Pat Bertram's Blog, page 292

More Names Than One: Fiction Made Real

The other day I was getting gas when a truck pulled up next to me. It looked familiar in a dream-like way, but I didn't think anything of it. It wasn't until I started driving away that it dawned on me what I was seeing. A truck delivering Singha beer. I'd needed a Thai beer for my novel More Deaths Than One and just picked the name out of a guidebook, but somehow it didn't seem real. At least not until I saw that truck. Here is the excerpt from the novel where I mentioned the beer:

In his short-sleeved shirt imprinted with red, green, and yellow parrots, Bob felt like a tourist. He even found himself gazing around as if he'd never visited the place before.

He saw a couple of the other regulars, a German and an American—both mercenaries—but most of the people were strangers to him, including the four men sitting at the next table. They seemed to be Americans of the right age to have fought in Vietnam. A man in a Yankees baseball cap waved his arms for emphasis.

"I did my job," Bob heard him say. "Then I got out and continued on with my life. Everything's great. My life is full. It happened so long ago. I don't understand what the big deal is."

The haunting strains of "Hey Jude" filtered through the room.

"What are you going to have?" Kerry asked.

"A Singha in honor of Harrison. It's a local beer he liked. Also a hamburger with fries."

When a giggling young waitress approached, Kerry ordered hamburgers, fries, and Singhas for both of them.

Hamburger Dan brought their drinks.

Setting them on the table, he gave Bob a penetrating glance. "It is you. I wasn't sure at first. How've you been—"

Before Hamburger Dan could speak his name, Bob said quickly, "Gandy. I'm Rick Gandy and this is Julie Walsh."

Hamburger Dan's eyebrows rose. "I see. Does this have anything to do with the two men sitting in the booth across the room?"

Bob lifted his drink to his lips and gazed over the top of the mug. The men in question leaned back in their seats with studied nonchalance, but their eyes were hard and way too alert—cop's eyes.

"My supposed friends?" Bob asked.

"Right. They've been in and out for the past six weeks or so, but after you called they started spending a lot of time here."

"Something you should know. Your phone is tapped."

Hamburger Dan stiffened. "What's going on? What are you involved with?"

"I have no idea, but I'm looking into it."

"You?" Hamburger Dan had the grace not to smile, but Bob could sense his incredulity.

Seeing the light of battle in Kerry's eyes and her mouth opening to come to his defense, Bob laid a hand on her knee. She closed her mouth, but her jaw remained set.

The waitress brought their hamburgers. The delicious aroma of grilled meat made Bob's stomach growl with hunger.

"I'll leave you to your food," Hamburger Dan said. "I shouldn't stay here too long anyway, don't want to draw the attention of your friends."

Kerry's gaze followed him as he moved off, then it shifted to Bob.

"How come he talked to you like that? Doesn't he know you're the Bob Noone character in Dark Side of Heroes?"

"I doubt it. Now that Harrison's gone, you're probably the only one who knows. And if by chance Hamburger Dan does know, he still wouldn't be impressed. He'd think Noone was a wimp."

"Oh." She took a big bite of her hamburger and ate it slowly. "How did you come up with the names Rick Gandy and Julie Walsh?"

"They slipped out. I decided we shouldn't advertise the names we're traveling under."

"Good thinking." She chewed on a French fry. "I'm beginning to have as many identities as you. It's confusing."

Bob nodded. Munching on his own hamburger, he let his glance fall on the other bar patrons.

"Mike seemed like a brother to me," the man in the Yankee baseball cap said, tears brimming over. "I tried to save him, but there was nothing I could do."

The men with the cop's eyes stood, took a final look around, then sauntered out of the bar, still main-taining their casual air.

Bob felt his shoulders sag with relief.

As he continued to eat, he could hear the gaunt man playing "Let It Be."

More Deaths Than One is available at Amazon, Smashwords, and Second Wind Publishing.

Tagged: More Deaths Than One, More Deaths Than One excerpt, Singha beer, thriller [image error]

Life Needs a Laughtrack

[image error]While reading Nancy Cohen's blog post "Cut That Wimpy Dialogue!," I thought about how much smoother and more interesting dialogue in books is in comparison to normal conversation. In real life, we stutter and stammer, repeat words, interrupt each other, talk while another is still speaking, and we tell long drawn out stories that go nowhere. Such idiosyncracies would bore us to tears if we read them in a book, but we're used to them in real life, perhaps because we're more interested in our connection to the people we are talking to than the actual words we are using, or perhaps we are more forgiving because we know none of us can rewrite our spontanous speech to make it vigorous and decisive as we do in our books.

I used to be more congnizant of what I was saying. I would hear the wrong words as they came out of my mouth, and I tried to correct them before they hit the air, but that just made me sound like a stammering fool. Now that I don't listen to myself as much, I talk smoothly without stammers, but still, my conversation is normal. In other words, if my life were a book, most of my words would be edited out.

Since most conversations in real life are less than scintillating (since most of life itself is less than scintillating) maybe what we need are laughtracks. Laughtracks — especially loud and raucus laughtracks — are prevalent in television comedies that have little humor and less wit, but the laughtrack gets your adrenaline going and makes you think you are watching something special. Or at least makes you think you have some connection to the story, which makes you feel less foolish for watching the silly show. Inane comments on a comedy without a laughtrack leave us cold. So why shouldn't we each come with our own private laughtrack? If we say something that falls flat, canned laughter floats around us and our listeners, making us seem brilliant and witty. And if what we said was really inane, the laughtrack would rise to a crescendo, drowning out the echo of our words still hanging in the air, making it impossible for anyone to remember them.

On the other hand, the constant sound of raucus laughter could get on our nerves. Maybe it's best to leave things the way they are, and save our wit and wisdom for writing where we can edit the words until they are so perfect there would be no need of a laughtrack for distraction.

Tagged: ccanned laughter, conversation, dialogue, if life were a book, laughter, laughtrack [image error]

Does Anyone Really Want to be Good? Do You?

There is no such thing as a bad driver. Ask people if they think they are good drivers, and they will all say yes. Why? Because we judge our driving ability by our strengths and values. If we think fast driving makes a good driver, and we drive fast, then we consider ourselves good drivers regardless of our discourtesy to other drivers or our lack of attention to possible hazards. If we think obeying every letter and number of traffic laws makes a good driver, and we obey the laws, then we consider ourselves good drivers even if our driving poses a risk to other drivers.

Of course, if you ask drivers if other drivers are good drivers, then there is no such thing as a good driver.

Goodness is the same way. We all consider ourselves to be good, but that's because we judge goodness by what we do and what we value. If we think honesty makes a good person, and we scrupulously tell the truth no matter who we hurt, then we think we're good. If we think adherence to religious doctrine or sexual mores makes a good person, and we adhere to those customs, then no matter what unkindnesses we commit, we consider ourselves good. If we think not murdering our horrible neighbors makes us good, and we refrain from inflicting bodily harm even though we believe the world would be a better place without them, then we consider ourselves good no matter what other havoc we might wreak.

Goodness, like good driving, isn't as subjective as we think it is. Goodness is about character — integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and all the other virtues we wrinkle our noses at because they are old fashioned.

I hadn't considered "goodness" until I needed a topic for a writing discussion and came across this quote from playwright Maxwell Anderson: "The story of a play must be a conflict, and specifically, a conflict between the forces of good and evil within a single person." A few hours later I found an article in the newspaper, a transcript of a Rosh Hashanah sermon by Dennis Prager in which he enumerates 13 obstacles to becoming a better person. (Supposedly, the purpose of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is moral introspection: What kind of person am I, and how can I become a better person? This struck a chord with me, because these questions are the focus of my life right now.) The combination of these two writings gave me my discussion topic: The Not Quite Good vs. the Not So Evil.

Prager made a good point: most of us don't want to be good. We want to be other things, such as happy, smart, attractive, healthy, successful. In today's workplace especially, those old fashioned virtues such as kindness, generosity, integrity are pretty much an antithesis to any kind of success.

Although I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life and what I want to become, I never once considered "goodness" as a goal. To be honest, I'm not sure it's even practical. It's too nebulous. Perhaps I'll settle for something more concrete, such as not killing my neighbors even when their music blasts my eardrums.

What about you? Do you want to be good?

Tagged: Dennis Prager, good driver, good vs. evil, moral introspection, no such thing as a bad driver, Rosh Hashanah

The Not Quite Good vs. the Not So Evil

"The story must be a conflict, and specifically, a conflict between the forces of good and evil within a single person." — Maxwell Anderson, American playwright (Actually, he said, "The story of a play must be a conflict . . ." and that can lead to the first question of tonight's discussion. Does a story/novel differ from a play in other ways besides simply the format?)

The best stories are, of course, conflicted, and internal conflict deepens one's knowledge of a character and raises the stakes for the outcome of the story. But . . . does the conflict need to be between good and evil? If a character is battling it out internally between such disparate forces, then there's a chance the story will end up being comic bookish and the character end up resembling Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

Perhaps it's better for the internal conflict to be a bit narrower? Say between one's need to do the right thing and one's tendency to be selfish?

I just read an article that said most people don't particularly want to be good. They'd rather devote their efforts to other things such as being happy, successful, smart, attractive, healthy. Sounds like the makings of a good conflict. Battling one of these urges in order to do something selfless would make a character more real than one who has to battle their evil nature, because who of us is truly evil? Most of us are thoughtless, selfish, petty, pettish, angry, given to telling small lies and committing small dishonest acts, none of which are evil. Just human.

According to that same article, goodness is about a person's character — integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage. A story person with such qualities would seem shallow and uninteresting and too good to be true. On the other hand, some characters who are supposed to be on the side of good do as much bad as the characters who are supposed to be evil. In other words, in a fictional world, it's okay to be evil as long as your intentions are good. That would make a good conflict, too — a battle between a character's good intentions and what the character really does. But such a battle is still not a conflict between the forces of good and evil in the same person.

So, do you agree with Maxell Anderson? Do your characters have a massive internal conflict, or do their internal conflicts tend to be less dramatic? What are your characters internal conflicts? Does the internal conflict reflect or contrast the major conflict in the story? As for your villains — are they also conflicted but perhaps lose the battle to their less than stellar side?

If you'd like to discuss this topic live, you can find me at the group No Whine, Just Champagne on Gather.com on Thursday, October 15, 2011 at 9:00pm ET (8pm CT, 7pm MT, 6pm PT). Otherwise, we can just chat here.

Tagged: character development, evil nature, good vs. evil, goodness, internal conflict, Maxwell Anderson, No Whine Just Champagne

Writing Is the Great "As If"

There are more opportunities for writers to get published today than ever before. Independent presses are proliferating, which gives authors many new places to send submissions (that's what I did — chose a small independent publisher). Writers can post their work on a blog for people to read online. And of course, there is the self-publishing option. Huge numbers of writers are not even bothering to query agents or to submit their manuscripts to publishers. They opt for self-publishing as their first choice rather than the last as was once the case. Some writers have no time to query, no time to learn the most effective way of presenting a proposal. Some see no reason to share their royalties with a publisher. Others simply want to bypass publishers' standards. I'm sure there are as many reasons for self-publishing today as there are self-publishers, but my concern are those who want to bypass publisher's standards. (Which, admittedly, seem to be non-existent these days.)

It does sound nice – doesn't it? – to present your novel the way you want it done. It's your prerogative, of course, and it is your novel. But is it? What about your potential readers? Isn't it their novel, too? Too many people who self-publish think that freedom from a publisher's standards makes them also free from a reader's standards. But if no one can read your writing, if readers are pulled up short by misspellings, poor writing, poor storytelling, then what's the point?

I've met some self-published authors who are proud of their inability to create a coherent sentence, as if it's more artistic that way. Artistic? I suppose. But if I have to read a sentence two or three times to make sense of it, I don't care how artistic it is. It's a foolish waste of my time, and perhaps even a foolish waste of the writer's. Reading a few articles about how to write, doing an extra re-write, taking care with proofreading might turn that unreadable tract into something people will want to read and even cherish. (I am by no means suggesting that all self-published writers need to be more careful. There are some fine writers who are self-publishing.)

A friend recently told me how proud she was of her ability to write in "southern dialect." I cringed. Page after page of dialogue that you have to mentally transcribe into something resembling readable prose makes a reader toss a book aside. Perhaps, before radio and television, phonetically spelled dialects were important, because who, besides those who had been to the American south, knew what a southern accent was? Today, everyone (or almost everyone – I can't vouch for those living in the far reaches of the planet who have no access to modern media) knows what a southern accent sounds like.

Writing is the great "as if." You don't need to painstakingly write in a southern accent, using phonetic spellings and a confetti of apostrophes.. The key is to make your readers feel as if they are reading such an accent. Some suggestions:

You can simply say, "Delia spoke in a soft southern drawl." Perhaps that is a bit clichéd, but it does get the point across. Afterward, you can write in normal English (or whatever language you write in) whenever Delia speaks.
You can do one snippet of dialogue as dialect, then say "that's what it sounded like when Delia spoke." Readers will remember that's how she talks, and will be grateful for your simple spelling thereafter.
You can phrase your dialogue as if it were dialect, but leave off the funny spellings. "Much obliged for the lift, ma'am. My dad-blamed son drove my car a far piece down the road, and he plumb ruined it. I reckon I'll be thumbing it a spell." Sounds southern (of a sort) and it's still readable.

Description is another case of "as if." You don't need long descriptive passages that offer nothing to the story. All you need are a couple of key details that make it seem as if you're describing the whole. If you talk about brown stains on the ceiling or dust motes dancing in the sunlight shining through the bare spots of the maroon velvet drapes, readers will get a good idea of what that the room looks like. And if you mention the brand-new 35″ television looming large in that dreary old room, your readers will get a good idea of who your characters are.

Less isn't always more when it comes to writing, of course, and "as if" isn't always the answer. And you certainly don't have to write with potential readers in mind – it's hard enough to write a novel without that additional pressure. But once the book is written, it would be a good idea to act as if people are going to love it, and then give them something to love. Which means, rewrite it so that readers will want to read it and not throw it against the wall in frustration.

By self-publishing, you might be able to bypass publishers' standards, but you can never bypass readers' standards.

Tagged: publishers' standards, readers' standard, self-publishing, writing description, writing with a souther accent, writing: dialogue, writint dialect

Facebook Has Finally Defeated Me

I signed up for Facebook back when authors were joining in vast numbers. None of us knew what we were doing there, we just knew social networking was the next step in trying to promote our books. I was already familiar with Gather.com, another social networking site, and since I had a writing discussion group on Gather, I decided to start one on Facebook. There were already hundreds of such groups, but mostly they sat fallow, so I did one thing no one else was doing – I sent the link for the discussion to the members of the group. There was a great response because, finally, we all had something to do on Facebook while we figured out how to use the site most effectively.

I kept these discussions going through several Facebook upgrades until  they  revamped the group format and got rid of the discussion boards. I still don't see the rationale behind that, but I adjusted. I added the discussion app to my fanpage and moved the discussions there. We were getting back into the swing of things when . . .  FB revamped the fan page format and got rid of the discussion app. It's better for all discussions to take place on the wall, they say. It makes for a better experience, they say. A better experience for whom? (Glad I asked that. Since they are making the pages more interactive, and since all businesses – especially big businesses and major corporations – have a page, they are making room for more commercial encroachment on facebook.)

Well, I moved the discussions back to the group walls, and they quickly disappeared into the great maw of self-promotion. I have nothing against authors promoting their books, but please!! Give us something more interesting than yet another plea to buy your book. Still, that isn't the issue here. Nor are the discussions the issue. If people aren't interested in discussing the finer points (and the not so fine points) of writing or reading, there's not much I can do about it except stick to my No Whine, Just Champagne discussions on Gather or post them on the Second Wind Publishing group on Goodreads.

The real issue, the reason Facebook has defeated me, is the updated home page. There is a ticker along the right sidebar that ticks continually with inane messages. John likes Bill's link. Bill commented on Janet's status. John and Janet are now friends. Even that isn't a problem. One quickly gets used to ignoring sidebars on the Internet. The problem is that if you are making a comment on someone's link or status update when the ticker ticks, your comment ends up in appropriate places, such as when I left a "yay!" on someone's update about having had a good day and it ended up on another person's update about needing an operation. Ouch. Still, I can get used to doublechecking to make sure my comments hit the right spot and deleting those that don't. What I cannot get used to is the new newsfeed – the constant stream of cutesy-poo animal pictures, sickly sentimental and fatuous sayings masquerading as images, and supposedly funny sayings and cartoons that lack an iota of humor.

Even that I can get used to, but Facebook has made it so easy for everyone to share this crap that they do. Over and over and over again. Yikes.

On the other hand, since people seem to like this new newsfeed, it's possible the problem isn't Facebook. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just getting crotchety.

Tagged: Facebook, Facebook news feed, facebook ticker, Gather, No Whine Just Champagne, writing discussions [image error]

Codependency or Interdependency?

Several months ago when I was steeped in grief, I found comfort in the thought that my deceased life mate — my soul mate — was at peace, but then it occurred to me that maybe he wasn't, that if there was some sort of life after death perhaps he felt as split apart as I did. According to one minister I talked to, my mate could be having problems depending on how codependent he was. Whatever that means. I thought a relationship was about being dependent on each other, and we were. At least until our last year together when we began untwinning our lives so we could go our separate ways — he to death, me to continued life. That's also why my grief shocked me so much—I thought we had untwinned even before he died.

Shortly after that conversation with the minister, a woman who should have known better accused me of being codependent because I was having such a hard time learning to live without my life mate. (The truth is, I knew how to live without him because I was doing it. What I was having a hard time with was wanting to live without him. Life, of course, doesn't care what we want, and I continued on to where now I am – mostly "healed." ) But still, there was that C word again.

I can see that people would have questions about codependency considering how bereft I was without him and how lost I felt, but when he was alive, we were never obsessed with each other, though we were connected in so many ways. We were friends, life mates, and business partners. We always wanted what was best for the other. We helped each other grow. We never expected the other to fix our individual problems, though we often took each other's advice. We didn't cling, demand, or base our relationship on unrealistic expectations. Together we provided a safe environment where each of us could be ourselves. And we supported each other any way we could. Yes, we were dependent on each other, but isn't that what life is all about?

Long-term illness, however, does skew a relationship. Over the years, our world kept getting smaller and smaller, trapping us in a terrible situation where neither his nor my needs were being met. To that extent, perhaps, we were codependent, staying together when others might not have, but what is wrong with that? Still, I've felt foolish at times admitting my need for him. In this world that prizes independence so much, it seemed immature and self-indulgent.

But, as one commenter on my Grief is NOT Self-Indulgent post said, "There is nothing foolish in dependence. The foolishness lies in the notion that we are not co-dependant on each other. We are a co-dependant vulnerable species who waste a whole lot of time and cause ourselves much suffering by pretending we are not. There are many reasons why we perpetuate this denial but just as we are dependant on the earth for our physical health so are we dependant on each other for our emotional health.

"Personally I feel there is a strong connection between people not understanding grief and those same people not understanding just how precious and vital their relationships are. Every day I see people not recognizing the value of each other. It often amazes me how much we deny our dependence on each other . . .  we don't even like the word dependant. Perhaps that is why grief is so hard to witness for then our dependence is there in the open smacking us in the face." (She developed this idea into a blog post The Illusion of Independence at Leesis Ponders.)

Well, I no longer have to worry about whether we were codependent or interdependent. I am independent now. His death freed me, but for what? I still have to figure that out.

Tagged: codependency, connections, death, emotional health, grief, interdependency, long-term illness, relationships, soul mate

Learning How To Occupy Myself

[image error]One of the hardest things to accept after losing one's life partner is that, no matter how unfair or unwelcome, life does go on. It's been eighteen month since my life mate died, and here I still am. I always thought we'd go at the same time, that our connection was so great that the one who was left behind would be pulled into death along with the one who died. As romantic as that notion is, it didn't happen (though the death rate for the remaining partner of a couple is exceptionally high, so I suppose, in some cases it does occur).

So much of these past months seem to have been wasted on grief, but now that I see light rising on the horizon, I realize these months were not a waste. In their own way, they were a celebration of life — both his and mine. I gave myself over to the experience, felt every nuance of his goneness, every tug of separation, every heartache and heartbreak. I gave myself over to tears, let them fall hotly and unchecked.

I felt, and in that feeling was life.

Ironically, another thing that is hard to accept after such a loss is the fact of your own mortality. When you accept that your partner is gone from this world forever, the realization that one day you will be also be dead hits you deep in your gut. I can feel the first (and second) twinges of age creeping up on me, but for now, I am still alive, still occupying this body/mind. It seems a waste of his life for me to waste what is left of mine, so I've been trying to occupy myself fully.

I dance in my room to celebrate this body, to feel movement and rhythm. I am writing nonsensical bits of prose – just random words, really – to celebrate this mind. I'm exercising so as to use my muscles, to celebrate that I have strength to lift more than a few pounds and to walk more than a couple of miles. I am celebrating the use of my hands, the way my feet connect to the ground, the pull of air into my lungs, the feel of the breeze on my face, the sights that pass in front of my eyes, the sounds of the city that assail my ears and the silence of the desert that brings respite. I am feeling the connectedness of things and people, both in the real world and the virtual world of the internet.

I am being, and being alive.

I am occupying myself.

Tagged: being alive, connectedness, grief, life goes on, loss, mortality

Inviting You to Enter a Short Story Contest

Second Wind Publishing invites you to submit an entry to their short story contest.

Stories are to be about spring or renewal.

Contest entries must be your own original work. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Self-published stories are acceptable, but the story must not exist in print form or in any other anthology. The story must be no longer than 5,000 words.

The contest is open to anyone in the world, 18 or older, though the entry must be written in English. All entries will be posted on the Second Wind Contest Blog for everyone to read and comment. The authors and management of Second Wind Publishing will choose the three finalists, but reader comments will be taken into consideration. Entries will be judged on originality, readability, writing skills, characterization, and plot. Spelling and grammar count. The decision of the judges is final.

Everyone is welcome to vote for the winner, which is to be chosen from the three finalists.

The winning entry will be published in the upcoming Second Wind anthology, Change is in the Wind. (Title subject to change.) The winner will also receive a coupon from Smashwords.com for an unlimited number of free downloads of the anthology for one month. The coupon can be sent to as many people as you wish during that month. The winner will also be able to purchase an unlimited number of print copies of the anthology at half price plus shipping costs.

All entries will be deleted once the contest is over.

The contest begins today, October 3, 2011 and ends December 31, 2011.

Schedule:

December 31, 2011 at 11:59 pm: Contest ends.

January 1 — January 15, 2012: Judging of entries by 2W (and 2W authors) to pick top three entries

January 15 — January 31, 2012: Judging of the three finalists by blog readers to pick the winner

February 1, 2012: Winner announced

April 1, 2012 Book on Amazon for sale (In an ideal world …)

Please send your entries as a Word .doc or .docx to secondwindpublishing@gmail.com

Best of luck to all of you!!

Tagged: Anthology, Contest, Second Wind Publishing, short story contest, stories of renewal

The Soundtrack of Our Lives

I never paid much attention to the soundtrack of my life until a few months after my life mate's death when I realized all the things I wasn't hearing. Every morning for decades, I woke to the motorized whine of his blender as he made a protein drink, the shushing of running water as he filtered the drinking water for the day, the clink of weights as he did his exercises. We were quiet people, but during the day, I'd occasionally I'd hear the soft hum of his music or tinny voices from the television in the other room. In the summer I could hear the rustle of the hose in the weeds as he watered the bushes and trees outside my window, and in the winter I could hear the stamp of his boots when he came in from clearing off snow. And always when we were together, there was the lovely sound of his voice as we talked and talked and talked — we talked of anything and everything until he got so sick he couldn't carry the thread of a conversation any more. At the end, there were the scary night sounds of his falling when he tried to get out of bed, and the even scarier sounds of his yelps when he woke and couldn't remember who he was or where he was.

Just from those sounds, you get an idea of our life together and how it ended. What is the soundtrack of your life? How has it changed over the years?

If you are a writer, what are the soundtracks of your characters' lives? What do those sounds mean to your characters, and how does the soundtrack change during the course of the book to reflect the changes in their circumstances. How much can your readers tell about your characters from the sounds they hear?

Tagged: characters, death, life and death, sounds, soundtrack of our lives, writing sounds