Art and Politics

New Year's resolutions aren’t on my mind this week.

Don Winslow is.

I’m late to the game when it comes to Winslow, having just picked up THE POWER OF THE DOG. I immediately fell in love with his narrative style. He bounces between past and present tense, the dialogue is clipped and does the work, and the characters are strong but very human. And, of course, the book deals with moral ambiguity. The more I learn about Winslow, the man, the more that makes sense.

I’m glad he has several books, because he’s stopped writing fiction. His decision to do so and his reasoning behind it leave me deeply fascinated: Don Winslow has set his writing career aside to focus on his work as a political activist.

Winslow thinks the United States has lost its way, and, according to this LA TIMES article (and others), he’s calling out those who are leading it in what he perceives is the wrong direction. A major goal seems to be making sure Donal Trump does not become a two-time U.S. President. Winslow gets threats and is accosted on the street. He remains undeterred: “Most of those people are physical as well as moral cowards. I’m 69 years old. What are they going to do to me?” he says in an April 3, 2023 LA Times feature.

I’m curious to hear what others think of his decision, his stance, and the role of art in politics.

Happy New Year to all from Detroit!

Writers Are Readers, Right?

 by Thomas Kies

I got a phone call from a man who was referred to me by a friend.  Apparently, they were talking about life insurance.  I know, I know, not the most exciting subject in the world.  But it was during their conversation that the man confessed to my friend that he was interested in writing a book.  Being as I’m the only published novelist my friend knows personally, he naturally gave him my phone number. 

To my friend’s credit, he gave him my OFFICE number and not my personal cellphone.  So good on him.  

To keep anyone from being embarrassed, let’s call the man Charlie.  Charlie called me and politely told me what he would like to talk to me about.  Now, I love to talk about books, writing, and publishing. So, we scheduled a meeting the very next day.

I was happy to spend time with Charlie.  He asked good questions and took copious notes.  We discussed the positives and negatives of traditional publishing, self-publishing, and hybrid publishing. I told him how valuable it is to join a writers’ group and get a beta reader…no, not his wife or any of his children. We talked about how you need a good editor and how you need to sit down and write something every single day.  That’s what writers do. 

I asked him what genre he was interested in.  Charlie told me he wanted to write a thriller. Then I asked him who is your favorite author and what do you like to read?

His answer was, “Well, I’m not much of a reader.”

WHAT?

My question for the audience is, can you be a writer without being a reader?  In my opinion, NO!

Stephen King said, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all else: read a lot and write a lot.”

If Charlie wants to be a writer of thrillers, he’d be best served by reading thriller novels.  He’d be studying the writers who have made it happen. They’ve not only gotten published, but they managed to get onto best seller lists.  Writers like Lee Child, Brad Thor, Gillian Flynn, Don Winslow, David Baldacci, S.A. Cosby, Stephen Mack Jones, Stieg Larsson, Karin Slaughter, and Thomas Harris, just to name a few. 

It's how you can study plot structure, pacing, grammar, character development as well as a hundred other writing items you should know about if you’re going to try to write a book that someone will want to read. 

To Charlie’s credit, he’s not alone.  I’ve lost count of the people who have taken one of my Creative Writing classes at our local college that have answered that same question, “What do you read and who is your favorite author?”  And their answer has been, “I’m not much of a reader.”

But, on the flip side of that equation, I’ve found that the best writers who have taken my class are indeed dedicated readers.  They not only study the craft and work at it but enjoy reading.  

How can you not?    www.thomaskiesauthor.com

It was a dark and stormy night!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of your book's first line.  You can't let up after that first sentence though, you have to have a dynamite opening scene.

But first, let me tell you about a discussion I had a few weeks ago with an editor I know.  She told me about the hundreds of submissions she looks at every year.  She said, “I can’t tell you how many of them start with the weather.  If I’ve got to give a budding novelist one bit of advice, unless it’s a key part of your opening chapter, never, never , never write about the weather except as background."

Back to my original topic, a boffo first scene.

My wife is out of town so I can watch anything I want on Netflix.  Last night I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark for the millionth time.  The opening scene in that movie is classic.

The intrepid adventurer in the fedora, traveling with a troupe of shady characters through an Amazonian forest.  Indiana Jones, coming upon the tomb in the thick of the jungle, filled with bats and spiders and traps.  Indie taking the weird golden icon and outrunning the giant boulder, only to find himself ambushed by jungle natives.  Then watching Indiana Jones sprint for his life, swimming to the airplane, and upon getting into the plane, his seatmate is a snake named Reggie.  We find out Indiana has, of all things, a fear of snakes.  When he complains, the pilot says, “Show some backbone.”

During a book event last year, I was asked if I thought European mysteries move more slowly than American mysteries.  The answer to that is yes!!

American readers are impatient.  They want to be gripped immediately and taken for a tense, page turning thrill ride.

I try to do that with my Geneva Chase mystery series.  In my first book, Random Road, I open with six nude bodies found hacked to death in a mansion on an island.  I’d originally written the scene with two people found dead, decided to spice it up by adding two more bodies.  By the time I was done, I’d made it a six-pack.  When it comes to murder, more is better, isn't it?

Do you always have to start a mystery with a murder?  No, but you still have to start by grabbing the reader by the collar.  In my second novel, Darkness Lane, the book opens with Geneva, my intrepid crime reporter, finding out that her fifteen-year-old ward’s best friend (also fifteen) has disappeared.

Well, I’m fudging a little, there is a murder, but we know upfront who the killer is.   In that same first scene ,we find out that a woman who’s been physically and mentally abused for years finally snapped.  She waited until her husband is drunk and passed out, coverd him in gasoline and lit a match.  As the fire department struggled to quell the spreading flames, the cops found her outside with a glass of wine.  When they asked her what happened, she said, “I’m just toasting my husband.”

My third book, Graveyard Bay, has the darkest opening of all.  Geneva is watching the scene unfold in the middle of winter at a marina where two nude bodies are found under the icy surface of the bay, chained to the prongs of a massive forklift used to lift boats in and out of the water.  Brrrrrr.

Just a couple of other outstanding books  I’ve read this year with dynamite opening chapters.

One is Don Winslow’s The Border. This book starts out with a prologue in which the protagonist is caught up in an active mass shooting.  You have no idea what it’s about and won’t really learn until nearly the end of this 720 page thriller.  But it’s a page turner if there ever was one about drug cartels and politics and the parallels to what’s going on today are incredible.

The other book is a mystery called Head Wounds by Dennis Palumbo.  It starts out with “Miles Davis saved my life”. A domestic dispute outside the protagonist's home explodes into violence and a gunshot nearly kills Daniel Rinaldi.  After that, the tension ramps up and the action never stops.  You can’t put this one down.

To end up where I began, your first scene should grab the reader by the collar.  Oh, and never lead with the weather.

How Much Violence?

We live in a violent world.  In books, movies, television shows, video games…the news.

Recently, there was a mass shooting at UNC Chapel Hill.  Two people were killed.

The mass shootings over the last few years have been horrific.  58 killed in Las Vegas in 2017.  49 killed in the Pulse nightclub in Florida.  32 killed at Virginia Tech in 2007.  That doesn't even count the terrible shootings in our high schools and and elementary schools.  I was ashamed that when I heard the body count at Chapel Hill, I almost felt a sense of relief that it wasn't higher.  That's just wrong.

The world is awash in violence, either man-made or from natural causes.  Wars, fires, famine, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes.

So, why do we enjoy reading mysteries?  They're inherently violent.  In almost all mysteries, someone dies. But the beautiful thing about a novel, generally speaking, justice is exacted by the conclusion.  The bad guys (or ladies) are uncovered and arrested or otherwise dispatched.

How much violence is too much?  It depends on the writer and it depends on the audience.

Late last year, I read Hank Phillippi Ryan’s mystery, Trust Me.  Death definitely has a seat on this bus, but her book is far from being violent.  It’s a excellent psychological thriller. It quietly pulls you along with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat.  The gore level is very low and the storytelling is topnotch.

At about the same time, I read Stephen Mack Jones’ first book, August Snow. Full disclosure, I liked it so much, I’m currently reading his second novel, Lives Laid Away.  The violence level is stepped up, but you’d expect as much when your protagonist is a retired Marine and an ex-cop. There are going to be fist fights and gun play and Jones makes it work without making it cringe-worthy. You genuinely like the characters and hope they live through their violent travails.

On the other end of the spectrum is Don Winslow’s new book, The Border.  At slightly more than 700 pages, it’s on a scale with Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. This book is raw, gritty, and very, very violent. But it’s about drug cartels, addicts, DEA agents, Mexican Federales, and dirty politicians. Is it for everyone?  Of course not.  Personally, I loved it.  Couldn't put it down.

My own Geneva Chase series has been described as dark and sinister.  But most of the violence in my novels takes place off the set.  You don’t actually see the violence, but you witness the aftermath and the ramifications.  And make no mistake, there will be at least one life or death struggle.

These are my personal rules on violence:

It can’t be gratuitous.  There must be a point to it.  That act of violence has to move the narrative forward or bring the story to its conclusion.

Limited gore. There should be enough to make it real, but don’t make it gore porn.

Don’t glorify violence.  Show it for what it is—ugly and scary.

Show the ramifications.  In Darkness Lane, Geneva Chase has discovered the body of a murdered man.  He’d been tortured and beaten to death.  The scene so rattled her that it keeps popping up in her head.  She keeps thinking, "His head was bashed in."  Over and over. Something akin to PTSD.

I’m fussy about the body count.  If I want to see a massive loss of life, I’ll watch Game of Thrones.

Speaking about violence, I’m glued to the television as the last episodes of Game of Thrones play out.  I love the series because of the character development and byzantine plot lines and no one is safe.

But it’s not for everyone, Cindy, my wife, won’t watch it because, in the very first episode, someone kills a dire wolf. Cindy saw that and she was out of the room.

Oh yes, one last Thomas Kies rule on violence.  It was the subject of an earlier blog.  Never hurt a dog.