What's the Objective?

Recent events in my life -- unrelated to writing -- caused me to remember the old adage about "putting things behind you."  When something is over and done with, you can't go back and change it; you have to just keep moving ahead.

I don't know when I learned this adage, but my time in the Army brought me face to face with some of the most painful occurrences requiring it's implementation   Thankfully, those days are over.  Now, for me, the path ahead is inevitably made easier by the love of my wife and family.

And, I'm reminded that the easiest way to turn my back on the past -- putting something behind -- is to focus on an objective ahead of me  This is a good trick for writers to remember: both in their personal lives, and in our writing.

When the inevitable rejection slip arrives, for instance, it's always much easier to deal with when I've got a new work in progress.  I take a moment (maybe an hour or two -- to be sure I've got it right) to repackage the rejected material for the next market I've got on the list in my computer.  I try to list as many markets as possible for each work, in advance, because I find it hard to remember where I intended to send the manuscript next, when it's just come back to me.  Once it's repackaged and shipped off, I do my best to drop it and forget it until the manuscript either sells or comes back again.  And, it's much easier to drop it and move on, if I've got a new objective ready and waiting: that new work in progress that's calling me from my Word program.

My recent ruminations about putting things behind, by focusing on an objective farther ahead, has also led me to consider how this concept fits into writing.

The Series

Lee Child, author of the Reacher series

Currently, I've been reading novels from the Jack Reacher series, since a friend of mine decided to get rid of about a dozen books she had read, and these included a lot of Reacher novels.  I've read several other successful series, in the past, and it seems to me that protagonists in nearly all of them were focused on distant -- often unobtainable -- objectives.

These objectives are often not mentioned directly, within the novels of any given series.  However, even if they are not clearly spelled out, or alluded to, these objectives still come through, via a manner of transmission similar to that of an unstated theme:  The words may not mention it, but the characters' actions, words and/or thoughts shout it loudly (or, at the very least, seem to repeatedly murmur it) to the reader.

I haven't quite decided what Jack Reacher's objective is, but I suspect it's something along the lines of: Finding roots that he can pull out and carry with him when he moves on.  Reacher is a wanderer -- he moves from place to place -- from what I've seen of the series. (Some of you know him much better, and I invite comments or corrections.)  This idea of a wandering protagonist, in search of some objective or ideal, is an oft-repeated theme in literature -- but seems even more recurrent when it comes to series protagonists.

Though he occasionally winds up working in New York, Mexico or California, for the most part Travis McGee seldom gets far from where his houseboat, The Busted Flush, is moored at slip 18F (if memory serves me correctly), yet I would argue that he's also a wanderer.  He wanders from job to job (though they're all part of his "salvage" operations), and from woman to woman.

Through the life of the series, he wanders mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually.  And, in all that wandering, he's seeking.  What is he looking for?  Well, perhaps it's True Justice and True Love, coupled with Fiscal Security.  I suspect, however, that he'd trade away Fiscal Security, if he thought he could get the other two as a result.

There may be those who are shaking their heads, wondering why I'm writing about objectives, when what I just wrote about Travis McGee looks more like motivation.  And, that's not a bad question to ask.  To me, objectives and motivation seem to be two ends of the same stick.  The objectives the character wants to achieve -- even if they're beyond the character's grasp -- motivate that character to do what he does.  More importantly, they motivate that character to do these things the way he does them.     

An objective such as True Justice may lie far beyond the story parameters.  It may well be an objective that cannot be achieved just by solving any plot problem -- such as a criminal investigation -- but if the protagonist is seeking True Justice, that may well influence the way s/he deals with people who pop up as obstacles to solving the case.  And it would certainly influence how the protagonist deals with having to kill or injure someone.

This is one reason why I think it's important for the author to have a firm grasp on the protagonist's long-range objectives, even if the other characters, or even the protagonist, are unaware or a little "iffy" on the subject.  Keeping the protagonist's long-range objectives in mind helps keep that protagonist in character -- no matter how many installments finally make up the series.  When the protagonist changes over time, which can happen in a long series, it also helps an author understand what sort of soul-searching that protagonist is going to have to go through as s/he changes.  Maybe the change is internal, but the long-range objective remains unchanged, thus providing a touch-stone for how the character will change.  Or, perhaps the objective itself may change, which could engender much greater soul-searching.    Either way, this is one reason to keep a protagonist's objective in mind while writing.

Another Reason

NUMBER  "B"

How many Westerns feature a gunslinger with a good-guy streak, who goes around righting wrongs?  The movie The Magnificent Seven may have been based on The Seven Samurai, but I suspect its tremendous success was the result of snatching up seven such wandering gunslingers and putting them all together on a mission to right a wrong.  And, each of the seven clearly had his own objective for doing so.

This plot line reverberated with audiences, who felt as if they knew where these guys were coming from. I suspect, however, that the mechanism for making the audience members identify with these guys had more to do with those objectives, than with the gunfights.  Action may sell a film, but I suspect audience identification with the main characters is what makes a film great.  People may wonder: "How would I handle those bandits?"  But, when viewers think, "How would I handle this, if that were my objective, if that was what I was worried about and/or trying to achieve -- how would I act in that man's shoes?" then the guts begin to twist, and celluloid springs to real life.

I think it works the same way in novels, too.  No one would enjoy being in an actual fire-fight, and few readers can say, "Yeah!  I remember what that was like.  I totally identify with this guy being shot at and shooting back."   Give the protagonist some long-range objectives, however, similar to those other folks might have, and suddenly the reader identifies with the character.  S/he has a reason to care about that guy being shot at, because there's a connection there.  After all, we all have unobtainable objectives in our lives -- don't we??

When I was in the Army, I was much younger and quicker as well as single.  I also spent a lot of time flying between far-flung places, where I was not always surrounded by friends.  And, there was a Sci-Fi "Men's Action" series I used to read, about a wandering band of travelers in a post-apocalyptic world.  The group had stumbled across a network of teleportation devices, which made it possible for each novel to begin in a completely new setting.   Essentially, it worked as a Sci-Fi version of a traveling band of Old West gunslingers who went from town to town cleaning up each place they moved through (i.e. killing the bad guys, thereby liberating the oppressed populous).

At the time, I had enough blood and guts in my life, without adding more from my reading.  What kept me buying the books (aside from the fact that I could find them in most airports) was the unstated group objective.  What the group was really traveling around, looking for, was A Safe Place to Nurture Love.

Now that would hardly seem like a successful objective for a "Men's Action" series, but I'm convinced it was indeed the group objective.  Each of them had lost people they loved to sudden, unexpected violence several times in the past.  Each was now in love with another member of the small party, but unwilling to fully commit to that love, for fear it would "Jinx" the relationship, causing them to lose another person they loved to the sudden senseless violence that ran rampant in the post-apocalyptic world they inhabited.

Not that any of the macho male characters would even have been caught  even thinking about nurturing love!  And, none of the female characters -- who were a bit more intelligent than the male characters -- would have deigned to mention it aloud to any of the males.  I got the feeling, however, that everyone understood this was what they were looking for.  Their personal histories, their actions, words, thoughts -- the way they went about doing things -- made this very clear.  And, that objective, A Safe Place to Nurture Love, was absolutely unobtainable, given their circumstances.

At the time, when I was reading these books, I knew that I identified with the main characters.  But, I didn't know why.  Only in retrospect did I realize that my personal objective at the time was quite similar.to theirs.  They were seeking a safe place to nurture love.  I – a single soldier on an A-Team, who was in and out of the country quite a bit ˆ was seeking a way to live, which would give love a chance  to grow in my own life.  That seemed unobtainable to me, back then.

And -- when I tried to re-read one of the books in the series, years later, after my wife and kids had become such a fundamental part of my life -- well, I suspect that's why the book couldn't hold my interest.  I was no longer a part of the target audience for the series, because my own objectives had changed.  I no longer identified with the main characters.

In Conclusion

Certainly, there are other ways of helping readers to identify with characters. But, helping them identify via connection between objectives is useful.

I've always felt the line that gave the Declaration of Independence it's greatest strength, was mention of "the pursuit of happiness."  It probably also gave the framers of the Constitution their biggest headache, too.  I often picture them sitting around saying, "That damn Jefferson!  It's one thing to write about the pursuit of happiness, as if you're a poet!  We all know there's too much random chance in life, creating unexpected sadness, to make True Happiness possible.  Yet, we have to write a document that gives people the latitude to at least try to pursue happiness.  How the hell are we supposed to that?"

And, that's one of the nice things about writing fiction.  We don't actually have to make any of our characters achieve True Happiness.  In fact, doing so would probably destroy the ability of a reader to suspend disbelief (unless you're writing for children).  We just need to remember what our main characters' objectives are, so readers have another way of identifying with them.

For what it's worth, that's my two cents.
--Dix

What's in Your Name That Defines You?

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

Whether we like it or not, we are labeled everyday by strangers making immediate impressions of who we are by how we look, act and react to what happens to us in this world. We can't often make them love us or even like us and maybe it doesn't even matter in the big scheme of things. After all, they are strangers. But, it was people who loved us who saddled us with the lasting impression our names label us with when we are out there meeting the world.

Most writers have skimmed through a book of baby names when we can't find the perfect one for one of our characters. I own several of these books and have scoured the Internet for names popular in particular decades where my stories take place. It really helps to nail down the right name for the people populating our stories.

My mother chose the name, Deborah, for me in honor of her Native American best friend who had been adopted at an older age. Her new parents told her she could choose any name she wanted. She chose Deborah and so did my mom. (By the way, at the hospital I was born that night five other girls were born. Every one of them were named either Deborah, Debra or Debbie.)

According to the baby names books, Deborah means "bee". I'm thinking this is an appropriate name for me since I have a problem sitting still. Mom said even as a baby, I was a mover and shaker. Bees are known for being busy.

In this world of hurry, scurry and way too much worrying, I am stepping back and taking stock. Priorities need to be set, scheduled free time needs to be found. As I am doing this mentally, I realize this is another form of busy work, but work that needs to be finished.

I think I would enjoy being a Pooh for a time. But, for only a short time. I wouldn't be happy sitting back and eating honey all the time.

Does your name suit you or did a nickname decipher your personality better? Is a Deborah the same person in your mind as a Debra or a Debbie, Debby or Dee?

What about your favorite character?

Wasn't it interesting in the Indiana Jones movie with Sean Connery as Indy's dad letting us know Indiana wasn't his son's real name. "We called the dog Indiana," Connery growled.

Would Sam Spade have been as hard-edged if his named had been Ted?

Could a girl named Anne be as hard and fiery as a Scarlett?

As Shakespeare stated, a rose is a rose is a rose.

But, I think if Juliet had been a Carrie, she would have been a different character altogether.

By the way, I named my daughter Melissa which means "honey bee." She is so much sweeter than me.

Peculiar

by Robert Lopresti

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned in this very spot that I had an idea for a story about blackmail, but the idea refused to resolve itself into a plot.  I spent many hours riding around on my bike, the PlotCycle (TM), pondering the little seed but it has still refused to germinate into a full-blown story.  It was like I had a pile of flesh and no skeleton to hang it on.

But something peculiar happened last week.

I was reading someone else's story -- in fact, it was "The General," by our own Janice Law in Mystery Writers of America Presents Vengeance.  A fine story it is, by the way, and I recommend it.

But my point is that a few pages in I suspected I knew how the story was going to turn out.  And, of course, I was completely wrong.  Which is fine; I like surprises.

However, by the time Janice had finished unwinding her story, I had unwound mine.  I had the entire plot for a story in my head.  Usually when I get an idea for a story I just jot it down in my pocket notebook, but I felt so strongly about this one that I hurried over to my computer, poked the hamster to start spinning the hard drive, and wrote an outline.  I even wrote the gutwrenching last paragraphs (oh, you'll weep.  Trust me.)  Now all I need is time to write the damned thing.

From original concept to fully developed plot: less than an hour.

Meanwhile, remember my blackmail story?

From original concept to fully developed plot: more than a month and still an unfinished mess.

Which leads me to my thesis statement: The human mind is one peculiar vegetable.

The Thirteenth Child, or, It's Alive! Part Two

As I warned in "It's Alive" Part One, if my horror novel actually made it to press, you would hear from me about it. Well, come October 5th, The Thirteenth Child will be ushered into the light of day. My days at the hands of a cruel and callous developmental editor are at an end!

He had his say… oh yes indeed, he had his say! His perverse delight at savaging my work was evidenced on page after page of my manuscript. His "notes," as he referred to them, full of delight at every perceived deviation in story logic, every imagined run-on sentence. Not content with these, he trod heavily upon my golden prose, stamping out similes and metaphors inspired by the gods themselves; descriptions so colorful and vaulting in their imagination that he could only have been driven by envy! Oh yes… he had his say!

My book… my wonderful book lay in tatters when he had done. My publisher, Steven Booth of Genius Book Publishing, was deaf to my cries of outrage. Instead, he urged me to get on with it, and hung up the phone. Even Robin, my wife of thirty-four years, appeared indifferent to the many wrongs I had suffered. As I said in the previous posting, she never showed any real enthusiasm for my horror novel. She too, I perceived, was part of the problem.

I hid in my room with the curtains drawn and refused to come down. Robin, it would appear, has a busy social schedule, and was in and out of the house. After a few days, she stopped asking me to join her for meals, or a morning at the beach. She went to wineries and restaurants with our so-called friends, their laughter drifting back to me as they drove away. No one cared. Time passed.

One day, I don't know which as I had lost track of such things, I scratched at my growing beard and glanced over at the odious "notes." I fingered a few pages loose from the stack. They came away smudged; it had been awhile since I had thought to bathe. No matter… I was all by myself in this world. I read a few paragraphs, then flung them down again. Blasphemy!

Sitting in the dim room, I selected just a few of them… the least unreasonable suggestions, and studied them once more. Perhaps… just perhaps, one or two slight alterations might not damage my work overly much. Besides, I had to throw some kind of bone to my surprisingly intractable publisher. One or two little alterations might not hurt.

I did it. Then I read the affected pages. Not bad… not too bad. He might have been on to something with those after all. I tried a few others. The results there weren't completely awful either. Those passages read a little better, maybe… but just a little. I went on.

It was like a fever. Now that I had started, I couldn't seem to stop. Tearing through page after page, I went to work on my novel, stripping it down to the bare essentials, trimming the fat… it was addictive. I began to laugh as my fingers tore across the keyboard. Someone pounded on the locked door, I thought I heard Robin's voice calling, "David… honey? Are you all right in there? What are you laughing at, sweetheart? You're scaring me!" I ignored her and went on… and on… and on.

A month later, I was suddenly done. I read the book one last time. Cautiously satisfied, I sent it on to Steven. A few days later, he responded, "It's on… The Thirteenth Child is on for October 5th." I started to laugh again, to laugh long and hard, but Steven interrupted, "Knock that stuff off! Go get a shower and shave and stop scaring people… and tell Robin you're sorry for being such a jerk!"

So October 5th, it is. I hope that you give either the paperback or ebook version a shot. I don't think you'll regret it, even if you're not a horror fan per se, as The Thirteenth Child also has a bit of police procedural woven into it. It's not a gore-fest, but it is scary, and features a unique (if I do say so myself) antagonist in the character of Gabriel. And it's just in time for Hallowe'en which is when the climax of the book occurs. A perfect read for the season. Marvelous Christmas gift, as well.

Since the rewrites, I've showered and shaved, as Steven suggested, and come down from my room. Our dog has stopped barking at me, and Robin and I are on speaking terms again. Though sometimes I find her watching me from the corner of her eyes. No matter. She may think me mad, but no matter. All that's important is the book… it's alive, you know… oh yes… it's still alive!

To Kill or Not to Kill: My Personal Story

Recently, I began going through my deceased mother's personal belongings. Among newspaper clippings and all of my report cards back to preschool, I found she'd saved print copies of numerous Internet articles and several guest blogs I did before I discovered Criminal Brief and was later invited to become a SleuthSayer.

Today, I'm reprinting a blog that appeared on Murderous Musings,
Sunday, June 11, 2008, including the introduction and an afterword.

2008 INTRODUCTION

We cap off the opening week of Murderous Musings with some thoughts from Guest Blogger Fran Rizer, author of the Callie Parrish Mystery Series for Berkley Prime Crime. Fran obviously has a morbid (make that mortuary) sense of humor. That she is a retired public school teacher may seem obvious from her nursery-rhymish titles. The first book was A Tisket, a Tasket, a Fancy, Stolen Casket. The second will be Hey, Diddle, Diddle, the Corpse & the Fiddle.

Fran has written for magazines, won photography awards, co-authored scientific nature studies for Clemson University, and is a published, recorded songwriter, A Murderous welcome to Fran Rizer.

THOUGHTS OF MURDER

Lizzie Borde

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved that rhyme. I was that child. My fascination and delight with this poetic effort revealed my interest in murder at a very tender age. I read avidly about Lizzie, Jack the Ripper, the Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, and, of course, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood killers.

Then I saw Susan Smith on television begging for the safe return of her children. She lived only about an hour's drive from my home. I doubted her sincerity but was still horrified when she confessed.

Susan Smith made me aware that my intrigue with murder isn't the act itself. My attraction is entertaining reading. It's not murder I like; it's reading about it. In my earlier years, I'd devoured true accounts, but because of their distance in time and place, those words had seemed like reading fiction.

That was a relief. It's easier to confess, "I love reading murder mysteries," than, "I love killing."

Susan Smith, 1994

Having read this week's initial blogs and feeling honored to be a guest on Murderous Musing, I wanted to address my personal thoughts on murder first and close with a few words about another favorite topic of mine: research.

RESEARCH NOTES

I always knew that if I lived long enough, someday I would write a novel and it would be a murder mystery. I also realized that many people are tired of the horrific news on CNN and that real murder is tragic and heart-breaking. When I retired from teaching, I decided to take a light-hearted approach to my first murder mystery. That's how the Callie Parrish Mystery Series was born and I was tagged the writer who put "fun into funerals."

Asked why my books are southern-based, I tend to answer, "Because you write what you know, and that's what I know." That's partly true, but I also write about murders and mortuaries, and I've never killed anyone, personally known a murder victim, nor worked in a funeral home. I used to tell my students, "Write what you know, and if you want to write about something you don't know, research it!"

A couple of years ago, at the visitation for my uncle's funeral in Aiken, SC, I began chatting with an employee who'd recently graduated from mortuary school. I asked a simple question about casket locking mechanisms, and he invited me downstairs to see for myself.

He showed me how to lock and unlock different models. I asked, and he answered a thousand questions. Well, at least a hundred. I confess I also checked out the difference in linings and the mattresses. When we finally returned to the visitation upstairs, I found my family frantically searching for me.

"Where were you this time?" my son asked.

"Researching for the book,"I replied.

When the first book was completed, I sent it on its merry way to New York where I was fortunate enough to get a great agent who got me a deal with Berkey Prime Crime. The third Callie Parrish book will be issued in October, 2008,

Recently, a cousin called me from Augusta, Georgia. "I went to a funeral today," she began.

"Who died?" I asked.

"Nobody you know, but I was telling a friend that my cousin writes books that take place in a funeral home. This good-looking man asked if you were from Columbia and then proudly announced that he'd taken you on a tour of the funeral home where he used to work. He wants to know where your next book signing will be."

As much as I appreciate the opportunity to blog as a guest on Murderous Musings, I need to hit the road. I'm headed to Georgia on a research trip!

2012 AFTERWORD

A lot has changed since 2008. The second, third, and fourth Callie books have been published, and I'm on a first-name basis with undertakers at several funeral homes who have no problem answering whatever weird questions I call and ask them.


My friend, Linda

The major change, however, is about my best friend, Linda. A few of you already know about her. She was two years younger than I and the daughter of my mother's best friend. We had matching Easter dresses when we were little, and one year, we received identical gorgeous dolls from Santa. We each married our childhood sweethearts two weeks apart and bought houses next door to each other. We celebrated the births of our children together and comforted each other when our marriages ended in divorce. We double-dated both before our marriages and after our divorces. Linda was Callie Parrish's number one fan, not the kind Stephen King wrote about in MISERY, but the kind who organized a fan club that met me at book signings carrying big "Fran Rizer Fan Club, We Love Callie" signs and wearing black, sequin-accented mourning veils she made.

On the last Friday in January, 2009, Linda and I went shopping that morning. That night, we went to dinner with Cal and Dennis. She went home early because she had an all-day church meeting on Saturday. I called her several times Saturday. Her car wasn't at her house, and I assumed she'd gone out with some of the others from the meeting.

Cal and I kept calling. When there was no answer by nine that night, he called her son-in-law, who entered the house and found Linda's body. She'd been beaten to death the night before during a home robbery. She'd retired from her state job only sixty days before; she'd raised her daughter as a single mother; and her house needed repairs, but she spent most of her money on her three grandchildren. What in the hell did the monster think she'd have that was worth stealing? I won't go into details except to say that I helped clean the house including removing what seemed like a ton of black fingerprint dust. Her burned car was found not very far away, and the amethyst and diamond ring she'd traded her wedding rings in for after her divorce was recovered from a pawn shop.

Well-written murder can be entertaining. In reality, murder is perpetual hell with survivors doomed to wonder every day: When did she know he was in the house? How scared was she? How much pain did she endure physically and mentally?

I vowed not to ever write another murder. I did, however, allow what I'd already written to be published.

My mother, Willene

On April 25, 2012, my mother died in my arms after five months of constant agony, infection, and complications from hip surgery. How could I even consider ever writing another Callie mystery which, according to some reviewers, "put the fun in funerals"?

Not a day passes that I don't think about my mother and Linda. Not a day passes that I don't remember the many wonderful times with each of them--including watching my mother read the Callie books with her big magnifying glass and finding Linda's optimistic stash of black sequined veils in her closet when we cleaned out her house.

I couldn't write fiction from November until a month ago. The thriller written long ago found a home under a pen name after Linda's death, but I decided there would be no more Callies.

There's an old song– "Time Changes Everything." Maybe so. Or maybe I remembered how much Linda and Mama loved Callie, but when my publisher called and asked when the next one would be available, I told him the end of November and started writing. Callie books average 80,000 words. I'm 60,000 words into the rough draft of Mother Hubbard Has A CORPSE IN THE CUPBOARD. I can no longer say, "I haven't killed anyone...lately" because I've killed two recently. I don't think blunt force trauma will ever return to my writing, but apparently I can still shoot fictional characters.

Gotta go now. I have another book to finish.

Until we meet again… take care of   YOU!

Spying E-Readers

by Louis Willis

Are we Americans overly paranoid about corporations and government collecting information about us?

I’m not sounding an alarm, but based on two articles I read in the online journal The Guardian, our reading privacy and reading freedom, it seems, are being threatened.

Like many people, I worry about privacy when I use the Internet. The article “Big e-Reader is watching you” (July 4, 2012) by Alison Flood has increased the worry gremlins running around in my head. “Retailers and search engines,” she writes, “can now gather an astonishingly detailed portrait of our book-reading habits: what we buy, what we browse, the amount of time we spend on a page and even the annotations we make in an ebook.”

As the article suggests, if you use an E-reader or computer, the Big Brothers--book publishers, booksellers, the government, and maybe even authors--are watching what you read, how long it takes you to finish a novel, and what parts you highlight. I read an article (forgot to copy the URL) in another online publication or blog that a small publisher of E-books has gone so far as to allow readers to chose their heroes, heroines, and plots. It seems the publisher wants to make storytelling and reading what it is not and shouldn’t be for adult readers--interactive.

Jo Glanville in his article “Reader’s privacy is under threat in the digital age” (August 31, 2012) notes that the digital trail we leave behind when we download an E-book to our computer or E-reader is a source of information for the government to track us and for business to see us as potential customers and thus profit. California is tackling the problem of government spying head on. The legislature passed “The Reader Privacy Act” that requires government agencies to obtain a court order to collect information about a reader online or from bookstores. We can solve the problem of the government gathering information about our reading habits by following California’s example and forcing the government at all levels to obtain a court order before gathering information about what we read.

Authors, publishers, booksellers, and E-reader makers are a different matter. Authors already cater to readers’ taste in novels that have series protagonists. Authors want two things: to be read and to be paid for what they write. Publishers, booksellers, and E-reader makers want one thing: to make a profit. The E-book sellers for now, through E-readers, are in the driver’s seat. I can’t share an E-book with friends without the seller’s permission, though I suspect some smart geek will eventually, like music sharing, find a way around the restrictions, and, like the music producers, publishers, E-book sellers, and authors will fight back. Authors and publishers are challenging E-book sellers for control of E-book pricing. I hope the authors win but who ever wins, I also hope it benefits us readers.

That our E-readers are spying on us should be no surprise, for our computers have been spying on us for years. We will, because we don’t have a choice, accept the spying because the control of E-books and what we read is in the hands of manufacturers and sellers of E-readers. I have not yet made up my mind as to whether this is a good or bad thing. I don’t like the gathering of information on me by businesses or government, just as I don’t like authors posting fake reviews or bullying reviewers and critics (see Leigh’s September 9 post), but I’ll keep reading E-books on my three E-readers.

I tried but couldn’t write a humorous post on the threat to our freedom and privacy to read. There has to be some humor in the situation, doesn’t there?

Mystery Week

by John M. Floyd

Our home, at the moment, is a bachelor pad.  Yes, it's true that I am married and have been for forty years--but my wife's out of town for a couple weeks, and I've been left to my own devices.  As of this writing, it's been ten days since her departure, and so far I have (1) read most of a novel and a dozen short stories, (2) written a story of my own, (3) watched five movies and a lot of series-on-DVD, and (4) consumed nine TV dinners and two lunch specials at a nearby pizza place.  What I haven't done is wash many clothes or dishes, but hey, I haven't yet had to use a lot--and besides, I've got several more days before the boss returns and does an inspection.

The best thing about all this couch-potatoish activity is that most of it has fallen into the mystery/suspense category.

Reading

The short stories I've read this week were actually re-read, from two of my favorite collections: Little Boxes of Bewilderment by Jack Ritchie and Small Felonies by Bill Pronzini.  Bewilderment features thirty-one mysteries by one of the true masters of the short story, and Felonies contains fifty (count 'em, fifty) mystery short-shorts.  Every tale in both books is delightful, and some are brilliant.

The novel I've been reading is also a re-read, and even though it's not a mystery it includes a hearseload of suspense and mayhem.  It's Stephen King's Wizard and Glass--I'm giving it and Wolves of the Calla a second go-round because I recently finished his fairly new The Wind Through the Keyhole, which is positioned between W&G and WOTC in the Dark Tower series.  (Dale, I am once more on the path of the Beam, thankee-sai.)  For those of you who are not familiar with Roland of Gilead and his In-World adventures, Wizard and Glass is--like all of King's novels--well-written and packed with action, although it's a strange kind of action: the novel might be best categorized as a fantasy/Western/romance.  And I was pleased to find that revisiting it has been as much fun as reading it the first time was, years ago.

At the top of my to-be-read stockpile of novels are A Wanted Man by Lee Child and Winter of the World by Ken Follett.  I bought both of them the other day and will get to them as soon as I finish my return to the King.

Watching

My movie and TV viewing this past week has also been mostly mystery/crime/suspense: Man on a Ledge, Lockout, Get the Gringo, Headhunters, Safe House, and the second season of HBO's Boardwalk Empire.  Sadly, none of these are what I would call top-notch except for Boardwalk and (if you don't mind subtitles) Headhunters.  Just for the heck of it, I also re-watched the pilot episode of Lost--probably the only network series of the last ten years that I've really enjoyed.

Lest I mislead you, though, the movies I've mentioned were viewed not in a proper theater but in my home theater, and from the comforting depths of my recliner--and all of them (the TV shows as well) either arrived in a red Netflix envelope or were streamed in via Apple TV.  Give me those conveniences and a snack and my remote and my pair of wireless headphones, and I'm a kid in a candy store.

Next up in my movie queue are Touch of Evil, A Kiss Before Dying, and the U.S. (2011) version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Writing

The short story I wrote this past week is a 3200-word mystery called "Secrets: A Ferry Tale."  It's sort of a Strangers on a Train kind of story with a different mode of transportation.  It's also the first piece of fiction I've ever written whose title has included a colon--but the truth is, I couldn't decide between the two titles and this was a way to use both.  (I've always been more devious than smart.)

Like so many of my shorts, the rough draft for this one happened fast, within a couple of hours, and then I spent the next two days rewriting it.  I wish I could do as some of my writer friends do, and pop stories out of the oven fully baked, but with me it just never works that way.  My babies are usually ugly, so I do a lot more rewriting than writing.  The good thing is, the revision stage doesn't bother me; I'm one of those crazy people who actually enjoy the act of trying to polish a story until it shines.

I also sold another mystery to Woman's World and came up with ideas for two more--those are not yet written down, but they're fully formed in my head and awaiting birth.  Now that "Secrets" is finished and languishing on my hard drive, I'll type the two short-shorts up in the next few days and start the editing process.

I'll also start the housecleaning and dishwashing process.  Before the return of my better half I'll probably even make the bed, water the plants, and mow the lawn.  (I might be crazy, but I ain't stupid.)

Now what did I do with that remote . . . ?

Borrowing from the Best

I sold my first story published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine back in 2001. It was a stand-alone set in the backdrop of the Golden Triangle. This story had been conveniently resting in inventory when I went looking for markets and started at the top with AHMM's Writer's Guidelines on their website. In part of her suggested story wants, editor Kathleen Jordan mentioned stories set in exotic locations. With the Orient having often been referred to in literature as exotic, I figured Southeast Asia was close enough for government work, especially since a lot of my story was based on articles from an English language newspaper out of Bangkok, plus some situation reports which crossed my desk over the years, not to mention that close-up experience of the twelve-month, government-paid vacation Uncle said I'd won back in the Summer of '67. Lots of background. Anyway, the story was submitted and bought.

I was ecstatic......for about ten minutes. And then, reality crashed the party. One sold story was great, BUT could I do it again? What if I was only a one-shot, flash-in-the-pan? Circumstances now called for a really good story to send in before the editor forgot me and her last purchase. The Muse of Writing forbid that I should mail in a second rate piece for my second submittal to such a prestigious mystery magazine. My brain turned, desperately seeking an answer as to what could possibly be new, original or even interesting.

Solution?

Borrow from the Best.

I had read Lawrence Block's Ehrengraf series about a crooked lawyer whose clients were always "innocent" of the alleged crimes, mainly because the lawyer did his nefarious and very unlegal work out of court and behind the scenes. This was a good starting point; I'd go with a crooked bail bondsman for my protagonist.

Let's see now, there was Isaac Azimov's Black Widower series and Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe. Excellent, I'll have the proprietor of the bail firm solve the mysteries without ever going to the crime scene. His bail agent will bring him clues like the Black Widower supper group did (unintentionally) for the waiter and like Archie did for Nero. Each story will then be written in three separated parts: the problem, the clues and the resolution.

Since this series will tend towards dark comedy, the bail agent needs to be different. How about a resemblance to Peter Lorre's character in Arsenic and Old Lace? Nice, and I'll give him a broken left pinky finger which wasn't set quite right afterwards and therefore now permanently sticks straight out like an upright flagpole whenever he squeegees his sweating bald head with said hand during tight situations. It will be strongly implied that the proprietor was responsible for the broken pinky after one of the bail agent's indiscretions while operating in the name of the firm. The bail agent's name will be Theodore Oscar Alan Dewey, in which case the acronym speaks for itself.

And then there's Dashiell Hammett who wrote some really good stories. Plus, there's an excellent biography out there with good information about his time working in San Francisco. Seems he knew two brothers who were bail bondsmen. The brothers were also crooks who knew all the other criminals and used them to pull off jobs for the two brothers. Perfect, crooked bail bondsmen, fits right in. Now what brothers do I know?

Of course, the Black Mafia in Kansas City during the '70's had a set of twins who allegedly robbed banks, dealt dope, gambled and committed other illicit activities. Let's see now, their street names were Twin and Twin Brother. After they got arrested, Twin Brother said he would cop to the fall, but then Twin had to put half of the money he made from all his future crimes into a bank account in Twin Brother's name.  That way, Twin Brother would have a bankroll when he got out of prison. Twin agreed to the deal and hit the streets to bring in some dough. That's when me and Twin got to know each other quite well before he went off to join his incarcerated brother.

Great. I'll call it the Twin Brothers Bail Bond series. However, being the criminal enterprise it is, the firm will only take "special clients" who can put up high dollar bonds, usually in the form of stolen merchandise which can't yet be fenced. The majority of these clients will never go to trial. Seems they tend to fall from high places, go deep-water swimming without proper breathing apparatus, are killed by their suddenly enraged partners in crime or get run over by an errant taxi cab… although in all fairness it should be mentioned that the victim was outside of the clearly marked crosswalk at the time. In any case, the client is somehow rendered deceased, yet the bail firm makes an extraordinary profit.

Hope you kept up with all those dark twisted corridors and squeaky closet doors which only get opened by night when the house goes silent and honest folk are fast asleep. Just know that in this series, the Reader ends up cheering for a criminal protagonist, one who preys on other criminals.

By this fashion, "The Bond that Keeps," first in the series, was born. Kathleen bought the story and it appeared in 2002.

Now, you have to wait two weeks for… The Rest of the Story.

Notes from the Penitentiary – September 2012

by Eve Fisher

Yes, I'm back from the ever-friendly South Dakota State Penitentiary, after another three day Alternatives to Violence (AVP) Workshop.  This one was training facilitators, i.e., turning outsiders (like myself) and insiders (yes, inmates) into trainers of other outsiders and inmates in the principles of AVP.

As always, exhausting, worthwhile, rewarding, interesting.

Also as always, the food is a criminal offense in and of itself.  Up here in South Dakota, they've outsourced all meals to CBM Managed Services.  Now CBM's website is a masterpiece of literary succulence - "High quality food service programs through utilizing fresh, high-quality foods, tested recipes, planned production standards, preparation practices and comprehensive employee training programs" - but in actuality it looks like dog food.  No fruit, fresh or cooked.  Industrial canned vegetables, one scoop per meal (maybe).  (This tray is semi-accurate; take out the red stuff, put in a slab of bread, double up on the brown stuff and take out the beans.)  But hey, it's cheap, and that's what counts. All I can say is that I wouldn't feed it to a dog.  And yes, I have first-hand experience, because we go in at 7 in the morning and get out at 6 at night, and we're not allowed to go out for meals or breaks.  So we share in the dining experience - twice a day - with the prisoners.

Speaking of food, sort of, Ramen noodles- i.e., "soups" - are still standard currency.  The workshop role play that got the biggest applause was one about an inmate who owed five soups to a storer inmate and couldn't/wouldn't (difference never was determined...) pay.  After considerable talk and a bit of shoving, the local lifer told them all the shut the f*** up.  Eventually he paid up the five soups for the owing inmate, which meant that now that inmate owed the lifer - not necessarily a good thing.  Everyone agreed the inmate needed to pay his debts, and learn who to owe and who not to owe.  I asked the actor (still in character) if he was going to pay the lifer, and he said "maybe," which got a lot of muttered comments from the audience about how he was going to get punked if he didn't.  (Getting punked ranges from getting beat up to rape.)  I agree - he needs to pay his debts.

I am always in admiration of the awesome ingenuity of prisoners and their families.  One of the ways to smuggle things into the pen is to have a friend of relative shoot stuffed dead animals over the wall into the yard with a potato gun.  (Proof that reality is stranger than fiction, because I'd never have thought of doing that.  And I don't know anybody on God's sweet green earth that I would do that for...)  Anyway, they stuff the animals with tobacco, cell phones, or drugs, which is why prisoners on the yard are always keeping an eye out for dead squirrels, birds, etc.  So are guards.  I gather it is often a sprint to see which gets there first.

We have workshops in October and November, and we already know they're going to be a bit hairy, and might even get cancelled by the authorities...  There's going to be at least one execution in October or November - Eric Roberts and Rodney Berget, both lifers, killed prison guard Ron Johnson in an escape attempt.  Both have been sentenced to death, and both have either rejected appeals or the appeals have been denied.  (Rodney Berget is continuing a family tradition, in that his brother, Roger, was executed in Oklahoma in 2000.)  Anyway, executions disturb the prisoners (there's a surprise), and the staff (who are worried about the prisoners and how they'll react), and the administration (who double down on security, thus upsetting the prisoners even more).  So the workshops will probably be more emotional and more strained than usual. Will keep you posted.

Meantime, stay out of trouble, and go enjoy a really good meal. I did.

Five Red Herrings III

by Robert Lopresti

1. What Not To Wear To A Murder Trial

File under too-weird-for-fiction.  You probably heard that former policeman  Drew Peterson was convicted of killing his wife, but did you hear about the odd thing about the jury?  They dressed  alike.  One day all business suits.  Another day sports Jerseys.  Sometimes red, white, and blue.  Apparently they were having a lot of fun, but does this show the proper attitude when judging a man  who is accused of murdering his wife?

Apparently the feeling during the trial was that no one could ask them about it.  "If they came in wearing T-shirts saying 'Drew's Guilty,' it'd be different," said one attorney.

2. Encounter with Number 6.
I recently met a writer named Stephan Michaels.  Naturally I took a peek at his web site and found a terrific piece about his friendship with one of my favorite actors, Patrick McGoohan.  For any fans of Secret Agent or The Prisoner, I highly recommend it.

As we walked back to our cars, Patrick asked if I thought I’d ever have any real money, and - as I had already confessed to being a bachelor - if I thought I’d ever get married. I answered optimistically to the first and shrugged off the latter. The valet pulled up in his silver BMW and Patrick offered that he and his wife had been married for forty years. “And do you know why it works? Because we don’t agree on a thing!”

3.  Satire by the Illiterate

This has nothing to do with mystery fiction, but if you love great writing, oh my, invest a few minutes. After the Civil War ex-slave Jordon Anderson apparently received a letter from his old master inviting him to come back to the plantation and work for wages.  For those who still maintain that slavery was Not So Bad (such people do exist) his response is a cold dose of reality.  Anderson was illiterate; he dictated lis letter to an abolitionist friend.  Be sure to read the last sentence.

4.  Ghost writing

Courtesy of Sandra Seaman's invaluable blog My Little Corner, here is the web's premium dating service for dead people...  Ooh, spooky.


5.  The Rules

Pixar is one of the most successful animation studios in history. Their rules for successful  storytelling are a lesson for us all.

A Bouchercon Mystery

    Bouchercon, the annual mystery-writers’ convention, convenes next week in Cleveland, Ohio, and runs from October 4 through 7.  John Floyd is the only SleuthSayer contributor that I know is attending.  I was at last year’s convention in St. Louis – and was on a short story writers’ panel with R.T. Lawton there the week before SleuthSayers first hit the internet.  I won’t be attending this year, but in honor of the event, and as a salute to John and Leigh, who have made their marks in the area of mini-mysteries, I offer up the following SleuthSayer Bouchercon mystery – not so much a “whodunit,” as a “how did that happen?”

                                         *           *           *           *           *           *           *

    The mid-day traffic on Huron Road finally eased enough for the Yellow Cab to swing into the driveway of the Radisson Hotel.  The car lumbered to a stop under the reception awning and the cabbie caught the eyes of the three passengers wedged shoulder to shoulder in the back seat. 

    “That’ll be twenty bucks, gents.”

    The slender man stuck in the middle of the rear seat already had his wallet in his hand.  He reached across the top of the front seat and pressed a twenty and a five into the outstretched hand of the cabbie.

    “Keep it and have a nice day.”

    The three men clambered out of the back seat, each grabbing a bag from the trunk that the cabbie had opened.  With their bags in hand the slender man turned to his two companions.

    “That works out to $8.33 each for the cab ride.”

    “You know, John,” one of the men noted, “it would have been easier if you had just tipped $4.00.  Then we would each owe only $8.00.”  The third man muttered his assent.

    John rolled his eyes.  “Look, Dale and Leigh, the guy deserved the five bucks.  If you have trouble making the change you can each just give me eight.”

    “Well, this whole thing is expensive,” Leigh grumbled.  “I mean, it’s not like mystery short story writers are raking in the dough.”

    The three men approached the check-in desk and gave their names to the uniformed attendant smiling over her computer.  “Yes,” she said.  “I see we have your reservation.  Three of you sharing a room, two twins and a pull-out sofa.  That will be $300.  Do you want this on a credit card?”

    John, Dale and Leigh shook their heads in unison.  Each pulled $100 in cash from their respective wallets and handed the bills to the receptionist. 

    “Thank you.  A bellhop will show you to your room.”

    The three writers dutifully followed the bellhop to the elevator.  On the 5th floor they exited and followed him down the hall to room 543, which the bellhop opened with a key card.  The bellhop handed a key card to each of the writers, showed them how the air conditioner worked and then paused at the door. 

    Dale spoke before the others could.  “Thanks.  We’ll call you if we need anything.”  A crestfallen look passed across the bellhop’s face as he nodded politely and left the room.

    “Guys,” John said, shaking his head.  “We should have tipped him something.  I mean, it’s expected.”  Dale and Leigh, already intent on claiming the single beds in the room, did not respond.

    Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door.  John, who had been trying to figure out how the fold-away sofabed worked, was closest to the door and answered the knock.  Standing in the hall was the bellhop.  Before the still-embarrassed John could say anything the bellhop spoke.

    “Hello, again, sir,” the bellhop began with an engaging smile, “Sorry to bother you folks.  But I overheard the receptionist check you guys in and charge you $300.  That didn’t seem right to me since there is a Bouchercon writers’ special of $250 per night.  So I mentioned that to the receptionist and said you were overcharged.  She checked the rate and found out that you are entitled to that discount.  Since you paid cash she sent me back up with $50 to give you.”  The bellhop handed five crisp ten dollar bills to John. 

    “This is greatly appreciated,” John stammered.  He took two of the ten dollar bills and thrust them toward the bellhop.  The boy smiled gratefully, eyes wide, and pocketed the bills.

    John closed the door and turned back into the room only to find Dale and Leigh hovering behind him. 

    “Pretty steep tip,” Dale muttered as John handed each of them a ten dollar bill, pocketing the remaining one himself.

    Leigh’s eyes narrowed, and it was obvious he was working something over in his head.  “Wait a minute,” Leigh finally said, a look of incredulity spreading across his face.  “When we checked in, and the room was $300, we each paid $100.  And now, with the special rate, we each got $10 back.  This means we each paid $90, and. $90 times three men equals $270. John just tipped the bellhop $20. That only equals $290!”

                 CHALLENGE TO THE READER

    So:  What happened to the extra $10?  And perhaps more importantly, why does John travel with these two cheapskates?

   

Childhood Memories

This week I opened a quart carton of orange sherbet. Yum. I've had orange sherbet through the years yet, somehow, this time my childhood memories flooded back (maybe old age kicking in, who knows?) I suddenly felt as if I were eleven again, visiting my dad for the summer in Fort Worth, Texas. My parents divorced when I was young. Both parents remarried and during the whole school year, I lived with my mother, step-dad and two little sisters, out on the high plains of Texas, forty miles from Lubbock in the small town of Post, TX. Post then had a population of about three thousand folks and this was back in the olden days when ice cream was only available in grocery stores and drug stores. The most flavors I remember were vanilla, chocolate, Neapolitan, and strawberry. In the summer, when I went to visit my dad in the big city of Fort Worth for a couple of weeks, one of the first things we did was to drive over to Baskin Robbins where, at that time, they offered thirty-one flavors of ice cream. I'd look at everything they had and every single time order the same thing...orange sherbet, served in an ice cream cone. I have no idea why. They had banana nut, peppermint, chocolate mint, cherry vanilla, regular vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, peach, Neapolitan, and something with nuts, maybe butter pecan. They also had orange, lime and pineapple sherbet. I don't remember any of the other thirty-one flavors but for some strange reason orange sherbet really seemed like the best of the best to me and that's what I'd buy.

This nostalgic trip got me thinking about my childhood memories of reading. I honestly don't remember not liking to read and really not sure when I began reading. A little before first grade and then from first grade on I read and still read as much as I can now. I lived with my grandmother in Houston for my first grade and then my mother remarried and I moved to Post, TX when school was out. I spent a lot of the summer playing outside, but I also spent a lot of time reading...sometimes reading outside. My parents bought me books. Post didn't have a library then but there was a small library at our church. Most of the books at the church were biographies but written for children. So I learned about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin, and George Washington Carver from these bios. At home mother bought, Heidi, Black Beauty, Grimm's Fairy Tales and Bible Story books. I loved the Bobbsey Twins and a series called The Sugar Creek Gang, which was about a boy and his pals but I liked adventures and the boys were always having those.

I probably started reading Nancy Drew when I was nine or ten years old and devoured those. I think I tried the Hardy Boys, and Trixie Belton, but Nancy was my idol. She had a really cool dad, an even cooler convertible and she solved mysteries. But my big love for mysteries really grabbed me totally when I was twelve and my father handed me a stack of his paperback books: Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Richard S. Prather's Shell Scott and Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason and his Bertha Cool and Donald Lam detectives, and John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee. I thought Private Eye books were awesome and Perry Mason was so exciting by the revelation of the murderer in the trial.

Soon I matriculated to high school and devoured as many of their mysteries as I could find...Daphne du Maurier, Edgar Allan Poe, Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dashiell Hammett, Rex Stout. I could go on and on but you get the idea. I still read spies and thrillers, Ian Flemming, John le Carre, Alistair McClain and I soon discovered John D. MacDonald wrote other books besides the Travis McGee series. In the meantime, Post TX got a public library and my mother became one of the volunteer librarians and when they were able to hire a librarian full time, my mom got the job. She had only gone to the 8^th grade in school but she had gotten a GED and she took some college classes by correspondence. She took many of the continuing education classes the library offered. That was her dream job and also helped add to my "have read" growing list of books. Is it any wonder that I wound up writing mysteries and owning a mystery bookstore?

In exploring my childhood memories which I decided to share with each of you I reveal how I managed to fall in love with mysteries and private eyes in particular. What about you?

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to the kitchen to have a bowl of orange sherbet.

Adventures in South Africa

I'm spending the better part of a year living in South Africa. If you're anything like me, you probably harbor pre-conceived notions and yet wonder what the land is really like.

I've lived and worked in Europe and South America. Each country has a 'personality' not to be defined by or confused with their nation's politics. A national personality is both amalgamation and generalization, a distilled broad-stroke synthesis of millions of people.

South Africa… I've never visited a land whose personality so closely matches that of North America– the friendliness, hardiness, sense of humor, spirit of industry and entrepreneurism, a determination to conquer prejudice, and the will to persevere when times get tough. And, everyone speaks English.

To many Americans, South Africa must appear exotic, even strange, but I have a surprise for you– it's more familiar, more 'ordinary', more like America than you can believe. To be sure, I've spent almost all my time in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (birthplace of the Zulus), which is like a tourist spending their entire visit in one American state and thinking all of the US is like (shudder) Florida. KZN is the most English of the nine provinces, so my perceptions may differ from parts of the country that are dominated by, say, Dutch Afrikaners.

isiZulu

People pepper their speech with Zulu words. I love the expressive sound of isiZulu– the actual name of the Zulu language. For example, a rattletrap vehicle is a skadonk and a bad guy is a sigebengu (prounced 'skabanguh'). The onomatopoeia word for tractor is gunda-gunda… anyone who's familiar with older farm machinery can't help but smile.

One word I adopted is muti (moo-tea), meaning medicine, but it can also mean any liquid put to good use, such as 'dishwashing muti'. Americans use at least one isiZulu word without realizing it– fundi, an expert.

South meets South

Three weeks ago, our friend Geri came to visit. She's the epitome of the Southern lady, soft-spoken and very easy to underestimate as some have learned to their surprise or dismay. She travels perhaps twice a year and accepted Cate's invitation to visit.

Fortunately Geri travels well and is patient, since the textbook publisher seemed to ramp up the workload at the same time the deadline loomed like a plunging vulture. But family was good to us, Tig and Sue, who lent us their home. Geri, Cate and I lived on the beach, sunbathed and waded in the Indian Ocean, and visited the Oribi Gorge, a scenic combination of horticulture, agriculture, and wildlife. Geri rode a Segway along the beach in Durban and into Moses Mahbida Stadium.

Thanks to friends Dave and Shirley, we visited Springbok Lodge in the Nambiti Game Reserve. Among other bragging rights, Nambiti boasts the 'Big 5', the five most dangerous animals to hunt. South Africa's bank notes portray the Big Five: rhino, elephant, lion, cape buffalo, and leopard. This is even more impressive when you realize the Egyptians considered the hippo and crocodile to be the most fearsome. These aren't animals to fool around with– even the ostrich has been known to kill men.

Four out of Five

On my first visit to the game reserve weeks earlier, locals told me I was amazingly lucky to see the Big 5, all except the leopard. And these weren't distant sightings: A mother and child rhinoceros galloped along side the Land Cruiser. We were close enough to grazing cape buffalo to see oxpecker birds cleaning their coats. Only days later, bad tempered buffalo turned on a Jeep and wreaked thousands of dollars of damage upon it. And the lions– a pride of three strolled past our Land Cruiser so close you could have flicked a booger at them, had you been so foolish.

During that visit, herds of zebra and giraffe seemed to be everywhere, and it's an amazing sight to see giraffes browsing above the treetops. Cate calculated we spotted 13 different kinds of buck– the South African term for deer and antelopes– from the small bush buck, to impala, hartebeest, wildebeest, and the largest of all, the eland.

On this trip with Geri, we again saw all the Big 5 except the elusive leopards. Birds surrounded us. Bachelor rhinos eyed us warily. As we watched, mother elephants taught their calves how to uproot trees: In the winter, roots contain more nutrients than barren branches, so elephants require a goodly supply of trees to munch upon.

Normally, hippopotami soak in ponds like huge inert hogs, imitating boulders. Not this time– hippos rumbled ashore during an early morning stretch. One juvenile postured and played with another, putting on a show.

Meanwhile, Geri was busy snapping photos. For example…


You may notice a theme here. Every time Geri raised her camera, subjects would spin around and pose: "Wanna see my butt?"

One afternoon we found lions hidden in the tall grass, but a big male wandered off, his bum toward us,to check his kill because jackals were wandering the area. Minutes later he strolled back, at last facing us. Geri raised her lens and… the big lion paused and… Geri aimed her camera and… the lion squatted and…

Proceeded to take an excruciating minutes-long dump.

Cate burst out with "Dude, you need fiber."

Later– yesterday in fact– Geri and Cate found a calendar of animal butts. It looks like Geri's animals thought they were still posing for it.

When tracking, Rangers communicate 'visuals' over the radio in isiZulu so passengers don't leap out of their seats to spot the latest 'find' and scare off– or attract– the animal's attention.

Geri took great photos of a lounging jackal, rarely seen sunning. She also got a great snap of a warthog. They kneel when they graze and shuffle along on their foreknees. In another great bit of luck, rangers spotted the reserve's lone cheetah– just one cheetah in 22,000 acres– lions had killed the others.

Darkest Africa

Through poaching and hunting, populations of some big cats number in two and three digits. Elephants are threatened in many places, but may be stabilized. The black rhinoceros is critically endangered and other species are believed to be extinct. For what? For their horn, that bit of keratin thought to be an aphrodisiac in some Asian cultures.

Speaking of cultures, to Westerners, elephants, rhinos, and hippos are great lumbering beasts, but to Africans, they are elegant, powerful, imbued with history and mystique. They're like bison and bears to the American Indian, creatures to be respected and protected in a modern and hazardous environment.

This is the Africa of legends, of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Ryder Haggard, and perhaps of Lee Falk, Lyman Young, and Wilbur Smith. Like our state and national forests, this commitment preserves and conserves habitat so that species– some numbered in the hundreds, some in the dozens or fewer– have a narrow chance to survive and perhaps thrive.

So what do I think of South Africa? I love it. I love it here. I wouldn't be surprised if you would too.

What If? The Heart of the Story

by Elizabeth Zelvin

I’ve heard it said that every story starts with a “what if,” a question in the writer’s mind that provides the seed from which all the rest grows. It makes sense to me. Let’s look at the classics. Romeo and Juliet: What if the children of two families engaged in a bitter feud fall in love? King Lear: What if a man divides his estate among his heirs while he’s still alive? Hamlet: What if a man finds out his uncle may have murdered his father—but he’s not sure? Pride and Prejudice: What if a rich bachelor moves into the neighborhood of a family with an entailed estate and five daughters with no dowries? Jane Eyre: What if a man with a mad wife locked in the attic falls in love with the governess?

In a whodunit or a novel of suspense, “what if” can trigger the action, the plot, the mystery itself. Josephine Tey, Brat Farrar: What if a foundling with a yearning to belong is persuaded to impersonate the missing heir to a family whose members look just like him and share his passion for horses? Stuart Woods, Chiefs: What if a serial killer is a pillar of the community who spreads his murders out over 40 years? The DaVinci Code: What if Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child whose descendant still lives in the present day?

But for some writers, the plot is not the starting point. A situation, setting, or relationship can generate a “what if” that becomes the stage on which the solving of the mystery is played out. Or the “what if” may generate a whole series. Laurie R. King: What if the aging Sherlock Holmes meets a young woman who’s just as smart as he is? Margaret Maron: What if a modern Southern woman whose father was a famous bootlegger becomes a judge? In science fiction, sometimes called speculative fiction, “what if” is the whole point. But mystery writers too need a reason to set their characters in motion, a burning curiosity that they can impart to the reader.

I didn’t consciously think “what if” when I sat down to write Death Will Get You Sober, the first mystery in my series. But when I applied the question to what I’d written, I realized that my central “what if” did not pertain to the murder and its solution but to the characters I had created to solve it and future mysteries in the series: Bruce, the newly sober alcoholic, and his friends, Jimmy and Barbara. What if there were two best friends, inseparable from childhood? What if both were alcoholics? What if one of them got sober and the other didn’t? What if 15 years later the other one stopped drinking too? What would happen to the friendship? What if we throw in a codependent girlfriend who cares as much about what happens between them as they do—and is much more eager to talk about it? To me, the relationships of the protagonist and his friends give life to the mystery.

In a series, the “what ifs” are limited what the author has already established about the characters and their world. In Death Will Help You Leave Him, I asked: What if, once he’s sober, Bruce goes back to his ex-wife, who’s destructive but compelling, while at the same time falling for the prime suspect in the latest murder? In Death Will Extend Your Vacation, I asked: What if Bruce, Barbara, and Jimmy get out of their familiar New York City environment and take shares in a clean and sober group house in the Hamptons?

One difference between novels and short stories for me is that the concise form doesn’t allow me to ask what ifs related to character development. In each short story, there’s a plot what if that generates the mystery. “Death Will Clean Your Closet”: What if Bruce finds a body in his closet? (I had a helluva time figuring out how it got there and how to get it out again, once I started writing.) “Death Will Tie Your Kangaroo Down”: What if a feckless, sexually compulsive Australian takes up residence on Bruce’s couch? (The Australian part was to satisfy the requirement to include one for a short story competition on Crimespace.) Et cetera.

There’s only one what if I’ve vowed never to ask: What if Bruce relapses and starts to drink again?