J.P. Choquette's Blog, page 16

Suspense for Sensitive Readers

Tell me if you share this pet peeve: you're reading along in a new mystery or suspense novel, enjoying the characters that the author has brought to life and then, wham! There is a scene so disturbing and horrible that you're completely thrown off-track. An in-your-face rape scene that's so well described you feel dirty after reading it, the torture of a character in such great detail that you are nauseous. Or so many details about the blood, gore and/or dismemberment of someone that you slam the book shut. 

I hate that. 

It really makes me angry, too. As readers, we are more vulnerable than TV watchers of movie-goers because we can't just cover our eyes/plug our ears and wait for the disgusting part to be over. And unlike in movies, there is no thematic music cuing us as to when things might get grisly. There are also no ratings on books or warnings like, "This book contains disturbing sexual violence against women" or "This novel has a torture scene so terrible it would make Himmler blush." Nope, none of that. 

Now, understand this: I'm not against any of these things ending up in literature. I mean, the Bible is filled with such descriptions, for pity's sake! And I'm certainly not advocating book banning or book burning (shudder, shudder). But it does bother me that there is no warning for hapless readers, who would like to know about this type of stuff up front and don't. 

So, I decided to do something about it and created a new Goodreads group, Suspense for Sensitive Readers. I hope you'll check it out and if you like mystery/suspense without the frivolous use of gore/torture/dismemberment, maybe you'll join us. Would love that! 

Guest Post: Author James Schannep

Remember those "choose your own ending" stories that you read as a kid? You get to a critical point in the story and can choose for your character to do a) or b). I loved those! 

Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to James Schannep, author of the Click Your Poison books and zombie-aficionado. James's most recent book, Infected, will have zombie-lovers hearts all atwitter (is that even a real word?). 

I would love to explain James's process to you but it's quite complicated. He'll do a much better job. 

Reigning in Parallel Worlds
by James Schannep

The main characters in INFECTED choose to wait out the zombie apocalypse inside their home, boarded up and barricaded, with enough supplies to wait out doomsday. They also leave the city in search of fellow survivors and greener pastures. Oh, and they also become zombies themselves.

No, my characters are not schizophrenic (and neither am I!), they just exist in parallel worlds.
What do I mean? Click Your Poison books are gamebooks—wherein you, the reader, choose how the story progresses. Each CYP title has three unique storylines and over fifty possible endings. Because of this “many possibilities” quality to interactive fiction, different readers will experience different outcomes and have a rather different reading experience from one another. It’s my job, as the author, to keep all these parallel worlds straight.

The problem is, every decision expands the storylines; sometimes familiar to one another, but other times they become drastically altered. Their worlds grow too large to exist solely within the confines of my head! I literally can’t keep them all straight; not by memory alone. So how do I do it? Just like in the real world—I use maps. Almost on a daily basis I’m forced to pause, stop writing, and think, “Wait, is this person dead here? And does this other character currently hate you or love you?” That’s when I check the maps.

Level one is my world map: the outline. In any novel, you need a beginning, middle, and end, with a logical pathway through the three. At the most basic level, the outline keeps the overarching plot on track towards the eventual destination(s). 
Level two, interstates and roadside attractions: the chronology. Here I’ll keep a chart in Excel. Important plot points form the x-axis (time) and major storylines/characters form the y-axis (events). This helps me know which events happen at what time.
Level three, city streets, dark alleys, slums and shortcuts: the flowchart. This is my bread and butter. Without the flowchart, none of the other maps matter. The flowchart tells me, if you make decision A (attempt to play dead to avoid zombies), it will lead to outcome B (get eaten!). Often times the path will change slightly and I’ll have to go back, edit the story, and change outcomes. Without the flowchart, that would be impossible. Below, you can see a rough scrap from my latest CYP book as an example.

Nathaniel Hawthorne said, “Easy reading is damned hard writing.” If my process sounds excruciatingly difficult, good. My job (in addition to keeping the parallel worlds straight), is to make it look effortless inside the story. Your experience making decisions as reader should be smooth and clean, despite the complexity and ambiguity of the actual decisions themselves.

The real test of all this behind-the-scenes planning is your experience. So go ahead, dive into INFECTED and see if you have what it takes to survive the zombie apocalypse!

***Thanks so much, James, that was awesome. Love seeing how writer's minds work and yours is obviously going at warp speed! 

If you have a second, readers, be sure to check out the very cool (and short!) trailer below. Thanks for reading along and please feel free to ask James questions or leave some feedback in the comments. You can also click here to visit his very informative website. 

Family Heirloom: Part II (personalized short story)

Remember serial stories in the newspaper? Below is the second installment of "Family Heirloom," a personalized short story that I created for Lisa Ackel Judge, winner of the personalized story contest held earlier this summer. 


 (If you missed Part I, click here to get caught up.) 


Family Heirloom: Part II


A loud pop emanated from the beauty salon followed by a chorus of screams. Most were from inside, but a few came from people standing near the makeshift barricade. The police woman looked away for an instant, distracted by the noise. Lisa made her move, sliding under the plastic tape and launching herself through the door of the salon before the officer even blinked.
“Hey!” Lisa heard behind her and she yanked the door closed. One gunman turned, mouth gaping open through the nylons he’d pulled over his face. The other one, smaller and female, held a larger gun. She was faced away from Lisa and did not have nylons or any other type of mask over her head. The sound of the jingling bells slapping against the glass door drew her attention, though. The figure whirled around and Lisa nearly screamed in disbelief.
“Samantha, what are you doing? I can’t believe this!”
“Not now, Auntie, I’m a little busy.
Lisa stood staring at the desk near the front door, unsure whether to laugh or cry. Drawers were pulled out and items hung from them like innards. Plastic capes, latex gloves, cords for curling irons and hair dryers. Curlers in pink, purple and blue were scattered all over the floor. Three women huddled near an overturned display of hairspray and gel while two others cowered beneath dryers on the floor. One of the dryers had fallen over, it’s plastic dome cracked.
“Um, why is your aunt here?” The guy with the pantyhose on his head asked. “Is this part of the plan?”
“No, you idiot!” Samantha yelled in response. Anger management had never been one of her strong suits. “I didn’t expect this. Just go back to looking.” She waved the gun toward the back of the room and several of the women gasped in response. Samantha sighed wearily, looking at Lisa in disappointment.
“I can’t find it. I know it’s here but I just can’t find it. And that stupid,” she drew the word out as through it was made of seven syllables, “woman isn’t telling me anything. I don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said, teeth gritted. “But I will if I have to.” She waved the gun menacingly at the clustered women and one began to sob.
“I don’t know anything,” yelled the woman closest to Lisa’s niece. Lisa recognized Cyndi, the shop’s owner.
“I would tell you if I did, but I don’t! Do you really think I’d risk losing my life, all these peoples’ lives over this?” Cyndi’s tone was getting hysterical. “You really are crazy.”
“Shut up,” Samantha snarled and smashed the butt end of the gun into one of the large mirrors. The glass fractured and popped, splintering into a thousand pieces.
“Look, Sweetie,” Lisa said, moving closer to Samantha. “I’m sure if it were here then you’d have found it by now. When you talked about this, I thought you were just joking, you know, having a laugh. I didn’t think for a moment that you were serious.” Lisa paused to moisten dry lips. “This is bad, Samantha, really bad. It’s just a ring . . .”
“Just a ring?” Samantha whirled toward her aunt, the gun trembled in her palm.
Lisa swallowed hard. “There are a whole bunch of police officers outside. Why don’t you just give me the gun and we’ll go out together and talk to them.”
Samantha snorted, shook her head.
“Are you serious? They sent you in here, didn’t they? Wise aunt comes to rescue niece from tragic mistake.” Again, she shook her head. “I’m not leaving. Not until I’ve found it. And if that stupid witch isn’t going to hand it over than I’m going to tear every bit of this place apart until I . . .”
There was a sudden explosion near the back door. For an instant Lisa thought that the young man has accidently shot himself, or maybe a propane tank. Smoke poured out of the door and settled in the room like an uninvited guest.
The women began coughing, the smoke blinding. Samantha made a gagging sound and dropped to her knees, trying to see through the smoke, gun raised in her straight arms.
“Put down the gun! Put down the gun!” A loud male voice yelled. Samantha looked over her shoulder toward the front door, then to Lisa, and then to the rear of the salon. More officers cascaded into the room through the front door, smashing through the plate glass windows. Yells, more screams from the women, a moan from the first gunman who was trying to belly crawl to a nearby closet and was instead flattened like a bug by three cops. Eerie silence filled the beauty parlor. Samantha’s gun clattered to the floor as two officers pinned her to the linoleum. Lisa screamed, protective instincts clawed out of her throat.
“Please, don’t hurt her. Please!” Lisa yelled. Then an officer pushed Lisa to the wall face first, ordering her to keep her hands above her head.
The last she saw of Samantha was her niece struggling against the three cops holding her, screaming about the ring. 

To be continued . . .  

My Boss is a Slave Driver

My boss never gives me flowers. My boss is a slave driver.  This is really bad considering that I'm self-employed. Strangely, I have a lot of the same tendencies as the bosses that I most disliked when I worked a job out in the "real world." I'm often stingy with compliments. I want things to be perfect, and use demeaning language when it isn't. I set deadlines and then browbeat myself into meeting them, even if it means that certain treats I was looking forward to (like a short afternoon break or longer lunch hour) are taken away. 

Even though there is PROOF that employees on the job regularly waste time with personal phone calls, social media and chatting with co-workers, I refuse to accept that I should be allowed any time wasters in my day. 

I am relentless. I am hard to please. I am a fish-wife. 

One of the reasons that I wanted to be an EntreAuthor (entrepreneur + author) was out of excitement to be in charge of my career and my day. I envisioned typing away in front of the computer while soft music played, breathing in the scent of lavender (my favorite) oil and periodically going for long walks to clear my mind and allow creativity to flow. 

Instead I spend most days in state of panic, with my gut tight, reminding myself to take deep breaths and that "It's all going to work out, just breathe, everything's going to be fine" while boss-from-hell voice reminds me  (again) that I'm not working fast/hard enough and asking how in the world I ever plan to be successful if I have a work ethic which allows me to go on afternoon walks. How? 

In light of this, and in light of the fact that I hope to make writing my career for many, many years to come, I've decided that things need to change. I need to change the way I work. 

Rather than expecting myself to work for 6-8 hours straight just because I can, I'm going to set daily writing/marketing goals. When I meet them, I'm done for the day. As a matter of fact, I might even shut my laptop all the way down and (gasp!) refuse to re-open it until the next day of work. 


Did you ever have a boss-from-hell? If so, how did you deal with him or her? How do you carve out times to re-center yourself during the day and remind yourself that you're not a machine? Would love to hear your comments on this. 

Online Networking for the Social Media Perplexed

Today I'm guest blogging at the Pen, Ink and Crimes site. Please stop over for a look at how to use social networking as a writer. Or not use, as the case may be. . . 

Goal-Lovin'

I know I've been talking   about goals lately . And yes, I fully understand that it's easy for goals/tasks/lists to get out of control (anyone else feel exhausted by their to-do list . . . before six in the morning?). 

But this is the perfect time of the year to set goals. I think there is something ingrained in us: September = back-to-school, new office supplies and goal-setting. 

I don't know where I'd be without goals. Well, I could guess. Working yet another boring, un-fulfilling job while wishing with all my heart and soul that maybe, someday, I could take the leap into entrepreneurship.  Without goals I don't think I could have ever made that jump. Without having a goal, all official and written down on paper I very highly doubt that my first book would have ever been published . 

Goals are like good vacations: better planning = more fun. 

I like to set weekly goals as well as short, mid and long-term ones in my writing business and include these in my business plan (well, all of them but the weekly ones). 

If you set weekly goals like I do, I created this easy-peasy Weekly Goal Sheet. Feel free to download and share as you'd like. 

Happy September goal setting! 

Personalized Short Story, "Family Heirloom" Part I

Back in June, I had an idea to run a special contest to newsletter subscribers only --an original short story written by moi in which he/she would be the central character. Well, many brave souls entered and the winner was announced . 

I'm finally getting around to publishing Part I of the short story, Family Heirloom, featuring reader, Lisa Ackel Judge. 

Here it is: 

It was a dark and stormy night . . . nah, scratch that. It was actually a beautiful summer evening. You know the kind: mid-August and the heat of the sun has finally abated, a cool breeze showing up in its place. Lisa Ackel Judge sat on her porch, listening to the birds squabble over who got to the tree first while her bunny, Charlie, hopped around her ankles. She scooped him into her lap.
“Hard day, Charlie? It feels good to relax now though, doesn’t it?” she scratched between his ears. “Not that you need much relaxing. Don’t think I don’t notice you spend most of your day lounging in my bed.” Charlie wiggled his pink nose in response, giving his right ear a good scratch with his fluffy foot.
Lisa rested back in her chair, a tall glass of green iced tea with honey in hand. The tea was sweet and delicious and after swallowing a sip, Lisa leaned her head back in her chair. Work was crazy busy as always, her boss piling more and more work onto her plate until it threatened to snap neatly in half. Lisa sighed, and opened the magazine. She’d been wanting to read it the past four nights but had been too tired.
The first article was a quick read and Lisa was moving on to the second when she heard it. A siren splitting the quiet air with its screech, startling Charlie who bolted for the front door. Lisa stood slowly, holding both magazine and drink while letting the rabbit into the house. A police car zoomed past, followed by two state troopers.
Damn. That didn’t look good.
Lisa walked inside, wishing she had a police scanner but settling instead for a quick browse on Facebook. If there’s something going on, some news in the community, she’d be sure to find it here first. Maybe not completely accurate, but information none the less. She woke the computer and logged in, browsed the feed of her friends’ vacation photos and posing kids smeared with birthday frosting.
“Trouble at The Salon,” said a post by an acquaintance in city government. Credible source. Lisa read on. “Heard there’s a break in. Anyone know what’s happening?”
Lisa’s stomach lurched and she flew to the door, one hand grabbed for keys, the other her purse. Charlie narrowly missed being plowed over by flying feet as she ran to the car. Keys in ignition, hands trembled. Cranked but got no response. Lisa took one deep, steadying breath and tried again. This time it caught.
Come on. Come on!
Yellow lines marking safe passing zones blurred into one long string. Her foot pressed to the floor, heartbeat threatening to shatter her ribcage.
Please, please, please.
The Salon was located on Main Street in St. Albans. Police cars surrounded the area, yellow plastic tape stretched haphazardly around the premises. Lisa had left the car running, barely jamming the shift into park before she’d run toward the building. An officer stopped her near the yellow tape, arm across her chest. Lisa glanced over and saw the eyes of a pretty, young police woman boring into her own.
“No one is allowed in there, Ma’am. You’ll need to wait behind the line, please.”
“Officer, you don’t understand, my. . .”
A loud pop emanated from the beauty salon followed by a chorus of screams.  

To be continued . . .  


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Guest Post: Eric Keith, author of Nine Man's Murder

Eric Keith, international man of mystery (writing) Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Eric Keith, international man of mystery and, as chance would have it, international writer of mystery. I "met" Eric via Twitter and loved his zany wit and was immediately interested in his book, Nine Man's Murder which is in the same vein as Agatha Christie's work (one of my faves!). 

Note from Eric: I am very flattered to be invited as a guest on J.P. Choquette’s website.  Usually when attractive young women offer me an invitation, it involves a cliff and an Olympic event. But Ms Choquette has been kind enough to let me talk about my murder mystery, Nine Man’s Murder.  She has asked me a few questions, which I will try to answer without making too great a fool of myself, if it’s not already too late.

Note from J.P: See? I told you he was funny.  :) 

Q: Your book, Nine Man's Murder is along the vein of the game Clue or famous Agatha Christie books. How did the plot come to you and were there any surprises along the way while writing it? 

Eric: Nine Man’s Murder grew out of two of my loves:  the love of surprises, and the love of a challenge.  I enjoy surprising my readers, not only with unexpected twists and turns of plot, but also with surprise endings, precisely in the vein of Agatha Christie, as you have mentioned.  One day I was thinking about what I call “attrition novels”:  novels in which a group of trapped characters are being murdered one by one, and one of them is the murderer—books like Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians (aka And Then There Were None).  I was thinking that, as the number of victims dwindles, so does the number of suspects.  As that number approaches one or two, it because progressively harder to surprise the reader with the identity of the murderer.  This was the challenge:  to surprise the reader, under conditions that made surprise virtually impossible.  I took up the challenge, and the result was Nine Man’s Murder.

Q: Who are some of your favorite authors/books and do you draw on these as influence when writing? 

Eric: Actually, my favorite authors are writers of literary fiction, such as James Joyce, Henry James, and all of the writers English majors study in college.  However, since we’re talking about mystery fiction, the mystery writer most influential on me is definitely Agatha Christie.  Not only did she write in the classic Golden Age style, but, more so than any mystery writer I’ve ever encountered, she leads readers down a path during the duration of a novel, until the reader discovers at the end that the path he thought he was on is not the path he’s actually traveling.  You always experience that moment in your head when everything spins 180 degrees, and you realize that things are never what they seem.  It is that experience which I try to create in my own mystery novels.

Q:  What are some of your current projects?

Eric: I have just completed a suspense thriller, a science fiction novel involving time travel, and a humorous (I hope) faux “autobiography.”  I am currently editing a supernatural thriller, and I just handed my wife a manuscript she asked me to write for her.

Q: Do you have a typical schedule when writing? If so, what's it like? 

My typical writing schedule looks something like this:  (1) List of chores that have to be done today.  (2) List of errands that have to be run today.  (3) List of chores and errands I didn’t get to yesterday.  (4) Telephone calls that have to be made or are received.  (5) Exercise.  (6) The day is over.  When was I supposed to get any writing done?  Actually, I’m only kidding:  Sometimes the errands come before the chores.  This is scarcely an exaggeration, which means that just about the only time I get to write is when I’m washing dishes, brushing my teeth, or pretending to be listening to my wife tell me about her day (don’t tell her I said that).  I’m trying to figure out how to add “writing” to my writing schedule, but so far the answer has eluded me.

Q:  If you could pick one book which you wish you'd written, what would it be?

Well, given my writing schedule, that would be the one I’m supposed to be writing at the time.  However, as far as other people’s works go, anything by Shakespeare or Joyce.  I would love to be a literary genius.  I would settle for just having the time to be a literary genius. 

You can find Nine Man’s Murder on Amazon  and Barnes and Noble.  Please visit me at my website, www.MysteriesWithTwists.com and on Twitter @EricKeithMystry, or check out my FaceBook page at Eric Keith Mysteries. 

J.P: Thanks so much, Eric, it was great talking with you today! 
Eric: Thank you, J.P. 

Goals: Set or Forget?

Hey everyone--I'm guest blogging over at the Sisters in Crime New England's blog, Pen, Ink and Crimes . You can check out my post Goals: Set or Forget by clicking here . 

Hope you're having a great week and enjoying some of the wonderful summer weather! 

My Writing Process~Blog Tour

What a treat to be asked to be a part of the Writing Process Blog Tour--for those of us who work without anyone around, this must be sort of like visiting a friend's desk at the office and enjoying a cup of tea or coffee right? Ha! Who am I kidding? I know how crazy busy it is in most businesses and that many of the bosses frown on this type of "wasted time." Don't they realize the value in connecting with a co-worker? 

But, I digress. 

So there are three questions which the host of the tour is to answer. They are: 

1) What am I working on? 
2) Why do I write what i do?
3) How does my writing process work? 

1) Right now I'm editing and going through the critiques of my third suspense book which is as yet unnamed. I'm just calling it "Tayt Waters" because that's my main character's name. At some point within the next month or so I really need to name this one. I feel like a negligent mother--leaving my manuscript with this sad little excuse for a title while I run around, playing with book #4. YES! Book #4 (also unnamed--see how irresponsible I am?) should be out in spring of 2015 if all goes according to plan. And Tayt Waters is scheduled for release in January of 2015. In between working on full-length manuscripts, I also like to dabble in some short suspense stories. You can grab them here for free . 

2) Writing what I do is hard to explain--especially to my mother who is convinced I should write wholesome, "nice" stories about normal people.  But the thing is, no one is normal, are they? I mean seriously. . . look at your family at the next holiday and tell me your family members are all run of the mill. Besides, after years of studying psychology and just being fascinated with human nature, suspense is what calls to me.  I've loved mystery icons like Carolyn Keene and Agatha Christie since I was a child. Writing suspense for a living is just about the best job ever. 

3) My writing process is sort of weird. I'm not like a lot of other writers who can work for long chunks of time without complaint. I might be borderline ADHD or something because I can't sit still for more than about an hour. So every hour or so I pop out of my chair and run downstairs, usually to make a phone call, wash a few dishes or see which quick item I can check off my personal to-do list. Then it's back upstairs to my office where I write for another hour, then back up and so forth. I also recently started using a standing desk--this helps me not to get so antsy. (And it's not a real standing desk--I just put a big file box under my laptop to elevate it to the right height so that I can stand and type.) One thing that I try to do pretty religiously is to write on my newest fiction project right away, first thing in the morning. No checking email or perusing Pinterest or Facebook until my fiction writing time is done. 

(The picture above is NOT my office--but I do love it.  Too lazy to get out my camera this afternoon . . . )

Speaking of which, while I'm done writing fiction for today, I still have a gazillion words to edit before my manuscript goes off to beta readers next week (ack!) so I'd  better get back to it. Thanks for stopping by the blog tour if you're new here and if you are a regular reader, thank you for continuing to read along! 

Be sure to check out my writing pal's blog, Peggy's Pet Place (Bonus: If you're an animal lover--you're about to fall in love with her adorable dogs). 

And take some time to explore another writing friend, Amy's place. She's the extremely creative and multi-talented Amy Beth Arkawy who balances not only fiction writing but talk radio and creativity coaching on her professional plate. 

Happy blog touring!