Just for Fun

I was trying to decide what to write about tonight. “Write about dogs,” my husband suggested, partly because we were watching a dog show on Animal Planet and (I imagine) partly because dogs are among my favorite creatures in the world. While I liked the idea, my brain, which has, in the last few weeks, become something vaguely resembling butterscotch pudding, found it impossible to come up with anything more than a rambling monologue about how dogs make the world brighter. If I’m going to write anything readable about dogs, I think it will have to simmer a bit.

Finally, I remembered a “story starter” from an online class I once took a few sessions of. I thought you might enjoy trying your hand at it.

Here's the Story Starter. It’s just a simple situation: "A man dressed in coveralls and carrying a gym bag steps out of an alley."

For giggles and grins, here’s the short story I wrote from that beginning. I hope you'll try your hand at it and share yours too.

The Good Partner

"Hey, Buddy, what's in the bag?"

I shifted the wriggling duffel and looked up into the ruddy face of a uniformed policeman. Damn. I'd peeled off my blood-splashed boots and coveralls and exchanged them for jeans and a perfectly respectable chambray shirt. Stuffed the bloody garments into Tony Corelli's garbage chute. Surely they hadn’t been found already. My mouth was dry. I pressed the tip of my tongue against the space behind my lower teeth to get the juices flowing and said, "Excuse me?"

"The bag." The cop gestured. "What's in it?"

It was early, the street just beginning to wake. Only a few scurrying passers-by, and not a single hero among them. The cop had sixty pounds on me, most of it flab. I could probably outrun him, but that would attract attention.

"You don't want to know, Officer . . ." I peered at his badge. "Dougherty."

"You're an expert on what I do and don’t want to know?"

"There’s nothing illegal in here."

"I'm sure. Being's how you're such an honest-looking fellow."

He meant it sarcastic, but it was true. I am an honest-looking fellow. It's a useful characteristic, in my line of work. We appraised each other. Then he said, "I wanna see what's in the bag."

"If you say so." I handed it over. The contents shifted, and the side of the bag bulged out as if something inside had punched it.

He yelped and fumbled the duffel. I lunged to catch it. He yanked it away and set it awkwardly on the ground.
“Don’t move,” he said. “And keep your hands where I can see them.” He flipped up the safety strap and drew his weapon. Pointed it at my chest.

My heart thumped a smidgen faster. “No need for that.”

“Let me decide that.” He unzipped the bag.

I’m not sure what he expected. A kidnapped child. A small collection of severed heads. Whatever he expected, it wasn’t Emily.

Corelli had kept her in too small a cage, and when Dougherty opened the bag, she uncoiled like a spring. Eleven feet of angry python, albino scales all smooth and shiny in the light. Dougherty snatched his hand away, and her jaws snapped on air. Another day, she would have had him, but she was betrayed by metabolism--the small but tell-tale bulge in her belly where the rat Corelli had given her was slowly digesting.
Dougherty cursed and kicked the bag, which riled her more. It ticked me off, too. Snakes have delicate spines. He might have hurt her, kicking her that way.

I scooped her up and draped her around my shoulders. "She's perfectly gentle. And perfectly legal."

His ruddy face flushed even ruddier. He ran a trembling hand across his jaw. Trying to regain his sense of machismo. "Where’d you get that thing?"

"Reptile Palace, down on Seventh. Check with them."

"Why’s it in that bag?"

This was where it got dicey. I decided on the truth—or at least, a portion of it. "I've been out of town. A friend of mine was keeping her. His Rottie destroyed her cage. Almost got Emily."

It wasn't hard to look upset because, in fact, I was upset. Corelli had promised to take good care of Emily, and he had shirked his duty.

It took Dougherty mere minutes to verify my ownership of Emily and let me go with a stern warning.

I breathed a sigh of relief when he climbed into his patrol car. By the time they found Corelli's body, Emily and I would be basking on a beach in Mexico. In time, her marvelous stomach would digest the rat and expel a small of amount of uric acid, rat hair, and the stolen diamonds Corelli had stuffed into the rat. It was one of the frozen specimens I’d left with him. He’d warmed it in the microwave and dipped it in hot chicken broth, per my instructions, then fed the thing to Emily.

I was a bit worried about the diamonds, but I knew a good vet in Mexico, a discreet vet, who would know what to do if the diamonds caused stomach ulcers or an impaction.

It wasn't the smuggling I minded, or even the fact that Corelli had cut me out of his diamond deal. That was a clear violation of our arrangement, but Tony was a good partner, and I could have forgiven all that.

But to risk my Emily's life for a fistful of sparkling stones... well, that was going too far.

Now it’s your turn. Wanna play? Just take the initial situation--a man in coveralls steps out of an alley carrying a gym bag--and write a short story about what happens afterward.

On Research: Notes from a Congenital Geek

When I was seven years old, a television show called Sunrise Semester came on every morning just after Farm Digest. The show consisted of a university professor teaching college-level math and science classes. These were strictly lecture-style lessons--no bells, whistles, or special effects. I got up early every morning to watch it and sat riveted in front of the TV, despite the fact that I never understood a word of it. Recently, I shared this with my friend Cindi, who shook her head and said, "There was never any hope for you, was there? You were born a geek."

It probably tells you something about both of us that we considered this a compliment.

For a congenital geek like me, one of the great pleasures of being a writer is that it provides an excuse to spend hours doing what is generally called "research." Yesterday, for example, I researched how to pick up, hold, and release a venomous snake. This is an activity best experienced vicariously. (Never try this at home!) I also learned that a timber rattlesnake (Latin name Crotalus horridus) is a kind of viper, that the viperids have longer fangs than the elapids (such as coral snakes) and that, because of this, each type requires a separate and specific kind of hold. The number of people who keep venomous snakes (they call them "hot" snakes) is truly remarkable.

Why was I looking up ways to catch and release venomous snakes? In this case, there's a scene in the book I'm working on that involves an angry timber rattler and a very unhappy detective. I had very specific question in mind when I embarked on my virtual quest. That's the tye of research I do most often. I need to know something about how police process a crime scene or how to determine the time of death or methods of carrying concealed firearms, so I go in search of an appropriate site (check out http://www.virtualautopsy.com for good information on autopsy procedures), an appropriate book, or an appropriate person to interview. The Writer's Digest Books Howdunit series is an excellent source of information for any crime writer. These include Lee Lofland's excellent book, Police Procedure & Investigation, Poisons by Serita Stevens and Anne Bannon, and Forensics by D.P. Lyle.

There's another kind of research--the serendipitous kind. This kind of research can be likened to taking your camera and going for a liesurely ramble in the woods. You don't know what you might find, but there's a pretty good chance you'll turn up something wonderful. I think of it as "found research." Another great thing about being a writer is that everything you learn becomes grist for the mill. Nothing is wasted. It may not find its way into this book or next, but it may lead you to something that will. Or it may find its way into another plot line years down the road. You just never know.

A great place for a crime writer to do this type of research is truTV Crime Library. This site has a wealth of information about criminal psychology and modern and historic crimes. Want the real scoop on Bonnie and Clyde, Leopold and Loeb, or the real Sweeney Todd? This is the place to go. Reading through old cases can spark the imagination of a crime writer. I may not want to write about a pair of Depression-era criminals, but a couple of modern-day lovebirds with antisocial tendencies might be just the ticket.

But information doesn't have to be crime-related to be valuable to a mystery writer. A site about Native America legends might inspire a historical novel based on Native American culture, a modernization of the Blue Corn Maiden legend, or a mystery about a missing Native American artifact. A visit to a site that shows a line drawing of a woman being created from the skeleton outward might inspire a character based on the woman being drawn or on the artist who might be drawing her. For the congenital geek (or the self-made writer), everything is fodder.

So go ahead, take a ramble through the internet or through the shelves of your local library. Invite your muse to come out and play. After all, that's one of the great things about being a writer.

Pencil, We Hardly Knew Ye

By Beth Terrell

This is a story about a snake.

It began in driest part of August, when the office I work in was empty except for the five full-time employees and a few die-hard temporary employees. Scotty, one of my co-workers, came into my office and said, “Could you come out here and see if this snake is real? Because I’ve passed it three times and it looks more real every time I pass it.” I did go, and it was real, but the confusion was understandable, because the snake was lying perfectly still, its head slightly lifted. It looked kinked (though there was some discussion later as to whether it was actually kinked, crinkly, or crinkled). As it turns out, this is what happens to snakes when they are stressed and dehydrated. They crinkle. Who knew?

At any rate, Scott and I looked at the snake, and though neither of us thought it was of the poisonous type, neither of us was quite certain enough to be willing to pick it up and see. (It was too small--and I am too nearsighted--for us to be certain of the shape of the head.) So we brought in an expert, or the closest thing we had to an expert: Scott went in and got our site manager, Steve. Much discussion ensued. No conclusions were reached. We finally decided to sweep the little snake into a box, after which I would take him down to the Aquatic Critter’s Reptile Zoo and find out what he was. Scotty was in charge of acquiring the box, I was in charge of holding it open, and Steve was in charge of gently, oh so gently sweeping the snake into the box.

Then I loaded the box into my car and drove to the Aquatic Critter, quite possibly the coolest store in Nashville, with tropical fish in one half of the building and a reptile zoo in the other (caiman feedings on weekends; I am too squeamish to go). The experts behind the desk said our visitor was a rat snake, a harmless, reasonably docile snake. They took him out of the box and we passed him around, and I'm happy to say that the docile part was true, because he didn't try to bite, even when I held him in my hand. The experts also said he was too small and dehydrated to survive the winter, so what could we do but buy a little tank and some snake accouterments and bring him back to live in my office until the next spring? Besides, our project monitor, Mary Beth, was out of town, and we knew she would want to see him, because she is wild about reptiles.

The snake, having come to live with us for a time, now required a name. We tried on several for size. At various times, he was called, Chris Crinkle, Kinky Friedman, Earl Whirly, and a number of other equally fitting names, but the one that stuck was the one Mary Beth gave him: Pencil. This was fitting, because, even though he lived in my office, she loved him best. She would come into the office and point out the cute shapes he would make, or the way he would squeeze himself into the tiniest crevice of his cage, or the way he was growing so strong and healthy that one day we realized he wasn’t kinked at all. And so the bittersweet day came when Pencil was to be set free. Mary Beth and I took him to a walking trail far from the site (which will come as a relief to many of my co-workers). We walked some distance down the trail and climbed down a little embankment to the creek. She was carrying him and wearing a purple glove, because he didn’t enjoy the ride over and was making what she called "bitey faces." She set him down on the ground beside the water. To our surprise, he didn’t race away. Instead, he glided into and out of the water, away from us and then back toward us, as if he knew he was being set free. Then he swam across the creek and disappeared into the brush on the other side. We miss him already.

I wrote about this in our office newsletter a few months ago, but I thought of it again today as I was thinking about the book I've been working on. There is no real mystery in this little story, except the everyday mystery of why we (both human and animal) do the things we do. Why did Pencil come into our office building? Why did we adopt him instead of chucking him out the back door (or worse)? Why was Mary Beth so enthralled?

But these are the kinds of mysteries that keep us reading. While good plotting is essential, it's the human mysteries that keep me coming back for more. For me, at least, the question is not, "Will Jack Reacher defeat the bad guys?", but "What is it in himself that Jack Reacher is really running from?" Not, "Will Stephanie Plum survive?"--I assume she will--but "Does Stephanie's heart lie with Morelli or Ranger?" I want the action and the plot twists and the puzzle too, but it is the quiet moments, like the rescue and release of a little office snake, that show me who the characters really are.