Jeff Berney

stories that thrill

Jeff Berney

I love murderers, sex traffickers and psychopaths.

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Blog post - I love murders, sex traffickers and psychopaths by author and novelist Jeff Berney

Okay, I know the title of this post is a little click bait-ish. Or is it? I guess you’ll have to tell me in the comments if you only clicked on this post because of the title. No matter how you ended up here, I hope by the end you might nod along in agreement. 

First, let me set some minds at ease (particularly those of the people who know me and live nearby). I don’t actually love real-life murderers, sex traffickers and psychopaths. I think these particularly twisted individuals represent the worst of humanity — assuming they, indeed, have any humanity in their souls, or even have a soul. So please don’t call the police and suggest that mine is a safe house for the criminally insane.

Now, if you have read some of my other posts (it’s easy, I’m not exactly a prolific poster), you already know that my favorite literary color is gray, I hate happy endings and I believe there are no true bad guys in fiction.

And fiction is exactly what I’m referring to. I have a fascination with murderers, sex traffickers and psychopaths of all stripes in literary works. Why? Because in the right hands, they make multi-dimensional characters that drive the narrative forward. They bring fictional worlds to life. They make you want to turn the page even if some of their actions turn your stomach and make you want to turn away. 

Good guys without flaws are boring. Give me a villain any day. Sure, I will root for the good guy (no matter the gender) to win. But only if the villain is a worthy opponent. And especially if the villain seems to have the advantage. And, frankly, I prefer my good guys/girls with some rough edges, maybe a dark secret or two, or perhaps a dark past. Why? Because that makes them more realistic. I have a hard time rooting for an obviously fake person. In the real world, good guys don’t have all the answers. They don’t always make the right moves. And they seldom have the upper hand over their opponents. 

And, let’s face it, villains don’t always see themselves as villains. For them, they’re the main character. They’re the one with a mission, and it is the so-called “good guy” who has intervened to stop them from being happy. 

When is the last time you enjoyed a story that started with sunshine and roses and stayed that way for the entire book? I’d venture to say never. Even in the sweetest of sweet romances, trouble arises that our couple must overcome. Children’s stories also have villains. I mean, have you read the original versions of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales? Those are some dark tales! And they were meant for children. Heck, look at the Harry Potter series for a more contemporary example. The entire plot is driven by the murder of Harry’s parents and the attempted murder of Harry. As. A. Baby.

So, yes. I love bad guys of all stripes. Don’t you?

Blog post - I love murders, sex traffickers and psychopaths by author and novelist Jeff Berney

Deadlines, duties and shifting priorities.

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Blog post - deadlines, duties and shifting priorities by author and novelist Jeff Berney

I’ve been thinking a lot about priorities and responsibilities lately. I started 2021 with a pretty clear agenda. First, spend more quality time with my wife and kids. Next, finish my second novel and publish it by the end of December. 

Well, if you’re playing along at home you or you’re more than a casual observer of my probably have noticed that I haven’t published “The Fall of Faith” yet. In fact, I haven’t even finished the first draft. But I’m okay with that. Why? Well, for the most part it’s because I did very well on my first priority. The year 2021 was a great one for my family, well, until November anyway. More on that in a moment.

You may know that my wife and I are blessed with seven children. Four of them are still living at home. So we have a full house. And then some. In 2021, we took our kids on some epic camping adventures in our travel trailer, most of which included my parents joining us in theirs. We visited two national parks and a ton of state parks. We escaped Missouri’s February flurries by camping on the beach in Florida. We traveled thousands of miles and enjoyed hundreds of campfires. All while I was able to work or take vacation. 

Everything was great. Then our daughter got COVID-19, which spread to her boyfriend. They had been vaccinated, but it still was a scary time. Especially because they’re currently living what my parents. Luckily it didn’t spread to them. And both my daughter and her boyfriend have made a complete recovery.

But that was just the beginning. On top of that my wife got sick. Thinking back on it, there were signs of trouble early in the year. As a writer, I can appreciate the foreshadowing. As a husband, I don’t give a damn about it. Doctors visits turned up nothing. Test after test seemed normal. For awhile, she thought she was going crazy. She knew something was wrong but nobody seemed to believe her. 

Then things got so bad I took her to the ER. Have you been to an ER during the COVID era? I’d read the articles about out overwhelmed hospital system but nothing prepares you for the realities of sitting in an ER for four hours when you’re worried your wife might die. And once we got past the waiting room, well there were beds lining the halls because they had run out of rooms. She was admitted to the hospital, but that didn’t mean anything. They had no room to move her to. More tests. Still no answers. And we went home.

That was the first of three ER visits. One by ambulance. Oh, and somewhere in between one of our 11-year-olds had surgery. He came through it with flying colors thankfully. And weeks later, we finally had a diagnosis for my wife. We’ve started treatment, but it’s a long haul and a lifelong issue that is sure to change our lives. But what it won’t change are our priorities. Our health comes first and our time with each other and our family comes next. We’ve already planned two epic camping adventures for this year. Another winter Florida escape and summer journey to Yellowstone. 

And, yes, I have recently gotten back to my draft. I can promise you my next book will be published this year. I just can’t tell you when. Not yet anyway. There is too much to do and too many moments to enjoy with my wife to worry about that. Thanks for your patience and for your continued appreciation of my first novel, “A Killer Secret.” I am truly blown away at the reviews it has received and hope to raise the bar with “The Fall of Faith.” 

Blog post - deadlines, duties and shifting priorities by author and novelist Jeff Berney

It’s hard keeping my mind in the clouds.

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Normally, working on a book is an escape for me. Typically, when I’m in the middle of a writing project my wife is always telling me that I’m in “book mode.” And she’s right. Day dreaming about my characters is how I subconsciously work out plot holes, find more complex meanings in a passage or even write a vivid first draft of a scene. 

When in book mode, I’ll constantly email or text myself ideas. I’ll jot notes down in my phone. I’ll make a quick audio recording. Anything to get an idea down before it drifts across the oasis that is my semi-conscious mind.

For a year and a half, I’ve found it nearly impossible to remain in book mode. Oh, I still have thoughts. I still email myself. And I still make my notes. But the actual writing that turns these scraps into storylines has become hard to maintain. 

For the record, I have never believed in writer’s block. I still don’t: I know from experience that if I sit down at my computer the words will eventually come. They may start haltingly. They may not be great. But they do appear. It’s a matter of letting your mind wander back into the magical make-believe world I’m conjuring out of nowhere. The problem I’m experiencing isn’t writer’s block. I’m still excited bunny sophomore novel. It’s something deeper. 

Ever since the pandemic upended the real world, I’ve struggled to control my imaginary world. You’d think it’d be easier. With so much uncertainty and chaos in our everyday lives, you might think I would find myself sinking deeper and deeper into my fictional story as a way to cope, or as an escape mechanism. Heck, I thought that would happen too. 

When my entire company was sent home a year ago in March, I was actually excited. Here was my chance to spend more time on my book. Lunch hours and commutes would now be furtive writing time along with my typical late-night sessions. Instead, work on my novel stopped completely for months. Then, in December, when I realized I’d wasted two-thirds of a year, I forced myself back into the writing seat. That worked for awhile. In fact, as vaccinations became more widely available and the pandemic seemed to wane, I found myself writing more and more. 

And then the third wave came. And the fourth. The Delta and Lambda variants began to plunge us back into the isolation we were on the precipice of leaving behind. Add to that the fact that suddenly, disparate maintaining distancing and wearing masks, our household began to find itself infested with various sicknesses. Not Covid-19, thankfully. But stomach ailments, colds and even RSV.

I’m currently sitting here with a pounding head and clogged sinuses. I can’t breathe through my nose. I have no energy. And my manuscript is gathering figurative dust. I had hoped (and part of me still does) that I would be able to publish this book this fall. 

Here’s what I’ve decided to do. I’m not going to beat myself up. But neither am I going to give up. I will finish this book. It will be better than my first. And I will publish it when it is ready. That doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on my original deadline, but it does mean that I won’t be adding to my anxiety by worrying about my current lethargic weekly word counts. There are bigger things happening in the world, and at my house, right now. So I’ll write when I can. Continue to put one foot in front of the other. And as long as I’m moving forward, I’m making progress. 

Conspiracy Theories: excerpt from “The Fall of Faith” coming this fall.

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Jimmy sat at what he’d come to think of as his spot at Kenny’s bar. Kenny had just poured them another round. Jimmy swiveled around on his stool, happy to feel just the slightest pull in his side to remind him of his recent misadventures. A few men were scattered throughout the dim space. 

Jimmy raised his glass to the man in a dress who sat at the far end of the bar. The man quickly looked down at his own drink and turned away from Jimmy. The smelly bum-slash-town-mayor sat slumped in a chair at a table by himself. Jimmy chuckled to himself as he realized the two men at the next table had slid their entire table and chairs to be able to drink in more breathable air.

“Why is this place never packed?” Jimmy asked Kenny as he turned back to the bartender and rested his elbows on the dried remains of his own blood.

Kenny gave him a sideways glance as he mopped up the backbar. “What are you talking about? This is a good turn out.”

“There are exactly five customers here, and that’s the most I’ve seen in the three weeks I’ve been here. How in the hell do you stay in business?”

“Let’s just say this isn’t my only business,” Kenny said as he poured Jimmy’s next round. “Like a lot of folks these days, I’ve got my hands in a lot of pies. Some side hustles, you might say. Helps me pay the bills and keep this place running.”

Jimmy looked at the drink in his hand. “You know, I didn’t really drink before I crashed into Eden. Now I can’t remember a day or night I don’t have a whiskey glass in my hand or at the ready.”

Kenny punched him in the shoulder. “Welcome to small town life, my friend. Nowhere to go but to the liquor store or bar and nothing to do but drown your sorrows in a glass. You know alcohol was invented to keep the working man in line?”

Jimmy looked at his friend and shook his head as he laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s true,” Kenny said as he sipped from his own glass. “What better way than to keep laborers from rebelling than to keep them lit?”

“Come on,” Jimmy said. “Do you believe that crap, or is this some bogus bartender bullshit you’re feeding me here?”

Kenny looked around the bar then leaned in close to Jimmy. He spoke in hushed, excited tones. “Are you kidding me? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Governments have been covertly trying to keep their subjects in line since the very beginnings of civilization. It’s not just about alcohol. It’s full-scale surveillance with ‘so called’ UFOs. You know drone technology has been used by the government since the 1940s?”

Jimmy slammed his drink and pulled the bottle away from Kenny. “I think I need a little more of this,” he said, “to keep me in line. Or at least to help me follow along.”

Kenny shook his head slowly and sighed. “It’s not your fault, buddy. You’ve been brainwashed since kindergarten. That’s when the indoctrination begins. This ‘free society’? It’s all bullshit. All of it. Every history book is a lie. All those cute little elementary school milk cartons? They’re filled with drugs that make us complacent.”

Jimmy looked around the bar to see if any of the other patrons were listening to the lunatic rantings of their hometown bartender. “Come on, man,” he said. “Tell me it’s the whiskey talking, or this is some sort of initiation you do with all your new customers or you’re just bored on a chilly fall night and decided to fuck with me.” 

Kenny whipped the rag from his shoulder and twisted it in his fists. He mopped his brow and paced behind the bar. “Look around, Jimbo. There are black helicopters in the sky above every major city in this country. They’re watching us. Keeping us under their thumb. Making sure we stay fat, dumb and harmless.”

Jimmy sucked on an ice cube and contemplated retiring to the lumpy cot upstairs. “Okay,” he said. “Say that’s true. Why?”

“Because if we knew,” Kenny said as he slammed his fist on the bar, “they wouldn’t be able to control us. They’d lose everything. Their power, their money, everything.”

“So you’re saying this is the government doing this, right?”

“Not the government as you know it, or think you know it. No. It’s the people that pull the strings.”

“But what about all the good things government does? Technological advances. Social services like feeding the homeless. Medicines. You’re saying all that is somehow a means to an end? A way to control us?”

“Yes,” Kenny bellowed. “Look who decided to show up. Now you’re getting it, my brother. Medicines were created to keep us calm while nature takes its course. And vaccines don’t prevent sickness. They inject microscopic trackers and nano technology that can control our organs, even our thoughts. So if we become a danger to their power, they can just shut us down with an app.”

Jimmy knew he should walk away, but he just couldn’t believe what he was hearing from the guy he had come to think of as a friend. “Dude, I want to know what you’re smoking, because you’re clearly not sharing. And while we’re talking about medication, I think someone has definitely taken the blue pill.”

“Exactly,” Kenny said as he grabbed the whiskey bottle and drank from it while he continued to pace in tight circles in front of Jimmy. “‘The Matrix’ was an attempt by those in power to test the limits of that power. Don’t you get it? Could they release a movie about our lives and we not even notice its truths? It blows my mind, man. And look what happened. The chattel not only remained oblivious, they actually demanded sequels. Sequels, for godssake.” 

 Jimmy stood up and put his hands on Kenny’s shoulders. “I would love to sit here and debate these things with you, but I’ve had a weird enough day as it is. I thank you for making everything else that’s happened to me in the last several weeks seem pedestrian.”

Kenny grabbed Jimmy by the cheeks and pulled his forehead to his own. “You’re going to believe, brother. Before this is all over, you’ll see.”

There are no bad guys in fiction.

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Good vs. Good? Doesn’t have much of a satisfying ring to it, does it? Just as we need someone to root for in a novel, we also need someone to root against. For what is a protagonist if she doesn’t have an antagonist to force her to become her best self? How can we know a story is over unless the bad guy gets his comeuppance? 

Stay with me here as I explore this idea a little further. 

I don’t believe that most people are 100-percent good or evil. Even good guys have their flaws, some of them are downright bad bordering on evil. Nobody is a hero all the time. In fact, I believe that the best heroes are the ones with the most flaws, the most to overcome, past missteps that require redemption. Frankly, if a character has no flaws I just can’t get into the story. Even though I’m reading fiction or watching a movie, I want the main characters to be relatable, real. 

It’s the same with a story’s antagonist. If she is purely evil, then the character comes across as shallow, undeveloped, unreal. In fact, I am using the term “antagonist” deliberately. The definition is simply someone who opposes someone or something. Well, that describes me. A lot. I’m opposed to global warming. Am I evil against the good oil companies? I oppose paying different wages for the same job based on gender. Am I the villain in corporate America’s story?

Let’s use a few popular works of fiction as examples:

Think about Rocky IV. I know. I know. It wasn’t the best entry in the series and certainly didn’t have the grit and heart of the amazing original. But what it lacks in “America is stronger than Russia” plot, it makes up for with a great antagonist in Ivan Drago. You may not recall his name, but if you’ve seen the movie, you surely remember his infamous line: “I must break you.” In the movie, he is made out to be the villain, but is he really? Isn’t he just a boxer trying to be the best and make his country proud? Isn’t he just like Rocky himself?

And what of Harry Potter’s sworn enemy, Lord Voldemort? Let’s ignore the fact that he is a grown-ass man hellbent on destroying a kid for a second and look, instead, at his motivations. He wants to be in power. He does not believe in mixing wizard and muggle worlds. Now, I know this is a very thinly-veiled allegory for racism and I do not agree with this or with He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but does that make him evil or just wrong and ill-intentioned? There is a difference. Perhaps if he got the resources he needed as poor, young Tom Riddle, he would have grown up to use his powers in a more constructive way.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is another great example. Wonderful book and movie. Loved Jack Nicholson in this one. And, man, is Nurse Ratched an amazing antagonist. But is she a “bad guy?” Sure she lacks empathy, but I’d argue that many of us would after years of being put down by chauvinistic, condescending doctors on one side and over-the-top psych patients on the other.

And finally (although I could go on for hours), Netflix’s Cobra Kai provides the perfect example of my theory. In this amazing series, Johnny Lawrence is the hero, and Daniel LaRusso is the out-of-touch rich guy who uses his past karate glories to sell luxury cars to other rich folks. It perfectly exposes how point-of-view can change our perceptions — even of characters we thought we knew.

Regardless of what we call them, as an author, I think “bad guys” are some of the most fun characters to write. They often have the richest backstories and the fullest character development. But, again, what is a “bad guy?” If you’ve read my debut novel, “A Killer Secret,” you know that this is one of my favorite areas to play around in. All three of my main characters believe they are the good guy. All three of them could easily be the bad guy. I think they’re all both. Because, to me, that’s not only the most realistic but also the most fun.

Who are some bad guys from your favorite books or movies that you secretly love (maybe even more than the good guy)?

Adam Sandler is my role model.

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Let’s start with money because that’s often the measure of someone’s success. Mr. Sandler, Happy Gilmore himself, is worth about $420 million. It seems pretty fitting for his net worth to be 420 friendly. I wonder if he spends his weekends randomly buying up assets just so nothing harsher the mellow of his money.

If you’re keeping track, that makes Adam Sandler one of the richest actors in Hollywood. What? That’s right. The man who gave us Hubie Halloween enjoys a higher net worth than Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, Tom Hanks, Michael Douglas and scores of other A-List actors.

When he signed a $250 million four-movie deal with Netflix, people were astounded by its record size and by the fact that it was with Adam Sandler. But guess what? Netflix has since extended that deal for another four movies. Clearly, he’s doing something right. People may write him off or wonder what his appeal is, but all the while he’s having the time of his life and laughing all the way to the bank.

And, sure, he has put out some bad movies. In fact, he’s earned 36 Golden Raspberry Award nominations, winning nine times. But he’s also been nominated for multiple Golden Globe, Emmy and Grammy Awards. He has earned a perfect 0% Rotten Tomato score for The Ridiculous 6 (well deserved in my opinion). But he’s also earned an astounding 92% for The Meyerowitz Stories. 

In my opinion, most of his movies are at least mildly amusing and some are just plain amazing. I’m thinking of Punch Drunk Love and Uncut Gems. Both of those movies proved that my man Adam can act when he needs to. Shoot, even in a silly throwaway buddy movie like The Do-Over where he’s mostly being silly, he is able to deliver and comes across as very endearing.

But the biggest reason that Adam Sandler is my role model is because the man appears to have mastered the illusive work-life balance. By owning his own production company, he can better control what projects he works on. And as you can tell by the repeated appearances of his friends, he likes to make sure he has fun and stays connected with this who matter in his life even when he’s working. In fact, his wife and two daughters also appear in a ton of his movies. 

Who wouldn’t want that kind of freedom? Who hasn’t wished for that kind of life?

Now I hold no illusions that my own budding side hustle as a novelist will ever become the publishing equivalent to Adam Sandler’s career. Hell, I’m too old for that. But I can certainly learn from him and use his career as a model for my own. And that’s exactly what I plan to do. As soon as I’m done hanging with my family.