Guest Blogger: Naomi Hirahara

Hi, everyone. John here. This week's guest is my dear friend, Naomi Hirahra. I have enjoyed reading (and teaching) her books, and my students have enjoyed her Skype visits to my classes. She is the Edgar Award-winning author of two mystery series set in Southern California. Her Mas Arai series, which features a Hiroshima survivor and gardener, ends with the publication of HIROSHIMA BOY in 2018. The books have been translated into Japanese, Korean and French. The first in her Officer Ellie Rush bicycle cop mystery series received the T. Jefferson Parker Mystery Award. She has also published noir short stories, middle-grade fiction and nonfiction history books. For more information, go to www.naomihirahara.com.

Beauty of the Fan Convention

By Naomi Hirahara

I got a new perspective on mystery book conventions when I was describing them to my friend Martin, a punk rock aficionado and former zine publisher. “Oh, that’s your fan base, right?” he said, commenting that an entertainer always wants to be where their fans are.

New Yorker SJ Rozan with Naomi

I honestly didn’t view the attendees of Left Coast Crime and Bouchercon in the same category as Comicon cosplayers or groupies. As you probably know, most people at our conventions skew older and are predominantly white, different from my identity, although as the years pass, my hair is graying more and more and I now definitely fall in AARP designated status.

But as I was attending Left Coast Crime Reno as one of its guests of honor (unbelievable – but that’s another post), I changed my thinking on how I would approach the experience. I would still reserve time to hang out with my writer friends, whether it would be a one-on-one walk by the river in downtown Reno or a bowling party held by my publisher. But more than any other mystery convention, I decided that I needed to hang out with fans, or readers.

Bowling for beers and laughs

Probably the best thing to break the ice was agreeing to lead a Mystery Improv session. This had never been done before and I had only taken one class last summer, but I suggested it as an activity as a break from the talking heads of panels. As time passed and I got more busy, I tried to get out of it, but programmer Chantelle Aimée Osman insisted on it, and she can be quite convincing.

Oh, well, I thought. There probably would be only a handful of people attending so it could be a small, intimate affair. I was even finding it difficult to recruit my fellow writers to participate, so my expectations were low. But about 30 minutes before the session, people started walking in and filling seats. It didn’t stop. The fans were curious and perhaps they also wanted to get away from panels, too.

Improv with Glen Erik Hamilton, left, and Tyler Dilts.

I purposely planned on doing simple games that I had done before; at least I understood how they worked. I was delighted to see volunteers from the audience – some of them writers, but many of them fans. It didn’t matter if you weren’t a published author; you got a chance to be on stage and be the center of attention.

With Angie of Petaluma, CA

The other guest of honor, William Kent Krueger, also did an improv session with me and afterwards he said, “We should do this at every convention.” I kept hearing that over and over and I do think there are plans to reprise it at next year’s Left Coast Crime (but it doesn’t have to be led by me!).

During the awards dinner (food was excellent, by the way), I hosted a table, and had a chance to talk to readers. One, Angie, I had seen before but I never really had a long conversation. I learned that she was part of a book group which had read my first mystery, SUMMER OF THE BIG BACHI. “We were hooked from then,” Angie said. A resident of Petaluma, she drives an hour to San Francisco to attend the ballet as a season subscriber. Another couple, Dwight and Kathy, were from Riverside, California, and active in the movement to preserve the Harada House, important because the property was used to challenge the alien land law in California that barred Japanese and other Asian immigrants from purchasing land. They were also close friends of literary writer Susan Straight, who won an Edgar for her short story in LOS ANGELES NOIR and a wonderful supporter of my Mas Arai series.

Full improv mode with Guest of Honor William Kent Krueger

There were many other conversations, an elderly woman who remembered her Japanese American friend disappearing from elementary school during World War ii and no one explaining to her what had happened. Tears came to her eyes and even though she must have been in her eighties, I felt her childhood pain and confusion. I began to realize that as I sometimes feel stereotyped in these settings, I was also stereotyping the attendees. Each has an interesting story to tell, a reason why she or he loves mysteries and fan conventions.

On the last day of the convention, I had an interesting conversation with a long-time convention organizer. We both are very much aware of the aging of the attendees and planners – would there be these types of gatherings, produced by volunteers, in ten years? My friend was unsure. But then younger enthusiasts like Chantelle, author Jay Stringer and Erin Mitchell came to mind. Maybe there’s a future for these fan conventions. I certainly hope so. In the meantime, I plan to take another class in improv this spring. You never know when it will come in handy.

Dwight and Kathy from Riverside

Naomi Hirahara’s final Mas Arai mystery, HIROSHIMA BOY, was published this spring.

Faraway? Nearby? Places

When I started the Lottie Albright series I fully intended to use fictitious names for places. Because we Kansans are a bit touchy and quick to see an insult where none is intended.

In fact, there's an old joke that someone asked where a man was from. He joked, "Kansas. Now laugh damn you."

Fully half of the counties in Kansas had vicious county seat fights during the organizational stage of development. Of course I couldn't use a real county name. That would just be asking for trouble. So my series is set in Carlton County Kansas. Smart choice. No county in Kansas was ever named Carlton. Some county names disappeared when districts merged.

The town in the series is Gateway City. I don't believe there was ever a Gateway City in Kansas. I was charmed by the headline in a newspaper in Sherman County that declared Goodland was the Gateway to everything important in the West. Sojourners were especially encouraged to stop in Goodland on their way to Denver.

I steered away from existing city names because of the ancient animosity between some of the towns. For instance, in the early 1900s, Goodland hired a rainmaker. But lo and behold, it rained on Colby. Goodland sued it's neighbor for stealing its rain.

Then I messed up. I thoughtlessly said the Fiene family's housekeeper came from Studley, Kansas. I needed that town because it was settled by Englishmen in the 1800s and I wanted Zola Hodson to have been trained in estate management by an English grandfather.

Studley was a lively community. Many of the men were "remittance men." This term was given to English second or third sons who would never inherit under the laws of primogeniture. Only the first sons were blessed with the land and property. Remittance men were paid an allowance and politely urged to get lost. The population of Studley did its best to recreate jolly old England. They rode to the hounds--substituting jack rabbits--and partook of high tea.

Other names crept into other various books. My last mystery, Fractured Families, begins in the strangest place in all Kansas--the Garden of Eden. It is a marvel of grass roots art. The joined sculptures surround a block and endorse a passionate populist political philosophy. No place in the United States can be substituted for the Garden of Eden.

My next book, Silent Sacrifices, contains a lot of information about the Kansas Salt Mines. As with the Garden of Eden, there simply can't be another name used for this powerful geological marvel. Plus, it's creepy. The ideal place for "strange things afoot."

I started out with pure intentions and kept places fictional, but in this state, facts are always stranger than fiction.

LCC Reno Recap

I recently returned from Left Coast Crime held at the Nugget casino in Reno. Had a great time, but did worry for a bit about the drive from my home in Southern California to Reno. This year has seen slightly unusual weather in the area, which meant the possibility of the need for chains or temporary closures in various spots along US 395. We bought the chains and crossed our fingers. Turns out we picked the perfect days to drive both ways. We managed to avoid putting on chains and saw little rain along the way. It’s a really beautiful drive if you get the chance.

Driving, driving, driving

Along the way we listened to my first book, Fatal Brushstroke, on audio, half of it on the way up and half on the way down. Quite fun, though a little unnerving for me. Don’t know why that is.

Guests of Honor at LCC were William Kent Krueger, who I had the pleasure of hearing speak at last year’s California Crime Writers Conference, and Naomi Hirahara. Both are great writers and people, but I was particularly happy to see Naomi being honored. I’ve known her for a while and consider her a friend. She’s given me some great advice over the years and even talked me off a ledge a time or two.

It was great to catch up with friends at LCC, including other Henery Press authors who I rarely see in person. We stay connected online, but it’s still nice to actually see their faces. That’s my favorite park of mystery conventions, catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. Met many new people at this one and got some great recommendations for authors to read.

As always, there were a lot of good panels to attend on all sorts of subjects.

The All the Way to Reno: LCC Regional Settings Panel. Katherine Bolger Hyde, Kellye Garrett, Mary Feliz, Glen Erik Hamilton, Nancy G. West

Some of them were more raucous than others. Many of the panels I wanted to attend were at the same time so that made for some tough decisions. The panel I was on, Wooden Hearts: Craft Mysteries, was fun. Gay Coburn Gale performed the moderator duties. She had a lot of great questions for us. Besides me, on the panel were Peggy Ehrhart, Cheryl Hollon and Camille Minichino.

At the awards banquet, I felt honored to be at the table hosted by Vickie Fee and Cynthia Kuhn. At the table were many interesting people including Lefty Award nominees Cynthia Kuhn (for Best Humorous Mystery) and Kathleen Valenti (for Best Debut Mystery). Both are fellow Henery Press authors and lovely people.

Cynthia Kuhn, Kathleen Valenti and Me

Lots of good books nominated for the Lefty Awards. For a complete list of Lefty Award nominees and winners from this and previous conventions go here. I did get to spend some time outside the hotel. It even snowed on us a tiny bit as we walked along the river walk. Alas, I did not win anything at the slots.

Left Coast Crime is in Vancouver, BC, next year and San Diego, CA the year after.

The emancipation of book publishing

by Rick Blechta

As I’ve written about before on Type M, we’re living in the brave new world of book publishing. In some ways it’s a good thing. Anyone who wishes to can actually publish that book they’ve always wanted to write. But there’s another huge problem: should they?

Prior to the arrival of the internet and computers, publishing a book was a very complicated and expensive proposition, something not to be undertaken on a whim. For those who either couldn’t find a publisher for their book, or just wish to go their own way, it could be done, but there was a hell of a lot to learn. The costs were also pretty steep.

I’ve mentioned before that I self-published my first two books. Part of this was impatience because the wheels of the book publishing industry grind ever so slowly, but equal to that was what I felt was a smart business model: get my feet wet, garner some reviews (trusting they would be favourable) and figure out how the book business works from the inside out.

Only problem was, each of those first two novels (1000- and 1500-book print runs) cost me north of $10,000. It could have been a lot higher, but having grown up in our family printing business, I could do most of the design work on my own. All I had to fork over cash for was the printing of the books, and covering after-printing costs (delivery, storage, fulfillment, promotion).

That’s a lot of dough, though, isn’t it? The goal was always to use this endeavour to secure a publishing deal with a “real book publisher.” Happily, it all came together for my third novel — and incidentally, I was later told that if I’d submitted my second novel, they would have published that too. My first novel remains my much-loved but ugly child.

Now, though, it doesn’t cost much at all to get a book out, the price of a modest vacation, halved and you have the choice of publishing a real book (via print-on-demand) or an e-book, costing way less. With these production costs, even modest sales can generate a profit. What could be better?

Well, this: a lot of self-published books are truly awful. I’m talking here about workmanship. Writing is not just about throwing words onto a page. It’s about careful craftsmanship, patience and hard work, and that takes knowledge of the craft as the willingness to have your work edited — including the criticism that comes with that. You must be prepared for that. Do you wish to be good — or right?

Sure, if you want to publish a book of family history and have a few copies done up for relatives and friends, great. Go for it. (I’ve done two family recipe books and photo books for my two grand children.) But if you’re expecting to become an overnight sensation, think again. The chances of that happening are probably equal to winning the big lottery. All of the authors here on Type M have learned their writing craft through hard work and long hours, and none of us are household names (except in our own households). We don’t have million dollar bestsellers, Hollywood producing movies based on our works. Self-publishers, if it happens to you, be it known that I will be thrilled for your good fortune.

But the other big issue the wild west nature of current book publishing has created is a major muddying of the marketplace. With huge numbers of books being released due to the explosion of self-publishing, how do readers know what to buy? What is quality and what is utter shite? That is a real problem not only for those self-publishing, but also for those who are being traditionally published. It’s nearly impossible to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Am I against self-publishing? Absolutely not! I think it’s a great thing. Writers have been emancipated and you can hold your authorial destiny in your own two hands.

But please do your homework! Purchase the help of an experienced editor and listen to what they say. Don’t be satisfied until your craftsmanship is the very best you can achieve.

The rest of us will thank you!

Not There Research . . . and a Question

I've been following the discussion about research and setting, and it reminded me once again of the dilemma I've created for myself. I use real places, but because of my slowly-developing series arcs and my reluctance to write in a "present" that can change in a moment, I can't physically be in the places I write about at the time of the story.

When I write about Gallagher, Virginia, my fictional stand-in for my hometown, Danville, Virginia, I can go home to Danville and walk through history. As in this photo of the courthouse. The statue is of Mayor Harry Wooding, who was a young officer in the Civil War and served as mayor for over 40 years.

But then there's the matter of  Danville/Gallagher in 2004. I have no memories of the city or the state during that era because I lived in Albany, New York. I made occasional visits home, but I don't have the same sensory memories that I have of the years when I lived in Virginia. When I write a Lizzie Stuart book, I need to rely on newspaper accounts of the city to provide the chronicle of changes and fill in the empty spaces based on what I know and remember.

The books set in Albany in the near-future are a different matter. I can see what exists now, and I need to walk into an imagined future. I imagined what Central Avenue would look like if the traffic pattern changed. I imagined a building downtown with a vertical garden and an attached restaurant.

Now, I'm imagining what urban explorers would find inside a deserted building. Sometimes, I'm ahead of the curve. I gave Albany a convention center because it was being discussed. Now, there is one. Not my convention center because my Albany exists in a fictional, parallel universe. But it's a little creepy -- if I conjure it, will it come?

I have another unrelated question. Tomorrow, the Mavens of Mayhem (our Sisters in Crime chapter) will host our first, "annual" Murderous March afternoon event at a public library (East Greenbush). I think we know why writers attend such events even if they aren't on panels. I've been thinking about readers. What brings readers in, even when the weather outside has a hint of spring, and there are other competing events?  Thoughts?

Making A Real World

Great-grandfather's farm

After I read Vicki’s entry about location research, below, I commented that I’ve researched a lot of places using Google and imagination. But upon reflection, I have to admit that is not really true. I think that it’s incredibly helpful to experience a place before writing about it. My series is set in a place that I know down to my bones, because I was raised there. However, the place I write about and the place I was raised no longer exist, so I actually rely on memory—and use imagination to fill in the gaps.

Where I live now

But it’s true that there is no substitute for actually experiencing a place. I’ve been to Britain several times, and every time I'm reminded that we may speak a common language (kind of), but we are not the same. I get the same impression when I travel to different part of the United States. I moved  to Arizona thirty-four years ago and was quite surprised to find out that it's very different from Oklahoma. I did not recognize one native plant, tree, grass, bug, bird, or lizard. Who would have thought it? Both states are located in the American Southwest. You'd think the cultures and the landscape would be basically the same. But in my experience, keeping in mind that I am not an Arizona native and live in a giant metro area, Arizona is culturally like back door Los Angeles, but more conservative in attitude. Oklahoma, at least when I lived there and knew it best, is easily as conservative as Arizona, but the culture is like nowhere else I've ever been. Put Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, and Kansas in a blender and mix it well, and you may get an idea. I am quite politically and socially liberal, but I can't deny that I am marked by the values of the place I grew up. And it shows in the characters and themes I write about.

I was born and raised in Tulsa, a rich oil town located in the hilly bend of the Arkansas River. I came up among people in three piece suits, cowboy boots and stetsons. My father owned a construction business and raised quarter horses on the side. My mother ran his office. I rode horses every weekend. The picture at the top is my great grandfather's farm in eastern Oklahoma, where I spent a lot of time when I was a kid. I played in blackjack woods draped with wild grapevines, hot and sweaty and covered in cockleburs and chiggers. I picked up wild pecans off the ground by the bucketsful in the fall. At the time, I'd have rather stayed at home and read a book. I was not a lover of the outdoors. Now I look back on it through a golden haze of nostalgia. In fact, I write about it.

The author creates a universe with her choices and invites a reader in. If the writer is really good, the reader is enveloped in the story and moves through it without being quite aware that he’s in a made-up world. The writing is all-enveloping, but unseen.

I’ve quoted this before, but it is to the point. The very best writing reminds me of one of my favorite Zen sayings: The fish is not aware of the water it swims in.

That’s what we writers are shooting for.

A tale of two stories

Vicki's post about the importance of getting the setting correct got me thinking. I have always been a big believer in walking in the footsteps of my characters, so I could infuse the story with the real-life and often unexpected sights, smells, and sounds that they would experience. As Vicki says, not only does it add realism to the story but it helps to draw the reader into the magic. My Inspector Green novels are set in Ottawa, a city I know well after nearly fifty years here, and yet I always visit the specific locations I put in the novels to make sure I'd captured all the detail. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), this usually entailed a half-hour car ride.

Not so my Amanda Doucette books, all of which are set in different locales far from my home. Newfoundland, Quebec's Laurentians, and Georgian Bay. At least these could be reached by car, so I could throw my bags, my notepads, and my dogs into the car and set off to follow my imagination. The Newfoundland drive took three days, but it was entertaining.

But the next two in the series are planned even farther from home, necessitating a plane ride, a car rental, and a kennel for my poor pups. I can only afford to make one trip there, so I have to make the most of it. Ideally I would like to visit while I'm still at the "glimmer of an idea" stage, knowing the place itself will give me unexpected and unique fodder for my imagination and for the story I create. But if that trip gives me the idea, I won't know all the details I don't know I need until I am deep in the writing of the story. Normally that's when I would make another trip, but this time I will have to rely on books, the internet, and helpful friends and contacts. It's not the same as walking in the footsteps of the characters, but it will have to do.

Visiting the location gives you so much more than the smells, sounds, and sights of the place. It gives you the culture, the people, and the way they see the world. It gives you a glimpse of what moves them, angers, excites, and saddens them. It give you an idea what they celebrate. All this molds that "glimmer of an idea" into a story and enriches its development.

I am currently working on the third in my Rapid Reads Cedric O'Toole series for emerging, reluctant, or just plain busy readers. It's in an imaginary village, its setting left deliberately vague in the books. There is a wonderful freedom to writing about an imaginary place. I don't have to check police procedure or Tim Hortons locations. I can rearrange geography without anyone calling me out. I put farms and roads and lakes wherever I want.

Despite this, the setting is very clear in my mind, because I use the area of Eastern Ontario where my summer cottage is located. All the sights, smells, and sounds are vivid to me, as are the culture, the people, and the issues they care about. I think this is the key to inventing a place; use a real-life place (or two) as your blueprint, and the vivid detail will help to draw your readers in. And then put the churches and lakes and bars wherever you want. Just remember where you put them, for the next book.

Rewriting history

by Rick Blechta

In reading Aline’s post yesterday, she made a comment (the second in a week on Type M) about reading one’s earlier books. I’d like to take that one up. You see I have recently re-read The Lark Ascending, one of my earliest novels.

Now I’m not one of those glasses half-empty sort of chaps, but it was a pretty sobering experience. It’s not a bad book, but it certainly isn’t something of which I can be overly proud at this point in time.

The writing is okay, not horrible, but not all that memorable, either. Plot wise, I made a number of poor choices. Seen through the lens of an additional nine books, I would certainly not make some of the choices I did.

That’s the bad part.

The good part is that the characters are very acceptable and the basic premise of the story really stands up. My two protagonists were well-thought out (and turned out to be good enough to use in a additional novel, Cemetery of the Nameless). I was not embarrassed by what I did in this regard.

The really good part is that the novel was self-published so I own all the rights. Copies are very scarce since only 5000 were printed (my first sell out). Now I’m beginning to think it may be worthwhile re-releasing my “second literary child,” probably as an e-book. Thing is, though, I would definitely want to rewrite the entire book to bring it up to a standard of which I can be proud. Not many authors take up that particular task — even if they can. If they don’t own the rights, tough luck unless they can talk the publisher into it, which is doubtful.

So the question is: should I do it? I would not re-release this novel without considering fixing anything I don’t like — some of them pretty major — and that’s not normally done when book’s are occasionally rewritten. Sure, fix the wonky writing, make it stronger. Maybe remove a scene or two that don’t really add anything to the story. But to actually change the plot? Hmmm…

I don’t expect the second coming of The Lark Ascending would be greeted with record sales and a Hollywood film offer, but it is a worthy enough story to be retold and shared with more readers. I own the rights and the only investment would be my time.

So what are your thoughts, Type M readers? Should I rewrite a bit of my authorial history?

End Result

I've just reached the end of my new book. I make a distinction between 'reaching the end' and 'finishing'; for me they are two very different things.

The great thing about reaching the end is that I know the story works. I've now got past the terrifying stage where the plot gets more and more complicated and shows no sign of ever stopping and it now has a beginning, a middle and – hurrah! – an end. But there's a lot of hard work ahead.

I don't describe this as a first draft. I'm constitutionally unable to go on writing when I know that something I've already written is inconsistent with what I'm writing now; I have to go back and change it. Not doing that would feel to me like going on building a house when you knew the foundations were faulty and it could collapse at any time.

Continuity has to be maintained too. I have previous on making mistakes with that – like a car that went on fire in chapter two and was being driven around a few chapters later – and if I don't keep a time continuum mistakes get embedded and trying to spot them first of all, and then dig them out is a complicated business.

So the job I'm starting on next week isn't exactly a rewrite. I come to it with a list of editing points that have accumulated, where I know something ought to be emphasized or clarified. It's an evaluation of what's there and how it can be improved and polished and initially it's quite an appealing prospect – at least on the first run-through.

But the nearer the time gets for letting it out of my hands, the more the worry creeps back. I start seeing all its faults and get savage with it – hacking back verbiage, deriding implausibilities, slashing wordy dialogue, trying to see it with the eye of a critical stranger rather than that of a fond parent. By this stage I have convinced myself it's rubbish and can't bear to let it out of my hands.

There was a mention last week of re-reading one's earlier books. I can't, particularly at this stage. They were published, so an editor liked them and readers have enjoyed them; my poor, pathetic infant of a new book has no such imprimatur as yet. I look at it with pity and fear.

And then the time comes when I have to let it go out into the big cruel world. I read it through one final time and it's only then I find myself thinking, 'Well, perhaps it isn't so bad after all.' I press 'Send.'

That's when it's finished. It's still a long way ahead but at least I can celebrate making it to the end.

On Location

Here I am!

By Vicki Delany

Right now, I’m working on the fifth Sherlock Holmes Bookshop book, in which I’m taking Gemma, Jayne, and the gang to England for a Sherlock Holmes conference.

Sir Arthur Drank Here

At the end of November I went to London for five days to do location research for the book.  I had a great time and saw lots of interesting things to put in the book.  We stayed in South Kensington, close to where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hung out during his time as president of the College of Psychic Studies, and had a couple of drinks in a pub where he was a regular. My books are not about Sherlock Holmes, so I didn’t spend much time at Sherlockian sites, I was there more to walk the streets my characters would walk, look at houses they would visit, travel the tube where they would go, visit museums they, as tourists, would visit, and drink at pubs they would frequent. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it.

I came home with plenty of ideas and lots of pictures.

In-depth research

More In-depth research

But what about all the things I might have not known I’d want to see when I was there? Such as the inside of a Georgian row house in Kensington or a high end flat in Canary Wharf, or the exact route one would take to get from point A to Point Z with all the points in between.

For that I have the Internet. All that, and so much more, at my fingertips.

Which started me wondering how writers of old (meaning more than ten or fifteen years ago) managed. Sure they had maps and reference books at home or at the library they could refer to, but 

I’m thinking of the small details, the things that add colour and verisimilitude to a book. How much would a row house in Kensington cost? (Answer: twenty to twenty-five million pounds). What’s the view from the fifteenth floor of a flat in Canary Wharf? (Pretty nice).  Where do I transfer if I’m travelling from Harrods to the Tate Modern?

I suspect the writers of old simply didn’t put in as much description and minor fact as we do today. Sir Author Conan Doyle wrote a book set in Canada, and he’d never been here.  

After all, I could always say, this house is worth a lot, rather than specifying the amount, or say they travelled across town rather than giving the names of the stations.

Does it matter? Why am I going to all this trouble (and the expense of a trip) for details that don’t affect the plot or the characterization of my novel?

Gemma's parents live here

Because I think today it does matter. Readers are used to books full of color and background and minor details, they love the sense of ‘being there’ and if they have ‘been there’ they demand that the author get it right. They’ve come to expect it.  Get it wrong about the tube stations and I’ll hear about it, whereas Sir Arthur probably didn’t get letters pointing out the error of his ways.

All of which just makes writing a novel in the 21^st century, so much more complex, interesting and, yes, fun.

The Cat of the Baskervilles, the third Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mystery, is now available. 

The Return of Good and Evil

It's back! The concept of absolute good and evil. It came roaring in with a bang and a whistle thousands of miles per hour.

This summer I saw Wonder Woman and last week I saw Black Panther. Both movies reminded me of old westerns in that there was little doubt as to who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. Or gals, in the case of Wonder Woman. The movies had staggering box office receipts.

Both were based on the eternal struggle of good and evil.

It's high time. Frankly, I'm  just fed up all the leaders who turn out to have feet of clay. Hardly a day goes by without having someone I've admired turn out to be crook or a deviant. I welcome the return of persons with a strong moral compass, a sure sense of right and wrong. Treks to the silver screen are once again providing a glimpse of a world (or worlds) where black and white is stark and heroes are sure-footed.

I understand that what is depicted is not real. And my favorite shows will always be complicated dramas that delve into the human condition. The real world is painful and some have extremely hard lives. But still, I can't imagine being a child today and being inundated with persons with no moral code.

There was a lot to said for the old westerns. I'm referring to the really old westerns when gun play was kept to a minimum, and the villains were likely to be yodeled to death.

Recently I wrote about my dislike of fuzzy endings. I don't like fuzzy heroes either.

Deadlines and James M. Cain

It’s spring break at New England colleges and boarding schools, so I’ve had a week off. And I’ve been hard at it, trying to finish the second draft of a novel that has changed a lot from the first version.

I have a self-imposed deadline –– Saturday of this week –– but may or may not make it. I have surgery scheduled for Tuesday, so, although I’d like to have the draft done by then, I know I’ll have downtime in the coming days to weeks to finish it.

The second draft is a chance to add consistency and clarity. Those are the two most important things for me. It has meant eliminating a plot thread that I found (and still find) interesting, one that might reemerge in later books, but took too much away from the ending of this one to leave as is. It meant developing one character and cutting another in the name of clarity.

I’m reading James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice right now, for the first time, and I’m marveling at the simple sentences that create a tension coursing through the text. It’s like standing at the base of a roller coaster, looking up to see the twists and turns, but still being frightened when you actually ride it. I’ve read a Cain biography, so I know how the book will end, and I’m still on the edge of my seat.

Which brings me to this second draft. Precision is clarity.

"I said it, and I mean it. I'm not what you think I am, Frank. I want to work and be something, that's all. But you can't do it without love. Do you know that, Frank? Anyway, a woman can't. Well, I've made one mistake. And I've got to be a hell cat, just once, to fix it. But I'm not really a hell cat, Frank."

"They hang you for that."

"Not if you do it right. You're smart, Frank. I never fooled you for a minute. You'll think of a way. Plenty of them have. Don't worry. I'm not the first woman that had to turn hell cat to get out of a mess."

This passage from Postman is in chapter 3 and establishes what is to come. Yet it also establishes Cora for us. She’s ahead of her time, given the women Hemingway and others were writing in the ’30s. She’s driving the murder plot. “Do you know that, Frank? . . . You’re smart, Frank.” At once helpless and complimentary. Precision. Clarity.

If you haven’t read Cain, check him out. He just might help you with your second draft. He’s sure helping me with mine.

Kindle In Motion

Since I turned in my book I’ve been doing some reading, including checking out several books in Kindle in Motion format.

You haven’t heard of Kindle in Motion, you say? I hadn’t either until a few weeks ago. Apparently, the e-format has been around since 2016. This Kindle format adds animated book covers, animated gifs, embedded videos (this is also something you can do with the Kindle with A/V format, different from KIM), and custom page backgrounds to an e-book.

The added items can only be viewed on the Fire tablet (that’s what I read my e-books on) or on the Kindle apps on iOS and Android. If you read the book on an e-reader like the Paperwhite, only the text elements will be viewable. If you don’t want to see any of these enhanced elements, you can just turn them off.

I checked out a few titles, some fiction, some nonfiction. The animations and illustrations were very cool but, honestly, I don’t really think they added much to the story in any of the books I read. Maybe I’m just not the right demographic for it. Or maybe it would be good for children’s books. Or I haven’t read the right books.

I didn’t check out the illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (didn’t feel like shelling out the cash for it), but from this clip it looks like they really went to town on the illustrations and animation for it. You can check it out here:

Where I can see it as being useful is in history books about presidents or events that took place in a time where video clips would be available say of inauguration speeches or other such things.

Have you all read any of the few hundred books available in Kindle in Motion format? If so, what did you think of it? Did it enhance the story for you?

In other news, the audio version of the third book in my Aurora Anderson Mystery series, A Palette for Murder, is now out. Like the other two books, it’s unabridged and read by Vanessa Daniels. You can check it out here.

If you're attending Left Coast Crime in Reno, I will be there! I'm on a panel on Friday, March 23rd called Wooden Hearts: Craft Mysteries from 2:45-3:30 pm. It's moderated by Gay Gale. Other panelists are Peggy Ehrhart, Cheryl Hollon, Camille Minichino  If you see me, say hi!

Character appropriation

by Rick Blechta

I’ve been considering and then working on this post for quite a bit of time (for these things), but I’ve seen something recently that really pressed a nerve with me. I also don’t like calling people out, but while this topic has been percolating in my brain, I’ve found that I’m getting more upset about the situation rather than less. I simply cannot remain silent. So here goes…

Like the current trends in movies, publishing is constantly looking for ways to maximize their chances of cashing in to the max on every book they publish. That’s why the movie industry presents us with old TV shows packaged as movies. The idea goes that they have a built-in audience, and unless the movie is particularly awful, fans of those shows will come out to see their favourites (Brady Bunch, anyone?).

In books we see the popular creations of long-dead authors revived in pastiches. To be honest, I’ve found some of these that I’ve read to be very good. However, they come with an element of “sharp practice” to my mind. Would Rex Stout, for instance, be happy about someone using his characters and continuing his series? At its root, doing this is simply a blatant money-grab by the publisher. Find an author willing to do the work, an estate that’s willing to okay it to share in the money made, and the deal with the devil is done. Again, unless the product of this unholy alliance is particularly dreadful, the resulting books should be successful. Readers get their fix of favourite characters and the publishers et al make money. What the original author would think is probably not even a consideration.

But is it right?

I’ve heard of book publishing contracts where the publisher demands the rights to the author’s characters, in other words, they own the characters. If the creating author comes up with a bestseller and then wishes to end the series or move on to something else (or dies), then it is very easy for the publisher to continue on without skipping a beat. To me, that’s just wrong. I’m sure the publisher could justify their demand (“We put all this money into these books and we deserve some protection against the loss of our investment.”), but we’re dealing with something creative here — the creation of a particular writer, not a mass-produced widget to which you can purchase production rights. (The author in this case was told she had to agree to this particular demand or the book deal was off.)

Would we stand for a painter being hired to continue the works of Rembrandt, or a composer to write Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony? That would be the same type of thing.

At this point, I’m not calling out authors like Type M’s Vicki Delany whose Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mysteries (which are, by the way, excellent) make use of the Conan Doyle characters, but they’re used as reference material for characters of her own creation. Vicki is definitely not writing The Extended Series of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries here. Her series is simply an homage to Holmes and Watson.

What got me going on this topic was a book I saw in the catalog of a remainders warehouse from whom we occasionally purchase books or videos. I’m referring to a series created by two authors appropriating George Bernard Shaw’s characters from his play Pygmalion, to whit Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. From the copy provided for this particular book, it’s a cozy mystery involving the characters in question with solving murders at a race track, and is the second in a series.

What is bugging me about this is that a) the book’s two authors are using someone else’s characters (hopefully with permission) and b) using them in a way that the original creator certainly never intended. If I know anything about Shaw — who was a noted polemicist — he would be severely put out by this situation and would not have let it happen.

I’m sure the authors are very lovely people and the books are quite fun, but I’m sorry, I feel what they’re doing is wrong and an egregious example of character appropriation. It shouldn’t be happening. We writers should be working to create our own characters, not borrowing them from other writers and using them in ways not intended.

What do you think?

Guest Post - Aimee Hix

Please welcome Aimee Hix to Type M! I met Aimee at Malice Domestic last year where she moderated the panel I was on, Murder and Crafts. She was a great moderator and we had a great time on the panel. You can visit her online at www.aimeehix.com. Take it away, Aimee...

A Little Help From My Friends

 by Aimee Hix

In late January, my sweet-faced, gentle Karma had to be put down after a sixteen-month battle with adenocarcinoma. She was twelve years old and my soulmate. Some people may think that’s weird that a middle-aged suburban wife and mother declares a dog her soulmate but she was. She and I got each other in a way no one else did.

Karma was the kind of dog that inspired me to be the person she saw me as. Writing book two in my Willa Pennington PI series was difficult. I had an inner ear infection that wouldn’t clear up and gave me mild vertigo. I sat on my bed, sweet Karma by my side, and wrote every day after my medication had kicked in. We did this for months. January to June until I had a sinus surgery that cleared up the problem.

I did what any sentimental writer would do - I wrote her into the story. I named the dog in the book Fargo as a piece of continuity for my character’s love of Coen Brothers movies but when you read the book you’ll know Karma is the inspiration.

That’s what I do as a writer. I put pieces of the real world, my life and things I see around me into my fictional worlds. I want my stories to reflect reality in a way that makes it easy for the reader to immerse themselves in the world I’ve created. In real life, people have messy family situations; they make bad decisions; they love unwisely. Characters in stories need those too. It’s how you create conflict as a writer, certainly, but most importantly it’s how readers can relate to them. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t live an imperfect life.

In my first book, WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU, Willa Pennington’s life and decisions mirror that of the real world - her family is loving but flawed; she makes bad decisions, some are very bad; she loves unwisely; she has problems with trust; she’s grieving the death of her best friend. All things people can relate to and I know people can relate to them because I’ve done all those things. My life is much more settled than that of a twenty-seven-year-old, single former cop, apprentice PI but I remember having the whole world laid out in front of me and trying to find my way, one foot in front of the other.

I love that Willa is flawed and complicated and snarky and tough. But mostly I love her because she is loyal and good-hearted. She wants to help people and she struggles to see people in a more positive and hopeful light. I do that too. Karma taught me how to do that.

In my sweet Karma’s memory, I chose, perhaps unwisely, to adopt two puppies this past weekend. We stumbled across an adoption fair and we were faced with two sleepy, cuddled up black lab puppies who’d lived most of their short lives in kennels outside. They had been rescued from a high-kill shelter and were looking at a long trip back to NC to their foster. They had been saved so recently they hadn’t even been given names. I just couldn’t not take them home. More heart than brains is probably a good way to describe me. It’s a good way to describe Willa too.

I hope you want to meet her now. I think she’s a good person to know. After WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU she has more adventures. She grows wiser and stronger. She gets a sidekick. And as I write book number three in the series, she may get two more. Because puppies make everything better.

An inability to pass the sight requirements and a deep aversion to federal prison prevented Aimee from lying on her FBI application so she set her deficient eyes on what most Northern Virginians do for work - the non-law enforcement side of the federal government.

After twenty years as a federal contractor, she retired and turned to fictional murder. She is the author of the Willa Pennington PI series set in Fairfax County, Virginia. The first book, WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU published January 8, 2018 from Midnight Ink.

Recurring Themes

Barbara's post on Wednesday about the recurring themes in her body of work reminded me of my own endeavor. Over the past several months, I've been re-reading my books. As I've mentioned, my Lizzie Stuart books are being reissued by a publisher. We needed to withdraw the first book after it had been released as an e-book to fix some technical problems. We ended up going back to the manuscript of the book for a better copy. I read the manuscript with printed book in hand.  I've also been re-reading the two Hannah McCabe near-future police procedurals. The plot for the third book have been rattling around in my head. I picked up my pace because the Albany Public Library Foundation informed me that I was a nominee for this year's Albany Literary Legends award. Then I learned I was one of the two recipients.
http://www.albanypubliclibraryfoundation.org/about-us/literary-legends/  Since I'm receiving the honor in part because of my two novels set in Albany, I am digging into the books to remind myself of what I wrote.

Here's what I've learned from my immersion in my books and short stories:
 1.  I agree wholeheartedly with William Faulkner's oft-quoted observation ("The past is never dead. It's not even past."). Whether I'm writing the Lizzie Stuart books/short stories set in the recent past or the Hannah Stuart books set in the near future, the plots draw on the histories of places and characters.

2.  The family relationships of my characters are complex. There are absences, losses, and traumas. The dead are still present in the lives of the living. Relatives, living, dead, present, absent, and unknown have shaped the personalities of my protagonists.
3.  My protagonists have strong moral cores. They engage in internal debates and debates with others about questions of right and wrong. They have ethical lines that they will not cross. But they are not always sure that justice will be served by the punishment of someone who is technically guilty.
4. My characters debate social issues. I spent a lot of my time encouraging my students to debate those issues, so it makes sense that would carry over to my writing. 
5. That is also why literature and popular culture runs like a thread through all of my books and short stories -- from titles inspired by children's books to plots inspired by Shakespeare. I teach crime and mass media/popular. I was a double major in Psychology and English. I wouldn't know how to write fiction without a nod at a book or writer or a favorite movie (Hitchcock turns up frequently).
6. Animals. I started college as a Biology major, intending to be a vet. George, the dog in my Lizzie Stuart series, is still a young adult. Hannah McCabe adopted a Great Dane/Dalmatian/mutt in the second book. My third protagonist, Jo Radcliffe, who made her debut in "The Singapore Sling Affair" (EQMM, Nov/Dec 2017) inherited her great-aunt's Maine Coon.

Animals in my books provide companionship, act as sounding boards, and help the humans to connect with each other.
7. My books have romance. I loved romantic suspense when I was a teenager. I think there is a place in crime fiction for relationships. After four books, Lizzie Stuart and John Quinn got engaged. In the sixth book, she will meet his family. In the seventh book, they will wed. If Hannah McCabe is around as long as Lizzie, she may eventually found a mate as well. I like the possibilities for self-discovery inherent in romantic relationships. I also like couples that have little in common, but recognize in each other something that they can admire or a shared value.
8. I don't write cozies. My books have a dark edge that I hadn't really thought about until I started to re-read. Although most of the violence happens off-stage, some of it doesn't. And even the off-stage violence is discussed and the impact is shown. My protagonists and the other characters are traumatized by violence. But my dark edge is relieved by my protagonists' faith in justice (or at least the necessity to seek, if not achieve).

I've discovered that I really do write the stories that I'd like to read. That gives me more confidence about who I am as a writer and what I want to achieve.

Endings

Well, this is embarrassing. I thought I had written my Type M entry and scheduled it to post this morning, but apparently that was somebody else posting at some other venue. Since I only manage to write about one book a year, every book launch is a big circus for me and I have to be very careful not to forget where I am and what I'm supposed to be doing for whom. Therefore I apologize for my tardiness, but better late than never. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.

My official book launch party on February 24 at the Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale Arizona went off very nicely, thanks for asking. In fact, the bookstore recorded the whole thing and posted it on their Facebook site. You can check it out by going here and scrolling down to Feb. 24. To tide you over, here is a photo of the evening.

Dennis Palumbo, Priscilla Royal, Donis Casey, Barbara Peters

In more writerly news, a couple of weeks ago my Type M blogmates were discussing a thread on endings, which is a topic near to my heart. I am speaking about the end of a novel, but a few years ago I was thinking about the end of life, and in that vein I read a wonderful book called Being Mortal, Medicine and 
What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande. If you’re interested in managing your own demise, I would recommend it.

But even when planning my own induction into the choir invisible, I can’t help but think like a writer. Toward the end of Dr. Gawande’s book, he quotes a study done by Daniel Kahneman, who says something to the effect that it doesn’t matter too much how much pleasure or pain we endure, it’s the ending of the experience we remember. As an example he cites the experience of watching an exciting sports match, when your team, “having performed beautifully for nearly the entire game, blows in the end. We feel that the ending ruins the whole experience…The experiencing self had whole hours of pleasure and just a moment of displeasure, but the remembering self sees no pleasure at all.”

What does that tell you, Mr. or Ms. Writer?

We are told that we must have a gripping beginning to our novel in order to engage the prospective reader as soon as possible. Then we have to keep drawing the reader on, keep him interested as we work our way through the long middle of the story. All excellent advice.

But, by God, the ending better deliver. Because as we all know, a great beginning makes a reader want to read your current book, but a great ending makes her want to read your next book.

Reflections on gender themes

Recently a new prize called The Staunch was created for thrillers and mysteries that do not feature violence against women. It was conceived with the best of intentions by author and screenwriter Bridget Lawless, who was disgusted with the excessive use of graphic violence against women for entertainment or titillation. However, its overly broad guidelines and its choice to look away rather than to confront the very real problems that women face have produced strong reaction among serious, socially-conscious male and female crime writers alike, among them Val McDermid.

Is there an over-reliance on female rape/ murder tropes among crime writers? Is it limited to a certain kind of graphic thriller or is the theme common throughout the genre? Is it more prevalent on TV and screen than in books? Co-incidentally, and before #MeToo, #TimesUp and the launch of this prize, my daughter, actor/ playwright/ producer Dana Fradkin, conceived of and co-wrote a short film titled The Case of the Massey Bodice Ripping, which addresses this very issue, using comedy as a way to explore the tired trope of rape as a story driver and motivator. It's still in post-production, but should been on the festival circuit soon. Like many independent projects, its funding is largely through their indiegogo campaign, where more details are available.

 I rarely read or watch stories that feature "rape porn" unless they are powerfully written and have something new and important to say (I feel the same way about excessively violent fights and slaughters of men as well), so it's difficult for me to say whether there is an overabundance of them. However, the controversy around this prize got me thinking about my own views and my own work. There are all kinds of prizes for all kinds of works, and people are entitled to create any prize they want, but if the intent of the prize is to protest how violence against women is handled in creative work, I agree with the naysayers. Perhaps more than any other genre, crime writers explore and lay bare the moral wrongs, social inequities and human struggles of their society. Violence against women is a very real issue that deserves to be looked at head-on, rather than pretending that the problems faced by 50% of the population don't exist.

That said, I began to wonder about my own work. I now have sixteen novels under my belt, so I took stock. Much of our writing is determined by our subconscious preoccupations, and over time, we see the same themes surfacing in book after book by authors. I wondered what my subconscious had to say. How did I portray mothers? Fathers? What motives and themes predominated?

As it turns out, I have never used violence against women as the primary theme or story driver, although it's been a secondary theme in a couple of them, and I have not had a single rape. I've had several books that looked at childhood scars and child abuse, both physical and sexual, but since I'm a child psychologist, that's part of my my canvas. A quick and dirty head count of my books revealed that I had eight male killers, five female, and three where both a men and a woman were implicated. I had ten male victims, three female, and three where both sexes died.

Of all the themes explored in my books, from PTSD to child abuse to love gone awry, the theme of family – misunderstandings and jealousies, revenge and betrayal, old secrets, and protection of family– often lurks at the root. It appears I kill more men than women, and that men are more often the perpetrators. But women take centre stage as agents of violence as well, more often than as victims. "Evil" is rarely evil in my books, but rather a desperate, ill-advised choice at the end of a long, sometimes righteous, struggle. Perhaps it's time I used the powerful but damaged women I seem to create to shine a spotlight on gender-based violence. Who knows?

I'm curious to know whether other writers have done this kind of autopsy on their body of work (mine was admittedly superficial), and detected recurring themes that speak to the issues that fascinate them. I'd love to hear comments on this.

A little levity for a rather dreary Tuesday

by Rick Blechta

Here in Toronto, it’s one of those rather gray, grim days you can get in March with snow anemically drifting down (soon to melt), a cold wind and the temperature hovering around the freezing mark. It’s hard to get enthusiastic about anything. March can be tough to get through because of the bait and switch tendency of the weather — and this is one of those days.

I was going to post a hard-hitting diatribe — in fact it’s more than half-written — but I just don’t think it’s called for today. Next week.

But I had something really fun in reserve for a situation just like this, a gift from a friend and lord knows where she found it.

So here’s something that might bring a chuckle to any of you facing an equally grim weather day. (I’m talking about you, Aline!) Hope you enjoy it!

• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
• A question mark walks into a bar?
• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out — we don't serve your type."
• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
• A synonym strolls into a tavern.
• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar — fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

Let It Snow - But I'd Rather It Didn't

Britain has been much mocked this week by the Scandinavian countries and - yes! - Canada for the paralysis that occurred when the 'Beast from the East' swept in last week from Siberia.  'Huh!' they all sneered, 'we'd hardly put on our winter boots for a sprinkling like that!'

It's a bit of a sensitive topic, personally, since I found myself stranded in London by twenty-foot snowdrifts on the railway line between there and Edinburgh.  I was lucky in that all it meant was a bonus visit to the grandchildren in Kent and an anxious day of traveling hopefully without knowing whether I would arrive or not. (Eventually, after a ten-hour journey).

I know, I know, you have teams of snowploughs, snow blowers, gritters by the score when winter comes, all poised to rush in whenever a storm is forecast.  And yes, we have too few for a winter like this.  But thanks to our temperate climate, warmed by the Gulf Stream, those expensive teams would stand idle for years at a time.  Here in Edinburgh for the last five years we have never had a covering of snow that lasted for more than half a day. 

So if the mocking countries sudden received ten to twenty times the normal amount of snow, I think you'd have to admit that even they might struggle just a little bit!

But it did get me thinking about snow as a device within the plot of a crime novel.  The weather is always a feature in the books that I write with a rural setting and given that it's our business as writers to see to it that our characters are put in situations that are as difficult and dangerous as possible it might offer useful strands for the plot: the inability to escape from a snowbound cottage; the failure of the power systems; the evidence of sinister footprints...  Lots of possibilities there!

Maybe all that time standing on a station platform watching the departures board to see whether the  'Cancelled' would magically change to 'Edinburgh - Platform 4' wasn't wasted after all!