Tornado Terrors: Twisted Twisters, or Breaking Winds

This coming week is Severe Weather Preparedness Week. Here are some useful safety tips from actual experts: https://www.in.gov/dhs/get-prepared/nature-safety/severe-weather-preparedness/

 

 Some say the best advice you can give when it comes to tornadoes is to keep your insurance paid up and update your will.

I prefer preparation: At the beginning of March, dig a big hole in your back yard, then get into it while wearing a helmet and one of those "Red man" protective suits that a police dog can't penetrate. Then have the hole lined in concrete, and covered with an armored steel plate. The order is very important: Get in the hole before it's sealed off. You might want to bring in water, snacks, a portable toilet, a book to read, and, of course, a bottle of oxygen.

(I would suggest you take along my novel Storm Chaser. 'Cause--theme. Or at least The Wizard of Oz.)

"Say ... has anyone told that lady there's a tornado behind her?"

Then, wait until, say, November. Then winter is approaching but hurricane season is past, so you could move to the Gulf Coast. But, because tornado season down there is pretty much year round, you'll have to dig another hole and buy more concrete and steel. Vicious cycle, there.

 So, a quick review of weather terms. A severe thunderstorm watch means you might get severe thunderstorms. A severe thunderstorm warning means the light show has started. I don't get what's hard about that, but it still confuses people.

Similarly, a tornado watch means conditions are right for a tornado to form, and you should, you know, watch. In the novel The Wizard of Oz that's literal: Uncle Henry goes outside, watches, and announces, "There's a cyclone coming, Em ... I'll go look after the stock".

How exactly he plans to protect the stock remains unclear. But if there's one thing the movie Twister taught us, it's to to watch for low flying cows. Meanwhile, in the time it takes for Toto to hide under the bed and thus endanger Dorothy (man's best friend--hah), the cyclone is upon them and the next thing you know ... witch pancake.

Before you think you're safe from tornadoes, remember what one did to this chick.

 

 

If Henry only had a radio, TV, alert scanner, or nearby siren, he might have had enough warning to look after the stock and see Em and Dorothy safely to the cellar. The witch would still get smooshed, so--happy ending for all. Except for the Scarecrow on his pole, and the rusted Tin Woodman, and the Winkies being terrorized by the other witch ... okay, bad example.

But hey, it was 1900. The point is, you don't have to literally watch anymore. You don't want to be under that cow when it drops in. Or a house.

Now, a tornado warning means that if you go outside, you will die.

Actually, a tornado or funnel cloud has been spotted in your area, so you may die. Over the years I've managed to take a few pictures of funnel clouds, which puts me firmly in the camp of people who are too dumb to metaphorically (and sometimes literally) come in out of the rain. There are now millions of photos and videos of tornadoes; is it worth having one of your own?

It is not.

Remember this easy rhyme: Red Sky In the Morning: You're Screwed.

 

What should you do if a tornado warning is declared? Go to a windowless interior room on the lowest level of your house. If you're in a building with no basement--what were you thinking? But lower is always better, anyway.

Windows are bad. Tornadoes, hurricanes, meteor strikes--people get cut up by glass during natural disasters. (I'm not kidding about the meteor strikes: just ask the people in Chelyabinsk, Russia.)

Old timers will tell you to crack a window to equalize pressure, or go to a specific corner of a room, but that's proven to be unhelpful. Besides, the tornado will take care of cracking all the windows. You're better off under a piece of sturdy furniture--Toto had the right idea--that you can hold onto. A small center room, such as a closet, or under a stairwell is good, and a bathtub might offer some protection.

Well, that can't be good.

So, let's review: Your safest location is in a bathtub that's in a closet under a stairwell in your basement. My bathroom is the size of a closet, so that's a start.

Actually, your safest location would be in the states of Alaska, Rhode Island, or Vermont, which each average less than one tornado a year. But we're in the Midwest, under the tourism-attracting nickname of "Tornado Alley". Indiana ranks #14 in states for the number of tornadoes. I suspect, if adjusted for square miles, our rank would be higher.

Okay, I just checked. When it comes to tornadoes per 10,000 square miles, Indiana ranks three. When it comes to killer tornadoes we're eight, and when it comes to the total length of a tornado path we're also eight. So there you go. Be afraid. It's only smart. And train your dog to go straight to the storm cellar.

Now, since tornado safety is really a serious subject, here are a couple of links to websites that treat things way more seriously than I do:

http://www.tornadoproject.com/safety/safety.htm

http://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-emergencies/types-of-emergencies/tornado#Before

 

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Remember: As long as you have a flashlight, reading is weather resistant.

 

Crunching Letters to Synopsis Satisfaction

 I'm continually surprised that editors and agents in the publishing industry expect novelists to write short stuff, like query letters, outlines, and synopsis ... synopsis's ... synopsi? Just a sec.

(Huh. It's synopses. Who knew?)

Asking a novelist to write short is like asking a politician to spend less money; asking the Wicked Witch to be less cackle, um, cackle-y; asking me to skip dessert. My novel manuscripts tend to be short, but that doesn't make me freak out any less when I have to reduce it to a 1,000 word synopsis. My latest manuscript is 82,000 words: It's like taking a full size pickup truck and reducing it to Matchbox size with your bare hands.

Hey, I have this one! Wouldn't want to build the real thing from scratch.

Now imagine someone trying to write a synopsis for one of George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire books, which are so big they're registered as lethal weapons. Seriously, even putting it on your Kindle adds two pounds. When I tried to read the newest one on the couch, I broke my hip. And the couch. Of course, no one would ask him to write a synopsis. In fact, he probably has an assistant that does nothing but write synopses ... seses ....

In theory the best way to write a synopsis is to write one paragraph for each chapter, then trim where necessary, as if it isn't going to be necessary. I tried other tactics. For instance, removing every "the"; putting into the synopsis only the third and fifteenth word of every page; and hiring George R.R. Martin's synopsis writer. None worked. (You wouldn't believe what that guy charges.)

So I looked the manuscript over again. While Martin's books are high fantasy, my newest story is apparently low fantasy, and yes, I'm aware of the possible jokes. That means it's set in our real world, but magical elements intrude into it; the best known example would probably by the Harry Potter series.

How low can you go? Well, you could have an entire school full of kids who could turn their parents into warthogs, for instance.

 

My story, The Source Emerald, is about a young FBI agent on her first assignment, who tries to track down possible gem smugglers in upstate New York. Magic ... intrudes.

All I had to do is boil down her personality, the plot, the stakes, and the major supporting characters into 800-1000 words, or less than two pages. Or shorter, depending on who you ask. Oh, and in your own unique voice ... with plot twists ... and the ending ... I'm going to go lay down, now.

Okay, I'm back. Almost all authors hate writing a synopsis, and those who like it almost always turn out to be heavily addicted to something and/or certifiably insane. I don't have the exact statistics on that. All I know is that on my first whack at it, I spent half a page describing why my main character, Lilly, absolutely doesn't believe the little girl she encounters is Dorothy Gale, made famous in the Oz books. I had to reduce that to, like, four words.

"Dorothy is brunette, and a teenager, and not a princess, and it was all a dream, anyway. Stop pulling my leg--I've seen the movie."

In the final version the whole thing boiled down to: "Lilly doubts Dorothy's story."

It took me three days to come up with that sentence.

In reality I got the whole synopsis done in "just" a few days, not counting my nightmares of being chased by an editor with a sharp red pen. My first version was about 3,500 words, which really wasn't too shabby. My second was around 1,500--I was slashing words like a horror movie villain.

And then--finally--920 beautiful, short, on-point words. That's it. If you want a shorter synopsis from me, I'll just cut from the bottom and you'll never know the ending, pal! (Or lady, since most of the agents and editors I've queried have been female.)

But I did it. I'm relieved, and proud, and surprised, but mostly relieved.

Now I have to write a query letter.

Hm ... or maybe I should tackle a short story. What do you think?

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This week's newsletter covers the summer doldrums, wet dogs, and Oz

 This month's newsletter is out and about:

https://mailchi.mp/a19474764019/the-summer-doldrums-and-an-oz-connection

What's the Oz connection, you ask? Well, it has nothing to do with Australia or prison TV shows. Otherwise it's just a little thing, but you have to read it to find out. *insert evil laughter here*

(Yes, I'm aware there are a couple of typos in it--but I can't edit them once it's out. *sigh*)

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https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

How to finish your final draft, or: Just keep going, dummy

 The final draft of The Source Emerald is done!

Wait, let me start over:

The "final draft" of The Source Emerald is done! (Assuming that will continue to be the title.)

There, more accurate. The Source Emerald is about a young FBI agent who is assigned to track down possible gem smugglers, only to discover two of her suspects claim to be foreigners--specifically, from the Land of Oz, which they insist is a real place. And if they don't find the mysterious gems everyone seems to be after, it might be the end of both their worlds.

I suppose it can be considered urban fantasy--I wasn't thinking in terms of genre when I wrote it. You might remember that my word count changed from draft to draft, starting at 67,515, peaking at 70,294 with the second draft, then dropping to 69,028. Now, after polishing and going through the whole thing line by line to check for voice and errors, I'm left with 69,370 words. I added some here and there for clarity, but also cut a lot out of one of the later chapters.

So, from the first word typed on November 1st to the "final" version, it took me just under three months to finish an almost 70,000 word novel. Yay, me! (I did do some outlining and research in October.)

Now Emily gets it.

Emily was holding my granddaughter hostage until I finished my draft!! Hey, I don't make stuff up.

 

My wife/editor/IT department/cover artist doesn't take any crap from me. The manuscript will come back full of red words, with numerous notes in the margins. She'll tell me what does and doesn't make sense, what word choice is wrong, where I'm being long winded, and what food is best for me. Well, that last one isn't directly connected.

Then I'll go through the whole thing all over again, because writing is editing. When it's finally, completely, for sure done, I'll put it in a file and go over to reread We Love Trouble, the book I went through all this with last year. When The Source Emerald has sufficiently cooled, I'll try to read it for entertainment, like a regular reader, and we'll see.

This is the writing process. The process is boring to everyone but the writer, and sometimes even to them. But it's the best way I know to get a good product.

Also, I can't write without the dog keeping a close eye on me. I think he's spying for Emily.

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https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"