Excerpt from Constable of Aqualinne—The Constable Comes to Town

Here’s a brief excerpt from Constable of Aqualinne—The Constable Comes to Town Chapter 3: Fae

Constable Aubrey Hartmann is NOT an evil cloud.
But she's seen one in the sky!

Lights and Madness:

The vibration and sound of the cart’s wheels changed suddenly.  Aubrey looked down and saw that the road had changed from dirt to cobbled.  Broad, thick slabs of stone had been carefully placed to provide a wide, if not wholly smooth road straight into the town’s center, which she could now see, although it was still some distance off.  The town of Sankt Andra was small, but laid out as if it had been planned carefully.  The streets were broad, all lined with stone, and the houses and shops were placed close enough to provide safety and security, but far enough that they didn’t feel cramped.

“Constable!  Constable!” a voice cried, high-pitched and excited.

Aubrey saw a young man in brown and white robes running toward them along one of the lanes.  There weren’t a lot of people moving through the town, as most would be in the fields at this time of day.  But there were enough that the figure had to dodge around them, to make the straight line toward the cart.  He arrived a few moments later, out of breath and quite excited.  Steben pulled the reins to stop the horse, and set the dog cart’s wheel brake.

“That’s . . . damn, I forget his name,” Sterben began, his face crinkled in thought.  “The younger apprentice.”

“He had two apprentices?”

“Yes . . . Leonie!” Sterben said, remembering the name and calling out to the young man at the same time.  “What’s going on here?”

The boy in the robes struggled to catch his breath.  A bright sheen of sweat was across his forehead.  She must have seen them coming into the village proper and run out to meet them.

“Constable . . . Sterben,” he panted.  “Druwis . . . Lorenz.”

“Take a breath, Leonie,” Sterben said with practices patience.

“The Druwis,” he managed.  “Druwis Lorenz.  He’s gone mad!”

“Mad?” Sterben said, his voice serious and commanding.  Aubrey was impressed.  “What’s all this about?  What do you mean?”

“He’s in the town center,” Leonie said, his voice frantic with worry.  “He’s torn his clothes, pulled his hair and he’s ranting, screaming that Malusilva will return.  He’s saying that Sankt Andra is doomed now.”

The apprentice gestured with both his hands toward the center of town where Aubrey could see that a small crowd had started to form.  She couldn’t make out anything for certain, but there was certainly someone yelling loudly and at length.

“Please, help!” Leonie said, his voice breaking with the effort of his plea.  Without waiting, he dashed back the way he’d come.

John Wick—Wickedly Good

Reviewing movies isn’t really my thing anymore.  Watching movies, that’s always been my thing. 

It's good.  Whoa!

There was a time, before we got all “globalized” and “internetz’d” that I had a firm handle on movies in general.  Throw out a quote, and I had a 99.44% chance of knowing it or guessing it.

Glory days—amiright?

I still enjoy movies, but most are so homogenized with generic “fun” and engineered “excitement” that it’s more of a ho-hum kind of event for me.  More of a habit than anything else.

There are, though, still films that come along which can wow me.  Not just wow but WOW.  The kind of film that makes my fingers itch to put in two or even three exclamation points after that configuration of three letters.

WOW!!!

This isn’t because the film is particularly good, or especially clever, or layered in witty, snappy dialogue.  It’s generally not going to be an Academy Award nominee.  It’s a film that reaches out its noodly appendage and touches some visceral part of my otherwise shallow and jaded soul.

Get ready to root for the bad guy!

But as John's tattoo says: Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat.

Fortune favors the bold.

Last night I caught John Wick.  I’d heard, even with Keanu Reeves starring, the film was good.  I just didn’t know how good.  The premise is straight up noir/revenge in the fine tradition of Mel Gibson’s Payback.  These films don’t so much need a reason for revenge as they need a place for it to happen—locations where our anti-hero protagonist can vent frustration and bullets in equal measure.

But John Wick (and Payback for that matter) are more than just shoot-em-ups.  I’ve seen plenty of those and very few stick out.  There are two key elements that really got to me in this film.  First, there’s a whole implausible-but-seemingly-possible Other World where shady, shifty, bad-ass assassins and killers move and communicate and have a kind of code.  Big stars in minor roles help convey this sense of realism in an unrealistic world—Michael Nyqvist, Willem DaFoe, John Leguizamo, Adrianne Palicki, Ian McShane, Lance Reddick and more.  Much more.

There isn’t a character in the film that I didn’t enjoy, no matter what side they were on.

Second, and somewhat key for me, is the mortality that our immortal protagonist shows throughout.  Wick is a bad, bad man.  So bad that he’s earned the Russian moniker “Baba Yaga”, traditionally a witch, sometimes used as a boogeyman to scare children into bed.  Yeah, Wick is that bad.  He’s the kind of guy that, if you know his name, you really wish you didn’t.  But once his road is set and we know it’s going to be bloody, it’s bloody for everyone including Wick.  He doesn’t just end up with some minor flesh wounds.  The dude is beat to hell and back.

And that’s how it should be.

What is a Beta Team?

Beta Team – (noun), named after the second letter in the Greek alphabet, and stolen from software testing lingo, a beta team is used by writers similarly to the way software designers will enlist aid to test and locate issues/bugs.  Beta teams tend to volunteer or be blackmailed into reading, although some charge (and should probably be avoided).

Why yes, that's my Beta Team.  Why?

Find two or three people that you trust to give you an unvarnished, unwashed, uninhibited opinion of your book.  This is the key.  They must be willing to tell you the truth, the whole truth and the brutal, soul-crushing, heart-breaking truth about your work.  If it works for you, you can provide the manuscript chapter by chapter, although this will have a more involved impact on your writing process. Make certain you get a solid commitment from those you select to read each chapter and provide you with their opinion of the writing, characters, plot, etc.  Commit to them that you will accept all feedback with as open a mind as possible, and understanding that the Beta team is trying to make the work better, not beat you into the ground.

Your family/friends tend to be very positive—too positive. They tend to overlook the mistakes and issues in your work because they either love you, or they don’t want Thanksgiving to be even more awkward.  In general, they won't tell you that something didn't work for them, or that it was plain bad. They love you, so they want to support you. My beta team is brutal. If they don't like something, they drop it on me like a ton of bricks. I appreciate it (although not the concussion), because I want to tell a good story well—not be told I'm a good writer.

I said, your characters are TOO cliche!

Limit your team to begin. I have two primary beta readers. They're my core. They like it, I keep moving forward. They are a wonderful part of my writing process. Once the manuscript is done, then a second level of readers.

Find individuals whose opinion you trust, and who are willing to put in the time. It is a lot of time.  A lot.  Too often I hear about a writer who passed a whole manuscript to a beta reader and got nothing back—ever. You need the hard opinion and you need the firm commitment. A friend who is an avid reader or writer is a good choice. But speak directly to them, tell them what you want, when you want it, and see if they're willing to participate in your process.

Forums are no good as a faux Beta team. Too many people—too many cooks in the kitchen. All those opinions and styles are going to come out, and it will seem that you’ve done nothing right.  They’ll also, in the most friendly way, rewrite everything, and offer eighteen new directions for your story to go. It's going to feel overly negative, like you’re no good as a writer or even a human being, even though everyone is trying to help.

My team consists of another writer, but from a different genre (political/memoir) and an avid reader. I also have a secondary team of reviewers who read the entire book and provide input, but they have less influence on the writing process.

Then that's it. I don't go further in reviewing and you shouldn’t either.  You can over-engineer a book to the point that it becomes bland and meaningless.  Two layers of review are plenty.  When you’ve sold the book, your publisher or agent will provide their own review. Start shopping the manuscript out, and start writing the next book.

Starting a New Chapter?

A colleague asked if chapters were necessary, or if they were simply a holdover from the days of yore

Ancient Chinese eReader

when there was no such thing as “books” printed on paper and bound together.  Rather, ancient authors would write on a collection of scrolls, or inscribe bound bamboo strips.  These would usually be on a primary topic, and then stored together as a “book”.  There was no standard scroll or bamboo strip length, but you can imagine it was dictated by the practicality of handling, writing and reading, so often “books” were divided into smaller “chapters” for the sake of the writer’s cramped fingers and reader’s back.

Like any rule in writing, so long as you understand the reasoning behind it, you’re welcome to break it to suit the needs of the book, and ultimately the enjoyment of your reader.  Chapters do serve a purpose, but depending on the book you’re writing, and the needs of the plot, and how clever you are (or want to appear), they aren’t required to be successful.

So what do chapters do?  Several things, actually.  Possibly the most important thing they do is give the writer a place to stop and have a strong drink.

Correctly applied, chapters provide a logical conclusion to a smaller arc within the larger arc of the book.  In a mystery, for example, some information is gathered that is necessary to the solution.  A clue is revealed, a suspect is captured, a witness is questioned, etc.  Additional questions or layers of complexity can certainly be added to the stack, but a chapter moves the plot forward, building on the previous information, and setting up the following sections.  Most chapters, in most books, follow a logical and predictable pattern.

Bro, do you even English?

Chapters also help divide books into consumable chunks.  While it would be nice and lovely to read a book from cover to cover in a single sitting, most readers don’t have the time, inclination or stamina to actually do this.  Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Close your HateMail app.  I said “most”!  Intrusions of life, like work, kids, eating, kids, sleeping, kids and the latest “Game of Thrones” episode force many (again “many”) readers to insert their favorite book mark or turn off the power on their e-reader.  A chapter, and chapter breaks (those time/space/point of view shifts within a chapter) give a reader a place to logically pause and return later without being overly confused by where they stopped reading.

Finally, chapters can be fun and clever (or appear so).  Stephen King numbered the chapters in The Running Man backwards.  Marilynne Robinson often doesn’t use chapters, as is the case in Home and Gilead.  Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events books all have 13 chapters (except the last book which has 14, but the additional chapter is like a mini-book).  I understand there is even a young, handsome and debonaire author who used the chapter titles from Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species for his award-winning urban fantasy novel, and then used The Art of War to title his follow-up novel.

The upshot is that now you know what purpose chapters serve, so you can choose to go with the flow, rearrange, or ignore the convention of chapters altogether.  Go forth.  Write.  Enjoy!