Are You a Curler or a Magpie?

by Catherine Dilts

I have a “birdbath” on my deck. It’s actually a clay flower pot base set on the railing. Birds like getting a drink there.

I have a theory that being elevated and open makes the birdbath appealing as a safe place to satisfy their thirst and wash their feathers. They can see what’s coming.

Neither my husband nor I are bird watchers. Our identification skills are limited. I know flickers, robins, magpies, jays, hummingbirds, owls, and redtail hawks. Everything else falls into vague categories of those little brown birds, medium-sized black birds, and oh look, that one has yellow feathers mixed in with the brown.

Our fall season has been painfully dry. We’re anxious to receive moisture. Even the snow-averse souls wouldn’t mind some frozen precipitation at this point. The birdbath has been in steady use.

Today I noticed birds lined up on the railing. They weren’t politely taking turns. They were fighting over the birdbath. Diving, feigning attack, flapping wings, and jabbing beaks in threat.

I wanted to tell them we’d refill the container even if they drank it all. We humans have a magical spigot from which we obtain endless quantities of the precious fluid. They would just fly away in a panic if I stepped onto the deck. So I let them fight.

The Battle of the Birdbath made me think about human competitiveness. Some is good. My husband and I have become fans of curling, which is an Olympic sport. We have yet to try our hands at the sport. Maybe we never will. But we’ve become fascinated with watching people push a heavy, round stone across the ice. Then teammates scramble to brush at the ice with little brooms in attempts to affect speed, and to direct the stone a certain route.

The stakes are high. We watched the finals to decide which team goes on to the Olympics. A sport doesn’t get much more high-stakes than deciding who will represent their country in front of the entire planet. Yet curling seems so . . . civilized. The team chatter is polite. There is no physical contact.

Curling athletes behave better than the birds on my deck.

Any sport could have a dark underbelly, I suppose. I examine the competitiveness of elite dressage and jumping equestrians in book three of my Rose Creek Mystery series, The Body in the Hayloft (available December 1^st). My research led me down a path examining potential drugging of show horses. What drugs are used? Is this prevalent or rare?

What can drive a human to be so competitive that they become deadly? Even the birds clamoring over their precious water source only bluff and bluster. There are no feathered bodies on the deck.

I’m afraid I do behave like a sparrow fighting for a place at the bird bath at times. I would like to be more like a curler athlete. Steady. Focused. Kind.

I'll get started on my self-improvement project, right after I refill the birdbath. 

Scams Targeting Writers

 by Thomas Kies

I was introduced to a new scam the other day. One that I came very near to falling for.  An email came to me out of the blue claiming to be from the organizer of a large book club (nearly 700 members).  He said they wanted to “feature” my book Random Road and he gave it, and me, effusive compliments. The entire club would be reading and discussing my novel.  

“Featuring your book with us provides direct engagement with a dedicated community of readers who love to discuss and recommend books, increased visibility among literary enthusiasts who value discovery and thoughtful conversation, and the opportunity for your work to become a memorable part of a month-long reading experience. Our meetings are always relaxed, thoughtful, and filled with conversations that remind us why we love books in the first place.”

I was so enthused I offered to fly out to meet with his book club.  He said that was not necessary.

I did some due diligence and looked the book club up online.  Yup, there it is.  Seems legit.

But then, the organizer sent me a tiered price list of how they wanted to feature my book.  That was a red flag.  I’ve spoken and interacted with dozens of book clubs.  Not one of them has asked me for money. 

I dug a little further online and found some complaints from writers who had also been approached and had fallen for it. Scam!  This email came from someone who had nothing to do with the actual book club.

Writers are dreamers.  If you’re an aspiring author, you’re hoping for that big break in a business that’s notoriously difficult to navigate.  If you’re a published author, your creativity is on the bookshelf and you’re looking for a way to break through a very competitive marketplace. Scammers know this. We’re red meat for predators. What are some other scams?

-Vanity presses who pass themselves off as traditional publishers. They flatter you, offer you a contract and then you get the fees…editing, marketing packages, printing costs, distribution fees, fees for reviews.  Traditional publishers don’t charge you. They pay you. 

The red flags here are they accept your manuscript suspiciously fast, they ask for an upfront payment, and their website makes vague promises without giving real titles they’ve produced. 

-Fake literary agents.  Real agents are selective….very, very selective. They don’t chase unpublished authors.  Fraudulent agents charge “reading fees” or “editing services” or promise access to publishers they really don’t have a relationship with. A legitimate agent never charges reading or submission fees. 

- Fraudulent contests or awards.  Writing contests can be a wonderful chance to showcase your work, but they can also be an opportunity for scammers to cheat you out of money. Some contests exist solely to collect entry fees and email addresses. Others give out hundreds of meaningless “awards,” then push overpriced trophies, certificates, or anthologies. Do your research.  Look up past winners and check out the organization’s past and reputation.  

- “Your book will make a great movie” scam. It usually starts with a flattering email claiming your book is “being considered by major film producers.” That will get your heart pumping. Who doesn't want to see their book turned into a movie?  Or a Netflix series? What the scammers really mean is: buy our expensive marketing package and we’ll pretend to pitch your book in Hollywood. Real film scouts do not cold-email indie authors. 

- Overpriced, overpromising marketing services. I see this one a lot! Marketing is an important part of being an author, but it’s easy to fall for false promises. Some companies sell “press releases,” “book trailers,” “social media placement,” “reviews “or “Amazon optimization” that do little or nothing.

In short, research the companies who claim they want to work with you. Talk with other writers. Trust your instincts. Unsolicited offers are a red flag. If it sounds too good to be true, it is! 

Be a Squirrel

 

Dear Lovely Reader:

I must apologize, first of all, for missing my essay slot two weeks ago. I was, as usual, experiencing technical difficulties, this time with my Google account. I'd changed my password . . . and that set off a chain of reactions that included my phone, my calendars, my contacts, and my email. Things are working again--but I don't feel totally secure. This has always been a seamless process in the past. We are told to regularly change our passwords, after all. But this time . . .

Anyway, much anguish later, and I'm back to work. I think I've finished formatting Strawberry Moon Mystery using the Atticus software. It was quite easy to manipulate, so the test will be how it works with KDP/Amazon. First, though, I want to print out a copy for my proofreader. And I still need to create the full print book cover. That was dependent on formatted pages, so this is the next step. 

So, I will give you both an essay AND a micro-fiction this week. 

***

BE A SQUIRREL

Last week I bought a large bag of bird seed. When I opened it, I almost wanted to dig into it myself. With nuts and seeds galore, it smelled like an earthy granola. It was pricey, too. But I wanted to attract the cardinals and bluejays and woodpeckers along with nuthatches, chickadees, and tufted titmice. 

It worked, but the bounty also attracted the bane of my Maine home existence, the gray squirrels. 

They are so fat, the three of them. I think they are a family: a mom and two grown babies. That's just the feeling I get watching their behavior. They hang upside down from the top of the feeder and feast on the nuts and seeds. 

When I tap the window, they stare at me. Then they go back to eating. If I go outside onto my porch, they may or may not scurry to the lilac tree. It's only when I approach that they will scamper across the lawn to one of several trees. 

Ten minutes later, they are back.

They are tenacious little buggers. 

Lately I've seen a lot of "let's get real about publishing" messaging on blogs and Substacks and podcasts. The general mood seems to be dour and/or resigned. The phrase, "It's okay to subsidize your writing with a day job" is EVERYWHERE. It's coming from agents. It's coming from editors. It's coming from book coaches. 

If I can't laugh about this, I will cry. 

Here's the thing: these people are not wrong. Publishing right now is harder than ever. The trades are tightening their belts. Everyone wants a Sure Thing. For every Taylor Jenkins Reid who hits the jackpot with an $8M/book deal there are countless small and indie and midlist authors begging for scraps from the pubs, desperately trying to carve out a niche in the market, or quietly quitting. 

So what are our choices? Simple. Quit or keep going. 

I've decided to be a squirrel. The market might tap on my window. The market might chase me away from the feeder. I'll scamper to my desk, write the next book or story, and I'll hop back over to the trough to pick up a seed or two. 

I've decided to let go of my expectations. 

By this I mean, I'm not even going to take outcomes into consideration any more. I won't EXPECT to make money on any project. I won't EXPECT, well, anything! 

I've built a lean system around me so I'm not spending a ton of money on my endeavors, probably less than some spend on hobbies like golfing, skiing, snowmobiling, or even fancy cooking! I spend much more on my reading hobby, aka books, than I do on my writing now. I'm a lean, mean, writing machine. A slow one, sure, but pared down to the basics, I think I can do this for the remainder of my days. 

If I gather a readership, wonderful. If I make a little back, lovely. But if I don't, that's okay. I'm gonna be a squirrel and keep reaching for those nuts, baby. 

***

Halloween Story--It's still okay to read one a couple weeks later. Hope you like it. 

Halloween Story

Eloise was the kind of woman who believed in fir swags and twinkle lights at Christmas, forsythia and lilac for spring, red-white-and-blue bunting on the 4th of July.

But for Halloween she went truly bonkers.

The entryway of her ground floor condominium elicited delighted exclamations from her neighbors’ children every year. She hung billowy white sheer curtains that floated eerily in the autumn breeze. She attached bat decals around the door to send shivers up the spine. She piled pumpkins in front of pots holding bare branches which she hung with little sachets of birdseed to attract the local crows whose dark, glossy feathers gleamed in the slanted sunlight of the season.

There was something ghostly about Eloise, herself. Her fair skin and silvery fair hair, her long, thin legs and arms, the ballerina flats that made no sound as she floated past the neighbor’s doors. Nobody knew much about her, other than she’d once been a dancer, maybe even famous, and now she lived quietly alone in their apartment complex in a small city north of Boston, a cold New England place in the winter months but spectacular in the fall with its brilliant foliage and clear blue skies.

One day nearing Halloween, Eloise replaced a bulb in the entryway light, and a crow thwapped from one of the branches and landed on her shoulder. He pecked at the shiny silver hoop in her ear. He whispered, “Suet and peanuts and pumpkinseedfloss; tell me your secrets of heartache and loss.”

Eloise turned a shade paler, if that was possible, and brushed the crow from her shoulder. ”I’ll give you your suets and your seeds,” she said. “But I keep my secrets. Be gone now.”

The next day, when Eloise placed a pot of glorious, deep red chrysanthemums near the front door, the crow landed on Eloise’s shoulder and whispered the same words. Eloise sighed and thought about her lost love, the ending of her career due to an injury, the death of her mother. She shook her head. “Go away. Those are my secrets to keep.”

On the third day, Eloise carved a jack o’lantern, for it was All Hallow’s Eve. She stuck a candle in the grinning gourd as twilight fell. In the flickering glow, two black beady eyes glittered from behind the chrysanthemum pot. The crow cawed softly and whispered his demand for the third time.

A rush of feeling swept through Eloise, and she trembled with sorrow and loss. For a moment she was tempted to give the spirit what it wanted, for of course she knew the crow’s true nature. He craved her sadness and her tears. But then she heard the delighted laughter and chattering voices of the neighbor’s children. They ran to her front porch dressed as pirates and princesses and scarecrows and some cartoon characters she didn’t recognize.

Her heart lifted as they gathered at her doorstep. “Trick or treat!” they yelled in unison. Eloise laughed and the crow was so frightened, he flew away, never to return.

Have a Spooky Day!

XOXO Shelley Burbank

Bartz v. Anthropic

 by Sybil Johnson

I’m sure a lot of you have heard of the Bartz v. Anthropic lawsuit. Of the dozens of lawsuits about unauthorized use of works for AI training, this is the only one so far that has reached a settlement. Sort of. I’ll get to that later, but first, here are the basics. 

Before I continue let me note that I am not a lawyer nor do I know much about the law. So I’m not an expert in this. This is my take on the subject.

Awhile back several authors sued Anthropic over the use of their works for AI training. From Writer Beware: “...AI company Anthropic over its creation of an enormous library of digitized books to train its Claude LLMs. In addition to purchasing and scanning physical books (a la Google for its Google Books project), Anthropic also downloaded thousands of books that had been illegally uploaded to pirate sites, copying them multiple times for use in AI training.” This became a class action suit at some point in time.

Getting back to my “sort of” comment. There are two parts to this lawsuit. One is the unauthorized use of works for AI training and one has to do with copyright infringement. The judge threw out the AI training portion, deeming it fair use. (I don’t really agree with that.) The other part was settled by Anthropic, a $1.5B settlement. That comes out to about $3,000 per book. That is split between the author and the publisher. If the author publishes their own books, they get the entire amount. The authors who started the suit and, of course, the lawyers get more. After all litigation is closed, Anthropic will destroy the pirated databases LibGen and PiLiMi. Current estimate on finalization is April 2026 with no payouts until then.

The two databases have about 7 million books in them. Only 500,000 are included in the settlement. That’s because only those books that have an ISBN or ASIN and have been registered with the US Copyright office qualify. The registration must have occurred before Anthropic downloaded them and within 5 years of publication.

Turns out, authors are discovering that their books were not registered with the copyright office even though it was part of their contract that the publisher take care of that. This even applies to big publishers. Lesson here: If the publisher is supposed to register, check that they have. It’s easy to do. https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/

This is all of particular interest to me because turns out 3 of my books were used. I’ve done all the things required to be part of the settlement. We’ll see what happens. I’ll be sharing the money with my publisher since they are still publishing those books.

A new post on WriterBeware alerted me to a new twist. Apparently there are law firms encouraging authors to opt out of the settlement so they can be part of a different lawsuit and potentially get more money. ClaimsHero is one of these. It’s not guaranteed that an author would get more money or even that a new class action lawsuit would be certified by the court. 

Here are some posts you might find interesting:

Authors Guild post on lawsuit and what authors need to know: https://authorsguild.org/advocacy/artificial-intelligence/what-authors-need-to-know-about-the-anthropic-settlement/ 

Writers Beware post: https://writerbeware.blog/2025/10/31/the-anthropic-class-action-settlement-what-you-need-to-know-right-now/

AI is here to stay. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a tool. Like any other tool, it’s how you use it that is important. I do believe, though, that AI companies should get an author’s permission before using their works. 

What do you all think of this?

Some Enchanted Evening

 by Charlotte Hinger

What a thrill! And I was definitely surprised. My historical novel, Mary's Place won the Will Rogers Gold Medallion. The award was all the sweeter because my daughter, Michele, was able to attend. The event was held in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Next year it will move to its permanent location, Claremore Oklahoma. 

This book was published by the University of Nebraska Press. The staff did a bang up job of sending copies out for reviews and submitting Mary's Place for awards. 

This event is definitely on a roll. The attendance grows every year. I had the pleasure of a long talk with Michael and Kathy Gear, two of my favorite people in the writing community. AND they know everything about publishing. 

The Gears tell me that the whole publishing industry is in an upheaval right now. Which means it's in its usual state. 

Boiling Ideas Needed

by Steve Pease/Michael Chandos 

Writing is hard, concentrated work. You "stare at your typewriter until your forehead bleeds", wrote one writer. I haven't had the concentration recently. Why?  Life.

- My wife embroiders with a room full of expensive Babylock machines. Beautiful work: 75,000 stitches, towels, aprons etc. She sells on ETSY and her website. And at primal human tribal events called "craft shows." We used to hit the outdoor events under an expensive awning tent. Our deal breaker was a serious Rocky Mountain hail and wind storm of epic proportions. Pummeled. Drenched. No more outdoor shows. Indoor only.

This year, there have been just two major indoor events, at a high school and a local event, the semiannual Black Forest Arts Guild, a four-day show. Considerable family energy goes into these two (sometimes three) events. Ended Today!  Hooray!

- The first granddaughter wedding is this following Saturday. A big family event. Unfortunately hosted 150 miles away and we can't afford days away. So it's an early drive up and a late drive back. And two dogs in the house tasked to deliver the ultimate in bladder control. The wedding takes the place of a third major craft show, a semi-hooray in itself. But a week of wedding-clothing-choice anxiety replaces it.

These events involve months of preparation and family hustle, which eats away at my available concentration. I mentally cling to ideas, make notes and scribble quick scenes, but there is no attempt at organized, formatted writing.

Of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming and they will fill the rest of November and December, but my soul is screaming for writing.  Discipline is the answer. Meaning, I will set a time for writing and the world will have to make a space for that.

There's a writing tip there. Make a set time for writing and keep to it. Your mind and body will become accustomed to the rhythm and will produce at those times. This will also activate the subconscious idea generator every writer's mind needs. I need to resume carrying a notebook for those rare and brief moments of brilliance. 

I was reading a 1950's vintage PI short story, a Joe Puma story by William Campbell Gault. The story was ok and moving along. My eyes snagged on a line. My reading skidded to a stop. What did I see? A possible title? Yes! I read back up the page a little. It was merely a short phrase in a line of exposition. A title possibility: "The Lost Found". My mind quickly invented an SF trilogy of "The Lost", "The Lost Found", "The Lost Future". Move over Issac Asimov!

Yeah, that's the action I need. The idea generator snagging on interesting phrases accompanied with rapid-fire images, scenes, characters.

Bah Humbug and forget the turkey! I need some of this back and boiling.

A Piece of Cake, a Bowl of Jello

Donis here. What wonderful entries my blog mates have offered lately. I love reading about the little things that make a novel real and relatable, like having animals as characters and keeping the action tight. One thing that has always interested me in any story, even noir-ish thrillers, is food. How a character relates to food tells me a lot about them. It also tells me a lot about the times in which the novel is set.  I had just started writing my very first Alafair Tucker novel when I realized about ten pages in I was going to have to write a whole lot about food. That series is set in farm country in the early 20th century and features a mother of a lot of children. What was her daily life like? It revolved around food – growing or raising it, harvesting, butchering, preserving, planning, cooking. Feeding a dozen people three times a day every day until the end of time. No Safeway, no running water, no electricity. 

I made a cake from scratch recently. I used one of my mother's recipes that really couldn't be done with mix. When I finished, I was hot from having the automatic oven on and tired from beating the batter by hand. What a bunch of wussies we modern cooks have become.

My grandmothers were both expert at American-style scratch cooking, which is what I write about. My mother was no slouch at scratch cooking herself. But when I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, scratch cooking was considered oh-so-old-fashioned. The modern Mid-Century American Housewife as encouraged by all the smartest lady's magazines to utilize the latest time-saving canned and packaged foods to save herself needless hours in the kitchen, presumably so she could put on her shirtwaist dress and pearls and meet her man at the door with a dry martini and a delicious meal on the table when he came home from work.

Since my poor young suburban '50s mother wanted nothing more than to be hip to the times, that's the kind of food I was raised with. I shudder to remember what we grew up eating. But even though it wasn't health food, it was delicious.

How I occasionally long for a nice sit dish of Uncle Ben's instant white rice mixed with a can of undiluted Campbell's cream of celery soup to go along with my Hamburger Helper goulash. My aunt was particularly fond of magazine recipes. Every had a mayonnaise cake? How about a Coca-Cola cake? One of my mother's specialties was Ambrosia. Drain a can of fruit cocktail (those little chunks of peach and pear, tine green grapes, unnaturally red cherry) and dump it into a tub of Kool-Whip. Mix it up nice, maybe with some packaged shredded coconut, and scarf it down.

There are so many thing you could do with Jello that I don't have the room to go into them all, so I'll just hit the highlights: Emerald salad (lime jello, cottage cheese, mayonnaise, maybe some grated cucumber), broken glass pie, made with two or three bright colors of Jello, set and cut into jagged pieces, mixed with Kool-Whip and maybe a can of evaporated milk, poured into a graham character christ and chilled. How about an orange Jello salad filled with grated carrot and a served with a glop of mayo? Lemon Jello with crushed pineapple and little marshmallows.

One of our party staples in the 1960s was lime punch. Dump a quart of lime sherbet in a punch bowl and pour quarts of ginger ale or 7-Up over it. When I was old enough to throw my own parties, I went through a stage of making tiny cheese ball appetizers out of grated cheddar mixed with cream cheese and rolled in crushed Doritos.

And now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go rummage around in the cabinet and see if I can find a box of Jello.

Dogs in story

Steve posted last week about creating character in stories and the way character influences behaviour and reactions. No need for a lengthy list of adjectives -- shy, fearful, arrogant -- just show us! He then described the very different behaviour of his two dogs. Being the owner of two dogs, I can relate! Furthermore, how people react to dogs tells a lot about their character, so they are a useful, not to mention heart-warming, addition to a story. 

In all three of my series, my protagonist has a dog. Inspector Green has a large, lumbering rescue of indeterminate lineage who likes to sleep on his feet, and Amanda Doucette has a playful, resourceful Duck Toller who acts as her unofficial therapy dog, making her laugh when she is struggling with PTSD. I've owned five Duck Tollers, and currently have two, so it's easy to imagine them in scenes. Cedric O'Toole had a Border Collie (ish) mutt.

In all three cases, the dog brings out the character of my main character. Green is an obsessive detective who is often so focussed on his goal that he forgets the people around him. His dog, acquired accidentally, forces him to care about someone else. Scenes between Green and his dog Modo reveal Green's softer, nurturing side, and in return, she brings him an unexpected tranquillity when his job feels overwhelming. Their late night walks allow him to think through a case in peace.

How other characters in the story react to a dog also reveals character. Are they fearful? Does an angry teenager light up with joy? Do they exhibit tenderness, patience, dominance?

Many writers I know have a pet or two in their lives, often our closest and most patient companion who doesn't insist on conversation, (except when necessary, but who is usually at our feet as we work (or in my case, on the sofa beside me), reminding us we are not alone. Often they end up in our books and help to engage the reader. But we all know the cardinal rule -- kill as many people as you like, but never kill a cat or dog.

Forest Fairy Surprise

by Catherine Dilts

There is delight in seeing something you didn’t expect. Don’t warn me ahead of time. I want to be surprised.

We visited my husband’s best friend in Boise, Idaho, last month. He took us on walking trails he regularly uses. The trek was a reminder of how we tend to become dulled to our familiar surroundings.

I stopped several times to marvel at the scenery. The bridge over the river. Mushrooms. Colorful fall leaves.

The random fairy village by the side of the trail. 

Our host grasped for the purpose of leaving painted rocks, fairies, animal figurines, and even a tiny Jesus, on a fallen tree beside the trail. I tried to explain my own hobby: painted rocks. You release them into the world, not knowing whether anyone will see them. Hoping to bring a smile to a stranger’s face.

“Love,” I said. “They do this for love.”

Back home again, I’m looking at my surroundings with fresh eyes. Am I appreciating my familiar world? I’m also pondering the amount of energy I put into my fiction writing.

Why do we write? The vast majority of us will never hit significant best-seller lists. Whether we want fame or not, it likely will remain elusive. Forget about fortune. At this stage of publishing, most authors are grasping to not lose money.

The fairy village has multiple purposes, I’m sure. There may be a genuine effort to attract the little winged people, making them feel welcome. It could be an expression of love for the children and adults strolling by. Or that peculiar human trait of wanting to create beauty and art on a blank canvas.

For writers, there is an element of exorcising inner pain. Or expressing joy. Trying to make sense of our life experiences. Wanting to share the meaning we’ve found.

Our audiences can feel as anonymous as the hiker pausing to admire a fairy village in the forest. Somewhere in your brain, you know a reader discovered a nugget in your novel or short story. A crumb of sustenance nourishing them for their own real-life battles.

Have faith that your creative contributions have rippling impacts on the world far more significant than your original act.

How Long Should Your Novel Be?

 by Thomas Kies

I’ve been reading the effusive reviews for a novel called Tom’s Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski. The critics are ecstatic. The book was just released this month and clocks in at 1,232 pages. 

Let me repeat that.  1, 234 pages.  This isn’t official, but my rough estimate for the word count for Tom’s Crossing is 360,000.  

That’s unusual. 

When I talk with book clubs or when I teach a creative writing class, I’m often asked how long a novel should be?  The correct answer to that is a novel is as long as it needs to be to tell the story.

However, publishing is a business, and most publishers would balk at a book that stretches out over 1200 pages.  So, are there any guidelines that a writer should consider?

In traditional publishing, length is measured by word count, not page count. While pages vary depending on formatting and font, word count provides a universal yardstick.

Here’s a general breakdown for mysteries and thrillers:

• Mystery novels: 70,000–90,000 words

• Thrillers: 80,000–100,000 words

• Cozy mysteries: 65,000–80,000 words

• Police procedurals: 90,000–110,000 words

From everything I’ve read, if you’re writing your first novel, staying in the 75,000–90,000 range seems to be the sweet spot. That’s long enough to develop characters and plot twists, but short enough to keep the tension going.

The true “optimal length” of a mystery or thriller depends less on the number of words and more on the control of pacing.

A mystery builds tension like a slow burn. You want to reveal just enough information to keep readers guessing. Each chapter should add a new clue, deepen character motivation, or raise the stakes. If a scene doesn’t do one of those things, it doesn’t belong—no matter how well-written it is.

Thrillers, however, should feel like a rollercoaster ride, with moments of intense action followed by short pauses that allow readers to catch their breath. The pace dictates how long the novel feels, even more than the actual word count. A 100,000-word thriller can feel taut and fast-paced if it’s tightly constructed, while a 75,000-word story can drag if it meanders.

Readers of mysteries and thrillers have certain expectations. They know the conventions of the genre: somebody's murdered,  the sleuth digs in, the danger grows, and the climax delivers the twist or reveal. Every scene should serve a purpose—reveal character, plant a clue, or move the story forward.

I think publishers recognize this. An overly long manuscript can raise a red flag that the pacing is off or the plot needs trimming. For debut authors, staying within industry norms can make your work more marketable. Once you’re established, you earn the freedom to stretch those boundaries. Like Mark Z Danielewski.

Now, if you’re self-publishing or writing digitally, you have more leeway. Readers of e-books are often open to shorter works—novellas (30,000–50,000 words) or serialized thrillers that come out in installments. These can build a loyal audience hungry for the next episode. Still, even in the indie world, readers expect professional pacing and structure.

So, what’s the right length of a mystery or thriller?

My advice is shoot for 75,000 to 95,000 words. Ultimately, the best measure of your story’s length is whether it feels right. Does every chapter move the reader forward? Does every twist earn its place? Does the ending deliver a payoff worthy of the buildup?

If the answer is yes, then your mystery or thriller is exactly as long as it needs to be.

By the way, the longest novel ever published, according to Google, who wouldn't lie to me, is In Search of Lost Time written by Marcel Proust and printed in seven volumes clocking in at 1.3 million words. 

It's Spooky Season!

 by Sybil Johnson

I don’t remember hearing the term “Spooky Season” much before this year. I suspect I have not been paying attention. I rather like it. According to Google, there are instances of the term being used in newspapers in the early 1900s referring to a season when mysterious events happened. But our current use of it as the time around Halloween dates to the 1990s or so and became more common after 2000. Although, like I said I don’t really remember hearing the term until fairly recently.

I’m seeing a lot of people decorating with skeletons in my neighborhood. Really, really tall figures seem to be quite popular this year. 

I thought this Dead and Breakfast sign quite clever. Nope, not staying there! 

 

And I found this creepy doll in a CVS fairly recently. Not letting that into my house! 

 

I hope you all have a good Spooky Season!

Halloween Antics

    by Charlotte Hinger    

                      

She's gone. She disappeared. She was the central character in my neighbor's elaborate Halloween display last year. Did she and her poor baby find their way to an unmarked grave? All of her cowboy companions have vanished too. 

                                                                  

As October wanes and the evenings close in, the world seems to slip naturally into shadow. Pumpkins grin on porches, ghosts flutter in windows, and the scent of autumn—earthy, smoky, faintly sweet—hangs in the air. It’s Halloween again, that most theatrical of nights, when we flirt with fear and celebrate the things that go bump in the dark.

But before candy bowls and plastic skeletons, Halloween had much older, deeper roots—roots tangled in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced SOW-in), a time when the boundary between the living and the dead was said to blur. Samhain marked the end of harvest and the beginning of winter—the “darker half” of the year. Bonfires blazed on hillsides to ward off wandering spirits, and offerings were left to appease those who crossed over.

When Christianity spread through Europe, the Church rebranded the old pagan festival as All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day. The traditions, however, proved resilient. People continued to carve faces into turnips to frighten away spirits (a practice that would later morph into our familiar jack-o’-lanterns once Irish immigrants found American pumpkins more cooperative). The ancient door-to-door ritual of “souling,” in which the poor prayed for the dead in exchange for food, evolved into trick-or-treating.

And so, what began as a sacred rite of survival and remembrance slowly became a cultural masquerade—equal parts reverence and mischief.

For those of us who write crime and mystery, Halloween feels like the perfect metaphor. It’s about masks and secrets, about the thrill of the unknown, and about how darkness—whether literal or psychological—always finds its way into the light. Beneath every costume, there’s a story; behind every ghost tale, a truth trying to claw its way to the surface.

So this October 31st, as you hand out candy or slip into costume, remember that you’re taking part in something ancient—a night born of fire, fear, and fascination with the thin line between life and death. A night tailor-made for mystery.

Happy Halloween, from all of us at Type M for Murder.

Finding character

 By Steve Pease // Michael Chandos

The protagonist, the Hero of your inspirational story, the solid woman who keeps your literary family together through the events of your novel. Characters, major to minor, are made up of attributes. Brave, honest, sneaky, untrustworthy, beautiful. In a fiction story, all those "things" become important because they determine how the character reacts to the events, obstacles and surprises in the story. There are shades of meaning in everything. There's beauty the character uses to manipulate the other characters, and beauty that interferes. Strength that defines their physical interaction with the story-world, and strength that makes them overreact in a delicate situation. It's behavior, how they fit in, how they succeed or fail.

You've read stories where the author has given the character tons of attributes, a PI who drinks, who is forgetful, who can't manage money, all interesting, but they never matter in the story. Chekhov said if your story has a rifle on the wall, somewhere in the story, that rifle must be used, otherwise it should be removed. 

Need examples of character that DO affect the story? Look no farther than your dogs.

These are my two favorite dogs, ever. Boo, a sable-black, 160 pound Newfoundland, a "superior being" recognized by all. And Belle, the big-hearted but tough natural matron, mother, monitor, guardian angel.

Boo never had trouble with neighborhood dogs. When he sauntered among dogs on a walk with their owners, they would give him room, watching him closely. If he laid down on a shaded hill, some would come over and lay down near him, even though they were all playing around before. 

My rear deck is elevated over the back yard, a long set of stairs leads to the ground. The top of the stairs has always been a favorite vantage point for my dogs, overlooking the 20 acre meadow and the opposing trees. Boo came out once and paused appropriately at the vantage point. As usual, barking dogs could be heard in the distance. He looked around as if he was assessing the situation, like Nero overlooking the gladiators in the Coliseum. He barked a single woof, the Deep, resounding, full-chested boom of a big dog. It echoed from the trees across the meadow. All the barking dogs stopped. He reassessed and, apparently satisfied, went down the stairs to his favorite shady spot in the back yard.

No pretense. The power of his presence. I haven't yet invented a character that deserves that level of personal power, but I hope to.

Belle, the Golden, was quiet and observant. The grandkids, six of them, then young, were playing in the front "yard" (I live in the woods). I think it was Easter, a warm one, and everyone was looking for the three dozen hidden colored eggs. The adults were off to the side in conversation, not directly watching the children. The front slopes up into a grove of young Ponderosa pines. The grasses that wintered over were long and golden brown. The kids were eagerly searching every nook and cranny.

I broke from the human-huddle to count kids, when I noticed Belle up the hill, settled deeply in the grasses, almost invisible.  She was monitoring the kids, 20 feet away. I have no doubt she would have sprung from cover if anything unusual happened. That's more than the routine recess monitor. An overseer. I haven't been able to describe this scene in words yet.

I bet your cat is regal, perhaps snobby, curious, intense if a mouse is sighted. If you have several pets, how have they worked out living together, who gets the best place to sleep, who eats first. How did they work that out?

"Things" your character might find useful.

Falling Leaves and Word Sprints

by Catherine Dilts

Why am I surprised every fall when my schedule suddenly fills? It happens this way year after year.

The leaves turn color. They slip gracefully from branches swiftly going bare. My farmer brain completes the backyard garden harvest in preparation for holing up for the long winter.

Instead, activities clutter the calendar. Holiday events and gatherings.

So many birthdays. What was in the water nine months prior that our kids and grandkids all have fall and winter birthdays? Even my husband is a November baby.

Part of me longs for peace and quiet. Leave me alone so I can hide from the declining sunlight. I just want to read good books and, hopefully, write good stories. Until the sun comes back. (I have a mild propensity for SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder.)

Although part of me wants to hibernate, I am not seriously pursuing that option. My co-author and I have ambitious plans for a brand-new series. Book one will release - God willing and the creek don’t rise – this December. The entire series is outlined. Writing each installment according to plan will be daunting, but possible.

If that were all we were doing, I would not feel stressed. But books three and four of my Rose Creek Mystery series are in the works. Coming soon! Plus a close-to-my-heart standalone that is based on childhood memories of the early seventies, blended with a modern murder mystery. I’m in no hurry to push it to publication, but I need to do revisions, and run it through critique group.

I used to participate in the now-defunct NaNoWriMo writing challenge. 50,000 words written during the month of November. I needed that space, before I was published, to carve out leave-me-alone time. A month devoted to writing! With the interruptions of Thanksgiving and birthdays, which couldn’t be avoided.

There are alternatives to NaNoWriMo. Reedsy is offering their version: Novel Sprint. I don’t know how this operates, but it might be worth checking out. I’ve heard of a few other events out there.

I am motivated enough, and my family understands my need to write, that I don’t need to join a challenge. But maybe I need to do a better job of tracking my writing. I already log my hours and projects. Logging words written is difficult when you’re editing projects.

Word sprints. This writing technique, or trick, encourages the writer to slam down as many words as possible during a set time. Five minutes? Thirty? The object is to silence your inner editor and just get the story onto the paper or screen. You can find groups doing them in a friendly, mildly competitive environment, or go solo.

This might be the season for me to experiment with pushing my output. Once the words are on the page, revising and editing will clean up the mess.

Do you embrace the fast-approaching, busy holiday season? Or do you long for a quiet corner, to read, journal, or write?