Jeff Berney

stories that thrill

Jeff Berney

Excerpt from “The Fall of Faith” Coming Fall of 2021

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parked trucks under clouds

Jimmy’s stomach growled in thundering protest, but his well-seasoned fork hand kept shoveling the under-seasoned Eggs Benedict into his mouth. His other hand gripped a cracked mug of thick coffee that the waitress efficiently refilled after every couple of sips. His droopy eyes stared across the deserted Waffle House, taking in everything but unable to focus on anything. His left arm felt glued to the stainless steel countertop. Every tap of his foot pulled up another layer of grime, which stuck tightly to the heel of his boot.

The only thing that’s not greasy in this place is my spoon. The thought made him smile. His wife would have shook her head at such a dad joke, which in itself would have been ironic. His mouth tightened and his eyes watered. He shook the thought out of his head and buried the pain. That’s what the men in his family did. They took their lumps in silence, as God intended.

“How you doing, darlin’?” The rotund waitress asked as she poured more sour coffee into his mug until Jimmy was sure it would overflow, scalding his hand. He was disappointed when she stopped just before the ceramic dam broke.

“I’m good, ma’am. Thank you,” Jimmy answered loudly so she could hear him over the constant rumble of the big rigs on nearby Interstate 49. Even in the dead of night, the highway was still full of life. One of the minor arteries pumping commerce to and from the heart of the country.

“Don’t call me ma’am. Makes me feel like an old lady. And though I may be old, I’m anything but a lady. The name’s Gladys.” The waitress cackled and winked at him, which caused a chasm of makeup cracks to form from the edge of her right eye down her cheek. She touched Jimmy’s arm with her free hand as she spoke. “How was your breakfast, hun? You sure scarfed it down like you haven’t eaten in weeks. I like a man who loves to eat and don’t mind what he puts in his mouth.”

“It was good. Really good.” Jimmy tried to pull his arm away, but the suction of the countertop combined with the weight of the waitress’ hand held him in check.

“You’re a two-time liar, but you’re awful cute, so I guess I’ll give you a break. And ooh would I love to break you.” The waitress cackled again. “So what do you do, handsome?”

“I’m a truck driver.”

“Oh, well shoot, I’m surprised I haven’t seen you in here before. We’re real popular with you truckers. And I’d remember if you’d been in before. A tall sturdy feller like you.”

“I don’t usually stop. Most of my days and nights are spent cruising along the highway back and forth between Bentonville and Kansas City.”

“A Walmart man, huh? I sure do love that danged old store. What brought you in tonight, doll?”
Jimmy stared down at the congealed mess of his nearly empty plate. He’d finished everything but the four strips of thick cut bacon. “I just needed a break is all.”

Gladys leaned across the counter and patted Jimmy on the shoulder. “Is that all? I thought maybe you’d spent all your money at that damned strip club masquerading as a truck stop across the way.”

“No, ma’am. I’ve never been.”

“Get out of town! Every man’s been to a strip club. Especially you truckers. Why you can’t throw a rock without hitting a club or a triple-x video store along this stretch of the highway, or any other I imagine.”

Jimmy shook his head slowly and stared out the window. He frowned at his reflection. He looked like a ghost of himself. His hair had begun to thin recently and looked even thinner in the glass. He found it fascinating how the hair on his head was slowly migrating down to his shoulders and his back. Like an hourglass he couldn’t turn over or reverse. Maybe it was the gravity of a hard life, a life on the road, never stopping, never standing still. Jimmy liked to imagine time as a hand constantly reaching up for you out of the depths of the earth, trying to pull you down and bury you. Only the bravest, the luckiest of us, get to escape by the hair on our heads. It looked to him like his time was about up.

As he stared at his receding hair line, he acknowledged, if only to himself, that he had had neither luck nor courage. Never had. He had always been more comfortable inside himself than out in the world.

“Sugar? You still with me?” The waitress’ voice broke the comfort of his solitude.

“Sorry,” he said as he shook his head. “I’ve just never had a reason to wander into one I guess.”

“Well good for you. Why should you pay for what you could get for free from a cow, or however the saying goes.” She cackled again as Jimmy forced a smile. “You should stop back by during the day sometime. I get off around lunch. I could show you around. The nearest town is Eden, which is fitting because this place sure seems like the birthplace of original sin if you ask me, and I know you didn’t.”

“I appreciate the offer, Gladys, but after 15 years of wearing out my tires and wearing away my life, this is my first and last visit. I’m getting out of the trucking life.”

“That’s too bad, sugar. You might find there’s something to do here upon deeper inspection.” She paused, and Jimmy supposed it was to see if he’d take the bait. “But I’m not surprised you’ve never stopped. Not many do, ‘sept for them that just don’t have the gumption or the gas to go no further.”

“I’ll just take my check, and a doggy bag please.”

“Okay, but there’s no need to rush off. You look like you’ve been on the road a bit. It might do you good to get your blood pumping.”

“I’m running late, and my wife is expecting me.” He hoped she wouldn’t see in his eyes that this was another two-time lie.

“Oh well. Suit yourself, hun. I’ll get you that doggy style bag.” The waitress squeezed his arm as she pushed herself from the counter, her arms now coated in grease and lint. She blew him a kiss as she waddled away.

Jimmy’s thumb rubbed against the line of pale skin on the ring finger of his left hand. All these years on the road, and he’d never strayed. Never fallen prey to the undercurrent of lesser demons, the ones who stirred up trouble and spurred on man’s innate needs to conquer new villages and vaginas.

I hate happy endings.

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Please don’t take that the wrong way. When it comes to books, or movies or any form of entertainment, I do want the story to have a solid resolution. Even if it is one of a series. Cliffhangers are okay as long as there aren’t a lot of loose plot threads left dangling that don’t get resolved in the next book. Even series books should conclude their story to some extent, don’t you think?

I read a lot of crime novels, mysteries and thrillers. They make up the bulk of my library, which is probably not surprising since they’re the kinds of stories I like writing as well. I love all the twists and turns of a good suspense. But I hate it when all the thrills fall away at the end to reveal a shiny, happy resolution. Am I the only one?

I’ve always found the traditional Hollywood ending a bit trite. As I mentioned above, I don’t want a movie or a book to leave a bunch of loose ends hanging out there unresolved before the ending credits or the last page. I just don’t like the manufactured happy ending. For one thing, happy endings rarely happen. In fact, endings in general aren’t all that natural, happy or otherwise.

In real life, of course, our story keeps going. The end credits don’t roll until we die, and even then there is still a story to tell, it simply involves one fewer characters. So the idea of a happy ending is completely made up. It’s manufactured. It’s false. 

I’m not suggesting that people (even fictional ones) don’t deserve happiness. On the contrary, I think happiness is a core goal that drives life forward. Everyone is searching for it, or some variation of it. Perhaps they just want to be comfortable or find balance. I’d argue both of those goals are built on a foundation of happiness at some level. So let’s just agree that people (real and make-believe) deserve happiness. I merely want that happiness to fit the hundreds of pages and thousands of words that came before it. 

Traditional happy endings, in my humble opinion, are boring, trite and unrealistic. Now, I will grant you that readers of some genres do expect a happy ending (I’m looking at you, romance readers). But aside from that admittedly very large genre of stories, I argue that endings that are too full of sunshine and roses will actually ruin the entire story that came before it. That might sound harsh, but think about it: when is the last time you read an unsatisfying ending and said to yourself “Oh well, it’s just the ending. I loved everything else so I’ll give it five stars.” 

Never. You’ve never done that. Nobody has. In gymnastics, sticking the landing will make or break your entire routine. Same goes for a pilot. Nobody cares how smooth a flight was if the landing is scary. In racing, you may pull some epic moves, speeding by rivals and maneuvering through wrecks. But if you don’t cross the line first when the checkered flag waves, it was all for naught. 

I think I’ve beaten my point into submission. I’ll just leave you with this. A book must end the way the story requires it. Nothing more. Nothing less. I should not bolt on an ending because I as the writer really want it to end that way. Nor should I create an ending solely because I think it is what my readers expect. I hope I always write the endings my stories require and deserve. I humbly invite you to keep me honest on that.

I welcome your comments and opposing points of view. The one thing I know for certain in this life is that I’m not always right.

My favorite literary color has always been gray.

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My favorite literary colors have always been gray

There’s nothing like a colorful description to transport you from your favorite comfortable reading spot right into the middle of a book’s action. I love when an author is able to use language in such an immersive way. But my favorite literary color has always been gray.

I read a lot. I don’t discriminate by genre though I do tend to gravitate towards books that are real, that are gritty. Even if there is a happy ending, I want the characters to have earned it. They should be test, tried and found wanting. That’s how you see what someone is truly made of. That’s when the politeness ends, the public persona slips away and the true character is revealed. 

And let’s face it, we live in a gray world. It’s often hard to tell who the heroes and the villains are. Heroes in one story could end up the villains in another. I get that we are talking fiction here, but in my opinion the best fiction mirrors real life. And in real life, there are no pure good guys or completely villainous characters. Think about all those news accounts of serial killers where a reporter interviews the unwitting neighbor who tells the world how shocked she is because her neighbor was always so nice and considerate, kept his lawn mowed and smiled and waved as he came and went. Does that guy sound evil to you? Me either. But we can agree that he has extremely evil tendencies. And what of the man who saves a woman from an assault only to expect a little something in return? Hero or villain?

I don’t mean to pick on men. There are plenty of female examples as well. It’s human nature. Morality, ethics, character. These are a constant sliding scale. An inner struggle. And it’s precisely that inner struggle that makes a character memorable and real. Too many stories telegraph the white hats and the black hats. That doesn’t work for me. What that does is keep me from the escape I seek in my fiction. It stops me from inserting myself into the story, relating to its characters. It screams “this is fiction!”

I like characters that are fully fleshed out. They have real thoughts and react unexpectedly sometimes, as we all do, when they’re under pressure. I love it when hidden motivations come to light that make you see the book you are reading in a whole new light, making the little details and nuances at the beginning mean so much more than they did on the surface when you first read them. I don’t want my narrators to be angels, to be 100 percent reliable. Who among us is, really? 

We are all biased. We are all at least a little self serving. We all want to win. So when an author celebrates this human truth instead of pushing it aside because it is inconvenient to the story they want to tell, that’s when I know I’ll love their book. Because we all live in the gray. And I thing that’s great. In the gray is where all the interesting stuff happens.

My favorite literary colors have always been gray-Pinterest

The warped psychology of time.

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Time is a silly, make-believe concept. The idea that every day has the same number of hours is ridiculous. As you read this, I can sense that you’re nodding along with me. You get it. But if you don’t, don’t worry, I can prove it. In fact, the “theory” of time is easily disproven. 

Try this experiment: 

Spend the day doing something you despise, I mean really hate with every fiber of your being. You know, like washing the cat or following your kids around with a Dust Buster and a carton of antibacterial wipes while they entertain a dozen of their closest preschool pals. 

Now spend the next day doing something you love. Read a book in the quiet solitude of a school day. Work in your garden. Practice yoga or tai chi. Or binge that show everyone is talking about (not that one, the other one).

Now you tell me that the day you did something you dislike and the day filled with something you love were the exact same length. You can’t. Because they weren’t. 

Time moves incrementally faster for every second you spend enjoying yourself and grinds to a snail’s pace when you’re stuck on something you don’t want to do. What’s more, it also speeds up as you age and with every kid you raise.

I was reminded of this phenomenon recently when I went back to a full-time job after a year of book writing, freelance and ride share driving. I loved being able to get my kids off to school in the morning. We had our routine down to a science. They’d get everything done, and we’d watch 30-minutes of a TV show. It was great bonding time. Then they would go off to school, and I’d sit down to write.

Before I knew it, I’d look up and they were back. It was like a storm blew through the house every afternoon, taking all my free time and ability to concentrate with it. And now, as I readjust to corporate life, I find that my days are slowing down. I’m not bored. Definitely not. But it’s a different kind of day. A different pace. It’s enough to give you whiplash!

I don’t care what the physicists say. Our days — heck, our lives — are one long series of time warps. Time is not on your side, my friend. It keeps on ticking ticking ticking not into the future but into oblivion. Deal with it.

What a weird feeling it is to know people are reading my book.

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You’d think that after three edits and a round of proofreading I’d be anxious to get my book in the hands of my beta readers. And I am. But surprisingly, it’s more anxiety than excitement. In fact, I’m a ball of nerves.

Sure, some of my anxiety is most likely due to other huge events in my life, but knowing people are reading my book is driving me crazy. Do they like it? Do they find it contrived and derivative? Is it the best book they’ve ever read? It has taken all my willpower not to bug my beta readers every couple of minutes since I sent them their links yesterday morning.

Of course, my most important beta reader has already read and enjoyed my story. My wife read it after the second edit. Now you might be thinking that my wife was probably an easy critic. If so, you don’t know my wife. She has a way of being brutally honest without being mean. And she’s a voracious reader. She tears through thrillers, murder mysteries, and suspense novels. When she finds an author she likes, she’ll read everything that author has published. She was instrumental in helping me identify a couple plot holes and a few missing scenes that helped round out a couple of the characters. She is a fantastic editor who made my story better.

Still, she’s my wife, and she loves me. So I know no matter how brutally honest she is, she will never be my harshest critic. Which brings me back to my beta readers. 

I’m so grateful to everyone who has volunteered to be an early reader. So far there are seven. I’ve instructed each of them to be honest and objective. I’d rather they catch my mistakes than some random reader who then decides to leave a one-star review, or worse yet, never give my future books a try.

I’m hoping for feedback soon. Until then, don’t mind me. I’ll be curled up in a corner quietly rocking back and forth and weeping.

Characters or plot? You shouldn’t have to choose.

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I’m writing this post during a brief break. The manuscript for “A Killer Secret” has been edited, and I’ve just finished adding the few scenes my editor suggested were needed to wrap up a couple of plot points. Now I’m giving it one final read before handing it over to my beta readers. 

As I near the end of this part of my publishing journey, I can’t help but think about the question I asked myself a lot as I began more than a year ago: must I choose between characters and plot?

I’m sure you’ve all read books that kept you on the edge of your seat, up all night racing from one chapter, one disaster, to the next until you reached the end only to have trouble the next day remembering anything significant beyond the action of the story. This seems to be the formula du jour for thrillers. Write them fast so people can read them fast and move on to the next. 

Then there are the books where you identify so deeply with the characters that they seem real, like you’ve known them your entire life. But at the end of the book you can’t really remember what those characters did, there wasn’t much action. I feel this way about a lot of older books. So much time is spent examining the characters’ inner lives that there isn’t time left to set things into motion in an exciting and memorable way.

The classics, and the destined to become classics, strike a balance between well-rounded, realistic characters and action that moves along but not so fast that each new plot point makes you forget the last. For me, these are the best reads. You get to know enough about the characters that you care what happens to them as the action builds with each new chapter. 

And, yes, I know that different genres have certain formulas and tropes. But I just think that too many modern books are written to be finished and forgotten. They resemble big budget action films that wow you in the moment but make you wish you hadn’t wasted your money on a ticket as soon as you’re walking out of the theater. 

There is a reason movies aren’t as good as the books they’re often born from. They lack the nuance, the character building, the inner emotions a good book can unlock. Maybe that’s why there are so many literary classics when compared to film classics. So why write your book as if it were a movie someone will watch once and forget?

I’m new to this long-form fiction thing, so maybe I’m naïve. I just believe there should be a way to balance character and plot. As I read my book for the fifth time, I hope I’ve pulled it off. I hope my readers don’t feel like they’ve had to make a trade off between the two.

I guess I’ll find out as soon as my beta readers report back. Have I mentioned how exciting and scary it is to finally be at the point where people will be reading my book?

Character or Plot pinterest image