taking risks

I am producing an indie film right now.

A cousin’s wife asked me recently, "How do you go about producing an indie movie?"

My honest reply is that you must have a check list:

Am I insane? (check)

Do I know a bunch of talented-but-insane people who want to work incredibly difficult, long hours, for free? (check)

Do I know, or can I find, insane people willing to part with their money, with only the guarantee that they may not ever see it again, much less a profit? (apparently, yes)

Being a producer is quite a lot like running the long con–you have to convince a tremendous number of people that something that doesn’t exist will eventually exist, if they just pony up their time and money. You have to convince people to take a risk when it is not logical, nor sensible, to do so. And you have to do this knowing ahead of time that what you’re doing is running a bluff, particularly when producing your first movie, because no one really knows for sure if you can do what you’re convincing them you can do. Until you’ve done it. And the best strategy is to tell them ahead of time that you’re running the long con, that you’re asking them to take a risk on something that may turn out to be nothing, but if they hop on board, they get to take that risk with you, and who knows? It may just work out.

It doesn’t hurt that I’ve hedged my bets with a terrific script.

I didn’t want to be a producer. I am probably the most reluctant producer on the planet right now. We have money in the bank for the film, people working their asses off… we’re about to go out of town and shoot some very physically demanding scenes… some incredible footage in the can… and I hadn’t planned on doing any of this. Except that I was handed a terrific script. One that took some risks. I couldn’t not do it.

When a friend of mine said last year that he was polishing up a script of his and he wanted me to produce, I half-ass promised him that I would, if I liked the script. I will be honest with you: I never believed he’d hand me a script I’d like. Not to disparage his writing ability, but because I’m pretty tough on scripts and he knew that. I was glad he knew this about me, because I was going to be honest, and also? I didn’t have time to do a project that didn’t grab my attention and hold on. In fact, I just flat didn’t have time, between the debut book, another one due, family stuff and a construction company. So when he did hand it to me, I started reading the script and thought, Uh oh. This is actually good. And I kept reading it and thought, damnit, this is really freaking good. The writer flipping surprised me and yet, it worked, and I liked the controversy and the resolution. It had the advantage of having an interesting hook (What if an assassin has a major crisis of honor and confidence, and his choices determine which of the people he loves will die?), compelling twists, rich visual imagery, and characters who walked off the page. At which point I thought, fuck, I have to do this movie.

The only notes I had to give the writer was to allow himself to take bigger risks in a couple of places where I could tell he held back. There were notes regarding reorganizing what we see first, to build that compelling hook, but other than that, the script stands as he turned it in. He took some risks: he may not please everyone, and in fact, may tick a lot of people off, but he let his story take some risks and as a result, he has a unique, compelling tale.

Taking risks. It’s what good stories do. If we take a risk, we’re in danger of being a visible failure, of leaping out there without a net and splatting to the floor of the canyon. We may fail. Hell, we may fail miserably. Execution matters. But to not take the risk means to work within the status quo. Aiming for acceptance, aiming for not being vulnerable, and managing, mostly, in not being memorable. Not creating a passionate response.

And who wants to live a life without passion?

So tell me, please, about some good books or movies that you’ve read / seen lately which took some risks which made them compelling and memorable.

(And if you’re anywhere near Wordsmiths Books in Decatur, GA, just outside of Atlanta, Thursday at 7:00, come on by and say hello.)

On the road

by Alex

One thing I particularly love about this new author’s life (there isn’t really much that I don’t love, except the stress…) is the traveling. That’s something I never expected. I’ve always traveled a lot for research (have to, since I can’t seem to set anything anywhere that I actually LIVE). But the business traveling you end up doing as an author is a whole other dimension.

I don’t know how the convention system evolved… that would be interesting to research for another post, actually… but I have to say it’s pure genius on someone’s part. Every quarter, or two months, or if you’re really insane, and some of us are – every month) – you go to some interesting city in some different state to meet up with other authors and readers and publishing people and crime experts, for education, promotion, business, networking and partying.

There are so many great and life-saving things about this system I don’t even know how to start. For one thing, It’s a perfect balance to the rest of the author’s life, which consists pretty much exclusively of sitting in a chair and moving your fingers and stretching once in a while and letting strange things happen in your head. After two or three straight months of that, you need the sensory, visual, emotional, social stimulation of a con. I mean, think of what we would be like if we DIDN’T have that kind of balance? Oversized fungi, that’s what I think.

The promise of conventions is the carrot that keeps me in that chair, writing. But a con is not just a physical and social blowout (although it certainly is that!). It’s also pure business, in the most pleasurable way it can be done. We meet hundreds of people who are there for the precise purpose of meeting new authors and finding new books to read – in the genre that we write in. We go to different regions of the country (and different countries), so we’re expanding our readership and recognition in different areas. Our editors and agents and other members of our publishing teams; and bookstore owners and reviewers are all there, too –everyone we need to check in with on a regular basis is right there – in the seat next to you, in the elevator, across the table, in the bar.

It’s of course a mega-relief to be around other authors, who think nothing of your strange behavior because they’ve got all the same quirks of their own, and who can solve your story and business problems almost by osmosis – just about anyone you meet at one of these things has been through the precise struggle you may be going through at the time and is happy to share wisdom. They’re equally willing to stay out with you all night and perform criminal acts of Karaoke, if that’s your particular pleasure.

And more and more I’m starting to appreciate the educational aspect of these cons. This first year I was so busy meeting people that I rarely made it to any workshops and panels. But in Anchorage, this Bouchercon, there was such a great lineup of forensics experts in the “CSI Alaska” track (and I’m writing a police procedural, now) that I just had to take advantage. And yes, true to convention magic, I got every single bit of the information I needed for my next chapters just by randomly going to these workshops…

But the other side of conventions that is truly genius is that we end up going to so many different places, all over the country. I was going to write about Alaska, today, but I’ve got such a bad head cold I was resisting it. Then when I sat down to write I realized the problem wasn’t my fever, but that I’m not ready to write about Alaska yet. It made such a huge impression on me I’m still processing, and will be for months. It is so different from anywhere I’ve ever been before – a bizarre and astoundingly beautiful mix of Gold Rush, frontier anarchy and shamanic spirituality and criminals and seekers – in this breathtaking world of ice and Alp-like peaks and endless expanses of water and very, very large creatures. There’s no place like it anywhere, and what an amazing setting for a book.

We only get a taste of these places at conventions, but I think we get enough of a taste for an idea to take root, and possibly grow into a future story.

So all hail to whoever dreamed up this convention circuit, and to everyone who’s built it into the support system and inspirational/educational experience that it is. If it did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

Now, I’ve covered a lot of ground this year, and have the Frequent Flyer miles to prove it, but I’m still so new to this that I thought I’d ask everyone – what have been some of your favorite cons and workshops, for the overall experience or for the setting or the quirkiness or for whatever?

That’ll give me something fun to read while I’m languishing in bed, today, thanks!

Goodbye, Miss Moneypenny

by J.T. Ellison

Everyone needs a sidekick.Moneypennymaxwell_2

Whether it’s a beautiful woman to flirt with, a partner who covers your back, a best friend to commiserate with, every hero needs some sort of counterpoint who isn’t an antagonist to help further the story along.

But the tertiary characters are the true source of steam in a good novel. They effortlessly carry the water, give information, help set the scene. They provide clues, background, red herrings. I love building tertiary characters. A name, a description, an action, that’s all you need to have them provide whatever element they’re meant to provide. But it’s the development of these characters without over-development that is a true art.

Look at Moneypenny. How much do we know about her? How many non-dedicated Bond fans know her first name is Jane? Do we have any idea where she lives? What her likes and dislikes are, outside of Bond? Where she went to school? What brand of clothing she wears? What she does with her free time? Whether she’s happy? No, none of that is given to us. But every time she’s in a scene, the sparks fly.

I think a good tertiary character leaves you wanting more of them. They aren’t fully formed, are basically two-dimensional, yet play such an important role in our work.

I admit, in first drafts I have a tendency to throw in people (more on that whole concept of characters are real people next week) without knowing for sure what their role is going to be. I’ve been working on revisions of the third book, and I’ve got two fully blown tertiaries who are integral to the solution of the crime. Jasmine Allons is an Iraqi ex-stripper who is now a massage therapist, the other is Thalia Abbott, a seventeen year old who has quit a secret society of high school porn queens and turned to God.

Now, both these girls were in my head well before they made it to paper. Both are elemental to Taylor solving the case. Chances are neither of them will ever appear again (though Jasmine’s past gives her potential to pop up in later books.) But man, they were fun to write.

I had one in ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS who I thought was fun too — Lurene, the black waitress in a podunk town in Georgia. She and her husband Earl run a diner, and Lurene is all woman. She flirts her way through life with that easy sensuality that comes from being a big woman comfortable in her own skin. Her nurturing in the midst of a bloody crisis center Baldwin’s character. And the scene is just two pages long.

You get the idea. I think those moments outside the lead’s head, away from the usual setting (in my case, the homicide office) lend the story a realistic element. These characters prance across the page, serve their purpose, and disappear. Useful tools. What I love is when an author uses them for more.

Many authors have taken their secondary characters and build stories around them. Perfect example, Robert Crais’ incredibly…  provocative secondary, Joe Pike, Elvis Cole’s sidekick, takes center stage in THE WATCHMAN. But tertiary characters don’t often find themselves with major roles later on.

One author I know has done this is John Sandford. He took one of his repeat tertiary characters, Virgil Flowers ("That fucking Flowers") developed him as a fully blown secondary in his latest Lucas Davenport novel, then wrote an entire book with Flowers as the protagonist (DARK OF THE MOON). And it’s completely believable and successful.

The opposite side of the spectrum is WIDE SARGASSO SEA, by Jean Rhys. She takes the hidden Mrs. Rochester from JANE EYRE and gives her an entire back story — explaining how she met Rochester, their marriage and all the reasons why Rochester is ultimately forced to lock her in the attic. Fascinating book, if you haven’t read it.

The Moneypenny’s of the fiction world drive the story, ad comic relief, drop hints and clues, even unwittingly solve cases. They provide a structure for the protagonist to work within, like the leading edge of a storm, so to speak. Don’t discount the role these characters can play.

I thank Miss Moneypenny, Lois Maxwell, the inspiration for this column.

Question, who are the best tertiary characters you’ve come across? Any other examples of books that came about from a character who was tertiary?

Wine of the Week — Let’s do something worthy of a night out with James Bond: a rare and pricey vintage — 1995 Alvaro Palacios Priorat L’Ermita.   

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Awesome, awesome awesome interview with my darling friend and sometimes sidekick Dave White, author of the recently released WHEN ONE MAN DIES, on Laura Lippman’s site. Check it out, and definitely get yourself a copy of his book. It’s magnificent!

Under the Knife (Part 2)

The story so far.  I’m just about to have an operation when days before, I overhear my doctor having a crisis of faith, which leads me to feel the same way…

I had a pre-op appointment with Dr. Smith the following week. He seemed in fine spirits and didn’t mention seeing us at the restaurant. While he spoke, all I could think about were the cracks that lay beneath this man’s professional veneer. Could he keep them covered up or would they burst through at the worst possible occasion? Namely, when he was operating on me?

Whatever his personal problems were, Dr. Smith was able to separate them from his professional responsibilities. Still, I left his office with a bad case of the heebie-jeebies.

Against my better judgment, I went through with the surgery. Julie dropped me off at the hospital at an ungodly hour. She smiled and left me standing there. Dread similar to those first-day-at-school nerves filled me. I checked in and they snapped a plastic bracelet around my wrist. It was obviously there to make identification easy if everything went pear-shaped.

The admissions clerk pointed me in the direction of the ward where I needed to check in. I wandered along silent corridors, seemingly walking a distance much larger than the building’s dimensions. I never saw a soul. I expected to find a lab marked “Human Experiments.”

Eventually, having walked past it twice, I found my ward. The ward had half a dozen or so people in beds, some asleep, some not. The nurse told me to change. Of course, I had to wear the usual “show my arse to the world” gown, but they gave me some socks with grippy soles that I got to keep, so that made up for flash shots of my arse for anyone too curious. One guy walked by and I swear he was trying to smuggle a bear into the hospital, judging by the thicket of hair squirting from the rear of his hospital johnny.

On several occasions, a doctor or nurse came by to ask me what I was having done, which I found disconcerting. Didn’t they know? Well, to make doubly sure, a nurse came by and wrote “YES” on the knee to be operated on with a big black magic marker. Ah, HMOs…

Dr. Smith checked in with me and introduced me to the anesthesiologist — a serious Asian guy with a minimal command of English. When we’d spoken on the phone a few days earlier, he’d asked me to breathe for him. I’d hoped this was for medical reasons. If it wasn’t, I should have been paid.

The anesthesiologist said he needed to examine me before putting me under. He immediately realized that he didn’t have his stethoscope. Dr. Smith offered the loan of his, but the anesthesiologist turned it down. He asked me to breathe in and out a couple of times (yes, back to the breathing again). I should point out that he never came closer to me than 10 feet. After I breathed for him, he said, “That sounds okay.” Ah, HMOs…

After a couple of hours of sitting in bed, trying to ignore the ticking clock — aren’t hospital beds narrow? — they finally wheeled me down to the morgue-cold operating theater. Masked people, happy to see me (probably because my insurance approval came through), welcomed me into the operating theater. I clambered onto the even narrower operating table that was no wider than my body, with armrests out at ninety-degree angles. When they strapped me down, I must have looked very Christ-like, albeit lying down.

The anesthesiologist pounced on me. He wanted a needle in my arm before the ABBA track finished on the CD player. By the way, they did promise that ABBA would be replaced with classical music during my surgery, but for some strange reason I kept humming Gimme, gimme, gimme a man after midnight after I left the hospital.

The best bit came when one of the nurses said I could have a blanket if I was cold. I was, so I did. The lovely lady swaddled me in two blankets that were toasty warm from some blanket oven somewhere. I felt like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, but this didn’t last long.

The drip needle punctured the back of my hand and wormed its way into my vein. Its invasive touch was lost the moment the ice-cold fluid from the drip crept through my arm like a steel rod. My warm blanket nurse distracted me with some kindly words while sticking vital sign monitors to my nervous body. My other nurse exposed my leg to be operated on and took one of my grippy socks. I told him I wanted that back. The blanket nurse said that the anesthesiologist was giving me something to relax me. As she told me this, I lost control of my eyes. They kept rolling back. I tried to focus on her face and what she was saying, but at some point I blew her off and lapsed into unconsciousness.

The time travel section of my experience began. I woke up in the recovery room with another nurse next to me. She told me that everything had gone well. I checked out a wall clock. A couple of hours had passed. I would have sworn I was out less than 10 minutes. The nurse said something else, but I fell asleep again, activating my time travel hospital bed. When I woke up the next time, it was after one p.m. I was back in the hospital ward where I’d started, with my original nurses. The nurses explained some other things to me and gave me my time traveler’s meal: graham crackers and orange juice. Time fast-forwarded another 30 minutes. Then it was time to go. I remember my clothes being given to me but I don’t remember dressing. I hope no one took advantage of me.

If they did, I hope they call.

Whatever problems my doctor had, I have to admit he did a first class job. His stitching was neat and my recovery was swift.

But there was some bad news. They found my ACL (a ligament with a lot of vowels) was also torn, which means I face another op, a fairly major one. Enter the creepy stuff. I thought the doctor could fix it with some medical bondo and a staple gun or some such — but oh, no. To fix it, he has to graft ligament to it from somewhere else on my body or use a synthetic ligament or — wait for it — he can graft bone and ligament from a cadaver. Nice. I discussed my options with Dr. Smith. All the options sounded unpleasant. I wasn’t wild about fixing my knee with dead dude parts. Julie is trying to convince me to go with the cadaver option, because there may be a story in it. I’ll think about it…

As a footnote to this story, Dr. Smith left the hospital to open his own practice shortly after operating on me. Before the practice reached its first anniversary, I received a letter saying he was moving away. He recommended another doctor for further treatments. All said and done, I liked Dr. Smith. He was a nice guy and I trusted him, in spite of his problems. Now that it looks as if I need the second procedure, I wish he was still around to cut me.

Yours in one piece,
Simon Wood
PS: Thanks to everyone who sent kind messages about the Anthony win.

Funny Business

By Louise Ure

New comics added at the bottom of the column!


It’s one of those days.

Time to step back from the seriousness of writing and realize that this is a very funny business we’re in.

Comicsstart

Let’s start at the beginning.

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And then the reality sets in.

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But what to write?

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It seemed so easy at the time.

 

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We finally begin … (This one is particularly near and dear to my heart.)

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It’s not as easy as we were led to believe …

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We look for help everywhere …

 

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To no avail.

 

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And write, and write, and rewrite.

 

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Finally … finally … the work is done. And an editor loves it.

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At a signing, someone not related to you stops by the table …

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Then you sit down and do it all over again.

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Got any good jokes or comic strips to share? Feel free to describe them, or send me a JPEG or the link, or fax them to me at 415-831-9650. I’ll scan them into the computer and add them to the blog as the day goes on.

And my own special poll: which of these comics best describes your writing (or reading) life?

Just sit back, relax and take a deep breath. Remember, it isn’t like you’re putting on pantyhose and commuting to work everyday.

Here’s a beaut, just in from JD Rhoades.

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And here’s another helpful spouse, in reply to Pari’s comment:

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This one’s in honor of Simon Wood’s Anthony Award for Best Short Story:

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Here are a couple of oldies but goodies, offered by "Anon":

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Check out these new four new ones, sent by Cynthia D’Alba. And in the last one … his $25,000 advance? Pfffttttt.


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His name was Carl

by Pari Noskin Taichert

She was 18, home from her first year at college. They met at the diner where they both worked. She, a waitress. He, a prep cook and dish washer. He represented everything she knew nothing about — coarse, druggie, uneducated. She was fascinated.

He asked her to come over one night after work, near 2 a.m.

Why not? He intrigued her.

They walked to his apartment, her trusting him with all the naivete of a kid who’d mainly seen the good side of life. His place was in the bad part of town, somewhere she’d never been allowed to go before. But she felt safe with him. He was big, probably outweighed her by 125 pounds. He’d know what to do in a dangerous moment.

The apartment he took her to couldn’t have been a place where anyone actually lived. No telephone. No mattress on the bed. His brother and wife were supposed to be there, too. Only, they weren’t.

The small fridge was full of cheap beer. She drank one with him, then another, feeling increasingly unsure. Fear wormed through her shell of optimism when she realized how limited her choices really were. Should she stay with him — a sort-of known quantity — or go outside and take her chances in the unfamiliar dark?

His face changed into a mask of oddness. His eyes no longer focused on her. The folly of her trust became apparent when he began talking about her being his "guardian angel" and the "purity of her light." He smoked a joint and then offered her the next one. Trembling, she refused.

During the next four hours, she learned that she could leave her body, go somewhere else, totally disassociate from the pain and horror. She survived it all and left him, sleeping, on the floor. In the cool early morning, the bruises and bites were only small remnants of her loss of innocence. She now knew, with unshakable certainty, that some people were simply, sickly, insane.

Her mother noticed the violent signs, but never asked.

Carl skipped town the next day.

Though she continued to work at the diner for a few more weeks, she never saw him again.

She also never spoke about it until 12 years later. A serial rapist terrorized the part of town where she lived. One afternoon, walking home from the store, she thought someone had followed her. In her apartment, she threw her groceries onto the kitchen counter and ran to the bedroom closet. She cowered there for two hours. The ice cream melted. Finally, she acknowledged the rip in her own core.

She called the police first, to report what she’d seen. Then she called the rape crisis center, went for counseling, and began to unravel her tangled despair.

Yes, it’s a true story. What a difference a few pronouns can make: she, her and they rather than I, my and we.

I wrote this after reading Ken’s and Dusty’s posts last week. What struck me was the thin line we writers tread, tiptoeing down dark alleys, mining our own sorrows and experiences.

We can craft the output. We can experiment with description, tense, POV, what to include and what to leave out.

We can re-write our histories.
My heart goes out to those people who can’t.

Breaking News

Sorry for the intrusion on Dave’s wonderful post, but . . .
Congrats to Simon Wood on his Anthony Award for best Short Story! And congrats to Alex for her nom for best first novel. 

Hey, congrats to every single nominee! What a wonderful awards ceremony last night must have been. 
Cheers, Pari