Category: Writing

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Creating Memorable Characters

Good fiction needs a good plot and needs to be written in an active voice that pulls the reader into the story. But, even more importantly, it needs characters that readers can identify with—and, not always in a positive way. The good guys need to be someone the reader can sympathize with and cheer for, and the villains need to be . . . villainous.

But, just creating the stereotypical hero or villain is not enough. Your good guy has to have faults if he or she is to be believable—not many of us are Mother Theresa—and, even the evilest villain was once a bouncing baby, probably loved by his or her mother.

So, how do you go about creating fully-formed, three dimensional characters that your reader can believe in?  You might try what I do – go against type. How do you do this? Allow me to explain.

When I started my Al Pennyback mystery series, I made the character a military veteran who left the army after the death of his wife and son in an auto accident, and became a private investigator in the Washington, DC area. I wanted, however, to create a character who defied commonly accepted stereotypes. In order to do that, I made him a former special operations soldier, skilled in the use of all kinds of weapons, but who, because of an incident during his career, had decided that he would never use a firearm again if he could avoid it. So, now, you have a PI who is former military, an expert in martial arts, who refuses to carry a weapon. He uses his martial arts skills and wits to deal with bad guys. I did this with some trepidation, because in most of the fiction I’ve read, former Green Berets almost always use a weapon at some point in the story. I stuck to my guns, though (pun intended) and made a point of mentioning his dislike for firearms in every story (I saved the back story on why this was the case until the fifth or sixth book in the series).

I knew I’d found a winning formula when a colleague from my military days contacted me by email and informed me that he’d become a fan of my character, despite his opposition to guns because he had so many other good traits, e.g., loyalty to friends, diligence in his work, and his persistence in getting justice for the underdog. When he read the book in which I’d included the back story, he contacted me again to let me know that he now understood my characters aversion to firearms, and it made perfect sense. This particular reader is, I happen to know, an NRA member with strong views on the right to own firearms, and for him to agree with the way I’d created an anti-gun character, was all the validation I needed to know that I’d created a character that readers could get behind.

I do it in other stories as well. I’ve had the angelic looking, good as gold on the outside character who is actually a selfish psychopath, the rough looking, rough talking character who is a closet intellectual with a heart of gold, and so on.

The benefit of going against type is that it gives you characters who are like real people. You have heroes who sometimes do bad things for selfish reasons, and villains who are kind to their parents and like puppies.

So, get started on creating that memorable character for your fiction. You’ll find that your readers will thank you for it.

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Jacob Blade Vigilante series gets a face lift in 2020

Fans of the half-breed vigilante Jacob Blade are in for a treat in 2020. Thanks to the creative ingenuity of renown publicist Nick Wale and the fantastic art of Kevin Diamond, the entire series is being reissued this year with a new and exciting cover that’s sure to appeal to fans of the ‘shoot ‘em up’ western genre.

      Jacob Blade was a simple farm boy living with his mother and father in Indian Territory until he came home from a trip to local markets one day and found his parents slaughtered by a group of itinerant outlaws. With his dying breath, Jacob’s father asked him to avenge their deaths, a task that he took on with relish. In the course of his quest, he discovered that there was a lot of evil infecting the western frontier, evil that he determined to help eliminate, one dead outlaw at a time.

      This is just one of several series that I currently write, and is second only to the Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves in the joy it gives me to write.

      The new covers give a sense of continuity to the series, and, in my humble opinion, illustrates the protagonist most effectively. I sincerely hope that readers will find them as attractive—and seductive—as I do, and welcome any comments. In the meantime, I’m currently working on another Jacob Blade adventure, with Jacob coming to the rescue of a small community of settlers in Nebraska who are being tormented by a greed rancher who wants to take their land. Keep an eye out for Sins of the Father, coming soon to Amazon.

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How Grump Stole Yuletime

A little holiday-themed short story that I hope you will enjoy.

1.

 

Daxon Grump was angry. This was nothing new. He was always angry about something. But, on this occasion, he was angrier than he’d been in a long time. He didn’t like not getting his way, and the dunderheads—his word for them—in his parliament had committed the cardinal sin; they’d refused to give him something he’d wanted from the day he put on the crown of Washuptown.

Formerly the owner and star performer in the Grump Circus of the Stars, Daxon Grump had ascended the throne of Washuptown by happenstance and accident, but after a few days there had accepted it as his due. In other words, he’d become royal, regal, and kingly in all the ways those words are thought of as negative, alienating his parliament, and causing him to doubt the efficacy of a parliamentary monarchy, where he had to share power with a bunch of former tradesmen or royals who hadn’t been high enough in the bloodline to lay claim to the throne.

Because of this unfortunate situation—fortunate for him—the parliament had thrown the succession open to any citizen who could convince the people he was fit to lead. He, with his many years of experience parting suckers from their coin to see the acts in his circus, had campaigned throughout the kingdom of Washuptown, promising the world, and enthralling the crowds of peasants and merchants who had long labored under the often heavy and uncaring hands of the royals. In the end, he had prevailed. His victory against the other contenders had been narrow, but it was just enough to push him to the head of the list. That some of the votes for him had been purchased with the horde of gold he’d amassed over the years was something he gave little thought to, just hoping that it would never be known.

Two days after the coronation, he’d met with Michel Orwell, speaker of parliament, and one of the people who had seen the direction in which the wind of change was blowing and supported him early, and each time he recalled that meeting, his blood boiled, his nostrils flared, and he felt like throwing things.

“But, your majesty,” Orwell had said after he’d presented him with what he felt was a brilliant idea. “I think your desire to protect the kingdom from outsiders is admirable, but the method you propose to accomplish it is not within the ability of the royal treasury to achieve.”

“What?” He reacted in shock and anger, the same way he’d always done whenever one of his circus minions had had the temerity to disagree with one of his ideas. “How much could it cost to build a simple wall around the kingdom? All the gold the royal family amassed during King Odan’s reign has to be sufficient to do that.”

“Hardly, your majesty. We have . . . expenses and obligations that must be met. A wall would deplete the treasury to an extent that we would not be able to do so. Worse, Yuletime is fast approaching, and we must be able to pay the holiday bonuses. It is expected.”

Grump was furious. He was livid. Obligations my foot, he thought. We’re paying hundreds of scribes and counselors to sit around creating mountains of paper that never go anywhere, and that less than half the kingdom could read, and the other half couldn’t understand. And, there were the princely salaries each of the members of the parliament received each month.

This was unacceptable. He would find a way.

“Very well, Speaker Orwell,” he said in a tight voice. “You are dismissed. I will consider this, and when I’ve made a decision, I will get back to you.”

As the obese speaker, his loose jowls flapping bowed and backed out, Grump was having the beginnings of another brilliant idea.

 

2.

 

He thought about it for a full two days. Well, actually, he didn’t do much thinking, for he’d already made up his mind before he’d even dismissed that toady Orwell. Mostly, he sat around two days stewing and doodling on a loose sheet of foolscap. He’d waited for the dramatic effect. His years in the circus had taught him the importance of timing and pacing.

On the third day he was ready.

He had a page summon Orwell.

The fat fool came rushing in twenty minutes later, sweating like a peasant fresh in from the fields. He stopped in front of Grump and bowed deeply.

“You wished to see me, your majesty?”

“I do,” Grump said. “Did you get a chance to read the proposal I sent to your office yesterday?”

Orwell’s head bobbed up and down.

“I did, your majesty, and may I say it is an elegant design, elegant, while at the same time appearing quite sturdy.”

Grump didn’t smile, because, despite the toadying words, he sensed a ‘but’ in there somewhere. That ‘but’ wasn’t long in coming.

“But there is, your majesty, a problem, and I’m unable to get my fellow parliamentarians to agree to supporting it.”

“They refuse to support it,” Grump sputtered. “Do they not know that this is my signature project, that it will be my legacy?”

“Uh, they know all this, but the, ah, problem, you see, is that there is not enough in the treasury to pay for it.”

Grump smiled now, for he’d anticipated that objection.

“I have a plan for dealing with that little problem,” he said. “All we have to do is not pay all the useless hangers-on, like scribes and counselors for, oh, say six months, and there will be more than enough in the treasury to build my wall.”

Orwell, though, was an experienced bureaucrat and a savvy politician. He was not to be outdone.

“That will pay for the materials, sire, but what of the laborers who must build it? That will not be a small expense.”

Again, Grump smiled, which caused Orwell to shudder.

“Ah, the laborers,” Grump said. “I suppose we will have to pay for supervisors. I was thinking I could use the salary paid to you almost-useless parliamentarians for that. As for the common labor, I believe if I ask, enough citizens of Washuptown will volunteer their labor. After all, Washuptonians love me, do they not?”

Orwell knew that was a dangerous question to answer incorrectly, for he’d learned very early that Grump was a man who valued what others thought of him above all but increasing his wealth—as long as they thought well of him. On the other hand, he knew that the citizens looked forward to Yuletime, that week in the spring of each year when they paid homage to the Yule tree, the source of heat, building materials, perfume, tools, and many other necessary items in their daily lives. It was a time they exchanged gifts, planted new Yule trees, and held long parties at which a potent liquor made from the sap of the tree was consumed. What they would definitely not want to do would be spending many, many months constructing a wall around the kingdom which would complicate trade with neighboring kingdoms, and interfere with Yuletime festivities.

“Of course, the people love you, your majesty,” Orwell said. “But you must remember that Yuletime approaches, and the people might not like anything to interfere with observance of this sacred holiday. Oh, and that reminds me, there is one other expense that the treasury must provide for; each year the palace throws a huge Yuletime feast for the populace. It’s somewhat expensive, but well worth it in the goodwill it generates.

“Oh, did I now tell you, Orwell,” Grump said. “In order to ensure the health of the treasury, so that my wall can be adequately funded, I’ve decided to cancel Yuletime this year.”

Orwell’s eyes went wide. When Grump held up a royal edict written in his own crabby handwriting, that said, ‘Yooltime is cansuled until I get MY wall.  Grump Res,’ followed by the royal seal of Washuptown, his blood ran cold.

This would not go over or down well with the citizens. Never in the history of the kingdom had the holiday been tampered with. He did not know how the people would react.

“Don’t you think that’s bit extreme, sire?”

“Of course not. My people love me. You’ll see. I’m having the population summoned this very afternoon in the forecourt of the palace, where I will announce my great plans. You and your parliamentarian colleagues will be there.”

Orwell shuddered and swallowed hard. He had no choice. He would have to be there, but he had a sinking feeling that bad things were about to happen.

Worse, he thought, the simpleton misspelled ‘Yuletime’ and ‘cancel.’ The people will forgive him the second, as most of them probably can’t spell it either, but as for the first . . . well, that was sacrilege. Oh yes, he thought, bad things are about to happen.

 

3

.

Just before the midday meal hour—not, in Orwell’s opinion a good time to assemble people to listen to a speech, even if the speech was for good news, which this one was not to be—most of Washuptown’s population had assembled in the castle’s forecourt. There were puzzled looks on many faces as people wondered why their new king wanted to speak with them. Some smiled, for they figured, if it was important enough for the king to call the whole kingdom together for it, it would be a great thing to participate in. Orwell and his fellow parliamentarians, though, were most definitely not happy to be there, for they knew that when the king announced his grand plan, there was no telling how the people might react—Orwell had shared Grump’s plan with the others, and it’s safe to say that each and every one of them was quaking in his boots.

After making the people wait for half an hour—Grump had read somewhere that this was a sign of royalty, and showed his importance—Grump appeared on the balcony, beaming down at the crowd and waving his hands. Somewhat nearsighted, he didn’t notice the frowns on some of the faces in the crowd. Not everyone was happy at being made to stand so long in the hot sun, and be force to miss the midday meal.

Grump waited until the murmuring, which he interpreted as murmuring of affection for his royal self, to die down, and then he held up his proclamation, and began explaining why he was doing it.

As those in the front rows read the proclamation, stopping on Yooltime, and being shocked and passing this bit of heresy on to those behind them, the murmuring took up again.

Thus, only the guards on the balcony heard the part about government workers not getting paid for six months. The sergeant of the guard sent one of the guards to carry that message through the castle.

Orwell’s colleagues gasped when they realized that parliamentarians’ salaries were included in the things Grump was not going to pay.

The crowd didn’t hear Grump’s call for free volunteer labor to build his wall. They were so steamed that the king butchered the name of their most sacred holiday, they’d stopped listening to his speech, and were talking among themselves.

It was only the rising volume of his voice that caught their attention.

“Citizens of Washuptown, what say you to my proposal?”

 

4.

 

There was a moment of stunned silence.

Then, from the middle of the crowd, someone shouted, “Off with his head!”

“No, no,” someone else shouted. “That’s too good for him. Let’s boil him alive.”

Grump could not believe at first what he was hearing. This couldn’t be happening. The people loved him, they would not be turning on him like this. Something was amiss. He turned and looked at Orwell.

“What are they saying, Orwell? Why are they not happy?”

The pudgy parliamentarian bowed, keeping his eyes averted from the confused king.

“They are angry, your majesty. I warned you that it would be a mistake to muck with Yuletime.”

“But they should be happy that I’m bringing security and safety to the kingdom. When I made speeches about it before I won the crown, they cheered wildly. Why have they changed?”

      “Well, your majesty, it’s like this. They did not feel insecure until you started making speeches about it. They still do not really insecure. Washuptonians simply like good speeches, and you are adept at giving them what they like. Now, though, you have given them something they do not like, or rather, you are threatening to take something they like away from them. I fear that you have pushed them to anger, and I cannot say what they might do.”

“They’re threatening to boil me alive. They can’t do that to their king. They should love me.”

“Sire, they loved you when you were making speeches. If you had left it at that, they might’ve continued to love you. Now you are proposing to do things they do not like or want to do. If I might be so bold as to venture an opinion, I think they just might boil you alive.”

Grump’s ruddy complexion turned gray.

“No, that cannot be allowed.” He turned to the captain of the guard. “Captain, have your men drive these people away from here. Any who resist, throw them into the dungeons.”

The guard captain didn’t move.

“Captain, did you hear me?”

“Aye, your majesty. I heard you. But you just announced that royal employees are not being paid. We guards are royal employees. If we are not being paid, we cannot work. It’s in our contracts. We are not allowed to work for free.”

Grump looked confused. He turned to Orwell.

“Is that true?”

“Yes, your majesty. Employees such as guards have an iron-clad contract. No pay, no work.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll pay you from my personal funds. Now, move those people.”

“Uh, I’m afraid they are not allowed to accept pay other than from the royal treasury, your majesty,” Orwell said. “That is to ensure their loyalty.”

Grump had a sudden revelation. His own petard, his explosive idea that would bind everyone in the kingdom to him and have them bend to his will forever, was now affixed firmly to his nether regions. He had painted himself into a corner on a precipice, with no handholds, and was about to be pushed into the abyss. Being king was suddenly not such a glorious prospect. He wished he’d stayed in his circus.

“W-what am I to do, Orwell. I do not wish to be boiled, dead or alive.”

“Well, your majesty, there is one thing that you might consider. I cannot guarantee that it will work, but it just might placate them, and they just might spare you.”

To a man in a hole, a rope is preferred, but if a string is all that is dropped down, he will grasp it.

“Anything, Orwell, I’m willing to do anything to stay alive.”

“If you publicly relinquish the crown, and put the power in the hands of the parliament, temporarily, mind you, until we can select another to be king. I am confident that the people will be merciful.”

Grump thought about it for all of ten seconds. He’d wanted to be king, but most of all he just wanted to continue to be. Running a circus wasn’t all that bad. At least, he had total control over the clowns, acrobats, and other performers.

“Very well then, I resign effective immediately.”

“Repeat so the people hear, your majesty.”

Grump walked to the railing and leaned forward. “I, King Grump, do hereby relinquish the throne. I am no longer your king. Yuletime is still on.”

The murmuring stopped. People stared up at him.

“You really gonna quit?” some asked.

“Yes, I quit.”

Orwell stepped forward.

“The king has abdicated. The parliament is now in control, and Yuletime is not cancelled. Oh, and there will be no wall built, and all royal employees are to report to work immediately. Yuletime bonuses will be paid on the morrow.”  He turned to the captain of the guard. “Captain, please escort Daxon Grump to the gate and see that he leaves the royal premises.” He then turned back to Grump and not so gently removed the crown from his head.

With a broad smile on face, the captain ordered two guards to seize the commoner. The two burly young men grabbed Grump by his arms and unceremoniously lifted him so that his toes dragged across the cobblestones. At the gate, they heaved him through the opening like a sack of waste and slammed the gate shut.

He picked himself up, dusted himself off, looked around to see if anyone had seen what had happened. Elated to see that his humiliation was unwitnessed by any but the perpetrators, he walked away, whistling.

5.

 

That should have been the end of it for Daxon Grump. Unfortunately, his stars were not so aligned. Some of the people he’d paid to vote for him were heard complaining in a local inn that the coins he’d used to pay them were iron, painted to look like gold sovereigns, and when they’d tried using them to buy things, they’d had them flung back in their faces and themselves flung from the establishments.

When word of this reached Orwell at the parliament, he and his colleagues conferred and came to the decision that such malfeasance could not go unpunished. An example had to be made so that in the upcoming elections the candidates would be motivated to campaign honestly.

A guard was dispatched to Grump’s circus, and he was again unceremoniously hosted between two guards, and thrown into an iron-barred cage and transported to the castle dungeon. The parliament held a speedy trial at which those who had received his counterfeit coins confessed that they’d sold their votes to one Daxon Grump. Each of them received a token two lashes on the back and warned never to commit such a grave offense again. Grump, found guilty of fraud and counterfeiting, was spared the lash. He was sentenced to ten years in the dungeon, allowed to leave his cell once a day only to clean the castle stables and pig sty.

No one would speak to him, and it was forbidden to utter his name. Only the pigs, grunting when he fed them scraps from the castle kitchen, not unlike the swill he received each morning and evening in his cell, seemed to call his name, uttering, ‘grump, grump’ continuously as the plunged their snouts into the gray, mushy mess he fed them.

Grump had always dreamed of a captive audience shouting his name over and over, and adoring him. He finally had realized his dream, and they were his to rule over for ten years.

 

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Look for a new name in westerns

I’ve been writing since my teens, and I’ve always used my real name (without the middle initial usually) on what I write. When I was in government, it was a way of showing that I wasn’t breaking any rules, or disclosing information I wasn’t suppose to. It was also, I suppose, a form of rebellion.

Well, life catches up with us all. I’ve been doing westerns lately, more even than my mainstay, mysteries–lots and lots more–and when I did a kind of experimental western, The Cowboy vs the Sea Monster, the publisher suggested that I sue a pen name. Seems my list of westerns is getting quite long, and I suppose he worries that it might confuse western fans–I do a series on the Adventures of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal, as well as short stories for anthologies, all your typical western.

I believe in being a cooperative writer, as long as I don’t have to sacrifice my integrity or warp my artistic vision, so I went along. The name I chose, Ben Carter, happens to be the main character in my Buffalo Soldier series, which I thought quite appropriate, and the publisher agrees.

So, if you’re a western fan, and you’ve read any of my other stuff, look for Ben Carter’s books, and you’ll be treated to even more good stuff.

cowboy and sea monster

 

Available for 99 cents at https://www.amazon.com/William-Coburn-Monster-Western-Adventure-ebook/dp/B07H4Y8631/

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Don’t Let the Quest for Gender Equality Hinder Communication

I’m all for eliminating bias, gender, religious, or ethnic, for our language.

Assuming, for instance, that the pronoun ‘he’ represents both, or all, genders is not only sexist, but it’s illogical. Even though the number of men and women on the planet is almost equal, albeit there are imbalances in some regions (There are, for example, far more women than men in the former Soviet states, and in Asia, the Arab world, and Northern Africa, men outnumber women), in general women outlive men globally. So, if we want to be fair, the common pronoun to refer to all people would be ‘she.’ Of course, we know that life has never been fair.

The war over use of gender-neutral language has been going on for decades, and I’m a total supporter—with a few exceptions.

Some of the made-up words being used make writing sound a bit silly and trivial, to me at least, and they often complicate writing, making it almost incomprehensible. I won’t even go into words like ‘ze,’ ‘hir,’ or ‘s/he,’ or the salacious ‘s/he/it.’ I would, though, like to address one of my pet peeves; the often indiscriminate use of ‘they,’ ‘their,’ or ‘them’ as a singular gender-neutral pronoun.

Now, I acknowledge that this usage has been more or less common practice since the 1800s, and in many cases is correct, and not really a problem. But, when used indiscriminately, they can be quite confusing—and, sometimes sound silly. Take, for instance, the sentence, ‘John put their new address on their Facebook page,’ or ‘The baby threw their bottle at me.’ In the first sentence, upon whose page did John put whose new address? In this case, it’s probably safe to assume John is male, so the use of ‘his,’ doesn’t strike me as biased in any way, and it’s much easier to understand the meaning. In the second, we’re clearly talking about a single baby, and although we don’t know the gender, couldn’t we just write, “The baby threw the bottle at me’? Doesn’t that communicate the same meaning?

The problem with universal use of these words as a substitute for gender-specific pronouns is that if you’re not careful it can lead to miscommunication. Allow me to give you a brief example:

‘The college president released their policy on academic freedom today. They stressed that they want students to be able to express their opinion without fear that they will punish them. They can be assured that they will zealously guard their rights under the US Constitution and the bylaws of their institution.”

I could go on, but I hope I’ve made my point. Is it clear who ‘they’ and ‘their’ are referring to in this passage? Imagine, if you will, if this went on for a thousand more words. I don’t know about you, but I would be completely befuddled.

Maybe I’m a traditionalist, or a coward, or just lazy; or, as some of the students in my professional writing workshop no doubt think; I’m an old codger resisting the inexorable and inevitable transformation of the English language to reflect changes in social consciousness. Actually, I like to think of myself as a practical person who believes that the objective of writing is to clearly communicate a message to an audience. To that end, my approach to the issue of gender neutrality is to eschew blatant and obvious gender-biased language. Policemen become law enforcement officers, and I don’t add ‘-ess’ or ‘ette’ to words to indicate femininity. A waitress is a server, and a stewardess is a flight attendant. I also don’t refer to ‘male nurses,’ or ‘female doctors,’ and a poet is a poet regardless of gender. This applies to my fiction as well as my professional nonfiction writing. If necessary, I’ll rewrite a sentence, eliminating the pronouns if there is no other way. For example, instead of writing, “I took my grandson to the zoo so they could learn about species conservation,’ I’ll write, ‘In order to impart information about species conservation, I took my grandson to the zoo.’

In my professional writing workshop, for Rangel Foreign Affairs Scholars, I have to deal with 15 college seniors each summer, and this is a constant debate. While I appreciate and applaud their commitment to gender equality, my main goal is to help them learn to communicate accurately and effectively in a government setting. I’m careful to emphasize that I understand and support their point of view, and don’t expect or want them to change it. But, at the same time, I urge them to remember why they’re taking the workshop; their goal should be learning how to write effectively and communicate accurately. They are there to learn how to convey an often complex message to a diverse audience. I want them to continue to strive for equality, but to do it without mangling or muddying their message.

I have this depressing feeling sometimes that I’m fighting a losing battle. But, you know what; I will never stop trying.

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Using the three-act structure to write your novel

If you struggle, as many of us do on occasion, to write that novel that’s been bubbling inside your brain for a long time, you might want to consider using a technique that I stumbled across some years ago—structure your novel in three acts. Unsure what I’m talking about? Allow me to explain.

Whether you’re a plotter (someone who maps out your story in detail before starting to write) or a pantser (you just sit down and start writing)—and, I’m somewhere between these two extremes—using the three-act format common to stage plays will help you create a good story.

Here’s how it works.

Act 1. This is roughly 25% of your story, and it’s where you introduce characters and situations. Somewhere near the end of this act, you introduce the change in the status quo that your character must deal with.

Act 2. The second act is the meat of your story, about 50% of the total. In act 2, the main character starts to make some progress, to commit to moving in a certain direction until he or she reaches a point of no return (roughly halfway through the act), whereupon you introduce serious obstacles to the character accomplishing the desired goals. I often say, in a novel, you put your character up a tree, throw rocks at him, and then let him climb down. Well, it’s in act 2 that you start throwing rocks. It is in this part of the story that the fear that your character might fail in her quest is introduced. Will the murderer get away? Will the heroine enter the basement where the axe murderer awaits? Make your reader think this is a distinct possibility.

Act 3. Now, we come to the final 25%, and unless you’re writing dark fiction where bad things happen to good people and there’s nothing they can do about it, this is where your character undergoes transformation, finds a way out (make sure it’s logical and not deus ex machina, preferably foreshadowed by some subtle clue you’ve planted in act 2 somewhere, or even in act 1) and reaches her goal. The last one or two percent or so of the story, the last few pages of act 3, should tie up loose ends and leave the reader satisfied that all is right, in your fictional world.

Now, the percentages I give are just approximations, I sometimes have a very short act 1, or act 2, and put most of the meat of my story into act 2, but the three-act structure remains more or less intact. As a reminder, I keep a chart over my desk, that looks something like this:
                                                                 Plot Timeline
                                      Act 1                              Act 2                             Act 3
                                I———————I——————————————-I———————I
                                 Introduction                Meat                               Solution

There you have it. That’s how I write. It just might work for you as well. Worth a shot, don’t you think?

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Work in progress: ‘The Lady’s Last Song’

Following are the first two chapters of my current novel-in-progress, The Lady’s Last Song, the story of the U.S. Government’s war on singer, Billie Holiday, and the beginning of the government’s ‘war on drugs.’

1.

January 1, 1939, Café Society, Greenwich Village, New York

Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Five minutes, Miz Holiday,” the somewhat muffled voice said through the dressing room’s flimsy door.
Billie Holiday, whose name on her birth certificate read, Eleanora Fagan Gough, looked at her reflection in the fly-specked mirror. Satisfied with what she saw, she turned her head, looking toward the door.
“I’ll be right out,” she said.
While she was satisfied with her physical appearance, her caramel-colored skin, full lips painted bright red, dark brown eyes, and her brown-tinted black hair, meticulously straightened with a hot comb, reflecting the glow from the make-up light, her inner self was conflicted. She was about to do something that could make of break her career as a jazz singer.
She listened to the sounds of footsteps moving away from the door. When they’d faded into silence, she caught her own eyes, gazing back at her from the mirror.
“How did I let myself get talked into this?” She asked her reflection.
She didn’t answer herself, at least, not aloud. She knew full well why she’d agreed to sing the damn song, she was just having second thoughts about the wisdom of doing so. At times, she cursed Barney Josephson, the Café Society’s owner and manager, for convincing her to sing it, but deep down inside, she knew that she really wanted to do it for her own personal reasons.
Josephson had opened Café Society to allow black and white lovers of jazz to have a place in New York City to come together and enjoy it. He’d opened the place the year before in an effort to replicate the political cabarets he’d seen in Europe before the war. Located at 1 Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village, the bohemian capital of America, it became the first racially integrated night club in the country, although the way it worked out in practice, almost all of the performers were black, and the majority of the patrons were rich white people, come to see and hear the likes of Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald. The place was packed every night, especially since she’d been signed as a headliner. Most of the people sitting at the tables with expensive bottles of wine in front of them loved her music, the way she put so much feeling into standard jazz songs, but in such a large crowd, there was bound to be one or two who would be offended by what Barney wanted her to sing.
Not that she was a stranger to being hated or being the target of or reason for peoples’ ire. She’d been experiencing it since childhood. If they didn’t like the song, well, she thought, screw them.
She smoothed her hair, took a last look to make sure her lipstick hadn’t smeared, and stood, smoothing the body-hugging yellow silk dress she wore.
“Break a leg, kid,” she said to her reflection in the mirror.
The hallway outside her dressing room, the eight by twelve room Josephson reserved for the feature performer, was crowded with musical instruments, racks of costumes, and acts waiting to go on, some lounging against the grimy wall trying to look nonchalant, some pacing nervously, others smoking. They all nodded and smiled at her as she glided past.
“Evening, Lady Day.” “Knock ‘em dead, Miss Holiday.” “Can’t wait to hear you sing, Billie.” Greetings flowed her way from almost everyone she passed, and she acknowledged them with slight bows of her head, saving her voice for the song, for the all-important song.
She came to the edge of the stage, standing there in the semi-darkness watching the master of ceremonies, an ascetic looking indeterminate race man with a deep, melodic voice totally out of character with his appearance, standing in the circle of a single spotlight. He turned his head slightly, caught sight of her, smiled, and nodded. Then, turning his attention back to the audience that was shrouded in the darkness of the club’s cavernous interior, he held the microphone to his lips and began speaking.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please turn your attention to the stage, and prepare to welcome tonight’s feature performer who is going to sing a special song for you.” He paused for what seemed like too long a time to her. “Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Miss. Billie. Holiday.”
There was scattered applause as she walked onto the stage, a single spot on her as she made her way to the pole microphone at the center.
She wrapped her hands around the mike and stood there, her gaze roaming the gloomy space before her, and as her eyes adjusted to the light level, she began to make out shapes; the flash of jewelry here, the white flag of a tuxedo shirt there. In the back and off to the sides, she could see waiters, standing quietly, resplendent in their tuxedos.
It felt as if all eyes in the place were on her, which, in fact, they were. The silence was palpable.
The spot on her widened slightly, just enough to show her face. She inclined her head toward the orchestra and nodded ever so slightly.
The haunting wail of a trumpet split the silence, a crying sound from the darkness, sharp at first, a slight warble, and then it faded slowly into silence, and she began to sing, “Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves, and blood at the roots,” and on she went until she reached the end, ‘here is a strange and bitter crop.”
Her voice was husky, not quite as raspy as the whiskey voice of many of the cabaret singers, and lacking the high pitches of singers like Ella, it was in a class of its own, and singing this particular song, a song that talked in lyrical terms of the lynching of black people that was endemic in America’s south at the time, it was a voice that cracked with emotion.
As she sang, she thought back to her father, dead from blood loss because the white hospital in Dallas, Texas wouldn’t admit a ‘colored’ patient, and the only medical facility that would treat blacks was too far away; she thought of the photos she’d seen of mutilated black bodies hanging from trees as crowds of whites, often including children, watched as if they were at a circus.
She willed her eyes to remain dry, and her voice to remain steady. Some emotion leaked through. How could it not?
Normally, during performances, one could hear the occasional clink of glasses, or muffled conversation, but not this time. Josephson had instructed the waiters to remove all glasses from the tables before her performance, and once she started singing, the audience was so rapt, all they could do was stare open-mouthed.
And then, she was done. She stood there, eyes closed, the mike clutched close to her bosom.
There was silence. A long, heavy silence. Then, someone began clapping. Then another. And soon, the room was vibrating from the many hands coming together.
She remained still for a long time. Then, she opened her eyes, and as she did, the club went dark.
Without a word, she released the mike and walked off the stage and into the darkness.
When the lights came on, the stage was bare.

2.

December 27, 1938, Café Society, Greenwich Village, New York

 

Strange Fruit, the song Billie sang, did not start out as a song. In fact, it’s doubtful its author originally intended for it to be sung. But after it was published, he set it to music and played it for club-owner Barney Josephson, who then convinced Billie to sing it.
Abel Meeropol was an English teacher at Dewitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. Meeropol was disturbed by racism in America, and a photo of two lynched black men angered him to the point that he wrote Strange Fruit as a reaction to it. The poem was printed in a teachers’ union publication first, but afterwards, Meeropol, an amateur composer decided to convert it into a song.
While it never explicitly mentioned lynching, the implication was unmistakable.
As soon as he heard the song, Josephson thought of Billie, and he called and asked her to come to his office.
“Billie,” he said when she entered. “I have a song here that I think would be perfect for you.”
He showed her the song sheet. After reading it, she put it back on his desk.
“I don’t know, Barney,” she said. “It’s powerful and everything, but it’s not jazz, at least, not the kind I usually sing.”
“Come on, lady, given your history, I’d think you’d jump at the chance to showcase this song.”
She looked down at the paper. It was tempting, and Lord knows she’d suffered prejudice enough to relate to the words written there. But, her singing career was just beginning to take off. Could she afford to alienate so many potential fans?
But then, she thought of everything she’d been through in her life up to that point.
Born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia to Sarah ‘Sadie’ Fagan and Clarence Holiday, both teens at the time, Billie was left often in the care of Sarah’s older half-sister, Eva Miller, who then left her to be raised by her mother-in-law, Martha Miller om Baltimore, when Sadie left to work jobs on the passenger railroads. Clarence abandoned them early to pursue a career as a jazz musician. For two years, Sadie was married to a man named Phillip Gough, but that marriage ended in divorce.
With her mother’s frequent absence, and being left in the care of an older, inattentive woman, Billie had it rough growing up, and often skipped school. This resulted in her being brought before a juvenile court when she was nine years old and then being sent to a Catholic reform school, where she served for nine months. She was then released into her mother’s custody where she worked long hours alongside her in a restaurant she’d opened, the East Side Grill.
When she was eleven she dropped out of school, was sent back to the reform school when she was nearly twelve, this time not as a prisoner, but as a material witness in the case against a neighbor who tried to rape her, and upon release from the school got a job running errands and doing odd jobs in a brothel. It was there that she first heard the music of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, which gave her a love of jazz.
In 1928, when Billie was thirteen, her mother moved to Harlem, New York, and a few months later, in early 1929, Billie joined her. Under the influence of her landlady, Sadie became a prostitute, and in a matter of days after arriving in Harlem, Billie, not yet fourteen, was doing tricks for five bucks per client. A few months after she stated tricking, the police raided the brothel, and Billie and her mother were sent to a workhouse.
After her release from the workhouse, Billie started singing in Harlem clubs under the name, Billie Dove, after an actress she admired, but eventually changed it to Billie Holiday, to honor her father, Clarence. By the time she was seventeen, she’d come to the attention of record producers, and John Hammond, who’d heard her sing at Covan’s on West 132d Street arranged for her to make a record with Benny Goodman when she was just eighteen. She was an instant hit, and at the tender age of twenty, was cast in a small role in a Duke Ellington movie, Symphony in Black.
While she’d had an amazing career, given her lack of formal training or education, life had also been tough. Men saw her as an easy lay, and many women resented her good looks and voice.
After her career took off, she made contact with her father, Clarence, who was playing in a jazz band, but their relationship was short-lived because he died from a lung disorder while he was on tour in Texas because the segregated medical facilities in Dallas refused to treat him.
“These words remind me of my father and how he died,” she said quietly. “I don’t like to be reminded of that.”
Josephson’s expression was soft, but he was adamant. “Look, Billie, things like this, like what happened to your father, still happen in the South, but most people are fat, dumb, and happy and unaware. This song, that amazing voice of yours, will help wake them up.”
She knew that he was right. People needed to be told. But, the reaction of some was likely to be extremely negative, violent even. Was she up to it? Then, she thought, screw it. If not me, who?
“Okay, Barney, I’ll do it,” she said. “But, it has to be staged just right. The club has to be quiet, and I mean quiet, and I think I’d like to have just a light on my face, with the rest of the stage in total darkness.”
His face lit up.
“Damn, girl, that sounds amazing. Talk about a powerful message. This will knock ‘em dead.”
She smiled ruefully. “Let’s just hope it don’t kill me.”

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Amazon Rankings

I don’t normally pay much attention to Amazon rankings, because my books are always hovering in the low rankings – okay sellers, but not burning up the place. Today, April 29, 2018, though, I just happened to be looking for another author’s books and noticed a couple of mine in sidebars listed as top sellers. I thought I’d share that information with my readers – maybe it’ll stimulate you to join the list of those who’ve read these titles.

Mountain Man 

#146 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > African American > Historical
#254 in Books > Literature & Fiction > African American > Historical
#2960 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns

The Marshal and the Madam: The Adventures of Bass Reeves, Deputy US Marshal, Volume 2

#4792 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns
#4963 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns

The Shaman’s Curse: The Adventures of Bass Reeves, Deputy US Marshal, Volume 3

#1491 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns
#1823 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns
#6935 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure

Wagons West: Daniel’s Journey

#1040 in Kindle Store > Kindle Short Reads > Two hours or more (65-100 pages) > Literature & Fiction
#1696 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns
#2037 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns

Frontier Justice: Bass Reeves, Deputy US Marshal

Kindle version: #369 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > African American > Historical
#661 in Books > Literature & Fiction > African American > Historical , #7816 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns

Paperback:  #6120 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Westerns

Looks like it’s my westerns that are becoming popular, or maybe it’s just that westerns are undergoing a resurgence in popularity. Whatever it is, I’m happy to see it.

 

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