Hail to the chiefs! Two reviews of presidential fiction

For decades, becoming president of the United States has inevitably doomed you to having to write a book. And to having them written about you. Mostly, these books were nonfiction – memoirs, biographies, political analyses. Sure, dead presidents are often popular in historical fiction. And first children Elliott Roosevelt and Margaret Truman wrote mysteries based on their White House experiences, although not until after the deaths of their respective presidential fathers.

But presidents who write fiction? And still-living presidents having fiction written about them – especially comic fiction?  Intrigued by this recent phenomenon, I devoured two such books – Hope Never Dies, featuring fictional versions of Barack Obama and his vice-president Joe Biden; and The President Is Missing, co-written by Bill Clinton and thriller veteran James Patterson. 

First up: The President Is Missing
Authors: Bill Clinton and James Patterson
Publishers: Little, Brown and Company, Alfred A. Knopf
Source: Purchase, Barnes & Noble
Grade: B

Most of the world believes the biggest problem facing U.S. President Jonathan Douglas is a pending impeachment hearing triggered by a botched CIA operation in North Africa in The President Is Missing, a release from the James Patterson thriller franchise co-written by former president Bill Clinton. Little do president Douglas’s fellow citizens realize that the still greater threat is a cyberattack so deadly the White House dares not acknowledge its existence, much less that the apparently-unstoppable attack will occur within days. Or that one of the president’s closest associates is working hand in hand with the cyberterrorists. Or that the president is further hampered by a return of a long-standing illness that may cause his death at any time.

Unable to smoke out the traitor within his own ranks, Douglas goes undercover for a secret meeting with rogue computer hackers who may be able to stop the cyberattack, code named Dark Ages. But it’s not easy to disappear when you’re the most recognizable person on the planet. Still less easy when your contact’s designated meeting place is the site of a major league ball game. 

And that’s even before Douglas realizes the terrorists have hired the world’s best assassin to take him out of action. From that opening, the action in The President Is Missing is nonstop as the cyber Armageddon countdown begins.

Patterson's modus operandi is choosing the subject and outlining his books, leaving co-writers to fill in the story, subject to his review. He definitely knows the basics of thrillerdom: world class stakes, tight timelines, ripped-from-the-headlines scenarios and spare-no-expense special effects. Even protagonist Douglas as a squeaky-clean, baggage-free hero is straight out of the how to write a best-selling thriller handbook, although I wondered how much of Douglas’s personality was an attempt to assuage co-writer Clinton’s qualms about the subject, given his own history of personal peccadillos. 

Less common in the genre, but a welcome change, is the supporting cast of women characters – good, bad, and shades in-between. Yes, The President Is Missing is occasionally preachy, the machinery sometimes creaks, and the huge cast also includes characters both predictable and paper-thin. Still, it’s a tightly-written thrill a minute entry in the newly-minted genre of presidential fiction.

***

Next up: Hope Never Dies
Author: Andrew Shaffer
Publisher: Quirk Books
Source: Purchase, Barnes & Noble
Grade A

If ever a book wore its heart on its sleeve, it’s Hope Never Dies, author Andrew Shaffer’s love letter to former president Barack Obama and his vice-president Joe Biden. Billed as an Obama Biden mystery, it’s sweet, small-scale and character-rich, a road trip of a cozy featuring a Holmes/Watsonish pairing of the chilled-out former POTUS and his veep that even those of multiple political persuasions can enjoy.

The book opens as Biden pines for the loss of the close personal relationship he once shared with Obama and envies the high life the former commander-in-chief has seemed to enjoy since leaving office. Into this rift, Obama steps at his most enigmatic, conveying a cryptic message: news of the death of Amtrak train conductor Finn Donnelly, a long-time friend of Biden’s. 

It seems like only one more grief to add to the veep’s store of them (and perhaps a stand-in for the actual death of Biden’s son). But the more Biden learns about the circumstances of the conductor’s death, the less likely it seems the official verdict of accident seems. 

Donnelly’s body was found on the tracks of the very Amtrak line he had worked on for years. How could he have been there accidentally? Or if Donnelly chose suicide as a way out of personal and financial problems, why would he place the burden of the death on a fellow Amtrak employee? And how can Biden reconcile the upstanding Donnelly he knew so long with the presence of opioids found on his body?

The deeper Biden digs, the worse things get in Hope Never Dies. And Obama’s attempts to help only make things worse. How much trouble can two guys who were once world leaders get into as they try their hands at solving a murder without their accustomed accoutrements of power? The answer is – plenty, some heart-tugging, some heart-stopping. And some, given the authorship of Shaffer, whose previous works include titles such as The Fifty Shames of Earl Grey and How to Survive a Sharknado, hilarious. 

Contests & more: getting the most for our writing bucks

Sometimes it seems as if I spend as much time studying the writing craft as I do actually writing. And although I try to attend at least one writing conference, workshop, or class yearly, I’m always on the lookout for what’s free. Still, I sometimes barely bother opening emails from writing organizations. A class sounds great but – not in my budget. (I have dogs to support!) Or it’s in another city. Or, it’s not at a good time.

But I’ve got to mention one email I finally clicked on, from the Writer’s Digest Shop: “Expert Tips and Tricks to Revise Your Manuscript.” It’s free! It’s online (no transportation required)! It’s got a great list of experts on tap. And it’s – today – Tuesday, July 25, 2017, from noon till 1 p.m. EDT, at the Writer’s Digest site.

image: Wikimedia commons

Try it, see what you think, and tell me if it’s worth an hour of your time.

OK, that’s not exactly a contest. But to show you this isn’t a bait and switch post, here are some more of the writing contests filling up my inbox, listed in order of urgency.

Now – July 31: Narrative magazine’s short story contest. Big cash prizes, exposure to worldwide audiences. See the site for details. 

Now – August 1: (Early Bird Deadline): Writer’s Digest Self-Published E-Book Awards. Winner receives $5000, magazine publicity, and entry to the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference. See the site for details.

Now - August 15: Dallas Areas Writers Group (DAWG) 2017 Short Story Contest. Cash prizes and recognition in DAWG publications. Open to all genres, original unpublished stories only, with word counts between 800 – 3,000 words. See the DAWG site for details.

September 25 – October 24: Writers Guild of Texas Flash Fiction Contest. Cash prizes and publication for winners in the WGT newsletter. $25 for nonmembers (which will also entitle contestants to a year’s membership); free for members. See the site for details.

October 16, 2017: (Early Bird Deadline): Finally, again from Writer’s Digest, the ever-popular Popular Fiction Awards. See the site for genres, fees, extended deadlines.

Ongoing: The Trident Media Group's challenge at Prose.com threatens to close, but then keeps going, and going, and going. Try it at the site and see if you become one of the week’s fabulous four who gets recommended to Trident, a leading U.S. literary agency

Which reminds me. . . I signed up for Prose challenges after noticing that an agency I was interested in was sponsoring one. Most of them are free, good to check out and see what others are writing.

Which also reminds me – are we getting the most out of all the contests, workshops, and classes we signed up for?

Just as I receive emails about contests and workshops from Writer’s Digest after a comparatively brief paid subscription period, I also continue to reap benefits from other contacts. A relatively inexpensive online course taught by mega-bestselling author James Patterson from MasterClass and found a new community of fellow writers. Once taken, the class material stays online forever, and students have the right to submit questions to Patterson in perpetuity. The online community has also sponsored its own writing contest.

Similar benefits accrue to anyone who has ever signed up for NaNoWriMo. What started as a once a year writing challenge now offers year-round support, online seminars and webinars for writers. Check your own contacts and see what unused benefits may lurk within!

The world's craziest writing contest? Or not

I just did something so completely crazy it will probably destroy any credibility I have as a writer but, oh, what fun it was! I sent in my entry in a contest to be a co-author with James Patterson. I know, I know – bestselling author, gazillions of books sold, co-written by equal gazillions of co-authors foaming at the mouth to get their byline in small print under Patterson’s.

If you’re still reading, here are the details, because the contest, for better or worse, ends at one minute before midnight March 1, 2017, Pacific Time. Contestants must be registered for Patterson’s online writing course at Master Class (more about that later in this post). The course costs $90, which is probably the least expensive writing class I’ve ever taken.

The contest is also limited to residents of the Australia, Canada (excluding, for obscure legal reasons, Quebec), the United Kingdom, and the United States, including District of Columbia, but excluding, again for unfathomable legal reasons, Arizona and my beloved native state of Louisiana (luckily, I’ve actually been a resident of Texas for the last few decades).

Oh, and the writing? Right, you’ve got to submit the opening chapter (1000 words maximum) and a two-sentence logline (100 words maximum) for a mystery or thriller in Patterson’s writing style.

The contest opened February 1, as I wrote in the January 12, 2017, post “Writing contests – there's more here than book reviews,” so some of you may be feeling smug just now, your entries polished within an inch of their lives, pitying the late comers.

Truthfully, I had some initial buyer’s remorse about the class, which was not alleviated by reading the recommended homework, Patterson’s 2005 thriller Honeymoon, co-written with Howard Roughan. Words of every creative writing instructor at whose feet I’ve sat echoed in my mind as I flipped the pages. (Yes, they do practically flip themselves, as Patterson asserts in the windup to the online class.)

No depth of character! Awkward sentences! Shallow, shallow, shallow! But fast, fast, fast!

As Patterson himself notes candidly in the class lectures – “I’m not writing realism.”

I couldn’t even bring myself to open the course until mid-February.

A lot of those qualms were quieted when I actually listened to Patterson. He comes across as such a nice (albeit driven) person, friendly, personable, even funny in a disarmingly nerdy kind of way. I thought, hey, why not enter his contest? What do I have to lose – I’ve already paid for the class.

Of course, as every writer is, I was in the midst of another project. Oh, maybe I could use the opening chapter of that book, which has only been promised to an agent since last summer and which I’ve since entered in another, probably equally crazy contest, as my entry in Patterson’s contest. Uh, no. Reading the fine print, which is always one of my last things to do, I learned that no manuscript entered for anything else is eligible for the Patterson project. So it was the last half of February and I had to come up with something completely new? I couldn’t possibly.

Nothing makes me more determined to do something than being told, even by myself, that I can’t do it. I mulled ideas one night before lights out, pounded out my 1000 words the next morning, begged members of an online critique group for comments, and zapped off the results.

Fast and fun. In the unlikely event I become a semifinalist, Patterson will expect me to outline the whole book. But dang, I’ll outline it anyway. What writer can ever have too many stories?

Writing contests – there's more here than book reviews

This site isn’t all about reviews. Sometimes it’s about competitions, like a chance to win a free writing residency (and more!) from the DFW Writers Workshop. Or can you be tempted by a chance to have bestselling author James Patterson pick you from among his writing students to co-author one of his books? How about a critique (and chance to pitch to) a literary agent in your field? Or, if you’re a medical professional with a yen to write, check out an opportunity just for you.

January 15: Deadline for the Writers League of Texas 2017 manuscript contest is this coming Sunday, January 15. This is a chance to get your manuscript (in any of several genres) before the eyes of writing professionals. Winners in each category will meet individually with the literary agent who was the final judge in their category. No finished manuscript required, only the first approximately 10 pages plus a synopsis. Plus, you don’t need to live in Texas to qualify.

image: wikimedia commons

Fees are $55 for WLT members, $65 for nonmembers. All contestants, winners or not, will receive written feedback. Or plunk members can plunk down $25 ($35 for nonmembers) to enter and forego the written feedback. (Although why wouldn’t you want feedback?)

See the site for details and formatting requirements.

February 1 – March 1: James Patterson’s 22-lesson writing starts with how to get started and covers outlines, plotting, characters, dialogue and more. Includes class workbooks and a chance to submit drafts for feedback from fellow students (and maybe from Patterson himself.) Cost: $90. See the Master Class site for class details and information on how to enter the contest to be his next co-author.

March 10:  The annual Literature + Medicine conference, previously hosted by Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, is moving to the campus of Southern Methodist University for this year’s conference, April 1. In addition to some wonderful speakers (last year’s special guest was Dr. Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone, among other works), the conference includes a creative writing contest. Sorry, this is only for health care professionals, but it’s a chance to exercise your skill at essays, poems and short stories about your experience in medicine. Check the Literature + Medicine site for details.

March 22: Now, for those who’ve already written the first chapter of their novels for the Writers League contest, (who are hard at work on the same), get more bang from your work by entering the first-ever writing residence contest from the DFW Writers Workshop. This is the organization that hosts an annual literary conference (this year, May 6-7). Now they’re giving us a chance to polish our work, not to mention free or reduced price admission to the DFWWW conference.

Grand prize winner gets free admission to the conference (which includes a 10-minute pitch session with an agent or editor), admission to VIP events not open to general conference attendees, two weeks’ room and board at the conference hotel, airfare to Dallas-Fort Worth from anywhere in the continental United States, manuscript critique and mentorship by a published author.

Second and third place winners receive free admission to the conference. Fourth and fifth place winners receive half-price admission.

Submit the first chapter (up to 5,000 words) of a book-length work in any prose genre along with an outline or synopsis demonstrating your vision and ability to complete the project. Fee per entry: $50. See the DFW Writers Workshop site for details.