#16 INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION "Little Boy Lost" by J.D. Trafford

Chris Rice Cooper 

caccoop@aol.com

https://www.facebook.com/car.cooper.7

*The images in this specific piece are granted copyright privilege by:  Public Domain, CCSAL, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair Use Under The United States Copyright Law, or given copyright privilege by the copyright holder which is identified beneath the individual photo.

**Some of the links will have to be copied and then posted in your search engine in order to pull up properly

***The CRC Blog welcomes submissions from published and unpublished fiction genre writers for INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION.  Contact CRC Blog via email at caccoop@aol.com or personal Facebook messaging at https://www.facebook.com/car.cooper.7

****JD Trafford’s Little Boy Lost is the sixteenth in a never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION where the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific excerpt from a fiction genre and how that fiction writer wrote that specific excerpt.  All INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links are at the end of this piece. 

Name of fiction work? And were there other names you considered that you would like to share with us?  Little Boy Lost is the title.  When I initially started writing it, the working title was St. Louis Blues, which I knew was terrible but I need something.   

Fiction genre?  Ex science fiction, short story, fantasy novella, romance, drama, crime, plays, flash fiction, historical, comedy,  etc.  And how many pages long?   Little Boy Lost is a novel of legal fiction/mystery.  It is 316 pages.

Has this been published? And it is totally fine if the answer is no.   If yes, what publisher and what publication date?  It has been published by Thomas & Mercer, and it was released July of 2017.

What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction?  I wrote an initial draft over ten years ago, but it didn’t feel right.  Then I started a new draft after the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, and the book took a year to write from there. 

Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work?  And please describe in detail.  And can you please include a photo?   I worked at an old roll-top desk that was my wife’s great grandfather’s desk.  I usually write in the early morning before the kids get out of bed.  Hemmingway said to write before the critics in your head wake up, and I think that’s good advice.

What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day?   No music (unlike Stephen King) and no alcohol (unlike . . . a lot of writers).  Just coffee and a laptop.  I think a lot of writers spend too much time talking about being writers and thinking about what it would be like to be a writer.  Instead, you just have to write.  I try to write every day, but life sometimes interferes.

Can you give the reader just enough information for them to understand what is going on in the excerpt?  By this point in the book, Justin Glass has agreed to find Tanisha Walker’s missing brother, a boy who nobody wants to be found.  He decides to spend one light looking for him by visiting former girlfriends, and then goes back to his office late at night.  This is when the scene unfolds.

Please include excerpt and include page numbers as reference.  The excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer.  Chapter 8 of Little Boy Lost

Glass Broke.  Somebody screamed.

There was a narrow path to the alley between my office and the building next door.  I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911 as I ran toward the noise. When the operator answered, I slowed a little, telling her who and where I was, but kept going forward.

She wanted me to stop and wait, but I didn’t.

Three kids stood over Hermes’s brother in the back of the Northside Roastery.

Nikolas was on the ground.  A broken computer monitor sat nearby.  One arms was bent.  His other arm tried to protect his head from another blow as he struggled to crawl away.

I didn’t think anything through.  NO plan.  I just had to stop it.  ‘Police, get your hands u in the air.”  I held up my cell phone like it was a badge and put my hand on my hip like I was about to pull a gun.  In the darkness and shadows of the back alley, I hoped that nobody could tell that none of it was real.  I kept barking orders at them as I moved closer.

They didn’t stick around.  The trio took off down the alley, and within seconds they were gone.

“Nikolas,” I crouched next to him, but anticipating another strike, he whimpered and tried to get away.  “It’s Justin Glass.  You’re going to be OK.  Lie still.”  I lowered my voice, calm.  “Lie still, Nik; help is coming.”

I put my hand out.  I tried to provide a gentle touch to reassure Nikolas that I wasn’t a threat, but as I reached for him they alley flooded with flashing lights and sirens.  I turned and was blinded.

Somebody yelled at me, but I didn't understand. "What?" I asked to a jumble of commands. Then a sickening flash of clarity as two police officers rushed toward me with their guns drawn: I was a black man, crouched over a downed white man in a dark alley. This was how it ends.

"I'm Justin Gl---" I managed before a thick white cop drove me into the pavement.

Why is this excerpt so emotional for you?  And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt?   It was difficult scene to write on a variety of levels.  Obviously it is a tragedy.  On a superficial level it is about being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but a deeper level it raises issues about racial inequalities, implicit bias, and, frankly, express bias or racism.

I rewrote it many times.  The first time there was no express mention of race and wasn’t particularly violent.  I was afraid that it would come across as crude or cartoonish, but after multiple versions I think I was able to bring out the feelings and emotions that I wanted without going over the top.

Even after re-reading it for this query, my heart beats a little faster and I get sick to my stomach.

Other works you have published?

No Time To Run

No Time To Die

No Time To Hide

Good Intentions

Without Precedent (coming in March of 2019)

Anything you would like to add?  There is nothing wrong with writing fiction that appeals to a broad audience.  Literary fiction has its place, but give me a murder and a mystery any day.  I think that professors underestimate the lessons that can be learned and the issues that can be illuminated by a good mystery.

J.D. Trafford is an award-winning author who has been profiled in Mystery Scene Magazine (A “writer of merit”). His debut novel was selected as an IndieReader bestselling pick, and his books have topped Amazon’s bestseller lists, including Amazon’s #1 Legal Thriller.

     In addition to graduating with honors from a Top 20 Law school, J.D. Trafford has worked as a civil and criminal prosecutor, an associate at a large national law firm, and a non-profit attorney for people who could not afford legal representation.

     Prior to law school, J.D. Trafford worked in Washington D.C. and lived in Saint Louis, Missouri.  He worked on issues of housing, education, and poverty in communities of color.

https://www.jdtrafford.com/

INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links

001   11 15 2018 Nathaniel Kaine’s

Thriller Novel

John Hunter – The Veteran

http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/001-inside-emotion-of-fiction-nathaniel.html

002   11 18 2018 Ed Protzzel’s

Futuristic/Mystery/Thriller

The Antiquities Dealer 

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/002-inside-emotion-of-fiction-ed.html

003   11 23 2018 Janice Seagraves’s

Science Fiction Romance

Exodus Arcon

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/003-inside-emotion-of-fiction-exodus.html

004   11 29 2018 Christian Fennell’s

Literary Fiction Novel

The Fiddler in the Night

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/11/004-inside-emotion-of-fiction-christian.html

005  12 02 2018 Jessica Mathews’s

Adult Paranormal Romance

Death Adjacent

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/5-inside-emotion-of-fiction-jessica.html

006  12 04 2018 Robin Jansen’s

Literary Fiction Novel

Ruby the Indomitable

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/006-inside-emotion-of-fiction-robin.html

007  12 12 2018  Adair Valerez’s

Literary Fiction Novel

Scrim

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/007-inside-emotion-of-fiction-adair.html

008  12 17 218 Kit Frazier’s

Mystery Novel

Dead Copy

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/008-inside-emotion-of-fiction-kit.html

009 12 21 2019 Robert Craven’s

Noir/Spy Novel

The Road of a Thousand Tigers

http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2018/12/009-inside-emotion-of-fiction-robert.html

010 01 13 2019 Kristine Goodfellow’s

Contemporary Romantic Fiction

The Other Twin

http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/01/010-inside-emotion-of-fictions-other.html

011 01 17 2019 Nancy J Cohen’s

Cozy Mystery

Trimmed To Death

http://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/01/11-inside-emotion-of-fiction-nancy.html

012 01 20 2019 Charles Salzberg’s

Crime Novel

Second Story Man

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/01/12-inside-emotion-of-fiction-charles.html

013 01 23 2019 Alexis Fancher’s

Flash Fiction

His Full Attention

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/01/13-inside-emotion-of-fiction-alexis.html

014 01 27 2019 Brian L Tucker’s

Young Adult/Historical

POKEWEED:  AN ILLUSTRATED NOVELLA

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/01/14-inside-emotion-of-fiction-brian-l.html

015 01 31 2019 Robin Tidwell’s

Dystopian

Reduced

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/01/15-inside-emotion-of-ficton-reduced-by.html

016 02 08 2019 J.D. Trafford’s

Legal Fiction/Mystery

Little Boy Lost

https://chrisricecooper.blogspot.com/2019/02/16-inside-emotion-of-fiction-little-boy.html

CRC BLOG ANALYSIS: The Gospel in Dorothy L Sayers: "Under A Microscope"

Chris Rice Cooper 

caccoop@aol.com

https://www.facebook.com/car.cooper.7

*The images in this specific piece are granted copyright privilege by:  Public Domain, CCSAL, GNU Free Documentation Licenses, Fair Use Under The United States Copyright Law, or given copyright privilege by the copyright holder which is identified beneath the individual photo.

**Some of the links will have to be copied and then posted in your search engine in order to pull up properly

CRC Blog Analysis on The Gospel In Dorothy L Sayers:  Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays

Under A Microscope

Dorothy L. Sayers was English playwright, scholar, murder mystery writer and Christian apologist.  She won a scholarship to attend Somerville College in Oxford (Below) where she focused on Modern Languages and Medieval Languages, graduating with high honors in 1915. 

Her first two books to be published were two poetry collections:  OP.I in 1916; and Catholic tales and Christian Songs (Below) in 1918.

But she didn’t gain accolade until 1923 with the publication of the detective mystery novel WHOSE BODY featuring hero protagonist Lord Peter Wimsey who would be the leading hero protagonist in 16 novels and numerous short stories published between 1923 to 1972.

The goal of Plough Publishing was to read and research all of Dorothy  L Sayer’s works, place each work under a microscope or magnifying mirror in order to bring out the gospel aspects from all of her works including the non-secular and the secular.

Plough Publishing House editor Carole Vanderhoof to do this feat and the result is the fifth book in the THE GOSPEL IN GREAT WRITERS series, The Gospel In Dorothy L Sayers:  Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays; edited and with an Introduction by Carole Vandherhoof with an appreciation by close friend C.S. Lewis.

The result is the 241 page book which is a journey for the reader as they explore different aspects of Christianity:  Chapter One, Conscience; Chapter 2, Sin and Grace; Chapter 3, Covetousness; Chapter 4, Forgiveness; Chapter 5, Judgment; Chapter 6, Belief; Chapter 7, Pride; Chapter 8, Despair and Hope; Chapter 9, Greed; Chapter 10, Creativity; Chapter 11, Resurrection; Chapter 12, Sacrificial Love; Chapter 13, Work; Chapter 14, Equality; Chapter 15, Envy; Chapter 16, Faith; Chapter 17, Incantation; Chapter 18, The Cross; Chapter 19, Images and Symbols; and Chapter 20, Time and Eternity. 

Each Chapter begins with an excerpt from one of her murder mystery novels usually featuring her famous protagonist Lord Peter Wimsey.  Before the excerpt is a small paragraph giving the reader backstory so he or she can understand the excerpt better.

       Then followed by two excerpts from letters by Dorothy Sayers, radio talk shows featuring Dorothy Sayers, satires by Dorothy Sayers, plays and poems by Dorothy Sayers.

      The reader should read with caution:  this is a book that gets to the very core of every theme of each chapter.  It is the kind of book that will appeal to researchers, educators, Christians, theologians, and even atheists, and actually every one – since each of these chapter themes touches on the very thing that makes us human beings – and spiritual beings.  

*Below are excerpts from each of the themed chapters that tries to define or illustrate the very meaning of each theme.

Chapter One:  Whose Body?/ Conscience

       I well remember how an aunt of mine, brought up in an old-fashioned liberalism, protested angrily against having continually to call herself a “miserable sinner” when reciting the Litany.  Today, if we could really be persuaded that we are miserable sinners – that the trouble is not outside of us but inside of us, and that therefore, by the grace of God, we can do something to put it right – we should receive that message as the most hopeful and heartening thing that can be imagined. -From an address Sayers delivered in May 1940 titled “Creed or Chaos?”

Chapter Two:  Unnatural Death/ Sin and Grace   
“Sin is the intention, not the deed.  That is the difference between divine law and human law.”   
-Lord Peter Wimsey speaking to vicar Mr. Tregold in the novel Unnatural Death  

Chapter Three:  The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club/ Covetousness

       Covetousness has gone forward and never looked back.  It has become a swaggering, swashbuckling, piratical sin, going about with its hat cocked over its eye, and with pistols tucked into the tops of its jack-boots.  Its war-cries are “Business Efficiency!” “Free Competition!” “Get Out or Get Under!” and “There’s Always Room at the Top!” It no longer screws and saves – it launches out into new enterprises; it gambles and speculates; it thinks in a big way; it takes risks.

- From the talk “The Other Six Deadly Sins.”

Chapter Four:  Strong Poison/ Forgiveness

Therefore I swear, O father and God,

I swear by Thy might throne,

With the blood that was shed on Calvary

I bought them for Mine own;

It shall dye them with shame and scarlet,

It shall sear them as burning coals,

For they spilt and trampled it into the mire,

And it shall save their souls

-Jesus speaking in “Justus Judex”

Chapter Five:  The Documents in the Case/ Judgment

The word “punishment” for sin has become so corrupted that it ought never to be used.  But once we have established the true doctrine of man’s nature, the true nature of judgment becomes startlingly clear and rational.  It is the inevitable consequence of man’s attempt to regulate life and society on a system that runs counter to the facts of his own nature.

       In the physical sphere, typhus and cholera are a judgment on dirty living; not because God shows an arbitrary favouritism to nice, clean people, best because of an essential element in the physical structure of the universe.

-From “Creed or Chaos?”

Chapter Six: The Dogma is the Drama/ Belief

“Wasting my time,” said Hoskyns.  “I told them exactly what they put into my mouth.  You’re right, Jim, they’d believe anything.  “The elixir of life – that’s what they really want to get hold of.  It would look well in a headline.  If you can’t give ’em a simple formula to cure all human ills and explain creation, they say you don’t know your business.”

       “Ah!” said Perry, with a twinkle of the eye, “but if the Church gives them a set of formulae for the same purpose, they say don’t want formulae or dogmas, but just a loving wistfulness.”

-from Documents in the Case

Chapter Seven:  The Five Red Herrings/ Pride

In one way there is so much to say about Pride that one might speak of it for a week and not have done.  Yet in another way, all there is to be said about it can be said in a single sentence.  It is the sin of trying to be as God.

- 1941 talk “The Other Six Deadly Sins”.

Chapter Eight:  Have His Carcase/ Despair and Hope

LAZARUS:  Rabbi, it is true.  I feel it in you too – that immense vitality at which a man may warm himself as at a fire.  In your presence, I think, no one could easily yield to death – not even I.  yet I am not like Mary.  I hold to life only with one hand, and not with a very strong clasp.  If death came to me quietly one day when you were not beside me, I should not struggle, but slip away with him in silence and glad to be go.

JESUS:  Do you love me so little, Lazarus?

-In the Light and the Life, play seven of The Man Born to Be King

Chapter Nine: Murder Must Advertise/ Greed

If we make ourselves greedy and grasping tyrants of the earth – ravishing and not serving it -  it takes its revenge in waste lands, barren soil, flood, drought an dearth.  Every time we upset the balance of natural forces by over-cultivation, either of earth, animals or what-not, we seem to come up against some law which sends back to us in famine or disease the catastrophes we tried to avoid.

-From a letter   

Chapter Ten:  The Nine Tailors/ Creativity

The Architect stood forth and said:

“I am the master of the art:

I have a thought within my head,

I have a dream within my heart.

“Come now, good craftsman, ply your trade

With tool and stone obediently;

Behold the plan I have made-

I am the master; serve you me.

-Jesus speaking in the poem “The Makers”

Chapter Eleven:  The Greatest Drama/ Resurrection

The Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man – and the dogma is the drama.

From the Newspaper article “The Greatest Drama Ever Staged is the Official Creed of Christendom”

Chapter Twelve: The Mind of the Maker/ Sacrificial Love

“Sacrifice” is another world liable to misunderstanding.  It is generally held to be noble and loving in proportion as its sacrificial nature is consciously felt by the person who is sacrificing himself. The direct contrary is the truth.”

-from The Mind of the Maker 

Chapter Thirteen:  Gaudy Night/ Work

I believe, however, that there is a Christian doctrine of work, very closely related to the doctrines of the creative energy of God and the divine image of man.

-from the talk “Creed or Chaos?”

Chapter Fourteen:  Are Women Human?/ Equality

When I was asked to come and speak to you, your Secretary made the suggestion that she thought I must be interested in the feminist movement.  I replied – a little irritably, I am afraid – that I was not sure I wanted to “identify myself,” as the phrase goes, with feminism, and that the time for “feminism, in the old-fashioned sense of the world, had gone past.  In fact, I think I went so far as to say that, under present conditions, an aggressive feminism might do more hard than good.  As a result I was, perhaps not unnaturally, invited to explain myself.

-from the lecture address “Are Women Human?”

Chapter Fifteen:  Creed or Chaos?/ Envy

Hand in hand wit Covetousness goes its close companion- Invidia or Envy, which hates to see other men happy.

-From “The Other Six Deadly Sins”

Chapter Sixteen:  Unpopular Opinions/ Faith

The law is framed on the assumption that my life is sacred; but upon my word I can see no sanction for that assumption at all, except on the hypothesis that I am an image of God-made, I should say, by a shockingly bad sculptor.  And if I see no sanctity in myself, why would I see it in Finland?  But I do.  It seems altogether irrational.  All the same, I still have the sense of liberation.  “Fall into the hand of God, not into the hand of economic humanity.” -from the private diary of Sayers’s protagonist Lord Peter Wimsey

Chapter Seventeen:  The Man Born to Be King/ Incarnation

I feel sure that it is in the interests of a true reverence towards the Incarnate Godhead to show that His Manhood was a real manhood, subject to the common realities of daily life; that the men and women surrounding Him were living human beings, not just characters in a story; that, in short, h was born, not into “the Bible,” but into the world.

-Dorothy L Sayers outlining her overarching goal of writing the nativity play He That Should Come.

Chapter Eighteen:  Kings of Sorrows/ The Cross

1^ST SOLDIER:  Stretch your legs.  I’ll give you the king of the Jews.

2^nd SOLDIER:  Hand me the mallet.

JESUS:  Father, forgive them.  They don’t know what they are doing.  (His voice breaks off in a sharp gasp as the mallet falls.  Fade out in the dull thud of hammering). . .

-crucifixion scene from The Man Born to Be King.

Chapter Nineteen:  The Just Vengeance/ Images and Symbols

PERSONA DEI:  I the image of the Unimaginable

In the place where the Image and the Unimaged are one,

The Act of the Will, the Word of the Thought, the Son

In whom the Father’s selfhood is known to Himself,

I being God and with God from the beginning

Speak to Man in the place of the images.

-from the play The Just Vengeance

Chapter Twenty:  Busman’s Honeymoon/ Time and Eternity

“How can a man be born when he is old?” asked Nicodemus (John 3:4).  His question has been ridiculed; but it is very reasonable and even profound.  “Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Can he escape from Time, creep back into the comfortable pre-natal darkness, renounce the value of experience. The answer makes short work of all such fantasies.  “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  The spirit alone is eternal youth; the mind and the body must learn to make terms with Time.

-from a newspaper article.

       In the closing of the book C.S. Lewis writes “A Panegryic for Dorothy L Sayers” and C.S. Lewis compares Dorthy L Sayers’s body of work to that of Chaucer (Right), Cervantes, Shakespeare, or Moliere and gives her his expert opinion on her as a writer: “I have no idea that, with a very few exceptions, it is only such writers who matter much in the long run.”

      

The Gospel In Dorothy L Sayers:  Selections from her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays should be in every reader’s library.