Guest post: "Aspire to Write," by James D. Bell, Author of 'Maximilian's Treasure'

What inspires you to write?  The authors I love inspired me to write. Many times, as I finished a great story I would say to myself, “I wish I could write a story like that.”  Like you, I spent countless hours as a child enthralled, enraptured, enthused and entertained, hidden under the covers, reading Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne by flashlight.  Even then, I imagined writing my own stories of high adventure, bravery, great deeds and men and women of character. 

Later, I fell in love with the deep, descriptive words of Joseph Conrad.  More recently, I belly laughed to the comedy of Dave Berry, Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich and became addicted to the sweeping historic epics by Wilbur Smith.  And who hasn’t enjoyed the legal thrillers of John Grisham and Earl Stanley Gardner?  Then, I discovered the genius of blending past and present into gripping adventure tales, like Inca Gold by Clive Cussler.  And finally, I read the book that inspired me most, The New Testament.

I wanted to write a book that would encapsulate a little of all the genres I love.  Somehow it all came together in my second novel, Maximilian’s Treasure, a legal thriller, filled with adventure, romance, comedy, mystery and the hunt for a legendary treasure.  I love this story!  It’s based upon an actual encounter I had with an elderly Choctaw gentleman who believed that a legendary treasure was hidden on his farm.  Thirty-five years ago, he told me that he believed the Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian, sent Aztec gold to support the South in the Civil War.  The War ended when the shipment was near his farm and was hidden there.  A friend of mine and I went with him to his farm to search for the gold.  We had a great day listening to his stories.

In Maximilian’s Treasure, two young lawyers help save a Choctaw family farm from foreclosure, but rumors of treasure lead to murders, kidnappings, arson and riots.  One lawyer defends the family in court, while the other chases clues from a Mississippi swamp to the Caribbean, to the Chiapas jungle.  The story is filled with romance, comedy, action and adventure.  More importantly, the story is filled with treasures.  The two lawyers are best friends, but have opposite worldviews.  One is a Christian, the other an agnostic.  They share their views with each other as they discuss the meaning of life.  They have earned each other’s respect and neither judges the other. 

The story demonstrates that the past is never really past, things are not always what they seem, character matters and some treasures are far more valuable than gold.  I love this story.  I bet you will too.  Read it, and let me hear from you.

Your friend,

James D. Bell

Genre: Romantic Adventure 

Author: James D. Bell

Website: http://maximilianstreasure.com/

Find out more on Amazon       

About the Book:

Rumors of a legendary treasure fuel a battle over possession of a Choctaw family farm.  Two young lawyers, John Brooks and Jackson Bradley, agree to help the family keep their farm.  Early legal success prompts the drive-by murder of the patriarch of the family.  The grandson chases the suspects whose bodies are found on the farm, scalped.  At the same time clues to a vast treasure are found on the farm.  Jackson, pursued by fortune seekers, adventurers, an exotic beauty and a homicidal maniac, follows the clues from a Caribbean reef to the Chiapas jungle.  John stays behind to defend the grandson and continue the fight for the farm.  His efforts are complicated by arson, murder, race riots, and the realization that he lost his one true love.  Though there is great distance between them, their adventures are intertwined as they rush toward a triple climax that could shake the world.  Join the adventure and discover your Maximilian’s Treasure.

About the Author:

James D. Bell is an award-winning author and retired Judge who received the highest bar association approval ratings ever given to a Mississippi Circuit or County Judge. He is listed in Preeminent Lawyers, Outstanding Lawyers of America and Top 100 Attorneys of North America.  He is the author of two novels, Vampire Defense and Maximilian’s Treasure.  His short story, The Adventures of Sherlock Hound, was published in Mardi Allen’s collection, Dog Stories for the Soul, alongside stories from Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Willie Morris and others.  The son of a Choctaw mother and a Mississippi businessman, Judge Bell is devoted to his wife, Joanne.  They live near Jackson, Mississippi and have four children.  Judge Bell returned to law practice but is frequently called back to the bench by the Mississippi Supreme Court for short term assignments.

Find out more: 

http://maximilianstreasure.com/

http://www.judgebell.com/

https://www.facebook.com/VampireDefense/

Guest post: "Making Characters Interesting," by Brooks Eason, Author of 'Fortunate Son'

When I started writing my memoir, Fortunate Son – the Story of Baby Boy Francis, I knew it had potential because the story was fascinating. It also happened to be true.

I was adopted as an infant, had wonderful parents and a wonderful childhood, never searched for my birth mother, and never would have. I learned her identity and the story of my birth only because of litigation initiated in four courts in two states in an effort to identify and find me. The lawyers who were looking didn’t know who or where I was, but they knew my birth mother’s son had a potential claim to the fortune left by her grandfather, who owned oil wells all over the country as well as the only facility in the Western Hemisphere that made fluoride for toothpaste.

A week after I learned about the circumstances of my birth, my first grandchild was born under almost identical circumstances. My birth mother got pregnant in the fall of her freshman year of college, my daughter in the fall of her sophomore year. The circumstances were the same, but the times were not. My daughter, unlike my mother, got to keep her baby, who’s grown into an extraordinary young lady.

So I knew I had the makings of a good story. The challenge was to get readers who didn’t know any of the main characters – my parents, birth mother, daughter, granddaughter, and me – to care about us, find us interesting, and feel that they knew us. To achieve this, I decided to include anecdotes about all of us. Some of the anecdotes are no longer than a sentence or two, but I chose them because I thought they revealed something important about us.

My adoptive mother had a wonderful sense of humor, and I wrote that she loved to dress up at Halloween, put on a mask, get down on her knees, and trick the neighbors into thinking she was a child wanting candy.

My adoptive father was the finest man I've ever known and also one of the most modest. I wrote that he said he volunteered for the Navy in World War II because in the Army you had to sleep on the ground, but after the war ended he served as a Boy Scout leader for 60 years and spent more than 1,000 nights sleeping on the ground in a tent.

My birth mother had to surrender me for adoption when she was only eighteen and never saw me again. I wrote about her late-night conversations with her sister years later when she wondered what had become of the baby she had to give away, the baby she knew by then would be her only child.

My daughter, who made the brave decision to have and keep my granddaughter, was mature and fearless from the beginning. I wrote that she modeled children's clothes when she was four, walking down the runway as instructed, and was chosen the same year to be the barker in her preschool circus. No nerves, no fear, and everyone heard every word. She was never a quiet child; still isn't.

My beautiful granddaughter, like her mother, is precocious and inquisitive about the world. I wrote that, exactly 20 years after my daughter was the circus barker, my granddaughter played the same role in the same circus. Not long afterwards, she asked me one day, “Papa, am I taller than a penguin?” At the time she was taller than some but shorter than others, but now she's taller than all of them, even the Emperor, the tallest penguin on Earth.   

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brooks Eason loves stories, reading and writing them, hearing and telling them. He also loves music, dogs, and campfires as well as his family and friends. His latest book is Fortunate Son – the Story of Baby Boy Francis, an amazing memoir about his adoption, discovery of the identity of his birth mother, and much more.

Eason has practiced law in Jackson for more than 35 years but has resolved to trade in writing briefs for writing books.  He lives with his wife Carrie and their two elderly rescue dogs, Buster and Maddie, and an adopted stray cat named Count Rostov for the central character in A Gentleman in Moscow, the novel by Amor Towles.  In their spare time, the Easons host house concerts, grow tomatoes, and dance in the kitchen.  Eason, who has three children and four grandchildren, is also the author of Travels with Bobby - Hiking in the Mountains of the American West about hiking trips with his best friend. Visit Brooks online at www.brookseason.com.  WordCrafts Press is an independent publishing company headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Visit WordCrafts online at www.wordcrafts.net.

Guest post: 'Creating Characters Readers Love or Love to Hate' by Mystery Authors Rosemary & Larry Mild

A mystery story usually begins with an intriguing or even preposterous plot that tickles your fancy, or an outlandish character you can‘t get out of your mind. No matter how gripping the plot, that story will be an unconvincing hollow shell without memorable characters. In mystery novels, one way to make a sleuth memorable is to play him or her against type—not what you’d expect.  Rex Stout’s genius detective, Nero Wolfe, grows orchids; Janet Evanovich’s tough bounty hunter Stephanie Plum loves Rex, her hamster; and P.D. James’s Scotland Yard Commander, Adam Dalgleish, writes poetry.

Everyone wants something—it’s the pursuit of that something that makes a plot move. Immerse and embroil them in active conflict and imagine how they’ll swim. Put them in harm’s way and give them preferences, hurts to nurture, barriers to hurdle, and goals to achieve. They can be sarcastic, humorous, skeptical, vengeful, vulnerable, and/or opinionated. Keep their demeanor consistent, but not to the extent that they become predictable. 

 To build and flesh out your main characters, create profiles for them. Make up a list of questions aside from the obvious ones like name and physical appearance. What are their favorite and most disliked foods? Schools, job, mannerisms, odd ways of speaking? What do they fear most, crave most that’s missing from their lives? Above all, each character must be a unique individual: sarcastic, humorous, skeptical, vulnerable, opinionated, romantic, etc. Of course, no character is all one thing. Allow the characters to be faulty, neither all good nor all bad. Allow them to keep secrets, create confrontations, and express emotions.

Our characters usually come from real life. Mostly, they’re composites of people we’ve known, loved, admired, and hated—or read about in the newspaper. Some authors start by clipping photos out of magazines so they can easily visualize their characters. Listen, listen, listen wherever you are. Eavesdrop if you must and learn how dialogue tells you about the inner person and sets one character apart from the next. A piece of wicked gossip told to you by a friend or an argument overheard at the airport can work wonders in making a character juicy and real.

The choices your characters make are personal to them, and the writer can make use of all sorts of preferences, including colors, styles, friends, food, drinks, vehicles, and athletics.

Few main characters are born on the day your story starts. Every character has a backstory, a past that affects behavior and choices. Where have they been? Who or what are the influences shaping their lives? What are the formative influences? Has vengeance, loyalty, or ambition left a scar? Backstories—succinctly written—can be useful to explain motivation and deepen the main characters. Boring stick figures grow out of confining descriptions to age, height, weight, girth, hair and eye colors, and clothes. Avoid regurgitating these traits in one fell swoop or “information dumping.” Give the reader only as much description as needed to move the story forward.

 

Ken Follett builds memorable characters in his twentieth-century trilogy. The first book, Fall of Giants, is a historical suspense novel. We never feel that we’re subjected to an academic lesson. We experience all the historical events through the characters’ eyes and actions. Follett is a master at bringing every character alive.

Dare the reader to run with the main character. Allow him or her to experience the same pain, fear, joy, terror, and suspense. Challenge the reader to anticipate and possibly experience the main character’s endearments, repugnancies, logic, and conclusions. There’s something of each author in the characters they create showing up mostly in their dialog. Above all, keep characters from sounding alike

                                                           ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ROSEMARY AND LARRY MILD, cheerful partners in crime, coauthor mystery, suspense, and fantasy fiction. Their popular Hawaii novels, Cry Ohana and its sequel Honolulu Heat, vibrate with island color, local customs, and exquisite scenery. Also by the Milds: The Paco and Molly Murder Mysteries: Locks and Cream Cheese, Hot Grudge Sunday, and Boston Scream Pie. And the Dan and Rivka Sherman Mysteries: Death Goes Postal, Death Takes A Mistress, and Death Steals A Holy Book. Plus: Unto the Third Generation, A Novella of the Future, and three collections of wickedly entertaining mystery stories—Murder, Fantasy, and Weird Tales; The Misadventures of Slim O. Wittz, Soft-Boiled Detective; and Copper and Goldie, 13 Tails of Mystery and Suspense in Hawai‘i.

ROSEMARY, a graduate of Smith College and former assistant editor of Harper’s, also delves into her own nonfiction life. She published two memoirs: Love! Laugh! Panic! Life With My Mother and the acclaimed Miriam’s World—and Mine, for the beloved daughter they lost in the terrorist bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. On her lighter side, Rosemary also writes award-winning humorous essays, such as failing the test to get on Jeopardy; and working for a giant free-spending corporation on a sudden budget: “No new pencil unless you turn in the old stub.”  

LARRY, who was only called Lawrence when he’d done something wrong, graduated from American University in Information Systems Management. In 2019 he published his autobiography, No Place To Be But Here: My Life and Times, which traces his thirty-eight-year professional engineering career from its beginning as an electronics technician in the U.S. Navy, to a field engineer riding Navy ships, to a digital systems/instrument designer for major Government contractors in the signal analysis field, to where he rose to the most senior level of principal engineer when he retired in 1993.

Making use of his past creativity and problem-solving abilities, Larry naturally drifted into the realm of mystery writing, where he also claims to be more devious than his partner in crime and best love, Rosemary. So he conjures up their plots and writes the first drafts, leaving Rosemary to breathe life into their characters and sizzle into their scenes. A perfect marriage of their talents.

THE MILDS are active members of Sisters in Crime where Larry is a Mister in Crime; Mystery Writers of America; and Hawaii Fiction Writers. In 2013 they waved goodbye to Severna Park, Maryland and moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where they cherish quality time with their daughters and grandchildren. When Honolulu hosted Left Coast Crime in 2017, Rosemary and Larry were the program co-chairs for “Honolulu Havoc.”

Over a dozen worldwide trips to Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Great Britain, France, Italy, Israel, Egypt, and more have wormed their way into their amazing stories. In their limited spare time, they are active members of the Honolulu Jewish Film Festival committee, where Larry is the statistician and recordkeeper for their film ratings.  

https://www.magicile.com

https://www.facebook.com/rosemary.mild.1

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosemary-mild-930