My Blog

The Surprise Character

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Author Sandra Scoppettone had an experience writing the other day that I can certainly sympathize with:

I had my protagonist searching a
hotel room for clues to the missing man. She opened a wardrobe and the
body of a naked woman fell out.

I didn’t plan this at all.  It
happened.  I have no idea who she is or what she has to do with the
missing man case.  The woman falling out of the wardrobe was the way I
ended chapter two.

I’m 4 pages into chapter 4 and I still don’t
know anything about her.  The police have arrived now.  Don’t have any
idea where this is going to go.

Yes, it’s a bit scary not to
know, but it’s also what makes writing without an outline fun.  Maybe
tomorrow I’ll find out who she is.

I write with an outline, but this kind of thing still happens to me all the time. Well, it does when I’m writing books, not in television, where the outline is, to use a cliche, set in stone after it has been approved by the studio and network and distributed to key department heads for production purposes. But I digress..

I refer to my novel outlines as "living outlines," I keep revising them as I write to take into account these little surprises along the way or new ideas that occur to me.  I finish my outline around the same time I finish my books. 

The most troublesome, unexpected change I had to deal with was in my book MY GUN HAS BULLETS. I had a character, Eddie Planet, who was supposed to die very early on. But I fell in love with Eddie, and enjoyed writing him so much, that I kept putting off his death, until I finally accepted the fact that I couldn’t kill him. I was stuck with him for the whole book. Well, that threw my entire plot into disarray. It screwed up every plot turn. I spent the whole book trying to solve plot problems on-the-go.  But I think it was a much better book because I kept Eddie alive… and, in fact, I liked him so much, he became the central character in the sequel, BEYOND THE BEYOND.

I think it’s those surprise characters and unforeseen twists that make writing so exciting.  No matter how well you plot a story, the book always seems (to use another cliche) take on a life of its own.  Or, to use Sandra’s example:

The Surprise Character. I know who she is now. She was
identified by the detective’s client. This happened yesterday. I was
shocked to learn who she was. I ended chapter 5 with this revelation.

This
morning I woke early and before I went back to sleep I kept writing
opening lines of chapter 6 in my head. But I didn’t use any of them
when I went to work this morning.

Since chapter 5 ended with a
name I had to open chapter 6 with more information about who this
victim was. In learning this I’ve set myself a lot of new problems. I
still don’t know why she was found where she was or why she was
murdered. Needless to say, I don’t know who killed her…

…So what? That’s part of writing a novel. Any novel. Not only a mystery.
I think all good novels are mysteries to the author until they’re
completed.

Speaking of which, mine won’t be if I don’t spend less time this blog and more on my manuscript! I’m outta here. Enough procrastinating…

   

   

How Not To Sell a TV Series, Again

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I received this email:

I’m looking for someone to work with to spice-up and sell shows with. If you are in
the area I’d love to get together and see if we could make something happen with
a few ideas I have.

I replied:

Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got plenty of ideas… and I’m busy enough just
trying to sell my own stuff. But I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors!

He replied:

You’re busy, I understand. Thanks anyway. If you could just tell me one thing…how do you promote your ideas? The
reason I ask is that from the people I’ve talked to, I mean, from what they’ve
told me, it’s wonder how any shows get made…I get this vision of a dog chasing
its tail.
 
For example, A&E TV, the parent network for History Channel says, "we
do not review unsolicited submissions." Are they saying that they come up with
every show? Does a writer have to sell a production company on the idea who then
produces the show, show it at a festival in hopes that someone buys it? Or is
that whole "we do not review unsolicited submissions" stuff crap? What’s the
deal?

I replied:

First off, and no offense intended, but if you don’t already know the
answers to those questions, you probably aren’t experienced enough to be
pitching TV shows to networks now  anyway.
 
I have no idea how the non-fiction/reality show game is played. When it
comes to dramatic series, I recommend you read chapter 17, "Your Really Great
Idea for a TV Show," from my book SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING.

Is it Okay to Have an Opinion?

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My comments on this blog about Ken Bruen’s THE GUARDS has sparked a spirited debate here, on Sarah Weinman’s blog, and several other blogs out there. A number of people… authors, in particular… are upset that I posted my criticisms of the book publicly. Author Charlie Stella, on Sarah’s blog, wrote:

Goldberg doesn’t get what all the excitement is about? Okay, fair enough. Like some of the commentators, I don’t get what all the excitement is about some other writers … and I’m sure there are people who upchucked their lunch at reading my stuff as well. I have to wonder why Goldberg took the public potshot, though … unless the guy is just another jerkoff.

To which, Jennifer Jordan wrote:

I didn’t interpret Mr.Goldberg’s post as a pot shot but perhaps you feel any opinion made in a public forum is such. What I got from it, in the end was more a feeling of tiredness with the P.I. genre. It could well be that he hoped to incur the reactions that he’s gotten because, as Sarah said, these very reactions say a lot about Bruen’s writing. He could have made these comments about quite a few authors and not had the ‘public outcry’ that he has here. The outright anger is a testament to Bruen, who is the only author that can instill fear in me by saying he’ll come into town for a drink. That is the biggest damn drink you’ll ever take. Oddly, I don’t see many jumping to Kathy Reichs defense.

I think that’s because Kathy Reichs doesn’t hang out at Bouchercon or at other "crime writer events" socializing with other authors and mystery lovers. Ken Bruen does.

And he’s also a very, very nice guy with a strong literary voice and sharp prose. Kathy’s prose isn’t as accomplished.

He’s greatly admired by a tight-knit group of noir lovers and authors. Kathy Reichs isn’t.

He’s also received numerous accolades for his work from respected novelists and crime writing organizations. Kathy Reichs hasn’t.

But I think the most significant difference, as far as Kathy being fair game and Ken being off-limits, is that she’s a lot more successful, commercially, than he is. Far more, in fact.

Which raises an interesting issue, one that John Rickards, on his blog Empire of Dirt, discusses:

Patricia Cornwell brings out Trace and everyone slates it. Everyone. Come to that, everyone freely uses her, along with Dan Brown, James Patterson etc. etc. as examples of kinda crappy commercial fiction.

No one objects. At least, not round here, virtually speaking.

Is there some ‘upper ceiling’ of commercial success or profile above which a writer becomes fair game for those outside? Is it because few, if any, of us – the reader, the other writer, the reviewer – know these people in person and can therefore say what we like without fear of reproach?

Is there, at least amongst people ‘in the industry’ – and this is where Craig’s comment comes in – a sense that you shouldn’t shit where you sleep? Rather like Hunter S Thompson’s observation of the Washington press corps in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 that they were too chummy with the politicians they were covering and that so much was kept ‘off the record’ because journos didn’t want to offend their friends on the Hill – are we so cosy with one another that we’re afraid of saying what we think?

Why?

I’d be curious to hear your answers to that question.

Personally, I think if Kathy Reichs hung out at conventions, was more active in professional organizations (PWA, MWA, SinC) and was friends with lots of authors, and crime writing aficionados, she’d "off-limits" as well, regardless of the creative merits or commercial success of her work.

TV Themes R.I.P.

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Once again, the press is declaring the death of tv themes.

Despite such attempts at revival, the theme song is dying. Once a siren’s call
that heralded the beginning of a show and drew people to the TV set from all
over the house, the theme song is fast going the way of Harbert’s cassette
tapes.

Network executives point to several causes of death: There are
more commercials per half hour of TV, leaving less time for programs. The first
thing to go is often the theme song. It’s costly to hire a good composer to
write a song and pay the residuals due with each airing. Viewers have shorter
attention spans and won’t sit through theme songs. And they can seem
unsophisticated in this era of savvy audiences.

But the loss is
significant. Anyone who has clapped along to the "Friends" theme or sat through
a middle school music class rendition of "The Greatest American Hero" song can
feel it. Good TV shows are made better by good theme songs and remembered more
fondly for them. Think of "Cheers" with its "Where Everybody Knows Your Name."
Or "The Golden Girls" and "Thank You for Being a Friend." Or the jazzy themes of
"Hill Street Blues" and "L.A. Law."

What I really think they mean is the death of TV theme songs, but even that isn’t true.
I’m a big TV theme fan and, while there are fewer memorable themes these days, there are certainly no shortage of  instrumental or vocal themes… just not as many as in days past, and not as many that are catchy enough to remember.

Recent shows with vocal themes include  Nip/Tuck, The Sopranos,  Missing, Monk,  Wild Card,  The O.C.  and Star Trek Enterprise.  (And that doesn’t include shows using pop songs for their themes, like the three CSI shows). Recent shows with memorable instrumental themes include Six Feet Under, Deadwood,  The West Wing,  and, dare I say it, Survivor.

I think networks and studios are making a mistake not recognizing the importance of a strong theme tune/song.  All it takes is a few notes of a memorable theme to create an immediate, emotional reaction in viewers, immediately evoking their affection for the show and its characters.

There’s a story, I don’t know if it’s true, that Scott Rudin wanted to ditch the finger-snapping Addams Family theme from the movie and its trailers. But when he saw the immediate reaction the first few notes had with preview audiences, he changed his mind. A strong theme is instant brand recognition…forever.

What makes the Mission Impossible movies, well, Mission Impossible is that classic Lalo Schifrin theme and the incidental score (which was also used in the film). Addams Family, Star Trek, Friends, Hawaii Five-O, Cheers, X-Files, Seinfeld, Law & Order… those are just a few of many, many TV themes that have become part of our shared culture, whether you’re a regular viewer of those shows or not.   

When studios buy the remake rights to old TV series, I would argue what they are really buying is the format and theme music/song.  What would Hawaii Five-O be without the Morton Stevens theme? What’s The Brady Bunch without the opening song and the incidental score? 

The importance of the theme music/song also extends to most movie franchises. A James Bond movie simply isn’t a 007 film without the James Bond theme (what Bond fan didn’t long for it in NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN?).  What would the Man With No Name be without Ennio Morricone’s haunting score? What people remember most about Shaft isn’t the movie… it’s Isaac Hayes theme song.

The TV theme isn’t dead…it’s just not as appreciated as it should be by the very people, the networks and studios, who have the most to gain by supporting it. The problem is, the gains aren’t as immediately tangible as using the money that would have gone into the music budget on designer wardrobe, big-name guest stars, or a more elaborate action sequences…

Top Fives

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Mystery Ink polled over 50 fiction writers, reviewers and other assorted
readers, asking them to name their five favorite books they read during the
year. A list of those, well, lists are up at their website.  T. Jefferson Parker’s CALIFORNIA GIRL,  Scott Phillips COTTONWOOD and Ken Bruen’s THE GUARDS show up a lot. Here’s my list of five.

My brother Tod’s LIVING DEAD GIRL also shows up in a couple of the  lists…including this mention, from author Thomas Perry:

Living
Dead Girl by Tod Goldberg — Probably the most skillful and unusual
piece of crime fiction by a young writer I’ve read in years.

If I were to expand my list to include, say, the top ten books I read this year, it would also include:

  • Larry McMurtry’s four Berrybender novels (which I think of as one book spread out over four volumes).
  • Frederick Manfred’s  The Scarlet Plume.
  • Paul Quarrington’s Fishing with My Old Guy
  • Dan J. Marlowe’s One Endless Hour
  • Lawrence Block’s Hitman novellas and short stories (which I also think of as one book. I thought the novel he wrote with the character, though, was rather weak).

That’s not to say I didn’t read a lot of other great novels this year, including many listed by others at Mystery Ink,  but these are the ones that will stick with me for some time to come.

TV Marathon

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As part of my physical therapy, I have to spend four to six hours a day with my arm in a machine that forcibly bends and extends it… so I have been watching a lot of television lately.

First, I went on a big GUNSMOKE binge… which is easy, since the color episodes play on TVLand every day and the black-and-white episodes air on Western Channel. Plus both networks have been running mini-marathons. You gotta love Tivo.

Anyway, besides noticing what a great, under-appreciated show GUNSMOKE was (though there were a few seasons in the mid-60s you can skip)… I was struck by how often it has been subtly imitated over the years. The key characters on the show are Marshal Matt Dillon, his deputy Chester (and later Festus), his friend ornery Doc Adams, and his girlfriend Kitty, the saloon-keeper (and, let’s be honest here, proprietor of the whore house). But that central triumvirate…  lawman, deputy, and doctor, have been repeated ever since in many series…including one very popular example.

Gene Roddenberry described STAR TREK as "WAGON TRAIN in space." It probably would have been more accurate to call it GUNSMOKE in space. Captain Kirk is Matt Dillon, Mr. Spock is Chester, and Doctor McCoy is, well, virtually the same character as Doc Adams. All the STAR TREK shows have repeated that triumvirate in some form or another…

I also caught up on the first season of NIP/TUCK on DVD… a show that deserves all the praise it has been getting. I can’t wait for season two box set to come out. And I watched the first season DVD set of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT… which left me cold. I can see why it’s struggling to attract an audience, despite its Emmy awards.

I’ve also caught a bunch of movies…among them THE BIG SLEEP (love the movie, though I still can’t follow the plot at all), TONY ROME and LADY IN CEMENT (two fun Frank Sinatra PI movies based on Marv Albert novels), THE GOOD THE BAD AND UGLY special edition (a classic), MISSING (the Tommy Lee Jones western, the DVD is loaded with deleted scenes and alternate endings), all the Bond films for the millionth time, and two PINK PANTHER movies.. in addition to my usual primetime viewing.

The Joys of Stock Footage

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I was channel-surfing last night and stumbled on SUBMERGED,  a schlocky Fred Olen Ray movie from 2000 about a hijacked plane that crashes into the ocean, and the attempts to rescue the passengers. If the plot sounds identical to Universal’s cheesy AIRPORT  ’77, that’s not surprising. SUBMERGED was built entirely around AIRPORT ’77 stock footage. There’s nothing illegal about it… Fred simply bought/licensed the footage from Universal. What’s surprising is that Universal sees so little value now in their AIRPORT franchise that they’d allow a virtual remake to be made by another studio using their footage.

Stock footage is a wonderful thing, especially if you’re working on a tight budget.  I’ve certainly used my share of stock footage over the years, particularly on a  low-budget  syndicated action series called COBRA, starring Michael Dudikoff, that we wrote & produced for Steve Cannell up in Canada. We had virtually no money… so we relied on stock footage from the vast Cannell library to make our show look bigger than it was.  For example, we took an action sequence from the WISEGUY episode…used the same Vancouver location, matched the cars and the wardrobe, and crafted a new sequence using the same footage.  To make our scene a bit fresher, we used alternate takes not used in the WISEGUY episode.  The new footage and the stock matched perfectly.  The trickery was unnoticeable to the untrained eye, or someone unfamiliar with the WISEGUY episode.

For another episode, our hero’s car was trashed…so he drove a Corvette Stingray…which allowed us to use lift several action sequences from Cannell’s series STINGRAY.  That was probably our least creative use of stock…on the same level as SUBMERGED. But we saved a huge amount of money and it made us heroes around the Cannell building.

In still another COBRA  episode, we used stock footage from an action sequence in RIPTIDE, which used stock footage from an episode of HARDCASTLE AND MCCORMICK, which used stock footage from a STINGRAY. So our sequence was created from footage patched together from three other series.  I remember Steve Cannell watching the sequence in the screening room with a huge grin on his face… he’d never seen stock footage used so well. We looked at it as a challenge…and had a wonderful time.

My favorite use of stock footage was for a two-hour sweeps episode of  DIAGNOSIS MURDER about a plane crash in a corn field. We used stock footage of a plane crash, and sweeping, overhead shots of the wreckage, from the movie FEARLESS. We then bought out a cornfield in Oxnard, set it aflame, and  filled it with scorched airplane wreckage.  We also put our actors in the cornfield.  Our original footage matched seamlessly with the stock.  It gave our episode a scope we never could have managed on our tight budget…and I doubt the average viewer was the least bit aware of our trickery, even if they were among the few who’d seen FEARLESS.

I see stock footage used all the time in feature films and TV shows…mainly because the best stock (mostly explosions, battle sequences, car chases, establishing shots, etc.) gets used over and over again.  When it’s used well, the viewer rarely notices. When it’s used badly, it makes whatever you’re watching look like hack work… which, of course, it probably is or they wouldn’t have needed the stock footage in the first place!

Still More on Publish America

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On Ed Gorman’s wonderful blog, novelist Richard Wheeler mentioned that he had dusted off an old, unpublished novel entitled BIG APPLE, and that it was being published by Publish America.

This intrigued me. Why? Because Wheeler is a very successful author, with dozens of well-respected, Spur-Award-winning westerns from major publishers to his credit. And he’s got several new hardcovers coming from St. Martin’s/Forge as well as another series of paperbacks from Pinnacle Books. 

He certainly doesn’t fit the profile of a typical Publish America customer/author. So, given the recent controversy surrounding the company, I asked him about his experiences with the  company. Here is what he said:

I was attracted to PublishAmerica because there is no initial fee and they even offer a one-dollar advance, thus providing some semblance of a trade publisher.

It was a grave mistake. They make their profit not by marketing the books but by gouging the authors. The shallow 20 percent discount, plus inflated shipping charges (around $5 per book), meant that I paid more than the list price of the novel unless I ordered very large quantities. Ditto retailers. A twenty percent discount for retailers, plus inflated shipping meant that no bookseller would stock the book. (That is why you find on-line retailers adding a surcharge.)

They are not in business to sell books to the public; they sell printing services and books to the amateur authors who come to them, and can make their entire profit from the author, without selling a copy to the public. The disincentives are deliberate. They don’t want to bother with booksellers and make it hard for a bookseller to order from them. They also don’t really care whether an author can earn anything from his books. Because of inflated shipping costs I could have ordered my books cheaper from a retailer than from PublishAmerica.

He goes on to say that iUniverse is "the gold standard in the POD field."

Through the Authors Guild back-in-print program I have put nine reverted titles back into print at iUniverse, and have seven more in process. They have done an excellent job with these. But always remember that all these POD publishers regard the author himself as their primary source of income.

At least iUniverse, unlike Publish America, is upfront about it.

It should be noted that the Authors Guild Back-In-Print program is free to authors of previously published, out-of-print, work (and are members of the Guild). Otherwise, iUniverse charges a stiff fee to publish original manuscripts, which is, presumably, what would have happened if Wheeler went to them with BIG APPLE, a book he wrote in the 80s but wasn’t able to sell.

Publish America doesn’t charge that stiff fee, they just get it out of you in other ways…

The Guards

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For the last few months, I’ve read all over the web how amazing Ken Bruen’s books are. I was lucky enough to meet him at Bouchercon and thought he was a hell of a nice guy. So I bought a few of his books and set them aside to read on a rainy day.

That day came yesterday. And at the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I don’t get what all the excitement is about. I read THE GUARDS, about an alcoholic ex-cop investigating the suicide of a young girl. While the book was definitely well-written, with a sharp, economical style, I can’t tell you how tired I am of alcoholic cops, alcoholic ex-cops, and alcoholic private eye heroes whose lives are spiraling out of control because they can’t stop drinking.

While he didn’t write with cliches, the lead character himself was certainly one. Jack Taylor is a self-destructive cop thrown off the force for being a drunk. And he’s caught in an endless spiral of drinking and self-destruction he seems powerless to stop. Yadda Yadda Yadda. Enough. I’m not reading any more books about alcoholic cops, ex-cops and PIs. I’ve had my fill.

Bruen’s cliched, alcoholic loner hero might have been easier to take if the mystery was the least bit compelling…but it wasn’t. The mystery wasn’t a mystery. It was hardly even a story. The hero "solved" the crime by being passed out most of the time. Peripheral characters literally walked right up to him and volunteered information he needed. I couldn’t have cared less about the hero…or the resolution of the story.

While I liked much of Bruen’s prose, I felt he overindulged in pointless gramatical tricks that actually diminished the impact of his work. The self-conscious formatting tricks started on page one:

It’s almost impossible to be thrown out of the Garda Siochana. You have to really put your mind to it. Unless you’ve become a public disgrace, they’ll tolerate most anything.

I’d been to the wire. Numerous

Cautions

Warnings

Last chances

Reprieves

And I still didn’t shape up. Or rather sober up.

Bruen also over-indulges using quotes from other mystery novels, not just as heading to his chapters, but within the prose itself. There’s no doubt he’s a great writer… I just wish I liked his characters and his storytelling as much as his way with words.

Can You Make a Living as a Writer?

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I’m starting to get more mail, and more questions, than the Playboy Advisor. I  received this email yesterday:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,
 
I’m a young, unpublished writer who’s been fortunate enough to get the
attention of a couple of agents.  Since I might one day find myself published
(it does seem so far off, though), I have a few questions for a tried and true
veteran of the industry.
 
First, how likely is it to make a living as a writer?  I understand how
broad and poorly concieved this question is, so let my add a little more to the
question.  I write literary fiction.  I feel I am somewhat talented and I work
hard.  I’m curious as to the possibility of living as a writer or teaching
writing as a direct result of my writing and not spending $60k and two
irreplacable years of my life to get some MFA that will teach me nothing.  How
much can a literary novelist really make?  It seems stupid to assume I’ll never
make any money just because I write books that read a little too artsy for mass
consumption (but then who is to predict such things).
 
Second, and possibly more immediate, I’m going into the Army for the next
three and a half years or so.  Is this something that will impede my getting
published?  As I have already stated, I have agents looking at my work now and
they have no idea of my plans.
 
Thanks for reading my questions.  I hope I haven’t asked anything too
inappropriate.

Steve

Since I didn’t have the answers to any of his questions, I turned to my brother Tod, a literary novelist who, presumably, is earning a living at it. Here’s what Tod told the guy who wrote me:

Steve,

My brother Lee Goldberg forwarded your question on to me, since I was in a
similar situation as you (save for the military) a few years ago.

 
It is certainly possible to make a living writing literary fiction, though
realistically most people don’t. I’ve published two novels and have a short
story collection coming out in September and what I can tell you is that the
combined income from those books isn’t enough to live on, though the acclaim
feeds my ego, just not my stomach. I got lucky and was able to sell one of my
novels to Hollywood and have thus far received far more money from my movie
options than I ever have in publishing, enough to live on, certainly. But I also
teach at the Writers’ Program at UCLA and write a weekly column for a newspaper
and regularly contribute journalism to magazines. If I wanted to teach full time
at the University level I imagine I probably could now because of certain award
nominations, publications and experience, but without an MFA (which I don’t have
either) a full time teaching job straight out the box for a young person with a
book would be very difficult to come by without a fairly vast and accomplished
publishing history. Universities and state colleges generally want their
graduate and undergraduate professors to have advanced degrees no matter what.
 
How much does a literary novelist make? Anywhere from $2000 per book to
1million — there’s no real telling. Alice Sebold didn’t get a huge advance for
the Lovely Bones, but she sure earned a lot of money and her next book will
certainly garner a fat advance. I wouldn’t be too concerned about the money at
this point, just about the writing. Good writing gets rewarded, but so does bad
sometimes. I’d just focus on writing well and if you sell your novel, it’s a
dream come true no matter the numbers on the check.
 
As for the military, I think it probably does hamper your chances simply
because of the opportunity, or lack there of, you’ll have to write and should
you sell your book, to promote it. Of course, you could come back from your time
in the Army as the next Tim O’Brien, though I sure hope that isn’t the case on a
psychological level; talent-wise, it wouldn’t be a bad deal at all.
 
Just out of curiosity, who are these agents and why are they interested in
you, especially if you never been published previously?
 
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have more questions. And be safe out
there in the army.
 
Tod Goldberg