Writing About Writing...About Talking

I haven't written about writing in a while, and this being a writers' blog, I should pitch in. And I'll write about, well, talking. The characters, anyway. Dialogue.

TO GET SOMETHING OUT OF THE WAY

Writers have opinions about things like "dialogue" versus "dialog." Both are acceptable under reputable style guides. I use "dialogue" exclusively unless somebody is interacting with a computer. "Dialog" is more specific to speech, meaning interactions such as "hello" and "pass the salt." "Dialogue" is more expansive, implying a progression or learning tied to the discussion. Writers should write character interchanges that propel events, that lead to something new. Hence, it's "dialogue" for me.

Harrumph. 

I'm less-is-more when it comes to dialogue. It has its purpose, and nothing is better at that purpose. Dialogue freezes time while someone takes that spotlight. Dialogue is the character framer. Dialogue is the big reveal, the perfect riposte, the thing that must be said. But spotlights, like stories, must move. Narrative moves. It's malleable. Narrative plays with ideas and time in ways dialogue often can't. 

When a moment calls for dialogue, I have a general approach, and it goes like so:

1: WHY DOES IT NEED TO BE SAID?

We're writing fiction here. Verisimilitude. It's a crafted world, right down to what people say to each other. Dialogue isn't conversation. 

My early drafts can be guilty of dialogue running long. The characters get in a back-and-forth groove, but the story stops dead in its tracks. 

Let's say Bill and Doug are getting together to watch a game. Real-life discussion might go:

"Hey, man," Bill said. "What's up, brother?"

"Same old," Doug said.

"Grab a beer. Kick-off is in like five minutes."

"Great. Thanks."

"Pizza?" Bill said. "I was thinking pizza."

"Killer. Hey, turn the sound up."

"Sure. What a game this is, right?"

Let me clean that up.

"Hey, man," Bill said. "What's up, brother?"

"Same old," Doug said.

"Grab a beer. Kick-off is in like five minutes."

"Great. Thanks."

"Pizza?" Bill said. "I was thinking we order Giuseppe's."

"Killer. Hey, turn the sound up."

"Sure. What a game this is, right?" Bill cleared his throat. "Man, I am mad in love with your wife."

That's a story. That's what needs to be said. Now, some dialogue ahead of that showing Bill working up to the big reveal could be great. And much argument should follow, but where to sit and where to get pizza? It better be critical to something later.

Novels deserve more latitude. Novels are long. Readers need pauses and key fact reminders to help hold plot and character arcs together. Still, it's one thing to summon everyone into the drawing room to rehash the clues. It's another thing to hold a 10-page chinwag.

2: WOULD ANYONE EVER SAY THAT?

You know where I'm going.

"So, Agent Coolguy," Bigbad said. "Now that you're my prisoner, I suppose it's fitting that I explain my evil plan. At length. Yes, you were right that I've been buying up all the fast-casual restaurants west of the Pecos. What you weren't clever enough to see is yadda yadda yadda."

Yes, the dreaded Monologue. 

Or:

"As we all know," Madge said, "it's quite mild here this time of season. It's when the tourists come, as we also all know, they come for our famous lobster races. One reason they are famous is that the races were illegal for many years until in 1886 Mayor Codfish up and died. From fatty lobster, the legend goes. Well, what were we talking about?"

Call this the Basil Exposition, the Michael York character in Austin Powers who pops up with a recitation of backstory. Then there's Stating The Obvious. You know, characters just speaking explain-y facts and spot-on deductions at each other.  

HARDEDGE: The shooter must have been on the fire escape. High-cal weapon. 45mm, I'd say.

KICKSIDE: That's elite marksmanship. You're not saying the perp was Special Forces like you? 

HARDEDGE: That's exactly what I'm saying.

I get that word count or run-time pressure might require shoehorning in facts, and I'm probably guilty of info-dumps myself. But things people say in fiction should be things people might actually say.

2a: WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE?

I have a corollary pet peeve to Stating The Obvious: Chiming In The Obvious. Let's pick up the chase for that shooter.

HARDEDGE: That's exactly what I'm saying.

KICKSIDE: Then he's highly trained. You know, he could strike again.

SMITTY: He would need access to cleaning solvent.

DR. PROFILER: That checks out. I've been writing about this for years.

McNERD: There's been chatter on social media about scoring solvent.

ROOK: We should head over to the Army base. They have a lot of solvent there.

CHIEF: Army? Good call, kid. This is a really tense moment. I want everyone's A-game, got it?

NOTGONNAMAKEIT: Come on, Rook. Let's hit that base.

I like big ensemble casts. What distracts me is when everyone gets a toss-in line apparently because it's a big cast. Dialogue hits harder when it's person-to-person, not group brainstorming.

3: WOULD THAT CHARACTER SAY THAT?

Nature and nurture make us each our own person. What we say and how we say it is a product of place, culture, education, life experience, and so forth. That singularly created individual is who has the dialogue spotlight. Let them be singular.

Speaking of which, first-person point of view. Of my published stories, first-person perspective tops third-person three-to-one. I write characters, and first-person is pure character. Literally. I write every word of those as if the main character is always speaking, whether narrative or their share of dialogue. It's only the other characters who speak in another voice, their own voice. Even that gets filtered by what the main character must hear -- or is willing to hear.

4: HOW WOULD THAT CHARACTER SAY IT THEN?

A story moving along in a single flow, everything converging as it should. It's time for our characters to have an important verbal exchange. All good. But where are we in the story? What's happening at that very moment?- What's going on around them? Bill and Doug will need very different lines if that love triangle is the inciting incident versus a final showdown.

I keep the characters talking about only the story problem as it exists then and there. Exchanges might be longer or more subtextual while characters grapple with their problem. There might be more misunderstandings and talking around each other. As the problem reaches its resolution, words are more pointed, more revealing.

Going back to human nature, people shift from moment to moment. How we speak and how we phrase it changes based on mood, place, power dynamics, who we're speaking to, whether we're protecting something or we're straight-up lying. Dialogue is a combination of those choices in that moment, and it makes for characterization gold.

I'VE SAID MY PEACE

A truly powerful character choice is when to stop talking. Which I'll do now, leaving this as my take on dialogue. The approach keeps me out of trouble, mostly. And I need it, because it's easier to write about dialogue than to write actual dialogue.

Beware More than the Ides: Shakespeare's Trail of Bodies

Shakespeare's plays read pretty on the eye. Vivid imagery, brilliant wording, poetic turns. But those plays are meant for the ear, to be performed. Lustily, for the player to chew the scenery amid ghosts and mix-em-ups and especially his many death scenes. 

A general consensus puts Shakespeare's onstage death count at 74 characters. This is in just 38 plays, 17 of which were comedies. Many more characters shuffle off the mortal coil offstage for practical or emotional reasons. Estimates of Shakespeare's full carnage range to well over 200 characters, depending on how the count defines a killing. 

And I've counted. The tragedies, anyway. I can't get excited about the historical plays. My math is as follows: Body count equals (a) clear deaths during the play, (b) clear deaths pending at the final curtain, and (c) deaths immediately before Act I where the character pops up later as a ghost. 

It's March, so let's open with Julius Caesar. Famously, Caesar is first to meet his maker, and things get out of hand from there -- the whole point of the play.

1. 
   Julius Caesar: group stabbing;
2. Cinna the Poet: torn apart by mob;
3. Portia: suicide offstage, swallowing hot coals;
4. Cicero: executed offstage;
5. Cassius: assisted suicide, sword; 
6. Titinius: suicide, sword;
7. Young Cato: death in battle; 
8. and finally Brutus: assisted suicide, sword. 

That's a lot of suicide, but the play orbits around honor and what's honorable. The losers take the high road out. Brutus and Cassius are so concerned about honor, or status really, that they have to find somebody else to do the bloody part.

If eight deaths sound like a pile, it's middle of the Shakespearian pack. Slightly less stabby is Romeo and Juliet, at six: 

1. Mercutio: swordfight;
2. Tybalt: swordfight;
3. Lady Montague: grief, offstage;
4. Paris: swordfight, 
5. Romeo: suicide by poison;
6. and Juliet: suicide by dagger. 

Othello takes out only five and only after Iago has head-cased everyone: 

1. Roderigo: stabbing; 
2. Desdemona: smothered;
3. Emilia: stabbing;
4. Othello: suicide, dagger;
5. and Brabantio: grief, offstage.

Desdemona gets an extended I'm-not-dead-yet revival despite having been suffocated. That kind of suffering and speechifying end isn't unusual for Shakespeare, but showing her murder onstage is. He preferred to kill off his men for the crowd, usually by sword or such carving. Shakespeare wrote in and for his time. 400 years ago, the main characters were men, so following the action to the tragic end was important to the drama. 

By contrast, the women tended to die offstage. Being a man of his times, his female characters were often thematic devices for the main men. Shakespeare also wrote for patrons and royals, and he would've thought twice about offending his meal tickets. Of course, it wasn't even women playing his women back then. Lads got those parts, and a good director wouldn't risk a grand death scene on a young actor's chops.

Whatever the reasons, the lead woman dying offstage sets up the bring-out-her-body moment. Cue Hamlet. Hamlet gets a bad rap for inaction, but he's responsible, one way or another, for every death other than the father he wanted to avenge. 

1. King Hamlet: Poisoned shortly before play, a ghost;
2. Polonius: stabbed, mistaken identity; 
3. Ophelia: drowned offstage, possible suicide and duly brought on;
4. Rosencrantz: executed offstage;
5. Guildenstern: executed offstage;
6. Gertrude: poisoned by mistake;
7. Laertes: poisoned stabbing;
8. Claudius: stabbed, then poisoned;
9. and finally Hamlet: poisoned stabbing.

Poisoning is my favorite Shakespearian gimmick. Most often, he can't be bothered to specify the actual poison. It's just boom, you're poisoned. But that was a way to do it back then, which goes double for those stabbings. Were Shakespeare writing today, his swordfights would be shootouts.

King Lear edges ahead with eleven deaths, most in its grim finale: 

1. First servant: stabbed;
2. Cornwall: stabbed;
3. Oswald: stabbed;
4. Gloucester: shock of joy, offstage;
5. Regan: poisoned by jealous sister, offstage;
6. jealous sister Goneril: suicide by dagger, offstage;
7. Edmund: killed in duel;
8. Cordelia: hanging, offstage;
9. Lear: Grief and exhaustion;
10. Fool: fate unknown, presumed dead;
and 11. Kent: resolved to commit suicide. 

Speaking of grim, there's Macbeth. Its death count is whatever anyone wants it to be given the major battles, violent repression, and general mayhem. The confirmed dead is eleven. You have to believe Macbeth cleaned up his assassin situation before anyone talked, but here's the confirmed eleven. 

1. 
   Macdonwald: killed in battle offstage;
2. Thane of Cawdor: executed offstage;
3. Duncan: stabbed offstage;
4. Duncan's Guard #1: stabbed offstage;
5. Duncan's Guard #2: stabbed offstage;
6. Banquo: Stabbed in ambush;
7. Lady Macduff: stabbed;
8. Macduff's son: stabbed;
9. Lady Macbeth: suicide offstage, unspecified;
10. Young Siward: killed in battle; 
11. and Macbeth: killed in battle on or offstage, beheaded offstage.

Those deaths happen in perfect order to frame the tragic fall. For all of Macbeth's carnage, most of the killing happens offstage unless a director loves an opening battle scene. Instead, the scenes follows Macbeth between the violence and wrestling with his conscience. It starts with arguably the most important but overlooked death, Macdonwald. Macbeth disembowels the guy offstage, showing both his heroic loyalty and the killer within. When he finally goes full tyrant, the murder moves onstage, with Banquo and Macduff's family. 

Shakespeare's bloodiest tragedy, though, is way bloodier. His top massacre is Titus Andronicus, an early play that wallows in its violent excess--on purpose. The play is about brutality and how far people will take their grudges. Death count, here we go:

1. Alarbus: ritual sacrifice;
2. Mutius: stabbed, filicide;
3. Bassianus: stabbed;
4. Martius: beheaded, offstage;
5. Quintus: beheaded, offstage;
6. Tamora's Nurse: stabbed;
7. the Clown: hanged;
8. Chiron: slashed throat, ground into powder, and baked into pie served to his mother;
9. Demetrius: same;
10. Lavinia: stabbed;
11. Tamora: stabbed and fed to wild beasts;
12. Titus Andronicus: stabbed;
13. Saturnius: stabbed;
and 14. Aaron: buried up to neck and left to die. 

Take that, Game of Thrones.

Stabbings and poisonings were his old reliables, but Shakespeare had a full arsenal when it came to dispatching characters. Guilt and served as pie, as examples seen above. A few others:

• 
  Snakebite;
• Heavy sweat;
• Indigestion;
• Dismemberment and tossed into fire;
• And the topper of toppers, bear. 

Poetic turns or not, it's a mistake to read Shakespeare as stilted or stuffy. He was putting on a show, blood, guts and all. It's endless amusement for a literature nerd, almost as fun as watching actors land those deaths in the footlights. 

The Holmes-Inspired Bank Heist, on Baker Street

January is a time for new inspiration, and for many of us, inspiration came from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Many of us read his Sherlock Holmes stories and decided to keep reading mysteries. Some of us tried writing a mystery ourselves. Or maybe, as really happened, someone digs a forty-foot tunnel into a bank vault. 

And the plan worked.

Mostly. 

The Holmes outing that inspired the crime is, of course, "The Red-Headed League," up there with my favorites. The story has nothing ingenious about it, by such standards, except the Holmes stories usually hide their humor more. This one nails a mystery that--in my opinion--only works as comedy. 

The plot: A pawnshop owner, at the great insistence of his clerk, scores a paying gig with a benefactor society dedicated to the advancement of red-headed men. All the bloke has to do is hang around League HQ all day. He turns to Holmes when the League abruptly closes shop. Holmes deduces a distraction. The clerk is in fact an aristocrat criminal genius who set up a front and uses his alone time to dig into the bank vault next door. Holmes is waiting when the aristocrat genius surfaces inside the bank.

In 1971, a British criminal gang tried the plot in real life. They targeted Lloyds Bank, no less, the renowned securer of London society lockboxes. 

The bank sits at 185 Baker Street.

Now, everyone knew London's wealthy kept serious loot in Lloyds basement vault. No heist team had tried the job for a simple reason: The idea was pure insanity. Lloyds was a high-tech fortress, with trembler alarms and feet of reinforced concrete protecting the vault. Getting in and out couldn't be done.

Enter Anthony Gavin, the real-life genius if not aristocrat. Gavin was Army-trained and connected in the London underworld. And Gavin was properly inspired. 

Nobody was busting in the front way. But somebody equipped and disciplined could tunnel in, Conan Doyle-style. And in May 1971, two doors from Lloyd's at Number 189, the leather goods shop Le Sac had just gone under. Blueprints said its basement sat on the same level as the vault. 

The game was afoot. Gavin worked through an associate Benjamin Wolfe to secure the lease. Wolfe's job was financing and cover. He would keep Le Sac open so that Gavin's crew could come and go as renovators. Not open personally, mind you. For plausible deniability, Wolfe stayed clear of Le Sac.  

The exact size of the crew isn't known. Gavin had a security systems expert. He had a lookout, a demolitions guy, a tunnel man who could navigate tight spaces. And crucially, he had an insider, Reg Tucker, a friend with no criminal record. 

Tucker fashioned himself into a Man About Marylebone and in December 1970 deposited £500 at Lloyds. In February 1971, he returned to rent a safety deposit box in the basement vault. Over six months, Tucker revisited the vault and mapped its layout and dimensions using an umbrella as a yardstick. He walked Baker Street between Le Sac and Lloyds until the crew had precise distance and direction for tunneling. Forty feet, no more, no less. It didn't pay to pop up at the fried chicken joint in between. 

The news got better. Baker Street was torn up for repairs. The security expert checked around and learned the utility work set off so many false alarms that the tremblers had been shut off altogether.

The tunneling started in late August and went on for two weekends. They dug after hours only to lower the risk of being heard. And it wasn't loose dirt they dug through. This was decades and decades worth of old London foundations. A cave-in was one wrong shovel or loose brick away. 

Foot after foot they dug, no ventilation, no calling for help. And nights or not, they were making a lot of noise picking away and clearing tons of debris by bags and a pulley as they moved deeper. The chicken place staff eventually came banging on Le Sac's door to complain. Gavin's crew didn't hear the knocking at first because they were busy mining directly below the chicken place. 

By Friday, September 10, the crew was ready. They had cut forty feet and loaded eight tons of rubble into Le Sac's basement. They'd constructed a chamber 7x4x5 feet where they loaded a 100-ton hydraulic jack onto railroad ties. The vault would time-lock at close of business, as the manager had bragged to Tucker. No one, not even the manager, could open it until Monday morning. Gavin's lookout confirmed over the walkie that the branch had emptied. The crew had all weekend--if they could crack through the reinforced concrete. 

On Saturday, the crew gave it a go. As happens in a heist, the plan immediately frayed. Their staging chamber sat above wet earth from an underground spring. The hydraulic jack pushed the floor down rather than the vault concrete up. 

Gavin was ready for contingencies. Next, and this is not embellishment, they took a thermal lance to the vault floor. That's right, they shot molten slag upward in a tiny space filling with noxious fumes. And for naught. The reinforced concrete held. 

It was time for old-fashioned methods. The crew drilled chunks out of the concrete and stuck gelignite inside. A detonator did the rest. 

Explosives. In the makeshift tunnel. But the crew's engineering was up to the task. As for noise, the lookout confirmed that Baker Street didn't seem to notice a blast under their feet. Which left only basic physics in the way. Bank vaults are airtight. Gavin and his crew pried upward into a thick brume of smoke and dust, too much for starting on the deposit boxes. The crew argued over their walkies about whether and how to change the plan.

Which was a problem Gavin hadn't accounted for. One mile away, a ham radio enthusiast was recording their transmissions.

The ham radio guy was Robert Rowlands, of Wimpole Street. He'd been trying to catch Radio Luxembourg but instead had tuned into the heist. He listened on and even reported a suspected burglary--somewhere--to his local precinct. The cops advised him to record what he was hearing if he wanted anyone to believe him. So Rowlands did. On his home cassette recorder, he caught Gavin's crew wrangling about pressing on or retreating before being overcome by fumes.

By 2am Sunday, Rowlands phoned in a second report. This time, he called Scotland Yard. The Flying Squad drove to Rowlands' flat and listened with him as the crew chattered their progress reports. Eventually, the crew switched channels, but not until the evidence had mounted.

Scotland Yard knew a bank job was happening, but they didn't know where. So they put teams on the streets and canvassed banks in an 8-mile radius of Wimpole Street--all 750 branches.  

One of those banks was Lloyds. 

There wasn't any sign of foul play outside Lloyds, but no one was taking chances. The cops and bank manager went into the basement and listened inside the sealed vault, likely while the crew was inside thinking each breath sounded like thunder. But after a good listen, the police called Lloyds all clear.

Which it wasn't, as was obvious when Lloyds opened Monday morning. The crew had broken into 268 deposit boxes, a quarter of the vault count. A note scrawled in paint challenged Sherlock to solve the case. Also obvious was the hole in the vault floor. That led the cops to Le Sac and the discarded equipment, which quickly led them to Benjamin Wolfe. He had signed the lease under his real name.

Shocked. Wolfe was shocked, shocked, to learn that a crew had used his basement for thievery. Yes, he'd let a crew use the property, but he'd understood it to be for legitimate storage. 

Needless to say, Scotland Yard wasn't buying Wolfe's story. They put him under surveillance and made note of his contacts and movements. Wolfe made repeated contacts with Anthony Gavin, whose voice on the police recordings sounded an awful lot like the crew leader from Rowlands' tapes. Eventually, the police tracked Wolfe to a pay-off. That was that. Gavin, Wolfe, Tucker, and a few others got rounded up. But some of the alleged crew had left England, and possible others have never been identified.

Also needless to say, this was a public sensation. Headlines were written. Fingers were pointed. The job had been ambitious, the crew had gotten away, the police sported a black eye, and rumors sprouted over what other incriminating evidence might've been taken (the 2008 film The Bank Job indulges the conspiracy theories). More than a few Lloyds customers refused to disclose their contents stolen.

Only £231,000 was ever recovered. Some estimates speculate the haul at £3,000,000. In today's money, that is £50,000,000 ($64,000,000), plenty to disappear or pay off bent cops or set aside for retirement. Gavin and Tucker did twelve years. Wolfe did eight.

And that is London 1971 and "The Red-Headed League" come to life. Brilliant criminals, bold plot, and inept police who get their man eventually. And even its sublime ridiculousness, in the form of fake identities, simple mistakes, and irate fry cooks. All that was missing was a great detective. 

Good thing, though, that no real-life Holmes waited there to nab the crew. Gelignite packs a punch.

* * *

In researching this piece, I came across this entertaining dramatization of the crime. They set the stage nicely and visualize the tunneling and the twists and turns of the crime. Like any good heist drama, you're not rooting for the crooks, but you're not not rooting for them, either.

The whole Great Heists series is worth a watch for caper or true crime buffs. 

Yes, There Is a Santa Claus, and He Pays His Damn Taxes

Santa Claus. Does he exist? If so, does he hang at the North Pole? What sort of being is he? It's all folklore, even the St. Nicholas origin story. The Santa legend has become whatever anyone wants from it. But you might be surprised to learn the American legal system has weighed in here. According to the Ohio courts, there is a Santa Claus, he lived in Warren, and he owned a '65 VW.

Fittingly, our story picks up at the holidays. December 21, 2001, and Santa--also known as Warren Hayes--just bumped his VW into another car. Being Santa, he owned up to causing the minor damage. This Santa also carried hard cash and reimbursed the other driver on the spot. Even jolly old elves understand not to get insurance involved.

It was the Warren City P.D. showing up that started the trouble. The cop wanted ID, as cops will do. Santa produced an official Ohio Identification Card with himself in full beard and red suit. Unquestionably legit, and the card said this guy was Santa Claus, of 1 Noel Drive in Warren, Ohio. 

The cop had problems with his story. Besides the Santa part. By law, Ohioans could only get state ID cards if they didn't already have a driver's license, and Hayes, as Hayes, had a duly-issued license. 

Also, Noel Drive didn't exist. It was a playful crossroads sign posted for the driveway to Hayes Industries, a shopping cart repair company and by-God Chamber of Commerce member. The Warren P.D. was playing it straight, and they believed Santa was operating under a false ID.

But this was Christmas, right? The Warren P.D. would let Santa off easy, right? 

Wrong. The cops booked Santa on "displaying or possessing an identification card knowing it to be fictitious," a class one misdemeanor. The max penalty was six months and a $1,000 fine. 

Santa was fighting this one, damn it. And he had evidence. Hayes was known around town as Santa and for his generous gifts to area kids out of his own pocket. He had the suit, the ID, and a joint bank account opened under Santa Claus, with his wife as Mrs. Claus. That's right. Hayes wrote many a check signed as Santa, and those checks cleared. 

Santa lawyered up. In a motion to dismiss, Santa's counsel produced motor vehicle records showing that the very VW from the fender-bender had been registered to "Santa Claus" for almost two decades. Santa had duly paid all fees and vehicle taxes. From his Santa checking account. He'd also maintained that Santa Ohio ID card for decades. 

The prosecution cried humbug. They pointed to actual precedent where Ohio had denied an aspiring Santa a legal name change based on the public's "proprietary interest" in Santa's "persona." And if Ohio didn't allow a Santa, and Hayes was flashing ID as Santa, how could that ID be anything but fictitious?

Santa was in a tight spot. What he needed--what all great Christmas stories need--was a miracle.

Enter the Warren Municipal Court. The judge pointed to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and their repeated transactions with Santa Claus. After so many years of taking his checks, this was an odd time to raise a concern. 

Hayes also hadn't filed papers to change his name. He'd just started holding himself out as Santa. Except when he needed to be Hayes, such as for the cart repair game or when tooling around as Santa. Common law allows it, provided no illicit intent is involved. As to intent, and on top of his duly filed VW paperwork, Hayes introduced into evidence a "Certificate of Birth" claiming he'd been born in 383 A.D. to Mr. Claus and Holly Noel. 

Fictitious? If anything, this guy was working hard to prove his Santa bona fides. 

In a Solomon-worthy verdict, the judge ruled that Ohio could issue Hayes a driver's license, so he could drive, and also issue Santa an ID card, so he could Santa. Charges, dismissed.

So that's the story of Santa Claus and his Ohio address. There is a moral here, maybe. Maybe it's that whatever season you celebrate or whatever spirit floats your boat, you can become that if you're generous enough, if you're committed enough. If you believe it about yourself enough. 

Or maybe it's to get yourself a good lawyer.

Read the judge's ruling here. And the interview with Hayes' attorney here. 

But Dad, It's Smokey

If you've had a few laps around the sun, maybe gone to your share of go-gos, you know the commercial. It's the 1970s one where a voice-of-god announcer stops people on the street to ask how much they love Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The capper is a guy mugging for the camera and telling how his father would shout to turn down the radio. "But Dad," the guy says through a cheese-drenched grin, "It's Smokey!"

By luck or fate, my boyhood coincided with the golden age of the compilation record commercial. The K-Tel Era, those 90-second spots with the signature scroll of whatever songs were stitched together for moving product fast. The Smokey commercial was from Imperial House Records, that serial flogger of the "as seen on TV" reissue album. And I'll be honest: "But Dad" was surely how Young Me first heard of Smokey Robinson. 

With age and means of payment I came around to Smokey and the Motown Sound, that feel-good rhythm, those fun horns and catchy packaging. When Smokey came to town this summer, I had the ticket money. Neither of us are getting any younger. 

Smokey was performing in the Nashville Symphony Pops Series, and the billing listed a la Imperial House the hits he was to sing. And he sang 'em: "More Love," "I Second That Emotion," "Being With You," "Just to See Her." But how he sang 'em, though. The stories he wrapped around 'em. I was listening to a writer's writer.

Which, of course, Smokey is. One of the Twentieth Century's greats of pop R&B, recipient of the Johnny Mercer Award and a founding cornerstone for Motown's hit engine. His hits for other Motown artists include:

• "Ain't That Peculiar," Marvin Gaye
• "Don't Mess With Bill," The Marvelettes
• "Get Ready," The Temptations
• "My Guy," Mary Wells
• "The Way You Do the Things You Do," The Temptations

And the pan-generational "My Girl," written especially for David Ruffin. Smokey's music has been covered by the Beatles ("You Really Got a Hold on Me"), the Rolling Stones ("Going to a Go-Go"), The Jackson Five ("Who's Loving You"), Elvis Costello ("From Head to Toe"), and many others. "Tracks of My Tears" was a hit for Smokey, Johnny Rivers, Aretha Franklin, and Linda Ronstadt. 

A lot more has changed since the K-Tel Era besides my age. My thoughtfulness, for one. My own attempts at writing, for another. I started thinking about William Robinson the writer and what his style teaches about storytelling. 

A Smokey Robinson song feels so simple and immediate. He throws in some wordplay now and then--I try to keep my sadness hid, just like Pagliacci did--a bit like Mercer or Cole Porter set to soul, but mostly his music sticks to basics. His rhymes tend to be quiet, relying on the performer to sell the meaning. It's no accident. In interviews, Smokey talks about writing for timelessness, music that could be played years from now. You don't see a Smokey name-check or here's-a-new-dance song. He makes no period references and takes up no fad causes. 

Smokey is right, and his channel-hosting deal with SirusXM is proof. Years from now people will hear his music, just as artists are still recording Mercer's and Porter's music. Because Smokey writes about the theme that has driven popular music forever: Love. Finding love, holding love, losing love, chasing love. Add in that groove, and it's a memorable formula. In fiction terms, we'd say he'd honed his voice and knew his broad readership. 

Simple.

Simple ain't easy. Even Smokey didn't get the formula at first. Barry Gordy had to hit him with critique, saying Smokey's songs were disconnected verses. The words needed to tell stories. Smokey took heed and honed his storytelling chops. In interviews now, Smokey talks about getting the words right, tinkering until the lyrics read like a standalone tale. He even jokes about the writer's eternal struggle. "Cruisin'" is a dead simple song about two lovebirds on a car ride, with clear overtones of sex and a running metaphor about relationships as a journey. "Cruisin'" took him five years to write. 

His simplicity extends to his lyrical vocabulary. Every word in a Smokey song is as clear as blue sky. It's the same reason we fiction writers should pitch the thesaurus. Plain words speak louder, hit harder. We're in the emotions business, the words with meaning business. We're definitely not in the fancypants business. 

Motown's goal was to write songs for everyone. Whenever I do a workshop on story writing, I hit on the critical difference between writing for yourself versus writing for an audience. Writing for ourselves is a release. We can write whatever the hell we want, however the hell we want it. Readers shouldn't have to endure that. 

Writing for publication means writing to be understood, which means dropping any conceit that the work is about us. It's from our experience, but in the end, it's about the reader and giving them that emotional connection. You know, like Smokey singing love stuff right for you. About you. 

So when, in the 70s, Imperial House stopped people on the street to rave about a compilation record, they hammed it up for the camera. To get on TV, sure. But also because it was for Smokey. 

BONUS READING:

• https://americansongwriter.com/smokey-robinson-still-churning-out-hits/
• https://www.aarp.org/entertainment/music/info-2021/smokey-robinson-wrote-that.html
• https://www.vulture.com/article/smokey-robinson-interview-life-legacy.html

 

How to Nashville

Nashville. I can't blame you if you just pictured somebody toting a guitar under some spotlight. The travel guides, the airport swag, the TV coverage and dramas, you would think what goes on here is a-pickin', a-boozin', and a-Goo Goo Clusterin'. And in fairness, that does go on. But, having lived decades here, I can offer a perspective for writing like a local--or, if you're coming to the Nashville Bouchercon next month, to glimpse past the hoo-hah.

MUSIC CITY

Nashville gets called a holy city for music, and it is. But to tackle the obvious, there are not jeaned-up folks ambling around with guitars slung over their backs. Paying dues involves driving for Lyft or waiting tables or having an office job. It's darn impractical to be spreadsheeting with your Gibson slung over your shoulder. Getting it scratched up, too.

I've had aspiring artists as co-workers and once a caterer. A retired top 40 artist has lived next door. Some guy in my current neighborhood has a gold record conspicuously placed where no passerby will miss it. It just happens here. Sometimes.

And there isn't one music scene but several. Blame the Nashville Sound– or lack thereof. Since Music City's very beginning, label executives have watered down talent for country radio. If it'll play, it plays– no nuance, no vision, no women artists twice in a row.

The music sub-scenes are thriving. Americana, alternative, second-act rockers, the works. A wonderful part of living here is experiencing the musicianship. Live acts in restaurants aren't as common as they used to be, but when you stumble on one, it's gonna be good, even when the style might not be your cuppa. The few of those artists who break out are 100% committed to their craft– or 100% lucky.

Or you can write the Nashville with no music angle at all. The music industry contributes about $10 billion to Nashville's GDP. The tourism industry adds another $10 billion. Nashville's total GDP is $200 billion. Healthcare, manufacturing, and increasingly high-tech contribute far more to the economic high times. No local over thirty goes to Lower Broadway anymore. Preds games and concerts, sure. But Lower Broadway? That's for tourists.

FRONT OF HOUSE

Rockers come here to record when they're hot, and they come here to live when, well, they're not (I blogged about this back in March). A big reason for that is Nashville's quieter life. It's an unwritten but firm Nashville rule: It doesn't matter who is ahead in line at Kroger. Do not approach. Don't. They're just there for Hot Pockets, same as you.

The exception: You own the business or work front of house. Around many local dives or dry cleaners or even the HillVill Post Office is that obligatory wall of autographed headshots, everyone from country gold names to wannabes who probably tacked it there themselves. An interesting Nashville character is someone rubbing those transactional elbows.

Letting people do their thing is the phenomenon known as…

NASHVILLE NICE

Nashville folks are super friendly. We dole out praise and thank yous for the slightest things. We will hold doors, tongues, and spots in line. We refrain from horn honking, even when the light has been green. Nashville Nice is the slang term.

The nice is real. But, like most Southern hospitality, it can be lipstick on a pig. This is, after all, a city with a problematic history on civil rights. Courtesy can mean avoiding such uncomfortable subjects. Kindness means having to fix them.

Nashville Nice is complicated in practice. This being the Buckle of the Bible Belt, take for example the Christian set's "have a blessed day." It works a little like "bless your heart" except (1) it's a goodbye and (2) it can actually be sincere. The person may wish you only the best, or they may have attempted a singsong-y parting burn. You know, like Jesus would've done.

OH, THERE WILL BE BACHELORETTES.

Break out the White Claws, y'all. Downtown Nashville is the U.S. capital of bachelorette parties. 30,000 parties a year, my friends, or more than 500 downtown on any given Saturday. They flock from all over, these young white ladies and their boundless desire to celebrate treasured bonds ahead of a friend's sacred event get very, very drunk. Sloppy drunk, the stupid drunk laced with questionable decisions no one dares risk where everyone knows your name.

They're called the Woo Girls, for the species' distinctive hollers above the Nashvegas honkytonk sound assault. And while drinking, they ride any tavern that can be pedaled, driven, or tractor-pulled. Some of the contraptions even have licenses. To be a local, you've come to grudging terms with transportainment spectacles– and traffic jams.

Downtown is slap-happy to rake in the Woo bucks. It's just Broadway's latest wave in sin and itinerants since Fort Nashborough put up the first shacks. Writing a local who'd seen wild times? Happens seven nights a week and afternoons, too, at the neon spectacle of Lost Edge Hat Act's four-story, booze and boot-scoot emporium.

THANKS A LOT, CALIFORNIA

Housing costs have been a growing issue already, with more demand than supply. What's happened lately is a second-wave influx, tens of thousands of West Coast and Florida buyers resetting the market. The expats get a larger house for less money. The sellers get a short-term windfall, if they can afford a replacement. Younger people looking for a first home get left behind. A realistic Nashville character these days wouldn't live near central Nashville unless they had a significant source of income or a crash pad of multiple roommates.

UNIQUELY NASHVILLE, THE LIGHTNING ROUND

• Jell-O.It's officially a vegetable here, as is macaroni and cheese. It's a meat-and-three culture thing.
• Pancake Pantry: The breakfast and brunch institution, as televised. Now with other places to dine and be seen, locals don't quibble about the food (legit good) but about whether it's worth the line. It mostly feeds tourists and hangovers.
• Parthenon: Yes, we have our own Parthenon. A whole World Exposition thing. Most people go to Centennial Park for craft fairs and dog meet-ups. The swans there are vicious and shameless.
• Smashville: Believe it or not, the Preds hockey team generates legit buzz around town, almost as much as the Titans. Every game night is part of the downtown party.
• Little Kurdistan: Nashville is home to many, many folks from Latin America, South Asia, and also one of America's largest Kurdish communities. If you get off the beaten path, you'll see an unexpected diversity, and Nashville is better for it.
• Cityscape: Officially, the most distinctive feature on Nashville's skyline is the AT&T Building. No local calls it that. It's the Batman Building, for its bat-eared radio towers.

THE ULTIMATE TEST: CAN YOU SAY… DEMONBREUN

A certain major street cuts from the Midtown knolls over the Gulch and on downhill for the Cumberland. Demonbreun Avenue is the name, but whether you can pronounce it is the question. Failure brands you a rube. Success keeps you in the game, at least until you question Jell-O as a vegetable.

This didn't used to matter as much. Demonbreun used to be the seedy shortcut downtown, a lesser traveled run past aging motels and strip clubs. These days, Demonbreun is a glossy strip with some of Nashville's top attractions: The Frist Museum, the Bridgestone Arena, the Music City Center, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center– and all of that built since I moved here. Demonbreun is Nashvegas now, the natural habitat of Woo Girls on wheels.

Ready to practice? Here you go:

dah - MUHN - BREE - uhnn

Work on it. You'll get there. But hey, don't worry too much about mispronunciation. We're still nice to rubes, bless their hearts.

Adventures In Spelling (Or, An Author Gives Up)

Words. They're kind of important in writing. Words are comprised of letters, optimally in the correct order. I'm a liberal arts major and know these things. And yet. The mind and typing fingers can struggle.

I'm actually a darn good speller, or I was. I hung in there on spelling bees as a kid, and nobody geeked out more on PSAT vocabulary than this guy. One thing the young me could've learned better was typing. My mom considered typing a life skill and made us take runs at her IBM Selectric. A sweet machine, the Selectric. The clack of keys, the thump of ball element, precision stuff engineered to sequence manual keystrokes just right, and it never stood a chance. Not with me and my pecking method impervious to parental correction.  

Not all letter combinations are kind to the pecking method. Here are the dreaded words that get me every time.

Camouflage

Every time. Every time I want to type camouflage, I type "camoflage." If I'm overthinking my dropped vowel, I type "camoflague." Maybe it's an extension of living in the South, all these folks in daywear camos. Maybe it's the pronunciation. Said lazily, it can come out as all different kinds of ways. Said correctly, there's no "o" in there anywhere. It's a sneaky little unstressed "uh" vowel that, ironically, blends in with mastermind stealth. YouTube has videos on this pronunciation trick. 

Or maybe lifestyle is my problem. It's not a word that comes up much. I try to live a life neither hiding from anyone nor fixing to bushwhack them, either.

Farther

This is less of a misspelling routine than willful disregard. I understand full well the English language contains both the words "farther" and my habitual "further." Farther, a grammarist will tell you, means at a greater distance or to a greater extent. Further covers that but goes, well, further. The adverb and adjectival forms denote something additionally or an additional amount, to include extents and distances. 

This distinction can become fighting stuff, but only for word nerds. Many people go through entire lives not caring about nearly interchangeable word nuance. The difference doesn't matter when writing dialogue unless the character is a fellow word nerd. I hear "further" much more than "farther" in conversation, but that could be a personal filter. "Further" sounds everyday. "Farther" sounds like Thurston Howell asking if you have Grey Poupon.

Hypocrisy

This is a simple enough word. 9 letters. Pronounced how spelled. And yet. My fingers type it "hypocrasy" or "hypocricy" or the double-up "hypocracy." I'm old enough to know when things aren't gonna get better. It wouldn't be honest to skip this on my typing issues list.

Maneuver

I literally just mistyped that subtitle as "manuever." Frankly, I'm not sure I'm to blame. The second syllable of maneuver (I just mistyped that, too) rhymes with true and blue. Same diacritical marks. The U before the E? Nope, and maybe just what I expected the spelling to do. Anyway, thanks spell check.

Publicly

"Publically." In the hunt and peck storm, "publically" is what flows. The hodgepodge we call the English language has a rule. A rule, folks, and it says adverbs made from adjectives ending in "ic" get an "ally." A rule, specifically. Except. Oh, the exception. I give you the adverb "publicly." The real lesson is to avoid adverbs. Except in speech because people use adverbs non-stop in speech. And dialogue is done publicly. I have to edit hard, is what I'm saying.

Semi-Whatever

This one is a different glitch. It's tactical somehow, like how my hand positioning gets pulled wide chasing each next letter. Whenever I hunt-and-peck any word with the prefix "semi," things go haywire. The "semi" part is fine. What comes next breaks down into stray characters. The entire remaining word plunges into babble until a rally when some vague semblance of meaning returns. But too devoid of meaning for spell check to fathom. Microsoft Word flags the babble as if a hell-if-I-know shrug. 

If anyone out there wonders who is holding natural language algorithms back from brilliant adoption of "semi" words, it's me. Not sure I can explain it. Only semi-sure I should explore it.

Superseded

True story. 

Once, I argued at length that superseded was--and could only ever be--spelled "superceded." This wasn't in the spelling bee or PSAT days, either. I was then a young paid professional with a liberal arts education, and I was arguing the pure necessity of "superceded" in my workpapers. "Super," of course, meant the act of revising or replacing. "Ceded" meant the ceding of that ground. I could not have been more wrong. What has me laughing years later isn't that. It's that my boss didn't interrupt. She let me go on. 

Superseded is correct spelling. I know that now. I knew it then, too, except in the moment my better judgment was revised or replaced. The struggle is real and continues. My left index finger--the one in charge of "c"--still gets the itch. 

There It Is, Then

I crank through the typing well enough. With corrections. Sometimes, the head gets in the way, or the method. Sometimes, it's a mental thing, the misspelled word so engrained that I'm head-cased and doom-looped. But some words are writer kryptonite, and I've given up pretending otherwise. Writing is nothing if not a learning process, and that includes accepting the trick words.

What the Hell, Let's Make Wine: On "Noble Rot" in Murder, Neat

I'm told this entry winds up our collective series going behind Murder, Neat. I've enjoyed these backgrounders as much as I've enjoyed reading the anthology. Pick up a copy, and you'll see what I mean. Murder, Neat is also perfect for birthdays, spring solstices, allergy season, or any occasion you've got going on.

* * *

Given my name, you won't be surprised to hear I'm of French heritage. As best we know the history, the Mangeots did okay over there--until the Revolution. Ah, well. C'est la guerre. 

Having old France in my blood, you also wouldn't be surprised to hear I enjoy wine. I'll go so far as to claim I've accumulated minor wine knowledge. I said minor, so don't quiz me. One nugget explained to me on a vineyard tour way back was a winemaking technique with a particularly catchy name: noble rot.

What a word combination. Noble plus rot catches the eye, dances on the tongue, sparks the imagination. It's that juxtaposition, noble to rot, a lofty start and steep descent as if inevitable. Poetry? Depends on your tastes. In real life, the term is more like good marketing. 

What's known today as noble rot started out in Hungary or Germany, depending on the account. To oversimplify, the vintner inoculates their ripening grapes with a fungus. Happy little fungi from the same family as makes penicillin, bleu cheese, and athlete's foot. Then, the vintner walks away. It's not until a late harvest and a chill in the air that picking time arrives. By then, the fungi turns the grapes into super-intense raisins. Those raisins are the secret behind some of the finest sweet wines on this planet. Tokay, Sauternes, Riesling. 

That's the high-gloss version, but let's be honest. The method surely sprung from desperation. Rewind however many centuries, and surely a German or Hungarian vintner schlub dilly-dallied at harvest time. It got to be October, and the wind bode a frost, and wolves howled from the foothills, and the vintner's family shoved him outside to get the grapes picked. The vintner sidled to the vines and discovered that a nasty fungal situation had spread something fierce, and the vintner said, "What the hell, let's make wine."

Rot done well. For art. I'd wanted to write about all that. For a while, actually.

Opportunity came when Sleuthsayers decided on an anthology. The call was for stories with a bar somehow a core element. My fellow Sleuthsayers' submissions would include amazing stories using saloons and dives and well-drawn noir tones. So I went another direction. I played with other types of bars and landed on a wine bar. I might've been sitting at my basement wine bar at the time. 

Anyway, a submission. I kept brainstorming wine things and soon landed back on that brewing noble rot concept. All I needed next was a story. About a state of rotting. Nobly. And for that, folks, let me welcome you to Nashville.

We Mangeots aren't alone in moving along when fortunes take a turn. Middle Tennessee boasts a near-inexhaustible supply of ex-rockers settled here after their chart-topping runs ended. That isn't a critique. The ex-rocker colony makes large and welcome civic contributions, and they invest in stuff. Stuff like wineries. And rich winery owners have tasting rooms.  

Rockers moving here makes sense from their lens. Nashville has long had country chart-only stars, and the city culture protects their privacy. A faded rocker can run to the grocery with no hassles. Nashville has a cheaper cost of living (or used to), no state income tax, a bevy of top studios and historic venues, and a chance to plug into a peer group with similar life experiences and creative bents. 

These rockers haven't lost their talent. The voice might be going, the hand a beat slow sometimes, but the creativity and musicianship are still there. It's excellent that they hang around the music scene. One might say noble, in its way. Noble, but also fair game. After all, these headliners used to embody sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Now, they're on YouTube cooking their favorite recipes and aging with their audiences. Not always comfortably, which is the core idea behind my story "Noble Rot."

To smash-summarize the premise, a 90s grunge guitarist moved to Nashville after both his fame and edge waned. He's in that nostalgia-act phase, a short set at festivals guy. He doesn't care that his career is on life support. He only wants to make wine. His agent, though, isn't done with music yet. To grasp for relevance, it's time to embrace a Great American Songbook cover album. The plot centers around the agent's pitch, with the inevitable complications and moral choices. Plus a hit of gonzo, if I did it right.

You might've also been wondering about Tennessee wine-making beyond huckleberry. Few grape varietals thrive consistently in the mid-South. Too humid, the climate too ideal for--hang on for it--fungal diseases. 

Grapes do grow, over thirty varietals, and many more tons get shipped in. Noble rot wine can happen here, given the right winemaker and the right microclimate. That's what Nashville is for those aging rockers, a microclimate where some of them put out the best music of their lives. And that's what "Noble Rot" is about, microclimates and life choices, the inevitable fade of great things and the fight against it, that eternal hope for beauty in life's next act. 

* * *

A Near-Luddite Tries Bing AI

My Windows 365 updated a few weeks ago, and there on reboot was Microsoft selling hard to check out Edge’s new AI tool. Come on, Edge said. Try making a fun holiday image.

Was I tempted? A little. Mostly, I regard the rise of Big AI such as large language models with a combination of dread (look out for the bad Terminator!) and intellectual curiosity at what advances these unlocks (hooray, it's the good Terminator!). The risks and rewards of AI’s future applications are for expert thinkers. AI’s impact on writing is more in my wheelhouse, and there was my writing laptop wanting me to check out Bing's Copilot.

I’ve never Venmo-ed money. Don't know how. Don’t even have the app. I don’t know how to deposit checks by smartphone scan. I don’t use Alexa or Siri, and our newer smart appliances aren’t set up on the home Wi-Fi. I’m doing swell without all that. I’m not a technophobe, though. I use voice remote for TV and my smartphone for the usual stuff: music, news, texts, video calls, pet photos, health monitoring, and so forth. These help me stay connected and get where I want to go faster.

PART 1: I BANG ON ABOUT AI AND CREATIVE ETHICS

As with all discussions, let's start from intellectual honesty. The modern writer has long been using AI. Internet search algorithms, word predictors, spell check, Grammarly plug-ins. It's all narrow AI. What’s new is AI’s computing power and availability to the masses. AutoCrit’s AI critiques your story and gives style comparables (full disclosure: I've started using AutoCrit’s free version to spot repeated words and phrases). Sudowrite’s Story Engine handles the writing for you, including that dreaded synopsis. Other tools abound, and that number will mushroom.

I write when I can carve out time. In a productive year, I’ll write a handful of stories (I wrote three in 2023). About half of those will be publishable with effort. AI can crank out stories 24/7. They're junk. Fine, AI has almost won literary prizes. That's one in a billion, from what I've seen. People submit this anyway. As their own work. I don’t understand that justification. Someone presses a button. A prompted algorithm spitting out words is no more authorship than is copying pages straight from a Dickens novel. Hell, the algorithm may have copied Dickens.

I despair of rot. AI will evolve to produce more natural prose. Even so, AI will never be imaginative. Insightful, sure, but AI has no mind with which to imagine. And it’s a copycat, even of itself. The more AI builds its dreck into its model, the more AI will reproduce dreckier dreck. Markets will struggle for quality and even survival. There's no human effort barrier to slow the AI onslaught. Let’s stay honest, though. Many readers won’t mind so long as AI entertains.

PART 2: I ACTUALLY TRY THE DAMN THING

So in that mindset, I clicked the link to generate a holiday image. My command: a festive boiled custard drinking contest in old-time illustration style. Here’s its swing at my curveball:

generated by AI

generated by AI

generated by AI

Weird. But you know what? AI tried its robot best. And it brought fun.

Game on. I asked Edge to make a theoretical book cover of “Lord, Spare the Bottom Feeders,” a story of mine from AHMM a few years back. My prompt described the story as crime fiction with a few plot particulars about the lawyer character and let the tool rip. 

The tool returned an over-the-top cartoon cover with a generalissimo-type crime lord surrounded by central casting mafia goons, everyone armed as if up against the Untouchables and the Five Families and even the bad Terminator. Vivid, but it highlights important AI concerns. My prompt didn’t say what kind of crime ring was involved. I didn't mention guns. Fine. The tool made these assumptions. AI is teaching itself from an internet archive that, as we all know, includes significant biases and worse. Absent way more controls than we have today, AI is going to spread these biases rapid-fire.

AI is a parrot, so I re-prompted with a load more story specifics. The tool returned:

Okay, better-ish. It's still cartoonish tropes, but this one at least addresses the prompt about mussel smuggling. No lawyer, but props on the broken scales of justice. And it does grab attention, as a cover should do. 

I don’t worry for folks who design bad book covers. They need to find other gigs. I do worry for the many great cover designers on some level. Hopefully, those folks can lean into AI as a way to craft even better covers in less time.

For my next test, I took a story idea that has refused to gel in my head for months now. It’s about a guy getting initiated into the burly beard grooming life. As usual, the character came right to life. A workable plot hasn’t. So I prompted with:

Write an outline for a 3,000-word crime short story with three twists about a criminal who can't grow a beard despite trying.

AI returned (again, this is NOT my work):

"That sounds like an interesting premise for a crime story. Here is a possible outline for your short story:

• Title: The Beardless Bandit
• Genre: Crime/Comedy
• Summary: A young man, Eddie, dreams of becoming a notorious criminal, but he has a problem: he can’t grow a beard. He believes that having a beard is essential for being a successful and respected criminal. He tries various methods to grow a beard, but nothing works. He decides to resort to drastic measures: he robs a bank wearing a fake beard. However, his plan goes awry when he encounters three unexpected twists.
• Outline:
• The story begins with Eddie preparing for his bank robbery. He has a fake beard that he bought online, a gun that he borrowed from his cousin, and a getaway car that he rented. He is nervous, but also excited. He thinks that this will be his big break into the criminal world.
• He enters the bank, points his gun at the teller, and demands the money. He tries to act tough and menacing, but his voice cracks and his fake beard slips. The teller recognizes him as a regular customer and calls him by his name. Eddie panics and runs out of the bank, leaving behind his gun and his fake beard.
• The first twist is that the bank was actually a front for a money laundering operation run by a powerful crime boss, Mr. Big. Mr. Big is furious that someone tried to rob his bank and orders his men to find and kill Eddie. He also wants his gun and his fake beard back, as they are valuable evidence.
• The second twist is that the gun that Eddie borrowed from his cousin was actually a rare and antique weapon that belonged to a famous gangster, Historic Boss. The gun is worth millions of dollars and is sought after by collectors and criminals alike. Eddie’s cousin had stolen it from a museum and was planning to sell it to Mr. Big, but he lied to Eddie and told him it was a cheap replica.
• The third twist is that the fake beard that Eddie bought online was actually a real beard that belonged to a famous actor, Major Celebrity. The beard was cut off by a crazed fan and sold on the internet. The beard is also worth millions of dollars and is sought after by fans and celebrities alike. Major Celebrity himself is looking for his beard and is willing to pay a huge reward for its return.
• The story ends with Eddie being chased by Mr. Big’s men, the police, the museum security, and Major Celebrity’s agents. He manages to escape with the help of a friendly barber, who gives him a shave and a haircut. He realizes that he doesn’t need a beard to be a criminal, he just needs to be smart and brave. He decides to give up his criminal dreams and start a new life. He also returns the gun and the beard to their rightful owners and collects the rewards. He uses the money to buy a house, a car, and a dog. He names the dog Beardy."
— generated by AI

I changed one thing in AI’s summary for here. AI's fixation on famous people went as far as to use actual famous people’s names. Let’s leave them and their attorneys out of this.

AI's outline hangs together, mostly. Parts of this are even good. Resorting to a fake beard was something I hadn’t thought of, and that fake beard becoming a McGuffin is an actual twist. The stakes ramp up as stakes should, and the happy ending with Beardy made me grin.

There are problems.

AI crams in way too much plot for 3,000 words. The gun twist pulls the thing thematically out of whack. The friendly barber is funny, but fake beards don’t need to be shaved off. And you cannot run up to someone and cut an entire, reusable beard off their face. That’s either magic realism or horror.  

I didn’t ask AI to write the story. I won’t, and I won’t write “The Beardless Bandit” myself. This isn’t my idea, and I won't pretend otherwise. I do reserve the right to take inspiration from this.

I tried other story summary prompts and got repeated interesting nuggets and major plot holes. I was having fun. Did it feel like I’d created anything? No. It was like playing with a toddler while they explained their toys. I did feel creative-adjacent in a way. Using the tool forced me to consider prompt sharpness and to read the generated content critically.

In the debate about whether or not AI undermines and supplants fiction writers, I’m still in some despair. AI's expansion is a cycle that threatens to drag us downward. Downward, but not out. Fatalism is a human quality and usually a mistake. Enhanced AI tools can help us carbon-based writers. We’ll be better researchers, better self-editors, better brainstormers. These same AI tools are great at spotting missed cancers and asymptomatic Alzheimer’s. If AI can do that, there is a place for it to boost our craft.

We’ll need to find that place. Soon, because the AI debate is pointless. The technology is here. What we humans do with it– and about it– will determine whether we get good Terminators or bad ones. Until then, this near-

Luddite will get back to my Venmo-less life.