Showing posts with label Barb Goffman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barb Goffman. Show all posts

03 May 2022

Everything is Fodder


Things many people find difficult to do:

  • Lose weight
  • Follow directions
  • Not give unsolicited advice on Facebook 

You can count me among "many people" when it comes to the first item. But with the other two, I know about their prevalence because I have been a victim of them.

A victim, I say!

Yes, yes, I occasionally give unsolicited advice, but it's always with hesitation. An explanation for why I'm wading in. An apology even. Other people, I've found, don't have such qualms.

An example (one of many): About two years ago, in the height of 2020 pandemic madness, I posted on Facebook that I had a lot of broccoli in my house but the dressing I'd gotten in my last grocery pickup didn't taste good. I mentioned the three other condiments I had at home (salsa, ketchup, and butter) and asked my friends if any of them would work with broccoli, as I had my doubts. (I hadn't thought of melting the butter--once that option was pointed out, it was a doh moment.) At any rate, I also made clear that I don't cook and had no other ingredients in the house, so I requested that my friends not make alternate suggestions of condiments to use or ways to cook the broccoli. I thought I was pretty clear.

Then the following happened. The conversation has been greatly condensed since I received more than 300 responses. Names have been removed to protect the guilty.

Friend A

Roast it in the oven with olive oil and sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top. It’s not hard. Or steam it and top with butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. 

Me

Don't have olive oil, cheese, or lemon. 

Friend A

Ok—just steam and add butter. Do you have Italian dressing. You could use that as an olive oil substitute.

Me

Nope, I don't.

As you can see, I was calm at this point, merely reminding Friend A that I didn't have some of the items she suggested I use.

Friend B

A nice, sweet balsamic vinegar. I like white balsamic.

Me

I don't have vinegar (and I don't like it either). More for you!

See how pleasant I was? This was early going.

Friend C

I roast broccoli with garlic and chopped up bacon.

Me

I have no garlic and I don't like bacon.

Friend D

Saute in some olive oil with garlic. Squeeze on some lemon before eating if you have some. Delicious. Or roast tossed in olive oil with a little garlic salt or sea salt or Goya adobo seasoning.

Me

I don't have any olive oil or garlic. Or lemon. Or sea salt or adobo seasoning. And sauteing and roasting means cooking. I don't cook. 

Friend E

Add it to something you like ... or, as others have said, butter is good, and I'd add some seasoned salt. I like sprinkling blends from Penzeys Spices on various foods. Their Salad Elegant would be great on broccoli.

Me

I don't have seasoned salt. I wasn't kidding about the only possible toppings I have in the house. Butter, salsa, and ketchup.

Friend F

The extent to which people cannot comprehend the state of your pantry is deeply hilarious to me.

Me

I am less amused.

Friend F

Would definitely think twice about hiring your fb friends for a job that requires ability to follow instructions.

She (Friend F) wasn't kidding. But I steeled myself and kept reading the responses.

Friend G

I would boil some water, add a ton of salt, and blanch the broccoli for like 2-3 minutes. Then drain and chill.

Me

Blanch?

Friend G

Extremely easy. [Lists a link for how to blanch.]  

Note to the reader: Not extremely easy.

Friend H

Really tasty: sliced zucchini or yellow squash, plus a red sweet pepper, sauteed in olive oil or butter with garlic and sweet red onion or green spring onions. Add a little basil for punch, but it isn't required.

Me

[Mouth hanging open.]

At this point, I stopped responding to almost all the comments, most of which were suggestions of other things I should cook using food I didn't have in the house. Me. The person who doesn't cook and who certainly would not be going to the market for the suggested foods. (Add one picky eater who doesn't cook and the height of the pandemic and you got hell no.) 

Occasionally, though, I became so incensed, I did respond.

Friend I

Saute in a pan, with ginger, olive oil and garlic, 1 T corn starch, and 1/4 cup of water.

Me

I DON'T COOK!

Friend G

This post has turned absurd, and I love it.

Me

That makes one of us

Friend J

Two of us! Sorry, Barb.

Me

It's like people are trying to give me a stroke at this point.

Can you feel the stress? It's two years later, and reading all these comments is aggravating me all over again.

You may be wondering why I'm sharing all of this with you, other than for your amusement. It's because of something I often say: Everything is fodder. If you're looking for a story idea, mining current events or events in your own life is often a good place to start. I took this condiment conversation and my associated aggravation and put it to good use when the fine folks at Malice Domestic put out a call for short stories for their anthology titled Malice Domestic 16: Mystery Most Diabolical.

What if, I thought, a low-earning spendthrift without any morals is the only living relative of a rich elderly woman. He decides to friend her on Facebook, aiming to drive her crazy with unsolicited advice so she'll have a heart attack and die and he can inherit all her money. That sounded pretty diabolical to me. 

Five thousand words later, the idea became my newest short story, "Go Big or Go Home," which is the lead story in Mystery Most Diabolical. The book was released about ten days ago. I had a lot of fun writing the story. I hope readers will enjoy it just as much. And yes, it has Facebook conversations just like the one above.

Mystery Most Diabolical is out in trade paperback and hardcover. (Click here to buy from Amazon. Or, to buy directly from the publisher, click here (for paperback) or here (for hardback).) The ebook doesn't seem to be for sale yet, but I'm sure it's coming soon. The anthology has 32 stories, including one from fellow SleuthSayer Michael Bracken. I welcome the other authors in the book to share what their diabolical stories are about in the comments.

But before that ...

Congratulations to fellow SleuthSayer R.T. Lawton for winning the Edgar Award last week! And congratulations to Michael Bracken for winning the Derringer Award a few days ago!

And, for those of you in the Dallas, Texas, area, here's an event worth your time. Next Wednesday, May 11th, the Sisters in Crime North Dallas chapter will be hosting an in-person event for its recent inaugural anthology, Malice in Dallas: Metroplex Mysteries Volume 1! Books will be available for purchase, and authors with stories in the book will be on hand to sign copies. There also will be a scavenger hunt, drawings for prizes, and more! (What's the "more"? You have to go to find out!) The festivities will be at the J. Theodore Restaurant & Bar in Frisco, Texas, starting at 4:30 p.m. Central Time. Click here to learn more about the event and to RSVP.

Why am I telling you about Malice in Dallas? Because I had the pleasure of editing it. It has ten crime stories, including one by fellow SleuthSayer Mark Thielman. The tales will bring you to various locations throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth area, including Little Mexico, Lake Ray Hubbard, the downtown Dallas pedestrian tunnels, and Dealey Plaza, where President Kennedy was shot. We've got historicals, police procedurals, and amateur-sleuth mysteries. Some of the stories are humorous. Others are dark. All, I hope you'll agree, are good. If you can't make it to the event, you can still buy the book by clicking here.

12 April 2022

Have Mask, Will Travel – I'm Ready for Malice Domestic


After a two-year hiatus (thank you, covid), Malice Domestic is resuming its annual in-person convention next week. I don't know where the time has gone. While I'm nervous to be in such close contact with so many people (freaking covid), I'm excited to see (and hug?--still a question mark) these friends I haven't seen in so long. It will be great to get back to normal and see my Malice family.

Normal. That's a concept, isn't it? Will it be "normal" considering a lot of the regulars won't be there? Some because of scheduling conflicts. Some because they're still being careful due to covid. (I so get that. I'll be checking in with a gazillion masks.) And some people won't be there because they're simply not around anymore. We've lost too many people we love since the last Malice, authors and readers.

But as they say, the show must go on. So, I've compiled information on where you can find me and my fellow SleuthSayers attending Malice. If you'll be there, I hope to see you.

Michael Bracken

  • Michael will be moderating the panel Murder in Few Words: Short Stories on Friday at 4 p.m.
  • He'll be participating in the signing for the new Malice Domestic anthology, Mystery Most Diabolical, on Friday at 9:30 p.m. 
  • He'll also be in the signing room on Saturday at 10 a.m.

Barb Goffman (yes, that's me!)

  • I'll be on the panel Make It Snappy: Our Agatha Best Short Story Nominees on Friday at 2 p.m.
  • I'll be signing in the signing room on Friday at 4 p.m.
  • I'll be participating in the signing for the new Malice Domestic anthology, Mystery Most Diabolical, on Friday at 9:30 p.m. (And if you're interested in getting a copy, it should be newly on sale at Malice!)

Art Taylor

  • Art will be moderating the panel Make It Snappy: Our Agatha Best Short Story Nominees on Friday at 2 p.m.
  • He'll be on the panel Last Night, I Dreamt I Went to Malice Again: Romantic Suspense Influences on Saturday at 11 a.m.
  • He'll also be in the signing room on Saturday at noon.

Mark Thielman

  • Mark will be on the panel Murder in Few Words: Short Stories on Friday at 4 p.m.

If you haven't read the five short stories nominated for the Agatha Award, there's still time to read them for free before you get to Malice to vote. Click here and scroll down to the five story names. They are links. And if Malice Domestic is new to you and you want to learn more about this annual fan convention celebrating the traditional mystery, click here.

So, that's it. Get packing. (Oh, who am I kidding. I bet some of you are already packed.)  See you next week!

22 March 2022

Where to Start - the Importance of Choosing the Right Story Opening


All writers, but especially newer writers, sometimes start their stories in the wrong place. And by "place," I don't mean the wrong setting, which I've written about before. See here. I mean starting in the wrong moment of the story.

Let's take a story about a bank robbery. There can be many places to open the tale. Do you start with your gunman stepping up to the teller? That opens right in the middle of the action. Excellent! Readers will love that. Or do you start the story when the robber enters the bank and looks around? Showing him checking out where the guard is and if he's distracted, and deciding which teller to approach (which one looks the most compliant?) and other such details could raise the tension even before the robber gets in line. Such an opening could work nicely too. 

But there are other options, aren't there? Do you open the story with the robber and his getaway driver in the car, on the way to the bank, talking about their plans? Or do you start with the robber getting a foreclosure notice on his house a week before the robbery, when he realizes he needs to get his hands on some money and fast? Or do you start when he's twenty years old with his first credit card, frivolously buying things he'll be paying back for years at a high interest rate, thus setting him on the path of getting that foreclosure notice? Or do you start on the day he's born, because everything that happens to him from that moment on ultimately brings him to the second when he shoves an empty bag at the teller and says, "This is a robbery"?

Lots of choices. Hopefully, no matter if you're writing a novel or short story, you won't start with the robber's birth. That could make for a very long tale. (Charles Dickens, I'm looking at you and your David Copperfield, the second sentence of which is, "To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born.") 

Every storyteller has to figure out for herself where the best place to start any particular story is, but it's always good to have the beginning centered around something happening or soon to happen. You don't want to start too early in the story (too long before some action occurs) because the reader could get antsy for something to happen to move the plot forward. (And, since we're talking about timing, you also don't want to start too late in the story. Imagine a bank robbery tale that started with the robbers running out out of the bank, into the getaway car, which takes off. The reader would feel confused and cheated because they missed all the excitement. If you're going to write a bank robbery story, you have to show the robbery!)

Given all of this, you might expect I'd say the absolute best place to start a robbery story is when the robber is about to shove his bag at the teller, thus starting with the action. But you'd be wrong. (Ha! A good story--including a good blog--can always benefit from a surprise, just like this one.) Anyway, while starting with the robber reaching the teller can be excellent, there is something to be said for a slower--or even slow--opening that showcases the main character and his emotional wound that sets him on the path to robbing the bank. A beginning that sets up the conflict from which the action will later (but not too much later) unfold also can work (such as the receipt of a foreclosure notice). So can an opening that introduces the setting, hiding little details you'll use later when all hell breaks loose. 

I used a slow opening in both my stories currently nominated for the Agatha Award, one a bit slower than the other. "A Family Matter" (from the Jan./Feb. 2021 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine) opens with the main character, Doris, watching a moving van outside the vacant house next door. It looks like a nice family is moving in. At least that's what she thinks until she hears their chickens. The reader learns quickly that chickens are unacceptable in this nice neighborhood, and Doris believes she must take action to prevent them from taking roost. The conflict from which the story will unfold is thus quickly born, even if there isn't a lot of action right away.

In my story "A Tale of Two Sisters," (published in the anthology Murder on the Beach), the beginning is slower. We open in the middle of a wedding ceremony, with the maid of honor thinking, "My big sister, Emma, was no bridezilla, but heading into her wedding today, she’d been wound up so tight she was like a jack-in-the-box ready to spring." So, we open with the tone--the reader understands that this day is not just joyous but also tense. As the ceremony proceeds, Robin, the point-of-view character and maid of honor, sets the stage, introducing the reader to the key characters and their emotional needs. She addresses things she feared would go wrong during the ceremony. She mentions details the reader will (I hope) overlook until those details come into play later in the story. Finally the scene ends with the newly married couple's first kiss and Robin thinking: "A sigh of relief escaped my lips. Finally, we could relax. Fingers crossed, it would all be smooth sailing from here." This was a quiet opening. Nothing bad happened at all. But I expect the reader will know that poor Robin is kidding herself. If she thinks it will all be smoothing sailing from here, surely a shipwreck is in the offing. And many of the pieces that will go into creating the upcoming storm were baked into the story right from its slow start.

So, those are two openings that don't start with big action. But notice where I didn't start. I didn't open "A Family Matter" on the day Doris and her husband moved into the neighborhood and learned its social rules. I didn't open the story on the day the prior family moved out of the house next door. I opened with conflict: the new family moving in--with their chickens.  

Similarly, with "A Tale of Two Sisters," I didn't open with the maid of honor awakening the morning of the wedding and thinking about everything to come that day. I didn't open on the day the bride got engaged or met her fiance. I didn't open on a fateful day the prior year when something happened between the bride's mother and aunt that set certain things in motion. I started the story during the ceremony, late enough into the action so that the upcoming storm isn't far off, yet early enough that I could quietly plant a bunch of seeds that soon would bloom. 

Let's bring things back to my bank robbery scenario. Do you have to start such a story when the robber approaches the teller? Nope. You could start when the robber enters the bank. Or you could open with the robber outside the bank, in the car, debating if he should go through with his plan. Maybe you even could open when the would-be robber gets that foreclosure notice, which pushes him to devise his desperate plan. 

How you start your story is up to you. But whatever you choose, make sure there's something going on in that opening scene that's important, be it shoving a gun at a teller (starting with action) or opening a foreclosure notice (starting with the conflict from which the action will unfold). That way, whether you start with a bang or start slow, you'll have something to intrigue and lure in your reader and keep her turning the pages.

---

Want to read "A Family Matter" and "A Tale of Two Sisters"? You can find both stories on my website. Click here for "Family" and here for "Sisters." If you'd prefer to read a PDF version of "A Family Matter," you can find it on the AHMM website. Just click here.

And if you're interested in reading the three other short stories currently nominated for the Agatha Award (stories by Richie Narvaez, Gigi Pandian, and Shawn Reilly Simmons), you can find links to them on the Malice Domestic website. Click here and scroll down to the list of the nominated stories. The titles are all links.

01 March 2022

The Importance of Emotional Motivation in Fiction


Writers know their characters should be real, distinct, and engaging, but that's easy to say. How do you go about doing it? Focusing on voicewhat and how a character speaks and thinksis an important part of the process of making your characters come alive off the page. Another is understanding what drives the characters. This latter element played a key role when I wrote my newest story, "Beauty and the Beyotch," which was published last month in issue 29 of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine. Here's the teaser:
"Beauty and the Beyotch" is a story about three high school girls told from two perspectives about one thing: their struggle to make their deepest desires come true. What happens when those dreams collide?
These girls' motivations drive all the action in the story and make them who they are. So, who are they deep down?
 
Elaine is an insecure spoiled girl who yearns for acclaim and fame. She is afraid that Joni (her best friend, Meryl's, new pal) will get the starring role in their school's upcoming musical, Beauty and the Beasta part Elaine not only craves but believes is her due. Elaine is desperate to avoid such humiliation, which she fears would undermine her long-term goals.
Joni is shy, an introvert. The idea of auditioning for the show scares her. But she also badly wants to please her mother, who starred in her own high school productions and who keeps encouraging Joni to spread her wings and make some friends. So, despite her anxiety, Joni decides to try out for the spring musical.
Meryl is caught in the middle of her friends. More than anything, she wants to be a menscha good, kind person. It's what prompts her to befriend Joni, even after she learns Elaine doesn't like her, because she can see Joni needs a friend. Because of incidents from Meryl's past, being good and honest means more to her than anything else. But when Elaine's and Joni's goals collide, Meryl is forced to make heart-wrenching choices that strike at the essence of who she wants to be.
So, we have three distinct characters, each driven by something different. But are their goals substantial enough to justify their actions? To make them believable and to make readers care about what happens in the story?
 
The answer for Elaine is an easy yes. Her dream of becoming an actress is something people can understand, if not relate to. The longing for celebrity is well known in our culture, and Elaine believes getting the starring role in the school musical is a key part in her path to fame. In contrast, Joni's and Elaine's deepest desires are quieter. Joni wants to please her mother. Meryl wants to be a good person. I wonder if readers might be skeptical about these goals. Are they important enough to warrant being described as the girls' deepest desires? Are they strong enough to drive Joni's and Meryl's stories?
Thinking about crime fiction brings these questions and their answer into stark relief. When crimes are committed, we know that there can be a superficial reason driving the perpetrator as well as a more meaningful reason. For example, Bob Smith robs a bank because he needs to pay for his mom's nursing home. His reason is practical, but deep down, it's also very personal. He cannot allow himself to be the son who lets his mom down again, and he will risk anything to be a better person for her, even if it means being a bad person in the eyes of the law. What's driving Bob is personal, all about how he sees himself and wants to be seen in his mother's eyes. Yet I'm sure readers would think these needs are meaningful enough to believably drive his actions and could lead readers to become invested in what happens to Bob, even if they think his actions are wrong. 
 
With that in mind, let's return to Joni and Meryl. Just like Bob is driven by a personal reason, so are Joni and Meryl (and Elaine, for that matter). Each girl's past has turned her into the person she is as the story begins, be it a fame-seeker, a mother-pleaser, or a mensch. They're all desperate to get what they need emotionally, and those needs, those passions, those deepest desires, are believable, even if they aren't what many would think of as big dreams. They've set these three girls on a collision course, and the result is a story that I hope readers will find compelling.
So, when you are crafting your stories, think about what drives your characters deep down. It doesn't matter if their needs involve careers or more personal desires. It only matters that you make the characters feel real. Basing their actions on their emotional motivations will hopefully enable you to bring the characters to life in complex, compelling, and engaging ways.
 
Want to read "Beauty and the Beyotch"? You can buy issue 29 of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine by clicking here. It's available in ebook form and trade paperback. 
 
The magazine is now edited by Carla Kaessinger Coupe, following the death last year of longtime editor Marvin Kaye. This issue also has a story by fellow SleuthSayer Janice Law as well as stories by Keith Brooke, Peter DiChellis, Hal Charles, Rebecca K. Jones, V.P. Kava, Rafe McGregor, Mike McHone, and Jacqueline Seewald; a reprint by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; and features by Martha Hudson, Kim Newman, and Darrell Schweitzer.