KN Magazine: Articles
Ask Clay: Author Business Cards
Clay Stafford, founder Killer Nashville, publisher of Killer Nashville Magazine, and CEO of American Blackguard Inc., is regularly asked a range questions from writing techniques to publishing to marketing. And, they’re always good questions, he says. But often he feels he is unable to fully answer due to time constraints. Writing as a business is important stuff and demands reflection. In our “Ask Clay” column, he will share more than 30 years of experience in what he knows about the writing and entertainment businesses.
You can connect with Clay through www.ClayStafford.com, Twitter, or Facebook.
Author Business Cards
Question: Last month in your Ask Clay Column, you said there were items that should be included in an author’s business card. Could you be more specific?
Absolutely.
First of all, let me state the obvious as I said in last month’s column: authors are – for the most part – poor marketers.
One of the most basic things an author needs is a business card. Postcards and bookmarks are great things to lay out on a table at a writers’ conference, but they are not for introductions. An author needs something that the other person can slip into his/her pocket and reference later, not lay down on a table and forget.
Author business cards don’t have to be fancy. They just need to be well-thought-out. In general, they need to have the logical information the receiver would need to make an honest opinion on whether to reach out to the author or to purchase the author’s book.
As an author – unique as you are – you need to put some thought into your cards. You are the only person in your writing company (unless you are writing with someone else), but for the most part, even if you have staff, it is just you in the limelight. You are the brand. Luckily, you do not have to match any preconceived company logo or format as you might if you had a day job with another company with other employees and a distant board of directors. It’s just you and for your card, more specifically, it needs to express who you are. And I shouldn’t have to mention, don’t use your day job card as your writer business card. It tells the receiver that you have a day job, not that you are a professional author. If the latter is your goal, present yourself as such from the start.
Like your website, your postcards, your bookmarks, and any other promotional items you use, your business card first and foremost needs to look professional in terms of content, and it is worth the extra time and money to get it printed professionally. In the minds of those receiving your card, you are only as professional as the impression they have of you later when – alone and thinking – they reflect back on you by looking at your card. You want it to set you apart from everyone else.
As a writer, it is your job to get things right. Think about it. Who wants to work with a sloppy writer? If your card is sloppy, it says you are, too. Along the same lines, who wants to work with one overly verbose? Information-less? Disjointed? Misspelled? Illogical? Cheap? Smeared? Flimsy? You get the point.
I have heard authors say that because they have books, they do not need business cards. Wrong. A business card is a set professional convention and, unless you are planning on giving away books with all the contact info (email, phone, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), it is best to have a card. And you need a card, say, for a conference like Killer Nashville where the agents, editors, and publishers attending may see over 500+ people over the course of the weekend. You want to make it easy on those who might help your career. How do you do that? A card well designed. Bring cards with you everywhere you go, especially to conferences and book signings.
So what does a writer need to put on his/her card? Here are some elements for your checklist:
Color. The days of simple black-and-white are gone. With the other elements below, you’ll also see why color is so important.
Standard Size. Sure it is nice to stand out. Oddly square, round, extra large, extra small. But will it fit nicely in my wallet like a credit card so I won’t lose it? If you want to be innovative, save it for your writing and your marketing campaigns. In terms of the size and shape of your card, make it convenient to keep it, to pocket it, and to store it in a business card folder when the recipient gets home.
Name. Pretty obvious. And use your writer name if you use a pseudonym.
“Author”. Yep. Silly as it sounds, unless you are a recognizable name, it is always good to state what you are. Under your name, put Author. Or if you are a hyphenate, include: Author / Editor; Author / Filmmaker; Author / Screenwriter; Author / Journalist. And if you tend to write articles rather than books, or you are a minimalist, you might want to just be really simple: Writer.
Contact Info. Authors tend to leave out the right kind of info and put in the wrong kind. Here’s a checklist:
INCLUDE
Website URL. Authors need websites. If you don’t have a website, fix that before you fix your card. When you write it out, you also don’t need to include all the http://www.ClayStafford.com hyperlink info general understood by default browsers anyway. Just include the URL in as simple and concise terms as you can: ClayStafford.com. And look at the lettering: ClayStafford.com is much easier to read than claystafford.com. Make it easy for the person to remember your name.
Email address. Your personal email? No. You don’t know what kind of crazy is going to eventually get this card if someone sets it down. So what do you need? That generic and consistent one on your website that usually reads contact@ YourDomainName.com or yourname@YourDomainName.com, but not your personal Gmail account you use with close friends and family.
DO NOT INCLUDE
Mailing Address. You are not IBM. You don’t want people stopping by. And the more famous you are, the more likely you are not going to want someone to just show up at your doorstep. If you do want to get together with someone you’ve just met, I would suggest you meet at a coffee shop anyway, not your house.
Phone. Optional. If you want. But these days, who calls? Someone can always email your generic and public account and – if you want to get together – you can give the person the phone number. Remember, you don’t know who is going to get this card.
Social Security Number. I’m serious. I’ve seen it more than you think.
Picture. Most people can’t remember names, but they are visual. If someone meets 500+ individuals over the course of the weekend, they need to be able to see your face to re-spark that conversation in their heads. And it needs to be a picture of how you really look regardless of how ugly or fat you think you are. How you look is how you look. Using an airbrushed shot or one of you from 20 years ago is nice for your Glamour interview, but it will work against you if someone is trying to remember who you are by studying your face. I’ve taken cards, gotten home, looked at the picture, and can’t remember ever seeing this person before. I later find out why. The picture on their card and promotional material looks nothing like who they are. Does the picture have to be the usual square or rectangle shot with borders? No. It can be a picture of you, maybe cut out in Photoshop, imposed over the halftone background. But it needs to be prominent. Can it just be your book cover? No, but we’ll get to that in a moment. With a business card (and your career), you are not selling your latest book; you are selling YOU, which includes your latest book, as well as all your backlist and books that appear in the future. The brand is YOU, not the individual book. Use your picture.
Background. You can always include a tag line such as “mystery author”, “thriller author”, “suspense author”, etc., but wouldn’t it be better to make the person feel that rather than be told? That’s where the background of your color cards come in. When someone looks at the card they can immediately see elements of mystery, horror, or thriller if you have chosen your background – maybe in halftones – so clearly that the feeling and quick-first-impression image portrayed immediately sets the feel, creating the market for your demographics. By not using a tag, you are also saving surface space for the information that really matters.
Cover of Your Latest Book. You want a halftone background picture to set the mood. You want the picture of you to help the receiver remember who you are, and you want it to look realistic. But what are you really wanting? In addition to remembering you, you want them to buy a copy of your latest book. Put the cover on there (once again visual) and make sure the title is easily seen. It’s an expense, but each time you release a new book, update your cards. In terms of sales, presentation, and professionalism, it is worth it. Do you need to put ISBN info or publisher’s name? No. Takes up too much space. Just put the cover. If they want your book they will find it easily at the physical bookstore or online with the title of the book (from the picture of the cover) and your name alone. What if you don’t have a book published yet? Don’t include anything.
Catchphrase, blurb, or quote. If you’ve got it, it is always nice to flaunt it. “Mesmerizing” – New York Times will go a long way in saying everything you need to say without you saying it. If the NYT hasn’t reviewed your book, but a fellow author has, ask for a blurb and include that along with their solid title: “A irresistible read.” – Michael Connelly, New York Times Bestselling Author. And if you don’t know any famous authors (or even semi-famous ones), create your own tag: Mesmerizing. A thriller for the dead. This phrase should be what sets you apart from all the other people someone might meet.
And that’s it. That’s all you need.
Social Media Sites. No. Too many. The person receiving your card can get all that from your website. Don’t clutter the card.
The main thing is to look at – and then evaluate – your presentation and information on your card through a stranger’s eyes. Being a writer is a little different than being a CEO. Have fun with your card. Make it as much emotional as informational. Share the nuances of your personality through the visual feel of the card itself. Sell the image (YOU), the brand (YOU), the uniqueness of the product (YOU).
What about the back? Leave it blank and white. Why? That’s where you will personally write your cell phone number, your hotel room number, or maybe even your agent’s name and contact info. And make sure the texture of the card allows you to easily write with a pen; the back surface may be different than the front; you want a back surface that won’t smear regardless of the writing utensil. And – being the busy author you are – you don’t want to waste that extra 15 seconds shaking the card to dry it.
You need to be signing that next book.
Having worked in film, television, radio, and publishing as both a buyer and a seller, Clay Stafford is happy to take your questions regarding the publishing / entertainment industry.
Clay Stafford has had an eclectic career. Not only did he found Killer Nashville in 2006 and Killer Nashville Magazine in 2015, but he has also been an industry executive (PBS, Universal Studios, others), author (over 1.5 million copies of his books in print), a filmmaker (work in 14 languages), university professor (several universities including University of Miami and University of Tennessee), and a much-sought-after public speaker (U.S. Department of Defense, Miami International Press Club, more).
Send your questions here.
Dying for Dinner: Spinach Quiche and Florida Pie
Dying For Dinner
When newspaper columnist and critic Harriet van Horne said, “Cooking is like love: It should be entered into with abandon or not at all,” we have to agree. Otherwise, time in the kitchen is monotony, and who wants that? Here are a couple of recipes that are simple, yummy, and will leave plenty of time for writing.
Spinach Quiche
By Stacy Allen
In “Spark of Silver, Flash of Gold”, the second in my Riley Cooper Series
Ingredients:
3 cups raw spinach
3 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 medium white onion, finely chopped (can use ¼ c. shallots or 1 large leek, minced)
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, muddled in a mortar and pestle
1 (9 inch) unbaked deep-dish piecrust
4 eggs, beaten (can use egg beaters if preferred)
16 oz heavy cream (can use light or even half and half if you prefer)
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground white pepper
1 cup shredded provolone cheese
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Bake the piecrust blind, and set aside to cool. (Blind baking simply means giving the empty crust a head start in the oven before filling it. Do not bake it until golden brown. It will continue to bake when you return it to the oven with the filling.)
2. Heat olive oil in a deep, French sauté pan or wok, and over medium heat sauté onion for a few minutes until tender. Mix in the spinach, and toss with two wooden spoons, for 1 to 2 minutes. Add garlic and red pepper flakes, and toss and sauté for another minute or two, until spinach is mostly wilted. Transfer to the piecrust.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs and heavy cream. Pour over the spinach mixture in the piecrust. Season with salt and pepper. Top with Provolone.
Bake 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Maggie's Florida Pie (aka Orange Chocolate Coconut Pie)
By Kathleen Cosgrove
Maggie Finn craves pie, and her desires to get a slice are thwarted through most of Kathleen’s novel, “Entangled”. Here’s an excerpt: “A side dish of pretzels sat near me while I watched a documentary on the history of pie. I developed a craving for one and looked in my refrigerator in case there was some in the back I had forgotten. Since I couldn't remember purchasing any pie the entire time I lived here, not surprisingly, there was none to be found.”
Ingredients:
1 package Orange Jell-O mix
1 package Jell-O Coconut Cream pudding mix
1 package Jell-O Vanilla pudding mix
3-ounces semisweet chocolate morsels
¼-cup condensed milk
1 graham cracker pie shell
Cool Whip
Directions:
- First, make the filling by combining all the Jell-O mixes into two cups boiling water. Stir constantly until it boils again. Cool in the refrigerator for about two hours.
- While the filling is chilling, melt the chocolate morsels and mix with the condensed milk. Pour into the graham cracker pie shell.
- Pour in the orange filling and top with Cool Whip. (Optional: Mix 1 tbsp orange rum or Kahlua into the Cool Whip.)
- Garnish with orange rind around outer edges and chocolate morsels in center.
Stacy Allen holds an advanced open water diver certificate, with specialties in night, cave and wreck diving. She is also certified in enriched air nitrox. Her passion for adventure has taken her to five continents to explore over sixty countries. She is the author of “Expedition Indigo”, the first in a new series featuring Dr. Riley Cooper, an archaeology professor from Boston who goes to Italy with a team of researchers to find and excavate the Indigo, a cargo ship full of treasures that sank in the 800s off the coast of Italy.
Kathleen Cosgrove is a writer living in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, just a stone's throw from Nashville. Rubbing shoulders with some of the most creative and talented people on earth has nourished and helped her grow as a writer. She is best known for the unique voice she brings to all her writing. Her style of wit and humor along with snappy dialogue and offbeat characters has reviewers comparing her work to the likes of Janet Evanovich and Carl Hiaasen. She can also be found on-stage in venues in and around Nashville reading her always funny and sometimes touching memoirs.
These recipes are so good they should be a crime. If you concoct either of these great recipes, let us know what you think and send us a picture. We may include it here with a link to your website.
What are you cooking? Submit your favorite recipes. They can be based on your favorite literary character, your Aunt Clara’s, or some amalgamation of ingredients you’ve discovered that makes life worth living (nothing with arsenic seasoning, please). Make sure to include your contact information and explanation of the origin of the recipe. Send your submissions (to which you avow in a court of law that you have all rights to and are granting the nonexclusive rights to Killer Nashville to use in any form and at any time) with subject line “Dying For Dinner” to contact@KillerNashville.com.
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The Writer's Life: Desires, Drives, Obstacles, and Conflicts
To learn, one needs to be ready to receive…and have a mentor like Beth Terrell. Her passion for helping beginning writers shines in this column about developing three-dimensional characters, or those who feel like real people.
Last month, Beth, who writes novels under the name Jaden Terrell, discussed what kinds of questions you need to ask yourself to create your main character. This month it’s about what makes them tick.
Why do your characters do the things they do?
Desires, Drives, Obstacles, and Conflicts
By Jaden (Beth) Terrell
Last month, you learned a lot about your main character, from physical appearance to habits and preferences. You thought about strengths and weaknesses. You may have explored some of his or her defining moments. Now let’s go deeper. Let’s find out what really makes your character tick, and then talk about how to use what you’ve learned to give your story more power and depth.
A character’s conscious desires and unconscious drives work together to determine his or her actions in the face of obstacles and conflicts. These four elements—desires, drives, obstacles, and conflicts—can help shape your plot and determine the course of your story.
To make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s talk about what those terms mean. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll alternate masculine and feminine pronouns.
Desires
Desires are those things we’re consciously aware that we want. Kurt Vonnegut said, “Every character should want something, even if it’s just a glass of water.” Why? Because tension is created when something stands between the character and the thing she wants, and it’s tension that keeps readers turning pages.
Based on what you’ve learned about your protagonist, what are her conscious desires? What does she want? Are her short term or immediate desires in line with her long-term goals? What does she value most?
Drives
Some neuroscientists believe that 95-99% of human behavior is determined by unconscious processes. The mind is like an iceberg, with the tip made up of conscious thoughts and awareness and the rest—by far the largest part—beneath the surface.
We don’t see it, but it’s the foundation that holds everything else up. Some say the unconscious mind is like a computer or a tape recorder, playing back the same old messages over and over. Others say it’s roiling, chaotic. Primordial soup. Whichever image you prefer, this much we know is true: it remembers everything we’ve ever experienced and everything we ever felt about those experiences.
When new situations arise, it sifts through those old experiences, finds something similar to this new situation, and uses that past experience to tell us what to think and feel about what’s happening now. We make decisions based on thoughts and emotions lurking down there in the primordial ooze. Then we justify them based on rational thoughts and logic.
Imagine Little Teddy, five years old. He marches off to kindergarten, where he learns the alphabet and how those 26 letters are magically transformed into words. One afternoon, sitting at the kitchen table, he writes a story about a squirrel and a spaceship. His brother looks over his shoulder and laughs. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever read. Squirrels can’t drive spaceships. Plus, you can’t even spell.” Teddy crumples his story and throws it in the trash. Why did he ever think Squirrels in Space was a good idea?
Grade 3, and his teacher posts everyone’s essay on the wall outside the classroom. Teddy is so proud he can hardly breathe—until he hears the snickers. “Look at this one. He spelled ‘ammunition’ wrong. And look at that handwriting. Are you sure he’s not still in kindergarten?”
And so it goes. Teddy grows up to be Ted. He hates his English classes, says they’re boring and stupid. Instead, he gets a degree in business, lands a terrific job he’s good at, becomes a rising star in his company. Then his supervisor offers him a promotion. It’s a great opportunity. Lots more money, better benefits, but he’ll have to write copy for clients. His unconscious mind knows this a bad idea. He doesn’t consciously think about the Squirrels in Space incident, but deep inside, his unconscious mind knows writing hurts. It’s already decided that this is a dangerous situation that Ted must be protected from at all costs.
Ted goes home to think it over. Maybe he makes a list of pros and cons. He thinks of all the rational reasons why the cons carry more weight than the pros. On Monday, he goes into the office and says, “Sam, I appreciate the opportunity, but…”
His decision to turn down the promotion is based, not on his carefully constructed list of pros and cons, but on an inner drive to avoid the kind of pain he felt the day his brother laughed at Squirrels in Space.
Drives are our unconscious motivations, the thoughts and emotions that churn around in that primordial soup we talked about earlier. They’re the reasons we want what we want and fear what we fear. They might drive us to enter a marathon and push on until we drop, even when common sense says it’s time to stop. The conscious desire is to win a medal, get in shape, make Dad proud.
The unconscious drive is the fear of not being good enough (because Dad, who was a track star in high school, always let you know when you fell short, but never once expressed his approval); a hunger for attention (because when you were small, everyone you knew praised you for your athletic prowess, and that felt good); or the need for validation (because your older sister was a star athlete who got all the accolades while you were the clumsy one who sat in the bleachers and pretended to cheer).
What are your character’s unconscious drives and motivations? What influences are working on him that he isn’t even aware of?
Obstacles and Conflicts
Obstacles and conflicts are the things that come between your character and what she wants. For the purposes of this lesson, obstacles are external forces (like poverty, natural disasters, physical disabilities or limitations, or an antagonist with opposing drives and desires), while conflicts are internal or interpersonal.
With internal conflict, your character feels opposing emotions (like the desire to win a show jumping competition with a $10,000 prize versus a fear of riding developed after a bad fall from her horse) or is torn between two equally attractive but mutually exclusive options (think of Stephanie Plum’s ongoing flirtations with Joe Morelli and Ranger).
Let’s go back to that show jumping competition. If your character—let’s call her Molly—wants to win the competition, has the means to enter, and has no doubts about either entering the competition or about her ability to win, then you have no conflict. Tension is low because nothing is keeping her from getting what she wants.
But let’s say she needs the $10,000 to help pay her way to the college of her dreams, and let’s say her best friend, Pia, is also entering the competition. Pia is riding a horse she loves, but the owner (their trainer) is about to sell him, and her foster parents either can’t afford or aren’t willing to buy him for her. Pia is a lonely girl whose only friends are Molly and this horse. Losing him will break her heart. That $10,000 would be enough to buy him. If Molly were to withdraw, Pia would be a shoo-in. Does Molly choose college for herself or happiness for her friend?
Now you have conflict.
Interpersonal conflict occurs when two characters have opposing desires. Some writers think that, to have conflict, the characters have to bicker throughout the story, but that’s not the case.
Imagine a mother and son. The son wants to go to college, but he knows his widowed mother can’t afford to pay for it and needs him at home to work in the family business. She has health problems, medical bills. If he leaves, she’ll lose the business and probably her home. He tells her he’s decided to forget about college.
Mom wants him to go away to school. She thinks it’s his best chance for a good future doing work he loves. She’ll sell the business, she says. Sell the house. Get a smaller place or even go live in a retirement home. No, he says, she loves this house. He wants her to be able to keep it.
There is conflict, because their desires are in opposition. Each wants the other to be happy and is willing to sacrifice much to achieve that end. Neither wants the other to make that sacrifice. Can you see how a conversation between these two, in which she tries to convince him to leave despite his determination to stay, could be infused with tension, even though these people aren’t angry, or even annoyed with each other? Even though they’re coming from a place of love and mutual respect, their conflicting desires create tension.
Some situations serve as both obstacles and conflicts. Antagonism or rivalry between two characters could be an obstacle (if it results in one keeping the other from a desired outcome), an internal conflict (if it causes emotional turmoil), and an interpersonal conflict (if one confronts the other).
Whether internal or interpersonal, conflicts are emotionally charged. As a result, they can create powerful moments in your novel.
Putting it all Together
In your character’s pursuit of her desires, what obstacles stand in the way? What internal conflicts does he have?
Is he comfortable with his current life? Happy? If so, what might happen to threaten that comfort or happiness? If not, what has kept him from acting to change the situation, and what might happen to make him finally take action?
What does your character actually need, and does this need conflict with his conscious desires? What does he value most and why? Is it a belief? A loved one? An object, homestead, piece of property? What might threaten this person or thing, and what will he risk to protect it? What is something your character would never do? Based on what you know about his motivations and desires, what would make him do that thing? Is there a way to work this into the book?
The mistake I made when I first tried to answer these last two questions (which I got from a Donald Maass workshop) was to go with the easy, obvious thing: my character would never rape a woman, murder a child, torture an infant. So when I asked myself what might make him do those things, the answer was always so extreme it would simply not believably happen.
If you’re having the same problem, back away from these most extreme circumstances. If your character is afraid of heights, maybe the thing she would never do would be to cross a suspension bridge over a canyon. What would make her do that? If your answer is, “She would never torture anyone,” can you think of a circumstance where she might? What if the villain has buried her spouse alive, the clock is ticking, and the captured villain refuses to reveal the spouse’s location? Maybe she would, in fact, resist the temptation to torture the information out of the villain, but the conflict between her moral decision not to torture and her desire to save a loved one could make for a powerful scene.
As you develop scenes and plot points, ask yourself how one or more of these elements might add tension and propel the action. Whatever your plotline, the interplay between desires, drives, obstacles, and conflicts can add depth and dimension to your story.
Jaden Terrell (Beth Terrell) is a Shamus Award finalist, a contributor to “Now Write! Mysteries” (a collection of writing exercises by Tarcher/Penguin), and the author of the Jared McKean private detective novels “Racing The Devil”, “A Cup Full of Midnight”, and “River of Glass”. Terrell is the special programs coordinator for the Killer Nashville conference and the winner of the 2009 Magnolia Award for service to the Southeastern Chapter of Mystery Writers of America (SEMWA). A former special education teacher, Terrell is now a writing coach and developmental editor whose leisure activities include ballroom dancing and equine massage therapy. www.jadenterrell.com
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
State of the Industry: Technology Double-Edged for Writers
By Maria Giordano
Killer Nashville Staff
For better or worse, the last ten years has been tough on the media industry.
Newspapers and magazines have withered under the weight of new digital platforms with the publishing industry facing its own similar battles with technology.
It’s been only in the last year that print sales numbers have appeared to veer from their downward spiral when eBooks exploded onto the market in 2010-2011, said Jim Milliot, editorial director of Publishers Weekly. For the first time in a while, digital sales enjoyed only a slight rise in 2014 based on preliminary numbers, giving print a chance to stabilize.
In the balance, though, seems to be the writers. It’s no secret that droves of journalists have been released into the wild, and – now more than ever – big businesses such as Amazon and Google have stepped into the publishing game, creating a new, uncharted publishing world for writers.
Authors Guild President Roxanna Robinson perhaps said it best in a letter to the Guild membership of about 9,000 that these are interesting times for writers. Indeed, today there are more choices for writers than ever before, but there is a caveat, she says. Writers need to be more aware than ever before particularly because of the rise of companies like Amazon and Google.
Publishing has never been easy whether a writer goes the traditional route or self-publishes, Robinson told me in a phone conversation. Nevertheless, authors continue to reap fewer benefits from their hard work. They are losing control. Particularly with self-publishing “you have to understand the percentages and be willing to engage in heavy promotion. You must expect to be aware. It better suits those with the entrepreneurial spirit.”
In addition, Amazon has exerted a lot of power over independent bookstores, Robinson said. Mostly this is because Amazon is an easier source and can offer lower prices. This has changed the market in a dramatic way, she added. This power has driven bookstores out of business and damaged book sales, including those sales made by libraries.
“Here’s the problem: people like books,” Robinson said. “They like to look at books and feel them. They go look at the books and sometimes walk right outside and buy the books online. Writers should be conscious of this. Amazon is in the business of shipping. Your local independent bookseller is there for you.”
The Authors Guild has a history of being a vocal advocate for writers. Most recently, the Guild is taking steps to appeal their ongoing case against Google for what they view is the theft of copyrighted materials, basically using the intellectual property without paying for it, Robinson said. The case was dismissed in 2013, which was viewed as support of Google’s agreement with five large libraries to digitize materials for its Google Book Search database and taking possession of these texts through the process, Robinson said.
Under the Microscope with D.P. Lyle: Time of Death Part 2
Welcome to “Under the Microscope,” Killer Nashville’s very own exclusive Forensics Corner. We will unearth, demystify, and bring you interesting, factual information about the world of forensics from experts in various fields. From dead bodies, to suspicious substances, to computers with a mind of their own, this column will explore the macabre, gory, and unexplainable with the truth in scientific terms for writers to use at their will.
This is the final installment in a three-part series by physician, author, and former Killer Nashville Guest of Honor Dr. D.P. Lyle. Through the imagined lens of a coroner, he shares critical information about the business of death and the elements of a great investigation.
The Coroner’s Most Important Determinations: Part 3
In this third and final installment in this series I will continue the discussion of “Time of Death.”
Time of Death, Part 2
Last time we looked at body temperature, rigor mortis, and lividity as methods for determining the time of death. In this article, we will look at several other tools at the Medical Examiner’s disposal:
Degree of Putrefaction
Stomach Contents
Corneal Cloudiness
Vitreous Potassium Level
Insect Activity
Scene Markers
Rate of Body Decay: Putrefaction is the term used for decay or decomposition of a body. Under normal circumstances it follows a predictable pattern, which the Medical Examiner, or ME, can use in his estimation of the time of death. During the first 24 hours, the abdomen takes on a greenish discoloration, which spreads to the neck, shoulders, and head. Bloating, due to the accumulation of gas, a byproduct of the action of bacteria, within the body’s cavities and skin, soon follows. This swelling begins in the face where the features swell and the eyes and tongue protrude. The skin will then begin to marble in a greenish-black web-like pattern over the face, chest, abdomen, and extremities. This marbling occurs within the blood vessels and is due to the reaction of the blood’s hemoglobin with hydrogen sulfide. As gasses continue to accumulate, the abdomen swells and the skin begins to blister. Soon, skin and hair slippage occur and the fingernails begin to slough off. By this stage, the body has taken on a greenish-black color.
The fluids of decomposition (purge fluid) will begin to drain from nose and mouth. To the untrained eye this might look like bleeding from trauma, but is due to extensive breakdown of the body’s tissues. This process is highly dependent on temperature. In a warm garage in Texas it will occur much more rapidly than it will in a cold stream in the Rockies.
The onset and progression of decay is highly temperature dependent. A body in a Louisiana swamp might completely decay in a week or two while one in the Colorado mountains in February might not even begin its decay until the spring thaw.
Stomach Contents: After a meal, the stomach empties in approximately 2 hours and the small intestines in approximately 12 hours, depending on the type and amount of food ingested. If a victim’s stomach contains largely undigested food, then the death likely occurred within an hour or two of the meal. If the stomach is empty, the death likely occurred more than four hours after eating. If the small intestine is also empty, death probably occurred 12 hours or more after the last meal. If the ME can determine through witness statements when the last meal was consumed, he can use this to time the death.
Let’s say a man is found dead in a hotel room and the ME determines that his stomach is full of undigested food. If he had dinner with a business associate from 8 until 10 p.m., the finding of a full stomach would indicate that the death occurred shortly after he returned to his room. The ME might place the time of death between 10:00 p.m. and midnight.
The Corneas and the Vitreous of the Eyes: The clear covering over our pupils are called corneas. At death they become cloudy and opaque in a very few hours if the eyes are open at death or may take up to 24 hours if they are closed. The vitreous humor is the liquid substance that fills our eyeballs. After death the concentration of potassium within the vitreous increases at a constant rate over the first few days. Measuring the potassium level can give a general estimate of the time of death.
Insects: A dead body attracts numerous insects. These are typically flies, beetles, and other insects that feed off the corpse’s flesh. They tend to appear at predictable times and in a predictable sequence, and the ME will use this to aid in his determination of the time of death. For example, blowflies appear early, often within the first hour after death, and immediately begin to lay eggs. The eggs hatch to larvae (maggots) within hours. Over the next 10 days the larvae feed, grow, and repeatedly molt. There are tables that show the growth rate of these larvae so that the ME can compare those found at the scene with the tables of length and estimate the age of the larvae. After the larval stage the maturing flies become pupae, when their outer covering hardens. Approximately 12 days later adult flies emerge. So, this entire cycle takes from about 18 to 22 days. The mature flies will then lay eggs and the cycle repeats.
Unfortunately, these patterns vary greatly, depending upon geographic region, specific locale, time of day, weather and temperature patterns, and the season. Because of the complex nature of the bug world, the ME will often request the assistance of a forensic entomologist, a professional who studies the insects that populate a dead body. This is an extremely complex subject and can’t be adequately covered here.
Scene Markers: Scene markers are any information at the scene, or from witnesses or family and friends. Missed appointments or work, missed daily walks or visits to the coffee shop, uncollected mail or newspapers, and dated sales receipts can be useful. Even the victim’s clothing might be helpful. For example, if the victim has missed work for two days and is found near the front door of his home, dressed in work attire, and carrying his car keys, it is logical to assume that he was headed to work at the time of his death.
As you can see the determination of the time of death is complex and always a best guess. Experience and keen observation are critically important.
D. P. Lyle is the Macavity and Benjamin Franklin Silver Award winning and Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Scribe, and USA Best Book Award nominated author of many non-fiction books (Murder & Mayhem; Forensics For Dummies; Forensics & Fiction; More Forensics & Fiction; Howdunnit: Forensics; and ABA Fundamentals: Understanding Forensic Science) as well as numerous works of fiction, including the Samantha Cody thriller series (Devil’s Playground, Double Blind, and Original Sin); the Dub Walker Thriller series (Stress Fracture; Hot Lights, Cold Steel, and Run To Ground); and the Royal Pains media tie-in novels (Royal Pains: First, Do No Harm and Royal Pains: Sick Rich). His essay on Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island appears in Thrillers: 100 Must Readsand his short story “Even Steven” in ITW’s anthology Thriller 3: Love Is Murder.
Along with Jan Burke, he is the co-host of Crime and Science Radio. He has worked with many novelists and with the writers of popular television shows such as Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Diagnosis Murder, Monk, Judging Amy, Peacemakers, Cold Case, House, Medium, Women’s Murder Club, 1-800-Missing, The Glades, and Pretty Little Liars.
Visit D.P. Lyle's: Website | Blog | Crime and Science Radio
D.P. Lyle has become a regular feature at Killer Nashville. Join us and learn more.
Live From Thailand: The Life of a Crime Novelist in Bangkok
Being a writer in the U.S. is one thing, but being an American writing in far-off lands is quite another. We’ve heard from C.J. Daugherty, who left her Texas roots for the English countryside and found a niche in the European Young Adult market, and now, we bring you Jake Needham, who moved a little further away to Thailand.Jake, like C.J., found himself in a place where the stories flow, and his readers are anywhere but the U.S. In the first of two columns, Jake, who writes contemporary crime novels, shares his journey to Bangkok, including some excerpts from his works that best describe his adopted home. Next month, Jake will tell us about what it’s like to publish in Thailand.
The Life of a Crime Novelist in Bangkok
(Probably isn’t what you think)
By Jake Needham
A little over twenty-five years ago, I was living in Los Angeles and earning a reasonable living writing and producing crap movies for American cable television. Then, out of that proverbial clear blue sky, HBO got interested in a script I had written a couple of years earlier and my life spun off in an entirely unanticipated direction. The script was for a political thriller set in Asia, and it was making that film that resulted in me living for more than two decades in what is surely the world's most notorious city.This is how it came about. The production company thought it would be cool to shoot the film in Bangkok so they figured they ought to put at least one producer on the project who had some idea where Bangkok actually is. I raised my hand. Looking back, if I had known then what I was getting myself into with the movie business, I probably would have kept my hand in my pocket.The good news is that while we were in production in Bangkok I was lucky enough to meet the saintly woman who has been my wife for the last twenty-three years. She was born in Thailand, went to boarding school in the UK from the age of ten, and graduated from Oxford, and then she had been lured back to Bangkok to become the editor of the Thai edition of Tatler Magazine. She came out to the set one day with a writer who was interviewing me for a profile in Tatler. I think she was mostly curious to see what an American film producer actually looked like. I gather I passed inspection because a year later, to the complete horror of her prominent and respected Thai parents, we were married. We have lived in Bangkok for at a good part of every year ever since.These days, I am a novelist rather than a screenwriter, having come to the realization fifteen or so years ago that I really didn’t like movies all that much. I've published eight contemporary crime novels set in Asia so far and the ninth will be published later this year.The biggest advantage to living and writing crime novels in Asia, I suppose, is that I certainly never lack for inspiration. As I wrote in my Jack Shepherd novels Killing Plato and Laundry Man: Bangkok is an enigmatic city at the best of times, a place where the mystery of what you can't see is surpassed only by the ambiguity of what you can; but it is also a place of sensual immediacy, and lush, transporting power. Something magical always seems to be dangling just out of reach. Living in Bangkok, I sometimes feel as if I am playing out a scene from ‘The Third Man.’ Lurking warily in the shadows. Picking my way through markets, temples, and bars. Dodging gangsters, con men, and killers. Trolling the streets of the city like Holly Martins searching the back alleys of Vienna in 1945 looking for Harry Lime.
In narrow back streets, mysterious buildings lurk behind walls topped with broken glass. Uniformed guards pace in front of tightly closed gates, suggesting dark and mysterious doings within. Embassy compounds look like fortresses or perhaps prosperous prisons: all blast-hardened concrete, slit windows, high walls, and iron gates. They bristle with radio towers and satellite dishes, and flat-eyed men with automatic weapons track anyone who ventures near.
All over town you see them and wonder who they really are. Beefy, crew cut Caucasians, big men wearing big wristwatches. They sit in darkened corners of grimy bars watching the girls, sucking down cold beers, and talking in low voices to swarthy, Middle Eastern men who watch the door as they listen. Bangkok is a wide-open frontier town. You can get drunk on the intrigue.
On the other hand, there’s at least one big disadvantage to living in Bangkok. A lot people have strong preconceptions about westerners who live in Asia and their assumptions frequently make for somewhat weighty baggage as I wrote in The Big Mango:
Americans have always been keenly suspicious of other Americans who voluntarily chose to live in another country. After all, half the population of the world seems to be clamoring to move to California and work in a 7-Eleven. So what the hell was with this guy who wanted to live in Bangkok? He must have done something. Yeah, that was it. Committed a crime or something. If he wasn't a drug dealer, he had to be a tax dodger or maybe he owed child support to a penniless ex-wife in St. Louis. Bastard. Low-life. Had to be. Otherwise he'd want to live in America like everyone else.
The reaction I typically get back here in the U.S. when people find I am living in Bangkok inevitably goes something like this. Oh, the place is no doubt exotic and interesting, they murmur, but…well, it's a city where a lot of people go who aren't particularly nice, isn't it?
Sadly, I’ve never found a way to deny that with a straight face.
I have always thought there must be some kind of international network devoted to coaxing social misfits and dropout cases worldwide into coming to Bangkok, because come they do and by the thousands. They walk away from third-shift jobs in places like Los Angeles, London, Sydney, Berlin, and Toronto, buy a cheap airline ticket, and make their way to the Land of Smiles.
Some are looking for a cheap tropical paradise. Others think they've found Sodom and Gomorrah. But every one of them is hoping in some way or another to make a fresh start on a life that probably has had up until then very little to recommend it. Many of these refugees from reality probably couldn't locate the city on a map before they decided it was the place for them. Maybe they still can't, but now Bangkok is their last, perhaps their only hope. They are all there. The lonely, the frightened, the guilty, the depressed, and the psychotic. Soaked with sweat, they rush from one bar to another, reeking of that peculiarly sour, metallic odor habitually given off by the emotionally overmatched and underachieving.
After midnight, it is this floodtide of the lost and misbegotten that owns Bangkok. At its most benign, Bangkok is part Miami and part Beirut. But at midnight on the fault line, Bangkok is anything but benign.
When you’re a novelist who lives in Bangkok, a lot of people take for granted you’re one of those guys. They assume you're writing books, likely very bad ones, only because you're on the lam from the cops or maybe from another life you would rather forget, and they figure the books you write must be about the ocean of cheap hookers and crappy beer in which most people are absolutely certain all western men living in Bangkok constantly wallow.
So, please, allow me to take this opportunity to set the record straight.
I write crime novels that are set largely in contemporary Asian cities. My books are about people who live along the margins of society and work the netherworld of Asia.
My Jack Shepherds series series focuses on a high-flying American lawyer who has swapped the intrigues of Washington politics for the backwater of academic life in Bangkok. Now he’s just an unremarkable professor at an unknown university in an unimportant city, or at least that’s how the people he left back in Washington think of him. The truth is Shepherd’s anything but that. He’s a lawyer for clients who laugh at the law, a friend in a land where today’s allies are tomorrow’s fugitives, and a man perpetually assailed by the moral labyrinth that bedevils all western expatriates in Asia.
My Inspector Samuel Tay series is about a detective in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Singapore police who is a bit of a reluctant policeman. He is a little overweight, a little lonely, a little cranky, and he smokes way too much. When Tay thinks back, he can't even remember why he became a cop in the first place. All he knows is that he is very, very good at what he does, and probably not much good at anything else.
Shockingly, there's not a single sex tourist or hooker to be found in the books of either series.
Sorry.
I hope you're not too disappointed in me.
Jake Needham is the author of eight contemporary crime novels set in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. Called "Michael Connelly with steamed rice" by the Bangkok Post, and “Asia’s most stylish and atmospheric writer of crime fiction” by the Singapore Straits Times, his books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies in those Asian and European countries where they have been distributed. Sadly, none of Jake’s books have ever been sold in the United States except in their e-book editions. You can learn more about Jake at www.JakeNeedham.com
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
March Photo Prompt Contest Winner
"The Chicken Coop" by Katherine Bonnie Bailey
Wilbur worked at a dirty chicken shack off I-65. Except he didn’t. His name wasn’t Wilbur, that’s just what his nametag said, and “The Chicken Coop” didn’t serve fried chicken, that’s just what the sign advertised.
He was only ‘Wilbur’ the first time I met him, but, for me, it stuck. The next time, he was ‘Dave’. The time after, ‘John’. It was odd, but he could fry up a mean batch of Jo Jo taters- thick cut, seasoned magnificently, and crisped to perfection – so I ignored it.
He cooked customer favorites behind the counter while Joyce and Sharon, two elderly waitresses, shuffled around the little hole-in-the-wall scrubbing tables and mopping floors, their arthritic knees creaking.
It couldn’t have been a profitable business. It was rumored Wilbur’s brother financed it to keep him occupied, and I believed it.
Wilbur liked to talk, and over batches of potatoes I learned about my strange friend. In July, that he’d never been in love. In October, that he hated Halloween. In January, that he was ready for a new start. In April, that he’d murdered his brother the previous week.
I listened to his matter-of-fact reasoning while I ate my last three taters, then I wiped my mouth with a napkin and settled my bill. My hand on the doorknob, I paused and asked Wilbur a question, which seemed to surprise him. To my disappointment, he wasn’t able to answer.
I was a good mile down the road when I dialed 911.
Killer Cocktails: The Rye Catcher
This month’s exclusive Killer Nashville Killer Cocktail: The Rye Catcher
The thing about coming of age, or bildungsroman books, is that they may actually be lost on those that are coming of age!
Take The Catcher in the Rye. It is without a doubt one of those coming-of-age books that packs an adolescent wallop. At 16 or 17, when English teachers oblige students to read J.D. Salinger’s classic, it may not be wholly understandable what in fact is going on.
Cynical and jaded, is Holden Caulfield just screwing around? After all, he’s failing out of his fourth school, and he’s running around Manhattan buying booze and having questionable encounters.
Perhaps it is time and age that helps in asking the real questions like, why does Holden keep asking about the Central Park ducks, and why is he so sad and angry? Why is he having a hard time growing up?
These are the questions Mark “Spaz” Morris believes you might ponder with his literary-themed drink, “The Rye Catcher”. A lighter version of an Old Fashioned, this drink will take you into the summer with much to think about.
The Rye Catcher
Ingredients:
½ ounce Eli Mason Old Fashion Cocktail Mix
2 ounces Rittenhouse Rye Whiskey
1 ounce Club Soda
A couple of dashes of Scrappy’s Bitters Orange
Orange slices
Cherries
Handful of ice cubes
Directions:
In a cocktail glass, throw in a slice of orange and a cherry, squirting a couple of dashes of bitters on top of the fruit.
Using a muddler mash the fruit until you see pieces of fruit and juices fill the bottom of the glass. (Spaz says it’s okay to take out your angst with the muddler.)
Add ice cubes and the Eli Mason Old Fashion Cocktail Mix.
Add the Rye whiskey.
Top it off with Club Soda.
Spaz recommends tumbling the mixture from the glass to a shaker. Don’t shake, just pour gently back and forth to get a good mix.
Garnish with more fruit.
Cheers!
Send us pictures and comments of you and Killer Nashville’s The Rye Catcher. We’ll share them here along with a link back to you.
About Spaz:
Spaz started in the restaurant/bar business back in 1984 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when he was a student at Louisiana State University. Instead of becoming a chemical engineer, he became a social legend instead, he says jokingly. He later transferred to Knoxville, Tennessee, and received a Bachelor’s in marketing from the University of Tennessee in 1989. He has worked in biker bars to 4-fork-setting restaurants. An avid traveler, he has lived in 13 states and visited 40, so far. He enjoys reading sci-fi and sci-fantasy books. He currently holds court at Red Dog Wine and Spirits in Franklin, Tennessee. Check out the store: www.reddogwineandspirits.com.
The Rye Catcher™ and © 2015 Killer Nashville. Killer Nashville is a ® Federally Registered Trademark. All rights reserved.
Being Your Own Boss Means Meeting Deadlines
By Tom Wood
Deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines.
If you are a journalist thinking about self-publishing your Great American Novel, you know the word too well. But as Bachman-Turner Overdrive sang, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Or you’ve already self-published, so you probably know how the deadlines never cease even after the book comes out. Welcome to my world.
But if you’ve just recently retired, or been downsized, or are a stay-at-home mom or dad who always wanted to write a book and you decided to self-publish, know this:
You’re always on deadline.
Now you might not have an editor hovering over you, an agent sending URGENT emails or a publisher SCREAMING for the next chapters, but it doesn’t mean you can escape the pressures of deadlines.
In fact, self-imposed deadlines might be the hardest of all — precisely because only three people will push you to complete the book.
Me, myself and I.
You have to be a self-driven, disciplined, and motivated individual to finish that story you’ve always wanted to tell. If it never gets written, who’s going to know besides you and your closest friends?
Since I self-published “Vendetta Stone” in August 2013 and began doing speaking engagements and promotional events, many people have sadly expressed a desire to finish the book they started so many years ago. Why didn’t they complete the project? Mostly because life got in the way, or they got frustrated, or…
It’s not easy to find the time to write in a day full of work, chores, raising a family or whatever.
But I’ve met several practicing attorneys, doctors, and public relations specialists — married ones — who have found time to churn out a book. That’s discipline. They spend weekends on the road hawking books and speaking to groups just like the rest of us. That’s motivated.
And if you self-publish more than one book, you must set aside writing time each day while you are promoting events, calling bookstore owners, keeping track of sales, writing blogs, and doing everything else the job entails.
So pardon me if I cut this short.
I’m on deadline.
A veteran sports writer and copy editor, Tom Wood has covered a variety of events ranging from the Iroquois Memorial Steeplechase to the Atlanta Olympic Games for The Tennessean in Nashville. After retirement, he continues his passion for writing, contributing to the Civil War-based anthology, “Filtered Through Time” and conducting an interview with Stephen King for “Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King”. In the last year, Tom has begun writing Western fiction short stories, two of which have been published by Western Trail Blazer. “Tennesseans West” is his next project with four other authors involved. He is also an actor and can be seen in several episodes of the ABC series “Nashville”. He also coordinates the Killer Nashville guest blog series. “Vendetta Stone” is his first novel and he is working on the sequel.
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Mining the Gold of Silence
Sometimes a look can say it all. Sometimes there are no words to express a feeling. Author John Dobbyn reminds us in this essay that there are times when it’s best not to over explain and allow the reader to take control of the stories beautifully unfolding in their minds.
By John F. Dobbyn
Vital as it is for a mystery/thriller writer to have a way with words, an even greater gift is to have a way without words.
Words are necessary to erect the structure of character, setting, and plot. But if the writer trusts the reader, an even greater depth to the story can be achieved by leaving enough rooms vacant of furniture, or at least sparsely furnished, to allow, no, compel the reader to enter into the act of “furnishing” it with his/her own imagination.
The central character in my series of four, soon to be five, legal thriller novels published by Oceanview Publications is a 27-year old criminal trial lawyer who tells the stories in the first person. Throughout the series, I have shared with the reader the fact that Michael Knight is an inch or two over six feet. Beyond that, I have never given the reader one more detail of his physical appearance. And that has been deliberate.
By my telling the stories in the first person, I believe and hope that the readers live more personally through every terrorizing situation I inflict upon Michael. They experience Michael’s courage, as John Wayne defined courage, “being scared to death, but saddling up anyway”. They feel constricted by Michael’s sense of honor. He will bend, warp, and fracture the truth to survive a situation, or to gain the advantage over the “bad guys”, but he will walk into hell rather than break his word once given. They feel his profound admiration, if not hero-worship, for his aging senior partner, Lex Devlin, as it grows from one novel to the next into a mutual father/son love.
And along the way, almost without realizing it, the reader has filled in the most finite details of Michael’s physical appearance, from the color of his hair, the shape of his nose, the color of his eyes, to the cut of his physique.
I only know this because I have asked readers how they see him. The answers have been as detailed, and as different from each other, as anything I could have dreamed up. And what they are “seeing” is frequently a far cry from the Michael I visualize. And that’s the magic of silence. The reader has unknowingly entered into the creative process and given birth, at least in part, to a character of his/her own. I love when that happens. It gives the reader something of a personal stake in the outcome of the story, and that gives a greater depth to the satisfaction in the resolution.
In painting other characters, I tend to be more generous with the details of their appearance, but again, not without a disciplined infusion of silence. Rather than giving in to the temptation to describe them elaborately, I use a few brush strokes to paint their most prominent, defining physical features, much like a caricaturist doing a sketch.
Given these few descriptive hints, it is amazing how each reader will draw on the character’s personality traits, as suggested by what the character does and says, to “see” a fully formed image. And that image, unique to each reader, is the personal investment that draws the reader more deeply into my fictional world.
The silence technique works with plot as well as character. I have nothing against an author’s spewing blood in living color across the pages. Some writers have an almost poetic knack for describing raw violence in wrenching terms. It’s not for me. I don’t do it. I prefer to use a disciplined silence to invite readers to infuse out of their imaginations whatever degree of blood, pain, and gore suits their sensibilities.
In the fourth novel in the Michael Knight/Lex Devlin series, “Deadly Diamonds”, there is a scene in which Michel accompanies a former IRA soldier, accomplished in martial arts, to a bar in one of Boston’s dicier sections. Michael needs to confront one of six gang members in the bar and live through it. His comrade tells Michael to wait outside while he “cleans house”.
I keep the reader outside the bar with Michael. The only details I give of what is taking place inside the bar are the sounds Michael hears of smashing bottles, fractured pool cues, impacting fists, and dropping bodies. I never describe the violence visually, but the reader “sees” it in whatever images are conjured in the reader’s individual imagination. Again, probably without realizing it, the reader is drawn into an active partnership in the storytelling. It is like the difference between watching a crime show on television, with all the details presented visually to the passive viewer, and listening to one on the radio, with all of the action and characters played out on the screen of the listener’s own imagination. Somehow, I’ve always preferred the latter for absorbing storytelling.
As for setting, is anything more disconcerting than having the author of a thriller break the flow of the action and suspend the suspense for a cadenza on the charm of the surrounding countryside? Television shows do it constantly for commercials, but that’s to pay the bills.
Here again, silence is not only golden, it is welcome. If anything unique about the particular landscape or cityscape has a bearing on the plot or level of suspense, all to the good. I’ll go for it, but only with enough of the impressionist’s spare brushstrokes to trigger the creative glands of the reader to fill in the details. Even as to my beloved Boston, I have to squelch the desire to give the reader a travelogue at the expense of the suspense.
Ah, but to say it is one thing. To do it in the heat of novel writing is another. I had the good fortune to be tipped off to the technique by two of the best editors I have ever experienced. The first was the former elder stateswoman of St Martin’s Press, God rest her worthy soul. I sent the manuscript to her and received it back within three weeks. Her comment was, “It is twenty thousand words too long. And I say that without reading a single word of it.”
I recovered from that shocker and sent it to my current editor through three novels and counting, the most perceptive and insightful editor I’ve ever known, Pat Gussin of Oceanview Publications. The second shock was when Pat said, without hearing of the previous comment, “We’ll take it – if you can eliminate twenty thousand words.”
My wife, Lois, (my in-home editor) and I set about scanning every phrase of the novel and slicing out everything that was not essential to building suspense. It was like removing my kidneys, my liver, and several other vital organs to see my best and cutest and funniest lines lying gasping on the floor. But it worked. The novel had leanness, a cogency of flow, a sustaining of tension that it never had before.
I’ve carried that lesson in discipline through the next three novels until it is now second nature. And I sense that the storytelling is so much the better for it.
It’s like the sculptor who was asked how he fashioned a perfect likeness of his subject, Harry. He said, “I just take a block of marble and knock off everything that isn’t Harry.” The trick is to do the same with the essence of a story.
Perhaps the first teacher of us all in this art was the “master of lean” Ernest Hemingway. Without knowing it at the time, I think that aspect of his uniqueness was what drew me instinctively to his writing style. If you want to see this technique in its ultimate degree, try any novel by the powerful Irish novelist, Ken Bruen.
Like all writing techniques, if this use of silence can be done, it can be overdone or underdone. It requires practice, experimentation, and fine-tuning. The instrument the writer is learning to play is the imagination of a hypothetical reader. And that is truly a challenge. But once it becomes instinctive to the writer, silence can be at least as effective as words.
John F. Dobbyn is an American mystery writer and Professor of Law at the Villanova University School of Law. As a mystery writer, he is best known for his stories set in Boston and featuring the lawyers Lex Devlin and Michael Knight. He is the author of four novels, including "Black Diamond" and “Deadly Diamonds”, and he is currently working on a fifth, “Deadly Odds”. www.johndobbyn.com
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Tabloid Truth is Sometimes Stranger Than Fiction / R.G. Belsky
Books Burned by Kim Kardashian’s Love Child!
The tabloids in the grocery checkout lines often distract me. The headlines scream of aliens conferring with well-known celebrities. The British monarchy holding regular séances. And most of the time, I’m left wondering who are these people and why do I care? But the British monarchy holding séances, those always get me, as does “Headless Body in Topless Bar.” Like a Sidney Poitier movie, Guess Who’s Writing This Week’s Blog? None other than one of my favorite tabloid editor/writers (and writer of the quoted headline), R. G. Belsky, whose new novel The Kennedy Connection received rave reviews from our Killer Nashville book reviewer. In this blog, Belsky addresses a number of things including why life sometimes would never be believed in fiction. So true.
Until next time, read like someone is burning the books, because somewhere and in some headline, a Kardashian may be doing just that. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford,
Founder Killer Nashville,
Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
Tabloid Truth is Sometimes Stranger Than Fiction
By R.G. Belsky
I’ve covered a lot of big crime stories during my time as a tabloid journalist. O.J. Son of Sam. Amy Fischer. JonBenet Ramsey. I was even a part of creating the most famous tabloid crime headline ever: Headless Body in Topless Bar.
So what’s the biggest difference I’ve found between true-life crime and writing mystery novels?
Well, as a mystery author, I get to break the one rule a journalist always has to follow – I don’t have to stick to the facts.
For example, my thriller The Kennedy Connection – the first in a series featuring newspaper reporter Gil Malloy – is about the greatest unsolved murder case of our time: the JFK assassination.
There is no way as a journalist I could answer all the questions that still remain — more than a half century later — about what really happened that day in Dallas.
But in my novel, I create a character who claims he’s the son of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to help Gil Malloy “solve” the crime. I also provide an alibi for Oswald at the time of President Kennedy’s murder that proves he couldn’t have done it. And I even come up with a witness — two of them, actually — whose testimony might have gotten Oswald cleared if he hadn’t been shot by Jack Ruby.
Yep, making up the facts sure can make a crime story more interesting, huh?
Well, sometimes…
The truth is there have been an awful lot of real life crime stories I’ve covered over the years that have contained more twists and sensational angles than myself (or any mystery author) could ever possibly come up with on our best day.
Take the O.J. Simpson case. It started with the ex-wife of a beloved superstar athlete and entertainment figure found murdered. (Yes, O.J. really was once beloved by the American public.) Then came the Bronco chase on LA freeways that captivated a nation; the Trial of the Century with the “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” glove and all the rest; plus, Kato Kaelin, Johnnie Cochrane and the other unforgettable characters we met on what turned out to be must-watch TV viewing for the next year. I mean what fiction writer could have ever imagined a story like that?
Same thing with Son of Sam. Think about this crazy plot: A loner postal worker — rejected by women and believing he‘s getting orders to kill them from a dog — goes on a legendary New York City murder spree that became known as the Summer of Sam. He taunts police with notes to the press; terrorizes the entire city for more than a year; and becomes the most famous serial killer of all time. Then he finally gets caught because of a simple parking ticket. Most editors I know would reject that idea out of hand as implausible if I ever pitched it for a mystery novel.
Probably the strangest crime story I ever worked on was the “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline. I was city editor of the New York Post when a holdup man for some reason decided to kill and cut off the head of the owner of a Queens bar. My job was to confirm it was a topless bar so we could use that memorable headline. I managed to get a reporter to do that, and just like that, tabloid history was made.
Amy Fischer. Jon Benet Ramsey. Casey Anthony. Amanda Knox. Jodi Arias. All of these real life crime stories and so many more have come right out of real life headlines without any need for us to make up the bizarre details.
So while I — and other mystery writers — continue to push our imaginations to the limit in order to dream up astonishing make-believe stuff to keep readers riveted to our books…well, sometimes it’s just hard to beat the actual facts.
One of the finest mystery novels ever was “Eight Million Ways to Die” by Lawrence Block. It’s a top-notch tale, which helped Block to fame as a Grand Master in the mystery genre. But maybe the biggest strength of that book — the theme upon which the title is based — is the crazy way people can be murdered in New York City, all of which were culled from the New York tabloids.
And why not?
Because if you’re looking for something even stranger than fiction, there’s no better pace to look than the world of real-life tabloid news.
Now that’s the truth!
R.G. Belsky has been the metropolitan editor of the New York Post, news editor of Star magazine, managing editor of the New York Daily News and – most recently – was managing editor of NBCNews.com. His new Gil Malloy mystery novel, Shooting for the Stars, is inspired in part by some real life famous celebrity murders – but is mostly fiction. It will be published on August 14 by Atria. Visit his website at www.rgbelsky.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Tabloid Truth is Sometimes Stranger Than Fiction / R.G. Belsky
Books Burned by Kim Kardashian’s Love Child!
The tabloids in the grocery checkout lines often distract me. The headlines scream of aliens conferring with well-known celebrities. The British monarchy holding regular séances. And most of the time, I’m left wondering who are these people and why do I care? But the British monarchy holding séances, those always get me, as does “Headless Body in Topless Bar.” Like a Sidney Poitier movie, Guess Who’s Writing This Week’s Blog? None other than one of my favorite tabloid editor/writers (and writer of the quoted headline), R. G. Belsky, whose new novel The Kennedy Connection
Clay Stafford,Founder Killer Nashville,Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
Tabloid Truth is Sometimes Stranger Than Fiction
By R.G. Belsky
I’ve covered a lot of big crime stories during my time as a tabloid journalist. O.J. Son of Sam. Amy Fischer. JonBenet Ramsey. I was even a part of creating the most famous tabloid crime headline ever: Headless Body in Topless Bar.
So what’s the biggest difference I’ve found between true-life crime and writing mystery novels?
Well, as a mystery author, I get to break the one rule a journalist always has to follow – I don’t have to stick to the facts.
For example, my thriller The Kennedy Connection
There is no way as a journalist I could answer all the questions that still remain — more than a half century later — about what really happened that day in Dallas.
But in my novel, I create a character who claims he’s the son of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to help Gil Malloy “solve” the crime. I also provide an alibi for Oswald at the time of President Kennedy’s murder that proves he couldn’t have done it. And I even come up with a witness — two of them, actually — whose testimony might have gotten Oswald cleared if he hadn’t been shot by Jack Ruby.
Yep, making up the facts sure can make a crime story more interesting, huh?
Well, sometimes…
The truth is there have been an awful lot of real life crime stories I’ve covered over the years that have contained more twists and sensational angles than myself (or any mystery author) could ever possibly come up with on our best day.
Take the O.J. Simpson case. It started with the ex-wife of a beloved superstar athlete and entertainment figure found murdered. (Yes, O.J. really was once beloved by the American public.) Then came the Bronco chase on LA freeways that captivated a nation; the Trial of the Century with the “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” glove and all the rest; plus, Kato Kaelin, Johnnie Cochrane and the other unforgettable characters we met on what turned out to be must-watch TV viewing for the next year. I mean what fiction writer could have ever imagined a story like that?
Same thing with Son of Sam. Think about this crazy plot: A loner postal worker — rejected by women and believing he‘s getting orders to kill them from a dog — goes on a legendary New York City murder spree that became known as the Summer of Sam. He taunts police with notes to the press; terrorizes the entire city for more than a year; and becomes the most famous serial killer of all time. Then he finally gets caught because of a simple parking ticket. Most editors I know would reject that idea out of hand as implausible if I ever pitched it for a mystery novel.
Probably the strangest crime story I ever worked on was the “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline. I was city editor of the New York Post when a holdup man for some reason decided to kill and cut off the head of the owner of a Queens bar. My job was to confirm it was a topless bar so we could use that memorable headline. I managed to get a reporter to do that, and just like that, tabloid history was made.
Amy Fischer. Jon Benet Ramsey. Casey Anthony. Amanda Knox. Jodi Arias. All of these real life crime stories and so many more have come right out of real life headlines without any need for us to make up the bizarre details.
So while I — and other mystery writers — continue to push our imaginations to the limit in order to dream up astonishing make-believe stuff to keep readers riveted to our books…well, sometimes it’s just hard to beat the actual facts.
One of the finest mystery novels ever was “Eight Million Ways to Die” by Lawrence Block. It’s a top-notch tale, which helped Block to fame as a Grand Master in the mystery genre. But maybe the biggest strength of that book — the theme upon which the title is based — is the crazy way people can be murdered in New York City, all of which were culled from the New York tabloids.
And why not?
Because if you’re looking for something even stranger than fiction, there’s no better pace to look than the world of real-life tabloid news.
Now that’s the truth!
R.G. Belsky has been the metropolitan editor of the New York Post, news editor of Star magazine, managing editor of the New York Daily News and – most recently – was managing editor of NBCNews.com. His new Gil Malloy mystery novel, Shooting for the Stars
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Tabloid Truth is Sometimes Stranger Than Fiction / R.G. Belsky
Books Burned by Kim Kardashian’s Love Child!
The tabloids in the grocery checkout lines often distract me. The headlines scream of aliens conferring with well-known celebrities. The British monarchy holding regular séances. And most of the time, I’m left wondering who are these people and why do I care? But the British monarchy holding séances, those always get me, as does “Headless Body in Topless Bar.” Like a Sidney Poitier movie, Guess Who’s Writing This Week’s Blog? None other than one of my favorite tabloid editor/writers (and writer of the quoted headline), R. G. Belsky, whose new novel The Kennedy Connection
Clay Stafford,Founder Killer Nashville,Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
Tabloid Truth is Sometimes Stranger Than Fiction
By R.G. Belsky
I’ve covered a lot of big crime stories during my time as a tabloid journalist. O.J. Son of Sam. Amy Fischer. JonBenet Ramsey. I was even a part of creating the most famous tabloid crime headline ever: Headless Body in Topless Bar.
So what’s the biggest difference I’ve found between true-life crime and writing mystery novels?
Well, as a mystery author, I get to break the one rule a journalist always has to follow – I don’t have to stick to the facts.
For example, my thriller The Kennedy Connection
There is no way as a journalist I could answer all the questions that still remain — more than a half century later — about what really happened that day in Dallas.
But in my novel, I create a character who claims he’s the son of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald to help Gil Malloy “solve” the crime. I also provide an alibi for Oswald at the time of President Kennedy’s murder that proves he couldn’t have done it. And I even come up with a witness — two of them, actually — whose testimony might have gotten Oswald cleared if he hadn’t been shot by Jack Ruby.
Yep, making up the facts sure can make a crime story more interesting, huh?
Well, sometimes…
The truth is there have been an awful lot of real life crime stories I’ve covered over the years that have contained more twists and sensational angles than myself (or any mystery author) could ever possibly come up with on our best day.
Take the O.J. Simpson case. It started with the ex-wife of a beloved superstar athlete and entertainment figure found murdered. (Yes, O.J. really was once beloved by the American public.) Then came the Bronco chase on LA freeways that captivated a nation; the Trial of the Century with the “if it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” glove and all the rest; plus, Kato Kaelin, Johnnie Cochrane and the other unforgettable characters we met on what turned out to be must-watch TV viewing for the next year. I mean what fiction writer could have ever imagined a story like that?
Same thing with Son of Sam. Think about this crazy plot: A loner postal worker — rejected by women and believing he‘s getting orders to kill them from a dog — goes on a legendary New York City murder spree that became known as the Summer of Sam. He taunts police with notes to the press; terrorizes the entire city for more than a year; and becomes the most famous serial killer of all time. Then he finally gets caught because of a simple parking ticket. Most editors I know would reject that idea out of hand as implausible if I ever pitched it for a mystery novel.
Probably the strangest crime story I ever worked on was the “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline. I was city editor of the New York Post when a holdup man for some reason decided to kill and cut off the head of the owner of a Queens bar. My job was to confirm it was a topless bar so we could use that memorable headline. I managed to get a reporter to do that, and just like that, tabloid history was made.
Amy Fischer. Jon Benet Ramsey. Casey Anthony. Amanda Knox. Jodi Arias. All of these real life crime stories and so many more have come right out of real life headlines without any need for us to make up the bizarre details.
So while I — and other mystery writers — continue to push our imaginations to the limit in order to dream up astonishing make-believe stuff to keep readers riveted to our books…well, sometimes it’s just hard to beat the actual facts.
One of the finest mystery novels ever was “Eight Million Ways to Die” by Lawrence Block. It’s a top-notch tale, which helped Block to fame as a Grand Master in the mystery genre. But maybe the biggest strength of that book — the theme upon which the title is based — is the crazy way people can be murdered in New York City, all of which were culled from the New York tabloids.
And why not?
Because if you’re looking for something even stranger than fiction, there’s no better pace to look than the world of real-life tabloid news.
Now that’s the truth!
R.G. Belsky has been the metropolitan editor of the New York Post, news editor of Star magazine, managing editor of the New York Daily News and – most recently – was managing editor of NBCNews.com. His new Gil Malloy mystery novel, Shooting for the Stars
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Tom Wood, Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, Meaghan Hill, and publisher Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog. And for more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Sensory Memory Adds Grist to Your Story / Kelly Saderholm
The best authors in history make readers imagine, believe, and feel they are living and breathing within a story. But to achieve this harmony of sights, sounds, and smells in words, a writer must draw on an understanding or an experience that makes it real.
In this week’s blog, author Kelly Saderholm talks about “sensory memory” and its importance in telling stories that pop. I’m a believer. Sensory memory field trips really can make a difference. Let me know if they make a difference in your writing, as well.
Happy Reading! And until next time, read like someone is burning the books!
Clay Stafford,
Founder Killer Nashville,
Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
Sensory Memory Adds Grist to Your Story
By Kelly Saderholm
A few years ago at Killer Nashville, I had a conversation with Jeffery Deaver, who knows a thing or two about research. Using the analogy of an iceberg, he said most of the research he did never made an appearance on the page, but it formed a solid base of knowledge to support that little bit that did show up. This is true. Readers do not want a dissertation in the middle of their story, but they do get irate with Writers Who Did Not Do The Research. This takes quite a bit more effort than to just Google a subject.
Athletes and dancers talk about “muscle memory”. Fiction writers develop and draw on “sensory memory”. There is still a need for research, but it is a different kind of research than facts and figures of a research paper. A writer has to research sensory aspects, especially for place: what does it look or sound like? How does it smell, taste? In addition to acquiring facts, when writing, an author would do well to take a sensory field trip.
The James Rice Grist Mill at Norris Dam State Park
Source: tnstateparks.com
I’m currently writing a novel in which a gristmill makes an early and important appearance. When I began the project, all I knew about gristmills was a wheel went round and round and somehow produced flour or meal. That’s all most people care to know, but this scene with the gristmill will set the tone for the whole book, and I need the readers to know that I know what I’m talking about. So I started researching gristmills online, and I even found a publication about them. Handy research tip: any topic you can think of has a society, or some sort of following. Those followers will produce journals, newsletters, websites, etc., and they love to talk about their subject. I also had the good fortune to meet a gristmill keeper, who told all sorts of great stories.
But even after all this, my scene still felt flat. I felt that it lacked . . . something. I had all this great information, lots of research about gristmills, but the scene just needed something else. Happily, there is a (sometimes) still-working gristmill in Norris Dam State Park in Tennessee, which I visited.
I learned things on a sensory level that I could not learn from reading the Journal of American Gristmill keepers. For example, how very clear and cold the water of a mountain stream is; how slick (almost slimy) the wooden sluice is from generations of water flowing through; the splashing of the water escaping from the buckets of the wheel; the crunchy (and somewhat disturbing) sound of grain being milled and the meal dust and grit in the air.
You can do this for your own research. I even incorporated research into trips I was planning to take. For this subject, I looked for other parks or museums in the area, whether there are entrance fees, and what were their hours. The Lenoir Museum, next to the mill, for example is free, but closed throughout the winter months, and even some days in summer. Close by, the much larger Museum of Appalachia (a Smithsonian affiliate) is open year-round, but it has a fee. For almost any museum, if you contact the staff ahead of time, as I did, and let them know what you are interested in, they can suggest or even arrange a special tour for you. Very often, museums have demonstrations and you can find out exactly the info you need; in my case, how corn is turned into meal, and then baked in a wood-stove or fireplace.
Doing Your Research Can Pay Off
Museums may also have archives, databases, artifacts that are not on display, but may be available for study for a researcher. Check these out in advance. Also visit the gift shops for specialty books, maps, CDs, postcards, and other objects for later inspiration. I picked up a bag of stone-ground meal, a cushion made from an old flour sack, some books, and lots of postcards.
In my original scene, characters drove to the mill on a road. They met with the keeper, he gave them information, and they went on their way. The scene now has a treacherous, twisty road; the gritty grinding adds an ominous touch when the grizzled old keeper tells a gruesome tale. The information they want is peppered with bits of folklore. He leads them along a slippery, mossy path to his house, now furnished with objects I saw in the museums. It is all much more interesting now, and yet there is no more factual information in the revised scene than there was in the first. My sensory memory field trip made this scene “pop” and also gave me sensory material to work with for the rest of the novel.
Kelly Saderholm has written, blogged and lectured about aspects of the mystery novel. She has moderated panels and presented papers at literary conferences, on both the Mystery Novel and Urban Fantasy. She is currently shifting from writing about mystery fiction to writing actual mystery fiction and is working on a novel, as well as a non-fiction book dealing with Folklore in the American South. She is a recipient of a Kentucky Foundation for Women grant. She lives in South Central Kentucky with her family and two feline office assistants.
Submit to our blog! (Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Sensory Memory Adds Grist to Your Story / Kelly Saderholm
The best authors in history make readers imagine, believe, and feel they are living and breathing within a story. But to achieve this harmony of sights, sounds, and smells in words, a writer must draw on an understanding or an experience that makes it real.In this week’s blog, author Kelly Saderholm talks about “sensory memory” and its importance in telling stories that pop. I’m a believer. Sensory memory field trips really can make a difference. Let me know if they make a difference in your writing, as well.Happy Reading! And until next time, read like someone is burning the books!Clay Stafford,Founder Killer Nashville,Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
Sensory Memory Adds Grist to Your Story
By Kelly Saderholm
A few years ago at Killer Nashville, I had a conversation with Jeffery Deaver, who knows a thing or two about research. Using the analogy of an iceberg, he said most of the research he did never made an appearance on the page, but it formed a solid base of knowledge to support that little bit that did show up. This is true. Readers do not want a dissertation in the middle of their story, but they do get irate with Writers Who Did Not Do The Research. This takes quite a bit more effort than to just Google a subject.
Athletes and dancers talk about “muscle memory”. Fiction writers develop and draw on “sensory memory”. There is still a need for research, but it is a different kind of research than facts and figures of a research paper. A writer has to research sensory aspects, especially for place: what does it look or sound like? How does it smell, taste? In addition to acquiring facts, when writing, an author would do well to take a sensory field trip.
I’m currently writing a novel in which a gristmill makes an early and important appearance. When I began the project, all I knew about gristmills was a wheel went round and round and somehow produced flour or meal. That’s all most people care to know, but this scene with the gristmill will set the tone for the whole book, and I need the readers to know that I know what I’m talking about. So I started researching gristmills online, and I even found a publication about them. Handy research tip: any topic you can think of has a society, or some sort of following. Those followers will produce journals, newsletters, websites, etc., and they love to talk about their subject. I also had the good fortune to meet a gristmill keeper, who told all sorts of great stories.
The James Rice Grist Mill at
Norris Dam State Park
Source: tnstateparks.com
But even after all this, my scene still felt flat. I felt that it lacked . . . something. I had all this great information, lots of research about gristmills, but the scene just needed something else. Happily, there is a (sometimes) still-working gristmill in Norris Dam State Park in Tennessee, which I visited.
I learned things on a sensory level that I could not learn from reading the Journal of American Gristmill keepers. For example, how very clear and cold the water of a mountain stream is; how slick (almost slimy) the wooden sluice is from generations of water flowing through; the splashing of the water escaping from the buckets of the wheel; the crunchy (and somewhat disturbing) sound of grain being milled and the meal dust and grit in the air.
You can do this for your own research. I even incorporated research into trips I was planning to take. For this subject, I looked for other parks or museums in the area, whether there are entrance fees, and what were their hours. The Lenoir Museum, next to the mill, for example is free, but closed throughout the winter months, and even some days in summer. Close by, the much larger Museum of Appalachia (a Smithsonian affiliate) is open year-round, but it has a fee. For almost any museum, if you contact the staff ahead of time, as I did, and let them know what you are interested in, they can suggest or even arrange a special tour for you. Very often, museums have demonstrations and you can find out exactly the info you need; in my case, how corn is turned into meal, and then baked in a wood-stove or fireplace.
Doing Your Research Can Pay Off
Museums may also have archives, databases, artifacts that are not on display, but may be available for study for a researcher. Check these out in advance. Also visit the gift shops for specialty books, maps, CDs, postcards, and other objects for later inspiration. I picked up a bag of stone-ground meal, a cushion made from an old flour sack, some books, and lots of postcards.
In my original scene, characters drove to the mill on a road. They met with the keeper, he gave them information, and they went on their way. The scene now has a treacherous, twisty road; the gritty grinding adds an ominous touch when the grizzled old keeper tells a gruesome tale. The information they want is peppered with bits of folklore. He leads them along a slippery, mossy path to his house, now furnished with objects I saw in the museums. It is all much more interesting now, and yet there is no more factual information in the revised scene than there was in the first. My sensory memory field trip made this scene “pop” and also gave me sensory material to work with for the rest of the novel.
Kelly Saderholm has written, blogged and lectured about aspects of the mystery novel. She has moderated panels and presented papers at literary conferences, on both the Mystery Novel and Urban Fantasy. She is currently shifting from writing about mystery fiction to writing actual mystery fiction and is working on a novel, as well as a non-fiction book dealing with Folklore in the American South. She is a recipient of a Kentucky Foundation for Women grant. She lives in South Central Kentucky with her family and two feline office assistants.
Submit to our blog! (Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Sensory Memory Adds Grist to Your Story / Kelly Saderholm
The best authors in history make readers imagine, believe, and feel they are living and breathing within a story. But to achieve this harmony of sights, sounds, and smells in words, a writer must draw on an understanding or an experience that makes it real.In this week’s blog, author Kelly Saderholm talks about “sensory memory” and its importance in telling stories that pop. I’m a believer. Sensory memory field trips really can make a difference. Let me know if they make a difference in your writing, as well.Happy Reading! And until next time, read like someone is burning the books!Clay Stafford,Founder Killer Nashville,Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
Sensory Memory Adds Grist to Your Story
By Kelly Saderholm
A few years ago at Killer Nashville, I had a conversation with Jeffery Deaver, who knows a thing or two about research. Using the analogy of an iceberg, he said most of the research he did never made an appearance on the page, but it formed a solid base of knowledge to support that little bit that did show up. This is true. Readers do not want a dissertation in the middle of their story, but they do get irate with Writers Who Did Not Do The Research. This takes quite a bit more effort than to just Google a subject.
Athletes and dancers talk about “muscle memory”. Fiction writers develop and draw on “sensory memory”. There is still a need for research, but it is a different kind of research than facts and figures of a research paper. A writer has to research sensory aspects, especially for place: what does it look or sound like? How does it smell, taste? In addition to acquiring facts, when writing, an author would do well to take a sensory field trip.
I’m currently writing a novel in which a gristmill makes an early and important appearance. When I began the project, all I knew about gristmills was a wheel went round and round and somehow produced flour or meal. That’s all most people care to know, but this scene with the gristmill will set the tone for the whole book, and I need the readers to know that I know what I’m talking about. So I started researching gristmills online, and I even found a publication about them. Handy research tip: any topic you can think of has a society, or some sort of following. Those followers will produce journals, newsletters, websites, etc., and they love to talk about their subject. I also had the good fortune to meet a gristmill keeper, who told all sorts of great stories.
The James Rice Grist Mill at
Norris Dam State Park
Source: tnstateparks.com
But even after all this, my scene still felt flat. I felt that it lacked . . . something. I had all this great information, lots of research about gristmills, but the scene just needed something else. Happily, there is a (sometimes) still-working gristmill in Norris Dam State Park in Tennessee, which I visited.
I learned things on a sensory level that I could not learn from reading the Journal of American Gristmill keepers. For example, how very clear and cold the water of a mountain stream is; how slick (almost slimy) the wooden sluice is from generations of water flowing through; the splashing of the water escaping from the buckets of the wheel; the crunchy (and somewhat disturbing) sound of grain being milled and the meal dust and grit in the air.
You can do this for your own research. I even incorporated research into trips I was planning to take. For this subject, I looked for other parks or museums in the area, whether there are entrance fees, and what were their hours. The Lenoir Museum, next to the mill, for example is free, but closed throughout the winter months, and even some days in summer. Close by, the much larger Museum of Appalachia (a Smithsonian affiliate) is open year-round, but it has a fee. For almost any museum, if you contact the staff ahead of time, as I did, and let them know what you are interested in, they can suggest or even arrange a special tour for you. Very often, museums have demonstrations and you can find out exactly the info you need; in my case, how corn is turned into meal, and then baked in a wood-stove or fireplace.
Doing Your Research Can Pay Off
Museums may also have archives, databases, artifacts that are not on display, but may be available for study for a researcher. Check these out in advance. Also visit the gift shops for specialty books, maps, CDs, postcards, and other objects for later inspiration. I picked up a bag of stone-ground meal, a cushion made from an old flour sack, some books, and lots of postcards.
In my original scene, characters drove to the mill on a road. They met with the keeper, he gave them information, and they went on their way. The scene now has a treacherous, twisty road; the gritty grinding adds an ominous touch when the grizzled old keeper tells a gruesome tale. The information they want is peppered with bits of folklore. He leads them along a slippery, mossy path to his house, now furnished with objects I saw in the museums. It is all much more interesting now, and yet there is no more factual information in the revised scene than there was in the first. My sensory memory field trip made this scene “pop” and also gave me sensory material to work with for the rest of the novel.
Kelly Saderholm has written, blogged and lectured about aspects of the mystery novel. She has moderated panels and presented papers at literary conferences, on both the Mystery Novel and Urban Fantasy. She is currently shifting from writing about mystery fiction to writing actual mystery fiction and is working on a novel, as well as a non-fiction book dealing with Folklore in the American South. She is a recipient of a Kentucky Foundation for Women grant. She lives in South Central Kentucky with her family and two feline office assistants.
Submit to our blog! (Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
True Crime to Cozies – A Happier Ending / Phyllis Gobbell
The demands of fiction writing and true crime writing have some similarities, says author Phyllis Gobbel. But there are also differences. In this week’s guest blog, Gobbell shares her journey from writing about cold cases to fictional mysteries.
Clay Stafford,
Founder Killer Nashville,
Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
True Crime to Cozies – A Happier Ending
By Phyllis Gobbell
I never planned to be a true crime writer, but two Nashville cold cases—one solved after ten years, the other after thirty-three years—drew me to the genre.
I was fortunate to co-write with Mike Glasgow on "An Unfinished Canvas"and Doug Jones on "A Season of Darkness". Both writers were attorneys skilled in wading through the investigative processes and legal proceedings. My interest lay in the personal stories. I don’t recall any disagreements about who would write what. We passed drafts back and forth, checked and re-checked each other, and commiserated when we had to cut, which we did—a lot.
All in all, the collaborative experience was great, and telling the tragic stories of the murders of Janet March and Marcia Trimble, and how their killers were brought to justice, was gratifying in a way that no other writing has been for me.
But now I’ve turned from true crime to fictional crime—and not just mysteries, but traditional mysteries—cozies, if you will! In "Pursuit in Provence", an American woman travels abroad, and murder and mayhem happen all around her. The next book is set in Ireland. It’s a leap from true crime, but the genres have more in common than one might think. And both have their upsides and downsides.
Fiction demands its own kind of research, but my amateur sleuth doesn’t have to know much about weapons or forensics. I admit I was ready for a break from the meticulous research that goes into a true crime book. Describing the street scene from a sidewalk café on the Cours Mirabeau in Aix-en-Provence beats squinting at microfiche articles from the old “Nashville Banner”any day. Taking photos from the magnificent Cliffs of Moher so I’ll get it right when I use the site in a big scene is a lot more fun than taking notes in the courtroom as witnesses give their testimonies.
But there is that “truth is stranger than fiction” element. Sure, I like to think that my mysteries have some exciting twists and turns, but I didn’t have to imagine the series of events that Perry March initiated from his cell in the Metro-Davidson County Jail. The plot was just there. The irony was just there. Perry conspiring with a street kid to murder Janet March’s parents, promising a safe haven with his father, Arthur, in Mexico. The kid conspiring with police, who deport Arthur and offer him a deal. Guess who winds up testifying against his own son in the Janet March murder trial? I couldn’t have made that up.
The characters are just there in a true crime. The writer’s challenge is to faithfully portray the real people. Virginia Trimble is one of those memorable people, and I won’t forget how it felt to write about the evening she realized Marcia was missing, the Easter Sunday that police found Marcia’s body, and the moment during the murder trial that she identified the blue-checked blouse Marcia was wearing when she left their house for the last time.
With true crime, the writer is obligated to tell what really happened, not what should have happened, or what actually might seem more plausible than the real thing. Writing fiction, I get to create my own characters, develop their flaws and eccentricities, put them in messy situations and see what happens. I can change what happens if I choose. Fiction, well written, embodies its own truths, but that’s another blog.
I like suspense, danger, and surprise, but my mysteries are never too sad. Readers have asked me, “Was writing true crime just too sad?” Yes, the stories were heartbreaking. But I had followed these Nashville cases through the years, and after the murder trials and convictions, there was something satisfying about putting the stories to paper.
Closure, I suppose, is the word. I haven’t turned from true crime to traditional mysteries because writing about real-life murders is sad. I told the stories I wanted to tell. Now I’m writing the kind of stories I’ve always loved to read. The kind I curl up with at bedtime, knowing I won’t have bad dreams, knowing the protagonist will find her way out of whatever trouble she’s in, the kind where you don’t just get closure. You get a happy ending.
Phyllis Gobbell is author of a mystery series that will debut with "Pursuit in Provence" (A Jordan Mayfair Mystery), Spring 2015. She has co-authored two true-crime books based on high-profile murders in Nashville: "An Unfinished Canvas: A True Story of Love, Family, and Murder in Nashville"with Michael Glasgow (the Janet March case), and "A Season of Darkness"with Doug Jones (the Marcia Trimble case). Her narrative “Lost Innocence” was published in the anthology, "Masters of True Crime". She has received awards in both fiction and nonfiction, including Tennessee’s individual Artist Literary Award. An associate professor of English at Nashville State Community College, she teaches writing and literature. Visit her website at www.phyllisgobbell.com
Submit to our blog! (Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
True Crime to Cozies – A Happier Ending / Phyllis Gobbell
The demands of fiction writing and true crime writing have some similarities, says author Phyllis Gobbel. But there are also differences. In this week’s guest blog, Gobbell shares her journey from writing about cold cases to fictional mysteries.Clay Stafford,Founder Killer Nashville,Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
True Crime to Cozies – A Happier Ending
By Phyllis Gobbell
I never planned to be a true crime writer, but two Nashville cold cases—one solved after ten years, the other after thirty-three years—drew me to the genre.
I was fortunate to co-write with Mike Glasgow on "An Unfinished Canvas" and Doug Jones on "A Season of Darkness"
All in all, the collaborative experience was great, and telling the tragic stories of the murders of Janet March and Marcia Trimble, and how their killers were brought to justice, was gratifying in a way that no other writing has been for me.
But now I’ve turned from true crime to fictional crime—and not just mysteries, but traditional mysteries—cozies, if you will! In "Pursuit in Provence", an American woman travels abroad, and murder and mayhem happen all around her. The next book is set in Ireland. It’s a leap from true crime, but the genres have more in common than one might think. And both have their upsides and downsides.
Fiction demands its own kind of research, but my amateur sleuth doesn’t have to know much about weapons or forensics. I admit I was ready for a break from the meticulous research that goes into a true crime book. Describing the street scene from a sidewalk café on the Cours Mirabeau in Aix-en-Provence beats squinting at microfiche articles from the old “Nashville Banner” any day. Taking photos from the magnificent Cliffs of Moher so I’ll get it right when I use the site in a big scene is a lot more fun than taking notes in the courtroom as witnesses give their testimonies.
But there is that “truth is stranger than fiction” element. Sure, I like to think that my mysteries have some exciting twists and turns, but I didn’t have to imagine the series of events that Perry March initiated from his cell in the Metro-Davidson County Jail. The plot was just there. The irony was just there. Perry conspiring with a street kid to murder Janet March’s parents, promising a safe haven with his father, Arthur, in Mexico. The kid conspiring with police, who deport Arthur and offer him a deal. Guess who winds up testifying against his own son in the Janet March murder trial? I couldn’t have made that up.
The characters are just there in a true crime. The writer’s challenge is to faithfully portray the real people. Virginia Trimble is one of those memorable people, and I won’t forget how it felt to write about the evening she realized Marcia was missing, the Easter Sunday that police found Marcia’s body, and the moment during the murder trial that she identified the blue-checked blouse Marcia was wearing when she left their house for the last time.
With true crime, the writer is obligated to tell what really happened, not what should have happened, or what actually might seem more plausible than the real thing. Writing fiction, I get to create my own characters, develop their flaws and eccentricities, put them in messy situations and see what happens. I can change what happens if I choose. Fiction, well written, embodies its own truths, but that’s another blog.
I like suspense, danger, and surprise, but my mysteries are never too sad. Readers have asked me, “Was writing true crime just too sad?” Yes, the stories were heartbreaking. But I had followed these Nashville cases through the years, and after the murder trials and convictions, there was something satisfying about putting the stories to paper.
Closure, I suppose, is the word. I haven’t turned from true crime to traditional mysteries because writing about real-life murders is sad. I told the stories I wanted to tell. Now I’m writing the kind of stories I’ve always loved to read. The kind I curl up with at bedtime, knowing I won’t have bad dreams, knowing the protagonist will find her way out of whatever trouble she’s in, the kind where you don’t just get closure. You get a happy ending.
Phyllis Gobbell is author of a mystery series that will debut with "Pursuit in Provence" (A Jordan Mayfair Mystery)
Submit to our blog! (Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
True Crime to Cozies – A Happier Ending / Phyllis Gobbell
The demands of fiction writing and true crime writing have some similarities, says author Phyllis Gobbel. But there are also differences. In this week’s guest blog, Gobbell shares her journey from writing about cold cases to fictional mysteries.Clay Stafford,Founder Killer Nashville,Publisher Killer Nashville Magazine
True Crime to Cozies – A Happier Ending
By Phyllis Gobbell
I never planned to be a true crime writer, but two Nashville cold cases—one solved after ten years, the other after thirty-three years—drew me to the genre.
I was fortunate to co-write with Mike Glasgow on "An Unfinished Canvas" and Doug Jones on "A Season of Darkness"
All in all, the collaborative experience was great, and telling the tragic stories of the murders of Janet March and Marcia Trimble, and how their killers were brought to justice, was gratifying in a way that no other writing has been for me.
But now I’ve turned from true crime to fictional crime—and not just mysteries, but traditional mysteries—cozies, if you will! In "Pursuit in Provence", an American woman travels abroad, and murder and mayhem happen all around her. The next book is set in Ireland. It’s a leap from true crime, but the genres have more in common than one might think. And both have their upsides and downsides.
Fiction demands its own kind of research, but my amateur sleuth doesn’t have to know much about weapons or forensics. I admit I was ready for a break from the meticulous research that goes into a true crime book. Describing the street scene from a sidewalk café on the Cours Mirabeau in Aix-en-Provence beats squinting at microfiche articles from the old “Nashville Banner” any day. Taking photos from the magnificent Cliffs of Moher so I’ll get it right when I use the site in a big scene is a lot more fun than taking notes in the courtroom as witnesses give their testimonies.
But there is that “truth is stranger than fiction” element. Sure, I like to think that my mysteries have some exciting twists and turns, but I didn’t have to imagine the series of events that Perry March initiated from his cell in the Metro-Davidson County Jail. The plot was just there. The irony was just there. Perry conspiring with a street kid to murder Janet March’s parents, promising a safe haven with his father, Arthur, in Mexico. The kid conspiring with police, who deport Arthur and offer him a deal. Guess who winds up testifying against his own son in the Janet March murder trial? I couldn’t have made that up.
The characters are just there in a true crime. The writer’s challenge is to faithfully portray the real people. Virginia Trimble is one of those memorable people, and I won’t forget how it felt to write about the evening she realized Marcia was missing, the Easter Sunday that police found Marcia’s body, and the moment during the murder trial that she identified the blue-checked blouse Marcia was wearing when she left their house for the last time.
With true crime, the writer is obligated to tell what really happened, not what should have happened, or what actually might seem more plausible than the real thing. Writing fiction, I get to create my own characters, develop their flaws and eccentricities, put them in messy situations and see what happens. I can change what happens if I choose. Fiction, well written, embodies its own truths, but that’s another blog.
I like suspense, danger, and surprise, but my mysteries are never too sad. Readers have asked me, “Was writing true crime just too sad?” Yes, the stories were heartbreaking. But I had followed these Nashville cases through the years, and after the murder trials and convictions, there was something satisfying about putting the stories to paper.
Closure, I suppose, is the word. I haven’t turned from true crime to traditional mysteries because writing about real-life murders is sad. I told the stories I wanted to tell. Now I’m writing the kind of stories I’ve always loved to read. The kind I curl up with at bedtime, knowing I won’t have bad dreams, knowing the protagonist will find her way out of whatever trouble she’s in, the kind where you don’t just get closure. You get a happy ending.
Phyllis Gobbell is author of a mystery series that will debut with "Pursuit in Provence" (A Jordan Mayfair Mystery)
Submit to our blog! (Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com or www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com)
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
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