Halloween Candy Whimsy, Part II

We tried this a week ago with success and suggestions. The encouragement strained our minds to expand the test to identify Halloween candy treats. (Ps, the answers at the bottom of this post relate back to the prior October 17, 2012 post.)

1.  Famous former baseball player.

2.  Famous New York street.

3. Single women look for him.

4. Dry cow.

5. Determines who wins the game.

6. Home of movie stars.

7. A feline.

8. Two female pronouns.

9. Nut happiness.

10. A sweet sign of affection.

Good luck. The only sought after prize is your enjoyment.

(Answers to October 17, 2012 post: 1. Three Musketeers; 2. Mounds; 3. Milky Way; 4. Bit O Honey; 5. Life Savers; 6. M&M's; 7. Mars Bar; 8. Snickers/Chuckles; 9. Butterfingers; and 10. O'Henry. If you guessed me for the author, I blush, but you're wrong. Don't you think, however, that a nice candy name could be made from the book title A Body To Bones changed to be called "Body Sweets" so it isn't too ghoulish. Happy Halloween, and parents check your child's candy just to be safe.)

Can You Identify the Following Halloween Candy Treats?

Halloween is always a good time for whimsy. And, candy, candy, candy. Test your
sweet tooth memory with the following clues that identify candy brands.

Example:  Superman's favorite hangout; answer: Clark Bar.

Now it's your turn:

1.  A favorite swashbuckling trio

2.  Indian burial grounds

3.  Galaxy

4.  What bees make

5.  Round flotation device

6.  Twin letters

7.  Red planet

8.  Not laughing out loud

9.  Can't hold on to anything

10. A famous author

Answers will be forthcoming.

To Revise Is Not Failure

To Revise Is Not Failure

If you were halfway through a Scrabble game with lines of words and random letters on the board in front of you, do you consider yourself a failure? Of course not. You stay in the moment, organize the letters you have before you and summon potential strategies to choose your next move realizing there may be no exact right or wrong word to be chosen. For example, the word initially played commanding the most points may lock out subsequent words that will garner a greater sum.

Each joining together of separate alphabet letters is not a failure. So too, the combination of ideas, thoughts and emotions written in a first draft may fill a page, but not express the volume of ideas, thoughts and emotions that will be sculptured into a greater vision.

Revision is not editing. It is not changing a comma to a semicolon or any other similar grammatical correction task. Revision is to bring forth from the initial draft the essence or understanding or desire the writer wishes the reader to come away with. Consider the initial draft as raw material. It is the iron ore that will become steel and frame the tallest skyscraper that touches the sky.

Therefore, the first tool for revision is to jettison a focus on grammar and read the entire piece, aloud works best, with particular attention paid to the substance, rhythm and evoked emotion. If desired, have a sheet of paper to jot down any reaction. The key word is jot, not an extensive writing that keeps you away from continuing with the read-through.

It may be hard, but trigger your subconscious to visualize the scene created by the raw material.

Pay special attention to the ending. Does it satisfy the ongoing theme? Was the most important element of the raw material highlighted and fully explained?

Are there underlying themes? Do they choke the main theme or add fashionable jewelry to an already stylist outfit. For example, a romance element can be either a distraction or a spotlight on a character’s defining trait.

After, and only after, the first complete read-through, is it time to focus on specific parts. Do the same technique with the parts as with the whole, i.e., read the entire part.

At each reading, cut the distractions and everything else that doesn’t fit in, mold the ambiguous into a recognizable shape and sharpen the feel and expression of what strikes you as being on target.

Jettison the notion that there are set number of revisions to be accomplished. There isn’t. Your heart and gut will tell you when the best is achieved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Rainy Night" Play Thank You

A short and heartfelt thank you to CASI Senior Theatre, actors and director, who performed my one act play "Rainy Night."

And, a second thanks to the audience and your positive reaction. After the September performance, we look forward to an encore.

Review: Idomeneus, A Play

Billed as the United States premier, Chicago's Sideshow Theatre Company shuffles and struts on a shifting real sand set to bring Idomeneus by Roland Schimmelpfennig, translated by David Tushingham, to a Midwestern public during the months of August and September 2012 when most theater venues are dark awaiting the new season openings.

The DCA Storefront Theatre on East Randolph in Chicago is an intimate seating. Translate the two words into a minimal, find your own seat, bare-bones theatre. If you want red carpets, ushers in tuxedos and dainty champagne flutes during intermission, this theatre is not for you. The ticket price reflects the environment. The stage production, little over an hour with no intermission, is rightly the attendee's main focus, and, while the production is ambitious, it definitely comes across as fuzzy.

Idomeneus goes back to Greek mythology. Theatergoers are given a half-sheet handout on the Trojan War. If you don't read it, don't worry you haven't lost any understanding of the play. Idomeneus is not a well-known historical figure. At most, he was the King of Crete, mentioned in Book III of the Odyssey. In Homer's Iliad, Idomeneus was in the first rank of Greek generals. He was superior in the battle at Troy. By some accounts he rode inside the legendary Trojan Horse.

After being victorious at Troy, he supposedly struck a deal with Poseidon during a return-home voyage to save his ship during a violent sea storm that sunk seventy-nine other vessels laden with the general's troops en route to Crete. The deal struck is that, upon landing, Idomeneus is to slay the first living being he comes across. This turns out to be his son.

This is where "fuzzy" comes into focus. If the review reader doesn't understand the preceding sentence, then that is how the person in the play's audience often feels. Throughout the play there are several presentations where something is said to happen, and, then, not to happen. The energetic presentation by the actors is overwhelmed by the contradictory words. The fuzzy nature is parallel to what history says, and most often doesn't say, about Idomeneus. If the play was summoned out of nothingness, as it appears, then any moral imparted would be that of the author. In the end, the play ends without apparent moral.

The stage is mostly sand, a real honest-to-goodness child's sandbox. When Idomeneus is buried to the waist at the play's conclusion, it's easily done. The symbolic significance is not readily apparent. What is apparent is the energy of the cast who never really go off stage. They move in well designed movement. Special credit goes to McKenzie Chinn, Katy Carolina Collins and Joshua Davis. All actors, by their biographies, have been well grounded in regional theatre. It will not be a surprise if more than one goes on to greater national roles.

Live theater has a charm all its own. If one grasps the full meaning of the play, so much the better. The glass in this production is still half full and its not the local staging nor the actors that let one down.

When one leaves the theater, there is a chance to fill out a questionnaire and receive a piece of candy. That in a nutshell explains the experience of this production. One shouldn't have to take extra steps to fill in squares on a sheet of paper to feel rewarded.

Objects: A Key to Suspense

Objects: A Key to Suspense

By Author Donan Berg

Every reader desires suspense and writers strive to create the page-turning anticipation. That last word “anticipation” is the definition of suspense. One could write a book on creating suspense. However, let’s focus our penlight of inquiry on a tiny spot. In that tiny spot is our protagonist. All around him or her are varying shades of gray (dare we count them to equal the number fifty, no, not today) destined to become the darkness we label as the color black.

Suspense may set up housekeeping within any genre. It’s the romantic secret, the dark hole of sci-fi space, the path to the mystery’s clue, the rattlesnake coiled on the cowboy’s prairie, or the youngster’s hand reaching into what he or she thinks is a chocolate chip cookie jar.

Common objects can be used to create suspense. Why? Because there is a history or association that the object carries along with it. It’s the traveler’s baggage, so to speak. For example, if one were to read the word “toga,” what comes to mind? Romans, Caesar, Animal House, Belushi, wild party, girls, sex. (That last word was a no-brainer, wasn’t it? The three-letter word could punctuate any list of human association examples countless times without being wrong.)

Can you foreshadow suspense? Sure. Common objects invite association with pending dread. Halloween is the easiest example. The holiday has witches, spooks, skeletons and all sorts of objects linked to fear, foreboding and horror. If the author said the protagonist lived on Elm Street, would you think of scissor blades for fingers, hockey masks or “Father Knows Best?” What if the day happened to be the thirteenth of the month? And, add to that, a Friday. Each day of the month is obviously equal in creation, but the world has added associations. Is death any more horrible if it happens on Friday, the thirteenth? What about the Ides of March?

Children’s dolls are the Utopian fun object and the acme of all that is good, hopeful and innocent. And then an author created Chucky. What made Chucky more terrifying? His actions, of course, but he broke a perception of what a doll normally stood for. Anyone desire to open a drawer and spy a voodoo doll? An object, the doll, that stood for good, now acts or stands for evil or a premonition of bad. The opposite is when a mild-mannered reporter steps into a telephone booth and re-emerges as you know who.

A second more common foreshadowing of suspense is to use an object itself associated with foreboding. The most common example is the storm, either in full-blown glory or massing clouds on the horizon. Once Dorothy was sucked into the Kansas tornado, the reader didn’t expect the girl would be sitting down to milk and cookies. Remember, you don’t have to have terrible things happen after each suspense foreshadowing. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. If the proverbial cat walks out of the shadow after causing its owner a panic attack, the next time there’s a noise in the shadow confronting the owner it may not have to be the cat. Be careful of dream sequences. Ever since Bobby Ewing on TV’s “Dallas” opened the shower door in the 1980s, or maybe before that, announcing that the event had been a dream has carried its own association, and it's very negative, a reader turnoff.

Look for ways to create suspense in all kinds of situations. One way of many is to find a prevalent object in cultures, religions and/or exotic locales and set your mind to work. What could be different? What does the protagonist expect? What does he or she not expect? What moves the plot forward? Is the pumpkin a descriptive object to announce Halloween or to become a princess’s carriage? Or maybe the carved smiley face with the burning candle spooks a pair of lovers trying to sneak into what they anticipated to be an unoccupied cabin miles from nowhere.

Let’s try an example of a typical scenario of the police waiting to capture suspects arriving at an abandoned Midwest farmhouse. Should be a straightforward situation, or not? Detective Second Class Adolph Anderson is sweating out whether or not he’ll earn a nomination for a gold shield. Officer Sean Finnegan dreams of sewing on sergeant stripes.

 What follows is an excerpt by the author from his currently unpublished manuscript entitled “Garden Bones.” All rights reserved.

“C’mon, dirtbags, we’re ready for ya,” Adolph muttered to no one in particular. He endured the ear itch his stretched black stocking cap created and shook his head to drive out the arid smell of burnt field stubble the westerly breeze carried into his nostrils. Before he organized this stakeout, he’d demanded his daughter Kirsten promise not to leave home and be at Mary’s side. Adolph had personally verified all exterior home door locks worked. His cell phone listed the number of the security company scheduled to install perimeter sensors the next day. He heard two owl hoots and braced his shoulder against a sturdy cottonwood.

Two pairs of headlights turned off the county road into the graveled farmyard, the second pair those of a small truck. If Luann’s prediction came true, she’d be in a van with Rebecca. An old Cadillac sedan’s headlights illuminated the two words “Salvatore Pizza” on the visible side of the panel van. Adolph strained to count two women, five males, and an unidentified smaller person before the doused headlights returned the farmyard to the night’s murky darkness. Luann right again. Damn. Could be the teenage girl. Adolph hated the complication.

The parade of visitors disappeared into the farmhouse. Second story bedroom lights went on after the first floor living room. Adolph wanted to wait until the lower level lights were flicked off, but they stayed on. He thanked God no vehicle guard patrolled and the numerical odds were even, better than even if he could count on Luann being on the inside. He fumbled for his walkie-talkie not regretting he hadn’t invited the SWAT team with its audio headsets. He spoke one word into the walkie-talkie: “Forward.”

The noose of officers tightened around the farmhouse.

Tense leg muscles subdued rising adrenaline to slow Adolph’s steps. He brushed against the words: “Salvatore Pizza.” He hesitated. Finnegan would take longer to get in position at the rear farmhouse door. A shadowed figure to his left waved. Adolph raised his left palm now holding the bullhorn. He peeked across the van’s hood. Lights remained on on both farmhouse levels. To his thinking that wasn’t a good sign. If the impromptu porn studio existed in the master bedroom, all inside actors should be on the second level. Yet, a black form passed in front of what had to be a lamp and behind the gauzy living room window curtain. A light beam flashed on and off in the basement casement window.

Adolph ignored the tightening knot in his stomach and his fears of being seen. Someone inside had merely checked the house entrances and exits. If concerned, the yard light would’ve been flicked on. Patience. Keep cool. He lowered his left arm. Two owl hoots. Finnegan positioned. Adolph waved to the figure on his left and exposed his upper torso from the cover of the van. Until he reached the solid surface of the front walkway, he tried not to kick the pebbles in the gravel underfoot. No moonbeams guided his effort. To his right, a third figure, crossing the lawn, matched Adolph’s advance. The three men joined forces on the front porch. Both officers, shotguns vertical, fingers on their respective triggers, nodded to Adolph and flattened their backs against the house clapboard on opposite sides of the front door.

Adolph gulped two shallow breaths and pressed the bullhorn to his lips.

“Police. Come out now. Hands up.” He angled his body forty-five degrees to the door to protect against bullets shredding the wood and striking him. He tapped his 9mm against the bullhorn’s flared-molded end. His companion officers stepped out and pointed their shotguns at the front door.

Adolph called out again. “Police. Come out with hands up. (Silence) Now.”

No answer greeted his third shout. The silence irritated, but didn’t surprise, Adolph. The Dragons had to be calculating their escape. Or, eliminating hostages!

Adolph shouted, “Finnegan.” His bellow wasn’t the planned signal, and Adolph’s shoe sole slamming into the front door near the door handle elevated Plan C to Action Plan A. Following his sole, he burst into the living room. Empty. He heard the back door squeak and Finnegan emerged from the kitchen. Adolph tossed the bullhorn to the carpet and pointed his left forefinger at the ascending stairs. He ordered one of the officers with him to go back outside and stand guard at the two vehicles. “Don’t shoot. Expect hostages or innocents fleeing.”

With Finnegan’s butt tight to his, Adolph tiptoed up the stairs. He stopped two treads from the landing. An eerie silence. C’mon, Luann, knock something over. Give me a hint as to which room you’re all in. He braced his left hand against the peeling floral wallpaper. The 9mm weighed down his right hand. The glove worn didn’t allow the moisture gathering on his palm to streak the gun’s butt. A new scalp itch intensified. Brain cells warned his timing had to be just right or someone’s going to get hurt.

He rotated his head toward Finnegan. Their eyeballs met. Finnegan’s gaze mirrored Adolph’s thoughts: What now?

Adolph leaned forward; placed his left knee on the higher tread, sliding his left hand lower on the wall. Without exposing his head, he listened ever more intent on deciphering the slightest of noises. His ear canal might as well have been a laboratory vacuum chamber for the absence of noise-transmitting air. He straightened up. His butt bump alerted Finnegan to his next move, which was to bolt ahead, pivot into the upstairs hallway, and flatten himself against the wall ready to fire.

All upstairs inhabitants might as well have been possums playing dead for the amount of sound Adolph’s ears detected. When Finnegan’s face appeared, Adolph’s hand motioned toward the master bedroom door, his choice for room most likely occupied. He swallowed a premonition that he wouldn’t like what he was about to find. What to do? Indecision no option.

Adolph called out, “Come out. Play’s over.”

Only the scratch of Finnegan’s boots as he sidled up to Adolph drifted to the ceiling. Adolph lifted his right foot and feigned a kick. Finnegan nodded and braced himself against the opposite hallway wall, shotgun shouldered and aimed.

The bedroom door thudded its inside door handle three times against the wall and gouged a crescent into the plaster.

“Damn.” Adolph’s expletive echoed among the disturbed dust particles floating beneath the lit ceiling light fixture. “Damn. Double Damn.”

“What the hell!” Finnegan exclaimed.

Finnegan’s surprise wasn’t lost on Adolph. He pulled back the black window curtain and waved to the officer standing on the front lawn, next to both suspect vehicles still parked where first seen. Adolph’s supposition verified when he raced through the two adjoining bedrooms and the bathroom, opening closet doors, and finding nobody present.

He met Finnegan in the hallway. “What’d we miss, Sean?”

“Thought you’d know... Sorry.”

“No one came out the front.”

“Not the rear, either.”

Adolph slumped against the wall. Think, stupid. He recalled house lights on both the first and second stories. He’d seen a figure later moving on the first floor, and then the basement light. “Let’s check the basement. Only place left.”

Adolph led the twosome’s clomp down the stairs. “Nothing upstairs,” he said to the officer in the living room. “Hand me your flashlight and stay here while we check out the basement.”

Finnegan unclipped his own flashlight and the two beams preceded Adolph and Finnegan into the basement. Dark and dank, they found it devoid of human life. The arachnids skittered within the heaven they’d created. Adolph swiped at a cobweb before he noticed a cleared path above his head and scattered dust on the concrete floor.

“Was told a torture chamber existed with an entrance here in the basement,” he told Finnegan. Adolph purposely left Luann’s name unmentioned. Where was it? She hadn’t explained that. “Check behind those shelves moved out from that wall to your left.”

“There’s a door.”

“Let’s go.” (End of example)

If the above were a full novel, the reader wouldn't be ending here, even if it was a chapter ending, which would be totally acceptable. All hopefully will pardon the abrupt ending here for further discussion of suspension creation. To be successful, suspense shouldn't always race on at unrelenting warp speed. The trick is to create a pause, a release. The forward momentum to be similar to a radio wave with its up and down variation gracefully accomplished. In the above example, could the reader have expected gunfire? Sure. Was there any? No. Where did the suspense come from? Objects like shotguns are typical in a police procedural. What or where else: an empty farmhouse; the internal dialogue of Adolph monitoring his emotions, what he expected at the farm, including Luann’s help; the security features he was installing on his own home and what about the possum?

Two final notes:

(1) The extent of the reader's expected knowledge of the scene or situation can dictate the amount of necessary writing detail. If the locale is exotic, include additional description to ground the reader.

(2) Holding back information can add or detract from suspense. To hold back information the viewpoint character possesses can be a cheap trick that will irritate the reader. Likewise, adding words to the effect that the main character didn't know he would be hospitalized the next day are also to be avoided. In the example above, was it fair for the author not to detail who exactly constituted the group of suspects? Later, the excerpt reader learns Adolph knows a woman named Luann and that she’s inside and may or may not be a suspect. In context, to be fair, Luann was a detective assigned to be Adolph’s partner. The reader would know this from earlier events. Now, everyone’s up to speed. No suspense. No anticipation.

Ps, And who's that standing behind you?

Discussion Guide - The Bones Dance Foxtrot

Author Donan Berg's The Bones Dance Foxtrot, Second Skeleton Series Mystery, will be the featured book at CASI Book Club, Davenport, IA, in September. The following book club discussion topics have been prepared especially for them.

Book Club Discussion Questions

The Bones Dance Foxtrot by Donan Berg

1. How does protagonist Jake respond to the death of Athena? Is his response to his wife’s death realistic? If not, why? Is there any “normal” reaction to a spouse’s death?
2. For the characters, Emily, Patricia, Kate and Chief Coltraine, what is disclosed in their individual past life’s history that influences their actions? Do persons in real life always act consistent? What about Robert?
3. Jake’s occupation is as an over-the-road truck driver. Would he act different if he were employed as a person who “drove” a desk eight hours a day?
4. Prophet Jeremiah’s biblical words are quoted frequently. What do they foreshadow? If someone said it was an author’s trick to advance the story’s plot or to generate artificial suspense, would you agree or disagree? Is there a logical connection between a truck driver’s life and the fact that motels place Gideon Bibles in nightstands?
5. Within the novel, the author expends many words, including in-person point-of-view, to detail actions from a police perspective. Is that helpful, engaging or distracting?
6. Many of the characters, including Jake, participate in Emily’s local community theater. Does Patricia’s actor role foreshadow her personality or is her reality the direct opposite of the role she plays? How does Patricia’s role impact Jake, if at all?
7. Does Kate’s desire, as a widow, not to remarry square with her outward interactions with Jake? Also, is her diner veteran’s wall a true memorial or is it a business strategy?
8. Is Chief Coltraine’s gut reaction about Jake based on his experience or is it illogical for a veteran police supervisor, in a new job, to go against other department members?
9. Emily extends a hand of friendship to Jake. What motivates her? Is Jake a father figure? Is Emily just friendly to anyone who joins the acting troupe?
10. What does Emily’s hiring of Clem say about her? Does Clem impact Jake?
11. What about Jake’s quirk concerning measurements? Do you know any such person?
12. Is there humor in the story? What about Jake picking up the stuffed chickadee in his search for the stolen gold? Any other examples?
13. How important is Oscar in solving the mystery? Has the author, considering his previous novel, A Body To Bones, in which a young boy named Oscar found a skeleton, purposefully selected the name of Oscar to point to a significant discovery?
14. What role do the dances play in the story? What about the clothes worn by the dancers? What about Jake’s relationship with whom he dances? Does his treatment of his dance partners reveal anything about Jake’s personality?
15. The bank robbery is a past event happening before Jake arrives in Paradise. What ramifications impact on Jake?
16. Jake is a veteran. He talks about his military service with self-deprecation. Is there something else about his military service that has remained hidden? Could it be he didn’t even realize how service to his country could impact his actions?
17. Jake is presented with a crisis. What motivates him to react the way he does? Is it a past or recent experience or a person? Does Jake’s reaction indicate he’s more concerned about one person’s well-being or that Jake would act as he does for anyone in peril?

     Author Donan Berg's Baby Bones, Third Skeleton Series Mystery, now available in trade paperback at www.dotdonbooks.com and www.amazon.com . Earlier releases included an Ebook and Mp3 (audio) book.