Tell Don’t Show

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By PJ Parrish

We’re gonna talk a little heresy today. I am here to try to convince you NOT to show but to tell.

I know, I know. We preach here constantly that the ideal method is always to show your character being active, doing something, saying something significant, In our First Page Critiques, we are always harping on this — don’t tell us what is happening. Show us!

To quote Chekov: Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

Here’s a bad example of telling:

It was their first date and they had great conversatons at the restaurant. She had barely touched her food, fascinated by his stories about his days working as a chef.

Good rewrite of showing:

“You’ve barely touched your steak tartare,” he said. “I know it’s not –”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “I really like it.” She paused. “It’s just…”

“Go on,” he said. “You won’t hurt my feelings.”

She smiled. “I just hate first dates. They alway feel so weird.”

“I know,” he said, refilling her wine glass. “That’s why I picked Julien’s for ours. I’ve known him for years, so I feel like it’s home here. Julien gave me my first job…as a waiter in a small bistrot in Aix. I was broke, a kid hitching through Provence.”

“I’ve never been to France. I’ve never been out of Michigan.”

“You’d love it there.” He paused. “I’d love to show it to you.”

She laughed. “I trusted you to order me raw steak. I guess I could trust you on that.”

They’re not moving. But dialogue is action. It’s a lot longer. But dialogue is showing. And character is revealed.

But…

Sometimes, it’s better to just tell things. It’s commonly called using narrative. You need to tell (narrate) for various reasons: To bridge scenes more efficiently, summarize irrelevant transitions, speed up time, or to deliver some backstory. And it is an effective tool for pacing beause an entire story written only in dialogue and action scenes doesn’t give your reader a chance to catch their breath.

I realized this recently while doing a rewrite on one of our old unpublished manuscripts. I told you about this a couple weeks ago, that my sister Kelly and I unearthed one of our attempts to get out of our hardboiled lane and try our hand at romantic suspense. We weren’t able to sell that story back then. We thought it still had good bones. But we had made some rookie mistakes. One of them, oddly enough, was not knowing when to TELL instead of wasting precious pages SHOWING. Here’s an actual example from our old manuscript. The first-person protag is an amateur PI, trying to find an abusive husband-suspect of a murdered showgirl named Scarlett. Bear with me, it’s a little wordy. I won’t be offended if you skim-read.

I stopped at the Circle K on Highway 95 and parked beside a pickup truck with a cracked windshield. Inside, the air-conditioning hit me in the face. I walked past a display of beef jerky and potato chips, opened the cooler door, and grabbed a Diet Pepsi.
Back in the car, I twisted the cap off the bottle and took a drink. Then I dug my cell phone out of my purse and called 411.
“Information. What city please?”
“Bullhead City.”
“What listing?”
“Jason Anderson.”
The operator gave me an address on Palm Breeze Drive. I wrote it on the back of an old gas receipt with a pen I found in the glove box.I pulled out of the parking lot and turned left at the first intersection. Two blocks later I realized I’d missed a street and had to double back. I found Palm Breeze Circle first. I drove the entire length of it before realizing none of the addresses matched. I checked the receipt again.
Palm Breeze Drive. Not Circle. Drive.
I made a U-turn and headed back toward the entrance. Five minutes later I found Palm Breeze Lane.
Wrong again.
I drove slowly past mailboxes, reading house numbers. Three hundred. Three hundred twelve. Three hundred twenty-six. None of them were right.
Eventually I found Palm Breeze Court. Not Drive. Court. I smacked the steering wheel.
After another wrong turn and two more loops through the neighborhood, I finally found a faded street sign that read PALM BREEZE DR.
I followed it around a bend and started checking addresses. 431. 432. 433. 459. I pulled to the curb and put the car in park. The trailer was a double-wide with beige aluminum siding. One section of chain-link fence leaned outward as if somebody had backed into it. Plastic toys lay scattered across the dirt yard. A faded tricycle rested on its side near the front steps. A window air-conditioning unit rattled loudly from one wall. I sat there for a moment looking at the place. Then I turned off the engine and got out. Gravel crunched beneath my shoes as I walked up the short path to the front door.
The door was white once, though it had long ago turned gray. Children’s handprints covered the lower half. I raised my hand and knocked. Nothing happened.
I knocked again. A television played somewhere inside. A few seconds later footsteps approached.
The door opened. A woman stood there wearing denim shorts and a Harrah’s Hotel & Casino T-shirt. Her blond hair looked damaged by a bad perm. One side of her face was swollen and purple with bruises.
“Are you Mrs. Anderson?”
She nodded warily.

That’s a heck of a lot of showing. Yeah, it all action. She’s doing something. But it’s long and boring and too descriptive on irrelevant details. Here is how we rewrote it:

I stopped at a Circle K and got a Diet Pepsi. Sitting in the parking lot, I called 411 on my cell, got an address for Jason Anderson on Palm Breeze Drive, and headed out. The blacktop streets circled and twisted and never went anywhere you thought they would. There was a Palm Breeze Circle, a Palm Breeze Lane and a Palm Breeze Court. No palms or breezes though. I cursed myself for being too cheap to have GPS or Internet on my cell. It took me almost thirty minutes to locate the right street in the maze of mobile homes.
I came to a stop at 459 Palm Breeze Drive. It was a dumpy double-wide with a sagging chain-link fence and a dirt yard full of toys. A window unit AC clung to side of the trailer.
I didn’t want to go up there. It looked pretty scary to me, not to mention unhealthy. But I needed to know if Jason Anderson was Scarlett’s Mr. Anderson and there was only one way to find out.
I knocked on a door smeared with children’s hand prints. A woman answered. She wore denim shorts and a T-shirt that said Harrah’s Hotel & Casino. Her hair was blonde, fizzed from a bad perm. She had friendly blue eyes. The entire right side of her thin face was swollen with ugly purple bruises.
I knew I had found the right house.

Better, huh? By condensing her drive, cutting out needless description, and TELLING you what’s happening, it reads more smoothly. Plus her final thought is a great kicker.

So, when should you settle for telling instead of showing? Here’s a few guidelines. Consider using telling to deal with:

1. Passage of Time. Use narrative summary to bypass uneventful gaps, such as a character taking a long trip (like my character), getting over an illness, doing routine stuff, not making progress. TELL us your cop spent three fruitless days on an investigation. Don’t waste time showing us. TELL us a week passed before the suspect was finally nabbed.

2. Change of location. Often you have to move your character around physically. Unless it advances your plot or illuminates character, just tell us it happened. Don’t waste time showing us your girl getting excited, packing hersuitcase, Ubering to the airport, getting on the plane.

Chapter Five

She flew to Paris. He was there, waiting for her in the arrival hall, wearing a funny cap and holding a hand-written sign with her name on it, like he was a taxi driver picking up a fare.

Then return to showing mode, concentrating on the heart of what needs to happen on camera.  Maybe they go to a nice bistrot, share a steak tartare and fall into bed.

You know who’s really grand at telling? Toni Morrison. Check out this condensing of time paragraph from Beloved.

Men and women were moved around like checkers. Anybody Baby Suggs knew, let alone loved, who hadn’t run off or been hanged got rented out, loaned out, bought up, brought back, stored up, mortgaged, won, stolen, or seized. So Baby’s eight children had six fathers. What she called the nastiness of life was the stock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children.

3. Delivering backstory. Now, you all know you don’t want too much backstory too early. But it is useful to judiciously drop it in the narrative. Here’s the opening of one of my favorite novels, Middlesex. Jeffrey Eugenides uses telling masterfully thoroughout the entire book.

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenaged boy, in an emergency room near Petosky, Michigan in August of 1974. 

4. Dealing with minor characters. As I often advise in critiques, never give the spotlight to spear carriers. These are the poor souls in operas who stand in the back while the diva belts out the aria. Never waste time or paragraphs describing these folks. Don’t even give them names, unless they will somehow later figure into your plot.

Don’t do this:

The waiter sauntered up to the table. He was reed thin, his black vest hanging on his sunken chest, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled just far enough to reveal a koi fish tattoo.

“Vous avez choisi?” he said flatly.

“We’ll have the steak tartare, please.”

“Non, non,” you do not want that,” the waiter said in broken English. “It is not for Americans”

“I’m Canadian. Bring us the tartare. S’il vous plait.”

Just go with:

After ten minutes arguing with the waiter, their steak tartares finally arrived.

5. Letting the reader fill in the details. Now some of you will disagree with me on this one. But I think it is sometimes quite effective to tell some things via narrative and allow room for the reader’s imagination to fill the gaps. Ernest Hemingway was very good at this. His main tenet was to pare the story down to bare essentials. One of his famous telling opening lines:

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.

The rest of the story is, essentially, showing the reader what this simple narrative opening means, what the old man’s journey was like.

So, in summary, I guess all I am saying is that we shouldn’t be afraid of telling. We shouldn’t allow the drum-beat of show-not-tell to drown out all other possible techniques. Telling — or some might call it exposition — can be very useful. Put simply, exposition is writing that explains. We use it to quickly fill in background information about characters or circumstances. It’s not exciting. Too much and the reader will tune out. But it can be an effective sketching pencil when used with your flashier showing paint brush.

And that, crime dogs, is all I’m going to tell you today.

 

What Is One’s Shadow Self?

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I’ve been researching one’s Shadow Self for a different site, but it’s such an intriguing topic, I thought I’d share what I learned with you, as well.

First, let’s rewind to how I landed on this topic.

The other night, I was listening to 100 Sleepy Facts About Psychology on the Sleepy Science Channel to fall asleep. Might as well learn a few things while sleeping, right? Many facts slip by me — first and foremost, my objective is to sleep — but my unconscious mind is taking notes. You never know what might resurface in the WIP.

On this particular night, I caught the narrator veer into a segment about how writers’ minds differ from others. I love brain science, evident by this post, and this one, and here, as well. Many people can’t access the unconscious mind without guidance or psychological help, but writers tap into it all the time while in the zone. It’s how we write scenes that we have no memory of writing.

I’m sure many of you have experienced this scenario…

After the first draft is complete — before or after the manuscript cools to create critical distance — you return to page one and read till the end to assess continuity. And 9.99 times out of 10, you’ll come across at least a few scenes that you don’t recall writing. If you’re a writer who regularly accesses “the zone,” you might find entire chapters that feel unfamiliar, like someone else wrote those parts.

Ever notice a recurrent theme, crime, or character type across an author’s entire body of work? The writer might not even be aware of the similarities. Consciously or not, they’re re-probing these areas to make sense of them. When our unconscious mind takes over, it’s often our most authentic writing. Hence why we often strive to reach the zone.

One’s Shadow Self lives in this space between our conscious and unconscious mind, and the zone helps us access it. Most people try to suppress their Shadow Self. Writers explore it to help us craft villains, characters we would hate in real life, and/or the ugly side of humanity.

Readers can also access their Shadow Self; they’re more self-aware than non-readers.

Fiction provides a safe, liminal space to confront repressed emotions, fears, and taboo subjects. If a reader is engaged in a storyline that evokes strong emotional reactions, like anger, envy, jealously, greed, etc., the book acts as a mirror to reveal hidden parts of the reader’s personality — parts they may not be aware of till the author forces them to face their Shadow Self.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung introduced the term Shadow Self. Rodney Luster, PhD at Psychology Today said, “His perspective, however, may have taken inspiration from Austrian Neurologist Sigmund Freud, who had explored this aspect of the unconscious mind and used words like shadow, melancholia and projection to depict how people might act on repressed issues.” Luster also added:

In Jung’s disposition, he believed the shadow aspect of our self as “a thing a person has no wish to be” (Perry, 2015). He also described it as the part of our psyche containing the hidden aspects of our personality that we reject or hide from others, even ourselves. These hidden aspects often include our impulses, desires, and personal qualities that society may deem socially negative or unacceptable (Jung, 1953). Essentially then, the shadow-self is considered by many to be the darker, looming side of our personality that we are less willing to engage or recognize (Lonngi, 2024).

Shadow Theory, also coined by Jung, defines the “shadow” as the unconscious, repressed, or unacknowledged aspects of personality — both negative (anger, greed) and positive (creativity, passion) — that the conscious ego rejects. These hidden traits are often projected onto others and, if unintegrated, can dictate behavior.

Light and darkness reside within us all.

Jungian expert Robert A. Johnson, author of Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, added more clarification about one’s Shadow Self:

It is possible to project from the shadow the very best of oneself onto another person or situation. Our hero-worshiping capacity is pure shadow; in this case, our finest qualities are refused and laid on another. It is hard to understand, but we often refuse to bear our noble traits and instead find a shadow substitute for them…Our own healing proceeds from that overlap of what we call good and evil, light and dark. It is not that the light element alone does the healing; the place where light and dark begin to touch is where miracles arise.

So, TKZers, have you heard the term “shadow self”? If so, are you able to access it while writing?

Handling the Big R: Rejection

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I saw her for the first time on the playground.

The sun was shining, and her hair, so blonde it was almost white, glistened in the light. She turned and looked at me with eyes as blue as the sky above the smog line in Los Angeles. And I felt something in my chest, a burning of some sort.

I was only in third grade, but I knew I was in love.

Now the question was what to do about it.

I did not get the impression Susan was at all interested in my amour. I was not adept at talking to girls, having only two older brothers. I did, however, know how to show off. I was a great kickball player, so I tried to impress her on the kickball diamond.

She was not impressed.

I walked to school, entering and exiting through the front gate. She also walked to school, but entered through the back gate. So I came up with a plan. After school one day, I waited for Susan to head out and strolled along so I met her—what a coincidence!—at the back gate.

We went out together, and I started walking with her. I made some sort of comment, though I can’t remember what it was. Maybe it was about the book our teacher was reading to us, a Henry Huggins book by Beverly Cleary.

Anyway, we were halfway down the block when she turned to me and said, “Just because I’m walking with you doesn’t mean you’re my boyfriend.” The way she said that last word was a killer. She was mocking me. She reached in my chest and pulled out my heart, and said, “You won’t be needing this anymore” and tossed it in the gutter.

“I know,” I said, in a bid to salvage a shred of dignity. I endured the whole walk to her house. Then began the lonely march back to the school, through the back gate, across the playground, through the front gate, and home. I drowned my sorrows with drink. Chocolate milk, I think it was.

I didn’t know it then, but I was being prepared for the life of a writer.

Rejection Has Always Been Part of this Business

Before the self-publishing era, all writers got rejection slips and letters from magazines, agents, editors. We got used to seeing lines like, This does not fit our current needs.

The Peanuts cartoon strip had a bunch of strips where Snoopy was trying to be a writer. In one, Snoopy is reading a letter he’d just received. “Dear contributor, thank you for submitting your story to our magazine. To save time, we are enclosing two rejection slips, one for this story and one for the next story you send us.”

Then self-publishing came along. Free from editorial rejection, many a writer put their book up on Amazon, and faced another kind of rejection—from the marketplace.

We all have to learn to deal with the Big R.

I knew of a writer who got one of those wild, big fat 1990s contracts. But his thriller failed to catch enough fire to make back most of the advance. Thus, the next book in the two-book contract received no support. The author was dropped, and could not get another contract from a major publisher. He was, in my opinion, a very good writer. He handled the Big R by turning to the bottle. But he battled out of that and last I saw he had done a few books with a small publisher. And good for him. 

What you have to do is accept that rejection is perpetual aspect of this business. It will happen to all of us. You must be ready to deal with it, and the best way to do that is by writing your way out.

When my son was first pitching Little League, he had a tendency to let a bad play or a home run upset him. So early on I made this rule. “You are allowed one ‘Dang it!’ And you can hit your glove as hard as you want. But that’s it. Then you go back to pitching to the next guy.”

That’s what he learned to do, and in fact won a championship game that way.

So you get a rejection. You can have one “Dang it!” (or its adult equivalent). I’ll let you feel it for fifteen minutes. But that’s it. Don’t hang onto it. Don’t go moaning all over the Internet. Don’t yell at your spouse or kick your dog.

Instead, turn that energy into action. Get back to your keyboard.

Any further advice on handling rejection?

And Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

Character Arc Secrets: The Four Beat Formula

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Character Arc Structure: 1. Act 1 through Act 2a: Living the Lie. Mid-Point Illumination and Commitment. 2. Act 2b: Trial by Fire. Skill, Courage, Consistency. 3. Act 3: Proof Under Maximum Pressure. thepitchmaster.com

If your story’s middle sometimes feels like a long, suspiciously quiet hallway…good news: the midpoint is where the lights flip on and the music changes. This is the hinge that turns a character’s inner journey from their Lie to the Truth, and it fuels the entire back half of your plot.

Characters have three things pushing them through the story:

  • The lie they believe about themselves or the world.
  • What they want. Their want is often a plot goal like money or power.
  • Their true want. What they need to be the best version of themselves or.

All three things make up their character arc.

But the midpoint is where your protagonist moves from operating from his lie to his true want. He thinks and acts differently from that point. This midpoint shift can be confusing because it sounds like the character arc is finished halfway through the story.

The midpoint isn’t the end of the character arc—it’s the turning of the arc. Before midpoint, your protagonist is run by his lie. At the midpoint, something forces a reframe. He glimpses his true want and pivots his intentions and strategy. But knowing his truth and living it under pressure are not the same thing.

Think of the character arc in four beats:

Acts 1 → Act 2A: Living the Lie. They chase goals with lie-based tactics. These work short-term but generate deeper costs.

Midpoint: Illumination & Commitment. A revelation/defeat/victory reframes reality. The hero consciously commits to a new approach that aligns with his true want. This is the cognitive and directional switch: new plan, new tactics, new why.

Act 2B: Trial by Fire (Skill, Courage, Consistency). The world now tests that commitment. The hero practices what he needs but doesn’t stay there. He wins some, backslides some, and pays rising costs. Enemies adapt. Consequences tighten.

Act 3: Proof under Maximum Pressure. After the ​Dark Night of the Soul​, the hero must operate from what he needs when it’s hardest. The climactic choice is the final exam: no help, no safety net, high stakes. Here is the arc complete.

So: midpoint = conversion; climax = consecration. Midpoint says, “I know what I need; I’ll act on it.” Climax says, “I’ll pay the price to become the best version of myself.”

Why Have the Turn at the Midpoint?

Story fuel: A mid-story pivot prevents the saggy middle. The protagonist shifts from reactive to proactive with a new plan, which launches fresh complications.

Meaningful escalation: If the hero didn’t change until the end, the climax would be a speech, not a decision. The midpoint gives time to test, fail, adapt, so the finale feels earned.

How it Plays

Romance: Midpoint: one lover risks honest vulnerability (her need), leading to deeper connection and scarier stakes. Act 2B tests that honesty. ​All is Lost​ beat tempts a retreat to self-protection (lie). Climax: they choose openness even when it could cost the relationship.

Thriller: Midpoint: hero rejects “ends justify the means,” and switches to a lawful strategy. Act 2B: slower, riskier progress; allies doubt; villain presses. Climax: hero refuses the illegal shortcut that would guarantee victory—and still wins because others now trust/help.

Diagnosis Your Midpoint

Make sure the scene delivers these five functions:

1. Revelation: New information reframes the core conflict.

2. Intention flip: The protagonist makes a clear choice to pursue a Truth-aligned plan.

3. Strategy change: Tactics visibly change (different allies, methods, rules).

4. Stakes reset: Costs and consequences increase because the Truth is harder.

5. Point-of-no-return: The new course ends the old one.

And for Act 2B (after the midpoint)

Aim for: practice → pushback → price.

  • Practice: shows competence growing, not perfected.
  • Pushback: antagonistic forces adapt; the world hits harder.
  • Price: the want demands sacrifice (time, status, safety, love).

Common pitfalls

  • Premature perfection: If the hero stops struggling after the midpoint, the arc feels finished. Keep the cost of living the truth rising.
  • Vague pivot: If the new plan isn’t concrete, the audience won’t feel the turn. Put the change onstage.
  • External-only change: Tie each plot beat to belief consequences. Otherwise, the midpoint reads like a plot twist, not an inner turn.

Worksheet

  • Midpoint event: What fact or loss makes the lie untenable?
  • Midpoint vow (one sentence of dialogue or thought): “From now on, I’ll ______.” You don’t have to have the character say their vow, which can sound on the nose. Instead, make sure the shift is obvious in the way your character speaks and acts.
  • New tactics: List 2–3 Truth-aligned actions the hero tries next.
  • Backslide temptations: Name 2 moments that lure them back to the Lie.
  • Climactic proof: What single risk would only make sense if they fully believe the Truth?

Wrap Up

Give your protagonist the mid-book “aha,” then make them earn it—one tested choice at a time. When the climax arrives, their final decision won’t just sound true; it will prove who they’ve become under pressure. That’s how you banish the saggy middle and deliver a finale that lands with heart, heat, and holy-cow satisfaction.

Dive Deeper

​How to Build Better Characters: Start with Their Biggest Lie

​Secrets of Story Structure: ​Third Act Structure​

5 Ways To Step Up Your Writing Game (That Have Nothing To Do With Plotting):

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By Jennifer Graeser Dornbush

If you’re looking for tips on how to craft the perfect red herring or outline your Act III climax… this isn’t that post.

This one’s for the working writers, the creatives who are trying to build a sustainable, inspired, and energized life while facing the blank page day after day.

Because here’s the truth: writing (of any kind), it’s about stamina. Curiosity. Habit. It’s about making space for your best work to show up.

Whether you’re just starting out or knee-deep in your 5th novel, these seven practices will help you keep your momentum, fuel your imagination, and stay connected to the pulse of great storytelling.

In this blog I’ll be referencing the crime genre a lot, because that’s where I spend a good deal of my time, but the principles apply to any writer, on any platform, in any genre.

Oh, and if you haven’t already grabbed my Crime Writer’s Forensic Toolkit (a freebie packed with real-world tips for writing authentic crime scenes), click here to get it now. You’ll thank yourself later.

Grab your iced coffee or a hot tea and let’s get inspired!

  1. Curiosity = Creative Fuel

Yes, you have permission to binge away. Read just one more chapter. Dive into that magazine that just arrived.
Not just permission, encouragement.

As writers, consuming content is part of the job. It’s our continuing education. Every article you read, every docuseries you stream, every podcast you devour, it’s sharpening your instincts. You’re training your brain to spot patterns, build tension, and recognize what makes a story compelling (or fall flat).

Here’s the thing: you don’t have to chase trends. I’m never “caught up” on what everyone else is watching or reading. And I don’t feel guilty about it. The goal isn’t to be current, it’s to stay curious. Let your gut guide your watchlist. If it makes you lean in, gasp out loud, or shout “I knew it!” at your screen, you’re in the right place.

Here’s what’s on my shelf (and screen) lately:
   Books: Confessions of A Mafia Contract Killer, Devil in the White City, Killer of Little Shepherds, Hearts of Darkness
   TV: Ozark (for its slow-burn dread), The Alienist (for historical grit), Angie Tribeca (because satire has its place), and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (yes, comedy counts, great crime writing lives in all genres) Government Cheese (satire, crime, and family dynamics)
Podcast: Small Town Murder – explicit and wildly irreverent, but impressively researched and often surprisingly poignant. (Disclaimer: Their views don’t reflect mine. But their prep work? Gold.)

Pro Tip: Don’t just consume for entertainment, consume with intention.
As you watch or listen, ask yourself:

  • What’s the central hook that reeled me in?
  • How do they build and sustain suspense?
  • What makes this villain work (or not)?
  • What emotional beats hit hardest, and why?
  • Why do I love this? Or, why don’t I?

This kind of intentional consumption turns passive viewing into active learning. You’ll find yourself absorbing rhythms, dialogue styles, pacing, and plot layering without even realizing it. That’s the magic of reading and watching like a writer.

Oh, and one more thing:
Don’t be afraid to return to your favorites. If a book or show impacted you once, revisit it. You’ll see new things through the lens of the writer you’ve become.

I’m currently rereading Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle. What a great writer-refresh.

Now go refill that watchlist or readlist… it’s research.

  1. 2. Create a “Commonplace” Box

Writers collect ideas like detectives collect clues.

A line from a podcast.
A clipping from a hometown newspaper.

An old book you discovered in an antique store.
A story about a missing person that hasn’t left your head in three years.
A real-life unsolved case that haunts me.
A quirky obituary line or an oddball police report that plants a seed for a scene.

These are the breadcrumbs that lead to your next big idea, if you know how to follow them.

That’s why I keep a “Commonplace Box”. In times past, people kept commonplace journals in which to write quotes, inspirations, and ideas. I do the same but with a one foot square fabric box.

It’s not fancy. It’s not digital. I bought it at Ikea and it sits on my bookshelf easily accessible so I can toss in ideas, scribblings, and articles waiting to become future novels.

I use a few other methods as well. Here’s how I keep my idea organized (well, writer-organized, anyway):

  • Print articles get dropped in my commonplace box, ripped from magazines, printed off websites, or scribbled on sticky notes.
  • Online articles get bookmarked in clearly labeled folders in my browser. I even tag them by topic: DNA, poisons, stalking cases, unusual M.O.s.
  • True crime books go straight to my bookshelf, often with a sticky note: “Use for future villain?” or “Plot twist on page 183!”
  • Weird facts or killer lines? They go in my writing journal or my voice memo app. Inspiration doesn’t always wait for a quiet desk.

Pro Tip: If you’re more visual, use Pinterest or Notion to create a digital version of your idea, whatever helps you access and remember the idea later. Out of sight = out of mind.

You don’t have to use everything you collect.
You probably won’t. Who cares? You can always throw it away later.

The act of collecting trains your brain to pay attention to what sticks. It’s your subconscious saying, This has legs. Don’t forget this. And when the day comes where you’re stuck on a scene, plot, or character motive, you open the box.

And boom: the idea’s already waiting for you.

  1. Take a Writer’s Retreat

Sometimes the only way to write… is to get away from your life.

Your dishes can’t guilt-trip you. Your laundry doesn’t need edits. And no one asks, “What’s for dinner?” when you’re on a writer’s retreat.

Now, before you picture some five-star yoga resort with a private chef and a view of the Amalfi Coast, pause. That’s not what I mean.

A retreat can be as simple as:

  • A cheap cabin on Airbnb
  • A borrowed guest room at your sister’s place
  • A hotel room in a place where you’ll be undistracted

The point isn’t where you go. It’s why you go.

Writer’s Retreat Rules (I learned these the hard way):

  • Set one clear, doable goal. Finish X amount of chapters. Outline a messy draft. Rework your villain’s backstory. Keep it focused.
  • Unplug. No email. No scrolling. No “just checking one thing.” (You’ll lose an hour. Minimum.) Silence your phone.
  • Set A Timer. I recommend NOT using your phone as a timer because the temptation is too great to click onto emails, texts, and the web. Get a stand alone time and work in 30 or 60 minutes increments. Then break for 10.
  • Feed yourself. Pack snacks. Don’t forget real meals. You can’t write well on caffeine and adrenaline alone, trust me.
  • Leave with a win. It doesn’t have to be huge. But make sure you walk away with something solid, something done.

This practice is especially powerful if you’re starting a new story (hello, fresh slate) or finishing one you’ve been dragging your feet on (hello, accountability).

Even just one retreat day can shift your creative momentum. And bonus: You get to feel like a “real writer,” even if it’s just you, a hotel balcony, and an outline scribbled on hotel stationery.

So give yourself permission to get away and get it done.

4
Use Your Lifelines

Writers get stuck. It’s not a sign you’re doing it wrong, it’s a sign you’re doing the work.

Plot snags, flat dialogue, timelines that won’t math… welcome to the job.

The difference between writers who stay stuck and those who break through?
They don’t try to tough it out alone. They talk it out.

Use your lifelines.

That could be:

  • A fellow writer who knows your genre
  • A critique partner who will lovingly call out your lazy subplot
  • A real-life expert who’s been there, done that

When I get tripped up on a forensic detail, I don’t waste hours spiraling through conflicting Google results. I pick up the phone and call an expert. I’ve called coroners, detectives, trauma surgeons, forensic anthropologists, morticians, martial arts experts, trauma therapists, behaviour specialists. And the list goes on.

These professionals don’t just help me get it right.
They help me make it real.

Because lived experience can’t be found on page one of a wiki search result.

And here’s the thing: Most experts are generous with their knowledge, especially when they know you’re writing fiction and want to honor the truth of their work. (Be polite. Be clear. Be curious. It goes a long way.)

So the next time you’re staring down a story problem, ask yourself:

“Who would already know this?”

  “Who can help me?”

Then call them. Message them. Ask for 10 minutes of their brain.
That one conversation might unlock the entire scene, or even spark a better one.

Writing story is a solo act. But great storytelling? That takes a team.

  1. Read Outside the Headlines

If you want to write stories that surprise your readers, you need to surprise yourself first. That means digging deeper than top headlines and trending topics.

Some of the best crime story seeds come from unexpected places, those tucked-away publications that make you stop mid-sentence and say, Wait… what?

Here are a few of my secret weapons:

🗞️ Hometown Newspapers

Tiny towns. Big drama.
These papers are gold mines of quirky, bizarre, and sometimes tragic stories that never make national news. Family feuds. Long-lost fugitives. Mystery inheritances.
My hometown still publishes a weekly newspaper called The Fremont Times Indicator. And I still read it regularly. More than once, a clipped article has become the spark behind a subplot or a short story.

Emailed Newsletters

Like most of us, I receive a regular slew of emailed newsletters. I don’t read every word every time they arrive in my inbox. But I do scan them for anything that might pique my curiosity.

And I read widely. Here’s a smattering of the scope of what I’m subscribed to: The Angeles (Catholic news from LA), The Epoch Times, The Science & Entertainment Exchange, Back Country Containers (how to build container homes), The Michigan Enjoyer, The SoCal Mystery Writers of America, Alliance Francaise, Ada Lovelace Society, Hollywood Prayer Network.

You get the picture. You never know where you’ll find your next great idea. So fill that email box with free newsletters! You can always delete.

📰 Regional Magazines

Three of my favorites: Texas Monthly, Arizona Highways, and American Essence.
They both consistently feature deeply researched, character-driven crime stories that aren’t just about the what, but the why and the how. You get nuance. Motive. Community context. The stuff that elevates your writing from formulaic to unforgettable.

🧬 ForensicMag.com

If you write anything involving forensic science, this one’s a must.
It’s my go-to for staying current on everything from new DNA analysis methods to digital evidence collection. Their daily newsletter hits my inbox with real cases and new tech, both of which have sparked scenes, character quirks, and even entire book plots.

Why does this matter?

Because originality is your edge.

Your audience has consumed a great deal of content. They haven’t seen the one inspired by a two-paragraph obituary from a paper no one else reads. Or a forensic breakthrough published in a journal that never trends.

These sources are where plot twists are born.
They’re where human stories live in all their flawed, fascinating glory.

So read beyond the algorithm. And let the weird and wonderful fuel your next great mystery.

Final Word

Are these revolutionary, earth-shattering strategies?
Probably not.

But here’s the truth: If you actually put them into practice, you’ll be miles ahead of the writers still white-knuckling their way through a manuscript and losing creative fuel.

Because sure, writing is a solo act.
But writers, we don’t have to struggle so hard.

So tell me, which one are you going to try this week?

And if you’ve got your own rituals, routines, or crime-writing hacks that keep you going…
Drop them in the comments. Let’s trade notes.

Jennifer Dornbush works as a screenwriter, author, speaker, and forensic specialist. She has developed film and TV projects, authored numerous books, and frequently speaks around the world on crime fiction and forensics. She divides her time between Michigan and Arizona. Jennifer can be found in the virtual world at www.jenniferdornbush.com and on IG @jgdornbush

Beware of Dog and Other Things to Remember

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Beware of Dog and Other Things to Remember
Terry Odell

black and white dog with its face poking out underneath a blue fence with peeling paint and a sign saying Beware of Dog

Image by Kev from Pixabay

People like dogs. Readers like dogs. So, when I was starting my current wip, without much conscious thought, this appeared in the first 400 words of the manuscript:

“Evvie snatched the envelope from Roger’s hand, wrestled the cart to the door, and not waiting for him to offer to help, pushed the cart—none too gently—against the door to open it. She maneuvered the cart, fighting the universally requisite out-of-alignment-wheel, down the sidewalk to her SUV. After arranging her photos on the towels she kept in the back for Baxter, not concerned about his sheds of black dog hair, she slammed the hatch. She left the cart next to the nearby red maple—let Roger come get it—and drove home.

As she entered the kitchen of her little house near downtown Colorado Springs, Baxter greeted her. Bouncing, shimmying, his stump of a tail wagging as if she’d been gone a month, not thirty minutes.”

Okay, so Evvie has a dog. Dog loving readers will connect.

Then what? First, this isn’t a cozy, and these dogs don’t talk or have a POV role. The book is a romantic suspense, which means it’ll fall into the romance category. That means a hero. And they have to meet. Per reader expectations, very soon. Being a good dog parent, Evvie takes Baxter for a walk, and they end up at the neighborhood dog park. Enter the expected hero. With his dog, a golden retriever named Sammy.

All should be good. Hero and heroine have a connection. Their dogs. Although they’re not in a relationship at this point (Chapter 2), the hero has a dog, he likes dogs, and that scores points with Evvie.

Now, here’s the problem. It’s a romantic suspense, which means Bad Stuff Has to Happen. Whether they’re working independently or together, if they go anywhere, they (meaning me) can’t forget about the dog.

I’ve read books where a dog was introduced, and then hardly shows up on the page again. This is unacceptable. You put a living, breathing being on the page, and it has needs. Food. Water. Walks. And you have to take this into account in Every Single Scene. How much time has elapsed since the last scene? Where were the dogs?

In my writing, I try to keep time moving forward in real time, more or less. If I jump ahead, I make sure that’s noted. Here, I give readers credit for assuming that if it’s much later in the day, or the next day, or three days later, that the characters have gone about the normal day-to-day events, and that the dogs have as well.

Now, if I’m with my characters, then all those normal day-to-day events need to be covered somehow. Not a minute-by-minute, but at least a mention to readers can keep track of elapsed time. “After lunch” is good enough unless something important happens that moves the plot forward.

Since my characters are in the ‘getting to know each other’ stage, they need to be together. I don’t know about you, but back in my day, that was usually along the lines of dinner and a movie. Movies don’t make for good page time, but as long as some plot advancing happens, I have no trouble showing them in an eatery, where they’ll interact with servers—because how else will their food appear?—ordering, eating, etc., along with discussing those plot advancing topics.

But now I have to remember that they’ve got dogs at home. Did I skip the time where they were tending to them? It’s okay to tell rather than show everything—“After feeding and walking the dog…” but you put them on the page, so you can’t neglect them.

Likewise, if your characters have children, or are caring for an elderly parent, you can’t pop them in and out when you think of it. They’re part of the story and can’t be neglected.

JSB talks about the shadow story to keep track of other characters, especially the villain. Most of my books don’t have the kind of villains that more traditional “murder mysteries” have, so any tracking of bad guys tends to be minimal for me. However, secondary characters both human and otherwise, require tracking.

So, when the Real Trouble starts and my characters have to leave town in a hurry, they (meaning me) have dogs to deal with. Kennel them? Do they have dog sitters? Or do the dogs have to come along?

A sticky note on my computer saying “Don’t forget the dogs!” is the equivalent of my dog coming into my office and staring at me when one of her daily routine boxes needs to be checked.

(Side note, along similar lines. If you say a character needs to pee, I want to see that they’ve had a chance to hit a restroom. I’ve seen authors ignore this step, too. Drives me nuts.)

Basic “rule.” If you mention anything, it becomes a thread that has to be followed. Don’t leave readers hanging. Or thinking your characters are less than likeable because they’re not taking care of the dogs (or people) they’re responsible for.

What about you, TKZers? Do you avoid pets because of the complications they throw into the work? If your characters have pets (or other humans they’re responsible for), how do you deal with the requisite “care and feeding”?

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.”

The ABCs of Avoiding Scams

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by Debbie Burke

Seductive scammers have long targeted authors but, in the past few years, AI tools like Chat GPT, Claude, and Gemini scaled fraudsters’ abilities to reach millions more potential victims. Additionally, they constantly refine their techniques with fresh scam variations and new twists to con authors out of money.

Here’s a list of ABCs to help identify fraudsters:

Address: first, check the sender’s email address. If it’s from gmail.com or other free mail services, it’s likely a scam.

Real marketing companies, publishers, podcasters, etc. use their own domain names, not generic free emails. A genuine contact from a publisher is usually editorsname@publishingcompany.com or agentsname@literaryagency.com.

One scary aspect of AI is that it’s constantly learning and improving techniques. When it discovers that authors recognize gmail.com as a likely fake, it manipulates addresses to appear legitimate.

While writing this post, I received an email supposedly from Mary Altman, Associate Editorial Director at Sourcebooks. There really is a Mary Altman at Sourcebooks but this email wasn’t from her.

The bogus address was sourcebooks@mary-altman.com.

A real email from Sourcebooks would more likely be “maryaltman@sourcebooks.com”

While we’re on A…

Approaches: Scammers approach writers in various ways. Some are outright phony. Others are of questionable value and don’t justify their high costs. Here are a few approaches they offer:

Increase book reviews – yes, everyone needs more reviews but paying for them is risky. That  violates Amazon’s terms and may result in banishment. Amazon removes your book from the sale and prevents you from publishing future work.

Book visibility or discoverability assessment – lofty but vague assurances that they’ll find more readers who will see and buy your book.

Marketing maximization – better positioning on Amazon and other sales outlets, using key words and phrases.

Impersonation of actual editor, agent, well-known author, podcast producer, film director or producer. (see example above about Sourcebooks impersonator).

Book club invitations – the book club is often fake and nonexistent. Or it may be legitimate, but the scammer is falsely using their name and will ask for “donations” to cover expenses. No real book club charges authors.

Blue sky: did the contact come out of the blue sky? Assume it’s a scam.

When an email starts: “I ran across your book…”, “Your book came to my attention…”, or similar phrasing, an AI bot wrote it. Real publishing professionals don’t have time to browse through Amazon or Goodreads book listings, just shopping for the next bestseller.

Also, real publishers don’t offer to republish a book that’s already been published.

Did a famous author or celebrity contact you? 99% chance it’s an impersonator. They claim they want to engage in meaningful dialogue about the writing journey. If you answer, after a couple of exchanges, they’ll do you a special favor and hook you up with their favorite developmental editor or marketing specialist. That’s when the request for money happens.

Always beware of out of the blue contacts.

Compliments: Is the email filled with effusive compliments about your book?

Praise is a powerful aphrodisiac. We all want to hear that someone loves our work.

Scammers use psychological manipulation to their advantage. The more complimentary adjectives and adverbs they pack into the text, the more the writer basks in the warm glow of recognition. Wow, someone finally appreciates my story that I poured my heart and soul into.

Phrases like the following are tipoffs of a scam:  “deeply personal thought-provoking universal questions,” “penetrating insightful exploration of critical life issues and themes,” “emotional resonance that goes to the essence of human existence,” “lingered in my mind and deeply touched my heart long after I finished reading your book.”

Blah, blah, blah…

Due diligence: Check out the sender but DO NOT click on links they provide. Their links lead to phony testimonials or, worse, they may inject malware into your computer.

Do your own independent online investigation. Do they have a website or media presence? Probably little or none.

Always check with reliable trusted sources like:

Writer Beware – For decades, Victoria Strauss has been a tireless watchdog who monitors scams that target writers.

Authors Guild

Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi)

Jane Friedman

 Engagement: Scammers want to keep you engaged with them. The longer they prolong conversations with you, the better the chance they’ll eventually persuade you to send them money.

The best practice is not to respond at all. If you reply, even to say “no thanks,” they know they have an active email address that they can then share or sell to others. Your inbox will receive more solicitations from other shady senders hoping to get money from you.

Feelings: It’s human nature to want to feel good. Scammers specialize in appealing to author’s emotions. They know which buttons to push to tap into our desires, hopes, and dreams. If their message causes your heart to swell with pride and makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over, they’re counting on your emotions to overcome caution.

Take a step back. Why are they contacting you? What do they want from you? Ask a friend or colleague to take an objective look.

Golden opportunity: Scammers make sweeping statements that imply if you use their services, your dreams can come true. Your book can be showcased at book fairs, festivals, fan events. Their offers sound like promises but upon closer analysis they are vague, generalized platitudes. They’re selling sizzle but there’s no steak.

Recently, a colleague related her close call with impersonators that claimed to represent a writing festival. She paid them $200 by credit card. Then she learned it was a fraud. Fortunately, the credit card company reversed the charge. If she had paid by Zelle, gift card, or wire transfer, she wouldn’t have been able to recover the money.

How: Writers often say, “They must have read my book. How else would they know the characters’ names, their secrets, and plot twists? How else do they know my favorite hobby is [fill in the blank]? How else do they know the inspiration for my book is [fill in the blank]?”

How do they know? AI bots vacuum every detail about you from the book sales page, reviews, social media posts, author website, and other info easily available on the net. They collect data then spin it into a compelling web of flattery, emotional hot buttons, and urgency to convince you to act now to obtain the recognition your talent so richly deserves.

They personalize and custom-tailor solicitations that sound as if they truly know and care about you and your work. The scary part is they can do all that in seconds.

 

Bottom line, they only care about how they can make your money disappear. 

Invitations: Do you want to be interviewed on a podcast? Be the honored guest at a book club? Have your book selected for a curated list of influential titles? These gracious invitations sound like dreams come true.

Not long ago, I received an intriguing email that opened:

“Dear Debbie,

I want to be direct with you because I believe your time deserves that respect.”‘

Okay, that got my attention. It goes on:

“I did not come across your work through an algorithm or a mass submission list. Our curation committee has been conducting a deliberate and rigorous search for voices that our community of readers would not simply enjoy but would genuinely champion, and The Villain’s Journey stopped us in our tracks for one reason above all others. The question you have placed at the very foundation of this guide, whether someone is born bad or learns to become bad, is not simply a craft question for writers. It is one of the oldest and most searingly unresolved questions in human understanding, and the fact that you have built an entire framework for creating compelling antagonists around that tension gives this book a philosophical depth that most writing craft guides never come close to achieving.”

Now I’m suspicious but still curious because Linda anticipated my likely resistance to her pitch and attempted to overcome it. 

“My name is Linda Hole. I am a long standing and active member of The Perks of Being a Book Addict, one of Goodreads most engaged reading communities with over 37,000 passionate members worldwide. I currently serve as Selection Committee Chair, a role built specifically to identify authors whose work deserves sustained, meaningful attention from a deeply invested reader community. We are not a promotional platform.”

When I checked, I found there is indeed a Goodreads subgroup with that name with 37,000 followers. But when I scrolled down their page a ways, a message read: “We DO NOT contact authors via email and do not offer book promotion in exchange for money! (Every such attempt is a scam!)”

Suspicions confirmed but I kept reading because of a fresh angle I hadn’t seen before:

“We are currently finalising our 2026 Year of Impact project, a highly selective 12 month Managed Reader Experience through which we champion a cohort of just 15 authors across our full community infrastructure. Our focus is entirely on building genuine lasting readership rather than surface level visibility, and as we are now in mid May we are closing out our final Official Selections before the cycle launches.We believe your voice belongs in this conversation and we would be honoured to explore whether one of our remaining Residency spots is the right fit for you. If you are open to learning more, I would welcome the opportunity to walk you through exactly what this experience looks like for your title specifically.”

Wow, they’re offering me a residency. And they use British spelling. I should be honored to attract the attention of this prestigious organization.

I wasn’t and I didn’t respond.

A couple days later, Linda reached out again:

“I wanted to gently check in as I have not yet heard back from you since my last message. I understand you may be busy or still considering the opportunity.”

Uh no, Linda, you haven’t heard back because I don’t respond to scammers.

Now she applies pressure with the urgent deadline:

“That said, our final selections for the 2026 Year of Impact project are closing this month, and I would hate for your work to miss the window simply because we did not connect at the right time.
If you are still open to learning more, I would be glad to send over our Official Selection Overview Document so you can see exactly what the residency involves.”

I still didn’t respond. Gee, aren’t I rude?

Linda tried one last gentle nudge then gave up.

This solicitation interested me because the tone was more sophisticated and targeted than previous scam emails. It indicated that AI bots are constantly learning and refining their approaches.

That’s why authors must stay alert to new tricks to defend themselves from increasingly convincing and seductive scams.

However, some fraudsters may have outsmarted themselves. Next post, we’ll look at ways to turn the tables on scammers and use their words to our own advantage.

Stay tuned…

 

TKZers: How many scam emails do you receive per week? Answer in the comments. The highest score receives the coveted “Overflowing Trash Bin Award.”

 

 

 

~~~

The Villain’s Journey stopped Linda Hole in her tracks. To find out if my book  addresses “the oldest and most searingly unresolved questions in human understanding,” click on this link. 

Revisited: WHAT MY HORSE TAUGHT ME ABOUT CHARACTER ARCS

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Kay DiBianca is still on leave, so today I’m sharing her very first post here at TKZ, a guest post, hosted by Debbie Burke.

WHAT MY HORSE TAUGHT ME ABOUT CHARACTER ARCS – Guest Post by Kay DiBianca

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by Debbie Burke

Today, I’m pleased to host cozy mystery author Kay DiBianca who shares her fun and unique perspective on character arcs. Kay is a familiar name around The Zone, offering frequent, insightful comments. Welcome to Kay and the horse she rode in on! 

It was a day for speed. A wind-at-your-back, smile-on-your-face day when a youthful gallop overruled frumpy caution, so we barreled down the dirt trail into the park and around a blind turn. As the bushes on our right gave way and the road ahead came into view, a terrifying specter suddenly loomed up in the middle of the trail, no more than fifty yards in front of us.

Dixie, my high-strung, prone-to-panic filly, slammed on the brakes. I had no idea a horse could stop like that. Two stiff-legged hops – thump, thump — to a dead halt.

I went straight over her head. Turns out an English forward seat saddle is particularly ill-suited for sudden deer sightings.

As I was flying through the air, anticipating an unpleasant reacquaintance with Mother Earth, Dixie began some kind of crazy cha-cha in reverse, trying to flee the tiny deer creature. I was still holding on to the reins, however, so she couldn’t turn and run. Instead, she made a determined dart backward, dragging me along in her wake.

You might be wondering why I didn’t just let go of the reins and save myself from a mouthful of dirt and a painful awareness of my sudden change in circumstances. I’ll be honest with you. I would have let my horse drag me into the next county before I allowed her to return riderless to the barn. I have my pride, you know.

Body-surfing down a dirt trail at the whim of a frightened animal is an excellent way to focus one’s mind.  I’m older now, but sometimes I still get that urge to gallop furiously into the next adventure, no matter what form it takes. But when I recall that day in the park, the awful taste of grit in my mouth, the look of terror in Dixie’s eyes, and the acrid scent of fear in the air, I pull back the reins on my emotions and proceed at a deliberate trot.

Whether dramatic or not, we each have a set of experiences that have transformed the way we view the world. Likewise, we all know the characters we write about must change from the beginning of the story to the end, and the change must be meaningful.

So TKZers: Tell us about a character in one of your novels that went through a metamorphosis. Was it a dramatic, once in a lifetime experience? Or a slow coming to grips with reality over the course of the story? How did you accomplish the change in a way that would grab your readers?

I’m deeply grateful to Debbie Burke for giving me the opportunity to post to the Kill Zone Blog. And thanks to all the TKZ contributors and commenters for allowing me to be part of the journey.

SAVING ONE LIFE IS LIKE SAVING THE WHOLE WORLD.

Kay’s delightful cozy mystery, Dead Man’s Watch, features characters the reader cares about.

Available at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Apple Books.

Jack Woodford on Writing For Money

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Jack Woodford (1894–1971)

In the golden age of the pulps there was a writer named Jack Woodford, who also wrote how-to books for writers. What’s refreshing about these is his no-hold-barred advice that eschews all flowery paeans on the romance of being a writer. He gets down to it in a book titled, appropriately, How to Write for Money (1944):

So there you are. A free-lance writer! Oh pitiable wretch! Oh miserable fool! Of all the business you could have gone into—operating a movie theatre, or making guns, running a drug store or learning how to be a tailor or a plumber, a typographer or a hot dog cook—you insist on going into the business of cash-and-carry prose. Well, you know best. As for me, I know there isn’t a so-and-so thing I can do to discourage you or make you change your mind. I admit (reluctantly) I’ve made a pretty good thing out of it myself. But I’ve had some breaks….Can you be sure of getting breaks? Of course you can’t. That’s what a break means—a stroke of luck that nobody expects, all pine for madly, and mighty few ever get. Where would I have been without my breaks? God knows. I don’t!

Do you feel like a “pitiable wretch” sometimes? Welcome to the club called Every Writer. We meet at the bar.

Writing is the most hazardous profession of which I know. It usually carries with it far less rewards than most people think, much more work, and very little satisfaction; since you cannot, ever, say what you really think about anything. Many writers appear to do so but they are always restricted one way or another behind the scenes. The rewards of writing, however, are worth it for those temperamentally suited to such rewards. The freedom it brings from alarm clocks, for instance, is, in itself, not an inconsiderable item; and from time clocks, and other devices of torture invented by people who hold stock in things and milk other people of their labor at usurious rates.

That is a lure, of course. If this gig gets big, you don’t have to “work for the man,” as they used to say. Better, though, to think of your writing as one little stream of income, a side hustle, that may or may not grow into a river. But a trickle is better than nothing at all if you love to write (and you should love it…most of the time, at least).

Woodford, writing in the middle of World War II, offers a military illustration:

In Boot Camp, tough sergeants deliberately try to break the morale of inducted men. Those who break they send back to civilian life, or to some more or less ignominious chore in army life. There are two or three hundred thousand “writers” who “write at” writing in this country. Ninety percent of them make next to nothing. The few who do get by are those who were not “broken” in the “Boot Camp” of their own wills, or lack of same.

Knowing all that:

If you really want to be a writer it is my observation, from a quarter century of association with successful and unsuccessful writers, that the hinges of Hell cannot prevail against you.

In Writer’s Cramp (1953), Woodford quotes the novelist Robert Ruark, who was big at the time:

“To write a book is no simple thing. One needs paper, a typewriter, a certain basic stupidity, and time. Also arrogance. Any bum who sits down and figures he has 300 book pages of importance is an arrogant ass. Nobody has that much to say worth saying. Neither Shakespeare nor Artie Shaw.”

Note: Artie Shaw was a famous big band leader, a clarinetist, who also had a fertile mind. In 1952 he published an autobiography titled The Trouble With Cinderella: An Outline of Identity, which is no doubt what Ruark is referring to.

Woodford’s most influential how-to was Trial and Error: A Key to the Secret of Writing and Selling (1940), cited by no less than Ray Bradbury and Raymond Chandler.

Be glad that it is hard. Wish that it were more difficult than it is; for this is your protection, when you have learned it, from too much competition. Only this I can promise you—that even though you have no gifts whatever ever for writing, no knack, education, knowledge, imagination; no common sense, intelligence, anything, you can still learn to write commercial fiction and sell it, if you have really made up your mind to do so. If you really are a downright simpleton, this very fact may make things easier for you in the free lance commercial fiction racket, for nine-tenths of all stories and novels are in America read by ninnies who may understand you far better if you are a kindred spirit.

You could not learn to write literature, whatever that is, by simply making up your mind to do it; no, not even if you had a will like Mussolini’s.

All I can give you here is a rough idea as to how to go about turning exposition into the various sorts of narrative writing.

Okay, you pitiable wretches, if Mr. Woodford were still around, what would you say to him?