Ides of March

March 15^th is identified in ancient Roman history as the Ides of March. The original significance of that date is that it identifies the middle of the month.  Of the ten months that made up the first Roman calendar, each one had a middle date called the ides. The 15^th day of March is recognized now because the Roman leader Julius Caesar was assassinated on that date in 44 BC.

Caesar was a war hero, a genius in military strategy, a winning politician, a charismatic communicator, an intellectual, and an historian.  He also was a ruthless leader, a murderer, a liar, an egomaniac, and a sexually prolific man who bedded many women in spite of their or his marital status.

He was stabbed to death on the notorious date by members of the Roman Senate. The 60 members of the Senate unanimously agreed that Caesar must die. They feared his growing power, influences and well known goal to become emperor and king of the Roman Empire.

On the morning of the March Ides, Caesar was walking to the Senate building with his trusted friend Mark Anthony. One of the conspirators stopped Anthony to separate him from Caesar and to clear the way for the slaying.

Bust of Caesar

Tradition indicates that some time during his walk to a meeting in the Senate, Caesar confronted a soothsayer (fortune teller) who previously warned Caesar to “Beware the Ides of March." That phrase is a figure of speech that’s been used more than 2,000 years after the killing of Caesar to warn of impending trouble and tragedy.

Caesar belittles the soothsayer’s prediction and says nothing that day has shown any problems. The soothsayer shoots back with a comment that the day is not yet over.

When he walks into the building, Caesar stops at the statue of Pompey. That’s where he is first attacked from behind.  The Senators swarm to stab Caesar, and they move back to allow their colleagues a chance to stick their daggers into him.  He falls and endures the attack for a few minutes as he pulls out several of the knives. Reliable historical accounts mention Caesar suffered 23 to 30 stab wounds before he died at the foot of the statue.

Not every conspirator could get close enough to use his knife. The scene resembled a blood lust of animals killing prey. Some of the knife welding assassins suffered superficial wounds during the bloody frenzy. All the senators were charged with the murder whether they actually stabbed the Roman leader or not.

The statue of Pompey was erected a few feet outside the senate chamber by Caesar’s own decree. Pompey and Caesar were once close allies before they had a falling out, and Pompey was killed during a campaign in Egypt. Caesar never lost his respect and admiration of Pompey. The senators planned to kill Caesar in front of the statue to avoid desecrating the Senate Chamber.

Caesar is assassinated in front of the statue of Pompey.

Four years before his death, Caesar travelled to Alexandria, Egypt. He went there to establish a military presence in the country that was conquered by Rome. During a stay of several months, Caesar met Cleopatra who was a member of the royal family of Egypt. Cleopatra wasn’t Egyptian. Her relatives were part of the Ptolemy (TOL-e-me) family that were Greek and direct descendants of Alexander the Great.

The 21-year-old Cleopatra was Egypt’s current pharaoh, but internal family fights with her brother and sister convinced the queen that her life was in jeopardy. She made a move to become politically attached and protected by the then 52-year-old Caesar. An intelligent woman who spoke several languages and who understood the vanity of powerful men such as Caesar, she used her sex appeal to seduce the Roman general.

Nine months after the two leaders met, Cleopatra presented Caesar with a baby boy. The child pleased Caesar and fed his enormous ego in showing the world he was sexually potent.  He eventually presented the Egyptian Queen to the people of Rome. His wife was the daughter of an aristocrat, and the scandal with Cleopatra was even worse in the eyes of the senators when he presented the Egyptian and her son with high honors. 

It was a tradition in Rome that the leader of a vanquished country would be chained and dragged behind the chariot of the general in charge of the campaign during a victory parade in Rome. Caesar not only elevated Cleopatra’s position, he also presented her as his queen with his son. The senators felt insulted by his actions.

Caesar showed his genius during all the turmoil he created in Rome.  While living in Cleopatra’s country, Caesar met a brilliant Egyptian astronomer and mathematician. The two of them worked out the need of a leap year to accommodate Caesar’s concept of a 12-month year that consisted of 365.25 days. The assassinated Roman left his mark on the most accurate calendar of its day.

Caesar almost got it right with the 12-month calendar that drifted three days every 60 years. This reoccurring error was significant since the calendar was dependent on the seasons.  In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII modified the calendar close to the one we have today by dropping 10 days off that year. On September 2, 1752, the next 12 days were dropped from that month to give us the accurate calendar we use now.

Bust of Cleopatra

Cleopatra demonstrated the modern method of match making.  She understood that similar interests and personalities are what count in attracting a mate. This is what online dating websites emphasize in helping men and woman attract mates. Opposites don’t attract when love is concerned. Cleopatra understood that being similar or making herself appear similar to the men she wanted to influence is what worked.

The Egyptian queen used her sex and personality to attract Mark Anthony who replaced Caesar as the main leader of Rome. That union was passionate and resulted in at least three children. However, Anthony followed Caesar’s bad example of thinking he was above the rules of Rome.  The love affair ended tragically and makes for interesting reading.

This week’s blog is different from the usually instructional post given here. I hope you enjoyed the information and will visit us next time. See my web page at www.joevlatino.com. 

Use Dialogue Tags Sparingly

Narrative tells the story. The words (dialogue) your characters use drive the story forward. Dialogue is the poetry of your prose. 

Keeping the identities of the characters clear can be distracting if tags are used too frequently.  Tags are the “he said,” “she said” used to identify who is talking. Tags don’t have to be used in each quoted sentence. In fact, the less you use tags the better. Don’t be hesitant to use said when clarity is needed.

Dialogue can become stilted. Make it sound natural. A good test in making sure the words sound natural is to read the passages out loud.

Characters will identify themselves with their voice. That’s what we call the way a character speaks.  Each person in the story needs to have his and her own distinct voice that can be recognized in the character's manner of speaking.  Character identification can come from distinct patterns such as using too many contractions, incorrect grammar, accent and personal buzz phrases.

Here is an example of avoiding tags in an excerpt from my short story “Two Cents Worth.” It’s part of my soon- to- be published second book of short stories.

In this example, Mark is the manager of a used clothing/furniture store. He is talking with a distraught woman who pushes her way into the store before opening time. She is desperate to find a valuable pair of pants that someone donated by mistake.

    “Let me in, please. It was a mistake. I need them pants back.” She hit the glass with her hands when she spoke.      

     “It was my housekeeper. She put them pants in a pile. She said your truck took everything yesterday. I got to have them back."

         

     Mark stood near the doors and flinched each time she hit the glass.

     “We don’t open for another twenty-five minutes. You can be the first one in, but you have to wait."

   

     “Please, please let me in now. I need to find them.  The housekeeper made a mistake.”

This example doesn’t use a tag at all.  The woman’s poor grammar makes her identity obvious when she and Mark are speaking back and forth.

Action identifies a character. Mark comes to the glass doors. It’s obvious he is the character who speaks next. This shows the narrative working with dialogue.

Speech patterns and buzz words can also identify characters. Billy is a character in another short story from my new book. In “Deliberate Impulse” Billy shows his distinctive speech pattern while he’s talking to Susan.

     “Oh, yeah.  I see what you’re saying, Susan.  Sure, sure, sure.”

Billy reacts to a question from a medical examiner at a morgue.

     “We’ve concluded something about the size of the killer. Care to give me your opinion, Billy?”

     “Sure, sure, sure. He’s much shorter than the victim.  Those lower stab wounds in her waist and hips indicate the killer couldn't reach high enough to stab her in her neck at first." 

Billy’s quirky speech habits make it easy to know he is talking without using any tags.

Nobody knows your characters as well as you do. As you write your stories, the characters will talk to you. That allows you to help them change and develop as the story continues.

Thanks for reading this blog. In the next several weeks I’ll post samples of the new book as the stories develop.  You can view my web site at www.joevlatino.com.   

Build Your Platform, No Wood Needed

An annual book fair called Book ‘Em North Carolina brought more than 75 authors and publishers together February 22, 2014, in Lumberton, NC at Robeson Community College. I attended the conference and attended presentations by experts in writing and publishing. A subject discussed often by several of the participants on different panels was the need to build a platform.

This platform is not a raised area that’s higher above the floor level. It’s not a type of shoe. It’s not a list of principles used by a political party. It’s not a part of a deck attached to a house. The platform that authors need is a combination of methods to publicize their books. It’s advertising.

Social media are ideal methods of creating an author’s platform. The sites most often mentioned at seminars are Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Linkedin and Pinterest. These are only a few of the social networks available, and more are appearing all the time.

The sites are similar to each other in the ways you can publicize your books, stories and yourself. Presenters at this recent conference mentioned that you should use only sites you appreciate and use comfortably. Otherwise your efforts will appear strained.  

One participant at the conference talked about the need to use a blog and a website.  Once you generate some interest in your writing, a website and blog tie it together by offering ways to buy your book. The same author mentioned she often hears from budding writers that the creative part is what they want to do. Selling their books is not fun, they say. Well, talking about you book is both fun and interesting to your audience. Promotion is a natural sequence to writing short stories and books.

Offering a sample of your book on a website is an effective way of creating interest about your work. It will stretch your creativity and offer you feedback from your readers. Most importantly, you will sell more books. I rotate samples of my book, “The Device”, on my personal website in an effort to share my writing with site visitors.

Successful writers mentioned the advantage, some call it a need, of a website and blog to tease readers about a book that is not ready for print. Writers plant seeds about their upcoming books months ahead of time. This is when a sample of a short story or an interesting section of your novel will encourage readers to look for the book after you offer it for sale. Obviously, a site such a Facebook can go a long way to publicize an upcoming book.

This publicity, called advertising, is often required by publishers. After submitting your work to a publishing house, the exciting callback from the publisher often includes a question about how you will help in the advertising. Publishers want us to be responsible for part of the promotion of the book by using websites, blogs and social media sites.

Building your platform is necessary and fun. The best part is that you won’t need wood or nails to build it. I promise you won’t hit your fingers with a hammer.

I briefly touched on the changes in the publishing industry though this is a complex subject to explore in a future blog. Check my website at www.joevlatino.com. Thanks for your attention and keep writing.

Use Backstory, Not Prologue

This blog gives authors information to help them write better short stories. Readers of fiction can use this information to help them enjoy this art form.

Grabbing your readers’ interests at the beginning of your story is critical. If the story gets bogged down by too much explanation before action takes over, the reader will say “ho hum” and put the book down. Boring exposition is the result of a prologue. It’s an introduction or preface to the story that is about to begin. A prologue gives a narrative about the protagonist and background about main characters. For short stories, this is a waste of space, and it distracts the reader.

Short story writers weave a backstory into the plot to add some history to the main character. These stories usually have one main character or two at the most. Flashback, the main plot development technique used in short stories, works with the backstory to give the reader the character’s history with a minimum amount of words.

Your short story needs to start with action to identify character, one of the five elements of a story. The backstory then develops the other four necessary elements of motivation, conflict, change and resolution. You can read about these five necessary parts of the story in my blog dated January 25, 2014.

The short story “Sticks and Stones” uses backstory to move the plot. It’s in my book of short stories “The Device” that was published in 2013.

“Sticks and Stones” starts immediately in the middle of action that gives us location and one of the main characters of the story. A hired killer surprises a bar owner after closing time.  The owner co-operates with the armed man who is there to rob the bar, he thinks. The owner finds out he was condemned to be killed for not obeying the local mob’s extortion demands.

Phil, the bar owner, promises he will pay the extortion money as he begs for mercy. The hired killer responds calmly: “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. I’ve enjoyed our conversation. I’ll make it quick and painless.”

The backstory begins to reveal the killer’s history. We learn he is very proficient at his gruesome profession. He even perfected a technique of keeping his pistol quiet when it’s fired.

“The small-caliber gun made very little noise. Phil’s head served as a silencer. The stranger was smiling as he picked up the two small casings and put them into his pocket.”

The story gives the reader background about the killer by showing, not telling. That’s necessary in any story. I’m using two more characters in “Sticks and Stones” as examples.

One character is Susan Thompson, a licensed investigator. She has a backstory that explains her short career as a police officer. Her interesting tale is dominated by her unusual physical condition. The backstory shows that she was wounded during a police shootout during a convenience store robbery. She survived a bullet that went into her heart.

Susan’s client asks her about the incident that resulted in her being wounded before she retired from being a police officer: “I was shot in the heart during a convenience store robbery. My partner was killed. The doctors decided to leave the bullet alone. It’s still in me.”

Susan’s good friend and counselor, psychiatrist Dr. Johns, describes the story about the killer who is now her patient. Dr. Johns shows the relevant facts about the killer and helps to advance the plot.

Using backstory and flashback made this action story flow and stay short at 24 pages. Prologues are unnecessary writing tools that only make a story slow at its most important part—the beginning. Using the cumbersome technique of a prologue will drive off readers and, worst of all, editors who might buy our stories.

Thank you for reading this blog. A new one will be posted in about one week. My web page at www.joevlatino.com has information about “The Device.” 

Vowels and Consonants

This blog provides information to help authors write better short stories. Fans of fiction can use this information to help them increase their understanding of this art form.

“The alphabet is made of vowels and consonants. The vowels are A E I O U and sometimes Y. All the rest of the letters are called consonants.”

This is my best recollection of a lesson given to my first grade class in 1952. The teacher was Sister Mary Denise. I was six years old. Our teaching nun used repetitive drills and flash cards to teach us reading and language skills.

I remember watching our teacher at the front of the class as she showed us different words on five by seven cards and telling us to “sound it out.” She dominated the room in her black-and-white habit that included a coif (tight fitting cap) and veil. Picture the nuns in “The Sound of Music” for a visual.

Naming the vowels and consonants was simple enough, but I was always at a loss why the letter Y was only sometimes a vowel. Also, it was many years later that I learned the specific use of the two types of letters.

I personally feel Y is a vowel most of the time.  It carries an I sound into words that don’t have another vowel. Examples are my, why, try and shy.  An exception is the word gypsy that doesn’t have an I sound and uses two Ys, both vowels. The letter Y is all over the place as a vowel. We need to identify it in the list of vowels as usually Y, not sometimes Y.

In its use as a consonant, letter Y starts or ends a word as in the few examples of yes, young and yoke.  The twenty-six letters of our alphabet put vowels and consonants together to create the sounds of our English words. They work differently to create the sounds of our words.

A consonant sound is produced by a partial or complete obstruction of the air stream from our lungs into our mouths. A vowel sound comes from the open configuration of the vocal tract.

Every word in English must have at least one vowel to produce the sounds of our words. Consonants guide us to use our lips to create explosive sounds such as P and B. Our teeth and tongue make the consonant sounds of S and F.  The many combinations of consonants and vowels make the sounds of our English language, according to Sister Mary Denise.

Here is an interesting fact about the number of letters our language uses that Sister Denise never mentioned. Our alphabet consisted of twenty-four letters for more than 700 years after the Roman Empire created it. In approximately 100 AD, the letters Y and Z were added from the Athenian Greek alphabet. That allowed bringing more Greek words into the Roman language.

I want to single out the importance of two more letters—S and X, both consonants.  More English words begin with the letter S than any other word. Conversely, the letter X begins the fewest number of English words.

This blog includes components of our language that I could expand to many pages. As authors, it’s important we explore our words and always keep learning about our craft of communication through creative fiction. 

Thank you for reading this blog. Another one will appear here in about a week. Until then, visit my web page at www.joevlatino.com