Three dimensional character

 Ever read a thriller with never-ending action and conflict?

Of course you have, or one day started one, now collecting dust.

The problem is exhaustion. The character failed to breathe unless

gasping for lifesaving oxygen.

Here's a writing tip.

Think three dimensional.  The character has a past, present, and future.

In each dimension the character has internal conflicts, external conflicts,

goals, and motivations. While they can be the same, odds are they are

not. The simple explanation is that characters as well as humans mature,

learn life lessons, fail, and a myriad of other things.

Saying this is seeing the tip of the iceberg. Explore every detail to broaden

your character. You'll be glad you did.

                            Self-serving note

Multiple e-books by Author Donan Berg will be on sale starting July 1, 2023.

It's limited. There's romance, mystery, thriller, and fantasy.

A good novel to start with is A Body To Bones.

Go to:  Click here for A Body To Bones

Five-star review of Donan Berg's novel Into the Dark

A Complex Mystery That Keeps You Guessing

Very late in Donan Berg's  exciting crime mystery Into the Dark, a line metaphorically serves as emblematic of our protagonist's quest for what often appears to be the murkiest of truths: "His weakened flashlight batteries strained to illuminate the unknown."

From the exciting opening, Donan Berg's Into the Dark relentlessly builds a thrilling mystery centering around election tampering, a stack of money, a counterfeiting operation, and a dead body. In order to reveal the truth, Sheriff Jonas McHugh finds himself compulsively returning to a rustic cabin with hidden compartments and trap doors and to a cave that is the source of more than its share of secrets and disturbing activity. As Jonas simultaneously investigates the money and counterfeiting issues, the election fraud angle, and the death of operative Ed Telling, the reader follows along; plot threads first complicate and then eventually align to great satisfaction.

Methodically and doggedly, Jonas edges toward insight. "Bonnie's statement of the obvious unleashed within Jonas a mental lightning bolt to illuminate what had been dark." A novel smartly riddled with Biblical quotes and allusions, Into the Dark follows Jonas's journey toward enlightenment, one that paradoxically will send him into a fair share of hellish, subterranean places.

At the heart of the mystery is the beautiful, mercurial Kayla, for whom Jonas possesses contrary feelings of attraction and mistrust. Her presence and Iowa's political environment's home of high-stake caucuses inform the novel with layers of compromised motivations and machinations.

Throughout Berg peppers the story with terse phrasing that echoes Jonas's mindset: "Telling's killer is still free. Bogus bills infest Silver County wallets. Unfed, unclothed teens flood rural roads."

Berg's skillful sorting out Jonas's complicated thoughts as he reaches disturbing conclusions makes Into the Dark a smart, engaging novel.

Michael Hartnett, author of The Blue Rat.

Writer Choices: May the World be Yours

World building is the first goal of science fiction writers;  a goal that isn’t completed until it’s the weirdest ever. A thing or creature is greater than physical features. It interacts. It communicates.

 

All writers swear an allegiance, either knowingly or subconsciously, to the world of communication. How do we do it? The moronic answer: we put words on paper. Dah!

 

C’mon, it’s not that easy. Right you are. Let’s try to list the ways our words on paper impact the reader?

 

            1. Characters can think, speak, act and/or interact.

            2. Things exist and have a history, known or unknown.

            3. The environment (i.e., scenery) impacts by whatever it does.

            4. What’s left out.

 

Number 1 is a no-brainer in concept and difficult in execution. Does the head have one eye or two? If not a human, maybe no head at all. What characters think tells us about them. A sports fanatic, one scared of water, or one who procrastinates each travel a different path or no path at all. Is there a difference between a mile runner who goes straight versus one who enjoys an oval surrounded by cheering fans?

 

There can be differences in all these. That’s the payoff to a writer. You agonize and then you get to choose. Choices, that’s what communication is no matter how done.

 

Number 2 can be as vast as number 1. The simple rock may not attract attention until a pickax exposes a vein. “Gold!” is the cry. “Stupid rock.” “Fool’s Gold.”  Its toss onto a pile eight-feet high instantly tells a story. Things can be chosen for intended results. An old letter to bring the writer’s history to the forefront. Bright or faded, the marks can be decipherable or not. Modern day electronic bytes zooming through space unseen can be a challenge or not. One day society might have a machine that displays the unseen words. In your writing you can have it today.

 

Number 3 is the environment. Number 2 mentioned space. There is a connection. Compartmentalizing numbers one, two and three is possible, but so is combination. Writers separate the ingredients to create a pie presented to the reader. It’s a metaphor. Writer’s like, no love, them. With our pie metaphor there is the flour and water that makes the crust. A fruit, apples my favorite, mixed with cinnamon and sugar, as a filling. Then, either a full crust to hide the filling or strips to expose and tantalize the prospective eater. While the aroma may be the same, size may not be. Would it sit on a window’s sill or enter a contest? As with the pie, trees, lakes, buildings, sewers, drain spouts, insects, mammals provide an infinite number of choices that can be shaded with singular or combined variation.

 

Number 4 can be as important as any of the above. What is left out is also a choice. If a writer never mentions a character’s feet, maybe they don’t exist. If they exist, are there three or five toes? Maybe they’re fashioned out of clay? Oh, is that literal or figurative? Again, what is left out leaves an impression. It’s a good impression if the dull stuff isn’t left to be read. There are necessary physical acts for a character seated in a room to answer the door. Readers can figure that out if its every day normal suburbia. But? The writer says the character flew to the door. Is it literal?

 

All this certainly left out an encyclopedia. If it made you think, that’s enough. Now, make those choices, change them, circle back, try a choice outside your comfort zone. To revert to the pie metaphor, the world awaits your choices and will enjoy the taste, even if they don’t recognize or understand how you made it.

 

 

 

 

New 2015 5-star A Body To Bones review

Donan Berg's debut mystery novel, A Body To Bones, First Skeleton Series Mystery, receives a March 2015 Five-Star review at Amazon.com.

Reviewer Grady Harp wrote:

"As he (author Berg) states the common denominator for his stories is a series of characters who battle everyday concerns to become truly heroic.

"A BODY TO BONES is his first Skeleton Series Mystery. He grabs our attention with a confessional that bodes mystery - in 1954 a woman confesses she is carrying a child not the progeny of her husband. 'One life extinguished was the result of an unholy union. It's death does not unburden me. My failure to be morally strong and my failure to honor my mother do not go away. I feel ashamed, conflicted. I cannot be truthful. To speak out will only bring shame, chastisement, and hurt the persons I love who live, or the memory of those departed. It's hard to hold it all inside, to not let the lies be seen, to bear all the pain in secret behind an accepted façade.'

"In 1964, Oscar does not comprehend the magnitude of what he discovers, its potential to bring a killer out of hiding to strike again, or a past connection to the penitent and her confession of ten years prior. Already we are immersed in a scenario that bodes evil.

(Quoted author synopsis is omitted.)

"Donan writes with the skill of a practiced artist, retaining some of the special Irish flavor that flows in his system. He creates characters about whom we care and with whom we can easily identify despite the rigor of mystery that surrounds them. His use of his little town newspaper headlines and stories adds a clever and credible aspect to his writing. But most important is the fact that despite this being a debut novel, Donan has his pen so polished that he leaves us with the need to read more of his work. He is a find!"

In Memoriam

 

The funeral home’s lush brown carpet captured our six footsteps until the door creaked. Four heels clicked and two soles squeaked on the greenish-gray linoleum squares in the room protected by the windowless door. Closed to public view were gleaming silver sinks, water sprayers and metal knives and stainless steel counters, fixed and rolling. Our lips remained pressed silent.

 

“Did I make a good choice?” my brother asked, his words light enough to drop to the floor within six feet.

 

“Dad would be pleased," I whispered. There was nothing else for me to say. To fulfill my Dad’s request, the gray cardboard coffin that speckled like a Broadway Play flat arrived via special delivery. He had made us all promise that what had been ordered for Mother would be good enough for him.

 

The special cremation coffin number three on his list. He made us promise two other things: one, no embalming; two, no official service or obituary. While we unanimously didn’t agree with his reasoning, he presented a simple truth. He’d not been born in this country and it contained no record of his birth so he deemed it fitting and proper that no public record of his death need be created. Dad said that something with no beginning also lacked an end. My brain cells sprouted no effective rebuttal. My brother and sister agreed Dad lived his life in his manner. There were neither roofs nor walls on his thoughts. His body would join them on the wind.

 

My brother had argued with Dad stating that the government owed him a flag, a stars and stripes for his military service. If so, Dad replied to us all, you decide who keeps it. Better I not be planted in the ground, he said, beneath cloth, which in a season becomes tattered and torn.

 

The funeral director lowered the white sheet to my Dad’s shoulders. We all gasped. This was not our Dad. The brown wavy hair could have been his, but this hollow face of a man—never!

 

The eyes we saw were clouded as if Dad’s cataracts had regrown across his artificially implanted lenses. His cheeks were sunken, water drops collected in the crevices as if the sun had ducked behind a cloud and obscured the drying rays. The bluish hint of death knocked from afar as if the funeral director had locked it into the rear of the hearse parked outside.

 

My sister had rifled Dad’s closet for a suit and the blackness hung draped across her arm.

 

“We don’t really don’t need clothes if there’s to be no viewing,” the funeral director said. “Have you changed your mind?”

 

“No,” I whispered.

 

“Then I’ll give you all a few moments to say good-bye. The documents are all ready and the plane leaves this afternoon.”

 

His words of “I miss Mother,” swirled in my head. I did, too. Now, I’d miss them both.

Writing Emotional Projection

If the reader has a tear in his or her eye, it might not be bad. There's emotion present. What I refer to as a "projection." It's the emotion generated by the written word on a page that travels and surfaces in a reader's mind or heart. Perhaps, it's best to examine a made up example:

     Kate walked to the front of the building. The light shone dim. Jack waved her in.
     "There's stew left. I could reheat."
     "Okay," Kate said.
     "My kitchen never closes," Jack replied. "I feed my family from the kitchen. Our house is connected to the bar and we don't have any other kitchen. It's open 24/7, although the bar door is locked at 2 a.m."
     "Front of the house," Kate said.
     "Huh?"
     "That's what some call a restaurant, the seating part."
     "That so? We call the kitchen a kitchen; the bar, a bar; and everything else the house."

The scene is simple. We're in the point of view (POV) of Kate. We can assume they're human, but maybe not. For purposes here, it's unimportant.

We have an interaction between Kate and Jack. It's dull. Straightforward? yes; objective? yes; inspiring? hardly; emotional? far from it.

Emotional projection is subjective. It's judgments and opinions held by the POV character, a view of the story world unique to the character through whose eyes we are experiencing that world. If the reader would know how that character is feeling or reacting to his or her world, there's a greater chance for an emotional bond between character and reader. Even if the reader thinks the character is acting foolishly, there can be a bond created. And, the payoff for the writer is that the reader keeps turning the page to learn more.

A writer could self-edit the above and add attribution tags like: she said angrily, he cried out, or she demurred.

Let's try to be more forceful. Give it a go yourself.

Here's one attempt to blast greater emotion from the page:

Kate hesitated on the flagstone walk. The building looked so daunting in the dim light. What could those shadows, the creepy ones, do to her? She made her mind up. Nothing. She wasn't going to live in the past.

A shadow, the size of a man, emerged. She recognized Jack; thank heavens it wasn't Steve. She exhaled and welcomed his wave.

"There's stew left. I could reheat."

Kate loved stew. "Okay." She silently admonished herself for not being more grateful and cleared her throat. Her last meal, yesterday, hadn't stayed down. "Okay," she repeated, hoping no trace of her fear would show in her voice. Jack had his grandmother's stew recipe; the memory of its savory aroma from times past washed over her.

"My kitchen never closes," Jack replied, pride tinting his words.

Kate couldn't make out his smile, but she knew it would be there.

"I feed my family from the kitchen. Our house is connected to the bar and we don't have any other kitchen."

His speeding-train words wouldn't be slowed and Kate knew any attempt to encourage him to enunciate clearer would be met by his resistance and flare his anger. She would endure his rattling on for the stew.

"It's open 24/7, although the bar door is locked at 2 a.m."

Wow, is that nice? She couldn't fathom why she needed to understand all this and didn't wish to. "Front of the house?" Why had she asked?

"Huh?" Jack's expression remained perplexed as Kate stepped closer to him. The light's angle diffused the shadows on his face.

"That's what some call a restaurant, the seating part." Kate had taken too much for granted. She'd been blessed with college.

"That so? We call the kitchen a kitchen; the bar a bar; and everything else the house."

Writers can expect to add character emotion or projection at the revision stage or stages. On first draft, it's often better to charge ahead to get the story idea on paper and then spend time to mold the exact emotion to snare the reader. The benefits are huge.

While in Kate's POV it's easier to express how she's feeling or reacting, a writer can hint at what might be going on in Jack's head, even if it's colored by Kate's prejudices and worldview.

A caution, piling adjective upon adjective may seem to add extra emotion, but it can as easily confuse the reader. Be judicious. Salt can flavor a stew. Too much salt can make it uneatable.

Book Review - The Harry Houdini Mysteries

Harry Houdini, well-known as an escape artist, becomes for Author Daniel Stashower the subject of mystery in his The Harry Houdini Mysteries published in paperback by Titan Books. The novel concerned with here is subtitled The Floating Lady Murder.

The reader never gets into the mind of Harry, as the narrator is his brother, Dash Hardeen, who also serves as Harry's manager and the scene opens with the-not-yet-famous Houdini trying to stake out a career as a performer.

The Floating Lady is a levitation illusion or trick that had already killed one woman, but had become an obsession for magician Harry Kellar. Houdini is hired by Kellar and works on finding the solution to performing "The Floating Lady."

There is an economy in telling the story while at the same time giving a full glimpse into Houdini's life and the era Houdini lived in.

The suspects are identified early, but the thought process to the reveal of the killer and the driving motive(s) leaves the reader out of the mix. Even when the reader is in the mind of Dash Hardeen and he has a revelation, the reader is not told of the truth flash. Not giving the reader clues to solve the murder is a major downer to the whodunit.

Dropping more earlier clues would definitely enhance the book's strength of description and varied pace of storytelling.

Poetry Within Your Novel

There's a not so subtle way for an author to impart a theme to readers of his or her fiction novel. That's to have one of the character's espouse it in poetry. Yeah, right, you say. Control or tamp down your disbelief for one moment. I will try to direct you to the promised land if you're willing to read on. Isn't inviting guilt wonderful?

Okay, a disclaimer to keep the fiction police happy, not every character can be comfortable with or be in contact with poetry. Yet, perhaps the character is a frustrated poet or had to write a poem in one of his or her high school or college classes. Feasible, you bet. If so, (and I bless my hardworking English teacher daily) you can incorporate the created poem into your story.

What if your character didn't attend the conventional school? Then there are several avenues in widely diverse genres to have the thematic poem disclosed to your fiction readers.

Captain Kirk on Star Trek, or your equivalent, can uncover it in a galactic cave. Maybe it just shows up as a hologram from the past. Perhaps it's a clue to a distant surviving culture that commands billions of gallons of fracking natural gas and is ready to crash the world's economy or, if you understand the poem's meaning, fill your vehicle's, and no one else's, gas tank cheap. If that's not compelling, then it could be part of a regular, old-fashioned mystery. Stranger things happen.

Your fictional romantic time traveler can find it tucked in an old trunk Shakespeare discarded on the way to Stratford-on-Avon. If you have a midsummer's night's dream not an accident, there can be a Puck you can count on. Your poem's discovery can be the "to be" of the be or not to be uttered by your Hamlet wannabe.

If your character is a historic saint, say, take mine, he lived as a Gaelic monk in the sixth century.  No, he wasn't St. Patrick who lived a century earlier. Who knows how much poetry my historic saint buried in the Irish caves escaping the Huns? Sorry, they were later and probably on a different continent. Maybe it was Finn McCool who performed the historic deed to save the magic poetic scroll my saint scribbled on whatever fast food scraps of paper then existed? I love that legendary McCool guy. He's such a 21st Century Disney character. Whoops, Disney hasn't put him on celluloid yet next to that famous Tinkerbelle. But okay, thinking harder, it was the thugs from Denmark who threatened my saint. Oh, those Danes, still around centuries later to cause Will Shakespeare dramatic trouble.

If we consider more modern times, didn't Agatha Christie conjure up mystical powers in several of her fictional stories. Perhaps a pale horse chased by Miss Marple? Or didn't Herucle Periot brave the Egyptian sun to find a poem in the tombs, or on an ancient scroll that would serve your purpose? You do the research. I'm just generating ideas.

If there's no historical villain or convenient sleuth, create your own. Remember, you're writing fiction.

Just ponder what the following poem means or says to you or us as readers. It's taken from Chapter Thirty-Four of my novel, A Body To Bones, First Skeleton Series Mystery, said to be written by a small town newspaper publisher. That he might do that would make sense, right? If I'm not the National Poet so be it, I'm, as you will be, hiding behind a created character. The question is does it impart meaning that is understood by the reader, if not critically acclaimed?

Lies will not support the past

False fronts created will not last.

In this world of gloom and woe

In wisdom, faith, and trust we grow.

For all that we carry in our heart

Or that our words will impart,

Memories in our hearts still glow

Showing us paths on which to go.

 

And so, what does that tell us as the readers?

 

Who is lying? What false fronts are created? Does it matter as long as we know it's bad? Perhaps the prior narrative tells us or perhaps we must look at our own past?  Even in a world of gloom, isn't there certain existing values we can count upon to exhibit hope? I'd say yes.

 

If there are trials or discouragements that linger in our hearts, doesn't the heart and the human condition have past glories that will show us the way? Shouldn't we be uplifted in the future that awaits? I'd say, amen.

 

Even if you don't have an answer, doesn't the poetry in fiction add another dimension that no other tool can?  Obviously you can debate me or others. But try it once. If your fiction is enhanced, you get the reward. It couldn't be any sweeter than that.

 



Guilty Sampler - Author Donan Berg

Guilty Sampler

 

 

Gerald patted the strange outline of the object beneath the cloth of his winter coat pocket, not remembering what he'd put inside it. He pulled the object out and immediately clasped his fingers around the plastic white spoon to hide it from supermarket passersby.

 

 

He felt a pang of guilt, not that he'd be going to jail soon. With the sample taste still lingering on his tongue, he fretted that he shouldn't have tried any sample since he knew he'd never splurge for a full retail container or package of the offered item.

 

 

The sample lady had smiled so broadly as she reached out the paper cup, so tiny, yet so inviting. Her wrinkled fingers beneath translucent plastic gloves matched her lip's radiating expressive creases.

 

 

"Try this pineapple with mango, you've never tasted anything so good," she said.

 

 

Gerald hesitated. The juice could be the perfect solution to his dry mouth. Hadn't he stopped at the bits of energy bar, pasta, ice cream, crackers, and chips all offered to him and consumed at the ends of previous aisles?

 

 

"Please enjoy," the sample lady coaxed. "The juice is on sale today. Save a dollar."

 

 

"Why not? What have I to lose?" His right hand fingers beneath the cup's top ridge lifted the tiny cup from the sample lady's hand. He turned his head as he sipped. A trick experience taught him to not broadcast offense to a sample lady if he didn't like what he tasted.

 

 

He rotated his head toward the sample lady. "Thank you. Interesting taste." Gerald  accepted the juice carton presented to him, set it in the cart's child seat, and shoved his cart load of six items to the next aisle. He tossed the sample-weighted cup into the brown paper bag collecting waste at the foot of the next sample table.

 

 

He didn't eat yogurt. The young girl with flashing green eyes surely had a bright future, but not with enticing shoppers for she barely said hello. Gerald, out of the young woman's sight, tossed the cup and its yogurt. What a waste, he thought. He slipped the spoon into his coat pocket.

 

 

Prior to checkout, he doubled back and, scanning the nearby area to be sure that no one seemed to be looking, he placed the juice carton between to milk half-gallons.

 

 

To the cashier he nodded when asked if he'd found everything. The plastic spoon in his coat pocket overlooked. Wasn't that part of the free sample? Too embarrassed to ask, he decided to shop on a different day next week.

 

 

(How would you edit this? Perhaps toss it completely? What does it say? Isn't this so ordinary a situation to be considered trite? If not, why?)

Character - A Poem

Character

 

The character appears on page,

but of his design who’s to gauge?

From the printed word we decide

where in our favor he’ll reside.

 

If he’s battered with rags-a-tatter,

from him we will all scatter.

If he’s in tailored coat and tie,

for his rapt attention we’ll vie.

 

If he staggers up from the gutter,

we expect all profanity to utter.

If high society lists him by name,

our invite to dinner won’t shame.

 

If he knows how to bow with style,

we suspect a nature without guile.

After all study our mind’s decided,

this character is really divided.

 

Copyright Donan Berg 2010

Copyright DOTDON Books 2010