True Crime Thursday – Case of Missing Cemetery Records Solved…Sort Of

Posted on by
14

 

by Debbie Burke

Last October, I wrote about a strange case in my hometown of Kalispell, Montana. Burial records of the historic Conrad Cemetery went missing.

For decades, Jim Korn, now 92, had been the sextant, caretaker, and groundskeeper for the historic cemetery and lived in a cottage on the property. He kept meticulous handwritten records, all stored in the cottage.

Documentation was almost entirely physical: thick volumes, index cards, and boxes of paper records. They included information about who was buried where, sale deed records of sites, and which sites were still available for purchase. Jim was trusted, respected, and beloved by many in the community.

Last year, when Jim began having medical problems, the cemetery board hired his son Kevin to help until a replacement could be found. Kevin was also supposed to help computerize the paper records.

Problems arose, causing the board to question operations.

Then last June, Jim and Kevin disappeared, along with volumes of burial records and several computers. The missing documents included the original deed book from 1903 when Alicia Conrad established the 104-acre site as burial grounds.

For six months, the cemetery couldn’t conduct normal business. Missing deeds for gravesites left families unable to bury loved ones. The cemetery association filed criminal and civil charges against Jim and Kevin Korn for theft and loss of revenue.

Further, the community was concerned about the unexplained disappearance of an elderly man in poor health.

At the time of my post last October, there were no leads.

New information surfaced in November, thanks to a concerned granddaughter and an old friend of Jim’s.

Michaela Preece is Jim Korn’s granddaughter and Kevin’s daughter. She lives outside Salt Lake City but spent much of her youth in Kalispell. Growing up, she had a close relationship with her grandfather.

She knew of Jim’s medical problems and that he came to Salt Lake from time to time for treatment. According to a November 30, 2025 article in the Daily Inter Lake newspaper, Michaela said:

“Knowing that he was sick, I’ve been trying to keep in touch with him every week or so, but depending on when I could get a hold of him, I kind of never knew where (Kevin and Jim) were.”

From the same article:

“Grandpa admitted to me that sometimes they sleep in rest stops or parking lots,” she said. “I had no idea about anything going on in Kalispell.”

Since then, the two bounced between staying with family in Boise, Idaho and Utah for medical visits. Jim’s long stints away from Kalispell concerned Preece.

“My grandpa’s not that way. He didn’t go on long trips and different things like that. He just didn’t,” she said.

When she learned Jim and Kevin had been accused of stealing cemetery property, she became alarmed, saying, “I just knew that I needed to do what I could to help my grandpa by trying to get the cemetery’s property returned. I just want what’s best for my grandpa.”

Michaela contacted family members, trying to determine their whereabouts. That led her to a distant relative in Libby, Montana. She learned Jim and Kevin had visited there in July 2025.

She asked whether the two had left anything at their house.

“They answered in the affirmative and told me I could come get anything at any time,” Preece said.

Meanwhile, a longtime friend of Jim’s named Travis Bruyer was also concerned for the elderly man. Travis is a Kalispell private investigator and retired deputy sheriff who does consulting work for TV and films. Travis explained: “Everyone I ever loved and have buried is in [Conrad Cemetery]. It was just important to be involved.”

Travis found Jim and Kevin at a residence in Boise, Idaho, and attempted to speak with Jim but was denied entrance. He asked Boise police to conduct a welfare check. They reported the Korns were safe.

That still didn’t answer many worrisome questions.

Acting on Michaela’s detective work, on October 20, Travis and the cemetery’s new sextant Jeff Epperly picked up the missing records from the relative’s home in Libby. Epperly stated: “[The documents] filled in the entire back end of an SUV, all the way up to the top.”

Deer graze at future gravesites at Conrad Cemetery, Kalispell, Montana

Conrad Cemetery is now able to conduct business and assist families with burials. Epperly is currently digitizing paper records, but the massive amount of information will take time to convert.

With the records returned, the cemetery board dropped the criminal complaint. However, the cemetery went six months without revenue, causing financial loss. The civil case against the Korns is still pending.

From the Inter Lake article:

When asked why the Korns did what they did, [cemetery board member Jeff] Ellingson said it may have been a reaction to feeling wronged by the cemetery for initiating a succession plan. He referred to written notes left behind among the records that indicated Jim’s outlook on the cemetery had soured.

“I think [Jim] actually thought he was protecting the cemetery by taking the records,” Epperly said. “We’re left to speculate until we’re able to talk it through with him.”

Preece suspected that her father was the driving force behind stealing the documents.

“Having grown up and known Kevin, him being denied that job. I think the ransacking of the office was basically a tantrum,” she said.  

The return of the records solved part of the case, but two questions remain:

  1. Why were they stolen?
  2. Is Jim Korn all right?

 

San Francisco Schemin’

Posted on by
10

San Francisco Schemin’

Terry Odell

Golden Gate Bridge Logo for San Francisco Schemin' the 2026 Left Coast Crime conference

I’m in San Francisco for the annual Left Coast Crime Conference, which officially opens tomorrow. It’s a reader-based event, and sessions are designed to showcase authors and their books rather than focusing on craft. For example, a panel on setting won’t be about how to write effective settings. Rather, it’ll be about where the panelist’s books are set, and elaborated from there.

No agents or editors, no pitches. Just connecting with other authors and readers, and having fun. I’ll be on two panels. The first, The Perils of Small Towns, where I’m a panelist. The second, Romance, Love, Sex, and Crime where I’ll be moderating. (I think I’ve been on a sex-related panel almost every time I’ve attended. I wonder what the program committee thinks of me at this point.)

As a moderator, a panelist, and an audience member, I try to avoid my pet peeves.

The first is reading the panelists’ bios out of the program. Get with it, people. These folks are readers. They can find that information themselves. Instead, I ask my panelists to give me one non-writing fact about themselves, and I present those to the audience. Without naming names. I leave it up to each panelist to decide if they want to confess. (And yes, I do a very brief intro—names and what kind of books they write, series names, a book title if they’ve told me what book they want to feature.

Next peeve: Asking each panelist the same question, going down the table. I’ve been seated at the last position in the past, and the moderator went straight down the line. Every Single Time. By the time my turns came around, I had very little to add. My approach is to ask a question, let the panelist answer, and then encourage the others to add their bits. Discussions always seem more interesting.

Another peeve: questions that blindside the panelists. Those dead air moments are … deadly. I’ve got a list of more questions than I think we’ll have time for, and I send them to my panelists. They won’t know which ones I’ll ask or which ones I’ll direct at them, but at least they’ll be prepared. I also ask each of them to send me a question they want directed at them. My job isn’t to make them look foolish, it’s to make them look good.

And yet another peeve: Moderators who let panelists hog the mic—and panelists who do it. And in that vein, moderators who spend precious panel minutes introducing themselves—and worse. I was on a panel moderated by a big name author (not big enough for caps, but bigger than those of us on the panel) who talked and talked until I finally put myself on her s**t list by suggesting she open the floor for audience questions. (I think there were about 10-15 minutes left, and she’d only asked each of us panelists one question.) She flapped her stack of note papers and said, “I’m not done yet.” Don’t be like her.

Other events at this conference include “Author Speed Dating” where pairs of authors circle the room going from table to table. Each author has a timed two minutes to give their pitch and hand out swag. Interesting to see the different speaking styles. Some read, some recite a memorized pitch, and others seem as though they’re chatting with you.

Another event is the “New Author Breakfast.” Yes, it’s a real breakfast (a buffet, free to attendees) and a good deal considering hotel food prices. After allowing time to eat, each debut author who signed up is allowed a minute to pitch their new book. There are sheets of paper with each participating author’s name so attendees can make notes, which is better than trying to remember.

Another feature offered at this conference is Author-Reader Connections. Authors can host events, ranging from getting together to chat, to drinks at the bar, to sightseeing trips. Hosts set the limit of number of participants, so these are small groups (and they don’t get stuck with a huge bill!)

Plenty of swag at the giveaway tables, and there’s a book exchange table if you want to swap out one of the books in you welcome bag.

They also have author-hosted tables at the awards banquet, where attendees can sign up to sit at a table with a favorite (or new to them) author. The tablescapes and swag can get elaborate.

What about you, TKZers? Any conference panel peeves? Anything that you’ve seen done well?

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.”

Self-Editing Pop Quiz Redux

Posted on by
14

I just looked back at the first post I wrote for The Kill Zone in 2015.

2015??? How can that be???

My debut here came about because one of TKZ’s founding mothers, Kathryn Lilley, invited me to write a guest post about self-editing based on a workshop I presented at a conference.

For years, TKZ had been my favorite writing blog so I was thrilled by the chance but also nervous. At that point, none of my books had been published yet. Every contributor here had waaaaaay more experience and accomplishments than I did. But I’d edited a number of books and knew a little something about that topic. So that’s what I wrote about.

Today I’m dusting off that early post to see if editing has changed in the past decade.

Self-Editing Pop Quiz

This morning, let’s imagine we’re back in school and the teacher announces a pop quiz to test your self-editing skills. Did you do your homework?

1. Scan your WIP and highlight every form of the verb “to be.” How many times per page did you use:
is ​

are​

am ​

was/were​

had been

Tally your score: 

Fewer than 5 per page:​ Excellent

Between 5 and 10 per page: ​Very good, but could use more active verbs

More than 20 per page: ​Work on how to “de-was” with strong, active, specific verbs.

Many years ago, I took a workshop from the late, great Montana mystery author James Crumley. He shared with me how to “de-was” and I’ve never forgotten. This single skill goes a long way to transform your writing into active, muscular prose.

2026 note – De-was-ing still works. Grammar/editing software suggests ways to rewrite in active voice. 

2. Read the first few paragraphs of each new scene or chapter. Can a reader quickly determine:

WHO is present?

WHERE they are?

WHEN is the scene taking place?

If you can answer these questions, you’ve done a good job of orienting your reader immediately in the story world. Give yourself a point each time you effectively set the scene.

2026 note: Yup, this still applies. 

3. Do a global search for what I call “junk” words that add little information and dilute the power of your prose. Score a point every time you delete one of the below “junk” or “stammer” words.

There is (was)

​​it is (was)​

that

​just​

very ​

nearly​

quite​

rather​

sort of

turned to​

started to​

began to​

commenced to

Editor Jessi Rita Hoffman calls the last four examples “stammer verbs” that weaken the verb that follows, i.e. Barbara began to race to escape the zombie.

Stronger version: Barbara raced to escape the zombie.

Stammer verb exception: when an action is interrupted or changed, i.e. Robert started to run, but tripped over the corpse.

2026 note: still applies. 

4. How many of your characters’ names start with the same letter?

Deduct a point if you’ve christened more than two characters with the same first letter, i.e. Michael, Mallory, Millie, Moscowitz, Melendez.

Deduct a point for rhyming or similar-sounding names: Billy, Lily, Julie.

Extra credit: if none of your characters’ names ends with “S,” give yourself a point for avoiding the unnecessary complication of figuring out whether it should be “Miles’s machine gun,” or “Miles’ machine gun.”

2026 note: still applies. 

5. Do you exploit all five senses? Writers most often use sight and hearing, and ignore the other senses that can add texture and richness to the reader’s immersion in the story world.

Give yourself a point each time you employ one of the under-used senses of taste, touch, and smell.

Extra credit: for dramatic effect, deprive your characters of normal sensory input, i.e.

A blindfolded kidnap victim who cannot see where captors are taking her.

An explosion-deafened soldier who cannot hear the enemy stalking him.

2026 note: sensory detail still immerses readers in the story world. 

6. The English language constantly challenges even experienced authors. In the eyes of editors and agents, improper usage of common words marks a writer as an amateur. Choose the correct word for each of the following:

(a) It’s [or] its a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

(b) The bear retreated to its [or] it’s den as winter closed in.

(c) Hurricane Katrina effected [or] affected every home in New Orleans.

(d) The affect [or] effect of Hurricane Katrina continued long after the rains ended.

(e) After the lobotomy, McMurphy possessed a flat affect [or] effect.

(f) The farther [or] further the boat drifted from the shore, the harder Joe paddled.

(g) The further [or] farther you pursue this tangent, the more you lose credibility.

(h) The magician made an allusion [or] illusion to Houdini’s famous “vanishing elephant”illusion [or] allusion.

(i) Robert implied [or] inferred that Janet was a tramp.

(j) Since Janet had been convicted of prostitution, Robert inferred [or] implied she was a tramp.

(k) The witness that [or] who saw the assault ran away.

(l) Winston tastes good like [or] as a cigarette should. (Trick question for those of a certain age.)

Answers at the end. Score 1 for each correct answer.

The Elements of Style by Strunk and White is my go-to reference whenever I’m not sure of correct word usage. I find answers to 98% of my questions in Strunk and White.

2026 note: Word (and other writing programs) now do a better job of catching and flagging these misuses. 

7. Scan an entire chapter. How many times is the first word of a new paragraph the name of your character or a pronoun referring to that character (he or she)?

8+ out of 10 times – Normal for the first draft, but try varying sentence structure to begin paragraphs in different ways.

5 out of 10 times​​ – Better, but still needs work.

2 out of 10 times​ – ​You display good variability in paragraph structure.

2026 note: some writing software flags this problem, as well as makes suggestions how to vary sentence structure. 

8. Point of View—do you stay consistently in the same character’s head for the entire scene? Do you switch point of view only when a scene changes or when a new chapter begins?

How many POV changes can you find in the following passage?

Silky sheets caressed Teresa’s naked skin, as her heartbeat quickened. She watched Zack, framed in the doorway, as he unbuttoned his shirt. Secret fantasies he’d harbored for months were about to come true. Teresa’s heavy-lidded eyes promised a welcome worth waiting for. She quivered inside with trepidation. Would he be disappointed or thrilled? With a sweep of his sinewy arm, Zack whipped back the sheet, stunned to discover Teresa was really Terrance.

Answer: Four. The paragraph starts in Teresa’ POV because she feels the sheets and her heartbeat. Then POV switches to Zack and his secret fantasies, which she might guess, but can’t know about since they’re inside his head. Then back to Teresa, quivering inside. Then back to Zack being stunned.

If you struggle with POV, lock yourself inside the head and body of the POV character. Everything that goes on in that scene must be within the eyesight, earshot, or touch of that character. That means the character might be able to look at his own feet, but he can’t see the broccoli stuck in his teeth. Only another character can do that…and I certainly hope she tells him about it soon!

2026 note: a consistent POV is still important to avoid confusing readers. 

9. Is the action described in chronological order? Does cause lead to effect? Does action trigger reaction? Is the choreography clear to the reader? Who is where doing what to whom?

If you understand the last sentence, give yourself 10 points and deduct 10 points from my score!

How would you rewrite the following confusing sentence?

George slashed Roger’s throat with the knife as he grabbed him from behind after he sneaked into the warehouse.

How about: ​Knife in hand, George sneaked into the warehouse, grabbed Roger from behind, and slashed his throat.

Just as messy, but much clearer to the reader because events unfold in the order they happened.

2026 note: writing events in clear, logical order is still important. I don’t know how well editing software addresses this problem because I do it myself. 

10. Do you read your work out loud? If so, give yourself an automatic 10 points.

When you read out loud, you catch repeated or missing words, awkward phrasing, and sentences that are too long. “Glide” is the term used by author/editor Jim Thomsen to describe smooth, effortless, clear writing. Glide is like riding in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce as opposed to bucking and shuddering in a 1973 Pinto with bad spark plugs and a flat tire.

For extra credit, have someone else read your work out loud. If he or she can read without stumbling, you’ve achieved glide. Award yourself 25 bonus points.

2026 note: reading aloud still works but now many programs read to you. That saves a sore throat. 

Answers to 6 (a) it’s, (b) its, (c) affected, (d) effect, (e) affect, (f) farther, (g) further, (h) allusion, illusion, (i) implied, (j) inferred, (k) who, (l) Despite the catchy slogan from the 1950s, correct use would be as. Back then, liquor couldn’t advertise on TV, but cigarettes could. Now liquor ads are common, but few people even remember commercials for cigarettes. How times change!

How did you do? Tell us in the Comments! 

Fewer errors equal less distractions and a more engaged reader. A more engaged reader equals more sales.

And that equals an A+.

~~~

Revisiting this early post, the same principles apply. The main difference between then and now is that more editing software programs are available to alert the writer to potential problems.

~~~

TKZers: how did you do on the quiz? Please answer in the comments.

Extra credit if you caught my error in the original. In 2015, an alert reader busted me. 

Do you use editing software? Which ones do you prefer? 

~~~

On March 5, I’m teaching a zoom webinar entitled “It’s 10 p.m. Do You Know Where Your Villain Is.” Click this link for more information. 

That topic began as a TKZ post and grew into my book, The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate. Sales link. 

Why Readers Read

Posted on by
24

Girl Reading

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” — George R.R. Martin

* * *

I’ve been wondering lately about what exactly people are looking for when they pick up a book to read. Maybe knowing that would help me understand how to construct a novel that would be especially satisfying to the reader. My search took me to a Pew Research report from 2012 where researchers asked people who had read at least one book in the previous twelve months what they liked about reading. I summarized the main reasons below:

  • 26% enjoyed learning, gaining knowledge, and discovering information.

  • 15% cited escaping reality, becoming immersed in another world, and the enjoyment they got from using their imaginations.

  • 12% liked the entertainment, drama, and suspense of watching a good plot unfold.

  • 12% enjoyed relaxing while reading and having quiet time.

  • 6% liked the variety of topics they could access via reading

  • 4% said they enjoy finding spiritual enrichment

  • 3% said they like being mentally challenged by books.

  • 2% cited the physical properties of books – their feel and smell.

Why Readers Read

A more recent poll from Written Word Media found three top reasons people read books in 2026:

  • To relax (86%)
  • To be entertained (83%)
  • To escape (67%)

Clearly, different people get enjoyment from different aspects of reading, but what exactly causes that enjoyment? I was looking for something a little more specific so I returned to the TKZ post John Gilstrap wrote a few weeks ago about the effect our writing has on readers. Here’s some of what he said:

The emotional connection is what counts. Like musical composition, a story is in its way an immortal piece of its creator’s soul. It lies silently until living person picks it up and interprets the author’s words through the filter of the reader’s own life experiences.

That got me thinking.  How does that emotional connection affect readers of different genres? Can I use that information to improve my own story-telling?

I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted in my search, so I turned to Google’s AI to list why people prefer to read certain genres. (Google’s search provides references for the answers it generates.) Here are some of the things I gleaned from the results:

* * *

Mystery readers enjoy puzzles, suspense, and intellectual stimulation. They want compelling characters in stories that provide a comforting resolution that ensures justice has been served.

Thriller readers like adrenaline-fueled suspense and mental stimulation in fast-paced narratives, high stakes, and relatable yet flawed characters.

Readers of suspense desire an emotionally charged narrative that keeps them on the edge of their seat. They like the building anxiety that ends in a satisfying resolution.

True crime readers want to understand the psychological motivations behind criminal behavior and explore the complexities of the justice system. They like the combination of the thrill of being scared with real-life crime stories.

Fantasy readers seek immersive world-building that provides them with an escape from, or a new perspective on, reality.

Romance readers want a guaranteed happy-ever-after (HEA) or happy-for-now (HFN) ending. They’re looking for an intense emotional journey with relatable characters.

Readers of mixed-genre fiction crave fresh narratives that break the monotony of conventional, single-genre stories. They look for a “best of both worlds” experience—such as intense thrills paired with emotional romance or scientific concepts blended with fantasy.

* * *

These are, admittedly, brief summaries and not in-depth reader profiles, but they do point out that people have distinct expectations from the genre they prefer. Understanding that may help an author target a story that hits the bulls eye for their audience.

As a mystery writer with some romance included in my stories, I like the idea of combining John’s “emotional connection” with the list of specific things AI claims mystery readers crave. I guess that makes me a mixed-genre author. Puzzles, suspense, intellectual stimulation, and a strong emotional connection are the short list of keywords on my whiteboard to keep me focused.

* * *

So TKZers: What genre to you write? What do you think about profiling readers by the genre they read? Do you agree with the descriptions above? Does the psychological profile of readers in your genre help you compose your story?

* * *

 

Only one person believed it was murder. Only one star held the final clue.  And only one woman followed its light to find the killer.

Lacey’s Star – click the image to go to the Amazon detail page.

Writing For Fame

Posted on by
26

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

O quam cito transit gloria mundi. – Thomas á Kempis (“How quickly the glory of the world passes away.”)

How many people today have heard of Thorne Smith? Or Booth Tarkington? Or Carroll John Daly?

All three were wildly famous in the 1920s. Smith was the author of the popular Topper series of novels about a couple of fun-loving ghosts and their friend, Cosmo Topper. Tarkington won the Pulitzer Prize—twice!—for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. And in the world of pulp writing, Daly was as popular as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

They are mostly forgotten now, which is the fate of the overwhelming number of writers who ever lived.

Which brings me to Arthur Schopenhauer. Read any Schopenhauer lately? I read some Schopenhauer in college, and this is what my face looked like after I tried to understand him:

JSB, age 20 (or Arthur Schopenhauer)

But as I did some research in the library of Project Gutenberg, I came across Schopenhauer’s essay on Fame.

“As a general rule, the longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the later it will be in coming; for all excellent products require time for their development. The fame which lasts to posterity is like an oak, of very slow growth; and that which endures but a little while, like plants which spring up in a year and then die; whilst false fame is like a fungus, shooting up in a night and perishing as soon.”

If you write for fame, you’re writing fungus. Worth remembering.

However, we do want our name to be known as a “brand,” meaning a reliable producer of quality fiction. That’s part of a marketing strategy, which also includes self-promotion. Agent Barb Roos has some good advice on this topic.

The notion of self-promotion tends to send authors running from platform conversations faster than a politician dodging a direct question. We see self-promotion as something only self-involved people who clearly think too highly of themselves would do. Of course, we think ourselves too holy, too busy, or too sophisticated to engage in such activity. After all, we are writers, right?

Her bottom line:

If you don’t talk about yourself and what you write, no one else will.

My follow-up point will make you uncomfortable, but it is a truth you must wrap your mind around if you want to survive and thrive in today’s publishing world. Self-promotion is essential to the success of your product.

The trick is to divorce self-promotion from the desire for fame. Schopenhauer again:

“From the point of view of human happiness, fame is, surely, nothing but a very rare and delicate morsel for the appetite that feeds on pride and vanity—an appetite which, however carefully concealed, exists to an immoderate degree in every man, and is, perhaps strongest of all in those who set their hearts on becoming famous at any cost. Such people generally have to wait some time in uncertainty as to their own value, before the opportunity comes which will put it to the proof and let other people see what they are made of; but until then, they feel as if they were suffering secret injustice.”

The desire to have others recognize you as significant (which is what fame is) inevitably leads to comparisons, envy, disappointment, bitterness. Instead, put that emotional energy into writing the best book you can (you, not the machine), pour your heart into your material, and promote it wisely. Rinse, repeat.

And here’s some unsolicited advice for those public figures who violate the maxim: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.

“And so people who feel that they possess solid intellectual capacity and a sound judgment, and yet cannot claim the highest mental powers, should not be afraid of laborious study; for by its aid they may work themselves above the great mob of humanity who have the facts constantly before their eyes, and reach those secluded spots which are accessible to learned toil.”

But laziness and click-bait catnip is the currency of “influencers” today. For them, I offer Aesop’s fable “The Mischievous Dog.”

There was once a Dog who used to snap at people and bite them without any provocation, and who was a great nuisance to every one who came to his master’s house. So his master fastened a bell round his neck to warn people of his presence. The Dog was very proud of the bell, and strutted about tinkling it with immense satisfaction. But an old dog came up to him and said, “The fewer airs you give yourself the better, my friend. You don’t think, do you, that your bell was given you as a reward of merit? On the contrary, it is a badge of disgrace.”

Moral: Notoriety is often mistaken for fame.

Comments welcome.

Writing the Old-Fashioned Way: Alternatives to Artificial Intelligence for Writers

Posted on by
16

In the past few years Large-Language Models AKA “A.I.” such as ChatGPT have become widespread, and been introduced into all sorts of programs. Recently here at the Kill Zone we’ve had several posts on A.I., including two already this week, one on Wednesday by John Gilstrap and another on Thursday by Patricia Bradley.

Personally I am against using A.I. in my novel brainstorming, writing and for research. I’m concerned about outsourcing my thinking and creativity to a program that is capable of neither. Many of these programs were trained on copyrighted material without the owners permission (including seven of my own books), and there’s also concern about plagiarism. I am also concerned about errors in A.I. search results.

So, for those would rather avoid using such LLMs/Gen A.I. for brainstorming, writing or research, here are a few alternatives.

Brainstorming Without A.I.

You might brainstorm a whole book, or a crucial scene, or plot point. It can be a simple as sitting down and writing out a list of ideas for that plot point, character, or surprise, or breaking out a pack of index cards and jotting down scene ideas, one scene per card.

My Words of Wisdom post from 2023 featured useful advice from three authors on brainstorming which is worth revisiting.

Then there are handy card decks to help with brainstorming, such as Storymatic, the Writers Emergency Pack and the Writing Down the Bones deck.

I first learned about The Storymatic card deck from our very own James Scott Bell, in a 2021 post entitled “How to Write When You’re Not Writing.”

As Jim noted in that post, Their ad line is “Six trillion stories in one little box. Which one will you tell?” It’s a set of 500 cards of two types. One type is a setting or situation, the other is a kind of character. I’ll draw one of each at random and put them together to see what comes up.”

Writers Emergency pack was created by screenwriter John August, and is intended to be used when you stuck while plotting or writing. There are 52 cards—26 idea cards and 26 detail cards which include suggestions on how to move forward. It’s a handy break the block or end the creative drought set of cards.

Writing Down The Bones deck, by Natalie Goldberg, author of the classic Writing Down the Bones, provides sixty prompts to spark your writing.

Brainstorming with another writer or a group of writers can be creative dynamite. Back in 2013, I attended author Kij Johnson’s two-week long writers workshop at the University of Kansas, which focused on brainstorming and creating novel outlines. After returning I decided to form my own brainstorming group and got together with three other writers. There’s nothing quite like brainstorming a novel with a group of fellow writers. Also in 2013, my now-friend and fellow author Susan Kaye Quinn blogged about one way to brainstorm a book, in seven steps, which is both a useful example and a handy method in its own right.

Writing Without A.I.

At this time Apple Pages, Literature and Latte’s Scrivener, and Libre Office do not have A.I.  installed.

Pages comes with all Macs, iPhones and iPads and can import and export Word .doc files.

Scrivener is a program designed for writing various short stories, novels, and screenplays and which is available for both Windows and Mac computers.

Libre Office is an alternative to Open Office. “It’s fully compatible with Microsoft Office (365) and is backed by a non-profit organization, The Document Foundation. LibreOffice includes Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).”

I’ve used the Writer and Calc modules and find them pretty similar to Word and Excel.

What about Microsoft’s Office? Disabling the included A.I. was a complex process a while ago but now there is a simple and straightforward “one click” method to turn on or off Microsoft’s A.I. named “Copilot” in the various Office apps.

Research Without A.I.

Research can be a very important part of writing your novel. It’s a topic for a future Words of Wisdom post but for today I wanted to include a link to this post by John Gilstrap which gives terrific advice on doing effective research while avoiding falling down endless rabbit holes.

Using A.I. for web searching and research is now popular with many people, including writers. But what if you want to avoid using A.I., because you are concerned about its tendency for making mistakes or even manufacturing results out of thin air? Furthermore, websites are being created by A.I. which can include false information.

I’ll start off by referencing my own (and first TKZ) post from 2022 which provided tips on using the online public library. Your local library or library system often subscribes to a number of databases which you can access online with your library card, databases assembled and curated by human experts. Needless to say, I see this as an excellent and robust alternative to using A.I. for researching a topic.

Also, as John noted in his 2021 post about “research hacks,” Wikipedia is a wonderful resource for research.

Now, when you want to avoid A.I. while searching the internet and are using the Google search engine, this article from Lifehacker provides several options. I tend to use the DuckDuckGo search engine, which has some robust privacy options, perfect for when you need to search for a murder method for your latest mystery or thriller. Turning off A.I. results in DuckDuckGo is straight-forward. It’s also worth noting that there is a full-fledged DuckDuckGo browser available for additional privacy protections.

If you wish to bypass all the AI-generated websites now out there, or want to find posts and articles quickly from a few years ago when using Google, here’s two tips:

First, choose the “Web” option from the list of Google options above the search box. This will automatically turn off the A.I. overview feature.

Second, at the end of your search query, add “Before:[DATE].” Example, “How to write a novel Before:2022.” Note the command “Before” followed by a colon and then the date (no space between the colon and the date).

***

I actually began writing this article a few weeks ago, unaware that two of my fellow TKZ authors would be blogging about A.I. just days before my own post. This goes to show how much A.I. is part of our current zeitgeist, and on so many of minds, including here at TKZ. It’s certainly a topic which many of us feel strongly about. That said, whether you use it or not is a personal choice. Today’s post was about providing some alternatives to three core aspects of fiction writing.

Do you have any additional tips, thoughts, or general advice on “going old-school” when it comes to brainstorming, writing, and/or researching a novel? Please share in comments.

AI and Romance?

Posted on by

I know AI has been hashed and rehashed to death, but it seems the subject just won’t go away. On February 8, the NYT published an interview with Coral Hart (not her real name but a retired pseudonym and the name she uses to teach AI-assisted writing). Before she became an AI enthusiast, Hart published 10 – 12 books a year using 5 different pen names.

Last year with AI’s help and 21 different pen names, she self-published more than 200 books, ranging from sweet to hot to sizzling hot. She didn’t used AI just to research, but created the plot, characters, setting–the whole ball of wax with AI. According to the article that you can read here, none were  blockbusters but collectively sold 50,000 copies earning her a nice piece of change.

The article doesn’t say how long the books are, and it didn’t reveal her pen names which prevented me from hopping over to Amazon to read some of the sample chapters. It did say that she never revealed the books had been AI-generated because she didn’t want a bias against them.

It’s a free country so I don’t care that she created all the books using AI, but I do care that she didn’t reveal that fact to her readers. It was cheating. But even more disturbing, at least to me, is the article and others similar to it seem to treat her like she’s some guru who should be followed.

Of course not all responded favorably. Many romance authors responded that romance is all about emotions so how can a machine that has no heart or feelings write about such things?

It can’t. AI has no soul. It doesn’t sweat blood to get just the right emotion of someone who is dying inside because it doesn’t know what that emotion is. Hart even agrees that she has to diligently work on her prompts to get close to what she wants. I wonder what kind of writing she might do if she put that much effort into writing the emotion herself?

What scares me about this article is that there is already a glut of books out there and AI makes it so easy to put more out. But I have faith in readers and unlike Hart and many others, I believe readers will be able to tell the difference between an AI generated story and one that a flesh and blood author creates from the heart–a least at the present time. I’m not sure about the future.

What say you, TKZers?

 

It’s Time To Embrace Artificial Intelligence

Posted on by

By John Gilstrap

I’m sure you’ve seen the ads popping up on social media. The 28-day course that will make you an expert on how to use AI to launch your productivity to new levels. I ignored them because as a creative, AI is supposed to be the bad guy, the thing we shall not use. In the end, I surrendered the $20 for the course.

Now I’m forking over twenty bucks a month for the paid version of ChatGPT. It didn’t take much convincing. Here’s my journey. Coming up on a book launch (Scorched Earth, February 24), I needed some fodder for social media posts. I never know what to say.

I logged into the basic, free version of ChatGPT and typed the question, “What makes Facebook posts effective when launching a new thriller novel?” Two seconds later, I got this:

Launching a thriller on Facebook is basically about triggering curiosity without giving the game away. The posts that work best tend to do a few specific things really well:

1. They tease a question, not a plot

Thriller readers love puzzles. Effective posts don’t summarize the book—they dangle a mystery.

  • “What would you do if the person you trusted most disappeared… and left your name behind?”

  • “Everyone in this town is lying. The question is: about what?”

If a post can be answered with “I need to know more,” you’re winning.

2. They spotlight stakes, not characters

Readers don’t yet care who your protagonist is—but they care deeply about what’s at risk.

  • Life or death

  • A secret getting out

  • A ticking clock

  • An innocent person paying the price

One clear, escalating threat beats three paragraphs of backstory every time.

3. They use short, punchy copy

Facebook is a scroll battlefield. Thriller posts that perform well usually have:

  • 1–3 tight sentences

  • White space

  • A line break before the hook or CTA

Think movie trailer voiceover, not book jacket prose.

4. They pair text with a mood image

You don’t need literal scenes. You want vibe:

  • A deserted road at night

  • A cracked mirror

  • A bloodless but unsettling detail (locked door, abandoned phone, empty swing)

Mood-first images stop the scroll better than character art.

5. They imply credibility or social proof

Especially important for new releases.

Examples:

  • “Early readers say this one kept them up past 2 a.m.”

  • “If you like Reacher, The Night Agent, or The Fugitive…”

  • “My darkest thriller yet.”

This reduces risk for the reader.

6. They invite low-friction engagement

Posts that ask for opinions outperform posts that ask for purchases.

  • “Which scares you more: being hunted or being framed?”

  • “Night reading or daylight only?”

  • “What’s the one line that makes you buy a thriller?”

Engagement boosts reach—and warms readers before the buy.

7. They rotate formats during launch week

Effective launches don’t repeat the same post. They mix:

  • Hook lines

  • Micro-excerpts (1–2 killer sentences)

  • Behind-the-scenes (“This idea came from a real case…”)

  • Countdown posts

  • Reader reactions

Variation keeps the algorithm—and your audience—interested.

8. They end with a clean, obvious CTA

No cleverness here. Be clear.

  • “Now available on Amazon”

  • “Kindle + paperback out today”

  • “Link in comments”

Confusion kills conversions.

If you want, tell me:

  • your subgenre (political, military, serial killer, tech, etc.)

  • whether this is Book 1 or a standalone

  • your target comps

…and I’ll write 5–7 Facebook launch posts tailored specifically to your thriller.

Yeah, all of that in a few seconds. Intrigued, I typed, “Scorched Earth is the 17th book in the award-winning Jonathan Grave political thriller series. Summary: Vengeance, murder, and violent political games are on a collision course in a propulsive Jonathan Grave thriller by New York Times bestselling author John Gilstrap. Disgraced U.S. President Darmond has been ousted from office, but his minions have taken aim at everyone they perceive to be enemies. Off-the-record contractors on a secret list are being eliminated, one by one. Jonathan Grave and his Security Solutions team manage to turn the tables when the assassins come for them. But the ultimate attack will strike deep at the heart of what’s best about American values.”

Most of that comes from cutting and pasting the description off Amazon. Two seconds later (and I’m serious about the two seconds), this appeared:

Nice—this has serious launch-post fuel. Since this is Book 17, award-winning, and political thriller readers already know the Jonathan Grave world, the posts should lean hard into stakes, legacy, and national consequences, not introductions.

Here are 7 high-impact Facebook launch posts, each with a different angle so you can rotate them across launch week.

Post 1: The Hook (Pure Thriller Tease)

Vengeance has a list.
And Jonathan Grave’s name is on it.

When a disgraced president’s allies decide to erase their enemies, the killing starts quietly… and escalates fast.

SCORCHED EARTH is out now.

Post 2: Stakes Over Story

They aren’t after money.
They aren’t after power.

They’re after revenge—and they’re willing to burn the country to get it.

Jonathan Grave faces the most dangerous enemy he’s ever fought in SCORCHED EARTH.

Post 3: Series Credibility / Social Proof

Seventeen books in—and the threats have never been bigger.

If you’ve followed Jonathan Grave from the beginning, SCORCHED EARTH takes the fight straight to the heart of American ideals.

If you’re new? Buckle up.

Post 4: Villain-Focused (Political Edge)

A president may be gone.
But his loyalists are still pulling triggers.

Off-the-books contractors are dying.
Secrets are being erased.
And the endgame is anything but subtle.

SCORCHED EARTH—available now.

Post 5: Ticking Clock

They’re killing names on a secret list.
One by one.
No witnesses. No mercy.

Jonathan Grave and his team turn the tables—but stopping the assassins may not be enough.

Because the real attack is still coming.

Post 6: Reader Identity Post (Engagement-Friendly)

Thriller readers:
Do you prefer a villain driven by power, or one driven by revenge?

If your answer is revenge, SCORCHED EARTH was written for you.

Post 7: Clean Launch CTA

The rules are gone.
The gloves are off.
And the fallout will be devastating.

SCORCHED EARTH
Book 17 in the Jonathan Grave series
Now available in Kindle and paperback.

Pro tip for Facebook performance

  • Put the purchase link in the first comment, not the post

  • Pair these with dark, symbolic images (burned paper, shadows, empty corridors, flags in distress—not literal violence)

  • Pin either Post 1 or Post 7 to your page during launch week

If you want, I can:

  • tighten these to Amazon-ad length

  • write a Book 17 “jump-in” post specifically for new readers

  • or craft a controversy-safe political hook that pushes harder without tripping moderation

Just tell me which direction you want to lean.

I started a dialogue with my machine, and together, we put together a plan. But it didn’t stop there. I decided to play with images. A pivotal scene in the novel involves an airborne attack on a campground where children are celebrating the annual “Planetariat.” Don’t worry about the name, just stick with me.

I wrote, “Create a photorealistic image suggesting that violence is coming to a Camporee.” This one took closer to 10 seconds, and this is what I got:

Disclosure: The first iteration was Boy Scout centric. The final version is the result of edits like, “Change Camporee to Planetariat.”

Addicted now, I wanted more. I wrote, “Create story-related captions for this image.” Boom:

Here are story-related caption options for an image titled “Mysterious campsite at twilight”, all tuned to Scorched Earth–style tension. I’ve grouped them by vibe so you can pick what fits the post or rotate them.

Quiet Dread

  • Twilight is when secrets stop hiding.

  • By morning, this place won’t be what it was.

  • Nothing looks dangerous… until it is.

Ominous / Foreboding

  • The calm before escalation always looks like this.

  • Every tent holds a name. Every name is on a list.

  • This is where the plan starts to unfold.

Minimalist / Scroll-Stopping

  • They thought they were safe.

  • Safe ground is a myth.

  • Night falls. Consequences follow.

Political-Thriller Edge

  • Revenge doesn’t care who’s camping nearby.

  • When ideology turns violent, innocence becomes collateral.

  • The fight doesn’t stay in Washington.

Jonathan Grave–Flavored

  • Jonathan Grave knew this silence wouldn’t last.

  • He’d seen places like this before.
    They never stayed quiet.

  • The mission always starts after sundown.

All of the above (and much, much more) ate up less than an hour of my day.

I’m hooked, folks. Have y’all played with AI yet?

Click the link if you’re interested in listening in as Jonathan and Boxers discuss Scorched Earth. Spoiler: Big Guy is not happy with me.

An Ode To A Good Editor

Posted on by

By PJ Parrish

I got into this novel racket back in 1979 as a writer of mainstream women’s fiction. (That was the euphemism of the era for big fat books about sex, power and dysfunctional families.) I retired from fulltime novel writing a couple years ago. (I had a great run and was time…no regrets). So over a span of oh, 40 years, I’ve had a lot of editors.

The good, the bad, and the ugly. And one, painfully indifferent. (We showed up at a major book fair and she didn’t know who we were).

I forgot who told me this early in my career — might have been one of my agents — but she said, “Your editor is not your friend.”  And that is true. Now, some writers are lucky to have deep and long-lasting friendships with their editors. But I never expected that. All I wanted was an editor who made my books better, an editor who made me better. An editor who believed in my work.

First, a definition. There are copy editors. Then there are line editors, Both are essential to your success.

I’ve had some amazing copy editors — the pickiest, sharpest-eyed, obsessive, anal-grammarians an author could ever wish for. They caught my misspellings, my lay-lie transgressions, my syntax sins. My last one, at Thomas & Mercer, was an ex ballet dancer who caught some errors that even this old dance critic missed.

My favorite copy editor was one I had for my British edition romance. I never knew his/her name but I pictured her as a spinster sitting in a ratty wingback by the fire in some Devonshire outpost surrounded by cats and towers of manuscripts. She dripped blood-red pencil all over my pages. At one point, she scribbled in the margins next to my French phrases: “I don’t believe, based on the English errors uncovered thus far in this novel, that we should trust the author’s ability to write in another language.” She also took me to task for my “crutches” — “This author has an unfortunate propensity to use “stare” and “padded” (e.g. he padded toward the door). Would suggest striking every reference.”

I hated that woman. I loved that woman.

Every author has horror stories about bad editing. I had a copy editor who changed the color of key lime pie to green. Being in Manhattan, I guess she never saw a key lime — which is yellow. I was the one who had to answer the boy-are-you-dumb emails from fellow Floridians. And then there is the infamous Patricia Cornwell gaffe — the cover flap that talked about a grizzly murder — which set off a whole new sub-genre, serial killer bears.

When you spend eight months to a year writing a book, you get so close to it sometimes you can’t see the forest through the faux pas. You’re so intent on plot and character, you forget you’ve changed a character’s name halfway through. Or that it’s MackiNAW City but MackiNAC Island. Or that loons don’t stick around Michigan in winter…they migrate. One year I got so paranoid I hired a free lance copy editor. She caught so many mistakes it made me even more paranoid about what still lay (lie? lain?) beneath.

Which brings me to why I am talking about editors here today, when I don’t even deal with them anymore.

When I made the switch from romance to mysteries, my first book Dark of the Moon, was acquired by Kensington Books. Kensington is an independent, Manhattan-based family-owned publishing house. The editor who took me on was John Scognamiglio.

12208482_10153381797118541_362811760379218765_n.jpg

This year, John is being awarded the Mystery Writers of America Ellery Queen Award at the Edgar banquet. It is awarded to “outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry.”

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Or a finer editor.

Now, all the folks at Kensington were grand to work with. When Kelly and I went to visit the Kensington offices, the Zacharius clan (the owners) treated us to a fabulous lunch. They got us blurbs and reviews and gave us a fabulous launch. The chairman of the board Walter Zacharius wrote a publicity letter praising our freshman book that began:

“I can count on the fingers of one hand those books which got me so excited that I couldn’t wait to urge all my friends and colleagues to read them right away. This means that Dark of the Moon is in select company.”

Then there was John.

He helped shape that debut book and all the others that followed. He was a line editor extraordinaire. In person, he’s quiet, taciturn. But on those revision letters that came, he was strong of voice, precise, and always spot-on with his criticisms. For our second book, Dead of Winter, his sharp eye helped us figure out a better ending with a great twist. The book got an Edgar nomination. And I’ll never forget his terse note on book three Paint It Black: “It’s too short.” He then proceded to help us find ways to beef up the plot and deepen the villain’s MO. The book made it to the New York Times list.

Maybe his best quality was that he believed in us, even when we didn’t believe in ourselves. He made us feel confident. He always made our books better.

I wish I had kept some of his revision letters to us. They would have been fun, and instructive, to share with you, especially those of you who don’t have a great editor standing behind you. The best I have is this old photo of Kelly and me standing in front of headquarters the day the clan took us to lunch in 1998. (I had two bellinis!)

So here’s great editors. I so hope they are still out there amidst all the sturm und drang in publishing today. And to John, a very belated but heartfelt thanks. I’ll buy you a bellini when I see you.