Lie Detector

Donis here. To start the New Year off right, last night I watched an episode of American Experience on PBS entitled "Lie Detector", about the development and limitations of the polygraph, or "lie detector", and how United States law enforcement, government, and even businesses came to rely on an unreliable technology. It was a very interesting episode, especially for a crime writer whose books are set in the early 20th century. 

So I'm watching along, all engrossed, when lo and behold, Dr. Frankie Y. Bailey, Type M's own mystery author and professor in the School of Criminal Justice University at Albany (SUNY) pops up as one of their expert commentators. I was wildly impressed and happy to see one of our own nationally recognized for her expertise. ESPECIALLY since at this very moment Frankie's Tell Me Your Story article is up on my own website. Tell Me Your Story is feature I run every month in which I invite authors to share with us how their backgrounds and life experiences have contributed to their writing. Frankie's story is an absolutely fascinating tale of history, mystery, and multiculturalism. 

“Like a butterfly pinned to a board,” she begins. "That’s the first line I can remember writing." 

Oh, that's good!

I highly recommend reading Frankie's story at www.doniscasey.com. The article will be up on the first page of my site for another week, after which you can find all the Tell Me Your Story entries in the site Archives. You'll be enlightened and edified!

I also recommend watching the PBS episode of Lie Detector, an excellent resource for mystery writers. By the way, many years ago, shortly after I was married, my mother told me she could always tell when one of my sisters was lying because "her eyes always flick off to the left." I never forgot that telling piece of information. It brought home to me that the greatest lie detectors ever created are our own mothers.

Happy New Year to all you Dear Readers, and may 2023 bring nothing but good things to you and yours.

Getting by with a little help from my friends & my murder book

The summer has come and (nearly) gone, as of this writing, and it was a whirlwind. In July, I founded and directed a summer writing institute for teenage writers. Actually, July was the easy part, the culmination of 13 months spent planning, designing, and recruiting both faculty and students, and I have Type M’s Frankie, Tom, and Barbara to thank for serving as three of my seven visiting artists.

So now, as the fall launches a new school year, and I prepare to do it all over again, I’ve also hit the second half of the novel I’m writing. This is where things get hard. I’m 45,000 words in, the story line has taken a rough shape, and it’s time to get serious about plotting and tying up loose ends. It was interesting to hear all three of my Type M friends speak about writing, about plotting in particular. Most are “pantsers,” writing, as they say, “by the seat of their pants,” not knowing where their book will go.

Elmore Leonard said he spent the first hundred papes getting to know the characters. I love writing the first hundred pages. Now, as I approach page two hundred, I recently returned to my personal “murder book,” the notebook where I write character sketches, plot ideas, and questions I have about the manuscript on which I’m working. It’s literally my murder book.

I read again this week (in a Mystery Writers of America publication honoring him) about Jeffrey Deaver’s hundred (or more)-page outlines. I wish –– I REALLY wish –– my brain worked that way. My murder book is as close as I get, and, believe me, I’ve tried to outline. The story, it seems, always has other ideas (or my subconscious does and those only appear when I really turn everything off and sit down at the desk).

The other day, I sat for six hours at a picnic bench in a loud water park as my 12-year-old daughter Keeley and her friend went up and down crazy slides, ball-point pen out, murder book open, and filled seven pages, creating would-be plot points and coming up with what (hopefully) is a surprise ending (one I didn’t see coming when I began the book).

So as I head into the fall, the murder book will remain open, allowing me to finish the work in progress while another year begins, and I get to do it all over again.

Cold Hard Truth

 A strange thing happened during when Americans were shut in during the Covid crisis. They started reading books again. This should be terrific news for writers, but according to a recent article, they mostly read authors they already liked. They read old familiar books. The cold hard truth is that these readers were wary of newcomers. 

A friend emailed me recently who was worried about a young man she knew who was not doing too well. He had never held a "real" job. He wants to become a writer and she wanted to know what I thought of his ability.

In fact, I think he is quite talented. That said, it's very, very hard to assess the merit of a work in a genre you don't regularly read. But talent is not the problem here. The problem is reality.

Only a very few writers make really big bucks. They are very talented and have something quite special going for them. Never mind that this one or that one is not your own personal cup of tea. When they first started out, each person on the best seller list time after time brought something new to the marketplace. These are the born naturals. The cream of the crop. They cannot stop. Case in point is J.K. Rawlings. The lady doesn't need the money but she keeps on anyway. She can't help herself.

And then we move on to another wealthy tier of writers. They are really good, usually genre specific, but things can get a little weird down the line. Books are outlined and someone else does the actually writing. Names are licensed. Writing becomes harder. Trips beckon. Time with family. A cocktail at sunset. They make a terrific living. Have a sweet life.

But the cold hard truth is that most writers need a day job. Seldom does one's writing alone provide enough to support a family, generate income for research trips, or enable one to attend the endless round of conferences that compete for time and bucks.

So what kind of day job? How many hours a day? I find it puzzling that some of the people with the most demanding jobs produce phenomenal books year after year. As to the type of job? When I taught a course in writing at Fort Hays State University one spring, I found myself worrying about the students' stories, instead of my own writing. It was like trying to water two fields from the same well. Yet, Joyce Carol Oates--who is incredibly gifted--has taught writing at Columbia for decades. Our own Frankie Bailey is a professor in the department of justice.

Some writers find that working in a trade or doing something involved with physical labor is just the right contrast. That makes sense to me.

I like bookkeeping and accounting. It's comforting to do non-creative work that is exacting and precise. It's black and white. Right or wrong. Writing is a very messy occupation, but it's so exhilarating! I would rather be a writer than anything else, nevertheless sometimes I think how nice a regular paycheck would be. Sometimes I hate the fog that is a part of creativity.

So my question for the young man would be "How do you intend to support yourself?" The cold hard truth is that if you plan to become a writer you must figure something out.

Honest Writing

I read Aline's, Frankie's, and Donis's recent posts with great interest and recalled Ernest Hemingway's famous line from A Moveable Feast: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." My three Type M colleagues touched on what, to me, amounts to honest writing – telling the story inside you, the one you have to tell. This is something I've been considering a lot recently.

The opportunity to explore a new character has piqued my interest. I've published nine novels (No. 9, Destiny's Pawn, comes out in June). Eight of those required tremendous research (five were set on the PGA Tour; and the last three featuring a US Border Patrol agent). Research can be fun. I like talking to people, learning new things, and reading or watching just about anything to do with the criminal justice system. But research is also time consuming and nerve racking (you must, after all, get it right).

I've had a character in my head and an idea for a book (and series) for several years. I started a version of the book a few years ago, then sold my Peyton Cote series, and wrote that instead for the past four years. All the while, this idea for an amateur sleuth novel set in a locale I know very well, has stayed with me. Then something happened about three weeks ago that stalled the book I was working on, and this novel's opening line appeared. I wrote it. And kept going. Now, I'm thirty pages in, and the book is writing itself.

One reason for the ease with which this project is proceeding is because I've set the book at a New England boarding school. For me, having received financial aid to attended a boarding school and now living and working at one, I am surely following the adage of "write what you know." Additionally, these are places where privilege, wealth, and power can collide -- always a potent concoction for plots. Most importantly, those same elements that combine to create interesting plots also offer potential for great empathy, which every story needs if it is to have a heart.

So where does this book go? Who knows? But I'm eager to see where it leads. More importantly, I'm motivated to finish it.

Cold Hard Truth

A friend emailed me recently who was worried about a young man she knew who was not doing too well. He had never held a "real" job. He wants to become a writer and she wanted to know what I thought of his ability.

In fact, I think he is quite talented. That said, it's very, very hard to assess the merit of a work in a genre you don't regularly read. But talent is not the problem here. The problem is reality.

Only a very few writers make really big bucks. They are very talented and have something quite special going for them. Never mind that this one or that one is not your own personal cup of tea. When they first started out, each person on the best seller list time after time brought something new to the marketplace. These are the born naturals. The cream of the crop. They cannot stop. Case in point is J.K. Rawlings. The lady doesn't need the money but she keeps on anyway. She can't help herself.

 And then we move on to another wealthy tier of writers. They are really good, usually genre specific, but things can get a little weird down the line. Books are outlined and someone else does the actually writing. Names are licensed. Writing becomes harder. Trips beckon. Time with family. A cocktail at sunset. They make a terrific living. Have a sweet life.

But the cold hard truth is that most writers need a day job. Seldom does one's writing alone provide enough to support a family, generate income for research trips, or enable one to attend the endless round of conferences that compete for time and bucks.

So what kind of day job? How many hours a day? I find it puzzling that some of the people with the most demanding jobs produce phenomenal books year after year. As to the type of job? When I taught a course in writing at Fort Hays State University one spring, I found myself worrying about the students' stories, instead of my own writing. It was like trying to water two fields from the same well. Yet, Joyce Carol Oates, who is incredibly gifted has taught writing at Columbia for decades. Our own Frankie Bailey is a professor in the department of justice.

Some writers find that working in a trade or doing something involved with physical labor is just the right contrast. That makes sense to me.

I like bookkeeping and accounting. It's comforting to do non-creative work that is exacting and precise. It's black and white. Right or wrong. Writing is a very messy occupation, but it's so exhilarating! I would rather be a writer than anything else, nevertheless sometimes I think how nice a regular paycheck would be. Sometimes I hate the fog that is a part of creativity.

So my question for the young man would be "How do you intend to support yourself?" The cold hard truth is that if you plan to become a writer you must figure something out.