A MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF WRITING
LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS ABOUT . . .
FINALLY . . . A Sample of Excellence
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Volume 3
Issue 6
March 28, 2005
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R e a d i n g W r i t e r
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Welcome to The VERB! I just saw "Sylvia," the film about poet Sylvia Plath who ended up locking her children in their bedroom, sealing the door, then sticking her head in the gas stove. Gwyneth Paltrow did a superb job, as usual, but the story left me drained. What a waste. An absolute common waste. Yes, as the credits rolled, I remembered a tidbit that had struck me not long after I began researching writers for the "Little-Known Facts" section of this ezine: a great many writers commit suicide. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for our profession, is it? Why do you suppose this is the case? Does writing itself cause depression? Or do some writers lack the proper equipment to excavate their dark unspoken areas? I suspect it may be the latter. We are at our most vulnerable when we write. If we decide to share that vulnerability with the world, we must come fully prepared for scrutiny. The main concern cannot be, Will they or won't they like my work? The main concern has to be, How will I handle either reaction? Unfortunately, Sylvia didn't have the support and hope we have available today. So promise me this--if you ever feel "on the edge," as she called it, you will run to someone. A friend, a family member, a man or woman of God, a police station, a hospital, a suicide hotline or an online depression forum. Go anywhere and ask for help! Let's put an end to suicidal writers.
FOR YOUR RESEARCH Setting up a murder? Go here for everything you need to know about forensics. Learn all about crime scene photography here. Finally, your temporary Freedom from Toil is here. Online mysteries, games, books and resources. For everyone who enjoys a mystery! Now, without further ado ... let the action begin!
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JANE YOLEN A cup of decaf tea is always on my desk. It is my writing buddy, hot or cold. British decaf with 1 1/2 spoons demarara sugar and lactaid milk. Okay, so there's no there there. No food value. But without the tea, my brain locks up and I can't write. Everything else--books, file folders, the cup full of pens and pencils--is mere decoration.
Jane's
spring/summer books include two picture books--THE PERFECT
WIZARD: Hans Christian Andersen (Dutton), and GRANDMA'S
HURRYING CHILD (Harcourt), the anthology YEARS BEST SF
AND FANTASY FOR TEENS with Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor), a
YA novel POAY THE PIPER with Adam Stemple (Tor), and the
collection of my stories and essays and poems ONCE UPON A
TIME SHE SAID (NESFA Press published for the World Science
Fiction Convention.) Visit
her website! |
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SAY WHAT? Commonly Misused Words
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Shutter means a
movable screen for a window or door or camera. Shudder means to
tremble convulsively; shiver. |
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This was the beginning of stenography. Since then, many have improved and refined this basic system. From Dr. Timothie Bright, who authored the first shorthand system published in the English language, to John Robert Gregg who adapted the cursive, as opposed to the geometric, basis of shorthand writing. Modern shorthand began with the introduction in 1913 of the stenotype machine, the most reliable and flexible means yet devised for creating a verbatim record. By pressing one or more keys at a time, reporters capture the sound of words in a phonetic code, with each line of characters usually representing one sound or syllable. Today, these notes are printed on a narrow paper tape and captured in computer format. Court reporters have been computerized longer than the attorneys and the court systems they serve.
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In
the year 63 B.C., the freed slave Marcus Tullius Tiro became a secretary
to Cicero. One of his duties was to report the famous orator's speeches.
Over time, after listening to his boss as well as other Roman orators of
the day, Tiro noticed they repeated themselves. So he devised a simple system of
abbreviations in which a single sign represented a sentence. In this way, he could take down an
entire political speech. |
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Use
red herrings to point readers in another direction. They will suspect the wrong
characters, thereby making the mystery harder to solve. And lots more
fun!LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS ABOUT . . .
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MARY ELIZABETH BRADDON
Born: October
4, 1835
"The amount of crime, treachery, murder, slow poisoning and general infamy required by the halfpenny reader is something terrible.”
~ Mary Elizabeth was born in Soho, London. ~ She was the daughter of an Irish mother and a Cornish solicitor who hovered perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy. ~ Around 1840, mother Fanny discovered that father Henry had been having an affair. She took Elizabeth and moved to St. Leonards-On-Sea in East Sussex. ~ To help support her mother, Braddon later embarked on a career as a professional actress–a scandalous career for a Victorian woman. From 1852 until early 1860 she toured the theatres of Britain with a repertory company. ~ During this time she also wrote plays and poems. Her play The Loves of Arcadia was performed successfully at London's Strand Theatre. ~ While living at Beverley in Yorkshire, squire John Gilby commissioned Braddon to write a book-length poem about Garibaldi. Finding the poem difficult, she used her spare time to write Three Times Dead, a thriller modeled on the melodramatic plots of G. W. M. Reynolds and written in the style of Charles Dickens. ~ The thriller received dismal sales, but under the guidance of London publisher John Maxwell, Braddon revised the book and reissued it as The Trail of the Serpent. It sold 1,000 copies within a week. ~ In 1862, Braddon broke into the mainstream market with Lady Audley’s Secret. It began serialization in the magazine Robin Goodfellow. After that periodical ceased publication, it continued in The Sixpenny Magazine. Later in 1862 it appeared as a "three-decker" (three-volume novel) and became an immediate success. ~ Lady Audley's Secret was succeeded by Aurora Floyd. Another immediate best-seller. This one elicited shock from most critics because of the scene in which the beautiful heroine becomes passionately aroused while horsewhipping a male stable hand. ~ In 1874 Braddon married John Maxwell, her publisher. In love for years, they had been unable to marry because he could not obtain a divorce from his mentally unstable wife. Aside from the five children Maxwell had from his first marriage, Braddon and Maxwell had six children of their own. ~ Having made her name as a sensation novelist, Braddon went on to write successfully in a variety of genres. Many were detective novels, written during the height of Sherlock Holmes' popularity. ~ Although her novels were savagely attacked by critics, Braddon continued to write. She produced more than eighty books between 1860 and 1915, making her one of the most popular and prolific novelists of her age. ~ She lived to see a silent film version of her Aurora Floyd in 1913. Two years later, she died at Lichfield House in Surrey, England, and was buried at Richmond Cemetery.
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A good mystery is welcomed in all stories, in all genres. Nothing like a deep dark secret or a tall handsome stranger to rev up the ol' readership, eh? Folks realize the juicy resolution won't come immediately, and they are perfectly willing to wait. This sort of understanding, however, doesn't apply to the lead character. Readers want to know, up front, whose story they've stepped into, and why they should care. So don't be coy. As soon as your baby steps one foot on stage, introduce him to the crowd!
Example: Cleaned up:
Example: Cleaned up:
Example: Cleaned up:
Uncertain
of a piece of your writing? |
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Greet
your visitors with an eye-pleasing font size. They won't stick around if they
can't read your
words. |
Do you cull crime-story ideas from the news? |
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PREVIOUS SURVEY
Spiraling into the past - 71%
"I live in the past, figuratively speaking, so naturally my stories do too. I wish I could literally go back." - Pamela Ward "Spiraling into the past. I've locked onto the era of World War II, and can't seem to let go of it." - Theodore Hampton "My story takes place now, in present day. But I'm writing it in past tense!" - Marta Moss |
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Subject:
CHALKBOARD submission SILENCE BE NOT GOLDEN by April L. Payne Madison brushed the tears from her cheeks as she spread
the fine linen tablecloth
For years the two branches of the family had celebrated together. In-laws from both sides joined in. Now, Madison would be sharing her holiday with only her husband's mother and sister, and already it felt empty. She missed the idea of sharing the holiday with Mom, and finally said so to Gwen, but Gwen just emphasized the need to spend time with people, and who knew how long Madison's mother-in-law had? Gwen would not be bringing her family or their mother to Christmas. Madison was on her own. So much for the new dishes she had purchased to accommodate the larger gathering, the dishes she had wanted so much to share with everyone. Sighing, Madison stared out the window watching as the winter winds blew dried leaves across the lawn. To think, she'd had the gardener pay special attention to cleaning up the yard this week. She wanted the house to look its best for her company, now Nature was fighting her. She smiled grimly at her reflection. Once, years ago, she had expected to forge new traditions, now she felt too old for such change to come all at once, especially when no clear cut reason was given. An empty chair over time, one could learn to accept. But to know half the table was off partying somewhere else ... biting her lip she was determined to get past these feelings of bitterness and resentment. Why was Gwen doing this? Gwen, who never shared what was really in her heart for fear she would appear weak in front of others. It was all nonsense. Madison brushed the tears from her cheeks as she spread the fine linen tablecloth on a table that didn't even need the leaf this year. She placed the arrangement of flowers in the center, candlesticks at either side, then walked over to the server, drawing out the place settings. Her fingertips made contact with hand-stamped place cards left over from happier times and she burst into tears. Dad's name was on top. That's when it hit her. How utterly ridiculous it was to cut family members off from each other. Gwen was behaving, rather sadly, so much like their great-grandmother had done after the death of her husband. She'd cut the family off from their father's relatives, for fear they would stand in judgment on how she raised her six children. Madison still did not know that branch of the family. No one did to this day. What was it Gwen wished to hide? Drawing up another chair, she finished setting out the places and hurried about getting the turkey stuffed, the potatoes peeled and the gravy made. When at last the doorbell rang, Madison presented a smile and warm greetings for her guests. The house was filled with familiar holiday noise, the football game flashing from the wide screen, the sound of chatter from the kids. Pot lids rattled an aromatic promise of culinary delights to come.
© 2005 April L. Payne |
Here's a chance to show off your
writing!
On occasion I’m asked by the editor of this ezine to offer her information about how a computer can fail, or other aspects of how computers behave or work so she can bring realism to her stories. Bringing written realism and life where there hasn’t been any is more art than I can comprehend, but reflecting on computers and crime-solving is not. So in this issue of mysteries, maybe I can offer some information about computers that would help a writer weave a story into and out of computers in a credible way. The law can track your Internet activity. It takes a court order for an ISP to open up the activity logs of a person’s Internet trails (an ISP is the company that your computer calls to connect to the Internet). Recently, when a pregnant Missouri woman was found dead with her baby cut out of her stomach her on-line trail was followed by detectives to a discussion site regarding her business. Here, they identified her screen name, found discussions with people whom they reverse-traced. Of these people who had discussions with the dead woman, it wasn’t hard to find a woman, Lisa Montgomery, who asked to meet the afternoon of the killing. Further, inside a fog of non-detail and lies, Lisa Montgomery later called her husband to say she’d had a baby. Which of the above required a court order? None of it, actually. Using moderate to little skill anyone can detect where previous folks have browsed, what they have done at each web site, and even learn screen names. It probably takes the records of the ISP to make stronger court cases, or provide alibis, by tying dates and times to visiting a web site. Why is it so easy to see where someone has gone on the Internet? Web browsers keep every file, picture and every web page stored on the hard drive. When you know where to go and how to access these files, a lot can be pieced together. All you need is access to the computer. Can someone hijack a computer so they see what’s on the screen as if they’re sitting in front of it? Yes, and they don’t have to be nearby either (although it’s easier to be nearby). Packet sniffing software can be used to watch text and other data flowing from and to a specific computer. That’s one way. There are others. When a file is erased from a hard drive, is it gone? No! Actually, the file remains. Hard drives have a table of contents that is called a File Allocation table. When a file is erased or deleted, the entry in the table is hidden, not even removed. The file itself remains in pristine condition. Your hero is, of course, smart enough to have software to wipe out their Internet trails, and wipe clean their hard drive. No self-respecting hero would be careless. Your hero may also carry their secret and save-the-world files around on a password encrypted thumb drive that is reasonably accessible by any computer in the world except those that are more than seven years old. Their thumb drive could resemble any innocent-looking thing to keep it from being recognized by the soldiers of evil.
Submit your question to COMPUTER GUY! |
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ARE YOU PREPARED FOR MURDER? Thanks to the Internet, televised trials and TV shows such as CSI, mystery readers have become highly sophisticated detectives. They know procedure, jargon and what can and cannot kill a person. Poor research in any of these areas could cause a book to go flying across the room. This, of course, forces mystery writers to stay on their toes. They not only have to provide the gory details, they have to get them right. Check your knowledge in the field of murder. Answer True or False to the statements below.
1. "Blunt Head Trauma" is the result of a severe blow to the head. 2. Alcohol works as an antifreeze in the human bloodstream. It's the best way to save a person who has been pushed into a frozen lake. 3. A hospital's Code Blue team consists of ICU and ER nurses. 4. Cyanide can be absorbed through the skin, inhaled through the air or ingested in a drink, killing within a matter of minutes. 5. A heart attack and angina are not the same things. 6. Preventing a Type 1 diabetic from getting insulin could lead to death. 7. Fingerprints can be lifted from human flesh as long it's done before the body is washed. 8. Asphyxia by pillow suffocation leaves absolutely no evidence. 9. If a victim is shot several feet away, the entrance wound would be smaller than the bullet. If the victim is shot at close range, the wound would be larger than the bullet. 10. When crime scene technicians must work near a decomposing body, they first freeze the body to kill the smell.
1. True. 2. False ~ Alcohol actually increases heat loss. 3. False ~ A hospital's Code Blue team typically consists of ICU and ER nurses, ER physician, a respiratory technician and other ancillary personnel. 4. True. 5. True. 6. True. 7. False ~ Fingerprints can be lifted from human flesh as long it's done within an hour or two of the murder. 8. False ~ All asphyxiated victims will have small bright red spots inside the pink membranes surrounding the eyes. 9. True. 10. False ~ When crime scene technicians must work near a decomposing body, they rub VapoRub on their upper lip to mask the smell.
© 2005 Elizabeth Guy
Learn
many more cool facts from: |
FINALLY . . . A Sample of Excellence
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"Upstairs,
the hallway was completely dark. The moon must be behind a
cloud, Nancy thought as she felt along the hallway for the
entrance to her room. She couldn't even see the door.
-
CAROLYN KEENE
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© 2005 ReadingWriters. All rights reserved. This ezine is a labor of love, and may not be reproduced without permission. All correspondence should be sent to Elizabeth Guy. |