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Creating Incredible but Credible Characters: Purposely Flawed Characters. Or Not.

August 10, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Interesting characters make interesting stories, not the other way around. An author develops interesting characters by putting them under pressure, giving them much to lose, and allowing them to change because of their experiences. And the author makes these characters at least a bit larger than life. Who wants to read about characters who sit around watching television all the time or who repeatedly have the same tiresome argument with their children or who can’t resolve their problems? We deal with that every day. We don’t need to read about it. On the other hand, if the traits are too idealized, characters come across as comic book silly.

Depth of character is revealed in the choices a character makes while at risk. Without the element of risk, there is no real story, only a string of episodes. Think what Superman would be like without Kryptonite—totally uninteresting and flawed in his perfection. But Kryptonite is a purposeful flaw, put there to make Superman more interesting, which makes him seem even more of a comic book character. Oh, wait. He’s supposed to be a comic book character!

To offset the problem of idealized characters, many writers try to create a purposely-flawed character, such as a boozing cop or a mother who can’t communicate with her teenager, but this seems an unnecessary distraction unless, of course, it is a vital part of the character’s motivation. So many flawed characters, particularly heroes with a drinking problem, have been done so often they have become nothing but cardboard cutouts. There is a long tradition of hard-drinking detectives, but there has to be a more creative way of giving characters flaws. Or not. Writers are often enthralled with the idea of flawed heroes, that they are missing the point. They don’t have to give their heroes obvious flaws. By making their heroes realistic, the heroes are automatically flawed.

A character must lose occasionally or make mistakes. Where is the suspense if every time a character attempts to do something she succeeds? And in that loss is a shadow of the flaw, because the setback must be realistic. Did the character lose because of arrogance, assuming she knew what to do when she didn’t? Did the character lose because she wasn’t physically fit or knowledgeable enough? Did the character lose because she didn’t plan correctly, because she was unfocused, because of her inner conflicts? Such losses force a fully realized character to change so in the end she can succeed.

In the beginning of Daughter Am I, twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart has no real direction, no purpose, but when she learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents—grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born—she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead. She drives halfway across the country with a feisty crew of octogenarians, friends of her grandparents, and even though she discovers they all had ties to the mob, she doesn’t let her good sense override her obsession. This understandable obsession is her flaw, and if she didn’t grow during the course of the story, if she didn’t learn from her setbacks, the obsession could have become a fatal flaw. Fatal or not, flaw or not, Mary’s obsession makes her real, makes her a bit larger than life, and makes her interesting.

To be real, a character must have strengths and weaknesses, but it’s not enough simply to assign a special strength or weakness to a character—the quality needs to be tested. You can do this in one of two ways—play on the strength or play on the weakness. For example, if a character is smart but lacks physical strength, you can either place the character in a situation where the character’s intelligence saves the day or you can put him in a situation where he is forced to rely on physical abilities he doesn’t have.

Strengths are arbitrary and can easily become flaws. Independence can become an inability to depend on others, an ability to cope can be seen as indifference, high ethical standards can become intransigency. Which is great for a book—the resulting misunderstandings can cause conflicts among characters allows the plot or subplots to thicken. And your characters become even more credible.

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This article is anthologized in the Second Wind Publishing book: NOVEL WRITING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM AUTHORS OF SECOND WIND PUBLISHING, which was the 100^th book released by Second Wind.

“As someone who constantly evaluates novels for publication, I was astonished at the breadth and clarity of the wonderful advice contained in this handbook. It addresses concerns as grand as plot development and as simple but essential as formatting your submission. It offers crucial advice on literary topics ranging from character development to the description of action. Virtually every subject that is of great concern to publishers — and therefore to authors — is covered in this clear, humorous and enormously useful guide.” –Mike Simpson, Chief Editor of Second Wind Publishing

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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.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Creating Incredible but Credible Characters: What Does Your Character Want?

August 9, 2013 — Pat Bertram

The most compelling characters are those who want something desperately and who will do anything to get it, which is why Scarlett O’Hara is such a perennially popular character. Frankly, my dear, I find her a bit over the top—selfish and greedy and way too egocentric. Still, her wanting does make for a compelling character.

At its most basic, a story is about want. The main character wants something, and someone or something is preventing her from getting it. The want can be as simple as a good night’s sleep, as personal as a lover, or as complicated as world peace. In the end, the character gets what she wants or she doesn’t get it. Sometimes she gets what she needs, which is just as satisfying for the reader because such an ending gives a story a sense of rightness, of poetic justice.

BOB STARK, the point-of-view character of More Deaths Than One, wants serenity, though what he gets are nightmares, both the sleeping and the waking kind. Debilitated by headaches, he doesn’t have the energy to discover the truth, but Kerry, a young woman he meets in a coffee shop, goads him into it. When Kerry is threatened, though, he becomes what he needs to be to keep her safe.

A Spark of Heavenly Fire has four point-of-view characters, all of whom want something.

All KATE CUMMINGS wants is a good night’s sleep.

Her husband, a semi-invalid, committed suicide thirteen months ago. Many times during the years of his illness she could have treated him a little better than she did, and she is haunted by her own mean spirit.

Then the red death descends on Colorado, the entire state is quarantined, and martial law is declared. As a patient’s advocate and an insomniac, forty-two-year-old Kate sees more than her share of the horror. People with bright red eyes spewing blood, then falling down—dead. Tanks and trigger-happy troops patrolling the streets. Men in biohazard suits throwing bodies into the back of delivery vans.

Now she wants not to be afraid.

All JEREMY KING wants is to leave Colorado.

He has everything. Two Oscars for best actor. A vast Montana ranch. Wife, son, daughter. He also looks better now, at fifty-eight, than he did when he was young.

Having grown up poor in Grand Junction, he hates Colorado, and only came to Denver to finish a film. As soon as the director yells cut, he’s in his rented Lexus on his way to the private airfield where his jet is supposed to be ready for take-off. It isn’t. Instead, armed National Guardsmen inform him that airspace is restricted. Furious that he’s being treated like one of the peasants, he decides to drive home, but the mountain highway is clogged with a thousand cars going nowhere. He returns to Denver, determined to leave Colorado if it’s the last thing he ever does.

All GREG PULLMAN wants is to know the truth.

Since childhood he’s been consumed with the need to know why creatures act the way they do. It is no different with the red death.

After discovering that the disease is a bio-engineered organism, he tries to find out who would develop such a thing, and why. He learns that despite the ban on bio-warfare experimentation, all over the world deadly organisms are being produced and stockpiled. Bubonic plague. West Nile fever. Green monkey virus. Combinations such as smallpox with Ebola and encephalitis.

Burdened by the awful truth, he turns to his friend Kate for comfort, and finds he wants her, though he is engaged to Pippi O’Brien.

All PIPPI O’BRIEN wants is . . . well, she doesn’t know what she wants.

After college, she wanted a job at a New York television station, but accepted a position as weathergirl in Denver. Now, at thirty, she wants to marry handsome Greg Pullman, but when he takes the hint and proposes, she says she’ll think about it. A few days later, deciding she does love him after all, she says yes. While waiting in a bar for him that very evening, she meets Jeremy King. Feeling the full force of his personality, she leaves with him, forgetting about Greg. Now she has a new dream: lovely consort to the charismatic King.

She is signing autographs with Jeremy on a downtown street when UN soldiers arrive, level their weapons at the assembled fans, and order everyone to drop to the ground. Fighting back the urge to scream, she obeys. Those who don’t obey are immediately gunned down.

Now all she wants is to accompany Jeremy on his quest to escape from Colorado.

So, that’s what the characters of More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire want. What do your characters want? What do they need? And in the end, do they get what they want, or do they get what they need?

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This article is anthologized in the Second Wind Publishing book: NOVEL WRITING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM AUTHORS OF SECOND WIND PUBLISHING, which was the 100^th book released by Second Wind.

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Posted in How to, writing. Tags: A Spark of Heavenly Fire, creating credible characters, creating incredible characters, Novel Writing Tips and Techniques, Novel Writing Tips and Techniques from Second Wind Authors, Second Wind Publishing, what characters need, what characters want. 3 Comments »

Creating Incredible but Credible Characters: Names Matter

August 8, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Scarlett O’Hara was originally called Pansy. If Margaret Mitchell had kept that name, would her epic novel ever have become so popular? A character with the name of Pansy could be sweet and biddable with rare moments of stubbornness, but since “Pansy” lacks the harsh consonants of “Scarlett,” the name doesn’t sound as if it belongs to an iron-willed character who could catch and keep the attention of such a worldly man as Rhett Butler.

Though Scarlett fits the name of the character in Gone with the Wind, it could not be the name of a medieval heroine. In those days, the most popular name was Mary, with Elizabeth coming in a distant second. I suppose if Gone with the Wind were written in the 1980s, Scarlett’s name would have been Heather. Odd to think that in another forty years, youth will scorn that name as being old-fashioned, fit only for elderly women, like the name Effie is today.

I had fun naming my aged gangsters in Daughter Am I. In keeping with the times of their youth—bootlegger times, that is—I gave them nicknames that matched their characters. I called my wise old conman “Teach,” my dapper little forger “Kid Rags,” my ex-wrestler “Crunchy.”

And then there’s my hero, poor Mary. She starts out so young and innocent, and ends up on a road trip with six feisty old gangsters and one ex-nightclub dancer. I had not intended for her to keep the name Mary. It’s so not the name of a heroine of today! Nor is my Mary a medieval maiden. I named the character Mary Stuart after Mary Stuart Masterson in the film Bed of Roses because both Marys were strong but vulnerable when it came to love, both were very smart yet a bit naive. I never did change my Mary’s name. By the time I finished the book, the character and the name were inextricably entwined. At least it’s fairly innocuous. Like Margaret Mitchell, I could have named my heroine Pansy. Ouch.

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This article is anthologized in the Second Wind Publishing book: NOVEL WRITING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM AUTHORS OF SECOND WIND PUBLISHING, which was the 100^th book released by Second Wind.

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Posted in books, How to, writing. Tags: choosing a character's name, creating credible characters, creating incredible characters, Novel Writing Tips and Techniques, Novel Writing Tips and Techniques from Second Wind Authors, Second Wind Publishing, writing tips. 1 Comment »

Creating Incredible but Credible Characters: Gender

August 7, 2013 — Pat Bertram

To create a character, we begin with gender. If your character is of the opposite gender than yours, make sure you know how the other half thinks, feels, and speaks, otherwise your character might seem more of a caricature than a real person.

There are basic differences between the genders. For example, women have better peripheral vision, so while both men and women ogle each other with the same frequency, men are caught gazing more often than women are.

Brain scans show that women have between fourteen and sixteen areas that evaluate others’ behavior, while men have only four to six. Because of this, women are better at juggling several unrelated topics in a single conversation. They also use five vocal tones to make their points. Since men can only identify three of those tones, they often miss what women are trying to say. So men accuse women of not being direct and women accuse men of not listening.

Women ask questions to show interest in the person; men ask questions to gain information. Women find that talking about a problem provides relief; men feel that talking about a problem is dwelling on the negative. Women think that continuing to discuss the problem demonstrates support; men want to make a decision and forget it. Women provide peripheral details because they want to be understood; men just want them to make their point. Women think that talking about a relationship brings people closer; men generally think it’s useless.

There is a wide spectrum of both male and female behavior, though, so you can write a character however you wish as long as you can make it work.

You make it work by ensuring there is a reason—a motivation—for your characters behavior. We learn much about characters from their actions, but what the character does is not the defining element. The defining element is why the character does what he does. Characters can do anything, though the actions must be psychologically true and consistent. A character who is cowardly but does not hesitant to rescue someone from danger without any reference to fear or a believable reason for the action is not a well-written character.

When it comes to storytelling, character is all. The characters and plot (what the characters do and why) should be so intertwined that we never see them as separate.

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This article is anthologized in the Second Wind Publishing book: NOVEL WRITING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM AUTHORS OF SECOND WIND PUBLISHING, which was the 100^th book released by Second Wind.

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Posted in books, How to, writing. Tags: choosing a character's gender, creating credible characters, creating incredible characters, Novel Writing Tips and Techniques, Novel Writing Tips and Techniques from Second Wind Authors, Second Wind Publishing, writing tips. 1 Comment »

Creating Incredible but Credible Characters: Resist the Urge to Explain

August 6, 2013 — Pat Bertram

People often tell me they feel they know my characters, as if my story people were a part of their lives, which is always wonderful to hear. It means I did my job. And it means the readers did their job. Incredible but credible characters are a combined effort. Characters are conceived in the author’s imagination, but they come alive in readers’ imaginations.

A character’s story begins with a gleam in her parents’ eye and ends with her death. The story we tell is but a fraction of that life, and where we choose to begin and where we, the writer, choose to end defines the story. If we begin with a crime and end with a resolution of that crime, we have a mystery. If we begin with a girl meeting a boy or a woman meeting a man and end with happily ever after, we have a romance. If we chronicle the rise and fall of the character’s fortunes, we could have a tragedy, a family drama or any number of stories.

The illusion of a well-told story is such that, whatever the genre, by the end of the book readers know the character as well as they know themselves and their friends. Readers know, or think they know, everything in the character’s life that brought her to crisis and how everything in the character’s life will work out after the story problem is resolved. By giving readers the essence of the character, we give them the means to continue the character’s story long after the book has come to an end.

How do we work this sleight of hand? By showing the character in action and in relationships. By defining the character through decisions in moments of crisis.

In the prologue of Light Bringer, Helen comes home from working a double shift at the hospital to find a baby on her doorstep. She shows her nurturing characteristics by taking care of the child, Rena. She shows the beginning of a metamorphosis from staid nurse to loving mother by putting off calling the authorities so she can enjoy the child bit longer. But what really defines her is how she acts in a moment of crisis. Rena, a magical child, or at least a precocious one, tells Helen they have to leave, that her invisible playmate says “they” are after Rena and when they find her, they will kill Helen. Helen doesn’t hesitate. She packs up her car and her life and escapes with the baby.

Helen’s decision defines not only her own character, but also the character of the baby, the character of the invisible playmate, and perhaps even the story itself. It is through such defining moments that we can create a character so real readers believe they know more about the character than was ever actually written.

In older novels, especially the classics, authors wrote page after page of character description, telling us who their characters are. Those authors dissected their characters’ motivations, told us their every thought, explained every feeling. Today’s readers, myself included, have no patience for such long drawn-out static passages. We want to get right into the heart of the story. We want to learn who the character is by what she does, who she knows, and how she acts and reacts.

Showing, not telling, is a basic axiom of writing for today’s market, but it is often hard to resist the urge to explain since you know far more about your characters than you can or should put in your novel. Still, by restraining yourself and letting readers be part of the creation process, letting them find their own explanations for what your characters do, you give them a stake in the characters and the story. And so your characters come alive.

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This article is anthologized in the Second Wind Publishing book: NOVEL WRITING TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FROM AUTHORS OF SECOND WIND PUBLISHING, which was the 100^th book released by Second Wind.

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Posted in books, How to, writing. Tags: creating credible characters, creating incredible characters, Novel Writing Tips and Techniques, Novel Writing Tips and Techniques from Second Wind Authors, Second Wind Publishing, writing tips. 7 Comments »

Rubicon Ranch: Secrets — My Newest Chapter

July 29, 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.

In the current story, 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.

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 17: Melanie Gray
by Pat Bertram

Sunday, December 23, 2:45pm

A sharp rap broke Melanie’s concentration. She pushed herself away from the computer where she was working on the rewrites her editor had emailed—the last ones, thank heavens—went to the front door, and opened it.

A round little woman gazed anxiously up at her. “A lady is being held prisoner. You have to call the sheriff,” she said all in a rush.

Melanie gave her head a shake to clear it. Was this someone’s idea of a joke? The woman’s purple wig and the colorful chiffon scarves that fluttered around her body made her look like one of Cinderella’s fairy godmothers. The only things lacking were a wand and a sprinkling of fairy dust. But maybe the fairy dust filled the woman’s head?

“You don’t believe me.” The woman sighed. “There’s no reason you should. She is tied up, though. The sheriff won’t listen to me, but he’ll listen to you.”

“Who’s tied up? Where?”

The woman waved a hand toward the desert, her many rings flashing in the winter sun. “On this street somewhere.”

“And that’s what you want me to tell the sheriff? That a lady is tied up on this street somewhere? If that’s all the information you have for him, no wonder he won’t listen to you. And he certainly won’t listen to me.”

“He will. The two of you have a bond that even distance and distaste can’t break.”

Melanie peered at her. Perhaps the woman did know something. She’d summed up Melanie’s relationship—or rather non-relationship—with the sheriff perfectly. Distance and distaste. He was distant, and she had developed a distaste for him, though months ago, when they had met over the body of little Riley Peterson, it had seemed as if there were some sort of bond between them. Of course, she’d been vulnerable then, still so new to this thing called grief.

The woman gazed steadily back at her, and a feeling of unease crept over Melanie. “A lady is tied up. For real?”

“Yes.”

“Can you find her?”

“Maybe. The feeling is strongest toward the desert. That’s why I know she’s up the street somewhere.”

“Are you . . .” Melanie hesitated. Would the woman be insulted at being asked if she were psychic?

“Yes. I am psychic,” the woman said. “I’m sorry. I forgot to introduce myself. Celeste Boudreau. I live on Tehachapi Road. The house with the pyramid. And I know you, of course. You’re Melanie Gray. Your husband was killed by . . .” Celeste’s eyes clouded and then cleared after a second or two. “I’m sorry. I thought I saw who did it, but couldn’t catch the vision. It’s the way my powers work, you see.”

Melanie nodded. “Clairvoyance” meant clear seeing, but so often the seeing was hazy and not at all clear, which made it an easy con. In her travels with Alexander, she had met many truth seekers and true psychics, many fakirs and fakers, and though she didn’t know what powers, if any, Celeste might have, she could tell that the self-styled psychic believed in them.

Melanie grabbed a coat, and locked the door behind her. “Let’s just walk. Maybe you’ll get a sense of where she is.”

Celeste stood still, spread out her arms, took a deep breath, and brought her hands to her chest as if praying. Then her praying hands slowly moved downward until they were parallel to the ground. She started moving up Delano Road, pausing every dozen yards or so to repeat the procedure. They walked the whole length of the street that way, until finally they stood before the second to the last house.

“Here,” Celeste said, a quiet note of triumph in her voice. “I see her. Upstairs. Older woman. Pretty. Big eyes. Tied to a chair. Gagged. Rope burns.”

Melanie didn’t even have to ask if Celeste were sure. Sincerity had accompanied every word. She walked up the curving driveway and rang the doorbell.

Celeste scurried to catch up to her. “What are you doing? What if the guy who did this to her comes to the door?”

“Then I’ll ask him if I can see the lady of the house.”

“And if he gets rough?”

“I’ll take care of him. Maybe grab him by the throat and lift up his larynx a bit. That’s enough to make a grown man cry.”

But no one answered the door.

Now what? Call the sheriff? Break in?

Melanie looked at Celeste and held a finger to her lips. From deep within the house, she thought she’d heard a clank, but even though she strained her ears, she didn’t hear a repetition of the sound. She rang the bell again. And again. And again.

Finally, the door swung open. An attractive lady in her late fifties or early sixties wearing heavy makeup and long sleeves stood framed in the entryway. Her large hazel eyes opened wide in the guileless manner of someone with nothing to hide—or someone who wanted others to believe she had nothing to hide. She said pleasantly, if a bit hoarsely, “Yes?”

Melanie shot a puzzled glance at Celeste, but Celeste kept her gaze on the woman standing stiff-shouldered before them.

“Are you the lady of the house?” Melanie asked. The question sounded foolish, even to her own ears, as if the line were straight out of a bad nineteen-fifties film, but for the moment, it was all she could think to say.

“Yes?” the woman said again.

“We’re starting up a neighborhood watch.” Melanie forced a small laugh, and gestured to the vampire-wannabe that had crept close to the house. “We’re a bit late, but it’s time we reclaimed the neighborhood from the ghouls.”

“Sorry, not now. Late for an appointment.” The woman’s hoarseness grew more pronounced, and it seemed to Melanie as if she could see red marks around her mouth beneath the heavy makeup.

“May we speak with your husband?” Melanie asked.

“No husband. Live alone.” The woman shut the door.

“It’s her,” Celeste said. “I know it is. I saw her.”

“Well, she’s free now. So that’s good, right?”

“But she’s lying.”

Melanie shrugged. Maybe the woman had been tied up. Maybe she’d been involved in some sort of sex game. Maybe she’d even been held prisoner as Celeste had claimed. But if the woman didn’t want help, there was nothing they could do about it.

She trudged back down the driveway and after a moment, Celeste followed.

“There’s something strange going on,” Celeste said.

A pack of goth girls stood giggling in the middle of the street while two zombie boys circled them, making leering remarks.

Melanie took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “There’s a lot of something strange going on.”

Melanie had just returned home and settled herself at the computer when her phone rang. “Yes?” she said, not at all graciously.

“I know you killed your husband.”

“Who is this?” Melanie demanded. “What do you want?”

“Money. I’ll let you know where and how much.”

The line disconnected. Still clutching her cell phone, Melanie ran out of the house, cut across the yard to the Sinclair house, and rang the bell.

Moody didn’t answer, so Melanie banged on the door. Finally, the door opened, and Moody stood there, giving her a wide-eyed innocent look. “Yes?” she said.

Feeling as if she were in a nightmare, forever doomed to repeat the same scenario of knocking on doors and being greeted by seemingly guileless women, Melanie glared at Moody.

“Are you okay?” Moody asked

“What do you know about my husband’s death?” Melanie demanded.

“I don’t know anything. Before she died, little Riley Peterson told me that she’d seen someone messing with your car, but that’s all I know. And I don’t really even know that. I always assumed it was another of her stories until you mentioned once that the sheriff thought the accident looked suspicious.”

“So then, why did you call me and tell me you know I killed my husband?”

Again that oh-so-innocent look. “Call?”

“Oh, for cripes sake. When you deepened your voice to disguise it, you sounded just like your father. And I happen to know for a fact Morris is dead—I found his foot, remember?”

Moody tilted her head. “Hmm. I sounded like my father? This has possibilities.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” And then all at once, Melanie knew. “You have Nancy’s book of secrets, don’t you? What did she write about me?”

Moody didn’t even have the grace to look sheepish at being caught out. She simply smiled. “Nothing that I can read yet. The book is in code, though Nancy did jot down a few notes in her own version of shorthand. I saw the initials MG and a few words in quotation marks, ‘I know you killed your husband,’ as if it she were reminding herself to say that to you. She did, didn’t she?”

Melanie’s shoulders slumped. Every time she thought she’d found a clue to unraveling the mystery of her husband’s death, the clue dissolved into nothingness. Turning to leave, she caught a glimpse of a figure on the porch next door.

The house belonged to Eloy Franklin, an old man who had spent his days sitting on the porch in his rocking chair, watching everyone in the neighborhood. He had given Melanie the creeps at first, the way he had just brooded there like some baleful landlocked amphibian, but after a while, she had gotten the sense that he was more than he seemed. A protector of the neighborhood, perhaps. Eloy had moved away, and now the neighborhood had become overrun with even creepier characters than the old man.

Melanie turned to Moody. “Is Eloy back?”

Moody shook her head. “No. He’s gone for good. I heard that Nancy bought his house. Why?”

“Maybe nothing.”

Melanie picked her way across the fifteen-foot no man’s land that separated the Sinclair house from the Franklin house, and crept close to the porch. A figure sat sprawled against the white porch railing, a Santa hat on his head and a Santa beard on his chin.

No! Not again. Please. No.

Last night she had found Nancy’s body. This morning the crime scene had gone up in flames. Just a while ago she had gone to rescue a damsel not in distress. And now another body.

She couldn’t call the sheriff again. She just couldn’t.

Moody came and stood beside her. “You do have a talent for death, don’t you? I should make you an honorary Sinclair.” She bent over the figure. “He looks like he could be about six feet. Thin. Silver hair with a bit of black running through it. Maybe in his fifties or sixties. Does that sound like anyone you know?”

Melanie backed away.

“You want me to call the sheriff?” Moody asked, an unexpected note of sympathy in her voice.

Melanie couldn’t bring herself to respond. She took one last look at the ersatz Santa, and fled back to her house.

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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 »

Rubicon Ranch: Secrets — My Newest Chapter

July 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.

(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 15: Lydia Gavin
by Pat Bertram

Sunday, December 23, 2:20pm

Lydia sat by Zazzi’s pool, soaking up what rays she could. She had helped Zazzi open the umbrella over the patio table, but since it was too cold to sit in the shade, she’d moved a chair out into the sunlight.

Sun.

Fire.

Lydia stared up at the pale blue winter sky and shivered with delight at the thought of that burning ball overhead. Did the Goddess love fire as much as she did? Is that why she had created so many suns?

Lydia smiled, remembering the flames curling around the hideous living room furniture. She had lied to Zazzi about not being in the house when the fire had started, but she saw no reason to tell the truth. Zazzi sure as hell wasn’t being honest with her. Lydia might not be a cop any more, but she still had her cop’s nose, and that nose told her whatever business Zazzi operated didn’t bear scrutiny. Still, the woman had made her welcome and offered her a room for the night, which made Lydia think kindly of her. And anyway, Lydia had to admit her own life no longer could hold up under a close examination.

With Nancy and her prying eyes and magpie mentality out of the way, though, she was safe, at least for a while.

How much had Nancy known? In her mind, Lydia went over every detail of her husband’s death, and couldn’t see where she had slipped up. No one knew of her husband’s abuse, not even Seth. When she and Seth were naked together, she’d kept the lights dimmed so any welts and bruises wouldn’t show, and if he’d inadvertently aggravated the injuries, he’d mistaken her groans of pain as moans of pleasure.

She’d vowed that the beating her husband gave her for having the affair would be the last time he’d ever hurt her. Things were okay at first after she got kicked off the job—he’d liked the idea of a slave wife—but then came the day he’d lost a big case. He’d blamed her, of course, saying that she’d never be a proper lawyer’s wife. He’d raised a hand to her. She dashed away. He caught her at the top of the stairs. She pushed. He fell down the marble steps. Cracked his head. She stared at him for a moment, wondering if she should call an ambulance—he’d probably be okay with immediate care. Instead, she sneaked out the back door, went for a run, and left him to die.

Dozens of people had seen her jogging in her fuchsia shorts and lime green top, and though she’d been questioned, the cops never suspected her. Why should they? She had an alibi and she’d always played the loving wife in public.

But Nancy had found out. Or had she? When the realtor said in that oh, so ominous voice, “I know you killed your husband,” could she have been merely fishing?

It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered but those lovely dancing flames. Even Seth’s love had never ignited her the way the heat of the fire had.

As she’d watched the flames devour the furniture, the stone Lydia had seemed to melt and flow like lava, and suddenly she’d been awash in a volcano of molten tears. She’d never known such life. Love. Ecstasy.

She’d managed to wrest herself away from the flames and rush outside before her new love could hurt her as much as her past loves, and although she wanted to continue her enthrallment with the blaze, she couldn’t bear to be around the gawkers. What could they know of the love that now burned in her heart? Only the paltry excitement of destruction kept them riveted to the scene.

Lydia had wandered off in a daze, and hadn’t come back to herself until Zazzi had confronted her. She’d managed to hide her rapture behind cop’s eye—that cold calculating look was not something you ever forgot how to give—keeping her secret safe in her heart.

Lydia stared up at the sun, and took a deep breath. The air smelled deliciously of smoke and ashes and charcoal and burnt offerings. Is this what the Goddess smelled every day of creation? Lydia stretched, like a cat on a warm hearth, and wondered where to go from here.

Home, probably. She could no longer remember why she’d come to Rubicon Ranch. Had she come just to be near Seth? To try to get back together with him? To get even? To remove her competition? To warn his new love of his philandering ways?

It hadn’t been hard to find out about his affair with Nancy. She’d simply followed him one day when he left the sheriff’s department and seen him meet with the realtor. She’d only made an appointment with Nancy to see what Seth preferred over her, but had stayed to watch the fun when she realized Seth had met his match.

Were all men so blind they couldn’t see what was in front of their very eyes? She had deeply loved Seth, wanting only the best for him, and he had thrown her away, calling her a vituperative bitch. Yet Nancy, who didn’t love him, and who truly was a vituperative bitch, he had kept.

But now she was through with men and their incomprehensible needs. She had found something better. Something that would never let her down. Something that would forever burn in her heart.

Fire!

***

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Rubicon Ranch: Secrets — The Story Continues!

June 6, 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.

(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 9: Melanie Gray
by Pat Bertram

Monday, December 23, 9:15am

Melanie stood in the center of her living room and tried to empty her mind of all thoughts. She lunged forward with her right leg, bent her right knee, arched her back, reached high with her hands, and breathed slowly and deeply. Usually this yoga warrior pose made her feel strong and invincible, as if the power of the universe were coursing down her arms and throughout her body, but today she felt only disbelief.

Could I have killed Nancy Garcetti?

Yesterday morning, she’d gone outside to do a few stretches in the bitter pre-dawn air to wake her sluggish mind and prepare for her last marathon day of writing. Shivering from the cold and still groggy from a mere three hours of sleep, she made the unforgivable mistake of not paying attention to her surroundings.

A hand touched her shoulder, and a woman’s voice whispered in her ear. “I know you killed your husband.” Without thinking, Melanie spun around, leading with her elbow, and caught the woman beneath her chin. The woman’s head snapped back. She staggered. Fell.

Melanie stood over her, breathing hard and trembling from the adrenaline rush. When she got control of herself, she held out a hand to help the woman up. The woman ignored the offer of assistance, staggered to her feet, and hissed, “You’ll be sorry.” By then Melanie’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and she recognized the real estate agent.

Melanie took another breath and tried to focus on her warrior pose, but she couldn’t get Nancy out of her mind.

The last time she had seen Nancy alive, the woman had been tottering up the street. Could she have managed to get as far as the house with the Santa, then crawled against the blow-up figure for protection against the quickening winds, and died there?

Melanie hadn’t struck the woman with the full force of her strength, so that jab couldn’t have killed her. But perhaps Nancy hit her head on one of the rocks lining the driveway and bled into her brain. She wished Alexander were there so she could ask him about the possible effects from such an injury, but he if were still alive, she wouldn’t have had the brief and possibly deadly altercation with Nancy.

Oddly, last night when she found the body, she hadn’t made the connection to her tussle with Nancy, but had assumed the real estate agent’s death had been outright murder. It wasn’t until she woke at three o’clock after a short fitful sleep that the horrible thought took hold. Could I have killed Nancy Garcetti?

Melanie lowered her arms to her side, straightened her knee, and pulled her left leg even with her right. She stood still, feeling lost. Alexander was dead. She’d finished her book about Morris Sinclair’s ignoble life and gruesome death. She’d even finished the book about the Mojave Desert Alexander and she had been working on when he was killed. Now the only thing left for her to do was to find out who had assassinated him. And she didn’t know where to start.

The sound of a distant voice caught her attention. The voice sounded tinny, as if from a cheap radio. As it grew louder, she could make out the words. “We are coming up on the house of Morris Sinclair, but first you will see where Melanie Gray lives.” By then the voice was blaring, sounding as if it were right outside her door. Melanie ran upstairs to look out her office window. A bus idled in the middle of the street, a banner draped across its side—DESERT DEATH TOUR. Bland faces peered through the windows.

The tour guide continued, “Melanie Gray has a talent for finding dead bodies, and maybe even for making them dead. As you know, Melanie was married to Alexander Gray, the award-winning photographer. It is alleged that this Black Widow murdered her husband for his wealth. They say she is so deadly, she could have killed him with a single blow.”

Melanie gasped. Black Widow? Is that what they were calling her? Did people really believe she killed Alexander for his wealth? What wealth? He had no money. In fact, after he was gone, their publisher had insisted she finish the desert book by herself since Alexander had spent their advance. And he hadn’t died by her hand. Someone skilled in the ways of death had cut all four metal brake lines in his car so that when Alexander slammed on the brakes, he instantly lost hydraulic pressure in both the front and rear brakes at the same time. The sheriff had told her that with today’s vehicles, cutting the brakes that way is almost impossible for a professional to do, and completely impossible for an amateur. She certainly couldn’t have done it.

But she could have killed Nancy.

Her gaze followed the road to the house where she’d found Nancy’s body, and she saw a wisp of smoke. She wondered if the people who lived there had made a fire to cozy up to. If she had a fireplace, that’s what she would do today. This was a perfect weather for sitting in front of a fire, watching flames dancing, thinking of nothing.

Then she realized the smoke was coming not from the chimney, but from the house itself. And flames glowed in the windows.

She ran down the stairs, fumbled for her cell phone, and tried to call 911, but she had no signal. She dashed outside. The tour bus was idling in front of the Sinclair house and the guide was giving a surprisingly ungarbled version of Morris’s death. Of course, the truth—that the horror writer had been killed and dismembered in a way that mimicked his stories—was hard to top.

“Call 911,” she screamed, trying to make herself heard over the guide’s recitation.”

A little boy pressed his face against the window, mouth open, tongue out, and stared at her.

“Where’s your mother?” Melanie shouted.

The youthful gargoyle crossed his eyes and disappeared beneath the window.

The bus let out a belch, then moved on down the road. It stopped in front of the burning house, and the occupants craned their necks toward the spectacle.

A few minutes later, a woman wearing a pink lace-trimmed top tucked into fitted jeans jogged up to Melanie, and said breathlessly, “I called 911. What’s going on?”

It took Melanie a moment to recognize her neighbor. Moody Sinclair had cut her long dark hair and dyed the shorn locks a strawberry blonde. Chandelier earrings dangled from her ears and eyeglasses perched on her nose. She looked pretty and normal and very young.

“Fire.” Melanie said absently, listening to the siren in the distance.

“Stucco houses with tile roofs don’t burn.” Moody walked silently besides Melanie for a moment. “Arson maybe?”

The siren grew louder as the fire truck turned onto Delano Road. The driver honked the horn as it sped up the street. All the dogs in the neighborhood added their howls to the cacophony. Melanie scrambled to the side of the road, losing track of Moody, who had dashed to the other side of the street.

Now that the firefighters had arrived, there was no reason for Melanie to continue toward the scene, but she found herself drawn to the action.

As Moody had said, the structure of the house wasn’t burning, but flames bursting through the windows made it seem as if the place were wrapped in fire. Even standing apart from the crowd, Melanie could feel the heat.

The blow up figure of Santa on the motorcycle slowly melted, then dissolved into a puddle of red, white, and black. Whatever remained of the crime scene after the sheriff’s department had finished with it was now gone. Could the house have been torched for that very reason—to destroy evidence? But in that case, why not just burn the Santa and his environs?

Melanie backed away from the inferno. This really didn’t have anything to do with her. If she had killed Nancy, the real crime scene lay several houses down Delano Road.

She headed back to her rental house, wishing she could leave this benighted area.

Then suddenly she stopped short. She could leave. She had money enough to go anywhere. The real problem was figuring out where to go. If her reputation as a Black Widow followed her, then what difference did it make where she lived? At least in Rubicon Ranch, she was just one of many stops on a desert death tour. Besides, Alexander had been killed not far from here, so this is where she needed to begin her investigation into his murder.

She trudged up her driveway, and stopped to see where Nancy had fallen. She saw no
blood on the rocks, but that didn’t prove her innocence. It only meant no one could find any evidence against her.

Unless someone had seen her hit Nancy?

She looked around. Everyone in the neighborhood—residents and squatters alike—seemed to have congregated up by the fire. Only one woman trudged past her house, looking as if she could handle anything or anyone. Hefty, with biceps like hams poking out of a sleeveless top. Bleached blonde hair that looked heavily permed. Cigarette dangling from a bright red mouth.

Melanie smiled to herself. Compared to all the necorphiliacs and vampire-wannabes on the loose in the neighborhood, this woman seemed almost elegant.

But then, perhaps she really was a fine lady on the downward swing of life. Who knew what lay behind anyone’s façade? Everyone had secrets. Everyone had things they wanted to hide from view.

Even me.

But still, if Nancy had died because of her, who had stolen the real estate agent’s purse, and who had set the fire?

***

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 »

A Barebones Kind of Writer?

May 29, 2013 — Pat Bertram

As a project for a writing group, we were supposed to post the last sentence of a couple of our chapters, but it was hard for me to find last sentences that say much. It’s usually my second and third to last sentences that have the meat, with a final, very short sentence to deliver the punch, such as these chapter endings from Light Bringer.

She thrust the magazine at Mac. “This isn’t a picture of my parents.”
But the frantic beating of her heart told her it was.

She turned around slowly, and clutched at her chest.
The ghost cat was inside the house.
And so was something else.

Wisdom lay stretched out on the borrowed couch, eyes closed in feline bliss. The skin on its belly rippled gently as if being caressed by unseen fingers. A chuckle reverberated in its chest.

“Shakespeare was right,” Emery said. “‘Hell is empty. All the devils are here.’”

Still, I did manage to find several ending sentences that were a bit longer than most and even made a sort of sense by themselves:

Lying awake, staring at the dust motes dancing in the moonlight, he thought he could hear voices murmuring in the wind.

After the sun set, they headed home in a rich, warm alpenglow that turned the world to gold.

A skinny, hairless cat with luminous silver eyes sat on the porch and stared at them, a quizzical look on its face.

Could it be that they were all following a script of someone else’s devising?

They were met with a burst of color, a song of pure joy that seemed at odds with the harsh environment of the laboratory they had entered.

Hugh shot them a disgusted look, then he and Keith plunged into the light.

Hmmm. I might have to change my opinion about my writing. I always thought I was a barebones kind of writer, but there seems to be a bit of poesy to my descriptions, especially with longer passages, such as this one:

She looked just as he remembered. The lithe body that moved as gracefully and effortlessly as a song wafting on a breeze. The shoulder-length brown hair that glimmered red and gold in the sunlight. The smile, big and bright and welcoming. Only her clothes—a pale green blouse and cotton shorts—struck a discordant note, as if he were used to seeing her in more exotic attire.

“Hello,” she said when he neared. The single word sounded as musical as an entire symphony.

“Hello,” he said, a goofy grin stretching his face. He felt a harmonic resonance and knew, once again, they belonged together.

After several seconds, her smile faded. “Do I know you?”

“Of course. We met . . .”

He gazed at her. Where had they met? Though it seemed as if he had always known her, they must have met somewhere, sometime; but when, in his pathetic little life, could he have met anyone so special? It slowly dawned on him he couldn’t have—not until this very moment.

Ducking his head, he whispered, “I’ve made a terrible mistake. We don’t know . . . We’ve never . . .”

***

Where to buy Light Bringer:

Second Wind Publishing

Amazon

Barnes & Noble Nook

iStore (on iTunes)

Palm Doc (PDB) (for Palm reading devices)

Epub (Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo)

***

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: Colorado, fiction, Light Bringer, mystery, novel, search for identity, Second Wind Publishing. 5 Comments »

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.

(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.

***