How do you get ideas for your stories?

Image by Amal Manikkath

Authors are often asked where we get our ideas. I get mine from fortune cookies.

Just kidding. 

I got the idea for CANALS after driving over, or next to, yet another irrigation canal in Modesto, California. One day I thought, what if there was a monster in the canals? Man, no one would be safe because those canals are everywhere. Just about everyone who lives in Modesto and has a decent arm could throw a rock into an irrigation canal from somewhere on their property.

I got the idea for THE MIGHTY T from a newspaper article about the O’Shaughnessy Dam and the Tuolumne River. That dam is still a hot topic today. Environmentalists want it torn down so the Hetch Hetchy Valley can be restored... Well, not all environmentalists. The ones in San Francisco don’t because they get their clean, pure drinking water form the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. 

I wrote DEATH OF A MATADOR after attending a Portuguese bloodless bullfight in Stevensen, California. It was one of the craziest things I’d ever seen and I thought it would made a good story.

SUNSET HILL followed MATADOR, but wasn’t inspired by anything other than the fact that Mindy got away at the end of THE MIGHTY T. She was too good a character to just let go like that.

The idea for THE KING OF ROUND VALLEY sprung from a location: the place Grant ended up at at the end of SUNSET HILL. That’s where he was so I began looking into what might be going on in Mendocino County...

Image by Vjeran Lisjak

Then, yesterday morning, I was on the treadmill at the gym listening to a podcast titled Predicting The Future, an episode from the NPR: TED Radio Hour Podcast. (You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, like I do, or download it directly from the site.) 

Because I only walked for 30 minutes, I only made it up to Marc Goodman’s section, What Does The Future Of Crime Look Like? I was particularly struck by Nina Tandon’s and Richard Resnick’s segments. Tandon’s company is growing bones from stem cells and Resnick says sequencing genes will likely change the way we live.

Now, couple this with my recent experiences in ordering a new iPhone and iPad and ... BAM! An idea for a story sprouted. At first it was a short story, but after I’ve a couple of days to play with it, it’s gonna be a novel. And I think it’s gonna be really good.

It’ll be about the way we pick our children in, oh, about a hundred years from now.

Wrap-Up Chapters and First Edits

Did Papa really say that?

I finished the first draft of SUNSET HILL a couple of Saturdays ago. I had originally set a goal of 100,000 words, but it came in long at 119K. I'm okay with that; CANALS was 150K, THE MIGHTY T 105K, and DEATH OF A MATADOR about 125K. As I wrote here, 125K is a good length. For comparison, King's UNDER THE DOME has about 335K words.

The word count will likely grow by the time I finish with edits. I feel like it needs a short chapter to wrap-up loose ends, but I have mixed feelings about that. I tend to overdo wrap-up chapters.

Wrap-Up Chapters

CANALS had a fairly long epitaph where I wrote a follow-up on the church the monsters had done their worst work in, and a long follow-up on Lawless and Baskill. I thought the Baskill thing worked, but some readers said it should've been left out.

In THE MIGHTY T, I wrote a lengthy follow-up on the restoration of the Hetch Hetchy Valley, or what I guessed might happen should the O'Shaughnessy Dam be removed. I received a little criticism for that, too. That novel has quite an exciting ending and some readers thought I should've left well enough alone.

DEATH OF A MATADOR originally ended with the capture of ______ (no spoilers—you'll have to read it to learn who was captured and who got away). One beta reader complained the ending was too abrupt so I wrote a few pages of wrap-up. It was brief.

I think most readers want to know what happens to at least the main characters, but in particular they want to be reassured the bad guys didn't get away with it. Even though in real life they often do.

Editing The First Draft

Most editing done on the first draft is mundane work. I like to use real street names, real business names, real landmarks, etc. Often, when I'm working on a first draft, I don't want to stop writing to look back in the text for the correct street or business name because it can break my rhythm. I'll put an *asterisk by whatever I choose to write, which lets me know it needs to be looked up when I'm editing. Or I'll put something in parentheses.

I rarely make big story changes when editing the first draft. I try and make sure I've thought through logistical issues when penning a first draft so I'm not bothered with them later.

For instance, in SUNSET HILL I've got a bad guy with a cop's iPhone. iPhones have GPS functions and are fairly easy to track, if the phone is left on. Cops would know this yet I had the cops not thinking of it. Cops wouldn't normally bother with tracking a phone that's been stolen, but they would if the thief is a cop killer. I had to rewrite several scenes where I had the bad guy actually get rid of the phone.

If I don't catch stuff like this while writing the first draft, I'll catch it during the first edit.

The first edit is done electronically, meaning I either edit on-screen or on my iPad. I have Scrivener sync the manuscript with Dropbox and use Storyist for the iPad to edit the .rtf files in the draft. Storyist doesn't save the file to the same directory in Dropbox, which gives me a layer of security.

A Case For Plotting

There are many methods of writing fiction. Here are the most common.

A Found Thing

This is the term Stephen King gives to his style of writing in his book On Writing. It's also known as "By the Seat of One's Pants," but I prefer King's term. It's been a while since I read "On Writing," but this is how I recall King describing it.

Let's say you're having a leisurely stroll through the woods when something on the ground catches your eye. You stop, stoop, and take a look, and discover what you're really looking at is the top of some buried thing. You inspect the thing and form an opinion of what it might be based on what you can see.

It's captured your interest so you clean it off with your hand, and now that you can see it better, your opinion of what it might be changes a little. Now you're really interested so you dig around the edges with your trusty Swiss Army knife and uncover more of the object. Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly what you thought it was when you couldn't see as much of it, so your opinion changes again.

This process continues as you uncover more of the object until you've dug the thing up. Based on what it is, you may or not know what you've found. It could be a treasure chest with yet unknown treasures (or terrors!) inside. You'll have to pry the chest open to see what's inside. It might be some kid's backpack he lost a few years ago, containing textbooks his parents had to pay for. It could be a baseball mitt, with nothing to discover inside.

This is how I wrote my first novel, CANALS. I began with a premise: there's a monster in the canals that flow around and through Modesto, California. I planted myself in front of the old Windows 95 computer in the spare bedroom and wrote the first scene of the novel. By the time I finished the first scene, I had an inkling of what would happen next; i.e., I uncovered more of the object. I continued in this manner until I finished the novel.

Writing like this is both exhilarating and frustrating. You might learn, as you write your story, that a character is not the same as you envisioned him or her at the beginning. Or, you'll think of something that should've happened earlier to set up a scene you're currently writing. In other words, an author who writes like this has to do a lot of rewriting. At least I do, maybe King's so good he doesn't have to go bad and edit before he's done with the first draft.

Another negative I've noted is, you can write yourself into some tight spaces where your only logical plot possibilities don't make much sense, or are bizarre. I refer you to King's book It. A great book made into a pretty good TV movie. People the world over are afraid of clowns because of that movie. But the ending... A big spider? Really? To me, a really dumb ending. Many of King's books have endings that make you scratch your head and wonder why. Now you know why.

Strict Plotting

Some writers figure out what happens before they write the story, and they rarely deviate from their pre-determined plot. Much time is spent plotting as they have to flesh out every detail in advance.

King wrote that the only book he plotted was Dead Zone. A pretty good book and movie, in my opinion. Christopher Walken was a perfect choice for the lead. He can do nutty like no one else.

There are advantages to strict plotting: there are no surprises to try and figure out how to handle. And, I understand the actual writing goes much faster. It should, you've already decided what's going to happen, and when.

Fiction Based On Real Events

Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood in this manner. Find an event that really happened and write a book about it, but turn the truth into fiction by changing things up. If you don't, you're documenting instead of writing fiction. Little plotting is needed because the writer need only follow the path of history.

Mixture of the Above Methods

This is how I write fiction. I begin with a premise, figure out how I want the story to end, then let my imagination tell me what happens in between. You might also call it the lazy-man's plotting; I'm too lazy to plot out a whole book. And for me, it would do away with the exhilaration I had writing CANALS.

Oh, I plot, but I plot in chunks. I think of it like driving at night: I can only see what the headlights illuminate. But the funny thing is, when I reach the last chunk of illuminated roadway, I can already see another chunk in front of me. In this manner I plot pieces of a book at a time. Sometimes I can see a chapter ahead, sometimes half a chapter. Occasionally two chapters, but not often.

You might find it helps to give some thought to your characters before you start writing, but not too much. Don't get your feet planted in a block of cement. Get an idea what they look like and give them some weaknesses; no one likes a perfect person.

For instance, my WIP, which takes place in north Seattle, features a local detective named Ira Utter. I've pictured him as about six feet tall, slim, with dark short-cropped dark hair. He's got a problem: he has trouble pronouncing even the simplest names, even after people tell him how to pronounce them. He's also a germ phobe, but not bad like Monk. And he's a recovering alcoholic who really feels the pull of the booze, like many do.

By giving Utter some characteristics in advance I've set up a number of possibilities. He could fall off the wagon, although that would be a little too cliché. He could have an ex-wife because of his years of drinking, but again, too cliché. Or, his marriage could show the baggage of his years of drinking and be a little messed up. The problem pronouncing names could lead to some humor, as could the germ-phobe thing.

But I've digressed and haven't addressed the topic suggested in the title of my post. Here's what happened to me recently.

I had written an opening with two women getting picked up at a bar by a third woman, only to end up dead in a dumpster a couple of days later. Utter draws the case because he's had four similar cases before. He's the guy chasing the Sunset Hill Slasher. I figured out a way to get Grant, Amber, and Bensen involved that didn't sound hokey, since they live in Central California.

But then I ran into some difficulties I couldn't find a way out of. I had Utter surprised when a witness told him the two women left with another woman, but how could he be if these deaths were his fifth and sixth Slasher cases? If the killer always picks his/her victims up at a bar, Utter should have learned this on the first case. When I decided this had to be Utter's first Slasher case, I also figured out a better way to introduce Grant and his team.

I just figured all this out today so now, starting tomorrow morning, I get to go back and rewrite thirty pages. That's the hazard of not being a strict plotter. On the other hand, I think the direction I'm going in now is far superior that what I had going before.

Every writer has to figure out what works best for him or her, and then work at getting better at it.

My Books Are Available Almost Everywhere Now

Just a quick post to say I've taken my ebooks out of Amazon's Select program and made them available for purchase on Barnes & Nobel's site and on Smashwords. I'll write a more detailed post next week on why, but the short version is my sales had flat lined on Amazon. And I got a little tired of their heavy-handed tactics. Like deleting reviews.

The paperback versions of all three novels are still available, of course, and are printed on-demand by Amazon's Createspace company. I have to say I'm not thrilled with the quality I'm seeing from Creatspace. It's not that it's bad, it's just that it hasn't been good, either. The colors of the cover seem washed out and the quality of the printing isn't top notch. Sigh... Something to work on later.

I'll be working on the blog soon, too, to make it easier to buy the ebooks from the different sources. For now, I'd recommend people who want the paperback to get it from Amazon, if they're Amazon shoppers. Not everyone is, you know. That way you can get free shipping if you buy two, or all three, of my novels. :)

See you again next week.

1st Review for DEATH OF A MATADOR: 5 Stars

I received my first review on Amazon.com for my latest novel DEATH OF A MATADOR. I'll save you the time of clicking on over to Amazon and publish the review here:

Powers delivers a page-turning police procedural with Death of a Matador, the latest thriller featuring Detective Grant Starr. The action takes place in--until now--a peaceful little dusty town in Central California. From the first page, the story plunges into the fascinating culture of the local Portuguese community, back-stabbing small-town politics, and the inner workings of a police department dealing with crimes related to current hotbutton issues: animal rights activism and the emerging corporate farming of medicinal marijuana.

Powers is a natural storyteller and the dialogue is especially entertaining. You feel like you're riding along with the detectives and officers listening in on their good-natured ribbing, privy to personal and confidential conversations as they unriddle a sudden spate of murders and scramble to protect witnesses. The banter is rich with cultural lingo, convincing police jargon, and spot-on buddy-cop wit.

I also enjoyed the vicarious excitement of wheeling Detective Starr's 1970 Ferrari along a California highway at 120 mph with gorgeous Detective Amber Whitehall riding shotgun! :-)

While the motivations of the corrupt mayor are fully explained, I'd like more insight into the mind of the matador killer. It's understandable that most people like animals, and most people fear going to prison, but I feel that this villain puts himself in extreme peril as an animal-rights activist and as a criminal avoiding capture. I'd like a little more explanation into what makes him tick, what drives him to activism and allows him to be capable of such cold-blooded actions.

Also, I'd like to see Grant Starr put in a bit more personal danger. Sure, he gets shot at, and others rely on him to save their necks, but I'd like to see him sweat-it-out a bit more, to see him in more up-close and personal all-out, whup-ass conflict with the bad guys.

All in all, this story kept me flipping the pages with fully-formed characters, tight action and suspense, very little fluff, and a surprisingly exotic setting via the Portuguese community and their traditions. If you're in the mood for a riveting detective thriller, I recommend it!

I'd love to get more reviews and would be willing to gift a copy of the book to anyone interested in reading and reviewing it. Honest reviews, of course.

THE MIGHTY T in Top 5 Books of 2012

Rick Bylina, author and blogger, has posted that THE MIGHTY T was one of the top five books he read in 2012. He reviewed it on his blog as well as on Amazon. You can read his post here:

Book Review: Best Books For 2012

I appreciate Rick for taking the time to write and post book reviews on his blog as well as posting the reviews on Amazon.com. Very few people go to the trouble of doing that. I'm also quite pleased he liked THE MIGHTY T. I think it's the best of my three novels.


Speaking of novels, I've given up the battle with CreateSpace to get them to print my book correctly. The most recent email I received from them said my book printed correctly, which it most assuredly did not. Here's what page one looked like:

Notice any missing text?

So I reset all text set in the Dante Small Caps typeface to Dante and then capitalized the words. It doesn't look as professional, but I don't feel like going through another round of proof-email-email back-nothing's-wrong-with-your-book with them. When you ring them up you get someone who sounds like a 16-year-old on their first job.

Writing a Novel In a Different Way

Hobble Creek Canyon, Springville, UT - October 2012

The picture of the split-rail fence has nothing to do with today's post. I just love that picture and thought I would share it. It's been the background on my computer since I took the picture last month. We missed the reds by a week, but there were still plenty of oranges and yellows in Hobble Creek Canyon.

When I wrote CANALS I was under the delusion I would be the next Stephen King, so I wrote it in the manner King calls "a found thing." Other writers call this writing by the seat of your pants. I started with a premise, there's a monster living in the miles of canals that pass through and around Modesto, and like a good monster, he's killing and eating people. Any plotting was done by writer's inspiration, or via the muse. It was an exhilarating experience, one I will always cherish, even if I unpublish the book.

THE MIGHTY T and DEATH OF A MATADOR were written with a bit more plotting. I began  writing knowing how the books began and how I wanted them to end, then set about making it happen.

One of my favorite thriller authors, John Sandford, recently posted on Facebook (believe it or not) that he had a looming deadline and needed to write 30K words in thirty days: an average of 1,000 words a day for a month. Those of you trying to write an entire novel this month may scoff at this, but it's still not easy.

Anyway, Sandford said he can write 5,000 words a day when he's finishing a book, because he's just wrapping things up. He says writing the beginning of a book is easy, too, because he's already thought up his characters and a loose plot line. He has trouble with the stuff between the beginning and ending. Not enough stuff and you haven't got a book, you've got a novella. Too much stuff and your publisher gets upset.

Writing novels isn't as easy for me as it is for Sandford because I haven't done it thirty times. I struggle with the beginning, middle, and end. To a degree.

My Grant Starr novels were fun to write, but weren't as much of a thrill as writing CANALS was.

With my next novel, THE YOUNG BULL WRESTLERS, I'm first working on the main characters: the team of forcados. I want to know, as best as possible, who they are before I write the book. And I'm going to plot this book more than I plotted my first three books.

It's a new experience for me. Writers, and everyone for that matter, need to keep stretching their limits and developing their skills.

Tweak to Death of a Matador Print Cover

I wrote in yesterday's post that the color of the printed cover from CreateSpace was off, darker, than how it appeared on my screen. I tweaked it and resubmitted the cover file along with an updated interior file yesterday.

Here's the tweaked cover:

1. I shrunk the white shadow sitting behind "DEATH". I thought the first version looked cheap.
2. The novel is now a "Grant Starr Novel", not a "Grant Starr Thriller". I changed this because John Sandford's novels say this and I figure I can't do any better than to copy a perennial NY Times Bestseller.
3. I lightened the sand in the background photo about 10%. The print version was far too dark.
4. The text on the spine was perfectly centered but too short. I increased the text height, hopefully without messing up the perfect centering. There are a lot of independent book sellers in Utah and I hope to market my books directly to them. Which is why I also left the suggested retail price of $18.99 off the back cover. They can set their own retail price.
5. I moved my picture higher. I realize I need to take a new picture, one more "authorly", meaning stodgy. The back of Sandford's book jackets are a full-length shot of him, but I'm not quite ready for that. I considered moving the picture to the inside of the back page where I would add an author bio, but didn't.

When I created the PDF file for CreateSpace in Publisher 2010, I did so using the "Commercial Printing" setting, which produces the highest quality PDF. Publisher warned me against doing this because the image has a transparent piece, the grey box behind the book blurb on the back cover. It also warned against leaving the file in RGB format. 

Although CreateSpace says to submit files in RGB format, as well as CMYK, I caved and let Publisher change my file to CMYK. Big mistake as it also changed the transparent box to solid. meaning you could no longer see the sand behind the text. Apparently you can't have transparencies in CMYK format. It took me 20 minutes to fix this.

The above image was saved in Publisher 2010 using the 150 dpi setting. The web setting of 96 dpi produces an image with jagged edges, which is unacceptable. 

Self Publishing, Amazon, and Microsoft Publisher 2010

I received a proof print copy for DEATH OF A MATADOR last week. I decided to read through the book from back to front, hoping this would keep me from becoming too absorbed in the story and prevent my mind from inserting missing words or correcting typos in my mind's eye. For the most part it did.

If you self-publish and you haven't tried this, you should give a whirl. Begin with the final paragraph and work your way toward the front of the book. You'll be surprised at what you find that didn't when you read through it conventionally all those times.

I'd like to explain how I prepared my files for print publication. Please keep in mind I'm not a professional typesetter; I aim to keep things as non-techie, simple, and inexpensive as I can.

Amazon/Kindle Direct Publishing

I sell my ebooks only on Amazon.com. My most recent ebooks, DEATH OF A MATADOR, was processed for publication with Scrivener, which takes some fiddling to get it right but is less frustrating that using Word. I think the finished product looks fine.

The covers for all three of ebooks were produced with Microsoft Publisher 2003. Publisher 2003 allows you to save the file as a .jpeg, which you then upload to KDP. I don't have a true graphics program and outside of self-publishing don't need one. I'm sure the covers could have been better if done by a pro, but I think they look fine. They're eye-catching enough to catch a prospective reader's eye without being silly, as so many ebook covers are these days.

Print is an entirely different animal.

Microsoft Publisher 2012

I formatted my first two books Publisher 2003. My main complaint with Publisher was, it couldn't save a file in PDF format. KDP requires print book covers and interior files be provided in PDF format. I had to find a PDF print driver to use. It worked, but I wanted one program that would do it all so when it came time to typeset DEATH OF A MATADOR, I upgraded to the 2010 version. It promised the flexibility of saving to many different formats.

Here's what I discovered: Saving my cover file, which features a large a photo that covers both front and back, works fine. I saved it using the Commercial Printing setting and unchecked the PDF/A box, which seemed to muck things up. My only complaint in regards to the cover with the proof copy is, the colors seem muted compared to how it looked on my computer screen.

Publisher failed to generate an acceptable PDF of my book interior. Even saving in high quality mode, the file, as viewed with Adobe Reader, sucked. Too low-res. Plus the program took 45 minutes to save the file. Very frustrating as this was the reason I upgraded.

Off I went on a Google chase, looking for another PDF print driver. Enter PDF24. It's free if you resist buying their fax program and service. The way it works is, when you go to print you select the PDF24 driver as if it was an actual printer. Once you click print, a little box pops up that allows you to fine tune the PDF. The PDF I needed was produced in seconds, not 45 minutes. Again, I set it for the highest quality setting.

After uploading, KDP said the fonts weren't properly embedded, they appeared to be when I checked them in Adobe Reader, and the layout didn't fit what they wanted. But they fixed both problems for me and the preview looked fine.

I had a couple of problems with my proof copy: a typeface didn't print despite it being clearly visible in the PDF and a double printing appeared in the header on one page. The double printing was my fault, I still have no idea how I did it, but the font not printing was KDP's problem. They offered to reprocess the file and send me a new proof copy without charge.

I purchased the update for Publisher from a Canadian company. It cost $65 and comes only as a downloadable program: no install discs. The install went fine, perhaps it was my crossed fingers that made things run smoothly, and to my surprise I discovered I had purchased the entire Office Professional Suite. No, it wasn't a student discount and yes, I was able to successfully register my program with Microsoft.

I have an extensive background in computer typesetting, but as a hobbiest. I already knew how to set a page so the lines on both sides line up, know what leading is, know how to properly use true small caps and ligatures, etc. If I hadn't already know these things I'm not sure I could have figured things out using Publisher. And in the 2010 version, in an attempt to make things easier for the average small business owner producing his own brochures, Microsoft has made it more difficult to really fine tune a book. I can still get around quickly because I remember the old keyboard commands, which the program still accepts.

So, I'm not sure I can recommend Microsoft Publisher 2010, or any version, for the serious author and self-publisher. It's worked for me, but only because I have years of experience with it.

DEATH OF A MATADOR Ebook Available on Amazon

I'm pleased to announce that after 18 months my new Grant Starr thriller is available in ebook format on Amazon.com. I've ordered the proof for the quality paperback version. I expect to take a few weeks to get it proofed, make any necessary corrections, and upload the new files.

Why only Amazon? I used to offer my books on other venues like Smashwords, iBooks, and Barnes and Noble, but I sold practically nothing on those sites. When Amazon introduced it's Select program, I decided to sign up although it meant removing my ebook titles from all other sites. Nothing's happened to make me change my mind since.

DEATH OF A MATADOR was initially slated to be released last fall, but life got in the way. I'm still behind schedule as my next Grant Starr thriller was expected out about now. It's not likely to be released until next spring.

DEATH OF A MATADOR is not a THE MIGHTY T, which I think is a better book. It has more action, explosions, knife play, etc. While not the best of the two, I think MATADOR is a damn good story. I'm especially fond of Mayor Manny, a rascal and a murderer. I liked how his character turned out so much I was tempted to name the book MAYOR MANNY. Thank goodness I didn't.

The book is dedicated to Nancy, whose last name I'll keep private. Nancy was a patient of mine (I no longer practice) deeply involved in the Portuguese Catholic community. I treated her for years and listened to many stories of festas (pronounced "feshta"), bullfights, queens, dances, and parades.

In the spring of 2011, after I'd self-published THE MIGHTY T and CANALS, I was looking for another idea for a book. In comes Nancy for a treatment, and this time when she mentioned she'd been at a bullfight again, it clicked. I asked her to tell me more about the bullfights and the rest, as they are fond of saying, is history.

Much of what I know about the Portuguese in the Central San Joaquin Valley I learned from Nancy. They are the most active group of people I've ever met. Here's what Manny tells Grant and McKay in chapter four, when he's giving them a lesson on Portagees:

“Now lemme tell you about the church. Portagees love their church almost as much as they love their land and their damn cows. They love it so much they make up reasons to celebrate it every damn weekend from April to November. We got parades for cows and we got celebrations for saints nobody else ever heard of. And Portagees eat. Goddamn how we eat. You’d think everyone of us would be as big as a house the way we eat.

“But we ain’t, and let me tell you why: Portagees work. Sure, we got a few lazy ones, but most Portagees work their ass off all their life. There’s no such thing as a Portagee takin’ a retirement. The farmers around here drop dead in their fields, or on their tractors or in their damn milk barns, workin’ till the day they die.”

He shook his head. “Ain’t that what you want on your gravestone?"

And, lastly, Nancy had her kids save me a seat at the bullfight, right in the front row. I've written Nancy a bit part in the book, doing what she does in real life: running the concessions at the bullfights.

I'd also like to thank my main beta reader, Jay Krow, for his valuable insight and suggestions. He pointed out the bull probably didn't macerate the matador's liver when he ran him through with his horn. The bull likely lacerated it.

I wrote the entire novel in Scrivener for Windows. Well, I compiled it in Scrivener. I wrote some of it on my iPad. I'll post about it some time.

DEATH OF A MATADOR is on sale for $2.99 through the end of next week, a day or two after the election is over. My other two novels are also on sale for $2.99. Regular price is $5.99.

I hope you enjoy the book. It's a great story.

Magazine or Clip?

When investigating whether or not to download a free ebook I came across an interesting review. (I can't recall the book's title.) The reviewer claimed the author used the word "clip" when he should have used "magazine," and went on to explain the difference. This "mistake" bothered the reviewer so much she couldn't enjoy the book. (Evidently the term "clip" was used quite a bit.)

When entering some edits from a couple of beta readers, I noticed I used the term "clip" twice in DEATH OF A MATADOR. Well, I didn't want to offend any readers so I thought I would do a little investigating of my own. This is what I learned.

A "clip" is a gadget that holds bullets until they can be moved into a magazine. A "magazine" holds bullets in position so they can be automatically loaded into the weapon's firing chamber. So, there is a difference.

It's a big deal to gun people!

However, my source, Wikipedia, says the terms have been used interchangeably in movies, TV, and novels for so many years that several dictionaries have altered their definition of "clip" to account for its common usage.

In other words, people who watch movies and TV would likely be okay with an author using "clip" instead of "magazine" in a novel. Most, myself included prior to this experience, don't know the difference. Or even knew there was a difference.

Several things can be learned here:

1. Language is fluid. Words can change meaning based on their common usage.
2. If you're an author and like to be as accurate as you can, do a little research on the words you use. I had used "macerate" in DEATH OF A MATADOR when "lacerate" was the correct word. I doubt the bull had time to marinate the matador's liver in vinegar prior to tearing it apart with his horns.
3. If you're an author who is anal about things like "clip" and "magazine," and you're writing a review for a book that includes one or both of those terms, do some research before you let something as trivial as this dominate your review. Based on common usage, either term can be used without calling in the lawyers.

Here is are a couple of paragraphs from DEATH OF A MATADOR:

Dillard applied the finishing touches to his own uniform, in his hotel room in Turlock.

He checked the time, then checked his gun, removing the magazine to inspect it, reinserting it, flicking the safety on and off. Satisfied it would fire when he wanted it to, he placed it back in the hidden compartment in the camera bag.

Now picture the text with "clip" instead of "magazine." Does it ruin it for you? Maybe it does now that you know there is a difference!

 If you like words, consider Stan Carey's excellent blog.

Cover for DEATH OF A MATADOR

DEATH OF A MATADOR, my new Grant Starr thriller, is set to release, in ebook form, on October 16 on Amazon. I'm in the final stages of editing and formatting for the ebook, and I have what I think will be my book cover.

Like my first two novels, CANALS and THE MIGHTY T, the cover image was created on MicroSoft Publisher. It's not real fancy but I think it's not too bad for a do-it-yourself job by a guy who doesn't own a true graphics program.

Much has been written about the importance of book covers these days. If you look at the covers of most of the "classic" novels, they're plain by today's standards. I think this cover has enough bold elements to capture a potential reader's attention for a few seconds.

The cover typeface is Quartet, designed by Suzana Licko.  I bought it from Emigre back in the early-to-mid 90s, but after a quick check on their site I see they no longer sell it. I've read it's important to use typefaces you own, meaning you paid for them. I've also read you shouldn't use typefaces that come with your computer, like the MicroSoft typefaces on my new Dell Windows 7 machine. I don't know if this is true or not, but all the typefaces I've used in designed my books are ones I've purchased.

What do you think? Honest opinions are appreciated.


Update: October 15, 2012

The more I looked at the above cover, the less I liked it. So I've come up  with this one:

I took the photo at a bullfight I attended in Central California, so I own it's rights free and clear. I think this cover have better graphic elements than the first, although the first may be bolder.

WIP Sample: My favorite mayor, again

I'm editing the final chapter of the novel I'm working on, the second Grant Starr thriller. I've stated several times in posts that my favorite character is Mayor Mateus Dutra, "Manny".

Grant thinks Manny is dirty, which he is, and suspects he killed a female member of the city council he'd once had an affair with, for reasons unknown. Probably having something to do with the pot deal Manny is trying to push through the city council. Grant collected some of Manny's DNA and his fingerprints the night before, from some bar glasses, and is waiting for the lab to process the evidence. He's sure Manny's DNA will match skin found under the victim's fingernails.

Manny's in a pinch. He doesn't know he's being investigated for murder, he just thinks Grant's on him about taking a bribe, which he hasn't yet done. He's got $300,000 coming Wednesday night, from the pot company, for his part in getting the city council to sign on. But the cops have been all over him... All he's gotta do is make it to Wednesday.

The final chapter takes place on a Monday. Manny has negotiated a little advance on his bribe, which he expects to collect at the bullfight that night. But then Grant is in his face again...

Grant pulled his truck into a parking slot in front of Dutra Insurance Services and shut off the motor. They could see the mayor through the floor-to-ceiling window, and the mayor made a face at them, and said something to his secretary. She glanced out the window at the detectives piling out of the truck, grabbed her purse and exited the front door, holding it open for the detectives.

"What can I do for the cops today?" Mayor Dutra said, trying on his mayor face.

They had decided, in the truck on the way, they wouldn't divulge they were investigating him for the murder of Marina Terra.

Grant said, "I'm glad you didn't leave town, Mayor."

"I ain't got a reason to leave town, and I gotta be at the bullfight tonight anyway. I told you everyone calls me Manny."

"I don't care what everyone calls you, I'm calling you Mayor Dutra."

This brought a glare from the mayor, which he quickly tried to turn into a smile. He and Grant stared at each other until Bensen said, "What time you closing the office today?"

"Why do you wanna know? I don't gotta tell the cops when I'm closin' up."

"In case we need to talk to you again."

The mayor turned his head to face Bensen and said, "Maybe three, maybe four."

"You goin' home after that?" Bensen said.

"I told you I gotta go to the bullfight tonight. I gotta march in the openin' ceremonies."

Grant shifted gears. "Have you spoken to anyone from Allied Valley Growers today?"

The mayor turned back to Grant, his face a dark red. "You know how you kiss a Portagee's ass? The same way you kiss that bitches ass" -- he pointed at Amber -- "you kiss it, but you don't gotta give it no tongue."

Grant popped out of his chair, reached a long arm across the desk and grabbed the mayor's collar and yanked it, lowered his face to the mayor's and said, "You motherfucker..." He made a fist with his free hand and cocked his arm.

Caught off guard, the mayor fell forward onto the desk, grunting and cursing in Portuguese. Bensen and Amber jumped up and grabbed Grant's cocked arm, and Bensen said, "Whoa there Ali. Let's cool this down a tad."

Grant shouted into Dutra's face: "I'm gonna kick your ass, you hear me!"

The mayor, struggling to regain his balance, said, "I'm gonna sue your ass! I told you I ain't gonna talk to you no more without my attorney and now I'm gonna sue your ass!"

Grant shoved Dutra back into his chair, which did not hold his weight and tumbled backward, spilling him onto the floor. Grant shook off Bensen and Amber and pushed his way to Dutra, kicked him in the ribs and bent down and growled, "You pissed off the wrong cop, and you know what? Before this day is done it'll be my pleasure to lock your fat ass up. If I don't kill you first."

Dutra flailed his arms, trying to right himself, looking like a turtle caught on his back, and he shouted, "I'll have your badge and everything you got! I'm gonna--"

"Stuff it," Grant said. "It'll be your word against three cops, and everyone in town knows you're a crook."

"He took a swing at you," Bensen said. "We can haul him in for assaulting a police officer." He moved to stand on the other side of Dutra.

"You fuckers!" Dutra yelled. But he quit thrashing.

"We should haul your ass in," Grant said, "make a spectacle of it. But I'm gonna wait until we got enough on you so they never let you out."

Dutra stared up into Grant's face and said, "You wouldn't be so tough without that badge and gun."

Grant pulled his shield and gun out and set them on Dutra's desk. "You wanna try right now fat man?"

Their eyes remained locked for ten seconds, then Dutra said, "Get outta my office."

Grant said, "We'll be seeing you soon," picked up his things and the detectives filed out of the mayor's office.

Sweating and shaking with fury, Manny rolled out of his chair and used the desk to pull himself up. The blue Ford was backing away from his office, but he could see the tall cop looking back at him. He gave the cop the bird, and the cop made a gun with his index finger and thumb and fired it at Manny.

"Goddamn you!" Manny yelled.

He lurched to the water cooler, drank three cups and doused his face. He knew a guy who could get him a gun on short notice. In fact, he knew a couple of guys. He didn't think the cops had anything on him, he hadn't taken any money yet, but if they did, he'd take that cop down with him. He'd shoot him if the face if it was the last thing he'd do.

 The section still needs a little polishing, but I like it.

Finished first draft of next Grant Starr thriller

No one does the happy dance better than Snoopy!

I finally finished the first draft of my next Grant Starr thriller. I wish I could tell you its title, but I don't know what it is. I began writing this book in April of 2011 and had planned on publishing it in the fall of 2011. Unfortunately, life happened and other things became more important than finishing a novel.

I was tempted to ditch the project for personal reasons, but thought it had merit and deserved to be fleshed out. It weighed in at about 45K words when I set it on the shelf last June and comes in at 131K as a first draft. CANALS ended up at 140K and the THE MIGHTY T at about 100K. I have to admit it was very difficult to complete. I have a great idea for the third Grant Starr thriller, so good it was difficult to ignore its pleas to be written.

This book begins and ends at a "bloodless" Portuguese bullfight, held in a small town about thirty miles from me. They're called bloodless because the bulls aren't killed or hurt, unless you call having to chase a horse or a skinny man dressed funny around the arena being hurt. I've attended two of these bullfights and they're some of the most exciting events I've ever attended.

I wanted to do something a little more challenging this time: I wanted to have two plots that intersected. I don't care to read overly complicated genre books, so I don't write them. As with THE MIGHTY T, the reader will now who done what to whom pretty early in the book. The suspense comes with wondering if they're gonna get away with it, or get caught. I'm not telling!

Hopefully it will be ready for publication in July.

Sample Wednesday: A Hungover Mayor

This is a sample from the novel I'm currently working on, the second Grant Starr thriller. It is yet untitled.

Mayor Dutra, "Manny," one of the bad guys in the book, has become one of my favorite characters. He drinks too much and is crude and crooked: delicious qualifications for a fictional small-town mayor.

I was going to provide a little info to set up the scene, but thought better of it. You should be able to figure out what's going on from the text. The first draft will be done this month and I hope to have it published by June. Enjoy!

(But keep in mind this is in rough draft form and may have the heck edited out of it in rewrites.)

   Manny had trouble getting out of bed Thursday morning; he'd gone drinking again after the council meeting, and he'd tied one on good. He crawled into the shower and let the hot water beat some life into him, then stumbled into the kitchen to get the coffee going.

   When hot coffee began gurgling out of the machine, he switched a mug for the pot and held it there until it was half full, stuck the pot back on the plate and put an ice cube in the mug, pushed the cube around with a spoon and the phone rang.

   He groaned and got the handset off the counter, punched the button and croaked into the mouthpiece, "Yeah?"

   "Mayor Dutra?"

   Manny frowned. "Yeah, who's this?" The accent was familiar, but his alcohol-hammered brain couldn't produce a name or a face.

   "This is Lorne Eames, from Valley Unified Growers. How are you today?"

Eames ... He connected the name with the accent, but the name of the company didn't click. "I had better mornings."

   "I hope that doesn't mean the meeting went poorly last night."

   Ah, that Eames: the pot guy. Manny felt his spirits pick up, and felt as if a little more blood had found its way into his brain. "The council meetin' went just like I said it would."

   "Hmm ... Does that mean it looks good for the vote next week?"

   "I got three votes lined up." Manny took a hit of the coffee. "That's all I need, three."

   "Right, you said all you needed was a simple majority. What are the odds someone might change their mind by next Wednesday?"

   Manny pictured the faces of the three yes votes he had in his pocket; two had been blackmailed, so he was sure of them. Marina had said yes, as he'd thought she would, but because he had nothing on her, he couldn't be absolutely sure of her loyalty. He told Eames: "Zero. You don't got a problem with the money, do you?"

"No, Laken has the funds lined up so we'll have the cash next week."

   "I want it Wednesday night, after the council meetin'. I want it right after the vote."

   "Will the documents be signed at the meeting? We'll need our guarantees before we can release the funds."

Damn. Manny had forgotten about the papers. The papers would require the city attorney, Leonard Caldas, to be involved, and attorneys were never in a hurry to get anything done because they got paid by the hour. He wondered if he could talk to Leonard today, get him primed for next week.

   "Mayor?"

   "I forgot about the damn attorney. I'm gonna take the papers over there today and get him to put a rush on it."

   "We'll be there next Wednesday, Laken and I, with the cash. If you can get the papers signed that night, it's all yours. We're eager to get started."

   "I'll let you know," Manny said, then hung up.

   He had drained his mug and so refilled it, this time adding milk to cool the coffee. At the table, he started thinking about how he could get the attorney Leonard Caldas to do something in a week that he usually took two months to do.

Using Alternating Points of View in Fiction

They pulled up in front of Mayor Dutra's insurance office, killed the engine and walked to the front door. Grant could see the man inside at his desk, watching them through the glass door.

They entered and the mayor said, "How you guys doin'? You here about Marina?"

"Sure are," McKay said. "You heard about her murder, Mayor?"

"Everyone calls me Manny."

"Okay Manny. I guess you heard about the murder."

Manny shrugged. "Stevinson ain't a big town. Real tragic, losing a good council member like that." Then he quickly added, "And she was a good person. Why don't you guys take a seat. You need some water or something? I got instant coffee somewhere." He looked around the office, as if looking for the coffee.

"No thanks," McKay said as he and Grant sat. "How well did you know Ms. Terra?"

"Who?"

"Marina Terra, the woman who was murdered last night."

"Ah shit. I been calling her Marina for so many years, I forget her last name."


Manny offered them a toothy smile, stalling while he tried to recall if he'd told anyone about his and Marina's affair. He didn't have any close friends, so who would he have told? Had he bragged about it to someone? He might have, he never had much to brag about when it came to sex, but couldn't recall for sure if he had.

He stood. "I'm gonna get a cuppa water. You guys sure you don't want something?"

"Since you're having some, I'll take some water," the taller detective said, the one whose eyes bugged him.

Manny plodded to the back of the little office and stepped behind the partitions to get the water. He drained a cup, then another, trying to remember if he'd told anyone. He didn't think so, but thought it best to not bring up the affair. That way if she hadn't told anyone it'd be like it had never happened.

He wadded his cup up and dropped it in the wastebasket, filled a cup for the cop and returned to his desk.


Grant took the water and said, "Thanks," and took note of the mayor's appearance: he didn't look so good, like he'd had a rough night. Like he'd been up all night drinking cheap liquor. And there was something else that bugged Grant, something he couldn't put his finger on.

He decided to bring it up. "Did we come at a bad time Manny? You look a little... Ragged."

Manny averted his eyes and said, "I had better days. This thing with Marina got me shook up a little. Stevinson ain't used to people gettin' murdered." He tugged at his collar with a fat finger; Grant noticed his hand was shaking.

And then realized what about the mayor's appearance bothered him: he was wearing a necktie, and it was strangling him.
"So," McKay said, "you've known her for a while..."

"Yeah. We got elected the same year so we've worked together on the council for a couple'a years. She had a stubborn streak, Marina did, but in the end she usually came around."

"Argumentative, huh? She have any run-ins with other council members?"

"Sure. Like I said, she could be stubborn."


Sorry he'd said anything negative about Marina, Manny felt sweat trickle down his forehead. He gave them another smile and said, "But what Portagee ain't?"

"Anything specific come to mind?" the tall cop said.

Manny shook his head. "Nothin' important. Hell, Stevinson council don't ever discuss anything important 'cause there ain't any money to do anything." He forced a chuckle, unconsciously pulled at his collar again then quickly dropped his hand back to his lap. He was beginning to think the tie was cutting off the oxygen to his brain.

McKay said, "The council ever have heated arguments that could lead to ill feelings?"

Manny shrugged. "Naw. We hash things out, vote, then go home. If there's any bitching, the next day everyone goes to work and forgets about it." He shrugged again, which this time had the effect of tightening his tie, which made him tug at his collar again.

The cops paused for a few uncomfortable moments, seemed to stare at him, which made more sweat run down his face, then the shorter one said, "Do you know if she was seeing anyone?"

"Marina? Hell, I don't know. We weren't close or anything and I never heard no one talk about her seeing anyone."

The tall cop said, "Did you know she was married once?"

Manny had to think again. He knew Marina had been married, she'd told him once before sex, but if he told the cops wouldn't they wonder how he knew? It was kind of personal. He decided to give them a weasel answer: "I don't think so, but maybe. With her working for the church, she wouldn't exactly want anyone to know. Catholics ain't too hot about divorce."

"When was the last time you saw her?" the tall one said.

"At the council meetin' Wednesday night."

The shorter one jumped in, "You haven't seen or talked to her since Wednesday night?"

It felt like they were tag-teaming him, and it was pissing him off. "That's what I said, ain't it?" As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he'd made a mistake; the cops' eyes drilled holes through his head.

The shorter one said, "You were seen talking to her yesterday, at the church."

"Right. I forgot about that." He offered the smile again. "I stopped by for a few minutes to chat with her about the meetin' the night before."

"Oh?" the tall one said. "Unfinished business?"

It was then that Manny realized the cops would find out about the pot deal when they talked to the other council members, which they would eventually do because Marina was on the council. They might already know but were playing dumb to see if he would lie about it. He felt things spiraling out of control.

This is a scene from the first, and rough, draft of the novel I'm working on, the second Grant Starr thriller. I have no working title, sadly. I'm not worried, though. I didn't think of The Mighty T until several months after the book was done. One of my sons called my original title "dumb," so, wisely, I changed it. The text will certainly change in edits, hopefully for the better.

The scene is an example of alternating points of view in fiction. Used sparingly, it can add dynamic variety for the reader who may grow tired of straight narrative and dialog. Used too frequently, it would likely lead to confusion: who's saying and thinking what?

If you use this technique, be careful to keep track of whose point of view you're writing in. When writing in Manny's point of view, I refer to Detectives Starr and McKay by a rough description: the tall one and the shorter one. Hopefully the reader will remember that Grant Starr is six-six. They may not; I'll have to keep that in mind in edits.

(As a side note, because I'm using Scrivener, I went to the scene I copied from for this post and made a note to make sure the reader remembers Grant is six-six. When writing in Word, I'd have had to write that in my draft notebook and hope that I'd see it when editing.)

When writing in the detective's point of view, I called the mayor Manny because he asked them to.

Try it sometime in your writing. I think you'll like it and it will expand your skill set.

O Touro! Portuguese “Bloodless” Bullfight

This past Monday I attended a Portuguese “bloodless” bullfight with two of my sons, in tiny Stevinson, California, a dairy town twenty-five miles south of where I live. My next Grant Starr novel will open with one of these bullfights, so naturally I wanted to see one. It was one of the most exciting events I’ve ever attended.

Tradition bullfights, where the bull is stabbed or killed, have been outlawed in the United States for many years. “Bloodless” bullfights are legal in several states, including California. Here, they are legal only when part of a religious event. Good thing for us the Portuguese Catholic community has religious events from April to October; there are twenty-to-thirty bullfights every year. I’ve lived in the San Joaquin Valley since 1963 yet never knew of these bullfights.

Instead of being stabbed in the back, as happens in Spain and Mexico, the bulls have a Velcro pad that performers attach short and long flags to. You can see them in the pictures above and below this text. The only blood I saw came from the busted lip of a forcado. More on forcados in a minute.

In the event I attended, the cavaleiros, horse-mounted bullfighters, placed three short banderillas, the flags, on each bull while riding their first horse. They changed horses and placed three longer banderillas, then left the arena. There were no matadors, bullfighters on foot, at this event.

When the cavaleiros were finished, the trumpets blared and the forcados leapt over the wall and entered the arena. Our hostess’s daughter, who is Portuguese-American, says she attends twenty bullfights a year. She, like everyone in the stands under fifty, chatted with friends or played on her cell phone during most of the bullfight. But when the forcados took center stage; everyone paid attention. Forcados are badass bull wrestlers.

This is what they look like:

A forcado taunting a bull.

They are all crazy, but the one in the picture, with the elf hat, is by far the craziest. Eight forcados enter the arena to wrestle the bull into submission. They form a line, with the elf-hat-wearer in front. Elf Hat approaches the bull alone, as depicted in the photo. He calls out “Touro! Touro!”, “bull” in Portuguese. Well, bah! Instead of my blathering, watch this short video I made with my iPhone. It’s best viewed in full-screen mode.

Is he crazy or what? Elf Hat was the guy with the busted lip. He’s lucky that’s all that got busted. The forcado hoisted over the wall was shaken but OK. Here’s another video where the bull kicks some ass:

That group’s bad luck to have drawn the meanest bull in the show. It took them three attempts to subdue it.

The Amadores De Merced, Merced Amateurs, the youngest group of forcados in the state, with one member a mere fourteen years old, showed us how it’s done:

After being subdued by the forcados, the bull follows a group of cows out of the arena:

Animal fans are wondering what happens to the bull after the bullfight. It either goes out to pasture, as a stud, or it goes to the slaughterhouse, where all cattle end up. These bulls are bred to fight in bullfights and they get only one appearance. Bulls are smart. If they were to come back a second time they’d know not to go for the muleta, or cape: they’d go for the matador. And they wouldn’t chase the horses because they’d know they couldn’t catch them. That would be a boring show.

There’s more, but I’ve used up my time. I think there’s another post or two here. Or three. The experience has made me rethink my work-in-progress.

*Photographer Mike Wooldridge generously allowed me to use his wonderful photos. I found them here. Take a look at his photostream please; you’ll see everything I saw Monday night. (Except I didn’t see a matador.) 

*Apologies to the Portuguese language, which I don’t speak. I’ve probably mixed Spanish with Portuguese.

*On a personal note, my oldest son speaks Portuguese and had a ball chatting with his neighbors. Because he doesn’t look Portuguese and speaks the language funny, everyone wanted to know if he was Brazilian. The other son only came because he’d pulled the front bumper off his truck backing out of his parking stall and couldn’t work that evening. He didn’t regret it; we had a blast.