PRACTCAL ADVISE FOR NOVICE WRITERS

Dec 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

Okay, here’s where I get to play coach. I’ve been given the opportunity to be didactic, pedantic, and if I’m clever, facetious. If Knute Rockne was a writer, here’s what he’d say about getting published and sharpening your work.

When you begin the process of selling your finished work, follow the accepted sequence. Start looking for representation by an accredited literary agent. Not an easy chore, but worth the effort. Should that fail, don’t take it personally. Rejections are part of a writer’s life.

If the agent search poops out, engage in some healthy catharsis. Go to a soundproof room or the middle of a national wilderness area and curse them out. Scream at the top of your lungs and get the anger out of your system. Call them megalomaniacal, self-styled power brokers, ineffectual, rude, unfeeling, egocentric, sluggards. Photocopy their facial likeness from their website, tack it to an unfinished garage wall or a wide tree trunk, and throw darts at him/her until the steam escapes from your ears and your blood pressure returns to 70 over 120. Then, fix your favorite seasonal alcoholic beverage, retreat to a comfortable chair and say, “Time for plan B.”

What’s that, you ask? Take the same copy of WRITER’S DIGEST where you found those miserable agent’s names and look for all the traditional publishers who will accept submissions directly from a writer and query them.

Still no luck? Look for eBook publishers. It’s a lot less expensive for a company to produce a book electronically than make an initial run of 2,500 hard copies. Getting published this way is no free ride, but these people seem to be more amenable to take a chance with a new, unproven author. And most eBook publishers may provide POD (print on demand) options should you want to market your book in paperback. Lastly, or maybe it’s your first choice, self-publish. But be careful choosing a company. Ask for war stories from those who have been there before you. Don’t get caught with a 1,000 prepaid copies of your book getting damp and smelly in your basement and a company that does nothing to assist you in promoting and marketing your books. If you don’t speak legalese, obtain help to read a contract.

No matter where your publishing journey ends, here’s the key—NEVER GIVE UP. If you believe in yourself and objectively think your novel is good enough to be read by others, one way or another you can see your manuscript in print. So, get out there and win one for the Gipper.

Now, here’s a little less inspirational (but still sound) suggestion on how to produce a world-class piece of work. When you think your story, novelette, novella, novel, or epic is finished, when you truly believe you’ve found and corrected all the typos and nits and it’s ready to sell, go back and read it aloud to yourself. Pretend you’re the star of your own audio book. Read it slowly and professionally as an actor would. Then, ask yourself, does it sound good? Do all the paragraphs smoothly transcend to the next? Does each sentence contain the right number of syllables? Does each word flow into the next without conflict? Does it have a pleasing rhythm? Basically, does it sing to you? For a guy who doesn’t dance very well, I have a great need for rhythm in my writing. If you notice any “bumps,” go back and rewrite it. Smooth everything out. If something bothers you now, it will annoy the dickens out of you in the future and someone else will probably notice it, too.

With that accomplished, you’re finished, right? No. Now you’re ready to hand it off to an editor or proofreader—whomever you can afford. A second pair of eyes is essential for ANY writer.

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Guest post for Diane Coto, a literary blogger doing business as FICTIONZEAL

Dec 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

What Inspired You to Write a Police Procedural Series Set in the Smoky Mountains?

Most cops would like you to believe that they worked their entire career in a combat zone-like sector with more inherent action and danger than that encountered by the Army’s long range reconnaissance patrols during the Vietnam War. Certainly, some places are busier than others and I worked in one that never lacked customers. On New Year’s Eve 1991, just four months before I retired, I left the headquarters building at five o’clock (okay, it was ten to five as the deputy commissioner so often accused me of doing) and while heading home in my company car, the dispatcher cleared the airway and assigned a precinct car to handle a motor vehicle accident with injury. Then in an uncharacteristic, out-of-sequence action he said, “CC (central complaint number) for your paperwork: one million.” That was a lot of responses to calls for service for a department that covered a territory only fourteen miles wide by fifty-five miles long with a population of about one-and-a-half million people.

In truth, no matter where you work as a cop, no one escapes the “cat in a tree” call and sooner or later everyone gets to handle at least one “big one.”

I chose to transplant my former Long Island detective lieutenant from his crowded area of responsibility and 3,000 comrades to a small touristy town in the Smoky Mountains because stories about small town cops solving big time murders are popular. Writers like Robert B. Parker, Craig Johnson, Julia Spencer-Fleming, and Philip R. Craig are only a few who have cashed in on these crosses between hardboiled and cozy crime stories.

I did it because I could also factor in another popular premise, the fish-out-of-water hero. When I left New York and relocated to East Tennessee I experienced CULTURE SHOCK. We had vacationed there a half dozen times, scouted out the territory during different times of the year, and then set about buying suitable land upon which to build a retirement home. But nothing provides emersion training like leaving the familiar (forty-six years worth) and dropping yourself into a new environment. It’s not terribly unlike parachuting behind enemy lines to organize an indigenous resistance in an unfamiliar land. Well, perhaps I exaggerate a wee bit, but you get the idea.

To make writing his part easy for me, I wanted my protagonist, Sam Jenkins, to have had a similar career as I and to have retired to the same area where I did. I’d write about what I knew. I’d let him revisit my old cases in a new venue as the police chief supervising only twelve other cops. A vastly different department, but he’d encounter the police officer’s universal bugaboos—quirky characters, quirky cops, oddball cases, and the ever present meddling politicians.

In more than twenty novels and novelettes, Sam has done the bulk of investigating on his own. That’s a tough job which requires a bit of suspension of disbelief from the reader. Occasionally he gets help from his desk sergeant and right-hand woman, Bettye Lambert, or a few of the patrolmen who steal time from their regular duties. But in a department of only thirteen bodies it’s difficult to solve major crimes. And if you believe what I write, you’ll think that sleepy little Prospect has a homicide rate higher than Detroit. Jessica Fletcher did it in Cabot Cove and Jesse Stone still does it in Paradise, why couldn’t I do it in Prospect? Up until PIGEON RIVER BLUES, I’ve had Sam obtain additional help by bamboozling his friends, FBI Special Agent Ralph Oliveri (another expatriate New Yorker) and TV news anchor Rachel Williamson, into doing him often outrageous favors. But in this new novel, I’ve allowed Sam to hire John Gallagher, a retired NY detective who used to work in Sam’s squad and, after falling on difficult economic times, sold his expensive house in Boca Raton and purchased a modest home in Prospect. The idea that Prospect PD doesn’t have budgeted positions for detectives didn’t trouble Sam Jenkins. Gallagher needed a job. Sam had an opening for a clerk-typist—the match was made in heaven. The mayor agreed to change the job title to police operations aide, Sam swore him in as an auxiliary officer, and made him an honorary detective and comical sidekick.

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Are the Sam Jenkins books imitating life or the other way around?

Dec 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

Good cops are born actors. All you have to do is watch a pair of world-class interrogators go through their routine and you’d become a believer. And all cops have stories to tell. In many cases, their reality is that which much fiction is based. I’m surprised more cops don’t write books when they retire.

What a reader likes is very subjective. But I’ve heard that some people like my stories. That may be true, because I sell a few books. Here’s where I confess—I have more of a memory than imagination. Most of my stories are based on actual incidents I investigated, cases I supervised, or things I just knew a lot about. Often, I composite incidents into a single storyline and embellish and fictionalize it to make the finished product more readable. Not all police work is a thrill a minute. Recently, I’ve combined things I’ve seen since retiring and incorporate them as components of a story that originated in New York, but as ever, gets transplanted to Tennessee.

PIGEON RIVER BLUES is one of these eclectic blends of numerous vignettes surrounding one story-worthy plot.

The Collinsons and their henchman, Jeremy Goins, that trio of right-wing morons who threaten country singer, C.J. Proffit, are based or real characters I’ve met.

Since I began writing, I’ve been looking for the right place to introduce retired Detective John Gallagher, the goofy-acting but extremely competent former colleague of Sam Jenkins, who suffers from a severe case of malapropism. “John,” who is now a regular cast member at Prospect PD, is also based on a real person with whom I worked for many years.

Giving Sam and company an unwanted job of providing personal security for the famous singer allowed me to recall a few assignments I had in the Army and the reoccurring VIP security details we were bamboozled into taking on during my time in one command of the police department where I worked.

Originally, I had included an addendum or author’s disclaimer at the end of the novel—sort of a “don’t try this at home” statement about some of the things Sam pulled off during this adventure. But the publisher didn’t want it, and he was probably correct because they were all things that in reality, whether good police practice or not, are done for the sake of expedience.

You’ll read a statement at the beginning of all my books sounding something like this: ‘This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead or to actual incidents is a coincidence and a figment of the author’s immagination.’ Yeah? Nuts. I was there. I knew these people. But I take literary license to change things as I see fit. I make incidents more exciting, people more beautiful or uglier, and to paraphrase Jack Webb’s weekly statement on the old TV show DRAGNET, I change the names to protect the guilty . . . and keep me out of civil court.

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BOOK SIGNING TIPS AND HORRORS

Dec 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

When I began writing fiction I held many misconceptions; one being that after the final edits and the presses were humming away printing books, my job was almost done. My only other obligation would be to pull up a chair at a table sitting in a highly trafficked area of a local book store, smile at the customers, and sign anything but a blank check. Then I learned about the world of electronic marketing and promotions—but that’s another story.

After twenty years as a cop, I figured sweet talking potential book buyers into choosing one of my novels couldn’t be more difficult than coaxing a confession out of a reluctant-to-talk felon. Sitting next to my nicely dressed and attractive wife, I’d smile for the crowd and as the customers walked by say, “Hi, do you like mysteries?”

In many cases that approach proved successful. When Borders was still doing business in Knoxville, I could sell a carton of books in two or three hours. But the retailing phenomenon was new to me and not all the customers would succumb to my irresistible smile. For every bibliophile who stopped to learn about my books, a half dozen would only give me a sidelong glance, drop their eyes, and scurry away as if I was a timeshare salesman.

All retail stores have their busy times, but plenty of lulls. When buyers or just talkers were at a premium and my eyelids began to feel heavy, I’d ask my wife to man the fort. I’d tuck a copy of my latest book under my arm and head toward the mystery stacks. Fearing that a female customer might scream and claim I tried to molester her, I never confronted anyone in an unlit corner, but in the appropriate place I resurrected the smile and asked a browser if they would be interested in a police mystery about a fictional local murder. I was surprised at how many answered in the affirmative. I learned that pushing the local angle with an explanation about how many readers said they liked the descriptions I wrote showing my hero travelling the same roads they took getting to and from work or the stores.

Some people who had unlimited shelf space and didn’t restrict themselves to eBooks liked the idea of buying a signed copy—especially when I told them it would be worth a small fortune after I died.

Most of my old-fashioned book signings have been positive experiences. Not all were landslide sale days, but I’ve met far more nice people than specimens I was tempted to slap a pair handcuffs on.

However, one event in an upscale indie bookshop might qualify as a semi-horror story. My publisher arranged it. He booked a date, sent the proprietress two huge professionally prepared posters, and said, “Go get’em, kid.” I showed up bright and early in a sport jacket and slacks looking like a detective ready to work a five-to-one tour and found no one but a clerk in the shop. I expected at least a line wrapped around the building. Silly me. The shop owner never told the publisher that I’d be in competition with a festival, only blocks away, which provided not only good bluegrass music, but free hot dogs and soft drinks. The clerk and I looked at each other for about fifteen minutes before one woman walked in wanting a book. Just after she arrived, the shop owner showed up and dropped her bomb on me. I was expected to make a formal presentation and do a reading. Yikes, I thought. I could “wing” a half hour talking about my books and how I came to write them, do a little softshoe, and thank the old girl for coming. But I didn’t have my glasses and hadn’t picked out an excerpt appropriate for a dramatic reading. And I had an audience of only one! Anyone used to public speaking would rather address a crowd of three-hundred any time. That day I learned that if my vision got any worse and my arms didn’t get any longer, I could never again pull off something like that without reading glasses.

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FIVE THINGS I WISH I HAD KNOWN BEFORE I BEGAN WRITING

Dec 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

No one begins a new venture knowing all the ins and outs of the business. I’d been writing non-fiction magazine articles for ten years before I decided to try fiction. How difficult could it be? You write something good and publishers will be fighting to sign you. I heard that having an agent was a good thing. Another easy thing, right? You want to sell a house, list it with a real estate agent. You want to steal classified military documents, send a secret agent. So, a writer should only have to pick the literary agent that appears to be the best. Agents only make money representing writers. They should welcome a new face. Ha! That brings me to the first thing I wish I had known more about as a fledgling fiction writer.

AGENTS.
I bought a cheap copy of WRITER’S DIGEST on the Internet and made a list of agents interested in mysteries and police procedurals. Then I constructed a proper business letter stating my purpose and described what I was peddling—in this case, my first Sam Jenkins novel, A NEW PROSPECT. The letter spanned a little more than a page and a half. It looked like a masterpiece and I started by sending out a dozen. Fool that I am, I expected responses in a week or two. Ha! (I say again) Months later, the rejections began trickling in with only terse one-liners, “Sorry, not for me/us.” Ninety-nine percent of these nitwits hadn’t read one page of my book. So, I tried another dozen. Same story.

Then I read a local advertisement. Writer’s workshop. First class: The Query Letter. I signed up and showed the instructor my letter. She smiled and began nodding. A good sign. Then she went to page two and the smile turned to a frown and the nods to an almost violent shake. Uh-oh; not good. “This may work if you’re applying for a job,” she said, “but agents want to see a particular format and they DO NOT have time to read more than one page.”

“Huh?” said I. I had visited their websites. Most agents wrote daily blogs—long ones, with precious few or no comments from followers. If these megalomaniacal self-styled power brokers had so little time, why were they wasting it writing blogs no one was reading rather than dealing with legitimate queries and hitting the bricks trying to sell their client’s books? That question has still never been answered.

So, I learned the proper structure of a query letter, had it blessed by the workshop instructor, an author with multiple titles traditionally published, and I sent out a dozen more. And then another, and another. I got so many rejections, I wondered if I needed a stronger deodorant. Only one agent showed the courtesy to send a personal note explaining his reason for rejecting my manuscript. In essence, he said he liked my “voice” and the mood of my narrative. But he told me that a sixty-year-old retired New York detective who embarks on a second career as a Tennessee police chief just wasn’t trendy. He suggested I make my protagonist a young vampire private investigator from Orange County who secretly fights crime as a Batman-like vigilante. I gave up on the agent idea.

TRENDS & MARKETABILITY
I met an award-winning author at our local library. He was a guy who’d been writing good books for more than thirty years. I told him about my novel and he told me the facts of life in the publishing business. “It’s all about money. You don’t have to be good, you have to be marketable.” I thought I was a pretty worldly guy, but had hoped at least some part of the business was for real. He continued, “Agents and publishers all say they’re looking for The Next Great American Novel. Hogwash. They’re looking for what will sell. James Fenimore Cooper couldn’t get a job writing greeting cards today.” He drew my attention to a famous quote from the great Raymond Chandler. “We are dealing with a public that is semi-literate and we have to make art of a language they can understand.” My new mentor went on to say, “You look like an intelligent adult. Read any zombie novels lately? No? You’re one of the few who hasn’t.”

SEMI-PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHERS
When I abandoned the idea of retaining a literary agent, I focused on writing to any traditional publisher who would accept submissions directly from an author. My investigation led me to a crop of both good and questionable publishers. I wasted time weeding through those who were actually aspiring writers who self-published (nothing wrong with that) and knew their way around a computer (unlike me.) In effect, they were like the guy you meet at a new job who is there only three weeks more than you. They act like they know it all and have the world by the tail, but in truth, they may be no more than well-meaning dreamers with little knowledge or experience of publishing and the important components of the business: marketing and promotion.

REVIEWS
Aha! This falls into the realm of pet peeves. I always thought reviews should be honest and objective opinions of someone’s work from critics with knowledge of general or specific genres of writing and good literary structure and style. Ha! (See, I said it again) There are plenty of good professional and semi-professional reviewers who do an honest job for a salary or no compensation and assist would-be readers with opinions upon which to base their decision to buy or not buy a particular book. And good for them, we need people like this. But then I discovered the skullduggery that goes on in many of the Facebook writer’s groups and the percentage of writers who wheel and deal to get spurious four and five star reviews. I’m not fabricating this or blowing smoke at you here. I’ve had offers like that which I’ll describe. “You read my book and I’ll read yours,” they say. “Likes and reviews are the only way you’ll sell books on the Internet. We have to stick together.” Then they pussyfoot around and give glowing reviews of perhaps mediocre work just to get something similar in return. Not everyone does this, but it’s far too prevalent and leaves the system diluted and suspect of being a sham.

DOUBLE STANDARDS
Uh-oh, another pet peeve from Zurl. When I started writing I figured if something works don’t change it. I never intended to plagiarize anyone’s work, but throughout history, people have looked at good ideas and “borrowed” proven styles and themes. Anyone from my generation can think back to television from the mid-1950s to early-1960s. If you weren’t watching an “adult western,” you followed the exploits of cops and private eyes with strikingly similar stories. I once read that try as anyone may, all plots boil down to one of eleven basic storylines.

So, I followed my dream and made my stories mostly embellished and fictionalized accounts of real cases I investigated, supervised, or just knew a lot about, and wrote in the styles of proven artists I admired—the guys who published and sold lots of books. Why argue with success, right? Meanwhile, back in the writer’s workshop I’d hear, “You’re a new writer, you can’t do that.” I thought, “Why not? Joe Wambaugh does it all the time.” Or, “Hey, I just read something very similar from Robert B. Parker.” Or, “Jeez, James Lee Burke shifts from one POV to another all the time.” The response was, “But you’re not (enter any name you’d like,) you can’t start off breaking the rules.”

Double standards stink. If you write something well—something that sounds good, is entertaining, and tells a good story, you should be allowed to stray from the template or formula the “Big 6” permits a new writer to utilize.

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