Last month, I wrote about the tools of the trade that I use to create my fiction. That got me thinking. What tools do my fictional characters use?

When I was writing Kindred Crimes, the first in my series featuring Oakland private eye Jeri Howard, I wasn’t using a cell phone, and neither was Jeri. I was using a computer, a clunky dual disk drive model, and I thought it was a major step up from the electric typewriter.

Jeri and I have made our way into the 21^st century. She uses her cell phone for everything from directions to looking up information, and for talking with people, of course. As for computers, like many real-life private investigators, she uses them for research. In addition to news archives, there are many paid databases that one can access by purchasing a subscription. Jeri also uses government records that are available online.

For example, in the book I’m writing now, The Things We Keep, Jeri goes onto the California Department of Justice website to check the missing persons database. I did this myself, so I could describe it accurately. And it certainly gives flavor to the narrative.

But it isn’t all Jeri at the keyboard, looking at the screen, or Jeri on the phone, interviewing someone. That would be boring for the reader and the writer. At one point in Water Signs, Jeri says:

I could just as easily interview Rachel Leverson over the phone, but whenever possible, I prefer to do so in person. That allows me to gauge reactions, facial expressions and body language. It also gets me out of the office.

Interviewing people face-to-face gives Jeri more information than pixels on a screen. In the world of my fictional private eye, there’s no substitute for shoe leather. But it really does help that Jeri can make a call without looking for a phone booth.

Kay Dexter is the protagonist of my novel The Sacrificial Daughter. She is a geriatric care manager and has access to all the tools that software and the Internet can provide. Her clients are mostly elderly people and their families.

Once again, there is no substitute for face-to-face contact. A client might be minimizing problems or feelings and Kay might not pick up on that over the phone, but she can usually read people when she’s with them. As for those online tools, there’s a scene in the book when Kay is doing research in the library at the local historical museum. She’s looking at files and photocopies, because not all the information the museum has is digitized. Those online records frequently go back only so far.

Kay uses her powers of observation as well. Some valuable items have gone missing from a client’s home. While doing an errand for another client, she visits a local antique mall:

I turned and glanced at the glass display case on the booth’s back wall. What was that? I moved closer to the case. On the top shelf, I saw a sterling silver sugar and creamer. They looked exactly like the ones I’d seen in the china cabinet at Betty’s house, right down to the floral detail on the handles.

I also write a series of historical mysteries set in the early 1950s, featuring Zephyrette Jill McLeod. Computers? Not happening there. For Jill to solve mysteries onboard the train, and off, it’s strictly person-to-person sleuthing. Jill’s job, when she’s aboard the California Zephyr, is to observe the passengers and help with their needs. Jill notices things and she files them away in her mind, ready to access the information. Along with her ability to talk with people and tease out information, these are her biggest assets as a detective.

And that’s gumshoeing, on the ever-changing streets of the Bay Area where Jeri sleuths, to the fictional mountain town where Kay oversees clients, to Jill’s shiny train as it streaks across the west.

In my far-off youth and for as long as I can remember, lurked inside me the heart of a comedy writer. I wanted nothing more than to be writing funny quips for people, like Woody Allen did for Sid Caesar on Your Show of Shows, back in the fifties. I wasn’t around then, but I’ve seen most of the kinescopes interviews with Allen and Caesar and was mesmerized. Just to make it clear, I wasn’t nearly as impressed by Allen’s foré into his own comedy shows, record albums, movies and even less impressed with his romantic encounters. What got me where I lived was him writing words for performers that made an audience laugh. I couldn’t imagine a greater existence.

One of my very first jobs as a writer in New York City was for No Soap Radio. As the name implies, we wrote funny ads and commercials for radio, had a ball and got paid a weekly salary! Does it get any better than that? Of course, the weekly stipend was so little I often had to decide if I would pay my rent or the phone bill, but by golly, I was a comedy writer. It was a short-lived chapter of my life, maybe a little more than a year, but the things I learned from that group of comedy writers have held fast for the rest of my writing life.

The art of comedy is serious business and you’d better know your business. You’d better know timing, delivery, and what the funny words are. By funny words – and most people don’t think about this – these are words that automatically cause people to smile or chortle. For instance:

Orange? Not so funny. Kumquat. Funny.

Move? Not so funny. Jiggle. Funnier.

Glasses? Not so funny. Spectacles. Funny. Or maybe more funny. Testicles? Whoa. Never mind. But in comedy, expect the unexpected. It often gets a laugh.

But back to words, if you don’t have the words in the right order, with the right rhythm and cadence, it’s probably not going to work. I’ve known comics to work on a one-line joke for weeks until they get it right.

Speaking of comics, have you noticed they often talk in violent or military terms? “I slaughtered ‘em last night” “Man, that audience was murder” “Go out and kill ‘em, pal,” phrases like that. There’s a reason for it. If you don’t get that laugh, you might as well be dead. Comics are very serious about their laughs.

Same with authors who write a funny mystery series. That corpse better be laughing when he hits the ground. Otherwise, I don’t sleep so good at night.

Remember when Amazon first began? The company’s one goal was to be the biggest book store in the world with enough books to fill the coliseum. Well?

It is, but it isn’t.

Have you ever tried to find a book on Amazon by the title alone? I did recently and was provided a whole array of sponsored electrical equipment and beauty products before the book’s cover appeared. Well, actually all the books with similar titles appeared, the book I sought among them.

In my dream world, Amazon goes back to its roots and splits into separate websites, such as: general retail; groceries, and bookstore. So, as a reader, I can sign on to a site called Amazon Reads or Books and wander the shelves, if virtually, without inundation by merchandise sellers and all the other piffle you get when you sign onto your Amazon main page.

Amazon has the chops to do this, and I believe book sales would increase because us poor readers could actually find the book we want, instead of being bombarded with books of no interest and unrelated products from random departments, including bras, electrical generators, and bamboo sheets.

I am talking about a nice, clean site for books, like the wonderful old bookstore in San Francisco, A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books. You sign-in, a published today feature lets you know the new books in the genre you most often buy, from there you type in the book you seek, and up it pops. Any book advertising runs down the side of the screen, including bestsellers and sponsored book ads. Other books with similar titles appear after the book you seek, not before it.

On this dedicated book site, when you type in the author’s name all of that author’s books appear, uninterrupted by sponsored books, sponsored products (like bread pans), or whatever the heck else Amazon is pushing. This would be great for those who write in more than one genre because someone who reads your cozy mystery might see a cover, read the description, and decide to buy one of your very un-cozy thrillers.

In addition to finding books by author, readers should be able select and search in more defined and specific genres according to their taste, such as cozy romantic suspense, not-so-cozy romantic suspense, and not-even-close-to-cozy romantic suspense.

On a personal level, I don’t mind other related books appearing in my searches, I might find something I like, but they should come after the book I’ve asked for and not include sponsored ads for books from a different genre like vampires, fifty shades of whatever, and the dystopian world of aggrieved youth. Call me cockeyed, but I think a search for a Vietnam thriller should not result in a screen full of sexy vampire books, vampire books should remain among the undead.

And as I wrote last year, without a consistently applied scale, reader reviews should stop —now (both number of stars and quantity of reviews). Books aren’t camping equipment. We used to buy books by word of mouth or by discovery, Amazon’s review system is an antithesis of this, squelching triers. I have read, as I am sure many of you have, books by bestselling authors with a gazillion reviews all swearing the book is the best thing ever when the book was garbage. In fact, I left a one star review for a bigtime author in nearly those words. Truthfully, I was harsher. And likewise, we have all discovered/taken a chance on/read books without reviews that were to die for (and probably didn’t leave a review when we should have). Hopefully, we touted the book and author to all we met, and in our blogs or newsletters.

Amazon favors the big names and big spenders now, just like the publishing houses did before Amazon came into the world hoping to be the biggest book store ever. Sales is their king, but I suggest that book sales would increase for Amazon if they ran a bookstore where readers could find the book they want to buy with ease (not the DVD version, the Amazon Prime version, or the game version) whether hardcover, paperback, e-, online or audio — and without bedsheets or vampires.