"Hot Wheels" From the Forties Didn't Have Peddles; More Fun

It’s the week after Good Friday. Time get things in the ground according to the farmers back in the hills. That meant that my father would be hitching up either Muade or Jenny, one of Grandpa’s two mules and getting with the program every afternoon when he came home from the cotton mill.



I loved that time of year back in the 1940s because there were no Hot Wheels for young guys like me. Hopping astride Maude or Jenny and hanging on the the back strap on the harness was a lot more fun. Kids today don't know what they're missing.

How a Conversation with my Barber Led to Thoughts About Organic Evolution

Among all the ratified discussions about the causes underlying many of today’s social problems, none strike me as getting to the core issue as simply and clearly as did a conversation with my barber during a recent visit. He was comparing his childhood to the problems that parents face today.

One normally does not associate visits to barbershops with thoughts about evolution, but that’s where the man’s comments led me. Evolution, in both its concepts⎯biological, which deals with inherited traits, and organic, which deals with man’s behavioral characteristics⎯carry an inherent concept of improvement from one generation to the next.

The study of organic evolution, from the days of scattered families living in caves to the world of today, has been one of how man has progressed, developing concepts and principles that became the moral and ethical fiber needed for a harmonious existence in a communal society. But my barber put a different slant on the concept of progress.

He described his childhood as being singular. There were no options expressed, no array of choices, no mixed messages for him and the kids with whom he grew up. He said they heard one message. It came from parents. It came from school. It came from church. It came from the adults in his community.

But today, as a parent, he said he feels very alone and vastly outnumbered. As a parent, he is trying to follow in the footsteps of his parents; teach his children what is right and wrong, and how they should act and conduct themselves in a communal society. But the children walk out the door of their home into a world that has changed drastically.

They are bombarded with a multitude of alternatives as to what is right and wrong, what is considered proper conduct. It creates a difficult time for a young person who must make decisions from among these multiple choices, only one of which comes from the parents.

On the biological side of evolution, scientists use the term genetic drift when it is discovered that a trait present in previous generations changes, disappears, or leads to a split into two totally different species. Not all of these genetic drifts lead to positive results. And they are accepted as being beyond human understanding and control.

Have “drifts” occurred on the organic side of evolution? Is that why our concept of singularity as to right and wrong and proper conduct has become a multitude of choices, from which we pick the one we like? Has the guaranteed right to exercise our freedom of choice⎯a concept we hold sacred and undeniable⎯ become more important that finding a commonality that guarantees a harmonious existence in a communal society?

Sometimes, a simple conversation with one’s barber can lead to some rather disturbing thoughts.

Douglas Corleone Offers His Thoughts on Keeping a Series From Going Stale

DOUGLAS CORLEONE is the author of the Kevin Corvelli mystery series published by St. Martin’s Minotaur.



His debut novel ONE MAN’S PARADISE won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. A former New York City criminal defense attorney, Corleone now lives in the Hawaiian Islands where he writes full-time. His second novel NIGHT ON FIRE will be released on April 26, 2011.

KEEPING A CRIME SERIES FRESH

I consider myself a reader first, a writer second. So when I was asked to turn my debut novel ONE MAN’S PARADISE into a series, I immediately concerned myself with how to keep the stories from growing stale. After all, I’d read a fair share of series that “jumped the shark” a few books in. Of course, I had also followed a number of protagonists through a dozen books or more without ever feeling as though a single story was a retread. So what does a writer do to keep a crime series fresh? Several things, I think.


Firstly, I feel strongly that characters should age in novels, just as we readers do. Stories are all about conflict, and what greater antagonist can our heroes face than Father Time. After all, Father Time is the only villain our protagonist can never defeat, the only nemesis he will never outsmart or outmaneuver. Sure, it’s nice to see that after nearly 60 years of fighting evil, James Bond still looks like Daniel Craig. But for most protagonists, aging will bring authenticity to a series, and the challenges that come with aging will help keep a crime series fresh. My protagonist, Honolulu defense attorney Kevin Corvelli, was introduced when he was 31, and now, as he creeps toward his mid-thirties, he’s beginning to learn much more about himself and what he wants out of life.

Secondly, writers should challenge themselves with every book by creating a villain even more cunning than the last. Series have momentum just as individual stories do. Some series thrill in the first few books, then we’re hit with an installment that’s anti-climactic. It’s almost as though the hero – and by extension, the author – is taking a time out, a break from real danger. It’s a fact that an antagonist can make or break a novel, so as a writer, I think it’s our duty to spend as much time developing the villain as we do the hero (even if many of the villain’s actions take place off-screen).

Likewise, the method of murder should change with each book. The victim in my debut novel was killed by a blunt object to the head. In NIGHT ON FIRE, arson is the crime that does the victims in. By switching up the method of murder so radically, I was able to create a vastly different investigation followed by a vastly different jury trial. It may at first glance seem trivial, whether the victim was killed by a gun or a knife. But you’ll find that the method of murder affects every facet of the story.

Finally, to keep a crime series fresh, writers must keep from getting lazy when it comes to building suspense. We readers always need that sense of dread. Kill off a recurring character once in a while to show that the threat of violence is real. Continue to create red herrings that will lead us in the wrong direction. We mystery readers are a strange bunch; we like to be misled. Just don’t mislead us into thinking we found the perfect series only to sputter out in book 5 or 6. Do everything possible to keep your crime series fresh.

"Passage of Time Became a Problem When This Reader Became a Writer

I recently read the comment that an author should keep reading books written by others, but not allow the mind to escape into the story. It should be an overt effort to look at how others handled the craft. This was not a conscious decision on my part, but moving into creative writing some six years ago has activated a part of my brain, an alarm, that previously lay dormant.

A standard by which I now judge a novel is whether or not I can become lost in the story, and the alarm does not sound, bringing my reading to a screeching halt. And I have come to realize that there is a direct link between the sounding of the alarm while reading and the elements of a story that are a challenge for me when writing.

One of those is pacing the sequence of an event or conversation that squares with my intuitive sense of the passage of time. This may be a personal demon with which I wrestle. It’s an element of creative writing I’ve never read about or heard discussed. And it may not be fair to judge other books by this standard.

But it continues to happen. The following, from a novel now being read, triggered this alarm. Two people place their orders with the server at a sit-down restaurant; followed by this sequence:
He says….
She says….
He says….
She says…. The reader is told this line of dialogue was delivered as she added a second serving of sauce to her food.

The alarm went off. The couple’s food had been served? I reread the scene; the description of the food ordered, the four lines of dialogue, including two bits of business added to break up break it up. No words were included to indicate there had been a pause or break in the conversation. There was nothing that would lengthen the scene in my mind to square it with my sense of the passage of time.

As said above, this may be a personal demon. But is a clear example that trying to write has most definitely changed the way I read books, even if it has not been a conscious effort.