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Rubicon Ranch: Secrets — The Story Continues!

May 14, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Rubicon Ranch is a collaborative and innovative crime series set in the fictional desert community of Rubicon Ranch and is being written online by the authors of Second Wind Publishing. The very first chapter of the very first book (Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story) was posted on October 24, 2010, and we are still going strong! In fact, we are getting better and better. Seven authors, including me, are involved in the current story — Rubicon Ranch: Secrets, which is shaping up to be a psychological thriller.

The body of a local realtor is found beneath the wheels of an inflatable figure of a Santa on a motorcycle. The realtor took great delight in ferreting out secrets, and everyone in this upscale housing development is hiding something. Could she have discovered a secret someone would kill to protect? There will be suspects galore, including a psychic, a con man, a woman trying to set up an online call-girl service, and the philandering sheriff himself. Not only is the victim someone he had an affair with, but he will also have to contend with an ex-wife who has moved back in with him and a jilted lover, both with their own reasons for wanting the realtor dead.

Although some of the characters were introduced in Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story, the first collaboration in the series, and further developed in Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces, Rubicon Ranch: Secrets is a stand-alone novel, so don’t worry if you are new to Rubicon Ranch. A new chapter will be posted every Monday on the Rubicon Ranch blog. Normally I only write the character of Melanie Gray, but the authors who wrote the possible suspects seemed to have so much fun with their villains, that I am doing a second character, Lydia Galvin, the sheriff’s jilted lover.

We hope you will enjoy seeing the story develop as we write it. Let the mystery begin! Whodunit? No one knows, not even the writers, and we won’t know until the very end! If you don’t want to miss further chapters, please go to the blog and click on “sign me up” on the right sidebar to get notifications of new chapters.

(If the Christmas theme seems unseasonal, well . . . considering how long it takes to write a book at the rate of a chapter a week, in a few months, the season will catch up to us!)

Chapter 6: Lydia Galvin
by Pat Bertram

Sunday, December 22, 11:55pm

Lydia Galvin stood like stone behind the partially closed plantation shutters in her bay window. From this spot, she had a good view of her front yard where Nancy Garcetti’s body had been found. Lydia had remained vigilant for hours, beginning even before that Melanie person had stumbled on the scene, and she’d heard enough to know who all the players were in her own private police drama.

But now, the body had been cleared away, the crime scene technicians had packed up their evidence, the department photographer had decamped, the sheriff had come and gone. All that remained was lurid yellow crime scene tape draped around the deflating figure of Santa on a motorcycle . . . and the two deputies in charge—Lieutenant Rosario Frio and Deputy Kelvin Midget. Lydia could hear snatches of their conversation. They were comparing notes about canvassing the neighborhood, but they spoke so softly she couldn’t hear many details. And then, as if he knew she was within earshot, Deputy Midget raised his voice.

“I’ve knocked on the door several times,” he all but shouted. “Maybe nobody lives here.”

“But why would someone bother to put up decorations at an empty house?” Frio responded in a voice just as loud.

“Who knows what anyone does in this ghoulish neighborhood.”

Lydia thought she saw Midget wink at Frio, perhaps in acknowledgment that he himself now lived in Rubicon Ranch, but the wink could have been a trick of the moonlight.

Would it surprise them to know that putting up the decoration had merely been a whim? She’d found the silly figure in the garage of the rental house, and it had somehow seemed fitting considering the rebellious atmosphere of the neighborhood.

“I’m surprised Seth doesn’t do anything to clean up the area, especially since she lives here,” Frio said.

Lydia knew the “she” Frio referred to was Melanie Gray, the very woman who inadvertently brought her here. In newspaper articles, television coverage, online stories and blogs about the Rubicon Ranch murders, Melanie Gray had earned as much space as Seth himself. Only one or two photos showed the two of them together, but their images had been placed side-by-side often enough to make it seem as if they were a couple. And Melanie Gray seemed just Seth’s type—smart, remote, vulnerable, and ripe for sweet words that soothed the soul. But in the two months Lydia had been watching Melanie, hoping to catch Seth in action, the sheriff never once put in an appearance. Even the brief phone calls she’d heard on the tapped line had been strictly business.

“Do you think the people who live here are hiding from us?” Midget asked.

“It’s possible,” Frio said. “But I don’t know why. The innocent never have anything to fear.”

Lydia almost snorted, but caught herself before she made a sound. The innocent had nothing to fear from the cops? Who was Frio trying to kid? The innocent had everything to fear since they had only their innocence as protection, and innocence was tissue-paper thin.

“Maybe one of residents killed the woman,” Midget said, still playing the naïf.

“And dragged the body under the wheel of their own Christmas decoration? No one is that stupid.”

Maybe it wasn’t smart, Lydia admitted to herself, but it had almost done the trick. Melanie found the body as Lydia had hoped, but the woman left before Seth arrived. How could she have known when she arranged the tableau that Seth would be with his wife Monica—Nic—instead of rushing to the scene? He detested Nic almost as much as Lydia did. The only good thing about this situation was that Seth finally got a taste of what it felt like to suffer. And he deserved it after what he put her through.

He’d fed her and bedded her. Treated her as if she were the most special woman in the world. She’d been leery of him at first, knowing his reputation, but when he’d looked her in the eye and said with a sad little boy sigh, “I’ve been more open to you than I’ve ever been to any other woman,” she was lost. She had the feeling they’d found refuge together, he from his demanding wife and she from her abusive husband, but when she discovered the romancing had all been part of his come-on, her heart broke.

She hadn’t really expected him to leave his wife when she suggested it. She just wanted a bit of assurance that she came first, at least part of the time, but he turned on her. Called her a vituperative bitch. Whatever that meant. She’d never intended to confront Nic, but Seth must have believed she would and confessed the affair to his wife, making Lydia out to be the villain. Seth brought Nic to her house and stood there while his wife told her to be content with what she had with Seth and just let the rest go, that the affair was messing up all their lives. Her husband overheard the conversation, and later that night, he beat Lydia, smiling with every lash.

And it had all been Seth’s fault. If he had only left her alone. . . . It was bad enough getting abuse from her husband, but she couldn’t bear to be treated badly by the man who once called her the love of his life. She told their captain of the affair, insisting Seth had misused his power. Although a disciplinary action had been filed, Seth got off, of course, but both of them lost their jobs.

On their last day, she found him standing in the police department parking lot, watching the custodian paint over his name. Her heart had gone out to him. They hurt each other badly, but still, she could feel a connection.

“Can’t you understand how much I love you?” she’d said softly, tearfully.

He’d just stared at her with the icy non-caring eyes of a predatory bird and said, “I’m still licensed to carry a sidearm in California and if you come near me again I’m going to shoot you between the eyes.”

What was left of her broken heart turned to stone. And she’d been stone ever since.

She hadn’t felt anything when she left that day even though she’d lost both her last chance at love and her hard-won spot as a lieutenant in the police department. She hadn’t felt anything when she didn’t find another job while Seth, golden boy still, had landed himself a great position. She hadn’t felt anything when her husband ended up murdered, leaving her with enough money to get her through the coming empty years.

And she didn’t feel anything now when Frio and Midget marched to her entryway and banged on the front door.

“This is the sheriff’s department. Open up,” Frio shouted, sounding authoritative. If Lydia hadn’t once practiced such a voice herself, she might have been intimidated enough to answer the door. But all she did was stand and wait for Seth’s two deputies to give up and drive away.

Even if the deputies suspected that someone lived in the house, they couldn’t prove it as long as no one saw her. Only Nancy Garcetti knew she lived there. Nancy owned the house, one of the many she’d purchased at a steal because of the declining real estate market in Rubicon Ranch, and she’d rented it to Lydia for a bundle of cash and a promise of no paperwork work or records.

Now Nancy was dead.

Seth and Nic were together.

And Lydia was stone.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” All Bertram’s books are published by Second Wind Publishing. Connect with Pat on Google+

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: mystery series collaboration, online novel, Rubicon Ranch, Rubicon Ranch Necropieces, Rubicon Ranch: Secrets, Second Wind Publishing. Leave a Comment »

How do you juggle the promotional aspects with the actual writing?

May 8, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I haven’t been juggling the promotional aspects with the actual writing. I’ve been concentrating mainly on promotion. I have a one-track mind, and for now I am focused on figuring out how to get my books to really take off. I don’t see why millions of people can’t enjoy my books (though so far, they don’t seem to agree). What writing I do falls under the category of promotion, such as blogging and keeping up with my chapters in Rubicon Ranch, the mystery serialization that several of us Second Wind authors are collaborating to write online. You can find the ongoing story here: Rubicon Ranch.

Here are some responses from other authors about how they juggle promotion and writing. The comments are taken from interviews posted at Pat Bertram Introduces . . .

From an interview with P.I. Barrington, Author of Isadora DayStar

Promoting and writing? That’s the REAL trick of publishing today. Writing takes time, but for me at least, promotion is constant and at times overwhelming!

From an interview with Beth Groundwater, Author of “A Real Basket Case”

Promotion is something that is ongoing, and which ramps up around the time of each release (every spring and fall for the next two years, at least). I try to focus on the writing and editing I need to get done each week first, then work on promotion later in the day or later in the week after I’ve finished the writing I need to do to meet my deadlines. I have to be very organized and give myself weekly goals to stay on track..

From an interview with Dale Cozort, Author of “Exchange

I tend to do marketing in blocks of time rather than trying to do it at the same time as writing. I have writing days, editing days and marketing days. That fits my somewhat obsessive personality. I’m not sure if it’s the most effective way to get things done.

From an interview with Christine Lindsay, Author of Shadowed in Silk

The marketing and promotional aspects are awful. I love talking to people and making friends, but it’s not easy to always be talking about myself. The phrase “I must decrease in order for Him (the Lord) to increase” is running through my head quite a bit these days as I try to do my part in the marketing of my novel. It’s not just me that it affects, so I must do my part. But I hope I never sound pushy, but that I encourage someone in everything I say or write.

What about you? How do you juggle the promotional aspects with the actual writing?

(If you’d like me to interview you, please check out my author questionnaire http://patbertram.wordpress.com/author-questionnaire/ and follow the instruction.)

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Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: a writer writes, advice to aspiring writers, aspiring author, author interviews, being a writer, writing for yourself. 3 Comments »

What advice you would give to an aspiring author?

May 7, 2013 — Pat Bertram

My advice to aspiring authors varies depending on how cynical I am about the book business on a given day.

When I’m philosophical, I tell aspiring writers:

A book begins with a single word. Many novice writers get intimidated by the thought of writing an entire book, but all you ever need to write is one word. I know that’s not much of a goal, but in the end, it is the only goal. That’s how every book all through the ages got written — one word at a time. By stringing single words together, you get sentences, then paragraphs, pages, chapters, an entire book.

When I want to be encouraging, I tell aspiring writers:

Write your book. Rewrite it. Edit it Re edit it. Study the publishing business. Learn everything you can about good prose, story elements, promotion. With so many millions of people out there who have written a book or who want to write a book, the competition is fierce. A writer does not attain maturity as a writer until he or she has written 1,000,000 words. (I’m only halfway there.) So write. Your next book might be the one that captures people’s imaginations and catapults you into fame and fortune. Not writing another book guarantees you will never will reach that goal. It also keeps you from doing what you were meant to do.

When I’m cynical, I tell aspiring writers:

If you aspire to be a writer, write. That’s all it takes.

If you aspire to be a good writer, write — and read. Read how-to books about writing and read good books to absorb good writing.

If you aspire to be a bestselling writer, write, read — and gather luck. Less than 1% of 1% of writers ever attain that status.

Here are some responses from other authors about advice they give to aspiring writers. The comments are taken from interviews posted at Pat Bertram Introduces . . .

From an interview with Polly Iyer, Author of “Hooked”:

You’ve heard it before. Keep at it. Period.

From an interview with Sandy Nathan, Author of Tecolote: The Little Horse That Could

You’ll make more money as a brain surgeon.

From an interview with S. M. Senden, author of “Clara’s Wish”

Write from a place of knowing. Bring your experiences to what you write; be willing to invest a piece of yourself in your writing so it will be real to the reader.

From an interview with Tom Rizzo, Author of “Last Stand At Bitter Creek”

Read—not only for enjoyment. Treat your reading as a study lab, taking note of how the writer lures you into the story, how characters are introduced, and what makes you like or despise them. Reading soaks the brain with ideas and possibilities. And write, of course. Don’t wait for inspiration. Just write.

What about you? What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

(If you’d like me to interview you, please check out my author questionnaire http://patbertram.wordpress.com/author-questionnaire/ and follow the instruction.)

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Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: a writer writes, advice to aspiring writers, aspiring author, author interviews, being a writer, writing for yourself. 6 Comments »

Where do you get the names for your characters?

April 25, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Most of the characters in Daughter Am I are aged gangsters, and they kept the monikers they used when they were young. I patterned my gangsters after those in the 1930s movies, though in the book they didn’t actually reach their prime until the 1950s or even 60s. Some names I stole, like Kid Rags, which was the name of a 1900s gangster in Hell’s Kitchen, and others were inevitable, like the morbid wheelman named Happy.

Bob Stark in More Deaths Than One was so named because he was supposed to seem an “everyman,” hence the common first name. He was also supposed to be stark of speech and action, and so the surname was a reminder to make sure he didn’t get too flowery. Despite his name, Bob Stark turned out to be rather wordy at times and not the silent, uncommunicative loner I had planned.

Greg Pullman in A Spark of Heavenly Fire was named after Bill Pullman in While You Were Sleeping to remind me that Greg was good-looking and very nice.

Rena in Light Bringer was so named because it was short for Ahkrena, which was a word I created to be the name of an unknown ancient race. When the character was small and someone asked her name, all she could say was Rena. Her name was supposed to be a clue to her identity after her research uncovered stories of the Ahkrena, but when I discovered Sumerian creation myths, the book went a different direction. I got rid of Ahkrena, but kept Rena, since by then the character and her name had become intertwined

Here are some responses from other authors about how they named their characters. The comments are taken from interviews posted at Pat Bertram Introduces . . .

From an interview with Donna Small, Author of “Just Between Friends”

Names for characters are tough for me. I will write chapters using ‘ajdfjkd’ instead of names. I just have a hard time finding the right one for the character since I’m a huge believer in your name being having an impact on who you become. Both of my daughters play sports so I keep the rosters from their events and refer to them for different and unique names that will fit my characters. I also Google a lot!

From an interview with John Stack, author of “Cody’s Almost Trip to the Zoo”

Names are fun and usually mean something special. I use kids that I have taught, daughters, grandsons, and friends. Family can be cool because you can often capture their personality in the character and no one really gets offended.

From an interview with Smith Hagaman, Author of “Off the Chart”

You’ve heard the old story. Adam was naming the animals. God said, “What will you call that one?” Adam said, “Hippopotamus.” God said, “Well, you can call it anything you want to, but why Hippopotamus?” Adam looked at him puzzled, “Because it looks like a hippopotamus!” That’s how I get my names.

What about you? Where do you get the names for your characters? (Or your children or your pets or your plants.)

(If you’d like me to interview you, please check out my author questionnaire http://patbertram.wordpress.com/author-questionnaire/ and follow the instruction.)

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Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: author interviews, Donna Small, how do you name your characters, John Stack, naming characters, naming the animals, Smith Hagaman. 2 Comments »

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

April 24, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I always wanted to be a reader. That’s really all I ever wanted to do. I did try writing a novel many years ago, but the words never came flowing out of me the way I thought they should — in fact, there were no words at all — so I accepted that I had no natural talent for writing. About ten or eleven years ago I decided phooey with talent, and I started writing again. I thought it would be a good way of taking my mind off my problems. I also read books about writing, publishing, and promoting, so basically I gave myself a crash course in the whole writing spectrum.

Here are some responses from other authors about whether they’d always wanted to be writers. The comments are taken from interviews posted at Pat Bertram Introduces . . .

From an interview with Siobhán Nolan, Author of “Old Man Harry”

No, I haven’t. I didn’t even consider myself a writer until I saw my book in print. That was only a few weeks ago, but there’s something so powerful about that moment when you hold your published work in your hands for the first time and can truly say to yourself, “Wow, I did it. I’m a writer.”

From an interview with Lazarus Barnhill, Author of “The Medicine People”

When I was a child of four or five, Wednesday nights were “dollar nights” at the Riverside Drive In: a whole car load of people could see the movie for a buck. My parents and sister would sit in the front seat and I’d sit in the back. Periodically during the show, I would say what the character on the screen was about to say. Eventually my parents got really tired of that and forbade it. But something took root in me even back then. As an elementary school child I would constantly start stories that ended up being only a page or two long — and made me feel like a failure. When I was in sixth grade I lay awake one night and created a story that involved every child in my homeroom class. With the blessing of Miss Roach (and, no, I did not make up that name), I laboriously wrote the story down — probably thirty-five or forty pages — and was given permission on the last day of school to read it to the class. With about five pages left (I was just about to be machine gunned by the villains, having recovered the money they stole from the bank), the principal came in and said that we were free to go to the playground or to stay inside. The students immediately bolted — not one even asking how the story ended. I decided then to write the sort of stories that people would not be able to put down . . . and I’m still working on that.

From an interview with J. P. Lane, Author of “The Tangled Web”

I’ve been a writer by profession most of my adult life, but there wasn’t any point when I thought I wanted to be a writer. I just fell into writing quite by chance – just the way The Tangled Web came about – by chance. There was no thought of wanting to write a book. One day, I sat down and started writing and about a year later, there was a novel on my computer. Mind you, I was an advertising and marketing writer and I also had articles published in major Florida publications, so I wasn’t exactly green when I ventured into the world of fiction. Advertising writing requires tremendous discipline, so I was already reasonably equipped to be an author.

What about you? Have you always wanted to be a writer? Or, like me, have you always wanted to be a reader?

(If you’d like me to interview you, please check out my author questionnaire http://patbertram.wordpress.com/author-questionnaire/ and follow the instruction.)

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Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: always wanted to be a writer, author interviews, Lazarus Barnhill, Siobhan Nolan, the Medicine People, writing for yourself. 5 Comments »

Meet Malcolm R. Campbell and “The Seeker”

April 23, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the contemporary fantasies, The Sun Singer, Sarabande, The Seeker, and the satire, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire. He is also a prolific blogger, posting interesting articles and reviews, and collecting Book Bits, the most fascinating and relevant book-related links on the internet.

I recently interviewed Malcolm to find out more about his new book and his writing practices. The interview is posted on my Pat Bertram Introduces . . . blog, but I’m posting a few responses here to whet your appetite to read more. I hope you will enjoy meeting Malcolm R. Campbell.

Malcolm, What is your book about?

In The Seeker, David and Anne meet while working as seasonal employees at Many Glacier Hotel in Glacier National Park. He comes from the Montana high county where he is at home with totem animals, magic and mountain climbing. She comes from the Florida Panhandle where she is at home with botany, beaches and coastal swamps. Their intense summer romance leads them to believe they’ll be lovers forever. Typically, the realities of college life in separate towns get in the way. Then, when David’s intuition tells him Anne is in danger, he uses ancient magic to rescue her. However, cheating fate brings consequences and misunderstandings that threaten to drive them apart.

What inspired you to write this particular story?

The story was inspired by my work as a summer employee in Glacier National Park as well as my love of both the Rocky Mountains and the Florida Gulf Coast where I grew up. To my Florida friends, my going to Montana for summer work and Colorado for summer school was tantamount to traveling to another planet. The worlds are so different. So, I wondered whether two people from such diverse regions could maintain a relationship once the summer was fading away into the past.

How much of yourself is hidden in the characters in the book?

David Ward is very much like me. We both love climbing mountains, following our intuition, and consorting with totem animals. In the upcoming second and third books of the trilogy, my experiences are somewhat similar to David’s aboard a Vietnam-era aircraft carrier in The Sailor, and my work as a college journalism instructor leads to David’s teaching work in The Betrayed.

Tell us a little about your main characters. Who was your favorite? Why?

David’s grandparents, the medicine woman Katoya, and the sheep rancher Jayee, are very influential in his life. Katoya teaches in magic. Jayee teaches him logic and the practical work labor-intensive jobs. Katoya and Jayee come from different worlds, having married for reasons of necessity, so they’re at odds with each other about almost everything. I had fun writing about their love/hate relationship and how it impacted their grandson. Yet, I don’t let them steal the show from protagonist David Ward, a mountain climber who really would refer working on the railroad to going to college, and Anne who is a very earth-centered, environmentally conscious young woman who doesn’t like what we’re doing to the planet.

Click here to read the rest of the interview: Malcolm R. Campbell, Author of “The Seeker”

You can find Malcolm on his website at http://www.malcolmrcampbell.com as well as on his Facebook author’s page at https://www.facebook.com/Malcolm.R.Campbell.Author

Posted in blogging, books, fiction, writing. Tags: contemporary fantasy, Garden of Heaven trilogy, Malcolm R. Campbell, Montana, The Seeker. 7 Comments »

What is Wrong With Using a Prologue?

April 16, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Most agents, editors, and publishers frown on prologues because they claim that readers skip them.

Perhaps that’s true. I myself am not a fan of prologues. Some writers have the appalling habit of using a prologue as an information dump, telling readers things they think they need to know rather than presenting the material a bit at a time when it is needed. Some writers have the even more appalling habit of augmenting a poor beginning with a prologue that is not really a prologue but more of an interlogue, an excerpt taken from the middle of the book, copied and pasted into a prologue. While this excerpt might create suspense and keep us reading through a less than stellar beginning, it is not necessary to the story since the material is a duplication, and we feel cheated when we reread it during the course of the book.

I don’t even have much use for true prologues, which present events that happen before the story begins. The main rule in writing is “everything in service to the story.” If a prologue does not advance the story, if it is not as exciting as the rest of the book, then it should be removed and any essential information presented during the course of the story.

Sometimes, however, a prologue is necessary, especially if important events take place years before the main story. Occasionally, to get past the stigma of a prologue, authors will label the pre-story chapter “Chapter One.” To call a prologue “Chapter One” does not make it any less of a prologue, and it confuses readers, who think they are reading one story and find out they are reading another.

Despite the cautions about prologues, I used one in Light Bringer. It is a true prologue in that the events take place thirty-five years before the present day action, but I do something that is frowned on even by those who see nothing wrong with prologues: I introduce a character who does not appear in the body of the work, only mentioned in dialogue.

When I rewrote Light Bringer before submitting it to Second Wind Publishing, I considered getting rid of the prologue but I kept it for three reasons: I wanted readers to experience for themselves the events that precipitated the story, it was the way I originally conceived it, and I loved the image of tiny footprints in the snow. The prologue might seem like a darling, a word used by William Faulkner to describe the parts we love but that have no real function in the story, but without the prologue, the story loses some of its immediacy. Being told of a radiantly special baby being found on a doorstep is entirely different from experiencing it for ourselves through the eyes of the staid woman who found her.

And if readers skip my prologue? Well, there’s not much I can do about that. The truth is, there is there is nothing wrong with a prologue as long as it has a hook at the beginning, has conflict, and is written with immediacy as a scene, just as with any other chapter.

If you’d like to read the prologue, click here: Light Bringer by Pat Bertram

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Posted in books, fiction, How to, writing. Tags: Light Bringer, prologues, using a prologue, what is wrong with using a prologue, writing a prologue. 21 Comments »

Foreshadowing and Backshadowing: Making Our Writing Seem Inexorable

April 10, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I’m not one of those authors who are so overflowing with ideas that they can sit down and just let the words spew out of their fingers onto the page. I have to think of everything, which is why beginning a novel or creating a new character is so hard. I am faced with a universe of choices where all things are possible.

What am I going to write? How am I going to write it? First person or third? Sassy, sarcastic, serious? Who is going to be the main character? What does she most desire? Who or what is stopping her from fulfilling this desire? What does she look and act like? What are her internal traits, both her admirable ones and less admirable ones? Who are her allies? Who are her mentors?

And those choices lead to other choices. What does the character need? (As opposed to what she wants.) Is she going to get what she wants or is she going to get what she needs? For example, maybe she wants to be a homebody, to marry the boy next door, but what she and the story need are for her to become a senator and possibly leave the boy behind.

And so the choices continue, each choice narrowing the story’s universe a bit more.

One of the best parts of writing for me is when the weight of those choices become so great that the answer to future choices can be found in past ones. It gives the story a sense of inexorability, as if there were always only one way to tell the story.

For example, yesterday I wrote about creating a new character. Although Lydia was not originally my creation, but instead was an offscreen character created by Lazarus Barnhill in the first book of Rubicon Ranch, the serialization I am writing online with other Second Wind authors, I have adopted her as my own. Even if readers don’t remember who Lydia is, she will still pull the first book into the third, connecting them in a seemingly inexorable way, by making the sheriff confront his past. Ideally, it will seem as if this was our intention all along, with the first book foreshadowing the third when it is actually the third book backshadowing the first.

Lydia being a previously mentioned character narrows my choices, since she already has a name and a past, but there is still plenty of scope for choices. And in the end as in the beginning, writing is about the choices we make.

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Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: creating a character, inexorability, mystery serialization, overflowing with ideas, Rubicon Ranch, writing and choices. 4 Comments »

Creating a New Character

April 9, 2013 — Pat Bertram

J J Dare, author of False Positive and False World, delights in creating evil characters. A fellow collaborator in the Second Wind serialization, Rubicon Ranch, J J Dare created the monstrous victim in Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces, the second book of the series, along with a couple of his offspring. She calls her evil characters Bad Wasps.

We’re starting a new book, Rubicon Ranch: Secrets, and seeing how much fun J J Dare has with her evil characters, I’d considered exchanging my ongoing character for a bad wasp, but my character, Melanie Gray, still has so much to accomplish that I can’t just dump the poor woman. She needs to find out who killed her husband and why, and she needs to resolve her feelings for the misogynistic sheriff.

I considered writing another character in addition to Melanie, and I almost gave up when I couldn’t think of a character I’d be willing to spend the next year with, but then I discovered Lydia Galvin. Or rather rediscovered her.

Lydia was an offscreen character in the first book of the series, Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s story — Sheriff Bryan’s lover. Told from the sheriff’s point of view, she was a grasping woman who wanted him to divorce his wife and marry her, but when he wouldn’t fall in with her schemes, she ended up turning him in to the disciplinary committee.

Here’s the excerpt (written by Lazarus Barnhill):

“Anyway, Lydia Galvin . . . Lieutenant Lydia . . . she and I had an affair. What Lydia wanted was love. And she wanted me. She could not believe I didn’t love her to the extent she loved me. She wanted me to leave Monica. When I wouldn’t, she threatened to tell her. I told Monica first, as a preemptory strike. Lydia had visions of confronting Monica. Boy was she surprised when Monica confronted her. Monica told her to be content with what she had with me, that she was going to mess up all our lives if she kept on.”

Bryan paused for a reaction from Melanie, but her serene face gave no indication of her thoughts.

He took a sip of tea. “Somehow Lydia got the idea that if she came between me and my career, between me and my marriage, I would magically realize how much I cared for her. Once she told the right people on the force what was happening, the disciplinary procedures couldn’t be stopped. And of course discipline issues on the police force become public record. I had been the beloved, fair-haired boy before. It was so totally different to become the pariah. Lydia came to me—even after I had cleaned out my office and watched them paint over my name on my parking space. She came to where I was standing and said, ‘Can’t you understand how much I love you?’”

“What did you say to her?”

“I said, ‘I’m still licensed to carry a sidearm in California and if you come near me again I’m going to shoot you between the eyes.’”

On rereading the passage, I realized how much of a philanderer’s point of view it portrayed. In trying to see the situation from Lydia’ Lydia s side, I got the impression of a woman, perhaps a bit lost, perhaps hard used by the sheriff who obviously wanted only one thing from her, and it wasn’t the love she so desperately craved. It must have hurt her deeply to try one last time to connect to the man she loved, and to have him threaten to kill her. Might this (and whatever in her background that made her so desperate for love in the first place) have turned her into a stonehearted woman willing to kill to serve her ends?

I’ll find out in the coming months as I develop the character. It should be fun to discover if she’s a bad wasp or merely a woman who’s had too much pain in her life.

f you have not yet checked out Rubicon Ranch, you can do so here: Rubicon Ranch.

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Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: developing a character, mystery series collaboration, online novel, point of view, Rubicon Ranch, Rubicon Ranch: Secrets, Second Wind Publishing. 1 Comment »

Rubicon Ranch: Secrets — The Story Begins!

April 8, 2013 — Pat Bertram

The body of a local realtor is found beneath the wheels of a blow-up figure of a Santa on a motorcycle. The realtor took great delight in ferreting out secrets, and everyone in this upscale housing development is hiding something. Could she have discovered a secret someone would kill to protect? There will be suspects galore, including a psychic, a con man, a woman trying to set up an online call-girl service, and the philandering sheriff himself. Not only is the victim someone he had an affair with, but he will also have to contend with an ex-wife who has moved back in with him and a jilted lover, both with their own reasons for wanting the realtor dead.

Although some of the characters were introduced in Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story, the first collaboration in the series, and further developed in Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces, Rubicon Ranch: Secrets is a stand-alone novel, so don’t worry if you are new to Rubicon Ranch. A new chapter will be posted every Monday on the Rubicon Ranch blog. I’m posting the first chapter here, but if you don’t want to miss further chapters, please go to the blog and click on “sign me up” on the right sidebar to get notifications of new chapters.

We hope you will enjoy seeing the story develop as we write it. Let the mystery begin! Whodunit? No one knows, not even the writers, and we won’t know until the very end!

(If the Christmas theme seems unseasonal, well . . . considering how long it takes to write a book at the rate of a chapter a week, in a few months, the season will catch up to us!)

Chapter 1: Melanie Gray
by Pat Bertram

Sunday, December 22; 7:05pm

Melanie Gray typed THE END, then sat back and studied the words on the computer screen. She’d found no satisfaction in telling the story of famed horror writer Morris Sinclair’s macabre life and death, and she felt no elation now that she’d finished the task. The evil man should have been buried in unhallowed ground and left to rot rather than be immortalized in a book, but she’d needed the money her publisher had offered. With the generous advance, she would be able to devote herself to finding out who killed her husband five months previously and, more importantly, why the murderer wanted Alexander dead. Morris had wooed death his whole life, so it was no surprise that death had come for him, but Alexander’s murder could not be so easily dismissed.

Tears stung Melanie’s eyes. She scrubbed the tears away, furious at herself for still grieving. She’d always considered herself a strong woman, up to any task, and yet she couldn’t write “the end” to her grief.

Damn you, Alexander! How could you do this to me?

She rose stiffly, stretched to get the worst of the kinks from her body, and tottered to the front closet for her coat. Except for a few hours of fitful sleep each night during the past nine weeks, she’d spent all her time at the computer, and she was sick of it. Sick of Morris Sinclair. Sick of death. Sick of Rubicon Ranch.

She opened the front door and blinked at the shadowy figures gliding through the darkness. Morris’s fans had descended on the neighborhood when news of his demise had hit the airwaves, and they had stayed when they learned that not all of Morris’s body pieces had been recovered. Dressed as vampires and zombies and ghouls of every imaginable—and unimaginable—ilk, they roamed the neighborhood and the nearby desert looking for necropieces in some sort of grisly treasure hunt.

Melanie hesitated, wondering at the wisdom of going out so late in the evening, but the twinkle of Christmas lights adorning a nearby desert willow made her set aside her caution.

Alexander had always loved Christmas, and no matter where in the world they happened to be living, he managed to find a tree and decorate it. If Alexander still lived in her memory, he’d want her to wander through the neighborhood so he could see the lights.

Smiling at the whimsical thought, she locked the door behind her and strolled down the driveway to Delano Road. Even with half the houses lit up with holiday decorations, the neighborhood seemed dark. Too many people had left the area, temporarily abandoning their homes, though the flickering of candlelight through closed curtains hinted that squatters had taken up residence in some of the empty houses.

Melanie stood at the curb, trying to decide whether to go right or left. “It’s your fault, Alexander,” she murmured. “Until you died, I never had a problem making decisions.” But now, it didn’t make any difference whether she went north or south, whether she left Rubicon Ranch or stayed. Without Alexander, everything seemed uniformly bleak.

A house across the street all at once came ablaze with thousands of small white lights. Melanie cut across the road and headed for the brightness, wishing Alexander could see the decorations for real. Lights outlined the driveway, every bush, every rock, and dripped from the eaves like dazzling falls of lace.

She walked leisurely, savoring the radiant display on Alexander’s behalf, then hurried past the next dwelling, which was dark, and slowed again at the following house to look at the whimsical blow-up figure of Santa on a motorcycle.

After the brilliance of the lights at the first domicile, she had to wait a moment to let her eyes adjust to the relative dimness of this scene. And then she wished she hadn’t hung around to get a better look. Santa, with a wide grin and an upraised hand, seemed to be gleefully running over the prone body of a woman. A mannequin, it looked like.

Melanie drew in a sharp breath. Who would create such a morbid tableau for Christmas? But then, seeing a vampire with glowing teeth run past her, she sighed. Anyone in this insane neighborhood could have done it. After Morris Sinclair’s demise, Rubicon Ranch had become a bacchanalia of death, a celebration of the worst in humanity.

A car moved along the street behind her. The headlights illuminated the scene as clearly as if it were day, and suddenly something seemed wrong. So very wrong.

The woman being run over by the cheery Santa looked stiff in the way of death, not stiff like a mannequin.

Melanie told herself to continue on, to forget the gruesome sight and enjoy the rest of the decorations, but her leaden feet refused to do her bidding. Finally, wishing she were anywhere but here, she crept closer to the scene.

She caught a faint whiff of death—like meat just beginning to go bad—and her heart beat faster.

No. No. She’d had enough of death. Alexander. Poor kidnapped little Riley Peterson. Morris Sinclair. How could so much death be associated with a community as small as Rubicon Ranch?

Melanie bent over the body and touched a finger to the side of the woman’s neck to check for a pulse, though she already knew the truth.

She fumbled in her coat pocket for her cell phone and wondered if the sheriff would continue to believe in her innocence. Hell, she didn’t believe it herself. Maybe she was some sort of Typhoid Mary when it came to death. She’d been the one who found Riley Peterson’s body out in the desert, stuffed in a television console. She’d been the one to lead the sheriff to the desert where they’d found the body of Riley’s birth father. She’d been the first one to come across a necropiece—a dismembered foot—after Morris was killed. And now once again she had found death.

She punched in 999, but when the call didn’t connect, she realized she’d used the emergency number for Britain. She cleared the number, then punched 119. Crap. Wrong again. That was the emergency number for Mozambique. Where was she? She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

Rubicon Ranch. Rojo Duro County. Mojave Desert. California. USA. Ah, yes. 911.

Melanie made the call, gave the information to the dispatcher, then pulled her coat more firmly around her to protect her from the chill of the high desert winter night.

She’d expected to wait a half an hour or more until the sheriff or his deputies could make the thirty-mile trip from Rojo Duro, but only ten minutes had gone by when a dark SUV pulled up to the curb, and Deputy Kelvin Midget slid out from behind the wheel more nimbly than seemed possible for such a massive man.

The SUV didn’t have official county plates, so Melanie supposed the vehicle was the deputy’s private ride. She felt a spasm of guilt at cutting into the man’s personal time, but then she remembered what Deputy Midget had once told her—that he’d lost his wife to pancreatic cancer about three year and a half years ago, and had come out west to start over so he could heal. Maybe, like Melanie, he had no real life but was just going through the motions of living.

“What seems to be the trouble, Ms. Gray?”

Shivering, Melanie pointed to the body.

Midget picked his way through the xeriscaping, got down on his haunches to check the woman’s neck as Melanie had, then rose to his feet without using his hands to shove himself upright.

“Did you see what happened?”

“No. Just found her lying here is all. Checked her pulse. Called it in.”

Midget walked around to the other side of the body, scanning the ground, his dark brow furrowed. “Did you find her purse?”

“No, but I didn’t look for it.” Melanie wondered about the deputy’s concern for the woman. It seemed more than simply a law enforcement officer’s professional interest in a crime scene. “Did you know her?” she asked.

“Didn’t you?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know many people in the neighborhood.”

“Seth—Sheriff Bryan—thinks you notice everything.”

“Well, the sheriff thinks a lot of things that aren’t true.”

Midget made a small sound that might have been a chuckle. “Hit a nerve, did I?”

More to get away from the uncomfortable topic of the Sheriff than because she wanted to identify the woman, Melanie circled the body so she could get a better look. The woman did appear familiar at that. Aquiline nose, close set eyes, coiffed hair, manicured fingernails with a shimmering design painted atop the polish, high heels, tailored business suit.

Melanie backed away from the body. “I think she might be a real estate agent. I’ve seen her around the neighborhood.”

“Nancy Garcetti,” Deputy Midget said. “She sold me my house. Poor woman. She was such a terrible judge of character. Looked at the superficial and assumed she knew what the person was about. Kept notes of everything. You sure you didn’t find her purse?”

“Maybe the person who murdered her took it.”

“What makes you think she was murdered?”

“What else could it be? Nancy got tired, so she decided to take a nap by the wheels of Santa’s motorcycle and froze to death?” Regretting her caustic tone, Melanie huddled deeper into her coat. Had she become so used to murder that all death seemed so unnatural? But death was unnatural. A deletion of life. A void.

“People die from many causes,” Deputy Midget said. “It’s possible she had a heart attack. A stroke. Some sort of accident. A mugging gone wrong. Could be anything. We won’t know until the ME gets here.”

A tan Navigator parked behind Midget’s SUV, and Lieutenant Rosaria Frio stepped out of the vehicle.

The lieutenant looked even more like an Hispanic Barbie doll than when Melanie first met her. No emotion showed on the law enforcement officer’s beautiful face, and the dim light made her skin look plastically perfect. Only the glitter of the lieutenant’s dark eyes and her easy stride confirmed her humanity.

She greeted Deputy Midget with a nod. “You got here fast.”

“I just bought a house here in Rubicon Ranch over on Adobe Pobre Court. I told you about it. Got an awesome deal from a couple who could hardly wait to get away from the area. They said there was too much crime.”

“Imagine that.” Lieutenant Frio turned to stare at Melanie. “And here is our one-woman crime spree herself. Or maybe cadaver dog would be a better description.”

Melanie returned the Lieutenant’s gaze, but refrained from answering in kind. Lieutenant Frio seemed to have taken her in dislike when they met after Riley’s murder and her manner had only grown colder with the passage of the months. Melanie didn’t entirely blame her. If their places were reversed, she’d probably be just as skeptical as the lieutenant about her penchant for finding corpses.

Lieutenant Frio walked to body and stood over it for a moment, then slanted a glance toward Melanie. “Sheriff Bryan will be here shortly. He and his wife were dining out, and he needs to take her home first.”

Melanie remained impassive. She already knew the sheriff and his wife were back together. Melanie had talked to him a couple of times to get details for her book, and he had told her his wife had decided the celebrity-ridden area might not be such a backwater after all. He’d sounded apologetic, but other than behavior that bordered on unprofessionalism, he had nothing to apologize for. They hadn’t had an affair, not even a fling. Just a little bit of flirtation and a lot of anger.

“Can I go?” she asked.

“I’ve questioned Ms. Gray,” Deputy Midget said. “If we need her again, we know where to find her.”

Lieutenant Frio turned her implacable gaze toward Melanie. “Don’t leave the county.”

If anyone else had deadpanned such a remark, Melanie would have assumed it was either a friendly suggestion or possibly a joke, but coming from the lieutenant, the command sounded like a jail cell slamming shut.

Melanie wanted to run back to her place, but she forced herself to walk since she was sure the lieutenant would see haste as a sign of guilt. She tried not to look at the houses she passed. The joyful decorations suddenly seemed obscene.

She didn’t believe Deputy Midget’s suggestion that Nancy had died of natural causes. The missing purse hinted that something grimmer was going on. What secrets Nancy had kept in her purse? Everyone in Rubicon Ranch seemed to have something to hide. And someone—perhaps someone in one of these very houses—might have a secret they would kill to protect.

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