Excerpt from SUNSET HILL

My next Grant Starr thriller, SUNSET HILL, is with the beta readers. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8.

Grant and Detective Ira Utter of the Seattle Police Department are in Utter’s car heading for a woman’s prison in Gig Harbor where they will interview a convicted killer. Grant is going to try and get the killer to give them the name of her accomplice, who’s started killing again.

Utter is a new character, naturally because he’s in Seattle, Washington, and the other two Grant Starr novels were set in Central California. I didn’t like him much at first because he’s so straight-laced and kind of boring. And, frankly, I didn’t like typing out his name much. But he grew on me and I came to appreciate him, and understand him. His character is in large part his attempt to separate himself from what he was: a drunk.

Grant’s sure the killer they’re looking for is Mindy, who escaped an intense police dragnet after the failed attempt to blow up the Don Pedro Dam in La Grange.

Utter and Grant got into Utter’s department-issued Chevy Impala, and Grant asked Utter, “An Impala, huh? How’d Seattle PD end up with Impalas? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cop driving one.”
“It’s a long story. The short of it is, Chief Dunston’s brother owns a Chevy dealership. They’re not bad cars.”
“I heard they suck.”
“Well ... okay. They do suck. Fortunately, there’s little call for a Seattle detective to engage a suspect in a high-speed chase. We have highway patrol Dodge Chargers for that.”
Grant laughed. “You call in the HP for all car chases?”
“Not all, just the ones where you suspect you might need to go more than eighty. The Impala starts to shimmy at eighty.”
Grant laughed again and said, “How’d the media thing go?”
“Okay. I remembered not to frown.”
“Kept a poker face?”
“Well, it wasn’t like I was being grilled by Mike Wallace or anything. Keely Wolfe asked about you and the others, who you were and why you were here. I said you were consulting because there might a tie-in with a cold case of yours. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t see any harm in it. If you didn’t tell them who we were, they’d think we were feds. That I would’ve been pissed about.”
They swapped stories for thirty minutes until Utter said, “I Googled you this morning. 1970 Ferrari Daytona, huh? From trading stocks?”
“Nah. Short-selling stocks. But I’m out of the game now.”
“Sounds like it was lucrative. And a lot safer than hunting killers. Why not retire and do the stock thing?”
“Because I’d go nuts. Short-selling gave me something to do at night while I dried up. I’d wake up at two or three and flip the computer on, run the numbers instead of reaching for a beer.”
“How long did you drink?”
“Started in high school and didn’t quit until I was twenty-six. Too long, but I know guys who still drink like they did in college, and they’re fifty now.”
“Why’d you quit? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I don’t mind. I had a woman walk out on me. I thought she was the one, but ... turns out she didn’t like angry drunks. Who can blame her? Hell, I don’t like angry drunks.”
“You in AA?”
“Nope.” Grant turned to look at Utter. “Her leaving was enough of a shock that I just quit. Didn’t feel like I needed any help. You sound like you have a story. You in AA?”
Utter nodded and said, “I’m an alcoholic. A recovering alcoholic, as they teach us to say. Unlike you, I can’t touch a drop. Just smelling a beer makes me break out in a sweat.”
“How long you been sober?”
“Five years, sixty-two days.”
“Still go to meetings?”
“Oh yeah. Probably will the rest of my life, or until I’m too old to drive myself there.”
“I guess your marriage survived. Or is this wife number two?”
“No, Lacey hung in there. Probably for the kids’ sake. I think she’ll leave after they move out.”
“Why do you say that? The worst is over, man.”
“The damage has been done, you know? Say you tell someone you hate them and suggest they jump off the Space Needle. You can apologize the next day, but you can’t take the words back. They’ll always be there, floating somewhere in time and space. Some things can’t be undone.”
“Ah, time can heal most wounds, Ira. She’s stuck with you this long, she’s probably gonna hang in for the long haul.”
Utter was quiet for a few moments, then he said, “I think she’s having an affair. In fact, I’m almost positive she is.”
“Ah man, sorry to hear that. You think it’s a revenge thing? Getting back at you for the years of drinking?”
“Could be. I’m thinking about confronting her about it. What do you think?”
Grant blew out a breath, and thought through his answer. “I hate to think I’ll ever have to deal with that, but if I do, I’ll confront her for sure. There are few things worse than someone you love sneaking around behind your back.”
They were quiet for a while, then Utter said, “Did I tell you she wears makeup to Zumba? Who wears makeup to Zumba?”
“Women care about their appearance more than men, even at the gym. In fact, when I used to go to a public gym, most of the women there had makeup on.”
“Zumba lasts an hour, but she’s usually gone two hours. Sometimes three.”
“Ah man...”
“Yeah.”

The Washington Corrections Center for Women was tucked into a corner of McCormick Forest Park, off Washington State Route 16. Utter exited at the Burnham Interchange, wound down Sehmel Drive, then hooked a left on Bujacich Drive, which cut through the park as it led to the prison.
“Sure is pretty country,” Grant said. “Is it always this green?”
“It’s why we’re called the Evergreen State,” Utter said. “This side of the Cascades is always like this. It turns white when it snows, but otherwise is green year round. I assume you’ve got a plan for interviewing Sorrentino? Is there anything you want me to do? Keep my trap shut? Play good-cop bad-cop with you?” He smiled.
“I’ve got a plan, but nothing elaborate. Feel free to jump in if you think you have something to add.”
When they pulled into the prison parking lot, Utter said, “Is there anything you want to ask me about Sorrentino before we go in?”
“I think I got all I need from the files.”

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.