Les Edgerton's Blog, page 8

Elizabeth White invites me to her blog

Hi folks,

I was invited by Elizabeth White to be a guest on her writer's blog and here's the post. Hope you enjoy the read!



Editing by Elizabeth What We Say Ain’t Always What We Mean… By Les EdgertonIt’s an honor to welcome Les Edgerton back to the site. There are a lot of people out there writing noir, but Les is the real deal. His life experiences give his writing a verisimilitude you can’t learn from a book or earn via an MFA (though he has one of those). Over the years, Les has shared with readers anecdotes from his fascinating life. Now, in large part as a journey of introspection and the desire to figure out how he arrived at this point in his life, Les has finally put pen to paper and memorialized his amazing life story, Adrenaline Junkie (Down & Out Books), for posterity. Despite having lived a life packed with more action than most ever dream of, Les is here today to explain that, at least in the world of writing, “action” doesn’t necessarily mean what you might think it does.



A MAJOR FLAW IN TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING (FICTION) EFFECTIVELY LIES IN OUR TERMINOLOGY: What we say ain’t always what we mean…I read a lot of blogs from other writers, agents, editors and other professionals in the writing game, and I read a lot of letters from writers responding to those posts. Alas, again and again, I see some general misconceptions about writing techniques and story structure that I’d like to address.I see the same misconceptions from my students in my online classes and from clients I work with.The misconceptions seem to arrive from misunderstanding the definitions of the terms we employ in describing fiction writing and fiction techniques.I’ve come to believe that much of the misunderstandings writers have stem from the fact that many of our terms are lay terms, and while the definitions assigned certain terms have their root in “lay” or “dictionary” definitions, there are significant differences when applied to writing, and it is these differences that cause a certain amount of confusion.That sounds like a lot of goobly-gook, doesn’t it? Sorry! I’ll try to explain better.A good example of what I’m talking about that I’ve seen a lot written about lately refers to the term “action” in fiction. A nonwriter usually thinks of action in reference to drama—books, movies, plays, and television—as some kind of physical activity. Many times, the word evokes images of melodrama—bombings, kidnappings, shootings, stabbings, beatings, rapes… violent physical action, in other words. Lots of noise, screams, smoke, and fury. Writers need to think differently and understand that action in fiction means something much more than in real life.I just read a letter on another blog from a beginning writer who complained that she began her novel with action—in her case, an armed robbery involving her protagonist—and then couldn’t figure out why this didn’t hook the agent she’d sent it to. She said he turned her manuscript down because while the robbery hooked him in the very beginning, it turned out to be mostly unrelated to the story that followed. This poor writer had done what a lot of writers seem to do. She thought that when teachers, agents and editors said they wanted to be “hooked” immediately on the first page, they were looking for something along the lines of that lay definition of action. A gun going off or whatever.Not.The term “action” when applied to fiction means something vastly broader and more encompassing of other activities than the stuff listed above. While it can include those kinds of activities, literary action also encompasses many other things. Dialog is action, for instance. A character driving down the road and seeing a dead plover is also action. A character reading a newspaper on the subway is action. Anything a character is doing is action.This one misunderstood term is to blame for many of the mistakes made in creating a manuscript, especially when trying to follow the advice of the pros.
For the rest of this article, go to here  
Blue skies,Les

MY MEMOIR ADRENALINE JUNKIE IS NOW AVAILABLE!

Hi folks,

The day I've been waiting for is here! My memoir, ADRENALINE JUNKIE, launches today! Available on Amazon and other venues. Hope you'll give it a read and if you like it, please consider leaving a short review on Amazon--those mean a lot!

Here's the announcement by my publisher, Down & Out Books:


Top of FormNew from Down & Out Books: Adrenaline Junkie: A Memoir by Les EdgertonLance Wright Uncategorized November 19, 2018  0 CommentNew from Down & Out Books …


ADRENALINE JUNKIE: A MEMOIR  by Les Edgerton
Publication Date: November 19, 2018Buy the trade paperback from the Down & Out Bookstore and receive a FREE digital download of the book!Also available from the following retailers …
Print: Amazon — Amazon UK — Barnes & Noble — IndieBound
eBook: Kindle — Kindle UK — Nook — iTunes — Kobo — PlaySynopsis … Adrenaline Junkie is more than a renowned, multi-award-winning author entertaining with his life history. Les Edgerton understands that backstory matters. It influences the present. So he journeyed through his past seeking answers for why he was the way he was. Seeking answers for his thrill-seeking, devil-may-care, often self-destructive, behaviors. Seeking a sense of personal peace.Why was he compelled to be the best he could be in all his endeavors—legal or otherwise. What drove him to excel, then flee success, only to strive for supremacy in another field?Adrenaline Junkie holds the answers. With nothing held back. With his life-saving humor, an indomitable spirit, and a fierce courage to expose the ugly and painful. Like the tough, raw, vulnerable characters Les writes about in his short stories and novels, he exposes us to a man fighting against family, society, and his own sense of injustice. Fighting for a moment—regardless of how fleeting—to feel in control of his life. And, as uncomfortable at times as Les’s life adventure may be for us to witness, we come away grateful he took us with him.So settle back. Meet a real-life, twenty-first-century Renaissance man. A real-life adrenaline junkie.Praise for ADRENALINE JUNKIE:“Adrenaline Junkie is a raw and harrowing memoir that brilliantly combines great sensitivity with brutal honesty. Les Edgerton is never afraid to reveal his vulnerability—and culpability—as he takes us on a head-spinning ride through the bizarre and terrifying experiences in a life that was often defined by violence. The result is a breathtaking page-turner that will keep readers hooked from page one and will never let them go.” —Lisa Lieberman Doctor, former Warner Bros. prodco president, president of Robin Williams prodco, Blue Wolf Productions“Filled with stories of knifings, armed robberies, brutal prison fights, and Charles Manson (yes, that Charles Manson!), Edgerton proves that life can be stranger (and certainly more violent) than fiction. But Edgerton isn’t just a guy with a tough story to tell. He’s a poet who startles you with sentences both stark and darkly beautiful. An astonishing accomplishment.” —Jon Bassoff, author of Corrosion“Adrenaline Junkie is the compelling, beautifully written story of an extraordinary man who has lived on both sides of the tracks. Les Edgerton achieves a sort of sainthood among sinners, an apotheosis of rebellion and force, much like Harcamone at Fontevrault, or a hero in a Johnny Cash song, a huge, Promethean work of major significance and scale.” —Richard Godwin, critically acclaimed author“Edgerton’s prose hits with the force of a hammer—as does his recollection of an America, both deeply flawed and wonderful, that is now more important than ever to keep in our sights. Adrenaline Junkie makes sense of one man’s life while showing us all new aspects of our own.” —Jenny Milchman, USA Today bestselling and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Cover of Snow and Wicked River“No one can accuse Les of being a ‘crime tourist’. He’s lived the life, done the bird, and now he’s written the book. Adrenaline Junkie should be on any prospective (or established) crime writer’s list. An entertaining, darkly-rendered tale of one man’s adventures in the very belly of the beast.” —Tony Black, author of Her Cold Eyes“Sometimes shocking, often poignant, occasionally distasteful, frequently funny, and always brutally honest, Adrenaline Junkie tells the story of one man’s harrowing yet ultimately successful quest for redemption. Written with razor-sharp clarity, Edgerton’s memoir is a triumph.” —Robert Rotstein, author of We, the Jury“Adrenaline Junkie will be required reading for crime writers one day, a bible for future authors to study rebellion and the human spirit, that smart-ass spark inside us all that doesn’t like taking orders from parents, teachers, and even the law. Author of The Rapist and The Bitch, two of the most profound noir novels published, an ex-criminal and former prison inmate, Edgerton knows what makes all of us tick, and how, with not much of a shove, any one of us could end up behind bars. One of the most fascinating autobiographies you will ever read: from professional thief and pimp to award-winning author and teacher.” —Jack Getze, author of the award-winning Austin Carr Mysteries“Adrenaline Junkie is at once heartbreaking as it is funny, and just plain sick. A masterful work that will be lauded by both writers and the general reading public alike.” —Vincent Zandri, New York Times and USA Today bestselling and Thriller Award-winning author“Edgerton is a back-alley Kerouac. Walk away from this knowing that your life-defining moments were his slow Tuesdays.” —Liam Sweeny, author of Presiding Over the Damned“In a way, Edgerton already wrote Adrenaline Junkie in his crime novels. With the veneer of fiction removed, his always entertaining, often enlightening, sometimes infuriating and unapologetic stories hit even harder. Without any doubt, Edgerton is one of the great storytellers of fiction—and now non-fiction.” —Benjamin Sobieck, author of The Writer’s Digest Guide to Firearms and Knives“Having survived an American Gothic horror story of a childhood, unrepentant former thief, dope dealer, hedonist, Navy hellraiser, and porn actor, Les Edgerton—now a writer and teacher—tells a tale of many tales: If Scheherazade were an old pirate who got away with the gold, this would be his opus.” —Earl Javorsky, author of Down to No Good“Les Edgerton’s expertly told memoir is in turns tragic, thrilling, funny and heart-breaking. Adrenaline Junkie is a powerful blend of coming-of-age story, family drama and low-life crime thriller.” —Paul D. Brazill, author of Last Year’s Man“Edgerton has lived a life most of us only write about. That he’s actually lived it and has the chops to deliver such a vividly drawn memoir gives me a raging case of writer’s envy.” —Maegan Beaumont, award-winning author“How often is a memoir genuinely astounding? A reformed outlaw takes us through his harsh rural childhood, working harder before he was twelve than most of us ever will. There follows armed robbery, pimping, drug dealing, rape in prison, narrowly avoiding a hellcat’s castration attempt, suicide foiled by the rope breaking, a walk on part for Charles Manson and his creepy serial killer mate—who got short shrift from our host. And so much more…So many startling sentences: ‘She was going to be his last fuck before the operation and I was going to be his first after he became a woman.’ ‘It was then Charles Manson started to contact me…’ There’s a satisfying twist late on after he becomes a family man so this fascinating book has just the right ending. Essential reading. Makes Bukowski seem like Donny Osmond.” —Mark Ramsden, author of The Dark Magus and the Sacred Whore“A tryst with Brit Ecklund, a shoot-out in a deserted high school, robbing a laundromat in front of a patrol car. Those are just a few moments is Les Edgerton’s checkered past. He went from a Huck Finn-like childhood in Texas, the swinging sixties as a criminal, time in Indiana’s Pendleton prison, and eighties excess in New Orleans, with little slowing him down until a good woman found a way. Funny, harrowing, and poignant in spots, reading Adrenaline Junkie is like being lucky enough to sit at the bar next to that guy who has lived a lot of stories and knows how to tell them. Yes, Les Edgerton was an adrenaline junkie and he always knew where to get a fix.” —Scott Montgomery, MysteryPeople Crime Fiction Coordinator

I'VE GOT A SHORT STORY IN PAUL BRAZILL'S NEW EMAGAZINE, PUNK NOIR MAGAZINE

Hi folks,


CRIME FICTION, DOWN AND OUT BOOKS., FICTION, LES EDGERTON, NOIR, PUNK NOIR MAGAZINEFICTION EXTRACT: LOVE TUNNEL BY LES EDGERTONNOVEMBER 14, 2018

(From my novel, THE GENUINE, IMITATION, PLASTIC KIDNAPPING from Down & Out Books) 
An hour later, Tommy and me are sitting on the St. Charles streetcar, at the stop by the zoo down by Club 4141, watching people get on in the front. The last two on are a young tourist couple in matching yellow Bermuda shorts.“Cool,” Tommy said. “Tourists. They’ll have cash.” He took a drag from his cigarette. He was sitting directly under the “No Smoking” sign, but held it outside the window.I didn’t disagree. There were maybe fifteen people on board, not counting us and the motorman. This was looking better and better. Might get as much as a couple of thousand out of this crew.“See that?” Tommy said. I followed his eyes which were locked on the buxom female member of the tourist couple. She was a looker.“Yeah? So?”“So this.” He brought his forearm up, pretending to take a bite out of it.“You wish,” I said, grinning.“Yeah, well I got something her boyfriend ain’t.”I laughed out loud. “Right, Tommy. Ugliness. But I think she’s maybe one of those weirdos goes for brains and looks. At least one of those.”Tommy turned and gave me a look. “I’m talking technique here,” he said. “I got this technique.”“Technique?”“Technique.”“What… you got a cute way of gettin’ on and off?”“Naw, man,” he said, shaking his head like he can’t believe how dumb I am. “That’s like a big dick. Everybody’s got that.”I snickered. “I don’t recall you was so blessed in the big wang department, Tommy.”“Yeah, well I was cold that time. We just got out of the lake, for crissake. See, Pete, being a champion at sex is like being good at basketball. You got to be able to go strong to the hole.”There was a young gal behind us who I could see was trying to ignore what Tommy was saying. She squirmed in her seat and studied the scenery out the window, them mansions sliding by.I was dying to know Tommy’s ‘technique’ and asked him.
For the rest of the story, go to Punk Noir Magazine. 
Blue skies,Les

PART TWO OF MY INTERVIEW WITH DAMIEN SEAMAN

Hi folks,

Here's a brief excerpt from the second part of my interview with European writer, Damien Seaman.


Damien Seaman How to write better, faster and more successfully·         Blog“In the past ten years nearly three dozen of my students have gone on to publish their novels or gain a top agent” Les Edgerton knows how good a writer he is. He’s not afraid of saying so, either.

To preorder, click here. Or of pointing out how many people he’s helped to get published… “Just about everything I’ve written has found its way into print,” is one of the ways he says it.“All of us were bona fide geniuses,” is another.That last statement refers to his first writing group at Indiana University at South Bend, when Les was a student under teacher Elaine Hemley. And where he picked up the confrontational teaching style he now uses with such success with his own online students.He also believes that “writers” and “authors” are separate entities. To Les, a writer is a person of intelligence who writes from the heart, and writes the books they need to.An author is clever, and lucky, and writes the same marketable book over and over.You want to take a guess which one Les thinks he is?“I’m a writer, primarily,” he says. Adding: “I used to pretend to be humble, but why bother?”Maybe that’s why so many of his writing students have wanted to throw things at him. And why some even quit on him.But confidence and conflict also breed clarity:“If a writer can’t accept the truth about their writing, then chances are pretty good they’re never going to get published,” Les insists.“And, that’s our only goal—publication by a quality press.”(Worth noting that I’ll have a half dozen or so interviews with some of these successful students on the blog soon. Then you can judge for yourself if these techniques work. And if your writing would benefit.)This is part two of my interview with Les. (If you missed it, click here for part one.)As you’ll see, even when answering questions, the man can’t help but entertain:“At this stage of my life, it’s much more important to me to be honest than to have people pat my back.”You ready for a blast of old school advice and strong opinion?Is your goal to become a better writer and to get published by “a quality press”?Then buckle in, and read on…For the rest of our interview, go here.
This was a lot of fun. Damien's one of the best interviewers I've had the pleasure of working with.
Blue skies,Les

REVIEW OF ADRENLINE JUNKIE BY DAMIEN SEAMAN

Hi folks,

Here's part of the review of my forthcoming memoir, ADRENALINE JUNKIE, by European writer, Damien Seaman on his blog:


Damien Seaman How to write better, faster and more successfullyHow to write an exciting memoirWhat writers and aspiring authors can learn from Adrenaline Junkie, a memoir by Les Edgerton

As a writer, Les Edgerton doesn’t believe in prologues.Despite which, he’s got one in  Adrenaline Junkie  [link to Amazon]– the memoir he’s been dying to get published since the 1990s, when he first wrote it. And a humdinger of a prologue it is, too.See, as a writing teacher, Edgerton advocates that his students write openings that hook the reader emotionally so they can’t help but read more.Well, try this…Writing of his time in Pendleton Prison in the 1960s, Edgerton says that every night the prison DJ would play Porter Wagoner’s The Green, Green Grass of Home. And every night in a cell above his, Les would hear another of the inmates crying.“And then, one night, we didn’t hear the guy sobbing. I remember that just like it was yesterday. In the morning, after we got back from chow, here came a bunch of hacks, carrying a body down the tier walk wrapped in a bloody sheet. It was this guy. He’d cut his wrists the night before.”Cut to: Edgerton, out of prison, years later, driving along the road with radio on.On comes the song Green, Green Grass of Home:“All of a sudden, I was blinded by uncontrollable tears and had to pull over to the side of the road before I ran into somebody.“Isn’t it funny that at the time of your misery you don’t feel the emotion, but later, when you’re in a good place, you do? It’s just funny, isn’t it…”Becoming a writer – and becoming a manAnd that, Edgerton says, is what this book is about:“A lot of moments in my life—some good and some bad—and how they formed me. I’ve had a chaotic life and that’s been on purpose. I’ve consciously sought out as many experiences as I was able to and I tended toward seeking out dangerous experiences—that’s what triggers the adrenaline and adrenaline is my drug of choice.”Not bad for a prologue. We already have emotion and a compelling hook. And this is before the story proper has begun, of course.Here – for those keeping score and paying attention and all that – is how this memoir really begins:“When I was eleven, my father walked into his bedroom and caught me stuffing several of the coins he collected and kept in a sock in a dresser drawer, into my pockets. Most of them were foreign coins he’d picked up overseas during World War II and I have no idea how I planned to spend English half-pence or German Reichspfennig coins or if I even planned to spend them at all. I just wanted them because I thought I could take them without getting caught. After he put his belt away, and I pulled my pants back up, my father made me take four of the smallest coins and swallow them.”And now we have a story, ladies and germs.For the rest of Damien’s review, click here.
Thanks for a really thoughtful review, Damien.
Blue skies,Les

NEW INTERVIEW WITH DAMIEN SEAMAN

Hi folks,

Part I (of two) of my interview with European writer Damien Seaman on his blog has just come out. Here's a bit of a teaser:

Damien Seaman How to write better, faster and more successfully·                     About Me
·                     Home
·         Blog
The memoir HBO was desperate to film When writer Les Edgerton sold his memoirs, the president of HBO demanded the film rights. Les was on cloud nine. But then the deal fell through…

To read the whole enchilada, go to here. 

This was one of the best interviews I've ever been privileged to participate in.
Blue skies,Les
To preorder, go here. 

MYSTERY PEOPLE BOOKSTORE IN AUSTIN GIVES REVIEW OF ADRENALINE JUNKIE

New post on  http://mysterypeople.wordpress.com 3 Picks for Novemberby mysterypeopleblog Forever And A Day  by Anthony HorowitzTaking some material from Ian Fleming, Horowitz goes back to James Bond's first mission as 007. MI6 sends him to Marseilles where he encounters drug smugglers, power players, and an alluring spy master. to find out what the previous 007 discovered before he was murdered. This book captures the cool style of the Fleming Bonds and cold blooded attitude of the secret agent, especially with the twist at the end.
Nighttown  by Timothy HallinanBurglar Junior Bender is hired to steal an antique doll for more money than it is worth. When he stumbles across somebody else trying to steal it, Junior and his girlfriend are on the run with a shady hit woman as their only hope. Hallinan skillfully uses humor, his anti-hero's point of view, and the city of Los Angeles for a fun caper novel with heart and a wonderful literary reveal.

Adrenaline Junkie: A Memoir  by Les EdgertonAuthor Les Edgerton lets you into his life that leads into some of his great crime fiction. Following him through the swinging sixties and hedonistic seventies and early eighties, he led one hell of a life as a thief, convict, and hair stylist. Les pulls no punches in the telling. It's not all pretty, but it's all pretty entertaining. This is like experiencing that guy at the bar who had collected a lot of life experience and knows how to talk about it in book form.This post is ad-supported​     mysterypeopleblog  | November 2, 2018 at 10:19 am | Tags: book recommendations, crime fiction,mystery, new books | Categories: Book Review, three picks | URL: https://wp.me/p223C2-8i5Comment   See all comments   Like

NEW REVIEW OF HOOKED

Hi folks,

A new review of my craft book, HOOKED, has just appeared on European author Damien Seaman's blog. Here is how it appeared:

Damien Seaman How to write better, faster and more successfully
How to get publishers to *really* read your bookIN-DEPTH REVIEW: Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers From Page One And Never Lets Them Go, by Les Edgerton

Click here





I won’t mince words. Hooked!  is a writing guide you need to own if you are serious about your fiction writing.What do I mean by serious?Well, the book sets out to help you write something “publishable” and is very clear about what that means in terms of story structure.So, serious means if you want to get a publishing deal (or a good agent to represent you).Or if you want to sell more self-published books – because what publishers want is dictated by what readers seem to want.Either way, this book is for you.Author Les Edgerton has published 20 books plus innumerable short stories and magazine articles during his career. He has also taught creative writing, and been nominated for several awards for his fiction.He has a good idea of what sells, in other words.How to write a sellable manuscript to a quality pressAlthough here I introduce a note of caution.Les is not a huge bestseller, and he does not teach how to write the doorstep blockbuster novels you buy in airport bookstores. He knows how to write a sellable manuscript to what he calls a “quality press”.He’s also very clear that the technical limitations of what publishers will buy are strict.“Novels and short stories, no matter how complex their plots may appear, are almost always based on a simple underlying structure: A character begins in stability in his world; this word becomes unstable after the introduction of an inciting incident; the character struggles to restore his stability; and a new stability is established at the conclusion,” Edgerton writes.So far, so uncontroversial. At least to most of us. But then Edgerton continues:“What is different about today’s story structure is that the first part of the equation – stability – has been shortened considerably and, in many cases, completely omitted.”In other words, this book is a master class on story structure as expressed through the microcosm of a book’s opening.Readers – and publishers – want to be hooked from the very first line, Edgerton explains. They want an opening that grabs them and pulls them through the book.What an inciting incident is – and how to get it rightSo, we get a lot here about the importance of the inciting incident – what it is and how to use it properly.This is essential reading. Also essential to read more than once. Why? Because it’s actually pretty hard to grasp in practice. Or, at least, I’ve found it to be so.It’s a concept that seems laughably simple. Until you try to apply it to your own work and you realise you have a certain blindness – or lack of ruthlessness – about what an inciting incident really is, and whether or not your book has one.As a result of this, Les asserts that a great many books start in the “wrong place”. Indeed, he has said this to me about one of my books – one that was previously published.So believe me when I say this is essential knowledge and essential to apply over and over until you are utterly confident that you get it.A lot of tricky concepts, each one explained with practical examplesFrom the inciting incident idea, Edgerton takes through related concepts:·         Story-worthy problems – what they are, how to come up with them and how to write them into your manuscript·         Surface problems – how they differ from story-worthy problems, and why, and how to juggle the two·         How these problems relate to your character – and to your reader·         Setup and backstory – how much the modern manuscript should contain, plus exceptions to the rule·         How to combine the inciting incident, story-worthy problem, initial surface problem, setup and backstory in a way that seems natural and engages your readerAs you can see, there’s a lot to take in. Which is why it’s not just worth buying this, but reading through multiple times and then applying to your work in progress as soon as you can.I speak from recent experience, as at the time of writing Les has been eviscerating a story opening of mine. And I thought I knew this stuff!As I said, this is a book for writers who are serious about improving their craft. But not just that. It’s for writers at all levels of experience.I’ve published two novels with two different small publishers and there’s material in here that I only now realise I didn’t grasp as thoroughly as I thought I did.I would wager it’s the same for you.Read this book at least twice if you’re serious about your writingIn summary, buy this book. Read it at least twice. First time for pleasure. Second time, make notes. As many as you need to. Ask questions. Read it a third time to look for the answers to your questions.Now apply it to what you’re working on. And go back through the book with your specific work in progress in mind.That’s how important and how useful this book is. Also how important it is that you fully understand how to apply it.Anyway, do make sure you buy it. I cannot recommend it highly enough. And, once you’ve read it, nor will you. Be able to recommend highly enough, I mean.You’ll see. Buy or browse Hooked, by Les Edgerton Also, come back to the blog next week for my two-part interview with Les, and my in-depth analysis of his fantastic memoir, Adrenaline Junkie. 

Thanks, Damien!
Blue skies,Les

OUTLINING YOUR NOVEL

Hi folks

From time to time, I rerun the following material in hope of reaching new audience members. This is basic material, but I've found that oftentimes new writers have never been exposed to some of the material.

This is the exact handout all new members of my online novel-writing class receive and are required to adhere to. It works, as evidenced by the fact that nearly three dozen writers have had their novels published or gained good agents after writing their novels with us.

I hope that you gain value from it. A lot of it may seem like old wine in new bottles and it is, but it sometimes pays off when reviewing material we may have forgotten.

One thing I've noticed is that sometimes writers feel they don't want to outline. Been there, done that. However, please read the following with an open mind. It may help that I don't believe in those outlines Missus Gundy used to have us write back in PS 101--those ten-page long monstrosities with Roman Numerals. The outline described here consists of five statements and 15-25 words. Period. You can write it on a postcard or a napkin. Those who've given it a try though  swear by it.

Okay. Sales spiel over...


Once I convinced our beagle Buddy to use an outline, he was able to finish his book. True story...



OUTLINING A STORYLes Edgerton
            Like a lot of writers, I wasted a lot of time in my writing career simply because I ignored what is probably the biggest "secret" in creating short stories and novels. I didn't outline.            Outlines were a particular type of hell English teachers visited upon you - those horrid things with Roman numerals and topics and subtopics and all that junk. Yuch! Outlining took all the fun out of reading a book.            I also read interviews with writers who said they never outlined. It would destroy their "creativity" many claimed. The way to write a story was to create a character, start them out in trouble and kind of follow them around as they had neat adventures. What it took years to realize was that my characters had great adventures and it was kind of fun following them around...until somewhere between pages eight and twenty when they would peter out. I had a drawerful of some of the best starts of stories you ever saw. Problem was, they never went anywhere. And most of them never came close to an ending. Oh, a few did, the really short ones. There were even one or two that came to a respectable length...after rewriting them twenty times.            What I didn't realize for the longest time was that writing involves the processing and integration of large blocks of trivial bits of information. As the length of my stories grew, so did the complexity. All of a sudden, I was on page thirteen and I suddenly remembered I couldn't have my character chase the bad guy...because on page two I'd given him bronchia asthma. I had to go back and "cure" him. What I didn't realize was something pretty obvious. A story, like the life it represents, is basically complex. Stories aren't built like a line of dominoes, it more resembles a web, and when you tug a bit harder on one of its many strands, the whole business vibrates. And changes shape. Not only did I have to remember the many details and their connections, I had to keep them in a logical order. Virtually impossible.            I even managed to write several books in this manner. Looking back on those days I cringe. What an awful lot of energy I needlessly wasted!            Here was my typical process. I bet at least some of you have gone through the same procedure. I'd get a great idea, so great that I'd have to drop the baby if I was holding him, and fly to my typewriter. (Remember - this was in the days of yore when they had those ancient artifacts...) As fast as my fingers could fly, I'd write. A hundred words would accumulate. Then, two hundred. Then...well, then I began to run into problems.            Something I did in the first hundred words didn't quite fit with the three hundredth, but I wasn't quite sure what it was. Something was just "off". It would bother and confuse me, but I didn't want to deal with it. So, I'd push on, fix it later, whatever it was. Just get the stuff out, in the white heat of creativity. That's what rewriting was for, right? To fix stuff that didn't fit.            Only now the writing really slowed. The next fifty words were the hardest. I was running out of steam. The idea I'd begun with seemed stale, trite. If I could even remember the original idea. Crap! I'd say, finally, slamming shut the typewriter case. Maybe tomorrow the Muse would redescend...            Hardly ever happened. On the morrow, a new idea would strike, with the same kind of heat as the first one and I'd be off and running with that one.            With the same results.            In no time at all, I had boxes of unfinished stories. Sound familiar?            Well, I learned a trick. I won't go through the whole sorry history of how I wasted time and learned, little by little, to work smarter. What happened, after many centuries (well, it seems like that now) was that I began kind of jotting down a half page of notes. I even began figuring out my endings before I began.            Now I began to finish stories. Not a lot, but a lot more than I had previously. After a couple of years of this, I began to expand my notes. Never once did I think of what I was doing as "outlining." There weren't any Roman numeral. How could that be an outline?            And then...one day I got one of those Joycean epiphanies. What I was doing was an outline! But, these weren't outlines like Missus Grundy had us doing back in P.S. 121. These were just notes. Notes kind of organized. And I discovered something else. Those old writers were liars. Hemingway, Steinbeck and Shakespeare - they all claimed they didn't outline, but they had to. Their stuff all held the kind of integrity that only comes in thinking through a project first before you pick up the saw. They just said they didn't outline. All of a sudden, I knew better. Those guys probably didn't think they outlined either. I doubt if any of them had Roman numerals on their notes either. I'd bet money they had notes, though, and copious notes...and copious notes organized into some kind of system. Before they ever picked up the ol' writing quill and wrote "Chapter One". Probably what a lot of them did was write a first draft...and then used that for their "outline". Without calling it that, of course, or even thinking of it in that way. I bet that's what they did though. They weren't any different than I was. Or you. If any writer begins their story without knowing precisely where they're going, any mistakes they make at first, any tiny omissions, take on added significance as he or she proceeds. As length grows linearly, complexity expands exponentially. Fact of life. The writing life anyway.            If one is muleheaded enough, a story can be bulled through without outlining. Even fairly long stories. It's kind of a masochistic exercise though. It may take twenty, even thirty rewrites to get a decent story that way.            Don't ask me how I know this. I'll begin crying. I'll have to. My wife knows I recall experiences like this and keeps all the sharp instruments locked up.            Novels are the worst experience in the world without an outline. After you spend several years learning to juggle thousands of details in your head - you can get pretty good at it - you can write longer and longer material. Except, that no matter how good you get at retaining all this stuff in your head, you'll probably end up stuck on about page ninety. That seems to be the magic length for novels. Not quite long enough by about threee hundred pages. Short stories seem to peter out around between pages six to eight.            If you've got an outline you just don't have these problems. Stuck? Glance up at your outline and instantly you'll be reminded where you are in the story and your perspective will return. The dizzy feeling will recede.            Okay. Sales pitch for outlines over. I learned my technique from taking screenplay writing classes. Those guys always outline. That's how they can write scripts so quickly. I took a class in this program with Martin Goldstein and I wrote a 108-page script in two days. And Mr. Goldstein says it's a great script - has attached himself to it as the producer and not only that - this "two-day" script was just named a semifinalist in the Academy Foundation's Nicholl’s Fellowships in Screenwriting awards. Not bad for two days work! I wrote the first 64 pages in about eight hours and the remaining 44 pages in about ten hours. Piece of cake. Of course, I spent about a week and a half on the outline. I do write quickly, so don't use my times as a model. Without an outline, I'd still be writing...            Let's get to these puppies. Here's how you create an outline for your story. Ready?            1. You make notes to yourself as you imagine the story played out.            2. You arrange those notes.            3. As the writing proceeds, you refer to them.            That's it.            There's a bit more to it, but really, that's 90% of outlining. First, you have to remember that a short story or a novel is drama. Knowing that, know also that nothing destroys drama more than logic. The dramatic story, because its purpose is to represent life (not mirror it), is not logical at all. It is, instead, psychological, and the outline must match this. It must be a complication-resolution outline. That's the way stories are written.
            The outline I propose you try consists of five simple statements that describe the major actions through which the story will be told. One statement for each major focus. And each statement will be short, consisting only of two to three words. A human noun, a strong, concrete action verb, and (most of the time) a direct object. (We won't count articles such as "a", "an", and "the" as words.) The simpler an outline is the more it focuses on the important relationships in your story. Words actually count for more in an outline than in the story. An outline like I'm proposing will probably have no more than fifteen words in it. In a story, the almost-right word can sometimes suffice, but in an outline, it has to be the perfect word. Another difference between this version of an outline and the ones Missus Grundy had you do is that the statements in her outlines represented topic sentences and as such specify what comes at the beginningof the section they represent. That's because in logical writing, the writer states her premise first and then develops it.            In dramatic stories, however, the dramatic action that makes your point comes at the end of each section - where climaxes belong. What this means is that your outline statements represent endings, not beginnings. This is an important point to keep in mind.            I'm going to use my own story I Shoulda Seen a Credit Arranger in my collection titled "Monday's Meal" to illustrate a typical outline. I also wrote a novel with the same story as well as a screenplay, both titled THE GENUINE, IMITATION, PLASTIC KIDNAPPING. The same outline for all three forms. The first statement will be:            Complication or inciting incident:                        Debt endangers Pete (This is the complication that provides the occasion for the story. Every story must have an inciting incident to kick-start it. Something must happen that changes the protagonist's world and by doing so, creates a problem/goal. This is where stories must begin - not with setting or backstory. Act I, as it were.)            Development: (This is the second part of the outline. The development steps that lead to the resolution. Act II, as it were, following Aristotle's Poetics)                        1.Pete agrees to kidnapping                        2. Pete and Tommy botch kidnapping                        3.Pete escapes            Resolution: (This is the third and final step. Act III.)                        Pete loses everything but matures
            This came to sixteen words, two over the optimim. (Remember, we don’t count articles as words in this exercise.) If you're under twenty, you're fine. Once I have this outline, the rest is just filling in the blanks. But, everything in the story must contribute to the outline. I can't, for instance, begin the story by talking about Pete's childhood in New Orleans, for example.            Now. Look at the elements. There's each of the three things I said should be in the outline. A human noun, a strong, concrete action verb, and a direct object. I didn't, for instance, say "Pete is in debt" for my complication. Why? Because is is a static verb. Always think in straightforward active terms.            You might also notice I didn't have a happy-sappy "Hollywood" ending. Those don't work in literature. They work (I guess) in direct-to-video movies (and more than a few that we see at the theater) and in self-published novels, but not in quality fiction, and that's what we're interested in here, I assume. A good ending has both a win and a loss for the protagonist.            Doesn't look much like Missus Grundy's Roman numeral outline, does it? But, if you read the story and then compare it to the outline, you'll see it's all there. And it allows for you to roam and be creative within the story. You just have to remain within the strictures of the outline. But, there's a heck of a lot of freedom there! I have three forms of this story—a short story, a novel, and a screenplay which was a finalist in the Nicholl’s Awards. I used the same outline for all three forms, which were all different in length and in material.            What this kind of outline does is force you to think through the story before you write it. You spot problems before you waste two hundred or two thousand (or more) words on them. Suddenly, writing becomes a breeze. It really does.            In the story above, the definition of a story is adhered to. A story consists of a character in trouble - has a need, wants something, etc. A story alwaysbegins with the inciting incident--whatever happens to drastically change the protagonist's world and create a problem for him or her (it has to be the biggest problem in his/her life at that point and one the reader will deem worthy enough to follow him in solving it, reaching his/her goal). Pete's in trouble--he owes a lot of money to a nasty bookie who has just issued him an ultimatum. He has to do something about it. He does get tricked by Tommy into an ill-fated kidnapping, but once he's in it, he begins to take his own action. You can have coincidence or fate in a story, but it should never be a coincidence that helpsthe main character. It can appear at first to do so, but it never really can. It must always hinder the character. And stories are drama, which means you must create scenes, not wander around inside the head of the character, and scenes are by definition, action. There must be dramatic action. Also, a protagonist may be reactive at first to the inciting incident, but very quickly he or she must become proactive, acting on his or her own behalf to solve the problem, gain the goal, etc. Reactive characters (characters to whom things "happen" in which they spend their time on stage reacting to those things) are boring and don't belong in good fiction. That represents episodic stories and there’s no market for those. And lastly, because of an actionthe protagonist takes, there must come a reversal and a change in the character. What Joyce called an "epiphany.” Characters in fiction, must, as a result of the actions of the story, become profoundly changed from the person they were at the beginning of the story. Also, the character can't just think through the problem, although obviously, that can be a part of his epiphany, but it has to be occasioned by an action that he can then process internally. The epiphany also cannot be attained through a conversation with another character. There has to be an actual action which changes him and turns the story. Once that happens, the story is over. Get out. Start a new story. But first create an outline for it. You'll thank yourself.            Once you've created an outline, it's almost impossible to stray in the wrong direction. If you find yourself doing that, just glance at the outline and get back on the right road. If the story takes a turn you didn’t expect and that you feel will make a better story, no problem. Simply take a few minutes and create a new outline. You’ll be glad you did.
            For the first week, part of your assignment is to create an outline for your story, using the example above. No more than twenty words. Use human nouns, strong action verbs and a direct object (direct object optional). Then, begin your story, following the outline (which means to begin with the inciting incident and that written as a scene). Send us 2-5 pages of the story.
Can’t wait to see your work!
Blue skies,Les


PROPER FORMAT            It’s extremely important to follow proper formatting whenever you’re presenting work to a professional. A writer may be the rankest beginner in the world and have a long way to go before producing publishable quality work, but there’s simply no excuse for not at least looking professional. Work presented with improper formatting is the first thing that will force the teacher, editor, agent or any professional to dismiss the writing. The thing is, it’s extremely easy to use proper formatting that follows accepted usages by professionals, so there’s really no reason not to employ it, right?
It’s very simple. Here are the basic rules:
1. Double-space. Manuscripts are always double-spaced. One of the reasons is, it’s easier for the people who read millions of words each year to read work that has plenty of white space. It also leaves room for editors to make comments on the mss itself. Finally, it tells the reader how many words are in the mss.
2. Margins. All four margins should be set at at least 1 inch. This is usually the default setting of most word processing programs. This creates attractive white space, gives the editor a clear idea of how many words are in the mss, and leaves room for notations.
3. Font. It used to be that there were two acceptable fonts, Courier New and Times New Roman. Both set at 12 pt. While there are still a few publishers who will accept Courier New, most now insist on TNR. (Plus, CN is one ugly font!). There are several logical reasons for this. One, again—along with the proper margins, and line spacing, by using TNR set at 12 pts, this instantly tells the editor how many words are in the document. For those who think they look at computer word counts… wrong-o! Those are notoriously wrong for editor’s purposes. In fact, never put a word count or an estimated word count on the mss—it’s a sure sign that here’s an amateur at work. (Same with copyright symbols.). Different fonts will deliver differing numbers of words per page. TNR tells the editor that there will be an average of 250 words per page. They can instantly look at page count and know how many words there are in the entire mss. And, this is important! All editors have space requirements for their publications, whether it’s a short story magazine or a novel publisher. They need to know up front how many words are in the mss as the first requirement in their decision to publish or not.
Often, the writer still using Courier New is a screenwriter and that’s the only font allowed in screenplays. That writer is used to it and it feels and looks comfortable and most know that it’s one of the two fonts stated as allowable in fiction, so they use it. While it’s still technically okay to use it, I’d strongly urge even the screenwriters not to use it in their fiction. More and more publishers are stating they don’t want to see work in it any longer.
The primary reason editors insist on a particular font however, is simply because of the amount of reading they do in their job. Many fonts are extremely hard on the eyes and create headaches and eyestrain. The culprit usually is the serifs in some fonts. Serifs are those descenders in the letters y, g, j, p, q. In many fonts, the descenders are truncated and stubby, causing the eye to kind of “bump along” when reading the text. This causes eyestrain and even severe headaches to professionals who read all day long. The descenders in TNR are long and reading work in that font allows the eye to travel smoothly, avoiding those problems. Makes sense, eh?
4. Unjustified right margins. Do not send in work with justified right margins! It’s the job of the editor to create a justified margin for print—not the author’s. Again, a mss with justified margins throws off accurate word counts. Plus, it’s a sure sign of an amateur at work and you don’t want to ever give that impression.
5. One space between sentences. About 40-50 years ago, it was proper to use two spaces between sentences. That was in the typewriter days. Since computers came on the scene, it’s now one space. The kernaling is different for computer-generated material than it is for typewriters. This is a glaring amateur mistake and all editors cringe when they see a mss with two spaces between sentences. (And, it’s easy to spot.) This signals strongly that this is a writer who hasn’t kept up with current usages. A writer who hasn’t learned that two spaces between sentences went away many decades ago, is going to be assumed to be a writer who hasn’t kept up with the even more important conventions of fiction and his/her work is probably going to receive short shrift when encountered. Remember, even if you are a beginner, there’s no reason to look like one! Strive always to appear professional even if you haven’t yet published. It shows respect for both the professional you’re submitting to and it also shows respect for yourself and your work.
6. No bolding in manuscripts.
7. No underlining in manuscripts. Back before computers, underlining indicated to the typesetter that the underlined material was to be set in italics. Well, today we have… italics… right on our ‘puters, so you simply use… italics.
8. No ALL CAPS for emphasis. This is considered email language and isn’t acceptable. Use italics to show emphasis. This is slowly changing as younger, less well-educated (okay, so that was my own editorial comment…) editors come into the picture and grew up with email language. But, use it at your own peril, for if your work comes before a traditionalist, which it likely will, a red flag will go up and you don’t want that.
9. Mark space breaks. The accepted method is to mark them with stars, centered. Like***this… Space breaks are only used to signal significant changes in the narrative, such as a major break in time or a pov change. One mistake I see commonly is that writers provide extra spaces before and after the space break. Like
***
this… There aren’t any extra line spaces. When you finish the material to be separated, simply hit “Enter,” center the stars, and hit Enter and begin typing the next paragraph. It’s very important to mark space breaks since if you don’t, during ensuing edits, an unmarked break can easily “disappear” if it ends up at the top or bottom of a page. Even if that doesn’t happen in your own copy, since today we usually send electronic files of our work to editors, they’ll often work on it and it can disappear for them since it wasn’t marked.
One usage is totally verboten! The practice seen sometimes of separating each paragraph by a space break. The famous writer Lorrie Moore began using this as her stylistic “footprint” and that means that now no one else can do the same or else they’ll come across as imitative or derivative of Ms. Moore. Just like one can’t use no caps, ala e.e. cummings, or else be viewed as unimaginative and basically a bad copycat. Although, Charles Bukowski exchewed capitalization in much of his work and no one accused him of copyitis, but then perhaps they’d seen the movie Barfly and just didn’t want to anger him…
Some ebooks are formatted lazily or incorrectly and you’ll see paragraphs separated like this and it drives me nuts! Just sloppiness on the part of the publisher. It’s fine in a blog or a handout like this, but not in fiction.
10. Don’t use drop caps or other stylistic elements you see in printed work. These are editor’s choices and not the author’s. Don’t try to imitate what you see in published work. Simply create documents according to the guidelines set out here. I’ve had writers send me work where the first three or four words were in all caps, and I asked them what in the heck were they thinking and they said they’d seen a novel that way in the bookstore. They didn’t understand that’s an editor’s purview and never the writer’s. Don’t make those amateurish mistakes!
11. There are some usages you may not be aware of that have changed. For a big one, today there are two punctuations that are frowned upon in fiction. Colons and semicolons. These days, they’re considered archaic punctuations. That’s because fiction is becoming more and more informal and colons and semicolons are fairly formal punctuations—especially colons. They have the effect of slightly interrupting the fictive dream by drawing attention to themselves. Today, we use the em dash instead. It’s less formal and therefore less intrusive on the read. About the only people still using colons and semicolons (an occasional semicolon is still okay), are brand names, some journalists, and writers from a different culture (such as Canadians, for example). And, older writers who haven’t kept up with current usages. They’re still used in nonfiction writing—just not in fiction much these days. Many times people resist these changes. It’s often difficult to change. But, a professional writer has to adapt. We work in the English language, which is a living, mutating language and things change constantly. It’s to our benefit to keep up with those changes and be able to adapt.
12. Multiple punctuations. As a rule (there are exceptions) it’s considered amateurish to use multiple punctuation, such as more than one exclamation point for emphasis—like this!!!! Or, to use two different ending punctuations, like this!? They’re considered “cutesy” and too precious to be believed… Although, there are occasionally exceptions to this.
13. Other punctuations. An ellipsis in dialog signals a pause or a trailing off in the speech. An em dash ending dialog signals an interruption in the speech, usually by another speaker.
There are a few other usages but I’ll wait to point them out as and if they occur. Hope this helps! The main point is to always submit your work in a professional format. Please. It shows you respect your work as well as the reader and that invites the professional to respect it also.
Blue skies,Les
Available for preorder--Comes out November 17.

MORE BLURBS FOR ADRENALINE JUNKIE

Hi folks,

Still have more blurbs coming in for my forthcoming memoir, ADRENALINE JUNKIE.

And some disturbing news... I had enjoyed a wonderful response to presales on Amazon, when all of a sudden, I received an email from them that my own preorder was being cancelled. No reason given. When I went to Amazon's site, I discovered it had been taken down. No reason given. I contacted my publisher, Down & Out Books, and they were unaware of this. After several days, they told me they'd talked to Amazon and it was reinstated, but Amazon claimed not to know why it had been taken down, that it was just kind of a "mistake." But, all the presales were gone. I reordered, but have no idea if anyone else who had preordered it had also reordered it. I hope so! If you were one of those who'd preordered it and got an email from Amazon that it was cancelled, I'd really appreciate it if you'd reorder it. And, let me know if you receive any more emails from them.

I was kind of suspicious about the whole thing and now am really suspicious after being contacted by good friend and fellow writer, Elaine Ash, that this same thing had happened to a dozen other authors and that she was investigating it. Check out her post at
https://madgeniusclub.com/2018/08/28/the-mental-state-of-m-todd-henderson-by-elaine-ash/ 
The common denominator seems to be that each writer is a conservative or libertarian. I'm pretty upfront that I'm a libertarian--my political belief is that I want the government pretty much out of my life. No big deal--at least in my mind--but it seems to matter to some, and perhaps to Amazon. If so, that's a fairly blatant case of censorship. We'll see...
Anyway, here are the new blurbs with more to come:
"Les Edgerton is a back-alley Kerouac. Walk away from this knowing that your life-defining moments were his slow Tuesdays."
Liam Sweeny, author of "Presiding Over the Damned."

...Sometimes shocking, often poignant, occasionally distasteful, frequently funny, and always brutally honest, Adrenaline Junkie tells the story of one man’s harrowing yet ultimately successful quest for redemption. Written with razor-sharp clarity, Adrenaline Junkie is a triumph. ~ Robert Rotstein, author of We the Jury

Edgerton's prose hits with the force of a hammer--as does his recollection of an America, both deeply flawed and wonderful, that is now more important than ever to keep in our sights. A Hillbilly Elegy with a deep, pulsing heart, Adrenaline Junkie makes sense of one man's life while showing us all new aspects of our own.--Jenny Milchman, USA Today bestselling and Mary Higgins Clark award-winning author of Cover of Snow and Wicked River
A tryst with Brit Ecklund, a shoot out in a deserted grade school, robbing a laundromat in front of a patrol car. Those are just a few moments is Les Edgerton's checkered past. He went from a Huck Finn-like childhood in Texas, the swinging sixties as a criminal, time in Indiana's Pendleton prison, and eighties excess in New Orleans, with little slowing him down until a good woman found a way. Funny, harrowing, and poignant in spots, reading Adrenaline Junkie is like being lucky enough to sit at the bar next to that guy who has lived a lot of stories and knows how to tell them. Yes, Les Edgerton was an adrenaline junkie and he always knew where to get a fix. 

--  Scott Montgomery
MysteryPeople Crime Fiction Coordinator
BookPeople


I'm pretty sure these folks were commenting on the book's material and not whether I swing to the right or left... and that's as it should be. 
I hope some of you will preorder my book or get a copy when it's officially released. For the paperback edition, you can preorder at the photo of the cover on the column to the right. Thank you so much, in advance!
Blue skies,Les