Tag Archives: Writing

HOW TO WRITE DEADLY CRIME FICTION

Crime fiction is the second largest-selling book genre, slightly behind romance. It’s a craft an author must have passion for, as well as having the writing skills and subject knowledge to make their story believable—and hold their reader’s interest. Passion has to pre-exist in the writer but, thankfully, the techniques can be learned. I’m betting that 808 Killer Tips on How to Write Deadly Crime Fiction will help.

The No BS series of crime fiction guides is a project I’m passionately working on. It started as a self-teaching venture when I began fiction writing. I quickly found that, although I might be an adequate technical writer, I knew little about the tricks of the fiction trade.

I researched and developed a list of pointers—mostly notes to self—on some of the most important tips. Thinking it would be helpful to others, I published it as a pdf under the title Dead Write with 99 tips and offered it as sign-up bait for my blogsite. It’s now matured as Guide One with a more professional look as 101Killer Tips on Writing Deadly Crime Thrillers. It’s still available free on this site.

The series goes beyond diction and syntax. It gives writers a unique look into the real side of crime writing based on my actual experience and a hell of a lot of research—never mind help from a gem of a source.

My friend and fellow crime writer, Sue Coletta, generously offered to critique and edit the guides. Sue is an accomplished author on her own with a new crime thriller Marred hitting the shelves on November 11, 2015. Sue recently renovated her website and it’s an excellent source of information for crime writers and fans. Visit Sue at www.suecoletta.com and get her own free tips: 60 Ways To Murder Your Fictional Characters.

Guide Two is How to Self-Edit Deadly Crime Thrillers. Researching this has taken my writing knowledge to a whole new level and I hope it does the same to others. What’s opened my eyes is how the process of editing actually works. The takeaway—it’s as vital to learn editing skills as it is to develop writing skills. Editing is revision. Re-Vision.

Writing Deadly Crime Scenes is the third guide. It deals with what really goes on behind the ‘Scenes’. People. Places. Processing. It gives you tips on how crime scene investigators recognize evidence and how you can accurately portray the scenes in your books. The guide has sections on legal requirements, responsibilities of investigative roles, and how personalities intertwine on the CSI ‘food chain’.

Deadly Dialogue goes beyond the do’s and don’ts of fiction dialogue. It gives a look at how cops and crooks think, hence how they talk. There’s tips on formatting dialogue so your novel will read like a crime book and not like some soap-opera script. There’s also a glossary of crime terms to get it just right.

Guide Five is on Characters. Let’s set this straight. Plot is all about characters doing something to forward the story and their own development. It makes you think about development of your characters on three levels. One dimensional that have no names. Two dimensional with an occasional appearance as supporting cast. And the three dimensional stars of the show that your reader needs to love or hate.

With Guide Six, the series takes a scientific turn and looks at the world of Forensics which no crime story can ignore. You’ll get tips on fingerprinting and footwear impressions. A tour through the lab. Recognize bloodstains and semen stains. Microanalysis. Fires. Explosions.Trace evidence and toolmarks. Entomology, serology, and odontology. It covers psychiatric profiling and you’ll take a ride on the polygraph. (Tough to compress this into 101 single tips.)

You’ll get a bang out of Guide Seven. It’s all about Firearms where you’ll get tips on ballistics, lands, grooves, and striations. It covers types and terminology as well as ammunition and actions. You’ll learn about yield thresholds and fragmentation, the difference between GSW and GSR, and how to snipe off a suspect. You’ll never again call a cartridge a bullet, or a primer a casing, and you’ll know where to turn to for help.

Guide Eight takes on Autopsies and the role of forensic pathology. You’ll bag some bodies and slice some Y-incisions; cross-section organs with the tools of the trade and meet with who’s who in the morgue. Experience the stages of mortis (changes in death) and understand why things smell the way they do. How to Write Deadly Accurate Autopsies helps you write convincing causes of death and backs it up with scientific support from the lab.

All eight guides will be condensed into one resource titled How to Write Deadly Crime Fiction — A No BS Guide with 808 Killer Tips. The individual guides will be available online as eBooks with an internal link to printing it as a pdf. The big guy, 808, will be in both digital and print-on-demand.

Guides Two through Eight will be out in the fall of 2015, date TBA. In the meantime, help yourself to Guide One: How to Write Deadly Crime Thrillers — A No BS Guide With 101Killer Tips. I’d appreciate your feedback, so please comment with your thoughts and suggestions.

How to Write Deadly Crime Thrillers — A No BS Guide With 101 Killer Tips.

PS – If you’re already a subscriber to DyingWords and want the new guide, email me at garry.rodgers@shaw.ca and I’ll send you the pdf direct.

BIG RIVER – WHAT NOVELISTS CAN LEARN FROM SONGWRITERS

Johnny Cash was a brilliant musician. Singer. Performer. And masterful songwriter. Johnny Cash condensed high concept ideas into short, resonating stories – ripping people’s hearts in four or five stanzas – that stayed in millions of ears and memories. Big River was his best-told story. And he played it when inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

A writer friend recently ranted about working with a Grammar Nazi. Wait – How the hell does that relate to the man in black? And why are these opening paragraphs so disjointed? Stick with me.

“Jesus Christ! My editor’s gagging my friggin’ voice.” Frustration in her email zinged through me.

“Know it.” I keyed back.

“Who says we can’t start a sentence with ‘And’?” She pounded. “We’re crime-thriller writers, for God’s sakes. Not tryin’ for a Pulitzer Prize in English Lit.”

I nodded. “Remember what King says – ‘Grammar don’t wear no coat ‘n tie’.” (Stephen King’s advice in On Writing).

‘Yep. Holding m’ground.” She breathed out. “It’s my story and I’m stickin’ to tellin’ it my way.”

“Good for you!” I pecked, thinking So much of what makes a great story is the way it’s told. Take songwriting. There’s not a lick of good grammar in most songs and some songs are timeless stories. Like Big River. I bet novelists can learn a lot from songwriters.

That night I kicked back with (a) glass of wine, headphones on, rockin’ to The Highwaymen – Live at Nassau Coliseum (1985). Their encore was Big River.

The Highwaymen: Willie Nelson. Waylon Jennings. Kris Kristopherson. And Johnny Cash. All great musicians. Singers. Performers. And masterful songwriters.

But Johnny Cash was a one-of-a-kind musical figure, quintessentially American; able to identify with the outlaw, and vice-versa – craggy, with a voice unlike anyone’s. Waylon & Willie worshiped him. Kris Kristofferson wrote “He’s a poet, he’s a picker, he’s a prophet, he’s a pusher, he’s a pilgrim, and he’s a preacher.”

Johnny Cash’s masterpiece, Big River, was cut in 1958 and topped the charts. It has everything in one story.

Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry
And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky
And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you Big River
Then I’m gonna sit right here until I die

I met her accidentally in St. Paul, Minnesota
And it tore me up every time I heard her drawl, southern drawl
Then I heard my dream was back downstream cavortin’ in Davenport
And I followed you Big River when you called

Then you took me to St. Louis later on down the river
A freighter said she’s been here but she’s gone, boy, she’s gone
I found her trail in Memphis but she just walked up the bluff
She raised a few eyebrows and then she went on down alone

Now, won’t you batter down by Baton Rouge, River Queen, roll it on
Take that woman on down to New Orleans, New Orleans
Go on, I’ve had enough, dump my blues down in the gulf
She loves you, Big River, more than me

Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry, cry, cry
And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky
And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you Big River
Then I’m gonna sit right here until I die

Re-reading the lyrics – even when I thought I understood the words – “then I heard my dream was back downstream cavortin’ in Davenport ” got me. Like, how good is that?

Big River is a study in storytelling. High concept in a timeless, global theme of lost love. Slots into a romance genre – the largest commercial fiction market. Opens with an emotional prologue. Sharp hook in beginning act; builds tension in middle; ends in the third act by answering the central story question.

Big River introduces protagonist and antagonist in the opening line of the first scene. There’s desire and conflict; hope and despair. Stays in first person point-of-view. Past tense. Every word – Every line – Every paragraph advances the story, following a forlorn search from the Mississippi’s top to its bottom – in the heart of American country music.

Big River has implied dialogue. Adjectives that work. Not a useless, stinky-little adverb in sight. Beats become scenes; scenes sequence acts. There’s subplot and subtext. Every word counts. Setting is vivid… but time frame is everywhere in the past two hundred years. And characters aren’t named – but they’re strongly identifiable – because they could be you and me.

There’s not a lick of good grammar in Big River. Punctuation’s the shits!! There’s run-ons and cut-offs and pretty much everything a Grammar Nazi could hate.

But the voice? So clear. So large. So unique. So Johnny Cash. His theme is timeless. His story universal. Big River is told in 281 words.

Novelists can learn a lot from songwriters.

Pour yourself a glass of wine, yes (a) glass of wine. Put your headphones on, girl, yes put your head phones on. Watch and listen to these videos, these timeless storytelling videos, and sit right there until you die.

* * *

Johnny Cash at the Grand Ole Opry in 1962 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_21p14TAXM

Highwaymen Live at Nassau Coliseum in 1985 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hy6_b7sQuY

Johnny Cash’s induction into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 (Jamming with rocks’s best, like John Fogerty and Keith Richards) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIWBEggDFa0

ENGLISH – SPEAKING A GLOBAL LANGUAGE

English is the world’s working language. It’s the mother tongue of four hundred million people and it’s secondly-spoken by around a billion. English is the powerhouse in commercial communication, but it’s well behind Chinese and Spanish in cultural conversation.

You’re obviously conversant in the global language because you’re reading this, but did you know you use two distinct, different languages when you speak English?

Today’s English is a blend of one-third Germanic Anglo-Saxon and two-thirds of romantic languages like Latin and French. It’s also got a bit of Celtic, Greek, and Norse thrown in.

In your everyday conversations, whether oral or electronic, you unconsciously switch between the formality of Latin and the folksy tune of words from Germanic roots. It’s like when we want to play, we go off casually – using plain and simple English like the guy in ripped jeans, a hoodie, and Birkenstocks (without socks). When we want to impress, we groom impeccably and display our fine Latin manners. C’mon. We all do that. Or, pray tell, do we not?

So where did this worldwide English language come from? Where’s it at today? And where’s it going in the future?

A history lesson shows English began on the British Isles in 400 AD when three Germanic tribes invaded – the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes. They pushed the native Celts north and west into Scotland and Ireland, then took the place for themselves calling it ‘Englaland’ with their language being ‘Englisc’.

Current English evolved over four phases.

Old English (450-1100 AD) didn’t look or sound much like how we talk today. We’d have a tough time understanding the flow, however half of our modern words are derived from Old English. Words like earth, wind, fire, water, and flow. Beowulf is a famous poem written in Old English. I don’t understand a word of it and I’m sure King Arthur and I’d have a rough go at debating.

Middle English (1100-1500) came about when the Normans showed up in 1066, making a form of French the voice of England’s Royal Court. The higher class spoke French and the lower class spoke English.

Early Modern English (1500-1800) was the stuff of Shakespeare. It was also the age of the Renaissance when England was expanding and coming into contact with foreign languages. Publishing was growing. The masses were beginning to read and write. And dictionaries were available.

Late Modern English (1800 – Present) has a larger vocabulary and different delivery. You can thank the Industrial Revolution and also, at one point, the British Empire covered much of the civilized world, naturally adopting words and phrases form other cultures.

English is categorized in three circles which builds a cohesive global language.

The inner circle is those with English as their mother tongue. Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and South Africa are the main players. English is handed down from generations within the inner circle and form the base who relay it to the rest of the world.

In the middle circle are English Second Language (ESL) speakers. There could be up to a billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. The Philippines is a good example. So are India, Pakistan, Singapore, Jamaica, and Nigeria.

The outer circle contains a vastly expanding populace who converse using English as a common tool. Today’s interconnected society relies on a communication standard and for many reasons that’s become English. It’s the international language at the United Nations, in treaties, in aviation, marine, medicine, science, and internet technology.

Where I’m going with this – the blog you’re reading, ww.DyingWords.net, is a snapshot of how English is communicated in today’s global market. I started DyingWords three years ago because I wanted to provoke thoughts on life, death, and writing. I had something to say and I used the English language structure to convey it. It’s the only language I know, so I was pretty much stuck with it.

In three years, DyingWords experienced steady growth and I want to share this snapshot with you about global communication.

I use Google Analytics to track traffic to my WordPress website. I surveyed a three day period – July 28/29/30, 2015 – which showed 2,778 visitors to the site. 12.3% were returning folk and 87.7% were new.

Google Analytics tells you fascinating things about who’s looking at your site. I’ll drill down. Here’s DyingWords visitor demographics:

Top 10 Countries By Visitor

USA – 1392
Canada – 435
United Kingdom – 200
Russia – 186
Australia – 93
China – 65
India – 57
Kenya – 54
Netherlands – 43
South Africia – 41

Top 10 Cities by Visitor

New York – 93 (Almost all agents and publishers 😉
Vancouver – 82
London – 56
Nanaimo – 55 (Most of that’s me lurking my own site)
Los Angeles – 54
Calgary – 41
Toronto – 36
Chicago – 31
Melbourne – 26
Sydney – 22

Google goes deeper. It looks at language settings on visitor profiles.

English (US Version) 56.7%

English (UK Version) 9.4%

English (Canadian) 1.7%

English (Australia) 0.5%

Other Languages 31.7%

Wow! One-third of visitors to DyingWords are not first language English speakers.

So who are the unknown visitors?

Here’s something else Google shocked me with. My website mailing list and personal contacts says my core audience is mostly upper middle-aged, educated, English-speaking women. But my mailing list and Google traffic are two entirely different things. The email list is permission marketing and Google refects wide open drop-ins. The search engines say something different about who’s knockin’.

Age Of Visitors

18 – 24 27.5%

25 – 34 33.5%

35 – 44 15.5%

45 – 54 12.5%

55 – 64 5.5%

65 + 5.5%

And what blew-me was gender profile.

Female 45.85%

Male 54.15%

I’m getting the picture there’s a lot of young, ESL men finding my website and I never mention the “- orn” word, so it can’t be a search generated from that keyword set in a post or buried in metadata. I think they might be searching to improve their English.

DyingWords found a global English language market and my Alexa Ranking shows it. If you don’t know, Alexa is an Amazon product that ranks your website exposure among a billion other websites on the planet. Today, August 1^st, 2015, DyingWords is Alexa ranked at 2,940,467 – rising 442,954 positions in the past three months. That’s a 15% increase and puts it in the top 0.3% if you use the billion benchmark number of recorded name domains. Even if you use the disclaimer that 75% of websites are inactive, DyingWords is still in the top 11.8%. I’m good with that because it helps people connect in English.

I attribute the success of this venture to astute scholars, peers included, who allow, appreciate, and advance my provoking of thoughts on life, death, and writing through an effecitve online media format.

And I luv ya guys who keep pushin’ my bullshit.

#BeInteresting 2 look back @200 years & see how English language bettered since 2015. Tx 4 drop-by & plse share #English-SpeakingAGlobalLanguage via #SM btns below ~