Well, today is my birthday. When I first drew 22 May in the Wildcard Tuesday schedule I was going to swap it, but then I thought maybe a birthday post would be fitting. You know, another year older (although today I’m actually only a day older!), have I accomplished what I wanted in the past year, cool birthday presents, you know…easy, right? Plus, I discovered via Facebook alerts that I’m not the only Murderati with a 22 May birthday…hard to believe that both Gar and I were born on the same day! 

Happy birthday to me…and Gar! 

Or at least half of her.  It's Martyn here.  I’ve just got back from a week away, working hard on things to do with writing but not actually writing itself.  I know it’s expected of authors but it’s still time consuming and takes you away from what you’re supposed to be doing.

Not that it wasn’t enjoyable.  Far from it.  You see, for the past four years I’ve been Reader in Residence for the Theakstons International Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England (Or the Harrogate Festival for short, or just Harrogate, for even shorter).  I suppose a job description would be the go to guy for events involving and encouraging reader development among the audience and attendees for the Festival.  Part of that is the Big Read, which is what I’ve been on the road doing this week.

The Big Read is an annual event.  It takes a classic crime novel (Past books have been Chandler’s THE BIG SLEEP, Christie’s MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and Highsmith’s THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY) and gets readers all over the North of England reading it then coming together to discuss it.  It’s become quite successful.  The books are supplied by the publisher, the events are held in libraries.  I go along and host each session and it can be hard work.  I mean not digging ditches hard work, but quite demanding.  I have to be on top of things and know my stuff.  But it’s also very rewarding.  It’s a great opportunity to talk to readers, engage (or re-engage) with novels, to become involved with and celebrate the genre we love and live in. 

This year’s book is Reginald Hill’s ON BEULAH HEIGHT.  It’s slightly different from the others in that Reg only died this January and he was the first of the chosen authors that I knew personally.  But it’s still a classic book.  And, for an added frisson, set in the area the Big Read takes place in.  Reg was also one of the first special guests at the very first Festival and the first recipient of the Theakstons Lifetime Achievement Award we thought this was a good way to honour his memory.  I hope it is.  I hope we do him proud.

But that’s just an aside.  I wanted to talk about something that arose out of where I was for the weekend.  I was booked to do an event alongside Val McDermid, Mark Billingham and Frances Fyfield at the Astor Theatre in Deal, Kent.  Now Deal – for those of you who have never been and I’m guessing that’s quite a few – is an interesting place.  It’s a little seaside town on the Kent coast, just up from Dover, quite old and well conserved, and seems to have become a retreat for (usually rich and posh but not exclusively) the more bohemian-minded.  As a result, there are some genuinely interesting and lovely people there mixed in with some genuine eccentrics.  Think Midsommer (of ‘Murders’ fame) by the sea.  If that doesn’t work, imagine Patrick McGoohan being chased down the high street by a huge balloon.  You get the picture.  

I have to say, we were made very welcome.  Frances lives down there, as does mine and Val’s agent, so we were squired round to different people’s houses for food and drink.  It was like being invited to a party every three hours.  Consequently I think we consumed a week’s worth of food and drink (a lot of drink) in a couple of days.  And still did our event on Friday night.

And it was meeting one of the town eccentrics that got me – and Mark and Val – thinking.

We had been invited to a couple’s house for coffee.  A lovely couple, both archaeologists with fascinating stories, with a beautiful house on the sea front.  We sat on the veranda overlooking the beach chatting, drinking coffee and enjoying ourselves very much.  We were then joined by someone who I can only describe as a character.  Tall, thin, ascetic, imposing.  Dressed as if he’d just stepped out of the Weimar Republic and accompanied (or rather accessorised) by a small, dark, ugly dog.  He demanded he join us for coffee and came up.  Whereupon he, as Shakespeare once said, let loose his opinions.  This mainly involved making disparaging remarks, mainly about our clothes and professions.  Mark and Val and I were too gobsmacked to reply.  He was being quite offensive but we didn’t respond.  Not just because we were guests and therefore being polite but mainly because we were doing what all writers do in that kind of situation: filing him away for future use.  

Mark, Val and my agent eventually left to make our way to the next hosts, the next house and the next bout of eating and drinking, laughing as we went about the character we had just encountered.  My agent asked which one of us was going to be the first to use him in a novel.  And that’s when we fell a bit silent.  Because we realised that we couldn’t.  None of us could use him.  He was a larger than life character, a one off, someone who would need enormous toning down to appear in a novel.  Someone who, if presented as he was in real life, just wouldn’t be believable to a reader.  

And that was a shame, I thought, but it got me thinking.  In rather a sad way.  It’s one thing to encounter an extreme person and to use that encounter as a source for anecdotes to share with friends.  It’s quite another to use that person as a character – or even the basis of a character – in a novel.  And I’m not just talking about the morality of it.  I think all writers subscribe to Graham Greene’s statement about a writer having to possess that little chip of ice in their heart.  No.  What I mean is, how many times has a writer – and I’m not just thinking of myself here – been in a situation or encountered a person and thought, ‘There’s no way I could use that/him/her, no one would ever believe me’?  Yet the situation was experienced.  The person existed.

And in a way it’s a shame you can’t do that.  I remember when I was in drama school (I trained as an actor before I became a writer) a director told us why he didn’t have time for Method actors.  Method acting, he said, was something bad actors had to work at and good actors did instinctively.  And that a slavish adherence to the Method precluded any kind of spontaneity or surprise.  ‘How many times,’ he said, ‘have you walked down the street and seen something out of the ordinary?  Something unexpected?  And what would your response be as a Method actor?’  I knew what he was getting at.  There being more to Heaven and Earth than is dreamed off in a realist’s philosophies, as Shakespeare almost once said. 

I’ve thought about his words for years.  And when I met this character a few days ago and had a realistic novelist’s response to him it made me think of it again.  Was he right?  Should we be unafraid to present things and people that a reader may find implausible but were actually real?  Or should be temper our experiences to what a reader expects and prepare to be met with derision?

I don’t know the answer.  I’m not sure any of us do.  If anyone can throw light on the subject, please let me know. 

I’m off to the North of England for the second and final week of Big Read events now.  If I meet any more unbelievably real characters, I’ll let you know.    

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

Sometimes I have no room for blog-thought.

Sometimes I just let the words spill...

1.

In this little beach town

on any given morning

and especially in the morning

the world is good

The sun shines

and enough people are unemployed or retired

to enjoy the day

Even the bums

on their benches

in their madness

seem content

In the morning

before the bars and restaurants open

(their owners sweeping sand off the steps)

the cafes sell their coffee and

croissants and wi-fi

and the rare business man walks by

in a suit

drawing stares

from the rest of us

in jeans and shorts and wetsuits

driving bicycles and rollerblades and surf boards

The old and young

sporting tattoos

walking their dogs and

grandchildren

It's a different sound

in the morning

No drunken brawls over

women

Just the parrots

overhead

and the Coast Guard helicopter

and

in the morning

women dancing in the

streets

with babies in their arms.

2.

I have to remind myself

sometimes

that I want to write

that I do it because it's what I want

to do

that it's not a means to an end

that it's not the

work

or

the deadline

or

the career

In those times I'll pick up a pen

and a notebook

and write

what might be mistaken for

poetry

Because I know it won't be sold or,

likely,

published

it's just for me.

Because sometimes

I just want to write

3.

I'm never so happy as when I'm

petting a dog

The child in me erupts

I roll, laughing,

an idiot on the

sidewalk

wrestling the dog that only has eyes for me

"I've never seen him play like that"

"He usually doesn't like men"

"Okay, I think it's time we say goodbye"

The dog usually tires before I do

I'm never so happy as when I'm watching

the pelicans

fall

like Olympic divers

into the waves

their silly shapes and dangling legs

I'm never so happy as when children

catch my eye

And wave

and peek

and hide

and laugh

The laughter is the best

And when parents say

"She's usually so shy"

"He's really taken with you"

The kids

usually tire

before I do

I'm never so happy as when I watch

my own children

sleep

In quiet warm dreams

Eyes moving under the lids

Feet twitching

The dog curled between them

On occasion

I'll have a day

like today

and know happiness

It’s the goal of any writer to engage the reader in the story to the point where they forget just about everything else. One of my biggest thrills has always been receiving emails or comments from people that go something along the lines of: “You cost me a night’s sleep—I just couldn’t put the book down!”

Trying to create characters that readers can sympathise or empathise with, be repulsed or engaged by, is what we strive for. People tell me they’ve cried over some of the things that have happened in my books. I confess I’ve shed a tear or two myself while reading something that I can really connect to on an emotional level.

But it seems there’s much more to it than that.

Research by the Ohio State University has recently identified what they call “experience-taking” from works of fiction. Basically, this is what happens to people who find themselves closely identifying with and responding to the emotional thoughts and beliefs of characters. In the right circumstances, experience-taking may lead to real changes—albeit temporary—in behaviour and attitude.

In one study carried out by the university, seventy male heterosexual college students were asked to read a Day In The Life Of story about a fictional student. There were three versions of this story—one where the character was revealed to be gay early on in the narrative, one where this reveal happened late in the story, and one where the main character was heterosexual.

The results showed that these test readers reported higher levels of experience-taking from the version in which the sexual orientation was revealed later rather than earlier. It seems that if the students knew almost from the beginning that the character was not like them, it prevented them from really identifying with that character and experience-taking. But those who learned this fact late were just as likely to experience-take as those who read the heterosexual version.

And not only that, but they also reported what is described as “significantly more favourable attitudes towards homosexuals”. Similar results were recorded if the character was of different racial background to the student readers.

Experience-taking can have other subtle side-effects, according to Ohio State. Another experiment involved a story about a student encountering various obstacles—such as car problems, weather, long queues—on his way to vote. The different versions varied by having first-person or third-person narratives, as well as having the student attend either the same university, or a completely different one.

It possibly won’t surprise you to learn that the first-person account by a student from the same university had the highest level of experience-taking.

But it may surprise you to hear that this experiment was carried out on the run-up to the 2008 presidential elections. The participants were all eligible to vote, and when questioned later it was revealed that sixty-five percent of those who read that first-person/same-university story voted, compared to only twenty-nine percent who’d read a different version.

But experience-taking doesn’t happen every time you sit down to read. It only happens when the reader is able to fully immerse and lose themselves in the story, including to a certain extent putting aside their own identity while they’re doing so.

In one example, students were unable to experience-take if constantly reminded of their own self-image by the introduction of a mirror in the cubicle where they were reading. In these instances they were more likely to “perspective-take” instead, meaning they could understand what the character was going through, but without losing sight of their own identity.

Nevertheless, the university concluded that experience-taking could be very powerful because it was an unconscious process.

This information was particularly interesting to me as I write a first-person narrative with my Charlie Fox books and people have always told me how much they identify with the character. Charlie is a survivor, who’s come through some nasty experiences and developed inner strength from them.

I’ve always written primarily to entertain. But if people can take something of this inner strength of character, this determination not to be a victim, to walk tall and equal in an unequal world, then my work here is done.

What about you, ‘Rati? Have you ever found yourself experience-taking or perspective-taking from books you’ve read? Or books you’ve written, for that matter?

This week’s Word of the Week is eidolon, meaning a phantom or apparition, a confusing reflection or reflected image. From the Greek eidos form, from idein (aorist) to see. Also with the same derivation is idol, which has the archaic meaning of a phantom or a fantasy.

Finally, just to let you know that fellow 'Rati PD Martin has a brand new book out today. HELL'S FURY, book one in her new spy thriller series. Buy it today for $3.99 or £2.55

This was going to be a profound blog about my meeting Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and reveling in the presence of someone who has given so much for so long on behalf of so many people.  I also planned to regale you with stories about how when the Secret Service gets involved in an event, well, things change.

But you know what? I’m pooped. I’m bone tired from having worked on a public happening for months and months and then experiencing the mental, physical and emotional exhaustion of the letdown the day after all that work comes to fruition.

I just don’t have much oomph left in me at all.

However, I do still have the capacity to laugh. And right now I want to fill my cup with as much enjoyment as possible.  

Please help me do it. Have you discovered any new websites that tickle the heck out of you?

Here’s one I learned about this weekend. Much of its content is incredibly inappropriate.
When you open these links, be sure you’re someplace where loud incredulous laughter is allowed; I don't want you to get into trouble at work.

For someone like me who has spent years in PR and marketing, Cracked.com contains many a dream come true. Among its entries are wonderfully horrid ideas realized and turned into products because a bunch of brilliant people didn’t think things through quite as well as they assumed they did. This is the link my friend’s daughter showed me on Mother’s Day.  It takes you to unintentionally x-rated toys (Don’t look if you’re not into that kind of thing). This other link, which I found today, brought me great joy. I especially like Spader Man. And there's this one with the Norman Rockwell.

Now, please return the favor. Send me a couple of urls that please you -- silly games, goofy products, jokes, fun videos, whatever  -- and include the reasons you like them.  

I’m at work and can’t play on the computer, but I’ll check them out during the coming week when I get home and need a good laugh.

Thanks in advance.

Brace yourselves, people.  You're about to meet Schreck.

No, not "Shrek."  Schreck.  Tom Schreck.  This guy:

Tom Schreck is a multi-talented author who's written on topics as diverse as boxing, business, pets, fitness, psychology, relationships, golf, diners, drive-ins and prison, all for publications that include The Business Review, Fightnews.com, Westchester Magazine, American Health and Fitness, Professional Counselor and Catfancy, among others.

So far he's written five novels, including his latest Duffy Dombrowski mystery, THE VEGAS KNOCKOUT, which was just released today.  Tom's a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and has both a master’s degree in psychology and a black belt.  (Don't those two things always go hand-in-hand?) 

Having formerly worked as the director of an inner-city drug clinic, Tom today juggles several jobs: communications director for a program for people with disabilities, adjunct psychology professor, freelance writer, and world championship boxing official.

Now, about his Duffy Dombrowski mysteries: These books chronicle the life of a not-so-social social worker who's always on the brink of getting fired.  Duffy's a bad professional boxer by night, part philosopher, part Robin Hood by day, and he's always all heart as he throws himself into helping those who can't help themselves.

But the real star of the series is Al --- Duffy's obstinate basset hound, who prefers cheeseburgers for their laxative effect, hates sparrows, and prefers good looking Corgi's as sex partners. Oh, and Al seems to show up exactly when it matters.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Schreck . . .

Gar: Okay, let's get the obvious question out of the way first: How many times a day do you get a "green ogre" joke?

Tom: More often I get the knowing smirk and a shake of the head. I love the twenty-something hotel clerks who have no idea that anything else ever existed before the last decade.

I use the stock line, “Hey, I had the name first.”

Gar: Duffy drinks a lot of Schlitz.  For those in the audience who think Schlitz tastes like a warm Budweiser poured out of a septic tank, please make your best case for drinking the stuff.

Tom: Man, defend Schlitz? C’mon Gar, how about a little willing suspension of disbelief?

Actually in the early 90’s Men’s Health said it was one of the best values in beer so I tried it and it wasn’t half bad. Since then the company has been sold a few times and I’m not so sure. They now make a sort of “craft brew” that has returned to the original “60’s recipe”. They can’t keep it on the shelves in Milwaukee.

I want to be careful here, I’m still looking for an advertising endorsement deal.

Gar: What fighter, alive or dead, do you most wish could be a fan of your writing, and why?

Tom: John Duddy.

The Derry Destroyer just retired and I had the privilige of judging a few of his fights. He was a blood and guts fighter who the NYC fans love. He’d sell out Madison Square Garden with Irish nationals. His uncle Jackie, his namesake, was the first man killed on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland.

John got out of the game a couple of years ago and I admire him for that.

If my books were published in Spanish I’d like Hector Camacho to read them too.

Gar: The previous owners of Duffy's basset hound Al (Allah-King) were members of the Nation of Islam, yet there's no indication in the books that he's partial to bean pies.  Why not?

Tom: One word: flatulence.

Gar: How would you compare writing to the sweet science?

Tom: It hurts less.

Both take concentration and the ability to empty your mind while you perform. Boxing asks you to do that while being punched in the face.

Both require strategy and forward thinking.

Writing taxes the cardio vascular system less—have you seen many of our peers at cons?

Gar: What's the hardest you've ever been hit in the ring, and who nailed you?

Tom: I was sparring with a pro that I heard was mad at me. The last time we had got in the ring he hit me in the head and broke a small bone in his forearm. A couple of years later we were in the ring going nice and light which is how a pro will work with a guy like me.

Then he threw one shot that knocked me down so fast that I was disoriented because of going vertical to horizontal so quickly. Oddly enough, because I went down so fast it didn’t hurt my neck that much but my head swam for a little while and I was actually kind of giddy.

Nothing was ever said. It might have been a coincidence. Whenever I see him now we do a big bro-hug.

He was a good pro and at one point was like 15-0.

Gar: If book reviews were judged like fights, what would your record be?

Tom: I’d be undefeated, of course. Four and O. Though one or two might have been split decisions based on who the judges/critics would be.

Gar: They say the kind of dog a person owns says a lot about them.  What does your love of basset hounds say about you, besides how difficult you are to house break?

Tom: Gar, my incontinence was a secret between me and you and mostly with the medication I can control it.

As for what it says . . . I think it means I’m a masochist who has the distinct need of being humiliated by long-eared short-legged creatures that believe I was born to serve them.

Gar: Duffy's boss Claudia Michelin is a real pain in the neck.  Considering her last name, in what ways is Claudia similar to a steel-belted, all-weather radial tire?

Tom: They are both inflexible, unattractive and round.

Gar: In your opinion, which game is more fair and honest?  Professional boxing or the publishing industry?

Tom: Fair, huh? Like you could fight your heart out and still get screwed by judges? And fair like you could write a book that’s heralded and loved by everyone who reads it but the publisher doesn’t back it and it never makes it to shelves?

At least in boxing you can knock someone out in the ring and they can’t take that from you.

Gar: Complete this sentence: "If I could get ten rounds in the ring with anyone in the world, it would be _____."

Tom: There’s this guy who does reviews on Amazon . . .

Gar: You and Duffy are both huge fans of Elvis Presley.  Who is your favorite among all the King's leading ladies in film?

Tom: Man, you’re asking me to pick from Ursula Andress, Ann-Margaret and Juliet Prowse? You know what --- I’m going off the board --- Shelly Fabares.

Gar: Duffy lives in a converted Airstream trailer.  Why an Airstream and not, say, a Winnebago?

Tom: C’mon Gar, it’s class thing. Airstreams are THE RV for those of us with style and class.

Gar: Who would you rather have watching your back in a dark alley --- Floyd Mayweather or Reed Farrel Coleman?

Tom: Easy, Coleman’s from Brooklyn and wouldn’t fight fair. Plus he might have Ken Bruen with him.

Sure Mayweather is a brilliant counterpuncher but if you crowd him and put pressure on him he can’t turn a metaphor like Reed.

Gar: The plot of THE VEGAS KNOCKOUT involves the Russian Mafia, prostitution, and illegal immigration, among other things.  If you could have crammed one more hot topic into the book, what would it have been?

Tom: That’s even easier, I would’ve added more basset hounds.

Looking for Pari? Fret not. We’ve traded places this week, since I’ll be in the air ...

... heading to New York on Wednesday. Look for Pari’s post then.

* * * * *

My first two novels and a brand new story collection are coming out in ebook format tomorrow through Mysterious Press and Open Road Media.

Open Road and Mysterious Press have also re-issued the works of fellow Murderateros Gar Anthony Haywood, Martyn Waites, and Ken Bruen. Click on their names to see the books available.

I’m particularly jazzed about the story collection, for it includes a new story not previously published, the eponymous “Killing Yourself to Survive;” plus “Pretty Little Parasite,” which was included in Best American Mystery Stories 2009; “The Axiom of Choice” (a personal favorite), which appeared in Strand Magazine; “It Can Happen,” which was nominated for a Macavity Award and has been optioned for a film; and several other nuggets that have appeared here and there but have never been collected in one place.

I’ll let you know how to track down the books below. For now, in celebration of the re-issue of The Devil’s Redhead, let me tell you about the most embarrassing—and perversely resilient—goof-up in any of my books. (So far. That I know of…)

On page 301 of The Devil's Redhead hard cover edition (page 313 in the mass paperback), you will find this curious phrase: "sandstone palavers."

In isolation, it has a certain surreal/dada/Lewis Carroll quality. If only that were what I’d intended.

I wish I could blame some drudge in the bowels of Random House, anyone but myself. Note to aspiring writers: Never edit when you're blind with grief.

The word I wanted, of course, was "pavers," a word I'd never heard until my wife, Terri, used it as we were choosing tiles for a rehab job on our back porch.

Part of the word's charm was her usage, a kind of giddy almost childlike pleasure that she brought to everything. And when it came time, a few years later, to describe a Monterrey-style décor in a Mexican hotel, it seemed the mot juste.

Except my brain couldn't find it. It rummaged around in "similar sounding" bucket, and came up with "palavers." I knew this was wrong, and mentally earmarked the spot for revision once the right word came to me. Unfortunately, it never did.

The reason? By the time of this rewrite Terri had died of cancer. The manuscript for Redhead was purchased by Ballantine six weeks before her death, and I reworked the passage in question after her passing.

She was forty-six, the love of my life, and I was devastated. Anyone who knows that kind of grief knows it turns your mind and memory to slop. The simplest things confound you. Both the inner and outer worlds acquire a smudgy dullness, as though wreathed in a leaden haze, and the only light you see comes in lightning bolts of helpless pain and rage.

Such was my state of mind when the copy-edited version of the manuscript reached me.

When I came to the page in question I saw the copy editor had corrected it, but had been so baffled by my misuse, so unclear on my intent, that she changed it to another inappropriate word, with a question mark in the margin. It felt like a violation, given the word's link to Terri, her happiness, but I still couldn't conjure the right word myself. I stetted angrily, once again hoping that before I returned the pages the correct word would come to me. Then, of course, I forgot.

I forgot a lot of things back then.

The typo has proved to be as immortal as a Transylvanian count. In edition after edition, even in the U.K., the lousy little monster remains. (God only knows how the Japanese translation must read.)

I promised myself that, should a new edition appear I would finally, once and for all, erase this blight from the book. But when I sold the rights to Mysterious Press, I didn’t have a Word document I could go in and change at will. All I had was a PDF. But that allowed me at least to place a strikethrough mark on the telltale “la” that turns “paver” into “palaver.” I wrote a note pleading that this error be addressed in the final version of the ebook.

We shall see, said the blind man. I'm not, as they say, holding my breath. Typos, unlike the rest of us, are eternal. And who listens to the author anyway?

I'm sure somewhere, Terri is chuckling way. This is what I deserve, she no doubt thinks, for losing my temper. I wish I could tell her: Oh baby, I know. I know.

* * * * *

So, Murderateros: What’s the worst in-print gaffe you’ve committed, and have you been granted a dispensation, given the right to go back in and tweak the little sucker? Or does it sit there still, a troll beneath the bridge of your otherwise perfect prose?

* * * * *

Now, for a bit of TBSP [Tediously Blatant Self-Promotion]:

Here again is a little author profile video that the team at Open Road Media put together to help publicize the launch.

And here are links for purchasing the books:

The Devil’s Redhead 

Done for a Dime

Killing Yourself to Survive

If you haven’t yet tried my work, give one of these babies a spin. I’m proud of each of these books in different ways. I’d be honored and pleased if you decided one of them was worth a look.

* * * * *

Jukebox Heroes of the Week: I’m choosing two, one for each of the first two novels. Music always figures prominently in my books, and these two tunes were signature pieces for Redhead and Dime respectively: Rickie Lee Jones with “We Belong Together,” and Charles Mingus with “Moanin’:”

I’m headed off to teach a Screenwriting Tricks workshop in Cleveland (open to all, if you’re in that part of the country, see here).

So of course my head is in craft mode.

I sit on the plane thinking about what is really essential that I want to get across in an always too-limited time to talk about our craft, and also about what people are hiring me in particular to teach.

One of the things I always hope people get out of my workshops and writing workbooks is the concept of setpiece scenes. I try to hit that hard up front in a workshop, and keep going back to examples during the day.

There’s a saying in Hollywood that “If you have six great scenes, you have a movie.” And I’ve said before that these six great scenes are usually from that list I’ve given you of the Key Story Elements.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? Scenes like The Call To Adventure and Crossing the Threshold (and on the darker side, the Visit to Death or All is Lost scene) are magical moments: they change the world of the main character for all time, and as storytellers we want our readers or audiences to experience that profound, soul-shattering change right along with the character.

Filmmakers take that “six great scenes” concept very literally.  These scenes are often called the “trailer scenes” or the “money scenes”  (as opposed to “money shots”, which is a different post, with a different rating!).  As incensed as I am personally about how trailers these days give every single bit of the movie away (I won’t even watch them before a movie I’m interested in seeing), I understand that this is essential movie advertising: those trailer scenes have to seduce the potential audience by giving a good sense of the EXPERIENCE the movie is promising to deliver.  The scenes that everyone goes into the theater to see, and that everyone comes out of the theater talking about, which creates first the anticipation for a movie and then that essential “work of mouth” that will make or break a film.

And do not for a second think that directors aren’t putting excruciating thought and time and detail into designing and staging those scenes.  There’s not a director out there who is not in the back of his (or her, but statistically mostly his) mind hoping to make cinematic history (or at least the Top 100 AFI Scenes of All Time list in whatever genre) with those scenes. These are scenes that often cost so much money that producers will not under any circumstances allow them to be cut, even if in editing they are clearly non-essential to the plot.

The attention paid to these critical scenes is not all an ego thing, either. We are not doing our JOB as storytellers if we are not delivering the core experiences of our genre. Genre is a PROMISE to the audience or readers; it’s a pact.

And a setpiece doesn’t have to cost millions or tens of millions of dollars, either, although as authors, we have the incredible advantage of an unlimited production budget. Did you authors all get that?  We have an UNLIMITED PRODUCTION BUDGET. Whatever settings, crowds, mechanical devices, alien attacks or natural disasters we choose to depict, our only budget constraint is in our imaginations.  The most powerful directors in Hollywood would KILL for a fraction of our power. Theoretically, they can’t even begin to compete. 

However, directors can and do compete and top most authors on a regular basis because they know how to manipulate visuals, sound, symbolism, theme and emotion to create the profound and layered impact that a setpiece scene is.

So how do we take back that power? By constantly identifying the setpiece scenes in film and on the page that have the greatest impact on us personally and really looking at what the storytellers are doing to create that effect and emotion, so we can create the same depth on the page.

I’ve compiled some examples (and categorized them by story elements they depict) on my own blog and in my second Screenwriting Tricks workbook.

But just in the last week I’ve come across some great examples that have really stayed with me.

I’m on an Edith Wharton tear at the moment, and it’s striking how beautifully she sets her love scenes, on every visual and sensual level, like this setup from THE HOUSE OF MIRTH:

Selden had given her his arm without speaking. She took it in silence, and they moved away, not toward the supper-room, but against the tide which was setting thither. The faces about her flowed by like the streaming images of sleep: she hardly noticed where Selden was leading her, till they passed through a glass doorway at the end of the long suite of rooms and stood suddenly in the fragrant hush of a garden. Gravel grated beneath their feet, and about them was the transparent dimness of a midsummer night. Hanging lights made emerald caverns in the depths of foliage, and whitened the spray of a fountain falling among lilies. The magic place was deserted: there was no sound but the splash of the water on the lily-pads, and a distant drift of music that might have been blown across a sleeping lake. 

Selden and Lily stood still, accepting the unreality of the scene as a part of their own dream-like sensations. It would not have surprised them to feel a summer breeze on their faces, or to see the lights among the boughs reduplicated in the arch of a starry sky. The strange solitude about them was no stranger than the sweetness of being alone in it together. At length Lily withdrew her hand, and moved away a step, so that her white-robed slimness was outlined against the dusk of the branches. Selden followed her, and still without speaking they seated themselves on a bench beside the fountain.

On a different note, in the romantic comedy FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (a younger audience would call it a “lude comedy”, and I don’t disagree!), the hapless hero has his first kiss with the love interest at the Midpoint, of course, a classic “sex at sixty” scene (sixty minutes, that is, halfway through the film.).  Every kiss in a romance or romantic comedy is, or should be, a setpiece and the filmmakers give the lovers a typically gorgeous romance setting, in this case a cliff overlooking the ocean in Hawaii. But being as this is a comedy, the reckless heroine tells the hero, quite rightly, that they’re both in ruts and need to take a leap of faith, which she promptly does, off the cliff.  The hero doesn’t land quite so well, but after narrowly escaping death and possible castration on his slide down, he ends up in the water with her, for a beautiful backdrop to a sensual first kiss that is also a baptism that the hero has been sorely needing.

On the nose? Yes, but well-played and effective, and it does what the Midpoint is supposed to do – it kicks the second half of act two up to another level.

In the film of MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, over and over the filmmakers use images of bridges and interesting corridors, or stepping stones in a creek, to underscore significant moments. The heroine first meets her love interest, The Chairman, on a bridge over a stream, with cherry blossoms in the background. Now, those of you with jaded eyes might look at that and think, ‘Oh, right, another “lovers meet on a Japanese bridge in an explosion of cherry blossoms’ scene, but the setting is utterly gorgeous, and I would be very surprised if most of the moviegoing audience even notices the bridge or the cherry blossoms – except subliminally, which is how these things are supposed to register.

And in a subsequent scene, the nine-year-old heroine has just realized what the desire of her life is to be, and runs through a long, curving passageway, another classic symbol of transition and birth, but the scene is filmed as an endless following shot in the psychedelically orange gateways of the Fushimi Inari shrine (just click through and look!), and truly delivers on the sensation of transformation that the moment is.

Now, filmmakers have location scouts to find these perfect physical settings for them, but I think it’s one of the great joys of my job as an author (as it was when I was a screenwriter) to be constantly on the lookout for perfect locations to use in current and yet-to-be-conceived storylines.  And they're all ours for the taking.

So you know the question.  What are some of your favorite setpieces and locations in films or books?  Come across any good ones lately?  Or – what is a location you’ve always thought would make a great setpiece scene in a film or book?

- Alex

You know the saying a woman’s work is never done? Well, sometimes I think an author’s work is never done. Especially in today’s day and age, when there is ALWAYS something we could or should be doing to promote our work on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Goodreads, etc. So when should we call it a day?

About a year ago I decided I had to cut back on Facebook. As wonderful as it is, it can literally suck time from you. I’d go on to check out my friends’ latest news and an hour or two later I’d return to the Word document thinking: “No way, was I on Facebook for two hours.” But, of course, I was. So I made a new rule, which I stick to most days. I give myself about 10 minutes of Facebook in the morning and maybe 10 minutes at night.

I don’t scroll all the way back now through all my Facebook friends’ posts from the last 12 hours or 24 hours, or however long it is since I last logged on. Instead, I check out the last hour or two. Yes, I am missing things, but I figure actually writing is more important.

As for Twitter … I’ve never been a big Twitter user, but I’ve synced up my Facebook page so anything I post on my PD Martin page goes to Twitter. Which means less work. Having said that, I've created more work for myself with a slight Facebook multiple personality disorder — I’ve got my personal Phillipa Martin profile, my PD Martin page and now my Pippa Dee page.  But I think the separation of a personal profile page and professional author page is useful.

So, a writer’s work in terms of social media is probably never done. What else?

How about editing? Yes, our books go out the door and onto shelves (or databases), but is an author ever truly finished a book?  I think most of us could edit and tweak until eternity. It’s more that we’re forced to put a stop on the edits at some point—whether it’s self-imposed or from an agent or publisher.

So, authors and readers alike, how long do you spend on social media a day? Do you use different pages/profiles on Facebook? And is a writer’s work ever done?

Oh, and my BSP (blatant self promotion) for the day: The Wanderer is now available on Amazon for $2.99. Read more about The Wanderer.

When former NFL great Junior Seau committed suicide last week at the early age of 43, by all reports, it came as a complete surprise to everyone who knew him.  In stark contrast to his reputation as one of the fiercest defensive players the game has ever seen, Seau was a beloved, jocular human being on and off the field, a man whose energy and joie de vie rubbed off on friends, teammates and family members alike.

And yet he took his own life before the age of 50, leaving no clues behind to help explain why.

Because the self-inflicted gunshot wound that killed him was to the chest, rather than the head, people familiar with the recent history of the NFL (National Football League) suspect Seau's motives for suicide may have been identical to those of Dave Duerson, another former pro who killed himself in a similar fashion only 15 months ago.

Duerson had struggled for years with various symptoms of CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy --- as brilliantly described by guest blogger Kathryn Fox yesterday), brought on by the multiple concussions he'd suffered throughout his playing career, and taking his own life, it seemed, was his way of escaping a future that promised only more of the same.  He'd shot himself in the chest, a text message he sent his ex-wife before pulling the trigger explained, to keep his brain intact for researchers studying the long-term effects of CTE on former players like himself.

As Junior Seau had suffered multiple concussions of his own prior to his retirement in 2010, it's at least improbable that the similarities between his suicide and Duerson's are just coincidence.  In the absence of any concrete evidence to that effect, however, all anyone can do to understand his final act is speculate, and wonder why, if his troubles were so grave, he never sought help from any of the many people who loved him.

Or did he?

What does a cry for help sound like under such circumstances?  Does anyone really know?  Ideally, of course, it would be short, sweet, and impossible to misconstrue: "Help me.  I'm in pain.  So much pain I'm thinking about taking my own life."  But who ever speaks that openly, that frankly, about themselves?  Who has the kind of humility required to admit to such vulnerability?

Junior Seau was a former professional football player, a future Hall of Famer in one of the world's most violent sports, so it's easy to understand how difficult it may have been for him to reveal his troubles --- whatever they were --- to anyone.  But Seau was also just a man, and men as a general rule don't come to admitting weakness --- let alone asking for help to overcome it --- naturally.

Old fashioned though it may be, the idea that a man is supposed to be invincible --- capable of fending for himself under any and all circumstances --- is still very much in effect for most of us.  It's how we were raised to think, it's the example we saw set by our fathers and their fathers, and their fathers before them.  It's the through-line of every ham-fisted adventure story we ever read or heard told around a campfire: A man survives.  A man provides.  A man bends but he never breaks.

But of course, some of us do break.  At the whim of love and pride, among other things, we fall short of our great expectations and go to pieces.  And some of us even do the unthinkable first: We ask for help.  We just don't do it in a way that's easily recognized for what it is.  We take the edge off, put bells and whistles on the plea so that the desperation behind it --- the terrible, soul-crushing desperation --- doesn't show through.

I speak from experience.

No, no, put down the phone!  I've never contemplated suicide.  Ever.  The God I believe in has never allowed things to spiral that far out of control for me, and I know with absolute certainty he never will.  But my life has never been, and is not now without, shall we say, the occasional threat of rain.  In fact, I've come close enough to losing everything I hold dear in this world to feel the draw of the abyss, to at least wonder how much worse death could possibly be than another day living in pain.

When I find myself asking that question, I ask for help.

But I speak in code.

I make my need sound like a nuisance, my level of discomfort akin to a sore tooth.  I don't talk about life and death, or the shedding of a single tear.  I choose my language carefully, so as to avoid any suggestion that what I'm asking for is nothing less than my last hope.

Sometimes, a friend will see past all the camouflage and bullshit to the harsh truth underneath, but mostly, no one ever does.  They just see what I've allowed them to see: one more disheartening message from yet another poor devil of their acquaintance looking for work.  And what, in these hard times, is unusual or alarming about that?  There's no need for panic.  Everyone remain calm.  Bankruptcy is not a fatal disease.  Divorce is not the end of the world.  Hell, it's not like Haywood said he was going to throw himself off a fucking bridge if he didn't find a job soon, right?

Or blow a hole in his chest with a gun?

See, that's the trouble with cries for help, especially those that come from a prideful man: They don't always sound like a "cry" at all.