An Extra Degree of Difficulty

I read a lot, mostly mysteries, and so often the protagonist goes through plenty before solving the case. He or she may be threatened, beaten, run off the road, locked in a dark room, or any number of things. What happens when the protagonist has something else working against them besides a bad guy?

How many books have you read or movies you’ve seen where the sweet young thing is being chases through the woods, trips and falls, and sprains an ankle. It’s been done over and over. However, I have a feeling if someone was chasing me I might not see the tree root sticking out of the ground, or the hole some critter dug, and I’d probably trip, too.

Now let’s take this to a different level and add the extra degree of difficulty. What if the character has a sprained or broken ankle before the chase? He or she is going to have to be pretty creative or there won’t be a chase. What this means is the author is going to have to be pretty creative.

Let’s say the character is sitting out on the patio, babying a bad case of allergies. She’s sneezing, sniffling and blowing her nose. Her ears have stuffed up from all the sniffling.

Now the bad guy is sneaking around the side of the house, weapon in hand. I’m going to say the protagonist lives in the desert and has a yard full of gravel rather than grass. (Grass doesn’t do well in the desert heat.) No matter how hard the antagonist tries to be quiet, the gravel crunches under his feet. He stops and listens, but all he hears is a sneeze. Onward bad guy.

Meanwhile, between the sneezing, blowing and stuffed ears, our innocent allergy sufferer doesn’t hear his arrival. Oh, and let’s say she doesn’t have any pets who might warn her of the impending danger. What’s a girl gonna do?

The bad guy leaps around the corner of the house and comes after our girl. Here are a few things she could do. She could throw her box of tissues at him, but that probably wouldn’t do much good. She could wait until he’s close enough and start squeezing her nasal spray toward his eyes, repeatedly. Or, since this is a mystery and she may have had some idea that something might happen, she could reach for her own weapon which is lying conveniently in her lap or on the patio table next to her. The bad guy has a knife and she has a gun. Never bring a knife to a gunfight. Well, she could have a container of mace or something similar. I’m partial to a can of bear spray. It’s supposed to spray for something like thirty feet.

Changing the scenario just slightly, our female is still blowing her nose and sniffling, but this time she has a dog who’s sitting next to her on the patio. Through her teary eyes she sees the dog stand and stiffen. The hair on his back stands up, and although she can’t really hear him, she can tell by his face that he’s emitting a low growl. The bared teeth are a dead giveaway. When the bad guy steps round the corner of the house, he finds a woman with a gun or bear spray pointed at him and she has a phone in her hand. She’s just called 9-1-1.

I realize these examples are silly, but sometimes making the protagonist more vulnerable makes the story a bit more exciting. What if, as I mentioned before, he or she had a broken leg before the confrontation? Remember the Hitchcock movie, Rear Window? If you’ve never seen it, you might want to check it out. Very creative self-defense. However, unless your protagonist is accident prone, I wouldn’t overdo it. One broken leg per series would be plenty.

Would you like to know what brought on this particular post? My daughter sprained her ankle yesterday when her thick-soled flip flops twisted and she fell off of them. Once again, real life sparks ideas.

Until next time, I hope you have a healthy week with no falls, no allergies and no bad guys.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

Here’s hoping you’ll take the time to give One Adventure Too Many – A Sandi Webster Mystery a try. The biggest accident in this story is a visit from Sandi’s busybody mother and aunt who want to help solve a murder.

Just the Facts, Ma'am

 

Do I look like the relative of

an infamous man?

Research is so important, even when you’re writing fiction. There have been many blogs written about the topic, and they all make sense. I’m going to touch on another aspect of research.

Double check your facts if your information is coming from research done on the Internet.

Bartalo (or Bartolo) Ballerino was my great-great-grandfather. On a whim, I looked him up on the Internet and found more than I bargained for. He wasn’t a pillar of the community, and in fact, while he started out as a farmer, he and Theobald Bauer, an ex-boxer, ended up running the Red Light District in Old Los Angeles. He was notorious throughout the southwest, but it wasn’t for the reasons I found in my wanderings.

According to a few websites he was Italian and a big, bad Italian mob boss. Uh, he wasn’t Italian and his real name wasn’t Ballerino. He wasn’t part of Little Italy, and he wasn’t a crime boss for the mob.

Actually, he arrived from Chile and assumed a new name –  Ballerino. No one knows what his true name was, although I do know what county he was from (in Chile). However, we (family) do know of his line of work. He inspired the book, A Well-Kept Family Secret, which is fiction but which includes some facts relating to the time period. He and my great-great-grandmother eventually became naturalized American citizens.

Am I defending him? Not really, and yet, in a way I am. He wasn’t a stellar citizen, but he wasn’t a mob boss either. Yes, there are legends about him, but they don’t relate to The Mob. There are stories passed down through my family, but again, they don’t relate to The Mob.

Do I have documentation about him? You betcha!

By the way, there is a family legend about him hiding gold in Old Los Angeles. I used that as part of my storyline. For years, both family and strangers searched Los Angeles for the gold. It was never found, to the best of my knowledge. If it was found, no one ever stepped up the plate and held up their index finger, saying, “Yoohoo. I found the gold.”

So why would I use this relative as an example of researching? Because what’s been posted about him isn’t true. It’s one of those rare times when I actually know what I’m talking about. When you research a subject you might find some really exciting information on the Internet, but take a deep breath and do a little more research. Make sure you have the facts, as much as possible, especially if you’re going to write about an historical figure.

I noticed that the person(s) who posted information about Ballerino made a point of saying they didn’t have his date of birth or death. Hmm. I do. I did some honest research and didn’t make assumptions. I know a lot about him, his life, and his family.

In Old Murders Never Die I needed to include appliances that were used in the late 1800s. I researched those before writing the book. It sounds like a small thing, but if a writer gets it wrong, someone will call them on it. I needed a stove that would have been used around 1880, not 1915, or 1920. I included an ice box, not a refrigerator. Appliances were just the beginning of the research.

Sometimes we need to examine even the smallest things. Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. Don’t make things up, which I’ve seen done many times. Know what you’re talking about. By the way, some readers will take the fictionalized facts as… Well, fact. Your readers need to trust you.

What are some of the things you’ve had to research that were different, or odd? What type of research gave you the most trouble? Did you do your research online or at the library, using a book? The curious want to know.

Until next time, visit your local library and look for the facts, ma’am (or sir). And remember, relatives are just a little drip in the big gene pool of life.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

What Are the Odds? is based on a real house where I was able to do firsthand research. The story is fiction, but the house is real and described the way it really was, including a hidden staircase.

Gun Totin' Mama

For the sake of argument, remember that I’m talking about fiction.

With that said, what might happen if a mugger approached your protagonist and she was carrying a weapon in her purse?

He might say, “Gimme your money or lose your life!”

Is she going to hand over her purse if there’s a weapon in it? Probably not, because it could be turned on her.

She could say, “Hold on a sec, sweetie, while I fish my gun/pepper spray/ knife/ mace out of my purse.” Not a good move on her part. Maybe, instead, she could say, “Hold on a sec, sweetie, while I fish my heart pills/hormone pills/inhaler/ lipstick (lipstick?) out of my purse. You can have everything else.”

Of course, many of today’s bad guys are worse than in years past, but we’re talking about fiction. The antagonist can be as good or bad as the author wants him or her to be.

I know I’m repeating myself, but a long time ago a friend and I went to the bank on our lunch hour. As we were leaving, she was mugged. Long story short, they were struggling on the ground when I raised my purse to hit him over the head. He glanced up and saw what I was doing and took off. I’ve always carried large purses, and apparently he feared for his life when he saw the monster I carried. By the way, the only weapon I carried was the purse itself.

Chances are that in real life the woman would just hand over her purse. Although… If the victim was carrying some kind of weapon, she might actually try something like I’ve mentioned.

I once read that your keys are a good weapon. Carry them with a key sticking out between your fingers. You might be able to poke someone in the eye or some other sensitive spot.

There’s a thought. Step forward to hand over your purse and in the process lift your knee quickly, hitting the bad guy’s Family Jewels.I guess that’s not such a good idea if he’s pointing a gun or a knife at you, though.

I’m making light of the situation, but remember, I’m talking about fiction. You can ask yourself what you might do under those circumstances, and you can write your character out of a tough situation. Just make it at least somewhat real.

In A Well-Kept Family Secret, Sandi Webster’s mother was waiting for her in a parking lot. She saw a mugger approaching and, surprise, surprise, she was carrying a large purse. As he rushed her, she swung the purse and hit him upside the head. In fiction, she got the drop on him like I’d wanted to.

Sometimes truth is so much stranger than fiction. Without going into it, a woman was recently attacked and she grabbed a rake. When the really, really bad guy tried to take the rake from her, he dropped his gun. She grabbed it and shot over her shoulder, killing him. Or so the story goes. It turned out, last I heard, that he may have been a serial killer. If you read that in a book, would you believe it? Yes, it happened in Cincinnati.

I remember reading one of Dorothy Bodoin’s books where the main character grabbed a salad bowl and dumped it on the killer’s head, leaving lettuce, salad dressing, and all the other ingredients running down the person’s face and into her eyes. Ingenious. I never would have thought of that, and it worked. It also made sense.

Have you ever surprised yourself by taking unexpected actions in a crisis situation? Sometimes our minds go blank and sometimes they kick into gear when faced with a horrendous situation. In fiction, we can make sure our protagonist thinks quickly and takes action. Please make sure it’s realistic, something that could really happen.

A salad bowl could really happen.

Now, sweetie, give me a sec to think up a new scenario. Nope. That’s all I’ve got to say on the subject.

Until next time, have a great week and walk with a key sticking between your fingers if you’re alone in a parking lot or walking down a dark street.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

If you read What Are the Odds? – A Sandi Webster Mystery, remember that everything about the house in the story is true. The rest is pure fiction. Isn’t that what they call a teaser?

From One Extreme to the Other

I live in the Arizona desert and I’ve seen the temperatures get as high as 128 degrees. We don’t have much rain, although sometimes during the monsoon season we get more than you can imagine. Friday night there was a huge storm with high winds, thunder and lightning. The cleanup took a couple of days, with a smaller storm hitting in the afternoon and causing more cleanup duties.

My house is for sale and I’ll be moving to Washington state where it rains – a lot. I have no idea what to expect, but I’m looking forward to the move.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Arizona, but a new chapter has started in my life and I need some changes.

You may be wondering why I’m talking about weather and moving, when I write a mystery blog. How often, in mysteries, is there a chase scene? Or a scenario where someone is conducting a surveillance? How about trying to sneak around a location?

In a chase scene, you can’t just say, “He ran after the bad guy.” No, you’ve got to include what your character has to endure and face. Needless to say, this is a foot chase. Think about it. What if the chase needs to take place during an extreme hot spell? When you walk outside and the temperature is 128 degrees, it feels like you just opened an oven door and stood in front of it, hoping it would cool off. The ground is so hot you can feel it, or almost feel it, through your shoes. You might start to sweat profusely, or you don’t sweat at all until you walk back inside, and then you can’t cool off.  The sweat is running into your eyes and down your back and chest.

Now a monsoon storm moves in. You’re not only already worn out from the heat, but high winds and thunder inhibit your efforts to catch the murderer, thief, or what have you.

What about the surveillance scenario? You might sit in a car and watch someone, but chances are if you’re there for any length of time you can’t keep the engine running so you can use the air conditioning. Cars become very hot, very fast. I’ve climbed into a hot car during the summer in the desert and found I couldn’t sit on the hot seat. I couldn’t hold onto the hot steering wheel. (You learn to park facing away from the sun or you put a sun screen in your car window.)

A foot chase in the heat and during a storm? Either the good guy or the bad guy, or both, may drop from heat stroke, if they’re not struck by lightning.

At the other end of the spectrum, imagine trying to sneak around with pouring rain slowing you down. Imagine mud sloshing into your shoes, and imagine your clothing becoming soaking wet. Of course, the heat can cause the same clothing problem. Ahem. Let’s move on. Now our characters are wet and cold. The good guy sees the bad guy exit a building and the chase is on. You can add slipping to the list of problems.

Of course, if the villain slips and falls, you might be able to add a little humor to this scene. Well, even if it’s the protagonist, you can add humor and let the bad guy get away, to be sought on another day.

You climb into your car to chase the suspect. I wonder if your wet or damp hands might slip off the steering wheel. The sole of your shoe might slip off the brake pedal. Hmmm. That could aid the bad guy in getting away once again.

When you’re creating a scene that includes weather issues, you can go in any direction and you can make the effort more interesting with just a bit of description. The elements can add something scary to the scene, or it can add humor. Frustration is always a possibility, too. I’ve only touched on heat and rain. There’s always snow to make things more interesting. High winds can cause all kinds of issues.

When writing a mystery, the author needs to picture himself or herself in just such a circumstance. Imagine every possibility, or remember your own reaction to unmerciful weather. Did your power go out during extreme heat or cold?

Make it real, and the reader will feel like they’re right there with your characters.

How do you think you’d react to the stifling heat I’ve mentioned, or any other major weather?

Until next time, stay cool and stay dry. Enjoy your summer and create some great memories. And wish me luck on selling the house.

CLICK HERE to visit Marja McGraw’s website

CLICK HERE for a quick trip to Amazon.com

If you like the idea of finding a ghost town before anyone else has seen it, give Old Murders Never Die - A Sandi Webster Mystery a try. You’re sure to find a mystery in an old ghost town.