Guest author Melodie Campbell: Mess With Me, Darlin'? Watch Me Kill You With Words

Melodie got her start writing comedy. In 1999, she opened the Canadian Humour Conference. She has over 200 publications including 100 comedy credits, 40 short stories, and has won 9 awards for short fiction. Her fifth novel, a mob caper, is entitled The Goddaughter's Revenge (Orca Books). Melodie was a finalist for the 2012 Derringer, and both the 2012 and 2013 Arthur Ellis Awards. She is the Executive Director of Crime Writers of Canada. Catch Melodie's humour column for The Sage, Canada's magazine of satire and opinion.



Here’s some news for all you sociopaths out there, and just plain nasties: Don’t mess with a crime writer. We know at least twenty ways to kill you and not get caught.

On paper, of course <insert nervous laughter>. We’re talking about fictional kills here.

Or are we?

My name is Melodie Campbell, and I write comic mob capers for a living. And for the loving. So I know a bit about the mob. Like espresso and cannoli, you might say they come with my Sicilian background.

This should make people nervous. (Hell, it makes ME nervous.)

But I digress. To recap:  the question offered here was:

Do you ever take out real life rage on fictional murder victims? Are any of your victims based on people who pissed you off in real life?

Oh sweetie, don’t I ever.

One of the joys of being a writer is playing out scenarios in your fiction that you dream about at night.  One of these is murder.  (The other is sex, but that would be my other series, the Rowena fantasy one.)

Back to grievous bodily harm. Like in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado, I have my little list.

To the covert colleague who made out to be friends and then bad-mouthed me to the board at a previous job.  Yes, you got caught red-handed. I called your bluff.  But better than that, I made your mealy-mouthed sorry hide a star of The Goddaughter's Revenge.  Good bye, Carmine the rat.  You live forever in fictional history.

He never will be missed.

To the sociopathic boss who undermined an entire department and got a kick out of making my sweet younger colleagues cry: may you age like a hag and end up alone.  Oh wait – you did. And not just in A Purse To Die For.

She never will be missed.

Oh, the joy of creating bad guys and gals from real-life creeps!  The crafty thing is, when you design a villain based on people you have met in person and experienced in technicolor, they sound real. Colourful.  Their motivations are believable, because they actually exist. No cardboard characters here!

Of course, I may fudge a few details to keep out of jail. Names and professions change. Males can morph into females.

But fictional murder can be very satisfying. (Definitely more satisfying than fictional sex.)  Revenge is sweet, when coupled with royalties.

You can ignore that crack about fictional kills only. Of course we’re only talking books; in my case, light-hearted murder mysteries, and mob crime capers.

That’s right: mob capers. Like I said: never mess with a Sicilian Goddaughter.

Melodie Campbell achieved a personal best this year when Library Journal compared her to Janet Evanovich.  Her fifth novel, The Goddughter's Revenge, has just been released by Orca Books.  

The New Guy in my Life

I'm a messy writer.

I make notes everywhere, backs of envelopes, receipts, box tops. If pen or pencil will make an impression on it I will write on it. If I don't lose the notes, I transcribe the notes or scan them for later use. When I research for a book I make notes, bookmark web pages, scan whole pages of books and I try to keep everything in one folder on my computer, but sometimes I still can't find everything. I also like to keep my chapters separate, which can cause all sorts of other problems with keeping facts straight and combining them all when the book is near completion. I often have several windows of Word open at a time. And then there are the multiple versions of each chapter. It all makes for a rather circus-like situation.

A friend of mine (who, by the way has never seen my method, never been near my computer or my office, so I have to guess that my madness is apparent in my conversations and my writing) recently introduced me to a wonderful writing tool that is helping me to transform my confusion into sanity. Scrivener by Literature & Latte is an award winning tool for novelists. It's not new and I wouldn't be surprised if everyone on this blog has tried it, I'm often behind the curve, but if you haven't heard of it before, do give it a look.

Scrivener is many things, but essentially it is a management system for documents, images, and everything else you might be using to create your novel. It allows you to break up your document as you wish, write synopses of each section of the document, associate images with sections of your document, and look at multiple sections at a time while maintaining your place in each section. You can take a snapshot of your document before a major change. Although the document may be fragmented, Scrivener will search the entire document for a key word. And you can work on multiple sections of the document as if they were one. For example, if you have separated paragraphs one and two, you can work still look at them as if they were one document while maintaining the separation. At the end of all your hard work, Scrivener can combine your selected fragments into one document.

Scrivener stores research documents and images, character descriptions and so on, all within easy reach.

Scrivener is not free, I paid $40 on Amazon, but I consider it a worthy investment for someone who works the way I work. It won't help me retrieve the ideas I jotted on the top of the credit card application form right before I shredded it, but it has been great with organizing the notes I manage to keep and generally allowing me to work on the  novel in chunks without worrying about losing my way.

Literature and Latte actually provide links to other applications that are useful to authors for whom Scrivener may not be the answer. You can view those links here.

I'm new to Scrivener, so I would love to hear if you have tried it and what your experience has been like.

Guest author Velda Brotherton: Put your reader in your story

Velda Brotherton

Variety is the spice of Velda Brotherton's writing life. Since 1988 she has been published in newspapers and magazines, and her books include nonfiction, western historical romances, mysteries, paranormal, and women's fiction. The author lives and works in the Ozarks and sees more wild critters than she does humans during her working day. This great-grandmother continues to go strong. She spent 19 years as a feature writer and city editor for newspapers, has mentored young authors, co-chaired a large critique group and held workshops and speaking engagements. She is currently working on a mystery, and just finished a western historical romance and another women's fiction novel. She feels like there are more books in her head than she will ever be able to write.



Ever wonder what makes some books instantly popular while others drag along behind and never quite make the grade? When you read a book what is there about it that makes you keep reading? 

I'd be willing to bet that it's that you are relating to the characters. You like them and therefore care what happens to them. It is a given that we must first create unforgettable characters. However, if you put those characters in boring situations where nothing excites the reader, the best characters in the world won't save a book.

What you want to do is take your reader by the hand and lead her into your story and keep her there. So you must become the character and put yourself in the scene. Pay attention to your surroundings. Not only what you see, but what you smell, feel, hear and taste. What goes on around you in a particular location. Make it real, keep it real.

Let's create a scene where a man and a woman go out to a restaurant to eat. On the busy city street you hear horns honk, someone shouts. Inside the restaurant what are you hit with first? I'd bet it's the delicious aroma of cooking food. But wait, over there a waiter drops something, at a table a child cries out, a couple at another table laugh. No long descriptions of walls, tables, waiters, etc. are necessary unless something is going to happen that will involve what you describe.

There are huge windows across the front. Make sure they let in the sunlight or a view of the street at night. Don't waste anything; use it to put your reader in the scene.

Out of the corner of your character's eye watch a man at the next table reach out and touch the woman's hand. Connect that to the way your character feels about the woman he's with. Maybe he wishes he had the nerve to do the same. Why doesn't he? No long drawn out sentences; make a few words suffice.

The aroma of Italian food cooking may remind him of the last time he ate Italian food, who he was with, what that has to do with who he is with tonight. An old love? Someone he can't forget, but wishes he could because this woman he's with is so attractive, so smart and so worth loving.

Don't waste any chance to hook things together. Fiction happens tighter than the truth, and everything has a purpose to your story. To your character's emotions, to his hopes and dreams. There isn't space for stuff that has nothing to do with your story. It's all connected. Fiction is life with all the boring parts left out.

Everything that is happening affects the character. Most important to any scene is the character and how he feels, so I call emotion the sixth sense. Connect emotions, sensual feelings, the five senses. Smell is the sense that brings back memories quicker than any other. Let it happen, but make sure the memory will have an effect on the character in the present. Don't just lay it out there and let it drop. Again, be brief.

Integrate description with the action and keep it to a minimum. Internalization, narration, exposition and dialogue should all play a part in each scene.

If you're not sure you have succeeded in creating a good scene, take a paperback book that you thought was good and colored markers. Pick a scene and mark internalization with blue, dialogue with green, description with red, the use of the senses with yellow. This will give you an idea how this writer balances a good scene.

This should help you if you're having trouble with creating sense of place. Look over your scenes. If they could be taking place in New York or Texas or Australia or the moon, then you need to work on your sense of place.

Giveaway! An e-book copy of The Purloined Skull, #1 in A Twist of Poe Series to a comment chosen at random.

Find Velda:

Website: http://www.veldabrotherton.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/vebrotherton

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/veldabrotherton.com

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/veldabrotherton

Baby it's cold outside

Just coming off the Christmas, I can’t tell you how many times I heard the song, “Baby It’s cold outside”.  While Christmas wasn’t very cold in my neck of the woods, right now it is.  It’s not the “Polar Vortex” that we experienced two weeks ago, but the temperatures are pretty near there.  This morning when I woke up the thermometer read 5 degrees Fahrenheit, tonight it read 12.  Brrrrr!  And of course to top it off, it snowed on Tuesday and that snow is not melting.  So of course schools close (they do that for even a dusting) and I’m stuck at home with a bunch of restless kids.

What to do, what to do?  Playing in the snow has lost all appeal.  If it was around 32 degrees without the wind chill I’d consider it.  Preparing for the spring semester (which I have to do) is next to impossible because of the distraction.  So when I realized for the second day in a row we would be stuck at home, I tried to plan things to do outside of the house.  But when I opened the door and that cold wind struck me and all I could think of was that song “Baby it’s cold outside.”  Of course any plan of leaving the house was quickly discarded.

So we did a little homeschooling.  I first let them do some exercising with me, got them nice and tired.  Then I gave them school work which took up quite a bit of time.  And what did I do during that little downtime?  I wrote.  Ain’t nothing like a cold day to get some writing done.   Yes, I hunkered down with my hot chocolate and blanket draped around me and I tapped away at the computer because “Baby it’s cold outside.”

Special guest Melodie Campbell: Bad Girl: Selling Out to Hollywood

Melodie Campbell is Canada’s undisputed Queen of Comedy.” (review of The Goddaughter). In 1999, she opened the Canadian Humour Conference. She has over 200 publications including 100 comedy credits, 40 short stories, and has won 9 awards for short fiction. Her fifth novel, a mob caper, is entitled The Goddaughter's Revenge (Orca Books). Melodie was a finalist for the 2012 Derringer, and both the 2012 and 2013 Arthur Ellis Awards. By day, she is the Executive Director of Crime Writers of Canada. Catch Melodie's humour column for The Sage, Canada's magazine of satire and opinion.


I read one of those self-help books the other day, and I’m beginning to realize why I’m not getting very rich.  (For one thing, I’m not writing self-help books.)  It is patently obvious that nobody is going to get wealthy writing humor for newspapers unless they roll up the paper and whack somebody over the head with it during the course of a bank robbery.

So I’ve decided to switch media here and become a screenwriter.  I’m a natural.  I can sit in those funny collapsible canvas chairs just as well as the next guy, and besides, I know hundreds of unbelievable plots: I follow Toronto politics.

So here goes: for my first screamplay <sic> I’m going to do something made for TV; specifically one of those romance-suspense-action-thriller-northern-southern-civil war epic-type things, maybe a miniseries.  It would have everything – sex, violence, sex, betrayal, sex, revenge, sex - and maybe even some dialogue.  It would star a ravishing but thoroughly spoiled female lead, maybe called Sapphire.  Here’s a preview:

Sapphire flings herself up the sweeping staircase, catching bottom of skirt on knob of banister.
Sapphire (yanking at fabric):  Go away, Rot!  Just go away!
Rot:  I’m going, I’m going.  But one last thing, Sapphire honey, I’ve got to know.  How do you manage to go to the bathroom with that bloody hoola- hoop attached to your skirt?
Sapphire (rolling downstairs on her side):  Don’t go, Rot!  Please don’t go.
Rot (doffing hat):  Frankly Sapphire, I don’t give a hoot.
(From outside, several barn owls hoot.)

I predict a blockbuster.  But just in case, I have a second one planned.  It’s a 1960s historical spy flick, based on the true-to-life adventures of very bad people who might possibly be Russian.

First Spy (possibly named Boris):  Gee comrade, do you theenk perhaps we are raising peeples suspicions speeeking English with Russian accent?
Second Spy (also named Boris):  Especially seence it is very BAD Russian accent, comrade?

Okay, so it needs a bit of work, and maybe some more sex.  I’m thinking of calling it Czech-mate. And if we bring it forward to modern times, the possibilities are endless.  What about a ‘Spy of the Month’ reality series?  Boris could live in an LA frat house with nine other comrades named Boris, and the survivor…

Or I could go back to writing for newspapers.

You can reach Melodie through her website at www.melodiecampbell.com. Or better still, buy her comedy novels in Chapters, Barnes & Noble, Walmart or Amazon.

  

 

Backup Everything. Yes, Even That.

Stop what you’re doing and go back up your computer. Do it now. I’ll wait.

Done? Cool. Moving on.

It’s happened to most if not all of us at one time or another. Life is hitting you from multiple directions, you’re cranking on your latest writing project while simultaneously dealing with other work and/or family matters. You start to let little, seemingly innocuous things slide or at least take a lower position in the Hierarchy of Importance with respect to your To Do List. You probably even think to yourself, “I’ll get everything back on track once I get past ______.”

And then, technology betrays you.

Such was the case this past Saturday. I’d been working on the current novel project pretty steadily over the previous few days, all while dealing with the usual early-month demands of my day job, family activities and commitments, and the added stress of trying to sell our house while searching for a new place to call home. Friday was a particularly crazy day, with several of those demands all converging to make things even more “interesting” for me, but I still managed to crank out some words for the novel. However, with everything else going on, I forgot to do One. Simple. Thing.

I didn’t make my daily backup of the work in progress. You know what happens next, right? For those of you who rigorously, unfailingly back up your data every day, this is the part of the post where you smile, shake your heads, and mutter, “Hmph. Kids these days.”

Saturday: My laptop dies. The hard drive is corrupted, and there was no saving it. Everything I had on there? Gone.

The good news? My full-blown monthly backup of my entire hard drive and my daily backups of things in-progress saw to it that I’d only lost whatever work I’d accomplished on Friday. The progress I’d made on the novel could be recreated without too much fuss, but it cost me valuable forward momentum. Still, my deadline for manuscript delivery is such that I can make up the lost time, somewhere. Just about everything else either was stored on a network drive, or else I’d already sent it to someone else, and so could retrieve a copy that way.

I was more irritated with the loss of time than anything else, not just with having to rewrite those bits of the novel I’d lost but now the time I’d spend re-imaging and restoring my laptop’s hard drive. The latter likely was unavoidable, but the former could have been further mitigated if not eliminated if I’d just held to carrying out my one simple rule when it comes to in-process files: Back them up. Every day.

My backup imperative came about because of a much more devastating loss of data that occurred several years ago. On that occasion, I ended up losing weeks of work on multiple projects, one of which was another novel with a looming deadline. I’d been doing frequent though not daily backups then, but with time crunches and everything else, I’d gotten complacent about “the little things” and paid a heavy price for that attitude. I learned my lesson, and with that came the Daily Backup Rule.

Saturday showed me that the lesson needed refreshing.

So, if you do back ups but maybe not every day, or perhaps once or twice a week, here’s a suggestion to reevaluate your process. Some people like to use external hard disc drives, or stacks of CDs or DVDs. Newer remote alternatives include Google Drive and iCloud, where you can upload your files and other content to a hosted space. To be honest, those approaches leave me a bit leery, as I have a hard time trusting third parties when it comes to storing anything I might consider “sensitive material,” such as the manuscript for a project where I’ve signed non-disclosure or other confidentiality agreements. For day-to-day archiving, my personal preference is to use flash drives. They’re small, and usually able to hold everything pertaining to a work in-progress. In my case, I have my manuscript, notes, and soft copies of any pertinent reference materials, all in my pocket.

All right, then: Somebody out there has to have their own backup horror stories to share. Give ‘em up!

The Twenty Stages of Being a Writer

In 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote a fun-filled book called “On Death and Dying.” In it she describes the seven stages people go through when they face death: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, guilt, depression and acceptance.

Writers also have a lifetime of stages to go through. It starts at infancy and continues past retirement (although sometimes writing starts with retirement). Here are the 20 stages of a writer's life:

Stage One: “Oh, this floppy thing has pictures in it. Nice!”

Stage Two: “A-B-C-D-E. . .E. . .E?”

Stage Three: “Letters make words!”

Stage Four: “Words make sentences. See Spot run.”

Stage Five: “Cursive? What the???? Why can't I just keep printing?”

Stage Six: “Where are the pictures in this book?”

Stage Seven: “I want to write my own book.”

Stage Eight: “Do I really need to study English to write a novel? Naw.”

Stage Nine: “REJECTED? You can't be serious.”

Stage Ten: “Okay, I'll get serious. I'll learn grammar and punctuation.”

Stage Eleven: “Note to self: Drinking doesn't improve writing.”

Stage Twelve: “I have no friends.”

Stage Thirteen: “I found a critique group!”

Stage Fourteen: “The critique group doesn't 'get' my writing.”

Stage Fifteen: “Agents and editors are idiots.”

Stage Sixteen: “I reject 'Big Publishing.' I can do this myself.

Stage Seventeen: “Okay, self-publishing is tougher than I thought.”

Stage Eighteen: “I've got a contract with a small publishing house!”

Stage Nineteen: “IT'S A BOOK!”

Stage Twenty: “I wasn't in it for the money anyway.”