Allyson, if you still want more feedback, I'm available.

Anyone up for a beta? Some slight revisions to existing, and a whole new section, on "The Gravekeeper".

I wanted to post this. It's this month's "Murder at the Flatiron" column, written by my editor at St. Martins Press, Ruth Cavin, and it's very sage advice:

Walking with the Characters

We have said, (so much that you’re probably tired hearing it) that the characters are, to us, the most important part of a story. If readers have no interest in the people they meet in the pages of the book, if they can’t believe them, how can they care about what happens to them? We’ve quoted the author who said he gets his story by walking along with the characters and seeing what they do, we’ve noted that a news story about a happening to someone on the street takes on real meaning if that person is someone the reader knows, (or a celebrity that the reader feels he or she knows.)

Under our other hat, we’ve had an interesting thing happen along those lines:

The book is a thriller, written by an author whom we’ve published previously but a bit different than his previous stories. His agent sent it to us and we dived in, reading along with much pleasure and hating to have to stop to figure out what to make for dinner. But when we came to the end, we were abruptly uncomfortable. We didn’t like the killer. That killer had no reason to be the killer, only a kind of pasted-on motive that would be a much better fit on another of the characters.

In fact, a second character in the story was just the sort of person to have that motive all along, and to act on it, keeping it a deep secret between the author and the character, but in no way behaving in a way that such a person would not. Until the detective him- or herself could find the answer, the reader couldn’t know. When, finally, this character who is so much more fit to be the bad person, is unveiled, the reader can go back in memory and think, “Oh, that’s why he (or she) staged that argument in the restaurant...” or whatever action now becomes clear. It’s a real case of the character “getting away from the author,” as it were.

And to top it off, that fine fellow of an author not only didn’t protest at all, but agreed with us (after all, he’s the one who put the real killer in the story, it just took another eye to recognize the right person) but he said his wife had the same feeling when she read the manuscript. It can’t be better than that!

Lesson: It’s wrong for authors to think they have complete control over their characters. If they’ve done a good job on them, they’ve created individuals who don’t always want to do what the author tells them to.

She's a very wise woman.

individuals who don’t always want to do what the author tells them to.

The rotten little bastards. No matter how much I tell them, "But--the entire next hundred pages depends on you doing this!", they cross their arms and say "Nuh uh."

No matter how much I tell them, "But--the entire next hundred pages depends on you doing this!", they cross their arms and say "Nuh uh."

I know. I'm all, "We had a deal!" and they're all, "Fuck you, Charlie."

Dude, when my characters take the bit between their teeth and run with it? I'm happy as I can get.

It means they're breathing, you know?

Have to love that.

And I still need beta readers for the newest 1700 or so words of Gravekeeper.

I can take a look at it, Deb.

I think this wants to be an opinion piece when it grows up. What do y'all think?
I have been a disability rights activist, in one way or another, for about ten years, which, given that I was born at the crest of Gen X, feels almost like geologic amounts of time. I thought I knew some things about my nation from the demonstrating, the canvassing, the terrifying phone trees...the random strangers that paused in their daily labors to tell me about Freedom Riding and bus boycotts, and, hey, keep up the good work. I thought I knew America. But America doesn’t know me.

I do have morals. And character. And values. Listen up, because this might be the last thing I write, because right now it doesn’t feel safe to have one of those education things. I’m feeling like the middle of the country called me a skank, and without the accustomed affection my friends use.(We “baby busters” do love irony so much.)
And nobody in the media stopped them. Nobody(except maybe my love toy Jon Stewart. Babe, if you weren’t married...) This hurts, as sometimes the ironic jaded thing is just a pose. If you prick me, I do bleed, sometimes.
I come from solid, hard-working Democratic people who wanted a break for the working man and woman. All right, so I didn’t get confirmed in the eighth grade. And I don’t spend every Sunday in a building with a steeple on it, but believe it or not, I too have guiding principles that keep me from doing every fun thing my id thinks up. I keep my promises and never let people run down my friends. I was taught that every work has dignity and that you don’t run the other guy down just for doing things you don’t understand.(And we all know somebody, not you of course, who uses aggressive church attendance to cover a multitude of sins, but I also try not to judge.)

Let’s talk about free will. The Founding Fathers everyone likes to talk so fondly on weren’t religious like some Bush supporters are. My understanding is they believed God created the world, wound it up, and walked away(If I am oversimplifying that, somebody tell me.)

They believed that people had the capacity to govern because they had will and rationality. My faith(yes, I use that f-word, too) in that concept has been shaken, maybe forever, but I appreciate the ideal. I appreciate the recognition it gives the human brain. I’m proud of my brain. It is perhaps my best instrument. In some way, the Creator thought enough of me to give it to me, or possibly curse me with it...I’ll get back to you. My values say you don’t turn your back on people. Not because of whom they love, and not because they live on a different side of the tracks than you. My values say if your country is heading off the rails, you try to stop it. My values say that is patriotism, and I ‘ll never believe otherwise.

I didn’t have to. One thing about having your society give up on you, it cuts back, obligation-wise. The stereotype is that I watch cable on the government’s dime, and pray to be good so God will free me in some way. The stereotype lies.Liberals answer to a higher authority too sometimes...we call it different names. Good people sacrificed on the Left, too, though.) My values respect sacrifice over “ getting yours”

My values say you don’t deny food and medical care to little poor kids just because they’re from Mexico.(Prop 200, ay chihuahua!) My values say not to lie.(Do I need to explain that one?) My values say values are declared best through action(but I’m tired of never having the floor in character discussions, so I’m breaking a possible lifelong silence with this piece.)

Love should be stronger than fear and hate. And, yes, I’m still working on the finer points of faith and spirituality. A benign Creator would understand my questing nature and give me space to satisfy it when I’m prepared to. Because life challenges us all and some of us were not born to a nourishing faith, sad but true.(If you are fortunate in yours, you’ll feel no need to change mine.) It’s good not to understand sometimes, really. Somehow the American concepts (continued...)

( continues...) of diversity and reinvention have gotten a bad rap as diversions to allow people to get naked in public and call themselves Moonbeam(Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but there’s more. Really. America used to be where people came to get a new start, leave behind repressive rules. This is very much part of our Western legacy, and we should respect an honor it. My values say if you don’t like abortions don’t have one. But don’t torture somebody else for the hardest decision she has to make, and I guarantee you, whatever your views, you know somebody who had one, whether you know it or not. She’s not “those women”. She’s your mom, your friend, the checker at Target.(My personal count is four women I know. And I’m not freakish and wild, and neither are they. You’d never know just to look. Citizens shouldn’t demonize each other.Don’t we all have demons enough?)

I think that's pretty grown up already. Throw in some paragraph breaks and check on the same number of closing parentheses as opening parentheses, and it rocks.