The Big Machine Birthed

Please welcome guest contributor Beau Johnson. In line with my recent posts regarding short stories and flash fiction Beau stops by to share the unusual way in which his character Bishop Rider found himself the subject of three anthologies.

THE BIG MACHINE BIRTHED

(OR THE FUNNY THINGS THAT HAPPEN WHEN A CHARACTER BEGINS TO RECUR)

It started when they found the fourth girl, her throat another mouth. Only it didn’t. It started seven years earlier with a girl named April Rider. For those of you who have read A BETTER KIND OF HATE, I tweaked that last sentence.

One, because it seems apt, those three lines coming from an early Bishop Rider tale, and two, because it’s as close as I can come to giving a time and place to when Rider entered my mind. His story morphed with time, sure, coming to include his mother’s murder as well, but yup, Rider’s story, it never really began with Rider, not as one would think.

Also, let’s get real: Bishop Rider is an archetype, and one which is as easily interchanged with Frank Castle as he is with Charles Bronson. What makes him different from those iconic characters is, well, not much of anything, really. He is just as angry. He is just as vicious. Willing to remove body parts when the situation calls for such an event to transpire. Granted, he may take things a step further, stacking said parts like wood, but only because a certain someone behind the keyboard feels there is some catching up to do.

And to tell you the truth, I never envisioned Rider’s story as this backdoor trilogy it will become. Better yet is at one time he actually stopped speaking to me. I know, I was just as surprised. Wasn’t until I broke a collarbone that his voice came back to me. And yes, I’d have to be a complete moron (hey, stop agreeing with that) in failing to see the correlation between Rider losing part of a leg at around the same time I snap my clavicle in half.

But that is only part of a trilogy I never knew was there, the other being a throwaway line from a story I wrote years before which proved to be not so throwaway after all. It involved Marcel Abrum (one half of a brother duo who take Rider’s sister and mother from him in ways we will not discuss) and a son which at the time I had yet to even name. 

Once this son re-enters Rider’s life, he is no longer that boy, but now a man just shy of thirty. A man quite unlike his father, oh yes, and looking back, exactly the turn of events I needed to open up Bishop’s world. I mean, I already had Batista, Rider’s old partner from his time as a cop, but to continue at the clip Rider wanted to, well, let’s just say it isn’t as inexpensive as people would lead you to believe. 

Enter Jeramiah Abrum, benefactor from the Gods. Better still was the irony I’d yet to discover-that the money Jeramiah would use to bankroll Bishop’s quest came from the very same man who’d taken Rider’s family from him. Ah, the ties that fucking bind.

So, we have Batista, Jeramiah, and Ray, a man who Rider and his platoon used to call Trinkets back in the day. He likes to make things, does Ray, and some of his ideas have gotten Rider out of some pretty hairy jams. Last but not least is one other, but as ever, this narrator has remained unnamed from the start. 

All told, and since I seem to tell Rider’s life out of sequence most times, he’s what I call my “previously on Rider” guy, implemented to keep you abreast of all the more pertinent points of interest so I don’t have to go all exposition-ninja on the reader whenever a Rider story is told. 

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still get to give my fair share of exposition, which is pretty much par for the course in a gig like this, but with this guy, I get to fill the bucket in a different (hopefully interesting) way.

Anyway, I’ve never been privy to how others work with characters who recur, but this here, warts and all, is how it happened for me. Take it or leave, it’s the only story I have to give on the subject.

Take it or leave it, it’s how Bishop Rider was born.

Also, and in case you missed it, I am now a co-editor over at The
Flash Fiction Offensive, or Out of the Gutter Online, along with Jesse Rawlins, Jim Shaffer, and Mick Rose. 

This means we’d like you to send us your double crosses, your tales of heists gone wrong, and maybe that one with that guy, him, buddy at the end of the bar. And trust us, we want to publish your stories, but only the best you have to offer will do. Even then it still might not fit---but be sure I have always believed in the motto of try, try again. 

Last thing: follow the guidelines. First thing that gets you ejected from the island will be this. As ever, we look forward to reading your dark minds laid bare. We look forward to your particular cup of swill.

Beau Johnson has been published before, usually on the darker side of town. He is the author of A BETTER KIND OF HATE, THE BIG MACHINE EATS, and in the spring of 2020, ALL OF THEM TO BURN. On top of this he enjoys book selfies, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and both Beckys from Roseanne equally.

True Crime: The San Francisco Dog Mauling Case

By Claire Booth

A name from the past surfaced last week. If you lived anywhere near San Francisco in 2001, you recognize it.

Marjorie Knoller.

She and her husband, Robert Noel, owned two dogs that got loose in their apartment building hallway and attacked and killed a neighbor. Knoller was walking the dogs at the time. She was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life. Last week, she was denied parole and will remain in a California prison for at least three more years.

That’s the short version. The long version proves the cliché that truth is stranger than fiction. I covered the story from the day after the attack all the way through the trial, and it contained one jaw-dropping fact after another.

The dogs were Presa Canarios, an obscure breed that’s a huge, mastiff-type dog with a potentially stubborn and territorial temperament. Knoller and Noel, lawyers with a small joint practice representing mostly prison inmates, kept the dogs in their tiny San Francisco apartment. Noel wasn’t there the night Knoller took the pair up to the roof to go to the bathroom. When she came back down, her neighbor had just gotten home with a load of groceries.

Diane Alexis Whipple was the lacrosse coach at St. Mary’s College across the Bay. She lived down the hall with her partner Sharon Smith. The dogs lunged, dragging Knoller down the hallway by their leashes, she would later say. Within minutes, Whipple was dead from a bite to the neck. An elderly neighbor would testify to hearing the 33-year-old Whipple battle for her life as she hid in terror behind her own front door.

It turned out that Presa Canarios were highly valued in the prison world (“territorial” temperament plus 140 pounds of solid muscle equals bad-ass scary), and these two dogs were owned—through layers of intermediaries—by an Aryan Brotherhood member serving time at the hardest prison in the state. Knoller and Noel were caring for the dogs as a favor because the man, Paul “Cornfed” Schneider, was their legal client.

But wait, there’s more.

We found out that Knoller and Noel adopted Schneider* (then 38 years old) soon after the fatal mauling. Cornfed, in state prison for crimes including stabbing a defense attorney multiple times with a homemade shiv, was a man of “character and integrity,” Noel said by way of explaining the adoption.

The couple started on a publicity blitz, giving interviews and appearing on national morning talk shows. Two weeks after Whipple’s killing, they went on “Good Morning America,” where Knoller said she bore no responsibility for the attack. “She could have just slammed the door shut. I would have,” she said.

They fought the city’s attempts to destroy the female dog, Hera.** (Bane, the male and acknowledged deliverer of the fatal bite, was put down the night of the attack.) They insisted she was docile. Knoller maintained that witnesses who came forward to describe frightening encounters with the dogs in the weeks before the mauling were lying to get attention.

All of this resulted in a huge groundswell of hatred among San Franciscans. I am not exaggerating this. This case was all anyone there was talking about in the first few months of 2001. I wasn’t in a bar or restaurant (I was in the newsroom, writing a story) when news came that the couple had been indicted for murder, but I have to imagine that more than a few watering holes broke out in cheers.

This kind of sentiment made finding twelve unbiased jurors practically impossible. Judge James Warren*** had little choice but to move the trial away. The state court system chose Los Angeles as the new location because its facilities could handle the massive media presence the trial would attract.

And it did. There was a first-come, first-serve line for seats every day. Bay Area media, thank goodness, had permanent seats, so we didn’t have to queue up early. Since we were all working late filing stories, that was a huge help. And I had the added layer of a commute. Everyone else stayed near the downtown courthouse. My newspaper judged that too expensive and put me up out near the Burbank airport. That meant I had to get up early enough to ensure I made it through traffic (which is never bad in LA, right?) and to court on time. Because even though we had those special seating arrangements, there was no pass for being late. Tardy arrivals didn’t get in until the judge called a recess.

The trial lasted more than a month in early 2002. I’d fly down on a Sunday night and back on a Thursday night (court typically wasn’t in session on Fridays). Some Fridays, I’d go back into the newsroom and write a weekend wrap-up. And boy, was there enough material.

There was the prosecutor showing the jury Bane’s mammoth skull. Knoller’s defense attorney throwing herself on the floor and weeping to show how her client said she tried to shield Whipple from Bane’s attack. The judge trying repeatedly to reign in her courtroom theatrics. The second-chair prosecutor with the movie star looks who shot to prominence as a result of the trial and her marriage to an equally glamorous San Francisco supervisor months before.**** And the regular press conferences where both sides’ attorneys would try to spin the day’s proceedings in their favor.

This last one resulted in one of my favorite professional moments, where a fellow newspaper reporter found one of the few chairs in the room and was standing on it to get a better view of the press conference over the crowd of people and TV cameras. I was standing next to him wondering where I could get my own chair, when a cameraman said, “Hey, buddy, do you mind? Your ass is in my live shot.”

After weeks of trial, the jury came back with a verdict of second-degree murder for Knoller and convictions for both of them on charges of involuntary manslaughter and “keeping a mischievous animal that killed a person.” Yes, that is an actual law.

There were a variety of appeals. Noel was sentenced to four years in prison and paroled in 2003. He died last year. Knoller will come up for appeal again in 2022.

Diane Alexis Whipple would have turned 51 years old last month.

*Cornfed was convicted in federal court in 2003 for taking part in a drug smuggling operation from inside California’s Pelican Bay State Prison and for participating in a 1995 armed robbery that resulted in the murder of a sheriff’s deputy.

**After a full-blown hearing triggered by Knoller and Noel’s refusal to give permission for Hera to be put down, a judicial officer ordered her destroyed. The two were also banned from owning any dogs for a three-year period. It was the first time an SF animal control officer had ever levied that penalty. It ended up being the least of the couple’s worries.

***Warren is a grandson of former US Chief Justice Earl Warren.

****That prosecutor, Kimberly Guilfoyle, married Gavin Newsom in 2001. The two divorced in the mid-aughts, in the middle of Newsom’s tenure as SF mayor. Guilfoyle then joined Fox News as a legal analyst. She is currently dating Donald Trump, Jr. Newsom, a Democrat, was sworn in as California’s new governor last month.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 7

by
Scott D. Parker

It can be the little things that help you along.

SMALL ADJUSTMENTS MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Remember a week ago when I wrote about how WADING INTO WAR was getting purchased but the subsequent books in the series were not? My quick solution was to place links to the other books immediately after "The End," explaining the next book and where it fit in the chronology. I republished both the Kobo and Kindle versions of the ebook.

I checked the data yesterday morning and imagine what I saw? A sale of ALL CHICKENS MUST DIE, the second Ben Wade mystery?

Coincidence? Possibly, but I prefer to chalk up my small tweak as a win. If I got one new reader based on a small restructuring at the end of the book, then I'll follow through with all the other versions of the ebook published by Draft2Digital.

As a reader myself, I would immediately wanted to know what the next book of a series is. The Audible app does that with audiobooks. Why not ebooks? No reason. If the reader didn't like the story, they'd just close the electronic cover and never look back. But a road map? I'd want one as a reader, so I'm providing one as an author.

Interesting but unprovable observation: I made a sale of WADING and CHICKENS both on Lincoln's birthday. That's 12 February. WADING is more of a novella. I can't help but wonder if both of those sales were the same person. How cool would that be?

TARGETED ADVERTISING

On a corollary note, ULTERIOR OBJECTIVES is the first book to feature Sergeant Lillian Saxton, US Army. It's a thrill-ride of a book (probably my favorite to date) that was a joy to write and tell people about. It takes place in May 1940 so it qualifies as a World War II novel.

I own a Kindle and there's always an ad on the lock screen. I never gloss over what's on display because sometimes, you can find something you can use.

There is a book titled THE LOST GIRLS OF PARIS by Pam Jenoff. It showed up on the lock screen and its great cover caught my eye. I read the description. Not only did it draw me, but it had a World War II connection. I downloaded the sample and am reading through it.

But as an author, I took note of the authors featured in the Also Boughts as well as the Sponsored Links. Seeing an opening, I quickly wrote down all those names and created a new Amazon ad with those author names as keywords. I let the ad go into the world. I think that was about ten days ago.

Well, something happened. The KENP pages read for OBJECTIVES went from 63 on 6 February to 493 the following day. This after weeks of nothing on the KENP chart. It seemed some eyes finally noticed my book, its cover and description, and took a chance. Now, there were no actual sales of the book on those days which might have showed the story was good enough for someone to buy and finish the book. Can't do anything about that, but it is certainly worth noting. There was one sale, on the eleventh so perhaps...

By the way, if you're not using author names as keywords, start now.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK #1: Practice, Practice, Practice

Dean Wesley Smith was at it again this week. On Tuesday, he dropped a video "Tip of the Week #57...I'm too young." Basically, it's his discussion about yet another myth, the myth of being 'too young' in the business. That is, too little time in the chair writing. His basic response is "Yeah, I might be better than other writers...but that's only because I put in the time practicing the craft." By his own admission, he writes north of a million words a year. James Reasoner does this, too, and has for over a decade.

Just imagine how good any of us would be at ANYthing if we practiced the equivalent of a million words a year. Imagine how much better our writing would be if we put in that kind of time.

RELATED QUOTE

A few years ago, I read a quote that got me off my butt and in front of the computer:

"A year from now, you will have wished you started today."

SELF-DOUBT IS A KILLER

When you look at successful authors ahead of you in this long game, you might feel yourself getting frustrated or depressed that you are not at their level. You might also think they've solved all the writerly problems.

Wrong.

In this week's "The Creative Penn" podcast, author Joanna Penn talked about her own self-doubt. Specifically, Joanna talked about her self-doubt in the process. Like she said in the intro, it doesn't go away the more successful you get. You just have to trust the process and move forward.

And try to avoid Comparisonitis as much as possible.

WHY WERE THESE IMPORTANT TO ME THIS WEEK

I'm in the middle of my own self-doubt on the current novel. It's not moving forward as briskly as I would have liked. In fact, ever since that health issue I had, I've barely touched the novel.

So I segued to a short story. It was the opening of a story I sent to Dean when I took his Depth in Writing workshop. The short story features...Detective Ben Wade. This one is different, however, because I'm writing it in third person. The three Wade novels are written in first person. The style doesn't matter. What matters most to me is getting back on the horse and writing.

And wouldn't you know it, the more I'm writing this short story, certain lines of creativity have opened in my brain. Not only is the story coming along swimmingly, but I'm starting to think about the novel and what the logjam in my brain is. So, when I get Wade's little tale done, I'll likely jump back onto the novel.

Trust the process. Trust what I've done before, knowing I can do it again. Same for you. There are always struggles. Heck, I sometimes struggle in the day job writing. Happened this week, but I worked my way through it.

For more on this topic, check out some of the comments on Dean's Tip of the Week.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK #2: Jason Bateman's Speech

In case you didn't see Bateman's acceptance speech at the recent SAG awards, it's well worth your 2-3 minutes. What he says about work and the next job is priceless. Apply it to your writing.

JOY OF THE WEEK: Alan Alda's Clear and Vivid podcast

Growing up, M.A.S.H. was that show my dad watched in reruns when he got home from work and watched live on CBS. I didn't understand all the humor and war conditions, but by the end, I was old enough not only to tape the final episode and watch it more than once, but I cried just about every single time. It is a powerful piece of TV that stands the test of time.

Alan Alda hosts a podcast called Clear and Vivid. It's about good conversation and how we can better communicate with each other. A couple of episodes ago, he brought together the surviving members of the MASH cast, including Loretta Swit, Mike Ferrell, Jamie Farr, and Gary Burghoff.

Let me tell you: within moments, they were laughing. They reminisced, told stories about their time on the show, the cast who have passed away, and generally what the show meant to them.

The warmth, the humor, the camaraderie are all on display for your ears. It is so good to hear them talk with each other and be the fly on the wall. It was the best thing I heard all week.


How was your week?