The Hateful Eight— Tarantino mailed it in

I like westerns and I like Quentin Tarantino films, so I had high expectation when I rented The Hateful Eight. Bummer. It's not only a crummy movie … punishment is compounded by its interminable length. Long is usually good for Tarantino, but it’s a bad sign if you ever consciously wonder when this thing will be over. The movie desperately needed editing by someone unintimidated by the grand master.

The Hateful Eight came across as a parody of a Tarantino movie instead of the genuine article. His good films are characterized by stylish cinematography, clever and incongruous banter, startling and extreme violence, and artful revelation of plot through time displacement. The Hateful Eight included all of these elements, but without charisma. It felt flat and uninspired. Tarantino dispassionately applied his formula without the artistic essentials that make it work.  Too bad. He’s tried twice to hit one out of the park with a western. Django Unchained was a ground-rule double, and he may have barely beat out an infield grounder with The Hateful Eight.

I have watched Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill films many time. I’ve also re-watched other Tarantino movies. I can’t imagine spinning up The Hateful Eight again.

John Steinbeck Writing Tips

Six tips on writing from Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck.

1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

Gunslingers Forever

Mark Bonner edits great tributes to western films. Previously, I posted his video, Westerns Forever. As an amateur film maker, I know these short videos are an enormous amount of work. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.


Gunslingers Forever by MarkmBonner

Henry Miller's Commandments

Henry Miller, circa 1930

As someone who admires storytelling skills, I’m not a fan of Henry Miller. He wrote stop-and-read-again sentences, but stringing sentences together with coherency seemed beyond his capabilities. I suspect he injected sex into his writing because deep in his heart, he knew he was boring. Miller reminds me of the comment by Steve Martin’s character in Planes,Trains, and Automobiles, "And by the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea - have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener!"

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Die-hard Miller fans will say he had a point, but it's something along the lines of "all the world is crazy except me." Only the first part of that phrase may be true, and I expressed the point in five words.

My opinion of Miller might be biased because I think he was a jerk. Miller constantly harangued friends and acquaintances to supply his needs, and then heaped scorn on them if they complied. (This was especially true for women.) In his view, a worthy human would never kowtow to his entreaties. Much like Grocho, he didn’t want, “to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”

Despite my reservations, I’ll include his writing advice because many believe that Henry Miller was a literary giant. In typical Miller fashion, he called these commandments.

• Work on one thing at a time until finished.
• Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
• Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
• When you can’t create you can work.
• Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
• Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
• Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
• Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
• Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
• Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

Writing Tips from Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway never published advice for aspiring writers, but he spoke or wrote enough about writing that Larry W. Phillips was able to edit a collection of his reflections on the craft. (Ernest Hemingway on Writing)

In the preface, Phillips writes, “Throughout Hemingway’s career as a writer, he maintained that it was bad luck to talk about writing—that it takes off ‘whatever butterflies have on their wings and the arrangement of hawk’s feathers if you show it or talk about it.’ Despite this belief, by the end of his life he had done just what he intended not to do. In his novels and stories, in letters to editors, friends, fellow artists, and critics, in interviews and in commissioned articles on the subject, Hemingway wrote often about writing.”

Here’s one piece of advice I like:

Hemingway said to F. Scott Fitzgerald that, “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

This nugget reminds me of a photography course I took many years ago with my wife. (She got an A while I received only a B. Darn. And we took pictures of the same subjects.) Anyway, the teacher told us if we wanted to build a reputation as good photographer, we should take lots and lots of pictures and throw all of the bad ones away. Simple … but expensive in the age of film photography. In the digital age, this advice has become cost free. If adhered to religiously, this technique allows a visual dufus like me to catch up with my wife.

Here are some more tips gleaned from Hemingway lifelong musings about writing.

• Use short sentences.
• Use short first paragraphs.
• Use vigorous English.
• Be positive, not negative.
• To get started, write one true sentence.
• Always stop for the day while you still know what will happen next.
• Never think about the story when you’re not working.
• Don’t describe an emotion–make it.
• Be Brief.
• The first draft of everything is shit.
• Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.
• Write drunk, edit sober.

If you’re inclined, there’s even an app that will measure your writing clarity against Hemingway. I’m not one for machine assisted writing tools, but at $9.99, this one seems inexpensive. I bought it and tried it out on this post. It received a “good” score. Ironically, the quote from Larry W. Phillips was highlighted as the least comprehensible.  

How to become an overnight success!

Fame is but 70,000 words away

Recently I talked with an aspiring writer who felt unsure about her first novel. She asked how I started. Specifically, she wanted to know if I tried nonfiction, short pieces, or just jumped directly into a novel. She wanted to know if I had help. Did I take classes, use a writing coach, or read books about the craft of writing. The questions came in a torrent. My response, a single syllable.

“Yes.”

I always wanted to be a novelist. In fact, I started college as an English major. I could tell a good story, but my grammar and spelling embarrassed me so often, I switched to economics. I never again thought about writing until I had a brilliant idea for a novel. That idea started me on an extended foray into abject disillusionment and rejection. After shoe boxes full of rejections, an agent took the time to tell me that my book was crap, although he did give me credit for an intriguing storyline. The bottom of his short note read, “Writing is a profession, leave it to people who know what they’re doing.”

No more writing for years.

Then an interesting event took place. A professional journal approached me for an article about a technology success I had managed as CIO for a major corporation. That’s when I discovered editors. My piece laid out our technical project as a story about overcoming challenges, but my spelling and grammar—after all these years—still needed help. The editor not only fixed my flaws, but showed me every change she had made. I went through each and every one trying to learn how to do a better job next time. There were seven more “next times,” and each journal article improved until I felt I was getting the hang of writing.

Next, I started writing magazine articles. These were still nonfiction, technical pieces, but I branched away from computers to write about other subjects. But not for long. In a fit of optimism, I put together a proposal for a nonfiction book about managing computer professionals.

There’s an old saying in publishing that nonfiction depends on credentials and fiction depends on platform. Like a lot of clichés, this one has some truth to it. Because of my title as CTO of a Fortune 50 company, my book acquired an agent and publisher lickety-split. This endeavor became The Digital Organization, published by Wiley &Sons. The entire experience was a nightmare. Now, I discovered a new kind of editor—not one who fixed my transgressions, but one with the power to dictate content. The process was glacial. Not a good attribute for a book about the speed-of-light computer industry. I vowed never again to invest so much time on a book with a shelf-life measured in nano-seconds.

After a few failed nonfiction proposals, I wanted to try my hand at fiction again. I started by reading books that promised to teach the craft of novel writing. Definitely a mixed bag. After I got five chapters of my novel as close to perfect as possible, I hired a writing coach from Gotham Writers' Workshop. I discovered I had underestimated perfect. Despite a manuscript spattered with red ink, the coach was highly encouraging. She believed my book had serious potential and gave me numerous tips on how to get it to a professional level. Upon finishing Tempest at Dawn, I easily acquired an agent with McIntosh & Otis. I was going to be famous.

Not so much. The agent shopped the book around and received enough positive feedback to keep the effort up for a couple of years, but in the end, everyone decided to “pass” on my novel about the Constitutional Convention. In the meantime, I wrote a western titled The Shopkeeper, and a series was born.

I have now written nine novels, two nonfiction books, and ghostwritten books for celebrities. All of them have done respectable, but it was the Steve Dancy character who caught readers’ attention. The enthusiasm for the series surprised me, especially among women readers. I thought Westerns were dead. Instead, I discovered an eager audience for traditional heroes who dispatch bad men. 

And the best part: Westerns have a looong shelf life. Just ask Louis L’Amour. 

Honest stories filled with dishonest characters.

Surfing, editing, and sipping umbrella drinks

Kailua Beach and The Mokolua Islands

The Jenny's Revenge manuscript arrived back from my editor. I happen to be in Hawaii visiting family, surfing gentle Waikiki waves, and sipping umbrella drinks. My brother and his wife have graciously hosted us in their home in Kailua. Our visit to paradise was been slightly marred by a quick trip to a discount store to buy blankets because the weather is unusually cold. I've never shivered on any of my previous trips to Hawaii.

Since we mostly laze about, I've had time to make some progress on the edits to my manuscript. This is my eighth book working with the same editor, and I always delude myself that this time the manuscript is near perfect. Nothing doing. Red scars every page. Rather than just accept all the edits, I go through them one at a time. I find that I reject only about one in twenty, but every once in a while my editor makes a mistake and I revel in it. Speaking of mistakes, my first editor is my wife. She's supposed to catch all of my mistakes, which allows me to blame her for the red ink. She claims she is no more successful correcting my writing errors than fixing my personality flaws. They're both just too numerous. Oh well, c'est le vie.

To Each His Own

Some author’s dread poor reviews from readers. I like to hear what readers think and find I learn more from critical reviews. Besides, what some readers find objectionable, other readers enjoy. I never had a better example than today when I received two Amazon reviews that had exactly opposite takes on a major plot element of The Return.

Click to enlarge

Marilyn says, "Not as good the previous books in the series. Get Steve Dancy back to the West where he seems at home."

While another Amazon Customer wrote, "Enjoyed the Western theme, along with the Edison involvement. New York gangs added flavor that made this a great read."

No author can please every reader and it's career suicide to try. Don't ignore poor reviews because they can help  you become  a better writer, but keep your focus on the total weight of  all of  your reviews.  Every writer will get a few bad reviews, so take them with a grain of salt. 

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters

Too much information

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

Speed bumps take readers out of the story.

The final throes of revising Jenny’s Revenge reminded me that too much information doesn't help a story. Nothing bores a reader more than needless explanations about trivial matters the reader can fill in for themselves. Pointless factoids, excessive description, and extraneous words make an otherwise good novel clunky and laborious. 

This old lesson has special application to my writing because I have a need to neatly tie up every little thing. My brain somehow requires an explanation for every action by every character. This is important for the main plot, but can be distracting when it comes to tributaries. In fact, some tributaries can turn the plotline into a muddy mess. I also have a habit of siring orphans. In an initial draft, I'll launch a subplot, never to return to it. Most readers may not remember the distraction, but the dead end will irritate those that do. More often than not, I find a simple solution: send the orphan to the bit bucket. 

My goal during revision is to cut everything that doesn’t move the story forward. Goals aren’t always achieved, so it helps to have trusted critics that will give you honest feedback. Revision is not an event, but a process that encompasses several iterations.

This is why I believe good novels are not written, they’re rewritten. 

Merry Christmas and have a Great 2015

We're off to San Diego to escape winter in Nebraska. If the body is willing, I also hope to get in a little surfing. Actually, we don't have much planned. Just kick back and relax and finish revising Jenny's Revenge. Well, on second thought, we are going to Newport Beach with the families, camping in Death Valley for a week, having lots of company, flying to New York for a visit, and plan at least one ski trip to the Lake Tahoe resorts. Perhaps it won't be as kicked-back as I imagine. Oh well, it'll be fun.

Oh, and one more thing ... remember where to spend those Amazon Gift cards.

Expert Advice, Anyone?

In a Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Stephen King presents 20 writing tips. Most famous writers offer ten or perhaps a dozen tips, but as you may have noticed, King is prolific. I like Stephen King, and he’s a great storyteller. His memoir, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft contains a wealth of wisdom about writing. This list is much shorter, but all writers can benefit from following his guidelines. 

That said, I would quibble with a couple of his points. First, #10 is too strict. King can write a first draft in less than three months, but mortals need more time—especially those who have to pay the mortgage, put food on the table, and run a couple errands each day. Don’t hurry yourself … but never stop for an extended period. It’s too easy to put off writing one more day when you've been on a long hiatus.

Until you make a living by writing, I disagree with #13. Few of us have the luxury of erecting a force field around us when we write. Learn to write with distractions … otherwise you may never complete an entire novel. Looking for the perfect writing environment is a sure route to writers-block.

Last, #19 is balderdash. Just because you have driven a car for your entire life doesn't mean you can join the NASCAR circuit and race at near 200 MPH in bumper to bumper traffic. Maybe some can learn writing from reading fiction, but I needed help. I read dozens of books on writing, participated in workshops, and used a writing coach early on. I still read at least one book a year on the craft of writing. On Writing by Stephen King is a good place to start.

Here are King’s tip headlines. You can read his explanations for each one at the Barnes & Noble Book Blog.

10th Anniversary Edition

1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience.

2. Don’t use passive voice.

3. Avoid adverbs.

4. Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.”

5. But don’t obsess over perfect grammar.

6. The magic is in you.

7. Read, read, read.

8. Don’t worry about making other people happy.

9. Turn off the TV.

10. You have three months.

11. There are two secrets to success.

12. Write one word at a time.

13. Eliminate distraction.

14. Stick to your own style.

15. Dig.

16. Take a break.

17. Leave out the boring parts and kill your darlings.

18. The research shouldn’t overshadow the story.

19. You become a writer simply by reading and writing.

20. Writing is about getting happy.

Good advice. I especially like his comment in this interview that a writer’s goal is “to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.”

Word of Mouth Revisited

I’ve contended that word of mouth is the greatest marketing tool available to authors. Word of mouth includes book clubs, online recommendations at sites like Goodreads and LibraryThing, reader reviews, and good ol’ fashioned face-to-face conversation. Word of mouth does not include anything the author says, including social media leavings that come from gallivanting around cyberspace. Potent word of mouth comes unexpectedly from a trusted source. Every author’s marketing strategy must focus on generating positive word of mouth.

Recently, I had confirmation of this axiom. In the first of August, I ran a discount promotion for a couple of days for the e-book version of The Shopkeeper. I don’t believe in offering free e-books because there is no lasting effect beyond a couple days. Many people gather up free books and never bother to read them. I’ve discovered that there is an entirely different dynamic for 99¢ e-books. Evidently this tiny fee motivates people to read the book.

 I decided to use a brief 99¢ price for the first novel in the Steve Dancy Tales to give a boost to the entire series. It worked far better than I expected. Not only did The Shopkeeper sell almost two thousand copies, all the other books in the series showed accelerated sales. Actually, it has been over a month since the promotion and all five books in the series still sell at more than double the pace of sales prior to the promotion. Free e-books have no legs, but 99¢ e-books seem to have a long tail.

None of this was news to me. But I did make an observation about this promotion that had previously eluded me. If a promotion goes well and readers like the book, then word of mouth accelerates sales in other formats and for other books by the same author. I never track audio sales because they’re small compared to other formats. I kept an eye on them this time, and I noticed a major surge in sales about a week or so after the promotion. Print sales also surprisingly increased, and sales of my other books grew significantly. The additional sales could only come from word of mouth because none of these other books or formats were discounted or promoted beyond my normal feeble efforts. People who liked The Shopkeeper told other people about my books. Some marketing gurus tell you to make fans out of your readers. Good advice, but if you really want to sell lots of books, turn your readers into your own personal sales force.

How? Write an engaging story that never jerks your reader out of the story. This means you need to keep the story moving forward, avoid unnecessary plot detours, and have it all professionally packaged. If you enthrall your readers, they’ll tell their friends, family, and neighbors about this great new author they found. After you have a large and growing sales force, you can concentrate on what you really love to do—write.

From Bestselling Indie-Novelist to Also-Ran

I self-published The Shopkeeper in 2007. It seems like a lifetime ago, but in indie-publishing terms, it was an eon. I stumbled into indie-publishing by accident. At the time, I had a New York agent with a major firm, but he declined to represent my Western because he said the advance would be less than a decent down payment on a small Korean car. He explained that his 15% wouldn’t be worth his time.  Okay, I decided to self-publish the novel. The Shopkeeper found an instant audience and it was consistently in the Top 20 bestselling books in the Western genre, and at Christmas it often ranked as the #1 Western.

In 2007, most indie-books were nonfiction. In fact, self-published novels were so rare; I pretty much had the field to myself. For a couple of years I was the bestselling indie-novelist in America.

Alas, good things never last. Today I hear there are 30,000 indie-books published each and every month, with most of them being fiction. My lonely world suddenly became very crowded. What happened? The Kindle. It was also introduced in 2007, but it took a few years to get rolling. Those were my years, when print dominated genre fiction.

I would lament the good ol’ days, but I sell more books than I used to. It’s just I can no longer claim bestselling status. I’ve published seven novels and two nonfiction books, five of them Steve Dancy Tales. As of this writing, all five Steve Dancy novels are ranked at less than 30,000, with the nine year old The Shopkeeper ranked at #75 in Kindle Westerns. My novels for the Barnes and Noble Nook are doing better than I expected as well. (The Shopkeeper is ranked at under 4,000 overall.) More important, actual sales are better than they have ever been.

The moral to the story is that progress isn’t necessarily scary or harmful—just different. e-books brought indie-authors vast numbers of new readers. Yeah, the ubiquitous device also brought competition, but with an expanding market, there’s room for everyone. Besides, savvy readers weed out the charlatans that crank out a book after book that they price at less than a cup of coffee. It seems newbie indie-authors flame-out more frequently than want-to-be actors in Hollywood. There’s some great stuff out there in the indie world, but to compete in this crowded market requires study, effort, and a love of writing. Good novels don’t just happen. Authors write and rewrite them until readers want to flip the pages all the way to the end.

So here’s a piece of advice from an ol’ fogey—if you want to sell a lot of books … write a darn good one.

Ask the Author at Goodreads

Goodreads has added “Ask the Author” to its website. The new feature allows readers to ask questions of authors, and I have enabled Ask the Author on my Goodreads account. So ... if you have questions, fire away. I’ll answer anything except questions about the plot of Jenny’s Revenge. Jenny’s story remains secret for now.

Steve Dancy Tales
Honest Westerns ... filled with dishonest characters.

Publishing advice for a relative

A relative asked for advice on how to publish a math book he had written. I've included my answers below in the hope it might help other aspiring writers.

I would strongly suggest traditional publishing for a math book. You are correct that traditional publisher have access to the proper sales channels. In fact, academia seldom buys self-published books, so traditional publishing is your best, and possibly only, option.

Many people say you must have an agent to traditionally publish. This is true for fiction and popular nonfiction, but not always required for specialized nonfiction. Some publishers accept non-agented manuscripts. My suggestion is to seek an agent and a publisher simultaneously. To find out how to do this, spend a few hours in a library with Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents. Read the articles about how to write query letters, book proposals, select an agent/publisher, etc.

Here are a couple of publishing clichés that became clichés because they are often true:

Fiction is published based on the author’s platform, and published nonfiction is based on the author's credentials. 

Nonfiction is sold with a book proposal; novels are sold as a complete manuscript.

This means you should stress your math credentials in your query letter and book proposal. Book proposal formats vary, but they all include a sample chapter, Table of Contents, a section on the author, and a section on the target market.

Don’t worry about a publisher stealing your concepts. Also, if the agent you query is listed in Herman’s book, you don’t need to be concerned about him or her stealing your ideas either. You will need to use your judgment with friends and colleagues.

All of this means you should not wait until your book is complete to your satisfaction. Hone one chapter until it is as good as you can make it and include the other sections required in a book proposal. Then send query letters out to publishers and agents simultaneously. Don’t send a proposal or manuscript unless you get a positive response from a query because it will just end up in a slush pile destined to be read by an intern … someday … perhaps. If you use this approach, you will have plenty of time to complete the entire book to your satisfaction. In fact, publishers assume nonfiction books are not complete at the time of contract signing. A standard clause is a book delivery schedule.

Which brings us to terms and conditions. The sad truth is that unless you are famous or have committed a high-profile felony, you have little influence over the T&Cs, which include royalties. This is true if you negotiate the contract yourself or have an agent negotiate it on your behalf. These contracts are boilerplate for the most part. The agent’s job is to secure the biggest advance possible. My agent also negotiated out a first-rights clause for a second book, but he was able to get little else. Ancillary rights are demanded by traditional publishers. Wiley even insisted on the theatrical rights to my computer management book. (I was thinking of a musical.)

The primary benefit of an agent is to get your manuscript moved to the top of the pile. Agents also know the interests of different publishers and can keep you out of cul-de-sacs. If you query publishers directly, use Herman’s book to select publishers that specialize in your subject or market. 

Nowadays, traditional publishers are paying higher royalties on e-books, but nowhere near the direct payments to independent authors. Traditional publishers pay an advance, so they are concerned first with earning back the advance. Indie-authors higher royalties reflect the fact that they receive no advance and pay publication costs.

Traditional publishers will take care of “cleaning up a book.” Wiley assigned an editor and 3 line editors to my book. They also insisted on control over the title and cover. It’s been many years since I published The Digital Organization, and things may have changed, but basically the publisher calls most of the shots.

As for my books, if you are interested in history, I recommend Tempest at Dawn. If you like action/thrillers, then I would recommend The Shopkeeper or The Shut Mouth Society.

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Word Crimes

Now, this is fun.

Did Abraham Lincoln say “That’s cool!”

He did. On the evening of February 27, 1860, Lincoln gave a famous speech at Cooper Union. This was a political speech made before New York City powerbrokers. The purpose was to help secure his nomination to run for president. Here's a snippet.

“We hear that you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that event, you say you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you and then you will be a murderer!”

I used this speech in a prologue for The Shut Mouth Society. Many readers have questioned whether Lincoln actually used modern slang. Luckily, there’s documentation aplenty.

This phrase brings up a point about writing historical fiction. I have an exceptional editor who highlights words or phrases not appropriate to my time period. (For example, she informed me that Winston Churchill invented the word underbelly.) But “That’s cool” taught me something additional: historical writers shouldn't use phrases readers believe are modern, even if they're historically accurate. When a word or phrase strikes the reader as incongruous, it takes them out of the story--a mortal sin for fiction writers. So my advice is to rephrase anything that even appears unfit the period of your story.

There are exceptions, of course. If I were writing The Shut Mouth Society today, I would include Lincoln’s use of the ubiquitously cool slang phrase. Why? Because it revealed one of his personality characteristics and dialogue should always be character revealing.

Just for fun, here's some old, old slang that sounds modern.

Trip the light fantastic – 1632

High jinks – 17th century

In the dumps – 1534

Elbow grease – 17th century

Nose out of joint – 1581

Plain as the nose on your face – Shakespeare

Sing a different tune – 1390

Play fast and loose – 16th century cheating game

Give short shrift – Shakespeare

Fish out of water – 1380

Hocus-pocus –1656

Hair of the dog that bit me – 1546

Shirt off your back  - Chaucer

Cutting off your nose to spite your face – 1658

Lift oneself by the bootstraps – Shakespeare

Without rhyme or reason – 16th century

Proud as hell – 1711

Break the ice – 18th century or older

Add insult to injury – 1st century

Bite the dust – Homer

Mountain out of a molehill – 1570

In one ear and out the other – 1583

Hem and haw – 1580

Win one’s spurs – 1425

Other fish to fry – 1712

Unable to see the woods for the trees – 1546

By hook or by crook  – 12th century

Lock the barn after the horse is stolen – 1390

Donnybrook -  1204, riotous fair in city of same name

Philadelphia lawyer – 1735

Now, that's cool!

Searching for Denver’s Past

I prefer to write my stories before doing significant research. (Except for Tempest at Dawn, which required advanced study and planning.) When I do the research first, I feel compelled to wedge into the story all of the fascinating facts I discovered, so the research ends up driving the storyline. One of the axioms of writing is to not let your research show. I find it easy to attain this goal by getting the story right first … then adding tidbits of historical information to set the time and place.

Oxford Hotel, 1891

I also need to walk the ground of my novels. For me, description is difficult, so it helps to visit the locations used in my novels. I don’t want description to downshift pacing, so I prefer to sprinkle around terse descriptions to give a sense of place similar to how the characters might perceive their surroundings as they went about their business. I also take lots of photographs, so when I write about a place, I can simultaneously view digital photographs of the area.

Jenny’s Revenge, A Steve Dancy Tale starts in Denver, Colorado and moves on to Carson City, Nevada. My wife and I decided to spend a long weekend in Denver to add some location color. We had a great time and I got some good details to incorporate into my story.

In 1881, Denver was so fresh and striving that the official name was Denver City. The second half of the name was for those who might have doubted the status of the buildings clustered along the edge of the Great Plains. Nowadays, Denver is a thriving cosmopolitan area and they have removed City from their name. 

Inter-Ocean Hotel, 1873

We stayed at the historic Oxford Hotel, which opened in 1891. Although this is a decade after my story takes place, the hotel helped me travel back in time. In Jenny’s Revenge, Steve and Virginia stay at the Inter-Ocean Hotel, which used to be located a block away from the Oxford. The Inter-Ocean was owned by Barney L. Ford, an escaped slave who taught himself to read and write. Unfortunately, the Inter-Ocean eventually became a flop-house and was torn down in 1973.

Windsor Hotel, 1880

Another prominent hotel in the story is the Windsor, but it no longer exists either. Well, that’s not exactly right. We were standing on the correct intersection, but I couldn't figure out the proper corner when my wife pointed up. Sure enough, we were standing in the shadow of the Windsor condominium building. Just like Steve and Virginia, my wife and I then walked the three blocks between the long ago demolished hotels.

Thankfully, the Oxford never saw the wrecking ball. The Oxford staff is excellent and they take their historic heritage seriously. It’s a fun stay and the incongruous Cruise Bar is an exceptional experience. The Art Deco bar feels out of place beside the Western motif and Victorian architecture, but it was the first bar in Denver after prohibition, so it has a birthright of its own.

Mizpah Arch from Union Station

Mizpah Arch Leaving Town

I wish I could use the Mizpah Arch in my story, but it wasn’t erected until 1906. This arch stood five stories high and was lit with 2,194 light bulbs. As a passenger exited Denver Union Station, the sign read Welcome. On the reverse side it read Mizpah, which is a Hebrew word expressing an emotional bond between people who are separated. It was a landmark that became obsolete when cars became wider and upkeep expensive. In 1931, the Mizpah Arch became history.

Denver is a fun city with great food. It past is not hard to find. It sits right there in LoDo, lower downtown. This area used to encompass all of metropolitan Denver, but in the hundred and thirty years since my story took place, people and commerce have bulged out to occupy the empty plain that sat to every side of this mile-high city.

Storytellers fix an unruly world

Saving Mr. Banks

Last night I watched Saving Mr. Banks for the first time. Screenwriters like to write scripts about writers. Unfortunately, the writing process does not make for exciting movies. Good stories require tension and conflict. Conflict between a writer and a keyboard doesn't quite cut it. Saving Mr. Banks had plenty of conflict, and the conflict occurred between two fascinating characters. I would rate the movie high for a film about writers and a decent drama across all genres.

There was a line in the movie that caught my attention. A one point, Tom Hanks, as Walt Disney says, “Because that's what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination.”

Disney, like many successful entrepreneurs, was a control freak. (Think Steve Jobs.) The line reminded me that Disney supposedly once said he preferred cartoons because he didn't need to deal with messy actors—or something close to that. Disney controlled every aspect of his empire, and at the end of his life used Epcot Center to show the world how to build a proper city. If he had lived long enough, he probably would have reordered the universe.

So the line from the script captured Disney’s personality and life ambition. He wanted to restore order with imagination. But the character revealing aspect of the line isn't what caught my attention. I listened to it several times because it reminded me that a writer’s world is ordered. If not on the first draft, it becomes increasingly ordered with each revision. Every aspect of a story is exactly as the author intended. Storytelling is an imaginary tale where everything is ordered as perfectly as possible given the skill of the author.

I started writing fiction when I consulted on the other side of the nation and found myself spending a significant amount of time alone in hotel rooms. I've always thought I wrote in the evenings because stress faded away when I transported myself to another place and time. Writing also relieved loneliness because my characters had become friends. What I hadn't considered was where the stress came from. I consulted in the travel tour industry which was chaotic on slow days. The rest of the time it was so frenzied, it made Congress the epitome of order, calm, and reason.

As I look back, I realize that writing restored order in my imagination. I couldn't change the real world, but in my stories, I had complete control. 

So if you feel stress or frustration with life, pick up a good story and escape to our world. We storytellers will take care of the rest. “Because that's what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination.”