Fist or Firearms

   
 A high-profile murder case kicked off here in my local courthouse. A former police officer stands accused of shooting a woman in her home. The case turns on the issue of self-defense. I have no involvement with the case and have no specialized knowledge about it. I have, however, fielded a number of questions about the right to protect oneself. I’d like to devote today’s blog to a quick, substantive overview of self-defense.

            Quick disclaimer: although every jurisdiction acknowledges a right of a person to protect him or herself, the rules in your jurisdiction may vary from those here in the Lone Star State.

            Quick disclaimer #2: Lethal and non-lethal force have their own separate sections in the Texas Penal Code. The general rules are the same, so I’m lumping them together for the purposes of this column.

The Rule

A person is justified in using force against another when, and to the degree, the person reasonably believes that the force is immediately necessary to protect against the attacker’s use of unlawful force.

That’s the Texas law regarding self-defense. It seems straightforward, but volumes have been written exploring it. We will touch upon only a few points.

1.      Like must meet like:

The response must be proportionate to the threat. Locally, we distinguish between force and deadly force. If I attempt to slap you, you don’t get to shoot me. And here, we open the door to a whole bunch of “what-ifs.” That’s where the defense bar makes its living.

2.      Words alone don’t make an adequate threat.

In my jurisdiction, we have a load of phrases we commonly call “fighting words.” The title doesn’t make them so. I might say that I want to slap you. That doesn’t give you the right to punch me. Some other action must accompany my words. A general fear of being physically harmed is not enough to trigger self-defense. But see 3.

3.      The defender doesn’t have to wait.

Bullets don’t need to be flying in your direction before you are entitled to respond. The line distinguishing #2 and #3 can easily become murky. It gets resolved on a case-by-case basis. Usually, the trial testimony involves the victim making some threatening statement. He then reaches into a pocket or plunges his hand toward his waistband. Perhaps, earlier in the day, someone witnessed him loading a firearm. How much activity demonstrates an immediate threat is decided by the jurors.

4.      The defendant can’t provoke his/her use of self-defense.

I sneer and say I’m going to hit you. In response, you stand, ball your fists, and prepare for the onslaught. I can’t let a punch fly and claim that I was pre-empting your obvious assault. I don’t get the benefit of self-defense if I start the trouble.  

5.      A defender gets to use force until the threat is extinguished. This has a variety of implications for the application of self-defense. If I start something and then surrender or retreat. You don’t get to keep hitting me. Once the danger to you is over, so is the right to protect yourself from it. But you get to persist with your defense until the end of the perceived threat.

Often, during a murder trial, the prosecution will try to stretch this. The government may argue that the defendant shot the victim multiple times. Assuming the legitimacy of his right to self-defense, the defendant is entitled to keep shooting. John Holmes, the former Harris County district attorney, expressed the concept succinctly, “if I have the right to shoot you dead, I have the right to shoot you dead, dead, dead, dead.” Once legally permitted to fire, a defendant may keep firing until the threat is extinguished. An after-the-fact claim of excessive force won’t nullify the right.

6.      Unlawful force

A defender has a right to protect themselves from illegal contact only. Most times, this element is a no-brainer. I don’t get to punch or shoot you. But some contact is not illegal. Police officers get to lay hands during the apprehension of criminals. As a society, we don’t recognize the right to fight back. Even among civilian-to-civilian contacts, some touching is neither harmful nor offensive, thus not necessarily illegal. I do not get to respond to it with violence.

7.      Applying the standard

The lens through which all this conduct and counter-conduct is evaluated is a mixed subjective/objective standard. What would a reasonable person standing in the shoes of the defendant think? The requirement does not make allowances for the defendant being drunk or high. Delusional thinking or paranoia might fall under a different defense, but they aren’t a part of self-defense. What a defendant had been told about the character of the victim is generally admissible. That seems reasonable. If you’ve been told that I’m a crazed murderer who wants to decapitate you, it might well influence your perception of my actions as I approach.

8.      Finally, before using force, English common law had a duty to retreat behind castle walls. The Castle Doctrine crossed the Atlantic with the colonists. The duty to retreat faded as settlers moved westward. When I started practicing law, Texas recognized that prior to deploying deadly force, a defendant had a duty to retreat if it could be done safely unless the assault occurred in his own home. The Texas legislature has since eliminated the Castle Doctrine. Assuming you’re someplace you’re entitled to be and not engaged in illegal behavior, a person is free to stand his/her ground.

There you have it. We’ve reduced a highly contentious, oft-litigated area of the law down to eight points. The main idea should be that self-defense in the courtroom is very fact specific. It depends on skilled advocacy and the careful articulation of details. Cases of seemingly similar facts may result in different outcomes. The brief summary may not be specific enough for the reader to begin trying criminal cases, but hopefully, it will help in digesting the morning news or plotting the next story.

Until next time.  

When the Characters Run Away with Your Series

DorothyL, the mystery lovers’ e-list, is often the source of inspiration for me in thinking about why I write what and how I write. A while back, a DL reader was “disconcerted” when an author who had written the first few books of a series from the sole point of view of the first person protagonist brought out a new book with multiple POVs: some chapters from the protagonist’s POV as before, and others from the third person POV of other characters.

original 2008 hardcover

In the case of my Bruce Kohler Mysteries, a series which includes both novels and short stories, I intended to write from the POV of a first person protagonist. But it never happened. I also intended to have a bestselling hardcover series with a major publisher that sold for $27.95 that appeared in paperback a year later and continue writing it forever, but that never happened either. How the world has changed in the twenty years since I finished the first draft of Death Will Get You Sober.

In fact, my Bruce Kohler short stories, starting with “Death Will Clean Your Closet,” have been solely in Bruce’s first person POV until recently. That first novel originally had two alternating first person protagonists, Bruce, the sardonic recovering alcoholic with an ill-concealed heart of gold, and Barbara, the nice Jewish codependent from Queens who can’t resist helping and minding everybody’s business. When an editor finally showed interest in publishing Death Will Get You Sober, the first thing he said was, “Bruce is a terrific protagonist, but Barbara would be better as a sidekick.” So I rewrote the book, putting her chapters in third person. I also fixed some awkward scenes, like having Bruce tell us what Barbara told him she overheard in the ladies room. Sometimes you really need another POV.

Every writer hears the starting bell for the next work differently. In this series, I start with the title. I had Death Will Get You Sober in my head for years, though I didn’t write it till I quit the job on the Bowery that I fictionalized in the novel. And then, I wait for Bruce, Barbara, Jimmy, who’s Bruce’s best friend since childhood and Barbara’s boyfriend, now husband, to start wisecracking in my head. I take my marching orders from them.

Over the years, each character has developed. I haven’t developed them, any more than I planned for my son to grow up to be a decent man and a terrific husband and father who wears his hair very short and earns a six-figure income in the fantasy sports industry. (Take that, hippie parents!)

An e-publisher changed the titles
but the artist got Bruce's wry grin

Bruce, with his distinctive first person voice, is at the heart of the series. He once described himself as “ham on wry.” He’s still sardonic, but his compassion is closer to the surface as his sobriety continues. The main character arc is that of his recovery and personal growth. As he said recently, in “Death Will Take the High Line,” “At seven years sober, I’d be a sorry excuse for recovery if I still thought about alcohol all the time.” The main characters are his circle of friends.

Barbara has agency. As the series goes on, she’s become the one who pushes the others to investigate and instigates the moments of confrontation. She’s also funny. She works on her codependency issues, but if she ever recovered completely from being nosy and bossy for the good of those she loves, she wouldn’t be funny anymore. Luckily, she keeps backsliding.

Jimmy provides stability and serves as a foil for the others. His passions are AA, the Internet and all things tech, and Manhattan. He can get culture shock in New Jersey, if you can get him there, or even in Brooklyn or the Bronx. He and Bruce have some Mr Jones-Mr Bones routines they’ve been doing since they were kids in Yorkville. They keep coming up with ones I’ve never heard before, usually when I’m lying on the floor doing my stretches.

The unified e-series edition –
this novel is an e-book only

Cindy, Bruce’s NYPD detective girlfriend, became necessary when the device of amateur sleuths in New York City became harder and harder to pull off realistically, even in the mystery story context of suspension of disbelief. When she first appeared in the trio’s clean and sober group house in the Hamptons in Death Will Extend Your Vacation, Bruce didn’t know she was a cop. And I didn’t know she would become a permanent member of my cast of series characters. But it was time for Bruce to have a serious relationship. We both needed Cindy. So there she was again when we needed her: in Death Will Pay Your Debts, “Death Will Help You Imagine,” and “Death Will Finish Your Marathon.”

But Cindy really sprang to life when I gave her a story of her own in “Death Will Give You A Reason.” I absolutely didn’t “flesh her out.” Cindy and I went through the process of discovering who she was in depth together. In that story, Cindy’s about to celebrate her tenth anniversary of sobriety, a very big deal in AA, when a case pulls her back into a painful part of her past. Solving it, we found her essence. Cindy belongs to two tribes, NYPD and Alcoholics Anonymous.

Bruce appears briefly at the beginning and end of “Death Will Give You A Reason,” because I thought fans of the series might object to a “Death Will” story that left him out. After her big evening at AA, he falls asleep beside her as she thinks about all that matters to her.

Besides taking [the murderer] in to be booked yesterday, she’d had to trace the knife, mobilize a social worker … and fill out a ton of paperwork. In a couple of days she’d be able to think about her anniversary, the love that had come pouring in when she’d told her story. It was nice to take a break from being a cop, if it didn’t last too long.

Justice delayed but not denied: Investigative genetic genealogy

It’s that time of year when people think about interesting presents to give and you might have hit on a unique idea: DNA testing. Perhaps you want family and friends to find out about health risks. Perhaps you saw an advertisement and thought this saves you from going into crowded malls or because someone you know is a history buff and this is what they want. Whatever the reason, by getting DNA tests on yourself or others, you’ve joined millions of people around the world who send off a swab of their cheek or a saliva sample and get information using their DNA.

With your DNA test you’ve done something that you probably never thought you’d do: help catch criminals by solving cold cases. 

In December 1983, Sean McCowan and his brother stayed overnight at the apartment of his sister, 22-year-old Erin Gilmour, "She … would do that frequently, we would sort of go over there and spend the night and just hang out with her and then we'd all climb into bed together and watch movies and eat popcorn," said Sean McCowan, who was 13 years old when his sister was killed. "It was five days before Christmas, and so … we all woke up the next morning. Erin drove my brother Kaelin back … to my mom's house. And I ... went out actually to do some Christmas shopping. And we said our goodbyes and that was the last time I saw her.” 

That evening, Erin was brutally raped and murdered in the same apartment where she and her brothers watched movies and ate popcorn the night before.

Four months earlier, in August of 1983, Susan Tice, 45, was also brutally raped and murdered in her Toronto home.

”My mom was supposed to have dinner with my aunt and uncle and when she didn't show up, he went to the house to find out where she was," said her daughter, Christian Tice, who was 16 at the time. "We had like the best family… we were very, very close… we did everything together. We were one of those houses where everybody else's friends were always over… And everyone called my mom Mrs. T or Ma.” 

In 2000, DNA technology showed that one person was responsible for both crimes but police were still unable to identify the man.

In November 2022, almost four decades later, Joseph George Sutherland was arrested and charged with these two brutal crimes. 

How were they able to identify and arrest Sutherland? 

“In 2019, police began using a technique called "investigative genetic genealogy” to identify the suspect's family group. The process involves cross-referencing DNA found at crime scenes with DNA samples voluntarily submitted to services like 23andMe or Ancestry.ca and then uploaded to open-source databases.”

Essentially, this arrest was made possible by the millions of people who got DNA tests for many reasons but none of them to finally jail a brutal rapist and murderer.

So, when you buy a DNA test for yourself or someone you care about, you’re not only finding out interesting things about health and family history. You are helping find criminals who would otherwise have walked free. 

Det.-Sgt. Steve Smith, lead investigator on the cold case, “called the investigation the "most complex" case he's worked in his 25 years on the force and credited the recent development to genetic genealogy. He said that Sutherland had never previously been a person of interest in the killings. "If we hadn't utilized this technology, we never would have came to his name.”

There have been many valid privacy concerns about the DNA databases of companies that provide these tests. However, the use of these data bases to catch criminals, in my opinion, is not merely fair but also just. Sutherland has walked freely among us for over four decades while those who loved his two victims have had justice denied to them. Using databases to finally arrest and try Sutherland is fair and just to his victims and their families.

The most powerful argument to support using these databases in this way, are the pictures of Sutherland’s victims. These photos are over 40 years old. Both Erin Gilmour and  Susan Tice should have had many more photos taken of them since 1983, when they became frozen in time because they were brutally murdered.

One-Fers and Zero-Fers and Damned Statistics

I know this is the holiday season and all that goodwill stuff, but I'll tell you one thing I'm not feeling good about. Not thankful for it, either. It's my late year submission record. Let's just say my stocking gets more coal this time of year.

In point of fact, in the ten-plus years of my submitting stories, I have sold precisely one story in November. It's a good one, but it's only one, and it sold in 2013. It had been worse. Until 2021, I'd gone 0-fer-October. Holiday cheer? Not so much. It's enough to shrink a heart two sizes too small.

I'm joking. A little. My month-by-month stats aren't meant to track emotional swings. I track them to keep my submissions straight. A by-product for a numbers guy is stats help glean insight and/or trivia. You notice things in the numbers. 

"Hey," you might say to the cat. "I'm seeing a trend here." 

The cat peeks her eye open. She says nothing.

"I don't get it," you might say. "One-fer November? That's a trend. Bank it."

She does not, but forget what the cat thinks. Ten-plus years is a certified trend. The real question is whether it's a curse.

It is. A total jinx, I've come to understand. But not the first jinx that slithers to mind. The curse is me.

Story ideas don't come to me in genre form. Sometimes, I'm writing to spec, such as for Alfred Hitchcock or anthology calls. My track record there is pretty strong. But the curse involves the other stuff. For the stuff not to spec, I start with zero no idea what end form it'll find. I just follow my process. If it has enough crime to it, it's a crime story. If crime-free or crime-light, it's a general lit story (once, a speculative mash-up with my famous magic sandwich). But I'm left with a batch of decent stories without a natural home. 

Which is fine. Normal, even. Except that I can be too much a Numbers Guy. 

I'm usually operating under a set of goals. These goals tend to come at New Years. I'll set a target for stories to write and past stories that deserve continued journey toward submission-worthy. The focus bump carries me into the year. By summer, my goals have met reality. My year has a word counts and response tallies. A track record. There is momentum--or not. 

Momentum brings creative confidence. I mean, the endorphins are flowing, a buzz even the cat can't kill. Numbers Guy will look at his story inventory and want them submitted pronto. "Let's blow this year out," you might say, and here comes the jinx. 

On the flip side, some years are lean. Dry spells and rejection streaks show up in the numbers, too. A healthy response would be to trust the process and plug ahead. Another response, some years my response, is to pour over the spreadsheet and glance at a calendar and understand time is running out on a good year. "We're getting stuff out there," you might tell the cat. "Buckle up."

She does not.

My editing standards don't slip when I hit this mode. Wishful thinking, though, comes rosy into my usual realism. I might push ahead with dream markets instead of angsting out over if the piece is for them. Out go a batch of submissions in summer and fall. November and December bring the rejections. Worse, I diverted time and energy away from stuff with much higher success prospects. My oh-fer-October ended last year when I ignored the calendar and just kept the plan rolling. 

Overconfidence, thy name is statistics. 

Fortunately, writing provides regular ego resets. Then, you can actually learn from the numbers--if you watch for what they really mean.

Showdown At The OK Towne Centre (or, A Tale of Two Karens)

Author's note: This is not the first time I've published this tale. However, 'tis the season.

2009 © by Lyle

My first Christmas in Cincinnati found me doing my first ever Christmas Eve shopping dash. I ended up at Kenwood Towne Center, the mall nearest the then-in-laws’ place. Big mistake. In looking for a parking place, I wound up in a standoff with another guy waiting for the same parking space to open.

I stared. He stared. Somewhere nearby, a car stereo blared the theme from A Fistful of Dollars. Finally, the car pulled out and away. It was on.

Or was it?

Before I or my nemesis could get our feet off our respective brakes, two women in expensive sedans whipped around us and shot into the same parking space. Or tried to.

As Michio Kaku will explain on his many television appearances, two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. What a waste of a Lexus and a BMW.

My nemesis and I got out, looked at each other, then watched the two vicious ladies cuss each other out. One of these ladies was a eucharistic minister at my church at the time.

“You know,” I said to my nemesis, “it’s really not a bad day to walk.”

“I’m parking over by the Kroger,” he said.

“I’ll join you.”

Half the Kroger lot was empty. Nemesis and I parked without incident or conflict.

I suspect the two ladies got lumps of coal in their stockings.

Is It Life, Or Is It A Character Arc?

Lately (which, in my case means pretty much "all the time") I have been giving a fair amount of thought on the notion of character. I've written in this space before about the importance of strong character development as a component of any piece of well-done fiction. But two things have recently conspired to set me pondering the notion of character more deeply than ever before.

I'm talking about the novel Magpie Murders by prolific author/screenwriter Anthony Horowitz (who also recently adapted his novel for production as a BBC TV series), and of Pearl Harbor Day (yesterday: December 7th–the anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

How are these two items connected?

I'm so glad you asked.

We'll start with the fiction and go backward.

Without giving too much away, the central theme of Horowitz's work deals with the time-honored authorial trick of mining the lives of real people for material for a work of fiction. And in this instance, of the potential consequences of same.

"So what?" I hear you saying, "Don't writers do this sort of thing all the time?"

And the answer is, "of course." And it doesn't limit itself to actual fiction. One famous case of someone taking from their real life and heavily fictionalizing aspects of an otherwise "factual" memoir was the hatchet job that novelist Ernest Hemingway did on his erstwhile friend and expatriate colleague, Great Gatsby author and Jazz Age icon F. Scott Fitzgerald in his memoir of living and working in 1920s Paris: A Moveable Feast. Hemingway's reminiscences of Fitzgerald contain enough truth to seem familiar, while also tarring the admittedly high-living Fitzgerald as an eccentric hypochondriac.

Were Fitzgerald not already twenty years dead when Hemingway published A Moveable Feast, he may well not have recognized himself in Hemingway's hit piece. Truly a well-written and subtly vicious "portrait of the artist." A close reading of the piece reveals numerous hints as to Hemingway's rumored inferiority complex, and there is a fair amount of score settling in the memoir's pages. The blackest mark against the monumentally talented Hemingway's character is that by all reports Fitzgerald considered Hemingway a friend, and no doubt would have been deeply hurt by the book.

Leaving off the discussion of real life influencing character for a moment, let's take a stab at tying in Pearl Harbor Day.

I'm fifty-seven, born two years after the Kennedy assassination, and thirty-six on September 11th, 2001.These two events, the "do you remember where you were when you heard about..." moments in the lives of my generation and that of my parents, bear a similarity as a temporal and cultural touchstone to the same moment in the lives of my grandparents' generation: December 7th, 1941, "A date that will live in infamy."

So how to use Pearl Harbor Day the event as a tie-in to character development? There's the obvious notion of writing about the events of that day, as James Jones did with his novel From Here to Eternity. I'd like to explore the notion of using this event a bit more tangentially though.

Imagine Pearl Harbor Day itself, the anniversary, not the day of the actual sneak attack, playing an outsized role in a character's life. How so? It's already of the anniversary of one of the most traumatic days in American history.

The question we have to ask is: How could the anniversary, and not so much the main event, impact a character's life? Now stay with me here...

Make it the character's birthday.

And make the character the son of a Japanese mother and an American father. And ratchet up the symbolism/potential impact on the character by making his mother a married Japanese diplomat who got pregnant with him while conducting an affair with his American naval officer father.

To raise the stakes even further, make the character an adoptee who survives a bout of cancer that robs him of the sight in one of his eyes while still less than a year old. Taken on by loving parents, American teachers working in Japan.

Now we  begin to try to flesh out the character more. He grows up to be short (5'1") but powerfully built. A music-loving multi-instrumentalist, a voracious reader, who could work his way through a whole library shelf in a week.

Make him a study in contrasts: a homebody handy with just about any kind of tools, able to fix (or jerry-rig) nearly anything. Occasionally a wild man out at the bars–someone best described as a "gregarious loner"–a fascinating conversationalist tolerant of nearly everyone he ever met, able to get along with anyone, but truly close only to a very select circle of friends. And a guy who relished (mis)quoting W.C. Fields ("Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad."–something actually said about Fields, not by him.), but was a colossal fraud on that front: no one loved (and was loved by) him more than small children and dogs. ALL of them.

And because of his wild streak, make this character the most deliberate of men: understanding on some primal level that his flights of reckless abandon will get him into trouble if he's not careful. Make sure to have him carry the memories and scars of this duality: a drunken fall from a friend's roof following a Halloween party–the time he was the passenger in a friend's car and the friend (after a few too many) veered off the road and hit a house. More scars.

And you keep layering it on from there. So much so that of course, when this character eventually goes to meet his Maker, it's as a the result of a tragic accident.

Okay, you got me. This "character" is, of course, real. And here's the tie-in: it's my friend, Jeff. And he really was born on December 7th, the child of a Japanese diplomat mother and an American naval officer father. And like the author character in Magpie Murders, I have culled the above details from my friend's life.

I've done this in part because I'm writing this post on Wednesday, December 7th for publication on Thursday, December 8th. And today is my friend Jeff's sixtieth birthday. And as usual, on this, Pearl Harbor Day, I'm not thinking of World War II, or Hawaii. I'm thinking, as I do often every year, and especially on his birthday, of my friend Jeff, a true man among men. They didn't come any funnier, any quirkier, or any more interesting.

And although it's been over twenty years since his tragic accident, lord, do I miss him. And there isn't a week or a month that goes by when I don't wish he were still around, and that he could have met my wife, and played with my son, and spoiled the hell out of my already willful dog.

So in honor of my friend Jeff, I'd like to ask you, dear reader, during this holiday season, to take a moment and tell those you love and who love you how much they mean to you. And if you can't find the words to tell them, better yet, show them.

A simple (if not always easy) test of character.

See you in two weeks.

No More Guns, No More Tacos

This month saw the release of the final episode of the Guns + Tacos novella anthology series, a project that Trey R. Barker and I created and edited that involved 22 writers (including ourselves) who produced 24 novellas and four bonus stories over the course of four years.

Trey, Frank Zafiro, and I wrote about the project’s genesis back in 2019 (“The Genesis of Guns + Tacos,” SleuthSayers, April 2, 2019), but the short version is this:

Temple and I met Trey and Kathy Barker for lunch at the St. Petersburg Bouchercon in 2018 and somehow wound up discussing Trey’s two favorite things: guns and tacos. Later, Temple suggested that “guns and tacos” might be a good premise for an anthology. Over the course of the afternoon, Trey and I batted the idea around, and that evening, while sitting on the veranda of the Vinoy, we suggested the idea to Eric Campbell of Down & Out Books.

Eric asked if we could turn the concept into a “novella anthology series” similar to A Grifter’s Song, the series Frank Zafiro had already successfully pitched to Down & Out. At some point, Frank joined the conversation, offered advice and suggestions, and later let us crib from his successful proposal for the creation of our proposal. (He also contributed a novella to the first season.)

And for four years Frank’s series was released each year January through June and ours July through December.

It is possible, given the open-ended nature of the Guns + Tacos concept, that it could have lasted longer, but Trey—who has an incredibly busy life—wanted to spend more of his available time writing and less of it editing. So, we decided to bring the series to a close.

GUNS + TACOS

Guns + Tacos novellas are set in and around Chicago and share one thing in common: Each story involves a visit to Jesse’s Tacos, a taco truck that is rarely in the same place twice and that sells weapons as the special of the day. Contributors were tasked with telling the story of why people would purchase guns from Jesse’s Tacos and what they would do with the guns once they had them. This allowed for a wide range of stories, though they tend toward action and hardboiled.

The mystery writing community is small, and chances are we all have less than six degrees of separation. Even so, Trey and I were able to bring together a variety of contributors who were not known to us both, which is one of the joys of co-editing, and seeing how each writer responded to the challenge makes for a great deal of enjoyable reading.

Trey and I contributed to the series, as did Ann Aptaker, Eric Beetner, C.W. Blackwell, Alec Cizak, James A. Hearn, David H. Hendrickson, Hugh Lessig, Adam Meyer, Karen E. Olson, Alan Orloff, Gary Phillips, Neil S. Plakcy, William Dylan Powell, Ryan Sayles, Mark Troy, Joseph S. Walker, Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Stacy Woodson, Frank Zafiro, and Dave Zeltserman.

If you’ve not yet experienced Guns + Tacos, all of the novellas are available as ebooks from the publisher and at your favorite online bookstores. For those who prefer reading traditional books, at the end of each season, that season’s novellas are collected into a pair of paperbacks. The first three seasons are currently available as paperbacks and the final season’s paperbacks should be available in early January.

CHOP SHOP

Keep your eyes peeled for a new serial novella anthology series coming in 2023.

I’ve created and am editing Chop Shop, a series about car thieves in Dallas, Texas. Contributors to the first season have been lined up and will be announced sometime next year.

My story “Kissing Cousins” appears in the first issue of Starlite Pulp Review, due out this month.

Also coming this month from Down & Out Books: Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, vol. 3, with stories by Ann Aptaker, Trey R. Barker, C.W. Blackwell, John Bosworth, John M. Floyd, Nils Gilbertson, James A. Hearn, Janice Law, Steve Liskow, Sean McCluskey, Adam Meyer, Alan Orloff, Jon Penfold, C. Matthew Smith, Joseph S. Walker, Michael Wegener, Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Sam Wiebe, and Stacy Woodson.

Brick by Brick

Persistence may be humanity’s highest moral calling.  Lightning flashes of heroism may be the stuff of stirring narrative, but it’s often the steady pressure of day-to-day effort that rules the day. 

Real-life homicide detectives know this.  If they haven’t caught the perpetrator in the first few days after the crime, they know they’re committed to the long slog. They hunker down, gather their resources and push on.  You’ve often heard about them canvassing the neighborhood.  What that means is they’ve knocked on every door, interviewed every source, researched every possible connection.  This is vastly difficult and time-consuming work. 

Writing is sort of like this.  Ever notice that you can only write one letter at a time?  Assuming you don’t dictate your novels into a machine.  It’s work, and it takes concentration and discipline and persistence over long periods of time. 

Winston Churchill wrote millions of words over the course of his prolific lifetime.  He also loved to lay up brick.  I think there’s a connection there.  I’m guessing those bricks were exceptionally straight and well-placed, a sturdy bulwark against the ravages of time.  Like his prose. 

Churchill is often compared to a bulldog, of course, but I’m better acquainted with terriers.  To me, these are a sub-species of dog, unique in their focus and determination.  And persistence.  I’ve had five over the years, and none have ever caught a squirrel, though each opportunity is met with the same level of fierce resolve.  They never give up.  They never surrender. 

My other hero of persistence is my friend Steve Liskow, who submitted 350 short stories before getting his first acceptance.  He went on to win a bucketful of awards, including an Edgar nomination, which makes the tale that much more moving.  My wife will tell you that I’m not easily deterred when I have my mind set on something, but I can honestly say I’d have thrown in the towel long before Steve. 

The guy who founded the ad agency we worked for, and later bought, once told me that the two most important qualities behind a successful venture were clear thinking and endurance.  That drive to get out of bed every morning, no matter how tired you feel, and how much you’d rather be doing something else. 

When Glen Frey of the Eagles was a struggling nobody he lived in an apartment above Jackson Brown, also struggling.  Frey notes that he was kept awake by Jackson Brown going over the same musical stanza for countless hours, perfecting and polishing.  Okay, that Jackson Brown and Glen Frey (and his roommates Don Henley and JD Souther) lived in the same apartment house doesn’t seem possible, but you get the point.  Some may call it obsession, but to others, it’s just doing the work.

I’ve never had writer’s block, thank God, but I’ve spent occasional moments staring at an empty page, or screen, wondering what I should do next.  My simple solution is to start writing. Anything.  A letter to a friend, a description of my mood, free association making little sense, but after a while, the words begin to form into coherent sentences, and I knew how the rest of the time is going to go. 

My favorite book on writing is Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird.  Her core thesis is contained in the title.  Her little brother was daunted by a report he had to write on birds, and their father advised him to just start the project, completing one bird at a time.  One step at a time, one brick on top of the next, one letter following another, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page, until there you have it.

A book. 

Selous Scouts

Not Your Boy Scouts

Note: This is a follow-up to my story in Alfred Hitchcock, ‘The Precatory Pea’. After writing this article, I received terrible news, which I include at the end of this article.

A few matters in my Alfred Hitchcock story bear explanation. As so often happens with storytellers, several particulars, as my grandmother would say, coalesced at the right place and moment. Most significant was laconic Simon Parkin, formerly of Zimbabwe, née Rhodesia.

According to his wife, in-laws, children, and small animals, he’s an utter lamb. Nonetheless to strangers he, like my brother Glen, projects a don’t-ƒ-with-me aura. He’s NOT the guy you want to jostle in a bar, not twice, anyway. It’s not so much he suffers fools badly, he doesn’t suffer them at all. Perhaps that restrained intimidation may simmer from his military background.

He began to talk and eventually he turned to history. Simon told me about Selous Scouts, Rhodesia’s special forces, specialists at guerrilla warfare. I captured some of his words for my story: “Reid-Daly marshalled the finest counter¬insurgency team on the planet. Our fathers fought Soviets and Red Chinese, for God’s sake. Uncle Ron kicked Castro’s arse back to Havana.”

After speaking with a couple more people, I tracked down relevant material in a Pietermaritzburg bookstore. The mixed-race Scouts were fierce. They were sly. They were feared. Their ferociousness scared the hell out of the communist putative freedom fighters. But interestingly, they became known for an offer that couldn’t be refused.

Critical Career Path

Unfortunately, I couldn't justifiably include one of the Scouts’ most interesting philosophies, a sort of prisoner triage. When the Scouts took POWs, they looked for those who might be saved from prison or possible execution. They offered captives an opportunity to join the Scouts.

This wasn’t done haphazardly, but was well planned, testing each. For example, during interviews, the interrogator and a too-casual guard would leave the room occasionally and, during one of these exits, the guard ‘accidentally’ left his rifle behind in a corner. How the prisoner reacted determined his future… or lack thereof.

I wouldn’t have given that program good odds, but surprisingly captured recruits turned out to be especially loyal with a success rate of eight or nine out of every ten.

Clearing the Air

Wikipedia is experiencing one of its hysterias about Selous Scouts, arguing that violent apartheid-era Scouts who’ve written on the subject shouldn’t be allowed as sources. Let’s be clear– they weren’t angels. They were at-risk soldiers for the white government of Rhodesia. But their fierce reputation spread, leaving behind a sense of awe. Think Rommel. Think King Shaka.

I received cautions not to write about Selous Scouts and especially don’t criticize them. Simon didn’t think an outsider could write about them at all. But no, I didn't plan to criticize.

My mind raced in a different direction. Zimbabwean and South African mercenaries were highly sought after apartheid, but the Blackwater 2007 mass murder in Nisour Square, Baghdad temporarily reduced demand for hired guns.

What if, my thinking went, what if unemployed wannabes fancied themselves as heirs of Selous Scouts? And what if they turned to cross-border crime to fund themselves?

As our Nellie noted, her nemeses were urban bad guys, not soldiers of the bush. In a literal sense, they didn’t know their own land.

A Colourful Cast

Like real Scouts, each of my bad guys brings a different heritage to the party:

• Smith   — Rhodesian English
• Buhle   — Ndébélé
• Smuts   — Afrikaner
• Svitsi  — Shona

and the other characters:

• Nellie  — Zulu
• Barbara — SA English

A spread of ethnicities like this appears fairly commonplace in South Africa.

Eve, Madam, and Mother

Apartheid may have ended, but a vigorous service economy remains for workers who fall outside of BEE, Black Economic Empowerment. In South Africa, the domestic black/white relationship is close and complex with considerable interpersonal involvement that retains a certain formality.

A sly comic strip, Madam & Eve captures some of this attitude. Madam Anderson may be the employer, but she ain’t the boss. Four million readers follow them… Black, White, Brown, and Coloured– and yes, South Africa has those designations as Trevor Noah has explained. (Eve's niece Thandi is one of the most delightful characters ever.)

You are not reading this wrong.
(World Cup ad)

Nando’s, a famous chicken restaurant (its peri-peri hot sauce has been seen on the shelves of my local Walmart), is known for its sexy and politically incorrect hilarious ads about South Africa issues. You have to love people who laugh at themselves. Who else but Nando's would offer a WTF Special? (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) One advert is sooooo risque, I don't dare provide a link, much as I'd love to.

[And I do love South Africa. Of all the countries I’ve visited, lived, and worked in, South Africa is my favorite. I loved it and I could easily live there.]

Military Hardware

The story references the ugly, stubby weapon ‘HMC’, sometimes called a spraygun. Here it means ‘hand (or handheld) machine carbine’ and not an M1 designated QUAL HMC made by Quality Hardware Manufacturing Company.

As opposition to apartheid took effect around the globe, South Africa and Rhodesia could no longer buy on the arms market. As a result, they began manufacturing their own designs, some considered the finest in the world. Their boat-hull shape and double skins made military vehicles notable for their resistance to mines and IEDs. You can see one example, the Casspir in the film, District 9. The Marauder came along later. It was featured in the British television programme Top Gear.

US flat-bottom HumVees faired poorly in Iraq. IEDs ripped through the floors of vehicles. Soldiers welded steel plates underneath, creating their own double hull, although a better solution was manufactured elsewhere.

Salad Days… it’s all in the wrist.

After our Nell stitches up the doctor, she makes her exquisite salad and serves each a bowl in the Nguni tradition. This distinctive method of serving looks like this: The server extends the bowl in one hand while cupping the forearm with the other hand.

I recommend salade lyonnaise without extra red berries.

Breaking News that may Break Your Heart

The following is disturbing and it reveals a major spoiler in the story. Proceed with caution.

Happy in My Shorts

  

And why wouldn't I be?--I live in what some call the middle of the Deep South, and for about seven months of every year down here, long pants are just too hot. But I'm also happy writing shorts instead of longs, which has a little more connection to this column.

Interesting note: several of my published nonfiction-writing friends complain that they sometimes aren't recognized as "real" writers. Why? Because they haven't written and published fiction. Seriously, they say nonfiction doesn't get as much respect. (According to them, nonfiction doesn't even have its own name; instead, it's nonfiction.) I disagree with this opinion--the nonfiction authors I'm referring to are more talented writers than I am. But this perceived disrespect does seem to be something that bothers them. 

That same (mis?)perception also applies to short-fiction writers vs. novelists. Those who specialize in writing short stories don't get the same respect and recognition as those who write long. Some of that, I think, is justified: writing a good novel is much harder than writing a good short story--though there are some who disagree with that as well. As for me, I love writing the short stuff and I plan to continue doing it until the little workers in my brain get tired of it. Does that mean I'm not a real fiction writer? Maybe it does. But to that I reply, "Who cares? I'm having fun."

I'm reminded of something a writer friend named Neil Schofield once mentioned in a comment responding to one of my weekly Criminal Brief columns. He said, "The short story is not a rehearsal for The Novel . . . it's an end and an art in itself, and a damn exciting and rewarding one."

Another insightful comment on this subject came from fellow SleuthSayer Leigh Lundin:

"I'd add that word limits foster discipline. they help foster better writing habits such as cutting out the fat."

and yet another from Dave Duggins:

"While you're writing and marketing novels, keep writing short fiction . . . they keep your name in front of a reading public while you toil away in relative anonymity creating projects that will take a year or more to write and another year to hit bookstores. Short fiction is a good business decision."

Let me add to this praise of short stories by pointing out some definite advantages to writing shorts instead of novels. I saw these listed someplace long ago, and I think they still apply:

1. Short stories can be resold. And resold many times, to different places. There aren't a ton of markets out there that will consider publishing reprints, but there are some, including anthologies. I have one story that's been reprinted ten times.

2. Short stories give you a sense of completion. You can write THE END, submit your story to a market, and then turn around and write another story the next day that's completely different. That kind of satisfaction and freedom is a big thing, to me.

3. They don't take a long time to write. A novel can take a writer months or even years to complete, while the shorts I write take a matter of days--a week or two at the most. Slam, bam, and then write another one. And if one doesn't sell--well, I know this is negative thinking, but if it doesn't sell you've invested a lot less time.

4. They can help build a resume. Publishing a number of short stories in respected markets can help your career as a writer in several ways. It can make you better known to readers, can attract the attention of other editors, and can--if it's important to you--increase your visibility to agents and publishers of longer works.

5. They're good practice. Crafting marketable short stories gives you valuable experience, especially in how to write tight and compact. That's something that can help when it comes to writing anything, from flash stories to novels to nonfiction to screenplays. Fictionwise, shorts can also teach you a lot about story structure--plot points, character arcs, etc.

6. You don't need an agent. Many writers are advised to try to find an agent before they try to publish a novel--and that's not a bad idea. As a writer of shorts, I do have an agent, and he's been a great help to me on things like foreign sales, movie deals, and such--but the fact is, most short story writers don't have an agent and don't need one. Certainly not at first.

NOTE: I've been careful not to list the DISadvantages of writing short vs. long, the biggest of which are money and fame. But who wants to be rich, right? Besides, most novel writers aren't rich either. Or famous.

In addition to all the above . . . writing short stories is fun. I write a lot of them, and when I'm not actually writing I'm putting them together in my head. As I've often said, none of my time is wasted anymore. If I happen to find myself waiting around for some something or someone--my wife, a friend, our kids/grandkids--I use that time to dream up plots and characters. (Talk about living in a fantasy world . . .)

A final point. If you're not a writer but you read a lot, consider trying to write a short story. Since they are short, it shouldn't be as daunting a task as a novel. And if you're already a novelist or a nonfiction writer, you might want to try your hand at writing shorts as well. Think of it as a break from your normal routine. At the very least, it might recharge your batteries.

So. What do y'all think? If you write, what kind of writing do you do? Ever tried to experiment a bit? Have you tried writing short stories and found you enjoy it? Did you find it relaxing? Challenging? Do you write both short and long? Fiction and non-? Have you experienced any of those six advantages I listed above? Are you sick and tired of these questions?

In closing, here's something else I heard long ago: Writing a good novel requires a better storyteller; writing a good short story requires a better craftsman. I suspect that's true. 

Not that it matters. In the publishing world, there's room for both.

Sherlock's Kid Sister Returns!

Boy, have the marketing geniuses in the back room got us pegged. They know that we are positively nutty for our Holmes. Just in time for Thanksgiving, Netflix released the long-anticipated sequel to their 2020 film, Enola Holmes 2 about the adventures of the younger sister of the Great Detective.

I discussed the first film last year. Edgar-winning author Nancy Springer wrote the (now) eight-book series from which the concept sprung. For two years, Enola fans whispered the rumor that the second film would draw inspiration from The Case of the Left-Handed Lady, the second book in the series. Not so! I’m afraid that I’m a bit of an author snob. The plot here is fun and clever, but I prefer film franchises to adhere as closely to the source material as possible.

As our tale opens, Sherlock’s teenaged sister has opened a detective agency of her own. Yes, at 16 or 17 years of age, she does strike one as a bit young to be doing such a thing in Victorian London, but as Mother Holmes says in a flashback: “Too many people make it their sole purpose in life to fit into the world around them. This is a mistake!”

Business at the agency isn’t great, but dear brother Sherlock fares no better. The banking scandal he’s investigating has proved “vexing,” his sister reports. After a number of potential clients decline to avail themselves of Enola’s services—“Are you you sure we can’t get Sherlock?” says one—she takes the case proffered by a young matchstick girl whose sister has gone missing. Before long, Enola is disguising herself to gain entrance to upper crust balls, employing the womanly arts of pugilism and bartitsu to dispatch malefactors, and the game is soooo afoot.

Millie Bobby Brown returns as Enola. Henry Cavill is back as the devilishly handsome Superman—er, I mean Sherlock. The actor who played Mycroft in the last outing was unable to join us this time around, but Helena Bonham Carter returns as the free-spirited Mrs. Holmes, mother of the brilliant three siblings.

The sets and production values all look appropriate, delightful, and convincing. Many of the things I liked the first time around caught my eye again. Enola breaks the fourth wall to address viewers. Back stories are filled in via a fun assortment of animated black-and-white photo sequences. And the plot is advanced through the use of secret codes, wordplay, poems, and clues referring to flowers that young viewers will have no trouble following.

I was intrigued to find that the plot was drawn from a real-life labor action at a Victorian match factory. And I was glad that the story had such a strong feminist leaning, since that is the central thematic interest of the Springer series. That said, the ending still struck this adult as a little pat.

That was not my biggest quibble with the film. Without giving too much away, I might mention that the ultimate villain of this saga turns out to be a certain professor of mathematics who will vex Sherlock for decades to come. It’s fun to see the Napoleon of Crime—and this is by far the most original incarnation of the character I have ever seen—but I couldn’t help thinking, “Really? You’re only on your second film and you play the Moriarty card? Most vexatious, indeed!”

But what do I know? This film debuted on the streaming network in early November and quickly hit Netflix’s No. 1 in 93 countries.

I promise you that if you gather around with the family to watch, adults and kids alike will have a blast, though not for the same reasons. Serious Sherlock geeks will enjoy the specter of a drunken Sherlock. They will admire the pluck of a screenwriter who dares give us Lestrade’s first name for the first time on film. And they will probably snort aloud (as I did) when Enola turns to the camera and quips, “The game has found its feet again!”

Sweet Diogenes! Thank goodness we have Holmes for the holidays.

* * * 

Please note: If you are thinking of starting a young reader on the books this season, bear in mind that there are currently eight in the series. Some online retailers confuse the number of titles because Springer has more than one publisher. See the bibliography here.  

See you all in three weeks!

Joe

josephdagnese.com

Formulas Aren't Just for Chemistry

O'Neil De Noux's Random Thoughts of Nov. 4 brought up author Frank Yerby, which brought back a lot of memories, reading all the books my mother hid in the back of the closet.  My mother had both "The Foxes of Harrow" and "The Devil's Laughter". (Which are probably the best) I read them both on the sly, and went on to read a lot more.  Mostly disappointing.  (In fact, "An Odour of Sanctity" easily ranks among the worst novels ever written, and that includes the complete works of L. Ron Hubbard and Ayn Rand.)  Still, back in the early 60s, they ranked among the hottest non-porn books you could read, along with Ian Fleming and Jacqueline Susann.    

Besides prurience, one of the things that I learned from reading Yerby was that they had a formula to them.  I know, shocking, right?  And here I'd been reading Nancy Drew books by the wagonload.  But Yerby's were - well, today I realize how sexist the damn things were, with a dash of S/M thrown in here there and everyfreakingwhere - but so obviously formulaic...  Almost all of them revolved around a male protagonist, who was super-alpha male without being extremely tall, handsome and muscular. Indeed, like the James Bond girls in the all of Fleming's novels, he's often damaged - in "The Devil's Laughter", his nose has been severely broken; in another novel he has a permanent limp, etc.  But every man who sees him recognizes - and tells other men! - "that is much, much man", and every woman who sees him wants him, even if she hates him for it.  (She hates him because he'll cure her of her frigidity, which is every incel's dream, revealed 60 years ago.)  

Speaking of the women, Yerby men all fall for and sleep with at least three women in the course of the novel: the Pure One, the Evil One, and the Damaged One.  

Spoiler alert: he ends up with the Pure One, who has been always waiting for him, just him.  And the Evil One always gets her comeuppance.  And the Damaged One generally dies or goes mad.  

Once I figured out the formula, I could tell you within the first three chapters what the outcome would be. But isn't that the point of all romance novels?  (BTW, if you want to read Frank Yerby novels today, you can go to the Open Library and borrow them.)

Formulas, of course, have a long historical provenance.  And the rule of three is EVERYWHERE:  The traditional plot structure of most of Shakespeare's romantic comedies contrasts three courtships:  the major, "noble" lovers whose courtship is of a high, romantic nature (Rosalind and Orlando), and then a middling one (Silvius and Phoebe, or Celia and Oliver), which alternates romanticism and reality, and the finally a plebian, comic one (Audrey and Touchstone). That's of course, from As You Like It, but you can see the same pattern in most of the others, even (at the end) The Taming of the Shrew.  (Kate & Petruchio, Bianca and Lucentio, Hortensio & his widow.)

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice contrasts Elizabeth Bennett and Darcy, Jane Bennett and Mr. Bingley, and Charlotte Lucas and Rev. Mr. Collins.

And Anthony Trollope did this all the time.  (As you know by know, I'm a huge  Trollope fan.)  A classic example is Can You Forgive Her?, where the three courtships are complicated by two suitors for each lady:  aristocratic match (Plantagenet Palliser & Lady Glencora, who's in love with the ne'er do well Burgo Fitzgerald), middle match (Alice Vavasor & John Grey & her villainous cousin George Vavasor), plebian comic match (Mrs. Greenow and her two suitors, Squire Cheeseacre and Captain Bellfield.)  

BTW:  Mrs. Greenow is the reincarnation of the Wife of Bath, and the novel is worth reading just for her.  

There's nothing wrong with formulas when they are well done.  Formulas can be satisfying, or boring, depending on who's doing it.  But it's also a delight when you find something that starts out formulaic and then corkscrews in unexpected ways to keep you constantly awake and entertained.

And now, leaving the realm of novels, romance, courtship, we are going to move on to something completely different:  1988's The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, an official Australian-New Zealand co-production, directed by Vincent Ward.  Here's the official synopsis from the official website:

"Griffin is nine years old. He’s haunted by fragments of a dream.

He envisages a journey. A celestial city, a great cathedral, and a figure roped to a steeple, about to fall….

It is Cumbria 1348, the year of the Black Death. A medieval mining village lives in fear of the advancing plague. Griffin’s older brother Connor returns from the outside world in a state of despair, until Griffin tells of his dream and reveals their only source of survival:

Make tribute to God. Place a spire on a distant cathedral. Do so before dawn or the village will be lost.

Griffin embarks on an extraordinary journey with Connor, Searle the pragmatist, Searle’s naive brother Ulf, Martin the philosopher and Arno the one-handed ferryman. In his vision together they tunnel through the paper thin earth to a new world, a fabled land of hellish extremes, unfamiliar as the distant future of the antipodes, 1988.

But Griffin has a chilling new premonition… for one of them, the journey will end."

To paraphrase Rob Lopresti: "Ho ho, I hear you say. A medieval sci-fi story. Got it.  To which I must reply: You don't got nothin'."

And you don't - I can assure you that, the first time you see it, no matter what you think is going to happen next, or where you think this is going, you will be wrong. But each and every twist turns out to be absolutely perfect...

Exciting. Interesting. Anything but formulaic. Wonderful.  And that's what I love.  And every time I watch it, I love it all over again.  

 

Check it out.

Meanwhile, BSP:

My latest story, "The Closing of the Lodge" is in the latest AHMM:  

My story, "Cool Papa Bell", is in Josh Pachter's Paranoia Blues;

https://downandoutbooks.com/bookstore/pachter-paranoia-blues/ 

And on Amazon HERE

All Things in Moderation

LCC 2022. Courtesy of Kelly Garrett

Back in the spring I attended Left Coast Crime in Albuquerque.  I have already blogged about that twice but I rediscovered another topic in my notes I wanted to write about. 

At LCC I served on one panel, moderated another, and attended a bunch of them. I came away with some thoughts on moderating panels, based on this conference and many others.  So here are my Twenty-five Rules of Moderation, in case you ever have the privilege.

PLANNING AHEAD

1. Getting to know you.  As soon as you know who will be on the panel, talk to them.  Do you all agree on the topic?  Sometimes the titles chosen by The Powers That Be are ambiguous, or can be misunderstood. (Famous story from the world of folk music: One festival asked Arlo Guthrie to be on a Tropical Songs workshop so he learned "Ukulele Lady."  Turned out the topic was TOPICAL Songs...  But he later recorded the song, so it wasn't a waste.

2. Read ahead,  Read some of the works of each of your panelists.  That will lead to better questions, make it look like you know what you are talking about, and please the panelists. 

3. Prepare your questions early.  Procrastination is not your friend here.  

4. Abundance mindset. Prepare more questions than you think you will need.

Bouchercon 2014

5. Share the questions with your panelists.  I know there are those who disagree with me on this and, as usual when people disagree with me, they are wrong.  A conference panel is not a quiz show with points for spontaneity. Nor is it a final exam where knowing the questions in advance is cheating.  You have two goals: to entertain/inform the audience, and to make the panelists look good.  Neither goal is advanced by causing your team to waste precious seconds fumbling for an intelligent answer.  There will be plenty of opportunity for them to improvise anyway. 

6. Two-way street.  Telling them in advance  also gives you a chance to invite them to suggest questions.  Maybe they know something about the topic you don't.  In fact, let's hope they do!

7. No surprises.  I once served on a panel whose moderator decided each of us should read an excerpt from our book.  Nothing wrong with that except the moderator didn't tell us that until we were in the green room half an hour before the panel started.  That meant all of us who should be relaxing and  getting to know each other were instead fumbling through their books searching for the perfect passage.  Time to practice your recitation? Dream on.

8. Get it right.  Make sure you know how to pronounce the names of the panelists (and characters and book titles, if appropriate).  At LCC I was careful to check a tricky pronunciation but blew one that  looked obvious.

THE BIG DAY

9. Location location location.  Check out the room in advance.

10. Gather the flock.  You have checked in with your panelists, right?  Made sure they arrived and know where the panel is?  If you want to meet in advance in the green room, don't assume they know that.

11. Scene of the Crime.  When you arrive at the meeting room  make sure the microphones are working.  Are there fresh glasses and water pitchers?  

12. Volunteers of America.  Is there a volunteer whose job is to warn you when the panel time is nearly over?  If so they will probably introduce themselves.  Make sure you know where they are sitting so you can catch their signals.

13. Don't call us.  Remind the audience to silence their  phones.  At one panel the moderator's phone rang!

Bouchercon 2017

14. By way of introduction.  One of the moderator's duties is to introduce the panelists.  This should take as little time as you can manage. I have seen moderators actually recite the mini-bios from the program book, which everyone in the audience has their own copy of.  What a waste!  Last time I moderated I skipped the usual intro and instead read a sentence or two from a reviewer or author praising the work of each panelist. I made darned sure to read a passage from MWA's announcement that panelist Laurie R. King had been chosen the latest Grand Master.

15. Watch your language.  A male moderator (much younger than me) frequently referred to his all-female panel as "the ladies."  I was not the only person who asked themselves "What century is this?"

16. Know your place.  Chances are that you wouldn't be moderating the panel if you weren't interested and well-informed on the topic, but this is not about you and you are NOT a member of the panel.  I am not an absolutist here; I will stick my oar in if I have something to add (especially in response to a question from the audience) but if I am talking as  much as the others I am doing it wrong.

At one conference I served under a VERY chatty moderator.  Later a stranger told me "I saw your panel.  I wish I had gotten to hear you." 

17. One for all or all for one? Some moderators prepare individual questions for each panelist.  That can work (especially if the moderator knows a lot about each individual and their work) but to my mind it cuts down on interaction between the members.  One tactic I like is asking individual questions as part of the introductions, and then switching to general questions.  

18. Switch it up. Don't ask the same person first every time.  If your first question is asked to A, then B, then C, then D, start your next query with B, etc. 

19. One at a time.  It may seem like a good idea to put the follow-up in the original question: "What characteristics does a good sidekick need?  And how does a sidekick differ from other secondary characters?" But now you have the panelists trying to sort through two topics at once and remember Part 2 as they explain Part 1.  Make it easier on them and you can always ask follow-ups if it seems appropriate.

Left Coast Crime 2019

20. You aren't the only one with questions.  Leave a third of the time for questions from the audience.  They may have better ones than you.  But have extra questions ready in case they dry up.  

21. Lay down the ground rules. Before throwing it open to the audience I always remind them that this is an opportunity to ask questions, not to make comments, however brilliant those comments might be.  And I quote moderator Ginjer Buchanan: "If your voice goes up at the end that doesn't necessarily make it a question."

22. Be the voice of the public. Chances are you will have a microphone and the audience member won't, so repeat the question so  everyone can hear.  This  also allows you to clarify a rambling query.

23.  Never complain, never explain.  If the crowd is smaller than you were hoping, don't apologize and don't complain, especially not to them. As a musician friend says "We play for the people who show up, not the ones who don't."

24. Remember your manners.  If there is a volunteer assigned to signal that time is short, make sure you are watching for that.  And save time to thank the panelists, the audience, and any volunteers.  Don't forget any important announcements, such as when/where the panelists will be signing books.  I screwed that one up at LCC.

AFTERCARE

25. How was it for you? Email the panelists within a few days of the conference and tell them how wonderful they were.  Send individual messages, not one-fits-all.  Ask them if there was anything you could have done better.

That's all I can think of.  If any of you have been on a panel, or moderated one, or attended one, I'd love to hear your suggestions.