Essay Online

My publishing journey has been unusual enough that friends and publicists alike have suggested I write about it, especially the part about being a man writing love stories in a woman’s genre. But it’s not just the genre. The whole publishing and agency world I encountered was dominated by women. Sound interesting enough? Okay. There’s just one little hitch. Now that I’m sitting in front of the keyboard, I find that there’s not much to tell that’s dramatic. Most of the women editors treated me fairly, and I worked well with the ones who gave me room to turn in.

If anything, being a man may have given me a certain advantage, you know, from a novelty standpoint. Not only was I a male engineer (of all things!), with no detectable writing credentials, daring to show up with a love story, but I was touting it as a love story unlike any other, one written of love at a higher level. Well, at least it made them look up from their keyboards. Even from clear across the Internet’s vast ether, I could feel their skeptical smiles.

I did have advantages related to temperament. Women have always been my epitome of beauty, and I have long admired the feminine spirit and disposition, the nobility of her biological calling, the sophistication of her romantic instinct. As a result, I have always worked well with women. Plus I am grateful. Everything I ever learned about romantic love at a higher level I learned from a woman.

The other advantage I had was acquired: I had studied love stories for decades and I knew the intricacies and jargon of the genre. At one point, an editor who was intrigued by my sample chapters started an e-mail conversation that escalated to a phone discussion. I knew this was curiosity bringing opportunity to my door. She was a Romance novelist as well as a Romance editor, so I was nervous as I dialed her office number. I could tell that she was surprised then delighted to meet a man who could discuss nuances of love story plot and characterization ranging from risk factors in portraying heroines as less than physically perfect, to pet theories for best lead up to denouement. I knew before the conversation was over that she would offer a contract. Not only did I address some reservations she had about my characters, but I had done so in the professional jargon she knew. As a result, she knew she could work with me for the editorial portion of the project.

With all this said, let me offer an opinion based on what I experienced. To the question about whether the bar is higher for a man writing in this genre, I would say yes, at least in a certain sense. If you are a man who writes mediocre romances, then I think it will be harder for you to get published than a mediocre woman writer. But if you are a man producing material that matches the top ten percent of the genre, then the reservations that woman editors naturally have about you won’t matter. You will get the consideration you deserve. Know the audience you are targeting. That counts for a lot. And be sure you can defend the theory you have chosen for how you spun your characters and how you wove your plot.

You must be prepared to work always without applause. - Ernest Hemingway

Much of the wisdom available from established authors may be surprising in it’s honesty and straightforward nature. The reason this is likely true is the authors in question have had enough success that there is no need to candy coat the truths they have discovered in their experience. This is the final article in this series.

On Learning the Art of Writing

I learned to write by listening to people talk. I still feel that the best of my writing comes from having heard rather than having read. - Gayl Jones

You have to protect your writing time. You have to protect it to the death. - William Goldman

By writing much, one learns to write well. - Robert Southey

To produce a mighty work, you must choose a mighty theme. - Herman Melville

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. - Robert Frost

A writer’s job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories. - John Irving

Plot springs from character…. I’ve always sort of believed that these people inside me — these characters — know who they are and what they’re about and what happens, and they need me to help get it down on paper because they don’t type. - Anne Lamott

In your writing, be strong, defiant, forbearing. Have a point to make and write to it. Dare to say what you want most to say, and say it as plainly as you can. Whether or not you write well, write bravely. - Bill Stout

Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are. - Rod Serling

If the stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. - Barry Lopez

Write about it by day, and dream about it by night. - E. B. White

Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others. - Marianne Moore

On Humor

When in doubt have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand. - Raymond Chandler

The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it. - Mark Twain

On Naming Your Work

A good title should be like a good metaphor. It should intrigue without being too baffling or too obvious. - Walker Percy

The title to a work of writing is like a house’s front porch…. It should invite you to come on in. - Angela Giles Klocke

I hope you catch the sense that successful authors draw from the real stuff of life, keep things simple and well told. If you look closely, these authors keep a sense of humor about them and remain personable. These are admirable lessons to consider in your writing journey.

Creating a printed book is a bit more complicated than creating a PDF eBook. More steps are involved, just by right of producing a tangible finished product that needs to be handled in the physical world (versus an electronic document that can be distributed by e-mail or online). The basic print publishing process for a print-on-demand publishing cycle for a book that will be sold online through the print-on-demand vendor’s website (and/or other online booksellers like Amazon) breaks down as follows:

1. Complete your manuscript

2. Develop your cover concept (and do a trial run of a cover)

3. Format your manuscript for printing (the final product is called a “galley”)

4. Complete your cover artwork (and proof it with trial runs of a cover)

5. Put your galley and artwork together

6. Create marketing collateral, press releases, etc.

7. Publish!

8. Receive hard copies of your book and send out review copies to press

9. Send out press releases and place advertising and line up interviews

10.Continue the marketing cycle to keep your book in the press

11. Track your sales and order more books for more publicity

I recommend printing out this list and using it as a project plan for your print publishing. And fill in the blanks in the process, where you know there are more steps involved in your own personal experience. Or follow the sample project plan immediately following this section. Having a checklist to follow can simplify what can be a complicated and sometimes confusing process.

Now, one thing you may notice, is that I have listed marketing after the actual publication of your book. I strongly recommend waiting till you have a finished, published book in hand, before you start sending out press releases and generating interest. I’ve had international press people contact me within 24 hours of sending out my press materials, but I had no hard copies in hand to send to them, so that pretty much derailed the opportunity I’d created for myself.

In the traditional publishing world, it’s customary to publicize a printed book at least three months in advance of publication. This gives the press time to review bound galleys and work your publicity into their own production schedules. Now, for traditional publishers who have full staffs and plenty of money and connections and the machinery for publishing, that’s fine. They can pretty much guarantee that a book will come out exactly the way they say it will, exactly when they way it will. But when you’re on your own, it’s a different story. Anything could happen along the way. You could experience delays with the printer. You could experience personal complications. You could find yourself stalled by artwork that didn’t come out the way you wanted… any number of things can go wrong, when you’re on your own.

So, it’s prudent to be a bit more conservative about marketing a book you’re working on. Even if you’re 100% absolutely positively unwaveringly convinced that your book will come out in three weeks, anything can happen in that time, that can hold you up or wreck your carefully laid plans. So, don’t make any promises you can’t keep to the press. It will only work against you.

All this might sound a little daunting, but if you’re reading this, you’re probably an independent type of person, so the inherent risks and dangers will trouble you a lot less than someone who’s never published before and is nervous entering uncharted waters. Certainly, going it alone as an independent print publisher can take a lot more preparation and organization, than operating solely in digital formats. But it’s also very satisfying, to have a book in hand that you can give to friends, families, reviewers, and others who say, “So, you’re a writer?”

And if you format your book well, your work can be indistinguishable from the work of other writers published by mainstream publishing houses. You can get your own ISBN, your own professional-looking cover, a great looking interior, and all the marketing collateral you could ask for… without spending a small fortune. All it takes is determination, the right information, some creative inventiveness, a keen eye for detail, and a willingness to keep going, no matter what.

With a little extra care, some advanced planning, and an eye for detail, you can turn your eBooks or white papers or other digital information products into printed books — and not drive yourself crazy in the process.

Yes folks, it’s the long awaited OJ Simpson confession book! Except that in OJ’s mind it was anything but, he claims it is a fictional account of how we would have done it, if he had done it! I have lots of problems with this book, not least of which is what was going through his sick and twisted mind to want to write the book in the first place. If you are innocent this book makes no sense. And if you are guilty, it makes even less sense, unless you are trying to confess and clear the air. But he plainly says, time and time again that it is fiction.

The good news is that through the intervention of Fred and Kim Goldman OJ Simpson will not see one dime of profits from its sale. The not so good news is that OJ did manage to get the almost $700,000 in advances before the project became public.

Really it is the story behind the book that makes better reading than the book itself. When the Goldman family heard that OJ Simpson was having a book written they moved into high gear to prevent its publication and his ability to profit from the misery. In the 13 years following the guilty verdict Simpson has paid exactly nothing of the money awarded to the Goldman’s. He relocated to Florida to avoid the pesky Californian judgment, and spends a happy life playing golf and who knows what else. The award was somewhere in the 18 million dollar range, with interest that now amount has more than doubled, one report puts it at 39 million dollars.

With ammunition like that the courts sided with the Goldman’s and gave them the rights to the book. Unfortunately there were strings attached, a bankruptcy was involved. And after much soul searching they realized that although they had won, the win came at the great price of now having to publish the book.

The end result, is a book that I am sure OJ hates! Yes his material is included in its unchanged entirety, however it it preceded by some commentary by Fred Goldman, and the actual Ghostwriter Pablo Fenjves. The book is ended by a chapter written by Dominick Dunne.

Let’s take these sections one by one. Fred Goldman explains at length the problems and frustrations his family felt when it became public knowledge that OJ Simpson was planning a tell all book. One article I read claimed that this section was ‘under edited,’ that might be true, but it is also written from the heart. And I will take that every time over the sterile grammatical style favored by many large publishing houses. It worked for me and set the scene well.

The most damning testimony to the guilt and obvious truth to the ‘hypothetical version of events’ comes from Ghostwriter Pablo Fenjves. In a matter of just 20 pages Pablo tells a very interesting side of OJ Simpson. Although I had no doubt of his guilt from the time of the actual 1993 events, Pablo makes a case that is so strong event Judge Ito and that half wit jury would have found OJ guilty.

Next up, is the OJ Simpson text. Pretty much it is a self serving and nauseating piece of garbage. He explains at great length what a nice guy he is, and what a bad person Nicole Brown was. The one chapter of interest is the one detailing the events of the fateful night. With the exception of the ’second man,’ it likely is one of the few factual parts of the entire manuscript.

The final chapter is written by Dominick Dunne. Dominick covered the original trial for Vanity Fair, and became a close friend of the Goldman’s as a result. His is an interesting story, he too lost a child at the hands of a murderer, his daughter was killed, and the killer walked free after only 2

This month, I read two books back to back: Soldier’s Heart by Elizabeth Samet and Punching In by Alex Frankel. Both of these works are an excellent introduction into entry-level corporate culture and leadership development.

Soldier’s Heart is a civilian English professor’s take on the leadership culture of West Point, based on her 10 years experience as a faculty member. Professor Samet is in a rare, but well qualified position to pen Soldier’s Heart. Only a fifth of the academy’s faculty is civilian instructors; the rest are military officers on rotation or “regular Army.” Samet’s academic interest also makes her special; she has studied the dynamic of command and obedience in American literature.

Soldier’s Heart is not the first work about West Point by a soldier or civilian, but it comes from the most interesting perspective: an outside working inside.

Soldier’s Heart has a balanced look at the military culture. Samet writes that no cadet wants to be, in one cadet’s words, a “non-thinking slasher,” someone who would kill for the glory of war, or the sake of killing.

West Point is, and has always been, a literate culture. Classical literature through Armed Forces Editions educates and entertains soldiers in battle, and reinforces American values. She writes of books as weapons to spread ideas, and counter actions meant to curtail freedom. But she also states that tales of war talk of motherhood or a woman’s love for soldiers &ndashbut not a woman’s love for soldiering. There is nothing about motherhood in the military culture, but there is the need to fight for mother.

The professor adds that today’s military culture has conflated military missions with spiritual missions; soldiers become instructed to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith. However, that might be necessary instruction to lead at a time when officers, enlisted and veterans are questioning our nation’s involvement in Iraq, a war that they believe to be unnecessary.

This faith extends to open displays of the Seven Army Values: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage. Soldiers tape the Values to their dog tags. Soldiers also display the Soldier’s Creed, officially posted in 2003:

I will always place the mission first

I will never accept defeat

I will never quit

I will never leave behind a fallen comrade.

The Values and the Creed are possible not only because of the culture, but also because our soldiers are professionals who have chosen to serve. Samet sites one Army study that mentions that professional soldiers still fight for each other, as they did, for example in World War II, but they also accept the responsibility that Army has entrusted to them.

The Army, as an institution, has had mottos and mission statements longer than most American businesses, and has a culture where everyone must live by them. Some of the most successful corporations have copied the military’s strengths&ndash and some of its imperfections. According to two online employment sites, GIJobs and CollegeGrad, 24 of the Top 50 Military Friendly Employers in 2007 also hired 100 or more college graduates for their entry-level positions. It is safe to say that these companies use the same values to develop and retain their entry-level and military transitional hires.

Which brings me to the next question: can those without the military orientation become as successful in these firms as those who have served with honor? The answer, according to Alex Frankel’s Punching In, is sometimes, if you can get along to go along.

Values, missions, attention to detail and duty are part of the dialogue in Punching In, another work where an outsider looks inside, and serves on the front lines of indoctrination into corporate culture.

Frankel worked in entry-level customer service positions at United Parcel Service (UPS), Enterprise Rent-A-Car, The Gap, Starbucks and The Apple Store, took online aptitude tests with two retailers: Best Buy and Home Depot and went through the lengthy interview processes at The Container Store and Whole Foods.

Like the Army, these corporations try to engage and turn their workers into fanatical and loyal employees. Interestingly enough, he refers to front-line workers as the Brand Army of these firms and called UPS the Other Army, because of the company’s esprit de coir and the spit and polish appearance of the front-line workers. Both the Army and UPS do not accept alteration, recreational display or desecration of their uniform.

Frankel respected UPS more than the other organizations, because their workers, especially the drivers, were the most trusted. He adds that this is necessary because UPS workers are all in the field. They can track their locations, but any problems must be solved on route. Each driver and their helper is like a platoon of soldiers; they must follow orders, but they have some lee way in how to execute them.

Frankel did not say the same about the other organizations. For example, he praised Enterprise’s efforts to motivate workers to believe that they can advance from desk clerks to regional managers &ndash though he adds that further advancement is less possible. The company hires approximately 8,000 entry-level employees, although the rest of the work force is no larger.

Frankel shows how Starbucks has become a “third place,” a neighborhood-meeting place away from home and work, but believes this will be a difficult strategy to maintain because of the standardized appearance of the thousands of stores and employees. He considers Apple Stores to be an excellent setting for those who are already fans of the technology; they need little indoctrination and training as well. And he shows The Gap to be little different from other retailers who are loathed by retail workers, a company bent on standards and policies that put store design first, product second, credit card sales third and the employees last.

Like the Army, these organizations have a uniform, policies and shared values, but unlike the Army, they can hire and fire at will. It was interesting that Frankel conveyed the most respect for the organization that was the most like the Army.

Given UPS’ success &ndash the company maintains 80 percent market share against several large competitors, including the U.S. Postal Services &ndash that’s quite a complement for our troops and the men and women who lead them.

Has anyone else noticed a trend of books, both self-published and from commercial publishers, that were originally ebooks and have not completely shaken the unfortunate signs of their origin?

1.Since ebooks can be sold easily at 80-100 pages, but print books cannot, the book version gains length through appendices that take up one-third of the page count. Sometimes the appendices are quite tangential to the main topic, and other times they contain golden information that should have been better integrated with the main content. There’s also padding evident within the book, especially a lot of large illustrations, cartoons or Powerpoint slides that add little to the reader’s learning experience.

2.Because ebooks are often sold with a lot of time-limited bonuses, these books also contain bonuses printed in them &ndash bonuses that have already expired when the book was purchased! This just happened to me with a hardcover 2007 book from John Wiley purchased through Amazon.com - not from some aftermarket source. What were they thinking?!

3.Ebooks, both free and for-fee, often function as a first step in a marketing funnel, with a disproportionate emphasis on moving the reader into the next, higher-priced offering, such as a boot camp or seminar. I’ve read two hardcover books recently that have too prominent and too pushy a pitch for the author’s very expensive seminar. A book should be a self-contained information unit, with other offerings mentioned but not with a hard sell. All promos should be placed after the main text, not within the chapters.

4.It’s common to create and sell or distribute an ebook anthology by asking contributors to send something in on a loosely defined theme and accepting all the contributions, with wildly uneven quality and relevance to one another. If it’s got a salable title, people will buy this sort of thing as a print book also, but reviews will be so-so at best, and the book is destined for a quick death.

5.Above all, laziness abounds. Since most ebooks have a short shelf life, there’s little thought given to making the contents substantive enough to withstand the evolution of the marketplace for a year or two. People who buy books for their personal library don’t want something that will make little sense when they pull a volume down from their shelf in three years’ time.

People can be fooled once, but book lovers won’t buy that author’s “books” again when it’s really an ebook in the trappings of a book &ndash without a book’s soul. Additionally, one of the big benefits for an author of publishing in print is getting books into libraries. Librarians don’t normally purchase books with the above weaknesses.

Want to turn an ebook into a print book that fully works in its new format? Give it depth, organize it well, use quality control if coordinating multiple contributions, make it useful and relevant for years to come, and keep self-promotion low-key. Then you’ll have readers eagerly awaiting your next book &ndash and the next and the next &ndash to add to their personal libraries.

I have lived in New York City my entire life. I often feel privileged to be a part of the energy and magic of this Mecca of celebrity. Under the semi privileged dome of my existence, I encounter the rich and famous at every turn. When I was a teenager, I crossed paths with Jerry Lewis in Times Square and bumped elbows once with Marvin Gaye.

As a passionate college student of Cinema Studies, I dined across the room from Woody Allen and stopped to compliment his latest film. At Caf

Ever had your moral convictions put to the test? Most of us think we know what we’d do in any given situation. But do we really? Maybe another unknown part of us surfaces and takes over&ndashleaving us in a confusion of questions. But the deed is done and we cannot take it back.

This is the predicament, Harry Jenkins, protagonist/lawyer of The Osgoode Trilogy finds himself in, at the beginning of the first novel, Conduct in Question. Harry longs for freedom and love, but has been trapped under his senior partner’s thumb and in a dead marriage for years. He’s always been certain of his own moral convictions, but when his partner drops dead in the office, Harry is free to make his own mistakes.

He and his wife Laura often argue about money.

&ndasha topic fraught with land mines. Her hardened face floated up in his mind.

“Law practice is more than just making money,” Harry had insisted.

“Of course!” she said in wearily impatient tones. “But it certainly doesn’t hurt to set the right value on your services.”

“So I’m not making enough. Is that it?”

“No. But if you didn’t get so personally involved with your clients, maybe you’d do better.”

Harry was astonished. “So I care too much about them? I care about what I’m doing?”… “Clients trust me! I’ve earned that. I can’t turn around and fleece them.”

Although not satisfied with life, Harry&ndash

had learned his lessons well. He had kept his part of the bargain. But where was his reward? Flashy cars and grandiose houses were the supposed perks of his profession. His Ford was surrounded by Audis. Playing by the rules had not gotten him far. Of course, he wasn’t poor. Laura and he were comfortable. Yet, there was a yearning, a sense that the time for making real money was passing. But it wasn’t just the money. A dull emptiness nagged at his spirit.

And so, he is ripe for the picking! Almost immediately, he is swept into a massive money-laundering scheme by the enigmatic Mr. Chin &ndash land developer &ndash thereby putting him in direct conflict with his oldest and wealthiest client, Marjorie Deighton. With Albert Chin’s huge retainer check for work to be done, Harry senses something is amiss. When he deposits the check in the bank, the manager demands he make a payment on his deceased partner’s very substantial and overdue bank loan. Otherwise, he will freeze the Chin money. In a dilemma, Harry is forced to use the Chin retainer to make a payment.

Harry was scrupulous about client funds, and would fret if the bookkeeper missed a penny. Snatching up his check book, he saw in his mind the bright and trusting faces of a hundred clients. He saw those faces turn gray in disbelief when he uncapped his pen.

Petty triumph gleamed in Mudhali’s eyes.

Despite years of circumspection and care, Harry was driven by a new and reckless fury. Either he made a payment, or the bank would freeze his accounts. Mudhali had nailed him to the wall.

Like most of us, Harry is good at justifying his actions.

Albert Chin had said that money was no problem, and after all, there was lots of work in preparing those offers. He would search the titles to the properties, do the corporate searches, and prepare six offers and submit them. Surely that would add up to twenty-five grand. Besides, Chin would not have given him such a munificent retainer had he not expected a sizable bill. And Harry knew that he was not the only lawyer guilty of such an infraction.

What does Harry do? After all, he may be our hero, but he’s a pretty human guy. Despite his instincts and better judgment, he turns a blind eye to obvious signs of danger and accepts Mr. Chin’s gifts.

Harry withdrew two first-class tickets for flights and a voucher for a three-night stay in a luxury suite in Nassau. “The Atlantis Resort,” he whispered. Shimmering blue waters danced before his mind’s eye.

After a moment, he said, “This is more than kind of you, sir, but&ndash”

Mr. Chin held up his hand. “Please. The conglomerate wishes to express its gratitude for your most timely service. We know you have made room for us in your busy schedule.”

“But surely not. The retainer is very substantial, and…” He fingered the brochure, which featured a photograph of sunny beaches and gently lapping water.

And so, much of Conduct in Question is about Harry trying to extricate himself from the clutches of Mr. Chin. But Harry has lots of other problems to contend with when he comes face to face with the nature of evil in tracking down the Florist, a sadistic killer with an artistic flair who believes he is called to judge the worthiness of his victims. But that story is for another day!

Creating characters that are believable takes time and discipline. Creating dynamically real individuals and not imposing your own thoughts and impressions upon them is not easy to do, and is often the difference between a novel or screenplay that sits in a closet and one that finds its way around town and into the hands of audiences. Spending your time building your characters before they enter the world of your story makes the process of writing an easier and more enjoyable ride, and creates a finished product that agents, publishers, producers and readers can truly be excited by.

You must first agree to operate from the understanding that the three-dimensionality of your characters is not created magically. Talent equals discipline multiplied by time and you must practice (daily) the art of developing your characters. As a development executive with LA Film Lab Entertainment (a literary development and production company), I have developed a framework to assist you in creating rich and complex characters. The complexity that you desire comes through 1) labeling their desire essences, 2) labeling their fear essences, 3) getting specific about their past, 4) labeling their behavior, 5) raising their stakes, 6) not meddling in their lives, and 7) letting them play. Asking provoking questions in line with these steps, answering them thoroughly, and then repeating the process, provides constant individual growth in your characters that mirrors life. Now let’s take each step in turn:

1. Label the Desire Essences of each of your main characters: The first key to deepening your work is finding the major motivators in the lives of your characters that drive their actions. We all have deep aspirations that drive our choices, our thoughts, our actions and reactions. These needs are what differentiate us from one another and we will refer to them as “Desire Essences.” Some examples of DESIRE ESSENCES are: the desire to be intellectually brilliant; the desire to be socially famous; the desire to hide from the world; the desire to belong to a group; the desire to be loved; the desire to party; the desire to die.

2. Label the Fear Essences of each of your main characters: What is at the root of each of your characters’ darker sides? For every desire they have they should also exhibit the antithetical fear of failing at that desire. These fears will battle their aspirations for control over their behavior. Labeling and understanding the darker sides of your characters is imperative to creating the dimensional and imperfect characters you are after. Some examples of FEAR ESSENCES are: the fear of being stupid; the fear of being ordinary; the fear of being socially exposed; the fear of being rejected by a group; the fear of being loathed; the fear of being boring; the fear of having to face life.

3. Get specific with your Backstory: Human behavior is made up of a string of moments and reactions to those moments. A character’s current behavior is a battle between fear and desire and their immediate choices are made based on very specific (yet unconscious) experiences from their past &ndash experiences that leave imprints much like DNA. Though your characters should be unconscious of these past experiences that are influencing them, you the writer must create these in your preparation of their backstory be fully aware of them. Here is an example of what won’t benefit you vs. what will when getting specific with backstory:

Bad example of getting specific: Rachel is a pretty girl who thinks she is unattractive. She prefers to live in her books as opposed to being with friends or family. Her father has abused her sexually throughout her youth. She hates attention.

Better example of getting specific: On her graduation day, at a party her Mother is throwing for her, Rachel’s sexually abusive father shows up drunk and congratulates her, hugging her too closely, grabbing her rear end with both hands, and calling her pretty in front of a room full of her friends and family. She runs away humiliated and hides in her room, escaping into one of her fantasy books. That night she moves out to stay with a friend and doesn’t tell her friends where she is going. Two weeks later she finds out through another friend that her father died in a car accident. He had been drunk.

In the better example of getting specific, the reader can have a visceral reaction to the words. This is caused by the detail. The generality of the bad reaction is logical, but lifeless. In the better example it is easy to determine what the essences of our leading lady might be: desire to hide, maybe even desire to die, desire to live in her books, desire to be valued for her intellect instead of her body, fear of loneliness, fear of her appearance, fear of the opposite sex, fear of losing a loved one, fear of being abandoned.

4. Describe their Current Behavior: Take the essences and the specific examples you have now created and determine what kind of behavior your characters might exhibit as a result. Don’t limit yourself with these, but rather excite yourself with the possibilities.

Simple examples from our leading lady - a woman who: hides her body; avoids friends from her past; mistrusts anyone who comments favorably on her appearance; desires to control her education and her intellect; avoids alcohol.

5. Raise the stakes: Emotions are extreme. Play in the realm of this extreme when dealing with the fears and ambitions of your characters. These essences are all encompassing; meaning that we spend our lifetimes with them. Don’t cheat your characters by being afraid to raise the stakes as high as you can. Needing to find a precious stone to sell to an art dealer by midnight to raise the financing to save your character’s mother’s house before the bank takes it away from her tomorrow is exciting! Look back at your own life and think of how seriously you take your essences &ndash when your essences are threatened will you fight to extremes to defend them, just as when they are fulfilled, do you enjoy some of your greatest moments in life? Play in the realm of the extreme. Raise the stakes. Your essences are life and death to you &ndash let them be that way to your characters.

6. Don’t meddle: Of course you might be saying to yourself, “How do I not meddle &ndash I’m the writer!” But a truthful story is going to grow from your willingness to let your characters make their own decisions based on how you have defined them (which after these exercises will be in great depth). As their parent, you have to let your children go; this is the point at which your story truly begins. DO NOT MEDDLE IN THEIR LIVES. Continually remind yourself &ndash it’s not about you. You just serve the story. Let your characters make their own decisions. If you ever find yourself not knowing what decision they might make &ndash question your homework and rework their essences, behaviors and stakes until their choice becomes obvious.

7. Let your characters play: Once you have developed several characters by labeling their essences, getting specific, defining their behavior, and raising the stakes, you are ready to begin to let them interact. It’s like the first day at a new school; ripe with possibility. When properly developed, there is no way to predict how your characters will behave in any given situation, but they are so full of life and their own agendas that they are ready to interact with other characters who have been developed to the same level. If you have done the work to get to this place &ndash this is where your characters will begin to write themselves.

Follow these steps to create the richer characters you want to be writing.

Find the Essences:

To find the essences of your characters, you have to look to their history and their genetics. Just like real people, your characters’ current behavior is defined by their DNA combined with experiences you create in their past. We all have the basic fears and ambitions of survival, shelter, and food, so when working on these essences focus on the ones that really drive each character. Consider ethnicity, religious beliefs, and major life events. Address sex, drugs, music, parents, siblings, education, appearance and intelligence for sure.

Start by writing out twenty DESIRE ESSENCES that feel right for each main character. Then determine one polar opposite of each DESIRE to create your twenty FEAR ESSENCES. Go back and toss the ones that you now feel less attached to. Repeat and refine the process until you have at least ten of each for each character that really excite you.

Get specific about Backstory:

Get specific about how your character’s essences have come to be. Create definitive moments in your characters’ lives that detail when these fears and desires were initiated. Come up with five supporting examples of moments in their lives when each of these essences was tested and eventually vindicated in the name of the fear or in the name of the desire. Failure vindicates the fear and success vindicates the desire. Write at least one half page of text supporting each -Yes that will give you a total of twenty-five pages of essence work. Do the work.

10 Essences (a desire and a fear for each) x 5 samples for each = 50 descriptions (each a half page)

Label the Current Behavior:

Using their essences and their specific past, come up with ten sample behaviors for each character. Simple example: a character who has a desire to hide and a fear of being publicly humiliated, has a specific past incident of continually having their pants pulled down in public by a sibling. The current behavior - they might always wear a belt, or might always look behind themselves in a very specific attempt to never be humiliated again.

Raise the stakes:

After looking over your newly created examples, it should be easy to determine some issues that might be going on in their lives that would increase or decrease their stress. A decrease in stress generally excites people to take greater chances, while an increase in stress tends to shorten people’s fuses.

List five possible increases or decreases in your characters stress level.

Don’t meddle and let them play:

Now put two of your fully developed characters into the same room. Implement two or three increases in stress to one character and two or three decreases in stress to the other character and let them bounce off of one another. Go into this exercise with no preconceived notions of what might happen. If you have done your homework, they should affect one another.*

*If you need a jumpstart &ndash add an element that one needs from the other and give the other a strong reason for not wanting to provide what that character needs. Could be tangible or emotional.

I had no idea that my work on a motion picture would cause a high-profile death penalty case to end up with the California Supreme Court. Jesse James Hollywood had been gone for nearly three years by the time I became involved. He had totally disappeared. Vanished into thin air. And he seemed so completely removed from the writing project I was about to begin.

The FBI and other federal and local law enforcement authorities trails had all but dried up. That’s why the prosecutor assigned to the case, Santa Barbara County Senior Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen, who had also prosecuted Hollywood’s four co-defendants &ndash and a guy named Michael Jackson &ndash agreed to work with us. Mr. Zonen had wanted to create a sort of global wanted poster to see if someone somewhere in the world might be able to ID Hollywood, pick up the phone, and help global law enforcement authorities nab him. Zonen had already worked with the producers from the television show America’s Most Wanted, who featured the fugitive on nine of its shows between 2000 and 2003, and he wanted his man, badly.

Hollywood’s name had become daily fodder for national headlines after word of the murder originally hit in early August of 2000. All the news pundits had named him as the ringleader of a band of middleclass, pot-selling social misfits, and the one responsible for orchestrating the fifteen-year-old’s kidnapping and murder. But no one apparently had a clue as to where he had disappeared to when I took the call from an old buddy who wanted to make a motion picture about the youngest man ever on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

In April of 2003, writer/director Nick Cassavetes and I trekked up north to meet with Mr. Zonen at the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office. Ronald J. Zonen had been Chief Trial Deputy for the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office since 1991. He was an affable man with a smooth demeanor and when we were finished, he gave us several volumes of trial transcripts from Hollywood’s co-defendants, and we left. At the time, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey McGuire were set to produce Alpha Dog, and I had no idea that I’d end up writing a highly controversial novel based on the tragic story, or that I’d end up being a crusader in the battle to save Mr. Hollywood’s life. I was also not prescient enough to envision DiCaprio or McGuire falling off the project, nor Justin Timberlake, Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Anton Yelchin, Emile Hirsch, or Ben Foster climbing on.

After reading through the transcripts that Mr. Zonen had provided, plus others from Hollywood’s co-defendants’ trials and appeals, I realized we did not have enough information to write a truthful story about what had actually taken place. I talked this over with Cassavetes, and we agreed that I should go back to Santa Barbara to get more information from Mr. Zonen. We needed more detail and deeper insight into character and motivation for story purposes. We needed police reports, photographs, witness interviews and much more. And amazingly, we got them. I got Mr. Zonen’s entire file from prosecuting Hollywood’s four co-defendants, including copies of all the videos and audiotapes, the defendants’ confessions, the prosecutor’s trial notebook, the defendants’ psychological records and probation reports, and more. I also arranged to have Mr. Zonen &ndash along with the lead detective working the case &ndash take us up to Lizard’s Mouth, a trailhead located atop the mountains separating Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley, to discuss the murder with us at the very spot where the victim’s body had been discovered in a shallow grave some three years earlier.

This combined with all the information accrued from the interviews Cassavetes and I had conducted enabled me to prepare a 239-page story chronology that I used to help Nick write his screenplay. He went on to direct Alpha Dog and I set out to write my book. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, in March of 2005, after one of the greatest international manhunts in history, Jesse James Hollywood was captured in a Brazilian jungle, and I was about to be thrust into the legal hot seat.

James Blatt is one of America’s most astute criminal defense attorneys. He dresses like a zillion bucks and wears the disarming smile of a ruthless professional. After Jesse Hollywood’s capture, his father, Jack, who was a consultant on Alpha Dog, told Mr. Blatt about all the information I had gathered for the film and book projects; how I had become the world’s leading authority on the case. He thought I might be able to aid Mr. Blatt in trying to save his son’s life. When we met, Blatt questioned me about all the information I had gathered. By the time the meeting ended, the defense attorney appeared quite impressed with what he had heard. Later that summer, he asked me to testify in his client’s death penalty case. He wanted to build a record of all informational exchanges between Mr. Zonen and myself. He wanted to recuse the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office for prosecutorial misconduct for having turned over their file to me.

The only problem with this strategy was that my testimony was needed to do it. Since I was the only one to repeatedly meet with Mr. Zonen, I was the only one who could testify as to what he had given me. I found myself caught in a “Sophie’s Choice” type situation. If I testified, I could help save Jesse James Hollywood from death row. But at the same time, my testimony could be used as the cornerstone for criminal prosecution against Mr. Zonen and his office for what Mr. Blatt termed “illegal misconduct.” Since I’m totally against bringing death to any living being, I wanted to help Mr. Blatt save his client’s life. But on the other hand, Mr. Zonen had been very good to me. He had been totally cooperative in providing us with material for the movie and book. As conflicted as I felt, as much as I wanted to help save Jack Hollywood’s son’s life, I could not be responsible for bringing criminal charges against a man I considered a good friend. So I refused to testify. Ultimately, the California Attorney General agreed not to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Zonen or the DA’s office, and I reversed my position and agreed to testify.

In September 2005, Hollywood’s attorney filed a motion to recuse the entire District Attorney’s office. In support of the motion, Mr. Blatt declared that he had attended “the first and only public screening to date” of Alpha Dog, and that the film portrayed his client “in an extremely inflammatory manner, as extremely manipulative, vicious, selfish, and without any redeeming character traits whatsoever.” He further stated that several of the public movie viewers had described his client as being nothing short of a “monster,” and that at the conclusion of the film, special thanks were given to the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department and to Ron Zonen.

The trial court denied Hollywood’s motion, but ended up ordering me to turn over the notes and tapes from all the interviews I conducted. The defense then appealed the case. In its wisdom, the California Court of Appeal agreed with the defense and, after an evidentiary hearing by the trial court, recused Zonen (but not his entire office) from the case. In his concurring opinion, Justice Gilbert succinctly noted: “However appalling the crime for which defendant was charged, he, like anyone charged with a criminal offense, is entitled to a fair trial with all its attendant constitutional and statutory safeguards.” In this case, the prosecution had fallen short of this requirement.

Every high-profile case carries with it the risk of the prosecutor falling into the trap of cozying up too much with the media. Prosecutors, as well as other law enforcement agencies, often find themselves playing up to the media as if there are two trials to win &ndash the one in the courtroom as well as the one with the court of public opinion. When handling high-profile cases, prosecutors must take to heart the conflict of interest they create when buddying up to the media. They can easily become lost in the quest for personal glory or profit. This appeared to be what happened with the case involving the Duke lacrosse team, where the DA’s pretrial contacts with the media raised questions about his ability to handle the matter fairly, resulting in his recusal. There were similar complaints regarding the prosecution of the Jenna 6 case out of Louisiana.

Prosecutors do not represent clients. Rather, all decisions made in their cases are supposed to center around the best interests of the public. And part of these considerations must be to act responsibly when interacting with the media. There are certain guidelines they must follow to make sure their statements (and actions) do not materially prejudice a legal proceeding. According to the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, prosecutors must make sure their comments do not have a “substantial likelihood of heightened public condemnation of the accused.” They must also be sure to prevent “investigators, law enforcement personnel” and other employees or persons assisting from making such statements to the media.

Prosecutors do, in the alternative, have certain First Amendment rights. However, again, those rights do not go unlimited when dealing with the media in a high-profile case. The prosecutor must still be responsible for pursuing a just result. He or she must act in a manner that puts the public’s interest above that of the individual prosecutor. Thus, their goal must be to make sure that justice is done in all instances, not that they win the case.

In the Hollywood matter, I was afraid that the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s office had lost sight of their responsibilities. They had continuously misrepresented the true facts and the motivations involved in the case to the media, and they seemed totally bent upon demonizing Hollywood and his co-defendants. For all intents and purposes, Hollywood, during his nearly five years of being at large, had been convicted in absentia. I believed there to be no way for him to receive a fair trial. Public sentiment wanted him dead for what they believed he had done. And this was due to the way the prosecutor and associated law enforcement agencies had dealt with the media. They acted as though their only goals were to assure that Jesse James Hollywood was not only captured, but that the public was set up to convict him and sentence him to death. True justice did not seem to be a part of their plan. I felt it my moral responsibility as a fellow human being to do what I could to make sure this did not happen.