A Real Assassin

I was very saddened this week to hear about the death of a professional assassin I knew very well. Novelists such as Vince Flynn, Stephen Hunter, David Baldacci, and others write about assassins who are supermen; who know everything there is to know about guns, have tremendous aim, and incredible reflexes. Flynn's Mitch Rapp and Hunter's Bob Lee Swagger are very much alike. Baldacci, who is, by far, the best writer of the three, has assassins who are a bit more nuanced. But even his characters, like the others, have a certain invincibility, along with extreme confidence, pride, and fake humility that doesn't quite ring true.

Abe Fridling, who died at the age of 95 last week, was the real assassin. I used to see him every Saturday in synagogue. When I was a young man I would sit next to my father-in-law, a Holocaust survivor, on the left side of the synagogue's second row. Mr. Fridling, I always called him Mr. Fridling, sat on the right side of the same row.  I used to see him swinging his legs back and forth because they did not touch the floor. He was that short, barely over five feet tall. Sometimes during breaks from praying, he and my father-in-law would speak to each other in Yiddish, a language I do not understand. But when my father-in-law passed away, Mr. Fridling came and sat next to me, and he began to tell me stories of his life during World War II and the years following it.

During the war, Mr. Fridling, who was born in Poland, fled to the woods and joined with others to become a partisan guerrilla resistance fighter. The partisans defended Jewish towns and villages against Nazi soldiers, and conducted raids against German military forces. Some partisan groups even built communities in the woods made up of Jewish civilians who escaped the Germans. After fighting as a partisan for much of the war, Mr. Fridling eventually joined up with the Russian army. One of the biggest regrets of his life was that he was shot in the chest three weeks before the war ended so he could not march into Berlin with the Russians. 

It was in the years immediately after the war that Mr. Fridling became a paid assassin. It was his job to eliminate Nazi soldiers who had survived the war and had returned to normal lives after murdering hundreds of Jews. I asked him who paid him to do it, and he would not tell me, but he said that if he did, I would recognize the names.

Mr. Fridling told me of his getting into the back seat of an Cadillac in Germany shortly after the war. Inside was a doctor and Mr. Fridling pointed a gun at him. The doctor said, "You're not going to kill me. I'm too useful to the Jews now, treating the sick in Jewish displaced persons camps."

Mr Fridling replied, "That could never make up for all the women and children you murdered. Get out of the car."

The doctor left the car and started running. Mr. Fridling shot him in the back and killed him. That was just one of many assassinations. I once asked him how many people he killed, and he replied that he could not count that high.

During the war, Mr. Fridling heard that his brother and his family had been murdered by Polish Nazi sympathizers. He went to the home of the person he thought had killed his brother, and found only the suspect's mother. He put a gun to her mouth got her to admit that it was her son and she told him where to find him. Mr. Fridling said he shot her through the mouth and killed her. Then he found the man who killed his brother, put a gun into his mouth and got him to confess and say who his accomplices were. Then Mr. Fridling shot him, found the accomplices, and killed them as well. Covered with blood, Mr. Fridling came back to his partisans, went to where they stored the camp's food, and began making himself lunch. The commander of the partisans came in and expressed amazement that Mr. Fridling could do what he had done and still be interested in food, before even cleaning himself up. Mr. Fridling told that commander, "I was hungry." Those are the sort of stories Mr. Fridling told me about himself, all of them true, I have no doubt.

There is one Mr. Fridling story that I read about in the paper and I asked him to tell me what really happened. After the war, he came to America and started a chicken farm in New Jersey. Eventually he sold part of farm, keeping much of the land, and moved to Washington, DC, where he bought a liquor store. One day, in his store, two robbers came in with guns. One of them put a gun to Mr. Fridling's head and told him to open the cash register. Mr. Fridling said, "Hitler couldn't kill me and you're not going to kill me either." He proceeded to grab the gun out of the robber's hand and shot him. He then held the gun on the second robber and called the police. When the police came, they asked him where he got the gun and if he had a license for it. He said that it was the robber's gun. He'd had enough of guns in the war and did not believe in owning guns. But he did tell me that, years before, he had grabbed a gun out of the hand of a German general who had captured him, shot the general and other Nazis with him, and escaped, so grabbing a gun pointed at him was not a new experience.

How did Mr. Fridling's personality differ from those of the fictional assassins? Those all seem to be the strong and silent types, who never would talk about their killings. Mr. Fridling loved to talk about it. But Mr. Fridling left all that behind him and became a family man. He raised three sons and a daughter. One of his sons won a MacArthur Fellowship ("the genius award") as a brilliant physicist. But Mr. Fridling did have that pride. One day I told him that my father-in-law described World War II as "when I walked to Germany." My father-in-law was marched there from Czechoslovakia at the point of a gun, digging trenches for Nazi soldiers.) Mr. Fridling's responded, in a gruff voice, "No one would ever make me walk to Germany." After hearing his stories and knowing him well, I can believe it.

How can you be happy when Prince Andrei Nikolaevich is dying?

Tolstoy once came down into his living room from the office he wrote in, saw his family laughing, and said, "How can you be happy when Prince Andrei Nikolaevich is dying upstairs?" When you truly experience that feeling concerning your own characters, you are a writer.

Post-novel depression's intense pan tortures the most talented writers because the developing, changing, coming-to-life characters are no longer alive and growing. They are the writer's children during the writing process. When the novel is done and the writing stops, they become unchanging memories. It's like your own children have died, and all you have left is their memories.

David Brin says that writing is the ultimate sadomasochistic experience. A writer succeeds when the readers can't stop reading, giving up food, sleep, and sex, because they can't put the book down. The greatest compliment I ever received was when an MIT student complained that my novel gave him a bad grade on an exam. With the best novels, readers are in bondage to the novelist. The aim of the writer is to create characters as vivid as one's best friend, parents, or even spouse, so that the reader worries terribly about what is going to happen next to that character. The readers are enthralled, with "thrall" being another word for "slave." But the one most enslaved by the writing is the writer himself, as Tolstoy was with Andrei Bolkonsky. Tolstoy destroyed my vision, because I read War and Peace in one weekend.

Books Recommended For My Son

Son,

I’m not going to give you a list of what most people consider great literature, because much of it is not fun to read (although I’ve read far more of it than most people have) and it’s somewhat out of touch with today’s world. That includes Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Joyce, Hardy, James, Melville, Cervantes, and others. But there are a few classic novels that I will include on this list. Mostly, I’m recommending books that, as a 26-year-old, well-educated young man, you will enjoy and not find too highbrow or two lowbrow. As you will see, I tend to like historical fiction, but there’s a scattering of everything. What all these books have in common is that they are a pleasure to read. So here’s my list:

1.      Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Pé-rez–Reverte, a contemporary Spanish writer. This is the first of several novels, set in 17th century Spain, in which the main character, Alatriste, is an ex-military swordsman who now takes odd jobs. They’re well written, but they’re fun, educational, and enjoyable to read. Pé-rez–Reverte also does some serious literature, but those works of his can get boring. The Alatriste books don’t.

2.      The Religion, by Tim Willocks, a contemporary British writer. This is the best book I’ve read in a long time. I would have put it as number one, instead of two, except for the fact that it is incredibly bloody. It deals with a battle in 1865 between the forces of Suleiman the Magnificent and Knights of Saint John the Baptist over the island of Malta. Mama read it after I raved about how great a book this is even though I warned her about how bloody it is. She agrees it is a great book.

3.      Trustee From The Toolroom, by Neville Shute, a British writer from the mid-20^th century. This is the best of Shute’s books, although On The Beach is his most famous and the one that became a movie. That one is depressing; this one is fun and a good read. It is not historical fiction. It was written in 1960 and it is set in about 1960.

4.      Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. It’s a classic, but it’s a very enjoyable book. If you’ve read it already, read The Three Musketeers by Dumas.

5.      Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. This is usually considered science fiction, but it doesn’t read like science fiction. It is about an unintelligent person who is given medication that gradually makes him smart and then he gradually goes back to being not smart. This may sound depressing, but it’s a great book. Algernon, by the way, is a mouse.

6.      The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. This is the only novel by Hemingway that I like, and I like it a lot. Yes, it’s about an old fisherman, but it’s about struggling to survive, and struggling for honor. It’s the last thing Hemingway ever published while he was alive, and it is what earned him his Nobel Prize in literature.

7.      The Turkish Gambit by Boris Akunin. The author is sort of a Russian Agatha Christie. His Erast Fandorin character solves crimes in the 1870s or so. Most of his books are about as good as Christie’s, but this one is much better than the rest. This one is set in a war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and it centers around a woman and several men she’s involved with, including Fandorin, as well as a general and a master spy. This is another book that I told Mama about and she loved it.

8.      Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Yes, I know you think Dickens is wordy and overdone, but this is by far the best of Dickens. It’s about the French revolution and it’s very educational, but also very interesting and you’ll enjoy it.

9.      Enemy at the Gates by William Craig. This became a movie (a very good movie), but I read it long before the movie, and I loved it. It’s essentially about a dual between a German sniper and a Russian sniper at the battle of Stalingrad, but it’s well written and good to read.

10.  The Camel Club by David Baldacci. Most of Baldacci’s books are formulaic, meaning that they are formula thrillers with very similar plots and not great writing. But what makes this book special is the camaraderie he creates between social misfits who come together to help each other out of some serious problems. It makes this a fun book to read. Baldacci very kindly tried to help me get an agent so I’ve read a lot of his books. Other than the Camel Club books, and there are about 3 or 4, the other very good book he wrote is The Forgotten, which is based on a true story. Incidentally, he is a lawyer and some of his books are law-related.

11.  The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. This became a great movie starring Humphrey Bogart, but Hammett was known for his style of writing, giving his characters personality through his use of language. His plots also are powerful, and he’s fun to read.

12.  Tourist Season by Carl Hiassen. This book is very funny, but it is also a good serious novel that I enjoyed reading. It had murder-mystery qualities to it but also got into conservation, Florida Indians, and a bunch of other Florida things. All his books are about Florida. Hiassen is a Florida newspaper columnist. He grew up reading Hardy Boys books. He also writes young adult novels.

13.  The Firm by John Grisham, the major writer of legal thrillers today. The Firm is not his best book, but it is his second book and the one that made him famous. I read it years ago. His best book is his first book, A Time To Kill, but I didn’t list it first because it has a very brutal beginning, so I thought you might have misgivings about it. For me, though, I liked it a lot better than any of his other books and most people agree with me.

14.  Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow. Before Grisham, Turow was the major writer of legal thrillers. With the exception of Grisham’s A Time To Kill, Turow’s novels are probably better than Grisham’s. They’re fun. They’re interesting, but you may enjoy them or hate them more than I do because of your legal training. 

15.  Startide Rising by David Brin. Sorry, but I just couldn’t resist including my favorite science fiction novel. Unlike Flowers for Algernon this is true science fiction. At the heart of it there’s a love affair between two dolphins uplifted by man to have intelligence. They are in a space ship fleeing others trying to kill them for discovering secrets as to who the first intelligent beings in the galaxy really were. It’s a great book. It’s a fun read. And David Brin is another famous novelist (one of three) who was very nice to me.

I know I’m forgetting a lot of other novels I really liked. But this list will keep you busy for a while. 

Your father

Envying the Ghosts of Oakwood Cemetery

Every night, I walk through the Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church on my way to the Metrorail station.

I finished a novel last summer and it is now winter and I am having trouble selling it.

It is frequently pitch black as I walk through the cemetery. Many of the dead were buried over two hundred years ago. I talk to the ghosts. I envy them. They don't face false expectations of a "great" novel that is going nowhere. They haven't created children, brilliant, kind, loving children characters who will never live in readers' minds.

Koheleth says that those who have never been born are the luckiest. That should have been me. The pain of having written a novel, no longer touching my characters and watching them change, making them grow, is too intense.

The cemetery is peaceful. Those under the ground don't feel such pain. Can I kill myself and join them? No. I have obligations to my son, my wife, and my religion. It would be unfair to them. But why can't I have a quick heart attack? Then my wife and son would get my insurance, and face no stigma. There must be people in this cemetery who died that way. Why can't I? And soon?

Thirty-four years ago, finishing the novella that I sold fairly quickly after completing it put me into the worst depression of my life, until my mother's death. My creative writing professor, my college's writer-in-residence, said that post-novel-depression is very common and very painful. He was right. That depression lasted for about four months.

This time around, with a much bigger novel that I put twelve years of my life into, it is much worse. It has been more than half a year since I finished it, and I am just as depressed as ever. This might be even worse than losing my mother.

So, my poor ghosts, you have more life in you than my characters do. At least I can read your names on your grave stones. You have less pain than I have. So, maybe I will join you soon. I hope so.



I no longer work near Oakwood Cemetery. My attitude is now much improved, but post-novel-depression is every bit as hard as I describe it here.

Depressing Trends

I sold a novella thirty-seven years ago. I hope to sell a novel this year.
The large gap in my views of the fiction marketing industry has given me a
perspective into publishing trends that is worth sharing.

In the mid-seventies, genre fiction was looked at with disdain. Before
Quentin Tarantino, "pulp fiction" refered to the poorest and worst of
literature: dime novels. Romance, science fiction, and mystery all was
considered pulp. As such, agents and publishers preferred not to touch genre
fiction. It did not pay well; it was hard to sell.

At that time, literary fiction and commercial fiction was in demand. In
terms of word count, "the longer the better" was the advice to young
writers.

Another major change since then concerns publishers, agents, and query
letters. An unpublished writer was encouraged to submit a novel (or "three
chapters and an outline") to a publishing company, not to an agent. The
submission was accompanied by a cover letter. For fiction, a query letter
without at least three chapters was unheard of. The publisher would employ
"slush-pile" readers to pore through the unsolicited manuscripts. Agents
were for second novels, or for first novels a publisher wished to acquire.

Then, the big hurdle for a beginning writer of fiction was to get a
publisher interested. Today the big hurdle is acquiring an agent.
Agents now serve as slush-pile readers and initial editors.
To me, this is a very negative trend, and it has hurt the
quality of American literature. The initial reader, when I was young, was a
publisher's paid employee who was looking for good fiction. Today, the
initial reader is an agent who is trying to make a profit as quickly as
possible.

A novel that takes time to develop character, plot, and thought-provoking
thematic ideas takes more effort and time to sell on an agent's part than
short genre fiction that has an already determined market. Combined
with generations of readers raised watching TV serial dramas
that have very little theme and plots resolved in less than an hour, this has
resulted in the decay of quality literature. Thirty-four years ago there
were far more novels with characters and plots people will remember for the
rest of their lives and far fewer romances, police procedurals, and vampire
novels that are forgotten days after they are read.

I know of at least two novelists who started their careers writing formula
genre novels and are now writing larger quality literature. That seems like
the way to do it, because today it is far easier to sell a first novel that
is short and fits into a popular genre than it is to sell something truly
memorable. I find this rather sad.

Short Story: Sorry Officer; I'm In Love

My next novel will include at least one powerful love story. So I wrote this mostly to test my abilities to reproduce strong feelings of love from a male perspective. So, to anyone reading these words, I would appreciate if you comment, letting me know if you think it works, and what you think of it. Thanks.

Sorry Officer; Im In Love

I finished homework at my favorite nook in the school's main library and walked toward the steps to head home, taking my time, browsing at books on the shelves as I went. But the fourth floor I was on had a balcony overlooking the library's entrance lobby, where I spotted Rachel checking out books. From the moment I saw her I sprinted toward the steps. Once there, I ran down them three at a time, as fast as I could possibly go.

I had to catch her before she left the library. I couldn't lose her. It was already six weeks into the semester, and I had been dreaming every day what I would say to her if I saw her. On the last day of classes the previous spring, she had dumped me.

"I don't think we should see each other any more; with summer and all," she had said.

"I, I don't understand. I'll be less than an hour away."

"I know, and I know you don't want me to say you're a nice guy, Shawn, but you are. I like you. You know that. It's just that, well, I have a life at home. And an hour apart, that's still a long-distance relationship. It just won't work. Please be understanding. Don't make this any more painful than it is."

"And we both know I'm not the type to make things painful," I said.

"Of course you're not. Thank you. Don't be bitter." And she gave me a kiss on the cheek and went running off. That was the last time I saw her until now.

Many times over the summer I considered calling her, but I never did. I tried to keep my pride. And in my head I often thought of what I'd do if I saw her on campus. In one scenario, I would very pointedly ignore her. In another, I would speak to her but be cold and distant.

But now, as I watched her pick up the books she had checked out and move toward the door, my only thoughts were that I didn't want her to see me breathing hard. I smoothed out my hair with my fingers. I made sure my shirt was properly tucked into my pants. I tried to breath normally. And I walked over to her.

"Rachel," was all I could say.

She turned to face me, with a smile. "Oh, hi Shawn. I didn't notice you. How are you? How have you been?"

I had a feeling of deja vu. She was exactly as I remembered, but even more special: the joy in her eyes, the way she tilted her head, the upward curve of her lips, and, most enchanting, her voice. She had personality in each word, every sentence with a unique inflection. She was more adorable than the most angelic four-year-old, with the wisdom of a brilliant college girl. But there were no other college girls like her; the kindness that came through in everything she said; the shine and bounce in her short black hair, the graceful way she stood, the perfection of her slim, white hands; it all was unique and it made her far, far more attractive than any other woman I had ever seen. I thought that all guys must find her as alluring as I did. I wondered how girls saw her. Most women liked Audrey Hepburn, but what Audrey Hepburn had, Rachel had a thousand times better. No other girl was as appealing, from top to bottom, as she was. No one else possibly could be. My insides were flittering, as if I were filled with butterflies.

She wasn't drop-dead gorgeous, but the first thing friends who met her said to me about her was that she was pretty. We had met through a computer dating system that the entire campus had participated in. I had been given a list of fifteen names and phone numbers and Rachel's name had been number one. Among twenty-nine thousand students, she was the one girl that best matched the responses I had put into the computer. I had spoken with her on the phone but hadn't seen her before. We had arranged to meet outside Talliaferro Hall, where she would be leaving a class. Other girls came out before she did. With each one, I thought to myself, "Ooh, I hope it's not that girl; I think she's ugly," or "that girl's pretty but dresses as if she's from the Flintstones." But when she came out, the words in my head were, "I hope it's her; she's very cute." She was slightly above average in height, with a round face and a perfect nose, and nice, kind-looking eyes; a good looking girl, far better than average. And she was dressed in a nice, blue and green sweater and designer jeans. I was glad when she came over to me, my computer date.

We sat together talking on a bench outside Talliaferro for what seemed like minutes but was really hours. The computer was right: we enjoyed the same movies, we had similar tastes in food; we laughed at the same jokes, and we both loved kids and dogs. We were perfect for each other. From that warm late-fall day until the last day of classes in the spring, I dreamed of her every night but couldn't wait to get up and be with her during the day. It was the happiest time of my life.

Now, in the library, I responded to her question with, "I've been Okay. I was looking forward to us running into each other. I thought it would be long before this." I hoped I didn't sound too eager.

"Well, here I am."

She said it with enthusiasm. It gave me hope.

We chatted just outside the library for about ten minutes. I asked about her summer and she told me how her parents treated her to Lasik surgery for her birthday.

I joked, "So no more fishing your contacts out of the drain."

"No, I guess not. You were brilliant figuring out how to do that. I was so grateful."

"I remember how grateful. That turned out to be a wonderful day."

"It did," she said, with a shy smile. Her cheeks reddened. At the thrill of seeing her blush, the butterflies inside of me stopped beating for a moment, and then started again more fluttery than ever.

And we talked about movies we'd seen over the summer. She said, "But of course it wasn't as much fun as seeing the Gene Wilder - Richard Pryor film in a black neighborhood. That was amazing how we laughed at one set of jokes and they laughed at another. That was a great date."

"Yeah, that was fun."

Our few minutes by the library was just as wonderful as our conversations from the previous spring. Just seeing her and being with her made me feel as if I were floating on cotton candy.

But then she said, "Oh no. I forgot the time. I'm going to be late for my class."

She hesitated for just a second, enough time for me to ask, "Can we see each other again?"

"I'd like that."

In the midst of pure elation, it occurred to me that it was Thursday and I had a date with Liz-Anne on Friday night. I would split up with her then, something I'd been considering for several weeks.

I said, "How about Saturday night. I'll make sure it's something special."

As she walked off, she said, "Sounds great. Call me tonight and tell me about it. Same phone number as last year. Thanks."

"I'll call you. It's great seeing you again."

"Bye." It was the world's most adorable Bye. She started jogging to her class, and I enjoyed watching her; she was very sexy.

I found myself on the Beltway driving. I had no idea how I had gotten there. All my thoughts were on Rachel, replaying every second of our meeting at the library. I decided I would get up very early the next day and stand in line at the Kennedy Center for special reserved student tickets. They had a play going to Broadway that was based on a comic strip. It would be magical. Every second being with Rachel was magical. And I would be with her again. I started to cry, thinking what a joy it would be talk to her on the phone that night, to see her, and to touch her on Saturday. I began to sob. I could no longer drive. I pulled over to the side of the Beltway and just let myself sob with pure joy.

But then I thought what I would do if a policeman stopped and knocked on my car window. I would say, "Sorry, Officer, I'm in love."

Novel-Writing Methodology: Chapter Checklist

Long before I started writing my novel, I created an outline of chapters, with a synopsis of each chapter. That was the first version of this spreadsheet. As I wrote the novel, I modified the spreadsheet to match the actual novel. Occasionally, I added fields for issues I wanted to make sure not to forget. Those fields became my checklist for each chapter. So for the second draft of the novel, I read each chapter and compared it to my checklist. So, here is the checklist. (Of course, in the real version I used, I had a lot of text written in each blank square, and the checklist was very large, much too big for a blog.)

#	Prologue	Ch1	Ch2	Ch3	Ch...
Title	...	...	...	...	...
Synopsis	...	...	...	...	...
What makes the chapter?	...	...	...	...	...
Purposes	...	...	...	...	...
Poignant	...	...	...	...	...
Relevant	...	...	...	...	...
Believable (actions & characters?)	...	...	...	...	...
Pageturner?	...	...	...	...	...
Characters (strong, consistent?)	...	...	...	...	...
Faults	...	...	...	...	...
Humor	...	...	...	...	...
Setting (Readers feel there?)	...	...	...	...	...
Clothing (appropriate to character, season?)	...	...	...	...	...
Environment (smell, color, etc.)	...	...	...	...	...

Novel-Writing Methodology

This was written to help keep myself on track to write the best novel possible. I decided that the most important thing I could do was constantly work at holding the reader's interest. As I wrote the novel, I created a spreadsheet, which I am now using as a check-off list to make sure I am covering all the points listed below and more for every chapter. I will post a version of my spreadsheet sometime soon. I am working on the novel's second draft. I will submit it for publication after I finish my third draft. A: NARRATIVE TENSION: THE DESIRE TO GET TO THE NEXT PAGE! The reader has to desire something. What? Perhaps all of the following. Every sentence of the book has to be presenting the reader with at least one of these things and probably several. I also need to keep in mind how it advances the plot.
1. Questions	The book must have unanswered questions that the reader is very anxious to have an answer for. That is what makes a "whodunit" fun to read.
2. Goals	Do primary characters have defined goals? Reader must share characters' passion for reaching the goal, which must be attainable. Climax of each character's story line is reaching the goal.
3. Excitement	Will character whom reader cares about die in next paragraph? Will character's dreams be dashed in next paragraph? Will plans currently running carry to fruition? Will plans character doesn't know about, but reader does, hit character in the head?
4. Urgency	Is reader asking, "Why doesn't X happen now?" The reader must feel that unless X happens now, something bad will happen.
5. Passion	Is character whom reader cares about passionate about something or things? Does reader identify with those passion(s)? Are passions being fulfilled?
6. Romance	Readers want to feel "in-love." There are thousands of things, usually a person is unaware of, that makes up romance. Does the reader have the "feeling?"
7. Poignancy	Do events pull at heartstrings?
8. Humor	Does the general tenor of the writing keep a smile on the reader's face? Are events humorous? Are at least some characters funny.
9. Cleverness	Do readers think, "Hey that's neat, a clever idea?"
10.Awe	Is environment awe inspiring, or giving sense of wonder? Sitting on a Saturn V at takeoff.
11.Sympathy	Are there little lost puppies, either real or as part of characters?
12.Escape	Is the world less mundane than the reader's world, and yet complete, with enough details to make the reader want to escape to it?
13.Education	Are readers learning things they didn't know?
14.Setting	Does the world feel solid. It should be a setting that the reader sees in his mind as being a real world, as well as being an enjoyable world to be in. The reader should feel as if he is walking on the grass, eating the foods, etc.
15.Human	Depth: are true human emotions, or complex personalities being explored?
16.Theme	Does reader feel author is trying to say something important (without being preachy)? Are major issues being examined.
B: CHARACTERIZATION To achieve most of the above, the readers have to have characters they care about, either loving them or hating them. To do so, characters first and foremost need at least one distinguishing character trait (and maybe a maximum of three). Beyond that, they also need the following:
1. Likability	Characters cannot be bland: people readers don't care about. Readers have to find them attractive. A character's attractive because it is accomplishing reader's dreams, it is overcoming handicaps, it is funny, it thinks in a lively way, it deals well with a situation readers wonder about, it is nice to children and puppies, it is smarter than the average bear, it comes from an odd background or is doing odd work or hobbies. What are the character's interests?
2. Identity	Can readers tell who each character is by its speech, mannerisms, humor, intensity, intelligence, vanity, humility, kindness, sternness, morals, passions, the way others look at it, leadership, sensitivity, childishness, way of thinking, etc.
3. Character	Forceful, serving, exacting, or entertaining? Loud or quiet? Colorful or dull? Thinker or doer? Quick or slow? Smart or dumb? Physical or mental? Nice or mean? Happy or depressed? Masochist or Sadist? Oblivious or observant? Manipulator or manipulated? Likes kids and dogs? Nice to retarded? Nice to beggers? Curiosity priority.
4. Believability	Are characters people you might meet in the street?
5. Appearance	What's the character look like, sound like, smell like, and feel like (baby skin or lizard skin?) Posture.
6. Family	Spouse, kids, mother, father, siblings, aunts, uncles, pets, etc.
7. Clothes / Possessions	How character dresses? What car? What type of house? Favorite toys.
8. Resume	What jobs? When? What skills? How long per job? Reasons for leaving? Mentors? Favorite jobs / bosses and why?
9. Hobbies / Interests	Games character likes to play. Sports teams. Favorite music. Favorite colors. Breakfast cereal. Foods character can't stand. Food character loves. Favorite books. Favorite TV shows.
10.Religion	Which one? How does the character feel about it? Prejudices against others? What rituals are participated in? Desire for religion in children?
11.Background	Does reader feel he knows the character? What was the character doing on his 12th birthday? What scars does the character have and how did they happen? What recurring pains? What medications taken? How many pairs of shoes are in the closet? Is the closet neat or messy? Is the character punctual or always late? Does character listen to talk radio? What political parties? Has the character ever called a Congressman? In elementary school, was character a bully? get picked on? or defend kids from bullies? What animal identified with? How spouse was met? Other old and new relationships? How did the character start dating in school. Did the character enjoy junior high and high school? What racist or other types of persecution did the character experience, either against the character or in the character's presense and what was the character's reaction. When was the character born and what season does the character like best. Which parent the character's spouse's personality most resembles? Level of testosterone, PMS, feminine sensitivity, feminine intuition? Morning or evening person?
C: PLOT A plot essentially is the question, "What happens?" Plots have to deal with something, usually striving for or against something. Typical plots involve "man vs. man," "man vs. self," or "man vs. nature." Examples, respectively, are "Batman vs. Joker," "To be or not to be," or "Locked in a room with a ticking bomb." Three to seven subplots are necessary (more might be confusing, unless done extremely well), each of which should have the following:
1. Beginning	Something must happen to make clear to readers (not necessarily characters) what the goal is. The reader must have an idea on what achieving the goal means. The goal may be to survive till tomorrow, it may be to get the girl, to decide not to kill yourself, etc.
2. Middle	Reader must feel that progress is being made at achieving the goal. There should probably be subgoals. There should be new obstacles. But some obstacles should be in the reader's mind at the beginning and the solving of them is the middle for the plot.
3. Climax	The point at which the most major goal or goals are achieved is the climax.
4. End	When all loose ends have been neatly tied up.
THEME A book is considered merely escape unless it has some theme. Whether the author is trying to get a message across or just explore some heavy concepts (to be, killing your king, or not to be), all throughout the novel must be an intellectual idea, with every word of the novel leading to that idea. STYLE The language should not get in the way, but should be beautiful for those who look for it. Original, but unobtrusive, similes and metaphors are important. Language should be visual, but simple; e.g., Hemingway's "The horse smelled water." Keep sentences short, active voice, with powerful verbs, not adjectives and adverbs. And yet sentences should not be too short or boring in style. Style can also lend humor or lighten the tone of the novel. If the language or images are heavy, the novel is heavier.

Living On The Beltway

What does it mean to live most of one’s life in the suburbs of Washington, DC? The way I see it I don't live inside the Beltway, I don't live outside the Beltway, I live on the Beltway. "So what?" you think, "He is a typical DC commuter." Well, it is true that I've spent so much time schlepping (and sometimes schleeping) on 495 that I sometimes feel like mowing the grass between the inner and outer loops. But that's not it. Living "on the Beltway" is seeing the silly side of Washington, and sometimes the poignant side.

I was in sixth grade when I first moved into the Washington area. It was March and I felt out of place my first day joining an elementary-school classroom during the school year. Weird and ugly Betty (yes, her name actually was Betty) plops into the school desk right next to mine. I try moving my desk further away from her, but there's only so far one can go. Out of the blue she says, "I'm a Kennedy, you know."

I try to ignore her. She's fat, with stringy blonde hair, and she has coke-bottle glasses. She continues, "I'm a distant and poor cousin, but I got invited once to a White House party. I was playing in the kitchen with little Caroline, and the dumbwaiter stopped and opened right next to us, and the President was scrunched in it, with a woman, a blonde-haired woman." This was 1964. That conversation has stuck with me ever since. I thought at the time that she was the first insane person I had ever met, but weird and ugly Betty actually saw history. That is what living "On the Beltway" means: living among the little people of Washington (in this case, literally).

Like many of us on the Beltway, I've tried to get inside the Beltway. I was doing freelance writing for Senator Paula Hawkins. (Yes she was a Republican. Yes I was writing articles in favor of Reaganomics. No, I'm not a Republican.) After my fifth article for her, just when I thought I was going to get a permanent job on the Hill, she was shooting a film and a piece of the lighting fell from the ceiling and hit her in the neck. She had serious back problems from it and quit the Senate. There went my "inside the Beltway" career. Somebody up there didn't like me and obviously didn’t like her, but in our case it was the guy who sets up the studio lighting.

My son was editor of his high school newspaper. He attended a private school in the suburbs. The daughter of a Senator and vice-presidential candidate was on his staff. She rather obviously had a crush on him. He liked her too. But she was two years younger, she worked for him, it wouldn't have been appropriate. After graduating, though, as a college man, he came back to visit. He found her, he planned to ask her out. But she by now had a boyfriend and was no longer interested. On the Beltway, the Senator’s daughter is the fish that got away.

Every morning I see the ex-comptroller of the Defense department walking his dog. Without fail, the ex-undersecretary is reading the newspaper, not paying attention to his black and white mutt on a leash. But not this morning. Today (and yes this actually happened on the day I wrote these words), he was not there. When I arrived in synagogue, he was leading the services. The mother of the ex-DoD number two passed away eight days before. He happens also to be an ordained rabbi and he was saying mourning prayers for his mother. --On the Beltway poignant.

These are just a few of my "on the Beltway" stories. The father of a guy who probably would have been John McCain's Secretary of Defense told me his son grew up playing with toy soldiers and never stopped. An ex-boss of mine said how he loaded hundred dollar bills onto trucks to save the nation's banking on "Black Thursday." A beautiful older woman I work with was arrested breaking into the Capitol's men's sauna to tell William Proxmire that LBJ wanted him on the floor to vote for the Civil Rights Bill.

This is just a touch of what it means to live on the Beltway. I don't have much choice but to follow the political news very closely. One can't help but become involved in the life of Washington. One absorbs the politics through the pores.

What They Should Teach In High School English

This was written to my son, after seeing that he was not learning how to write in high school. I thought it would be worth while sharing it on my blog:

Son,

You probably don't know that I studied writing with several excellent professional authors, including one, J. R. Salamanca, who made millions of dollars at it. He was a student of writing style, and he made certain his students learned it well. Working on my own fiction, I've come to appreciate what he, and the other writers, taught me.

Most Americans write abysmal prose. Most English teachers through high school are mediocre and do not teach their students how to write properly. Son, I am very proud of how bright you are. You earned an 800 on the English Writing SAT II. So I was stunned, after looking over the essays you wrote this year, that no one ever taught you how to write. You know how to structure an essay. You have no grammar mistakes. Your use of rhetoric is fairly good. But your sentence structure, your word choices, your syntax, and your writing style in general show that you never learned how to properly string words together. You tend to learn what you are taught. If someone had tried to teach you how to write, you would know how. I am creating this because I am shocked by this major gap in your English education. I've decided that if the people we pay to educate you don't teach you English, then I have to.

For every sentence you ever write, you need to consider each of the points that I am including here. You should work at drilling these ideas into your head so they become habit. If you have to think about all of it as you select each word you use, writing will become too much of a chore. Like any other habit, it has to be something you do without thinking, but you have to do it.

I'm putting this together from my own head. I think it might be better this way, more personal, than if I relied on reference material. I'm probably leaving out much that you should learn. But it's a start. It will improve your writing. (There is a lot of reference material, by the way. Remind me to get you your own copy of The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. It has some odd biases in it, but it's short and easy to read and will teach you a lot. It’s usually referred to as “Strunk and White.” Every writer needs to read it at least once. If you decide to become a professional wordslinger, then you also need to read Fowler, and perhaps Foster, and the GPO, MLA, and Chicago style guides. I have most of this in the house somewhere, or perhaps at my job.)

Here's my list, somewhat in order of importance.

• For every word you write, after you've written it, look at it. If you can come up with a better word, then use the better word.
• For every sentence you write, after you've written it, look at it. If you can do better, do it.
• As you examine each sentence, consider the verb. If it does not convey action or something that can be visualized, ask yourself why not. Try to restructure the sentence so that you use a visual or action verb. If you can't, think about deleting the sentence. Verbs should slap the reader awake. If your verbs are boring, your readers will fall asleep. If your verbs are confusing, readers will stop reading.
• Listen to every word you write. If you remember hearing it anywhere in your previous two or three paragraphs, it will make the reader think of a misplayed note. You don't want your reader to notice poor writing. Your readers should not laugh at you. They should laugh only when you choose to make them laugh. So, try hard not to repeat words that you've recently used (other than articles, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and "to be" verbs).
• Listen to your sentences. If your rhythm is noun-verb-predicate, noun-verb-predicate, noun-verb-predicate, then you are composing a waltz, not prose. The same holds for repeated noun-verb-predicate-conjunction-noun-verb-predicate conjunction sentences, or really any constantly repeated sentence types. But don't overdo mixing your sentence structures. Most of your sentences should be short. Think of Hemingway's favorite sentence: "The horse smelled water."
• Use pronouns wherever you can. This prevents you from banging your readers on the head with the same nouns over and over. (But make sure, of course, that your pronoun references are clear.)
• Whenever you see yourself using a preposition (in, of, by, for, and a whole lot of others) or a subordinating conjunction (because, while, though, so, etc.) stop! Try to get your idea across some other way. Everyone has their own personal flaws in their writing; this is one of your biggest. Your prepositional phrases have prepositional phrases and your subordinate clauses take subordinate clauses. Prepositional phrases are tough to avoid, but try to. Think of gerunds and participles instead (look them up). Avoid subordinate clauses (and most conjunctive clauses) by splitting up sentences or just rewriting your sentences.
• Try to use adverbs and adjectives sparingly. Rewrite your sentences to use better verbs and nouns. Note that "The horse smelled water" has no adjectives or adverbs. It has two nouns you can visualize and a verb describing something you do zillions of times a day.
• Think of your prose as if it were poetry. Every word is important. Every word should convey an image or an action the reader can appreciate. Every word should sound good in relation to those around it. Be conscious of the rhythm of the words.
• Use metaphors to clarify complicated ideas. Metaphors color your writing, making it more fun and interesting. BUT, be very careful when using them. Make them appropriate to what you're saying. Do not mix metaphors. If you have a metaphor in a short paragraph, don't use another unless it relates to the first. Algebra metaphors go with geometry metaphors. French fry metaphors go with hamburger metaphors. Trig doesn't go with chicken nuggets. Using one metaphor as a theme for an entire essay sometimes adds cohesion and power.
• If you hear yourself using a phrase or a metaphor you've heard before, throw it away before you make your reader throw up. Those aren’t metaphors; they’re clichés. Unless you are P.G. Wodehouse, who plays with clichés on purpose to be funny, stay away from them.
• Use odd combinations of words to add power, but do it very rarely. It jolts the reader and makes the reader notice the writing, which is something you usually don't want to do. But on rare occasions, it's a neat affect. For example, instead of mentioning a weighty question, you might say, "He let heavy seconds drop between them before he responded to her question."
• From the level of an entire paper, it will usually help if you add one or perhaps two of the following: passion (something that you and/or your reader can care deeply about), something personal (to which your reader can relate to the same extent that you do), or one pervasive metaphor or several flowing similar metaphors that hold an entire work together.

The more I think about this stuff, the more I come up with ideas to tell you about. But I want to keep this short so you’ll read it and remember some of it. Also, the next time you have an English paper, maybe you’ll look at this before you start and it will make your paper better. So, I left out a lot of “elements of style” that you could probably find in Strunk and White if you want to learn more. But keeping what I’ve written here in mind as you write should improve your writing an awful lot.

Your father

Picasso Self Portraits

I commissioned an artist friend of mine to create a self portrait. I put this together to encourage him to actually do it (to the best of my knowledge, he mostly does caricatures for kids today, when he's not creating proposal graphics). I thought it interesting to put this onto my blog, and I'll be very interested to see what comments it gets, if any. (Actually, I call my friend Picasso; the past seven times I sent him email I put one of these next to the salutation. For the eighth one, I put them all together, since I felt it wasn't appropriate to send him "Facing Death" by itself.)

Here's the full set.

Picasso Self Portraits

Although I don't really care for abstract art, IMHO the most abstract one here, "Facing Death," might be the most powerful. The blue period is great, but then so are the first three. It's very interesting seeing them just as faces approximately the same size.

There's a wonderful collage of morphing Picasso and Van Gogh portraits, many of them self portraits, that you might want to check out at this link.