Recipe for the Perfect Villain: Stir Until Plot Thickens

The new grocery store sales flyers are now available and the deals this week are spectacular. In fact, the selections are especially wonderful for writers hoping to spice up their current villains.

So travel past the melons, the seafood, eggs, bacon, and English Muffins, and then take the turn on the far side of the toilet tissue aisle and that’s where you’ll find the real bargains of the week—the ingredients to concoct THE perfect villain.

And, to help out, here’s a tasty recipe to add to your file.

Hurry, we can’t wait to see how your next “dish” turns out!
 

Orange Brown Icon General Recipe Card by Lee Lofland
 

/by
,

Common Sense Works for Lee Child: Writing Believable Make-Believe

Today, as your keystrokes guide your police officer/detective/protagonist through the perils that go hand-in-hand with saving the day, pause for just a moment to consider the lives of real-life officers. Do your characters measure up to a human officer’s abilities? Have you over-written the character? Are they mindless, superheroes? Have you given them human emotions? Is the danger level realistic? Are they believable?

Think about what you’ve seen on this site for the past few years—cordite (NO!), uniforms, handcuffs, Miranda, Glocks, Sig Sauers, edged weapons, defensive tactics, etc. Where do I get the ideas for blog topics? Well, I read a lot. A whole lot. Book after book after book. I read tons of books including books penned by readers of this blog. Therefore, and unfortunately so, I have a near endless supply of fodder for articles—the mistakes writers make in their books (smelling cordite, thumbing off safeties when there aren’t any, etc.).

For example, while pouring over the pages of a wonderfully written book, a paragraph stopped me dead in my tracks.

Wonderfully Written Book

So I backed up to re-read the last few lines to make certain that what I’d read was actually on the page and not my mind playing tricks on my tired eyes. Nope, there it was as plain as day, one of the most impossible, unbelievable means to kill ever written (I won’t go into detail because the book is very new). Then, to make matters even worse, the scene was followed by a few more paragraphs containing incorrect information about the weapons and materials involved in the goofy slaying. Not even close to realism.

Now I have a problem. I really liked this author’s voice. It was fresh, new, and exciting. However, I doubt that I’ll have the courage to pick up another book written by this particular author. Why? Because he/she didn’t bother to check facts. The writer didn’t attempt even the slightest effort to use common sense. Actually, I wondered if they’d ever seen a real-life cop.

Common Sense Works for Lee Child: Writing Believable Make-Believe

One of the best thriller writers of our time, Lee Child, writes a ton of over the top action, but he does so in a way that makes you believe it, even though some of it probably couldn’t happen in real life.

Lee Child – Writers’ Police Academy

I once asked Lee how much research he conducts before writing his books. His answer was (click here to read the entire interview), “Better to ask if I do any research before I write the last word! I don’t do any general research. I depend on things I have already read or seen or internalized, maybe years before.

I ask people about specific details … like I asked you what a rural police chief might have in his trunk.  But in terms of large themes I think it’s difficult to research too close to the time of writing … research is like an iceberg—90% of it needs to be discarded, and it’s hard to do that without perspective.”

So how does Lee make all that wacky action work? He uses common sense. Well, that and more talent in his little finger than I have in my dreams.

/by

The Ultimate Crime Writer’s Mini Dictionary

Allele – The characteristics of a single copy of a specific gene, or of a single copy of a specific place on a chromosome.

Alternate light source – Special lighting device that help investigators locate and visually enhance items of evidence—body fluids, fingerprints, fibers).

Angle of Impact – The angle at which a drop of blood strikes a surface.

Area of Convergence – The area where, when lines are drawn (or through use of string) through the long axes of blood stains, all points intersect. This point of intersection  indicates the location of the blood source.

Area of Origin – The location from which blood spatter originated.

Backspatter Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from blood drops that traveled in the opposite direction of the external force applied.

Ballistics – Scientific study of the motion of projectiles.

Biological evidence – Physical evidence that originated from a human, plant, or animal.

Blood Clot – A gelatinous mass formed by a combination of red blood cells, fibrinogen, platelets, and other clotting factors.

Bloodstain – An area where blood contacts a surface.

Bloodstain Pattern – A grouping of bloodstains that indicates the manner in which the pattern was distributed.

Bubble Ring – An outline within a bloodstain caused by air in the blood.

Cast-off Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from blood drops released from an object in motion (a bloody hammer or ax, for example).

Chain of custody – The process used to maintain and document the chronological history of the evidence. It is a written record of each person who handled a particular piece of evidence.

Cross-contamination – The unwanted transfer of material between two or more objects. For example, touching an object containing blood and then using the same hand to handle a different item. DNA, blood, etc. could transfer from the original object to the other.

Drip Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from a liquid that dripped onto a surface or into another liquid.

Drip Stain – A bloodstain resulting from a falling drop.

Drip Trail – A bloodstain pattern resulting from the movement of its source.

Edge Characteristic – The physical characteristics of the periphery of a bloodstain.

Electrostatic dust print lifter − A system that applies a high-voltage electrostatic charge on a piece of lifting film, causing dust or residue particles from a print to transfer to the underside of the lifting film. Some of you may remember seeing this in use at the Writers’ Police Academy. (Picture at right – author Donna Andrews – Writers’ Police Academy)

Expiration Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from blood forced by airflow out of the nose, mouth, or a wound. (Expiration – exhalation of breath).

Firing pin/striker – The component/part of a firearm that contacts the ammunition causing it to fire.

Forward Spatter Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from blood drops that traveled in the same direction as the the item causing the force (A baseball bat in motion).

Homogenization – process of preparing tissue for analysis by grinding tissue in amount of water (precisely measured, of course).

Impact Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from an object striking liquid blood.

Impression evidence – Materials that keep the characteristics of other objects that have been pressed against them, such as a footprint in mud.

Latent print – A print that is not visible under normal lighting.

Locard’s Exchange Principle – The theory that every person who enters or leaves an area will deposit or remove physical items from the scene.

Locus – The specific location of a gene on a chromosome; the plural form is loci.

Luminol  – A chemical that exhibits chemiluminescence, a blue glow, when mixed with an oxidizing agent. Luminol is used detect trace amounts of blood left at crime scenes as it reacts with iron found in hemoglobin. Horseradish can leave a flash positive, but its glow is not as bright as the glow produced by blood. Other items could also produce false positives, but they, too, do not glow as brightly as blood.

Magazine – A container that feeds cartridges into the chamber of a firearm.

Mist Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from blood reduced to a fine spray as a result of an applied force.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) – DNA located in the mitochondria found in each cell of a body. Can be used to link a common female ancestor.

Nuclear DNA – DNA located in the nucleus of a cell.

Parent Stain – A bloodstain from which a satellite stain originated.

Post-mortem redistribution – Toxicological phenomenon of an increase in drug concentration after death.

Primer – The chemical composition that, when struck by a firing pin, ignites smokeless powder., NOT CORDITE!

Pistol – A handgun which uses a magazine and ejects fired cartridge cases automatically.

Plasma – The clear, yellowish fluid portion of blood.

Plastic − A type of print that is three-dimensional.

Platelet – An irregularly shaped cell-like particle in the blood that is an important part of blood clotting. Platelets are activated when an injury breaches a blood vessel to break. Platelets then change shape and begin adhering to the broken vessel wall and to each other. This is the start of the clotting process.

Pool – An accumulation of liquid blood on a surface.

Bloodstain pattern investigation workshop #2017WPA

Projected Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from liquid blood that’s leaking while under pressure, such as a spurt or spray.

Revolver – A handgun that has a rotating cylinder. Cartridge casings are not automatically ejected when fired.

Saturation Stain – A bloodstain resulting from the accumulation of liquid blood in an absorbent material, such as clothing or bedding.

Serum Stain – The stain resulting from the liquid portion of blood (serum) that separates during coagulation.

Spatter Stain – A bloodstain resulting from a blood drop dispersed through the air due to an external force (a bullet, bat, hammer, rock, etc.).

Spines – A bloodstain feature resembling rays/lines emanating out from the edge of a blood drop.

Splash Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from a volume of liquid blood that falls and or spills onto a surface.

Swipe Pattern – A bloodstain pattern resulting from the transfer of blood from a blood-stained surface onto another surface, such as the swipe/wipe of a rag or cloth through a bloody area.

Transfer Stain – A bloodstain resulting from contact between a bloodstained surface and another area/item.

Crime Scenes … Watch Your Step!

Transient evidence – Evidence that could lose its evidentiary value if not protected, such as blood, semen, fingerprints exposed to the rain.

Void – An absence of blood in an otherwise continuous bloodstain pattern.

Wipe Pattern – An altered bloodstain pattern caused when an object passes through a wet bloodstain.

/by
,

Biff Steele: Have You Created A Rocky Hardplace?

Between a rock and a hard place

I cringed when I read the opening line of the first draft of the new series. She’d named me Biff Steele, as if Rod Manly hadn’t been bad enough in the previous books. But names, however cheesy they may be, are not the worst thing that could happen to me. At least my author does her homework, unlike my best friend’s creator.

My pal, poor guy, has lived a really tough life. Not only does he have a name worse than mine—Rocky Hardplace—his psycho-behind-the-keyboard author lives her fantasies through him—killing, bombing, fighting, shooting, and sex … so much sex. Too much sex. SEX, SEX, SEX. It must be all she ever thinks of, day and night. Well, that and how to solve crimes using the dumb stuff she sees on TV shows. Doesn’t she realize that most of those characters are also products of poor research and fantasy?

My writer understands the huge differences between the written word and the on-screen action seen on TV and film. Live-action stuff quite often needs over the top excitement to capture and hold the attention of a viewing audience. TV watchers see events unfold in vivid color. They hear the excitement pumping throughout their living rooms via high-dollar surround sound systems.

Readers, on the other hand, require a carefully planned and plotted mental massaging of each of the senses in order to bring movement and stimulation to what’s nothing more than carefully arranged blots of ink on a page. There are no images within a murder mystery; therefore, the writer must somehow form detailed pictures inside a reader’s mind.

We, as characters who’ve traveled the paths inside the minds of readers, know that each person has a different perception of what they read, and that’s because they draw upon their own past experiences. And this is where Rocky Hardplace’s writer really goofs. She has no experience in the world of cops and robbers so she makes up what should be realistic information, and some of it is totally absurd.

Unfortunately, the poor woman has Rocky tromping about his fictional city while doing some pretty ridiculous stuff—shooting a revolver that spews spent brass, knocking out bad guys with nothing more than a tap to the back of the neck, shooting guns from the hands of serial killers, and her wacky-ass notion that FBI agents ride into town on white horses to solve every murder and kidnapping case. And the cordite … puhleeze!

Thankfully, as I said earlier, my author does her homework. She reads books such as Police Procedure and Investigation, and she’s a regular reader of this blog. She also attends the Writers’ Police Academy.

Yes, my writer is a fictional hero’s dream author. I rarely ever do stupid stuff in my quest to save my city from crime and corruption (Have you ever noticed how much of this stuff goes on in books? I’m thankful that reality isn’t nearly as bad).

My author dresses me nicely. I carry the best guns money can buy. I’m an expert in ten different martial arts styles/systems. I have only super intelligent girlfriends. My work partner is smart, but remains at one level below me. I drive a really cool car. I live in a wonderful beach house. I have a flea-less dog as a best friend. And I have just enough flaws and quirks to keep my fans interested. Yes, my world is perfect.

If only I could convince her to change my name. Biff Steele … yuck.

/by
,

Building Characters Using Everyday Items Found Around the House

The Professor is here today to share a few tips on developing well-rounded and layered characters. As in his last tip, Interviewing Your Characters, The Professor believes that police investigators have what it takes to concoct believable fictional characters, and here’s why you should add a few of these suggestions to your writers’ toolkit.

When officers search a suspect’s apartment or a murder victim’s home, they’re not only looking for physical evidence of the crime, they’re also seeking information about the current resident. Therefore, they take a good hard look at the possessions in the home, because those personal objects tell a vivid story.

While conducting the in-depth search, detectives are essentially reading an autobiography. They’ll learn things such as the person’s favorite color, their favorite authors, the extent of their wealth (if any), secrets (a diary or journal), left- or right-handed, natural hair color, travels, family history, etc.

The Professor suggests that writers may want to build a list of the personal possessions of the character-in-progress. Doing so will greatly assist them in developing a character’s personality, and how the character goes about his/her daily affairs.

Lets say you’re developing a female protagonist—a woman who’s known for her superb crime-solving abilities. You might want the reader to see the sleuth’s home as a place crammed full of mystery novels and forensics manuals, magnifying glasses of all sizes, and a fully-functional DNA lab in the basement. However, her most prized-possessions are, oddly, a large assortment of big, floppy straw hats.

As the readers step into your character’s kitchen they see weight loss products lining the counter (has she struggled with weight issues?). The cabinets are filled with canned goods, pots, pans, dishes, and an assortment of tea blends from all over the world. Everything is arranged by size and they’re placed in alphabetical order. The kitchen is spotless. Like the rest of the house, not a thing is out of place, and you couldn’t find a dust bunny if you tried. A tour of her bedroom closet exposes only comfortable, flat shoes and print dresses in various hues of red. Her medicine cabinet contains denture cream, Ibuprofen, and hair dye.

Have you started to develop a mental picture of the character yet? Do you have some sort of idea of her mannerisms? If you close your eyes are you beginning to see someone who maybe looks a little like this …

So, now that we have an outline of our character, and we know a bit of her personality (she’s a neat freak who prefers comfort over style, and she loves, loves, loves, tea), we can start to add some color between the lines. To do so, writers should take a look at their character’s possessions and then ask why they possess each of those items.

The denture cream. Does she own it because she actually has dentures, or, is there a gentleman caller with detachable upper and lower plates who often spends the night? How about the assortment of exotic teas? Does she drink the stuff, or is she merely an eccentric collector? Are the tea packets souvenirs from extensive travel? Maybe her gentleman caller is an airline pilot who picks up the various blends during his extensive travels.

So, you see, building a character can be fun. All you have to do is unlock your imagination and travel to where your warped little writer-minds take you, no matter how goofy the place may be …

/by
,

How to Write Micro-Fiction: The 200-Word Short Story

Writing a complete story in exactly 200 words can be a bit of a challenge, especially when the stories must contain a beginning, middle, and end. After all, that’s sort of what makes a story out of a grouping of individual words, right?

The trick is to arrange those 200 words into an order that makes them pleasing to our eyes, ears, brains, emotions, and our hearts. In other “words” (pun intended), readers want to feel what they read.

So what’s the best way to get started on these micro creations? Easy answer. You need a subject/topic/story.

Small ideas

Keep the idea small. A BIG story can be far too convoluted to cut to a maximum goal of, say, 200 words, such as the word count for the wildly popular Golden Donut Short Story Contest.

You’ve often heard me speak of police officers needing to avoid tunnel vision and that need is for a few reasons, safety being number one. Number two is to avoid missing any and all details, including details that may later prove to be unnecessary to the case.

The opposite is true when writing flash fiction. Writers need a dose of tunnel vision to help them complete their word-challenged stories. Keeping on the blinders, focusing mostly on the end, helps to avoid the use of unneeded words.

The inspiration

No inspiration? No ideas? Brain as empty as a California lake in the summertime? Easy answer.

Use a photo prompt

For inspiration, pick a photo from your last vacation. Maybe you saw a cool image on someone’s website, the newspaper, a blog.

Okay, you have an idea for a story. What’s next? Again, easy answer.

Where to start?

What about starting in the middle of the story, where the character’s conflict begins, avoiding the use of backstory, flashbacks, prologues, and other filler. Why do this? You don’t have the space for it for one thing. Every single word must count when writing flash fiction. This is even more crucial with writing micro-flash fiction. Shorter paragraphs helps when editing.

Write

This, however, is not the time to worry about the word count. Simply write the story and let the words flow. You can trim later.

Emotion

You absolutely must make your readers feel … something. It is up to you to decide what that something truly is. But whatever you select, be sure to keep it simple. There is not enough space to branch out too far, so pick a couple of focus areas and perhaps start out having your readers experience one feeling at the onset but end with a different emotion altogether. Their rollercoaster ride will be worth your effort. But DO NOT go overboard. This is not the place for emotion that doesn’t remain within the boundaries of your tunnel vision-esque story.

Characters

One or two are all that’s needed. Any more and the dialog could become confusing. Besides, too many names eats up word count like watching videos on a crappy wireless data plan chews up precious minutes. The same is true with dialog. A family of twelve all talking to a homicide detective who’s barking out orders to a 10-person CSI team along with four other detectives could wipe out the entire word count in a single, unimportant scene.

Keep in mind that your story and/or characters may develop a different appearance than the one in your mind when you first sat down to write.

Character Arc

Sure, your tale is only 200 words in length (or 50 or 1,000), but your character absolutely must grow within that confined space.

Subplots

Skip them. there’s no room. Stick to a main theme.

SHOW, SHOW, SHOW!

This goes without saying. SHOW the action in your story. Don’t tell us. For example:

“They jumped until they quit.”

The line is a bit vague. It tells us something, but it’s extremely uninteresting. How about …

“Tom and Nancy played a game, seeing who could hop up and down the longest. Tom lost.”

I know. Not the best writing in the world, but you get the idea.

Beginning, Middle, End, and CONFLICT!

Writing flash fiction is not an excuse to cut corners. Each story must have a beginning, middle, and end (a twisted ending is sometimes a nice surprise). And there must be conflict and story resolution. We must feel the struggle (be it internal or external) and then we must see relief (emotional or physical) from that conflict.

Title

The title of a work of flash fiction is extremely important (especially if it’s also part of the word count). It’s the hook. It must cause the reader to stop in their tracks to read your story. It must be THAT compelling. But do not allow it to be so doggone good that it gives away the entire story.

Okay, you’ve finished your masterpiece. What next?

Edit

Now’s the time to break out the carving knives and go to work trimming all the fat. Why? Because your 200 word tale comes in somewhere the other side of 100,000 words. Why? Because you love to hear yourself write. You love your fancy-smancy words and you love your voice and your story was absolutely far too good to tell in only … 200 words???

Okay, with red pen sharpened it’s time to cut all the “LY” words and the other stuff you don’t need.

For example, Billy needs to let his mother know he’ll be late coming home after school. That’s all she needs to know to help our story advance. So we, a group of unapologetic flowery writers, write.

Billy picked up the black phone, the one with the blue buttons and the $200 screen protector, and used it to call his mom, a server at Pete’s Possum Gut Gourmet Diner and Horse-Shoeing Parlor, to tell her that he’d be late coming home after school because he wanted to play ball with 12 or 15 of his friends at the church lot over on Elm. 

Well, we know a lot about Billy, his mom and his friends and the area. But how much information do we really need to get the point across? How’s this?

Billy called his mom to say he’d be late for dinner.

69 words in the first sentence. 12 in the latter.

Words to lose – the space wasters.

These words are very nice words. I like them a lot. They’re amazing, good, incredible, and just plain uniquely and totally and pleasantly perfect. But avoid them if at all possible. You don’t need them. They’re space wasters.

Say NO to:

a lot
absolutely
actually
amazing
basically
essentially
funny
given the fact that
good
hopefully
incredible
just
kind of
literally
many
nice
perfect
perhaps
pleasant
pretty
probably
quite
really
so
sort of
suddenly
totally
truly unique
usually
very

And other words ending in “LY.”

Now You’re Ready …

to enter the Golden Donut Short Story Contest and win the Golden Donut Award and FREE registration to the 2018 Writers’ Police Academy (prize value is well over $400). Submission deadline is July 2, 2017. This is a FUN contest!!

Here are some of the stories (and a photo prompt) from past contests.

Golden Donut 200-Word stories

/by

Use Common Sense: Avoid Mindless Superheroes

Mindless Super Hero

Today, when your keystrokes guide your protagonists through the perils that go hand-in-hand with saving the day, pause for just a moment and consider the lives of real-life officers. Do your characters measure up to a human officer’s abilities? Have you over-written the character? Are they mindless superheroes like the one in the photo above? Have you given them human emotions? Is the danger level realistic? Are they believable?

Think about what you’ve seen on this site for the past few years—cordite, uniforms, handcuffs, Miranda, Glocks, SIG Sauers, edged weapons, defensive tactics, etc. Where do I get my ideas? Well … mostly from the mistakes I see in those books I read (smelling cordite, thumbing off safeties when there aren’t any, etc.).

I read a lot. A whole lot. Book after book after book, including tons of books written by readers of this blog. Just this past weekend I was pouring over the pages of a wonderfully written book when suddenly a paragraph stopped me dead in my tracks. So I backed up to re-read the last few lines to make certain that what I’d read was actually on the page and not my mind playing tricks on my tired eyes.

Nope, there it was as plain as day. One of the most impossible, unbelievable ways to kill ever written (I won’t go into detail because the book is very new). Then, to make matters even worse, the scene was followed by a few more paragraphs containing incorrect information about the weapons and materials involved in the goofy slaying. Not even close to realism.

Now I have a problem. I really liked this author’s voice. It was fresh, new, and exciting. However, I doubt that I’ll have the courage to pick up another book written by this particular author. Why? Because he/she didn’t bother to check facts. The author didn’t even make an effort to use common sense. I wondered if they’d ever seen a real-life cop.

Mindless Superhero

One of the best thriller writers of our time, Lee Child, writes some pretty over the top action, but he does so in a way that makes us believe every word, even though some of it probably couldn’t happen in real life.

I once asked Lee how much research he conducts before writing his books. His answer … “Better to ask if I do any research before I write the last word! I don’t do any general research. I depend on things I have already read or seen or internalized, maybe years before. I ask people about specific details … like I asked you what a rural police chief might have in his trunk.  But in terms of large themes I think it’s difficult to research too close to the time of writing … research is like an iceberg – 90% of it needs to be discarded, and it’s hard to do that without perspective.”

So how does Lee make all that wacky action work? He uses common sense. Well, that and more talent in his little finger than I have in my dreams.

So yeah … common sense.

Please don’t write mindless supercops.

/by

The Professor’s Tips for Developing Believable Characters

Believable Characters

Writing Believable Characters

We recently took a short trip where I ran into a fellow who considers himself an expert on writing fiction. He’s also a retired police detective. The wise old gentleman wouldn’t tell me his name, asking that I refer to him as “The Professor.”

He did, however, share some of his writing tips with me, and here’s what The Professor had to say about the correlation between police officers and fictional character development.

The Professor: Police officers have unknowingly cornered the market on developing believable fictional characters. It’s something they do on a daily basis while interviewing witnesses to crimes. Their job is to help those witnesses reach deep into the corners of their minds, where they’ve stored details that help round out descriptions of suspects—scars, tattoos, a limp, a missing finger, an odd accent, a habit of throat clearing or twirling a lock of hair, a mole on the cheek, a distinct cologne, etc. The perfect end result is, of course, a wonderfully detailed picture of a unique person who’d stand out in a crowd of dozens.

Writers have the same job—develop characters with unique qualities and physical appearance. Story creators must go a few steps further, though, showing readers a character’s personalities, their strengths and flaws, and how they live their lives.

It’s best when writers introduce character traits through means other than like listing a string of grocery items—he was a tall, thin, bald, sad, and nervous man. Instead, how about …

Andre stopped by, asking if I’d join him on a trip to visit a sick friend. I didn’t want to, despising anything having to do with germs, but I owed him a favor so I grabbed my hat and coat and followed him to his car.

His friend’s house was a freaking mansion. My place could fit inside ten times, or more. An elderly housekeeper showed us to a room at the rear of the house.

Andre ducked as he entered the bedroom, which, as with most pro basketball players, was something he was used to doing, in every single house he’d ever visited. Thankfully, the ceiling inside this particular room was vaulted. His slick scalp reflected the light from the overhead fixture. 

Andre flashed a lopsided smile at his dying friend, exposing a set of teeth as bright as the keys on a new Steinway piano. He couldn’t see to find the right words to say to the man he’d known since childhood, so he stood at the side of his friend’s deathbed, staring down at his own feet while jingling the change in his pocket. He watched a tiny spider fall from the bed railing to floor, where it scurried away to the shadows beneath a well-worn and tattered wingback chair. I wished he could join the insect, to avoid the strained silence that hung heavy in the room.

Sure, it was overwritten and poorly written, but to make the point that showing something is far more interesting than typing a long laundry list of encyclopedic details (info dump).

Anyway, writers sometimes experience a bit of difficulty bringing life to characters, so here’s a simple Professor-tested method that might help out.

Interview Your Fictional Character

Pretend you’re sitting across the breakfast table from, say … this guy.

You want to know what makes this fellow tick. So you might want to start out the interview by asking:

1. Are you angry because you recently filed your teeth to sharp points and you’re now in excruciating pain? Have you ever worked in any factory as the person who perforates stuff, like those holes in crackers?

2. What are your favorite foods? Do you have trouble eating corn on the cob?

3. Where do you live? Is your castle equipped with electricity, or do you use an open fire to boil water for children-cooking?

4. Have you killed anyone else besides your mother and the ladies of the Afternoon Tea Club?

5. Do have any hobbies? Well, other than chopping people into tiny bits?

6. What is your deepest, darkest secret? I know you mentioned wanting to learn ballet, but I mean something you’re holding really deep down.

7. What’s your favorite color, other than blood red, that is?

8. Are you religious? Do you regularly sacrifice animals, or small women and large children?

9. What’s your favorite time of day? You know, when you’re most active doing whatever it is you do?

10. What is your most valued possession? No, I don’t mean the girl in the basement.

11. Is your dentist sight-challenged?

12. Do you prefer your human flesh to be rare or well-done?

Once you’ve completed the interview, try asking your soon-to-be character if it’s okay if you have a quick look around the inside of his house (you may have to promise that you won’t call the police, or his probation officer). During the quick tour of his charming abode, make note of the things you see. A character’s possessions will tell you a great deal about him.

1. Clothing – you see nothing but tattered and well-worn overalls and grungy work shirts. Now you know he’s probably a man who works with his hands. This could indicate someone who frequents honky-tonk bars and has friends who drive rusted and dented pickup trucks with assorted meat hooks scattered about the bed. A matchbook collection from various bars would also be a clue. So would a scrapbook containing locks of assorted hair colors and types, labeled “Girls from bars I go to to find girls I want to kill and then take their hair as trophies.”

Suits and ties = a man who works in an office setting, therefore he most likely pals around with other business people before killing and dismembering them and roasting their remains in the assortment of Easy-Bake Ovens he keeps in his basement playroom.

2. Your guy from the above photo might possess a backpack filled with human heads, and that could be a great clue about his hobbies and interests.

3. There may be a secret door in “Pointy-Teeth’s” bedroom that leads to a torture chamber. Now you know where he spends his weekends.

4. Are his knives and chainsaws new, old, broken, or meticulously cared for?

5. If he were to take a trip to Transylvania, what would he pack to be certain all his needs are met?

6. The very last question of your life might be, “Why do you keep your best cutlery locked in that bloodstained footlocker?

Then, when you’re all done and your character comes to life right there in your office, it’s time for you to make an appointment with your shrink to find out why your mind works like it does. Why are you so weird? Why do all your thoughts drift back to the murder on page 666? Why do you write about death and poisons and autopsy? Why? Why? Why?

Perhaps it is indeed time to check yourself into a nervous hospital. At the very least you should up the dosage of your nervous medicine. Before you do, though … we want to know what happens to Pointy-Teeth. So get busy and write, write, WRITE!!

background: #bd081c no-repeat scroll 3px 50% / 14px 14px; position: absolute; opacity: 1; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer; top: 937px; left: 20px;”>Save

/by

Pink Prancing Flea Peas: When Inaccuracies are Just, Well … Wrong

 

I’m a avid and voracious reader. I do so for enjoyment and to take me to places that live in the far corners of an author’s mind. However, there are occasions when what I see on a page takes me completely out of the story and back to reality. And that’s not good. Readers like myself tend to not like it when a huge STOP sign pops up in mid sentence. Or when the hand of “What the Heck Was That” snatches them back to the real world.

Those “things” I speak of, the ones that bug me the most, are inaccuracies regarding various details of police investigations, police officers, etc.

In this age of online information, citizen police academies, and having the Writers’ Police Academy readily available, even people who don’t work in law enforcement are far more knowledgeable about police officers and their duties and how they investigate crimes than they were just a few years ago. They really do know about guns, search warrants, and arrest techniques.

As an example of misinformation found in books, I recently read a line or two describing a man using a Taser on another person where the jolt of current immediately sent the victim into a state of extremely violent twitching and writhing before completely passing out. Then, when he came to he was unable to walk, had no control over his limbs, and was groggy for quite a while afterward. As they say, Puhleeze … This is not how it works.

Here’s a brief video showing the true effects of a Taser.

Problem number two … cops yelling, “Freeze!” when they want someone to stop doing whatever it is they’re doing.

Police officers should not use ambiguous commands/words such as “freeze.” After all, what exactly does this officer expect? Does he want the guy’s body temperature to rapidly fall to the point where his blood becomes a solid? Of course, not, obviously.

Suppose the officer speaks with a heavy accent and his “freeze” command sounds like Fleas! or Peas! or Please! I imagine some two-bit B&E guy running away from the scene when he hears a beat cop hollering “Fleas! Peas! Puleeeeeze!” The bad guy would probably think Dr. Suess was in hot pursuit along with an army of pink prancing pea fleas, a thought that would merely serve as the catalyst that makes people’s feet move faster. I mean, who wants to be chased by such creatures?

Anyway, this is why it’s best for officers to use simple and universal words such as Stop! and Hands up! But we continue to see “Freeze!” written in books and on TV shows. And, I’m sure a few officers are guilty of this as well, especially those who watch too much television.

Although, I have seen officers, in the heat of moment, draw total blanks when it comes to what they should say at that specific point in time, such as repeatedly yelling, “Get on the ground! Get on the ground!,” to a man who was already face down on the pavement. What the officer’s brain was telling her to say was, “Put your hands behind your back.” However, what came out of her mouth was something else entirely.

But to use the command “Freeze” when when you want someone to stop whatever it is they’re doing, well, just have your character use another more readily understood word. UNLESS, you’re going for confusion and/or humor. Or, if you’re writing the next Dr. Suess book, Paul Penguin Ponders Pink Prancing Flea Peas.

~

Paul Penguin Ponders Pink Prancing Flea Peas

(an excerpt)

 

One pea

Two peas

Pink pea

Prancing Pea.

 

Run pea

Walk pea

Freeze pea

Flea pea.

 

This one has a little gun.

That one has a little knife.

Hey, he fired a shot

That barely missed her head.

 

Over here, over there.

Up.

Down.

Everywhere.

 

Please pea, stop running from me.

 

 

 

/by

Famous Authors Say Writing is Easy

 

We all know that writing a book is the simplest and easiest way to earn a few bucks.

Actually, writing is a bulls**t job that even a trained monkey could do, right?

After all, how hard can it be to plop your hips down in the old easy chair and pluck out a few thousands words. Shoot, it’s all a bunch of made-up gobbledy-goop, anyway.

So here’s the real scoop on how this pie job really goes down. And, to back me up on these few simple steps to “Writing Made Easy,” I went to the pros to get their opinions on the process. And they agree, writing a novel is a piece of cake that anyone can do in in their spare time.

Don’t believe me? Well, see for yourselves. Here are the quick and simple steps to penning a bestseller …

Writing Made Easy

1. Whatever you do, do NOT write every day. In fact, once or twice a month works best for the writers who’re serious about their craft. Do you honestly believe people like Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen, M.J. Rose, Shirley Jump, Chris Grabenstein, Donald Bain, and Laura Lippman chain themselves to a computer seven days a week, hours upon hours per day? Puhleeze …

Yes, writing a novel is a silly little project you can do in your spare time. In fact, anyone can pen a 300 page book in … say … a couple of weeks. Of course, we’re speaking only of writing after dinner, between commercials while binge-watching episodes of Chopped, and after you’ve gone to your favorite club to whip and nae-nae yourself into a dabbing, Shomony frenzy. Right, Lee? MJ?

New-Picture-1

Lee Child

Screen Shot 2016-09-24 at 12.38.38 PM

MJ Rose

2. Again, writing is simple and it’s quick easy money, and it’s a silly little project that’ll quickly take you from blank page to zillion-dollar paycheck in no time at all.

new-picture-44

Tess Gerritsen

Screen Shot 2016-09-24 at 12.24.12 PM

MJ Rose

3. Never, ever try to spread out the writing process. Instead, bang out 10,000 – 20,000 words each day and you’ll have your totally finished manuscript almost before you can mumble the phrase, “Tom Cruise is not Jack Reacher.”

Screen Shot 2016-09-24 at 12.16.33 PM

Laura Lippman

Screen Shot 2016-09-24 at 12.28.49 PM

Screen Shot 2016-09-24 at 12.44.40 PM

Donald Bain

4. Always, always, always listen to music while writing, especially head-banging metal or classic rock. Of course, a few of the big-shot, fancy-smancy writers prefer Bach or Mozart, but they’re … well, you know. Anyway, music, and the louder the better, sends the creative juices into overdrive!

Screen Shot 2016-09-24 at 12.50.40 PM

Chris Grabenstein

Screen Shot 2016-09-24 at 12.50.19 PM

Shirley Jump

What about you, Laura? Surely, you’ve got The Ramones cranked up to full volume while you’re hard at work, right? So …

Screen Shot 2016-09-24 at 1.14.25 PM

So there you have it, writers. You may now safely step away from the keyboards because those books will write themselves while you head out to the club to drink yourselves silly while Texas Two-Stepping Gangnam Style, or Moonwalking the Macarena.

/by