Opening Lines: Best and Favorite

OK, we've had a few posts about opening lines but I do not think we SleuthSayers put up a post about the favorite and the best opening lines of a short story and novel we have written. So here is my subjective opinion of mine.

The Best opening line of a novel I've written is:

The wail of bagpipes echoes through the cold fog and silences the men at the earthen rampart behind the Rodriguez Canal.
– from BATTLE KISS (2011)

American breastworks at The Battle of New Orleans battlefield, Chalmette, LA

Photo ©2011 O'Neil De Noux

My favorite opening line of a novel I've written is:

There is no trick-or-treating Halloween night, two months AK – After Katrina.
– from CITY OF SECRETS (2013)

Photo of sculpture Mackenzie by Vincent De Noux used on cover of CITY OF SECRETS

The Best opening line of a short story I've written is:

It was a kiss with promise behind it, as much promise as a good girl would give, enough to make my heart race as we stood under the yellow bulb of her front gallery.

– from "Too Wise" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Vol 132, No. 5, November 2008 Issue

My favorite opening line of a short story I've written is:

The black German shepherd wasn't a cadaver dog but she found the skeleton in the hideaway closet under the stairs of the unpainted, wooden shotgun house.

– from "Just a Old Lady" (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 9, September 2015 Issue)

Lagniappe. How about a Worst? Here is the Worst opening line of a story I wrote that was published:

It was a dark and stormy night with the wind barking through the mangroves like the voices of angry two-year olds fighting over crayons and I dreamt of a land far away, very far away, a helluva distance away, probably on the other side of the world where it wasn't dark nor was there a storm barking through the mangroves, a place where the mangroves were peaceful and green and I could sit reading Shelley or Keats or maybe Sidney Shelton without the wind whipping the pages of my book or the rain pelting my eyes, blurring my vision of Daphne in a see-through dress with the sunlight streaming through the diaphanous material and I could see all her goodies and make yummy sounds as she slinked up to me like a skank in the night (no, it wouldn't be night because we would be on the other side of the world and the sun would be shining – through her dress).

– from "Like a Stank in the Night" (Hardboiled Sex 2006 Collection)

So what are your favorite and best opening lines? What about your worst?

www.oneildenoux.com

A Corporate Christmas Carol

It's December, and we've had a lot of news to deal with over the last year, so some things have just gone under the radar.  But it's time to let some of those rats out of the woodwork, and the current scene with nursing homes around the country - including 19 of them here in South Dakota - has enough rats to kill every cat in the country.  That and make Ebenezer Scrooge wonder why he ever listened to the Ghost of Christmas Future when there was money to be made out of starving old folks.

Now I'll admit, I'm fascinated by nursing homes.  My parents lived in a massive retirement center complex in Knoxville, TN, that allowed you to buy a house, then a town home, then an apartment, get assisted living, and then go to their nursing home premises. For ten years, I spent my vacation visiting them and living on-site, and I always found it somewhere between fascinating and scary as hell.  And yes, I've set a few stories in that milieu.  A lot can happen in retirement centers and nursing homes.  In fact, the same things happen there as happen among any other group of people.  Just cause you're old doesn't mean you haven't stopped working on your life, for good or ill.  But it's better when the crazy stuff happens at the instigation of the residents, and not come down from on high.

Back in May, 19 nursing home facilities were going bust in South Dakota, thanks to their (mis)management by Skyline Healthcare of New Jersey. Skyline had gone on a nursing home buying binge between 2015-17:  110 nursing homes in six states at bargain prices, mostly from Golden Living, a large national chain that was sued by the Pennsylvania attorney general in 2015 for providing poor care. Golden Living wanted to lease out a lot of its nursing homes, and Skyline gladly took them over. 

This is the picture you get when you Google
Skyline Healthcare

Now here's one of the problems:  Skyline Healthcare was and isn't a large corporation with the kind of bucks to run 110+ nursing homes. Instead, it's owned by a single family, the Schwartzes (Joseph, Rosie, Michael and Louis), and nursing home industry watchers used to joke about the fact that their office was above a pizza joint in Wood-Ridge, N.J.  

But it wasn't so funny when Skyline quit paying the bills to, among others, nursing home vendor Health Care Services Group in Pennsylvania for housekeeping, laundry and dining and nutrition services. Then they stopped paying in Massachusetts, Florida, Arkansas, Kansas, and most lately, South Dakota. (Kansas City News) 

According to the complaint argued by Pierre attorney Margo Northrup, Skyline did not pay bills for the facilities, including from vendors and employee salaries. More seriously, “there are hundreds of patients currently residing at the (nursing facilities) who receive varying levels of care and whose health and safety have been put directly at risk by Defendants’ many defaults,” according to the complaint. On April 26, Skyline, the defendants, notified the state health department “that they no longer had sufficient funds to purchase food for the patients.” (Capital Journal)

The former Golden Living Nursing Home in Madison, SD

The result is all the Skyline nursing homes were put in receivership, and most of them are going to close. Where do the residents go? God only knows.

What the hell was the deal? Well, apparently Skyline Healthcare was a classic example of buy, gut, and sell - or outright abandon. And none of the sellers - Golden Living, among them, apparently bothered to check the Better Business Bureau ratings (D+, and God only knows how they got that) or their employee reviews (HERE).   So Skyline Healthcare bought the nursing homes using borrowed money, hosed up all the money in the nursing homes' accounts to repay their debt (and pay themselves, and their investors, of course), and then dumped the nursing homes.  And leaving the residents holding nothing but eviction notes.

And - WARNING, WARNING, WARNING! - this appears to be a (relatively) new trend in elderly care. Witness this article from The Washington Post. Back in 2011, The Carlyle Group bought the ManorCare nursing-home chain - the second-largest nursing-home chain in the United States. The financial deal "extracted $1.3 billion from the [ManorCare] company for investors... Shortly after the maneuver, the company announced hundreds of layoffs. In a little over a year, some nursing homes were not making enough to pay rent. Over the next several years, cost-cutting programs followed, according to financial statements obtained by The Post."

Among those costs were staff, utilities, rent, and patient care:

"The number of health-code violations found at the chain each year rose 26 percent between 2013 and 2017, according to a Post review of 230 of the chain’s retirement homes. Over that period, the yearly number of health-code violations at company nursing homes rose from 1,584 to almost 2,000. The number of citations increased for, among other things, neither preventing nor treating bed sores; medication errors; not providing proper care for people who need special services such as injections, colostomies and prostheses; and not assisting patients with eating and personal hygiene." (The Washington Post) 

The Carlyle Group is disputing all of these claims.  But the result was bankruptcy and sale, this time to non-profit ProMedica Health.

The Washington Post points out that private-equity firms have been moving - like sharks - into businesses serving some of the nation’s poorest or most vulnerable people, including payday lenders, nursing homes, bail bond providers, low-income homes for rental and prison phone services.

"Ludovic Phalippou, a professor at Oxford who wrote the textbook “Private Equity Laid Bare,” says it is a question of whether private-equity methods are appropriate in all fields. He has praised the ability of private equity to streamline companies but he has also described the firms’ approach as “capitalism on steroids.” (my emphasis)  He said, for example, that while private-equity ownership of nursing homes is accepted in the United States, people in some other countries would be “aghast” at the idea. “People will wonder whether this pure capitalism is appropriate in nursing homes,” Phalippou said. “The health and welfare of the old people who live there depend on them.” (The Washington Post)

But who cares about health and welfare?  That's so oldfashioned!  From The New Yorker:

Ron Shaich, founder of Panera Bread

"Wall Street has embraced the idea that companies exist solely to serve the holders of their stock. Under this way of thinking, managers of companies should focus their actions on driving short-term value for their shareholders, and should pay far less (or no) regard to other constituents who may have a stake in the business, such as employees, customers, or members of the community. [Ron] Shaich... believes that the fixation on short-term profits is jeopardizing the future of American business, and creating social instability that has contributed to our current state of political polarization."

And adding to the fears and worries of a lot of elderly people in nursing homes who literally have nowhere else to go.  Up here in South Dakota, there were 111 nursing homes, so closing 19 of them is taking away 17% of all the nursing homes in this state.  There aren't enough beds left in this state to take all the residents.  Where is Granny going to go for Christmas, this year, anyway?   Does anybody care? 

Two Guns, No Waiting

by Robert Lopresti

Two guys came through my door with guns in their hands.

Logically I should have been terrified but for some reason I was mostly irritated.

"What the hell!" I said, pushing away from my desk.  "Who are you?"

The first one, a yegg, sneered at me.  "You know who we are.  The great Raymond Chandler said 'When in doubt have two guys come through a door with guns in their hands.'  That's us."

"Yeah," said the other one, a goon.  "That's us."

"I don't care what Chandler said." They gasped. "You can't just come barging into my office whenever you want."

"It's what you want," said the yegg.  He covered a corner of my desk with a corner of his sizable tush. "Obviously you're stuck on what you're writing or we wouldn't have appeared."

"Yeah," said the goon.  "You're stuck."

I frowned.  "What's the difference between a yegg and a goon, anyway?"

The yegg waved his non-gun hand in a professorial way.  "Well, the word 'yegg' comes from the argot of hobos.  It meant a criminal who traveled by train and often preyed on his fellow tramps.  Later it came to mean any low gangster."

The goon seemed fascinated.  "What about me?"

"Goons are muscle men.  Not as erudite or articulate as yeggs."

"Huh," said the goon.  "What do those words mean?"

The yegg shrugged.  "You see what I'm working with here."

"Poor you," I said.  Then I remembered that my work table was a standing/sitting desk.  I pushed a button and the motor tried to lift with the yegg sitting on it.  Irritably, he jumped off.

"Listen," I said.  "I appreciate the trouble you two have gone to but I don't think you can help me much."

"Are you saying you aren't stuck?"

"I am, but I'm writing a love story."

"A love story?" The yegg frowned.  "I thought you wrote mysteries."

"I do.  But a man can try something else."

"Sure, but you risk diluting your brand."

I stared at him.  "Where'd you get your M.B.A.?"

"Oh, a wise guy."

"The point is, having two guys coming in with guns doesn't help in a love story."

"Maybe," said the goon, "maybe you could have two beautiful women come in with... With..."  He went silent.

"Are you blushing?" said his partner.  "For Pete's sake!"

"I don't show up in many love stories," said the goon.

"That's no surprise."  The yegg glared at me.  "So we came here for nothing.  And you have no respect for the words of the great Chandler."

"That's another thing," I said.  "I just looked it up and Chandler was criticizing that gimmick, not recommending it."

"How did you look it up without us seeing you do it?"

"It's a literary device.  And another thing.  He didn't say two guys.  He said a guy."

"So," said the goon,  "you've been quoting it wrong all these years."

"I guess I have."  I did a double-take.  "Where did your friend  go?"

The goon shrugged.  "Turns out there's only supposed to be one of us.  He's probably gone off to harass some other mystery writer."

"You're suddenly much more articulate."

He scratched his forehead with the barrel of his gun.  "Probably more erudite too.  Good luck with the love story."

"Thanks."

Halfway through the doorway he paused to look back at me.  "Personally, I always preferred Hammett."

Twice Watched Tales

Some people I know only watch a movie once. Once they know how it ends they have no interest in seeing it again. Other people like to watch movies over and over. I fit in the latter category. If there’s a movie I like I can watch it over and over and over. Sometimes I get new things from it. Sometimes I just enjoy the ride. This list just touches the very tip of the iceberg for me and is also heavily weighted towards classics from the 30s and 40s, with only a handful of more “recent” movies and little or nothing from the last few years, ‘cause I have to wait and see what sticks. There are more esoteric movies that I like, but this is a list of movies that I like to watch over and over and can pretty much do so from any point in the picture. So, here’s some movies I’ve seen multiple times:
Sui Genris:

Casablanca – my favorite movie, bar none. What more can I say, except, I’m shocked. Shocked.


Film Noir: I don’t have the time or space to put them all in here, but almost all classic film noirs would be on this list.

Double Indemnity – The ultimate film noir imho. Covers all the bases.

     —Walter Neff: How could I have known that murder could  sometimes smell like honeysuckle?

     —Walter Neff: Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong. It sounds crazy, Keyes, but it’s true, so help me. I couldn’t hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man.


Big Heat, The

Big Sleep, The

Blue Dahlia, The

Born to Kill – One of my favorites and has one of my favorite movie quotes of all time. It’s not said by either of the main characters, but by Walter Slezak, a sleazy private eye:

     —Delivery Boy: My, that coffee smells good. Ain’t it funny how coffee never tastes as good as it smells.

     —Arnett (Slezak): As you grow older, you’ll discover that life is very much like coffee: the aroma is  always better than the actuality. May that be your thought for the day.

Criss Cross

D.O.A. (original) – The ultimate high-concept flick…for my money

Dark Corner, The – Bradford Galt: There goes my last lead. I feel all dead inside. I’m backed up in a dark corner, and I don’t know who’s hitting me.

Dead Reckoning

Detour – Al Roberts: That’s life. Whichever way you turn, Fate sticks out a foot to trip you.

Fear in the Night

His Kind of Woman

In a Lonely Place – Tied for my second fave movie in any genre (with Ghost World, yes, I love Ghost World):

     —Dixon Steele: I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.

Kiss Me, Deadly – Much better than the book

Lady from Shanghai, The – Mirrors, what else can I say but mirrors?

Maltese Falcon, The – The schtuff dreams are made of.

Murder, My Sweet

Narrow Margin, The

Nightmare Alley

Out of the Past

Postman Always Rings Twice, The (original)

Scarlet Street

Somewhere in the Night

To Have and Have Not (which may or may not technically be noir)

Touch of Evil

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Woman in the Window, The


Thrillers and Neo Noir

Clockwork Orange, A

Devil in a Blue Dress

Die Hard

Final Analysis – Doesn’t get a great rating on IMDB, but I like it.

Fracture – So clever, so good.

Kill Me Again

Last Seduction, The

Malice

Pacific Heights – Creepy.

Pelican Brief

Red Rock West

Sudden Impact – My favorite Dirty Harry movie.

Taxi Driver

Vertigo (and most Hitchcock movies)


Quirky (for lack of a better term)

And Now My Love (Toute Une Vie) – Though I’ve heard horrible things about the DVD version, which I have, but can’t bring myself to watch,

Art School Confidential

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Ghost World – I can’t get enough of this movie.

Lilies of the Field

Sideways – Can’t get enough of this one either.

Soldier in the Rain – Based on the book by the late, great William Goldman.

Tender Mercies


Newer Classics

Chinatown

Godfather Movies – All 3, the third one’s not as bad as it seems initially and if someone besides Sofia Coppola had played that part it would “read” much better.

LA Confidential


Holiday Movies

Christmas Story, A

Miracle on 34th Street

Shop Around the Corner

(since I’m posting on Christmas Day, more holiday movies then)


Where Does This Fit?

Born Losers (John Floyd) – The movie that introduced Billy Jack, before he got too preachy. This one’s just a biker movie. How Billy got his start. When I was younger, I loved going to all the biker movies. That’s how I got introduced to Jack Nicholson before his breakout role in Easy Rider


Screwball/Classic Comedy

Awful Truth, The

Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer, The

Bringing Up Baby

His Girl Friday – Classic and hilarious

Holiday

Libeled Lady – This and Love Crazy below, both with William Powell and Myrna Loy are terrific.

Love Crazy

Monkey Business (Marx Brothers)

My Favorite Wife

My Man Godfrey

Philadelphia Story, The

Sullivan’s Travels

Thin Man series

To Be or Not to Be (original) – Proves you can laugh at Nazis, even at the time they were in power.

     —Colonel Ehrhardt: They named a brandy after Napoleon, they made a herring out of Bismarck, and the Fuhrer is going to end up as a piece of cheese!


Westerns

Monte Walsh (both versions)

Shootist, The – I put The Shootist out of alphabetical order because I see it as a pair with Monte Walsh, both about people who’ve outlived their time, a theme I like to explore in my own writing.

El Dorado

Shane – If I had to show one western to a Martian to show them what the genre is it would be this.


Science Fiction/Horror – Not a big science fiction or horror guy these days. Liked them more as a kid.

Dracula (Lugosi)

Forbidden Planet

Haunting, The (original)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (original)


The Beatles

A Hard Day’s Night

Help! – Help me if you can I’m feeling down…

Let It Be


Newer Comedy

After Hours

Can’t Buy Me Love – Even though it’s named after a Beatles song, which is played at the end, it’s got nothing to do with the Beatles, but it’s still fun.

In-Laws, The (original)

Manhattan

My Cousin Vinnie – One of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen and no matter how many times I watch it I always laugh

Reuben Reuben – A treasure!

Sting, The


Musicals/Music:

Ramones: It’s Alive – Okay, maybe it’s not a musical per se, but it is music and ya gotta love The Ramones: “One, two, three, four…”

Singin’ in the Rain

Wizard of Oz, The

***

I could go on forever, but I gotta stop at some point. So:

What about you? What movies do you like to watch over and over again?

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

I'm thrilled by the great reviews that Broken Windows has been receiving. Here’s a small sampling:

Betty Webb, Mystery Scene Magazine:  "Broken Windows is extraordinary."

Kristin Centorcelli, Criminal Element:  "Although it’s set in 1994, it’s eerie how timely this story is. There’s an undeniable feeling of unease that threads through the narrative, which virtually oozes with the grit, glitz, and attitude of L.A. in the ‘90s. I’m an ecstatic new fan of Duke’s."

"Duke and company practically beg for their own TV show."

John Dwaine McKenna, Mysterious Book Report:  "This electrifying novel will jolt your sensibilities, stir your conscience and give every reader plenty of ammunition for the next mixed group where the I [immigration] -word is spoken!"

***

I’m also honored and thrilled – more than I can say – that my story Windward appears in The Best American Mystery Stories of 2018, edited by Louise Penny and Otto Penzler. I wrote a blog on that on SleuthSayers if you want to check it out: https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2018/10/the-impossible-dream.html .

I’m doubly thrilled to say that Windward won the Macavity Award at Bouchercon a few weeks ago. Wow! And thank you to everyone who voted for it.

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website www.PaulDMarks.com

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Bullies II — Town Without Pity, part 2

Yesterday, we brought you part 1 of a devastating story. That horrible situation is about to grow considerably worse.

Part 2, Therapist, anagram of ‘The Rapist’

The court ordered psychiatric evaluation and therapy sessions. There, Honey Barrette encountered horrendous professional misfeasance.

Realizing the girl’s worst fears, the shrink didn’t bother to mask disapproval and dislike. The fault, she said, was Honey’s. Attention-seeking, she said, manipulative, narcissistic, unconcerned about others. False rape accusations are a nasty problem. Honey, she said, would be lucky to avoid jail time or even prison, which the prosecutor wanted.

Then the court-appointed psychoanalyst twisted the knife in a way the original perpetrator couldn’t approach. She ordered the child to apologize in writing to her so-called victim, the rapist. She instructed the girl to write letters of apology to the police and hospital for wasting their time, to the newspaper for headline grabbing. The therapist had perfected the art of bullying.

Protestations from the Barrette family fell on deaf ears. They pointed out the perpetrator was of age and Honey was only fourteen. At the least, statutory rape had taken place.

No, said the psychiatrist. No, said the police. No, said the prosecutor. The poor man had suffered enough.

Making the most of public shaming, newspapers printed the apology. One paper used the case to highlight attention-grabbing teens. The state’s premier, syndicated newspaper wrote a piece about false rape. It featured the psychiatrist’s assessment of the Honey Barrette case. It’s unclear if the shrink went on to publish it in an academic article.

School descended into a deeper nightmare than before. A delighted, self-righteous Alexis and her gang ruthlessly tortured Honey. The rapist’s best friend Colt organized insidious torments. Students stuffed Honey’s locker full of newspaper clippings. They elbowed, kneed, tripped, slapped, punched, and fucked over their classmate without mercy. Teachers failed to halt the unending hammering assault upon a 14-year-old child.

A numb, despondent Honey felt her life had ended before it’d begun. Dropping out of school made problems worse. She became pregnant by an abusive guy who resolved the pregnancy problem by slamming a 2x4 into her stomach, causing a miscarriage. Honey was falling faster than anyone could stop.

She prized one asset, her family. Parents and grandparents gathered around her. The packed up their precious girl and moved across the country.

It took their damaged daughter years, but she found her way back on track, a testament to her inner strength when it’s amazing she survived at all. She turned a sense of humor dry as the desert sands into a survival skill. She obtained her GED and undertook nursing studies.

Honey Today

She sticks close to family and a couple of close friends. Betrayal and horrible treatment at the hands of others has compromised her ability to find a decent man and forge a loving relationship, but she’s working on it. She’ll do it.

Recently she’s been awarded a well-earned promotion. Hard work and responsibility moved her up the ladder professionally. She started at ground level and worked her way up to management, now number three in line from the top. Any company would be lucky to employ her.

Living well is the best revenge, and Honey Barrette makes every effort to make that happen.

Afterword

The actions of the psychiatrist horrified me, a medical professional convinced of one’s own infallibility. Because of her evaluation, authorities forewent a slam-dunk case of statutory rape. Even if the judgmental shrink didn’t believe the girl, she should have considered the tiniest possibility rape could have happened, given the child the minutest benefit of the doubt, and not forced her to write those letters.

After Honey related her story, I spoke with her mother who filled in a couple of details.

Long after the court-ordered psychiatric sessions, the Barrette parents sat down with the court’s appointee to discuss issues. Too late to retract her words and reverse the fates, the psychiatrist revealed she’d misinterpreted the girl’s hostility toward her. She’d belatedly come to believe Honey and further concluded her rapist should have been prosecuted.

The shrink would have done well to remember the words of Omar Khayyám:

The Moving Finger writes and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

Honey at least, is beating the odds.

---

NB: Except for a single reference to the rapist, I've avoided the word ‘victim’. Honey didn’t use the term and I followed suit.

Bullies II — Town Without Pity, part 1

As I was writing Bullies Part I, my dear, dear friend told me her story. I feel humbled she shared it with me and has given me permission to share it with you. Like the original Bullies article, the names have been changed as a condition of publication.
Part 1, A Town Without Pity

In middle school it started verbally, the wrong shoes, a lack of designer labels, boobs that were taking their sweet time to present. Honey Barrette was only fourteen, a waif, a wisp, small for Bad River Junior High.

Classmate Alexis, oversized in attitude and altitude, had been held back a grade, then held back again. She wasn’t stupid. She’d mastered a cruel vocabulary of peculiar biology beyond the ken of 7^th and 8^th graders, phrases to gobsmack an adult.

Honey did her best to avoid her in the eddies of students swirling through the halls, but Alexis glided the currents like a shark. A head taller than her classmates, she sought prey unerringly, She found little Honey Barrette easy pickings and confronted her.

“What you staring at, slut?”

“Uh, nothing. You lunged into me.”

“Retard, you grabbed my jacket, bitch.”

“I-I didn’t.”

“You calling me a liar?”

“N-no. I was calling you mistaken.”

Alexis stabbed the girl’s chest with a hard finger.

“You’re the mistake. Christ, I had more tits when I was two. What’s with this sweater? Is this a fashion statement from your granny?”

“You two, break it up.” The hall monitor approached. “Alexis, get to class. You, whats-your-name, move it. Don’t cause trouble with Alexis.”

The bully honed her hunting instinct to a science, cutting victims out of the herd like a rodeo cowboy, especially Honey. She upped the ante in violence, secretive judo chops, rabbit punches to Honey’s kidney, slams and slaps to the back of the head.

“What’s the matter, little twat? You gonna cry? Want your mommy? Jesus, I can’t stand touching… what do you call them? Clothes? You never heard of Tommy Hilfiger? You steal them from Goodwill?”

The biggest girl in the class escalated to hair grabbing and tripping, hard shoves, hard punches, hard nipple yanks. One morning Honey couldn’t take it. She lashed back, throwing the bigger girl into the lockers. Naturally the hall monitor spotted them.

“You two, stop. Whats-your-name, you’re on report. Alexis, you’re suspended for the day.”

“Great. I can catch up on General Hospital, which is where this little bitch is headed.”

Seeking protection, Honey began to hang out with older kids from Bad River High School. They acted more mature and less mean. One hanger-on was no longer a student. Dick was a bit older. High school students looked up to him, a cool guy. Dick grew interested in the group’s youngest, Honey.

Later the Barrette family determined Dick must have stalked her, learned Honey’s schedule and route home from school, and found a lair to stage an assault.

The rape wasn’t spur-of-the-moment, it wasn’t accidental. It came as a blatant, broad-daylight attack in the middle of town. One afternoon Dick walked with her, then lured her into a copse beside the courthouse.

When Honey realized his full intentions, she fought back, but his height, weight, and strength dwarfed hers. Afterwards, he threatened to kill her and her family should she tell. With that, he abandoned her.

Honey gathered her wits and her clothes. She stumbled toward home, crying.

En route, a woman sat on her veranda, rocking, looking out upon the world. She noticed a slight girl hopelessly sobbing.

“My dear, what’s wrong? Come, come here so I can see you.” She drew the young one to the porch. “Dear, why are you crying so hard?”

Honey didn’t want to talk, she merely wanted home with her family. When the woman pressed her, Honey improvised the first of a series of devastating, spur-of-the-moment lies.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m late, missing my curfew. That’s all.”

“My child, yours aren’t tears of a girl missing curfew. Your shoulders are shaking like… What’s that on your back? Is that blood? How did that happen? Oh my, oh my. I’m calling an ambulance.”

As they waited for paramedics, the woman, no mean amateur detective, drew the essentials from the girl’s trembling lips. Honey admitted she’d been raped, but refused to name her attacker.

By big city standards, Major Hospital was minor, but for three quarters of a century, it had served rural residents in three counties. They were expanding their facility and the small physician group, but the Women’s Health Center wouldn’t be completed for another two years. Whether the staff was trained in rape analysis isn’t clear, but they couldn’t state with certainty Honey had been sexually assaulted. They treated scratches and bruises separately before releasing her to reluctantly talk to police.

With Dick’s threats ringing in her ears, the last thing she wanted was to speak with authorities. She simply wanted to go home where it was safe, where she could curl up with a blanket over her head.

Not wanting to get anyone in trouble, she made up a pretend name for the rapist. The police ran with it, unsurprisingly not finding a perpetrator. Eventually, they figured out the real rapist and questioned him.

Naturally, Dick denied assaulting her. He opted for the consensual sex fiction, claiming she was all in and all over him. Afterwards, he implied, she suffered buyer’s remorse.

Life was about to grow far worse. She’d been raped by an amateur; now she was about to be gutted by a professional.

Tomorrow: The rapist, anagram of Therapist

Two Strand Stories: Behind the Scenes

I always find something to like about SleuthSayers posts, whether they stick to the subjects of mysteries and writing or veer off into something else--but some of those I've enjoyed the most are the ones where an author talks in detail about specific stories or novels he or she has written. Sort of an insider's view.

With that in mind--and hoping others might feel the same--I'd like to look at two of my recent stories, one of them in the previous issue of The Strand Magazine and the other in the current issue.

A quick peek

The first story, "Foreverglow" (original title "The Foreverglow Case"), appeared in The Strand's June-Oct issue. It's the story of a regular and not-overly-bright guy who meets and falls for a young lady who, as it turns out, has what she feels is a brilliant plan to steal a fortune in diamond jewelry from the store where she's employed. They manage to work together to pull off the heist--but what happens next was not in their original plan.

The second story, "Lucian's Cadillac," appears in the current (Oct-Jan) issue, which they're calling the Twentieth Anniversary Collector's Issue. It's a tale about three lifelong but unlikely friends--a genius, a "little person," and an ex-football player--who happen to witness a double murder. They testify against the killer, and later wind up on his payback list when he escapes from the state prison. It's sort of a High Noon/Cape Fear kind of story, with three over-the-hill seniors as the targets of revenge.

What's interesting, to me, about these two stories is what I found when I started comparing them. At first glance, they have a lot in common. Here are a few of the

Similarities:

- Both stories have protagonists with common, everyday lives and jobs. I find myself doing this a lot. Heroes don't have to be superheroes.

- Both are about 2500 words in length. This is actually a little short for Strand stories; I think the guidelines still say between 2K and 6K.

- Both are mysteries. This just means a crime is central to the plot.

- Both have characters who are romantically attracted to each other. The two thieves in the first story, and the viewpoint character and a female sheriff in the second. A romantic element, even if minor, can add a level of interest and/or conflict.

- Both are told in past tense. (I probably shouldn't have listed this, since all my stories are past tense. But it is a similarity.)

- Both are standalone stories. One of the two could conceivably become a series, but I have no plans in that direction.

- Both, except for some violence, have family-friendly content. Hell no, the priest and the Republican senator are NOT having an affair.

- Both are set in the present day, and in fairly small and unnamed towns. In one of the stories I mentioned that Atlanta was nearby, but otherwise I didn't see a need to use real, it's-on-the-map locations.

- Both have only a few named characters but a LOT of dialogue. (One story has two speaking roles, the other has three.)

- Both include major plot reversals. I find this hard to resist when I write, because it's the kind of thing I like to encounter myself in the stories and novels I read.


But . . . here are some things about those stories that aren't alike at all.


Differences:

- In one story, the protagonists willfully break the law; in the other they don't. Asking the reader to root for the bad guys doesn't always work--but sometimes it does (Get Shorty, The Godfather, Butch Cassidy, etc.).

- One is written in third person, the other in first person. This wasn't even a conscious decision on my part--it just seemed the right way to tell these particular stories.

- One has several different scenes; the other has no scene breaks at all. A factor here is that in one story the action includes different places at different times, and in the other story everything happens at the same location--a neighborhood bar owned by the protagonist--in the space of only an hour or so.

- In one, the romantic element drives the story; in the other it's incidental. What can I say?--Love is mysterious.

- One's a heist story; the other's a tale of revenge and survival. As a result, one of the stories has no specific named antagonist, while the other does.

- In one story, the characters are fairly "average"; in the other there'a a lot of diversity. The group of close friends in the second story includes a brilliant scholar, a dwarf, and an overweight former linebacker. Plus a lady sheriff.

- One contains no violence; the other does. This makes sense because one's a try-to-escape-without-getting-caught story, and the other's life-or-death, do-whatever-you-must-to-stay-alive.

- In one, the main characters are young; in the other they're old. The ages, here, are appropriate to the plot: the jewelry thieves are confident but inexperienced, and the three old men facing a deadly enemy are experienced enough not to be confident--besides being physically challenged.

- One has a surprise ending; the other does not. Although I hope both endings are satisfying.


So the two stories have many things in common, including some style/structure elements, but they're vastly different. I think that's to be expected with my stories, and probably with yours as well. If they're too much alike--even those that are "series" installments--they'll be boring to write and boring to read. This applies to novels as well as shorts.

Advice and opinions

For you writers out there, how different from each other are the stories you create? Are most told in the same viewpoint? Do most have the same kind of geographical setting? The same time period? The same tense? The same length? Complex plots? Happy endings? Surprise endings? How about the amount of dialogue? Violence? Sex? Profanity? Humor? Is there any one thing that you find yourself always including, or always avoiding?

Here's some sage advice from Elmore Leonard, and supposedly from Alfred Hitchcock as well: Leave out the parts that people skip.

Easier said than done.

The Kindness of Strangers A Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

The Oyster Pub, Dalton, Florida, and Georgia American Legion Riders. Remember that.

Meanwhile…

The near ox died at noon. After prayers, we buried our little Bessie beside the loyal beast, then continued south at wagon train speed.

Bertha

So it seemed. I was volunteered to drive a 40-foot, 33,000-pound machine a thousand miles from Indianapolis to Orlando. (12m, 15,000kg, and 1600km, respectively) I’ve driven that distance straight through, but not a 16½-ton covered wagon the size of a Greyhound bus: Freightliner chassis, Caterpillar diesel engine, Allison transmission, a flippin’ huge RV.

I haven’t driven anything that size since young and foolish teen years driving large, dual-axle trucks semi-legally (notice author’s clever avoidance of the word ‘illegally’) for a legislator who interpreted his state’s labor and highway laws loosely.

With three drivers and only two vehicles, the trip should have been a snap, right? Except…

It’s like that puzzle of the weird guy at a river who wants to ferry a chicken, a fox, and a sack of grain in a rowboat that can accommodate only one thing at a time (setting aside the obvious question of why he’s carrying around a fox drooling over his pet chicken). See, one of the drivers couldn’t drive the big motorhome. One person couldn’t drive at night. Another party (me) wasn’t permitted to drive the car. I was told that’s because of my out-of-state license, but I suspect it had more to do with a previous encounter with an elk. Furthermore, parties with XX chromosomes suffered motion sickness. Coincidentally, said motor coach suffered XX passengers’ deep fingernail gouges in armrests when XY chromosome driver gleefully hurtled down twisting Tennessee mountain roads. Ahem.

After fighting high winds and icy roads either side of Louisville, we holed up in Murfreesboro, Tennessee to gather strength. From the rolling, twisting, pitching hills, two drivers took sick… consumption or maybe cholera. Another driver (me) was running critically short of sleep.

We opted for a motel rather than further strain the RV’s sensitive plumbing. The motel, which shall remain anonymous, featured two unique amenities.

First, the immaculately tiled bathroom stank like a water buffalo died. We came to suspect the stench was piped in through the ventilation system from room 127, a room where Bobby MacAllister caught his wife in bed with his best friend Buddy Hatfield, in flagrante delicto you might say. He shot them both, hung a ‘Do Not Disturb’ placard on the door, and paid for the room for the next six months. I’m pretty sure I’m correct.

Second were the fine acoustics that allowed us to hear every nuance of neighbors on either side. Room 125 thoughtfully tuned in the shopping channel for the entire night. I’m not sure how mental exhaustion played into it, but I’m now the proud owner of genuine 45kt zirconia earrings, a set of exquisite, hand-painted vice president portrait collector’s plates, and a complete set of Rachel Ray engraved Chinese-quality knives– and I’m not even sure who Rachel Ray is.

The other neighbor (for those who suspect I’m susceptible to hyperbole, I swear this is absolutely true) had a bangin’ good time… again and again… loudly… at length (pardon the pun).

Session № 1 commenced at 02:54 –that’s AM in the bleedin’ early morning– and ended at 03:11. For the really good at math, that’s more than a quarter of an hour of energetic bunny rabbit bumping. After a mere ten minutes, my lower back muscles began to ache in sympathy. Guys know what I’m talking about.

After fifteen continuous minutes, one of the women suggested loudspeaker lady was alone and “really spanking it,” whatever that meant.

I didn’t think so. Maybe I’m wrong, but symphonic percussion included slapping headboard and xylophonic bedsprings allegro, accompanied by feminine coloratura ‘ooo’s, gasps, and grace-note shrieks. Duet or solo? May the reader decide.

Eventually the participant(s) wore out and went silent. We settled in, trying to sleep to a sales pitch for the Rachel Ray Chinese macramé kit, which if ordered now, included a matching tea cosy and serviette ties.

Session № 2 commenced at 7:14. I swear that time’s accurate because I’d blankly stared at the clock for hours. This session waxed as enthusiastically as the previous bumps in the night.

I’m ashamed of the womenfolk, I really am. Granted, once again they were abruptly awakened, but what good are all those romance novels if one nips flowering love in the bud? I’m talking their loud clearing of throats and not-so-discreet coughs while I’m hushing them, “Shhh! Shhh!”

I’ve studiously ducked that no-win discussion whether men are more logical than the opposite sex, but when admittedly half-asleep women in a motel call out, “Get a room!” I retreat back to my cave to avoid debate.

After delicious Waffle House carbohydrates served by country’s most patient waitresses, the wagon train again hit the road. What is it those FedEx tandem trucks have against me? Barely three minutes into the journey, one of FedEx’s semis towing twin trailers passed me… almost… before it pulled back to the right lane… with me still there. Apparently the driver forget he was hauling two wagons.

Interstate 75’s “Christine”

Swift, heroic action on my part saved the day. Heroic here means gut-wrenching terror.

This marked the second time I was attacked by a FedEx tandem rig. The day before, a speeding driver in heavy winds nearly sideswiped me and others as the semi serpentined down a mountainside from median to right shoulder and back again. At the bottom of the slope, the road straightened and the driver regained control, whereupon he headed to the nearest Pilot truck stop to wash his jeans.

On the way and at loose ends, we’d discussed where to celebrate Thanksgiving dinner. The tally had run against me 2-to-1. My companions opted for Cracker Barrel. I don’t have anything against crackers or barrels, but I have this prejudice about the evil lovechild of a rooster and a cow called chicken-fried steak. I mean, how bad does a meat slab have to be to rekill it with a hammer, bread it and deep fry it? Maybe it’s just me. With visions of steak-fried turkey dancing in my head, we pulled off I-75 at Exit 333, Dalton, Georgia.

I’m not saying West Walnut Avenue isn’t made for motor homes, but skateboards would feel more comfortable among its dips, hollows, and tight turns. In fact, a number of RVs could be found there, caught, I believe, in a sort of giant Venus flytrap.

I inadvertently (or perhaps Freudianly) passed the street to the Cracker Barrel. With a charming brick median and short, narrow streets, I had to figure out how to turn around.

My co-pilot suggested reversing in the Steak ’n’ Shake parking lot perched atop a hill. I looked aghast at it. This flatlander’s not saying it was steep, but goats rappelled up the slope with T-bars. Best I could make out, my navigator meant the tilting 14-foot tall (4.25m) vehicle should tiptoe low-gear up a dangerous, curving slope and suicidally leap off the cliff into the correct lane. That’s my theory.

I chose to squeeze through a bank parking lot where my graceful U-turn back onto Walnut resembled… well, picture a twelve-foot high, fifteen ton, unbalanced washing machine determined to shake its way out of a laundromat.

Further misadventures ensued until we found the backside of Cracker Barrel and parked in a mall lot. Here, my friends, our story took a charmingly unexpected turn.

The Kindness of Strangers

I love people who don’t ‘act’ polite and caring but *are* polite and caring. I want to be a Southerner, I really do. Except for cracklins. My grandmother cooked grits and cracklins. I love Southern food but I could not abide hominy or pork rinds, a sad defect in my genetic makeup.

Two gentlemen of Dalton who’d parked nearby noticed my forlorn look as I foot-dragged toward the Cracker Barrel. John and Steve were headed toward a tavern called The Oyster where, they explained, we could eat homemade Thanksgiving dinner without charge. Gratis. Free.

I didn’t understand how that was possible, but we took them up on it. Thanksgiving in The Oyster turned out the highlight of the trip.

Thanksgiving dinner was sponsored by a local consortium underpinned by local American Legion Riders, as explained by John Brown, Assistant State Director of the Department of Georgia. They made a tradition of inviting folks who couldn’t be home for the holidays.

Loved it! We enjoyed ourselves and the food… oh, that Georgia cooking. The turkey breast, moist and tender, ranked right up there with the best. Great corn. Homemade mashed potatoes, another weakness. People enjoying themselves.

Thank you, Dalton, Georgia. Thank you for the kindness of strangers.

Not Just Another Holiday Post

by Brian Thornton

November is nearly always a challenging month for me. It begins with the run-up to Veterans' Day (about which I have rather strong feelings, and about which I wrote in a blog post earlier this month), then the run-up to Thanksgiving Day, only to terminate headlong in to the beginning of the sprint towards Christmas.

And sandwiched in there in the midst of all of this excitement, you have the singular experience of Parent Conferences.

Regular readers (both of them) of my rotation in this group blog will recall that I teach middle school: specifically to eighth graders; more specifically ancient world history (and as I tell my students all the time, by "ancient world history," I most assuredly do not mean "the 1990s".).

I've blogged from time to time about the experiences to which my day gig has exposed me, not least here, when I wrote about chaperoning an end-of-school-year dance a year-and-a-half ago, for example. I have to admit: I write because I have to (if you're a fellow sufferer of the syndrome, you know what I'm talking about). I teach because I like to.

I enjoy 13-14 year-olds (there, I said it.). Otherwise why would I even do this job? And I love history and the teaching of same.

All that said, the run-up to Parent Conferences is stressful. There's lots to do, for staff and for students. This is in no small part because in my district we do student-led conferences. Ideally teachers mostly listen (alongside parents) while kids lay out their education goals in our classes, track their progress, and formulate plans to address obstacles which might keep them from achieving their goals.

I admit to a fair amount of initial skepticism about this format. After all modern education is littered with discarded fads which tried (and failed) to masquerade as trends.

But, while it's not a perfect process, it does a lot of good for kids. They experience immediate accountability (positive and negative), with their parents and teacher right there to either lend a hand, raise a cheer, or talk about what comes next.

I came early in my career to the realization that all too often, the parents most in need of attending one of these events are those teachers are least likely to encounter. Meanwhile, honors kids are often there in spades, flanked by one or both of their parents.

But a funny thing has begun to happen over the past several years: the turnout has trended sharply upward. I used to be able to count on at least a couple of lengthy breaks during conferences (we go from 1 PM to 4 PM, break for dinner, then reconvene from 5 PM to 8 PM). Not anymore, not for the past several years.

I am busy, start to finish. And anyone who has spent extended periods actively listening, knows how utterly exhausting it can be.

The upshot? It's also completely energizing. I drive home at the end of the night both wiped out and wired.

It was during just one such drive home at the end of my most recent conference experience that I had an epiphany. It was last Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, and it occurred to me that, for me, and those like me, at least, it's not Thanksgiving itself which serves as the table setter for the holiday season, for that time when we gather to spend a month or so celebrating with friends and family all of the blessings we receive over the course of the year.

It's Parent Conferences.

Here's why: we currently live in turbulent times. People are pessimistic (and usually with good reason) about the viability of so many of the institutions on which civil society rests: faith, good government, public and private institutions, capitalism, and so on.

Parent Conferences invariably renew my faith in our greatest resource: our children.

No less a sage than the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates once famously said of the young:

"Kids today love luxury. They have terrible manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love to gab instead of getting off their butts and moving around."

The guy had a point, and you can hardly take the "human" out of "human nature."

But kids are more than cliches. Every year, day in, day out, I am amazed, amused, challenged and invigorated by them. They invariably teach me as much as (if not more than) I teach them.

What better way to start a season of prolonged celebration of the fraternity/sorority of humankind than to be reminded of this?

And what seals the deal is the families they bring along with them. Not just parents, but siblings, cousins, grandparents. It does the heart such good to experience one's neighbors in a setting such as this one.

So for those you out there reading this whose confidence in our species is flagging, who need a visible testament to the good-heartedness of human beings, I say to you: go volunteer at your local school.

All the affirmation of the good things coming down the pike is right there, ready and waiting, just to teach you.

Happy Happy, and see you all in two weeks!

Hitler's Bomb

Call it the Uncertainty Principle.

The theory was sound, the practical applications needed work. Leo Szilard, the Hungarian-born physicist, wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt and got Alfred Einstein to sign it. It was August, 1939, and Germany invaded Poland in September. Szilard's letter made three main points. A nuclear chain reaction, using a critical mass of uranium, would release enormous energies. (It hadn't happened yet, but Enrico Fermi succeeded in 1942.) Second, the principles of nuclear fission could be used to make a bomb. And last, the Germans were already working on it.

The three most famous names in world physics in 1939 were Einstein himself, who was teaching at Princeton, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen, and Werner Heisenberg, developer of quantum mechanics, at the Kaiser Wilhelm in Berlin. They knew each other's work well, they were part of the same community of ideas, and Bohr in fact knew the other two men personally. The war fractured their dynamic.

You have to understand something else, which is completely unscientific and counter-productive, namely that race hatred, anti-Semitism, was fundamental to Nazi beliefs. The movement known as Deutsche Physik argued against theoretical physics, particularly quantum mechanics and relativity. A guy like Heisenberg was tainted - he was a 'White Jew,' meaning an Aryan with Jewish sympathies - and as ridiculous as this seems, it crippled German science and the German war effort. Small favors, it turns out.

In the event, it wasn't until 1942 that Heisenberg got the ear of Albert Speer, the Minister of Armaments, and made his case for the Uranverein, the atom project. Heisenberg told Speer an atom bomb couldn't be built for some years yet, and even then with an enormous diversion of resources: money, materials, and manpower. It was more practical to focus on nuclear power generation, to think in terms of what industry required. Heisenberg's argument was persuasive. Speer put weapons research on hold, but he didn't stop funding nuclear power research, so it was still considered vital to the war machine. Hold that thought.

We have to roll the clock back to September, 1941. Heisenberg went to Copenhagen, and talked to Niels Bohr. There are conflicting accounts. Heisenberg seems to have been feeling Bohr out. The question is, what result was Heisenberg looking for? The least flattering interpretation is that Heisenberg was trying to recruit Bohr to work for the Nazis. More charitably, Heisenberg might have been voicing his own conflicted views, that an atom bomb was possible, but didn't a scientist have a moral obligation not to build it?

Bohr managed to be willfully obtuse, and said after the war he never understood why Heisenberg had come to see him in the first place. Bohr escaped occupied Denmark a couple of years later, to Sweden, and then to Britain, courtesy of SIS. He went to the U.S., and visited Los Alamos several times. He knew an atom bomb was perfectly feasible. "They didn't need my help," he remarked.

So what else do we know about this? At the end of the war, the Alsos Mission - organized to monitor the German atom project - reached Haigerloch, and found both Heisenberg and the experimental reactor his team had built. Heisenberg and nine of his colleagues were interned in Britain, at an SIS safe house wired for sound. The transcripts indicate the Germans never tried to build a bomb, only an atomic pile, for energy. Heisenberg says it would have been ludicrous for him to suggest assigning a hundred thousand men to a job with no guarantee of success. In other words, it wasn't a sure thing.

There's some wiggle room, here. Thomas Powers, in his book Heisenberg's War, doesn't doubt Heisenberg knew how to build an atom bomb, or knew which direction to take. Trial and error might have gotten him there, they way it did Oppenheimer's team in Los Alamos. Certainly a lot of the motivation for the Manhattan Project was the suspicion that Germany was mounting a similar effort. Powers argues that Heisenberg dragged his feet. He told Albert Speer it wasn't practical. He said it would take too long, that it would eat up needed war resources. He didn't come right out and say it wasn't possible, he didn't want to be shut down completely. He kept his hand in. He knew at each and every moment exactly how far they'd gotten.

None of the principals ever said so afterwards, not that we know of, but the evidence suggests Heisenberg committed treason. He very possibly lost the war for Germany. He didn't build an atom bomb for one simple reason. He didn't want Hitler to have it. 

Senseless Writing

by Michael Bracken

How we sense the world around us impacts our writing in ways we may not realize.

Apparently, the couch is blue.

Because I don’t see the world the way other people do, I tend to “white room” my scenes, describing what my characters say and do without describing them or their environment. This is because I don’t “see” the world around me. For example, I can probably draw a diagram of where everything in my living room is placed, but I cannot tell you the color of my couch, the color of the end tables abutting it, or the color of the chair in which I often sit.

This can be a problem. I once spent hours looking for a shirt because it was not in the place where I always put it. I repeatedly looked every place I thought I might have put it, only to learn that my wife put the shirt away, and, because she doesn’t put things away like I do, I had looked at it several times and had not seen it.

Or worse: I have no clue what my toothbrush looks like, but I know exactly where it is. This caused problems when I shared a bathroom with other family members because I would reach for my toothbrush each morning and use whichever one was in my toothbrush’s space. When other family members discovered I was using their toothbrushes, they finally understood why it was important to keep theirs out of my toothbrush’s space.

Being surrounded by people who never put things in the same place twice is an ongoing source of frustration, a frustration I struggle to control, and my writing space is essentially off-limits to everyone else for this reason.

What confounds people who know my particular foibles is that I write fiction, a creative act that appears on the surface to be the messy, creative antithesis of environmental blindness and rigid everything-in-its-place organization.

And yet, it isn’t.

A well-developed plot is nothing more than putting everything in its place, and a white-roomed scene is still filled with action and dialog.

I can write action and dialog because I hear how people speak and I see how they move. So, I use my strengths to mask my weaknesses.

Then, when I write scenes that require more than action and dialog I either cycle back—that is, I write the scene as action and dialog and then immediately go back into it and flesh out the details—or, I do what I did a few days ago: I stop completely and spend an inordinate amount of time researching some niggling detail that I have to get right for the scene to work. (For that project I was writing approximately one paragraph for each hour of research.)

Many books and articles about writing insist that all five senses must be engaged.

Those of us who do not naturally engage all five senses can only take solace in the fact that Tommy did quite well without them all. After all, “That deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.”



My dark crime story “Dollface” was posted at Story and Grit on November 19.

Neither Fish Nor Foul Play

15 years ago, conventional wisdom stated that the way to pique an agent's interest was to publish short stories. I love short stories, but writing them makes calculus look easy. I never took calculus.
Nobody even mentioned novellas, novelettes or any of the other hybrid mutants. Nobody even agrees on word counts for any of them. Rex Stout used to publish three novellas and a short story together as a hardcover book, most of them starring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, but that's about the only consistent example I can name. Granted, the average mystery was much shorter than it is today, and Stout died in 1975. His novellas were probably between 15 and 20 thousand words, and you'll see where I came up with that estimate in a minute. Now, authors occasionally publish an eBook novella between longer works to keep readers aware of them.

 I wrote several unpublished short stories featuring my Detroit PI, rock & roll wannabe Woody Guthrie, although that wasn't even his name yet. One I liked a lot, called "Stranglehold," came in at nearly 7000 words, which was a problem. During 2005, I sent it out to the only five markets I could find that would accept a story of that length, and none of them did.

A writer friend told me he had trouble keeping the large cast of characters straight because they all showed up early in the story. I tried cutting some of them--and the story's overall length--and created an incoherent mess. I didn't see enough potential subplots to make the story into a novel, so it languished for four years.

Then someone told me about the Black Orchid Novella Award, sponsored by the Wolfe Pack (The Rex Stout Appreciation Society, named after his detective, Nero Wolfe) and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. The contest wanted stories between 15K and 20K words (see above) and following the general form of Stout's mysteries. Well, I'd read most of Stout's work because he was one of my mystery-reading mother's favorites. Archie's tone was a big influence on my own writing, maybe because we're both from the Midwest.

Could I add words to "Stranglehold" and turn it into a novella? If I expanded the opening, that large cast would appear more gradually and be easier to absorb. Imagine my surprise when I added 9000 words--and only two minor transition scenes--to the story in four days. I had a novella on my hands without even knowing it. I sent it off to the contest, and it won. It appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine in summer 2010.

OK, I thought. When you have more detail than you can pack into a short story, think novella. I've never done that again.

Five years later, I struggled with another Woody Guthrie novel. By now I knew his name because he'd appeared in two novels, and so had several of his supporting cast. This time, I had the opposite problem from "Stranglehold." I had a solid main plot and an anemic subplot I couldn't expand without excessive and obvious padding.

My wife suggested that maybe it would work as another novella, and she was right. "Look What They've Done to my Song, Mom" won the award in 2015 and appeared in Alfred the following summer.

Now, I think I know how to write a novella. Step one is don't plan to do it. If you find yourself trapped with no other way out, focus on one main plot and one subplot. You might have a second subplot if it resolves easily. We're talking 60 to 80 pages, so we don't have a lot of introspection, static lyrical description, or technical wherewithall. If two sets of somewhat similar characters work through parallel or related plots, they're easy to bring together at the end. In both novellas I've written so far, each plot involved members of a band and their music.

Both stories have about ten characters, too. The band was a quintet in the first one, and four of the members were suspects in the killing of the fifth (Music fans would call this the "diminished fifth"). In the second story, the remaining members all have something at stake and two of them are suspects again. If you're a musician, you might think long and hard before joining this band.

I'm kicking around ideas for another novella. It doesn't involve Woody or the band or music, but I have about ten characters again. And one subplot.

If it works out, maybe I'll show it to you.

If it doesn't, maybe I really have a bloated short story on my hands...or another anorexic novel.

TIME FOR THE BSP: My sixth Zach Barnes novel, Back Door Man, a light-hearted romp into a cold case involving mass murder, is now available, just in time for your Christmas shopping.

If I'd known it would be ready for the holidays, maybe I would have called it "Violent Night."