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  • Ethical Aspects of Animal Husbandry
    Ethical Aspects of Animal Husbandry
    by Craig Terlson

    A collection of short stories where the humour runs dark and the slipstream bubbles up.

     

    ...imagine if Raymond Carver called up George Saunders and Joe Lansdale, and they all went drinking with Neil Gaiman.

  • Correction Line
    Correction Line
    by Craig Terlson

    “… it's clear that Terlson is way ahead of the curve in terms of crafting an engaging premise that reaches for elevated territory and reinvents enduring archetypes of action and suspense.”  J. Schoenfelder


    "Sometimes brutal, often demanding and always complex, this novel will repay the reader who likes their assumptions challenged and is happy to walk away from a book with minor questions unanswered but the big ones definitely dealt with! It’s likely to satisfy those who enjoy Hammet and/or Philip K Dick and who like their fiction very noir indeed."   Kay Sexton

     

    "I love a novel that you can't put down, and this is one of them."  L. Cihlar

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Friday
Apr192019

It's back - the return of Bent Highway

So, I've been in a bit of a writerly funk lately. If you're a writer, you've been there too. It isn't what I'd call writer's block - it's more like I can't write because I don't want to. The words have been dripping out of my brain like something that drips out slowly. Honey? Molasses? Cold blood?

You get the picture.

So I have decided to re-launch something... something I started quite some time ago and always meant to finish. Yep, Bent Highway is coming back.

When I first launched this serialized novella to the world, it was a bit of an experiment. I posted chapters weekly here at woofreakinhoo, and wondered if anyone would read it.
At its height (depth? width? whatever), it was pulling 2000 readers a month.

Recently, as in just today, I was reminded that some people really liked this thing. And a twitter friend (one of the very few to review it) kinda inspired me to return to the story of M.

Now - for those of you who have read part one (you can grab the whole deal on Amazon) - BUT you should know 2 things.
1. I am going to be editing, and adding things as I post those chapters again. So there will be new things to read. Think of it as a director's cut.

2. I am going to continue the story and write part 2. Yep. You heard right... part 2.

So to end this post, I'll give some of the backstory. And then I will launch into posting weekly (director's cut) version of the Part One.
News about Part 2 will be forthcoming.

 

Bent Highway

Here is a bit of the backstory.

The story of a man unleashed in time has always appealed to me – maybe echoes of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, where Billy Pilgrim was unstuck in time. Maybe it is my rebellion against telling linear stories - I've never been much interested in the storyline where B follows A, and then comes C (etc.).

For me, life is not like that. Memories, some vivid, some blurred at the edges, some downright obscure, all fill my head. Combine with that my general love of a good road book (see Correction Line), and I came up with the story of M, a man where time has become unhinged. 

What if time did not flow like a river, but bent like a highway?

This has been the undercurrent of the story. True, rivers do bend as well (and some highways are damn straight), but if you have taken a corner at about 80 mph (about 130 kph) and felt the wheels hugging the asphalt and the wind pushing the hood - well, maybe you know what I am talking about.

M has escaped from his linear life, and met a woman he knows as chalk girl, or sometimes by her initial "L". She shows him a different way to escape and introduces him to Walt, a giant of a man who knows how to straddle time. For M this means getting bit by a large wolfhound, and having a knife stuck in him periodically. It also involves a lot of Tequila.

Let's get this fucker started.

 

Tuesday
Feb122019

Dormancy

Time to fire up the old blog machine again - it's been dormant too long.

I'd be curious to know what you might want to read here. I am open to suggestions, here are some possibilities:


Publishing tales - traditional and self-pub - agents and all that stuff

Writer's craft - just how do I write that suspense scene?

Book review stuff - writers I like

Excerpts of my work - old, new, something borrowed, something blue

Drop me a comment, or send me a note on twitter. I'll see if I can crawl out of my dormant place.

And btw, there's 10 years of posts here if you just want to knock around. 

Wednesday
Jul252018

A conversation on James Lee Burke

A few years back—I think it was years—I struck up a conversation with a writer from New York, Mark Conard, which turned into a friendship. We joke that the two of us are across-the-border dopplegangers, as we have so much in common. It is uncanny at times.

We've shared work back and forth, as well as introduced each other to writers that inspire us. One of those was the great literary crime writer, James Lee Burke. 
Mark put one of our conversations into a wonderful blog entry.

Here is the start of that conversation. Click the link below to read the whole interchange: 

A Conversation about James Lee Burke

Burke

James Lee Burke

I invited my friend and fellow writer, Craig Terlson, to have a conversation about James Lee Burke, a fine crime/suspense author with a substantial body of work. Burke has sold a ton of books, but he’s lesser known than giants like Elmore Leonard, Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, or Michael Connelly, but when he’s firing on all cylinders Burke’s writing ranks with the best of them.

Burke is from the Texas-Louisiana gulf coast area, which shows in his writing. He’s written nearly forty books. Most of them feature former cop and occasional detective Dave Robicheaux. He’s also written a handful of novels concerning the Holland family, including four about Billy Bob Holland and four featuring Billy Bob’s cousin Hackberry Holland. Burke has won several Edgar awards and was nominated for a Pulitzer.

CraigTerlson.web.headshotThe Awesome Craig Terlson

It was Craig who first introduced me to Burke, when he recommended Black Cherry Blues, a Dave Robicheaux novel. Now, Craig is like my Canadian doppelganger: we both write crime/suspense fiction, appreciate all things noir, love and play the blues, adore good food, wine and an occasional bourbon. Craig’s excellent Fall in One Day was released a year ago by Blue Moon Publishers. Set in 1973 during the Watergate hearings, the story concerns fifteen-year-old Joe Beck, who takes it upon himself to locate a missing friend. It’s a great read, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

MC: So, Craig, let me start this off by asking why you first recommended to me Black Cherry Blues? Why that particular book?

CT: Because I wanted to turn you onto Dr. Pepper. (Robicheaux’s favourite beverage.) Okay… some years ago I was told that some of my work had echoes of James Lee Burke in it. This was before I had even read him. I was told to start with Black Cherry Blues by another writer, whose name I forget. I didn’t read much crime fiction at the time and was more into the literary genre—not realizing that’s really what Burke writes. Anyway, I still remember reading it in bed, and my wife seeing the lurid cover, saying, “That’s not the sort of book you usually read.” But I knew that cover aside, this was a whole ‘nother take on the crime fiction genre. The prose was lyrical, poetic even, the structure complex, the main character haunted, and it was a just a damn fine book. I recommended it first to you because it was where I started.

MC: Well, I loved the book. I was a bit startled when I read it that I hadn’t heard of Burke before. It was like discovering Scorsese or Hendrix for the first time: I really should have known about this guy! Anyway, “poetic” and “lyrical” are good adjectives. There’s a richness to Burke’s writing: His descriptions are so full and evocative, I was captivated from page one. Plus, as you suggest, his characters are three-dimensional. They’re living, breathing people you care about. Now, just to get this out of the way, you and I have discussed some weakness in Burke’s writing. Can you elaborate on that?

Read the whole conversation at Mark's Blog 

Friday
Jul132018

A formula for suspense

Last year I was interviewed by someone who asked me how I went about creating suspense. They complimented me on my ability to crank up the tension in a scene, thus driving the reader forward.
I’m guessing they didn’t say “thus”, but hey, my memory is what it is.

I appreciated the kind words about the writing – but then had to wonder, well how do I do that? I won’t keep you in suspense (I kill me), so here goes...

Simplest suspense formula ever:

Writer knows something + holds back something = reader in suspense

Maybe this is just plain common writerly sense, but it took me a while to learn how to do it. And it first really came home to me from a somewhat unlikely source. The ever so amazing Canadian writer (and icon), the late Robertson Davies wrote a series of books known as the Deptford Trilogy. I’d never read him before my daughter had to read him for a class, and asked if I would read the first one (Fifth Business), and tell her what I thought. Oh, and could I do it quick, because she’d already read it, and the paper was due soon. So bam, there is the ticking clock of suspense already – you got a day to read this thing… GO!

I was hooked immediately by the great prose, the rhythm, and the masterful treatment of character. But the part I recall the most about the book all these years later, was a seemingly innocent part about a character going to retrieve something from another character’s room. You see, I wasn’t told what they retrieved, but I knew it was important, and I didn’t find out until the VERY END OF THE DAMN BOOK!

Now lots of things kept me reading this book, and it remains high on my list of best reads. But when I started writing, I thought about what Davies did in Fifth Business. He knew damn well what was retrieved in that room – for sure he knew early on when writing the book. Maybe in early drafts he even told the reader what was retrieved. But then he left it out. He. Left. It. Out.

The withholding of information was one of the biggest lessons I have learned as a writer. The I know everything but I’m not going to tell you everything is the best way I know how to create suspense. And it doesn’t have to be the lone gunman, or the ticking bomb under the railway car, or the scary guy in the hockey mask (btw, I hate that horror stuff – it’s not suspense, it’s a cat jumping out at you in a dark garage and you screaming… aieeee what the FUCK?!)

Back to the railcar for a second. I recall reading a Hitchcock interview, it might have been from the famous series he did with Truffaut (seen above), where the point of suspense is to show the viewer the ticking bomb under the railcar, but also make it clear that the people in the railcar have no idea the bomb is there. We know, but they don’t. The master of suspense, Hitch, also says, “and don’t let the bomb go off – or for sure not right away.”

So there you have it – I’m giving away all my secrets. One of the things I do when revising a manuscript is wonder what information can I take away, or reveal later in a narrative. What can I withhold? And then a further step is to plant what information is needed to suggest that the missing bits are really important… I’m just not going to tell you what they are. This was key to what Davies was doing. You can’t just simply withhold stuff and move on. The trick of suspense if showing the reader that there is something missing that they really need to know. But I ain’t telling you – so neener-neener! (The cry of the suspense writer).

It’s not easy (but c’mon, nothing about writing is) – but when it works, it is delicious. I love when a reader rips through something that I have written because they have to know! But I. Left. It. Out.

Thanks for reading. Please comment here about your favorite suspense novels, or even just moments of suspense in books.

Monday
Jul022018

Champion Mojo Storyteller - Joe R. Lansdale


“But to lose my idealism, to quit believing in the ability of human beings to rise above their baser instincts, was to become old and bitter and of no service to anyone, not even myself.”
― Joe R. Lansdale, Savage Season

About a dozen or more years ago I was working on my first novel, Correction Line, and I was swapping chapters with a friend from Rhode Island. My story was a combination of a lot of things I loved, literary fiction, the prairies, baseball, bad guys with guns, and oh yeah Marquez and other magical realists. Let’s just say I was trying to put a lot of things together.

While my friend was reading the excerpts he asked,
“Anyone ever tell you that you kinda write like Joe Lansdale?”
“Who?”

And like someone gave me a beautiful spin kick to the head, I discovered the Mojo Storyteller - as he refers to himself on his website.

Over the years, lots has been written about Lansdale. He’s always had his pockets of fans, and it seems the pockets are getting bigger lately. It seemed like he flew under the radar for quite a while, in my circles anyway. But with movies like the cult classic Bubba Ho-Tep, and the adaptation of Cold in July, and the most recent three seasons of Hap and Leonard on the Sundance Channel, a lot of people are discovering his work. I’m really happy for him, as it is all well-deserved, but there’s a part of me that still wanted to keep the secret to myself… sort of like when I first loved the Talking Heads, or even Smashmouth, before whatever the hell happened to that band happened. (Shrek anyone?)


Anyway, like I said, lots has been written, including by me at this blog, on my love of all things Lansdale. At the centre of this praise are his two best, and most well-known characters, Hap and Leonard. Trying to keep this intro short, so let’s just say working class white, liberal, draft dodger Hap teams up with black, gay, conservative, Vietnam vet, Leonard and they… wait, what do they do? Solve cases? Help people? Are their own kind of knight errants? Kick a lot of ass? Well, yes to all those things. It’s kind of hard to describe. They do get into their own sort of trouble, and end up helping people because it is the right thing to do. But really, for me, it’s all about who they are—I read them just to find out what they’re up to. And the characters are so sharp and original that I’d read a story about the two of them going to the grocery store to pick up a box of Vanilla wafers for Leonard (his favourite).


It’s damn hard to create characters like this. In the books I’ve written, the fiction gods smile on me from time to time and deliver someone out of the ether, or Venus from a shell, or pick a magical metaphor. In Correction Line it was the character Lawrence, a hitman with a gift for language and a love of music. In Surf City Acid Drop it was another hired killer named Mostly Harold. (Given the name by Luke Fischer when he explains that he has a number of aliases, but mostly Harold). I wonder if somehow the same thing happened to Lansdale, where these two guys just showed up at his door, fully formed, and said, let’s get at her.


Somewhere I read that plot is simply character in action.


Lansdale is the master of sharp visceral dialogue and action—as well as laugh out loud funny moments, like the one that opens Bad Chili. Hap is staring down a rabid squirrel, who chases both him and Leonard before latching onto Hap’s forearm, until Leonard finally runs over the bugger… repeatedly. The Hap and Leonard novels are full of these great moments, but what I keep coming back for is the character’s friendship. The fact that these polar opposites have a deep friendship makes me think that Lansdale is poking at something here— how in spite of our polarities, we can still come together.


Hap and Leonard bust as many stereotypes as they do heads.


But again, it is the small moments between them that say so much. I could have picked a passage from any of the novels, but because I have Bad Chili open, I’ll quote from that.
Hap has found Leonard in his house, after escaping from a group of bikers by way of crawling through a whole lotta pig shit.
The dialogue between them could be an old married couple, but instead it is the best of friends… friends willing to die for the other.


“I thought you might be dead.”
“Disappointed?”
“A little. I can’t believe you didn’t take off your fuckin’ shoes and clothes before you got in mybed. I do that to you, get shit on your bed?”
“I don’t even remember having on shoes and clothes, Hap. You didn’t bring home anything to eat, did you? I couldn’t find nothing but ants and sardines, though I think I’d prefer the ants to the sardines. Goddamn ants ate my cookies.”
“Those were my cookies.”
“Yeah, but I know you keep them for me.” Leonard swiveled to a sitting postion on the bed. “Is that coffee I smell?”


To finish this up, at the heart of it is great storytelling. I’ve been reading some Chuck Wendig, especially his latest, Damn Fine Story. Wendig writes about how lots of so-called rules of writing can be broken, if at the heart of things you have a great story – in fact they can be broken to aid in the telling of the story (but for damn sure, know the rules you’re breaking).


The first few chapters of Bad Chili revolve around Hap getting treatment for his possibly rabid squirrel bite. I know some editors and agents would say that the conflict has to be there right on the first page, and don’t fuck around getting there. Lansdale eventually gets there (the novel is not about rabid squirrels—but for three of four chapters it is). Because he has created such great characters, you don’t feel one ounce of impatience in the doling out of the story… or I sure didn’t. And it is a damn good story.


I’ve learned a lot from writers like Lansdale, Stephen King, James Crumley, James Lee Burke, and Neil Gaiman. There are other writers that I love just as much, but for different reasons. Richard Ford and Don DeLillo for the beauty of language—same goes for Raymond Carver, Alice Munro and Jennifer Egan. The publishing industry likes to separate literary from genre writers. But when I look at this tossed together list, though the styles are quite different, at the centre of each beats the heart of a great storyteller.

Hey, feel free to comment on your favourite storyteller.
Or your favourite rabid squirrel. Your choice.


 

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