Telling Secrets

 

By Thomas Kies

I wouldn’t come back again to talk about Bouchercon except I just paid off my credit card for the expenses I incurred while at the conference.  It was amazing how fast things added up while I was in San Diego.  Or how expensive things were.  $17 for a glass of wine…yikes.

But that’s not what this column is about.

It’s about the subject matter discussed at a number of panels that weekend. Secrets.

Isn’t that what’s at the core of a mystery?  Whodunit? Why? How? 

We’re always writing about secrets. Humans are much like puppies. We’re curious animals.  We want to know the answer to secrets.  That’s what makes us read to the last page of a novel.  We want to know what happens.

We have an internal drive to uncover secrets because of that curiosity. Secrets can be exciting, exotic, and mysterious and the very process of uncovering secrets can be thrilling. 

When it comes to crime novels, uncovering secrets is motivated by a sense of justice or a desire to expose wrongdoing.  Our fascination with secrets is a fundamental part of human nature.

Sometimes, however, we want to uncover secrets for their salaciousness. In my Geneva Chase mysteries, I’ve written about sex clubs, swinging, and BDSM dungeons.  When I’ve been at book events, inevitably someone in the audience will ask, “How do you know about these things?”

I’d love to just smile at them coyly, wink, and remain silent.  Let them think what they might.  Keep it a secret.

But instead, I tell them the truth.  I used to work for newspapers and magazines and through my job, I’ve seen many things and been in some very “interesting” places. 

Speaking of the news…that business is all about uncovering secrets.  Take a look at the news if you want to see some secrets exposed and some secrets that have been hinted at but not yet told. 

Here’s a headline from a recent edition of the Washington Post.  Va. Dem. House candidate performed sex online with husband for tips.  C’mon, there’s a novel here.  We both know it.

I’m not sure this could be classified as a secret because the woman and her husband livestreamed the sex acts.  Will it have any effect on her campaign?  Well, they say any publicity is good publicity. 

Here’s a headline from a recent edition of the New York Post: SD Gov. Kristi Noem having ‘absurdly blatant and public’ affair with ‘handsy’ Trump aide Corey Lewandowski, sources say.  What makes this more fun is that Kristi Noem is married and has repeated preached the gospel of “family values” and scoffed at anything other than “traditional marriages”. Is there a novel in this one?  I’m not so sure.  Corey Lewandowski had extramarital affairs before that have made the news.   But until recently, this one with the governor had been kept a secret.   Shhhhhh.

And lastly, here’s a non-sexual headline from Fox News: NASA detects molecule on another planet that can only be produced by life. The planet, K2-18b, is about 120 light years from Earth and it’ there that the Webb Telescope detected evidence of dimethyl sulfide.

Wow…the big secret.  Is there life on other planets?

Or, the bigger secret…is there life after death?

The one I’m most concerned about…who took the last piece of chocolate out of the candy dish in the kitchen?

And my writing tip of the day is when revealing secrets, do it slowly, lovingly.  Tease the reader. 

Now where the hell did that last piece of chocolate go?

Writing and Insecurity

By Thomas Kies

I’m nearly finished writing the first draft of a new book.  It’s not part of the Geneva Chase series which I’ve loved doing.  This has a male protagonist (kind of nice not writing as a woman for a change), different location (I love Connecticut, but the cost of living is wicked high and it’s time to write a mystery using new scenery), and a different vibe.

My publisher hasn’t committed to the book, and I don’t know if they will. I hope they do.

As a matter of fact, there’s no guarantee that it will ever see the light of day.  It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve written a novel that was never published.  As a matter of fact, before I found an agent (she’s the best) for Random Road, I had written four other books.

Before Random Road, was I feeling insecure?  Hell yes.

I still am. 

As I continue to steam ahead on the new book, there are some days where I think this is the best piece of fiction I’ve ever written.  And then, later that same day, I wonder if it’s the worst piece of crap ever knocked out on a laptop.

Yeah, insecurity.  

I asked my browser if any other writers have suffered from insecurity.  This is what it said:

Yes, many famous writers have suffered from insecurity. For example, Ernest Hemingway was known for his insecurities and his tendency to compare himself to other writers. F. Scott Fitzgerald also struggled with insecurity throughout his life. Virginia Woolf was known to have suffered from depression and anxiety, which often made her feel insecure about her writing.

● "I have written a great many stories and I still don't know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances." - John Steinbeck

● "I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent." - Stephen King

● "I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within." - Gustave Flaubert

● "I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering." - Robert Frost

I’m going to get back to writing.  Luckily, at this point, unlike Frost, I know what the end looks like.  When I started, the characters were foreign to me.  The villain or villains unknown.  The story yet to unfold. 

Now the characters are like old friends.  I hope you get to spend time with them as well.

www.thomaskiesauthor.com

Younger Readers Discover Agatha Christie

 By Thomas Kies

A little a week ago, I attended Thrillerfest in New York.  It was my first in-person conference since 2019 and I loved it.  The organizers of the conference did a terrific job even though it was at a different venue than it’s been in the past.  The Sheraton Times Square is a wonderful facility, but it took me a couple of days to figure out the configuration of the conference area.  

Because of Covid, it appeared that attendance was down, and I noticed that a couple of the panels were missing some of the participants.  Toward the end of the conference, there was a panel on News and Investigations.  Three participants were missing leaving only two authors and the facilitator.  In an interesting quirk of fate, John DeKakis, formerly a CNN writer for Wolf Blitzer, and I were drafted to sit on the panel.

Yes, I had my own panel the day before.  This was just extra and something fun.

But even with the threat of an uptick in Covid, there were hundreds of attendees including authors, publishers, agents, and most importantly, readers and fans. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

In Friday’s Wall Street Journal, there was in an interesting article entitled “Young People Discover a Hot New Writer—Agatha Christie.” It talked about how a young generation has “discovered” Christie.  Indeed, scrolling through TikTok, videos labeled #AgathaChristie have clocked in at 26 million views. 

Sales of Agatha Christie books in the US have risen 39% in the first quarter from last year’s period according to book tracker NPD BookScan. 

Part of the reason may be the popularity of the 2017 movie “Murder on the Orient Express” that featured Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot.  Then there was another spike in popularity when the 2022 movie “Death on the Nile” arrived.  

Indeed, at ThrillerFest, it appeared there was an increase in interest in mysteries and thrillers from those who are under 40, both readers and writers. I have no hard evidence of that.  Only my observations in the panel rooms, the cocktail parties, and at the hotel bar.  You know…the typical mystery writer hangouts.

So, let’s go to the basics.  Why do people like mysteries and thrillers?  It’s an opportunity to sit at home, or on a train, or in a coffeeshop, safely, and experience danger, fearsome scenarios, and life and death struggles with some really nasty villains. In a world fraught with injustice, nearly all of these books have a satisfying ending.  The bad guy is brought to justice, the good guys win.  That’s life as it should be. 

It also gives us a chance to match wits with the detective.  If the mystery is well written, the clues are all there.  You simply have to recognize them and figure it all out…before the ending. 

But if it’s well done, the reader should get to the ending, slap his hand against his forehead and say, “Of course, I should have seen that coming.”

And that’s another reason why Agatha Christie is finding a renewed audience. She wrote 72 novels, 150 short stories, and 20 plays over a writing career that spanned fifty years.  She’s synonymous with writing intricate stories, incredibly clever plotting, and red herrings…leaving trails of false clues. 

In addition to meeting some great people and interesting characters at a conference like Thrillerfest, you inevitably bring home a new cache of books, many from authors you’ve never heard of.  That’s part of the thrill of Thrillerfest.  While some readers are just discovering Agatha Christie, others are discovering new mystery writers. 

Speaking of new…my newest Geneva Chase Mystery, WHISPER ROOM, will be released on August 2nd.  I hope you’ll read it and let me know what you think. 

Cozy? Me? I thought I was Hard-Boiled!

 By Thomas Kies

The ARC for WHISPER ROOM (release date, August 2) is available now for review and a few people have already commented on Goodreads.  I’m more than pleased that universally, so far, their reviews have been exceptionally positive.  I’m a bit taken aback, however, that two of them describe my book as a Cozy Mystery. 

I’m far from insulted, but I’ve never considered my books to be cozy by any stretch of the imagination. They’ve always been described as dark, twisty, and scary.  My neighbor read my third book, GRAVEYARD BAY, and when I asked him how he liked it, he told me, “The ending gave me nightmares.”

No cozy there.

The cozy mystery is a subgenre that has been described many ways, but I’ll try to distill it down as best I can.  The protagonist is usually female, an amateur sleuth, and the violence and sexual activity takes place off scene.  The setting is generally a small community where most people know each other

Interestingly, that kind of describes WHISPER ROOM. If you close your eyes and squint at it from a distance. 

Merriam-Webster defines genre as “…characterized by a particular style, form, or content.”

Primary fiction genres are: Romance, mystery, science fiction/fantasy, action/adventure, thriller/suspense, horror, historical fiction, and young adult.

Then there are subgenres. Amazon numbers them as 16,000 and calls them categories. 

Subgenres for fiction are: psychological thriller, cozy mysteries, historical mysteries, romantic suspense, spy thrillers, police procedural, private detective, legal thrillers, heist, locked room, noir, and supernatural thrillers.

Now, many of the subgenres for mysteries are obviously hybrids from the broad definition of genres listed above. 

My first book, RANDOM ROAD, was labelled a mystery but in reality, it was a romance novel with a mystery as the engine that drove the story forward. Girl gets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy, girl solves mystery, boy dies.  So, let’s add the genre of Tragedy to our list. 

How did Amazon label RANDOM ROAD? Hard-boiled mystery, amateur sleuth, women sleuths.  Nothing about romance at all.  I guess I hid it well.

I’ve taken a hiatus from teaching my Creative Writing courses at the college until this coming fall, but I think one of the exercises I’ll try is asking the students to take a book they’ve recently read, as well as a classic they may have read when they were in school and give it three classifications like Amazon might.

Like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.  Would it be a Legal Thriller, a Coming-of-Age novel, or maybe Horror (Boo Radley was pretty scary…until he wasn’t)? 

Amazon actually classifies the novel as Teen & Young Adult Classic Literature, TV/Movie & Game Tie-In Fiction, and Classic American Literature.

I’ve never even heard of TV/Movie & Game Tie-In Fiction.

So, back to WHISPER ROOM.  The blurb reads: Sex, Blackmail, and Murder…Welcome to the Whisper Room.

Doesn’t sound cozy at all to me. 

A Vampire in Cowboy Boots

My newest novel is just out, book 7 in my Felix Gomez vampire-detective series, Steampunk Banditos: Sex Slaves of Shark Island from WordFire Press. This story has been ten years in the making. When the steampunk craze started I totally dug it and couldn't wait to craft my own take on the sub-genre. My agent at the time wasn't keen on steampunk and considered it a flash in the pan. I had just signed a contract for books 4 and 5 of the series, plus I had started on a graphic novel and so I let the idea languish for a while. Years, actually. Meanwhile I saw steampunk books zooming in sales. Part of the attraction was that science fiction had temporarily lost its sense of wonder and steampunk had all kinds of dazzling spectacle. But the sub-genre never grew much beyond its tropes. There were several bestselling books but steampunk failed to attract a mainstream audience. Hopes were pinned on a breakout steampunk movie to really inspire the masses but all those attempts fizzled. The authors I knew who were identified with steampunk eventually shed their corsets and goggles and moved on. But there's still enough of a following who revel in a quirky alternative world, providing the story is good. Which I trust mine is.

So why Steampunk Banditos? When I finished book 6 in the series, Rescue From Planet Pleasure, I thought I was done with the main story arc. Plus there were world-building elements that bothered me and I was looking for a way to discard them. Then it hit me to do a mashup of sorts, to put my Felix in the steampunk world I had set aside. As I constructed the plot I referred to a map and what did I notice in the Gulf of California (formerly the Sea of Cortez), but Isla Tiburón--Shark Island. How could I not have that place in my story? Truthfully, I planned to not emphasize the steampunk aspect by titling the book simply as Sex Slaves of Shark Island, until my publisher pointed out that the title would trip spam filters and several distributors might also object. So I hung the original title back on the book. My cover designer from Planet Pleasure, Eric Matelski, offered to work on the new cover. The obvious feature would've been a woman in a cage but that seemed too exploitative. So he and I went back-and-forth and interestingly, almost simultaneously arrived on an image focused on handcuffs and chains to portray a sex slave. The sharks circling menacingly was a given.

As I wrote the manuscript I found that my plan to streamline the story elements seriously backfired. What happens is that Felix is switched with another Felix in an alternative world. He arrives midway in an on-going adventure so the challenge was to build his relationships with the other characters. A big change is that now his side-kicks are not fellow vampires but humans. Though the female lead, Hermosa Singer, lacks supernatural powers, she has such a tornado of a personality that she practically wrenched the plot out of Felix's hands. And mine too. Since I love mysteries, be prepared for plenty of hidden agendas and double-crosses. Buy your copy here.

Can fiction save the world?

As the previous posters have said, this has been quite the week. Indeed, quite the year. Brexit, Paris and Calais, Trump... Not to mention the daily tragedies of frantic refugees risking everything to reach Europe's shores. As a Canadian, I have been watching the recent drama of conflict, accusations, and counter-accusations from afar, worrying about all the anger and confusion and fear. As I listen to the bitterness and disbelief on both sides ("How could they?" from the left, and "Sore losers" from the right), I am reminded of a Beatles song: What the world needs now is love, love, love.

Or more accurately, empathy. Because there is precious little of it around right now. People are dividing themselves into us and them. They are crossing their arms, thrusting out their chins, and refusing to listen. Refusing to hear. Worse, they are lashing out, cruelly and vindictively.

How are we ever supposed to reach across the divide if we stand on either shore, hurling insults without ever venturing out onto the bridge?

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines empathy as "the ability to share someone else's feelings and experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person's situation". In the majority of people, empathy develops naturally as we grow up, but psychology had focussed a lot of research on what factors influence and strengthen its development. If you're interested, here is one quick summary of their findings.

Empathy increases as we grow older, so that most of us adults are pretty good at reading minds. You can test this concept, and your own skill, by taking this short quiz on reading the mind in the eyes. But there is always room for improvement, and I'd say from the increasingly intolerant behaviour being displayed, we all have serious work to do. Here's a short article on ways even adults can increase their empathy. Not surprisingly, really listening to others and getting to know people different from yourself top the list.

BUT... There is another way that even the most brick-headed person can develop more empathy, and that's where we writers come in. Empathy is all about walking in another person's shoes, about being able to step out of your own skin (in your imagination) and into another's. Research has shown that groups of people vary in their level of empathy and in who they feel empathy for. It's easier to empathize with people who are similar to you than with people who are extremely different (from another culture, another country, even another political viewpoint). Intriguing research is also emerging about the differences between conservatives and liberals, and between extremists and moderates of either stripe, about the difference between men and women, and between the ordinary joe and the very wealthy ... But these are all subjects for a different blog.

This blog is about writing, and one of the fascinating findings is that reading fiction increases empathy. Not only do people who read a lot of fiction score higher on empathy, but even reading a piece of fiction in a psychology lab will increase your empathic reaction in the moments afterwards! Check out a summary of findings here. Despite some faults with methodology, the studies confirm what we writers and readers of fiction intuitively know -- that walking in the shoes of the characters in the book, experiencing their struggles vicariously and trying to make sense of why they act as they do — enhances our understanding of people in the real world as well. Fiction has been called empathy's "flight simulator".

Extrapolating from this, I would guess that the greater the emphasis on character, on subtle differences and changes, and on complexities and layers of motivation, the more powerful the effect would be. That's where mystery fiction comes in. Research found that literary fiction had the greatest effect because of its focus on character, but not all crime fiction is created equal. Many (but not all) of the best-selling thriller variety pays scant attention to character, and many (again, not all) cosies intentionally downplay the pain of conflict. However, I suspect that mystery fiction that reveals complex character, conflicting motive, and blurred boundaries of good and bad will foster empathy better than shoot-'em-up, "good vs. evil" action stories.

So, crime writers, take heart! Writing books that explore the human condition and invite readers to walk in you characters' shoes and think "there but for the grace of God go I," may not make us rich and famous, but they can make a difference.

And readers, in this gift-buying season, consider giving the gift of fiction, and venture past the best-sellers to the back of the store to find those lesser-known books that tell tales of struggle and conflict and the wondrous highs and lows of being human. Tales that really transport you into the world of another. Read about people and situations different from your own. From the safety of your armchair, explore beyond your comfort zone.

Book by book, we can strengthen our understanding of each other and reach across the divides where at the moment all we see is "the other". Not "us".

Surprise!

Last week when I was in Barnes and Noble at Goodland there was a table set up with a whole display of my new non-fiction academic book, surrounded by all of my mysteries. Not only was I delighted, I was so surprised.

This boondoggle occurred with no effort on my part. It was a gift. Out of the blue. Generating publicity is such an elusive part of publishing that it's easy to forget that sometimes good things simply happen.

The full title of the Nicodemus book is Nicodemus: Post-Reconstruction Politics and Racial Justice in Western Kansas. It's about 19th century African American Politicians and their contribution to the settlement of the West. Specifically, it's about the philosophies of three men in Nicodemus, who affected local, state, and national politics.

Not much connection to my mysteries. I can come up with one. Sort of. The Lottie Albright mysteries are set in Western Kansas and all have some sort of history worked in somewhere. But still. Who would have thought that B & N would have a display linking the two genres.

Through the years I have become very open to the delights of appearances and events. Even the ones that are disastrous have comical aspects. I started to go into some of the specifics then erased the copy. Because I'm well aware of the effort involved for booksellers and organizations to put signings together and would hate for followers of this blog to think I'm making fun of their time and efforts.

I'm deeply grateful for all the breaks I've had and very conscious that writers far more talented than I have not been so lucky. I'm very much aware of how far I have to go in learning the craft and polishing what little skill I have.

There's never a time when I attend a conference that I don't go home sobered by the knowledge that the writers at the top of the bestseller lists are the most disciplined hard-working people I know. Without exception.