Review of "Tranquillity Initiative"

In his review of my book "Tranquillity Initiative" - which he called a "good read" (with) a really good "reveal" at the end." Jon Steel took issue with my villains as a little too much "baby killers" although he said they worked the plot along. Actually the plot wouldn't work without them, but that brings me to a chapter in my forthcoming book "What Car Would Hamlet Drive: 2000 Questions To Ask Fictional Characters."

In my fiction writing, I write in the thriller genre. In this genre it is imperative that my hero be kept in a state of immanent peril.

In "Hamlet's Car," I pose the idea that "your hero is defined by your villain." If the villain isn't strong and truly threatening, then it's hard to see your hero as truly brave or in danger. The only way to make your villain truly threatening is to have him (or them) do really bad things to other people - kill, main, torture, rape - so that when your hero faces his nemesis - or a collection of nemesis allies (villains usually have supporters or employees who are equally bad) - you fear for the hero because you understand what the villain is capable of.

During the time I was finishing the writing of "Tranquillity Initiative" I had a conversation with a woman I had known in Vermont. Her husband had returned from Iraq a very damaged man. For months he had terrorized his wife and children, keeping them virtual prisoners in their house in order to protect them from attack. "The army turned my husband into a killer," she told me. "Then they sent him home without bothering to turn him back into a civilian." I thought that was very interesting and it bore out some of my character theories.

In "Tranquillity Initiative" I needed a second stream of villains (the "baby killers") because I had seriously weakened the terrorists by giving them anthrax when they released the disease into the population. Besides which, I had made the terrorists somewhat sympathetic because I motivated them by having their families killed - "Digging through the rubble of what had remained of their homes until they had torn off their fingernails." Of course the terrorists were terrorists and behaved like terrorists but their mission was not to attack the hero, it was to attack the population of New York. So the baby killers were needed to attack the hero.

Writing is such an interesting activity - It is a never ending array of problem solving. I love doing it, learning about it, picking it apart and talking about it.

I'm grateful for Jon Steel's very interesting review. I learned from it. I look forward to the rest of the reviews that are scheduled to arrive over the next weeks and months.

I disliked "The Tourist" intensely

Watching "The Tourist" was about as exciting as watching grass grow in winter. What a waste of talent and money. Angelina Jolie looked and acted like a manikin in a store window. The best that could be said about her is she dresses up well. Her energy, or the relative lack thereof, was matched by Johnny Depp's. His quirkiness tried to come through a couple of times but it didn't add much to the film. The sound was ridiculous but at least the vocals matched the plasticity of the characters. The best that can be said was that Joli's dresses were gorgeous. The Director was an idiot.... "Let's get a little more cheese cake...." "How about another shot of Joli's ass...." They tried for a twist at the end but it was pancake flat. Don't waste your money even for the DVD or download. It's one of those films that the talent will groan about when they realize it's on their resumes.

This quote from my newest review for "Tranquillity Initiative" is music to my ears. I have spent over 25 years picking away at a book on character development. I guess this will be the cover quote.

"The first big thing that hit me about this book is a specific talent that Joan has as a writer that I've rarely seen, and I've read A LOT of books. Throughout the book we're presented with several characters who have contracted the anthrax virus through one means or another. In a matter of a few short paragraphs, Joan was able to make me care about those characters. One character was presented on one mere page, but I loved her and cared about her as if she'd been a life long friend. I've been going over and over this in my mind and I still can't figure out how she did it. Even if this isn't a book you might be interested in, if you're a writer, you might consider picking up this book to learn a few hints on character creation. I'm stunned at the way that Joan has taken a mere glimpse at a person and made them someone I cared about."

New Movie Studio

Amazon is promising to do for scriptwriters what it has done for book writers. In that vein I have just posted the movie version of "Tranquillity Initiative" on Amazon Studios. Life in the digital age is amazing and wonderful and exciting and replete with possibility.

More 5 Star Reviews

Five Stars on Amazon, Five Stars on Barnes and Nobel and now this excellent review on genregoroundreviews.blogspot.com. It's very exciting. Almost every day I find someone new talking about "Tranquillity Initiative."

I AM A NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH WINNER!!!!

I have just completed and finished 51,157 words of the novel "Relentless:The Story Of The Search for Typhoid Mary" in the time period between November 1-30, 2010, which makes me a winner of the competition.

Keeping Character Pages

As I listen to (I've read and re-read and now have books on tape) the Harry Potter Series I am constantly amazed at how identifiable each of J.K. Rowling's characters are and the consistent reminders that she uses to remind us of who each character is. Luna Lovegood is dreamy. Hermione Granger has brown bushy hair. Ron Weasley often says "You're mental." Hagrid is "Too big to be allowed."

I remember listening to an interview with either Jim Dale or Stephen Fry - who are the actors who read the Harry Potter series - and the particular actor said that he had recorded the accents of each of the characters and reviewed them before each chapter and possibly before each segment. We have a recording studio in the back of our house where music is made and I'm amazed at what my son-in-law can do with Protools.

Television series have notebooks filled with information about characters not only for the writers but for the actors and directors to review them for enriching their understanding of the character. It's impossible to hold everything in memory over years and years.

Character Pages are the same thing as recording accents and speech patterns except that you keep the visuals as well as the auditory. On Character Pages you write down preferred swear words, eccentricities, identifying habits and patterns, special things like physical features, or preferred clothing choices.

In Typhoid Mary - which will be the story I am working on for National Novel Writing Month - one of the characters will be very much like a woman I knew in Vermont named Constance Perry. She used to punctuate phrases with "Don't you know?" which has a wonderful old fashioned cadence in my ear. Typhoid Mary is known to have had a foul mouth - well in 1906 foul mouths are much milder than in 2010 - so how foul am I going to let her get without stepping out of period? Since National Novel Writing Month begins tomorrow I'm going to spend today creating and reviewing character pages.

Character Pages are begun as you outline and maintained as you write. With the advent of the computer you can always go back through the book or movie and add in bits and pieces that expand on the knowledge of each character.

Is it necessary to do all this work around writing? Absolutely not. It depends on who you are as a writer and how good you want your book to be.