writers Archives - Black Mask

Ernest Hemingway and Other Literary Spies

dan simmons, spies, The Crook Factory, writers Comments Off

Jan 152013

In Dan Simmons’s The Crook Factory, which is out in paperback on February 5th, Ernest Hemingway assembles an espionage ring from an unlikely team of misfits in order to root out Nazi infiltrators in Cuba. Though this storyline is, regrettably, a work of fiction, there are plenty of writers who really were spies. Some of our favorites include:

Christopher Marlowe

Oh yes, the man who brought us Faustus was also a spy. And his mysterious death at 29 raises all sorts of questions: was his fatal stab wound the result of a bar brawl? Or an assassination by the Elizabethan state? I highly recommend you listen to this BBC podcast for more on Marlowe.

Graham Greene

The author of The Quiet American, The Third Man, and Our Man in Havana (among many other excellent novels) was recruited by his sister into the M16, resulting in a posting to Sierra Leone during the Second World War.

Anthony Burgess

Burgess did cipher work for British Army intelligence in Gibraltar during World War II before penning A Clockwork Orange in 1966. Perhaps there lies something encrypted in lines like “The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silver flamed”?

John le Carré

For starters, John le Carré is a nom de plume. The novelist’s real name is David Cornwell, and he worked for the British Intelligence during the Cold War. His assignments included interrogating people who crossed the Iron Curtain to the West and spying upon far-left groups for information about Soviet agents.

Peter Matthiessen
The author of Shadow Country and founder of The Paris Review admitted that the CIA has had some involvement with the literary magazine—but how much is still the cause of much speculation. George Plimpton has stated that Matthiessen founded The Paris Review as a cover for his CIA operations.

Stella Rimington

Let’s not forget about the ladies. Rimington was appointed director general of the M15 in 1992, making her the first woman to hold the post. Her novels frequently highlight the conflict between the M15 and the M16, for those of you who thrill to the drama of British bureaucracy.

Still, nothing beats the thought of Papa battling Nazi spies in Cuba. If you feel the same way, preorder The Crook Factory from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Indiebound | Other Retailers

Philip Roth Throws in the Pen after NEMESIS

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Nov 122012

I have read more than half of his output, I guess. My favorites are AMERICAN PASTORAL, NEMESIS, and GOODBYE, COLUMBUS. Not such a fan of the Zuckerman saga though.

And he never really wrote strong female characters. His women tend to be nagging mothers/wives, revolutionary daughters, fickle college girls, characters who remain in the background despite being on the page a lot. I am not sure that he hates women as much as he finds them uninteresting, unknowable, non-players.

How about you? Any Roth fans out there?

What male writers write great female characters? Greg Rucka says he does, right here.

Killing Time in Key West

Crime Fiction, crime writing, Robert W. Fisher, writers, Writing, writing books No Responses »

Sep 122012

Robert W. Fisher

My next crime thriller to be published by Black Mask, Killing Time, will take place in Key West, Florida, otherwise called The Conch Republic. For those who don’t know, Key West is a small dot of coral (less than 4 miles long by 1½ miles wide) located 154 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s the southern point of the contiguous United States, at the far end of a single road called U.S. Route 1. It’s also closer to Cuba than Miami, across only 94 miles of exceptionally warm ocean from Havana.

The weather, not surprisingly, is always perfect.

And the drive is gorgeous, through a string of narrow tropical islands and along many causeways, where the clearest water possible turns gradually from green to pure turquoise well before ending at Mile Marker 0 at Fleming Street and Whitehead.

Like Killing Liberty, my first crime novel, Killing Time will feature tough ex-Detroit PD homicide detective Derek Raiford. And, of course (much as Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner spent his days), Derek’s crime-stopping adventures will keep him knee deep in gore.

Yet he’ll still have time to enjoy Key West. As it should be enjoyed.

Although we’re currently living back in mid-Michigan, my wife Ellen and I will always consider Key West to be our adopted home; adopted because only folks whose families have lived there for a hundred years or so are thought of as true Conchs: the genuine natives of Key West.

Seven generations are about average for a Conch. The rest of us were newcomers, even after years. Freshwater Conchs, we were called.

Fair enough. But newcomers or not, we’ll take that particular island paradise as our home-away-from-home and love it as if we were genuine Conchs ourselves. And we’ll get back there as often as we can, even spending entire months there during the winters.

Anyway, here’s the Key West we know:

It’s a drinker’s town – the well-known phrase ‘Come to Key West on vacation, leave on probation’ is mostly true. The numerous bars (over 200!) are open until 4:00 AM, close for two hours to clean up the mess, then reopen at 6:00 AM for those needing that morning gulp of rum.

I had my first-ever martini (classic gin with a touch of vermouth, stirred not shaken, blue cheese stuffed olives, mostly out of writer’s curiosity) at the fantastic Café Marquesa on the corner of Fleming & Simonton Streets. It was a huge perfect concoction with a ‘sidecar.’ I did not get right back into our 20-year-old Jeep Wrangler, instead managing to walk (stumble) around the island for two hours before driving home again.

I mostly couldn’t feel my face; but no DUI’s for either of us yet.

A couple of years ago the young son of a friend arrived in Key West for a job managing one of the many raucous clubs on Duval Street, only to get two DUI’s within one week. Both of them on his motor scooter.

He quickly returned to Michigan.

It’s an adult town – anyone naïve enough to bring their young children on vacation does so only once. The few parents walking with kids on Duvall Street are constantly putting their hands in front of the kids’ eyes, shielding them from much of the activity. This includes the windows of the many tee-shirt shops with numerous funny (dirty!) tee-shirts in full view.

Mom says, “Fuck you!” is still popular.

It’s a wild party town – Fantasy Fest (ten days leading up to Halloween in October) features public nudity and near-nudity. Most of the women and girls, visitors and locals both, paint on their bathing suits before parading around the streets. Thousands of them! It’s glorious, to say the least, and often makes Mardi Gras seem like an elementary school outing.

The Garden of Eden, the clothing-optional hangout on the roof of the Bull & Whistle Bar (a three-story open-air rock n’ roll palace on Duvall Street that goes day and night), has the occasional naked reveler hanging off the side and waving to the crowds below.

Sometimes wagging instead of waving. Sooner or later, though, there has a be a naked dead guy or girl ending up in the street. So far, no.

It’s a pirate town – always was and always will be, making it a perfect place to set a crime novel. Stories too numerous to even mention easily fill evenings of socializing or people-watching at places like Sloppy Joe’s, The Half-Shell Raw Bar, the Green Parrot, Captain Tony’s or any of the others.

People (good, bad and sometimes very bad) routinely run to Key West to start over and to get away from their old lives. Last names are always optional and never asked. It’s a perfect place to make a getaway. Or to use as a hideout.

But, to me, most importantly:

It’s a writers’ town – more Pulitzer Prize-winners have lived in Key West, per capita, than any other city. The Key West Library is first rate and features many books by both past and present Key West denizens. Book signings by well-known authors are routine at the excellent Key West Island Book Store.

And obviously, everyone knows that Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Dos Passos, Robert Frost, Randy Wayne White, James W. Hall, Tim Dorsey and a hundred other successful writers lived there, worked there and/or simply wrote there.

Again, it’s the writers’ town.

Hopefully, one day, we’ll move back permanently. If so, feel free to keep in touch if you ever want to visit. We do know our way around Key West.

And we enjoy company.

By the way, the printed version of Killing Liberty, as well as the Kindle edition, is now available on Amazon. Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B008LMI6PK/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1347474896&sr=1-1

Killing Liberty – A New Crime Novel

Robert W. Fisher, writers, Writing 2 Responses »

Jul 202012

Published by Black Mask and available as an exclusive Amazon Prime e-book before going into print distribution

Killing Liberty, my new pulp crime thriller written under my pseudonym, Parker T. Mattson, is a disturbing book.

It’s especially disturbing because many elements (although complete fiction, as far as the publisher’s legal department is concerned) are based on true incidents. Incidents that I learned about directly from several of the people involved, in the actual locations involved.

Of course, quite a bit of online research was also necessary. As was a lot of fictionalizing. Is that even a real word?

Anyway, I chose to deal with the theme of emerging depravity, in this case, modern emerging depravity (think texting, sexting, Internet webcam chats, etc. ) in an already corrupt and decadent little southern Alabama city, as discovered by hardened ex-Detroit PD homicide detective Derek Raiford.

He’s sought out and hired by the mayor as that city’s new Chief of Police after the former police chief is disgraced when caught in the middle of an underage sex scandal. Instead of being arrested, or even just fired, the ex-chief is simply moved over to the position of City Fire Chief, at no loss of pay, seniority or eventual pension.

No charges were ever filed. No records ever kept. True enough.

And to say the ex-police chief and his minions resent Derek as that city’s new head law enforcement officer (and worry what he might uncover, inadvertently or otherwise) would be an understatement. They want him out, at any cost. And are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that end.

The consequences to them all would be disastrous.

With all that in mind, then:

The gruesome decapitation of Lloyd Baylor, forty-two but recently married to a sixteen-year-old high school nymphet, sets off a chain of events both shocking and puzzling. Baylor’s death soon leads to lies, desperate cover-ups, a missing young girl assumed dead or on the run, arson, and more murder.

Murders (multiple, actually), each more shocking than the last.

And the young widow, a genuine beauty at any age and a seductive mystery in her own right, provides even more resistance against Raiford’s efforts to find her husband’s killer; she adamantly refuses to admit the terrible truth surrounding them all, even at the cost of her own life.

In Killing Liberty, Derek Raiford faces an unseen but murderous conspiracy that could easily leave him dead and buried in the woods.

More than once, in fact, his new life makes him long for his earlier days as a big city Detroit homicide cop. At least there, in all the grime and filth of ‘Murder City, USA,’ he knew who the bad guys were. In his recently adopted Down South home, everyone’s a suspect.

And a potential killer.

Here’s the link to Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Liberty-ebook/dp/B008LMI6PK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342797618&sr=1-1&keywords=killing+liberty

If you get a chance to read Killing Liberty, as either an e-book or a paperback, let me know what you think. And if you hate it, lie to me.

That’s what friends are for.

Ah, Youth – It Really Is Wasted On Them

Robert W. Fisher, writers, writers life, Writing No Responses »

Jul 182012

A Few Books By Lawrence Grobel

Several years ago, my wife Ellen and I found ourselves in Los Angeles with a day to kill, so we set up a lunch with a couple of longtime friends, the writer Larry Grobel (some of his books are pictured above) and a successful movie producer whose name I won’t use because we’re still partners in a couple of interesting projects.

Larry had wanted to meet this particular producer for some time and the producer wanted to meet Larry as well, so that was at least part of the reason for our lunch. And it turned out to be a particularly nice lunch, complete with company that we’ve always greatly valued.

We’d jointly decided on Musso’s – the Musso & Frank Grill on Hollywood Boulevard. If you’ve never eaten there, I recommend it as one of the must try restaurants in Hollywood. It’s the oldest so-called grill (founded in 1919) in the city, understandably famous, and it’s mostly the old school crowd: actors, actresses, writers, directors and producers.

I guarantee you’ll see someone famous eating there, either at the counter or in one of the many comfortable booths.

Anyway, over the years, I’d read many of the excellent books written by Larry, most notably Conversations With Brando, The Hustons, Conversations With Capote, Al Pacino – In Conversation With Lawrence Grobel and The Art of the Interview.

Larry’s books read beautifully and are filled with more insider Hollywood stories and critical insights than there are in heaven and earth.

Before crossing the street for lunch at Musso’s, Ellen and I stopped in at Larry Edmunds’s Bookshop and we bought each of the above mentioned books in hardback because I wanted Larry to autograph them. I’ll mention here that, in total, they weighed about 25 pounds; the Huston book alone (at over 800 pages) probably weighs 10 pounds on its own.

I should also mention, though, that I read that huge book about The Hustons straight through, riveted by page after page of terrific stories and photos involving the true film greats and the exciting and classic movies that made them great.

In other words, the real Hollywood.

Larry makes you feel like you’re right there, having a drink at the bar with these bigger-than-life characters and just waiting for the giant bar fight to begin at any moment. Informative and educational, yes, but (more importantly, to me at least) always fun.

In any case, our producer friend at the lunch brought a date, a sweet-natured young woman of 18 or 19. Did I say young? I hope so, because I believe it’s the point of this little piece. If not, you can feel free to sue me, for something akin to age descrimination, I guess.

Anyway, she was a true L.A. girl, very smart and well-mannered and extremely pretty, pursuing an acting career but working at an ‘oxygen store’ where one paid to inhale a dose of pure oxygen, meant to increase your thinking and, supposedly, your ‘being’ ability.

I’m not sure those stores exist anymore.

Ellen and I arrived at the booth at Musso’s last, lugging in that heavy pile of hardback books, and I carefully set them down beside Larry Grobel.

And as I said, we had a great lunch, right out of the movies as far as I was concerned and, over coffee and dessert, Larry brought up the first book, put it on the table beside him, took out a pen and generously autographed it to me.

To which he got a look of utter horror from the young woman sitting across from him.

When Larry picked up the second book to sign, the young woman with our producer friend could stand it no longer. “My God, you can’t do that!” she blurted.

To which Larry explained, “I wrote all these books and I’m signing them for Bob.”

The young girl still couldn’t believe it. She said:

“But won’t the library be mad?”

The Toughest Kid I Ever Knew

Robert W. Fisher, Story Behind the Story, write what you know, writers 1 Response »

Jun 302012

I went to high school during the long-ago Motown days on the west side of Detroit.

It was actually in a pleasant-enough white suburb of mostly ranch-style houses, a nearby Dairy Queen, a small park and even an ice skating rink at the end of our street.

In those days, downtown street gangs with names like the Stilettos or the Bagley Boys pretty much consisted of tough guys with switchblade knives, brass knuckles, sap gloves, bottles, fists and very few guns. In fact, no one much thought about carrying a gun. The thought never really came up, I guess. Most of the gang members (racially mixed, by the way, white, black & Hispanic) had colorful names like Cockroach, Junebug, Farmer, Cornbread Red, Judo Smith and Jabbo (real name Leroy, but he’d already stabbed more than one person in his young life).

Everyone I just named was a pretty good guy. Really. Even Jabbo. And I have no idea how any of those guys are doing these days. I’m thinking they’re mostly retired now and living in Florida somewhere.

I hope so, at least.

I was never in an actual gang (too consumed with the need to live), but every weekend several of us suburban boys headed out to the Walled Lake Casino, a teen hangout where many of the Motown legends performed (as practice, it seemed) before heading out on actual tours. For a dollar or two, several hundred of us at a time got to see The Spinners, The Miracles, The Temptations, The Contours, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, etc., etc., etc.

Literally, the entire line-up from Berry Gordy’s Hitsville USA down on West Grand Boulevard eventually showed up.

Another plus in those days: white soul group Billy Lee & The Rivera’s (later known as Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels) performed virtually every weekend, blasting out the place with the best rendition of Shake A Tail Feather (except for the original Five DuTones’ version) ever heard.

And, of course, with several rival gangs from the big city attending, there were numerous fights every weekend, both inside and (more often) outside in the parking lot. It was not uncommon to walk out and see a young man standing on a car hood kicking a rival in the face and, a moment later, see that same young man dispatched with a thrown wine bottle bashing in his head.

Good times.

As non-gang-members, my friends and I mostly just watched, nodding approval if one or more of the few gang members we’d gotten to know were winning any particular skirmish. In those days, shockingly enough, there were almost no dead bodies left in the street. Or the parking lot. At least, not at the Walled Lake Casino.

In fact, the same guys would show up every weekend, fighting the same rivals, and race away afterwards in hopped-up Chevy’s and Ford’s, with the occasional Olds 442 or Pontiac GTO thrown in. Luckily, we got to travel in my buddy’s bland-looking 1964 Plymouth Belvedere with bench seats, that happened to be hiding a 426-cubic-inch engine with a 4-speed. It was blindingly fast. We won a lot of races on the way to the Dalys on Telegraph Road (known as Bloody Telegraph) in those days.

That was back when Dalys’ fantastic Chee-Chee Sandwich was called by its first name, a melted cheese & chili. It was, and still is, the best and most original sandwich in existence. Believe me, I’ve been in every state in this country and I’ve checked.

Anyway, of all the gang boys and girls (there were a few, girls, 3 blonde sisters in particular known as The Bitches), the single individual titled above truly was the toughest kid I ever knew. That any of us ever knew. That I’ve still ever known.

Danny Wilson (I’m using his name because he was dead at 18) was the most fearsome kid we ever met. In any fight, he was so ferocious he often had to apologize to the person or persons he’d just beat the living shit out of.

A natural leader and extremely charismatic, Danny would often be in the middle of a fight before the rest of us even knew it. I turned around once to say something to him and he was already on the ground, biting some struggling man (not a kid!) who had him gripped around the neck, biting the guy on the chest to get away.

And, the shocker of it all, Danny was all of 5’5” and less than 130 pounds.

Gang boys who stood 6’2” and weighed in at 220 pounds steered clear of him. More than once, we’d see a much larger guy start something with the smart-mouthed Danny Wilson, only to get his teeth kicked in. It was as if Danny would just suddenly be hanging onto the other guy’s hair or shirt, pulling him down and kicking or punching the guy’s brains out.

I never saw him with a weapon. He didn’t need one. No one ever saw him lose.

He was also, I should mention, a career criminal at that young age (16 or so). Danny would steal anything or break into anywhere. We’d met him straight out of the juvenile detention home, when his folks moved into our neighborhood.

To give their downtown kid a better chance at straightening out.

And when I first moved out to Hollywood, a short story I wrote about one of Danny Wilson’s many dangerous exploits (where he and a close friend of mine were almost killed) managed to get me the famous and iconic agent Mike Hamilburg as my first literary representative.

Mike had sold Taxi Driver for Paul Schrader and Helter Skelter for Vincent Bugliosi for big money, so I was more than impressed with the man. This was especially true when we met at the La Cienega Boulevard Norms Family Restaurant for breakfast the next day and he assured me I had a born ear for dialogue. Which he also told me couldn’t be learned, only developed.

As a screenwriter.

That first meeting with Mike Hamilburg kept me going for a very long time in Hollywood. And the Danny Wilson story I’d written and submitted to him was basically true, although fictionized to protect the clearly guilty.

But Danny’s weirdest caper, which turned out to be his last, was when he bent back the large fan blades high up on the cement block wall of the local dry cleaners late one night, climbed up there to break in, and got stuck. The next morning the owner, and then the police, laughed at him before pulling him out.

That crime, and his record, got him sent to big-time and grown-up Jackson Prison at 18 years old. Within his first month there, he was dead.

We were all shocked to hear it, to say the least.

And then his father told us the story he’d heard from a friend of Danny’s who also happened to be inside at the time. The other prisoners learned to be afraid of him soon enough. They also realized he couldn’t be controlled. Not in the least. And so several of them poured flammable cleaning fluids on him and then lit it.

Apparently, it is possible to be too damn tough.

Writing under a pseudonym

Joe Moore, pen names, pseudonyms, writer tips, writers, Writing, writing tips Comments Off

Mar 212012

by Joe Moore

A couple of weeks ago, my Kill Zone blog mate, Kathleen Pickering, posted her thoughts on Brand Marketing. In it she discussed among other things using a pseudonym or pen name in relation to building a writer’s brand. One of the reasons Kathy gave for creating an alter ego and using a pen name is liability. Today I want to expand on other reasons for writing under a pseudonym.

Lets start by dropping some names. Ever heard of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum, Harry Patterson, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Eric Arthur Blair, David John Moore Cornwell, and Jim Czajkowski? Chances are you have. They’re all world famous writers. But you probably know them by their pen names because they all write under pseudonyms.

Why would a successful author (or any novelist) write under a pseudonym? And should you consider using one?

By definition, a pen name is a pseudonym used in place of the real author’s name. Here are some reasons to use one.

Pro. Let’s say you’re a well-established writer who wants to change genres. You normally write young adult science fiction but now you want to write cozy adult mysteries. Admittedly, the audience is different and your SF fans might not follow you. Plus, your potential cozy audience might not accept you if they’re aware of your previous work. So changing genre can be a good reason to use a pen name. Also, abandoning a failed book series or moving to a new publisher might be a reason to take on a new identity and start over.

Pro. Your real name doesn’t market well to your genre. The action/adventure novel TANK COMMANDER FROM HELL by Mandrake Slaughter would probably attract more fans of that genre than TANK COMMANDER FROM HELL by Percival Glockenspiel. And Mandrake Slaughter is easier to pronounce.

Pro. For whatever reason, you need your identity to remain anonymous and protected. Let’s say you’re a high-ranking government official who decides to write a thriller that comes uncomfortably close to reality. To reveal your true identity would create a totally different spin on your book, one you might want to avoid.

Pro. Your name is too long or it’s hard to pronounce. In the case of James Rollins, his real name is Jim Czajkowski. A wonderful name, but not easy on the eyes. BTW, Jim also writes fantasy novels under the name James Clemens. Also keep in mind that the shorter the name, the larger it can appear on the cover. Just ask Brad Thor.

Pro. Your real name just happens to be Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald or Dan Brown. Start thinking about a pen name.

Pro. Sex. By that I mean that you’re the wrong gender. You want to write romance and you’re a guy. Plus, your real name is Mandrake Slaughter. Or your main character is a black female and you’re a white male with an unmistakable WASP name. The marketing starts when the reader first sees the title followed by your name. It has to make sense to them that you’re qualified to write the book.

Pro. There are two of you. Sometimes keeping the real names of writing teams works such as Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. In their case, both authors write individually under their real names, too. Other times, choosing a single pen name makes more sense.

Now for a big reason to not use a pen name: It will always come out at some point that it’s not your real name, either in a book review, or at a writer’s conference, or during an interview, or in your Wikipedia bio; the truth will be revealed that your real name is Percival Glockenspiel. But if you don’t mind the inevitable, then go for it. The best advice is to discuss it with your agent and editor. Weigh all the marketing pros and cons. It works well for some, but not for all. Have a really compelling reason before you make the commitment and it gets embossed in gold on your book cover.

So, did you know the real names of the authors mentioned at the start of this blog? Here they are:

Samuel Langhorne Clemens is Mark Twain

Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum is Ayn Rand

Harry Patterson is Jack Higgins

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is Lewis Carroll

Eric Arthur Blair is George Orwell

David John Moore Cornwell is John le Carre

Jim Czajkowski is James Rollins

Do you writer under a pen name? Have you ever considered it?

The Pancake Rule

Joe Moore, writer tips, writers, writers craft, Writing, writing advice, writing books, writing challenges, writing craft, writing lessons, Writing the Novel, writing tips Comments Off

Feb 222012

By Joe Moore

You finished writing your first book. Congratulations. The good news is, you’ve accomplished something that only a small percentage of the population ever will. Most just dream about it. Few really do it.

Now for the bad news: Your first book is not publishable.

What? Joe, are you crazy? Everyone says my book is great. My mom loves it. My neighbors and the girl that cuts my hair said it was a potential bestseller—as good as King and Patterson. I’ve even been told by my uncle who watches lots of movies that it would make a blockbuster feature film. JJ Abrams would snap it up in a heartbeat. So how can you say that about a book you haven’t even read?

The reason I can say it with confidence is that I’ve found first novels to all be the same—not in subject matter but in common, predictable flaws. And if by some miraculous stroke of luck the literary gods smiled down and your first book is publishable as written, then I would suggest you run to the nearest convenience store and buy a lottery ticket. There’s a good chance you’re on a roll.

I’ve made a list of the most common flaws of first novels. Keep in mind that having one or even a couple of these present in your book will not render the manuscript DOA. But I guarantee you’ll find all of them in the typical first attempt at writing a novel. Here they are in no particular order of importance.

You often use adverbs at the end of dialog tags to “tell” the reader what emotion the character feels. Example: “I’m mad as hell,” he said angrily. “I love you,” she said adoringly.

You rarely utilize any of the 5 senses to draw the reader into the scene.

You resolve conflict with coincidence or luck.

Your manuscript is filled with back-stories that don’t relate to the plot or develop the characters.

You head-hop within a scene between multiple POVs.

You tell the story rather than show it.

You have a “unique” approach to the use of the English language and the mechanics and structure of writing in it. Note: I mean this in a bad way.

Each page is filled with an abundance of adjectives that if deleted would not change anything other than make the writing cleaner.

You recently discovered the exclamation point and want your readers to share in your excitement.

You love ellipses . . .

You have a pet word or phrase that you feel compelled to repeat often in hopes that it will become a favorite of your reader.

You beat your readers over the head with repeated facts just in case they didn’t get it the first dozen times.

Your text is riddled with more clichés than you could shake a stick at.

You use profanity for no other reason than shock.

Your dialog sounds as natural as a first grade primer.

Your characters continually use the name of the person to whom they’re speaking.

You overuse flashbacks and/or start the story with one.

Act II sags like a piece of pulled taffy.

Your story wanders.

Your story starts in the wrong place.

You’re not sure how to create suspense, so you commit “author intrusion” even though you have no idea what the term means.

You confuse the reader.

Your facts are incorrect. Example: The assassin attached the silencer to the revolver so no one would hear the shots.

You slip from past tense to present in narration.

You describe every movement, every second, every detail and every breath of your characters actions for no apparent reason.

You don’t know when to end a scene.

Your plot is a rehash of The Perils of Pauline—your protagonist jumps from one terrible situation to the next equally terrible situation with no dynamics or variation in terribleness.

You either have no subplots or enough for 10 books.

All your characters sound the same when they speak.

Your characters have no flaws.

You rely on stereotypes. The men are all handsome with chiseled faces and athletic bodies. The women are beautiful fashion models. And the bad guys are ugly, disgusting monsters. Note: This is OK if your antagonist is actually an ugly, disgusting monster.

Your story is melodramatic.

Your target audience doesn’t exist.

You manuscript is infested with misspellings, the wrong use of words, grammatical errors, and missing or incorrect punctuation.

You believe that placing the word “very” or “really” in front of an adjective increases the descriptive value of the adjective.

And the one that I see most often: You find it impossible to tell someone what your book is about without rambling on for 10 minutes.

Everyone’s first book contains just about all of the above. Mine did, and I’ll bet yours did, too. But that’s OK. That’s part of the learning process on the road to becoming a published novelist. Every professional was first an amateur. Every bestselling author wrote a first novel that should never see the light of day. Chances are, it was just as full of these flaws as yours and mine.

The secret to this whole novel-writing thing is to keep writing. Few first novels are accepted by an agent much less bought by a publisher. Published first novels are the exception to the rule. For the rest, you’ve got to write that second book. And the third. And the fourth. That’s how you refine the craft. And with each manuscript, you learn to use less clichés, eliminate “very” from your vocabulary, delete needless “ly” words, make your characters more human, find your voice, and all the other thousands of parts to crafting a well-written story.

My mother used to say that when making pancakes, always throw the first one out. That’s because it takes cooking one to make sure the temperature of the griddle is properly set, the thickness and consistency of the batter is just right, and the timing of when to flip the cake is confirmed.

This pancake rule should apply to all first novels. Write it. Learn from it. Make the adjustments. Put it away. And cook some more pancakes.

How many of the flaws-list items did your first book contain? How many books did you write before you got published? Are there any other additions to the list that you’ve seen with first-time writers?

Damaged

damaged protagonists, writers, Writing Comments Off

Jan 042012

Happy New Year, friends. Let’s talk for a minute about damaged people, our fascination with them, and why emotionally-scarred protagonists move us so much.

What was it, a couple of years ago now, when the actor Owen Wilson tried to kill himself? I don’t know all the particulars, nor do I really care that much, but I do recall a brief flurry of media attention about it that died away as quickly as it started. Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky character actor, seemingly without a care in the world, gets depressed over a girlfriend or some-such and tries to top himself… well, I’m not without compassion, even though I never gave Owen Wilson much thought before that. I silently wished him well and went on with things.

But I learned something interesting about my wife then. Like me, she’d never been particularly interested in Owen Wilson. But after his failed attempt at suicide, he was suddenly… intriguing. We watched a flurry of his movies, some good, some bad, and I got a sense that Kim was searching for something inside the actor, some indication of the turbulent waters that roiled under the surface of his easy grin.

Her fascination with him came and went pretty quickly, but I found it all quite telling. She, like almost all of us, is compassionate about the emotional pain that other people carry. But more than that, she—and we—find it… interesting.

While Wilson’s personal anguish was well-disguised until then, the writers we tend to deify wore their pain and discontent on their sleeves. I doubt anyone was surprised that day in ’61 when Hemingway topped himself. And who can say they were thrown for a loop when Hunter Thompson did the same thing? Edgar Allan Poe, Robert E. Howard, David Goodis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Patricia Highsmith, Dashiell Hammett, Kurt Vonnegut… our personal pantheons are crowded with writers who seemed driven by pain. Even the Patron Saint of American Writers, Mark Twain himself, was, in his later years, fueled by misery.

And the stories they wrote reflected it. The protagonists of their stories were, usually, not heroic in the traditional sense—they were desperate for… something. A sense of accomplishment, or closure, or self-worth. And more often than not, none of those things came by the end of the story.

There’s a looming sense of unresolved, open-endedness to the best stories from those writers, an absolute refusal to sugar-coat their fictional worlds. They were bitter reflections of the universe in the writer’s minds. Dark, unforgiving places where nothing pure could really take root and flourish.

Why do so many of us respond to that? Why do we find it so… satisfying?

Do we recognize that world?

Granted, there are many readers (maybe even the majority of them) who don’t want to linger there. They want real heroes to identify with, they want healthy relationships played out on the page, they want resolution, and to see the bad guys lose and the universe set right. Who can blame them for wanting that? And maybe those readers are mentally healthier than the rest of us.

Or maybe, just maybe, those readers are afraid of something. I don’t know.

As for me, I’ll take the damaged protagonist, and the ambiguous ending and the universe askew. I know that place and am comfortable there.