Prologues n' Pirates

The other day I swapped prologue drafts with Joylene Butler & we each made comments back & forth. Really cool. Hers is awesome by the way. Some writers & readers dislike them, think they're "info dumps". What do you think?

What if you want to explain how something came to be without interrupting the tone & pace of the main story with an early or midpoint narrative? For BAD LATITUDE I wanted to explain how a certain stash of gold & gemstones came to be hidden in an abandoned burial ground on Rattlesnake Island (a real place 2 miles from my home) so I went back to the 1696 shipwreck of The Reformation, used a real person (Solomon Cresson) & created a "story" mixing fact, fiction, action & a wee bit of tension. Provide the info without being dry - that was the goal anyway.

Prologue - BAD LATITUDE
(1st paragraph - click book pic to read the whole thing from the excerpt)

24 September 1696


There was no escaping the hurricane’s fury. Disaster struck when the center mast snapped, toppling with a thunderous crash as the doomed ship listed hard to port, exposing its massive keel. The hull’s planking splintered inward from the pounding of the raging seas, flooding the cargo holds, forcing the crew and passengers to scramble from the shelter below into the teeth of the violent storm. Solomon Cresson, a stout member of the crew, was the last to climb the twisting ladder to the deck above. With the Captain of the ship missing and presumed lost, Cresson took charge. He shouted above the gale, ordering all aboard to stay with the ship for as long as there was a structure to grasp. The listing vessel was aground in the shallows, beam to sea, being smashed by fierce waves and buffeted by driving winds as the passengers clung to the fallen rigging, struggling for survival against the rushing flood, and collapsing timbers.

Now for RECKLESS ENDEAVOR my main character Jack, the descendant of the pirate Calico Jack Rackham, will be, shall we say, spending quality time with his dead anscestor. To set the tone, I wanted to put the reader on the gallows with the old scalawag in November of 1720 but also needed to provide some relevant info to be used later, without interrupting the flow of the story with a 'flashback'. Since the prologue replaces chapter one as "the first impression" the goal is to draw the reader in & make them want more. I guess there's a risk. In my opinion, the prologue needs to impact the story, can't be a cheap down payment followed by a droning bait & switch. So here's the opening paragraph of the prologue for RECKLESS.

 1720 Gallows Point – Port Royal, Jamaica

A thick rope made of hemp and flax was cinched tightly around his neck, biting into the skin while a thinner cord bound the gnarled hands painfully behind his back. Calico Jack Rackham, condemned to suffer a pirate’s death, stood weak-kneed on a wooden platform in the blistering heat facing the sea, his weight temporarily supported atop a trap door. Soon the flap would fall away and he would plummet into the open void beneath the gallows. He prayed that his neck would snap with the plunge, rather than strangle in agony while blood vessels and capillaries burst and hemorrhaged.


So what do you think about prologues? What purpose should they serve? Should they be avoided?

Just wonderin'........

My 1st Book Signing

Yesterday the St Augustine Lighthouse & Museum was the location for my first ever book signing. I was scared to death. Not sure if I was nervous about 'the pitch' or worried that sales would be dismal, like maybe even zero! The lighthouse folks opened the doors fifteen minutes early & the first couple through the doors (they were from Toronto) bought a book! What an icebreaker!!!


Deb has an eye for "stuff" - so she set up the table with lots of cool eye-catching promo gadgets - a small wooden treasure chest filled with faux gold pieces, skeleton parts made of foam & miscellaneous little trinkets. It turned out to be a kid magnet. We are in our element when it comes to kids, maybe 'cause we're kids at heart. No more nerves for JaxPop - lots of joking, laughing & teasing. We had a blast. Sales became unimportant - just let it roll. Here's a pic of Deb's set-up.



I couldn't leave the table so Deb buzzed around taking pics of the festival. The folks from Disney Radio were there. Live bands. Boat building. Plays. Lots of refreshment stands. Pony rides. Tours of the complex. Guided nature walks thru the hammock. Storytellers. Games & a coupla 5K races. It was crazy crowded. I missed all of that. The staff at the lighthouse handed out maps at the door showing the locations of the 'attractions'. Directional signs were posted on the grounds to use with the map to get where you wanted to go. Here's a pic of my favorite sign.




This is probably my favorite place to hang out. 2 Chapters of BAD LATITUDE are set in the haunted lighthouse (Ch 9 - Dead Girls & Ch 10 - Hezekia Pittee). I've done quite a bit of writing & editing in its shadow. Somehow it seemed fitting to do my first book signing in that same shadow.



The lines were pretty constant but the staff kept everything moving.



The gift shop workers kept the book near the cash register, replacing the stack as sales continued. Several times, the cashiers ran out to our table & swiped the books right off our display racks & we would have to run to the car to grab another box. (I didn't want to bring them all in & look cocky. I especially didn't want to have to carry boxes of books out to the car when it was all over.) We were supposed to be there from 11 'til 3 but were asked to hang out a little longer - 'til 5. It was a steady flow all day. In the end, the lighthouse gift shop bought more books to replace their inventory & we returned to the car, smiling like idiots, with .... all empty boxes. Truth be told.... the great day of sales was the result of Deb's slick marketing skills. 2 years of hard work upstaged by strategically placed bones & coins. (Sigh!)



There were plenty of highlights worth mentioning but I'll only include a couple. 1st was meeting a County Commissioner with a great story about his experience as a lowly Private during his time in military intelligence. I'm going to put it in writing for him. It's funny & inspiring. 2nd was a visit from 13-year-old Victoria. She read the book at school about a month ago & said she 'loved it' - then bought her own copy. How cool is that?

The people that manage the lighthouse & museum & their group of hard working volunteers were spectacular. They went out of their way to provide maximum exposure & made us feel really comfortable. Now they want me to do another signing in April for a weekday shindig for school kids. I need more books - & that's a good thing. Whew!!! What a rush!!!

DIRT: AN AMERICAN CAMPAIGN

One thing about blogging - you get to "meet" some pretty cool people, &, in my case some pretty good writers as well. Mark LaFlamme is an author that falls into the met via the blog category. He has a new book out called DIRT: AN AMERICAN CAMPAIGN. I decided to read it. It was the least I could do after calling him a "nut", though it was meant in a good way. (He's funny & somewhat over the top. What more could you expect from a guy that's a newspaper crime reporter who takes the week of Halloween off for vacation?)

DIRT is the story of a candidate for President embroiled in the dirty tricks of a heated primary. His daughter-in-law has met an untimely end & the candidate's son, unable to accept her death, retrieves the body from her resting place & begins driving around New England with her corpse. Needless to say, Daddy ain't too happy & sends "a response team" to deal with this potential scandal, which in this man's case, is tame compared with the other skeletons in the family closet. Besides, he can't have the voters investigating the 'dirt' on him - especially when he's busily shoveling the 'dirt' on the frontrunner, the man with the squeaky clean image.

So I posted a review on-line (below) & hope Mark LaFlamme has some measure of success. I'm sure that good sales would be helpful - Halloween is only a month away.

DIRT: AN AMERICAN CAMPAIGN by Author Mark LaFlamme is a well-crafted work of entertaining and thought provoking fiction. The foundation of the story, unique to say the least, causes the reader to examine multiple personal conflicts within the storyline while providing a perspective on the behind closed doors dirty tricks and win at all cost mentality that is the political power grab. LaFlamme has managed to build tension, without gratuitous shock value. His characters are strong, though saddled with weaknesses and tragic pasts. The pace is crisp without sacrificing needed detail. There is nothing predictable about DIRT, including the conclusion and THAT makes for a great story. Well done Mr. LaFlamme.