More tips from TV

by Jenna/Jennie

Last month, I read Susan Cushman's blog on learning from the outtakes from the TV show The Good Wife - incidentally my husband's favorite, as well - and I thought of my own favorite TV show.

No, it isn't new. In fact, I'm probably giving away way too much if I tell you that it debuted in 1989 and lasted three seasons. Yes, I still love it, and yes, I do occasionally give myself permission to stream a few episodes on Netflix. It’s a damned good show, and it’s held up pretty well over the years, too. Historicals have a way of doing that, since they avoid getting dated by wardrobe and hairstyle the way contemporary shows do. (Consider that a free nugget of advice: don't date your writing by being too trendy. Unless you're e-publishing, and you're willing to rewrite frequently, avoid mentioning anything too pop-cultureish.)

My husband gives me a hard time about watching all the young man-candy, and I can sort of see his point, but the truth is, I’ve actually learned a few things I can apply to my own writing from watching those old episodes. And I’m not just talking about the idea I have for a wild west mystery.

When the idea for the show was first conceived back in the 1970s, it was focused on the character called The Kid. (No, he never did have another name. It became a running joke, all the way up until the wedding in the series finale.) In early 1989, when the pilot was filmed, the series still had that focus, and was supposed to be called simply The Kid.

But in picking up the series, the network decided that it should be about all the characters, not just one. The title of the show changed to The Young Riders and episode 2, which is called Gunfighter, was about another young man. And let me take a break here to say that in any group, real or imagined — be it the cast of a television show, the characters in a book, a bunch of kids on the playground, or coworkers in an office — someone’s gonna emerge as the natural focal point. It may take time, but it always happens. And it isn’t always who you think it is.

(Although in the case of The Young Riders, let me just express my incredulousness for one measly second and say that how the hell the producers expected to use Wild Bill Hickok as one of the characters and not have him take over, is beyond me.)

But that’s the second thing I learned. As writers, let’s not presume to think we know how things are going to turn out when we first start writing our stories. Let’s please keep an open mind as to how the story will develop, and which of our characters will turn out to be more important and which less so, because too much of the time, holding on tightly to our own ideas of what’s going on can prevent us from seeing a much better storyline opening up ahead.

However, sometimes we’ve already shot ourselves in the foot by that point, and we can’t take advantage of the new direction our work is going. We can’t let it develop naturally, organically, the way it should. And here’s why, again using The Young Riders as an example:

Everyone in the world, or at least in America, has heard of Wild Bill Hickok. He was a real person with a real history, one that many people are familiar with. And there were only so many changes the producers of The Young Riders could make to his character. They made him younger than he would have been in 1861, they gave him a job with the Pony Express that he never had, and they gave him a difficult family history. The Young Riders’ Jimmy Hickok can’t read, while James Butler Hickok was actually pretty well educated.

And here’s another thing: Already in the first episode, the writers set up a romantic relationship between The Kid — who was supposed to be the main character, remember? — and the only girl in the bunch, who was pretending to be a boy in order to keep her job. That relationship hit a snag in season 2. However, another of the boys had noticed the same girl, and we got a little bit of a romantic love triangle going. I’ll give you three guesses as to which boy it was, and I won’t hold my breath while you guess.

Jimmy and Lou — that was her name — had a hell of a lot more chemistry than Lou and The Kid ever did, and would probably have been very happy together, but this was where those problems cropped up again. The real James Butler Hickok didn’t get married in 1861, nor was there any way anyone would believe that the character as he was played would have left the girl he loved to scout for the Union army. Yet that was what Wild Bill did during the Civil War. It’s a historical fact. So a relationship that had such potential on screen ended up fizzling out into nothing. Because of inconvenient facts.

Now, I know that most of us don’t write about historical characters with real histories we have to work around, but the same issues can come up in our books, if we give out too much information too soon. Some of us plan out everything about our characters before we even sit down to write, and if we put too much of that information into our books before we have to, we’ve hamstrung our characters. On the other hand, some of us write by the seat of our pants, and just give our characters a background, any background, without much thought to the future. Sometimes, something wonderful might develop in book 3 of a series. But if we’ve already established in book 1 that the character came from elsewhere, the background was different, he/she doesn’t have any cousins, is the wrong age, can’t read... we’ve taken away the opportunity to benefit from whatever wonderful thing it is.

Obviously I’m not saying not to give out the information that’s necessary to develop the character. And part of the fun of watching 18-year-old Jimmy Hickok turn into Wild Bill is knowing what will happen to him later. But in the case of The Young Riders, it also limited what could be done with that particular character, and it can do the same thing to our characters and our books if we don’t watch out.

So that’s my bit of wisdom for the day. I’m off to watch some reruns of Firefly now. Research, you know. For that science fiction romance I might write one day.

And if you have any golden nuggets of knowledge gleaned from TV or movies, feel free to share!

* * *

Jennie Bentley/Jenna Bennett writes the Do It Yourself home renovation mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime and the Cutthroat Business mysteries for her own gratification. The 5th DIY mystery, Flipped Out, will be arriving in stores October 4th, while the 4th book in the Cutthroat Business ebook mysteries, Close to Home, was released September 1st. You can find out more about both series at http://www.jennabennett.com/ 

Where the heart is

I’ve been lucky enough in my life to live in several beautiful places. I grew up in Norway, which is considered one of the loveliest places in the world. Mountains, forests, fairytale landscapes with rocks and rivers—not to mention the coast, long enough to reach from Mexico to Canada and beyond.

From Norway I went to New York City, which may not have the reputation of being particularly lovely, but to someone who adores it, it has a beauty all its own. The skyline all lit up at night, the bustle of the streets, the people: all different shapes, sizes, and colors, in their different clothes. The different neighborhoods, with their different personalities. Rockefeller Center at Christmas, with the tree and the skaters.

My last stop so far has been Nashville, which is different again. There’s the Parthenon, of course, and the Country Music Hall of Fame. The Ryman Auditorium, the Opryland Hotel, the Belle Meade and Belmont Plantations... To me, the beauty of Nashville is all about buildings. And not buildings plural, like New York’s skyline. Buildings singular, one at a time. Gorgeous Victorian cottages, rambling Arts and Crafts bungalows, quaint fairytale Tudors with towers and points...

We’re talking about moving again, this time to Saint Augustine, Florida. The oldest town in the United States, settled in 1565 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Gorgeous little town with narrow cobblestoned streets, old French Quarter-style buildings made of coquina shell mixture, a fort guarding the harbor, and of course the beautiful Anastasia Island beach, with white sands and azure water. Dolphins breaking the surface on the intracoastal waterway, slow manatees bobbing, graceful sailing boat and—yes—some rather attractively muscled people in skimpy clothes.

Where I am is a big deal to me. What I see around me, what the place smells like, sounds like, feels like. How hot or cold it is. Each place is different, distinctive.

And it’s the same when I write. The setting becomes almost like a character in the book. Distinctive and different. And like the characters, it drives the plot forward. The fact that Waterfield is on the coast of Maine has influenced the kinds of stories I include in the DIY-series; there are subjects I just wouldn’t have been able to tackle had the books been set elsewhere. Smuggling, human trafficking, the US Navy, Marie Antoinette’s cats...

Same thing with A Cutthroat Business. Savannah Martin is who she is because of where she grew up; setting very literally influenced the character, and setting continues to influence the plot and background in that book, and in the ones that will follow. It’s all about the Southern setting, Southern mores, a Southern background.

It probably goes without saying that I also enjoy reading books with a distinctive setting, be it domestic or foreign, real or imagined. Elizabeth Peters’s Egypt in the last century. JD Robb’s New York City anno 2060. Lois McMaster Bujold’s planet of Barrayar. JK Rowling’s Hogwarts. Deborah Crombie’s London and Carla Neggers’s Boston. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s Miller’s Kill. Frank Baum's Land of Oz.

So what about you? Is setting important to you when you read? Do you have any favorite authors whose settings you enjoy? Have you ever read a book specifically because it was set in a certain place? (I have to confess to gobbling up books set in Cornwall. Comes from growing up on Daphne de Maurier, I expect.)

And how about when you write, if you write? Is setting important to you then, or can your books be set practically anywhere and not change appreciably because of it?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Bente Gallagher is the author of A Cutthroat Business, first in the Savannah Martin real estate mysteries (June 2010) and the Do-It-Yourself home renovation mysteries (three strong; DIY-4, Mortar and Murder, coming to a store near you on January 4th, 2011) written as Jennie Bentley. You can read more about her doings and undoings on her website: www.bentegallagher.com

New Years Greetings from the Newbie

by Bente Gallagher

When I was given my assignment for this – my first blog for the Southern Authors – I wasn’t quite sure what to think. The future of publishing? How I took my writing to the next level...?

The thing is, I’ve been published for precisely a year and two months today. My first book, called FATAL FIXER-UPPER – it’s one of those cutesy hobby-mysteries, about a designer-turned-renovator in a small town in Maine – was released on November 4th, 2008. Exactly a year and two months ago. Book 2, SPACKLED AND SPOOKED, came last August, and I’m currently gearing up for book 3, PLASTER AND POISON, which is due to hit stores in March. I’ve finished writing book 4, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the wheels of publishing keep turning for long enough that I can see it hit stores in late 2010. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the publication of the first book in another series, A CUTTHROAT BUSINESS, in June 2010.

Sounds good, but really and truly, getting published at all is the only level I’ve attained thus far. I’m sure my writing must be getting better—usually that happens when you do something a lot; you get better at it—but I can’t say I think about that a whole lot. I’m too busy cranking out words as quickly as I can.

I wouldn’t mind taking my career to the next level, though, although I guess it would help if I knew what that meant. Is it more money? More books sold? My name in bigger letters? Moving from mass market paperback to hardcover? Hitting the New York Times bestseller list? Being featured on Oprah? Is that how you know you’ve arrived?

Or maybe you don’t ever know you’ve arrived.

I had occasion, last year sometime, to meet the wonderful Carolyn Haines (Hi, sweetie!) who should need no further introduction. She came to speak at our local Sisters in Crime meeting in Nashville, and we had dinner together afterwards, a group of us, and if she lived closer, I swear I’d be bugging her all the time, because she’s just great fun and I had a marvelous time hanging out with her. Of course, what I did to repay the kindness, was to beg the poor woman to read my ARC and – if she liked it – to blurb my new book.

Just goes to show that a good deed never goes unpunished.

Carolyn, being a class act all the way, agreed. And I appreciate it. The funny thing was when she told me she wished she could get one of the big names to endorse her. Which struck me as hilarious, since I wanted her to endorse me because she is a big name...

This is the first blog of the year, so I guess maybe it’s appropriate to do those dreaded New Year’s resolutions. What I’m going to do to take my writing to the next level in 2010.

Here are my resolutions; feel free to chime in with your own:

1. I’m going to finish the last book on my contract, and make it the best book it can be.


2. I’m going to write another book as well, one that isn’t under contract, and make that the best book it can be, too. And then I’m going to pray that my agent can sell it.


3. I’m going to attend three writers conferences in my own neck of the woods. (No, that’s not actually a resolution. I’m already signed up for those.)


4. I’m going to attend one writers conference somewhere else, and while I’m there, I’m going to pretend to be out of myself, and I’m going to meet someone I haven’t met before and make a new friend and learn something I didn’t already know.

5. I’m going to attend at least one association meeting every month, and actually get involved in each of the associations I’m a member of.

6. And because writing is one of those professions where you can easily spend fifteen hours a day sitting on your spreading butt in front of the computer—at least I can—I’m going to stand up and exercise at least every other day. Mens sana en corpore sano, and all that.

So that’s it for me. Feel free to tell me what your New Years resolutions are going to be this year, or give me some ideas for how you’re planning to take your writing to the next level in 2010. Or suggestions for how I can do the same for mine. And if you have some insight into the future of publishing, I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to share that with me, as well.

Happy New Year!



Bente Gallagher writes the Do-It-Yourself Home Renovation mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime under the pseudonym Jennie Bentley, and—starting in June 2010—the Savannah Martin Real Estate mysteries as herself. She lives in a historic neighborhood in Nashville with two boys, a hyperactive dog, a parakeet, two goldfish and two African dwarf frogs, plus her husband the Realtor®.

You can find her at http://www.bentegallagher.com/ or http://www.jenniebentley.com/ (they’re one and the same) or at http://www.happy2sellnashville.com/, if you’re in the market to look at real estate.