The LadyKillers

Free for All: Life on Two Tracks By Michael A. Black

Last week, amidst the confusion of a hectic time, I received the ARCs of my new novel, Sacrificial Offerings, which will come out in hardcover in September. It’s the third book in my police procedural series featuring Frank Leal and Olivia Hart. Some of my first readers have said it’s the best of the series. I always planned to do a few more books to tie up some of the long story arcs that began with the first book in this series, Random Victim. Some of them do get tied up in this new one. Some, however, are left dangling, which I suppose reflects the way life rolls along, like a train on a set of tracks that’s subject to unexpected switches down the line. Anyway, since this week’s topic was a free for all, I thought it might bear an examination of life’s two tracks.

When you’re a cop, your life is lived on these two tracks. There’s the long haul track that stretches out over time, pausing occasionally to twist you into the knots that everyone is subjected to during the trials and tribulations of modern living. Then there’s the short track, which unfolds in little vignettes, often tragic, often funny, and sometimes violent. When I started the Leal and Hart series I wanted to capture a cop’s view of life. Sometimes these vignettes can unfold in an instant, and sometimes in bits and pieces leading up to a confrontation. You know they’re coming, you just don’t know when.

This brings back an old memory. I’d been working midnights and the roll calls over the past few weeks had briefed us on this robbery crew. Three male blacks that were targeting male victims as they were coming out of bars. The MO was to follow the potential victim and rear-ending his car as he drove home. When the unsuspecting victim exited his car to inspect the damage, the bad guys would take the victim’s wallet at gunpoint and force him into the trunk of his car. The bad guys would then drive around for a while in the victim’s car, and then abandon it with the victim still inside. They’d done this enough times over the past few weeks to establish a pattern. Like most such briefing notices, I filed this one away and went out on patrol. This particular shift unfolded into the usual Saturday night activities: suspicious autos, loud subjects, bar disturbances, domestics, traffic accidents . . .

I was handling one of those routine accidents at about three-fifteen in the morning. The bars were slowly letting out. Traffic had picked up slightly and I was parked in a closed gas station on a rather busy street, finishing an accident report, with the two motorists in the back of my squad car. It was late autumn and the night was cool, but not yet settling into the winter chill that was just around the corner. Suddenly a guy came running up to my squadcar with a panicked look on his face.

“Officer, I’ve just been robbed,” he said.

I asked him where this had happened and he pointed toward the street. About 100 yards away, under the train viaduct, I saw a car sitting in the middle of the street.

“That your car?” I asked.

“No, it’s theirs,” the victim said. “They rear-ended me and took mine. And I think there’s somebody in the trunk.”

I ordered the two guys from the traffic accident out of my squad and I called it in as I went down to check the other ride. Sure enough, the car that had rear-ended this new guy had someone in the trunk who quickly related that three black guys had come up to him as he was leaving a bar, robbed him, and made him get into the trunk of his car. The informational bits from the past several roll calls came rushing back to me and I knew these guys must be the robbery crew. Moreover, this had just happened so I was sure they were still in the area.

As more units arrived at the scene we spread out, setting up a perimeter and slowly closing the circle. As I rode down those deserted side streets looking for the car with the smashed-in trunk everything felt intensified . . . Silent, yet teeming with deadly potential.

Suddenly a shot rang out, then several more.

I zoomed down the street at the sound of the gunfire. It was our robbery crew all right. After a brief shoot-out they surrendered. I still remember the adrenaline rush as I moved up and handcuffed one of them. He looked young --- only about seventeen or eighteen. With the smell of burned gunpowder still heavy in the air, the little drama had reached its mini-climax. We had recovered their gun, the proceeds, and the second victim’s car, all in the space of about ten minutes. I didn’t see the robbers again until the case came up in court, and then it was rather brief. They were wearing DOC orange and went for a plea bargain that left them looking at a couple of years in the joint.

I still remember how that little vignette unfolded, with crisp images and sudden violence on that fast track. I wanted to try and capture that, as well as the trials and tribulations of the longer tracks of life in a book. Like my previous Leal and Hart novels, Random Victim and Hostile Takeovers, Sacrificial Offerings contains a lot of stuff that happened to me and to officers I know. One of the highest compliments paid to me was from another police officer, Lieutenant Dave Case, whom I greatly respect.

“You got it right,” he said after reading one of my Leal and Hart novels.

I hope that those of you who read the novels will think so too.

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Additional note: Michael is giving a "thumbs-up" to the just-released International Thriller Writers Association anthology Love Is Murder, particularly the story by author Patricia Rosemoor. You might want to check it out!

Reader’s Speak by Michael A. Black

This week’s subject struck me as kind of vague, so I figured I’d stretch things a little bit by talking about a related subject that’s close to my heart: audio books.

I’ve been listening to audio books for many years now, and they remind me of the old time radio shows of the previous century. During the 1930s, 40s, and 50s radio shows were a staple of entertainment for millions of listeners. Stars such as Jack Benny and Bob Hope broadcast comedy shows where the actors and comedians read scripts on live radio. The radio shows, such as The Shadow and The Green Hornet, were not broadcast live, but required a great deal of skill just the same. Perhaps one of the most famous of these was Dragnet, produced by and starring Jack Webb. Webb’s deadpan delivery was so unique it became his trademark. With the invention of the teleprompter, Webb had the actors read their lines, thus enabling him to cut costs as well as film more episodes in a shorter time.

When the era of the radio shows ended the idea of actors reading for an audience basically became limited to books on tape and later on CD. Like many of the radio show actors, many of the new actor/readers were adept at varying the tones of their voices to make the material more entertaining. I loved listening to these audio books as I drove to and from work, and quickly learned that the reader made all the difference in the world. A skilled reader can make an average book sound spectacular, and, conversely, a poor reader can make a superb work sound substandard. I learned this the hard way after listening to a recording of one of Raymond Chandler’s novels that was read by Elliott Gould. I imagine Gould was given the job because he’d portrayed Marlowe in the abysmal version of The Long Goodbye, which was directed (and ruined) by Robert Altman. Since I hated the movie, I should have known better, but I’d seen Gould in a few other flicks and thought him to be a fine actor. His performance on this one, however, sounded totally perfunctory.

One of the best readers I ever heard was the late Richard Crenna. He did some outstanding renditions of Louis L’Amour’s western novellas. Another great reader who’s no longer with us was Darrin McGavin who magnificently read John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee series. Ironically, both Crenna and McGavin started out in the 1950s in half-hour television shows (The Real McCoys for Crenna and Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer for McGavin) and later branched out into movies. Another actor who started out in TV and went on to feature films who is also an exceptional reader is Burt Reynolds. Thankfully, Burt is still with us and hopefully has some more shows and movies ahead. My current favorites are Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds), who does a great job reading Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series, and John Rubinstein (Crazy Like a Fox), whose renditions of Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware series are legendary. I’d also like to mention consummate pro William Drufus, who did a fantastic job reading Dashiell Hammett’s classics, The Thin Man and The Maltese Falcon, will soon be lending his expert talents to an audio version of my novel, The Heist. To say I’m excited beyond belief would be an understatement.

Why Write Crime Fiction? By Michael A. Black

Crime fiction has always gotten the short shrift from high-brow critics, like Edmund Wilson, who label all genre work as “lesser forms of writing.” Many of my college professors lauded Wilson’s ultra-negative reviews and thought he personified sophistication and wit. In reality, he was a bitter, petty man who refused to pay his income tax to “protest” the Cold War policies of the American government. He took particular joy in bashing crime fiction, which he described as “a kind of vice that, for silliness and minor harmlessness, ranks somewhere between crossword puzzles and smoking.” I wonder how Wilson would fair these days proclaiming smoking as “a minor harmlessness.”

When I was in grad school I remember a conversation with an instructor who said the faculty was working hard to emphasize writing fiction with “a more literary emphasis” in the fiction writing department. Now I should make it clear that this particular instructor, who quoted Edmund Wilson religiously, knew my thesis project was a crime fiction thriller. Another professor, also a Wilson fan, denigrated my Dashiell Hammett project as “unscholarly.” From the onset, I’d made no bones about my interests in reading and writing crime fiction when I entered the program. Having spent most of my life as a cop, I was hardly intimidated by truculent professors my second time around in college. I didn’t hold back when I pointed out that, in my opinion, many academics unfairly looked down their noses at crime fiction. I’d been bullied far too many times in my youth to back down then, even if it was intellectual bullying. I’d spent my life building myself up both physically and mentally and at this stage I wasn’t afraid to hit back.

But what’s college for but to explore and discuss varying opinions and points of view, eh? Some of my instructors were initially a little hard to convince. Since I always tried to show the proper respect for the professors, I was diplomatic in my rebuttals. With a quick jab I’d ask, “What’s Crime and Punishment if not a crime story?” Then I’d follow up with another jab with a quote that I kept on top of my computer from Philip Guedalla: “The detective story is the normal recreation of noble minds.” Finally, I’d drive the straight right over the top by pointing out that Edgar Allen Poe, one of the great masters who is studied in virtually every English literature program in America, wrote mysteries and invented the detective story. If I didn’t win the round, I won the fight. I graduated with a straight A average.

Many of the writers who were held in high esteem by those same academics, such as William Faulkner, James Jones, and Norman Mailer all tried their hands at writing crime fiction. Some of them had less than stellar results, too. Faulkner wrote a series of short stories about a district attorney which were collected in a book called Knight’s Gambit. (I’ll let you dig up a copy, if you can find one, and draw your own conclusion about the quality of the writing.) James Jones was more of a genre-friendly writer, but suddenly became more acceptable to the academic community when his novel, The Thin Red Line was made into a movie by Terrence Malik in 1998. He tried his hand at writing a mystery with A Touch of Danger. Jones wrote pot-boilers and tended to say with fifty pages what a laconic Dashiell Hammett could say in twelve. Yet his verbosity is often overlooked by those in academia. And who could forget Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance. Having made three unsuccessful attempts to get through The Naked and the Dead back when I was an undergrad, I actually bought Tough Guys with the intention of reading it. I made a few valiant attempts once again, but found myself agreeing with movie critic Gene Shalit’s opinion when the film version came out that “an unreadable book has become an unwatchable movie.”

Now I’m not trying to be tough on the aforementioned writers, nor am I trying to be overly critical of academics. I had a lot of really great instructors in college who taught me the finer points of writing and appreciating good literature. Some crime fiction is, in fact badly written, and I’d be the first to acknowledge that. But many of our finest writers have written in the mystery genre. The pulp magazines were known for the cheap, pulpy paper, the magnificent cover paintings, and the fact that they paid writers by the word. So is it any wonder that some of these writers, thinking about putting a little extra food on their tables, would tend to over modify and use rather lengthy descriptions? Yeah, a lot of it was crude and poorly written. Who can forget Carroll John Daly’s tough PI, Race Williams boldly proclaiming, “I never shot a guy what didn’t need it.”?

But sprinkled among the pulps were some really great writers.

Let’s name a few who came out of the pulps: Ray Bradbury, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Evan Hunter (aka, Ed McBain), John D. MacDonald, Elmore Leonard …

I could go on, but all of the above had another thing in common besides writing for the pulps --- They all wrote crime fiction and they did it really well.

As a college freshman I remember being impressed with John Updike after reading his short story, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and So Forth.” The story, which depicts a high school English teacher who gets his comeuppance, is a neat little gem. I liked it so much I bought the paperback collection of Updike’s other short stories, The Same Door, and read them all. The first few stories, like “Tomorrow …” had neat little slice of life themes, but by the book’s end the stories moved into the more effusive, literary category. Years later I read another of Updike’s short story collections and was dismayed to find that his work had become virtually incomprehensible. Did I really care if Mrs. Maple was practicing yoga while discussing her husband explored his fantasies about her possible infidelity? Still, I always kept a soft spot in my heart for Updike due to that first short story I liked. I was sad to hear that at the end of his life his work had fallen so far out of demand that he had a hard time finding a publisher. He tried to move toward a more interesting topic with his last novel, The Terrorist, which could almost be called a kissing cousin to crime fiction.

So in the final analysis, crime fiction shouldn’t be considered the red-headed step child of literature. The Maltese Falcon, the book that was placed on the list of the 100 Best Novels of the Twentieth Century, was described by Edmund Wilson as “not much above the newspaper picture strips.” I wonder how many people have read, and are still reading, Hammett’s master work as opposed to Wilson’s critical little diatribes? People read for entertainment and enlightenment, and what better way to be entertained and enlightened than to read something that will give you a thrill? Crime, or mystery fiction, is perhaps the most difficult to write because not only do you have to have interesting characters, but you also have to pay attention to the plot and make sure it moves in a compelling and credible manner.

So, in answer to this week’s topic question, why write crime fiction? The reply is simple --- Because a writer should always strive to be and write the very best.

News and "Why write crime fiction?"

NEWS FLASHES!!

• Michael A. Black will be appearing at the Once Upon a Crime Bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 28th, from 1 to 3 p.m.
• Camille Minichino, Sharan Newman, Ann Parker, and Penny Warner will all be at the Malice Domestic convention, April 27–29, in Bethesda, Maryland.

WHY WRITE...

... Crime Fiction?

After all, if one wants to write, there are many possibilities. Poetry. Science Fiction. Cookbooks. So, why spend creative time and energy writing about murder and mayhem?

Join the LadyKillers this coming week as they delve into the dark (and light) corners of crime fiction...

 

Titles

By Michael A. Black

Titles are pretty important. They attract a reader’s attention, so you want to make sure you pick just the right one. Apologies to Mark Twain, but the difference between the right title and the wrong title is almost as great as the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. One other important thing to remember: you can’t copyright a title so choose wisely.

A long time ago titles seemed less a bit evocative and more of a label. Consider some of them like Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, Tarzan and the City of Gold, Tom Swift and the Electric Whatyoumacallit, etc. Using the protagonist’s name in the title targets those fans of that particular series, but do they attract new readers? Not when compared with some really cool titles like The Deep Blue Goodbye, The Big Sleep, or The Ivory Grin.

 

Sometimes it does work, however. Take the example of Julie Hyzy’s Manor House mystery series. Grace Wheaton is the intelligent and resourceful curator of the Marshfield Manor estate who has a nose for trouble and solving murders in her spare time. All the novels have “Grace” in the title. Grace Under Pressure, Grace Interrupted, and the upcoming Grace Among Thieves are the entries so far, and all of the delightful books in the series live up to the titles. And knowing Julie, she’ll keep coming up with more great ones.

 

 

 

 

John D. MacDonald used a different color in each of the titles in his magnificent Travis McGee series (Pale Gray for Guilt, A Deadly Shade of Gold, The Lonely Silver Rain . . .) He wanted to make sure the readers could differentiate between the books. He need not have worried. Collectively, they are one of the greatest series of novels ever written.

 

 

Raymond Chandler purportedly fought with his publisher over Farewell, My Lovely, the title of the second Marlowe novel. “It sounds too much like a romance,” the publishers said. They finally relented, but Chandler lost the next round when the novel was made into a movie and Hollywood changed the title to Murder, My Sweet.

One word titles can be really intriguing, but they’re hard to conceive. You have to come up with one word that describes the entire novel or short story. James Dickey’s novel, Deliverance, is one that does this. Of course, Dickey was a poet and knew how to get the max with the minimum. And I just picked up an old, used, library copy of Skeletons, Glendon Swarthout’s great, underrated mystery novel.

I always try to use the title somewhere in the work. I got the title for my first novel, A Killing Frost, from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII --- The third comes a frost, a killing frost. While Ron Shade, the protagonist pursues a murderer, the theme of toxic dumping is also examined in a reporter’s article entitled, A Killing Frost. Shakespeare can be the source of a lot of good titles. I recently completed a novel I originally called Come Like Shadows, from Macbeth. (Show his eyes and grieve his heart, Come like shadows so depart.) I’ve since changed the name of the manuscript using another Shakespearian quote. I like the second one a lot better.

Windy City Knights was my second book, and was also the name of a security company that Shade’s friend hopes to establish. The novel takes place in the windy city (Chicago) and a good portion of it occurs at night, so the play on words, I hope, also enhances the title. How did I come up with that one? It just sort of grew out of the story as it evolved. I think one of the characters mentioned it to me. The titles in my Ron Shade series (A Killing Frost, Windy City Knights, and A Final Judgment) mostly had three words in them, while I took particular care to keep the titles of my Leal and Hart series at two words (Random Victim, Hostile Takeovers, and the soon to be released Sacrificial Offerings).

I try to use the title in my short stories as well and most of the time I succeed. In “For Courage and Honor” the title is used a couple of times. It’s the title of a book, a movie, and also used as a sarcastic reference in a letter. And my upcoming homage to the pulps coming out in a few months is called “Time Factor,” which plays a crucial part in the adventure. “The Black Rose,” “Inquest,” “Devil’s Wind,” “De Noir,” “Reasonable Doubts,” and “No Promises” all somehow found their way into the respective stories. Ironically, my two most recent stories the titles “Ransom” and “Lost Rounds” do not appear in the stories at all. But I still think they’re appropriate. “Articulation of Murder,” my story involving forensic dentistry, wasn’t directly used in the story either, but harkened back to the days when I worked in my father’s dental lab as a teenager recreating plaster articulations for the technicians.

Dashiell Hammett’s novel, The Thin Man, was made into a film and spawned a series of hit movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. Who can forget After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home, and Song of the Thin Man? Ironically, the titular “thin man” of the novel, who became synonymous with the urbane Powell, wasn’t the handsome detective at all. The novel’s title referred to the murder victim. “He was the thinnest man I’ve ever seen,” one character says of the murdered Clyde Wynant.

Speaking of The Thin Man, I’m currently listening to an audio version of the novel read by actor William Dufris. Dufris smoothly manages the voices of the different characters with the aplomb of a real pro. The reason I’m mentioning this really doesn’t have to do with titles, but rather a bit of what they call shameless self-promotion. My novel, The Heist, will soon be released as an e-book, a trade paperback, and an audio version from Crossroad Press. Mr. Dufris will be doing the audio version, and I can hardly wait to hear it. And yes, I do manage to use the title in the book. Where, you might ask?

Sorry, but you’ll have to listen to Mr. Dufis’ excellent rendition to find out.

The Great Adverb Debate By Michael A. Black

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why adverbs have gotten such a bad rap in recent years. Maybe it’s because they’re so versatile. When I was in school I was taught that an adverb was a word used to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb and expresses time, degree, manner, cause, etc. If an adjective tells us what kind, an adverb can add how much. Plus, they can be put in various places within a sentence. In English they often end with –ly. Sounds good so far, right? So, naturally, I began including them in my writing.

I first was exposed to the current stylistic trend of avoiding adverbs when my first editor mentioned that I had used too many of them.

“Really?” I asked.

“Positively,” she said. “Take them out.”

And so, valuing her expert and usually correct opinion, I did as she instructed. How did I do it? Obediently, that’s how. When did I do it? Immediately, of course. I have to admit, I absolutely liked the results.

In all seriousness, avoiding over-modification is one of the things that current editors tend to stress, and including a lot of adverbs can make your prose a bit clumsy. Streamlining is a good thing. Let’s take a look at an example.

She wound the clock tightly and set it back on the shelf quickly.

Makes you cringe, doesn’t it? Sounds like an adverbial love fest. Let’s try some streamlining.

She wound the clock and set it back on the shelf.

Is it important that the reader knows to what degree she wound it or with what speed she set it down? Possibly, but if a word is not germane to the story, it’s better to leave it out. Every word should advance the plot. That said, I think a case can be made for including an adverb now and then.

I still remember a line from one of James Joyce’s stories in Dubliners in which some men are sitting around a campfire and one spat so copiously that he almost extinguished the flames. That’s a lot of spit he got out of one word --- copiously. I don’t remember the title of the story, but I remember the image because of the adverb. Let me reach back and pick out a phrase from another one of the masters, Dashiell Hammett. In one of his Continental Op stories he wrote the following line:

I hit him with the door repeatedly.

Let’s take a look at that one. Could he have merely said, I hit him with the door? Could he have described the action using a plethora of blood and gore-ridden prose? Obviously he could have, but what did he gain by using the single adverb? Read the sentence again and you’ll see that the word repeatedly gives a special emphasis and connotes the action much more effectively . . . He hit him not just once, not just twice, but repeatedly. You can almost see it happening by virtue of just that one word. The sentence is clearly a work of art.

That’s how to use an adverb effectively.

Adverbs are like the salt a cook puts into the soup. Too much and he ruins the taste, too little and there’s not enough. But sprinkle in a bit, here and there, and wa-la, you’ll have them calling for more crusts of bread so they can sop up the rest of the juice.

And how will they sop it up?

Why, eagerly, of course.

When Books Bog Down By Michael A. Black

When Books Bog Down . . . Talk about intimidating titles -- that one sounds almost as ominous as When Animals Attack. Maybe it’s the alliteration, or something. Regardless, the thought of a book bogging down, whether you’re reading it or writing it is not a good thing. Mostly when I think of books doing this I flash back to those massive and tedious text books from college. Need a sleeping aid? Just pick up one of your old poli-sci books, or better yet that one from sociology class. It’s truly an art to be able to write a book that is so boring it’ll put 95% of the readers to sleep. They ought to have an award for that.

The best thing to do in case you’re not trying to use the book as a sleep-aid and it’s bogging down is to stop reading and close it. I’ve mentioned before how I went back to grad school after a long intermission. During this intermission I rediscovered the joy of reading and also developed a habit of dumping a book if it didn’t grab me within the first few pages. Remember that old T-shirt with the logo: So Many Books, So Little Time. Yeah, I’d discard a book if I wasn’t enjoying the read. No harm, no foul. Why waste your time reading something you’re not enjoying? Naturally, in grad school when I would mention that I stopped reading on a certain page because I didn’t care for the book a few of the instructors were less than sympathetic.

"You don’t have to like it," one of them said to me. "You’re here to learn."

And this was true. If you don’t like something you should take the time to figure out why it’s not working so you can avoid those mistakes in your own writing. Thus, if I didn’t like the book I could always articulate why I felt it didn’t work.

I guess that could be counted as a "life reading lesson."

Now if you’re writing a book the idea of the prose bogging down is even more troubling. What writer wants his or her words to become stuck in the mud? How can you tell if this is happening to the book you’re in the process of writing and, more importantly, how can you fix it?

Let’s take that two-part question one section at a time.

First, how can you tell? Well, one way is to get some feedback from an honest individual. That means don’t ask a friend or family member to read it and tell you what they think. An endorsement like, "My mother loved it" will usually spell disaster and won’t alert you to any potential slow spots. Have a reliable first reader go over it and tell you where the problem areas are. I attended a mystery conference once and saw an editor go through a foot-high stack of manuscripts in a matter of minutes. His process was to open each envelope (Sometimes an improperly packaged envelope with an overabundance of tape would tick him off) and begin reading until something stopped him. At this point he’d decide if the manuscript deserved further reading. In most cases he tossed it in the rejection pile. So above all, you want to avoid bogging down on the first page.

Reading your manuscript aloud is also an invaluable technique for shedding light on where the problems begin. You can either read it out loud to yourself, or have someone else read it to you. Both have distinct advantages. Reading it yourself might spare you some embarrassment if it’s totally unpolished. Hearing it read by someone else gives you a good idea about the cadence of the words. Pay particular attention to any sentences or parts where the reader hesitates or stumbles. That’s a clear indication that the sentence needs to be reworked.

Errr . . . Are we starting to get bogged down here yet?

I’ve sort of morphed into the second part of the aforementioned two-part question: how do you fix it?

The answer is simple: you rewrite it.

In the famous words of Rolad Dahl, good writing is rewriting.

Take the time to highlight those problem areas and figure out why they’re not working. Then rewrite them. Use the feedback you’ve gotten from your trusted first reader and figure out how you can write it better. I had occasion to listen to an interview with renowned writer Donald Bain, author of the Murder, She Wrote series among many others, at a mystery conference a few months ago. One of the things he said was "Comments from a good editor are golden." Mr. Bain is a consummate professional and I couldn’t agree more. Sometimes this can be the most enjoyable part of the writing process for me.

Writing can be compared to carving something out of a piece of wood. You start out with a block of wood and gradually shape it into a figurine, using rough cuts to begin with and then gradually slicing only tiny slivers. The rewriting is the final sanding.

NEWS and "Boggy Books"

NEWS FLASHES!!

• Camille Minichino will be with Ann Parker, Diana Orgain, and Jonnie Jacobs at the Castro Valley Library, Castro Valley, California, on Tuesday, March 13, 6:30 PM.
• Michael A. Black's short story, "Lost Rounds," is in the recently released anthology, Battling Boxing Stories. He will be appearing and signing books on March 24th at Centuries and Sleuths Bookstore in Forest Park, Illinois, with good friend, Andrew Vachss.

 

What to do, what to do...

... When books bog down. That is is the issue of the upcoming week. And what is a boggy book anyway, and what makes it boggy? The LadyKillers will attack this topic with vigor, so please do stop by with your cuppa and see what our crew has to say.

First Inklings By Michael A. Black

First inklings . . . Are they anything like first impressions? You remember that old saying about how you never get a second chance to make one? Is that really true? And how significant, and perhaps more importantly, how accurate are those first inklings?

Some people will tell you “trust your gut.” It’s certainly a staple of crime fiction that the protagonist is able to sense something that is not right as the plot unfolds. That little voice inside his head keeps telling him not to walk through that door, but he doesn’t listen and wham! Some bad guy clobbers him.

Where would we be without those first inklings? And where would we be without stupid heroes who always seem to disregard them?

As a cop I spent a lot of years listening to my own first inklings. Being able to size people up real fast was a matter of course. You had to listen to what they said, check out how they looked, evaluate if they were a threat or not, if they were truthful or not, and make your plan accordingly. In fiction nobody was better at this than good old Sherlock Holmes. He possessed the uncanny ability to glance at somebody and know all there was to know in an instant. He had a mind like a computer. They captured this process extremely well in the new series of movies about the character, and it’s fun to watch. But how accurate are first inklings in real, not reel, life?

My mother used to say, “Did you ever notice how different someone looks after you get to know them?”

And I agree. A person’s inner qualities are not often perceived at first sight, and sometimes those inner qualities can make a person seem much different after you are exposed to them. I began to take notice of this as a teenager specifically when it came to the opposite sex. Thus, that girl whose looks mesmerized you from across the room eventually became somehow less so after a few moments of conversation that revealed a significant lack of depth or lack of common interests. And the person for whom your first inklings were not so tantalizing suddenly became much more attractive and interesting. It’s like they say, it’s what’s inside that counts. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say, and your vision tends to improve the longer (and deeper) you look.

So could it be that first inklings are wrong? Let’s just say that they’re significant, but not infallible. You should pay attention to them, but don’t give them more weight than they deserve. We are, by nature, gatherers of information and stimuli. We process this information through the filter of experience. So those first inklings may be influenced by something we’ve experienced before.

“I know that type,” someone once said to me, pointing at another person we were both seeing for the first time.

But how did he know it? Obviously, something about this new person struck a familiar chord in the observer’s mind. Perhaps it was positive, perhaps not. In any case, this first inkling was most probably erroneous because it was based on supposition and not fact. Perhaps it’s human nature to want to classify things (and people) into certain known categories quickly, but think of all you miss by not giving something (or someone) a second look or the benefit of the doubt.

Well, having said all that, let me share a little secret with you. My first inkling was to skip this week’s subject because I’m fighting the flu and couldn’t figure out anything intelligent to say. And I’d be willing to wager that right about now there are a bunch of you reading this who wish I would have followed that first inkling.

Like they say, sometimes you just got to trust your gut.

The Unknown By Michael A. Black

“People always fear the unknown,” my father used to say.

After all, it’s lurking around every corner, waiting for us. But why do we fear it? Why not embrace it? Or, at the very least, be prepared for it.

Sure, not knowing what’s coming can be disconcerting because we feel that it’s beyond our control. But what if we could exert some control over things? Would that make us fear the unknown less ominous?

Like most people, I’ve faced a lot of unknown factors in my life. Everybody does. But as a cop, I faced a significantly larger set of circumstances every time I put on the uniform and went to work. Driving in I never knew what the shift would bring. Would it be a busy night, or uneventful? Once it started the unknown factor would increase. With every call, every time someone dialed 9-1-1, the potential was there to develop into something unforeseen and really dangerous. Danger can be an attractive companion, and I must admit I grew to love the adrenaline surges as I’d race to one of those situations not knowing exactly what I’d be facing. So I grew to embrace the unknown rather than fear it. But I also had a few allies with me, most notably training and experience. And these usually brought a third ally into the fray: confidence. I found out that usually, if you’ve prepared for something, you can handle it.

So the key is in your preparation. That’s why as a cop I was always big on training and making sure my guys were well trained. Developing proficiencies in various areas (weapons, physical fitness, interviewing, observation, etc.) became a way of life for me. It was my way of preparing to meet the unknown head-on. I always maintained a regular exercise and running program, and worked in other areas as well. Our range practices used to include shooting with both hands, dominant and non-dominant, as well as one-handed reloading drills. It’s a lot easier to react if you’ve trained for an eventuality than trying to figure out what to do when you’re first confronted with something unexpected. In police work things can turn violent in a moment, and you should be on guard at all times. It’s like they say in boxing: the punch you don’t see coming is the one that knocks you down.

Not all of this has to do with running four or five miles, working on take-downs and arm-locks, or developing proficiencies in shooting. Noticing the little things and being aware of your surroundings is something that’s equally important. The next time you’re pulling into a parking lot, take an extra look around. Instead of talking on your cell phone or thinking about the stuff you want to buy once you get inside, concentrate instead on your first objective: getting through the parking lot safely. And once you go through the doors, stop and survey the area from which you came. Anybody lingering around your car? Anybody walking close to you? Anybody paying you particular notice? This goes double for returning to your vehicle. Keep yourself sharp mentally by planning what you would do in the event of some emergency. Like I said, being ready for every eventuality can cut down on the chances that the unknown will surprise you.

So how does all this relate to writing? Believe it or not, there are similarities. A writer faces the unknown every time he or she sits down to write. You’re staring at a blank screen (or page, if you prefer) and it can be a daunting task to start. How well you’ve prepared yourself can make a big difference. Have you done your research? Have you thought the story through? Being prepared can make a difference here as well.

So in the final analysis, the unknown is not something to be feared, but appreciated. Think of how boring and mundane life would be if we always knew what was coming around the next curve. Just know which way to turn your wheels if you hit a patch of black ice and start to skid.

Like they used to say when I was in Boy Scouts: Be prepared.