a huge pipe wrench from his truck and chased the bank robber into a restaurant, where he held him at bay in the restroom until we could get there.
The use of a Pizza Guy in novel might work as in individual incident, but unless the novel was a comedy, I don’t think he would work as a main character.
David Putnam always wanted to be a cop. His career in law enforcement has spanned over 30 years. He has worked in narcotics, served on FBI-sponsored violent crimes teams, and was cross-sworn as a U.S. Marshall, pursuing murder suspects and bank robbers in Arizona, Nevada, and California. Putnam did three tours on the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s S.W.A.T. team, executing dynamic entries, hostage rescues, and serving as team sniper. He has also worked in Criminal Intelligence and Internal Affairs and has supervised corrections, patrol, and a detective bureau.
After 28 years of California law enforcement, Putnam moved to Hawaii where he worked as a Special Agent for the Attorney General, investigating smuggling and white-collar crimes. Putnam is now retired and lives in Southern California where he farms organic avocado trees, reads and writes, and attends writers’ conferences with his wife and fellow writer, Mary. The Replacements follows The Disposables in Putnam’s Bruno Johnson series. Reach him at http://dwputnam.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
The Pizza Guy / David Putnam
Public Service Announcement: A team’s only as strong as its weakest link.Great. Glad we got that cleared up. Now we can move on to the really revolutionary stuff.But wait, how are you going to make that cliché into an interesting story structure, or even just a memorable scene, for your groundbreaking police procedural thriller? Sure, it’s true for a group of cops the same way that it’s true for a sports team, but you can’t hold a reader’s attention by just telling them flat out. You have to find a way to make it interesting and new, through specificity. Longtime cop-turned-author David Putnam offers some real-life examples from his experience with weak links, or, as he creatively calls them, “pizza guys”.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
The Pizza Guy
By David Putnam
Throughout my 31 years in law enforcement, I have run into many Pizza Guys. This is not necessarily a derogatory term; it’s more a classification, and one I coined out of necessity for officer safety. Other agencies, I’m sure, have their own names for them. Not only do they exist in every law enforcement organization, but they’re in every business as well.
I’m an avid reader, and have never seen an author make use a Pizza Guy as a main character—not in the way a Pizza Guy operates in real life. I have pondered using a Pizza Guy in my novels, but as yet have not found a place for one. And if I wrote the events in which I was personally involved with these guys, the reader might call foul and say, “That would never happen.”
For most of my career, I worked SWAT, narcotics, special teams, Violent Crimes, and Criminal Intelligence. These teams were mostly comprised of men and women who’d proved their ability or competence, and were lucky enough to be chosen out of a crowded field of competitors. These teams can be highly technical, and it’s dangerous if every member is not competent and always paying close attention to details.
In a dynamic SWAT entry where the team has to cover and move, cover and move, each member has to be able to depend on each other. An error, even a small one, could be fatal. This applies to high-risk search warrants in narcotics as well.
The unfortunate circumstance in law enforcement—in any job where humans are involved—is that people are chosen for these positions, not because of their competence and ability, but because “He’s a good guy.” Or the guy did a special favor for a Deputy Chief, and the chief is repaying a debt.
The Pizza Guy moniker came about during a briefing on a big operation. As the case agent, I was designating team members and team leaders to execute search warrants at multiple locations. When I finished giving the instructions and asked if there were any questions, one member I had forgotten about, maybe subconsciously, raised his hand and said, “Hey, what about me?”
I looked around and said, “You’re going to get the pizza.”
Henceforth, whenever we had an operation and assignments were given out, there was always one slot left out for “The Pizza Guy”. In most cases, the Pizza Guy, if he were smart enough to figure it out, didn’t mind. He liked the status of being on SWAT, or on Narcotics, but not necessarily going through the door on a high-risk entry.
Here’s a classic example of a Pizza Guy. My team was running down a homicide suspect and we hit a house where the suspect had been minutes before. We’d just missed him. Inside the house, we found another male who was on parole and in possession of a firearm—a felony. We handcuffed him and set him on the couch, pending transport to jail.
When you have multiple Pizza Guys, you try to spread them out, put them on different teams, one each. That particular day, we were running with two. I asked the sergeant to step outside away from the parolee so he couldn’t hear us, leaving the two Pizza Guys to guard the parolee. Pretty soon, one of the Pizza Guys shows up outside to listen in on what the plan was going to be. A couple minutes later, the second Pizza Guy shows up outside and the sergeant says, “Hey, who’s watching the crook?”
We ran back in and the crook had fled with the handcuffs.
In another incident, our team worked a highly sensitive narcotic surveillance, a high profile conspiracy. We rotated the “eye”, the point on the surveillance. Our Pizza Guy took his turn. After a few minutes, I tried to raise him on the radio. He didn’t respond. I had to break from my position to check on him. He was asleep in his car, his seat back. I took a Polaroid picture in case he ever complained about running for pizza.
On the Violent Crimes team, I ran an operation trying to snare a crew of serial bank robbers. I had six teams of two, set up on possible bank targets that the crime analysis unit had given us. Each team of two sat in their cars in the bank parking lots, and if the robbery crew pulled up to rob the bank, the team would put it out over the radio and wait for back-up.
We’d been set up for three hours. Around lunchtime, dispatch advised of a silent alarm at one the target banks. Every team broke from their location and drove like hell to the bank being robbed. The team sitting in the parking lot of the bank being robbed was comprised of two Pizza Guys, and they wouldn’t answer their radio. When we got there, the Pizza Guys looked surprised. They hadn’t seen a thing. They were both eating tacos right in front of the bank.
A plumber driving by saw the suspect run from the bank, spewing red smoke from the dye pack in the bank money, and followed him. The plumber took a huge pipe wrench from his truck and chased the bank robber into a restaurant, where he held him at bay in the restroom until we could get there.
The use of a Pizza Guy in novel might work as in individual incident, but unless the novel was a comedy, I don’t think he would work as a main character.
David Putnam always wanted to be a cop. His career in law enforcement has spanned over 30 years. He has worked in narcotics, served on FBI-sponsored violent crimes teams, and was cross-sworn as a U.S. Marshall, pursuing murder suspects and bank robbers in Arizona, Nevada, and California. Putnam did three tours on the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s S.W.A.T. team, executing dynamic entries, hostage rescues, and serving as team sniper. He has also worked in Criminal Intelligence and Internal Affairs and has supervised corrections, patrol, and a detective bureau.
After 28 years of California law enforcement, Putnam moved to Hawaii where he worked as a Special Agent for the Attorney General, investigating smuggling and white-collar crimes. Putnam is now retired and lives in Southern California where he farms organic avocado trees, reads and writes, and attends writers’ conferences with his wife and fellow writer, Mary. The Replacements follows The Disposables in Putnam’s Bruno Johnson series. Reach him at http://dwputnam.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
The Pizza Guy / David Putnam
Public Service Announcement: A team’s only as strong as its weakest link.Great. Glad we got that cleared up. Now we can move on to the really revolutionary stuff.But wait, how are you going to make that cliché into an interesting story structure, or even just a memorable scene, for your groundbreaking police procedural thriller? Sure, it’s true for a group of cops the same way that it’s true for a sports team, but you can’t hold a reader’s attention by just telling them flat out. You have to find a way to make it interesting and new, through specificity. Longtime cop-turned-author David Putnam offers some real-life examples from his experience with weak links, or, as he creatively calls them, “pizza guys”.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
The Pizza Guy
By David Putnam
Throughout my 31 years in law enforcement, I have run into many Pizza Guys. This is not necessarily a derogatory term; it’s more a classification, and one I coined out of necessity for officer safety. Other agencies, I’m sure, have their own names for them. Not only do they exist in every law enforcement organization, but they’re in every business as well.
I’m an avid reader, and have never seen an author make use a Pizza Guy as a main character—not in the way a Pizza Guy operates in real life. I have pondered using a Pizza Guy in my novels, but as yet have not found a place for one. And if I wrote the events in which I was personally involved with these guys, the reader might call foul and say, “That would never happen.”
For most of my career, I worked SWAT, narcotics, special teams, Violent Crimes, and Criminal Intelligence. These teams were mostly comprised of men and women who’d proved their ability or competence, and were lucky enough to be chosen out of a crowded field of competitors. These teams can be highly technical, and it’s dangerous if every member is not competent and always paying close attention to details.
In a dynamic SWAT entry where the team has to cover and move, cover and move, each member has to be able to depend on each other. An error, even a small one, could be fatal. This applies to high-risk search warrants in narcotics as well.
The unfortunate circumstance in law enforcement—in any job where humans are involved—is that people are chosen for these positions, not because of their competence and ability, but because “He’s a good guy.” Or the guy did a special favor for a Deputy Chief, and the chief is repaying a debt.
The Pizza Guy moniker came about during a briefing on a big operation. As the case agent, I was designating team members and team leaders to execute search warrants at multiple locations. When I finished giving the instructions and asked if there were any questions, one member I had forgotten about, maybe subconsciously, raised his hand and said, “Hey, what about me?”
I looked around and said, “You’re going to get the pizza.”
Henceforth, whenever we had an operation and assignments were given out, there was always one slot left out for “The Pizza Guy”. In most cases, the Pizza Guy, if he were smart enough to figure it out, didn’t mind. He liked the status of being on SWAT, or on Narcotics, but not necessarily going through the door on a high-risk entry.
Here’s a classic example of a Pizza Guy. My team was running down a homicide suspect and we hit a house where the suspect had been minutes before. We’d just missed him. Inside the house, we found another male who was on parole and in possession of a firearm—a felony. We handcuffed him and set him on the couch, pending transport to jail.
When you have multiple Pizza Guys, you try to spread them out, put them on different teams, one each. That particular day, we were running with two. I asked the sergeant to step outside away from the parolee so he couldn’t hear us, leaving the two Pizza Guys to guard the parolee. Pretty soon, one of the Pizza Guys shows up outside to listen in on what the plan was going to be. A couple minutes later, the second Pizza Guy shows up outside and the sergeant says, “Hey, who’s watching the crook?”
We ran back in and the crook had fled with the handcuffs.
In another incident, our team worked a highly sensitive narcotic surveillance, a high profile conspiracy. We rotated the “eye”, the point on the surveillance. Our Pizza Guy took his turn. After a few minutes, I tried to raise him on the radio. He didn’t respond. I had to break from my position to check on him. He was asleep in his car, his seat back. I took a Polaroid picture in case he ever complained about running for pizza.
On the Violent Crimes team, I ran an operation trying to snare a crew of serial bank robbers. I had six teams of two, set up on possible bank targets that the crime analysis unit had given us. Each team of two sat in their cars in the bank parking lots, and if the robbery crew pulled up to rob the bank, the team would put it out over the radio and wait for back-up.
We’d been set up for three hours. Around lunchtime, dispatch advised of a silent alarm at one the target banks. Every team broke from their location and drove like hell to the bank being robbed. The team sitting in the parking lot of the bank being robbed was comprised of two Pizza Guys, and they wouldn’t answer their radio. When we got there, the Pizza Guys looked surprised. They hadn’t seen a thing. They were both eating tacos right in front of the bank.
A plumber driving by saw the suspect run from the bank, spewing red smoke from the dye pack in the bank money, and followed him. The plumber took a huge pipe wrench from his truck and chased the bank robber into a restaurant, where he held him at bay in the restroom until we could get there.
The use of a Pizza Guy in novel might work as in individual incident, but unless the novel was a comedy, I don’t think he would work as a main character.
David Putnam always wanted to be a cop. His career in law enforcement has spanned over 30 years. He has worked in narcotics, served on FBI-sponsored violent crimes teams, and was cross-sworn as a U.S. Marshall, pursuing murder suspects and bank robbers in Arizona, Nevada, and California. Putnam did three tours on the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s S.W.A.T. team, executing dynamic entries, hostage rescues, and serving as team sniper. He has also worked in Criminal Intelligence and Internal Affairs and has supervised corrections, patrol, and a detective bureau.
After 28 years of California law enforcement, Putnam moved to Hawaii where he worked as a Special Agent for the Attorney General, investigating smuggling and white-collar crimes. Putnam is now retired and lives in Southern California where he farms organic avocado trees, reads and writes, and attends writers’ conferences with his wife and fellow writer, Mary. The Replacements follows The Disposables in Putnam’s Bruno Johnson series. Reach him at http://dwputnam.com/
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
It's All About the Brand / Claire Applewhite
Branding is everything.
Think about it. Have you ever tried to convince your kids that the generic version of their favorite cereal or clothing line is every bit as good as the one with the familiar logo they’re dying to buy? Ever try to convince yourself?
We trust in brands, at least as a means of identifying our likes and dislikes quickly. Our favorite sports teams, restaurant chains, and department stores all have icons with which we associate, often on a deep emotional level.
As a writer, it’s crucial that you set yourself apart from the rest of the market by distinguishing your work with a brand identity. Sounds mercenary? Maybe, but as guest blogger Claire Applewhite points out, the greatest entertainment legends of our time capitalized on this marketing technique to build more than a fanbase—a legacy.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
It’s All About the Brand
By Claire Applewhite
The year was 1959.
Marilyn Monroe wowed us with her drop-dead white halter dress in Some Like It Hot. Elvis Presley shocked us with his sultry style, and I Love Lucy loved Lucille Ball, famous for slapstick comedy and her signature red hair. In 1964, the Beatles performed on the Ed Sullivan Show with “long” hair that barely grazed their collars.
These remarkable icons may be gone, but memories of their unique style endure. While the concept of the “brand” is not new, technological advances provide a fresh awareness that “brand” can create a timeless legacy. For the author with a well-defined brand, strategic opportunity awaits.
What is a “brand?” A brand represents the attributes that you present to your readers, and how your readers perceive you and your creative ability. Clearly, it is crucial to develop and deliver the right message. You must know yourself and your personal attributes before you formulate your message. To gain insight, some soul searching is unavoidable. Consider the following questions:
Why do you want to create this brand? What is your ultimate goal?
What do you believe in?
What are your fondest dreams?
Who, or what, do you love?
How do you spend your free time?
If you received an unexpected financial windfall, how would you spend it?
If you could be someone else, who would it be?
What do you consider an unforgivable mistake?
What is the thing you do best?
List some adjectives to describe yourself.
Now, assess your current image. Is it consistent with your answers? How does it compare to the image you want to present? What changes, if any, do you need to make to achieve consistency? This is the time to make them.
Do you want to focus on a particular niche within your brand? If you want to carve out a niche brand, work to become an expert in that area. Research the characteristics of that niche, so that you can anticipate customer expectations. Review the adjectives you used to describe yourself and compare them to the niche that you have considered. Are the two lists consistent with your brand?
I have always loved mystery and romantic suspense novels and movies, and found that I usually gravitated toward the “noir” style—a subgenre of the mystery genre that focus on themes such as hard luck, obsession, loneliness and despair. The criminal aspects of the plot and the protagonist are intertwined. The characters are usually doomed before we even meet them, but following their descent is somehow fun, as we observe their entanglement in a web of their own doom. Several of my books—the ’Nam Noir series, and Crazy For You—fit this niche nicely.
Speaking of your customers, how well do you know them? What is it about your work that they find unique? Ask them what they think you do best. Their answers may surprise you. Communicate with your readers on a regular basis. Advertise signings and appearances and use social media, or consider an online newsletter. Make your messages memorable, simple and clear. Always answer personal messages. Recently, I received an email from a student who got published. She thanked me for advice and encouragement, which meant a great deal to me. I really enjoy opportunities to get to know my readers, whether it’s a neighborhood book club, a book signing or a speaking opportunity.
Consider the acquisition of a logo. A logo is the bedrock, the very foundation of a brand, and represents what is unique about you and your work, in relation to the broader market. It communicates on a variety of levels to create a connection between you and your reader. The logo embodies the adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It must be memorable, and elicit emotional response and brand loyalty from the consumer. If the medium is the message, the logo is the medium that communicates the message that defines your brand.
Marketing is complex, and is as crucial to your brand as your book. I am a St. Louis author and my books are set in St. Louis. St. Louis locales, expressions, and traditions are utilized whenever possible. Usually, there is a “giveaway” item with a book purchase. For example, to highlight the Coral Court Motel setting in St. Louis Hustle, a replica key chain accompanied each purchase.
I also use visual props and costumes. A cardboard version of Dr. Thomas Spezia, fresh from The Doctor’s Tale, joins Shelby Swain from Tennessee Plates and Bunny Dingwerth from Crazy For You. In addition to bookstores, schedule appearances in places that relate to your brand. I wrote the music and lyrics for my CD, Night Rain, to complement my books, and I have signed both in record stores.
Oh, and about that photo...
In my original photograph, I wore a suit. I thought I looked professional. In fact, I was told I looked like a banker, or as one man said, “You look like Meryl Streep in The Manchurian Candidate.” I concluded that my creative image might have a problem. I consulted a professional photographer, and tried a different approach. The new photo appears on my website beside my logo, and by the biography at the end of each of my books, as well as synopses from my other novels.
Engage social media to convey and grow your new brand. Your brand is a valuable asset, and ultimately, the customer determines its worth and life cycle. Remember to protect it with trademark and copyright laws.
Finally, ensure that all types of social media communicate the same attributes of your brand. In everything you do, be consistent. Like Marilyn and Elvis, be an “original.”
Claire Applewhite is a St. Louis mystery writer and Acquisitions Editor for Smoking Gun Publishing, LLC. A graduate of St. Louis University, her published books include The Wrong Side of Memphis, Crazy For You, St. Louis Hustle, Candy Cadillac, Tennessee Plates, and The Doctor’s Tale. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Applewhite has served as a Past President of the Missouri Writers Guild and Board member of the Midwest Chapter, Mystery Writers of America. Organizational memberships include the St. Louis Metropolitan Press Club, St. Louis Writers Guild, Sisters in Crime, Ozark Writers League and Active member, Mystery Writers of America. She can be reached at www.claireapplewhite.com, www.clairedunoir.com or www.smokinggunpublishing.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
It's All About the Brand / Claire Applewhite
Branding is everything.Think about it. Have you ever tried to convince your kids that the generic version of their favorite cereal or clothing line is every bit as good as the one with the familiar logo they’re dying to buy? Ever try to convince yourself?We trust in brands, at least as a means of identifying our likes and dislikes quickly. Our favorite sports teams, restaurant chains, and department stores all have icons with which we associate, often on a deep emotional level.As a writer, it’s crucial that you set yourself apart from the rest of the market by distinguishing your work with a brand identity. Sounds mercenary? Maybe, but as guest blogger Claire Applewhite points out, the greatest entertainment legends of our time capitalized on this marketing technique to build more than a fanbase—a legacy.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
It’s All About the Brand
By Claire Applewhite
The year was 1959.
Marilyn Monroe wowed us with her drop-dead white halter dress in Some Like It Hot. Elvis Presley shocked us with his sultry style, and I Love Lucy loved Lucille Ball, famous for slapstick comedy and her signature red hair. In 1964, the Beatles performed on the Ed Sullivan Show with “long” hair that barely grazed their collars.
These remarkable icons may be gone, but memories of their unique style endure. While the concept of the “brand” is not new, technological advances provide a fresh awareness that “brand” can create a timeless legacy. For the author with a well-defined brand, strategic opportunity awaits.
What is a “brand?” A brand represents the attributes that you present to your readers, and how your readers perceive you and your creative ability. Clearly, it is crucial to develop and deliver the right message. You must know yourself and your personal attributes before you formulate your message. To gain insight, some soul searching is unavoidable. Consider the following questions:
- Why do you want to create this brand? What is your ultimate goal?
- What do you believe in?
- What are your fondest dreams?
- Who, or what, do you love?
- How do you spend your free time?
- If you received an unexpected financial windfall, how would you spend it?
- If you could be someone else, who would it be?
- What do you consider an unforgivable mistake?
- What is the thing you do best?
- List some adjectives to describe yourself.
Now, assess your current image. Is it consistent with your answers? How does it compare to the image you want to present? What changes, if any, do you need to make to achieve consistency? This is the time to make them.
Do you want to focus on a particular niche within your brand? If you want to carve out a niche brand, work to become an expert in that area. Research the characteristics of that niche, so that you can anticipate customer expectations. Review the adjectives you used to describe yourself and compare them to the niche that you have considered. Are the two lists consistent with your brand?
I have always loved mystery and romantic suspense novels and movies, and found that I usually gravitated toward the “noir” style—a subgenre of the mystery genre that focus on themes such as hard luck, obsession, loneliness and despair. The criminal aspects of the plot and the protagonist are intertwined. The characters are usually doomed before we even meet them, but following their descent is somehow fun, as we observe their entanglement in a web of their own doom. Several of my books—the ’Nam Noir series, and Crazy For You—fit this niche nicely.
Speaking of your customers, how well do you know them? What is it about your work that they find unique? Ask them what they think you do best. Their answers may surprise you. Communicate with your readers on a regular basis. Advertise signings and appearances and use social media, or consider an online newsletter. Make your messages memorable, simple and clear. Always answer personal messages. Recently, I received an email from a student who got published. She thanked me for advice and encouragement, which meant a great deal to me. I really enjoy opportunities to get to know my readers, whether it’s a neighborhood book club, a book signing or a speaking opportunity.
Consider the acquisition of a logo. A logo is the bedrock, the very foundation of a brand, and represents what is unique about you and your work, in relation to the broader market. It communicates on a variety of levels to create a connection between you and your reader. The logo embodies the adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It must be memorable, and elicit emotional response and brand loyalty from the consumer. If the medium is the message, the logo is the medium that communicates the message that defines your brand.
Marketing is complex, and is as crucial to your brand as your book. I am a St. Louis author and my books are set in St. Louis. St. Louis locales, expressions, and traditions are utilized whenever possible. Usually, there is a “giveaway” item with a book purchase. For example, to highlight the Coral Court Motel setting in St. Louis Hustle, a replica key chain accompanied each purchase.
I also use visual props and costumes. A cardboard version of Dr. Thomas Spezia, fresh from The Doctor’s Tale, joins Shelby Swain from Tennessee Plates and Bunny Dingwerth from Crazy For You. In addition to bookstores, schedule appearances in places that relate to your brand. I wrote the music and lyrics for my CD, Night Rain, to complement my books, and I have signed both in record stores.
Oh, and about that photo...
In my original photograph, I wore a suit. I thought I looked professional. In fact, I was told I looked like a banker, or as one man said, “You look like Meryl Streep in The Manchurian Candidate.” I concluded that my creative image might have a problem. I consulted a professional photographer, and tried a different approach. The new photo appears on my website beside my logo, and by the biography at the end of each of my books, as well as synopses from my other novels.
Engage social media to convey and grow your new brand. Your brand is a valuable asset, and ultimately, the customer determines its worth and life cycle. Remember to protect it with trademark and copyright laws.
Finally, ensure that all types of social media communicate the same attributes of your brand. In everything you do, be consistent. Like Marilyn and Elvis, be an “original.”
Claire Applewhite is a St. Louis mystery writer and Acquisitions Editor for Smoking Gun Publishing, LLC. A graduate of St. Louis University, her published books include The Wrong Side of Memphis, Crazy For You, St. Louis Hustle, Candy Cadillac, Tennessee Plates, and The Doctor’s Tale. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Applewhite has served as a Past President of the Missouri Writers Guild and Board member of the Midwest Chapter, Mystery Writers of America. Organizational memberships include the St. Louis Metropolitan Press Club, St. Louis Writers Guild, Sisters in Crime, Ozark Writers League and Active member, Mystery Writers of America. She can be reached at www.claireapplewhite.com, www.clairedunoir.com or www.smokinggunpublishing.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
It's All About the Brand / Claire Applewhite
Branding is everything.Think about it. Have you ever tried to convince your kids that the generic version of their favorite cereal or clothing line is every bit as good as the one with the familiar logo they’re dying to buy? Ever try to convince yourself?We trust in brands, at least as a means of identifying our likes and dislikes quickly. Our favorite sports teams, restaurant chains, and department stores all have icons with which we associate, often on a deep emotional level.As a writer, it’s crucial that you set yourself apart from the rest of the market by distinguishing your work with a brand identity. Sounds mercenary? Maybe, but as guest blogger Claire Applewhite points out, the greatest entertainment legends of our time capitalized on this marketing technique to build more than a fanbase—a legacy.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
It’s All About the Brand
By Claire Applewhite
The year was 1959.
Marilyn Monroe wowed us with her drop-dead white halter dress in Some Like It Hot. Elvis Presley shocked us with his sultry style, and I Love Lucy loved Lucille Ball, famous for slapstick comedy and her signature red hair. In 1964, the Beatles performed on the Ed Sullivan Show with “long” hair that barely grazed their collars.
These remarkable icons may be gone, but memories of their unique style endure. While the concept of the “brand” is not new, technological advances provide a fresh awareness that “brand” can create a timeless legacy. For the author with a well-defined brand, strategic opportunity awaits.
What is a “brand?” A brand represents the attributes that you present to your readers, and how your readers perceive you and your creative ability. Clearly, it is crucial to develop and deliver the right message. You must know yourself and your personal attributes before you formulate your message. To gain insight, some soul searching is unavoidable. Consider the following questions:
- Why do you want to create this brand? What is your ultimate goal?
- What do you believe in?
- What are your fondest dreams?
- Who, or what, do you love?
- How do you spend your free time?
- If you received an unexpected financial windfall, how would you spend it?
- If you could be someone else, who would it be?
- What do you consider an unforgivable mistake?
- What is the thing you do best?
- List some adjectives to describe yourself.
Now, assess your current image. Is it consistent with your answers? How does it compare to the image you want to present? What changes, if any, do you need to make to achieve consistency? This is the time to make them.
Do you want to focus on a particular niche within your brand? If you want to carve out a niche brand, work to become an expert in that area. Research the characteristics of that niche, so that you can anticipate customer expectations. Review the adjectives you used to describe yourself and compare them to the niche that you have considered. Are the two lists consistent with your brand?
I have always loved mystery and romantic suspense novels and movies, and found that I usually gravitated toward the “noir” style—a subgenre of the mystery genre that focus on themes such as hard luck, obsession, loneliness and despair. The criminal aspects of the plot and the protagonist are intertwined. The characters are usually doomed before we even meet them, but following their descent is somehow fun, as we observe their entanglement in a web of their own doom. Several of my books—the ’Nam Noir series, and Crazy For You—fit this niche nicely.
Speaking of your customers, how well do you know them? What is it about your work that they find unique? Ask them what they think you do best. Their answers may surprise you. Communicate with your readers on a regular basis. Advertise signings and appearances and use social media, or consider an online newsletter. Make your messages memorable, simple and clear. Always answer personal messages. Recently, I received an email from a student who got published. She thanked me for advice and encouragement, which meant a great deal to me. I really enjoy opportunities to get to know my readers, whether it’s a neighborhood book club, a book signing or a speaking opportunity.
Consider the acquisition of a logo. A logo is the bedrock, the very foundation of a brand, and represents what is unique about you and your work, in relation to the broader market. It communicates on a variety of levels to create a connection between you and your reader. The logo embodies the adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It must be memorable, and elicit emotional response and brand loyalty from the consumer. If the medium is the message, the logo is the medium that communicates the message that defines your brand.
Marketing is complex, and is as crucial to your brand as your book. I am a St. Louis author and my books are set in St. Louis. St. Louis locales, expressions, and traditions are utilized whenever possible. Usually, there is a “giveaway” item with a book purchase. For example, to highlight the Coral Court Motel setting in St. Louis Hustle, a replica key chain accompanied each purchase.
I also use visual props and costumes. A cardboard version of Dr. Thomas Spezia, fresh from The Doctor’s Tale, joins Shelby Swain from Tennessee Plates and Bunny Dingwerth from Crazy For You. In addition to bookstores, schedule appearances in places that relate to your brand. I wrote the music and lyrics for my CD, Night Rain, to complement my books, and I have signed both in record stores.
Oh, and about that photo...
In my original photograph, I wore a suit. I thought I looked professional. In fact, I was told I looked like a banker, or as one man said, “You look like Meryl Streep in The Manchurian Candidate.” I concluded that my creative image might have a problem. I consulted a professional photographer, and tried a different approach. The new photo appears on my website beside my logo, and by the biography at the end of each of my books, as well as synopses from my other novels.
Engage social media to convey and grow your new brand. Your brand is a valuable asset, and ultimately, the customer determines its worth and life cycle. Remember to protect it with trademark and copyright laws.
Finally, ensure that all types of social media communicate the same attributes of your brand. In everything you do, be consistent. Like Marilyn and Elvis, be an “original.”
Claire Applewhite is a St. Louis mystery writer and Acquisitions Editor for Smoking Gun Publishing, LLC. A graduate of St. Louis University, her published books include The Wrong Side of Memphis, Crazy For You, St. Louis Hustle, Candy Cadillac, Tennessee Plates, and The Doctor’s Tale. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Applewhite has served as a Past President of the Missouri Writers Guild and Board member of the Midwest Chapter, Mystery Writers of America. Organizational memberships include the St. Louis Metropolitan Press Club, St. Louis Writers Guild, Sisters in Crime, Ozark Writers League and Active member, Mystery Writers of America. She can be reached at www.claireapplewhite.com, www.clairedunoir.com or www.smokinggunpublishing.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
How to Write Killer Emotions / DiAnn Mills
There are several things going on within a story: words, plot, characterization. But the thing that makes it human is the emotion. And the more emotion we can throw into our stories, the more they will resonate with readers.
DiAnn Mills provides a great checklist for helping us along. You might not be able to use all of her techniques within the same scene—or even the same story—but all are good reminders that we are human because we feel, and because we feel we are able to read words on a page and share a character’s joys and pains.
These are tricks to take us from good writing to great writing.
Write with passion!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
How to Write Killer Emotions
By DiAnn Mills
The first step in writing killer emotions is to understand a character’s unique temperament, wants, needs, flaws, desires, goals, challenges, and backstory. Once you know your character, you can fill your pages with their deepest feelings. According to Tonya Reiman in The Power of Body Language, there are seven universal emotions: surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, happiness, and contempt. Your character needs to experience all seven, and you have to take them there. But how?
Experts state that up to 90% of communication is nonverbal. Character-driven body language allows the writer to show, not tell, what a character is feeling. There are plenty of resources available online offering codified body language for you, but you can do a lot of real-life research by exercising your powers of observation. Watch the people around you carefully, and you’ll find clues about their feelings hidden in what they are physically doing.
Another technique that invites the reader into the experience is the writer’s usage of sensory perception. Emotions surface naturally as the writer describes what the character sees, hears, tastes, smells, and touches. The reader feels the character’s reactions and internalizes what is happening, much like children watching a movie. They select the character they want to be in the adventure, and are able to live the entertainment vicariously. Every word.
Symbolism, another literary device, touches the reader with emotion when a tangible item means something different than its physical property. A symbol cleverly inserted into the story—a word or phrase that points to a deeper meaning—provides a subtle way for the reader to understand the character’s internal workings. The weather, a number, rushing water, a quirky personality, the way the stars light up the night, and more.
Color inherently carries symbolic weight, and thus can affect the character and the reader. Here are a few examples:
Red is a passionate color that invokes strong emotions, while blue suggests sadness or serenity. Green symbolizes nature and growth, and purple often represents royalty, wealth, wisdom, and spirituality—and can also symbolize arrogance. Brown feels natural and down-to-earth, while pink feels romantic and feminine. White often signifies purity and innocence, and black usually reminds us of power, evil, death, and mourning. Gray blends the meanings of black and white, and symbolizes life and death in many circumstances.
Using emotions also means effective word choice. Diction is important and the sounds of our words usher in feelings. Novels involve conflict, and using hard consonants underscores the harsh sensations of stress and tension in confrontations. In gentler scenes, rely on words that end with “y”: they feel light, even fun—pretty, dainty, lovely, perky. Words with softer consonants are soothing. Adding a long vowel sound to a key moment can slow your reader’s heart rate.
The rhythm of our sentences also creates emotive responses. If a passage seems harsh when you desire to create a calm scene, then it’s time to edit. If your sentences contain a poetic lilt when you intend to show a violent scene, head back to the drawing board.
A bestselling writer purposefully places her character into heart-wrenching moments. Be honest. Be bold. Make the emotions raw. Hold back nothing. If you learn how to weave emotion and symbolism into your writing, you plunge your reader into your story and allow him or her to bond with a character who will never let them go.
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She combines unforgettable characters with unpredictable plots to create action-packed, suspense-filled novels.
Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests. Library Journal presented her with a Best Books 2014: Genre Fiction award in the Christian Fiction category for Firewall.
DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers; the 2015 president of the Romance Writers of America’s Faith, Hope, & Love chapter; a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, and International Thriller Writers. She speaks to various groups and teaches writing workshops around the country. She and her husband live in sunny Houston, Texas.
DiAnn is very active online and would love to connect with readers on any of the social media platforms listed at www.diannmills.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
How to Write Killer Emotions / DiAnn Mills
There are several things going on within a story: words, plot, characterization. But the thing that makes it human is the emotion. And the more emotion we can throw into our stories, the more they will resonate with readers.DiAnn Mills provides a great checklist for helping us along. You might not be able to use all of her techniques within the same scene—or even the same story—but all are good reminders that we are human because we feel, and because we feel we are able to read words on a page and share a character’s joys and pains.These are tricks to take us from good writing to great writing.Write with passion!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
How to Write Killer Emotions
By DiAnn Mills
The first step in writing killer emotions is to understand a character’s unique temperament, wants, needs, flaws, desires, goals, challenges, and backstory. Once you know your character, you can fill your pages with their deepest feelings. According to Tonya Reiman in The Power of Body Language, there are seven universal emotions: surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, happiness, and contempt. Your character needs to experience all seven, and you have to take them there. But how?
Experts state that up to 90% of communication is nonverbal. Character-driven body language allows the writer to show, not tell, what a character is feeling. There are plenty of resources available online offering codified body language for you, but you can do a lot of real-life research by exercising your powers of observation. Watch the people around you carefully, and you’ll find clues about their feelings hidden in what they are physically doing.
Another technique that invites the reader into the experience is the writer’s usage of sensory perception. Emotions surface naturally as the writer describes what the character sees, hears, tastes, smells, and touches. The reader feels the character’s reactions and internalizes what is happening, much like children watching a movie. They select the character they want to be in the adventure, and are able to live the entertainment vicariously. Every word.
Symbolism, another literary device, touches the reader with emotion when a tangible item means something different than its physical property. A symbol cleverly inserted into the story—a word or phrase that points to a deeper meaning—provides a subtle way for the reader to understand the character’s internal workings. The weather, a number, rushing water, a quirky personality, the way the stars light up the night, and more.
Color inherently carries symbolic weight, and thus can affect the character and the reader. Here are a few examples:
Red is a passionate color that invokes strong emotions, while blue suggests sadness or serenity. Green symbolizes nature and growth, and purple often represents royalty, wealth, wisdom, and spirituality—and can also symbolize arrogance. Brown feels natural and down-to-earth, while pink feels romantic and feminine. White often signifies purity and innocence, and black usually reminds us of power, evil, death, and mourning. Gray blends the meanings of black and white, and symbolizes life and death in many circumstances.
Using emotions also means effective word choice. Diction is important and the sounds of our words usher in feelings. Novels involve conflict, and using hard consonants underscores the harsh sensations of stress and tension in confrontations. In gentler scenes, rely on words that end with “y”: they feel light, even fun—pretty, dainty, lovely, perky. Words with softer consonants are soothing. Adding a long vowel sound to a key moment can slow your reader’s heart rate.
The rhythm of our sentences also creates emotive responses. If a passage seems harsh when you desire to create a calm scene, then it’s time to edit. If your sentences contain a poetic lilt when you intend to show a violent scene, head back to the drawing board.
A bestselling writer purposefully places her character into heart-wrenching moments. Be honest. Be bold. Make the emotions raw. Hold back nothing. If you learn how to weave emotion and symbolism into your writing, you plunge your reader into your story and allow him or her to bond with a character who will never let them go.
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She combines unforgettable characters with unpredictable plots to create action-packed, suspense-filled novels.
Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests. Library Journal presented her with a Best Books 2014: Genre Fiction award in the Christian Fiction category for Firewall.
DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers; the 2015 president of the Romance Writers of America’s Faith, Hope, & Love chapter; a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, and International Thriller Writers. She speaks to various groups and teaches writing workshops around the country. She and her husband live in sunny Houston, Texas.
DiAnn is very active online and would love to connect with readers on any of the social media platforms listed at www.diannmills.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
“Murder, mayhem, and mystery! Every story in KILLER NASHVILLE: COLD-BLOODED is filled with suspense, sizzle and startling twists. I loved it!”
- Lisa Jackson, New York Times Bestselling Author
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
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