Editing by Elizabeth

June 12, 2015

Done in One by Grant Jerkins & Jan Thomas

On the street it’s reflex. Kill or be killed. This is methodical. Cold blooded. There’s not many men or women up to the task. — Jake Denton

Jake Denton is a member of the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department. Most days his job entails the things most people associate with being a police officer: going to roll call and briefings, patrolling his assigned beat, trying his best to make sure he and the people he is sworn to serve and protect all go home safely at the end of his shift.

Most days.

Some days, however, a call comes in that drastically changes Denton’s objective. On those days, odds are high not only won’t everyone be going home safely at the end of Denton’s shift, but that someone won’t be going home ever again. Because of Denton.

On those days, Denton rolls out with the other members of Cameron County Sheriff’s Department’s special weapons and tactics team—Denton is SWAT, the team’s designated sniper.

As Done in One opens, Denton and the SWAT team are called out to a hostage situation in a mini-mart, one police officer having already been killed by the would-be robber. As he’s done sixteen times previously in the line of duty, Denton uses his highly-honed skill to take out the criminal and save the hostage. The manner in which it goes down, however, is slightly different than in times past, earning Denton a mandated trip to a psychologist before he’s allowed back on SWAT rotation. →

June 11, 2015

Words to Die For by Lynn Kostoff

“You can afford to burn with a self-righteous purpose and champion Truth and Justice because you can’t admit just how terrifyingly little either of them has to do with anyone’s life, including your own.” — Raymond Locke

Raymond Locke is a fixer. His official job title at PR firm Public Domain is public relations specialist, but make no mistake about it, what Locke does is fix problems. Big, ugly, career and business torpedoing problems—the type of scandals that keep the supermarket tabloids of the world in business.

The year is 1986, and in the Reagan-era, greed is good, Iran-Contra fueled American cultural climate, Public Domain has no shortage of extremely rich clients with extremely embarrassing problems to fix before the damage sets in too deeply. Having become something of a rock star amongst fixers for his work on a case involving allegations of impropriety at a daycare center, Locke is known as the go-to guy for the dirtiest of problems.

But even Locke couldn’t have imagined just how far down the rabbit hole his newest client’s case would take him.

Lamar Ditell, owner/CEO of Happy Farms, a giant poultry company, has a Grade A scandal on his hands. Previously just a chicken producer/supplier, Happy Farms recently expanded into the fast-food business. Unfortunately for Ditell, over 100 people were stricken with serious food poisoning following the grand opening of Happy Farms’ first two franchises. And while such an outbreak would normally only be an embarrassing bump in the road, one of the victims, a ten-year-old girl, suffers serious complications and ends up in a coma. It still might be a PR hurdle someone with Locke’s skills could easily clear, until both a crusading journalist and a high-profile activist with Hollywood ties latch onto the scandal like dogs with a bone, determined to bring down Ditell and his empire, which had previously garnered bad press for an anti-union incident at Happy Farms’ processing plant. →

June 01, 2015

Burn Cards

“I’ve had the great pleasure of working with Elizabeth on projects ranging from short stories to a full-length novel. Each time my expectations were surpassed. Elizabeth’s professional critiques not only improved each work, but also my writing in general. She goes beyond the prose, fact checking and providing insightful commentary on plot, character and the like. I highly recommend her editing services.” — Christopher Irvin

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April 20, 2015

Write the Individual by Christopher Irvin

I’ve been fortunate to work with the talented Chris Irvin on multiple projects, from flash fiction and short stories to his novella, Federales (One Eye Press), and most recently on an early draft of his latest release, Burn Cards (280 Steps). As such, it wouldn’t be proper for me to review the book, but since I do know how good it is I was more than happy to provide Chris a platform to talk about the book, particularly the approach he took as a male author to writing the story from the perspective of a female lead.

I’ve been asked about the difficulty of writing Mirna Fowler, the protagonist in BURN CARDS, in most recent interviews. I think it’s a fair question. It was certainly on my mind when I wrote the book. Is she a convincing underdog? Will I portray her strength well? Perhaps it’s because of the ever-present chatter of tough/strong women written as “just men with boobs” (more of a complaint by SFF readers, I think, as I’ve never seen such “criticism” on the crime/thriller scene – one I disagree with.) But disagree or not, it still sat there in the back of my head.

BURN CARDS initially came about as a sort of challenge. A few years ago I realized I was criminally (zing) under-read when it came to female authors (especially in crime), nor was I writing female characters in my short stories. I took Christa Faust’s Tough Dames class on LitReactor as a way to force myself to do both. After a grueling month, I’d learned a ton, discovered some of my (now) favorite authors – Megan Abbott, Claire Vaye Watkins, Dorothy B. Hughes – and wrote “Bet It All On Black,” the short story that would inspire BURN CARDS.

Fast forward to today – the book has gone through a lot, but one aspect that’s remained constant is Mirna’s voice. It’s a key part of the narrative that I tried very hard to get right. I have a lot of strong women in my life and I think there are pieces of them represented in Mirna. Having female friends read and give a thumbs up to earlier drafts was a boost to my confidence, but at the end of the day I think I realized, in my gut, that I’d been writing to the individual all along, and that’s what brought her to life. (see below for more from Kelly Sue DeConnick) →

April 07, 2015

A Hard Look in the Mirror by Lynn Kostoff

It is my extreme pleasure to welcome to the blog today author Lynn Kostoff. I think every ardent reader has a stable of authors they think are criminally underrated, the ones they wish they could get on every reader’s radar. Lynn is one of those authors for me. My introduction to his writing was via the Southern Gothic masterpiece Late Rain, a story that dissects a murder from no fewer than four different first person perspectives, including a murder witness in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and a hit man with Asperger’s syndrome. Late Rain not only made my Top 10 Reads of 2011, it remains one of my favorite reads ever. Lynn’s latest novel, Words to Die For, will be released by New Pulp Press on April 15th.

A Hard Look in the Mirror

What do Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Flannery O’Connor’s Grandmother in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts, Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov, Nabokov’s Humbert, Camus’ Mersault, Melville’s Ahab, Faulkner’s Snopes clan, and, closer to home, Hammett’s Continental Op and Cain’s Frank and Cora have in common?

They are not likeable.

They are, however, something else.

Of all the criteria for responding to a piece of fiction, the question of a character’s likeability seems to me to be the most reductive and least productive. It’s the equivalent of donning a set of blinders before you go sightseeing.

Crime fiction, even more than other genres, seems susceptible to this kind of criticism; it’s hard to imagine crime writers not hearing at some point or another in their careers that their characters are not likeable or not likeable enough to keep readers turning pages.

That begs the question of why readers turn pages in the first place. →

April 01, 2015

Warrior

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February 04, 2015

Cause and Effect by Jan Thomas

Done in One (Thomas Dunne, ISBN: 978-1250054869) tells the story of fictional SWAT sniper Jake Denton. Today, co-author Jan Thomas has stopped by to share some thoughts on police/civilian interaction from her uniquely qualified perspective as someone who has been helping train police recruits for over twenty years.

Cause and Effect

My first novel, Done in One (co-written with Grant Jerkins), was recently published. In the wake of publication there have been interviews, reviews, guest blog appearances and other opportunities to talk about the book.

I soon found myself here, on Elizabeth’s website, reading a guest blog by another writer. The writer had written a first person account of a trip his novel’s main character had made to Ferguson to see what the civil unrest had wrought. He wanted to see what this battle between civilians and cops was all about.

As I read, I recognized that I am in a very unique position to speak on this issue. And it’s not because I’m married to a SWAT Sniper and therefor biased beyond reason. But because of where my perspective is rooted.

The rampant media coverage, stirring the cauldron of animosity with alleged acts of police brutality, even prompted one highly-rated daytime TV host to say, “I don’t know what kind of training these cops are getting, but they clearly need MORE TRAINING.” Well, I DO know what kind of training these cops are getting. At least within the State of California. I’ve spent the last few decades working at a police academy, helping to train new recruits in any and all situations they might encounter as a patrol officer working a beat.

My work involves taking on many roles: suicidal suspect, sexual assault victim, armed robber, ruthless killer, horrified parent of an abused child, domestic violence victim. The job requires verbal sparring of the highest order and the ability to adapt as situations pivot and change, flowing fluidly from one scenario to the next while balancing the fine lines of the law, personal rights and level of compliance and interaction. At its simplest form, it is an issue of “cause and effect.” If you do “A”, it causes me to do “B” and the effect will not be what you are hoping for. →

February 02, 2015

The Wolves Are At The Door by Anthony Schiavino

I’m pleased to welcome Shotglass Memories author Anthony Schiavino to the blog today for a post about how an author works hard to earn readers’ trust…so he can betray it in the name of art.

The Wolves Are At The Door

If David Fincher directed Bogie and Bacall in a Hitchcock romance, you would have Shotglass Memories. It’s a mixed drink explained in different ways, through different genres, but I’ll let you come to realize that I’ve eviscerated you emotionally by the time you get to the coda.

Before that happens, I need to earn your emotional attachment. I need to earn your trust, before I throw it through the plate glass and onto the pavement.

You don’t know Joe Sinclair or Kelsey Halliday. You don’t know Deargood, or Norah, or Gabriel. You’re on the outside looking in. You’re not inside my head, or theirs. From the gate, you don’t know the intimate details of what makes them tick; what keeps them up at night or what arouses their souls. You’re a voyeur who has a condition. An urge. I’m here to feed that urge.

But why should you care what happens to any of them at the start, let alone at all?

When I put them through Hell, or have them fall in love, I want you to feel it. I don’t want to tell you to feel it. I want you to feel the dark embrace of the page.

When I break Joe I want you to feel it at the back of your throat.

I want you to feel the chill off the ocean when Norah stands half-naked, covered in blood, crying out for somebody to open the door. I’ll paint the broad strokes and you fill in the rest. Hitchcock didn’t have to show everything.

Because you, the voyeur, can picture far worse. →

February 01, 2015

When The Past Comes Calling

“Finding Elizabeth was a wonderful discovery! Her insights into issues of structure, language, and context were equally matched by her professionalism, timeliness, and friendliness. Her suggestions consistently improved my book, and her concern for making the manuscript the best it could be was genuine and heartfelt. I recommend Elizabeth without reservation.” — Mark Gummere

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