Hollywood Kills

Filling in for me today is Alan Orloff, an award-winning author, skilled editor, and generous supporter of the writing community. I am deeply honored to be a contributor to his newest project.

— Stacy

Here's more on HOLLYWOOD KILLS.

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Thanks, Stacy, for inviting me to guest blog today about an anthology that Adam Meyer and I co-edited called HOLLYWOOD KILLS (Level Best Books). And thanks, Stacy, for the terrific story you wrote for it!

— Alan Orloff

The Idea

Adam and I were at the Malice Domestic convention, chatting in the lobby. (FWIW, the lobby and the bar at writers conventions are where most great ideas are hatched.) We talked about putting together an anthology with a theme based around a movie. That morphed into a more general Hollywood theme, and after a few minutes batting around possibilities, we came up with the killer twist: All the stories would be written by industry insiders (show biz people!) featuring protagonists in roles that the contributors themselves had experience in. In other words, a screenwriter would write about a screenwriter, an actor would write about an actor, a stuntman would write about a stuntman, and so on.

The twist was uber cool, but it presented some challenges as we put together our list of invitees. We knew a lot of crime fiction writers, and we could have assembled a list thirty people long in ten minutes flat. But we needed people who had worked in the business. Immediately, I thought of Tom Hanks, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t available.

The Pitch

We wanted our stories to have a certain theme/tone: desperate people willing to go to extreme lengths to make it big in Hollywood. Here’s the spiel we used to solicit our invitees:

Over the years, the technology of entertainment has changed, but one thing has stayed the same: Hollywood is a place full of dreamers—from the wide-eyed actor hoping to land the role of a lifetime to the hard-working writer trying to sell that breakout script.

Whoever they are, these people have one thing in common—they are desperate to bring their dreams to fruition, hustling for opportunity, and willing to do anything to get to the next rung on the ladder. Legal or not.

These strivers are at the center of a collection of short stories by Hollywood insiders, who use their wealth of experience to turn fact into fiction. They offer a closeup look at the dark side of ambition with an all-star cast of schemers, dreamers, killers and con artists … and their stories will stick with you long after the credits roll.

L➙R Jon Lindstrom, Matt Goldman, Stacy Woodson,
Alan Orloff, Adam Meyer, Ellen Byron, Eric Beetner, John Shepphird

The Lineup

We knew a few writers with show biz experience (a number of whom were screenwriters, natch), so they were no-brainers to invite. Beyond that, we needed help, so we put out the word we were looking for potential contributors that met our narrow criteria. We were determined to have as wide an array of show biz jobs represented as possible.

Some of the more specialized roles were tricky. Did anyone know a Hollywood hairdresser who wanted to write a story? Makeup professional to the stars with an itch to pen a tale? What about a stunt driver who could write like Elmore Leonard? We tried to get creative—we even contacted several professional societies looking for recommendations (Did you know there was a Stuntwoman’s Association? There is!). Not all of our out-of-the-box ideas were fruitful, alas.

Slowly, we suckered enticed people to contribute. Now, while many of these people had great Hollywood experience, some did not have much (if any) short story writing experience. Adam and I realized that for these folks, we might have to wield a slightly heavier editorial pen.

And it was true: we got commitments from several industry veterans who didn’t have writing experience. Unfortunately, though, when it came time to actually put the proverbial pen to paper, some of these people ended up “decommitting.” Which left us scrambling a bit to fill their slots.

Best laid plans, and all that.

With some persistence, we finally assembled a killer lineup of contributors, whose roles ran the gamut: a producer, sitcom writer, character actor, entertainment lawyer, sound mixer, background actor, aspiring actor, stuntman, casting director, soap opera star, true crime writer, editor, director, production assistant, set caterer, and screenwriting team.

We ended up with three first-time short story writers, and they gave us some great work. Two of our stories were co-written, one of which was a story I co-wrote with my actor son (roles: young actor and desperate father). A definite highlight of my writing career!

We were thrilled (and mightily impressed) that our contributors had worked on such notable productions as Cheers, Seinfeld, Wings, General Hospital, Bosch, The Amazing Race, Boston Legal, Homeland, Just Shoot Me, Fairly Odd Parents, Snowfall, Spenser For Hire, True Detective, Ellen, America’s Most Wanted, Evil Kin, A Savage Nature, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, The Invasion, Young Guns, and more.

You’ll recognize many of the contributors from their screen credits: Jon Lindstrom, Gary Phillips, Phoef Sutton, Ellen Byron, Matt Goldman, Robert Rotstein, Wendall Thomas, Stacy Woodson, Tiffany Borders Plunkett, Kathryn O’Sullivan, Paul Awad, Teel James Glenn, Shawn Reilly Simmons, John Shepphird, Eric Beetner, Adam Meyer, Alan Orloff, and Stuart Orloff.

The Fires

Although this blog post dealt primarily with how the contributors were selected, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the California fires. More than half of our contributors currently live in the LA area, and they, along with everybody else, were affected by the wildfires, directly and indirectly. So, we decided that all contributor proceeds would be donated to the California Community Foundation Wildfire Recovery Fund. For a deeply personal take, I encourage you to read Ellen Byron’s moving introduction to the anthology.

If you’d like your very own copy of HOLLYWOOD KILLS, you can check it out here.

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Alan Orloff (www.alanorloff.com) has published fourteen novels and more than sixty short stories. His work has won an Anthony, an Agatha, a Derringer, and two ITW Thriller Awards. He’s also been a finalist for the Shamus Award and has had a story selected for Best American Mystery Stories 2018. He’s adapted two of his novels into screenplays, and, man, is he desperate to make it big in Hollywood.

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Embarking on a Series

I'm happy to have my friend Alan Orloff taking over my slot today. He's a great writer and a heck of a guy. Today he's talking about the benefits of writing a series. Welcome, Alan. And happy early Thanksgiving, everyone. I'll see you again in three weeks.

—Barb Goffman

 Embarking on a Series by Alan Orloff

Thanks to Barb and the rest of the SleuthSayers for being such gracious blog hosts! I can’t wait for the guest blogger banquet!

I hope that SANCTUARY MOTEL, my new suspense novel, is the first in a long, long series featuring Mess Hopkins (the do-gooder proprietor of a seen-better-days motel). But having a long-running series wasn’t always at the top of my writer wish list.

The first five (or maybe six) manuscripts I ever wrote were all designed to be standalone novels. A self-contained story. A beginning, a middle, and an end, for the plots and for the characters. Where characters can be killed off, because you don’t *need* them to populate a future story.

Now, my main characters can rest easy—their lives are protected. Even if something terrible happens to them, I’m pretty sure they’ll recover in time for the next adventure.

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy writing standalones. As a writer, you’re free to explore different milieus, using different voices, creating different characters. You have plenty of freedom to follow your whims, not constrained by choices you made seven books ago that may no longer suit your needs.

But boy, isn’t there something comforting about revisiting old friends in familiar settings once a year? And because I’m very lazy, isn’t there something, uh, efficient, about not having to create an entire cast of characters and build a new world with every book? U betcha!

So, after a string of standalones, I decided to embark on a series.

Here are some (mostly pragmatic) things I considered as I mapped out my series:

Premise
I sought a premise that wasn’t too narrow—I wanted a basic set-up that could be used as a foundation on which to build stories. The idea for SANCTUARY MOTEL grew out of two thoughts. One, I saw a news report about a municipality converting abandoned motels and hotels into housing for the homeless (great idea!). I combined this with my love for quirky and run-down motels. (Trust me, I stayed in some doozies, back in the day! But that’s a different blog post.)

Weirdly, there just happened to be a couple of independent motels fitting this description that already existed in the City of Fairfax. I modeled the physical characteristics of the fictional Fairfax Manor Inn by mashing up those two (in my head) and adding a few embellishments.

Thus my idea was born and ready for further refinements. In the end, I think I succeeded. A motel that opens up its doors to those needing sanctuary (from a bad situation) gives me the foundational premise (and flexibility) I was looking for.

Setting
SANCTUARY MOTEL is set in the City of Fairfax, VA, an area I am quite familiar with. In many respects, it’s a typical big-city suburb (so many readers will identify with it), but my hometown knowledge can also take them on interesting side trips to places not widely known.

 (A quick aside: my only other “series” (two books, KILLER ROUTINE and DEADLY CAMPAIGN) was also set in Northern Virginia, and I even managed to include one of my favorite characters from those books (a bookie named Jimmy the Raisin) in my new series.)

Cast of Characters
I wanted to create a cast of characters that was varied enough to support many different storylines (most of which I haven’t even thought up yet!). In SANCTUARY MOTEL, I include the requisite sidekick, the requisite love interest, the requisite relatives (good and bad), the requisite work colleague, the requisite cop/old friend. But I also managed to introduce a host of other interesting folks: a wise street informant, the aforementioned Jimmy the Raisin, a vet who owns a nearby bagel place, a gruff security guy named Griff, a fortune-teller, and others. Some of these characters have relatively minor roles in this book, but they certainly might “come in handy” in future books.

Character Growth
In a novel, characters are supposed to grow or undergo some sort of transformative transformation (or something like that—I never took a formal creative writing class). But there’s more room for growth and character arcs over a number of books. While it might require a little more planning, I think it will ultimately prove more satisfying to see my characters grow meaningfully from book to book.

I’m working on the second novel in the series now, and already I’ve thanked my past-self several times for having the foresight to set things up in a way that lends itself to my current story. Now, if I could just tell my past-self to make a few different life decisions (like invest in Apple decades ago), I’d be driving a nicer car!

Okay, back to work. My series isn’t going to write itself. Isn’t that right, future-self?

Alan Orloff has published ten novels and more than forty-five short stories. His work has won an Anthony, an Agatha, a Derringer, and two ITW Thriller Awards. His latest novel is SANCTUARY MOTEL, from Level Best Books. He loves cake and arugula, but not together. Never together. He lives and writes in South Florida, where the examples of hijinks are endless. www.alanorloff.com

About SANCTUARY MOTEL

Mess Hopkins, proprietor of the seen-better-days Fairfax Manor Inn, never met a person in need who couldn’t use a helping hand—his helping hand. So he’s thrown open the doors of the motel to the homeless, victims of abuse, or anyone else who could benefit from a comfy bed with clean sheets and a roof overhead. This rankles his parents and uncle, who technically still own the place and are more concerned with profits than philanthropy.

When a mother and her teenage boy seek refuge from an abusive husband, Mess takes them in until they can get back on their feet. Shortly after arriving, the mom goes missing and some very bad people come sniffing around, searching for some money they claim belongs to them. Mess tries to pump the boy for helpful information, but he’s in full uncooperative teen mode—grunts, shrugs, and monosyllabic answers. From what he does learn, Mess can tell he’s not getting the straight scoop. It’s not long before the boy vanishes too. Abducted? Run away? Something worse? And who took the missing money? Mess, along with his friend Vell Jackson and local news reporter Lia Katsaros, take to the streets to locate the missing mother and son—and the elusive, abusive husband—before the kneecapping loansharks find them first.

The Best Protagonists Resolve to Take Action

by Barb Goffman

As we head into the new year, thoughts often turn to making resolutions. To drink more water maybe. (I often pick that one.) To exercise more. (I don't often pick that one.) Maybe to read more books. (That's a good one!)

Resolutions ultimately are about taking control over your life, improving things by effecting change, not waiting for someone else to do it for you. That make-it-happen attitude is great for real life. And it's also great for mystery protagonists. It's much more

interesting to read about a damsel who saves herself rather than waiting for the knight on his horse. In the same vein, it's more gripping to read about an accused murderer who sets out to find the real killer rather than watching him waiting and worrying, hoping the cops and prosecutors--or even a jury--realize they've blamed the wrong guy.

Both my short stories published this year have characters who make things happen, for better or worse. In "Stepmonster," a woman blames her stepmother for her father's death, so she sets out to avenge him. In "The Best Laid Plans," the lifetime achievement honoree (LAH) of a mystery convention is dissed publicly by the convention's guest of honor (GOH) just weeks before the event begins. The LAH responds by saying nothing publicly, trying to appear the better person. But she also plans some non-lethal dirty tricks so that the GOH suffers during the convention. Or so she hopes.

The protagonists in both stories might not be reacting in an emotionally healthy manner to their situations, but that's okay. In fact, it's better than okay. It's great. By resolving to get revenge, they set in motion a stream of events that are, I hope, page-turning. (You can find out for yourself. Both stories are available on my website for your reading pleasure. Head over to www.barbgoffman.com and click on each story title from the links on the home page.)

Many other crime stories were published this year with protagonists who take charge. Here are a few from the anthology Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning (in which "Stepmonster" appeared):

• In "Cabin Fever" by Timothy Bentler-Jungr, a young woman trapped by a blizzard with her abusive boyfriend takes desperate action.
• In "Stormy, With a Chance of Murder" by Alan Orloff, a weatherman takes advantage of a bad rainstorm to try to win his ex-girlfriend back.
• In "The Last Caving Trip" by Donna Andrews, a reluctant caver seeks to rid himself of a frenemy.
•  In "The Gardener" by Kim Kash, when a lawn-maintenance man mars her garden oasis repeatedly, an avid gardener strikes back.
•  In "Parallel Play" by our own Art Taylor, a mother in a deadly situation learns how far she'll go for her child.

The key in all the stories is the protagonist isn't passive. She takes action. And it's those actions from which the story unfolds. Have you read any great short stories this year with protagonists who make things happen? I'd love to hear about them. Please share in the comments.

In the meanwhile, get busy on those new year's resolutions. I hope one of them involves reading.