Do You Taboo?

 I have a story in the March/April issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, my 38th appearance there, I believe. 

"The Accessores Club" involves a group of criminals discussing a crime one of them has committed.  If you want to know why I chose that premise, you can find out in a piece I wrote for Trace Evidence, the magazine's blog.  What I want to write about today is a little different.

You see, I had to decide what sort of crime my characters would be discussing.  And as I have said before, plotting (as opposed to premise or character) is the hardest part for me.  

But I had recently come up with a plot device I thought would work: a nifty method for kidnappers to retrieve a ransom payment.  I had a problem with using that, although I'm not sure whether to call my dilemma an ethical issue or an artistic one (if I can use a great big grown-up word like art to describe my stuff).

I have written about kidnappings before.  In fact I have invented so many tales about swiped children that a co-worker of mine said he wouldn't let me near his offspring.  He was kidding.  I think.

But those tales had always been told from the viewpoint of the good guys (well, at least good-ish), trying to catch the kidnappers.  The premise of this story would require the kidnapper to be the protagonist.  And I was not comfortable with giving the main role to someone doing such a heinous deed.  Especially since I was hoping this would be a funny story.

On the other hand, a ransom demand doesn't necessarily require a human victim, does it?  And so my bad guy swipes a rare orchid plant and demands a hefty payment to return it.  

Which struck me as kind of funny.  And my characters agreed.  “Did you have the plant on the phone crying for mercy?” one asked.

So I chose that approach and it worked well enough to sell.  But would it be appearing in AHMM if I had made another choice?

Maybe not.  None of my stories about kidnapped children made it into those pages - although all of them found happy homes in other publications.

Every publication has its taboos (or at least strong preferences) and our field as a whole seems to have at least two. 

For example: Why didn't I have my protagonist kidnap, say, a dog?

Because the conventional wisdom for many years has been that in a mystery you don't hurt an animal.  I have been to panels at several conferences over the years where writers spoke with bemusement about the fact that you can massacre half of a small English village and still describe the book as a cozy, but heaven help you if, even in a noir thriller, you harm one whisker on a kitty's head.  It's a weird thing.

I'm not sure the rule about harming children is as deeply ingrained.  A few year ago I read in rapid succession novels by two well-known authors in which kidnapped children were murdered.  Both books were well-written and the violence was not gratuitous, but I will admit it didn't make me eager to read their next volumes.

Last year I started work on a story inspired by actual events.  I thought I had found an interesting way of recounting the tale but I froze up halfway through when I realized that two animals, family pets, were shot to death.  Did I really want to write about that and endure the fury that would follow?

I decided I didn't so I put the story aside.Then one day the Muse said: Hey dummy!  You write FICTION!

Oh, right.  So I went back to the scene, laid  my godlike authorial hand on the shooter's weapon and deflected the bullets.  The dogs may have suffered psychological trauma but they were otherwise unscathed.

Whether the story sells is, of course, up to different hands.

Meanwhile, what taboos do you refuse to write about?  Or read about?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I’ve been MIA for my last three SleuthSayers posts, with friends Andrew Hearn, Stacy Woodson, and Sandra Murphy filling in for me. That’s because life events prevented me from writing beginning the day after Christmas and lasting through much of February (more about that in a moment), and my friends, when I told them what had happened, took up the slack. I hope they know how much I appreciate their help, but I also know that I could have asked any of several dozen other writing friends and had the same result.

Temple’s father, who been undergoing treatment for leukemia, took a dramatic and unexpected turn for the worse the day after Christmas. A pair of emergency room visits and a follow-up with his oncologist during the following two weeks led to a hospice referral and an estimated life expectancy of one to two months. The estimate was wrong. Eight days after the referral, on Friday, January 13, James Lincoln Walker passed away in his own home, in his own bed, in the presence of his daughter and granddaughter.

In addition to the emotional devastation that accompanies the death of a loved one, we were faced with the daunting and ongoing task of sorting through my father-in-law’s life. There are bills to pay, paperwork to review, furniture to disburse, personal items to sort through, and all the other responsibilities large and small that became Temple’s upon her father’s passing. We are only now out from under the worst of it, and I am only now catching up on all the projects that went on hold for two months. Luckily, and thanks to help from friends and tolerance from editors, publishers, and clients, I’ve not missed any deadlines.

MOVING FORWARD

For the past seventeen-and-a-half years, I have worked part-time as the marketing director for a professional symphony orchestra. Post-pandemic the marketing position changed, and I found the time devoted to it at odds with my freelance writing and editing. Temple and I spent much of last summer and fall discussing when might be the best time to take my leave of the symphony. Though the increased writing and editing commitments and opportunities coming my way were pushing us toward a decision, her father’s passing reminded us how little time we may have left, and it gave us the last  push we needed to set an end date.

I’ve worked too long and too hard to reach this point in my writing career, and it’s time to take advantage of every opportunity. So, my last day with the symphony will be Friday, April 21. The following week I travel to New York for the Edgar Awards ceremony and then to North Bethesda, Maryland, for Malice Domestic. When I return home, I will, once again, be a full-time freelancer.

I was freelancing full-time when I took the symphony as a client—that relationship changed when I officially joined the staff—so freelancing fulltime is not new. What is new is that I’m not doing it alone. I was single the last time around. This time I have Temple with me for the ride, and having someone who understands and supports what I do will make the transition back to fulltime freelancing much smoother than it otherwise might be.

So, 2023 began with a significant upheaval in our lives with the passing of Temple’s father, and our lives will continue to transform with my imminent change in employment.

I’m looking forward to seeing what the future brings.

Giving voice to cartoon passion.

I was once asked, “If you hadn’t been a writer, what would you rather be?” 

This is the wrong question.  It should be, if a genie popped out of a can of Dinty More Stew, and said, “Pick any job you want, you just can’t be a writer.”  I have the answer.  Two, actually.

Number one:  A New Yorker Cartoonist.  To me, there’s no higher form of art.  I subscribe to the digital New Yorker Magazine mostly to read the cartoons.  The articles, often quite informative and engaging, are an afterthought.  In a single frame, these artists contain vast stores of wisdom, insight and belly laughs, exquisitely composed and pitch perfect.  I know success in this arena is the result of gigantic effort and stress-filled anticipation as their cartoon editorial overlords judge their submissions, so that doesn’t feel much different from my past professional life, but oh the joy of making it to the inner circle.  I assume the genie can arrange this, so that’s my decision.

I once met the late Jack Zeigler, a renowned New Yorker cartoonist, a friend of a friend, and he seemed quite happy with his lot in life. I’ve been trying to keep the envy in check ever since. 

Job number two:  Having a long career in advertising, I worked with a lot of voice over professionals.  The successful ones, men and women, had the best lives imaginable.  They always showed up at the studio wearing tailored clothes and carrying expensive briefcases they never opened.  They often lived in Upstate New York or Connecticut, and had faces free of stress lines and voices bestowed by the gods.   

I’d settle behind the glass and they’d sit on a stool wearing earphones and read the copy I’d written, usually perfect the first time.  The engineers and I would sigh with pleasure over those silken, exquisitely delivered performances.  I’d make them do a few more takes, just because I could, and each one got better.  I’d say thank you, they’d come into the recording area, we’d shake hands, and they’d stroll away after signing the SAG forms, having made a huge chunk of money for about a half hour’s work, if you can call it that. 

I always thought to myself, I want to be one of those people. 

These days, they don’t even have to leave their homes in the Cotswold’s or Outer Mongolia, since we’re all wired through the Internet, and they can easily afford top drawer home recording studios. 

To be fair, most voice over artists struggle in the beginning like everyone else, trying to get gigs and building a promotable portfolio. And the really successful ones not only have a great set of pipes, but have learned how to speed up and slow down with no loss of timber or enunciation, hitting the time mark at the exact second.  This is a real talent, and like any virtuoso, deserving of reward. 

I’m glad I became a writer, no regrets.  I find the formation of sentences and paragraphs soothing and addictive.  It’s a complicated task, never fully mastered, like sailing, which I’ve also enjoyed.  But remember, there’s a genie involved here who’s demanding I swap my life’s work for something else, and I get to choose what. 

Maybe we could compromise.  Cartoon caption writer?

Art theft: Churchill and Zelensky

Around December 2021 the famous Yousuf Karsh 1941 photograph of Winston Churchill was stolen from the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa and replaced by a forgery. The heist was about 2 months before Russia invaded Ukraine. The Russian invasion is not related to the photograph but also, very related.

The photograph is perhaps one of the most widely reproduced photos of all time. Prime Minister Churchill's belligerent expression exemplified the British resolve to win against Hitler, who many believed to be invincible.

Karsh at that time lived in the Chateau Laurier and was a friend of the Prime Minister of Canada - William Lyon Mackenzie King - and this is how he was able to take the photograph and why it was hanging in the Chateau Laurier.

The photograph is aptly titled ‘The Roaring Lion’. The roar behind the photograph has a story, some parts moving and some parts simply hilarious. Just prior to the photograph being taken, Prime Minister Churchill had given a rousing and defiant speech to the Parliament of Canada. In fact, if you look closely at the photograph you can see the speech peeking out of his pocket. It was a speech to an ally in Parliament but Churchill knew it was a speech that would be shared with the world. I picture him writing the speech by reaching deep within himself into places where hope and belligerence met.

After this speech, and probably carrying the mood of the speech with him, Churchill was brought into the Speaker’s Chamber. Here he found Karsh waiting, with his camera and lighting equipment. The Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King, hadn't told Churchill he was to be photographed so Churchill roared, "Why was I not told?” I suspect that the look captured on Churchill’s face was present at that moment. Churchill gave Karsh two minutes to take the photograph and this is how Karsh described the two minutes:

“Churchill’s cigar was ever present. I held out an ashtray, but he would not dispose of it. I went back to my camera and made sure that everything was all right technically. I waited; he continued to chomp vigorously at his cigar. I waited. Then I stepped toward him and, without premeditation, but ever so respectfully, I said, “Forgive me, sir,” and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant that I took the photograph.”

The title of the photograph came, inadvertently, from Churchill himself, who told Karsh, “You can even make a roaring lion stand still to be photographed.” So Karsh named the photograph 'The Roaring Lion'.

This photograph, as much as Churchill’s speech, helped bolster the resolve to continue fighting during those difficult days.

Almost 80 years – perhaps even to the day – after Karsh took this photograph, it was stolen. Then two months later, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Russia believed it would win the war quickly because it was a much more powerful nation than Ukraine. It felt invincible, just like Hitler did. However, Russia faced two potent forces: history and Zelensky.

History taught Europe and North America that appeasement doesn’t work and the only thing to do when one country attacks a sovereign country is to fight. Churchill’s photograph embodies this fight.

After the 1938 Munich Conference, then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared his appeasement of Hitler had obtained “peace for our time.” When Chamberlain resigned in disgrace, Churchill - who had argued against appeasement - became the Prime Minister, outlined a bold plan of British resistance and declared Britain would “never surrender.”

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky turned down an offer from the United States of evacuation from the capital city Kyiv, by famously stating, "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride," and with that statement, Zelensky became a wartime leader and, his own ‘Roaring Lion’.

This is because human stories of history never stay in books about the past - they are relived by every generation.

Listening to Churchill’s 1941 speech in that Parliament of Canada and then, Zelensky’s 2022 speech to the Parliament of Canada - although they are very different - one can hear similar themes: both spoke to the courage of their people and the brutality of their opponent. Both were unbowed and pugnacious in their resolve. Leaders give speeches for their allies, for their enemies but, most of all, for their own people because of the personal costs of war. We see that now in videos of Ukraine. We know that more from stories of WWII. My mother-in-law told me half of the young boys she grew up with were killed in the war. I think of that incomprehensible loss when I see videos of the devastation in Ukraine. During wartime, leaders must be roaring lions to keep up the spirit of their people and play down the invincibility of their enemy.

Even though the original stolen photo, The Roaring Lion, has never been recovered, there are copies of this elsewhere, to remind us of a time back then and how easily back then becomes now. History never stays in books - as long as there are people, history is relived by each generation. Apparently, art continues to be stolen by each generation as well.

25 Years Later: Decoding The Big Lebowski

What makes a crime story? A crime, sure, but that can infer a creative box, as if the crime might ultimately confine the story. Not so. A crime story can do anything, given the ambition. 

Consider The Big Lebowski (1998), released 25 years ago this month. Even if you've never seen the oddball classic, you know the main character: The Dude (Jeff Bridges). And if the movie confounded you, you're not alone. Nobody confounds like the Coen brothers.

DOWN THOSE MEAN LANES

Actually, nobody else could've made The Big Lebowski. No Hollywood newbie could've sold a script this indulgent in directorial conceits and character asides. By 1998, though notches on the Coens' belt included Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, and the Oscar-winning Fargo.

The Big Lebowski comes disguised as subverted L.A. noir. That's not clear in the opening scenes, with the Dude sniffing milk and the voiceover narration. But resketch Acts One and Two to include the off-camera action, and themes will sound familiar:

1. Jeffrey "Big" Lebowksi is a philanthropist statesman of the L.A. Chamber of Commerce set. In reality, he married well and stinks at business. His daughter, Maude (Julianne Moore), controls the wealth through a family trust. Big's trophy wife, Bunny, is causing him epic grief by sleeping around and piling up gambling debts to pornographer Jackie Treehorn.
2. Treehorn sends goons to collect from Big, but the goons mistakenly barge in on unemployed stoner Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski. A rug is soiled. 
3. Bunny disappears.
4. Uli, an ex-Europop nihilist and Bunny's co-star in a Treehorn low-budget production, senses opportunity. Uli and his crew send Big a ransom note for $1,000,000, despite having no idea where Bunny actually went.
5. Big senses a similar opportunity. Bunny has disappeared before, after all. She might be playing him for another payout. Big finagles a $1,000,000 withdrawal from the Lebowski trust to fund the ransom--which he pockets instead. He prepares a drop bag loaded with old papers.
6. Big needs a fall guy for cash sure to be missed. Stealing a replacement rug from his mansion is the perfect mark: The Dude. Suspicion of double-cross and kidnapper retribution would fall squarely on the wayward but pliable Dude. Sure enough, the Dude is guilt-tripped into making a ransom drop he believes is real. 
7. The drop goes disastrously, thanks to the Dude's bowling pal, Walter (John Goodman). The Dude is left thinking he has someone else's million, no explanation, and the sudden need to find Bunny.

Corruption, extortion, vice, adultery, mystery, questions of personal honor. It's a Marlowe riff, though you can almost hear Chandler grouse over the liberties taken.

Marlowe was in the trouble business. The Dude isn't in any business, let alone walking mean streets. His 60s-era sense of justice has devolved to jaded memories and bathtub tokes to whale cries on his headphones. He's forced to turn detective when what he thinks is the loot gets stolen along with his car. His looking for his ride or Bunny or both is a laid-back search, with ample time for bowling. Clues stumble over him from over-the-top characters who'd be at home in any Marlowe story. The Dude gets threatened, followed, drugged, lured to bed, and beat up by the Malibu cops--if any of that sounds familiar.

Subversion or not, The Big Lebowski wears its crime story clothes with clean lines. The confounding parts come with the added layers, and they're ambitious.

SOCIAL CONTEXT

Big is the Korean vet become titan of industry. The Dude and Walter are yin and yang of the Vietnapm years. The backdrop is Iraqi War America. Three wars mark the eternal cycles of time in thinly-veiled allegory. The elder, conservative elite– Big, for example– are empty suits engaged in a money grab. Wars get arranged to protect their interests, and the liberals among the younger set, say like a hippie burnout, get blamed for war's downstream social issues. Attempts to break the cycle can't work unless someone deals with the systemic greed. Probably, no one will.

Take Big's daughter. In a prior age, Maude would've femme fatale-d across the screen. These days, she is too liberated and too busy as an artistic whirlwind. She is by some margin the smartest character in the film, even seeing through Big's shenanigans. Not that she cares much. She's after securing the balance of power for the future generation. She takes more care to retrieve the family rug than to address her dad's fraud. 

A STRANGER FROM THE WEST

Scene One opens with a dadgum tumblin' tumbleweed and a Sons of Pioneers tune and The Stranger (Sam Elliott) in full drawl voiceover.  The Stranger rambles on how he's seen some things but this tale here might top them all, this tale how the Dude would become the man for his times. Weird, but not accidental. A man rising up right wrongs is a western trope.

As for the Stranger, maybe he's a keeper of time. Maybe he's God. He appears bodily twice, both at the Star Lanes bar, both after the Dude approaches. The first is mid-film, and over a sarsaparilla the Stranger imparts a meaningful cipher: sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you. The second manifestation is at the end, where the Stranger laments the movie's sole death. 

Star Lanes is no average bowling alley. Outside it, wars and aggression rage. L.A. crime laps right to the alley's door. The Dude's car is stolen in their lot. Inside Star Lanes, time passes differently. The fluorescent lights hum, the bowlers can live their best lives, and the pins get racked again and again by mechanical magic. Star Lanes isn't heaven, but it's a higher plane. 

AT LEAST IT'S AN ETHOS

Or if Star Lanes is a Garden of Eden, Walter is the serpent. Everyone else is trying to relax over a few frames, but Walter steps all over the mood with his thirst to impose his personal code on league and non-league play. A practice game infraction escalates immediately to Walter's gunpoint demand the roll gets marked zero. 

Walter represents order. More precisely, the folly of seeking order. Walter insists on his solution for everything, except his problem-solving instincts are disastrous. He turns Big's fake drop into chaos by substituting a second fake bag stuffed with underwear. Walter screws up the Dude's attempts to recover his car. Walter's real problem is understanding this universe. Cosmic and random forces work vastly outside human control. We mortals just need to roll with it. The Dude would, if Walter let him.

LET US ABIDE

For The Big Lebowski's first hour or so, we're fed outrageous characters and Marlowe-ish flourishes. It's a set-up. Likely as not, you hadn't the pivotal guy in plain sight: the Dude's and Walter's third wheel, Donny (Steve Buscemi). 

Donny is a happy, in-the-moment guy. He just wants to bowl. He can't ever understand what the Dude and Walter are wrangling over. Missing money? Kidnapped porn queen? Rugs that pull a room together? It's all over Donny's head.  The one time he cares enough to ride along on the case, it's because the trip goes by the North Hollywood In-N-Out Burger. 

Not long after, the ransom plot has fallen apart. The Dude confronts Big j'accuse-style about the switcheroo scam, and Bunny returns from partying in Palm Springs. It's wrapped up--and it's been about nothing. The Dude is back where he started. Worse, even. No compensation for the rug or his trashed car.

It's wrapped but not over. No one yet has gotten the bear or been gotten. That happens when Uli and his nihilist buddies confront the Dude, Walter and Donny outside Star Lanes. A hilariously weird scuffle follows. In the aftermath, poor Donny, who never wanted anything but to roll with his buds, keels over from a shock heart attack. 

Donny passes young and pointlessly. In the funeral home, while the Dude and Walter haggle over cremains urn pricing, the Coens make plain what this crime caper has been about. The funeral home wall displays a verse from the King James Bible:

Banter, eccentric character turns, absurd scenes, a kidnap that wasn't a kidnap, ransom money never at risk. These things are as flowers in the field. The film says nothing much really changes in the grand play of the cosmos. We live in a disorderly universe, we deal with events of the day, and we die. Unlike true noir, though, the Coens offer hope. The now matters. The now is all we'll ever have.

The story ambition hasn't been about crime or death, which quite literally hits the Dude in the face. The Big Lebowski is about finding harmony in life. After his hippie years and jaded downslide, he can release that baggage and just go bowling. In the closing scene, the Stranger tells the Dude to take it easy, and only then the Dude gives his pop culture line, delivered in shadow: "The Dude abides." Finally, he can. 

Echoing "Get Involved"

R.T. Lawton’s SleuthSayers post of February 26^th provides excellent advice. If any of you missed it, it’s entitled – ”Get Involved.”

R.T. advises writers to “attend a few writers conferences” and explains about striking up conversations, maybe volunteer, attend receptions. Networking. Meet other writers, editors, publishers, agents. He also advises writers to join local writer’s organizations and run for office.

Excellent advice.

I’m pretty sure I’ve read some things posted by John Floyd and Barb Goffman and others echoing some of this.

Michael Bracken recently posted about writers improving their craft in workshop settings if you can find one. Again, good advice.

I don’t take that advice for a number of reasons I do not want to explain. The fault is in me. It’s just the way I am. I just write. As I age, I find writing easier, ideas keep coming and the passion remains to pound each idea out of the block of marble into something smooth.

I keep pulling away from socializing and find that I’ve offended friends on occasion, writers I admire, for not accepting invitations to socialize. I’m more withdrawn these days.

Did not intend to make this blog about me but I have been asked by friends about these things, so there it is.

So, do what the others say instead of what I do.

Get involved with other writers, editors, publishers, agents.

Short Mystery Fiction Society lunch at the Napoleon House Restaurant during

New Orleans Bouchercon, 2016. Lot of familiar faces.

I was there. I took the picture.

That's all for now.

www.oneildenoux.com

Truth in What?

We've had some crazy times up here in the South Dakota Legislature.  (I know, so what else is new?) 

We had "Boobgate" – where a Senator and her husband decided to discuss breast feeding and how to get your spouse to help you (with hand gestures) to a young female staffer in the staffer's office.  You really can't make this stuff up.  (LINK) 

We have had seemingly endless anti-trans, anti-drag, anti- bills.  The anti-trans / anti-gender affirming care passed.  BTW, no one seemed to note that this bill denied parental rights in medical care for their child, i.e., if the parents agreed that their minor needed gender affirming care.... it was still illegal.  And how about this bit from HB 1080?

Section 2: Except as provided in section 3 of this Act, a healthcare professional may not, for the purpose of attempting to alter the appearance of, or to validate a minor's perception of, the minor’s sex, if that appearance or perception is inconsistent with the minor's sex, knowingly:

(6) Remove any healthy or non-diseased body part or tissue.

And the only exceptions in Section 3 are for a "medically verifiable disorder of sex development, including external biological sex characteristics that are irresolvably ambiguous; A minor diagnosed with a disorder of sexual development... or A minor needing treatment for an infection, injury, disease, or disorder.

Sounds like that outlaws circumcision, doesn't it?  I see lawsuits coming up. 

The anti-drag show bills did not pass, perhaps partially because "Tootsie: The Musical" was playing at the Washington Pavilion during the legislature, and enough legislators realized that they'd occasionally enjoyed a good comedy that depended on one of the male characters being dressed as a woman and wanted to continue to be able to have a good laugh.  (As I've said before, you can have my copy of "Some Like It Hot" when you tear it from my cold, dead hands.)  

The legislature declined to help local counties build new jails with funding, ignoring "the drastic increase in crime" that was the reason they passed at least one of Governor Noem's pet projects, two new prisons, one in Rapid City, and one outside of Sioux Falls.  

And they went into a real tear about inmates serving their time.  There was a "Truth in Sentencing" bill which would require that inmates convicted of violent crimes serve 80% of their sentence before being considered eligible for parole.  Well, I wrote a lot of people about that one.  Because here's the deal:  sentencing comes after a conviction, which comes after a trial, which comes after being charged by the state's attorney, and what the state's attorney charges someone with can... vary.  

True story, no names given:  When I was teaching at SDSU, I had a white student who was arrested, tried and convicted of killing his father.  He was charged with Second Degree Manslaughter and got 20 years.  Meanwhile, a Native American was arrested, tried and convicted of killing someone in a bar brawl that got taken out into the parking lot.  He was charged with First Degree Manslaughter and got life without parole.  So killing your father gets less time than killing someone in a drunken brawl?  What's fair about that?  

True story, all names given:  Former AG Jason Ravnsborg struck and killed a man while driving late at night.  The sheriff drove him home, and no alcohol test was made until the next day; Ravnsborg swore he thought it was a deer, even though the man's eyeglasses were in the front seat of his car, proving the man went through windshield; etc., etc., etc. Prosecutors chose not to charge Ravnsborg with vehicular homicide or second-degree manslaughter. (Yes, I know guys who are doing time in the pen for such behavior.) Instead, he was charged with careless driving (which was dismissed), driving out of his lane, and operating a car while using a cellphone.  He had to pay $1,000 and court costs, and that was it.  In that case just about everyone agreed with me that this was special treatment, and the uproar eventually resulted in his impeachment:  but he never spent a day in jail.  He was never even fingerprinted.  

So I've basically been screaming START WITH WORKING ON HAVING FAIR AND BALANCED CHARGES!!!!  

Except we know it won't happen.

Then there's a recent case where a Native American got out on parole and got arrested for his 8th DUI.  So that launched a new set of demands for mandatory prison sentencing for multiple DUIs, etc., which will only apply to "certain people". I know this because, back when I worked for the UJS, I saw a man whose family was very influential / wealthy / powerful in a certain county, who was constantly being stopped for DUI, often in possession of drugs, often escorted home, and was never arrested.  I used that guy as the prototype for Vic Adger in my story, "The Closing of the Lodge" (AHMM, Nov/Dec 2022), except that Vic was far more of a gentleman.  Look, I'm not saying that alcoholics with multiple DUIs aren't dangerous - but some treatment would help, and they're not going to get that in prison.  

Once more, for the cheap seats:  Incarceration does not "fix" addiction.  

And now for something completely different!  Hirsutism!  

Did you know that humans still carry the genes for a full coat of body hair?  (WaPo)  Turns out we're kind of like elephants, which historically speaking, began as woolly mammoths.  Which instantly made me think of werewolves:  Hypertrichosis, a/k/a werewolf syndrome, is "an abnormal amount of hair growth over the body."  But now it seems like it's less of an infection and more of a throwback. 

Anyway, meet Petrus Gonsalvus, 1537-1618, "the man of the woods", and his wife Lady Catherine.  Their marriage is considered to be a partial source of the "Beauty and the Beast" legend.  Four of his seven children suffered from the same syndrome:

  http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.69680.html

Gonsalvus served in the courts of Henry II of France, and successive rulers of Parma. "Despite living and acting as a nobleman, Gonsalvus and his hairy children were not considered fully human in the eyes of their contemporaries."  

(Wikipedia)

Well, they said the same thing about Larry Talbot (a/k/a Lon Cheney).  Whose makeup appears to have been modeled on poor Petrus: 

(Horror Monsters - File:HorrorMonstersNo1Pg1Crop.png)

"Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night;
May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright."

For those who don't know, wolfsbane is one name for a member of the aconitum family. Like Monkshood (Below):

Aconitine is a potent neurotoxin and cardiotoxin. "Marked symptoms may appear almost immediately, usually not later than one hour, and "with large doses death is almost instantaneous". Death usually occurs within two to six hours in fatal poisoning (20 to 40 mL of tincture may prove fatal).[25] The initial signs are gastrointestinal, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. This is followed by a sensation of burning, tingling, and numbness in the mouth and face, and of burning in the abdomen.[3] In severe poisonings, pronounced motor weakness occurs and cutaneous sensations of tingling and numbness spread to the limbs. Cardiovascular features include hypotension, and ventricular arrhythmias. Other features may include sweating, dizziness, difficulty in breathing, headache, and confusion. The main causes of death are ventricular arrhythmias and asystole, or paralysis of the heart or respiratory center.[25][26] The only post mortem signs are those of asphyxia."  (Wikipedia)  (My emphasis added.)

I'd say there's more to worry about than wolves or werewolves when the wolfsbane blooms.  In fact, aconite sounds like a handy plant to have in the garden... in a cloud-cuckoo land sort of way, of course. We "do but jest, poison in jest, no offense i'th' world."

And now for some BSP:

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

Just because you're in prison doesn't mean there's no more crime...

https://downandoutbooks.com/bookstore/pachter-paranoia-blues/
And on Amazon HERE

My noir novella, Cruel as the Grave is in Crimeucopia:  We'll Be Right Back

There's nothing like toxic friendships, murder and a South Dakota winter to make everybody crazy...

Available on Amazon HERE.

You can keep a secret for a long time in a small town, but eventually it will come out...  And always at the wrong time...

On Amazon HERE.

The Novella

As a form, the novella attracted me early.  It didn’t have the capaciousness of a novel, or the tight rising action of a short story, but it promised both a wider canvas and the close reading of character.  In time, I came to realize how near it was to a screenplay, the economy of depth.

My parents had some John O’Hara titles on the shelf.  I don’t think they were fans of the later novels, which were heavy-duty door-stoppers, but they had all of the story collections – his stories from the 1960’s are terrific, and invite reappraisal – and a trilogy of novellas called Sermons and Soda-Water.  That book became my model for what a novella ought to be, rigorous and intense.

I didn’t see anything to match it for twenty years, and then Jim Harrison published Legends of the Fall, and that book had me seriously re-thinking what you could maybe accomplish in a hundred-odd pages.  (I have to say that the movie adaption is execrable, a subject for another time.)

Much influenced by Legends of the Fall, I wrote a bounty hunter novella called Doubtful Canyon.  I discovered, to my chagrin, that it’s an awkward length, too long for most general-interest magazines, too short for book publication.

Then I did a spy story, called Viper, and put it up as an Amazon e-book.  I did the same with another, The Kingdom of Wolves.  I love the form, but the issue is marketability.

We come now to the Nero Wolfe Society’s Black Orchid Award, which is specifically for novellas, written after the manner of Rex Stout.  This doesn’t mean a pastiche, like a Sherlock Holmes and Watson; in fact, you’re not supposed to use Nero and Archie at all, or their ecosystem.  It means, in the spirit of.  I read a couple of Wolfe novellas, to get the flavor, but I found them dated and contrived, and I read one of the recent winners, “The Black Drop of Venus,” which appeared in Hitchcock, and a mystery I found original and ingenious.  The obvious question: could I write one?

I don’t know the answer, but I’m taking a crack at it.  The trick, of course, is how to do Nero-esque without the tiresome Nero himself, the misogyny, the hothouse flowers, the bloviating condescension.  Archie, let’s face it, is by far the more attractive (and authentic) personality. 

A bigger question is how to address the basic gimmick of the Nero stories.  He never leaves the house.  Archie does the legwork and reports back.  Nero reads the runes and fingers the villain.  How do you repurpose this, without falling into inert convention?  “The Black Drop of Venus,” manages to solve the problem convincingly, with a good deal of wit.  I hope to follow suit.

On the Road to Someplace Else

    I sat at my desk a while back, intending to write a short story about a private eye. Hard-boiled and world-weary, I envisioned an arc where this paladin of the pavement would walk some mean street and, likely, do the wrong thing for the right reason. 

    In my imagination, I pictured a Shamus Award-winning character. Heck, readers would love this guy so much that they'd create new awards to bestow upon him. In my imagination, he was that good. Ever humble and appreciative, I'd always accept their adulations on his behalf.

    He might have a worn trench coat for armor and keep a bottle of cheap whiskey in his desk drawer to help silence the demons of a life lived hard.

    I don't know. For the story to exist, the words had to cross the gulf between my mind's eye and that blinking cursor on the blank screen. The distance on that day was farther than I had anticipated.

    The tough guy couldn't make the leap.

    What do you do when the story refuses to come together?

    Strategies for overcoming the problem differ for everyone trying to write. Some people forge ahead, dropping bad word after bad word onto the page, thrilled that no one else will see the roughest draft, confident that editing will transform the ugly. Others recommend separation. Take a walk or do some vigorous exercise, some task to clear the impediment blocking the path forward. If I walk far enough or exercise hard enough, I'm too worn out to work at my desk. That also solves the problem.

    I could open a door, look inward, or try another Zen-like technique proposed online for getting unstuck with a story.

    Surrender is a final strategy. A writer might admit defeat in this round. Save what's there. My computer file labeled "Not Shamus" contains notes, including the alliterative paladin of the pavement, along with a few other bumper sticker jottings. They've been put aside for another day.

    I started fresh on a new blank screen. This story thread didn't have the baggage of the earlier character. The story contained a different protagonist. He'd been the junior varsity of my imagination. When the presumptive star couldn't perform, the coach looked to him to step forward.

    That plucky little bench warmer was Doyle Tuchfield, the main character in "A Study With Scarlett." Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine included my story in the March/April issue. 

    Faint traces of the old story remain. Rather than a contemporary private eye, Tuchfield is a Victorian-era detective specializing in on-scene investigations. As a veteran of some of the Civil War's major battles, Tuchfield, too, might be a bit world-weary. And we know that his sparse office has a desk. A bottle might be stashed there somewhere. 

    Setting "A Study With Scarlett" in an earlier era also allowed a Holmesian element to be added to the story. The small homage was noted with the main characters named Doyle and Scarlett.

    It is never the wrong time to have a Sherlock Holmes reference. Since their first publication in 1887, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson have remained in print. The original stories may be found in seventy languages. An eponymous magazine and countless websites, pastiches, parodies, and fan fiction entries are available for reading. The present, however, may be a particularly good time. Characters that Arthur Conan Doyle envisioned, like Mycroft, have their own books (Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse).  Characters he didn't create have been featured in Netflix movies (Enola Holmes by Nancy Springer).

    I started off intending to write one story. On the way, a different tale emerged. A splash of homage combined with a few hints of the original. There was also some research conducted while standing in my darkened closet, but you'll have to read the story to see if you might guess what that was all about.

    Those original notes remain on my computer, along with fragments of other tales and titles for stories that I've never begun. I may get around to visiting them someday. That, I suppose, depends on the road ahead.

    Until next time. 

The Rashomon Effect

My February SleuthSayers slot missed Valentine's Day, so I'm belatedly sharing a link (at end of this post) to my love story published on Yellow Mama at that time, a flash-plus piece you might find cynical. But it really isn't. Rather, it uses the Rashomon effect to demonstrate, as all such tales do, that truth is in the experience of the individual. In the original Japanese movie Rashomon (1950), filmmaker Akira Kurosawa showed an event, the death of a samurai, from four different points of view, without reconciling them or concluding the story with a version of what "really happened."

Since then, much has been written about the Rashomon Effect in movies, literature, and real life, even in the courtroom. Kurosawa's great theme, the ambiguity of truth, is more or less important to each storyteller who uses this powerful technique. I suspect this is why some of the examples often cited are better examples of the unreliable narrator—or unreliable narrative, with its deceptive twists and turns—than of the Rashomon Effect. The Usual Suspects, for example, appears on Rashomon lists, but does it belong there? How about Gone Girl?

For fun, I watched a couple of movies I hadn't seen in many years that are always cited as Rashomon Effect stories: Les Girls (1957) and Courage Under Fire (1996).

Les Girls was a musical that won the Golden Globe for Best Picture (Comedy or Musical). It's still lots of fun, silly in the way that all Fifties musicals were, and worth seeing for Cole Porter's songs, Gene Kelly and Mitzi Gaynor's apache dance, and Kay Kendall's performance, which won her a Golden Globe for Best Actress (Comedy or Musical). Her drunken rendition of Carmen's "Habanera" alone was worth the $2.99 I paid to see the movie on Amazon Prime. The Rashomon Effect is applied to events that occurred many years before the present, in Paris in the spring, where Gene Kelly's act, Les Girls, was appearing, featuring three young women: an American (Gaynor), an Englishwoman (Kendall), and a Frenchwoman (Taina Elg). Now Kendall has published a book about those events. She is being sued by Elg. Each of them has a different story to tell about which one had a fling with Kelly, which of them tried to kill herself . . . you get the idea. Finally, Kelly appears as a surprise witness to offer yet another version that actually is the truth—though maybe not the whole truth. Filmmaker George Cukor, less subtle than Kurosawa, pounds the Rashomon message home with a guy pacing back and forth in front of the courthouse carrying a sandwich board that says, in giant letters, WHAT IS TRUTH?

Courage Under Fire paired Denzel Washington, as a Gulf War commander tormented by the memory of a fatal error in combat, with Meg Ryan, breaking out from her usual romcom roles, as a candidate for a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor. Investigating the incident that made her a dead hero to evaluate her worthiness for this high honor, Washington finds that each of the men she saved tells a different story. In the end, it turns out they all lied.

If it's a solvable mystery, is it still a Rashomon story?

Here's my story, "Perfect," in Yellow Mama #96.

Wardle of Wordle

Josh Wardle

Long ago in the depth of the pandemic, our friend ABA mentioned a game she thought might interest SleuthSayers. Rob mentioned it in passing, but said nothing further. At the time, I was working on other articles and gradually it slipped into my mental æther until I stumbled upon it Friday. You remember ABA– She won the Criminal Brief Christmas Puzzle way back when, an impressive feat.

As a puzzleist, she couldn’t resist telling us about Wordle… and believe me, auto-correct is right now having fun at my expense as it substitutes worldly, workable, and girdle. But ‘worldly’ is applicable:  Wordle is literally being played around the world– Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. So I have to apologize, letting our SleuthSayers wallow mentally while the rest of the planet has been playing… unless you read the New York Times. It bought the game a year ago.

What is Wordle?

It’s been compared to the game Jotto and the television show Lingo. It’s a fame of guess-the-letters of an unknown word, simple like Hangman, but a stretch to the imagination. You must submit real words. You can’t probe by using, for example, ABCDE.

Each word (in standard play) has five letters with six attempts to guess it. Results are color-coded:

• green     correct letter in the right place
• yellow    right letter, wrong place
• grey      wrong letter

Beginner’s Luck

On my first play joining this game world at large, From a single letter E, I nailed it in my third attempt (proof attached):

1. STEAM   Notice how I cleverly deployed the commonest letters,
2. DRECK   only to be punished with merely a single letter E,
3. QUERY   but as luck would have it…

I simply couldn’t think of any other word with a letter E in the middle that didn’t use letters already ruled out (i.e, steak). And then boom! Got it!

First Wordle game ever.

Not bad for a beginner!

Oh, before I forget, did I mention Wordle was invented by a Welshman named Wardle?

After the New York Times purchased the rights, concerns arose the newspaper would charge for the game. They haven’t done so, but clones have arisen. I include a couple here because Firefox gave me problems loading the original. Here are various places to play it:

A Sense of Entitlement, Part 2

Two weeks ago, I did a column here at SleuthSayers about some of my favorite titles of books, stories and movies, and the comments made by friends and readers on that subject convinced me to follow that post with another discussion of fictional titles. (Are you sorry you commented?)

To me, the most interesting thing about this topic is--and always has been--the way different authors handle the task of titling their work. I've talked to quite a few writers about this, and some say they come up with a title first, before the writing starts; others wait until after the story/novel/etc. is finished; and still others choose a title during the writing process. I do it in all three of these ways, depending on the story, but I most often select a title during or after the writing is done. I just find that to be easier. Which way is best? Who knows. Different strokes.

If I had my druthers, I think I'd come up with the title first. I believe that kind of blank-slate approach might allow you to create a title that's truly special and catchy--and you could then write your story to fit the title. My old writing buddy Josh Pachter almost always does it that way, and even keeps a long list of titles that he likes and intends to use at some point. How's that for planning?

But no matter when a writer chooses a title, the next thing is (obviously) what will the title be?

For me, it's often something that describes the plot in some way, and maybe even a phrase or piece of dialogue I've used in the story. But not always. Sometimes titles are simple, sometimes complex, sometimes mysterious. I usually don't give it serious thought until fairly late in the story, but in the rare cases when the story's finished or almost finished and I'm still having a really hard time coming up with a good title, I do think about it--because I'm forced to. And when that happens, here are some of the hints that I've found to be helpful, over the years.

NOTE: The following examples are all stories of my own (an even dozen of each type).

1. A title can be a play on words.

Murphy's Lawyer, The President's Residence, Driving Miss Lacey, Amos's Last Words, Mill Street Blues, A Shot in the Park, Byrd and Ernie, North by Northeast, Henry's Ford, Bad Times at Big Rock, Wronging Mr. Wright, Gone Goes the Weasel 

2. A title can be a person's name or nickname.

Annabelle, Sneaky Pete, Billy the Kid, Lucifer, Frankie, Diamond Jim, Sweet Caroline, The Sandman, The Delta Princess, Robert, Tomboy, Mustang Sally

3. A title can be a place name.

Lookout Mountain, Ship Island, Mythic Heights, Turtle Bay, Blackjack Road, Dentonville, Sand Hill, Silverlake, Land's End, The Rocking R, The Barrens, Rooster Creek

4. A title can have a hidden or double meaning, later revealed.

Smoke Test, A Thousand Words, Calculus 1, War Day, Knights of the Court, The Powder Room, Wheels of Fortune, Run Time, A Gathering of Angels, Melon CollieBaby, True Colors, Weekend Getaway

5. A title can be a possessive.

Molly's Plan, Lindy's Luck, The Deacon's Game, Newton's Law, Lucy's Gold, Nobody's Business, Walker's Hollow, Lily's Story, Hildy's Fortune, The Judge's Wife, Rosie's Choice, The Devil's Right Hand

6. A title can be an "ing" phrase.

Stealing Roscoe, Remembering Tally, Getting Out Alive, Mugging Mrs. Jones, Traveling Light, Burying Oliver, Heading West, Fishing for Clues, Shrinking Violet, Cracking the Code, Dancing in the Moonlight, Saving Mrs. Hapwell

7. A title can be a familiar term or phrase.

Two in the Bush, Just Passing Through, Not One Word, Elevator Music, Eyes in the Sky, Life Is Good, One Less Thing, Flu Season, Deliver Me, Some Assembly Required, Tourist Trap, In the Wee Hours

8. A title can be intentionally unique or different, or have a pleasing "rhythm."

What Luke Pennymore Saw, A Nice Little Place in the Country, The Daisy Nelson Case, The Miller and the Dragon, The Pony Creek Gang, The Starlite Drive-In, Everybody Comes to Lucille's, The Moon and Marcie Wade, The Early Death of Pinto Bishop, Debbie and Bernie and Belle, A Surprise for Digger Wade, On the Road with Mary Jo

9. A title can be the name of an object or some other thing in the story.

The Winslow Tunnel, The Ironwood File, The Willisburg Stage, The Artesian Light, Grandpa's Watch, The Blue Wolf, The Medicine Show, The Wading Pool, Pocket Change, The Tenth Floor, Crow's Nest, The Jericho Train

10. A title can be the name of a group.

The Barlow Boys, The Donovan Gang, The Garden Club, Travelers, Night Watchers, The A Team, Partners, The TV People, Rhonda and Clyde, Matchmakers, Friends and Neighbors, The Bomb Squad 

11. A title can be a time, date, or time period.

An Hour at Finley's, The First of October, 200 Days, Break Time, From Ten to Two, Game Day, A Night at the Park, Summer in the City, Last Day at the Jackrabbit, While You Were Out, A Cold Day in Helena, Twenty Minutes in Riverdale

12. A title can be simple, as long as it's appropriate to the story.

Ignition, Teamwork, Sentry, Sightings, Watched, Lightning, Trapped, Mailbox, Layover, Redemption, Proof, Cargo

Switching gears a bit . . . one thing I've always found fascinating is the way some authors use titles as a marketing trademark, to such a degree that readers/fans can sometimes identify the author simply from his/her titles. Here are some of those that come to mind:

Sue Grafton (the alphabet) -- A Is for Alibi, B Is for Burglar, C  Is for Corpse, D is for Deadbeat

Janet Evanovich (numbers) -- One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, Four to Score

James Patterson (nursery rhymes) -- Three Blind Mice, Roses are Red, Jack and Jill, Cradle and All

John D. MacDonald (colors) -- The Dreadful Lemon Sky, The Lonely Silver Rain, The Green Ripper, The Empty Copper Sea

Martha Grimes (English pub names) -- The Old Silent, The Dirty Duck, The Anodyne Necklace, Jerusalem Inn

Robert Ludlum (three-word titles) -- The Matarese Circle, The Holcroft Covenant, The Rhinemann Exchange, The Bourne Identity

Erle Stanley Gardner (the case of . . .) -- The Case of the Crooked Candle, The Case of the Hesitant Hostess, The Case of the Perjured Parrot, The Case of the Daring Decoy

John Sandford (the word "prey") -- Rules of Prey, Silent Prey, Winter Prey, Mind Prey, Night Prey

James Michener (single-word titles) -- Hawaii, Chesapeake, Iberia, Space, Poland, Alaska

I realize I'm rambling a bit, but to me titles and title choices are an interesting topic.

Please let me know, in the comments section below: How do you go about choosing a title for your novel or story? Do you have a system that seems to work? Do you feel you're good at picking titles? Is it a task that's hard for you? Easy? When, in the writing process, do you usually select your title? What do you feel are your best titles? And finally: Have you ever considered or written a series of stories or novels having titles that serve to "tie them together," like Liz Zelvin's "Death Will . . ." series? Nosy blog writers want to know . . .

And that's that. Good luck to all, in your writing endeavors.

I'll be back with another post in two weeks. (Hopefully with a cool title.)