Digging for Buried Treasure!

By Joe Moore

Writing is hell. Rewriting is torture. Editing is tedious. So where's the fun in writing novels?

Research!

At least for me, that’s the fun part. Like digging for buried treasure, it's the excitement of uncovering those tidbits and morsels of fact that add seasoning and spice to the story. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a list of tricks and techniques to do my research. And I’ve placed the info in one location so you can use it, too. But before I reveal the location of the treasure, here’s a sampling of what you'll find.

How do you come up with names for your characters, especially the minor and walk-on characters? Pop in a DVD of any movie and skip to the credit roll. There’s hundreds of mix and match names to choose from. And if you need foreign names, just pick a movie that was shot in a particular country. Even the major Hollywood studies use local crews when they're on location and list their names in the credits.

Don't want to watch a movie? There's even fake name generators online.

How about background info on your characters? Easy. Just check the obituaries in a local or national paper. You’re sure to find biographies you can modify for your needs. There’s even a national obituary website where you can find thousands to review. And don’t forget searching the faculty bios at hundreds of colleges and universities for background info.

What about creating a sense of place? This one is really fun. Let’s say you need to describe a house where your character lives in a particular town. Start with one of the many a real estate websites. A quick search will show you what the houses look like in a particular neighborhood or area, many with virtual tours. Google maps gives you the names of the surrounding streets, highways and landmarks. And Google Earth shows you the surrounding territory in detail.

Your hero is in Mexico City reading the morning news. What’s the name of the leading Mexican newspaper? There are websites that list and monitor thousands of newspapers from around the world.

You need statistics? Visit the CIA World Factbook or the Bureau of Justice Statistics websites. Need info on the global terrorists attacks that happed this morning? How about military terms and technology? Or how stuff works? What about access to over 39,000 public record databases? Or finding out what time it is right now in Nigeria or Singapore? There are websites for these and so many more for writer’s research resources.

And the most intriguing treasure of all: The Hidden Web. It’s over 500 times larger than the Internet and hardly anyone knows about it or how to access it. Now you will.

As promised, here’s the location of my treasure trove, no digging needed. It's my present to all my writer friends. Enjoy!

Joe's Research Page

Egads! What if Mom Was Right? And a Contest

By Joanna Campbell Slan

“Don’t eat that. It’s dirty,” Mom used to say as my sisters and I ran around frantically trying to catch snowflakes on our tongues. And when we attempted a snow ice cream recipe, mixing sugar and half-and-half with five cups of the fluffy white stuff, she went apoplectic. “You don’t know where that’s been. What were you thinking? Throw that out, right now.”

So we did.

Bacteria in the Snowflakes?

Now I discover she was right. According to an Associated Press article in last week's St. Louis Post-Dispatch, scientists found that as much as 85% of the nuclei of snowflakes were bacteria. Okay, it’s the kind that only causes diseases in tomatoes, but those things mutate, don’t they? I mean, today it’s tomatoes, tomorrow you’re kissing your liver goodbye.

I set aside my daily paper, pushed away my latte, and buried my head in my hands. “If she was right about this…what else does Mom know? Maybe I should have been paying better attention.”

There was that threat: Step on a crack and you’ll break your mother’s back. She said it and laughed. Was she teasing? I’ve experimented, and so far, no word from Florida about breaking bones, but…who knows? Maybe it’s just a matter of time.

If you read in poor light, you’ll need glasses. By golly, she had me there. I’ve been blind as the proverbial bat—not a real bat, mind you—since fourth grade. Then I had LASIK surgery. But since then I must gone back to reading in poor light, because now I can scarcely read my AARP card held at arm’s length.

Your face is going to get stuck like that. On close examination, I do believe that hash-mark between my eyes is the result of constant frowns. Of making faces about the cost of gas, why my teenage son isn’t home yet, and failed attempts at weight loss.

Step outside with wet hair and you’ll catch your death of cold. Maybe wet hair doesn’t attract the rhinovirus, but a good chill does lower your immune system. At least, I think it does. After all, no one seems to know exactly what does and does not prevent a cold. As a young adult, I gulped gallons of orange juice. Next, I popped Zinc lozenges. Now I chug Airborne. What if all along the culprit has been wet hair? Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

I reach for the phone and give Mom a call.(That's a photo of us taken 50-some years ago.) She’s always glad to hear from me. I take a deep breath and apologize. “Mom, all these years, I wasn’t listening to you. Turns out, you were right.” I go through my list of “mom-isms” and give her long overdue credit.

A Useful Citizen at Last

“See?” She says, a hint of self-satisfaction in her voice. “The pediatrician told me someday you’d be a useful citizen.” With that she signs off.

I put away the paper and clean the breakfast dishes. I feel strangely relieved to know Mom was right about so much. Checking the time, I realize I need to hurry or I’ll be late for my appointment. One foot is out the door, when I hear my mother’s voice in my head: Always put on clean underwear before you go out. What if you get hit by a car and they take you to the hospital?

And, Lord help me, I run upstairs to change.

**

Annoucing the Box O'Books and Lots O' Stickers Contest

Pop on over to http://www.killerhobbies.blogspot.com and enter the first ever Box O' Books and Lots O' Stickers Contest. All you have to do is sign up for our mailing list in the boxes on the right ON or BEFORE St. Patrick's Day, 2008, and you could win 1.) A box of gently read books totaling more than $180 in value or 2.) A selection of Mrs. Grossman's Stickers.

Come on and get lucky!
**

Joanna Campbell Slan is the author of ten non-fiction books. Her new series set in St. Louis will debut in September with Paper, Scissors, Death: A Scrapbooking Mystery (ISBN: 0-7387-1250-7) from Midnight Ink. Joanna and her family live in St. Louis.

InkSpot News - March 8, 2008

Lynn Sholes & Joe Moore will conduct the "UNDER THE HOOD, Fine Tuning Your Fiction" writing workshop & Book Signing.

Coral Springs Festival of the Arts
Saturday, March 15 - 3-4 PM

Barnes & Noble
2790 University Drive
Coral Springs, FL

Turned Off by Turn Offs

A while back, the topic came up on DorothyL about turn-offs in mystery novels. Show stoppers, those things that when you read them make you put the book down and never pick it up again. Those things that makes you dash off breathless letters of condemnation. Those things, even, that make you want to buy Author Voodoo dolls and use them for a game of Author-in-a-Blender.

Some oft-cited examples, in no particular order:
• Swearing
• Smoking
• Tattoos
• Women protagonists who blindly walk into peril
• People who won't talk to the police
• Sub-plots involving adultery
• Did I mention swearing?
• And smoking?

All this surprised me. First of all, it was a little alarming because my follow-up to Lost Dog features a fair degree of swearing and smoking (and extensive craving of a smoke) as well as people who won't talk to the police and a sub-plot involving adultery. I even have a minor character with lots of tattoos. I don't have a woman protagonist who walks blindly into peril in this one, which is my one saving grace I suppose. Oh, and I don't kill a dog, an act so heinous it doesn't even need to be listed.

My own personal pet peeve, as described in a previous post, is unrealistically great first time sex, with ubiquitous, unstoppable computer hackers running a close second. Other than that, I am pretty tolerant. We're talking about a novel here, after all. It's not like I have to hang out with these people.

Take smoking. My guy, Skin Kadash, smokes like a chimney in Lost Dog, but has mostly quit in my second novel, Chasing Smoke. All throughout Chasing Smoke, however, he's craving a smoke. I mean, he just quit, and it's hard. Sometimes he almost breaks down and lights up, but even when he's not smoking himself he's watching others smoke, and thinking about it. A lot.

Now, I'm not a smoker. I'm not even a former smoker. I'm gracious about it with my friends who do smoke, but I admit I don't care for the smell of tobacco smoke and I don't care for smoker's breath and smoker's hair. But, hey, let's face it, it's not my decision and if my friends want to smoke, it's their choice. If we're out having a beer and a friend lights up, no worries. I like my friends a LOT more than I dislike smoking. And no doubt I have plenty of habits that others don't care for.

In writing about smoking, I went to great lengths to create a character who was sympathetic, and whose need for a smoke actually accentuated his intrigue as a person. Aside from the challenge it posed to me as a writer, it also just fit in with who he is. How successful I am with Skin I'll leave for my readers to decide, but I would hope that no one would dismiss him, or the book, out of hand simply because he's a smoker.

Consider that other great taboo. Killing a dog or cat. As crime fiction writers, we can kill off untold numbers of people, but lay a finger on the fur of a single fictional pet and we're Hitler. Kids are pretty much sacrosanct too, though we're actually allowed to put children in danger at times.

True, some folks have gotten away with the killing of the innocents. Glenn Close still had a career after boiling the bunny. Steven Spielberg still gets to make movies despite T-Rex eating a dog in Jurassic Park II. And there are a number of successful books and films in which children come to a dark end. But for the most part, those are events we dramatize fictionally at our peril. "After he killed the pomeranian, I resolved to never buy another book by him, and to picket bookstores that sell his books, and to mail little ziplock bags of dog doody to his mother, and,... and,... and,..."

That's disappointing to me, and not because I want to kill a dog. I love dogs. And I love kids. And I love people, though certainly not all of them. But as a writer, I want to feel free to tell stories as they unfold, not feel constrained by lists of no-no's. And, as a reader, (and let's face it, I read a LOT more books than I'll ever write), I want authors to feel that they can tell the stories they need to tell without stressing about the Verboten!

I'm not advocating gratuitous butchery here. But let's be honest. We're killers, as writers, and voyeurs of killing, as readers of crime fiction. Even the coziest among us produce a body count that would be shocking if it weren't on the page. The distinction between a bloodless death in the drawing room and serial slaughter in an abattoir isn't all that great, even if sometimes we pretend it is. And certainly I know there are any number of topics that probably cross the line for the vast majority of us. I'm not saying there aren't valid lines. I'm also not suggesting that we have to read or write about topics that don't interest us. There are a million books out there, and none of them are for everyone. I just wonder if, considering the mayhem we do tolerate, some lines aren't a little arbitrary and unmindful of what's really going on here.

I don't smoke, and I don't have a tattoo, and I won't commit adultery. But I write about all these things, and many others that probably make it onto scold's list somewhere. I guess, in the end, if we're okay with Colonel Mustard doing it in the library with a candlestick, might it also be okay if he has a smoke afterwards, and maybe cops a feel from Mrs. White at the biker bar up the road while getting his tats touched up? We're being entertained by imaginary murder. Is a cigarette or illicit affair so awful in comparison?

Naming the Baby

By Sue Ann Jaffarian

Coming up with book titles is fun. At least I enjoy it. I consider it almost entertainment, like a good brain teaser game. Sometimes you nail the title on the first try and sometimes it takes several practice swings. And sometimes you need to bring in reinforcements.

My first two Odelia Grey novels were home runs on the first pitch. There was never any doubt in my mind (or my publisher’s) that Too Big To Miss or The Curse of the Holy Pail weren’t winners. Then came the third novel. The recently released Thugs and Kisses started life as Remedial Murder, then morphed into Mother Mayhem. Neither my publisher or I could come up with anything better. Then one evening, while playing a game of online backgammon, I took note of the screen name of my opponent: Thugsnkisses. A light went on in my head and the next morning I sent an e-mail to my editor: Was it too late to change the title???? It wasn’t, but just barely. And Thugs and Kisses became a winner by a landslide.

At the beginning of the year, I submitted the 4th Odelia Grey novel to Midnight Ink. From the start its title has been Epitaph Envy, but when I received suggestions back from the editorial committee on the manuscript, it seemed that folks didn’t get the title. Oh oh. Although nothing had been officially bantered about, someone at Midnight Ink suggested the title of Booby Trap. It took me all of 3-1/2 seconds to fall in love with Booby Trap and I’m hopeful that it will receive the official blessing by the publisher powers that be.

Now I’m working on the 5th Odelia Grey book and am kicking around some possible new titles even before I have 3 chapters written. Its working title is Fifty Can Be Fatal. A good and fitting title, but is it the best for the book? Will it stop book shoppers in their tracks? Will it boost sales? Inspired by Booby Trap, I spun the book’s plot around in my head and came up with a new title: Corpse on the Cob. Tasty, huh? (Note: the plot involves a maze set in a corn field.)

Often when I sit on panels I’m asked about book titles. Do authors get to choose their own? How do you come up with them? What makes a good title? A great title?

Janet Evanovich runs contests for her book titles. My friend and fellow Midnight Ink author, Keith Raffel, recently posted suggestions for book’s titles on his blog and asked folks to comment on them. It took two posts for him to come up with something blog readers were happy with, but he’ll still need to get that title past his publisher.

Although the author gets to name the baby manuscript, the author may have little or no say in what title it wears when it grows up and leaves the nest. So far, I’ve been fortunate in that my publisher and I have seen eye-to-eye on titles. I’ve loved their suggestions as much as they’ve loved mine.

What creative ways have you used to come up with titles for books?

What titles have you had and loved that didn’t make it to your book’s final cover?
What titles have you disliked?
What is your favorite book title of all time? (The first one that came to my mind was A Confederacy of Dunces.)

Character or Caricature?

by Cricket McRae





The other night my guy and I went to a birthday party. A few minutes after we got there, a man I will call TJ walked up to us.

“Hey there.” Points to himself. “TJ. I’m here as R’s date. Not that we’re you know, dating. We’re just ----ing. Hahahahaha. I don’t know you. I’d remember if I knew you because I always remember good lookin’ women.” Peers around. “Where’s my friend Jack?”

And off he went to find his fifth of Jack Daniels, which he carried with him all evening, swigging directly from the bottle until it was gone. I kid you not. Why, after all, dirty a glass?

Then he passed out in the backyard.

Between his delightful greeting (we had, in fact, met before, and it was just as unpleasant the first time) and his blessed unconsciousness, he yammered loudly to anyone within listening range, insulted several of the other party goers, made out with some woman who was not his “date” for the evening, and had his face slapped.

Now: this was a large party with lots of people. Most of us were well over the age of forty, with a few thirty-somethings tossed in. There were martinis and mojitos, chatting and catching up, lots of laughter and a little dancing later on. It was, in short, a fun time.

Except, of course, for TJ. He was obnoxious, loud, and rude when sober, and then he and Jack managed to exacerbate those marvelous qualities as the evening progressed. And to make it worse, the woman who was supposed to be his date was the birthday girl.

At one point my S.O. breathed into my ear, “Oh, man. You have to put that guy in a book. He’s a perfect asshole.”

Ruefully, I told my dear one that however much I’d love to mine such an extreme character, he was, unfortunately, too perfect. TJ was simply too much that guy: a caricature of himself. A real person who could only be a cliché in fiction.

At a recent reading, a woman asked whether the people I base my characters on recognized themselves in my writing. Her question presupposed that I use friends and family as characters, and I had to explain that I really don’t do that.

She insisted that you have to write what you know, so my fiction must reflect actual people. I pointed out that I also know all the other folks I’ve met in a lifetime of reading fiction and non-fiction, as well as watching movies and television. So if you take that into consideration, the questioner was probably right.

Last week my aunt called. She said she’d read Lye in Wait, and she’d finally figured out who everyone in the book was.

I made inquisitive noises, though I suspected where the conversation was headed.

“Tootie is your great grandmother McCoy, isn’t she? But are you Sophie Mae or Meghan?”

Neither one. Both. In fact, I’m everyone in my books, to a degree, because I can’t help but write from aspects of myself. Sophie Mae isn’t me, though we share some of the same interests. And Meghan isn’t me, though I’m short and have brown hair. Barr Ambrose isn’t me, though I’m originally from Wyoming. And Erin isn’t me, even if I was a smart ass ten-year-old.


Maybe I can't put TJ into a book until I get better at being a jerk. I'll try and work on that.

So where do your characters come from? Are they alter egos? Have you ever put someone you know directly on the page? Do you get to know your characters as you write, or do they come to you fully formed?

Voluntary Censorship -- A Good Idea?

Keith Raffel here with a question for writers.

My sister and I went over to Berkeley to see Carrie Fisher in her one-woman show, Wishful Drinking. What a life! Daughter of "America's Sweethearts," Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. Step-daughter of Connie Stevens. (What do you mean you don't remember Cricket from Hawaiian Eye?) First film playing a 1970's Lolita opposite Warren Beatty in Shampoo. Then in a life-altering role, Princess Leia Organa. Ex-wife of Paul Simon. Novelist. (You should hear her read the audiotape of Postcards from the Edge.) Top script doctor.

In the course of the show, she chats about her drug addiction, bi-polar disorder, second marriage to a guy who turns out to be gay, and good friend's death on her bed. She lowers down from the ceiling a life-size Princess Leia sex doll. She discusses her parents' break-up (Dad ran away with Elizabeth Taylor) and her mother's ill-conceived subsequent marriages. She mentions in passing one of her mother's great ideas -- that she, Carrie, should have a child with her mother's husband. (Advice not followed.) More sex, drugs, and rock & roll. One thing. Five seats over from my sister and me sat her mother. I was aghast. Carrie addressed her mom up in the mezzanine. Debbie seemed both resigned and proud. (The night before George Lucas was in the audience, and in the dressing room after the show, Carrie finally found out why he had told her on the Star Wars set that there was no underwear in outer space.)

Someone once said you should write as though your mother is dead. Carrie Fisher wasn't even fazed when her mom was in the audience. I've told my younger kids that Dot Dead is PG-32. A guy in the audience at one local bookstore asked me why the sex scenes in Dot Dead weren't grittier. I told him I was conscious that I had four kids who would read the book some day.

So I guess I do censor myself. I could never carry off what Carrie Fisher did. (OTOH, my life has not been as "interesting" as hers -- at least from a People Magazine perspective, I mean.)

Writers, are you ever censoring what you write because of what your spouse, squeeze, kids, parents, or friends might think? Spill it.

Rules of Engagement

by Nina Wright

A funny thing happened on the way to writing this blog post. I got engaged . . . to be married. Here I was, all set to blog about “unexpected guest” characters—you know, those fictional folks you don’t see coming who nonetheless show up on the page and change everything—when my significant other slipped a ring on my finger. A very nice ring, I might add.

The Unexpected Guest Character post will have to wait because my new status as fiancée has filled my head with entirely different notions. And I’m not talking about wedding plans although The Event will certainly require some forethought. Not to mention the fact that we're contemplating a move to another part of the country. No, what I’m thinking about now is the way my attitudes toward love and lust manifest in what I write.

During the years when my previous marriage—a long one gradually destroyed by his preference for booze over employment—was in decline, the women in my fiction were either leaving their husbands or coping with the death of their husbands. That includes my first teen novel and my first Whiskey Mattimoe mystery. In the years following my divorce, I wrote about women falling into passionate love with thrilling but inappropriate men. Let's just say I enjoyed the research.

My ex insisted he never saw the divorce coming. Being drunk most of the time made it hard for him to keep up. He might have got a clue if he had read Whiskey on the Rocks or Homefree, or even considered the titles. My whimsical play Cherchez Dave Robicheaux offered a big tip: the heartsick protagonist leaves her husband for a fictional character. My protagonist was more desperate than I was.

Enough about what came before. What’s happening now is that I’m engaged to a tender, funny, generous man who puts family and friends first. Although more into sports than literature, he used to be a professional speechwriter; thus, he respects my work. I met my fiancé when I wasn't looking for love, yet I knew almost immediately from our ease with each other that he was Mr. Right. Never mind that he wasn't my “type,” and I'd never written about loving a man like him.

In the movie Definitely, Maybe the hero concludes that finding the right partner may be more a matter of when than whom. Put another way, you have to be ready. I opened my heart and recognized a fine man when I met him. The rest was easy. But if I'd met my guy a couple years earlier, I doubt we would have clicked. Timing, as they say, is everything. And I'll go a step further: anything I've ever tried to force has failed, be it a relationship, a storyline, or a laugh.

Fiction is the realm where I play with my fears and fantasies. But life is where I live them, and it offers more surprises than I can make up.

Your turn. Tell us a little about the relationships, romantic or otherwise, you've built on the page . . . if you dare!

P.S. Happy Birthday, Inkspot! This blog was conceived one year ago today. Jess Lourey gets credit for thinking of it, Joe Moore for building it, Keith Raffel for scheduling it, and the rest of us for contributing essays once a month.