Reader Participation Request: Which Point-Of-View do you prefer, and Why?
Posted: May 19, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: alternative, amsterdam, Anita, assassin, chapter, fiction, hotel, Katla, murder, reprobate, Ruger, scene, series, spike dagger, suspense Leave a comment »In Amsterdam Assassin Series Book One – Reprobate, one of the crucial chapters revolves around an assignment where intrepid freelance assassin Katla Sieltjes has to kill two Colombians in adjoining rooms in an Amsterdam hotel. The chapter has six scenes, all six written from the point-of-view [POV] of Katla. The fourth scene has Katla getting rid of a prostitute who is relaxing after sex with the target Menendez, who is taking a shower. Katla comes in through the connecting door after taking care of target number one, and… below you’ll find the ‘old’ scene, POV Katla, and a new version of the same scene, POV Anita, the prostitute in question.
Chapter ‘HOTEL’, scene 4, POV Katla:
Katla drew the Ruger from her pouch. The door opened inward, so she took up position by the wall and turned the door handle. The door opened and she peered through the crack.
A dimmed plafonnière illuminated a rumpled bed. Damp air, smelling of sex, sweat and cigarette smoke. The girl with the tangled black hair sat at the foot of the bed, her back to the connecting door, dressed in a white hotel bathrobe and smoking a cigarette.
Katla moved silently into the room, sweeping her gun from the windows to the door to the bathroom.
Menendez was out of view and even with the ear filters she could hear the shower hiss, water splattering against the tiles.
The girl on the bed still was still oblivious to her presence.
Katla bridged the distance in four strides and trained the revolver between the girl’s eyes. “Don’t make a sound or it’s the last sound you’ll make.”
Dark eyes with dilated pupils stared at her with numb fear. Smoke trickled from her nostrils past remnants of cocaine that clung to the bleached down on her upper lip.
Katla put the muzzle of the Ruger between her sculpted eyebrows. “Don’t speak. Blink once for yes, twice for no. Got it?”
The girl shut her eyes and opened them, the numbness gone, fear still present. Katla grabbed her face with her left hand, dug her gloved fingers in the rouged cheeks, and pulled the girl to her feet. The cigarette fell from her hands and the girl frantically tried to follow its descent.
“Thirty seconds.” Katla mashed the cigarette into the carpet with the heel of her pump. “Get your stuff. Get out. Don’t make a peep or I’ll hurt you.”
She opened her hand and the girl flopped back on the bed. Her hands undid the sash of her robe.
“Not here.” Katla reached out, closed the robe with one hand, and pulled her to her feet again. “Dress in the hall.”
The girl blinked. “The hall?”
Without hesitation Katla rammed the Ruger’s barrel in her solar plexus. The girl’s eyes bugged out and she gasped, then crumpled to the floor. Katla crouched next to the girl, yanked her head up by the hair. “I warned you. Twenty seconds and I’ll throw you out without your stuff.”
The girl groaned and pushed herself to her feet, clutching her clothes to her breast as she gathered them.
When the girl was almost done Katla returned the Ruger to the holster and let the pouch slip from her shoulder. She drew the spike dagger and positioned herself behind the girl. The shower was still going strong.
The girl picked up a stocking and straightened.
Right hand clamped over the girl’s mouth, Katla pulled her head sideways and pushed the steel sliver into the soft flesh of her exposed throat. The girl dropped the bundle of clothes on the floor and squirmed in her tight grip. The dagger pierced the salivary gland and slid upward into her mouth and her muffled scream moistened the glove. Katla pushed her right elbow between the girl’s shoulder blades, slipped the dagger past the palate and into the brain cavity until the tip bumped against the inside of the cranium. The girl heaved against the slick glove and went limp.
Chapter ‘HOTEL’, scene 4, POV Anita:
Thankful for the peace and quiet, now that Menendez was taking a shower, Anita took a long drag from her cigarette and thought about her Spanish teacher, Consuela Gomez. Would Consuela understand that all her hard work had only secured Anita first pick at any of the agency’s South-American clients? At first, when the agency had singled her out, she did feel special, but when she realized they were all tough-talking assholes with fragile egos, the advantage of speaking flawless Spanish quickly soured.
A cool breeze wafted through the open balcony doors and dried the sweat on her skin. She could smell herself, but that didn’t tempt her to go into the bathroom and share a shower with the hairy Colombian. Like the others, he was a braggart, playing some kind of stupid game. All during the sex she’d felt that Menendez was putting on a performance, but Anita couldn’t figure out for whose benefit. There weren’t any cameras and there was no laptop or webcam anywhere in view. That was the first thing the agency had told her to check: never have sex in a room with a computer or laptop open and facing the bed, because the client might be recording.
Not that recording was prohibited, but some girls wanted to stay anonymous. And you could charge extra for home movies.
God, she was bored. And she would still have to spend the rest of the evening with this asshole. Probably a late dinner at one of the Leidseplein restaurants, faking amusement at his lame jokes, stroking his ego until she could put him to bed and go home. If it wasn’t for the money, she’d—
A huge gun filled her view.
Behind the gun, a woman with short dark hair and the coldest blue eyes she’d ever seen.
“Don’t make a sound or it’s the last sound you’ll make.”
Oh, God. She was going to die. Oh, please, no.
The gun came closer and closer until it pressed cold and hard between her eyebrows.
Anita needed to pee. Her blood roared in her ears.
Please, God. Nonono.
“Don’t speak,” the woman said. “Blink once for yes, twice for no. Got it?”
She wanted her to be quiet. Yes. Yes, she could do that. Blink. Blink only one time.
A gloved hand clamped over her face.
I blinked! I blinked once. I—
Tears blurred her vision as the gloved fingers dug hard into her cheekbones and the woman pulled her to her feet.
Jezus, she pulled her to her feet by her face. Oh, God, that hurt. Why—
Her cigarette slipped from her fingers, still smoldering. Her cigarette. Anita tried to look down past the glove clamped over her face, tried to follow the cigarette’s descent, to sidestep the fiery tip.
“Thirty seconds.” The woman mashed the cigarette into the carpet with the heel of her pump. “Get your stuff. Get out. Don’t make a peep or I’ll hurt you.”
She opened her hand and Anita lost her balance and flopped back on the bed. Her hands undid the sash of her robe so she could dress herself.
“Not here.” The woman reached out and Anita shrank back from the gloved fingers. The woman closed the robe with one hand, and pulled her to her feet again. “Dress in the hall.”
Anita blinked and spluttered, “The ha—”
The woman punched her in her midriff with the gun. A giant fist spread fire through her body. Her eyes almost popped out of her head from the pain that suffocated her. Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. The woman crouched next to her and pulled her head up by her hair. Her scalp felt like it was ripped open. She yelped, but the lack of breath turned it into a gasp.
“I warned you,” the woman hissed at her. “Twenty seconds and I’ll throw you out without your stuff.”
She released her hair and Anita felt the bones in her neck creak as her head flopped back down. She had to find the strength to get out. Get your clothes and get out, get away from the blue-eyed bitch. She groaned and pushed herself to her feet, clutching her clothes to her breast as she gathered them.
Thank God she hadn’t strewn her clothes around the room but dropped them on the chair. Except one of her stockings had fallen to the floor. Wincing with pain she bent over to pick it up, propping herself up with one hand to get back up.
A gloved hand clamped over her mouth and she could feel the woman’s body press against her back.
NO! Please, I’m leaving. I’m leaving. Please don’t hurt me.
As she dropped the clothes on the floor, something hard and sharp pressed against the hollow of her throat. The skin tore and vomit rose in her throat as a shard of ice entered her mouth. Screaming against the glove she clawed at the hand, vomit filling her mouth, and her head exploded with pain.
So much pain.
Darkness.
Over-Editing
Posted: April 13, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: beginning, boring, commandment, difficulty, elmore, embellish, engage, leonard, mind, picture, plot, reader, rule, skip, tendency 2 Comments »Beginning writers have a tendency to over-write, producing bloated manuscripts with stories that feature redundant scenes, scenes that are shown instead of told (because they want to avoid the ‘show, don’t tell!’ admonition from their peers), and unnecessary storylines like excessively detailed mundane scenes in the lives of the characters.
So, beginning writers often get the advice to edit their work and bring down the wordcount to manageable numbers. While most manuscripts can lose 10% of their words without serious consequences, a writer can go overboard and edit out the parts that made the story shine, eliminating ‘scenes that do not forward the plot’ and robbing characters of the extra dimensions, reducing them to bland archetypes that fail to engage the reader.
The difficulty lies in the decision what to keep and what to weed out, and how to cull the dross from the scenes the writer wants to keep. In the area of what to keep and what to weed out, consider Elmore Leonard’s advice to ‘skip the boring parts’. Don’t write about going to bed or getting up, brushing teeth, doing the laundry, taking a bath, going to the toilet, are you eyes glazing over yet? What to keep? Keep descriptions succinct, trust the reader to fill in the unwritten parts. Describe only what is absolutely necessary for the reader to form a picture, but don’t embellish to fill in the reader’s ‘mind picture’ unnecessarily.
The ‘rule’ that scenes always have to ‘forward the plot’ is more a guideline [most writing rule are, but beginning writers tend to view 'rules' to be akin to 'commandments']. Scenes that help flesh out a character don’t need to ‘forward the plot’, as long as the writer doesn’t ramble too far from where the story is supposed to be going.
As an example from my own work–I received comments by an editor that my DEA characters weren’t as interesting as my protagonist. Although I could reiterate that it’s difficult for a DEA agent to be more interesting than a freelance assassin, the burden was on me to render a good girl as interesting as the bad girl. And I had. I had written a chapter and two follow up paragraphs where the DEA girl turns the tables on a mugger and the legal consequences of her righteous action versus Dutch law. Except that I had edited these scenes from the manuscript to reduce wordcount because ‘they didn’t forward the plot’. Well, yes, but they did flesh out the DEA character, which was important to get the reader to root for her also.
So, instead of wondering whether a scene ‘moves the plot forward’, analyze whether the scene brings a valuable contribution to the manuscript, so you won’t edit all the life from your manuscript in order to comply to a rule that might only be applicable to an action adventure with cardboard characters.
Exposition and the dreaded Info Dump
Posted: April 10, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: exposition, homicide, info dump, infodump, narcotics, stab, stressful, temptation, undercover, writing skills Leave a comment »One of the most difficult skills in writing fiction is how to give your reader information without making it seem like you’re giving information.
A shortcut often used is for a character to be called into an audience with a superior or authority, who will have a file on the character from which they will quote and, sometimes, demand elaboration:
“You’ve been working undercover in narcotics for four years since you lost your wife and child, and now you want to work the homicide squad?
That is not a question. That’s an info dump. All the information above is already known to the person being questioned. Also, is it relevant to the story? If so, there are more subtle ways:
“Do you think homicide is less stressful than narcotics, Michael?”
“No, sir. I just want to get out of the undercover work.”
“You don’t seem to have a difficulty staying on the right side,” the commissioner said. “I know the temptations are sometimes, ehm, persuasive.”
“I haven’t been tempted for years, sir.”
“You were tempted before.”
“That changed, sir. Lily and Chantelle…”
The commissioner’s eyes softened. “It must’ve been hard on you, that we never caught the killers. We always thought it had something to do with the XXX case, but nobody talked.”
“I made my peace with it, sir.”
“So your application with homicide is not to gain access to the records, to see where we failed.”
“No, sir. Like I said–”
“You just want to get out from the undercover work. Even though you received two commendations.”
“I’m tired of play-acting, sir. I want to do some straight police work for a change.”
The commissioner nodded. “I’ll approve your application, Michael. Don’t let me down.”
“No, sir. I won’t. Thank you.”
“The change might involve a change of roster, so your free days will be suspended for a moment until the new roster…”
“I’ll still have next Wednesday off, don’t I?”
The commissioner smiled sadly. “Yes, Michael. Nobody would want to you to come in for work when you need to pay your respects.”
Michael sighed his relief. Visiting their graves was about the only thing he could do since they had been slain so senselessly. He rose and nodded at the commissioner for turning for the office door, hoping the commissioner’s remark had been a wild stab and not a clue visible in his face. Homicide detail would give him access to the records. And he would see where they’d failed to bring Lily and Chantelle’s killers to justice. He’d been biding his time for four years, he wouldn’t want to screw up now.
Only the last paragraph features true exposition, but since the reader’s interest should be piqued by the hints in the dialogue, the information isn’t dumped. Plus it leaves enough to the imagination to give the reader. Also, it’s possible to leave it off–the commissioner’s remark is enough hint that Michael might be tempted to do some investigating on his own.
On Writing Tools
Posted: April 3, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: iPad writing Adonit productivity story USB amsterdam assassin Leave a comment »While I like pens and writing longhand in diaries, I never even considered writing fiction in longhand. The most important reason would be the editing problem: whereas writing in a diary is for private thoughts, writing fiction is writing that is intended to be shared. And any writing that is to be share will have to be edited thoroughly before it’s released on the unsuspecting audience.
I started writing on a typewriter, because computers were not in my budget. I started writing during long boring night shifts as a security officer, spending six to seven hours of my eight hour shift alone in a security cabin in the middle of an industrial area. I had an idea for a story and started writing, first in Dutch, later in English. The computer at work had a printer and I could draw up a page-long note, so I would print that out, erase it and write the next page. I’d keep the printout in a folder and re-write the last unfinished page and continue to write the rest of the story. After a while I got transferred to an office building, where I borrowed a typewriter that I placed behind the reception desk to write my novel.
After two years working security, I used my vacationing money to buy an Apple PowerBook 150, which I carried everywhere. From that moment on, I took myself seriously as a writer. As I couldn’t follow classes on writing crime fiction in Amsterdam, I bought self-help books for writers and became an autodidact. The PowerBook 150 traveled with me all over for more than ten years, when the screen was destroyed in a motorcycle accident. To replace the PowerBook 150 I bought a secondhand PowerBook 135c with a color screen, but it had erratic failures and I dumped it. By that time, most offices had computerized the security files, so I had a computer for registering keys and keycards, and filling out reports. And, since all of them featured Word, I carried my work with me on a USB stick. Until I retired from security work I used three USB sticks, a 64mb I replaced with an 8GB, and later with a 16GB version I still use as a back-up.
At home we used a PC and a HP Pavillion laptop that recently began to slow down radically and had several ‘blue screens of death’ that are the bane in a writer’s life.Since I had stopped working in security and now took care of the children, while I worked on my novels and started up a business in conflict resolution and physical self-defense, I wanted to replace the HP laptop.
At first I looked into MacBooks, but they were incredibly expensive, plus they could do a lot more than what I needed, i.e. access to the internet and a simple wordprocessing program. Someone pointed out that I could do all that on an iPad. I didn’t want to type on a screen though. But, this person pointed out to me, there are bluetooth keyboards compatible with iPads…
With the advent of the iPad3, the iPad2 was dumped on the market, so I got myself an iPad2 with an Adonit Writer keyboard/iPad case combo. Although the keyboard is quite a bit smaller than a regular keyboard, the portability is incredible – weighing next to nothing, the iPad/Adonit joins my Kindle in the laptop compartment of the backpack I take everywhere. With its battery-life of ten working hours, the iPad is much better at working wireless than most laptops. I installed Apple Pages for iPad and transferred all works in progress to the iCloud and I’m a happy person.
While until now I was pretty much restricted to editing my MSS on the Kindle, highlighting and notating the text without the ability to actually edit the text, now, with the iPad, I can create stories on my lap while I’m at the pool for my son’s swimming lessons. I’ve writting two blog posts already, and a short story due out soon to create an audience for my novel.
Life is good.
Doing Research…
Posted: June 8, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: amsterdam, assassin, blind, braille, fiction, lockpick, Rastafarian, research, Vespa Leave a comment »Well, writing crime fiction is no picknick, especially if you try to stick as close as possible to reality and your protagonist is a free-lance assassin, but it got easier after I killed my first target and I’m still improving.
Apart from that I visited experts on the maintenance of saxophones, caring for macaws and repairing diesel engines; went to a shooting club to fire different handguns to get a feel for them; befriended hackers to explain to me how they scaled firewalls and extracted information from hospitals, police files and hotel registries; learned how to open locks with simple lockpicks; visited an institute for the blind, learned braille and walked around with my eyes taped shut for an entire day; smoked lots of doobie with Rastafarians; read countless books on obscure topics that might have a bearing on whatever I’m inclined to write about; befriended musicians so I could sit in on sessions; learned how to pick pockets; accompanied the police when they went to haul in a ‘water corpse’; rode motorcycles and Vespa motorscooters; and some other things I vowed to keep secret…
Where do you get your ideas?
Posted: February 21, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I’ve always enjoyed stories about assassins, but my opinion on assassin differed from the books I read. Since most fictional assassins are antagonists, they are often warped individuals, with freaky childhoods. However, I’ve come across mercenaries (basically the same field), who are pretty regular people. Sure their view of the world differs from ordinary citizens, but they’re not ‘warped’. This made me want to write about an assassin who has no deep-seated frustration or abused childhood, but who just realized that killing was what she was good at and who had the appropriate world view and lack of conscience to pull it off.
Another influence was an idea I had about a street musician pretending to be blind to increase his income, who is the involuntary witness to a murder. This character changed into a real blind person unwittingly entering the kill site of an assassin.
Traditional Publishing vs. Self-Publishing e-Books
Posted: February 21, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »In traditional publishing, debut novels often have to prove themselves within six months with almost no support and sketchy distribution, before they are returned to the publisher and destroyed. A return rate of 30-50% is common! That’s a small window of opportunity. And the publisher will have the rights to both my print and e-book novel, for a long period. Even if Reprobate sells ‘well’, I will receive about 8-10% royalties. For that, I won’t be able to decide on the cover, am powerless to prevent changes of the title or other changes. And if it goes out of print, readers who like the sequel won’t be able to read the first novel.
By contrast, the shelf life of a debut novel on Amazon is indefinite – Reprobate will remain available for as long as I want it to be there. So if Reprobate doesn’t sell well the first year, it might take off the second year when the sequel comes out. I’m quite sure the 70% royalty rate will allow me to recuperate the costs of the Reprobate cover. And I will remain the sole owner of the rights.
When did you first realize you’d like to become an author?
Posted: February 21, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »I’ve always been a great liar. No, strike that. I’ve always enjoyed telling grandiose stories. However, if you tell grandiose stories and people assume they’re true before they find out that they’re not, you will be labeled ‘liar’. And I’m not. I’m a confabulator (from Latin confabulatus, past participle of confabulari, from com- + fabulari to talk, from fabula story), someone who fill gaps in memory with fabrications. A storyteller, not with the explicit intention to deceive, but to amuse.
During a brief sojourn in unemployment and without the financial means to go out on the town, my friends and I told stories to amuse each other. My stories were praised and people told me I should write a book. Although I’m an avid reader, I didn’t really like writing essays at school, so I nixed the idea, but it hovered around in the back of my mind.
A few years later while working long boring night shifts as a security officer, I would often spend six hours out of every eight-hour shift reading and studying. I had an idea for a story and started writing, first in Dutch, later in English. At first I wrote on a typewriter, but when I received my vacationing money, I spend it on an Apple Powerbook 150, which I carried everywhere. From that moment on, I took myself seriously as a writer. As I couldn’t follow classes on writing crime fiction in Amsterdam, I bought self-help books for writers and became an autodidact.
You’re Dutch! Why do you write in English?
Posted: February 21, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »Author Bio
Posted: February 21, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »A former bouncer, Martyn trains in aikido and koryu bujutsu. The combination of street-fighting and martial arts provides him with the experience to write realistic fighting scenes. His knowledge of Namikoshi shiatsu is reflected in Bram Merleyn’s mastery of acu-pressure massage. Like Bram, Martyn studies the game of Go, although he wouldn’t be able to play an entire game with his eyes closed.
Like Katla, Martyn is a former motorcycle courier and loves to go for rides on his motorcycle - both to commute in the congested Randstad and for recreation. Although Martyn shares some of Katla’s skills, he doesn’t have the propensity to use them for illegal activities. Crime might pay, but writing about crime provides a steadier income with less risk.
