Robert W. Walker

Psych 101 Last Question --#10

2006-12-20T14:03:00.000-05:00

Q #10:
As a writer, how does intelligence of writring help you? In short, how did you come across your knowledge of writing novels?

A: Anyone can learn to learn, or rather take steps to learn more about a topic--any topic. I learn best via doing, as in teaching. You teach it, you learn it. The more a writer comes to own knowledge, the higher his or her WQ--writing quotient.

IQ tests are indicators of potential, but it is motivation that drives us to learn the lessons of such things as research, analyzing data, accurately reporting or using information in a story. As for learning about the creative process, whether it's in writing or another art form, one gains experience only in doing, not unlike shooting baskets long enough will teach you how to shoot. When you practice to become a wordsmith, there're years of apprenticeship involved. Some of us began when just children. Being born as a silver-tongued genius is rare. Most writers must work to overcome failings, stuttering starts, self-conscious writings, and a slew of problems. In fact, writing is in a real sense all about self-analysis. Only after much study and painting oneself into corners and many missteps does a writer see the path to sentences that sizzle, snap, crackle, and pop or just plain sing. Lessons such as "if you can't make it sing, at least make it clear" come hard won only after gobs and gobs of hard work and fun and play with words and language.

Working with words on a daily basis is the only way I know of how to improve oneself as a writer. With each new novel or short story I write, I am reminded of lessons already learned and that I need to learn more; the more you know, the more you need to know. Only through hard work, determination, persistence, and sometimes pestilence over long years in the field do you easily pick the fruit. If you can't get thee to a 'nunnery' or a 'university' where they will sweat you in a writing program in bootcamp fashion, then create your own rigorous program, and if you make it last as long as I did, four years, it might take. I would not ever trade in my PQ--persistence quotient for any amount of IQ. There is also the little matter of MO--motivation quotient. Let us not forget the EQ--experience quotient either.

This has all been directed at the author\writer\creator, but intelligence and knowledge play a huge role in character-building as well, not to mention reader intelligence and knowledge. Otherwise good characters who represent their careers and fields in many books seem lacking in knowledge of said field or career. A truly great character is partially great because she is so clearly knowledgeable (Ahab knew his whales!) in her field as with a medical examiner or detective. As for intelligent readers, they are the ones who both understand what we writers write and love us for it no matter who we have to kill off, no matter how tough things get, knowing we must 'sacrifice' for the good of the story.

Psych 101 for writers, readers, and characters

2006-12-15T14:07:00.000-05:00

Q#9 -- How does 'abnormal behavior' enter into the realm of creative writing and fiction?

Answer: Have you read any one of my books? OK...risky word phrase this 'abnormal behavior' as you have to ask then what is 'normal' behavior in a species that 'won' out as the meat eater of all the great apes? Authors are forever dealing with perceptions of what is right and what is wrong, what is good, what is evil, and the common error of taking things at face value. Is writing and painting and creating 'abnormal' in itself since, like actors, all artists have to be driven and obsessed to become a player in this field? This question may be too complex to answer here, but let's keep exploring.

Appearance is seldom what it seems in a novel, especially a mystery or suspense or thriller. Societal norms are taken to task. Since I write about murder and often times serial murder, murder is my stock and trade, my INC. This means 'abnormal behavior' is my bread and butter but once removed as I have killed no one except on a stage. My evil antagonists are always into aberrant and sickening words and actions; what he says, thinks, and does is who he or she is (see Final Edge for the worst female killer in all the history of books! Laurelie Blodgett). Such characters are motivated by sick fantasies, mania, fear, psychological disorders, obsessions, phobias, actual physical deformities, actual illnesses just as are Shakespeare's worst villianous scum like Iago. They are motivated often by 'abnormal' beliefs, but often such 'abnormal' beliefs come out of popular cultural beliefs, legends, even religion as in anti-religious behavior on a grand scale. Some sick beliefs have a foothold in historical fact about mankind--as in cannibalistic behavior, perhaps even necrophilia--sex with the dead. Certainly there are enough scatologically disgusting elements about mankind and his history to provide fodder for many, many an aberrant behavior or belief system or 'nutty' fantasy, desire, want, goal.

I don't have to mention Stephen King and Anne Rice made a killing on abnormal behavior, do I? Still there is a fine line at work here. Abnormal can slip over into caricature and unintended funnies in the blink of a cyclop's eye if one is not careful. How far from the 'norm' can our 'abnormal' Grandma Grimwood go before she becomes a twisted Dickensian comical granny?
In books about psychotics, sociopaths, organized and disorganized killers of every stripe there is great latitude in defining abnormal, but in all cases the sociopathic monster has to have its\his\her roots in humanity and where we've come from...from the primitve lizard brain to the present...roots are sunk deep. This is why the abnormal among us, in the end, are human after all. Humanity swings a wide arc across the rainbow from purity to the unspeakably vile and no author can turn away and not see this if the story demands it. Those who do turn a blind eye to the absolute end of the spectrum, the deepest rung in the pit miss an entire part of the human condition and it's like being color blind, missing an entire spectrum of the rainbow itself.
OK...believe it or not.

Psych 101 for writers, readers, and characters

2006-12-15T13:54:00.000-05:00

Q#8 -- How does 'health and stress' play a role in fiction writing?

Answer: Health and stress are like chicken and egg, hand and glove as one is so closely linked with the other. The health of the author and the reader are crucial to the process. Lose your helath and the first interest to go is sex followed by reading. Laugh track here. Seriously, a loss of the ability to concentrate, focus, draw on memory is devastating to the creative process and reading is a creative process as well as writing. Too much stress bad things result all round. Too little stress...well isn't it like blood pressure and so many things? Everything in moderation. So health and stress are crucial to reading and writing, and inside the story, characters also battle health issues and stress at every turn. In fact, the stress level for the typical fictional person would likely kill any real human being. Imagine being at the stress level of an Indiana Jones for a day. The stress level and problems an author creates to plague his creation are crucial to a story, because in essence every working story is a war. One side wants X, side two wants Y, and they stand in one another's way (goal). It is stressful to chase a killer, to race toward a goal, to attempt to achieve but the brass ring is just out of reach. The old admonition is to get your character up a tree, then soak him with rain, pelt him with rocks, hit the limb he's on with lightning, have the limb careen to the earth where you've placed a family of bears or cannibals who're awaiting the poor sap. Any stress in the cartoon version of Tarzan? Disney films even for children have to carry conflict, else no story. Conflict and overcoming conflict is the essence of story. Stress, conflict, tension...the high wire upon which the story charcter walks and fails or prevails. It's the job of the author to establish bedrock characteristics (DNA) in a Tom, Dick, or Harry, and then to challenge these rock-hard, supposedly unshakable traits. You can't let a character rest in a state of bliss (not for long anyway). Stress and health play a major role in the creative process indeed.

Psych 101 for writers, readers, and characters

2006-12-15T13:41:00.000-05:00

Q: How does 'personality' assist in the writing of fiction?

Answer: Personality...and this means A, B, C and all types, figure heavily in fiction and typically the author's own personality comes into play as does the readers for that matter! A writer has to be somewhat driven and obsessive to stick with it for the duration, and so too must a reader to bring a book to completion. Writer endures to the end, flip-side that, reader hopefully endures to the end.

In the depiction of character, personality is the culmination of conditioning, struggle against conditioning, or failure to make that struggle and accepting one's conditioning (we're all brain washed to something). What motivates a person = personality. Comes of having personal goals, and every character, good, bad, ugly and in between must have goals and perhaps a super goal. Characters have run in with themselves--memories, sensations, images. flashbacks or hallucinations, etc. These form layers in a character's personae. A character is molded by circumstances or resists them. Either way tensions and conflict can come of a stubborn obsessive compulsive, and the most memorable characters have these traits when they set their eyes on the prize. Ahab in Moby Dick had a wooden leg for a reason. If he was sound of leg and mind, if he still had both his legs, or if he had no legs and was confined to a wheel chair and could not act on his mad obsession over the whale, or didn't really care to be bothered, it wouldn't be quite the memorable saga it is. It'd be flatline. Ahab would never walk the deck of a ship. Would not be motivated to do so. Would retire.

Nightmare, memory, learned experience, what's in the character's bedrock DNA is at the heart of personality and story. The best author know how to create full-blown characters fully realized. Characters are multi-layered and complex as in life. Readers today demand far more complexity of character than compelxity of storyline.

Psych 101 for writers, readers, and characters

2006-12-13T09:21:00.000-05:00

Q.#6 -- What role does 'motivation' play in mystery and suspense writing?

A: Motivation causes a person to move toward a goal. Always a good thing in mystery plotting and suspense building. In fiction, if you do not get your character(s) 'properly' and 'fully' motivated, either via cattle prod or bomb, toward a goal, you have no story, no plot development. It falls into the category of a flatline story. Perhaps a mood piece, but there be no seismograph or rollercoaster action at work. You must move the story forward, which means characters have to get out of their seats, off the porch, off the beam and out into the scary place where they must face all the horrid demons from self-doubt to a serial killer on the loose. Character X accuses my heroine of something she did not do, which in turn motivates her to prove otherwise, to prove herself (worthy, brave, courageous, bold), while another character Z, the killer, is telling her she can't do a damn thing about the fact he will kill again. This motivates her to struggle harder, to be smarter next time, to outfox the fox she chases. She may be motivated by a blind faith in her intuition or a certain clue or even her bedrock character trait of being a stubborn scientist or psychic, which can also become her weakness, a weakness or blind spot that can be used against her. A character filled with a desire for raw revenge may get himself killed for it. A psychic who trusts in the wrong vision may get herself killed for the error.

So characters are motivated by circumstances and by other characters (who become obstacles to a goal). Characters are also motivated by settings, storms at sea, an addiction, a past, preconceived and often skewed notions, a surfeit of faith, a lack of faith, a lack of sleep, a fevered brain, or any number of airborne pollens as in Monk. Any 'challenge' can motivate a character or spur him to action. These challenges are called, guess what, motivating factors or forces. Of course a 'force of nature' can really motivate a character to get off Mt. Hood. Nature itself is often the motivator. Sometimes that means human nature.

Motivation is a key to having a story with a forward moving dynamo; a compelling, fast-moving plot or storyline. If a story only exists because of tension\conflict...if a story is indeed a WAR, then the nature of said war itself is the great motivator. Typically, an author determines the nature of the war before he sits down to write. The war may be in the 'What If" question. What if a the captain of the ship you set sail upon happens to be a madman driven by an obsession that could easily get you killed?

As to the author's own motive for writing the story? Money, fame, glory, self-exploration, exploring a question of a paranomal or normal nature, seeking an answer to racial hatred , sheer enjoyment or passion in the act of creation...Vengeance' and\or 'validation' --whatever turns your crank, this is the author's motivating force. For love or money...for love and money? Go for it. Just do it. Motive and motivation is all about doing. Start your story with your character's hands doing something and you are well on your way already, in the midst of action and motive. Motive is everything, especially in mystery and suspense fiction just as surely as in True Crime.

Psych 101 for writers, readers, and characters

2006-12-11T12:33:00.000-05:00

Q#5 (halfway thru the course!): How does emotion play a part in writing fiction, short, long or otherwise?
Answer: Emotion is passion and if fiction is about anything it is about the passions. All good fiction involves emotion and emotional responses. Good dialogue is about emoting and responding, and the best dialogue shows great passion, which is at the core of story conflict. Bodily responses, facial responses have all to do with 'giving up clues' to character and some secret the character is hiding. When your main character is depressed, for instance, your entire purpose for a scene might well be to depict a single overwhelming emotion, as when Inspector Alastair Ransom is brought to his knees in my City for Ransom, literally so by what a killer has done to him. Fear, anger, rage, suicidal thoughts and their opposite emotions make our characters real people with whom we can relate, and with whom our readers can relate. A great story is remembered for the depth of the emotions brought to bear by the circumstances and the characters that fit said plot. A character's emotions might be reflected, refracted, mirrored, twisted, bolstered, or destroyed within a given storyline. Conversely, they might be used to demonstrate how a character fits a setting or is in antagonism with that setting given his or her passions (think Wuthering Heights here). Characters rise and fall and orbit about one another and when their orbits collide, passions collide, and when that happens conflict and story are in simpatico with character and the entire symphony of emotions plays out so well. Give a thought to all the major characters that live on in your mind long, long after you have read of them and recall how utterably passionate they were about winning their goals within that story. From Gone with The Wind to a favorite mystery novel this is true. Emotion is the bedrock of great stories.

Psych 101 for writers, readers, and characters

2006-12-04T12:25:00.000-05:00

Question #4 -- How does memory affect the writing of the novel or short?

Answer: God help the writer short on memory. It takes a great deal of recall work to put any sort of mind-boggling work together. Short stories, not so much but still...Memory is essential. Memory affects the process of writing and the writer himself in so many ways and on so many levels we often take it for granted till we lose it! And you needn't be aged to lose it. Memory is a slippery quicksilver substance if you are having problems in the real world ranging from personal loss, depression, financial drain, or trauma and health issues (some speak of writer's block, but it is life block is what it is).

Imagine being unable to recall pivotal moments in the story upon which you had planned to resolve matters? Loose ends takes on a whole new meaning. Being unable to recall vivid memories of a real life situation the author wishes to place in her novel can be devastating. Being unable to recall vivid details in chapter one that need come back in in chapter thirty from a character's eye color to the breed of dog on his lap is equally frustrating. Each missing memory chip creates a hole in the story. If one can't recall details of character traits, names, ticks, etc., he may well use the computer nowadays as a crutch to re-locate such details, but this takes time away from writing the story. Questions of plot and plot development aren't so easily fixed; how do you do a search and rescue effort on a plot development gone horribly awry? Memory in both the creative artist during the creative process and embedded within the characters created becomes an absolute necessity.

Imagine creating a character without a memory. Of course, if that is part and parcel of the storyline, amnesia for whatever reason as in Mr. Budwing or The Bourne Identity that's one thing, but an unintentional outcome stemming from a character who can't remember his lines or remember his own traits might be a sticky problem indeed. Actually, there is no "might be" about it. As a rule...As a rule...As a rule of thumb then, characters require sharp memories (unless a confused old 'lodger' or 'codger' needs to have an inadequate memory for the sake of the story), especially our main detective(s), cops, medical examiners and such. Our Sherlock has to be up for battle, up and alert to catch the clues and ultimately the horrendously bad guy(s) and sometimes the terribly bad gal(s) who typically leave a trail of clues to the requisite doorstep. Again unless the intent is to create and develop a bungling Mr. Magoo who really does have memory lapses (which could be an interesting premise for a mystery detective tale or only frustrating a 'ell to the reader), we're going to want our hero or heroine to be fairly sharp if not razor sharp in the memory department. Besides, as a rule, characters require secrets, fears, experiences which all equate out to either pleasant or unpleasant memories. Memories in fact help greatly to establish and build character 'biographies' in the story. Bumper Sticker Alert: Hard to remember a memorable character who did not have memories. Harder still to imagine an author who could possibly work without memories to ahhh...Yeah, work with.

I have gone through periods when writing became impossible, due in large part to a shut down of the senses without which no memory gets through. We and our characters react to smell, sound, taste, touch, and sight, any one of which or any combination of which sets memory into motion. A good story is filled with characters hoarding secret memories, some of which are revealed, and in the revelation of character, secret, and memory, we find a fully fleshed out, fully-realized character staring back off the page of ink marks, someone we relate to because we share the secret and the memory now as we do with all the classic character from Ahab to Heathcliff.

Memories...Memories...

Psych 101 for writers, readers, and characters

2006-11-27T13:58:00.000-05:00

Q#3: How does conditioning, as defined by psychologists, have an influence on a novelist?

A: Quick and dirty answer is--I write, I get paid. More seriously, authors get the job done out of a sense of ritual and conditioning, and the more times one writes, the easier it becomes; it helps if there are built in rewards for finishing a scene, celebrating a breakthrough, etc.

In fiction, characters work out of a sense of conditioned response all the time. A positive character feels ill-at-ease in a hotel room, unable to sleep. Said character can't control her environment as at home. Same character exhibits a sense of relief and comfort in home. Characters begin with conditioned traits, often a bedrock of traits that can't or won't be denied or blasted out, and the writer's job is to blast away to see what happens if the bedrock conditioning (often childhood conditioning) begins to crumble or show chinks. In fact every great story and film is about this. Authors also work hard at exploding a 'load' of culturally conditioned notions about race, religion, education, and other issues as well by challenging the character who may believe something only because he has known no alternative.

Scarlett of Gone with the Wind fame leaps out as example. It's kind of a war between character and author. A character wants nothing more than to hold onto 'himself' and keep himself intact while an author most assuredly must tear him down, layer by layer until said character is examining his own beliefs and traits. He cannot remain static; can't be a Pavlovian fellow, and if he is and can't get beyond conditioned response the story and character will fall flat and bore the reader to the cliche of tears. A miser who remains a miser will not be as interesting as Ebeneezer Scrooge. By the way, the three pigs, conditioned to hide and flee rather than strike out do in some versions of the tale die because they can't change with the times or are technologically limited--laugh-track follows!

Watch for Q#4 -- How does memory affect the writing of a novel?

Psych 101 for writers, readers, and characters

2006-11-17T10:10:00.000-05:00

Over a period of time, I will be considering 10 questions that delve into the relationship between psychology and writing the novel, and being a novelist. In other words, what has psychology got to do with imagination and creation--creating whole worlds populated with people out of ink marks on a page? The following questions and answers delve into the psychology of the author himself, and eventually will also ask about the psychology of characters an author creates: This is Psych 101 for Authors and readers interested in the craft and creative impulse.

Q.#2: How do sensation and perception enter into the realm of fiction writing?

A: Sensation and perception are the conduits to creativity, and without these and the detail they arrive at, the author could never make the unbelievable believable. E.B. White crafted through sense and perception detail a full-blown relationship between a spider and a pig in Charlotte's Web, a tale to make grown men and women, including gruff old gramps, weep for the death of a spider. How'd he do that? He paid extreme detail to the senses and perceptions of his characters and to his own as he wrote the story. In the details, White tugs at every sense we own and then some. How things look to the eye, taste to the tonuge, feel to the touch, smell to the nose, sound to the ear, feel to the spirit--our 6th sense. The entire body is wired to the brain, and the hands and other sense organs are the visible extensions of the brain, and we SEE only what the brain sess, and the brain sees through the senses, which make everything metaphorical and visual. Perception and sensation provide images, and even Einstein relied on images to see patterns and when we see patterns we learn, we SEE, we know, and we own the result.

A writer's stock'n'trrade is his tools and one of the largest paint brushes he or she uses is the notions of perception and sensations. It is our job to make the odors rise off the black ink marks on the page, and to make the sound effects create an effect to make you jump, and to make you fear what you're picking up, or to laugh aloud, or to smile at a fond perhaps lost memory. In a horror novel, creating a monster and making readers truly believe in its reality is no less a task than E.B. White's making you cry over Charlotte's demise. It is the same task. Make the reader believe the unbelievable. Every story is a war, a confrontation between or among combatants, and even if there is no violence in the story, every story hinges upon conflict and conflict resolution. No one gets through a war unscathed. Just as White so subtly invovles us in the life of Wilbur the pig and Charlotte the spider, whose war was with the unfeeling society that had laid out Wilbur's future for him--the slaughter house--Shelley involves us in the life of Frankenstein, Stoker in Dracula's problems, and so forth. The "devil is in the details" means the senses and perception. The author is always working to pull these out of the reader, and in doing so, he must first pull them from himself.

So Sensory impulses and perceptions enter into a story at every level and on every page, even the psychological perceptions as when a smart cop is interrogating a smarter suspect. Each character in a story is sizing up another, and through the various perceptions of said characters does 'characterization' -- busy determining if the other is a threat or an ally. Take the notion to Gone with the Wind....Rhett and Scarlet. Everyone in the book is laboring under right or wrong perceptions and the reader's every sensation is yanked at and tugged on....

Psych 101 for writers, readers, and characters

2006-11-15T07:36:00.000-05:00

Over a period of time, I will be considering 10 questions that delve into the relationship between psychology and writing the novel, and being a novelist. In other words, what has psychology got to do with imagination and creation--creating whole worlds populated with people out of ink marks on a page? The following questions and answers delve into the psychology of the author himself, and eventually will also ask about the psychology of characters an author creates: This is Psych 101 for Authors and readers interested in the craft and creative impulse.

Q: How does data collection and scientific method play a role in being a mystery\suspense\romance]\western\YA\ or horror writer?

A: Data collection and scientific method drive the construction of a suspense novel if the novel is based on research and a foundation of truth, as is the case in many novels. As with John Sanford, Michael Creighton, Dean Koontz, and Thomas Harris, my own novels have an information and knowledge base forming the bedrock of the suspense or terror. The research may be in the arena of viruses as in my FleshWar, dealing with a pandemic caused by an East Indian 'mythological' creature (also requiring research). It may be in medicine as in my ME novels, the Instinct Series or in how psychics work and view themselves as in my Psi Blue. It may be in the historical arena as in City for Ransom. The research helps tremendously to mold the characters, giving them a foundation and backbone and an inkling as to who they are. It provides the creation (character) with medical, professional, and career goals, a belief system and a method of coping with the world he or she walks through.

As the author, I am at once involved in scientific inquiry; I must inquire into how things work and how people work or think or behave and why. What a character says, does, and thinks equals who he is both in the real world perception and in perception of ficitonal charactrs--defines him in the mind of the reader. Often the plot as well hinges upon some aspect of science or medicine, profiling techniqes, handwriting analysis, interrogation techniques, or old fashioned police methodology. So the collection of information is essential in novels wherein the backbone of the story hinges on factual matters (truth is stranger than fiction, so I put it to use). To do this accurately, the author must gather and analyze information and pass it along to readers; they in turn learn something new (hopefully), analyze the data for themselves (hopefully), and perhaps feel a sense of enlightenment or fright or are otherwise moved say to laughter or to tears, and to some higher perception brought on by the 'world say of Inspector Alastair Ransom' in City for Ransom set in gaslight Chicago against the backdrop of the Columbian Exposition.

The questions an author seeks information on may be as varied as "At what temperature a body burns 'cleanly' and without leaving a trace?" to "How many pints of blood in the average male as opposed to female body?" to "Precisely what freedom of interrogation and 'power' the average detective had in 1893 and what constituted an autopsy in 1893?"

Psychology 101 asks us to consider research, information gathering, and analysis and the scientific method. Does it play a part in writing? Absolutely, for even if your novel is written without a stitch of research, you are drawing on and collecting memory and detail from the library in your head and imagination vault. Not every author uses research; Stephen King prides himself on doing no research but in using all imagination. However, imagination itself draws on experience and data collection and scientific method.

Next Question we'll take up is: How does sensation and perception center into the realm of writing the novel or short story (whatever category)?

Quick and Dirty Answer: Sensation is the bedrock upon which an author makes you, the reader, believe in the unbelievable.

For the complete answer to #2 on the way to #10 turn in next week.

City for Ransom - 5-Star Review

2006-10-27T09:51:00.000-05:00

BOOK REVIEW: ‘City for Ransom’ Captures Bustle, Terror of Chicago during 1893 World’s Fair
Posted by kinchendavid on July 16th, 2006
Reviewed By David M. Kinchen

Hinton, WV – Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear…Nope, it’s not “The Lone Ranger” but it’s just as thrilling and horrifying by turns. I’m talking about “City for Ransom” by Robert W. Walker (Avon, 336 pages, $6.99), featuring Chicago Police Inspector Alastair Ransom investigating gruesome murders committed by a person the city’s newspapers have dubbed “The Phantom of the Fair.”
The fair in question is the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 on the south side lakefront of Chicago. Designed under the supervision of great Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham, the fair featured the world’s first Ferris Wheel and a collection of buildings called collectively “The White City.” Today, the area is the home of beautiful Jackson Park, the Museum of Science and Industry and – a few blocks inland — the neo-Gothic campus of the University of Chicago. The fair was a phenomenal popular success, attracting 27.6 million people – almost half the population of the U.S.—during its May-October 1893 run.
Ransom is a complicated, haunted man, wounded in the Haymarket Riot of 1886 which took the lives of fellow policemen, wielding a massive scrimshaw wolf’s-head cane, blustering his way around the Metropolis of the Prairie. He suffers nightmares over a botched interrogation in the wake of the riot.
Now he’s faced with a mysterious murderer and there’s no shortage of experts offering advice and help, most of which he doesn’t want. He particularly is annoyed, angered even, at the advice proffered by Dr. James Phineas Tewes, an odd little man who welcomes Ransom’s investigation of the third garroting is as many weeks with the statement: “I insist on a scientifically accurate, thorough phrenological diagnosis on the dead boy’s cranium to determine his magnetic levels at the time of his death.”
“Phrenological what?” Is Ransom’s response. Think of the characters in the HBO series “Deadwood” and you’ve got an idea of how Ransom and his friends and antagonists act and talk. Yes, the language in “City for Ransom” is very salty and graphic. I also was reminded of the historical novels of such authors as Caleb Carr (“The Alienist”) and E.L. Doctorow (“The Waterworks”) as I read “City for Ransom.”
Tewes has more than a few secrets of his own – which – spoiler alert – I won’t reveal. His daughter Gabrielle is studying medicine at Northwestern University, despite prejudice against women doctors that borders on the insane. This is the Victorian era, after all, and women can’t vote – except in a few Western states like Wyoming and Colorado. Gabby is an ardent feminist, a confident young woman secure in her knowledge of her abilities in the healing arts.
“City for Ransom” is a fascinating look at an event – the Chicago World’s Fair – that influenced future expositions and the landscape architecture of major American cities. It prefigured the 20th Century and the creation of attractions like Disneyland. After all, Walt Disney spent his early childhood in Chicago, where he was born in 1901, and was influenced by the fair.
Chicagoan Rob Walker’s novel is also a historically accurate take on Chicago, a city that has fascinated writers as diverse as Theodore Dreiser, Carl Sandburg, Ben Hecht and Sherwood Anderson, all the way to the present with the poet laureate of the city, playwright and filmmaker David Mamet.
Publisher’s web site: www.avonmysteries.com
This entry was posted on Sunday, July 16th, 2006

The Write Pitch

2006-10-25T08:47:00.000-05:00

What needs be in a pitch and how should it resound? It's what you want on the back flap of your book; it's what you dream a copywriter will get right on the back of your novel. There are some definite dos' and don'ts. This is the shortest but most important story you will ever write--the story about your story.

Do get in the name and profession of your main character right off the bat, along with the setting (or settings), the time frame, the basic plot and premise upon which the novel twists and turns. In other words you are providing for the reader a quick and dirty look at Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. How does it run; why is it unique. Don't go on long. Do keep it tightly written. Organize it. Keep it short enough to fit on the back of your book. It should be written in present tense and active voice. No time for linking or helping or weak passive verbs. The style comes clear after you read twenty or thirty back flaps of published books. This is the "voice" you want to use. You may want to organize a paragraph to cover the protagonist and a second to cover the antagonist, stating the golas of each. By all means, you want to convey the main souce of conflict and the category your novel falls into, and perhaps a hint of the danger involved for your protagonist.

Read the back flap copy of my City for Ransom, my Psi Blue, or my Absolute Instinct. Three distinctive books but the back flap copy does the same job for each novel. One set in 1893 Chicago, one in DC & Phoenix current day, the third in current day Chicago and the Midwest.

Rob Walker

Top Ten Writing Tips You'll Ever Need

2006-10-20T09:03:00.000-05:00

10. Get and keep a day job; anything that pays the rent, because I shit you not even a contract for six figures, such as 100,000 dollars is doled out in such a fashion for say 3 or 4 books that you will be making less than minimum wage, even though you can brag about six figures.
9. Write on a schedule; set time aside for writing, and when you miss the appointment with your writing self, make it up before the week is out. Any schedule is better than no schedule. Be it 1 hour a week or 20 hours a week. Most successful authors write 3-5 hours a day. If time does not work for you, write a scene a day to get that rush of 'accomplishment' via each finished scene.
8. Have a place to write. Set aside your special geography and stick it. Find out where you get most of your writing done, be it at Starbucks or at home, and work there.
7. Stiff-arm loved ones when you work; this sounds harsh, but you have to convince those around you, be they children or adult, that your writing time and space is sacrosanct and extremely meaningful to you. Nothing short of blood will stop you from your writing.
6. Make time where there is none. If you commute on a train this is easier. However, if you believe there are not enough hours in the day to write, re-write time. Re-make it. Rearrange your life to give up other activities for writing.
5. Take a Ph.D in letters or writing if you can afford it, say at the Iowa School of Writing or some university closer to you, and seek out teachers who are published as they have a lot more to say about the business as well as the writing. If you can't afford the university degree, created your own 'university' as I did and write for four years and then bestow your degree on yourself, but most important, you've taken apprentice time to hone your craft.
4. Write to your opposite. Exercise and flex your imaginative muscle to include characters and settings completely foreign to yourself and your life. Set a story or scene in India, Havana, China, Indonesia or Puerto Rico and create characters who populate such places and stop writing about middle-class America, the burbs, and purely and only 'white bread' characters.
In other words do some research and stretch.
3. Do some research and stretch.
2. Always open a book, a chapter, a scene in the middle of action, and never stop a scene to describe a person, place or thing. Such descripts must come in in the midst of character action and character thought and character speech and the character's five senses and if possible reach for the sixth sense before leaving that scene.
1. Open a novel, a chapter, a scene with your character's hands; focus on said hands and what they are doing. What are the hands and fingers immersed in? This already gives you action and tells you something about character--who he is and what he does. What a character says (with his hands and feet as well as his mouth) and what a character does = who s/he is.
Bonus Tip: When in doubt, strike it out; work with active voice, strong nouns followed by strong verbs, and stay away from the crippling qualifiers and helping and linking verbs that slow a scene to death.

Top Ten Ways to Create a Bestseller

2006-10-13T08:29:00.000-05:00

Today's Top 10 is a joint effort between myself and Ron Estrada (www.ronestrada.blogspot.com), soon to be world famous novelist and winner of the 1977 Chicago Disco Fever and Jalapeno Eating contest. So, we give you...Top 10 Ways to Guarantee a Best Seller...

10. Write a novel about leaves in the wind that whisper poetry into the ears of all your characters and each must act on his or her poem. High literature.
9. Write a novel from the point of view of a Bonsai Tree. No one's ever done it. It might lack for action but it will be chock full of inner monologue.
8. Write a novel about a man killed in the prime of his life only to come back as a ghost to stalk his wife who'd been estranged from him even before he was a ghost. Call it the Stalking Spirit.
7. Write a memoir of having had your gall bladder removed and fill it with poignant moments, tearful asides, and dedicate it to the American family values crowd.
6. Ghost write a book for Pamela Anderson, ghost detectives being all the rage...(Ok...I just wanna hang with Pam).
5. Bring back Alistair Ransom as a ghost detective in the 21st Century. (He's my character from City for Ransom. Try to keep up.)
4. Just use the title “Maximum Body count” and you are in.
3. Make up a horrible past for yourself, write your “autobiography, get on Oprah, get busted for lying, sell even more books because of the scandal, and retire rich.
2. Write a novel about a ghost detective who appears on Oprah, only she busts him for lying. He wasn’t a detective at all, but some low-rent mystery writer who is now just a low-rent ghost. But he’ll make millions in the scandal when all his books go back into print. Unfortunately, his estranged wife gets all of it because he’s dead and she runs off to Rio with her pool boy, Raul.

And, to put this thing to rest, the number one way to guarantee a bestseller...

1. Lose your bid for the US presidency and write about the Earth's doom. Don't worry that your degree is in law. Oprah will never catch on. But after you're killed when a glacier runs over your SUV, you can come back as a ghost presidential candidate, marry Pamela Anderson (since she's not real either), and tell everyone "I told you so."

We hope that wasn't as painful for you as it was for us (Ron Estrada and I, your host). This is the sort of despicable, despicable thing that can happen when you allow ghost bloggers on your site.

Robert W. Walker's BoucherCon2006 10 Most Imporant Rules for Signings:

2006-10-04T09:05:00.000-05:00

Robert W. Walker's 10 Most Important Rules for Signings. Things You Mustn't Do at a Signing...from the only man ever thrown out of his own signing (a watershed event). This list was given as part of the Bouchercon 2006 panel on selling your book and it got a few laughs:

10. Do not sit period...but most certainly, do not sit behind an open newspaper, clip your nails, comb hair,
or yawn.
9. Do not spill latte on your own books (if you must...do so over another book).
8. Do not flirt with the cute clerk who looks 18 as she may be the manager; courtesy is best.
7. Do not throw your book at people, either those who are staring at you or those walking out.
6. Do not become angry or frustrated when a) the electricity goes out, b) no one knows you were
scheduled on said day, c) they do not have your books, although you called and checked the
day before and was assured. Instead smile, smile, and smile. Make nice...talk of a future
signing, tell funny and writerly stories, ingratiate yourself.
5. Do not hand out soap and towel with your books with the proviso the reader will need to take
a shower after reading it. You will only get more stares.
4. When a customer picks up the latest Stephen King novel, reaching over your shoulder to get at it,
Do not shout, "Put that book down!" Even if it is your intention to explain that your book is a
good one, too. (You can't do that last part when said customer runs screaming from the store).
3. Do not make eye contact with anyone coming through the door who looks like Joe Konrath on the last
day of a writer's conference.
2. Do not hand out candy (or anything else) in the shape of capsules at your signing as it is easy to
confuse such with your Cialis.
1. Do not ring a cow bell overhead to gain attention, even if the signing is in Madison, Wisconsin,
and do not shine a blinding blue or strobe light into the eyes of prospoective buyers. Blinding a
reader only makes all authors poorer for it.

If the author can avoid all of the above, he or she may be invited back some day, but it has been my experience that even the most successful signings have no follow-up unless you follow up.

May the road rise up to meet you, and may all your signings be a joy.

Rob

Why Con Someone? The Midwest Lit. Festival & BoucherCon2006

2006-09-21T14:59:00.000-05:00

Hello all witin the sound of my voice. The Aurora, IL Midwest Literary Festival was a huge success for both the conference and its guests, and in particular moi. Not only did I sell a lot of books, I was treated to the best red carpet I ever walked, I had the best food of any con I've been to
(Casino buffet, restaurant food pushed on us, and a private party), and to top it off there was a JACCUZZI in my room....in the living room along with a fireplace, and a separate bedroom. I can't tell you what a great weekend it was for me. Couple of times I was 'spose to be here or there but weighing things up, nahhh...I went with the Jaccuzzi. Try 5 times in one weekend. But...however before you shout yeah or nay, this was serendipity, Carl Yung's big belief that just when you need what you need, it comes to you, and I truly needed that Jaccuzzi far more than seeing Joe Konrath's face again! I'd developed a week before what I had thought to be a blood clot in my left leg; turned out to be a bad infection, very painful...made walking and standing difficult and with doctor's orders to stay off it, well how serendipitous to win the lottery of rooms in the very nice hotel the MLF Staff got for its guests authors.

The conference wasn't bad either. I had a bite and a good talk with Shadoe Stevens, lots of fun, and I slipped him a copy of City for Ransom. I spent some time with Dennis Lehane, a quite approachable star, I can tell you. I spent time with my friend David Morrell, and really not enough time with my best friend, Joe Konrath. I spent time with all my friends at the Twilight Tales booth where I read and signed books. Spent far more time with my new editor\publisher Karen Syed and other Echelon authors like the lovely Luisa Buehler. Saw my buddy Jay Boninsinga and listened to him and others jam with some fine jazz music at the Friday night party for authors. Saw my friend and colleague Mort Castle, Tina Jens, Brian Pinkerton, and James Rollins with whom I share an editor at Avon\HarperCollins. Met some folks I didn't know before, made a lot of new friends and contacts.

Conferences is where it is at if you want to be among your own kind. This is where you get energized as a writer; this is where you gain inspiration and all kinds of terrific serendipty happens at any conference. If you can get to one, go. It does not have to be a con that is in your 'category' of writing either; you can learn so many things from writers of any type of book just by hearing them speak. I urge you to go to any writers conference you can get to and you have the funds for, and I hope to see you in Madison, WI next week at BoucherCon, the largest mystery con on the planet. For me, personally, it is a growth experience each time I go to a conference. At B-Con I am debuting Psi Blue, a novel just released from Echelon Press, first of a new series, new direction as I am a specialist in re-inventing Robert W. Walker. Debuting also is the 31-story hitman\hitwoman anthology edited by J.A. Konrath entitled These Guns for Hire. I watched how much blood, sweat, and tears Joe K. put into this work and it was a passion for Joe and all its contributors.
An open door debute party is being thrown Thursday night at the con for this anthology, and 20 of the authors in These Guns for Hire will be on hand to sign. Finally, my Avon\HarperCollins editor (James Rollins' editor) and my publicist from my new house will be on hand, and she will be distributing Wanted Posters and a Surgeon General's Warning against reading my books if you fear heart palpitations. Aside from all this, I will be on a 9AM Sat. panel on Marketing, and a late Sunday panel on Echelon authors and Echelon publishing. It's a 'higher' Echelon.

First weekend in November, I will be at Manhattan, KS' Great Book Conclave as one of the top guests along with Joe Konrath; the two of us will present a several hours long workshop on writing, crafting, and selling. Nancy Picard headlines here along with J.M. Mike Hayes, and an array of fine authors, including Laura Durham, Harley Jane Kozak, and Susan McBride. This is at www.Manhattanmysteries.com Putting Manhattan on the map, man!

Between these two events on Oct. 21-22, The Charleston Book Festival in Charleston, WV is happening and I'll be on hand signing at the Echelon Press kiosk.

In February, once again, I will be at Love is Murder, another great conference in Rosemont, IL, a northwest burb of Chicago along with Ken Bruen, Anne Perry, and many more. This is at www.Loveismurder.net
The conference got its name based on my last relationship...yuk, yuk...just kidding Effie. David Morrell, Walter Mosley, and many others who have attended LIM have called it a fine fine conference and no one has died of the cold during this con where 'the bodies are kept on ice'.
Join us first week in February.

So whatever you do, whether a reader, a fan, or another author, aspiring or published, you can't go wrong doing a conference. It's well worth the money and you'll grow with it.

Selling a Book - Pitching it Literally

2006-09-03T11:22:00.000-05:00

My good friend and best man at my wedding, J.A. Konrath recently did the insane; he broke records that did not exist for selling a book by hand, face to face, going from bookstore to bookstore across our fair continent. This is chronicled on Joe's website in a daily rigorously kept diary right next to the bag of carbohydrates in the car he drove. This was an author tour he initiated and he drove, literally. He visited more bookstores this summer than there are bookstores. The numbers are staggering and now so is Joe. I bring this to your attention so you can find it -- the story of an author at work selling himself and his books and making sales happen. Joe's site is at www.JAKonrath.com

As an author who has done countless book signings and limited trips like the one Joe undertook (the man literally crisscrossed the nation three times), I have a huge gunnysack filled with sales pitches that work and sales pitches that send a would-be book buyer screaming and running out the store (I kid you not). Tossing a book in the air for an unsuspecting bookbuyer to catch is not a good idea; tossing same book to one you make eye-contact with and shout "Catch" can and often does result in a sale. The real trick is to engage the customer. Make eye contact, shake the hand, smile always, and have a ready fast and simple to understand single sentence that sums up the core nature of your book. Get the book into the hands, allow the person to digest the copy on the back, and take in the cover and blurbs if he or she wishes. Interject a joke here and there. One of my oft used lines is, "Yeah, it's a crime novel, a crime it was ever written, but one I can't go to jail for."

The opposite of my approach (which has been studied by many!) is the author who sits behind a table and doodles, twiddles the thumbs, or even reads the newspaper expecting readers to step up. No...it is the author's job to initiate contact and hey, let the customer know you are an author. I typically say, "They just dropped me out of a helicopter ten minutes ago so I could be here before you walked through the door."

Most of all, be prepared to "pitch" or pitch line the book as you would if the customer who stepped into your web were a Hollywood film producer. You have one minute of his time to impress him. Give him metaphors and if it helps visuals. What your book is about in a nutshell. Practice with the lines before you get into the store as you never want to sound like you are babbling....

Example: PSI Blue is about the FBI's secret weapon, a psychic detective who is half Japanese, half Celtic, entirely confused but all woman.

Example: CITY for RANSOM is a gaslight Sherlock Holmes era mystery featuring Inspector Alastair Ransom and his stormy relationship with Dr. J.Phineas Tewes.

Need more? Detective and doctor are on the trail of the Phantom of the Fair--the Chicago World's Fair, as it is backdrop to the drama. I often add, I feel City is the book I was born to write (after forty previous titles). The novel my career has led me toward over the years.

Candy on the table lying in a small wooden coffin...glowing skull and bones holding my business card for the taking, yellow police line tape...who knows what attracts people to your book and an ultimate sale at a signing? In fact, no one knows. The art of the sale is important, however. Sure, great art work on the cover may be one person's reason for buying, but I am convinced that if you demonstrate great enthusiasm for your own book and faith in it, that this alone sells more books than anything else (unless you have a pipeline to Oprah and other high-profile sales opportunities).

Let me know from your side....
Rob Walker

Off my head or out of my head? Is it me?

2006-08-26T08:02:00.000-05:00

I've become a DorothyLer...avid, fanatical readers, librarians, pharmacists who read, a number of authors, and a lively group and it is refreshing to find a chat group that, for the most part, has a sense of huor and an open mind. Google it, try it out at www.DorothyL.com Nice bunch of folks, really. I may not be long for the list as I tend to get a bit passionate and long-winded when I see such as and I quote: "It's definitely easier to love animals than people. People can't help butdisappoint you since they are driven (like we all our) to look after their own needs over those of someone else, even a loved one."

This reverberated in my head like Grandma Soprano and I quote her here: "People will let you down...and I'm not naming any names, but you die in your own arms." This to her 12 year old grandson who just stares at her. By the way, she makes an attempt on her son, Tony's life. ' Soap'-ranos is like I Claudius brought up to date.

Hey folks, no one is denying it is easy to have a 'full blown relationship' with a dog or cat, or even a stuffed animal as many of our kids do...we humans are suckers for furry and fluffy...even a 'tribble'...but it's always going to be you doing all the work. See Calvin and Hobbs. A bit one-sided, especially those long conversations, and when's the last time you cooked a dinner and lit candles for a cat or a canine? It is more difficult and complex dealing with a lover or a wife or a daughter or a son. Love takes nourishing, far more so than filling a bowl with Kibbles. With pardons to Ol' Yeller, which will rip your heart out, or the Yearling for that matter, we humans ascribe a 'full-blown relationship' to a creature who would let you down if someone else chose to feed him or her. I know you don't want to hear this, but human relations require care and caring going two ways, such things as trust (which animals learn as in learn to trust your scent and that you will be home by 5) but I am referring to the multi-layered nuances of human trust. Hawthorn's best ever story bar none, Young Goodman Brown is about the loss of trust...suspicion and the consequences are as horrible as Elvis's song by the title Suspicon. I have a book on my shelf entitled Your Brain - A User's Manual. Humans have a range of emotions that have created whole cultures, cities, the 8 Wonders of the World, and the array of negative emotions as well. When Atticus Finch kills that mad dog in TKaM he does so because the animal is dangerous to his children. Atticus is so cool...if all people lived their lives as Atticus did his, we'd have a wonderful world. Even though his wife is not even in the novel, we feel the work he put into his relationship with her (still puts his arm around where she once sat on the porch swing), and we see throughout the story how hard he works to have a relationship with Scout and Jem. Love among people, that is work...hey, Love is Murder (www.loveismurder.net), I always say. The hardest work most of us do in life, harder by far than trying to keep a plant alive is the relationship. Harder to write a novel or sail a boat is keeping a relationship alive, especially one in which the other party has a complex brain, has a point of view, has emotions of a complex nature and are not going to give you 'unconditional' love for a pat on the head or a bowl of Whiskers or Friskies. I have a cat and a dog but God help me when I come to the conclusion I'd rather work at my relationship with Ben and Pebbles than my relationship with my wife or kids. Shhhhsssss..... this so reminds me of the Cabbage Patch dolls and how ga-ga people became over those items that required care, had birth certificates, could be sent to hospital (I'd suggested cemeteies for the hopeless C-Patch cases, but it didn't take)...and pet rocks, the baby alligator days of the 50s, goldfish, and such. Is it me or is it the rest of the world? People will let you down, but is that any reason to give up on 'em and like exchange 'em for animals? Once had a girlfriend who kept a spider monkey...our relationship suffered greatly as she routinely, routinely put Oscar's needs ahead of mine. Hey...a guy's a guy.

But folks...hey, we are the readers among our species; we're the ones holding up the standard of knowledge, wisdom, intellect, and literature is about life, death, and choices, and like Hamlet's reaction to murder and incest, and such fascinating obsessive characters as Ahab (and the Whale) throughout literature driven by vengeance, ulterior motive, greed, jealousy (Iago from Shakespeare), anger, fire, conflict. Good books have at their core how we humans live our lives. I'm sorry but Dolphins and Whales do not come near the complexity of the human mind and language; do you really think the White Whale was seeking out Ahab for a last shot at him? Watch a child learn language and just soak it up. As for doggie heroes, children's lit is filled with animals representing human characterisitcs and trust me The Grinch Stole Christimas is a rip off of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Folks...hear me....Even White Fang is about the foibles of the human characters (condition) as 'seen' from the oft abused dog's POV. Who's life is more important in fiction, the hero or his dog? When the kid who loves and cares for the dog goes through the ice, who'd you rather see DIE? The heroine or her Cockatoo (how do you spell Cockatoo -- I know I'm going to hear about the misspell). In a horror novel with a monster reeking havoc, even in Bram Stoker's Dracula, would you prefer that little Timmy become the first victim or his dog Dashell?

Hope this stirs some hairs on the back of your neck as I am want to do in my novels....a good novel in my estimation teaches us some things in the bargain, and whoever laid down the law that a book is purely for entertainment and meant to please the sensibilities rather than shock them into 'understanding' the complex nature of relationships and the human condition? Without such risks as George Clooney took with his film on Edward R. Muro, we're doomed to see the next witch hunt (perhaps already upon us?) and to not recognize it for what it is. We all know one thing, when a cop kicks a dog even if to save the integrity of the crime scene, he's labeled for life, and even in Beuwulf or Sir Garwain and the Green Knight what a character says and does equals who he is. In the case of the crime scene investigator who's upset with the dog, the integrity and chain of evidence is his 'obsession' or her 'passion' and is more important than the dog's feelings, or the feelings of those in the crowd who report the animal abuse to headquarters, thus putting our forensic guru 'on notice'.

In truth...in all my books...even when dealing with the vilest of the vile, I work hard to make you feel it, but I also work hard to not glorify violence for violence sake either toward animal or man. It gets graphic because you hear it, smell it, taste, touch, and see it. Because you have five senses, all of which any knowledgeable author is going to play on, you might FEEL for the victim. When a spear-chucker, baggage carrier, or red-shirted security guard in Star Trek is killed, we feel nothing as we have invested nothing in said character as he might as well be made of cardboard, but when you are made to feel and believe said character is real...the victim's death in fiction can be disturbing and powerful. Once again, if in a Koontz novel you have been asked to invest your emotions in his canine character, then you have a totally terrrific reason to care more about the dog's death than the kid's death or the mom's death, and so on. King, Koontz, myself included, we don't put the meat and potatoes of the crime on a covered tray or in another room. When I do an autopsy in a book, you will know it is an autopsy whether of a crocodile or a person.

By the way am contemplating two works of fiction simply from titles I have bouncing about in my head for some reason and conducting informal survey. Would you read this book? ....a werewolf tale in Louisiana aaah and New Orleans entitled Bayou Wolf
and a kid's book - maybe a pop-up as I like to scare kids too, and they like it...entitled The DaVinci Toad....kinda on the order of the Geico gekko but with plumed hat and a Merlin like wisdom able to solve kid mysteries. Whataya think? Bestseller within reach at last?

Rob the Rant King ps. see literacy links below (literacy war is on)

America's Literacy Directory A service of the National Institute for Literacy and Partners AmeriCorps*VISTA Programs ProLiteracy / Literacy Volunteers of America / Laubach Literacy National Jewish Coalition for Literacy United Way of America United Way of Canada BookPALS: Performing Artists for Literacy in Schools

TRANSFUSIONS

2006-08-11T14:25:00.000-05:00

TRANSFUSIONS–Need to Tank Up on fun, interesting general observations by an author of over forty published novels, and spirals on any and everything that goes on, plus insights into publishing and writing? If so, you're gonna need TRANSFUSIONS....

This relentless BLOG may not please always, may not appease everyone, may not fool all the people all the time, but maybe some of the people some of the time and it will draw on others for support to keep a tight rein on me. A collaborator once thought I needed chains. Sometimes I will be controversial but most times just kidding...nothing too serious that we can't agree to disagree as in how much I truly, truly hated Night Whatshisname begins with an S–'s Signs, The Village, and The Lady in Water–none of which were intended as spoofs folks....no no no...but rather nods to previous great directors such as Alfred Hitchcock who would have fired NS in a heartbeat.

The man is a walking example of a one-film wonder. If I had a chair to kick right now, I'd kick it.

But of course, if you have a take on it that differs from mine, "bring it on!" However, I will more normally discuss books and in particular writing and the sculpting and creation and imagination topics...how writing demands our full psychology on many levels, and demands we keep EVERY plate in the air at once and not forget a single sense, prop, character, dog, cat, parrot, or other element we bring into our stories–we authors. I am hoping other authors will drop by and bog my blog and take issue and leave some scars and blood or take away some blood. After all, this is Transfusions...a place to replenish....

I'd like to begin by explaining WHY I wrote PSI BLUE...and next time WHY I wrote Shadows in White City, sequel to City for Ransom. In doing so...in detailing the purpose and reasoning behind selecting these projects over all those sitting yet in the 'hangar' hoping to one day 'take off' may be hopefully illuminating for yous guys outside this Chicagoan's head.

I once picked up Jerone Stern's Making Shapely Fiction, and I read it non-stop. Just a small paperback, 5 dollars, but within these pages, Stern somehow crawled into my author's brain and told ME how I do what I do, as it had all been up to that point learned response, intuition, guesswork, experiment, wonder at times at my own turn of phrase or at what (My God) I had wrought... Then I sat down and slowed down and read Making Shapely Fiction again. Now mind you, had already written some 22 novels, but I had not analyzed how I did it or how much psychology on the author's part was involved, and how much psychology must be deposited into the character's makeup, nor the shape of things. Stern's book was an eye-opener, and I then used it in all my creative writing classes ever since, but I've never known another author who'd read this book to have had the major, gigantic AHA experience with it that I did. On the one hand, we don't want to know how the 'magic' works, but on the other hand as usual 'knowing' is growing and knowledge is power. It truly felt like the man had really been in my head. Take a look at this out of print title if you intend to write. Wish I'd had it at the beginning of my career, as I wish there'd been the How Dunnit Series in my early days as I had to sift information from here, there, and everywhere in the medical field and CSI books I did over those years. One thing I did was read the 'memoirs' of every ME who ever sat down to write 'em up. Never found a female ME who did her memoirs, but perhaps that has changed and of course Anne Wingate has a PhD in something, I think Criminalistics? ANYONE out there can correct me on this? And please don't say Patricia Cornwell, as despite her sometimes being photographed in a lab coat, she is not an ME. I gotta get me a lab coat...all I have is my moth-eaten graduation gown occasionally put to use at a Halloween signing.

So WHY write PSI BLUE for Echelon Press? For one, the publisher loved the three-four line pitch I pitched her: PSI stands for psychic sensory investigator Aurelia Murphy Hiyakawa, half Japanese, half Celtic, and all woman. Her story is, while like TV's medium (on speed) unique as she has next to no family support and a house falling down around her even as she chases down a serial killer. That's why I finished the novel, because I engen-deared a publisher who loved the concept, showed enthusiasm, voiced an interest–all very rare to find. Truth be told, I'd been told that no one in the publishing industry in New York wanted ever to see the two words psychic and detective voiced together ever again as they'd HAD IT with this whole sub-genre, and this from my then agent who, as a result had NO enthusiasm for the project, suggesting it be 'shelved' and that I go onto and concentrate on some other project.

All of the above is true and two weeks after being told what NYC does not want, Medium debuted on TV, and a year into it the show wins an Emmy, and now psychic detectives are popping up all over the tube and in films. The wave...once again missed? I don't feel that way. I feel my partnership with a committed publisher willing to trust her authors a refreshing change, a publisher who suspects when an author is excited about his work that there is something worthwhile going on in there....

However, all that said, I wrote PSI BLUE because I got 'Rae' in my head and she wouldn't leave me the hell alone. She insisted her story by told. Call it what you will, but once an author sketches or sculpts ac character said character may go away like a weak puppy, or said character might leap out at the author and begin to make demands–principally the demand to life. "I wanna live! I can do this! I can make people sit up and take notice if YOU do your job, Walker. A little effort please, a little research...won't take much...something on Kanji's maybe, Buddhism, a little Irish history and mythology? Come on...give me a complete, layered being, a gestalt, but be warned my mind is as layered as any of your previous 'intelligent' cops. I'm no push-over."

OK...in an early time and place, say 1692 Massachusetts, I'd've been put away, excommunicated, and hung for the 'voices' in my head. Thank God we've learned that all artists are nuts and that it's Okay...Look how it worked for Picasso.

Other reasons I wanted to do PSI BLUE happen to go to the root of my psychology as an author. No I am not a woman in a man's body...I just happen to like women and to believe I can 'sculpt' them well, far more so than many another author, male or female as I use the psych edge. I BECOME the character and I live as her for the duration of the book the same as many an actor lives the character during filming, which can really screw with relationships. "I know you are seeing another woman! I can smell her on you!" Nahhh, nahhh, nahhh...that's 'cause I am Aurelia Murphy Hyakawa while the play is running. If I am having an affair, it is with my character." This revelation can scare a loved one into another state as quick or more quickly than a real-world affair. Finally, here is the truth of the matter as Aurelia had a precursor...a character who popped up from time to time in the Instinct and the Edge books, criss-crossing as she was that rare detective who was also a psychic who worked for the FBI and not a psychic sub-contractor. Her name was Kim Desinor and she weaseled her way into the Instinct books about half way through the series, and Double-Edge, second of the Edge Series.

Kim...Kim I loved and I suggested a spin-off series with her, but my then publisher would have none of it. I let the idea go. Years later Kim kept nagging at my mind, back of the brain, back burner, percolating. Kim had been a reformed Catholic Cajun woman and home base was New Orleans. She first appeared in Pure Instinct. New Orleans way before the flood. I was left bereft about Kim, left feeling I had never had the opportunity to truly explore all her layers, all her fears and goals, all her gift.

This had happened with characters before such as Abraham Stroud in my BloodScreams Series (now e-books on FictionWise). After 3 books, I felt bereft, left with no way to further explore this great character, so I created the Edge Series hero Cherokee detective Lucas Stonecoat, and he took up the standard so I might continue to explore this 'type' of psychology, this gestalt I'd first named Abe Stroud, archeologist turned Vampire slayer.

Lucas had a shadowy precursor in Abe, and now Rae Hyakawa grew out of Kim Desinor. Kim meet Rae. I believe that my Inspector Alastair Ransom (who rambled without SHAPE or clear form for years in the back of my head) could not have come to full-blown 'life' in City for Ransom had I not written the forty some odd books before settling on gaslight era Chicago and a man like Lucas Stonecoat and like Jessica Coran and yet unique in himself, and getting critical acclaim wherever he goes. In fact City for Ransom and PSI Blue are both populated with characters who've come out of characters who've come out of characters.

Building a new novel is like building a house. You go to the next building project with allllllll that you have learned, good, bad, and ugly from the house before.

Soooo I do hope TRANSFUSIONS as a blog 'works' for you. In future, I will announce a contest or two...keeping it simple, but wouldn't you like your favorite charity mentioned in a book, your own business, your kid's name or your own? I think this could be arranged. Done it before.

Thanks for dropping in and please let me have your comments!
Rob Walker