{"id":22704,"date":"2014-03-13T00:01:52","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T04:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=22704"},"modified":"2014-03-12T20:45:58","modified_gmt":"2014-03-13T00:45:58","slug":"chris-irvin-five-things-i-learned-writing-federales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2014\/03\/13\/chris-irvin-five-things-i-learned-writing-federales\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Irvin: Five Things I Learned Writing Federales"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mexican Federal Agent Marcos Camarena dedicated his life to the job. But in a country where white knights die meaningless deaths, martyred in a hole with fifty other headless bodies in the desert, corruption is not an attribute but a scale; no longer a stigma but the status quo. When Marcos\u2019s life is threatened, he leaves law enforcement and his life in Mexico City behind for a coastal resort town\u2014until an old friend asks him to look after an outspoken politician, a woman who knows cartel violence all too well. Despite his best efforts, Marcos can\u2019t find it in his heart to refuse, and soon finds himself isolated on the political front lines of the war on drugs.<\/em><\/p>\n

Write to find your voice.<\/h2>\n

I read a lot of fiction. Between books and short stories the word count can, at times, become ridiculous to the point that my brain can\u2019t retain it all and I have to take a day or two to reflect and decompress. Reading is important, as they say, to the development of a writer. It\u2019s true and unfortunate for a lot of writers that reading is the first activity to feel the squeeze when more is added to the already full plate of family, work, friends, writing, etc. Such is life, even for those of us who cut sleep to the bone.<\/p>\n

But I think even more important \u2013 as such wise sages as Joe R. Lansdale and Chuck Wendig will also tell you \u2013 is to get your ass in the seat, buckle down and write. Every day. Every other day. Whatever \u2013 you make the goal. I wrote my first novel in mid-2012. Thought I could surpass my fellow first novelists\u2019 problems (too long, too short, too fat, too skinny, you name it) and plot-wise promptly ended up with everything AND the kitchen sink. But it\u2019s my first novel and it rocks so let\u2019s kick it to agents, shall we? Crickets.<\/p>\n

I received one piece of feedback from a respected agent that drove me on. To summarize: This is good, but it\u2019s not you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not you.<\/em><\/p>\n

Damn, right? But I continued to write, almost every day, and I think over the past eighteen months between Federales<\/em> and a range of short stories, I\u2019ve found my voice. Is it good? Who knows, that\u2019s for the reader to judge. Will it evolve? Yes, I\u2019m learning more every day. But it\u2019s me. Thinking about it didn\u2019t get me there, writing did.<\/p>\n

Less is More.<\/h2>\n

With finding my voice came a discovery of my style \u2013 less is more. I don\u2019t mean \u201cminimalism\u201d and don\u2019t get me wrong: I love a gritty crime novel stuffed with violence and action, even \u2018forget reloading\u2019 over-the-top action. But it\u2019s not me. I\u2019ve tried (and will again) with short fiction but when I sit back and take it all in, I always seem to find a slow burn staring back at me.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s in my DNA. I\u2019m certain it\u2019s the kind of books and television I enjoy. True Detective, Drive, Memories of Murder, The Wrestler, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Queenpin<\/em> by Megan Abbott, Battleborn<\/em> by Claire Vaye Watkins, In a Lonely Place<\/em> by Dorothy B. Hughes, \u201cA Good Man is Hard to Find\u201d by Flannery O\u2019Conner. I\u2019m inspired by the likes of these works daily. The way a story can hinge on one action, one scene, burning an image into your mind. Something as subtle as the significance of a dress hanging in a closet, or a character\u2019s grim determination hinting at stubbornness that you know can only lead down a dark road. What\u2019s said and more importantly, what isn\u2019t said. The impact of each heightened by the subdued surroundings where they might otherwise be lost amid the static.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s the slow burn mentality so rooted in the history of the noir subgenre (at least with Cain and Hughes) that rings with me. The underdogs and their irrational hope in the face of almost certain failure. Here, I think, I\u2019ve found where I fit.<\/p>\n

It has a name: Hamartia.<\/em><\/h2>\n

The classical Greek term for the hero\u2019s \u201ctragic flaw.\u201d The downfall of the White Knight. Despite a character\u2019s best efforts at becoming cynical and immune to his sympathies for others, he remains devoted to The Right Thing. He tries to do X, but his actions have the opposite effect, resulting in the ultimate tragedy that is his disastrous fate.<\/p>\n

An idea I subconsciously knew, but hadn\u2019t fully wrapped my arms around.\u00a0 Thanks to my man, Bracken MacLeod<\/a>, for the lesson.<\/p>\n

Researching Mexico, noir central.<\/h2>\n

Politics and Spring Break aside, the country of Mexico is largely out of sight, out of mind for Americans. The goods come in, the goods go out. Drugs come in, money goes out. And I heard there\u2019s violence, right? Lots of violence. But not in my neighborhood.<\/p>\n

The violence in Mexico is extreme. Estimates of the number of people killed in drug-related violence since 2006 hover around 60,000. But what I find even more chilling is the threat of violence. Can you imagine police in the United States (I use the U.S. as an example because it is where I live, but take your pick of the First World) covering their face during an arrest, at a crime scene or press conference for fear of being recognized and putting their friends and family in the cross hairs of retaliation? Can you imagine paramedics waiting for a victim of a shooting to die before providing aid, because his survival means their deaths? Or thousands of armed vigilantes patrolling a state, complete with sandbag bunkers and checkpoints, because the police, or in this case, the military, have failed to bring law and order to their lives? It\u2019s not just the stuff of fiction.<\/p>\n

Love to write? Love to edit.<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve found most of the writers I know fall into one of two camps: Those that love the draft (crank it out, it\u2019s shit anyway) and the meticulous editor. I fall into the latter category, sometimes to the extreme, especially while writing short stories. I find a first draft can be downright frightening at times. At the start of my current WIP novel, I sat writing and rewriting and rewriting the first sentence for an hour before I just gave up and moved on. Just last week I put out a meager 400 words in three hours because I was afraid of the garbage that would spill out. But that\u2019s what a first draft is, right? Garbage. So you just have to power through and get it all down on the page.<\/p>\n

While I find it satisfying to finish a writing session with a solid word count, it doesn\u2019t compare to the high of the editorial process. Spending a morning revisiting a chapter, playing with sentences, adding key details here and there. Moving on to the next chapter knowing (hoping?) you\u2019ve got something great that you can pass on to your writing group\/spouse\/editor\/etc. for further critique. There\u2019s nothing better in the writing process than that, for me.<\/p>\n

Christopher Irvin:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Website<\/strong><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>|<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Twitter<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Federales<\/em><\/strong>:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Amazon<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mexican Federal Agent Marcos Camarena dedicated his life to the job. But in a country where white knights die meaningless deaths, martyred in a hole with fifty other headless bodies in the desert, corruption is not an attribute but a scale; no longer a stigma but the status quo. When Marcos\u2019s life is threatened, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-5Uc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22704"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22707,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22704\/revisions\/22707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}