Welcome to the Killer Nashville Blog!

As of January 2015 this blog will be relocated to our main website. Please join us there: http://www.killernashville.com/blog/

Welcome to the Killer Nashville Blog, a meeting place for those who love mysteries, thrillers, suspense, and other crime literature. If you have ever attended, presented at, or volunteered for the Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference, or if you are just a reader or writer of any of the mystery/thriller/suspense writing genres, come join us for a Killer Conversation.

For more information on Killer Nashville: A Conference for Thriller, Suspense, Mystery Writers & Literature Lovers visit our website at http://www.killernashville.com.

Our Blog Has Relocated to www.KillerNashville.com/blog

The time has come! All of our loyal readers and newcomers can now read the Killer Nashville Blog on our main website (www.KillerNashville.com/blog).

We hope to see you there!

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

The Problem With Reality / Author Warren Bull

The writing process is fraught with pitfalls. Remove the usual suspects like procrastination and lack of time and you still have real limitations. In this week’s blog, author Warren Bull muses about the writing process and how, sometimes, reality is hard to accept.

Happy Reading!

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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Warren Bull

The Problem With Reality
By Warren Bull

During my thirty years as a clinical psychologist, I saw many people who had problems discerning what was and was not real.  I assure you those who cannot identify and react to what the great majority of people experience as reality have very difficult and unpleasant life experiences.  When your own perceptions betray you, the world is uncertain. Anxiety and depression are frequent reactions to the uncertainty.  The use of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs in an attempt to moderate internal states makes sense at some level.

I am fond of reality. I recommend it over all other contenders.  As a writer, however, reality presents a number of real limitations. I see other people who have problems with reality. Here are mine:

• Realism in writing is hard to achieve.  Realistic-sounding dialogue is quite unlike actual dialogue.  Court transcripts don’t make fascinating reading.  Casual conversation is even less enthralling — full of “ums,” unfinished sentences, clichés, and people talking over each other. It’s important to listen to real conversations, maybe even reading your own writing aloud, to make sure that it flows.

• Coincidence is an issue in plotting.  As the old saw has it, truth is stranger than fiction.  Happenstance is hard to convey believably.  As my statistics professor once explained, unlikely events happen much more frequently than people expect. In horse racing, for example, bettors consistently over-estimate the odds the favorite will win. Sadly, even with this knowledge, my professor was no better at picking winners than anyone else. How to eliminate coincidence? Foreshadow. Set the reader up so that when something happens, when they look back, they can see that it was always coming.

• Believability is always at issue. Over the years in the course of my work I have known, among others, people who sold drugs at the wholesale level, people who sold their bodies to survive, people convicted of murder, and people who killed other people for money. On most of the occasions when I wrote about these people, the feedback I received was that my writing lacked credibility. Just because something happened, does not mean describing reality accurately will appear factual to readers. The solution to this is to create characters who are real and then pepper them with the unbelievable and memorable.

These are my problems with reality (and a few solutions). What are yours?

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If you would like to read more about Warren Bull’s books please visit our website.

Warren Bull has won a number of awards including Best Short Story of 2006 from the Missouri Writers’ Guild, and The Mysterious Photo Contest in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January/February 2012. Forty of his published short stories and novels, Abraham Lincoln for the Defense, Heartland, and Murder in the Moonlight are available at http://www.warrenbull.com/kindle_editions.html. Two short story collections, Murder Manhattan Style and Killer Eulogy and Other Stories are available at http://store.untreedreads.com/. He blogs at http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com/. Warren is a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime and an active member of Mystery Writers of America.  His website is http://www.warrenbull.com/.

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Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at http://www.KillerNashville.com

Variety is the Spice of Writing – But So Is Plausibility / Author Stephen L. Brayton

The beauty of the written word is that real life can be just a jumping off point. Plus, there’s no reason to get bogged down in the same details over and over. In this week’s blog, author Stephen L. Brayton shares how he incorporates variety into his stories and why it’s so important. After all, Brayton’s heroine Mallory Petersen, a taekwondo instructor and private investigator, packs a sidekick worth getting right.

Happy Reading!

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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Stephen L. Brayton

Variety is the Spice of Writing – But So Is Plausibility
By Stephen L. Brayton

Since I’m involved in martial arts, I write a series about a character that is a taekwondo school owner as well as a private investigator. Yes, she carries a gun, but she relies on her martial arts skills more often.

I have two challenges in writing this series. First, is to create scenes where my main character, Mallory Petersen, can use her skills, and secondly, is for her to use a variety of those skills.

After all, what fun would it be for the reader if all she ever threw were a couple of punches and a front kick?

So, I’ve adapted my own training into scenes. Yes, punches and front kicks are used, but also round kicks, sweeps, sidekicks, and a variety of weapons such as the long staff and bahng mahng ee, or single stick.

I’ve been able to take some of my favorite exercises and techniques, allowing Mallory to use them in practical situations.

In an upcoming story, she has to execute with skill certain techniques to avoid being killed by an assailant wielding a knife. The situation is dire. She doesn’t have a weapon. She is also in danger of freezing, suffering from withdrawal symptoms, and can’t waste time or else somebody else dies. It’s one of those scenes designed to keep the reader on edge.

But when I create one of these scenes, I have to choreograph the movements. Many times, I’ve mentally written the order of technique-reaction-counter techniques while doing laps around the local high school track. Running, for me, is a great way to free up my mind to think about writing. When I concentrate on a problem within a story, I focus less on how my muscles hurt or that I want to quit after only a few laps.

Back home, I’ll write down the steps in order, then physically work through them, either alone or with a partner. Of course, I’m not actually going to incapacitate my partner, but I am able to get a feel for how the techniques will work. I also get a sense of time, whether the scene runs too quickly or drags and I need to add more material to spice it up a bit.

One area I need to keep in mind is that Mallory is human and feels pain. My writers group has commented on this several times after I’ve read portions of Mallory’s action scenes. This is not like the movies where no one gets hurt, and the heroine fights through any injury with no consequence. Mallory experiences both pain and injury. Sure, she can grit her teeth and still fight on, but she is not Superwoman.

I know I’ve done my job well when I hear comments from readers who say they can follow the movements and know that what I’ve written, and what Mallory has accomplished, actually works.

Creating new scenarios and using the variety of martial arts techniques I know is part of the fun of writing. With that foundation, my imagination can run free to do whatever is necessary to make the scene worth reading.

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If you would like to read more about Stephen L. Brayton’s books please visit our website.

Stephen L. Brayton owns and operates Brayton’s Black Belt Academy in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He is a Fifth Degree Black Belt and certified instructor in The American Taekwondo Association. He began writing as a child; his first short story concerned a true incident about his reactions to discipline. In college, he began a personal journal for a writing class; said journal is ongoing. He was also a reporter for the college newspaper. During his early twenties, while working for a Kewanee, Illinois, radio station, he wrote a fantasy-based story and a trilogy for a comic book. He has written numerous short stories both horror and mystery. His first novel, Night Shadows (Feb. 2011), concerns a Des Moines homicide investigator teaming up with a federal agent to battle creatures from another dimension. His second book, Beta (Oct. 2011) was the debut of Mallory Petersen and her search for a kidnapped girl. In August 2012, the second Mallory Petersen book, Alpha, was published. This time she investigates the murder of her boyfriend. Visit Brayton’s website at http://stephenbrayton.wordpress.com

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Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to Maria Giordano, Will Chessor, and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs. For more writer resources, visit us at http://www.KillerNashville.com

Writing History Right / Author Michael Tucker

I wish I had a dime every time my mother would say, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” She was right. Look to history, or read today’s newspapers, and you’ll find an abundance of stories where human action seems unfathomable to imagine, whether violent or charitable. In this week’s blog, author Michael Tucker drives home the point that when telling a story set in history, it’s important to get facts right, down to the most specific details. After all, credibility is on the line, and readers are savvy.

Happy Reading!

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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Michael J. Tucker

Writing History Right
By Michael J. Tucker

Weaving actual historical events into the timeline of your story adds realism and color to the narrative and your characters. And it can be a lot of fun if, during your research, you stumble across some little known piece of trivia that causes you to say to yourself, “Gee, I didn’t know that.”

The process starts with selecting a time period. Will your characters be caught up in the Spanish Inquisition, or the Roaring 20’s? Or maybe they’ll be jitterbugging to the “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B?”

Whatever period you select, you want to get the peripheries right. By peripheries, I mean those little things that surround your characters, but are not necessarily integral to the storyline. What hairstyle should the women in your story have—a bouffant, beehive, or bun? Should your African-American hero have a Jheri Curl, Hi-top fade, Afro, or Dreadlocks? When did men begin wearing earrings, gold necklaces, and open-neck shirts that showed off chest hair thick as Bermuda grass?

If you work music into your novel, be sure the song is period correct. While I was writing Aquarius Falling, a 1964 period story that takes place at a beach resort, I added Otis Redding’s, “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.” Perfect for the scene. Unfortunately, he didn’t record it until 1967. Luckily I discovered the mistake before publication, and learned a valuable lesson: memory can fail, so do the research.

In Aquarius Falling, my characters were tiptoeing through history; the events surrounded them, but they weren’t part of it. For the second novel of the series, Capricorn’s Collapse, I wanted my characters deeply immersed in the events of the time. I had to look into the future, allow the characters to mature, and find an event with which my protagonist, Tom Delaney, could credibly become involved. It turned out that 1972 was a honeypot of events that yielded delicious ideas.

The year started with a literal bang when the British Army killed twenty-six unarmed civil rights protesters on January 30, in Derry, Northern Ireland, in what is referred to as, Bloody Sunday. On June 17, the break-in at the Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate complex is discovered. The perpetrators are suspected of being connected to the Committee to Re-elect the President, a group with the unfortunate acronym of CREEP. PLO terrorists interrupt the Munich Olympic Games, which results in the murder of eleven Israeli athletes in what is now known as Black September.  A plane crash at Chicago’s Midway Airport on December 8, kills Dorothy Hunt, wife of Watergate conspirator, E. Howard Hunt. She is found carrying $10,000 cash.

The challenge here is to put together a plausible story that connects the protagonist to these historic events.

Historical Fiction differs from the genre of Alternative History. In the former, the fictional characters are pulled into the events of the time. Ken Follett’s, The Pillars of the Earth, works through twelfth-century England during the building of a great Gothic cathedral. In Atonement, Ian McEwan leads his readers through a lie told in 1934 that alters forever the lives of two lovers during World War II. Ruta Sepetys’s Between Shades of Gray exposes the oppressive regime of post World War II Soviet Russia in Lithuania.

Alternative History is what it sounds like—history altered. This genre is for those writers who really want to play God. The fictional characters engage in actions that change the outcome of history. One of the most recent applications of this is Stephen King’s 11/22/63, a time-travel effort to thwart the Kennedy assassination. Fatherland, by Robert Harris, offers a take on how the world would look if Hitler had won World War II.

Working historical events into your writing offers the pleasure of learning details that you may have forgotten about or never knew. And it gives you, the writer, the fun of saying, “What if…?”

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If you would like to read more about Michael Tucker’s books please visit our website.

Michael J. Tucker is the author of two critically acclaimed novels, Aquarius Falling and Capricorn’s Collapse. He has also published a collection of short stories entitled, The New Neighbor, and a poetry collection, Your Voice Spoke To My Ear. His poem, The Coyote’s Den was included in the Civil War anthology, Filtered Through Time. Visit his website at www.michaeltuckerauthor.com

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Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. And, as always, thanks to Maria Giordano and author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs.

Rolling. Speed. Action. Cut! … Darn, Take Two! Rewriting and the Zen of Film / Author Daco Auffenorde

If the thing to remember when purchasing property is location, location, location, then the thing to remember when writing is…well…not writing at all.  It’s rewriting.

Citing examples from Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, Lisa Scottoline, Charlie Chaplin and others, author Daco Auffenorde examines the process of rewriting, the strong case for getting the idea down and then molding it, and how absolutely critical rewriting is to achieving artistic (if not financial) success.

(And just so you know, I rewrote this intro 7 times.)

Happy Reading! And may you never run out of extra paper.

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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According to a 2010 CNN report, famed actor-director Charlie Chaplin demanded 342 takes just to get actress Virginia Cherrill to mouth the words “flower sir” in the silent film City Lights. Iconic director Stanley Kubrick reputedly reshot one or more scenes in The Shining over a hundred times.

Daco S. Auffenorde

Great film directors like Kubrick and Chaplin are often revered for their willingness to reshoot scenes. So why do writers believe their first draft is a perfect, one-take scene, or if they do recognize the need to rewrite, become paralyzed by the thought? I think it’s because rewriting is not only a blow to the ego, it’s also hard and time-consuming. Unlike a movie director, an author can’t call “Cut” and reshoot the scene immediately. Yet, rewriting is as critical to a good book as the retake is to a successful movie.

Stephen King told The Paris Review (Fall 2006), “Every book is different each time you revise it. Because when you finish the book, you say to yourself, ‘This isn’t what I meant to write at all.’” In 1958, also speaking to The Paris Review, Ernest Hemingway revealed that he rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms thirty-seven times and the last page thirty-nine times. According to a mid-2012 article in the New York Times, Seán Hemingway discovered after studying the collected works of his grandfather that there were actually forty-seven endings to the novel. The Telegraph added that not only was the story rewritten multiple times, but that Hemingway also compiled a list of alternative titles before he decided on the final.

What this means is that the key time in the writing process—the time when the book takes shape—is in the rewriting. So, how does the reluctant rewriter make sure her book gets the rewrite it deserves?

Take 3 … and action.

Done. The end. I’d finished writing The Scorpio Affair, the sequel to my debut suspense novel, The Libra Affair. I’d proofed it over and over, corrected typos, tinkered with sentences, cut verbiage. It had to be ready to send out to the publisher. But books are meant to be read, so before submitting my manuscript, I shared it with a trusted beta reader, and he suggested that I yell, “Cut!” and reshoot some scenes. I didn’t take his word for it right away. Instead, I put the manuscript away for a while, and then later read it on my own. He was right.

I knew how I wanted The Scorpio Affair to begin and end, and those parts of the book were fine. In between, I’d taken my heroine Jordan Jakes, a CIA covert operative, on a wild ride with lots of action and intrigue. But much of Scorpio was too episodic. Many chapters told exciting, self-contained stories, but didn’t move the plot forward quickly enough. There was only one thing to do—retake. And though at first I found myself frustrated at the daunting task of an entire rewrite, I remembered that most successful authors embrace the rewrite as a fundamental step in crafting a good story. For encouragement, I recalled the King and Hemingway examples, and also this wonderful quote from best-selling author Lisa Scottoline: “They say that great books aren’t written, they’re rewritten, and whoever said that was probably drinking Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, because they’re right.” I bought a dozen doughnuts, brewed some coffee, and started to revise The Scorpio Affair.

But here are the first two lessons about rewriting. If the process doesn’t come naturally to you, first put the manuscript away for awhile. As Neil Gaiman said, “Finish the short story, print it out, then put it in a drawer and write other things. When you’re ready, pick it up and read it, as if you’ve never read it before.” It’s advice that you hear all the time, but it’s difficult to put your baby to bed even for a few weeks. And second, try to find that trusted beta reader, someone who’ll tell you candidly if there’s rewriting to be done.

There are other ways to foster the rewriting process. Writing groups can help immensely, both because you get feedback from an audience—that’s who we write for—and often because you can read your work aloud. I can’t tell you how many times words looked good on the page but have sounded slow and extraneous when read aloud. If you’re not in a writing group, you should still read aloud even if only to yourself. Your ears will tell you if your story has the right rhythm.

A final alternative—there are many good private editors/writing coaches out there. They can be expensive, so not everyone can afford them. But if you’re lucky enough to have some spare change lying around, they can be very helpful, especially in today’s publishing world, where the editorial staff expects ready-to-go manuscripts.

Take 4 … and quiet on the set.

To conclude, I’m going to advise something that might seem inconsistent with the above. In considering how much to rewrite, trust your gut. Don’t rewrite just because someone tells you it should be done. As the artist, only you can decide when your story is ready. The gaffer, grip, production designer, and cinematographer might all have good input, but you’re the director, and the final cut belongs to you.

And that’s a wrap!

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If you would like to read more about Daco Auffenorde’s books please visit our website.

Born at the Naval hospital in Bethesda, Maryland and raised in Wernher von Braun’s Rocket City of Huntsville, Alabama, Daco holds a B.A. and M.A.S. from The University of Alabama in Huntsville and a J.D. from Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. When not practicing law, she’s encouraging her children to become rocket scientists and writing novels. Daco’s debut novel, The Libra Affair, an international spy thriller with romantic elements, released in April 2013, and was an Amazon #1 Bestseller of Suspense, Romantic Suspense, and Romance in September, 2013. Daco is a member of the International Thriller Writers, Romance Writers of America, Author’s Guild, and the Alabama State Bar. Visit her website at www.authordaco.com

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Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. And, as always, thanks to author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs.

Adding Depth to Your Story / Guest Blogger Philip Cioffari

The bottom line for writing fiction (and I would also say nonfiction) is telling a good story. While Samuel Goldwyn’s advice of “if you’ve got a message, send a telegram” might be true, it defies a long tradition of creating context in crime and thriller fiction. In this week’s blog, author Philip Cioffari outlines his own path for creating relevance of premise in his latest novel Dark Road, Dead End. Using his technique, any story can be taken to a new level of pertinence and—as a result—can resonate to a larger audience, as well as educate and entertain.

Here’s long-time Killer Nashville attendee and instructor, Philip Cioffari.

Happy Reading!

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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As writers of fiction, our first (and arguably, our only) obligation is to tell a good story, this notion is an extension of the art-for-art’s-sake view of creative expression. In other words, art needs no justification beyond itself. It isn’t required to serve any purpose other than the pleasure it brings. That being said, I’d like to examine for a moment the ways in which good crime fiction can tell a captivating story at the same time it engages the social issues of the time in which it is written.

Philip Cioffari

One might argue that all fiction, including crime fiction engages—in one way or another—the social order of its time. Most visibly, perhaps, it does this by reflecting moral and philosophical values via a character’s thoughts and actions, the choices a character makes to survive in a world which is almost always—in the case of crime fiction—depicted as harsh, fearsome and unforgiving. So man’s conscience is almost inevitably put to the test in any given story. But there is a strain in crime fiction that engages social issues to an even greater degree. I think, for example, of Jaden Terrell’s new novel, River of Glass, with its concern with the horrors of human trafficking, and Stacy Allen’s new novel, Expedition Indigo, which addresses the need for preserving historic artifacts in the public domain rather than for private gain.

In my own case, I’ve long been a supporter of mankind’s conscientious stewardship of our planet and its resources. I wanted to address that issue in my writing and, because I’m a novelist and not an essayist, I wanted to meld my commitment to being a good storyteller with my concern for the environment. My frequent trips over the years to the Florida Everglades provided me with the setting to accomplish that end.

I was appalled to learn that the trade in exotic and endangered species of wildlife is a multi-billion dollar industry. It stands as the world’s third largest organized crime—after narcotics, and arms running. In the state of Florida, it is second only to the illicit trade in narcotics. Despite an international ban on such trafficking, there are many “rogue” nations that do not enforce the ban and that turn a blind eye towards those who violate it. And to be sure, worldwide, there is no shortage of those willing to engage in wildlife poaching and smuggling. One reason for this is the lucrative rewards for such activities—as one U.S. Customs agent put it, “Pound for pound, there is more profit for smugglers in exotic birds [and other wildlife] than there is in cocaine.” Another appeal to the criminal mind is the low risk of being apprehended. This is a consequence of the fact that most customs agencies are understaffed and over-worked and must turn their attention to higher-profile crimes, like the trade in narcotics and guns.

The way the black market system works is this: animals are poached from all over the world, smuggled illegally out of their respective countries, then shipped thousands of miles via land and sea, and ultimately smuggled into the country of destination. The U.S. and China are the two largest consumers of such contraband. But Southeast Asia and Europe are not far behind.

I wanted to shed light on this situation, to call attention to it and—because I’m a writer of fiction—do so in as entertaining a way as possible, hence the noir suspense/thriller format of my new novel, Dark Road, Dead End. My main character is a U.S. Customs Agent in South Florida, investigating a wildlife smuggling operation based in the Everglades, a nefarious network so large it supplies endangered species to pet stores, individual collectors, and roadside zoos across the country, as well as to “reputable” municipal zoos willing to close their eyes to the illegal source of the animals they wish to exhibit. The danger he faces comes, ironically, from both sides of the law.

The more we know about such illegal operations, the more of a part, however small, we each can play in resisting them: for example, by verifying the legitimacy of the origins of the pets we buy. And the more current issues we include in our fiction, the more relevant it becomes to the readers.

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If you would like to read more about Philip Cioffari’s books, please visit our website.

Philip Cioffari is the author of the noir thriller, Dark Road, Dead End. His previous three books of fiction are: the novel, Jesusville the novel, Catholic Boys; and the short story collection, A History of Things Lost or Broken, which won the Tartt Fiction Prize, and the D. H. Lawrence award for fiction. His short stories have been published widely in commercial and literary magazines and anthologies, including North American Review, Playboy, Michigan Quarterly Review, Northwest Review, Florida Fiction, and Southern Humanities Review. He has written and directed for Off and Off-Off Broadway. His indie feature film, which he wrote and directed, Love in the Age of Dion, has won numerous awards, including Best Feature Film at the Long Island Int’l Film Expo, and Best Director at the NY Independent Film & Video Festival. He is a Professor of English, and director of the Performing and Literary Arts Honors Program, at William Paterson University. Visit his website at www.philipcioffari.com

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Have an idea for our blog? Then share it with our Killer Nashville family. With over 24,000 visits monthly to the Killer Nashville website, over 300,000 reached through social media, and a potential outreach of over 22 million per press release, Killer Nashville provides another way for you to reach more people with your message. Send a query to contact@killernashville.com or call us at 615-599-4032. We’d love to hear from you. And, as always, thanks to author Tom Wood for his volunteer assistance in coordinating our weekly blogs.

Collaborations Can Be As Easy as 1-2-3 / Author Steven Womack

Writing with someone else is tricky. Most writers have their own toys, their own ideas, and they like to write in their own way. How do you keep the other person from being an intrusion rather than a partner? How do you find another person to write with at all? As a kick-off to a panel Edgar-winning author Steven Womack and Wayne McDaniel will be leading on “Collaboration” at Killer Nashville this year, Steve tells his story of working with a collaborator, how the process came to be, and what he learned from the experience. It’s excellent advice and couldn’t be timelier. Several of you have told me you are thinking of working with someone else and I’m about to start a detective series with another author myself. I love Steve Womack. I’ve known him for almost 20 years. He’s one of the best writers on the planet. He’s bright with a strong dry wit and, when I’m old with Alzheimer’s, I’ll still be remembering Steve’s wonderful fictional Private Investigator Harry James Denton until the day I die. I’ve just started his new book Resurrection Bay; the first page hooked me. You’ll definitely see a review in our Killer Nashville Book of the Day series.

So, let’s get started. Here’s Steve. Happy Reading! And best of luck to you in your collaborations.

 

 

 

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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The writing life is a lonely life. Writers sit in a room alone, stare at a blank screen, and

Steven Womack

live inside their heads while they try to create a world and characters that don’t exist and yet will feel completely real.

No wonder we’re all bats#!+ crazy…

It doesn’t have to be that way, though. Almost by chance, I’ve found a way to combat the solitary aspects of this process. Before I go into detail, though, I need to deliver a little of what is known in the screenwriting trade as backstory.

About three years ago, I found myself at a bit of a crossroads. I was between books, teaching full-time and Chairing a department, saddled with whopping child support payments and health insurance premiums and was, frankly, tired and discouraged. Nothing was really ringing my bell, and while I knew I’d never completely give up writing, I was definitely in a trough.

Then an email arrived in my inbox from my former agent Nancy Yost. She had a friend who knew a guy who was trying to write a novel, was having some struggles with it, and was looking for a collaborator. She had no financial interest in the deal, she added. She was just trying to do someone a favor.

Was I interested?

For a moment, I almost said, “no.” I’d collaborated on a novel about ten years ago and while it was a good experience, it was a hell of a lot of work and the book never sold. Then, almost on a lark, I said “Sure, put us together.”

Resurrection Bay

So Nancy introduced me to Wayne McDaniel, a screenwriter in New York City. Wayne explained that he’d written a spec screenplay called Resurrection Bay, which was loosely based on and inspired by Robert Hansen, Alaska’s most famous serial killer. The script had been optioned by Lawrence Bender, an A-list producer with a long list of credits, including a few movies directed by that handsome young feller Quentin Tarantino.

As Wayne related the story, the project was moving forward. He’d gotten notes and was in rewrites when, out of the blue, a package arrived in Bender’s office. It was the script to Inglourious Basterds.

“There went my movie,” Wayne said. The script to Resurrection Bay, like so many others in this business, disappeared into the black hole of development hell.

Wayne’s agent recommended he write a novelization of the screenplay and sell that, thereby putting the script back in play. Not a bad strategy, except, as Wayne explained to me, he’d never written a novel and was finding it a challenge.

We talked, made nice, and he sent me the script and what he had of the novel. The script was dynamite; the partial novel manuscript was good, but I could see where it could use some help. Plus, it needed to be finished…

To cut to the chase, we made a deal (Wayne very generously brought me into the project as a full partner), went to work, and a year-and-a-half later, took the manuscript to market. Resurrection Bay was sold to Midnight Ink and will be published in June 2014. The experience of working with Wayne on this book was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had professionally. In fact, we’ve become friends and are already considering another collaboration.

So what did I learn from this? How do you make a literary collaboration work? Three things:

No. 1: Check your ego at the door. A literary collaboration is an equal partnership. Sometimes your idea is the best; other times it’s not. Either way, you can’t let it get to you. As Queen Elsa sang in Frozen: Let it go!

No. 2: A literary collaboration is like any other partnership—including marriage—in that the ability to listen is vital. When your partner is pitching you a scene, an idea, a plot twist, an off-the-wall suggestion that on the surface doesn’t make a lick of sense, then listen. And hope your partner does the same for you.

No. 3: Keep your perspective. It’s not about you and it’s not about your collaborator. It’s about the project, so remember that every bit of thought, effort, creativity and energy must, above all else, serve the story. If you do that, then you’ll serve the reader as well.

Wayne and I are waiting to see what happens with Resurrection Bay. Like all parents, we’re sending our baby out into the world with the highest of hopes.

But here’s the odd part: unlike most parents, Wayne and I have never actually met each other, never even been in the same room together. When he gets down here in August for Killer Nashville, we’ll all get to meet him for the first time.

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Steven Womack began his first novel when he was eighteen-years-old. A short eighteen years later, he finally sold one. His first published novel, Murphy’s Fault, was the only debut mystery on the 1990 New York Times Notable Book List. Since then, he has published ten more novels, winning an Edgar Award for Dead Folks’ Blues and a Shamus Award for Murder Manual. His latest novel, written in collaboration with New York City-based screenwriter Wayne McDaniel, is Resurrection Bay, published in June 2014 by Midnight Ink Books.

A scriptwriter as well, Womack also co-wrote the screenplays for Proudheart, which was nominated for the CableAce Award, and Volcano: Fire On the Mountain, an ABC television movie that was one of the most-watched television movies of the year.

Womack lives in Nashville with his writer-wife, Shalynn Ford Womack, and teaches screenwriting at The Film School of Watkins College of Art, Design & Film. Visit his website at www.stevenwomack.com

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(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks to author Tom Wood for putting this blog together.)

Pitching Grisham and Doing-In Your Ugly Babies: An Interview with author Tony Vanderwarker

What happens when Tony Vanderwarker, the founder of one of Chicago’s largest ad agencies, decides he wants to write fiction? He connects with author John Grisham and learns to do-in his ugly babies. Here is a wonderful story of mentorship and the trials and errors of being a writer. Thanks to Beth Terrell for conducting this interview.

Enjoy…and be inspired!

 

 

 

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville 

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Tony Vanderwarker

KN: Please welcome Tony Vanderwarker to the Killer Nashville blog.  Tony, could you tell us about your path to becoming a professional writer? When did you know you wanted to be one? How did you get started?

I’ve always wanted to write novels, I think as far back as a teenager. When I was in the Peace Corps in Africa in my late teens, I wrote oodles of ersatz Rimbaud poetry and three or four meandering novels – all of which I burned when I came upon the disasters some years later. But I did get interested in film through working with the government’s film unit and went to film school at NYU. I ended up making a major motion picture, which got minor attention, so I decided to write shorter films. I then went into advertising and cashed out of the business in my late forties. I’ve been writing novels ever since.

KN: Did you always write thrillers? What drew you to the genre?

I began writing comic novels, but they didn’t sell, so I tried thrillers figuring I’d imitate my friend (author) John Grisham. Wrote a couple and got lucky. John offered to take me under his wing and teach me the secrets of thriller writing. So the novel I have coming out, Sleeping Dogs is the one I wrote with him over a period of about five years.

Sleeping Dogs by Tony Vanderwarker

KN: John Grisham was instrumental in helping you come up with the idea for that novel, wasn’t he? Could you tell us about that?

At our lunch when Grisham offered to mentor me, he said, “Okay, we need a plot. You said you had a couple ideas, let’s hear them.” I pitched the first, swing and a miss. The second he shot down also. So I pitched the third as I began to sweat.

“So there are actually seven unrecovered nukes scattered around the U.S. as a result of mid-air accidents and collisions during the Cold War,” I told him.

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“No, all over the place, Georgia, North Carolina, Oregon – the Pentagon claims they are harmless.”

“Whoever heard of a harmless nuke? What if the bad guys got a hold of one?”

So with Grisham engaged, we began a long and arduous process of crafting a novel together.

And the interesting part is, when Sleeping Dogs ran into a glut of similar thrillers on the market, I pulled it and wrote a book about writing with John called Writing With The Master. It got picked up and the publisher also decided to publish Sleeping Dogs. So both came out on Feb 4.

KN: Two books on the same day? That’s pretty impressive. What does your writing schedule look like?

I write from 9-12 in the morning, that’s usually when I run out of gas and my dogs get tired of lying around in the studio. They are lousy on plots and terrible spellers, but they contributed the title of my novel.

I take off weekends and holidays. Otherwise, it’s rigorous. I’m lazy and have a dread of the blank page so if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t get any work done. I do two to three pages a day, many of my ideas come to me when I’m half-asleep in the middle of the night. In the morning, my bedside table ends up looking like a bunch of stickies were shot at it.

Writing With the Master by Tony Vanderwarker

KN: But you’ve worked hard to make the technical details authentic. How much and what kind of research do you do?

Lots, Siri is with me constantly. I’m always asking her crazy questions like, “What did Mussolini have to do with the Mafia?” or, “What’s the difference between an mk mod 47 nuke and some other one?” She’s a tireless co-worker. But it really depends on what kind of book you’re working on and how familiar you are with the territory. Bubonic plague is something I know nothing about (fortunately) so Siri and I are spending a lot of time on that. Reading up on nukes took months. But the ad agency stuff comes flying out of my head faster than I can get it down.

KN: And how about your personal experiences? How do they inform your work?

My life seeps into everything I do. I was having lunch with my publicist a couple weeks ago and she asked about my kids. I described my daughter, who is a theatre director, as a tough and resolute person who is not afraid to tell anyone to go jump. And Sharon said, “Could she have been the model for the lead female characters in Ads For God and Sleeping Dogs?” I hadn’t realized it, but she was right on. Probably included a bit of my wife also since she comes in the same size.

KN: What do you hope readers will take away from Sleeping Dogs?

That nuclear weapons are scary as hell and we ought to pay more attention to how they are stored and handled before we create a catastrophe. Sleeping Dogs brings to life the possibility of terrorists recovering one close to a major population center and coming close to detonating it, immolating millions and making the Eastern Seaboard uninhabitable for centuries.

KN: That does sound scary—and is a message a lot of people probably ought to hear. So how do you get the message out? What sort of marketing and promotion do you do?

The whole nine yards: social media, website (tonyvanderwarker.com), writing websites, email lists I’m on, Kickstarter, plus I have two publicists, one at my publishing house, the other a freelancer I’ve hired. I began marketing this book back in June 2013 and I’ll continue until I’ve bored everyone to tears and is begging me to stop.

KN: What’s next for you? 

Two directions: First, I’ve resurrected two comic novels I wrote years ago and am bringing them out later in the year, probably from a publishing house I’ve started with a friend. So Ads For God and Say Something Funny will be coming back to life. I’m also writing new comic novels as well as another thriller. The comic novel is titled Client From Hell and is about the Mafia taking over an ad agency. The thriller is a sequel to Sleeping Dogs.

KN: You have some pretty eclectic interests as a writer. What authors have inspired you?

The list is endless, but particularly Ford, Franzen, Updike, Kesey, Grisham (for his stories), Hiassen (for his humor) and above all, Cormac McCarthy.

KN: Any advice for aspiring authors?

Be patient. Words are tricky characters and don’t always do what you want. And slow down, speed kills good writing. And about your work, ask yourself the question one of Fellini’s characters posed in 8 ½, something like: “Is this really remarkable or just the foot of another cripple in the sand.” Ruthlessness is as much a part of writing as imagination. You have to be able to do-in your ugly babies.

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Tony Vanderwarker is the founder of one of Chicago’s largest ad agencies, and is the author of the memoir Writing With the Master: How a Bestselling Author Fixed My Book And Changed My Life about his experience being mentored by John Grisham while writing the thriller Sleeping Dogs (both released by Skyhorse in 2014). He has also penned the forthcoming novels Ads for God and Say Something Funny. Website: http://tonyvanderwarker.com/.

Things Readers Want to Know/ Author Del Staecker

If you’re a seasoned author, you get asked the same questions by non-writers. If you’re a beginning author and haven’t yet found your stride, sometimes you find yourself asking the same questions. It’s always beneficial, even for the most seasoned pro, to note how other craftsmen do things. I’m always learning. I think that’s why Killer Nashville is such an incredible experience for me every year. An interesting writer for me is Del Staecker who literally locked himself in an isolated Idaho cabin to write his first novel by longhand just because it was something he always wanted to do. From there, success followed. So here’s the questions Del might have asked back in those days and here also are the answers he gives from his seasoned hand. Experience is always the best teacher, unless you’ve got someone like Del and you’re willing to listen. Thanks Del for taking the time to share.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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Author Del Staecker

At readings, signings and other appearances, readers often ask, “Where do you get your ideas?” “How do you create characters?” and, “Do plots just come to you?” I encounter questions such as: “Where do your characters come from?” “Do you create profiles?” “What makes a character a good one?” and, “How do you make dialogue sound so real?”

I have not been trained to be an author. By that, I mean I have not received instruction through an MFA program, or writer’s seminars—formal or informal. For me, writing has come from a life of reading and personal experiences, and although I attended college and received an excellent education, I am a self-taught writer. Correction, I am more a storyteller than writer.

But let me share what I know about creating, developing, and (upon occasion) completing written works worthy of publication.

Q- Where do ideas come from?

A-I allow my memory to wander and my imagination to work. I jot down ideas and occasionally thumb through stacks of notes. If an idea has life—staying power—it jumps out of the pile and demands more thought. I have the beginning of a story, then the characters go their own way. For example, Tales of Tomasewski began when I imagined the experience of searching for a street hustler I knew many years ago. What the character and the person searching for him did is the story—it emerged from their actions.

Q-Are plots outlined?

“More Tomasewski”by Del Staecker

A-Nothing is planned. I never know where the story is going. What happens is inexplicable and devoid of method. Strong characters extend good plots. When I began writing The Muted Mermaid, it was one story that grew into three books (Shaved Ice and Chocolate Soup being the other two parts). Tales of Tomasewski started as a single short story and grew into a novel. Subsequently, it has led to contracts for two additional books based on the lead character.

Q-Where do characters come from?

A-From life’s experiences. Each character is a person, or parts of a person, that I have met. Sometimes the traits from several persons blend into one character. Jake Thompson (aka Jan Tomasewski) is a blend of an acquaintance from my college years and many of the people I grew up with on Chicago’s Southside.

Q-What about constructing and using character profiles?

A-No. Characters are represented by their actions and their participation in the situations in which they are embroiled. In fact, the characters take off based upon their own energy, and as real personalities, they are finding their place in a particular universe. I believe the author’s imagination is a creator of that universe. More than once, I’ve awakened from a sound sleep to overhear their conversations. Occasionally, they talk to me.

Q-What is the secret to a good character?

A-They are engaged in activities that seem plausible for them, they exchange thoughts in believable dialogue with other good characters, and they perform deeds in settings that are a fit for them. If their conversations sound authentic and the settings seem real, then the characters are real to the reader.

Q-How is realism attained?

A-The characters do it all on their own. Once their universe exists, I am just a storyteller—an observer, a reporter, informing readers about the world the characters inhabit. My job is to get the description right.

Q-Getting back to profiles—what if a character “goes rogue?”

A-If they are real, then characters can be contradictory. In fact, at times they must be. Also, characters develop. Over time, we all change. Sometimes we grow, and sometimes we regress. Strict adherence to a profile would stifle the “real-ness” of a character. Remember, consistency can be boring. Granted, characters have recurring traits. Ledge Trabue’s quirky stomach and The Professor’s love of food are elements that are timeless and solid for them. Jake Thompson’s sarcasm is eternally his.

Q-How about killing a character?

A-One reader gushed, “I love how you kill people!” Telling that reader the truth was easy. I do not kill any characters. Simply, the characters do their thing. Characters are eliminated by other characters as action unfolds.

Q-What’s the key to writing believable dialogue?

A-Listen to the conversations that characters are having and simply repeat them. After letting things set for a while, I return to each dialogue and read it aloud. Listen as if you are there.

I hope I’ve been helpful in shedding some light on the writing process. My coming to the world of writing books for publication was based upon a lifetime of reading and experiencing life. I do not claim any special expertise, just love for a good story.

Del Staecker is an Executive committee member of the International Association of Crime Weriters, Chair of the 2014 Dashiell Hammett Prize Committee, and author of five crime thrillers. His Ledge Trabue trilogy, The Muted Mermaid, Shaved Ice and Chocolate Soup, is set in Nashville and New Orleans. Visit his website at www.delstaecker.com.

(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

The Thing About Theme / Author Frank Zafiro

“Theme” is an oft-misunderstood term. It’s one of those techniques that can take a writer’s work to a new level, but it is also a concept that can lead to hours of confused discussion. In this week’s Killer Nashville’s 52 Weeks of 52 Guests Bloggers series, former police officer, crime writer, and writing teacher Frank Zafiro gives one of the simplest and easily understood definitions of theme that I have ever read. He also takes the mystery out of what theme is…and what it isn’t. And, he gives techniques for working theme into a story either before, during, or after one has written the first draft. Enjoy this article, use Frank’s techniques, and see your own writing take a universal leap.

Happy Reading!

(And Happy Writing – using Frank’s excellent advice).

 

 

 

 

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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Author Frank Zafiro

What is theme?

My wife teaches middle school English and History. Anyone who has worked with seventh graders knows how it is both rewarding and maddening at the same time. Usually maddening, actually. Theme has been the big bugaboo for these kids this year, and my wife’s struggle has been to successfully define it in a way that twelve year olds understand.

In novel writing workshops, I’ve experienced the same issue, only with adults. Part of the problem is that there are a lot of different opinions and definitions out there, and some of them can be confusing or even contradictory. For example, some people will tell you that the theme is the moral of the story. Are they wrong? No, not really. But honestly, I don’t think that’s entirely correct, either. Rather, it’s the moral of the story that addresses the theme.

See, confusing discussion already. And I’m sure some people are nodding their heads while reading that last passage, in total agreement, while others are violently shaking their heads and screaming words about my mental capacity that rhyme with “soar on” or “mummy.”

But here’s the thing about theme.

Forget about it. At least for a while.

Yes, I know that sounds sacrilegious. And honestly, if you’re the kind of person who carefully plots out your novel and follows that construct religiously, this approach might not work for you. But if you outline loosely, or not at all, then forgetting is the perfect solution.

There are really only three approaches to theme, logically. They are:

1. Begin with the theme in mind.
2. Discover the theme as you write the novel.
3. Forget about theme altogether.
   

   At Their Own Game/ Author Frank Zafiro

Option one is for those careful, meticulous planners. And if that’s you, my hat’s off to you because I think it’s actually difficult to pull off. It seems a little forced to me, but in all likelihood, that’s my own psychology at work there and not anything you should rely on too much. If option one works for you, then it works. Forge on.

Option two is the most exciting one for me, and the technique I almost always employ. I think of a good story (usually beginning with a good “what if”) and focus on the story and the characters. Somewhere around the middle of the book, if it remains a good story and the characters have come alive for me, themes emerge. As I recognize those themes, I might purposefully write the latter half of the book with those themes clearly in mind. For instance, if redemption is the theme I’ve discovered, as was the case in Waist Deep, the main character’s actions and his attitude toward those actions might reflect this theme. Certainly, when I crafted the final scene for this novel, the theme of redemption was on the forefront of my mind.

The thing about option two is that when you write that first revision you’ll end up working on sprinkling elements of whatever themes you eventually discover into the first half of the book. You may also be pleasantly surprised when you unearth references to the theme already in place, there before you even recognized the theme yourself. That’s one sure way to know your theme is definitely the right one.

Option three is not a bad way to go, at least for a first draft. I’ve had writers, particularly in workshops, tell me that they don’t have a theme in mind and their book doesn’t have a theme. I always point to the three options and say that they are obviously going with option three, then. But I also say that if you write a compelling story with engaging, real characters going through some kind of meaningful events…well, then, I defy you not to have a theme or three come out of that. Rather, I think the challenge will be, upon re-read and revision, to find the theme and strengthen it.

How to do that, by the way? I think a light touch is best. Let it come out in the things that characters think, say, and do. Show it through the changes that characters undergo. Or simply by what happens. Events are a great tool to underscore theme.

This always leads us back to the question that I opened with. What is theme?

Let’s stick with a simple answer here. One that even seventh graders can understand and use.

Theme is what your story is about.

That’s it.

Now, I don’t mean plot. That’s what happens in the story. Theme is what it all means.

Themes tend to be about serious issues, even if the story itself isn’t a serious one. A theme is often something you can express in few words, or even one. Things like redemption or justice or unconditional love. This is why themes have a universal appeal, across social, national, and gender lines. Everyone has an idea about love, for example. Or revenge. Everyone can relate.

Is it really that simple? Can’t a book be about more than that?

Of course it can. Take any college lit course and you’ll encounter complexity of theme beyond your wildest dreams. But as a writer, particularly a genre writer, and particularly in a first draft, does it need to be that complex?

I’m saying no. It doesn’t.

You can forget about theme, for a while at least, and just write. Make that story sing and those characters dance, and at some point in the process, theme is going to tap you on the shoulder and announce itself. Then you can consciously work it in, using all the craft you can muster.

I think that is the most organic, purest approach, because when you go about it this way, you realize you’ve actually been writing about a theme the whole time. And if you’re doing that, then it must be something important. Something worth writing about.

That’s theme.

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After serving in the U.S. Army, Frank Zafiro became a police officer in 1993 and retired in 2013 as a captain. Frank has written numerous crime novels, including the River City procedural series (begins with Under a Raging Moon), the Ania trilogy with Jim Wilsky (begins with Blood on Blood) and Stefan Kopriva mysteries (Waist Deep, Lovely, Dark, and Deep). Most recently, he has released the hard-boiled novel, At Their Own Game. In addition to writing, Frank is an avid hockey fan and a tortured guitarist. To learn more about Frank, visit his site at http://frankzafiro.com.

 (To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

 

Madness and Media: An Ethical Exploration / Author Bruce De Silva

Author Bruce De Silva goes, not only into the mind of a serial killer, but into the court system designed to hold him in Killer Nashville’s 52 Weeks, 52 Guest Bloggers series https://killernashville.wordpress.com/category/52-guest-blogs-series/

Never say never.  That’s one of those things we all probably learn with age.  Edgar-winning author Bruce De Silva swore he would never write a story about a serial killer.  But he did.  Sort of.

What he has written is a story that haunts you.  What kind of person is safe for release and, if everyone knows a prisoner is a time bomb, is it right to release him?  Or is the court system allowed to invent charges to keep certain people behind bars after they have served their time for the public good?  Doesn’t happen?  Yes, it does.

This is one of the most intriguing and informative studies I’ve read in a long time and we couldn’t find a better author than Bruce De Silva to fictionalize it.  This story will make you think.

I can see why Bruce De Silva wanted to write “Providence Rag,” even if it is something he said he would never do.  This is not a story about where do you get your ideas, but how do you exorcise them for your mind.  Some stories such as this- haunting and ethical- need to find a voice.

Happy Reading!  You’ll think about this one as you sleep.

Clay Stafford, Founder of Killer Nashville

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Author Bruce De Silva

I’ve never thought myself as squeamish, but novels about serial killers make me squirm.  It’s been that way ever since my real-life brush with Craig Price, AKA the Warwick, R.I., Slasher.

Price enjoyed stabbing his victims over and over again, long after they were dead.  He was already behind bars when I was assigned to spend several weeks researching a magazine article about him, so I was never in danger.  But my god, the story was an ugly one.  Once it was published, I was sure I never wanted to get that close to evil again.

So two decades later, when I retired from journalism to write crime novels, I vowed never to write one about a serial killer.

Ever since Hannibal Lecter, novelists and screenwriters have competed to make each new serial murderer more twisted than the last; and I didn’t want to be a part of that.  Besides, I told myself, there are plenty of serial killer novels.  Did we really need another one?

But the Price case never stopped haunting me.  It worked on my subconscious, the place where novels are born.  Eventually, the compulsion to fictionalize it became too great to resist.

The result is Providence Rag, the third novel in my Edgar Award-winning series featuring Liam Mulligan, an investigative reporter for a dying Providence, R.I., newspaper.

It is a serial killer book, but in my defense, I would argue that it is a most unusual one.

In the novel, the murders are committed and the killer caught in the first seventy-five pages.  The rest of the book explores an impossible moral dilemma: What are decent people to do when a legal loophole requires that a serial killer be released-and when the only way to hold him is to fabricate new charges against him?

Price, the real killer, butchered two women and two children, before he was old enough to drive.  Just thirteen years old when he began killing, he was the youngest serial killer in U.S. history.  But that’s not the interesting part.

When he was arrested at age 15, the state’s juvenile justice system hadn’t been updated for decades, and when they were written, no one had ever imagined a child like him.  So the law required that juveniles, regardless of their crimes, be set free and given a fresh start at age 21.

The law was promptly rewritten so that this couldn’t happen again, but in America, you can’t change the rules retroactively.  So the authorities were faced with releasing Price after he served only six years for his crimes.  Former FBI profiler Robert K. Ressler was horrified.  If Price gets out, he told me, “you’ll be piling up the bodies.”

But Price did not get out.  Twenty-five years later, he remains behind bars, convicted of several offenses he supposedly committed in prison.  I suspect some of these charges were fabricated, but in the very least it is obvious that Price has been absurdly over-sentenced.  For example, he was given thirty years for contempt of court because he declined to submit to a court-ordered psychiatric examination.

Have the authorities abused their power to prevent Price’s release?  Quite possibly.  Should he ever be set free and given the chance to kill again?  I don’t think so.  The ethical dilemma this case poses has always fascinated me.  No matter which side of the issue you come down on, you are considering something that is reprehensible.

I wrote the novel to explore the implications of this.

The real-life conundrum hasn’t caused any soul-searching in Rhode Island-at least not publicly.  Everyone seems content to let Price rot in prison.  And who could blame them?

But a novel is fiction, after all, and Providence Rag is in no way intended to accurately depict real events.  In my book, the ethical issue at the heart of the story haunts Mulligan and his colleagues at the newspaper.

Some of them argue that authorities who are faking charges against the killer are perverting the criminal justice system.  And if they are allowed to get away with it, what’s to stop them from framing someone else?  Besides, isn’t the journalist’s mission to report the truth?

Other’s argue that if they break the story and the killer is released, he is bound to kill again.  And if that happens, the newspaper would have blood on its hands.

The dilemma eventually embroils Mulligan, his fellow reporters, his editors, and the entire state in a heated confrontation over where justice lies.

Bruce De Silva, author of the Mulligan crime novels, has won the Edgar and Macavity Awards and has been a finalist for the Shamus, Anthony, and the Barry Awards.  His fiction has been published in eleven languages.  Previously, he was a journalist, editing stories that won nearly every journalism prize including the Pulitzer.  Visit his website at www.brucedesilva.com

(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

An Interview with 2014 Killer Nashville Attending Editor Bryon Quertermous

All the agents and editors who come to Killer Nashville are looking for new authors. We make sure of that before they are invited. Sometimes, though, we see a new house that is incredibly hungry. And, for us, that’s a good thing. In our Guest Blog – which in this case is more a question and answer – Bryon Quertermous, commissioning editor for Exhibit A Books (distributed through Random House), sits down with us for a little one-on-one to build the excitement as we move forward to when he arrives at Killer Nashville this August looking for new literary talent. I’m hoping everyone who reads this will come to our FREE AGENT / EDITOR ROUNDTABLES at Killer Nashville, meet Bryon and our other acquiring agents, publishers, and editors, and maybe – like so many before – get up from the table with an editor or agent interested in acquiring your next book. Thanks Bryon for talking with us. And so the excitement builds… Happy Reading!

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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Bryon Quertermous

Bryon Quertermous: In an effort to help spread the word about our phenomenal new crime fiction imprint, Exhibit A Books, and to help me find the next generation of crime writers, I’ll be attending the Killer Nashville conference this August. To help those who aren’t familiar with myself or Exhibit A Books, I sat down with Killer Nashville organizers to answer some questions.

Killer Nashville: Welcome, Bryon. Let’s start with a little bit about Exhibit A books. What can you tell me about the imprint?

BQ: Exhibit A is the crime fiction imprint from Angry Robot Books. Our aim with Exhibit A is simple: one look and you’re hooked. Whether it’s a hard hitting procedural, shocking psychological mystery, international noir tale or something entirely new, this is an ethos we’re running right through from our acquisitions strategy to our eye-catching marketing strategies, covers and distinctive branding. Exhibit A is the new focal point for compelling fiction in the crime fiction community. We’re looking for authors who are not only great writers, but great ambassadors for the Exhibit A imprint, with a solid emphasis on fostering close relationships between authors and readers and producing books that can be enjoyed by all readers from fans of Castle to life-long historians of the genre.

KN: Tell us me about your background as an editor. Is it something you’ve always wanted to do or did you fall into it?

BQ: Editing is something I’ve always wanted to do. I was the editor of my college newspaper and college literary magazine because I love finding new writers and encouraging them and sharing their work. After college, I spent a year in New York City working for Random House with their crime fiction and science fiction imprints before deciding I hated being poor in the city and moved back to Michigan. Since then, I’ve worked whatever editorial jobs I could find, including starting my own award-winning crime fiction magazine Demolition, which I ran for four years. I also worked as a freelance editor and as an editor with Harlequin’s digital-first imprint Carina Press.

KN: What are you looking for in a submission?

BQ: There are a lot of things that go into getting my attention with a project, but the most important of those is a cool, engaging voice. I can help an author fix a plot or make characters better, but if an author doesn’t have a compelling voice I’ll have to pass. Aside from that, I’m also looking for authors who get what we’re trying to do with Exhibit A and want to be part of our family. We like to try new things and challenge some of the traditional publishing status quo so authors who are eager and inventive really get us excited.

KN: So many small presses don’t have the ability to pay advances or get their books into major stores. Is that a problem for Exhibit A books?

BQ: Far from it. We do pay advances and have a very generous royalty structure to get more money to the author faster. We’re distributed by Random House in the US, which gets us on the shelves at major chains such as Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million among others, including prime placement with online booksellers and promotions such as Kindle Daily Deals.

KN: What do you say to a writer who says, “I had a friend who made a million dollars self-publishing his book. Why should I send my book to you if I can do it myself and keep all of the money?”

BQ: As I said before, we’re looking for authors who want to be partners with us. Some authors are also great at business, great and design and packaging, and great at promotion. Other authors either don’t have these skills, or don’t have the time or money to put into publishing their own books. We offer a stable of professional editors, cover designers, production geniuses, and publicity and sales staff to help our authors. We take on the risk and the upfront aspects of publishing and let the authors concentrate on the part they’re the best at: writing great books. But we do realize we’re in a new and exciting environment and work with our authors to broaden their exposure. We don’t do non-compete clauses, and we encourage our authors to self-publish books that might not fit our mission and to publish with other traditional publishers if they choose for other projects.

KN: How do you pronounce your last name?

BQ: Kwuh TER Muss. Like Thermos.

KN: Thank you, Bryon. I know our attendees are looking forward to meeting you in August!

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Bryon Quertermous was born and raised in Michigan. His short stories have appeared in Plots With Guns, Thuglit, and Crime Factory among others, and in the anthologies Hardcore Hardboiled, The Year’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories, and Uncage Me. In 2003 he was shortlisted for the Debut Dagger Award from the UK Crime Writers Association. He currently lives outside of Detroit with his wife and two kids and is  the commissioning editor for Angry Robot’s crime fiction imprint Exhibit A Books. His first novel, Murder Boy, will be published by Polis Books in 2014.

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(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

Blending Humor and Tension in a Traditional Mystery / Author Nancy J. Cohen

There’s nothing funny about murder. Or is there? Mystery, romance, and how-to author Nancy J. Cohen navigates the delicate balance between bloodshed and laughter in her guest blog, “Blending Humor and Tension in a Traditional Mystery.” Here’s a great way to laugh your way into the perfect crime. And for even more great tips from Nancy, check out her book “Writing the Cozy Mystery.” Happy Reading! (And Happy Writing – using Nancy’s excellent advice). Clay Stafford Founder of Killer Nashville

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Nancy J Cohen (Photo by Lasky)

How do you maintain tension in a humorous mystery? First, look at the source of humor. If it’s the sleuth’s wry attitude toward life, humor is inherent to how she’ll view things. It’s in her nature, and no matter the circumstances, her attitude will prevail. Or perhaps the humor is situational. This can be momentary, or it can relate to a subplot that lasts throughout the story. Regardless of the source of your story’s humor, it doesn’t negate the fact that a murder has taken place. Someone’s family is grieving. As the sleuth gets closer to the truth, the killer will increase his attempts to stop her. So tension builds toward a confrontation we know is coming. Foreshadowing can aid in this suspense as can other writing techniques. It’s a delicate balance between the two elements. If your readers expect a humorous story, you can’t kill off a favorite character or go serious with a child in jeopardy or a rape scene. You have to conform to reader expectations of the genre, especially in a cozy mystery. Your story can still be suspenseful. The sleuth has to uncover the clues before someone else gets hurt or killed. In my writing guide, Writing the Cozy Mystery, I detail some of the techniques a writer can use to raise tension. The trick is to blend these elements with the humor inherent in your story. For example, in Shear Murder, Marla—my hairdresser sleuth—discovers a dead body under the cake table at her friend’s wedding. She summons her fiancé, Detective Dalton Vail. Imagining the look on his face will elicit a smile from fans of my Bad Hair Day series. Here’s a brief excerpt:

Catching Dalton’s eye, she signaled frantically. He’d know what to do. When he reached her side, she sagged against him. “Don’t look now, but there’s a dead body under the table,” she murmured under her breath. “What?” “You heard me.” She smiled tremulously at a couple who strolled past. Could they tell she was sweating? That her face had lost its color? That she was about to lose her dinner? Dalton half bent, his dark hair falling forward, but then he straightened with a grin. “Good one, Marla. You almost got me.” She shuffled her feet. “I’m not kidding.” Any minute they’d call for the cake, or Jill would broaden the hunt for her sister. Chewing on her bottom lip, she lifted a portion of the drape so Dalton could see for himself. Her stomach heaved as she almost stepped on a trickle of congealing blood. “Holy Mother, you aren’t joking.” He gave her an incredulous glance that she read as, Not again.

But even funnier is the subsequent scene where Marla tries to keep the bride from discovering the murder until after the cake cutting ceremony. She has to prevent the bride and groom from coming over. So Marla decides to bring the cake to them. It was fun to write this scene where Marla and Dalton carry the heavy cake toward the newlyweds. They’re interrupted en route, and Marla sweats as the cake on its piece of cardboard gets heavier and heavier. This incident is a perfect example of humor blended with tension.

“Hanging By A Hair” by Nancy J. Cohen

Another example comes in Hanging By A Hair, #11 in the Bad Hair Day series. Dalton and Marla have wed and moved into a new neighborhood. At their first homeowners’ meeting, Dalton gets into an altercation with the president who happens to be their next-door neighbor. Cherry, the community’s treasurer, warns Marla and Dalton about the fellow.

“That man has secrets to hide. Better not push him. You don’t know what he’ll do.” Marla got an inkling of what Cherry meant when a plastic bag of dog poop showed up on their circular driveway the next day. She’d just stepped outside at seven o’clock on Friday morning with Lucky and Spooks—their golden retriever and cream-colored poodle— when she noticed the item lying on the asphalt. Hauling on the dogs’ leashes, she veered over to verify her observation. Then she rushed back inside to inform her husband. “I’ll bet it’s him,” Dalton said, rising from the breakfast table where he sat drinking coffee and watching the news. “Let me get my fingerprint kit. I can prove it.”

The absurdity of Dalton checking the plastic bag for fingerprints elicits a chuckle from readers who’ve already come to know these characters. And where did this scene spring from? Personal experience. We found the same thing on our driveway one day, a gift from a nasty neighbor. Lots of personal incidences make their way into my stories, but that’s fodder for another blog. As you can see, humor stems from your characters or the situation. Raising a chuckle while the tension rises works well in a traditional mystery. Let it evolve naturally, and readers will come back for more.

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Nancy J. Cohen writes the Bad Hair Day mystery series featuring hairdresser Marla Shore, who solves crimes with wit and style under the sultry Florida sun. Several of these titles have made the IMBA bestseller list. Nancy is also the author of Writing the Cozy Mystery, a valuable instructional guide for mystery writers. Her imaginative romances have also proven popular with fans. Her titles in this genre have won the HOLT Medallion and Best Book in Romantic SciFi/Fantasy at The Romance Reviews. Active in the writing community and a featured speaker at libraries and conferences, Nancy is listed in Contemporary Authors, Poets & Writers, and Who’s Who in U.S. Writers, Editors, & Poets. Currently, she is serving as President of Florida Chapter, Mystery Writers of America. When not busy writing, she enjoys reading, fine dining, cruising, and outlet shopping. Visit her website at http://nancyjcohen.com.

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(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

Killer Nashville’s Featured Books / Thursday, February 27, 2014 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

DEATH CANYON by David Riley Bertsch
KILLER’S ISLAND by Anna Jansson
THE LAST TIME I DIED by Joe Nelms

Dear Murderous Reader –

This week my reading was all over the place. I went from a mystery-western, to a Swedish version of a deranged killer on Martha’s Vineyard, to a whacked-out mental trip inside the head of a man falling apart in New York City. For my ADD brain, nothing could have made me happier, especially knowing two of these authors are debut.

DEATH CANYON by David Riley Bertsch

Debut author. Great new mystery/thriller. This book is the start of a series; but this story is so good, I’m not sure how Bertsch is going to top it using this scenario and these characters following this much fictional destruction.

The beginning gets my attention: earthquakes in Wyoming, men getting rid of the body of a friend of theirs in a watery gorge, and a group of half-naked Native Americans participating in a “relations” dance, which to this reviewer of Irish decent, looks a lot like the Celtic rituals of old.

Death Canyon is much better than the initial generic blurbs offered. This is an intertwined story of species’ rage and greed – both human and nonhuman. I really didn’t see in advance where this story was going (didn’t see it coming until page 157), which made it fun. This isn’t a story about fly-fishing and murder set in Jackson Hole; this is a story of avarice to the point of annihilating the human race, the propulsion to the end of the world as we know it. What starts small blows up to world-ending proportions. The backstory plays out with perfect pacing; not too much at the beginning, and then only peppered nicely when the explanation is needed. And add all the crazy and unexpected elements: Rocky Mountain wildlife, ex-lawyer, politics and corruption, Mafia thugs, real earthquakes in Wyoming (what’s up with that?).

In the beginning, Bertsch thanks his wife and family for giving him the courage to write this book. I thank them, too. There is a long career ahead for this new writer. Someday, I would like to take a little trip to Jackson, Wyoming and do a little fly-fishing with Bertsch. When the ground starts shaking, he would be a good one to have nearby.

KILLER’S ISLAND by Anna Jansson

I’m a fan of the differing perspectives in foreign novels (yes, my fellow Americans, there is a world outside the U.S.) and I’m a particular champion of the dark world of Swedish mystery writers. Killer’s Island is the action-packed seventh Detective Inspector Marian Wern book and the second of Anna Jansson’s – I think – translated into English, this one skillfully retold by Enar Henning Koch. I wish I spoke Swedish because – after reading this book – I’d love to read the rest in the chronology and also view the Swedish TV series based upon the character of Wern.

The story starts with a decapitated young nurse dressed in bridal clothes (hopefully not from Jansson’s part-time life as a nurse herself). Killer’s Island is part mystery and part scientific thriller. The supertech villain does a tremendous job playing cat-and-mouse with the police and Wern. What drew me in were my feelings for the victim. This is one of those books where, if you can figure out the motive, you can possibly figure out the killer. All deaths in this novel are taking place on an island – I love confined places stories.

What I got from this book: I have a new author to explore. With over 2 million copies of Anna Jansson’s books in print in over fifteen countries, I can only read two of them! We definitely need more translators and more publishers like Stockholm Text to get onboard sharing works such as this around the world.

THE LAST TIME I DIED by Joe Nelms

Okay, this one made me pause. Highly different from my normal fare. At first, I wasn’t fond of the novel, but I couldn’t stop reading. That’s crazy. The reason is because the writing is just too darn good. Then after I got sucked into this character’s mad descent, the character was so complexly written that I couldn’t give the guy up. You’ve got to read this book! The last book I read that did this to me was Fight Club. I read that book once, but when the movie came out (starring a young Brad Pitt), I saw it (literally) six times at the 99-cent movie theater. This novel had the same effect on me. It’s a story I don’t think I would ever be able to write and it amazes me authors such as Nelms can turn out a world such as this.

This is a first-person novel of a man looking back at his unraveling life while his present life falls apart. The psychological first person format helps the reader view it from the main character’s perspective, even the fantasy of his detached self, where I began to wonder – and this is what the book is about – what is real and what is not? Sometimes I think the guy is going out-of-body for a detached third-person, which is freaky unto itself. It’s a dark book filled with caverns of repressed memories. The main character is a man focused on the negative who clearly sees the negative in others and acerbically – even laugh out loud – describes them. Reading this book is like watching a slow death. I can only imagine how tired Nelms was at the end of each day as he worked on this novel. For character studies, you don’t beat this one. It brings new meaning to the old phrase, How do I make you love me? As I read, I kept hearing Elton’s Blue Moves album in the background. You know, citing this character and in my own armchair-psychologist’s opinion, sometimes forgetfulness can be a good thing; I’m convinced that it is not always best – and I’m sure health professionals would disagree – to go digging in old tired mental graves. Obviously, this is a thrilling story that interested Nelms and one that he cathartically needed to write, definitely one you need to read, and a new author whose next book you should eagerly await.

Well, this should give you a few eclectic titles to read over the next few days. Get in touch with these authors, learn about them, and tell them you would like to see them at this year’s Killer Nashville.

And remember, if you buy your books through the links on Killer Nashville, you’ll still get the great Amazon discount prices, but – better yet – a portion of the proceeds goes towards the educational events sponsored by the good volunteers at Killer Nashville. So support Killer Nashville while you’re supporting our featured authors!

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com).  As a writer himself, he has over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). A champion of writers, Publishers Weekly has identified Stafford as playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” throughout “the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

Killing Your Protagonist – Or At Least Trying To / Author Vic DiGenti (aka Parker Francis)

What makes us keep turning the pages? The same thing that makes us watch a train wreck. Award-winning author Vic DiGenti shares with us how he beats up his protagonists and how, if they didn’t have to appear in the next book, he would probably just go ahead and kill them. 

Try some of Vic DiGenti’s techniques in your own writing and see if you can’t create some extra page-turning heat.

Until next week, Happy Writing!

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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Vic DiGenti (aka Parker Francis)

Recently I’ve started looking at people differently. Perhaps it’s because I’ve watched one too many cable news programs spouting doom and gloom. Or maybe programs like Criminal Minds and CSI, with their growing body counts and close-ups of autopsies, have desensitized me. But as I look at people I imagine clever ways to send them on their way—permanently. That’s right, dead, gone, deceased, demised, passed on, expired, pushing up daisies, an ex-live body (with apologies to John Cleese in the hilarious “Dead Parrot” episode of The Monty Python Show).

Wait, before you rush to call the authorities, or send me your do-it-yourself home lobotomy kit, let me reassure you I haven’t gone postal. Life is still good down here on the farm, and I’m enjoying my retirement even more since I won the lottery, but now that I’m writing mysteries, I have to find ways to dispatch my victims in surprising ways to satisfy my readers’ blood lust. So you see I have an excuse for my new perspective on people.

My decision to write my award-winning Matanzas Bay came because I’ve always been a reader of mysteries and thrillers. My wife might tell you that it’s because I live in a fantasyland where I picture myself as the hero of my stories. There’s some truth to that, but it makes more sense now that my hero is a real human being rather than a cat (the hero in my Windrusher series). Unlike authors who tell you to write what you know, I believe in writing what you love to read. My bookshelves are crammed with the works of my favorite authors: Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, Lee Child, Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane, John D. MacDonald, Robert B. Parker, and other masters of the craft.

These guys make being a hero a hard business. So how do you write these guys? One of the first bits of advice I heard was to chase your hero up a tree, then throw rocks at him. In other words, as writers we should make it supremely difficult for our protagonists to reach their goals by placing as many obstacles in their path as we can. Our job as writers, as sci-fi author Ben Bova once said, is to be a troublemaker. Since my Quint Mitchell Mystery series is more hard-boiled than soft, I had to fit my sleuth and the story into the conventions of that genre of mystery. For instance, many hard-boiled detective yarns are told in first person, putting us squarely into the head of the protagonist. We also know that bad things are going to happen, at least one murder and other crimes. The sleuth is going to make it his mission to find the villain, chasing down clues, banging into dead ends, and charging up blind alleys before justice prevails. And readers of hard-boiled mysteries not only expect to see the violence unfold on the page, they’d be disappointed if it didn’t. So, using this framework as the world, how do you make your protagonist sweat in it?

We can do this in a lot of ways, but I particularly like what Donald Maas wrote in his book, Writing the Breakout Novel.

Ask yourself who is the one ally your protagonist cannot afford to lose. Kill that character. What is your protagonist’s greatest physical asset? Take it away. What is the one article of faith that for your protagonist is sacred? Undermine it. How much time does your protagonist have to solve the main problem? Shorten it.

“Bring Down The Furies” by Parker Francis

By squeezing your hero, the reader will stay hooked to see how the protagonist is able to navigate all the roadblocks you’ve erected.

Here are a few ways to make your protagonist uncomfortable. You see them in many mysteries, including Matanzas Bay and its sequel, Bring Down the Furies.

• Major discomfort. The more aches and pains your hero suffers, and the more obstacles he has to overcome, the more heroic he’ll seem if he is able to fight his way through it all and emerge victorious and semi-healthy. In Matanzas Bay, poor Quint suffers a nasty beating that sends him to the hospital with a concussion, and he’s nearly devoured by alligators. But he overcomes it because, well, because he’s the hero and he’s going to be in the next book and the alligators aren’t.

• Plague him with constant mishaps. His car breaks down. He loses his cell phone. His mother-in-law hates him. He’s fired from a big case. That’s a good start. Then loose the inner demons. Is he an alcoholic? Send him into bars to find a suspect. Hates snakes like Indiana Jones? Then toss him into a den of serpents. My protagonist has a trunk load of guilt, living with the knowledge he was responsible for his brother’s murder many years before. That guilt and its implications weigh on him throughout Matanzas Bay. Be sure your hero learns from each experience and grows stronger and more determined. And keep raising the stakes so he has less time to solve the case before the wrong man is convicted, or has to find a kidnapped loved one before they’re killed, or the villain threatens to blow up a bus filled with people if his demands aren’t met within 24 hours, just as examples.

That’s the academic overview, but writing is about making it personal. And that takes me back to my people watching. When it’s time to dispatch another victim, it helps if I can visualize someone I wouldn’t mind taking the place of a dead parrot, figuratively speaking, of course.

Perhaps an old boss?

A former spouse?

Hmm, come a little closer.

Let me have a good look at you.

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Florida writer Vic DiGenti began his writing career as the author of the award-winning WINDRUSHER series, three adventure/fantasy novels featuring a feline protagonist. Writing as Parker Francis, Vic leaped into the hard-boiled mystery genre with his first Quint Mitchell Mystery, MATANZAS BAY, which was selected as a Book of the Year in the Florida Writers Association’s Royal Palm Literary Awards competition. His second book, BRING DOWN THE FURIES, took the Gold Medal in the Mystery/Thriller category in last year’s President’s Award competition (Florida Authors & Publishers Association). Vic is now working on the third Quint Mitchell Mystery, HURRICANE ISLAND. Visit him at www.parkerfrancis.com.

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(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

Time Management for Writers / Writer Chloe Winston

How do I find the time to write? It’s a common concern for busy people. Travel writer Chloe Winston, through her own trial and error, has found a way to make it work. She shares her techniques with you. Here’s how you can find time to write that novel, nonfiction book, poem, travel article…anything!

Happy Reading!

(And Happy Writing – using Chloe’s excellent advice).

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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Chloe Winston

Eons ago, when I was in high school, I bought a copy of Writers’ Digest, when it was a magazine about 5” x 7”. Encouraged to send an article to some magazine (time fogs memory), I took my pencil and yellow lined school notepad and wrote a story I sent to a romance magazine. (We’re talking real “yellow journalism” here!) Of course, I never heard from the magazine. My next excuse for not writing was that I “couldn’t find a good spot in which to write.” Then the author of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies confessed that she wrote sitting in the car after her family went to bed and before they got up. That took care of that excuse. And she didn’t even have a computer! (But she did have a book . . . and later a movie!)

But we continue to find reasons and excuses to postpone applying seat to chair…or car seat, if you prefer. This brings to mind the two most hated words in the English language for writers: time management. We all have the same 24-hour day and we all struggle with how to manage that time. There are tricks to reaching that goal. Let’s explore some.

“Time” calls for decision-making. Do you really want to write, be a writer? I heard, “yes.” So first get the family on board, then (and this is hard) look at your surroundings. What keeps us from writing? Dishes to do, clothes to iron, house to clean, checks to write. Consider paper plates during writing time, wash and wear clothes, paying a teenager to clean the house twice a month, and setting aside one hour a week or month to pay your bills. (Efficiency experts advise such bill-paying habits.) Maybe even rearrange your house to eliminate distractions. Have a garage sale to open up an area in which you can write. Donate excess stuff to a thrift shop. Now you are lean and mean. Now there are no more excuses.

Time to write also means considering how you organize your day around your writing. If I simply show up by sitting down at the computer, it’s amazing how much I can get done. Before you quit writing at night, leave your hero somewhere, doing something, with someone else keeping him from doing it or putting him in danger as he does it. This teases your reader into continuing to read. And it teases you to continue writing the next day. Your new chapter picks him up where you left off the night before.

You have that wonderful jazzy computer, and you have great ideas. Here’s something I forget to do: take time to lay out some rough idea of where you want the book, or article, or poem to go. (It sounds boring, uncreative…and changes as you go along, but it will save you more time/hair-pulling/discouragement down the line. This took me a long time to learn.)

Now with the family and house onboard, when have you found you write the best? Early morning? Late at night? I find that when I turn out the light and my head hits the pillow, I think of all sorts of things I want to add to my work. DO NOT believe that you’ll remember those amazing sentences in the morning. Get up, yes, right now, and scrawl the sentences on paper you have handy. (I buy lots of pens when stores have back-to-school-sales, enough pens that they are all over every level space in my office area and house. I also buy bright folders, catchy binders, and yellow tablets at the same time.)

Now there are no excuses for not keeping stuff in the right spot. This is important. It also took me a long time to learn. It means you can find your work-in-progress novel about Peru in the binder with the gypsy dancing on its cover or the short story is in the pastoral scene folder– without plowing through fifteen or twenty stacks of stuff in your writing area. Time saved for the #1 objective: writing.

If you live alone, all this is easy; if there’s a family involved, some negotiations have to take place. You’ve heard of the author who told her children that unless they were bleeding profusely, they couldn’t interrupt her while she’s writing. She’s on the right track to effective time management and family cooperation!

Finally, and most vital of all, commit a certain amount of time each day to your writing. Two hours out of 24 isn’t too much to ask, is it? Three’s even better, and when you’re on a roll, time means nothing. Maybe consider keeping two days a week open for your family or for yourself; pretend you’re working at a job downtown…five days is a usual work week. Try that. You’ll find your writing will sneak in; let it, then go on and enjoy your own time.

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Travel writer and cruise destination lecturer (31 cruises), Chloe Ryan Winston continues to hone her writing skills in a hut on a hill in Northern California.

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(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)

Killer Nashville’s Featured Books / Friday, February 14, 2014 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

DEATH NELL by Mary Grace Murphy
FRAME-UP by Jill Elizabeth Nelson
LOVE IS MURDER by Sandra Brown
MEGAN’S MARK by Lora Leigh
MOTIVE FOR MURDER by Carol J. Post
SCORCHED by Laura Griffin
THE SEARCH by Nora Roberts
SILENCE by Debra Webb
SWEET SURRENDER by Maya Banks
TELL ME by Lisa Jackson

Dear Murderous Reader –

Valentine’s Day is here. What better way to celebrate love than with murder and suspense? Here’s my pick of 10 books that should send your suspense juices flowing. I’ve listed them in alphabetical order along with my quip cuff notes.

If you don’t have someone beside you this Valentine’s Day, why not curl up with a few great books. And – if you do have someone beside you, be sure he or she is who you think they really are.

DEATH NELL by Mary Grace Murphy
Can food bring two people together? Sure, over a dish of cold murder. Making your heart glow, this is maturity at its finest. Loved this first book from indie author Mary Grace Murphy. Like her character Sam, I don’t think she knows I’m writing about her. Hopefully, she’ll take it well.

FRAME-UP by Jill Elizabeth Nelson
From snowstorm to the frying pan, nothing like being saved and then becoming a murder suspect. Good thing she has a great man by her side to rev up her tingles.

LOVE IS MURDER by Sandra Brown
From International Thriller Writers, a short story anthology from authors such as Lee Child, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Heather Graham, Allison Brennan, and more. These will pull at your heart: bodyguards, vigilantes, stalkers, serial killers, men and women both in jeopardy, cops, thieves, P.I.s, and killers all in the midst of romance, love, or downright lust.

MEGAN’S MARK by Lora Leigh
For those who really want to go out there, this is a world where altered Breeds and the humans who created them cross the boundaries of desire. Murders and passion go hand in hand and Cupid gets on the run. Read this one in private.

MOTIVE FOR MURDER by Carol J. Post
“Motive for Murder” gives you some love-inspired suspense. Nothing like a death to make the heart grow fonder between two people who want to “keep it professional,” but sometimes principles get in the way of the heart.

SCORCHED by Laura Griffin
Is the relationship over? You know it’s not. But they don’t know it yet. Love in the midst of an international mystery, what could get your heart beating faster?

THE SEARCH by Nora Roberts
A canine search and rescue volunteer who finds love in the Pacific Northwest wilderness. Be wary of the puppy eyes. This is Nora Roberts doing what she does best: being Nora Roberts.

SILENCE by Debra Webb
Time off? Nope. Special Agent Jess Harris is about to be reunited with a love from the past. It’s anything but a relaxing break and stickier than Valentine’s candy.

SWEET SURRENDER by Maya Banks
Nothing like a cop getting close to his suspect. She’s everything a man could want. Maybe more than he can handle. This should leave the bathroom mirrors steamy.

TELL ME by Lisa Jackson
If you’re soapin’ for a crime-solving woman also looking for her heart, from Killer Nashville’s upcoming 2014 Guest of Honor, here’s a story where you don’t know who to trust. Scenes like those in the shower are a bit much for me, but my wife tells me that these are the things Valentine’s dreams are made of.

This should give you something to read for the next few days. Get in touch with these authors, learn about them, check out their other series, and buy their books. And tell them you would like to see them at this year’s Killer Nashville.

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com).  As a writer himself, he has over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). A champion of writers, Publishers Weekly has identified Stafford as playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” throughout “the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

Killer Nashville’s Featured Books / Monday, February 10, 2014 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Beewitched by Hannah Reed
Books, Cooks, and Crooks by Lucy Arlington
Days of Wine and Roquefort by Avery Aames

 

Three must reads from Berkley Prime Crime’s lineup. Part 1 of 3.

Dear Murderous Reader –

It doesn’t get any better than Berkley Prime Crime.  I follow their serials like the Victorians followed Dickens.  Berkley’s February list is out and I made my own list of what had to be my “must reads.”  The ones I picked didn’t disappoint.  Here are my three of my nine Toppers in my Part 1 of 3 coverage.  You’ve got a whole month of February. And remember, if you buy your books through the links on Killer Nashville, you’ll still get the great Amazon discount prices, but – better yet – a portion of the proceeds goes towards the educational events sponsored by the good volunteers at Killer Nashville.  So support Killer Nashville while you’re supporting our featured authors!  Let’s get cracking!

BEEWITCHED by Hannah Reed

Dead witches in a corn maze.  What could be finer?  Written by author Deb Baker under her “Hannah Reed” moniker, this is Book 5 in a series about a quaint town and a beekeeping business set in Moraine, Wisconsin. In this installment, a self-proclaimed witch moves into town followed by a whole coven in which one witch ends up dead in a cornfield.  I rarely find my name in books so when I find a series where the main character’s womanizing ex-husband’s name is Clay, it always jolts me to attention and makes me want to follow to find where he pops back up again.  (I’m nothing like him.  Seriously.)  Beewitched is a cozy delight. I love the town of Moraine (probably named after Kettle Moraine).  I love the small town feel and the Wisconsin references.

BOOKS, COOKS, AND CROOKS by Lucy Arlington

Down in Inspiration Valley, North Carolina – don’t you just love the name? – the kitchen blows up and the mystery hits the fan.  The problem is not finding the killer, but eliminating everyone who would like to see the deceased dead.  Ellery Adams and Sylvia May are the writing team behind “Lucy Arlington” and, boy, do they work well together.  Distance is no barrier for this creative team: Adams lives in Virginia and May lives in Bermuda.  (I’d love to have a collaborative partner somewhere in the Caribbean; would love to get a tax write-off on that get-together.)  “Books, Cooks, and Crooks” is the third book in their series.  In this episode, Inspiration Valley is having their annual Taste of the Town Festival.  Lila Wilkins is a literary agent in town (the Novel Idea Literary Agency) and sleuth, who happens to be helping to put this event together.  She’s probably not the first agent to think she has a killer client.  (I know my agent thinks that about me…yeah, right.)  Anyway, living in an idyllic little town myself, I can relate completely to these annual town gatherings.  If you like a book about crazy agents…well, I won’t go there.  Arlington writes clever mysteries with characters I can completely understand.  It’s always a pleasure spending an evening in Inspiration Valley.

DAYS OF WINE AND ROQUEFORT by Avery Aames

Murder, like Roquefort, stinks.  I love it.  Moving westwardly, we go to the fictional town of Providence, Ohio for the Agatha Award-winning Cheese Shop Mysteries.  In this series, you have people who eat cheese and drink wine.  For a guy (me) who thinks wine is for drinking, not sniffing, and can’t taste the difference between a $6 bottle and a $600 dollar bottle, this series is a trip with characters I can definitely be amused by.  In this third installment, a guest arrives at the house of cheeky cheese shop owner Charlotte Bessette and then drops dead.  Written by multi-faceted author Daryl Wood Gerber under the pseudonym of Avery Aames, the delightful plotting of this series and the equally gratifying town of Providence, make this an incredibly fun series to read.  We all have such relatives.

This should give you something to read for the next few days.  Get in touch with these authors, learn about them, check out their other series, and buy their books.  And tell them you would like to see them at this year’s Killer Nashville.

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com).  As a writer himself, he has over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). A champion of writers, Publishers Weekly has identified Stafford as playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” throughout “the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

Outline or No Outline? / Author Rick Reed

Outline or no outline? That is the question. Sometimes it’s great to hear how other successful writers do it. Author Rick Reed, after writing several acclaimed books, has found his groove. Here’s his take on how he plots.

Happy Reading!

Clay Stafford
Founder of Killer Nashville

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Author Rick Reed

I’ve been asked this question many times. “Do you write from an outline? How do you get your ideas and keep them straight while writing a full length novel?”

The answer I gave in the past is, “I don’t start with an outline. I start with a title (an idea) and then let the characters develop the story.”

But today I realized that’s only partially true.

Imagine a book as a lump of clay. (And please don’t think I’m comparing myself to an artist.) The definition of sculpting is to create by removing material in order for the shape that is hidden inside to be revealed.

With that in mind, imagine a title such as “Murder in Mind.” What images does that create? What feelings does it bring out? For every one of you it’s different, but will have subtle similarities. For one of you the story would be about a serial killer that fantasizes his murders and tries to make them fit the fantasy. For another of you it might be a nightmare, or the unconscious world of a coma patient.

“Final Justice” by Rick Reed

Probably most of you work the other way around. You have an idea in mind, and then come up with a title. Either way, the title almost always changes to fit the story.

My books, The Cruelest Cut, The Coldest Fear, and Final Justice, all started with a title that stuck in my mind. It was my lump of clay. And like any sculptor or potter will tell you, eventually, the clay begins to take over, and the artist is merely the hands and chisel (or laptop) that tells the story. Inside my lump, I saw a number of possible directions for the story, and each one would lead to the characters. Then the characters would take over.

Each character has a different idea how they talk, what they will or won’t do, how a scene turns out, who they interact with. I never know the end until the end because it “ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.” There is no better feeling in the world for an author than writing those two words…THE END.

Like any writer or artist or athlete, etc., each book is a different experience and you learn from all of them. I’d like to think that I’ve grown as a writer and I can look back at my old books and see where I would have done them differently. But the difference is the beauty of a book. Not everyone will like what you’ve written. Not everyone appreciates a painting or sculpture or song or music, but that doesn’t make it bad. (Like I used to tell my college students, “Not everyone likes asparagus.”)

So I say, “Go forth. Find your lump of clay. Create. Believe.”

THE END

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Rick Reed was a detective with the Evansville Police Department in Indiana for almost 20 years. He was involved in law enforcement in some capacity for over 30 years.

His acclaimed book, BLOOD TRAIL, is the true account of one of the homicides he investigated in 2000 that unearthed a serial killer with fourteen victims.

He is also the author of the Detective Jack Murphy thrillers, THE CRUELEST CUT, THE COLDEST FEAR, and FINAL JUSTICE. His next thriller, MURPHY’S LAW, will be released in summer 2014. Check out his website for current projects and tour schedule.

http://www.rickreedbooks.com

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

An Interview with Author Baron R. Birtcher / Killer Nashville Success Story

Baron R. Birtcher

Killer Nashville is pleased to present an interview with author Baron R. Birtcher, whose novel Rain Dogs was acquired by The Permanent Press after being named a Killer Nashville Claymore Award finalist.

KN: Baron, welcome, and thank you for joining us today. Let’s start with the basics, okay? When did you know you wanted to be a novelist?

BB: I read my first Hardy Boys mystery when I was nine.  I think I was completely hooked by the time I finished the book. I read voraciously from that time on – mostly mysteries and procedurals – and I knew I wanted to try my hand at writing when the first opportunity presented itself. That finally happened when I moved to Hawaii in 1996. My first hardboiled mystery, Roadhouse Blues, was published in 2000. One of the greatest thrills of my life. I’ve been writing ever since.

KN: How did you go about pursuing that goal?

BB: I had a story in my head that wouldn’t go away. It had been rattling around in there for several years. I finally wrote an outline for it and launched in to writing it once I knew I had a block of uninterrupted time available to give it a shot. It took me about six months to finish the first draft. Ignorance was bliss, I must admit, though. I had not read any “How to Write a Novel” or “How to Get Published” books beforehand, and simply sat myself down and wrote my story.

I was unbelievably fortunate to garner an agent after having sent out about 30 or 40 queries (and receiving the obligatory 29 – 39 rejections). My agent got me signed to a two book deal with a small press and off I went. In heaven, right? It was only after finishing my second manuscript, Ruby Tuesday, that I read any of those “How To” books. Man, am I glad I didn’t read them before I started my first book! They scared the hell out of me, and probably would have put a bunch of negative information into my head the whole time I was writing…But that’s probably just me.

KN:  Your newest book is called Rain Dogs. Can you tell us a little bit about it?  What inspired it?

BB: Rain Dogs began as a character study. I like to write vignettes for the significant characters in my books in order to understand who they are, how they speak, and what goes on inside their heads.

I don’t do them like a biography, but rather, like a short story that reveals who they are. In the case of Rain Dogs, I had a character that first appeared in my third novel, Angels Fall. He was a relatively minor character, but he really fascinated me. So I began writing a story about him. As it happened, it turned into a short story which I (for reasons unknown) put up on my website. Within a couple of days, I had received an amazing amount of feedback about the story and the character. People wanted to know what happened next. Just for fun, I wrote another, and finally a third installment of the story that featured a character known only as “Snyder.” Again, a bunch of positive feedback. But by that time, I was completely enamored with the guy, so I wrote an entire book about him. It’s a “prequel” of sorts that is Snyder’s origin story. The book I’m just finishing now will have Snyder in it, as well.

“Rain Dogs” by Baron R. Birtcher

KN: With several books under your belt now, you must have a pretty good idea of what works for you. What’s your writing process?

BB: Once I settle in on a story, I like to treat it like a full-time job. In that sense, I allocate anywhere from 5 – 7 hours a day to write, five or six days per week until it’s finished. I never begin the writing process unless I know I can get to the finish line without any major time interruptions. For me, that really botches up the narrative flow, and makes it twice as hard as it should be. That’s probably just a personal quirk. I’ve tried doing full outlines, and I’ve tried it doing almost zero outline. Both processes work, but it turns out that the way that works best for me is to know the beginning and the end. If I start that way, I can allow the middle part of the story to tell itself and develop organically. It allows the characters a little freedom to run amok.

KN: How would you say your background in the music industry influences or informs your books (or does it)?

BB: I spent a number of years as a professional guitarist/singer/songwriter before realizing that I was probably better off in the “business” end of music. I am now a partner in a firm that manages performers, which is an absolute blast. It keeps me active in the studio, as well as on the road, and keeps my ears tuned to new artists. The similarities (or at least, the useful tools) between writing and music are numerous in my opinion. For instance, a good album (I’m dating myself here with that word) and a good book share similar qualities: The rhythm, melody, and lyrics must act together to create a workable whole. You can have a wonderful melody with clunky lyrics and the song is spoiled. The reverse is also true. And the largest component is that elusive “tone” element, that the body of a book’s narrative must use language (vocabulary) that is suitable and consistent with the story and setting. Words matter. They always have. It’s what I love about the truly great writers – of both music and books.

KN: What do you hope readers will gain from reading your books?

BB: An entertaining time spent with characters that you genuinely care about. And with any luck, a book that reads like a favorite album: where the words, music and instrumentation all pull together to create that whole that is better than the sum of its parts.

KN: What’s next?

BB: The next book is the fourth installment of the hardboiled Mike Travis series (set in Hawaii, as usual). As I mentioned before, this one will feature Snyder rather prominently, as well. The one after that will be another stand-alone.

KN: How has Killer Nashville helped you? (You knew that one was coming!)

BB: Participating in Killer Nashville, and – more specifically – having the honor of being a Killer Nashville Claymore Award finalist led me to my current publisher, Permanent Press. Without KN and without the Claymore Award, I sincerely don’t know if that would have happened. In my opinion, Killer Nashville is one of the best – if not The Best – Writers’ Conference in the country for aspiring writers. Readers, too, obviously. Great programs, terrific people, and a wonderful city!

KN: Any advice for aspiring authors?

BB: A couple of things:

1. Finish the thing. Sit your a** down and write it. No excuses. Start it, then finish it.
2. Write like there’s nobody looking. Write the way that comes from your heart. Write the way you sing when you’re in the shower; or the way that you dance when you’re all by yourself.
3. Don’t worry about “genre” or “the reader” or “marketability.” That stuff will sort itself out if the writing is sincere and the story is solid.
4. Oh, yeah, one more thing: Read your dialogue out loud. What looks good on the page sometimes sounds pretty lame when it’s spoken aloud.

KN: Is there anything you’d like to discuss that I haven’t covered? If so, now’s your chance!

BB: I can be reached at www.BaronRBirtcher.com. Can’t think of anything else. Thank you for allowing me the privilege of rambling on…

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Baron R. Birtcher’s first two hardboiled mystery novels, Roadhouse Blues and Ruby Tuesday were Los Angeles Times and IMBA Best-Sellers. His third, Angels Fall, was nominated for the 2009 Left Coast Crime award (the “Lefty”) for Best Law Enforcement/ Police Procedural novel of the year. His latest, and first stand-alone, Rain Dogs, has received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, and was a finalist for the Killer Nashville Claymore Award. Baron has had the privilege of serving as a judge for the Edgar Awards, as well as the Shamus and Claymore Awards (though not in the same year in which he competed). He currently resides in Kona, Hawaii and Portland, Oregon with his wife, Christina.  He can be reached on the web at www.BaronRBirtcher.com.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

The Checks Are Coming In: Why I Self-Published My Book and How I Did It / Author Helen Haught Fanick

Sometimes authors wonder when and if they should self-publish a book.  Author Helen Haught Fanick, a traditionally published author, had the same concerns.  As our Guest Blogger this week, Helen shares with us the decision to self-publish a book she had to see published, why she did it the way she did it, and – even better – how she did it.  Was it a decision that paid off?  We’ll let her tell you.  Enjoy “The Checks Are Coming In: Why I Self-Published My Book and How I Did It” by Guest Blogger Helen Haught Fanick.

– Clay Stafford

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Author Helen Haught Fanick

I’m a writer whose search for an agent has finally ended. No, I didn’t find an agent who’s working diligently to find a publisher for my novels. After sending out seventy-five queries to agents for my first cozy, Moon Signs, I decided to make my book available through Kindle Direct Publishing and in paperback through CreateSpace. In other words, to self-publish, and to do it myself with only my computer to help me. Well, I completed the interior of the book myself. I did have help with the covers in the beginning, as I’ll explain later. 

Writing Moon Signs, a cozy mystery, was the most fun I’d had in a long time.  It’s set in one of my favorite places, West Virginia’s Canaan Valley, and in winter, my favorite time of year. I’d written other novels, but this one was the most important to me.  I was determined to see it in print. I received several encouraging notes from agents, and there were a few who wanted to see my complete manuscript. One of these suggested changes and wanted to work with me, but our ideas were so divergent that after a year of struggling, we parted company. Then I queried some more, spending every Sunday printing letters or emailing them, recording my submissions on a growing list, and going to the post office on Monday. For a long time, I rejected the idea of self-publishing, but deciding to do it has been one of the most liberating experiences of my life.

Sure, formatting the manuscript for the first book was a challenge. I submitted more than one manuscript for Moon Signs before I finally got it right (it’s possible with CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) to make changes, even after the book’s been published).

One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to create a table of contents (TOC) when I switched from the PCs I’ve always used to a new Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 with Office 2011 for Mac. I found blogs that said creating a TOC was impossible with a Mac, but after much browsing I learned that it is possible with the use of bookmarks to mark each chapter, the acknowledgments, etc., and with hyperlinks to the bookmarks in the actual TOC.

This is a link to the post that steered me in the right direction: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/05/05/ibook-lessons-creating-amazon-kdp-tables-of-contents-on-ms-word/. After a lot of experimenting, I modified the instructions a bit and came up with my own procedure:

1. Create a separate page for the TOC and type TABLE OF CONTENTS at the top.
2. Place the cursor in front of TABLE OF CONTENTS and Insert > bookmark > name > toc > add.
3. Bookmark in a similar manner everything you want in the TOC. When adding the name, I’ve found it simpler to use one word, since spaces and various characters aren’t allowed. If you want to use more than one, an underline can be used between words.
4. Create a list on the TOC page of everything that’s been bookmarked.
5. Select the first item on the list and Insert > hyperlink > document > anchor > type in the bookmarked word > click OK. Follow this instruction for each item in the list, making sure to select the item before going to Insert.
6. Check your TOC to make sure each entry is working.

Something else that gave me problems was page numbering for the CreateSpace version. I didn’t want to bother with numbers on the front material. I just wanted to start with Page 1 at the beginning of Chapter 1. Here’s a link to a site that had some useful information: http://www.mcstech.net/blog/index.cfm/2012/1/5/Page-Numbering-in-Word-with-Different-Formats. Again, I came up with my own system to accomplish what I wanted to do.

1. Insert a section break between the front material and Chapter 1. If you’ve already inserted a page break there, be aware that inserting the section break will create a second break that results in a blank page. Delete the page break to prevent this.
2. Place the cursor in the header or footer area where you want the page number to appear, click on the Header and Footer tab in the toolbar and unselect Link to Previous.
3. Go to Insert > Page Numbers > select Position and Alignment > Format > unselect Continue from previous section > make sure page numbering starts at 1.

I wish now that I’d kept a journal while working on my first novel so I’d know just how long it all took and how I completed each step. I’d advise doing this to anyone who wants to go the self-publishing route.  Now the next books in my Moon Mystery Series, Moonlight Mayhem and Hunter’s Moon, are available through Amazon, as are my other works. I did keep a record while getting Moonlight Mayhem ready for publication.  It includes hints that have helped a lot as I’ve worked on other novels.

“Moon Signs” by Helen Haught Fanick

The process has been challenging, exhilarating, but most of all, liberating.  No more Sundays laboring over query letters that sometimes don’t get answered.  And the process does get easier once you’ve been through it.  Instructions are available for CreateSpace, Kindle Direct Publishing, and Barnes & Noble submissions, although in some instances they aren’t specific—the dreaded TOC, for example.  And for the very technically challenged, CreateSpace offers to set books up for a fee.  I decided to do it myself, and I haven’t been sorry.

Publishing on CreateSpace is free if you do the work yourself, and the same is true of Kindle Direct Publishing and the Nook Press program with Barnes and Noble. I’m lucky to have a daughter-in-law who’s a graphic designer, and she designed the covers of my first three novels. Now I do them myself, using my own photos or those of my son, who’s also a novelist and copywriter and most helpful as an editor for all my works. I reciprocate by critiquing his novels, which, incidentally, is an excellent learning experience for writers.

I’ve been hearing for years that writers who go the indie route don’t sell any books, so I’ve been surprised and exhilarated to find this isn’t true. Publicity is the key. I’m a member of Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, Linkedin, Sisters in Crime, Book Blogs, and SheWrites. I blog or post notices on these sites when something is happening with my novels such as a new publication, a giveaway, or a period when the books are free for Kindle users. I’ve joined various groups on Facebook that are designed for authors and book lovers.

The trait that’s essential for being a published indie author today is perseverance—the resolve to write a book, edit it till it’s the best it can be, and figure out how to make it available to the millions of readers out there. If nothing else, I have perseverance, and I now have proof copies of my novels at my desk, I’m receiving royalty payments directly into my bank account, and I’m having a wonderful time with a totally new experience.

I don’t usually enjoy all the little platitudes that pop up all over Facebook, but I recently saw one that applies to my self-publishing efforts—“If you want something you’ve never had, you must do something you’ve never done.”

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Helen Haught Fanick grew up in West Virginia and now lives in Texas, and both states provide settings for her novels, which are available on Amazon for Kindle and in paperback. Her work includes cozy mysteries, suspense novels, a World War II espionage novel, and mystery short stories. Helen has won several local and state awards and two national awards in the Writer’s Digest Competition. She lives in San Antonio with her husband.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

An Interview with Agent Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency

Agent Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency

Today, we have an interview with agent Jill Marr of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. Jill has been attending Killer Nashville since 2010 and has been a staunch supporter of the conference ever since. She has a strong Internet and media background and nearly 15 years of publishing experience. After writing ad copy and features for published books for years she knows how to find the “hook” and sell it. Jill is interested in commercial fiction, with an emphasis on mysteries, thrillers and horror, women’s commercial fiction and historical fiction. She’s also looking for nonfiction by authors who are getting their work published regularly in magazines and who have a realistic sense of the market and their audience. As for nonfiction, she’s looking for projects in the areas of self-help, inspirational, cookbooks, memoir (she especially loves travel and foodie memoirs), health & nutrition, pop culture, humor and music.

It’s a pleasure to have her here with us.

Jill, thanks for joining us today. Could you start by telling us how you first heard about Killer Nashville?

I was looking for a conference that specialized in mystery and thriller authors because I knew that was what I wanted to focus on. So I did an Internet search and found Killer Nashville. The funny part was, I thought I’d like to represent some southern authors. An especially appealing part of Killer Nashville was that it’s in the South; the southern voice is unique. Lots of great writers come from there.

You’ve signed authors from the conference every year since you started attending. How many Killer Nashville authors do you represent now?

Ten that I’m actually dealing with, a few others I’m talking with but haven’t actually signed. And there are a few I didn’t meet there but who go every year now.

What keeps you coming back?

I keep meeting incredibly talented writers! I know people who attend Killer Nashville are really serious about craft. There’s so much good, hands-on learning and so much networking that goes on there. These are things I ask my author to do anyway, and to find a conference that’s already doing it is amazing.

What characteristics do you look for in the writers you represent?

Obviously, the first thing is the ability to write a good story. But beyond that, a lot of my authors are really voice-driven, with unusual stories and situations. Stories that are not typical.

You don’t currently represent any cozies, and your bio asks that people not send you anything with unicorns in it. Would you ever consider representing a book in one of those genres?

In general, I’m not drawn to those things, but I’m always open to them. If the right fantasy came along, I would totally jump on it.

Tell us a little bit about being an agent. What’s it like?

It’s a very hectic life, but I love it—especially because now I can start reading something and know right away whether it’s for me. I get really excited when I find a project I love. And I get to be hands-on with a wide variety of projects.

Did you ever consider becoming a writer rather than an agent?

I’ve always been a writer. Not long ago, I met some old high school friends, and they said, “Don’t you miss being a writer?” But I feel like this is even better than being a writer, because I get to be involved with so many books. I get to have a little ownership in all of them—and in my authors, too, so yeah, it’s definitely better.

How do you feel about the round table format some conferences are starting to use, as opposed to the more traditional, “speed-dating” style pitches?

I really like them, and all the other agents and editors did too. I feel like the authors get a lot out of it. Some people can pitch really well, but until you see the pages, you can’t really tell. Authors need to be prepared, and the round tables help them do that.

Is there anything you’d like to say to aspiring writers?

I would just add that agents go to these conferences to find great clients. We’re looking for talent and projects. We’re as excited to be there are they are, so they should never feel nervous about talking to us. That’s why we’re there!

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JILL MARR is an acquiring agent at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. She graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing and a minor in History. She has a strong Internet and media background and nearly 15 years of publishing experience. She wrote features and ads for Pages, the literary magazine for people who love books, and continues to write book ads for publishing houses, magazine pieces and promotional features for television. After writing ad copy and features for published books for years, she knows how to find the “hook” and sell it. Jill is interested in commercial fiction, with an emphasis on mysteries, thrillers and horror, women’s commercial fiction and historical fiction. She is also looking for nonfiction by authors who are getting their work published regularly in magazines and who have a realistic sense of the market and their audience. Jill is looking for nonfiction projects in the areas of self-help, inspirational, cookbooks, memoir (she especially loves travel and foodie memoirs), health & nutrition, pop culture, humor and music. Please note that Jill is specifically not interested in: YA, children’s books, sci-fi, romance or anything involving unicorns.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

11/06/2013 The American Novelist: A Killer Nashville Series / Author Charles Brockden Brown

Clay Stafford

Killer Nashville’s Featured Books of the Day serves several purposes.  Entertainment and love of reading, of course, is high on the list.  I do my best to avoid the boring.  There is also education, which should share an equal podium.  But even then, the work still has to be a page-turner.

I’ve tried to look at older books over the past twenty months that I’ve been doing this (it’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for almost two years) and now have decided to take a look – as part of my suggested reading to you – at influential American writers specifically.  I think it important that we, as writers, be familiar with our noble heritage and, for those of us here in the U.S. that means taking a look at those who have influenced the American novel, even though the writers themselves may have fallen into obscurity over…

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Sherlock Holmes / Author Amnon Kabatchnik

Author Amnon Kabatchnik

My love affair with detective fiction began decades ago in a far-away country where people read and write from right to left. Paperbacks began to arrive in Israel from the U.S. and England, and I couldn’t resist the pictorial, enticing covers. I ploughed through the works of American writers like Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, S.S. Van Dine, Erle Stanley Gardner, and the English writers Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Edgar Wallace, and Sax Rohmer. Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles left a lasting impression. What could be more intriguing to a young, eager reader than strong plots, eccentric sleuths, pulsating action, heart-stopping climaxes, and matters of life-or-death?

I am a director by profession. I have staged dramas, comedies and musicals for off-Broadway troupes, national road companies, drama departments at universities, and summer stock; I’ve done Chekhov, Ibsen, Shaw, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams – but I have always had a special fondness for plays of crime and suspense. My decade long hobby of voracious reading in the genre coupled with my professional activities seemed to naturally lead to Blood on the Stage, a series of four reference books analyzing plays of crime, mystery, and detection, written and produced throughout the 20th century. A fifth book, Sherlock Holmes on the Stage, cites the many theatrical appearances of the Great Detective since his debut in 1893. Some were even written or co-written by Conan Doyle. Here are a few of the more than 50 plays featured in the book, some hardly known, but nevertheless intriguing:

“Blood On The Stage” by Amnon Kabatchnik

* Under the Clock (1893), a one-act musical satire produced at London’s Royal Court Theatre, with dialogue by Charles H.F. Brookfield (who played Holmes) and Seymour Hicks (who enacted Watson). Brookfield and Hicks impersonated the consulting detective and his sidekick as a front for throwing acid darts at some colleagues in the acting profession. Photographs of the era depict Holmes in black tights with a short striped cape over his shoulders, a stubby beard, a thick moustache, and rumpled hair. Watson sports a monocle on the right eye, a black high collar around his neck, a pirate’s cap on his head, eyebrows that are darkened toward the center and arched to touch the nose.

* In two pirated stage adaptations of the novel The Sign of Four, one by John Arthur Fraser in 1901, the other by Charles P. Rice two years later, it is not Dr. Watson but the misogynist Sherlock Holmes who ends up marrying the lovely Mary Morstan!

* Langdon McCormick’s The Burglar and the Lady (1905) pits Holmes against the English gentleman-burglar Raffles in a series of escapades, while in Arsène Lupin vs. Sherlock Holmes the consulting detective plays cat-and-mouse games with the French adventurer – and often finds himself on the losing side.

* Basil Rathbone, the quintessential Sherlock Holmes of the movies, returned to 221B Baker Street in a disastrous stage play penned by his wife, Ouida. Based on six short stories by Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes had a cast of twenty-three populating various elaborate sets scattered along three acts, each divided into three scenes. Talkative, confused and unsettled, the play opened at Broadway’s New Century Theatre on October 30, 1953, and closed after only three performances.

* Sherlock’s Last Case (1974) by Charles Marowitz is singular due the shocking conclusion of Act 1: Lured to a dark cellar by a ruse, Holmes is entrapped by none other than his ever-devoted roommate, Dr. Watson, who then clamps down the arms and legs of the detective in a dentist’s chair and proceeds to mix deadly chemicals. “You arrogant, supercilious, egocentric, smug and self-congratulatory bastard,” rasps Watson and sprays the bound sleuth with an acid-filled canister. The lights fade on the motionless body of Sherlock Holmes.

* The denouement of Tim Kelly’s 1976 adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles detours sharply from the novel by painting Beryl Stapleton, an innocent bystander of her villainous husband’s deeds in the original, as a femme fatale who instigated and planned the murders of both Sir Charles and Sir Henry in order to inherit their vast estate.

* Murder in Baker Street (2002) by Judd Woldin brings forth several innovations: Here, for the first time on stage, the action takes place not only in Holmes’ parlor, but also throughout the rest of 221B Baker Street – the kitchen, the hallway, the guest room, the cellar, and even the roof. Another first, the murder occurs at Holmes’ own premises: An industrialist seeking protection from assailants, is discovered in the guest room with his throat slit. Murder in Baker Street boasts an impossible crime puzzle. “Forrester died in a room so tightly sealed that not even a heavy fog could penetrate,” says Holmes. Both Watson and Holmes are prime suspects, but in a surprising twist, it is the kind landlady, Mrs. Hudson, who turns out to be the culprit, avenging the dismissal of her husband from his job as foreman in a wheelworks plant. Murder in Baker Street was presented by off-Broadway’s Theatre by the Blind, with Sherlock Holmes portrayed by a visually impaired actor, George Ashiotis.

“Sherlock Holmes On The Stage” by Amnon Kabatchnik

Arthur Conan Doyle believed that his true calling was writing historical novels. In fact, he attempted to liberate himself from his Frankenstein monster and described Holmes’ demise in the story The Final Problem (1893), in which the detective and his arch-enemy, Professor Moriarty, plunge to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls. Public outcry forced Doyle to resurrect his hero in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and ensuing tales. Ironically, Doyle’s historical novels are all but forgotten today while the world’s first consulting detective remains popular both in print and on the stage.

They keep coming, year in and year out, all around the globe, plays by dramatists who are devotees of the world’s foremost consulting detective. New wrinkles are added, clever plots are concocted, the gas-lit era of the original stories is usurped by modernizations — but through it all the colorful, beloved characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson still reign supreme.

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Amnon Kabatchnik has been a member of the director’s unit with the Actors Studio in New York and has been appointed professor of theatre at the State University of New York at Binghamton, Stanford University, Ohio State University, Florida State University, and Elmira College.  Kabatchnik has directed a number of Off-Broadway plays and numerous dramas, comedies, thrillers and musicals for national road companies, resident theatres, and summer stock. As an author, he has written a weekly column of book reviews and has contributed articles and reviews to The Armchair Detective, Mystery News, Clues and other journals in the field of suspense. The author of five nonfiction books, including Blood on the Stage: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery, and Detection: An Annotated Repertoire, 1900-1925 (2008), and Sherlock Holmes on the Stage: A Chronological Encyclopedia of Plays Featuring the Great Detective (2008), Kabatchnik is the recipient of a Benjamin Franklin Award (IBPA) and an Independent Publishers Book Award (IPPY). He was also a finalist for the Agatha Awards and ForeWord Book of the Year Awards. www.amnonkabatchnik.com

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

Killer Nashville’s Featured Books / Wednesday, October 23, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Killer’s Art by Marji Jungstedt
The Girl in Berlin by Elizabeth Wilson
Death on Demand by Paul Thomas
Styx & Stone by James W. Ziskin

Today’s Killer Nashville Featured Books take me around the world, but they all have two things in common: non-stop suspense and brains.

“Killer’s Art” comes to us from one of Sweden’s most popular crime fiction writers Mari Jungstedt.  The theft of a painting and the battered and naked body of an art dealer set this mystery in order.  This well-crafted police procedural is the fourth in the series and features ongoing characters police superintendent Anders Knutas and reporter Johan Berg and takes place on a Martha’s Vineyard-type island on the Baltic Sea called Gotland where we see the contrast between the glittering art world and the shadowy, savage Gehenna underground surrounding it.  As usual with Jungstedt’s books, this is a thriller that will make you care about the characters as you explore those from different economic and erudite worlds.

Class differences are once again at play in “The Girl from Berlin,” the third novel set in the 1950s from spy writer Elizabeth Wilson.  There is Communist paranoia everywhere, along with defections, and then murder.  As one would expect in a tale of espionage, characters are not what they seem.  Paranoia will haunt you as you try to make sense of who you can and cannot trust, not only on an international level, but also personal.  Be careful of Wilson’s misdirection; she’ll lead you away.  This is the third novel from Wilson set in the same 1950s timeframe involving duplicitous characters playing various major and minor roles as the series unfolds.

Duplicitous characters are not only on a national level, but within the local New Zealand police department in Paul Thomas’s twisted “Death on Demand.”  Set in New Zealand, this is the fourth police procedural featuring vigilant Detective Sergeant Tito Ihaka.  He’s not popular and his colleagues would love to see him go, especially when he starts revealing the unsavory underbelly of the department as he moves through police diplomacy with the same force of a herd of rampaging cattle. Some have called author Paul Thomas, “Elmore Leonard on acid.”  Pay special attention to the believable characters and the dialogue, both excellent and droll.

And now our tour comes back to New York in the 1960s to a mystery debut and the start of a new series.  Sexism is common in the 1960s and author James W. Ziskin uses this as his backdrop in Book One, “Styx & Stone.”  His main character Ellie Stone wants to be a reporter in a time when this was an all-boy’s club.  However, when her father’s life is threatened, she begins to exert herself to find out why.  It becomes obvious when another of her father’s contemporaries is murdered and she starts learning all she can from her father’s university colleagues only to discover not everything one hears or reads in college can be considered the truth especially when dealing with some manuscripts that seem to be worth their weight in blood.  Look for the surprise ending that really brings this 1960s murder mystery alive.

This should give you something to read for the next few days. Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is an Author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com), business owner (www.AmericanBlackguard.com), and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com) with over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). Publishers Weekly has named Stafford one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

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Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

An Interview with Author Eyre Price / Killer Nashville Success Story

Eyre Price

Today, it’s my pleasure to interview Eyre Price, author of the Crossroads thriller series and Killer Nashville Success Story. So, Eyre, when did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve absolutely always wanted to be a writer. It was a selection made easier by the fact that I’m not very good at anything else. I was never a good athlete or student. I’ve certainly never been blessed with the social skills. But I’ve always had a certain talent for telling a story.

So my earliest memories are really of being alone in my room scribbling down stories and making up characters and forty-some years later I’m still at it.

What drew you to crime fiction?

It’s funny, but I don’t think of myself as “crime fiction” writer. That doesn’t mean that I’m not grateful for the success that both Blues Highway Blues and Rock Island Rock have had on the Kindle Crime List, because I am. I just think that genres of any nature are by definition limiting.

So while there’s certainly a lot of criminal activity that goes down in the Crossroads series (and a lot more to come) I just don’t think of it as being a book about crime. There’s a significant supernatural element woven in there as well. They’re essentially the literary equivalent of “road movies” or “buddy movies.”  And there’s also a take on music, some romance, and maybe some not-so-subtle social commentary. So, all in all, I just think there’s a lot more going on between the covers than just crime.  And I think that’s true of most books.

More than that, I just don’t think of Daniel Erickson, the main character in the series, as being a criminal.  He’s really just an everyman who has pushed too far. As he likes to say “I’m tired of being pushed around, now I’m a push back man.”

So the intention isn’t necessarily criminal, but I suppose the results are. Still, I think that’s something that many people can understand, if not sympathize with. I think there are a lot of criminals out there just smoldering beneath the social fronts we put on for one another.

You mentioned the limitations of genre, so I’m assuming you’ve had a wide variety of literary influences. Can you name a few for us?

Geoffrey Household’s Rogue Male was the first book that really opened my eyes to what a writer could do to a reader.

Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath had a profound effect on me for a number of reasons.  Not only is it arguably the greatest novel of the Twentieth Century (I can’t imagine what its competition would be), but it achieves that masterful effect by breaking almost every one of the “rules” that too many “writing teachers/experts/coaches” want to slap on writing today.

What comes first to mind is a chapter in which a pair of truckers spring to buy candy sticks for the Joad kids.  By today’s standards, I think many critics would say the scene is too emotional and doesn’t advance the plot.  But it’s an incredibly touching chapter and once you’ve read it, it’s with you forever.  So I love the fact that the greatest novel of the twentieth century maybe couldn’t be published today and certainly would suffer some withering reviews.

Last but not least, Robert Parker’s Spenser books were blueprints for a lot of what I’m writing today. I love Parker’s simple and confident style.

But unlike Household, Steinbeck, or Parker, I grew up as a part of a generation for whom books weren’t the main cultural influence.  So looking beyond the strictly “literary” influences:  Syndney Pollack’s The Three Days of the Condor was (and is) extraordinarily important to me as a storyteller. And Stephen J. Cannell’s The Rockford Files was the strongest artistic influence for me.  Everything I write (whether I want it to or not) has Rockford at its heart.

The Rockford reference is interesting, because, while Rockford got drawn into dangerous situations every week, I always felt like he would have preferred to avoid them if he could. You’re not a violent man at all, and although your writing is very literary, there’s a lot of violence in your books. How do you manage to blend the often violent events with the deeper themes you explore in your series?

I’m not a violent man, but I recognize that I’ve been fortunate to live a very lucky life. The people I write about aren’t necessarily violent people, but people who find themselves in violent circumstances. And I think there are a lot of people who live quiet, comfortable, and peaceful lives, but still recognize that if push ever came to shove they’d come out swinging.

Also, while I’ve certainly gotten my share of criticism for the level of violence in my books, I’ve never been intentionally exploitive. Still, at the same time I don’t want my readers to get off easy either.  Violence is a horrible thing—arguably, a necessity sometimes—but always a horrible thing. I want my readers to feel that. In writing a violent scene, I’ve failed if it becomes so gratuitous that the reader drops out, but I’ve failed just as badly if my readers are comfortable with it. I think a reader should come away from the page with the same sort of reaction they’d have if they’d witnessed the act in real life.

From reading the Crossroads series, I’d say you succeed at that. What else do you hope readers take away from your books?

I had a gentleman from the UK write me to tell me that he’d been a life-long blues fan who’d always wanted to visit the Delta and Blues Highway Blues was his tipping point.  He read my book and then booked a vacation to the Delta. So that experience already fulfills any expectations I had for readers’ experiences.

Beyond that, I write stories that I hope are going to entertain people. I think the Crossroad series is an exciting way to spend a summer day (or night) and I’m good with that. At the same time, if people come away from the books with a better of understanding and appreciation for the forgotten men and women who laid the foundations for the music that is popular today, that’s make me smile too.

Your books explore a lot of moral dilemmas and the consequences of one’s choices, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that you were an attorney before you were a professional writer. What made you decide to pursue writing as a career and give up the legal profession?

I’m fortunate enough to have a wonderful wife who made it possible for me to give up the legal profession to stay at home with my son. Best decision of my life.

That being said, taking care of our son (including home school) has really become my career. My writing day doesn’t start until my day with him is done (usually 9:00 or 10:00pm) and it goes on through the night (usually 3:00 or 4:00 am). So there are times when I envy those who have writing as their sole pursuit, but for the time being I wouldn’t change anything about my day job.  Or my moonlighting position.

How long did you work at it before you came up with what you felt was a publishable work?

I’ve been submitting manuscripts (and collecting rejection slips) for probably twenty five years.

The twist for me is that when I wasn’t published, I thought everything I’d written was worthy of publication and now that I’ve crossed the publication threshold I really worry about whether each and every new project is good enough to meet those standards.

“Rock Island Rock” by Eyre Price

Once you had a manuscript you thought was publishable, how long did you try to find an agent and/or publisher before you finally found one?

I’ve had a number of agents over the course of my long road to publication. The experiences taught me that getting/having an agent is an aspect of the business that is too often misunderstood. When I was first looking I just wanted an agent. I wasn’t as particular as I should have been and it resulted in a lot of bad relationships that cost me time and opportunities, ultimately setting me back more years than I want to think about.

A writer and an agent have to have a working relationship in order for the partnership to be beneficial. So my best advice to anyone looking for an agent is to be patient and wait for the “right” one.

And now you’re a full-time author just turning in your third book. How does that feel? Is it everything you’d hoped for?

It’s one of those “be careful what you wish for scenarios.” Publication is certainly the fulfillment of a life-long dream and I wouldn’t change a thing about the experience–but it’s a very demanding experience.

How did Killer Nashville help you launch your career? (You knew I was getting to that eventually!) You entered the Claymore, had pitches with several agents, and met Jill at dinner, so maybe touch on all of those, or whatever you feel is important.

First and foremost, I will say that Killer Nashville was absolutely the launching pad of my career and I cannot imagine the circumstances that would have led to me being a published author today if it had not been for my involvement with KN. But what Killer Nashville taught me, more than anything else, was to concentrate on the work and keep moving forward.

I did enter the Claymore…and was a runner-up.

I had pitches with several agents and publishers…all of whom passed on me.

You did set up a dinner with Jill…and she decided to stay at the bar with friends instead.  (I ended up pitching Jill at one of those five minute speed sessions while on my knees because I had Dylan sit in the chair.)

I went to that dinner and met Sunny Frazier of Oaktree Press instead. She assured me my future was great…and then told me in an e-mail that she thought my writing “would be stronger.”

On my way to KN two years ago, my agent and I thought we had a deal in the bag with one of the Big Six…that completely fell apart that following week.

So there were a lot of disappointments there too, but this is a business of disappointments. The Killer Nashville community was so supportive, that it was easier to keep writing and just keep moving forward.  And that is the only true secret to success in writing:  just keep writing.

What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Here’s the secret to writing success:

1.)  Write. Every day. Whether you want to or not. Write.

2.)  Set up a social media platform/internet presence:  web site, Facebook, Twitter, blog…

3.)  Go to Killer Nashville. Be social. Be nice. Make friends. Be good to your friends.

4.)  Write.

5.)  Research the industry. Understand what it is and how its changing.

6.)  Write.

7.)  Write some more.

8.)  Cultivate your friendships and make contacts.

9.)  Do everything you can to help those around you.

10.)  No matter what happens…just keep writing.

How can Killer Nashville help aspiring and published writers?

Killer Nashville provides a unique opportunity for aspiring writers. First, there’s an opportunity to meet other aspiring writers. Lots of people tend to dismiss or overlook writers who don’t have a contract in place, but that’s a huge mistake. There’s something that can be learned from everyone. (And keep in mind that everyone was an aspiring writer at the beginning of their career.) There’s also an unparalleled opportunity to meet agents and publishers.

Published writers find an opportunity to meet other writers (including aspiring writers). There also an incredibly receptive audience there for promoting projects and really significant press coverage—can you say, Library Police—that can be instrumental in getting your name out there.

All in all, I really don’t believe there is a better conference out there for writers who are approaching literary conferences as a means of advancing their careers in real and practical ways.

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Eyre Price was raised in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Price was an attorney for more than fifteen years before leaving the practice of law to become a stay-at-home dad. An avid fan of all genres of American music, his Crossroads thrillers, Blues Highway Blues and Rock Island Rock, have received critical acclaim. Price has been featured in Writers Digest and was a 2009 finalist for Killer Nashville’s Claymore Award. See more of Eyre Price at http://www.eyreprice.net/

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

Begin With The Spirit / Author Ken Kuhlken

Author Ken Kuhlken

When I moved back to my hometown of San Diego from Chico, California, I left behind a tenured professorship. My kids lived with me and cost plenty. So I started teaching all around.

One semester, I was teaching nine classes at four colleges, putting in about ninety hours a week, which left me too weary to write, or so I thought.

Also, my son Cody and I attended Tae Kwon Do classes twice a week. And I was managing Cody’s Little League team, hoping he might become a pitcher instead of a ninja.

Probably because I didn’t sleep enough, my emotions had shut down. I couldn’t even feel dread or anger while driving the freeways. Something had to change. My kids didn’t deserve a catatonic dad.

One late afternoon as I sat on the grass at the University of San Diego, overlooking the harbor and wondering how I could repair my emotions, I mumbled, “Okay, where should I start?”

Then I remembered advice Master Jeong, our Tae Kwon Do instructor, often gave. He told us, “Everything begins with the spirit. From the spirit come the thoughts. From the thoughts come the actions. From the actions come the habits. From the habits comes the character. And from the character comes the destiny.”

Stupefied by stress as I was, I sat a while wondering where on that continuum I should start trouble-shooting, until the obvious made itself clear.

Start with the spirit.

So, I thought, what could best set my spirit on the right path?

Here’s the message that came, loud and clear: “Okay, you’re a writer. But for months you haven’t been writing, which has grieved your spirit into a coma. Sure, teaching nine classes and raising kids is hard, but it’s not going to kill you. What will kill you is not writing.”

“The Loud Adios” by Ken Kuhlken

The next morning, I got up at 5 a.m. instead of 5:30, which allowed me to write for a half hour. Not much, but enough to give me the hope that comes when our lives feel in motion toward a better place. And hope is the antidote to despair.

The stuff I wrote during those half-hour sessions became crucial parts of my novel The Loud Adios. About a month after the semester ended, I sent the manuscript to a national contest.

I won.

Which meant that after too many discouraging years, I would see a new novel of mine on bookstore shelves, which can be an inspiring sight.

And between the advance and prize money, I earned enough to allow for a lighter teaching load the next two semesters, which gave me time to write without rising before dawn. And when the novel came out, the editor of a magazine that paid remarkably well called and asked if I could write features for them.

So instead of doing time as a freeway flying college instructor who squeezed in a few writing hours, I became a writer who taught only as much as he wanted to, and only because he enjoyed the work.

Which is what I had always wanted to be.

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Ken Kuhlken’s stories have appeared in Esquire and dozens of other magazines and anthologies, been honorably mentioned in Best American Short Stories, and earned a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He has been a frequent contributor and a columnist for the San Diego Reader. With Alan Russell, in Road Kill and No Cats, No Chocolate, he has chronicled the madness of book tours. His novels are Midheaven, a finalist for the Ernest Hemingway Award for best first novel, The Loud Adios (Private Eye Writers of America Best First Novel, 1989), The Venus Deal, The Angel Gang, The Do-Re-Mi (a finalist for the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel), The Vagabond Virgins, and The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles, (San Diego Book Awards Best Mystery of 2010). In Writing and the Spirit, he offers a wealth of advice to writers and everyone looking for inspiration. He is now teaching at Perelandra College, http://www.perelandra.edu. He resides on the web at www.kenkuhlken.net.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

Killer Nashville’s Featured Book / Friday, October 4, 2013 / “Roots: The Saga of an American Family” by Alex Haley / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

As abhorrent as I have always viewed slavery, this book actually made me feel it.

Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley

“Roots” by Alex Haley

Like most of Americans in the 1970s, I was riveted to the mini-series “Roots.”  Also probably like most Americans, I had never read the book even though “Roots” by Alex Haley had won the Pulitzer Prize.  That changed last night.

I finished “Roots,” all 688 pages in my hardcover version, though some editions go over 899.  I was blown away.  Comparing my memories of the mini-series (of which, frankly, there have never been any better unless it was arguably “The Thornbirds” or “Winds of War”), the filmed version (which had 37 Emmy Award nominations – winning nine – among others) does little justice to the novel itself.  Translated:  the book is better.  That should tell you how good the book is.

Getting the controversy aside:  There were charges and settlements of plagiarism along with accusations of sloppy and untraceable research against Haley following publication.  I’m including this not as a muckraker, but – if I don’t – someone will post this background in the comments section for me as if the rest of us didn’t know and the questionable accusations unto themselves could be accepted as fact.  Long story short, it may have been a research assistant’s error without proper attribution (who knows).  Such things have happened with no knowledge of the writer.  This matter was settled out of court, which means someone made a deal and we’re not really sure what that deal was.  I take plagiarism and false claims seriously – as do most – which is why most people now consider this book to be a book of fiction versus a biography or nonfiction.  I think it an unfortunate black eye.

After reading “Roots,” there were sections I would like to have had more of.  I would like to have known what happened to certain characters (black and white) after the narrative moved beyond them.  As I read (and this was before I knew of the legal controversies), I wondered that if this information was taken from census polls and public records, why didn’t Haley include what happened to certain individuals after the narrative left them?  For the whites, those records would continue to show where they had lived.  For the blacks, it would continue to show who owned them or where they were after their freedom.  I would have even been happy with the “oh, by the ways” at the end of the book in a wrap-up section if Haley felt that including what happened to these characters in the narrative was disruptive.  Didn’t Haley want to know what eventually happened to Kunta Kinte?  Last I read of him, he was running after a wagon.  What happened to these individuals up to their deaths would be just as easy to discover as what was included about them in their lives.  After noting the controversy, it made me wonder – as did others – about the validity of the research.  That being the case, we have to look at this (unfortunately like many biographies of today) as a work of fiction.

Let’s make this Elephant-in-the-Living-Room other point over genealogy, as well, and the reason that most of us who aren’t members of the Whatever Whatevers of Some Revolution find those people who view ancestry research as a given fact rather amusing:  Not every child is who their mothers say their fathers are.  I personally take birth certificates with a grain of salt.  Give me blood tests and now DNA, of which you saw little in the 1800 and 1700’s. Nothing to do with genealogy could be anything more than speculative to begin with.  ‘Nough said.

So, looking at “Roots” by Alex Haley as a work of fiction…

This book was incredible.  It completely opened my eyes on these savage blacks that Europeans rescued from the forests of Africa to bring out of the jungles and try to civilize (isn’t that the misconception).  Frankly, I knew of slaves, but never really thought about slaves.  Or examined slavery in my own heart or compared it to something in my own experience.  I imagine most don’t, including those who say they really do.  There is nothing in my life to compare it to.  What this book showed me and made me empathize with was a proud and religious people who were taken (as was custom in that part of the world, not just by Europeans, but by other black African tribes and nations, as well) from their homes and families and transported cold-heartedly (in the case of European history) to an unknown world where their pasts, traditions, and sense of who they were was completely denied and suppressed.  It showed me a representative story of representative characters who sought nothing more than to just have the choice to walk across a street if they wanted to without having to have a written pass from the massa in order to do it.  It showed me the dignity of a previously proud and moral character forced to live in squalor and filth because those who owned him (not putting it in italics because at the time they did own him, just as they might have owned a horse or chicken) viewed him as something less than human.  I read “Roots.”  I was engrossed in “Roots.”  I went to sleep thinking about “Roots.”  It is easy to say one is against slavery – which I and most are – but it is another to feel the vileness of it, the indignity of it, the shame of it.  I lost sleep over it.  Frankly, the treatment of these people made me sick.

To my knowledge, none of my ancestors owned slaves.  As far as I know, we were the po’ white crackers the slaves made fun of in the book.  But it made me wonder.  What is back there in my past?  Though I know the skeptic in me will always view my family tree as a work of fiction, it might be worth the contemplation.  As abhorrent as I have always viewed slavery, this book actually made me feel it.  What else is back there that may shake me to the core?

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is a husband, father, author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com), business owner (www.AmericanBlackguard.com), and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com) with over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). Publishers Weekly has named Stafford one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

There’s A Story Everywhere You Look / Writer Chloe Winston

Chloe Winston

“I’ll never get published.”

Rubbish! (And I’m not even mentioning computer-generated books.) Best-selling novelist Carolyn Hart lives in Oklahoma. In rural Oklahoma. She just started writing, submitting, and getting published and winning national awards, even “Malice Domestic” this year, because of her good stories, literate writing, and a strong sense of setting. Her books have graced “bestseller” lists for years – I’d say “eons,” but she wouldn’t like that term.

We can copy her dedication to the craft. We can copy the “time” dedicated to good writing, and the successful selling of – maybe not novels to start with – maybe with a newspaper column, maybe by writing book reviews for the local newspaper, maybe by going to conferences such as Killer Nashville to learn about the latest “stuff” in the publishing world, maybe by organizing our time to let our natural talent rise to the surface on our computers.

Other outlets include magazines which focus on nostalgia, health, child rearing, controversial topics (be a little careful there; I get into a bit of trouble with my blog Shastawatch), memoir, as well as a pocketful of miracles of other outlets.

If you’re a “newbie,” you can find that information in yearly-produced writer’s market books; in monthly writing magazines on every newsstand worthy of its name; in bookstores (that are still in existence!) that include a section on every aspect of writing known to man – except chiseling on a rock in the Painted Desert in the US southwest.

Once I was invited to take a drive up to the town of Three Rivers in California. The first thing I saw when we entered the small town was a candy store. As a candy fiend, I couldn’t resist. And what candy! Worthy of an article for some magazine. So, I took a couple of pictures, asked a few questions of the owner who was delighted to answer them, and shipped the story (before computers, of course) to a magazine that specialized in articles about candy. It sold. And paid. It’s plastered along with other articles over the years in that candy store’s display case.

Do I use that as an example of “being published” when other outlets ask about one’s writing “history?” You bet. It just dawns on me that the candy store didn’t “comp” me a box of the delicious candy. Hmm.

But it proves my point. There’s a story everywhere you look. Stories about animals, stories about being pregnant; stories about a savage illness; cheerful stories about successful people in our communities; stories about things “For the Soul”; stories about surviving computers when you’ve just learned to use a typewriter; stories about how to shop successfully for a new car; the list goes on.

And from short stories and longer articles can come the discipline and the realized dream you’ve had about writing that Great American Novel. So, rubbish to negative thinking! Just Write!

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Chloe Winston‘s background is in banking, newspaper section editor (in old days), teaching, school administration, freelance travel writer Los Angeles Times etc., destination lecturer NCL ships.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

2014 Guests of Honor Announced

Killer Nashville is please to announce bestselling authors Lisa Jackson and William Kent Krueger as the 2014 Guests of Honor for our 9th annual writers’ conference.

Bestselling author Lisa Jackson

Lisa Jackson is neck deep in murder, her books appear on The New York Times, USA Today, and  Publishers Weekly national bestseller lists. As those who know her can attest, this funny, smart woman who enjoys making the hair stand up on the back of her readers’ necks (read more)…

Bestselling author William Kent Krueger

William Kent Krueger briefly attended Stanford University – before being kicked out for radical activities. After that, he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at free-lance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota. He currently makes his living as a full-time author (read more)…

To register for the 2014 Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference or for more information, go to http://www.killernashville.com.

Killer Nashville’s Featured Book / Friday, September 27, 2013 / “SNAFU” by Glen C. Allison / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Discover why I’m a new fan of Glen C. Allison’s messed-up protagonist in SNAFU.

SNAFU by Glen C. Allison

“SNAFU” by Glen C. Allison

For years I have been a friend of Glen C. Allison; now, I’m a fan.

Glen has created an incredible series with New Orleans bodyguard Al Forte, a former Navy SEAL.  The action continues in SNAFU, the third installment in the series.

I’m a little mousey, mousey, mousey.

How can you not like a man who rescues children?  In this case, Forte is asked to find the child of the man who murdered his wife and what he finds is a plot so thick that it goes all the way back to tying the hands of the governor of Louisiana.

Everyone loves New Orleans – ghost stories, old history, gothic architecture, unusual people, water, darkness, smoky rooms – and “Forte” creates a sense of this place.  A few times I felt smothered and thought I might need to step outside on the back porch to get some fresh air.

Following the first two novels in the series, SNAFU delves deeper into Forte’s troubled past and bruised psyche.  Forte is messed up, but he tries hard to make it right.  He’s a hero, but I think there is more.  Forte is not cowardly, but jumps into situations, even to the point of making me think he is sometimes on a suicide mission, which – considering his past – could very well be the case.  But he doesn’t act alone.  Forte works with a great team.  I love the characters.  The cast is there because what they are doing is important to them, not because they are working a job or filling an author’s function.  What they are hoping to achieve is worth dying for.

I’m a little mousey, mousey, mousey.
Running through the housey, housey, housey.

SNAFU is anything but predictable including a most unexpected ending; yet, there was no other way to end it.  Some of it reminds me of a Western with the troubled hero riding off into the sunset at the end.  Only, in this case, the man has yellow eyes.  No doubt, he’ll be back.

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is a husband, father, author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com), business owner (www.AmericanBlackguard.com), and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com) with over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). Publishers Weekly has named Stafford one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

Killer Nashville’s Featured Book / Thursday, September 26, 2013 / “A Killing At Cotton Hill” by Terry Shames / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

A retired chief of police is pulled into the investigation of an old friend in a Texas small town in A Killing at Cotton Hill, a debut novel you won’t want to miss.

A Killing At Cotton Hill by Terry Shames

“A Killing At Cotton Hill” by Terry Shames

This review for A Killing at Cotton Hill by Terry Shames has a special meaning to me: the manuscript was a finalist for 2010’s Killer Nashville’s Claymore Award (www.claymoreaward.com).  In Terry’s words:  “I got a two-book contract for my Texas mystery series. BOTH of them were finalists for the Claymore Award. The first, The Art of Murder (now A Killing At Cotton Hill), was a finalist two years ago. Shortly after the announcement I got an agent I really wanted.”  Killer Nashville (www.killernashville.com) does get results and here is the proof.

Samuel Craddock is the former chief of police in the small town of Jarrett Creek, Texas where the current chief of police doubles as the town drunk.  When a murder is committed, it is not the real chief of police who is contacted to solve the crime, but Craddock.  This launches a whole new mystery series involving this tough and irascible, but all heart ex-cop.

This is a mystery in the traditional sense.  It is a small town, yet there are numerous unforgettable characters who would have every reason to kill the woman in question, an old friend of Craddock’s.  In solving the crime, Craddock exposes the very real characters of Jarrett Creek, which serves as a great literary device for revealing the setting.  Interestingly enough, this is a personal novel for Shames; the character of Samuel Craddock is based loosely upon her maternal grandfather who served the town he lived in off-the-books long after his term of mayor had ended.

Out of hundreds of manuscripts at the 2010 Claymore Awards, this manuscript rose to the top.  And out of all the books on your shelves, this will be one of your favorites.

I am so proud of Terry Shames and what is yet to come.  This is a great time to discover a new author.  One of the backstories I love about this manuscript is that Terry wrote it while floating around on her catamaran.  Now that’s the life.  Forget Key West and the five-toed cats.

I look forward to many other books from Terry Shames and Seventh Street Books.  Terry is a success story, but more than that, she’s a great storyteller and a wonderful lady.  Her next book, The Last Death of Jack Harbin, is scheduled to be released January 2014.  I can hardly wait.

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is a husband, father, author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com), business owner (www.AmericanBlackguard.com), and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com) with over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). Publishers Weekly has named Stafford one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

Creating and Managing a Supporting Cast in a Series / Author Frankie Y. Bailey

Author Frankie Y. Bailey

Providing a protagonist of a crime fiction series with a supporting cast is a task that should be approached with both caution and malice aforethought.  Caution because once a character is introduced as a part of the protagonist’s life, he or she is hard to get rid of. Readers notice when a parent, sibling, best friend, neighbor, boss, or lover drop from sight, never to be mentioned again. In soap operas, characters cluttering up the canvas are sent off to boarding school, on an extended business trip, or placed in a coma. Then they can be brought back if and when they are needed. The logistics of a crime fiction series are trickier. Even introducing a character and having him/her spend significant time with the protagonist can set up reader expectations – especially if the protagonist and this character are together in the final scene of the book. In Death’s Favorite Child, the first book in my Lizzie Stuart series, Lizzie and John Quinn, the Philadelphia homicide detective she meets in Cornwall (England), share a final scene. Readers asked me what was going to happen next with Lizzie and Quinn. Clearly Quinn worked well as both antagonist and ally, but I had to figure out what would happen next.

But I had thought about the “presence” in the series of Lizzie’s absent mother, Becca. That was malice aforethought.  I love film noir femme fatales. I knew that if Becca ever put in an appearance, she would be one.  I had the idea of a series arc in which Lizzie sets out on a “hero’s journey” when her grandmother dies.  I was able to build toward Lizzie’s decision to look for her mother. She goes in search of Becca in You Should Have Died on Monday. In that book, Lizzie also connects again with her best friend, Tess, who lives in Chicago. Tess, a travel writer, is first introduced when she and Lizzie vacation in Cornwall. Tess does not appear again until this fourth book because she – conveniently — lives in another city and because the relationship between the two women was strained by the events in Cornwall.

The Red Queen Dies, by Frankie Y. Bailey

The lessons I learned in my first series were invaluable when I set out to create a second. Hannah McCabe debuts in The Red Queen Dies. She is a police detective in a fictional, near-future Albany, New York. Unlike Lizzie, McCabe comes from a “nuclear, two-parent household”.  I spent some time thinking about McCabe’s parents because McCabe must be a protagonist who can understand and navigate her world.  McCabe reflects the changing demographics of the 21^st century; she is biracial (black mother/ white father). McCabe’s mother (a famous poet) is dead. Her father (an award-winning journalist/newspaper editor) has retired and is adjusting to post-employment.  McCabe’s older brother, a scientist, has returned to Albany to take a position at UAlbany. McCabe, herself, majored in Psychology and Criminal Justice as an undergrad at UAlbany. With this background, readers will not be at all surprised by McCabe’s references to literature, social science, pop culture, and world events.

Even though she is in her 30s, McCabe lives at home with her father. This is a part of the series backstory.  McCabe was concerned about her father’s drinking after her mother died, and she wants to keep an eye on him after his heart surgery. But, as she says, they are company for each other. They respect each other’s privacy and give each other space. From the standpoint of the series, this living arrangement has another major benefit – McCabe has her own ready source of information about Albany, past and present.  Her father knows the city and the people, and he has all of the issues of the newspaper he edited at his fingertips. (Remember this is the near future. Documents are even easier to archive on a portable device and search as needed).

Because this is a police procedural series, I have an ensemble cast that includes the head of the forensics unit, the medical examiner, and the other cops in the station house (particularly McCabe’s boss, Lt. Dole; Mike Baxter, McCabe’s rookie partner; and another detective team,  Sean Pettigrew and Walter Yin). In the background are the media and the politicians in Albany and at the national level who play minor on-stage roles but who exercise influence. A couple of characters who were supposed to have been one-time only are insisting on reappearing because of the series arc. If everything goes as it should, no one will have to be put into a coma. So far they’re all playing their part and pulling their weight.

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Frankie Y. Bailey is an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice, UAlbany (SUNY). She has received nominations for Edgar, Macavity, and Anthony awards for her non-fiction works. She is the author of a mystery series featuring Southern crime historian Lizzie Stuart. Her near-future police procedural series (set in Albany, New York and featuring Detective Hannah McCabe) debuts with The Red Queen Dies (Minotaur Books, September 2013). Bailey is a past executive vice president of Mystery Writers of America and the immediate past president of Sisters in Crime. She is also a member of Romance Writers of America. www.frankieybailey.com

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

When Your Novel and Plausibility Part Ways / Writer Julie Bates

Writer Julie Bates

What time is it-really?
Such was the thought running through my mind after having my brain jogged from its immersion in a friend’s manuscript. I had settled into the novel’s antebellum atmosphere and slowly sunk into the sultry rhythm of the antebellum south until I got to the airport. Airport? There weren’t any airports in the 19^th century –were there?  After a friendly discussion, my friend confessed she had forgotten what time period she was in. Fortunately, it was a manuscript and not published and we chuckled over it.  But unless your novel is centered on time travel, you need to make sure you know what time period your book inhabits.  Readers don’t like being deceived.  That doesn’t mean I am anti steam punk or alternate reality. But if you are going to change history in a significant way, such as changing who won WWII or another event, make sure the reader knows at the beginning what the new reality is.  Otherwise he or she is going to be really confused as to why the official language of the United States is now German.

Doesn’t everyone make mistakes?
Well, yes. It comes from being human, but if you are going to be serious about publishing something readable you need to get over it.  You are not perfect and neither is your editor, but work on it and you can get pretty darn close.  I’m not referring to grammar, which is important as well, but those details that reveal where the novel is set, whether in location,  world events, or the mindset of the average person.  In today’s electronic age, anything can be researched pretty thoroughly. Get it right and the reader is lost in the world of your creation. Get it wrong and your suspense novel becomes an unexpected comedy of errors. Anne Perry is a master of getting the details right. Her novels featuring Victorian detectives draw you in with rich details that gradually enmesh you into the later part of the 19^th century.

How do you avoid fatal flaws?
Get read.  Have your friends read your work in progress, even better have your enemies read it too. They will be sure to point out every flaw. As you take in both the good and bad, decide what’s important. If you cannot write the book without changing history then you need to decide what kind of book you are really writing.  Historical mysteries can be as richly satisfying as cheesecake. Those that rewrite history to make it more palatable to the modern world cause heartburn.  History is rife with brutal inequities, suffering, miscarriages of justice and times when good didn’t always win.  Rewriting it denies the truth of what those who lived during that time overcame.  Remarkable people come out of difficult times.

Famous Flubs
While perfection is desired it doesn’t always happen even among the literary elite.  Even well-known works contain errors.

• William Shakespeare made his share of errors. In A Winter’s Tale, he gave Bohemia a coastline which earned him ridicule from his contemporaries. In Julius Caesar, Brutus refers to a clock tolling the hour, which is interesting considering tolling clocks didn’t exist in 44 AD.
• Sherlock Holmes, that dictator of detail, should have realized that Dr. Watson’s wartime injury migrated from his shoulder to his leg in the time lapse between A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four.
• Undoubtedly one of the funniest mistakes was in a printing of the Bible made in 1631. The word “not” was left off of Exodus 20, verse 14, leaving the reader with the impression that the 7th commandment was, “Thou shalt commit adultery.”

Why does this matter anyway?
Why do I obsess about keeping literary reality consistent? Because it is those details that make the story’s world believable.  When a writer goofs (and I have) it is equal parts aggravating and distracting to the reader. Writers have to show that they care enough to research, rewrite, take the criticism and respond to it in a professional manner. When a book is purchased, someone has made an investment of their time and money.  The best writers develop loyal fans that care about the characters and want to know what happens next. The characters become almost like family and a writer is blessed to have such followers. But this is a relationship that develops. Remember dear writer, Hell indeed hath no fury like a reader scorned.

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Julie Bates has worked in the computer industry, an academic library and in the public school system in the course of her life.  She has always written.  Currently a stringer for the Asheboro Courier Tribune, she also writes freelance articles. Previous publications include Spin Off and Asheboro Magazine.  She recently completed her first novel, Cry of the Innocent, and is seeking a publisher. Her website is http://juliebates.weebly.com. She can also be found on linkedin.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

Killer Nashville’s Featured Book / Wednesday, September 18, 2013 / “Theodore Boone: The Accused” by John Grisham / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

A young wannabe lawyer finds himself on the wrong side of the law in “Theodore Boone: The Accused” by John Grisham. Read my review.

Theodore Boone: The Accused by John Grisham

“Theodore Boone: The Accused” by John Grisham

I grew up reading John Grisham books.  Now my son has the same opportunity.  We read this one together.

Theodore Boone is the son of two attorneys.  He wants to be an attorney when he grows up.  And, though he is still a kid, he is already practicing law amongst his friends and even representing llamas in court.  In this third installment of this Young Adult series, John Grisham trumps Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.  My son and I have read the first three books and we can’t wait to read the fourth.  My son can’t get enough of it and neither can the other kids at his school.  The library can’t keep the several copies there in stock.

In “Theodore Boone: The Accused,” young Boone finds himself on the wrong side of the law.  He gets to feel what it is like to be suspected by the police and, since they are convinced that he has committed the crime, it is up to him and his disbarred Bob Dylan-humming uncle to clear Theodore’s name before it is too late.

What I love first about the series is that you can’t put it down.  Secondarily, it teaches legal process to kids in a truthful and fair way.  By fair, in this installment, the police who are normally the good guys are characterized as two jerks, my son’s opinion.  It’s a good lesson that just because the newspapers say someone is arrested does not mean that they are guilty and sometimes detectives want credit for wrapping up a case greater than they want delayed justice.  Just because someone is in uniform doesn’t make them the good guy.  (My son and I kept waiting for the detectives to officially apologize for falsely maligning Theodore, but it never came.  That’s when my son decided they were jerks.)

John Grisham has made a career out of the legal mystery.  In fact, some say he created the genre.  I believe, when we are long gone, that what Grisham will be remembered for is Theodore Boone and creating a whole new generation of avid readers.  I’ve seen it in my son.  I’ve seen it in the other kids at my son’s school.  I’ve seen it in myself.  These books are hot and, like a Disney film, they transcend numerous generations.  My opinion?  Theodore Boone is Grisham’s best.

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is a husband, father, author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com), business owner (www.AmericanBlackguard.com), and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com) with over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). Publishers Weekly has named Stafford one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

Killer Nashville’s Featured Book / Monday, September 16, 2013 / “Until She Comes Home” by Lori Roy / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

A murder and disappearance destroy the essence of a once-respectable neighborhood in “Until She Comes Home” by Lori Roy.

Click to buy “Until She Comes Home” by Lori Roy from Amazon

Until She Comes Home by Lori Roy

Winning an Edgar for your first novel is a hard setup for your second one.  It better be good.  Lori Roy, author of her Edgar Award-winning debut novel, Bent Road, does not disappoint.  This is a spellbinding suspense novel in which a pair of seemingly unrelated murders crumbles the façade of a once respectable Detroit neighborhood.

This is a community that lives for family, church, and work.  But – like all of America in 1958 – their world is changing.  A black woman is murdered.  A white woman disappears.  Their neighborhood is falling apart.

The characters in this story are incredibly layered with special attention focused on the characters of a longsuffering pregnant wife, a social butterfly, and a woman who wishes to hide her pain behind humor.  As the characters are revealed following the murder and disappearance, jolting elements of their lives will be exposed as their individual façades also come crashing down.

The writing is well-conceived and poetic.  As the characters race to find the truth regarding the woman who has disappeared, readers will be second-guessing just like the neighbors all the way to the very end.  However, there is no end.  Even after you stop reading, the story and the theme of lives forever altered by events will stay with you.  You’ll be reflecting on it for days.

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is a husband, father, author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com), business owner (www.AmericanBlackguard.com), and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com) with over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). Publishers Weekly has named Stafford one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

Location, Location, Location: Should You Go? / Author Alana White

Alana White

If the book you are writing is set in your hometown, details and interesting locations are relatively close to hand: a few days will go a long way in establishing tone, mood, and finding intriguing, unusual places for scenes to happen.  But what if your protagonist lives in another city, another state, or even another country?  My debut historical mystery, The Sign of the Weeping Virgin, is set in mid fifteenth-century Florence at the height of the Italian Renaissance.  Untold numbers of nonfiction books have been published about this vibrant time in history and, believe me, I have scoured many of them while researching the poets, painters, and politicians who illuminated this era and made it famous.

But I have also visited Florence several times; with paper maps and notes in hand I have walked the town’s cobbled streets and thin, dark alleys to the point of exhaustion.  Did I have to go?  No.  Am I glad I did?  Yes!  Why?  Florence remains much the same today as it did five hundred years ago; many of the same palazzos are there and are inhabited by descendants of illustrious renaissance families.  Florence is a popular tourist destination: people from all over the world know about how long it takes to walk from the Ponte Vecchio to Florence Cathedral.  Whether your book is set in London or Wetumpka, Alabama, get things wrong, and readers will know.  They will throw your book against the wall and say evil things about it.

These are serious considerations, of course.  But what about the magic that happens when we walk in our characters’ footsteps, feel the atmosphere surrounding them and breathe the air they breathe?  What about serendipity?  (More about this in a moment.)

If you go:

Go Armed—Have a general idea of how and where your chapters and scenes play out.  Write a brief synopsis for each chapter and take these pages with you.  The more you know about your story in advance, the more focused you will be.  At the same time, stay open to possibility.

Whether small town or big city, visit museums and local bookstores.  Is there a genealogy society nearby?  The local library—no matter how small—will have a genealogy room or shelf.  Check it out.  Ideas live there.  (Not to mention old maps, diaries, letters and journals!)  Gather ideas.

Find special exhibits.

Collect brochures and pamphlets from churches, government buildings, homes open to the public, castles, and palaces.  Collect floor plans.

Take photos and videos, even when you are one hundred percent certain you will remember the area.  You won’t.

Pack mailers and address labels.  Mail home all the terrific—and heavy!—books and other research treasures you have collected along the way.

Engage with people.  People love talking about their city, their town, their village, their street.  Listen to gossip.

“Sign Of The Weeping Virgin” by Alana White

Expect magic.  When I was in Florence last time I was doing research for the next book in the Guid’Antonio Vespucci series (my work in progress).  I was looking for a place where my killer might have lived.  Florence is a small city divided into four quarters and sixteen districts: in my research, I had already come across the Viper district.  Viper!  Wow, terrific!  I wanted to place my evil antagonist there.  But…would using that name tip the reader to my killer’s identify?  Probably.  So, scratch that.

But then in Florence one afternoon while wandering around aimless, I turned into a narrow byway in the Viper district that led into a tiny piazza.  I went into the church there, which as it turns out is the oldest church in Florence (which is saying a lot).  Upon leaving the church, back in the piazza, I happened to glance up and from an old inscription carved into a plaque, I discovered I was in Piazza Limbo.  Here during the medieval ages there was a children’s graveyard.  A chill ran over my body.  Given the particulars of my plot in progress, I could not turn this location, these place names, down.  Now, somehow, some way, my villain will live in Piazza Limbo in the Viper district of Florence.

This is the kind of magic that happens when you are on location: this could not have happened if I had been home in Nashville.  So, if you go, wherever you go, go prepared, wander here and there, and you will stumble across wondrous things that will illuminate your writing and enrich your characters and their personal stories.

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“Library Journal” selected Alana White‘s debut historical mystery, The Sign of the Weeping Virgin, as a Top Ten Pick for Spring 2013, and she was a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award at Killer Nashville 2013.  Set in 1400s Italy, the novel features Florentine lawyer Guid’Antonio Vespucci as he investigates crime at the height of the Italian Renaissance.  Recipient of a Starred “Kirkus Review” assigned to works of exceptional merit, the book has sold to Portugal, with rights to Italy pending.  A Nashville native, Alana is a member of the Historical Novel Society, The Authors Guild, SinC and MWA, and she reviews books for the “Historical Novel Society Review. ”

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

Killer Nashville’s Featured Book / Thursday, September 5, 2013 / “Tell Me” by Lisa Jackson / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Who murdered a pregnant teenage girl? Her mother is not talking.

Tell Me by Lisa Jackson

Click the book to buy “Tell Me” by Lisa Jackson from Amazon

Thriller author Lisa Jackson’s new book “Tell Me” sucked me in and disabled me like a snakebite.  Out of nowhere, from the first page of the Prologue, she had me.

The mystery is multi-layered.  In Savannah, Georgia, a mother is about to be released from prison.  The story questions are numerous.  Was she wrongly incarcerated for killing her child, or are they about to release a guilty woman?  Who murdered a young girl and shot two other children, paralyzing one?  Who is the father of the girl who was murdered?  Who fathered the unborn child the teen died carrying?  And who is the stalker who keeps appearing?  The angle is reporter and detective working together (they’re also engaged, which creates the romantic suspense), but the point-of-view for the most part is shared by the two interchangeably.

This is the third in the Detective Pierce Reed and journalist Nikki Gillette series and joins the over 75 Lisa Jackson novels, many of them New York Times bestsellers.

The cast of characters are related to each other to some degree or other.  The snake scenes, which are peppered throughout, will give you the willies.  Lisa Jackson has written several books for Silhouette and you can see that in the love scenes, which were a little over the top for me (I think there were 3 of them I could do without), but my wife says those were there for the women in the audience, not the men.  For you guys, though, there is enough suspense, thrills, dangers, guns, knives, murders, and whodunit to keep you going, just don’t stay too long in the shower scene.

From the first page, the story is suspenseful and open-ended.  The culprit could be anybody.  Jackson plays fair, but she’s tricky.  Pay attention as you read: the plot is tight.  Lisa Jackson wraps it up nicely and, frankly, I read a lot of books, but I didn’t see the tie-up of this one coming.  Masterful.  Full of energy.  A delight to read.  I rushed to the ending and then hated myself for getting there so fast.  This is one of the best romantic suspense novels I’ve ever read.  If on-the-edge-of-your-seat, I-can’t-sleep suspense is what you’re after, Lisa Jackson is the author and “Tell Me” is the book for you.

Now that Killer Nashville 2013 is over, I’m back to reading books again.  Looking forward to sharing what I find.

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.killernashville.com). He reviews books daily for Killer Nashville’s Book of the Day. Publishers Weekly has named Stafford and Killer Nashville as one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)  Having over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print, Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.oneofthemiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.jefferdeaverxomusic.com).

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

The Fictional Serial Killer / Criminologist & Author R. Barri Flowers

R Barri Flowers

Many of today’s bestselling mystery and thriller novels revolve around serial killers. Makes sense as this type of killer seems to appeal most to the fear factor in us, or the bogeyman or bogeywoman come to fictional life, waiting to be taken down by law enforcement.

Of course, not all invented serial killers come across as believable, as many authors rely on stereotypes, active but not necessarily accurate imaginations, or even Hollywood’s cookie cutter serial killers in creating this villain. The most convincing serial killers in fiction are those that lend themselves to the verisimilitude inherent in real life serial killers.

As a criminologist and thriller writer, I am an expert on serial killers and use that knowledge accordingly in driving my fictional stories, tension, and character development. But you don’t need a background in criminology to create a believable and frightening serial killer. A little knowledge can go a long way in strengthening your serial killers, what they are made of, and even how to profile and apprehend them at the end of the day.

What is a serial killer? The general assumption is that it’s simply a killer who has killed a lot of people over the course of time. In fact, a person can be called a serial killer even if he/she has killed as few as two people, assuming the murders occurred at different times or places by a killer who systematically targets victims. Of course, most serial killers are not recognized as such until they have killed a few people at minimum and are associated with the killings by authorities.

In my latest thriller, Before He Kills Again, the serial killer happens to abduct two victims at a time before eventually killing together. Though it is rare in real life that serial killers target more than one victim at a time, it has happened–meaning double the danger for potential targets and double the risks for the killer in terms of succeeding in his or her objective, while avoiding detection and capture.

Let history be your guide in creating fictional serial killers who ring true in their presentation and tactics and cause one to cringe with each page. Learn about some of history’s scariest serial killers, such as Jack the Ripper, Belle Gunness, Ted Bundy, John Gacy, Arthur Shawcross, Richard Ramirez, Gary Ridgway, Aileen Wuornos, Robert Yates, and the list goes on. Information on these and other serial murderers are easily accessible online and give you some perspective on how they carried on in the real world, chose their victims, escaped detection, were brought to justice, etc.

In characterizing and shaping the fictional serial killer, here are a few things to keep in mind in relating to actual serial killers that will bring life and credibility to your killer:

• Violent and/or sexual fantasies tend to play an important role in the mindset and actions of many serial killers.
• Most serial killers can aptly be referred to as psychopaths.
• Substance abuse often plays a role in the onset and continuation of serial murders.
• Many serial killers have or had dominant, cold, and/or uncaring mothers.
• Serial killers were often victims of childhood physical and sexual abuse.
• Serial killers typically were cruel to animals and other children during childhood.
• Serial killers tend to have a fascination with other serial killers and police investigations into their own crimes.
• Serial killers invariably become more organized and dangerous with each person killed.

Aside from the general nature of serial killers, these types of killers can be categorized as well, allowing for a wider range of character development and storylines.

“Before He Kills Again” by R Barri Flowers

There are essentially three kinds of serial killers:

• Serial killers who brazenly kill and make no effort to conceal the corpses of their victims.
•  Serial killers who go out of their way to hide their victims and attempt to conceal the murders.
• Serial killers who fit the definition, but are not recognized as such by law enforcement. These types of killers are often transitory in nature, making it more difficult to associate their crimes to a single perpetrator. In some cases, however, the killer may make a conscious effort to keep the authorities guessing by changing their modus operandi from one victim to the next.

Within these types, there are subcategories of serial killers, making for even more interesting choices in creating terrifying fictional serial killers:

• Spree killers – those who kill a series of victims during a continuous span of murders.
• Sexually sadistic killers — murderers who derive great pleasure through inflicting pain and torture on their victims
• Hedonistic killers – those, such as lust killers, who kill for the thrill or pleasure derived from the act.
• Predatory killers — persons who hunts for victims to kill for recreation or sport.
• Mission-oriented killers –those who target certain individuals deemed unworthy of living, such a prostitutes or abusers.
• Functionaries of organized criminality — hit men or women for the Mafia, gang members, mercenaries, and terrorists.
• Custodial killers — medical personnel or foster parents who kill for financial gain, revenge, or altruism.
• Mentally unbalanced killers – persons who are delusional or hallucinational in their serial murders.
• Control-oriented killers – murderers who like by being in control of their victims in deciding life and death, when, where, and how they will die.

With such a broad range to work with, it allows for a multitude of intriguing and realistic possibilities for fiction involving serial homicides. Good luck with your next fictional serial killer mystery or thriller novel.

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R. Barri Flowers is the award winning and internationally bestselling author of nearly seventy books–including thrillers, mysteries, true crime, criminology, romance, and young adult fiction with such publishers as St. Martin’s Press, Harlequin, Kensington, Prometheus, and Audible. He has also served as the editor of two well-regarded mystery anthologies and one true crime anthology. His fiction and nonfiction books have been widely acclaimed. As a criminologist and true crime writer, Flowers has appeared on the Biography Channel’s Crime Stories and Investigation Discovery’s Blood, Lies and Alibis and Wicked Attraction series. He is the recipient of the prestigious Wall of Fame Award from Michigan State University’s renowned School of Criminal Justice.

Follow the author on Twitter (@RBarriFlowers) and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/rbarri.flowers?ref=tn_tnmn), , and discover more about on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Barri_Flowers) , and author website (http://www.rbarriflowers.com/).

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

Time Of Death / Forensic Investigator Steve Rush

Forensic Investigator Steve Rush

Accurate details prove important when including crime scenes in our prose. Three basic questions we want to answer when writing these scenes are: What was my character doing before incident? What altered and/or interrupted her/him at the inciting moment? What took place afterward?

One or two details may be all that is necessary when trying to portray realism in our story. In the old TV series Dragnet, Jack Webb’s “Just the facts” statement identified the essential elements to solve the crime in question. Insert a fascinating fact in your scenario and capture your reader’s attention. Get it wrong and you risk losing them. We want to be certain every fact in our stories fits the scenario we are trying to portray.

For murder scenes, facts we choose may include things like type of weapon used, resulting harm to the character, and any potential evidence in our setting. One of the most important things to consider here is time of death.

What was your character doing in your scene? Lounging? Fighting? Running? Any one of these will affect the aftermath. A character engaged in a fight increases his/her heart rate as well as body temperature. This will have different effects on their body following death than the character that dies while asleep in bed.

Where were they? In an abandoned building in the middle of winter or outside in the blazing sun?  Environment plays a major role.

Determining an accurate time frame within which death occurred may mean the difference between accepting the suspect’s alleged alibi as true or proving the killer had ample time to commit the murder. A body undergoes certain changes following death. These include rigor mortis (stiffening of the body), livor mortis or lividity (the pooling of blood in the dependent tissues), and decomposition. These begin at death, though they may not be evident for hours.

Rigor mortis is a chemical reaction in the body that results in the stiffening of muscle tissue following death. The process begins upon death and affects the entire body. Early evidence is distinguishable in small muscles such as the jaw and fingers. As time passes it becomes noticeable throughout the body.

The process normally takes between eight to twelve hours. Times may differ depending on physical and environmental factors. Physical factors include the person’s activity at onset of death, clothing and physical or medical condition. Heat generated from physical activity or fever accelerates the process whereas cold slows it. Once rigor mortis becomes fixed it will remain twenty-four to thirty-six hours after which it dissipates and the body will lose its stiffness.

This knowledge will help us pinpoint a reasonable time range of death. For example, if a person dies at noon and the body is subject to normal environmental and physical conditions (room temperature), expect the body to be in complete rigor mortis by between eight pm and midnight.

Lividity is the pooling of blood in the tissues. Upon death, the blood drains due to gravity. Soon, a distinct pattern becomes observable through the skin.

“Facade” by Shane Kinsey

If the deceased is on their back, a pattern will form and if undisturbed for four to six hours, the pattern becomes fixed and will not change. The areas in contact with whatever surface it is lying on will exhibit lighter skin color. These areas are void of blood and are described as blanched. In many cases, the blanched tissue reflects the pattern of the surface on which it has been at rest. If someone moves the deceased after the lividity is in a fixated state, the observed pattern may be used to prove this movement. If it occurs before lividity reaches complete fixation, the pattern will adjust to some degree according to the body’s new at-rest position.

Example: A pedestrian struck by a pickup driven by an intoxicated driver tumbles over the cab and lands in the bed of the truck. Internal injuries rob the victim of life within minutes. The driver makes it home and stumbles inside. The next morning he discovers the body, drives to a remote area where he dumps the corpse. Two hours later, a railroad employee sees the body and calls the police. The pattern seen on the victim’s back resembles the ribbed floor of the truck bed, not the gravel surface of the railroad right-of-way. This, along with additional evidence, leads investigators to the person responsible for the victim’s demise.

Other specifics to consider depend on the scenario of your scene. These details become compelling evidence. Whether you have your character use a gun, knife, baseball bat, poison or other, you will strengthen the description of your scene with the one or more of the following: injury patterns, blood spatter, fibers, hair, fingerprints, etc.

Feel free to contact me with any forensic-related questions you may have at: sar1003@aol.com. Please place “Killer fiction” on the subject line.

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Steve Rush is chief forensic investigator for Burton & Associates, a national consulting firm in the field of Forensic and Environmental Pathology and Medicine. His specialties are blood spatter analysis and recovery of human skeletal remains. He has authored two novels published under pseudonym, Shane Kinsey, and was part of the development team for “Quincy,” a software program designed for coroners and medical examiners.
The Web site for my novels  is:  www.shanekinsey.com

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

Critiques Are A Two-Edged Sword / Author Maggie Toussaint

Author Maggie Toussaint

Authors are polarized on the subject of critiques. For some, the idea of anyone criticizing any part of their baby is unthinkable. Other authors wouldn’t dream of turning in a manuscript unless it had been vetted by critique partners.

So let’s get that out of the way right up front. Critiquing isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay.

What is critique? It’s evaluating a theory or practice in a logical or analytical way. That makes it sound like there’s one right way to do something. But when it comes to writing, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Writers come from all walks of life and embrace many styles of writing. Their advice varies in helpfulness. Their analysis is shaded by their experiences, likes, dislikes, emotions, and other intangibles .

If you understand that critique is an analysis shaded by opinion, you’re better prepared to evaluate the feedback you receive. That’s right. Getting a critique is only 50 percent of the work. Evaluating the feedback is just as important.

Here are guidelines that helped me along my critiquing journey:

1. Be selective who you ask for critique. Even though family members and friends may give insightful comments, other writers, particularly ones in your genre, can be very helpful with regard to craft elements and story construction.
2. State up front what your expectations are for the critique. Some beginning writers may only know how to do line edits, when what you really need is for someone to check characterization, POV, pacing, or plot arcs.
3. When the critique comes back, thank the person for their time before you look at the comments.
4. Try to filter the well-intended comments through an analytical lens. The remarks aren’t personal. They’re someone else’s reactions to your story.
5. If you find yourself itching to explain something, know this. You can’t explain to every distant reader, an agent, or an editor. What’s in your head should be available to them through the written word.

If you offer a critique, remember these tips. Point out weak areas in a kind way. Give positive feedback on things done well. Mark the sections where you had strong emotional responses. Resist the urge to rewrite extensively in your own words – this isn’t your story. If something isn’t working in the submission, try to identify the root cause. If you can’t identify the cause, describe the effect it had on you. (For instance a book with too much backstory might drag.)

My experience has shown that there are at least three levels of critiques, and I break them down by how far along in the writing process the project is.

For first drafts: analyze big picture stuff (do plot events happen in an understandable progression, is the main character(s) established, is there setting), voice; mood, other story intangibles (if a work has “story” it shines through even the worst writing); and genre appropriateness. NOTE: only do line edits at this point if the person asking for critique wants them.

Hot Water

For drafts in revision: check that all of the above are fine-tuned by making sure the transitions between scene and sequel are present, check for dangling story threads, check for consistent characterization, look to see if setting is experienced instead of told, check for pacing by evaluating dialog to narrative blend; check for gender differences in POV; check for story hooks at start and end of scenes, as well as larger hooks at the end of chapters; check grammar, spelling, and do line edits once the other stuff is up to a professional level.

For final drafts: keeping in mind all of the above, read for flow, for voice, for consistency, for places where the book drags or moves too fast for the scene content, note spelling errors.

Lastly, writers must be capable of evaluating if the critique input stays true to their story vision. Many people get discouraged about critique because they are unable to process the input. If someone told you that crayons were currency, would you believe them? No? Why not? Because you know better.

Just as you know best when it comes to your story. Evaluate each comment. Does it improve the story? Does it detract from your voice? Make sure you’re not having a kneejerk response to the comments. Sometimes it helps to let the critique sit a day or two before you edit the comments into your work.

It all comes back to the writer. She/he must take responsibility for writing – and for rewriting.

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Maggie Toussaint

Formerly an aquatic toxicologist contracted to the U.S. Army and currently a freelance reporter, Southern author Maggie Toussaint loves to blend murder and romance in her fiction. With ten published books to her credit, her latest releases are Hot Water (romantic suspense) and Dime If I Know (mystery). She’s an active member of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and Sisters In Crime. Visit her at www.maggietoussaint.com.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

Killer Nashville Investigator’s Sweepstakes / Logan L. Masterson

We are happy to announce through the coordination efforts by Logan L. Masterson and Killer Nashville author-alumni, and at least one stroke of luck, The Killer Nashville Investigator’s Sweepstakes is a go! Thanks to the awesome contributions from all involved, we have four fabulous prizes!

Frist Prize
One general admission conference registration! That’s right, the whole 3-day conference is open to our grand prize winner! The lucky winner or fan will get the chance to attend sessions, panels and lectures, meet authors, agents, and other industry professionals, and even get in on an exclusive Breakout Session. Add to that a T-shirt and tote bag, and our winner’s really making out like a bandit!

Second Prize Packs
Thanks to authors C.J. Box, Jaden Terrell, and D. Alan Lewis, our three (3!) Second Prize Packs contain a signed book from each author! Terrell’s Racing The Devil or A Cup Full of Midnight, Lewis’ The Blood in Snowflake Garden, and Box’s newest release, The Highway, make for a diverse and thrill-packed trio!

For more information on the sweepstakes, click here.

Author/Designer Logan L. Masterson, in-kind Killer Nashville sponsor and winner of last year’s Crime Scene Detective Award, is coordinating a contest in which the grand prize is a free basic registration to Killer Nashville and several other great prizes donated by Killer Nashville and author-alumni.

Killer Nashville’s Featured Book / Wednesday, July 24, 2013 / “The Deadly Streets” by Harlan Ellison / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

A collection of stories every short story writer and reader should know about:  Harlan Ellison’s The Deadly Streets.

The Deadly Streets by Harlan Ellison

“The Deadly Streets” by Harlan Ellison

Subterranean Press is the epitome of cool.  I have thought so for years.  Books such as The Deadly Streets a reissue by Harlan Ellison continue to confirm it.  This is a wonderful collection of visceral short stories, all with the take of violence on the street.

This is the second reissue of Ellison’s classic 1958 collection.  (The first reissue was in 1975 when Ellison added five additional stories.)

Harlan Ellison is an incredible storyteller and there is not a dud in the mix.  I personally consider these stories classics, among them a tied-up man terrified of rats; a boy who wants to kill a cop; a gang that takes care of their own, even their dead; a man who talks too much; a girl trying to hold her own against the rest of a male gang.  In all, sixteen thematically connected original and violent stories.  Though most are written prior to 1958, the writing, the characters, the plotting, and the situations still hold true.  The “daddy-o’s” didn’t bother me a bit and the prose goes down like a teenager in a log flume.

After reading this collection, you philosophically will never view city sidewalks the same, but just as importantly for our Killer Nashville writers, studying these stories is one of the best lessons in learning how to write a short story.  Harlan Ellison can write.  The stories contained in this volume are one of the best short story writing textbooks you’ll ever find, and one I would encourage every short story writer to study.  Have a mental dialogue with Ellison as you go along.  He will teach you well.

Tune in next time when I talk about a new psychological mystery series I’ve discovered and why I’m now hooked.  (As though I don’t have enough to read.)

Until then, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.killernashville.com). He reviews books daily for Killer Nashville’s Book of the Day. Publishers Weekly has named Stafford and Killer Nashville as one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)  Having over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print, Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.oneofthemiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.jefferdeaverxomusic.com).

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

Killer Nashville’s Featured Books / Tuesday, June 23, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

The senseless murder of children in Africa, an Amish love affair, a woman’s heart-tugging self-discovery, the financial industry’s crooked corporate deals, and the death of a police officer. Here are some books I think you might find of interest. Some I have reviewed in depth, others I just blurbed to let you know why I felt it needed to be brought to your attention. (Please click on the links below to see each review)

“Deadly Harvest” by Michael Stanley

“Graveland” by Alan Glynn

“Lifetime” by Liza Marklund

“Love Water Memory” by Jennie Shortridge

“Surrendered Love” by Laura V. Hilton

Tune in next time when I explore some gritty short stories, a young adult Jack the Ripper time-travel novel, the secrets of a murdered Russian princess, Special Forces on the Welsh border, and a psychologist who is falling apart.

Until then, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.killernashville.com). He reviews books daily for Killer Nashville’s Book of the Day. Publishers Weekly has named Stafford and Killer Nashville as one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)  Having over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print, Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.oneofthemiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.jefferdeaverxomusic.com).

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Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

Killer Nashville’s Featured Books / Friday, June 19, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

A man on death row, a second wife learning the startling truth about the first, a sister avenging the death of her sister, and how to write a killer thriller.  Here are some books I think you might find of interest. Some I have reviewed in depth, others I just blurbed to let you know why I felt it needed to be brought to your attention. (Please click on the links below to see each review)

“Candlemoth” by R.J. Ellory

“Writing A Killer Thriller” by Jodie Renner

“Low Pressure” by Sandra Brown

“The Cutting Season” by Attica Locke

“The Woman He Loved Before” by Dorothy Koomson

Tune in tomorrow when I explore the senseless murder of children in Africa, an Amish love affair, a woman’s heart-tugging self-discovery, the financial industry’s crooked corporate deals, and the death of a police officer.

Until then, read like someone is burning the books!

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.killernashville.com). He reviews books daily for Killer Nashville’s Book of the Day. Publishers Weekly has named Stafford and Killer Nashville as one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)  Having over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print, Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.oneofthemiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.jefferdeaverxomusic.com).

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Why Washington Political Thrillers Aren’t Real to Me and Why I Want to Write One / Author/filmmaker & Killer Nashville founder Clay Stafford

Clay Stafford, author / filmmaker and founder of Killer Nashville

I’ve reviewed numerous Washington political and legal thrillers and mysteries over the past twenty years. After reading Fighting for Common Ground: How We Can Fix the Stalemate in Congress by Olympia Snowe, I came away feeling that many of the fiction authors I’m reading haven’t done their research or – perhaps even more disappointing – they have chosen to avoid genuine conflict in favor of commercially “safe” but superficial stories. It is good advice not to discuss politics or religion, as our own Killer Nashville Executive Director Beth Terrell reminded me, but a writer of political thriller set in the United States must cross the line on at least one of these. Unfortunately, in terms of setting, most political writers are not creating a realistic world, which is vital to any work of serious fiction. One can still have a plot, but it has to be set somewhere. Why not make it real? Very few in America are elected without Political Party support, that massive machine that every government itself has failed to regulate. Yet with all that power, how can writers fail to include the monster behind the machine?

Two disclaimers: 1) I have no Political Party affiliate, and 2) What I am writing below comes from the possibilities I see for setting from reading the above mentioned book. Olympia Snowe is a longstanding and respected Republican Senator. She has to walk the fine line between telling the complete truth as she knows it while at the same time not being offensive, but – as we know – a good fiction writer is not worried about being offensive. What I write below is what I got between the lines and, if you are a political fiction writer, what I’m about to give you is a truckload of conflict for your next book. On a positive note because I don’t want to give the impression that doom is irrevocably upon us as Americans, Snowe also writes about how to take America back. Though common ground doesn’t always work in the best interest of a fiction writer, fighting for this sort of unity would also make for a great story goal and would be adorned with its own conflicts towards completion (think about one of my favorite Jimmy Stewart man-against-the-machine movies Mr. Smith Goes to Washington).

First of all, let’s talk about Snowe and why she’s the expert to go to. A self-professed “skunk at the lawn party,” she’s a die-hard out-of-place Republican and has been an energetic participant in world-changing events from 1978 to present. Her political platform is based upon limited government, lower taxes, individual freedoms and responsibilities, and a strong national defense, which – frankly – I’ve heard from politicians on both sides of the spectrum. Only difference is that, unlike the Political Parties and most politicians of both parties currently in office, she actually does believe in them. She’s been an advocate for women business owners and mothers, minorities, and has – herself – had a tremendous uphill battle as a female Republican in what has traditionally been a male-dominated profession. Still another great source for story conflict.

Now, here is the situation and where writers can begin to see the possibilities (if you haven’t already) of including an actual political setting in their political thrillers. According to a recent poll cited by Snowe, sixty-six percent of Americans think their representatives don’t have a good understanding of the issues. Politicians have the lowest approval rating, below lawyers and bankers. Most Americans seem to think that public service has left politics, and maybe it has. But is it the politicians or the Political Parties?  Like in the days in Germany before WWII, to play in the system, regardless of your personal opinions, you had to publicly become a Party man. Writers who want to write political thrillers set on any continent would be well advised to include the “machine” either in a positive or negative force.

Read these facts from Snowe’s book and tell me what you think. Common sense bills are bashed because unrelated agenda is attached, as in the failure of the Violence Against Women Act. Both Parties have a voting record of being unwilling to support the Balanced Budget Amendment, though in their press releases they spout the opposite. What about the GOP’s opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment?  Or Senators and Congressman of both Parties being on record for opposing laws benefiting women and blacks in general. Or why is it that approval of scientific research has been geared towards men only (voted on by predominately male representatives)? How can issues such as abortion (through misinformation miles removed from reality coming from non-medical personnel) become more important to Political Parties than the living and real welfare of the citizens both Parties give voice to protecting. (Hot issue in our home state because we have a formally-married representative who is anti-abortion who is on court record as telling his marital affair girlfriends who became pregnant by him that they should have an abortion, but the Political Party supporting him won’t do anything about his conduct because he is an active supporter of the Party. Great conflict?  You bet!  It’s a soap opera.)  Two-faced?  Liars?  Idiots?  Far from it. They are brilliant snakes in the grass. How about this one?  Theoretically intelligent apes acting as Senators come up with non-scientific theories of “legitimate rape” and if a woman gets pregnant during rape, “it was something God intended.”  What if this were to happen to a character’s daughter? Or an actual representative from Tennessee? Is this the true meaning of “American Taliban”?  Are these the unscientific-minded people who should really – based upon Party platforms – be overseeing and approving the content of our children’s schoolbooks? We are, after all in Tennessee, the home of the Scopes Monkey Trail. Not my kids. My preferred source for scientific information is a scientist, but these political characters do come with their own baggage, conflicts, and entertainment value. If there is anything I’ve learned from watching WWE with my son, it is that great villains make for great stories.

“Fighting For Common Ground: How We Can Fix the Stalemate in Congress” by Olympia Snowe

Here’s what I got from reading Snowe’s book (not what she explicitly wrote):  1) Political Parties are historically more interested in their Parties than in America, 2) Political Parties have historically more interest in their own preservation than in the U.S. Constitution, and 3) governing now is based upon reelection, not the best interests of America. All three could make daring undercurrents in a political story.

You see, it is not so much the politicians; it is the Parties themselves, which don’t seem to appear in ANY of the books I have reviewed. They are the missing character.  I don’t even have to have the Parties identified by name, but their oppressive presence has to be there. Behind almost every snafu in American politics or integrity, hasn’t it been traced back by Senate, court, or journalistic investigation to decisions made, not by a politician, but by decisions on an unelected Party level? Experts on political history will back me up. If the politicians don’t follow Nazi-like to the Party line, in the next election, the Party will eat its own. By their own demands, centrist moderate politicians (such as Snowe) cannot be so IF they wish to be supported by their Political Party, the machines. Just recently we saw it in the fiasco of the development of the national health laws when even the House and Senate are separated from the president and from their own Parties per Snowe. You see this in watching Political Parties implode from within, politicians jumping ship, politicians being attacked by their own Parties at reelections. It is not so much that politicians no longer listen to those they represent, but in order to stay the course and maybe do some good, even the best politicians walk in fear of being one-term servants from the wrath of their own Party. How’s that for a conflict-riddled subplot?  Reading Snowe’s book, you see why so much money is spent on attack ads: because the Parties and the hand-tied candidates themselves either want the attention off themselves or have nothing of merit to promote. All this makes me salivate thinking of the storylines that could come from all of this. When the tax code alone is 72,000 pages long and the U.S. borrows 40-cents for every $1 it spends while people here in the U.S. are starving, freezing, out-of-work, unable to afford an education or medicine, and the politicians are bickering in pettiness and accomplishing nothing or sending millions of dollars overseas that could be spent on Americans, I see conflict galore, I see Jimmy Stewart, I see characters with motives for good or ill, for greed and altruism. However, this reality and setting is not what I read about in the setting-barren American political thrillers and mysteries I review. Robert Penn Warren’s novel “All the King’s Men” is the closest one I’ve read to touch on the Machine behind the candidate. Incidentally, it won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize. That should tell you something. Political Parties are not what the story is about, but their presence is there, even in character reference.

Snowe takes sidebars that are just as interesting as her main points, which are all story ideas themselves, such as how divorced from real people Congress has become, how someone gets into politics, how government and Political Parties really work without the spin, how to impeach a president, how the U.S. Senate and House has lost its independence and has become the equivalent of the Party-controlled (puppet-controlled?) British parliament, how Tea Parties have ruined rather than helped America, and much, much more.

Before reading this book, I knew politics were in major dysfunction, but I never knew how badly nor what a great field this would be for storylines. If you are writing stories set in national politics today, this book is vital for your research. You walk away with the feeling of how a moderate centrist willing to work in a bipartisan capacity toward a solution that would benefit the majority of Americans has no place in either Party. There’s your underdog. Obviously, the wheel is broken. That’s a grand thing for a fiction writer. Writing about conflicts in context helps people see them more clearly. It is the responsibility of writers to include something in their work that elevates it to make people think, to make people lobby for changes, and to portray it accurately, not slant it like the conservative or liberal media organizations we are bombarded by and brainwashed to trust like a bunch of Pavlov dogs or, even worse, to make it so watered down like so many books I read so that it just becomes another mystery or thriller set in Washington. A writer who can get the facts straight before he or she writes a Washington political or legal thriller might find, with the pen being mightier than the sword, that he or she actually changes the way government works and has readers and critics cheering on his or her behalf. What better kudo than to say, “I wrote a bestselling book AND I also saved America.”  The Cold War is over. Now, it seems, the enemy is within. That being said, this all makes me want to go write my own political thriller.

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Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker and founder of Killer Nashville. He reviews books daily for Killer Nashville’s Book of the Day. Publishers Weekly has named Stafford and Killer Nashville as one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)  Having over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print, Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” and the music CD “XO.”

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

A Writer’s Training Ground / Writer Tom Wood

Writer Tom Wood

I always loved a good mystery, but never, ever, in my thirty-six-year career as a sports writer and copy editor at a major Southern daily newspaper did I imagine writing one.

So when I decided it was time to write my Great American Novel, a tale of mystery was the last thing I envisioned. Even when the idea for a newspaper-rooted story took hold (don’t we all write what we know?), I wondered if I could pull off the monumental task I had set before myself.

But then I recalled the first lesson learned when I joined the newspaper staff at Briarwood High School in East Point, Georgia. English teacher Phil Guin, our advisor on the Windjammer staff, said a good reporter answers “the five W’s and an H” in the first paragraph of every story.

Huh?

The fundamental lesson of Journalism 101 (much later I learned the principles dated back centuries; at the time I thought it was the basis of an Abbott and Costello routine or maybe tips on how to win at Clue), was drilled into our young minds:

Factual stories always tell the reader who, what, when, where and why. And don’t forget how.

Congratulations, son, you’re a newspaperman.

Four decades later, I’m still doing the same thing, only this time in about eighty-four thousand words.

Word counts may vary, but don’t we all embrace these tenets for our stories—or at least our outlines? It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a mystery, science fiction, historical fiction, horror, a cozy, a Western or the Great American Novel, your story must answer these questions.

Who. Who is the story about? Who is his/her antagonist? His/her love interest?

What. What happens to the protagonist? What crises must he endure/go through/survive to reach his goal, solve her riddle, save the day?

When. When does this story take place? Was it last week, last month, last year, last century, last millennium—or maybe the next one?

Where. Is the setting on the bank of a lazy river, high atop a mountain, on the frozen moon of Titan? Or in a dank cellar full of instruments of torture three houses down from yours?

Why. A critical question to be sure, I find this most useful to either tell a character’s backstory or else to advance the story. Why did this have to happen, setting in motion a chain of events that threaten the Kingdom? Why can’t he find the killer? Why did they all have to die? Why, oh why? Well, why not?

How. Perhaps the most important question, this is the plot point that moves the story forward. How did the prison farm escapee elude the pack of hounds? How did she know? How is he going to get out of this jam? How did the murder take place? How will the evil Prince of Gazmordrigan be defeated?

For years, detractors have been predicting the death of newspapers. Especially with the rise of the Internet and even newer social media. One agent I approached with my novel brushed it off by saying nobody cares about newspapers anymore.

I disagree. Strongly. It’s a changing, evolving profession, to be sure, and print probably will one day go away. But the news-gathering, the reporting, the fact-finding, the Watchdog journalism will never go away. And that’s a good thing.

If you’re a young writer in need of experience, newspapers are a great training ground, especially for learning to self-edit and dealing with deadlines. Try covering a three-hour college football game, where the final score is 38-17, and telling the complete story of what happened in ten-to-twelve inches of copy. And you’re facing a 10:30 p.m. deadline for a game that didn’t get over until 10:07. And they’re holding the front sports page for you. Whew.

Then when you’re done with the first-edition story, you’ve got to run down to the locker rooms and get quotes from both teams’ players and coaches and rewrite your stories, expanding the mainbar to twenty inches with a twelve-inch sidebar and possibly an eight-inch notes package. And the deadline for all this copy is 11:45 p.m. And they’re holding the front page and an inside page for you. Double-whew!

Most of my years were spent in the sports department, but it trains you to report on crime when an athlete is arrested or mugged or sued; tragedy when a team plane crashes, an injury or illness ends an athlete’s career; triumph when a team wins a national championship or an athlete makes the U.S. Olympic team; feature writing when an athlete rescues a child from a burning building or donates one hundred thousand dollars to help build a home for a wounded veteran; business when the Metro Council decides to build the pro team a new facility or else the team threatens to pack up and leave for another city’s incentive-laden offer.

Newspapers are also chock-full of story ideas for your next novel. Everybody has a story to tell, some good, some bad, some ugly. And some of the headline-grabbing stories today are far more bizarre and horrifying than anything I could come up with.

Some mighty fine authors, including some of the best-known mystery writers who have been honored at Killer Nashville’s annual convention, got their starts in the newspaper business.

Michael Connelly started as a crime reporter at Daytona Beach and then Fort Lauderdale (where he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize) before landing at the Los Angeles Times. He’s published twenty-five novels, with No. 26 due out in December.

Prolific Jeffery Deaver wrote for his high school newspaper and was editor of the school literary magazine before graduating from Missouri with a journalism degree and from Fordham with a law degree. His thirty-fourth book will be out in October.

Robert Dugoni wrote briefly for the Stanford Daily and the Los Angeles Times before enrolling in the UCLA School of Law.

Heywood Gould wrote for the New York Post and The Associated Press before embarking on his screenwriting and novelist careers.

C.J. Box was a small-town reporter and editor in Wyoming prior to becoming a best-selling author.

And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of authors who honed their writing skills in newspapers. Mark Twain. Louis L’Amour. Dan Jenkins. Mitch Albom.

And me.

A guy can dream, can’t he?

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Tom Wood was a sports writer and copy editor for The Tennessean and Gannett from 1976-2012 and currently freelances for several publications and The Associated Press. He had a short story appear in the 2012 Civil War-based anthology Filtered Through Time and contributed to the 1981 book Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King. His first novel, Vendetta Stone, will be published later this year.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

The Best Contest I Ever Lost / NYT bestselling author Lynn Viehl

Lynn Viehl

In 2012 I entered Killer Nashville’s Claymore Award contest, but don’t bother checking the names of the finalists; I didn’t make that list.  There was no trophy or bragging rights for me; I’m just one of the many Claymore losers out here.

Certainly I could be bitter about that.  As it happens I am a professional author of fifty published novels; seven of my books have been New York Times bestsellers.  When a writer at my level loses a contest, they generally don’t talk about it.  Or if they do, it’s to be good sport and congratulate the winners, or to quietly grumble to friends about pinheaded judges and how it had to be rigged.

Winning the Claymore would have been very nice, but in the end losing it was even better for me.  Before I explain why, let’s talk about competitions and how they can be valuable to all writers.

Simply entering a contest is a victory for anyone who participates.  We’ll all agree that it takes a lot of nerve to put your work out there to be scrutinized and judged.  For most writers the only apparent validation is winning and beating out their peers for the big prize, when in reality the true payoff is participating.  For every writer who loses a contest, there are a thousand who didn’t have enough confidence in themselves or their work to even try to compete.

Winning is wonderful, but you actually learn more from failure.  When you lose a contest, you’re not going to be polishing a trophy or accepting congrats from your peers.  What you’ll have is an opportunity to take a hard look at your work and see how you can improve on it.  With contests like the Claymore the feedback provided by the judges can be valuable in helping you do this effectively.

Using the loss as motivation can take you in a new direction.  I know losing a contest can feel a bit like getting a door slammed in your face.  It’s not the only door in the world, however, and losing means you can try others.  There may be a door to a better opportunity right around the corner, just waiting for you to knock on it.

The Claymore award is actually the first contest I’ve ever entered as a pro.  I chose it because the judging is blind, and only the work itself is evaluated, so it’s obviously not a popularity contest.  I also kept my expectations realistic.  What I wanted from the experience was a chance to compete on a level field with my peers, and the prospect of getting some useful feedback on my story.   I’d also been sending out the proposal for my entry for two years with no luck, so the possibility of winning would provide me with an alternative shot at publication.

“Her Ladyship’s Curse” by Lynn VIehl

I knew the story I entered in the contest was rather a long shot, as it’s a 19th-century steampunk urban fantasy/mystery set in a parallel universe.  America doesn’t win the War of Independence, so we’re all still British.  My lady P.I. makes her living investigating crimes of magic and exposing the charlatans behind them.  I was hoping the unique aspects of the story and the world-building would help it stand out from the competition.

When I didn’t win the contest, the loss motivated me to make some changes to the story, and I used the judges’ comments on my entry to guide me in the right direction.  I revised the manuscript, submitted a new proposal, and immediately landed an offer from the first editor who read it — not just for the novel, but for a novel series.  The story that didn’t win the Claymore is now the first book in my Disenchanted & Co. series, to be published by Pocket Star.  It debuts on August 12th — almost one year to the day I lost the Claymore.

Would any of this have happened if I hadn’t entered the contest?  Probably not.  Without this experience it’s likely that I would have kept submitting the novel as it was until I racked up enough rejections to convince me to set it aside and move on.  Losing the Claymore instead convinced me to pay attention, make some changes and try something else — which resulted in a contract offer.

I didn’t win the Claymore, but thanks to the contest I got what was most important to me:  publication.   As consolation prizes go, that’s the best kind.

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Since 2000, Lynn Viehl has published fifty novels, including her New York Times bestselling Darkyn series.  Ranked as one of the top-one-hundred female, top-fifty book, and top-ten science fiction author bloggers on the Internet, Ms. Viehl hosts Paperback Writer, a popular industry weblog with free market info, working advice, and online resources for all writers.  Disenchanted & Co. series blog:  http://toriana.blogspot.com

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

The Dark Side of Mystery Writing / Author Joyce Lavene

Author Joyce Lavene

I was thinking about how much darkness mystery writers have to take in – and deflect – every day. What made me think about it were the shocked and horrified faces of friends and family after I’d related what I thought was an amusing anecdote about going to the morgue.

It was a basic visit and discussion with the medical examiner. We talked about the usual signs of death, what type of things he’d witnessed, and suggestions on how to write about poisoning deaths in realistic detail.

Stock-in-trade stuff for mystery writers, right?

I can’t imagine what my friends would have done if they’d gone to various luncheons I’ve been to where crime scene photos were shown while we ate. Actual blood spatter patterns and arterial spray would have provoked a lot of lunches to come up.

I know WHY we do this. As mystery writers, we want to understand and be able to express death scenes and investigations accurately in our work.

My question is HOW do we do it? Why aren’t we squeamish about blood and death itself? Is something missing in our psyches that prevents us from being totally grossed out by blood and guts? Are we immune to the terrible realities of our world in a way that others aren’t?

Mystery writers put themselves in the place of killers, stalkers and kidnappers for our work. We know about guns and knives and the damage they can inflict.

My friends are terrified because I can rattle off information about every poison plant they have in and around their homes, with pertinent details about how the poison would kill them and how long it would take.

As opposed to romance writers, who visit romantic places for inspiration and enjoy looking at romantic poetry, we long to visit a body farm and constantly plot how to kill our next victim.

Fantasy writers are frequently found at Renaissance Festivals, eyeing the swords and maces, thinking about dragons they might slay and princesses they could rescue. Mystery writers are wondering how big a wound would be from that sword blade, and how to hide the sword in a suit coat.

Science Fiction writers look to the future through the lens of what is possible today. Mystery writers are busy trying to figure out if a new forensic technique will someday involve removal of a corpse’s eyeballs.

We examine police records and ask questions about how to tell if rigor has set in. FBI and Secret Service agents, along with local and state police, are eager to share their knowledge of homicides and other terrible, AWFUL things they have seen and done.

We sit at tables or desks, scribbling down their information as though every word is gold. We have hundreds of snapshots documenting the worst moments in many people’s lives.

For other professionals who do this same job, there are counselors and shrinks to help them through it. Sometimes they have to take time away from the job because they see so many hideous things. No one wants violence to become part of their nature, yet police officers have one of the highest rates of suicide and family abuse in the country.

Plum Deadly by Ellie Grant (Joyce Lavene)

We have ourselves and our word processors. How do WE deal with this?

Is it because none of this, no matter how grisly, is real to us? We know it will become part of a story that will cause readers to become more engrossed in our work. We know, even though many of our facts are real, what we write about them isn’t.

Is that how we do it?

Some authors say it’s the act of writing that stabilizes them, even takes them out of day-to-day life. Writing is therapeutic, psychologists say. Taking things in and getting them outside of you is the way to handle what we normally can’t process.

When I was a kid, about ten years old, I saw a woman go through a plate-glass window. I won’t go into what that looked like here, but I can still recall every detail. I didn’t know then that I wanted to be a mystery writer, though I was reading mysteries at the time.

A friend was with me, witnessing that event. She sobbed and even vomited. She ran away from the scene as fast as she could.

I stayed and watched, taking in the details. I even asked questions of her later (yes, she survived), and of the police at the time.

My mother said it was ghoulish to watch. Now I know; I’m just a mystery writer.

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Joyce Lavene writes award-winning, bestselling mystery fiction with her husband, Jim, as themselves, J.J. Cook and Ellie Grant. She has written and published more than 65 novels for Harlequin, Berkley, Amazon and Gallery Books along with hundreds of non-fiction articles for national and regional publications. She lives in rural North Carolina with her family. Visit her at www.joyceandjimlavene.com.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)

How to Slash Your Word Count by 20-50% / Editor & Author Jodie Renner

Jodie Renner

…and tighten up your story without losing any of the good stuff!

Have you been told your story looks promising or even intriguing, but your novel is way too long? Today’s readers have shorter attention spans, and publishers don’t want to accept long novels from new writers, as they are so much more expensive to produce.

The current preferred length for thrillers, mysteries and romance is around 70,000–90,000 words. Anything over 100K is definitely considered too long in most genres these days. Well-written, finely crafted fantasies and historical sagas can run longer, but newbie writers need to earn their stripes first before attempting to sell a really long novel. Basically, every word needs to count. Every image and decision and action and reaction needs to drive the story forward. There’s no place for rambling or waxing eloquent or self-indulgent preening in today’s popular fiction! Thrillers and other suspense novels especially need to be fast-paced page-turners.

Some strategies for cutting the word count. It’s best to proceed roughly in this order, using any strategies that apply to your novel:

First, consider:

~ If you have a meandering writing style, tighten it up. Condense long descriptions and backstory; take out repetitions of all kinds (imagery, plot points, ideas, descriptions, phrases, words); delete or condense scenes that drag, have insufficient tension, or just don’t drive the story forward; and in general, make your scenes, paragraphs and sentences leaner.

In general, it’s best to start with big changes to plot, characters, and structure:

~ If your writing is quite tight but you have an intricate, involved plot, can you divide your really long novel into two or three in a series? Make sure each book in the series has its own plot arc and character arc – rising tension and some resolution, and a change/growth in the protagonist.

~ If the story doesn’t lend itself to being broken up, try making your plot less detailed. Cut or combine some of your less exciting plot points. Cut down on some of the “and then, and then, and then…”

~ Delete one or two (or three) subplots, depending on how many you have.

~ Cut back on your cast of thousands. Too many characters can be confusing and annoying to the readers. Combine two or three characters into one. And don’t get into involved descriptions of minor, walk-on characters.

~ Consider deleting or condensing chapter one. Maybe even chapter two, too. Take out the warm-up, where you’re revving your engine, and start your story later.

~ Take out all or almost all backstory (character history) in the first few chapters and marble in just the essentials as you go along, on an “as-needed” basis only. This also helps add intrigue.

~ Delete most or all of any chapters that don’t have enough tension and change, that don’t drive the story forward. Add any essential bits to other chapters. (Save deleted stuff on another file.) Or condense two chapters and combine them into one.

~ Delete or condense scenes that lack tension or don’t contribute to the plot or characterization. Condense parts where scenes drag, eliminating the boring bits. (Take out the parts that readers skip over.)

Then evaluate your writing style, and the internal structure of your chapters and scenes:

“Style That Sizzles & Pacing For Power” by Jodie Renner

~ Cut back on rambling or overly detailed descriptions. With today’s access to TV, movies, the internet and travel, we no longer need the kind of detail readers of 100 years ago needed to understand the setting, so just paint with broad brush strokes, and leave out all the little details. Also, don’t describe the setting in neutral language. Filter any descriptions of surroundings through the eyes and ears of your viewpoint character, with plenty of attitude.

~ Same with characters – no need to go into great detail. Give the most obvious, intriguing and relevant details, and let the readers fill in the rest to their heart’s content.

~ Don’t have a character relating the details to another character of something that happened that the readers witnessed first-hand and already know about. Skip over it with a phrase like “She told him how she’d gotten injured.”

~ Start scenes and chapters later and end them sooner. Cut out the warm-up and cool-down.

~ Skip over transitional times when not much happens. Replace with one or two sentences, like “Three days later.”

~ Eliminate or severely condense any “explanations” on topics or people. Keep these to the bare minimum, and give the info from a character’s point of view, with attitude, or through a lively conversation or heated argument.

~ Take out any info dumps, self-indulgent rambling on pet topics, “teaching” sections, or rants.

~ Eliminate repetitions and redundancies. Just say it once – no need to say it again in a different way. You may think that will help emphasize your point, but it actually has the opposite effect.   

Finally, tighten your writing to create leaner paragraphs and sentences:

~ Try to delete one paragraph per page (or two); one sentence (or more) in each paragraph, and at least one word, preferably more, in each sentence. Cut out the deadwood!

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Jodie Renner, a freelance fiction editor, has published two books to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Writing and Killer Thriller, a short e-book, with an expanded print version coming out late June ‘13; and Style That Sizzles & Pacing for Power, available in paperback, as an e-book on Kindle, and in other e-book formats. For more info on Jodie’s current and upcoming books, as well as a list of topics for workshops Jodie presents, please visit her author website. For information on Jodie’s editing services, please visit her editing website.

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(The Killer Nashville Guest Blog series is coordinated by KN Executive Director Beth Terrell (http://www.elizabethterrell.com/).  To be a part of this series, contact Beth at beth@killernashville.com.)