KN Magazine: Articles

10/18/17 10/18/17

Lady Jayne Disappears / Joanna Davidson Politano

Mapping the Mystery Novel

I’ll be frank. I don’t consider myself a mystery writer, and I never set out to write a book in that genre. Yet when I created my debut novel, which is simply a collection of all my favorite elements rolled into one story, mystery naturally flowed into the plot. I figured if it was going to be there, it should be effective and surprising. I didn’t really know the tricks most mystery novelists used so I did one simple thing in my debut that made it all function together. I outlined my reader’s train of thoughts through the entire novel.

Different than a plot outline or scene sketches, this is a map detailing what I want my reader to be assuming is going on, what they should be thinking about this hint or that character. The key here is focusing on, and then upending, what your reader thinks is happening.

First, I dealt with the main story question. What did I want readers to think was the solution to the mystery posed as the story progressed? In my first novel Lady Jayne Disappears, the mystery centers around the missing Lady Jayne, mother to the heroine. Several hints point to evidence of a murder while others indicate possible villains, and I send the readers on a hunt for Lady Jayne’s killer. It’s a mystery of who killed Lady Jayne. Readers would analyze each character’s motivations and opportunity to kill her, thinking up various possible explanations for the mystery. Then when the heroine discovers partway through the novel that the victim is someone else entirely, it completely changes the significance of every clue, every character, and every situation. It also keeps the story fresh and interesting with a nice little twist.

Next I put my characters through this analysis. What do I want readers to think is this character’s purpose in the novel? Readers unconsciously label all the characters with roles as they keep track of motivations, relationships, and possible villains. If you disguise your villain as, say, a friend of the hero, you can then weave in plenty of lies that your readers will catalog as truth because they think this character’s purpose is to deliver hints or advise the hero.

Hints are easy to assess with this method, too. We’ve all heard of red herrings, those clues tossed in to purposefully send your reader-sleuths on the wrong trail—but take it further. What do I want the reader to believe is the significance of this item or that information? Have it clearly in your mind, then make sure to change directions on a few of them.

Knowing what the reader believes and assumes throughout your novel also makes it easier to see where you need to throw in a twist or a shock. If the story’s becoming too slow, look at your reader assumptions for that predictable point in the book and throw in the exact opposite of they would expect.

In Lady Jayne Disappears, my beginning few chapters seemed to smooth out into a nice little rut. The heroine had gone to live with her relatives and begun to search for information about her mother, and things were going as expected on a nice little mystery trajectory. I broke up that pleasant introductory section with the random intrusion of a man named Nathaniel Droll—which was the pen name her father had used to write his anonymous serial novels. It was a very nice “didn’t see that coming” moment right near the beginning of the book that opens a whole new thread of curiosity for the reader.

As you outline what you wish readers to know through the book, let the hero help you, too. He or she can “paint” what the reader is picking up on the same way music in a movie can tell you when to look for an ominous moment, a tender one, etc. Internal thoughts, physical reactions, and dialogue will set the tone of the scene. The hero’s “perceptions” might not always be right, but you’re painting a picture with them all the same—use that influence.

Mapping out your readers’ assumptions helps you roughly guide their journey through your novel, allowing you to make it surprising, thrilling, tense, or fresh whenever it’s needed. The key to all of this is to simply give readers something in the distance to stare at so they miss all the real clues when you drop them into their peripheral vision. They will be utterly surprised at the ending you’ve created but unable to deny the plausibility of it because of all the real clues you offered along the way. It’s not your fault if they missed them.

Well okay, maybe it is.

Joanna Davidson Politano is a freelance writer and debut novelist who spends as much time as possible spinning tales that capture the exquisite details of ordinary lives. She lives with her husband and their two babies in a house in the woods near Lake Michigan. Learn more at jdpstories.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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

*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.

10/4/17 10/4/17

Getting it Right / Irene Hannon

While I was working on my master’s degree in journalism, three rules were hammered into me and my classmates.

Accuracy…accuracy…accuracy.

Excellent advice for journalists—and also for novelists.

Because while our stories are made up, and the character are figments of our imagination, we write about real places…real law enforcement organizations…real military units…real careers…real medical issues. And people who have knowledge of all of those read our books. One mistake, and our credibility takes a huge hit.

So when I dive into a new book, research becomes a high priority.

Before I even begin connecting words on my laptop screen, I spend hours trolling online for any and all information that might be helpful.

That’s why, with my new release, Dangerous Illusions, I have 55 single-spaced pages of research notes and internet links on a host of topics—medical issues, homicide investigations, organized crime, forensic toxicology, private foundations, crime scene procedures, background checks, vital records accessibility, computer hacking, and internet connectivity in rural areas…to name a few.

Valuable as Web research is, however, it only takes me so far. At some point I need to run story-specific questions past an expert.

That’s where the process can get intimidating.

In fact, for many years the research challenge deterred me from diving into suspense. When I began writing novels, there was no internet (yes, I’ve been at this a while), and I had no contacts in law enforcement or the military. I was also reluctant to make cold calls.

So I shelved suspense and switched to contemporary romance. Most books in that genre do require research, but typically not at the same technical level as suspense.

Seventeen books and quite a few years later, I once again felt the urge to write suspense. At that point, the internet was available as a resource. Plus, I was acquainted with a detective captain in a large police department.

So I took the plunge. The result was my bestselling, award-winning Heroes of Quantico series.

Since then I’ve written thirteen romantic suspense novels…with more to come.

Along the way, I’ve discovered that once you have a source or two, it’s much easier to expand your network of experts. My detective friend ended up putting me in touch with a U.S. marshal, who was instrumental in helping me get it right with two books in my Guardians of Justice series—Fatal Judgment, which featured marshals protecting a federal judge, and Lethal Legacy, which involved the WitSec program. Both of these were bestselling award winners too.

Through existing sources, I’ve connected with a just-retired FBI agent, forensic anthropologist, medical examiner, private investigator, and countless others.

I also got over my aversion to cold calls—and found that once you’re an established author, most people are more than happy to answer questions about their profession.

That said, I’m very careful not to overuse my sources. If I can find information on the Web, I do. I respect my sources’ time and don’t waste it by asking questions that can be answered with online research. As a result, when I do need them, they are very responsive.

While I’ve never paid anyone to provide information, I do thank those who help me in a concrete way with a gift card to Starbucks or Panera. I want them to know how grateful I am for their help—because truth be told, I would never attain the level of precision I aspire to without their input.

And the professionals in the fields I write about who read my books appreciate my commitment to accuracy. I’ll give you my favorite example.

My first suspense novel, Against All Odds, featured the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, and the plot involved a diplomat’s daughter and a hostage standoff in the Middle East.

A few months after it released, a short—and odd—note arrived in my inbox. It said, “I enjoyed reading your novel—but I chewed tobacco, not cigars.”

That didn’t make sense…until I checked the signature line.

The note was from a former HRT commander—who happened to have the same first name as my fictional commander.

I wrote back at once to assure him my character wasn’t based on him and that the name was just a coincidence. His response was gracious—and he also said that while he didn’t expect me to divulge my sources, he was impressed by the realism of the book, right down to the actual radio call signs the HRT used.

That made my day.

Do non-expert readers realize the effort required to nail down that kind of detail?

Perhaps not.

But I’m betting they do recognize the ring of authenticity in my books.

And I’m convinced that getting it right can help set an author apart—and contribute to best-sellerdom.

Irene Hannon is the bestselling, award-winning author of more than fifty contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels. In addition to her many other honors, she is a three-time winner of the prestigious RITA Award from Romance Writers of America (the “Oscar” of romance fiction) and a member of that organization’s elite Hall of Fame. In 2016, she received a Career Achievement award from RT Book Reviews magazine for her entire body of work. A former communications executive with a Fortune 500 company, she has no regrets about leaving behind the rush-hour commute and corporate politics to focus on fiction. She loves to interact with readers on Facebook, and invites you to visit her website: irenehannon.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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

9/26/17 9/26/17

Here’s a Story Prompt / Blake Fontenay

Here’s a story prompt:

A middle-aged man is sitting at a stoplight. An attractive young woman pulls alongside him.

“Is your bumper sticker for Star Trek?” she asks.

“No, Trek bicycles,” he stammers.

“That’s lame,” she says, holding up an arm bearing a tattoo with the serial numbers of the Starship Enterprise. Before he can come up with a clever reply, she speeds away…

As a writer, there are about a million different directions you could go with that story, but I didn’t come up with that prompt on my own. It’s an anecdote a friend posted on Facebook.

A lot of people have come to regard Facebook and its social media ilk as monumental time sucks – and they can be. I’ve personally lost too much time cruising Facebook when I could have been writing.

There is, however, an upside for writers hanging out on social media, even when they’re not promoting their work. When used properly, social media can be a terrific source of creative inspiration.

Let me start off by saying that I don’t think there’s any honor in warming over someone else’s reality and calling it fiction. I get mildly annoyed when people ask me if Character X in my stories is Person Y in real life.

It just doesn’t work that way, at least for me. There’s no doubt that real people and real life experiences inform my fiction writing. I don’t believe most authors pull their ideas out of thin air. We’ve all got bits and pieces of writing material floating around in our heads that hopefully we can weave together in original ways to produce bestselling books.

To get what we need to create our stories, we have to find out what’s going on in the world around us. In olden times, aspiring authors might have done this by hanging out at shopping malls or movie theaters to watch people interact with each other.

The trouble is that with the advent of Amazon and Netflix, nobody goes to shopping malls or movie theaters any more.

So what’s a good way to find out what real people are doing, thinking and feeling? Go to where they are - the Land of Political Rants and Cat Videos.

Let’s face it: Social media have helped us learn things about our friends, acquaintances and third cousins of our elementary school classmates that we would have never learned in a lifetime of normal interactions with them.

We find out that the worker across the hall is coping with the terminal illness of a relative. Or the neighbor down the street is a ballroom dancing champion. Or a childhood crush has that one awful habit that you absolutely cannot stand.

There’s a lot of great material out there. But it should be used wisely and ethically.

It’s obviously wrong to take unaltered facts and present them as fiction, particularly if they could cause embarrassment to the real people involved. But there are a lot of times when a writer can take a kernel of truth and transform it into a sumptuous ear of fire-roasted literary corn.

Take the example I used at the beginning of this post. (In case you were wondering, I did get my friend’s permission to use his story.) In reality, my friend just sat in his car, trying to think of a snappy comeback, while the pretty woman who never talks to guys his age sped away.

What could have happened next, in the wonderful world of fiction? Maybe she jumped out of her car and into his, brandishing a gun and telling him to give up his wallet and get out. Or what if he watched her car drive away, followed closely by a black van driven by a menacing-looking man, then he decided to follow them? What if her car got half a block away, then exploded? (I remember a writing seminar where one of the panelists said one of the best ways to overcome writer’s block is to “blow up a car,” so I always keep that as an option.)

The possibilities are limitless, which is the fun. You could take that one scene, which lasted no more than a few seconds, and spin it into a 100,000-word novel.

I’m not suggesting that people should get all of their story ideas from social media. You can learn a lot just by sitting on a park bench at lunch hour. Or by recapping the daily grind with your significant other.

What I am saying is that we blame social media, at least partly, for the decline in interest some people have in reading books. Why not use social media to harvest ideas that may help rekindle their interest in books again?

Not even Spock could fault that logic.

Blake Fontenay is the author of three novels. His most recent, A Three Team Town, is available for order on Amazon.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

9/19/17 9/19/17

Beauty and Brutality in the Southern Mystery/Thriller by Bryan Eugene Robinson

As a Buddhist and writer, looking back on my Southern upbringing, I am fascinated with the Tao or coexistence of opposites — shrouded in darkness and mystery. Nowhere is this paradox more striking than in the customs, natural beauty, and brutality of the southern United States.

Where I come from, we serve sweet iced tea and call you “honey” even if we don’t know you. We ask you to “come back” as you leave, even if we don’t want you to. We scrape our feet at your front door whether or not they’re dirty to show respect before entering your house. We offer you food, even if we don’t have any left, praying you’ll say “no, thank you.” While we’re eating one meal, we talk about the next one over fried chicken, rice and gravy, and homemade biscuits. Before we badmouth somebody, we preface it with, “Bless her heart” so we sound respectable. And we say, “yawl” to make sure everybody’s included.

But there’s a brutal underbelly to this genteel Southern hospitality. Many of us — not me of course — dodder along in our pickups, throwing friendly hand-waves at strangers, shotguns mounted firmly in gun racks behind our heads “just in case.” The innocent-looking church ladies planning a reunion under the shade trees in the churchyard welcome you with open arms, then gossip and shun you behind closed doors because you’re “different.” If you’re from Florida looking to buy mountain land, you’re out of luck. Mountain folk call Floridians “Southern Yankees,” and smile and point them in the wrong direction.

Southern traditions — the savory food, cloaked messages full of contradictions, dysfunctional relationships, and deep pockets of religious fundamentalism — exemplify the beauty/brutality paradox. As a child I remember camp meetings where fireflies punctuated the dark summer sky and believers fanned away the sweltering heat as they gathered under huge tents to worship. I loved to peek through slits in the tents to watch preachers scream warnings of the devil and threats of burning in hell. I watched worshipers’ arms raised to the heavens, clapping their hands, speaking in tongues, running up and down aisles, sometimes cutting cartwheels in ecstasy as they became “slain in the spirit.”

Classic Southern fiction — from Tennessee Williams to Flannery O’Connor to Pat Conroy — have excavated these fundamentalist religious traditions, teasing to the surface the underlying dysfunction with one suspicion, one misunderstanding, and one murder at a time. Like old varnish, they peel off the veneer of deeply flawed, eccentric characters hiding behind a façade of respectability and superiority. Southern mystery writer John Hart said, “Family dysfunction makes for rich literary soil. It’s a place to cultivate secrets and misdeeds where betrayal cuts deeply, pain lingers, and memory becomes timeless.”

The natural beauty and wildlife of the South also reflect the paradox. The embroidered branches of sprawling live oaks droop with heavy beards of Spanish moss, stretching low to brush the lush vegetation. Blooming azaleas burst with color, the humid evening breeze carrying perfume of Confederate jasmine, honeysuckle, night blooming cereus, and gardenias and magnolias. The night calls of whippoorwills and hoot owls and the monotonous droning of tree frogs echo across a moonlit sky.

On the flipside, we observe the brutality. Underneath Florida’s Suwannee River, stunning marine life and primeval underwater caves — some as tall as ten-story buildings, wide as three football fields — draw divers across the world. Eerie lime rock formations, resembling gargoyles and screaming faces, carved for thousands of years by the Suwannee cut through prehistoric limestone. At night, river dwellers sit around campfires on the river’s sandy shores, complaining about motorboats scarring the backs of endangered prehistoric manatee. Or they tell stories of lost divers drowning in the twisted, turning underwater caves, stretching miles beneath the earth — cavers running out of air, stabbing each other with dive knives to steal a last breath from their partner’s tanks. Tales of corpses wrapped in tangled guidelines, entombed like mummies, arms tightly pinned against their stiff bodies. Stories of bodies so bloated that rescue teams have to pry them out of narrow passageways. And of goodbye messages hastily carved in limestone walls during final dying breaths.

One night I sat around a campfire listening to the harrowing tales, watching campfire shadows dance like ghostsagainst the white Florida sand, trying to ignore my thudding heart and the chills that lifted the hair on the back of my neck. That’s when it hit me: “I have to write about this.” I started to read or re-read all of my favorite Southern novelists among them Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Pat Conroy, John Hart, Flannery O’Connor, Fannie Flagg, James Lee Burke, and Zora Neal Hurston.

I researched cave diving and actual cases of divers drowning in the caves. I listened and watched the people and customs of locals with the ardor of an anthropologist (Margaret Mead would be pleased). I read the history of the area, including a 1948 novel, SERAPH ON THE SUWANNEE by famed novelist Zora Neal Hurston. I frequently kayaked the Suwannee, tubed down Itchtuknee Springs, and listened to locals’ tales about the history of the area. I read books about the Florida laws and dangers of underwater cave diving, conducted Internet research, and interviewed local expert dive outfitters about the technical aspects of their underwater treks.

Influenced by my favorite Southern writers, I used many traditional “noir” themes in my debut novel LIMESTONE GUMPTION: A BRAD POPE AND SISTERFRIENDS MYSTERY. My protagonist is 35-year-old psychologist and reluctant sleuth, Dr. Brad Pope, who finds himself accused of a murder he must solve to save himself. When the police drop the ball, he outsmarts the cops by relying on his own psychological wits and instincts as he unravels a tangle of murder and intrigue. He confronts his tortured, dysfunctional past and a finger-wagging grandmother who heads a sinister garden club – six quirky women of a certain age who at first glance look like sweet little church ladies. Upon Pope’s closer investigation, however, they appear to be cold-blooded murderers. Glued together because of a sinister secret, the women are not exactly sisters but are more than friends, hence “Sisterfriends.” Their biggest claim to fame is the garden they tend under the welcome sign on the outskirts of town, where passersby wonder what they planted there.

Striking a balance between the beauty and brutality of small-town Southern life without idealizing it, yet without vilifying it, was a challenge: the mixed messages of the townspeople, macabre ironic events, religious zeal fraught with dysfunctional relationships, and a penchant for exotic homemade foods. Writing the novel required suspension of judgment and a bird’s-eye view to show the Tao as it exists in nature. There are many truths to be mined in the darkness of the South, few strictly good or bad. Truth contains elements of both, and all of us, writers and readers alike, are stuck with that paradoxical mix for life.

Bryan E. Robinson is a licensed psychotherapist and author of two novels and 40 nonfiction books. He applies his experiences to crafting insightful nonfiction self-help books and psychological thrillers. His multi-award winning southern noir murder mystery, Limestone Gumption, won the New Apple Book Medal for best psychological suspense, the Silver IPPY Award for outstanding mystery of the year, the Bronze Foreword Review INDIEFAB Book Award for best mystery, and the 2015 USA Regional Excellence Book Award for best fiction in the Southeast.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

9/5/17 9/5/17

OUTLINING IN REVERSE / Michael H. Rubin

Some authors start with a detailed outline of their novel and know every plot point before they write the first word. Others avoid preparing an advance blueprint, confident that the story will unfold as they work.

My wife, Ayan, and I (who write jointly under the name of “Michael H. Rubin”) approach the process differently from both those who need to know every aspect of their storyline before they start and those who do not plan ahead, assuming that the plot develop once they begin.

In the case of both our debut novel, the award-winning historical thriller, The Cottoncrest Curse, and our new contemporary legal thriller, Cashed Out, the main characters and the arcs of the story were fleshed out during our daily, early morning power walks. And I do mean early—we head out at 4:30 a.m. each morning.

We delve into who our primary characters will be, conjuring up their backgrounds and motivations. We decide how the book should start, brainstorming catchy first sentences and ideas for a compelling first chapter. We also confer about the overarching plot of the story, focusing on two or three crucial events in addition to potential endings. But, we do not commit any of this to paper. Our conversations allow our story to develop within a fluid framework. It is only after the essential building blocks of our thrillers have been established that we actually start writing.

Because we don’t prepare an outline in advance, we’re not locked into any specific path. Our story and characters can evolve as we write. In The Cottoncrest Curse, for example, we originally conceived of Dr. François Cailleteau, a grizzled, plain-talking former Confederate war physician, as a minor player. As we wrote, however, it became clear to us that he was a key ingredient, both to provide some of the necessary historical background that undergirds the action and to facilitate the plot. Ultimately, we expanded the role we had initially intended for him. Likewise, in Cashed Out, Washington Eby, an elderly next-door neighbor whom we originally thought of as only a comic foil, developed into a fully-rounded character whose interactions with the protagonist became key components of the novel.

Although we never begin with a written outline, we “outline in reverse.” In other words, once we write a chapter, we jot down general information concerning that chapter on a spreadsheet. As each new chapter is drafted, the essence of its contents gets added to the spreadsheet. This helps us in several ways.

First, it aids us in keeping continuity straight. Did characters say or do something in chapter 14 that is unintentionally at odds with what they said or did in chapter 3? Keeping an outline in reverse helps us avoid inadvertent continuity errors that can creep into a manuscript.

Second, a reverse outline is extremely useful in keeping timeframes aligned, especially in a novel like The Cottoncrest Curse, where part of the story is set in the post-Reconstruction era and part in the 1960s.

Third, a reverse outline is invaluable when you’re trying to locate something you wrote in a prior chapter so that you can properly reflect the foreshadowing you built in while composing earlier portions of the manuscript. Although computers can electronically search for words you used, they won’t help you find concepts you had introduced, plot points you had staked out, or twists and clues you had added. That’s where a reverse outline comes in handy.

Fourth, once a manuscript is finally completed and it’s time to write a synopsis, a reverse outline provides a quick way to review the entire storyline in detail.

We’ve found that the reverse outline method saves us from being straight-jacketed into a pre-ordained plot. We prefer not to spend time creating a detailed outline in advance because we do not want to tire of the story before we even start writing it. Likewise, employing the reverse outline method in conjunction with our intimate knowledge of the main characters and the primary arc of the novel before committing anything to the page lets the story and characters evolve as we write while simultaneously enabling us to see where we’ve been. It’s like having a back-up camera in a car that works in tandem with the rear-view mirror. You need to pay attention to what’s in front of you, but when you have to look backwards, it’s reassuring to know that you’re getting the clearest and broadest view possible.

Michael H. Rubin heads the appellate team of a law firm with offices from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast to the East Coast and is a speaker and humorist who has given more than 400 multimedia presentations throughout the United States. He received the Burton Award at the Library of Congress for outstanding writing and is a member of the Authors Guild, the Mystery Writers of America, the International Thriller Writers, and the International Association of Crime Writers. Ayan Rubin has been a developmental book editor, a nonprofit consultant, and, for almost three decades, the Coordinator of the Educational Services Division of Louisiana Public Broadcasting, a state-wide television network. Writing under the name of “Michael H. Rubin,” they are the authors of the award winning historical thriller, The Cottoncrest Curse, released by LSU Press, and of the contemporary legal thriller, Cashed Out, which will be released by Fiery Seas Publishing on August 15, 2017.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

8/9/17 8/9/17

What You Always Wanted To Ask A Bookseller, But Were Afraid To Ask / Donna VanBraswell

It was the second day of April in Savannah, Georgia. I wanted to check off an activity on my bucket list: Interview a Bookseller. Spying The Book Lady Bookstore, I jaywalked across the busy street of East Liberty and walked the few steps down into #6. It was small, with low, dark-wooded beamed ceilings. The main room was crowded with new and used books. I milled around the shelves and crept into nooks wondering what treasure I might find.

The treasure turned out to be just a few feet from the entrance. His name was Chris Blaker. He was a youngish, handsome-ish, and cautious manager of the store. After a rather inept attempt of explaining that I wanted to pick his brain and a request for honest answers, we commenced.

The questions began in earnest, but they were from Chris. Who are you? Why did you stop here? What are you going to do with the information? Who will read your blog? Are you a published author?

I felt he was trying to subtly determine if I had a book to sell, that day.

I answered the questions as best as I could stutter out. My name is Donna VanBraswell. I stopped at this store because I’d sent an email requesting an interview with the manager of E Shaver Bookseller and hadn’t heard back, thus this cold call. My plan, I explained, was twofold, to write a blog for Killer Nashville and to present the information verbally at my writers meetings.

The atmosphere became more charged. He asked, “Are you published?” This is where things are tricky in the bookseller’s world. I was glad (for once) that I could honestly say that my novel wasn’t at that point, yet. He didn’t have to worry that his time would be wasted on someone trying to cozy up to him. PHEW! He wouldn’t have to say, ‘Unless you have a traditional publisher, I’m not talking to you.’ or, ‘If you are self-published, don’t let the door to hit you in the buttocks as you make your way back to Amazon.’

Guards were dropped and information began to flow. The more questions that were asked, the more Chris warmed up to explaining the ins-and-outs of his shop.

Here is a brief summary of my questions and his answers:

A traditionally published crime novelist, I’ll call her Jane, was sent to a book signing in Las Vegas. Only five people came. Jane’s “top-five” publisher explained that they sent her there to meet with the store manager and the workers. They need to have a familiarity with her because they would talk about her book and hopefully make a sale. From another source, a different publisher indicated that these low-turnout events are sometimes the price you pay for being an author. What is your take on this?
- Chris agreed that the authors need to interface with bookstore people. The author doesn’t want to “kiss their rears, so-to-speak” but it’s good to express interest in their store as opposed to sending out a postcard announcing the new book. Also, “from an author’s point of view, it’s a lot harder to say no to a person face-to-face. So, you may get your book in a store, just because it’s hard to say no to a person face-to-face with you, and the book is on the margins.” He said one shouldn’t be disappointed with a bad turnout. Two possibilities for this came to his mind, bad weather and/or everyone was at a Van Halen concert.
- --- So, I really liked Chris at this point. ---
- Chris went on to say that a part-time resident of Savannah, George Green, has 3 books and 2 movies under his belt. He drove from New York City to the Barnes and Nobles in Connecticut in a snowstorm and one person showed up. She had come to the bookstore because her heat was out. He read the whole book for her. At the end of the event, she said that that was very nice and she might get it when it comes out in paperback.

The Book Lady Bookstore is small, maybe a couple thousand books, how do you choose the number of each new title? One or two at a time? Or do you keep extras in a storage room?
- If it has good reviews, they know the author, or they are interested in the subject, they will typically try two. If one sells, then they would order another. Based on quick sales, they may increase the order number to five or more, to stay in stock.
- How often are you approached by the big five to get books into your store?
  - Not that often. They may send advance reader copies once a month, but The Book Lady Bookstore is off the beaten path and Savannah is a smaller city. They don’t have a lot of contact with the big five publishers.
  - How often are you approached by the indie publishers? Not their authors, but the actual publishing company
    - Not that often. They are much easier to get in touch with than a large corporate network. They don’t come into the store very often because they are very busy. Just as he (Chris) doesn’t go to their offices because of his work schedule.

What can you tell us? Do you have hints to getting traditional and non-traditional published books into an independent bookstore? (This is where Chris got very real.)
- Go to the store and see what they are about. See what kind of books they carry. Determine if your book is a good fit for their store. Buy a book. Don’t just show up without an appointment. (Ooops! Tried that. Didn’t work.) It assumes our time isn’t valuable. If it’s your first and only time in the store… (he paused to choose his wording carefully) …it’s like calling your parents only to ask for money. The author is hitting someone up for a favor without establishing a relationship. (WOW!)
- The promotion of the book is also partly the author’s job. Some self-published authors have a field-of-dreams mindset – If I Write It, They Will Come. He counters, if you write a book and place it on the shelf without promotion, it will go nowhere. You have to be on social media. Tell your friends. Tell strangers about your book. You have to perpetually promote it.

My final question: When the Book Lady Bookstore has a signing, how much publicity will you provide?
- They are on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. However, Chris believes that Facebook is the only one that counts. They will promote the signing two weeks out, one week out and then the day of the signing. They use the email service, Constant Contact, for a widespread email notice two weeks prior, then a few days before the event as a reminder. Occasionally, they will make fliers or posters. It is incumbent on the authors to do as much publicity as they can.

I came away feeling that at least this bookseller is comfortable with non-Big Five and self-published book providers. I had to leave immediately, but came back the next day with another thank you, and, purchased a book.

Donna’s Bucket List

Go to Europe

Interview a bookseller

Be blessed with a grandchild

Finish first novel, Daughter of the Ancients

Get published

Many thanks to Chris Blaker and everyone at The Book Lady Bookstore, 6 East Liberty St., Savannah, GA 912-233-3628. http://www.thebookladybookstore.com/

Donna VanBraswell is an army brat. She’s lived from Alaska to Turkey and many places in between. This nomadic life provided a wide variety of influences, both with people and environments. Upon retiring as a senior software engineer, she started writing in earnest almost two years ago, after her husband, Jim, was transferred to Colorado. She joined a critique/writers group in Colorado Springs, CSWriters. The long days and evenings were filled with the writing of her first novel, The Daughter Of The Ancients.

This wonderful group helped her to learn the ins-and-outs of starting a novel, providing valued lessons that she still applies. Upon returning to Alabama, she joined two more critique groups and one national group, Sisters In Crime (SinC). Donna attended her first conference, Killer Nashville, in 2016.

In addition to writing, she enjoys hiking and volunteering at a Veteran’s Retirement home and her church. Donna will be attending the next Killer Nashville conference anxious to meet many more people that enjoy writing as much as she does.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

7/26/17 7/26/17

Sorry I Murdered Someone in Your Kitchen / Kevin O’Brien

Setting can be a tricky component to your story. People only seem to notice it if it's done incorrectly or otherwise breaks the emersion. That's why a common piece of advice is to keep your setting close to home, a place where you know every crack in the sidewalk and can create a truly relatable scenario. This week's guest blogger, Kevin O'Brien, discusses just that.

Happy reading!

Clay Stafford

Founder Killer Nashville

Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine

In my new thriller, Hide Your Fear, my heroine makes an appointment with a male prostitute to question him about a stalker. I wasn’t sure what Seattle neighborhood to use for the prostitute’s apartment building. A famous author friend lives in a high rise in Seattle’s Belltown — not far from the outdoor Sculpture Park. It seemed ideal. So — I set the scene there, with my heroine arriving early and having an introspective moment in the park before her appointment. Just as she crosses the street to go into the building, the prostitute plunges nine stories from his balcony and crashes on top of someone’s Prius parked on the street.

I hope my writer friend never finds out.

They say when coming up with locales for a book, beginning authors shouldn’t stray far from their own backyards. After eighteen novels, I still set my thrillers in my own backyard — scenic, soggy Seattle.

Thanks to the rain, it’s a perfect city for chills and thrills. And with all the surrounding forests and bodies of water, my fictional murderers always have a perfect spot to dump a body.

Of course, I work some of Seattle’s landmarks into my thrillers. The Space Needle and Volunteer Park (24 acres of lawn, trees, gardens and trails) have figured prominently in several of my books. The Experience Music Project was in Unspeakable. In Terrified, there was a kidnapping by the Freemont Troll statue (a “monster” sculpture — grasping a life-size VW bug — under a major bridge). And in No One Needs to Know, a woman was hurled down the Howe Street Stairs — 388 steps connecting one Seattle neighborhood to another.

People love seeing a city’s landmarks in novels. If they’ve visited there, they feel like they’re seeing the place again. If they’ve never visited, they feel like they’re taking a trip there.

But not everyone has been happy that I’ve cast their neighborhood haunts in a sinister light.

In Final Breath, I killed a character in the women’s room at an old “art house” movie theater, the Harvard Exit. The victim was a young woman who kept checking her phone messages during the movie. She finally ducked into a stall in the restroom to make a call. The killer reached under the partition, grabbed her by the ankles, dragged her out of the stall and slit her throat. I received several emails from women who said they were afraid to use the restroom in the Harvard Exit, because of Final Breath. I was really kind of hoping it would make people more afraid to use their phones in movie theaters during the film.

A neighbor was doubly upset with me, not only because she was scared to use the bathroom at the Harvard Exit after Final Breath, but because I made her favorite jogging path through Volunteer Park the site of a woman’s fatal abduction in Vicious.

Because these locales are real and familiar to me, it’s easier for me to make the scary fictional events in these spots seem realistic. And I never have to go far to find the right location for a crime scene.

“I can’t pass that duplex at the end of our block without imagining a woman getting hacked to death in the upstairs unit,” another neighbor complained to me. I modeled my heroine’s apartment in Killing Spree after a grey two-story duplex on my street. My neighbor used to walk his dog past it twice a day.

Now he’s changed his dog-walking route.

A writer friend, David Massengill, lived in that upstairs unit when I was writing the book. So — it was his kitchen ceiling that in Killing Spree had drops of blood which would later be a clue to the killing. Dave, Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain) and I are in the same writers group. Dave has lived in several different apartments over the years. He recently pointed out during a writers group session that I’ve used nearly all of his apartments for scenes of murder or terror in my books. “No wonder you keep moving,” Garth said.

I’ve found there are perks to using local businesses for locales in my thrillers. I always make sure to let these establishments know they were mentioned in my books — and it’s been good for free publicity and more sales. After a character ordered pizza from a Seattle staple, Pagliacci, in Killing Spree, I got certificates for two free pizzas in the mail. I was also treated to a free dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, That’s Amore, after a couple had a date there in Vicious.

Of course, I’ve gotten in good with local book merchants by setting scenes of intrigue in their stores.

But sometimes, it can backfire. I live in the city, and gave up my car ages ago. For long trips, I rent a car at a local Enterprise dealer. Not long ago, I was there, filling out paperwork for a trip to Portland while the representative checked my reservation. “Wait a minute, Kevin O’Brien? I know you,” the man said. “You wrote One Last Scream…”

I was really flattered he knew me and my books. “Did you like it?” I asked.

“You got me in trouble with my boss!” the man replied. “In that book, you had a woman rent a car here. Then she went into our restroom, and you described it as ‘grimy!’”

I told the man the same thing I tell everyone when they’re not too happy to find I’ve brought murder and mayhem into their neighborhood, their work place or their home.

“Well, it’s only fiction,” I said.

Before his thrillers landed him on the New York Times Bestseller list, Kevin O’Brien was a railroad inspector. The author of 18 internationally published thrillers, he won the Spotted Owl Award for Best Pacific Northwest Mystery, was Guest of Honor at Killer Nashville, and is a core member of Seattle 7 Writers. Press & Guide said: “If Alfred Hitchcock were alive today and writing novels, his name would be Kevin O’Brien.” Kevin’s latest nail-biter, Hide Your Fear, will be in bookstores this summer. He’s hard at work on his 19th novel. Contact him at kevinobrienbooks.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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

7/19/17 7/19/17

Writing the “Near” Alternate History Mystery / John Hegenberger

The majority of what we call “historical mystery” takes place during or before WWII. It used to be that the term “antique” could only be applied to things over 100 years old. But now it frequently includes items from as recent as the 1960s. Blame it on the increasing pace of today’s electronic life, but there is now a growing interest in thrillers that take place less than fifty years ago- especially if they involve a fascinating setting, theme, or character.

The Stan Wade, LA PI series, including my novel, STARFALL, is an example of a Near Alternate History Mystery.

STARFALL is an adventure story of a Los Angeles private eye who gets hooked up with several well-known personalities of the time. The idea is to take the reader back to a specific time and place, so they can vicariously experience the fun and mystery of another, not-too-distant world.

For example, Stan’s office is in a cramped little room at the back of the Brown Derby restaurant, which lets him and the reader encounter several famous Hollywood stars and other notables of the day. The boat where he lives is moored out where they’re dredging what will one day be the glamorous Marina del Rey. And his biggest client is a movie producer, whose initials are W.D. and who is secretly connected to the FBI.

Stan is hired to figure out who murdered the 8th candidate for what today we know as the Mercury 7 astronauts.

You would think that in 1959 L.A. everything was calm and quaint on the outside, but underneath we all had fall-out shelters and knew the world could end it any moment.

Where did you get the idea for STARFALL?

I came to the idea by thinking about all the great television shows that originally aired when I was a kid. What would happen, I wondered, if the characters of these programs had to team up and deal with the real historical events of the time? In other words, what if someone like Mike Hammer were to visit 77 Sunset Strip in order to work with Sky King or Joe Friday to help stop the commies or organized crime in L.A.

What is the setting of this series of books?

Stan and his associates live in the Los Angeles of 1959. I fell in love with the year 1959. It seems to me that the majority of great private investigators worked out of Los Angeles at one era or another, and I want to put the reader in a setting that’s full of wonder and historical significance.

Historical fact or alternate history fiction?

The beauty of the Historical Alternate History Mystery is that practically every celebrity in Los Angeles 1959 becomes part of the Stan Wade saga. Bobby Darin, Lloyd Bridges, John Ford, Mickey Cohen, Jack Benny, George Reeves, John Wayne, Ross MacDonald, Noel Coward, John Steinbeck, Philip K. Dick, and the Kingston Trio. As well as significant places like Pacific Ocean Park, Marineland, the Hollywood Playhouse, all gone… but not forgotten.

1959 was an important point in time when:

We still used the Univac to predict election outcomes.
The first color TV programs were broadcasted.
First use of those beeping hospital vital signs monitors.
Secret Soviet missile bases in Germany pointed at the UK.
Alaska and Hawaii become states.

At the back of each book in the series I’ve added “The Fact Behind the Fiction” which details the truth and gives deeper insight into the hidden underpinnings of our world today that began back in 1959.

Does your series have a support team?

One of Stan’s friends is what we today would call a “geek.” Norman “Weirdo” Weirick has a knack for inventing proto-types of the devices we find common today. He has successfully cobbled together a car phone, fax machine and several other tools like a parabolic microphone which were only just beginning to be thought of in 1959. Norman is also a big fan of science fiction which is why writers like Philip K Dick and Rod Serling show up in some of the stories.

Do you change the world? Does the world change your characters?

Interesting question. I would say that in all cases the world changes them. These are tales of discovery, sometimes external but most times internal. However, in many cases the characters are not aware that they have changed the world. For instance back in 1959, Stan Wade rescues a little boy who has fallen into a dangerous situation. Later he learns the boy’s name is George Bush, which means nothing to him at the time, but everything to the reader today.

Can you describe your interest in these historical periods versus contemporary times?

I’ve lived through a lot, so why not share a little? I try and put as much of my own past into the historical fiction that I share with readers. I love fiction when it blends with history. I think the sub-genre is called “Secret Histories.” A good example is Nicholas Meyer’s “The Seven Percent Solution,” where Sherlock Holmes meets Freud. John Jakes wrote “The Bastard” series that placed his characters in critical historical points from the pre-revolutionary war to the 1930s, loaded with famous Americans. The “Young Indiana Jones Chronicles” used to run on TV and the main characters met John Ford, Mata Hari and Lawrence of Arabia. We don’t know everything about the past, so the door is slightly open for fun “what-if” adventures.

If you wrote like that with all the fantastic things happening to a character in today’s setting, it would seem flat-out impossible. But by placing the story back in a historical period, readers can suspend their disbelief as I have my private eye character, Stan Wade, meet Walt Disney, George Reeves, Mickey Cohan, Johnny Mercer and Bobby Darin, all in the same week.

Are there other books in the series?

You bet! During one of the novels in the series, STARFALL, Stan has to figure out who murdered the 8th candidate for what today we know as the Mercury 7 astronauts. In another of the novels, a TV actor vanishes into the witness protection program, while the world still thinks he’s committed suicide.

Yes, Stan also appears in:

SPYFALL

In September 1959, someone is out for revenge against a young L.A. PI who has to travel outside the country and his own comfort zone to discover the secret life of Ian Fleming and stop a nuclear threat to Europe that remained classified until 2012.

SPADEFALL

In December 1959, a hard-luck PI risks life and livelihood in search of a lost Hammett manuscript, where Sam Spade meets the Continental Op, and confronts a frustrated Hitchcock in Hollywood, a young Jack Ruby in Dallas, and a Neo-Nippon threat in America’s new 50th state.

SUPERFALL

In June 1959, America’s TV superhero took a bullet to the head in an apparent suicide. But was it? And is he really dead? A Hollywood PI comes to grips with his ideals and a host of Mob and Soviet intrigue.

The latest book in the series is STORMFALL

In October 1959, a young, hard-luck PI is lost in America, determined to untangle a series of grisly murders spreading like a disease from the set of The Alamo. Fighting for his life from a dry desert storm, to a mind-bending fog in San Francisco, and a snow-blinding mountain top outside Hollywood, Stan Wade gropes his way through drug-induced, false trails to outwit an aggressive, obsessive mass killer.

You can find a link to all my books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and on my website at johnhegenberger.com

Award-winning author, John Hegenberger has produced more than a dozen books since mid-2015, including several popular series: Stan Wade LAPI in 1959, Eliot Cross Columbus-based PI in 1988, and Ace Hart, western gambler in Arizona in 1877. He’s the father of three, tennis enthusiast, collector of silent films, hiker, Francophile, B.A. Comparative Lit., ex-Navy, ex-marketing exec, happily married for 47 years and counting. Active member of SFWA, PWA, SinC and ITW. His novel SPYFALL won a 2016 award at Killer Nashville. His latest book is TRIPLEYE, hardboiled science fiction about the first PI agency on Mars.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

7/11/17 7/11/17

How Can Theater Training and Storytelling Improve Your Fiction? / Lynn Hesse

My job is writing, but I am a member of three community performance troupes involving storytelling, movement, and singing. My improvisation skills, stage experience, and playwriting enrich my fiction. Here is the Cliff Note version for non-actors or non-performers listing reasons why you might want to give my suggestions a try and develop theater and storytelling skills.

Backstage Decisions Made by Actors and Directors:

Structure of scene: Performance of the same material teaches you what is essential in a scene. If you took the line of dialogue or a character out of the scene it wouldn’t work. Every character must come out of the scene changed, however mundane. Maybe it’s the character Aunt Mary’s job to introduce the red herring or the poisonous mushrooms she unpacked from a grocery bag. Every person in the scene has a reason for being there, and they must show the audience what is not stated outright in dialogue. If not, those pretty phrases or funny bits you love so much need to be cut. What is the scene doing for the entire structure?

What about the lines that hint at upcoming events or help the reader understand the desires or fears of the character? Yes. The Character’s Motivation: What does each character want, their little and big Ds, or desires, and what is blocking them from obtaining those needs? In my novel Well of Rage the overriding desires for my protagonist, Carly Redmund, are to survive and solve the cold-case murder of an African-American teenager, but the rookie’s underlining desires are to start again in a new city, Mobile, Alabama, and find forgiveness. Carly’s mannerism and speech patterns emphasize these wishes.

Research to Inform Backstory:

I visited Mobile, talked to the curators of the Mobile Mardi Gras Museum, went to the library, walked the streets, read books, and scoured the web data to make the city of Mobile come alive on the page. Could the story have been set in a different southern city? Yes, but from my perspective, Mobile has a unique history, culture, and is the right size to highlight the racism and sexism embedded in any governmental structure. Hemingway used the iceberg principle in the Paris Review, The Art of Fiction, No. 21 to illustrate most of what an author knows about a subject can be omitted because seven-eighths of its underwater in the story. The reader understands without being told, but if the writer omits because they don’t know something, a hole is left in the story.

The Character’s Physicality, Movements, and Gestures:

I am a dancer and expressing an intention without words is my first go-to, but play writing helped me hone the ear for dialogue and gestures particular to each character. I study people in restaurants and walking on the streets. You can tell a lot about a person by their posture, gait, how they eat food, their ticks, or their use of humor to misdirect, embarrass, or get noticed. A person’s physicality can be deceiving. A writer can use all these tools to inform or lead the reader to conclusions about characters and plot, but that brings up another question. Why does a reader invest or care about a character? I suggest examining point of view from backstage.

How far away do you want your reader to view your characters? I used multiple points of views in my finished manuscript, “Another Kind of Hero.” In the theater, as well as fiction, a narrator can be unreliable or reliable. Heroes can be reluctant or gung ho. All these factors came into play as I made my decision about POV. I used first person for the narrator scenes and third person for the others. Combining POVs can be tricky, but I realized early on I had two plots weaving together: I had a DEA agent trying to take down a drug pipeline, an opinionated narrator, and a casket full of money and drugs at the Pick’n Pay in Forsyth, Georgia leading dissimilar sisters into jeopardy. I wanted to convey small town life in Georgia in an intimate way to preserve the dignity of the southern culture while examining the hypocrisies that plague American life in our pursuit of the all-mighty dollar. By the way, using my storytelling skills helped to convey a fireside chat feeling between the narrator and the reader.

Don’t laugh. Wanda, the ghost, woke me up one morning and insisted she be put in the manuscript. I realized her voice had been developing through several shelved manuscripts and many improvisational performances. If I can say one true thing through Wanda’s voice, I will be happy.

Summary:

You don’t need to take acting lessons or manage backstage to gain the skills I’ve listed, but it is a fun, hands-on approach I recommend.

Lynn Hesse, the first place winner in the 2015 Oak Tree Press Writing Contest, Cop Tales launched her debut novel Well of Rage as an Atlanta Writers Club Author Panelist, 2016 Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Georgia. Her 5-star rated novel on Amazon is based on her law enforcement experience and shows how the “isms” separate us. The themes of her fiction and short plays focus on re-framing traumatic events, taking a look at the facts, and then using humor and forgiveness to heal. A detailed interview about Lynn’s police career and the performance video Blue Steel can be seen in The Women’s Archives, Second Feminist Movement, Georgia State University. Lynn is a performance artist and lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Reach her at her website here.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

7/6/17 7/6/17

How I Sold my First Novel / D.J. Donaldson

The other day I opened the first book in my New Orleans mystery series and looked at the publication date. I was shocked to see that it was 1988. My God… that means the time between that book and the new one in the series, Assassination at Bayou Sauvage, was twenty-nine years. Wondering if that was some kind of record, I searched the Internet and found it wasn’t even worth a mention because, in the site I checked, there had to be ten books in the series to even qualify for the list. The winner was the late, Ed McBain, who wrote fifty-four 87th Precinct novels over a span of forty-nine years. That means some years, he published more than one. Now I’m really feeling like a slacker. But in my defense, between the first book in my series and the new one, I wrote five medical thrillers. (“Big deal,” Ed McBain might say.)

Though greatly humbled by McBain’s accomplishments, I still feel like writing about me. (See, that’s the thing about authors… you can’t keep them from discussing their favorite subject.) The first book in my series was titled, “Cajun Nights.” I don’t remember the exact timing, but St. Martin’s Press must have acquired it at least a year before publication, so it’s been three decades since my then agent, the late Oscar Collier, called me one day and said “There’s an editor at St. Martins who wants to speak with you.”

I’d been waiting for a call like that for years, and I was so excited I didn’t even realize that it would have been much better for him to have said, “I sold your book to St. Martins.” Arrangements were made for the editor to call me and I was soon listening to an actual editor at a big publishing house tell me that he loved everything about the book, but the ending. He didn’t feel that the existing conclusion was good enough. He then gave me a few guidelines for a new ending. We agreed that I would think about what he’d said and we’d talk again.

During that call I gave every indication I could give him what he wanted. But inside, I’m thinking, I can’t possibly change the ending. I thought about the existing one for weeks. I just can’t do it. The next morning, I woke with an idea. I called him, told him briefly what I’d come up with, and he said, “I love it. Now, I’d like for you to write me a description of how the new ending will affect each chapter of the book.”

Oh great, I thought, how am I going to do that? When I write, I know the general direction I’m headed, but get there by actually sliding behind the wheel and stepping on the gas. He was asking me to not only plan my exact route but tell him what I’d see along the way. I figured If I tried that, I’d kill the deal. So instead, I simply rewrote the book and included the new ending. It never occurred to me that I had just demonstrated I couldn’t follow directions. Apparently, the editor at St. Martins didn’t notice either, or if he did, he didn’t care, because he bought that book and wanted more. Ever see the old movie, “Singing in the Rain”? Picture me as the male lead in that film’s big production number and you’ll know how I felt after getting the phone call saying I was not only going to be published, but there was money on the way.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

6/27/17 6/27/17

On Edge / Albert Ashforth

We draw inspiration for our stories from all sorts of different places. This week's Killer Nashville guest blogger, Albert Ashforth, discusses what led to the writing of his latest novel, On Edge.

Happy reading!

Clay Stafford

Founder Killer Nashville

Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine

Within days of my arrival in Kabul in 2010, I knew that I wanted my next Alex Klear adventure to be set in the Afghan capital. Unbelievably, the largest bank fraud in history, the looting of the Kabul bank by 22 of the bank’s employees, was unfolding before my eyes.

Part of the problem of my writing about the fraud, though, was the fact that very few American news outlets were pursuing the story. Was this because the looting of the bank was an embarrassment for our government? The Kabul Bank had been established by the American government in 2004 as a financial conduit to pay for the war against the Taliban and to rebuild Afghanistan’s infrastructure.

The story of the bank’s failure had begun coming out in dribs and drabs in 2009, when property values in Dubai, one of the Emirates, began to fall. Why had the bank been making heavy investments in Dubai? The following year there was a run on the bank by Afghan depositors. By the time the smoke cleared, the Kabul Bank had officially lost 935 million dollars. Unofficially, the figure was believed to be well over a billion dollars.

The bank had a strange history. When it was established, our government, in an obvious quandary regarding who might run the institution, asked President Hamid Karzai for some names. Unsurprisingly, he supplied the names of two of his closest cronies, Khalilullah Ferozi and Sherkhan Farnood, neither of whom had any financial experience. Looking back, one can say the American government could have done a better job of oversight where taxpayer money was concerned.

Because I wanted to write a story which involved the bank scandal, I had to involve retired intelligence officer Alex Klear, my hero, in the looting of the bank. I did this by moving the story forward chronologically, to 2013, when the trial of the bank officials was taking place in the Afghan courts. Since Afghan judges take bribes as a matter of course, Alex, who is in Kabul to find the murderer of an American colonel, wonders whether or not the accused bank officials will be found guilty. Although the American authorities have identified a young Afghan soldier as the killer, Alex isn’t so sure. Almost immediately, he senses that his investigation is being thwarted at every turn by both the Afghan and American governments.

Another factor involved in my wanting to write this story has to do with theatmosphere of Kabul itself, which is a fascinating city and which in some ways resembles Berlin in the years after World War Two, when it was under Four Power rule. In Kabul there are three powers intriguing for control – the elected Afghan government, the NATO nations among which the United States is the most prominent, and the Taliban.

It is the Taliban’s campaign of terrorism which makes Kabul such a dangerous city. The danger is constant in the story, and Alex, anytime he’s away from an American base, spends a good deal of time looking over his shoulder.

Specifically, what Alex has to worry about is becoming the victim of a “green-on-blue” attack. A green-on-blue occurs when an Afghan soldier or policeman – someone who has been trained and gained the trust of the American military – turns his weapon on an American soldier. When Alex hears of the cruel manner in which the murdered colonel has died, he becomes more determined than ever to find the suspected killer.

The more I learned about the bank scandal, the more fascinating it became. Immediately after the appointment of Farnood and Ferozi, the Kabul bank gave undocumented loans to 207 borrowers, all of whom were members of the country’s elite. None of the borrowers ever made any repayments. Nor were they required to pay interest. It was as if these individuals had been given million-dollar gifts by the American government. When I learned that much of this money went to buy villas in Dubai, I knew why the first rumblings of the bank scandal had been set off by the news of falling property values in Dubai.

Yet another reason for my wanting to write about the bank scandal had to do with the fact that American newspapers carried very little news of the fraud. In fact I’d gotten most of my information from British publications rather than American. There’s no question that the loss of so much tax money must have been something of an embarrassment for our government and would not have gone down well with American readers. Because our news outlets as a rule carry so little about such matters, I believe that some of the best informed American citizens are those who read thrillers, and I am hoping that readers of On Edge will learn a great deal about the looting of the Kabul Bank, now believed to be the largest bank fraud in the history of the world.

After serving with the U.S. Army overseas, Albert Ashforth earned a B.A. from Brooklyn College and a M.A. and a Ph.D. from New York University. He worked for two New York newspapers before returning to Europe as an instructor for the University of Maryland’s Overseas Program. He also served at the German Military Academy training NATO officers and as an instructor at the 10th Group Special Forces headquarters in Bad Tolz. As a military contractor, he has done tours in Bosnia, Macedonia, Germany, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. He is the author of three novels and numerous articles and short stories. His novel The Rendition won the Military Writers of America Bronze Medal. His follow-up novel, On Edge, was released in 2016. Ashforth is on the faculty at the State University of New York and lives in New York City.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

6/13/17 6/13/17

Elements of The Psychological Thriller: My Favorite Genre to Date / Valerie Joan Connors

I was fifty-two when I started my first manuscript and fifty-six when I signed my first publishing contract. My first two novels, In Her Keeping and Shadow of a Smile, are both categorized as women’s fiction. But I didn’t set out to write “women’s fiction,” I just wrote the stories and let the label come from the publishing professionals. My third novel is classified as historical fiction. Again, I didn’t set out to write historical fiction, but my story begins in 1949. The story I wanted to tell just happens to have taken place the past. But with my fourth novel, A Better Truth, I set out with purpose and determination to write a psychological thriller.

Since I was new to writing this sort of novel, I had to do some research to find out what readers expect from a psychological thriller. This is what I learned:

Physical Strength vs. Mental Resources: In a psychological thriller, the characters don’t rely on their own physical strength to overcome the villains. Instead, they use their mental resources. Often the villains are not external, but internal, like phobias, fears, unhealthy urges, or mental illness. The conflicts unfold through deception, mind games, and manipulation. The villain may try to push our hero to the brink of insanity, or make them question their own reality. Sounds like fun, right?
Dissolving Sense of Reality: Stephen King’s books are a great example of what readers love about the psychological thriller. He begins with a story that seems firmly grounded in the real world. This sense of reality dissolves so gradually that we stay with him as he moves us into the supernatural.
Complex, Tortured Characters: Whether obsessive, pathological, or mentally deranged, the characters in a psychological thriller usually experience life differently than those of us who are, to a greater or lesser degree, normal. But at least on the surface, they have to appear to be just like the rest of us. Like our friends and neighbors.
Unreliable Narrator: The unreliable narrator is a first-person account given by a character whose credibility is compromised. In other words, he or she is not trustworthy. This character may be unintentionally unreliable because they are naive, like a child. Or, their unreliability could be intentional because they have something to hide, or sinister ulterior motives. This unreliability may be revealed gradually, or it may come in the form of a single revelation or major plot twist.
Setting: Psychological thrillers are often set in dark, isolated places like Daphne du Maurier’s Manderley in her novel Rebecca, or in claustrophobic domestic settings like in V.C. Andrews’ novel, Flowers in the Attic. These novels are often set in familiar places, with familiar subjects and relationships. The thrill in the psychological thriller comes from the idea that what is happening to your main character could happen to you.
Common Themes: Characters may be unstable because of guilt or obsession. They may struggle with perception, reality, identity, delusions, and paranoia. Questions about the true nature of humanity will be raised, though probably not answered.

As with any mystery, don’t forget the red herrings, keep those main characters as unstable as possible, and sprinkle everything with a generous dose of dread. And finally, make sure the reader doesn’t learn the truth until our hero does.

These elements of the psychological thriller opened the door to all sorts of new possibilities for my novel, A Better Truth. My protagonist, Willow, was already quirky, but I was able to magnify her quirkiness as she begins to fall apart. Willow has a difficult time coping with the “busy-ness” of her life. As she becomes more stressed out, she struggles to recognize the difference between reality and hallucination, nightmare and memory. There’s a traumatic event from her childhood that she’s trying very hard to forget. And the harder she tries to suppress it, the more these symptoms manifest. What fun!

Since I enjoy reading psychological thrillers, I don’t know why I was so surprised to discover that I would enjoy writing them. I think I had more fun with this book than with any of the other three. I’m not sure whether my genre hopping is something a publishing professional would recommend, but that’s what I’m doing. Currently, I’m working on a detective thriller series, a dystopian adventure, and a literary adventure story about African lions. I used to force myself to work on one project at a time, and I think there was a good reason for that. This is what happens when you break your own rules. Alas, it’s a journey that never fails to surprise me.

Valerie Joan Connors is the author of four novels, A Better Truth (Deeds Publishing, 2016), A Promise Made (Deeds Publishing, 2015), Shadow of a Smile (Deeds Publishing, 2014) and In Her Keeping (Bell Bridge Books, 2013). The child of an artist and a musician, Valerie was born in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan a long time ago. Her family moved her out west, where she spent her formative years in Eugene, Oregon. Then she bounced up and down the west coast, spending time in San Diego, Seattle, and Portland, before her job as a software consultant brought her to Atlanta in 1996, the same day as the Olympic torch. Valerie credits her association with the Atlanta Writers Club for the fact that her four novels were both written and published. She has served on the AWC Board since 2011 in nearly every capacity, including as AWC President from 2013 to 2015. She continues to serve as the VP of Programming and Officer Emerita. During business hours, Valerie is the CFO of an engineering firm. She is a dog person, and supports lion, tiger, and elephant conservation efforts, and hopes to raise awareness through her writing. Valerie lives in Norcross with her husband and two rescue dogs, and is working on her next novel. Find out more about Valerie and her books on her website: valeriejoanconnors.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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

6/7/17 6/7/17

Dropping Anchors / Matt Coyle

If I were ever to teach a class on novel writing, I’d tell the students how not to do it and cite my process as an example. I don’t outline, so I’d be referred to as a pantser: someone who writes by the seat of their pants. That’s a little too anatomically close to turning out crap for me. So, my writers’ groups in San Diego have always called writing without an outline as being a blank-pager. This is a hat tip to Raymond Chandler who is thought to have said he started writing every day staring at a blank page.

Surprisingly, being a blank-pager in crime writing is not that unusual. I’d say about half the writers I know don’t outline. You’d think we’d spend weeks in advance laying out intricate plots on a spreadsheet before we start writing the actual story. After all, we’re supposed to keep readers guessing as well as produce a plot that makes sense and doesn’t cheat them when we connect the dots at the end.

Outlining seems like the smart, organized way to go. I’ve been called smart many times, but ass is usually attached to the end. However, no one has ever called me organized. Thus, I’m a blank-pager. But, that’s not the “how not to” part of my process. Dropping anchors is.

Now, even as a blank-pager, I have to have a beginning when I start a book and I always have an ending in mind, too. The fun and frightening part is filling in the in-between. My books have action and dead bodies, but I think of them as character driven. An inciting incident sets the plot in motion, but the rest of the story is dictated around the decisions the characters make and the actions they take.

That’s where the anchors come in.

My subconscious works hard when I’m writing — and even when I’m not. Harder than me. So, when it pops a line into my head, I listen. The line may not immediately make sense to me and may not have much to do with the scene I’m writing. Or so I think. I’ll drop an anchor and write the line into the scene. Sometimes, just putting it on paper-or on monitor-will open the door to what my subconscious had in mind (literally) and I’ll incorporate the sentiment into the scene. This often gives the scene more depth and unlocks the true meaning that I couldn’t see. Sometimes the anchor just sinks to the bottom of the story without making a splash. But that’s okay. I’ll take another look at it on revision the next day. Often, the meaning of the anchor will float to the surface and I’ll write it into the scene.

There are times when that anchor just sits on the bottom of my brain for the rest of the year I’m writing the book, pulling down whatever scene it’s in. That’s okay, too, because I can always pull it up when I start the first overall revision of the book. The important thing is not to forget it’s there.

Strange process, sure, but it worked for me in my first three books, including Dark Fissures (December 2016). Another example of how it happened is in the book I’m writing now.

My protagonist, Rick Cahill, is talking to Peter Stone, the most powerful, egocentric man he knows. Stone is always in control of every situation he’s in. A dangerous man who is not afraid of anything. The scene was okay but nothing special. A bit of needed information that didn’t have much punch. Rick accused Stone of something he claimed he hadn’t done. Then my subconscious dropped an anchor. It told me Stone was suddenly nervous about who may have done the thing that Rick accused him of. I didn’t know why Stone was nervous. There was no place in the story for it, yet. I left the anchor in and moved on, but it made me wonder who was scary enough to make Peter Stone nervous and why.

I continued writing another hundred pages and then the people who made Stone nervous showed themselves. They fit perfectly and added another layer of menace to the story as well as a ticking clock. Plus, they gave me an avenue to my next book.

That was one heavy anchor I’m thankful I let drop.

So, if you decide to do it how not to do it like me, when your subconscious talks to you, listen and drop an anchor. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll have to pull it up.

Matt Coyle grew up in Southern California, battling his brother and sisters for respect and the best spot on the couch in front of the TV. He knew he wanted to be a writer at the age of twelve when his father gave him The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler. His debut novel, Yesterday’s Echo, won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, The San Diego Book Award for Best Mystery, the IBPA Ben Franklin Silver Award for Best New Voice in Fiction, and was a Macavity Finalist for Best First Novel. The second Rick Cahill crime novel, Night Tremors, was a finalist of the Lefty Award for Best Regional Mystery and is a finalist for the Anthony Award for Best Mystery and a finalist for the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel. The third Rick Cahill crime novel, Dark Fissures, arrived in December, 2016. Matt is currently writing the next book in the Rick Cahill crime series. He lives in San Diego with his Yellow Lab, Angus. Reach him at www.mattcoylebooks.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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

5/30/17 5/30/17

Black Swans in Publishing / By Gregory C. Randall

As a writer who has independently published my own work through my own publishing company, I am amazed at how little authors know about the publishing world they work in. While many writers are brilliant and even inspired, the gobbly-gook of the publishing world is just stuff out there to be handled by their agents and publishers. What I have seen change in the world of academic non-fiction and fiction over the last sixteen years and thirteen books is just, well, dumbfounding. As Dorothy said to the dog, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“Black Swan,” with its roots in a Latin phrase by Roman poet Juvenal, simply means being smacked against the side of the head with something so new, so shocking, and so disturbingly out of the normal as to change the whole direction of a thought, a thesis, a belief system, and even cultures and institutions. Ideas can be Black Swans and can change the course of history. Jesus Christ and Mohammed come to mind, as well as the American concept of democracy. The steam engine, electricity, even double entry bookkeeping radically changed the course of the normal. These things from out of left field can influence systems far beyond the original intent of the concept or invention.

In our world of words and storytelling, the publishing empire had settled comfortably on a simple, yet profitable, system. Writers write, agents sell, and publishers buy. Then publishers sell through distributors to the ultimate retail outlet, the bookstore. There the customer acquires the writer’s work, and after a hundred fingers claw out their few pennies, the writer declares: “What the hell?” The system obviously isn’t there to help the writer eat, clothe themselves, and live comfortably, but it certainly is there to enrich the publishing industry. Don’t get me wrong, the system worked well, exceedingly well, and many writers became successful and wealthy.

But with success came complacency and fortress building. No matter how hard the writers and authors tried to breach the walls, it was very difficult to be invited inside through the well-defended gates. There were many who said enough and started their own publishing companies to get their words out. That was costly, and the doors to the bookstores were still well defended.

In the early part of the first decade of our twenty-first century, two Black Swans flew in by the names of Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs. Jobs and his development and reimagining of the personal computer and eventually the iPad, and Bezos with his new model for selling books (and a lot of other stuff) that led to the Kindle system and retail merchandising on a massive scale. From these sprang the ebook, a notion that had floated around for more than ten years but was impossible to seriously market and distribute (issues of copyrights, distribution, and bad hardware). The iPad (and its many facsimiles) changed how we use and access information on the portable level, the Kindle made it affordable and the software (mobi, epub, pdfs, and a few others), made it available to everyone. The first Kindle was released in 2007, the first iPad in 2010, since then the publishing world has been turned on its head.

With the invention of Print On Demand (POD), your words can be published and in your hand within a few days for minimal cost. POD simply took old copier systems and reimagined them into machines that print and manufacture a paper book with a professional look in minutes. Another system turned upside down.

Whole industries have grown and expanded within this new universe. The number of cover artists, copyeditors, story editors, marketing gurus, ebook facilitators, book builders and designers; have increased because there are now customers (writers) who are willing to pay for a quality product. However, as with any opportunity caution is advisable, costly horror stories have been reported due to ineptitude, unfulfilled promises, and outright fraud.

Today writers can finish a manuscript and within minutes have it available to the world. It was messy, especially during the first few years, but it has matured to a point where new systems of facilitating software (like the app industry that grew out of the iPad and its camp followers) are ubiquitous. Now everyone is in the pool, Google, Microsoft, the hardware manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Amazon, and dozens of others, and software from Scrivner, Adobe, and Kindle. There are now millions of authors who keep at their craft because they get the satisfaction of seeing their words in print.

The traditional publishing industry was gobsmacked and immediately fought the revolution and reinforced the fortress. They trashed the ebook, the whole idea of the indie-publisher, and even put the shame and guilt of the collapse of the bookselling industry on the shoulders of Amazon. But every system, no matter how seemingly successful, needs to be shaken to its core and rebuilt – ‘Creative Destruction,’ coined but Joseph Schumpeter in 1942, comes to mind. Now the publishing industry has thousands of new and experienced writers to consider and offer contracts.

Not surprisingly some of these writers know more about the world of publishing and marketing than their own publishers. New genres have developed, expanded, and prospered – romance, erotica, steampunk, poetry, and dozens of others have spun out from the old genres. There aren’t enough genres to identify the subcategories at Amazon and the bestseller lists, and they keep adding new ones.

I’ve published and republished nine books all under my own publishing imprint. As one of those that not only writes but produces the whole package (cover, design, and marketing), I’m now convinced that anyone with even limited skills (or the desire to learn) can become a published author and bring to their customers a quality product. I’m also engaged with a leading publisher to bring out two thrillers next year under their imprint (great experiment here for me), and this particular publisher is one of the leading believers in Black Swans and how to radically change the face of publishing. It is an exciting time for authors and publishers, and more importantly for our readers.

Are there other Black Swans on the horizon? The nature of the phenomenon is sudden surprise and shock. So what might be out there? I see dramatic changes in the marketing of published works directly to the customer both directly and indirectly. There is huge potential for the integration of video into published works.The growth of audio books (commuters, travelers, those with sight issues, and of course that awful hour at the gym) now includes well-known actors and will continue to expand. The impact in intuitive/digital education has yet to be seen. The future is boundless. However, the true nature of a Black Swan is the profound wonder and the chaos that may ensue. It is by nature anarchy—and ain’t it great.

Randall has made the San Francisco Bay Area his home with his wife for the last 45 years. A graduate of Michigan State with a degree in landscape architecture, Randall has 45 years of community design and urban planning experience. His books almost always have an historical component and often reflect how the past has impacts on the present. Randall has developed all the cover cart for his books as well as the interior design, graphics, and overall formatting. This also includes ebook formatting. Greg is the author of the five book series, The Sharon O’Mara Chronicles. The six book in the series is under development. Randall and his wife have their own independent publishing company, Windsor Hill Publishing. He is a book cover designer and artist and is well versed in the ebook conversion process. Reach him at gregorycrandall.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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

5/23/17 5/23/17

Writing Tics: Finding the Whys / Danny Gardner

My debut novel, A Negro and an Ofay, has, by my last count, been finished seven times. First was when it was accepted by a publisher that unfortunately closed shop. Luckily I found a wonderful agent in Liz Kracht, of Kimberly Cameron and Associates, who took it on with verve. Her notes helped me shape it into a work worthy of submission. Query feedback was very positive. We were getting close to a deal, which lent the perception I was done. Then I believed I was done again. And again. Eventually, it found a new home with Down & Out Books, where publisher Eric Campbell and associate editor Lance Wright put my manuscript through the paces.

My work in this book encapsulates themes of race and class as it relates to crime. I address police corruption, brutality and criminal justice from the perspective of a bi-racial protagonist in 1952 Chicago. I often play upon the unacknowledged fascination our society has with race to make strong points. In many instances, I gleefully court controversy. Although more than a few editors appreciated my tone, their constructive criticism advised me to expect reasonable compromises down the line. I crossed my fingers and said a little prayer for the darlings I feared I’d have to take out back and shoot. Once I received my manuscript back from Eric, I had my work cut out for me. Happily, I got the all-clear on the story. No compromises would be necessary.

What it needed was another edit, because my writing was riddled with more tics than if it spent a summer camping in Yosemite.

I had come to long-form writing from entertainment, mainly as a stand-up comedian, occasionally as an actor, screenwriter and filmmaker. The tendencies I developed over my career added some nuance and even a bit of polish to my book. Feedback indicated strong pacing, characterization, and dialogue. More than a few readers remarked how each chapter felt like an episode of a television series. Unfortunately, even I could tell my novel was rife with imperfection borne of years of hearing myself talk. It wasn’t enough to know the what. To make it the best it could be, I had to understand the whys.

Screenwriting Tics: The very fortunate — or powerful — can direct their own screenplays. All others must take a story written by someone else from the page to the stage. You may be shocked to learn that Hollywood doesn’t regard screenwriters as indispensable. Once the script is approved, no one wants us around to gum up the works. In kind, screenwriters don’t trust executives and producers not to whittle away at what we’ve worked hard to create. We expect film directors to misunderstand everything. Editors abuse us. When we write screenplays, we try to think like the person who is most likely to go against us. That’s no point of view from which to proceed writing a novel, where the reader is on the writer’s side. They don’t need everything spelled out the way a line producer does. Brevity and simplicity help them attenuate to the author’s intentions. Novels require focus. Too many details take the reader out of the story. I needed to trim some unnecessary fat.

Comedy Tics: The attention span of the average comedy audience varies. A theatergoer enjoying a revival of Oscar Wilde has a different attention span than the teenager who loves shows on Adult Swim. There are some hard and fast rules about presentation in comedy, from the threes on up to Ars Et Celare Artem, but while these all work in an audio-visual medium, they don’t necessarily translate to narrative fiction, where bits can be confusing, or even distracting. If something is supposed to be funny in a novel, it will happen in the imagination of the reader. This is entirely different than, say, sketch comedy, where things can go off the rails to horrible effect. There’s no bombing on the e-reader like there is on stage at the Laugh Factory. I could relax and just write my story.

Performance Tics: Dialogue should sound like actual conversations. Narration, however, should provide contrast that gives dialogue depth. Often, and in key moments in the work, my narration came off as conversational. Sometimes it was an enhancement, especially those instances where I wanted the reader to feel what it was like to be black. In other moments, it obscured what I wanted to convey. To fix this, it helped me to think of my narrator as the straight man. In improv, we call it Advancing. Sometimes the narration needed to keep things moving right along, no matter the opportunity for elaboration. Where my narration was Commenting, which is another improv term, meaning it was self-referential, I used dialogue to make things unfold, although it went beyond “show, don’t tell.” It was more, “Don’t tell or show. Let them get it on their own.”

Cultural Tics: I speak a few different languages: American English, current black American vernacular, and Chicagoese, that beautifully rich dialect that most people outside of the Midwest can’t easily understand. Eric pointed out my repetitive use of the words who, then, since, with, and & was. A lot of folks have read this book and no one mentioned a thing. Then I realized most of my beta readers were from backgrounds like my own. Eric is from Florida. He hadn’t been conditioned to hear the same semiotics. He took my word usage as repetitive, and sometimes it had been. Other times, they’re more like fuggedaboutit; same sound, myriad meanings. Like my ticks of performance, I was writing what sounded right in my head. The tone was right in my mind, but not on the page. I approached the edit as if I was writing for the reader most unlike me. I found it didn't change much in the way of my plot and structure, but it made room for me to expand my work. Eliminating shortcuts saved me word count.

After two more edits, I managed to deliver to Down & Out a manuscript finally ready for print. In doing so, I’ve prepared myself for the writing journey ahead. It’s up to others to decide if the book is good. At least I can feel I’m not limiting myself with habits that are incompatible with the work I’m doing. Once I took the time to discover why I had them, I found my tendencies are attributes. That gives me a lot more confidence I can pull off another book after this one.

Danny Gardner’s work has appeared in Beat to a Pulp, Out of the Gutter, and Literary Orphans Journal. His first novel, A Negro And An Ofay, will be published May 2017 by Down & Out Books. His short fiction will be featured in Just to Watch Him Die, a Johnny Cash-inspired anthology, published by Gutter Books. He is a member of the Southern California chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, as well as the International Thriller Writers. He lives in Los Angeles by way of Chicago.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

5/16/17 5/16/17

Fiction Anticipates Reality! / Susan Wolfe

In Chapter 1 of my new thriller Escape Velocity, my main character, Georgia Griffin, is leaving what she believes is a successful job interview with Mr. Ken Madigan when she spots a rival in the lobby:

Georgia’s stomach cramped with hunger as she emerged into the lobby and saw a woman in her mid-thirties glancing through a magazine. Tailored suit, precision-cut blond hair, leather case laid neatly across her lap. Completely professional, and she had ten years’ experience on Georgia at least. No. No way. Georgia walked briskly over to the woman and stood between her and the receptionist.

“Ms. Millichamp?” she said quietly, extending her hand.

The woman stood up and smiled. “Sarah Millchamp. Nice to meet you. I know I’m early.”

“I’m Misty. So sorry to tell you this, but Mr. Madigan’s been called out of town unexpectedly. He’s headed for the airport now.”

“Oh!” The poised Ms. Millchamp quickly regained her composure. “That’s too bad. But of course I understand.”

“Thank you for being so understanding. This literally happened ten minutes ago, and I’m completely flustered. I know he wants to meet you. Are you parked out here? At least let me walk you to your car.”

She put a sisterly hand against Ms. Millchamp’s elbow and began steering her toward the exit. “Tell you what, can I call you to reschedule as soon as Mr. Madigan gets back? Maybe you two can have lunch. Just don't take that job at Google in the meantime.”

“Google?”

“Now, don’t pretend you haven’t heard about the job at Google. In Brad Dormond’s department? They’re our worst nightmare when it comes to competing for good people.” The air in the parking lot mingled the spicy scent of eucalyptus with the small of rancid engine grease, and her stomach lurched. “So, see over there? That’s the entrance to the freeway. Bye now. I’ll call you soon.”

Georgia waved as Sarah Millchamp backed her car out. Then she hurried back inside to the receptionist.

“Hi,” she said. “That lady, Ms. Millchamp? She just let me know she has a migraine and will call to reschedule. Will you let Maggie know?”

The receptionist nodded and picked up her phone. “That’s too bad.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

Done and dusted, as Gramma Griffin would say.

***

Georgia comes from a long line of proud con artists, and I want the reader to see early on that she is going to do a few things the rest of us might only fantasize. Georgia takes chances.

But not so fast. Once the book was released, I started hearing that the scene resonates with some readers because it reminds them of their own behavior. First, a friend who is a well-respected lawyer described the time she saw a notice for a job she wanted, so she tore the notice down and threw it away before she applied for the job. Then a gentle-seeming, wholesome kindergarten teacher at my Barnes & Noble reading drew gasps and laughter from the crowd when she confessed that she misled a fellow interviewee by saying the interviews had been moved to a different location.

Today I received an email from a woman who says, “When I read Georgia’s 1st interview at the beginning of the book I totally was taken aback because of something I did once. I'll share that story sometime.” I hope it involves poison.

What’s going on here? When I wrote the scene, I didn’t know anybody who had done what Georgia did. I just imagined what my particular character would do. And now I discover some people have actually acted this way in real life. It seems when I go into my trance and imagine my character taking action, I can sometimes be downright prescient.

Here’s another example: In my first book, the Edgar award-winning The Last Billable Hour, I loosely based one of my composite characters on a person I had encountered in real life. Call the real guy Joe. My fictitious character likes to hunt on his ranch out of season, and in the book he gets injured in a freak hunting accident. Just seemed like something that would happen to my character. Imagine my surprise two years later when I got a call from a friend: “Guess what just happened? Remember Joe? He got injured in a freak hunting accident!”

Now, if that hunting accident had occurred before I wrote my book, people would have assumed I copied it from real life. But since it happened the other way around, what’s the explanation? I spent a lot of time observing and thinking about Joe (who I didn’t know personally) in order to incorporate him into the composite character for my book. I incorporated Joe’s contempt for rules, his penchant for risk-taking, and the thrill he got from illicit activities. Score one for me, two years later Joe was lying in a ditch beside his hunting rifle (happily more scared than injured.)

Excuse me while I get back to predicting the future.

Susan Wolfe is a lawyer with a B.A. from the University of Chicago and a law degree from Stanford University. After four years of practicing law full time, she bailed out and wrote the best-selling novel, The Last Billable Hour, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. She returned to law for another sixteen years, first as a criminal defense attorney and then as an in-house lawyer for Silicon Valley high-tech companies. Born and raised in San Bernardino, California, she now lives in Palo Alto, California, with her husband, Ralph DeVoe. Her newest novel, Escape Velocity, was released in 2016. Visit Susan at authorsusanwolfe.com or Facebook.com/SusanWolfeAuthor

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

5/9/17 5/9/17

Routine Writing Habits Are Rewarding / Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Getting in a writing routine can be a difficult task! Our lives that exist off the written page can often be hectic, but finding a pattern that works for you is well worth the effort. This week's Killer Nashville guest blogger, Andrew Welsh-Huggins, discusses his balancing act of life, work, and writing.

Happy reading!

Clay Stafford

Founder Killer Nashville

Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine

As I like to say, I’m a reporter by day and a mystery writer by earlier in the day. Most mornings I’m up before 5 a.m. After breakfast, dog-walking, and perusing the headlines on my phone and in the paper, I write from about 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. before changing hats and heading to the office.

It’s a challenging routine, but in my experience it provides the minimum amount of time I need — combined with four to five hours on Sunday mornings — to put together sentences that make some semblance of sense, not to mention figuring out whodunit, why, and where that body should go. (The latest book in my series about an ex-college quarterback turned private eye in Columbus, The Hunt, came out in April)

As a failed night owl, my regimen is built around early mornings. But over the years I’ve developed strategies for maximizing writing time that I think apply whether the view outside your window is lightening with the coming day or darkening with the setting sun. Until I write that bestseller or Netflix comes calling with a series proposal, here are some of the rules I follow as I navigate my two jobs.

Separate church and state. In times past, I tried warming up my brain once in front of the computer by reading a couple websites, trolling Facebook and pecking out an email or three. No more. How many status updates does a guy need first thing? These days, I focus my morning’s work on the writing task at hand — sit down, open Word, locate manuscript, read the prior day’s output, and then proceed with new material. Along the way, I’ll open a web browser to check a fact or two, but I resist the temptation to peek at Twitter just yet. All the ancillary writing tasks — the blogging, the email, the research — I reserve for evenings when the spirit is willing but the brain cells are sagging. No matter how much time your own schedule allows to write or what time of day, those minutes are too precious to squander on clickbait.

Farm sustainably. One of our family mottos is “don’t farm too close to the edge of the field.” Meaning, we try not to fill our days so full that there’s no room for occasionally just sitting around and doing nothing. Pouring a second or third cup of coffee. Reading. Watching a show. Taking a nap. I try to follow a modified version of this as I write. That means leaving open the possibility of pondering for a minute or two rather than just pounding away on the keys. Yes, in my experience, it’s possible to write for two hours without ceasing. But inevitably, the result is lacking. Writing requires reflection. A few moments or more spent considering a plot point can save a couple hours later when you realize the point wouldn’t fool a fifth-grader, let alone a discerning crime fiction fan.

Take a breather. This is related to the prior point, but on a macro level. Balancing daily writing with work and family obligations is one challenge; producing a manuscript under the confines of this schedule is yet another. One approach—and possibly the best one—is keeping at it seven days a week until you’re finished. Afterward, celebrate by walking away from the computer for a few days or weeks while you catch up on all those household chores that piled up while you were mentally away. In order to preserve familial harmony and keep the house from falling down around me, I’ve chosen that path with a small detour: giving myself permission to take Saturdays off from writing. The downside is that by pausing mid-stream, especially if the words are flowing, I risk losing momentum. And, to be honest, that’s happened more than once. The upside is both a chance to catch my breath—what bliss to start the day sipping coffee and just reading for a change—and to wrestle the chaos of home owning back into a semblance of order. Where did I put that screwdriver?

So far, it’s a system that works for me: focus on the work at hand; give myself time to ponder as I pound the keys; and take a break once a week. Now if you’ll excuse me, my alarm is going off. It’s time to move that body from Point A to Point B . . .

Welsh-Huggins, a long-time reporter at The Associated Press in Columbus, Ohio, is the author of the Andy Hayes mystery series, featuring an ex-Ohio State quarterback turned private eye, including Fourth Down And Out, Slow Burn, and Capitol Punishment (called “nicely plotted” and “a perfect read in an election year” by Publishers Weekly), along with nonfiction books about the death penalty and domestic terrorism. In the fourth book in the mystery series, The Hunt, Hayes searches for a missing human trafficking victim as a serial killer stalks prostitutes on the streets of Columbus, Ohio. When Welsh-Huggins isn't writing he enjoys running, reading, 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. More information is available at andrewwelshhuggins.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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

5/9/17 5/9/17

The Joys and Challenges of Writing a Series Character / Joe Clifford

I write the Jay Porter thriller series (Oceanview Publishing). With three in the bag (Lamentation, December Boys and Give Up the Dead), and numbers four and five under contract, I am preparing to dive back into the bleak wintery world of Lamentation Mountain.

Oftentimes when I tell someone I write a series character (usually at Christmas parties I don’t want to be at), I get one of two responses. Well, I get a lot of different responses, but two of note. The first is “Hey, I’ve got a great idea. How about I tell you, you write it, and we split the money?” As tempting as that offer is, I pass. The second, more interesting question is whether I find it stifling, artistically speaking. Whereas many of my responses in uncomfortable social situations tend to be standard, here my answer is always authentic and unique.

Like the books and characters in the series, the answer evolves; and like most of life’s compelling examinations, a great deal of conflict presents itself. There are parts I find stifling, but not for the reasons most think. Generally, I get asked this question by other artists, other writers. We are, after all, in this game to forge new ground. How many Jack Reacher books can Lee Child write? As many as he wants! I’d kill for his career, as I am sure most writers would, at least those of us who write genre. And that is where I’ll start.

Part of writing genre is ascribing to a template. I will avoid the word “formula” because it has such nasty connotations. I started out as a literary fiction writer before making the switch to the Dark Side. Even now I retain enough of those sensibilities that I can get slapped with the “literary thriller” label, which I love but drives bookstores mad.

When one says something is contrived, what they mean is he or she can see the strings. Readers don’t want to see the strings. They want to be submerged, lost, whisked away in the fantasy. But all art, by definition, is contrived; we make something out of nothing, create an illusion. One wrong move and it can all fall apart, exposing the machination behind the curtain.

But I like having that map, knowing I am not flying blind; I like a flight chart that gets me from Ashton to Arizona.

In the Jay Porter books, I get to chronicle the life of a man I care very much about. As crazy as it sounds, Jay has become as real to me as most of my friends. I certainly spend more time with him than I do most of my friends. Jay began as part me, part my half-brother, but now, after three books, he has grown into a wholly original creation. Deeply flawed, self-sabotaging, good intentioned but often perverted by anger, rage, and misunderstanding a dream that is just out reach, Jay resonates because of these conflicts (or so I’ve been told). I think it was Mailer who said our heroes need to be larger than life. I counter Norman that they need to be slightly less than. Because that rings truer for me. We all know the life we want. How many of us get it?

To this end, no, there is nothing stifling about watching a creation come into this world, and not unlike parenting a child, having to surrender ownership to allow that child to become what he needs to be, not what you want him to be. When I begin a Jay Porter book I have a loose idea of a plot, and then I see where Jay takes it. This is the very opposite of stifling. It’s exciting, unexpected, and I am often just as surprised (and infuriated) by Jay’s choices. But I find the ride richly rewarding. I hope my readers do too.

But there is a stifling component to writing a series. And like I said it’s not what most think. The hard part is that when you write a series, it becomes harder to write outside that world. Your style becomes immersed and associated with that one character and series, which makes it tougher to write different books. I’ve written several standalones, books I think are just as good as the Porter books, but it’s been harder to find them homes. I’ve heard if I “made them a Jay Porter book” . . . But that is what I am trying not to do in those situations.

Still, this is a minor gripe. I work as a professional novelist. How many writers would love to say that? I am humbled and honored by the opportunity.

Joe Clifford is acquisitions editor for Gutter Books and producer of Lip Service West, a “gritty, real, raw” reading series in Oakland, CA. He is the author of several books, including Junkie Love and the Jay Porter Thriller Series (Lamentation, December Boys, Give Up the Dead), as well as editor of Trouble in the Heartland: Crime Stories Based on the Songs of Bruce Springsteen. Joe’s writing can be found at www.joeclifford.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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

5/3/17 5/3/17

Meet the New Hand-Sellers / Baron R. Birtcher

Being a writer in 2017 involves facing challenges that didn't even exist a decade ago. With the services currently available online anyone can publish anything. It has never been easier to get your book printed. So why is that a bad thing? Oversaturation of content with no filter for quality. There used to be several checkpoints you had to go through to get your book published, now all you have to do is cut a check to Amazon. This is not to say that amazing works have not been self-published, because they have! However, being a published author no longer holds the same weight as in did in years past. This week's Killer Nashville guest blogger, Baron Birtcher, shares his insight on writing in modern times and how we can all help each other!

Happy reading!

Clay Stafford

Founder Killer Nashville

Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine

Ask any author — aspiring or established — why they write, and you will likely get some variation on one or more of the following answers: (A) I feel I have a story inside me that has to come out; (B) I have always wanted to write; and (C) I want other people to read it.

It’s that last one that’s the trick, though, isn’t it?

The fact is, without readers we’re simply tapping away on the keyboard and entertaining ourselves. But when it’s all said and done, we want to know that our words have been read; that they’ve found an appreciative audience that engaged with the characters and the world we created on the page.

As a result, I have adopted a new mantra: Read a book, review a book.

Like so many of us, I look back fondly on the days of vinyl LPs and FM radio, where in the space of an hour you would hear everything from Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin to Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan. If you had an hour to kill, you’d drop into Tower Records and browse the bins while the girl at the register played something you’d never heard before on the house sound system. Pure bliss. The point is, there was room enough in our heads for all of it. We wanted to hear it! That was the very definition of Hand-Selling!

Reading was no different. Most of us want to be exposed to new authors, new subjects, new ideas, and new styles. But how do we find them in this new era of online sales?

I was introduced to Michael Connelly’s first book — at the time, just another new guy on the scene — by a knowledgeable bookseller in a brick-and-mortar store. Same with Robert Crais, Randy Wayne White, Don Winslow, and the list goes on and on. I’m sure that many of us share that same experience. Hand-Selling!

Problem is, where have the bookstores gone? The Internet irreversibly changed the game. Without the need for a traditional publisher and distributor, the playing field just became more level than it’s ever been before, and that’s a good thing, right?

Well…

By analogy, let’s take another look at the music business. At one time, the music industry was rife with “gate-keepers.” There were club owners, agents, managers, producers, and ultimately, Record Labels. The fact was, if you could run that gauntlet successfully as an artist, you must be pretty good, or at least appealing to some perceived market segment.

These days, if I have a song in my head, I can record it in my basement and have it up on YouTube or Spotify within minutes of cutting the tune. No gate-keepers; nobody to tell me if it needs work. The bad news is, there’s no record label to shout out the existence of my new hit from the rooftops, or through those radio speakers. In short, it’s invisible until somebody hears it … and that person tells somebody else … and so on.

The new world of literature is virtually identical. There are some authors who simply captivate with their enviable use of language. Others weave plots that are so compelling that you practically tear the pages from their binding from turning them so quickly.

But, while we are presently enjoying a new and liberating digital playing field, it is vital to remember that quality still matters. In the absence of the traditional gate-keepers, we are now faced with an avalanche of reading options that range widely in terms of editorial quality. Because content (i.e. Kindle, etc.) tends to “look” the same to the online buyer, the new gate-keepers—in essence, the new Hand-Sellers—are the bloggers, the critics, and the readers who take the time to post an honest review.

Sure, we are blessed that we also still have a handful of stalwart, dedicated and brave brick-and-mortar bookstores out there, but the folks who are increasingly responsible for spreading the word about a new book, new author, or new voice is us.

All of us.

If we want to help our favorite new author reach a broader audience, we must take the time to post a review — shout it from the rooftops in the digital realm. For instance, copy the URL address of this fine blog site and share it with your friends, and encourage them to do the same. Now, while it is highly unlikely that my posted review of the superstar authors like Connelly, Crais or King will have much effect on their sales performance, the positive influence of reviews for new or less-established authors is practically immeasurable!

Which makes it all the more important for us to take the time to sit down and write that post, dash off that review, and let the reading world know what a great discovery we’ve found. If we want to find the golden treasures in the ever-growing stream of literary content, we’ve got to contribute to the process and be active participants not only as authors, but as fans and reviewers.

Let our collective mantra be: Read a book — Review a book. And it doesn’t have to be a brand new release. Post a review for any book you’ve read and loved!

To paraphrase the late, great cartoonist and creator of the Pogo comic strip, Walt Kelly: I have met the new Hand-Seller, and he is us.

Baron R. Birtcher spent a number of years as a professional musician, and founded an independent record label and management company. His first two Mike Travis novels (Roadhouse Blues and Ruby Tuesday) are Los Angeles Times and Independent Mystery Booksellers Association best sellers, and he has been nominated for a number of literary awards, including the Nero Award (Hard Latitudes), the Claymore and Silver Falchion Awards (Rain Dogs), and the Left Coast Crime “Lefty” Award (Angels Fall). His newest thriller, South California Purples, was released April 30, 2017. Baron currently divides his time between Portland, Oregon and Kona, Hawaii. Read more at www.facebook.com/BaronRBirtcher/

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

4/25/17 4/25/17

The Only Question You Need / Carter Wilson

Outlining is an essential step for some writers! An outline can be a helpful tool to keep us on track and meet our goals. They aren't for everyone though! This week's guest blogger, Carter Wilson, discusses his experience with outlines and why he made the choice not to use them.

Happy reading!

Clay Stafford

Founder Killer Nashville

Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine

Screw outlining.

That’s easy for me to say, because I suck at it. Sure, I had tried, but never in earnest. So after I’d written a few books, I decided to give outlining a series go — notecards and everything. I spent nearly six months outlining an idea I had for a book, and you know what happened? I got so bored with everything I threw the entire story out the window, never to return (I barely remember the original idea now).

I am what is called a classic Pantser (as in writing from the seat of). This, as opposed to my Plotser colleagues, who can see the entirety of a story, start to finish, before they actually write it out. So, after four published novels and a fifth under contract, I have learned one unalterable truth. In writing, I remain a dedicated Panstser and all I ever need to do is continually ask myself one question:

What if?

What if? is the question that drives the story for me. And this question has a sister: what does that mean? Let me elaborate.

All my books start out with an idea of an opening scene. That’s it. No sense of any character, no arc for the story, and certainly not an ending. Just a (hopefully) gripping opening scene, one I’d like to read myself, or see in a movie. In my award-winning novel, The Comfort of Black, I initially opened with a sex scene between a husband and wife. My nugget of an idea was theirs was a stale and fracturing marriage, and the scene would be meaningful because, despite their struggles, they’ve decided to try to conceive a child, and this night was their first concerted effort. They finish, the husband falls asleep, and the wife sits in bed, mulling the possibility of becoming a mother. Then, I thought:

What if the husband starts talking in his sleep? And what if his sleep-talking is about raping and killing someone?

What does that mean? How would the wife react? What is he hiding? What does she do next?

Oh, the possibilities.

Or this opener, from my latest release, Revelation:

A college student regains consciousness in a dimly lit, dirt-floor cell. There are two things in the cell with him: the eviscerated body of his friend, and an ancient typewriter. There’s a stack of blank paper next to the typewriter, and on the top sheet is a single, typed sentence. You’re the writer, tell me a story.

Holy hell, what does that mean?

Those two opening scenes were the only ideas I had for the books, because all I tend to think about is what if? And answering that question is where I derive nearly all of my enjoyment in writing. I love not knowing what the hell I’m doing. I love subjecting a character to a highly intense experience for about 100 pages, and then spending the next 300 pages trying to figure out what it all means. I learn as my character learns. Things evolve, storylines develop organically, and suddenly, at some point in the novel, it pops. All the answers unfold. And, because the answers often surprise me, they end up (usually) surprising my readers as well. And it’s so satisfying.

But pure Pantsing is not for the faint of heart. Some downfalls:

You will absolutely sit for hours and not have a clue what the next chapter should be about.
You could be 300 pages in and realize 1) you don’t have answers to your questions, 2) your answers are completely implausible, 3) your story is stupid and you’re doomed.
You have to do A LOT of revising, mostly because of the three points above.
You have to heavily rely on your subconscious to figure everything out.
You could think of a what if at the end of the story that’s so good you can’t ignore it, but you’d have to change everything before it.

All of these above have happened to me. And that’s okay, because the enjoyment for me is the high-risk/high-return proposition of just starting with an engaging scene and building around it, one grain of sand at a time.

At the moment, I’m working on the biggest What if? opening scene I’ve ever written (no spoilers here). And the reason I love not knowing what comes next is because of the equal parts of fear and excitement it stirs in me.

Here's hoping I don’t screw it all up.

USA Today best-selling author Carter Wilson explores the depths of psychological tension and paranoia in his dark, domestic thrillers. His novels have received critical acclaim, including multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Carter is also the winner of the Colorado Book Award, the International Book Award, and the National Indie Excellence Award. His fourth novel, Revelation, was released in December 2017 by Oceanview Publishing. He resides outside of Boulder, Colorado in a spooky Victorian house.

(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, Arthur Jackson, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.

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.

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KN Magazine: Articles

Lady Jayne Disappears / Joanna Davidson Politano

Getting it Right / Irene Hannon

Here’s a Story Prompt / Blake Fontenay

Beauty and Brutality in the Southern Mystery/Thriller by Bryan Eugene Robinson

OUTLINING IN REVERSE / Michael H. Rubin

What You Always Wanted To Ask A Bookseller, But Were Afraid To Ask / Donna VanBraswell

Sorry I Murdered Someone in Your Kitchen / Kevin O’Brien

Writing the “Near” Alternate History Mystery / John Hegenberger

How Can Theater Training and Storytelling Improve Your Fiction? / Lynn Hesse

How I Sold my First Novel / D.J. Donaldson

On Edge / Albert Ashforth

Elements of The Psychological Thriller: My Favorite Genre to Date / Valerie Joan Connors

Dropping Anchors / Matt Coyle

Black Swans in Publishing / By Gregory C. Randall

Writing Tics: Finding the Whys / Danny Gardner

Fiction Anticipates Reality! / Susan Wolfe

Routine Writing Habits Are Rewarding / Andrew Welsh-Huggins

The Joys and Challenges of Writing a Series Character / Joe Clifford

Meet the New Hand-Sellers / Baron R. Birtcher

The Only Question You Need / Carter Wilson

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