Author Archives: fictorians

Guest post by Renee Bennett.

Ever read about a ‘dystopian steampunk mystery’ or ‘epic fantasy conspiracy thriller’ or ‘romantic horror with an ecopunk twist’ or ‘weird West, with zombie superheroes’!

Yeah. Genre is complicated.

When people talk genre, they talk about story content: a love story, or aimed at kids, or contains rocket ships. They mean marketing categories, and marketing categories mean audiences.

Different audiences expect different things from different genres. People looking for love stories want sentiment, kids want kid stuff, and there is nothing so satisfying to the rocket-seekers as a really good blast-off. But what makes each genre what it is? And if you have blithely written a tale of first love between teenagers who are flying to Mars, which genre – which marketing category – does the tale belong to, and why?

It starts with conflict.

All stories have a main conflict. Orson Scott Card in ‘How To Write Science Fiction And Fantasy’ describes a tool to categorize a story’s main conflict: he calls it the MICE Quotient.

MICE stands for Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event. Each story type has its main conflict arise from a different story element. All stories will have all of these elements (mostly; exceptions apply for avant garde or experimental works), but they will weight them differently, depending on what their primary audience wants.

Milieu stories generate their conflict from setting and world-building. This is the conflict engine behind ‘big’ stories – epics, real and fantastical. It is also present in survival stories, war stories, and historical stories. The Lord of the Rings is a Milieu story: its main source of conflict is the motion of nations and the transformation of whole peoples in response to the war with Sauron.

Idea stories generate conflict through the exploration of ideas or information. The main character will start in a state of low information and end in a state of better understanding. The story is a puzzle: once it is solved, it’s over. This pattern is widely used in science fiction, particularly hard science fiction, and in detective stories. Andy Weir started The Martian from the seed of ‘What would happen if an astronaut were stranded?’ and built the rest – including the main character – from elements based on that premise.

Character stories generate conflict from within the characters, or from the relationships between them. They are intimately involved with characters facing – or refusing to face – their lives, choices, and selves. The novel Ordinary People begins with Conrad Jarrett’s return home after having tried to commit suicide in the wake of his brother Buck’s death, and it shows the ways he and his family confront and come to terms with this history – or fail to come to terms with it.

Event stories begin when a chaos agent is introduced into the main character’s life and end when the chaos agent is resolved. This agent can be another character, such as a love interest in a romance, or it can be an object (Maguffin) such as a treasure map or a packet of secret documents, as in adventure stories or thrillers. Consider the movie TITANIC, where Rose’s life changes completely when she meets Jack, and changes again when he dies. Against this, even the sinking of the ship (itself an Event plot) is secondary.

Note that last sentence. In a story which contains more than one plot, one plot will be the main plot, and all others will be subordinate. In fact, most stories will rank them.

For instance, in THE MARTIAN, the Idea of being castaway leads; the next most important element is Milieu, because Mars provides the obstacles main character Mark Watney faces. A number of Event subplots follow as obstacles are encountered and overcome. Watney’s Character was built last, from the question, “Who does this person need to be to survive this story?”

So, how does all this help decide which genre a piece truly is?

The main genres are Fantasy, Horror, Literary, Mainstream, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Thriller, and Western. Each of these lends itself to the MICE Quotient in different ways. Sub-genres can also be ranked this way, but we don’t have space for that discussion.

Core works in each genre tend to rank MICE as follows:

Fantasy: Milieu, Event, Character, Idea.

Horror: Event, Character, Milieu, Idea.

Literary: Character, Idea, Milieu, Event.

Mainstream: Character, Event, Milieu, Idea.

Mystery: Idea, Event, Character, Milieu.

Romance: Event, Character, Milieu, Idea.

Science Fiction: Idea, Milieu, Event, Character.

Thriller: Event, Milieu, Character, Idea.

Western: Milieu, Event, Character, Idea.

You may notice that some of these are similar. Fantasies and Westerns rank MICE items the same, as do Horror and Romances. The difference comes down to expectations and the use of tropes.

Westerns are always set in some version of the ‘Wild West’, either past or present, or in a setting such as the Australian Outback which evokes similar images of rural living, wide open spaces, and individuality. Fantasies, however, do not restrict their settings in this way. They will always contain some other element, such as supernatural beasts or magic, which takes the story out of the familiar world we know and place it firmly in a different one. The changes may be minor, such as vampires living next door, or major, as in completely realized secondary worlds.

If the two genres combine, as in a Wild West Fantasy, then the main genre is considered Fantasy, because it is less restrictive.

Horror always has disquiet at its core. Its inciting Event renders the main character unsafe in body, mind, or both, and the story resolves when the character escapes or is overcome. A Romance Event is explicitly the meeting between main character and prospective mate, and the story is always about the decision to accept or decline that prospect.

In stories which combine Horror and Romance, where the inciting love interest is the Horror element and where the story ends unhappily, the story is a Horror with Romance overtones. Core Romances are comedies – they have happy endings. Unhappy endings are tragedies, which are acceptable in Horror, so the expectations of the audience will be better met there.

And so it goes. Literary works need in-depth analysis and exposition of Character first and foremost, and afficionados of the genre will forgive works which provide excellence in this while scanting everything else, which is why experimental and avant garde works (such as plotless novels) exist. Literary is also the genre which puts a premium on flashy writing for the sake of flashy writing.

Mainstream looks for Character first, but readers of this genre will tolerate only minor deviations from ‘real storytelling’, meaning these works will not scant Events, Milieus, etc. These audiences prefer ‘real world’ events or settings, but the category also contains works which ‘transcend genre’ – which only means the publisher thinks their appeal is broad enough that even non-genre readers will enjoy them.

Mystery begins with a puzzle and the character who will solve the puzzle. In this genre, Idea is better described as Information, where the villain of the piece has all of the information and the hero must discover that information, despite all obstacles.

Science Fiction, particularly Hard Science Fiction, starts with an Idea, a “What if…?” question, and revolves around the implications and permutations of a world in which the answer is “True.” However, Soft Science Fiction, which includes most Space Opera and -punk sub-genres, such as Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Dieselpunk, Decopunk, et al, tends to follow the pattern of Fantasy. Both types, however, have science – or science-like – Milieus, often in the future. Fantasy settings tend to be either past or present, and rarely feature science.

A Thriller always has a ‘thrilling’ element to its inciting Event, usually a matter of life or death and often containing a ‘ticking clock’ against which the characters contend. Acceptable settings, characters, and subordinate event types vary. ‘Typical’ thrillers are set in the present and involve at least one character, main or secondary, who is an agent of authority (government, police, etc.) and whose actions either oppose the disaster or work to assure it. Think spies stealing government secrets, terrorists set on mass killings, or anyone trying to avert a foreseeable catastrophe.

In mash-up work, the main genre is almost always going to be the least restrictive one – the need to abbreviate or eliminate inconvenient tropes will hit narrower categories harder. Combinations where MICE rankings are at extreme odds to each other pose special difficulties: Literary and Hard Science Fiction, for instance, do not mix well because Literary wants deep exploration and description of characters, accompanied by linguistic gymnastics, and Hard Science Fiction wants deep exploration and description of ideas told as simply and clearly as possible. Mixing genres, one must consider which audience is served first and best. A story suited to a narrow audience but marketed to a wider one is likely to be rejected.

But … do what you want. Write the story your way and worry later about its genre; it’s your story first. While I can point out different structures and what audiences see in them, they don’t matter until you have a story for its first and most important audience: you.

What do you look for?

Renée Bennett arrived in Calgary in 1972 and has been endlessly entertained watching the city grow ever since. In 1992 she joined IFWA, the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association, and is now their vice president. She runs In Places Between, the Robyn Herrington Memorial Short Story Contest, and coordinates the Author Liaison table at When Words Collide. Her own fiction has appeared on CBC Radio, Year’s Best Fantasy, and Rigor Amortis, among other places, and she has been a finalist in Canada’s Aurora Awards five times.

Genre Misconceptions

July 2, 2016

fictorians

Cross Genre Fantasy Guest Posts Mixing it Up Sean Golden The Writing Life 1 Comment

A Guest Post by Sean Golden

Warrior “Hey! I hear you wrote a book. What kind is it?”

“It’s an action-filled story with interesting characters and devious plot twists.”

“No, man, I mean what genre is it?”

“Oh… well, it doesn’t really…”

“Is it fantasy?”

“Yeah, epic fantasy… I guess.”

“Oh, I love books with spells and elves and swordfights!”

“Oh, actually, it doesn’t have any of that.”

“But you said it was epic fantasy, man!”

I can’t tell you how many times I have had that, or some variation of that, conversation since publishing the first two books of my epic fantasy series, “The War Chronicles.” In fact, the two publishing houses I submitted it to both identified its lack of a clear genre designation as the reason, or a major reason, they decided not to publish it. In effect they said “If it doesn’t fit genre expectations, it won’t sell.”

I would call that the biggest genre misconception. I believe a great story, written well and properly edited, will find readers. In fact, it is frequently the genre-bending books I’ve read that have the most lasting impact on me. Many books that are now considered hallmarks of their genre, were genre-benders in their own day. Tolkien’s elves, deep world building and epic scope essentially created the genre people think of as “epic fantasy” today.

Recently one of my writer friends asked if their story had strayed too far from the genre expectations of the general fantasy reader. I said “You’re asking the wrong guy. My epic fantasy novel is set in a stone age culture where the main character is a flint-knapper and there isn’t a spell in the entire series.” And that story, self-published and practically un-promoted, sold enough to qualify for an SFWA membership.

The second biggest genre misconception that I see is the idea that genre distinctions are accurate. If you go into any library, you will find “Star Wars” in the science fiction section. But the Star Wars story is at least as much, if not more, fantasy than sci-fi. In fact, it has virtually every major classic fantasy element. Mysterious magic wielders in robes? Check. Magical swords of awesome power? Bingo. Conflict between “light” and “dark” sides of some universal, guiding, supernatural “Force?” No kidding. A young protagonist unaware of their uniquely awesome powers? In spades.

Which brings me to my last genre misconception. And that is the idea that a writer should write to a genre, instead of just writing the story they have inside them. That approach, in my opinion, is a major reason that people lose steam and end up not finishing manuscripts. Instead of listening to their inner muse and following the story where it goes, they worry about genre expectations and try to “check off the boxes” to ensure that they cover the genre they want. That approach can make writing feel restrictive and take the joy out of the endeavor.

My advice is to write the story inside you, and not worry about genre definitions, expectations or guidelines. That will help you stay excited and focused on the story, and no story will ever get published, if it doesn’t get finished.

Sean Golden:

Sean Golden is many different things. Father, husband, writer, programmer, project manager, gamer, crafter,fisherman, amateur astronomer and too many other things to bore you with. He took a year off from the grind of corporate cubicle farms to write “Warrior” and “Warlock,” both available on Amazon.com. The third book in the series, “Warlord” is in the final stages of writing now. Sean has a BS in physics from Louisiana State University and had the second highest rated rogue on his World of Warcraft server after taking down the Lich King, and then retiring from raiding.
Read more from Sean Golden at Www.seandgolden.com

Ten Popular Misconceptions About Injuries in Fiction

June 20, 2016

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Believability Craft & Skills Guest Posts M.J. Carlson 2 Comments

A Guest Post by M.J. Carlson

You’ve all experienced it—reading a thriller or watching a movie or TV show when a character is injured, sometimes severely, until the next scene, when they’re all back to normal and on with the chase.

In all fairness, the author may have never experienced that particular injury. Information about symptoms of injuries can be hard to find and difficult for the average person to interpret. So, to compensate, writers often talk to other writers about injury symptoms, paraphrase descriptions from other texts, or “just write whatever the plot needs to happen.”

To make matters worse, Hollywood has perpetuated a “hero as superhero” myth. Accordingly, Americans have come to expect their heroes to be bigger than life.

So, let’s take a realistic look at the ten most used (and misused) injuries in fiction.

#1
Probably the most used, and misused, injury in fiction is head trauma. It seems every time a character needs to be silenced, subdued, or moved, or if one character needs to gain entrance past guards or escape captors, someone gets whacked on the head, rendering them unconscious for exactly the necessary time. The injured characters almost universally awaken with minimal symptoms, usually treated by simply wrapping gauze around their heads.

If you’re writing a story involving real humans, though, some things to keep in mind are: any head injury resulting in loss of consciousness for more than a few seconds will probably result in:
– sharp, stinging pain at the point of contact (usually the scalp or face) with bruising
– headache
– dizziness
– nausea/vomiting
– confusion
– blurred vision
– ringing in the ears
– decreased coordination
– light/noise sensitivity

Concussion with loss of consciousness <5 minutes may take days to weeks for complete recovery.

A moderate or severe head injury of loss of consciousness >5 minutes may also result in excruciating headache, repeated vomiting or nausea, seizures, an inability to awaken from sleep, dilation of one or both pupils of the eyes, slurred speech, weakness or numbness in the extremities, loss of coordination, and confusion, restlessness, or agitation and may take months to fully recover from.

#2
Blunt trauma (probably fiction’s second most common injury) includes almost all transportation injuries, like motor vehicle collisions, pedestrians struck by vehicles, airplane crashes, and boating incidents, as well as jumping or falling from heights, blast injuries, and being struck by a firm object, such as a fist, crowbar, bat, or ball. In medical terminology, blunt trauma, blunt injury, non-penetrating trauma, and blunt force trauma are usually synonymous. In legal terminology, blunt force trauma implies intent. Blunt trauma can often lead to other types of injuries, including abrasions (road rash), contusions (bruises), lacerations, fractures, concussions, burns, and internal organ injuries.

#3
Strangulation involves lack of blood flow or oxygen to the brain. The three types of strangulation are: hanging (suspension from a stationary object by a cord wound around the neck), ligature strangulation (strangulation without suspension using some form of cord called a garrote—usually from behind), and manual strangulation (throttling—strangulation using the fingers, legs, or crook of the elbow, AKA the “sleeper hold” popular on TV and in police departments).

Your character will probably experience panic (they will panic), rapid heart beat, tunnel vision, weakness, euphoria, hallucinations, slowed heart rate, and unconsciousness, all in fifteen seconds to a minute. On awakening, they may have a sore throat, headache, dizziness, or nausea and vomiting lasting minutes to hours.

#4
A laceration is a tearing of the skin, not a clean cut (incision). The amount of pain involved is roughly proportional to wound size and edge irregularity. Skin wounds hurt because nerve endings are exposed to air, changing the pH. Depending on the severity, typical recovery time with stitches is 2-4 weeks, or months without stitches.

#5
A puncture wound (penetrating trauma) is any wound deeper than it is wide. A puncture wound can be Low energy (spears, knives), Medium energy (arrows, crossbow bolts, handguns, shotguns) wounds result in a sharp, “jolting pain” and typically need 1-3 months recovery time, or High energy (high-powered rifles). These injuries usually require 3-6 months recovery time, often with permanent residuals.
– Arrow or crossbow bolt – often a sharp, ‘searing,’ ‘jolting’, or ‘stinging’ pain
– Bullet—small caliber wounds are often described as “a mild to moderate stinging” sensation, may not be immediately noticed by the victim unless a bone is broken or a lung is punctured. This is more common on battlefields, where adrenaline is high. Oh, Hollywood? There’s no safe place to shoot a human being. Any puncture wound, even a shoulder or leg injury, can result in massive blood loss and death within a few minutes.

#6
Blood loss & shock: After more than about 1 liter of blood loss your character will start to experience:
– Confusion
– Rapid heart rate
– Rapid, shallow breathing
– Weakness and chills, starting in the extremities, moving toward the heart
Typical recovery time with intravenous volume replacement is 1-2 days, and without is 2-4 weeks, Hemoglobin replacement without transfusion for 1 liter is approximately 3-6 months.

#7
Sprains and fractures are extremely common injuries in fiction. A sprain is stretching a joint’s tendon past its limit and a fracture is any disruption of a bone’s structure. The pain from either can be immediately incapacitating, sometimes resulting in shock and loss of consciousness. Typical recovery time for sprains and simple fractures is 4-6 weeks.

Sprains can be Grade 1 (a stretched tendon with no tearing), Grade 2 (some tearing of the tendon), or Grade 3 (complete tearing, resulting in an unstable/unusable joint).

A simple fractures is a broken bone, while a compound fracture involves a bone fragment poking out through the skin. As you can imagine, this is usually an incapacitating injury.

– Sharp, sudden, nauseating pain with a sickening “snap” or “crack” as the bone breaks
– Deep, aching or burning pain in the area of the injury
– Probable inability to move the extremity
– Possible numbness if nerves are involved
– Lightheaded or dizzy from shock (the character may pass out)

#8
Burns can be radiation, thermal, chemical, or electrical. Burns are categorized according to the depth. A first degree burn is a superficial, painful burn, often resulting in reddening of the skin and little or no lasting damage. A second degree burn results in partial thickness damage to the skin in the form of blisters or killing skin cells at the top of the dermal layer (a dry, white look to the skin).

A third degree burn is painless, because the skin and nerve endings are dead. However, the surrounding skin is very painful because it’s at the second degree stage. These injuries always result in scarring, and usually contractures (inability to move the extremity in certain directions). Third degree burns usually require hospitalization and greater than 60% are often fatal. Rehabilitation from third degree burns is slow and painful, and usually involves rehabilitation hospitals, physical therapy, and removal of dead tissue.

#9
Cold injury is also graded according to damage and depth. First degree is initially cold, then numb, with mild superficial pain on warming. Second degree is usually painless because of the numbing effect of cold. It’s a deeper injury, associated with blisters and peeling skin. Pain starts with warming of the area. Third degree is almost painless, because the skin and the nerve endings are dead. As in burns, third degree cold injury always results in extensive, deep scarring and contractures and probably the loss of fingers/toes, etc. Greater than approximately 10% of the surface area almost always requires hospitalization for dehydration and pain control, and may involve amputations of the affected body parts. Greater than 30% third degree cold injury is usually fatal.

Chilblains is a phenomenon where the extremities are exposed to hours or days of constant wetness and temperatures above freezing. Chilblains sometimes results in nerve/blood vessel damage.

#10
In decompression injury (AKA “leaky spaceship syndrome”), symptoms of air hunger, shortness of breath, confusion, panic, blurred vision, and rapid heart rate start as air pressure drops below 8 lbs/sq in. Exposure to a vacuum does NOT instantly freeze skin. Heat loss through convection actually slows due to lack of a medium to absorb the heat (it’s a vacuum). Exposure to a vacuum doesn’t cause the body to explode. The surface blood vessels will rupture (most noticeably in the whites of the eyes). Gas expansion in the lungs is a problem, though. As blood vessels in the lungs explode, the lungs fill with blood.

Going the other direction, at ocean depths more of than a hundred feet, nitrogen from the air is forced into the blood by higher pressures. When the pressure is reduced back to sea level too rapidly, the stored nitrogen returns to gas and can cause bubbles in the blood, resulting in severe joint pain (gas trapped in joints, AKA the bends), heart attack, or stroke.
In conclusion, Super Hero Syndrome and Hollywood Healing are a fantasy. If you’re writing a superhero character (John McClane, Jack Reacher, etc.), this information probably won’t directly apply to your main character, but the characters they interact with will still be subject to normal human frailties. If used judiciously, this information can serve to enhance your storytelling and more fully engage your readers, thus providing them a richer, more enjoyable experience.

The story you choose to write is entirely within your control, as is your character’s (and ultimately, your reader’s) adventure. This concept is only one of many to consider when providing your reader with a fulfilling vicarious experience. If, by the end of the story, you and your reader are satisfied, you’ve been successful.

M.J. Carlson:

M.J. Carlson is an American science fiction author of numerous novels and short stories. He also maintains an active speaking schedule, giving workshops on writing software, story structure, and accurately writing injures from the character’s point of view. He lives in Melbourne, Florida, with his Wise Reader and Muse, Sparkle, and more computers than any sane person should have. For more information, check out mjcarlson.com or M.J. Carlson, writer at Facebook.

On Writing Crime Scenes

June 10, 2016

fictorians

Craft & Skills Crime Marta Sprout World-building 1 Comment

Guest post by Marta Sprout.

Developing crime scenes that are both intriguing and realistic is a delicate balance. Popular TV shows are notorious for depicting scenes that are dramatic, but anyone in law enforcement would call criminally stupid.

Certainly you know that DNA results don’t come back in an hour or that you can’t snap a picture of a fingerprint, and one minute later have a match and a photo of the perp. NCIS’s Abby Sciuto knows more than a fleet of forensic experts rolled into one. Horatio Caine in CSI: Miami drives a Hummer, which would make a real CSI snort her iced tea. Not only do they not make that kind of dough, they are civilians, who do not carry guns or arrest people.

Here are a few insights I learned from an active crime scene investigator on how to get it right.

Real homicide scenes are messier, smellier, and nastier than anything shown on TV. Decomp is an odor no one ever forgets. Victims often loose more than blood. (I’ll let you use your imagination on that one.) One mistake often seen on TV is that they don’t consider the amount of blood loss that would be normal for each type of injury. They might have a knife wound to the belly and show buckets of blood spatter. Not realistic. Or Hollywood might have a character with a scalp wound and show little or no blood. Scalp wounds bleed profusely.

By the way, spatter is the correct term, not splatter.

The trick for writers is to view every element of the scene from the investigator’s perspective. It helps to draw out your crime scenes in detail so that they are vividly clear in your mind. Then, when you sit down to write, you’ll have all the evidence and elements of the surroundings, which will captivate your readers. It also saves you from discovering ten chapters too late that you had a key piece of evidence in a spot that doesn’t make sense.

So, how does a crime scene investigation work? A patrol officer is normally the first person at the scene. His or her mission is to “show up, call it in, and don’t touch.” Securing the scene is the first vital step. As a writer, this is a great opportunity for conflict. Imagine the possibilities. What if the victim is a superstar? A horde of fans might show up, including thrill-seekers looking to grab evidence that they can sell as murdermobilia online. Now your officers really have their hands full.

Next your lead detective arrives. Mistakes aren’t limited to the TV scripts. Every police department has had someone who did something stupid, even though they knew better.

Let’s imagine a scenario where we have a patrol officer responding to a call about gunfire in the apartment next door to the caller. On scene, the officer finds a deceased male on the bed, calls it in, and guards the door. Perfect, until the detective shows up. He goes straight to the body, checks for an ID, and wanders through the room, searching for clues.

What’s wrong with that? Enough to give a CSI nightmares!

He didn’t wait for CSI, who would’ve set down access tarps that would allow for visual inspection of the body without disrupting trace evidence.
He didn’t see a casing on the carpet and kicked it out of place. Remember: you only get one shot at a crime scene. Once something is moved, you can’t go back. Location is just as important as the piece of evidence itself. In our scenario (taken from a real scene) the victim had been shot by an intruder standing by the closet, but because the detective kicked the casing, that vital bit of evidence’s value is now greatly diminished. That could throw-off the court case, but for writers it’s an opportunity. What if your detective is the killer? His footprints are expected to be at the scene and he can “accidentally” disrupt evidence to protect himself.
When touching the victim, he could have left trace evidence from his own body and clothing behind and he would’ve left fingerprints on the wallet. Gloves, booties, and Tyvek suits are used to prevent scene contamination.
Everyone rushes in to view the victim, but many seasoned investigators don’t because it’s too easy to be distracted by the body and miss important details. The investigator I know starts at the outer perimeter and ends at the body. In one case, she found a critical bit of evidence along the side of a house. The victim was in the kitchen.
Before anything is touched the entire scene is videotaped, photographed, measured, sketched, and documented in detail.

Investigators are real pros at preserving evidence and knowing which items will give them the most information. Did you know that they almost never test pubic hair? They collect it, but in reality hair that falls out usually doesn’t have the root ball needed for DNA testing.

Have you seen TV detectives using a pen to pick up a pistol by the barrel? Wouldn’t happen, folks. Not only is it an exceptionally dangerous method of holding a firearm, you risk disrupting evidence.

Now to the victim. In most cases, the medical examiner takes charge of the body. Once it’s back in the ME’s autopsy room, the full examination begins.

By the way, dental records are only good for confirming a victim’s ID. Think about it. How are you going to find the dentist, who has the records, if you aren’t fairly sure of the victim’s identity? I saw a show where they used a database to ID a victim through dental records. Nope. I promise that the dental x-rays from your last cleaning didn’t automatically go into a national database.

Research is a lot of work. Why not just make it up as you go along? Two reasons: you want your writing to be credible throughout; and you don’t want to reinforce the “CSI effect” and teach jurors at trial to have unrealistic expectations of seeing a Hollywood style show, where everything is tied up neatly. Real crimes and evidence are rarely so tidy.

I hope you find this helpful. For more information, http://www.crime-scene-investigator.net is a great resource. I went through the Citizen Police Academy and have a hands-on approach to research. If you’re interested in doing the same, check with your local police department for this program.

Best of luck with your writing. Maybe next time we can talk about Killers, Cops, and Fire Power.

MARTA SPROUT is an award-winning author. The Saturday Evening Post published her short story, The Latte Alliance, in their anthology “Best Short Stories of 2014 from The Great American Fiction Contest.” Her essays and articles have been published in newspapers and major magazines such as Antiques Magazine. Known for her thrillers, Marta writes full-time, assists the Corpus Christi Police Department with crime-scene, training scenarios, and enjoys kiteboarding, scuba diving, and snow skiing.