Distraction/Discipline

by Rick Blechta

The internet, much like anything else, has a good side and a bad side. Actually, please allow me to restate that. The internet has some very good sides and some very bad sides. It has changed the way we interact, receive information (a lot of information), even the way we think. It is both an extremely useful tool and a curse.

All that said, this post is not about the pluses and minuses of this ubiquitous thing in our modern lives, but the way those of us “ink-stained wretches” interact with it.

Here’s the thing: in the “dark ages” (pre-internet), we’d have to trudge down to the local library if we needed research information, look through a card catalog (remember those?) and then have to search a book for the information needed. We’re talking anywhere from an hour or two to several days to get what we needed.

The point is that research took a lot of time and we all know that skimping on research is a quick way to risk condemnation by reviewers or readers who actually know what you’re talking about.

Now, fire up your favourite browser program, type in a few key words and you’re off to the races. You can get the information in minutes, if not seconds. Great, right?

But like everything in life, this ease of access comes with a price: you can find anything on the World Wide Web, and the thing that can come back to bite you is stopping browsing the internet. It can be like thumbing through a dictionary in search of a particular word. If you’re like me, you can’t help but stop and look at other words, and all of a sudden you’ve spent a half hour (or more) looking up interesting things, perhaps increasing your vocabulary in the process, but no further along in your work-in-progress.

The internet is way worse.

Case in point, I needed to look up the median temperature in fall in Cold Spring, NY. An hour later, I’d checked my email, looked at the headlines (and read a few articles) in 2 online newspapers, checked the weather back in Toronto (for the next week), looked at my email again, peeked at Facebook, read an article on plagiarism, and then, finally got around to looking up what I’d gone after in the first place.

Am I an dolt who can’t control what he’s doing? Not really. Was I trying to avoid working on my novel? Hell no! What I am is naturally curious, and I feel very secure in saying that I am not out of the ordinary in the writing world. Writers have to be naturally curious to be any good. Our plots would have far fewer interesting twists and turns if we weren’t that way.

Thing is, you have to be disciplined about it. Somehow, curiosity has to be kept in check at certain times — like those few precious hours you’ve set aside for actually moving your manuscript along.

I guess I’m not very good at that.

You Shoud Be Able to Tell a Book by Its Cover

By Vicki Delany

Last week the Typists were talking about what makes us buy a book, and the topic of cover images came up.

Some of us didn’t seem to think the cover is all that important in the buying decision, and others consider it very important.

I am in the latter camp.  Yes, I’m going to buy a book if it’s highly recommended by someone I trust, or if a reputable review source I also trust has given it high praise, but otherwise, the cover is the first decision I make.

Do I pick this book up and read more, or pass on by?

That split-second decision is made almost exclusively on the cover image.

One of the best covers of all time (now extensively copied)

The cover needs to tell you exactly what type of book this is.  Cats and pastel covers? Great, if I’m wanting something light.  The US Capital building at dark, probably in the rain? Guaranteed to be a tough-guy thriller.  A lonely house, perhaps with one light burning? Probably a psychological suspense.

Blood spatter? Not for me.

Only if the cover appeals to me, and tells me that the book is the sort of thing I am looking for at this very moment, will I pick it up.  At that point all the other buying decisions take over.  Is the blurb enticing, what I feel like reading, and is it well written? Then I might stop right there and get it.

But, even if it is the perfect book for me at this time, if the cover hasn’t appealed to me, I won’t even pick it up.

another good one

The same is true for ebooks online or for books on bookstore shelves.

But most of all, what the cover has to do is deliver what the book promises. Whether it be light and funny, dark and serious, gory and horrific.

Case in point, is Barbara’s newest book.  Last week she showed you the two covers. I am pleased to say that she consulted with me (and several others) when the publisher first showed her their design. That was last autumn when I was on a North Carolina book tour.  I’d been in a lot of bookstores, and one thing I noticed immediately was that the current crop of “women’s fiction” all had covers in shades of baby blue.   That first cover of Barbara’s would have indicated to anyone browsing, that the book was something about “female friendships”.   Mystery readers would have passed over it, and women’s fiction readers would have picked it up, read the blurb and put it back down again.

The value of a good, and appropriate, cover can not be overestimated.

Tells you exactly what your'e going to get

A crazy life by Linda Wiken

On this steamy August weekend, I'm delighted to welcome as this weekend's guest blogger my very dear friend Linda Wiken, who's been in the mystery business as long as I've known her, first as a founding member of Ottawa's Capital Crime Writers, and then as one of the creative and editorial forces behind The Ladies Killing Circle anthologies and the owner of Ottawa's mystery bookstore and still later, as the creator of the website Mystery Maven Canada to showcase Canadian crime writers. Then finally, a few years ago, she spread her wings and launched her own novel writing career, first with the Ashton Corners Book Club series under the name Erika Chase and now with a brand new dinner club series under her own name. Her first book in that series, Toasting up Trouble, has just been released. Take it away, Linda!

What a crazy life we writers live. That thought filters through my mind at odd times, usually when I’m procrastinating or as this morning, sitting on my deck enjoying my first espresso of the day at an hour when the outside temperature is actually pleasant.

Think about it – we live in a fantasy world for more hours in the day than not.  Need proof? Witness the wary husband (or wife!) who shakes his head and walks away after explaining that the gutters are full of leaves and he needs you to hold the ladder. Did he say something?

Or the child who decides to get even by  sneaking a Magnum dark chocolate ice cream bar before lunch after you say, yet again, “I’ll be with you as soon as I write this idea down.” Hours later…..

Friends get the short shrift, too. But it’s really because they don’t get it. That phone call that says all the gang is going for a play day of shopping and lunch but you say, “I can’t go. My manuscript is due on Friday.”  Don’t they know? After all, you’re moaning about it all the time.

And, let’s not get into pets!

They really don’t understand, any of them, that you’d rather be holding that ladder (well, maybe not your first choice), playing soccer with the kids, or shopping till you drop. But you can’t. You’re a writer and even when you choose to take some time off, that fantasy world keeps creeping in and taking over. It won’t leave you alone. Those characters you’ve created have become friends, maybe even a second family, and you need to get back to them and make sure everything’s unfolding as it should.

Which is a good thing. Otherwise, who would write the books?

And let’s face it, as crazy a life as it can be, it’s also one that’s totally satisfying. What more enjoyable, self-fulfilling activity than living in a parallel universe and writing it all down to share with others!

A Reader's Confession

I've found this week's discussion thought-provoking not only because it has prompted me to think about my relationship with titles and covers as a writer but because I've been thinking about what I read and why.

I am now about to share a secret. I often buy books that friends or reviewers I trust have recommended. But the truth is these book often set on my shelf -- or a table where they were deposited to be in plain sight -- unread. My Southern-born grandma would have called it "being contrary". As much as I value the helpful friends and reviewers who tell me about terrific books that they have read and I should read, when I'm reading for pleasure, I "just as soon" (as we say in the South) choose my own book.

I read so many books -- fiction and nonfiction -- because I need to or have to for classes I'm teaching or research I'm doing. When I have a chance to read purely for pleasure I want to choose my own book. I want to recreate that lovely feeling I had every week as a teenager when I would walk into the public library and browse through the shelves to find the book or two I would read that weekend.


I had that same feeling when I was old enough to earn a little money of my own and could buy a novel at the small bookstore on Main Street. I loved browsing through the paperbacks and leaving with a mystery or a Gothic romance or a historical or an espionage novel. Starlight mints, iced tea, and a book that I couldn't wait to open.

I think those memories are why I buy books that are recommended, intending to read them, and often don't.

On occasion I have come back to a book that was recommended years earlier. Sometimes I browse my own bookshelves, feeling I should read some of the books I have before bringing another book into the house -- even a library book. Now and then I "discover" a book that was recommended, coming up on it and being delighted to find that I might well have taken it home if I had found it on my own.

There are a couple of exceptions to my resistance to books I don't choose. I'm on the list of available book discussion leaders for a local library system. I lead a discussion two or three times a year if one of the member libraries asks me to come. I enjoy doing this not only because people in library reading groups read books with close attention, but because the books on the annual lists are often books that I would like to read. The discussion leaders identify the books we would be willing to do, and I always find books that I'd like to read and hope I will be asked to lead a discussion so that I will make the time to read them.

My other exception is the two or three times I've been on a book award committee. Loads of novels to read, a whole year's worth in a category. But a wonderful opportunity to have the library delivered to ones door. The added bonus is that this is an occasion when I can't be contrary. I need to read books that I might not have chosen -- and how lovely to discover I like a book I might not have picked up as I was browsing in the library or a bookstore. 

I'm on my way to the Suffolk Mystery Authors Festival tomorrow, and I'm going to browse my bookshelves for a wonderful book to take along to read on the plane. I consider time spent in the air "free time". I am not obliged to do the work I brought along. I can settle in with a book and remember again how much fun it is to read for pure pleasure.

So How I Choose a Title and Why I Choose a Book to Read

This week’s discussion at Type M is all about what makes a reader pick up a book. Here is what appeals to me: First, if I like a particular author, I will generally read anything s/he puts out. Second, I am swayed by the recommendations of people whose taste I admire. Third, if I am not as familiar with the author, the blurb is what persuades me to give the book a try. Fourth, a good title will entice me to pick up a book and read the blurbs. The cover may make me look, but I am not particularly influenced, unless the cover is really ugly or bloody, in which case I am inclined NOT to read the book.

I’ve written before about the importance of choosing a good title and how hard I work at it. My publisher lets me choose my titles, and thus far has not changed any that I have picked. My first Alafair book was entitled The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, because I wanted something that was eye-catching and conveyed a sense of ethnicity. I was a little surprised that the publisher kept it, but that title has served me well over the years. The only problem with it is that now I feel like I have to come up with something equally good every time. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I succeed less.

And on that note, look what I received in the mail today. These are the ARCs, or what used to be known as the “galley proofs” of my ninth Alafair Tucker Mystery, The Return of the Raven Mocker, which is due to hit the shelves in January 2017. It is somewhat shorter than most of my Alafair books—less than 300 pages. As I hold it in my hand, it feels slight, which is odd considering how hard I worked on it and how long it took me to finish. Raven Mocker reminds me of the first book I wrote in this series, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, and not just because both of them have birds in the title. The stories are not alike at all, but the mood and feeling seem alike to me. Alafair is much more concerned with the welfare of her children than she is with finding justice. Though of course, justice does get found.

The title is taken from the Cherokee legend of Raven Mocker, an evil witch/wizard who takes the form of a raven at night and flies about looking for the old and the sick to torment and suck the life out of them. I chose that because the novel is set during the influenza pandemic of 1918, an epidemic so virulent that experts believe close to fifty million people worldwide died from it.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting an excerpt on my website, as well as reviews when they start coming in.

So…on another topic entirely—my husband and I were watching the news a few weeks ago when out of the blue he said, “Have you noticed that these days everyone begins their sentences with the word ‘so’?”

I had not noticed that. But since he pointed it out, I have become hyper-aware that it is true. I challenge you, Dear Reader, to listen to a radio or television interview and count the number of “so”s. How this language hiccup came about I do not know, but it does remind me that when I was growing up in the wilds of Oklahoma, it was very common for the folks to begin every sentence with “well…” I have considered making a drinking game out of the “so” habit, but I’m afraid that if I took a shot of  something every time someone on t.v. or elsewhere began a sentence with “so”, I’d end up passed out on the floor.

Of covers and titles

Barbara here. What an interesting discussion we are having on Type M! It revolves around covers and titles, and how important they are when we choose a new book. Several people have commented that the two most important determinants in choosing a book are:

1. I've read and liked the author before.
2. Friends and reputable reviewers have recommended it.

This is true for me as well, although I would add that winning or being short-listed for a juried award that I respect might make me at least check out the book.

But what about all those excellent, unsung books that I've never heard of? Much as Rick described, there are several stages in my book buying process. First, "something" has to draw me to pick up the book off the shelf. Second, I read the back cover to see what it's about. If that's intriguing enough, I read the first page to see if it's well written and if I like the author's writing style. If I continue to be intrigued and impressed, even if I've never heard of the author and never read a review, I might buy the book. Online book browsing is somewhat different because it's much more annoying and fiddly to click through multiple links to read back covers and opening pages, and then you lose your place on the "shelf". Moreover, the first details to leap out at you are ratings and reviews, which can ruin a good book in no time.

But in either buying experience, there is that "something" that first makes you pick an unknown book from the shelf. And to me, that something is firstly cover, and secondly title. Both say a lot about the book, the style, and the sub-genre. Pun titles are almost always cozy, at times too clever by half. The covers often feature food, cats, and quaintly comfortable settings (think drawing rooms, porches, and libraries). On the other hand, guns, explosions, or silhouettes in dark alleys, accompanied by two-word, often two syllable titles like White Fear and Dead Eyes are almost always thrillers meant to keep you up all night. Neither are likely to attract me. I want stories that are unique and layered, stories that make me think as well as feel, so I will go for the title with a hint of mystery and intelligence.

Marketers and cover designers know their markets. They know the guns and short titles will attract the reader who wants to be kept up all night, while cats and tea cups will attract the reader who wants to spend a delightful few hours on a friendly puzzle. If the marketer and cover designer get it wrong, writers may never find the audience who will love their books and readers may miss a great story.

Fortunately for me, my publishers allow me to think up my own titles (which as Aline says could be a disaster, but I work hard to find a title that captures exactly what I want to say about the book). The publishers also ask for my cover ideas and send me the preliminary mock-up for my feedback. This is a fascinating process because the errors are usually not with the image itself but the colour or mood. Covers are much less about the image itself as they are about the atmosphere they create and the mood they evoke.

FIRE IN THE STARS is an example in point. The novel takes place in Newfoundland. The first cover, shown above, portrayed a stretch of rocky coast with a cluster of little house perched on the slope. It was meant to look bleak, but it was far too pretty and peaceful. The colours were pastel blue, grey, and white. The font was white. The book is fiery and full of danger from the crashing ocean and the dark, jagged shores. Readers hoping for a story of quaint bygone Newfoundland life would have been surprised by my book and those hoping for an edgy, suspenseful mystery might not have picked it up.

Fortunately, in the exchange of ideas that ensued, the present cover was developed. I hope the right balance was struck. What do you think? And  have you encountered any titles and covers that are jarringly wrong?

What I look for in making a decision to buy a book

by Rick Blechta

Aline’s post from yesterday (just below this post if you haven’t yet read it) was enjoyable and thought-provoking, and ever since reading it, I've been thinking about what she said.

The question was then: what tips me over the edge and into purchasing a book?

I would have to say a really great review or a recommendation from someone whom I really trust who say, “You’ve just GOTTA read this book. I know that you'll love it!” (If it turns out that I don’t love it, then I immediately unfriend the person on Facebook – just kidding.

If I’ve read and enjoyed a book by an author, I will quite often pick up another by the same author (especially if it's accompanied by one of the above recommendations, as well).

If I’m browsing in a bookstore, I will pick up a book that has what I consider an interesting cover, I will flip it over, read the back (or flap copy) and if it tickles my fancy, I’ll buy it. As a side comment, I almost never go by what blurbs say, unless they’re a quote from a reputable review source, in which case I might take that into account. I especially don’t go by author blurbs because I know how that works…

Finally is this: if three people in the course of one week personally recommend a particular book to me, I will go out an buy it with no questions asked. This method has never yet failed me and it's happened a bunch of times. I’ve always enjoyed those books so recommended. I call it my Rule of Three.

What Really Is in a Name?

How likely would you be to pause, looking along the shelves of a bookshop, and cry, 'Oh, I simply must read this!' as you spotted a book entitled Four and a Half Years of  Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice? I can't say I would, but millions did when it was sold under the title Mein Kampf. (It's hard to say just how many millions, since there has been a German ban on disclosing the figures and even with the new edition publishing houses won't say).

Trimalchio in West Egg: Something That Happened: The Last Man in Europe: A House of Faith. I don't know who it was who persuaded F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh to change them to the rather snappier The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, 1984 and Brideshead Revisited but I reckon those authors owed them a considerable debt of gratitude.


Certainly whoever convinced Tolstoy that despite the fact that the boy got his girl in the end, All's Well that Ends Well wasn't really a suitable title for a book that majored on bloodshed, death and disaster and ended with Moscow engulfed in flames, did a service to the innocent reader who might otherwise have embarked on it in a spirit of cheerful optimism. (Though come to think of it, Shakespeare's so-called comedy of the same name isn't exactly laugh a minute either.)

The factors that most persuade me to buy a book are:

1. That it's by an author I've read and liked before.
2. That a friend I trust has recommended it.
3. That I've read a good review.
4. That the blurb catches my interest.

Well down the list come the cover – sorry, Rick! – and the title, unless it's one of those very quirky ones like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. In general I describe the book I'm reading by location – 'It's the one lying on the floor by my side of the bed' – if my husband's going upstairs and I want him to bring it down.

However, editors and marketing departments do think the right title is crucially important.

I don't know if other authors find appropriate titles that appeal to their publishers more easily than I do, but considering that these giants of literature most certainly got it wrong I probably shouldn't sulk when what I think is a perfectly appropriate title is rejected. On this evidence, they've probably done me a favour. Probably. Well, you wouldn't expect me to agree totally, would you? I bet Tolstoy muttered into his beard that War and Peace was just a statement of the blindingly obvious.

Stranger Than Fiction

I (Vicki) met Ryan Aldred when he attended my first eight week course in Writing Popular Fiction. I am delighted to say that the MS he brought to class for critiquing has now been published. 

By Ryan Aldred

My debut novel Rum Luck came out a few weeks ago. To say I was excited about receiving the first box of books is something of an understatement; I immediately found myself nose-deep in the vanilla pages, calling out to my wife Andrea, “It smells like a book! My book smells like a book!” (What else it could possibly have smelled like, I have no idea.)

As I read my finished novel for both the umpteenth and very first time, I was struck by certain elements that felt particularly surreal: a car that needed to be pushed down a hill to bump-start the engine; a car mirror that had been broken loose by a presumed monkey’s coconut; and the inexplicable appearance of a sign in a window that read “Kittens for rent.”

In short, the peculiar events that actually happened during my travels in Costa Rica.

But some stories are simply too outrageous for a work of fiction. Such as the time when I found myself at a dive bar at the very same moment as the tin shanties across the road – belonging to women of negotiable affections – caught fire, and I found myself amongst those helping them evacuate boxes after boxes of textbooks from their homes.

(Why did they have so many textbooks? I asked myself years afterward. But some mysteries are never solved.)

Naturally, this took place after I’d consumed a conspicuous amount of Imperial. So much so that, when an errant dog took an interest in the commotion, I raised a hand and said “Luego, luego”, having determined with flawless logic that 1.) dogs in Costa Rica only understand Spanish and 2.) ‘Goodbye’ was close enough to ‘Stay’ for my
intended purposes. (Spoiler: It wasn’t.)

There are some of my favorite anecdotes, and yet I doubt I’ll ever find a way to work them into a book. The old saying holds true – truth is stranger than fiction, particularly works of fiction. As one editor said amidst the Rob Ford debacle, “You couldn’t put it in a novel; no one would believe it!”

This is particularly true for stories set abroad. Most days, one does not expect to have one’s belongings rifled through, to be delayed for hours on end, for strangers to continually invade one’s personal space, and to consume strange and unusual cuisines solely due to dire need – and that’s just the flight. If I ever did have an entirely uneventful trip, I would be so fearful of the karmic imbalance that I would no longer leave my house – which would no doubt be crushed by falling ice from a passing jetliner.

One day, perhaps, I’ll be able to revisit those burning shanties. Or the beach bar where a local real estate agent kindly asked that I hack into Interpol to remove a misunderstanding about a small packet of cocaine. Or the fateful night a friend escaped a near-stabbing by rather brilliantly claiming that he had only arrived that day, and so he couldn’t possibly be the jerk who’d hit on Stabby’s girlfriend the night before. (He was definitely that jerk.)

But even then, I intend to revisit reality sparingly – lest a sudden dose of truth render my fiction completely unbelievable.

Rum Luck was a finalist for a 2015 Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada, and is the first book in the Bar on a Beach Mystery series. Now available from Five Star. When not writing, Ryan runs a small Canadian charity that provides education in Afghanistan, Uganda and other at-risk regions. His website can be found at www.ryanaldred.com, or you can find him on facebook – https://www.facebook.com/aldredauthor/ – or twitter – https://twitter.com/raldred

Lavishly Gloriously Overwritten Books

I've been thinking about Rick Blechta's recent post on the death of description. He discussed the use of detailed descriptions in books written in the 19th and early 20th century. Description in books currently published just give a nod to elements that comprised lengthy paragraphs in the past.

For some reason I've developed a passion to reread some of my favorite books. One of them, Not As A Stranger, is the greatest medical novel ever written. However, it is so lavishly, gloriously, overwritten that it makes War and Peace look like a Tweet.

I wonder if it would be published now. It's too superior to be tossed in a wastebasket. But on the other hand, editors are too often overworked, overburdened, and over bottom-lined. They simply do not have the time to straighten out this kind of book. I suspect the sender would get a short email. "Please cut and resubmit."

Many of my "favorite" books are lengthy. Characters were well-developed and complex. On rereading some of these novels I'm surprised at how little I understood the themes when I read them in my 20s. So it's odd the books have stuck with me for so long.

One of the standard questions authors are asked at presentations is "What is your favorite book?" Mine has always been Green Dolphin Street. It's been a long time since I've read it so it will be interesting to see if I bring fresh eyes to that book also.

A number of people have heard me give that reply so a book club last year decided to read it. It was immediately and universally disliked and the group abandoned it at once. I suspect because it, too, depended on the same kind of lavish description Rick mentioned.

As a writer I'm very alert to lines that slow the book down. In my own writing, on second drafts I check to see if sentences can be deleted and if I'm repeating descriptions. We simply live in a very fast-paced world.

Tweet or die.

Trust Your Advance Readers (even if it's Mom)

Stephen King, in On Writing, says, "The editor is always right." In the publishing phase of a book, King's meaning is pretty obvious: Your editor has usually seen everything twice, and her advice comes late in a manuscript's life and focuses on additions and/or deletions. But there's a stage (or stages) before that. And when writers are drafting, spending hours alone, fearing a leap into the wrong rabbit hole, many of us seek advance readers – people with whom we share works-in-progress, valuing any and all feedback and reactions.

Usually, these readers simply validate choices you've made, catch embarrassing typos, and provide motivation to write quickly – they're reading as you write, after all, and they want to know the ending.

Sometimes, though, they offer feedback that changes the way you think of your book. I had that experience recently.

Despite my love for Stephen King's work and admiration for the man (he is, after all, a fellow Mainer), I, like many writers, get married to my work-in-progress. I'm lucky to have three or four friends who love crime fiction and read with discerning eyes. One is quite literally the most positive human being I've ever been around. (I must tell her to be mean when she reads.) In a former life, she was a biologist who hunted and fished where Peyton Cote fictitiously does. Now she's a research librarian. Another is a semi-retired math teacher, who reads two to three books a week and watches nearly as many Red Sox games. Another is (and don't smirk) my mother, who is a voracious reader and has the odd habit of offering me her opinion whether I want it or not (I bet that gives her something in common with your mother).

A funny thing happened on the way to the 50-page mark of this latest work-in-progress: My mother read the wrong book.

Not all her fault. I'm writing a version of a book I started almost four years ago when I was between Peyton Cote novels. The first two readers are offering feedback, liking it, and spotting my typos – nothing unusual. But then 10 days ago, I got some notes from my mother and quickly realized she was reading the wrong book – the one I began in 2013.

I stopped when she wrote, "I like this version much better than the other one. Nice rewrite."

The "old," version, the one that's been sitting in the bottom drawer of my Google desk for two and a half years is after all a very different novel – same lead character, but a very different plot, more thriller than mystery. I called her immediately. What did she like so much about this rewrite?

As I listened to her praise this older version, I heard a lot of things that made sense (yes, Mom gets smarter as I get older).

So, where does this all leave me? Looking for ways to combine what I like about the new with what I know my mother is correct about the old – and in my second week working on a lengthy and detailed synopsis.

In the end, all this reminds me to trust the people I trust – even if it's you know who.

The Dark Side

I’ve recently gone over to the dark side.

Don’t worry, the only crimes I’ve committed are fictional ones. I’m talking about changing my reading habits. I’ve recently set aside my usual cozy/traditional mystery fare and started reading darker stories. Ones where the protagonists aren’t very likeable, make really bad decisions, and where the endings aren’t always happy ones.

I’ve flirted with the dark side myself in a couple short stories I wrote. I use the term “flirted” deliberately. My stories Meet Market published in Spinetingler Magazine and Annual Marriage Test published in Mysterical-E are a little darker than my usual stories, but they’re still not what I would call really dark. Go ahead, follow the links and read them and see what you think.

I’ve changed what I’m reading because I’m doing a library event with author Sarah M. Chen at the Wiseburn library in Hawthorne, CA. Come September 8th, we’ll be talking about “The Light and Dark of Mystery”. I represent the light side and Sarah represents the dark side. So I’ve been reading her work (my favorite of hers is her novella, Cleaning Up Finn) as well as other similar stories. Mostly in the short fiction category because I can read a variety of authors fairly quickly.

While I’ve been reading the stories, I’ve been thinking about why I prefer to read and write lighter mysteries. I think it comes down to why I read mysteries in the first place. I read them because I want to be entertained and want to escape real life for a while. I also read because I enjoy the puzzle aspect of traditional mysteries. How the emphasis is on figuring out the crime, not on the brutalness of the murder. I also enjoy visiting familiar characters in interesting places. And, most of all, I like that the bad guy always gets his comeuppance in the end, something that doesn’t always happen in the real world.

When it comes to historical mysteries, which I also read a fair number of, I don’t mind things to be on the darker side. I almost expect it. I think that’s because the settings are long enough ago it doesn’t represent real life to me. There’s a certain amount of detachment I can give to them that I can’t to contemporary mysteries.

So, what about you, Type M readers? Do you prefer your mysteries dark or light or both? And why do you read what you read?

The slow death of description

by Rick Blechta

A few days ago while working on a section of my novel, I wrote what I thought was a nifty couple of paragraphs of description, maybe ten lines of text once typeset, that would describe the "stage" of a rather intense action scene. Reading it back the next day which is my usual method of working, I felt compelled to toss out all but one sentence.

Why? Because the writing wasn't any good? Because I'd overdone it?

The answer was, it now seemed over-indulgent.

Some of my favourite reads over the years are older works, novels written in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. One thing I enjoy is the heavy use of description to set the scene. I like that clear mental picture.

I imagine if one were to trace (in general terms) the growth and change in the novel over the past hundred years or so, the diminution of description would be a pretty clear and continuing trend.

In deciding to toss out my deathless prose the other day, I suddenly asked myself why. Why has the use of description in novels (any novels) dropped so drastically? Sure, there are some very successful authors who use a fair bit of description, but there aren't many of them. How many times have we said of a book we're reading, "Come on! Get on with your story," when we're faced with a page or two of description? I know I do it a lot.

Why is this?

Here's my premise and please take issue with it if you like (it's been a long time since we've had a good donnybrook here at Type M: description has fallen out of favour because of movies, television and video clips. We are now used to being shown things visually, not having to conjure them in our imaginations. That's the first part of my theory.

The second is that because we're so immersed in the visual and have seen so much of it, we really don't need to see things so much. We already know what they look like.

Take Michael Connelly's novels as an example. They're generally set in L.A. They are also very sparing with description, basically a sentence here or there and the occasional complete paragraph. The reason he doesn't need it is that we already know what the setting of his book looks like. How many times have we seen that city's freeways? It's downtown area? The desert surrounding it?

So there is my theory. Please take me to task if you wish. I'm spoiling for a fight.

Knowing When to Stop

I love this week's topic. I'd like to share my thoughts about my muse. Unfortunately, I have a looming deadline. I'm trying to write a short story, and my muse is being a pain in the whatever. Not because she is ignoring my plea for inspiration. I have the opposite problem. She has been and is being entirely too helpful.

It started a few weeks ago. I woke up with the title of the story in my head. No idea where it came from. No idea what it meant. I had to go to the Internet to make sure I understood it. That was where the trouble began. My quick search turned up something that made me go "Wow! This is great!" The only problem was I knew nothing about the "this". Muse said, "No problem. Just do a little research."

I did, and then Muse handed me another idea.  A setting that would work. A closed circle of suspects. The sleuth? "Would I let you down?" Muse asked. "Here she is." Except I knew nothing about my sleuth's occupation. Nothing. Nada. I pointed that out to Muse. She said, "No problem. It's a short story. Do a little research."

Okay. I know how to do research. Off to the university library. Books -- even a couple requested from storage. A couple of dissertations. Some articles. Good. This was working. Good to go.

That was when Muse said, "But you know your problem with descriptions. I always work better when you've actually seen what you're trying to describe." That made sense. A road trip on a lovely summer day. Invite friend to come along. Grab camera and go. Come back with photos -- and a couple of more books.

Open small book and make big discovery.

Days passing. Clock ticking. I point this out to Muse. She says, "Just read this. It might be useful. You know I'm always more helpful when you have lots of information." I say, "I have enough information to write a book." Muse says, "Yes, you do. But we'll get to that after we're done with your story. Keep reading."

Last night, I'd had enough. I said, "This is ridiculous. I've got to get some words down on paper." Muse said, "You've been writing the whole thing in your head. You have all the scenes. You have motives and killer." I said, "But I still need to write. Have you looked at the calendar?" Muse said, "Go to bed. We'll talk about it in the morning."

This morning Muse said, "You have to eat lunch anyway. And I know exactly where we should go. Then you'll have all afternoon to write."

Muse and I are getting ready to go out to lunch. Lunch in a diner that I didn't even know existed before I started all that research Muse insisted I do. There are some pictures on the wall that Muse thinks I should see.

After that, I'm going to write because I am running out of time. No more hanging out with Muse. Sit down. Put hands on keyboard and write.

In Search of an Idea

Donis here. In truth I am not filled with inspiration today, which is ironic since over the past few days my blogmates have been writing about the Muses and where ideas come from.

My Muse is taking a nap. This is not an unusual occurrence for her since this is what she does every time I finish a book. So, as I have done at the completion of every single book I have written over the last decade, I admit that I am, at least for the present, brain dead.

Eventually my Muse will slowly stir and an idea will begin to form. When the writing-muscles start to engage again, I become hyper-aware of what is going on around me, of what other people are saying, of what is in the news, of the weather, but especially of what I'm thinking. Most of the time, my thoughts float around in my head like fluffy little clouds that I pay no attention to, but when I'm in this state, I stare at them until I find interesting shapes.

When I was in college, I was a crammer. I never studied much for tests until a day or two before, then I'd study until my eyes fell out. I'd never recommend this process to anyone, though it seemed to work all right for me. Even at the time, I was aware that in order for cramming to work I had to have a literal change of consciousness, and become almost hyper- aware. When I look back on it, I think it was just a matter of paying close attention.

Ideas come to me from the oddest places–from something I’ve read, or some off-hand comment someone says within earshot of me (be careful what you say around a writer). Once or twice from a dream I’ve had. In any event, the idea gets in my head one way or another and wiggles around in there for a while. Eventually it begins to coalesce and I think, “That might make a good story.”

And I'll begin again.

Characters and plot in search of setting

Barbara here.Today I want to continue the fascinating topic of muses that was raised in Aline's and Rick's two previous posts. Aline zeroed in on "motive" or rather the whole picture of what drives that particular killer to kill at that moment in that way, which forms the whole underlying question of the story. Rick addressed starting points--that germ of an image or idea that pops out of nowhere and starts the writer's mind on its creative journey.

Both of these are key elements to storytelling. One provides the initial spark and the other guides us in the weaving of the story flowing from that spark, just as an oyster slowly builds a pearl out of a grain of sand. I want to talk about setting, because that is foremost on my mind right now, and in the case of my Amanda Doucette novels, I can't begin the story until I have some idea of the setting. Each novel in this new series is set in a different iconic location in Canada, with the view that by the time I wrap up the series, I will have touched on Canada's beautiful, varied landscape and culture from coast to coast to coast.

Book One, Fire in the Stars, is set in the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, a wild and beautiful land of crashing oceans, craggy mountains, icebergs, and little fishing villages. It is already written, and due for release in early September. I have visited Newfoundland several times and have roots there, but I made two research trips to make sure I got the right feel and detail for the exact places I was writing about. Book Two, The Trickster's Lullaby, is set in Quebec's Laurentian Mountains just north of Mont Tremblant, and although I went there often for skiing and summer fun, I still made two short trips once I was writing the book in order to get the detail right. The setting needs to match the story I want to tell, and sometimes this means massaging the story a bit and other times changing the exact locale I had in mind.

Setting means not just physical surroundings but also season and weather. My third Amanda Doucette book is set in Georgian Bay and involves kayaks and rich island mansions. During these hot summer months I am finalizing the winter camping story in the Laurentians, and I will be writing the first draft of the summer Georgian Bay story in the dead of the upcoming Ontario winter. So I changed my writing schedule to do some location setting this summer, to figure out exactly where to set Prisoners of Hope. What a fun trip it was, driving the length of the eastern shores of Georgian Bay, exploring little villages and shoreline roads, and ending up in the village of Killarney at the northern tip of the bay, where the dogs and I took a lovely walk along the pink granite shore to the lighthouse.

The villages and shores themselves provided inspiration and plot ideas as well as dramatic atmosphere, and a long talk with the local outfitter helped me to plan the fictional trip my characters will take. None of that would be possible without a hands-on visit. Once I start writing the book, I know I will have many more questions about the setting, and will scour the internet for answers as well as keep a running list. When next summer comes and the first draft is hopefully mostly written, I will make another trip to Georgian Bay to get my final answers.

Even better than visiting the setting is walking through the experiences the characters will have. Thus in Newfoundland, I took hikes through the woods and along the ocean cliffs, took the whaling boat trip that my characters take, and ate in the restaurants. For the Laurentian book, I actually took a four-day winter camping trip. I would love to take a Georgian Bay kayaking trip, and am currently trying to see whether I can fit it into my schedule this fall. Stay tuned!

Whither comes the muse? Or “capere musam”.

by Rick Blechta

Funny that Aline would be planning on writing her blog post on the same topic I was planning to use. Since we’re both discussing muses, perhaps we have the same one – or maybe our separate ones are colluding.

Where do ideas come from? While the arts (writing, music, dance, drama, painting, etc.) are all very different, they do share one commonality: they require an initial idea to get started on a new work.

I’m sure every writer of fiction has been faced with the dilemma of “characters in search of a story”. I certainly have. If you write a series as many crime writers do, you face this at the beginning of any new book. For those of us who write one-offs, it’s not as common, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens to most. (It’s always much easier to be confronted with a story in search of characters.)

And that’s where the muses come in, as Aline so ably described yesterday. Where do these ideas come from? It can be from an otherwise unremarkable conversation, perhaps even an eavesdropped one (happened to me in my third novel). It can be something you read or even witnessed. Sometimes an idea just comes out of the blue. Or a serendipitous encounter.

To me, those are the most fascinating. In my novel, When Hell Freezes Over, the genesis of the story came to me as I was driving home from a gig late one night.

Snow, whipped around by a stiff wind, made visibility poor and I sighed as I stopped, the lone car at a light.

A tap on the passenger window startled me. A young woman stared me in the face, so I rolled down the window.
“I need a ride. I have no money and I need to get home. Can you help?”

I almost said, “Sure. Hop in!” before an alarm bell clanged in my head. I would be alone in my car with someone I didn’t know and who might not have the best of intentions.

Instead, I asked, “Where are you heading?”

She gave me her destination, rather far out of my way. Should I take a chance to help a fellow person? All I had was a couple of twenty-dollar bills, no change, so I wouldn’t get off financially easily, but I decided to give her money rather than taking a risk.

“I’m headed in the opposite direction. Here’s a twenty. Take the bus and then a taxi to get home.”

She took it gratefully. Perhaps I’d just been scammed, but I hoped I hadn’t.

Regardless, the light had by now changed and I took off.

It hit me about 3 minutes later: if instead of tapping on the window, what if the girl had just gotten into my car? What would I have done? The answer was pretty clear. I probably would have been stuck driving her to her destination – if everything had gone okay.

A myriad of other possibilities flooded my brain, none of them good. Before I got home, I had the beginning scene in the book I was going to write and a solid idea of where it would take the story.

The next morning I realized another thing: I had just paid a paltry $20 for a terrific idea around which I could craft an entire novel.

Now regardless of being scammed or not, that’s money well spent, isn’t it?

Motives for Murder

What is your starting point for writing a novel? For me, it usually starts with a picture I have in my head: in Evil for Evil, for instance, it was a skeleton shackled to a metal ring in a sea cave wall. I've no idea where it came from, but thank you to whatever Muse put it there because it gave me what I needed to start asking the questions that make a plot – why was it there, who could have put it there? And what could have happened before, to make someone do it – the whole dramatic point of the story.

Means, motive and opportunity – the classic wisdom about what the police need to establish in order to prosecute a crime. It's often the very backbone of a police procedural novel.

Only, of course, when I thought about it, motive doesn't actually form part of the necessary police evidence; maybe the prosecution will suggest one as a way to influence the jury, but for a trial to succeed it's only essential to prove that the accused was in possession of whatever was needed to commit the crime and was there at the time.

'What makes someone a killer?' is the question that interests me most in crime fiction, but it's not really 'motive' that's answers it.

There's a classic list of motives for murder, sometimes summarised as 'love, lust, lucre and loathing.' (My criminal defence advocate son would point out that getting drunk and lashing out was actually by a distance the most common.) It covers jealousy, ambition, revenge.

Yet if you look at the Shakespeare tragedies, Macbeth's motive is ambition, Hamlet's is revenge, Othello's is jealousy – all technically sufficient motives. Give Hamlet Macbeth's motive, or Othello's, and there would be no play. What gives the tragedies their absorbing interest is that each of the heroes is put into the precise position where their particular nature leaves them vulnerable.

It's the interplay of nature, nurture and circumstance that makes the killer and for all the psychological reports commissioned for the courts, in real life you can't  hope to know the full story. When it's your own character, you can – another of those god-like powers that keeps us all addicted.

Happy Happy Anniversary

This week our blogmaster, Rick Blechta reminded the Type M'ers that our blog is ten years. I'm a fairly recent member and came in through the good graces of our beloved Donis Casey. I'm feel humbled and honored to be included with this collection of talented, generous people.

I tried to look up my first blog before I started this post, but I'm going to have to settle for completing this scant offering without including the date.

I'm getting a new roof and guttering on my house. We have a great homeowner's association and this is only going to cost me $40.00. So I'm quite cheerful about all the banging and shower of debris. But nevertheless I can't work with this sort of noise. I jump when there's a bang. Could be gunshots you know. One pays a price for possessing a murderous mind.

My deadline for the new mystery is August 16th so I'm leaving daily for a more peaceful place. Through the roofing process my internet is temporarily very erratic. So I'm going to publish this post before it all goes away again.

A sincere thank you to everyone who has followed this blog. And we can't thank Rick Blechta and Vicki Delany enough for starting it in the first place.

Technical Goulash

I'm nearing the 10,000-word mark of a new project that is very different from other books I've written for a number of reasons, the first being that I'm writing in present tense.

Goodreads List of Present-Tense Novels

Interestingly, I taught Naomi Hirahara's Murder on Bamboo Lane this past year, and none of my students noticed the tense (or mentioned it until I did). As a teacher, that was frustrating; as a writer (nice job, Naomi!), that's a good thing. I know if I'm consistent in voice, point-of-view, and tense, I'll go unnoticed, something I'm always striking for: I want readers to be so lost in the story they forget they're turning pages at all.

Writing present tense is interesting on many levels. The syntax, for one, has changed. Sentences are shorter (for me, that's never a bad thing.) I find myself writing a lot of fragments (missing subjects). This is happening naturally. Just riding the rhythm of the book. And my nemesis, the To Be verb, is getting very little airtime, something that pleases me immensely. The chapters are averaging less than a thousand words.

Additionally, the pace of the book is faster because of the tense choice. Dialogue propels the action for me, as always. But the I see this book being shorter than some others I've written in recent years. (Whether that holds up or not remains to be seen. Every time I start a book I tell myself this time I'll be really efficient.)

Like any writer, I will do my best to show and not tell: 

My second-floor classroom looked out onto the quad. There was a grass courtyard nearly the size of a soccer pitch and boxed in by brick dorms and brick office and academic buildings. Morning sunlight reflected off benches that glistened with ice and snow. Christmas was a full three weeks away, but twenty inches of snow had already fallen. Parents' Weekend took place only a month earlier, when cobblestone paths were ablaze with autumn's fallen leaves and playing fields' sidelines were awash in light blue swag and proud parental voices. That seemed a distant memory.

My second-floor classroom looks out onto the quad, a grass courtyard nearly the size of a soccer pitch, boxed in by brick dorms and brick office and academic buildings. Morning sunlight reflects off benches glistening with ice and snow. Christmas is a full three weeks away, but twenty inches of snow have already fallen. Parents' Weekend – only a month ago, when cobblestone paths were ablaze with autumn's fallen leaves and playing fields' sidelines were awash in light blue swag and proud parental voices – seems a distant memory.

The differences are evident. Immediacy being the most obvious. No surprise there. But more subtly, the imagery, particularly of the final line, is punched up. The present tense version in the second paragraph is more forceful.

Now I put the challenge to you: Take a paragraph you've written recently, and rewrite it in the present tense. What differences do you find? This might serve as another technique for your toolbox. After all, a present-tense scene well-placed in a past-tense novel might heighten suspense and add to your reader's experience.

I'd love to hear readers' thoughts on this and my Type M colleagues' opinions.