[Reminder: No Amber Waves of Grain and Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape are freebies on Amazon, today, Oct. 17, through Monday, Oct. 21.  Download and enjoy!]

No, this post isn’t about Jane Austen.  I hate most 19^th century novels in general and hers in particular.  Yeah, I know she’s enjoying a revival of sorts—like an oozing zombie rising out of the tomb to bore us to death with romantic drivel.  Instead, I want to talk about all the senses you might use as you write your thriller or mystery.

I was reading Preston and Child’s Two Graves (no one gave it to me as a gift—it was on sale at $2.99), and I was struck by the scene where Pendergast’s ex-special forces manservant uses his keen sense of smell to help him combat a serial killer (if you don’t know the book, fine—I won’t give away any spoilers).  In my sci-fi mystery Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder, Detective Castilblanco appeals to Detective Chen’s sense of smell to generate some additional and useful evidence about the events surrounding a murder (again, no spoilers here).  Castilblanco comments that the police don’t use odors much for evidence.

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[A heartfelt thanks to you! I don’t say it often enough here, but I want to thank every person who reads this newsletter, my other blog posts, and, of course, my novels and short stories.  My goal is to entertain.  If I’ve entertained just one person with any sample of my writing, I feel successful.  If I’ve made you pause and reflect, even better.  And, if you’ve enjoyed my writing, please pass a kind word on to your friends and relatives.  In spite of today’s internet marketing, word of mouth is still the best marketing tool an author can have!  Read on for some freebies.—Steve]

#323: Amazon promos of my new releases.  Just for you, my faithful readers of this newsletter, I offer this advance notice: My two new releases, No Amber Waves of Grain and Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, are available as freebies on Amazon from Thursday, October 17, through Monday, October 21.  The first ebook, a sci-fi thriller, completes the “Clones and Mutant Series,” initiated by Full Medical and Evil Agenda.  The second ebook, an anthology of speculative fiction, contains the novella “Flight from Mother World,” several Doctor Carlos stories set in a future beyond that of the “Chaos Chronicles Series,” and many short stories about zombies, ghosts, weird and/or humorous situations, and unconventional sci-fi themes (please note that these short stories are no longer available in “Steve’s Shorts”).

Here’s the blurb from the Amazon webpage for No Amber Waves of Grain:  “Steve Moore’s new sci-fi thriller carries the reader beyond government conspiracies and political intrigue to world-wide suspense and action. His new addition to the “Clones and Mutants Series” features many players from Full Medical and Evil Agenda: Kalidas Metropolis and friend, two clones, and your favorite evildoer Vladimir Kalinin aka Rupert Snyder aka Sergio Battaglia, who will surprise readers of the first two books in the series. But this country-hopping tale also stands alone as a glimpse into a possible future where forces, both good and evil, aided by science and technology, fight to the death.”

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I read most of Tom Clancy’s books until he started writing about a secret, privately financed, vigilante organization…a bit over the top for even this old thriller writer.  Up to that point and independent of his politics, I thought he could spin a good yarn backed by enough techno-babble that it all seemed real (see the Clancy quote running across the banner of this website).  In fact, I’d wager that some higher mucky-mucks in the Pentagon weren’t happy at times with his description of U.S. and Soviet military capabilities.

More importantly, Clancy covered an era from Cold War to counterterrorism.  His first two books, Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising, portrayed anti-Soviet operations featuring the U.S. Navy (the latter is an interesting Tolstoy-length account of what World War III might have been like).  The last books I read focused on terrorism (did the Japanese pilot who flew his aircraft into Congress in Debt of Honor provide ideas for the 9/11 terrorists?).  In between, he even touched on the emergence of China (The Bear and the Dragon), although he didn’t predict the kind of fascist capitalism that has taken over in that country.

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Last week I considered some of the incorrect advice often given to writers.  Now I’d like to consider some editing myths.  Some of these have been created by people with an agenda (for example, a copy editor wants to make money, after all); some have been created by traditional publishers who are threatened by the indie writing movement; and some are just old warhorses that should be eradicated once and for all.

Self-published books and indie writers often fight negative stereotypes.  Every stereotype has some basis in fact, but they’re often nasty extremes designed to insult.  Irishmen are drunks (yes, we tend to like our liquor).  Writers are nerds (yes, we tend to be introverts, but not always nerds).  Psychiatrists are nuts (I won’t touch that one).  Women are distracted drivers (most men could never compete with Danica Patrick).  Men never ask for directions on a road trip (why should we?  We always know where we’re going.  Sure!).

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Confused by all the blogs, magazines, and books claiming to tell you what you need to do to be a successful writer?  I used to be, because often advice from different sources is contradictory.  I’ve said it before in this blog: there are no sufficient conditions for writing success!  To use a cliché, there are no silver bullets.  There are some necessary conditions.  You have to be able to write, for example.  I’ll limit this discussion to writing fiction because that’s what I do.  I’m guessing what I have to say is partially applicable to non-fiction, but you might want to look elsewhere.

First, let me start by tilting at the windmills of word games often used in writing advice.  Writer’s Digest plays these games all the time.  For fiction, writer and author are interchangeable.  Yes, I know, advice columnists often play the game of saying anyone can be a writer, but only some can be an author.  There’s a bit of dishonest snobbery in that, but also an implied degree of commitment.  If you’ve writing any piece of fiction—short story, novella, novel, flash fiction, biography, etc—you’re the author of that piece.  You own it.  The government even says you own it.  You’re also a writer.  Maybe you’re not a full-time writer—many people can’t make a living at it—but you’ve sat down and put words into your word processor or even on a napkin to get there.

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Sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card is the new casualty in the cultural wars that roil across our country.  For those readers who don’t know him, he is the author of Ender’s Game, now considered by many to be a sci-fi classic.  It’s the story about a special boy who is trained to manage flotillas of starships in a war against ETs that are more hive-like than human.  The movie is scheduled for release in November, and therein lies the problem: gay groups are calling for its boycott.  Mr. Card, a Mormon, has a long history of being against homosexuality and same-sex marriage—hence the question in the title of this post.

I often ask myself this question about my own work.  In the latest installment in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder, one of the themes is Castilblanco’s anti-gun views.  I wrote most of this before the Newtown Massacre in Connecticut because my anti-gun views were well developed much earlier, starting with the Kennedy, King, and Lennon assassinations, and the attempted assassination of Reagan.

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I’ve discussed naming characters in other posts to this blog, but today I thought I’d dedicate a whole post to the subject.  I probably spend an abnormal amount of time fretting over titles and names of characters.  Here I want to throw a wee bit of mud at my fellow authors: don’t be so politically correct!  Readers and writers both might enjoy the mudslinging.  Or not.  (It’s really not a strong critique, so don’t get all snarky—and read on.)

When I’m reviewing a book and an author’s description of a character shows he or she is Latino, for example, I have a hard time identifying with the character if he or she is named John or Jane Smith.  Many authors, desiring to offend no one, make the mistake of using bland and generic names.  Consequently, their writing becomes bland and generic.  Sure, the U.S., and to some extent the rest of the world, is one big melting pot.  I would never use names as a code to promote a prejudicial agenda.  However, parents who can be identified as having one dominant ethnicity still tend to give their kids names that are in sync with that ethnicity.  We’re socially very far away from changing this, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing to try.

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Human beings are wonderfully complex, so it’s interesting that sci-fi writers love to write about computers developing near-human characteristics (I’m guilty too—see The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan—FYI: this is a free download on Amazon starting tomorrow, June 28, through July 2; also, Odri’s starship in Sing a Samba Galactica is just another member of the crew).  But, let’s face it, it’s hard to imagine an AI computer program capable of modeling the emotional ingredients that influence human decision making.  (I suppose you could argue that you don’t want emotions influencing the computer’s thinking because they so often get humans in trouble, but that’s another issue.)

Last week I was struck by the stock market’s reaction to Bernanke’s announcement that the Fed was going to halt their stimulus policies and, in particular, let interest rates rise to a self-sustaining  and steady-state level.  The best way to describe it is that it was an “oh-my-God” reaction of Wall Street and the rest of the financial world to an abrupt change in the rules of the game.  Ignoring the fact that we can’t model these emotional responses (part of the problem), we still should wonder why.  Why is it that human beings have knee-jerk emotional reactions to outside stimuli that can send their world into a vortex of disaster?

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[Note from Steve:  I met Eileen at BooksNJ a few weekends ago.  I immediately knew that readers of this blog, avid readers and writers alike, would like to get to know her and her opus.  Her latest book is DARK MUSIC —I was immediately attracted to the musical subtheme.  So, without further ado, let’s meet E. F. Watkins.]

Steve:  First, tell us something about yourself.

E. F.:  I write paranormal mystery and suspense stories using the E. F. Watkins author’s name.  My opus is comprised of:  DANCE WITH THE DRAGON (2003), RIDE A DANCING HORSE (2004, as “Eileen” Watkins), BLACK FLOWERS (2004), PARAGON (2005), DANU’S CHILDREN (2009), ONE BLOOD (2010), and DARK MUSIC (2013).  DANCE WITH THE DRAGON won Best Horror Novel 2004, from EPIC (Electronically Public Internet Connection).  BLACK FLOWERS was a 2005 EPIC Finalist in the Thriller category and 2006 Indie Book Awards Finalist in the Thriller category.  ONE BLOOD was an EPIC Finalist in the Paranormal category.  You can visit me at my website.

E. F. on Writing:

Steve:  Why, how, and when did you start writing?

E. F.:  I actually started trying to “write books” as soon as I learned to print, but as you can imagine I didn’t get very far! Growing up as an only child, I always made up my own stories. I wrote my first short story in high school and a revised version of it won a contest my freshman year in college. My sophomore year, I wrote a “fan fiction” novella based on the TV soap DARK SHADOWS that went over pretty well with my friends. My first year out of college, I wrote a very early version of the book that eventually became ONE BLOOD, and I’ve been writing (and rewriting) my novels every since.

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I’m always amazed when talking to other writers who tell me they don’t do much reading.  They make all kinds of excuses:  I don’t want to steal anyone’s X, where X could be plot, characters, settings, and so forth.  Sure, outright stealing is plagiarism, and it’s not recommended for writers, newbies or old-timers.  Another excuse: I want my ideas to be fresh, not stale and formulaic.  I don’t know how you can be fresh if you don’t know what other writers are doing in your genre.  And, if you don’t, how can you avoid becoming stale and formulaic?  The most stupid excuse: I don’t have the time.

I don’t buy any of these excuses.  In particular, I don’t know how someone can want to become a writer without being an avid reader first.  Way back when, I decided I liked writing after reading so many books that I thought I could do that too—maybe not better, but differently.  Life’s financial obligations delayed my ambitions (fortunately, I’ve never had to make a living writing), but during that delay I still read, preferring reading to most other forms of entertainment.

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