Catching Stories That Fall Through The Cracks

By Simon Wood

I like basing my fiction on real events, but headline stories rarely inspire me. They're too public. Too visible. The public is keenly aware of them and by the time they make it into fiction they're blasé. I’m always mining for stories featuring life’s oddities that fly so low under the radar we miss them. The unusual business of buying and selling other people’s life insurance policies was the inspiration for ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN. The suicides of three coworkers sparked WE ALL FALL DOWN.

The odd and obscure play a part in my latest book, TERMINATED, which focuses on workplace violence. In the USA, twenty people will die this week at their place of work at the hands of a violent act. That’s right—twenty people. Some will die as the result of a killer entering a place of work while the others will fall prey to a violent coworker. Either way, that’s a scary statistic. I’m quite glad I work from home where the greatest threat to me is a green cheese sandwich at the back of the fridge that I’ve been too afraid to dispose of.

That statistic wasn’t the inspiration for the book. Instead, the precautions some firms are taking to combat workplace violence is what grabbed my attention. Some firms are employing private security companies to investigate, avert and defuse threats from violent employees. The reason for this is simple—the cost. When you tot up the cost of lawsuits, rehiring, loss of productivity, not to mention the harm done to employees, private security firms are quite a cost effective solution to a potentially dangerous outcome. I couldn’t ignore this wild situation. It had novel written all over it.

And because I’m a devious little so and so, I wasn’t interested in exploring how industry is involving private security firms in their daily affairs (and it has nothing to do with no one willing to talk to me about it). I’m sure I could make a fun story about private security operatives going all out to protect a threatened employee. No, I was more interested in how the best-laid plans can be meant to protect us, but at the end of the day, the only person who can save us is ourselves.

So in TERMINATED, Gwen is the rising star at her firm, but her employee, Stephen Tarbell resents her success along with everything else others achieve in this world. What makes Gwen the focus of Tarbell’s ire is a poor rating on his performance evaluation. The systems in place to protect Gwen fail, forcing her to take matters into her own hands. While this might seem like a minor thing to take umbrage over, it’s not. My research into workplace violence uncovered amazing motives why some coworkers have come to blows. All I can say is watch what you say to the person in the next cubicle. Think about that when you send a snotty email to the guy that snatched your tuna on rye from the staff lunchroom.

So TERMINATED is in the bag and I’m in search of another quirky news story for my next book—and I think I’ve found one. What would you do to keep a wayward spouse in line—and how much would you pay?

Yours with my arms out for the next story to fall,

Simon Wood

ROBERTA: Thanks for a look into your devious mind today Simon! Simon is the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper and We All Fall Down. As Simon Janus, he's the author of The Scrubs and Road Rash. His latest thriller, Terminated, is out in mass paperback. He's standing by for comments and questions!

Another guest hunk, Simon Wood

Jungle Red: We are happy to introduce Friday's guest hunk, Simon Wood. He's an ex-racecar driver, a licensed pilot and an occasional private investigator. He shares his world with his American wife, Julie. Their lives are dominated by a longhaired dachshund and five cats. He's had over 150 stories and articles published. His stories have been included in "Best of" anthologies and he's a frequent contributor to Writer's Digest. He's the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper and We All Fall Down. As Simon Janus, he's the author of The Scrubs and the forthcoming, Road Rash. His latest book is a self-help called, Will Marry for Food, Sex and Laundry, written under the pen name, Simon Oaks. We asked him if he could try to explain the zigzags his path has taken and he agreed! Take it away Simon...

Simon: My latest book is WILL MARRY FOR FOOD, SEX AND LAUNDRY. It’s a love and relationship book which makes it a departure from my usual fare as a thriller and horror writer. Seeing as relationships can be a thrill ride and more than a little scary, it may not be that big a departure.

When it comes to writing, I’m quite gregarious (wrong word). I don’t write what I know. I write what I love and because of that, my writing taste is all over the place. I love writing mysteries, thrillers, horror, supernatural, humor and essays. It was my essays that led to me writing FOOD, SEX AND LAUNDRY. An editor Adam’s Media had been reading my weekly columns over at Murderati.com and contacted me. They'd been looking for someone to write a relationship book but they wanted a different perspective. They wanted someone with a quirky and down to earth viewpoint. I think these traits were supposed to be complementary. Together, we thrashed out an outline for the book and it was off to the races.

The book was a little daunting to write because unlike fiction, I couldn’t make stuff up. But I’m a very empirical person. I blame my engineering background. I needed to collect raw data to make an opinion, so I held a couple of parties for friends and interviewed them on their relationship experiences on various topics. One thing people have no problem discussing is their dating train wrecks. I also looked up a number of studies and surveys on various issues. This gave me everything I needed for the book. Naturally, the book gave me the opportunity to inject my brand of humor into it, something I don’t get to do in my fiction.

I wrote the book under the pen name Simon Oaks, because it doesn’t have a correlation to my novel career or my current readers. This isn’t the first time I’ve written under a pen name. My thrillers and mysteries have been written under my name Simon Wood and I now write horror and fantasy as Simon Janus. The reason for the pen names my writing taste is so far and wide, my readers tend to fall into distinct pockets where there isn’t much in the way of crossover. I don’t make a secret of my identities, but it’s very clear that if someone picks up a Simon Wood book or a Simon Oaks book, they know exactly what they're getting.

Because I love to write and love exploring different types of genres, I wouldn’t be surprised if I pick up a couple other identities along the way. My big hope is that FOOD, SEX AND LAUNDRY will be the platform that will allow me to write some quirky romantic comedies that have been bouncing around in my head.

Yours ever changing,
Simon Wood/Janus/Oaks (delete where applicable)

Jungle Red: Thank you Simon! And since all three of you are here:), we now welcome all kinds of questions--questions about writing mysteries or horror, and of course, marrying for laundry!