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The Freaking Process – The opening line

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Question: How do you know where to start? What makes a great opening line?

Answer: Damned if I know. I just sit down and hope for the best. If it doesn’t work out, I dump it and try again. Eventually, I either find the opening, or I pass out from holding my breath.

There’s a cute little poster floating around on the Internet that sums it up nicely: “Alcohol! Because no great novel begins with someone eating a salad.” I agree. That’s why The Civilian – Blood Link IV doesn’t begin that way… although, the opening was inspired by that saying.

     Dr. Carolyn Brinn stared at the plate holding a lump of tuna salad on a sad, limp, pale leaf of lettuce and decided it was time for a change. She’d picked up the plate only a moment before, but she realized she wasn’t interested in moving the plate from the refrigerated cabinet to her tray.
Enough with the healthy crap. I need cake.

Finding the opening for your novel is considered to be the hardest thing writers do. I try not to think too hard about it. If I do, then I also begin to think about how nice it would be to have a nice shot of Jack Daniels.

Some writers agonize for days over the opening, but I go back to the old adage of just tell the damn story. My process is to pick a point and go from there. Remember, it’s a draft. If you find a better spot later, you can adjust. I usually try to come into people’s lives when something is happening or about to happen. You shouldn’t be afraid to open with dialogue and it’s perfectly okay if the person speaking isn’t your lead character. Ideally, you want to try to give the reader a taste of who your lead character is without overloading them.

From Protecting Parker:

     “I’m sorry, Parker. Alex dropped off the keys three days ago, along with the divorce papers.” Colonel Adam Henderson looked at her with pity as he handed her the large brown envelope. “You were already headed back and there was no way to contact you. Katy and I went to the storage unit and… well… it’s a damn mess. He pretty much pitched everything in. Nothing’s boxed or bagged.”
With a dazed expression, Air Force First Sergeant Parker Cotton took the envelope from her commander, unable to believe Alex had dumped her stuff in a storage unit and filed for divorce while she was deployed.

The hardest thing you will do as a writer is take the first step of placing words on the paper. The opening lines are a commitment to the rest of the story.

I was hanging out in an online chat in which aspiring authors could ask a senior editor for a major publisher questions. One of the questions asked was “What do you hate to see in the opening of a story?”. The editor promptly responded that she hated the contrived meetings of people spilling drinks on each other or sitting next to each other on a plane. She says that those two meetings so bother her that she often has trouble getting past them even if everything else about the story and the author excite her.

I had already published A Shared Fear in which Evie and Joe meet on an airplane. Of course, my airplane is about to crash, but it’s still the dreaded airplane meeting. Interestingly enough, the inflight emergency is one of the first things that people bring up when we discuss the book. My readers loved the idea that the mundane became the terrifying. It sets the tone for the entire book.

Don’t listen to anyone else when you start. Just write what works for you!

Who can you ask for help?

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My new standalone novel The Embassy Guards recently went to Marcia for edits. The draft has been making its way through the beta readers, and I feel like we’re finally there on this book.

Notice the “we’re” rather just an I. Sure I do the writing, but there are a lot of people involved by this point. I usually have boatloads of questions as I write. Some I know to ask while I’m working, but many are asked by my beta readers once they have the draft in their hands.

I thought it might be fun to tell you a little about this part of the process, even though it’s a bit out of order here. It never ceases to amaze me how willing my friends are to help.

The key to success is a wide variety of friends with different skill sets, all of whom are willing to help just because… Well, I don’t know why some of them haven’t told me where to take myself off to yet. I try to keep track of who helps on each book and put them in the acknowledgements. I also offer to buy them a beer or a cup of coffee the next time I see them. Fortunately, most of them live out of state so I don’t have to pay up.

Some people answer multiple questions. Dave Dingley (former Marine) is my resident weapons guy. He makes sure that I used the right weapon, that I called it by the proper name, and never, ever, “Oh my God, Top, are you just a f***ing hooplehead?” ever call a magazine a clip! He also helps by providing many inappropriate comments throughout the beta process. Finding the common ground between the Marine nomenclature or descriptions and translating those into language all of my readers can understand often falls to Dave. He first has to explain whatever “it” is to me so I can understand what “it” is, and then I can write about “it.” Talk about reducing something to the lowest level! Dave is incredibly articulate. And patient… very, very patient.

Some people answer a single question. But sometimes those little questions just stop me in my tracks and annoy the hell out of me. I hate not getting something I should know right. George Zaniewski was kind enough to look at a short paragraph that I had screwed up. I mistakenly used the word enlistment when referring to a term of service for an officer. He provided the appropriate terminology for me. I’m sure Ski thinks what he did was nothing, but help from a friend when you need it is priceless. That particular item was actually caught by one of my military beta readers, Jim Lewis. While I was asking Ski, Jim had also followed up by asking one of his friends who is also a retired commissioned officer. Interestingly enough, they refer to their term of service as a “commitment.” That word, while correct, makes it feel like they have been sent to the asylum to work off their education sentence. Oh, wait… they have.

Scott Underwood helped me out when I asked him a dumb question about radio call signs and identification. He answered the question, and I wrote the section and moved on. Sadly, I have many more questions now. I’m fine with the squad leader being One, but why the hell is the lieutenant or the captain Six? And just who the hell are Two, Three, Four, and Five? None of those questions matter to my story, but this is what happens when I ask a question. Twenty more occur to me. I fortunately didn’t bother Scott with all those unnecessary questions – I can’t afford to run him off.

So, while the actual writing is solitary, my novels are truly a team effort.

The Embassy Guards will be out later this month.

The Freaking Process – Floating the Idea

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Question: How do you know if it’s a good idea? Should you ever talk to people about your idea for a book?

Answer: Every idea I have is great, but not all of them should be books. As for talking to people about your ideas… yes! I suggest you avoid doing it in bars, at parties, or in the grocery store though, because most of those people won’t understand.

When I think I have a decent idea, I run it past a few trusted friends. Jennifer Sasnett and Arwen Newman usually hear them first. Both are excellent listeners, and they aren’t afraid to ask questions and point out flaws. They also aren’t afraid to tell me when they don’t like something. Arwen, as a teacher, is generally very polite when she doesn’t like something. There’s a long pause before she says “That’s interesting” in this really non-committal tone which makes it clear that it is not at all interesting, but she’s trying not to crush my dream. Jennifer though has never shied away from giving me that look that parents usually reserve for their teenager who has just announced they’re doing the stupidest thing a human has ever done. She is not afraid of using phrases like: complete idiot, that’s dumb, or go home and take your meds. If it can’t pass the A&J tests, it goes no further. But when I get it right – they are both huge cheerleaders for me.

These conversations help me to walk through my premise and figure out if the idea really might work.

Often the conversations trigger something, and I wander down a separate path. It’s a path I wouldn’t have seen or taken without these conversations. Recently, I discussed the idea for a book with Arwen and her sister Allyn. I gave them a basic premise I had developed after asking the three questions and making notes. I know who my heroine and hero are, but I didn’t see where she lived. Her uncle is the county sheriff and she’s been hired as a deputy. She arrives and will have to settle in to the routine. The questions with suggestions came quickly. Often as soon as they ask a question, I see or know something about my person I did not know until they asked. Things in some cases I hadn’t even thought about before.

A represents Arwen or Allyn.

A: Does she live with her uncle and aunt?
Me: Not in their house. My gal lives in a small guest house on their property. A one bedroom sort of place. And there are horses. Not that she rides. She’s more of a motorcycle type.
A: Maybe her aunt is sick and your gal needs to help out.
Me: She’s not sick. Her aunt runs the beauty shop and hears all the gossip. She occasionally shares this with her husband. They make a good team. He knows Billy Ray was murdered but doesn’t know why. She knows Joe Bob’s wife Betty Sue was sneaking around with Billy Ray.
A: Do the aunt and uncle have children?
Me: Yes, two sons who they’ve sent off to college and now they live in the city. They all get along well. There’s no family drama.
A: They sound nice. You aren’t going to kill them off are you?
Me: Why would you even ask that?
A: You have a tendency to kill a lot of people in your books. Will you be blowing something up?
Me: I hadn’t thought about it. I know there’s going to be shooting

This particular book is still a little ways off. I have more questions than answers at this point, but I’m loving the idea so far.

Seek out the people who will ask the good questions and who aren’t afraid to point out that with your lack of brains on any given day, even the zombies wouldn’t bother with you.

The Freaking Process – Nurturing the Idea

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Question: “I think I have a great idea for a book. What do I do next?”

Answer: Drink heavily and try to forget the whole dream of writing a book. Do it now before you get in any deeper and it becomes a damn nightmare!

An idea needs to be nurtured, turned over, pounded into the dirt, and generally chewed on for a while to see if it has merit. When I had the idea of the genealogist saving the ATF agent with her laser pointer (A Shared Fear), it made me giggle. But these two lead characters didn’t go away. I kept seeing this couple doing things together: riding in a car, having dinner, walking on a beach, and cleaning guns at the dining room table. I didn’t know quite what I wanted to do with them, but I was hooked on the idea of these two people sharing something.

One of my first checks to see if an idea will hold water is to ask three basic questions and just see what pops into my head.

1. How do these people meet or know each other?
2. What’s the catalyst for their connection?
3. What’s the threat?

Believe it or not, those three questions are often the make or break points for an idea. If I can answer them in a reasonable and coherent manner, I begin to take notes. My original notes for A Shared Fear read:

“An ATF agent and a genealogist meet on their way from Tucson to Portland.
They are on an airplane together and it almost crashes.
The ATF agent doesn’t know at the time that someone has taken a contract out on him and the hit man is waiting in Portland.
She’s being stalked by someone.
Maybe the same guy.
Things I need to know:
Is the connection between them the real deal or is it the OMG we’re in trouble and I’m needy kind of sex? (think Speed – find & quote about relationships)
If I set this in Oregon, where do I put them down so they have to drive to Portland together?
How do I get them from speaking in Portland to a cabin on the coast – plausibility? I want the coast. I want the tide pools. Use as the pause in the action. Use as final scene w/storm.
These can’t be kids. I think she’s retired AF and he’s a retired Marine. I keep thinking he’s a sniper, but what the hell was she? How do they connect? Damn it – who are you two?”

A Shared Fear was my second standalone novel, and I still had no clue what I was doing. Not that I really do now, it’s just that I’m much less worried about the process these days.

If you don’t know everything about your characters at this point, don’t worry. Characters evolve with the writing of the book.

So, unless you plan on drinking heavily or walking away, I suggest you start asking yourself and your characters a lot of questions. And just for the record – these are only the first of a million questions you will ask as you write your book. Not the least of which is “What the hell was I thinking?”

The Freaking Process – The Idea for Blood Link

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In the comments on the last post, Heather Rae Scott asked where the idea for the vampires came from. She sullied my website by mentioning Twilight, and I had my usual fit. I have a tendency to post truly rude things about those characters on my personal Facebook page. Just to clarify – I have no issue with the quality of the writing in Twilight. I just hate the angst ridden heroine. Someone just slap her and let’s move the hell on. I’m also appalled by the number of “mature” women who went goo-goo over the Edward or what’s his name debate. Seriously? If this were a bunch of fifty-year-old men drooling over a seventeen-year-old girl, most of these same women would be deeply offended and demanding to have them thrown in jail. Get a grip ladies. If you are over fifty you shouldn’t really be part of the debate on who’s hotter. I don’t care if you look – eye candy is good for you. I don’t care if you sit in your living room and talk about it with your granddaughter. In fact, I applaud you for that. But don’t embarrass yourselves by standing around and screaming when they appear in public or covering your Facebook wall with commentary on how “hot” they are. It makes you look a little desperate. Save that kind of adoration for the real men. Men like Sam Elliott.

Wait… what was I supposed to be talking about here?

Oh, yeah. The idea for Blood Link and the vampires. I’ve always liked the idea of vampires as characters. From the original Dracula by Bram Stoker to the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward, I’ve spent countless hours being entertained by the bloodthirsty critters. But I have to admit that I’d become a little weary of the new vampires that are so popular in romantic novels today. The man is always dark and brooding, living a life with some kind of tortured past, and almost always rich and lonely. I’m much more interested in the vampires who are doing something with their lives like being a bounty hunter or detective or something useful.

Rarely are there cool female vampires. Female vamps are usually depicted as all hot and gothic, and almost always way meaner than the men. Even the women writers seem to want to dress them in black leather, stiletto heels, and bustiers. That’s fine for a night out, but it’s damned uncomfortable as every day and every night attire. (Not that I’m admitting to knowing about that sort of thing.) I’m a bit more of a realist when it comes to character.

Why do people look at me funny when I say realist and vampire in the same freaking sentence?

The point is that I like to believe in a heroine, which could be why I love the Samantha Moon character written by J.R. Rain. She’s a former federal agent, wife, and mother who was attacked one night and is now learning to live with becoming a vampire. Mr. Rain has a unique take on a soccer mom with a minivan and a thirst to survive. Good stuff. (And no, I didn’t read these books before writing my own or naming my character Samantha. I just discovered J.R. Rain about eight months ago.)

Hold it. Where was I?

Oh, yeah. The beginning of Blood Link. My stylist Jennifer and I read a lot of the same things and then chat about them during my visits. I was complaining (bitterly) about two of the series that we were reading. I don’t know about you guys, but the problem with most romances is that the women do the most idiotic crap. It’s like watching those stupid horror movies when the woman knows the crazy psycho is stalking her and still walks down the alley. Stupid crap annoys me.

In one series we were reading, the heroine was just so freaking stupid at times that we both wanted to scream. If the hero (the vampire) hadn’t been so damn hot and well written, we’d have both chucked the book after the initial seduction scene. Instead, we bought two more. The fourth one was so bad (stupid heroine and plot holes you could drive a bus through) that I swore never to buy another one. Someone loaned me the fifth one and I quit after the first six chapters. I could feel myself losing intelligence with each page. The other series held up pretty well through the first five or six books, but had reached the point where the hot sex no longer made up for the plot and character issues. These were the books that I could predict what was coming and when it would happen. They were also full of all these male vampires who were hot and exciting, but at the same time, just as stupid as the heroine in the other series. I also complained that nowhere in the vampire novels we were reading was there a single character over thirty. What the hell is wrong with having a character with a little life experience?

After one of my many rants, I blatantly announced to Jennifer, that even I could do better. She basically challenged me to put up or shut up.

Much like the heroines and heroes in some of these books, I’m sometimes just too stupid to know when to walk away. I went home that morning and sat down to figure out what I was going to do. This was the first novel I’d ever seriously thought about writing. The only thing I was sure of going into this project was that they would be vampires.

In choosing a profession for them, I made them military because I had the crazy thought of why wouldn’t we want vampires working for us. Superior eyesight, hearing, and smell would be useful if you’re doing covert operations. Extra strength and speed would definitely help. And wouldn’t it be handy if you wanted to steal intelligence if you could hide in the shadows and maybe manipulate a human into not noticing you or giving up the password to the security system.

Once I had that idea, it just sort of took off and Blood Link was born. How the characters and their world evolved will be part of a later blog post.

The Freaking Process – The Idea

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I’ll be doing a short series about the writing process. I’ll try to answer some of the questions I’ve been asked and explain how I get from idea to novel.

The number one question that I’m asked is – Where do you get your ideas?

I have an overactive imagination so I have lots of ideas. Most of them would make truly lousy novels. But every once in a great while, something decent percolates out of the mud and I grab onto it. Those ideas have been kicking their way to the top of the heap, and I have come back to them time and again like a terrier to a bone. The idea for Stuck in Korea Time was well ahead of the idea for A Shared Fear, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it work. But it just wouldn’t go away. Those are the ones that mean something.

Sometimes, the initial idea comes from a conversation that I overhear.
Guy #1 – “It’s hard to date when you’re a single parent.”
Guy #2 – “Dude, you have no idea. Wait until she’s a teenager. Thirteen year old girls are nothing but judgmental divas. Mine complains about anyone I date. Too tall, too short, too fat, too thin. It’s like they’re trying on some bitchy new personality.”

My immediate thought was, “What the hell would she say if you brought home someone five years older than you?” That thought was followed by a scene playing out in my head of an offended daughter making a snotty comment after coming home to find her darling daddy canoodling with the older woman on the couch.

My second thought was, “What if the woman she was so rude to was now the only person that can keep her alive when she is kidnapped?”

Saving Emily began with that overheard conversation and those two questions.

Ideas also come from goofing around. I was practicing for a speaking engagement, and I was playing with my laser pointer. Yes, I’m easily amused. I pointed it across a dark room just to see how far the light beam would go and when it appeared on the far wall, I thought to myself, “Wow! That looks just like a laser target dot. I wonder if it would fool anybody.” The scenario that popped into my head was an ATF agent confronting a group of bad guys with no backup. His girlfriend, hiding behind something puts the red dot on the leader’s chest and tells him she’s got them covered. I didn’t wind up using the laser pointer idea, but that’s how A Shared Fear actually came into being.

Sometimes, the idea comes from the things that scare me.
My biggest fear when I was in the military was that I would let someone down when they really needed me. That if we deployed to the wrong place at the wrong time, someone would get hurt because they were trying to take care of me instead of taking care of themselves. During my career, I heard literally dozens of stories about the problems during deployment. Diverted personnel, the wrong personnel, the wrong equipment showing up, equipment that never showed up, lost paperwork, no medical personnel, no rations, being stranded and being ignored. Protecting Parker was the sum of all these stories.

[By the way, if you think things like this don’t happen – you’re wrong. I can show you examples from every war where the wrong people and equipment are sent to the wrong place. The example I most frequently use is from Vietnam and the Battle of Ngok Tavak. When you read the sanitized version on Wikipedia, (it appears in a section about the Battle of Kham Duc and begins in the section marked Prelude) you should keep in mind a couple things. #1 – Captain White requested assistance in extracting his Mike Force. #2 – A Mike Force is supposed to mobile. They are best at the hit and run. #3 – A howitzer is NOT really mobile. #4 – The 33 Marines dropped into Ngok Tavak with their howitzer were artillery guys, not a trained recon unit or special forces. And just to be crystal clear – these types of things still happen.]

I can trace each of my books back to the basic idea or concept they came from. What I can’t explain is exactly why I couldn’t let one particular idea or image go. I simply know that when I can’t – it’s usually going to be a good book.