Ginger Caulfield – The Writers in Residence

me-at-mellon A former private detective and once a reporter for a small weekly newspaper, Gayle Bartos-Pool (G.B. Pool) writes the Johnny Casino Casebook Series and the Gin Caulfield P.I. Mysteries. She also wrote the SPYGAME Trilogy: The Odd Man, Dry Bones, and Star Power; Caverns, Eddie Buick’s Last Case, The Santa Claus Singer, Bearnard’s Christmas and The Santa Claus Machine. She teaches writing classes: “The Anatomy of a Short Story” (which is also in workbook form), “How to Write Convincing Dialogue” and “How to Write a Killer Opening.” Website: http://www.gbpool.com.

“Hi. My name is Johnny Casino. I’m a retired P.I. with a past. I just hope it doesn’t catch up with me. That’s how I was introduced in the first book about yours truly. It was fun reading about my exploits. I guess when you’re in the middle of it; you don’t see what’s happening around you. But the stories in The Johnny Casino Casebook 1 – Past Imperfect do a pretty good job telling part of my life story. past-imperfect-cover-12

“Since the book is about pasts, mine and a few other people I bumped into along the way, it gives you a pretty good idea who I am. Anyway I thought so when I read it. But sometimes what you think you know isn’t the truth. I found that out the hard way.

“You see, I grew up in a Mob family in New Jersey. Nothing like having a father who is the consigliere for one of the top Mob families in the country. And my darling mother was the daughter of another Mob boss right outta Chicago. What a pedigree. My name was Johnny Cassini back then.

“Me and my brother were raised thinking this was the only life there was. But after a while I got tired of it. Maybe that’s because I watched a lot of old movies while waiting for protection money to be dropped off at my hotel room in those days. These were Black & White films on the movie channel. But a steady diet of Bogie, Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson opened my eyes. And it wasn’t just seeing them splattered on the pavement. Sometimes these tough men played the good guys. That’s when I started seeing a different side of things.

“So I fled to Miami and joined another Mob. I know that didn’t exactly remove me from the life I was starting to hate, but I was seeing it from a different perspective. I worked on a gambling ship and met a lady who changed my life. She wasn’t the only one. Not by a long shot, but this gal was the wife of the Mob boss in Miami. She was steering me away from her daughter who was even more trouble. And then everything went to hell.

“A dealer on that gambling ship went overboard one night, literally, so I switched identities with him and then hightailed it to Los Angeles. So Johnny Cassini died and Johnny Casino was born. But the story didn’t end there. I was having a hard time shaking my life of crime and got myself into some hot water when I was working for this guy in L.A. He had me kidnap this lady. She’s the one who really changed my life.”

“Let me take over from there, Johnny. Hi, my name is Ginger Caulfield. I’m a private detective, too. I was on a case and ran into Johnny during his crime wave here in Los Angeles. It was an odd meeting to say the least. He kidnapped me, but I could tell the guy had something, so when the case was over I told him to look me up sometime because I might have a job for him. He did.

hedgebetfinalcovercropped “Johnny worked for me several years until he had enough P.I. hours under his belt to go out on his own. I hated to see him go, but I knew he worked better alone. Most of the time I do my work solo like the case at the racetrack in Hedge Bet. I should amend that statement because I got my husband, Fred, to do some work for me. His trip to Mexico to bring back a witness led to a few choice words from him, mostly unprintable. But the guy’s a natural P.I.

“I had been in the detective business for a while and knew good people like Johnny when I saw them. In fact I knew a few things about Johnny that he didn’t know, but I have a reason. You see my uncle is a spy. His name is Robert Mackenzie and he has had some incredible exploits around the world ever since World War II. His story, at least the parts that can be told, are in a series called The SPYGAME Trilogy documented by a writer who I got to know through the years. She’ll explain this next part.”

“Hello, folks. My name is Elaine Barton. My dad was involved in Colonel Mackenzie’s exploits and I got caught up in a few exciting adventures in books like The Odd Man, Dry Bones, and Star Power. The trilogy covers about fifty years and follows not only Mac’s life but also my father’s Air Force career. Parts of my life got caught up in this tale, too, and I put it all in book form. Though you’ll see in the books, some of it almost didn’t get written.”

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“Thanks, Elaine. Since I knew my Uncle Mac had ways of checking on people, I had him check out Johnny Casino. I learned his real name, bookcoverpreviewcropped or at least I thought it was his real name, until another story in the Johnny Casino Casebook series uncovered something that even Johnny didn’t know. It changed everything for him. It’s in The Johnny Casino Casebook 2 – Looking for Johnny Nobody. That’s when I started seeing a pattern.”

“Hey, Gin. Johnny here. You aren’t the only one who is starting to see a pattern. When I had a case in Las Vegas, I met one of the biggest headliners in the world, Jack Lynn. He turned up in two of my stories, but then I noticed he was also in The Santa Claus Singer about a lounge singer called Frankie Madison. He met Jack, too.”

“I’ve got another one for you, Johnny. One of the guys I trained after you went out on your own, Chance McCoy, has a story about him and me in the upcoming short story collection called Second Chance. Chance is a special guy. You see, he got killed on a case, but his story doesn’t end there. Not by a long shot.”

“I can give you another one, Gin.”

“Lay it on us, Elaine.”

“I’ve heard a rumor that there is a particular elf, yes, I did say elf, who is thinking about starting his own private detective agency to help ‘the little guy.’ How does something like this happen?”

“Maybe we should ask the author of all our books. Hey, G.B. What goes? The ladies and I want to know.”

“Okay, Johnny. I’ll confess. When I started creating this fictional world I had no idea you all knew each other, but as this world grew I saw connections between all of you. First it was Johnny knowing Ginger Caulfield. Then I wondered how Gin knew so much about Johnny’s past and I realized her uncle was Mac Mackenzie. Who else would have access to all that secret stuff?

“As for Chance McCoy, he told me a bunch of his stories and when he needed a fellow P.I. to help him out in a case, it just happened to be Gin Caulfield.

“Did I say ‘he told me’? Yes, I did. If any of you readers have ever been to an author panel, I bet half of those writers mentioned that when they write their stories, especially the dialogue, they just sit back and let their characters speak because those people really do talk to us. That doesn’t mean we are ready for the padded cell… yet.

“We do ‘hear’ those voices if we have created a character with a past and a personality. And by that I mean that you should try writing a biography of your main characters and even for a few of the other people who play an important part in the story.

“You, as the writer, need to know as much as you can about the character you are working with. If you know where he or she was born, their education or even lack there of, or maybe even their desires or hates, you will be able to craft a character with depth. And maybe, just maybe, you will discover something about a character that they didn’t know. That’s what happened when I found out something about Johnny that shocked him and me.

“I can’t explain it, but by knowing who my characters are, I hear their voices and I basically transcribe what is being said in my ear. On top of that, I marvel at the fact that some of my characters actually know each other, but the small world I created is only a part of the larger world around us. I sometimes wonder if any of my other characters know or have run into these people sometime or somewhere. Anything is possible in fiction… if it is fiction. Or maybe there is a parallel universe where they all live—”

Knock, knock, knock.

“Excuse me; somebody is at the door. I think it’s the guys from the asylum. They tracked me down and they are going to take me back so I can do some more writing.

Catch you later.”

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A former private detective and reporter for a small weekly newspaper, G.B.Pool writes the Johnny Casino Casebook Series and the Gin Caulfield P.I. Mysteries. She teaches writing classes: “Anatomy of a Short Story,” “How To Write Convincing Dialogue” and “Writing a Killer Opening Line.”

Editing and Outlines

by Gayle Bartos-Pool

As a writer I have become a fanatical editor… of other people’s work. That’s not to say I don’t edit the heck out of my own work before I send it off for publication, but I can’t watch a TV show or a movie or even the nightly news without thinking of a better line to use or a better plot or a better word to describe what they are talking about. I have ripped apart old television shows when they were so outrageously bad and rewrote the plot before the final credits ran. Even my husband is getting into the act by pouncing on a plot line when it doesn’t fit.

The moral of this post is: Don’t Send Your Work Out if it Doesn’t Make Sense.

The advantage of dissecting other people’s work is to catch the same mistakes in our own writing… and fix them. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve changed in my own work after I saw the same error in someone else’s story. Little things like using the apostrophe in dates. The “1970s” doesn’t have the apostrophe unless it is used as an adjective. Example: He lived in the 1990’s but drove a 1970’s automobile… The first is incorrect; the second is correct. I have seen this mistake in books by big name authors.

But it’s the bigger things like not tying up a loose end or having the heroes show up in a spot where they had absolutely no reason to be just so they can find a clue that drives me nuts. (I saw this recently in an NCIS episode.) It’s like you cut out the linking scene just to shorten the story. But if the connection isn’t there, you have cheated your reader.

We were watching an old episode of Columbothe other evening and the story disintegrated into foolishness when the implausible kept happening. The audience always knows whodunit from the beginning in that show, but that can also play against credibility when we know what happened and Columbo seems to have watched the same opening and spots all the clues before there is a reason to question them as clues.

But there is a remedy.

I discovered this when writing the lesson plan for a course I teach called: The Anatomy of a Short Story. (It works for novels and screenplays as well.) A terrific way to see if your story hangs together during that editing phase is to write down each LOCATION and which CHARACTERSare in that scene IN ORDER. Write it like bullet points. Each location should add something new to the story or ask a question that needs to be answered later. If your characters go someplace and learn nothing, cut that scene.

Next, look at that list and see if the locations and what happens in each are a mix of HIGH and LOW points. If you have too many low points together, move a high point into the list to give your story movement. And vice versa.

Then look at those points and see if all the questions have been answered. If not, add that scene and wrap up that point.

Next, check to see if your opening is a GRABBER. Since readers are becoming scarcer and scarcer, you’ll want to pull them into the story as fast as you can and keep them. You do that by dangling a puzzle in front of them early so they have to finish reading just to find out what happens. This is what TV shows do with that four minute teaser at the beginning of the show. Works in short stories and novels, too.

Now ask yourself: Does the OPENING FIT the ENDING of your story? Any story: mystery, romance, adventure, has to have a satisfying ending. And the ending should answer the big question that is asked at the beginning.

Next, check to see if the story MAKES SENSE. This is tough because you might have a great idea in your head, but it might not have made its way onto the paper. What is your story about: Man against Man? Man against Nature? Man against Himself? Are there good reasons why your characters do what they do? Is there a resolution?

Last of all, see if your TITLE fits what you have learned while going through all those bullet points. Does the over-all meaning of your story fit that title? Sometimes you will discover a different meaning to your story and the title needs to be changed.

As one last pass-through in the editing process, while I am reading each sentence I ask myself THREE QUESTIONS:

Does it advance the story?

Does it enhance the story?

Is it redundant? Is it redundant?

For those who don’t outline before you write, remember, this outline happens AFTER you have written your story. It is a great EDITING TOOL. It lets you look at your work objectively and see if all the pieces fit. And one more benefit, it provides a TIMELINE so you can see if all the action you are writing fits into any given day. Nothing like finding out you have penciled in 32 hours of action in a 24-hour day.

Give it a try.

I am teaching a four-hour course, How to Open Your Story with a Bang, at the Woman’s Club of Hollywood on May 7^th. It will cover this aspect of writing and a lot more. If you would like more information about the class, leave a note on this blog.