When multitasking is not your forté

by A.M. Khalifa, thriller writer, Google+

This is my last post as a regular contributor to Crime Fiction Collective for now. Thank you L.J., Peg and others for hosting me, and Jodie for inviting me in the first place. The experience has been tremendous, and I would strongly recommend group blogging as a fun and interactive way to engage with savvy readers and talented writers. But being the great multi-tasker that I am not, I am stepping aside to focus on reigning in my numerous wayward writing projects. I am working on the last installment in a collection of romantic suspense shorts about strong women struggling to find their place in life. And not one but two full length novels this year, one of which is the sequel to my critically acclaimed debut, Terminal Rage. I will be blogging erratically on my site, so you can join the conversation here. And you know how writers love seeing their email list swell, so do sign up below to my newsletter for periodic updates on my writing adventure.

I leave you with two short clips from London and Sydney exploring with members of the public what the title Terminal Rage conjures up in their mind.

Goodbye for now, but I am sure you will be seeing me around these parts, popping up every now and then. Thank you again for a wonderful run!

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My romantic suspense, The Italian Laundromat is currently discounted at 99 cents on Amazon!

A.M. Khalifa's critically acclaimed debut novel, Terminal Rage, was recently described by Publishers Weekly as "dizzying, intricate, and entertaining." 

Foreword Clarion says, "Khalifa manages to pull off something that is often difficult to do in the crime-thriller genre—he keeps the novel unpredictable and lays out a plot so twisted that the puzzle picture morphs as more pieces are added."

The ebook version of Terminal Rage is available for $2.99 on Amazon.

Be Afraid

By Andrew E. Kaufman, author of psychological thrillers

Being a writer is like climbing the tallest peak in the world. We barely get to enjoy the victory, when someone straps us down, tears our shirts open, and tells the vultures to bring it on.

Let’s face it: to be an artist is to be vulnerable. And perhaps a little unstable. We pour our souls onto the pages. We sweat. We cry. We scream a lot. We drink ridiculous quantities of coffee, but never enough to combat our emotional and physical exhaustion.

Not to mention, the brutal criticism, and really, there is no way to combat that. We read it, we cringe,

and we may (possibly) throw some things (at least, I hear). After that, we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off, taking what we can use, and throwing away the rest…that is, between the hysterical sobs, and guttural groans (also, of course, not a first hand experience).

Other sides of our artistry are a bit less brutal and far more enjoyable. If we do it right, we get to create worlds and characters from nothing other than our hungry imaginations, then watch them flourish into amazing stories. Also if we do it right, we relish in the knowledge that our readers are enjoying them, and more importantly, feeling them.

Of course, getting to that point is easier said than done.

In reaching that goal, my approach can be at times… a bit unconventional. Possibly insane. For me, writing a novel means feeling my way through the darkness and through my pages, essentially with no idea what the outcome will be. I don’t plan before I launch into my work. I write on instinct. As I do this, one persistent and nagging question pokes at me: Will this work?

The truth is, I never really know, and therein lies the insanity, because it’s usually not until the end stages that I realize I’ve actually got a cohesive story, and even more, one that people may actually enjoy. Even then, it’s not until my precious child leaves the mental womb-vacuum and takes in its first gasp of air that I start believing. And once again, living.

That’s where the joy begins. And the pain. And then more questions. When the book is “live,” I am overwhelmed because there is so much to take in. I watch my sales, watch my reviews. I question and re-question, examine and reexamine. I again assess whether my work is worthwhile, whether it did or did not, in fact, work. Even then, it’s all still a guessing game. There will never be finite answers to my many questions, and that’s part of this game.

Some might call my approach to novel writing somewhat random, somewhat reckless, and yes, somewhat unzipped, and I’d have a hard time disagreeing. But here’s the thing: I understand it, and even more, I know what drives it.

Fear.

Is fear a bad thing? Well, no. It’s what keeps me from touching a hot stove (at least, on purpose), from speeding down the freeway at 100 mph (give or take), and from making inappropriate comments (well, most of the time).

And fear is what keeps me from settling for Just Good Enough. It keeps me on my toes. Without fear, my work would be a shining example of Just Average. And that’s something I can’t tolerate.

So I strive for balance, because balance means allowing my fear to work for instead of against me. That’s the real challenge. Turning fear into a driving force that propels me to do my best, to be creative as I can, and to push myself outside the comfort zone. I am then mobilized instead of paralyzed.

Whether we like it or not , fear is necessary in art and in life. Perhaps Father Everett said it best in the movie Daredevel:

“A man without fear is a man without hope.”

And there you have it. When all is done, I know the truth—that I’m not afraid to be afraid.

Andrew E. Kaufman's new and bestselling novel, Darkness & Shadows, has been touted as "A story about damage and survival, about the past and the future, and about facing the truth behind the pain."

Writing Multi-Culturally

I'm white. Yep, probably not so much of a big reveal. I'm a little inordinately proud of the tiny bit of American Indian blood that flows through my veins, but… I'm white and there's really no getting around that fact.

My life experiences have all been as a white female. The only piece that even comes close to understanding the life experiences of someone from a different race or culture is that female thing. But still… not enough.

I'm tall, not horrible looking, and I don't have any physical or mental impairments. Visible, anyway. Another strike against any kind of personal knowledge about diversity.

On the plus side, I've spent the last thirty-nine years in an intimate relationship with someone who brought a different perspective to my knowledge of diversity. Someone who not only changed the filter, but changed the lens.

But how does a writer, with no real exposure to racial or cultural differences, bring the depth that  diversity offers to his or her writing?

In his book, MAKING SHAPELY FICTION, Jerome Stern says this about dialect: Do not attempt dialects with which you are not intimately familiar and for which you have not, in some way, paid your dues. Otherwise, you are likely to make a fool of yourself and seem to be a bigot as well.

No writer wants to be seen as a bigot, or even foolish. At the same time, what writer can resist a beautifully layered character who does look like all of the other characters they've created?

My advice, lame as it sounds, is to find someone familiar with whatever character you're building and ask them questions. Let them read what you've written with an eye for stereotypes. From an Eastern European to an African-American to Gay and Lesbian to a Mexican to someone who lives in Maine or Louisiana… respect them. Just as you would make every effort to research a plot detail, research your characters.

No man is an island. Expand your friendships and expand your horizons. Don't rely on what you've seen on the screen or read in another book. Rely on those who live it.

Readers, have you ever encountered a character that seemed off somehow? What did it make you feel about the rest of the story or the author?

Writers, how do you approach bringing diverse characters into your books?

That Evening I Spent with a Hooker

By Andrew E. Kaufman, bestselling author of psychological thrillers

Before becoming an author, I spent several years working as a broadcast journalist. I loved television news. It was exciting, fast paced, and packed with second-by-second, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants energy—something I’ve thrived on since childhood (read: adrenaline junkie).

Besides experiencing the joy of being at the center of all the energy and feeling the pulse of the city pounding in my head, I got to see a side of life few ever do on a daily basis.

The underside.

Photo courtesy: Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department

Which for some reason has always fascinated me. This is likely why, after finally leaving the news business, I went on to write thrillers (once an addict, always an addict, you know?) On some
unconscious level, I probably took a lot of what I saw during those years with me, using it to add depth and dynamics to my characters and stories.

And no joke: I saw it all.

From homicide scenes, to filthy meth labs, to blazing fires, to dead bodies sprawled across freeways. You name it, we chased it, and after that, served it up at eleven.

Oh, yeah…the part about the hooker.

In all my years as a journalist, there’s a defining incident that I don’t think will ever leave me.

One evening, we were out on an undercover story about prostitution. This was at the very start of my career, so some of the details are a bit sketchy. I can’t even recall what the actual story hook was (sorry, wasn’t trying to be punny, there), but I think our goal was to find a prostitute so she could help us attract Johns. Of course, with an eleven o’clock deadline, we only had a few hours to accomplish this.

Long story short, we found our girl, and a young one at that, maybe eighteen, maybe younger, wearing tattered shorts and a t-shirt that didn’t look clean. Frizzy hair with hardly any makeup. She leaned in through the window, smiled at us, and then surprisingly, obliged to help us out. Soon after that, she was in our car, and away we went.

As often happens in the News Biz, our John angle ended up falling flat, but what I remember most wasn’t that—it was what she said to us pre-interview, agreeing to do it with one caveat:

“You have to block out my face, because my mother watches the news.”

As soon as those words left her mouth, mine dropped open.

I know this is probably going to sound terribly naïve, but I hadn’t envisioned her as having a mom that she still maintained contact with, let alone being worried about her finding out she was a prostitute. I suppose that on some level I was aware it could have been possible, but in that instant she became so much more layered and dimensional to me, no longer just a nameless street hooker living out a life of destitute. She was a real human with real feelings, just like the rest of us.

And I wondered what happened to this woman. What drove her into this sort of life? And going even farther back, what life events set her up for this. Was it about the drugs? Maybe something from her childhood?

Unfortunately, I never found those answers. She got nervous about her pimp, cut the interview short, and within minutes, was back to walking the streets.

Everything after that became a blur of hurried commotion. It was getting late and close to deadline, so we pieced what little we had into a story, then fed it back to station live in order to make the eleven o’clock show.

But I’ll never forgot that evening I spent with a hooker.

Research and Realism

I'm busy traveling today, so my two-time client and all-round great guy, thriller and horror writer Allan Leverone, is filling in here at CFC for me today. Take it away, Al!
- Jodie Renner, freelance editor and craft-of-fiction writer

RESEARCH & REALISM, by Allan Leverone

As a genre author, my goal is to immerse the reader in the story. I want you turning the pages late into the night, knowing you should put the book down and go to bed but unable to force yourself to do so. I want you so involved in my fictional world that if the phone rings, you don’t even want to take your nose out of the book for three seconds to check the caller ID.

That’s my goal. And without putting words in anyone else’s mouth (or on anyone else’s keyboard), I think it’s probably a pretty safe bet that’s the goal of everyone who writes fiction.

In other words, I want to achieve a measure of realism you will accept as a reader. Since I’m only expert in a small number of subjects (people who know me might suggest that number is zero), a certain percentage of my time as an author must be spent in research.

I hate research.

Let me clarify: I like learning new things but don’t enjoy doing research for research’s sake. When I’m writing, I would much rather be writing than researching. I want to learn enough about a subject to ensure that you, as a reader, are not forced out of the story by a lack of realism in the writing.

My new thriller, Parallax View, is set late in the Cold War, in 1987, and action takes place inside the Kremlin, as well as in East and West Germany and the United States. The plot revolves around a secret communique, written by Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, to be delivered to U.S. President Ronald Reagan by beautiful and clever CIA clandestine ops specialist Tracie Tanner. A shadowy cabal is determined to ensure that communique never reaches the White House, and the chase is on.

As I mentioned before, there aren’t many subjects on which I could be considered an expert. What few subjects there are do not include KGB operations. Or CIA operations, for that matter. I’ve never been to the Kremlin. Never met Mikhail Gorbachev, although most of a couple of chapters in PARALLAX VIEW is spent inside his head.

To prepare for writing the book, I could have immersed myself in research; the subjects were certainly fascinating enough. But doing so could have meant taking years to write this one novel, rather than months, with only a minimal net gain in realism, if that. The stark reality of being a genre author early in the 21st century is that taking years to write a single book is not economically feasible.

So what’s the solution?

God bless the Internet. Instead of studying scholarly tomes on the history and construction of the Kremlin, instead of spending thousands of dollars I can’t spare to fly to Moscow (although I would love to do so some day), I was able to go online and inside of an hour’s time spent on the right websites, gain sufficient knowledge to allow me to write scenes with (hopefully) enough realism to keep the reader immersed in Tracie Tanner’s and Mikhail Gorbachev’s world, rather than our own.

The same thing goes for Soviet sniper gear. Soviet cigarettes, televisions, monitoring equipment. All these things required research, which I was able to do online in significantly less time than it would have taken twenty or thirty years ago. And my editor, Jodie Renner, collaborated by keeping an eye out for any possible discrepancies for the time period of the novel.

Another example: Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. Never been there. If you served in the United States military during the mid-1980s and your tour of duty took you through Ramstein, you may not recognize the base from its appearance in PARALLAX VIEW.

But here’s the point: you’re reading fiction. Ramstein Air Base is going to look like what I need it to look like to advance the story. My goal as a writer is to draw you into the fictional world through steadily increasing tension, and through characters who live and breathe and become real to you. If you’re looking for a detailed historical account of the Cold War, you should probably look elsewhere. If you’re interested in a detailed description of U.S. military bases in Europe during the Reagan years, you should probably look elsewhere.

But through the magic of the Internet, any writer can become well-enough versed in almost any subject to enable him or her to write compelling fiction. Because, after all, the cliché says authors should “write what you know.” With the web at your fingertips, you can now “know” almost anything.

That’s my opinion. What’s yours? Is it cutting corners to do all of your research online? Copping out? Are only ex-Soviet Red Army snipers capable of writing about Russian sniper activity?

Allan Leverone is the author of the Amazon Top-25 bestselling thriller, THE LONELY MILE, as well as four other novels, including the brand-new PARALLAX VIEW. He's an air traffic controller in the real world and lives with his family in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Connect on Facebook, Twitter @AllanLeverone, and at http://www.allanleverone.com/.

Click on these titles to go to Allan's novels on Amazon: Parallax View, Revenant, Paskagankee, The Lonely Mile, and Final Vector.

SAFECOP – a New Weapon in Tampa’s Arsenal

Guest post by Kelly Miller
The crime fighters in our novels don’t rely on Ouija boards to capture the bad guys. They use the latest technology available. If you write crime fiction, it’s imperative you familiarize yourself with the systems police departments across the country use.

When the Republican National Convention came to Tampa, Florida, last month, the Tampa Police Department was thrust into the national spotlight. Chief Jane Castor and her officers performed exceptionally well under the stress of picketers and two weeks of twelve-hour shifts. There were even Tampa residents interviewed on the local news, complaining how quiet downtown was during the RNC. If that was the worst criticism of the week, I’d say the TPD exceeded expectations.

One benefit of the convention was the purchase of a $400,000 software upgrade from Congressional money set aside for convention security. This technology allows Tampa officers to continuously scan updated maps for crime trends. When police respond to a crime scene, they enter the information collected into the system and Tampa maps are updated instantaneously. This software also allows officers access to maps showing career criminals, sexual predators, and juvenile offenders living in a specific area.

In the past, if the TPD wanted to send out a BOLO (Be on the Look Out), it could take several hours or even days for officers to receive the information. Now alerts happen in real time. Investigators can send out these bulletins using the new software as well as post photos and videos.

Shortly after the RNC, the bay area got to see this new software in action when a burglary suspect was arrested. Reportedly a man broke into an office building, ransacked the place, and stole cash and audiovisual equipment. Burglary cases often take at least a few days to solve, if solved at all. But this suspect was arrested in only two hours. Police checked the burglarized company’s surveillance video and found an image of the suspect. An officer used a cellphone camera to take a picture of the man in the video. Then the photo and a description of the suspect were entered into the new system and it quickly lead to his capture.


Kelly Miller’s first novel, Dead Like Me (due out November 29), is set in Tampa, Florida where she lives. This technology isn’t something her detectives use, but the third book in the Kate Springer series will be set during this time period—September 2012. Kelly is hoping the backdrop of the RNC and new technology like SAFECOP will add extra flavor to the story. Please visit Kelly's website and her blog.

Creating a Scene Outline for Your Novel

by Jodie Renner, editor, author, speaker   

First, what’s a scene?

         Although most novels are divided up into chapters, the scene is the fundamental unit of fiction. Each scene is a mini-story, with a main character and a beginning, middle, and end of its own. Every scene needs tension or conflict, and at the end of each scene, at least one of the main characters must have gone through some sort of change. Otherwise, the scene isn’t pulling its weight and needs to be revised or cut. As Jessica Morrell says, each scene is a microcosm of the  plot, and every scene needs a mission (goal), an obstacle, and an outcome (usually a disaster). For more on scenes, see Jodie’s article “Every Scene Needs Conflict and a Change.”

A modern novel normally has several dozen scenes. Each scene can range in length from a few paragraphs to a dozen pages or more. A chapter can contain one scene or several. Occasionally, a scene may even run into the next chapter.


Using the Scene Outline:

The outline below will help you organize and your scenes and decide if any of them need to be moved, revised, amped up, or cut.

This is a great tool for both plotters and pantsers. Plotters/outliners can use it to outline your scenes early on in the process, and those of you who prefer to just let the words flow and write “by the seat of your pants” can use it later, to make sure the timeline makes sense and that the scene has conflict/tension and a change. 

Keep each scene description to a minimum. Don’t get carried away with too many details, or the task could become arduous. The most important thing is the POV (point of view) character’s goal for that scene, and what’s preventing him/her from reaching that goal, plus any new conflicts / problems / questions that arise.

And you can use a different font color or highlight color for each main character, for a quick reference on who was the POV character for each scene. Also, you can print it up and cut them out to rearrange the scenes, or use a writing software for that.

If in doubt as to who should be the viewpoint character for that scene, most often it’s your protagonist. Can also, less often, be your antagonist or another main character. Almost never a minor character. If you can’t decide who should be the POV character for a particular scene, go with the character who has the most invested emotionally or the most to lose.

SCENE OUTLINE FORM:

Scene 1: Chapter:1    Place:         

Date/Month/Season:                                 Year (approx.):

POV character for this scene:
                                 
Other main characters here:

POV character’s goal here:

Motivation for their goal (why do they want that?):

Main problem / conflict – Who/What is preventing MC from reaching his/her goal:

Outcome – Usually a setback / new problem:

(And/or new info, revelation, new question, resolution of problem [rarely]):



Scene 2: Chapter:            Place:                           

Date/Month/Season:                                     Year (approx.):

POV character:                                   

Other main characters:

POV character’s goal:

Motivation for their goal:

Main problem/conflict/question:

Outcome (most often a setback):


Scene 3: Chapter:            Place:                              

Date/Month/Season:                                      Year (approx.):

POV character:                      

Other main characters:

POV character’s goal:

Motivation:

Main problem/conflict/question:

Outcome (most often a setback):


Scene 4:

Etc. Continue for as many scenes as you have.

Fiction writers - Do you have any tips to add to this scene outline?

Copyright © Jodie Renner, April 2012

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor and the award-winning author of threecraft-of-writing guides in her series An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: Captivate Your Readers, Fire up Your Fiction, and Writing a Killer Thriller, as well as two clickable time-saving e-resources, Quick Clicks: Spelling List and Quick Clicks: Word Usage. She has also organized two anthologies for charity, incl. Childhood Regained – Stories of Hope for Asian Child Workers. You can find Jodie at www.JodieRenner.com, www.JodieRennerEditing.com, her blog, http://jodierennerediting.blogspot.com/, and on Facebook and Twitter.