Characters

 by Donis Casey

I greatly enjoyed Sybil's entry yesterday about categories. I've been working on a new book, possibly a new series, which started out to be a straight mystery. But as the story develops, I seem to be crossing genres. It's turning out to be much more of a fish-out-of-water story. My protagonist wants to figure out who killed her mother, but she has to go to a foreign country and meet members of a family she didn't know she had in order to do it. She keeps leading me down paths I hadn't planned on. Because no matter what I originally intended, the characters make the final determination about what kind of a novel I'm writing.

A novel is a story about someone. In a mystery, it’s the sleuth, a romance the lovers, in a thriller, it’s the guy in trouble. Barbara Kingsolver said, ”A novel works its magic by putting a reader inside another person’s life.” She also said, the difference between non-fiction (such as news reporting) and a novel is that if you read a non-fictional account of a plane crash, you find out the facts about the crash. If you read a novel about a plane crash, you find out what it’s like to be in a plane crash.

So what we as authors want to do is create a world, and invite the reader to come in and stay awhile. In order to get her to want to spend time in our world, we need to populate it with characters whom the reader is interested in. She wants to know what is going to happen to these people—for the good to be rewarded and the evil to get their just comeuppance. If we do our jobs right, the reader doesn’t just want to know, she’s desperate to know. And in order to make the reader care about our characters and want to know what is going to happen to them, we have to make them real to her. The characters are more important than the plot. You might not remember who done it, but you will remember the characters.

So how do you get to know the people you want to write about. I think in the same way you get to know a person in real life. You watch what they do, you listen to them speak. They reveal themselves to you over time. Perhaps the attitudes of other people toward someone tells you something about both of them. Before you even start writing about someone, you’d better know all about him—who he is, where he came from, what he wants, why he is like he is. All of this affects the way he speaks, the way he presents himself.

The more you write about a character, the more she will show you things about herself that you didn’t know when you first thought her up.

Musings on Categorization

 by Sybil Johnson

People like to categorize things, to put things in boxes. I think it makes it easier for us to deal with and remember all of the information that we’re bombarded with every day.

This includes categorizing books. We have crime fiction, non-fiction, scifi, general fiction etc. With crime fiction there are sub-categories like cozies, thrillers, private eye...

Categorization can be comforting. We know what to expect. If I pick up a book that’s marketed as a cozy, I know what kind of story I’ll be reading. (Assuming it’s categorized correctly.) I expect certain things from it. If those expectations aren’t met, I can get a little miffed.

I picked up a book the other day that sounded intriguing. I didn’t really know going in how it was categorized. I started reading and almost immediately was confused and a little unsettled. Not that it wasn’t interesting. I wasn’t sure if I was reading a comedy, a mystery, a mystical story... It unnerved me for some reason.

Knowing what a book is categorized as going in seems to be important to me. It also seems to be important to marketing folks. What happens, though, when you have cross-genre books? I’ve heard of books that aren’t published because they don’t know how to market them.

But, does a book’s categorization prevent people who might enjoy it from reading it because they don’t read: cozies, thrillers, scifi, etc. I hope not.

#

In other news, I am very excited that my short story, “Fatal Return”, was selected to be in the latest Sisters in Crime/Los Angeles anthology, Angel City Beat. I believe it’s going to be out the end of the year, but I don’t have a firm date yet.

This is the first time one of my short stories has made it into an anthology. I’ve had some published online, but usually it’s rejection, rejection, rejection when it comes to anthologies. 

Here are the stories and the cover: 

 

Scams and Scoundrels

 by Charlotte Hinger

I can't keep up with all the crooks operating online. Sometimes I think the people who never use the internet are the smart ones after all. 

A couple of weeks I foolishly bought a new sofa bed and matching loveseat without selling my old furniture first. I truly thought someone would snatch it up immediately because it's in perfect condition. I love this all-leather sectional. There's also a matching chair and two ottomans.

It was not snatched up immediately. The first person who responded was a scammer. Luckily, I had read all the warnings on Facebook, Craigslist, and NextDoor. The lady who was so eager to buy the set offered to send me a cashier's check. However, she said since she was in the process of moving to Fort Collins she would simply have a mover pick up the furniture. 

All three sites, warned about taking a cashier's check since they can be faked. I was quite leary anyway of someone wanting to buy furniture they had not seen. So I asked her to overnight the check to a certain person at a bank in Hoxie. (name withheld to protect the innocent) I assured her via text that it would not be necessary to give her any account information. I would simply alert the officer that the check would arrive and he could take care of depositing it. 

Naturally, the check never arrived. How can this be a scam? What this kind of person is after is account information and all kinds of personal details.

The best way to conduct a transaction like this is to meet in person in a public place, like a Walmart parking lot, and ask them in advance to bring cash only. Always bring a friend along. Don't risk meeting people alone. Bring the merchanise with you so they can look it over. 

As you can see by the photo, it would be impossible to bring the merchanise with me. But I can ask an able-bodied friend to be with me in my home. On the other hand, it's no protection against people who just want to look the place over so they can plan their next heist more efficiently. 

I suspect that this furniture will end up in the basement which is actually a pretty good idea. Not a great idea, but not too bad. It easily sleeps one person. 

As to writing scams, oh dear, where to begin? The first rule used to be--never give anyone any money.  Legitimate trade publishers give the writer money. Writers don't give money to the publisher. However, since I first began there are a lot of variations and some of the houses expect writers to share the expenses. Some of these arrangements are legitimate and an excellent compromise.

Then there are the fake agents. Years ago, a lady who had never sold a single book, came to a writers conference every year. She wore stunning hats and dark glasses and glorried in the flock of writers begging for her to take them as a client. I knew another agent who never read a single word of books that were submitted.

Why would people do this? I have no idea. 

Mother Nature's wrath

Sybil's post about conflict struck a chord with me today. She listed the three basic types of conflict - with yourself, with another person, and with the environment. Including all three in the same story makes the story even more vivid. The more conflict and challenge, the better. The environment can be a physical challenge like a dangerous whitewater river, a steep mountain, or a dark, underground cave, but it can also be the weather. Many a classic whodunit has centred around a blizzard in a remote inn, and as a Canadian, the extremes of winter weather make it easy to imagine being blinded by the snow, losing ones way, floundering in the snowdrifts, and succumbing to the cold, not to mention power outages and blackouts.

Even a regular  mystery about interpersonal conflict can benefit from having some extra drama thrown into it by Mother Nature, and this summer is shaping up to be full of Mother Nature's wrath. Climate extremes are becoming more and more common, adding to the stress and struggles of people just trying to cope. Just today, Eastern Canada, and in particular the Toronto area, was hit with massive thunderstorms that dumped torrents of rain on the area within a very short time, with hail and tornado warnings added to the mix. Rivers and lakes overflowed their banks and flooded streets, blew the lids off sewer manholes, and caused widespread power outages. Luckily, although many people are inconvenienced and the cost of cleanup will be exorbitant, I have heard no report of fatalities.

But a mystery writer is always thinking about the possibilities. A body is discovered, a long-buried secret is dislodged. I remember an instance in England where a long, severe drought dried up some reservoirs that had flooded out villages years before, and no fewer than three famous British crime writers wrote mysteries about bodies that were exposed by the drought.  In the British crime drama I watched recently, After the Flood, a man's body is discovered in the cleanup of a serious flood, apparently drowned, but an autopsy revealed no water in his lungs. In my upcoming book, SHIPWRECKED SOULS, a house in Kyiv, Ukraine is hit by a Russian airstrike and in the rubble of the attic, a mysterious note is found that kicks off a chain of events that leads ultimately to murder.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, landslides, floods, wars... The possibilities are endless. They can all cause massive destruction and uproot people's lives, shattering their sense of security and causing them to refocus all their priorities on survival and recovery. It brings out not only the worst but also the best in people. Against that backdrop of upheaval and potential death, human experiences and emotions are heightened. it's as if even everyday life is thrown into more vivid relief. There is a reason why some of the most powerful books and films take place against the backdrop of war.

The stakes seem higher, the potential for heroism and villainy amplified. The stories beg to be told, not to exploit the suffering of those enduring it in real life, but to bear witness and to do what we writers do best; examine the social cost.

Finances!

 by Charlotte Hinger

One of the best writers I know is Johnny D. Boggs. He actually earns a living from his writing. Of course, he qualifies that by adding "it depends on how you define a living." 

I admire him tremendously for the quality of his writing. He and board member Natalie Bright gave a great panel presentation at the recent Western Writers of America convention in Tulsa.They talked about being alert for opportunities to publish articles. 

Conferences are really expensive. The price of registrations, hotels, and transportation, is daunting. Yet Johnny said on the way to Oklahoma he came up with ideas for articles related to the trip that he could submit to five different magazines. 

 He's very, very good at recognizing opportunities. 

How good is he? Once when he was at a conference he got "altitude sickness" and ended up in the emergency room. He didn't miss a trick and interviewed the ER doctor about the pending signs of this sickness, the inherent dangers, and the best treatment. Another published article! 

Johnny thinks articles. I think short stories. There's no question which "think" is more profitable. 

And speaking of altitude sickness, next spring Left Coast Crime will be held in Denver. For those of you who live at sea level, the Mile High City might require some adjustment. Here's what various internet sites have to say about coping with changes in altitude:

Basically your body is deprived of the amount of oxygen you need. The symptoms usually go away in a day or two for most people. But until the adjustment occurs there can be dizziness, headaches, nausea, and vomiting. 

When I moved from Western Kansas to Colorado, I didn't have any of these problems. Yet, walking any distance was exhausting. That's no longer true.

I've arrived!

Communication Issues in Fiction

 by Sybil Johnson

Sometime in my 20s I decided managing expectations (yours and others) and good communication were the key to minimizing conflict in everyday life. I’m all for minimizing conflict IRL. 

This should not be true of fiction, of course, We need conflict and misunderstandings to make a good story. The conflict could be with others, with yourself, with the environment...

Communication or lack thereof is one source of conflict in stories. I am a fan of Hallmark movies. Not all of them, but quite a large number of them. In a certain type of Hallmark movie, in the last 15 minutes or so, there is a miscommunication between the two love interests. This often comes in the form of one of them overhearing something and misinterpreting it so they leave without talking to the other person. At this point, I’m usually shaking my head and internally screaming at the couple to “just talk to each other!” Okay, sometimes I say it out loud. Of course, they do eventually do this and everything is resolved in the end and they get together.

Apparently, this is called the “miscommunication trope”. Some people hate it, some people don’t. Some believe it mirrors real life where people just don’t want to or are too scared to talk to each other.

There are other forms of communication issues that can lead to bad things happening:

•  A phone call could be missed or someone just doesn’t answer when the person calls. Usually the person who doesn’t answer is annoyed with the one calling. For this one, I’m usually internally screaming at the person to “answer the phone, it’s important! Forget about what happened five minutes ago!” Honestly, people should be texting more often to convey information in these urgent situations, but then, a bit of the story would be resolved too easily. 

• Someone could end up killing an innocent person because they’ve misinterpreted something they’ve heard. Unfortunately, this happened in real life where an Uber driver was shot and killed because someone believed she was part of a scam. https://apnews.com/article/uber-driver-killed-scam-4998a42b2e59aed3dda95f983b2f9b52 

I’m sure there are a lot of others. The above are the ones I can think of right now.

Are there any communication issues that happen in stories that particularly annoy you?

My Crime Noir

  By Thomas Kies

I’ve been working feverishly on a book that I’m really excited about.  The working title is Exit Signs. The first draft of the last chapter is being written today.  Later this week, I’ll go back and reread and edit the manuscript one more time.  It’s very noir, a genre that I’ve always loved.  

The characters in my new book are deliciously flawed.  Nothing is what it seems. The setting is cold and grim. 

I’m having the best damned time. 

So, what exactly is noir fiction? It’s gritty and hardboiled. In many cases it’s centered around a P.I. or cop who is seriously flawed and self-destructive. But noir doesn’t necessarily require its protagonist to be a private investigator or an officer of the law.  Just watch Body Heat or read Double Indemnity by James Cain. 

Noir fiction often revolves around crimes that ultimately contribute to the downfall of the protagonist or other sympathetic characters. Noir fiction is
the ultimate example of no good deed goes unpunished. 

Some of the commonalities of noir fiction are:

1-They’re mysteries.  That’s a given.  But aren’t all stories mysteries?  Will Holmes uncover Moriarity's evil plot in time?  Will Juliet and Romeo live happily ever after? Will they live?  Will Batman defeat the Joker…again?  Thrillers, romance novels, adventure, fantasy, horror…no matter the genre, ultimately, they’re trying to answer questions and solve mysteries. 

But noir mysteries skulk down a very dark alley.  Speaking of alleys, have you seen the movie Nightmare Alley? It’s a wonderful example of noir that doesn’t have a cop as its protagonist. 

2- They often have a femme fatale. (What’s the male version of a femme fatale?  A rogue?) Brigid O’Shaughnessy in the Maltese Falcon is the perfect example of a femme fatale.  She weaves a tale of deceit and intrigue that Sam Spade has to negotiate making it a wonderfully dark tale. 

The actual definition of a femme fatale is: A captivating and dangerous female character often found in literature, film, and art. She combines beauty, charm, and cunning to manipulate and ensnare others, typically leading them to their downfall. These characters are mysterious, alluring, and often associated with crime, betrayal, or tragic outcomes.

The perfect girlfriend. 

3- They often have a gritty, urban setting.  Think New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or San Francisco. But the book I’m writing takes place in the cold reaches of upstate New York in the dead of winter.  I grew up there.  From November to March, it’s frigid and gray.  The perfect setting for crime noir. 

4- It has a grim view of human nature.  Like I said before, they’re hardboiled stories, often with great dialogue and a lot of action.  But characters are motivated by their basest of instincts, driven by their lust for sex, power, and money. 

Characters in crime noir are flawed, the stories filled with danger and desperation, the plots riddled with despair, and the settings are bleak. 

Ah, crime noir.  To paraphrase a line from the Maltese Falcon. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.  

Or nightmares. 

Early Writing Days

 by Charlotte Hinger

I confess that Donis's post about the not-so-good-old-days sent me down memory lane. The above picture is of me and two of the daughters and our beloved evil little dog Puppies. More about Puppies later. 

Donis talked about traveling with children years ago. There were no seat belts and a number of times the girls and I would take off at night to meet Don's truck and go on one of his trips. It was an unbelieveable treat for the daughters to pile into the roomy sleeper. A treat for me, too, to be relieved of the tedium of tending to kids and then to eat in truck stops. Later, the third daughter, Mary Beth joined the crew.

Somehow we usually ended up traveling at night to meet him. The sleeping arrangement in the car was predetermined. Cherie was the oldest and she slept in back on the floor of the car. Michele slept across the seats and little Mary Beth was squeezed in the not so roomy area above the seats in the back. Right up against the rear window. If I had to brake suddenly, Mary Beth would be thrown down on top of Michele, and she would tumble down on top of Cherie. 

There were no safety precaustions. And at that time insurance regulations for passengers in commerical vehicles were very loose. Don was a bull-hauler. He hauled cattle and loved doing it. After twenty years, he bought the truckline and managed to keep it going for twenty-three years. But he never lost his love of being on the road. 

We sang on these trips. Don had a great voice with a wonderful range and am amazing memory for county western lyrics. Although Michele aquired a double degree in English and Journalism, she also started a band, The Trucker's Daughter that specialized in roadhouse county music. 

I've drawn on my background as a trucker's wife a number of times for short stories and novels. My first published short story, "Alone At Night" was published in Overdrive, a magazine for owner-operators. To this day, I remember the thrill of having the editor call to tell me they wanted to publish my story. Then they bought another one. I was in seventh heaven!

My mystery, Hidden Heritage, began with an incident at a truckline. It was selected by Kirkus Reviews as one of best 100 mysteries that year, and one of the best 100 fiction books. My latest short story, "Lizzie Noel" published last year in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine was set in a truckstop. 

It goes to show that writing what you know not only provides a wealth of background details, there's an emotional component that comes with living the life. 

M

Writing Classes

 Happy Independence Day! We’ve lived through another Arizona June, and now we have to endure July and August and part of September before we can remember why we love Arizona in the first place.

I complain, but it is a dry heat, which truly does make a difference. And I know. Remember that I grew up in eastern Oklahoma, where 98 degrees is accompanied by 98 percent humidity and 98 million mosquitos, gnats, and midges. And cockleburs. And no air conditioning, at least when I was young. (Besides, we walked twelve miles to school in our bare feet and lived in a box in the middle of the road.)

So thank you, Mr. Carrier, for inventing the air conditioner and making life infinitely easier for us Southerners, even if it has made us wimpier. (P.S. I am aware Air conditioning is bad for the environment and try to temper my use. But I do use it, since I can't afford to move to a cooler climate and I don't want to die. And don't blame Mr. Carrier. He didn't know...) 

I'm working on a new book as hard as I can. It's taking longer than usual since it's a new cast of characters and a new setting and I have to take time to get to know them and how they react to the horrible situations I put them in. I'd like to finish by next month. Partly because I made a bet with our beloved previous Type M-er Hannah Dennison that we'd both finish out new novels in August, and partly because I've agreed to act as writer in residence for the Glendale AZ Library system from September through November, and that's going to take most of my time. Because A) I haven't done a Writer in Residence program since the pandemic and I'm going to have to review and update my programs, and B) I live an hour away from Glendale AZ so I'm going to be spending a lot of time traveling.

However, if you live in the northern Phoenix metropolitan area and want to do a deep dive into writing techniques and tips, do come see me in Glendale this fall. 

Speaking of writing classes, The Society of Southwestern Authors—Valley of the Sun Chapter will present a workshop on indie publishing on Sunday, July 28, 2024 at 2 p.m. You can enjoy the FREE workshop at home on Zoom. The Zoom invitation will be sent out twice: one week before the workshop and a reminder two days before.

The workshop will include two handouts, the first being a checklist of important tasks to consider before publication from covers to blurbs. The second is a list of local and national organizations for writers. You’ll receive the handouts along with the first and second  Zoom invitations.

Three speakers who have all published traditionally as well as self-published will share their experiences: DEBORAH J LEDFORD, SUZANNE FLAIG, AND ART KERNS. 

If this sounds like something of interest to you, email Margaret Morse, President of Society of Soutwestern Authors – Valley of the Sun, and she will send you the invitation. 

Do You Wish You Wrote That?

 by Sybil Johnson

Someone asked me once in an interview what books I wished I’d written. It’s an interesting question. There are all sorts of reasons that a writer might wish they’d written something:

• It sells really well and makes the author very well-known
• The writing is beautiful and/or the plot is well-done
• It changes the world in some way
• Because you want to be known as the person that wrote that book.

I’m sure there are others. Those are the ones I thought of.

Here are the books “I wish I’d written” and why: 

Dissolution by C. J. Sansom – This is always the one I think of first. It’s a historical mystery set in Tudor times during the dissolution of the monasteries, hence the title. That period fascinates me. It’s well-written, you feel like you’re in Tudor England and it’s well-plotted. Plus the characters are interesting and it’s just the right length. 

Pompeii by Robert Harris – This a historical novel set around the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. For whatever reason (maybe because I watched all of those 1970s disaster movies like The Poseidon Adventure), I like reading about natural disasters. Someday I would like to be able to take some disaster and craft a fictional story around it. 

The Legend of Sleepy Harlow by Kylie Logan – This is a well-crafted cozy mystery set around Halloween. It’s fun and clever with interesting characters and I’ve read it at least twice.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie – My favorite of Dame Agatha’s novels. A very well-done mystery. Note that the book’s ending is different from most of the TV or movie adaptations that have been done. In many ways, I like the book’s ending better. 

Those are my four. What are your choices for books you wish you’d written?

WWA Forevermore

 by Charlotte Hinger

My trip to the Western Writers of America convention got off to a rocky start this year. I intended to take off for Kansas Monday, stay in Nicodemus with my friend Angela Bates that night and we would leave for Tulsa Tuesday morning. But Sunday evening I gashed my leg on an open bottom dresser drawer and ended up going to ER for stitches. 

Between a dramatic rise in blood sugar and blood pressure due to the trauma, I wasn't fit to drive the next day and we ended up leaving a day later. 

So much of the pleasure I take in this event is visiting with old friends. There are three of us members who attended the Santa Fe convention in 1982: Loren Estleman, Preston Lewis, and myself. That's a long time to be devoted to an organization. 

This year I had the pleasure of seeing Dr. Quintard Taylor receive the cherished Wister Award. It's given to an individual who has made a signicant contribution to the literature of the West over their lifetime. Not only has Dr. Taylor written an avalance of books and articles about the West, he also founded a website, BlackPast.org with an amazing 10,000 pages created by over 1,000 academics and independent researchers. It's an amazing resource! 

Dr. Quintard Taylor

No session is complete without our wonderful Roundup editor, Johnny D. Boggs

This is nearly the only time I dress Western

And here's Angela:

Book Contests and Mob Hits for Uncle Sam

 Earlier this week, a fellow writer shared that a couple of writer organizations were asking for book contest judges. Was I interested? No, because I knew what I would be getting into.

Years back, I was a judge for best novel contests by the Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. I did so in the spirit that I was serving the writing community. My intention was that after I received each entry, I would give to it the same attention as did the author and publisher, aware of the hopes and earnest work each book represented. At first the books trickled into my home, welcome as lost children. Then more and more arrived, to be stacked in ever taller piles all over my house. The torrent of books didn't stop. I felt like the Sorcerer's Apprentice.  

Then the hard part...reading all those novels. I empathized with literary agents and editors who must slog through a daily flood of manuscripts. There was no physical way I could read every book within the allotted time. To get through the stacks of entries I had to rely on the dictum: "You have to grab me in the first five pages."

Certainly, each book had been lovingly written and professionally edited. The story lines tight. The characters interesting. The world-building well done. And yet, whether I continued past the opening scene and the inciting incident was purely subjective. You either had me or you didn't. 

The contest rules prohibited us judges from communicating about our assignments until the end when we compared our top ten lists. Interestingly, from our picks of the finalists, every one of us had five of the same titles. So as subjective as the process was, it worked in selecting what we all considered as the best novels.

***

For the last decade, besides penning my own stories, I've worked as a ghost writer. The gig has partnered me with a lot of great people and their wonderful stories.

One of my favorite projects was John Mattia's memoir, Always Forward, his account of growing up in a corrupt and violent Detroit and the enduring painful memories that experience had imprinted upon his life. As a young teenager, he was banished from home in the middle of a blizzard, forced to take care of himself and his younger sister. He dealt drugs and carried a gun for protection, surviving as a street hustler. Living fast and loose until he realized that this career path would land him in prison or an early grave. He decided that the rigorous discipline as a Marine infantryman would deliver the kind of sustaining challenge he needed. Because of his expert marksmanship, he was selected for Scout Sniper training. His deployments with the Fleet Marine Force included a tour in Somalia and this was where he first used his sniper skills. He and his team buddy were given a Mission Impossible-style dossier on the target, a Mogadishu warlord with deep ties in the international black market. Much of the intel came from vengeful locals eager to settle scores. Mattia and his teammate set up their Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle in an abandoned bakery and waited for the warlord and his entourage to arrive at a neighborhood barbershop. When the warlord stepped back out after getting his haircut, Mattia dropped him. I told Mattia, "Shooting a man leaving a barbershop, that sounded like a mob hit." Mattia replied, "It was. A mob hit for Uncle Sam."

The Mystery Quest

 Years ago, my husband brought home from the library a copy of Carl Jung’s Man and His Symbols. He writes poetry, and symbology is important to him.  I borrowed it from him, and as I read, it dawned on me that one of the defining traits of the mystery story is that it is basically a hero quest, an archetypical tale, a medieval myth in modern clothing.

Evil is done

The hero goes on a quest to right the wrong.

The hero finds the villain, confronts him, and they do battle.

The hero triumphs, and balance is restored.

All right, you’re saying, I can think of seventeen mystery novels where the hero didn’t triumph, the villain didn’t lose, yadda yadda yadda.   

First of all, quit trying to mess up my theme. Second, I realize that there are plenty of mysteries in which things don’t quite work out that the killer is caught by the law and punished for his deed.  But that doesn’t mean that there was no justice. In a mystery novel, a satisfying ending occurs when the right thing happens.

Consider Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Poirot finds out who murdered the victim, all right.   But when was justice done? As far as our hero is concerned, justice was done when the victim was done in by those he had horribly wronged. And so, he contrives to convince the police that the murder was committed by a phantom train conductor who has disappeared forever through the snow.

Even in the blackest of noir mysteries, where even the hero comes to a bad end, he brings it upon himself. He has a fatal flaw. Perhaps he sacrifices himself because he’s done a bad thing and this is how he atones. The dragon is slain, even if St. George goes down with him.

Letting the reader see right prevail - whatever that may entail - is what gives a mystery novel its satisfyingly mythic ending

Is Coffee a Necessity for Creative Writing?

 By Thomas Kies

I’m hard at work on a new book (almost 240 pages into it) and I’m really excited with it.  It’s dark but not terribly violent and the protagonist, while professing his decency, makes decisions that could be considered borderline illicit. 

But what I’ve discovered is that the characters are drinking a hell of a lot of coffee.  So, I’m wondering, is it because I drink a hell of a lot of coffee? Admittedly, I feel the need for a hot cup on the table next to me as I write. I like the taste of it.  I enjoy the feel of the warmth of the cup in my hands…even on a hot day.  And yes, I like the addictive kick it gives me. 

My wife recently drove to Tupelo, Mississippi, to meet with her brother.  He lives in Texas and Tupelo is dead center between where we live and where he lives.  Tupelo also happens to be the birthplace of Elvis Presley.  So, Cindy, knowing I’m a coffee geek, brought me home something I don’t have—a coffee mug emblazoned with an image of the king with a tiny guitar serving as the handle.  

I began to wonder if other writers are coffee geeks.  I’ve read that a lot of writers work on their craft in coffee shops (something I’ve never been able to master---too many distractions).  But do they actually need the caffeine to be creative?  I found a few quotes that seem to confirm, coffee has its place in literary society.

"Where do you get inspiration for your books? I tell myself I can’t have another cup of coffee till I thought of an idea." — Douglas Adams 

"It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity. I bet this kind of thing does not happen to heroin addicts." — Dave Barry 

"I could settle down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee." — Charles Dickens. 

 "Reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren't prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets." — Stephen King. 

"Even bad coffee is better than no coffee at all." — David Lynch. 

"Don’t look at me in that tone of voice." — Dorothy Parker (on having to interact with people before she's had coffee).  

"I believe humans get a lot done, not because we’re smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee." — Flash Rosenberg. 

"Coffee is a lot more than just a drink. It’s something happening. Not as in hip, but like an event, a place to be, but not like a location, but like somewhere within yourself. It gives you time, but not actual hours or minutes, but a chance to be, like be yourself." — Gertrude Stein.

"The best maxim I know in this life is, to drink your coffee when you can, and when you cannot, to be easy without it." — Jonathan Swift. 

So, get yourself a cup of your favorite brew, sit down in front of your laptop, and continue writing.