DOPPELGÄNGER!

by James Lincoln Warren

It’s been over two years since I wrote about our having adopted two cats who are sisters, Emma and Lizzie. A week ago last Friday, while Lizzie was sitting in Margaret’s lap, Margaret felt three small bumps or welts on the skin of Lizzie’s left foreleg below her fur. Benign skin growths are common in dogs, but very unusual in cats.

Rory, a cat we had several years ago, had such a small growth on his head that turned out to be a mast-cell cancerous tumor (it was removed, and he suffered no permanent effects from it), so there was no choice but to take Lizzie to the vet on Monday. Cutting to the chase, the tumors were luckily benign1, but the only treatment is excision, and so the veterinarian surgically removed them. As Lizzie was under anaesthesia, I also had her teeth scraped and polished to alleviate her mild gingivitis.

When Lizzie came home that afternoon, she was wearing one of those so-called “Elizabethan collars” (the veterinary technician called it an “E-collar”) so she wouldn’t pick at her sutures. She’ll need to wear it for a total of ten days, until this Thursday.

Emma and Lizzie were adopted together because as kittens they were utterly devoted to each other. Their mutual devotion has remained consistent over the last two years, and they are constantly grooming each other and curling up together when they nap. But when Lizzie came home, Emma took one look at her and began to growl and hiss. WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY SISTER?

I witnessed this same reaction several years ago between Rory and our other cat Molly, when Rory came home after a teeth-cleaning. Molly hissed and spat at him, ears flat against her head as she crouched and backed off. Both then and now, the innocent recipients of this rude reception were nonplussed and confused. Poor kitties!

Molly’s belligerence toward Rory only lasted a couple of days, but Emma’s toward Lizzie has lasted a whole week so far. I blame the collar. I expect that domestic harmony will be fully restored by Friday, when Lizzie will once again be free to groom herself and the THING around her neck will be gone. In the meantime, Emma is avoiding Lizzie, so at least there is feline peace if not feline amity chez Warren.

And this got me thinking about the doppelgänger, that sinister double image so common in folklore and ghost stories, and yes, in crime fiction. At its worst, it’s nothing more than a cliché so hoary it has become a joke, the Evil Twin, but at its best, as with Daphne du Maurier’s The Scapegoat or Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar, it goes to the darkest of all crimes, the theft of souls.

It’s a tough thing to pull off. I myself wouldn’t even attempt it, because if it isn’t done exactly right, it comes off as the most ludicrous contrivance imaginable. Before his James Bond days, but after Simon Templar, Roger Moore was in a fine little British horror movie, “The Man Who Haunted Himself”, a fun and morbid little tale of a possibly supernatural, possibly psychopathological, doppelgänger. The thing that made the movie work was Moore’s potent, high strung performance, and also that the audience was kept guessing throughout—the mystery is never resolved, which I regard as a wise choice. Otherwise the whole thing collapses. But my point is this: although the film is highly regarded today, at the time it was released it was considered downright silly.

But there is nothing inherently funny about doppelgängers.

Izaak Walton, who wrote the only book in English (except the King James Bible) that has never been out of print, The Compleat Angler (1653), also wrote a biography of the great poet and clergyman John Donne, he of the “no man is an island” fame. In Walton’s account, while Donne was visiting Paris, his wife gave birth to a stillborn daughter in London, and in a waking vision, her image appeared twice before him, her hair hanging loose on her shoulders, bearing a dead child in her arms.

No wonder Emma was spooked.

1. Two of the bumps were tumors, collagenous nevi for those of you with an interest in such things, but the third was an allergic inflammation of the skin, probably caused by a spider bite. [↩]

FREE AUDIOBOOKS

by Leigh Lundin

Enter "Nick Carter" in the CB search box to the right and you’ll find all the clues: Deborah has been having a love affair with this guy.

Scandalous! But that’s okay: Nick Carter is a noir detective who’s been recreated so many times, only his name remains the same.

Mentioning how Deborah interested me in Nick Carter at the CBHQ birthday party, I told readers about listening to fictional detectives on old time radio broadcasts available on-line. Barnes & Noble and Amazon make it easy to purchase and download audiobooks, but what if you want to sample the wealth of free audiobooks on-line? How do you go about it?

Listen to Radio Mysteries in iTunes or iPod

If you don’t already have iTunes on your computer, download iTunes– it’s free.

Next, you need to find a web site that provides free audiobooks or old time radio clips. One I presently rely upon for its simplicity is Free Old Time Radio. Another source is Free Classic Audio Books.

Following are steps to enjoying a radio mystery, sci-fi story, comedy, or other program. These steps may seem technical, but are straightforward.

Everything to Know about AudioBooks

1. Download and save a radio program clip. It will probably arrive in one of the following audio formats:
   • .m4b audio book format
     • Load and listen! (book-markable)
   • .m4a format
     • Rename the extension to .m4b
   • .mp3 audio format
     • Follow instructions below
   • .m3u audio redirect
     • See special note, follow instructions below
2. Open the audio file in iTunes by dragging it onto the iTunes icon or window.
• Some programs can be ‘trained’ to open files automatically in iTunes.
3. Locate the audio track, probably in the Music section, if .mp3
4. Select the file and do a Get Info. (File menu)
5. Go to the Options tab and, if not already set, select the following:
• Audiobook
• Remember playback position
• Skip when shuffling
6. Click Okay.

You should now find the story under the Books section in your iTunes Library.

Remember playback position ensures when you stop listening, the story will pick up again where you left off, otherwise known as a bookmark.

.m3u Decision

The .m3U file differs from other formats in that it does not store an audio file on your computer. Open the file in TextEdit (Mac), Notepad or Wordpad (Windows), and you’ll see that it contains a URL, an internet address to the real file. When viewed within iTunes, these files have a tiny blue icon that looks like radio waves.

The implications are:

• No storage is used for the file. Instead, iTunes ‘streams’ the data live from the internet.
• Because the audio track isn’t stored on your computer, it’s not playable on an iPod.
• However, you may extract the file address from a word processor (as above), plug that address into your web browser, and download the file itself.

You can play, say, The Red Wind.m3u on your computer as long as you have an internet connection. However, if you want to listen to the story after disconnecting from the internet or on your iPod, open the .m3u file in your word processor and extract the internet address.

http://w2.freeotrshows.com/otr/a/aopm.1947.06.17_Red_Wind_The.mp3

Paste it into your word processor and download it, following the iTunes instructions above.

Enjoy the Programs

I’m only a few programs into listening, but thus far my favorites are the Nero Wolfe stories, surprisingly sophisticated, probably because of Sidney Greenstreet’s considerable talents. I’d like to know what stories you like!

A DARK AND STORMY BRAIN

by John M. Floyd

I’ve heard a lot of authors, among them Lawrence Block and Harlan Coben, say that there’s one question they always get, sooner or later, whenever they’re introduced as an writer—and it’s often the first question they get. We’ve talked about it a lot at this blog, and you probably already know what it is:

Where do you get your ideas?

I should clear something up, here: it’s not only the famous who get asked that question. Ever since I started writing, long before I even got anything published, those who found out I enjoy writing fiction have asked me where I get ideas for my stories. Unlike some of my peers, though, I’ve never considered it an annoying question; the person asking it is usually dead serious. The sad thing is, in this case the truth might not set him free.

The answer I give is almost never satisfying because it’s so vague: ideas come from everywhere. From your family, friends, neighbors, work, TV, newspapers, movies, sports, you name it. Everything you see or hear or experience—or have ever seen or heard or experienced—is grist for the idea mill. If you’re observant and you can then ask yourself the question “what if?” . . . well, that’s all that’s required. Sci-fi author Lawrence Watt-Evans once said, “The problem isn’t a shortage of ideas; it’s choosing which ones to use.”

Several years ago, when I was asked that question by a student in one of my writing courses, I replied that I get my ideas from something called The Idea Book. It’s great, I said, because it provides a list of hundreds of ideas that you would normally have to find on your own. I of course was joking—I had never seen such a book, because it didn’t exist.

A week later the student showed up in class with a big grin. “You were right,” she said. “It’s a big help.”

“What is?”

She didn’t reply—she just held up a book with one hand and pointed to it with the other. It was (yep, you guessed it) The Idea Book, by someone named Fredrik Haren. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What I probably should have done at that point was (1) admit how surprised I was and (2) confess that I had made the answer up in a lame attempt to be witty. Instead I wimped out, nodded wisely, and said, “Glad you found a copy.” (That particular book, I learned later, is intended more as a management aid than a writing aid, but who knows—maybe it did help jump-start the creative process in that aspiring writer’s mind. I hope so. Either way, I decided it might be best not to invent any more book titles.)

One answer I’ve always liked is that I get my best ideas after eating a big bowl of Hormel chili half an hour before going to bed. That way, I wake up about three a.m. with loads of ideas, as a result of dreaming in wide-screen Technicolor. Again, it’s untrue, but it sounds as if it might work.

Other documented responses to the “Where do you get your ideas?” question:

Lisa Scottoline: “From the heart.”
Rod Serling: “They come from the earth.”
Stephen King: “From potentially unrelated pieces of information.”
Harlan Ellison: “Poughkeepsie.”

I suppose it’s safe to assume that there a lot of readers who feel the “getting ideas” phase is the hardest part of the whole writing gig. The truth, at least for me, is that it’s probably the only part that isn’t hard. Turning that idea into something interesting, and entertaining—and getting it sold once it’s finished—can be tough, at times; but I think the brainstorming that takes place when you finish one project and are wondering what to start next is more fun than work.

More fun than work? I can already see the doubting Thomases rolling their eyes, and hear their voices:

“Where’d you get that idea . . . ?”

THE SHADOW KNOWS

by Steven Steinbock

There is hope for the future.

As part of the Career Exploration Program (CEP) of my local school disctrict, all high school Sophomores and Juniors take part in a three-day job-shadowing. A month or so back, I was contacted by a tenth grader. He is interested in writing, and one of the teachers gave him my name as a writer to job-shadow.

My first reaction was one of flattery. That lasted for about seven seconds. It was followed by a reaction of “Why?” Spending fifteen hours watching me work is tantamount to watching hair grow (which on my scalp is especially sparse).

Fortunately, my third reaction was to say “Yes.”

Dan arrived at my door promptly Wednesday morning, and we got to work. After introductions, I gave him an overview of the type of work I do, he completed a standard set of interview questions of me, and we spent the rest of the day sampling several types of writing. I sat him down with my laptop, and gave him a chance to transcribe some of the telephone interview I did last week with Jeffery Deaver. (Dan is a quick typist, but after ten minutes, transcribing less than two minutes of a fifty minute interview, Dan was happy when I told him to stop). We then discussed the difference between Q&A interviews and profile-interviews.

I’m happy to report that in addition to being intelligent and friendly, Dan is well-read, has an exceptional vocabulary, and a good ear for words.

WORD SOUP

I’ve been promising (threatening?) for several weeks to share my thoughts on the words Wistful and Mirth, as well as Laconic and Languid. This will occur posthaste. But first a word of prayer.

A couple weeks back we discussed the profusion of euphemisms for religious terms. But who would have thought that the words giddy and enthusiasm were religious in origin? Enthusiasm refers to a feeling of fervor or zeal. But when the expression was first coined, it specifically meant the kind of zeal that comes from being possessed by a deity. Based on the Greek enthousiasmos (having God – theos – inside). The word inspiration has a similar meaning. From the same root as respiration, it recalls the story in Genesis of how God breathed the breath of life into a clump of carbon and made Adam a living being.

Giddy actually took me by surprise. I knew it meant a sense of dizziness. But I’ve always (wrongly) thought of it as a goofy, silly kind of daze. It turns out that like inspiration and enthusiasm, it derives from the idea of being taken over by a divine presence. In Old English, gydig meant “of god.”

Finally on to the wistful mirth. The strange issue that I have with these words – and I’d love to know if anyone else had the same problem – is that they sound opposite to what they are. Not that there’s anything especially onomatopoetic about either of the words, but mirth, which means “joy” and “gaiety,” feels like dearth and muddy earth. In the same way, wistful sounds wishful and misty, but means pensive or melancholic.

Laconic is a neat word. It sounds neat. I feel smart when I use it. Ironically, a person who uses this word (which means “pithy” or “terse”) is being anything but. Languid is a pretty word. It rolls off the tongue. But it’s meaning just plain rolls. In meaning it is “faint” or “weak,” which not to make too fine a point of makes it similar to “flaccid” and rather the opposite of “turgid.”

I’m out of space. But I have more words up my sleeve, including tantamount and copacetic. See you next week.

SING ME A STORY

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

With the exception of math story problems, I love almost any kind of story. I’m not a snob to genre, although I do prefer mysteries. In listening to my personal music collection, I thought about how I am drawn to songs that tell a story. I can hear the cynics now saying all songs tell a story. Maybe, but the ones that could make it into a movie script seem to be my favorites. Many songs seem to me to be like flash fiction put to music.

“The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” was written for Cher, but Sonny Bono turned it down saying it wasn’t right for her. The songwriter was married at the time to Vicki Lawrence and decided she could sing it just as well. I think she did a fine job, but when Reba McEntire did the video remake, the story within the song jumped to another level. Reba made a believer out of me. Little sister don’t miss when she aims a gun.

In Bobby Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe,” we see, feel, and hear the setting come alive. It’s the 3rd of June in a hot and sweaty part of the country. People are working hard in the fields and stop for lunch and hear the town gossip obviously shared by the visiting pastor who will be dropping by on Sunday for dinner.

Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got A Gun,” the story has all the impact of a hard-hitting, no-bars-holding -Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish” fighting-back type of story. Not easy to hear, the story has to be told. If this were a novel instead of a song, it’d leave the same sour taste in the mouth, one we couldn’t easily forget.

Feel free to pull up a chair and relax for a few minutes with me. There are some stories I want to listen to again.

THE UNFINISHED MAN

by Rob Lopresti

A couple of weeks ago I attended a concert and happened to sit next to my friend Jane. We were talking about books and she told me that she had tried reading my story in the book Seattle Noir and had stopped halfway through.

I was reminded of a line from the great movie Airplane!: “The foot’s on the other hand now, isn’t it?” It certainly was.

You see, I have written here before about my increasingly common experience of deciding to stop reading a given book or story. There may come a time when you have to tell the piece of writing adios. But this was the first time I had encounter someone who had given one of mine the kiss-off.

I asked Jane if she remembered the point in my story when she stopped reading, and miracle of miracles, she did. My hero was watching a woman who reminded him of his ex-wife and had just noticed two stealthy-looking dudes following closer behind her. Jane thought something bad was about to happen. She explained that she was reading at night and she decided she didn’t want to read something scary then. I believe she said she switched to a book on architecture which she found more soothing.

I thought carefully about what I said next. I believe it was: “Well, you’re right. Someone does get killed. And since this is noir, you can’t really say it has a happy ending, but the bad guy does get caught.”

Then I shut up. I didn’t want to twist her arm. As I’ve said many times, a reader has the right to stop reading.

The muster of suspense

But what astonished me was that she had stopped reading because my story was too suspenseful. I have also complained here many times about mystery writers who switch to writing suspense. Apparently the pot has been denigrating the kettle’s hue.

Which doesn’t mean I will stop writing suspense, if that happens to be what pops into my brain. And I’ll keep complaining about what I don’t like. (Hey, I liked my suspense story a lot.)

But the point is this: if you are lucky enough to have readers, and insanely lucky enough to get to talk to some of them, occasionally you’re going to hear bad news. And if you don’t know what the reader is going to say – Hey, that’s suspense.

CB x 3

by James Lincoln Warren, Rob Lopresti, Deborah Elliott-Upton, Steve Steinbock, John M. Floyd, and Leigh Lundin

Preface

Friday marked Criminal Brief‘s third anniversary. Leigh had the idea of doing a commemorative column, John suggested that we each write a paragraph, and Rob suggested that it be retrospective, including one link to our favorite column by ourselves and one link to a column written by one of our colleagues. Consequently, this past week we’ve all looked nostalgically back on the last thirty-six months, and begun the difficult process of sifting through all the offerings—I should mention in passing that both Melodie Johnson Howe and Angela Zeman wanted to participate, too, but were unable to do so. Finally, we made our choices and placed our bets, and here they are.

But before we get to our recommendations, let me simply mention that in our first month, May of 2007, Criminal Brief had 1,185 visits. In April of 2010, we had 46,910 visits from 11,511 individual readers. Not bad, huh? But back to business.

JLW

I don’t have a personal favorite among my own columns, but the Gentle Reader may find “A Short Year After” mildly informative—it was the column I wrote to commemorate our first anniversary in 2008, and describes how the website was conceived and subsequently evolved. The only thing out of date about it is the reference to the manila folder wallpaper, which has since been replaced with something a little more noirish.

As to a favorite column by another contributor—utterly impossible to say. There are far too many. Among guests, we’ve had an embarrassment of riches: Edward D. Hoch, Doug Allyn, R. T. Lawton, Charles Ardai, Jas. R. Petrin, and many others should be duly noted. But for the sake of posterity, I can do no better than to direct the Gentle Reader’s attention to Melodie Johnson Howe’s “Leopard Shoes”, not only because it showcased Melodie’s luminous prose, but also because it introduced the Hummer Lady, who made two or three subsequent appearances and became an object of fascination to our readers.

Rob Lopresti

Last year I tried to write a column about definitions for various parts of our field. What’s the difference between hardboiled and noir? That sort of thing. I was looking for interesting or amusing definitions by other people (hey, you expect me to do all the work?) and I realized you could use what happens in one scene, say a car crash, to distinguish between the sub-genres. Then it sort of got out of hand. “Cliffhangers” is one of my favorites because I think it worked, and because several other blogs linked to it. Still need to finish the definitions column, though.

I’m very fond of “Writing On The Fourth,” which Steve Steinbock published on Independence Day, 2008. One reason is that he plugged my song “Nachshon,” but another is that he taught me something I didn’t know about the Nachshon story. And I looked his metaphor of writing as the act of going forward, because only slavery lies behind.

Deborah Elliott-Upton

Everybody remembers their first time — sometimes fondly, sometimes not so much. My first time with Criminal Brief is the one I remember most vividly, “Take A Seat”, and appeared on May 10th, 2007. “Take A Seat” referred to my teaching days and how after a few classes I noticed the best students always chose the same seats as those in the class before. The troublemakers also chose the same seats as the former class troublemakers.

As for my favorite column written by a Criminal Brief colleague, that one is tougher to choose. I believe we have one of the best blogs available online. The first article that came to mind was written by John M. Floyd, the gentleman from Mississippi. I adore his article, “Outside Assistance” which appeared on January 2 of this year. Maybe because it was January and colder than cold has a right to be in most of the country and John’s picture of his backyard swing accompanying his article looked so inviting to someone wearing short sleeves. He spoke of using the swing to rock grandbabies to sleep, hide there when he’s supposed to be mowing the lawn, but mostly using the swing as a writer’s aid. John’s columns are always a writer’s aid for me as his writing makes me want to be just as good a writer – or at least tryout that swing for inspiration.

Steven Steinbock

When choosing a favorite from among my own columns, I couldn’t resist searching by the number of comments. I’m still shocked that my April 9 column (“Oh Snap”) garnered so much discussion. But in the final analysis, I vote for my May 29, 2009 column “Man of the (Whole) Cloth” in which I discussed religious sensitivity, my first meeting with Doug Greene, a structural analysis of the “Tower of Babel” story, and in a comment I mentioned the joke inserted in the King James translation of Psalm 46.

Of others’ columns, rather than play favorites with my officemates at Criminal Brief Corporate Headquarters, I have chosen Dick Stodgill’s April 20, 2009 guest-piece, “Loss for Words”. It was funny, insightful, and sadly, in a way, it presaged Dick’s final chapter.

John M. Floyd

I had trouble selecting a favorite CB column of my own. Among my favorites are the two that Leigh and I did together, when he and I took one of my short stories and changed the names of the characters and places to make it a two-part Criminal Brief “Valentine’s Day” story. But I think the column I had the most fun writing was “Dialogue Is Like a Box of Chocolates.” It was a tribute to film “quotes,” and I attempted to justify it by saying that we as short-fiction writers can learn from all kinds of stories, including those that appear on the big screen. (The truth is, I just wanted to do a piece about film quotes.)

My favorite column written by a colleague was even harder to choose, but I suppose it was probably “Cliffhangers” by Rob Lopresti. That one was a joy to read, and informative as well—but since Rob chose it for himself, I’ve selected another favorite of mine written by him in its place: “One Man’s Opinion.”

Leigh Lundin

I’ve written more than 150 articles in the past three years, missing one posting thanks to local internet glitches. I experienced fun, bemusement, irony, and outrage. I began to hit my stride in September 2007, but from a pure detective standpoint, my most intriguing article was about Tom Dooley, the result of following a story mentioned by Rob Lopresti. The more I dug into the evidence, the less likely it seems Tom Dula killed his girlfriend, leaving a conclusion a rival for Tom probably killed her.

For sheer hours of entertainment, I credit Deborah Elliott-Upton. From her, I learned about characters like Nick Carter, which moved me to discover the radio programs. Sometimes when I take a break for lunch, I follow Deborah’s link to one of the old time radio archives and listen to radio in its golden age. Of those I’ve listened to, I find Nero Wolfe extremely sophisticated, hardly surprising since he’s played by Sidney Greenstreet.

It’s been fun. Thanks, Deborah!

Editorial Postscript

For all of us, writing for Criminal Brief is a labor of love, and like love, it can be frustrating, infuriating, heartbreaking—but ultimately fulfilling. That’s because ultimately, it’s not about us as writers, but about you as readers. Thank you all for making Criminal Brief a success.