Ticklish Words

I have a big vocabulary and I’m not shy about using the right word or phrase instead of a commonly used term. With many friends for whom English is a second language (and as a volunteer at an English as a second language program), I’m often explaining my word choices. This means I have to be able to justify lethargic over lazy, essential over basic, and peculiar over odd. Several of my multi-lingual friends have commented that they enjoy my eccentric (unusual, weird, abnormal) word choices, so with them I aim to please. Why do I seek precision in word
Read More

The Dog and the Man

I’m a cat person. I had to get that out there before I spend the rest of this Monster Meditation on DOGS. It’s said that cats have staff—not masters—and sometimes I think that’s an accurate assessment. The human(s) in a cat’s life may also be caregivers, best buddies, slaves, colleagues, or mother surrogates. Having spent a lifetime with cats, I can say with complete candor that I’ve been all of those things to a feline companion. But dogs are another kind of animal and the relationship between the human and the dog, the master and the animal, the leader and
Read More

Character Props

I had no idea that Little Italy was so quiet in the morning. Chinatown wakes up early and stays open late, but on Mulberry north of Canal Street, most of the storefronts were shuttered before nine. I was about to give up and find a place closer to the courthouse, until I saw an older gentleman with a silver-headed walking stick open the door of Caffe Roma. It was open! So I followed him inside. I used to go there all the time. The pastries are authentic and the atmosphere makes it feel like a movie set. The silver wolf’s
Read More

Tall Tales

Credibility! Tall tales stretch credibility with exaggerated realities. There are many kinds of tall tales, from the fisherman’s brag to the guru’s revelations. One person’s miracle is another person’s tall tale—and visa versa. Some characters are extraordinary and tales naturally flow about them or from there lips. All of us have met someone, somewhere along the line who was a great storyteller, stretching and manipulating reality. At least during the time you are listening, talented storytellers make you believe the incredible. An hour, or a day later, the story disintegrates. The ghost disappears. The rainbow fades. And all that’s left
Read More

Fully Baked Characters

Are we who we are from the start or do we develop as we go along with our lives? And, do characters in fiction arrive fully baked or must they grow and change in the course of a story? Yes, it’s the old NATURE versus NUTURE debate. But this time, the focus is on fictional characters and not the development of real people. The protagonists (and the supporting cast) in mystery series often start with strong backstories that develop along logical lines as the books progress. Life, fictional and otherwise, throws situations at characters that cause them to change—or at
Read More

Animal Instincts

He’s got an eagle eye. He’s as quiet as a mouse. She eats like a bird. She was stunned like a deer in headlights. He’s a sly fox. Don’t take him seriously—he’s just a lapdog. She moves like a cat. He’s a bull in a china shop…. Accurate or not, animal references are often used to describe people. Mice may actually be quiet, but “she eats like a bird” is nonsense, unless she’s eating all day long. Birds, depending upon species, eat 10, 30, even 100 percent of their body weight on a daily basis. If a 120 pound woman
Read More

Worthy Victims

Worthy victims? Aren’t victims characterized as innocent? In mystery fiction, the character of the victim often follows the sub-genre. The crazy serial killers of ‘Criminal Minds’—and the dozens of profiler-driven crime stories that come out each year— focus on specific categories of people. The Jack the Ripper killers go after “low risk” victims (prostitutes, the homeless, runaway teens) while more “ambitious” killers are drawn to victims with higher profiles. In other words—victims who will be missed by families, friends, colleagues, employers—you might include celebrities, but their killers, in both fiction and reality, are often set apart in another group with
Read More

You are What You Eat!

If I were exactly what I eat, I might have coffee running through my veins, but fortunately I also drink wine and eat enough chocolate, fish, vegetables, fruit, eggs, yogurt, nuts, cheese, grains, etc. to qualify for the generally ‘healthy diet’ category of eater. When food comes up in fiction—and it does so often—the menu reveals answers to questions about wealth/poverty, sophistication/naivety, indulgence/discipline, and much, much more without requiring the storyteller to spell everything out. Over the holidays I read a short story by the late, great P.D. James entitled ‘The Mistletoe Murder.’ It was set during WWII in England
Read More

Writer Resolutions

Here we go again! It’s resolution time…. And writers are not immune to the lure of declarations of good intentions that rarely turn out in the end.   It’s easy for me to state that I’m going to: Find a new agent… Rework the novel that caused the previous agent to call it quits… (Although I liked it!) Finish the stalled 5th addition to the Candy’s Monsters novella series… Start submitting short stories to contests and anthologies again… Push for another ghostwriting gig…   But, perhaps, it’s better for me to resolve to: Give myself more time and make the
Read More