March - The Unpredictable

"I've felt that dissatisfaction is the basis of progress. When we become satisfied in business, we become obsolete."

-- J. Willard Marriott Sr., hotel executive 

March 11, 1888 was the beginning of what would go down in history as "the Blizzard of '88." It began as light rain and turned into heavy snow in the northeast U.S., paralyzing major cities for days. More than 400 people died as a result of the storm.  

Makes people in the Northeast a bit leery I'm sure as that date approaches while there are storms threatening across the country. 

Here in Wisconsin we had a fine, fine snow all morning and it has now changed to light mist-like rain as our temperatures reached 33 degrees. The sky is a summer dark. Clouded, gray skies have that gloomy, storm nearby-look, with the kind of heavy lead-like looking clouds that signify something is on the horizon. 

Late tonight snow warnings are posted for us. We expect up to 8 inches of the heavy, wet, white to fall.  Winter refuses to believe what the ground hogs said about spring coming early this year.  We can't all be right all the time, can we?

You have to admit it's beautiful though isn't it? The picture is from friend and photographer Sherri Palm.

And weather can add something to your writing from angst - a feeling of claustrophobic isolation to the warmth of a roaring fireplace while the North Wind rages outside. Think about it...it plays part in my candlelight series...Death by Candlelight and Candlelight and Shadows.

Death By Candlelight     Candlelight and Shadows

**See the new covers - for print books the new covers will ship for electronic the old covers will be included with download. {author's note}

Forensics for the Mystery Buff (Writer or Reader) What, why, how and even where matter.

Forensics, the what, why, how, and sometimes where, encompasses many avenues of investigation, both for the writer and the professional charged with ferreting out the nitty-gritty of a death or a crime and it is crucial for a reader to understand why they should care.

It becomes a valuable tool for the mystery writer when his/her accidental or professional sleuth is showing a reader what happened. For instance: a victim’s blood—how does it look? Yes, I know red…but even that – bright red indicates new blood pumping from the heart—dark red filled with the detritus of cleaning the system and removing impurities, calories or what have you, but it’s also a sign of old blood in terms of when it was spilled. I’m not a pathologist or forensic genius but find the investigation process intriguing. What can we learn from a victim’s corpse, specifically related to the blood. 

Do you know how blood looks when it hits glass?  Could you tell at what angle it came from? The type of surface it hits makes as much difference as the pattern it creates. It is also possible to decide whether the perpetrator would possibly have been spattered by the victim’s blood by closely examining surround areas.

Spatter patterns, spatter type: was it impact spatter; beating, stabbings, gunshots, foreign object impacts the victim. Projection spatter; arterial bleeding, cast-off blood, and expirated, or exhaled blood. Combination spatters; impact and projection spatters, stab wound in the chest or neck = impact spatters. 

These patterns can actually, by shape and pattern of the drops within a blood spatter, reveal how the spatter was produced. 

Velocity of spatters tells the investigator even more. Low-velocity; object moving less than 5 feet per second. Mid velocity; objects moving between 5 and 100 feet per second. (Think of your favorite baseball pitcher how fast does his curve ball travel?) High velocity; object faster than 100 feet per second.  At high velocity the appearance of the blood spatter produces almost mist-like stains. 

A blunt object will show the blood spatter close to the victim because of the relatively slow speed of the force. A bullet on the other hand will definitely have a different, high velocity spatter. There will be a difference in the entrance (blowback) wound and the exit (forward spatter) wound pattern. 

Blood on glass, concrete, smooth painted wallboard, wherever the mystery writer has written the scene, evidence will leave telltale clues and a path for the writer to follow. 

Tess Gerritsen, Lisa Gardner’s detectives stories of mystery suspense sometimes go into a great deal of forensic detail as they investigate crimes in their novels. Patricia Cornwell’s  sleuth, Scarpetta, is a forensic pathologist. The word, Pathologist, suggests she digs for cause of death by examining the victim’s body.  Was it natural, accidental or murder?  She walks the read through what the body tells her. The reader will be very aware what a doctor can glean from the physical examination of one of his/her patients. Perhaps, not quite as much as the pathologist does, but certainly more than a casual observer of human anatomy does. While Cornwell doesn’t overload the reader with details, she adeptly weaves the information into the tale of discovery so that the reader can understand how she came to her conclusions.

Investigators can accurately reconstruct the crime scene from blood stains. Technology is such that even attempts to clean an area of blood stain evidence can be revealed via certain lighting devices.

An interesting case in point, the Sam Sheppard case. The bludgeoning death of his wife, blood evidence convicted him and years later blood evidence, supposedly, proved his innocence. If you are going to give your reader information, be sure you let them know the what, where, how and why of your conclusive evidence. You will have a happy reader or at least a satisfied reader who may, or may not, agree with your solution. F. Lee Bailey used his evidence in two different ways, so too, could you.

Forensic For Dummies by D.P. Lyle, MD answers a myriad of questions for the mystery writer. Blood related information is only one of them. There are many more books out there to deliver accurate forensic information for the writer and the internet has made finding them that much easier. Don’t trust your imagination get the facts straight from a reliable source. Your reader will follow you, because they know they can trust you to give them accurate details in your story.

Make your reading time absorbing. Pit your wits against the accidental sleuth, who may be in a job like yours. Subscribe to my free e-zine Mystery Readers and Working Writers, the free e-zine for mystery lovers. Get a free e-booklet “ A Nice Quiet Family” a very short/flash mystery http://www.billiewilliams.com

http://www.billiewilliams.com

Thoughts Are Things

Thoughts and Little Notes From Out There That Float on the Ether

“Apart from its vulnerability to fire, human hair is almost impossible to destroy. It decays at such a slow rate that it practically takes forever.”

“The polar bear has absolutely no fear of man—and will stalk people at every chance, even in the face of gunfire.”

            Writers are an information sponge. Facts, quotes, over-heard words, their ears and mind ever alert for that brilliant addition to their vocabulary, method, motive or anecdote to inject into just the right paragraph to mold their prose to fit the reader’s ear. The above tidbits come from as diverse sources as readers and writers are unique. They are from instant oatmeal packets, to books of notable quotes, to a tiny magazine called “Bits & Pieces” and motivation from internet marketing gurus.

Open up your mind’s eye and be ever alert for that gem that might change your thinking and your life. For, as Florence Shinn author of The Game of Life says, “The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.”

Thoughts drift like snowflakes accumulating in the nooks and crannies of our minds undisturbed until we need them. “Thoughts are things. Choose the good ones,” says Mike Dooley author of Notes From The Universe.

Printed Words and Musical Scores

Reading Margaret Atwood's Negotiating with the Dead, A Writer on Writing I've come across some amazing thoughts. She says the printed word and musical scores have many similarities. It's not the words on the page that make the tale remembered it's how the author played them...as a musician would play an instrument. They both find the song hidden in the notes or the story hidden in the words. So true.

Someone once said, and I paraphrase here,  it's not the musical notes played that make the tune, it's the spaces between those notes, the pauses, and my step father was quick to say it's not the printed word but what is written between the lines that we need to read.  The author crafts his tale the way he hears them in his head using words as his musical notes, his song in 3/4 time or 4/4 beat.

Elsewhere, Atwood, when speaking of duplicity as she claims all writers are - two different people, "Wanting to meet the author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pate." The person is not the author and vice versa. I tend to agree with that somewhat, my characters come from my mind but they are not necessarily about me personally. I didn't rob a bank to write about robbery, I didn't murder someone to write about murder...I didn't own an antique store as my current accidental sleuth does, or a cafe as the sleuth in another of my books does...I was never a rodeo clown or bronc rider, yet all of these are a part of the me on the page. Duplicity, a slippery eel, not even identical twins but more like Siamese twins I'm afraid. Joined together but not the same, nor do they necessarily think the same or look the same.

There is more to ponder on this, but I'm so enjoying Margaret Atwood, I wonder why I haven't found her before.

Christmas in July

Star* Publish Times – July 1, 2007

STAR* AUTHORS KICK OFF CHRISTMAS IN JULY

Billie A. Williams (script writer of A Christmas Dream) and Janet Elaine Smith (author of the original novel A Christmas Dream) will discuss the soon-to-be-released play on Monday, July 2, on Janet's program "Marketing for Fun and Profit." It can be heard at http://internetvoicesradio.com/ at 9:30 p.m. ET. "Marketing for Fun and Profit" is sponsored by Star* Publish LLC, and they strive to bring you a variety of interesting and cutting-edge issues every week.

The 3-act play is geared towards small-medium sized community theater groups, highschool/college drama clubs, dinner theaters and the like. The setting is quite simple, and the cast less than 20 people. The co-authors are already gearing up for a marketing campaign to hit community theaters as soon as the script is available. Their goal is to have it presented in at least one theater in each of the 50 states. Lofty? Perhaps, but as Susan Quincey (the heroine in the book) will tell you, "Miracles still happen, especially at Christmas time."
The book has been compared by many readers to Miracle on 34th Street. They already have one prepublished review, which can be seen

here. ( http://starpublishnews.tripod.com/id6.html )