Category Archives: Writing

January 11, 2012

Book Review for Writers: “Long Lost,” by Harlan Coben


Long Lost, by Harlan Coben
Source: My mother cleaned out her bookshelves and gave me a hard-cover edition
Kindle price: $9.99
Publisher: Signet; 1 edition (March 31, 2009)
POV: First person, locked

This is my third Harlan Coben book, and likely my last. My wife calls his books “candy.” And no, that’s not chocolate, which has depth and character. This is pure high-fructose corn syrup.

Lack of depth characterizes candy. It’s all on the tongue, very little in the throat, nothing in the stomach. Yeah. That’s Coben.

Example for learning purposes: The main character, Myron Bolitar, is gut-shot and tortured (including waterboarding — no popular writer seems to be able to resist waterboarding these days) for sixteen days in one of those infamous “dark sites” that our government wants us to believe either doesn’t exist or exists for our own good (candy laced with poison?).

When Myron returns, he goes straight back to his office to work. Not without symptoms, of course. Coben’s not saccharine. Here’s how Myron feels while he’s working (page 231 of the hardback): “I felt jittery and anxious for reasons I can’t explain. I even bit my nails, something I hadn’t done since I was in the fourth grade, and searched my body for scabs I could pick.” Like maybe the scabs from the bullet entry and exit wounds? And nail-biting, oh dear, that must be one of the worst post-traumatic stress syndrome symptoms on the market. My point is, this is cardboard, shallow, weak. Not believable.

And then there’s Myron’s sidekick, Win. Scion of an ultra-rich family. Expert in all the firepower and deadly arts money can buy. Win is like Myron’s super power, called upon only when Myron has to get out of a scrape no mere mortal can escape. Except even Win isn’t powerful enough to save Myron from the waterboarding and his rather ordinary rendition. What a weak super power.

As for story structure, the first three chapters are like a short story that have almost nothing to do with the rest of the book. I usually read Kindle Samples of a book before I “buy,” which is more about choosing to read than an expenditure of money. For this book, the Sample would have led me wholly astray.

Okay, I’ll stop complaining. It’s hard, actually, to extract nutritional learning from high-fructose storytelling. Worse, it’s rather depressing, because readers seem to love candy (in a nation of diabetics and obese people, that’s a huge surprise). Harlan Coben is right up there with James Rollins and James Patterson for supplying the hungry masses with junk food for their reading eyes.

Lessons for writers:

  1. To hone your shallow writing skills, focus on action over character development at every opportunity.
  2. Magic (in the form, in this case, of a friend who is rich and demented enough to do almost anything) can get your main character out of almost any plot hole, which can save the writer tons of work.
  3. If this is the kind of writing you do, please, please charge $0.99 for your Kindle books, because frankly, even that’s over-charging the buyer.

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January 4, 2012

Book Review for Writers: “Banker,” by Dick Francis


Banker, by Dick Francis
Source: I’m a Dick Francis fan and the Kindle Sample convinced me to buy
Kindle price: $7.99
Publisher: Berkley (November 2, 2010)
POV: First person, locked

Every Dick Francis novel I’ve read (three, I think) have something in common: They open slowly.

Oh, they’re interesting enough. He has a gentle but firm scoop — those critical first few chapters. But they’re merely interesting, not explosive as in most American thrillers (Francis is British). Each book has been in first person locked (meaning we stay with the protagonist POV throughout with no exceptions — though Francis does slip into an omniscient POV on rare occasion, though it’s so natural it’s hard to notice), and each is essentially a flashback, with the protagonist telling the tale of what happened to him.

On the face of it, the story seems boring: Tim Ekaterin works in a bank. In the absence of his boss who has health problems, he approves a loan for a racehorse, which is put out to stud, and begins to father malformed offspring. And yet Francis escalates the story to nearly frantic proportions two-thirds of the way through. Someone, it seems, is manipulating the system.

So let’s back up and look at it from a distance. A writerly distance. It’s almost as if Francis doesn’t intend to set his plot hook in the early scenes of the book. He makes the reader invest a little by reading about relatively common, even almost boring, things (I mean, banking?). He sows just enough doubt and intrigue for the naturally curious to want to know more. So readers keep reading, but with little warning of how big the plot becomes.

How powerful is that? To a reader, it can be very powerful indeed, as I can attest. To chase and overcome is a glorious thing. After the short chase of readers following his slowly growing story, Francis sets a smallish hook (someone manipulating the system of horse-racing finances) that proves quite effective in pulling the reader almost helplessly along to the end.

The first third of the book is slow but interesting. The second third is revelatory. The last is as high-speed as a horse race. It’s a very unAmerican way to craft a story, it seems to me.

Lessons for writers:

  1. Readers can discover things on their own, we don’t have to shove them down their throat.
  2. Well-written everyday events can be compelling reading if there’s the slightest whiff of something more to come.
  3. Readers who discover things on their own are more invested and a smaller plot hook will set and pull them along.

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December 5, 2011

Communication: “Three Things to Think Before you Write,” by Jeff Posey

Novelist Zoe Winters recently blogged about how to write faster (“The 10,000 Word Day“). Her trick? Not to spoil her show, but basically she took time to think about what she would write before she wrote it.

That got me to thinking about the most important things you can think before you write. Whether it’s for a corporate employee audience or a novel. This is a crucial part of the creative process.

#3 Voice

Yeah, that’s right, voice. Who is speaking? In fiction, you want to fully know the sound of your speaking characters (even omniscient narrators) and how it comes across to readers. Be a reader and imagine it.

Similarly, for corporate audiences, in what voice are you speaking? Like a bullhorn announcement in a bustling factory? A rah-rah coach? A monotone of robot-like efficiency?

Only when your mind really hears the voice of what you’re trying to say in your writing will you have the strongest and most appropriate voice.

#2 Motivation(s)

Few people are motivated by only one thing. And often, the primary motivation is hidden beneath a smokescreen of rationalized motivations. This goes for both fiction and corporate writers.

We all know that many corporate decisions labeled as one thing are really about something else, something unspoken. It’s your job as a professional communicator to not fall for the propaganda, even if you write. To master the delivery of your message, you must understand all the underlying forces, or you could risk saying and inciting something you didn’t intend.

How can you find that out in a corporate environment? Here’s a useful rule of thumb: Ask the “why” question several times until you get stonewalled, then assume they’re hiding the worst.

I’m only partly kidding.

#1 Setting

A desert? Heat and wind and sand? Or a hospital bed?

Context is as powerful as voice and motivation combined. Ask yourself what is going on around the story you are trying to tell. What is left unsaid? Why is it left unsaid? Does everyone know it but no one will talk about it?

The setting, in corporate stories, is often cited as obstacles to satisfying the underlying motivations: dire economic times, threat of union strike, impending buyout. A story that’s innocent in one context can be inflammatory in another.

After you’ve pondered each of these three things deeply, then you’re in a better position to begin writing (kicking off the part of the creative process that gives you written evidence of your output). Perhaps you can then crank out the best first draft in your life.

What do you think about before you write? How much time do you spend thinking before beginning to write?

 

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October 29, 2011

“Indie Publication Schedule: Self-Driven Deadlines,” by Jeff Posey

All businesses need business plans. An indie publisher needs a publication schedule. For a one-writer indie shop like my Hot Water Press, that means self-driven deadlines.

But I’ll get to those in a moment. First, take a look at this outrageous rankings chart for The Witchery of Flutes, the only book I have available at the moment on Kindle and Nook:

I find this rather crazy, especially the snaggle-tooth gyrations on the right half. On Oct. 14, someone bought my book and it jumped in rank from near 240,000 all the way up to 90,000 or so. For one book purchase. If you can jump over 150,000 books with one purchase, what does that tell us? It tells us that books out of the top 50,000 or so sell virtually no copies.

I’ll watch this chart with great interest after I’ve published my third book in December, which is when I plan to start marketing. I feel certain it will take much more than a handful of sales to jump into the top 10,000 ranked books.

Hot Water Press Publication Schedule

Let me say that this is more for me than for you or any of my readers. And I reserve the right to change my mind. By date, here is what I intend to produce in the first year:

October 1, 2011: Publish my first collection of short stories, The Witchery of Flutes, to Amazon Kindle. Done!

October 15, 2011: Publish The Witchery of Flutes to Barnes & Noble PubIt! (Nook). Done!

November 1, 2011: Publish my novel, Less Than Nothing, to Kindle and Nook. Done!

December 1, 2011: Publish my novel, Anasazi Runner, to Kindle and Nook.

January 1, 2012: Publish a single short story to Kindle and Nook.

January 15, 2012: Publish all titles to Smashwords to pick up ereaders other than Kindle and Nook.

February 1, 2012: Publish a single short story and a six-pack collection of short stories.

March 15, 2012: Publish all titles other than short-story singles to CreateSpace for POD (Print On Demand) hard copies.

Monthly in 2012: Publish a single short story, with a collection every other month or so.

April 1, 2012: Publish my new novel Baxter’s Gold.

September 1, 2012: Publish my nonfiction book Communications Efficiency: How Corporate Communications Can Do More With Less.

Total Titles Published by October 1, 2012: 25

That’s a pretty aggressive plan. Can I really do it? Yeah, I think I can.

I’m certain I can write a polished short story per month or more, and two novels a year, plus a nonfiction business book. Counting the shorts as single titles and combining them into two six-pack collections each year, that’s seventeen (17) titles per year.

I’m basically following Robert A. Heinlein’s Business Rules:

“1. You must write.

2. You must finish what you start.

3. You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.

4. You must put it on the market.

5. You must keep it on the market until sold.”

via Dean Wesley Smith » Heinlein’s Business Rules.

And the paraphrased advice of Joe Konrath: “The most valuable thing a professional writer can do is write.”

Next week, we’ll take a look at how Hot Water Press ensures quality, and my plans to continuously raise the bar of professionalism.

What do you think? How many titles a year makes sense for a one-man indie press to crank out? And do you really think there’s a market for short stories (I’m skeptical)?

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October 18, 2011

“How Did That Happen? Analysis of a Creative Moment,” by Jeff Posey

Meryl K. Evans asks a hard question: “What helped make that possible?”

She asked this about my reply to her original question, “What was memorable today for you? I answered, “The arc of a character I’ve been building for two months finally became clear!” You know. One of those cheeky Twitter conversations.

But then Meryl asked what had made that moment possible. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how valuable it is to understand what makes high-creative moments possible.

In my particular case of today, which we’ll use as our specimen, I had a sudden lull in client work. After a morning of designing and writing an original idea for a corporate end-user’s guide to a new HR website, my client work went away for the rest of the afternoon.

What I did next I blame on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which begins November 1. I’ve been noodling around a novel idea for a couple months using sticky notes on a big piece of white three-panel cardboard like school kids use for science fairs. When I had the lull in my client work, I decided to spend a couple hours staring at my story board and making notes. November 1 fast approaches.

I picked my most difficult character (Baxter) and began working on his motives at different parts of the plot arc. I wrote two pages of notes about his back-story in my writing journal. Then I stopped and just stared for a good long while. Probably looked catatonic. Or like I took a nap while sitting up. I imagined in a dreamlike kind of fast-motion Baxter moving through the story. I also imagined a few scenes with Baxter from the viewpoints of my other two main characters.

And that’s when it struck me. I stood up. Slapped my writing journal closed. Started pacing. I knew where Baxter had to go in the story. Faced with either redemption or murder, he chooses … to run away. Made me sad to realize that. I’d been rooting for murder. My wife had been rooting for redemption.

So what did we have here? I studied the Management of Creativity in college as a special MBA track before I changed to something that challenged me more because of my innate ignorance — financial analysis. What I found in those studies, and what I experienced today with the Baxter character, is these essential conditions for creativity:

  1. Personal space
    If people watch or judge what you’re doing or what you look like, it’s stifling — unless you have amazing powers of concentration.
  2. A deadline
    If you’ve got time to put something off, your creative mind will take that opportunity to put it off.
  3. Compost
    Rich material, experiential and intellectual, from which the creative solution can be grown, and that has been allowed to fester in a stress-free environment for a little while.
  4. Recognition
    Allow yourself to know when it comes out so you can capture it.

I believe if you give yourself (and others) these things, you’ll find creative stuff burbling out of you like a hot spring.

See this blog post for a corporate creativity management perspective: “Corporate Communications Efficiency: Managing Creativity,” by Jeff Posey

Does this ring true for your creative moments? What’s different for you? And thanks, Meryl, for making me think.

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September 19, 2011

“Corporate Communications Efficiency: Never Beat Your Deadline,” by Jeff Posey

Regular musings on corporate communications efficiency, a sketchbook for my book in progress, “Commfficiency: How To Do More With Less in Corporate Communications.”

That’s right. Never beat your deadline. Never.

This is a hard-learned lesson because it took me a good decade to realize what was happening.

At first, I thought I was doing a favor to my boss and/or subject-matter experts who needed to review my material before publication. After all, they were busy people. Giving them a little more time before their hard deadline kicked in seemed, well, nice. Respectful. Professional.

It’s not.

In fact what you’re doing is giving them time to over-think the material in your draft. They read it once, set it aside, then all the little niggling worries start cropping up in their heads. They read it again. And again. And pretty soon, they’ve second-guessed everything about the content of the draft and worried over every political angle and echo.

So you get back a draft that looks like it’s been through a shredder. You’re pretty much back to starting over, only this time you have immense deadline pressure.

You do the best you can do, of course, operating at a much lower standard than your first (early) draft. You just want to make the paper shredder happy.

They’re not, of course, and they shred some more. The second-hand is ticking toward the hard deadline. You squeeze out another draft, the muscles in your neck and shoulders bunched hard as marbles. The reviewer frantically nods their head, when you wave it in front of their face, more a prayer than a conscientious approval. Then it’s out the door in a third “final” draft. To publication or layout or whatever.

That’s what happens, more often than not, when you beat your deadline.

Now let’s look at what happens when you meet your deadline.

It’s the same draft as in the first scenario, of course, but your reviewer is under more time pressure. They don’t have the luxury of performing a major shred of paranoia. So they manage to set aside their milder fears and focus on the big issues, the things they’re paid more money than you to watch out for, and they hand it back to you with only minor shreds. You address their changes, read it over several times, and then pass it along for final review and out the door.

If you’re really brave, or if you’re dealing with a reviewer who seems to take pride in their scorched-earth policy of reviewing your work, you can intentionally miss your deadline. It’s the old Squeeze Play. Make sure your reviewer knows the hard deadline. Then wait for them to scream to you that they need it to do their final review. Make excuses. Sit on your hands. Bite your nails. Rock back and forth in your seat. And when they show up at your door breathing fire, then give it to them.

I can almost guarantee they’ll make fewer and more minor revisions to your draft than if you’d given it to them on deadline (or, heaven forbid, before your deadline). It’s not wise to pull the Squeeze Play every time. In fact, you should rarely use it. But sometimes, it can do wonders for making the system work for you rather than against you.

What’s your experience with beating deadlines? About meeting them? About missing them?

 

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September 12, 2011

“Corporate Communications Efficiency: Managing Creativity,” by Jeff Posey

Regular musings on corporate communications efficiency, a sketchbook for my book in progress, “Commfficiency: How To Do More With Less in Corporate Communications.”

Creativity is elusive. What is it? What is its value? How can you manage it (in yourself and others)?

First, let’s think about where the power of creativity lies in the Big Lazy S. After we’ve shortened the flat arms to either side, all that’s left is input with exceptionally high output — that’s creativity in action.

Now, of course, a personal story to illustrate.

In my second month of my new job as manager of communications at an architectural and engineering firm, this guy kept talking about “Fiesta Making.”

I snorted a laugh when he first said it. He gave me a puzzled look and continued talking about Fiesta Making with a straight face.

That night, I told my wife this new company had a Fiesta Department and I resolved to get to the bottom of it. “Just make sure the wives are invited to the fiestas,” she said. I’m certain visions of free frozen margaritas danced in her head.

I made subtle inquires to people who had good humor, to no effect. The Fiesta Making seemed a deep secret except to this one guy who continued to preach it to me.

Then, of course, the epiphany. The guy pointed to a sheet of paper he had slid in front of me as he uttered the magic phrase. Fiesta Making. But his finger rested on the words “Fee Estimating.”

Embarrassing moment or a chance for some creative employee communications? The second, of course.

I wrote a short and funny column about misunderstanding architectural and engineering terminology and asked readers to give examples of things they had misunderstood when they were new to the field.

The response was quick, strong, and sustained over several months. We gathered a great list of terms that were easily misunderstood by newbies, with funny assumed definitions to boot. Human Resources loved it. Even some high-level leaders played along. People I’d never even met started talking to me and joking with me in meetings. It became a watershed moment in employee communications at the company. My boss called it “brave.”

When I arrived at the company, fewer than one in five employees bothered to look at the company intranet on any given week. When I left a couple years later, nearly nine in ten visited it each week. I credit this one communications event, this Fiesta Making story, with loosening up the audience to become receptive to a new and growing channel.

What value can we place on that single moment of creativity, that moment of insight, that led me to write a self-deprecating humor column?

Scientific managers and accountants and statisticians won’t like it, but my gut says that was a golden moment worth a lot, especially with the clarity of hindsight. It was a game-changer with an effect that shadowed over two years. I give it a 1,000:1 payoff.

Yes, creativity is truly that valuable.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s another story that’s true, except I’ve scrubbed it so much it can’t be traced to my source.

Imagine an engineer sitting back in his chair, hands behind his head, feet on his desk. For a week. His output is zero. He’s the poster child for goof-off. His manager is about to blow a gasket.

Then he bursts into his boss’s office one morning and can barely contain himself. He’s had a brilliant insight that allows the company to build bridges and overpasses with strong, lighter, less-expensive material, which is ultimately worth more than $100 million to the company.

If that engineer never worked another moment in his life, his act of creativity would have justified his salary through retirement.

Let’s say the engineer earns a nice salary and benefits of $4,000 per week (the week he was a goof-off). $100 million to $4,000 is a ratio of 25,000:1.

Yeah. Makes my Fiesta Making moment chump change at 1,000:1.

When I earned my MBA from the University of Dallas, I lobbied for and won a special emphasis track: The Management of Creativity. I subsequently changed to a more common track, Corporate Financial Management, because I realized my ignorance of finance and my innate understanding of creativity (after having worked for a decade on two general-interest magazine staffs, and a half-decade as a book publisher). My motivation to fill in the blanks of ignorance won out over my motivation to learn what I already knew.

My point is that I’ve thought and studied long and hard on creativity and its management. In subsequent parts of “Communications Efficiency: Managing Creativity,” we’ll examine:

  • The measurement of creativity
  • How to encourage yourself and others to be creative
  • How to defend creative ideas to the boss

Until then, I leave you with links to PDFs of two creativity research papers I prepared in MBA school, both of them relevant to managing creative communications workers:

                                  

Do you have any stories to share about creativity? When has it boosted you (professionally) above the daily ordinary? How do you allow and encourage creativity for yourself?

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August 24, 2011

“How We Do Location Research for our Novels,” by Mandy Mikulencak and Jeff Posey

This is from a conversation about location research for novels I had with Mandy Mikulencak. Mandy and I met at this year’s Dallas-Fort Worth Writers’ Conference. We both recently spent about a week doing location research for our next novels and decided to talk about it by email with an eye to crafting it into a joint blog. That’s exactly what we did.

Jeff

I know you just returned from Opelika, Alabama, to do research for your next novel. How in the world did you latch onto Opelika as a location?

Mandy

Opelika latched onto me!  About 18 months ago, two lovely ‘suthun’ lady friends invited me for a long weekend at a lake house in Salem, AL. I was working on my first book and loved being treated to their laughter, their comforting drawls and Southern hospitality. They mentioned the nearby town of Opelika but we never left the house so I put it out of my mind. Tried to put it out of my mind.

Then, on my flight home, I couldn’t stop thinking about Opelika. The word itself wouldn’t leave my thoughts. I scribbled a few book titles and before I knew it, I had the title of my next book: The Opelika Ladies Murder Society. I said to myself, I don’t want to write a murder mystery. And those ‘voices’ said “OH, YES YOU DO!”

Over the next year, I finished up the first book and a second book I had in progress. Then, out of the blue, my husband suggested we make a quick trip to Opelika, AL, for on-the-ground research. I think he wanted to go there because of the world-class golf in that area of the country! And I said, “oh why the hell not.”

Jeff

Don’t you wonder sometimes whether we’re truly the writers — or whether there’s a secret galactic box somewhere that just uses us to  tell stories?

I know what you mean by stories latching on to us. I’d doggedly hiked nearly every trail in the Weminuche Wilderness in Southern Colorado (near you in Durango), but I’d avoided all the ancient Anasazi ruins in that part of the world because I thought they’d be boring.

Then on a trip with my son to the Chimney Rock Archaeological Area between Durango and Pagosa Springs, this boy ran across our path. I put my hand out to keep my son from running into him. The boy was a figment of my imagination, of course. A figment I couldn’t shake. Hence my surrender to the grip of the galactic box that wanted me to write Anasazi historical fiction.

I just returned from Pagosa Springs on a book research trip. I took a class in making authentic Anasazi pottery (see more here: Ancient Arts Chimney Rock Workshop). I find myself looking mostly for experiences, sensual input I guess. Do you do that as well? Do you intentionally seek out a place, perhaps at a certain time or date, just to see what it feels like?

Mandy

I absolutely believe in something like that secret galactic box ‘choosing’ us to be the vessel for the story that needs to be told. I had titles for all three books come to me in a very out-of-body woo-woo way, and I just had to say, “Okay. I’ll get started…”

I love the idea of ‘sensual input’ in regards to research. That’s exactly how it felt in Opelika. The story takes place in July and I visited in July so I experienced first-hand how very uncomfortable the heat and humidity are — for me and my characters. I ate the food — Southern, deep-fried, comforting, artery-clogging, digestion-challenging. I drank sweet tea and sat in neighborhoods, looking at houses where I thought my characters might live. I made sure I noted when the sun set, when the mosquitoes and crickets came out, how hot it was at 9 p.m. or 6 a.m., the driving distance between different places. I listened to that lilting, captivating accent of the region.

By the end I was exhausted from being so hyper-vigilant. I might have tried to absorb too much in a three-day trip. But the book will be different, better because of this trip.

I’m wondering if anything surprising came from your research? Something that stopped you short, something you knew had to be part of your book.

Jeff

Oh, yeah. Slapped me into a dead stop for a few seconds: Shining White Greathouse at Chimney Rock. I’ve been on the tours maybe a dozen times, but somehow the mental image escaped me until this trip. You know that beautiful stonework we associate with the Anasazi? Those stones the sizes of loaves of bread with smaller stones shoved between them in courses? The Anasazi covered that up with white plaster. Imagine walking from Chaco Canyon (90 miles as a crow flies) to Chimney Rock and seeing that shining white building high on the tilted mesa.

I know exactly what you mean by the exhaustion of hyper-vigilance in doing site reconnaissance. I climbed Pagosa Peak’s southwestern face to see if a bunch of boys in my novel could build and light a bonfire there that could be seen from Chimney Rock. It’s a rugged place. Building a bonfire wouldn’t be easy, but could definitely be done. Imagining my characters there wore me out as much as the hike and climb.

I love the details you describe and that you captured. I tried taking notes, but that seemed to fail me. I took lots of snapshots. Otherwise, I just rely on memory to tell me the things I need to remember — such as how people exhausted by their pot-making labor in relentless sunshine tend to stand with their arms crossed and back slowly into the thin shadows of scrub trees. The ancient ones must have done the same thing.

Did you set up any interviews? If so, how did you find the people and how did they react to your request?

Mandy

I did set up one interview and that was with a police sergeant to discuss what exactly would happen if people started showing up murdered in Opelika on the same day each month. Because of his busy schedule, we didn’t meet in person but exchanged emails over the course of a week. He was immediately receptive to sharing law enforcement expertise. I gleaned information on police investigations, why the county sheriff’s department might get involved, why the FBI might get involved, etc. We also talked about the ruckus it would cause for my protag to insert herself into the investigations. (Oh, and she will!)

I’ve had numerous conversations with friends from Georgia and Alabama about the area. While not ‘interviews’ per se, the talks are rich in detail about the people and personality of the deep south.

As an aside, there’s a new show on the History Channel called “You Don’t Know Dixie.” It’s a hoot. Talk about fodder for the book. I took copious notes last night.

What kind of research have you done online or through libraries? Do you have a system for cataloging research? Right now, mine is a jumbled mess of notes and photos.

Jeff

Seems to me if you went to a police sergeant of any small town and started talking about dead people showing up there, they might come and haul you downtown. How’d you get your point across without appearing to be, oh, maybe just a little threatening?

As for research. Psssht. I’m an Anasazi historical fiction guy. I’ve got more archaeological data than I can stuff into my head. I have a master Excel spreadsheet with 359 entries, each linked to its source, each shown in its relevant time  span and place for my story. I have the birth and death dates, places, and circumstances of my main characters, and some secondary ones in the spreadsheet. I have enough maps and books to make a fire hazard (don’t tell your police sergeant).

And that doesn’t even include the flash scenes I can’t get out of my head. What would this place feel like to my people (my characters)? How would the context of their lives affect their choices?

I love daydreaming that kind of stuff while I’m hiking around a place.

Now answer my question. Didn’t you feel a little weird asking a police officer about murder?

Mandy

I sent a generic request to the police department public information officer. I spelled out very quickly that I was a writer (and gave links to web site and blog). I asked for a very brief meeting to discuss law enforcement specifics to ensure legitimacy of what the book portrayed. I also gave him an idea of the type of mystery (Agatha Christie). But I admit to feeling weird and wondering what a PD would think of a woman asking about murder!

 

At this point, Mandy and I agreed to shut our mouths and countdown our Top Three Pieces of Advice on Novel Location Research.

Three

Jeff: Don’t forget your binoculars.

Mandy: Don’t go in with preconceived notions about the area.

Two

Jeff: Refuse to hurry. Linger. As long as you can. A place is an organic, changing thing, with rhythms and patterns and endless surprises. Be big-eyed and walk very slowly.

Mandy: Stop by the tourism office and sit for a spell to chat with who’s on duty — ask questions that can’t be answered by the literature in the racks.

One!

Jeff: Eavesdrop. Local people have local conversations. Visitors have completely different kinds of conversations. Steal snatches of their dialog, the cadence of their speech, their body language. It’s all yours, right out there in public. You just have to lean a little close sometimes to grab it.

Mandy: Don’t pick a location out of a hat (or because it’s a place you’d like to visit). Make sure the location is central to the STORY. I think of Opelika as one of the main characters.

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July 29, 2011

“Historical Fiction Location Research,” by Jeff Posey

Today, I am in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. This is no vacation (I want to emphasize that to any of you who may happen to be with the IRS.) I’m here to do location research.

Interestingly, I’m meeting a writer I met at DFWcon, who lives nearby (Durango), and who just returned from doing location research in Opelika, Alabama. You may know her as @DurangoWriter, Mandy Mikulencak, who writes this blog: A Writing Life.

She and I intend to delve into what it is we novelists do on location. She writes contemporary fiction, and I mostly write historical with some contemporary thrown in to keep life interesting.

Before I meet Mandy, I’m taking a three-day class by an archeoceramicist who studies the pottery-making techniques of the Anasazi and teaches one class a year at the Chimney Rock Archeological Area. We will do everything from prepare our own clay, shape it into our own pots, make our own paints, decorate it, and pit-fire it. See more here: Ancient Arts Chimney Rock Workshop.

Pagosa Peak (in the distance) from Chimney Rock.

After the class, I plan to climb the southwest flank of Pagosa Peak with my stepson, Dalton, to verify a scene in my latest book in which a group of boys build a signal fire there that can be seen from Chimney Rock. And no, I’m not going to re-create the fire. Just standing and feeling and imagining is enough for me. My knees are too creaky to haul firewood above timberline. If they can carry my carcass there, that’s all I ask.

Mandy and I will doubtless talk deeply about location research, and I’ll report it here.

Meanwhile, how do you do location research? What do you do when you’re there? Do you set up interviews? Plan specific times to be certain places based on scenes you plan to write?

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July 23, 2011

Whatever Happened to Jeff Posey?

In college, I had to take a swimming test. To prove I could swim. There must have been a box on a form somewhere that had to be checked. Everybody had to do it.

So I jumped in, blew most of the air out of my lungs, and sank to the bottom. I’d been a summer lifeguard, and I wanted to show off, I guess. I looked up through the over-chlorinated water and saw that nobody seemed to notice what I’d done. I could be drowning for all they knew. Then I realized how invisible I was. I liked that. I felt very peaceful.

After DFWcon (the Dallas-Fort Worth Writers’ Conference) in February, I did the same thing. Blew most of the air from my lungs and sank out of sight. This blog, I suppose, marks that I’ve bobbed back up.

Being the director of a writers’ conference is tough. Especially for a guy who likes to sit and read or write in quiet rooms when not lying at the bottom of a swimming pool. I needed a break.

About a year ago, I abandoned my AnasaziStories blog (which redirects to this site now, by the way) and my @AnasaziStories Twitter account (which I’ve changed to @Jeff_Posey as of today). I threw myself wholly into managing DFWcon. Fortunately, the conference was a big success. But I felt overexposed. I needed to hide. And I wanted to finish my second novel, which four agents at DFWcon had requested to see as soon as I got it all spit-polished and ready. So I did. I wrote a contract with myself on March 1 (the day after DFWcon) that gave me until June 1 to get my novel off to the agents. I hit it on the nose. Then I turned my attention to picking up some paying client work, which I managed to find, and now I’m here.

This blog and website will be the central public place where I expound upon my continued pursuit of writing fiction related to the Anasazi culture of the American Southwest and my work for clients in corporate communications. My five main categories will be:

  • Flash Fiction. These are my sketchbook pieces that support my longer works of fiction. I use them to explore things such as scene, setting, point of view, pacing, word choice, character motivation, etc. They are experimental in nature, which means they may get a little weird at times.
  • Publishing. As an author, I can’t help but think a lot about the state of publishing. I’ll have an occasional thing or two to say about that, I’m sure.
  • Writing. The more I write, the more I think about writing, and the more epiphanies I have about writing. I’ll pop my ideas up here from time to time.
  • Reading. I’m a voracious reader. When I’m in the throes of composing a novel, I read less (and mostly nonfiction, or it messes with the voices in my head). But between projects, I read twenty or so books a month. I’ll review what I read here.
  • Commfficiency. I’ve spent more than two decades on magazine staffs and in corporate communications roles. I’ve thought long and hard about how to create more quality “content” for less work input. With the severely downsized corpcomm staffs I see out there these days, this is a topic that needs frequent and deep examination. I have ideas, and I’ll share them here.

I’m glad to be back. I needed the break, but now it’s time to charge into the fray once more.

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