KN Magazine: Articles
What Mystery Writers Can Learn from Hitchcock Movies by Saralyn Richard
Recently I purchased a collection of Hitchcock CDs as a birthday present for my husband. He and I both enjoy watching them, even when we’ve seen them scads of times before. What’s especially fun about this collection is the bonus footage in the form of production notes, movie trailers and posters, and information offered about the movies by those involved in making them.
As a mystery writer, I’ve gobbled the insights like—um, movie popcorn—and I’ve learned a lot about what made Hitchcock’s movies so successful. The following are some of the takeaways:
At the heart of every suspense thriller is a likable, relatable character. The character need not be perfect; in fact, her flaws may be what draws the audience in, sympathizing with her. The character’s point of view, revealed by dialogue, body language, and smart camera shots in the movie, creates the heart-pounding tension we feel when the character finds herself in danger. Marion Crane, for example, Janet Leigh’s character in Psycho, is a thief and a liar, but her crime is mitigated by the fact that she took the money so her boyfriend could pay off his debts. Also, when she interacts with Norman Bates at the motel, she is touched by his situation and offers him friendly advice. In short, Crane is a decent person who falls into a trap. She could be any of us, stuck in a remote motel room late at night.
Every Hitchcock movie, regardless of how terrifying, has a generous dose of humor. In The Man Who Knew Too Much, there is a hilarious scene when Dr. McKenna and his wife (Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day) have a meal in a Marrakesh restaurant, and everything from the seating to the food to the eating utensils goes awry. Another such scene occurs in the taxidermy shop owned by Andrew Chapel. One would think that in a tension-filled drama, such frivolity would be out of place, but no. Hitchcock uses the lighter scenes to turn down the tension enough to create a dip before the subsequent scene, where the terror is heightened. It makes us feel as if we are on a roller coaster, rolling along softly, up, up, up to the top, just before speeding into the stomach-dropping dip that will have us shrieking aloud.
Specific details matter. Hitchcock was known for using camera movements to mimic a character’s gaze, and whatever the camera focused on became important. Nowhere was this better illustrated than in Rear Window, when the Jimmy Stewart character, a man with a photographer’s eye for detail, spies on his neighbors through binoculars. Details such as the height of flowers and the placement of a woman’s handbag on a bedpost become important clues. In The Birds, camera shots of a pair of sweet-looking lovebirds in a cage serve as a symbol of generosity and love, as well as the wrath of nature.
It’s okay to have a MacGuffin. A MacGuffin is an item or goal the protagonist is pursuing, but it has no narrative value to the rest of the story. In 39 Steps the narrator is chasing a stolen set of design plans. In North by Northwest, the microfilm of government secrets that Vandamm (James Mason) is trying to smuggle out of the country is necessary to explain the character’s motivation, but it is otherwise irrelevant to the action of the movie. The MacGuffin corresponds to a red herring in a mystery novel, or to the premise that gets the action moving, but falls off in importance as time goes on.
Plunging into the dark side of human nature. No one, in my opinion, captured the darker emotions on film better than Hitchcock. In Vertigo, an Everyman Jimmy Stewart obsesses about the Kim Novak character to such a degree that after he believes her to be dead, he forces another woman to dress and act the same. In Marnie, we are stung by the effects that Marnie’s mother’s rejection has on her daughter—including sexual frigidity. These “underside” emotions were largely avoided or covered up by moviemakers before Hitchcock, but Hitchcock’s dauntless exploration of these themes made his movies psychologically more credible—and more gripping.
Finally, Hitchcock was known for pushing against the boundaries of censorship. Whether it was using unique filming to have Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman kiss for more than three seconds in Notorious, or implying homosexuality in Rope, incest in Shadow of a Doubt, or rape in Marnie, Hitchcock never shied away from uncomfortable images. In fact, he reveled in them. In an interview with French director Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock said, “"My suspense work comes out of creating nightmares for the audience. And I playwith an audience. I make them gasp and surprise them and shock them. When you have a nightmare, it's awfully vivid if you're dreaming that you're being led to the electric chair. Then you're as happy as can be when you wake up because you're relieved."
These are but a few of the insights I’ve learned from binge-watching Hitchcock movies. Although psychological movies and mystery novels aren’t exactly the same, and writing has evolved in the half-century since Hitchcock’s last movie, the Hitchcock movies can give us some inspirational tools for our writing.
Award-winning mystery and children’s book author, Saralyn Richard was born with a pen in her hand and ink in her veins. A former urban high school educator, she’s living the dream, connecting with readers through her books: A Murder of Principal, Naughty Nana, Murder in the One Percent, and A Palette for Love and Murder. Saralyn participates in International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America, and she teaches creative writing. Website: http://saralynrichard.com.
Do You Suffer From Writer's Block? by James Glass
Do you suffer from writer’s block?
Have you hit the wall? If so, you’re not alone. Most of us do from time to time. The words won’t come or if they do, they’re all jumbled. The story doesn’t seem to move in any direction. Or worse, you stare at a blank page or screen for hours. Terrible, I know. It’s natural. Baseball players get into a hitting slump, so it’s fair to say, writers also run into a bit of a slump.
Don’t worry. As a retired Navy veteran, we have a saying, “Don’t give up the ship!” This is also true is of writing. “Don’t give up the story.”
Every writer I’ve ever known has hit the wall at some point. Some may give up. Actually, that’s not true. Many people who start their first story will quit because they run into the wall. The more time you procrastinate, are unable to come up with ideas, the more you get discouraged. However, what makes you different from the rest is you continue to write. “Don’t give up the story.”
How do I overcome this slump? What if I can’t get back into the story? What if I’ve gone as far as the story will take me?
All great questions. One thing I’ve come to recognize is that I tend to run into a wall at a certain point in all my books. The plot may be weak or too simple, the characters all sound alike, or I haven’t written enough action to keep the readers attention. If you find yourself in the similar situations, this is when writers lose confidence in their writing. And like me, if you stay in this mindset too long, you can’t move forward in the story. So where do you go from here?
If I find myself stuck and can’t move forward in the story, I’ll go back and see how I can make the plots more exciting, the characters more compelling. Find ways of getting the writing spark back. If I can’t, then I will jump several chapters ahead and see if this gets me out of the rut.
If this doesn’t work, it’s time for me to set the story aside for a while and work on a different project. This might be another novel or short story. If I still remain stuck in some writing virtual abyss I will try one last thing—writing prompts.
Writing prompts are geared to kick-start your muse, flex your creative mind. Below are examples to choose from. Aim for a hundred words. If you feel inclined write more, do so. There are no rules. One of these may turn into a short story or your next novel. The skies the limit, cliché I know.
You hit a deer with your brand new car. While the car is in the shop you discover something about the car you never would have known if you hadn’t hit the deer.
• Your best friend gives you a surprise party, but you’re not the one who’s surprised.
• You find a key. You don’t know what it fits. You set out to solve the mystery, asking yourself, “Why did I hang onto it?”
• You’ve been captured by cannibals. How do you try to convince them not to eat you? If that fails, how do you attempt to escape?
• You receive a message on your answering machine. There are only 3 words before the message is cut off. “I need help …”
Writing prompts can help you hone your writing skills. They can also be fun. Now you have something to start with, yet the rest of the story is up to you. If you don’t like the examples above, go online. The internet has plenty you can choose from.
Do you ever hit a wall in your writing? How do you deal with it? How do you overcome this challenge?
James Glass achieved the rank of Command Master Chief before retiring after 22 years in the United States Navy. After retiring from the Navy, he exchanged his rifle for a pen. He and his family moved back to the Florida Panhandle. James is also the President of the Panhandle Writers Group.
Reinvigorating That Manuscript You've Put Aside by Philip Cioffari
Many of us have at least one manuscript tucked away in a drawer, one perhaps we’ve written some time ago. We know it’s not right yet, not publishable as is. BUT we still believe in it. We know in our hearts it’s a worthwhile project, if only we can get it into proper shape. Here are some ways I’ve used to approach that manuscript from a new direction, to give it the life it’s capable of.
Change the Point of View
Seeing the story through another character’s eyes can often give us a radically different insight into our material. We discover elements of the story we hadn’t seen before, and we see familiar elements in a totally different way. In a manuscript I’d been working on for years, I changed the POV from limited third to first person. It brought me to a confrontation with my main character that was immediate and forceful. It opened up aspects of his personality that I’d previously been blind to. I was able to go deeper into his psyche, into the emotions that drove him. I fed off that energy as I rewrote the novel.
Change/Adjust the Voice.
We know the importance of narrative voice, those qualities inherent in the voice of the teller of the tale. They help define the narrator, help us feel who that person is. By tinkering with that voice, we can create a more empathetic, accessible, vivid character. (This is most obviously recognizable in a first-person narrator, but it is equally though perhaps more subtly evident in third person narration as well.) Again, in reference to the manuscript. I mentioned above, I tightened up the language of the narrator, used fewer words, gave those words more of an edge, made the sentences and phrases shorter and more abrupt, used more fragments rather than complete sentences and within those fragments used more present participles instead of past tense, all of which made the quality of his voice sharper, tauter, harder-hitting, which not only brought out his personality more fully, but also added to the overall tension of the novel.
Change the Beginning and/or the Ending.
Sometimes as simple a thing as changing where we begin the story can jump-start the work with a burst of new energy. I try to find a new angle to introduce my character and the situation he/she is facing, perhaps a place later in the narrative, a place farther along on the rising tide of tension. It can also be helpful to reconsider the end of the story. Of course, we want the most fitting, powerful conclusion we can conjure, but there are many options for that. We sometimes fool ourselves into thinking the ways we begin and end our stories are fixed, immutable. But coming back to a manuscript after some time has elapsed allows us the opportunity to re-evaluate what we thought was absolute.
Change the Main Character.
I know—a daunting prospect. But the payoff can be surprising and enlightening. Like changing the POV, the story takes on a new dimension that opens up unforeseen possibilities. In my novel, The Bronx Kill, I had three young men who were all candidates for being the main character. In early drafts of the book, I had chosen one of them as lead. But something was missing; there was a lack of energy. I didn’t create the vitality I wanted until I chose a different one of them as lead. And once I did, within a matter of a few pages, I could feel the difference in energy: the novel had come to life. (I should add that, when you make any of these changes that I’m discussing, you’ll probably know fairly quickly if you’ve made the right choice. You’ll feel an excitement you didn’t feel before. You’ll feel the story coming alive in a new way.)
Add a new Character.
As daunting as that sounds, introducing a new character can open up a story in surprising and beneficial ways. While working on my first novel, Catholic Boys, an editor suggested that I might want to add an adult character. The original version of the novel consisted of a group of young boys who discover a dead body near their housing project in the Bronx, in the swamps where they play. The main character was one of those boys. The editor commented that adult readers might be more engaged if there was an adult character they could relate to. His suggestion struck a nerve and, within hours of when he made it, I had come up with the character of a housing detective whose job it was to investigate the death. I became so enamored of this detective that he became the main character in the novel and the story, ultimately, became his story. Much of what I had written thus far became part of the unfolding plot of his life, his investigation. Adding a new character changes the dynamics of the relationships of all the characters in the story. Like the stranger who arrives unexpectedly at a party, everything is suddenly in flux; nothing remains the same. Possibilities abound. (Side note: with the twenty-first version of that book, I found a publisher.)
Add a Character or Plot Reversal.
If a character feels flat or one-dimensional, I try letting him/her do something completely unexpected, maybe something that on the surface seems totally out-of-character. This adds an element of surprise and mystery that enhances the character and thereby serves to engage the reader. It can open up a previously unexplored side of a character. So, too, for the plot. If it feels humdrum or dull, I find a way to insert a reversal of a situation or set of circumstances. Aristotle, in his Poetics, put great store in this as a dramatic technique. He called it Peripety—as in Oedipus Rex when Oedipus calls upon the blind prophet Tiresias for help in finding the cause of the plague that has beset the kingdom. Tiresias, because he is blind, is led in by a young boy as his guide. Because he does not like what Tiresias has to say, Oedipus curses him and casts him out of the palace; but later in the play Oedipus, who has blinded himself, is led away in exile with a young boy as his guide, a complete reversal of circumstances for a once mighty ruler of the land. Reversals can come as a consequence of a character’s actions, or as a consequence of fate. Handled deftly, either can be effective in raising the intensity of the plot.
Change or Enhance the Setting(s).
Often overlooked or under-rated, setting can give both texture and verisimilitude to our work, so where things happen in our stories, I believe, should be accorded careful attention. Setting is a reflection of our characters and their actions, and in many instances it can become a character in itself. So I try to make my settings be practical as well as symbolic, atmospheric as well as sensual. Setting can easily be a driving force of fiction. Certainly that has been true for me. In my novel, Jesusville, the setting consists of both the barren, arid reaches of the New Mexico desert and the refuge for troubled priests situated in that desert; each intensifies the other. In my novel, Dark Road, Dead End, it is the brutal physicality of the Everglades that plays as much of a role as any human character does. I tend to think that where things happen is as important as what happens.
A final consideration.
Something that has helped me when I return to a manuscript that hasn’t yet realized its potential is this: I try to re-connect to the inspiration/impulse/desire that made me want to write it in the first place. Then I examine what I’ve written in search of those pages or details that feel disconnected from that original impulse. That has always seemed to me a good place to begin.
Philip Cioffari is the author of the novels: Catholic Boys; Dark Road, Dead End; Jesusville; The Bronx Kill; and If Anyone Asks, Say I Died from the Heartbreaking Blues; and the story collection, A History of Things Lost or Broken. www.philipcioffari.com
That Difficult Long-term Relationship—with Characters by Carolyn Haines
When I wrote Them Bones in 1999, which turned out to be the first book in a mystery series, I had no idea what the future held for me. I’ve been an avid mystery reader all of my life, wallowing in the delicious creepiness of E.A. Poe and daydreaming about being Nancy Drew. My early writing ambitions focused more on short stories—because I didn’t believe I could plot well enough to write a full-fledged mystery.
When I finished Them Bones, what I considered a Southern humorous novel with a murder at its heart, my agent sent it out to several publishers. Lo and behold, an auction ensued. Of course, it was thrilling, and when Random House won the bid I was snapped back to earth. They wanted a 3-book contract for a mystery series. My little plotless goose was cooked!
My desire to be an author was bigger than my fear. I’d written numerous Harlequin Intrigues, which are a balance of mystery and romance. I had some experience under my belt, and yes, I would do this no matter how hard it might be.
Today, I am writing the 24th book in the series, and with each book that same old haunting fear of not having a good enough plot rises up to frighten me. I nod to it and keep writing, using the tools I’ve learned over the years about action/reaction and I remember that in a mystery, motive is all. But I will confess that never did I ever think that, while my protagonist, Sarah Booth Delaney of Zinnia, Mississippi, has aged only some 20 months in all this time, I have aged closer to 25 years. Sarah Booth is still spry and frisky, riding her horses across the wide-open spaces of the Delta. The passage of time hasn’t been as kind to me. It’s just part of life, as Jitty (the haint of Dahlia House and Sarah Booth’s subconscious) would say.
Along the way, I’ve learned some lessons about writing a long-term series. Each book is a complete, standalone mystery. But the art of a series is in how the characters grow and change. When I was teaching fiction writing at the local university, I would go over the elements of a novel (plot, theme, setting, character), asking my students, “In romance, what is the most important element? Plot, character, setting, or theme? Think simplistically. Think in broad terms.” They caught on quickly that character was vital to every romance. The meat of a romantic story is embroiled in the characters’ backstories, their wounds and flaws and, yes, motive.
That same question, when asked about mystery, often led to a lively debate between two camps: Those who said character is more important, and those who championed plot as the major focus. Both are correct. Readers fall in love with the characters and how they work to solve the mystery. Characters, just like regular humans, are shaped and formed by past experiences, hopes, dreams, and fears. And that character is revealed via the plot—how the characters seek the clues and solve the puzzle. Character revealed through action is exciting to a reader.
I was very, very, very lucky when I wrote Them Bones in that I spent a lot of time learning about Sarah Booth, Tinkie, Cece, Millie, Coleman, Harold, Oscar, and the entire population of my little fictional town. I knew Zinnia inside and out.
While each book stands alone as a mystery, the characters do grow and change, just as I have. Over the past twenty-five years, I’ve learned a whole lot of valuable lessons. By some miracle (I do believe each story is a gift and is given to us to tell to the best of our ability) I chose wisely with my characters. Sarah Booth had plenty to learn, and she has changed. But the character who has changed the most in the series is her partner in the detective agency, Tinkie Richmond. Sarah Booth is a tomboy and Tinkie is a daddy’s girl who can get her way with men by crooking her little finger. At first Sarah Booth resented that and found it manipulative, but over time, she realized how smart and wonderful Tinkie really is. By the third book, they are partners, each valuing the strengths of the other. I wish I could say I’d planned that out, but I didn’t.
Pick characters that allow you to explore different value systems, classes, and beliefs. In my opinion, diversity is your friend because it allows you, the writer, to explore and learn new things. If the series is stale to you—it will be stale to your readers. So explore. Let your characters go there with openness and honesty. Your readers will love the journey. There’s a big difference between exploring with your readers and preaching to them. I try to keep that in mind, though I’m far from perfect.
The Sarah Booth books are somewhat issue driven, but they are also humorous. Remember that the first book you write will set certain patterns that will be expected in additional books. If you blend mystery and humor, that’s what you have to deliver. If you use mystery and supernatural elements, as I do in the Pluto’s Snitch series, then those are a must to include in future books.
It’s an art to introduce each character afresh for the readers who may join the series midway through. Don’t forget to include that courtesy to new readers. I sometimes want to pull my hair out trying to explain Cece’s life choices in a couple of sentences. Or to clue the reader into the role that Millie, the café owner, plays as the mother each character so desperately needs in her life. It’s hard to encapsulate the history of 23 books in a few sentences. But like descriptive details of setting or historical facts—choose wisely and remember less is more if you pick the right details.
I am a pantser by nature, meaning I don’t like to outline. I love letting the story unfold for me as the characters live it. But I write one and sometimes two books a year, and along with the grand joy of having a contract there is also the backside of knowing that the publisher is counting on me to deliver. Life is always up and down. The past two years I’ve had a lot of family illness and loss. I have accepted that in writing mysteries, a synopsis is a must have to stay on track. I don’t have the luxury of spending months working only to have to discard a lot of pages because I hadn’t thought out the plot properly.
I write every day. I plot out my book before I start and I discuss it with my editor so she’s aware of what’s coming. She also offers invaluable help with considerations that perhaps haven’t occurred to me. But this thinking through of the plot is crucial (at least for me) in a mystery so that I can lay the red herrings and plot twists properly and set the clues up so the payoff in the end is gratifying to the reader. You can’t trick a reader—there are rules about playing honest—but you have to sometimes obscure the truth. It’s a grand challenge to me. This is not my natural strength, but I have learned to enjoy trying. That is not to say, though, that if the characters and the story take a hard left turn somewhere that I won’t go with them, despite the synopsis. Remember the first rule is to honor the story you’re given, and sometimes that means listening to the story before all else. When this happens, I stop and really think about where these changes will take the story, and I proceed with caution. Each writer has to find this balance for themselves.
I didn’t deliberately choose not to age my characters. That was lucky happenstance—for me. I fought hard against incorporating cell phones (because I didn’t have one!). Now my characters are current with technology and they employ it as it becomes available in real life. I sometimes think of my grandmother, who emigrated to this country in 1896. She saw incredible change in her life, from covered wagons to landing on the moon. Sarah Booth has a quarter decade compressed into 20 months. Crazy and kind of fun. Some writers freeze their characters in a specific decade, and that’s fine too. Just think about it a little before and make your decision, remembering that it is a decision you will have to live with for the lifespan of your series.
Readers tell me that Sarah Booth and the Zinnia gang are like family to them now. They certainly are to me since I spend more time with them than anyone else. I am with them every day, all year long. Create characters that you can love enough to let them become family. And then enjoy the ride.
Carolyn Haines is the USA Today bestselling author of the Sarah Booth Delaney mystery series, the Pluto’s Snitch historical spirit detective series, and one of the authors of Trouble, black cat detective, mystery series. She is an animal advocate and runs a small refuge for dogs, cats, and horses in Alabama. She urges everyone to please spay and neuter their pets to stop the suffering of unwanted animals.
Motivation, Hitchcock, and Why Cheaters Never Win by Maegan Beaumont
Yesterday afternoon, as I was passing through the living room on my way to the kitchen, I caught a flash of a beautiful blonde woman herding a room full of school children away from a bank of windows and the mass of birds camped outside of them, on the entirely too large TV screen.
Tippi Hedren.
Hitchcock.
The Birds.
Catching that flash reminded me of another movie—The Girl. The bio-pic about the dynamic between Hitchcock and Hedren while filming that movie and with that reminder came another about something that Hitchcock said to Hedren, particularly during the filming of The Birds. Something that’s stuck with me. Something that plays into the vanity of Hitchcock (specifically) and writers (in general).
In the scene where Hedren (played by Sienna Miller) and Hitchcock (played by Toby Jones) discuss her character’s motivation for going into the attic alone, knowing there would be birds there, Hedren asked, “Why would Melanie go into that attic all alone?”
Hitchcock replied, “Because I want her to.”
Because I want her to.
While a cinematic genius like Hitchcock might be able to get away with that, for a lowly novelist like me, writing takes a bit more work. Just because I want my characters to do something, doesn’t mean that I should just make them do it. There has to be a reason my characters do and say the things they do and it’s my job to give it to them.
It’s called motivation.
Motivation is what a writer weaves throughout a plot to bind it tight. Motivation is what makes even the implausible seem possible. Even the most unlikely seem inevitable. But what is it?
A traumatic past? Money? Love? Revenge?
I can’t simply decide that I want my protagonist to rob a bank or rescue a bunch of kids from a burning orphanage. There has to be a trigger that sets them on their course. Are they days away from losing their home to foreclosure? Are they drowning in gambling debts and on the run from a loan shark? Did they lose their child in a fire? Did they grow up in an orphanage themselves?
These are the seeds from which future action grows and if you want your novel to feel real, they must be planted. From these seeds should sprout a chain of events, fed on emotion, and tended by circumstance, that will eventually lead your protagonist to a place where the life-altering decisions they make are the only ones that make sense.
Look at it this way…
If a novel is a vehicle, then motivation is the fuel in its tank. It makes us move and takes us places—maybe to places we never intended to go. Places we don’t want to be… places we have a hard time visiting. If there’s no gas in the tank, that vehicle isn’t moving. But if we put the wrong kind of fuel in the tank then your vehicle breaks down completely. It becomes an undrivable hunk of junk that nobody wants to drive.
Or read.
When Hitchcock sent his character into that attic full of live, pissed off birds, he wasn’t sending Melanie—he was sending Hedren. He allowed his personal motivations to color the actions of his character… and in doing so, changed the movie completely.
It was no longer about the story or his character’s motivations at all. It was about Hitchcock’s and desire to punish Hedren for finding him repulsive. In punishing Hedren, Hitchcock gave us a peek behind the curtain. Even though we may not have known it at the time, we saw a writer at work and that is something your reader should never see.
The stories we write should be seamless. Our characters should be fully formed, with their own set of experiences that give their choices weight and purpose and the conclusion of those choices lead them to, should seem inevitable.
Anything less would be cheating.
Maegan Beaumont is the author of the award-winning Sabrina Vaughn thriller series. Her debut novel, Carved in Darkness was awarded the 2014 gold medal by Independent Publishers for outstanding thriller as well as being named a Forward, book of the year finalist and a debut novel of the year by Suspense Magazine. She also writes hot, contemporary romance as USA Today bestselling author and evil twin, Megyn Ward. When she isn’t locked in her office, torturing her protagonists, she’s busy chasing chickens (and kids), hanging laundry, and burning dinner. Either way, she is almost always in the company of her eleven dogs, her truest and most faithful companions and her almost as faithful husband, Joe. Look for her latest, The Darkwater Girls, to be released in the fall of 2021 through Bookouture.
Fourteen Ways to Dispose of a Body by Nate Hoffelder
I don’t know about you, but in my line of work we sometimes have to get rid of a body or two. And given the rising cost of paying off the cops, I have found that being creative when disposing of a witness or former colleague can save me a tidy sum.
That’s what one of your characters might say when narrating his adventures. You, on the other hand, are a crime writer, and it is your job to come up with a plausible way for your character to dispose of the body. It doesn’t have to be a practical or even smart way to get rid of the evidence; in fact, it might actually be better for the bad guy to mess up in some way (this makes catching perp more believable).
While there are a number of effective ways to dispose of a corpse, most require a lot of supplies or equipment. Other options include hiding the body rather than getting rid of it, or dumping it in a place where no one would look for it.
Here are a few possibilities to spur your imagination.
1. Freezer
If your villain is in no hurry and doesn't fear getting caught, they could just stick the body in a freezer for a bit. While this doesn’t count as getting rid of the body, it does have the benefit of minimizing the stink and mess; a frozen corpse isn’t going to rot or drip, after all.
2. Pigs
It is said that pigs can eat anything. And since they are omnivores, they are supposedly the perfect way to get rid of a body. I don’t know if that is actually true, but this is certainly one of the more colorful ways to do the deed.
It is also one of the least practical; it’s not like most people have access to a herd of pigs, and breaking into a pig farm has its problems.
3. Abandoned Building
This might seem sloppy, but if the perp is short on time and happens to be familiar with the decayed parts of town, they might choose to dump the body in an abandoned building. Depending on the neighborhood, your chosen urban area might have any number of buildings to choose from.
For example, I have been looking at investing in real estate in Richmond VA, and I have usually found two or three boarded up homes within a block or two of a house up for sale.
Gaining access to that boarded up building might be difficult, and the perp might leave evidence while breaking in. (And let’s be honest, eventually someone is going to complain about the smell).
4. Fast Food Dumpster
While you might think that this option is guaranteed to fail, the truth is that your typical fast food place throws out so much meat and so much trash that the perp could probably put the corpse in heavy duty trash bags and no one would know the difference. It would be almost impossible to smell the body or see the one bag among many.
5. Local Landfill
If you’ve never been to the dump then it might be hard to imagine just how much trash is thrown out everyday. There’s so much trash that if the perp dismembered a body and put it the parts in separate trash bags then there would be literally no way to tell the human remains apart from the household trash.
6. Raised Planting Beds
This option won’t do your perp any good if the police get suspicious, but if the murderer happens to know of landscaping work in progress then they could dump the body in the new planting bed, and then cover it with fill dirt.
This option could also work with a newly built retaining wall. Just dump the body before the dirt or rock is installed behind the retaining wall, and it won’t be found without a corpse-sniffing dog or a ground penetrating sonar.
7. Bonfire
Anyone who has burned a rack of ribs or a burger could tell you that flesh creates a lot of smoke once it catches fire. So does a large wood bonfire, which means that if the perp built the bonfire over a corpse, they could throw a cookout and still destroy most of the evidence before anyone was the wiser.
The thing is, the heat from the fire would cause the marrow in the skeleton to boil, shattering most of the bones into unrecognizable bits. The rest can be scooped up after the fire has died, and then dumped in the same trash bags with the leftover bones from the rack of ribs or side of beef from the cookout.
8. Wood Chipper
Made famous by a Canadian serial killer, a wood chipper would reduce a body to mostly unidentifiable fragments, but it would not completely destroy a skeleton. (This was how the serial killer got caught.)
Your perp should only use a wood chipper if they are confident that no one would ever think to check.
9. Burial at Sea
This option has the benefit of requiring otherwise unremarkable nautical equipment to pull it off (an anchor and either chain or a rope), but it also has a problem. If the body is dumped in a high-traffic shipping channel or in shallow water, it might be spotted by a passing boat.
Also, there’s been at least one report of a body getting a Chicago overcoat and still washing up on shore, making this one of the less viable options.
10. Acid
Dissolving a body in acid might seem like the perfect solution to an annoying problem, but it’s not as easy as you might think. Buying enough acid to melt a body is bound to raise eyebrows, and once the body has been turned into soup, disposing of gallons of toxic liquid will be a hassle.
11. Cremation
If the perp has access to a crematorium then it would make an ideal way to get rid of a body. Assuming they don’t get caught in the middle of the act of burning the body, there would be literally no evidence that could be traced back to the victim.
Unless, that is, the victim had a metal plate, pin, or screw. Orthopedic surgical devices (to use the technical term) often have serial numbers which can be traced and used to identify the person they went in to.
12. Make it Look Like a Suicide
This is more a form of misdirection than a method of disposal, but there’s something to be said for making a murder look like a suicide.
Why bother with hiding a body when your character can make the detectives think there’s no crime to be investigated?
13. Existing Grave
Most graveyards typically have one body to a grave, but there’s no reason why a second body can’t go in the same hole. (Or in the same coffin, even.)
If the bonus corpse goes in the hole first, it will be covered up by a casket. This would make it hard for techs to spot it using sonar, or for corpse-sniffing dogs to smell the decay. This would make it rather hard to find.
14. Concrete
Possibly even more infamous as a body disposal solution than the wood chipper, burying a body in concrete is the stuff of horror stories and crime tv series. It is at this point almost a cliche, which could actually work to your character’s advantage.
While this option does create a problem in that the body is hidden but not gone, one upside is that all of the required supplies can be bought at the hardware store, and no one will even blink.
So tell me, what was the most interesting way one of your characters has disposed of a body?
Did they get away with it?
Nate Hoffelder has been helping people fix broken tech since 2010. He builds and repairs Wordpress sites, and acts as a virtual IT department for authors. He also blogs about the Kindle and indie publishing, and has been mentioned on news sites such as the New York Times and Forbes.
Nate belongs to a number of writing groups, and is the president of the Riverside Writers Club. When he’s not volunteering, he spends his time working on projects such as The Speaker Bureau, Book Fair Website, and Author Website in a Box.
You can sign up for Nate’s newsletter here.
What Is Fiction Writing Success? by Dale T. Phillips
THE SUCCESSFUL INDIE WRITER
“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”
—Bob Dylan
What to know up front about any type of fiction publishing: Success (in terms of sales) is not guaranteed.
Take the view that getting a good book published is success. Whether or not it sells is a matter of luck— but the harder you work, and the longer you keep at it, the luckier you usually get. More success becomes much more probable, even likely, if you plan for it, and constantly work for it. It will likely be hard, and won’t come quickly, but your chances improve over time. Most published books, Traditionally published or Independent (Indie) published, do not sell more than a couple of hundred copies.
If your main success and happiness criteria is making big sales, you’ll never have enough, never be satisfied. Authors who hit #3 on the best-seller list want to be even higher, and to stay on it longer. I saw one top-selling author (with sales numbers most would kill to get) enter a conference loudly complaining, because a local bookstore hadn’t set up his latest novel display just the way he wanted.
Many people have the desire to write a book. They have a story to tell, whether it’s the story of their life, someone else’s, or something made up. Many talk about wanting to do it, dream of doing it, but they just never seem to make it enough of a priority to find the time or the impetus to put the butt in the chair and do the work. So they never achieve their aim. Or they get discouraged along the way. Winston Churchill said that success consists in going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm, and who wants that?
Almost everyone thinks they can write, they just need some big blocks of time, you know, like maybe after they retire, despite not having done it for their lives. Hey, they write emails all day, how hard can it be? We use the language every day, it’s just a matter of recording words, right? Well, it’s a lot more than that. Stephen King has a great cheeky response to the types of people who say they want to write a book some day (but never will). “Yes, and I’ve always wanted to try doing brain surgery some day.”
Others make an actual start on a book. They get some words down on paper, almost always finding out that what is in the head is difficult to transfer clearly to the page. Many give up when they realize that finishing seems like an impossible task. I’ve known a number of talented writers who never got around to completing even one novel. It’s a shame, really, because they had real skills in storytelling.
A few go on to finish a draft of a book. For most, that first one is a tough learning experience, the result is not very good, and is more of a home project than commercial material. It’s difficult to create something wonderful when you’re just learning how to do such a monumental creation project. But they completed a book, and that’s a great step on the success path. Most writers will tell you of early novels of theirs that have never been published, because they were not good. Since the first novel or few is the learning part, many mistakes are made. The books produced are called “trunk novels” or “drawer novels,” because one writes them, but they’re so bad, they get stuck in a trunk or a drawer, and never see the light of day. The writers realize the (usually) low quality of that first production, and seek to do better. They’ll learn more about the craft, and work on another book, using what they’ve learned. A few unwise ones will try to sell that first book, despite the flaws. Most will not have success at that, for obvious reasons. Fewer still will finish another book, and go on to publication eventually, and more books.
Statistic: Over 80% of published authors stop after 3 books. About 10% of published authors make it to six books. Only 5% make it to twelve.
This is a field in which, with practice and proper learning, one can develop skill enough to have a good product for sale. However, very few will continue for years to learn and grow and do better, because the financial rewards are usually small. They realize that for the time spent, they could make more money working a minimum-wage job. Writers do it for the love of what they’re doing. Only a handful turn this quaint hobby from a dream into something more. Still, the level of success achieved depends in great part on the effort put out by the achiever. Those who produce good work, constantly learn more, and follow successful models should do well.
The married team of Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch have been professional writers for over forty years, and they’ve seen too many writers just give up, because they could not sustain the success they desired. Most writers don’t stick around long enough to write ten books, so if you do, congrats. My original plan was that when I had ten good published novels, ten story collections, and 100 published stories, I’d have a good start, and be a professional. I’m close to that goal now, though I’ve set further goals.
Some writers push the concept of constant promotion and specialized marketing to achieve better sales. That’s fine for those who like it, and I do some, but I didn’t take up writing to become a marketer! I’d rather write more good books and stories than to constantly fiddle with algorithms and long, complex sales campaigns. To me, my success is that I get to do as much or as little as I want, how I want, on my schedule, and enjoy the results, as do many of my readers.
There are millions of books out there, more than anyone can ever read. This is now a world of infinite free entertainment (including music, movies, television, etc.), so if a stranger gives you money for something you made up in your head, you are a success! No one has to read anything you wrote, or give you so much as a penny for it. The fact that anyone does means you’re doing something right, that your stories matter enough to pay for.
Somebody said that the unsuccessful get halfway to the finish line and turn around. When the successful get halfway, they keep going. It’s the same distance at that point.
So set writing goals that are in your control. Sales, awards, great reviews, all are external. Continue to improve and publish quality work, and enjoy every small win.
Dale T. Phillips has published novels, story collections, non-fiction, and over 70 short stories. Stephen King was Dale’s college writing teacher, and since then, Dale has found time to appear on stage, television, radio, in an independent feature film, and compete on Jeopardy. He’s a member of the Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Visit Dale at www.daletphillips.com.
It Takes a Thief: Eugène François Vidocq by Bradley Harper
MYSTERIES IN HISTORY:
TRUE CRIMES AND REAL PEOPLE WHO INSPIRED GREAT STORIES
The Sûreté Nationale, or French National Police, was founded in 1812 by Eugene Francois Vidocq, who headed it until 1827. It was the inspiration for Scotland Yard, the FBI, and other departments of criminal investigation throughout the world, while its founder served as the inspiration for Victor Hugo’s character of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables and Edgar Allen Poe’s French Inspector C. Auguste Dupin. In later years he founded the world’s first private detective agency, and was the first law enforcement official to employ female agents.
At the time of its formation in 1812, Paris was approaching one million inhabitants, and its crime rate was the highest in Europe, forcing even middle-class citizens to hire guards when they ventured out at night. Vidocq’s small force primarily worked undercover and its early members consisted largely of reformed criminals. By 1820 – eight years after its formation- its 30-man team had reduced the crime rate in Paris by 40%.
Vidocq’s ability to recruit reformed criminals and to blend seamlessly into the criminal underworld was due in large fact to his former life as a convicted thief and forger.
Born into a comfortable middle-class family he was known as a youth for his fierceness as a fencer in local fighting halls, and earned the nickname Le Vautrin, or “Wild Boar.” He was also well-known to the local police, and at the age of thirteen was imprisoned at his father’s orders for fourteen days for stealing silver plates from his home.
The lesson his father intended for his wayward son was short-lived however, for at age fourteen he stole from the cash box of his father’s bakery and ran away. He traveled about France for a few months, joined a group of entertainers, and learned how to act. In 1791 at age sixteen, he enlisted in the Bourbon Regiment and within six months was involved in fifteen duels, killing two of his opponents. While in a military jail he helped another inmate escape by forging his release papers.
He did eventually stay out of trouble long enough to see combat, and fought so bravely he was to be promoted to Corporal but at the ceremony he challenged a Sergeant Major to a duel. When the man refused Vodocq hit him, which could have resulted in the death sentence so he fled, only to join another regiment a month later.
His military discipline was no better in his new regiment, and at the age of eighteen he was cashiered out and returned to Arras, his home town. Whether to escape a mob of jealous husbands or out of boredom, Vidcocq had one last fling as a soldier, with no better results, and fled to Brussels, where he fell in with assorted criminals, then on to Paris where he soon found himself in jail for beating a lover and the man he found her with.
His sentence was for three months, but lengthened after he successfully forged a release for a fellow inmate. He escaped several times with the help of another lover, but was better at escaping than hiding, and was finally held long enough to be sentenced to eight years of hard labor for the forgery.
Sent to Brest, he escaped while disguised as a sailor but was arrested as a possible naval deserter. He escaped a military hospital while dressed as a nun, and then hired on as a cattle drover and walked across France to Holland, where he was Shanghaied onto a crew of privateers. He served with them for a short while before being released, only to be arrested as an escaped convict by the French and sent to prison in Toulon, to escape once more.
He was on the run for eleven years after that, even becoming a successful businessman in Rouen, then again in Paris, but his past kept catching up with him, and he would be forced to flee. He was arrested in 1809 as an escaped convict, but now with a death sentence over him due to his frequent escapes. He had just turned thirty-four, and decided that it was time to turn over a new leaf. He offered his services as a police informant, and his life was never the same.
He was sent to a jail and was soon forwarding information on unsolved crimes to the Paris Chief of Police. Vidocq’s information became so useful that after almost two years in prison he was allowed to “escape” with the tacit assistance of the police, allowing him to continue his work within the criminal underground of Paris.
At the end of 1811, Vidocq informally organized a plainclothes unit, the Brigade de la Sûreté (“Security Brigade”). The police department quickly recognized its value, and in October 1812, the experiment was officially converted to a security police unit under the prefecture of Police, and Vidocq was appointed its leader. On 17 December, Napoleon signed a decree that made the brigade a state security police force. From that day on, it was called the Surete` Nationale.
In 1827 Vidcocq resigned his position and in 1833, founded Le bureau des renseignements (“Office of Information”), a company that was a mixture of a detective agency and a private police force. It is considered to be the first known detective agency. Once again, he predominantly hired ex-convicts.
Forensics did not formally exist during Vidocq’s time but he usually had a small laboratory set up in his office building. In the archives of the Parisian police are reports of cases that he solved by applying forensic methods decades before they were recognized as such.
Among his successes was the development of tamper-proof paper, that would cause the ink to smear if a forger tried to alter an amount after the ink had dried, and indelible ink, that was adopted by the French government for the printing of bank notes. He also used plaster casts of footprints found at a crime scene and developed a filing card system of known criminals, listing their aliases, physical description, and modus operandi. If the criminal was a forger, a copy of their handwriting was included.
The legend of Vidocq lives on, not just in literature, but in the Vidocq Society. Founded in 1990 in Philadelphia, its members are all forensic experts. At their monthly meetings, they try to solve cold cases from around the world, free of charge and in accordance with their motto Veritas veritatum (“Truth generates truth”). The rolls of membership are closed and the number of members remains low enough to never exceed eighty-one, the number of years of Vidocq’s tumultuous life.
Bradley Harper is a retired US Army Colonel and pathologist who has performed over two-hundred autopsies and some twenty forensic death investigations. A life-long fan of Sherlock Holmes, he did intensive research for his debut novel, A Knife in the Fog, which involved a young Doctor Conan Doyle in the hunt for Jack the Ripper, including a trip to London’s East End with noted Jack the Ripper historian Richard Jones. Harper’s first novel was published in October 2018 and was a finalist for a 2019 Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel by an American Author and is a Recommended Read by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate.
Knife went on to win Killer Nashville’s 2019 Silver Falchion as Best Mystery. The audio book, narrated by former Royal Shakespearean actor Matthew Lloyd Davies, won Audiofile Magazine’s 2019 Earphone award for Best Mystery and Suspense. The book is also available in Japan via Hayakawa Publishing.
His second novel, Queen’s Gambit, involving a fictional assassination attempt on Queen Victoria, Won Killer Nashville’s 2020 Silver Falchion Award twice, once for Best Suspense, and again as Book of the Year.
There Is Someone Among You...Who is Just Like You by Chad Campese
There is someone among you, standing in the master bedroom of an expensive home while other officers string yellow caution tape around the manicured lawn. He’s staring at a note on the Victorian era dresser, sitting next to some items that mean nothing to him, but were left, one for each family member that survived her. She, Mary, is in the garage, lying peacefully. It was quick, painless even, at least for her. Not for the daughter that found her, or for the husband consoling the daughter. Screams and sobs eco up the steps. He picks up the note, gloves on just in case, and begins to read. But, maybe we shouldn’t start there.
Writing can be a lonely endeavor. Staring at a computer, or with pad and pen. Outlining, reading, rereading, editing, agonizing. Is it good enough? Will anyone care? Is it even worth it? Is this project just a giant waste of time? Is life just a giant waste of time? Yes, that did escalate quickly.
I’ll never forget summers in middle school. We moved many times due to my father’s job. During those years I went to a private Christian school because my parents thought it would be best. Had very little in the way of friends. During summer I’d escape by hanging alone in the woods, in my treehouse, with another Hardy Boys adventure, any Stephen King book I could get my hands on, and even traveling into the world of Narnia for a few great weeks.
Thank God, literally, for those authors who were kind enough, talented enough to help me escape into other worlds during the days when I felt alone much of the time. As I watch my middle school aged daughter now go through a bit of that, I stand by ready to help, but giving her space as she escapes into her own worlds. For me, the stories always ended, and it always was just me, in my tree fort, staring at a new book, and pretending to be someone and somewhere else for a while. That kid became an adult, occasionally wishing I was somewhere and someone else, sitting with a whiskey, by a fire, thinking of the ways my wife, my kids, would all be better off if I simply rode into the sunset and they were free to pick another dad, another husband, one that suited the roles much better than I ever could.
As an adult I still love to read. But an odd thing happened when I became an officer, who never intended to become one, at first setting out to be a Chef and realizing how hot it truly was in the kitchen. After a few years on the stree,t emotions shut down. Empathy runs out. The life, feeling, love, is literally sucked out of police officers. I tried not to let it happen, and there are others who have made more attempts than I, I’m sure. Few succeed. The career wears on. Negativity, pain, the worst the world has to offer for forty plus hours a week, working odd shifts, getting held over on a whim or a late call, coming home to a wife and three young kids who always need something and don’t care about what daddy saw or dealt with, or how tired he is. Nor should they, I should add.
When the uniform came off, I should have been daddy, and a husband, but eventually I just became, to be frank, an emotionless prick. Cop was my identity 24/7. I couldn’t turn it off. To see what officers see and deal with everyday, emotions, feeling, they die off for reasons I’ll not get into here. But it’s an unavoidable response. The problems begin as you realize you can’t turn them back on, for anyone, on the job or in your life outside a cruiser. Partners, children, friends, family, they need emotion, love, connection. But eventually I just treated everyone like another call, another problem to be solved, another report to say how I made it all better for the moment while in reality not fixing anything at all.
On the verge of divorce once, probably twice, I still thank God for a wife who held on. Drinking too much, reading, watching movies because they let me escape, I questioned life, my faith, my purpose. I was lonely, emotionless, going call to call, just moving on to the next worst day of someone else’s life, while not really being involved in my own. But you’d never know it.
What I was going through, what my family was dealing with, to everyone else I was good, great, fine. To our friends, my wife and I were in love, happy, a picture of the perfect family. In the neighborhood, at church, at parties, family gatherings, on Facebook. Life looked grand. Wonderful pictures, happy posts and conversations, the best of our lives. All the while talking of divorce, ignoring each other, possibly scaring my kids without even realizing it, or caring.
And then one day I met Mary. There were many before her, but she hit home for reasons I can only guess. Mostly because she was honest. Her story isn’t for show or entertainment. But simply to illustrate a point. To her friends, she was great, fine. To her family she was happy. Facebook showed that she was living her best life. But one day Mary decided to buy a gun, write a note, and call life over. She did it in the garage, after a bottle of wine, over a blanket and beside her husband’s tool chest.
I was upstairs in her house that day, after a bad morning at my own, still working second shift. I saw the note on her dresser amidst the mementos addressed to her family. Other officers were in the garage, stringing tape, dealing with loved ones. Gloves on, I picked it up, read it. It was in that moment that I found myself agreeing with a dead woman, supporting her points, nodding my head in her bedroom. And I knew, then, I had a problem.
Mary was right. About life, about surface relationships, about who we are and what the world thinks we should be. About fake people, the pointlessness of small talk and about spending time on so many unimportant things. About covering it all up to be the package that is always good, great, fine, the package we think people should see. All while never really being known, or being real, or having a relationship with anyone that’s worth anything more than simply what that person across the table, or phone, or computer wants or needs from you at the moment. I’ve met many Marys since then, talked to them both prior to, and dealt with them after, they made a decision that ends it all. The Marys called me out. There were too many. There are too many. And every year since then the numbers increase.
I’ve already told you I’ve done horrible things. Treated my wife poorly, been short and dismissive to my children, taken my family for granted and lived life in selfish ways. I swore off a God I thought was there and had a plan, a purpose for life. I’ve wasted time and money on things worth less than nothing, and traded time with the people that matter for pennies on the dollar. Why does it matter, why do I confess it now, and why should you join me?
Because confession is an amazing thing. It does amazing things. They say your first book is always about you, but I never realized this fully until I wrote my first book. I wrote hoping to make sense of things, my life, sort of like Mary. Indeed, the writing, it was all about me, a confession of sorts, in a hero’s journey sort of story, and for me, a true portal to new life, and a new man. And I can’t take any of the credit.
It wasn’t the book that changed my life, though it did help make sense of things. It was my family and friends, after I finally broke down having nothing to lose and not caring about the outcome, as I asked them to read it, to hear the confession, scared to death of what they would think and do and how they would view me forever after. I just didn’t want to end up like Mary, like Jude, like so many others I’ve dealt with. The honesty that filled those pages had an impact on people I never realized it would, and it bonded me to them in a way I hadn’t imagined. After reading it they wanted to share their own stories, stories of fake lives, tragedies, pain, even healing. They felt comfortable, because they had already seen the worst in me, the honest through me. I was free. And yes, there was so much more to my redemption of sorts, but that’s entirely another story…
As an officer, one thing I’ve always noticed as people struggle, stress, and strain while they lie through all types of investigations, is the freedom and peace that comes with the final confession as they reveal the truth. No more hiding, they face reality head on. It’s like a ton of weight simply slides from their shoulders. Deep breath, relaxed posture, you can always tell when the honest finally comes out. Now I suggest it’s your turn. Why?
Well, you’re a writer of course, or maybe you’re just staring out like me. You live in other worlds and deal in stories that take people away from who and where they are. And if you let it, it’ll become a lonely endeavor. Alone, lost in other people’s lives and stories, we get disconnected from others, from ourselves, from real life. From the important things and people that are right in front and around us. Stories, like the ones that kept me happy and sane in middle school, can also kill if that’s all we have as adults. The stories we live in, the stories we project, the stories we share through photos and posts, and saying good, great, and fine to everyone that asks, all the while never really knowing who we are, or being known by others. We become Mary. I became Mary. It didn’t end well for her, and it almost destroyed my family, and ended my own life.
Stories are wonderful things, as long as we recognize that’s all they are, great stories, and we still take the time to live real life outside of them. Being honest with people we trust. Truly known by the people we love. Emotion, connection, they make life worth living. We were made for community, to socialize, to interact. Even the most introverted of us, of which I am certainly one.
Killer Nashville is a community. Can you help make it an honest one? A connected one? A community of people that are known for the connection they have doing the thing they love, telling stories, but also for being actually known to each other, real, connected outside of just the thing they do, the story world.
I’m free now. Free to be honest. Thanks to Mary, and so much more that happened after, I’m free to feel emotion and be bonded to people and have a depth in relationships and friendships that go so far beyond the Facebook posts, networking, and the small talk facade. If you’re reading this, if you’re part of the Killer Nashville family, would you consider sharing your story, your confession, with me? Not for entertainment’s sake, but for the sake of others’ lives who truly may be on the line, feeling alone, lost in a story they’ve created, the entire time knowing it is only that, a story, sitting alone at a computer and wondering if anyone really cares. Are they good enough, do they matter? Does life matter?
If I sat with you over lunch, dinner, maybe over a drink, and just asked “How is it honestly going, these days, being you?” All masks aside, the noise drowned out, the shell gone that you hold for work, or family, or friends. If you felt comfortable looking me in the eye and revealing the truth, getting out of the story you project for others, how does it really feel being you? How did it feel being you during your darkest hour, day, or year?
Honesty bonds us, pain bonds us, struggle bonds us, and, yes, so does success, especially if everyone knows the struggles prior. The deep things, in the dark water. Change never happens in the shallow end. We bond over the things said and shared. Confessions that sit on that shelf in the side bedroom beneath the cobwebs that we try never to look at, but that truly have or had a huge impact on who we are. Who we’ve become.
Everyone has a story. We identify with each other through the darkest ones. They are ones that truly create community. Even if you don’t want it written about for others to see, if you feel like you can’t tell anyone else and you’re not yet in that place, if you’ve identified with me at all and need someone to share it with, reach out, I’d be happy to listen. At least you’ll be known to someone. You can confess, feel the freedom, enjoy the deep breath and sigh of relief as you reveal what it’s really like to live your story. And bask in the knowledge that there is someone among you, just like you, who has royally screwed up, questioned life, treated people poorly, failed at many things, and still was able to turn the page. And you, no, you are not alone….
There is someone among you, who is just like you.
Chad Campese is a father, a husband, and a police officer extensively trained in peer support, CIT, CISM, and counseling. His first book currently sits with a few contests, so maybe one day he’ll have an award to speak of, or even perhaps have been published. He enjoys hanging with his kids, his wife, and his friends as he comes to terms with who he really is while enjoying a responsible drink by the fire and staring off through the night sky. His current passion is talking through real issues with others as they open up about their honest selves and walk forward together through this thing we call life.
Killer Looks: Part Two in Creating Killer Characters by Alexandrea Weis
CREATING KILLER CHARACTERS
You know by the way a character darted their dark eyes, thickened the ridge above their brow, or eased their meaty lips into a thin line that they have sinister intentions. That is the power of vivid descriptions. They can stir the imagination—creating a scoundrel any reader will love, or hate, lies in the details. Vague doesn’t cut it when making a person leap off the page. The more description, the better, but don’t get bogged down. You might bore your reader and could lose the essence of your character. Your portrayal is meant to be a tantalizing glimpse of your killer, not a mugshot. Make sure to unveil who they are in stages, adding new, important details as the story unfolds. Keep the reader hungry for more.
Many writers look to the pictures of Hollywood actors for inspiration. This is a good start, but sometimes it can get you into trouble. It is best to have an original evildoer in mind, not a copy of someone else. That is why your imagination is critical. So instead of looking for your serial killer among television or movie screens, go within to carve out a nightmarish degenerate the likes of which the world has never seen.
Most writers relate describing characters to writing a summary of their entire novel. It’s challenging, but instead of going for the physical, go for how you want to make a reader feel. If you need your criminal to terrify, create corresponding characteristics that suggest such emotions. Or you can unwittingly unnerve by presenting someone attractive and charismatic. One who disturbs because they are the perfect partner or dreamy date, but their intentions are utterly heinous. Sometimes the closer we come to a reader’s reality, the more hard-hitting the impact. The attractive, quiet guy next door can sometimes turn out to be more frightening than the haggard old man down the street who shouts at children for playing too loud.
Remember those details I mentioned? Start with the basics. The look and feel of the skin should be an essential part of your character. Cold or hot, smooth or coarse, lumpy or silky, these are descriptions that convey pleasure or instill disgust. Don’t forget scars, skin coloring, birthmarks, pockmarks, wrinkles, tattoos, odor, and other telltale signs that can add to your character’s personality. Imagine a man, his yellowish skin cracked and rough, with bleeding sores that give off the foulest stench reminding you of dead fish scattered on a lake. Behind a scraggly beard dotted with bald patches, you detect one long scar inching toward his right eye socket. Does this make you want to run into his arms or flee?
Facial features are another element that can say so much about a person. Are their cheekbones high, sunken, flat, or carved by a master sculptor, instilling lust or jealousy in another? Is their nose aquiline, prominent, or upturned, revealing a rather snooty demeanor? Pert and button noses encourage a sense of trust, whereas long, broken, and hooked noses could instill revulsion. What about their chin? Dimpled ones often bring the girls running, but a pointy one can be seen as witchlike for a woman or standoffish for a man. Are their teeth white, yellowed, crooked, or straight? We all check out people’s teeth when meeting them. It’s important to do the same for your culprit. Finally, don’t forget the forehead. The breadth, depth of wrinkles, and whether it hoods the eyes can say a lot about the person you are bringing to life.
The eyes are a must when illustrating the darker dimensions of who you are attempting to build. How they stare, the depth and color of the irises, the veins or discolorations in the sclera, the size of the pupils, the intensity and coldness they emit. Are they small, downturned, wide, have thick lashes, encrusted with sleep, or bloodshot from too many drugs or alcohol? Everything you put into your psychopath will unnerve and fascinate your reader.
Taking the time to build a true personality involves constructing your Frankenstein one feature at a time, while keeping in mind the emotions you wish to stir. Go for the original and extraordinary, that includes stepping outside your comfort zone. What scares readers most is something they don’t expect, which could take a lot of planning, but be well worth it in the end. If you have fashioned an iconic villain who lives on in the mind and hopefully causes a few sleepless nights, you’ve done your job. Killer characters are more than a pretty face or an ugly one, but you can’t make a great story without first painting an unforgettable picture.
Alexandrea Weis, RN-CS, PhD, is a multi-award-winning author, screenwriter, advanced practice registered nurse, and historian who was born and raised in the French Quarter of New Orleans. She has taught at major universities and worked in nursing for thirty years, dealing with victims of sexual assault, abuse, and mental illness in a clinical setting at many New Orleans area hospitals.
Having grown up in the motion picture industry as the daughter of a director, she learned to tell stories from a different perspective. Infusing the rich tapestry of her hometown into her novels, she believes that creating vivid characters makes a story moving and memorable.
A member of both the International Thriller Writers Association and the Horror Writers Association, Weis writes mystery, suspense, thrillers, horror, crime fiction, and romance and has sold over one million books. She lives with her husband and pets in New Orleans where she is a permitted/certified wildlife rehabber with the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries and rescues orphaned and injured animals.
Dwarf Appeasing with Self-Pleasing by Bryan E. Robinson, Ph.D
“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give the formula for failure—which is: Try to please everybody.” —Herbert Bayard Swope
A writer feared his second novel wouldn’t be a success. He was in a writer’s critique group that didn’t “get” the plot, and it sent him into a tailspin—months of writer’s block and anguished writing. He changed
the plot, forfeiting his own truth in order to please group members.
For those writers among us who are still trying to be a good boy or good girl so everyone will like us and we’ll never be rejected, listen up. People pleasing is a direct result of our writing insecurities and is a poison for authors.
It’s possible to be open and flexible to feedback without compromising the integrity of our work, but the quality of our writing doesn’t depend upon the acceptance or approval of others. If we forfeit our own writing voice to appease the opinions of others, we shortchange ourselves, our writing suffers, and we lose our true identity as an author.
Reflect on a time when you gave your writing self away to someone else’s opinions instead of sticking to your own. How did you feel later? If you were to develop a game plan for future writing challenges around people pleasing versus self-pleasing, what would it be?
Today’s Takeaway
When push comes to shove, the key to writing success is to get comfortable with your own writing and please yourself first with your own voice as the final stamp of approval.
From Daily Writing Resilience by Bryan Robinson. © 2018 by Bryan Robinson. Used by permission from Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., www.Llewellyn.com.
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.
His most recent release is Daily Writing Resilience: 365 Meditations and Inspirations for Writers (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2018). He has written for Psychology Today, First for Women, and Natural Health, and his blogs and columns for writers appear in Southern Writer’s Magazine. He is a consulting editor for The Big Thrill, the online magazine for International Thriller Writers. His long-selling book, Chained to the Desk, is now in its 3rd Edition (New York University Press, 1998, 2007, 2014). His books have been translated into thirteen languages, and he has appeared on every major television network: 20/20, Good Morning America, ABC’s World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, NBC Universal, The CBS Early Show, CNBC’s The Big Idea. He hosted the PBS documentary, Overdoing It: How to Slow Down and Take Care of Yourself.
Finding your Character’s Blind Spot by DiAnn Mills
Every character has a blind spot, an area where he/she is most vulnerable. Within that emotional darkness, the character lacks understanding, ignores or is unaware of a potentially harmful situation. Through a series of planned deception, the opposition successfully deceives and manipulates the character.
The reality can be painful and devastating, but it can be a vehicle to usher in truth, growth, and change. Discovering a blind spot uncovers information about the character’s behavior, and the knowledge paves the way for motivation and plot. Blind spots aren’t limited to antagonists. Our protagonists can be resistant to lies, charm, or an intoxicating lure.
Writers root blind spots in backstory, the character’s life experiences that affect the character’s goals, conflicts, and desires before chapter one, line one of the story. From the backstory, we discover how flaws and weaknesses can create areas that deceive the character. The story player who is conscious of the tendencies can overcome them through soul-searching investigation. But the character who disregards a blind spot will eventually face the consequences.
Protagonists and antagonists share similar traits of blind spots.
Both types of characters are capable of being deceived.
Both types of characters can notice the problem.
Both types of characters are capable of overcoming their weakness.
Both types of characters have a choice.
For the Protagonist
Dealing with a blind spot is an opportunity for transformation, either before or after the story begins. Sometimes the writer shows an unveiling of a blind spot to create emotional tension that endears the reader to the character. These characters have traits to become dynamic heroes and heroines.
Two scenarios can take place:
The protagonist realized the blind spot during the backstory. He/she overcame the problem. The character now uses the past to help other characters who have not reconciled with the weak trait.
The protagonist didn’t recognize the blind spot, but other strengths masked the weak area, giving the character a boost to their status. Dealing with the unaddressed issue is imperative to the plot.
High stakes result if the opposition discovers the weakness, decreasing the chances of the protagonist to reach his goal.
For the Antagonist
Just like the protagonist, if the opposition discovers the blind spot, the antagonist will struggle to reach his/her goal. This can be a method of stopping the inappropriate behavior.
Two scenarios can take place:
The antagonist has never discovered the blind spot. The character covered any inadequacies with abilities to manipulate others that originate in charm, wealth, or power.
The antagonist refused to recognize a frail part of his landscape. Arrogance overrules any desire to change.
Methods of Revealing Blind Spots
Characterization
While the writer is developing the character, details from the past and present indicate the vulnerable areas to use a blind spot. The how is initiated by the opposition using the weakness when the character least suspects it. The why is reflected in the character’s goals, weaknesses, and personality. The use may only be once, but numerous occurrences allow the character to look fragile and perhaps unstable.
Plot
A blind spot can whirl in the midst of a character struggling to achieve wants and needs, adding stress, tension, and conflict to the storyline.
Emotion
Emotion is how the character believes feelings should be internalized, displayed, or hidden. This is a mix of inherited traits and learned behavior. The character who handles emotions in an unhealthy manner often encounters blind spots that hinder appropriate reactions to life’s problems.
Symbolism
A symbol is a tangible item that means something psychological to the character—and translates the same emotional response to the reader. By providing an evocative and emotional experience, we enable a reader to identify elements of the story beyond the written word. A blind spot often reaches into the depth of a character’s psychological makeup and manifests itself in a symbol.
Dialogue
While dialogue is fresh, new, and has spirit, within the words a character speaks reflects what occupies his/her mind. A blind spot translates to denial or avoidance in what a character says and often in conflict with another character(s).
Setting
A character who has an obstructed view of a setting cannot comprehend the savagery at which a setting can turn against him. They are taken unaware by an environment either mental, physical, or spiritual.
Every character has a potential blind spot. It’s up to the writer to discover the flaw and use the information to the story’s advantage.
How are you using a character’s blind spot to move your story ahead?
DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She is a storyteller and creates action-packed, suspense-filled novels to thrill readers. Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests.
DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers, a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers. She is the director of the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference, Mountainside Retreats: Marketing, Speakers, Nonfiction and Novelist with social media specialist Edie Melson where she continues her passion for helping other writers be successful. She speaks to various groups and teaches writing workshops around the country.
Connect with DiAnn here: www.diannmills.com
Pre-Game by Steven C. Harms
Allow me a brief introduction. I’ve spent the previous thirty-plus years as a sports and entertainment business executive, having worked in the NBA, NFL, and MLB. But for two years at the NBA League Office in New York City, the rest of my career was at the local market level. I’ve been intimately involved in crafting the fan experience along the way, with probably close to 1,600 sports or entertainment events under my belt. Some of those national in scale (All-Star Games, World Series, Playoffs), but most were the garden variety regular season game or concert stop for a touring performer.
My journey has brought me so very many unique experiences and allowed me the opportunity to meet and, in some cases, get to know many professional athletes and entertainers along the way. People like Michael Jordan, Muhammed Ali, Torii Hunter, Barry Sanders, Magic Johnson, Miguel Cabrera, Dick Enberg, and artists such as Bruce Hornsby, Celine Dion, Bob Seger, and others.
I’m truly not one to name drop, however, my background was important to tee up where this blog will be going.
I’ll be sharing stories in future blogs that I hope you’ll find entertaining (sort of a peek behind the curtain), but that will also be educational to you, the writer. One of my crowning achievements was becoming one myself, and in that process, the corollaries between writing/readership/story-telling and the business of sports and entertainment became apparent. A novel is all part of the entertainment mosaic. We can draw best practices from sports and entertainment, and apply them to our craft of writing compellingly great books, our author journeys, our reader’s experiences and, hopefully, finding some nuggets to become better at our craft.
This first blog is dedicated to what I’m calling the “pre-game experience.”
As a sports business executive, I always kept both eyes on our most important stakeholder, the fan. They drive almost every decision because, ultimately, their engagement with our product dictates the success or failure of our enterprise. The same goes for the books we write. Without loyally engaged readers (fans), the arc of our success is flat-lined or plateaued, or perhaps barely off the ground. And I’ll argue that a percentage of that success line is built in the pre-game.
Assuming that you’ve gone to a sports or concert event, take a moment to think about the experiential nature of that activity and what occurs before the game or concert even starts. There are a number of moving parts that can negatively or positively impact the feeling of having a great experience. Ticket purchase process, parking your vehicle, getting to your seat (crowd control management), cleanliness of the facility upon arrival, temperament of the customer-facing event staff, and so on.
When I go to a game as a fan, I’ve paid my money and I have an expectation that I’ll enjoy the hours I’m dedicating to that activity. But if the parking attendant is rude, or argumentative, or errs in giving me the appropriate change back, or rudely barks at me to “park right here,” I’ve already taken a negative position before I ever get out of my car.
Additionally, venues, concert tours, or your favorite hometown team, spend an awful lot of energy and money in creating a captivating welcome or opening ceremony targeted to you, the fan. Why? So you’re pulled into the excitement and it’s “special” from the moment you arrive. As a sports marketer, I knew we were building memories for each fan…every…single…game.
Another example is Disney. If you’ve ever been to one of their theme parks, you know what I mean by customer service and appreciation. Your entire experience begins way before you first walk through their gates.
One pillar of live sports and entertainment marketing is to be fully prepared when the gates open and eliminate all pre-game missteps.
Let’s flip the spotlight over to writing and ask yourself what’s the pre-game experience for your readers or potential readers of your new book and you as an author? Some areas to consider:
Your book cover. Is it something you really like, or is it a cover design that a majority of readers would find too artsy, or clunky, or just too weird to hold their attention? Look at it from a reader’s viewpoint and try to take your emotional attachment out of the decision. This is your main gate to your arena, so to speak. What does it look like? I understand the argument that covers don’t sell books, but I disagree. A great cover designed to capture the reader’s attention will serve a positive role in selling your books.
Same for your title – see above.
I’m big on an opening “wow” chapter or prologue, in particular within the mystery thriller genre. The open sets the stage for the rest of the book (which for this conversation is the transition from pre-game to start-of-game). It’s your opportunity to capture all that anticipation from your reader, much like the moment when football teams come bursting through the tunnel onto the field just before kick-off. The thrill, pomp and circumstance of it emotionally and energetically pulls the fan into the action about to unfold. Your opening chapter is that level of “moment.”
Does your author brand have “stickiness” or can you build to it? Stickiness simply means are you resonating with readers? Are you writing quality stories that are memorable enough to establish you as a brand? One tactic is to insure you have a website that emphasizes your uniqueness, looks fantastic, is easy to maneuver through, and uses imagery, fonts, colors and text that reflect you.
How are you set-up and operating on social media? Sports teams are very good at pushing out content, as are today’s athletes and performers. Sports entities and celebrities have a built-in base simply because they are who they are. Love or hate a team, they’ve been around for decades and have a brand. If they post something, it’s going to get attention without much effort. The vast majority of authors, on the other hand, are not household names. Pay attention to what you post. Asking my main character’s hair style of my WIP is, at best, a vapid exercise. You may get some responses, but to what end? Quality over quantity is where the focus should be. Content with thoughtful and respectful authenticity will do far more good than quick hit fleeting posts. And remember – potential readers are probably scoping you out on social media.
Athletes and musicians practice to perfect or improve their performance for games or competition in order to win. As authors, there are things you can do to hone your skills. Your novel is the same as a sports event or concert. You have one shot to win that game or nail that performance. How are you preparing? Conferences, writer’s groups, workshops, reading other author’s books, utilizing a quality editor, and the like are all there for improving your writing skills to facilitate better results for the reader’s experience. And, if you’re dedicated to the details of the pre-game experience, your odds of winning or scoring well will climb exponentially.
Think about your pre-game rituals and what you are or aren’t doing to prepare before tackling that next novel. Hall of Fame Football coach, and NFL legend Vince Lombardi put it well, “The will to win is not nearly so important as the will to prepare to win.”
Steven C. Harms is a professional sports, broadcast and digital media business executive with a career spanning over thirty years across the NBA, NFL, and MLB. He’s dealt with Fortune 500 companies, major consumer brands, professional athletes, and multi-platform integrated sports partnerships and media advertising campaigns.
He’s an accomplished playwright having written and produced a wildly successful theatrical production which led him to tackling his debut novel, Give Place to Wrath, the first in the Roger Viceroy detective series. The second book, The Counsel of the Cunning, is due out in fall of 2021.
A native of Wisconsin, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. He now resides in Oxford, Michigan, a small, rural suburb of Detroit.
How to Audit Your Author Platform in Five Easy Steps by Mary McFarland
THE OM OF THE SOFT SELL:
EASY, LOW-COST MARKETING
FOR THE CRAZY-BUSY AUTHOR
Do You Feel Besieged by Offers to Help You Sell More Books?
Authors are besieged by sellers offering workshops, challenges, and online universities—gasp!— built around helping us sell books. If you’re struggling to keep up but still not selling books, it’s time to start using digital tools to audit your platform and build in a “soft sell” to attract readers.
Are You a Victim of the “Hard Sell?” If you’re making yourself sick—and broke—trying to sell, i.e., “market” books and keep up with digital marketing fads, you’re a victim of the “hard sell.” The hard sell puts immediate pressure on authors. Buy our workshop! Our app! Our system! Buy now! Since its introduction in the 1950s, it has today found a perfect spot in the digital marketing community, where fast, high-pressure selling occurs in nanoseconds.
If you’re a victim of the hard sell, your first step is to audit your author platform. First, however, here’s two preliminary steps toward recovery:
Halt the desperate urge to get “likes.” Likes don’t generate enough traffic to buy a latte, and they’re a time-suck. Learn instead to identify what’s motivating social media use among prospective readers (See Figure 1). Note:“buying”is at the bottom of the list.
Brainstorm the motivation behind your brand. What themes do your books explore that creates passion among your target audience? How do you want readers to perceive you? What exceptional reading and promotion experiences, what “value” do you offer that your competitors don’t? Who are your competitors?
Fig. 1: Top 10 Motivations for Using Social Media. Image courtesy of PRO Platform.
Why Do I Need to Audit My Author Platform?
Your platform is the locus of your author identity, where the impressions readers form over time become your author brand. There are two critical reasons to audit your platform. One, auditing your platform lets you control and build your brand and adjust it as readers’ desires change. Note:do you think the platform Amazon started with (See Figure 2) would entice buyers today?
Fig. 2: Early Amazon page. Image courtesy of Version Museum.
Two, your platform, in addition to conveying your brand, is also a place to use your “soft sell” to target and attract readers. Why would you want to do this? To find out, take this quick quiz:
Who’s the greatest customer-centric, soft seller of books in history?
Who sits on the Web, does nothing—that we can see—and attracts readers in droves?
Readers trust the Amazon brand and love buying in a bookstore where they rule but feel not one iota of pressure. That’s the “Om” of a digital marketing brand whose “soft sell” is the heartbeat of the most recognized brand on earth.
What Tools Do I Use to Audit My Author Platform? Figure 3 shows the digital tools you can use to perform a quick platform audit, tells you when to perform and audit, and lists the free digital tools.
Keep in mind that digital tools evolve constantly, so begin with the suggested list in Figure 3 and build on it as your platform evolves. Note: There are many digital tools available, but these tools are author tested.
Fig. 3: Digital Tools for Performing a Platform Audit. Image courtesy of Red Girl Digital.
What Are the Steps to Audit My Author Platform?
Follow these steps to complete your author platform audit.
How to Audit Your Author Platform: Five Easy Steps
Step 1
Tools Needed: NAMECHK, KNOWEM
Goal: Identify all social media channels on your author platform, where you are now or want your brand to be in the future.
1. Go to www.namechk.com and check your author name (your brand). Is it available across all social media platforms?
2. Go to www.knowem.com and check to see which categories are available or taken.
Note: These tools are helpful if you’re planning a brand. They let you see if it’s available on certain channels before you spend time brainstorming names.
Note: If your channel is taken, check to ensure it’s by you. If it’s not taken, go claim it.
Step 2
Tools Needed: FACEBOOK ANALYTICS, GOOGLE ANALYTICS, INSTAGRAM ANALYTICS, PINTEREST ANALYTICS
Goal: Measure reader engagement on your social media channels.
Most social media sites have built-in analytics that break down the number of links, shares, clicks built into the site.
Go to each SM site on your platform, e.g., Facebook, Twitter, and search on “analytics.”
Note: Keep in mind, you must interpret what these numbers mean across your author platform and find “digital strategies” to “tweak” them to increase reader engagement.
Step 3
Tools Needed: BOOKBRUSH, CANVA, LANDSCAPE, PICMONKEY
Goal: Check for brand consistency, i.e., look and feel across your author platform and intended branding.
Go to each social media channel and check the following:
Color palette. Are you using the same color palette consistently on all channels? What branding message does your color choice convey? For example, red and orange (McDonald’s) conveys friendly and affordable.
Author bio. Any inconsistencies?
Graphics. Consistently conveying your brand message? Is your logo use consistent?
URLs. Are they all consistently branding you?
Note: Use a consistent color palette and graphics, message and logo. If you find cleaning up inconsistencies difficult and time consuming, use the tutorials and help features of the digital tools. Yes, it’s time well spent.
Step 4
Tools Needed: CALCULATOR.NET
Goal: Identify top performing channels based on engagement and social media ROI.
Social Media ROI formula: (Earnings – Costs) x 100/Costs
Example:
You invested $50,000.00 in social media PR and ad campaigns on Facebook, and you earned $70,000.00.
70,000.00 (earnings) – 50,000.00 (costs) = 20,000.00 x 100/50,000.00 = 40% ROI
Note: this example is not typical, but whether you made a few hundred or a few thousand from your social media campaigns, the goal is to increase earnings by keeping an eye on readers’ changing desires.
Step 5
Tools Needed: Free SEO Checker: Website SEO Analysis Tool & Audit Report (neilpatel.com)
Goal: Identify basic Search Engine Optimization “SEO” for your Web site’s traffic, including page score and monthly traffic.
CONGRATS! YOU COMPLETED YOUR AUTHOR PLATFORM AUDIT!!!
I’ve Audited My Author Platform? What’s My Next Step?
Good job! You did it! How does your platform look? Does it consistently convey your brand across all channels to your prospective readers?
Extra fun: If you are just beginning to grasp SEO and how important it is to your sales success, Author Imprints has a great article with suggestions for analyzing and improving your SEO. It’s located here: www.authorimprints.com/author-metada-audit/
A Challenge: A great challenge for any author is learning which sales strategies are working for competitors. Go to your competitors’ platform and identify what types of “sell” they are using with various promotions. Is it the “hard sell” or the “soft sell?”
Hi, I’m an aspiring author and like you I’m mad as hell and I’m not taking it anymore.
In 2015, I watched my post-launch sales ranking for Jump the Line climb to 40,000 in “romantic suspense,” a saturated category, and then drop. I let it. I paused my author platform to research how digital marketing and technology work together to promote—or impede—book sales.
We can’t see or control technology’s “back end,” but it’s driving digital marketing. Its twin is the “hard sell” that has formed around it to drive us all crazy. While tech’s front end (e.g., Amazon and Facebook, etc.) is a user-friendly “soft sell,” its back end is a hard sell. Do your marketing, i.e., your ad campaign and key word setup right, or you’ll spend tons and sell little. Crack the code with the latest fad or miss the sales bus!
The marketers have us believing we must know things like—gasp!—how Amazon Web Service (AWS) works, that we must know its secret “algorithms” to sell books. Friends, it’s unknowable except to the AWS army of geeks. What can beating our brains out trying to decipher Amazon’s algorithms possibly do but waste time and exhaust us?
We don’t need to knuckle to hard-sell digital marketing recipes, unless—of course—they are created by us to serve us. What we do need to know is how our own author processes, such as the book launch, work on top of and in conjunction with technology’s back-end. In addition, we must become experts in exploiting useful and, especially, free digital marketing tools.
What fuels my twin interests in digital marketing and technology? First, I’m out to disrupt the myth that authors must make ourselves sick fighting technology to sell books. My mission instead is to deliver the “Om” of digital marketing, the fun, easy and, especially, the healthy digital recipes for selling books. Second, my background as a technical writer in the software industry, and a Master’s concentration in using Web 2.0 technology, have long fueled my desire to both write fiction and serve fellow authors.
My research in digital marketing for authors is a journey. I’m inviting you along to share and support our community. If you find digital tools that support authors, share. If you spot a problem, and you think digital tools can fix it for our community, share harder!
www.redgirldigitalmedia.com (July 2021)
www.marymcfarlandbooks.com (July 2021)
Dropping in on Another World by Maria Hudgins
MYSTERIOUS GETAWAYS
Taking in the skyline of Vienna from the top of my hotel, I was surprised to spot the Prater Wheel in the distance. Still the world’s largest Ferris wheel, it stood, not in the middle of the city, but way over in the north on the bank of the Danube River. Why had I expected it to be downtown? Simple. My concept of the city, the wheel, and even the entrance to the sewers had been formed and cemented by The Third Man, starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton, the screenplay written by Graham Greene. In the story, it seemed like the amusement park and Ferris wheel were in the heart of the war-torn city.
Our minds are filled with images of things we have seen—or think we have seen. Have I seen the Alamo, or do I just think I’ve seen it? I may have only read about it in a book, but part of who we are is what we’ve read. Do you have a mental picture of Istanbul? Of Paris? Of Japan? Have you been there, or have you just read about it? Part of the joy and challenge of writing a story is creating a world to put it in, and different authors create different worlds in the same geographic place. Inspector Morse’s Oxford is very different from Dorothy L Sayers’s.
Picture Los Angeles as described by Walter Mosely in Little Scarlet:
“The morning air still smelled of smoke. Wood ash mainly but there was also the acrid stench of burnt plastic and paint. And even though I knew it couldn’t be true, I thought I caught a whiff of putrid flesh from under the rubble across the street.”
Or Michael Connelly’s Los Angeles in The Gods of Guilt:
“He got in the front and I jumped in the back. After a quick stop at the sandwich shop on Alameda I had Earl point the car west. The next stop was a place called Menorah Manor, near Park La Brea in the Fairfax District.”
We all think we know what a little English village is like, but is that because it really is or because of what Agatha Christie told us? In the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, she says:
“Our village, King’s Abbot, is, I imagine, very much like any other village. Our big town is Cranchester, nine miles away. We have a large railway station, a small post office, and two rival 'General Stores.' Able-bodied men are apt to leave the place early in life, but we are rich in unmarried ladies and retired military officers. Our hobbies and recreations can be summed up in the one word, 'gossip.'"
I’ve driven through little villages in the English Cotswolds, and I can tell you this is pretty accurate, except for the retired military officers. When creating a world with your words, remember, this is not a travelogue. Less is more. The story is the thing. You can wax poetic for pages about weather in Sweden, or, like Stieg Larssen in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you can say, “He considered walking, but it was a blustery December day, and he was already cold. “
That’s it. You get the idea.
Maria Hudgins is the author of the Dotsy Lamb Travel Mysteries, the Lacy Glass Archaeology Mysteries, and a number of short stories. She has visited Italy, Switzerland, England, Scotland, Egypt, Turkey, and the Greek Islands, and used these locales in her stories. She still has the notebooks she kept in each of these places.
The County Coroner by Cara Bryant
The Northwest Territories is a vast expanse of land with a small population. There are roughly 44,000 souls spread out over 442,000 square miles of thick forest and vast tundra. Given the circumstances, when it comes to filling jobs, there are challenges in finding staff. One of those jobs is community coroner. The term “community” means not a traditional coroner. Most people think of a pathologist or someone with medical training. In the NWT and a few other Canadian provinces, people with no experience—but able to lift upwards of 100 pounds—are hired all the time to be community coroners. It is a job I began with no formal education in medicine of any kind. Other than episodes of CSI, I was not familiar with what the job would entail.
Basically, when a sudden death occurs, there is a need for someone to remove the body from the scene, or if it is already in the hospital, take it to the morgue. There’s a lot of paperwork to fill out, on top of working with the family of the deceased and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). I don’t inform the family of the death, that heart-wrenching job is left to the police.
Part of the job involves examining the body and recording any contents the person had on them, like wallet, jewelry, etc. I always took great care with possessions, no matter what they were. It can be surprising what objects hold sentimental value for people. I once had the wife of a deceased person ask to be given back a plastic sandwich bag found in a pocket.
I remember clearly early on in my coroner work doing an exam on an elderly woman who had passed away a few hours prior. The deputy coroner was writing down my findings, any bruising or cuts, that sort of thing. Holding her arm, it jerked out of my hands, causing me to scream in surprise. A moment of sheer terror that the deputy thought was hilarious. Rigor mortis had begun to set in.
Another night, I had actually just gotten into bed when I was called to the scene of a crash. A man had been killed in a vehicle collision. He was stuck inside the car, which was severely banged up. Removing him in the middle of nowhere in -40F was no easy task. With no other options, myself and some of the other first responders had to physically pull him out of the car. The rubber gloves I had been given froze to my hands in seconds and I had to take them off. I wore my thick winter gloves instead. I had forgotten to put on my snow pants and my legs were nearly frost bitten by the time we got back.
It’s certainly not an easy job. When I tell people about the work I do the reaction is often one of revulsion and/or confusion as to why I would volunteer for such a job. To be clear, I do get paid a flat rate per case. Death is a scary thing for a lot of people and they rather avoid it all together. For me, it has created a great appreciation for life. It’s also a reminder to wear your seatbelt, your helmet, your lifejacket every. Single. Time.
Drug Groomer by W.C. Gordon
FORENSIC FILES
Elvis Costello fills the cool air inside my department-issued, grey Toyota Camry. The A/C is on high and struggling against the South Florida summer heat. Elvis belts out what was once considered an angst-ridden song but is now Classic Rock. Soft rock at that. This will be my last few moments of comfort before I battle the outside heat, followed by the stifling, still warm air of the indoors. The indoors without an A/C running. And the smell. Bodies decompose far quicker in high humidity and high temperatures. It’s Tuesday. Yesterday was a holiday and the groomers were closed. It was last open on Friday. Her son is allowed to live in the back area when the shop isn’t open. So that puts the time of death sometime after 4 o’clock on Friday and now. I look at my watch—a Citizen Eco-Drive that my wife got me for my 40th. It’s 9:30 am. I need coffee.
I pull up to the front of the shop. Scruffy to Fluffy. Very clever. I take quick stock of the scene: Five police cruisers. That’s a bit excessive for what they’ve already determined is an overdose. That being said, I know that two of the officers on scene are salty old vets just trying to hump this call for as long as possible to avoid being dispatched to another call. I see a very distraught woman at the front of the business being consoled by another, far less distraught, woman. I’ll assume that is the mother of the newly deceased. Thank goodness. Nothing worse than having to do a death notification. That’s the hardest part of the job. Figuring out how someone died is typically easy. Notifying their next-of-kin that their dearly beloved whoever has shed their mortal coil is usually an emotional endeavor. Usually but not always. When the family has located the decedent, that relieves me of the burden of the notification.
Bobby, one of the old salts, walks over to my car. I roll the window down and ask who the primary officer is. He says it's Valinucci. Fantastic. A great cop who’s got more time backing his patrol car up to a curb than I do in a uniform. I ask Bobby to send him out to me. Within a few minutes, Valinucci is walking out to my car with a big smile on his face. He knows the drill and gets into the passenger’s seat.
“How’s my all-time favorite detective doing?” he says with a smile.
“Who knows? He’s probably at Lighthouse Diner enjoying a big breakfast with an even bigger mistress!” With that, Nooch lets out a laugh and we catch up on some small talk. Always invite the officer to have a seat in your car. Little things like getting the basics of an initial investigation inside the comfort of an air-conditioned vehicle do not go unnoticed by a patrolman.
“How’s the mom?” I ask.
“Heartbroken, but she gets it. She knows his issues. Enabled him. The usual. Thirty-six years old and living in the back of her grooming shop doing dope after hours.”
I make my way to the side entrance of the shop and sign the crime scene log. I can already smell it. That being said, the stench is not as bad as I prepared myself for. Not quite as heavy and cold as I anticipated. At least not yet. I walk past the grooming tables and bathing stations that are set up. I admire the organization of the brushes, combs, and shears that are neatly placed on a pegboard. The shelf has all manner of shampoos and conditioners. Eye and ear cleaning kits. I see a separate area for leashes and harnesses that brings to memory a human trafficking case.
As I approach the restroom, I can see through the threshold of the door what I recognize as a Vans checkboard slip-on shoe. I didn’t know grown men still wore those. I had a pair when I used to skateboard. I was thirteen then.
The decedent is in what is commonly referred to as the “praying position.” That’s when the body is found in a kneeling position, bent over, with the head between the knees. Lividity is noted as set and appears consistent with body positioning. His face is mushed into the floor and appears to be beginning to become one with the terrazzo. There is a considerable, but not excessive, amount of fluid around the head. Most perceive it to be vomit but it's actually a foam. An opioid overdose causes the heart and lungs to slow which causes fluid to gather in the lungs. That fluid mixes with carbon dioxide and exits the mouth in a foam-like form. When someone dies on their back, a foam cone erupts from their mouth. You never quite enjoy a snow cone after seeing it.
I reach down and take hold of a finger. I have done this bare-handed in the past but with the lethality of fentanyl, or the even deadlier carfentanyl, I am sure to glove up first. The finger feels cold but in reality, is only room temperature. Rigor mortis is long gone and the skin is retracting. The medical examiner will call this ‘secondary flaccidity.’ So far, in this heat, I’m thinking he probably OD’d sometime Saturday. I give the body a quick scan and… What. The. Hell?! There’s a very familiar sticky thing attached to this guy’s lower right leg. Right above the shoe normally worn by a teenager. It’s a telemetry lead used to run an EKG.
“Did rescue come in here?” I ask, to nobody in particular.
“Yeah, they ran a lead on the guy.” Shouts the officer maintaining the crime scene log.
“You’re telling me they couldn’t figure out this guy was done?”
“I guess not.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t shove Narcan up his nose.” This last comment didn’t solicit a response from the officer. Probably a good thing, as I think the mother of the deceased could probably hear me shouting. I don’t know who I’m more annoyed by; the evidence destruction team marching in here with their dirty bunker gear to run an EKG strip on an obvious corpse or the officers for allowing it. Whatever; it's not exactly the crime of the century.
I tip the decedent over to find what I’m looking for. And there it is, a syringe; however, I also cause the guy to expel some long pent-up gases. Now the stench has fully engulfed the room. I have what I need and make my way out of the business with haste.
A quick call to the medical examiner goes as expected: “Thirty-six-year-old white male… Moderate decomposition… No signs of trauma or deformity… History of drug use… Narcotics paraphernalia in the area… Needle… Yeah, needle, like a syringe… Yep… Yep… Ok… Great, thanks.”
My A/C is on full blast but the windows are down. I need the cold air on my face but also allow the dead guy’s scent to escape as it is lingering on my shirt. I debate about having the mom sit in the car. I decide against it. When I’m done, I can walk away from her but getting her out of my car could be a chore.
I walk over to the grieving mom and the conversation goes as expected: “My deepest condolences… Looks to be an accidental narcotic-related overdose… It’s such a terrible disease… Yes, ma’am, I will be doing everything in my power to bring the evil person who sold your son these drugs to justice… Yes, they can be charged with homicide… I will be in touch with you when the toxicology results come from the medical examiner’s office… Take care, ma’am.”
I then walk over to Bobby and tell him that the ME is not coming out. They’re going to send the body snatchers to scoop up the dead guy. I tell him to call me if they find anything out of the norm when they move the body.
Back to my car for more glorious A/C and to hear Elvis sing about watching detectives. Now for the most important decision of the morning: where to get a good cup of coffee.
W.C. Gordon is a cop, veteran, and author of the novel The Detective Next Door. His writing is influenced by his personal experiences in the military and in law enforcement, which he then mixes with bourbon and dark humor. He lives at his home in South Florida with his wife and dog.
Novel Malpractice by Ronda Wells
Are you guilty of what I call novel malpractice? As a physician and fiction writer, I see repeated medical errors in novels, movies, and television shows. Some are minor flaws and necessary to fit the story in a one-hour television show—of course, we all know a heart transplant takes longer than the allotted five minutes, so we suspend our disbelief and keep watching to see if our heroine survives.
In a novel, though, outright mistakes can stop the reader (including editors) or pull them out of your story. Even some recent award-winning books have contained a major medical faux pas or two. I’ve collected a few, so to test your knowledge, here’s a quick quiz. If you have a medical background, this does not apply.
(Theme song to Jeopardy will now play in your head as seconds tick away . . . )
Common Confusions Quiz
Neurologists operate on the brain. T or F
Osteopaths are not real doctors. T or F
Psychiatrists and psychologists mean the same thing. T or F
Family Practitioners and General Practitioners are both board-certified. T or F
All doctors must complete a residency to get a state medical license. T or F
Optometrists do eye surgery; opthalmologists only fit you for glasses. T or F
Medical school takes four years. T or F
“The Match” is an online dating service for doctors. T or F
All doctors are created equal. Medical doctors can be a PhD, DO, DPM or MD. T or F
Okay, let’s see how you did. Answers:
You’ve just killed a character if you allow a neurologist, who is a board-certified physician who completed extra training in nervous system diseases and is not a surgeon, to operate on your character’s brain.
Osteopathic physicians are real doctors who train at four-year medical schools of osteopathy that also teach osteopathic spinal manipulation. Osteopaths use D.O. behind their name like I use M.D. They are trained in residency programs alongside M.D.s and can enter all specialties.
Psychiatrists are M.D.s who complete a residency in psychiatry and can prescribe medications. Psychologists, who may have a PhD in psychology, are not physicians and generally cannot prescribe medications except in certain states under the authority of a physician. Psychologists are licensed mental health professionals.
Family Practitioners must complete a Family Practice Residency and then pass a board examination given by the American Board of Family Practice. While family practitioners practice what is called general medicine, a general practitioner (G.P.) can be any licensed physician doing general practice who is not board-certified in Family Practice.
Noting a trend? Read on . . .
While most states require passing a state licensing exam or the equivalent, board certification is not usually required to obtain a medical license. Each state medical board is different and the requirements for licensure vary by state. Some states require a minimum of completion of one-year of residency (internship), others don’t. Your best bet as a writer is to read the licensure requirements for the state under the particular state’s medical licensing board.
Optometrists (O.D. behind their name for Doctor of Optometry) do not perform eye surgery and generally fit you for glasses or contacts. They can also treat eye diseases such as glaucoma. Opthalmologists are medical doctors who complete a residency in ophthalmology and operate on the eye, cataract surgery being the prime example. Opthalmologists can also prescribe eyeglasses and contacts and frequently treat rare or more complex eye diseases such as macular degeneration or retinal detachment.
While most medical schools are four years, some offer an advanced pathway that can be completed in three years. Some schools offer a combined M.D.-PhD program which can take six years or longer.
False, although many doctors wish it were that easy to find a mate. “The Match” refers to an official national computer algorithmic matching system between graduate medical students at the end of the senior year and residency programs. Each programs ranks candidates in a desired order and candidates rank their desired programs in order. The computer does the magic, and you are “matched” with a program, like a sports draft.
Gotcha! If you only have a PhD, you are not a medical doctor although you may use the title doctor. Many M.D.s also have PhD’s, therefore it could be true, from a certain point of view. D.P.M.’s are better known as podiatrists, who are medical doctors and perform surgery up to the knee, although most limit their practice to the foot and ankle. As discussed, D.O.s are medical doctors just like M.D.s.
How well did you do? If you scored all nine, congratulations. If you missed a few, you may have committed novel malpractice, but at least in this case, that won’t get you sued.
Follow future articles for more medical topics of interest to writers. Like how to properly poison, maim with knife and gunshot wounds, avoid cliché diseases, and where to get accurate medical information for medical scenarios. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact me via my website (www.rondawellsbooks.com).
An award-winning writer, Ronda Wells hails from the Midwest and is married to a physician. Board-certified in Family Practice, she switched to Occupational Medicine after a stint in private practice. For the last thirty years, she has been a medical director in the health reinsurance industry and case-manages transplants. She has written and published medical policy and guidelines for multiple companies under their name, but her real love has always been fiction. She has just received an offer on her first novel, Harvest of Hope, and is developing a medical suspense series.
Broaden Your Positivity Scope by Bryan Robinson
WRITING RESILIENCE
To me the glass is half empty some days and half-full on others. Sometimes it’s bone dry. Or overflowing.—Mary Alice Monroe
Two things we know about our power as writers: one is that we have the ability to change our outlook; two is that a positive outlook leads us toward more possibilities than a negative one.
When we’re dealing with stressful writing situations, positivity unlocks the range of possibilities. It helps us focus on an encouraging outcome that negativity hides from view. Simply put, negativity keeps us targeted on the writing problem, whereas positivity helps us discover solutions to it. When we intentionally widen our scope, we see the big picture of possible solutions and more potential for success instead of staying mired in the problem.
Known as the broaden-and-build effect, this strategy expands our worldview and allows us to take more in so we can see many more solutions to writing woes. The more we take in, the more ideas and actions we add to our literary toolbox.
Contemplate your writing woes. Be willing to widen old points of view and let your imagination roam. “I’ll never be a writer” becomes “I’m still learning how to become the best writer I can be.”
Today’s Takeaway
Step back from your negative beliefs and broaden your positivity scope
by brainstorming a wide range of possibilities that can build an arsenal
for your writing success.
From Daily Writing Resilience by Bryan Robinson. © 2018 by Bryan Robinson. Used by permission from Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., www.Llewellyn.com.
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.
His most recent release is Daily Writing Resilience: 365 Meditations and Inspirations for Writers (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2018). He has written for Psychology Today, First for Women, and Natural Health, and his blogs and columns for writers appear in Southern Writer’s Magazine. He is a consulting editor for The Big Thrill, the online magazine for International Thriller Writers. His long-selling book, Chained to the Desk, is now in its 3rd Edition (New York University Press, 1998, 2007, 2014). His books have been translated into thirteen languages, and he has appeared on every major television network: 20/20, Good Morning America, ABC’s World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, NBC Universal, The CBS Early Show, CNBC’s The Big Idea. He hosted the PBS documentary, Overdoing It: How to Slow Down and Take Care of Yourself.
10 Tips to Stack Your Writing Mind’s Positivity Deck by Bryan E. Robinson
INSPIRATION
One cruel fact of becoming a published author is that it often feels like an uphill battle because the mind’s negativity has a longer shelf life than positivity. I’ll bet you remember where you were on 9/11 but not the following week. Scientists say the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones to keep us out of harm’s way. It takes three positive thoughts to offset one negative thought. No wonder it’s difficult to remain hopeful and persevere in a publishing career bombarded with the same bad-news bias that keeps us safe. In other words, we are hard-wired to overestimate threats—yes even writing, publishing and speaking threats—and underestimate our ability to deal with them.
Here’s a real example of how our writer’s mind works. One year, after speaking on a Killer Nashville panel, I was impressed with a novice writer’s leadership as moderator. I sent her an email extoling her, “You were total dope with the way you facilitated our panel today.” She wrote back, “At first when I read your email, I thought it said, ‘You were a total dope with the way you facilitated our panel today.’” After re-reading the email, she realized she had misinterpreted it. She told me it was her first time taking on that type of professional responsibility and was feeling insecure. In other words, her insecure thoughts filtered my message and distorted the facts with a story that fit with her insecurities.
But here’s the good news. Grass grows through concrete. I want to share my secrets on how I was able to complete 40 nonfiction books and two murder mysteries by stacking my positivity deck. When that negative voice pipes up in your head, you can learn to underestimate the threat and overestimate the possibilities in order to navigate the tumultuous publishing world, break free from the clutches of writing woes, and finish that murder mystery:
Focus on the upside of downside situations. “I’ve hit a wall with my novel’s ending” becomes “Other than the ending, I’ve completed my novel and gotten promising feedback.”
Pinpoint opportunities contained in negative writing events. Ask, “How can I make this situation work to my advantage? Can I find something positive in it? What can I manage, learn, or overcome in this instance?”
Frame setbacks as lessons to learn, not failures to endure. Ask what you can learn from difficult writing outcomes and use them as stepping-stones, instead of roadblocks. When you ask, “How is this setback happening for me, instead of to me,” you’re empowered.
Broaden your scope. Look beyond rejection, put on your wide-angle lens. Remember the real reason you write, and let your love of writing steer you beyond the gloom.
Be chancy. Take small risks in new situations instead of predicting negative outcomes before giving them a try. “If I agree to be on a panel at Killer Nashville, I might fall flat on my face” becomes “If I participate on a panel, I might get to network with other writers and promote my murder mystery.”
Avoid blowing situations out of proportion. Don’t let one negative experience rule your whole life pattern: “I didn’t sell my novel, so now I’ll never get published” becomes “I didn’t sell the novel, but there are many more pathways to getting it published.”
Focus on the solution, not the problem. You’ll feel more empowered to cope with writing’s curveballs when you step away from the problem and brainstorm a wide range of possibilities.
Practice positive self-talk. After big writing letdowns, underscore your triumphs and high-five your “tallcomings” instead of bludgeoning yourself with your “shortcomings.”
Hang out with positive writers, agents, and publishers. Optimism is contagious. When you surround yourself with optimistic writers, positivity rubs off.
Strive to see the fresh starts contained in your losses. Every time you get up just one more time than you fall, your perseverance increases the likelihood of propelling your novel to the top of the charts. Each day as you put on your writing cap, remind yourself of the famous baseball player Babe Ruth’s old quote “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
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.
His most recent release is Daily Writing Resilience: 365 Meditations and Inspirations for Writers (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2018). He has written for Psychology Today, First for Women, and Natural Health, and his blogs and columns for writers appear in Southern Writer’s Magazine. He is a consulting editor for The Big Thrill, the online magazine for International Thriller Writers. His long-selling book, Chained to the Desk, is now in its 3rd Edition (New York University Press, 1998, 2007, 2014). His books have been translated into thirteen languages, and he has appeared on every major television network: 20/20, Good Morning America, ABC’s World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, NBC Universal, The CBS Early Show, CNBC’s The Big Idea. He hosted the PBS documentary, Overdoing It: How to Slow Down and Take Care of Yourself.
Submit Your Writing to KN Magazine
Want to have your writing included in Killer Nashville Magazine?
Fill out our submission form and upload your writing here: