What’s In a Name?

Feb 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

A simple and common question, but the correct answer can make your story or novel jump from forgettable to memorable.

I named my protagonist, Sam Jenkins, after my maternal grandfather. But beyond the familial connection, I thought it sounded right for an ex-New York detective who retired and found himself a job as police chief in a small Tennessee town. Jenkins is a good working-class Scottish or Welsh family name and Sam conjures up thoughts of the famous gumshoe, Sam Spade.

Sound is important in writing. Everything verbal needs rhythm. I always read my stories aloud. If they don’t flow and sound good, I change the text or dialogue—something like a songwriter. You need a smooth transition from sentence to sentence, not bumps. The sound of a name is just as important. Call your heroine Betty Boop not Sally Valli.

Image is also important. What or who do you envision when you hear a name? Who would call the leader of an outlaw motorcycle club Casper Milquetoast?

Everything I write takes place in rural Appalachia. The Smoky Mountain region has its own crop of unique family and given names. So, I couldn’t get away with naming a lifelong resident of Prospect Anton Jablonowski. Billy Don Loveday works better.

Everyone’s stories take place somewhere and that somewhere has its own colloquial names. When I lived in New York, I knew people like Vito Cavettelli, Rosie Gemmelli, Stanley Kapusta, et al. They won’t work in Tennessee or even during my character’s occasional forays into southern Kentucky.

Here’s how I find memorable names for my characters:
My wife and I travel a lot. After we settle into a motel room, mix a cocktail, and turn on a rerun of NCIS, one of us grabs a telephone book and looks for typically regional names. We make two columns—one for first names and one for surnames. When I need something for an important character, I mix and match by sound and what fits the personality.

Other options:
Steal names from billboards or occasionally highway exit signs. In Georgia, I used two towns to make one character—Varnell Watkins. Political campaign posters are great sources, too. When I needed a handle for a totally repulsive-looking and despicable antagonist to be featured in an upcoming novel, two candidates unwittingly donated their names. Someone running for office in a neighboring county had the family name Bone. A real keeper. Another candidate was called Telford Something. Voila, Telford Bone surfaced and became a character I hope no one forgets.

Remember the basics. Guys like Luke Skywalker don’t live in Brattleboro, Vermont. Hoppalong Cassidy is probably from Wyoming or thereabouts. Chip Cooper might be found cruising Sunset Strip, while Jamal Willie Walker is bopping down Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn. Larry Finklestein works as a podiatrist in Roslyn on Long Island.

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A Yanks Opinion of The Emerald Isle

Feb 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

We had been to Scotland and England thirteen times when I decided living another year without seeing Ireland might be impossible.

I don’t like organized tours. In fact, I don’t like anything organized unless I make the rules. So, booking a trip and sharing a coach with a bunch of sixty-year-old Americans looking for their Celtic roots was out of the question. When we travel, I drive and it doesn’t matter on which side of the road I do it.

After landing at Shannon Airport and picking up a rental car, we left Limerick and headed toward Cork. An organization I belonged to (for reasons that will soon become obvious, it shall remain nameless and be spared unspeakable embarrassment) offered accommodations at a price that attracted the Scottish side of me. They described their place as, “A Quaint and lovely townhouse nestled back in a private mews.” Photos in the brochure they sent made the duplex apartment look like one of the more desirable properties in the country. But when we walked in, I assumed the pictures in the brochure had been taken in 1925, not 2005. I had seen more appealing tenement flophouses. We left, of course.

Our next stop was the closest national police station where I found the duty detective sergeant and threw myself at his mercy. Local cops always have connections and he led us to a B&B operated by a retired policeman’s wife. The old guesthouse was glorious and breakfast the next morning was our first introduction to good Irish food.

For years now I’ve been saying I have never been to a country where we found better meals. No, Wayne doesn’t eat junk food, especially while traveling. I tell New Yorkers to forget the misconception that Irish cuisine is limited to corned beef and cabbage. During a time when English pub grub was strictly fried fish and mushy peas, Irish chefs were attending schools, learning how to best prepare locally obtained seafood and veggies.

So, Cork was a success. We toured the Jameson distillery and learned lots about Irish whiskey. A short trip down to Kinsale gave us a good look at the south coast. And of course, I needed to see Blarney Castle, but refused to kiss the stone because of what that helpful Sergeant told me naughty teenagers do after hours.

Our next stop was a farmhouse B&B just outside Killarney. A week in the southwest corner of the country took us again through beautiful coastal villages like Bantry, Kenmare, and Derrymore, And of course more seafood. Then to the famous jaunting carts of the Killarney National Park, the Dingle Peninsula, and my introduction to Smithwick’s Ale.

From Killarney, we drove north through Tralee and Ennis, to the Cliffs of Maher, to Limerick and Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, then into Galway—just in time for the annual oyster festival.
Driving in Ireland is fun—especially for an aging sports car fan. It’s different than Great Britain and the reason becomes apparent as you’re twisting your way over the countless country lanes that connect all those picturesque villages. The Romans never conquered Ireland and never introduced straight roads. Of course there are modern roadways, but nothing like the US Interstate highways or British M roads where speed is the object and there’s little opportunity to enjoy the ride and get your share of banging the gearbox.

Two thousand photos later, we sat on a plane flying back to the US.
Next time: The northwest and north, and after that Dublin and th

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WRITING WHAT YOU KNOW and Getting Inspiration From the World Around You

Feb 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

Picture a half-dozen old cops sitting around a table. The waitress just removed the dishes, but each man still holds a drink.

The former ranking man of the group takes a sip of single-malt scotch. “We laughed when it was over,” he says, “but for a few minutes, we were all sweating.”

“I remember,” another retired detective says. “Came close to soiling my knickers there.”

A third man at the table speaks, “They shoulda made a TV movie outta that one.”

The six people looked around at their colleagues, nodded, and sampled more of their beverages.

The guy with the single-malt whisky retired and eventually tried his hand at a new occupation. Today he’s writing police mystery novels—only because of the old author’s maxim: ‘Write what you know.’

Suppose you’ve never been a cop? Can you still write mysteries? Why not?

Let’s look at the TV series LAW & ORDER. It ran for almost twenty years and at most utilized one technical advisor with police or prosecutor’s experience. How did the writers knock out so many quality episodes? They looked at the world around them, used real-life drama as a basis for their script, and filled in the blanks.

Every episode came with the disclaimer, ‘Any similarity to an actual event or real persons living or dead is purely coincidental,’ or words to that effect. But as any fan will tell you, that statement is pure hogwash. A blithering idiot could draw parallels with actual events recently in the news; the premise, at times, was blatant.

The show’s producer made a fortune with LAW & ORDER and the subsequent spinoffs, and anyone can cash in on the same idea. Life is full of good stories, just change the names to protect the innocent—and keep yourself out of civil court.

I often say my stories are based on actual incidents. That’s true, but no fiction can be totally unembellished fact or it would be a report and not a novel—probably boring to read. I claim to have a better memory than imagination. That’s true, too, but some imagination is always necessary in fiction. My second novel, A LEPRECHAUN’S LAMENT, was based on an actual case, but I couldn’t resist inventing a beautiful Irish girl and a few other touches just to make fiction better than fact.

Really don’t have the imagination to conjure up an epic fantasy novel, but still feel the call of writing? What’s the problem? What do you do for a living? UPS driver? Server in a posh restaurant? Bank teller? That last one comes with oodles of possibilities for good drama.

Hear about a hostage situation on the 6 o’clock news? How about a UPS driver walking into the middle of that? You’d get all the details of the package delivery business correct and with a little research, fake your way through the police procedures.

The local papers run a story about employees finding a body in the parking lot of a classy restaurant. Okay, server, embellish that event front and back with your knowledge of the food business and what you’ve seen happen in the dining room or bar.

And let’s not waste words on what kind of excitement can come from the customers and staff in a bank.

Look around you. Read the newspapers. Watch the news. Use Life as a basis for a story that becomes uniquely yours when it smacks you between the eyes like a 2×4. It’s not plagiarism unless you rewrite someone else’s work. Draw inspiration from . . . who knows what!

Almost every interviewer has asked, “Where do you get the inspiration for what you write?” The actual plots may come from my past or what I see down the road. The inspiration may come from anything. Often it hits me while driving at 70 on an Interstate. Sometimes my eyes click open at 2 a.m. and I remember something that might make an exciting story. Or I may hear an explosion while sitting on the porch. Like a cop in a street-crime unit who doesn’t get complaints to answer, you have to go out there and drum up your own cases. Writers can’t look for stories in someone else’s books. The world is like a take-out menu waiting for you to select something and go with it.

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SAM JENKINS INTERVIEWED ON AUTHOR DAVID CLEINMAN’S BLOG.

Feb 2, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

David,

Thanks for the opportunity to become a member of your group and introduce your fans to Sam Jenkins, the main character in my series of police mysteries.

Readers meet Sam as the police chief in the small Smoky Mountain city of Prospect, Tennessee. They know he retired as a detective lieutenant in New York, but much of his past is sketchy. There’s a reason for that. If a writer doesn’t know it beforehand, they quickly learn too much back-story can be the death knell with an editor—a one way ticket to the slush pile.

But over the last 2 ½ years since Jenkins reared his head in print, readers have asked questions about his life prior to Prospect PD. This seems like a great opportunity for him to sound off.

Sam agreed to be interviewed. He’s flattered and thinks this will be like Doctor Watson interviewing Sherlock Holmes. He would; like Holmes, Jenkins owns a large ego—about the size of South Dakota.

WZ: Hey, Sammy, we’ve known each other a long time and seem to share many common experiences. Any idea how long it’s been?

SJ: Seems like forever, but that would be an exaggeration. I remember the old neighborhood, school, the Army, finishing college on the GI Bill, the police department and now, retirement. Jeez, we both even relocated to east Tennessee. A lot of similarities. That’s scary.

WZ: [chuckling] I may be asking a few personal questions. Would you like to have an attorney present?

SWJ: Don’t be an ass.

WZ: I can’t remember, did I ask you or did you ask me to write stories about you and this new job as police chief?

SJ: You asked. Remember your mid-life crisis? You bought a sports car and said you needed a creative outlet. You could have told your own stories. Write your memoirs, for God’s sake. Why pick on me?

WZ: Excuse me for not answering. I’m the one asking the questions.

SJ: [Made no comment. Rolled his eyes and shrugged.]

WZ: A NEW PROSPECT starts everything off in the series. You get the chief’s job and readers meet your wife, Kate, and most of the cops you work with. And you catch a homicide case during your first week on duty. Then you get socked with negative influence from the victim’s powerful family and a load of political corruption. Tough first case.

SJ: Convenient, wasn’t it? And nice how you used the story to filter in my knowledge of old British sports cars.

WZ: Writers call that exposition.

SJ: Cops call it sneaky. But I like how you gave my ’67 Austin-Healy an important role.
WZ: Yeah, it’s a great old car and having the murder take place at the annual British car show kept the theme interesting. Now, back to the interview. Tell the people how we came up with plots for all these Sam Jenkins mysteries.

SJ: That’s sneaky, too. We take cases from back in New York—real incidents, although you and the publishers say these are all fictional. Then, because you’re the writer, you embellish them—add elements that make good fiction. And you transplant everything to Tennessee. It’s not only sneaky, it sounds easy.

WZ: Maybe you think it’s easy, but I have to change the names to protect the innocent.

SJ: Yeah, like Jack Webb. You really change things to protect the guilty and keep me out of civil court.
WZ: I keep us out of court. Come on, focus. I don’t have much time here. The next full-length novel scheduled for publication early this year is called A LEPRECHAUN’S LAMENT. Remember that “Typewriter Murray” case back in the 1980s? Tell the readers what they can expect.

SJ: Do I remember it? Jeez, I lost enough sleep over that one. What began as an easy background investigation on a civilian employee turned into the most tangled can of worms I ever saw. A fifty-five year old man didn’t exits prior to his twentieth birthday. He was a specter, had no history, no answers. Everything was a lie. And then he got whacked. The shooter could have been anyone. We looked the world over for his killer. Everybody got involved—the FBI, CIA, British and Irish cops, and more spooks than you could shake a nightstick at. Hell of a story.

WZ: Yeah, I remember. And what else have we got on the coming soon list?

SJ: A couple audio books. One is already recorded. It’s called FATE OF A FLOOZY. An aging Hollywood actress is caught in the sack with a much younger man. Bam! Someone kills the pair with an $8,000 shotgun. Then there’s THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAIN BANK JOB. That girl we went to high school with shows up—Wanda Whatshername—the one who joined the Weather Underground and ended up on the Ten Most Wanted list. I get pushed into clearing a forty year old homicide the feds couldn’t solve. Am I good, or what?

WZ: Stop ending your answers with a question.

SJ: Remember how much you’re paying me for this interview.

WZ: What do you think about having these stories produced and recorded by professionals?

SJ: I like the actor who narrates and plays me. Although I think he’s got too much of a Brooklyn accent. I was born there, but as you know, lived my life on Long Island. We don’t tawk like dat.

WZ: We just signed a contract for another big book called HEROES & LOVERS. Talk about that one.

SJ: That one is a little embarrassing; at least my wife thinks so. I sort of get a little too involved with Rachel, the TV reporter from Knoxville. Your editor tells me it’s a good story element. Readers should be gritting their teeth wondering what’s going to happen between us.
And I like how you use two separate, but intricately linked investigations—a larceny by fraud and a kidnapping. And you showed a bit of my dark side. I have to smack a suspect around a little. What can I tell you?

WZ: You’re doing the question thing again.

SJ: What?

WZ: Forget it. I think we’ve run out of time.

SJ: So?

WZ: So, you haven’t given the readers much of your biography.

SJ: That’s your job. I read your stuff. You sneak in more of my history with each story. Hey, they send you the royalty checks. You should do the work. What do I get out of this arrangement?

WZ: What do you want?

SJ: Something I can’t have. I wish you sold me that ’59 Jag XK-150 you found in a barn on the east end of the Island.

WZ: Ancient history. Get over it.

SJ: Easy for you to say.

WZ: Say good-night, Sam.

SJ: Good-night, Sam.

WZ: And, David, thanks again for allowing me to interview my partner for your fans. Our best to everyone.

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THE LENGTH OF WHAT YOU WROTE AND OTHER THINGS THAT WILL DRIVE YOU CRAZY

Feb 1, 2014 by Wayne Zurl

My problem isn’t unique to writers. If your personality demands that you and other people get the facts straight, you might cringe when you hear blatantly incorrect statements.

As a cop, I hated to hear crimes mislabeled. Most often, I encountered misuse of the term robbery. People would greet me at the door and say, “My house was robbed.” I got tired of saying, “Sorry, ma’am, only a person can be robbed. You weren’t home when someone broke in. It’s a burglary.” They’d look at me like I just said Santa Claus was a pedophile.

Anyone can feel the pain of improper usage. As a weekend sailor, I loved my gaff rigged Long Island catboat. It was a classic, old-fashioned thing and well-meaning people would smile and say, “That’s a nice schooner.” I’d squint at them, grit my teeth and . . .

For seventeen years we shared our home with a Scottish terrier breeders might call a throwback. Bitsey’s legs were too long, her ears were too big, and her tail wasn’t docked. She looked like an old Highland farm dog. I walked her for miles. She was as cute as hell and people often stopped me and asked, “Is that a black Schnauzer?” I gave up squinting and explaining. I just growled and became known as the neighborhood eccentric.

As a writer, I’ve had four novels traditionally published. But, I’ve also written a whole bunch of shorter mysteries that were aimed at becoming one hour audio books—like the old one hour radio dramas popular before TV. In addition to seeing life as audio downloads and compact discs, they were simultaneously published as eBooks.

They’ve been moderately successful, and often reviewers say, “I loved this story, but it was too short. I don’t often read novellas.”

The squint came back. I’ve worn off an eighth-of-an-inch of tooth enamel gritting. I developed a facial tic, and if you want a tip on the stock market, buy Advil. I use truckloads to get rid of tension headaches. Obviously, I don’t handle this well.

I don’t write novellas. Fifty-five to seventy minute audio books are produced from 8,000 to 11,000 word stories which are technically novelettes.

So, how does a borderline obsessive/compulsive guy like me get the word out? Easy. Write an essay explaining the category of stories by length.

Here ya go:
The standard, generally accepted length for a flash fiction piece is 1000 words or less.
By contrast, a short-short measures 1,001 words to 2,500 words, and a traditional short story is 2,501 to 7,500 words.
A novelette runs from 7,501 words to 17,500.
A novella, 17,501 to 40,000 words.
And a novel 40,001 words and up.
I can’t find an official definition for those ponderous things over 100,000 words, but some call them epics.
Backing up to the flash fiction category, you might see things called Drabbles. They are exactly 100 words. Droubbles are exactly 200. I spent ten minutes on Google looking for what you call something exactly 300 and 400 words. I had no luck. Tribbles? Quadribbles? Who cares?

I don’t know why people try to be that specific. Someone told me it’s to test your skill and discipline. Hogwash. If it a story sounds better with 216 words, Droubbles be damned. The sound of your writing is all important.

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Putting a Dialect into Dialogue

Sep 25, 2011 by Wayne Zurl

Writing dialogue with a dialect can generate controversy and debate and on occasion, even animosity among writers and readers.
I write about an ex-New York detective working as a police chief in rural east Tennessee. The accents he’s been exposed to are about as similar as a Venezuelan and a Glaswegian, both attempting to speak understandable English. Sorry Scotland.
I live in the same area where my protagonist works. Coincidently, I’m also an ex-New Yorker. And through nine novelettes and one full-length novel, I’ve written, using in varying degrees, east Tennessee accents.

To my ear, there are three distinct sounds to the accents here and I write them all. And occasionally, I have a New Yorker visit Chief Sam Jenkins and we hear them ask for a “cuppa kawfee”, say they will “open a windah” or cut the grass with a “mowah.” I do that so the residents of southern Appalachia can’t say I’m exclusively picking on them when I write the universal greeting of the Smoky Mountain region, “You doin’ aw rot t’day?” or any of the other appropriate colloquialisms I hear all the time. Honest folks, I don’t make this up. I only write what I hear—and I have always had a good ear for languages. That’s why I can speak English fairly well, am semi-fluent in two other languages, and can swear and order a beer in five more.

Okay, let’s look at what the experts say. In his book THE 38 MOST COMMON FICTION WRITING MISTAKES (And How to Avoid Them) Jack M. Bickham wrote a 2 ¼ page chapter called Don’t Mangle Characters’ Speech. Jack says NEVER deviate from the King’s English; it may tend to confuse a reader. Prior to his death, Bickham published about 75 novels and taught English at the University of Oklahoma.

Since I didn’t like Jack’s answer, I looked further. Everyone’s heard of Stephen King and may have read one or more of his sci-fi/horror novels. I think we’ll all agree Stephen has done well for himself in the author business. I’m not a fan of horror stories, so I don’t read his fiction, but I liked and recommend his book ON WRITING (A Memoir of the Craft). The first half tells the story of a young Stephen teaching high school English in Bangor, Maine, near poverty, and in danger of having his utilities turned off until he finally sold the famous CAREY. The second half is pure advice on how to write fiction King’s way.

Stephen’s take on writing dialect is: Write it the way you hear it. And he’s got a unique accent to duplicate in “Down East” Maine.
Steve, however, says: Don’t substitute apostrophes for the letters you leave out of the words. Example: writin’ rather than writing, should simply be writin, according to King.

So, I was looking at a stalemate, one for and one ag’in.
While working on my full-length novel, A NEW PROSPECT, I hired Bill Greenleaf, a retired editor, book doctor, and author of nine novels. Bill also said: Write it as you hear it; it’s more authentic when dealing with characters who speak in a unique accent. He further stated that new writers probably shouldn’t just omit letters without using the substitute apostrophe as suggested by King. That may only confuse editors, thinking you may be submitting a manuscript with typos. Sad but true—a guy like Stephen King can get away with much more than you or I.

A NEW PROSPECT was traditionally published and the publisher/editor accepted all the dialect without question. Since I’ve mentioned my book twice and at my age, I no longer have any modesty, I’ll mention it was named best mystery at the 2011 Indie Book Awards. So, I guess the dialect wasn’t too troubling to the three judges who read the proof copies.
Additionally, both the publisher and editor at Mind Wings Audio which has produced nine of my novelettes in audio book and simultaneously published them as eBooks have accepted them all written with oodles of Tennessee dialect. (A novelette is defined as something between 7,500 and 17,500 words.)

Some readers or reviewers of my works say, “I’m from the south and I don’t speak like that.” Understandable. Someone from Charleston, South Carolina sounds nothing like someone from Cocke County, Tennessee. Someone from Nashville in middle Tennessee doesn’t even sound like someone from the Smokies. To these people I say: If you’ve never been in my neck of the woods, don’t comment on how my neighbors speak. Not only can I speak with some authority on how a resident of east Tennessee speaks, I lived in New York for forty-six years and know first-hand someone from Brooklyn sounds nothing like a resident of Buffalo.

Recently a reviewer said: Writing in dialect never works. I’m suspicious of someone who uses absolutes like always or never. When I hear that, I tend to wonder where they derive their expertise on the subject upon which they commented. This reviewer claimed: It would be enough to state that the character spoke with a heavy accent. Isn’t that telling and not showing? George Peleconos has written a successful (It seems to have worked for him) series of novels featuring black private detective, Derek Strange, working in Washington DC. Peleconos extensively writes dialogue in Ebonics. It only makes sense. Jive-ass, hip-hop, gangsta-rapping drug dealers do not speak like little old men from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In my opinion, it would not sound authentic and detract from the story if no dialect was used.

Some readers have told me: Reading dialects makes me slow down. So what? What’s the hurry? Do you want to absorb and understand a novel or just knock out another book and add one more to your “I’ve read” list? Sometimes, I think professional readers (self-styled, unpaid reviewers) cruise through books so fast they really can’t write an intelligent review. Another opinion: Everyone should savor a good book. Slow down and smell the printer’s ink.

THE END

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