Author Archives: Murderati

Actively Disengaged

by JT Ellison

I really should have titled this "What I’ve Read on My Summer Vacation," but actively disengaged fits so well.

I’ve been at the beach this week, desperately trying to keep away from the Internet, from work, from the incessant deadlines that seem to plague me. And for the most part, I’ve done a good job. I have the beginnings of a wicked tan, have indulged in adult beverages in the middle of the day, have seen more flesh than is humanly possible, and have read four books. And of course I’m typing this blog, because I couldn’t get everything I needed to done before I left for vacation. I haven’t been able to stay away from the television, mostly because we were dealing with the remnants of Thunderstorm Kaye when we arrived, and are now fretfully watching Gustav, scared to death for our friends in New Orleans.

Since 14 came out this week, I’ve also been doing press — interviews and guest blogs, phone interviews, all the attendant public relations that goes hand in hand with a book’s release. I went to Barnes & Noble and Bookland to visit the book Tuesday, a heartening experience considering they asked me to sign all the stock. Every time I crossed out my printed name and slapped my signature on the book, I felt a little lighter. It’s utterly surreal to have published a book. To have two books on the shelves is a bit overwhelming.To be able to walk in a bookstore, a grocery store, a drugstore and see my name of the cover of a book is craziness.

I think I’m lucky that I use a pseudonym — like I’ve said before, I can separate J.T. Ellison from me, which lends this slightly warped perspective to my daily life. It’s hard trying to keep the two halves of my world separate. I don’t like JT bleeding into me, and I don’t like me bleeding into JT. It’s difficult to keep the two apart, especially when you’re working on vacation. Bah.

It can be especially hard for me to disengage the JT part of my brain when it comes to reading. Turning off the writer side off and letting my inner reader reign supreme can be tricky. But this week, the books I chose to take with me have let me to be a reader, to glory in the story, to read without analyzing writing style, without that little niggling voice that usually reads a line and say oh, I wouldn’t have said it quite that way.

I started with Zoë Sharp’s FIRST DROP — I’m telling you, Taylor and Charlie Fox would get along very, very well if they ever had a chance to meet in person. The story rolled along at a breakneck pace — I always love books where there’s a real chase on — and kept me up way to late the first day we were here. Add to that the setting, miles from my current environs, and I was totally hooked. I’m moving on to SECOND SHOT by the end of the week.

Next up was Kristy Kiernan’s MATTERS OF FAITH, a brilliantly nuanced story of love, loss and family relations. Kristy’s books are always lyrical and stunning, and I was so completely sucked into the story that the real world faded away. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

I finished Alex Berenson’s THE FAITHFUL SPY last night. I’ve been saving this book for months, knowing it wouldn’t disappoint. I was right, it was stunning. Scary as hell, too, considering our political climate and the war on terror. I have his new book, THE GHOST WAR, and will hopefully get it done in the next week.

I’ve also nearly finished Dave White’s THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, a wonderful followup to his debut Jackson Donne novel WHEN ONE MAN DIES. Dave writes with an assurance well beyond his years, and I can’t wait to see where this series goes.

So in addition to the second efforts of both Zoë and Alex Berenson, I’ve got CHASING HARRY WINSTON by Lauren Weisberger. Had to do it. Don’t apologize for a second. Can’t wait to dive in. So there.

At the bottom of the stack is the creme de la creme, the book I’ve been waiting to read for months. Lee Child’s NOTHING TO LOSE. I can’t wait.

This is only a tiny crack, a baby fissure in the stacks and stacks of books I need to catch up on. I’m taking September off from writing, will be doing research for book 5, THE IMMORTALS, reading for pleasure, and touring. Catching up on playtime. At least for a few weeks.

So let’s just have fun today. What are you reading?

Since I’m in the land of margaritas, daiquiris, crashing waves and soft sand, let’s skip the wine this week and do something called Chases’ By The Beach – raspberry liqueur, vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice and orange juice. Yum! And how about a glass of Prosecco to toast our 13th wedding anniversary this past Tuesday. Nothing like have a book drop on your anniversary : )

Call me Mr.…eh…eh…just give me a moment to think…

By Brett Battles

Here’s something they don’t usually tell you when you’re an unpublished novelist trying to get a deal. That title you gave your masterpiece? The word or phrase you felt was perfect, in fact was the rock you built your entire opus on? Well…there’s a very good chance the only one who will know the book by that title will be you.

I know, I know. Not everyone comes up with a title right at the beginning, but we all come up with titles. Even if we don’t always love them, we feel a certain amount of compassion for them. Hey, WE came up with them after all.

But the long, hard truth is that if your publisher doesn’t like the title you’ve lived with for months or even years, when your book comes out your title is going to be different. Now, not all houses work the same. Some will strongly suggest a title to you in a way that will make you feel compelled to say, “I love it”, or at least, “It’s okay. I can live with it.” Some, hopefully most, will ask you to come up with some titles while they do the same. Everyone working together for the greater good. Even then, the decision on what the final title will be will fall to someone other than you. That would be your publisher. Either a specific person high up on the chain, or a group. They will choose from the list, perhaps yours, perhaps theirs. Hopefully it’s a good one.

The good news is sometimes it’s even better than the one you had.

Though I only have two books out so far, I actually have a bit of experience in the title arena. As most of you know, my debut novel is entitled THE CLEANER. For those of you who read it, you also know that the title is perfect for the book. It’s the obvious choice.

So obvious that I never thought of it.

As I wrote that novel, I had no idea what to name it. I played with several ideas, finally settling on a one. I called it…and I kid you not…DEVIL MAY CARE. That’s right, I gave it the same title that eventually was used this year for the latest James Bond novel. Now I’d love to claim responsibility or some kind of connection, but it’s highly doubtful. The only people who knew my book by that name were the members of my writer’s group, and Jim Pascoe and Tom Fassbender, the publishers/editors at Ugly Town – the people who initially bought my book. (For those who don’t know my publishing story and how I ended up at Bantam Dell, I’ll probably tell it again someday, but it’s around the web somewhere.)

Jim and Tom didn’t like the title. And, honestly, I wasn’t sold on it either. So they asked me to come up with alternatives. I came up with a list…a sucky list, but a list nonetheless:

A DEEP DISRUPTION
DROP FROM SIGHT
THE EDGE OF DEATH
THE DISRUPTION POINT
THE POINT OF DISRUPTION
POINT OF DISRUPTION
THE POINT OF NO RETURN
A TIME OF MADNESS
THE EDGE OF MADNESS
IN THE FACE OF MADNESS
THE MADNESS POINT
THE SEED OF HATRED
A REASON TO FEAR

Boy, that list is bad. Maybe not for some books, but for mine, none of them make too much sense. Jim and Tom thought the same. So more lists were developed, and finally from the last list one title stood out:

HUNG OUT TO DIE

It retrospect, it’s a much better title for a mystery than a thriller, but at the time I was just happy that we had something.

Flash forward a few months to when Bantam Dell bought my contract from Ugly Town (I refer you to the previous note re: publication story.) “We love the story,” my acquiring editor said, “but that title. Think we need to come up with something else.”

So with a heavy sigh I went back to the drawing board. Came up with more suggestions. But, ultimately, it was that same editor who said to me one day, “Have you ever thought about the title THE CLEANER?”

I was silent for several moments. When I finally did speak, I think I said something like, “It’s perfect,” and then proceeded to flog myself for days for not thinking of it earlier.

With my second book, when my editor asked what the title was, I said THE DECEIVED. And for some reason that stuck. There were no lists this time. No back and forth. I even came up with a title for book 3. I thought I was on a roll. It was starting to come to me now. A half dozen other titles revealed themselves over the next months, titles for potential future novels in the series. This was going to be easy now.

Oh, ignorant fool.

The call came this week. “The title for book 3? Think we need to find something else.” Suddenly I knew all of those other titles would no longer work for the series either.

Square one. Crap.

Soooo…that’s where I am this week! Fun times. Time to put my thinking cap on and pull that drawing board out again.

If you have a title story to share, please do. Or if you’ve heard of one, share with the class. Hell, if you just want to rant about all the typos I probably have in this post, have at it. All comments encouraged.

Song for the day: Most Beautiful Girl In The Room by Flight of the Conchords

Beautiful Day

There are moments in life to remember.

I tend to
gather these moments like presents under a Christmas tree, opening
them, rejoicing in their glory, then mentally rewrapping them and
hiding them away in some recess of my brain to bring out and enjoy over
and over again.

I had one of these moments Monday night.

Monday was a
big day for us, to say the least. Let me extend a warm thank you to
everyone who has supported Killer Year – believe me, we couldn’t do any
of this without you.

So after a
long, happy day, I made a big pot of chili, cut up some jalapeno
cornbread and sat down with Hubby to watch Monday Night Football. I
wanted to bear witness — the Saints triumphant return to New Orleans.
(By the way, someone buy the Saints’ special teams a drink!)

The pre-show caught me off guard.

Music Rising,
the organization started by US’s The Edge to help bring music back to
New Orleans, sponsored the show. With a jubilant horn serenade, Green Day
took the stage. Now, here’s where we start with the memory moments.
Green Day is a personal talisman for me. Every time I hear their song Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life), something good happens. Corny, but true.

They took the stage and opened strong, with The Edge playing guitar. Then Bono joined them. And I started thinking about that phone call.

“Hey, Billie
Joe. U2 wants you to fly to London, record some tunes, then go live on
Monday Night Football in New Orleans for the pre-game show.”

Uh, yeah.
Think they thought about that for more than a millisecond? I mean,
let’s face it. The Baby Boomers have the Rolling Stones, and The
Beatles, and well, Cat Stevens. My generation has U2. We win, hands down.

As the
melded bands played an original composition combining “House of New
Orleans” and “Beautiful Day”, I teared up, enjoyed the show and the
message. When my goose bumps finally packed suitcases and went on
vacation, I marked my mental moment. Then I started thinking about
mentors.

Now, I’m assuming here, but roll with me.

I’d be
willing to bet that Green Day views U2 as an iconic band. Perhaps now
they even view them as mentors in their musical careers. To have the
greatest of the great want to work with you is a humbling experience.
I’m sure they jumped at the chance.

That’s how
we feel about our Killer Year mentors. We were overwhelmed at the
prospect – the best minds in our industry would mentor us? As Marcus
Sakey said, “I grew up on books these people wrote. I never dreamed they’d one day be helping with my own.”

He summed it
up perfectly. These are our heroes, these giants of the mystery and
thriller genres. And they’ve agreed to help us, show us the ropes,
share their considerable insight into the publishing game? Would
someone mind pinching me, please???

Thanking ITW
for this amazing opportunity isn’t enough. I’d like to take it one step
further. At the risk of sounding too much like a Girl Scout, a promise.

A promise to
pay attention. A promise to listen before we speak. A promise to take
the considerable time and attention being paid the Class of 2007 and
give back to the Class of 2008 and beyond, if they’d like it. A promise
that we’ll be the best mentees we can be, and always, always promise to
do our best.

And on a more personal note, I promise to stop waxing poetic in my blog posts.

Safe travels to all of you heading to Madison
today and tomorrow. I know you’re going to have a wonderful time, and
I’m bummed I won’t be there. And if you see your mentor, tell them
thank you.

Do you have a mentor story you’d like to share? We’d love to hear it!

Even When it Hurts

by Rob Gregory Browne

There is a gene in me that compels me to do what I do.

Or maybe it’s a disease. A sickness I’ve carried from the moment of birth. I often think I might be better off with a transorbital lobotomy, lumbering vacantly toward an empty room.

I don’t know why I’m this way. Could probably trace it to my mother. I grew up listening to her play Chopin and Beethoven in our living room on a funky console piano.

It sounded like a Steinway to me.

Or there’s my Uncle Ed, who loaned me his baritone uke when I was eight years old. He saw my eyes get big when he started playing, and for reasons I’ll never know, handed it to me, wearing that wise-acre grin of his, and said, "Keep it for awhile, kiddo."

Next thing I knew, I was blasting away on those nylon strings, writing songs. But then I guess I’d always been writing them. When I was very young I used to sing myself to sleep every night, rolling my head from side to side in rhythm to the tune I’d made up.

Yes, I was a strange kid.

But then we’re all strange, aren’t we? Those of us who attempt to create. We spend so much time in our own heads that the people around us, the people we love, start to feel neglected.

We live in messy rooms, drive dirty cars and can’t stop humming that new melody we’ve come up with — working it, revising it, sometimes forgetting it. We figure out character flaws and plot turns while we’re supposed to be concentrating on the road. We sketch doodles on place mats as we wait for our french fries. We snap photographs of our children, experimenting with angles, then upload them into an electronic box to play with the colors and the grain and the contrast.

I’ve had this disease — this desire to create — for as long as I can remember. And I can’t control it. Can barely manage to channel it into one specific task. When I’m writing, I want to be making music. When I’m playing guitar, I want to be editing video. When I’m editing video, I’m thinking about the book I should be working on.

But then it all comes together somehow in my brain — the melody, the images, the words — and after a long, difficult slog, a book is born. A song is written. A video completed.

But I often wonder what it is that compels me to do these things. What is it in my DNA that forces me to pick up a pen or play a piano or draw a picture? And when I was first starting out, what gave me the audacity to believe that I’d ever be any good at it?

Or does that really matter?

Gift or curse, this desire is something I’ve had to learn to live with. And the most painful thing about it is that most of my attempts to be creative actually fail. I’m never completely satisfied with my efforts.

But then maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s only the pursuit that counts.

And I always enjoy the pursuit. Always.

Even when it hurts.

Book Trailers — Benefits you may not have thought of

by Tess Gerritsen

I’ve heard that book trailers are worthless as marketing tools. I’ve heard they confuse viewers, who don’t understand that the trailer is for a book, not a movie. That trailers tend to look amateurish because authors don’t know what they’re doing, and actually hurt the author’s efforts. Nobody watches them, nobody knows where to view them, and nobody cares. Plus, they’re expensive.

I’d heard all these arguments against book trailers, but I commissioned one anyway — and boy, was it a lot of fun.

Last winter, I contacted Maine Media Workshops, the local film school here in midcoast Maine, because I thought it might be an interesting project for the students, and an interesting marketing experiment for me. I’d pay for all the production expenses and the students would get a chance to work on a short film based on my upcoming book, THE KEEPSAKE. The film school faculty loved the idea, but the project fell through the cracks and was forgotten.

Then about three months ago, two young men connected with the school contacted me. Jonathan and Ryan wanted to make the film. I knew Jonathan, because he’d gone to the local high school with my son. I loved the idea of working with such youthful talent. They were excited about the project, brimming with energy and ideas. It seemed like a win-win situation for everyone.

The book wasn’t in galley form for them to read yet, so I had to describe the plot and the atmosphere I wanted. "Think of THE MUMMY," I said. I wanted something scary and shadowy, something like all the horror films I’d grown up with and loved so much. I handed them my Egyptology books and a book about shrunken heads. Ryan looked at the photos and freaked out. He was so disturbed by the images that he couldn’t even stand to look at them, but he was game to forge ahead.

The first thing they needed from me was a shooting script. Since the trailer could run no longer than two minutes, I kept the script to a page and a half, with narrator’s copy and suggested images. They got to work hiring actors. Since I was footing the bill, I had to approve every purchase. The guys sent me to a website that sells horror movie props. That’s when it was my turn to freak out, as I perused offerings of realistic-looking rubber corpses in various stages of decay and dismemberment. I spent about $600 on shrunken heads, a mummy, and a rotting corpse.

Meantime, the guys were busy building a mummy’s sarcophagus out of drywall, and they reserved an autopsy suite for the shoot.

During the two days of filming, unfortunately, I had to be out of town. I’m sorry I missed the fun, because I heard that they used an unoccupied house that happens to be for sale. Overnight, they left the shrunken heads hanging in the basement, not knowing that the house was scheduled to be shown the next day to prospective buyers.

The realtor reported that there was a lot of screaming. But the buyers put in an offer on the house anyway. (Maybe everyone trying to sell a house should hang shrunken heads in the basement.)

A few weeks later, the trailer was finished. Jonathan and Ryan made two versions, one for my U.S. release, and another for my UK release.

Will it sell enough books to justify the cost? I don’t know. As I said, it’s an experiment, and it’s just one more way to get your name out there to the world. It’s been on YouTube and on my website for about a week now, and so far we’ve gotten 2800 hits.

Some critics of book trailers point out that anyone who views your trailer probably already knows about your book, and viewing the trailer isn’t going to change their mind about buying it. Those who don’t know your name won’t ever go looking for the trailer.

I think these are valid points. However, I’ve discovered one great reason to make trailers — a reason I hadn’t even considered until now. It’s a great device for selling foreign rights to your books. My publisher plans to show the trailer at the Frankfurt Book Fair. And my foreign rights agent is sharing the trailer with foreign language publishers, because she feels it’s a valuable sales tool. And I’ll tell you why.

Foreign publishers don’t have enough English-speaking personnel to read every single book published in English. Instead, what happens is that the first few chapters of an American novel might be translated into, say, Russian — and if those chapters interest the Russian publisher, they may ask to see more of the translated text, or they may make an offer. But this is clearly a labor-intensive process.

A book trailer can speed up that decision making process. Within a minute or two, it can translate the essence of the plot for even a non-English-speaking viewer, the way horror films used to engage my Chinese immigrant mom. They can put your book front and center as something they’ll take a closer look at.

Will the trailer actually make domestic consumers buy books? I have no idea. As I said, it’s an experiment. And I loved working with young, local filmmakers who are just starting out in their film careers.

Plus, I’ve now got a collection of rubber corpses in my garage.

If you want to see the finished book trailer, hop on over to YouTube to take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_hVyZ7xHbM

Dumb luck

by Pari

You wouldn’t think it when you sit in the bar with us, but we writers are an optimistic lot. Staring sternly into our flat beers and swirling the last remnants of our scotch in ice that melted too quickly, we bitch ‘n’ moan ad nauseum.

But even the grouchiest, most disillusioned, complaining-est scribe holds a secret hope that his or her work will hit the BIG TIME, earn out an obscenely large advance lickety split, be optioned for a blockbuster movie and climb the NYT bestseller list purely based on pre-orders.

In short, writers are suckers for the idea of luck.

Lately, I’ve been trying to dissect what we mean by luck. I figure, if I can understand it, I might be able to manufacture a little of my own. Ya know?

I think the unexamined assumption we make, the latent definition, goes something like this: Luck is the confluence of unexpected and fortunate elements over which we don’t have control, but which finds us and bestows wonderful gifts.

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered. attr. William Shakespeare

Well, maybe . . .

But that sounds like a cop out, doesn’t it? And it can lead to the following idea pretty easily.

I believe in luck: How else can you explain the success of those you don’t like? attr. Jean Cocteau

I know I’ve felt that way. An acquaintance of mine (and not a very nice person) and I sold our first books at about the same time. Hers went to auction and landed at St. Martin’s for nearly $500,000. Mine went to UNM Press for, um, . . . not quite that much. In the intervening time from purchase to publication, I watched this woman on the Today Show and saw her work hit the national bestseller lists. And I found myself explaining her success in terms of "timing," "riding a wave," and her ethnicity.

Here’s a slightly different twist:
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. attr. Seneca

In some ways, my attributions about this writer’s success were right on. For example, she did cash in on her ethnicity . . . very well, in fact. In truth, she was a shining example of someone who decided to study and craft her work, to CREATE the wave she then caught. She did it deliberately, with tremendous aforethought and skill, and she ended up with a great result.

Oh, and here’s another truth I had to look in the eye . . . she’s a damn fine writer too.

It’s not nice to think of myself as petty, but I was. After the fact, to make myself look good, I tried to put her down (never by name or in public, at least I had that much sense) with the rationale that her success was because of luck.

What a stupid move. It set me back emotionally far too long. (Here’s my post on jealousy, btw.)

[How many of you reading this blog today are silently holding on to equally unpleasant and self-paralyzing thoughts? You don’t have to admit it to me — or in the comments section — but please make sure to admit it to yourself.]

After thinking about the subject for a few weeks, I’m approaching the whole concept of luck differently.
I look at the quote attributed to Shakespeare at the beginning of this post and say, "Hey, Will, that may be true, but someone must’ve put those boats out to sea in the first place."

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. attr. Thomas Jefferson

Yeah, that sums it up. The writer who goes to a conference and meets the editor who changes her life did something to further her career. The novelist who takes Alex Sokoloff’s posts about screenwriting to heart and applies some of the principles to his own work — thereby creating a book that works like a dream AND lends itself to a blockbuster movie — took action.

That’s where I’m at now.
Working.

I like it better than waiting for my ship to come in.

Go and wake up your luck. attr. Persian proverb.
Yeah, I can live with that.

How about you?

Are we having fun yet?

by Toni McGee Causey

30,439 minutes.

That’s how long I have ’til I turn in this book.

30,439 minutes.

And the story. Wow. Living, breathing, bearing down on me, playing live in front of my eyes.

I might be looking right at you. I probably don’t see you. I’m seeing the story. I’m pretty sure I’ve changed clothes within the last couple of days. I think.

A few people said, "You have how much to write in the next three weeks?" One writer friend wrote to me that she knew how I felt with a story staring at me with blood in its eye.

30,438 minutes.

I cannot explain to you the joy. The absolute utter explosion of high that comes from being in this place in the story and knowing that it works and not really caring about the deadline because I’m having fun. [For the record, I don’t always feel this way at this point in the story. Sometimes, that never comes. Sometimes, I only know that feeling about the time the book has been out for a couple of months and I look back and think, huh, that worked there for that little space, wow, who knew?]

Now, a lot of the times here, we’re talking about craft and marketing and what to do or not do and how to sing the hokey pokey with one foot in while you’re turning around, your hand on your head, fingers crossed in a special voodoo spell, hoping to appease the publishing gods, but sometimes, I think, we all get a little caught up in the angst of the business, all keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times and no standing that we forget what’s really important.

This is supposed to be fun.

I’ve done hard. [minds out of the gutter]

I’ve worked three jobs, making ends meet. I’ve had a baby and gone back to work the next day, because that’s what it took. I’ve scrubbed toilets as a janitor [and for the record, and retroactively to the lady who worked for the state who constantly threw those little circles punched from a three-hole-puncher–the vacuum did not pick those up, so thank you for making me have to stop and get down on my knees when I was eight months pregnant to pick them up because you wanted to be sure I was doing my job]… I’ve made cold calls as an insurance salesman, I’ve wrecked concrete forms, I’ve cooked for crews, I’ve stood in front of a classroom as a grad student and taught Nietzsche and Heidegger, I’ve watched a friend die a bloody death from leukemia, I’ve lost people, I’ve watched a child hooked up to an IV in the hospital, not knowing if he was going to have brain damage from the infection, and I’ve been dealt personal blows that had me sitting in the dark, wondering if I could keep standing, and I am here to tell you, this writing thing? Utter flipping joy.

I’m betting you’ve done hard, too. I’m betting you have life issues pressing down on you, that you’re busy, hellified busy, that somewhere, some of you are hurting and some of you have lost something and some of you feel a little bludgeoned and a whole lot overwhelmed, and somewhere, one of you is wondering why you’re fooling yourself that you’re a writer.

Do you love telling stories? Do you enjoy the spark of the new idea, the look when you sum it up for someone? The hope that this time, you’ll share that dream you’ve had? The pleasure of a nice turn of phrase, of seeing something on the page that you wrought and realized, wow, that was successful, that sentence right there. And maybe that one over there?

Embrace that. Few people in this world have figured out what brings them joy and you’re lucky if you’ve found it. The joy has to be in the process, in the day-to-day, because those are the moments we live. Not the end results. We don’t live there. We live in the process, in the effort. It’s what we control.

It’s easy to be scared in this business. It’s easy to get caught up on the treadmill, and just about every author has had moments of intense fear and doubt. You have the opportunity to humiliate yourself nationally. And if you’re being honest, you’re putting something of yourself on those pages, something of what you know to be the truth, and there’s just no way around that fact, no matter how much of it’s fiction. If you’re doing it right, you’re putting yourself in there. A lot of times, when we focus on all of the details of the writing process, it can feel like the list grows exponentially until you’re weighed down, ground to pieces. In all of the marketing bullshit, the networking, the learning curve, we can forget to celebrate the joy. (And we’re all learning, we’re all looking around, grateful to be in this with fellow writers who are willing to extend a hand and say, "This is what worked for me, this is what failed," because this is a scary, big, puzzle.)

You have to love this to do it. No, that’s not quite right. You have to be insane and in love with the whole notion of telling stories to do this. To keep working through the story, to get it right, to get the words strung out just so, so that they touch the other person on the other end. You have to feel the joy from the right detail, from the moment when it comes together, from the dream.

And you have to take a moment, when you’re writing, to remember that joy, to remember why you’re writing.

Publishing isn’t for sissies. It’s one of the cruelest forms of self-abuse I’ve seen, because there’s just no way to make everyone happy all of the time. You’re going to be putting yourself out there for people to judge, for people to criticize, for people to think you’re absolutely a moron for trying, but if you love it? It really doesn’t matter, because there is just nothing else quite like it.

We tell stories to connect. From the ancient times of sitting around the campfire, from Beowulf to the Dark Knight, we sit around the campfire now, sharing the world. It’s how we know how other people live, feel, think, how they deal (or don’t) with what life throws at them. It’s what makes us human. Politics? Nope, even monkeys have it. Stories? That’s our gift from the universe, our ability to say to someone, somewhere, "hey you, I know just how you feel." To reach into that spot where they’re feeling like there is absolute darkness and share it, or bring them some light, or some laughter, or some feeling of justice. And it’s a gift given to us, the storytellers, not that it’s our gift back to the world, because really connecting? Moving other people? If we get lucky enough to manage that, what an incredible joy.

When I got married, my dad had one piece of advice. We did the typical father-daughter chat the day before, and I don’t know if he remembers it as clearly as I do, and I know there were probably a thousand things he wanted to tell me in that moment, that one quiet moment we had before the chaos began. And he said, very simply, "Keep it fun."

Keep.

Active verb there. Don’t wait for it to be fun. Don’t expect fun to come to you, gift wrapped. Keep. Work for it. Look for it. Make it.

Best advice I’ve ever gotten.

30,425 minutes.

And I am incredibly grateful for every single one.

So how about you? What brings you joy?

More Screenwriting 101

By Alexandra Sokoloff

I’m doing another one of my screenwriting in an hour workshops in New Orleans this weekend, at Heather Graham’s Writers for New Orleans workshop. Well, yes, and partying in New Orleans, too – I deserve it, okay?

I know, it’s crazy, right? – what can you possibly teach anyone about anything in an hour?

Well, I can’t teach screenwriting in an hour, but I’ve found I can teach people how to start to teach THEMSELVES screenwriting in an hour. (And what I’m really teaching is story structure, and secretly I’m really teaching it to help novelists use screenwriting techniques to improve their own writing, because as I’ve said about a million times, and explained here – if you’re not willing to commit to an actual career as a screen or TV writer, or have a source of independent financing for your movie, then it’s a waste of your time to write a script, except as a learning experience. Write a book instead.)

To teach yourself story structure, you start by making a list of 10 movies and books in the genre you’re writing in and/or that you feel are similar in structure to the story you want to write. From this list you are going to develop your own story structure workbook.

Then – write out the PREMISE or LOGLINE for each story on your list – as I’ve already talked about here, and compare your own story premise to those of your master list. The most important step of writing a book or a movie is to start with a solid, exciting, and I would say, commercial premise (because after all, we are making a living at this, aren’t we?)

Now we are going to step back and talk about basic filmic structure. Movies generally follow a three-act structure. That means that a 110-page script (and that’s 110 minutes of screen time – a script page is equal to one minute of film time) – is broken into an Act One of roughly 30 pages, an Act Two of roughly 60 pages, and an Act Three of roughly 20 pages, because as everyone knows, the climax of a story speeds up and condenses action. If you’re structuring a book, then you basically triple or quadruple the page count, depending on how long you tend to write.

Most everyone knows the Three Act structure. But the real secret of writing a script is that most movies are a Three Act, eight-sequence structure. Yes, most movies can be broken up into 8 discrete 15-minute sequences, each of which has a beginning, middle and end.

Try this with your master list. Watch a film, watching the time clock on your DVD player. At about 15 minutes into the film, there will be some sort of climax – an action scene, a revelation, a twist, a big set piece. It won’t be as big as the climax that comes 30 minutes into the film, which would be the Act One climax, but it will be an identifiable climax that will spin the action into the next sequence.

Proceed through the movie, stopping to identify the beginning, middle and end of each sequence. Also make note of the bigger climaxes or turning points – Act One at 30 minutes, the Midpoint at 60 minutes (you could also say that a movie is really FOUR acts, breaking the long Act Two into two separate acts. Whichever works best for you.), Act Two at 90 minutes, and Act Three at whenever the movie ends.

In many movies a sequence will take place all in the same location, then move to another location at the climax of the sequence. The protagonist will generally be following just one line of action in a sequence, and then when s/he gets that vital bit of information in the climax of a sequence, s/he’ll move on to a completely different line of action. A good exercise is to title each sequence as you watch and analyze a movie – that gives you a great overall picture of the progression of action.

Also be advised that in big, sprawling movies like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and THE WIZARD OF OZ, sequences may be longer or there may be a few extras. It’s a formula and it doesn’t always precisely fit, but as you work through your master list of films, unless you are a surrealist at heart, you will be shocked and amazed at how many movies precisely fit this 8-sequence format. When you’re working with as rigid a form as a two-hour movie, on the insane schedule that is film production, this kind of mathematical precision is kind of a lifesaver.

My advice is that you watch and analyze ALL TEN of your master list movies (and books) before you do anything else. Once you’ve watched a movie for basic overall structure, you should go back and watch it again and this time do a step outline, or scene outline – in which you write down the setting, action, conflict and revelation in each scene, as well as breaking the whole down into its three acts and eight sequences. After you’ve worked your way through at least three movies in this way to get this structure clearly in your head (although all ten is better) you’re probably ready to start working on your own story as well.

And the method I teach in my workshops is the tried and true index card method.

(Pantsers will HATE this, but it warms the cockles of my plotter heart.)

You can also use Post-Its, and the truly OCD among us use colored Post-Its to identify various subplots by color, but I find having to make those kinds of decisions just fritzes my brain. I like cards because they’re more durable and I can spread them out on the floor for me to crawl around and for the cats to walk over; it somehow feels less like work that way. Everyone has their own method – experiment and find what works best for you.

Get yourself a corkboard or sheet of cardboard big enough to lay out your index cards in either four vertical columns of 10-15 cards, or eight vertical columns of 5-8 cards, depending on whether you want to see your movie laid out in four acts or eight sequences. You can draw lines on the corkboard to make a grid of spaces the size of index cards if you’re very neat (I’m not) – or just pin a few marker cards up to structure your space. Write Act One at the top of the first column, Act Two at the top of the second (or third if you’re doing eight columns), Midpoint at the top of the third (or fifth), Act Three at the top of the fourth (or seventh).

Then write a card with Act One Climax and pin it at the bottom of column one, Midpoint Climax at the bottom of column two, Act Two Climax at the bottom of column three, and Climax at the very end. If you already know what those scenes are, then write a short description of them on the appropriate cards.

And now also label the beginning and end of where eight sequences will go. (In other words, you’re dividing your corkboard into eight sections – either 4 long columns with two sections each, or eight shorter columns).

Now you have your structure grid in front of you.

What you will start to do now is brainstorm scenes, and that you do with the index cards.

A movie has about 40 to 60 scenes (a drama more like 40, an action movie more like 60) so every scene goes on one card. This is the fun part, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. All you do at first is write down all the scenes you know about your movie, one scene per card. You don’t have to put them in order yet, but if you know where they go, or approximately where they go, you can just pin them on your corkboard in approximately the right place. You can always move them around. And just like with a puzzle, once you have some scenes in place, you will naturally start to build other scenes around them.

I love the cards because they are such an overview. You can stick a bunch of vaguely related scenes together in a clump, rearrange one or two, and suddenly see a perfect progression of an entire sequence. You can throw away cards that aren’t working, or make several cards with the same scene and try them in different parts of your story board.

You will find it is often shockingly fast and simple to structure a whole movie this way.

Now obviously, if you’re structuring a novel this way, you will be approximately tripling the scene count, but I think that in most cases you’ll find that the breakdown of sequences is not out of proportion to this formula. There will be more, but not really very many more.

Now, that’s about enough for this post, but in my next installment I’ll talk about how to plug various obligatory scenes into this formula to make the structuring go even more quickly – scenes that you’ll find in nearly all stories, like opening image, closing image, introduction of hero, inner and outer desire, stating the theme (as early in the story as possible), introduction of allies, love interest, mentor, opponent, hero’s and opponent’s plans, plants and reveals, setpieces, training sequence, dark night of the soul, sex at sixty, hero’s arc, moral decision, etc.

And for those of you who are reeling in horror at the idea of a formula, let me assure you – it’s just a way of analyzing dramatic structure. No matter how you create a story yourself, chances are it will organically follow this flow. Think of the human body – human beings (with very few exceptions) have the EXACT SAME skeleton underneath all the complicated flesh and muscles and nerves and coloring and neurons and emotions and essences that make up a human being. No two alike… and yet a skeleton is a skeleton – it’s the foundation of a human being.

And structure is the foundation of a story.
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THE DARKER MASK, Heroes from the Shadows, came out this week from Tor Books – an anthology of noir superhero stories with an illustration for each story in the pulp style.

Naomi Hirahara and I both have stories in it, along with the great Walter Mosley, Gar Haywood, Chris Chambers and Gary Phillips (co-editors), L. A. Banks, Lorenzo Carcaterra, Tananarive Due and Stephen Barnes, Mike Gonzales, Gar Anthony Haywood, Ann Nocenti, Jerry Rodriguez, Reed Farrell Coleman, Doselle Young, Mat Johnson, Peter Spiegelman, Gary Phillips, Victor LaValle, and Wayne Wilson.

As you might guess from that lineup, these are not your standard white male superheroes (and no clingy helpless white female secretaries, strippers, or cheerleaders, either). THE DARKER MASK offers disenfranchised, marginalized characters who have to overcome personal and societal obstacles to grow into their extraordinary talents.

Read more about the book on Amazon, here:

But of course, please order from your local independent bookstore!

Memphis in the Meantime

by J.T. Ellison

It’s very hard to introduce a new character into a series.

Honestly, that’s not true. It’s easy to introduce a new character into a series. The difficulty lies in bringing said new character to life, giving them a purpose, a role, a reason. Doing it seamlessly is what’s so hard to pull off.

There. That’s better. Now that we’ve established the ground rules…

What if you’re an American writer, and somewhere deep in the recesses of your brain a character is born who isn’t going to be easy to write because he’s not anything you have any experience with. He’s not even from your own country. And you haven’t got the foggiest idea of how to make him come to life.

Meet James, the Viscount Highsmythe, officially called my Lord, but more commonly known (in my mind and his work) as Memphis.

What?

Exactly. This was what I saddled myself with. Don’t ask me where he came from, he simply appeared one day, cleft chin and all. And in the way of all stubborn characters, he simply refused to be anything but. James "Memphis" Highsmythe is the son of a Scottish Earl, works for the Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard, lost his wife (who looks eerily like Taylor) and his unborn child. He got the name Memphis because his mother was an Elvis fan. He’s got blue eyes, blond hair, a strong jaw and is exactly Taylor’s height. And he’s not subtle when it comes to wanting her.

Excellent. Wonderful. I know who this man is inside and out. But I haven’t the foggiest idea of what he sounds like. And herein lies the problem. Not only is my command of British vernacular limited to Bridget Jones’s Diary, I don’t have any idea about the written form. Despite a valiant attempt on Lee Child’s part to help —

Me: "Lee, just say "Please, do call me Memphis."

Lee: "J.T.," shaking his head sadly, "Memphis sounds the same no matter how you want me to say it."

— I still had no idea what he sounded like. Sigh.

I’ve been writing this book (EDGE OF BLACK, 9/09) for months now, killing myself trying to get Memphis’s voice in my head, watching Oxford Blues (mistake #1) and interviews with Hugh Laurie (mistake #2), trying to get the wording right. You can’t write British phonetically, I found out, it just doesn’t work well. And no matter how faithfully you try to recreate the right sounds, it doesn’t work.

I went back to the drawing board a couple of times. What was important about Memphis was the parallels in his life to Taylor’s. Privileged upbringing, idealistic natures, a strong sense of right and wrong. He had to be someone who – despite the fact that she’s very much with Baldwin – she found attractive. Which meant humanizing him, making him real. I found all the universals for Memphis — family issues, career issues, woman troubles — everything that an American male would have common ground with. But then I stumbled across a real problem.

Memphis, who is coming to life on the page bit by excruciating bit, ahem, had an erection to deal with.

And I was in his point of view.

And I don’t know what the Brits call an erection.

And that’s not exactly the email you want to be sending to your few British male acquaintances: "’Scuse me, can you tell me what you Brits call a woodie?"

So I called upon our glorious

Zoë. I could see her arched eyebrows all the way here in Tennessee.

Zoë immediately jumped into the fray with me, pointing out that what a regular British male might call an erection is completely different from what an upper class British peer would call an erection. We spent a glorious afternoon trading slang terms across several time zones and a wide blue ocean, both of us cracking up on our respective computers. Her husband and my husband got quite a charge out of it too, I’ll tell you. Really, what’s two nice girls doing with the gutter talk anyway???

When we hit upon ‘sporting a stalk like a spotty youth,’ I knew I was in serious trouble. Zoë, in a kindness that was so far above and beyond the call of duty, offered to read the pages Memphis was on, and make sure I was hitting the mark with his terminology.

Suffice it to say I accepted, and got myself quite an education. I was so far off base, if Zoë hadn’t saved me, I would have made a real fool out of myself. I had a character named Penelope who went from uneducated British to Cockney to Irish and back all in a single sentence. Yikes. She was just a good British girl, and I mangled her to pieces.

Aside from the most egregious of my errors (and one rather massive generalization that I thought was completely obvious but was surprised to hear no longer mattered) what struck me was how by simply changing a word here and there, Memphis started to sound like an aristocrat. He came to life. He fulfilled his role, and his purpose. And I learned a very difficult lesson.

If you’re trying to be authentic, you must, must, must do your homework. I did mine, and it wasn’t right, because I didn’t realize just how complicated the class structure is in the UK, and how very different each segment of society sounds. We don’t have that here. There’s educated and uneducated, and regionalisms that are dead giveaways (hoagie, sandwich, grinder, sub, anyone?) But we don’t delineate our class structure by our accents.

This carries over into any kind of research you may be doing. If you’re writing about guns, you need to get the guns right. If you’re writing about medical terminology, you need to be accurate. Accuracy is what makes you a reliable author, one who the readers trust to give them the right information. As a writer, I am certainly not an expert. But I sure need to sound like one, because my characters ARE.

This is true of anything. Jews writing Christians. Blacks writing whites. Southerners writing New Yorkers. Knitting aficionados writing about murder. Anytime you write about something that you aren’t intimately familiar with, you have a chance. A chance to make it right, or a chance to screw it up. A little extra effort, and the good luck to have the right people to ask, can make the difference between a good book and a great book.

You know, I had a horrible time writing this book. For the first time, I honestly thought I might miss a deadline because it JUST WASN’T WORKING. When Zoë stepped in and bailed me out, all of the little pieces I was looking for fell into place. For the record, she also made a tiny little comment that blew up the entire end of the book, which I had to rewrite this week. And thank God she did, because the book is ten times better for it. I was able to turn it in yesterday, at 3:00 p.m., a full two weeks early.

When you step outside your comfort zone, you have an opportunity to shine. Or to fall flat on your face. You MUST be open to criticism, to hear that you got it wrong, in order to have a chance to make it right. You have to check your ego at the door and open your mind. Otherwise, why are we doing all of this? For our own edification? Naw. We want to create stories that the reader remembers long after they close the cover.

Writers, have you ever researched completely outside your comfort zone?

And readers, just how much are you willing to forgive a writer who makes mistakes in a book?

A small P.S. –

My new Taylor Jackson novel, 14, is set to release on Tuesday, August 25. Rumor has it (okay, it’s not a rumor) Amazon and B&N are already shipping copies, and it’s slipped into a couple of stores (Walmart in Maine? You gotta love that.) You can order your copy here or here, and please, don’t forget to support your independents. Here’s a link to Indiebound — you can find a local indie store that’s carrying 14 through them. We’ve also launched a brand new website, designed by my intrepid and patient husband, which still needs some content updating, but has information on my tour schedule, etc.

Next week I may talk about how surreal it is to have two books on the shelves, or I may just regale you with stories of my search for the perfect margarita during a much needed break at the beach. We’ll see what I’m up for : )

Wine of the Week: I have to do it. I’m not proud of myself for this, but I’ve always vowed to be honest here on the blog. I’ll admit it now: I drank "champagne" from a can. And liked it. It’s called Sofia Blanc de Blanc.

“I’m Mad About My Flat!”

Zoë Sharp

If you’re a Brit, the title of this piece will have a completely different meaning than it does for an American. To an American, "I’m mad about my flat," means, "I’m very annoyed about the puncture to my car tyre." (Or should that be ‘car tire’?) To a Brit, on the other hand, it translates as, "I’m very excited about my apartment."

And then there are all the other phrases that are ripe for misunderstanding. If a Brit says somebody’s ‘pissed’, he or she means they’re very drunk. To be annoyed is to be ‘pissed off’.

On this side of the Atlantic, a ‘sorry ass’ is a donkey that’s feeling under the weather, a ‘fag’ is a cigarette, and I’d be extremely careful before you remark on the pertness of a young lady’s ‘fanny’, as you’re liable to get a proper smack in the mouth.

If someone ‘jacks’ your car over here, they’ve lifted it off its wheels rather than stolen it, although if you’ve had your wallet ‘lifted’ that does mean stolen. If a person is ‘lifting’, however, you might want to stay firmly upwind of them.

Confused? You will be.

Whoever said we are two people separated by a common language got that dead right – and I’m not just talking about the way words are spelt – or should that be spelled?

UK English is a real hotchpotch, a melting pot of words misheard and garbled over centuries, or just plain mugged from other languages. The English slang for a lavatory is ‘loo’, which apparently dates back to Elizabethan times. With no indoor plumbing, people kept a chamber pot under their bed for use during the night. To empty it, they’d simply open an upstairs window and fling the contents out into the street below, with a warning cry of severely mangled French "Gardez l’eau!" (Mind the water) to anyone unfortunate enough to be passing at the time. I blame the Norman Conquest meself.

US words and phrases have slipped under the radar into common usage. I’m more likely to say ‘guy’ than ‘chap’ or ‘bloke’, which might be considered altogether more English. But I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that an Englishman cannot open his mouth without another Englishman despising him. Thus, the subtle indicators of class signalled by the use of ‘what?’ or ‘pardon?’, ‘may I? instead of ‘can I?’, and ‘who’ rather than ‘whom’ can be real giveaways to social position and background.

Of course, today’s influence of US TV and film has caused a certain hybridisation of the language on this side of the Atlantic. It seems to me that if a US series is successful, we get it verbatim over here. But if a UK series is a big hit here, the idea is exported and the show tends to be remade for an American audience. Hence US versions of ‘Men Behaving Badly’ and ‘The Office’. Steve Carell may be very talented, but what was wrong with Ricky Gervais?

Not having watched these shows side by side, I’m not entirely sure why this was done. I get the impression that some people either think the whole of the UK is something out of ‘Jeeves and Wooster’, or alternatively it’s just like ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, and there seems to be very little in between. We’re an uneasy mix of twee thatched cottages and inner city lager-lout mayhem. Jason Statham and Vinnie Jones might have done their bit to bring something of a genuine Cockney accent to a wider audience, but then you hear Don Cheadle’s frankly bizarre attempts in ‘Ocean’s 11/12/13’, and we’re straight back to Dick van Dyke’s cheerful Cock-er-ney chappie in ‘Mary Poppins’.

I’ve travelled a good deal in the US, and not just the usual tourist destinations. And more than the difference in language, I’ve found it’s speed and delivery that seems to cause the most problem. I had to learn to ask a question with a rising inflection in my voice, otherwise it would not be recognised as a question. And to speak a LOT slower. A friend once said that when she was tired we sounded just like the Peanuts parents from the Snoopy cartoons. And last time we were in the US we saw an interview on CNN with the baggage handler from Glasgow Airport who’d helped foil a terrorist attack. His Scottish accent was deemed so thick that they actually subtitled him.

Regional UK accents can cause problems all by themselves, and it’s not hard to see why utter confusion can arise. Take something simple like an endearment, for instance. In the East End of London, I’d be ‘dar-lin’ or ‘awright mate?’ In the West Country, ‘moy luvur’. In Liverpool, ‘laa’. In the Northeast, ‘pet’. In Scotland, ‘hen’. In the East Midlands, ‘me duck’. Whereas in parts of Lancashire it’s not unusual to hear two blokes call each other, ‘love’. And I haven’t even scratched the surface there, although I did discover a long time ago that the best way to disarm a Regimental Sergeant Major was to call him ‘petal’.

Setting a book outside your home territory is one of the biggest challenges for a writer, I feel. Not just in terms of geography, but of character and mind set. Writing convincing characters outside your home culture is a skill all by itself, and certainly not for the faint-hearted. The decision to move my main character to work mainly in the US was not taken lightly. But I wasn’t trying to write an entire book from inside the mind of a foreigner. Charlie’s a Brit and she remains resolutely so in her sense of humour, thought patterns, outlook and speech. The tricky part is always trying to get the US characters’ dialogue to ring true.

There are so many little subtleties in the use of language between us. In the US, someone would be ‘in the hospital’, would ask you to ‘write me’ or ‘call me’, might invite you to ‘go see a movie’, would learn about something ‘in school’. In the UK, you’d be ‘in hospital’, asked to ‘write to me’, or ‘give me a ring’, be invited to ‘go and see a film’, and would learn a subject ‘at school’. Dates are usually recorded day, month, year in the UK, not month, day, year (although I do mine like that, just to be awkward) and the first floor of a building is at ground level.

OK, now are you confused?

I was asked recently if I wrote differently for the US or UK markets, and as I’m doing my series for both at the same time, it has to be something I bear in mind. Mainly, though, I just use the words that spring to (Charlie’s) mind, and wait to have them queried. ‘Liquorice’ was one of the more surprising ones in THIRD STRIKE that I was asked to find an alternative for, I seem to remember. And ‘nip and tuck’ was suggested to mean a close result, which is a phrase that’s only familiar in the UK because of the US-import cosmetic surgery series of the same name. I’m fascinated to know if you’ve come across words that aren’t familiar, or been asked to find substitutes for ones that you thought would be self-explanatory.

One last thing, though. If you’re a Brit invited to someone’s home for a meal in the States, don’t ever offer to ‘lay the table’. It really doesn’t mean the same thing at all over there …

This week’s Word of the Week is hijack. Although it’s come to be associated mainly with airliners, the origins come from old English highwaymen, who would rob horse-drawn coaches at gun point, and of whom Dick Turpin was the most famous example. The traditional opening gambit to the occupants was a shout to "Hold ‘em high, Jack!" meaning everyone on board should stick their hands in the air while the robber took control.

PS This whole train of thought arrived when fellow ‘Rati, JT Ellison asked me if I wouldn’t mind reading through some of the dialogue for a UK character in her next book, EDGE OF BLACK. Having done so, I have one piece of advice – pre-order it NOW! It’s a terrific read and I can’t wait to get my hands on the finished version.