D.B. Jackson's Blog, page 70

Web Site Update and News!

So, I have updated the D. B. Jackson website to reflect a few recent developments.  First of all, I have been invited to be a special guest at a couple of upcoming conventions — Con*Stellation, in Huntsville, Alabama (October 2012) and Marscon, in Williamsburg, Virginia (January 2013).  I'm very excited about both conventions.  For more information, please visit the Appearances page on my site.

Second, the release date for Thieftaker, book I of the Thieftaker Chronicles, has been officially set for July 3, 2012. So now you can celebrate the July 4th holiday with a journey back to Colonial Boston!  Many thanks to the good people at Tor Books, for making this possible.

More website updates will be forthcoming in the weeks and months to come.  For now that's all.  Thanks for stopping by!

Writing Tips: The Taxman Cometh

As it happens, I'm doing my taxes today (I'm expecting a refund, so there's no reason to wait for April), and so I thought I would share a bit of information about professional writers and their tax process.  For those of you not yet making a living at writing, don't despair:  You will see income eventually, and when you do you'll need to know how to do some of this stuff.

I do my own taxes using TurboTax.  I've gotten fairly efficient at using the software, and so I don't really begrudge the time.  Plus, I'm a control freak, and I like to know that I'm taking all the deductions that I feel comfortable taking, no more and no less.  But I have lots of writer friends who hire accountants to handle this stuff for them.  You need to decide which approach works best for you.  Remember though that either way you need to save receipts and keep close track of expenses.  And remember as well that the cost of the tax software and/or the fees charged by your accountant are fully deductible!

I work at home and have a dedicated home office and so I take deductions for the expense of that office.  This basically means that I have measured the office, figured out what percentage of the total area of my house it represents, and can deduct that percentage of utilities, homeowners insurance, mortgage interest costs, and property taxes from my self-employment income.  I also use my car for business, in that I drive to conventions, conferences, signings and the like.  Those miles are also deductible.  But remember to keep a written log of all your business miles, including the date of each trip, the number of miles, and the event.  Also, at the beginning and end of each year, write down the total mileage on your car. The IRS will want to know how many total miles (business and non-business) you put on your car each year.

Any costs connected with my internet presence, including server costs for this site, similar costs for other sites and online memberships (LiveJournal, for instance) and the monthly fees I pay my internet service provider are also deductible.  So are the costs of any software I use for writing — Scrivener, Dreamweaver (for my website), word processing programs — any professional memberships (SFWA, for instance), magazine and journal subscriptions, and the costs of research materials (which basically means every book I buy and often some DVDs as well).  I have friends who also deduct the costs of their cable or satellite television and their Netflix accounts, on the grounds that these too are a form of research expense.  I have a hard time justifying that and have never done it.

All my travel expenses for conventions, conferences, etc., including convention fees themselves, hotel bills, air fares, parking, internet access fees charged at hotels, and either one-half of all my meals or a food per diem as determined by the IRS, are also covered.

If you buy your own health insurance, as a self-employed person you can deduct up to half the cost of that coverage.  I'm covered on my wife's health insurance plan through her job, so I have no write-off there.

Many literary agencies have taken to reporting the entirety of royalty and advance income to the IRS on 1099-msc forms.  This means that writers need to be careful to deduct the 15% agency fee their agents collect.  This is a miscellaneous expense that we need to remember to report, but it's also a very important one, because those fees add up quickly and can amount to thousands of dollars.

As you can see, there is a lot to keep track of.  I have a folder into which I put all my receipts throughout the year.  Come tax season, I tally up my totals and jot them down.  I keep these sheets from year to year, so that I can keep track of expenses over the years, and so that in the unlikely event of an audit, I can present evidence for all my deductions.  As your career begins to pick up momentum, I also recommend designating a single credit card for all your business purchases.  This will make your life much, much easier when you go through your tax records.

Self-employment taxes tend to run higher than regular income taxes, for the simple reason that most of us who work as contractors with publishers and the like do not have social security and medicare taxes taken out of our payments.  So we are not only paying income taxes, we're paying the social service taxes as well.  That's one of the reasons it's so important to keep track of all those deductions.  I have friends in other states who have incorporated themselves in order to take advantage of lower corporate tax rates.  This can be a somewhat expensive proposition — there are legal and bureaucratic costs associated with the incorporation process — but it can save you significant money in the long term.  My state, as it happens, does not have a personal income tax but does have a corporate tax, so incorporation has not made sense for me.

One final thing to keep in mind:  Because we have no withholding on our payments, writers who start to make significant money should consider paying estimated taxes during the year.  Failure to do so can lead to a big tax bill in April, and it can also result in penalties imposed by the IRS.  I pay estimated taxes every year, quite often in the form of  IRS refunds that I simply roll over into next year's taxes.  This costs me nothing out of pocket and keeps me from having to worry about those penalties I mentioned.

No one likes paying taxes, not even a bleeding heart liberal like me.  But with a little foresight and some careful record-keeping, the tax returns associated with your burgeoning literary career need not be too unpleasant.  Best of luck!

Writing Tips: Character Development Starting Points

Aspiring writers are often told that they should "write what they know," which I've always felt is a strange bit of advice for people trying to make their way in a profession founded upon feats of imagination.  And to my mind, nowhere is the "write-what-you-know" maxim more problematic than in character work.

I could write a hundred posts on character creation, character development, and the blending of character arc with story arc, and I would only begin to scratch the surface of all that could be said on the subject.  And I'm sure that as I continue this series of Writing Tips, I'll have much more to say about character work.  But my concern today is more along the lines of the starting point for your major characters.

I'm often asked, by people who don't themselves write, something along the lines of "Do you model your characters after people you know?  Family, friends, rivals?"  Usually the question is asked with a knowing grin and mischievous gleam in the eye.  And so more often than not, those asking the question are disappointed when I say, "No, I almost never do that."  That's the truth, and here's why:

It might be lots of fun, at least in theory, to make an autobiographical protagonist fall in love with a woman modeled after my wife, or after that girl in high school who never noticed me despite my repeated attempts to draw her eye; or to make my main villain a dead ringer for the college professor who gave me a B- in composition when I KNOW I deserved an A; or to pay homage to my mother or father with a kindly older character.  I have found, however, that the characters I try to shape in the images of people I know are the characters who are least likely to develop on the page into fully realized human beings.  In other words, writing people I know tends to result in lousy characters.

On the other hand, those characters who I create wholly from my imagination, who I create on their own terms, without any hidden real world agenda, are the ones who come to life, who start doing things that surprise me and drive my narrative in unexpected directions.  They are uniformly my best characters and the ones I most enjoy writing.

I believe the reason for this is fairly simple:  The more freedom I give my characters to grow and develop in a natural way, the more organic those characters feel.  As soon as I try to make a character like someone I know, I limit their growth, I smother them.  I have compared creating characters to raising children, and think that the analogy works particularly well in this respect.  I can't allow my children to run around unchecked doing whatever they want, but neither can I force them to become the people I want them to be, at least not without making them hate me.  I have to impose some discipline on them, but I have to give them the room to grow and become the people they are meant to be, on their own terms.  So it is with characters.  When I try to make them a certain way, they don't become people in their own rights; they remain flat and boring and frustratingly difficult to work with in my books and stories.

So if you're struggling with a character in your current work in progress, ask yourself if you are trying too hard to make them behave and develop in a certain way.  It's possible that in trying to write what — or in this case who — you know, you've placed too many constraints on the people in your work.  Let them breathe, let them become who they want to be.  Give them room to develop without your preconceived notions, and you may find that they will turn into deeper, richer, more believable characters.

New England v. New York: Where My Loyalties Lie

Yeah, I know.  I write about Boston.  It's the setting for the Thieftaker novels and several short stories that are either in print, in production, or under consideration at one magazine or another.  And I do love Boston — great city.

But I am a New Yorker born and bred, and I have been rooting for the New York Giants since I was seven years old.  That's . . . well, that's a lot of years.  As a Giants fan, I have been through heartache and embarrassment and a few very satisfying seasons.  I don't know what will happen in tonight's game, and I'm not going to make any predictions.  (If I predict a Giants win, they'll lose, and if I predict a Patriots win, this will be the one time when I'm right.  By making no prediction at all, I at least give the Giants a chance…)  But despite my affection for New England in general and Boston in particular, there is no doubt as to who I'll be rooting for come kick-off time.

Go Giants!

Ethan Kaille's Diary: 3 February 1765

On Monday and Wednesday, I shared with you the first two in a series of entries from a day journal belonging to Ethan Kaille, thieftaker and conjurer, whose life and work in Colonial Boston are the subject of the upcoming Thieftaker books (beginning with Thieftaker, book I of the Thieftaker Chronicles). In the first entry, dated 30 January 1765 Ethan was hired by a local baker to look into a minor mystery in his neighborhood in the South End. In the second entry, from 1 February 1765, Ethan confronted a young thief, Mary Parkes, in the moonlit cellar of the bakery and offered to help her win her freedom from her domineering uncle. Here follows the third and final entry dealing with this small adventure.

Sunday, 3 February 1765

I had not fixed a time for my next encounter with the young thief and her uncle, but had assumed that they would arrive at around the same hour Mary had come to the bakery two nights before. I waited at the mouth of the alley I had described for her, watching the street, marking the people who came and went from the Dowsing Rod. After some time, I began to wonder if she would keep our appointment, and I started to worry for her safety and that of her younger sister. Perhaps her uncle had been angered at receiving a shilling rather than the expected bread and pies. Perhaps he had been wary of meeting this mysterious benefactor Mary described for him. Or maybe Mary had lost her nerve, or had never had any intention of bringing her uncle here, but rather had been humoring me until she could get away.

These thoughts and more plagued me as I waited, hearing the tolling of the bells at eight o'clock, and then at nine.

As the ten o'clock hour approached, I was cold and thoroughly convinced that she would not be coming. But upon making up my mind to retreat into the tavern for some hot rum and chowder, I heard the scrape of footsteps on cobble and a moment later, the high, clear voice of a young girl.

"There it is," she said. "The Dowsing Rod. I told you it was this way."

"I don't need you remindin' me of when you was right," came a low, gruff voice. "And I'll thank ye t' leave th' talkin' t' me when we find this fella."

"Yes, Uncle," the girl said, her tone meek.

A moment later they turned onto the alley, the girl leading the way. It was too dark for me to make out her uncle's features, but he was a tall man, broad in the shoulders, with a barrel chest and an ample gut. Apparently Mary had been stealing a good deal of food for him.

I stepped out the shadows so that the moonlight fell upon me. Mary halted; her uncle pushed her aside and walked past her.

"Hello, Mary," I said, ignoring the man for the moment. "You all right?"

"Yes, sir. I brought him like you told me."

"Tha's enough," the uncle said, growling the words at her. Facing me again, he said, "I don' work with men who bargain with childr'n. From now on, ye talk t' me."

"And you are?"

"You'll have my name when I have yers."

I glanced toward Mary. There was a chance she had given him my name already, in which case lying might scare the man off. On the other hand, there was also the chance that he would have heard of me, either because of my work as a thieftaker, or because of my involvement years ago in the Ruby Blade mutiny. In that instant I decided the risk of lying about my name was greater than the risk of giving it.

"The name's Kaille," I said. "Now, who are you?"

"Lewis Parkes."

I walked forward, halting just a couple of strides short of the man. From this distance I could make out some details in his face. He had small eyes that glittered in the moonlight. His cheeks and brow were deeply scarred and pitted; at some point he had survived a bout of smallpox.

"Do you often send girls out to steal for you?" I asked.

Parkes scowled. "What?" He cast a filthy look Mary's way. "Wha's that got t' do with anything? She said ye had work for me, a job that might make me some coin."

"That's right," I said. "That's what I told her."

"So wha's th' job?"

"What skills do you have, Parkes?"

The man shrugged, avoiding my gaze. "I'm pretty good in a fight. I can use a blade if'n I have t'."

"What do you do for coin?"

Parkes frowned again. "Wha' does that matter? What is this, anyway?"

"I'm trying to figure out what kind of man sends his niece out in the night to steal bread for him, and somehow manages to keep himself looking well-fed — fat even — while she's all bones and skin."

"Who th' hell are you?" Parkes asked, glowering at me.

"I told you, my name is Kaille. I'm a thieftaker, and you're lucky I don't take you to the sheriff right now."

"I've done nothin' wrong, an' you know it. If th' girl's been out stealin', well, there's not much I can do 'bout that. Her father was no good, an' she's just like th' old man. I'll be dealin' with her when I'm done with you."

"I don't believe you will," I said. "From now on, if you want bread, you'll have to get it yourself."

Parkes shook his head and chuckled. Turning away, he grabbed for Mary's arm. She darted out of his reach, and before he could pursue her, I strode forward and planted myself between them.

"Out o' my way, Kaille!"

"I don't think so."

Parkes balled his fists and threw a wild punch at my head. Mary screamed. I ducked under the blow and came up with a punch of my own, catching the man flush on the chin. Parkes staggered back, then lumbered forward once more. I hit him again, this time in the belly. The man dropped to his knees, gasping for breath.

"Stay down, or you'll get worse," I told him. "Mary, did you do what I told you?"

She was staring at her uncle, her eyes wide. But she nodded and pulled a piece of parchment from within her threadbare coat.

"Wha's that?" Parkes demanded, still breathing hard.

I opened the parchment and scanned it quickly. "It looks like a document declaring Mary and Kate your wards." I tore the paper in half.

"You have no right!" the man said.

"You're not a fit guardian. And you're lucky I don't do worse. Come near these girls again, and you'll answer to me. Understand?"

Parkes didn't answer. And when I led Mary out of the alley, he made no attempt to stop me.

"What are we going to do now?" Mary asked as we hurried away.

"We're going to get your sister and take you out to your aunt in Roxbury. How does that sound?"

Mary grinned.

She led me back to the small room on Milk Street where her younger sister was waiting. Kate gaped at me, clearly frightened. Mary, though, told her to bundle up her belongings and before long the three of us were tramping through the street once more on our way back to the Dowser. We saw no sign of the girls' uncle.

Kannice gave the girls a room for the night and I kept watch for Lewis Parkes. He didn't show his face in the tavern. In the morning, I went back to Roger Bell's bakery and informed him that I had captured the thief, and could guarantee that this person at least wouldn't be troubling him anymore. Bell thanked me effusively and paid me the balance of what he owed.

Upon returning to the Dowser, I hired a carriage to drive the girls and me out to Roxbury. Once there we inquired after their aunt and soon found the woman's home. It was a modest house, but it looked comfortable and safe. Mary and Kate seemed nervous as we walked up the path to the front door, but at a happy cry and warm embrace from their aunt, they became more animated.

I didn't linger, but before I left, I took Mary aside and gave her what remained, after the carriage driver's fee, of the money Bell had paid me.

"What is this for?" she asked.

"Just in case," I said quietly. "Keep it safe."

She nodded, then proffered her hand. I shook it.

"Goodbye, Ethan Kaille," she said. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Mary Parkes. No more thieving. Promise?"

She smiled. "Promise."

I left her there, and began the journey back to Boston.

Ethan Kaille's Diary: 1 February 1765

On Monday, I shared with you the first in a series of entries from a day journal belonging to Ethan Kaille, thieftaker and conjurer, whose life in Colonial Boston is the focus of the upcoming Thieftaker books (beginning with Thieftaker, book I of the Thieftaker Chronicles). In the first entry, dated 30 January 1765, Ethan was hired by a local baker to look into a minor mystery in his neighborhood in the South End. Today I present the next entry, dated 1 February 1765. I will share with you the final entry at the end of the week.

Friday, 1 February 1765

After meeting with the baker, Roger Bell, on Wednesday, I undertook a survey of Tanner's Lane and the nearby alleys to see if I might encounter a likely perpetrator of the thefts that had so plagued the man and his wife. I found little. And so, on Thursday evening, with Bell's permission, I situated myself inside his shop, just beside the door to the cold cellar where he stored his raw goods and those items that hadn't sold during the course of the day. It was a clear night, and a waxing moon hung over Boston, faintly illuminating the cellar through a lone high window. A vat of sponge dough fermented by the far wall, and bags of raw flour surrounded me. There were as well a few unsold loaves and some pies and tarts.

I hadn't told the good baker that I was a conjurer and I certainly didn't let on that I intended to use a spell to conceal myself so that our thief might fully enter the shop before I confronted him. I used my knife to cut my arm, whispered "Velamentum ex cruore evocatum," — concealment, conjured from blood — and waited. In vain, as it turned out. Nothing happened that first night, and eventually I cast another spell removing the concealment conjuring and returned to my room above Henry Dall's cooperage.

Tonight, I returned to the bakery, positioned myself similarly and again drew blood for a concealment conjuring. At first it seemed that I would again waste my evening. But just after the ringing of the nine o'clock bells at the Old South Meeting House, I heard a quiet scratching at the lock on Bell's cellar door. A moment later, the tumblers turned over, the door opened with the creak of rusty hinges, and a figure slipped silently into the cellar, taking care to close the door once inside.

I waited until this person had moved deeper into the cellar, then cut myself a second time, recited to myself the spell ending my concealment charm, and said, "I believe you're trespassing."

The figure spun. I glimpsed a gleam of metal, moonlight on a blade. Without thinking, I kicked out, my foot connecting solidly with flesh. The blade clattered on the floor, and a voice cried out "Ow!"

But this wasn't just any voice; rather, it was that of a young girl. She tried to dart past me, but I grabbed hold of her arm. She kicked at my shins, and I lifted her off the floor, tucking her form under my arm and pinning her in place so that for all her flailing, she could do me no harm.

Throughout this, she shouted "Let me go! Let me go!" and called me by names that no girl of her age should have known. I also couldn't help noticing that she weighed next to nothing, and felt like she was little more than bone and parchment-thin flesh.

"You are a thief," I told her at last, keeping my voice calm. "And it would be within my rights to cut your throat and leave you on this floor to bleed to death."

Sheriff Greenleaf might have debated me on the legalities of this, but my words had the desired effect. She fell silent and ceased her struggles.

"I have a knife," I told her, "and I'm perfectly willing to use it. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"I'm going to put you down. Don't try to run."

Again, a nod.

I swung her down to the floor, and, of course, she immediately tried to run past me. I put out my hand and pushed her back, sending her sprawling onto the floor like a child's doll.

"Who are you?" I asked, as she scrambled to her feet.

"Who are you?" she shot back at me, sounding bold to the point of insolence.

I suppose I could have refused to answer such an impertinent question, but I decided that in replying I might make clear to her the seriousness of her situation. "My name is Ethan Kaille," I said. "I'm a thieftaker, hired by Mister Bell to find the sneak who has been pinching food from his shop."

"I don't know anything about that," she said, her gaze sliding away. "This is the first time I've ever done this."

Even in the dim light of the moon, I could see that she was no more than twelve or thirteen. She was tall, gangly, her limbs long and awkward. Her face had a pinched look, but she was still pretty in a rough sort of way. Her hair appeared to be red, and the bridge of her upturned nose was sprinkled generously with freckles.

"If you lie to me again," I said, "I will take you to Sheriff Greenleaf and be done with you."

"What will he do?" she asked, her voice dropping almost to a whisper.

"Put you in the gaol, until you can be hanged as a thief or transported somewhere to labor in the cane fields."

"You're lying. They don't do that to children."

"Children don't break into shops and steal."

She didn't cry, or beg me to let her go. I suppose I should have taken that as evidence of her courage. Instead, I couldn't help thinking that a girl her age should have held on to more of the traits of childhood. I didn't let it show, but I felt a great sadness for her.

"What's your name?" I asked again.

She hesitated. Then, "Mary Parkes."

"And where do you live?"

"On Milk Street, above Abbot's Smithy."

"What do you tell your parents when you leave your home this late at night?"

The girl stared down at her feet. "My Mum and Da are dead. I live with my uncle. And he doesn't care much how late I go out, so long as I bring him something to eat at the end of the night."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"Is it just you and him?" I asked after a lengthy silence.

"I have a younger sister. Kate."

"And what will your uncle do when you come home empty handed?"

She met my gaze for just an instant before looking away, but that was enough. If her uncle had been standing in the cellar at that moment, I would have used a fire spell to reduce him to a pile of ash.

"Don't you have any other relatives? Anyone at all?"

"My mum's aunt is in Roxbury," she said. "But my uncle says he has papers that make Kate and me his wards."

I didn't wish to see the child or her sister beaten, or worse, but I had taken coin from Roger Bell and I couldn't allow her to steal anything more from the bakery. After a moment's thought, I fished into my pocket, pulled out a shilling, and held it out to her. The girl's eyes went wide, but she didn't reach for the coin. She was like a street cur, too wild to accept scraps from a stranger's hand.

"What's that for?" she asked, her eyes never straying from the coin.

"Take it," I said. "Bring it to your uncle. Tell him that you weren't able to steal any bread tonight because the baker was waiting for you in his shop. But you found someone, a street captain who is looking for some sharps to help him with a job. Tell him the man said that there'd be lots more where this came from."

"But–"

I raised a finger, silencing her. An idea was forming in my head. A way to make Bell happy without making a mess of this girl's life, or that of her sister.

"Tell him I want to meet him," I finally said. "There's a tavern on Sudbury Street called the Dowsing Rod. I'll be waiting for him two nights hence in the alley on the north side of the tavern. Can you remember that?"

"Why are you doing this?" the girl asked, her expression wary as she regarded me.

"Because I can't let you steal from this bakery anymore. And I don't want your uncle hurting you. Now, do you remember what I said?"

"The Dowsing Rod on Sudbury," she repeated. "Two nights from now, the alley on the north side."

I smiled. "Good. And now there's one more thing I want you to do."

Her eyes narrowed. That is, until I told her what I had in mind. Then she fairly beamed. And she took the shilling from my hand.

Ethan Kaille's Diary: 30 January 1765

As I noted in a post on the first of this year, I recently came across a day journal belonging to Ethan Kaille, thieftaker and conjurer, whose many adventures in Colonial Boston are the subject matter for the upcoming Thieftaker books (beginning with Thieftaker, book I of the Thieftaker Chronicles). As I expected, the journal has made for fascinating reading.   It has told me much about Ethan's explorations of the dark underside of Boston in the 1760s, and has even provided some insights into Kaille's strange magical powers. In the last few days I have come across a series of entries from this very week in 1765, when Ethan looked into a minor mystery in his neighborhood in the South End. I offer the first of his entries today, as it was dated 30 January 1765. I will share with you the other two entries as this week progresses.

Wednesday, 30 January 1765

Today, while enjoying a bowl of chowder at the Dowsing Rod, I was approached by a older man, a baker, who owns a shop back here in the South End on Tanner's Street not far from my own residence on Cooper's Alley. He gave his name as Roger Bell, and indicated that he wished to hire me to investigate a series of thefts that have plagued him and his wife for a number of weeks now. He seemed to know a good deal about me — he knew enough to find me at Kannice's establishment, and he made a point of mentioning straight off that his shop was near my home. I suspected that perhaps Sephira Pryce had sent him to me, perhaps as a ruse.

It quickly became apparent to me, though, that if Sephira did send the man my way, it was not out of malice or conniving, but rather out of her own lack of interest in this particular client.

As Bell himself made clear, this was not an inquiry that promised to make me a wealthy man.

"My wife and I have little, Mister Kaille," he said, his voice trembling, his rheumy eyes shining with the inconstant light of the fire in the tavern hearth. "I can't pay you more than a few shillings."

I told myself that a few shillings were worth more than nothing at all, but I have to admit that I was swayed as well by the man's obvious concern for his own livelihood, which he indicated was under threat. I bade him tell me more.

"We have been robbed," he said. "Not once, or twice, but at least a dozen times. Bread has been taken from us, as has raw dough. We have lost filled pastries, pies, cakes. All that you can think of, these rascals have taken, and more."

"You say this has happened often?"

He nodded. "They never take all that we have, but they take enough that we are losing money hand over hand. It cannot go on much longer."

With no fixed pattern as to what was taken, and with the thefts recurring at irregular intervals, I suggested that perhaps some creature was stealing into their shop at night — one of the feral dogs or cats that live in the city streets, or perhaps even rats. But Bell assured me this was not the case.

"My wife and I have considered that," he said. "We have a lock on the door, and have made sure that the windows and walls are all sound." He scowled, glaring at the fire. "No this is being done by someone, a demon perhaps, a servant of the devil walking among us. But it is no beast. Unless there are beasts abroad in the streets that can overmaster tumblers in a locked door."

I suppressed a smile at this harangue, knowing that it didn't take a demon to steal food in times like these, when coin was hard to come by and winter's hard gales rattled doors and windows, but knowing as well that it wouldn't do to make the man feel that he was mocked.

"I'm a thieftaker," I told him instead. "I return stolen items for a fee. Clearly in this case there will be nothing to return, even if I can catch your thief."

"I know that, Mister Kaille. If you can find the rascal and turn him over to Sheriff Greenleaf, that will be enough for me. Or failing that, deal with him yourself. Anything, just so long as these filchings end."

"I could tell you I've done that, get you to pay me, and then a week from now, when the rook comes back, you'll be worse off than you are now."

He shook his head at that. "I've heard about you," he said, earnest and grave. "You're an honest man. When you tell me you've helped us, it'll be the truth."

Moved by this, I told him that I would take on his inquiry for two shillings six as a retainer, and three and six more when I finished.

Bell agreed, paid me in coin and left the Dowser.

And now here I sit, wondering how I might be able to find his thief without involving the good sheriff. It's not that I don't trust Greenleaf. Well, yes it is. But I also know the man too well. He'd be just as happy to hang a hungry cove as he would be to hang me for a witch. I'd rather not give him the opportunity to do either. The question is, can I earn Bell's three and six and justify the baker's trust in me, without giving the sheriff the chance to use his trusty noose?

Writing Tips: More on Dialogue — Conversations As Narrative

The other day, in my first Writing Tips post, I wrote about said-bookisms and the challenges of dialogue attribution.  Just to reiterate, the key to effective dialogue attribution is showing readers the emotions and thoughts of those characters who speak rather than telling readers what is happening inside the characters' heads.  In real life, when we speak to someone, we rely on gesture, facial expression, tone of voice, and the actual spoken word to know what that person is thinking and feeling.  Writing dialogue is no different.  By using gestures and facial expressions to add emotional context to the actual lines spoken by our characters, we can convey all we need to, without relying on said-bookisms.

In the comments that followed my post, my good friend Tim Rohr raised a second point relating to dialogue.  To quote Tim:  "A flip side to this discussion is the fact that for the most part, dialog is not conversation. That is, it's not conversational. Sure, there are exceptions, but for the most part dialog has structure and rules to it that actual conversation does not."

Tim asked me to expound on the dialogue v. conversation point in another post, and so here I go.

We sometimes hear people say that for dialogue in books to work, our characters need to speak just like real people do.  That's really not quite right.  If you listen to people talk, you quickly realize that even the most glib among us are actually remarkably inarticulate creatures.  Our speech is littered with "you knows" and "ehrs" and "umms" and "likes".  We repeat ourselves, we take forever to make a point, and then we repeat ourselves some more.

The truth is that as writers we should strive to write our dialogue so that it reads the way we wish people spoke.  I am all for putting contractions into dialogue to make it sound more natural.  I believe as well that to make written conversations sound natural, we can sprinkle in a few of the verbal tics I mentioned before — an occasional "you know?" or "like" can go a long way toward adding verisimilitude to your scenes.  But remember that like cumin in chili, a little goes a long way.  Too many instances of that sort of verbal habit just becomes annoying.  You know?

More to the point, as Tim suggests in what he said the other day, dialogue in written scenes should not meander the way our own conversations do.  We are writing in an age of lower word counts; editors and agents are looking for books in the 90,000-110,000 word range.  We don't have the luxury of letting a conversation unwind slowly or careen from topic to topic.  This is not to say that your characters need to rush to the point in every conversation — the object is to balance the realism of the actual spoken word with the exigencies of narrative and pacing.  Just as an action scene in a novel needs to build, gathering energy and tension toward a meaningful culmination, so conversations among your characters should gather momentum as well.  You don't want to rush it, but you do want the characters to get to the point, you do want your revelations to build upon one another, and you want the conversation to end with a punch, a key moment that ties together all that's been said and propels your plot forward.

I'll add as well something that I once heard said by the great Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the screenplays for, among other films, The American President, The Social Network, and A Few Good Men (dramatic script and screenplay), and also created and was the main creative force behind The West Wing.  Sorkin said that good dialogue has a musical quality.  It has cadence, rhythm, themes, and codas.  I have found that thinking of my dialogue musically has helped me improve as a writer.  You might want to think of it that way, too.

Here's another excerpt from an early chapter in Thieftaker (Tor Books, July 2012).  This isn't the end of the scene, but it does have it's own small culmination, and there is something of that musical structure in the way the topic circles around on itself:

Eventually, as the crowd in the tavern began to thin and the noise died down, Kannice approached his table again.

"Derry was in a hurry to leave," she said, pulling Diver's chair around and placing it beside Ethan's.

"Not really. He has to work the wharves come morning."

"Who was that came to talk to him?" she asked, her eyes fixed on her hands as she toyed with one of the silver rings on her fingers.

She doesn't miss a thing.

"One of his mates from the wharf, I think."

A faint smile touched her lips as she glanced up at him through her eyelashes. "Why do you protect him?"

"Why do you harry him?"

"If ever there was a man who needed harrying . . ." She trailed off, letting the words hang.

He knew better than to argue. "I'll tell him to keep it outside next time," he said, an admission in the words.

"Thank you."

They sat in silence for a few moments. Eventually Ethan took her hand. She met his gaze, smiled.

"You say it went well with Corbett?" she asked

"It did. I found all that his wife had lost. He was pleased."

"And the thief?"

Ethan exhaled and made a sour face. "Daniel Folter."

Kannice rolled her eyes. "Another fool."

"Aye," Ethan said, conceding the point as far as Diver was concerned.

"You let him go?"

"Of course."  He started to tell her that doing so might well prove to have been a mistake, but thought better of it. That would have carried the conversation back around to Diver, and Ethan didn't want that.

"Why is it that you're so forgiving of fools?" she asked him.

"Maybe I see enough of my younger self in them to think they're not beyond hope."

She shook her head, the corners of her mouth quirking upward again. Then she stood, moved to stand behind his chair and began to knead the muscles in his neck, her small fingers deft and strong. He closed his eyes and tipped his head forward.

"Just because there's hope for them, doesn't mean it's your job to save them all," she whispered.

"Now you tell me."

The conversation covers a lot of ground — this guy Diver, Ethan's business with a merchant named Corbett, the solving of that particular mystery, then back to Diver and finally to a small glimpse at Ethan's past.  Along the way, it also tells a lot about Kannice and Ethan's relationship.  On the other hand, it's not very long, and it doesn't read as terribly rushed.

Finding that balance in dialogue — easing the tension between finding a conversational tone and also keeping the narrative moving forward — can take some practice.  But with time you'll find that your stories and books are leaner, more directed, and ultimately more readable.  And that, of course, is the point.

Keep writing!

Writing Tips: Said-Bookisms, the Obscure Sin that Can Doom a Manuscript

I've been writing professionally for more than fifteen years, and I've been reading avidly for far longer.  Over the years the publishing market has seen sea-changes in almost every respect, with ramifications for the business, the very act of reading, and yes, even the way books are written.  One of the changes that baffled me when I first entered the field was the market's sharp turn away from what are now known as "said-bookisms."

Let's start with a definition.  What is a said-bookism?  Basically, it is any word other than said or asked that is used to describe how a character speaks a line of dialogue.  Phrases like "he hissed," "she croaked," "he inquired," "she averred," "he rasped," "she lamented," and about a thousand more are all considered said-bookisms.  And all of them are looked upon with disfavor by editors and publishers.

I first heard the term said-bookism back when I was revising what would be my first published novel, and as I say, I was baffled.  Hadn't I read literally hundreds of books in which authors attributed lines of dialogue in just this way?  Had they changed the rules just to mess with my head?  As it happens, my entry into the publishing world did pretty much coincide with this change in the market, so I could be forgiven for my confusion (if not for my sense of self-importance that I would think the entire industry had changed to make me suffer….)

And once I had the issue explained to me, I began to see why said-bookisms had fallen into disfavor.  If you write, you've heard people tell you "Show, don't tell."  We convey emotion, drama, and all the other goodies that drive our narratives by letting readers experience our characters' reactions first hand.  By writing, "No!" he roared, we are, in effect, telling our readers how he said the word.  If instead we write "No!"  His voice hammered at her, we give the reader a sense of how our point of view character experiences that roar, without even having to use the word.  Let's try another, longer example.  The following passage comes from the second chapter of Thieftaker (Tor Books, July 2012).  I'm going to give you two versions; the first is full of said-bookisms:

"Mister Kaille," the merchant drawled. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon. Is there a problem?"

He was a short, round man whose clothes didn't fit him quite right. They were too long in the sleeves and legs and too tight around the middle. He was bald except for tufts of steel gray hair that poked out from behind his ears, and he wore spectacles on the end of his nose.

"There's no problem, sir," Ethan replied, producing the necklaces and laying them on a small table beside the hearth. "I've come to return your wife's jewels."

"You've found them already!" he exclaimed.  "Well done, Mister Kaille!"

"Thank you, sir."

"And the thief?" Corbett demanded, examining each necklace by the light of an oil lamp.

"Daniel Folter."

"Daniel?" the merchant gaped.  "You're sure?"

"Yes, sir. You know him?"

Corbett hesitated. "He did some work for me a year or so ago," he explained. "He even expressed interest in courting my older daughter, though I didn't encourage him in that regard."  He shook his head. "Still, I'm surprised. I never figured the man for a thief."

And now, the same passage without said-bookisms, but rather with attribution as it appears in the book:

"Mister Kaille," the merchant said grimly. "I didn't expect to see you again so soon. Is there a problem?"

He was a short, round man whose clothes didn't fit him quite right. They were too long in the sleeves and legs and too tight around the middle. He was bald except for tufts of steel gray hair that poked out from behind his ears, and he wore spectacles on the end of his nose.

"There's no problem, sir," Ethan said, producing the necklaces and laying them on a small table beside the hearth. "I've come to return your wife's jewels."

Corbett's entire bearing changed. His eyes widened and as he crossed to the table he actually broke into a smile. "You've found them already!  Well done, Mister Kaille!"

"Thank you, sir."

"And the thief?" Corbett asked, examining each necklace by the light of an oil lamp.

"Daniel Folter."

The merchant looked at him. "Daniel?  You're sure?"

"Yes, sir. You know him?"

Corbett hesitated. "He did some work for me a year or so ago. He even expressed interest in courting my older daughter, though I didn't encourage him in that regard."  He shook his head. "Still, I'm surprised. I never figured the man for a thief."

This second version is clearer, more evocative; we lose nothing by removing the said-bookisms and, I would argue, actually gain clarity and emotional power.  One might think that using "said" and "asked" all the time, instead of mixing in synonyms ("explained," "demanded," etc.) would make the passage too repetitive.  But actually what happens is that the "saids" and "askeds" become practically invisible, allowing the reader to focus on the more important matters of action, emotion, context, plot, character, etc.

I do not eliminate all said-bookisms from my work.  I will use them at times to convey volume or manner of speaking — "she whispered," "he muttered," "she called," and a few others.  At times a reader needs to know how the words are spoken. But I try to avoid using any said-bookisms to convey emotion.  That I do with facial expression, gesture, and the spoken words themselves.  And again, that is what the market prefers right now.  Could this change again?  Certainly. But for now, you should try to remove said-bookisms from your writing.  Doing so will improve your chances of selling that first story or book manuscript.

Best of luck, and keep writing!

A Worthy Cause

Tonight my wife and I will be attending a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood that is being held at the house of some friends.  Planned Parenthood has recently found itself in the crosshairs of social conservatives on Capitol Hill.  Actually, this is not really new; PP has always been a favorite target of the right.  But the attacks in recent months have been more vicious and potentially more effective than ever before.

And for the life of me, I can't imagine why.  Yes, it is true that Planned Parenthood does provide information on abortions, and some of its clinics perform the procedure.  But Planned Parenthood does so much more than that, and nearly everything else it does is geared toward providing safe birth control to those who might otherwise not have access to it, thus preventing unwanted pregnancies and, by extension, preventing abortions as well.

Look, for people who are sincerely opposed to abortion, I realize that this is not an issue on which they can compromise — I understand that.  If someone's religious or moral beliefs tell them that ending a pregnancy is tantamount to ending a life, they have to oppose the procedure no matter what.  But surely we can all agree that the prevention of unwanted pregnancies is in the interest of all sectors of society, regardless of faith or politics.

There is a line in the very first episode of The West Wing, probably my favorite television series of all time.  Someone is arguing against providing contraception to teenagers, and he says, "Show the average American teenage male a condom, and his mind will turn to thoughts of lust."  To which Toby Ziegler (played by the wonderful Richard Schiff) replies, "Show the average teenage American male a lug-wrench, and his mind will turn to thoughts of lust!" The same, I'm afraid, can be said of teenage girls.

Teenagers are going to have sex.  I say this with great anguish, because I am the father of teenage girls.  But it's true.  And I, for one, am glad to know that Planned Parenthood is out there, doing their best to make sure that teens are informed and prepared when they take that step into adult relationships.  That's why I'll be at tonight's fundraiser, and why I'll have my checkbook with me.