More of “Dexter”: Reading as a Writer

How do I describe the craving I’ve felt for Dexter Morgan’s sardonic voice?  I have no “Dark Passenger,” but if I did, it would be the source of my craving, I’m sure….(smile)  So perhaps Jeff Lindsay’s “Dexter” novels appeal to that part of me (and everyone else?) that finds a human, funny, average guy but reasonably intelligent anti-hero fun.  The last time I wrote about Dexter, it was about Lindsay’s inaugural novel.  Since then, I’ve read the next three novels in the series, most recently two and three, Dexter in the Dark and Dexter by Design, respectively.

In these two novels, Dexter’s personal life progresses into wedded bliss as his professional life takes an interesting turn that could expose him to being caught.  His relationship with Rita’s children also progresses in a direction I never saw coming, and is nicely developed over the course of the two novels.  Lindsay has stuck to the first person point of view (bravo!) which means the reader knows only what Dexter knows, sees, experiences.  There were a couple times I saw something in Lindsay’s description that took Dexter a page or two to see, but that’s hardly a quibble.  The first person POV heightens suspense and places the reader into the “I” too, creating an intimate relationship with the POV character, i.e. Dexter Morgan.  Lindsay also develop’s Miami’s personality more, especially regarding driving and traffic in this city.  And finally, I love that the novels are so completely different from the cable TV series so it feels like I get even more of Dexter between seasons of the show.

Ah, so much to love about these books!  It doesn’t seem fair that I could have any quibbles with them.  But as Dexter reminds himself, and the reader, often, life is unfair.

In Dexter in the Dark, the serial killer the Miami police, and Dexter, are hunting follows a ritual of burning his victims, beheading them, then posing their bodies topped with a ceramic bull’s head.  An interesting tidbit of serial killer profiling — serial killers tend not to use fire and burning to kill because it denies them the up close and personal pleasure they get from the act of taking a life.  So this serial killer is quite the anomaly.  He also scares Dexter’s “Dark Passenger” into hiding.  Up until this book, this aspect of Dexter has been a part of his personality, but in this book, it becomes separated without any negative results to Dexter — except he’s lost his edge in understanding the serial killer mind.  The answer to Dexter’s questions about his “Dark Passenger,” when it comes, truly disappointed me.  ****SPOILER ALERT!****  Rather than developing the “Dark Passenger” as a product of dissociation during the psychological trauma Dexter suffered as a small child, Lindsay chooses to make it something like a dark spirit that inhabits the minds of traumatized people and is a threat to the followers of the ancient god Moloch.  Such a disappointment!  Dexter has now entered the realm of the supernatural!  I would have been fine with the Moloch followers doing their thing; however, Dexter is such an interesting character that I think he deserves much better, deeper psychological development.

It was with that thought that I began Dexter by Design.   The killer in this story again likes to provide stylized bodies and staged crime scenes.  Lindsay never really explains the reason for this, except that the bodies had been stolen from the county morgue so murder had not been involved.  The story takes a sharp left turn about halfway through after Dexter takes his revenge on the man he believes stabbed Deborah.  From that point, the story returns to a real serial killer story, sort of.  *****SPOILER ALERT!*****  The killer has really only one target, a character we all know and love in the series.  My quibbles are: Dexter is far too, too inept as an investigator, not to mention as a defender.  Lindsay gave him sharp skills for surveillance, investigation and murder in the other stories, and it just wasn’t good enough that Dexter says operating during daylight makes him weak and stumble all over the place.  His little Cuban adventure with Kyle Chutsky struck me as brilliant and believable.  The ending, however, fell flat for me primarily because Dexter was TOO stupid.  Was this because his “Dark Passenger” was little in evidence in this novel?  My last quibble regards Rita — with marriage, Rita has become almost a blitering idiot and Dexter no longer tries to figure her out.  She’s also far too understanding of his behavior.  There could be some interesting sparks and character development possibilities between them but Rita needs rehabilitation for that to happen.

I look forward to the fifth novel in the series, Dexter is Delicious, and to the release of the fifth season of the TV series on DVD.  For all those out there who enjoy a fun anti-hero, I still recommend Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter novels highly…..

What’s the Weather Like in Your Writing?

“It was a dark and stormy night….”  This phrase elicits groans from most writers.  However, this story beginning sets the time and an element about location that can slip away from fiction writers, i.e. the weather.  Each location has its own climate, and writers need to pay attention to that aspect of location, and use it to their advantage.

In the early drafts of Perceval, I didn’t think much about the weather in Vienna or Amsterdam, the two locations for Evan’s story in that novel.  The story takes place over the summer.  I liked the idea of beautiful weather everyday so I could focus on other things.  Big mistake!  Maybe if the story occurred in Southern California my no-weather idea would make sense but not in Vienna or Amsterdam.  I finally realized that I needed to research the weather during the summer in these two cities.

After doing the research, I then had decisions to make: how could I use the weather to reflect the future?  How could I use it to reflect on a character?  Or situation?  What about unusual weather?  Does Evan think much about the weather?  That last turned out to be a surprisingly interesting question.  Evan is a runner, so he pays attention to temperature, humidity, wind speed, and precipitation all of which could affect his body on a run.  It makes him more aware of the weather when he’s not preparing to run.

Since Perceval is in 2048, I wanted the weather to be a bit off to reflect environmental change.  Austria is landlocked.  I decided early on that the summer of 2048 would be a searingly hot one, and everyone would be on edge waiting for rain to break the drought.  But Amsterdam, with its coastal location, would have milder, pleasanter weather while Evan is there.  Maybe even some fog at night.

In the early drafts, I wrote in a massive thunderstorm fairly early in the story.  As I worked on the plot and character development, I realized that storm needed to howl and hail much later, after Evan returns from Amsterdam.  Then I decided he needed to be outdoors in it, unprotected from the wind and lightning, and chased by cops.  Now the storm underscores the absolutely stupid mistake Evan has made that puts him in the police’s sights.  It forces him to improvise in order to elude the police.  To my surprise, that improvisation ended up costing him as he closes in on what he wants.

In the subsequent novels in Evan’s story, I’ve paid more attention from the beginning to the weather.  In Novel 2, the story opens in Buenos Aires on a balmy summer night.  The weather matches the city’s peaceful atmosphere and upbeat personality.  But when Evan returns to Vienna, it’s winter — frigid, snowy, almost arctic — reflecting the city’s situation and Evan’s.  Later in the story, in Copenhagen, he encounters a mild winter, but snowy nonetheless.  In Novel 3, which begins in Finland, it’s early autumn, mild and colorful.  Vienna’s autumn is quite warm, as is the autumn on the Mediterranean island that plays a prominent role in this book.  The story ends in St. Petersburg, Russia, where winter fast approaches.  I haven’t written that far so I’m not certain if or how weather will influence Evan and his story’s outcome in that book.

We live and write on a planet that possesses an active climate.  While including weather in a melodramatic way probably won’t help a story, giving it a minor, revelatory role can deepen and enrich a story or character.  And Evan’s from Minnesota so he’s quite familiar with blizzards and tornadoes….

What Does Publication Mean?

This past week, I immersed myself in the June 2011 issue of The Writer.  Reading this magazine is both work and pleasure for me.  Each issue always has at least one article that resonates with my current writing situation in some way and the June issue is no exception.

Chuck Leddy, a contributing editor, interviewed Roy Peter Clark, a true master of the writing craft and writing teacher who has published many books on the writing craft.  The one I have on my “to buy” list is The Glamour of Grammar.  In the interview, Clark talks about that book as well as specifics about craft, e.g. use of concrete details, use of strong nouns and verbs instead of modifiers, how to write “cinematically,” structure, good writing process, and being inventive with words.  When I finished the article, I felt buoyant, joyful.  And I made a discovery.

I discovered that publication means a writer has the necessary skill level to craft clear, imaginative stories that offer a different perspective on the human condition,  the writer’s own unique perspective.  So, publication can be a validation of a writer’s craft as well as validation of a writer’s passion.  It also means the writer has managed to get her writing into the hands of an editor at just the right time, since luck influences publication all the time.

I also discovered that it’s quite possible to recognize craft in other writers’ work, to understand what craft is, but not be able to fully use it.  For example, the short story I’ve been working on has gone through several rewrites (I’ve lost count) and during the past week I’ve been thinking about the craft issues it has.  Why is it that I see only one or two issues that I work on per rewrite?  Why can’t I see all the issues to work on and just get them all done at once?

Rewriting is also a learning process.  No matter how many times a writer has been published, how many stories or novels or screenplays he’s written, each piece is an opportunity to learn more about craft.  Each piece comes to him from his imagination to challenge his craft, his knowledge, his willingness to learn.  I suppose progress is when the writer spots all the issues before sending it out to an editor, or at least more than one or two.

Perhaps, publication is a graduation.  The writer has learned through the writing and rewriting process and is ready to go on to the next level which is really the next story or novel or screenplay.  The next challenge and lesson.  I used to think that publication would validate my purpose in life, i.e. to write and tell stories.  Now I realize, my purpose needs no validation.  It is what it is.  I write.

I write to learn, share, entertain, provoke.  Publication also means acceptance and the opportunity to reach more readers.  It means connection on an intellectual and emotional level with the people who read my writing — an agent, an editor, marketing executives, cover designer, copy-editor, publicist, bookseller and eventually, regular people who love to read.

For me, publication does not mean fame and wealth.  I’d love to be rich so I wouldn’t need a day job, but writing for money is not part of the craft.  Writing to learn, for connection, to contribute to the world, to entertain in a way that could perhaps make the world a better place — that’s what being a writer is all about for me.  Publication is one step in that process…..

China, the Creditor

Last week, I received three issues of Time magazine: the regular issue, then a royal wedding commemorative issue, and finally a special issue on the death of Osama bin Laden.  Buried deep among all the various news stories in the magazines was one article by Sebastian Mallaby, “You are What You Owe: Why power built on debt is no power at all.”  Mr. Mallaby discussed America’s debt and how it affects our standing in the world, our status as a superpower, and what could bring us crashing down without one shot being fired or any terrorist attacks launched against us.

In a word, China.  Right now, China is our largest creditor.  Mr. Mallaby described a scenario, most of which was familiar to me because I’d developed a similar one myself years ago for Perceval, in which China called in what we owed.  Because we owe more than our economy can support, our economy collapses along with the government.  Mr. Mallaby doesn’t go on to speculate what might happen then, but in my scenario, China finally establishes a foothold on the North American continent.  Or would have, if the European Union and Russia hadn’t stepped in to stop China and arrange for talks regarding American debt with them, China and America in Vienna, Austria.

Is this far-fetched?  According to Mr. Mallaby, not at all.  For those who believe China wouldn’t do it because it would devalue China’s holdings, he responds, “China could afford to take a hit to its bond portfolio, whereas the U.S. could ill afford another Lehman-scale crash.  A Chinese threat of financial attack would therefore be credible.”  I had included the devaluation argument in Perceval but had not thought of the response Mallaby presents because I wrote it long before 2008.  China has been our largest creditor for some time, and Japan is our second largest.  What fascinated me was how we could allow a country who is not really an ally have such financial power over us.  And why?  Because of our insatiable appetite for money.

So Perceval and Evan Quinn’s story plays out with a geopolitical backdrop of China having called in what America owes.  In my novel, certain Americans anticipated China’s move and was ready with a countermove, even as Chinese and American diplomats meet in Vienna.  The geopolitical situation affects Evan’s life, his music career, even though Evan doesn’t know what is truly going on between the two countries.  Then he goes on a European tour and begins to learn just how much information the American government withholds from the American population.

I am astounded.  My novel has suddenly become timely in a way I never dreamed.   I’ve spent the last few days mulling over how I can explain the current situation as past history in my novel.  In the backstory of Evan’s life, shortly after he’s born, the New Economic Party begins to win elections and finally consolidates national and state power by the time he’s in school.  The New Economic Party, or NEP, has been created by politicans from both major parties as well as fringe groups, all of whom agree on how America can protect its economic power.  The NEP uses democracy and democratic processes much as Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists did to gain power — the people elect them.

Now I’m thinking about how all this will affect the Perceval rewrite.  My first priority is the characters, their development, their relationships, but I want the world in which they live to be a plausible extrapolation from today.  So the broader geopolitical situation is on the news Evan listens to, but he’s not one of the players.  At least, he doesn’t think he is….