High Anxiety

 By Thomas Kies

When writing a thriller, I’ve been told that you need to keep ramping up the stakes, turn up the heat, and escalate the danger.  But throughout your story, you need to leave some room for your reader to take a breath and rest a moment or you run the risk of exhausting him or her to the point that they have to put your book down. 

We felt like we were at that resting point sometime over the summer.  My wife and I had gotten our vaccinations and the world seemed to be opening up again.  I was able to hold a couple of wildly successful book signings, attend some great functions, and even emcee a couple of events. 

Just seeing people again was exciting.  Back in April, I’d been asked to be the auctioneer at a school fundraiser at a local country club.  Before my part of the evening, we ate dinner and my wife asked, “What’s wrong?  Why are you so quiet?”

I glanced around the room and with a slight shrug I answered, “I’m not used to being in a room with all these people. The last time we were at any kind of event, it was over a year ago."

I managed to shake it off, ham it up, and we raised a ton of money for the school and for the kids.  On the spot, they asked me to come back in 2022.

Things were looking so rosy by October that I signed up for the Suffolk Mystery Writers Festival in March, Malice Domestic in April, and Thrillerfest in June. My wife and I booked a cruise to Alaska in May.

We were vaxxed and boosted and it seemed like the pandemic crisis had abated.

Then the omicron variant showed up.  

The stakes have ramped up, the heat is on, and the danger is escalating.  All bets are off.

It’s like those damned apocalypse movies you see on Netflix.  If everyone would just do what they need to do for self-preservation we’d all be better off.  But with every story, there must be a lunatic fringe.  

I have a reporter friend who had a trip booked for Europe in a few months and he bemoaned what was going on in the world now that omicron was the dominant strain.

I just said, “Plot twist.”

He asked me, “Would people believe all this if you had written it into one of your novels?”

Probably not.

This blog is blessedly brief because I’m writing in on Christmas Day and I really should be downstairs in the kitchen putting together coq au vin for dinner for tonight.

I’m wishing you a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with the hopes that our plot twists be few and trivial.

Plot Twists and Being Lucky

By Thomas Kies

One of the topics I teach in my creative writing class at the college is how to write effective plot twists. In many cases it’s a lot like a magic trick. While the audience is paying attention to what the left hand is doing, the right hand is the one making the trick happen.

Covid is like the plot twist that just keeps on giving. 

My book SHADOW HILL launched last August. I’d finished writing the book in April of 2020, but the publication date was pushed back for obvious reasons. Trying to promote a book in the throes of so many people dying in a pandemic was a bad idea.

Once it had been announced that a vaccination had been developed at the beginning of 2021, it gave me hope that I could promote SHADOW HILL as it should. I hoped to be at the usual locations including the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale where I’ve launched every book so far in my writing career.  

About the same time that vaccinations were rolling out, Barnes & Noble made a sizeable commitment to the rerelease of my first book RANDOM ROAD. It was going to be on the front table of every one of their stores. I had visions of going from one B&N to another to do book signings. 

I’d signed up for Bouchercon that was going to take place in New Orleans just in time for the release of SHADOW HILL.

It was all falling into place.

Then…POW…the Delta variant stepped in. Add to that, a confusing and confounding reluctance of a sizable portion of the public to getting a vaccination that's left a high percentage of the population to being ravaged by the disease. 

Just as the world was emerging back into a relative sense of normalcy, it all went wrong. A local restaurant I was due to have a book signing closed when one of their employees was diagnosed with Covid.

We did manage to have a book event at that restaurant two weeks later when everyone tested negative and then we did another book event at a local country club. We sold out of books in both events.  

In the meantime, Bouchercon was cancelled because of Covid fears. Just as well since Hurricane Ida hit the same weekend the conference was supposed to take place. The old double whammy.

Ever optimistic, my fifth book, WHISPER ROOM, is due for publication in August of 2022. I’m scheduled to be at Malice Domestic in April and Thrillerfest in June. That same week, I’m hoping to do a book signing at a library in Norwalk, Connecticut. I’m looking forward to having a book signing at my favorited restaurant here on the coast in August.

The latest plot twist? Omicron, the latest variant of Covid. No telling how bad that’s going to be.

I’m not complaining. I’m really not. So many people have it so much worse.  

Steven Sondheim passed away on Friday and days before he died, he reflected, “I’ve been lucky.”

So have I. My childhood dream was to be a novelist. And I am. I’ve been lucky.

Back when I was working for a newspaper in Connecticut, I had an assignment in Manhattan. A colleague of mine was with me on the Metro-North train into the city. The entire one-hour trip, she whined and complained about pretty much everything under the sun.

When we finally got to Grand Central Terminal, we went straight to the iconic clock in the Main Concourse where we were to meet our contact. We got there early and as we were chatting and people watching, a woman came up to us and asked if we would take a picture of her and her daughter. She said, “This is the first time we’ve been to New York.”

It was difficult to tell how old her daughter was because she was in a wheelchair and her poor little body seemed to be bent at strange angles. It made me want to cry.

In spite of it, they both had huge smiles on their faces. 

The little girl had the biggest grin of the two of them. After we took the photo, the mother thanked us and told us how excited they were to be in the city and how much her daughter had been looking forward to it. 

After they left, my colleague looked at me said, “If I ever bitch about anything again, just slap me.”

So, yes, Covid is sending us another plot twist. But like Steven Sondheim, I’ve been lucky.  www.thomaskiesauthor.com

Conference Envy

My fellow Type M'er, Thomas Kies, posted a report on Thrillerfest, a writer's conference held in New York this month and I confess I was seized by more than a touch of envy. I always learn something and meet new people at any conference and this one was full of terrific panels and workshops.

Thrillerfest sounds especially exciting. The line-up of speakers was spectacular. It was like a gathering of all the rich and famous in the mystery field. Conferences are also a chance to meet the not so rich and famous. I can honestly say some of my best friends are writers that I met at conferences.

Above is a photo from this year's Western Writers of America convention. It was taken at the Five Star party. In the middle is our brilliant editor, Tiffany Schofield, who is one of the most friendly persons in publishing. Her frontier series featuring historical novels about the American West has been a great hit both with librarians and readers.

I'm on the left. Having just discovered a western hat that fits I longer have to worry about my hair. What a relief. On the right is Irene Bennett Brown. I look forward to seeing her and her husband, Bob, every year. Irene and I have known each other forever. She and Bob started attending in 1978. Her book, Miss Royal's Mules, is a finalist for a Will Rogers Medallion Award. Her new book, Tangled Times will be published Summer, 2020.

Old friendships can be dangerous at conventions because of the temptation to spend all my time with people I already know and like.

I would love to go to Thrillerfest next year. I have a number of friends who attend. Plus this year a number of person's from Sourcebook were there. Sourcebook acquired Poisoned Pen last year and the conference would have been a great opportunity to meet representatives from our new publisher.

I don't like posting on the day mine is due. I like to schedule it at 12:01 am so our early morning readers will have fresh content. This has been a very harried summer full of disruptions. Most of them were good. But still, my writing has been interrupted a lot. Then everything else lags too.

Better performance next time!

Thrillerfest XIV

I’d never been to Thrillerfest in New York.  I’d heard it was pricy…and it is.  Of course it is, it's New York.  But it's also the most exciting city in the world. 

I’ve been to writers’ conferences that I felt were worth my while and I’ve attended some that I went home wondering if I could have done something differently to get more out of it.

I bit the bullet and registered for Thrillerfest XIV months ago.  Since then, Sourcebooks acquired my wonderful publisher, Poisoned Pen Press. As fortune would have it the first night I arrived, they hosted a cocktail party in New York for their authors (both new and old) as well as inviting members of the media.

 

Hours before the party, I flew into LaGuardia on Thursday, July 11, took a suicide taxi ride to the Grand Hyatt Hotel, unpacked and ironed some clothes.  I can never pack without getting my shirts and slacks as wrinkled as the skin of a mature rhinoceros.

Then I went to the Ballroom in the hotel for the Opening Reception and was pleasantly greeted by some outstanding food and drink.  The company was damned good as well.  I ran into Dennis Palumbo, Reavis Wortham, Jenny Milchman, and Joe Clifford as well as meeting many other writers I didn’t know.

At seven, Dennis Palumbo (a remarkable writer) and I walked through the rain to the MetLife Building where Sourcebooks/Poisoned Pen Press was hosting the cocktail event (also awesome food and drink).  It was there that Barbara Peters, Editor in Chief and Founder of Poisoned Pen Press, introduced all the authors in attendance.  As always, she was effusive in her praise. This gave the PPP authors a chance to interact with individuals from Sourcebooks, who are really knowledgeable and nice.

What really set this event off was that it was attended by several members of the media including Bookreporter, Mystery Scene, Publishers Weekly, Strand Magazine, a freelancer working for People Magazine and two representatives from the New York Public Library.

Speaking of the library, on Friday during a break I walked  to the New York Public Library building on 42^nd Street and went in.  I was thrilled to see my book Darkness Lane on the shelf.   Cool beans.

Friday morning, I listened to a panel of mystery/thriller literary critics talk about the way they work.  I found it interesting that some of them refused to write bad reviews.  If they read a book they didn’t like, they’d either not write something at all, or would be noncommittal in their overview.  Two of the critics on the panel were definitive that they do, indeed, write bad reviews if they feel the work warrants it.

Ouch.

They also discussed how competitive it is to get noticed in the publishing world and advised that a good publicist was vital in getting reviewed at all.

On the last day of Thrillerfest, I was on a panel discussing five year plans for writing.  None of us had one.  We all agreed that we write in the moment and if you try to follow trends, by the time you’ve finished your book, the trend is over. 

Better to write what you’re passionate about.  I told the audience that if you write a good story with compelling characters, you’ll do just fine. 

Oh, and a high point after the panel discussion?  R.G Belsky bought Random Road and asked me to sign it.  He writes from the viewpoint of a female reporter as well.

All in all, a terrific event.  If you think you’re going sell a ton of books at the event, you’re thinking about it all wrong.  It’s all about renewing and creating brand new relationships.  Relationships that will help you further your career and friendships you will keep for the rest of your life.  Writers helping writers.

Was it worth it?  Absolutely, no question.  I'm going next year!

www.thomaskiesauthor.com

Writing as Play

Reading Donis's post this morning reinforced what I was thinking about last night. Yesterday I was in New York City attending CraftFest -- one of the options offered at the International Thriller Writers (ITW) annual conference. Attendees can also register for Master CraftFest, PitchFest, and ThrillerFest. ThrillerFest (the part of the conference with panels) is underway, but I couldn't stay.

My one day at CraftFest was exactly what I needed. I attended several excellent workshops led by bestselling thriller writers. But by lunchtime I was beginning to wonder how I would ever resolve my problem with structure -- a thriller that spans eight months. Luckily, I had left the ticket I needed to get into the ballroom for lunch upstairs in my hotel room in the envelope I hadn't opened. By the time I got back downstairs I was in the awkward position of a latecomer who finds the meal has already started and most of the tables seem to be full. I spotted an empty seat and crossed the room, praying it wasn't being saved for someone. That was when I got lucky. The seat was open. The writer on my left introduced himself and we started to chat. He told me what he was working on. I told him I was working on my first thriller and engaged in serious structure wrangling. My table mate listened and made a suggestion. When I saw him later in between sessions, we continued the conversation.

He thought I might want to try something done by writers in other genres such as sci fi and fantasy. He suggested I think of my point of view narratives as individual -- but intertwining -- novellas. That idea intrigued me so much I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about it.

Then I attended my last workshop of the day. I was intrigued by the title of the workshop -- "The Structure of Revelation: An advanced workshop on the craft of reimagining your novel." The workshop instructor was Walter Mosley. He presented his thoughts on the topic as a section of a monograph he had written for the occasion. He made references to literary classics as he was discussing the thriller as a novel and the process of writing and then reimagining. But the image that I latched on to -- other people said the same during the Q and A -- was his description of how a child would approach a blank page. Instead of freezing up or being overwhelmed, a child would play. A child would let his or her imagination run riot.

That was the message that I needed at the end of the day. I went upstairs, emailed my agent to confirm our breakfast meeting on Thursday morning before I caught my train, and then sit down to play for a few minutes. Point of view had come up several times in the workshops I'd attended. I wanted to experiment with writing in the present tense. First-person, present tense for all four characters. I copied and rewrote my first few chapters. I was astonished at the results -- and having so much fun that I kept at it right through the cocktail party I'd planned to attend. It was after nine when I finally went downstairs to pick up some dinner from the hotel's market cafe. Then I went back upstairs and thought some more about structure and playing.

Over breakfast, I told my agent about my conversation with my fellow writer and where that had taken me. A book with four POV characters divided into four parts (by the seasons of the year -- from April to December). Within each section, a chapter from a POV character, each beginning on the same day. Part I, Spring 1939, begins on Easter Sunday. (Third person, past tense, but my experiment was eye-opening).

For those of you who are pantsers, starting out with this much structure probably seems serious overkill. But my agent "got it" -- and agreed that as long as the plot is rolling along, the structure will keep readers oriented and allow me to do what I want to do: (1) focus on 1939 and the events I want to explore, and (2) develop the characters and follow them over the course of those eight months.

Thank you to my lunch companion for helping me to think through my problem. Thank you to Walter Mosley for encouraging everyone at the workshop to play. Thank you, Donis, for reminding us about living life as a work of art.