Conspiracy Theory

It’s one of the less happy conventions of the thriller or mystery story that when the whole thing unravels, it’s a letdown.  How many conspiracies turn out to be the brainchild of some pedestrian jerk-off living over his mom’s garage, playing 1^st-person shooter games?  (This is figurative, but once in a while literal.)  Snowpiercer, for example, is pretty lively for the first two acts, but when you get to the front of the train, and meet the sinister and over-sharing Ed Harris, it seems a little too familiar – the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain.  You’re not the only one thinking, Is that all there is?

Bond villains after Thunderball are generally parodies, at least in the Sean Connery/Roger Moore pictures.  And once 007 penetrates the villain’s lair, he’s subjected to a data dump of verbal diarrhea, said villain expatiating on the weakness and complacency of humanity, and his own singular skills in exploiting them.  This is second cousin to the previous complaint. It demonstrates a lack of imagination. The guy had to publish with a vanity press.

Why is it that the quality of our villainy is so low?

I know Elon Musk is an ignorant and dangerous guy (and in fact I recently posted a Substack column about it:  https://gatesd.substack.com/), but he’s such a fatuous blowhard that it’s hard to take him seriously.  Much like Trump, another deeply frivolous windbag, neither one of them takes any responsibility for the drivel that comes out of their mouths.  As if they suffer from Tourette’s.  At the same time, their drivel can drive up the market in meme coin.  It’s both predictable and sad. 

You wonder why they take up all the air in the room.  It’s a hallmark of heavies, going back to Conan Doyle and John Buchan, that they won’t shut up.  They can’t switch it off.  Nayland Smith falls into Fu Manchu’s clutches, and Fu starts in with the triumphalist baloney.  Dr. No and James Bond.  It must be hardwired.  It’s the oddest God damn thing.  Is it just that Sax Rohmer and Ian Fleming themselves can’t help it?  Or is it in the character of these guys, to be the center of attention?  It’s more than literary convention.  Maybe it’s a tell, or a pathology.  The loudest voices usually have the least inner confidence.  They’re shouting down their own doubts.

There’s something funny about all this, and I don’t mean funny, ha-ha.  It’s disturbing enough that we’re persuaded to sympathize with Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs – the Tennessee jailbreak set-piece is a jaw-dropper not just because of its precision and discipline, and for its sudden reversals, but because Thomas Harris manipulates our expectations, and the biggest reversal is when we realize we’re hoping Lecter gets away with it – but it’s beyond creepy that Trump appropriates Hannibal Lecter, as a what, exactly?  An avatar, a role model, a dinner date?

What is happening, by the by, to our understanding of good and evil?  I was talking to a friend of mine, a few years back, about The Silence of the Lambs (her husband had recommended it to me), and I said something to the effect that your odds of being the victim of a serial killer were lower than being struck by lightning, you’re much more likely to be murdered by somebody you know, like your own husband (said husband being a very big and solidly-built guy), and she said, I’d really rather not consider that possibility.  She preferred the vicarious scares in Silence of the Lambs.  An epiphany.  I saw why somebody would prefer the vicarious shivers, and why you maybe don’t want to entertain the genuine threat, that the guy you’re sleeping with could murder you in your bed.  This is in no way to minimize the realities of domestic abuse, but only to say we recognize our comfort zone.  Silence of the Lambs is second-hand violence, once-removed from the immediate. 

From a safe distance, Trump and Musk seem as cartoon-y as Dr. No, or Snively Whiplash.  And perhaps their violence will be vicarious, performative and posturing, all bark and no bite.  But even the broadest of physical comedy depends on the laws of physics; the coyote runs off the edge of the cliff and hangs suspended in the empty air, and then gravity takes hold.  We look at these clowns, dressed in the plumage of affectation, and dismiss them as objects of ridicule.  Their malevolence is real enough, though, and gravity will bring us to earth.  The storyline’s a ribbon of clichés, but we greenlighted the picture before the script was finished, like Casablanca.  “You want my advice?  Go back to Bulgaria.”

2024 Year in Review: Writing and Other Things

In my December 31 SleuthSayers post, I discussed my year as an editor; in the following I discuss my year as a writer, and I discuss some of the other things with which I was involved.

WRITING

Productivity was down from last year, and nowhere near my best year (75 stories in 2009) with 10 original stories completed. This surpasses 2022 (9 stories) and 2021 (6 stories) but is fewer than 2023 (14 stories).

The shortest story was 1,800 words and the longest was 11,700 words, for an average of 4,730 words. All were crime fiction of one sub-genre or another.

ACCEPTED

Although I only wrote 10 new stories, I received 18 acceptances (including the first-ever collaboration with my wife, Temple), 13 originals and 5 reprints. This includes my sixth collaboration with Sandra Murphy, which means we’ve now placed every story we’ve completed, and this is the fifth accepted by a paying market.

PUBLISHED

In 2024, 12 original stories were published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; Crimes Against Nature; Dark of the Day; Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine; Mystery Magazine; Mystery Tribune; Murder, Neat; Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Chunked; Starlite Pulp Review; and Tough.

Also in 2024, 7 reprints were published in Crimeucopia, Storiaverse.com, Best Crime Stories of the Year, and The Best Mystery Stories of the Year.

Three editors are represented multiple times: Linda Landrigan published two original stories in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, John Conner published two reprints in Crimeucopia, and Storiaverse.com published three reprints as animated stories.

REJECTED

I received 11 rejections, which is 6 fewer rejections than acceptances, and any year in which acceptances outnumber rejections is a good year.

RECOGNIZED

“Beat the Clock” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, March/April 2023) was reprinted in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents The Best Mystery Stories of the Year and Best Crime Stories of the Year.

“Denim Mining” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, May/June 2023) was nominated for a Derringer award.

“Dogs of War” (Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, Volume 4), a collaboration with Stacy Woodson, was nominated for a Derringer award.

Early in the year I was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in recognition of my contributions to Texas literature.

FORTHCOMING

Including those accepted in 2024 and in previous years, I have stories forthcoming in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, Chop Shop, Cryin’ Shame, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Gag Me With a Spoon, In Too Deep, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and Wish Upon a Crime.

SHORTCON

Early in 2024, Stacy Woodson, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Verena Rose, and I co-founded East Coast Crime, Inc., to present literary events about writing, editing, and publishing crime fiction, and in June we presented the inaugural ShortCon, the Premier Conference for Writers of Short Crime Fiction. Our second ShortCon will be presented Saturday, June 7, 2025, in Alexandria, Virginia, and we plan to continue this as an annual event. (Learn more here.)

MYSTERY IN THE MIDLANDS

I helped Paula Benson organize the 2024 Mystery in the Midlands, an online conference that emphasized writing and publishing short crime fiction. Paula has invited me to join her again in organizing the 2025 Mystery in the Midlands, again focusing on short crime fiction.

OTHER EVENTS

I participated—as a panelist, moderator, or presenter—at more live and online conferences, conventions, and presentations in 2024 than in any previous year. It’s unlikely that my attendance at live events will maintain this pace in the future, but online opportunities continue to present themselves.

MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA

I completed my first two-year term as an at-large board member of the Mystery Writers of America, and this year I begin my second two-year term.

LOOKING AHEAD

Until I prepared my two year-in-review posts, I had thought 2024 was a bust. In my December 10 SleuthSayers post “Life is What Happens…,” I wrote about how nothing seemed to go as planned.

This reminded how much perception and reality can be at odds. I still perceive 2024 as a disorganized mess, but I am far less dissatisfied with the year after toting up my accomplishments.

In response to my December 10 post, fellow SleuthSayer Joseph D’Agnese recommended reading Cal Newport’s book Deep Work, which, Joseph wrote, “talks about the fracturing of attention and how hard it is to get back into the groove after you’ve been interrupted.”

Although the holiday season may not be the best time to attempt changes in one’s work habits, I can say that the small adjustments I’ve made by applying what I learned from Newport’s book have started to pay off. I feel in control again and all of my projects are on track.

I’m hopeful for this year.

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“Coyote Run,” the eighth episode of Chop Shop releases February 1.

Car thieves and the chop shop that buys from them combine to create high-octane stories of hot cars, hot crimes, and hot times in Dallas, Texas.

After Cheryl Moore loses her job as a paralegal, she learns to support herself stealing SUVs from soccer moms and selling them to Huey’s Auto Repair. An opportunist more than a technician, Cheryl steps out of her comfort zone in “Coyote Run” when she boosts a Ford Transit van, and she’s not at all prepared to deal with the van’s cargo.

The Fallible Detective

We are in an age of superlatives, fond of the latest and greatest, enamored of super heroes and extraordinary feats. Detective fiction is not immune to these desires, which is perhaps why Holmes, Poirot, and Miss Marple, the three infallible, never to be corrected sleuths, are still crowding the shelves and showing up on screens big and small.

I'm personally very fond of them, but lately I have come to a renewed appreciation of the fallible detective. Not the comic type like Inspector Clouseau, but the competent, hardworking investigator who makes the occasional mistake and who owns up to error, like St. John Strafford.

Strafford, John Banville's detective, is a bit of an odd duck, being a Protestant police officer in very Catholic 1950's Dublin. A member of the Protestant Ascendancy, a fancy term for the descendants of the English colonization project that began in the 12th century, Strafford is a privileged and well educated member of the elite country house set. He is intelligent, quiet, a bit socially awkward, and almost terminally reserved.

Both saddened and relieved by the end of his marriage, Strafford admits he doesn't understand women, an insight that fails to keep him from unwise entanglements. Just the same, Under his cool courtesy, he has considerable sympathy as well as a strong desire to do the ethical thing. This is just as well because unlike some fictional detectives he is not infallible.

John Banville

Strafford's qualities are on display in The Drowned, the newest of Banville's Strafford and Quirke series, the latter being a pathologist who conducts post mortems for the Dublin police. Quirke and Strafford are on uneasy terms, being unlike in nearly everything but a concern for careful work and crime solving. The fact that Stafford is currently seeing Quirke's daughter Phoebe has not helped their relations, either.

The two of them were last seen in The Lock-Up, and one of the interesting things Banville does in the current novel is to shed not only light but doubt on the earlier case. It is an interesting strategy for a novelist and one that raises questions for his detectives.

The 1950's really were a different century as far as forensics goes. Cell phones with their useful location functions, advanced DNA testing, and CCTV footage are tools way beyond what even the best funded copper had in the '50's. Detectives in period novels like The Drowned must rely on interviews, observation, and knowledge of human nature.

This perhaps is what makes a good detective like Strafford a little more cautious, a little more careful, a little less certain that he's on the right track. Or perhaps a certain humility is just part of his character. Another cop on the case has no doubts whatsoever and backs his hunches up with a frequent resource to the third degree.

Indeed, at the end of The Drowned, it appears that the higher powers are about to make a serious mistake, one Strafford sees all too clearly. Is Banville setting up for another novel with yet another course correction? It would certainly be a different strategy and one that his intelligent, humane, and self-doubting detective would be ideal to handle.

The Spurious Scurrilous Scurril.

domesticated flying squirrel

Monday, our Chris Knopf persuasively wrote The Irresistible Sciurus carolinensis, i.e, the grey squirrel. I'm here today with a rebuttal. Much like Miss Bubbles LaFerne, squirrels are cute cuddly…

Homewreckers!

Yep. Wild squirrels let me pet them and I’ve had flying squirrels as pets– they’re small, like gerbils. I’ve met black squirrels, white squirrels, and red squirrels.

But at the moment, I’m leaning toward the rats-with-furry-tails philosophy. The Florida floods following Hurricane Ian persuaded rodents of all sorts to seek higher ground. In my area, the August Council of Rodent Emigration (ACRE) decided that meant Leigh’s attic.

Soffits, we laugh at you! Sciurus carolinensis moved in and never left. Invasive greys are known for driving red squirrels out of their traditional habitats. I know that feeling. They are…

black squirrel

Hometakers!

They refused rat bait (not intended for squirrels) and they discovered Valentine’s cockatoo food suited them quite nicely: sunflowers and salads and fancy nuts, thank you very much. During the recent cold snap– okay, what passes for a cold snap in Florida– the squirrel delegation decided they need not go out when fresh food is delivered downstairs.

Quite the overstayed guests, they are rude little…

Homemakers! (aka Make Themselves at Home)

New drywall– the gypsum board to replace that damaged in Hurricane Ian’s wake– represents a small barrier. The furballs gnaw windows above the fireplace to see what’s going on. The scene resembles one of those old gothic movies where spirits lean out of picture frames. That’s our squirrels, resting their elbows on their most recent window-to-the-world, wondering why Miss M is hurling pots and pans and curses at them. But once upon a time…

white squirrel

Home Fries!

Before Florida, I lived in a state forest in Minnesota. Lots of wildlife, lots of squirrels. Not by coincidence, the electrical power would sometimes go boom with an explosion like a shotgun blast.

The house had its own transformer high on a utility pole. You may have noticed squirrels like to climb, and the pole was no exception. From time to time, Squeaky or Squiffy or Squirmy's curiosity would come to the fore. One or another would climb on the transformer, shorting it out and blowing the fuse with a bang heard ’round the forest. Lois at the electric company would exclaim, “Glory be. Sounds like Leigh’s transformer blew again. Earl, you up for the trip?”

As a result of tripping the fuse link, Squiffy or Squirmy or Squeaky would be blown away, figuratively and literally. Funeral arrangements occurred the next day. Furry families requested sunflower seeds in lieu of sunflowers.

red squirrel

Home Savers!

After transformer blasts occurred a few times, I told the company’s lineman these untenable squirrel blasts were expensive for the electric company, the squirrel population, and me in the middle of critical lines of code on my computer.

“Oh,” Earl said. “Why don’t you request a squirrel sleeve?”

“Why has no one mentioned this?” I said. “What’s a squirrel sleeve?”

The device, as you might surmise, was a 20-inch / 50cm length of galvanized sheet metal wrapped high around the utility pole. Squirrels might ascend to the sleeve, but not climb past its slippery surface. No more Spiffys or Squiffys or Rocky Js would die on my watch.

My thoughtfulness won numerous Squirrelman of the Year awards, whereupon rodents everywhere figured I’d welcome them to my house and hearth.

grey squirrel

Homebody!

I concede a major point to Chris: If I could reincarnate as any karmic wheel-of-life creature, a squirrel would make a good candidate. Sure, they work hard, but the little acrobats play hard too, scampering and teasing, friends-with-benefits flirting and playing you-can’t catch-me tag.

They are smart and wily. Defeated homeowners have posted videos of incredible obstacle courses originally intended to keep the little buggers out of bird feeders.

Score:    Squirrels 137,528    Humans 0

Moreover, naturalists tell us squirrels are the only mammal that can survive a drop from any height. When they spread their limbs, loose skin of the abdomen flattens just enough to resemble a wing suit, letting them parachute safely to a landing. Better than a flat cat! How cool is that!

Rocky J Squirrel
© Geico, Jay Ward Prod. et al

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But chewing the wiring in someone’s old house?

Nuts to that.

So…

Any chance your karmic lineage includes a squirrel?

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wingsuit human flying squirrel © Squirrel.ws

Writing, Reading, and Readings

 

Wondering what that title means? Well, the first two words are things I like to do. The third, I'm not so sure about. 

I feel guilty saying it (so I usually don't), but I don't much like readings. That's not always true, of course--I've been to many readings I enjoyed. Much of it depends on the author and the book, or the subject of the book. What often happens, though, especially at book launches, is that I gladly stand in line to buy the author's book and then I sit and listen to him or her read to the group from the book I just bought, the very one I plan to read for myself when I get home. To me, that's like buying a movie ticket, settling into your theater seat, and then seeing a lengthy excerpt from what you're about to watch.

I had much rather have the author use that time to talk about the book she's written, or how it was written, or what inspired it, or some of her views on her past writing or her writing experiences in general. Sometimes that happens also, but not always. What I probably enjoy the most is the question/answer session, if there is one. I don't usually ask questions myself, but I always seem to learn something from what others ask, and the responses by the author. 

Before you start thinking I'm a complete Grinch, I should say that I'm more likely to enjoy group readings, where several writers--some familiar, some not--read a short bit from their own stories or novels. In that case, I'm not usually sitting there listening to words that I myself plan to read later--unless I'm so impressed that I then rush out and purchase something by that author. One thing I especially like about group sessions is the fact that those readings are short. In my opinion, the one supreme rule about author readings is that they should be short.  

For me, that goes both ways. I also don't usually enjoy reading aloud from my own writing. I realize it's often required and expected, and I've certainly done it when asked to, and I'm always grateful to have been asked to--but truthfully, I'm not overly fond of the sound of my voice. I find it hard, at times, to read aloud with the feeling and expression that seem to come so easily to some folks. Another thing is, I think the fiction that I write, since it was written with the intention of being seen on the page, is harder to convey when it's heard, in spoken words. Especially the dialog. Unless, of course, it's delivered by someone talented enough to do it well. Some of my stories that have been read for podcasts and other such presentations by professional readers or actors have sounded good, at least to me.

In what I suppose is a contradiction, I do like talking to groups of any size about writing, whether it's my own or the writing of others. I guess it's fortunate that I enjoy it, because I taught night classes in the writing and marketing of short stories for seventeen years at a local college. The fact is, I've always been fascinated by the writing process, especially fiction writing. And other writers seem to be interested in that as well.

Having said all of the above, I did do a reading this past Wednesday, at a library several hours away. They showed me a kind and warm welcome and I had a great time--but it wasn't only a reading. It was more of a presentation about mystery writing and my short-story writing, with a question-and-answer session and a booksigning afterward. I did at one point read some things from my latest book because they asked me to, but that wasn't the way the event was promoted, and thankfully no one made faces or blew raspberries or threw tomatoes during that part. Probably because I made sure to keep it brief.

What are your thoughts on author readings? Do you enjoy hearing writers read aloud from their own work--I know a great many people do--or would you rather they just talked about other things? Have you ever sat there thinking Okay, time to finish this up? Do you like to read aloud to a group from your own stories or novels or poetry? Do you initiate that, or is it something you do mostly because you're expected to? Some of my writer friends are also accomplished actors, and I suspect they enjoy doing readings, and do a fine job of it. What are some of your rules and preferences on the subject? Do you always try to leave enough time for Q&A? Please let me know in the comments. And don't worry, I expect a lot of disagreement on this.

I also have a self-imposed rule about my SleuthSayers posts, and since I'm approaching that upper-wordcount limit, I'll obey that rule now.

Over and out.

The Addictive Power of Anglo-Saxon

 Lately, I've been trying to rework my YouTube algorithm. Since the election, the platform has assumed I want to watch every video it can find or my primary channel should be the Meidas Network. (In reality, it's science fiction fan fest What Culture, but Star Trek is between shows at the moment.) So imagine my surprise when, quite randomly, YouTube tosses up BBC Reporter Rob Watts and his RobWords channel.

Well, to the six of you who read my turns at this space, you already know I'm fascinated by how words have evolved. And I haven't forgiven Chaucer and his ilk for that damnable "-ough" construction that has as many pronunciations as the F bomb has meanings. (And is a lot less fun, but probably even more offensive.)

Well, Rob explains all that. And how English is a funny language. Sometimes, he takes a hard left into German or Old Norse because, as we all know, English isn't so much a language as a gang of languages waiting in a back alley to mug some unsuspecting language for more words. Like Japanese. Or Hindi. Or even Klingon. (Yes, you can use Qa'pla in everyday speech, and at least half the people who hear you will know what you mean.) But Rob does more than that. 

He explains how we know what dead languages sounded like. Although Latin has proven questionable because everyone who wrote it assumed everyone else knew how to speak it. In other words, a language like proto-Indoeuropean, the root language of almost every other language in Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East, and southern and central Asia, is easier to extrapolate than Latin pronunciations. Most of what we know comes from speakers of branch languages or of Germanic languages. French, for instance, is a descendent of Latin, but it doesn't really look or sound like it. And then the Normans, basically French Vikings, put their own stamp on it when they brought it to England in 1066. And, of course, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian are no help. They have modified structures from Latin, but the pronunciations just between Spanish dialects are all over the map.

 

There are some really weird things about English: The "th" sound, and how it has two sounds: "That" and "Thing," for example, one voiced, one not. And we don't have letters for some of those sounds. There's that pesky Latin again, imposing its alphabet on a language it's not designed for.

Of course, of all the English variants, the original Anglo-Saxon is pretty much another language. These days, German has spawned Dutch and Afrikaans, which sound like modern English, but not a thing like Anglo-Saxon. (And again, why is it less difficult to figure out what Old English sounded like than Latin?) But for the first 300 years of its existence, speakers and writers used runes to write things down instead of the Roman alphabet. Is it any wonder heavy metal is a decidedly English brand of rock and roll? 

Rob also looks at the origins of some odd words. Why are the military ranks the way they are? What happened to the letters we used to use for certain sounds? What the hell is that "-ough" about, anyway. (Blame vowel drift. It actually had only one or two ways of speaking it before people started talking funny. Like Shakespeare did. Or Stephen King.)

Another thing I discovered was our definite articles. English only has two: "The" and "a/an." The first thing Watts points out is how English has an "a/an" article. While I can think of a handful of Romance languages that have similar constructions, it's actually not that common. And its spelling is determined not by gender but by whether it's followed by a consonant or a vowel. Then there's "the." In other languages, everything has a gender, two or three. Some languages have neutral nouns in addition to male and female ones. And then "the" does not respect singular or plural. It's the car or the cats. Only its pronunciation is affected by the following vowel or consonant. If you don't believe me, ask anyone from Ohio about THE Ohio State University. Then listen to the nearest Michigander grumble under their breath. 

Very few words in English are gendered. Mainly, we call ships "she," and that quaint nautical tradition does not seem to be waning. But English used to have three definite articles for male, female, and neutral nouns. It was nowhere as confusing as German (and even the Germans complain about it), but all three still did not respect singular vs. plural. Then the Vikings gave up their pillaging ways, settled down in what became known as the Danelaw, and, through intermarriage, convinced the native Angles and Saxons to just go with "the." 

Watts's channel goes through the origins of words. Why do we raise cattle but eat beef? Is the word "billion" a recent invention? Just how many make up a "myriad." And how did "skirt" and "shirt" come from the same word? (Hint: So did "shorts," and for the same reason.) Watts compares how English renders some words to how other languages do it. If possible, he will trace it back to Proto-Indo-European, which, while mostly theoretical, often reveals how two seemingly different words in different languages come from the same root. 

REPOST: Who Talks Like This? (Reader Participation Edition)

(Reposting this one from January of three years ago, as it has been one of my most-responded to pieces, and also one of my favorites, because of the reader responses. I will post the original at the end of this repost so that you can go read the originals. They're terrific! Happy New Year! -Brian)

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Happy New Year! 

Just this week I ran across this in The New Yorker: "Movie Dialogue That Nobody Has Ever Actually Said in Real Life," by Jason Adam Katzenstein, and it reminded me of any number of conversations I've had both with fellow writers and with fans over the years, marveling at the disconnect between real life and the artistic treatments of real life situations intended to closely resemble them.

It's a quick read, really a series of single panel cartoons handily illustrating the author's point (example: two women running together, with one of them saying to the other: "As your best friend for the last twenty-five years..." and another, one man saying to another-who is facing away from him: "You know what your problem is?").

So, of course, I began thinking about seeing this sort of thing in the fiction I've read. Everyone who has read even ten novels has likely run across this sort of thing. And I'm interested in hearing examples from our readers here at the Sleuthsayers blog. I'll start, but would really like to see some lively responses in the comments.

Here we go!

My example: the use (or overuse) of names

You've seen it. We all have. Dialogue that goes something like this:

"Well?"

"Well, what, Bill?"

"You know what, Carmen."

"No I don't."

"Come on, Carmen. Out with it!"

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So, who talks like this?

Nobody.

There are great authors out there, masters of dialogue (Michael Connelly, Denise Mina, Megan Abbott, Elmore Leonard, Phillip Kerr, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Peter Temple, and a host of others!) whose work is a collective master class in writing dialogue that's so realistic it leaps off the page. And this is the sort of mistake that authors of this caliber never seem to make.

I think every writer goes through a phase, hopefully early in their career, where they commit this sort of blunder. I know I could dust off my first, never-to-be-published "mistake" novel, and find no end of examples of this sort of writing.

But hey, this is all intended be both light-hearted and instructive. So what examples can you  bring to the conversation? Looking forward to seeing them in the comments!

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(And here, as promised, is the original post with its terrific reader responses! See you in two weeks! -B.)