MJ Magazine August 2017: Created By Authors for Authors

By Fran Lewis

The tenth issue of MJ Magazine includes Featured Authors William McCauley, Sandra Brown, E.Z. Risky and Kathy Reichs; Writing tips, and Author Interviews featuring Linda Fairstein and Walter Mosley. Readers will also enjoy regular sections like Writing Tips, Book Reviews, Fran’s Picks and a featured Short Story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fran Lewis
• Release date: Aug 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370707126

Fran Lewis

Fran Lewis: Fran worked in the NYC Public Schools as the Reading and Writing Staff Developer for over 36 years. She has three masters degrees and a PD in Supervision and Administration. Currently, she is a member of Who's Who of America's Teachers and Who's Who of America's Executives from Cambridge. In addition, she is the author of three children's books and a fourth that has just been published on Alzheimer's disease in order to honor her mom and help create more awareness for a cure. The title of my new Alzheimer’s book is Memories are Precious: Alzheimer’s Journey; Ruth’s storyShe was the musical director for shows in her school and ran the school's newspaper. Fran writes reviews for authors upon request and for several other sites. You can read some of my reviews on Ezine.com and on ijustfinished.com under the name Gabina. I am a member of Whos Who of Americas Teachers and Whos Who of America’s Executives and Professionals on Cambridge. I review books for authors upon request. My goal is to get my books published by a traditional publisher and on the shelves of every school library, hospital and bookstore. I host two radio shows on Blog Talk Radio. Book Discussion with Fran Lewis is on Blog Talk every third Wednesday of the month from three to five eastern. My children’s author’s show is four times a year. I host online book blogs and book tours for authors and I review books for authors throughout the world. I have published six books the last Because We Care in memory of my sister Marcia. The proceeds going to find the cause and cure for Alzheimer’s.

Book preview

Memories of Marcia

Every time I write a review, it reminds me of when Marcia dared me to write a review of a cookbook. Of course, since I don’t know one end of a stove from the other, it was a challenge. However, I am brave, bold, and definitely would not allow her to win the dare, especially since she wasn’t sure I could write it.

Stir, Laugh, and Repeat by Martha Cheves set me on the road to becoming a great reviewer. My review was hilarious and the author spread it over many social media networks and started my reviewing career.

But, my sister was not satisfied yet. I had retired from teaching to care for my mom when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I had some time on my hands, so she thought I should write a book.

To get even with her for prodding me along, I wrote My Name is Bertha. It’s about Bertha and Tillie, two sisters growing up in the South Bronx. Even after I did this, she was not done.

I was asked to be on a radio show and read a chapter from this book. This made Marcia happy, because she had coached me on how to do it. She had me read the chapter over the phone and told me where to change my voice, speak slower, and so forth.

So, I guess she won that round. Who knows what else she would have convinced me to do if she had lived?

MJ Magazine and MJ Network on Blog Talk Radio were both created in her memory.

POEMS BY LAWRENCE RASCOE

Keep Out

Fortresses were built to keep out the sad and the deprived…

as well as the hopeful and the joy.

Self

To self.

Self motivation is the only motivation that lasts.

The wars are normally tough fought.

Don’t let them take u to task.

The only moments that matter, are the moments that u are alone in thought.

Self

To My Readers

Remain confident ... Remind yourselves of the hardships. What brought u here. Falling in and out of love is granted to those who can handle indifference. I promise you, focus is not what u see, but what you don't expect. It takes more than taking one day at a time ... At a time like this, it takes moments like this ... where the mood can change with the right drink ... and the wrong people to share good experiences with. Consider what others can provide. Love is a behavior… Love is heaven and hell. The beauty of a woman can be a distraction instead of a life's satisfaction. I can picture her with pens and pencils ... Paint it in all dark shades with a pair of dark shades, and watch the colorful explanation. No reasons needed. No learning curve needed. No podium needed. No microphone or courage needed. To my readers, only you'll understand what u are noticing, no one else ... Don't expect progress. Expect loneliness. I promise u, u will feel comfort.

To my readers

"The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position."

― Leo Buscaglia

Ubiquitous

When I'm alone...

Dark, closed, allusive, battered, common, electric, passionate, and depressed, I reflect on your body here, there... Walking through subway cars, you're playing the guitar... In the park, you're defiant, present, blanket full of summer desserts. Alone near the river, your face appears amongst the green of the trees. It's hard to escape u. The only theory left is to come near u…

Good behavior

I can see secrets ... I feel my shoulders losing spirit. The last moment I want to conquer is solution. The last time the first idea was good, bad temperament divided into blisters on my feet. Air so soft, babies are born in the sky. I ducked down to the crowd of poker faces. My shades are dark, the space is fluffy, the willows are crows eating flowers for the dead. Outta my control, but I'm designed to lower my hopes of better position in distance. 

No End in Sight

No N after the E...

No eyes within the syllable... (Alphabet)

Closed blinds after the sunset...

No ends after a long day...

The ins and the outs are fragile...

I see u near... The letter I is breakable...

Adapt to the very end...

Even if there is no N in sight.

POEMS BY CHRISTOPHER HART

Cruise Control

Late night rides

Cruise control

See in my eyes 

The lack of control

See the pain

Coated with mistakes

Purposeless acts made on purpose 

Then questions surface

Like a successful murder

From lane to lane

You replay scenarios in your head

Windows down

Let the anxiety out

The street lights 

Have all been green for sometime now

As if they wanted you home too

They forgave you

So did your driveway 

pulled in just like you pulled out

Empty

Full of regret

Until you forget

And do it all over again

Kept Quiet

It's surreal how we ended up in this dimension 

On this planet

As this species

Of all the possibilities 

I still made your heart drop

And right after the floor contact

I neglected the shattered pieces 

Shoved them under the rug of love

Closed my eyes

And whistled a tune

You fell and I did not catch you

I should have told you how I felt

But I bit my tongue

Hard enough

To taste that metal flavored red stuff

Black

Black

Beautiful

Black and Beautiful

Until black

Is with Blue

Until Black and blue

Bruised

Until red

Has bled

And Has signified death

Author Daniel Palmer’s Writing Tips

1. Choosing Your What If?

Preparation for every one of my books begins with a simple, one sentence (two at the absolute most), What if question. For example, creating The Patient began with the question: What if the most ruthless terrorist in the world had a brain tumor and needed surgery? For Extreme Measures, the question was: What if there was a drug (like the one described in Wade Davis’s wonderful book, The Serpent and the Rainbow) that can make you look dead to a trained physician even though you aren’t? For The Sisterhood, I asked: What if there was a secret society of nurses dedicated to mercy killing? The What if? is the absolute beginning of each of my books. I work hard at crafting it, and then submit it to my agent or editor for scrutiny. The reward for that initial meticulousness is that I get to start on the long and harrowing road to a four-hundred-page novel with clarity. I also have a brisk, tight way of describing my book to the publisher, an interviewer, or anyone else who asks.

2. Choosing a Protagonist

Once I have the What if? straight, the next question to be answered is: Whose book is it? Does the idea lend itself particularly to a male lead or female? If not, then what gender protagonist do I feel like writing about? What age and background? And most importantly, what is this main character going to have at stake in the story?

The main elements of a good thriller are fairly consistent:

1) There is something that has been going on before the story starts.

2) The protagonist has been dealing with issues of her own before the story starts.

3) The protagonist encounters the story because of who she is and what she does, setting a series of events in motion.

It is crucial that she does not seek out the story (unless she is a private eye hired to investigate). The rest of the moves are inexorable. To survive, the protagonist must do the story. In so doing, she is changed in some fundamental way. Two of the very best examples of this sort of writing are Marathon Man, and Six Days of the Condor. Writing books as engaging and exciting as those two is always my goal. Incidentally, I write a detailed two to three page summary of the main characters’ lives — upbringing, family, habits, likes, dislikes, living situation, job history, education, and personality traits. Often I will make such a sketch of several lesser characters as well, though not in such detail.

3. Writing a Proposal

Writing a proposal is perhaps more important for published authors trying to get another book going than it is for those just trying to get into the business. However, I think any step that improves clarity of thought in a writer is worth taking. The book proposal is not long, but may be up to three or even more pages. There are no rules. For me, this is the step between the What If? and the outline.

Before embarking on an outline, I will often have as many as five or six proposals rejected by my agent for one reason or another.

This is the story of…, is the place I usually begin. The proposal gives me the chance to focus my thoughts on exactly who this book is going to be about and why they are at the center of the story. The details of what actually happens to them are not critical at this point except in the broadest sense. The proposal can be written in the third person present tense, just as are the outlines I write (see #4, below).

Example: The Belinda Syndrome is the story of Matt Rutledge, a thirty-eight-year-old Harvard-trained internist in a mining town in West Virginia. Matt has always blamed the mine’s indifference to safety for his father’s death. Since he entered practice in his hometown, he has been a thorn in the mine’s side with constant complaints to OSHA and the Bureau of Mines. Now he has stumbled on two horrible, lethal cases that he is certain the mine has caused by its dumping of toxic waste. He couldn’t be more wrong…

So, that’s the beginning of a proposal. Actually, it happens to be the beginning of the proposal for my next book, currently nearing completion and due to be published in the spring. No title yet, but I’ll keep you posted. I will say that in one way or another, vaccinations are right at the center of the story.

4. Writing an Outline

Next to figuring out what to write, writing an outline is the most difficult for me. I spend four to five months developing my story in this form, and am paid by my publishers for completing an outline as I am subsequently for completing a book. There are those writers who can pen a novel and then do it over again (or write another one) if the story doesn’t work. With my busy schedule as a doctor and a daddy, I am not in that group. Reworking a detailed outline is possible for me. Rewriting an entire book would be disastrous. For my latest (still unnamed) thriller, I submitted five different outlines of the same premise before getting it right.

In addition to making major changes much easier, outlining before I write gives me the chance to foreshadow events and plant various clues to help the astute reader figure out who is doing what to whom.

I stole the form I use in my outlines from the late Robert Ludlum’s book, The Chancellor Manuscript. In that book, Peter Chancellor, the narrator, keeps sending outlines of his chapters to his agent. Ludlum actually puts the chapter outlines in the story and uses them to drive the narrative along. Clever! The three or four dollars I spent on that novel back in 1980 was one of the best investments I’ve ever made.

Basically, my outline is a flow of the action in the chapter, written third person, present tense-minimal or no description, crucial dialogue only.

Example (from Fatal): … Matt cares for Kyle Slocumb, who is bleeding internally from an ulcer. Then, almost in passing, he shows the note to Kyle’s brother, Lewis. Lewis knows of The Cleft, the tunnel, and even has heard the rumor that toxic waste is being stored somewhere inside the mountain. Because of Matt’s stature with the brothers and the care he has given Kyle, Lewis agrees to go in with him.

The detailed outline ends up being one to two double-spaced pages long per chapter, forty to sixty pages for a 35-chapter book. I never bother trying to outline the last five or six chapters until the rest of the book is actually written. My editor clears the outline before I start chapter one (or the prologue). When I get down to the actual writing, I feel free to deviate from the outline, but out of courtesy, I will call and discuss any major deviations from what was agreed upon with my editor.

So, that’s it. Go get yourselves a copy of The Chancellor Manuscript and get rolling on that outline!

5. Conflict, The Essence of a Novel

The concept of conflict as the driving force behind any piece of fiction (and in truth much non-fiction as well) came somewhat naturally to me, as it does to many others. However, there are a great many writers — damn fine writers too, if you measure that by their literary images, vocabulary, and descriptive passages — who don’t get it and probably won’t get it, no matter how long they write.

At the center of the novel is story, and at the center of story is conflict. It’s as simple as that.

Characters need something to push against to show (not tell!) who they are. Conflict in a story is between characters, between the character and whatever is going on (often before the novel takes place), and most essentially, between the character and himself. Throughout the course of the story, and especially toward the end, resolution of various conflicts will be why readers keep turning the pages. They might believe that they are reading to find out what happens, but in truth they are reading because they care about the characters and want to experience the resolution of their conflicts.

Conflicts work best when their resolution causes change — catharsis — in the character involved. Conflict, resolution, catharsis. If you get that, you get most of what we storytellers are shooting for. As you read or write, try to actively note down what you think the conflicts are in your book, how they are resolved, and what changes are engendered by the resolution.

In The Patient, Jesse Copeland begins the story in conflict with her boss, with the technicality of the robotic device she is developing, and with her mother (and to some extent herself) over the lack of a significant relationship in her life. And those conflicts are occurring before the villain even sets foot on the page!

So when you’re planning what to write or wondering why a book works (or doesn’t), remember the three critical concepts: CONFLICT, RESOLUTION, CATHARSIS.

6. Show, Don’t Tell

Sounds simple, huh? I aced that course at Washington Street School…or was that Show AND Tell? Well, I am here to tell you that even the best and/or wealthiest writers don’t take advantage of every opportunity to drive their book forward by showing instead of telling. If conflict is at the heart of story, this concept is at the heart of effective narrative.

Saying, He was a cruel and remorseless man, doesn’t pack a whit of excitement or drama for every reader, but showing the character doing something cruel and remorseless certainly does. Characters must be defined by what they do, not by what you say they are. From time to time, dialogue — what they say — accomplishes this definition quite nicely, but when possible, go for some good action, motivated by who the character is. Showing may be done in a sentence or two, or sometimes it takes an entire chapter (providing the showing drives the story forward.)

At the start of chapter 3 in The Patient, rather than tell the reader that Sara is witty and also brave about her brain cancer, I try to show that through her surgeon (Jessie) reading the pre-op disclaimers:

You may lose the vision in one or both of your eyes.

As long as it’s only one or both.

Okay, then. Initial here…‘You may lose the use of one or both of your arms.’

Arms? I mean really. What do I need arms for anyhow? Show me one unhappy amoeba. I can scratch my back on a tree like the bears and eat pie like those guys in the county fair. Mmmmmmm.

Get the idea? Don’t say George was meticulous and fastidious to a fault. SHOW him lining up the socks in his drawer or arranging the bills in his wallet by denomination. Oh, you do that? Sorry.

So, think about places where