Tag: fiction

Character Building ala Citizen Kane

In a previous blog post, I spoke of empathetic love connectors to the reader and used the classic film Citizen Kane as a reference. Well, here’s another little gem for authors coming from the genius writing duo of H.J Mankowitz and Orson Welles. I believe they are teaching all writers by channeling this lesson through the words of their character, Rawlston.

I like the simple thing notion. Because simple means common, and usually common is not complicated because it is innate to us, simple. So, when building a Character follow what Rawlston (Mankowitz and Welles) instructs us. After all, they made a movie that many call the greatest movie of all time, all around a simple thing. Rosebud!

Lord of the Page…

Today we celebrate a giant in the world of literature. J.R. Tolkien was a super achiever. He was a very
accomplished fellow. An academic and expert on language analysis. But it helps all aspiring writers to
remember that as brilliant as he was, he too had to face a blank page at some point. And although he did it with a full mind, that blank page was the first challenge that every author faces. His expertise in fantasy world-building eventually came down to word choice and story structure. Same as every other author, from the beginning of civilization, has had to contend. So, the next Tolkien could be out there right now, with their facial features filled in by the light of a blank screen or the light reflecting off a blank page.


I am sitting in the reflection of a screen in the aftermath of sending off my next novel, Aquasapien, to my
publisher. An 87,000-word dive into a genre that J.R. Tolkien pioneered; world-building. In my case, not
middle earth, but contemporary earth. Not Hobbits, but an evolutionary offshoot of homo sapiens,
evolved and adapted to earth’s other environment through genetic anomalies. Resulting in attributes and capacities enable them to achieve and perform incredible feats. It also makes them a target. And hence my tail… oops, er, tale.

Happy Belated and Joyous Birthday James!

Yesterday was James Patterson’s birthday. He is a monster author. And why not? I know where he came from. Same place I did. Advertising. We both were creatives in the New York ad biz. I understand the approach to story that comes from the discipline to get a message out in only 75 words or less. Thirty seconds of broadcast time that educates, motivates, and ends with a call to action, while wrapped around a USP device.

We shook hands once, at a Borders conference when my first book and his 14,345th title was coming out. I exaggerate, but like I said he’s a monster. But in point of fact, he’s a brand! Good for him!

I spend a lot of time helping good writers to become authors. Ultimately the next stop after author is BRAND. And if your brand gets big enough, your style can take a back seat. You may continue it or freely move around the literary Ouija board, without fear of rejection because your brand sells the book. He has been successful in many genres: romance novels, historical fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, and science fiction. 

But for the rest of us mere mortals, hammering out 85,000 words or so, into a compelling, satisfying manuscript is the immediate task before us, on the way to potentially becoming a brand. To that end it helps to find the common ground with those whose names are above the title, we all face the blank page. We all have no idea if what we are composing will be a great symphony or a one hit wonder. Branding aside, every book stands alone, even those in a series. So how to succeed in authoring a novel? I believe the answer is…

“I guess I write four or five hours a day, but I do it seven days a week. It’s very disciplined, yes, but it’s joy for me.” – James Patterson

That’s one more thing that I share with Mr. Patterson, and I am sure with nearly every successful author, we both consider writing a joy. Finding joy, is the key to facing that page, working out the plot, defining and building character and tying out the resolution of a brilliant conflict. Sheer Joy!

I can’t teach Joy. But when I see it in a student, I know we are more than halfway along to a better, manuscript. In a word, the whole process becomes a… joy!

Oh, one more thing, the New York Ad shop where I was a creative director/senior VP for 40 years, was Sid Paterson Advertising. No relation, and only one ‘T.’

The reason I love and write thrillers…

North by Northwest Film Poster
North by Northwest aka The Best Film Ever!

Pitch perfect is a good way to describe the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece. Known as the master of suspense, Hitchcock also mastered humor, sexual innuendo, and anti-cold war sentiments into this thriller that unfolds like a thousand-dollar grey flannel suit, without a wrinkle. Hitchcock had dabbled in the ‘wrong man accused’ plot many times before, but to me, this is his crowning achievement. The through-line is always the same, a person is going about their normal, everyday life, and they are suddenly thrust into a world and circumstances that threaten their everything and are forced to find a way out and clear their name.

Hitchcock’s ‘common touch’ is at full strength during the entire film. Most notably brought about by his ability to reveal character by having the plot attack the protagonist. Through this, he weaves an indelible empathetic connection to the character. In North by Northwest, he starts off, already halfway down the block on Empathy Street, by brilliantly casting the charismatic, Cary Grant in the role of Roger Thornhill. Thornhill is a New York ad exec, back in the late ’50s when that meant something, being ripped from his three-martini lunch, by a case of mistaken identity. His mistake? He merely stands up in the Plaza Hotel’s Oak Room at the exact wrong moment.

As the plot piles on, Thornhill must catch on – or be dead. Being innocent of everything the bad guys, the police, and the newspapers are accusing him of doesn’t matter, all that matters is survival. Hitchcock then ups the temperature by giving us a false glimmer of hope, some alphabet soup, three-letter agency, deep within the federal government knows Thornhill is innocent but in a chilling bureaucratic moment of callousness decide that he is expendable.

So, he’s toast. But then Thornhill, fighting to stay alive, starts to threaten the government’s interests, and they are reluctantly forced to ‘seemingly’ come to his aid.

A stroke of brilliance that keeps the wrong man theme ever-present is that for all but the last minutes of the film, Thornhill is in the same grey flannel suit he was abducted in. At one point escaping a death trap on the dusty plains of the Midwest in his Brook Brother’s only to have it “sponged and pressed” in 20 minutes so he could go on being so out of place in the wrong battle uniform against the forces of evil. Namely, the uniform of the corporate dweeb as he stumbles through and defeats by the skin of his teeth plot after plot to dispatch him with extreme prejudice.

What is drama after all, but life with the dull bits cut out. - Alfred Hitchcock

As I write this, I am beginning to see where the inspiration for my new book, Forgive Us Our Trespasses sprang from. In fact, the subtitle for this sequel to my #1 bestseller, Give Us This Day is; Innocent is not a Defense. Hmmm…

Okay, so imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Hot Dog! The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

(Or how I found a plot point with everything on it!)

Photo by Caleb Oquendo

One of the main plot points of my new novel, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, concerns my heroine, Brooke Burrell-Morton’s attempts to clear her name of a murder she did not commit by extra-legal means. The prosecutors and the cops were satisfied that they had their murderess – her. So, they ceased looking any further for the killer of an abusive father. Brooke had visited him in the afternoon of the night he was killed to let him know she was watching him. That encounter didn’t go well. It was all Brooke could do to restrain herself from utilizing her training and skills as the most decorated operative in America’s service, retired, and take a deep breath and walk away.

But the press and the DA, eager to get a good story and a conviction, pursued only her. Leaving her just one alternative; find the real killer. To do this she and her dear close friends from her old unit, band together and go deeper than even the FBI could and find not only the killer but unravel an international conspiracy to kill millions. All garnered without the benefit of a search warrant. Meaning, inadmissible in court.

Okay, so how did I come up with this? I was settling a debate whether you can only call it a frankfurter if it came out of Frankfurt Germany, that’s why Oscar Myer and everyone else only calls them, Franks, to avoid any trademark infringement. Enter google. The Weiner controversy went unanswered because I was struck by another search result: Mr. Justice Frankfurter, a judge who is credited for coining the phrase, the fruit of the poisonous tree. It is a term I heard many times before and I knew sometimes it led to some very nasty, evil killers and rapists getting off scot-free. I thought, how odd? An oddity being the wellspring of authoring a different new idea, I quickly realized I could explore that legal abyss by putting Brooke in it and helping her find a way to not only get justice but mete some out.  I had found one of the thru lines of my next novel, the sequel to my number one best-seller, Give Us This Day.  Hot Dog!

Cover Reveal, it’s a big deal.

One of the milestones during a pregnancy is Gender Reveal. Likewise, when birthing a book, its equivalent is the Cover Reveal.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses – Available 02/22/2022

The cover then reveals what the book is about. Hmmm. Let’s see. A woman, a gun, and an airplane cockpit. I wonder what this could possibly be about?

But then you see the author’s name. Hey, wait a minute, that guy has 4 number one bestsellers! He writes thrillers about Brooke Burrell, a former federal agent, and special operator whose exploits and successes back then, force her to live cautiously now… while she’s pregnant! Ah, back to birthing.

The essence of this 4th Brooke novel, where she applies her special brand of exemplary skills is; innocent is not a defense. When social media, the media, corrupt D.A.s, and some really pissed-off terrorists all want her to pay for the things she did in service to her country. So now your saying, “Okay got it, sounds like a good thriller, but what’s the plane got to do with it?” Ah, that’s the other part of the cover, to create that question. For that, you’ll have to read, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, the next adventure following the number one best-seller, Give Us This Day.

PS. Although the front of the book gets all the glory at one of these Cover Reveal events, I think it makes the back cover feel bad. Mainly because its ‘other’ side gets all the smiles and goo-goo’s and “Oh, -you’re-so-cute”s. Well, here’s the other side of the cover reveal!

Forgive Us Our Trespasses will be available on February 22, 2022, but you can pre-order it on Amazon here.

The only “Big Bang” that is left is in Porno!

4f949c8252674.imageIn my novel, The God Particle, the forces of Science and Religion are pitted against one another in a battle as old as Copernicus and the Catholic Church.

The conflict between Science and Religion has been raging throughout history and reflected in the art and literature of every culture. Even in movies, i.e., Inherit the Wind.  The two sides are dug in, each convinced that their understanding of the way things came about, the way things are and what will happen next, is the correct version of the “Truth.”

Embarking on a book that had as its subtitle, “The Super-Collision of Science, Religion and Terror,” I quickly realized I’d better know that of which I write.  The overwhelming conclusion from my research for The God Particle is that religion is dismissed by intellectuals as a myth, a fairy tale, and the opiate of the masses. Implicit in that designation was that the “masses” were “Asses.” That perception is based on the statement, “Science is fact…period!” All other explanations are inventions of fantasy for those of lesser intelligence to wrap themselves in.  Truth be told, that’s the kind of proposition you’d expect from Science, where proof, logic and empirical data rule the roost.

On the other side, although not as prevalent, are many of those in the Faith/Religion camp who are of the opinion that it is, in fact, Science that is mentally incapable of fathoming the inescapable conclusion that there is intelligent design. That there was a divine hand in all of this, mixing the primordial soup that was the nascent universe. These “believers in God” find comfort and solace in their religious belief that all of this is not an accident of a cosmic chemistry set being driven by Newtonian forces to cool and congeal into “Everything.”

But last week, Science took a bad hit.  The scientific fact that the universe was created in a Big Bang event 13 billion years ago has been rocked to its molten core. So indelible, so entrenched was this “Truth,” that Nobel Prizes were awarded for two engineers from AT&T who discovered the echoes of the Big Bang in the far outer reaches of the universe. That’s how cocksure Science was of its facts. And Yet…

So where does that leave the debate? Well, to me it means that Scientists, Intellectuals and adopters of the scientific method and it’s rock solid conclusions, turn out to be just as prone to myth as the “religious believers” except the science-based people believe in a different myth. A scientifically provable myth! But their scientific proof is only as good as the method they use. Being human scientists, the only insight they gain is built upon assumptions in science made earlier. In other words, science-minded folks derive comfort in their myth because it is proven by their own math, logic and evolving science (whose metamorphosis’s is built upon the very same expanding science doctrine, so it has the incestuous ability to compound any error made in the first steps, i.e.: The Big Bang) Another ironic way to look at this is that the blind devotion to scientific logic is fallible because an earlier error or misdiagnosis, leads to revised theories and are then used as “Gospel” in proving the next logical step or advancement of scientific doctrine.

So in the end, The Big Bang has lead to the Big Mess. Science has been proven by its own methods to be just as mythically based as Religion. Therefore, can the claim now be made that scientists are the priests and shaman of a belief system that is just as fanciful a faith-based doctrine, as those who they accuse of being religious? The only difference being that their religion of science is one that excludes God.  Nonetheless, what we learned last week was that science’s “facts” are just as suspect as those tenets of their religious counterparts.

14_largeNow, not that I am a genius, but I saw this coming. Way back in my research I realized that there is no way to win, prove or even be ahead in this debate between religion and science. No matter what side you are on, it’s circular. But, I did do one thing that was genius; I quoted one. In the very first pages of The God Particle you’ll find this quote, the smartest thing anybody ever said about the issue, from a member of the Scientific Hall of Fame no less:

All Religion, Arts and Sciences are branches of the same tree. – Albert Einstein.

Works for me…