A Word Please

Ever wonder what happens if you’re assaulted on a cruise ship? Or if you’re mugged while on vacation somewhere in the Caribbean? Who handles the investigations and what are their policies? Author John Lindermuth recently had to deal with these dilemmas. No, fortunately John was not mugged or attacked while on vacation. But at least one of his characters apparently was. And John had to get his facts straight.

John is here to share some of the things he learned. But, first, meet the man behind the words: (He’s a shy guy, so I improvised a little.)

The author of 11 novels, including five in his Sticks Hetrick mystery series, J. R. Lindermuth is a retired newspaper editor. He lives in Pennsylvania and currently serves as librarian of his county historical society where he assists patrons with genealogy and research. His short stories and articles appear regularly in a variety of magazines. When not writing, he enjoys spending time with his two children and four grandsons.

Website: http://jrlindermuth.com
Blog: http://jrlindermuth.blogspot.com
FB: www.facebook.com/pages/John-Lindermuth/175253187537
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jrlindermuth or @jrlindermuth

Here’s a look at John’s new release:

Trouble follows Sticks Hetrick when he and Anita Bailey, the new woman in his life, go on a Caribbean cruise. Though he has no jurisdiction, Hetrick assists a Jamaican police inspector investigate two murders which have roots back home in Pennsylvania.

Meanwhile, Officer Flora Vastine, Hetrick’s protégé and the team in Swatara Creek, are probing mysterious assaults on young women which will put Flora’s life in jeopardy.

Both Hetrick and Flora will learn the past has consequences which can’t be denied.

Now I’m happy to turn the microphone over to John:

Though they realize a story is fiction, most readers demand a semblance of truth. They want what they’re reading to seem realistic. Should they note something they know to be false, the writer is certain to hear about it.

Writers resolve this problem through research—either through experience (the best kind) or by other means.

Since the previous four novels in my Sticks Hetrick mystery series were set in a town of my creation I was free to lay out the streets, describe the homes and other structures and develop businesses as I saw fit. Occasionally my characters cross the Susquehanna River to visit Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s state capitol. Since I’m reasonably familiar with the environs of the city, that hasn’t proven a problem either.

Practice To Deceive, fifth in the series, involves crimes at sea and murder on foreign soil. Getting those elements right required research. Some people hate research. Personally, I love it. I owe it largely to a strong streak of curiosity about what makes people and things tick. It became second nature through my background in journalism and later as a genealogist. The only problem with this is it often leads me astray and into tangents away from my initial goal. But that’s another story.

I’ve cruised and I’ve visited Jamaica. That gave me personal experience and a leg up in describing those aspects accurately. Like most of us, though, I had no idea how a crime aboard ship or on Jamaica would be investigated. The best way to find the answer to any question is to ask people who’ve confronted the issue.

Cruise ship officials, understandably, are reluctant to discuss certain aspects of their security efforts. I was able to get answers from some personnel and the Internet and other sources filled in the blanks.

The cruise ship lines have security personnel on board, though the size of the staff may vary with the type of vessel and destination. Military background predominates among personnel, while some may have previous law enforcement experience. The focus is on assuring a safe environment for both passengers and crew. Security cameras play an important role and, in addition to uniformed officers, plain clothes personnel are also used on many lines.

The governing law at sea is the International Maritime Law. The FBI is the only U.S. law enforcement agency empowered to investigate major crime, but only if it occurs in international waters. The FBI decides whether an agent is dispatched to the ship or waits until the return to a U.S. port. Otherwise crimes are reported to the jurisdiction of the nearest port of call and the embassies of the victims.

Law enforcement on Jamaica is the responsibility of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, which has the motto “To serve, to protect and to reassure.” Officers receive basic training at a police academy in St. Catherine after which they undergo two-years of on-the-job probationary training at assigned police stations or courts. Though crime remains a serious problem and there have been incidents of both excessive violence and corruption involving police, things seem to be improving under the administration of the new commissioner, Owen Ellington. In fact, statistics show a continuing decline in both violent and property crimes on the island since 2009.

I visited Jamaica way back in the late nineties. The island is gorgeous, but the poverty was heartbreaking and the crime terrifying. Good to know things are getting better there.

Thanks for reading.

Most writers sprinkle pieces of themselves throughout their work. Often, during the writing process, we aren’t aware of it. The bits we leave, a kind of bread trail, are unintentional and unavoidable.

The best fiction allows me to lose the line between the author and the story. They’re tangled together, inseparable. Does the author love cheese fondue or is it just the character? Has the author been skydiving and felt that rush of adrenaline, ran a marathon, rescued feral cats? Does the author hate oatmeal, love cherry pie?

A well-written book will often make the author and the narrator feel like one and the same. Authors need to be aware of this, because it can sometimes backfire.

I recently read a book I won’t name because I hated everything about it. This book was filled with the most unlikeable characters I’ve ever come across. The pages overflowed with vitriol. The characters spewed bigoted statements at every turn, as if their insight into their city and its people was fact rather than opinion. All the characters shared these intolerant, prejudice views. Because of this, the characters and the author easily became tangled in my mind. I not only disliked the book, I disliked the author.

I don’t know whether the author shared his characters’ opinions, though I find it unlikely that he’d be able to – or want to – give every character this same mindset if he did not agree. Had the author given only one character this trait, preferably not the narrator, he and his characters would not have fused together as they did.

Books like this make me wonder how much of myself I spill onto my own pages. Hopefully, I don’t leave readers spitting nails, as I was while reading the unnamed book. For those who have read my books and wondered if it’s me or the character, I thought I’d share a couple secrets today.

Some of my readers know I have late-stage Lyme disease, with neurological complications. A few of the symptoms I contend with show up in two of my characters.

Corinne, from Hit List, suddenly lost her mind. She can’t hold onto a thought, is easily distracted, and has forgotten much of her past.

Corinne sucked in her bottom lip. The wallpaper behind Dr. Endicott’s head had little pastel flowers scattered about. She’d had flowers in her garden once. Now just weeds grew there. She’d been telling Ian that they needed to pull out those weeds and buy new plants. Hadn’t she told him that?

My symptoms are nowhere near as extensive as Corinne’s. I’m not quite that crazy – yet.

Corinne shuddered. An image flickered like a dying light bulb in the recess of her mind. Too elusive to grasp. Too intrusive to ignore. Words attached to strange voices skittered just out of reach.

Corinne’s character came to me easily. My own frustration with my brain’s malfunctions showed up in her character. This caught me by surprise and was completely unintentional. Corinne popped into my head one day with a story and, somewhere along the way, the two of us intertwined. This is not to say that she and I are the same. Her life and personality is absolutely not autobiographical in any way. But bits of me are sprinkled in there.

The other character with flashes of my Lyme symptoms is Nicki from No Justice: A Michael Sykora Novel and Beyond Salvation: A Michael Sykora Novel. When Nicki talks to Michael, she often jumps from one topic to another so fast that Michael has a hard time keeping up.

Michael had gone to Sal’s and rented a Toyota Camry for the night. He didn’t plan on doing anything illegal but he also figured that it wasn’t wise to be driving around Dover Street in a flashy Porsche.

“Pick a topic and stick to it for five minutes. You’re making me dizzy.”

This, I will confess, is a trait I intentionally gave Nicki. I do this exact thing to my husband all the time. I can be midsentence and suddenly shift to something else. Sometimes I do it because my brain loses the original thought. Other times I’m not even aware I’ve done it. Nicki, of course, isn’t dealing with Lyme brain. But she is a high energy character, whose mind works quickly. A more coherent version of my flightiness became a good fit for her character.

And now you know. Bit and pieces of me are scattered throughout my books. Pick them all out, fit them together, and I’ll be fully exposed.

A man and woman have just spent their first night together. They wake up in each other’s arms and share a passionate kiss. You know what I think when I read a scene like that? Ick! I don’t get sucked into the passion. I don’t think it’s sweet or romantic. I think, morning breath!

Okay, I know it’s fiction, but the same rules apply. Unless you’re reading fantasy, where all the Elfkin ‘people’ never have bad breath. Or science fiction, where the characters live on planet Colgate and merely breathing the air continually freshens their breath. In those instances, I could take the leap and ignore the morning breath factor. Otherwise, if I’m reading a story taking place in the world as I know it, I’m always going to think, Ick, morning breath!

I have a similar reaction when I watch a movie and the woman wakes up in the morning with her make-up intact. Even her lipstick is perfect! The scene instantly snaps me back to the reality of smeared mascara and pale lips. I know – it’s fiction, it’s a movie, she’s an actress. But I don’t want to be reminded of that. I want to get lost in the story, in the moment. I want to go with the characters to wherever they lead me. I want to believe in them. And scenes like this, in books and in movies, remind me that it’s all pretend.

Many people argue that fiction is an escape. And it is – to a point. I’m intentionally stepping out of my world, leaving behind my dirty laundry, bills and PMS, so that I can travel somewhere else, see through another person’s eyes. But escaping my reality does not mean escaping reality altogether. If what I’m reading is taking place on planet earth, in the world as I know it, I expect certain things to remain true. Most people have to work for a living. People need to eat to survive. And people wake up with bad breath and smeared make-up.

I hope that my characters, and the things they do, feel real to readers. I have no doubt that I’m guilty of breaking a rule here and there. We all have that trigger, the one thing that makes us shake our heads and say, “Only in fiction.” Apparently, mine is morning breath.

I will reveal the secrets behind these doors. ~ Zahi Hawass

I love music and relate to song lyrics. My dogs are spoiled brats. And I’m a vegetarian surrounded by unapologetic carnivores. Anyone who has read my books could easily discover these things about me. The information is not announced on the book cover in a longwinded bio. Nothing that blatant occurs. These things are woven into my characters’ personalities. Their likes and dislikes are sometimes, but not always, my own.

Is it possible to tell which secrets an author is revealing about him-/herself and which traits belong solely to the characters? Most authors give away a lot about themselves within the pages of a novel without ever meaning to. The habits and hobbies we give to the characters we like say as much as those we give to the characters we don’t like – or those characters we don’t want readers to like.

A writer should have this little voice inside of you saying, Tell the truth. Reveal a few secrets here. ~ Quentin Tarantino

What about the things not said within each novel’s pages? Do the topics not touched upon, the hobbies and behaviors not handed out, say anything about the writer’s personality?

I can’t read about animal abuse. If a dog gets beaten or shot in a novel, I have to skip over those pages. I frequently read gruesome murder scenes. I can write a torture scene without being disturbed. In fact, writing those scenes helps me work out my cranky moods. But I couldn’t write a scene in which a dog is killed. Can’t do it. Won’t even consider it.

That absence is not something most readers would think about. You don’t read a few of any one author’s books, then think, “Hey, this author has never killed a dog!” Yet, what you don’t read can be as meaningful as what you do read.

What does it say about me that I can happily write a scene in which a man slowly bleeds out but I can’t write a scene in which a dog is killed quickly? We’d need a team of psychologists and a lifetime to dig out the answer for that one. But there you have it. My secret is out.

Do you write? If so, are you conscious of the secrets you’re revealing?

When you read, do you assume it’s all complete fiction? Or do you wonder if one character’s tendency to sort all his shirts by color is something the author also does?

I’m always fascinated by character traits and authors’ choices. I wonder what secrets are being revealed within all that fiction. Possibly none, probably a few, maybe many. As readers, we will likely never completely sort the author from his/her characters. But that doesn’t stop me from trying.

Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own. ~William Hazlitt

A man and woman have just spent their first night together. They wake up in each other’s arms and share a passionate kiss. You know what I think when I read a scene like that? Ick! I don’t get sucked into the passion. I don’t think it’s sweet or romantic. I think, morning breath!

Okay, I know it’s fiction, but the same rules apply. Unless you’re reading fantasy, where all the Elfkin ‘people’ never have bad breath. Or science fiction, where the characters live on planet Colgate and merely breathing the air continually freshens their breath. In those instances, I could take the leap and ignore the morning breath factor. Otherwise, if I’m reading a story taking place in the world as I know it, I’m always going to think, ick, morning breath!

I have a similar reaction when I watch a movie and the woman wakes up in the morning with her make-up intact. Even her lipstick is perfect! The scene instantly snaps me back to the reality of smeared mascara and pale lips. I know – it’s fiction, it’s a movie, she’s an actress. But I don’t want to be reminded of that. I want to get lost in the story, in the moment. I want to go with the characters to wherever they lead me. I want to believe in them. And scenes like this, in books and in movies, remind me that it’s all pretend.

Many people argue that fiction is an escape. And it is – to a point. I’m intentionally stepping out of my world, leaving behind my dirty laundry, bills and PMS, so that I can travel somewhere else, see through another person’s eyes. But escaping my reality does not mean escaping reality altogether. If what I’m reading is taking place on planet earth, in the world as I know it, I expect certain things to remain true. Most people have to work for a living. People need to eat to survive. And people wake up with bad breath and smeared make-up.

I hope that my characters, and the things they do, feel real to readers. I have no doubt that I’m guilty of breaking a rule here and there. We all have that trigger, the one thing that makes us shake our heads and say, “Only in fiction.” Apparently, mine is morning breath.