Yes, the Author Was Dead, But the Characters Lived to Tell the Story.

By Cindy Schersching

Full disclosure…Cindy is my wife and she’s written a glowing review of the dinner theater we did a couple of weeks ago.  It was my first attempt at writing for the theater and Cindy’s effusive compliments make me blush.  That being said, here it is, a shameless bit of self-promotion.

The launch of Thomas Kies’ Whisper Room, his fifth book in the Geneva Chase series, was as masterfully orchestrated as his novel.    Kies took the unique approach of dramatizing the book launch as a play within a play – which he also wrote. Talented community theatre actors brought the books’ characters to life.

The play, Death of an Author, was performed in a dinner theatre format to sold-out audiences of more than 100 guests on each of two evenings.   The performance took place at the newly built culinary school at the county’s community college under the leadership of Shana Olmstead, also the co-owner of Morehead City Floyd’s 1921 premiere restaurant. The 3-course dinner was prepared by the students of the culinary school under the supervision of 2 local Escoffier chefs.   The funds raised from the evenings’ performances went directly to supporting students of the culinary school and to the community theatre’s capital campaign to rebuild the theatre heavily damaged by Hurricane Florence in 2018

The emcee for the evening, Pamela Long, oriented the audience to the Geneva Chase mystery series, while the performers mingled among guests and brought the action tableside.

Each actor was given the freedom to develop their book characters as they adopted them, infusing humor and several surprise interactions.   Robin Hamm, the director, molded the diversity of characters into the murder mystery storyline characteristic of Kies’ novels.

Those familiar with the series also recognized dominatrix Shana Neese (realistically portrayed by Karen Lutz), Frank Mancini and his wife, Evelyn (Ray Tillery and Mylissa Maynard), and Gregor Tolbonov (Eduardo Alen).   Caroline Bell (Mara Jennings ), Geneva Chase’s ward, rounded out the cast.  

Minutes into the performance, it was clear that the author, played by Matt Brooks, had unknowingly ingested cyanide laced wine.   He ‘dies’ on the dining room floor.   Geneva Chase (the well-known protagonist of the Kies crime series played by Kim Murdoch) and Matt Dillon assistant Chief of Police (played by theatre veteran Ken Hamm) unsuccessfully attempted to revive him.  His limp body was slid out on a tarp by Dillon and Private Investigator John Stillwater (David Griffith) while servers with entrée platters swerved out of the way.  Publicist Mandy Chahall (Rhonda Osterhoudt) quickly calmed fears by assuring everyone that even though the author was dead his books would still be for sale -  even though it may be difficult to get them signed.    

Geneva confirms that all in the room are suspect.  It was the responsibility of each to determine ‘who killed the author.’

Kies created a mind-boggling matrix as the characters realized their lives continued even though their creator was dead.   This awareness grows as does the realization their freedom to follow their own dreams.   With motives and motivations for the murder revealed and with fingers pointing in all directions, the audience was challenged to identify the murderer.  Prizes were given to those who first correctly figured out the mystery and for the best sleuth costume.

It was a fun filled evening that benefitted all participants.   Each audience called for a repeat experience at the end of the evening.  Books sales were strong and the real author, Kies, signed each.   

Death of an Author

 The author falls to the ground, Geneva kneels next to him, gives mouth to mouth, then Mike starts chest compressions.

Finally, the two come back in the dining area and Mike announces:  I’m afraid the Author is dead.

There’s a collective gasp from all the characters.

Cindy cries out: No!!

Mandy cries out: Oh, my God!

Cindy and Mandy hug each other.

Geneva: He was murdered, She’s holding his glass.  She sniffs it and says.  It smells like cyanide.  Someone in this room killed the author.

Mike shouts: No one leaves this room.  This is now an active crime scene. 

Olmstead comes to the podium. Well, this was not how we had planned dinner.  Olmstead looks at Mike Dillon. Should we continue to bring out the next course?

Geneva: I don’t know about anyone else, but I think we can conduct this investigation over dinner.  Besides, I’m hungry. Turns to audience- Is anyone else hungry?

On September 8 and 9, the Carteret Community Theater is performing a dinner murder mystery at the Carteret Community College Culinary School as a fundraiser for the theater.  The theater building itself was gutted during the disastrous days and nights of Hurricane Florence and the theater group is raising money in a capital campaign to rebuild the theater into something really special.

I was asked to write the murder mystery which I've entitled “Death of an Author.”  It’s my first crack at writing a script.

No, I don’t play the author.  We have an actor who plays me.  Full disclosure, he looks a lot like me.  We’re about the same age, we both wear glasses, and we both have beards…but in reality, he’s taller and better looking.

And yes, he dies as the entrée is being brought out.  If he’s taller than me, he has to die.

The entire show is about trying to figure out who killed the author.  The actors are all playing recurring characters from my Geneva Chase mystery series.  Geneva Chase is being played by an extremely talented lady by the name of Kimberly Murdoch.  She’s smart, savvy, and she’s appropriately being a smartass. 

Assistant Chief of Police Mike Dillon is being played by a gentleman named Ken Hamm.  And yes, he’s chewing the scenery and stealing scenes.  He’s freaking hilarious.

They all are. This isn’t my typical dark murder mystery…this is a comedy. It’s entertainment.

At least I hope so.  The actors are having a good time and it’s reassuring to see them all laugh at the appropriate lines.

It’s strange seeing my characters come to life and, to some extent, take on lives of their own.  Actually, that’s part of the show.  When the author dies, the characters go on. They now have self-determination, no longer being controlled by a puppet-master with an overactive imagination. 

A little bit of Rod Serling that’s sneaking into the evening.

We’re in rehearsal and I’m in awe of how hard these men and women work, and that includes the director and producer. Because this is an ongoing process, I’ve forgone going to two mystery conferences, Killer Nashville, which was this past weekend, and Bouchercon, that takes place in Minneapolis the same weekend as the dinner theater.

The trade-off, however, is that we’ll have over a hundred people both nights who will attend and then I’ll get a chance to sell and sign books afterward.  There’s no way I’d pass up an opportunity like that.  I can think of no better way to launch my fifth book, Whisper Room. 

Plus, this has just been a ton of fun!!!

Murder Mystery Dinner

 

By Thomas Kies

Fair warning that this blog will be short.  One of the reasons is that it’s summertime here on the North Carolina coast and it’s too damned nice to be sitting for long in my office behind the screen of my laptop.

The other reason is that when I am in my office (which I do more often than I should) I’m working on a couple of projects including a new one for me.  I’m working on the script for a murder mystery dinner to take place early in September and hosted by our local college's culinary school. 

The characters for the mystery are all recurring from my Geneva Chase mysteries.  Seeing them come to life should be interesting.  We’re going to be holding auditions tonight and the director told me that the interest level is high.

She then went on to tell me that now the word has gotten out, people are asking how they can buy a table. 

When I write a book, there’s a certain amount of internal pressure involved.  I want to write something engaging and tell an interesting story. I want to write something that people want to read and once they have, they’ll say that it was worthwhile.

While writing this script, I’m feeling a familiar pressure, but in a different way.  When someone reads my books, I can’t see them.  Any reaction I get comes later.

There’s an old saying that goes when you write a book it’s like telling a joke and waiting a year or two to see if anyone laughs.

The murder mystery dinner is a different animal.  I’ll see right then and there the audience reaction.

That’s terrifying.

What if they hate it?  Or worse yet, what if they’re bored?

The working title for my mystery dinner is Death of an Author.  I hope that’s not prescient.

I’ve written a script mostly for laughs.  But now that I’ve sent it to the director, I’m thinking that perhaps I should have included more pathos.  But when you’re at a table with friends eating chicken cordon bleu, do you want a lot of soul searching?

This whole thing is a fundraiser for the Carteret Community Theater.  Their building was nearly destroyed during Hurricane Florence and they’re raising money to put it all back together again.  As I said, tonight the theater is doing auditions where they’ll be reading lines from the script.

This whole thing is making me almost as nervous as when I’m waiting for the national reviews for an upcoming book.  Point of information, this dinner was to be the launch of my newest book, WHISPER ROOM.  But the release date is August 2^nd and the dinner is scheduled for a month later.

So, I may be doing a launch/book signing before the theater puts on its show.  But, hey, we can sell dinner tickets while I’m selling books. Can't we?  This show business thing is all new to me. 

 

 

 

 

What Makes It Worthwhile

 Today I received the first half of my advance for WHISPER ROOM to be published in 2022.  My wife watched as I opened the envelope from my agent and she asked, “Do you think that pays for your time spent working on the manuscript?”

I could see her smile and the mischievous nature of the question in her eyes as she asked it.  After all, I spend the better part of a year producing a novel.

I smiled and replied, “If you use money as the only yardstick to measure by, then no.  There are other forms of compensation, you know.”

She does knows that.  Like today, we’re moving our chamber of commerce office to another location.  The building owner completely renovated to our specifications.  Financially, she made us a deal we couldn’t pass up.  And it has a lovely koi pond, complete lily pads, frogs, and a family of turtles. 

While we were discussing the move, the landlord took me aside and told me she was two chapters into my first book, RANDOM ROAD.  She said, “I love your lead character, Geneva Chase.  She’s such a hot mess.”

Bingo!  That’s what makes it worthwhile. 

When I walk into a bookstore and see it on the shelf, or lately, in Barnes & Noble and see it on a table in the front of the store--my book parked right next to Stephen King’s latest. Yeah, baby!

Or when I see a favorable review online.  Or when I’m out and someone walks up to tell my how much they enjoy my books.  That’s how I measure success.

So, back to WHISPER ROOM.  This past Monday I sent the manuscript to my editor.  This is the scariest part of the process.  I’m freaking terrified that she’ll email me and say, “Nothing personal, but this is crap!”

Oh, let me digress for a moment.  The book’s title is out for testing.  I didn’t even know they did that.  

I’m sorry, back to the WHISPER ROOM.  Waiting for my editor to pass judgement on the manuscript is pure torture.  So, rather than dwell on it, allow me to offer what some other authors have said about the editing process:

“Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.” — Raymond Chandler.

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” — Saul Bellow.

“Read over your compositions and, when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.” — Samuel Johnson.

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” — Mark Twain.

“Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings)…I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: ‘Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.’ — Stephen King.

So, yes, I’ll be patient to see what my editor says, but I think I’ll deposit that advance when the bank opens tomorrow. 

It was a dark and stormy night!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of your book's first line.  You can't let up after that first sentence though, you have to have a dynamite opening scene.

But first, let me tell you about a discussion I had a few weeks ago with an editor I know.  She told me about the hundreds of submissions she looks at every year.  She said, “I can’t tell you how many of them start with the weather.  If I’ve got to give a budding novelist one bit of advice, unless it’s a key part of your opening chapter, never, never , never write about the weather except as background."

Back to my original topic, a boffo first scene.

My wife is out of town so I can watch anything I want on Netflix.  Last night I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark for the millionth time.  The opening scene in that movie is classic.

The intrepid adventurer in the fedora, traveling with a troupe of shady characters through an Amazonian forest.  Indiana Jones, coming upon the tomb in the thick of the jungle, filled with bats and spiders and traps.  Indie taking the weird golden icon and outrunning the giant boulder, only to find himself ambushed by jungle natives.  Then watching Indiana Jones sprint for his life, swimming to the airplane, and upon getting into the plane, his seatmate is a snake named Reggie.  We find out Indiana has, of all things, a fear of snakes.  When he complains, the pilot says, “Show some backbone.”

During a book event last year, I was asked if I thought European mysteries move more slowly than American mysteries.  The answer to that is yes!!

American readers are impatient.  They want to be gripped immediately and taken for a tense, page turning thrill ride.

I try to do that with my Geneva Chase mystery series.  In my first book, Random Road, I open with six nude bodies found hacked to death in a mansion on an island.  I’d originally written the scene with two people found dead, decided to spice it up by adding two more bodies.  By the time I was done, I’d made it a six-pack.  When it comes to murder, more is better, isn't it?

Do you always have to start a mystery with a murder?  No, but you still have to start by grabbing the reader by the collar.  In my second novel, Darkness Lane, the book opens with Geneva, my intrepid crime reporter, finding out that her fifteen-year-old ward’s best friend (also fifteen) has disappeared.

Well, I’m fudging a little, there is a murder, but we know upfront who the killer is.   In that same first scene ,we find out that a woman who’s been physically and mentally abused for years finally snapped.  She waited until her husband is drunk and passed out, coverd him in gasoline and lit a match.  As the fire department struggled to quell the spreading flames, the cops found her outside with a glass of wine.  When they asked her what happened, she said, “I’m just toasting my husband.”

My third book, Graveyard Bay, has the darkest opening of all.  Geneva is watching the scene unfold in the middle of winter at a marina where two nude bodies are found under the icy surface of the bay, chained to the prongs of a massive forklift used to lift boats in and out of the water.  Brrrrrr.

Just a couple of other outstanding books  I’ve read this year with dynamite opening chapters.

One is Don Winslow’s The Border. This book starts out with a prologue in which the protagonist is caught up in an active mass shooting.  You have no idea what it’s about and won’t really learn until nearly the end of this 720 page thriller.  But it’s a page turner if there ever was one about drug cartels and politics and the parallels to what’s going on today are incredible.

The other book is a mystery called Head Wounds by Dennis Palumbo.  It starts out with “Miles Davis saved my life”. A domestic dispute outside the protagonist's home explodes into violence and a gunshot nearly kills Daniel Rinaldi.  After that, the tension ramps up and the action never stops.  You can’t put this one down.

To end up where I began, your first scene should grab the reader by the collar.  Oh, and never lead with the weather.

Building Your Brand...One Book at a Time.

I parked cars at the North Carolina Seafood Festival in Morehead City yesterday.  My Rotary Club does it to raise money for local non-profit organization projects as well as college scholarships for deserving local students.

It was difficult to sneak away for the afternoon because I’m on deadline to finish the fourth in the series of Geneva Chase mysteries.  By the way, my publisher says they’re going to rebrand my books as Geneva Chase Crime Reporter Mysteries.

I like that.  Sorry, I'm free associating.

So, speaking of branding…

My latest mystery, Graveyard Bay, launched on September 10th.  Since then, I’ve done a local book signing on the patio of one of my favorite restaurants.  I did a book talk over dinner at our local country club. I drove to South Carolina to appear as a featured author at the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Trade Show.  And this past weekend, I flew to Scottsdale, Arizona, to sign books at the renowned Poisoned Pen Book Store.

Coming up, I’ll be flying to Dallas for Bouchercon.  I’m lucky enough to be on a panel there called “Stop the Presses”. Then, a week later, I’ll drive up to a town in North Carolina called Chocowinity to speak to the Pamlico Writers Group at the China King restaurant.

Whew!

Is it all worth it?  Of course it is.

Not because the number of books that were sold in any particular book signing put me on any bestseller list.  But I’m building a brand. I’m getting my name and the names of my books into the public eye.

My publisher’s publicist works hard at getting my name out, but every writer has to do his or her part as well.  And I enjoy it.  I love meeting people, talking with them, and telling them about Geneva Chase.

Some book signings are home runs.  But not all of them are.  I was invited to a library in a town where only one individual showed up.  That’s the kind of thing that keeps you grounded.
And early on in my writing career, I did book signings at some of the local bookshops where customers came in and avoided eye contact.  That was a little disheartening.

But I’m now three years into this adventure and I can say that I’ve had the best time of my life.  Yeah, there was that time when only one reader showed up.  But then there was that time when I was invited to a public library conference in Philadelphia where my distributor threw a party at the Pyramid Club, 52 floors above downtown Philly.  There was all the food you could eat, an open bar, and a live band.

There had also been a bad snow storm the day before and a lot of authors who were supposed to attend the conference couldn’t get there.

So, I was one of three authors signing books.  We went through cases of them.

Then, just two weeks ago, I flew to Scottsdale for the book signing at Poisoned Pen Bookstore.  I was there with the owner, Barbara Peters, and three other writers: Dennis Palumbo, Warren Easley, and Mark Coggins.  It was standing a room only.

Sure, I had to get up at 2:30 in the morning to make my flight, and the airline lost my luggage, and my hotel room wasn’t ready when I’d arrived.  In the grand scheme of things, that’s chump change.

The joy is talking with people about writing and your books and mysteries.  That’s not only fun, but building my brand.

So, back to parking cars at the festival.  I’ll let you in on a secret. I collect characters and their descriptions.  They’re all based on people I see and interact with.  And let me tell you, at almost any festival, you’re going to get some doozies.  Some of them will most certainly be in my next Geneva Chase Crime Reporter novel!!

Literary Lush Legends

Since alcohol figures highly in my Geneva Chase mysteries, I thought I’d devote a little time to booze and writers.

I’ve long heard the mythological tales of excessive drinking by writers, the literary lush legends. True? Not true?

All I know is there’s no possible way I can write of edit while consuming alcohol.

Let’s talk about some of the legends, though. In a 2002 article about Norman Mailer written by Oliver Burkeman for The Guardian, he says, “Drinking — like writing, fighting and womanizing — is a sport he (Mailer) has pursued with reckless force ever since he crashed on to the literary landscape at 25, and it has led to fistfights in the street, head-buttings of hostile reviewers, and a vicious clubbing from a policeman whose car he was trying to hail as a taxi. Well into his 60s, he stumbled drunk on to stages and television shows, all the time railing against feminism, friends and fellow writers.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald was another party legend (along with is wife, Zelda). It was said that Fitzgerald was partial to gin because it couldn’t be smelled on his breath. His quote on alcohol is, “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”

Reportedly, it took only a small portion of gin to get Fitzgerald drunk. There are tales about how he and his wife jumped into the fountain at the Plaza Hotel and stripped at the Follies. When asked to come to a “Come as you are” party, he and Zelda arrived in their pajamas. It didn’t take long for Zelda to take hers off and dance naked for the crowd.

Raymond Chandler offered this famous quote, “I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won’t let himself get snotty about it.” Legend has it that before Chandler had written a single line of The Blue Dahlia, Paramount Studios put the movie into production. Before he could write the ending, Chandler was stopped cold by a severe case of writer’s block. He told his director, John Houseman, that though he was a recovering alcoholic and had been on the wagon for a long time, the only way he could complete the script was if he started drinking again.

Houseman place six secretaries in his house around the clock to look after him, hired a doctor to give Chandler vitamin shots (he stopped eating when he drank), and cars waited at his door to rush pages to the studio as they were written.

Interesting sidebar, it wasn’t until Chandler’s character Philip Marlow introduced the Gimlet in The Long Goodbye that it became a popular cocktail in the United States.

Ernest Hemingway is a favorite literary lush legend. When asked if it was true if he took a pitcher of martinis to work every morning, he answered, “Have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked? You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes-and I can tell right in the middle of a page when he’s had his first one. Besides, who in hell would mix more than one martini at a time?”

Part of the Hemingway legend is that his favorite cocktail was mojitos. The truth is his ‘go-to’ drink was a martini, made very cold. It’s said that he even froze his Spanish cocktail onions and bragged that he made his martinis so cold that you couldn’t hold it in your hand. “It sticks to the fingers.”

Interesting sidebar: Hemingway’s house in Key West was across the road from the Key West Lighthouse. He often said that it was convenient to live next to a lighthouse because it would guide him home from the bars when he was drunk.

So, what did other authors enjoy drinking?

Oscar Wilde- Absinthe

William Faulkner—Mint Julep

Dorothy Parker—Whiskey Sour

Edgar Allan Poe—Brandy Eggnog

Truman Capote—Screwdriver

Jack Kerouac—Margarita, of course.

I’m not any where near the ballpark as these writers, but personally, I like a nice glass of chardonnay, and I REALLY enjoy an occasional single malt scotch on ice.

Please raise your glasses. My third book, Graveyard Bay, is due out on September 10th. I know I’m going to celebrate. For more information, go to www.thomaskiesauthor.com.

Writing from a Woman's POV...What Was I Thinking?

I loved the discussions by authors who visualize which actors and actresses would portray their characters if their books are turned into movies.  I have some thoughts on that which I will share a little later in this blog.

The reason why writers have strong opinions on this is our characters are very real to us.  What sometimes slides by us is that our characters are also very real (or should be) to our readers as well.
Both Random Road and Darkness Lane are written from the first-person viewpoint of Geneva Chase…a woman.  I’m male, I have both an X and a Y chromosome.

“Really, you write as a woman?” I’m often asked. “What the hell were you thinking?”

First, a little about Ms. Chase.  She’s blonde, tall (five-ten), athletic, blue eyes, attractive, forty years old, and a snarky smart ass.  Geneva is a reporter for her hometown newspaper in Sheffield, Connecticut, a bedroom community outside of New York City. As the first book opens, she’s seeing a married man, has been recently arrested for hitting a cop, has been married three times, and she drinks too much.

Geneva Chase is a hot mess.  Likable and smart as hell, but still a hot mess.

That doesn’t answer the question, “What the hell were you thinking?”

I started writing Random Road as an experiment.  One chapter I’d write from the male protagonist’s POV and the next chapter I’d write as Geneva Chase.  About ten chapters into the book, I discovered I was having much more fun writing as Genie.  Through her eyes, I could view the world as a cynical journalist.  Through her voice, I could make snarky, sarcastic observations.  I could say things I would never say out loud in real life. Simply put…she was fun!

A writer needs to be a keen observer of the world around him or her.  Writing as a woman, I needed to study how someone like Genie would dress, what kind of jewelry she’d wear, how she would speak and move.  I know more about women’s shoes, cosmetics, and fragrances than I ever wanted to.

A word to the wise, it’s a fine line between being extremely observant and being really creepy.

Now, back to your characters being real.  My editor, publisher, and agent are all female (as is my wife, of course) and none of them are afraid to call me out when Geneva isn’t ringing true.

But I’ve gotten some interesting comments from readers about Geneva.  I’ve had some women tell me how much they identify with her.  I take that as a genuine compliment.

I’ve had some men tell me how much they like the character and I actually had one guy tell me that he’s fallen in love with her.  That made me a little uncomfortable.

Then there was the time in Phoenix, at a mystery conference, I was on a panel called “Unconventional Women”.  Yes, I was the only dude on the stage.

When I write the character Geneva Chase, I'm not thinking about any actresses.  I have a good friend of mine in my head.  She's tall, athletic, beautiful and she's a genuine smart ass.  I worked with her for years at the last newspaper I was at.  She knows who she is.

So back to whom I’d like to see portray Geneva Chase.  I’m partial to Reese Witherspoon.  Maybe  Naomi Watts.   Two completely different actresses, but I think they’d do Genie proud.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.  I'd love to hear who you think could be Geneva Chase.  www.thomaskiesauthor.com

Stress

Henry James said that plot is characters under stress.

When I began working on my second Geneva Chase novel, Darkness Lane, I sent the first hundred pages to my editor at Poisoned Pen Press. In it, Geneva is sober, cooking meals for her and Caroline (Geneva’s ward) in their warm, cozy kitchen, and she’s sworn off married men.

In the first chapter, I wrote about an abused woman who waits until her drunken husband has fallen asleep and then covers him with gasoline and lights a match. By the time the police arrive, the fire department is vainly trying to put out the blaze and the husband is long past screaming.

The cops find the woman standing on the curb with a plastic cup filled with Merlot. She looks at the officers and says, “I’m just toasting my husband.”

A page later, we find that a fifteen-year-old high school girl has gone missing. She happens to be Caroline’s best friend.

A good start? I thought so.

My editor, in her diplomatic but honest way, sent back a critique essentially saying that she could see how I was putting the puzzle pieces in place, but Geneva, my protagonist, was too suburban.

Oh my, God, I’d made her boring!

My editor went on to say, she hoped that the part of the abused woman torching her husband wasn’t being used as a ‘billboard’, a ruse to bring the reader into the story but once you’ve past it, no longer is part of the narrative.

Oh my, God. It was!

Finally, my editor said that in the first hundred pages…NOTHING HAPPENS!

Oh, my God. She’s right!

Two weeks later, I’d rewritten that first hundred pages. After review, my editor came back and told me that the first hundred pages are dark and it feels like everything is right on the edge of disaster. Keep writing.

Whew!

I put the characters under stress. I made the abused woman a secondary plot line, something that would merge with the disappearance of the high school girl. I brought in two characters from an earlier book I’d written but was never published, bad guys—really bad guys.

Geneva had to have it coming from all sides. Teenage Caroline became a pain in the ass. The publisher of the failing newspaper where Geneva is working is threatening to sell the publication to a media conglomerate, screwing his employees into the ground. A teacher at Caroline’s school disappears at the same time the high school student has gone missing. Geneva discovers the body of the student’s father, brutally murdered.

Geneva starts drinking again.

Characters under stress.

Australian writer, Ian Irvine said, “Conflict forces characters to act in ways that reveal who they are – and nothing tells us more about characters than how they deal with their troubles.”

He goes on to say, “Stories are about adversity. Happiness can be the ending of the story, but it can’t be the story itself. Why not? Because happy characters don’t want to change. Happiness doesn’t force the characters to act and thus reveal themselves and, if the characters are having a good time, the reader is not.”

Plus, stress and conflict create plot twists. When I write, at some point, the characters take on their own lives. I’m along for the ride. They seem to create their own dialogue, move through a scene without my guidance. And just like real life, things happen that I didn’t see coming. Some of my best plot twists just seem to have happened on their own.

Crazy? You bet. But aren’t all writers a little nuts?

And because your characters are under stress, it can feel uncomfortable to write the scene. It’s painful, not because it’s bad prose, but because your characters are struggling with the obstacles that YOU’VE given them. They’re your characters. You created them. You’re making them suffer.

Overcoming dire obstacles under stress is what draws the reader into your story, advances your plot, and makes your characters more sympathetic.

Have a great week and I hope to see you at either/or the Poisoned Pen Press Mystery Conference in Phoenix over Labor Day weekend and/or at Bouchercon, September 6-9 in St. Petersburg, FL.