Does Your Writing Bark, Purr, or Neigh?

A recent poll of users of social media had a bit to say about pets. Almost two-thirds of pet owners claim they post two comments or photos of their pets on social media weekly. Half of these pet owners claim photos and notes on pets draw more comments and likes than their other posts.

Are these bits of trivia relevant to fiction writers?

I think there are at least three reasons for including animals in novels.    

 Authors may increase the appeal of their novels to a wider audience by including dogs, cats, and other pets in their tales (Pun intended.). Consider all the cozy novels built around clever dogs and cats. Come to think of it, Westerns would be pretty blah without horses.

·       Authors can often show a different side of human characters in their novels by allowing characters to talk to or interact with their pets. Asta in Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man, Cat in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Argos in Homer’s The Odyssey demonstrate pets belong in serious adult fiction.

·       Pets are fun to write about. I enjoy including Bug, my Japanese Chin, in my thriller series (Coming Flu, Ignore the Pain, Malignancy, and I Saw You in Beirut). Besides being beautiful, he’s smart. He deserves attention for his work as pet therapy at local hospitals for more than eight years. (Don’t I sound like the typical pet owner in the survey?) And he definitely allows me to show a soft side to my world-traveling scientist and heroine, Sara Almquist.

 

Maybe, you should include a dog or cat in your next novel. Or be creative and give your human character a more unusual alter ego, like a fish, raccoon, or elephant. 

All my books (paperback & Kindle versions are available on Amazon.

• In I Saw You in Beirut, a woman’s past provides clues for the extraction of a nuclear scientist from Iran. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201

• In Malignancy, a woman scientist tries to escape the clutches of a drug lord and accepts a risky assignment in Cuba. http://amzn.com/1610091779

• In Ignore the Pain, an epidemiologist learns too much about the coca trade and too little about a sexy new colleague while on a public health assignment in Bolivia. http://amzn.com/1610091310

• In Coming Flu, is the Philippine flu or a drug kingpin caught in a quarantine is more deadly? http://amzn.com/1610090985

Writers can learn from DESIGN THINKING

Stanford University’s D.School (more correctly the Hasso Plattner Institute for Design) wants to foster design thinking - a methodology for producing reliably innovative results in any field, not just product development.

This could be considered another university attempt to foster creative thinking in education and scholarship outside traditional disciplinary boundaries. But it might also be a wake up call to writers.

The design philosophy is based on seven principles, which also are good advice to writers.

1. Show don’t tell. We've all heard that advice a hundred times.
2. Focus in human values. We know character development is central to any good novel.
   
3. Craft clarity. We know we should edit out excess adverbs and dangling phrases.
4. Embrace experimentation. Most of us stick with what works. Maybe we should try something different more often, such as write in the first person instead of the third person, write short stories instead of novels, or pick a different type of cover.
   
5. Be mindful of process. Edit, edit, edit.
6. Bias toward action. Showing action is better than conversation many times. Or another interpretation could be: write at least a page every day on your novel instead of just talking about writing.
7. Radical collaboration. I had trouble translating this one into advice for writers. Maybe it's find a new editor, writer's group, or publisher.

Perhaps the real message is effective communication share certain characteristics despite the format. 

I think this design thinking would be helpful for anyone contemplating revising and editing their novels for a second edition.

 How would you interpret DESIGN THINKING into advice for authors?

 

What do you do when have a writer’s block?

Don't nap with the dog when you get writer's block.

Watch TV. Take a nap. Eat. No, I mean, what do you do constructively to get you past the writer’s block?

First off assess the problem. For simplicity I’ve lumped reasons for writer’s block into four categories. I wouldn’t argue with you if you added categories or lumped two of my categories together.

1)   No idea. You have a class assignment or a blog due in three hours and can’t think of anything interesting.

2)    Skeleton ideas. The idea seemed good when you lay in bed procrastinating before you got up. You trotted to the computer and typed out a great paragraph. There’s nothing more.

3)   Dead ends. You’ve written two hundred pages and know how you want the novel to end but you can’t seem to create the next couple of scenes so that you can get logically to the conclusion.

4)   Search for the right words. You’ve completed a draft of the short story, and you’re now working on a boring but essential section.

Check your idea file. What’s that? Every writer should keep files on interesting events and discoveries they spot in newspapers, science journals, or on the web. I also have a character file. When I overhear or participate in a bizarre conversation or meet someone unusual, I record the occurrence and include my feelings (usually in incomplete sentences). It’s amazing how thumbing through such files helps me get an idea for an imminent deadline or gives me material to fill out that skeleton staring at me from my computer screen.

Read someone else’s work. While it’s often tough to discern mistakes in our own writing, most of us have less difficulty spotting gaffes in others’ writing. After dissecting someone else’s work, my own writing faults are clearer to me. At other times, I learn by example and use a ploy used by another author to get myself out of an awkward literary situation.

Work on another project. I always keep several projects going at once – blogs, a novel, several short stories. Often when I’m ‘blocked’ on one, I can write on another.

Admit you created a dead end and start revising earlier sections. But save the sections you’re pitching. They might be useful later.

Edit your writing for obvious weaknesses. Revise passive sentences. Replace linking verbs with actions verbs. Check for synonyms for overworked words. Often, these activities get me in the mood to write the next section.

Do these ideas always work? No. So what do you when you have a writer’s block?

When I didn't have a writer's block, I wrote medical thrillers and mysteries - Coming Flu, Ignore the Pain, Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, and Malignancy (due out in November).

“My Writing Process” Blog Hop

1. Why do I write what I do?
I like realistic medical mysteries and thrillers that push the edge of modern science but don’t cross over into science fantasy. Books with action but with themes that make you think. For example:

• Why do some individuals bounce back from physical and emotional pain, while others are warped into monsters?
• When is the common good more important than the rights of an individual?

So I write books, like Robin Cook (author of Coma, Acceptable Risk, and many others) would if he were still alive. Maybe I’m complimenting myself by comparing my novels to those of Robin Cook. Why don’t you read my Ignore the Pain, Coming Flu, and Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight and see?

2. What am I working on?
I’m sending Sara Almquist, my epidemiologist heroine, to Cuba. When I visited Cuba last November, the tour guide bragged that Cuban researchers had recently patented a vaccine against lung cancer. I checked. She was right, so I built my next novel Malignancy around Sara’s assignment from the State Department to set up scientific exchanges between Cuba and the US. Two weeks ago, I read an article in Science announcing the US and Cuban governments were initiating scientific exchanges.

In Malignancy, Sara is also escaping past foes in New Mexico and looking for Xave, the “spook” who saved her in Bolivia in Ignore the Pain. I’m pleased to add I finished the first draft yesterday. Actually that’s not quite true, I revise previous chapters as I write new ones. So in some ways, yesterday I finished about the third edit of the book. I’m hoping Malignancy will be published in late fall 2014.

3. How does my writing process work?

I file interesting ideas from scientific journals, newspapers, and on-line search services as I find them. When I start thinking about a new novel, I sort through my files and pull articles that fit a common theme. Then I create a three to five-page outline of the novel. After that I let the characters take over. As I indicated above, I revise chapters as I write new ones.  Euphemistically, my outline is fluid.

4. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I include a scientific epilogue (about two pages) at the end of my novels. Interested readers can then check the facts themselves.

Thanks to Amy Reade for inviting me to participate in this blog hop. Her Secrets of Hallstead House, which sounds like a modern version of Jane Eyre, will be published in July 2014. I can’t wait to read it. For more on Amy, see http://amreade.wordpress.com/

How many of you follow blog hops? Are they a good idea?

I’m not supposed to post this until June 8, but when I finally get a blog written I’m a kid with a new toy. My apologies to those organizing the blog hop for my childish behavior.

Is there a CSI effect? Can you use it to sell novels?

Forensic scientists think there is a “CSI effect.” They observe jurors and reporters are disappointed when real forensic scientists aren’t as good or as fast as Catherine Willows (CSI), Tempe Brennan (Bones), and Abby Sciuto (NCIS). For example, jurors became skeptical about an expert witness’s competence because he didn’t retrieve fingerprints from a rock at the murder scene. And at least one biology professor reports several of her students indicated TV shows influenced their choice of biology as a major.

Does that mean readers are becoming more interested in realistic science in their fiction? First off, I should define realistic. Most active research and clinical labs are much more crowded, and waiting times for analyses are much longer than those shown on TV. And surprise, the most of the men and women don’t have perfect hair.

In 2013, at least fifteen successful TV shows featured science, medicine or technology. That's unprecedented and suggests a large segment of Americans are receptive to realistic science adding “color” to their fiction.

Does this interest in “scientific color” on TV show relate to scientific literacy?

Scientific literacy is not just the memorization of facts, but also the conceptual understanding of how answers can be found by an organized approach to gathering data, formulating hypotheses, and testing them.

Surveys indicate American students don’t understand science as well as students in Finland, China, Australia, and Canada. We’re ranked around 30^th in several surveys, but many question the validity of the surveys.

I don’t think anyone has proven that the popularity of TV shows with “scientific color” reflects increased scientific literacy among Americans, but I don’t have access to demographic data on TV audiences.

Does scientific literacy matter?

Federal agencies, such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and various organizations (National Academy of Sciences and AAAS) think scientific literacy matters. Why? They believe that if the American electorate understands the basics of science, discussions on vaccines, climate change, and genetically modified crops will be elevated from an emotional level to a thoughtful level. Wiser decisions will be made. They also know that advanced knowledge of science and technology is a key to many high-paying jobs in medicine, drug development, computer technology, engineering, etc.

Could adding realistic science in your next novel attract readers?

I don’t know, but a growing number of writers are now calling their novels “science in fiction” rather than science fiction. I’m one of them. My three medical thriller/mysteries are Coming Flu, Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, and Ignore the Pain. My fourth novel Malignancy should be out this fall.

P.S. Why do I think this blog will be less popular than my last guest blog on adding romance to your novels?

Make your Sell Sheets Sell

Templates for sell sheets on the Web make it appear that there are defined rules for sell sheets. I think there is only one rule: Sell sheets should appeal to buyers and make them want to buy your book.

WHAT MAKES A SELL SHEET APPEALING TO BUYERS?

Most book buyers don’t read anything that looks dense or difficult.

• ·      Use size 12 or 14 print.
• ·      Leave plenty of white space.
• ·      Keep paragraphs short.
• ·      Try using a two-column format.
• ·      Limit the sell sheet to one-page.

Use color. The choice of color depends on the genre of the book and the cover, which is the main artwork on most sell sheets. For example, pastels and purple are often used to sell romances.

Design features are important but shouldn’t overpower. For example, a narrow (one-half inch) border of black and white zebra stripes around the edge of a sell sheet for a children’s book might be effective, but a wider border would detract from the cover and the blurb. Generally I like design features (such as a colored box) that draw attention to the book’s blurb.

Consider making two versions of your sell sheet. Book retailers and distributors often cringe when they see the word Amazon. Information on how to obtain the books from Amazon is essential when you’re talking to most readers at book fairs and talks

WHAT SHOULD YOU INCLUDE ON A SELL SHEET?

• ·      Title of the book, boldly at top of page
• ·      Author’s info: name, website, blog, and other ways to contact. Some think a photo of the author and a short (one or two    sentences) bio are appealing.
• ·      Blurb, only three to four sentences.
• ·      Cover of the book, large enough that you can read the print
• ·      Reviewers’ comments or awards
• ·      Publisher’s info: name, date of publication, ways to contact
• ·      Book info: genre, ISBN number, format, number of pages

What do you think makes a sell sheet effective? Let me know.

Thanks

 JL Greger, author of medical thrillers and mysteries - Ignore the Pain, Coming Flu, Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight

WHY TURN A BOOK INTO A SERIES?

Why turn a book into a series?

a. The first book was a great seller.

b. You fell in love with the characters you created and want to see what happens next to them.

c. You’re lazy and don’t want to create new characters.

For most writers, B is the correct answer. Although A is the one we all wish were true.

Advice for writing a series.

Let characters grow. I loved the first six books in Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, but I got tired of Plum’s car blowing up and her inability to decide between two suitors. Evanovich’s books sales prove there are exceptions to this rule.

I had my title character epidemiologist Sara Almquist move from an early, probably premature, retirement (in which she tries to forget her years as a professor) into being an active consultant on public health issues. As she tries to track the spread of a deadly flu epidemic in her community in Coming Flu, she inadvertently identifies a drug lord. She helps her sister Linda identify the killer of a diet doctor in a medical school in Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight. (Her sister generally doubts the values of Sara’s help.) Based on her recent successes, Sara is asked to be a public health consultant in Bolivia in Ignore the Pain, but individuals from her past follow her.

Establish a brand. A good example of successful branding is Sue Grafton’s alphabet mysteries, beginning with A is for Alibi. James Patterson usually manages to mention Alex Cross on the covers of his books and in ads. I’ve not done a good job here, but I try to have a woman’s face on each cover and medically related topics are featured in each book and in the title – flu, lose weight, pain. Accordingly, the back-story provides scientific information on flu viruses in Coming Flu, on weight loss in Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, and on pain management in Ignore the Pain.

Keep a few conflicts unresolved in each novel. In thrillers and mysteries that means don’t kill your villains too soon. Besides I’ve come to like my villains  - the genius psychopath Dr Abel Raines and the chameleon-like drug lord Jim Mazzone.

Don’t be confined by your original setting. Many of us loved the TV show Murder, She Wrote, but it was hard to believe the rate of murders in Cabot Cove. The writers solved the problem by having Jessica travel a lot after the first couple of seasons. I had an advantage there - my setting is near Albuquerque. According to our local newspapers, the lack of crimes isn’t a problem in Albuquerque. However, I have Sara travel to Bolivia in Ignore the Pain and to Cuba in my next novel (due out in 2014 but still untitled).

Recognize readers have a short attentions span. This is the biggest reason for not trying to do a series. It means there are no long breaks from writing. Readers expect at least one new book a year. The exceptions are many, namely George Martin who writes the epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

What advice would you give on writing a series?

Making Characters in Novels Realistic but Not Real

 All novelists have the urge occasionally to be bad and base a character in one of their books closely (very closely) on a friend, relative, or acquaintance. The threat of lawsuits and the potential loss of friends make most us regain our senses. However, quirks of some individuals could sell a novel.

How can novelists create dynamic, realistic characters without getting too real? Hopefully my observations will make you think. I suspect most of you would give an answer similar to mine but with different examples.

First off, I should note no character, except Bug, Sara Almquist’s Japanese Chin dog, in my novels is real. Bug (the character) is based on my own Japanese Chin Bug. He is a pet therapy dog and a black and white ball of fuzz who outsmarts me daily.    

Realistic title characters aren’t all good or all bad. Physicians in early medical mysteries and thrillers were either saintly, like Dr. Kildare, or evil, such as Dr. Moreau. Modern writers want to show a few warts in their lead characters.

However, I didn’t want to trivialize my lead character into being a dizzy snoop who clumsily forces her way into police investigations as occurs in some cozies. Come on, I can’t be the only reader who is flabbergasted at the stupidity (with moments of brilliance or luck) of some lead characters in cozy mysteries. I also didn’t want to produce another neurotic genius like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. Let’s face it most physicians and detectives aren’t geniuses; they’re normal people, albeit sometimes smarter or more observant than most.

Sara Almquist, the lead character in my medical thrillers Coming Flu and Ignore the Pain, is an epidemiologist. That profession gives her legitimate reasons to pry into everyone else’s business. She’s normal, but maybe a bit cranky and perhaps dotty about her dog Bug.

Most of the characters are amalgams of real people and fantasy. For example, the dean of the medical school in my medical mystery Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight is a polished, aloof gentleman, but he feels no remorse when he assigns his associate dean Linda tasks that all but turn her into cannon fodder. When I was an associate dean first the graduate school and then the medical school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I often compared notes with other associate deans. My dean in Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight in is a chimera of dozens of deans with a few flourishes thrown in.

Fantasy characters can participate in real scenes. Although I don’t base my characters on real people, some of my scenes are real. For example, I did climb over the roof of Iglesia de San Francisco in La Paz, Bolivia as Sara does in Ignore the Pain. Of course, my trek was leisurely; hers wasn’t.

When I consulted on science and public health issues in the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, and Beirut, I found that my attitudes about their challenges changed as I learned about their problems. In Ignore the Pain, I tried to capture the sights, sounds, and smells of poverty in Bolivia. I hoped my descriptions would be more effective than citing statistics, i.e. six percent of the children born in Bolivia die before their fifth birthday. I also tried to show the evolution of Sara’s and the other consultants’ attitudes and beliefs as they advised locals on complex, nuanced problems. For example, obviously cocaine is dangerous, but the chewing of coca leaves by miners in decrepit mines at thirteen thousand feet is understandable.

Now it’s your turn. How do you create realistic fictional characters?

Did you ever notice how many mysteries feature a dog?

I thought I was adding a warm, tender touch to my medical mysteries and thrillers when I add Bug, a Japanese Chin to my novels. Then I started to think.

Dogs are featured in lots of mysteries. Most readers will immediately think of the title character (a bloodhound/mastiff mix) in The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. Dashiell Hammett wrote Asta as a schnauzer in The Thin Man, but a wire-haired fox terrier played the role in the movie.

Here are a few examples of dogs in recent mysteries.

Ignore the Pain by J.L. Greger. Bug, a Japanese chin, regally keeps epidemiologist Sara Almquist on track.

A Pointed Death by Kath Russell. A biotech consultant Nola Billingsley depends on her shorthaired pointer Skootch.

New Tricks by David Rosenfelt. The golden retriever Tara helps attorney Andy Carpenter find the evidence to defend his clients in court.

Dogged Pursuit by Lee Charles Kelley. Kennel owner and ex-big city cop Jack Field solves a murder with the help of a dalmatian named Daisy. A different breed of dog is featured in each book in this series.

A Blast From the Past by Lauren Carr. What would Mac Faraday do without his German shepherd sidekick Gnarly?

Why do authors include dogs in mysteries? Your guesses are as good as mine, but these reasons seem likely.

·      Authors can give readers a chance to breathe in a fast-moving mystery or thriller by adding an anecdote about a cute or funny dog.

·      Dogs are easier to fit into a plot than children.

·      Writers can use dogs to show (not tell) the soft, warm side of protagonists who otherwise appear to be rather hard-edged characters.

·      Authors love their own dogs and can’t imagine a realistic story without a dog.

·      Dogs are some of the nicest characters most of us know.

Now it’s your turn to suggest reasons for including dogs in mysteries.

About JL’s medical mysteries and thrillers: Three novels chronicle the adventures of epidemiologist Sara Almquist and her more reserved sister – physician Linda Almquist. In Coming Flu, Sara, while tracking the spread of the deadly Philippine flu, identifies a drug kingpin trapped in a quarantined community. In Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, Linda Almquist must discover whether an ambitious young “diet doctor” or one of old-timers in a medical school with buried secrets is a killer. Sara finds it hard to consult on public health issues when leaders of the coca industry threaten her in Ignore the Pain. In all three, Sara always comes home to her Japanese Chin Bug.

SHOP ON SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY AT AN IDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE

First there was Black Friday and then Cyber Monday. In 2010, American Express started publicizing #Small Business Saturday.

Independent bookstores need your business. They exist in most towns. Some are musty-smelling used-bookstores; others are combinations of bookstores and neighborhood cafés; still more are morphs of old-fashioned magazine stands. From my experience, many of these stores are hurting and need more paying customers, not just browsers or those trading in old books.

Books make wonderful holiday presents for everyone. Some of the most personal gifts I’ve received over the years have been books that were carefully selected. I like to give books because I can shop for a wide variety of people at one stop, and books are easy to wrap.

Here are three great independent bookstores in the Albuquerque area. All frequently sponsor book signings by local authors. There are many more wonderful independent bookstores in the Albuquerque area.

Under Charlie’s Covers (120 US 555 [next to Walgreens], Bernalillo, NM) is a used bookstore with a fresh atmosphere, maybe it’s because of the energetic owner Lara. She stocks books that appeal to children and teens, as well as adults.

Treasure House Books & Gifts (2012 S Plaza Street NW, Albuquerque, NM) focuses on books related to New Mexico and is in the heart of old town Albuquerque. It’s a great place to take friends visiting New Mexico and the owner John can advise you on the history of the state and its writers as you shop.

Menaul Book Exchange (9409 Menaul NE, Albuquerque, NM) is a neighborhood, used bookstore that is lovingly tended by its owner Dorothy. She keeps a rack of new books by local authors near the front door.

I bet there are great independent bookstores in your community too. So why not do your holiday shopping at them?

Unfortunately, Ignore the Pain, my new thriller won’t have reached stores yet on November 30, but the first two books in this medical mystery/thriller series (ComingFlu and Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight) are available. Ignore the Pain is available on Amazon as of November 26.

 

In Ignore the Pain, Sara Almquist couldn’t say no when invited to be the epidemiologist on a public health mission to assess children’s health in Bolivia. Soon someone from her past is chasing her through the Witches’ Market and churches of La Paz. Unfortunately, she can’t decide which of her new colleagues to trust as she learns more about coca production and the god Tío of the silver mines of Potosí than she ever wanted to know.

The cover stripes of red, yellow, and green mimic the stripes on the Bolivian  flag.