The (mostly) true story about the most bizarre lyrics ever written for a TV show

I propose that of all the weird and totally contrived television shows produced on the "other side" of the 1960s (that's before 1964 when the Beatles crashed through the front door of our culture) the most bazaar was The Patty Duke Show. When you really think about it, the premise is even less believable than Gilligan's Island, Mr. Ed, or even The Mickey Mouse Club. I mean, really, Mickey. "Because you like me?" You don't even know me. But let's not get distracted from TPDS (The Patty Duke Show). First of all, let's take the premise.

Sure, a talking horse or a four-hour tour that turns into a multi-year stay with complete laundry service and a transistor radio that never runs out of batteries are both stretching our suspension of disbelief to the limit. But identical cousins? How does that even work in a fantasy show?

The premise given by one of the producers years ago was that both Patty's fathers and possibly mothers were identical twins. That's a lame and greatly disturbing premise, but we need to go back to an actual (but imagined by me) production meeting at ABC's executive's boardroom. They were trying to figure out what to do with a hot property they had just acquired, Patty Duke. She was hot because she had just won an actual Academy Award for her fifth movie, "The Miracle Worker," and ABC needed to come up with a series that would fully capitalize on her acting ability, or at least mask it if it turned out that the full range of her actual acting ability was to flop around like a fish while screaming unintelligibly.

So, a couple of executives were sent into a small room with a pile of doughnuts and a pot of hot coffee and were told not to emerge until they had an idea. A good idea. A commercial idea, and no, it didn't have to make any sense at all.

Well, the guys struggled for a few hours, but couldn't come up with anything when the door opened and one of the "higherups" poked his head in and said something like, "Hey. Maybe you guys can do something with that "Parent Trap" movie idea. You know the one starring that British girl, um, what's her name? Something to do with a comet. You know, twin sisters separated so young they didn't even know each other, but then they go to this summer camp and..."

The guys cut him off with a "Sure, we'll work on it. Could you order another pot of coffee, and some more doughnuts...the pink frosted kind?" So the higherup closed the door and the two guys just looked at each other. The first one said, "I should have become an auto mechanic," and the second one said, "I could have gone to mortuary school like my cousin."

"Cousins! That's it," said the first guy. "TOTALLY IDENTICAL cousins."

Then the second guy said, "What in Hell are you talking about? There's no such thing as even identical cousins let alone TOTALLY identical cousins."

"Oh, there is now, baby. there is now," said the first guy. They used to use words like "baby" to show how hip and cool they were.

So the higherups let the two guys out of the room just in time for lunch at Sardi's, or some equally cool and expensive place where you'd go to be "seen" eating a fashionably light lunch.

Well, the higherups LOVED the concept, but the two guys weren't off the hook yet. One of the higherups looked at the two guys and said, "You know we're going to have to have a theme song that explains the whole thing."

"Great," the two guys thought. More work. But, the guys were up to it, and finished it just it time to have a stiff cocktail and catch the 5:45 train back to New Rochelle. It became, my friends, one of the most memorable yet crazyest theme songs ever written. It explains everything, and yet it contains the most bazaar line ever to reach the small screen.

Just sit back, close your eyes and remember it. It goes through a whole litany explaining how the cousins, both played by Patty, were identical, yet totally different. It's absolutely brilliant until, that is, until it gets to the following line:

"Our Patty loves to rock and roll, 
A hot dog makes her lose control"

A hot dog makes her lose control of WHAT, exactly? Sadly, none of the 104 episodes filmed during the show's three-year run featured Patty losing control because of a hot dog. Wouldn't that have been the best episode of all? Say, Patty's on the streets of Manhattan. She goes up to a hot dog vendor, one of those guys with the little cart full of steaming hot dogs, and orders a dog with mustard, onions, and maybe pickles. The vendor hands her the dog, and she totally loses control of EVERYTHING. She starts flopping around on the sidewalk. Someone calls for an ambulance, using the payphone on the corner (no cell phones back then).

The poor girl is convulsing, waving her arms around, banging her poor head on the cold, hard, unforgiving New York sidewalk. We can hear the sounds of an ambulance approaching when her identical, European cousin, Cathy, runs up yelling "Patty, Patty." Cathy tenderly cradles Patty's head as Patty's convulsions begin to cease, and poor Patty is, alas, gone. Everyone begins crying, some of them blaming the hot dog vendor, yelling things like, "You KNEW a hot dog would make her lose control. EVERYBODY knew that."

Then the crowd turns on the hot dog vendor chasing him up town and away from the sorry scene. The camera pans down to Cathy and the dead Patty. The scene goes slowly out of focus, and we abruptly cut to a cigarette commercial.

Now, I ask you, wouldn't that have been the best Patty Duke show ever filmed? I think so.

Complete collection of one of Disney's greatest artists being published

Little known, but read every day, Al Taliaferro's daily Donald Duck newspaper strips were published daily in hundreds of newspapers all over the world. Al drew a brilliantly crafted strip every day from 1938 until his death in 1969. That's a full 30 plus years of strips, day in and day out, and yet I'll bet most of you have never heard of him. That's because like all Disney print artists, he had to sign Walt Disney's name on each strip even though Walt had little influence on the design and characters of the strips.

Each of these little strips is like a beautiful jewel with unerring perspective, brilliantly crafted characters, and each one was a self-standing gag. The continuing adventures typical to that era were left to Mickey Mouse. Al had to come up with a funny gag every day.

Those facts and much, much more are why I love Al, and I suggest all of you look him up on that Interweave thing. Today's blog is about something Al and I shared. You see, Al spent most of his youth in a tiny Colorado town called Montrose. Guess what? That's the exact town I grew up in. We both left the little berg when we were about 13, so I can reflect on some of the aspects of that typical American small town that probably shaped Al's attitudes.

I think I can call him Al, too, since we practically grew up together -- well almost anyway. Al lived there from 1905 until 1938. I lived there from about 1953 until 1959. These were different eras, true, but little Montrose didn't really change that much during the first half of the 20th century. Let's take a look at the little berg circa 1905.

Yep, that's the old Main street I remember, minus the horses. It would have been very familiar to Al. Below is the way the little town looked from the air. Corse' it was a few years after Al was born that they had airplanes. My guess is this was taken right around when Al graduated from the 7th grade.

Oh, yea, before I forget, here's a shot of Al as an adult. Handsome, wasn't he? Must have been a real lady killer.

This is where Al and I could be found every Saturday afternoon (not at the same time, of course). It's still there, but sadly reconfigured as a three-plex. One thing for sure back then, it was the coolest place in town during the summer.

I don't know what neighborhood Al lived it, but this is a very rare aerial of my neighborhood. My house is on the left, just behind the church. Notice the DC3. It flew over every day at noon. Good, ole' Emerson Grammar School can barely be seen in the top left -- just part of the playground shows, but that was the best part anyway, wasn't it?

There wasn't much to do in Montrose except have parades for the high school homecoming. The few Indians who still lived there would come out. It must have been somewhat daunting for them to be totally surrounded by us palefaces. Everyone was always friendly, though. I loved seeing the Indians. I'll bet Al did, too.

Well, that's about it from me and Al. Check out his book on Amazon. It's the coolest thing out this fall.

Your friend,

W.H. Matlack

Little jewels that have fallen into the dark past

There are some things I have purchased in the past that are just too cool for me to give or throw away - even though today's technology has rendered them useless (sigh). I came across one of them the other day when doing an inventory of cool-things-that-are-now-worthless in my top drawer. It seems that my top drawer is full of little items like that, and I hadn't gotten too deeply into it when I came across one of the last of the Sony Walkman(s). (Walkmen?)

This little jewel probably dates back to the mid nineties or so. I couldn't find any real information on it, but I suspect it was one of the last models to be introduced before digital music completely rendered it useless. The engineers at Sony must have been given the mandate to produce a Walkman cassette player that would be barely bigger than the tape cassette itself. After what must have cost those engineers a lot of late nights in the Sony development lab, they completely succeeded. The "Radio Cassette Player WM-F701C" that I pulled out of the depths of my top drawer is almost a miracle of miniaturization. I'd actually call it a miracle except that the MP3 players that came along a few years later were truly miraculous. They could pack every album I ever owned into something the size of half a graham cracker. That's what killed off the WM-F701C. It could only play those small audio cassettes one at a time. You still had to carry a pocket full of them with you on a trip.

In spite of that, the WM-F701C was and is a miniature wonder. Just take a look at the photograph below. Look at how beautifully they crammed all those rollers, guides and springs into that exceedingly small space. It's all the more remarkable when you consider that the vast majority of space inside the WM-F701C had to be reserved for the tape reels of the cassette. To my eyes, it's a piece of engineering beauty, and mine is in perfect shape. Just one very small dent on the back where I must have dropped it one day on my way to work.

As soon as I found it, I rushed out to my sun room where I keep my extensive collection of vinyl records to see if I could dig up a cassette. I found a good one, plugged in a fresh battery, and snapped in my cassette. The result -- nothing. For as beautiful a piece of engineering the WM-F701C is, it has one major weakness: all the moving parts are powered by a little belt, and the little belt had spent all those years in my top drawer slowly deteriorating.

I thought about trying to take it apart and searching for a belt on the Internet, but really. All my cassettes are available as digital files, and with my new smart phone containing nearly every song I would ever want to listen to, I don't even carry around a dedicated MP3 player any longer. So, the little WM-F701C has been relegated to a pile of other past electronic miracles that don't actually work either. There's a small (for its day) Kodak Instamatic camera, one of the very first transistor radios that is in unused condition and even contains a nice little schematic. But, I do take them down and look at them once in a while.

Casting the leather jacket in movies, working man or trouble?

There are two main leather jackets worn by actors in Hollywood movies - the military-issued, aviator style A2, and the motorcycle style Schott One-star. Like every piece of costuming, the leather jacket is chosen to help establish the actor's character. Each jacket and its variants has a parallel history. Let's look at the A2 first.

Manufactured for pilots during WWII, this jacket came to symbolize the adventurous, daredevil attitudes of the combat aviator. After the war, great quantities of this jacket were available as war surplus items for less than ten dollars each, so  millions were sold. It seemed to be the perfect leather jacket for the working man. It was rugged, comfortable, and in Hollywood movies it became a symbol for the blue-collar man of action.

The Schott has a history that's even considerably longer than the A2, but instead of being associated with the wild blue yonder, it became a necessary motorcycle accessory. It's been around as long as motorcycles, and like motorcycles in Hollywood films it can either represent the good or the bad.

The A2 seems to get cast whenever a director feels the need to express a little intensity for a particular character. He calls up to the costume department and asks for a "leather jacket" to be sent down. This request always seems to be interpreted as an A2. If he wants much more intensity, or even a downright "outlaw" vibe, he'll ask for a "motorcycle jacket." He still might get an A2, but if he understands the formula, he'll send it right back and demand an actual motorcycle jacket.

Here's the formula:

An A2 is a leather jacket, It equals solid working man or at the very least, man of action. Once in a while a female will wear one, but the jackets are usually too big make the woman look cute. A good example of the man of action is Bob Cummings in Hitchcock's immortal "Saboteur."

The Schott motorcycle jacket means either "outlaw" or "cop." It has a sinister vibe. Put one on a woman, and you add an element of sinister sexuality. Like it's hot and she can hardly wait for somebody to take it off her. It's a great prop, but there should be at least one motorcycle in the scene. Motorcycle jackets in a movie without motorcycles is just wrong. In so many ways.

Marlon Brando literally made the Schott a motorcycle icon with the movie, "The Wild One." In that famous scene of Brando sitting on his bike, holding his purloined trophy, the Schott seems to melt into the bike making the bike, Brando and the Schott one-star seem as one.

Here's where things can go wrong, or right depending on the director, and probably the actor. Schott motorcycle jackets are almost always used the right way in movies, but the A2 often fills the role of the anonymous "leather jacket."

Take the Fonz from the simpering "Happy Days" TV show. He's supposed to be tough. He rides a motorcycle. He actually did jump the shark. He wears a leather jacket. But it's an A2. Not a motorcycle jacket. He looks anything but tough. Put him in a Schott, and he might have actually been taken for tough in spite of the fact that he never got into a pool cue fight.

So, the Fonz was a bad choice. What was a good choice? I think the Ramons were an excellent choice - all wearing Schotts, all with the same last name, all tough and troubled just the way motorcycle jacket wearing people should be.

 Brando! Ride, baby, ride.

 Don't worry, folks. He's got his A2 on. The Nazis. That's who should worry.

 What was he always saying? Aaaaaaaaey. Never cool. Thumbs up, baby, but where is your super-cool motorcycle jacket? You think you look like a tough guy? You don't. You look like the carny who set up the Tilt-A-Wheel and is now heading for some "shave ice."

The Ramones. Super cool, troubled, disenfranchised. I'm sure there are four motorcycles somewhere nearby. I say four because they would rather walk than ride tandem.

Uncle Albert and his crazy ideas

I wish Albert was still alive. I just know we would have been best friends. We'd be hanging out, eating nachos, drinking a little Diet Coke (to keep our wits about us), and discussing some of uncle Al's (I'm sure I would be allowed to call him that) formulas.

The thing about uncle Al and his formulas is that they were a lot simpler than some of those other guys' formulas. You go back about a hundred years, and you see blackboards all over the US and Europe covered in completely indecipherable formulas. Scientists would look at them, stroke their beards (since most of the scientists back then didn't shave -- too many formulas to write) and vigorously shake their heads while mumbling something in German, Hungarian, or even Russian. Sometimes shouting would erupt and many times chalk and erasers would fly through the air pelting any nearby observers with little chalk dust clouds.

There were a lot of arguments back then. Mostly about the speed of light. Some of those formulas indicated that the speed of light was a constant. It never changed. Here's one that illustrates it: 
Even if you don't understand the difference between permittivity and permeability, I think you would agree that the formula clearly shows the speed of light as a constant in our universe. I can't speak for other universes because I haven't yet figured out a way to visit them, although some ardent followers of the now defunct Grateful Dead band assure me with vigorous head shakes that they have indeed visited more than one other universe. However, when visiting those other universes, they didn't take time to perform even the basic experiments to determine if the speed of light is a constant. Or not.

So, along comes my BFF, Al. He says to all the other scientists that, yes, the speed of light is constant, and that we can begin using it in all our formulas. It seems that scientists love nothing better than shoving these constants into formulas. Because they never change. They're constant. And there are a lot of them, too.

Outside of the speed of light, pi is one of the favorites. It's a weird one, though, because you can never get it to stop giving you digits. Most people just resolve it out to 3.14159265359 and just give up. That means that no formula using pi will ever be completely 

accurate. Well, who cares. That's close enough, right? 

Al would just shrug his shoulders and say, "Ja, ja. Es ist glose enoughs." Then he'd light his pipe, 

blow out a cloud of smoke and stare at his chalk board. While stroking his hairless chin. Al didn't go in

for beards.

Al liked to simplify complex formulas. Take the one he is showing me in the photo above. "R = 0."

He looks pretty excited about, too. I didn't know that R equals 0. Did you? Did anybody? No. 

Nobody did until uncle Al drew it up there on his chalk board.

So right about that time I would ask Al about c, the constant speed of light. Al would shake 

his head, erase the R = 0 and scribble out e=mc2. He would turn to me and say, "zo, zat ees der 

speed limits vor ze whole universes. You can't go any vaster zan dat." Zee, der vormulas clearly

 shows dat time vould slowing down, und your mass would grow to take up ze whole universes."

That Al. He had some trippy ideas. Sometimes I wonder what he was smoking.

Another Look at Schrodinger’s Cat

In my novel, “Waiting to Run,” (http://goo.gl/6nm97N)  the protagonist accumulates quantum powers based on the theory that if an object in the ordinary world was infused with quantum states, many of the behaviors exhibited by sub-atomic particles could be passed along to a person who was handling it. This theory is further enhanced in the novel by presenting reality as manifested by the Holographic Universe theory.  

Of course the novel is a work of paranormal, science fiction intended to be thought provoking but most of all enjoyed. However, the big question that the novel avoids is what separates the Newtonian, gravity-dominated world from the bazaar, subatomic reality where particles can have zero mass, go in and out of existence, be in two places at the same time, and exist in multiple, different states at once. Is Schrodinger’s cat dead or alive? The answer to this in the quantum universe is “probably.” Is there some kind of barrier that keeps these two, vastly different parts of our universe separate? It turns out that there probably is.

This barrier is called gravitational time dilation. The theory is based on Einstein’s theory of gravity as the manifestation of space/time. In this theory, the flow of time is altered by mass. Massive objects cause the flow of time to slow down. The way this works is that as quantum-infused particles fuse together to form larger structures their quantum states are slowed down and eventually blocked by the dilation and begin to behave according to Newton’s orderly laws. This is where the barrier between the infinitely small and infinitely large occurs.

So, Schrodinger’s cat would be either dead or alive, but not both because its mass is large enough to block the dilation. That’s either good news or bad news for Schrodinger and his cat, but not both.

What could possibly go wrong?

Today I'm filled with joy and the anticipation of wonderful things. Absolutely marvelous things.Why? Because I just reserved my free upgrade of Windows 10! What could possibly go wrong? A simple click on the icon that magically showed up on my computer, and I'm reserved. As though Microsoft somehow knows my every need. I'll let you know on July 29th. That's when the automatic upgrade will occur. Auomatic upgrade! Oh, I wish I didn't have to wait so long.

Of course there was that upgrade of one of my laptops to Windows 7. That didn't work out so well because my very good friends at Dell decided not to bother upgrading the video drivers for that particular unit. So is every vendor in the world scrambling to prepare for Win Ten? We'll see.

Researching the goofy assasin

For my book, "Waiting to Run," (http://goo.gl/jloZ8w) I decided to bring in elements of the JFK assassination, since it featured one of the most botched investigations in history. Although fiction, my novel does carry some factual elements, which required a fair amount of research on my part. As I looked into the lives of the central characters involved in this real event, I was captivated by how they all were living subterranean lives before that dramatic event which brought them all into the spotlight.

The most interesting character was Lee Harvey Oswald. No surprise there. Researchers are still unclear what truly motivated him to shoot Kennedy, if in fact he actually did it at all, or did it while acting alone. In writing the book, I decided not to attempt to change history or add yet another conspiracy to the pile. If you Google "JFK Assassination Theory" hundreds of them come up, many of which are current, so new theories are constantly being thought up. My goal was to turn the event into a kind of paranormal, science fiction "mashup" that would be an entertaining read.

However, I did uncover some interesting elements about the key character in this monumental story, good 'ole Lee Harvey himself. There has been a lot published about LH's life: his Russian citizenship, carrying his rifle to work wrapped in brown paper and telling the person he rode in with each morning that it was a package of curtain rods, his total lack of a getaway plan (although Ruby probably was to play a part in that), the theft and replacement of his headstone, and the exhumation and sale of his original coffin. All these true elements are fascinating and each are worthy of their own posts, but the one thing I thought was a peek into the confused and conflicting mind of LH was the famous photo taken by his wife before the assassination. That shot has been exhaustively analyzed by various people claiming it was a fake, or it was authentic, or even that it proves that LH was an alien (he does lean way to his right in the rifle photo). LH is smiling at the camera while holding up his rifle and a newspaper. His pistol is holstered, but clearly there. It is claimed that the newspaper is Russian or at least some sort of Communist publication, but it really can't be read in the photo.

We don't exactly know what stimulated LH's desire to be photographed with his new rifle and pistol before killing people with them, but I think there is a general assumption that LH wanted to show his dark side to the world. However, did you know there were other shots taken in that backyard session? The most telling of these in my mind is LH holding not a weapon, but a banjo. Did we even know LH played banjo? Did we even know he owned one? And why a banjo? It's one of the least aggressive of all instruments. Some sort of death-metal, flying Vee guitar would have been more in character, except they weren't invented just yet.

What was LH's thought process here? What was his conversation with his poor beleaguered wife during this session? We can only imagine.

"Hey Marina! Get one of me holding my rifle in my left hand, and -- wait. Where's that Commie newspaper? Did you throw that out? Wait. I'll get in out of the garbage. It should still be there. Our trash pickup isn't scheduled for two more days. Okay. Back. Do I look menacing enough. Hey! Wait! I got a great idea. I'll be back in a second. Where's my banjo? Have you seen it? Where? Right where I left it? At the back of the hall closet? You're the best, Marina! I'll be right back. Just one more shot. Me holding my banjo..."

And so it went. The most overlooked and bazaar photo ever taken of LH. With his precious banjo. Why? It's one of the greatest mysteries of the entire event. We can only shake our collective heads and wonder. Wonder what in the world motivated that guy to do anything.

Writing Your First Novel – the Essentials

by W.H. Matlack, author of the novels: Noir Town, Waiting to Run, and The Memory Walker

Writer’s Drive

To successfully tackle something as daunting as a 60,000-word novel, you’ve really got to see yourself as a writer. You’ve got to have what I call, writer’s drive. It comes from the essential core of every writer – being a story teller. No more. No less. And believe me, that is enough because writing is just another way of telling a story.

Writers are just story tellers in love with the written word. Your desire to write probably comes from stories you’ve been telling your friends and families for years. Without even realizing it, you’ve been honing your writing craft. Perhaps your friends and family have been telling you to “write that stuff down.” They are absolutely right, but don’t just launch into a novel. You need to prep first.

Time

So you’ve finally retired, or you’ve gotten the kids off to school, and there are no sports practices scheduled for a few hours. Or something else has occurred to give you time to yourself. Time that gives you a couple of hours to launch into that novel you’ve wanted to write since college. Or maybe you’re still in college or in high school or even in junior high. More than likely you’ve had to make the time, which is fine. What counts is that no matter what you had to do, you’re looking at time to write, and that’s the first essential. You just need to manage your time into planned steps.

Short Stories

Every time you engage your family or friends with one of your tales, you’ve actually been honing your short story writing ability. Keeping people engaged during a party or family gathering from beginning to end really tasks a story teller. You’ve learned how to edit out what doesn’t work and how to embellish what does. You’re ready for the next step – writing down those short stories.

Now the cool thing about this is that when you write out one of your favorite stories, all you have to concentrate on is the writing process. You’ve already come up with the characters, the scene, the dialogue, the timing, everything involved in the story. You are free to concentrate on develop your writing style. You can explore different styles – humor, drama, and tragedy - virtually anything you want. You just need to find your writer self, and you won’t have to worry about plot development or character building. You’ve already done all that.

The trick is to keep them short as you experiment. 1500 to 2000 words is a good length. Avoid the temptation to go on and on. You want short, punchy, entertaining stories. The most important guideline – have a strong beginning, middle, and end, and make the end as dramatic as possible. And please, don’t forget to break things up into paragraphs. There’s nothing more annoying to a reader than looking at a solid block of type. Confused about how to use paragraphs? Pick up one of your favorite novels and analyze how the author uses paragraphs.

In fact, reading good novels is an important part of learning to write. Learn to read from a writer’s perspective. How does a successful author handle character development, scene transition, descriptions, etc? 

Getting Feedback

Like any exercise, writing takes practice and…the scariest of all…feedback from your readers. Whenever you give someone a story to read and make comments, you are suddenly out there. What you need – what we all need, actually – is a safe place to get feedback. What I recommend is signing up for a writing class through your local community college or adult school. You can expect the class to discuss a different aspect of writing for a while, and then everyone will get an assignment or two.

It’s a great way to exercise your imagination. Sometimes you’ll be given ten minutes to write a short piece on some theme or even a photograph. At the end of the period, everyone will read what they’ve written. That’s the safe part, because everyone will read and discuss, and these sessions are primarily positive. Plus it’s loads of fun seeing how many different approaches the other class members have with the same subject.

Branch out

When you feel it’s time to leave the safety of the class and get some reactions from readers instead of just writers, take your stories to an open mike at a local coffee shop. Nearly every neighborhood coffee shop worth its “beans” hosts an open mike – usually one night a month, and they welcome “spoken word” performers. That’s you!

If you have kept your stories to about 1500 words, you’ll be able to read them within the ten minutes allotted per performer. The best thing is you’ll get immediate feedback. Laughter, tears - the whole spectrum of emotions you have layered into your work. You’ll get both positive and negative feedback, but don’t be afraid of getting both. In each case, ask yourself what you could have done differently to enhance the laughter or suppress the negative. A lot of times someone will say that they didn’t understand something. That’s the best criticism of all, because it gives you a chance to clarify, and clarification is the best kind of editing. That and word reduction.

Editing

Editing is an ongoing process. It comes first when you finish a piece and then read it over carefully. You’re sure to find awkward phrasings, or words repeated too often. When we’re writing we are seldom aware of how many times we’ve used a word. When my first novel went through initial editing, I was shocked at how often I used the word, “little.” Every paragraph seemed to have that word in it.

The other goal of editing is word reduction. When we write we tend to throw in unnecessary words or phrases. All these extra words load down our narrative and make our stories seem labored. Writing is mostly like sculpting. You might need to take a “little” off there and add a “little” here. Editing makes for good prose, and every author out there, no matter how successful, gets edited. Look at the acknowledgement page in a book by your favorite writer. The chances are pretty good that you’ll see an editor thanked.

Fiction

Once you feel confident in your writing style and editing abilities, it’s time to turn to fiction. Now you’ll need to use your imagination as well as your writing style. You’ll need to construct “workable” worlds with everything in them, people, objects, mood, and everything else needed to further your plot. I think of myself as a stage manager for a play. All the props need to be established, and it has to be done without wearing down the reader with excessive descriptions. It’s a different kind of challenge, but a liberating one. Essentially you create everything your characters need. If they need to quickly exit a room, and there’s no door. You just create one!

Once it was pointed out to me that my character was in a room that exploded, but I needed him out of the hospital in two days. My friend said that with the kind of explosion I described, my character most likely would have died. No problem. I just wrote in – or created – a concrete pillar and heavy oak desk and put them between the character and the explosion. Problem solved.

Tackling the novel

Once you feel confident with your short fiction, it’s time to tackle the novel. What additional tools do you need? First of all, you need to be organized. Going back and forth in a small 60,000-word novel is no easy task. I don’t have any secrets for how to do it other than to make notes as you go. I always have a list of characters on my desk with their names and relationships with each other, and other things I need to keep in mind. A timeline is also a good idea just to keep track of where you are in the story development.

Key to the whole process is to understand your characters. A strong novel takes time developing its characters. Characters are really what a novel is all about. Think of them as little sculptures. Are they fully developed? Does their motivation further the plot? Motivation is most important in character development, but make sure they have enough character flaws. That’s what makes them interesting.

Outlining?

There seems to be two basic kinds of novelists. First are the outliners. They carefully outline each scene and plotline before beginning the process of writing prose. The second are what I call “rabbit holers.” I got that from a quote by Lewis Carroll who said, “I sent Alice down a rabbit hole with no idea of what she would find down there.” I don’t know for sure if Carroll actually said that, but it describes the class of novelists who bravely go where no one else has ventured. The plot, characters and every other aspect just comes to them as they write.

It’s absolutely thrilling when it happens. I call it a “writer’s high,” and it’s similar to a runner’s high. It’s what makes writing an art form. Of course there are writers who do a little of both.

Stuck?

Whenever I’m stuck in a story, I’ll put aside some time and work up an outline, which I never seem to use as I get back to it. It’s a good safety net, however. I have one friend who solves the “stuck” problem by writing the ending and then just gluing the two together. Another writer I know has her characters write letters to her. Both techniques work for them.

A word on poetry

Freeform poetry is by far the most accessible form of writing because there are no rules. There are plenty of other poetry styles that have lots of rules, some of them very complex. However, most beginning writers start with freeform. I recommend that as a good exercise for beginning writers. It’s a great form to build compelling imagery and mood, and it’s just a lot of fun to do. Carry a small journal with you, and write short poems about what you see on a day-to-day basis.

In fact, you may decide that poetry is what you want to pursue instead of writing long novels. Go ahead. You’ll be joining a great literary tradition, but just keep one thing in mind when it comes to marketing your work. There are far more people writing poetry than reading it, and the outlets for getting published are very few. It’s kind of like Jazz in the world of music – very few outlets, but very creative and well respected.

Enjoy it

Remember, even if you are never able to sell a novel or secure an agent, you are as much as writer as Hemmingway or any other. It’s the process that makes it an art form. Once a story is finished, it becomes a product, and you have to switch into a sales and promotion mode. No matter. It’s your story. You’ve created it for yourself, and if you’re happy with it, that’s really all that’s necessary.

Good writing to you!

Product placement? Give me a break!

I understand that television shows need sponsors to stay on the air. I don't have a problem with that. After all, I can mute the loud, stupid, and obnoxious commercials, which means pretty much all of them. Or I can record a show and fast forward through the commercials. I know both of these methods must cause all the "Mad Men" out there a lot of "creative" head scratching. They need to find a way to present their precious product to me, the cranky viewer, in such a way that I can't possible avoid the "important message."

In case you're not paying attention to the shows you love, it's called product placement. Mostly it's not too insidious, and I can live with it. If the main character takes a swig from a Coke can, and then carefully places it in full view of the camera so I can't avoid reading the label -- that's okay. It can even make the show more believable. After all, I drink Coke, too. However, one show has obviously offered their sponsor free reign in the context of their program, and that show is "Blackish," and that sponsor is "Buick." The fine folks down at your friendly Buick dealer walk all over Blackish with product placement like a kid with muddy boots walking over a freshly mopped kitchen floor.

Now, I like "Blackish." It's a light comedy that is fun to watch, but I recoil each time they shove the "new" Buick in the foreground. It starts with scenes that open in the phony little ad agency where the main character "works." Mostly he doesn't do any actual "work" other than discussing his home life with his coworkers. Before that scene develops, however, they pretend they have just come up with the best slogan for their client, "Buick." The new Buick. The one that looks nothing like all other Buicks that have ever come before. The Buick that even old ladies (Buick's former buyer demographic) can't recognize. "You're picking me up in a Buick?" they say all confused. "I don't see a Buick." Look carefully, grandma, the entire street is populated with Buicks and nothing but Buicks. Why? Because Buick is the new "cool" car not the sloppy, overly-chromed monstrosity that used to be expelled from the Detroit factory and could be seen weaving and lurching uncertainly down the street taking up most of two lanes. Not that Buick. That's old news, grandma, just like you are. No, don't cry, grandma. You can still be cool. In a Buick.

So in the first bit of PP (Product Placement) the camera pans slowly down from the whiteboard with the new Buick slogan  to pick up the characters and their conversation, which is not about Buicks. Although, the Buick logo and slogan are still displayed in the background.

This whole scene really bugs me because how could a little cheese ball ad agency like the one in this show ever get a major car manufacturer like Buick? Well, they couldn't. So it's all fantasy BS that goes so far beyond the context of the show that I miss the following scene thinking about how stupid it is.

We're not done with PP on Blackish. No. Every time one of the characters has to take a drive somewhere, they clearly mention (while looking straight at the camera) that they will be taking the "Buick" with dialog like, "Get in the Buick, grandma," or "Meet me by the Buick." And of course every car on the street is a Buick because "Buick is the new, hip choice in cars," or something.

So, my point is, you fine, well-meaning folks down at Buick, we are much more likely to purchase a garage full of Buick's if you leave out the obvious PP. No, that's not accurate. I should be completely honest here, I'm not buying a damn Buick no matter what  you do. There. I said it.

My Beef about Captain Kidd’s Treasure Map

Well, some treasure hunters have found what actually seems like Captain Kidd's treasure in his actual sunken ship off the coast of Madagascar. Good for them, but bad for all the many treasure hunters who have been searching for it for years.

A while ago, I wrote a humorous short story about an actual search for the Captain's treasure, and I thought I would post it here.

My Beef about Captain Kidd’s Treasure Map
A rant by W.H. Matlack
I’d like to find Captain Kidd’s treasure. Really I would. Having a couple million dollars, or I guess it would be gold doubloons, could really make my life as a writer much easier. Not that I have a hard life, mind you, in fact I have a very wonderful life. I get to stay at home and write. Whole books, even.

If I actually had a few million dollars’ worth of gold I wouldn’t move to a bigger house. I love my house. I wouldn’t buy a pack of big dogs to protect my fortune, either, because I love my cat, and he would object. I wouldn’t do much of anything different except pour the big pile of gold in the middle of my garage and then sit on it and gloat. Yes, I would keep the garage door down so none of my neighbors could see me.

So, how do you find Captain Kidd’s treasure? According to some very credible historians whom I saw on a National Geographic special the other night, the Captain had buried two treasures, one of which was found and the other of which is still missing. These guys knew what they were talking about. Once again they were on TV. You don’t get on TV if you don’t know what you are talking about. Well, sometimes you do. Actually, there are a lot of guys on TV who don’t know what they are talking about, but they mostly give relationship advice to desperate audience members or try to sell you stuff for your skin. But, anyway, these guys that I saw on a TV show that wasn’t giving relationship advice said the first thing to do is get an authentic treasure map.

This is actually the easy part. There are lots of authentic Captain Kidd treasure maps all over the Internet. Yes, I know they are all copies or reproductions of the actual map that was found in an old wooden box that CK used to own, but they’re just as good as the original. You can find the treasure following one of them because they are copies of the original one, which is probably in some museum somewhere, so you can check it out for yourself if you want.

I got one of these, and I’m not going to tell you how much I paid for it, but it was a reasonable amount considering that it leads to a big pile of gold. However, once my map came in the mail, I found I had two basic problems with it. First, it shows all these little routes I have to take. You know what I’m talking about. “Start at a rock. Go ten paces to a stump. Turn to the west and go two hundred paces to a sink hole, and on and on.”

What I’m saying is that all that walking, and the turning and the pacing, and the stumps, and the sink holes. Oy. It’s too much. Just put a little X on the spot and give me two, just two, coordinates – something like “forty degrees to that little clump of rock to the north and thirty degrees to that cave to the south that looks like a guy yawning if the light is right.” You can find any spot on earth with just two coordinates like that. Just make sure that whatever you are pointing to has some sort of a chance to still be there two or three hundred years from when you made the map. That rules out sand dunes, trees, wadded up pieces of paper, feathers from some bird. Things like that. Okay?

Alright, now for my second beef about the Captain’s little map. It’s his penmanship. Oh, I know, back in the seventeenth century we were all totally into writing with the fancy curlicues, the loops, the obsessive underlining, but hey. Nobody can read that stuff. We certainly can’t read anything the Captain wrote because it wasn’t enough for him to just be fancy. He had to be illegible. On all his authentic maps that you can find on the Internet, not on a single one can you read the name of the island or its longitude and latitude. They’re just little squiggles. Like the Captain went spastic for a second just when he was writing down the TWO MOST IMPORTANT PIECES OF INFORMATION.

What a jerk. So, we actually don’t know where the island is. The place where the Captain supposedly buried a bunch of gold. We only know it’s somewhere in the China Sea. That you can read on the map. It clearly says, “China Sea.” Now we’re getting somewhere. We only have to look in that one sea, and it’s one of the smaller seas.

So, some guy on the National Geographic special actually thought he had it figured out. The location of the island, that is. He found an island in the China Sea that looked just like the one our fearless Captain drew on the little scrap of paper which is the treasure map. Now bear in mind that the Captain’s drawing of the island makes it look a lot like a baked potato, so we don’t really know if the island looked like that at all. You know, given the Captain’s horrible penmanship.

So, anyway, this guy found an island in the China Sea that looked like a baked potato, and he decided to go there, follow all the little routes from stump to rock to…whatever. There was a big problem, though. Baked Potato Island was in Vietnamese territory, so the guy had to write the Vietnamese government for permission to visit the island and do a little digging. Well, it’ll probably come as no surprise to you that the government responded with a no. Specifically their note said something like, “No visiting, walking around or digging allowed on Baked Potato Island.”

This was not a guy who would take no for an answer, even from the very scary Vietnamese government. So, he got a little boat, recruited a gullible friend and went to Baked Potato Island anyway.
Okay, so now they’re on the forbidden island. They landed right around dark, took out their flashlights and had a good look at the map. They figured what with all the confusing routes the map was going to make them take that they should wait until morning, and there was the problem. If the map had just directed them to the spot without all the running around, they might have gone there, dug up the gold and been on their way before morning. As it turned out, they were awakened by very stern members of the Vietnamese army, who weren’t smiling and saying, “Welcome to Baked Potato Island. Would you like one of our visitor’s brochures?” Instead, the guys poked them in the ribs with the barrels of their nasty-looking submachine guns and took them to a jail somewhere on the island instead of to the gold. And they didn’t even get breakfast.

So the Vietnamese kept them for a long, long time, making them stay in little prison cells with bugs and stuff, gave them bad food and asked them the same questions every day. Evidently the Vietnamese officials had never heard of a Captain Kidd, didn’t believe that there was gold buried on Baked Potato Island and were convinced that these two were on some sort of mission with the CIA. It was hard convincing the Vietnamese that the two guys were not, in fact, with the CIA. The more they said they weren’t with the CIA, the more convinced the Vietnamese became that they were. With the CIA that is. The Vietnamese kept calling them “running dogs,” a “gang of two.” The two guys kind of understood the “gang of two” thing, but “running dogs?” What was that exactly? Anyway the questioning went on for years.

The good news for them was that before the trip, the guy’s companion had written a letter to his brother telling him where they were headed. Baked Potato Island in the China Sea. After a long time the brother figured out where Baked Potato Island actually was, and managed to get both of the guys released. They were scruffy looking, had long, bushy beards with lots of lice. No surprise that neither of them had plans to return to Baked Potato Island.

I’m sure as hell not planning to go there. I can assure you of that. Am I done with treasure hunting? Not completely. There’s a story going around that CK also buried gold somewhere on Long Island. And that’s in New York, a much more civilized place to look for treasure where people dig all the time without getting arrested. Unless you dig in someone’s private beach, but you could pretend to be “claming.” That happens all the time, and most “clamers” don’t get arrested. At least I don’t think they do. I don’t know for sure. Now, I just need to get me a good map.
###

Moving characters from point A to point B

So you've just finished writing an action sequence for your main character, and now you must move him/her to the next action spot in your story. Basically, you've got two choices. You can fade to black at point A and then bring up the lights at point B and continue with the action. There's nothing wrong with doing that, except you will have missed an opportunity to further develop your character and to make his/her surroundings a bigger part of the story.

Why not take the second choice, and follow your character as he/she moves through the town? That's exactly what some of the best mystery writers have elected to do. Take one of the best at making a city an actual character, Michael Connelly. During a recent interview, Connelly related how enchanted he was with a description by Raymond Chandler in his novel, The Little Sister. In that novel, Chapter 13 begins with the following statement, "I drove east on Sunset, but I didn't go home..." Following that opening, Chandler spends the next few paragraphs painting a scene of 1949 Los Angeles that includes "the half-lit world where always the wrong thing happens and never the right." According to Connelly, the description that follows is timeless, so timeless it could easily describe the LA of today. Connelly was so enamored with that description that he says he often refers back to it for inspiration.

Following your character through a city, small town, forest, desert, or any other local allows you to build up the character of that area itself. Your environment can become an actual character in the story, which, in turn, allows the opportunity for your character to react to it exactly as they react to the other characters in your story. After all, the whole reason for any of your characters to exist is for them to change as their story arc moves on. Don't pass up an opportunity to allow them to react to their surroundings as they move from point A to point B, and to all the other points in your novel.

The writer's covenant with the reader

One of the things new writers often forget to ask themselves is, "What is the genre of my story?" Essentially, when someone, including an agent, publisher or even someone you meet on the street, asks what your book is about, he or she is really asking about the genre. They want to know if your writing is something that will interest them. People tend to identify with genres. You'll hear them say, "Oh, I just love mysteries, but I never read SciFi." Or they will say, "I like some mystery books. What kind is yours?" That's because there are tons of sub-genres, each one distinctly different from the other. So the writer needs to understand the story's genre as early as possible in the writing process so he can work within the reader's expectations. That's what understanding genres is all about.

One could argue that writing to reader's expectations means writing to a specific formula. That's true in some cases, but not in all. Say your genre is Harlequin romance. Harlequin novelists are a very hardworking group bound by a strict sets of reader expectations. Their stories require sticking to a unyielding, formulaic set of reader (and publisher) expectations. Don't even think about killing off that muscular, handsome and daring man the heroine meets in chapter one. And don't give him a potbelly either. Make sure he is darkly tanned with a six pack of abs.

The readers expect the couple will have almost insurmountable differences but will resolve them all and set off together with billowing sales reflecting the golden sunset symbolizing their ever-lasting and uncomplicated love. It always happens. The readers expect it to happen, and that's why they buy scores of Harlequin novels at a time.

Of course any story can appeal to more than one genre, but that just means a little more research. Yes, research, because if you don't know who will actually be reading your work, you don't know what they will expect from you. And that's your covenant with the reader. So what does it all mean?

Well, let's say you are working in one of the more popular mystery genres. Take what's called "Cozy Mysteries." That's a real term, and its covenants mean you can have a mysterious murder (always a murder) that, for some reason, the police are not really very interested in solving. It's up to a concerned friend or relative to solve the case. And solving the case is really pretty much all the book is about. What are some of the restrictions of Cozy Mysteries?

Generally, the murder is relatively clean and straightforward: a knifing, suffocation, shooting. Nothing sadistic like you might find in a thriller. A bit of blood and always an overlooked clue of some sort. Cuss words are kept to an absolute minimum and the Lord's name is never taken in vain. The least suspected person committed the crime, and he or she are taken down with a minimum of fuss (after the protagonist experiences a scary danger or two).

This genre may be read at night before turning out the lights, and the reader will not have bad dreams from the book's images. Instead, the reader will experience a comfortable sense of satisfaction at a well-written book that did exactly what he or she expected it would do. Think Agatha Christie, not James Ellroy. A more different set of readers would be hard to imagine.

Ultimately, agents and publishers are the genre gate keepers. They're all about selling your work, and that means fitting it cleanly into one or more "hot" genres. Of course if you want total freedom, you can consider self-publishing, but even doing that will require you to draft a descriptor on Amazon that answers the question, "Just exactly what is your book about?"

How Dark Should a writer go?

How does a writer decide how dark to go with an antagonist? Some novels, like "The Collector," have us wallowing in sadistic, disturbed prose for page after page. Some say we are forced to become way too intimate with the sickness that runs through Clegg's, the protagonist, mind. 

Contrast that story with the category of novels called "Cozy Mysteries". They may not go far enough to create a true sense of suspense and mystery. There is always a murder and a body, but usually not much description of its condition, and the crime itself is usually solved via nice, civilized conversations. They're cozy. Read them in a dark room, and you'll be just fine. 

James Ellroy, on the other hand, spooks us to the core in his "My Dark Places." Just how far does a reader want to descend into the pool of evil? 

As for me...not so far that I might lose my way back.