What is Truth?

'"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for answer.' It was Francis Bacon, the brilliant 16th-17th Century writer, philosopher, scientist and statesman – also the father of the frozen food industry, allegedly dying of a chill after trying to freeze a chicken – who wrote this in his essay 'On Truth', a meditation on its nature.

Several of us have been blogging about just that in the last few weeks, and it's a question right at the heart of what we write – truth, and its opposite, untruth.

There has recently been a vogue for the 'unreliable narrator' and indeed, as we all drag our red herrings across the trail to seduce out readers down the wrong track, we're just doing what crime writers have always done.

I was a Justice of the Peace for ten years, a lay magistrate sitting in court and dealing with minor cases, breaches of the peace, speeding fines – that sort of thing. Before I started I imagined that the hard part of the job would be working out which side in the argument was telling the truth and which side was lying.

Very shortly I realised it wasn't like that at all. Both sides were lying, all the time, and when a truthful witness appeared, their honesty would shine like a good deed in a naughty world, unmistakable. It didn't happen often. I know from my legal experience that the criminal system isn't about justice, it's merely about proof, and that's why. 

As a writer I want justice for the victims, but in a way that is lack of realism – of 'truth', if you like –  as much as the romanticising of police procedure is. But I still think it's important to do it.

One of the reasons people read crime novels is, I think, that they believe  wickedness should be punished in a way it seldom is in the cruelly unjust world we have to live in.

They're right; it should be. So perhaps, in bringing our villains to possibly unrealistic justice we are acknowledging  a fundamental truth, a literary truth.

But then, what is truth? Pilate asked a pertinent question but we don't know what the answer would have been.

Weekend Guest: Tess Gerritsen

It is with great pleasure that I re-introduce Type M readers to my good friend and mentor Tess Gerritsen.

She is the international bestselling author of the Rizzoli and Isles series, now a hit TNT series, and is likewise a former M.D. Tess took an unusual route to a writing career: she is a graduate of Stanford University and went to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. She began to write fiction while on maternity leave and published her first book in 1987. After eight romantic-suspense novels, she wrote a screenplay, Adrift, which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week.

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BE A TOURIST 

by Tess Gerritsen

When I field questions from readers, I find many of them are fixated on the writing process: “Where and what time of day do you write? Do you outline? Do you use a computer?” But frankly, I find discussions of process uninteresting. When I talk with other writers, what I always want to know is: “Where did you get the idea for that story?” When I’m asked that question, my answer is very often: “While traveling.”

It needn’t be an exotic destination; simply getting stuck in an airport or on a train often leads me to story revelations. I’m forced to sit and daydream. I’ll spot a girl in a leopard coat or a man in a cowboy hat, and suddenly I’m imagining them in a story. I find that when I’m stressed or tired, I’m especially open to inspiration. One very late night, while sitting in the back seat of a cab on the way to my hotel, I had a chilling thought: All I can see of the driver is the back of his head. Who is he, really? What if he’s an impostor? That scary thought inspired my book The Apprentice.

A few years ago, while on safari in South Africa, my husband and I had a frightening moment. Our group of tourists had stopped to watch the sunset and we were all out of the truck, standing with cocktails in hand, when a leopard walked out of the bush and headed straight toward us. Our guide immediately reacted by using his body as a shield. The leopard chose not to attack and slunk back into the bush. That guide kept us safe and alive, but I couldn’t help thinking: What if you place your faith in the wrong man? What if the most dangerous creature in the African bush walks on two legs? A moment of fear in a strange place was all it took to come up with my story Die Again, about a group of tourists who go on safari in Botswana – and vanish into the bush, never again to be seen.

My upcoming book Playing with Fire is another story that sprang from foreign travel. While in Venice, I had a bizarre nightmare. I dreamt I was playing my violin, and beside me sat a baby who was suddenly transformed by the music into a monster. I had no idea where that dream came from, but I became obsessed by the idea of music having the power to channel evil. But what nature of evil? That same day, I wandered into the old Jewish quarter, and the entire story bloomed in my head. It would never have come to me if I hadn’t been standing in that square in Venice.

Writers are supposed to have boundless imaginations, but sitting at a desk day after day can drain the creative well. We also need to be travelers and observers. We need to leave behind what’s comfortable and familiar and look around the bend. As Bilbo Baggins says, “It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door… there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Or what stories you’ll stumble into.

Helping with Publication

I've spent a large amount of time helping an elderly man publish his memoirs. He is 91 and an Episcopal priest. When he told me about his background, I urged him to get his compelling life story on paper.

He is a terrific writer and whipped out a 190-page manuscript in no time flat. The title is Apology for a Monk in the World.

Not a one of us can top this story nor the extraordinary life of this man. It's one of the most self-revealing memoirs I've ever read. The Rev. Dr. Jean Jacques D'Aoust first became a Monk in 1947 and lived in the strictly cloistered and contemplative monastery of Saint-Benoit-du-Lac in the province of Quebec, following the Rule of St. Benedict.

Then in 1963 he left both the monastic life and the Roman Catholic Church and became an Episcopal priest. During this agonizing period of religious exploration he acquired a doctorate from Yale, four masters and two bachelors degrees. He is a world renowned authority on the works of Maurice Blondel. whom the Roman Church regarded as heretical.  Although four books of Henri Dumery, Blondel's favorite disciple, were put on the "forbidden list" by the church, this controversial philosopher influenced Vatican II. In fact, D'Aoust saw all three drafts of Vatican II.

Apology for a Monk in the World is a painful, fascinating story of a man, a priest, and a brilliant scholar's struggle to reconcile the spiritual and temporal world. Married twice, Fr. D'Aoust is unsparing in his account of his triumphs and failures in the role of husband and father of two sons. The recipient of three grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities, Fr. D'Aoust has taught at a number of universities in the United States and Canada. Now at age 91, he lives at the Wexford Center in Loveland, Colorado. He has been licensed to preach in the Diocese of Colorado since 2003. Last year he became an Oblate of St. Walburga Abbey in Virginia Dale, Colorado and is back in affiliation with Order of St. Benedict.

Honestly now, don't you think that is story worth telling? I chose Amazon's CreateSpace program and was surprised at how easy it was to use. I didn't change a word of his manuscript. Nor did I want anyone else to meddle with it. D'Aoust has shown it a few other people. Predictably, his French Canadian family would like him to take back some of the criticism of the Roman Catholic Church, which he refuses to do. "It's what I believe," he says.

I was glad to give my time to this project and learned a lot in the process. It's done and available for sale in print through Amazon. We have to do a little more work to get it on-line through Kindle.

What a book and what a man. What a life!

Another way to tell the story

I'm trying something new, something that demands that I write in a manner more economical than any style in which I have written. (The previous sentence, for instance, is the longest I've written in two weeks.) Often writing fragments. Searching for a metaphor or simile that will convey 500 words or narration.

No, I'm not talking about Twitter.

I'm trying my hand at scriptwriting, working on a would-be pilot for a show featuring my US Border Patrol agent / single mom Peyton Cote. I turned in Destiny's Pawns (2016), the third title of my three-book contract. Technically, I'm between contracts (although I expect and hope to write more books in the series). I needed a breather anyway, and a good friend gave me a copy (legally) of Final Draft 9, the leading script-writing software. So I'm trying – and enjoying – a new form.

I've heard talk, through my agent, Julia Lord, of what a Peyton Cote TV series might look like. (No one asks her about film adaptations, always TV.) Previously, I'd not taken the idea seriously. (Upon first inquiry, I said to Julia, "...and the Boston Bruins are on line two…") But then I thought about my vision for a would-be TV series and how it differed from what I was hearing. So here we are: I'm trying to write a script – totally on spec – that shows my take on what a show might look like.

I was told by a Pulitzer Prize winner that there's no artistic reason for a novelist to write a script. No artistic reward whatsoever to be had. Got to say, after a couple weeks, I totally disagree. I'm having a ball reading scripts to see how it's done, writing in present tense, and developing characters using dialogue as the primary vehicle. (Anyone who's read my work, knows that's not far removed from my books anyway.) And the early feedback – from a veteran show runner who's currently developing two shows – has been positive.

So where does all of this lead? Who knows? But I'd like to have a pilot written, should someone approach my agent in the future. And any writing experience can only make me a better novelist.

Actors on Paper

Acting is a very mysterious profession to me. I truly have no idea how anyone can make an audience believe he/she is an 18th century aristocrat in one film and a 21st century parent in another. Yet I see actors who are chameleons all the time in the TV shows and movies I watch.

It wasn’t until I started writing that I realized writers are, to a certain extent, actors on paper. For every character created, a writer must figure out how that person would react under various situations: what they would do, what they would say, how they would feel. I can see how acting skills would be a big plus for any writer.

So I was particularly interested in a recent blog post on Ladies of Mystery, written by fellow SinC/LA member Sally Carpenter on using acting skills to create dramatic characters. (http://ladiesofmystery.com/2015/07/06/creating-more-dramatic-charsacters/) Sally managed to simplify something that I’m sure is quite complex enough so I could understand how I could use it in my work.

I know writers who are or were actors. I’m sure they use their hard-earned skills when creating their characters and writing their books. I can also see how it’d be a big plus when asked to read from their latest novel.

Unfortunately, I have no such skills. Sure, I participated in plays in grade school and took a drama class in junior high but, believe me, that doesn’t count. I’ve heard of other writers who’ve taken a beginning acting class to help them with their work. At least one blog I read recommended it. (https://litreactor.com/columns/want-to-be-a-better-writer-take-acting-classes)

I’ve considered it off and on but, really, I can’t see myself doing it because you see, I stutter. Not in the repetition of sounds kind of way but in the getting stuck on certain sounds at the beginning of words way. That means there can be a lot of unintended hesitations in my speech and why reading from my novel to an audience fills me with dread. (Although, being on a panel at a conference doesn’t bother me and giving a presentation on a subject I know doesn’t either. Go figure.) I have days I’m quite fluent and other days when I can’t get a single word out. I just can’t see myself actually taking an acting class.

But that doesn’t mean that I can’t get tips from blog posts and books written by people who’ve taken those classes and who also write.

Here are a couple of other posts I read recently on this subject that I found interesting:

http://booksbywomen.org/writingandacting-how-improvising-helps-my-writing-by-louise-voce/

http://suzannevanrooyen.com/2013/06/28/why-authors-need-acting-skills/

I’m curious. Who out there has applied acting skills to their writing? Any tips to be shared?

A counterintuitive way to write

With the everyday work stuff I’ve always got on my plate, it can be tough to grab time to write. Being a freelancer definitely has drawbacks since I basically have to take everything that comes in the door, or risk losing clients forever. Couple that with the fact that a lot of the work I do is time-sensitive, and it’s not a winning recipe for crafting a fine novel. And we’re not even talking about my musical endeavors here, folks.

The biggest drawback to writing is constantly having to withdraw from the creative process. When you have those excellent (and far too infrequent) days and everything is just flowing to the point that you can barely get it all down, to have to stop because revisions to a design job have just come in the door and the client only has an hour before a meeting at which the revisions are desperately needed, you just have to reluctantly put down your pen, change hats, and carry out their wishes – if you want to keep your client, that is.

So in a nutshell, life always seems to get in the way of my writing. I try to do some every morning when I get up, just to keep things moving forward and the juices flowing, but even that doesn’t always work.

The past week, though, I’ve tried changing things up a bit.

I’m trying out not writing linearly, instead jumping all over the place in my current novel-in-progress. Since I have a pretty good idea of most of the plot – except the climax and how that needs to be handled – I can just write a scene here and another one there. Most of what’s coming out seems to be the character development parts, mostly between my two protagonists as they get to know each other (and I get to know them). There’s no rhyme nor reason to what I’m doing and when I do get back to actually working on the novel as a through plot line again, I may not even use a lot of what I’ve been writing. It may no longer work, be necessary to the story or just not something readers would need to know. The point is I need to know it.

I sometimes use this approach when I find myself written into a corner. I just stop where I am and go on to some other point then begin writing there. I’ve found most of the time that while I’m working at point B, point A’s problems are percolating in the background and eventually sort themselves out.

I suppose the way I’m currently working is helping me get to know my characters (the good ‘uns and the bad ‘uns). It is also helping me try plot ideas on for size, to preflight them, as it were.

The main benefit is that the other demands on my time aren’t holding me back as much as they would be if I were working in a more normal fashion.

Needs must, I suppose.

The art of story weaving, by Peggy Blair

My guest this weekend is friend and fellow Ottawa author, Peggy Blair. Peggy is a former lawyer and author of three books in the award-winning Inspector Ramirez series. She lives in Ottawa where she works in real estate. Her latest, HUNGRY GHOSTS, has just been released by Simon & Schuster, and in this post, she talks about how that novel came together

Check out her blog at www.peggyblair.com.

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My third book in the Inspector Ramirez series, Hungry Ghosts, started with a kernel of an idea. I wanted to write about an art heist. The idea of someone breaking into a museum or gallery to steal art seemed kind of romantic and very few of those thieves are caught. An art heist in Cuba, with the difficulty getting stolen art out, would be a challenge for any thief. And I like creating characters who are smarter than I am.

So that's where I started. But I got stuck at around 25,000 words. It was an interesting work-in-progress, but I didn't have enough for a novel. I needed 80,000 to 100,000 words.

Since I wasn't making any progress on that front, I turned to writing an entirely different story involving my Aboriginal detective, Charlie Pike, who is introduced to Inspector Ramirez (and readers) in my second book, The Poisoned Pawn.

I've always thought Charlie Pike should have his own series and since the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women is one I care about greatly (I was an Aboriginal lawyer for decades), I decided to write about him investigating a few of those cases. But once again, I got stuck at about 30,000 words and couldn't figure out where to take the plot.

Then my daughter Jade came home for a visit, and somewhere in our conversation, we began talking about entomology. I loved the idea of having a forensic entomologist who could help Hector Apiro, my Cuban pathologist, determine a time of death for murder victims by using blowflies recovered at the scene. When I looked up these remarkable insects, I discovered just how beautiful these shimmering iridescent insects are: they are absolutely gorgeous! (How macabre is that!?)

A little more research about these amazing creatures and I had a whole new character: a Chinese entomologist visiting Cuba who can tell when someone died almost to the second but who is also wildly eccentric. (She loves her bugs too.)

And then I realized I could put all of this together. There was no reason why Inspector Ramirez couldn't investigate an art heist and have a cold case involving a murdered woman at the same time. After all, cops usually have more than one investigation on the go and there's always the one that got away that haunts them. (In Ramirez's case, literally.)

Meanwhile, Charlie Pike could be involved in his own investigation into missing and murdered Aboriginal women up north. The reader would know that the cases were connected, but not the characters. And sure enough, it worked! Within a few weeks, I had finished a first draft that I was happy enough with to send to my agent. And now it's actually a book: pretty amazing, really, when I think about randomly the story line developed.

Hungry Ghosts is my favourite of the Inspector Ramirez series. It's complex and layered with lots of humour, just like life in Cuba and on First Nation reserves.

The Small Things

Last night I was watching an old episode of  "Shark Tank". If you don't know the show, contestants make presentations to the "sharks" (a panel of celebrity investors), hoping to convince one of them to invest in the contestant's new product.  On the episode I caught last night -- because I'm always fascinated by the presentations -- a young man had developed a product that he offered as the solution to "bed head".  Rising to find your hair standing on end or a matted mess, you would put on a plastic cap that would saturate your hair with moisture, take it off and style as usual. As the young entrepreneur demonstrated the cap could even be used after you were fully dressed -- no mess, no fuss. As one of the sharks pointed out the product looked a lot like a shower cap. No one invested in the product, and I have to admit I wasn't impressed either.

But my reason for being unimpressed was that the young entrepreneur had lost me when he began his presentation by explaining that he showered at night and hated waking up "clean" with "bed head". For those of us who shower in the morning, the problem is either having to use a real shower cap or hair dryer or go out on a winter morning with damp hair. That brought me to the great debate -- and, yes, I have heard people come to rhetorical blows over the issue of when one should bathe or shower -- before going to bed or upon rising. Do you go to bed grimy from your day or do you put on clean clothes in the morning without washing your body. Of course, there is a third group that insists showering or bathing twice a day is the obvious solution. And a group like me that favors the morning shower but compromises with a stop at the bathroom sink before going to bed.

Yes, I am about to make a writing-related point. As I was thinking about the morning versus evening debate, it occurred to me that I was missing something when it comes to character creation. In my last post, I wrote about the challenge of creating a cast of characters for my historical thriller. As I mentioned, I've been consulting the writing books on my shelf. As a result, I'm been doing character bios and family trees and looking at dreams, fears, goals, and assorted motives. I've been asking myself questions such as, "What would  your character never do?" What I haven't asked myself -- and will now -- is how my characters do the things they do. When I'm reading a book, I love the dramatic moments. But when I'm getting to know a character, I look for and attend to the small things.

Actually, in real life, isn't it the small things that define who we are?  The way we do the things we do that the other people in our lives find irritating, bizarre, lovable, fascinating, or all of the above. Think of those 4th of July exchanges at the picnic table:
"Did you really just put mayonnaise on your hot dog? Yuck!"
"You do realize that cole slaw has mayo in it, right?"
"That doesn't count. Mustard. That's what you put on a hot dog."
"Thanks for telling me."

Think of the woman at work who uses her own silver teaspoon to stir organic honey (a jar brought from home) into her herbal tea. And across from her, the guy who is gulping strong black coffee while wolfing down a chocolate glazed something or other. He smirks at her, she gives him an icy stare.

So what occurred to me last night during the "bed head" discussion was that I need to flesh out my characters -- make them human -- by giving them preferences. Before I plunge them into the midst of my thriller, I need to follow each of my characters through an ordinary day and observe his or her choices. Some of these preferences could end up being moments of conflict in the book. Does Character X remain silent about Character Y's choice of mayo on his hot dog or feel compelled to voice an objection? Does Character Y smile, shrug, or ignore Character X's comment? How does Character X respond if he is ignored?

And that's why I'm going to make a chart displaying each character's personal habits and preferences. Somewhere in that chart will be gold.

P.S. I should add that the young entrepreneur with the "bed head" cap has since gone on to successfully market his product.

Thistledown Time

Don Koozer, age 2, Enid, Oklahoma (click to make larger)

Happy Canada Day yesterday to all my beloved Canadian friends, and happy Independence Day this weekend to my compatriots. I hope all the celebrations go off without a hitch. The world has been a sad and scary place lately, as my blogmates have noted over the past weeks. Sometimes it feels like everyone on earth has lost his mind and we wonder what awful thing could possibly happen next. Of course the world has always been a scary place, and humanity as a whole has never been particularly sane. But that fact doesn't make it feel any better when the next insane event occurs. So for the summer holidays, allow me to take you back to what seemed like a more innocent time. Though the truth is maybe we were just more innocent.

The following is a poem by Donald Koozer, who happens to be my husband. This work first appeared in his book of collected poetry entitled The Road, from Bellowing Ark Press. This particular poem is a celebration of Americana and a remembrance of an American boyhood. Enjoy the holiday, and have some watermelon and corn on the cob.

THE PLAINS

It was a thistledown time for a boy,
A time of white frame houses
With porch swings,
And bells ringing out
From steepled churches;
A strawberry and shortcake time,
A time of watermelons
Cooling in tubs of water,
Of buttered corn on the cob,
Of eggs fresh from the chicken nest
And milk bottles waiting on the porch;
Of the silence of mornings
Broken by daybreak and the rooster's crow,
Of family gathered around the dinner table,
Of short pants and stubbed toes,
Of fishing poles and bobbing corks
On quiet lakes,
Of fried okra, corn bread, and butter beans,
Of mute imposing oaks
Climbed by chattering squirrels;
Of dandelions, four leaf clovers,
Grasshoppers, and hound dogs;
Gardens of tall corn stalks,
Climbing pea plants, pumpkins,
Hollyhocks, morning glories,
Petunias, and honeysuckle.
And the plains,
Beyond, like the great soul
Of earth and sky,
Was always the plains.

The land was a sacred realm--
Grasslands reaching beyond the horizon,
Towering cottonwood trees
Lining banks of winding creeks,
Red dirt country roads
And windmills beside tanks of cool water,
Skies filled with
Ten thousand stars,
Moonlight shining off
Fields of green wheat,
The spirit possessed
Howl of coyotes,
Catfish and cooing doves,
Soaring hawks and hooting owls.
The quiet days seemed endless,
And the nights,
A bewildering star-filled mystery
That filled the heart.

In the evenings my mother
Would call me from the fields
Where I played
To the brightly lighted house.
There was always food
And family and safety
In the aura of the glowing chandelier.
But I knew that a part
Of myself was elsewhere,
Beyond the circle of light
From shaded lamps,
And the boundary of homes
With neatly mowed yards.

For a few hours I belonged
To the sphere of light and family,
To the ticking clock
And singing radio.
But later, lying alone,
Beneath the blankets
In the unlighted bedroom,
I felt the sacred darkness
In my heart and all around
For a thousand miles.

Happy Birthday, Canada!

Barbara here. Today is a day for unabashed, unapologetic sap. For today is July 1st, the day set aside to celebrate the creation of my country one hundred and forty-eight years ago. Canada Day is marked across the country by fireworks, parties, and musical extravaganzas big and small. In Ottawa, there is a day-long concert of music representing the many strands that make up the cultural mosaic of the country, crowned by a gorgeous display of fireworks against the backdrop of the spires of Parliament Hill. It is a truly fabulous spectacle. When my children were young, I made a point of bringing them to see the fireworks and share with the throngs who crammed the green lawns in front of Parliament.

When I was a child, in the long-dissipated mists of time, the day was called Dominion Day, and my parents used to bring my sister, brother, and me to a much more modest display of fireworks in our own town hall square in Town of Mount Royal, in Montreal. I recall sitting on the grass being alternately awe-struck and terrified by the noisy cannon-blasts.

Tonight, I will be sharing Canada Day in yet another venue- the concert and fireworks display put on by the village of Sharbot Lake, where I have a cottage. Instead of battling the throngs to get even a glimpse of the fireworks on Parliament Hill and contending with impossibly crowded buses afterwards as everyone tries to leave at once, I will bring my blanket and sit on the public beach overlooking the lake, and watch the fireworks being set off by local volunteers on the helicopter pad next to the medical centre. The beautiful displays will burst into colour right overhead and shower reds and blues and greens down over the lake, drawing oohs and ahs from all of us on the beach. The bay will sparkle with the red and white lights of boats that have come from all over the lake to park offshore for the best view.


It's a day to put writing and business aside and celebrate the extraordinary privilege of calling this country home. In so many parts of the world, writers live in peril, driven underground or into exile if they dare to criticize the society in which they live. I grew up in the time of the Iron Curtain, when some of Eastern Europe's best writers were either in the gulag, in hiding... or dead. This is still the case in many parts of the world. In the book I am currently writing, I have one of my characters, a journalist who has covered global conflicts, say "God, I love Canada. It feels great to be able to piss off the police and not get my head chopped off."

It's that elemental. Today I acknowledge the freedom I have to write what I want and not fear the knock on the door. Yes, there may be an internet outcry or even a tense visit from the RCMP, but we have laws and rights and due process standing between us and the guillotine. Let us cherish that, and guard it fiercely, lest by our blindness and apathy, we let it slip away.

A change of scene

Well, I’m finally in the home stretch of completing the new novella, basically in the someone-needs-to-pry-this-from-his-fingers stage. It’s been a tough slog even though the number of words used are pretty small. It’s tough when you have two other jobs that require your full-time attention, but that’s not a complaint — just a statement of reality.

Today we have to travel to the eastern end of our province for a memorial service for a very dear friend whose 75th birthday would have been today. I’m going to use the car trip to take one last, long gulp at my ms before sending it off to my editor late tomorrow. I want it on her desk first thing Wednesday morning.

I’m hoping the change of scene from my cramped studio will help me see my prose with refreshed eyes. I’ve often had great success doing my last look this way.

The drive is only 4+ hours. I’m lucky this is a novella. Otherwise, I’d probably have to force my wife to drive to California while I work!

Why?

I have been reading with huge sympathy the soul-searching posts about the massacre in the Charleston Church. This weekend in Britain we are all reeling after the dreadful carnage on the Tunisian beach, the innocent holidaymakers gunned down on their beach loungers. The newspapers are full of their heart-rending stories – the pretty hairdresser who had blogged so excitedly about the holiday she was packing for, the three generations of the same family who were wiped out.

Most dreadful of all was the plight of the families at home who are waiting with waning hope for news of relatives who haven't been in contact since the shootings but haven't been identified as victims. Because, of course, you don't carry ID in your swimwear.

A bunch of flowers left at the massacre beach had a note that read in bold letters simply, 'WHY?'

I am deeply grateful that I have done a lot of travelling because the world is shutting down around us. I sailed down the Nile and saw the temples at Karnak and stood in Tutankhamen's tomb – an unforgettable experience – but I wouldn't go there now. I saw the amazing ruins at Carthage but the cruise ships won't be keen to stop in Tunisia any more. I had wanted to visit Palmyra and the other wonderful archaeological sites in Syria, but I can't imagine that being safe again in my lifetime – or even be sure that anything will be left to see after ISIS has finished with it.  Seeing Petra – Ruskin's 'rose-red city half as old as time' – is something I've always wanted to do and was even thinking about until this year, but now Jordan too is involved with the war against ISIS I don't think I'm brave enough to do it.

How much are the white supremacists like Roof in the US and Anders Breivik in Norway inspired to do these hideous things by the daily diet we are fed in the media of the horrors inflicted by Islamic terrorists? Revenge can seem a noble motive to their warped minds, even if they're really just inadequates with a desperate desire to make the world sit up and take notice of them.

Seeing themselves as headline news, if they survive long enough to see it, is probably reward enough. A British teenager, who was arrested recently after his horrified parents found evidence that he was getting together material to make a bomb, had no cultural or political grievances, just a desire to become famous. [In parenthesis, I have to point out that if he'd had ready access to a machine gun, no one would have found out in time. Even if there is a 'right to bear arms' who could possibly need a machine gun for peaceful purposes?] I wonder, too, if the dramatic beheadings of hostages that the jihadist delight in would take place quite so often if the news agencies didn't oblige them with worldwide coverage.

The frightening thing about ISIS is that a huge number of them aren't devout Muslims anyway; they drink and smoke and use their religion as an excuse to apply restrictions that amount to bullying and oppression. There is a very unholy pleasure in imposing your will on another human being.

Of course, there is the occasional female jihadist too. But we have to face up to it: vigorous, combative young males enjoy violence. Watch a group of schoolboys interacting: sooner or later someone will jostle someone, or push someone else, and it will end in a wrestling match. It's done in a spirit of friendship, but it's definitely physical.

The healthiest outlet is contact sport; less healthily, they support a football team by attacking supporters of another football team or join a gang. We civilians tend to think that while being in the Army would be all right in peacetime, it would be dreadful when there was a war on, yet that's when recruitment of volunteers surges. So is the surge of violence and horror that is gripping the world feeding a characteristic lurking in the 'lizard brain'?

But then, crime fiction has became increasingly popular in recent years. Should we be uneasy that perhaps we, too, are in some sense playing to that instinct?  

 

Real Murder

Our name is Type M for Murder and so I decided to tackle murder for real. This last week, the U.S. had another mass-murder, nine shot dead at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. As a gun owner, on hearing the tragic news, I hung my head, both in condolences for the dead and their survivors, and to tell myself, here we go again. The American gun-control shouting match immediately heated to white-hot rhetoric before veering into an argument about racism and the Confederate battle flag.

Though many claim gun ownership in the U.S. is defined by political lines, it's not. I've got strong leftist sentiments and own guns, and I know plenty of liberals who stock quite an arsenal. And I know conservatives who have never fired a gun and don't care to. When I'm among gun aficionados, politics is rarely discussed.

The numbers I'm offering below are drawn from the most verifiable statistics available to me such as the FBI crime tables, GunPolicy.org, and others. The comparisons won't be exact but hopefully will paint an accurate enough picture. And any numbers I use will certainly incite trolls of all political stripes.

There's no doubt the U.S. is seen as a violent country. In 2014 we had 12,253 murders, of which 8,454 were committed with firearms. If we take the difference, 3,799, that homicide total still places us at the top of the murder list of Western-developed countries. But not so fast...if we include violent crime that didn't end up with bodies Dead Right There, then England and France are more dangerous than the U.S. What complicates any fact checking is that countries have different definitions of "violent" crime.

To the anti-gun crowd, the answer is quite obvious. Ban all guns, and gun-related crimes (and deaths) will go away. But it's not so simple. First of all, the U.S. is the only country where private ownership of guns is specified by law: the Second Amendment. And, almost all countries do allow private gun ownership in some degree (even Australia, which is often mistakenly touted as gun-free). Two countries that don't allow any private gun ownership are China and North Korea, and I don't think we want them as our model for civil rights.

The U.S. leads the world both in rate of gun ownership and numbers of guns. We have about one gun per person, and so the guns number about 300 million. At number two in rate of private gun ownership is Switzerland at 45.7 per 100 people. Number 3? Finland, 45.3 per 100. Who is second in number of guns? India! With 40 million in private hands.

So if lots of guns equals lots of gun deaths, then Switzerland, Finland, and India should be awash in bullet-riddled bodies, but they're not. Based on that, the argument can be made that strict licensing is what reins in gun-related deaths. However you have the example of Brazil, with 8.6 guns per 100, which translates to about 17 million guns (lots of people in Brazil). Owning a gun and ammunition in Brazil requires a license, with a criminal, mental, and employment background check, and that license must be renewed every three years. But given these controls, the Brazilian homicide rate, to include gun-related, dwarfs that of the U.S. Brazil in 2010 (most recent numbers): 43,272 total homicide; 36,153 gun-related. U.S. in 2010: 16, 259 total; 11,078 gun-related. Plus, in the U.S. as the number of guns is going up, both the numbers and rate of homicide is on the decline. So something else is prompting murder besides the availability of guns. Like poverty. Income disparities. Lack of opportunities.

But if we move to episodes of mass-murder, then what's at work is something more problematic than what motivates other violent crime. It's a failure of the spirit, it's a surrender to nihilism, it's dissociation from society. It's what drives some people to suicide and on that subject is where we can find tools to help address these problems. The recent mass-murders occurred in circumstances similar to what Viktor Frankl discussed in his monumental book, Man's Search for Meaning. He pointed out the irony of an increase in suicide in developed countries despite greater prosperity and material comfort. Killers driven to mass-murder clearly have mental/emotional issues, and here the failure lies with family and acquaintances who didn't step in. Easier said than done. In our family we had a murder-suicide, and the tragedy blindsided us. What could we have done to prevent this heartache and bloodshed? In hindsight, plenty. But looking forward, nothing suspicious or dangerous presented itself.

To stop these mass-murders, we have the responsibility of educating ourselves, of looking out for one another, of reaching out. Of asking questions, showing concern, and acting.

Spreading the Word

Last week, I had the good fortune to do four successful book events in six days. If you follow me on Facebook, you know it was not your typical book tour and one that certainly raised my blood pressure.

Signing at the Caribou Street Festival

The tour consisted of driving 1,200 miles in my reliable 2007 Honda Pilot, leaving Gill, Massachusetts, at 10 a.m. Tuesday and arriving in Houlton, Maine, at 5:30 for a 7 p.m. library talk and signing, the first of four events.

I say the tour was not “typical” because, in large part, of the impetus behind it. A single phone conversation spawned the trek.

“Can you run to the B Dalton in the mall to make sure my new books are there?” I asked a friend.

“Ah, that B Dalton closed,” he said.

“Well, can you buzz to Caribou and make sure they have them?”

“John, the Mr. Paperback closed a year ago.”

“Well,” I said, “whatever. What’s the local bookstore?”

“Dude, you’re not getting the picture . . .”

My new series is set in northern Maine, along the Canadian border. The region is the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined and home to 72,000 people.

And there’s no bookstore in sight?

Delaney and Sharon Campbell

Needless to say, I contacted my publisher and offered to buy two cases of books and drive to the region selling them to whomever I could find. My 17-year-old daughter Delaney came along. We had plenty of time to catch up after a hectic year for both of us. (She will be a senior, so there was plenty to discuss on the college front.) But this was far from a vacation trip. I had $250 into the books (thanks to my author’s discount) and at least $200 in gas and food. A friend was in Washington, D.C., for the week, so we crashed at his house. Still, selling trade paperbacks for $15, and hand-selling each individual copy, I had my work cut out for me.

My pitch was simple, “Do you like mysteries? I’d love to tell you about one I wrote that is set up here, and if you’re interested, I’d be thrilled to sign it for you. It features a single mother who’s a border patrol agent.” It’s about up here? People wanted to hear about the setting. We all love regional fiction. We love books we can identify with, and local bookstore or not, this community is no different.

And when all was said and done -- after book talks and signings at Houlton and Presque Isle libraries and serving as the Caribou library guest at a Thursday night street festival -- I sold out. Words cannot express the gratitude I feel toward the community members. The trip could have very well been a disaster. But the people of Aroostook County, Maine, came out and supported the series, I generated some media attention, and, hopefully, word will spread around the community that there’s a series being written about the area.

So now that the tour is over, where do I go from there? I might have found a small store, central to the region, interested in carrying the Peyton Cote novels. I’m waiting pass them on to my publisher.

Regardless of whether or not they carry the series, I’ll be sure to go back next summer.

Only 150 Words

Writing 150 words. No big deal, right? Most of the time that’s true, but I’m talking about back of the book copy. The words potential readers use to decide whether or not your book is worth purchasing.

They are the hardest 150 words I’ve ever written. Well, actually, it turned out to be more in the neighborhood of 120.

When I signed my publishing deal, I didn’t realize I’d have to write those all important words. I figured there were people who did that, people who knew how to write copy that would inspire a reader to buy a book. Turns out for my publisher that person is...me.

Once I stopped hyperventilating and got down to business, I discovered I rather enjoy doing it. (Remind me of that the next time you see me banging my head against the wall in frustration.)

There are positives about writing your own back of the book copy. First, you know what your book’s about so the text will actually match the story. (I’ve read copy on books where that wasn’t true or, at least, was misleading.) Second, it’s nice to have control over what’s on the back cover. The only negative is that it takes time. Lots of it.

I wrote the back copy for my first book, Fatal Brushstroke, but that was much easier. Mostly because I already had some text I’d written as an exercise for a mystery writing course I took years ago so I had a good start. I think the copy turned out pretty good. Or, at least, I’m not embarrassed about the result. Here it is:

A dead body in her garden and a homicide detective on her doorstep...

Computer programmer and tole-painting enthusiast Aurora (Rory) Anderson doesn’t envision finding either when she steps outside to investigate the frenzied yipping coming from her own backyard. After all, she lives in Vista Beach, a quiet California beach community where violent crime is rare and murder even rarer.

Suspicion falls on Rory when the body buried in her flowerbed turns out to be someone she knows—her tole painting teacher, Hester Bouquet. Just two weekends before, Rory attended one of Hester’s weekend painting seminars, an unpleasant experience she vowed never to repeat. As evidence piles up against Rory, she embarks on a quest to identify the killer and clear her name. Can Rory unearth the truth before she encounters her own brush with death?

For my second book, Paint the Town Dead, I had to figure out once again how to write words that fairly portrayed my novel, while at the same time, would convince someone to consider reading more. So here’s how I went about it.

First, I thought about what I wanted to see in back of the book copy. As a reader, I really just want to get a sense of the type of book (cozy, thriller, private eye), to know who the protagonist is , where the story is set and what the main problem is. That’s all I want to know. I get irked when the back copy tells me too much about the story. Really irked.

This kind of copy has a particular style so I immersed myself in reading the backs of dozens of books similar to my own. The text on the back of a thriller is different from that on the back of a private eye novel or a cozy so reading the right kinds of books is important here. That wasn’t terribly hard since I have an extensive library of mystery books, most of them in the cozy vein. All I had to do was walk down the stairs and start reading. I also checked out Amazon and read the descriptions of other books similar to my own.

Then I checked online to see if anyone had any words of wisdom about writing back of the book copy. These two posts were the most helpful to me:
http://jamigold.com/2012/04/tips-for-writing-back-cover-copy-guest-roz-morris/
http://marilynnbyerly.com/blurb.html

Finally, I started writing. Or, should I say, staring off into space thinking about what to write. I wrote a sentence here, another there, and finally I had text I found reasonable enough to submit to my publisher. Here it is:

The Ocean Painting Society invites you to join the painting wave...

It’s June in the quiet Los Angeles County city of Vista Beach, the place computer programmer and tole-painting enthusiast Aurora (Rory) Anderson calls home. Decorative painters are flocking to the newly built Akaw hotel to attend the Ocean Painting Society’s inaugural convention.

During the weeklong event, Rory plans on shopping the trade show floor, working in her mother’s booth, taking classes and connecting with other decorative painting fans. She doesn’t expect to witness her childhood friend collapse in class and die.

When the police find no evidence of foul play, Rory embarks on her own investigation. Can she brush aside the lies to uncover the truth and bring the killer to justice?

It’s not the most wonderful text in the world. It could probably be better, but I think it fairly portrays the book I wrote and sounds cozyish.

I’ve submitted the copy to my publisher. I have no idea if they’ll deem it acceptable or if I’ll have to go back to the drawing board. I’m hoping it’s the former, but I'm prepared for the latter.

Has anyone else written back of the book copy? Any tips? ‘Cause I’ll have to do it again for book 3...

A few things to make you smile

by Rick Blechta

Crunch time this week for yours truly with some big graphic design jobs needing to get out the door, and my soon-to-be-done novella ms to get out the door, so I don’t have the time to also get a post out the door this week.

But fear not! It’s also that time of year when folks might need something to bring a little grin to their faces. As always, I’ve got a few goodies stashed away for just such an occasion and I want to share them with you.

So here goes, in no particular order…

This is one grammatical error that REALLY bugs me.

Just think about it for a moment.

No caption needed…so why am I doing one?

Why menus need editors…

And the thing is, this is no exaggeration.

There has to be a good pun included…

…or maybe two.

My favourite comic strip!

Death and Despair on a Sunny Morning

By Vicki Delany

It’s Sunday June 21 as I write this, and a pleasant summers day here in Southern Ontario, although rain is expected later.

Birds are chirping, grass is growing, flowers are blooming, pool is sparkling, and the coffee is at my elbow.

And now it’s time to plunge into a world of death and despair.

Why would I do that? And why would anyone want to read it?

Funny situation isn’t it? But all over the world, even as I speak, people are writing and other people are reading about horrible stuff.

Why? Perhaps because outside of our comfortable world of a summer Sunday morning, bad stuff is happening, and we have a compulsion to try to understand and perhaps to also try, even if only mentally, to make it right again.

This post is inspired by three things – Barbara’s talk about researching ISIS, Aline and my recent posts about unrealistic police procedures in novels, and last week’s events in Charleston.

In most (all though not all and not all the time) police novels, the officers use their substantial intelligence and sharp wits to catch the clever and diabolical (or just lucky!) bad guy. Motivation has to be excavated by investigating witnesses, the detectives hunt for clues, they follow red herrings, they examine every detail of the victims’ lives and uncover all their secrets.

In real life: not so much. In Charleston, the killer walked into a public building, not worrying about covering his face or trying to leave a false trail for the police to follow later, told one of the survivors why he’d done it, and then walked out again. He also left a “manifesto” outlining his motive. You’ll have read it elsewhere, I have no further need to go into details.

Not exactly a hard case to crack, and he was arrested not long after.

I don’t really know what my point is. Maybe as writers and as readers all we went to do is try to understand.

On a lighter note: while Barbara was researching ISIS, I have been researching historical men’s bathing suits. This is for the third Year Round Christmas mystery which is set in July, so I wanted Santa Claus to wear something suitable in my town’s Christmas in July Parade. This is what I chose.

Dreams, Schemes, and Character Creation

I've been fascinated by how often dreams have been coming up in our posts of late. As I mentioned in my last post, I learned some important information about the villain in the book I'm working on as I was waking from a dream. I now also have the plot for my book. On Wednesday, after struggling for months with the question of how I could focus my research on 1939 and the years leading up to World War II, it finally came to me. I have the scheme. I can pull out the important details from the book and articles that I'm reading. J. Edgar Hoover may even make a cameo appearance. If he does, I will know enough about him to be able to handle that walk-on.

But that leaves my other characters. I know their names. I know some basic information about the major characters. However, this process of writing a stand-alone book is much different from writing a book in a series. I am five books and a couple of short stories into my Lizzie Stuart series. After all these years, I know Lizzie and John Quinn and my small cast of continuing characters well. I can step in and set everything in motion. Although I have written only two books in my Hannah McCabe series, I started by creating an ensemble cast and identifying the initial relationships among characters that I hope to develop and explore. But with the stand-alone, I am creating characters that will live and exist only in this book. Everything that is important about them needs to be there and drive the plot. I can't leave issues that I will deal with as a part of the series arc.

I feel obliged to spend more time than usual on character creation -- particularly the secondary characters. I have a complex plot that spans months in 1939. I don't want to end up with 10 or 15 characters that are playing supporting roles and that readers can't keep sorted. I need each character to do double duty and to work hard to justify his or her existence.

This weekend, I'm going to try to identify the characters that I need. I've done this once before, even giving the characters names. But now I need to go back and take a hard look. I need to look at how my two groups -- the good guys and the bad guys -- fit together internally. I want conflict and tension among the members of the two groups. I want each member to bring something to the table that will turn out to be an asset or a hindrance.

Once I've gone through the list, I'm going to spend some time working on individual characters. Bios are helpful, but I also have pulled my books on character creation off the shelf. Here are some of the books that I've collected over the years:

Debra Dixon -- Goal, Motivation & Conflict:  The Building Blocks of Good Fiction
Orson Scott Card -- Characters & Viewpoint
Brandilyn Collins -- Getting into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors
Tami D. Cowden, et al. -- The Complete Writer's Guide to Heroes & Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes
Linda N. Edelstein, Ph.D. -- The Writer's Guide to Character Traits
Nancy Kress -- Dynamic Characters:  How to Create Personalities that Keep Readers Captivated
Eric Maisel, Ph.D. and Ann Maisel -- What Would Your Character Do?
Robert Newton Peck -- Fiction is Folks: How to Create Unforgettable Characters
Victoria Lynn Schmidt -- 45 Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters
Lynn Seger -- Creating Unforgettable Characters

I am something of a compulsive buyer of books about writing. I always hope there will be one book that provides the magic solution to a writing problem. I find each of the books above interesting enough to keep. Now that I'm facing this stand-alone challenge, I'm going to read back through them and see what useful tidbits I can find.

I suspect that before this is over, I will also have resulted to assigning my characters astrological signs and reading their Tarot cards. I am not ashamed to admit that I've occasionally done that with continuing series characters. Usually, it's been a way to tap into my subconscious. This time, it could be desperation.

Will keep you posted about how this is going. Meanwhile, does anyone have favorite techniques for creating characters you'd like to share?

A Happy Ending

Lately, my husband Don and I, Donis, have been preparing to die. Not that either of us are currently in the process of dying. Or even feeling poorly. It’s just that the day eventually comes for all of us, and trying to ignore the fact isn’t going to help anything. Our thinking at this point is that if we try and get things relatively prepared beforehand (knowing full well that you’re NEVER really prepared), we can sit back and relax and amuse ourselves with living until the inevitable happens.

We’re doing a fair amount of research and trying to see that everything is neatly tied up. To that end, I’ve just finished reading 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.

I don’t really care if the reader figures out ahead of time who the murderer is, but I do want to leave the reader with some kind of twist or jolt or delight, or something memorable about the end of the story. In one book I wanted the to be killer to be someone who absolutely could not have done it, and it was tremendous fun to figure out a plausible way for the person to have pulled it off. I’ve had characters who were supposed to be alive actually be dead, and vice versa. More than once I’ve tried to make characters not be who they seem to be, or some situation to be completely other than it first appears. The happy ending has to be hard-won and entirely worth it, plausible and satisfying.

And that is not so easy to pull off. Ask anyone who has ever tried to do it. When I begin a book, I usually know where I want the story to go. It never ends up there. Where it does end up is as big a surprise to me as to anyone. The ending usually works out better than I had planned. I feel like if I can surprise and delight myself with an ending that fits perfectly, I’m on the right track.

More on the joys of writing

Barbara here. Aline's post of yesterday– so teasingly true– got me thinking about why on earth we writers put ourselves through what we do. I am currently in the initial concept stages of my next book, due to the publisher in October 2016. I have chosen the theme I think I want to explore (I say 'think' because I often find as the story unfolds that I am writing about something else entirely), and in the usual frantic search for a way into the theme, I am researching. So far I have taken three books out of the library and ordered three from Amazon which are too new to have found their way into the library system.

Behold my light summer reading...

These are not what one would call 'beach reads' nor are they conducive to a leisurely perusal on the dock at my cottage, where I like to do my creative work. Quite apart from the subject matter, which is by turns terrifying, infuriating, bewildering, and depressing, but always fascinating, there is the business of wet dogs shaking exuberantly in front of me or placing muddy balls into my lap. The books look somewhat the worse for wear, which is worrisome for the three that are not actually mine. I have become quite inventive and quick-witted about protecting them. Which is also not conducive to deep, analytical thought about the subject matter.

Still, this is one of the joys of writing. In pursuit of a powerful human interest story, we writers get to explore subjects we know next to nothing about and in the process become intrigued and better informed about important issues that affect our world. I have always noticed that the less a person knows about a subject, the more firm and confident he is in his opinions and solutions. Learn a little about the topic, and certainty become far less clear, the answers far less simple. Bomb them into submission? Yeah, that'll work.

Most of this research is to inform me, and it will not make its way into the book except as part of the backdrop tapestry to the story. But in research, a writer usually doesn't know what they will need to know until they need it, so we cast a wide net in the hope of capturing the facts that will inform the story and the behaviour of the characters in it. Since my main interest and expertise is in psychology, and psychology lies at the heart of character, during most of this research I will be trying to understand and get myself inside the heads of the people involved. 

Quite apart from how it helps my story, this is a useful exercise for anyone trying to understand anything people do. That's one of the great powers of fiction. Research has shown that reading fiction enhances empathy, which is often in short supply in our present society's eager rush to judgment. If all this agony spend on the dock of my cottage leads me to a greater understanding, and to the creation of characters that help others understand, then I will have accomplished my goal. Understanding is not the same as excusing. Understanding might help us find some solutions that actually work.

Meanwhile, someone is waiting for me to throw the ball.