Following in John's Footsteps

Back on November 5th, John Floyd wrote a SleuthSayers blog about three stories he had published in AHMM this year. In the article's conclusion, he asked several questions concerning what elements of writing other authors published in AHMM had used, such as Point of View, sub-genre, series vs. standalones, etc.

As I lag along in John's footsteps, you can easily see the difference in the size of our prints. For one thing, I only have about 160 published short stories, whereas John has about eight or nine times that many. In any case, I was going to answer some of his questions in the comment section, except that my answers kept getting longer and longer, therefore I turned those answers into my own blog and here it is.

The first story I sold to AHMM was a standalone set in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia and is not part of the much later 9 Tales from the Golden Triangle series. At the time, the AHMM website said that then editor Kathleen Jordan was looking for stories set in an exotic location. In my mind, the area of the Golden Triangle (Burma, Laos and Thailand) fit the bill for an exotic location, so I submitted my story and she published it. I was launched.

After that, I had to come up with something new in hopes that I wasn't just a one-trick pony. The result was the 9 Twin Brothers Bail Bond series. Ten stories in AHMM, in which the reader solves each mystery at the same time the story characters do and with the same clues. It seems the Proprietor in this series only accepts special clients, who subsequently end up falling from high places, being run over by an errant taxi cab (but then they were outside the painted lines of the crosswalk at the time), go deep water swimming without the proper breathing apparatus, get crosswise with their homicidal partner, or are otherwise rendered deceased, yet the bail firm always made a profit. These stories are told in 3rd Person from the POV of the lowly and long-suffering bail bondsman, Theodore. All titles contain some form of the words bail or bond in them. Sayings of Mahatma Gandhi are prominent in many of the stories, however the meanings of these sayings are now sinister, not at all what the great pacifist had intended.

The next series was The Armenian, a trader of goods along the Cossack cordon on the Terek River and south of the river into Chechen country. As a neutral party in the long-standing conflict between Muscovy forces and Chechen hill tribes, The Armenian is often tasked with finding a resolution for local crimes. 9 published stories in all, 6 of them published in AHMM. All were told in 1st Person from the viewpoint of either The Armenian or the Little Nogai Boy. These historical mysteries are set in the 1850s when Russian Tsars were expanding the empire. (9 Historical Mysteries Vol 1 & 2)

Next was the 1660s Paris Underworld series involving a young, orphan, incompetent pickpocket trying to survive in a criminal enclave. Naively considering himself to be good at his profession, he is often drawn into the schemes and scams of others. 9 published stories in all of which 8 were published in AHMM. All are historical mysteries told in 1st Person POV. (9 Historical Mysteries Vol 1 & 2)

Since humor keeps me sane, I soon turned to humorous capers with the Holiday Burglars series. 13 stories total with 12 published in AHMM. All the capers and titles concern well-known holidays, plus there is a double meaning on the titles. Told in 3rd Person, story characters Beaumont and Yarnell become involved in several bungled burglaries. (9 Holiday Burglars Mysteries)

My 9 Tales from the Golden Triangle series could be considered as an historical thriller set in the mountain jungles and opium fields of Burma, Laos and Thailand during the Vietnam War. Two half-brothers from different cultures vie to see who will inherit their warlord father's opium empire. 9 stories of which 7 were published in AHMM. All are told in 3rd Person POV with much of the plot based around old country Chinese proverbs.

And then, there is my Prohibition Era series of which one story has been published in AHMM and one has been bought but not yet published. The 3rd story was rejected, so it cannot truly be called a series yet. However, I recently submitted another story in this hoped-to-be-series. All are told in 3rd Person POV.

One of my standalones won the 2022 Edgar, but the storyline and background are not conducive to turning this story into a series.

Of course, there were also potential series which died aborning. They didn't get past the 2nd submission before I saw the rejection handwriting writ upon the wall.

There was the EZ Money  Pawn Shop series. Two rejections and out. I even interviewed a real pawn shop manager, and believe me, he was uneasy about the whole deal. Not sure what he had to hide. Stories told in 3rd Person.

For the Bookie series, I interviewed a real bookie. Again, two rejections and out. Told in 1st Person. I was surprised the bookie consented to be interviewed, but then he did almost marry into the far edge of our extended family. He might have erroneously thought it was good for one Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card.

The 1900s French Indo-China series, using the old capitol of Hue along the Perfume River as background. Told in 1st Person. Two and out, with a 3rd one abandoned in mid-story. 

The Exterminator series concerning a scheming family of bug exterminators working their scams through their fake business. One and out with two more on the plotting board. Told in 3rd Person.

ETC.

Even with 49 stories sold to AHMM, I guess some stories just aren't destined to become a series.

One last set of facts. Most of my AHMM stories run from 3,500 words to about 5,000 words, with two topping out in the neighborhood of 8,000 words. Each story took as many words as was needed to tell that particular story.

Reading back over this article, I think the AHMM editor and I would agree that if I ever got that first story (a standalone at that point) published, then more than likely I would try to turn those characters and their situation into a series. Why not?

     HAPPY HOLIDAYS to  all !!!

Not Even a Mouse! If Santa doesn't bring smiles, this might...

 Merry Night Before Christmas Everyone!

Several readers (thank you!) have asked about my previous life as a writer of comedy.  My humour is goodnatured rather than biting (I was called the Carol Burnett of Crime Writing not so long ago.)  I don't draw from those files often for Sleuthsayers, although maybe - in light of how serious our world has become - I should. 

To that end:  Thinking about The Night Before Christmas reminded me of mice, which reminded me of this monologue I used to do back in the day, which I have re-titled, 

Not Even a Mouse  (Merry Christmas, Everyone!)

I wanted to buy a new front door the other day.  This has become necessary because the old front door is no longer functioning as a door in the usual sense.  "Wind Tunnel" or "Interstate highway for neighbourhood field mice" might be a better description.

But as always, things have changed in the world of destruction and aggravation (aka construction and renovation.)  Apparently, you can't buy a door anymore. They don't make them, according to the sales clerk (excuse me..."Customer Service Associate.")  Apparently, you now buy an "Entry System."

"But I already have an entry system," I explained.  "The mice are entering all the time.  What I want is something to keep them out.  Like a door."

"Let me show you how this works," he offered.  He then demonstrated how to insert a key in the lock and turn the doorknob to activate the Entry System.  Not unlike my old door, in fact.  I pointed this out.

"But this is a great improvement," he argued.  "See?  It's Pre-hung."

'Pre-hung' - for construction illiterates - means you don't have to undo three hinges to slip the old door off and install the new door.  Instead, the new door already comes with a frame (and sometimes side windows) attached.  To install, you simply demolish the old door frame and rebuild the entire entranceway to fit the new pre-hung frame.  It requires three men and a boy, and at least two weeks of labour.  But you don't have to touch those pesky hinges, which makes this a big improvement.

Not surprisingly, Entry Systems cost a lot more than mere doors.  This, I pointed out, was not an improvement.

One more thing bothers me about all this fancy renaming business.  If they insist on calling doors 'Entry Systems,' just what will they end up calling toilets?  Exit Systems?

Melodie Campbell will be sitting by the tree waiting for Santa tonight.  The door will be open.

www.melodiecampbell.com

Mysteries at the Heart of the Season

“Speak comfort to me, Jacob Marley— Southern Comfort!”

December vexes me. Like Charlie Brown in the old TV special, I am always trying to wring some vestige of meaning from a season that is needlessly overwrought and overburdened with cheap sentiment.

Without intending to do so, some years ago I became an obsessive student of Christmas. I spent five years of my life and 500,000 words trying to write the ultimate Yuletide novel. Was I successful? Eh. Let’s just say that in the process I learned a lot about the holiday. I learned that when the season turns dark and cold, we at least have great writing (not mine) to sustain us.

Some pieces I love: The Man Who Invented Christmas by Les Standiford is solid, narrative nonfiction about the writing and publication of A Christmas Carol by that canny self-published author, Charles Dickens. I like A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. The old recording of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, read by Dylan Thomas himself, is a perfect way to embrace the close and holy darkness. If there is a church nearby that is mounting a production of Handel’s Messiah, I will always go to hear the Hallelujah Chorus one more time. But if you are short on time, you can do no worse than “The Gift of the Magi,” by O Henry. For that matter, as long as you’re going short, my fellow Sleuthsayer David Edgerley Gates wrote a post on Christmas Eve, 2014, that chokes me up every time I read it. Each year, late in December, I navigate to this very website and that particular post to re-read his critical graf:

“Taken at face value, unto us a child is born—no room at the inn, the shepherds tending their flocks by night, the journey of the Magi—it still works its magic. You don’t have to believe it’s the hand of God, necessarily. Probably doesn’t do any harm, either. The hopes and fears of all the years. We bring a lot of baggage to any story. Maybe we bring more to this one than most. It's an investment. We all believe in a child’s native innocence. The loss is our grief. If, for sake or argument, we don’t know the story’s end, but only how it begins, then the birth of Christ is the stirring of hope. We embrace the myth because it’s our own, each of us born, each of us begun. Destiny waits to be chosen.”

He’s marvelous, isn’t he?

Of course, if you’re me, maybe you end up scrolling to this web page maintained by the National Institutes of Health. There you will find numerous peer-reviewed academic papers that attempt to solve the mystery at the heart of Christmas: What ails Tiny Tim?

Tiny Tim is the third-most important child of December. The first, of course, is the child you know and love. Your children and grandchildren, say. The second is the child who gives Christmas its name. Then comes Tim, in his threadbare jacket, limping along on his crutch.

For 179 years this poor child has appeared in stage and screen productions of the Dickens novella and the entire world knows his pain. From Day 1, astute readers should have anticipated that eventually actual doctors would begin to wonder just what was wrong with the tyke. That is the essence of those NIH papers: Modern masters of the differential diagnosis are having a blast trying to figure out just what illness nearly killed poor Tim.

Here are the facts: The boy suffers from an unnamed ailment that renders him lame, forcing him to wear a brace and a crutch. In the fictive glimpse provided by the Ghost of Christmas-Yet-to-Come, Tim dies. After Scrooge’s redemption, however, we are told that Tiny Tim “did not die.” In other words, Tim’s affliction could in fact by cured by a judicious expenditure of Ebenezer’s silver.

Did Tim have rickets? Or was it tuberculosis, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, or renal tubular acidosis (RTA)? All of these diseases can be ameliorated, apparently, with the right kind of medical attention. Every year, when the now-practically-annual article about Tim’s illness appears in my newsfeed, I read the story eagerly, wondering if someone has definitively cracked the case. No such luck. Indeed, it’s beginning to look a lot like we will never know the truth, and that Dickens took this one to his grave, along with the solution to Drood.

One of the best articles I’ve found on this medical mystery concludes with the observation that Charles Dickens, reformer that he was, truly understood that the horrors of poverty are fundamentally socioeconomic. Who knows? Maybe Tim was never completely cured, but if his family had just a little more coin, they alone could have ensured that Tim lived a comfortable and long life. (The writer Louis Bayard wrote an entire novel entitled Mr. Timothy on the premise that Tim survived into adulthood.)

And maybe that is just as well. Because we have plenty of other Christmas mysteries to solve. In recent years I have begun seeing articles in which doctors attempt to puzzle out the mystery that appears in Stave V of A Christmas Carol. After his encounter with the third spirit, Scrooge awakes in his bed, clinging to his bedpost, “laughing and crying in the same breath.” Later, Dickens tells us:

“Really, for a man who had been out of practice for many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!”

Several actors over the years have tried to bring this laugh-cry to life. Patrick Stewart has probably done it best. Here. Watch:

Here’s what some medical detectives are wondering: does that laugh/cry indicate a troubling respiratory condition?

And that, dear friends, is when I realize that I’ve spent entirely too much time researching and fretting about Christmas and too little time enjoying it.

I wish you the best in this season—and beyond.

---

Besides the links I’ve shared in this post, you might enjoy this post from an illustrators’ blog about best illustrated versions the Dickens classic.

Not Another End-of-the-Year List! (No Really! It's NOT!)

Image Courtesy of NASA.

 Happy Winter Solstice! Shortest day! Longest night! (At least if you're reading this in the Northern Hemisphere! For all of our Southern Hemisphere friends, Happy Summer Solstice!).

Since this will be my final time ringing the bell before the calendar turns to 2023(!?!?), of course the temptation is to drop in one of those terrific end-of-the-year lists and call it good. I'm not gonna do that.

I will, however, link to a couple of really good lists of this variety written up and curated by folks whose tastes I quite like and respect. For a terrific list of historical crime fiction from this year, take a look at what Crime Reads has to say here. Goodreads also weighs in more generally with a solid list of the most popular mystery and thriller books of the year right here.

And then there's historical nonfiction. The Wolfson Prize committee has done solid work year in and year out singling out great writing founded upon solid scholarship over the past several years. You can find their short list featured here. I have only read one of the books on this list (The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs by University of Chicago professor Mark David Baer–and not surprisingly based on Baer's previous corpus of work, it is superb), but the rest of the list takes pride of place on Thornton's Mt. TBR (Seriously, it's too tall, broad and imposing to settle for merely going by the diminutive of "List.").

Alright now that the requisite list-dropping is out of the way, let's move on to the main thrust of this post. It's about EMPATHY. Something I am finding in distressingly short supply these days. Social media seems designed to divide us (looking at you, Twitter.). And the news media seems dead set on framing every news story within its potential for some form of conflict. 

Remember the old adage, "If it bleeds, it leads"? Sure seems true these days. And that's a real shame for a lot of reasons. I follow the reporting of many first-rate journalists, independent, establishment, foreign and domestic, and I don't see them doing the framing. It seems to emanate from a variety of media corporations counting on conflict reportage for more "record profits."

I'm no fan of our most recent former president, and agree with the assessment of a long-time friend of his, who has famously described POTUS 45 as someone who would "lie just to keep in practice." However, one way in which he seems to have been both truthful and spot-on is when he talked about how the media loved him because he was ratings gold and made them truckloads of money.

I'll try not to bludgeon my readers here at this blog over the head with my general point. Rather I'll point out that I have extended family and lots and lots of friends who agree politically with "the other side." Want to know how many friendships I have lost because of these differences? Or how many family members I no longer speak with because of them? Both answers are the same: ZERO.

I like to think that it's mostly because when we take the time to talk, we have so many other, more important things to talk about (especially bragging about kids or about sports teams. Mariners BROKE THE CURSE! WORLD SERIES IN 2023!!!!). And it's also because as hard I work to see the good in my family and friends, I firmly believe they're doing the same with me. God love them. ALL OF THEM.

Don't forget: THIS happened!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And when it comes to my family, I'm positive the majority of my relatives are as ready as I to turn the page on 2022. We lost not one, but two of my aunts, and one of my cousins this year. One of my aunts was in her eighties, the other in her sixties, and my cousin was in her thirties. Man, it's true what they say: take your loved ones and hold them close and never let them forget how much you cherish them.

And you need not be related by blood to consider someone a "loved one" (duh, I hear you say). One of my  parents' best friends passed away suddenly (at least it seemed so to us) after a brief battle with cancer. We were gutted, my parents, my brother, my wife and son, too. His spouse is now out there navigating a world without him, and our hearts go out to them as well.

Today I stopped in at the corner espresso stand where my wife loves to get her coffee. When I was there the other day their espresso machine had just broken down (so she got drip coffee that day-no complaints from her, either way). I checked in with them on whether the espresso machine was still down. 

Turns out it was, but they had an espresso machine wizard there fixing it. 

While that was good news I worried how this would affect these baristas during this, the week before Christmas. I don't drink cofee, so I ordered a huge iced tea (in 26 degree weather- that Thornton, he's a bright one, for sure!) and tipped the heck out of them. Hey. Every nickel helps. And tips are not optional.

I just so happened by this particular coffee stand on my way home from an appointment with my new doctor. My family recently changed insurance, and after years with a particular HMO, I started over today.

And man, was it an eye-opener. I felt seen. I felt heard. I felt like the opposite of the "just one more number" I had not even realized I'd felt like for so very long with my other provider.

And it wasn't just my doctor. All of the staff there were patient, informative, helpful, and (here's that word again) EMPATHETIC.

Not even going to pretend it didn't choke me up a bit.

Actually, being more empathetic, really listening to and hearing others has been my secret resolution for all of 2022. I've still got work to do. And I fall down more than I stay on my feet with it. But the benefits I receive in return for trying to do just this little bit for others? They are boundless.

So in this season where it is customary to wish for "Peace on Earth, Good Will to Humankind," let me take a moment and extend that wish to you, our readers. 

Whatever your spiritual practices, your political beliefs, or your favorite sports teams (yes, even to you Yankees fans out there!), from my family to yours: may you find joy and comfort and love and fellowship and rest and ease, and surprises and excitement in whichever mix best suits you.

See you in the new year!

Once more for good measure! Go Ms in 2023! World Series-bound!

Breaking into Showbiz 4

 

We've played this game three times before.  Below you will find  ten familiar figures from popular culture.  But where did they start their careers? In many cases you may know the answer, but they will turn out to be more complicated than you expect.

See the white box on the side?  Your choices lie within.

Frankie and Johnny

Little Orphan Annie

Lassie

Frank Furillo

Humpty Dumpty

Columbo

Peter Pan

Jimmy Valentine

Maynard G. Krebs

Gilgamesh

And here are the answers:

Frankie and Johnny.  Real life.  The classic murder ballad was inspired by the real killing of Allen (Albert) Britt by his sweetheart Frankie Baker in St. Louis, in 1899. She shot him after finding him with a prostitute but was found not guilty, pleading self-defense.  Bill Dooley wrote a song called  "Frankie Killed Albert." In 1912 Bert and Frank Leighton revised that to "Frankie and Johnny" and Albert has gone by that name ever since.  It has been recorded too many times to count.

Mary Alice Smith

Little Orphan Annie. Comic Strip. Harold Gray created the comic strip in 1924.  It ran until 2010, spawning a Broadway musical and a bunch of movies.  But the name, or a variation thereof, is even older. James Whitcomb Riley wrote a poem in 1885 called "The Elf Child." In later editions he changed the title to "Little Orphant Allie" but a typesetter thought otherwise and the protagonist has been Annie ever since.

The poem is about a young orphan who comes to live with a family and tells the children scary stories that encourage good behavior.  "The goblins will get you if you don't watch out."

Riley based the poem on Mary Alice Smith, who lived with his family growing up.  So the real little Allie inspired the poem which led to the comic strip.  Got it?

Lassie.  Short story.  Ah, but which one?  British author Elizabeth Gaskell wrote "The Half-Brothers" in 1859 in which a female collie leads a search party to two boys lost in the snow.  Sound familiar?

But in 1938 Eric Knight wrote a story called "Lassie Come-Home" about a doggie making a long journey to her master.  This led to a novel of the same name. Several movies followed, followed by a radio show, and finally the TV series many of us remember. Dave Barry complained that the family in that show spent so much time trapped in wells that they only survived on federal farm subsidies, and Lassie had to fill out the applications.

Frank Furillo.  Television. But you can get a good argument going about it.  Lieutenant Furillo was the protagonist of the classic series Hill Street Blues.  But some people claimed the show was, let's say, heavily indebted to Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels, which starred a cop named Carella.  

I don't see it myself.  McBain's books are all about a detective squad while the series covered all levels of a precinct.  

What did McBain himself think?  In his novel Lightning he has a character furiously argue that the show is based on the lives of him and some of his associates.  But in a brilliant bit of fourth-wall-bending, the author manages to have his cake and eat it too.

You see, the complainer is Fat Ollie Weeks, a bigoted cop and hardly the first person whose opinion you would trust.  So is McBain mocking the theory of the connection?

Not quite.  Steve Carella, definitely a reliable voice, is skeptical about Ollie's view but he says that saying the name Ollie Weeks is like (TV character) Charlie Weeks is similar to claiming that the name (TV character) Howard Hunter is like Evan Hunter.

Evan Hunter is Ed McBain's real name.  And Hunter/McBain thought about suing the producers, but decided it was too expenaive.

Humpty Dumpty.  Nursery rhyme.  I have run into people who think ol' H.D. started life in  Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass.  He first appeared a  century earlier, 1791, in a nursery rhyme.  John Tenniel in Looking Glass gave him his familiar appearance. while Carroll, gave him his the obnoxious personality many of us remember:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

That argument has been quoted by judges in more than 200 legal  decisions.

By the way, it is generally agreed that the nursery rhyme was meant to be a riddle.  It was identified as such by at least 1843.  It is easy to forget that it is a riddle because we all know the answer so well. In the same way, the surprise twist of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has not surprised anyone in a very long time

Columbo.  Television.  But much earlier than you might think.  Richard Levinson and William Link wrote "Enough Rope," which in 1960 appeared as an episode of The Chevy Mystery Show. It included Bert Freed as the famously inquisitive cop. 

In 1962 L&L turned their TV episode into a play, Prescription: Murder.  In 1968 the story that wouldn't die was turned into a TV movie.  But who would play the hero?  Lee J. Cobb was not available. Bing Crosby (!) was considered but he thought it sounded like too much work.  Then came Peter Falk who said he would kill to play the part.  If he had, I'm sure Columbo would have caught him.  

The show was a huge hit, of course, and the show went onto a long but irregular career: There were almost 70 episodes, spread out over more than 30 years.

Oh, one more detail: Remember I said Columbo began on TV?  Technically true, but back in 1960 Levinson and Link published a story in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine called "Dear Corpus Delecti."  Their original title was "May I Come In?" which should give you a hint about one of the characters.  But the police lieutenant in this story was named Fisher.

And speaking of names, What was Columbo's given moniker?  It is never mentioned in the show but sharp-eyed viewers noticed that his police ID said it was Frank.

Not surprising that no one called him by his first name.  The man, especially in early years, was practically a phantom.  I theorized that he wasn't a cop at all but a nut who had gotten his hands on a badge.  I mean, in the first episodes we never saw him in a police station and he had to introduce himself to every police officer he encountered...

Peter Pan.  Novel.  The Little White Bird is an adult novel by J.M. Barrie (1902) about an aging bachelor trying to establish a relationship with a young boy.  I hasten to add that "adult novel" only means that it was not aimed at children.  Let's not take this the wrong way.

In the middle of the book Barrie wrote an odd section about a week-old baby who travels to Kensington Gardens where he is taught to fly by fairies and birds.  This baby's name is... Frank Columbo.

Sorry.  Got my notes mixed up.  It was Peter Pan.  Two years later Barrie returned to the character with the play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which brought in Wendy, the lost boys, Neverland,  Captain Hook, etc.  Then there was a novel, and who can keep up with all the variations that followed... 

Jimmy Valentine. Short story.  The most famous safecracker in fiction is sort of like Professor Moriarty, in that he has taken on a much larger life than his creator ever dreamed or intended.  O. Henry wrote precisely one tale about Valentine, "A Retrieved Reformation," but it is such a classic that it has led to five movies and a radio show.  Stick to the short story; it's a treat.

Maynard G. Krebs.  TV. The lovable beatnik, played by Bob Denver, who shrieked in horror at the sound of the word "work," appeared on the TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, which was based on the novel of the same name by Max Shulman.  Maynard, however, does not appear in the novel.  He is a creation of the scriptwriters and is probably television's first example of a breakout character, paving the way for Fonzie and Steve Urkel, among many others. 

Gilgamesh.  Real life?  Now, hear me out.  Certainly Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, slayer of monsters, and seeker after immortality, was the legendary protagonist of an epic poem, one of the oldest surviving works of literature .  But once again, it's more complicated than that.  What follows is from David Damrosch's excellent The Buried Book.

We have a list of the kings of the Sumerian region.  The recent (and by "recent" I mean about 3,000 years old) kings are recorded to have ruled for reasonable lengths of time, say six to thirty years.  But the oldest kings supposedly ruled for hundreds of years.

Unless you believe those early monarchs had a really fabulous health care system, we can assume that they are mythical, or no more than names the chroniclers dutifully recorded.

Now guess who stands squarely between the mythical old and the realistic new?  Gilgamesh, supposedly ruling for 126 years.  Which suggests to many scholars that he was the first king for whom they had authentic records.  But I doubt he really slayed the bull of heaven.  That sounds like p.r.

Interestingly, the Epic of Gilgamesh vanished from the record for two millennium until 1872 when George Smith, an engraver and self-taught amateur scholar, translated the cuneiform tablets in the British Museum.  Victorian England was shocked that the epic included the story of a world flood which only one man's family survived - and the man's name was not Noah. 

And that's enough.  As Little Orphan Annie probably never said, see you in the funny papers.

 

Gift Ideas for the Readers and Writers in Your Life

If you're reading this blog, you most likely love to read crime fiction. Maybe you also write it. With that in mind, and because we're in the midst of the holiday season (and because I'm swamped with work), I'm pulling this goodie out of the archives with some updates.  I cordially present (cue the trumpets) ...

GIFTS FOR READERS AND WRITERS

First we'll start with gifts for readers

Love Beacon

You think this is a book bag, right? It is, but it's so much more.

We'll start with its function as a bag. Every reader needs a book bag. Something to take with her to the library or when she's out and about. It shouldn't be too small because she might finish the book she's reading and need another one. She shouldn't be caught without options. So she'll need to carry several books with her wherever she goes. So make that bag sturdy.

But sturdiness is only one important quality of the bag. It should say something. Does your reader love sci fi? Make sure your bag shows it. Or does your reader coo at cozy mysteries? Let the bag share that with the world. Or, if your reader has eclectic taste, you can simply use the bag to proclaim that its owner loves books. But the bag should make a statement because a book bag can do more than carry books. A book bag can help readers find each other. So keep that in mind when shopping. With a book bag, you're not just giving a tote, you're giving a love beacon--a signal someone can send to the world that she is a reader. And maybe, just maybe, another reader will see the beacon and respond. What better thing to bond over than books?

Book Light

You might have bought a book light decades ago and realized they weren't made well. You might have even had a store clerk at a Waldenbooks discourage you from buying a book light back in the eighties because of their poor quality. (Nope. That wasn't me. No, siree.) But today's book lights have come of age. Not only do they work well, but they're lightweight and pretty. Oh so pretty. Doesn't the reader on your list deserve a sturdy way to read in bed without the lamp on. (And to that point, doesn't the reader's mate deserve a way for the reader to read in bed without the lamp on?) So buy a book light. It's a gift for two, all in one.

Bookends

While any bookends are better than no bookends, consider these adorable metal ones of a librarian pulling a book from a shelf (or maybe she's putting a book back). They look like a bibliophile's dream and are sold in a number of places. Search for "librarian bookend," and they'll come up. That said, you'd think bookends would be sold in pairs. These, alas, are not, so if you want these bookends plural, order two.

Go for the Gold

Book bags, book lights, and bookends are nice, you're thinking, but you want to show the reader in your life just how much you love her. Isn't there something nicer (read: pricier) you can buy? But of course. First, there's an e-reader. Yes, most people who would like a e-reader already have them, but I'd be remiss without mentioning them. When wrists get weak, e-readers can be easier to hold than books. And when eyes get tired, e-readers let you increase the type size, which can be nice too. And if you want a book and have an e-reader, you can click and have that book at your disposal in mere seconds, which is a pretty nifty thing indeed.

But, Barb, you're saying. I don't want to give an e-reader. I want to truly show the love of my life that I get her, right down to her introverted little toes. What can I buy that will show her I understand her completely? (Besides, of course, a vacation for her alone with her books.)

Well, okay. Get out your wallet. Besides a gift card for books, the best thing you can buy a reader is a ... bookshelf. Or two. Or two dozen. More and more and more. There are small bookshelves to go into niches in your bedroom. There are large bookshelves to cover walls in your study. And then, there's the granddaddy gift of them all:

Built-ins.

Nothing says love like a built-in bookshelf. Be still my page-turning heart. (But Barb, it's too late to order built-ins. We're in the middle of Hanukkah. Christmas is in five days. To that I say, it's never to early to start planning for next year. Get to it!)

 

 

Moving on to Gifts for Writers

The Anti-Welcome Mat

We all know the standard ways people indicate they don't want others knocking on their doors. The Beware Dog sign. The doormat beseeching you to Go Away. The sock on the handle of a dorm room door, indicating that ... well, you know.

Writers need something like this too. All too often, a person toiling at home (especially someone who spends his days making up conversations for imaginary people) is viewed as interruptible.

"Mom, where are the cookies?"

"Have you checked the jar?"  Grumble, grumble.

"Dad, I'm bored."

"Then play with the dog." Even more grumbling.

"Honey, the house is on fire."

"I swear, if I get interrupted one more time I--oh, wait. That's an interruption I'm okay with."

Let's hope that house fires are few and far between. For those other times, your writer needs a way to nicely tell the member of his family to Go Away. So here we have it, a simple sign the writer can hang on his office door. Interrupt thereafter at your peril.

Page Holder

Until you've tried to type in edits, hunching forward to look down at a page on your desk then looking back up to your screen, then hunching forward again to find your place, then straightening up to type the next edits in before hunching once more, over and over and over, you haven't typed in edits first done on paper. Yes, some authors might do all their editing on the computer, but many people edit and proofread the old-fashioned way. That's where a Page Holder comes in. It allows you to have your pages standing upright, so you can sit in the same position, with your eyes on the pages and your fingers on the keys, typing away. And when you need to look to the screen, it's so much easier moments later to simply scan to the left to find your place again on the paper page. This may seem like something silly or unnecessary, but oh my goodness, the writer in your life may need it.

An editor

Every writer needs an editor. You never know when you might be telling too much instead of showing, or writing stilted dialogue, or not recognizing a plot hole so big Big Foot could fit through it. That's why it's always good to get a second pair of eyes, especially someone who specializes in this type of work.

Some authors rely on critique groups, and they can be great. But sometimes an author needs a professional. A freelance editor. This can be especially true for authors trying to sell a first manuscript and authors planning to self-publish. But freelance editors can be pricey, so if you love an author, perhaps the best present you can give is the gift of an editor's time.

So, do you have a great gift you can recommend for the reader or writer in your life? Please share in the comments. And happy holidays!

He Said, She Said.

“I love writing dialogue,” he said.

“Really?” she asked. “How come?”

“Well, first off, the lines are short, but it takes up tons of space.”

“In other words, you can crank out a lot of pages with less effort than straight narrative.”

“Bingo.”

“Isn’t that cheating?” she asked.

“Not if your reader enjoys the experience.  Who hasn’t quietly closed a book when confronted by a giant hunk of exposition, when tidy bits of dialogue might’ve kept things rolling along?”

“My mother.  She liked Dostoyevsky.”

“!”“That explains your penchant for lugubrious literary tomes.”

“No one says ‘penchant’, ‘lugubrious’ or ‘tomes’ in regular speech.”

“I do, but you make a good point,” he said. “Actually instructive.  Keep that dialogue simple and unadorned.”

“That feels a little doctrinaire.”

“Simply advisory.”

“I do like my doctrines to be somewhat flexible,” she said.

“Then you’ll hate this: always write the way people speak.  Can’t, not cannot; don’t, not do not; isn’t not is not, you get the idea.”

“You never met my Professor of Medieval Literature, circa freshman year.  Contraction-free.   An eight o’clock class, no amount of caffeine was enough.”

“Leave him, and others like him, out of your book.  Better to waste time listening to Miles Davis.”

“Now there’s a right turn without a signal.”

“Not really,” he said.  “He’ll teach you a masters class in meter, tempo, rhythm and dynamics, all applicable to fluid and effective dialogue.”

“I lean more toward Bruno Mars.”

“Just as good.  ‘Julio, get the stretch.’  And the master of them all, Chuck Berry.”

“You haven’t mentioned poetry,” she said.  “All this talk about meter, tempo, rhythm and dynamics.”

“Don’t forget brevity.  Too many words spoil the conversational broth.”

“Haiku.  The fewest words to convey the idea, none that don’t.”

“Though beware of double meanings,” he said. “Or triple and quadruple, if you happen to be T.S. Elliot.”

“Please don’t banish innuendo.  It’s my stock in trade.”

“Never.  I’ve seen Casablanca.  Innuendo is the match that lights the fuse.  The straw that stirs the drink.  The sauce that inflames the pasta.”

“So tortured metaphor is okay,” she said.  

“Not if the metaphor cries out in pain.  As I just demonstrated,”

"They say to show not tell.  Same with dialogue?"

"Especially with dialogue.  Which is why adverbs are verboten (see Elmore Leonard)," he said, imperiously.  

“All this clean and simple might slip into dull and boring.  Just saying.”

“Hemingway’s dialogue was simple, but no one ever said it was boring.”

“That’s an overstatement,” she said.  “My mother thought he was not only boring, but simple minded.  To say nothing of misogynistic and egomaniacal.  I also prefer my dialogue with a bit of garnish.  A flip of the wrist, a scattering of bon mots, a little storytelling, a gush of passion followed by self-deprecating wisecracks.  A full-bodied dose of sincere confession, delivered without restraint or censure.  An outpouring, a geyser, a revealing hemorrhage of pent-up feelings.  This requires some narrative elbow room, n’est-ce pas?”

“Oui.  Just don’t lose the reader in the deluge,” he said.

“I can’t tell if you’re a liberator or a killjoy.”

“You can do anything you want as long as it works.  Rules are for scolds and scaredy cats.  Break them at will.  You just have to figure out if the gamble was worth the outcome.”

“So you don’t hand out instruction manuals.”

“Elmore Leonard ruled you should only use ‘said’ in dialogue.  If you use any verb at all.  He thought a good enough writer could convey everything through the strength of her writing alone.  I’m not so sure.  He also wrote you shouldn’t over-describe settings.  He obviously hadn’t read much Lawrence Durrell or Robert Silverberg.”

Chris Knopf

“Can you at least share some inspirational examples of great dialogue?” she asked (properly defying Leonard).

“Watch His Girl Friday and read Robert B. Parker.  Casablanca, to my earlier point, is another movie to pay attention to, and anything by W.B. Yeats.  Not exactly dialogue, but you asked for inspiration.”

“You said to avoid dialogue that’s too long.  Can it ever be too short?”

“No.”

---

The Digital Detective: Encryption ≠ Encoding

Telex paper tape

The Explainers

Don’t refer to ‘computer codes’. When coaching lawyers for depositions, that became my first rule. I urge the same rule for authors as well. Don’t blow credibility by trying to ‘pluralize’ code with codes– in computerdom the plural of code is still code.

And what kind of code? Source code? Microcode? Machine code? Generic ‘computer code’ is less than meaningless. And while we’re at it, hackers can’s remotely set opponents’ computers on fire, not unless they slip their adversary certain laptops with defective Sony batteries.

To illustrate concepts, real-world analogies appeal to me, but some computer specialites are so abstract, explaining them is difficult. A few software specialists relate systems programming to composing music: Both take place in the originator’s mind, both use symbolic languages and, since the invention of the player piano and now modern mixing consoles, both can be programmed. But analogies can go only so far.

One of the most common questions has proved the most difficult to answer: How are characters stored in the computer? For example, what does “Now is the time” look like inside the machine? Explaining each character has a numeric representation loses some people, but mentioning numbers 0123 are represented as 30313233 (or worse, F0F1F2F3) results in eye-glazing and blood leaking from the ears.

Many programming courses don’t attempt to explain how letters and numbers are recognized and stored in computers. It’s taken for granted and too often they fall back upon, “Do as we say and you’ll do okay.” But that doesn’t answer the question.

Mike Drop

And then… two Michaels came together and showed me the way.

One was Michael Bracken. The other was… Mike Lindell.

Yes, that Michael Lindell, everyone’s favorite mad uncle, the My Pillow Guy. Wait, this is not about politics, I promise. We’re talking about writing.

Mr Lindell has very publicly complained that data in voting machines is secretly encrypted to prevent it being studied. He’s sponsored symposiums with ‘proof’ of skulduggery, and he infamously slandered and libeled voting machine companies, inviting lawsuits with nine decimal zeros in the complaints.

During one interview, Mr Lindell displayed a sample on the screen giving me my first glance at what he was talking about. Could he be correct?

As a writer, I try to get details right, because as a reader, I’ve been yanked out of stories when authors get details wrong. Mr Lindell got it wrong:

Voting machine data isn’t encrypted. It’s encoded.

Wait. Same thing, you say, right? To*mah*to versus To*may*to?

Nope: encoded ≠  encrypted.

Encryption implies obfuscation. It’s how spies try to protect their secrets. It’s how financial institutions are supposed to shield their transactions.

Mikey isn’t all techie and sciencey. I don’t doubt Mr Lindell innocently misunderstood what he saw, but his misunderstanding ‘plain text’ 0123 looks like 30313233 is costing him millions. If a highly visible businessman with political connections doesn’t understand, what about us ordinary readers and writers?

Michael Bracken’s Fault

An upcoming anthology for Michael Bracken required digging into historical events, early radio, and teletypes. I didn’t use teletypery (that’s a word, right?) in my story, but at some point the penny dropped, how to help people visualize character encoding. It’s so simple.

Once upon a time, I communicated by telex with offices in Europe. For quick notes, we’d dial in, tap out a few words and perhaps receive an immediate response. But overseas connection time was expensive, so for long flirtations,^† I mean messages, I’d prepare text on paper tape, then connect and transmit.

And therein lay my solution for anyone to see: encoding on paper tape, a technology a century and a half old. People could see and touch each character as a distinct hole pattern easily converted to a unique number:

hole = binary 1; no hole = binary 0

No Remorse

Morse Code, developed in the 1830s for single-key telegraphy, wasn’t suitable for this new medium. In the 1870s, French engineer Émile Baudot developed a five-bit code. Five bits allows for 2⁵ or 32 distinct characters, but Baudot and the subsequent Morkrum Code (1915) used ‘escape’ characters to switch to and from alphabetic letters mode and numbers-symbols mode, bringing possible combinations closer to sixty, although in practice, far fewer were used. (One of those ‘characters’ rang an attention-getting bell at the other end.)

Baudot paper tape showing shifted values

Morkrum’s new ‘teletypewriter’ was literally a modified typewriter. Morkrum, by the way, is not a person, but rather three people: Joy Morton, founder of Morton Salt, and mechanical engineer Charles Krum, joined by the latter’s son, electrical engineer Howard Krum.

Puzzle Me This

This is paper tape, the stuff of telexes and teletypes, the technology that once powered Western Union, Wall Steel, and news wires. I’ve included only the Roman alphabet, invented a century and a half ago. Each letter has a distinct punch pattern. Curiously, the hole combination for A looks nothing like those for B, C, D, and so on. Each letter’s numeric assignment seems so utterly random as as to defy logic.

Baudot paper tape showing decimal values of alphabet

But there is a logic and I’m betting you can figure it out. Why didn’t Baudot lay out letters one after the other in alphabetical order and bump holes one-by-one?

There is method to the madness. Your challenge is to suggest a reason for these seemingly arbitrary hole assignments.

values of holes

Hint № 1

It helps to know *the earliest* machines had five piano-like keys corresponding to the holes. A teletype operator would press the correct keys one-by-one, and the machine punched holes and advanced the tape.

Hint № 2

Note this sample includes a space character. It’s actually a clue.

Hint № 3

Hover for another clue…

Twitchy Fingers

AT&T developed a machine nearly identical to the Telex but using 7-bit code similar to ASCII and its Unicode descendants. Seven bits allowed for 2⁷ or 128 characters, many of them assigned special purposes. Many universities hung cheap, obsolete TTYs  on their early Unix computers, making an ASCII relationship clearer.

ASCII paper tape with 7-bit values

[Unix aficionados blame those sluggish keyboards for the plethora of ungodly, abstruse Unix commands: awk, chown, df, grep, lp, m4, qalter, renice, uucp, yacc.]

Did It Work?

So does the paper tape comparison help explain how ‘plain text’ data is used and stored in computers? And does the difference between encoding and encryption make sense? Enquiring minds want to know.

Puzzle Answer ↷

An Early Christmas

  

One thing I've found, as a writer, is that if you get into the habit of writing and submitting short stories to editors regularly, you can usually--not always--expect to sell and get them published regularly. Sure, there are dry spells, we all have those. But if you set a good pace and don't let too much time pass between submissions, all those swallows you send out are eventually going to find their way back to Capistrano--and sometimes they come in flocks. Rejections? Sure you'll get rejections. But if you're careful to send out the best work that you can do, you'll probably find that the writer who gets the most no's is also the one who gets the most yeses.

Publishingwise, the first half of December was good to me this year. I had a story published in the December issue of Mystery Magazine, one in a Golden Age of Mystery anthology, one in the third Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir anthology, one in AHMM, one in Kings River Life, and one in an anthology of previous Shamus Award-winning stories. All of those tales are firmly in the mystery/suspense genre, but most are very different in terms of location, mood, characters, time period, type of crime, etc. If you're at all interested, here are quick summaries of those six stories.

"The Magnolia Thief," Mystery Magazine, December 2022 issue. This is the umpteenth installation of my "Law & Daughter" series featuring Sheriff Lucy Valentine and her crimesolving mother Fran. It's a lighthearted solve-it-yourself mystery about traveling salesmen, motel restaurants, and the theft of a valuable painting of the state flower that was given to the local mayor by the governor. Side note: "The Magnolia Thief" is my seventh story in Mystery Magazine this year--four more have been accepted by MM but not yet published--and my fifth Fran/Lucy story there.

"Burying Oliver," Mickey Finn, Vol. 3: 21st Century Noir (Down & Out Books), edited by Michael Bracken. My story in the third Mickey Finn outing is a standalone tale featuring a young farmer, his wife, his cousin, his dog, and the local sheriff--and, as you might expect, some of those five don't make it out alive. (Actually, most of them don't make it out alive.) "Burying Oliver" probably has more plot twists in its 3000 words than any other story I've written recently, which is one of the things that made this one such a pleasure to create. Quick plug, here: Michael Bracken anthologies are always fun, both to write for and to read, and this book is no exception.

"Old Money," Edgar & Shamus Go Golden (Down & Out Books), edited by Gay Kinman and Andrew McAleer. This anthology contains twelve original stories set in the Golden Age of Mystery, all written by winners of either the Edgar or Shamus Award. The one I wrote specifically for this book, "Old Money," features New Orleans private eye Luke Walker, and is set mostly in 1940s Natchez, Mississippi. The crimes involved are insurance fraud and murder, and the story was great fun to write because of two things: (1) the research I had to do regarding language, cars, businesses, cigarettes, equipment, procedures, buildings, etc., of that time period, and (2) my familiarity with the city of Natchez.

"Going the Distance," Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (Jan/Feb 2023 issue). This is the seventh installment of my series about Sheriff Ray Douglas of Pine County, Mississippi, where a rare Christmas snowstorm serves to complicate an already weird murder investigation. Also featured are Douglas's loyal deputy Cheryl Grubbs and his off-and-on love interest Jennifer Parker. (Even though this issue is dated January/February, I'm told it went on sale this past week, on Dec. 13.) FYI, the eighth Ray Douglas mystery has been accepted by AHMM but is still awaiting a publication date.

"Santa's Helper," Kings River Life, December 14, 2022, issue. Most of my KRL stories over the years have been reprints, but this one's an original Christmas mystery--another installment in my Fran and Lucy Valentine series. In this adventure my amateur sleuth and her sheriff daughter investigate the mugging of pint-sized Al Wilson, half of a two-man team who often perform at Christmas events and parties: Al's giant brother Ernest plays Santa and Al plays what he calls a subordinate Claus with low elf esteem. Obviously, this is an ultra-lighthearted story, and is being given double duty: editor Lorie Lewis Ham is featuring it now in the magazine and will run it again next Christmas as a Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast. Thanks, Lorie!

"Mustang Sally," The Shamus Winners: America's Best Private Eye Stories, Vol. III (Perfect Crime Books), edited by Robert Randisi. This is an anthology of all the Shamus Award-winning stories from 2010 to 2021. My story was originally published in Black Cat Mystery Magazine #7: Special Private Eye Issue and was the first installment of my series about present-day private investigator Tom Langford, who takes a case involving the recovery of an engagement ring that went missing under highly unusual circumstances. I was notified this past week that the book is out now but available only via Barnes & Noble. Amazon and other outlets will be getting it soon. 

One special thing about these "early Christmas gifts for me" is that three of these six publications happened only because of my fellow SleuthSayer Michael Bracken. Michael was the editor who bought "Burying Oliver" for Mickey Finn, Vol. 3, and he's also the editor who first published "Mustang Sally" in Black Cat Mystery Magazine--a story that went on to win the 2021 Shamus Award and was thus included in the Shamus Winners III anthology. In addition, that Shamus win is the only reason I was invited to write "Old Money" for the Edgar & Shamus Go Golden anthology. So thank you, Michael, for making all three of those publications possible.

Questions, regarding my spree of good luck: Have any of you writers experienced these "when it rains, it pours" spells, with the stories you've submitted? Do you find that these clusters of publications happen more often around the end of the year (because of the approaching holidays, I guess) than at other times? Do you often experience long stretches when nothing you send out seems to be getting published, no matter how often you submit or how hard you try? (I found Bob Mangeot's recent SleuthSayers column on that subject to be interesting.) How do you deal with extended periods of rejection? I can't help recalling what one writer told me years ago, back when everything was done via snailmail. She said she'd found a sure-fire way to prevent getting rejection letters: don't include SASEs. And it worked.

But don't do that. Follow this advice instead: When you get a rejection, send that story someplace else, and then send a different story to the place that rejected you. Never give up, never stop trying. Persistence will pay off, and sometimes in bunches.

Anyhow, that's my pre-Christmas message. I wish all of you a happy and healthy holiday, and many, many publications during the second half of the month--and in 2023! 

See you again here on New Year's Eve.