by Karen Debonis

If I had a dollar for every time I asked myself, “What is my memoir really about?” I’d probably have enough money to hire a pricey publicist. Although at the rate my manuscript is coming together, I may never need a publicist.

My endless work-in-progress has been “finished” five times since I started writing it in 1999, two years after my eleven-year-old son, Matthew, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Each time I typed “The End,” I believed I had told the story I needed to tell.

Each time, I realized I was wrong.

In the past five years, since writing became my full-time occupation, I’ve done my due diligence: workshopping the manuscript with critique partners, submitting it for feedback from beta readers, paying a professional book editor. My manuscript has had a half-dozen working titles and subtitles, and the theme changed from “medical mystery” to “people-pleasing” to “personal growth.” I finally settled on people-pleasing.

I promised myself this was IT.

Then recently, it changed again.

My memoir’s narrative follows my young son's (and my) downward spiral due to his undiagnosed brain tumor, his painfully slow recovery, and our ultimate personal growth. His diagnosis was delayed, in part, because I was too afraid of conflict to stand up to doctors and loved ones who dismissed my concerns.

Last year, I was so convinced my universal theme was the destructive power of people-pleasing, I hired a web designer to update my website, and I reinforced my brand around that topic by creating and teaching a workshop, Wipe Your Feet before You Walk all over Me, (now on YouTube), and running focus groups and mother-daughter discussions.

Then, this summer, I asked my IRL beta readers to read my latest revision, Portrait of a People-Pleaser and the Son who Paid the Price. (Yes, it was a mouthful, but I’m a sucker for alliteration.)

Their main take-away: The story wasn’t enough about people-pleasing to support that theme.

I was stunned. After all this time, I’m back to the writing board?

Then, I quickly realized I’d heard similar feedback before—from editors, critique partners, my family. This time, the message got through and I realized my beta readers were right. But I worried that my carefully-built author platform would crumble—my website, my brand, my classes, my social media profiles.

My Book’s (and My) Identity Crisis

My story had a serious identity crisis. What was it really about? I asked my beta readers, and they suggested it had to do with motherhood. It sounded at once expansive, but commonplace.

In the people-pleasing publishing space, I had considered myself a big fish in a small sea because no other traditionally published, literary memoir with a focus on this topic existed. But the sea was so small, I couldn't find it. My tribe didn’t hang together like a school of fish; they were scattered.

When I tweeted my dilemma, Gail Boenning, a self-admitted "recovering people-pleaser” and author of two books, replied that, although many people occasionally say yes when they want to say no, not everyone identifies as a “people-pleaser.” It made sense.

But I feared entering the motherhood publishing space. I was certain to be a minnow in an ocean of  “mom-oirs,” half of them by mothers of a sick child. And I'm a weak swimmer. How would I stand out? How would my memoir survive?

I turned to those who’d survived these rough waters

Three pieces of advice to understand your manuscript:

Fellow memoirists on Facebook generously gave me advice, and three points stood out.

1) Let your book tell you what it’s about.

Kari L. O’Driscoll, author of Truth has a Different Shape: A Memoir, said, “Congratulations on letting your book tell you what it's about!”

I didn’t feel worthy of praise, because apparently, I hadn’t listened to my book, leaving mere humans to point me in the right direction. But knowing that my memoir had an opinion made me determined to tune in better.

2) Ask your story what it needs

Lorraine Segal, author of the memoir-in-progress Angels and Earthworms: An Unexpected Journey to Love, Joy, and Miracles took it a step further. She said,

“Allow the memoir to unfold. Allow it to be what it wants to be and ask it what it needs.”

I took her advice. Closing my eyes, I rested my fingertips on my laptop and asked, “My beautiful memoir—What do you need?"

Almost immediately, it replied, as if the answer was there all along.

“I need to be read,” it said. “Yes, I’m about people-pleasing—that is an integral part of the story—but if that's all it is, and the sea is empty of readers, no one will read the story. I'm too important to gather dust on a shelf, so let's make a deal. I'll go broad in what I have to teach, and you (Karen) go broad in finding me readers. Deal?”

Deal. I hadn’t known how wise my manuscript was.

3) Your memoir (or story) is the only fish in your sea.

Judith Hannan, author of Motherhood Exaggerated addressed my fear of getting lost in the overcrowded sea. She wrote,

“You are not a minnow but the same size fish as everyone else. There is only one Karen DeBonis ocean and you are the only fish in it. Write that story.”

It hit home. And, now that my manuscript and I are communicating better, this is what I know about its identity at this stage:

The new title reflects not only the story, but the work I’ve done to get it this far: Growth: A Mother, her Son, and the Brain Tumor they Survived. This version is about the clash between a woman’s naive expectations of motherhood and her son’s crushing needs, which destroys her confidence and threatens her stability.

I accept now that this identity may change, that my memoir and I may still miscommunicate, and that is all part of the process. Perhaps “finished memoir” is an oxymoron.

My critique group recently shared their feedback on my last chapter, and I finished my revisions. Now, I’ll go back to chapter 1 and start again.

I’ll keep asking “What is my memoir really about?” And this time, I’ll be all ears.

Have you had a book identity crisis? How did you resolve it? Please share your story with us down in the comments section!

About Karen

Karen DeBonis writes about motherhood, perseverance, and people-pleasing, an entangled mix told in her memoir GROWTH: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor they Survived, available for representation.

A happy empty-nester, she lives in an old house in upstate New with her husband of thirty-nine years. You can see more of her work at www.karendebonis.com.

Top Photo by Kaushal Moradiya from Pexels

Every so often, we open the doors of WITS to our readers. We like hearing what you're up to in your writing, and October, the first full month of Fall and the month before NaNoWriMo, is a great time for this. Today, we'd love to hear your first lines for a new manuscript or short story. If that sounds daunting today, give us the first line of your new chapter, or the first line of a favorite book. We want to make it easy!

Fabulous first lines tend to stick with all of us. We ponder them, agonize over them, rewrite them, and rewrite them again. And more than once, we've actually purchased a book based on a breathtaking first line or paragraph.

Plus, a good first line is quotable.

Great First Lines

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." – George Orwell, 1984

"124 was spiteful." – Toni Morrison, Beloved

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." – Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since." – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." – C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Also, our own Laura Drake has offered some great advice on writing a winning first line here.

But today, it's your turn to entertain or wow us with your opening lines. If you can't think if anything, share a favorite from someone else. Give us the title and genre, then your opening line(s). Feel free to comment on others' as well, and tag your writing friends on the post so they can share theirs!

We'll get you started.

Ellen

"I begged. I pleaded. 'No. I will not buy you a bike. If you got hurt it would be my fault.' What an odd reason not to give your child a bicycle?" – The Brown Schwinn, a short story

"I, Eliott, descendant of the Asian leopard cat, have been relegated to the back seat amongst the luggage. At least I can peer out the window and watch California melt into the distance. I yowled my displeasure from Orange County to Tucson. Serves . . . them . . . right." – The Guardian, a short story

Jenny

If she didn’t have sex this year, her girly bits were going to stage a revolt. – Unnamed Book 2, "Rx for Love" series

Monique stared at Thomas, aghast. “I’m famous?” – The Colony, a short story

Kris

"Where's Papa going with that ax? said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast." – Charlotte's Web

"You better not never tell nobody but God." – The Color Purple

"As Sylvie Morgan stepped from the streamlined Greyhound, a blast of warm dust hit her face like a hairdryer. Awesome, she thought. This is Illinois, not Africa." – The Regeneration of Tomas Renell, a horror short story

Now it's your turn. Share your opening lines (or a favorite from another author) below!

We hope this helps kick off a great month of writing!

Ellen, Jenny & Kris

Top Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

By Piper Bayard
of Bayard & Holmes

Now that we know how to bug a room (see Writing Spies: Bugging a Room), it's important to look at the other side of the equation. How can our characters know if a room is bugged? A great deal depends on the character and the situation in which they would be under surveillance.

One tool for dealing with bugs is to avoid them.

If it doesn't contradict their cover, the savvy spook out in the field will opt for three or four star hotels rather than five star hotels, as five star hotels in major cities are routinely under surveillance from any number of governments.

Also, whenever a spook arrives at a hotel where they have booked a room in advance, they might find a reason to insist on a different room from the one that has been prepared for them. That way, they avoid any "unwanted guests" in their room.

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When bugs are needed for a story, before they can be found in a logical way, we must first consider the character being bugged and the character or organization doing the bugging.

Some characters are going to expect surveillance. For example, Mafiosi and the FBI agents that hunt them are going to be constantly suspicious that they are under surveillance. Successfully bugging them will require a higher level of technical skill and caution than what would be needed to bug characters who don’t have reason to suspect they are being watched. Likely, these bugs will be on the more difficult end of the spectrum to find.

On the other end of the spectrum, a jealous spouse or neighborhood pervert is not likely to be as skillful at placing bugs as an FBI Agent, CIA employee, or even your local police. Their bugs will be easier to detect.

The next things to consider when determining how to realistically detect bugs in our stories are when and how the bugging equipment was placed. If the person doing the bugging was an amateur in a hurry, the job might have gotten no further than a nanny-cam teddy bear. If they were a professional, it would likely take high-grade equipment to detect the bugs and/or cameras.

It is also necessary to determine when a target will become suspicious.

If the target is a business executive or CIA employee visiting China, Russia, or another police state, they would assume that they have been targeted for surveillance, and they would sweep their hotel room or rental car routinely with professional equipment. They would also assume that they could be targeted by mobile bugging equipment when they leave their hotel.

On the other hand, if the target is an electronic engineer for a Fortune 500 company traveling overseas for the first time and staying in a five-star hotel, they will likely not suspect a thing. In fact, they will probably not even spot that they are being honeypotted when a gorgeous young Russian girl comes on to them in that hotel bar. . . . Yes. That's a thing.

Once a target does become suspicious, they may or may not announce those suspicions. For example, an intelligent surveillance target will remain calm and take the opportunity to discover a bug without the surveillance team listening in being alerted. The target can then use the bug to misinform their opponents and send them on wild goose chases.

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Now it is time to think about the technology.

Bug sweeping devices with various levels of sophistication are readily available to the public at costs ranging from $25 for a simple sweeper to $1,500 for a decent sweeper with full spectrum analysis capabilities. (Search “bug sweeping devices retail.”) So even in the case of a non-professional or non-criminal, a character can readily obtain electronic sweeping equipment.

In the age of tiny video cameras and transmitters, we all have to assume that we are under video and audio surveillance any time we are outside of a secured space. This means that characters need to sweep the room or building they are in without being obvious.

Modern sweepers can be disguised as working cell phones, which can generate vibrations rather than tones, allowing a character to hide their true aim of detecting surveillance equipment by placing a fake call on the device and pacing the room while conversing.

Sweepers detect transmissions from either microphones or cameras, and they do not distinguish between the two. If your character doesn’t care about tipping off the surveillance team, they can use the sweeper to zero in on the transmission and then inspect the vent, lamp, furniture, etc. to discover the nature of the transmitting bug.

More sophisticated bugs can be remotely controlled to limit transmissions, but more sophisticated scanners can detect them even when they are not transmitting.

Another method a more sophisticated target might employ is waiting until nighttime and using infrared detection to find heat being generated by bugs. This method is quite effective for most bugs. If a character waits a few minutes after turning off the lights to let the walls and furniture begin to cool down, they can find nearly any bug with the right sensing equipment. However, smoke detectors and refrigerators can mask a bug’s infrared signature, so they need to be inspected visually.

Yet another technique for bug detection involves searching for pinhole camera surveillance. Pinhole cameras rely on small amounts of light coming through a wall via multiple pinholes. A character would turn off the lights and then, while looking through an empty toilet paper tube, wrapping paper tube, mailing tube, etc., they would sweep the walls with a bright flashlight and watch for inexplicable small reflections. Such out-of-place light sources may indicate a pinhole camera system.

Another type of bugging a writer might employ in a story is an infrared laser system that bounces off windows. A character can monitor the laser’s reflection off the window, and the glass’s vibration can be measured and interpreted as sound. Basic infrared sensing equipment can detect these systems and pick up conversations from a targeted room without having equipment inside.

In the absence of bug-detection equipment, a character can be clever and use their regular cell phone to do a basic bug sweep, even if it really is just a cell phone. By placing a call and then pacing the room, they can locate radio noise sources. Electronic noise might indicate a bug, but it might also indicate what we all already suspect – that we all pay far too much for hideously low-quality cell phones. Higher-quality bugs will not be detected by a regular cell phone.

The equipment and techniques are fun to consider, but before considering the technical aspects, be sure to consider the situation and the characters. Remember, whether the character is a complete innocent or a cunning old spook, the most important debugging tool is their brain.

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What do the main intelligence agencies do and where do they operate? How do they recruit personnel? What are real life honey pots and sleeper agents? What about truth serums and enhanced interrogations? And what are the most common foibles of popular spy fiction?

With the voice of over forty years of experience in the Intelligence Community, Bayard & Holmes answer these questions and share information on espionage history, firearms of spycraft, tradecraft techniques, and the personalities and personal challenges of the men and women behind the myths.

Though crafted with advice and specific tips for writers, SPYCRAFT: Essentials is for anyone who wants to learn more about the inner workings of the Shadow World.

“For any author, this is the new bible for crafting stories of espionage.”

~ James Rollins, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Demon Crown

Piper Bayard and Jay Holmes of Bayard & Holmes are the authors of espionage tomes and international spy thrillers. Please visit Piper and Jay at their site, BayardandHolmes.com. For notices of their upcoming releases, subscribe to the Bayard & Holmes Covert Briefing. You can also contact Bayard & Holmes at their Contact page, on Twitter at @piperbayard, on Facebook at Piper Bayard, or at their email, BayardandHolmes@protonmail.com.

Top image Image by Anastasia Gepp from Pixabay