salvatorefalco.com

I’m finally getting off my butt to send query letters out for SHE. It’s not fun. Even though I have a solid query body ready to use more or less as-is, I tried to personalize the one I just sent and realized as soon as I’d clicked Send that it was less “personalized” than “sycophantic.” Eep. So I’m sure I’ll get a rejection on that one. I’ll send more queries this week as I have time, and I hope I can avoid coming across like a dork on the next one.

Meanwhile, I have completed a three page synopsis for NHI and started expanding it into five pages. I expect to finish that by the end of the week. Next week I’ll start working on the outline, which will take at least two weeks. However, I think the first draft will fly by as a result of all this work I’m doing ahead of time. I don’t know if I’ll have it ready for Sleuthfest in February, but I’m damned sure going to give it a shot.

After Monday’s gripe-fest about how I wasn’t making sufficient progress on NHI, I immediately summoned my inexhaustible reserves of discipline and focus and…

HAHAHAHAHAHA

No, actually, I instead wrote half of a rough draft for a short story unrelated to NHI except that it takes place in the same city. But that’s OK. It gave me time to adjust to switching back to the original protagonist, and yesterday I completed a one-page plot synopsis. This is a bare-bones list of obstacles that get in Max’s way (full name of protagonist, in case you’re curious: Maxwell Truman) and the actions he takes to deal with them. No description, no interpretation, no contemplation, just road blocks and action.

This morning, I started to expand that one page into three pages. I made good progress, though it wasn’t easy. I find it amusing that when I wrote the various synopses for SHE, after the novel was originally written, that I found it excruciatingly difficult to keep distilling the plot into shorter and shorter forms. I figured it would be much easier to go in the opposite direction. It’s just as hard, but in a different way. Nevertheless, I’m pleased with what I’m accomplishing.

I am not making anything like the kind of progress I’d hoped for on NHI. I’ve put about 20 hours of work into it and don’t have more than the sketchiest idea of the plot. At 20 hours, I’d planned to have at least a short plot synopsis complete from which to start building the outline, but I don’t have that. I’d also hoped to have put in somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 hours by now.

Jury duty threw my schedule off some, which robbed me of about ten hours. The other missing ten are due to work on a couple of short stories, so I’m not terribly upset about being behind schedule in that way. What does bother me is that I wasted a lot of last week’s effort, which puts me behind where I should be for the amount of time I have spent.

Last week, for reasons not quite clear to me in retrospect, I decided to promote the supporting viewpoint character to protagonist and remove entirely the original protagonist. I spent most of the week revising the background for my new protagonist. When I got done, I realized that I’d made a terrible mistake.

My original protagonist was what made the story fresh and unique. Switching protagonists turned the novel into just another police procedural. Better, I guess, to have realized that before I got deep into the first draft. Still, I’m irritated that I didn’t think the switch through more carefully in the first place.

Although I’d have preferred, as an aspiring crime fiction writer, to have served in a criminal trial, the civil trial was fascinating in its own right.

The first thing that struck me was how, during voir dire, most people went to great pains to be honest. Almost everyone would have preferred not to be selected, if pre-voir dire chatter is any indication. Yet when presented with opportunities to say things that would likely have led to disqualification, most people went with the honest answer. For example, when the judge asked people to raise their hands if being selected would cause personal or professional hardships, many people did. However, most subsequently said that they could overcome those difficulties or that they could put those out of mind to focus on a trial. The easy way to escape service would have been to say, “No, I’ll be too worried about my child/job/employees to concentrate on the trial.”

Likewise, even though it would have been easier to claim a bias, most people said they could be impartial. Even a guy who had suffered a malpractice injury said, “I don’t think my experience would enter into my decision. If the plaintiff can’t prove it’s case, I could find for the defendant.”

And once we were on the jury, we all wanted to do a good job. We weren’t allowed to discuss the case until the judge charged us to deliver a verdict, but that didn’t stop us from talking about our attitude toward serving. At one time or another, all of us expressed the opinion that as much as we’d like to get this over with, we wouldn’t rush to a decision just to get it over with.

It was a good experience that gave me a deeper understanding of how hard civil lawsuits can be. There was an enormous amount of information for us to absorb, and we did it. An enormous amount of responsibility rested upon us, and we exercised it carefully and wisely. Not all trials are perfect, and few verdicts are easy to reach, but it is justice.

After a day of jury selection and three days of hearing the case, we were given our instructions at 9:30 on Friday morning. Our deliberation was deliberate but swift.

I was selected as foreperson pretty much by virtue of having sat at the head of the table, and having the biggest mouth. I asked if my fellow jurors wanted to do a secret ballot or simply go around the table and state which way we currently leaned, and they all agreed that a secret ballot was unnecessary. Initially, four of us already favored the defendant. The other two were on the fence.

We spent some time discussing the plaintiff’s case, and asked the two undecideds what evidence they felt that the rest of us had overlooked. Both were concerned about one item: although the defendant claimed he had checked the plaintiff’s pedal pulses before surgery, he had failed to chart the data. However, even if he hadn’t checked the pulses, that couldn’t have led to the complications that resulted in plaintiff’s injury. After we discussed that for about five minutes, both of the undecideds decided to find for the defendant.

We’d only been in the jury room for half an hour and nobody wanted to rush back with the verdict. We decided that we would each read the evidence files first and satisfy ourselves that there was nothing we had overlooked.

Forty-five minutes later, we were convinced. The doctor had done nothing wrong. Nor had he failed to do anything he should have done–at least, nothing that rose to the level of negligence that contributed to the injury. We took another vote. Again, unanimous for the defendant.

Finally, before I filled out the verdict form and signed it, I read it aloud. I turned to each juror in turn. “Are you 100% comfortable with finding for the defendant?” Each one answered yes. It seemed redundant, but I wanted to be sure that once we returned to the courtroom, no one would have second thoughts.

When each juror had answered in the affirmative, I filled out the form and signed it. I knocked on the door, showed the form to the bailiff, who handed it back to me.  We waited for a few minutes, then she brought us back in.

The reading of the verdict is a ritual much like the saying of the mass. In the mass, the priest transforms ordinary bread and wine into the literal body and blood of Christ. In the courtroom, the judge transforms the opinion of six ordinary citizens into the power of the state.

Judge: Who was selected as the foreperson?
Me: I was, your honor.
Judge: Have you reached a verdict?
Me: We have, your honor.
Judge: Please hand the verdict form to the bailiff.

The bailiff hands the verdict to the judge, who looks it over.

Judge: I find no errors on this verdict form. Will the clerk please publish the verdict?

And the clerk reads the verdict. Sighs of relief from the defendant and counsel. Glares of death from plaintiff.

Judge: Does either counsel wish to have the jury polled?
Plaintiff’s counsel: We would, your honor.

Judge: Mr. Falco, is this your verdict?
Me: Yes, it is.

And so on, down the line. No hesitations. The judge thanked us for our service, released us, and out we went.