How to Heighten Suspense Employing Ancillary Events

In writing my novel STALKING THE SKY, I wanted to associate the corporate raider, J. Stephen Girard, a ruthless, cunning predator deliberating on whether to seize a premier airline, with a merciless flying predator of a different sort, a trained falcon.

Here's an excerpt:

Finally, the Arab extended his gloved hand, held it there long enough for the falcon to gain her balance, and then cast her upward. Her jesses released, the falcon leaped forward, and with one beat of her powerful wings she was airborne and climbing. Higher and higher she ascended, spiraling upward until she was only a speck herself. Then she hovered motionless, the sun behind her, awaiting the inevitable moment when the guileless pigeons' flight would carry them beneath her.

Girard had sensed the excitement mounting within him as the peregrine sped upward. He felt a kinship with the soaring predator. Every part of her body had been designed by nature for her single purpose in life, the hunt. Success at the hunt meant survival.

The falcon had already chosen which was to be her victim and the point in the sky where they would meet. She seemed to wait forever, as if, hypnotized by the magic of flight, she had forgotten the kill. Then, almost too late, the wings snapping tight against her body, she suddenly plummeted. Faster she dove, until she was no more than a streaking blur. At the last instant, wings and tail spread, talons clenched, she swooped sharply upward into her prey, knocking the pigeon senseless. Helplessly, it fluttered downward like a pinwheel. Within seconds the falcon's claws clenched the stunned bird, and she was returning to earth. There she would mantle the pigeon with her wide wings before taking its neck within her beak and breaking it.

At that moment J. Stephen Girard decided it was time to bid for control of Global Universal Airlines.

Read more: STALKING THE SKY. bit.ly/PojdHz

Creating a Character Who Is Larger Than Life

I've written a number of novels, including Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle); A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time(Kindle); Birthright or Birthright (Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle). In writing my novel, Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle), I wanted a scene over dinner to accomplish several things: First was to give the reader a sense of the vivid, dynamic and virile personality and past of the legendary Ben Buck, head of Global Universal Airline. I did that by having another person at the dinner relate old anecdotes about him that would surprisingly prove important later on in the book. I also wanted to sketch in a little of the beginnings of what grew into the airline industry and did that, too, with an anecdote, this one about an early flyer getting lost on a mail flight. Here's an excerpt: Dinner was a noisy affair, laced with half a century of anecdotes about airplanes and the characters who flew them, people like Danny Morell, who had a mail route in the twenties. He was too farsighted to read the compass and too vain to wear glasses, so he followed the railroad tracks below him from one city to the next. One day fog rolled in unexpectedly, and when he finally landed at what he thought was Baltimore, it turned out to be Washington, D.C. "Take me to the Postmaster General," he demanded. "I want to bid on a new mail route to Baltimore I just discovered." Then there was the time Buck agreed to publicize GUA’s new jets, just delivered to replace piston aircraft. The plan called for him and a planeful of reporters to have breakfast in New York and lunch in Los Angeles; they’d be back in New York for a late dinner that night. It was an eye-catching stunt for a nation only three decades from biplanes and wire wing supports. Unfortunately, a new employee at Los Angeles Airport mistook a football team for the planeload of newsmen; lunch was gone when the jet touched down. "You know," the GUA man finally admitted after the shock wore off, "I thought they were kind of big for reporters, but I couldn’t be sure. I’ve never been East." Frey remembered the times during the war when the General, dog-tired from months of unceasing work to build an air transport system capable of supporting the war effort, would disappear for a few days of R & R. Frey was his driver then—that was how they met—and the one who shared the roistering hours when Buck let off steam. "We were known in every whorehouse in every two-bit town that had an air base. Only the General never gave his real name. He called himself General Benjamin," the small man recalled, with a wink at Buck. "Remember Annette, with the business cards? She had business cards printed to advertise her house, with a line at the bottom of the card saying, ‘Recommended by General Benjamin. ’" The table exploded in laughter, Buck’s loudest of all. Frey’s head bobbed up and down as he added, "Know what he did when he found out? Know what he did? He insisted on a month of free visits or else he would have his own cards printed up taking back the endorsement." The laughter burst forth again. "Annette’s cards started turning up all over Washington, and two other General Benjamins nearly ended up court-martialed." Frey waited for the laughter to subside. "But any girl with a hard-luck story, he was the softest touch in America—" Buck cut him off. "Nobody wants to hear that. Tell them about that time in New Orleans. Remember New Orleans, Pres?" Frey remembered. "New Orleans was the best. Everywhere we turned there was puss—pardon me, ma’am . . . there were girls. You know what that big stud over there did? He rented the grandest whorehouse you ever saw for one solid week just for the two of us. The War Department and Western Union were three days tracking us down to get a message to the General. The lucky son of a B who delivered the message spent the next two days there with us. Western Union had to send out a search party for him." The Old Man’s eyes were dancing as he picked up the story. "One of the councilmen got so damned horny waiting all that time for the house to reopen, he had the police break in and arrest us. They didn’t want to say prostitution was going on, so they accused us of ‘illegal entry.’" As the laughter died down, Frey said, with a faraway look in his eyes, "There was one city where a little girl was so sweet on the General whenever we were there we lived right in the whorehouse, like kings. And me, I never had less than two or three girls there with me at a time. They don’t make wars like that anymore." Read more: Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). ow.ly/mfX1S

How to Show First Awkwardness with Ex-wife Then Chemistry with New Love Interest

In writing my novel STALKING THE SKY, I wanted to describe the awkwardness of an ex-husband and wife meeting at a party after a number of years have passed. while also imparting a sense of their ill-suitedness. I also wanted to show how exciting a relationship might be with the man's new lover, who is giving the party.

Here's an excerpt:

As soon as Will began picking his way among the small knots of people to locate Donna, his high spirits returned. The day’s work had been a triumph. The party and the excitement of New York had buoyed him.

"Oh, my God! Will!"

He turned toward the voice. "Hello, Carla."

He had broken off with Carla the same night she asked him to move in with her, as he guessed she would; she had timed every move with exasperating precision. Will had told her he did not intend to be squeezed and bent to fit the empty places in someone else’s life.

"You’re . . . you’re in New York."

"Only for the night. How have you been?"

"I’ve been well, Will." She had regained her poise. "I’m into self-actualization now and it’s given me a great deal of confidence."

"The new hair style, is that part of it?"

"The hair style, the clothes—I think they express a freer, more open me. The best part is that I’ve been able to come to grips with my father’s role in my life—you remember me telling you about my father—and accept him and understand that he acted out of love. I can say all those things openly to him now."

"Isn’t your father dead?"

"That really isn’t the point."

A hand slipped through Will’s arm. "I see you two have found each other again. What do old lovers say to each other?"

Belinda had joined them. Her face was lit by a mischievous grin. Will refused to be drawn in.

"The really old ones talk about their grandchildren, lumbago and hospital costs. Belinda, this is a spectacular show. I had no idea you were so accomplished."

"Thank you. I’m glad you could come." She turned to Carla. "We literally bumped into each other on an elevator this morning. I was with Cassie." She turned back to Will. "Carla is engaged, you know."

"Congratulations. Do I know him?"

Will’s interest seemed merely courteous, Belinda noted.

"Dave Delauney. He’s gone to fetch me a drink."

"The way you say that bodes well for a satisfying life together."

Belinda said, "I hope you don’t mind, Carla, if I introduce Will to some people here."

"It was good to see you, Will. Perhaps we could have dinner."

"Perhaps on some other trip."

Belinda guided Will toward a large canvas. Gloomy colors formed a faint profile of the painter.

"That’s what I look like in the morning," she remarked lightly.

"I apologize for the way my compliment before may have sounded," Will said.

"It’s just that so many of Carla’s friends did nothing with their lives, and they all called themselves interior decorators or jewelry designers . . ."

"Or painters?"

"Or painters. Why do you paint your self-portrait so often? Narcissism?"

"Cheap model." She eyed him wryly. "People who dislike me say it’s a clever way to promote myself. Now, what about you? You live in Colorado, you said. What kind of work do you do there?"

"Legal work, for Global Universal Airlines."

"That’s interesting."

"Every time I tell people who I work for, they insist on telling me how they were bumped off a flight or lost their luggage. What have you lost?"

"Absolutely nothing. In fact, I’m still a virgin with my first set of teeth."

Will laughed unreservedly. With friends, Belinda’s funny, outrageous lines snapped the air around her like firecrackers. But with new people, especially men, enjoyment of them was a kind of test—one that Will had just passed. Particularly now, Belinda would have liked to stay with him, but she had other commitments.

Read more: STALKING THE SKY bit.ly/PojdHz