My Mom's Yellow Bikini

A couple of years back I had a dream where I saw my mother in a motorboat tied to the pier of a mountain lake. She was a young woman at the time and wearing a yellow bikini. She was helping a man--a stranger and not my dad--get the boat ready. Then a phone began ringing in the shack at the land end of the pier. The phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing until my mom asked the man if he was going to answer it. "Could be important," she said. He replied, "If it's important, they'll send a letter."

As far as I know, my mother had never been in a motorboat on such a lake. Who was that man? Plus I'd never seen her in a bikini, and so I had a lot of thoughts about what the dream was telling me. I decided that the big lesson was the man's nonchalant response to the phone call and compared it to the way we react to our situation in the world. There's a general mood of unceasing anxiety, of constant urgency, that the world is in increasing chaos.

Of course, a reality check keeps things in perspective. During the George Floyd riots, when the country seemed ready to fall apart, I stumbled upon a newspaper article from July 1967 that chronicled the Detroit Riots, which were so destructive that Federal troops on the way to Vietnam were diverted to the city and battle tanks rumbled along the streets in a show of force to quell the trouble.  

Such reminders do help but there's much about our modern-day living that stokes the anxiety. Culling through my email makes me feel like the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Dealing with spam texts is like playing Whack-a-Mole at turbo speed. I compare that to what a writer's life was like before computers and the Internet. I imagine Raymond Chandler or Beryl Markham behind the typewriter, tapping the keys, thoughts not disrupted by ring tones or distracted by click-bait. On the credenza sits a basket piled with incoming mail, which can be sifted through at a leisurely pace. During the day, you might take five phone calls. The pace of life was slower, more deliberate, more contemplative. And yet, even with our laptops, we'd be lucky to be as productive or as good as those writers.

Naturally, it's easy to look back upon our predecessors and marvel at the certainty of their times because we know how everything turned out for them. World War Two is regarded with nostalgia. The good old days when total war raged across oceans and continents. On the other hand, modern technology does offer advantages. I was a lousy typist, and still am, and fortunately word-processing software helps me backspace over my mistakes. Give me Word and inkjet printers over Wite-Out and carbon copies. And I sympathize with those poor schmucks who had to reconcile spreadsheets by hand. 

Back to my point of this cloud of anxiety hanging over our society. It's gotten so bad that the demand for mental health counseling includes meeting the needs of the mental health counselors themselves. The pandemic squeezed everybody. Having so much home delivery available is wonderfully convenient but adds to a sense of isolation and that isolation erodes our sense of presence and self-worth. Social media is a cauldron of manic depression. To remain safe and sane we have to relearn what's worked throughout history: stay active, sleep, eat right, avoid self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, socialize, get outside, and cultivate a positive mental attitude.

And don't think about your mom in a yellow bikini.

Getting out of the way

“Sometimes the story knows what it’s trying to say, and your job is to let the story speak.”

I said this to a student this morning. He had two pages written and said he didn’t know where to go from there. We were “talking through” his story, meeting 1:1 for a critique, and the more I listened, the more I heard him talk about his aspirations for the story, which seemed juxtaposed with what he’d written. In the end, we talked about several passages that seemed to speak to his original concept, and he went back to the drawing board, looking for ways to flesh those original ideas out.

Or, rather, he went about the work of getting out of the way and letting the story reveal itself to him (and the reader).

This sounds much easier than it is. We all have great ideas, and the beginning of every story holds promise. Raymond Chandler once said, “There are no dull stories, only dull minds.” Stephen King described writing as akin to archeology –– the trick is to get the story out of the ground without breaking it. That’s a useful analogy, one I return to often, as a writer and a teacher.

It’s why outlining is so hard. What looks good on the outline might not work when you have to actually execute the game plan. The game changes as it’s being played. This is why my “outlines” are more like long, detailed character sketches, complete with motivations and maybe even a few lines of dialogue, things I think the character would say that helps me to define them (for myself and then the reader).

I’d love to hear more from the Type M community on the topic of getting out of the way of the story and letting it reveal itself.

Highs and Lows

This has been a week of highs and lows. I finished a manuscript I began a year ago, which capped a nice couple of months that saw me get a job that will take us away from New England for the first time in 25 years. However, Monday, I learned a dear friend and mentor passed away unexpectedly.

Highs and lows.

I started working on a new series, a new concept, four years ago. I had an idea for a character and a series set in a locale I know well, a New England boarding school, a setting rife with power, privilege, and money, all elements that make for interesting crime novels. So, four years ago, I went about writing and produced a convoluted plot that my agent struggled with.

Now I’m a believer in the Raymond Chandler adage “There are no dull stories, only dull minds,” so I believed in the plot and figured my dull mind just didn’t execute it well. I went back to work, re-envisioning the entire storyline and changing the point of view, producing a manuscript that is 20,000 words lighter. The manuscript will be in my agent’s hands within a month. A highpoint in a stretch that has left me feeling blessed. In late November I accepted a job at Detroit Country Day School, an opportunity my family is excited for. After living at a boarding school for 15 years, we will buy a house and embark on civilian life.

Then two weeks ago, Hugh Silbaugh, my friend, the man who hired me and mentored me, a guy my mother said was “like the older brother you never had,” was diagnosed with cancer. On Monday, we learned he passed, unexpectedly. News that rocked me, my community, and teachers he mentored and students he impacted across the nation. A low.

Highs and lows. The things that make our lives and provide the inspiration for the art we try to produce.

Sometimes less is more

John Corrigan's post a few days ago about short novels resonated with me.

My crime reading tastes were honed by Ed McBain and his 87th Precinct novels.

(At this point, there will be people here in the UK rolling their eyes and murmuring here he goes again. For 'tis true, I have waxed lyrical about McBain many a time and oft. But bear with me).

Anyway, when they began they were short. I mean, unfeasibly short by today's standards. The first, COP HATER, came in at around 170 pages. The next two - THE MUGGER and THE PUSHER - at even less. 

Immortal characters were created. Scenarios etched. A city built from scratch. Believable dialogue echoed from page to ear. They didn't need to be any longer than they were.

All three were published in the same year - 1956 - and were viewed as pulp. Mere ingredients to keep the paperback pot boiling.

Of course, as the years passed and the stature of the series grew so did the pagination. 

But think about it. Three fully realised tales in the reading space that many of today's novels take to tell one.

Agatha Christie's seldom breached the 200 page mark. Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP was even less. FAREWELL MY LOVELY crept closer to the double century. The edition of THE LONG GOODBYE I have is barely 250 pages. 

And Hammett's THE MALTESE FALCON? A stonking great 189 pages. THE DAIN CURSE just under 200 pages.

These are classics, folks. These are the books that have lived on through the decades. 

Of course, I'm using my copies as reference. Different editions may be longer, even shorter. It's all down to the font used, type size, even the size of pages. I've seen a version of THE LONG GOODBYE listed at 450 pages, thus living up to its title. You must be able to see that type from the moon.

But, I hear you say, we have more depth now and that may well be true. I'm not here to cast aspersions on modern day books.

As the McBain books progressed,  crime fiction began taking more than a few pages from the blockbuster genre which in the 1950s, 60s and 70s tended to run to the doorstop size. Harold Robbins' THE CARPETBAGGERS was around 650 pages, as was Irwin Shaw's RICH MAN, POOR MAN. James Jones' FROM HERE TO ETERNITY even longer. I lost my copy years ago but if memory serves it was a bugle note below 1,000 pages.

And let's not even go the James Clavell route. Yes, NOBLE HOUSE, I'm looking at you. It's a book I felt needed a series of gym workouts before I could even consider picking it up.

But these were massive sagas. Without discussing their literary merits, which to be frank I'm not interested in (I just want to be entertained when reading these books), they were busy books with lots of characters, lots going on and when I read them I wasn't aware of any padding. Perhaps there was. Perhaps I've become more critical in my old age.

So what's my point? 

Well, I think a book - any book - should be as long as it needs to be. It is true that - in my opinion - there are reads today which go on a bit longer than they need to. That also goes for movies and TV series, which can be also be guilty of having plot lines that deserve a certain running time but end up with considerably more. 

McBain, Christie et al felt no need to extend their books for, in truth, back then they didn't need to. Styles, tastes, needs change however and much of the reading public want - no, demand - heftier reads. In crime fiction's case, more bang for their buck. At least in physical copies. Direct to digital can be different.

I drew just as much enjoyment from my 150 page McBains as I do from today's 400-500 modern crime thrillers. Sometimes more. I didn't feel cheated. I didn't take to social media to complain (not that I could back then. It was a simpler, even happier time).

And, in the spirit of the subject, there I will leave it. 

Sentences: The Intersection Between Reading and Writing

This summer, I read a handful of books I enjoyed, books that landed in various ways for me. When I read, I’m highly aware of authors’ prose choices and styles. Maybe that’s because I’m a writer; maybe it’s because I’m an English nerd. (I’m sure there’s an intersection there somewhere.) Regardless, my summer reading has me thinking about sentence-level writing.

I began The Radetzky March a month ago. The book has been a slow crawl for me, not because author Joseph Roth isn’t holding my attention. On the contrary. I find myself entranced by his language choices, reading and rereading sentences. Pitching the 1932 book to a friend the other day, I explained that one chapter “begins with a long description of a steak dinner.” My friend rolled his eyes. I know, I know. “But the language will keep you turning pages,” I said. This brings me back to Raymond Chandler’s wonderful statement: “There are no dull books, only dull minds.” In other words: What constitutes compelling fiction? Anything, if the writer can convey the message in an engaging manner.

So how does that happen? As writers, we need to carefully consider the question: How do we engage readers? Because if you’re publishing your work, you’re no longer writing only for yourself. Beyond creating characters readers relate to and want to spend time with, beyond a storyline readers find suspenseful enough to keep turning pages, how can we engage them?

As a reader, I love books that offer language that woos me. However, when I write, I write not as a reader, but as a writer. Again, there’s an intersection there, I’m sure, but I know my strengths lie in character and dialogue. I’m not a prose stylist of Michael Chabon’s ilk. I read The Yiddish Policemen’s Union four times the past two years and continue to laugh aloud at his dark humor and marvel at Chabon’s string of clauses and compound sentences.

When writing, I’m attempting to get what it is in my mind onto the page as clearly and cleanly as possible. (Stephen King, in On Writing, says writing fiction is archeology –– the goal is to get the story out of the ground intact.) When do the language and style choices occur? I’m certainly influenced by what I read, but I’m not thinking of “style” or “compound sentences” or “description.” I’m thinking of story, of character, of helping readers to visualize the scene in a way that is vivid.

I’d be interested to hear from others: How does your reading impact your writing? How aware of style and language choices are you when you write?

Take a break to add tension

This week has been a busy one. School kicks off, in a hybrid version, I published a pedagogy article, and got about 3,000 words of fiction written. I enjoyed the suspense/tension thread weaving through the Type M posts this past week as well, and will add to it here.

When my writing is going well, the experience is similar, in some ways, to Donis’s description, but less obvious to those around me. My daughter once said, “I thought you said you were writing. All I see you do is stare at the wall.” Like Donis, dialogue is being spoken, only for me it’s more like watching the movie I will later attempt to transcribe in a way that effectively gets the words from the scene in my head onto the page.

Raymond Chandler once said, (I’m paraphrasing), When things get dull, have someone walk in with a gun. I take Chandler at his word. I’ve written about this before, but I have a (tiny) outline when I begin. Often times, though, I deviate. Or, rather, the story deviates. And it’s usually for the best. For me, plot stems from character, and I try to give characters room to grow. So my outline might not remain intact.

I’m interested in the intersection of plot and tension. When I read Raymond Chandler, I marvel at the free-wheeling feel of it all. But there is a clear structure, too. A typical Chandler novel has Marlowe sitting down every hundred pages or so to think his way through the events, to date. Seated at the lunch counter, he ticks off the events and reviews questions posed by the mystery. Then another person walks in with a gun, and we’re off and running again.

I’d argue that these moments of reflection not only add clarity to the plot but by allowing readers to come up for air and process all that has occurred these breaks add to the story’s tension, allowing readers to feel the full weight of the story’s events.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be formulaic or predictable. I think of the Spenser series and Parker’s use of alternative chapters/scenes between the mystery and the homelife of Spenser and Susan. Spenser’s domestic life added levity and down time for readers and, at least for this reader, were welcomed breaks from the primary plot line.

As always, I’d love to hear what others think about all of this.

The importance of advance readers’ questions

How do we know if a story will work?

Isn’t that the central question, the one that keeps writers up at night? Will my story hold water? Will the story present a unified, play-fair plot that satisfies readers?

I know these questions keep me up at night.

Have I given readers a satisfying plot that at once challenges yet is logical in its base premise?

Edgar Allan Poe, in 1841, wrote “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the first mystery, and as the introduction, which goes on for two pages (get to the hook, man!), states, it will offer a new genre, a “chess game,” a “mental discourse.” Scholars Deane Mansfield-Kelley and Lois Marchino write that the story also provides the “Five Rules of Detective Fiction” (Longman Anthology of Detective Fiction):

1. There must be a crime, preferably murder, because it fascinates readers more than any other crime and offers multiple ways to be committed.
2. There must be a detective, someone with superior powers of inductive and deductive reasoning, who is capable of solving a crime that baffles the official police system.
3. The police must be seen as incompetent or incapable of solving such a complex crime.
4. Readers must be given all necessary clues/information to solve the crime, if the information is properly interpreted.
5. The detective must explain who the criminal is and the motive, means, and opportunity by the conclusion of the story.

And, of course, Raymond Chandler, in his list of “Ten Commandments,” reminds us that the story “must be credibly motivated, both as to the original situation and the dénouement,” “the solution must seem inevitable once revealed,” according to The Book of Literary Lists (QTD in The Thrilling Detective).

Both Poe and Chandler were concerned with plot, albeit a century apart.

I’m receiving feedback on a novel this week, all of it valuable. But the questions advance readers ask always provide essential feedback because it leads me back to plot and/or clarity. In these questions, I see how the readers experienced the book. Their questions are never yes/no, even when they are. By that, I mean the answer to the question is rarely as important for me, the writer, as my personal follow-up question is: Why did they ask that question? I evaluate the reader’s experience of the book and try to deduce what led to the question.

I am lucky to have some close friends who will read anything I write. They approach the books from different career backgrounds and varied perspectives. What they have in common is that each is a serious reader. And the questions they ask give me pause and take me back to my overarching goal: to write a story that is complex without being confusing, that leaves readers satisfied. That means plot.

And, in the end, it means asking myself why readers asked the questions they did.

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.

Christmas Lights and Second Drafts

Christmas is upon us –– the season of good cheer, good food and drink, and time spent with close friends and family. For me, it’s also a time to regroup: I’m between semesters and chipping away on the second draft of a novel.

No two writers work the same way, and finding one’s process is like discovering how to tie a tie: You can hear about how to do it, even see it done, but until you actually finish a novel, you might as well stand before the mirror and try to do it backwards. Some writers outline. (Jeffery Deaver gave a keynote address I heard saying he spends eight months writing the outline, three writing the book.) Others say writing is like driving at night –– you can see only as far as your headlights, writing and plotting as you go. Other writers fall somewhere in between.

Part of developing a writing process is knowing your strengths and weaknesses. I do well to focus on character and dialogue, aspects that have always come easily. I’m never going to plot like Dan Brown. It’s simply not in my DNA. Moreover, I believe all writers, to some degree, write what we read. I grew up on series novels –– Parker, MacDonald, Chandler, Grafton, Paretsky, Burke (both Jan and James Lee) –– and I have no real interest in writing one-and-dones, stand-alones. Character interests me. I want to learn more about their lives in the vein Michael Connelly describes in his essay “The Mystery of Mystery Writing”: “The mystery has evolved in recent decades to be as much an investigation of the investigator as an inquiry of the crime at hand. Investigators now look inward for the solutions and means of restoring order. In the content of their own character, they find the clues” (Walden Book Report, September, 1998). I like to have a large canvas when I’m creating the arc of a character, a canvas that might span several books. I enjoy following a character, see her grow and develop and take on new challenges, and I enjoy books whose ill deeds expose moral ambiguity. All of this means the human condition is front and center in my plots: people do things, then, for relatively simple reasons.

So as I near the halfway point in draft No. 2, I’m taking inventory. The characters have come to life and are, fingers crossed, consistent and believable. Ditto the setting. The plot, though, has to be reeled in, simplified. I’m always looking for a way to find a twist at the end while honoring Poe’s and Chandler’s mandates that a mystery not only play fair with readers but also conclude with all necessary clues being front and center, unlike real-world crimes where aspects of the case always go unexplained. But much like the box marked “Christmas Lights” in my garage, this storyline needs someone to untangle it, and like that box in the garage, no amount of money will get my kids to do it for me. That means cutting and adding –– eliminating some red herrings, punching up other characters’ roles.

In the end, all I really want for Christmas is to not face draft No. 3.

Happy holidays!

When Mary Met Raymond

Mary Tyler Moore died on Wednesday, and I cried. I was surprised that the death of a woman I had never met hurt so much. Maybe because although I never met her, I felt I knew her. Whether she was "Laura Petrie" -- professional dancer turned suburban housewife -- or "Mary Richards" -- making her way up the very short career ladder of her TV newsroom -- she was someone I liked. I was one of the many young women who could imagine having Mary as my downstairs neighbor and BFF.

When I heard she was dead, I ran through my memory bank of favorite episodes of  The Mary Tyler Show. I still watch them in re-run. If you've read my post, you know by now that I love television. In fact, I even managed to make TV relevant to my academic research. I study crime and popular culture. But ask any baby boomer, and many of us will be able to describe episodes of our favorite TV shows scene by scene, even quote favorite lines. We can go down the list, calling out the shows that were the visual sound-track of our childhoods and that taught us important life lessons. We're no snobs. Many of us also love the great sit-coms that came later -- but the classics helped to shape who we are.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was special to a generation of women. Aside from what we learned from her about being single and pursuing a career, Mary taught us important lessons about grown up friendships with both women and men. Those friendships were messy and touching and complicated. We learned that it's okay if your best friend occasionally makes you crazy. Remember that episode when Rhoda, who was spending night at Mary's, left the dinner dishes in the sink "to soak" and Mary got up in the middle of the night to try to wash them without waking Rhoda. Mary and Rhoda always reminded me -- still do -- that friends don't have to be carbon copies. Friends can come from different worlds. The important thing about a good friend is that she is always there no matter where you are. She's the person who listens and understands, who you laugh with and cry with, and who always has your back.

And then there was what Mary Tyler Moore and Lou Grant, her boss in the newsroom, taught me about writing. When I was thinking about my favorite episodes of the show, I remembered when the one when Lou introduced Mary to Raymond Chandler. I found it again on YouTube. The title of the episode is "Mary the Writer." Mary persuades Lou to read a piece she is working on. It's a true story, but he thinks she's trying to write fiction. He opens his desk drawer -- where he also keeps his liquor -- and pulls out a book. In his gruff, tough-guy voice, he reads her the first paragraph of Chandler's "Red Wind." When he's done, he tells her that's great writing. Mary's response (that I appreciate even more now): "He writes well about the weather."

RIP Mary. Thanks for the laughs and the life lessons. And for sending me back to try Raymond Chandler again with Lou Grant's voice in my head.

WHO NEEDS RULES?

“There are three rules for writing a novel," W. Somerset Maugham once quipped. “Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” Anyone who's set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) knows this to be true. However, that's never stopped members of the literati from offering advice in the form of "rules" to writers of crime fiction.

In 1841, with the publication of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Edgar Allan Poe launched the detective fiction genre and established what is known as "Poe's Five Rules of Detective Fiction":

1. There must be a crime, preferably murder, because it fascinates readers more than any other crime and there appears to be an unlimited number of ways in which people can die.

2. There must be a detective, someone with superior inductive and deductive reasoning, who is capable of solving the crime that baffles the official police system.

3. The police must be seen as either incompetent or as incapable of solving a certain type of complex crime.

4. The reader must be given all the information or "clues" to be able to solve the crime if the "clues" are properly interpreted.

5. The detective must explain who the criminal is and the motive, means, and opportunity by the conclusion of the story.

It's interesting to consider works of crime-fiction, past and present -- both literary and cinematic presentations -- and discover most honor Poe's list, give or take a rule or two. When we think of literary adages that have withstood the test of time, the final lines of Raymond Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder" stands out: "...down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man." You know the passage. You've read it before. You've probably even recited it to someone. I would argue, though, that, given the state of the contemporary crime-fiction novel where sleuths are more diverse and complex than ever, Poe's rules are more relevant than Chandler's musings.

Following Poe, in 1928, S.S. Van Dine offered his "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories" in the American Magazine. His advice includes, "There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better" (rule 7) and compared the genre to "a sporting event." I can't imagine what Poe would have thought of Van Dine's flippant portrayal of the genre. Several decades later, as part of the New York Times "Writers on Writing" series in 2001, Elmore Leonard wrote "Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle," his own list of ten rules that any writer is smart to follow. Where Van Dine is didactic and antiquated, Leonard is helpful and offers gems for contemplation.

However, for the contemporary writer of crime fiction (and our modern-day readers), Raymond Chandler's "Ten Commandments For the Detective Novel" remain helpful, interesting, and like all of Chandler's work, sparse enough to offer writers room to maneuver within his list and readers leeway to argue for or against the merits of any contemporary favorite.

1. It must be credibly motivated, both as to the original situation and the dénouement.
2. It must be technically sound as to the methods of murder and detection.
3. It must be realistic in character, setting and atmosphere. It must be about real people in a real world.
4. It must have a sound story value apart from the mystery element: i.e., the investigation itself must be an adventure worth reading.
5. It must have enough essential simplicity to be explained easily when the time comes.
6. It must baffle a reasonably intelligent reader.
7. The solution must seem inevitable once revealed.
8. It must not try to do everything at once. If it is a puzzle story operating in a rather cool, reasonable atmosphere, it cannot also be a violent adventure or a passionate romance.
9. It must punish the criminal in one way or another, not necessarily by operation of the law....If the detective fails to resolve the consequences of the crime, the story is an unresolved chord and leaves irritation behind it.
10. It must be honest with the reader.

Like everything Chandler wrote, this list is direct, thoughtful, and provides excellent fodder, most of it pertaining to plot and authorial credibility. Which rules still hold up? Take the last novel you read and see. I'd argue most rules will apply. It's an interesting list to view as an author. Admittedly, I have sinned against some of Chandler's commandments in my own works, but I like to think of Robert B. Parker's Spenser series, which, novel after novel, seems to uphold these "commandments" with the dedication of Mother Teresa.

In the end, what are we to make of lists and rules? Some argue rules only hold a genre back, imposing unnecessary (and/or antiquated) limitations to what the genre can achieve. Parker, after all, insisted he didn't write genre fiction and listed The Great Gatsby as the greatest crime novel. I say that where excellent literary criticism has the power to make a text more accessible for a larger reader base, our genre's lists and rules challenge us (as readers and writers) to examine works more closely while asking our best authors to at once write within these boundaries -- and to also stretch them to new limits.

*Originally appeared in The Strand, May 5, 2016

Looking to the Master for Solutions

I'm 50 pages into a novel due in August (I know, don't say it), and to make matters worse, I hit a roadblock this week.

I don't usually consider this a bad thing, but the book is going where I thought it would go. The story seems to be moving too fast. Maybe that's because I outlined before I began. I'm not sure why, but the plot is playing out quickly.

So this past weekend I backed off, stepped back, and did what I do whenever I get stuck — I read a crime novel I thought would inspire me. When things are going well, I look for new authors, new voices (I just finished Bangkok 8 by John Burdett). But Saturday I reached for Raymond Chandler's The High Window.

Why Chandler? Why now? Here's Chandler on stalled plots: "Whenever I get bored a man enters the room carrying a gun," he once said.

So I read The High Window, and then — and please don't read too much into this — I went to church Sunday morning and, when I should've been listening to the sermon, thought of a necessary plot twist. I'm sure this says more about the kind of Episcopalian I am than either the quality of the sermon or the quality of my plots (I can assure you that God did not intervene).

But maybe Raymond Chandler did.

Saturday, I read one line in The High Window, about halfway through the book, and discovered where, perhaps, the master might have gotten "bored." The perfectly-timed, logically-positioned plot twist adds a secondary storyline and a layer of depth to the novel. I was truly inspired by The High Window but didn't realize it until I went back to my own novel.

Hopefully, I learned something.

Been There, Going Where?

Frankie, here. Finally, getting a chance to sit down at the keyboard. This week has been busy, and that brings me to my topic for today's post.

Yesterday, I was a guest lecturer for a series on genre fiction being offered at a local college. The attendees were all adults who were there because they were interested in the topic. I had two hours, and I decided to focus on the evolution of crime fiction and how that overlapped with the evolution of the criminal justice system. I started with our friend Edgar -- Poe, that is -- the "father of the mystery short story". I talked about his contributions to crime fiction as a genre -- from the brilliant, but eccentric, detective and his narrator to "hide in plain sight".  I told them about "The Mystery of Marie Roget," his fictional detective's investigation of the real-life murder of Mary Rogers, "the beautiful cigar girl" using accounts found in the "penny press".

I followed the evolution of crime fiction from Poe to Doyle to the "Golden Age" writers. I used Chandler's The Simple Art of Murder to move from country houses to "mean streets." I paused to discuss the real-life Ruth Snyder-Judd Gray murder case and what James M. Cain did with that case in Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice and how that influenced film noir. I moved on to the birth of police procedurals, and then to the impact of the Civil Rights movement and women's rights movement on crime fiction in the 1960s and after. I ended with the rise of the thriller. Along the way, I talked about crime fiction and theories of crime, the FBI, and modern forensics.

I packed a lot into those two hours. After my whirlwind tour through the evolution of crime fiction, I turned to writers and the changing industry. We've talked about the challenges here on Type-M and they come up during panel discussions at any writers conference. The challenges include finding an agent, finding a publisher, keeping a publisher. With new technology, we have to decide whether to continue with our efforts to traditionally publish or consider self/independent publishing or maybe become a hybrid. We worry about creating our "writer's platform" and then how much time to devote to maintaining it and making sure that all of our parts (website, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) are all working together to ensure we reach a maximum audience. We worry about the time social media takes away from our writing. We think about how diversity and multiculturalism -- now being discussed -- affects us and the characters we create.

My audience was make up of people who read mysteries. They recognized the writers and titles I mentioned. And -- in case you're interested -- when I asked about use of social media, only 3 or 4 people out of an audience of around 50 said they use Twitter. On the other hand, I know some readers have found me on Twitter when a reviewer tweeted a link or a blogger mentioned my guest post. Something to ponder.

But, right now, I've got to run.
   

Finishing Strong

The end is in sight. My work-in-progress, Fallen Sparrow, is (fingers crossed) three-fourths completed. I've read and re-read and re-read again, making sure I haven't missed any plot threads, and even outlined the final hundred pages. Now I have to write them and hope to deliver the manuscript by June.

It's a good feeling to be close to the end. It's an even better feeling to know the ending.

Don't chuckle. I say this because you know as well as I do that the ending is the most important part of the novel. I can hook you in the first twenty pages and get you to read to the end, but if you're not satisfied by my conclusion I've wasted your time and mine. We've all finished reading books, sat back, and shook our heads at the (in the reader's opinion) wrong ending. Take The Great Gatsby. What other possible ending could that book have? The conclusion is entirely fitting, albeit sad for many of my students.

I love endings that turn and twist, offering the unexpected. I just finished Chandler's classic The Long Goodbye. The climax occurs a hundred pages before the book's ending. This novel, though, never lets you go, and the final page stuns you. (I had to reread it.) Same with The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley and SJ Rozan's Winter and Night. I'm hoping (as I always do) that readers will be left guessing until the end of my work-in-progress.

I don't usually start a book with a scene-by-scene outline, but, rather, with five to ten pages of detailed notes. Mostly, these are character sketches that serve to make sure I understand each character's motivation. Motivation, after all, is the driving force behind any plot twist. But as I near the end, I usually stop to reread the entire book. And then I outline the plot from there to the conclusion. Often this outline forces me to go back and add or delete scenes. (This time I added three.) I spent three days (4 to 6 a.m.) on this. It seemed like a long time when I was working on the outline. But, three mornings or not, it will (I hope) prove to be time well spent.

If, that is, I can keep you guessing until the final page.