JANUARY 2013, CRITIQUE GROUP, NASHVILLE “If there’s one thing I have no business doing,” I told them, “it’s writing a spy story.” It was a sharp winter’s day, and around our pub table the critique group nodded readily. A little too readily. Crimped in my hands was a draft of the spy story I had been…… Continue reading Behind: “Sparks to the Bear’s Hide”
Category: This Whole Writing Thing
Show Some Love for Effie Perine
Dashiell Hammett earned his place in literary lore many times over, for amazing fiction but also for presenting the quintessential “lady walks in” opener. The Maltese Falcon kicks off with a scene borrowed into cliché. Secretary Effie Perine leans into PI Sam Spade’s office and says: “There’s a girl out here who wants to see you.” Plot summaries barely mention Effie, and when…… Continue reading Show Some Love for Effie Perine
Behind: “Uprisings at Cap d’Antibes”
There’s nothing like a good, old-school revolution to get a story going. Great or small, a lightning coup or decades in the making, needed change or epic tragedy. Revolution, for better or worse, is essentially human. The idea of a revolution wriggled into my brain some time back. In my fiction usually a form of natural order wins…… Continue reading Behind: “Uprisings at Cap d’Antibes”
Behind the Short Story: “Whorling”
Albert Einstein–you know, he of the supercomputer brain–once dished out this observation on the universe: “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” Well said, but only half said. Sure, gravity doesn’t make people weak-kneed in love, but some force does, internal or external. Einstein didn’t name the cause because he didn’t know it. No one does. Love, a mystery.…… Continue reading Behind the Short Story: “Whorling”