Requesting a Lifeline

By
Scott D. Parker

Who remembers the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” TV show from the late 90s and early 2000s? For the two of y’all that don’t, host Regis Philbin would ask the contestants a series of increasingly difficult questions with the ultimate goal of winning a million dollars. Along the way, there were three lifelines: poll the audience, remove two of the four possible answers, and phone a friend. The removal was usually the one that helped the most—except when they removed the most obviously wrong answer. The audience poll typically got you the right answer unless the question was really hard. The phone a friend was sometimes a crap shoot, especially when the contestant called the friend and they didn’t know a thing about the topic. Yeah, that sucked.

I don’t know about y’all, but when it comes to writing, I sometimes want to have a lifeline. A great proofreader to eliminate the errors that always sneak past my eyes (and my editor’s eyes). A great cover artist who can render what I see in my head exactly as I see it. Or, as it happened this week, asking advice.

I’m writing a new book for April and about a week ago, I hit a wall. It wasn’t a huge wall, but it definitely slowed down my pace. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, so I drew on a lifeline. I emailed a fellow writer who had been working consistently for over forty years. I specifically asked his advice because many of the books he writes are drafted without an outline—a skill I am honing this first half of 2017. “What,” I asked him, “do you do when you slow down?” Surely, I thought, he knew some tricks that helped him publish the massive amount of books he had written.

He came back later the same day. (It’s pretty much a common occurrence for me, who wakes at 4:30am every work day, to be able to send out emails before many folks are even awake.) Yeah, he said, I hit walls, but I power through them. I just keep writing. Oh, and he follows Raymond Chandler’s advice: when in doubt, have a man come into the room holding a gun. It doesn’t always have to be a gun, but it has to be something against which the main character can react. Because for every action, there is a reaction. Science.

Here’s the irony: I had already powered through the issue with a word count that surpassed the previous two days combined. But it was wonderful to know that even one of our most prolific authors also has moments of challenge and that he just plows ahead.
Oh, and the thing against which my character, Calvin Carter, had to react against wasn’t a man with a gun. It was a woman. And heaven knows Carter likes women…

Do y’all have any lifelines y’all typically use when you hit speed bumps?

My First True Crime Obsession

Someone mentioned Cadillac Ranch and just like that, I had a picture in my head. I've never been there, but I could see it.

That's Brian Deneke (with the mohawk) and a man named Stanley Marsh, at the Cadillac Ranch. In my memory, Brian is alone in the photo, but I have no way of knowing if there's another one taken around the same time.

I've written a lot about true crime without writing about the first true crime story that really grabbed me. Back in the late nineties, the internet was a small place. A teenager using a search engine (I can't even remember what we used before Google anymore) could type "punk" and get the same couple hundred results. Yahoo groups, a couple message boards. This was before Amazon, or at least before they did anything but used books, and now I'm starting to feel a hell of a lot older than I should...

 I have puzzled over how so many people can sit and watch live trials on television, and scramble for any news on Casey Anthony, but I must have read the same handful of articles about Brian Deneke's murder a hundred times. I participated in Yahoo groups that discussed the case, and I waited and hoped for more news.

I'm not going to get into the story. It would sound a little too familiar in light of the number of murders we've seen go unpunished, particularly when the defendant is a great athlete with a "bright future." Repeating it all would get tiresome, because I wouldn't be able to keep myself from drawing parallels to all the cases that have followed, that have ended with a dearth of justice. But this one got to me. This was post- O.J. Simpson, but I was a little too young to be invested in that case. I was invested in the injustice of Brian's murder. I was shocked at the details, though I read them again and again.

The reasons are clear to me now, and they were relatively clear then. Brian Deneke looked like me and my friends. His murderer looked like the guys that made our lives hell. It felt very personal to me and in a way, it still does. In the time since I obsessively read every article and internet post about Brian, the story of his life and murder has apparently been featured on several TV shows and a movie has been made. I managed to miss it. The internet is a lot bigger now. There's a Facebook group for Brian, but the last posts were made over five years ago. 

I ask a lot of questions about what purpose true crime serves and what draws us to it, but when I remember my obsession with this murder and the case that followed, it didn't feel like the passing fancy of a true crime junkie. Maybe that's because it was a lot harder to be a true crime junkie then, or because so few of the stories seemed to involve people I could relate to. But Brian Deneke's death had a profound effect on me. I've written about my experiences living in an area where "big story" true crime was simply "life," but all of that seemed to follow my first taste of true crime obsession.

Chatting with Harry Hunsicker

THE DEVIL’S COUNTRY (Thomas & Mercer) is a heart-stopping new thriller from award-winning author Harry Hunsicker, former executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America. In the vein of True Detective, THE DEVIL’S COUNTRY features a troubling small-town murder and asks the haunting question: Does the devil live in your own backyard?

After losing his wife and child to a violent crime, ranger Arlo Baines wants nothing more than to disappear in the dusty badlands of West Texas. But when a young mother turns up murdered, Arlo becomes the primary suspect in the exact kind of crime he’s desperately trying to forget. Now, it’s up to him to clear his name and find the dead woman’s missing children, all before a corrupt local cult can exert its influence over the town and its residents.

Harry Hunsicker is a fourth-generation native of Texas and author of seven novels. His work has been shortlisted for both the Shamus and Thriller Awards.

Steve Weddle: Your publisher refers to THE DEVIL’S COUNTRY as a “21st-century western.” Other than being set in the southwest, what does that mean?

Harry Hunsicker: True story: I didn't realize until the publisher start working on ad copy that I had written a western. The story is set in the current day, so how can that be, right? Looking at the book after some time has passed, I realize now that the main character is cut from the same cloth as the rugged loners in all those Clint Eastwood movies. So in that sense the book is a western.

SW: Arlo Baines finds himself working with a newspaper reporter. What makes Hannah Byrne a good companion in this mystery?

HH: Hannah Byrne is a reporter for the New York Times who arrives in this small town in West Texas much like Arlo Baines does, with no connection to the area or clue about how things operate in that part of the world. In some sense, she's a wanderer much like Arlo is. But because she's reporter she's very inquisitive by nature, which proves to be a big asset for Arlo.

SW: What’s the town of Piedra Springs like, and why is it a good setting for this story?

HH: Piedra Springs is a fictionalized representation of what is going on in rural areas across Texas and the rest of the US. Short version: small towns everywhere are dying due to a lack of economic opportunity. People are leaving, and those that remain have a certain fatalistic outlook toward life.

SW: How is Arlo Baines different from Jon Cantrell?

HH: Arlo has a lot more baggage than Jon Cantrell. Arlo is a luggage store, he's got so much baggage.

SW: What is it that readers and writers find so interesting about characters with baggage, about damage and redemption?

Harry Hunsicker

HH: In regards to baggage, I think readers relate to characters who offer a glimpse into their own lives. I.e. everyone has some baggage.

SW:  You're working now with Thomas & Mercer after earlier books with more "traditional" publishing. How has that gone?

HH: Working with Thomas & Mercer has been a wonderful experience. They understand books and more importantly how to sell books.

SW: You're doing video promotion for this book?

HH: I'm very happy and honored that THE DEVIL'S COUNTRY was the only second mystery/thriller selected by Thomas & Mercer to be part of a program called Kindle in Motion, essentially a new format for consuming stories. Imagine a graphic novel where the graphics are moving images. So if the text reads "A guy walks into a bar" there's a short looping video of a man entering a bar. (Kindle in Motion is only available with the e-book version. No extra charge.) These videos and some stills are scattered throughout the book and are designed to make the reading experience more immersive. For THE DEVIL'S COUNTRY, the publisher created a short script based on my story, hired actors and a production team, and filmed in Nevada for a week last November. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend a couple days on set which was an incredible experience.

SW: And you're working with Alison (Janssen) Dasho? Does it get any better?

HH: Alison is a great editor. I loved working with her on the Cantrell series. She has transferred internally to Montlake so for THE DEVIL'S COUNTRY I was fortunate enough to work with another all-star editor, Jacque Ben-Zekry.

--

THE DEVIL'S COUNTRY published April 11, 2017.