I've been thinking about the question my colleagues have been discussing about what is required to become a competent writer -- innate talent, hard work, acquiring craft-related skills? As I was thinking about that I read Donis's post yesterday about the challenges of a long-running series.
My Lizzie Stuart series is only up to the fifth book. In fact, after the fifth book was published back in 2011, I wrote two Hannah McCabe books. In July 2014, a Lizzie Stuart short story (inspired by some research I was doing) was published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. But the short story did not move the characters forward. They have been in limbo for five years.
And now it's a few months later in series times, and I'm at work on Lizzie Stuart mystery Number 6. I'm writing this book because I have a story that I really want to tell. I'm also writing it because I hear from readers who they love the series and when am I going to do another book? Was that the last? What writer can resist when readers care about her or his characters and are waiting to find out what's happening in their lives?
Donis raised the issue of the character-arc. If the characters' lives are changing over the course of the series, how does one make each book in a series a stand-alone? I have always struggled with that. I can truthfully tell a potential reader that she can pick up any book in my Lizzie Stuart series and read a murder mystery that is complete in itself. No, one need not read the first Hannah McCabe novel before reading the second. But if a reader says that she likes to read a series in order because of the evolving relationships, I don't try to talk her out of that approach. As a reader, I have often picked up a book mid-series and then gone back to "catch-up" before moving on. I like relationships and back stories. That's one of the reasons I read any book, including a mystery.
But even though I struggle with the character arc dilemma, I have gotten better at dealing with it. I can now slip in back story here and there, without having Lizzie stop to say, "Two years ago when I was in Cornwall, I was involved in a murder case and that's when . . ." I'm a bit more subtle these days.
That brings me to the discussion we've been having about innate talent vs. hard work to acquire craft. I know I started out with imagination. From the time I was a small child, I told myself bedtime stories with recurring characters. When I was older, I started to write those stories down. But the process of becoming a functioning writer required that I discipline my imagination and hone any innate talent I may have possessed.
Aside from the basics of grammar and story structure, I had to learn the discipline of getting out of my comfortable chair (where I was thinking about my book) and going to my desk to get it down on paper. I had to learn the discipline of revising and revising and revising. I had to learn the discipline -- and develop a thick enough skin -- to sit quietly and listen and then ask lots of questions when someone I had asked to critique what I had written gave me an honest opinion. I had to learn the discipline not to rush the story, to let it evolve, and take wrong turns, to wait for all the pieces to fall into place.
I think that may be the difference between talented amateurs and professional writers. Having talent and imagination means nothing until one learns discipline. It's hard and frustrating, especially when working hard doesn't mean that one rises to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. But, on the other hand, discipline is good for the soul. And writing may be the one area in my life where I manage to consistently do what I should do.
Showing posts with label Lizzie Stuart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lizzie Stuart. Show all posts
Friday, September 09, 2016
Friday, May 06, 2016
Real People and Fiction
I can't resist joining this week's discussion about the use of real people's stories in fiction. I have done it, too. Because my character, Lizzie Stuart, is a crime historian, she is often concerned with cases from the past. I draw on real life cases, most of them involving ordinary people who would have passed their lives in obscurity if not for their involvement in a crime.
I use the stories of these real people as inspiration and starting point, spinning form fact (or what is believed to be fact) into fiction. For example, in A Dead Man's Honor, the book began with a real-life lynching. I changed the victim and the crime that served as the catalyst for the lynching. I made the man who was lynched innocent of the crime. I inserted Lizzie's grandmother into the story as a child who had witnessed what happened.
A teenager girl's life and death was the starting point for another book. She had killed a woman and she was executed by the state of Virginia. The true story was sad and frustrating. The girl, whose name was Virginia Christian, was a member of a sharecropping family. She worked in the home of the widow who owned the land. During an argument and a physical confrontation, she killed her employer. I went to the Library of Virginia to go through the documents related to the case. A page from the 1912 record of Christian's appearance in court and the discussion of the charges against her appears to the left. Christian's story and that of her victim became the starting point for Old Murders. In my version, Lizzie encounters Christian's lawyer decades after he had failed to save his client's life.
In the same way, real people have found their way into my Hannah McCabe books. In the McCabe books, these people have been better known. John Wilkes Booth (long dead, but not forgotten) plays a pivotal role in The Red Queen Dies. But there is another story involving ordinary people and an abandoned school that I would love to tell. In my mind that story has become interwoven with a newspaper article that I read about an investigation of a boys' school in another state. I have a victim and a case I would love to have McCabe investigate.
I am always interested in the ethics that we bring to bear in writing about real people. In my Author's Note, I acknowledge the inspiration/starting point of real cases and the people I include (if they might be recognized). I explain that I did research to learn more about what happened. But then I turned down another path, spiraled off into make-believe, and what was true was now blurred into fiction.
In my 1939 book, I do have real people appear in cameos. But I'm trying to stay close to what they might have said or done. I want to make sure that J. Edgar Hoover wasn't in Florida when I have him meeting with my FBI agent in Washington, D. C. I also want what he says to reflect his attitude about the looming likelihood of war and the real-life people being investigated.
This topic sometimes comes up when I'm doing an event. Someone from the audience will come up after it's over and tell me about someone they know who has been involved in a crime as victim or offender or an old family story about an uncle or a grandfather. This person often wants to write a book about what happened and is wondering whether to try a novel or true crime. I tell him or her that if there are gaps in the story and people still alive who were involved, I personally would write a novel and change the facts. But that's because I write mysteries.
Anyone else have these chats with people about stories they'd like to tell?
I use the stories of these real people as inspiration and starting point, spinning form fact (or what is believed to be fact) into fiction. For example, in A Dead Man's Honor, the book began with a real-life lynching. I changed the victim and the crime that served as the catalyst for the lynching. I made the man who was lynched innocent of the crime. I inserted Lizzie's grandmother into the story as a child who had witnessed what happened.
A teenager girl's life and death was the starting point for another book. She had killed a woman and she was executed by the state of Virginia. The true story was sad and frustrating. The girl, whose name was Virginia Christian, was a member of a sharecropping family. She worked in the home of the widow who owned the land. During an argument and a physical confrontation, she killed her employer. I went to the Library of Virginia to go through the documents related to the case. A page from the 1912 record of Christian's appearance in court and the discussion of the charges against her appears to the left. Christian's story and that of her victim became the starting point for Old Murders. In my version, Lizzie encounters Christian's lawyer decades after he had failed to save his client's life.
In the same way, real people have found their way into my Hannah McCabe books. In the McCabe books, these people have been better known. John Wilkes Booth (long dead, but not forgotten) plays a pivotal role in The Red Queen Dies. But there is another story involving ordinary people and an abandoned school that I would love to tell. In my mind that story has become interwoven with a newspaper article that I read about an investigation of a boys' school in another state. I have a victim and a case I would love to have McCabe investigate. I am always interested in the ethics that we bring to bear in writing about real people. In my Author's Note, I acknowledge the inspiration/starting point of real cases and the people I include (if they might be recognized). I explain that I did research to learn more about what happened. But then I turned down another path, spiraled off into make-believe, and what was true was now blurred into fiction.
In my 1939 book, I do have real people appear in cameos. But I'm trying to stay close to what they might have said or done. I want to make sure that J. Edgar Hoover wasn't in Florida when I have him meeting with my FBI agent in Washington, D. C. I also want what he says to reflect his attitude about the looming likelihood of war and the real-life people being investigated.
This topic sometimes comes up when I'm doing an event. Someone from the audience will come up after it's over and tell me about someone they know who has been involved in a crime as victim or offender or an old family story about an uncle or a grandfather. This person often wants to write a book about what happened and is wondering whether to try a novel or true crime. I tell him or her that if there are gaps in the story and people still alive who were involved, I personally would write a novel and change the facts. But that's because I write mysteries.
Anyone else have these chats with people about stories they'd like to tell?
Friday, January 30, 2015
The Name's the Thing
I've been thinking about names -- character names. My strategy for finding names when I first started to write was to go to the telephone book (the old days when we received a printed directory). Often, when I was feeling creative, I would compile a list of first names from several alphabets, and a list of last names from other alphabets and mix and match. Often this strategy didn't work. I would start to write and find the name didn't fit. That's why when I look back at the notebook that I kept in the early days of my writing career, I'm amazed to see how often names -- even those of my protagonist and other ensemble characters -- changed. My crime historian Lizzie Stuart was "Sarah" at one point. John Quinn, the cop in that series, was once "Nicholas". He is definitely not a "Nicholas" or a "Nick". And the former "Sarah Adams" has fared much better as "Lizabeth ('Lizzie') Stuart".
Luckily before I stuck my characters with names they would have to live with, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to think about who they were. Maybe that was why I struggled with names in the beginning -- because I hadn't figured out who my characters were or would be. Interesting how much easier the naming of the characters came with my second series. But by then -- fifteen years later -- I had learned to think first, then write. Yes, I'm a plotter, not a pantser. I need to plan, not plunge in. Or, rather, I'm a hybrid. I need to plan enough so that I have a rough road map. That now includes knowing enough about my main characters to give each a name that conjures up an image in their head. "Hannah McCabe," the police detective in my second series, is the daughter of "Angus". Once I knew her father's name, I knew much more about her and who she would be.
The Bad Seed (1956), a movie that I'm using for some academic research, provides a textbook example of how to get maximum mileage out of names. In a riveting performance, Eileen Heckart portrays the mother of a small boy who has drowned under mysterious circumstances at a school picnic. His penmanship medal -- pinned to his shirt by his mother -- is missing. Drunk and grieving, she comes to visit the mother of another student, wanting to know if the woman's daughter can tell her what happened. In a raw, painful scene, she compares her name -- "Hortense" -- to that of the other mother -- "Christine". Christine is a "gentle name," she says. "Hortense" is "fat" and awkward. She recites the limerick that her own schoolmates made up to tease her. The two characters are a study in contrast. As Hortense Daigle points out, Christine Penmark is wealthy (the daughter of a famous reporter and the wife of a colonel). Christine knows how to wear simple clothes. When Hortense buys simple clothes, they never fit right. The irony of this scene is that Christine, of the gentle name and good breeding, is about to discover that her birth mother was a serial killer and that her pig-tailed, curtseying daughter "Rhoda" has her grandmother's homicidal tendencies. Rhoda kills "LeRoy," the janitor and contemplates the murder of their landlady, "Monica Breedlove," a large, nurturing woman, whose married name once became a topic for discussion with her analyst. Monica is a Freudian.
Some of the lessons I've learned about naming characters:
1. Consider character's size, shape, and other physical characteristics
2. Consider the time period and region of the country in which character was born
3. Consider the naming traditions of the racial/ethnic/religious/cultural group into which character was born
4. Consider the name customs of the family into which the character was born
5. Consider the special circumstances that might have affected the choice of character's name
6. Consider decisions that might have been made by others after character was named
7. Consider decisions the character might have made about his/her given name
For example, do you want to give a character a name that "fits" or that will surprise others and/or make the character uncomfortable or resigned to the reaction. If you're naming a female character born in colonial New York into a Dutch family, it might be a good idea to do some research. Do you want to challenge stereotypes and assumptions your readers might have about certain names and the people who have them? Do you want to use the character's name to reveal something important about the character's history? What does the character prefer to be called and by whom?
The more I think about names, the more I realize how names choices by a writer can open up a story and invite the reader in. Names matter. Just ask "Sherlock Holmes" or "Jane Eyre".
Luckily before I stuck my characters with names they would have to live with, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to think about who they were. Maybe that was why I struggled with names in the beginning -- because I hadn't figured out who my characters were or would be. Interesting how much easier the naming of the characters came with my second series. But by then -- fifteen years later -- I had learned to think first, then write. Yes, I'm a plotter, not a pantser. I need to plan, not plunge in. Or, rather, I'm a hybrid. I need to plan enough so that I have a rough road map. That now includes knowing enough about my main characters to give each a name that conjures up an image in their head. "Hannah McCabe," the police detective in my second series, is the daughter of "Angus". Once I knew her father's name, I knew much more about her and who she would be.
The Bad Seed (1956), a movie that I'm using for some academic research, provides a textbook example of how to get maximum mileage out of names. In a riveting performance, Eileen Heckart portrays the mother of a small boy who has drowned under mysterious circumstances at a school picnic. His penmanship medal -- pinned to his shirt by his mother -- is missing. Drunk and grieving, she comes to visit the mother of another student, wanting to know if the woman's daughter can tell her what happened. In a raw, painful scene, she compares her name -- "Hortense" -- to that of the other mother -- "Christine". Christine is a "gentle name," she says. "Hortense" is "fat" and awkward. She recites the limerick that her own schoolmates made up to tease her. The two characters are a study in contrast. As Hortense Daigle points out, Christine Penmark is wealthy (the daughter of a famous reporter and the wife of a colonel). Christine knows how to wear simple clothes. When Hortense buys simple clothes, they never fit right. The irony of this scene is that Christine, of the gentle name and good breeding, is about to discover that her birth mother was a serial killer and that her pig-tailed, curtseying daughter "Rhoda" has her grandmother's homicidal tendencies. Rhoda kills "LeRoy," the janitor and contemplates the murder of their landlady, "Monica Breedlove," a large, nurturing woman, whose married name once became a topic for discussion with her analyst. Monica is a Freudian.
Some of the lessons I've learned about naming characters:
1. Consider character's size, shape, and other physical characteristics
2. Consider the time period and region of the country in which character was born
3. Consider the naming traditions of the racial/ethnic/religious/cultural group into which character was born
4. Consider the name customs of the family into which the character was born
5. Consider the special circumstances that might have affected the choice of character's name
6. Consider decisions that might have been made by others after character was named
7. Consider decisions the character might have made about his/her given name
For example, do you want to give a character a name that "fits" or that will surprise others and/or make the character uncomfortable or resigned to the reaction. If you're naming a female character born in colonial New York into a Dutch family, it might be a good idea to do some research. Do you want to challenge stereotypes and assumptions your readers might have about certain names and the people who have them? Do you want to use the character's name to reveal something important about the character's history? What does the character prefer to be called and by whom?
The more I think about names, the more I realize how names choices by a writer can open up a story and invite the reader in. Names matter. Just ask "Sherlock Holmes" or "Jane Eyre".
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