Creating a PI Protagonist - Marlowe Black is my Outrage.

Marlowe Black is my outrage, my anguish, but wasn't meant to be.

I have read that a writer's protagonists and, too, his antagonists, are all facets of the writer's personality. While I willingly accept the former, I stand in clear denial of the latter.

The internet age had become a living entity, self-replicating and layered to a depth and height that no one person could experience. It bled time like a gunshot wound bled life. I wanted to experience something different. I needed to escape.

Because, despite the good the internet offered, all of the same trite garbage humanity slammed and adored, worshiped and abused, for centuries had not lessened, but exponentially expanded.

I suppose my expectations that human emotions might somehow evolve into civility while riding the crest of available and nearly unlimited knowledge was the shrill voice of the optimist baying at the full moon of wishful thinking.

Therefore, I selected a decade in American history that I often thought of as ideal.

Then, to take me there, I created Marlowe Black, as a way to lament those simpler times when solving crime standing on the edge of the law was easier than it is now when it's nearly impossible.

Yet Marlowe quickly became more. He became my outrage, my anguish. I created him at a time when life surrounded me with unforeseen, and too often painful, unfathomable events both personal and not.

Suddenly, Marlowe's character defined itself as he led me through his time in history, a time I know of through research and by conversing with people who lived it. Oddly, for me, it turned out that the 1950s were far from simple, far from ideal.

The only significant differences, excluding technology -- although much of what we have today sunk roots back then -- are medical advancements, and societal changes such as civil rights and more equal rights for women.

In the 1950s, women and minorities were poorly treated or worse. After exposure to this type conduct as a cop, Marlowe decided there was something seriously wrong with any such behavior even when the actions or words he came to deplore were on rare occasion his own.

He quit the police force and went private, causing him to become something of a societal outcast, yet he managed to earn respect and friendships.

Marlowe also learned that any woman he became involved with would be a target for the type of criminals he hunted. In his world, hunter and hunted could change places without warning. Victims too often were those caught in the middle. When that occurred, the result shredded slices off his humanity.

The one companion he knew shadowed his actions was death. It waited for him to make one grievous error, then closed in like a starving wolf.

When a killer murdered his fiancée, his emotional world collapsed. Death had hobnailed across his soul and he would never be the same man as before. He was a WWII veteran who witnessed battlefield deaths, but back home it was always different, and too often much too personal.

For Marlowe, some truths were self-evident, especially the ones that blew out of the hot barrel of his Colt .45.

Yet, the compassion that often surfaced laced with his sardonic self-deprecating sense of humor carried him through the type of crisis other men did not survive.

Marlowe walked with his head up, did not wallow in regret, and when time for vengeance arrived, always made certain that vengeance was his or the victim's he fought for.

Additionally, he sought justice for people others believed did not deserve such attention. However, he always questioned his own motives as he delved into the murky, often slime-layered depths of the criminal mind. He suspected he would often fail to understand, and then perhaps be too late, but he also knew justice hovered within the tendrils of smoke leaking from the barrel of a gun when all else failed.

There was tenderness in him that he denied,and when it revealed itself, he reacted, embarrassed by what he thought exposed only weakness. Perhaps that was the part of his character that attracted women; both the tenderness he displayed and his reaction to the emotion.

He was not the type of man who, if you met him on the street, would be either rude or unfriendly. He tipped his hat to women, took time to give directions to lost newlyweds, helped out the needy, the homeless, and then went about the business of serving justice on behalf of those who could not get impartiality any other way.

Marlowe Black was the answer to so many "What ifs." Now that I know him, I can only wonder where he will lead me next.



Copyright 2009 Larry Schliessmann. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the written consent of the author. Violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
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Faith is not Religion

Periodically, I beat this drum. It seems especially appropriate now, with Christians waving teabag banners declaring that if you cannot afford it you do not deserve healthcare. These being the people who claim they follow the teaching of Jesus, a man who healed the sick for free, who hated capitalism as he watched it bleed the poor into chaotic despair and utter ruin.

Faith is not religion.

Although the two are often confused, faith can be found outside of religion. Religion cannot be found outside faith, or if it can, then that religion is the raving ranting of politics.

I spoke with a man who claimed he found God. Strange idea, I thought, as if finding God took nothing more than scanning his surroundings with the equivalent of a spiritual metal detector. Perhaps God was a glint of light, a diamond chip lodged in the bottom of his soul he'd not discovered earlier. Suddenly there was God waiting just for him alone.

When I asked how that occurred, he said he found God in his newly adopted religion. He made it sound as if God existed nowhere else. The longer we talked, the clearer it became that this was a man transformed by his discovery. He reminded me of a drug addict or alcoholic, transfixed after the first huff or drink.

I asked how this transformation made him feel. Unbelievable, he said with wide-eyed wonder. Reborn, he added confidently as he examined his hands as if they were not the same hands he bore at birth, his true birth.

For him religion was like a spiritual aphrodisiac. He could stroke it and find satisfaction, arousal, deeper and stronger than anything physical. I wondered if he would survive the first test life dropped at his feet, a tragedy, serious challenge, or would his shelter shatter like stacked crystals.

We walked different paths after that day. I chose the path of faith. He chose religion. You may not yet see or the understand difference, but faith is like a spiritual cloak. Once it's wrapped around you, you do not remove it. You cannot, nor will you want to, open a door and walk outside of faith. Faith is lived each minute, not just a few select hours each week.

Religion is like a trench coat. If life “rains” on you, you hastily don it. Yet you don’t really trust it completely so you pop the umbrella of readings. When you leave your House of Worship, it’s okay to take the trench coat off, set it aside, place it on the night table maybe, hang it up to dry.

Sometimes religion is dictated by leaders who demand more of you, or that you perform deeds you are unwilling to do. Yet a true follower feels compelled to obey, drinks from the glass that reads “Drink This” and wonders why nothing changes as a result but everything seems or looks distorted.

Faith makes no demands. Faith is understanding; accompanied by the desire to prosper spiritually. There is no guidebook for faith; no lesson plan, none is needed.

Religion is laid out in books, road maps that must be read repeatedly to be followed and understood. Without daily immersion, one might drown in misunderstanding, leave the path of dictated behavior, and make decisions for oneself. Frightening thought, making decisions for oneself without religion's God to blame, or to seek succor or solace from.

Faith-guided living becomes a teacher. Such a life requires self-examination. It promotes healing oneself as the first step to healing others. Accepting one's own flaws leads to understanding the actions of those around us. Forgiving ourselves directs us to learn the skills needed to forgive others.

Years passed before I heard from the man who found God. He had abused his body through poor eating, drinking, and too much sun. In the end, I wondered if he refused the medical care that might've saved him because of religious conviction, or because he decided to give up. Perhaps the two were interchangeable.

Religion offers guidance based on the words of men lost to history, words written and rewritten until the ink faded into the obscurity of politics, which was when religion began representing government not faith.

Faith is guidance. Words are unnecessary; action propels the faithful to make the decision best for their spiritual self. And the path lies open, lit by inner light seen by the faithful alone, carried along though eternity.

Searching the Valley

I looked down into a valley filled with stones. A light breeze rustled my hair, lifted odors of dried and freshly cut flowers to surround me with the mystery of their presence.

I think life occasionally demands more than we feel we have to give, filling us with doubt, stripping away encouragement leaving us soul-naked to stare into the blank blue sky and seek answers that can only be found by looking within. Yet we do not know where to look in those dreadfully frightening moments and reach outward instead.

We go about the task of living, envisioning ourselves as if standing above the fray, examining nuances, seeking ever seeking. Interaction with people, places, objects, animals, all seems somehow shallow, as if the surface of life was peeled away revealing a different, but identical surface that is now a mirror reflecting time but not us.

We stroke through bewilderment, as if we're swimming against rip tides, loosing but unwilling to lament, to relax, and think through what we are experiencing, why we experience it.

It is not until we tire to the point of spiritual exhaustion that we fall, fail, and finally understand. Life does not demand more than we have to give. Life teaches us how to learn to give anew. It is not about doors opening or closing, time passing or standing still. It is about whom we are, our choices, our paths, and why we make them, why we walk them. The message was not hidden except when bombarding words cluttered the air to obscure our thoughts and vision.

Then the waters flowed around us and flooded the valley with new life.

Vampire Life Part 7: What to do with the Ghoulish remains.

Your vampire lover has been busy, gorging himself on local, well, prime rib. Now, it's up to you to clean up; after all, no vampire worth his canines would be caught alive with leftovers on his hands, or worse under his neatly manicured mother-of-pearl fingernails.

Let's face it, not every hunt ends with a convert. Often, the need to feast and the ultimate pleasure that courses through otherwise depleted veins may blind your vampire to the aftermath of his meal. If this continues, night after night, as you might suspect, the bodies do tend to pile up.

Of course an unused mineshaft nearby would prove beneficial, but even with that available, daily burials would eventually either fill it up, or the stench would alert the authorities. And a water-filled quarry would require weights to drag the leftovers to the bottom.

Oh dear, now what, you think. I must remove the evidence, protect the one I love, or some mindless nitwit from law enforcement tipped off by a nosy neighbor will ring the doorbell in the middle of the night and either arrest me due to what he found in the backyard and garage, or he too will become one of the leftovers.

Either way, your otherwise blissful life with your vampire lover would be trashed.

So, allow me to present a practical solution. Zombies, Goblins, and Ghouls. That's right, you read correctly. All three are easy to train, and move slowly so you do not need worry about being crushed by a fleeing mob of leftovers if something should alarm them and cause a stampede.

They are unduly nervous. Oh well, maybe that is understandable.

Your vampire lover can turn them easily if he chooses to, and...what? You didn't know he had the skill? Where did you think Zombies, Goblins, and Ghouls came from? Really, and I thought he was your lover. I guess he was unwilling to tell you every little secret.

So here's what you can do to help if your vampire is unwilling to reanimate the leftovers. All you need is his spit. A drop or two per leftover will be sufficient.

Collect it while he sleeps, or immediately after his finishes recharging his energy levels with a drink of warm blood.

You know he always drools, but until now, you've been hesitant to admit it aloud. Embarrassing a lover is not proper etiquette. But really, how fast can he swallow six to eight pints without needing to draw a breath?

He will not notice you while he feeds, so don't worry about him making a mistake and feeding on you too.

Now that you've gathered a pint or more of spit, you will need to spread out his leftovers. Shoulder to shoulder is preferable. This will make your task easier and faster.

Use a turkey baster or some other type of dropper and walk along the row, staying above the tops of their heads, and insert one drop of your vampire lovers' spit in each eye. Yes, the eyes, which mythology taught us are the windows to the soul. Obviously that was correct.

If you have more than thirteen leftovers, by the time you reach the last one, the first will have begun to feel the effects.

Stand back in the shadows as they ghoulishly struggle to their feet while examining their surroundings. If they move too fast during the first moments after reanimation there is the possibility you may wear bits and pieces of them that you really don't want on your body. Disgusting.

Finished? How did you do? Are all of them animated? If yes, congratulations! If no, try another application of spit and if then you failed to get the response you needed, dig a deep hole and drag that particular leftover into it and bury it before dawn.

You will need to lock your Zombies, Goblins, and Ghouls in the garage during sunlight hours, but once night falls again and your vampire lover is out hunting, you can either release your animated leftovers into the night, or begin training them to obey your commands. Then, you can order them to find their own hidey-holes in local cemeteries, which rids you of the problem.

See, now wasn't that easy?
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Sunset Orange Water

A .32 caliper pistol found at the scene with the victim's fingerprints on it. The medical examiner declares that the victim, Marlowe Black's pregnant fiancé's, death was caused by suicide.

Two of his friends are seriously wounded shot on different days hundreds of miles apart while Marlowe stood within ten feet of them both.

Marlowe discovers evidence of twenty-four prostitutes killed but not reported missing. Where they lie buried is unknown, that they are dead is not.

The mystery shooter keeps Marlowe on the run, while he attempts to resolve who killed his fiancée and why. Who attempted to take out two friends; who sent several hit men to three different locations to end his life; who killed the prostitutes and where do they lay buried?

All Marlowe needs to do is stay alive long enough to outsmart a man who easily outsmarts him repeatedly until the last gunshot is fired.

Only the Moment

I stood with my back against the front door, attempting to barricade the entrance to my home.

Certainly, I thought, this will do nothing in the long term, but it'll give me a last minute feeling of control. I laughed humorlessly and added, one final last minute.

I should have listened to what other people told me about the man, years ago when I made the decision to trust him and move my life eight hundred and fifty miles from home.

They warned me; saw something I was unable to while blinded by his generous offer; an offer he never fulfilled. I think friends and family were more familiar with the Post Office ad that states, 'if something sounds like it's too good to be true, it probably is', or they at least understood what the phrase pie-in-the-sky means.

Each of them said, "Don't trust him," or "Think it through," or "Get something in writing."

My response, however, was clear. "I'm a forty-year old man from New York," I told them. "I've been around. I know when someone's out to screw me."

What I did not know was that my new employer knew little about the company he purchased and did not care to learn more. Add to that his age--seventy-five--and his failing desire to communicate openly, a serious medical crisis at home, and a time consuming effort to "save a wilderness area" that just happened to coincide with his vested interest in local water rights and you can see the 'In retrospect' problem.

At first, the transition seemed simple enough. I was to help them set up the company after it relocated to Bluffton, South Carolina, then go home.

However, the new owner had to make an offer too good to refuse. He talked the talk and I listened as if he recited the Gospel according to...well, live and learn.

I tried for four and a half years to influence him to change his business practices, invest in his new company's future and failed, which brought me to where I stood, back pressed against the door, out of work, and soon out of a home.

I leaned heavily and yelled, "It won't help to knock," and hoped my words would carry through the wooden panel as I heard footsteps land on the front porch.

They knocked anyway, and my heart jumped as if seeking an escape route that might not necessarily require the rest of me to follow, and shouted, "Damn it!"

The door moved against my back; the people outside began to force it open.

"What I like about America," I shouted, "is that the people in authority don't really give a damn about whom they hurt. They just blindly follow orders as if the person on the receiving end were less than human."

I turned my head and shouted louder. "Throw in a canister of poison gas crystals! Break a goddamn window and climb in with a can of mace! No, no, better yet, stand back and raze the place with AK47s. Who would gives a good goddamn if you kill everyone? It'll be easier for you after that, you'll only have corpses to drag out and dump with the rest of the remains of my life on the frigging front lawn."

I was breathing rapidly by the time I finished.

What the hell's wrong with me? I thought then. I trust the bastards of the world because they say what I want to hear, when I need to hear it. How many good, simple people have died because of that over the last several millennia? Well, at least I'm not alone, I informed myself as if accepting the consolation prize for the 'World's Biggest Chump' was the same as winning the lottery. I can do the stoop-shouldered shuffle on a bread line, tin cup in hand, begging for a place to sleep...a prelude to a better tomorrow.

"Oh well," I muttered as I opened the front door. "Come on in."

Two of them, one male, and one female, garbed in the county's finest tan and brown uniforms, pushed passed me. They boot stomped into the living room, heads swiveling like robots examining an alien enclave seeking what, for them, would be the easily detectable (we all know androids have infrared-sensitive vision) cache of paraphernalia.

I didn't have the heart to tell them that all they'd find was the last week's dirty briefs.

Tears welled, pushed toward freedom as I watched my belongings unceremoniously dumped on a pile at the foot of the driveway.

I asked them if they needed a match.

"Just burn that shit. Isn't that what you people like to do to the helpless?" I sat on the porch. "Here!"

I cursed as I pulled off my shoes and tossed them out on the roadway. Item by item I stripped until I stood bare-assed and angry alongside the pile they continued to build from the things I had kept in my life.

To my surprise, they did not give a damn that I had violated one of America's most sacred taboos, that I committed the heinous crime of indecent exposure.

And to make matters worse, to my utmost humiliation, the female Gestapo agent stopped and patted my stomach and informed me, "Need to lose a little weight, my man."

Sighing as loudly as possible, I dressed in whatever I could find, and ended up with only one sock and one shoe, different feet of course. I climbed in my car.

My old Audi was the only thing left to offer me shelter. I pounded on the steering wheel until my fists ached, then moved to drumming the seat.

By the time the agents from hell had finished trashing my home, leaving it all in a mound for the rats to nest in, my anger had abated. Fear slithered in to fill the void, but found itself shouldering a long lost, dark companion, Depression.

"Hey," I said to the once buried, now resurrected emotion, "I haven't seen you in a while."

Depression snickered, "About twenty two years, nine months, six days and three hours since my last visit."

Then it sounded hurt, and added, "but who's counting? Certainly not you."

"Listen," I said, trying to speak kindly; after all, it meant well and probably thought I needed to be depressed. "As I remember it, your last visit was an occasion I'd rather not relive...if you don't mind."

Depression was quick to retort. "I had a great time. Do you remember the shuttered windows? Not eating for days on end? Moreover, how about the self-esteem bashing? Crushed that little bastard half to death didn't we?"

Depression glowed with pride and a sense of accomplishment as it wedged itself between Sadness and Fear.

Sadness would be the clear loser, I could see that much. Fear was powerful, shoving, poking, and doing its best to stand its ground.

"Hold on! Wait a minute!" I talked aloud to be heard over the three of them while they jostled for position. "It took me years to recover from my last bout with you, Depression. I'll skip the entire visit this time, thank you very much." Before either Depression or Fear could get a chance to respond, I heard Sadness take a final breath, shudder, and succumb to the pressures the other two had exerted on its life force.

Without wasting an erg of energy, I seized the small advantage gained by Sadness' passing, jumped out of the car and went to my stuff.

Carefully I sifted out what was important, filled my car, backseat, trunk, and front seat with as much as I could cram in, and then squeezed into the driver's seat.

The steering wheel looked a little out-of-round. Shrugging, I started the car and braced myself for a renewed onslaught of negativity. Depression and Fear remained silent, although in waiting for an opening. Sadness was dead of course, and so for the moment I felt rather victorious.

And in the end, isn't it just the moment that counts?

Copyright 2009, all rights reserved. Larry Schliessmann

Looking at the parts of Convergence : dissecting a short story

Now that it is finished, it is time to separate the pieces, and take a look inside.

First, what are the parts of a story?

The most basic are opening, middle, and ending.

The opening should have a hook to make the reader want more. Let the reader know enough about the central character to make the person seem real and interesting. The writer should also give the reader a glimpse of what upsets or intrigues that character into action. Where all of this takes place helps establish an anchor point. When it happens, may or may not be relevant. Lastly, the why of it all, the conflict, leads directly into the plot.

In Convergence, I used Stephanie's curiosity and her husband's secretive nature. This primary conflict made her act in an unusual way.

After six paragraphs, the reader glimpsed both personalities and discovered the dilemma their intersection created. The reader knew who Stephanie was, where she was, what upset her (again the conflict) and even got a glimpse of how she wanted to resolve the issue: (Across the middle of the page in unfamiliar masculine handwriting, she read: Friday, 8:00am rear parking lot 1111, 63rd Street.).

The middle. The story should build steadily leading the reader to the pivotal point where action carried the protagonist, Stephanie to make one decision that sent the story over the edge to conclusion.

In Convergence that point was: She threw out her hands, but her head slammed into the pavement and she collapsed, blacked out.

I used the middle as a turning point. The pace now must build more to reach conclusion.

The ending: First and perhaps most important, the protagonist should change. She cannot be the same person she was in the first sentence. The theme of Convergence is: sometimes getting involved in an event you would normally avoid may land you in a place or situation you were meant to be in. Had she not decided to investigate what her husband did, Stephanie would not have become the new Dragon Master, which became her destiny.

The ending should tie together all of the component parts, and resolve or answer any questions readers had as they went through the story.

The first clue that something extraordinary would happen was the blood on the paper. Blood usually dries quickly on paper since paper acts like a sponge. This blood was still tacky. The second was: an older brick three story that seemed dwarfed by its modern ten-story plus surroundings.

What was it? A portal, but it blended into the city. Any city you visit will always have several buildings that seem leftover from previous centuries, like churches, or residences. These are fine locations for strange events.

Then there were the cobblestone alley, and the bricked up windows and finally a fenced in courtyard. Not a backyard, a courtyard, and in the center was a depression that held a pool of blood, not dried blood.

When Stephanie confronted the guardian of the portal, he was a dirty gruff man who frightened her, threatened her, and treated her as she expected when caught trespassing.

The guardian needed to be rough to keep out the unwanted. I hid his identity to keep from spoiling the surprise once Stephanie awoke. Although, I did hope the reader would understand his purpose after her location became clear.

Throughout the story, I tried to use dialogue to create tension and conflict, and finally resolution. A goal I did not meet was 40% dialogue, which is a good average, or minimum amount of a story.

For what I desired to do with the story, I would have needed several more characters to achieve 40%, which I did not want. Sometimes too many characters confuse, and convolute the plot. I felt this story was one of them.

What was the plot?

The plot for Convergence: Stephanie spies hotel stationary in a drawer that is usually closed. She cannot resist temptation and examines the paper, discovers a tacky smear of blood, which she at first believes is lipstick.

After reading the address written on the paper, she worries that her husband may be in trouble and decides to investigate.

When she arrives at the address, she walks into a situation that changes everything she believes and alters her life.

A brief confrontation with a man who seems upset by her attempt to enter his property ends with her knocked out.

When she awakens, Stephanie learns she lies in a wooden ship's hold. She believes she is alone, sees distant lights, but when she examines the lights, she learns she is in a place she thinks could not be on earth.

A stranger who seems to appear magically with a candle that emits enough light to illuminate an area around him only then confronts her.

The confrontation ends when he pierces her hand with seven special teeth, and transfers his essence to her making her the new Dragon Master.

I think that is everything, conflict, action, dialogue, imagery, and resolution.

Questions? Did I leave something out? God, I hope not.