tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4339765101543177412024-03-07T22:50:59.770-08:00Blogs from ExileVincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-36384765756766372602011-07-17T06:15:00.000-07:002011-07-17T06:15:42.234-07:00A complete short story for fans of crime and murder<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">HANDLER HANK by Vincent H. O’Neil</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Here’s a question for you: When are undercover cops most at risk? Some people think it’s when they’re all alone with a gang of criminals, completely cut off from backup—but that’s wrong. That’s the meat-and-potatoes of undercover, and most of the people who do this kind of work are pretty comfortable with it. They’d better be, anyway. No, the most dangerous time for undercovers is when they’re meeting their handlers. Just about any other situation can be explained, but being spotted at an out-of-the-way place having a nice little chat with a police detective is pretty much a death sentence.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">That’s where I come in. Although I’m not actually a cop anymore, and I’m not officially a handler, my nickname with a tiny group of police detectives is Handler Hank. I take that potentially lethal circumstance—the contact between the undercover and his or her managers—and make it almost perfectly safe. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">I say ‘almost’ because nothing in this world is perfect. Most of it’s not even close.</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My latest imperfect day started early. I was standing on the loading dock in back of my business, sipping coffee and watching the bicycle messengers clown around. It was a cool morning, early spring, but the sun was beginning to show itself and it looked like it would be a pretty nice day.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Elvis Coolidge, an early-twenties black guy with a shaved head and the lean physique common to my bike employees, was just winning a bet he’d made with the other messengers. The rear tire of his racing bike was planted neatly in the middle of an overturned egg carton, and he was almost motionless. Keeping a bicycle upright without pedaling is no feat for these kids, but this particular display was still something. With a quick dip of his shoulders, Elvis surged upward in the pedals while yanking on the handlebars. The bike jumped just high enough to crush the container’s next two cardboard egg holders, and once again he was immobile.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He seemed well on his way to winning the bet (that he’d be able to crush all twelve egg holders two at a time in six hops) when I heard the motorcycle coming. It was one of those big ugly monsters that make you wish you hadn’t left the windows open on a hot summer night, and I recognized it as belonging to one of the two undercovers I was currently hosting.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“No-Show’s here.” Benny Martinez, one of the other messengers, announced brightly. As usual, he was wearing a long-sleeved top that hugged his torso to cut down on wind resistance. It hid the tattoos that covered most of his upper body, but the purple rooster’s comb in the center of his dark hair almost made up for their absence. If a tattoo is supposed to make a statement, this kid’s body is just plain babbling.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“He ain’t the only no-show around here, numbnuts.” That came from Tracy Witten, her brown hair pulled back into a French braid so tight that I swear she couldn’t even make a frown. But it was all part of the bike messenger ethos—reduced wind resistance, you know.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The undercover pulled in just then, riding the loud Harley and looking like he hadn’t slept in a week. He wore black boots, jeans, a heavy work shirt, and a leather motorcycle vest with a big American eagle on the back. His cover name was Bobby Moore and I honestly don’t know what his real name was. I almost never do. He parked the bike off to the side and approached with a worried look on his face.</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“I really screwed up, Hank.” <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Moore</place></city> spoke from a chair in my windowless office in the dead-center of the building. The place was an old warehouse that I’d converted into a combination bike-and-van delivery service with a printing-and-mailing shop in the front. I had seven bike messengers working for me, five people in the print shop, three van drivers, and a couple of maintenance guys who kept everything running. Although none of them knew about my secret life, almost half of them were ex-cons.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Which is why a deep undercover like Bobby Moore (or whoever he was) could just ride up to my place and walk in. Or spend several hours in my very secure office typing up a report. Or even sleep over, if necessary. That’s because I hire lots of people with criminal records, many of them on parole, and even let a few of them slide on things like coming to work.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That’s what <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Martinez</place></city> meant with the ‘No-Show’ name. For a fee from their criminal associates, I give jobs to the recently paroled and never require them to show up. If their Parole Officer ever checks, which most of them don’t, I say that they just missed the gainfully employed ex-con and promise to have him call. Our city’s one organized crime family feeds me a steady stream of their newly-released personnel who are needed elsewhere, and it supplements my income nicely.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It also lets me harbor undercover cops from a special unit run by an ambitious senior detective named Angela Ringgold. She inherited me, so to speak, but recognized the important service I provide and continued the relationship. Every now and then she’ll send me a deep cover operator pretending to be a recent parolee who needs a phony job in order to work the streets. Bobby Moore had been doing that for the past three months, slowly making friends with one of our city’s motorcycle gangs.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Tell me what happened.” I almost whispered this to him, having worked undercover myself in another life and recognizing the strain.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Everything was going great. I been hanging out with the Scavengers more and more, and some of ‘em were finally saying I should prospect with them.” In motorcycle clubs a prospect is like a fraternity pledge, someone going through a grueling probationary phase while being considered for full membership. “Last night we were partying pretty hard and one of the guys—No-Class Nate, I’ve told you about him—asked if he could crash at my place.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Good sign.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“It is, ya know?” He leaned forward suddenly, anxious to make the point. “I’m <u>getting</u> somewhere here. Been working at that chop shop for months now, slowly gettin’ to know these guys when they come by, playin’ it cool like you said, and they’re finally starting to trust me.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“But when me and Nate got back to my place I had a phone message waiting. I don’t have to tell you we were both shitfaced.” He didn’t; I could smell him from behind the desk and his eyes looked like they needed a tourniquet. “So I played it without thinking. And with No-Class Nate standing right there . . . I hear my mother telling me my dad died.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“My God.” That just came out, but for good reason. First, he’d actually given his mother the phone number to the apartment where he was living undercover. Second, his dad had just died. Third, his assignment was already over even if he didn’t recognize it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I know, I know!” His face contorted briefly, and he looked at the floor in a mix of grief and embarrassment that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. Tears welled up in his eyes and he wiped them away quickly. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but my dad’s been sick for a long time and I wanted to make sure they’d be able to get in touch with me.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That was understandable, but unacceptable all the same. And not because I’m some rules-and-regs kind of guy; quite the contrary as you’ll soon find out. But what he’d done could easily have gotten him killed, and he still didn’t seem to know it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Anyway, Nate gave me a big hug, and the next thing I know he’s saying he wants to go to the funeral, me bein’ such a good friend of the club and all.” This wasn’t surprising. I’d read his reports before passing them to Angela, and the Scavengers put a lot of stock in that kind of gesture. Most of the outlaw clubs do.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">“I’m so sorry about your father, Bobby.” Undercover is a strange world. His real dad was dead and I was consoling him under his false name.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Thanks, man.” He fixed me with those bloodshot eyes for a moment, and then asked the question that I’d been expecting almost from the start.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Any way we can fix this, Hank?” </div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I tried to convince him that his current job was over and that he should now report this to Angela, but that’s when one of the ugly traits of so many undercover cops showed up. He was so invested in the assignment that he wasn’t going to give it up until he had actual proof he was blown. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So I played along for awhile, thinking I might have to call Angela myself even as I gently shot down each of his outlandish solutions. I pointed out that a sudden disappearance, coupled with a lie about running from an old enemy, would take him out of circulation for much too long and also make the bikers suspicious. A fake arrest wouldn’t work either, because as a parolee it would mean he’d have to go back inside. Even worse, it might not stop the Scavengers from sending a representative to his father’s funeral.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not that they’d show up in his real hometown. His cover was good enough for them to believe he came from someplace else entirely, and at least he’d warned his mother not to use his name on the phone. He came from a cop family, so his mom had known to only call him ‘sweetheart’ or ‘honey’ even in delivering sad news. That was too bad, actually, because if she’d used his real name his cover would have been well and truly blown. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Undercovers are a different breed, bloodhounds that will chase a scent until it kills them, and I soon saw that there was no convincing him to throw in the towel. As someone who’d done that kind of work—and, in a way, was still doing it—I sympathized with his mad desire to find a way to keep the act going. So when he began babbling about creating a fake funeral in his fake hometown, I pretended to think that crazy notion had some merit. I told him to lie down on the cot in the back room while promising to think his nutty idea through, and was just reaching for a secure cell phone for my call to Angela when I got an idea of my own. </div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I’ve been in my current job for several years now, and I know a lot about what goes on in this city. I was medically retired while still in my twenties, shot twice in a way that really didn’t hinder me much but served as an excellent excuse for my old department to put me out to pasture. I’d relocated from one coast to the other just after that, and had a fateful lunch with a very senior detective in the city that I now call home. We’d met on the job years before, and he’d come up with an idea about creating a legitimate business that would hide undercover police. He’d sensed that I wasn’t finished being a cop just yet, and talked me into sinking my severance into a small delivery service that grew a lot as time went by. I actually owned and ran the place, under a new identity of course, and had been surprised to find I enjoyed running it. My secret boss had passed me on to Angela when he’d retired—and that was when I realized that he’d told almost no one about me, if he’d told anyone at all. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Angela had kept the thing as a going concern once she saw the value I could add to her career.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Between my new friends in organized crime and my bike messengers, I’ve become one of the most connected guys out here. There are times when I know more about the crime in this city than the criminals themselves, and Angela has made full use of that knowledge. It’s a two-way street, though, as access to the undercovers gives me information I couldn’t get in any other way.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Which is why I already knew so much about the Scavengers. From Bobby’s reports and my own observations, they were a well-disciplined gang of outlaw bikers who moved drugs as their main source of income. They were smart enough to keep the violence at a low level, but ruthless enough to carve out a nice territory for themselves.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They were also just a tad predictable.</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My imperfect day got a little less perfect an hour or so later, when Gary Fields paid me an unexpected visit. I was immersed in my slowly emerging plan to help Bobby when the second of my two undercovers walked in.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I think I mentioned that the people I handle are high-end undercover, and it doesn’t get much higher than Gary Fields. At least at the municipal level. Tall and handsome, he was always decked out in expensive clothing and all the glitter that went with it. As you might have already guessed, he was not pretending to be a parolee with a no-show job at my place. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Fields had created his own cover while working a dead-end assignment in some forgotten wing of our detective branch, and it was pure genius. Most assignments are like Bobby’s: They give you a reason to be around the places where your targets hang out and hope you make a contact. It takes an ungodly amount of time, and many promising assignments are terminated prematurely because they don’t seem to be going anywhere. Fields had bypassed all that by taking up with the widow of a recently-deceased mid-level guy in our local Mafia. He’d been a stockbroker earlier in life (he was now forty-five) and had convinced her he was a financial advisor with a wide range of clients.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Gary</place></city> was a natural impostor and a legitimate man’s man, so the wiseguys in his new lady friend’s social circle took to him at once. He’d shown no interest in their activities and even brushed off their first suggestions that he might help them hide illicit revenue. One of the biggest tricks in any con man’s bag is the initial refusal, and if it’s done right it really whets the mark’s appetite. He’d left them salivating while he contacted Angela personally with the revelation of what he’d been doing, and she’d gladly had him transferred.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Fields had done all that without authorization, and mostly in his spare time. I might harbor a sneaking admiration for that, but I’ve never been comfortable around him. My print shop produced voluminous financial reports for his business, so he had good reason for dropping by every now and then.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I need a special delivery from you, Hank. Kind of a rush job.” Fields sat across from me in the same chair Bobby had occupied, smiling as usual. He wore a tan suit that day and looked like he’d just returned from a month in the <place w:st="on">Caribbean</place>. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“How big a rush? And how special?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“This afternoon would be good. Relax, it’s right here in town. And here’s how special.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d been carrying a small backpack when he’d walked in, and I’d wondered what it contained. He now reached inside the bag and came up with a tall, quart-sized bottle filled with what looked like very large, very long human fingers. They were packed in some kind of brine, and I needed the label to see what they were.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“A rush delivery of pig’s feet?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“What can I say? The guy loves ‘em. And they’re hard to get around here; I had to hit three shops this morning just to find those.” Fields smirked at me for a moment longer before dropping the act and continuing in a straight voice. “I’m trying to get somebody to stop looking at me.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My antennae came up. “How close they looking?” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh, nothing special. It’s just that there’s a new guy in town, a wiseguy from down south, and for some reason he doesn’t seem to trust me much.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Imagine that.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I know—everybody else in the crew likes me just fine. Anyway, one of the others was ridin’ him a little when we were out last night, calling him a hick and things like that. So I figure if he gets a delivery of these he’ll get good and mad at that guy and forget all about little ol’ me.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I see.” Something in the way I said that must have told him I didn’t see at all, because he leaned forward in his chair and did his best to work a sincere expression onto his face.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Really, Hank, I need this to happen pronto. I think he comes from a crew that doesn’t accept outsiders as easily as mine does, and he might give them ideas. We were all up late last night, so he’ll be sleeping in.” He dropped an address and a name on the desk before getting up to leave, taking the now-empty sack with him. He stopped before he got to the door. “Do I have to tell you to make sure nobody can trace this back here?”</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Of course I didn’t need this extra chore just then, but you gain a few strange skills after working undercover for even a short time. You’re juggling the information of two different personalities, so you get good at focusing on the task or the conversation or the crisis at hand. Looking ahead to something that’s not going to happen until later can make you slip up in the here and now. While I would have preferred to concentrate on Bobby’s problem, most of that plan could wait until later—and so in the here and now I decided to handle the errand for Fields.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After some preparation, I ended up window-shopping in another part of the city that afternoon, just across the street from a row of stylish front stoops. The visiting wiseguy from down south lived in one of those, and I watched the reflection of a kid I’d never met pedal up in front of his door. He was carrying a package that I’d wrapped myself, bearing bogus postal stamps and the label of a bike messenger service that didn’t exist.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Elvis Coolidge had picked the kid out for me, and clearly he’d coached him well. When he rang the buzzer, a tall man with dark hair came to the door wearing an expensive bathrobe and looking like he’d just been shaken from a deep sleep. The kid made him sign for the package, and even shook him down for a tip before quickly pedaling away.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Things happened fast after that. The same door opened abruptly less than two minutes later, and the robe-clad man stepped outside to look up and down the street. He was wide awake now, and didn’t look much like a mob guy unhappy with his most recent gift. He looked scared.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I walked around the corner by instinct, and it turned out my instincts were still sound. He’d rushed back inside by then, and not five minutes later a big black car came racing down the street and cut across traffic to park where the messenger had dropped his bike. Three men and one woman, all dressed in business suits, piled out of the car and through a front door that was held open by the bathrobe guy. He was half-dressed by then, and I briefly glimpsed a gun in his hand before the door slammed shut.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’d posted Tracy Witten behind the apartment block, just in case, and so I now called her on my cell as I walked away. She took a leisurely ride by the place a few minutes later, just in time to see the big black car pull away with five people inside. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Damn you, Fields. Southern wiseguy my ass. I kicked myself as I walked away, for not seeing the other message that a jar of pig’s feet might convey. There was no way of knowing what agency the people in suits worked for, but my guess was FBI. Fields had spotted one of their undercovers in one of the circles he now frequented, and had decided to make the guy go away. He was territorial by nature, and no doubt was breaking a few rules while undercover, so it made sense for him to scare off this interloper.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Pig’s feet. Pig. Police.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At least he’d warned me to make sure no one could trace the package back to us.</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Just as undercover work allows you to focus on the task at hand and ignore the things you’ve yet to do, it also lets you forget the things that have already happened. Mad as I was at Fields, I had to put his little shenanigan behind me if I was going to help Bobby maintain his cover with the Scavengers—and keep from going to jail, or getting killed, while doing it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I already mentioned that the Scavengers are a little too predictable for their own good, but some of that’s unavoidable. Ritual and tradition hold high places in the world of the motorcycle clubs, and one Scavenger tradition involved bonfire parties in the early spring. Their clubhouse, a concrete-block affair that had once been a youth center, sat in front of a large playing field that was now little more than a vacant lot. A dense stand of trees backed up to it, and several Scavenger prospects were piling wood into a teepee shape when I drove by just before it got dark.</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Here’s a little advice: If you ever have to kill someone, do it alone. No partner watching your back, no buddy waiting with the getaway vehicle, no girlfriend swearing you were with her. So even though I’d used both Elvis and Tracy for our little delivery that afternoon, I darn sure didn’t use them for the night’s activities. Or anybody else, for that matter.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I waited until after midnight before entering the woods behind the Scavenger clubhouse. It was cool out, and I was wearing a dark jacket over black jeans and black boots. I moved very slowly, aware of the garbage that had been dumped there over the years, reminding myself over and over again that I had all the time in the world. The bonfire was larger than a man, and the outlaws’ gophers kept it blazing, but I was surprised that I wasn’t able to see it until I’d traveled deep into the woods. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That was good; I wanted all the concealment I could get. The party was going strong, with over twenty bikers and almost as many girls all swigging from various bottles and standing close to the flames. That was good, too; staring into the light wasn’t going to help anyone see into the trees. Not even the ones who walked out there to relieve themselves.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’d backed up against the thickest trunk I could find close to the wood line’s edge, and let several opportunities pass while the cold slowly seeped into my bones. Most of those chances had been ruined when more than one biker had stumbled into the darkness at the same time, but I’d hesitated too long on at least two others. I knew why, and so I simply waited. And thought about my last day as an undercover, years earlier and on the other side of the country.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not knowing my cover had been blown, I’d meekly followed three of my new criminal friends into the basement of one of their houses. It had been cold down there, too, and it got a lot colder when one of them switched on a light to reveal a large wooden chair with handcuffs attached to it, sitting on a big plastic tarpaulin. A long table stood nearby, and a grisly assortment of tools had been carefully arranged on it. Two of the three were now pointing pistols at me, and in that instant I’d been sure that I was experiencing my last moments on the earth.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The one behind me had gotten a little carried away, though, and had punched me in the back of the head as hard as he could. I’d reeled forward, out of control, straight into the table loaded with all that scary gear. One of the items had been a hatchet, probably put there just for show, but I’d snatched it up in a heartbeat and moved with the speed that only comes from mortal terror. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’d buried the thing in one of the two who’d been holding a gun, following him to the stone floor while desperately scrambling for his fallen weapon. The next seconds had been taken up by a loud roaring, a madly swinging overhead light, and a hit-by-a-bus pain in my left leg. I’d gotten them all, and later one of my bosses had said I was lucky to have only been shot twice.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The memory did the trick, but not the way you might think. Standing there in the woods, the damp chill from the ground rising through my boots, all I could see in that blood-spattered cellar was that horrible wooden chair with the handcuffs—and a mangled Bobby Moore seated in it. That’s why I was there. That’s why I’d decided to do what I was about to do.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A voice called out from near the bonfire, louder then the rest, and another one answered it almost right behind me. One of the bikers stumbled past, temporarily blinded in the transition from the flames to the darkness. He moved unsteadily forward until he was a few feet in front of me, and I heard him unzip. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I got lucky just then, as one of the club’s many bikes roared into life. Its rider was really screwing it on, attention-seeking behavior that had always offended my undercover sensibilities. But it gave me protection, and I knew the moment had come. Using the engine’s roar, I stepped out and brought the sap down on the back of the guy’s head. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He dropped to his hands and knees, but he was an outlaw biker and so I was ready when he didn’t go down completely. Two more hard shots, smothered by the motorcycle’s roar, finally put him out. Another bike joined in with the first as I dragged him facedown to a small depression I’d noticed nearby. I hung his head over the edge to lessen the backsplash, and the bikes really began to howl when I took him by the hair and put the knife to his throat.</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Almost everything I’d worn or carried went into the incinerator when I got back to the shop. The knife and gloves, quickly rinsed in a small stream as I’d made my escape, had gone into three separate dumpsters as I’d cut through the alleys on my way home. I live at my delivery service, in a nice upstairs apartment, but I stayed downstairs for a long time.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Once the clothes and boots were burned up I walked naked into the middle of the small bay where we wash the vans. I set the overhead sprayers to a mild rinse before stepping into the middle of the deluge with arms raised and eyes shut. The soap took off whatever traces might have been left on me, and it washed down the center drain with a hungry slurping sound. I could have turned the sprayers down much further (at full strength they would have taken the skin right off me) but for some reason I left it pretty strong that time. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I only stepped out of there after I’d reached the point where I simply couldn’t stand it anymore.</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Wanna know when an undercover is most at risk? It’s when they’re meeting their handlers. And although I’m not undercover anymore—at least not officially—I had to take that risk two days later when Angela called for a meeting. Bobby Moore had been quietly sent off to bury his father, a fake obituary was running in the paper of his phony hometown, and the Scavengers motorcycle gang had gone on full alert. Armed men now stood on the roof of their clubhouse at all hours, you didn’t seen them riding alone anymore, and the word was spreading that they were very interested in finding out who’d hit them. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They’d completely forgotten about Bobby, which was why I’d chosen the method I’d used two nights before. A rival biker gang would probably have resorted to a spray of gunfire or a bomb, so the stealthy killing of one of their own just a few yards from the group had left them plenty confused. Believe me, if there had been another way I would have used it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Angela Ringgold sat in a high-backed booth in the rear of a hamburger place out on the highway many miles from our city. She wore an expensive lavender suit that showed off her trim figure, and her long black hair was loose over her shoulders. I have it on good authority that when Angela had been a patrol officer she’d kept her hair cut close to her skull and worn a special set of tactical shoes that she’d joyfully applied to criminals who ran from her. She still ran like a deer, and trained at a martial arts school where her classmates were afraid to spar with her, but now she was moving up the ladder and that was one reason why she put up with me.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In addition to providing her undercovers with sanctuary and guidance, I’d made sure early on that Angela understood I bring a lot of things to the table. I already told you I know more about what’s going on in our city than most of the criminals, and I’ve helped Angela’s career more than once by giving her the answers to big questions being asked at police headquarters. I doubt anyone above her pay grade even knows I exist, and I want to give her every reason to keep it that way.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You see, when my cover was blown years ago it was because someone who never should have had access to that information had blabbed about it. Some mid-level brass hat had been trying to impress his girlfriend, and a wiseguy sitting in that same bar had overheard just enough to figure out who I was. That’s why they were so eager to pin a medal on me and give me that retirement; it’s my understanding that the brass hat who almost got me killed is in line to become the commissioner in my old department some day. God help them.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Hello, Hank.” Angela’s dark eyes swiftly looked me up and down. When you run undercovers, you fall into the habit of examining them closely whenever you get the chance.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Hi Angela.” I sat across from her, uncomfortable to have my back to the door even though we were at the end of the row and the booth concealed us both.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Our friend got off all right.” No one was near us, but it was our habit to speak in riddles like that anyway. “From what I hear, he won’t be missed.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“He should be fine to come back and pick up right where he left off.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Oh, I’m not too sure about that. His playmates are a little on edge.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I heard about that.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She tried not to snort, but it happened anyway. Her face was usually a mask of amused neutrality, but every now and then it slipped. She recovered quickly. “Odd timing, that little event. Really turned the spotlight somewhere else.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“From what I hear, the spotlight’s jumping all over the place.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Exactly my point.” The control was back, and so I waited for her to say what she’d summoned me to hear. “I don’t like things that I can’t control, Hank. Even things I value.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She’d guessed my involvement, as I’d expected she might. But then she’d weighed what I could do for her career against what I could do to it, and still found me worth keeping. No doubt she was already getting her denials in a row for that imperfect day in the future when she might have to sever our relationship, but that works too—she’s not likely to tell anyone about me if she’s going to claim to hardly know me some day.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I understand.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Good.” She actually smiled, a ghostly thing that reminded me of that cold cellar on the other side of the country. She slid out of the booth, her eyes already checking the clientele to see who’d arrived since she’d sat down. “You do fine work, Hank. And my boys like you, even the older one. Let’s keep it that way.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Have a good day, Angel.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mispronounced her name on purpose, knowing it irked her.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Angel.” She repeated, as if hearing the word for the first time. She looked down at me for the briefest moment, the smile back again. “If you say so, Hank.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">And then she was gone.</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">#</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So there it is. Why I do the things I do. Those undercovers are all alone out there. No badge, no backup, no gun most of the time. Many of their bosses don't even know who they are. I'm all they've got, so I give them everything I have. I'd do anything for any of them, even Angela’s conniving older one, Gary Fields. Anything at all.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">You could say I already have.</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">###</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Vincent H. O’Neil</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Exile.florida@gmail.com<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">www.vincenthoneil.com</div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-63224884884994632942011-05-05T12:15:00.000-07:002011-05-05T12:15:14.251-07:00The Best Review I've Ever ReceivedLibby Cudmore, a marvelous new writer from the noir side of the mystery world, just gave my new book DEATH TROUPE the greatest review. I'm practically speechless, so here it is:<br />
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<em>Death Troupe</em> is a mystery novel for writers. It's about writing. It's about the struggles of writing and what being a writer does to people. It can unite or divide. It can make partnerships or it can end in murder, sometimes both. And <em>Death Troupe</em> explores all of this with a dark charm I've come to recognize from reading Vinny's <em>Exile</em> series . . . but I'd have to say without hesitation (or bribery) that this is Vinny's masterpiece, and with each chapter I read, I get inspired to go back to my own work . . . which, given some of the crazy circumstances of late, is a feat of it's own. Now if only the book weren't so damn hard to put down . . . <br />
--Libby Cudmore, April 28 2011<br />
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You can read the full blog (which says so many nice things about me that I couldn't reproduce them here) at Libby's fantastic blog "Record of the Month" (scroll down to April 28, 2011):<br />
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<a href="http://recordofthemonth.blogspot.com/">http://recordofthemonth.blogspot.com/</a>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-1349692323310795722011-04-10T18:52:00.000-07:002011-04-10T18:52:02.203-07:00Dancing with Myself: Vincent O'Neil Interviewing Vincent O'Neil (guest blog on Nigel Bird's "Sea Minor" site)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">You’ve done a lot of things over the years. You were a paratrooper, a risk manager, an advertiser, a consultant, and even an “apprentice librarian” (whatever that is). Can’t you keep a job?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Oddly enough, writing is the only thing that’s stayed a constant throughout my working life. I wrote my first novel when I was in high school, and kept plugging away at various books for the next twenty years, all the time holding down most of the jobs you mentioned. Although I’ve always referred to my writing as something I did in my spare time, it’s outlasted every full-time job I’ve ever had—which makes me wonder if writing was the full-time job all along.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Your Frank Cole mystery series is set in the <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Florida</place></state> panhandle, but you’re a New Englander. How does a guy from <state w:st="on">Massachusetts</state> write about <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Florida</place></state>?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">New England winters make writing about <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Florida</place></state> an easy, almost mandatory, thing. Honestly, I was introduced to the <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Florida</place></state> panhandle many years ago when I was in the army. I was a newly-minted lieutenant from West Point, and was fighting my way through a very tough commando course called <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Ranger</placename> <placetype w:st="on">School</placetype></place>. In Ranger they don’t let you sleep very much or eat very much for roughly two months, and you carry an enormous rucksack all over the Fort Benning part of central Georgia, the mountainous part of north Georgia, the lunar landscape part of Utah, and then the swampy part of the Florida panhandle. Apparently I didn’t do the swampy part right, because they made me do it over. As a result I spent close to a month partially submerged in a river there, so I can honestly claim that I know the region in a way that few of the locals do.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">You mentioned wintertime just now. Your most recent novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i>, starts out in the middle of a brutal winter in the <place w:st="on">Adirondacks</place>. Did you get tired of sunny <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Florida</place></state>?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">No one <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever</i> gets tired of sunny <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Florida</state></place>. And I’m certainly not tired of the Frank Cole series, either. With that said, I caught a slight case of the acting bug two years ago and began plotting a new series, one built around a high-end murder mystery theater outfit nicknamed Death Troupe. The great advantage of Death Troupe is that they perform one play a year, each year in a different place, so I’ll have to move them around a lot. The first novel is set in the Adirondack town of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Schuyler Mills</place></city>, and I drew on my long association with winter to write it. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">So does that mean <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i> is a wintertime read?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You know, that raises a question that occurred to me early in the brainstorming phase of this story: We have plenty of books that are considered beach reads, but is there such a thing as a wintertime book?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I thought I was the one asking the questions.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I am you and you are me and we are we, so I doubt it really matters. But no, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i> isn’t focused on freezing to death in upstate <state w:st="on">New York</state> (although there’s a much-praised sequence where one of the characters comes close to doing just that) and the last part of the book is set against the backdrop of a spectacular <place w:st="on">Adirondack</place> spring.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Your main character in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i> is the group’s playwright, Jack Glynn. This isn’t another one of those gloomy stories where the writer is alone most of the time and may or may not be going insane, is it?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Well . . . maybe. Actually, no. Not at all. Death Troupe’s playwright takes up residence in the host town roughly six months before the show, and writes a murder mystery play based on the locale. That requires him to be out and about, meeting the people of the town and learning its quirks. So Jack spends much of his time in the more popular gathering places, from a sports bar to a coffee joint to a frozen lake in the deep woods that’s been turned into a skating rink. And of course he meets just about every resident of Schuyler Mills, from the average everyday people to the . . . how to put this . . . more flamboyant citizens.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Hopefully some of those more flamboyant citizens are females.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Very much so. Jack has been both lucky and unlucky in love, in that he has an on-again, off-again romance with the troupe’s lead actress Allison Green. Their jobs don’t let them spend much time together, and when Jack heads to Schuyler Mills he quickly meets some highly intriguing ladies there. This is tough, as he’s already torn between his feelings for Allison and his fear that the two of them won’t end up together. He enjoys the company of the town’s unpredictable publicity manager very much, and attracts the attentions of a free-spirited ice sculptress as well. Oh, and one of his former girlfriends may just be stalking the troupe, so there’s that. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I didn’t see “Actor” listed among your many failed careers. What qualified you to write about the theater?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Research, research, and more research. When you know nothing about a complex topic like the stage, you have to start from scratch. I got <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amateur Theatricals</i> from the local library, and it really put me on the right path. The Idiot’s Guides are worth their weight in gold, and I highly recommend <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigations</i> for anyone thinking about writing mystery novels. After reading many, many beginner-level books about acting and directing, I slowly graduated to more advanced works and finally ended with the memoirs of some noted Broadway directors.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Notice any similarities between directing plays and writing novels?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Actually, I noted a lot of similarity with many different roles, from acting to costuming to set design and directing. In a way, novelists cover all those tasks: We explore our characters’ motivations just like the actors do, dress our characters using techniques from the costume design team, and shape the story in much the same way that directors do. And if it weren’t for the annoying voice asking me questions here, I’d be able to say novelists do all this without having to consider outside opinions.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Pipe down. We’re almost done. It sounds like your theater research helped your writing. Did it?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Unquestionably. I really did a disservice to actors, designers, and directors in my last answer, as one individual can’t even come close to doing all those jobs. But by reading about them and taking copious notes, I was able to pull bits and pieces of the things they do into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i>. For example, I learned that some actors will create a biography of their character to help them understand the role better, even though none of that bio ever gets into the play. That helped me form the backgrounds of some of my own characters, and it reminded me that we writers don’t have to include every detail that we might have worked out in our heads. Sometimes it’s better to leave a few loose ends untied.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Always leave them laughing, right?</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Absolutely. It’s very much a piece of stage wisdom to always leave the audience wanting more. So having said that, shut up and stop asking me questions.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">No, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> shut up.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">To read Vinny’s blog on life, writing, and everything else, please go to </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://blogsfromexile.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: purple;">http://blogsfromexile.blogspot.com/</span></a></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">For his website, which is jam-packed with sample chapters and a review from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sunday New York Times</i> that he had tattooed on his back, please go to </b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.vincenthoneil.com/"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.vincenthoneil.com</span></a></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-89573159042468184452011-04-01T08:16:00.000-07:002011-04-01T08:16:29.391-07:00The Midwest Book Review’s excellent review of DEATH TROUPE<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It's quite annoying when fiction becomes reality. More so when your fiction is murder. "Death Troupe" follows the theatre group known as the Jerome Barron players who have earned the nickname Death Troupe, surrounding their practice of doing murder mystery plays. But when their writer turns up dead, it gets all the more complicated as they have a murder mystery in reality for themselves to play out. With plenty of intrigue and betrayal, "Death Troupe" is a fun and highly recommended read, not to be missed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>--MBR Bookwatch, April 2011</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">DEATH TROUPE is available from Amazon.com as a 396-page paperback ($11.00) or a Kindle eBook ($2.99)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.vincenthoneil.com/">http://www.vincenthoneil.com/</a></span></div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-84381097565747615042011-03-15T09:12:00.000-07:002011-03-15T09:12:02.816-07:00Guest-blogging on how to write a theater-based murder mystery at Janice Hardy's marvelous siteHi,<br />
<br />
I would post the content of my guest-blog here, but Janice's site is so nice, and she did such a great job with my post, that I'll just share the link:<br />
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<a href="http://blog.janicehardy.com/2011/03/guest-author-vincent-oneil-on-improving.html">http://blog.janicehardy.com/2011/03/guest-author-vincent-oneil-on-improving.html</a>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-57929844154371018772011-03-11T08:38:00.000-08:002011-03-11T08:38:14.166-08:00Vincent H. O'Neil Releases New Theatre Mystery, DEATH TROUPE 2011/03/10<a href="http://books.broadwayworld.com/article/Vincent_H_ONeil_Releases_New_Theatre_Mystery_DEATH_TROUPE_20110310">Vincent H. O'Neil Releases New Theatre Mystery, DEATH TROUPE 2011/03/10</a>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-72690656675669742712011-02-25T09:00:00.000-08:002011-02-25T09:00:06.309-08:00Hearing the Music: How composing a song and composing a story can be almost the exact same thing<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In my latest novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i>, the play’s gruff director Jerome Barron gives some advice to his playwright, main character Jack Glynn:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3in;">“Do me a favor, Jack. Get yourself a nice set of headphones and listen to a few classical tunes. Pick something that really hits you, that gets your blood going or the tears flowing, anything you like as long as it’s got a lot of different instruments. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3in;">“Here’s why I say that: While you’re listening, shut your eyes and try to pick out some of the moments when the song’s building, like where an oboe hops in or a fife flutters a few notes and then disappears. Be honest with yourself, and ask if you ever noticed those things before. Then go back and listen for the big moments, those soaring, sweeping passages where you feel like your heart’s going to explode in expectation.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-indent: 0.3in;">“And after that, start writing. Write this play like a composer. I’ve always said that the best members of this troupe came from musicals, and I stand by that. To do what we do, you gotta be able to hear the music—even when it isn’t there.” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i>, 2011)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.3in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.3in;">I have a modest background in music, having played saxophone in two championship-winning bands (one marching, one jazz) back in high school. And as a writer, I’ve been impressed many times with the similarities between the things we did in those bands and the things I currently do.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.3in;">The high points of a story, like the high notes of a song, don’t just suddenly appear. Both compositions build toward those moments, and in most cases they’re easily distinguishable from the rest of the work. Just as the high points in music can be signified by increased tempo and louder volume, the big moments in writing are sometimes identified by faster pacing and intensified action. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.3in;">That doesn’t mean the passages between these peaks (the valleys, so to speak) are merely filler. They serve more than one purpose, in that they convey the readers or listeners from one peak to the next while holding their attention and advancing the overall work. In novels, subplots and backstories frequently populate these valleys in much the same way as the supporting instruments of an orchestral piece.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.3in;">So take a page out of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i> and listen to a little music before you start writing or when you’re on a break. Movie soundtracks are particularly good for this exercise, and many of them are available on YouTube. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.3in;">As Jerome Barron observes later in the book, the similarities between orchestral groups and theater troupes shouldn’t be all that surprising: After all, they’re both led by a Director. The same thing goes for writing, except that the composer, the playwright, the novelist, and the overall Director are one individual: You. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">www.vincenthoneil.com</div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-34218082299107152362011-02-16T10:30:00.000-08:002011-02-16T10:30:52.377-08:00Getting It Write: When your main character is a writer<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In my new novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i>, the main character is a playwright. Creating such a role was a new experience for me, and I was surprised by how much work it turned out to be. I’ve read many novels in which the protagonist was some kind of writer (Stephen King’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shining</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Misery</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘<city w:st="on">salem</city>’s <place w:st="on">Lot</place></i>, just to name three from a single author) and had always found the writer-as-character to be highly engaging. Making my playwright interesting wasn’t the hard part, of course; what was difficult was describing a fictitious writer’s creative process without simply restating my own.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">When it comes to writing, I believe that whatever works for you works for you. It might work for someone else, but then again it might not. These platitudes are easy to say (and even to follow) in real life because we so seldom control how someone else crafts a story. It’s a very different thing, however, when we do have that control.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i>’s main character, Jack Glynn, doesn’t follow a standard routine in writing his plays. He’s the in-house playwright for a theater troupe that comes together once a year, each year in a different town, to perform a mystery play written specifically for that locale. As a result, Jack has to travel to that vicinity (in this case a place in the <place w:st="on">Adirondacks</place> called Schuyler Mills) and develop the story as he gets to know the area and its people. He draws heavily on local history and tradition for this, but the troupe’s director provides his own overbearing input as the play is being developed. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Jack’s meetings with the director provide great opportunities for showcasing the brainstorming process, and they also convert what might have been his deadly-dull ruminations into a freewheeling dialogue. This is helpful, as a main character who is a writer could be expected to spend long periods of time alone with the work-in-progress. As mentioned above, Stephen King did this quite successfully with his imprisoned (and terrorized) novelist in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Misery</i>, but even so there is always a danger of boring the audience with long passages where the writer is mentally building the story.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Which is not to suggest that the writer-as-protagonist is necessarily boring—far from it. Because they don’t normally hold down a nine-to-five job, writer-characters are freed to spend the day (or night) as they see fit. The search for inspiration can take them to some highly interesting settings, and those settings can be the home of some very unusual personalities and events. Writers see the world through very different sets of eyes, and the writer-protagonist’s interpretation of those sights, personalities, and events can be both entertaining and revealing. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Even the act of writing need not necessarily take place in a quiet room with a single desk and chair anymore. The laptop and Wi-Fi have freed the artist to roam about at will, almost like Hemingway composing essays in his notebook as he sat in busy cafés. Putting the writer in the middle of things, even while creating, provides the opportunity for other characters to break up those long passages where the reader is inside the writer’s head. And that was where I discovered how to describe a fictitious character’s creative process so that it wasn’t just a repeat of my own: The shifting settings, and the information provided by various characters, drove the playwright’s imagination in such a multitude of directions that it assumed a life of its own. The involvement of the demanding director likewise sent the brainstorming down unexpected paths, as his personality and Jack Glynn’s are almost polar opposites.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Having stumbled across this technique for building someone else’s creative process, I was actually pulled along by it at various times. Jack Glynn’s emerging play itself became quite exciting, particularly when a period of seemingly useless effort bordering on writer’s block suddenly lurched into a full-blown creative spree:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.3in;">. . . he now found himself in one of those exhilarating periods when he’d rather be writing than doing anything else. Things that made for a normal life—like a daily routine that followed the sun—took a back seat to times like these, and he exulted in that change because it served as proof that his writing was indeed the most important thing in his life. It wasn’t a conscious choice on his part, like deciding to repaint the bathroom or go buy the groceries, but an overarching reallocation of his existence that was as undeniable as breathing. Day turned into night, breakfast turned into dinner, and the laptop or the writing tablet beckoned even when he was asleep. He would often awake with a new idea—as if he’d merely been on a break and not unconscious—and he would see the empty seat before the desk not as his station in some pointless assembly line, but as the pilot’s seat in a ship that could go anywhere. (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Death Troupe</i>, 2011)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Perhaps that’s the best part of having a writer as the protagonist: Having followed that individual’s avocation ourselves, we identify with the character’s struggles as the story develops. We sympathize when the tale dead-ends, or a major rewrite becomes mandatory. And we beam with a shared pride when the final product comes together.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">www.vincenthoneil.com</div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-77235501917059658732011-02-11T08:39:00.000-08:002011-02-11T08:39:09.695-08:00Blogs from Exile: Murder, Romance, Suspense, and Theater: My new nov...<a href="http://blogsfromexile.blogspot.com/2011/02/murder-romance-suspense-and-theater-my.html?spref=bl">Blogs from Exile: Murder, Romance, Suspense, and Theater: My new nov...</a>: "Now available on Amazon: DEATH TROUPE by Vincent H. O’Neil (394 pages) The Jerome Barron Players have a problem. Their writer, Ryan Betancou..."Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-18548762668473922082011-02-11T08:36:00.000-08:002011-02-11T08:36:37.074-08:00Murder, Romance, Suspense, and Theater: My new novel Death Troupe<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Now available on Amazon:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">DEATH TROUPE by Vincent H. O’Neil (394 pages)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #231515; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt;">The Jerome Barron Players have a problem. Their writer, Ryan Betancourt, has killed himself under mysterious circumstances and they need a replacement right away. The Players, unofficially known as Death Troupe, come together once a year to perform a high-end murder mystery play written specifically for that season’s host town. Their writer has to possess special talents, as there’s a wager involved: If the townspeople can correctly identify the murderer before the show’s final act, they don’t have to pay for the engagement. So far, no town has ever won the bet. <br />
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Enter Jack Glynn, original writer for the Barron Players. He and Ryan wrote two Death Troupe engagements before Ryan stole Jack’s girlfriend, lead actress Allison Green. Although Jack found fame in <city w:st="on">Hollywood</city> after quitting the troupe, eccentric director Jerome Barron convinces him to return for one show: The upcoming engagement in the Adirondack town of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Schuyler Mills</place></city>. <br />
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It is only then that the troupe’s advance man, private investigator Wade Parker, tells Jack of the strange events which surrounded the group’s previous engagement in Red Bend, California. A local retiree killed himself a few days after the performance—an act Wade suspects was prompted by the storyline of Ryan’s final play. He also reveals that Ryan was greatly unnerved by anonymous third parties who had interfered with the group’s marquee clue distribution. <br />
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This is one of the unique features of Death Troupe: As the performance approaches, clues are sprinkled through the town in a variety of ways, from fake headstones bearing characters’ names to real players acting out their assigned roles. In Red Bend, a stranger pretending to be a troupe member had dropped clues that were surprisingly accurate, and Ryan had reacted badly to this—perhaps badly enough to kill himself. <br />
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Events take a sinister turn shortly after Jack arrives in the small, snow-covered <place w:st="on"><placetype w:st="on">village</placetype> of <placename w:st="on">Schuyler Mills</placename></place>. Someone leaves a bizarre arrangement of black roses and plastic skulls in his hotel room. Ryan’s missing notebook from the Red Bend engagement turns up, and it contains an alarming tale of psychological harassment. The people of Schuyler Mills are enthusiastic about Jack’s presence, but he knows that many of them, from the local community theater group to the town mayor, could have ulterior motives. <br />
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As the weeks go by, someone begins distributing clues that Jack doesn’t recognize, from a plastic head stuck in an ice-fishing hole to confidential information scrawled on a billboard. Reading Ryan’s notebook, Jack begins to fear that the same web that snared his old writing partner in Red Bend is being spun around him in Schuyler Mills. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.vincenthoneil.com/">http://www.vincenthoneil.com/</a></div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-31367539298640433482011-02-05T15:27:00.000-08:002011-02-05T15:27:32.490-08:00Release of new mystery theater-themed novel DEATH TROUPE<a href="http://www.briefingwire.com/pr/release-of-new-mystery-theater-themed-novel-death-troupe">Release of new mystery theater-themed novel DEATH TROUPE</a>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-15970435270522516202010-12-20T17:04:00.000-08:002010-12-20T17:05:06.904-08:00The Mighty Tiny Tim -- in praise of the short storyNOTE: I wrote this blog at Christmas time last year, and was so pleased with how it turned out that I wanted to share it again this year:<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">The Mighty Tiny Tim</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Recently, I had the good fortune to have two short stories included in anthologies. So when The Stiletto Gang (I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have</i> to work that name into one of my mystery novels) offered me the chance to guest blog for them, I decided to try and write something in praise of the short story.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Considering the season, I was not surprised when the image of Dickens’ Tiny Tim came to mind during my brainstorming. Not only is Tiny Tim short in stature, but he also employs a marvelous economy of words. “God bless us, every one!” is, I believe, his only line in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Christmas Carol</i> and yet it sums up the story and its spirit quite nicely. It also ranks up there with “Bah, humbug!” as the most memorable line of that Christmas classic.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Tiny Tim’s kind of pithiness is an absolute must in short story writing, where the dreaded word limit sometimes suggests that we might have to sacrifice important elements. While it’s true that we don’t have a limitless number of pages for things such as character development, this in no way lets us off the hook. Just as Tiny Tim manages to cap Scrooge’s long night using only a few words, in the writing of short stories we have to look for more concise methods of communicating our ideas and information.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Although it’s taken from the world of theater, here’s an example of how a few actions and limited dialogue can yield a big result: On stage, a young woman is nervously hosting her father-in-law, who has dropped by the newlyweds’ apartment unannounced. The young woman offers the father-in-law some coffee, and leaves him in the living room while she goes into the kitchen. As soon as she’s gone, the father-in-law quickly and efficiently goes through the newlyweds’ mail, which was sitting on the table in front of him. He puts the letters and bills back in exactly the same place just before she returns, and is sitting there as if he’d done nothing in her absence.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The director providing this example described it as an efficient way of getting the audience to ponder many different possibilities regarding the character of the father-in-law. Is he merely a snoop, or is he worried about the young couple’s finances? Is there something in his son’s background that prompts him to be watchful? And why is he so good at snooping in the first place? All of these ideas and questions were conjured up in the minds of the audience by a few actions on stage, just like the space-saving devices we use when writing short stories. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">To continue the topic of brevity, one of my instructors at The Fletcher School was noted for the pithiness of his class lectures. Commenting on that topic, he once said, “If you want me to speak for five minutes, I’ll need a week to prepare. If you want me to speak for a half an hour, I’ll need a day. And if you want me to speak for an hour, I’m ready right now.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">This was a comment on the demanding taskmaster that is brevity. In a seeming contradiction, it can take longer (and involve more work) to communicate your point in a single sentence than by using several paragraphs. It was also an observation that bamboozling an audience for an hour requires little preparation, while doing the same thing in five minutes is almost impossible. The requirement to organize our thoughts, and then express them succinctly in a convincing presentation of short duration, can be a very difficult task indeed.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">And that’s why I like short stories. They’re the literary equivalent of the five-minute speech that takes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so long</i> to prepare—but hits the nail directly on the head. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Just like the mighty Tiny Tim. God bless us, everyone.</div><br />
<a href="http://www.vincenthoneil.com/">http://www.vincenthoneil.com/</a>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-807129457784005052010-12-13T08:04:00.000-08:002010-12-13T08:04:43.830-08:00Some ideas for managing the holiday season<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I thought I’d shift away from the topics of writing and reading in order to share some methods for managing the holidays. Whether you’re prone to the seasonal blues or just have too much to do, here are a few techniques I’ve used in the past for managing stress, workloads, and minor-to-major annoyances:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><ol style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Give yourself a break</b> </li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">This technique can take many forms, from short time-outs to longer approaches. The most important thing to do in this method is: Identify What’s Stressing You. Once you do that, you’ll be able to find ways to keep those bothersome things (or people) from getting too much on your nerves. For example:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">If you’re feeling a lot of pressure from the too-many things you have to do, make a list of the actual tasks instead of viewing them as an unmanageable whole. Instead of seeing your big holiday party as a giant project, break it down into smaller categories such as invitations, food, beverages, and decorations. Instead of dreading all the gift shopping you have to do, write out the list of the actual items you need to go get. This obviously doesn’t lessen the amount of work you have to do, but it allows you to see that the insurmountable obstacle is actually made up of smaller (and easier) tasks.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">Once you get going on these chores, don’t forget to continue giving yourself a break. Lock the gifts you’ve already bought in your car (concealed, of course) and then get a snack or a coffee before moving on to the next store. While you’re doing that, take a moment to look at the decorations. This is a festive time—let it be enjoyable for you.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">As a minor caveat to the above, some people are more goal-oriented than others. I’m one of those people, and so I only start to feel better about a big project once I’ve tackled a significant part of it. If you know that will lower your stress, then go with it. Check off a bunch of the boxes on the To-Do list—and then take a break.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><ol start="2" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Turn down the negativity</b></li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">These are trying times for many of us, even without the holidays, and we are surrounded in our everyday lives by reminders of how bad things are. In a maneuver closely related to Giving Yourself a Break, recognize the value of temporarily shutting out some of the negativity in your life. For example:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">It’s okay to miss the news from time to time. This isn’t a recommendation for sticking your head in the sand or slipping into a fantasy world, but it is a strong suggestion that being bombarded with dire warnings about the economy, the environment, and just about everything else can be very stressful—and to no immediate purpose. Many of the doomsayers on the news have an agenda that only involves your vote or your wallet, so you can turn them off for a while without missing much. If something big happens, you’ll hear about it without turning on the TV or the radio or the computer. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">If the negativity in your life comes from a different source, apply the same principle and try to control your exposure to it. So if you have a relative, friend, or coworker who brings you down, you don’t have to shut them out completely—just limit their opportunities to ruin your spirits. This can be as easy as mentally setting the time when you’re going to politely end the conversation, or as involved as including more upbeat people in the event where the downer is present. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><ol start="3" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Lift your spirits</b></li>
</ol><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">The first two techniques listed above involved the reduction of negative influences, but that’s actually a negative approach itself. So I’d like to finish by suggesting that you try something positive. Identify events, books, movies, music, or anything else that makes you happy this time of year. Once you’ve found a few of these, add them to your life somewhere in the next few weeks. Revive that family tradition, rent that beloved movie, or pop that CD of Christmas carols into the player.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">If you can’t identify anything that’s lifted your spirits in the past, look for something new that might give you a boost. Every town website (or local library) has some kind of ‘Calendar of Events’ listing, and many of these events are free. Some of them may even allow you to do some volunteer work, which is also a good way for most of us to improve our moods. Whether it’s walking through the town common to see the Christmas lights or helping to wrap presents for the less fortunate, there are plenty of activities out there that can put a nice seasonal spring in your step.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">Even if that doesn’t work, take a page out of Scarlet O’Hara’s book and remember that tomorrow is always another day, with just as much chance that things will be better as that they will be worse. We’re closing out the year 2010, and there’s nothing wrong with feeling optimistic just because a new year is beginning. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;">I hope you’ve found these ideas helpful. I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas, a joyous holiday season, and great good luck in the coming year. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.25in;"><a href="http://www.vincenthoneil.com/">http://www.vincenthoneil.com/</a></div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-20447246142606585802010-11-27T17:32:00.000-08:002010-11-27T17:32:22.349-08:00Starting your mystery novel can be murder<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">One of the great things about being an author is that I get to meet so many talented writers, both published and not-yet-published. We ask each other everything under the sun, but one of the most common questions in the mystery genre is how to begin plotting the story. Murder mysteries aren’t like most other tales of fiction because they almost always contain the additional element of an investigation that has to make some kind of logical sense. Many murder mysteries provide clues for the readers so that they can guess who the killer is, and those clues have to make sense as well. As if that’s not enough, the mystery has to be sufficiently difficult (or interesting) to hold the reader’s attention. So where does the plotting of such a tale begin?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Every writer has a different way of doing things, so this blog will only suggest a few. If the ideas presented here sound valid, please feel free to give them a try. If not, please round-file them; after all, writing is a very individual thing and what works for one writer may not work at all for another. Additionally, this is a blog about how to begin plotting the basic concept or outline of a mystery tale and so it shouldn’t be confused with the actual opening or first lines of that book, which is a different topic altogether.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">One place to start your plotting is the investigator. This is a good technique because it automatically directs the story in one of two different directions: Amateur or professional. If the investigator is a professional, his or her involvement in a murder probe needs little explanation. If the investigator is an amateur, the question of why they’re looking into this particular killing probably requires an answer. Plotting that begins with the investigator can also lend itself to a more character-driven piece, particularly if the individual(s) looking into the killing are the story’s main focus.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Not all novels are character-driven, however. In a more thematic approach, the author might begin by choosing some ideas or topics to thread into the storyline. For example, if you’d like your story to suggest that the forces of law and order are just as crooked as your outrightly criminal characters, special attention might be required in choosing the setting and circumstances of the murder and its investigation. After all, there really is a reason so many great noir mysteries are set in big cities with authority-hating gumshoes as main characters.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">As for me, I prefer to start my plotting with the murder itself. This approach makes me identify the motive for the killing early in the process, but that’s all right. Knowing the motive right from the start allows the writer to get into the killer’s mind that much faster, and it also raises the issue of how the killer might keep that motive from being discovered. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Starting with the murder itself often leads to two important ways the killer can be found out: What (if anything) they did to prepare for the act, and what steps they took to hide their involvement once the deed was done. This thought process also separates the murder into two categories: Premeditated and not premeditated. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In the case of the planned murder, the perpetrator might have done many things to get ready, or to create the circumstances where the killing took place. An investigator finding evidence of those acts (indications that someone had been following the victim, for example) has at least uncovered evidence suggesting that this was in fact a murder. Further digging into those preparatory movements can cross potential suspects off the list (unless, of course, the killer wasn’t working alone) and even lead to uncovering the murderer. Regardless of the level of preparation, the killer might also have left vital clues in an attempt to cover his or her tracks.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Which leads us to the unplanned killing. Despite the absence of preparation, there are still possible clues prior to the spur-of-the-moment murder. Motive can be one of them, as the individual who suddenly commits homicide usually has an overwhelming reason to do so—often recognizing, too late, just how obvious a suspect he or she might be. That, of course, would then prompt them to do something to get their names off that suspect list. Crafting an alibi (which can also create a conspirator-after-the-fact who may or may not hold that information over the killer) or pointing the authorities at someone else are just two of the many things the murderer might try. No matter what the perpetrator might do to hide his or her involvement, an investigator discovering those efforts would probably put the killer back on the suspect list—maybe at the very top.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Regardless of how you choose to begin plotting your story, a generic timeline can be a handy tool. In its most rudimentary form, this can be as simple as a piece of paper showing that the investigation starts sometime after the murder. Don’t laugh; pondering those two points in time can really get your plotting started. They raise interesting considerations such as whether or not there’s a dead body (otherwise this case might start out as a missing person, a potential kidnapping, or a simple runaway), if there are concrete indications that this was a murder (as opposed to a suicide or an accident), and just how much time has elapsed before the investigators became involved. Slowly filling in the events surrounding these two moments in time can be a very good way to start plotting your mystery.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Hopefully this didn’t sound like a series of yes / no items like choosing between first-person and third-person and deciding whether or not to tell the reader who the killer is. The point is that if you’re having trouble getting your mystery plotting started, going over these basic ideas can really get the brainstorming rolling. And once that happens, you’re on your way.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.vincenthoneil.com/">http://www.vincenthoneil.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-53724991372583978962010-11-09T09:23:00.000-08:002010-11-09T09:23:45.608-08:00When in doubt, tell the story<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In writing, it’s not unusual to reach a spot where you don’t know how to continue—or even how to get started. That’s a scary feeling. Some people dread such moments as the onset of writers’ block, while others view them as a subconscious warning to slow down because they’re missing something. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">In both cases, my advice is the same: Tell the story.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Someone a lot smarter than I am once told a writing group, “You’re not writers—you’re storytellers.” I come back to that aphorism a lot, because I think it’s brilliant. After all, so much of our writing is little more than a good cocktail-party story that someone took the time to write down. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It really is true: Think of a story you tell in small gatherings, one that almost always holds the attention of your audience or gets a good laugh at the end. Then think about how it would look on paper if someone recorded you and then transcribed the tale. It would probably come across quite well, and that shouldn’t be a surprise; after all, your cocktail-party story has an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. It’s shaped to go from the beginning to the middle to the end without losing the audience, and that ending is meant to have a certain effect. Speaking or writing, we are storytellers.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">That goes for the non-fiction writers out there as well. The only difference is that your stories are real.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">So whenever you’re casting about for what to do next in a project, or even wondering how to get started, follow this advice: Tell the story.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">If you’ve already got something written down, your momentary pause could have many explanations: You wonder if what you’ve already written is on target. You suspect it needs something more—more detail, more description, more words. You fear you may have already painted yourself into a corner and don’t even know it yet.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">All of the preceding questions are important, and if you have an answer for them (your first draft <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">isn’t</i> on target, the completed part of the work <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">does</i> need something, or you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have</i> boxed yourself in) then by all means fix them. But if you don’t have a solution for these issues (or if you’re not even sure they’re issues at all) then go ahead and keep telling the story. Ask yourself what comes next, and then write it. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Quite often, this practice will show that your earlier concerns aren’t terribly valid—or the new writing will render them moot. Think of those times when the writing of the story itself revealed the solution you couldn’t think of earlier, and keep telling the story. Consider just how much of a rough draft gets taken out later (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">French Connection</i> director William Friedkin referred to such discarded material as ‘scaffolding’ because it wasn’t needed after the story he was building was completed) and keep scribbling. Continue to tell the story.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Remember, this isn’t an admonition to just go blindly charging ahead. You can’t continue telling the story if you don’t know it in the first place. It also doesn’t mean you have to figure everything out before you write it, or that you have to build the tale chronologically—far from it. One great advantage of the advice to “Tell the Story” is that it allows you to skip to a part that you know well enough to actually work on. It lets you accept the possibility that a segment you’ve already completed isn’t what it should be, but that you can leave it alone until you know how to fix it. It keeps the words appearing on the screen or the page.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It keeps you telling the story.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Just a little earlier, I mentioned that this advice can also help you get started when you’re not sure how to begin. That’s where the cocktail-party example comes back into play. There are many ways to begin a story, and you can make any of them work. But if you’re at a loss as to how to get started, try imagining yourself standing or sitting with a small group of people when a lull in the conversation occurs. How would you get their attention? What’s so interesting about your tale (or your point)? Should you start with an introduction, or just jump right into the action? Think of a few ways you might do this, and before you know it you’ll be off and running.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">You’ll be telling the story.</div><br />
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<a href="http://www.vincenthoneil.com/">http://www.vincenthoneil.com/</a>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-86494300506552485632010-10-19T17:46:00.000-07:002010-10-19T17:46:01.235-07:00When Your Characters Misbehave<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The studio guy told me, “Kid, you have no future in this business.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">So I asked him, “Why?” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">He said, “When Tony Curtis first walked onscreen carrying a bag of groceries—a bag of GROCERIES—you took one look at him and thought, THAT'S a movie star!” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">So I asked, “Weren't you supposed to think, That's a grocery delivery boy?”</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 2.5in;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">—Harrison Ford describing his first screen test</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">I like that anecdote for a lot of different reasons, and I usually cite it when another writer mentions the topic of characters who won’t behave. You’ve met these troublemakers: Minor players who insist on acting like major players, background performers who refuse to stay in the shadows, and the grocery boy character who’s supposed to walk in, set the bag down, and walk out—but he just . . . won’t . . . <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do it</i>!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Unbelievable. Why won’t he do what he’s told? After all, he’s just a figment of my imagination. He wouldn’t exist on the page if my fingers weren’t typing out his every action. I’m the director and he’s the actor. He’s supposed to do what I say. He just doesn’t.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">So instead of walking in, putting the bag down, and walking out, what does he do instead? He tracks in dirt that sparks my investigator’s memory about a crime scene. He trips over something on the floor that turns out to be a major clue. He makes a wise-guy comment that’s just too good to leave out. Or he walks in, puts down the bag, and walks out . . . but not before rolling his eyes at me.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The outright disobedience is tough to understand (I am, after all, typing the character’s every move) but easy to handle—either I incorporate the unexpected action and try to figure out where it leads, or I throw it out entirely. Believe it or not, it’s the eye roll that’s an actual challenge. As with any eye roll, my initial reaction is to ask, “What was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i>?” and sometimes that’s all there is . . . for a time. You see, the eye roll is usually an indication that I’ve missed an opportunity to tell the tale a little better and that I have not yet recognized it. In the case of the unexpected action, I subconsciously saw a different way to improve the story and the character simply went ahead and did it. But the eye rolling grocery clerk, though clearly exasperated by the uninspired things I’ve got him doing, doesn’t provide the answer right away.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Re-reading the lines that preceded this one, I have to wonder what a psychiatrist would make of all this. A writer claiming to be unable to control the very words he’s typing because the imaginary human being he’s created is calling the shots. There’s a horror movie on this topic involving an evil ventriloquist doll, and most audiences come away from that film believing the ventriloquist was nuts. Lord knows what a trained psychiatrist would say about that . . . or this.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">But I digress. Back to the grocery clerk who actually does what he’s supposed to, but gives me silent attitude the whole way. It can take a little time, but the missed opportunity in that grocery delivery scene does reveal itself—sometimes in a stunning fashion. In some instances the revelation appears only after I’ve painted myself into a tight literary corner with no apparent way out—that is, until I see the change to the earlier scene that would drop everything back into place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">There is a related experience where I’ve added subplots, characters, and even single lines to a story for no apparent reason. These tiny items come out of nowhere, and even as I type the words I’m almost certain I’ll eventually remove them as useless clutter. Later, sitting there in a corner of my own making, overcome with the scent of slow-drying paint, I suddenly realize the pointless piece of clutter included on a whim is the only—and sometimes perfect—way out. That’s what I mean by a stunning revelation. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">The important secret that the grocery clerk obviously knew but wouldn’t share falls in the same category. There’s no way to explain it (even for the trained psychiatrist that I won’t be contacting) but it’s one of the great joys of writing: Unexpected inspiration that radically improves the story, unlikely coincidence that gets us out of that ugly corner, and unruly characters who sometimes take our writing to a whole new level. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">So the next time your minor character starts talking like a major character, let her. The next time the opening car door allows a clue to fall unexpectedly onto the ground, pick it up and look at it. And the next time the delivery boy rolls his eyes, tell him you noticed—and that you’ll be happy to listen once he’s ready to drop the attitude and spit it out.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">You’ll be glad you did. I always am.</span></div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-37074528851408244732010-10-06T10:40:00.000-07:002010-10-06T10:40:46.413-07:00Research and Writing: It’s not just the facts after all<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I’ve been writing in various genres for some time now, but only recently came to appreciate the link between research and inspiration. Yes, I know; it was probably always there, but I hadn’t really given it much thought until just a few years ago.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Like so many former students, somewhere I got the impression that research merely put me in a position to start working on an idea, instead of helping me generate the idea itself. As a result, I had a definite ‘research’ phase, followed by a ‘brainstorming’ phase, and then the actual ‘writing’ phase. To me, research provided the backup for my non-fiction arguments and the framework for my fiction writing—and that was it. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Just a few years ago I began work on a mystery novel which became my first published book. I wrote that novel as an entry in the <place w:st="on">St. Martin</place>’s Press “Malice Domestic” competition, and so I already had a few bare-bones requirements stipulated by the competition sponsors. Chief among these was the specification that my sleuth had to be an amateur, which pointed out a real deficiency in my knowledge base. Despite having read almost every book in Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series and having watched just about every detective show ever put on TV, I knew next to nothing about the investigations business—amateur or otherwise. So I went and got the most basic primers on the subject and read them, believing that I’d jot down the concrete facts, shut the books, and then start my brainstorming.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Luckily I was wrong. The books I’d selected quickly took me in hand by explaining the things that private investigators do and, more importantly, the things they don’t do. They listed the requirements for being licensed as an investigator (which, depending on the state granting the license, can be extensive) and then described some of the many other skills the job can sometimes require (such as mining data from the Internet and videotaping in the dark). Along with this, my reading revealed that the investigations industry contains many people who aren’t licensed PIs: These secondary actors conduct background checks, create scripts for videotaped evidence presentations, gather pertinent court documents, and perform many other important duties.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Instead of being relegated to my notes, much of this new information helped me create my main character, fact-checker Frank Cole. His supporting role in the investigations business still qualified him as an amateur, and his work as a fact- and background-checker even suggested that he could have come from the computer world. This thought nudged me toward making him a software developer who had fallen on hard times (the book was written in 2004, well before our current economic situation) who then relocated to the small town of <city w:st="on">Exile</city>, <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Florida</place></state>. Not long after that, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Exile-Frank-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B003ZDOW4E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1281823850&sr=1-1"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Murder in Exile</i> </a>took rough shape as an outline—thanks in large part to my new appreciation for the role of research in generating ideas.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">My most recent project involves a high-end murder mystery theater troupe, and once again I knew next to nothing about the main topic, which was the theater world. Knowing this, I began my study of this new environment with the most basic books on how to stage amateur theatricals. This time, however, the effect of the research wasn’t restricted to the novel I planned to write. Not surprisingly, given the topic, it began to improve both my writing and my storytelling.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">For example, I became modestly familiar with the physical properties of the stage and the ways in which actors direct the audience’s attention toward or away from events happening right in front of them. Although there are too many of these techniques to mention, I was now exposed to the idea of punctuating important spoken lines with some kind of action, or drawing attention to a character by contrasting his or her wardrobe with the nearest costumes and the stage’s background. Working these techniques into my new book, my dialogue passages soon began packing more punch than they had before—and they became much livelier too. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Reading up on how actors prepare for a role, I saw a link between the creation of characters in a novel and their development on the stage. For example, some actors will create a biographical sketch of the role they are playing in much the same way that authors build a character’s back story. This in-depth analysis of a role is highly beneficial, as it can help actors to detect those moments in the script where they are being asked to act or react in a way that doesn’t match their character’s personality. Authors can take advantage of this technique as well, to ensure that they don’t make this mistake—writing something that takes one of their creations ‘out of character’, so to speak.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Having touched on the basics of stage management and character preparation, I then read the memoirs of several Broadway directors and was pleasantly struck by the similarity between directors and authors (many of those directors would disagree with me here). In both cases, the director or the writer provides a vision for how the story is to unfold, interprets the tale, and then selects various ways to tell it. The director is of course working with live people trained in their art, and so there is often a great deal of collaboration in theater. Strangely enough, I’ve encountered a similar relationship with some of my characters—people who exist only on the page who, nonetheless, still argue with me about how I’m portraying them. And like the directors conferring with—and sometimes deferring to—their actors, more often than not I’ll eventually listen to the stubborn character I’ve created who just won’t do what I ask. It’s amazing how many times these non-existent people are right.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">It’s been an interesting journey, going from student-trying-to-finish-his-paper-on-time to someone who appreciates the inspiration and direction that can come from basic research. At the very least it’s taught me to slow down enough to notice when some new piece of information holds a potentially useful suggestion for my story—and to understand that there is no such thing as the ‘research’ phase of writing a book. There is only an ongoing effort to learn more about the topic, which may not even end when the project is completed.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.vincenthoneil.com/">http://www.vincenthoneil.com/</a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div>Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-88101026987703673332010-09-29T08:18:00.000-07:002010-09-29T08:18:21.160-07:00Motivating Your MurdererOne of the great things about writing murder mysteries is the opportunity to imagine the mind of the villain. After all, no matter how many times we say we’d like to kill someone in real life, most of us thankfully aren’t ever going to get closer to the mindset of an actual <a name='more'></a>murderer than that. So creating a realistic culprit is a true exercise in imagination, and it almost always involves the reason why the killer did it. Your villain’s motive can be a crucial element of your mystery, and it can even help develop the rest of your book’s plot.<br />
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In real-world murder investigations, motive is almost always a key question. The victim’s relationships are searched for enemies, and the initial suspect list is frequently populated by people who had a reason to commit the act. <br />
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In murder mysteries, the revelation that a character wished harm on the victim can provide a strong clue to the reader—unless, of course, many other characters had a reason for the murder as well. In stories where no apparent motive is provided, it’s still important—even after the killer has been identified—to give a believable explanation for why the culprit did it. <br />
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On the lists of reasons why people commit murder, strong emotions like love or hatred hold prominent spots. That’s not surprising, as most people require an overwhelming impetus to do something this extreme. After all, love and hatred have been the prime motivations in tragic literary tales since time immemorial. Unfortunately, an intelligent killer would probably know that a strong attachment (or aversion) to the victim could place him or her on the suspect list if that feeling isn’t a secret. This might not stop the murderer, but it could force an adjustment in the plan: A killer whose strong feelings toward the victim are well known might deflect suspicion by making the death look like an accident or suicide, or by building a believable alibi.<br />
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This might not be necessary, of course, if the strong emotions which prompt the killing aren’t directed at the victim. If Character X loves Character Y and feels Character Z is mean to Character Y, X’s love of Y could lead X to kill Z—and if there’s no evidence connecting X to Z, the love motive in this murder might not be obvious at all. <br />
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For mystery writers, this might open a broader avenue of consideration when plotting the story: In the case of a murder involving concealed motives, an intricate web can be spun around who knows what about whom. In the prior example, if Y knows about X’s feelings (or learns of them after Z is killed), Y just might go to the police. However, if Y returns X’s affection, Y might lie to protect X instead. If someone else knows about X’s feelings for Y and connects that with Z’s perceived mistreatment of Y, that individual could blackmail X, or even Y, and perhaps provide X or Y (or both of them) with a new motive to kill. <br />
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This nicely leads to the issue of perception in a murderer’s motivation. The initial investigation into possible motives frequently involves the question, “Did the victim have any enemies?” The results of those inquiries could be based in fact (X once threatened Z in public) or they might be mere suspicion (an unsubstantiated feeling that X disliked Z). Interestingly, perception can also be a motive for a story’s culprit—and the more ambiguous the motivation is, the harder it will be for the investigator to find. A perceived insult can elicit deep resentment even when no insult was intended. An imaginary rivalry can lead to unexpressed feelings of loss and humiliation. The impression of being unappreciated or ignored can spur a character to take drastic action. If any of these motivations exists only in the mind of the killer, the victim will have little or no warning and the investigator may be left with no suspect.<br />
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A similar scenario involves the killer who hides the feelings or circumstances which prompt him or her to act. Knowing that a murder investigation will involve the hunt for motive, the culprit may go to great lengths to appear friendly with the victim. Motives beyond the emotional can factor into this part of the discussion as well; a killer who has no feelings for a victim who is simply “in the way” might try to conceal the benefit they accrue from the victim’s removal. To revisit the XYZ example, if Y and Z were dating each other and X killed Z in order to date Y, X might wait quite some time (or start a relationship with someone else) in order to hide the attraction to Y and the benefit of killing Z.<br />
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Motive is a key element in most murder investigations, and it’s an excellent starting point for plotting a murder mystery. As we’ve seen from these few paragraphs, it can also help develop the rest of the story by suggesting ways the killer could cover his or her tracks, pointing the investigation in a certain direction, causing other characters to lie or make dangerous demands, or demonstrating that the reason for the murder might be apparent only to the killer. Sounds like one heck of a mystery—at least in my book.Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-47090518009712895102010-09-29T08:16:00.005-07:002010-09-29T08:16:56.621-07:00Because (some of) you asked for it . . .I'm very pleased to announce the release of a paperback version of the newest Frank Cole mystery novel, CONTEST OF WILLS. I had originally planned to keep CONTEST OF WILLS as just an ebook, but received enough feedback from fans of the series that it is now out in paperback.<br />
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When we last saw <a name='more'></a>Frank in EXILE TRUST, he’d solved a twenty year-old murder and had also helped his good friend Gray Toliver uncover a plot to break into the Exile town bank’s safe deposit area. He was still saddled with the massive debt from his bankruptcy, was still working as a low-paid fact-checker, and was still dating local photographer Beth Ann Thibedault. <br />
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In CONTEST OF WILLS, Frank gets a new job, a new friend, and a new case:<br />
<br />
When Frank signs on as a fact-checker for a Tallahassee law firm, he has no idea what’s in store for him. The firm’s lead investigator, brash Jimmy Hanigan, quickly introduces him to the darker side of private investigations work. Then the firm’s owner, Walter Daley, tells them that his old friend and client Chester Pratt has died of a prescription drug interaction—and that Pratt’s will is missing. <br />
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Frank and Jimmy soon discover that everyone named in the missing will was at Pratt’s birthday party the night he died, and that he’d already had a close call with the same medication months before. Frank’s photographer girlfriend Beth Ann steps in when Frank and Jimmy get hold of the pictures from the birthday party, and her help doesn’t end in the darkroom: Against Frank’s wishes, Jimmy Hanigan soon has her working undercover in places where he and Frank would be recognized.<br />
<br />
As the trio dig deeper into the case, they learn that Pratt’s death may have indeed been an accident, that no one in his family seems to want his fortune, and that an old nemesis from Frank’s first case is dogging their steps. In no time at all, it’s a true Contest of Wills in sunny Florida.<br />
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I hope you’ll take a few moments to read the first chapter, available on my website at www.vincenthoneil.com.Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-47169956517401282902010-09-29T08:16:00.001-07:002010-09-29T08:16:19.321-07:00Mystery Novelist Finds New Venue With Electronic BooksNot long ago, the only places to find out-of-print books were rare book stores and libraries. Luckily, that’s no longer the case.<br />
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With the growing popularity of electronic books (e-books) and the increasing number of venues that support them, many out-of-print books have found a new life. More and more authors have discovered <a name='more'></a>that sites such as Amazon offer e-book production that is relatively easy to use, reaches a large audience, and offers a price that can’t be beat—in that in most cases it’s free.<br />
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Award-winning mystery novelist Vincent H. O’Neil recently began exploring various venues for keeping his three published “Frank Cole” mysteries available to the public, and was pleasantly surprised by his experience with Amazon.<br />
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“I did encounter a little difficulty at first, translating the book files into the format Kindle requires, but a little time spent on the Kindle message boards showed me a quick and simple way of doing that. I know almost no computer code, but the ‘preview’ function on the site allowed me to see every page of the e-book before it went into production, and so I just kept adjusting things until I was satisfied with how it looked.”<br />
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O’Neil’s debut mystery novel, Murder in Exile, won the St. Martin’s Press “Malice Domestic” writing competition in 2005 and received glowing reviews from The New York Times and Kirkus when it was released in 2006. Introducing the likeable amateur sleuth Frank Cole and his adopted town of Exile, Florida, it was followed by two more books in the series, Reduced Circumstances (2007) and Exile Trust (2008). All three novels, as well as the latest addition to the series, Contest of Wills (2010) are now available as e-books.<br />
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“For many years, I’ve heard that the window for finding an audience is shrinking. That’s one reason why so many well-reviewed series suddenly disappear after only a few releases. This is blamed on everything from shelf space at the bookstore to storage space at the warehouse, but neither of those issues is a problem with e-books. With more and more sites like Amazon supporting this, the length of time a series is in front of an audience keeps getting longer and longer. It can also keep out-of-print books available to whole new generations of readers.”<br />
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Alongside the Amazon Kindle, e-books are available on the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Borders eReader, and numerous other tools. Downloadable applications can turn most electronic devices, from personal computers to personal phones, into platforms on which e-books can be previewed, bought, and enjoyed. An advantage of this electronic format which is of particular important for those with difficulty seeing is the ability to increase the font size on the screen and, in many cases, to listen to the book as if it were recorded as an audio book.<br />
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In addition to the books themselves, social media, personal blogs, and author websites also contribute to increasing the longevity of books and series. Topics from “Name Your Favorite Fictional Character” to “Tell Us About a Series You Absolutely Loved” often create long discussion threads, and can introduce participants to authors and books they otherwise might never have encountered.<br />
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“The e-books are an excellent venue for getting your work in front of readers, and the immediacy of the ordering process is a big plus.” Says O’Neil, who manages his own author website and blog at www.vincenthoneil.com. “Some people are concerned that electronic books are going to take the place of print, but I don’t think that’s likely. It’s just another way of getting the story to the reader—which is probably the most important part of the whole process, if you think about it.”Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-11259043621837516632010-09-29T08:15:00.001-07:002010-09-29T08:15:40.817-07:00Just released -- the new Frank Cole mystery!Hey gang,<br />
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I’m very pleased to announce that the new Frank Cole mystery, CONTEST OF WILLS, is now available on Amazon as a Kindle eBook (No Kindle? No problem; you can read this book on just about any device, from your PC to your Blackberry, using the free downloads available on the same <a name='more'></a>page as the book itself—please see the Amazon link below)<br />
<br />
When we last saw Frank in EXILE TRUST, he’d solved a twenty year-old murder and had also helped his good friend Gray Toliver uncover a plot to break into the Exile town bank’s safe deposit area. He was still saddled with the massive debt from his bankruptcy, was still working as a low-paid fact-checker, and was still dating local photographer Beth Ann Thibedault. <br />
<br />
In CONTEST OF WILLS, Frank gets a new job, a new friend, and a new case:<br />
<br />
When Frank signs on as a fact-checker for a Tallahassee law firm, he has no idea what’s in store for him. The firm’s lead investigator, brash Jimmy Hanigan, quickly introduces him to the darker side of private investigations work. Then the firm’s owner, Walter Daley, tells them that his old friend and client Chester Pratt has died of a prescription drug interaction—and that Pratt’s will is missing. <br />
<br />
Frank and Jimmy soon discover that everyone named in the missing will was at Pratt’s birthday party the night he died, and that he’d already had a close call with the same medication months before. Frank’s photographer girlfriend Beth Ann steps in when Frank and Jimmy get hold of the pictures from the birthday party, and her help doesn’t end in the darkroom: Against Frank’s wishes, Jimmy Hanigan soon has her working undercover in places where he and Frank would be recognized.<br />
<br />
As the trio dig deeper into the case, they learn that Pratt’s death may have indeed been an accident, that no one in his family seems to want his fortune, and that an old nemesis from Frank’s first case is dogging their steps. In no time at all, it’s a true Contest of Wills in sunny Florida.<br />
<br />
I hope you’ll take a few moments to read the first chapter, available on my website at www.vincenthoneil.com. <br />
<br />
The eBook, and the free applications for whatever device you most prefer, are all available at http://www.amazon.com/Contest-Wills-Frank-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0041D8WOI/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_8Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-65531439974542086462010-09-29T08:14:00.000-07:002010-09-29T08:14:34.710-07:00The Mighty Tiny Tim -- in praise of the short storyOriginally posted on The Stiletto Gang's website on December 16, 2009:<br />
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Recently, I had the good fortune to have two short stories included in anthologies. So when The Stiletto Gang (I have to work that name into one of my mystery novels) offered me the chance to guest blog for them, I decided to try and <a name='more'></a>write something in praise of the short story.<br />
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Considering the season, I was not surprised when the image of Dickens' Tiny Tim came to mind during my brainstorming. Not only is Tiny Tim short in stature, but he also employs a marvelous economy of words. "God bless us, every one!" is, I believe, his only line in A Christmas Carol and yet it sums up the story and its spirit quite nicely. It also ranks up there with "Bah, humbug!" as the most memorable line of that Christmas classic.<br />
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Tiny Tim's kind of pithiness is an absolute must in short story writing, where the dreaded word limit sometimes suggests that we might have to sacrifice important elements. While it's true that we don't have a limitless number of pages for things such as character development, this in no way lets us off the hook. Just as Tiny Tim manages to cap Scrooge's long night using only a few words, in the writing of short stories we have to look for more concise methods of communicating our ideas and information.<br />
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Although it's taken from the world of theater, here's an example of how a few actions and limited dialogue can yield a big result: On stage, a young woman is nervously hosting her father-in-law, who has dropped by the newlyweds' apartment unannounced. The young woman offers the father-in-law some coffee, and leaves him in the living room while she goes into the kitchen. As soon as she's gone, the father-in-law quickly and efficiently goes through the newlyweds' mail, which was sitting on the table in front of him. He puts the letters and bills back in exactly the same place just before she returns, and is sitting there as if he'd done nothing in her absence.<br />
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The director providing this example described it as an efficient way of getting the audience to ponder many different possibilities regarding the character of the father-in-law. Is he merely a snoop, or is he worried about the young couple's finances? Is there something in his son's background that prompts him to be watchful? And why is he so good at snooping in the first place? All of these ideas and questions were conjured up in the minds of the audience by a few actions on stage, just like the space-saving devices we use when writing short stories.<br />
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To continue the topic of brevity, one of my instructors at The Fletcher School was noted for the pithiness of his class lectures. Commenting on that topic, he once said, "If you want me to speak for five minutes, I'll need a week to prepare. If you want me to speak for a half an hour, I'll need a day. And if you want me to speak for an hour, I'm ready right now."<br />
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This was a comment on the demanding taskmaster that is brevity. In a seeming contradiction, it can take longer (and involve more work) to communicate your point in a single sentence than by using several paragraphs. It was also an observation that bamboozling an audience for an hour requires little preparation, while doing the same thing in five minutes is almost impossible. The requirement to organize our thoughts, and then express them succinctly in a convincing presentation of short duration, can be a very difficult task indeed.<br />
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And that's why I like short stories. They're the literary equivalent of the five-minute speech that takes so long to prepare--but hits the nail directly on the head.<br />
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Just like the mighty Tiny Tim. God bless us, everyone.Vincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-433976510154317741.post-16247166694455247592010-09-29T08:12:00.000-07:002010-09-29T08:12:34.146-07:00Who should play the characters in the Frank Cole mystery series?Marshal Zeringue runs a great series of book-related websites, and he recently asked me to write an article about who should play the characters in my "Exile" mystery series for his "My Book-The Movie":<br />
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A pair of book reviews first prompted me to think about the possible casting of my "Exile" mystery novels. Both <a name='more'></a>reviews covered the first book in the series, Murder in Exile, each in a different way. One observed that my main character, background checker Frank Cole, had Jim Rockford's wisecracking good nature while another said Frank's unbending loyalty conjured up memories of Thomas Magnum. As "The Rockford Files" and "Magnum, PI" are among my all-time favorite shows, this made me ponder who might play Frank and his friends if the "Exile" series ever made it to TV or the big screen.<br />
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Frank is a low-key guy, early thirties and quite bright. At the beginning of the series he relocates to the small town of Exile, Florida to restart his life after a disastrous business bankruptcy. His new job as a background checker is what pulls him into murder investigations--making Frank a reluctant amateur sleuth. He's dogged in his approach and not afraid to make mistakes, but he's more brains than brawn when it comes to fisticuffs or gunfights. <br />
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With all that in mind, I soon decided on Noah Wylie of the hit TV series "ER" (and many other endeavors) for the starring role. The actor playing Frank Cole has to demonstrate a self-deprecating intelligence backed up by stubborn determination and a good sense of humor. Noah Wylie has covered all those bases in his career, and he possesses one of Frank's most important attributes: People just plain like him.<br />
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Frank is alone in Exile at first, but he soon finds a girlfriend in photographer Beth Ann Thibedault. She's much more confident than Frank and tries to steer him in the right direction in the series' second book, Reduced Circumstances. Those qualities made me think of Maggie Gyllenhaal, the smart prosecutor who gives tough love to Bruce Wayne in "The Dark Knight". Although that role qualified her to play Beth Ann all by itself, her performance in the literary-themed "Stranger Than Fiction" showed that she can also play the tender, nurturing partner that Frank needs as he tries to rebuild his life.<br />
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Frank's best friend in Exile is a local retiree named Gray Toliver, a sarcastic know-it-all who would be annoying if he didn't actually know it all. Gray acts as a sounding board for Frank's early cases, but has to take over one of his investigations in the series' third book, Exile Trust. Envisioning a crusty-yet-supportive actor for this role brought up one of my personal favorites, Robert Loggia. Blending two of his previous roles, that of Al Pacino's doomed criminal mentor in "Scarface" and Hector Elizondo's cagey assistant coach in "Necessary Roughness" would create a very close approximation of Gray Toliver. Loggia is the caliber of actor who can tell Frank he's a naïve fool while in the same breath expressing complete confidence in his ability to get the job done--and that's what Gray does best.<br />
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Last but not least, Exile's chief of police is a brilliant small-town cop named Denny Dannon. Provided someone could pry him away from his outstanding spot on "CSI", that role would have to go to the inimitable Laurence Fishburne. As Exile's de facto mayor and guardian angel, Chief Dannon commands respect with just a look--and we all know Laurence Fishburne can do that.<br />
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An excellent cast for a great series. Anybody got their numbers?<br />
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http://mybookthemovie.blogspot.com/2009/01/vincent-h-oneils-exile-trust.htmlVincent H. O'Neilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17712074690139274480noreply@blogger.com0