Outliers Writing University Podcast Series

GET TO KNOW Best-selling Author Harry Hunsicker

Harry Hunsicker
Harry Hunsicker is the bestselling author of nine crime thrillers, including The Life and Death of Rose Doucette (October 2024). He’s also written numerous short stories and a recently produced short screenplay, which has received numerous accolades.  His prose work has been short-listed for both the Shamus and Thriller Awards.  Hunsicker is the former executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America and in 2019 he served as Toastmaster for the 50th anniversary of Bouchercon, the world mystery conference. 
https://harryhunsicker.com/

GET TO KNOW Best-selling Author Sheldon Siegel

Sheldon Siegel is the New York Times best-selling author of the critically
acclaimed legal thriller series featuring San Francisco criminal defense
attorneys Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez, two of the most beloved
characters in contemporary crime fiction. He is also the author of the thriller
novel The Terrorist Next Door featuring Chicago homicide detectives David
Gold and A.C. Battle. His books have been translated into a dozen languages
and sold millions of copies worldwide.
A native of Chicago, Sheldon earned his undergraduate degree from the
University of Illinois in Champaign in 1980, and his law degree from the Boalt
Hall School of Law at the University of California-Berkeley in 1983. He
specializes in corporate and securities law with the San Francisco office of
the international law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP.
Sheldon began writing his first book, SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, on a
laptop computer during his daily commute on the ferry from Marin County to
San Francisco. A frequent speaker and sought-after teacher, Sheldon is a
San Francisco Library Literary Laureate, a member of the national Board of
Directors and the President of the Northern California chapter of the Mystery
Writers of America, and an active member of the International Thriller Writers
and Sisters in Crime. His work has been displayed at the Bancroft Library at
the University of California at Berkeley, and he has been recognized as a
Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Illinois and a Northern California
Super Lawyer.
Sheldon lives in the San Francisco area with his wife, Linda, and their twin
sons, Alan and Stephen. He is a lifelong fan of the Chicago Bears, White Sox,
https://www.sheldonsiegel.com/wp/

GET TO KNOW Author and Special Ops Veteran Sean Hagerty

Sean Hagerty is a retired Special Operations Soldier with over 25 years of experience. He spent his younger years training and conducting combat operations with the 1st of the 75th Ranger Regiment. After nine years, in 2005, he was selected for and assigned to a Special Operations unit at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. There he spent sixteen years and finished his military career, retiring as a Sergeant Major. He received several awards and decorations throughout his career including three Bronze Stars.
Sean currently works for the Department of Defense Science Board as the Senior Advisor. “The Defense Science Board (DSB) is charged with solving tough, technical, national security problems for the Secretary of Defense, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Under Secretaries of Defense, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior Department officials.” His wife Misty is an Executive Officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Their children Courtney, Travis, Samantha, and Delaney all live in the Washington D.C. area and are thriving, growing and traveling along their own paths. The grandchildren Rowen, Jameson, and Wren keep Sean and Misty busy.
Sean Hagerty has combined over 25+ years of service in the Special Operations community and deep-rooted research instincts from years of academic pursuits in history to tell this story. This story was written mostly in the plush seats of the daily Tacketts Mill/Pentagon commuter bus and the shaky bucket seats of the Franconia Springfield/Largo blue metro line. However, a few chapters were written while traveling for work, taking advantage of uninterrupted thoughts on an airliner. One chapter was even written during an evening break while on a business trip aboard the USS Nimitz CVN 68 aircraft carrier out in the Pacific Ocean. 
Cabal all came together during evening edits in his home shared with Misty, in Lakeridge, Virginia.
Jones Point was the first novel in the Dane Cooper series.
Cabal is the second.

GET TO KNOW Best-selling Author Paul Levine

The author of twenty-four novels, Paul Levine won the John D. MacDonald Fiction Award and has been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, Shamus, and James Thurber prizes. His novels have been translated into 23 languages. A former trial lawyer, he also wrote twenty episodes of the CBS military drama JAG and co-created the Supreme Court drama First Mondaystarring James Garner and Joe Mantegna. The international bestseller To Speak for the Deadintroduced readers to linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter and was named one of the best mysteries of the year by the Los Angeles Times. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed Solomon vs. Lord series of legal capers. His newest novel is Midnight Burning, first of the Einstein-Chaplin thrillers. He is a member of Penn State’s Society of Distinguished Alumni and graduated, with honors, from the University of Miami School of Law. He lives in Santa Barbara, CA.
 
https://paul-levine.com/

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 40: Nasty Deadly Poisons

Crime writers love poisons. Even those who write the more cozy variety. I mean, arsenic and old lace? Arsenic, the queen of poisons, is often used as are the opioids and amphetamines and a few others. But maybe you want to explore more uncommon, and deadly, options for your story. Some are easy to come by, others a bit more difficult but all have been used and just might add to your story.
 
Cyanide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide_poisoning
 
Strychnine: https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/strychnine/basics/facts.asp
 
Botulinum:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulinum_toxin
 
Nicotine:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine_poisoning
 
Ricin:https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/ricin/facts.asp
 
Georgi Markov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgi_Markov
 
Sarin(and VX): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin
 
Polonium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium
 
Alexander Litvinenko: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko
 
Brodifacoum:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brodifacoum
 
Tetradotoxin (TTX):https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin
 
Batrachotoxin (BTX): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batrachotoxin
 
Amatoxin:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amatoxin
 
Deadly Nightshade (Belladonna): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atropa_belladonna
 
Oleander:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerium
 
 
 
7 Of The World’s Deadliest Plants:
https://www.britannica.com/list/7-of-the-worlds-deadliest-plants
 
10 Deadliest Poisons Known To Man: https://www.thoughtco.com/deadliest-poisons-known-to-man-4058116
 
Top 10 Deadliest Poisons in the World: https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/12/top-10-deadliest-poisons-world/

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 39: Do Series Characters Change?

Do Series Characters Change?
A better question might be: Should series characters change? Go through some upheaval that arcs their life into uncharted waters?
What is a character arc? Where does it come from? How do you create this in your fictional stories? More importantly, do you even need one?
The answer to the first three questions is fairly straight forward. A character arc simply means the change that the character goes through over the course of the story. Something happens in the character’s life that pushes it off balance. It might be a shark feeding off the shores of Amity Island or two robots showing up and babbling about some character named Obi-Wan Kenobi. It might be a group of armed criminals taking over a small hotel on Key Largo, along with an approaching hurricane just to make things worse. Regardless, something comes into the character’s life, pushes it off kilter, and the remainder of the story is that person trying to rebalance things. As this journey unfolds, the character changes, learns something about himself, reaches a different level of understanding or compassion or ability to act. As a writer, your job is to create these characters, put them through their pieces, and in the end move them to a different level. This is not always positive. There can be negative character arcs. An excellent example is Michael Corleone in the Godfather series. Michael transformed from an easy-going ex-soldier into a ruthless mafioso.
A solid character arc will satisfy readers because they see change come about in a character they have grown to care for.
But what about a series character? A character that must move through five, 10, 20 or more novels? Do the protagonists of such series undergo a character arc? Should they? And if they do, will the most loyal readers recognize them after the 20th installment? It's something that’s argued in writing conferences year after year.
Did James Bond ever really change? Did Jack Reacher? The answer, of course, is very little if any. Bond is always Bond; Reacher is always Reacher. If in each story, these iconic characters were confronted with situations that caused a massive change in who they were on a deeply personal level, and these changes piled up story after story, they would become unrecognizable very quickly. And readers would revolt. We read these stories because we like the main character and we don't want him to be someone else.
So, if a series character doesn’t change, what's the story about? It's about this character, who we know and love, facing very difficult circumstances and successfully solving the riddle. The character doesn’t have to change dramatically to do this, nor does he need to have some earthshaking revelation about himself or the world or even someone else. What he needs to do is use whatever skills he possesses to correct the situation and put the story world back in order. For James Bond, it's often saving the world from Ernst Stavro Blofeld. For Jack Reacher, it's taking on the troubles of the little guy and his fight against the big guy or the bad guy. Reacher is basically Shane. The quiet hero who comes into town and saves the day. And we like that. We don’t want him to change. Same for James Bond. When James Bond returns to London or Reacher sticks his thumb out and hitchhikes to the next town, they are the same person they were at the beginning of the story and indeed the story before and the one before that. They don’t change, they use their skills to solve problems. And we relish being along for the ride.
These are the same principles I employ in my Jake Longly series. These stories are more humorous than hard-boiled. Mainly because of Jake’s quirky take on the world around him, his complete contentment with his life as it is,  and that, despite his resolve to avoid real work, the circumstances he repeatedly finds himself in. Jake is an ex-professional baseball player who now owns a bar and restaurant on the Gulf Coast. His life goals are to run his bar, hang out with friends, and chase bikinis. He is who he is. This seemingly lack of ambition creates tension with his father Ray, who wants him to be more serious about life and to join him in his private investigation firm. Jake will have none of it. Jake does not change. He’s the same low-key, lovable character through each story. 
So what is the story about if not change? This series is basically about Jake and his girlfriend Nicole Jamison and best friend Tommy “Pancake” Jeffers, who actually works for Ray as a P.I. Actually, so does Nicole. Well, sort of.  Though Jake twists and turns and does all he can to avoid it, Ray, Pancake, and Nicole continually drag him into quirky situations that involve crime and corruption, even murder and mayhem. Jake is always a fish out of water and continually finds himself in deeper water. His abilities, or lack thereof, to handle these calamities plus his off-kilter view of the world, is where the humor lies in this series. 
So, does Jake change? No, and yes. His basic nature and his belief system remain unaltered, but his relationship with Nicole does trigger some evolution within Jake. Before meeting her, a long-term relationship for him was maybe three weeks, yet he and Nicole have been together for over a year. And they are content with each other. But in the big things, the earth-shaking things, Jake doesn’t change. And that's the way it should be.
So, while character arcs work very well, and indeed are essential, for many stories, for a series character, they can spell disaster. I think the best advice for writers is that for your series characters you should pressure them, make them adapt, make them use their skills to solve the problem and save the day, but be wary of fundamental changes in who they are. Your readers will buy your next book because they like your protagonist. Don’t make him a stranger.

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 38: PIs Make Great Characters

Cops are cool, and memorable fictional characters, but P.I.s seem to come in more variable and quirkier flavors. From ex-military types to everyday folks with a knack for sniffing out wrongdoing to little old ladies with cats. The latter tend to be the smartest and toughest. This wide variety is what makes reading P.I. stories fun. Private investigators, both licensed and amateur, tend to be more eccentric, possess different skills (some useful, others less so), and seem to break the rules with impunity. How much fun is that?
The fictional P.I. world is populated with iconic characters such as Holmes, Spade, Marlowe, Milhone, Hammer, Archer, Robicheaux, and the list goes on. Meeting such folks is why reading P.I. novels is so rewarding. And so much fun to write. I know I love writing my comedic thriller series starring reluctant P.I. Jake Longly
Jake Longly Books:
https://www.dplylemd.com/books/jakelongly

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 37: Who The Heck Is Jake Longly?

Who the Heck is Jake Longly?
Jake Longly is the protagonist of my series of comedic thrillers (DEEP SIX, A-LIST, SUNSHINE STATE, RIGGED).He’s an ex-professional baseball player. Pitcher for the Texas Rangers with an overpowering fastball. Until his rotator cuff injury ended his career. Then he purchased Captain Rocky’s, a bar/restaurant on the sand in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
His major life goals now are running his bar and chasing bikinis. Worthy goals for Jake. His father Ray feels otherwise. Ray has some murky background in the US military world of black ops and now runs a P.I. firm in Gulf Shores. He can’t understand why Jake won’t work for him and is constantly trying to drag Jake into his world. Jake’s refusal creates tension, to say the least.
Jack Longly Books:
https://www.dplylemd.com/books/jakelongly

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 36: Identifying Skeletal Remains

DP Lyle Forensic Science Books:
https://www.dplylemd.com/books/forensicscience
 
8 Body Parts Forensic Scientists Use To ID A Body: https://www.forensicsciencetechnician.org/8-body-parts-forensic-scientists-use-to-id-a-body/
Investigating Forensics: Forensic Anthropology: http://www.sfu.museum/forensics/eng/pg_media-media_pg/anthropologie-anthropology/
Analyzing The Bones: What Can A Skeleton Tell You?: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/analysing-the-bones-what-can-a-skeleton-tell-you.html

CRIMINAL MISCHIEF 35: Corpse ID

Most victims of foul play are easily identified because they’re found in familiar places and reported by folks who knew them. But those found in remote or odd places with no ID create problems for investigators. In these cases, identifying the corpse is a critical step in solving the case.
 
LINKS:
Crime Museum: Postmortem Identification: https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/forensic-investigation/postmortem-identification/
The Conversation: How Do We Identify Human Remains?: http://theconversation.com/how-do-we-identify-human-remains-121315
NamUs: https://www.namus.gov
Crime and Science Radio Interview with Todd Matthews of NamUs: https://www.blogtalkradio.com/suspensemagazine/2016/12/03/crime-and-science-radio-with-special-todd-matthews
A complete discussion of these issues can be found in my books FORENSICS FOR DUMMIES and HOWDUNNIT:FORENSICS. Check them out at: https://www.dplylemd.com/books