Tag: Mike Brown

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Writer's Notes

Just the Facts, Ma’am closes

By Force or Fear, Intent to Hold, and With Malice Aforethought

This will be the last you hear from me on this site. As with all good things, Just the Facts, Ma’am (JtFM) will come to a close. It’s not for lack of stories, to be sure. A dearth of time is the culprit. I have a book to finish. And after almost losing the mister last year, family has become that much more precious. They only ask my time.

Thonie Hevron

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank LAPD alum Hal Collier—the guy who started it all. His stories emailed to other LAPD retirees became the bulwark of JtFM. Thank you to Gerry Goldshine, an early contributor. Mikey sent us his memories once a month. Sometimes we laughed; sometimes we cried. Thanks, Mikey for your moving words. Ed Meckle became the most prolific writer in the JtFM and has earned my gratitude. Ron Corbin came to the party late but gave us all a lot to laugh about. Thanks, Ron. There were other writers, to be sure. Take a moment to scan through the posts for some interesting stories from the guys who’ve been there, done that.

For two years, I hosted Writers Notes. Other authors posted themed stories with links to their work. I met some terrific folks who I’ll continue to call friends. There are some great writing tips in those posts–available for another year.

As for me, I’m still putting the finishing touches on what was Felon with a Firearm but is now Felony Murder Rule. It is off to beta readers already. My list of readers reads like a who’s who of local law enforcement: Mike Brown, retired captain and homicide detective and Will Wallman, retired sergeant (Coroner’s Office) both from Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office and Mike McBride, retired Marin County District Attorney’s Investigator. Also, Karen Lynch, retired Homicide Investigator from San Francisco Police Department and author of Good Cop, Bad Daughter. These fine folks promise an authentic reading experience.

Once I get their feedback, it’ll be more keyboard time to make corrections and such. It looks like I’m closing in on the final draft of the fourth Nick and Meredith Mystery. Boy, is it a good feeling! So you won’t see me on my blog Just the Facts, Ma’am anymore but I will be at work. I’ll continue to email quarterly notes about the progress of my books, appearances, and so on. If you’re interested, sign up at www.thoniehevron.com.

Thanks for your loyal readership. It’s been great.

Thonie Hevron

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Writer's Notes

September: Killing Your Darlings

By Thonie Hevron

Malice cover“In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”

― William Faulkner

My reason choosing this topic is embarrassing. When planning my last novel, With Malice Aforethought, I had an idea. An outline followed, then the beginnings of a story. I began work. Some months later and about 30K words into Malice, I happened to re-establish contact with a man I worked with many decades ago at the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. Mike Brown was generally accepted to be one of the most competent, sensible and well-liked deputies around. When he retired, he was a Captain, and a 16-year veteran of Violent Crimes Investigations unit. He’d worked both positions my male protagonist held in the story. I reached out to Mike and asked him to read my outline.

His answer was quick: this scenario couldn’t happen.SCSO patch

Oh no! What was I going to do with the beautiful words I wrote? Thirty thousand words—a third of the book! It was with great anguish, I pressed the “delete” button. Mike was very generous with his time and with further discussion, I came up with a reasonable scenario that Mike said was credible. This newer version was not only more accurate, but it was better. It fit into my character needs better, was more exciting and allowed more plot flexibility.

In short, killing my darlings made for a better story.

My sacrifice on the altar of fiction authenticity was worth it.

When I announced this topic, my idea was to discuss how to cut words—words being the author’s darlings. But in receiving early posts and feedback from others, I’ve found some authors consider this phrase to mean actual characters. I believe there is no wrong answer and I’m thrilled to read others take on the subject. For every author, cutting their precious words is difficult. I can’t tell you yet what works for me, because with four books under my belt, it seems to change all the time. I do have a file of deleted scenes I keep so I don’t feel like I’ve wadded up the words for the waste basket. I’ll leave expert advice to three authors who present well thought out suggestions. They are below if you’d like to read further.wastebasketKristen Keiffer writes in Well-Storied, September 10, 2015 “8 Things to Cut When You Kill Your Darlings.” Her post is short, cogent and efficient. If you’re an author editing your manuscript, check this article out. “What it Means to Kill Your Darlings” on WritersLife.org (2016) offers more ideas by Bethany Cadman.  Ruthanne Reid’s Thewritepractice.com offers more suggestions how to recover from your assassination in her 2015 offering: “How to Kill Your Darlings and Survive the Process.”

I’m posting on Saturday, the first of September because I have a full house of authors this month who want to talk about murdering their own syllables.  On September 7th, Judy Alter has insight into killing off characters versus your own words. Lesley Diehl decided to interpret “Killing Your Darlings” as killing off characters, in her case, sometimes a really bad guy is too wonderful, too aggravating, too colorful to kill off even though he might deserve it! Her post appears on the 14th, Marilyn Meredith on September 21 talks about characters she doesn’t want to kill off, and Patricia Guthrie winds up the month on the 28th.

 

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Writer's Notes

It Takes a Village

author

By Thonie Hevron

You’ve all heard the African proverb (a cliché these days), “It takes a village to…” fill in your blank. My answer is “write a book.” Writers are solitary creatures—shy by nature. But if you think a writer completes their work alone, let me educate you.

Granted, most of the hard work is done solo. Charlotte Bronte hardly had a critique group to whip her text into shape. While “taking a village” may be a stretch, the support systems we have now weren’t around in their day. I refer to critique groups, beta readers, editors, and experts.

Here are a few words on my support systems:

  • I owe my growth as a writer to the members (current and past) of my critique group. They’re honest enough to say, “This just doesn’t work,” and tell me why. If I want compliments, I’d ask my mother. If I want the truth (and constructive suggestions), I ask my critique partners. To be clear, I’ve written these pages in solitude. But their review and input are part of the process. Their criticism can only improve my work—and it has.
  • Another writer notion is that writers prefer aloneness. We do. I cannot deny it. But having a group of people behind you, cheerleading, challenging, and empathetic, soothes the ouch of an agent’s rejection letter. When I joined Redwood Writers (RW—a branch of the California Writers Club) in 2006, I had two books completed and I needed to figure the next step. Between monthly speakers and workshops, I realized I had more work to do before the manuscripts were polished enough to submit to a literary professional. Through the club, I found my critique group, mentors, learned how to set and achieve goals, and many other lessons. I learned the value of networking. As my genre is mystery/thriller/police procedurals, I joined the Public Safety Writers Association (PSWA). I applied RW lessons here. This group was comprised of active and retired law enforcement, fire, emergency medical, and military personnel. Several publishers also belong. It was through PSWA that I found my publisher.
  • While I could write a post on each of these support systems (I think I will!), here I need to stress how important it is to put another pair of eyes on my work. I wouldn’t think of letting an agent look at a manuscript without review from two or three Beta Readers (readers who check for general critiques-flow, plotting, etc.).
  • An editor is critical. A submission should be as error-free as possible. More on that later, too.
  • I can’t live without my “experts.” I had my third novel almost half done when I found Mike Brown, a retired lieutenant from Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. I’d worked with Mike years before and re-connected on Facebook. After he looked at my outline, he said, “It couldn’t happen like that.” Sheesh. As I market heavily to law enforcement, I knew my story had to be authentic. Back to the drawing board. The result was, “With Malice Aforethought.” Yet to be published, it won PSWA’s Writers Contest second place award in the 2016 unpublished novel category.

All this before the book is even published! In the weeks that follow, two of my esteemed colleagues will present their ideas on the same topic. Be sure to check in every Friday, or better yet, subscribe to my blog post, Just the Facts, Ma’am.

Thonie

 

 

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Writer's Notes

With Malice Aforethought-Progress Report

One of the many fire roads that lace the countryside in Dry Creek hills area.

By Thonie Hevron

website: thoniehevron.com

Lake Sonoma overlook
Lake Sonoma overlook

The week slips away and I’ve missed another of my artificial deadlines. As I’ve said before, being so structured, I set goals for myself—for the completion of With Malice Aforethought (WMA), my latest thriller. Because this work is not under contract, I only have to answer to myself. Nonetheless, I’ve missed most of my targets on this project.

Life happens. This year, my husband and I sold and bought homes, moved, traveled for numerous family events both happy and sad, attended a conference, took a real vacation, and most recently, attended a high school reunion. Now, I’m dealing with family health issues that demand my attention—and are the priority.

If all this sounds like an excuse, well, I guess it is. I like to take one year to write and edit a new manuscript. WMA has gone over by three months and is behind schedule. The manuscript has “The End” typed on it but in version five, there are still mistakes to correct. I’m at the point where I read the text out loud. I catch so much with this method, that I can’t skip it. I have two-thirds of the manuscript left.

Dry Creek Valley--Collier Falls Winery
Dry Creek Valley–Collier Falls Winery

Next step, is off to beta readers. I have beta readers to perform several different tasks. First, my husband reads it. Being a retired fire fighter, he knows about car wrecks (there’s one for him to choreograph), electrical matters (for some MacGyver action), and lastly, the characteristic of wildland fire. Then, on to Billie Payton-Settles for editing. She culls the work for grammar, punctuation, sentence structure. At the same time, I’ll send it off to Mike Brown, a retired Sonoma County Sheriff’s Lieutenant who has specific knowledge of the procedures and culture of Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office. The homicide investigation that Nick Reyes and Meredith Ryan embark on is set in the beautiful and wild Dry Creek hills area of Sonoma County. As you know, authenticity is very important to me as a writer and a reader. After I make corrections from these three, I send it to two other law enforcement professionals who will read my work for realism—John Schembra, author of Retribution and many other books and Dave Freedland, author of Lincoln 9.

One of the many fire roads that lace the countryside in Dry Creek hills area.
One of the many fire roads that lace the countryside in Dry Creek hills area.

When I receive the manuscript from the beta readers, I’ll make the corrections and decide whether to send it to another editor for a final review. Then, it’s off to Oak Tree Press. My publisher Billie Johnson has agreed to read the manuscript. My hope is that she will find it a compelling enough story to publish under her banner. With all the work that goes into the manuscript, I hope she does. If this goes according to schedule, I look for With Malice Aforethought to be available this winter.

At least my excuses aren’t totally lame. The point is two-fold: I want the reader to know that there are very sound reasons this book is slow to finish and secondly, by posting this, I keep myself honest to those who read and anticipate my next story.

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Writer's Notes

Getting It Right

 

Peterson Winery, Dry Creek Valley. The hills in the distance are the setting for With Malice Aforethought
Peterson Winery, Dry Creek Valley. The hills in the distance are the setting for With Malice Aforethought

By Thonie Hevron

I’m baaaaccck! With a major move behind us and the holidays just a fond memory, I started back to work this week. Tonight, I resume attendance at my critique group. Some of that work time was putting pages together and being sure I’d edited their submissions.

With Malice Aforethought, the third Nick and Meredith Mystery

I’ve done some major restructuring due to the information from retired Sonoma County Sheriff’s Captain Mike Brown. He has been able to take my plot lines and make suggestions to increase the accuracy of the procedures. Some would say, “Who cares how accurate that part of your story is?” I cannot write something I know isn’t true. As a reader, when I come across something that I know is incorrect (especially in an area where I have some expertise), I write off the whole book. Depending on the level of error, I may even dump it.

I don’t want to write that book. I know too many cops who read to think I can “get away” with what is less than real or honest.

So, back to work. This drive for truth has blossomed to another part of my story. A sub-plot involves main character Meredith Ryan’s father. He’s in the hospital and has no one to make decisions about his care. He’d previously forged Meredith’s signature on a Durable Power of Attorney so when the hospital contacts Meredith, she is surprised. Who from the hospital contacts the family; what kind of choices are there? Many questions.

There is much to research to be done so I can get it right.

Details matter.

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