Tales of an Author Event

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Tales of an Author Event
Terry Odell

Display of Terry Odell's books

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in a library’s annual “Mountain of Authors” event. I’ve been part of this event for quite a number of years, but this year, things were different. There was a new event organizer, which might have accounted for some of the changes, but I doubt she was working alone.

In the past, as in this year, the event includes two programs: a panel discussion and a keynote speaker with time in between to encourage library patrons to visit the authors’ tables. It takes place in the library’s meeting room and is open to the public at no charge. Tables for authors who’d been approved to participate were set up in the periphery of the room. My guesstimate, since I never actually counted the tables, was somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty author tables. They also used to include lunch for the authors, given the event ran from noon to five, not counting setup and breakdown time. This year, only water and a couple of packaged snacks.

Also this year, they decided to accommodate more authors. Authors were also permitted to bring their own tables, which increased the number of participants even more. Over eighty. And they spread them out through the entire upper level of the library, which is a huge space. A few authors were inside the program room, but most tables were set up outside the venue, including mine. My guess is traditionally published authors got priority for premium space, but that’s just a guess. Given that was one of the questions on the application form, I’m calling it an educated guess.

They tried to assign tables based on genres and my space was in the “Mystery Authors” section. That being the case, I decided to focus on my Mapleton series when deciding which books to bring. When I checked my inventory, I realized I had only the three newest Mapletons, so I added some stand alone romantic suspense books as well.

Events like this are a time investment. It’s an hour drive down the mountain for me. Then it’s unloading everything and setting up my table. The program was scheduled to start at noon, and I arrived at eleven to set up. My assigned section turned out to be in an area adjacent to … nothing. A couple of activity rooms, but nowhere near any books, which is what library patrons are most interested in. Thus, there was very little traffic to the tables in that section, and what traffic there was consisted primarily of the other 79 authors wanting to see who was there, say hi, get ideas for their own tables.

Many of us were repeat attendees, so it was nice to see familiar faces. It was nice to chat with the authors on nearby tables. The author to one side of me was there with his first book and were excited to go to events. They had a huge stand up banner with quotes of all the great reviews his book had gotten. His wife was the “talker-upper” and did the book pitching.

On the other side of me was a man who’d brought the most recent book in his series because it was the only one he’d indie published and the only one he could get copies of. His table was the first one on our side of the “aisle” and as people entered, he jumped up from behind his table and walked up to everyone coming in, and gave his sales pitch. I got the feeling that a lot of those people felt they were being encroached upon, so I stayed behind my table and, after they’d left him, invited them to partake of some of my swag to get a conversation started.

The types of people I encountered,no different from those I’ve encountered at every event I’ve ever been part of:

  • “If I make eye contact, I’ll have to buy something, so I’ll scan the table and walk by.”
  • “I like these books, but I didn’t bring any money today.”
  • “Do these come in ebook?”
  • “Can I get it in audio?”
  • “I need to check all the tables before I buy anything.” (After reading the back cover copy on every book I had on display).
  • And then there was the guy who wanted to read a sample, so he picked up the book and opened it to a random page about 1/4 of the way through. So much for hooking readers on page one!

On the bright side, nobody asked where the restrooms were.

My overall takeaways?

The setup was too large, and some areas were VERY low traffic.

People who come to libraries tend to borrow books, not buy them, which was no different this year. Attending these functions is more about meeting people, getting your name out there.

Chatting with people instead of staring at a computer screen is a healthy change of pace.

Did I sell any books? Yes. Two of my stand alone romantic suspense books, so if you’re all about the money, this was a loss. On the other hand, people did pick up my post it notes and business cards, so my name is in front of a lot more people.

The author and wife pair sold one. The get up and grab-’em guy swapped books with another author and I think he had one sale. What was interesting was one woman he’d approached had been an exchange student in the town in Italy where one of his books was set. He didn’t have that book with him, but she went to the nearest Barnes & Noble and bought it, then brought it back to the venue so he could sign it.

Would it have been better had my table been somewhere else? Maybe. Peeking into the program room showed mostly empty seats, so maybe the program wasn’t a draw to begin with. The other side of the library (where the books are) might have been a better location.

Would I do it again with the same setup? I don’t know, but I have a year to think about it.

What about you, TKZers? Any stories to share?

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.”

Motional Intelligence – New Tool to Build Characters

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by Debbie Burke

Spell check thinks the word “motional” is a typo. But it isn’t.

Motional Intelligence: The Power of Movement in Leadership is the title of a new book by Dr. Scott Allison and Dr. George Goethals, professors emeriti at University of Richmond. Their premise is that humans register first impressions of others, not from physical appearance nor what they say, but from how they move.

They write: “Motion is core to social interaction. Before anyone speaks, a conversation has already begun…Speech came late. Motion came first.”  Motional intelligence sounded like a great potential tool for writers to build more interesting characters. So I reached out to Scott Allison to learn more.

Here’s our interview:

Debbie Burke: Thanks for agreeing to talk with me about Motional Intelligence. Would you please explain this concept to Kill Zone readers?

Scott Allison: Yes indeed. Here’s our definition of Motional Intelligence, which we abbreviate as MI. MI is the capacity to use one’s body movements intentionally to communicate and influence others, to accurately perceive, decode, and interpret the body movements of others across contexts, and to regulate one’s own movements – and one’s interpretations of others – in response to shifting social demands. So you can see there are 3 aspects of MI – an expressive component (how we display our own motions), an interpretive component (how we decode others’ motions), and a regulatory component (how we plan and adjust our motions to situational demands). We do these three things effortlessly and often without conscious awareness.

DB: What inspired you to write this book?

SA: One day, somewhere between burgers and coffee, my co-author George Goethals and I shared an epiphany: everything we were analyzing – heroism, leadership, empathy, influence, conflict – depended less on what people said and more on how they moved. Yet psychology had no comprehensive framework for this. This book began the moment we realized that these motions are not incidental to human life; they are human life. According to evolutionary biology, speech came late, and motion came first. George and I just had to write about this!

DB: You talk about familiar ways to measure intelligence like IQ (logical reasoning, problem-solving) and EI (emotional intelligence) but you say MI (motional intelligence) is different. Can you expand on that?

SA: Motional intelligence (MI) is one of many aspects of overall intelligence. MI is not the same as emotional intelligence (EI). EI centers on the perception, regulation, and expression of emotions, typically through facial cues, vocal tone, and affective appraisal. MI, by contrast, isolates a different communicative channel entirely: the dynamic language of body movement.

DB: Is “body language” the same as motional signals?

SA: Yes, in the sense that we use our bodies to communicate, to persuade, and to trigger emotional responses in others.

DB: What character/personality traits are revealed through MI?

SA: Pretty much every personality trait than humans possess can be revealed through motion. Kindness is revealed through a soft posture, a smile, a tilt of the head, and the reaching out of a hand. Dominance is revealed through very different posture, facial expression, and use of limbs. Before anyone speaks, a conversation has already begun. A stranger’s shoulders soften as you approach; a friend leans in before offering a word; a colleague’s foot angles toward the door long before they admit they’re late for another meeting. We live inside a constant choreography of meaning – signals given and received, often without our awareness.

DB: Do you have ideas how writers could use MI to bring fictional characters to life?

SA: Authors of fiction can use MI to animate characters in ways that transcend dialogue and emotional description. Rather than merely telling readers what a character feels, writers can reveal personality, motives, status, intentions, and inner conflict through patterns of movement—posture, gait, gesture, rhythm, pacing, stillness, spatial orientation, and bodily timing. A character with high MI, for example, may subtly mirror another person’s posture to build trust, regulate the emotional climate of a room through calm and deliberate movement, or communicate dominance through economy of motion rather than overt aggression. Conversely, low MI might appear in awkward timing, invasive spatial behavior, rigid posture, excessive fidgeting, or an inability to interpret others’ bodily signals accurately. Fiction writers can also use MI developmentally: a character’s evolving movement patterns may symbolize psychological transformation, growing confidence, moral corruption, intimacy, trauma, or heroic maturation. In this way, bodily motion becomes a narrative language that conveys character identity and relational dynamics at a pre-verbal level, making fictional people feel vividly alive and authentic.

DB: Writers are advised to show, don’t tell. Can you suggest how MI might be used to show relationships between characters? How about to show their conflicts?

SA: MI offers fiction writers a powerful “show, don’t tell” toolkit for revealing relationships and conflict through bodily movement rather than explicit explanation. Healthy relationships can be conveyed through movement synchrony—characters mirroring posture, walking in step, sharing relaxed rhythms, anticipating one another’s actions, or comfortably occupying shared space—thereby signaling trust, intimacy, affection, or familiarity. Romantic attraction may appear in subtle orientation cues, lingering gestures, or softened movement, while friendship may emerge through playful physical ease and unguarded posture. Conflict, though, often disrupts bodily coordination through avoidance, rigid posture, pacing, competing movement rhythms, territorial spacing, or emotional stillness. Writers can also show relational transformation over time by altering these movement patterns, allowing bodily synchrony, distance, hesitation, or tension to function as a nonverbal narrative language that makes fictional relationships feel psychologically authentic and vividly alive.

DB: I can imagine ways that misreads of a character’s MI could lead to misinterpretations and plot complications. You’re also a film expert and co-author of the book Reel Heroes and Villains. Can you give movie examples where MI (or lack thereof) was instrumental in driving the plot?

SA: Absolutely. MI is often central to cinematic storytelling because film is an inherently movement-based medium. In The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger’s Joker possesses a dark form of MI. He constantly manipulates spatial dynamics, bodily unpredictability, and movement rhythm to destabilize others psychologically. His erratic gestures, invasive proximity, asymmetrical posture, and sudden stillness generate tension and fear, driving much of the film’s emotional chaos. In The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly uses highly regulated MI to project authority. Her economy of motion, precise pacing, controlled stillness, and minimal gestures create an aura of dominance that shapes every interaction around her. In Napoleon Dynamite, Napolean’s social awkwardness emerges through stiff posture, delayed reactions, unusual gait, and poor synchrony with peers, creating both comedy and emotional isolation.

DB: Where can readers find your new book?

SA: Our MI book is available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. There is a kindle version, too.

DB: Thank you, Scott, for exploring this interesting topic.

SA: My pleasure and thank you for showing an interest!

~~~

TKZers: Can you think of film characters who use MI especially effectively? Do you see ways MI might help your work in progress?

~~~

Dr. Scott Allison and Dr. George Goethals graciously gave me major assistance with the psychology of villains for The Villain’s Journey: How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate. 

Please check out The Villain’s Journey at: 

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Bookshop.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revisited: “Your Brain on Writing”

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Kay DiBianca is on leave from the Kill Zone for a bit, so today I’m sharing one of her previous posts, which discusses how writing benefits your brain. It’s well worth revisiting. If you missed it the first time, definitely don’t miss it today 🙂

Your Brain on Writing

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“The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.” –Anne Lamott

* * *

Simply put, writing is good for you. Just as physical exercise enhances your muscles, writing is strength training for your brain. And the more you practice, the better your brain adapts to writing.

In a September 2021 article on writingcooperative.com, Kristina Segarra addresses the effects of writing. She indicates our brains are fully engaged when we write. The more you write, the more neural connections are created within your brain. The brain actually grows, adapts, and makes continued writing easier. I think it’s similar to playing the piano. The more the student practices, the stronger and more nimble his/her fingers become. Musical pieces that were difficult to master at first become easy as the student progresses.

Ms. Segarra goes on to list other benefits of writing:

  • You develop organizational skills — from crafting and sequencing your thoughts and ideas
  • You boost your reasoning and problem-solving skills
  • You integrate a wide range of vocabulary words and grow your word bank

* * *

Even more encouraging is a July 2021 article by Annie Lennon on medicalnewstoday.com showing research that indicates a cognitively rich lifestyle of reading, writing, and playing games can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.

* * *

And there’s more! A February 2017 article by Erika Rasso at craftyourcontent.com describes an interesting experiment conducted by researcher Martin Lotze of the University of Greifswald in Germany.

Using MRI data, Lotze analyzed the brain activity of 28 writers. First they were asked to brainstorm ideas and then write their own stories. He found the occipital lobe of the brain was more active during the brainstorming session, possibly indicating the writers were visualizing their ideas.

On the other hand, the hippocampus became more active in the actual writing session, possibly meaning the subjects were gathering the information they wanted to use and organizing it into a story format.

Ms. Rasso lists specific suggestions of things you can do to keep your brain in shape:

Free write every day for at least two minutes a day. You can write whatever you want in those two plus minutes. You could write a haiku, a diary entry, or something a little more ambitious. (That isn’t to say haikus aren’t ambitious.) The goal is to get used to the act of writing and coming up with content as you go.

Read your #writinggoals. If you’re a writer, you’re a reader, and all readers have their idols. Read the kind of content you aspire to write, and read a lot of it. Your brain will absorb the vocabulary, syntax, and general style of the writing you’re reading and naturally incorporate it into your own work.

Look things up. Artists, athletes, and even scientists are always learning new techniques to help them get better. Writers can do the same. Expand your vocabulary by flipping through a thesaurus or a dictionary, study grammar books, and definitely look something up if you don’t know it. Push yourself to learn more about your craft, and you’ll grow because of it.

Overwhelm your brain. The brain is pretty damn powerful. If you push it, chances are it will rise to the occasion. Test your limits by writing for an hour longer than you think you can. Read Derrida. Write a haiku! Treat your brain like a muscle and do reps until you just can’t do it anymore. Just like a muscle, your brain will grow.

Don’t think about it too much. If you put in the work, your brain will grow on its own. Your subconscious will pick up on what you are doing and adjust accordingly. Trust your brain. It’s gotten you this far, hasn’t it?

* * *

So TKZers: How do you keep your brain in shape? Do you practice specific writing exercises? Do you have favorite word games you play?

The Watch Mysteries. Three thought-provoking novels to exercise your brain.

Defeating the Next-Book Willies

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

September of 2009 was Dan Brown week in the world of publishing. It had been six years since his mega-hit The Da Vinci Code. There was a lot of excitement about his new book, The Lost Symbol. Doubleday needed a huge hardcover bestseller in the midst of what’s been called “The Great Recession.” They got one.

The book had a first printing of 6.5 million and sold a million in hardcover and ebook the first day. It debuted at #1 on the NY Times list and stayed there for six weeks.

So why did it take Dan Brown six years to write it? He explained:

“The thing that happened to me and must happen to any writer who’s had success, is that I temporarily became very self-aware. Instead of writing and saying, ‘This is what the character does,’ you say, ‘Wait, millions of people are going to read this.’ It’s sort of like a tennis player who thinks too hard about a stroke—you’re temporarily crippled.”

What happened to Dan Brown on a mega level happens to most writers who publish more than one book. A lot of unpublished writers think things will be just swell once they’re published, and that they can produce book after book with nary a worry. (Insert here the usual jeremiad about AI-slop.)

For those who take writing seriously, who want to keep producing good work, the writing sometimes gets harder, not easier, as some would think. I’ve found this to be true for myself and for many of my published writer friends.

Why should this be? I think it’s because with each book, we know more about the craft and, consequently, where we fall short. We raise the bar because we hope to grow a readership. We want to keep pleasing them, surprising them, delighting them with plot twists, great characters, and a bit of stylistic flair. We keep pursuing that storied “next level.” That can bring on what I call “The Next-Book Willies.”

Dan Brown dealt with TNBW by hanging upside down in “gravity boots.” It seemed to “help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective.” But then: “My wife was very concerned that I would pull myself up into these gravity boots and not have the strength someday to get back down. I’d just be hanging there forever. So I now use an inversion table.”

Other writers have similar quirks:

Roald Dahl at least wrote sitting down, but insisted on climbing into a sleeping bag before doing so. Truman Capote (In Cold Blood; Breakfast at Tiffany’s) supposedly wrote lying down, a coffee – then a sherry, then a martini – in one hand and a pencil in another….Philip Pullman can only write in ballpoint on lined A4 paper that has two holes in it (not four)….John Cheever, in a 1978 Newsweek essay, confessed that the publication of a definitive collection of his great short stories was “in no way eclipsed by the fact that a great many … were written in my underwear.”

Victor Hugo (Les Misérables) allegedly asked his valet to hide his clothes and wrote in the nude – or at least, on cold days, wrapped in a blanket – so he could not go outside.

Here are a few, er, more normal practices I would suggest, all of which I’ve employed. Not surprisingly, the first is, WRITE. Start a free-form journal and just go. Begin entries with “I remember . . .” or “I really hate…” or “I wish…” This is not work on your WIP. It’s giving permission to your brain to come out and play. When you are working on your WIP, consider starting each stint with a Sue Grafton-style novel journal.

RE-READ. Pull out a favorite novel and read parts of it at random, or even the whole thing. Don’t worry about feeling even worse because you think you can’t write like that author. You’re not supposed to. You never can. But guess what? They can’t write like you, either.

INCUBATE. For half an hour, think hard about your project, writing notes to yourself, asking questions. Back yourself into tight corners. Then put all that away for a day and do other stuff. Your Boys in the Basement will get to work and good things will start bubbling up. For an advanced session, try going 6 hours without phone, computer, tablet, or TV. (Think that’s easy these days? Just try it!) ! You can use a pen and paper if you like. I recommend doodling.

BLOOD TO BRAIN. If you want to try gravity boots, be my guest. What I do is lie on my back and put my legs up on a chair or bed, and then do some deep breathing and relaxing for 15-25 minutes. This is especially helpful to get through the afternoon blahs.

So what about you? Have you ever had the “next-book willies”? What do you do to overcome this, or other forms of writer’s block?

Your Author Bingo Card

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For a while now I’ve imagined various writing and publishing accomplishments and events as various boxes on an author bingo card you could fill.

Unlike conventional bingo which looks at getting five numbers in row, the goal in author bingo is to see how many achievements you can check off. Successes, setbacks and failures, they all count. It’s as a fun way to deal with the ups and downs of publishing and being an author, as well as a device to acknowledge those hard won accomplishments and experiences.

Below are candidates for your author bingo card, in many cases grouped by progressions or types of publishing experiences. I’ve personally checked off many of these on my own author bingo card, but nowhere near all of them.

***

Writing a short story. Getting your first rejection. Getting your first acceptance.

Seeing your story published. Having a second story published. Seeing one of your stories appear in an anthology. Having a collection of your stories published.

Writing a novel. Receiving feedback on your novel. Working with a developmental editor. Working with a copy editor.

Sending out a query. Landing an agent. Getting a publishing deal from a NYC publisher. Being published by a small press.

Setting up self-publishing.  Novel published. Publishing a book that bombs, either trad or indie.

Getting a positive review. Getting a negative review. Getting no reviews for a particular book. Getting a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, or the equivalent in Booklist or Library Journal.

Having an audio book produced from one of your works.

Finding your books in your public library or in a bookstore.

First email from a reader. Being emailed by a reader pointing out you got a detail wrong. Two bingo boxes if the emailer alleges you got a detail wrong about firearms.

Having a book reach the top 100 in a category on Amazon. Having a book reach the top 20. Having a book reach the top 100 on Amazon. Becoming a New York Times Bestselling author. Becoming a #1 New York Times Bestselling author.

Completing your first series. Completing your second. Your third.

First convention appearance. Being a guest of honor at a convention. Serving as toastmaster at a convention.

Receiving an award nomination. Winning an award. Serving on an awards committee.

Being interviewed on a podcast. Being interviewed on the radio. Having a book be highlighted /reviewed in a YouTube video or a BookTok.

Changing editors. Being dropped by a publisher. Having your agent drop you. Landing a new agent.

Discovering your books have been pirated. Discovering your books have been used to train AI. Getting a scam email about marketing and publishing “opportunities.”

Switching sub-genres. Publishing in an entirely different genre. Returning to a genre you’d previously published in.

Presenting a writing or publishing workshop. Teaching a class on writing or publishing.

Selling foreign rights to one of your works. Having a story or book optioned by Hollywood. Having a story or book become a movie.

Relaunching a previously self-published book. Self-publishing a previously trad-published book. Having a self-published novel appear in a multi-author box set. Landing a traditional publishing deal for a book you originally self-published.

***

Again, while these external outcomes are largely outside of your direct control, I believe it’s important to recognize what you’ve achieved, noting the milestones on your writing and publishing journey. It’s also a way to enjoy that journey.

How about you? Do you like the idea of an author bingo card? How do you acknowledge or celebrate your own publishing milestones and experiences?

Beach Blonde Betrayal

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By Elaine Viets

Let me tell you about my new Florida mystery, Beach Blonde Betrayal.  Yes, I came up with that tongue-twister of a title, and I’m already tripping over it

The second book in my Florida Beach series explores some favorite themes: love, trust, and betrayal. Especially betrayal, by friends and lovers. Because this mystery is set in Florida, it’s chockfull of colorful characters.

It also has Florida Men, Florida Women and plenty of Florida weirdness. In fact, that’s how the mystery starts. Here’s a sneak preview of the first chapter:

Chapter 1 (excerpt)

Dean and I were debating our favorite subject: Florida weirdness. There was another murder, and it was gruesome, even for the Sunshine State.

I should know. I’m Norah McCarthy, a genuine Florida native, and I own the Florodora apartments. My apartment building is on the ocean in Peerless Point, halfway between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Thanks to the perfect weather, the beach was swarming with tourists, so we retreated inland. Today, Dean and I were crunching on the pea gravel path along a canal in Peerless Park.

Dean lives in the apartment next to mine. He’s not only my tenant. He’s my lover, boyfriend, whatever the word is now. Dean is a sunbaked golden brown, with broad shoulders and naturally streaked blond hair. Definitely a stud muffin.

I also admire his fine mind. But not this time. Now he was flat-out wrong.

“It’s disgusting,” Dean said. “She should have been taken away and shot.”

“She’s not to blame,” I said. “What she did was natural.”

“Eating her own children?” Dean said. “You think that’s natural? On Mother’s Day?”

“Alligators don’t celebrate Mother’s Day.”

The headline that shocked Dean was “Florida Gator Eats Offspring on Mother’s Day.” Some innocent tourists, expecting to see Disney moments on their Everglades tour, photographed the gruesome scene. They were stunned that the alligator would eat her kids in front of their kids.

 “It’s a metaphor for the whole state,” he said.

“I won’t argue with that,” I said.

“Nothing in Florida is normal,” he said.

With that, Dean was shoved out of the way by a muscular woman pushing a baby stroller that held a tiny Chihuahua. I never got used to people hauling dogs around in strollers.

“See?” he said. “Exhibit A just charged by.”

I felt I should defend my native state. “Did you get a close look at that poor dog? It was so old it had a white muzzle. Plus it had a bandage on its paw. The woman was being kind.”

“Not to me,” Dean said, rubbing his elbow where the dog woman had clipped him.

I playfully kissed his muscular arm, and he laughed.

It was a warm January afternoon, and I wore my favorite yellow sundress and had my long, dark hair up in a ponytail. Dean had on shorts and a stylish Hawaiian shirt embroidered on the pocket with a toucan sitting in a cocktail glass.

I much preferred the ocean to the canal. Florida canals ranged from floating trash dumps to sylvan scenes. This one was somewhere in between. Foam cups and chip bags floated along the weedy edge, which was lined with green scum.

Across the canal, I spotted a glamorous older woman in a red picture hat walking a black cat on a red leash. She had perfectly cut white hair and a stylish red pantsuit. She made age seem like an achievement.

I pointed at her. “See, Dean. Not everything in South Florida is crazy. Look at that woman walking her cat.”

The black cat with green eyes trotted along the canal path, then suddenly stopped, ears alert.

“Vanessa!” woman said. “Come along. Don’t dilly-dally.”

“There,” I said. “When’s the last time you heard someone say ‘dilly-dally’?”

With that, an alligator, evil and prehistoric, slid out of the scummy green water on the canal’s edge, and lumbered toward the woman and her cat. The gator’s gaping jaws revealed cruel yellow teeth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Vanessa,” the woman shrieked, and yanked on the cat’s leash. The dark furball refused to move. It dug in, arched its back and hissed at the armored beast. The gator could swallow Vanessa in one bite.

“That alligator is going to attack,” I said.

“We can’t do anything,” Dean said. “The canal is too wide for us to cross.”

We watched helplessly, unable to stop the carnage.

Then out of nowhere, a man wearing the Day-Glo vest of a park employee and carrying a pointed metal-tipped trash stick ran straight for the gator and speared it in the eye. The gator bellowed and thrashed as the man stuck the gator in the other eye, and then jabbed the beast in its nostrils.

I winced. I had no sympathy for the gator, but the eye-jabbing made me queasy. Did the man blind the creature? I couldn’t tell. The gator backed off but stayed defiantly on the bank, holding its ground and thrashing its tail.

“Why isn’t the gator going back into the canal, where it would be safe, Dean?”

He shrugged. “Like I said, nothing in this state is normal.”

“Look!” I said. “A TV crew is taping the battle. And that’s Carol Berman.”

The petite brown-haired reporter was a south Florida star, and seemingly fearless. She approached the chaotic scene wearing open-toed sandals that I thought were way too close to the gator’s whipping tail and snapping jaws.

Now I heard the howl of police sirens, while the speared gator hissed and thrashed and the white-haired woman struggled to hang onto her squirming cat. Vanessa, determined to go after her attacker, lashed her tail and sent the woman’s hat sailing in to the canal.

Two police officers ran up, guns drawn, and shooed Carol and the woman away from the gator while the rescuer stood guard with his metal-tipped stick.

“Why doesn’t the cop shoot the gator, Dean?” I asked.

“Can’t,” Dean said. “The cop has to call SNAP.”

“The federal food assistance program?”

“Nope, SNAP, the Statewide Nuisance Alligator Program.”

Fifteen minutes later, a gator trapper, dressed in camo, pulled up in a pickup. He jumped out and easily subdued the hissing alligator, quickly wrapping its jaws in silver duct tape. The park employee helped the trapper carry the struggling reptile to the trapper’s pickup.

Meanwhile, Carol, the perky TV reporter, was interviewing bystanders. We could hear her talking to Vanessa’s owner. I knew who she was as soon as I heard her name: Abigail Peachtree, one of the richest women in Florida.

“Vanessa is my child,” Abigail said. “I can’t thank this man enough for saving my baby.”

“Just doing my job, ma’am,” the cat rescuer said. His voice had a soft southern accent. He looked down at his boots and did everything but say, “Aw, shucks.”

Carol stuck a mic in the man’s face and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Gil Shecker,” he said. Gil was about five feet ten and wiry, with a dark shirt, worn jeans and boots that were down at the heels. His rough skin was burned deep red. Gil had hair like a handful of straw. Everything about him said “country.”

“Can you tell us what happened?” Carol asked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I was picking up trash over there under those trees.” Gil waved an arm toward a cluster of palm trees. “And I heard the commotion. I saw that gator going for that lovely lady’s cat.”

I swear, Abigail simpered like a southern belle.

“I didn’t have a real weapon, but I had my stick, and it was nice and sharp. So I just rushed on over there and did what I had to do. It wasn’t no big deal.”

Abigail interrupted. “But it was. You saved us, and I’m so grateful.”

***

Did Gil really save Abigail? Or was the daring rescue a set-up? Why was the TV camera conveniently on the spot?

Abigail the heiress rewards Gil handsomely for saving her cat. That reward that leads to betrayal, a broken romance and murder.

 

Beach Blonde Betrayal will be published July 7 as a hardcover, audio book and ebook. Pre-order your copy  of this sun-soaked mystery from your favorite indie bookstore, including Left Bank Books in my hometown of St. Louis  https://tinyurl.com/44tt2pr9. Other outlets include  Amazon https://tinyurl.com/yc7h5vfy, and Thrift Books https://tinyurl.com/99hctxvs

Enjoy!

 

Quotable

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“When I was younger and first beginning to write, I’d think I was going to get the Pulitzer and the Booker and the Nobel Prize. Now I don’t give a damn. I’m content to know that I write . . . good. I’m a good writer and that’s all I care about.” – Evan Hunter (aka Ed McBain)

First Page Critique: Managing Mood, Metaphor and Jargon

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By PJ Parrish

We’ve got an interesting First Page submission this morning. One caveat about your critic here: I am pretty inept when it comes to new technology. If they gave out certificates for technophobia, I’d have one framed on my wall. So I will need you nerdo-types out there to help me out with this one — let me know if I’m being too hard or too soft with our dear writer.

Here’s our submission. BRB FLASH. (I trying…I really am).

UNTITLED

Monday hit like bad coffee: bitter, necessary, unavoidable. Steam curled off my mug and threaded through the air. Across the kitchen, Zach leaned against the sink, tie loosened, expression caught between amusement and dread, the face before a meeting that’ll eat your soul.

“Ready to charm another nest of executives?” He crossed the kitchen, moving like he owned half my life already.

“I was born ready to confront middle management about trust exercises and weaponized slide decks.”

His mouth twitched. “Workplace Solutions. Nobody calls us when things are healthy.”

We’d been partners, professional and otherwise, for a year and a half. Corporate threat assessment paid the mortgage. Noticing what people tried to hide came with the job.

Our bungalow smelled of coffee and deadlines. Tug, our small golden retriever, snored at my feet like a broken motor.

For once the week started without a fire to stomp out. No terrified client calling at dawn, no red-flag emails waiting to detonate. Zach brushed his knuckles along the back of my shoulder on his way past, a small touch that carried the weight of every night we’d fallen asleep in our clothes after a crisis debrief. I leaned into it without thinking, grateful for a morning when my pulse didn’t sprint ahead of me. Maybe we’d earned a stretch of easy cases. We might even sleep in the next weekend, no alarms, no threat assessments, blankets tangled around our legs while Tug nosed in for space.

My phone lit up on the table. Carly. Windblown hair, fierce grin, camera strap slashing across her shoulder. The photo punched light straight through my chest before the ring even finished.

“Morning, sweetheart—”

Her voice came raw, splintered. “Mom, turn on the TV. I’m on my way.”

The air went brittle. I grabbed the remote.

The screen flickered, then locked onto a news crawl:

BREAKING: TIERNEY ROURKE, FOUNDER OF PIVOT POINT NETWORK, SHOT OUTSIDE DOWNTOWN HOTEL.

My heart slammed hard enough to skid my vision.

Sirens bled through the speakers. Police tape snapped in the wind. A reporter leaned into the gale, shouting over it.

Zach set his mug down hard. Coffee sloshed.

The feed rolled clips: Tierney onstage at Northwestern, then on a Milwaukee dais. A tall woman moving with a commanding glide that silenced a room. Then laughing softly on a late-night couch, calm eyes, measured voice, coppery hair caught the light…

_______________

BAK! I’ve made my return. Now, again, I usually don’t like stories that are heavy on tech-stuff. Computers and everything connected with them are like cars to me — I like them user-friendly, devoid of bells and whistles and I just want them to get me where I need to go. BUT…

That shouldn’t be a deterent to me liking a tech-oriented book. I am reading Andy Weir’s The Martian right and man, this thing reads like a NASA launch manual. Does that negate my enjoyment? No, because first, Weir makes me care about the hero and his perilous circumstance. And second — and this is key to my critique here today — Weir is very good at explaining the technical stuff, translating scientific gobbledigook into terms I can grasp.

This is a craft sleight of hand for any writer who is dealing with any kind of arcane subject matter. It’s like handling foreign languages in your book. Yes, you can use French dialogue but you have to find a way to make the reader understand it in context. Example:

“Tu vas me manquer,” she said.

“I’ll miss you, too,” he said.

Thus, if you are writing a story dealing with any kind of modern technology, with jargon, situations, and procedures, you have to be really careful how you handle it. So how did our writer today do?

This is a good submission overall. And the writer does three things well: Gets the dramatic ball rolling quickly with a break in the norm — the phone call about a dead woman who has some connection to the narrator, who I assumed is the main character. Second, the writer doesn’t overwhelm readers too early with information about the character’s tech job. Thrid: In just 400 words or so, the writer gets in a lot of basic plot information:

  • The (unammed) narrator is working hard lately on some kind of project to please the corporate suits.
  • She is in a relationship with Zach but it is implied things aren’t all lovey-dovey.
  • She has a daughter she loves who is a photographer.
  • Someone important whom she knows well just got whacked outside a hotel.

Not a bad start. No throat-clearing or background info-dumps. So I think the writer is on the right track. But, as with all of us, there are some things that could be better. Let’s start with the opening paragraph — the coffee metaphor.

You guys know how much a love metaphors. But they are the nail gun of the craft toolbox. They must be handled with the greatest care or you get bump-firing (too many metaphors), uncontrolled recoil (cliches and mixed metaphors) or maybe a barbed rivet in your ring finger (the dreaded tortured metaphor).

I don’t mind that the writer used bad coffee as a metaphor for her mood. We can all relate to that. But the metaphor here goes awry because it is impersonal and confusing.

Monday hit like bad coffee: bitter, necessary, unavoidable. Steam curled off my mug and threaded through the air. Across the kitchen, Zach leaned against the sink, tie loosened, expression caught between amusement and dread, the face before a meeting that’ll eat your soul.

The coffee metaphor needs to relate directly to the character. And can coffee be “unavoidable?” Then we get steam curling and threading, which is soothing, a contradiction of the first line. Also confusing mood: The first paragraph compares this Monday to bitter coffee. Yet later, the heroine thinks that for once, it has been a nice quiet Monday.

Then we get Zach coming out of nowhere with an expression that is amused and yet dread-filled. Again, confusion. Plus, in this CRITICAL OPENING PARAGRAPH — who gets named first and thus steals the spotlight? Not our heroine.

I took a whack at writing a coffee metaphor opening that roughly follows what I think is happening in this scene:

The coffee looked like I felt. Bitter and dark.

And what were all those black flecks? I flipped open the Mr. Coffee lid. Zach had used a paper towel as a filter and the pot was filled with grounds. What a way to start this Monday morning.

I dumped the paper towel of grounds in the sink, put in a real filter and grounds and  stabbed the the brew button. Coffee in my morning — especially this morning — was not a luxury. It was a neccessity. Work at had been overwhelming lately, my days as a cyber threat assessor filled with talking clients off cliffs and ironing the suits in the boardroom. Zach and I had started Work Solutions five years to protect some of biggest companies in the world from data breaches, ransomware, and hacking. Today, I couldn’t even get a damn cup of coffee going.

Zach came into the kitchen, and I could see from his slack face he hadn’t slept.

Now this might not even represent the mood the writer wants to convey for both the heroine and her relationship with Zach. I only show this to demonstrate that the coffee metaphor HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING. Michael Connelly, quoting Joseph Wambaugh, calls this THE TELLING DETAIL. One image, one small thing, can tell volumes about your character. And second, I delayed Zach’s entrance so we could start empathizing with the heroine first.

Small but important aside, dear writer: You must find a way to tell us her name in these first pages. This is a common problem in first person POV. Maybe you do it with dialogue from Zach wherein he addresses her by name?  Maybe her job requires a name badge? Or she can have a thought about it?

The box of business cards was still on the counter where Zach had left them last night, beside our empty champagne glasses. I pulled a card out and stared at the embossed text:

WORK SOLUTIONS

Zach Phillips

Kendra Bradley

The champagne had been to celebrate our first anniversary going into business together. The business cards? That had been my idea. It still bothered me that my name was second.

Again, this is just an example. But note that this sort of “telling detail” of the order of names also illuminates character and her relationship.

One more thing before I shut up. As I said, I am tech-challenged and it took me too long to try to figure out what this woman does for a living. I figured “corporate threat assessment” probably had someting to do with cyber-security. But when I looked it up, I found out it’s an incredibly varied profession. Schools have threat assessments to create active shooter drills. Police departments have threat assessment people to deal with hostages and even domestic abuse. Personnel departments have threat assessment teams to look for potential workplace violence.

So, dear writer…take a moment to go into her thoughts and tell the reader, a little more explicitly, what exactly she does in her work. Nothing long or drawn out, no info-dump. Just a line or two that clues us in.

There’s a new good book called Dead Money by Jakob Kerr. It is about a woman who is an “unofficial solver” for Silicon Valley’s most ruthless venture capitalists. She’s an expert at wrangling rich tech bros but the hotttest CEO has just been murdered, leaving behind billions in “dead money” — frozen in his will. The investigation is going nowhere so the heroine has to step up and find the killer from a suspect list that reads like a who’s-who of Valley players.

I started reading it this week and it reminds me a little of this submission. The murder is handled in a prologue and the heroine is introduced in Chapter 1 with this line:

In MacKenzie Clyde’s experience, there were exactly two ways of dealing with a rich asshole.

Dead Money won the Edgar last week for best first novel.

Addendum: For the writer, I am tacking on a quick line edit (my comments in red). Not alot of line editing is needed. But my takeaway, dear writer, is that you’re on the right track. Lots of good stuff there. So keep going!  And thanks for letting us read your work.

Monday hit like bad coffee: bitter, necessary, unavoidable. Steam curled off my mug and threaded through the air. Across the kitchen, Zach leaned against the sink, tie loosened, expression caught between amusement and dread, the face before a meeting that’ll eat your soul. Bring Zach in later after we’ve connected with your heroine. Never let a named character hog the spotlight. And you have to pin down the MOOD of this scene better — Zach is imparting both casualness, affection AND dread. (of what?) 

“Ready to charm another nest of executives?” He crossed the kitchen, moving like he owned half my life already.

“I was born ready to confront middle management about trust exercises and weaponized slide decks.”

His mouth twitched. “Workplace Solutions. Nobody calls us when things are healthy.” This is your first use of dialogue. Dialogue is precious. Don’t use it for idle morning chitchat, especially this early in your story. And I don’t understand this line: moving like her owned half my life already.  Is she pissed off? Resentful? Again, the mood feels oddly unfocused.

We’d been partners, professional and otherwise, for a year and a half. Corporate threat assessment paid the mortgage. Noticing what people tried to hide came with the job. Use her thoughts to be more specific about what exactly she does for a living. TEACH your readers about what threat assessment is. But keep it short. You can SHOW us in later chapters what it means thru her actions.

Our bungalow smelled of coffee and deadlines. Tug, our small golden retriever, snored at my feet like a broken motor.

For once the week started without a fire to stomp out. So it’s so far so good Monday? No terrified client calling at dawn, no red-flag emails waiting to detonate. Zach brushed his knuckles along the back of my shoulder on his way past, a small touch that carried the weight of every night we’d fallen asleep in our clothes after a crisis debrief. I leaned into it without thinking, grateful for a morning when my pulse didn’t sprint ahead of me. Maybe we’d earned a stretch of easy cases. We might even sleep in the next weekend, no alarms, no threat assessments, blankets tangled around our legs while Tug nosed in for space. Not a bad personal graph here. So things are GOOD between them? Then why earlier did you give her that strange thought that he moved like he owned half her life already? Again, inconsistent mood.

My phone lit up on the table. Carly. Windblown hair, fierce grin, camera strap slashing across her shoulder. The photo punched light straight through my chest before the ring even finished.

Good job upcoming on jacking up the pace of your writing — short punnchy — to match the action!

“Morning, sweetheart—”

Her voice came raw, splintered. “Mom, turn on the TV. I’m on my way.”

The air went brittle. I grabbed the remote. The screen flickered, then locked onto a news crawl:

BREAKING: TIERNEY ROURKE, FOUNDER OF PIVOT POINT NETWORK, SHOT OUTSIDE DOWNTOWN HOTEL.how about HILTON MILWAUKEE CITY CENTER. Or wherever this takes place. That way you’ve gracefully slipped in where this book takes place. 

My heart slammed hard enough to skid my vision. Not sure what “skidded vision” looks like.

Sirens bled through the speakers. Thru the TV? Police tape snapped in the wind. A reporter leaned into the gale, shouting over it.

Zach set his mug down hard. Coffee sloshed. Keep the focus on the TV for now. He can come up to TV later.

The feed rolled clips: Tierney onstage at Northwestern, then on a Milwaukee dais. A tall woman moving with a commanding glide that silenced a room. Then laughing softly on a late-night couch, calm eyes, measured voice, coppery hair caught the light. Nice…good way to tell us the narrator knows this victim, not just professionally but personally. Ups the ante. Well done.

 

New Research Tool for Writers

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Pat’s excellent post last week got me thinking about a new-to-me research tool to help writers “write what you know.” Though I agree with Pat’s advice to contact a consultant, this tool can help when you’re unable to find one and/or help you understand what they tell you.

First, a quick story about how I discovered this tool.

I found myself in a quandary of needing to learn Associated Press (AP) Stylebook, like, yesterday. Google didn’t help. Neither did Siri. The differences between AP Stylebook and Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) cannot be discovered by a quick search. I needed to dig into AP Stylebook and discover the differences for myself. But how? Buy the style guide and read it with my highlighter? Maybe later, not now. As I mentioned, I needed this knowledge as soon as possible.

For those unfamiliar with AP Stylebook…

The Associated Press (AP) Stylebook was created specifically for journalists to ensure consistency, accuracy, and clarity in news writing. First published in 1953, it originated from earlier internal guides designed to help Associated Press correspondents standardize spelling, punctuation, and usage across media outlets. It is considered the Bible for reporters, editors, and photographers, focusing on concise and clean writing.

While designed for news reporting, AP Stylebook has evolved into the leading industry standard for public relations, marketing, and corporate communication. Most organizations and company blogs also use AP Stylebook now.

For me, if I didn’t learn it, I could kiss goodbye a high-paying, permanent writing position that aligns with my passion to help animals and allows me plenty of free time to write fiction. To “fake it till I make it” was not an option. Too much at stake.

At this time, a dear friend was cramming for a test to obtain another job-related license. When I saw him studying on his phone, I said, “Do you have the three-ring binder in ebook form?”

He said no. “It’s Quizlet.”

“Quiz what?”

“Quizlet. It’s a learning app.”

“For just your field?”

“No. For any field.”

The proverbial lightbulb blazed on.

I brought up Quizlet.com on my phone. Sure enough, they offered several courses in AP Stylebook. They also offer courses in CMOS, if any of you need to brush up on grammar, comma usage, abbreviations, punctuation, or how to handle things like professional titles, expertise, or rank. Even with an editor, the writer should know our industry standards.

Quizlet

Created by Andrew Sutherland in 2005 (released in 2007) to help him study for a French vocabulary test, Quizlet has grown into a widespread education company.

Quizlet is a leading global learning platform and app that offers AI-powered study tools, digital flashcards, and interactive games to help students practice and master various subjects.

See where I’m going with this as a research tool?

Used by millions, Quizlet enables users to create custom sets or utilize millions of existing, user-generated materials, including study guides, practice tests, and spaced repetition.

When you go to the site, type in whatever it is you want to learn. Scroll down the list. Often, there are several types of courses in that field. Click on the course that covers what you need.

In my case, I didn’t need hardcore reporting rules in AP Stylebook. Because I’ve had CMOS drilled into me, I really only needed to discover how AP handled punctuation, titles, and comma usage. I studied a lot more than that to be safe — no one will catch me under-prepared — but a lot is similar.

Does your main character have a unique skillset or profession? Take a Quizlet course so you can write with some authority.

Need to add fingerprint analysis to your scene? If you can’t attend Writers Police Academy or find a consultant, both of which I highly recommend, take a Quizlet course.

Or maybe, you’ve always wanted to learn a different language for an upcoming vacation.

Quizlet works because it’s global. The site is packed with information on just about every topic. What I love most is the positivity. If you answer a question incorrectly, up pops a message, “That’s okay. You’re still learning.” Then it’ll give you the same question later. When you answer correctly, the message reads, “Way to go! You got it this time!” And it will continue to give you that question until you answer correctly a few times. After which, you’ll see, “You’re really getting this!” or “You’ve got this now!”

The messages lift you up and make you want to keep studying, but Quizlet will also tell you to take a break, drink water, and stretch, if you’ve studied too long.

Key Features and Study Modes

Flashcards: Digital, interactive cards that support images and audio.

Learn: Adaptive study plans gauge how much you know about the topic. Check “Yes” you know that already or “No” you don’t. And it will build your study plan and flashcards from there.

Test: Once you feel ready, take a test to gauge how well you’re doing.

Study Games: I haven’t used this feature. Evidently, it’s an engaging, fast-paced game like “Match.”

AI Integration: AI tools generate study guides and explanations from user-uploaded notes. On something I continued to answer incorrectly, I asked for an explanation. Wasn’t impressed with it, so I looked it up myself. Quizlet’s explanation was, in fact, correct. It just didn’t give me enough information to connect the dots in my mind.

Quizlet Live: A collaborative, multiplayer classroom game. I’ve never gotten involved (not my cup of tea), but maybe you’d enjoy it.

All in all, I love Quizlet. It’s a fantastic tool for those of us who love to learn.