Verisimilitude

In most genres authors strive for authenticity. That is, what they write should sound like the truth.

If it is fiction, then it shouldn’t be the actual truth. At least, if it is, it should be well enough disguised to pass as fiction.

Part of this feeling of authenticity comes from the descriptive details.

The wind should be recognizably “wind-like,” whatever that is. Despite our desires, nature is not teleological. It has neither purpose nor intent. It just is. An author cannot ascribe evil or good to forces of nature, except metaphorically. “The wind was against us,” means only that we were sailing into the wind, not that the wind chooses to oppose us. Similarly, we cannot claim weather beyond the bounds of likely ranges. As far as I know, there is no place on earth that reaches more 150 degrees as a daytime high, global warming notwithstanding. In a volcano, sure, but not out in the desert.

Authenticity is essential while writing in a historical context.  Bombers during WWII didn’t drop laser guided bombs. The laser wasn’t discovered until the 1960s. That said, Clive Cussler tells a tale built around the premise that the Chinese utilized a natural laser thousands of years ago. Okay… maybe thriller readers are more gullible or are more willing to suspend disbelief.

Authenticity can often be found in museums.

I just got back from the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH. If you’re looking for fantastic and real, that’s not a bad place to start. If you’re interested in guns, go to the Remington museum in Cody, Wyoming. My wife had to drag me out before the bus left without us.

Then again, the bar is not too high. Many authors, even those whose reputations are built on technical authenticity too frequently confuse revolvers with semi-automatic pistols. A Luger is not, and never will be a revolver. Neither will a M1911 Colt .45. If you need a .45 Colt revolver, you better be writing about the old west.

I mention museums because an object is more than its name. Pearl grips and a chrome finish tell much more of a story than “.45 automatic.” The matte black finish and cobra-like forms of a SR-71 convey much more of its sinister character than the simple model designation.

Even if it has no intention of biting you.

Thrillers

I suppose thrillers are among the most popular genres, at least for guys.

In a thriller, the good guy is up against overwhelming odds, either from a rich, powerful, callous, evil organization like the drug cartels or a foreign government, or both. Somehow, the hero succeeds despite overwhelming odds to defeat the evil empire, yet again. Once upon a time, spy thrillers defined the genre, with the secret agent alone in a strange, hostile land. With the fall of the Soviet Union, that setup has become passé. Occasionally someone will produce a retro book, but readers have been there and done that.

Nazis are always popular enemies because they have never been equaled in the evil department. Personally, I’ve grown tired of Nazi atrocities, even as new writers devise even more cruel forms of depravity. That says more about contemporary writers than Nazis, in my opinion.

Gangsters and terrorists figure large in the current crop of thrillers. I just finished reading Cobra, by Frederick Forsythe. The principal character, a former CIA operative, gets a call from the White House, assigning him to wipe out the cocaine trade. Impossible? Of course, but with $2 billion and the full cooperation of the military, it’s not entirely implausible.

The main problem with this story is the lack of conflict and tension. The hero succeeds beyond all expectations, and until the very last page, the bad guys can do nothing to stop him. I won’t spoil the plot for you.

I have two problems with thrillers.

First, the plots range from absurd to impossible. Think James Bond up against SMERSCH, bent on destroying the civilized world. Of course he is captured along with the beautiful woman, and they only just manage to escape as the secret underground headquarters is destroyed in a spectacular series of explosions. Each new book is more fantastic than the previous one. Dirk Pitt, Clive Cussler’s hero, once swam two hundred miles through an underground river, only to emerge in the middle of the Gulf of California next to a convenient fishing boat.

The other problem I have is that the books are often badly written. Even those from the most famous authors use too many clichés, highly repetitive texts, improper word substitutions (e.g. gun site for gun sight) badly constructed sentences, and factual errors. It’s as though they went to print without ever being edited.

I suppose the Budweiser-drinking, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging guys who read them are illiterate and either don’t know the difference or don’t care.

It must be true.

I still read them, but only if my lips move as I devour stilted page after stilted page.

Flogging the Limelight

How do you publicize an eBook?

You can’t schedule a book signing at Barnes and Noble or amazon.com, for that matter. I suppose you could schedule a launch party or a reading at the local library, but then you can’t set up a table for sales at the back of the room. Once the patrons are out the door, you’ve probably lost them.

I’ve tried writing articles for local papers, but so far, I’ve been ignored. My 3000 word article for my alumni magazine got reduced to one sentence.

Many eBook authors lurk at LinkedIn. They populate the Mystery Writers of America and the Crime Fiction Group, trying to start discussions like “New bestselling novel, Death of Paper, by John Smith. Of course, “bestselling” means his mother and one of his sisters bought a copy.

The problem with this approach is that all the members of the site are bent on the same mission, flogging their eBook that no one knows about. It’s worse than preaching to the choir. It’s more like trying to sell tombstones to residents of a cemetery. Most of the potential customers already have one, and the ones that don’t aren’t listening.

Authors’ advice blogs like this one suggest opening a Facebook page and Tweeting. That begs the larger question, how do you raise a following there? I’m not Taylor Swift, for God’s sake. My two daughters follow my blog and Facebook wall, but I’m not sure anyone else does. If I get a following and I’m not too blatant about flogging my books, maybe someone who reads my blog might be tempted to look up my titles on amazon.com.

It could happen.

The other bit of advice I’ve heard is commenting. I’m supposed to find other blogs that my potential readers might visit and write something. That’s probably good advice, but it takes a serious commitment. The grass still needs cutting. The more people who see my name and a link to this blog or my book pages, the more likely they are to buy. 

I can hope.

Another avenue to the same end is writing book reviews for amazon.com and other public forums. That tightens the circle between famous authors and me. The problem is, by the time I get a copy of a book worth reviewing, I’m like, the 2047^th person to review it and it’s already on remainders.

Maybe I should read the first chapter at Barnes and Noble and make something up about the rest of the book. I think that’s what editors do with my books. They read the first sentence and decide I’m not worth looking any farther.

It’s a tough world out there.

Product Placement

You’ve all seen it in the movie: the strategically placed Coke can, the BMW that gets more screen time than the star.

These icons didn’t end up in the movie because a set dresser needed something to fill a spot on the table. Companies paid good money to get their products some screen time, in hopes that the subliminal message would yield more sales at grocery stores or car dealers.

Sometimes these placement efforts are blatant to the point of crass. Oldsmobile dragged its Silouette minivan (Remember Oldsmobile? Remember the Silouette? I didn’t think so.) so deeply into the movie Get Shorty, it should’ve gotten a credit above the title. There were more lines referring to the “Cadillac of minivans” than some of the stars got.

The same thing goes on in books.

I am a big fan of Patricia Cornwell, at least her Kay Scarpetta series. She’s tried to branch out with a series built around a reporter, Andy Brasil in Charlotte, NC. The book has the feel of something she wrote before she became famous, but my larger problem is her use of product placement. It seems like every chapter is crammed with references to Ruth’s Chris Steak House or Piggly Wiggly.

Okay, I agree that these cultural references help to anchor a story in a particular time and place. I do the same thing, but as often as not, my references are to places that no longer exist, like the Cooper’s Arms in Rochester. I don’t know about Patricia Cornwell, but I’m certainly not getting paid to put Coke in my Blog or my novels.

Commercialism aside, references to specific products can be an extremely valuable context. In my forthcoming book, Paris Pariahs, Frank Healy descends into alcoholism on gallon jugs of Wild Turkey. Many authors evoke Jim Beam for similar purposes, but I believe Wild Turkey is a little closer to the gutter where my character is headed. Cheval Regal would not get him to the same place.

Product placement can be used as a social register. Bottles of Chateau Latour Pauillac 1959 figure in both Grand Designs and Paris Pariahs. While today wine is much more deeply ingrained in the social landscape, before 1980 it was much more of an upper class marker. Even though my family drinks, I can’t remember seeing a bottle of wine in the house while growing up. Something as rare as Chateau Latour Pauillac would be precious beyond imagining.

Thrillers tend to have odd product placements. Writers provide precise references to weapons and other military technology as a marker of verisimilitude, but no ordinary person is likely to ever see a Barrett REC7, but we all know about AK-47s. How about some third generation NVGs?

I have to go. I feel compelled to buy a Barrett. Maybe I can find one on Craig’s List.

Memoir

For many people who feel they have a book in them, the working title is ME.

The writer’s aphorism, “write what you know,” emanates from a mirror. What we know, or think we know is ourselves and our lives.

This is not a bad thing if you’ve enjoyed or experienced a life well lived. That is, something significant has happened, and other people might be interested to hear about it. This is probably not true for most of us.

A positive example: I have an acquaintance, Joann, who was a Donut Dollie during the Vietnam War. That is not what you think. She was a Red Cross volunteer who traveled to various combat bases providing cheer and encouragement to the front line troops. Being a woman there during the war was unusual enough, but she was also close to the action, where most women there, like nurses, remained well away from combat.

That experience has the makings of a terrific tale. She wrote the book. It took her something like seven years to get it published, but the effort was worth it.

A memoir, from the French for “memory,” is a recollection about a specific time and place where something memorable happened. It is different from an autobiography, which usually sums up a person’s entire life. 

I have an incomplete draft of my religious experiences that could be a memoir. I quit working on the book, because I asked myself, “What’s the point?” Many interesting things happened. It was a journey of discovery, but what could I say to sum up? Would anyone else care?

People write memoirs for a variety of reasons. Often, the authors are famous for something they have done – war heroes and movie stars – but other people are famous for being famous. Does anyone care if Paris Hilton takes showers or baths? Does anyone care if she agonized over the marble for her bathroom? Someone must, because she got a big advance. Fortunately, she didn’t have much to say.

Ordinary people set out to write their memoir (or autobiography) as a legacy. It’s not a bad thing, unless you expect to top the bestseller list. I wish someone from a previous generation had taken the time to write down a few details of their life. The experience of coming to America from Ireland or Germany was a common enough experience, but I’d like to know why they came.

My ancestors came over in 1867 and 1883, I think. Why then? The potato famine in Ireland was a generation earlier but five brothers emigrated, two to Australia and three to America. My German ancestors were wealthy enough to buy a house in Detroit soon after immigrating and owned a saloon and later a brewery. The entire family came together. Again, why did they come?

I can’t write a memoir about that, because I have no recollections from 150 years ago, but It would have been nice if someone else had. 

Even if it was badly written.