Writing a Point of View vs. Stereotypes Becomes Decision for Creative Writers

“How does a writer write from the point of view of the opposite sex and do it well and believably?” Vicki Lane, the author of the internationally selling series, Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian Mysteries, asked this question in a recent blog posting.

Her comment⎯“I struggle with this now and then”⎯left me chuckling; not at her but at the struggle I faced when I ventured into the realm of creative writing a few years ago. This issue never surfaced during my half century of word cobbling when I was writing about real people; first during my days in the newspaper business and later when writing historical non-fiction.

With the desire to venture into creative writing came the realization that I would not be writing about real people. It would be the creation of characters out of whole cloth, using nothing more than the debris that had accumulated in the gray file cabinet called my brain.

Shuffling through those memory files, I realized there was a mass of observations stashed away from which I could draw conclusions regarding the types of people I had encountered over the years. I was left with one thought that relates to Vicki’s question.

There are so many factors that influence an individual’s actions or comments in a given situation, either in real life or in a novel that I consider it very difficult to categorize a point of view as male, or female for that matter. But there are exceptions. Stereotypes.

Stereotypes of human behavior and attitude were not dreamed up in an ad agency. There is a small percentage of people in real life that personify the image of “men being the strong, silent type,” or “blondes are dumber than dishwater.” And such stereotypes can be found in creative writing.

The way I read novels has totally changed since I stepped across the line and began “seeing” them from the other side. One of the first things I realized was how many stereotypical characters can be found in books written by today’s authors. Apparently readers enjoy such. The books sell, and the authors keep writing about the same characters.

It strikes me that a writer has to make a choice. The character⎯male or female⎯ will be written as one having normal human reactions to situations. Or the character will be written as a stereotype, either to make a point, or to serve as a counterpoint or foil.

Either way, I think Vicki’s desire to do it “well and believably” is important. I find it helpful if I create an entire persona⎯birthplace, family’s economic status, education, profession, life experiences, personality; the whole ball of wax that makes the character what he or she might be in the story. The goal then is to present the character acting and speaking consistently within the context of his or her “life.”

And one final thought. Stereotypes do serve a useful function. Those who read THE PROVIDENCE OF DEATH when it’s available will find I have included an over-the-top stereotype. Her inclusion in the mystery, as written, will probably upset some people. But it’s as they say, “Some people will complain even if you hang them with brand new rope.”

Novel Started as Exorcism; Will Be Fufillment of a Promise Made to Family

If someone had explained what was ahead when the promise was made to my late wife in 2006 that three years of word cobbling would be organized and an attempt be made to sell it as a novel, an excuse would have been found to say no.

After retirement from a full-time position as a pubic official, and the work completed on a final non-fiction novel, the golden days of retirement were being devoted to golf until a persistent leg cramp while walking the course led to the discovery of an aneurysm in the artery behind the right knee. It was an old football injury in the opinion of the vascular surgeon, based on other damage found in the joint.

No problem. Reroute the plumbing. Bypass the problem. Back home from the hospital in three days, ready to go again. But oops! A post-op MERSA infection reared its head in the leg at the juncture where the bypass was sutured into the femoral artery.

One year later, after thirteen operations and procedures in four different hospitals, eleven days in ICU, flat lining the machinery twice, four days on life support, and twelve weeks of antibiotics, the days of golf were over. Both legs were still whole⎯almost⎯but the lower half of one was functioning on only thirty percent of normal blood supply.

And the brain was operating somewhere beyond its normal range. Undergoing thirteen sessions of general anesthesia were producing nightmares that would make Stephen King start writing nursery rhymes. And being given Oxycodone during many weeks of the medical misadventure created a strong addiction to the painkiller. During treatment for the mental and drug problems, the former life of a writer was discovered. It was suggested this exercise be resumed. Putting words on paper would be a type of exorcism.

Then, six months after the promise had been made about trying to get a book published, a vehicle crash ended a forty-one year plus marriage. The idea of publishing a book was sidelined until a son told his father that he wanted a promise that the promise made to his mother be kept.

That led to seeking outside help, which came in the form of the late William Tapply. After reading what had been written,he sent me an eleven-page, single-spaced letter by snail mail. It contained a page and a half of things I had done correctly and nine and a half pages of things I needed to learn about the mystery genre. He said crafting a mystery novel in the manner he prescribed, one that had served him well through publication of nearly two dozen novels, would prove to be the hardest endeavor I had every attempted. Bill was a man of understatement.

Two and a half years later, after several rewrites, he said I had a publishable mystery. The queries went out, the rejections came in, and the word spread through family, friends, and former business acquaintances about the city that a book was in the works. This produced lot of pressure to get it published. A large number of people wanted a copy. Well the book will be a reality before the end of the year. How it’s being handled is a reflection of an old man's acceptance of the reality of the book publishing business these days. That is a story for next time.

Book Reviews by Carl Brookins

It is a pleasure to announce that book reviews written by Carl Brookins will become an addition to this space. For those who may not be familiar with Carl, the following was “borrowed” from his website www.carlbrookins.com as an introduction to a veteran and respected voice in the world of mystery fiction.

“Before he became a mystery writer and reviewer, Brookins was a freelance photographer, a Public Television program director and producer, a Cable TV administrator, and a counselor and faculty member at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
He has reviewed mystery fiction for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press and for Mystery Scene Magazine. His reviews also appear on his own web site, and on Internet review sites, including Books 'n' Bytes and Mystery Morgue.

Brookins is an avid recreational sailor. With his wife and friends he has sailed in many locations across the world. He is a member of Sisters in Crime, Private Eye Writers of America, MWA and EPIC. He can frequently be found touring bookstores and libraries with his companions-in-crime, The Minnesota Crime Wave.

Brookins writes three series: a sailing adventure series featuring Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney, the Sean Sean private investigator series and has introduced a new protagonist, Jack Marston, a mid-level administrator at an urban college. His short work appears in anthologies Silence of the Loons, Resort to Murder, and Heat of the Moment.
He lives in Roseville, Minnesota, with his wife Jean, a retired publisher and editor.”

The following are his two first reviews to be posted here. Glad to have you aboard, Carl.

DEATH WITHOUT TENURE
by Joanne Dobson
Pub. By Poisoned Pen Press,
2010, Hard Cover, 230 pgs.
ISBN: 978-1-59058-585-6

For me, a mildly awkward title, but the story is anything but. Author Joanne Dobson has written another fascinating insider tale about the machinations of the very private and often arcane world of higher academia. The novel, sixth in the series, is set in the rarified world of Enfield College, a private high priced and high minded institution of higher learning.

While college and collegial are from the same root, and college administrations and faculties try to project an aura of patience, calm and reasoned discourse, we all know, when we stop to think about it, it ain’t always so.

Karen Pelletier is six years into her faculty position in the English Department at Enfield.. She is beset by an incompetent department chair and a colleague who gives her the willies. It is tenure decision time. In the academic faculty world, one’s position is essentially temporary until the faculty, deans and ultimately the college administration, makes a proffer of tenure. Tenure usually means one has a life-time appointment, so it’s a pretty big deal. What’s more, if you aren’t awarded tenure, you have to leave the institution. Pelletier is in the midst of collecting and refining her tenure materials for timely presentation. There are two professors up for tenure and only one position available. Then her competition is murdered. With law enforcement looking intently her way, the intrepid professor has to deal with a raft of odd characters, out-of-the-norm students, political incorrectness and most of the other ills that occasionally beset college campuses.

Author Dobson is peerless in her depiction of the nuanced atmosphere and language of the college. Readers will be quickly drawn into campus life. Readers might want to have a modern dictionary at hand, but the quick pace and logical development ameliorates the dense language. There was, for my taste, a bit too much detail at times about a particular decor, or the details of dress where there was little need.

A fine novel, well plotted, thoughtful, and filled with many amusing bits about the academic life.



BEARING SECRETS
by Richard Barre
published by Berkley Prime Crime
a 1996 release
ISBN 0-425-16641-4

For you who have been waiting for the paperback of this fine novel, it is now available. Bearing Secrets is a superb novel. One has a tendency to ladle on accolades and fulsome adjectives until the feeling that no book can be THAT good becomes a barrier to readers. Expectations can be raised too high. But this is a superb novel. This complex, rhythmic, multi-textured novel reaches out to the reader and inexorably draws one tighter and tighter.

It starts with hard-nosed PI Wil Hardesty and an anguished cry for help from a prickly, vulnerable, twenty-year-old hard-case named Holly Pfeiffer. Hardesty’s marriage is coming apart and he doesn’t know how to stop it. Mostly to distract himself from his personal troubles, he agrees to see Holly. But when he gets to her cabin near Lake Tahoe, he is repeatedly, rebuffed. This woman is a product of her radical father’s teachings. He was a veteran of Viet Nam, and then returned to Berkley where he used his considerable intelligence and skill to harass the authorities and teach military tactics to a violent splinter group of dissidents. Naturally, his activities draw the attention of the establishment.

When Holly’s father Max, dies in a fall from a high ledge in the mountains, Holly accuses the FBI of killing him. After all, the gospel according to Max had taught her that years earlier the FBI engineered her mother’s death via a car bomb. In spite of her attempts to rid herself of Hardesty, in Holly’s view just another establishment lackey, Hardesty begins a patient, earnest attempt to learn some truths. For a time, the only secrets he bares make Max look guilty. But of what? And then....

Read Bearing Secrets and you will be appalled, exhilarated, horrified and energized. This way lies death, explicit and terrible; here lies corruption and there is exploitation. You are quickly caught up in wheels within wheels. Barre builds tension and suspense cleanly and handles both with dexterity and believability. Fully-formed characters strive against insidious power, fail under the weight of crushing secrets, and strive again.

Yet author Barre does not dwell lovingly on the horror. This book is cleanly written, carefully plotted and very, very intense. It will require attention and careful reading, but Bearing Secrets will reward you in full measure.

What's THE PROVIDENCE OF DEATH? It's The First Joe McKibben Mystery

First off, the book is a mystery, not a just a novel. Having to make that correction proves why reviewing book cover drafts are a necessary part of the process. So what is the mystery?

It’s the story of a year in the life of a former detective in Hampton, Virginia. The day he retired five years ago, he promised his wife he would never again wear a badge and gun in any capacity. Since retirement, he has been the owner of Research Associates, a one-man business doing historical research.

When his wife of thirty years is killed in a vehicle crash, he learns the truth of the Robert Benchley quote, one that Mitch Albom used in his book, Tuesdays with Morrie. “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

McKibben refuses to accept the emotional reality that his wife is dead. Like the good cop he once was, he buries his emotions, refusing to accept them for what they are when they try to surface. He tells himself that he is still married and all promises made are still valid.

This leaves him confused, irritated, and embarrassed at times. Unable to understand or resolve his situation, McKibben’s life becomes as Robert Frost wrote in his 1920 poem, “In the Home Stretch.”

“You’re searching, Joe,
For things that don’t exist;
I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings—
there are no such things.
There are only middles.”

When Joe discovers the brutally slain body of Whitey Wheeler, a close friend and fellow retired detective, the emotions he has kept buried and ignored explode into painful anger. He wants to become involved in the search for his Wheeler’s killer. But it is an open criminal investigation, and he is now a civilian, no longer a cop. And he feels it is important that he keep the promise to his wife.

At the time of his death, Wheeler was still digging into the murder of one of the city’s prominent political figures, a crime that had remained unsolved for more than three decades. Evidence strongly suggests Wheeler’s effort to solve that crime was the reason someone killed him. But there are no obvious suspects.

Mckibben sees the solution to the prominent political figure’s death a way to find the killer of his friend. Using the tools of his new business, he approaches the decades old murder as a research project. He pulls pieces of information from computerized databases, a source that did not exist in the 1970s. But this leaves him with unanswered questions.

Driven by the desire to find his friend’s killer, McKibben turns to old-fashioned cop work, pavement pounding, digging through manual records, and asking questions. He travels to Kent County, Maryland. For no reason other than taking a wrong turn and finding himself in front of the local high school, he stops. There he obtains information that later proves to be key elements in solving both killings. It’s a story of crime and tragedy that began a half-century back into Hampton’s history and leads forward to the wife of the man who has been selected to be the city’s next chief of police.

McKibben’s stop at the Maryland high school also proves to have been a serendipitous encounter with Marsha Fielding, the school’s secretary and the widow of a Maryland State Trooper. While having lunch with her in the school cafeteria, they discuss why he stopped at the school. She calls it Providence. “The power that ties our lives together. Holds the answers to all the whys we ask ourselves.”

As McKibben’s relationship with Marsha Fielding grows, he realizes the truth of the statement made by Carl Bard, the Scottish Theologian. “Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”

A firm date has not been established, but it looks book writer will become book peddler by early fall. That's when an artistic endeavor becomes a business venture.

The Idea of First Novel Gives Old Writer A Case of Never Before Felt Jitters

After seeing my name in print as an author for more than half a century, I never would have thought it could happen. But the idea of my name being on the cover of a novel as its author is making me nervous.

What’s different about seeing my name on a novel after seeing it for years as a by-line in various newspapers, being listed among the authors at my local library, being identified as the author of an item printed in the Congressional Record, and being listed as an author by the National Park Service?

In historical non-fiction, the story rested on the facts of history, supported by a bibliography, which one can point to as the source of information to deflect criticism of what had been written. Creative writing has no such safety net.

The sequence of events can be changed. The language can be massaged. The sentences can be re-arranged. The grammar and punctuation can be corrected. But ultimately, creative writing is a story that comes from one undocumented source, the author’s brain. It’s enough to make a person feel very naked and exposed.

Just looking at the first draft of the cover, having to say “yes” or “no” to the art and the layout adds to the jitters by pressing home the idea that the book will be out this year, possibly before December, definitely before I feel I will be ready for it.

Sunrise Over Atlantic Ocean Was Climax to a Mountain Native's First Experience

The following picture arrived with a question, “Is this what you were trying to put into words? The answer was yes. I had been trying to describe the first sunrise I had seen over the Atlantic Ocean.

That first sunrise, observed when I twenty-one years old, was the climax of what had been an hours-long experience. Born and raised in the mountains of east Tennessee, nothing had prepared me for what I saw and heard, sitting beside the ocean in a very sparsely populated section of coastline in North Carolina.

It was in the early morning hours on a moonless night when I turned off the state highway to follow a narrow, sandy road that curved through a thick stand of gnarly trees. After a final curve in the road, my car’s headlights reached out into a void of nothingness.

On the darkest night in the closeness of the mountains, there is some definition of space as sharp changes in elevation present an uneven view of the stars. Looking out over the ocean that night, even the stars disappeared into that nothingness.

And there was the sound of the surf. It was nothing like the soft lapping of waves meeting land or rock on the TVA lakes that dot my native homeland in east Tennessee. The only thing I could relate the sound to was the labored breathing of a very large creature.

Speckles and streaks of light out in the darkness gave the impression that the large creature was moving about. I’d grown up catching lightening bugs, and understood their flashes of light came from something called bioluminescence. But that night I know nothing about the millions of tiny organisms in the ocean that have the same ability to produce chemical light.

And then came the beginning of dawn. At first it was a barely perceptible line separating black from gray, but rapidly growing in clarity until the glow rose above the line of black. I watched until the sun was above the horizon of the ocean, bathing the area in a golden light filled with dark shadows.

The folks to whom I was telling this story are natives of the east coast. I’m not certain they understood my reaction to that night and morning since such is an every-day event for them. I myself have now lived on the east coast for many years. But the magical feelings I experienced during that first encounter with the ocean have not been forgotten, even after some forty-nine years.