aurorawatcherak "I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
I don’t think I’d ever heard you don’t use a name that starts with the same first letter as another character’s name. That would force you to only have 26 characters in your book. I’m clearly a rule-breaker, then.
But there’s also a rule (that I actually do know) where you never use the same name for two different characters and that’s completely bogus because there are five women who attend my church who have the same or similar names to me, and I once attended another church where 25% of the men had some version of the name James. Reality is that people have the same or similar names because names tend to appear in clusters at various times in history.
Yes, absolutely, don’t confuse your readers by having characters with the same name talking to one another, but it’s unrealistic to have a common name not be repeated somewhere in the same universe.
So, I do have rules, but I’m not slave to that one.
My Rules
All my main characters have carefully chosen names based on a few rules. I’m writing three series and have a couple of standalone novels, so I’m just going to look at Transformation Project for now.
The town of Emmaus is loosely based on a real-Kansas town, so I downloaded a copy of their telephone book so I’d have names I could use. I don’t ever use anyone’s real full name, but I especially care about the last names that reflect the ethnic makeup of the town. There’s a strong population of Irish-surnamed people and a slightly smaller population of German-surnamed people. And a town to the west that is a stand-in for Mara Wells has some Irish-surnamed people and some Slavic-surnamed people. Both towns have a minority of Hispanic surnames. The town that is stand-in for Emmaus has more than Hispanic names.
So when I pick names, I go to that telephone book and look through the names because it adds an air of authenticity to my characters’ names. Maybe a lot of readers don’t catch it, but that is the reality of small, Midwest towns.
Some main characters have similar first names — I think I have three minor characters whose full first name is Jason — but not all of them use their full names. There’s a Jason, a Jace, and a character who goes by his initials. And, since that’s real life — again, we have a similar situation at my church — I don’t sweat it.
When I Accidently Break the Rules
I’m currently writing the next book in the Transformation Project series and I realized I named a character in the first book who was never supposed to show up later in the series. An actual character refers to him, but he never appeared in the book and I never expected to use him. So I re-used his first name in the second or third book for a minor character who has shown up a few times throughout the series. But now, in the current yet-unpublished book, that first character is actually present with Shane in Texas, while the other character is also appearing in Emmaus. The two characters should never interaction (that’s good, right?) but when I looked up the first character’s name, I had a momentary conundrum.
They’re both named “Jon”. Oh, no! What to do?
I’m still working that out. I can’t have two characters in the same book with the exact same name. So I went to a couple of friends at work who are both named Jonathan and asked them what they do when they’re in the same meeting. They assured me they’re both known as Jonathan and they both think of themselves as Jonathan, but both answer to the name “Jon” if someone chooses to call them that. I’m researching to see which character is likely to mind being called “Jonathan” or prefe to be called “Jon” for short..
We’ve talked about stories we’ve revised after many years. Have you ever given up totally on a story idea because you didn’t feel you could handle it, either technically or emotionally?
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Yes, I’ve given up on a project because it was too emotional.
A friend’s daughter was killed by a serial killer back when I was in high school. I got to know her 20 years after the fact.
Everything in my life is a possible source for a story, and for years, I’ve kept a file on my computer with facts and thoughts about that case. And, technically, I could layer into a fictional story that nobody could easily trace to my friend and her family.
But I haven’t!
Why?
It’s not that it’s emotional for me, but that it might be emotionally damaging for the family and I just can’t do that to them. My friend passed a few years ago, but I can’t look in her granddaughter’s eye and say I used her mother’s death as a seedbed for a story.
There are tiny fragments of the story that have made it into my writing, but I came to a conclusion a few years ago that I would never write the full story…and that’s fine because our relationships should matter more than our fiction.
When I was in junior high through college, my mother operated an in-home daycare in our livingroom, so I’m actually pretty good at screening out distractions. I do have to enforce my focus somewhat to not get distracted by the Internet, but I can ignore television and other people in the house pretty well, so I’m not sure I’d spend the money on a gadget to screen things out when my natural reticular system does just fine.
BUT….
In researching this topic, I did run across two intriguing items. Noise-cancellation headphones would be cool for public settings like cafes and airports, although I wouldn’t want to risk missing a flight because I couldn’t hear the overhead messages that are already kind of muddled. It also might interfere with my people-watching, since I love to overhear people’s conversations and those end up in my writing a lot.
A portable keyboard would be lovely to use with a tablet. I always opt for the full sized laptop with the full-sized keyboard because it’s easier on the metacarpels, but again, if I was on the go a lot, it would probably pay to go smaller and lighter, maybe even work off my smartphone while traveling. I refuse to type a novel with my thumbs, however, so a foldable keyboard would faciltate 10-fingered typing.
A long time before I published my first novel, I wrote for my own amazement. Consequently, I have a large catalogue of stories that were never ready for prime time. Now, I’m mining those old projects for story ideas, refurbished for today’s circumstances. It’s lovely to revisit old characters long quiet and consider how old plots can be used in new ways when melded with ongoing world circumstances.
And, yes, I plan to absolutely continue that practice because it just makes sense. I spent all those years playing in the fertile fields of my imagination. Why would I ignore that rich pantry of ideas that I can mine for new story ideas?
So I looked at this question and couldn’t think of the “biggest don’t”. I thought of a lot of don’t, but which one was the “biggest.” So then I went and found a list, and that helped, but deciding what the “biggest” no-no might be proved challenging.
These were the suggestions I found.
Lack of conflict
writing unrealistic characters
writing cliches
editing as you go
bland descriptions
fluffy dialogue
too much happiness
confusing points of view
not knowing the plot
lack of passion
How to Narrow The Field
I went looking for the “one don’t writers should never do” and I got 10 suggestions. Sigh! Now I have to narrow the field. I immediately rejected “not knowing the plot.” Although I write series which means I have a definable beginning (the end of the last book) and I sort of have to know the end point of this book to set up the next book, I admit without self-incrimination that I’m a discovery writer. The joy is in the journey. You learn this in hiking. You need to know how you’re getting back to the car before you start out, but everything between the beginning and the end is subject to change so long as your exploring doesn’t get you lost in the wilderness.
I also mostly reject the idea you should never write cliches. Tropes (a type of cliche) are a writing tool. Sometimes they’re overused to the point of being annoying, but sometimes they’re useful. It provides a framework for a novel that makes writing easier. The trick is in twisting tropes and cliches in ways the reader doesn’t expect.
I’ll admit, I edit as I go. I try not to get sucked into an editing rabbithole, but for me — when the story decides what direction it’s going in, I at least need a launching point for it, so yes, I do some (but not a lot) editing as I go. That might keep other writers from ever finishing a story, but I clearly don’t have a problem with starting, writing, and finishing a book.
I also admit I throw in “fluffy dialogue” from time to time. I’m a big believer that most people don’t have rock-solid critical conversations every second of the day. Reality is, used carefully, “fluffy dialogue” is more realistic than 100% focused dialogue. Don’t do it too much, but your characters will be more realistic if they occasionally go off topic because that’s real-life
Focusing on Half the Possibilities
I tend to agree too much happiness and not enough conflict don’t make for compelling fiction. Let’s not bore the readers. I subscribe to Ray Bradbury’s belief in the setting as a vivid character all its own (so avoid bland descriptions). The problems described above are really a symptom of the writer’s lack of passion. If a writer can’t provide a compelling reason to read their book, it’s because they don’t love their characters warts and all or care about their lives with major flaws. Conflict amid a vivid setting gives the story a purpose. It gives your characters a goal to accomplish.
But at some points in a story process, conflict is not necessarily vital. Sometimes I write diamond-setting — placing the conflict amid the linking scenes that sometimes involve characters who aren’t in conflict with one another. That’s real life, and it’s a nice counterpoint to conflict. Add real-life, non-conflict moments and you give the conflict a slight bit of breathing room. Don’t overdue it, and the reader will appreciate the space.
Having winnowed the chaff and set aside the less critical issues (during the story construction because they can be sharpened before publication), I’ve reduced the options to two — writing unrealistic characters or using confusing points of view.
I Choose Two
Much like conflict, a story is nothing without its characters. All characters both main and minor must be believable and real. Writers shouldn’t be lazy with their characters. We need to flash them out, even if it’s just a fun turn of phrase in the two minutes they appear in the narrative. Not every single character appearing in the story needs a full history and comprehensive backstory, but the main ones do. If a character isn’t given deep enough thought, it will become boring and unlikable. Writers should invite their readers to thoroughly invest in our characters because they seem like they could live next door to us.
Perfect characters aren’t relatable. In real life, good people with positive motives still have flaws. Show those. Similarly, let unlikeable characters have a few relatable features. Making your characters more human makes them more compelling.
I recently read a good novel with a fun plot that confused the snot out of me. I was the first reader for someone’s first book and she’d just wandered back and forth between the two point of view characters. It made sense to the writer as she wrote it, but it left me wandering around in the narrative without a compass. Somehow, it had never occurred to her that readers wouldn’t immediately know when she was shifting perspective.
Which was fine because it was a first draft. I gently let her know this was hard for me to follow the POV and she should organize the character POVs by chapter. She promises she’ll let me read the book again. I expect that one change will immensely improve the book.
The One Don’t
Don’t bore or confuse the reader and don’t panic when at the end of your first draft there’s a sense your story isn’t complete. It isn’t. And that fine because you can go back and improve it before you publish, which means the reader will never know.
I grew up in my mother’s daycare center, so I’m not distracted by much. I can write to the squeal of little kids shrieking in delight over just being alive. I never would have written when I was in high school or college if I didn’t know how to screen out noise. I got my Bachelor’s degree amid a lot of noise.
But there is one exception to that general ability to screen out backgound babble. I work in an office and I’m surrounded by people who don’t always talk about work. This spring, a half-dozen engineers were on the other side of the wall, supposedly getting ready the construction season, and talking, LOUDLY, about science fiction movies. Which was better — Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Gallactica?
Engineers are geeks. Science fiction movies are not an uncommon topics of conversation.
I have my own opinions on that triad of movies. I like all three. But I don’t have two-day long conversations about them.
Yes, two (2) DAYS.
It was mildly distracting the FIRST day, but I powered through with my usual ability to screen out what I have to ignore to get my job done.
Then the SECOND day rolled around and the conversation resumed as if they’d never gone home.
Truthfully, engineers are geeks and it is entirely possible they forgot to go home.
I suddenly couldn’t listen to it a moment longer. I was doing accounting. I’m not an accountant, but there is a fair number of data entry involved in my job and the actual accountants decided administrators need to do math before we submit our paperwork to them. Combined with my general disinterest in doing math, the overly-long conversation about science fiction movies was just too much input.
I struggled along for about an hour. It felt like they were in the room with me — some of them on one side of me, some of them on the other, and one or two of them right behind my chair. I swear they increased their volume and I’m convinced they started repeating themselves just to drive me nuts, I considering screaming at them, but engineers are often slightly autistic and they just wouldn’t understand my freakout.
It didn’t bother me yesterday…why is it bothering me today?
So I put on my earphones, plugged them into my laptop, and found some lovely instrumental music on Youtube. I chose Beethoven, and I found a 6-hour video, which meant I didn’t have to listen to nearby conversations except for the last 15 minutes of the day.
I have a lot of “favorite” settings from my books, but I had to pick one, so here goes.
The Delaney home in my Transformation Project is a favorite setting. A fair number of the scenes in the series happen there. It’s loosely based on a house I lived in as a little kid. That Alaska house is the right vintage and had a lot of desireable features, but it was a little small for my purposes, so I grew it a little bit to accomodates a large family trying to live through the apocalypse.
The Ground Floor
Most of the action happens in the living room with its medium blue walls. Although it is a formal room, it’s decorated for comfort. It’s a large room with a staircase at one side. There’s a short run of stairs up to a landing before the stairs turn right to run up the wall to the second floor. A beam supports the floor above where the stairs open up. The staircase is cased in maple wood paneling and there’s a fine set of railings and balusters. To the left of the first run of stairs is a wide entryway with a bench built into the side of the stairs where the old telephone niche lives opposite the front door, which leads out to the front covered porch. There’s also a door to the later-built study (which didn’t exist in my childhood home). I’ll come back to that later. This entryway is set aside with the beam and a columned set of cabinets, but there’s no door, so it’s not an airlock entry. The front door has a leaded glass window and fine oak wood.
The front wall of the living room has large divided glass windows with lace curtains and heavy drapes, separated by glass-fronted cabinets of the same fine maple the stair is cased in. The spaces between the cabinets have defunct radiators with white radiator covers forming window seats below the windows. Opposite the stairs is a stone fireplace that’s got a woodstove insert. In front of the fireplace are two couches, a recliner, an armchair, and a wooden coffee table and four end tables. The space is lit by four ceiling features and four lamps. Behind one of the couches is a china cabinet filled with fine china and then the opening to the dining room that can be closed by etched glass folding doors (my favorite feature of that childhood home).. To the right of the first run of stairs is a niche with an upright piano and, later in the series, a table with the ham radio on it. The floors are wood covered with a Oriental rug the Delaneys end up rolling up and storing because they can’t keep it clean without electricity to run the vacuum cleaner.
The dining room sits behind the living room. It has the same wood floor, pumpkin colored walls, and a large table with 10 chairs. The floors are heart pine and the waincoating is maple. There’s a Hartley-Wakefield buffet against the far wall and a small powder room off of it. There’s a rectangular stained-glass light hanging above the table and two stained-glass wall sconces above the buffet to either side of a large copy of an Ansel Adams photograph (see above). There’s a window at the far end in the space, looking out toward the driveway and the windows into the study.
The kitchen sits to the right of the dining room (if you’re standing at the opening from the living room), separated by a swinging door. It’s not enormous. To on the left side is the stove, sink, and the counterspace with pine cabinets above and a window that looks over the backyard on the other side of the screened porch. To the right, is the refrigerator, a table for four and a coal-fired antique cook stove. The floor is black-and-white tile and the walls are painted green to highlight the amber glow of the pine cabinets.
The kitchen expands two steps down into the mudroom. This wasn’t originally part of the house but was built sometime later to shelter the already existing basement steps and hand pump. To the right is the pump room with a washer and dryer, a chest freezer. This becomes the washroom in the winter when they can’t use the showers upstairs because it’s too cold and they don’t have running water unless they pump it from the ground with an old-fashioned hand pump. In the main mudroom open to the kitchen, there’s a work table, a pantry cabinet, and a rug and bench where the family sheds their shoes and hangs their coats, and keeps their keys on hooks by the door. There’s a small rug beside the end of the bench for the dog’s bowls with a window above that looks into the side yard. The floors are painted white and the alls match the kitchen. The back door leads out to the screen porch and the backyard, and stairs go down to the basement. (I’m coming back to that).
Going back to the front entry, you’re about to enter the true heart of the Delaney home. The study-library has coat closet at one end and one window looking out the front of the house. The side walls are completely full of floor-to-ceiling bookcases crammed with books. Near the back of the room, sits a desk with a guest chair and a desk chair behind it and a built in credenza under the windows that look out to the backyard and can see into the dining room window which is 90 degrees from the windows. There’s also a parlor woodstove in the corner.
The Basement
To the left of the backdoor, the concrete steps lead down to the cement-walled basement. The basement is where the Delaneys keep the things they don’t want stolen from them. If you can survive nine armed adults who have a vested interest in not having their food stolen from them, you might find some food in the well room under the back porch where they moved the chest freezer. It’s always been the root cellar, so is lined iwth shelves. There’s a lot of junk in the main basement. It’s where the Delaneys store the things that are too good to throw away, but aren’t really useful in their lives at the moment. There’s an old wringer washing machine that moves back upstairs after the Pulse because it can be adapted to manual use. Beside it is a silver utility sink. There’s an old brass bed that becomes Mike and Alicia’s home. The two furnaces live in one corner. One is a modern oil-fired boiler that won’t work without diesel and must be drained to prevent it freezing when they can’t heat the house with it. The other is an old coal-fired system that had been mothballed for decades, but Shane and Rob were able to resurrect to partially heat the home through defunct vents.
Near the furnaces is the door to the storm shelter that is under the middle portion of the study and just about opposite the entrance to the storm shelter is the bulkhead steps and door to the outside. To the far side from Mike and Alicia’s curtain-screened “room” is a workbench with a bunch of tools.
Second Floor
The stairs open in the upstairs hallway near the door to “Keri’s” bedroom (she doesn’t live there anymore since she got married, but the family usually refers to it that way). It’s the larger of the two back bedrooms. It’s a basic old-style bedroom with a large closet, a white painted iron-headboard bed and windows that look out over the backyard and out toward the driveway. This was once the main bedroom of the house where the parents slept, before the master suite was built above the study. Up here on the second floor, the trim is painted white and Keri was partial to a light green wall color. The wood floor is covered with throw rugs of various patterns and there’s a painted dresser for clothes.
There’s a long narrow linen closet between her room and the smallest bedroom in the house — once reserved for the oldest son’s bedroom while the other two bedrooms held multiple beds. At the start of the series it is Grandpa Jacob’s room, which he shared with his late-wife until her recent death. It’s a little tight for two people, but served his purposes just fine. The walls are beige and there’s a colorful quilt made by Sharon McLaughlin (one of the town residents) on the bed. It has a smaller closet that is one end of the linen closet.
Continuing around the hallway clockwise there’s a book case under a window and then a bump out for the main bathroom of the house, which is kind of small by modern standards, but is in keeping with bathrooms of its era. At one time, this was the nursery before the advent of indoor plumbing. The tub-shower combination is at one end and the toilet and sink are arrayed against the left-hand wall to more easily share plumbing with the kitchen There’s a small window in the shower, protected by a shortened shower curtain.
Beside the bathroom at right angles to it is Shane’s bedroom. His walls are an assertive dark green. His bed sits between his two front windows, and a third window looks over the side yard. His room and Cai’s room were once a single bunk room that have been split into two generously sized bedrooms separated by closets. Shane has a braided rug in caramel and green tones on his wood floor and a comfortably aged leather armchair that once belonged to his late great-grandfather. His dresser is next to the door, and he has a photograph of a beach on the wall above it. The yellow of the sand pops off the dark green of his walls. Against the wall he shares with the bathroom is a floor to ceiling bookcase filled with books he loved in high school.
Cai’s room (which he shares with his wife Marnie) occupies the other half of the front of the house. There are two windows looking out the front but because the master suite blocked the window to the side, that space is now infilled with shelves filled with law books. His wood floor is covered in a dark blue rug and his walls are a warm caramel color. Cai has a much beloved family portrait showing his grandparents Jacob and Vi, his parents Rob and Jill, and his brother and sister, Shane and Keri, as well as himself. It hangs above his dresser and there’s a second dresser for Marnie tucked against the door wall.
If you step out into the hallway, there’s a cabinet outside Cai’s room that acts as an overflow linen closet. Between that cabinet and the railing around the stairs are two doors. One leads into the master bed suite and the other leads into the attic (more on that in a minute).
The master suite wasn’t part of the original house but was added in the 1920s or 30s, mainly as an afterthought to the study which became the center of the growing Delaney family businesses. It’s the largest bedroom in the house. Just inside the door is a short closet that resides under the first run of stairs to the attic and, then around the conrer, is another closet that fits under the rise of the attic stairs. Where the headroom becomes standard again, there’s a master bathroom with a shower, a double vanity and the “necessary” toilet. While larger than the main bathroom, it is still not like a modern bathroom. It’s the only room in the house that doesn’t have a window. The bedroom has two windows looking out the front of the house, two widely-spaced windows looking out to the driveway, and two windows overlooking the detached garage. There are bookcases under the front window and built-in drawers acting as dressers under the back windows. The bed sits between the two side windows. It’s a queen-sized four-poster that has been in this bedroom since it was built, heavy oak with ornate carving. There’s a trunk that sits at its foot. There are two rugs on the pine floor — a red one on Jill’s side of the bed and a blue one on Rob’s side of the bed. The walls are painted a deep plum that goes with either rug. and the quilt is another Sharon McLauglin creation.
The Attic
Because readily available storage is at a premium in this house, Jill uses the short run of stairs before the winding corner to the attic as shelves for cleaning supplies and the upstairs vacuum. Upstairs, there’s a short attic to the left that comprises the roof space above the master suite. It’s contains a lounge space with a plush carpet, bean bags and throw pillows plus low shelves in the knee walls, This used to be a favorite place for the Delaney kids to hang out except in the coldest parts of the winter. The attic isn’t directly heated by the boiler. In the larger part of the attic, there’s odds and ends of family detritus — sewing forms, wig heads, vacuums that just need a little love, a hobby horse, etc. There’s also an old combination safe because Jacob Delaney’s father did trust the bank, which is why the family wasn’t wiped out during the Great Depression. It’s also where Shane hides state secrets and where Vi, before her recent death, hid his Bible — a mystery he hasn’t had time to solve yet. The only windows here look out over the front porch.
The Outside
The Delaney house is equipped with two porches, front and back. The one in the front is covered and provides a gracious entry to the house with a swing on one side. The one in the back is screened and provides a cool place to hang out in the heat of the summer when the mosquitos are bad It runs from the back door to the powder room bump out at one end of the dining room, where the steps go down to the yard. There’s an open-fronted woodshed in one corner of the partially fenced back yard and a brick firepit near the middle, surrounded by benches. The backyard backs up to the old apple orchard that has been neglected for years. A farm road runs through it to the Delaney ranch — subject of a future similar post, maybe.
There’s a white picket fence enclosing the front yard and partially enclosing the back. The family accesses the house mostly through the back yard. and someone never replaced the gate here when it fell off its hinges.
At the end of the driveway lays the garage, which is actually a converted barn. Because it was an in-town house, the barn isn’t very large as barns go. Downstairs is enough room to house two cars or about four hours and hay to feed them. Upstairs is a storage room where the family keeps their outdoor gear – skis and the like.
And that’s about it. It’s a red-and-white 2-1/2 story house with a blue shingled roof, and the basement has window-wells and a bulkhead door. The side yards are generous because it’s one end of a Metis lot that goes all the way back to the ranch and creek at the far end. It thus sits on the edge of town. The houses on either side of them aren’t very close and none of them have as generously sized lots because the Delaneys were among one of the first families in the area and they haven’t sold or subdivided their property.
So that’s about it. It’s among my favorite settings because it is the main location for a lot of Transformation Project seires.
When I was in high school, our creative writing teacher introduced us to listening to music while we write. It’s amazing the pictures that appear in your mind when you listen to the William Tell Overture. Think Waren Brothers cartoon shorts.
The first scene of the Daermad Cycle began to come together while listening to an Enya album. The Celtic notes of violins and flutes had me envisioning a large meadow at the base of mountains. That’s the scene where Padraig rides into his home country after a sojourn among the Kindred.
I prefer instrumental music or songs where I don’t understand the lyrics when I’m writing. That’s not always classical music. You can find all sorts of genres of music without lyrics, even old rock tunes. On the other hand, most of the titles of What If…Wasn’t series come from contemporary Christian songs.
I can’t really give recommendations about music to other people because I find musical inspiration to be really personal. What inspires me may not inspire you, and sometimes what inspired me last week doesn’t inspire me today. I tend to follow niche Christian artists that might mean nothing to you if you’re not a church-goer. But I’ve also started listening to classical musicians I didn’t listen to for most of my life. I was always a fan of Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart, but I’m listening to many others in the last couple of years. I can tell you what classic composers set certain moods for me, but I’m not sure it will resonate with you in the same way.
I’m going to suggest that Abby might have some better recommendations than I do.
Hands down, it’s Thanksgiving. For me it’s more than just a day where we overeat. It’s a season that starts the day after Halloween and goes until December 1. I love the decorations. Autumn is my favorite season even though it lasts a week or two only here in Alaska. I decorate for it from Labor Day through Black Friday when I decorate for Christmas and then when Christmas is over, I put the autumn decorations back. Come summer, I’ll swap out for summer decorations.
I love to cook, but it’s just me now, so I usually can’t eat a big meal. But Thanksgiving is family day, so I’ll roast a turkey, make sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and ambrosia salad, and bake rolls and pies. I’ll encourage my son to hang around and start getting in the mood for Christmas.
I believe Thanksgiving, done properly, makes Christmas much more meaningful…or should. It’s a chance to pause and take a deep breath, concentrate on what we’re grateful for, before we plunge headlong into the silly season. Far too many people just aren’t grateful for the things we have and we in the Western World are indeed surrounded by blessings. For Alaskans, Thanksgiving is the start of the dark and cold…real winter. So we really need to approach it gratefully or we’ll drive ourselves nuts with cabin fever.
I wonder what holidays my fellow bloghoppers like the best and why.
This isn’t the easiest question in the world to answer because I’ve met a lot of interesting people, a handful of famous people, and a lot of people in general.
I worked in tourism in Alaska for four years, I was a reporter for a while, and then I worked a couple of years for a local concert venue. Alaska is the crossroads of the world. It’s on most bucket lists. If you venture outside your home, you’re going to meet people and at least some of them will be interesting.
Famous
So let’s get the famous people out of the way. There are only three I’ve spent any amount of time with. Ted Nugent wanted to meet a real Alaskan while he prepared for a concert and my boss asked me to go speak with him. His wife was with him, and they seemed like nice people. Interesting? Not really. They seemed to think I was quite interesting. I live in Alaska so my life is just ordinary…to me.
I’ve met Sarah Palin. It was when she was mayor of Wasilla and I met her through a church event where she introduced herself as “working for the city.” That would have been interesting if I’d known who she was, because most people in politics like it when people know who they are and she didn’t take advantage of that then. I wouldn’t have been impressed. I’ve been friends with a couple of Fairbanks’ mayors and a few state legislators. Alaska…a small city spread over millions of acres. We all know each other…or went to the same high school. Sarah seemed like a nice person too, and she remembered me when I met her when she was the governor, but that was just a handshake deal at the Governor’s picnic (not as toney as it sounds. Anyone can attend). She might have been interesting to talk to that day at the Eagle River Baptist Church if I’d known who she was going to become. Intelligent and funny, but I didn’t know the right questions to ask, and she wouldn’t have known what I was asking since she hadn’t become governor and vice-presidential candidate yet.
I met Christian singer and songwriter Michal Card when he played here in Fairbanks. A friend was involved in bringing him here. When his stay got extended by a volcanic eruption, I took him and his manager for a tour around town, and we had dinner before I took them to the airport. He was an intelligent guy, and if I had a better musicial education, I might have enjoyed the visit more. Since I was giving a tour, I was the one who needed to be interesting.
What these and a couple of other famous encounters I’ve had have taught me is famous people really aren’t that interesting. They’re usually ordinary people who just got famous for some reason. For every famous person, there’s probably dozens of legitimately interesting people who aren’t famous, often because they’re far too intelligent to want to be.
The Most Interesting?
THE most interesting person is a hard target to hit when you live somewhere that attracts unique people with sort of divergent ways of thinking and living. Hit on the right topic, and your neighbor can suddenly be fascinating. I just had a conversation with an old man at a local coffee shop where he told me a bunch of stuff I didn’t know about World War 2 fighter planes. I don’t know how I’m going to use that information, but it was so interesting I spent an extra hour at the coffee shop, and I didn’t even drink a second coffee. I also worked as a reporter so I’ve met and interviewed several people who were very interesting. So it’s a matter of narrowing the field.
Maybe the most interesting person I’ve ever met was State Trooper Mike McCann. He was in my criminology class at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and I interviewed him for the university newspaper.
As a homicide detective, McCann had recently caught a serial killer who was operating in Fairbanks when I was in late high school and early college. A lot of interviews aren’t that interesting. They consist of trying to squeeze information out of a subject who either doesn’t understand what you want or would prefer not to talk to you, but doesn’t know how to get out of the interview. If the article is interesting when it’s published, it’s because the writer did her job. But Jim had been interviewed before because he was the chief homicide investigator in this area, so he knew the bits I wanted and he could deftly switch his emphasis when I asked the right questions. Plus, I was taking the same criminology course as he was, so we shared a common language.
McCann deserved his reputation as an amazing homicide detective. He’d trained himself in forensics beyond what he’d learned in the police academy, and he and his partner Chris Stockard were relentless in their pursuit of what they were convinced was a serial killer. Their superiors weren’t convinced when the second of five young women disappeared in late 1970s Fairbanks when there were a lot of people coming and going. Unlike Robert Hanson in Anchorage (operating around the same time), Thomas Bunday (no relation to the Green River Killer Ted Bundy) didn’t kidnap prostitutes, which is why Fairbanks’ Bunday caught attention much more quickly. Prostitutes in Pipeline-era Alaska were constantly changing – moving in, moving out. She could disappear and everybody would think she’d moved on, if they even cared that she was gone. But someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, or the 11-year-old sister of a boy who just let her get one bend behind him on a bike ride — people noticed and people cared, especially when a body turned up. The State Trooper brass were reluctant to call it a serial killer until the first victim’s body was found, and then the killings abruptly stopped, meaning McCann and Stockard were looking at a cold case.
Then one of them had an inspired idea. Who blew into Fairbanks and was here for just a short period of time before moving to another location, and generally had time on their hands? Well, not construction workers. We had a lot of them and they were indeed a source of consternation, but they came here to work and usually put in 12-hour days on the job. The US military, however, provides that sort of lifestyle for a man who might not have a lot of connection with the people around him and they have a bunch more free time. With that thought in mind, they decided they were looking for soldiers who had transferred out around the time of the last killing. They narrowed the field to three soldiers with domestic violence histories, but they couldn’t pin anything on any of them. One thing led to another, and a body dump in Texas led them to Technical Sergeant Thomas Bunday who had transferred to Texas. Bunday was adamant he didn’t kill the woman in Texas, but he provided ample testimony he did kill five women in Alaska. Apparently, he felt badly about it, but once he did it, he couldn’t stop. Although they taped his confession, Jim and Stockard weren’t in Texas officially, so they had to rely on the Texas police to arrest Bunday. The Texas police brought Bundy in for questioning, searched his home, recorded his official confession and found evidence linking him to the murders…and then mysteriously let him go.
Why? They said they couldn’t hold him without a warrant, but Alaska had issued a warrant days earlier, and Bunday confessed to multiple murders. So that never set right with me and Jim pivoted away from the question, so I didn’t push it. And how’d he end up under the wheels of a tractor- trailer before he could be officially arrested? Again, Jim didn’t want to touch that with a 10-foot pole. He and Stockard were back in Alaska by then. The working theory has always been Bunday committed suicide, and Jim made no effort to argue against that. But….
A Conspiracy Theory?
I am not speaking ill of the dead, but I knew Ellis Armstrong, father of Glinda Sodermann (Bunday’s first known victim). He and his wife Annie were long-time friends of mine. Ellis was an Alaska State Trooper. His brother was also in law enforcement in Texas, and I know Ellis at one time was a Texas Trooper. I don’t think Ellis asked his friends to kill Bunday. I suspect the officers involved just did some quid pro quo for his brother. That’s never been proven. I had opportunity to ask Ellis, and I chose not to. I wouldn’t blame Ellis (or his brother) if they’d done that because monsters like Bunday do deserve the death penalty. And this is speaking as someone who is generally anti-death penalty. You see, 11-year-old Doris Oehring’s body had never been found, but Bunday gave enough information before he died to lead searchers to the area of her body dump, more or less proving he’d at least killed that little girl, whose father was a family friend. I knew the Armstrongs after Glinda’s death, and Bunday deserves nothing better than the coldest pit of hell for what Glinda’s death brought upon her daughter Christine. Annie tried to do right by her, and I believe Ellis did too, but Glinda’s death set off a chain of events that no child should have to live through. Some people deserve to die and that was Thomas Richard Bunday.
Coming Back from the ADD Moment
Anyway, Jim McCann is hands-down one of the most interesting people I’ve met and had the pleasure to interview. He was (and I assume still is) a truly nice guy, which most cops aren’t. Over the years, I followed Jim’s career and he was instrumental in bringing to justice two local killers who seemed likely to become serial killers had Jim not gathered the evidence on them. A friend whose husband was convicted of killing his first wife says Jim was kind to her during the investigation of her husband, even staying behind to help clean up the mess the police made of her home while they searched for evidence. I would expect nothing less from Jim, who still lives here in Alaska, now pursuing his retirement career as a wildlife photographer and fishing guide–which is what he told me 45 years ago he wanted to do when he retired.
The photo above has nothing to do with Jim McCann. I can’t copy one of his copyrighted photos, and I’m not sure how he feels about having his image on social media being as there might be a few people who don’t like him for his part in putting their friends or relatives behind bars. It’s one of my photos, taken a couple of years ago of a moose munching fireweed in a field off the Steese Highway.
aurorawatcherak 
