First Page Critique:
Start Making Senses!

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And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray…when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea. — Proust, In Search of Lost Time

By PJ Parrish

Morning crime dogs. Today, our submission writer is taking us to a far off place with a strange sounding name. Actually, they don’t tell us exactly where we are, but that’s okay because I can sense we’re not in Kansas, Dotty. The genre, our writer says, is international political thriller. Take a look and then let’s talk.

Light In the Kingdom Of Sand

Ari Edri woke to the heat and stink of his apartment, mouth sour with the taste of alcohol and cigarettes. His bed, little more than a cot, was drenched with sweat. The clamor of morning traffic outside the open window was all horns and chaos. His clock said it was nearly noon – another Monday and no reason to care or stir from bed.

He lay there for a moment, trying to find a comfortable position, but age, abuse, and arthritis made that impossible. Disgusted, he swung his legs off the bed and rose painfully to his feet.

In years past, he might have found a more accommodating home, but this was really all he could afford. He limped across the room to relieve himself. He winced at the pain and his reflection in the faded mirror. It was older, sadder, and more worn than he remembered.

Splashing water on his face, he looked around the room. The chair was still wedged firmly under the door handle. His old Luger lay on the bedside table. Unnecessary precautions, but habits die hard.

Long retired, he had done so without a single citation in his personnel file. Dozens of missions to support his country, and yet he was a cipher to them.

The lady downstairs must be cooking from Yael’s cookbook again. The smell from below and the thought of his ex-wife cooking a recipe she thought he loved brought a smile to his face unbidden. He looked at the picture of his daughter and granddaughter on the dresser. The smell and the picture were momentarily overpowering. Ari found his vision blurring, and he wiped a tear from his cheek too late to stop the next one. Tough guy, yeah.

He remembered his ex-wife and daughter confronting him about his drinking, telling him he couldn’t be around his granddaughter if he was going to be drinking. Not believing them led to not being able to see any of them. I should have believed them. How do you come back from that?

He moved the Luger to the small kitchen table and stared at it. Will today be the day? Will I finally have nerve enough? Not strong enough to stop the booze, why would I be strong enough to pull the trigger?

______________

I’m back. I enjoyed reading this submission. It has a good flow and I immediately felt sympathetic toward Ari Edri. (I like his name, btw, easy to remember as it trips off the tongue). But because this is pretty darn good, I am going to be a little hard on you, dear writer.

About Ari: We don’t know if he is the protagonist, the would-be hero whose journey we will follow for three hundred pages or so. The writer could be setting him up as a victim. Which is a fine entryway into a plot. Your story doesn’t always have to open with your protag; sometimes creating a scenario around a victim can be a really effective set-up. Done it many times myself. (Note to writer: If Ari is a victim, make sure you intro your hero very soon.)

But let’s assume Ari is the main man here. There is much I already like about the guy, thanks to judicious backstory insertion. Notice that the writer does NOT lard in paragraphs of backstory. They give us just enough to entice us about his circumstances — once an effective “warrior” of some kind, but now broken (tortured?) and forgotten. I sense bitterness, which will work well in Ari’s character arc, leaving me to wonder if this is, themactically, a story about redemption.

An aside: Redemption is a powerful theme. And never forget, writers, that THEME is what your story is really about. Yes, it’s about action, plot, car chases, a fight to save a person or a country. BUT your story is, at its deepest depths, about what is happening inside your character’s heart. Never forget that.

Now, about plot. Not much is happening in these first pages. It’s a slow build opening. I don’t mind that. I am willing to go along for a slow ride, BUT only to a point. Dear writer: I suggest you get Ari out and doing something fairly quickly. Too much remembering, musing, thinking, pondering and moping isn’t sustainable for long.

I will ask this to you all out there: Do you think the writer got into the scene too early? I often see mysteries and thrillers begin this way — the protag (usually a PI or cop) gets a phone call to come to a crime scene. We then get him swinging his tired legs over the bed, “padding” across the ratty apartment, hungover, staring at his gun, moping and thinking…

When…

It might be more effective to get the protag OUT into the world actively doing something. I really dislike cop stories that begin with the cop getting a phone call to come to a murder scene. Rather: Put him (and us) there and then go back and fill in the backstory of booze and broken homes. As James said in his great Sunday post on backstory: ACT FIRST, EXPLAIN LATER. Click here to read. Dear Writer: I suggest you go back and read James’s post.

Some other things about the submission. Given Ari’s name and the book’s title, I am assuming this takes place in the mideast. I don’t need you to slap a place tag on your chapter ie:

CHAPTER ONE

KABUL, JANUARY, 2023

That’s lame. But do find a way soon to tell us where we are organically. You’ve already hinted at it.

One last thing. And this is important….

I don’t get much sense of place. I don’t see you, the writer, using your sense, to bring Ari’s world to life. I think you can make this even better. Place is a character. You have to give it as much care as you do your characters. You are working with a good basic grasp of scene-building, but you’ve missed many chances to TAKE US TO YOUR PLACE.

This is a fault I see in many submissions, an underdeveloped sense of place, and no use of the senses in description. You’ve told us it is hot, sweaty and chaotic outside.  You’ve told us his apartment “stinks.” You’ve told us he looks worn and old. You’ve told us there is photo of his daughter and granddaugher. You’ve told us he can smell something cooking downstairs. 

Now SHOW us. What does “chaos” sound like? What does “hot” feel like? What does his apartment “stink” of? What does “old and worn” look like exactly? What does that family photo look like? And most powerfully, you set up this evocative memory of his wife’s cooking! What does it “smell” like? You must use your senses when you write. THAT is what takes us to your fictional world.

A sudden, brassy blast tore through the heavy air, a sharp and angry shriek of metal and electricity. Another horn joined in close behind—a long, heavy drone of pure frustration.

Note: The cacaphony of cars in say Chennai sounds completely different than it does in Chicago. And note that the noise can reflect the emotional noise in Ari’s head. Connect and reflect.

The world seemed to die each afternoon and nothing moved any longer. At last the summer was like a green sick dream, or like a silent crazy jungle under glass. — Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding.

Note: Trying to nail down weather description can make fools of us all. Tread lightly.

There is an invalid fug in the room – the faint animal scent of the furs, a vegetal stench of undrained cooking water, and the sour reek from a bowl with which a girl hurries away: containing, he suspects, the evacuated contents of the dowager’s stomach. — Hilary Mantel, Bring Up The Bodies

Note: Of course, your room isn’t historic and this isn’t your style. I offer it only as an example of how you must use your senses, especially smell. Which brings me to what you wrote:

The lady downstairs must be cooking from Yael’s cookbook again. The smell from below and the thought of his ex-wife cooking a recipe she thought he loved brought a smile to his face unbidden. He looked at the picture of his daughter and granddaughter on the dresser. The smell and the picture were momentarily overpowering. Ari found his vision blurring, and he wiped a tear from his cheek too late to stop the next one. Tough guy, yeah.

What what did you miss? The utterly golden opportunity to SHOW us what it smells like and more important, to link it to Ari’s emotional state. Some examples:

She smells of her cooking and the perfume Eau d’Hadrien. My mother wore it, too. She used to cook, like Lili. Our house smelled of garlic and thyme instead of sadness.― Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

And of course:

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans. — Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast.

I am bringing these passages about food in for a main and final reason. Ari is a deeply troubled man, with a strangled present and a tortured past. He is estranged from his family and deeply lonely. You instinctively chose to put in that smell coming from an apartment below. Not just any smell — the divine scent of his wife’s cooking. How wonderfully Proustian! Yet you didn’t SHOW us what it smelled like. And worse, you missed the opportunity to link it to Ari’s memories and emotional state. Yes, you had him tear up, but it feels distanced and unspecific. Details! Details! Details! This should be a coda, bringing us out of his backstory past and back to the present as he looks at that Luger.

Here’s a clip from one of my favorite movies, The Hundred Foot Journey. It is about a young Indian man who leaves his family to become a famous chef in Paris. In the most touching scene, he shares an after-hours meal sitting on the floor of his famous bistro, with a waiter, who is eating the Indian dinner his wife has made for him. It brings the chef to tears and to the realization he must go home to find himself again. I can’t find that clip, alas. But, dear writer, please find a way to connect Ari to his past through taste and smell.

Good start, writer. I enjoyed this. Now, back to work….

 

Writing a Novel is Like Building a Chicken Coop

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I spent the last nine days on vacation. Well, a “staycation” filled with manual labor in severe heat and humidity. Yes, I’m getting too old for this crap, but there is a silver lining — I never need to build another chicken coop! We built this one to withstand anything New England weather can throw at us.

As I’ve mentioned a time or two, I’m a mother to 17 chickens (among other furred, feathered, or skinned kids). In my last update, I had six adult hens and 11 female chicks, who lived in a temporary nursery coop in my house. When they grew big enough to transition into another temporary coop inside the barn, we knew we only had about three weeks before they needed to be integrated into the adult flock.

As an overprotective mom, it’s nerve-wracking and emotional to release the apron strings (they may have stayed in the house two extra weeks because of this), but the babies needed to learn the ins and outs of chicken society and hierarchy on their own. It’s something their father and I can’t provide. They must learn these life lessons from older and bigger flock members.

Thankfully, the flock leader is Flo, an angelic white brahma with a visible glowing aura.

click to enlarge

Ever seen anything like her? We haven’t, nor do we know why she glows.

Who else would be queen? Flo’s been a born leader since she was two days old. She’s strict — no one messes with Flo — and loving and fair. No unnecessary bullying allowed, but a good, hard peck here and there to keep the younglings in line is part of life. You might remember Biff, her 2nd in command and the muscle for the flock, from this post.

Though the adults have a coop inside the barn, they only had a temporary pen set up in the yard. We did this on purpose until the babies could integrate into the flock, or the adults might’ve gotten overly territorial. This way, everyone could experience their new space together.

The day after the building supplies arrived, we used our vacation to build this monstrous 10’ x 8’ x 8’ coop, with a chicken door that allows them entry into the barn to egg in private. We also keep an extra 5 gallons of water in the barn to keep it cool from the summer heat.

Building a chicken coop and writing a novel both require us to balance high-level creativity with rigid, technical constraints. Both are parallel journeys of messy, structural creation. And I’m not the only one to draw that parallel…

Author William Faulkner famously connected the two:

“Writing a novel is like building a chicken coop in a high wind—you grab any board you find and nail it down fast.”

Before laying out the 4×4 wood foundation, we needed flat, level ground to support the walls and roof.

Some writers create an outline, others might only have a beginning, middle, and an end. Some might not even have that. Your writing process doesn’t matter, if you ensure the story has a solid foundation to support the plot.

We dug trenches and buried wire to protect our flock from predators.

A novel needs tight boundaries to keep out plot-destroying distractions, like irrelevant subplots and tangents that threaten to kill the story’s momentum. 

Posts and beams support the roof and walls of the coop.

Major plot points support the story.

Rather than run posts 16 inches apart like you would for a house, we spaced them out to create an aviary style coop. To achieve this, we needed to run horizontal beams as well.

Rather than characters running straight from the start to the end, writers add setbacks, conflict, tension, character growth, and subplots.

Some coop builders install drop trays or “poop shelves” under roosting bars because chickens create an immense amount of waste. The dirt floor in our coop works the same way.

See the parallel to a “shitty first draft”?

Though I don’t buy into the argument that every first draft sucks, most writers embrace the reality that early drafts can be messy, disorganized, or in need of a rewrite. The editing process is the literary equivalent of raking the coop floor to keep a clean environment.

Once we built the frame and roof, we wrapped the coop with vinyl-coated, metal poultry mesh. Which is so much easier to work with than chicken wire. We still need to paint, tuck the roof under the edges, and add natural branches for extra roosts. They love their new digs!

Writers need to edit, polish the imagery, adjust the cadence, and fix grammatical errors until the prose feels smooth and deliberate.

*Please disregard the mess around the coop. It’s a work in progress.

The one-foot pitch of the roof is intentional for snow to slide off the side, rather than land in the walkway.

 

Act First, Explain Later

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by James Scott Bell

We have a thriller first page for critique today. Read it and join me on the other side.

At first the sound didn’t trouble him. The lake’s placid. Minimal wind.At least two miles away. Maybe a chainsaw.Still … Anthony grabbed his military-grade binoculars from the wooden chest. He knew details would be hazy in the mountains in mid-October, especially at dusk. But it was worth a look.

Not a chainsaw.

A motorboat. Sprinting north. Maybe five minutes out.

Anthony King had enjoyed three years ofperfect solitude. No phone calls. No visits. Few concerns. Three more weeks until the first hard frost. Need to split more wood, check the roof for loose shakes, maybe head into Stehekin for supplies.

A decade ago, he’d been the only Asian in his Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL class. At five feet nine and a hundred sixty pounds, he was an average-sized well-muscled Korean American. But BUD/S—the first phase of a program based entirely on merit—hadn’t conferred brownie points for his ethnic background. That’s how he liked it. In school he never cheated on tests. He preferred actually earning his grade, even if it meant settling for a C instead of an A. To him, garnering kudos for grade he didn’t deserve was stupid, asinine. Cheaters were losers.

At age nineteen, Anthony was one of 114 young men who signed up for the rigorous SEAL program. Many were exceptional athletes. But most quickly learned that outrunning someone at a track meet or pinning a wrestling opponent or grabbing the most rebounds in a basketball game didn’t guarantee success. A year after starting BUD/S, Anthony was one of only six from the original cadre to receive the coveted SEAL trident. Most dropped during “hell week”—day after day of sleeplessness and chilling cold, when they’d struggled to steer rafts along the turbulent Pacific coast and jogged down the Coronado beach until their sand-covered thighs ached from chaffing and strain. Some quit because of injuries. Others settled into supporting roles. Several restarted one of three training phases. But the majority threw in the towel—or, more precisely, rang the brass bell three times—signaling their intent to “drop on request.” For them, the dream—or nightmare, depending on one’s perspective—was finally over.

Anthony raised the binoculars again. The boat was drawing closer. Definitely heading toward his dock. He stepped into the cabin and lifted the Glock 19 from his holster on the nightstand. Checked the chamber—loaded, as always.

***

JSB: Writer, in our archives are years of first-page critiques, many of which deal with how do deal out backstory (which makes up the bulk of your page). Click here and do some reading. See also John Gilstrap’s  post on managing backstory, and my post wherein I say:

A wise writer (I’m not sure who) said, “A story begins when you light the match, not when you lay out the wood.” Give us some heat from the get-go.

It doesn’t have to be high heat. Just something that disturbs the Lead’s ordinary world. A portent of things to come.

I’ve critiqued many a manuscript at writers conferences, and when I find a “lay out the wood” opening it’s usually because there’s too much backstory. The author thinks the reader has to know a certain amount of information to understand what’s going on.

Not so! Readers will wait a long time for background information if they’re seeing a disturbance happening on the page. My axiom is: Act first, explain later.

You begin promisingly. And then it’s like you drop in a character dossier writers sometimes prepare in their pre-planning. Let’s do your opening this way (with minor tweaks by me):

At first the sound didn’t trouble him. The lake’s placid. Minimal wind.At least two miles away. Maybe a chainsaw. Still … Anthony grabbed his military-grade binoculars from the wooden chest. He knew details would be hazy in the mountains in mid-October, especially at dusk. But it was worth a look.

Not a chainsaw.

A motorboat. Sprinting north. Maybe five minutes out.

And definitely heading toward his dock.

He stepped into the cabin and lifted the Glock 19 from the holster on the nightstand, and racked the slide.

Now we’re cooking. Immediate threat. What do we know about Anthony? He’s hiding in the mountains, has a military background (or equivalent) and can handle weapons. That’s enough to keep us reading.

But wait, you say, we don’t know about his background and training. You’re right! And that creates mystery, which is what keeps readers reading. (Hint: All page-turning fiction runs on mystery, meaning we want readers wondering Why is this happening? What’s going to happen next? I need to keep reading to find out!)

My suggestion to you is write this whole chapter/scene with nothing but action. Make it work like you were watching it on a screen.

Then step back and look at all your backstory information and ask yourself:

  1. What part of it is absolutely essential for the readers to know on the first pages? (Hint: Your answer should be Not that much.)
  2. How can I provide that info in the fewest words possible?

Save the rest for later.

One exercise I’ve given to writers is this: In your first 5,000 words, you can have three sentences of backstory, used all at once or dropped in separately. In your second 5,000, you can use three paragraphs of backstory, all at once or separately.

At the very least, this will force you major in action. You’re writing a thriller, after all. And the material you have here is promising. Now comes the skill part: how to deliver on the promise in the most effective way. That, of course, is the meta-task for all us writers. Welcome to the club!

And now I will leave it to our community of commenters to chime in with their suggestions.

Selling Your Books at Live Events

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Live events put you and your stories in the same room as actual humans—humans who can see your covers, hear talk about your book, and feel that spark that made you write it in the first place. That proximity changes everything. You’re not battling algorithms or waiting for an email open; you’re creating a moment of connection. And connection sells.

Financially, it’s also where your margins flex. When you sell direct, you skip retailer cuts and keep the delightfully fat slice.

Here are a couple ways to make more money with your sales:

  • Use round, tax-included pricing (hello, $20) to make checkout brainless.
  • Use bundles. — Book 1 + Book 2, the whole series or a book + workbook.

Remember, you’re not a discount bin; you’re an artisan shop. People will be excited to meet and support the author.

Let Your Table Do the Talking

A good table is a quiet salesperson: it invites, explains, and excites before you even open your mouth. Have a pretty tablecloth in a branded color with your author tagline on it. Consider having banner with a scene from your books. Scene art not only makes your booth stand out, it draws target readers. If you are into dragons, and you see a dragon, you are already interested. Another way to target readers is to have signs with your genre and tropes. If you’ve got room, a simple black backdrop pushes visual focus to your covers (and hides whatever chaos lurks behind you).

Make it easy to catch readers’ eyes by elevating your books to eye level with risers or bookshelves. Stand your books up with the covers facing out. Your cover is your best advertisement! Bring more books than you plan to sell. You want to look prosperous, not sad. Place a big, friendly price signs where eyes naturally land and keep your bundles front and center. Sprinkle in a little on-brand swag (a bookmark with a review QR, a recipe or world-building card) that feels like a keepsake, not landfill.  

Where the Buyers Are

Start big, then get clever.

Book fairs, signing events, expos, and genre conventions put you in front of motivated readers who came to buy books (bless them). These shows offer concentrated foot traffic, panel opportunities, and the chance to meet librarians, booksellers, and influencers—the kind of contacts that turn one weekend into a year of momentum. Genre-specific cons (romance, SFF, mystery) are especially powerful because the audience is pre-sorted to love what you write.

Non-book events like farmers markets, craft fairs, and art walks are great for authors. Being the only book seller in a sea of candles and sourdough attracts readers. The vibe is “support a maker,” which maps beautifully to “support an author.”

Homeschool gatherings and education-focused events can be gold mines for bulk sales and long-tail relationships. Parents and co-op leaders are actively hunting for quality reading, curriculum tie-ins, and author visits. Bring classroom sets pricing, unit-study guides, and a simple order form—make it easy to say yes for a whole group.

Think outside the box and follow your themes: a ​cat expo​ for cozy mysteries with feline sidekicks, a Renaissance fair for fantasy and historical adventures, or a culturally specific celebration like ​Jewish Joy Con​ if your stories and community align. When your setting, characters, and values match the event’s heart, conversion jumps because readers feel connected to your stories.

Finally, network like a pro. Trade cards with nearby authors and vendors, learn what they sell, and be ready to recommend them when your books aren’t the right fit (and ask them to do the same for you). A generous table neighbor is remembered, referred, and often invited back.

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Reader Friday-Where’d That Come From?

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Okay, here we are, readers and writers. We’re all about words, words, and more words—to the chagrin of some strong silent types.

I found a cool website where you can find out the origin of certain words. Here’s the link:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/words-with-surprising-histories

 

Let’s regale each other with our favorite word origins on this last day of July 2026, shall we?

Here’s mine:  Boudoir

You might think, “Well, Deb, what’s so special about that word?” I’d tell you that it’s not the word that’s special, it’s where it came from and what the hidden meaning is.

Boudoir usually means a lady’s private dressing room, right?

Straight from the above website:

“The French verb bouder means ‘to pout,’ and it led to the French word boudoir, a noun that literally means ‘a place to pout in…’”

 

 

 

I don’t know about you, but I want one.

 

 

 

Your turn, TKZers. Astound us with your favorite word origin.

 

 

 

Manuscript Surgery Revisited

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Manuscript Surgery Revisited
Terry Odell

I hit “The End” on the current WIP, which is really “The Beginning.” Because I’m on deadline now, I’m revisiting a post that appeared several years ago.

I think in surgical terms when I tackle my draft. First, the major medical. The current manuscript came in longer than I wanted. Although I firmly believe that a story should be as long as it needs to be, the operative word is needs, and I check to make sure that every scene pulls its weight and advances the story. I confess that as a non-plotter, I often find things that never got followed up on, or were just fun scenes to write. If they don’t connect to the overall story, they get cut.

  • Purely practical note. At Amazon, there’s a “delivery fee” for ebooks based on file size. Longer books, bigger cut for them. Example: for my three-book box sets, they slice from 25 to 27 cents per book. They take about a dime from my “normal” length books. For those who go wide, B&N, Kobo, and Smashwords don’t have these fees. D2D keeps about 10% regardless of book length.
  • In print, the cost to produce the book via KDP is based on page count. More pages, bigger cut. I don’t sell enough print books to check out the other distributors, so I can’t speak for them.
  • For the indie author: Editors often charge by the hour or by the word. Cutting excess can save you money.
  • If you’re going to produce the book in audio and pay a narrator, the longer the book, the greater the cost.

These, to me, justify excising ugly fat. If you want more advice from the real experts, check this out.

Back to cutting plot threads. Should be easy, right? Patient has appendicitis, you cut out the appendix. In the manuscript, you find the threads that don’t need to be there and remove them. My characters often meet at a neighborhood dog park. I’d originally included two scenes where they met new people and their dogs there, thinking it might be strange to have them be the only two there. One of those new people might have been involved in shady dealings that affected my characters. The other did nothing more than show the dogs playing. The shady dealings never transpired, so I cut both of scenes. Easier to pop in a line about how the dog park was usually empty at the time my characters were there.

Threads don’t exist in nice, tidy packages. There will be places where you’ve foreshadowed, places where you’ve followed up, and places where you’ve made a reference, almost in passing, to something that happened or a character who appeared in that now defunct thread. Like the time my character apologized for being late because of a flat tire and explained how he had to get it repaired due to a nail. At the time, it foreshadowed a bad guy tampering with his car, but that never happened. I cut that paragraph. But a page later, he was thinking that the flat had put him behind schedule. Had to get rid of that, too.

A tip: Watch your transitions. It’s more than likely the scene before the one you cut led into it. That will have to be adjusted. Likewise the one after it. If you ended the scene with a page-turning cliff hanger, that cliffhanger now sends readers into an abyss with no bottom.

If you want the patient to recover, you have to make sure nothing’s left behind when you close him up.

Deleting a paragraph can create a dominoes effect. Watch what happens right before and after, and smooth out the edges. Critique partners, beta readers, and editors are helpful here, because they haven’t read the manuscript seventy-eleven times.

Moving on to the microsurgery.

Words that don’t add anything to the story need to go. They might even add distance, keeping a layer you don’t want between your readers and the characters. Or, there might be awkward bits.

I’ve talked about using SmartEdit before. It’s great for finding those pesky adverbs, repeated words and phrases, and another source of extra words: redundancies.

As with any automated program, you have to review every “suggestion” it makes. These programs don’t write genre fiction. SmartEdit suggests possible redundancies. I’ve run chapters and scenes through Grammarly as well, and find the same problem. Many of their suggestions don’t apply in context. However, they deserve a second look. Fortunately both programs show you where each “offense” occurs, so you can move through the manuscript quickly. Some examples of my overused phrases:

  • Outside of
  • Whether or not
  • Ask a question
  • Advance warning
  • Off of
  • Open up
  • Shut down
  • Temper tantrum
  • Major breakthrough
  • Basic essentials
  • Stand up
  • Fall down
  • Advance notice
  • Burning embers
  • Shrug a shoulder

I remember my high school Latin teacher complaining about advertising wording. “From its earliest beginnings to its final completion.” Or “Free gift.” He also said “up” is an overused word. I’ll never forget class clown Leon saying, “So what’s the bank robber supposed to say? This is a stick?”

Then there are the clunkers. Sometimes the eye catches them, but having Word (or your program of choice) read the book aloud to you will help you find them.

Listening calls attention to repeated words. Plus, you can hear words that aren’t really repeats, but echoes, such as this passage I discovered:

His mouth dropped. “You’re saying you’re going to wash my clothes?”
She sighed. “Apparently.”
It took several heartbeats for his mouth to close….

Did you spot the ‘clunker’? If not, read it out loud.

OK, TKZers: What are your tips for performing surgery on your manuscript?

Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Deadly Ambitions
Peace in Mapleton doesn’t last. Police Chief Gordon Hepler is already juggling a bitter ex-mayoral candidate who refuses to accept election results and a new council member determined to cut police department’s funding.
Meanwhile, Angie’s long-delayed diner remodel uncovers an old journal, sparking her curiosity about the girl who wrote it. But as she digs for answers, is she uncovering more than she bargained for?
Now, Gordon must untangle political maneuvering, personal grudges, and hidden agendas before danger closes in on the people he loves most.
Deadly Ambitions delivers small-town intrigue, political tension, and page-turning suspense rooted in both history and today’s ambitions.

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

Farmers Market Fun and a Memorable Connection

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by Debbie Burke

Whitefish park and historic train station before Farmers Market

Every Tuesday afternoon in summer, the park across the street from the historic Whitefish (Montana) train station becomes a hive of activity as the weekly Farmers Market sets up. The tree-shaded grass park occupies an entire city block in the resort town. The perimeter fills quickly with food trucks and vendors setting up stalls to sell produce, artwork, handcrafted goods, and…books by local authors.

Shayla Paradeis, the energetic new president of the Authors of the Flathead, came up with the terrific fresh idea of connecting with the community via a stand at the Farmers Market. We introduce people interested in writing to our weekly meetings and invite them to the annual conference. Plus, we members can showcase our books for sale.

The past few Tuesdays, Shayla, Sue Purvis, and I display our books for hundreds of tourists and locals who stroll by, munching on corn dogs, huckleberry pastries, and Flathead cherries. Kids run around playing games and petting friendly dogs while a local musician sings classic rock hits. The atmosphere is carefree and cheerful despite a light haze of wildfire smoke that turns the sun orange.

We chat with visitors from around the US along with other countries. Thanks to Zoom, our meetings are open to interested writers from anywhere in the world.

You quickly learn to spot avid readers. They stop on the grassy walkway to stare at our book displays. Sometimes they hang back for a moment, scanning. Their gaze may home in on Shayla’s eco-spiritual journey of walking across the country five times; or Sue’s memoir of training a search dog to find the lost and herself; or my mystery-thriller series set in Montana. Then they beeline to a certain book, pick it up, and start asking questions.

Their reactions show how important a good eye-catching cover is. 

This past Tuesday, we hit the trifecta with one delightful family of enthusiastic readers who bought books from all three of us.

Tourists often want souvenirs of their Montana vacation and books are a good memento to read on the plane. Travelers without extra room in their suitcases picked up bookmarks, saying they’d buy the ebook instead.

A pleasant surprise: we enjoyed conversations with several pre-teen boys and their parents. That demographic isn’t known for being big readers, but these young guys talked with animation about stories, videos, and games they found exciting and interesting. One seemed especially interested in my thriller, Instrument of the Devil, about a terrorist who targets the electric grid. About a half hour later, his dad returned alone and bought the book as a surprise for his son. Sweet!

The highlight of the evening came from two girls, about 10 or 11, who are best friends and share a love of books. Accompanied by one girl’s parents, they stopped and talked with me for quite a while. I asked them what they liked to read. The dark-haired one said, “True crime!” She’d just finished a bio of Lizzie Borden and didn’t believe Lizzie was the killer. Wow!

When I was that age, I found children’s stories boring and always hung out in the adult  section of the library. These young readers were kindred souls.

We talked about crime stories in general. The blond one asked what my books were about and showed interest in Deep Fake Double Down, where the villain uses deep fake video to create false evidence against an innocent woman. They thanked me for talking with them, wandered down the aisles, but returned several times to ask more questions.

Finally, the blond came back by herself and wanted to buy Deep Fake Double Down. I asked her if she’d like me to sign it. She practically wiggled with excitement and told me her name is “Paige.”

I’m always surprised but humbled and honored when people react as though my signature is a big deal.

Then Paige paid and additionally handed me a one-dollar bill. She said, “This is a tip.”

I about busted out crying.

Through the lump in my throat, I told her that wasn’t necessary, but she insisted.

If I never sell another book, that experience is payment enough. Thank you, Paige.

Reading and writing are all about connections between people. Nothing can match a face-to-face, heart-to-heart relationship between an author and a reader.

Will I be back to meet more readers at the Whitefish Farmers Market next Tuesday?

You betcha.

Revisited: Running and Writing and Competition

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Kay will return next month, so for today, we’re revisiting an insightful post by her from three years ago, dealing with an issue so many of us face.

Running and Writing and Competition

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If you want to compete with somebody, run a race.

If you want to change the world, write a book.

* * *

Last week PJ Parrish wrote a TKZ post on Performance Anxiety. I’d like to follow up with a corollary on competition.

Competition is good, right? It gives us a chance to test our mettle against others and see how we stack up. Whatever field we’re in, competition is an opportunity to identify weaknesses in our performance and make a plan to improve. It may even lift us into that rarified atmosphere of winning the prize and basking in the glory.

When thinking about competition, sports always comes to mind. Personally, I believe foot races, specifically the 400-meter races, are the epitome of competition.

The 400-meter race is the longest track event run completely in lanes, so there’s no pushing or shoving. Each competitor runs her own race in her own lane. It’s once around the track, and the winner is easy to identify. She’s not necessarily the person with the best form or the coolest sports gear or even the newest model of Nikes. The winner is the person who crosses the finish line first.

This is obviously an objective decision. The other runners can’t say, “I’m a better runner than she is. I should get the gold medal.” Or “She won just because her coach is famous.” A runner wins a race because she is the fastest competitor in that particular race, and there’s camaraderie and respect among runners no matter where they place.

* * * 

On the other hand, competition can have a dark side. I’ve read recently that writers are a competitive bunch. That’s not surprising, seeing that we’re publishing books that are in competition with millions of other works, and the desire to excel in the field is strong. Writers want to know how they’re doing in the big publishing picture, so we compare ourselves with others, and sometimes it doesn’t go so well.

You’re toiling away to market your self-published masterpiece, which has seen slow sales and mediocre reviews, when you get word your good friend just secured a lucrative publishing contract for his first book. And then another friend posts to every social media site in the world about the big award she just won. That was the contest you entered and didn’t even make the finals! All of a sudden, feelings of competition turn to jealousy and envy.

But you’re a nice person, right? These writers are your friends, and you think you shouldn’t have these feelings. Well, don’t feel bad. Most authors have experienced some form of writer’s envy in their careers.

So what do we do about it? I like the way Erin Fulmer put it in her 2020 article on  professional jealousy 

Publishing isn’t a race.

Even if it were, the person who makes it to the next goalpost first is not necessarily going to make it to the one after that in record time.

But this isn’t a competition. There’s no deadline. Sure, the inevitable heat death of the universe is coming someday but until then, it’s anybody’s game.

And it’s not a zero-sum game. Yes, there is competition in publishing—I don’t want to sugar-coat that—but your friend getting a book deal or agent doesn’t meaningfully reduce your chances of the same, unless you are writing something extremely similar and submitting to the same editor/agent. Even then, it’s just as likely that their success will cause your work to be more in demand. A rising tide often does lift all boats.

If you are seeking a writing career, that journey only ends when you stop writing. There’s no finish line, no lifetime wish achievement that means you won like a good little Sim. There’s just the next book.

* * *

So, there you have it. Publishing is not a fair race. It can’t be since the judges (readers, agents, publishers) assess a writer’s work through the filter of their own backgrounds, tastes, and opinions. For example, I have a friend, a well-known writer, who entered her work in a writing contest some years ago. It was the kind of contest where several judges score the work and the entrant receives the results. Two of the judges scored her work in the 90’s and the third one rated her in the 50’s!

So maybe we need to adjust our perspective. As authors, we’re here to enhance the human experience through the written word, and we each do it in our own way. We’re a community, not combatants. We get to choose the lane we run in and how we want to run the race.

Envy tells us that success is more important than the journey. But if we truly love what we’re doing, we’ll seek success while finding the real joy in the writing. And with each circuit of the track, study and hard work will make us better. And in the long run, maybe that’s where the gold in the gold medal lies.

* * *

We’re fortunate that here at TKZ we have a community of contributors and commenters who go out of their way to offer suggestions and support for each other. A writing community at its best.

 

So TKZers: Do you feel that you’re in competition with other authors? Have you ever dealt with feelings of envy or jealousy of other writers? How do you handle them? What advice would you give to prospective authors, especially young ones, who may be feeling the same emotions?

Fear Not the Tsunami of Manure

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by James Scott Bell

Entertainment news this week has been dominated by the blockbuster success of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. “Boffo BO,” as industry wags put it (also Matt Damon’s costumer).

Of course, it has generated some online heat, because what doesn’t these days? But there is also substantive discussion among Classics scholars, some of whom say that whatever the movie’s merits, it’s not Homer. (Reminds me of the line from a college essay years ago: “The Odyssey was not actually written by Homer, but by another man of the same name.”) Others have no problem with a “re-imagining” of an ancient epic.

I have no opinion either way, for I have not seen it. But I do extend a laurel and hearty handshake to Nolan for a couple of reasons. This is the first feature film shot entirely with IMAX cameras. IMAX is almost always used for loud set pieces, because the cameras themselves make a lot of noise. They are not good for quiet, intimate scenes.

But Nolan, working with his cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, designed a soundproof housing, called a “blimp,” to cover the camera. It suppressed the noise and allowed them to film soft exchanges.

But that created another problem. The blimp casing was so large that two actors couldn’t look at each other eye to eye, which is essential for emotional connection. So Nolan came up with the idea of using mirrors to let the actors see each other’s faces. Love it.

What I appreciate most is that Nolan eschewed all AI (and most CGI) in order to capture the traditional look of classic “cast of thousands” movies. That’s worth championing. Nolan believes, and the anecdotal evidence suggests, that young audiences are quick to reject AI slop. He says:

“They [Gen Z] see it for what it is very quickly – and it’s much easier for them to identify it, because it grew out of an online world they know really well,” he explained. “And while that doesn’t mean that every aspect of the technology is useless or meaningless, in filmmaking it’s hitting at exactly the wrong time. After years of driving towards heavily virtual environments, we’re seeing a renewed interest in more tactile, more real forms of storytelling.”

I think what Nolan says applies to AI-slop books. Yes, they can be churned out, but readers are rejecting them. There are a millions of slop books on Amazon with zero reviews. Because they suck. Oh, they’re made out of competent sentences, because that’s what LLMs do. But they’re missing a human soul. It’s just so obvious. For want of a better phrase, they “ring hollow.”

Here’s the opening of a slop novel on sale now:

The city doesn’t sleep. It just changes tempo.

You learn that if you stay up late enough.

There’s a moment—somewhere between two and three in the morning—when the traffic thins, when the noise drops from a constant roar to something more honest. Tires on wet asphalt. A distant shout that might be laughter or might not. The hum of streetlights that have been buzzing longer than anyone remembers.

That’s when I work.

That third paragraph is a hoot. What’s dishonest about a constant roar? Is it hiding something? How are tires on wet asphalt more honest than tires on dry asphalt? In what language is a shout the same as laughter? When was the last time you heard a streetlight buzz? How about never?

What’s happened here is an AI word salad, only it’s made out of the poop lettuce that’s been in the news of late. This is why people churning out 300 “novels” a year are just wasting their time on earth. Maybe some of them make a little Starbucks money, but what kind of existence is that?

My conclusion is that we who actually write (not prompt) fiction don’t have to fear the tsunami of manure being shoveled up to Amazon on a daily basis. That stuff goes nowhere. Write with your soul and that alone will set you apart from the stink pile.

Your comments are most welcome.

Winning Words of Wisdom

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Best seller status, glowing reviews, a legion of fans, a movie deal, even “just” getting published, none of these are within our control. We might be able to influence such external outcomes, but we can’t guarantee any of them will happen, as much as we might wish otherwise.

However, we can win at the actual writing, and today’s Words of Wisdom provides three different ways with excerpts from posts by James Scott Bell, PJ Parrish and Joe Hartlaub. As always, the original posts are very much worth reading in full, and are date-linked at the end of their respective excerpts.

What makes a winner?

Is it going on a web cam and shouting Winning?

Is it having a lot of money?

Is it owning a lot of things?

Let me contrast a couple of writers for you. (These writers are composites, BTW, so don’t ask me to name names).

The first writer has had a couple dozen New York Times bestsellers in her career. She is not shy in saying she found a formula that sells a lot of books. And she keeps cranking them out, two or three a year now. Her publisher is very happy about this.

But her readers are beginning to feel like she’s just “mailing it in.” And in secret she’ll tell you she can virtually sneeze out a book, and does. She spends a few hours a week writing and never edits her stuff. She just turns it in and lets the publisher do the rest. Which gives her plenty of time to travel to her chateau in Gstaad. Or to go to conference appearances, where she plays the diva in a way that even Joan Crawford would have applauded.

She has money. She owns things.

But is she a winner?

The other writer is someone you probably haven’t heard of yet, but those who have read her books have not been able to forget them. While she writes in a certain genre, and is prolific, her novels never have a cranked out feel. That’s because she cares about the writing too much. She cares about her readers too much. She could mail it in, but there’s something inside her that makes her constitutionally incapable of putting out junk.

She doesn’t have as much money as the first writer. Nor does she own as many things.

Is she a winner?

I’ll tell you what, you can’t get away from ancient wisdom. Buddha, Confucius, The Bible, the great philosophers . . . they have all been telling us that just having money and owning things does not make you a winner. In fact, if you’re not careful, they can shrivel you up into a thing that blows away like dried grass in a windstorm.

But this second writer, she can feel things the first writer no longer does (or perhaps never did). She feels the intense pleasure of working and caring and crying and laughing over her writing, of seeing things happen on the page that she knows are worth more than a million cranked out passages that exist just to earn more money so the author can own more things.

Is she a winner? Oh yes. And so is any writer in any genre who does more than just mail it in.

I’m talking about a writer who is courageous enough to have some skin in the game, and who isn’t in this business just to make money and own things. If the money comes, that’s great, that’s awesome. We’re not turning that down. But this kind of writer will never let it go to her head or her keyboard. She will refuse to do that to her readers.

James Scott Bell—May 8, 2011

So how does Team Parrish feel coming out of this half-time locker room break and strategy session? Full of cautious confidence. We started out this book full of hope and ambition. But as the game wore on, we just sort of flailed and fumbled around out on the field, hoping we could make progress by blind luck and maybe a last-minute field goal.  This is how the Jets play every single year. Or the Browns, whose fans show up at games carrying banners saying “We Still Have LeBron.”  You want to be Seattle. Or the Pats, who find a way to win even with Brady on the bench for four games.

What am I trying to say here? Well, it’s a variation on what all the good folks here at TKZ preach. Have a good work ethic. (you don’t want to be giving up in mid-season just because you’re a little gassed).  Have a good strategy going in. (a great idea or at least a fresh take on an old one). Devise a game plan and keep to it. (that means for some of you out there outlining). Stop at each quarter or at least half-time and see what has gone right and what had failed. Be flexible enough to make adjustments. Don’t quit, because as the great sports sage Yogi Berra said,  it ain’t over til it’s over.

And with that, I leave you with a few classic football cliches that are actually good advice for us writers:

You gotta work with what’s working. This is a variation on the more erudite “You go with what brought you to the dance.” If you’re a hard-boiled type at heart, maybe you shouldn’t try YA romantic zombie fiction just because it’s hot. Yes, stretch yourself, but don’t be crass. Readers smell insincerity a mile away.

It’s important to give the ball right back to the guy who lost it. Yes, you can make mistakes. In fact, they help you grow. If you’ve had a setback, be it a rejection letter, a bad review or just loss of confidence, don’t let it defeat you.  Favre is the leading career fumbler of all time. You think that when he put the rock on the ground, he thought about quitting? Heck no. The guy took risks. (Though the Killer Chihuahuas never forgave him for that last season…)

He heard footsteps. This is the wide receiver who feels a defender gaining on him so he takes his eye off the ball. For you, this means, don’t let distractions cripple you.  This can mean anything from the little — social media, chores, research — to major distractions — envy over other’s success, people who tell you that you’ll never get published.

He ran east and west instead of north and south. Or as Dan Dierdorf put it: “You gotta keep the axis of your body perpendicular to the goal line.”  For writers, this means always moving forward and maintaining momentum. This is my biggest problem because I become stalled in an insane quest for perfection when I should be grinding out that first draft.  I spent too much time running east and west instead of heading toward the goal line. Don’t be like me.  Be a downhill runner.

It’s a game of inches. Success in publishing almost always comes hard and gradually. You pound away at that keyboard, bang your head up against big forces that feel like they are bent on keeping you back. You spend months, years, on your WIP and only manage to move a few yards forward.  But this is how it’s done. Slow and steady. And you never, ever, come prepared to play only one game because you must…

Take it one game at a time. Finish that book, get it out there somehow and then start the next one. And as you do this you will…

Leave it all on the field. You gave it everything you had because, of course…

There’s no tomorrow.

PJ Parrish—September 13, 2016

 

My suggestion is to write every day. That is not new or original advice. I am offering it particularly, however, to those of you who have no intention of or inclination toward starting or completing a story or having it revealed in the harsh light of day. Writing something every day because you want to, instead of when you have to, is good for you. I truly believe that writing regardless of length or motive makes one smarter — whatever that is — and yes, happier. Writing even one sentence of a few words per day enables you, the unintentional writer, to say, “I wrote this.” It may not give you an adrenaline rush but I submit to you that it will produce, at the least, a drop of it in your cup. It’s the difference between doing an action because you are required to (for reasons from within or without) and doing it because you want to. It can crack the ice that freezes your thinking, whether you write on a post-it, a computer, or your hand. It is an activity that you can do without prompting, or the desire of future reward, other than that occasioned by performing the act itself. I have mentioned this before, but the television series Miami Vice was born as the result of two words handwritten on a piece of paper. The words were “MTV cops.” Your results may differ. That’s the point. There are those who may keep a diary or journal for a similar reason. What I propose is not as involved.

This post is but one example of “wanting to” as opposed to “being compelled to.” I started this post with one sentence, though it is not the introductory sentence that you see above. I wrote a few words to get rolling and then took off, as John Coltrane said, in both directions at once. It was because I wanted to. “The Kill Zone” name notwithstanding, no one here writes with a gun to their head. We are all here because we want to be, whether to write or to read what is written.

Joe Hartlaub—May 29, 2021

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What are your thoughts about “winning” at writing? Any advice or tips?