Callipygian: What's in a name?

Often when I say my next published short story is titled Callipygian, people ask, "Cal-la-what? What does it mean?" Only rarely does someone know. In fact, only three people that I can think of knew the definition without me mentioning it first and ALL of them graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, which is where I also graduated. Got a good education there, I'd say.

I had a class called Latin-and-Greek Derivatives. One of the best classes I have ever had,  in either high school or college.

So, what does callipygian mean? It is an adjective but that's all I will say for the moment. So give me a sec. A little background first.

I first remember hearing the word used in a sentence a couple of years ago during an interview Terry Gross was conducting on her NPR show, Fresh Air. The interviewee -- an author, I think -- used it and Terry didn't seem to know the word. So the interviewee told her. And it was then that I decided I needed to use it in some short story some time soon.

Recently, I decided to check it out online. And one of the best uses I found was in a description of Queen Bey.

Yes, Beyoncé.

Years ago, Destiny's Child did a song called Bootylicious. And today if you look at Queen Bey's body, particularly from the back, you'd say she's bootylicious. But if that word didn't exist, she'd probably be described as having a callipygian backside.

In other words, she has a big butt.

Now my short story Callipygian, which is in the upcoming anthology, The Fine Art of Murder, isn't about Beyoncé or big butts. Or at least not generally. It's about a painting of that name, which, along with two other paintings, is stolen. And the protagonist in the story, FBI profiler Kendall Hunter, is drawn into the investigation of the stolen art. Things get really interesting when the suspect in the case is murdered.

You can preorder the anthology online at Amazon, Walmart and Barnes and Noble. Here are two links:

https://www.amazon.com/Fine-Art-Murder-Collection-Stories/dp/1681570238/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1471896943&sr=8-4&keywords=the+fine+art+of+murder


https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Fine-Art-of-Murder-A-Collection-of-Short-Stories/52607722

The anthology is scheduled for publication early next month.

So there you have it. What's in a name? Well, it can be quite a lot. It can be informative, even educational. But what does this title mean. All I can say is: If you are still confused, look it up.

In the meantime, thanks for reading.

Kendall Hunter: In person

One of the most-read blog posts I've had this month is on Kendall Hunter, the main character in my upcoming short story, Callipygian. In my post on Aug. 2, I spoke of my love for the character. She is tall, beautiful, single, smart and very, very clever. As an FBI criminal profiler, she is one of the best and is at the top of her game. And I love writing her because she is interesting and fun, is well-dressed and has killer instincts.

Callipygian is one of 18 short stories in The Fine Art of Murder, an anthology to be published in early October by the Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime. Our official launch and book signing will be Sunday, Oct. 9, at the Barnes and Noble bookstore at 86th Street and Keystone Avenue in Indianapolis. But you can pre-order the book now on Amazon ($12.99) or on Walmart ($9.41).

When I think of Kendall Hunter, I think of her as she might appear above -- in the FBI field office in Philadelphia, working to solve some horrible murder. She works hard in a what many consider a man's world and, in the process, has become very good at something historically considered as male.

Anyway, here is Kendall. Get the anthology and enjoy all the stories and characters therein. You won't be disappointed.

Thanks for reading.

A writer's block blocker: Someone walks into the room . . .

As writers, we have all had to deal with writer's block; that condition when we are staring at the blank page and nothing is coming out. It's a difficult and scary situation.

Writers have written about it so much -- in books, blogs, videos, newsletters, in person, etc. -- that it's a small wonder that the problem still exists. Yet it does.

And so I decided to put in my two-cents worth.

That's not to say I have the remedy. If I did, there wouldn't so many novels, short stories and essays that I have started and never finished. Plus, if I had the remedy for writer's block, I'd be a millionaire. What writer wouldn't be willing to pay me a king's ransom for the cure to a serious problem that affects us all?

For some time, I have thought writer's block is basically just boredom. You are bore with what you are writing. And if that is the case, then so will the reader.

I think the quickest cure to that is to write through the problem as quickly as possible. Instead of a lot of imaginative description and detail setting the scene -- the look of the flowers, the smell of the air, the feel of the breeze, the sound of the birds, the feel of the dying person's pulse -- just write "Helen died on a Monday afternoon" and move on. The faster you get through it, the faster you put wirter's block behind you.

But a couple of years ago, someone told me about a wonderful cure to writer's block. Obviously, it really only works in fiction, and not in all fiction. It's best probably in mysteries or suspense fiction, although it can still work in a romance or other genre.

When you don't know what to write next, have someone walk into the room with a loaded gun in their hand. Regardless of what's going on in the scene prior to that, having someone walk in with a gun will change and energize everything. There are so many possibilities. Is it a man or a woman? Are they there for good or ill? Are they even in the right room? It doesn't matter because a load gun dramatically changes everything, both in fiction and real life.

So, the next time you are blocked, try adding a loaded gun, or at least some other weapon. You will be amazed with the results.

And hopefully, it will help your story. If nothing else, it could put a smile on your face as you consider all the possibilities.

Thanks for reading.    

The ending

Last week, I wrote about the beginning of a novel or short story. Or more specifically, I wrote about the sentence that comes AFTER the first sentence, the second sentence, which must also be a grabber and keep grabbing.

Today, I want to skip past the beginning, over the middle, and go straight to the ending. Because it is the ending that the reader will most likely remember first.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a fan of my short story Miss Hattie Mae's Secret. She loved the beginning and, I admit, I do, too. Of all my published and unpublished fiction, it is perhaps my favorite opening. (As I posted last Aug. 1, in this blog, the first two paragraphs have a total of only five words. ["Miss Hattie Mae Farted. Often."] It is minimalist to say the least.) But the reader, who enjoyed the story, was upset with the ending. She wondered what happened next. And, in not knowing, was somewhat vexed.

(For those of you who haven't read the entire story, it ends with the county sheriff coming to visit Miss Hattie Mae to discuss the newly unearthed secret that she has kept for eight decades.)

One of the goals in writing, particularly in genre fiction such as mysteries which I write, is to tie up loose ends. Miss Hattie Mae's Secret started and ended with her, all 95 years of age, on the porch and farting. I originally planned to write more but when I got to that point I stopped because I thought I said all that needed to be said. Anything further I left to the reader.

In all stories, real and fictional, something happens before the point where the writer begins the story and something happens after the story ends. Fictional life, as in real life, is part of a continuum and the writer, almost arbitrarily, begins and ends the telling wherever they choose.

But as a writer, you do want to leave the reader satisfied at the end. Otherwise, they may feel like they wasted their time. You don't want to do that. Case in point, my favorite book from last year. The Martian. I loved the story and enjoyed the book. And, having read it several times, do not think I wasted my time. But I wasn't thrilled with the ending, which was just after Mark Watney is rescued and is beginning his seven-month journey home. The movie, I think, did it better. It ends with Mark back on earth and training new NASA recruits on survival.

I think I approach an ending in fiction the way I always did as a daily journalist. When I got to the end, I stopped writing. When you have said it all, just stop.

And so it is with this.

Thanks for reading.

The end.





   

 

Kendall Hunter

I'm in love. Deeply. Passionately. Completely.

I often get a thrill just thinking about The Woman.

Her name is Kendall. Kendall Hunter. And she is currently the love of my life. Well, kinda.

Now, this would be more than a bit adulterous, except in this context. (It still might be, even in this context, but I don't think so.) That's because Kendall is fictional. Created from whole cloth from my brain. (Am I sounding messianic?) That's not to say I didn't have some inspiration for the character from a friend, a muse who has proven to be very helpful as I develop Kendall. But all that Kendall is comes from me. I just don't know yet what's going to happen to her.

Kendall Hunter is the main character in my upcoming short story, Callipygian, which will be published this October by the Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime in their anthology, "The Fine Art of Murder." Closer to the publication date, I'll drop an excerpt. But for now, I'll just say it's the story of an FBI criminal profiler (Kendall) who, while she is on vacation in Indianapolis visiting family, is drawn into the investigation into the theft of three valuable paintings, including one called Callipygian. The plot thickens, as they say, when the main suspect is found murdered.

(Callipygian. I also love that word. I was listening to an interview by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air about two years ago and her guest used the word. Terry, who is smart, well-educated and well-prepared in interviews, didn't appear to know the word, which I didn't either. When I looked it up, I decided then and there to somehow use it. So I built this short story around it.)

While this will be my first published story with this character, it isn't the first time I have written this character. The first story is called Black on Black in Black. White folks may not get that but it should ring a bell with black folks. In that story, Kendall is called in to profile a serial killer.

Kendall is a tall, beautiful, single black woman, who is smart and clever. Very clever, in fact. Work is her focus, and she does it extremely well, but she needs to get a personal life. And she harbors a deep secret from her past that could turn her life around. It's what I'm trying to explore in each new story -- there are four in total, including my current short story WIP (work in progress). Discovering who she is is why I'm so in love with her. She's interesting and fun, occasionally funny, brainy, well-dressed and has a killer body. (I like big butts and I cannot lie. What else can I say?)

But like I said earlier, I don't know yet what's going to happen to her. I can't keep her forever, even as I start publishing her stories. It'll be sad when it's over.

But I know it will come to an end, even if she doesn't. I am a fickle lover and I know in time I will fall madly in love with another fictional characters. Those I have loved in the past have just let it go and moved on. I only hope Kendall Hunter will do the same and not become  a jealous lover, willing to do anything to hold on to me. Because that WOULD be scary.

I'm having fun with her now. And after the story is published, I hope you will enjoy her, too.

Thanks for reading and keep on writing.

MWA University

I probably shouldn't post a blog today because it's a holiday and no one is probably reading me today. But, on the other hand, I don't have many steady readers to begin with so it probably doesn't matter that much.

As you know, I went to MWA University in Philadelphia last weekend and had a wonderful time. I learned so much and met so many wonderful people. It was well worth the time and effort.

Of the six sessions -- and all of them were great -- there were two that were particularly useful.

First thing in the morning was Jess Lourey, whose topic was What to do after the idea. Lourey, a writing and sociology professor in Minnesota and the author of the Murder-by-Month mystery series, takes the pyramid approach to writing a novel. Through six steps, she starts with a one-sentence summary of the novel, then works her way into an expanded paragraph summary, creating a character bible, sketching a setting, doing a second one paragraph summary, outling the novel and, finally, actually writing the book.

Sounds like a lot, and it is. But the great thing about all the sessions was the teachers reminded us that they were giving us 'tools, not rules.' Use what you can and throw out the rest.

I don't care for outlining, although during NaNoWriMo I do outline. But what I took most from her were steps one and three -- the one-sentence summary and the character bible. It reinforced that I must be able to describe my work in one sentence and must be able to do it from the beginning. And I will know and understand my characters best by listing all their traits so I won't be forced into having to remember them all.

The other session I found particularly helpful was on character and was taught by the very funny Reed Farrel Coleman, who I enjoyed so much I friended him later on Facebook.

Coleman, who apparently doesn't outline, he says character is arguably the most memorable element of a mystery novel. Crimes come and go but it's the characterizations readers remember most. As I think of novels I enjoy, particularly if they are part of a series, the characters are what I remember most, not the plot. I have read loads of Sherlock Holmes, lots of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, Sue Grafton, the late William F. Buckley's Blackford Oakes series, and others, And in most cases, characterization is what sticks out most.

Coleman said think of a character's most closely held and embarrassing secret. Even if it is never revealed, it helps the writer to understand the character and to write them with more depth, even if they are only minor characters. Of all the 20 Stephanie Plum novels, I only remember the plot in the third of the series. It is Stephanie, Lula, Joe, Ranger and all the others that I actually remember.

So there you have it. I wanted to write sooner but it's been a busy week.

Have a Happy Fourth of July everyone. And thanks for reading.

NaNoWriMo -- 2010

I have made the momentous decision to write a different novel in November for National Novel Writing Month than I had been planning. What's worse is that it is going to take a lot more planning and research, and I only have a little more than three weeks to get it done.

It will be a challenge because it is a mystery -- what else were you expecting? -- but will have parts that occur more than 60 years in the past and some occurring today. I haven't decided on how to handle the past elements but they are too numerous and complicated to disperse throughout the novel.

So, I may open with an entire section in the past with its own dramatic elements, and then open a second section in the present, where the novel will conclude.

I have been paging through one of my favorite novels, TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, to see how John LeCarre handled crucial past events in his novel. And there are a couple of other works that are inventive that I will consider.

The novel, tentatively titled THE TONTINE, is going to require that I step well outside my comfort zone. The protagonist may be a woman -- haven't decided on that yet, but at the very least a female will be a central character -- and I will stray well outside the mainstream or Black communities and into another ethnic culture altogether.

It should be fun.

Just to prepare you, I probably won't have a lot of time to blog next month. I still will be freelancing and also trying to write a novel. It will be crunch time and something will have to give. I suspect blogging will be part of the give, though I won't give it up all month.

I will let you know as we go along.

As for now, thanks for reading and don't give up.

How to develop characters

I started a blog posting yesterday that I intended to finish and post today. But I just ran across something from Writer's Digest (Aug. 31, 2010) that I thought was interesting. It's an online article called, "How to Develop Your Characters."

Actually, it was just a listing of four things and a brief description of what is meant. But I found it useful. Here they are:

1. Make a character study for each of your characters, defining the five traits discussed here: name, age, appearance, relationships and personality.

2. With a clean copy of your manuscript, get out a different colored highlighter for each character. Go through the manuscript one character at a time. Highlight whenever that character speaks and/or acts. If you try to do too many characters at the same time, shifting from one color to the other, I guarantee you will make a mistake at least once.

3. Now read only the dialogue and actions of one of those colors. Does everything your character says sound true to her? What about her actions? If not, rewrite the passages that seem forced.

4. Did you notice one character, or maybe several, who appear in the beginning but not in the end, or vice versa? If so, they probably aren’t necessary to your story. Try deleting them or perhaps combining them with another character.


Now in my latest novel, I have more than two dozen speaking parts. However, there is one main character. There'd be no story without him. But there are more than a half-dozen major characters who are crucial to the telling of the story. Am I suppose to do character studies of more than two dozen characters, which I doubt, or just the major ones?

I am opting for the latter and I might try it. It would probably be an interesting exercise.

I hope I have been a help today. That is always my goal. So thanks for reading.

Backstory

I have been wrestling for some time now with the issue of backstory. Where to put it, when to put it and how much to put it.

Backstory kills the action and should be used sparingly, I'm told. Spread it throughout the story, I'm told. Only about two paragraphs of backstory at a time, I'm told.

But then, I read something by some famous author and there are big chunks of backstory, often at the beginning of a novel. Case in point, THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER (Putnam, 1997) by Jack Higgins. The entire first chapter, some 23 pages long, is backstory.

Now, love the book and, frankly, the first chapter is one of my favorite parts. But why is Higgins exempt from the "use backstory sparingly" rule and I am not.

I know. That is a stupid question. He is a rich famous author and I'm . . . well, uh, not a rich famous author. He gets a pass on that rule and probably many others as well. This is not where I go on about 'life's not fair.' If it were fair, I would perhaps be a bestselling author and no one would have ever heard of teenage sensation Justin Bieber. (I'm not hatin', I'm just sayin'.)

What I am saying, however, is that it is hard catching a break when the rules I'm expected to play by can be such moving targets. There are whole sections of my first novel, FIGHTING CHAOS, I will have to cut if I ever hope to sell it. (The whole book needs another total re-write, as I have said before, but that is a subject for another day.) They are sections rich with funny, moving detail, and they flesh out the characters and establish them more as three dimensional people.

That is my complaint for the day. Backstory. I have a cold and have been in bed most of the day and I guess I just felt like whining. So there you have it. I'm going back to bed.

But you get back to work! And thanks for reading.

POV

Until the last handful of years when I seriously took up writing fiction, I never gave much thought to point of view. As a journalist, most of my writing has been in third-person. Whether at a news conference or witnessing events as they unfolded, I was like a fly on the wall. I observed and wrote what I heard or observed but not as a participant.

There have been exceptions, of course.

Besides the editorials I wrote for The Philadelphia Tribune (for which I won a couple of awards, thank you very much), my writing career includes a handful of first-person articles about experiences I had, including two I had at racing school. But my favorite first-person article was while I worked for United Press International. It was about an experiment at the Franklin Institute science museum in Philadelphia.

Using only paper, Popsicle sticks, string, glue and other materials found around the kitchen, a group of us, including an 11-year-old boy named Noah, had 15 minutes to construct something that would hold an egg and protect it from breaking when dropped from 12 feet onto some bricks. I felt particularly competitive toward Noah, though he was only one-third my age, and when I wrote the article I proudly announced to the world that I succeeded where most failed (though Noah wasn't one of them).

I have always felt most comfortable as a writer using a third-person POV. But as a reader, I generally don't care. In fact, I don't think most readers care. Or at least I don't think most readers who aren't writers actually care or even notice. So when other writers in my critique group say I sometimes switch POV when in third-person, I don't see it. I don't understand. It seems consistent throughout to me.

Then yesterday, I bell went off in my head and for the first time I got what other writers were talking about. I was reading James King's BILL WARRINGTON'S LAST CHANCE, which I have praised in the past and suggest you read. I was aware of whose head the writer in mind from chapter to chapter, and I noticed its consistency and when and why it changed.

James' writing is wonderful, descriptive and, it turns out, instructive.

I think I am going to stick with first-person narrative in my fiction for a while. It is challenging for me but also easier to keep consistent. So the next time I change POV, it will be with knowledge of forethought.

I've learned something. Thanks James.

And thanks to all of you for reading. Now go write something and don't give up.

Killing them softly . . .

I was reading an interview with Mary Higgins Clark over the weekend and was reminded of something I love to do. I love to kill off people I don't like. Or hurt them badly.

She said, "Don't hold a grudge! Instead, make the guy who was mean to you the victim in your next book." (Writer's Digest, Sept. 2010)

I do that. And I tell people to do that.

Of my victims, my favorite is a guy whom I don't truly dislike but who made my professional life difficult for a number of years. He was my boss' boss. He was unpredictable, often rude, inconsiderate, stubborn and controlling. (And a number of other bad things I won't get into.)

In my second novel, I had him bashed in the head with a heavy object and killed. It was so much fun and the best part was he wasn't killed for all the obvious reasons. He was killed because his assailant was a bigger bad-ass (and was crazier) than my victim was.

I started my current novel, AN UNTIDY AFFAIR, with a person I didn't like. I didn't have an idea for the book but I remembered this woman who was a real piece of work and I constructed a novel around that fact. She was a rude, pretentious, uppity (add the b-word). But I didn't kill her off. Actually, she wasn't worth the effort but I put her through Hell, which was also satisfying.

So my advice today is: Kill off that idiot you hate. Or at least hurt them badly. You will feel better for it and won't get sent to jail.

Thanks for reading. Now write something!

When the author gets tired

I was sitting yesterday reading the latest novel in a series from an author I enjoy and discovered the author, whom I will not name, was getting tired. There didn't seem like anything new from characters I have come to love and the plot was so forced it totally stretched my suspended disbelief.

I think the author is near the end of this series.

Now that is okay. Writers get to the end of a series all the time. The problem is resolving all the conflicts that have been sustained over the course of the writing. You want the reader to be satisfied with the conclusion.

For example, I love how the Harry Potter series concluded. It tied up loose ends and the reader felt a sense of closure that was not evidence prior to the end of Book Seven.

I have two series in mind based on characters in books I have written -- Jason Mitchell, the reporter from DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL and THE DEATH OF ART, and private eye David Blaise from AN UNTIDY AFFAIR. I see a number of stories with Jason, who is a lot like me, but a nearly unlimited number of possibilities for Blaise. And he is written in first-person, which is also interesting. I think at some point I would need to resolve certain issues with Jason but could leave Blaise nearly forever.

Anyway, if I am ever successful with either of these, I hope I realize when I have had enough of them. I don't want them to be dry, stale creatures that I keep alive only because of a contract.

But for now, that possibility is long off. I have to actually get a publishing contract first. Well, I am still working on it.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day.

Characters

We had a great day Saturday signing books at Mudsock, a cute little book store up in Fisher. (We also have signings tomorrow night at Crestwood in Indianapolis, and at a shop in Muncie on Saturday.) And during a slow moment, one of the other authors, Diana Catt, who is president of our local chapter of Sisters in Crime, and I were discussing short story writing vs. novel writing. Diana prefers short stories because you can get into them quickly and be done. And she has numerous short story publishing credits.

I, on the other hand, prefer doing novels. It provides ample time and room to explore main characters and to develop a plot. But, Diana asked me, what about all those minor characters? What about their development?

I hadn't given it much thought.

In a full-length novel, there can be a couple dozen speaking parts, almost all of which requiring a character with a name. (And you know how I hate coming up with character names. I always struggle with it.) What are the motivations of some of those minor characters? Don't they also have lives?

Diana suggested I consider a minor character I have already created as the main character in a short story. And I said, "Wow! What a great idea."

I have dozens to choose from. Joel Covington, the spoiled rich child in FIGHTING CHAOS who only comes into himself after he abandons his family's career choices and joins the FBI; Marsha Norwood, the girlfriend of the main character in the book; Lyndsay Carpenter, the art museum employee whose murder in the first chapter is the catalyst for the investigation in THE DEATH OF ART; Tony Richardson, the stalwart friend in DEATH AT THE JUNGLE-BUNNY JOURNAL or King David Armstrong, the numbers runner from the same book.

All of these people could have most interesting lives worthy of exploration in a short story.

I may, in time, get to some of them. But last Sunday I started a short story on the life of an FBI profiler who is looking into a series of serial killings of young women in the Philadelphia area. The idea came from my friend Shonda, who has had civilian FBI training. Shonda suggested several areas to explore as the character, Kendall Hunter, helps in the probe for a killer.

My fiction tends to be character-driven and so this exercise in exploring minor characters through short stories can only help me when I am building characters whom I want and need readers to care about.

And, it's fun, which is also something quite important.

Thanks for reading and don't give up on writing.

My favorite character

In the Inkwell section of a recent Writer's Digest, they asked "If you had to pick just one, what's the best ingredient of a solid novel: The plot, premise, the style, the characters or the setting?"

The responses surprised me, though they shouldn't have. Some 50 percent said character, which, if I remember my math, means character equaled the combined total of all the others.

I shouldn't have been surprised, however, because I concentrate on character development more than anything else in a story. I do it, perhaps, to the detriment of other elements, like plot or pacing. The key is to show a character's, uh, character instead of telling the reader about a character's character.

I was thinking, who is my favorite character in fiction? Uncle Tom from UNCLE TOM'S CABIN is a good character, though in the black community he is much-maligned and generally misunderstood. But my true favorite is George Smiley.

I think Smiley first appears as a minor character in John LeCarre's first big international success, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD. He was front and center in CALL FOR THE DEAD and several novels starting in the early 1970s.

Smiley was a professional spy and was introduced at a time when the spy archetype, in general, and a British spy, in particular, was James Bond. Bond was tall, handsome, charming, good with women, dashing, debonair. Smiley, on the other hand, was "breathtakingly ordinary." Divorced but with a beautiful, charming and intensely insecure wife who comes and goes in his life, Smiley was described as "short, fat and of a quiet disposition" and with a "fleshy, bespectacled face." His arms were too short or his sleeves were too long.

It was as if on a literary level Bond and Smiley were born twins, with Bond getting all the good traits and Smiley getting all the rest. Except, that Smiley was also exceptionally intelligent. Brilliant, really. His one true shortcoming was his wife, the Lady Ann Smiley.

(Read TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, my favorite novel, or SMILEY'S PEOPLE. Or see Sir Alec Guinness portray Smiley in the BBC TV/film versions of those novels. He was as brilliant as Smiley as he was as Obi-Wan Kenobi.)

I don't know if I can write a character as wonderfully complex, full-bodied and interesting as Smiley. But the favorite of my inventions is in my current novel, AN UNTIDY AFFAIR. She is a minor, though important character named Marie Toussaint. Marie is pretty, funny, shapely, considerate of elders, flirty and sexy. She is also insecure and impulsive. But acting without thought also saves her life.

Do you have any favorite characters? I'd love to know. Post a comment on my blog or my Facebook page.

Until then, thanks for reading and keep writing.

Is she white?

I got a funny and surprising question last Saturday from the members of my critique group, all of whom, it turns out, are middle-aged white women. Someone asked me if a particular character in my current novel, AN UNTIDY AFFAIR, is white. The character's name is Samantha and she is the secretary/clerical assistant to my protagonist David Blaise, and a former Ho (a.k.a. Baby Cakes). What was so surprising to me is that everyone in the group was wondering the same thing.

Writing fiction to me is like having a long, elaborate daydream and writing it all down. I see each character in my head as I write them in each scene. I describe who they are and how they look and try to demonstrate things about their character by the actions I also describe.

Samantha is a fun but minor character. I give her something to do in this novel but plan to show more of who she is in my next David Blaise novel, which will be a prequel. I know what Samantha looks like and I thought I described her well, including mentioning something about her race.

But looking back through the text I now realize that I don't clearly state her race. It is vague, which is what prompted the question. I also found another character, also a woman, about whom I don't provide a firm indication of race.

I like my critique group and I take their suggestions seriously and, in return, I make serious suggestions when it is my turn to discuss someone else's work. I don't always use the suggestions I get -- nor do I expect someone to always take my suggestions -- but I have learned to rely on their objective judgments.

I know what race Samantha is and can clarify the point with just one sentence in the text, and probably with even less than a sentence. But it is the collective judgment of the group that I do nothing. I should leave it as it is and allow the reader to decide, if they wish.

Samantha's race doesn't play a role in the story. It only provides some detail about her. So is it necessary to state which race she is. No, I don't think it is.

For now, I am leaving it the way it is. But what do you think?

You can leave comments here or on my Facebook page.

Thanks for reading and keep writing.