Maybe You Don’t Want Hollywood to Turn Your Book into a Movie

I admit it: it’s a clickbaity title but work with me here. This week the issue of book-to-film rights popped up on the boards of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and it nudged me to think about the specifics of deals I’ve been privy to.Authors dream of Hollywood deals because we assume they lead to big money. Granted, everyone’s idea of big money differs, but I venture to say that these days those fantasies involve six zeroes.

I have in my possession an interesting document that confirms the fantasy is possible. Don’t ask me how I got the doc, which pertains not to one of my ghostwriting clients’ books, nor my wife’s, and certainly not one of mine. Suffice to say someone just got sloppy.

Let’s preface this by saying I’m not a lawyer, agent, or hotshot writer. But I do think that the publishing and film industries like keeping writers in the dark about how much their work is worth. So if someone was stupid enough to slip me a doc, I figure it’s okay to share, provided I don’t identify the people involved.

The document is a response to a studio option offer for a book written by a young writer who, at the time the 2024 document was written, was already a No. 1 New York Times bestselling author in one genre. This deal was for the person’s debut in another genre, which will be pubbed in 2025. No, I am not acquainted with the writer.

A year ago, the still-to-be-pubbed book must have been considered “hot,” whatever the hell that means these days, because in the push-back document the author’s book-to-film agent believed that they could get $150,000 for a 12-month initial option, with a renewal at the same rate and length. An option is the money a production company or studio pays a writer to have the exclusive rights to a work (for a fixed period of time) while the studio attempts to get the film greenlit. When talking about options, agents focus on several deal points such as:

Initial option: How much the studio or production company will pay the author to exercise their option on the work (story or book), over how much time.

Extension option: How much they will pay to renew this option on the work.

Purchase price: How much they will pay if/when the work is turned into a film or TV show.

Royalty: How they will pay per episode if the work is turned into an episodic TV show.

Backend: How much the author will participate in the gross profits of the resulting filmed project.

These are just the basics. There are a litany of other points, from the onscreen credit the author will receive, the rights the author will reserve to the project, all the way to how much creative control the author will be allowed to have on the final product, not to mention travel perks, etc.

The options I’ve seen for my ghostwriting clients, my author friends, and my wife involve a payment for a term lasting one to two years, usually with a built-in renewal clause with payments at the same rate or slightly higher. It’s safe to say that of all the contracts I’ve been involved with, I’ve never seen figures as high as the ones in this document. And yes, I’m a newb in this world.

Back to the doc in hand. If the opposing side accepted the agent’s counter, the author would earn $300,000 on the option over two years. If the production happened, the author would be paid a purchase price of $1.5 million. Already we’re at $1.8 million. This fits our six-zero dream nicely.

Remember, this is a counter-offer, so in a way it represents the agent’s wish list for the author’s book. I don’t think the agent would have been throwing around such figures if they didn’t think it was feasible. The purchase price figure seems designed to arrive at $1 million after the lawyers get involved.

In this particular document, that $1.5 million figure is thrown out as if it covers all types of productions. The memos and contracts I’ve seen tend to break out different purchase prices for, say, cable or network TV productions, major motion pictures, limited series, etc. I assume the agent wanted to send a message to the opposing side that they wouldn’t get the license for this book cheaply.

Not every literary agent has the credentials to sell their clients’ work to Hollywood. So they partner up with a book-to-film agent, who has the track record and contacts. The book-to-film agents I’ve met appear to practice the Spaghetti + Wall method of promotion. They email a glowing pitch letter with attached manuscripts or book proposals to studio heads and production companies they think might be interested, then sit back and wait.

They don’t pick up a phone to verbally pitch a damn thing—i.e., “work”—unless something in the news has suddenly made a project “hot.” (Yes, there’s that stupid word again.) Like literary agents, book-to-film agents don’t have to sell your book to make a living. They just have to sell a book. But if a name director, producer, or actor has read or heard about a book or story, then the agents can sit back, field offers, and play each bidder against the other.

Side note: My favorite movie scene of a talent agent defending his existence…

There’s always stupid additional money and perks involved in the deals these agents lock down for authors. If the book I’m discussing gets turned into a TV series, the author would theoretically be paid $7,500 per episode as a royalty, $25,000 per episode as befits the author’s proposed non-writing executive producer (NWEP) credit. (This is why everyone wants to be an executive producer.) The author will also earn a percentage of the modified adjusted gross receipts (MAGR), which is the “backend” in the laundry list above. What’s more, this particular author will be allowed to offer “meaningful consultation on all creative decisions” and be able to participate in the writers’ room if the work is turned into a TV show.

If the author must travel 60 miles from home to indulge in these bouts of creativity, the production must provide travel, accommodations, and a per diem to cover the writer’s expenses. If the film or show is nominated for awards, our author is guaranteed an invite to the award presentation, with a similar travel package and budget.

As written, every thing on this sheet of paper is a sweet deal, and I hope the writer got what the agent proposed, or close to it.

We have not discussed the impact this production will likely have on the author’s book, which, let’s remember, has not been published yet but will soon. With the kind of exposure a TV show or film is likely to generate, the book will no doubt sell phenomenally well, which is every writer’s dream.

That is the whole point of a print project going Hollywood. Movies and TV shows raise the visibility of books and authors, and have since the first moviegoer walked out of a theater hoping to snag a hard copy of Gone With the Wind. I would not have read Wicked without hearing about and later seeing the Broadway play. I’m a Baum fan from childhood, which is why I won’t be seeing the movie. Two versions of that story was enough.

So yeah—a Hollywood deal is sweet, which is why everyone wants one. It’s wonderful to have a piece of paper detailing such a juicy option in your hands—or even a complete stranger’s—except that none of it may ever come true.

Most books are never optioned by Hollywood. And the ones that are are rarely made. Notice how many times I have used the word if in discussing everything up to now. As you may have surmised from my headline, I am here to argue that sometimes it’s perfectly okay if an optioned piece of writing never gets made into a movie.

My premise is based on the experience of a friend who started in journalism and later switched to writing narrative nonfiction books. (That’s code for history that doesn’t suck.) All but one of his titles have been New York Times bestsellers. None have been made into movies. His big breakout book sold modestly in hardcover but hit its stride in paperback, when—goes the publishing biz theory—it was eagerly gobbled up by book clubbers who wanted to read a real-life story that “read like a novel.”

Decades later, his breakout book still hasn’t been made into a movie, despite being optioned way back in the early 2000s, and having a revolving door’s worth of name actors, directors, and producers attached to it over the ensuing years.

Said friend is not weeping over this state of affairs. At the time we first met him, he estimated that he had earned $100,000 from a decade’s worth of option money. That figure is now probably $200,000. The studio he signed with just kept extending the option. Again and again and again.

The writers I know who have accepted modest options on their books typically pocketed $5,000 every six months for terms that lasted 12, 18, or 24 months. Yes, that’s a small dollar figure—only three zeroes—compared to the sweet numbers and perks I detailed above, but it’s real money. The rest is so hypothetical you cannot bank on it. When you sign that contract, the option money is the only thing that’s real. Just like advance money is the only cash you’re guaranteed to receive when you sign a book contract. Royalties, if they happen, are gravy.

The most money any one of my short stories has earned—with reprints—in its lifetime is $1,220. Who am I to sneeze at a semiannual payment that is 409 percent higher?

I hope you are not reading this thinking, “Oh sure, that’s all well and good for novelists. I’m a short story writer. No one’s ever going to pay me that kind of money.”

Slap yourself upside the head right now. The films All About Eve, It’s a Wonderful Life, Arrival and tons more all started life as short stories. I am not even bothering to Google a list of the bajillion more examples that surely exist. Okay, I lied. And look at me—I keep lying. (However, in the comments, please chime in with the names of other films. I think it will warm all our hearts.) [EDIT: The day after this post appeared, fellow SleuthSayer John M. Floyd posted an entire article on short stories that became movies. See it right here!]

The real issue is learning a) to keep doing good work, and b) to be happy with so-called “small” paydays. Option only a few stories and those four-figure checks can provide an enviable income that will help you create more work. Perhaps a more accurate headline for this article might be “Getting Rich $5,000 at a Time.”

I guess the question is how you trigger that gravy train by getting your work optioned. I have seen numerous articles for writers that touch on this, and I’m sure you have too. Articles that tell you to, say, mail your work to actors and directors whose work you adore. (Don’t. I’ll explain why one of these days.) Other articles tell you to attend “pitchfests” to drum up interest in your work. (I hate talking to people, so don’t look for me at one of those things.)

Two movies I enjoyed got their start as quite obscure books. So far as I can tell, The Descendants hit the bestseller list for the first time after the George Clooney film hit theaters in November 2011. The Prestige, a marvelous science fiction novel by the late Christopher Priest, has won a respectable number of genre awards but I venture to say most of us who’ve read it did so after catching the Nolan Bros. film.

Each of these books were brought to the attention of their directors by book-to-film agents. What pushed those directors to take notice was the endorsement of someone in their circle who had read the books and loved them.

It sounds like something out of the realm of fantasy, doesn’t it? People who read books! In Hollywood! But it happens.

A producer I won’t identify used to keep an apartment in Florida so he could visit his son from a previous marriage. One morning, while riding down in the elevator of this condo building, he spied a poster for a book club meeting where attendees were slated to discuss a nonfiction book published a few years earlier. He wrote down the name of the book, bought it, read it, and later called my wife’s literary agent hoping to work out a deal.

“Wait,” I said the first time I met him. “You really read the book?”

“Cover to cover. Why, you wanna quiz me?”

---

Next time, if I get permission, I will share the details of a book-to-film contract.

See you in three weeks.

Joe

josephdagnese.com

Voices on a Summer Night

While I mostly write short stories, I have written two novels in my youth:  one for Guidepost's "Mystery and the Minister's Wife" series - The Best is Yet to Be - and a classic teenage post-apocalyptic sci-fi fantasy with what I thought at the time were strong female heroines.  And no, I'm not going to give you a sample of the latter.  (A  collective sigh of relief is heard throughout the land.)  

No, I stick to short stories, partly because I'm more comfortable with the format, because I grew up in a time when people still told stories to each other.  Aloud.  In person.  On a porch.  Or over a summer dinner.  Or over winter cocktails, playing cards, doing a puzzle...  No cell phones, no TV on, maybe a distant radio, just human voices, telling stories that (to child Eve) ranged from boring (how many genealogies do I have to listen to???) to the really, really interesting (especially if I was under the table while the women whispered about things like s-e-x) to the downright scary.  Old monsters die hard.

For example, it was a dark and windy night in summer, and as we did almost every summer, my mother and I were visiting my grandmother in Kentucky.  We were out on the porch, and my mother started telling "The Headless Horseman".  

She was a former teacher and a pretty good storyteller.  She had me huddled up on the porch swing as she built up, slowly, to the peak line:  "AND THERE HE IS!!!!"  And sure enough, there was this guy coming up the porch steps, with his collar pulled up just high enough against the rain that I wasn't entirely sure if there was a head there or not.  Well, I screamed and ran in the house, everyone outside had a heck of a good laugh, and eventually I realized that it was only one of our neighbors.  The story was spread far and wide, to some hilarity, and much shame for me.  But in the end I had the last laugh, because after that, that poor man was always known as "Headless".  Actually, I had the last TWO laughs:  years later I wrote a story sort of based on that, "The Headless Horseman" published in AHMM in 2015. 

The first story I ever published in AHMM (April, 1997) came from those days, too.  "Grown-Ups are All Alike" stemmed from my Kentucky grandmother's next door neighbor's wife.  She was an invalid, and she had her bed in the living room, which I'd never seen before.  We'd visit as a family, of course, but I was also sent over to read to her, though I have no idea why she couldn't read to herself.  (I read my way through many a Reader's Digest that way.)  What I'll never forget is that one year my grandmother talked about her, but she called her a different first name, and that confused me.  

"I thought her name was Sarah."  

"That was his first wife's name," my grandmother explained.  "She died, and he remarried."

"Then why is she still in bed in the living room?"

"Well, she had an accident, and now she's an invalid too.  Some people just don't have any luck but bad luck."

I think we can all see the story potential there.

BTW:  I am the most fortunate person in the world.  "Grown-Ups Are All Alike" was the first mystery story I ever wrote, and I got it published in AHMM!!!!  I still can't believe it.  I really hit the lottery with that one.

There was a difference between my father's relatives and my mother's.  My mother's were all in Kentucky, where the drawl is long and slow and some men sound like they have mush in their mouths.  They take their time, and can keep a story going for many a long hour.  

My father's were all New Yorkers, Greek immigrants, and they talked fast and furiously.  But they were just as good at story telling, and talking around things.  My grandparents lived in a brownstone in Astoria (back when it was an all Greek neighborhood).  When we moved to California, my grandparents sold the brownstone and moved across the street.  Years later, it occurred to me to wonder how in the world my Greek immigrant grandfather got up enough money to buy a brownstone, and asked my father about it.

"Oh, he did a favor for this guy, long time ago, and he gave him a nice little truck route. I've told you about it. We sold pies and stuff to the various bakeries."  

"What kind of favor? Who was the guy?" I asked.

"I don't know what kind of favor, but the guy was some guy named Gambino."  My father gave a mysterious smile, and I will never know if he was joking or not.  

Someday that's going to come up in a story, too...  

***  

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

As you HOPEFULLY know, SleuthSayers' anthology, "Murder, Neat" has won the Derringer Award for Best Anthology!  And now it's a finalist for the Anthony Awards!

Thanks, Michael Bracken and Barb Goffman for a fantastic job of editing, and thanks to all of us weird and wacky SleuthSayers for writing some really wicked stories!  Huzzah!  Huzzah!  Huzzah!

Night Train to Munich

Carol Reed and David Lean were contemporaries, and hit their stride in the immediate postwar years, when British cinema came roaring back from austerity.  Lean was the more celebrated, later, with Lawrence and Zhivago, but for a time, they were neck and neck.  Lean came out with Brief Encounter in 1945, Great Expectations in 1946, and Oliver Twist in 1948.  Reed released Odd Man Out in ‘47, The Fallen Idol in ‘48, and The Third Man in ‘49.  Reed had directed a dozen pictures before the war, while Lean was still making his bones as an editor.  Reed shot Night Train to Munich in 1939, and it was released in 1940. 

They were uncertain times in Britain, as elsewhere.  The movie covers six months, from March to September, 1939, from the German military occupation of Czechoslovakia, to the Polish invasion and the UK declaring war.  The tensions of the picture hinge on that time-frame. 

Night Train has an unconventional structure.  There’s essentially a prologue, the attempted escape from Prague, the break-out from the prison camp, the brush contact with British naval intelligence.  Rex Harrison doesn’t show up until twenty minutes into the movie.  And the clock runs out on the first act with Paul Henreid standing on the conning tower of the sub.  The second act picks up with Harrison doubling back on the Germans, lasts another twenty minutes, and the third begins with Charters and Caldicott reading Mein Kampf and runs to the end of the picture, a breathtaking forty-five minutes.  You don’t notice, because the hour-and-a-half runtime is so tight. 

The screenplay was by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, who wrote The Lady Vanishes, among many others - more on this, below.  According to Gilliat, the source material, a Gordon Wellesley short story, accounted for the first ten minutes of the script, and he and Launder winged the rest.  The inconsistencies and plot holes are paved over with snappy dialogue and terrific pacing.  They never give you pause to reflect. 

Margaret Lockwood made The Lady Vanishes for Hitchcock in 1938, and The Stars Look Down for Carol Reed in 1940, both co-starring Michael Redgrave.  But when Redgrave wasn’t available for Night Train to Munich, they decided on Rex Harrison.  Harrison wasn’t box office; Lockwood was a much bigger name.  But it’s a career-making performance.  Lockwood later told an interviewer, Rex loved getting up in that Nazi military drag, the shiny cavalry boots and the monocle, coming to attention, clicking his heels – and you can see it, his relish in shifting gears, from the clownish and languid Dickie Randall/Gus Bennett to the punctilious and condescending Major Ulrich Herzog, of the Army Corps of Engineers.  He’s barely restrained from licking his lips. 

Paul Henreid is Harrison’s foil, as the SS officer, first an infiltrator in the prison camp, then undercover in Britain, and lastly back in uniform, in Germany.  It was a big part for Henreid (then credited as Paul von Hernried, his billing before he fled Nazi-annexed Austria), although he’d had a substantial supporting role in Goodbye, Mr. Chips the year before.  You might even wonder if Henreid is lined up to be the hero, after he springs Lockwood from a detention camp and smuggles her into England, but not after the spectacular switcheroo in the optometrist’s office.  Henreid’s character is possessive of Lockwood, and he’s a play of light and shadow, his conflicted feelings a flicker behind his eyes.  It gives him greater depth, almost as showy a part as Harrison’s.  His personal suspicions make him second-guess his professional ones.  The final shot of Henreid, left behind to bind his wounds as the cable car reaches safety, is ambiguous, and you’re almost sympathetic with his loss.  He might have given it all up for love. 

And then, Margaret Lockwood.  She was a pretty big draw, beginning in the late 1930’s, but her movie career tanked in the mid-1950’s, which makes no more sense to me than why some people won’t eat potatoes.  Those enormous, luminous eyes, just to begin with.  She got a name playing bad girls in period pictures, some of them re-shot for the American market because too much cleavage showed in Regency costume.  She was twenty-two when she made The Lady Vanishes, and there was talk of teaming her with Michael Redgrave in imitation of William Powell and Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series.  She has an immediacy that seems unrehearsed, and a liveliness, an appetite.  It feels completely genuine. 

Night Train to Munich is sometimes said to be a sequel to The Lady Vanishes, or a variation, but they bear only a slight family resemblance.  The same scriptwriters, a train trip, and, of course, Charters and Caldicott.  The element of madness, the gaslighting, is missing entirely.  And once past the intro, the crowded mountain inn where Iris and Gilbert meet cute, all the action in The Lady Vanishes takes place on the train, which gives it a cramped, claustrophobic quality, a physical trap, for characters trapped by circumstance.  A very Hitchcock device.  Night Train to Munich has its share of the artificial, but no metaphor so literal.  In the Hitchcock, Charters and Caldicott stand in for the audience, skeptical but willing to suspend belief; in Night Train, their function is less whimsical and more dramatically urgent, although they still get in some stiff upper lip zingers.

CHARTERS    Bought a copy of Mein Kampf.  Occurs to me it might shed a spot of light on all this how d’ye do.  [Pages through book]  Ever read it?

CALDICOTT   Never had the time.

CHARTERS    I understand they give a copy to all the bridal couples over here.

CALDICOTT   I don’t think it’s that sort of book, old man. 

Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, who played Charters and Caldicott, went on to play them in a couple of more pictures, and on radio (with Gilliat and Launder scripting, again).  They’re pompous, dense, and endearing. 

The Lady Vanishes is a fantastic movie, one of the best early Hitchcocks, and a box of marvels to unwrap.  You can watch it over and over, and still be charmed every time.  Night Train to Munich is overshadowed by the movies Carol Reed directed just after the war, and because it’s seen as derivative of Lady.  I don’t agree, as I’ve tried to make clear.  You can find it on YouTube, in a very decent print, but for truly crisp and lustrous, get the Criterion DVD.

Words and Phases

My traveling companion and I hit the road after Malice Domestic. We traveled through early May. Bases needed to be touched. After a bit more than a week knocking about the Eastern Seaboard, we have finally returned to Fort Worth.

If I owe you an email, start the clock now. We've been largely incommunicado these last few days.

Today, I am unpacking the flotsam of a mystery convention. In my briefcase, I discovered that I had tucked the April 27th issue of The Washington Post. It contained an op-ed about the resignation of John Ulyot, the spokesperson for the Defense Department. The piece quoted Ulyot talking about why he'd left the administration. "The president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon."

Without getting stalled by the politics, the Yiddish word struck me. According to the Jewish Language Project, mishegoss means foolishness, nonsense, or craziness. The word also describes chaotic actions. I hadn't known the word before I read the article. The expressions I use to chronicle that sort of senseless activity typically involve one or more profanities. I hope to have this gentler word at the ready next time.

I also found a card in my briefcase from friend and fellow short story writer, Mary Dutta. A blog on her webpage introduced me to the French expression l'espirit de l'escalier. She writes that the phrase literally translates to "stairwell wit" and refers to that clever comeback you think of after the moment has passed. Perhaps, as the expression suggests, you find your retort as you descend the stairs on your way out the door. Again, I didn't know the expression until I read her blog. Hopefully, I've tucked it away for future reference.

I don't think I'll be quicker on the rhetorical draw. But at least on future occasions when I'm disappointed by my timing, I'll have a French phrase to explain it.

Mary's blog, by the way, doesn't offer a word for the winded guy who runs back up the stairs and futilely tries to steer the conversation back to the original point so that he can drop the delayed bon mot.

John Ulyot and Mary Dutta got me thinking about words I don't know. In particular, I thought about words that may not exist in English, but we wish they did, so we've swiped them from another language. Schadenfreude is my all-time favorite example.

In the heady atmosphere of a readers and writers convention like Malice Domestic, I get exposed to an array of outstanding short stories. Sometimes I read a story I truly enjoy, but it comes from a place or describes a character so far removed from my experience that I know I could never have conceived of that person or done that place justice. My feelings are full of enjoyment and admiration.

It's when the stories hit closer to home that things get complicated.

© Creative Commons

Occasionally, I read a story where the characters, setting, or theme seem to be within my grasp as a writer. My response can easily become a big stew. I still have the enjoyment and admiration. I ask myself how the author achieved the effect I've felt and what I might learn from her for the next time I sit down to type. There is a pinch of covetousness, perhaps, a wish that I'd thought of the particular twist or developed the characters in that way.

But I don't really like covet as the descriptor. I don't begrudge the author. It's a big pool, and there is room for all of us to play in it. Maybe there's a soupçon of self-flagellation for believing I should have thought of it. Perhaps I need a therapist rather than a thesaurus.

Do you ever read a story that conjures up the mix of similar feelings? Do you have a word for it. If you do, I'd love to learn it.

I might think of it myself, but I'll likely be descending a long stairwell at the time and won't be able to write it down.

Until next time.

Disclaimer

    One of the best movies of the 'Sixties was Rashomon, a beautiful black and white film set in the samurai era by Akira Kurosawa and based on a story by his country man, Ryunosuke Akutagawa. The plot revolves around an assault and murder; a samurai and his wife, traveling through a forest, are attacked by a bandit. When the dust settles, the wife has been raped, the samurai is dead, and the bandit, eventually to be captured, is on the run.

Cate Blachett

    Each of the protagonists presents a radically different view of events, the wife and the bandit in person; the dead samurai, via a trance medium. Unsurprisingly, each story casts the teller in the best possible light, though one commonality is that there is no good ending for the woman in any scenario.

    I thought about Rashomon, seen so long ago, with Disclaimer, the brand new Apple + series by Alfonso Cuaron and based on the Renee Knight novel of the same name. Truth is once again closely related to self interest and self image, but modern society gives far more opportunities for  promoting one's point of view. The samurai, his wife, and the bandit had only their testimony. The characters in Disclaimer have books and websites and photographs and email and messaging.

Kevin Kline

    But as Pontius Pilate asked, What is truth? And how can it be untangled from passion, malice, self interest, shame, hate and guilt? Rashomon took under two hours; Disclaimer takes seven episodes, but both come to similar conclusions, and sad to say, one of them is that societal odds are still stacked against women.

    Just the same, Disclaimer, well cast and quite elegantly photographed, is mostly entertaining with dramatic final episodes. At heart, it is a story of grief becoming toxic and a man finding purpose in revenge after the loss of his son and his wife's depression and eventual death. Played by Kevin Kline, Steven conveys both genuine sorrow and cold, manipulative malice.  

    In this age when print seems old fashioned, it is reassuring for a writer that Steven's chosen instrument of revenge should be a self published novel. But then The Perfect Stranger only needs a handful of readers, beginning with Catherine (Cate Blanchette) the woman he blames for his son's drowning. And though the novel begins with the usual disclaimer that the work is fiction and any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidence, in this case, Steven doesn't mean a word of it.

Leslie Manville

    No, The Perfect Stranger is the absolute truth about a long ago holiday in Italy, and if Catherine or her husband (Sasha Baron Cohen) or son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) have any doubts, well here are some photos to back up the story. And here is an Instagram website purportedly belonging to the long dead Jonathan (Louis Partridge) with more pictures and lots of troll bait. 

    The Perfect Stranger, actually composed by Steven's wife (well played by Leslie Manville), is a genuinely good read. Plus, Steven seems diffident, vulnerable, earnest, and compassionate, even when the viewer already knows his game.

    The structure of the series helps to make him convincing. Contemporary events are intercut with scenes from that long ago Italian summer. These, while absolutely essential to the working out of the plot, are the weakest episodes in the series, with various wrong notes smoothed over by erotic scenes reminiscent of the men's magazines of the last century.

Louis Partridge

    These glimpses of the past certainly could be shorter, but they serve a clever purpose, and viewers who persist will be rewarded with a gripping finale. And some questions, too. With all our tech, are we any closer to accurate knowledge of events than the ill fated trio in Rashomon? Or are we, in fact, more vulnerable to lies, ever rushing to find truth and quick to endorse – and spread ever more exaggerated opinions? Nervous, on the one hand, lest we offend the proprieties of the moment, and on the other going to extremes when we are convinced we are right? 

    Disclaimer is a slick and sometimes manipulative thriller that raises some of the real questions of the moment.

History, Language and Crimes

This is exhausting. Life once seemed like a road to travel - choose the less traveled one or walk the one you know, whatever you wanted, but it was a road going forward. Now, it feels like a merry go round without the fun, just the going round and round part because:

Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

The learning part is missing, hence the round and round part, as well as the language, history and crimes part. 

What have we failed to learn? 

Way back 1946, In Politics and the English Language: An Essay on Writing George Orwell wrote, "if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better."

In 1949, in the Appendix of 1984, The Principles of Newspeak, George Orwell wrote, "The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view...but to make all other modes of thought impossible."

If we travel forward in time to just a few years ago, we will remember a world where infectious diseases like measles were held at bay by a robust uptake of vaccines because vaccines were considered a responsible way to protect our children and those around them. However, today we have measles outbreaks throughout North America because what has decimated vaccinations are antivaxxers words like "freedom". Freedom is defined as, "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action" and its antonyms are "slavery, bondage, captivity, confinement, oppression, imprisonment". One can see why antivaxxers chose the word 'freedom' to describe their dangerous choice. They also tout phrases like, "do your own research" to dismiss the expertise of researchers and doctors and pretending that true expertise can be replaced by internet searches. This language hides the truth of community responsibility, the complicated expertise behind vaccine effectiveness and worst of all, it hides the suffering and deaths caused by these infections. The freedom to cause suffering and death is a freedom no one should want. 

Fast forward to a meeting last week between Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Trump where language was again used to 'corrupt thought'. President Trump revisited the annexation of Canada, claiming the Canada-U.S. border is an "artificially drawn line...Somebody drew that line many years ago with, like, a ruler — just a straight line right across the top of the country... When you look at that beautiful formation, when it's together — I'm a very artistic person — but when I looked at that beaut, I said, 'That's the way it was meant to be.' "

Prime Minister Carney responded by saying, “Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign ... it’s not for sale. Won’t be for sale, ever.”

Prime Minister Carney's response was applauded throughout Canada by the owners of Canada. However, there was a great deal to worry about in that meeting. The U.S. president, on the world stage, touted some dangerous language, inciting some dangerous crimes and all crimes have victims.

Annexation of countries is prohibited by international law and at the core of that law is respect for territorial integrity of countries and their borders:



"The international legal norm that prohibits forcible annexations of territory is foundational to modern international law. It lies at the core of three projects that have been central to the enterprise: (1) to settle title to territory as the basis for establishing state authority; (2) to regulate the use of force across settled borders; and (3) to provide for people within settled borders collectively to determine their own fates." 

This International law should not just be known, but the history of it must be understood as a law born from the atrocities of WWII. German annexation of Austria in 1938 was accomplished without the use of force but with the threat of force. Germany then went on to 'annex' other countries, igniting a world war and then losing that war. When the allies occupied Germany after the war, they did not annex Germany, hence earning the allies a place in history as standing on the side of ethics while German actions have been rightfully scorned. 

The prohibition of annexation was born from the need to protect countries and protect the world from devastating wars. Understanding that history - the difference between those who annex and those who don't - is important. 

What about the talk of calling the Canada-U.S. border an "artificially drawn line"?  Well, that goes hand in hand with annexation because not invading countries means you respect their borders and their right to decide what happens within their borders. 

"Respect for territorial integrity - the principle under international law that nation-states should not attempt to promote secessionist movements or to promote border changes in other nation-states, nor impose a border change through the use of force - is a guiding principle among OSCE participating States under Article IV of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975."

This language of annexing Canada, making it the 51st state, by erasing the borders between the countries is dangerous. Orwell said, "The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view...but to make all other modes of thought impossible." What is missing in this world-view is the illegality of annexation, the respect for borders as crucial for territorial integrity, the history of why annexation is illegal and how it has kept the peace. Basically, the complicated issues and history are replaced with catchphrases. On social media, even democrats opposing Trump have done so by buying his statements, saying they want to be annexed by Canada - a shocking statement indeed. 

If we don't understand and learn from history we are forced to repeat it and the history we should remember is not just recent, it's ongoing - the attempt of Russia to annex the Ukraine has led to a devastating loss of life and the destruction of a way of life for Ukrainians within their borders. The reason annexation is illegal is because, like all crimes, there are victims that suffer. That is what would result in Canada as well if the U.S. attempted to annex us and make no mistake, Canadians understand the risk this poses for the ones they love, the life they love and the country they love. The anger of Canadians is because we understand what is at risk and have no patience with ridiculous jokes about our lives.  

Imagine if this was another action that was once legal and is now illegal, like rape, was turned into a line repeated without acknowledging the ethical and personal implications. It would be outrageous to debate who will rape who, or saying that the use of the word 'no' is artificial and can be ignored. This is exactly what Orwell meant when he wrote, "language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better."

So here we sit, on a merry go round of history not understood, language corrupted and limited to words and phrases failing to encompass any complexity of the concepts and the human costs of crimes. We have learned little from how simple words and phrases dismantled 225 years of robust vaccination. Annexation has been illegal for less than 100 years. What are the chances that it will withstand the new assault with language and how long until countries revert to taking over other countries as if it's not illegal?  

Many of us tried to fight back against antivaxxers, and now we're fighting against annexation - the language, the simplicity of thought, the shrugging off of complexity and human suffering - it's all the same. So, round and round we go. While some have conversations about annexation with smiles on their faces, nodding in agreement, the rest of us are drowning in frustration, sadness and fury at the suffering and crimes their words are hiding. Language is being bastardized - removed from the history of words, the grave issues those words entail and this is a call for crimes to be committed with no regard for the victims impacted. When Putin called for the annexation of the Ukraine, the rest of the world was appalled and the resulting death and destruction has broken our hearts. Yet, a few years later when President Trump calls for the annexation of Canada, he is surrounded by supporters nodding, smiling and speaking with the media supporting this horrific action. 

This is the exhausting round and round trip we're on - all it would take is a deeper understanding of history and language to get off the roundabout and walk forward on an open road again.

The Foot Is What You Need It to Be, and an Ox Gave You the Mile

My bookcase was in the wrong spot somehow, like a feng shui thing. Moving it across the room could open up everything. Maybe, if the spot was wide enough. I didn't have a measuring device handy, but seriously, our ancestors tamed fire and wolves using only their wits. So I measured the bookcase the old-fashioned way. 

I walked it heel-to-toe. 

And as I did, I had a thought: This is a horrible way to measure things. A Bob foot depends on how straight I step, whether I'm wearing shoes and how clunky. But that's exactly how those ancestors built up our world, by body part intervals. It's a weird and wonderful story.

Old School

A finger is a common measure across history. A Sumerian noir detective might splash a few fingers of Mesopotamian hooch. Or a hand's worth, the width of the palm. A span measures extended fingertips from the thumb to the little finger. A fathom is the length of outstretched arms, which helped sailors mark off rope for sounding lines. As a bonus, arm span approximates human height. If water is more than a fathom deep, your feet don't touch the bottom. 

The Babylonians and Sumerians were all about the arm. Specifically, the cubit, or a forearm's length from the elbow to the middle finger's tip. The Egyptians got together on a standard, the Royal Cubit (20.6 modern inches). Approved measuring devices--cubit rods and ropes knotted at cubit intervals--made sure nobody went rogue. The Royal Cubit built the pyramids. 

The cubit was the way to go until Greeks stepped in with an idea. Literally. 

To the Greeks, measuring by arms and elbows had an obvious limitation: The world is a big place. They weren't about to go around planning city-states and sea routes with arms and rope. 

"Check it out," the Greeks said. "We're walking around on measuring devices super ideal for distance." The human foot, or a Greek pous (podes in plural), the length of a foot wearing a shoe or sandal. A pace, or a walking step with each foot falling once, equaled 5 podes.

If pacing seems like a variable standard, it was. Taller Greeks took longer strides. Younger ones strode more briskly. Was the pace-taker in good health? Going uphill or downhill? What were the weather and ground conditions? Ten Greeks taking 120 paces would travel ten different distances. The local pous could be anything from 12.4 to 12.7 modern inches. Over 120 paces, that's a six-foot swing.

Still, the Greeks were stepping out distances. The critical distance was 600 podes (120 paces), or a stadion -- literally, "to stand" or "standard." The total harmonized with the Greek base-60 system for precise measurements--a Babylonian idea still around today for marking time, longitude and latitude, and celestial coordinates. The stadion also became a standard track length for footraces. Over time, those races were so popular that the length name latched onto the events and tracks themselves.

The Roman Standard

Unsurprisingly, the Romans borrowed the Greek system. A pous became a pes, and podes became pedes. But the Romans, thinking in scalable terms, used a base-10 decimal system for big stuff like bulk trading and infrastructure. A Roman surveyor stepping off distances had to keep going to a nice, round 1,000 paces--or in Latin, the mille passus. 

Variability was intolerable if you were set on marching around and expanding your influence, which the Romans were. And the Romans could organize.

In the Empire, all roads really did lead to Rome. Their road network moved soldiers and officials expeditiously along mapped routes to even the farthest outpost. Those Roman surveyors used odometers to measure and map their precise-ish distances. At each standard mile, the Romans placed obelisks or stones--millaria--notionally to mark the distance from the Forum. 

More to the point, everyone knew who was in charge. 

Rome stretched the Greek stadion to 625 paces (pedes), or a one-eighth mille. Sporting-wise, the Romans lengthened and looped their tracks for chariot racing (the circus) and more graphic sports. Like the Greeks, Romans just called the whole entertainment venue the Latinized stadium. 

It was quite a time for distance measurements. Order and function.

Well, Rome fell.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Out on their island, all post-Roman, the Old English Anglo-Saxons were getting bloody attached to land measures not based on body parts. The Anglo-Saxon idea? Oxen.

The idea focused on area. The Anglo-Saxons clustered their farmland near rivers, and crucially, they kept oxen to help out. It's no fun turning an ox team and plow. Both dynamics meant most Old English parcels were long but thin. 

A key distance became the "rod." The word had meant a pole or a perch, from the Roman pertica, a pike-ish stick of varying lengths and used for surveying land. Or, of course, for goading oxen. The Anglo-Saxons gauged a rod at fifteen feet. This was the Germanic long foot, roughly 13.2 modern inches.

The oxen couldn't have cared less about math and ratios, but they were invested in their workload. "Aha," the Anglo-Saxons said, having noted how far an oxen team usually plowed without a rest. The Anglo-Saxons dubbed that a furrow's length--a furhlang, or eventually a furlong. The acre ran one furlong long by four rods wide, or what an oxen team could plow in one day. An oxgang--15 acres--was how much an ox could handle over a whole plowing season. 

As not to give the oxen too much say, the Anglo-Saxons improved their survey tools and huddled up on a standard. Everyone decided a furlong should be 600 feet, comprised of 40 rods or 200 yards. Well done, all.

Then the Normans came along. Being the continental sort, they weren't sold on ox-based distances, not at all, and they set about implementing proper Roman distances. The main obstacle was immediate. Immovable. Everyone's property lines were measured in long-established rods and furlongs and taxed accordingly. Using the shorter 12-inch Norman foot would've recalculated each holding to more acreage, which risked a major tax hike and likely revolt. 

How, then, did the Normans solve for converting oxen steps to human paces?

They didn't. The furlong remained at its Germanic length--but it would be comprised of 660 Norman feet, not 600 Germanic ones. A rod stayed a rod--with a 10% promotion from 15 to 16.5 feet. 

Tax crisis averted. Still, England was a growing power. Having its land, sea, and economic interests measured differently left the Crown at sixes and sevens. Someone needed to sort it out.

Cut to 1593. Elizabethan decision-makers were in whatever royal planning committee, everybody stewing over how the whole realm needed global scale but was anchor-tied to rods and furlongs. Fair play to the oxen, the planners admitted. "Oy," Duke Someone said, "what about the Romans and their stadium one-eighth mile business? That was what, 600-something feet? Couldn't we just go with that?" 

They did precisely that. Elizabeth I proclaimed eight Germanic furlongs to be an English mile comprised of 5,280 Norman feet. In 1959, that distance was codified as the international mile, which was greeted with a shrug in Rome. They'd long since moved to the kilometer.

Meanwhile, in my Basement

There I was, measuring a bookcase by stepping it off heel-to-toe. In Skechers, size 8.5. The bookshelf was pretty much five Bob feet wide--too wide by half a Bob foot. For the record, a Bob foot is essentially the length they used back in Rome. 

The bookcase and its flow situation sit as they were. I'm cool with one thing, though. Even in failure, I'd joined an ancient tradition based on body shapes and imperial whim and even oxen work ethic, a tradition of measuring badly--but accurately.

The official Bob foot, shod

Behind the Scenes: Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Chunked

On Wednesday, I learned Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Chunked: Crime Fiction Inspired by Waffle House (Down and Out Books), is nominated for an Anthony Award for best anthology.

It is an amazing honor and privilege to have co-edited an anthology with my mentor and friend, Michael Bracken. I could not have imagined a more PERFECT moment than when we received this incredible news. 

 

Michael mentioned in a recent SleuthSayers post that he doesn’t view an anthology award as an editor’s award; he views it like the Academy Award for Best Picture because it reflects the work of an entire team of people—editors and writers, our cover designer, and publisher—to succeed. I share his view and am deeply grateful for our team of talented contributors including stories written by Alan S. Orloff, Nils Gilbertson, J.D. Allen, Mark Bergin, Bonnar Spring, Austin S. Camacho, Tammy Euliano, Ann Aptaker, Penny Mickelbury, Donna Andrews, Sherry Harris, Deb Merino, Sean McCluskey, Michael Bracken, Andrew Welsh-Huggins, Hugh Lessig, and the brilliant cover designed by Angela Carlton. 

This is my first published anthology sitting in a co-editor’s seat. How did I get so lucky? The short answer is Michael Bracken. 

Birth of an Idea

In 2018, I attended Malice Domestic for the first time and met Michael Bracken. He was my port in the speed dating storm. It was a pivotal moment in my writing career (more on that here). During the years that followed, I had an opportunity to contribute stories to several of his anthologies, including one story we co-wrote together that was short-listed for a Derringer Award. Often, we met for lunch at writing conferences, and our conversation always turned to anthology ideas. I had the best time brainstorming with him and quickly learned which anthology ideas worked and why others didn’t.

 

So, in May 2023, it wasn’t unusual that I sent Michael an email with another anthology idea, two proposed titles for one concept: The Pull, The Drop, The Mark OR Scattered, Covered, Smothered, and Chunked: Crime Fiction Inspired by Waffle House. 

 

He thought the idea was promising, suggested a revised title (featured on the cover), and asked if I would like to co-edit the project with him. I had little experience. The opportunity to learn from Michael was something I couldn’t pass up. I quickly agreed, and it has been a master class.

 

Takeaways Co-editing with the Master

Shared Vision

Both editors need to share the same vision for an anthology. This vision shapes submission guidelines, influences how stories are edited, and who is invited to contribute.

 

Workflow

Version control is critical. Mistakes are easy to make, especially when two people are editing the same project. Before the project begins, decisions need to be made on which editor communicates directly with authors, which editor communicates with the publisher, and workflow—how stories are received, labeled, stored, and move through the editing process. 

 

Deadlines

Life happens, often things we can’t predict—a death in the family, illness, home repairs, etc. It’s important to create realistic deadlines with these moments in mind.

 

Assembling the Team

Several factors determine which type of submission call works for which project. With time constraints and juggling several projects, Michael and I decided submission by invitation only had to be our approach. We reached out to authors we admired—both multi-award winning and rising stars.

 

Working with the Publisher

Understanding the publisher’s requirements and deadlines are crucial. The finished manuscript should be formatted to the publisher’s specifications, and each step in the process—checking the publisher’s copyedits, reviewing the page proofs, checking the cover copy, and collaborating on the cover image—should all happen in a prompt and professional manner.

 

Working with the Authors

Maintaining communication with contributors builds trust and respect. Michael insisted we maintain regular contact with our contributors and send updates during each step in the process. I appreciated this as a contributor to Michael’s anthologies. Now, having co-edited an anthology, I also appreciate the extra effort this requires and the importance of maintaining a professional relationship with authors.

 

Have you co-edited an anthology? Are you an author who worked with more than one editor on a project? What insights can you share?

***

Speaking of teams, we are assembling one in New Orleans! If you love waffles and crime fiction stories, we hope you will celebrate this incredible Anthony Award nomination with us, along with the awards our contributors have recently received for their Waffle House-inspired stories. 

Tammy Euliano’s “Heart of Darkness” won the Derringer Award for best short story of the year. 

Sean McCluskey’s “The Secret Menu” was selected by Otto Penzler and John Grisham for Mysterious Bookshop's anthology: The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2025.

Want to read Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Chunked: Crime Fiction Inspired by Waffle House? Find it here.

 

Find me at Bouchercon (September 3-7), mention Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Chunked, and receive waffle-inspired swag in honor of our talented team. Hope to see you there!

 

 

 

Mitchell and Webb say Watch Your Language

 My favorite British sketch comedians are back with  some advice for office workers.

Schrodinger's Finalist

 

"Well, Mickey, it's an exciting day here in Robert Lopresti's house."

"It sure is, Ray.  Maybe we better tell the people why."

"Good idea.  This is the morning of May first, when the winners of the Derringer Awards are announced.  And as you know, Lopresti has been nominated for best novella."

"Which of his stories was that for, Ray?"

"'Christmas Dinner.'"

"That's right! I believe it was his third story about Delgardo, the beatnik detective--"

"Beat poet, Mickey.  The character hates being called a beatnik."

"Right you are, Ray. And we are here waiting to find out whether Lopresti won the Award or bombed.  Say, isn't he usually awake by now?"

"I believe he is."

"So why is he sleeping late on today of all days?"

"Maybe because this is the big day.  I mean, he might be the winner or he might not.  As long as he doesn't check his mail you might say both states are possible. (Chuckle.) Sort of like Schrodinger's cat."

"I've always felt bad about that cat.  Somebody ought to call the Humane Society."

"There was never a real cat, Mickey.  It's just-- Wait! Here he is. Lopresti has left the bedroom.  I see he has his phone in his hand and he's scrolling down the screen."

"The suspense is incredible, Ray.  When is he going to--"

"And there it is!  You can see it in his face.  That's a man who just lost."

"You know what he'll say, Ray.  It's an honor just to be nominated."

"That's true, it is. What's he doing now?"

"It looks like, yes, he's making a cup of tea.  That's quite a bold move."

"What do you mean, Mickey?"

"If I had just lost I would be drinking bourbon."

"At seven o'clock in the morning? Are you out of your--  Well, never mind.  Go in and interview him."

"Right.  Will do.  This is exclusive, folks. The first interview after the big loss.  Excuse me, Rob, I wonder if you have a few minutes--"

"Who are you and what the hell are you doing in my kitchen?"

"I'm a fictional construct."

"Oh. Another one. I swear, I'm gonna hire an exterminator."

"The fans were hoping for your thought on losing the Derringer Award."

 "Were they? Okay.  It's an honor just to be a finalist."

"I thought you were going to say to be a nominee."

"The Short Mystery Fiction Society tries to avoid that word, because any member or editor can submit a story for consideration. Some people call that a 'nomination,' which leads to all kinds of confusion."

"I see. But about your losing, that must be a great disappointment."

"Well, sure, I'd rather win -- which I have three times, by the way -- but I am delighted that Stacy Woodson, a friend and fellow SleuthSayer, took the prize. She turned in a great story. There's no shame in losing to the best."

"That's very big of you."

"Thanks. Oh, and don't forget that the SleuthSayers book Murder, Neat won the Best Anthology prize, and that's pretty special.  And I found out today a story I submitted was accepted for the New Orleans Bouchercon anthology."

"So, you aren't retiring."

"Hell, no."

"And what's next for Robert Lopresti?"

 "Tea. Probably a Danish, too."

"And after that?"

"I have to write a SleuthSayers essay for next Wednesday."

"What will it be about?"

"No clue.  I'll think of something."

"And there he goes, folks. A true professional.  With a Danish. It's apricot, I think. Back to you in the studio, Ray."