What’s in your DNR?

I hate to admit it, but sometimes I, and probably you, are not as smart as we think we are.  We take on a subject in an argument and find out as we are making our point, that we are making the other’s person’s point instead.  We use a word in our conversation that either means something we were not aware of, or we use it the wrong way.  Need an example?  Stand by.

When I retired from the Army I was hired by the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C. I had a great job, but my family had not moved with me.  When my wife got ill, I needed to transfer closer to them, so I was assigned to a VA Hospital as the Administrative Officer for the Department of Nursing. Career Army officer. Twenty-six years in the Infantry.  No medical background and I was the senior person in the department without nursing training.  This was like Jim Santori reporting a Category 5 Hurricane on the way to the hospital.

One day, the secretary for the Chief Nurse was not available to take notes at a meeting so I was asked to fill in for her.  Take note? Piece of cake.  How many meetings had I been to in the Army and taken notes? Too many to count.  The subject of this meeting was DNR.

I’m taking notes, doing my job when one of the participants said something like, “This month we have only had three deaths due to DNR.”  Deaths due to DNR?  How can that be?  I immediately raised my hand and interrupted the meeting.  “How can you die from that stuff they swab your cheek for? They do that so they can identify you if you get killed.  Everyone in the military gets a swab and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any of them dying from it.”   Silence was on the face of the room, and quiet was all around.

Everyone looked at me. No one spoke.  “What?” I asked as I looked back at them.  The nurse reached out and took my hand in hers like she would have done to her three-year-old.  “That’s okay. You didn’t know. We’re talking about DNR…Do Not Resituate…that means—”

I jerked my hand away. “I got it.  I got it.  I just thought you were talking about that other stuff.”

 The head nurse again.  “That other stuff, as you call it, is DNA.”

All my notes had been geared to my understanding of what they were talking about and were completely useless with the exception of the names of the attendees.

Had I made that error in my novel, I would have made a mistake that may have cost me a sale.  If I had been using the wrong term throughout my novel, it may have taken much more than a change of initials to correct it. 

When we write, technical matters matter.  The Army no longer has Jeeps.  Law enforcement personnel don’t have the accused do the “perp walk.”  Nobody does a chalk outline of a dead body on the sidewalk. Doctors and medics don’t look up and shake their head when someone dies.  These things matter unless you’re writing science fiction, then you can make up almost anything that works.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to jump in my Jeep, kill someone with a look from my eyes and teleport to the planet Framistat.

It’s Not Me…Really

When we write it inevitable that we put some of ourselves in each piece we do.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a short story, novel or screenplay. We, as writers are going to find ourselves in it.  Or more accurately, our readers who know us are going to find us.

Write a most despicable protagonist who kicks small animals, talks bad to his mother, talks with his mouth full, never lets someone else get a word into the conversation, or does that “other thing” that drives you crazy.  He is perfect for the piece you are working on.  You’re lucky enough to get it published and a friend reads it. What are they going to say?  Great story/novel/screenplay?  One of your best works?  You wish.

No.  What they are going to say is, “I totally saw you doing/saying that thing your protagonist did on page 97.”  You don’t do all those things I described, do you?  Probably not, but what if one time you tripped over your dog and said something like, “you little ()*%**), I wish I had kicked you out the door.”  You didn’t mean it (probably) and the person who heard you knew you were joking, but when they read your piece…there it was and it was you.

Writing teachers talk about giving your character “voice.”  At first, I thought they were talking about a deep voice, a high-pitched voice or something like that, but noooo, it’s not that easy.  Your character has to have a particular voice pattern.  Where does it come from?  Your friends? Deep inside that cavern of a brain where you hear voices all the time? I’ll bet a lot of it comes from you.

I have two mystery series in print.  One takes place in Atlanta, GA in the early 1950’s and the other is contemporary and set is the Seattle, WA area.  I have lived in both and know that people talk differently in each place.  I also know I picked up some of the voice patters from both and use them in my daily speech and, ….spoiler here….I use it in my writing.

My character in Atlanta uses terminology I have heard most of my life.  He drops a lot of “g”s on words.  He says, “Mornin’ Darlin’”, would rather eat a bug than call that thing he drinks a “soda.”  If it come out of a bottle, it’s a Coke.  If he’s formal, it’s a ‘co cola.  I have done and said the same thing.

In the other series, the protagonist drinks “soda’s” or a “pop.”  He dips his French fries in tartar sauce and knows what the waitress is talking about when she asks if he want “jo-jo’”s’ with his meal. He speaks to enough Canadian’s to know they end a lot of sentences with “ai”.

I have lived in both areas and many others during my years in the Army, so I use a lot of the things I have heard and experienced in my writing.  It natural to do it and it’s okay.

The good thing is when your reader recognizes something, you know they read the book and they were listening/watching when you did it.

https://www.paulsinorbooks.com

Just the facts, Ma’am…or not.

 I’ve stopped asking people if they’re old enough to remember something that was on television years ago. Ten years ago, if you mentioned Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, The Lone Ranger or something like that, you would have gotten a blank stare.  Now, it’s “Oh, yeah.  I saw it on 

YouTube and I really like it. I watched a bunch of episodes.”  So…remember Dragnet?

It was the first and probably one of the best police stories ever on television.  Jack Webb was Sergeant Joe Friday and “only the names were changed to protect the innocent.”  Webb starred in all of the episodes.  He also wrote and directed many of them.  The dialog sounded like it was fired from his trusty snub-nosed revolver which he was not opposed to drawing.  Anytime he interviewed a witness, he had a small notebook and a pencil and all he wanted was the facts.  If that was all he got, the show would have lasted about five episodes.

As a writer we use facts, but we have to embellish them to make a good story in many cases.  I recently received a call from a producer in Los Angeles who asked if I had a World War Two script.  I have several, so I wanted him to narrow it down a little. “It needs to be true or at least based on true incidents.”  I won’t go into all the details, but my project deals with German Prisoners of War being held in the United States and some saboteurs landed by submarine.  ‘Is it real,” he asked.  Uh…sorta.  World War Two was real.  There were German Prisoners of War in the United States.  That part is real.  Germany landed at least three groups of saboteurs by submarine on US soil during the war.  Also a real fact.  I put all the facts together and came up with a story line.

It is a true story? Not completely but a lot of the parts that make it up are right out of the history books.  Can I call it a true story?  No.  Can I say, “based on true facts?”  Absolutely. There are enough World War Two veterans still around who will remember the facts and some who may question how I treated them, but they can’t deny the thread that holds it all together.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Braveheart, look up the history of the times and see how it was manipulated to make it a better story. How about “Houston, we have a problem?” Never said in the real situation, but can you imagine the movie without it.  Unless the movie was going to get a hard “R” rating, I’m sure the actual conversation between the men and Houston could not be repeated.

Got an idea?  If it is entirely original and does not include any true incidents or persons, you can do whatever you like to it.  If it has some basis in facts, make them as true to their origin as possible, but unless you’re making a documentary you have a lot of flexibility in how you use the incidents.  

Present the truth in the most favorable light. 

Three Little Words

If you’ve read one of my series, and who hasn’t you know that I have a contemporary mystery series set in a little town north of Seattle, Washington.  The protagonist is a private detective and he…well…he does private detective things. The point is I have named each book for a song from the big band era of just prior to and just after WWII.  I figure if the late Sue Grafton can do it with the alphabet, maybe I can do it with song titles.  As I have said in other blogs, I also have been fortunate enough to have several feature films produced from scripts I wrote.  Now I have to tie those two tidbits of information together.

Back in the 1930’s, (much before my time) there was a song with the title THREE LITTLE WORDS.  It’s been recorded many times by many different singers, but that’s not the point either.  The point is, screenplays consist of three distinct parts, i.e., three little words.

Those words are: Beginning, Middle and End. Or maybe Act I, Act II and Act III. How about Action, Dialog and Characters?  And don’t forget the most famous three of all: Lights! Camera! Acton!  Say those last three on a set and you will be escorted off by the largest truck driver in the state.  I just threw them in to see if you were paying attention.  You only hear them in movies or on television when the person doesn’t know what he or she is talking about.

Take the first three sets of three words.  All are relevant to a good screenplay.  Any story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, no matter if it’s a novel, short story or a screenplay.  The next two sets are particular to screenplays and teleplays. Movies are a visual medium and if you have a forty-foot-tall head on the screen doing nothing but talking, you are going to lose the audience if you were fortunate enough to sell the screenplay in the first place.  That head has to say something and when it does, you have a character and some dialog. If you must have that character talk for five minutes, break it up with some kind of action.  Have them go to the window and look out or light a cigarette or take a drink or tie their shoe or put on lipstick.  Something.  A long monolog only works once ever twenty years and the last one that really worked was George C. Scott in PATTON.  If you haven’t seen it, watch the first five minutes to see what I’m talking about. By the way, that was the last scene filmed in the movie.  It was so intense, that the director wanted to save it for last.

From a formatting point, the script must be in three acts unless it’s a teleplay, then it may be eight or more.  Remember, on television you don’t pay and admission, so they have to sell something to get their money back.  Writers have to factor in breaks for commercials, but that’s for another time.

Remember, if you’re writing a screenplay, it’s rule of three little words.

And now I have three little words for you.  

I gotta go.