Give us a smile

Good Monday to you, Type M peeps - Skelton back at the keyboard.

I am in the throes of a house move, as those of you who tuned in last time already know. Were we last together only two weeks ago? As they say, time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana.

(Think about it).

I am now ensconced in the new place although perhaps as you read this I will be back in the old one transporting yet more of a lifetime of stuff. I thought I had been pretty ruthless in the game of keep or chuck while packing but clearly I was less ruthless and more ruthmore.

Mickey and Tom seem to have settled into the new quarters quite happily though.

Anyway, while I was unpacking boxes and trying to decide where to put the contents, my writer's mind was stimulated by Charlotte's recent blog on Murdering the Myth, in particular her line about happy endings in which 'the good guys won and the bad guys were defeated'. Charlotte also talked about the increasing tendency in TV drama to allow evil to flourish unchecked.

Here in the UK we are well acquainted with unsatisfactory endings (usually in elections 😁). Our crime dramas often were downbeat, with the bad guy getting away with it and justice not only failing to be served but barely making it to the menu. 

My book 'Thunder Bay' was rejected by one US publisher because (spoiler alert!) one strand of the plot remained unresolved. Naturally, I disagreed. For me the plot played out the way it had to and to try to wrap it up in a neat bundle would diminish the whole.

Having said that, I understand everything Charlotte said. I think we need some hope that good will always overcome evil (it kind of did in 'Thunder Bay', by the way), at least in the world of fiction if not reality. And we need those rays of light in these days of increasingly venal politicians who get away with crimes, rising international tensions and, of course, a global pandemic.

That last statement will surprise any who may have read my books. I remember a conversation I had with Scots crime writer Alex Gray, who said she liked a happy ending. I told her I don't do them.

And looking back on my fiction, I really don't as a rule, although my new title coming out in the UK in August is pretty damn close.

I've not done the old DNA thing so I may not even have Celtic blood in me but I'm happy to self identify. And there is something in that Celtic blood, real or just claimed, that welcomes the darkness, I think. 

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

However, I leaven it all with an often hefty dollop of humour. The Davie McCall books had a lot of Glasgow patter, while a wisecrack was never far away from Dominic Queste's lips. 'Thunder Bay' was perhaps the one with fewer laughs than usual but they were back in 'The Blood is Still' and I think even more in the new one 'A Rattle of Bones'. My protagonist Rebecca Connolly is growing older, more assured, and now, at times she talks to other characters like Philip Marlowe on speed.

But that darkness is still there, within me and, by extention, within her. Of course it is. It goes with the territory.

We need humour in our work. No matter how dark things are, there will always be someone who will say something witty. Or just plain stupid. For the record, the person making the latter is usually me.

Lightness of touch is lacking from a great deal of TV drama now. Many crime shows are so bleak and mournful. There's a lot of slow motion walking, mooning about, navel-gazing and staring off into space with furrowed brow and pained eye.

Yes, I know crime is not a laughing matter but we can tackle dark subjects while also bringing much-needed lighter moments. Look at the works of Robert Crais, Dennis Lehane and, the author I grew up with and who inspired me to take up the genre, Ed McBain. They handle some distressing stuff but always find room - where appropriate - to throw in some snappy banter.

(Incidentally, Robert Crais thanked me on Twitty the other day for an RT. I've never been so thrilled.)

Light relief goes a long way. It makes the darkness even darker, it helps build up characters and it makes for an entertaining read. 

And that's what we're supposed to be doing, isn't it? Entertaining people? 

Yes, we can explore the human condition if we wish. Yes, we can reveal deep truths. Yes, we can examine issues of concern.

But if we don't tell our story in an entertaining way then all we're doing is preaching and we have enough of that in real life, thank you very much.

Even superhero movies are now places of angst. I just want to grab some of them by the shoulders, give them a shake and say, 'You're in a ridiculous costume, maybe even tights, in a world that doesn't really exist outside of a computer. Lighten up, for goodness sake!'

Thank heavens for Deadpool and Shazam! And, to an extent, Robert Downey Jnr.

Honoring Your Process

Frankie here. Regular readers of Type M know by now that I'm not a pantser. As much as I often envy writers who can write a novel by plunging into the deep end, I can't do it. Not only do I write at a snail's pace until I'm well into the book, sometimes I fear I am channeling Adrian Monk. I can't begin writing until I have a title, and I keep coming back to the title, frequently and obsessively, until I have the right title. I do the same with character names and their backstories. I keep researching even as I'm writing. And, every blessed time I sit down to write, I read and tinker with the first chapter before going on. I do that at least until I'm halfway through the book.

I have the title of my 1939 historical thriller -- A Penny Struck by Lightning. As you may recall the title was inspired by a conversation Opie Taylor was having with his pa, Andy Griffith. The television was playing in the background, unnoticed, until the words "penny" and "lightning" caught my attention. The perfect metaphor for that year of 1939, and the New York World's Fair.

But having a title has not helped me move along. Yesterday, I switched the first-person POV of the protagonist -- who is attending Marian Anderson's concert at the Lincoln Memorial -- back to third person. And still it wasn't right. I had photos of the the crowd. I could imagine where my character was standing. I knew there was a brisk wind. But had the sun really come out as Anderson was about to perform. There were no mention of that in the second source I had looked at.

Being obsessive -- unable to pull myself away from Chapter One and get back to writing -- I stopped to find the answer to the weather question.

And that was when the Writing Gods showered me with gifts. During the next hour, I said "Wow!" three times. With the last "Wow" I was jumping up and down and dancing around the room. Harry, my cat, was looking at me like he was about to hide under the bed.

Here's what happened -- as Adrian would say -- while looking for a third description of the weather, I found the NBC radio broadcast of the concert. I had listened to portions of it before, but this website included the concert program and mention of the intermission during the concert when the announcer reviewed Anderson's career. The broadcast was almost 30 minutes long, and while I was listening, I started to go through some photos of the platform guests. It had occurred to me that maybe I really should take a page from Dennis Lehane. I love his novel, The Given Day, set in 1918, in the months leading up to the real-life Boston Police Strike. But the book opens with Babe Ruth, traveling on a team bus, coming upon a baseball game being played in a field . . .

So my idea was that I would have someone on the platform, looking out over the crowd. I thought of Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, who introduced Marian Anderson. When I searched for Ickes and the concert, a photograph I had never seen before popped up. Ickes and Anderson shaking hands and off to the right, a group of news cameramen and among them one black photographer. That was my first "Wow." The photographer reminded me of what the NBC announcer had mentioned about the concert being under "the auspices" of Howard University, the famed historically black university in D.C. I already knew that. My protagonist even mentioned seeing a group of Howard students in the crowd and wanting to go over and speak to them, wanting to tell them that he planned  to attend the law school.

I hadn't made too much of that, but now I was wondering how he would have known they were from Howard. So I Googled Howard University and the concert. I already had the telegram that Eleanor Roosevelt had sent to a professor there when the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to allow Anderson to use their hall. Now I was looking for information about the students at the concert. That was when I went "Wow!" again. Ossie Davis. I had stumbled across what Ossie Davis -- yes, the actor, writer, civil rights activist -- had said about that day. That day when he was in the crowd as a student from Howard University.

So now my chapter opens from the POV of Ickes looking out over the crowd  -- or maybe Anderson herself -- and down in the crowd, my character standing near a group of students . . . and one of them is named "Ossie" . . . and they are both moved and inspired and there is a brief exchange between the two of them. . .

And that was when I went "Wow! Wow!" and jumped to my feet. I knew Anderson was wearing a mink coat and a mink hat. My protagonist mentions that. But I had only seen black and white photos and barely noticed her outfit. Yesterday, as I was thinking about Ossie Davis, the Writing Gods dropped more gold coins into my lap. A photo of the donation that Anderson's family had made to the Smithsonian. The ensemble she was wearing under that mink coat. The kind of "telling detail" that I love as a researcher. The kind of detail that I might have missed if I weren't an obsessive plodder, but that no one who attended that concert and was close enough to see Ms. Anderson would have missed.

Writing lesson:  Honor your process even when you hate your process.