Wednesday, May 5, 2021

M. E. Browning on Leaving Things Out


LUCY BURDETTE: I met Micki Browning in March when the Florida Book Awards were announced. She won the silver medal for Shadow Ridge when I won the bronze for THE KEY LIME CRIME. We were honored to appear on a panel together for the Midtown Reader in Tallahassee, and I loved her story, and thought you would too! Welcome Micki!


M.E. (Micki) Browning:  I have a penchant for creating characters who are considerably smarter than I am. On the plus side, it’s improved my research skills, satisfies my hunger to learn new things, and taught me to recognize what information to leave out. That last lesson was the most difficult one for me to master, in part because I didn’t initially recognize it was a problem—and not only a problem, but a symptom of a larger issue. To become the writer I wanted to be, I had to first decompress from the job I once held.

As a new writer, I thought transitioning from crime fighter to a crime writer would be easy. If you count police reports and grant writing, I was already a paid professional. As for experience, over the course of twenty-two years, I had participated in hundreds of hours of training and amassed a wealth of knowledge and experience. I could cite chapter and verse when it came to the elements required to prove a crime had in fact occurred. I knew my way around a courtroom and understood that a well-written report could keep me out of the courtroom. By the time I retired, I’d attained the rank of captain and was in charge of the administrative division of the agency. 



What I didn’t know was how little that information meant when it came to storytelling. The maxim exhorting wordsmiths to write what they know, while pithy, is somewhat misleading. It’s not what you know but what you leave out that is important. In my quest for accuracy, my first two completed manuscripts were dense with policies, procedures, and minutia. I was so busy educating my readers that I forgot to entertain them. 


It was time to pivot.

After retirement, my husband and I relocated to the Florida Keys. There, I created a character who was a teuthologist—a marine scientist who specialized in the study of octopuses. As a scientist, she possessed the analytical, organizational, and observations skills that would make her a good sleuth. Because the mystery involved a missing person, a detective played a supporting role. Each character saw the role of investigator through a different lens and they both required me to dribble in only the details that were critical to the plot. 

It hadn’t occurred to me before writing this post that my police character played a larger role in the second book in that series. I’d amped up the danger to my protagonist and it was natural that the detective had a more active role. In hindsight, I was flexing new skills and preparing myself to write the story I’d dreamed about creating. 

My first police procedural was my third published novel. All the things I left out made room for deeper characterization and improved pacing. The perspective resulted in a more honest portrayal. The second in the series will launch in October.

I’ve noticed a similar need for distance and perspective while dealing with the tumultuousness of the Year That Shall Not Be Named. At a recent event I was asked if I intended to incorporate the pandemic into my writing. My response? It’s too soon to do it justice—I don’t know what to leave out.


What about your writing? Has there ever been anything you’ve been so close to that it’s impacted your ability to write about it? Are there books that you won't read because they're too close to reality?


M.E. BROWNING served twenty-two years in law enforcement and retired as a captain before turning to a life of crime fiction. Writing as Micki Browning, she penned the Agatha-nominated and award-winning Mer Cavallo mysteries, and her short stories and nonfiction have appeared in anthologies, diving and mystery magazines, and textbooks. As M.E. Browning, she writes the Jo Wyatt Mysteries. The first in the series, Shadow Ridge, was a finalist in the Colorado Book Awards and a silver medalist in the Florida Book Awards. Mercy Creek launches October 2021.



About SHADOW RIDGE:

Death is one click away when a string of murders rocks a small Colorado town in the first mesmerizing novel in M. E. Browning’s A Jo Wyatt Mystery series.

Echo Valley, Colorado, is a place where the natural beauty of a stunning river valley meets a budding hipster urbanity. But when an internet stalker is revealed to be a cold-blooded killer in real life the peaceful community is rocked to its core.

It should have been an open-and-shut case: the suicide of Tye Horton, the designer of a cutting-edge video game. But Detective Jo Wyatt is immediately suspicious of Quinn Kirkwood, who reported the death. When Quinn reveals an internet stalker is terrorizing her, Jo is skeptical. Doubts aside, she delves into the claim and uncovers a link that ties Quinn to a small group of beta-testers who had worked with Horton. When a second member of the group dies in a car accident, Jo’s investigation leads her to the father of a young man who had killed himself a year earlier. But there’s more to this case than a suicide, and as Jo unearths the layers, a more sinister pattern begins to emerge–one driven by desperation, shame, and a single-minded drive for revenge.

Ps from Lucy, sorry about all the type size changes, Blogger would not listen to my suggestions!


60 comments:

  1. This is so interesting, Micki . . . I’d never really thought about what you might need to leave out . . . . I’m looking forward to reading “Shadow Ridge” . . . .

    I can’t say that I’ve ever met a book that I didn’t want to read, although I mostly prefer fiction to reality . . . .

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    1. Thanks for stopping by, Joan! I hope you enjoy Shadow Ridge! I find my reading choices are often aligned with where I am in my own writing. I read a lot of between my writing my own books. I read fiction as a reward and nonfiction for research. I search for multiple primary sources if they are available (it's the historian in me). I have learned to put a book down if it isn't calling to me. That was another difficult lesson.

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  2. I'm definitely not looking to read anything about Covid now. Or possibly ever, although we shall see. I've never seen any of the movies made about 9/11. Not sure if I'm ready for them either, and we are coming up on 20 years.

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    1. Mark, I'm with you. It's going to definitely take some time and distance before I want to read anything about COVID. I recently read The Only Plane in the Sky, an oral history of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff. It was heartbreaking and informative and everything you would expect from the personal recollections of such an event. I was left in awe of the resiliency of humanity. That's where I want to get with COVID. There will be lessons learned that only hindsight can provide, but that doesn't mean I want to read it in my fiction. At least not yet.

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  3. Congratulations on the new series, Micki! Shadow Ridge is waiting on my Kindle. I'm glad you're figuring out what to leave out.

    The books I choose not to read are the ones that scare me too much. I know my hyperactive imagination will keep me scared for long after I stop reading.

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    1. As a very young teen, I read several Stephen King novels back to back. I have a funny story to share the next time we are at a writers conference together about the incident that ended my reading streak. Haunts me to this day!

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    2. Me too Edith, nothing too scary right now!

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  4. Lucy, I actually like how the font sizes increases and/or decreases.

    Micki, I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series. I like the protagonist. It's like that phrase that I'm sure to mess up "have a lot, but leave a little."

    Don't want to read any book where the main or side story is about Covid.

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    1. thanks Dru! What if the story is set so Covid is mentioned as something the characters survived, but did mark the town?

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    2. If it is mentioned as a side note/occurrence, then I won't have a problem reading about it.

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    3. Thank you, Dru! And when you think about it, it's like writing too much description when a single vivid detail is all that's needed. Readers are smart. We want to fill in the blanks.

      I'm sure we'll start seeing social distancing and mask wearing crop up as asides. Or people avoiding the 2020s completely.

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  5. When trying to set up the mythical mystery I would like to write, I find that I have to make sure that I make the main character their own self. When I was first starting out with the idea, I realized I was making the character a heavily fictionalized version of myself. The kind of "hero" I wanted to be when I was 12 and still hoped to fly through the air with the swiftest of ease.

    So leaving the real me out of the writing is the first lesson I had to learn. Next lesson: finding the time to actually write the story.

    I tend to skip over books and movies that are horror related. Most seem to go for the gore over plot. It's boring to me. I mean, how many times can Jason kill the teenagers having sex before someone outside of the Scream franchise catches on?

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    1. Jay, people still ask me if my character, Jo, is me in disguise--simply because we share the same profession. I think there is an assumption with non-writers that writers use all their friends and families in their books. We may use the emotions they evoke, but that's normally as far as it goes.

      When I tried to find time, I never did. Writing is often at the cost of something else. I wish you luck as you create that balance!

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  6. Hi, Micki! Knowing what to leave out. I hadn't thought of it like that but you are so right! As writers, we need the reader to see the tip but not the entire iceberg. For what it's worth, you nailed it in Shadow Ridge. I can't wait to get my hands on the next one!

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    1. Thanks Annette! October seems so far away, but it will be here before I know it!
      I would imagine it's the same in any profession--you do a great job of showing Zoe Chamber's skill as a medic while not allowing it to bog down your pacing! It's the salt adage...a bit is wonderful, but too much ruins the stew.

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  7. Hi, Micki--what ever gave you the idea to write a book with a teuthologist as the main character? That's intriguing.

    I used to read thrillers a lot, but had to stop when certain very popular series turned darker and darker, and "fem jeop" was the main theme every time. I do not want to read about a woman locked in a box, thankyouverymuch. The author is welcome to work out her own demons, but I don't need to be a party to her therapy. Or to pay for it. Oblique references to violence is plenty close for me, especially after this past year. I'm already as raw as I can get.

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    1. My question, too, Karen! "Teuthologist" is a new one for me. Totally intriguing. I hope Micki answers...

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    2. I've been a certified diver since the 1980s, and became a professional divemaster after I retired and was living in Key Largo. I've had a love of the ocean that dates back to my childhood. I even entertained thoughts of pursuing a marine biology degree in college until I realized that biology was truly an integral part of the curriculum (which explains my medieval studies degree). I've always been fascinated by the intelligence of octopuses. After I read the Sy Montgomery's SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS (a National Book Award winner for Non-Fiction), I knew my character had to be a teuthologist. In hindsight, I could not have chosen a better profession for the character --and it made for guilt-free research for me!

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    3. What a great story! And such an original idea--hard to come by these days.

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  8. Hi Micki, welcome to JRW! Shadow Ridge is going onto the TBR list today.

    What to leave out, what a great lesson to learn. It reminds me of an incident in college back in the 60's. I was an English Lit major. When my paper, due the next day (Monday) was typed up, it was 6 pages. The assignment was 3 pages. I actually called the professor at home, the only time ever, and asked if he wanted the long version. He said, "Miss Goldberg, cut it to 3 pages and hand it in Wednesday." The incident has stuck in my brain all these years. It's good to know what to leave out. It's also good to know when to stop talking, when to stop berating a point. I serve on many volunteer committees. My motto is: "Make your point and shut up."

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    1. Judy: I have always that if people on committees thought more before they opened their mouth, they would speak less!

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    2. What a great memory Judy, and such a smart professor. I bet it wasn't easy to cut the words in half. I usually have the opposite problem--too few words and too much assumed.

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    3. Judy, words to live by! I bet by the time you cut and rephrased certain passages, your arguments were much stronger. I love coming across passages in other authors writings that perfectly capture the mood or description because of the specificity of their word choice. It's truly a gift. I hope you enjoy Shadow Ridge!

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    4. Amanda, right you are!!
      Roberta, he was a wonderful professor! The lesson took! It is the opposite of "what more can I say?"
      Micki it is a gift. I sometimes will reread a passage several times when it strikes me that way.

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  9. Micki: I'm happy to meet you and your books here. I'm off to find them for my TBR.

    Less is usually more, but we need to know much more or research significantly more to be able to winnow it down to much less for the receiver of our words.

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    1. Thank you, Amanda! I have to admit that each book I write requires me to dedicate a large chunk of time to research. Occasionally, I find myself in the research trenches too long--and I always know when it happens because I'm reading the same details over and over in different accounts. Usually it's a way for me to indulge my own interests, but a stand-alone I'm currently drafting has a story need that one of the main characters is a cardiothoracic surgeon--which brings deeper meaning to my opening line about writing characters who are considerably smarter than I am!

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  10. Congratulations on your latest release!

    I like slices and dabs of detail, but not a full explanation, distilling a stack of printouts into one or two sentences.

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  11. Thank you, Margaret! There are very few times when a full explanation is warranted. And just because a tidbit is interesting doesn't mean it automatically should have a place in the story. I'm still trying to work in the fact that if an officer is in a vehicle pursuit and doesn't hang up the microphone between transmissions, there is a very real likelihood that the microphone cord will end up wrapped around the steering column... : )

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  12. So wise of you to realize that all that information should INFORM your writing but not bloat it. Readers get upset when a situation in a novel doesn't FEEL authentic, but it's not a plethora (love that word... never use it in a novel!) of insider detail that puts authenticity across. In my writing I tend to err by writing a bit on the spare side. It's a tightrope walk. Big congrats on your new book! I'd love to hear about the research you must have done on octopuses to inform your earlier novel.

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    1. Thank you, Hallie. Reality should never get in the way of a good story. Almost any situation can be tweaked to make it feel authentic. (Look at any crime drama that has instantaneous lab results...we gratefully suspend disbelief in order to move the story.)

      As for octopuses? Lots of time underwater, a couple of fantastic encounters, Sy Montgomery's Soul of an Octopus, plus some great behavioral articles!

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  13. Congratulations, Micki! Shadow Ridge is on my Kindle and queued for the next read. I'm looking forward to it.

    As a former denizen of law firms learning what to leave out is one of the hardest parts of writing. It's difficult to draw the line between what we need to know as writers and what we need to share with readers. Some folks are distracted by the shiny object, for researchers it's all those cool facts that we want to share.

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    1. Kait, you hit it on the head! By golly, if I went to the trouble of learning it, you're going to read about it! Lol. I'm fortunate that I have a couple of incredible critique partners who give me reality checks when I go into the weeds. It was particularly helpful with my earlier diving books. As you know with your diving mysteries, it's really helpful to have a non-diver read it and point out the areas where they either didn't understand it, OR to say, enough, I get it already! I hope you enjoy the read!

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  14. Shadow Ridge is on sale for Kindle today at $1.99. I scooped it up!

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    1. Thank you, Judy! I didn't know the etiquette for announcing this, but Shadow Ridge is an Amazon Monthly Deal for May! All month it's $1.99, so now is definitely the time to scoop! I hope you enjoy it!

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  15. I just finished a draft of the fifth in my Laurel Highland series (out in 2022) and it centers around greyhound racing. I found I had to write in all the details I knew about racing and greyhounds, then cut it out in revision. I want to have some in for background, but I don't want to write a tome on racing.

    You are spot on with COVID. I can't imagine writing about it now and maybe ever.

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    1. You and I are kindred spirits, Liz! I still overwrite the police bits on occasion, but I find the problematic passages jump out at me in revisions. I have a friend who adopted two former racers after Floridians voted to ban racing in the state. What a tough life they had. I can't wait to read what details you left in!

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  16. Shadow Ridge is going right onto my TBR pile, Micki. And, yes, you nailed it. As a former librarian writing an amateur sleuth librarian character, I could seriously get bogged down in the details and write the most boring book ever. The art of leaving out is definitely required!

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    1. Thank you, Jenn! Libraries hold a special place in my heart. As a kid, I practically haunted the local library. I'm sure that's why to this day, I love reading books with librarian characters. And in real life, it only takes the need to hunt down one obscure reference to realize that research librarians are worth their weight in GOLD!

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  17. Can't wait to read your book soon! It's on my WanttoRead list. I love your answer to the question about the pandemic and agree it's just too soon. I won't be including it in my upcoming books either! Great post and good advice today.

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    1. I hope you enjoy it, Kelly! Thank you so much for your kind words. I wish I had concrete how-to advice that resulted in fluff-free manuscripts, but initially, it's a LOT of trial and error. The awareness that it's a problem was my a-ha! moment.

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  18. Micki, Shadow Ridge sounds like a great read--always looking for new (to me) authors. Yesterday on the blog we were also discussing research--and I think you've got it down pat--what to leave out is just as important as what to leave in.

    There are some things I just can't read right now--I tried to read Hamnet--the writing was terrific, but the story broke my heart in the first few pages. In the middle of a pandemic, it was impossible to read about another plague even if it was centuries ago.

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    1. Flora, I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who couldn't finish Hamnet. It's brilliant, and the writing is exquisite, but I just couldn't deal with the plague. I will pick it up again one of these days.

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  19. Shadow Ridge sounds amazing! I enjoy reading a story with authentic details of professions but I don't want to be hit over the head with every last detail of a job. Just one enticing taste at a time, please.

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    1. Pat, may I offer you an amuse-bouche? Lol. I love learning something new when I read fiction--as a bonus. If I NEED to learn something, I'll do my own research.

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  20. I agree, Flora. Timing is everything. There are some calls that I handled as an officer that refused to go quietly into the night and they definitely impacted what I could or couldn't watch/read/enjoy until I'd had a chance to work through them. Sometimes things just hit too close to home.

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  21. I agree with everyone about writing about Covid - at the start of the pandemic, I thought, "Hmm, this is so interesting, wouldn't it make a good backdrop for a mystery?" But at this point, I think we're all so collectively traumatized NO ONE wants to explore it in a novel. I never understood why there was so little contemporaneous fiction set during the Spanish Influenza; now I understand it all too well.

    As for leaving things out of books - yes! Usually a problem with researching something interesting for me. I usually throw way too much into the first draft and then have to whittle it away. There's a certain type of fiction where an extraordinary attention to the details is part of reader expectations: my husband would have been disappointed if the latest Dirk Pitt adventure didn't have three-page long descriptions of each part of the submarine, for instance. But unless you're writing a technothriller, leave it out.

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  22. Congratulations on the book, Micki! I love learning about things in novels, but the details can't overwhelm the story. It's such a fine line. As for Covid, I don't when I'll be ready to read about it--if ever. And I have no idea how I'm going to deal with it in my books!

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    1. Thank you, Deborah. I've decided that for now, I'm taking a hard line; I'm ignoring it. It's what I'd like to do in real life, but can't. I have no desire to read about it, and based on all the responses, I'm definitely not alone. Will I eventually? Maybe. But unlike wanting to write a police procedural, I'm in no hurry to incorporate a pandemic.

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  23. Plus, even if we did want to write about it, it's really hard to suss out the nuances of a stressful event when one's trapped at the center of it. Lucy could weigh in on this with more authority, but the more traumatic the event, the more one's response functions are controlled by the limbic system. It triggers the fight or flight response--and it bulldozes our capability for higher reasoning. We lose all objectivity.

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    1. Sorry, this last comment was in response to Julia...

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  24. Micki, leaving things out of books, not putting everything you know about something into it, struck home with me on another topic. I was in a conversation about people too often saying whatever comes to mind on social media and not showing some restraint and filtering. I said that there were two rules I tried to adhere to on social media, being 1) Don't assume that the person you're talking to doesn't know anything about a topic, and 2) Don't assume that someone wants to hear everything you know. I think this probably applies to the writing of a book, too, although there might be some obscure, esoteric, or arcane topic that needs more description or explanation. And, I just proved that I can really struggle with what to leave out, since I used three words (obscure, esoteric, and arcane) to make sure I had all my bases covered and then turned around and use two words (description and explanation) because, again, wanting to make myself perfectly clear. Jeez, I need to practice what I preach. I can certainly see where you, with all your law enforcement experience, would have trouble wanting to put too much in your writing. Your response to being asked about including the pandemic in your writing was the best I've heard yet. "It’s too soon to do it justice—I don’t know what to leave out." That statement couldn't be more on target.

    Detective Jo Wyatt sounds like a great character, and Shadow Ridge has such an intriguing plot. This book will be going on my TBR and wish lists. Thanks for visiting Jungle Reds today, Micki, and giving us lots to think about on how much is too much.

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    1. You are welcome, it's been my pleasure! As to too many words? That's what first drafts are for! Occasionally, I'll go the other way, and be too sparse. When that happens, my critique partner offers an equally parsimonious response; "huh?" Of course, we're like an old married couple who understands each other perfectly.

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  25. Micki,
    Welcome to Jungle Reds! Your novel sounds intriguing.

    Yes, there have been novels that are too close for comfort that I do not want to read at all. I cannot recall the specifics.

    Diana

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  26. SO late today! ANd Micki, congratulations--I am SUCH a fan. Leaving stuff out? Oh, yes, I am the queen of cutting. I tend to put what's called "articulated ruminations"--which are basically someone thinking about something. Often a series of questions: But why would she do that? What was she thinking? Why would he go there? I totally understand it's really ME trying to figure out what happens next, not the protagonist. But I leave them in as I go--than slash them out later.
    ANd hey--welcome welcome! xooxo

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    1. Thanks, Hank! Yeah, I'm guilty of the articulated ruminations, and if I ask one, I ask about six at a time. In revisions, I do an actual pass searching for questions marks!

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  27. Your books sound fascinating, Micki! And yes, storytelling is its own adventure.

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  28. Some of what a particular reader wants left out is dependent on their own life experiences, so I'd bet other than a few universal things (9/11, COVID, Vietnam) there won't be a consensus. In my particular case, I have seen enough real life grim events that I don't read books with extensive detailed graphic violence, overkill sex descriptions, focus on animal cruelty, etc. Fine for anyone who isn't bothered as much as I am, but I read more to forget real life. Bring on all the historical details, locale research, and character color - I love it!

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    1. I'd take it a step further, and say that even the topics you mention wouldn't result in a consensus. But we all have our preferences and gravitate toward works that satisfy a need. I'm with you. I recently read part of a book that was beautifully written but brutal. I've seen too much of that in my career and I set it aside.

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