Fictional Characters and Chopping Up Chickens

I’ve always thought my novels were plot driven, but now I realize that’s not entirely true. A good story is critical, but a novel without good characters isn’t likely to be finished.

Where do fictional characters come from?

- From the author’s imagination: They’re made up.
- From the author’s experiences: They’re written after someone the author knew personally or knew of.
- A combination of the preceding two statements. Most characters probably fall into this category.

One of the scenes in my horror novel CANALS involves two Hispanics named Tony and Bobby, each a year out of high school. They met in fourth grade when Bobby, who was the biggest kid in school, bigger than any sixth grader (BIG!), saved Tony from an ass kicking. Bobby sat on the other kid until the bell rang, then shoved his face in the grass as he got up. The two were inseparable after that.

Until the monster ate one of them. You’ll have to read the book to learn who gets to live, though he was never quite the same after watching his buddy get munched.

Here’s a rather long, and explicit, excerpt from the book:

Tony spun an empty bottle toward the canal, watched it arch through the moon-lit night, heard the splash, and said, “Two-for-two, holmes. At this rate I’m going to take Kobe’s place on the Lakers, aye, ése?”

“Don’t call me ése, you wetback,” Bobby said. “You don’t even know how to speak Spanish, fool, and you damn sure can’t shoot like Kobe.” They were Lakers fans: Kobe Bryant was the man.

“Get your fat arm off the cooler, bitch,” Tony said, trying to get in the ice chest.
“Bitch hell. You ain’t got no bitch, bitch, unless you count that Wanda bitch at work.” Bobby laughed as he moved his arm and pulled a joint out of a plastic baggie. “Shit, you couldn’t even get in Wanda’s panties.”

“Shut up, ése. Wanda’s got back, man. I’m gonna get me some of that, you wait and see.”

Bobby laughed again. “You stupid wetback, I’ll have a gray beard down to my ass before you get with Wanda. Besides, she’s ugly. And don’t call me ése, bitch.”

 “Man, but could you do Yolanda?” Tony said, grabbing his crotch. “That bitch is fine!” He took a long pull from his bottle.

“Shit yeah, I could do Yolanda four times a day, bitch.” Bobby reached across the cooler and said, “Gimme five for Yolanda’s fine pussy.” Although neither boy had seen or touched Yolanda’s genitals, nor would they ever get close, they fived it across the beer cooler.

Bobby lit the joint and took a deep hit, holding in the potent smoke as long as his burning lungs allowed. He exhaled slowly, tilting his head up, blowing smoke at the stars.

“Gimme the smoke, ése,” Tony said, reaching across the cooler, tapping Bobby’s arm.
“I just got it started, fool. All I got was paper. Let me get some weed first, bitch. And don’t call me ése.”

“Bitch this, bitch,” Tony said, grabbing his crotch again and watching his friend hit on the joint. He tapped Bobby on the arm again. “Pass the joint, bitch!”

Bobby leaned away from his friend and sucked longer on the thin marijuana cigarette, just to piss Tony off. He fought off a cough; small wisps leaked from his nostrils as he finally passed the joint to Tony.

“See, bitch,” Tony said, as he took the joint and scowled. “You took too much, ése. Man, I don’t know why I share my weed with you. You’re a fat weed hog, bitch.”

Bobby coughed out his hit and took a pull from his Corona to douse the fire in his throat. Still coughing, he said, “Bitch, your weed? I bought this weed, bitch. And don’t call me ése, bitch.”

Tony considered that for a moment, then said, passing the joint back, “Oh yeah. That’s right, you did buy it. Bitch.”

They looked at each other and started laughing; a stoners’ laugh, hard and uncontrollable, so hard they fell out of their chairs into the sand where they rolled onto their backs and laughed at the moon and the stars until side cramps forced them to stop. Wiping tears from their bloodshot eyes, they righted their chairs and resumed their positions of importance on opposite sides of the cooler.

You might now ask yourself, where did I get those characters? Did I just make them up? Turns out, I didn’t. I worked with a real-life Bobby and Tony, and their repartee was very much like it was in the book. I worked with them on the loading dock of the Foster Farms poultry plant in Livingston, California. I know you’re dying to know the story, so...

If you live on the West Coast, or shop at Costco, you should be familiar with Foster Farms poultry products. Max and Verda Foster started Foster Farms in 1939, on an eighty-acre ranch near Modesto, California. Many years later, they bought poultry plants in Oregon and Washington, which is why you can find their chicken in every grocery store on the West Coast. I think their chicken is the best “grocery-store” chicken. I’ve eaten free-range and organic chicken only once or twice; they might be a better product, I don’t know. Foster Farms also raises turkeys—the fictional Bobby and Tony worked at the Foster Farms turkey processing plant in Turlock, California—and run a dairy. All-in-all, I’d buy their products over their competitors nine times out of ten.

I started working for Foster Farms the fall after high school. I had two roommates who worked for them on the night shift and their foreman was looking to put together a basketball team, and I was a decent basketball player, so I easily got the job. I didn’t even have to apply. The first time I walked into the part of the plant where I’d be working, I was blown away.

Foster Farms is not even close to being as big as, say, Tyson Foods, the largest meat processor in the world, but they’re the biggest on the West Coast. According to an article I found on the Internet (which of course has to be true), Foster Farms processes almost 600,000 chickens a day. That’s not a typo.

I walked into a room the size of a large warehouse, about four stories high. Huge. When the processing lines started up, there were about eight, I looked up and saw chickens coming down out of the sky by the hundreds. They’d already been plucked, eviscerated, and cleaned; they looked like the whole chickens you bring home from the grocery store.

The first line was called the “bag line,” and it ran fast because all they had to do was stuff a packet of innards into the cavity of the chicken and slip a bag up and around it. No, the neck and innards you pull out of the chicken you’re about to cook didn’t come from that chicken.

The line I was put on was a cut-up line (though we were too busy to be cut-ups while working): chickens were dismembered a piece at a time so that by the end of the line nothing but drumsticks were left. The first person on the line cut the left wing off every bird, the next got the right wing. Then came the breast guys. I was a breast guy. Each breast guy cut the breasts off every other chicken. Lastly, two people cut the thighs off. The drumsticks fell off on their own. The chicken parts were thrown or dropped onto big pieces of sheet metal in front and below us. The parts slid to the bottom of the sheet metal, where they could be grabbed and packed.

The cutters stood on a steel platform, about four feet high. In front and below us were the packers, who grabbed the cut-up parts and placed them on Styrofoam trays that passed by on a fast-moving conveyor belt. The drumstick guy, or gal—lots of women worked at Foster Farms—placed six drumsticks on a tray, turning them so the round side faced upward (if they had time). The next person did the same with the thighs. The breast halves were packed three to a tray and I can’t recall how many wings a tray got. Six sounds right.

And that’s how the line went, hour after hour, for eight hours minus breaks and lunch. Being a breast guy was grueling work, especially when your knives got dull, which mine always did. I never got the hang of the second cut, where you had to run the blade down the chicken’s intercostal cartilage. I’d miss most of the time so the blade would have to be pushed through bone. After a while, the blade would become dull and I’d have to push harder to cut the breast off. And the hand that held the chicken had to be covered with a mesh glove too small for my big hand so that it was killing me by lunch. You get the picture.

One funny anecdote. Funny to me, at least. I’d be hacking away at the chicken when suddenly, but thankfully rarely, a big blob of chicken fat would flick off the end of my knife, fly down and hit the woman below me in the face. A hazard of their job, I suppose. I worked at each station of the cutting line at least once but never did the packing. I’m six-four and the line was made for people five-five, or less.

Job openings were posted on a corkboard in the break room. I was tipped off about an opening in the cooler, so I applied and got the job. Anything to get off the cutting line. Cases of packaged chicken sat in the cooler until they were loaded onto delivery trucks.

The weight room sat a floor above the cooler. Styrofoam packs of chicken, or bags of whole chicken, were weighed and priced, then packed into cases. The cases slid down a track of rollers to the cooler. The whole production was coordinated, meaning the weight room processed orders that went together so we could stack the order’s cases on the same pallet, or pallets if the order was large.

It was hard backbreaking work, when you were working. The cases of whole chickens could weigh up to sixty pounds (maybe fifty—it’s been a long time). But if the weight room had a problem, no cases dropped into the cooler and we got to kick back. We’d bundle up in our company-issued jackets, nest down on a few cases of chicken, and take a snooze.

As I recall, I was recruited for my next position: lead man on the loading dock. I was promoted ahead of guys who’d worked there many years longer than I had. Looking back, it might’ve been because I had actually graduated from high school (remember, this was the night shift) or was clearly more intelligent than my co-workers (which isn’t saying much, believe me).

The loading dock’s front office would give me sheets of orders at the beginning of the night, one sheet for each truck backed into the loading dock. I’d write cases of products onto a piece of paper and hand it to one of the hand-operated forklift guys, who’d then trundle off to the cooler in search of the products. They’d come back with a load of chicken, stop in front of my station so I could make sure they had the right products and tally up the weights. Once that was done, they’d stack the product in the truck. Several aspects to my job were important: the truck had to be loaded with the right product, I had to have the weights correct, and the truck had to be loaded in the reverse order it was to be delivered. Make sense?

Tony and Bobby were forklift guys who worked out of the older cooler, located to my right as I’d sit on my stool and stare at the back of a truck. To this day I don’t where the chickens that came out of the older cooler went. They didn’t go into any of my trucks (or I’ve forgotten they did). The chickens in the old cooler were packed into waxed cardboard boxes, were smaller than the chickens I cut up on the line, and were packed with ice. My best guess is, they either went to restaurants or were shipped far away—thus the need for the ice.

I’d see Tony and Bobby almost every day, zipping in and out of the loading dock and the cooler. As their products weren’t loaded on my loading dock, the only time I’d see them is when they wanted to gab. As in their likenesses in CANALS, they were U.S.-born Mexicans. Or Americans of Mexican heritage. Whatever term is more politically correct these days. CANALS’s Bobby-and-Tony banter was as I remembered the real Bobby and Tony, except they weren’t stoned. I take that back. They usually weren’t stoned. They were fun guys, always joking, rarely down or depressed.

Sadly, I learned years later that Bobby was killed in a car accident while driving to Los Banos on fog-shrouded roads: very dangerous in the winter. His car flipped, he was ejected, and ended up with his head submerged in a ditch. He drown.

Hmm... I may have just tipped you off as to which dies in CANALS. Oh well, you should read the book anyway. If you don’t mind being scared.

Figuring Plot Details

I'm working on my third Grant Starr novel, with a working title "Sunset Hill," which is in the northeast corner of Seattle, Washington. Grant is based in Modesto, CA, about a two-day drive. Well, maybe one day in the Ferrari. Right off the bat I bet you can see the problem: how do I get Grant involved in a case two states away? He's not some fed.

I ran through several scenarios before I hit on what I think works the best. First I thought he and Amber could be up there on a vacation. But there were several problems with that. One, that's what they were doing when "Death of a Matador" opened. They were in the Mount Shasta area of Northern California, at a B&B. Don't want to be redundant. Also, Bensen has to be in the book and I'm going to write him in as a tag-along on Grant and Amber's vacation. Although he's been curious about Grant and Amber's sex life, him being the married man and all, I don't think he'd go for being the third wheel. So I scratched that idea.

Then I thought, what if Seattle has a case similar to what Grant battled in "The Mighty T" and called him up to help. I saw a bookish detective on the case in Seattle, a guy who remembers everything. He read about the case of the terrorist Samuel Raimes III, who called himself John Lightfoot, and thought his case was so similar that Grant could surely help them. The problem with that scenario was, bah! It was a little boring and, if I may say, pretentious. Maybe if Seattle was dealing with an eco-terrorist like Raimes, but they're not. Plus, Grant would likely have to go to Seattle alone, and we couldn't have that.

Next I thought Grant, Amber, and Bensen could be in Seattle attending some kind of cop conference. I had to consult Google to see if cops had conferences like that and guess what? Not only do they, they had one in Seattle in 2012. I like realism. So, Grant, Amber, and Bensen are at the conference. I'm still thinking about letting Hanks tag along, to make it an even number so Bensen would have someone to share a room with. I still might do that. I liked Hanks limited role in Matador.

I'm almost finished writing chapter one and I'm having a little trouble figuring out a believeable way to get Grant together with the Seattle detective who's caught the murder case we're interested in, Ira Utter. Utter's not an expert at anything so I couldn't have him speaking at the conference. For that matter, Grant's not really an expert at anything, either, wo why would he be speaking?

Ah, but he has had experience in tracking down an eco-terrorist, and not many cops can say that. So, I'm gonna have him take 5-10 minutes of someone else's presentation on "Home-Grown Terrorism" and Utter's gonna be sitting in. But Utter's busy on a new case, why would he take time out to attend a boring conference, especially one meant only for "police executives"? He's there because his captain, Captain Marks, is giving the presentation and she told him he had to go so there'd be at least one person laughing at her jokes. Grant's gonna say something at the end of his breif talk that's gonna catch Utter's ear.

As I've posted about before, I don't want anyone to be able to point out big holes in my plots. I also don't want anyone saying "Hey! That couldn't happen!" So I labor at getting my plots to make sense and keep both feel planted in the real world.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my ramblings.

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.

Finally Got The Thing Started

At some point a writer has to stop plotting and researching and just get the novel started. The first page can be the most difficult to write, but it's the most important. You can't finish a novel you haven't started.

This is how I get started on a novel.

1)  I get the basic idea of what I want the book to be about by either dreaming it up or through an "ah ha" moment. The idea for my new WIP came from another of my novels. One bad guy got away at the end of THE MIGHTY T (I won't say which as that would be a spoiler), and I kind of liked that bad guy. In fact, I often like my bad guys as much or more than the good guys, even though they can be rotten to the core. They're often very interesting people. So one day months ago I got the idea that it would be fun to do a follow up novel with him/her (no spoilers), and I plopped that idea into a pot I leave on a back burner in my mind.

2)  When I'm ready to get serious about writing the novel, I open a text document in Scrivener titled "Plot Thots" and I started jotting down some, well, plot thoughts. With CANALS I began with the question "What if there was a monster in the canals around here?" and I went from there. With THE MIGHTY T I thought "What if some guy, some nut, got tired of waiting for something to be done to help the poor salmon and decided to blow up the dam?" And then I let my imagination go. One idea leads to another, which leads to yet another. And so on. Pretty soon I've got a (very) rough plot outlined. I like to know how a book starts and how it ends before I begin writing it. I leave what happens in between to my imagination.

3)  Next I do some research. I don't want readers saying "that couldn't happen" when they read my books and they can't if I do my research. With CANALS I dug into the history of irrigation in and around Modesto, and I visited and took pictures of canals and I learned when they were filled and emptied. With THE MIGHTY T I dug into the controversy surrounding declining salmon populations in the Tuolumne River and what was or wasn't being done about it. (I read an article in today's paper about the state of California mandating that 15% more water be allowed into the Tuolumne and Merced Rivers this year--the controversy continues.) I also want to know who's on either side of the line drawn in the dirt. I research communities my story will take place in and visit them if I can. If they're too far away to visit, there's always Google Earth.

4)  When I feel I've got a good understanding of the issues, places, and things, I'll give the characters some thought. But not too much. I like to give them something to get them going but I want them to have the space to become what they will. I'm sure this gives you ardent plotters the willies. I need to understand enough about a character to bring him or her to life, but not so much that they can't grow and develop as the story progresses. Whether based wholly or partially on someone I know or know of, they will still be the product of my imagination. I want them to be mine by the time I've finished writing the book, and have finished the edits. I'm writing my third Grant Starr novel so a few of the characters have already been fleshed out through two books. Easy stuff there.

5)  With the basic plot, setting, and characters in mind, I'm ready to start the novel. It's time to stop researching and thinking about the characters and plot, it's time to start the story. How do I do this? I sit my butt down in front of the computer, turn the WiFi off, mute the phone, and get started. There's no other way to say it.

It doesn't matter if the beginning gets completely rewritten later or if a character turns out to be a better or worse person than you initially imagined, that'll all be worked out. The only thing that matters now is getting the book started, and then making and sticking to a writing schedule. I like to write a minimum of 1,000 words a day when I'm creating. Today I wrote 1,800. Tomorrow might be 800 or 2,000. I don't beat myself up if I come in under 1,000 but I give myself hell if I fail to write any new words, or fail to even try.

Imagination is like voice recognition software: the more you use it the better it gets. Give your imagination everything it needs to succeed and I promise you'll be pleasantly surprised at how it will reward you.

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.

Scrivener for Windows: Self-Publishing

Want an easy and fairly inexpensive solution for creating files you can upload to Kindle Direct Publishing, read and edit on your tablet computer or eReader, and send to reviewers or beta readers? Look no further than Scrivener.

While I'd hoped to switch to a MacBook this year, it just wasn't in the budget. I needed a notebook computer I could use in my business as well as at home, and my business software is available only for Windows. I'm writing this post on my new Dell Inspiron, a great buy at Costco for only $500. Scrivener for Mac is far more robust than Scrivener for Windows because it's been available on the Mac for several years now.

I have two novels on Amazon, both were written with Word then uploaded to KDP in .html format. I followed the style guide published by Marc Coker at Smashwords in formatting my file. Despite significant efforts to ensure good formatting, I was recently told my The Mighty T file has formatting errors.

The problem with formatting a document with Word is it leaves gunk in the basic file. Gunk turns into font changes and formatting problems, even if you think you've done everything perfectly, as I had thought I'd done.

Scrivener gets your formatting right because it uses Amazon's own Kindlegen program. (You'll need to download and install Kindlegen before you can produce .mobi files. Good thing it's free.)

From now on, I'll use Scrivener to write my books and produce the files I need to self-publish my ebooks. Print books will still need to be formatted in another program. Currently I'm using MicroSoft Publisher for that.

In a nutshell, here's how I plan on writing and self-publishing my books:

Write my manuscript using Scrivener.

I use the example format Scrivener provides for writing novels, with a few changes. Each file folder is a chapter and I name them Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. In the text panel for the file folder (chapter) I write whatever I please. My current novel will have chapters titled "Chapter 1 - Monday".

Below each file folder I insert a text placeholder for each scene in the chapter. This has been great for easily getting around in the manuscript. No more using the search function in Word to find a scene.

If I've written a new scene on my iPad, I can import it into Scrivener and format it as I've formatted everything else in the MS in less than a minute. Editing scenes I've created in Scrivener on my iPad isn't a simple process, however. The scene must first be exported into a .txt file. I use DropBox to sync up such files with iA Writer, my iPad writing app. I'm told Mac users can edit files, or parts of files, on their mobile devices by using another app. I think it's called OneNote, but I'm not positive. They don't have to export their files first.

Edit either on paper or on my iPad.

Once I've editing my MS a couple of times on the computer, it's ready to be either printed or compiled to a format that can be read on my iPad. Editing on my iPad went so well with my WIP that I may skip the printing stage next time.

I compiled my MS into .mobi files this time, then emailed them to my Kindle email address. They showed up on my Kindle app in 5-10 minutes. I could then edit them on my iPad wherever I please without having to carry a folder of paper around with me. If you're in WiFi range, each edit is uploaded and saved.

I may play with the Stanza app next time as it allows me to read and edit in Courier, my favorite typeface for writing. It takes .epub files, which Scrivener makes, of course.

I have one beef with the version of Scrivener I'm currently using, when printing. You need to remember to tell it to print page numbers because by default it doesn't. The page numbers won't help you find your place in Scrivener, because there aren't any page numbers in Scrivener. But just imagine you've printed, say, 100 pages to edit and, klutz that you are, you drop them on the floor. You're out of luck if you didn't have the program print page numbers for you.

Publish to Amazon with Scrivener.

There's a bit of a learning curve to do this, and I'm afraid the Scrivener manual isn't much help. I'm not one who likes to take a lot of time writing posts with screen shots and tedious step-by-step instructions. Plenty of editors and writing have already done this: Google is your friend for finding their posts.

The only thing Scrivener won't do is help you create your book cover. You'll need a graphics program (I did mine in an old copy of MS Publisher) for that, or better yet, hire someone to do it for you.

When you're ready to format for print, Scrivener will compile your MS to a .rtf format for easy importing by your layout program.

Editing: Cut, Cut, and Cut

As I am heavy into the editing mode, I thought I’d share some things I’ve learned about editing.

I wrote both of my self-published novels prior to 2011. Frustrated at not being able to find a publisher or agent, one day I Googled “self publishing” and found Smashwords. Mark Coker’s marketing guide sent me to Twitter, and Twitter led me to several web sites that’ve helped my writing considerably. I reference them at the end of my post.

One of the most important things a writer can do is learn to recognize and remove extra words. Your book will flow better because the reader won’t need to plow through superfluous verbage.

Here are some examples:

1. “Always”. Run a search on your manuscript for “always”, then delete the first one you find and see if it changes the meaning of the sentence. It rarely will. Example:

Grant always got his coffee at a local shop, avoiding the national chain because he thought they charged far too much.

I’ll go a little further than removing one word, I’ll remove four:

Grant got his coffee at a local shop, avoiding the national chain he thought charged too much.

Removing the four words didn’t change the meaning of the sentence, and you’ve tightened your text up.

You could also say avoiding the national chain that charged too much or avoiding the expensive national chain, but it would take Grant’s opinion out of the equation.

2. Directional use of “up” and “down”; i.e., “stand up” and “sit down”.

Grant stood up and punched Manny in the nose.

Bensen sat down in one of Grant’s guest chairs.

It’s presumed that when you stand, you stand up. Standing down is done only in the military.

Grant stood and punched Manny in the nose.

Bensen sat in one of Grant’s guest chairs.

I’ll break this rule on occasion with a sentence like,

Grant stood and gave Amber a kiss, then sat back down.

To my ears Grant stood and gave Amber a kiss, then sat sounds abrupt.

Also,

Grant drove up to Redding in the Ferrari, making the trip in just over three hours.

Redding is north of Modesto, where Grant works and lives. North is “up.”

Grant took the Ferrari to Redding, making the trip in just over three hours.

“Just” is one of those words that can usually be cut as well, but to do so in this sentence, to retain the original meaning, I would have to make the sentence longer. I’m hesitant to do that.

3. “That” is one of the most overused words in fiction. Run a search and see if you can eliminate each instance.

Amber thought that the suspect was lying to her.

Amber thought the suspect was lying to her.

4. ”Very” is another overused word. Give it the ax, if you can.

Bensen was very worried that Grant was losing it.

Bensen was worried Grant was losing it.

A bonus: I got rid of very and that.

5. “There” is weak and often unnecessary.

Hanks knocked on the door, but there was no one home.

Hanks knocked on the door, but no one was home. Or, but no one answered.

6. Any word ending in “ly” can usually be chopped. Be ruthless with this! Few things are worse than a story full of adjectives. They are a crutch for poor writing. I hate them so much I can’t bring myself to write out some examples.

If you’re interested in improving, by tightening up, your writing, check out these sites:

Tameri Guide For Writers: Usage Guide A–M

Tameri Guide for Writers: Usage Guide N–Z

Overused Words in Novel Writing

On-Screen Vs. Hard-Copy Editing

Let me preface this post by stating the obvious: everyone is different. My method for editing manuscripts works for me, but may not work for you. However, if you’re a new writer you may be looking for ideas. Play around with the information a bit if you like, then keep what works and discard the rest.

How old are you? If you’re thirty-five or younger you probably learned how to type on a computer. I learned how to type on a manual typewriter, likely a leftover from WWII. I’m sure it weighed at least sixty pounds.  I bought my first computer when I was twenty-eight for $1,200 (I think—that was a long time ago). It had a 20 megabyte hard drive. That’s megabyte, not gigabyte. The first version of Windows I had came on a floppy disc.

If you learned how to type on a computer, it’s likely you’re far more used to editing on a computer screen than I am. I’ve learned to work on a screen over the years, but it’s not how I started out.

I know writers who write their first draft longhand, then send the pages to someone who types them up for them. John Grisham used to write his manuscripts longhand. Being an attorney, I’m sure he was used to that medium. Stephen King wrote Carrie on a typewriter. Both writers produced hard copies of their draft immediately.

I don’t produce a hard copy until I reasonably sure I’m close to my final two or three edits. I’ll typically go through my manuscript three, four, or five times before I print it out. Why? It’s far easier to make changes on the screen.

My first draft is generally too long as I let the words flow without restraint. I’m not a plotter, meaning I don’t have everything figured out before I start writing. I begin with a premise, start writing and see when my characters and the story takes me. There’s no way I would want to edit my first draft from a hard copy.

When I’m finally satisfied my manuscript is almost done, I print it out in eleven-point Courier. Ten is too small for my aging eyes and twelve, the standard, is too big and wastes paper. If I have scratch paper around, I print my drafts on the back of that. I freely admit I’m a penny-pincher.

I find more errors when I edit on paper than on-screen. I can’t explain why, but I catch wording problems I didn’t see the first four times I went through the manuscript, see more typos and improper word usage (“you’re” instead of “your”), and discover inconsistencies I should have caught before.

Hopefully, by the time I’m editing on paper I don’t have whole paragraphs to change. Typically, all I have to do is change or delete a few words on each page. Occasionally I delete whole paragraphs when I can’t get them to work.

Which brings up another issue. Ever have sentences or paragraphs that you just can’t get to make sense, or always end up sounding wrong after several edits? I’ve learned it’s usually best to delete them. Try this next time it happens to you: delete the difficult passage and reread that part of your manuscript. Most of the time you won’t notice anything has been taken away.

I like editing on paper more than on-screen because I can do it anywhere, and I can use my favorite pen (I have many favorite pens). I can use a fine-tipped fountain pen or a roller ball pen, or a felt pen if I wish. And I can edit at my desk at work, or in a café, or a bookstore, or any other comfortable spot I choose. I’m not tethered to the computer.

My final proof is printed in twelve-point Times New Roman, not Courier. It’s more economical on the page and my readers will be reading my work in a proportionally-spaced typeface, not a mono-spaced typeface.

When I’m finished, the manuscript goes out for others to read. Usually family members who don’t mind telling me when something doesn’t work.

Good luck with your writing and editing!

Getting the First Draft Done

I'm writing my third novel (not counting the really bad one I almost finished back in the early 1990s), so I feel I can speak on this topic with some degree of authority. I suppose I'm directing my remarks to the new novelist, the one searching for "the best way to write a book."

I'd like to limit my remarks to the first draft, which is where all novels begin.

1. Understand that nothing matters more than getting your first draft out of your head and down on paper, or the electronic equivalent of paper. Stop thinking about your ebook and print covers, what typeface you'll publish the print book in, your likely target market, and all the other things that don't matter because YOU HAVEN'T WRITTEN THE BOOK YET.

2. I write my first draft in the Courier typeface for several reasons, the most important being it's so basic. It's not pretty and even if you italicize a word, you can hardly tell it's italic when you print out the draft. Courier, to me, represents words. Just words, nothing else. Train yourself to write with little or no italics; let the words convey the meaning, not formatting.

3. Write every day. Any writer who's written a lot will tell you that you need to write every day. You'll train your brain to think like a writer and you'll get your first draft done faster.

4. Don't show your work to anyone. If you belong to a writing group, show them your work after you've finished the first draft. You don't need to be thinking about subplots and characterization, all that stuff, until you've got the story down on paper. If you take advice from others, start on your first rewrite.

5. Get inside your head. It's your story, you're the creator. Do whatever you have to to get inside your head far enough to pull the story out. For me this means sitting by myself somewhere. I can occasionally write in public now as long as I don't know anyone around me. I can tune out their noise, with headphones if I need to. I recommend new writers find a place where there are no distractions, including no Internet connection.

6. Separate research time from writing time. Remember, your goal is to get the first draft written as quickly as possible. Stopping to look up the name of a street or how many miles out of town a character lives interrupts the flow of writing the first draft. Place an asterisk at the front of a word you need to do some research on, then come back later, during research time, and do your looking-up. Which brings me to...

7. It's okay to schedule research time. We can't be spot on with our writing day-after-day. Use the "down days" to look up stuff you didn't look up when you were really cooking and the words were flowing.

8. It's also okay to write scenes out of sequence. Say you sit down in your private place to write, and you're seeing a scene that's half a day ahead in the manuscript. But it's so vivid and you know exactly who's going to say what and what's going to happen. It's okay to give yourself permission to write that scene. This is where Scrivener is so helpful. I organize my novel by chapters and scenes; it's easy to find my way around that way.

9. Don't worry so much about things like spelling and keeping the names of minor characters straight. Get the first draft done, then iron out the inconsistencies. (Just make sure you do; I've read many complaints about authors mixing up the names of major characters, like their main characters. Very embarrassing.)

The first draft is sacrosanct: without it there is no novel, which means until you get it done you're not a novelist.

So quit reading this post and get back to writing!

Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee, A Writer's Life For Me

Remember this song from Pinocchio?

Hi-diddle-dee-dee
A writer’s life for me
A high silk hat and a silver cane
A watch of gold with a diamond chain

Hi-diddle-dee-day
A writer’s life is gay
It’s great to be a celebrity
A writer’s life for me

Hi-diddle-dee-dum
A writer’s life is fun

Hi-diddle-dee-dee
A writer’s life for me
A wax mustache and a beaver coat
A pony cart and a billy goat

Hi-diddle-dee-dum
A writer’s life is fun
You wear your hair in a pompadour
You ride around in a coach and four
You stop and buy out a candy store
A writer’s life for me!

(Lyrics: Ned Washington, except for my changes)


Not exactly as you remember? Can you spot my changes? Pinocchio had been convinced he would be an actor, not a writer. But hey, at one time I thought that’s what a writer’s life would be. Sort of.

There’ve been no coaches for me, I don’t have a beaver coat, and my hair will never be in a pompadour, so here’s my updated version of what I’d like my writer’s life to be:

I get up early to write. Early is good because the house is quiet and there are no distractions. I’m not tempted by the Internet or Twitter or Facebook that early, for some odd reason. I’m ready to write. After I get my brain to wake up, of course.

I write until my brain has had enough or the muse has left the building. Or both, which is usually the case. That might happen in two hours or it might happen in four. Rarely more than four. I write in my office, which has a lock on the door to prevent others from wandering in to give me a kiss or ask me if I need anything or to tell me they’re going to the store.

I write every day. EVERY DAY. Even Christmas--at least a page--and even on my birthday. Even when my wife and I go away for the weekend. If I’m writing, I’m writing. I can take a break from editing or formatting, but not writing. The muse is fickle and does not like to be ignored. Ignore the muse and she might leave me alone for days or weeks, and that would be bad.

Once I’ve written, the rest of the day is mine. I’ll exercise, spend time with family, cook, read, and maybe even relax in front of the TV with my wife. Maybe do some writing-business like talk to my agent or publisher.

That’s about it for my dream writer’s-life, when I’m creating. If I’m editing, I can do that anywhere there’s a desk. Changes are made on paper then input into the computer later. Easy.


In reality, as I’m not yet supporting my family with my writing and I have a day job, I write at odd times and in odd places. We don’t have a spare room in our condo so I have to leave the house to find the solitude I need.

I can write almost anywhere family or friends are not, because they feel like they’ve got to talk to me even though they see I’m busy writing: the library, a coffee shop, a café, the break area of a grocery store ... Almost anywhere.

When writing in public, I have my noise-canceling headphones--I don’t care if people think I’m being rude wearing them in public--and I write with the either the OmmWriter or iA Writer apps on my iPad. OmmWriter is nice for times I’m writing in noisy environments because it comes with it’s own soundtrack. Writer is simpler to use and links with Dropbox for easy access to my files.

My time is restricted now; I don’t have four consecutive hours for writing every day. I have to take what I can get, when I can get it. It’s almost impossible for me to write in the evening; my brain seems to be unable to focus on writing then. I suppose I could train it to, but I like to spend that time with my wife.

And of course, there is currently no agent or publisher to talk business with; I’m self-published. They may change, or it may not.


If you write, what is your ideal writing day or schedule? What compromises do you have to make now because of family commitments or a day job?

Taco-Truck Tacos and Accuracy

Earlier, near the ranch home of Gus Carlisle, Eric Donaldson and Isaac Roberts pulled into an almond orchard. They shut off the 1968 VW Bug, grabbed their plates of taco-truck tacos and gobbled the food, taking care that nothing fell on the floor or seats.

“What time is it?” Roberts asked.

“Nine-thirty,” Donaldson said. He wadded up his paper plate and foil and threw them into the orchard.

“Better go get that,” Roberts said. “John said not to get sloppy. The cops could get your DNA off that.”

“John can kiss my ass. My DNA’s not in the system and this will be over in a few days anyway. I’ll be sitting on a beach in Fiji, where they don’t extradite.”

Roberts thought about that, threw his garbage out his window and said, “John can kiss my ass, too.” He had no idea if his DNA was in the system.

They checked their 9mm Browning Hi-Power Mark IIIs, removing and reinserting the magazines. While suppressors weren’t necessary in the country, they’d brought them anyway; there was money to burn and using them made the men feel like James Bond.

“Let’s go,” Donaldson said. “I’m sick of sittin’ in this shitty little car.”

They got out and walked through the orchard to Carlisle’s house. While doing surveillance, they saw Carlisle enter the house only through the front door, never the side door, which is closer to the detached garage. They would cover both doors to be sure.

Roberts took up his position in the back yard while Donaldson went to the front. They swatted at mosquitoes and waited.

When I first wrote this scene, I had Roberts and Donaldson grabbing their bags of taco-truck tacos. My wife read the draft and said “Taco trucks sell plates of tacos, not bags.”

I wouldn’t know that because I don’t dine at taco trucks. Growing up, we always called them “gut trucks” or “roach coaches.” I don’t know if they have to be licensed and inspected by the health department; if they don’t, I don’t wanna eat their food.

My wife eats their food, though, and she feeds it to the kids. So far they’ve survived. I chalk it up to their iron stomachs that undoubtedly produce copious amounts of strong hydrochloric acid.

Apparently taco-truck tacos have become so popular that local sit-down Mexican restaurants have put them on their menus. I ordered them once (at a sit-down restaurant, one clearly displaying the date of their latest successful health department inspection). They weren’t bad, but they weren’t anything special either. Meh.

My wife will eat taco-truck tacos but she won’t eat sushi. Go figure. Aren’t they about the same?


I had to change the text in my novel because I’m a stickler for accuracy. But really, who would have caught that? Would I have gotten angry fan mail that said “Hey Powers, taco-truck tacos are served on plates you moron! Get your facts straight!”

Using (Poor) Grammar to Help Dictate Pace

In my last post here, I introduced Fred Reese and Jim Waterman, two oldtimers from my novel CANALS. In that post, we learn Fred is upset at how the country seems to be awash with rude people.

Here's another excerpt from CANALS, also featuring Jim and Fred. I've ignored some rules of good sentence structure in the final paragraph to change the pace of the narration, to let the reader known something might be about to happen:

“All volunteer personnel are to move fifty feet away from the canals immediately,” the radio clipped to Fred Reese’s belt said.

Fred had another cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, and he held a fishing rod in his right hand, at least in his mind’s eye. He didn’t ordinarily smoke so much, but because he knew it really bothered Jim, he kept one going. He mostly just let them burn down; no need to inhale to get Jim’s goat.

He knew he’d have to remove the earplugs sooner or later, but right now later sounded better than sooner. He cast out with his imaginary rod.

Jim heard the radio crackle but was too far away to make out the words and too stubborn to cross the street to find out. “He’s wearing the damn thing, let him answer it.”

The light flickered again: Jim walked back to the battery, kicked it, walked back to the railing and heard the radio again, turned his head to yell at Fred and walked into the thin stand holding the light, knocking it over the railing. He reaches and catches the stand but a bolt pops off and the light falls and is dangling two feet above the water, held only by the wire attaching it to the battery. He grabs for the wire, hears glass breaking followed by a brief blinding flash, then everything is black but the yellow-orange circle of light in the center of his vision where the bursting bulb has seared his retinas. He swears and gropes for the wire.

Then:

Jim Waterman’s vision had just returned when he found the wire. He hesitated and considered letting the damn thing go. What, would they dock his pay?

Just then he felt something sharp prick his hand. He quickly jerked the hand up, looked and blinked, squeezing his eyes shut before reopening them: his hand wasn’t cut, it wasn’t there. Blood squirted from his wrist and arced into the canal.

He leaned over the railing to look for his hand; it would need to be reattached at the hospital.

Three black heads came out of the canal, their mouths agape, showing silver blades that glinted in the ambient light. One bit down over his head but did not decapitate him, the other two latched onto his shoulders: Jim Waterman was pulled him into the water before he could make a sound.

It doesn't end well for Jim. Oh well, that's what you get for having a minor part in a horror novel.

But back to the pacing. An editor or my high school English teacher would love to attack the last paragraph of the first excerpt. They'd add commas and break sentences up and get rid of most of the "and"s and ... Well, they'd muck with my pacing.

I think a fiction writer can ignore some of the basics of grammar to dictate pace, or even mood. In fiction what matters is, what effect does the writing have on the reader and are you entertaining or enlightening them? I don't seek to enlighten, I seek to entertain. I think I do that well.

Don't overdo it, though. If used too much it can tire the reader and/or lose its effectiveness.

The Country Is Awash With Rude People

“What’d they say?” Jim asked Fred, yelling across the street through cupped hands. Their road was busy and a steady stream of cars whizzed by.

“They said turn the lights on and leave them on all night,” Fred called back.

“See, I told you they thought we were a bunch of stooges! They think we’re so stupid we have to be told to turn the lights on.”

Their lights had been on for ten minutes and their canals were well lit. Fred stood and looked over the railing into the water. At first he’d been intrigued by their assignment, thinking they might be doing something important, but so far they were batting five hundred; four pairs of jogger/walkers had heeded their warning, but four others had not, and they had been rude. He was used to kids being rude, but adults? Couldn’t they see the city was serious about this?

His mind wandered and he thought about the state of society in general. People were rude now. No one used turn signals anymore, they just drifted into your lane when they felt like it. No one held doors for others and men didn’t give up their seats to women. When he was young, that was automatic. He blamed women’s lib. And the cell phones: he couldn’t have a meal in a restaurant or watch a movie without two or three of them going off. Worst thing was, the idiots took the calls, yapping at their table as if everyone wanted to hear the details of their pathetic lives, or, if they were at the movies, they would rush out of the theater whispering, as if they were neurosurgeons being summoned to perform emergency brain surgery.

The country was awash with rude people.

Fred worked himself into a funk and thought about packing up and going home, or anywhere he wouldn’t have to listen to Jim Waterman complain. Or put up with rude people.

Instead, he lit a cigarette. People of his generation saw a thing through to the end. If a guy said he was going to do something, he put in his time and finished. He didn’t leave the ballgame in the eighth inning to beat the traffic, he waited until the last pitch was thrown.

He puffed and heard Jim yell, “I can smell your stinky stick all the way over here, Reese!”

Fred wished he had brought earplugs, then remembered he had. Gladys made him tote one of those ridiculous kits around wherever he went: Band-Aids and tweezers and gauze and disinfectant and a little tin of Tylenol and ... yes! Ear plugs.

He popped them in his ears when he was sure Jim wasn’t looking.

He smiled and puffed. Let the fool talk all he wanted.

This is a scene from my horror novel, CANALS. Fred Reese and Jim Waterman are two senior police volunteers, part of the "geezer squad" called on by Captain Bozeman to keep people away from the canals, where a nasty monster was biting and eating people. As you read, they were batting five hundred, which, for you non-sports people, means they only succeeded fifty percent of the time.

Fred has a lot of time to think, and because of his unpleasant partner, Jim, his mind drifts to the sad state of things in the country.

I admit there's some of me in this scene. I'm not a geezer (except to my teenage daughters) and I don't smoke, but I loathe rude cell phone users, which is almost every cell phone user, and I hold disdain for bad drivers. Quite frequently, the two are the same.

Adding to the list of rude people I dislike, which may well show up in my writing, are:

People who leave their shopping cart in the middle of the isle while they comparison-shop brands of canned green beans. What's the difference between a $.79 and a $.89 can of beans, other than ten cents? I don't know but I'll have the answer in twenty minutes. Why don't you use the other isle; can't you see I'm busy?

People who drive railcar-sized vehicles they pull in front of you at the gas station as you pump the final gallon into your tank. They're so big you can't get around them and so have to wait fifteen minutes while they pump forty gallons. Your revenge? It cost them $130 to fill their tank.

People who have no idea what they want, even after standing in line for ten minutes. This happened at the ticket counter of a local arts center. A woman made the cashier explain every show and exactly where every seat was located, while we waited behind her. The cashier called another lady out to help us, and we had to move the rude lady's purse because she'd left it front of the second register.

People who let their children, even encourage, yell and scream and jump on the furniture in your doctor's office reception room. No explanation is needed.

A little bit of myself crept into my second novel, THE MIGHTY T, too. How could it not?

Back Story and Flawed Characters

Think this guys has some character flaws?

He dated enough to quell most rumors he was gay. Sex was okay but too messy, too intimate. And sex usually took place in the bedroom, where shoes are kept. Daniel had eighty-two pairs, a fact he preferred to keep private. He was sure that once a woman learned he had a thing for shoes she would leave and tell him to never call again. Few people saw the inside of his apartment and no one, ever, went into his bedroom.

All-in-all, Daniel Lawless was an odd man with strange passions, but not so strange that he couldn’t fit in. He discovered he could have his shoes and his music so long as he enjoyed them quietly. He was content and prepared, if necessary, to live out his life alone.

He was not, however, prepared in any way for the horror that was descending upon him and the people he had sworn to serve and protect. Modesto needed a Dirty Harry, a man of action who carried a big gun he wasn’t afraid to use, but what they got instead was Daniel Lawless, a man who carried a small gun he preferred not to use, a man who liked shoes.

When I completed CANALS, it weighed in at a hefty 200,000 words; a bit much. It was the first novel I’d completed and I thought I was the new Stephen King.

In CANALS, I did something authors are strongly advised not to do: I dumped all of my main character’s, Daniel Lawless, back story into one chapter; an “info dump,” they call it. When editing, I chopped a lot of the back story out, but left it together. I split the back story up in my second book, THE MIGHTY T. I think the story flows better that way because when you give back story, you’re interrupting the plot and you want to keep that to a minimum.

What is back story? It’s when an author explains what happened before the timeline of the book. It’s usually used to explain why someone is the way they are, why they’re motivated to do whatever they’re doing in the book.

In CANALS, Lawless is a cop who’s always mindful of what’s happening to his shoes. He kicks a dirt clod in frustration, and immediately regrets doing it because it left a mark on the leather. When he’s finally alone at the scene, he pulls a small shoeshine kit out from under the front seat of his cruiser and makes a quick repair, buffing the mark out. That behavior is a bit odd, don’t you think? I do.

Characters with quirks, or flaws, are more interesting than characters who’re perfect, or think they’re perfect. Which reminds me of a story . . .

When growing up, my older brother (and my only brother) appointed himself the family narc. I’m fifty-four now so I’ve forgotten most of the times he ratted me out, but two memories remain.

When I was about five, our family had a burn barrel for trash; we burned all our paper trash on designated burn days. I was a budding arsonist then and had been warned that if I was caught near a fire again I’d get a whooping. Some time later, on a burn day, I noticed the fire was going to go out before all the trash was burned, so, to help the family, I stirred the fire with a stick so all the paper would get consumed. I was just trying to help, right?

My brother saw me and said, “You’re not supposed to play with fire. I’m telling.” Rat! I’d hoped my mom would do the whooping because her whoopings barely hurt, but no such luck. Shortly before my dad got home, I hid in the back of the closest, which was a mistake as it made him madder to have to hunt me down and pull me out.

(Mind you, if we kids were whooped, it was always on the bottom. His paddle of choice was a foot-long ruler from New Zealand, made of ridiculously hard wood apparently only found in that country. I wanted to throw it in the burn barrel . . .)

Flash forward to age twelve-ish. I had a Daisy BB gun I used to keep the bird population in the neighborhood in check. I was told to stop shooting birds, but how could I? I was sure they were plotting to take over the block by pecking out our eyes. My brother saw me shoot a bird and ratted me out. I was relieved of my BB gun.

My friends and I used to call him “Mr. Righteous,” because he thought he was the conscious of the family. We mostly disliked him. He’s a great guy now, though. A really great guy. Go figure.

When writing Lawless’s character, I wanted the reader to think he had no chance against the monster. He’d always avoided conflict when he could; he wasn’t a womanizer, at all; he liked shoes; he drank wine instead of beer and hard liquor—he wasn’t a macho cop. And here comes this monster, an unstoppable killing machine. An impossible setup.

Modesto needed a Dirty Harry, but what they got instead was Daniel Lawless, a guy who liked shoes. Can he rise to the occasion? You’ll have to read CANALS to find out.