How Being a Detective Influenced My Writing, by Chris Karslen, author of BYZANTINE GOLD

copyright 2013, Chris Karslen

When I retired after twenty-five years in law enforcement, I thought I was pretty much done with all things police related, other than watching a couple of shows on television. I could finally write the romance story I’d had in my head for three decades. Since it was a romance and not a thriller or mystery, it never occurred to me that I’d wind up directly and indirectly applying skills I learned conducting investigations. How wrong I was.
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My first two books, Heroes Live Forever, and Journey in Time, were part of my paranormal series. Heroes has a reincarnation aspect to the story. The hero and his best friend are aware of what is happening when they enter the experience. The heroine has no memory of her previous life and no connection to the hero. In order to convince her that the outrageous tale he tells is true, as I wrote the scene, I put him across the interview table from me. I mentally returned to my detective time. I asked myself what questions would I ask a victim/witness/suspect? What answers would they need to give me to convince me they were telling the truth? To convince the heroine, they had to convince me first. If I believed it, I could make it believable on the page.
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By the time I started Journey in Time, I knew I wasn’t done with my police experience. This story required knowledge of evidence, along with another exchange involving an outrageous tale to convert a doubter to a believer. In this story a modern couple has been transported back to Fourteenth Century England, an England preparing for war with France. The hero in this book is the best friend from the first novel. He is a product of reincarnation. He has lived in this time and place before and retains his memories from the period. The heroine is a modern London attorney who has been caught in the time portal with the hero. This time it is his turn to sit across the interview table in my mental interrogation room. I put myself in her place and questioned him relentlessly. I searched for the answers needed to make me believe I was part of a terrible and dangerous situation, with no clue how it happened or how to return to the modern world. Unless they find a way out, he will die in battle. History cannot be changed, including his death.  
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In that story, there’s a scene where the king orders the heroine to go with a wool merchant who’s a favorite of the queen. The heroine is to be his “guest” for an unspecified amount of time. Away from the palace the man is a vicious brute who attempts to sexually assault her. She fights off the initial assault, but is badly beaten in the process. The hero locates her and brings her back to court and the wool merchant back to stand trial. The merchant falsely accuses her of a crime. His testimony is nothing but lies in an effort to defend the beating he gave her. The heroine must present her side of the case before the king and entire court. I used my experience testifying in criminal trials and had the heroine ask the questions a prosecutor would’ve asked me or the defendant. I had the heroine use evidence that I’d use, if this had been my case to present to a judge or jury. Lacking the technical equipment and scientific means we have at our fingertips today, I relied on the most obvious physical evidence available that could be seen and touched. I didn’t want the trial to be easy for her. In my head, I laid out the crime scene and visualized what she could take from there to court. I went over the scene again and again, like a detective does looking for anything I might’ve missed. 
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My last two books, Golden Chariot and Byzantine Gold, are from a romantic thriller series. Golden Chariot involves the murder of a Turkish government agent, artifact smuggling, and the kidnapping of the heroine, a nautical archaeologist. She has a loose connection to a private collector who purchases looted relics on the Black Market. The Turkish agent sent to investigate the first agent’s murder must also investigate the heroine. Between my detective background and my research, I was able to put together enough of the foreign legal process to make the investigation relatively accurate. It should be noted that much is different with regards to due process and the judiciary system. I was also able to use the heroine’s ignorance of how a foreign agency employs due process to create a great deal of fear in her. 

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Toward the end of the story, she is kidnapped and taken to a contract killer’s compound. I had a very basic, I stress very basic, idea of the tactics needed to extract her. Here my background came in handy but not as a result of my personal experience but from someone I knew. A friend of mine who heads up a SWAT team for a major city was also in the Marine Corps Reserves. After the invasion of Iraq, he was deployed to both Baghdad and Fallujah. His job was to teach young Marines urban crisis entry. He had retired from both the police department and the military when I was writing Golden Chariot. I called upon him to help me with the tactics, including the use of explosives and how the extraction team would deploy once they gained entrance to the compound. Phone calls, emails, and drafts went back and forth. He was a great help, and I was, and am, incredibly grateful for his patience and assistance. 

Byzantine Gold involves the contract killer from Golden Chariot, in addition to a terrorist cell. Bent on revenge, the killer is hunting the hero. In a scene early in the story, he plans to shoot the hero. I fired several different types of weapons over my career. I was able to use my knowledge of range capacity, in addition to types of weapons the killer might employ, to build that scene. I also used my experience in a later scene involving a sniper type attack. 
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In the end of Byzantine Gold, there’s a tactical operation which involves the terrorists. As I mentioned, my tactical knowledge is limited. But once again, I was able to call upon a friend who is more than a friend, I asked my wonderful husband. He spent three years in the military and thirty-one in law enforcement. While we sat in a hotel bar in Chicago, he helped me lay out the schematics for the operation on cocktail napkins. While I was talking about terrorists and how they’d approach, I noticed the man next to me giving me a rather strange look—wary and more than a little suspicious. I half-expected the FBI or DHS or someone from one of the alphabet agencies to rush into the bar and drag me off for questioning. My husband and I quickly inserted a code word for terrorist. 
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In conclusion, when I began writing I was convinced I would never relive my career through my characters. I did not want to write cop stories. I love to read them and have several favorite authors who write fantastic ones. They weren’t for me. I laugh now as I see in every story a part of the last twenty-five years coming through my characters’ lives. Fortunately, it has been to our mutual benefit.  
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Bio:

A native of Chicago, former police detective and now romantic suspense author Chris Karslen grew up with a love of history and books. Her parents loved traveling, a passion they passed on to her. She’s had the good fortune to travel extensively throughout Europe, the Near East, and North Africa.

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Though her desire to write began in her teens, Chris spent twenty-five years in law enforcement with two different agencies before she decided to pursue her dreams. Chris is the author of the romantic thrillers Golden Chariot, Byzantine Gold and numerous other romance novels.

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Now a full time writer, she lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, four rescue dogs and a rescue horse.

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Learn more about Chris and her work on her website and blog.

Midpoint in a story

We have covered in our writing tip Wednesday past, the Hook, the Plot Turn, and the Clincher. Join me now as we discuss what happens to the book we are writing at the Midpoint.


In this tip, the character will face and be influenced by whatever big thing is in his or her life. In most stories this is the figure who has life and death power. This is the middle of the journey, or the Midpoint. All the previous steps have been moving to this place, and all that come after will move out from it. This section is symbolized by an encounter with someone or thing with incredible power. For the end of the story to take place, the story character (or its life as he or she knows it) must be affected so that the new story(the satisfying ending) can come into being. The midpoint is for that character to either keel over and die or move to the next level.

For example: Scarlett yaps with the Yankees, Harry Potter tussles a troll, Percy Jackson mangles Medusa, and you dear Murderer, will have to come up with something big and scary, (even if it isn't a fantasy creature) to slap your character around, too, if you want to have an effective middle. Just remember, it has to send him or her off in the right direction -- toward the ending!


Hope this helps you, dear Murderer. Come on back next time and see what I have for you!

Self-Publishers: What's Your Motivation?

Oh yeah, we know this is what you're thinking!

E-books and self-publishing have opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for today’s authors. Before the rise of ereaders like Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and a huge, shiny array of tablets and smart phones, authors who wanted people to actually read the stuff they wrote, instead of scribbling stories for personal edification (ain’t nobody got time for that!), had the following choices: 

Commercial publishing 

Having one of the Big Six (now Five) publish your book and sell it in bookstores and stuff, and sometimes actually promote it. Time from finished manuscript to publication: 18 months to 50 years, depending on how stubborn you are. 

Small press publishing 

Having one of the Not Big Six (now Five) publish your book, and maybe sell it in bookstores sometimes. Time from finished manuscript to publication: 2 years to 50 years (they take longer to read manuscripts because they don’t all require agents). 

Vanity publishing 

Paying a vanity press a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to format and print your book, and not sell it in bookstores. You have to do all the selling. Usually from the trunk of your car at flea markets and stuff. Time from finished manuscript to publication: 1 month to 6 months or thereabouts. 

Self-publishing / print on demand (POD)

 Before ebooks, “self-publishing” meant designing your own cover, typesetting your print book, and paying a printer to make books for you. For POD, the books are printed one at a time, as they’re ordered by readers. Hardcore self-publishing at this time was paying to have hundreds or thousands of copies printed at once (hey, bulk discount!) and either paying a distributor thousands of dollars to try and get your book in stores, going around to stores yourself begging them to carry your books, or selling them from the trunk of your car at flea markets and such. Time from finished manuscript to publication: 1 month to 6 months or thereabouts. 

Today’s self-publishing: Faster, easier, cheaper 

The difference ebooks and e-publishing platforms have made for modern authors is like magic. Now, you can bring a book from finished manuscript to publication in less than a week—and potentially pay nothing. Zero. Zip. If you can format your manuscript the right way and design a cover (which is not necessarily recommended – I’ll expound on formatting and cover design in later posts), your book can be out there and waiting for readers to buy in a couple of days.

The question is: Should you do it?

When it comes to self-publishing, your own motivations and drives behind your decision to go it alone are essential tools, just as important as your clean, readable formatting and your incredibly eye-catching cover design. Before you push that Publish button on Amazon or Smashwords or BookBaby or Lulu, make sure you know exactly WHY you’ve decided to self-publish.

Here are some great reasons to self-publish ebooks: 

You’ve already published with a commercial press or small publisher, and the rights have reverted to you. Self-publishing is a fantastic way to revitalize a backlist and bring your books back into circulation. 

You have a niche book, or a book that doesn’t fit into a genre category. It’s hard to find a publisher who’s willing to take a chance on an unusual book. With self-publishing, authors can release project that never would’ve found a home otherwise—without paying thousands to a vanity press. 

You’re planning to write more than one book and gradually build up an audience. Just like other types of publishing, self-publishing isn’t a good choice for a primary career. Can you make a living at it? Sure – but you have to realize that it’s going to take work, and multiple books, before you’re earning significant income.

The good thing here about self-publishing is that if you do want to work toward getting some decent income, every aspect of the process is under your control, and you can experiment without having to wait for a publisher to take change decisions through a committee (the wheels of trade publishing turn slooooowly). You can make changes to your price point, your cover, your book descriptions, your promotional efforts, and other things with the potential to affect sales, whenever you want to.

However, there are also some not-so-great reasons to self-publish: 

Your magnum opus, the single book you’ve written that’s totally brilliant and will definitely change the world forever, has been rejected by hundreds of agents and publishers and YOU’LL SHOW THEM. Anger and revenge are never good reasons to do anything (unless you’re a fictional character), especially self-publishing. This gig is a lot of work, and your chances of making a go at it increase with every new title you can release.

If you’ve only got one book, and it’s been rejected by every single person who works in publishing, do yourself a favor and resist the temptation to rush your masterpiece to the masses. Find out why it’s been rejected. Get some objective opinions from people who aren’t related to you or know you socially, and actually listen and engage in some critical thinking about your book. Also, write another book. The act of writing helps you learn to improve.

You’re going to get rich! Yes, yes. Amanda Hocking. John Locke. E. L. James (though technically, she didn’t self-publish anything). The guy who wrote Wool. There’s a handful of examples of self-publishers who hit the big time in spectacular fashion. There’s also only a handful of commercially published authors who are rich.

If you head into your self-publishing journey expecting money to pour into your bank account, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons. But if you keep writing, keep working on both the craft and promotion ends of the deal, and keep planning ahead, you can build yourself a nice stream of extra cash—and more importantly, share your work with people who want to read it all around the world. 

So, leave a comment and let everyone know... what's your motivation?

--S.W. Vaughn

Getting Mileage Out of Your Older Books

copyright 2013, Aaron P. Lazar

We writers have to start out somewhere. Our first books, whether published or not, typically give us shivers when we go back years later to re-read them. Some writers don’t like to look at that early stuff, it just destroys their egos. I know how I felt when I did that seven years after writing my first novel. Oh God, how could I have been that bad?

It’s a natural phenomenon and quite common, to tell the truth.

So, what do you do?

Many writers are getting the rights back to their early books, some which were back-listed or abandoned by traditional publishers, and they’re rewriting and re-releasing them in various venues. Many are releasing their word as eBooks when they were originally just in print format, and lots of writers are jumping on the self publishing bandwagon which has almost overnight become less of a dirty word and distinctly cooler and unquestionably much more “acceptable” in the publishing industry today.

Are you in that boat?

I’m still writing new mysteries in my three series (lazarbooks.com), but I had a chance recently to take two of my earlier books back from the original publisher and have them re-released through my current publisher (Twilight Times Books) as “author’s preferred editions.”

 

   

Original 2004 cover     New 2012 Cover 

                                       by Ardy Scott

     

Original 2006 cover    New 2013 Cover 

                                      by Ardy Scott

I had the freedom to rewrite these stories with refined writing skills (compared to those awful first books) as well as to change some plot lines or add new chapters. You can read about the “do-over” here.

Something really cool happened with the second book in the LeGarde Mystery series, UPSTAGED. When my audio book narrator went through the manuscript, he came back to me with a very important observation. He said, “Aaron! There is SINGING in this book! What am I supposed to do with that?”

He referred to all the musical theater lyrics I wrote for my characters to sing in the musical within the mystery entitled “Spirit Me Away,” that Gus LeGarde wrote back in the sixties when he was a student at the Boston Conservatory of Music. I’d forgotten about all those songs embedded in the text.

I decided to ask my daughter Melanie Carbonneau, an unemployed singer with seven years of voice training and two masters degrees, to write some songs to go with the lyrics, record them, and issue them as a CD to go with the book(s).

Isn’t that the coolest thing? So now the songs (you won’t believe how gorgeous they are!) are embedded within the audio book narration, will be offered as an accompanying CD, and are good enough that we are considering making this fake musical into a REAL musical!

I know, I told you it was cool.

We do need to write the script based on the story within a story in UPSTAGED, get a good composer friend to write an overture, etc. for it, get the music transcribed, etc. and figure out how the hell you submit a musical to Broadway bigwigs, but we plan to forge ahead.

And all of this is because I wanted a do-over. Neat, huh?

You can get a taste of Melanie’s singing and songwriting here, and pre-order the CD if you like the sound of her voice. 

 

Audio Book Cover Art

 CD Cover Art

Please take a listen to some of Melanie's songs here and let us know what you think? Can't you picture a bunch of young singers dressed in sixties attire, singing their hearts out with this?

Feel free to add your comments about how YOU are taking advantage of new options with your older books. We'd love to hear from you.

Remember, take pleasure in the little things and write like the wind!

Aaron Lazar

www.lazarbooks.com

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Twilight Times Books by multi-award winning, Kindle bestselling author, Aaron Lazar:

LEGARDE MYSTERIES

DOUBLE FORTÉ (print, eBook, audio book)

UPSTAGED (coming 2013 author’s preferred edition, print, eBook, and audio book)  

TREMOLO: CRY OF THE LOON (print, eBook, audio book)

MAZURKA (print, eBook, audio book)

FIRESONG (print, eBook, audio book)

DON’T LET THE WIND CATCH YOU (coming 2013)

MOORE MYSTERIES

HEALEY'S CAVE (print, eBook, audio book)

TERROR COMES KNOCKING (print, eBook, audio book)

FOR KEEPS (print, eBook, audio book)

TALL PINES MYSTERIES

FOR THE BIRDS (print, eBook)

ESSENTIALLY YOURS (print, eBook)

SANCTUARY (coming, 2013)

WRITING ADVICE: 

WRITE LIKE THE WIND, volumes 1, 2, 3 (2012, audio books coming 2013)

Aaron Paul Lazar writes to soothe his soul. An award-winning, bestselling Kindle author of three addictive mystery series, Aaron enjoys the Genesee Valley countryside in upstate New York, where his characters embrace life, play with their dogs and grandkids, grow sumptuous gardens, and chase bad guys. Visit his website at http://www.lazarbooks.com and watch for his upcoming Twilight Times Books releases, DON’T LET THE WIND CATCH YOU (2013), author’s preferred edition of UPSTAGED (2013), and SANCTUARY (2013).

FINALIST 2013 EPIC Book Awards * WINNER 2011 EPIC Book Awards, BEST Paranormal * FINALIST 2011 FOREWORD BOOK AWARDS * WINNER 2011 Eric Hoffer BEST Book, COMMERCIAL FICTION * 2X FINALIST Global eBook Awards 2011 * Preditors & Editors Readers Choice Award – 2^nd place 2011* Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s Top 10 Books of 2012 * Winner of Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s 9^th Annual Noble (Not Nobel!) Prize for Literature 2011 * Finalist Allbooks Editor’s Choice Awards 2011 * Preditors&Editors Top 10 Finalist  * Yolanda Renée's Top Ten Books 2008  * MYSHELF Top Ten Reads 2008  * Writer’s Digest Top 101 Website Award 2009-2012

www.lazarbooks.com

www.murderby4.blogspot.com

www.aaronlazar.blogspot.com

www.aplazar.gather.com

http://aaronlazar.younglivingworld.com

www.pureoils.blogspot.com

Clinchers, aka Crisis

This week I decided to write about those moments between turning points. I call them Clinchers, they are also known as a (or) the Crisis. They are those times that make the reader's heart beat faster and make them turn the pages. It is where the bad guys attack the good guys, it is where the girl finds out something about the boy (or vice versa)that makes them question their love, and it is where the evil wizard sends his minions after the hero and the hero has to fight.

Now, the hero of this story you are writing is given the opportunity to follow his heart, but choices are oftentimes hard and this is how you know when a Clincher is about to happen. Something comes along to make this hero act. Heart or not. These Clinchers make the hero do something. Anything, to move this story along. It might even be better if he or she makes the WRONG choice. Sometimes characters making mistakes are a good thing.

If you were making a pudding, this is the ingredient that makes it thick. These Clinchers are scenes where there is so much tension and suspense, the reader has to gulp. And when it is over, they go ahhh.

If you are a story structure person, novels often have two of these Clincher scenes, the first one being sometime before the midpoint of the story, and it sometimes is used to introduce the villain character, ah yes. What a great Clincher that is!

Can you think of three stories where the villain is introduced? What surrounded that scene? YES!!! that's a Clincher.

Come on back next week, and I will discuss the middle of a novel and how it should behave.

Self-Publishing Tips for Authors: Help Amazon Help You

A note to our long-time followers: Hello, MB4 -- I’m back! As an original member of this awesome blog, I’m thrilled to be returning from the depths of the unpredictable volcano that is book publishing today to talk about the brave new world of self-publishing.

At the end of January, I officially became a self-published author. The first four books of my House Phoenix series are up on Amazon as ebooks -- and I’ve got big plans for them, and my do-it-yourself career. I’ll be here every Tuesday to share what I’m learning through this process, and offer (hopefully) helpful tips and resources for self-published authors.

Looking forward to talking with you!

--S.W. Vaughn

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Why self-published authors need Amazon Author Central

Everybody knows that visibility is the toughest challenge for self-published authors. If readers can’t find your books, they can’t buy them. You’ll find a lot of promotion advice out there, ranging from out-of-your-budget expensive to please-don’t-ever-do-this and everything in between. But there are a few simple and effective things you can do to improve your discoverability.

One of them is to take advantage of your Amazon Author Central profile.

Here's mine... shiny!

If you didn’t even know you had one of those, you’ll definitely want to know about this. Every author with books published on Amazon, including Kindle books, has a profile. If you don’t fill it out, Amazon will do it for you -- but with several million authors to catalog, they aren’t going to do a very complete job.

Your Author Central profile can be a great promotional tool, if you use it. It’s free, it’s already set up for you, and all you have to do is fill in the blanks! 

How do you get in? 

Head over to Amazon Author Central and sign in with your Amazon user name and password. That’s it -- you’re done! 

What can you list on your Amazon Author Central profile?

Ø  Your books: Of course, this is the most important part. Once you’re signed in, click on the Books tab at the top of the page and make sure all of your self-published titles are listed. If any are missing, just click on the Add more books button and search by title or author name.

Ø  Your bio: Amazon gives you plenty of space for your author bio. Make it interesting, but not too promotional -- and don’t include links. Even though there are sites out there who’ll give you the “Amazon secret HTML code” to add links to your book details, resist the temptation. It’s against Amazon’s TOS (terms of service) and it’s a good way to get your profile deleted.

Ø  Photos and video: Got pictures of your fans? Book trailers? Fun author photos? You can upload them to your Author Central profile and make things more colorful.

Ø  Twitter feed: If you’re on Twitter, it’s easy to add your feed to your profile page. That way, anyone who finds you on Amazon can see your latest tweets and follow you with one click.

Ø  Blog feed: This one looks like a great option, too, but I must confess that I haven’t yet been able to make it work for my Wordpress site. I’m going to try using Feedburner (a third-party feed site) and will report back with the results.

Enhancing individual book pages with Amazon Author Central 

If you’ve published through Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Program), you know that if you want to change your book’s cover image or description, you have to go through the Book Details page, and then re-publish your book -- which means it becomes unavailable for 12 to 24 hours.

Amazon Author Central gives you a way to avoid that. Through your account, you can change your description and add a lot more informative sections about each title without republishing -- and though it states the changes will take 3 to 5 business days, I’ve never waited longer than an hour for my book listing to update.

In addition to the book’s product description, you can add reviews, a From the Author section, From the Inside Flap, From the Back Cover, and About the Author. You can also use the Book Extras section to import content from Shelfari (which you can write yourself as a Shelfari member – if you haven’t signed up there, it’s free!), like Characters/People, Quotations, Settings & Locations, Glossary, and more.

Self-published authors: Go forth and fill out your Amazon Author Central profile today! It’s a great, easy, and free way to spread the word about your book.