The Nose Knows

What I'm reading: Breaking Loose by Tara Janzen.

What's in a Name? is the Frugal Find of the Day. Please check it out (and send friends that way!)

On Saturday, I went to a small writing seminar, focused on writing crime/mystery stories. One of the presenters was a bloodhound handler, and I found her talk fascinating. Through her talk, I discovered that despite my research for a scene in Finding Sarah, I didn't know the right questions to research, so I have an error in that scene. Once the rights revert to me, you can be sure I'm going to fix it!


(And no, I'm not going to tell you what the mistake was. If you've read the book, then you can check for yourself.)

Our speaker was Ingela Tapper, and she provided a most entertaining session. Highlights of the session:

The bloodhound breed goes back to the 7th century. They are "man trackers" and work on recognizing and finding a specific scent.

They can be cross trained to find live victims/suspects, as well as cadavers.

Almost all the training involves teaching the human to learn to read the dog. The dogs know what they're doing and should be trusted to do their jobs. They become single-minded about finding their target, and their handler has to be in excellent physical shape to keep up. Ingela is a very slight woman, and she mentioned going airborne behind her dogs, which often outweighed her by more than 25 pounds.

Bloodhound anatomy is designed for tracking. Their ears and facial skin folds trap the scent in a kind of "scent bank". Also, their large paws will stir up the scent for trails more than 24 hours old.

These dogs are also prolific at saliva production. This moistens the scent and helps them find scent trails over 36 – 48 hours old.

Much of Ingela's work involves finding missing children, and she says in about 75% of the cases, there's a criminal element involved. Usually the abductors are people known to the family. But she's also helped track and find murderers and criminals such as bank robbers.

The best scent items are items containing bodily fluids of the missing person. She says the best item for tracking a missing young child is a dirty diaper, but any used underwear or socks also make excellent scent items for the dog.

Don't Lose your Characters

What I'm reading: Damaged, by Debra Webb

Don’t forget – there’s plenty of time to leave a comment on Phoebe Conn’s Tuesday post to be entered in her drawing. I’ll wait while you scroll down.

Meanwhile, I’m over at The Romance Studio at a release party today. I’ll be in and out all day. If you’re so inclined, pop on over. I’m talking about WHERE DANGER HIDES, and I’m giving away a download of WHEN DANGER CALLS.

When writing series or connected books, there are some extra considerations, such as handling back story and keeping track of characters. And sometimes, it can get you into trouble.

For example, in WHEN DANGER CALLS, I needed Ryan to be able to get into the Blackthorne’s fancy computer system, even though he’d technically quit. It made no sense for a company like Blackthorne to have conveniently forgotten to shut down his access. (that would have been one of those handy “coincidences” I talked about in an earlier post) So, I simply gave Ryan a throwaway line:

“I sort of borrowed a login from a buddy. His fault—I kept telling Grinch to pick a smarter password than his kid's name and birthday."

So, when it became time to write Grinch’s story, I was stuck with the child. And due to other plot considerations, I gave him a dog as well. While it’s one thing to have a throwaway line, once a character is on the page, be it human or animal, it becomes your responsibility.

Editing: The Next Step

Yesterday I mentioned printing out your document in two columns, using a font different from the one you use to write your manuscript. The advantages: Your eye sees things differently. First, the line breaks will come at different places. This means the words line up differently, and things you haven't noticed will jump out at you. Also, the narrower columns mean your eye can take in a whole "line" much more easily.

I also said I prefer to print it out single-spaced, and I use an 11 point font which is still easy to read, but saves paper. The idea on this read is to read the manuscript like a book. I'm reading for story. Here, I'll try to read in larger chunks. I keep my red pen handy, and a stack of Post-Its.

(Confession – I started this manuscript while we were in the process of moving, and didn't use my tracking board. So I was actually going back and doing a lot of what I SHOULD have done as I was writing – but either way, it gets the job done.)

And, because I hadn't used my tracking board, I read each scene and then summarized it on a Post-It. One thing I do leave in when I print the manuscript is the page break between chapters. This gives me room for my Post-Its and also any other notes I think will be helpful. I also decided that I'd never write another manuscript without my tracking system. Saves a lot of effort in the read-through.(And if you click to enlarge the images, you'll know why I don't write longhand!)

The Name Game

What I'm reading: Hour Game, by David Baldacci

The first serious work begins on our house today, and I'm hoping it won't be totally disruptive. We'll have to see. We're starting with the painting and the master bedroom closet installation. I'm hoping that the closet installers show up at the beginning of their window so we can put all our clothes away, meaning less stuff in the way of the painters.
Last week, I talked about a story "bible" for keeping track of things, and how I hadn't really done as much along those lines as I should. Keeping track of characters' names is one of the basic skills any author should acquire. Regardless of how one chooses to do it, you really have to avoid confusing your readers. I'd like to share my system.

I recently read a book by a major, big name, best-selling author. It was a good book, but I wondered why she'd chosen the character names she used in the book. And I don't mean places where she was locked into names because the characters were in the same family—that's unavoidable, so you have to be careful not to refer to them by their last names.

Which Way Next?

What I’m reading: Smash Cut by Sandra Brown

How much should you plan ahead? One of the first thing you learn when you’re starting out is that nothing moves fast. You spend months—maybe longer—getting the manuscript ready to submit. Then it’s time for queries. Agents might have response times of weeks or more for a query. You’re lucky; you get a request for a partial. There’s another month or more waiting for a response. Lucky again; you get a request for a full. Tick, tick, tick.

What do you do while you’re in the midst of this waiting game? Write the next book. Ah, but there’s the rub. What do you write? There’s no guarantee book 1 will sell, much less a series, or a spin-off, based on it.

After I wrote When Danger Calls, one of the secondary characters wanted his turn front and center, so I started writing Dalton’s book. When I got an agent, she suggested we make it stand alone, so I had to go back and make sure there was nothing the depended on a reader having read the first book. Publishers often don’t want to buy book 2 in a series. So, while she was shopping the manuscript around, what was I doing? Writing another book. I took a hiatus from the Blackthorne, Inc. world and wrote Hidden Fire, the sequel to Finding Sarah.