The value of learning as much as you can about your occupation (in this case, writing)

by Rick Blechta

Like all published authors, I have been buttonholed many times at parties, meetings, book signings and even once at a funeral (!) by people who’ve written a novel (or a book of some sort) and want to know what to do next. The inevitable question is: How do I find a publisher? Sometimes they ask if I have an agent, and if so, would I help them get their manuscript in to him?

Now, I don’t mind helping people, but after the fiftieth such request, it gets a little old.

First of all, I’m not going to contact my publisher or agent and recommend your work unless I’ve read it and found it good enough. By recommending someone, I’m putting my reputation on the line, too. Second, doing that takes a lot of time and I have little enough of that to spare. Look, I just met you and now you want me to grant you a very large favour just because you asked and are a nice person?

But besides the effrontery of such a request, there is something else that bothers me even more. These people want to become a published author but they don’t know anything about the business and haven’t bothered to educate themselves? If I were blunt enough to say that, my guess is they would get quite angry — but that doesn’t make it any less true.

I’ve been around for quite awhile now, and I’ve worked hard to learn a lot of things about the book publishing game, and it’s a good assumption by the neophyte that I could supply them with a lot of useful information. But what they don’t realize is that their request that I help them shows me that they aren’t really prepared to be an author. What I’m going to tell them from what I’ve worked hard to find out is also easily found on many websites, blogs and in numerous books.

The really shocking thing, though, is that these people are also telling me that they’re going into a very complicated business with zero knowledge of what’s involved, and what’s expected of them (a lot) besides good writing. It’s much akin to someone who’s received a compass as a present. That person then decides they’re going to become a great explorer and immediately leaves for the Amazon jungle, packing only their new compass (with little idea how to use it). How successful do you think they’re going to be?

Becoming a published author and then attaining enough success to keep going is a very tough accomplishment. The first order of things on the path to authorial success is to learn as much as you can about the job description. That requires hours of research and reading. Even if I were to pass you on to my agent, you need to know how things work and what the expectations are. Until you know that, you’re just a babe in the jungle.

Don’t get me wrong. Someone who has produced a novel — no matter how good or bad it is — has achieved a major accomplishment. When I tell them that they’re barely halfway there, I am greeted by blank expressions or downright unhappiness. (“What? I’m not even close to my goal?”) It’s sad to disillusion nice people, but I would be doing them no favours by telling them what they want to hear. A writer who doesn’t know the ropes is a writer who is going to risk falling on their face at best, and at worst, they’re going to be taken advantage of — sometimes in a huge way. I know of more than one author who signed away the rights to their series character in order to get their book published. How stupid is that? The publisher said, “No deal unless we get this.” Any sane person would have walked.

Most authors, me included, are more than willing to point the budding author in the right direction (First on my list is How to Get Happily Published* by Judith Applebaum), but please don’t expect us to grab your hand and take you where you want to go — especially if you’re just meeting us for the first time!

*And I purposely didn’t give a link for finding this book online.

Growing as a Writer

I've been thinking about the question my colleagues have been discussing about what is required to become a competent writer -- innate talent, hard work, acquiring craft-related skills? As I was thinking about that I read Donis's post yesterday about the challenges of a long-running series.

My Lizzie Stuart series is only up to the fifth book. In fact, after the fifth book was published back in 2011, I wrote two Hannah McCabe books. In July 2014, a Lizzie Stuart short story (inspired by some research I was doing) was published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. But the short story did not move the characters forward. They have been in limbo for five years.

And now it's a few months later in series times, and I'm at work on Lizzie Stuart mystery Number 6. I'm writing this book because I have a story that I really want to tell. I'm also writing it because I hear from readers who they love the series and when am I going to do another book? Was that the last? What writer can resist when readers care about her or his characters and are waiting to find out what's happening in their lives?

Donis raised the issue of the character-arc. If the characters' lives are changing over the course of the series, how does one make each book in a series a stand-alone? I have always struggled with that. I can truthfully tell a potential reader that she can pick up any book in my Lizzie Stuart series and read a murder mystery that is complete in itself. No, one need not read the first Hannah McCabe novel before reading the second. But if a reader says that she likes to read a series in order because of the evolving relationships, I don't try to talk her out of that approach. As a reader, I have often picked up a book mid-series and then gone back to "catch-up" before moving on. I like relationships and back stories. That's one of the reasons I read any book, including a mystery.

But even though I struggle with the character arc dilemma, I have gotten better at dealing with it. I can now slip in back story here and there, without having Lizzie stop to say, "Two years ago when I was in Cornwall, I was involved in a murder case and that's when . . ." I'm a bit more subtle these days.

That brings me to the discussion we've been having about innate talent vs. hard work to acquire craft. I know I started out with imagination. From the time I was a small child, I told myself bedtime stories with recurring characters. When I was older, I started to write those stories down. But the process of becoming a functioning writer required that I discipline my imagination and hone any innate talent I may have possessed.

Aside from the basics of grammar and story structure, I had to learn the discipline of getting out of my comfortable chair (where I was thinking about my book) and going to my desk to get it down on paper. I had to learn the discipline of revising and revising and revising. I had to learn the discipline -- and develop a thick enough skin -- to sit quietly and listen and then ask lots of questions when someone I had asked to critique what I had written gave me an honest opinion. I had to learn the discipline not to rush the story, to let it evolve, and take wrong turns, to wait for all the pieces to fall into place.

I think that may be the difference between talented amateurs and professional writers. Having talent and imagination means nothing until one learns discipline. It's hard and frustrating, especially when working hard doesn't mean that one rises to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. But, on the other hand, discipline is good for the soul. And writing may be the one area in my life where I manage to consistently do what I should do.

Writing a Long Series

My ninth Alafair Tucker mystery (The Return of the Raven Mocker) is coming out in January of 2017. That's four months from now. And yet I’m already working on book ten. When I first began writing the Alafair Tucker Mystery series, I had a story arc in mind that was going to carry through ten books. This is a wonderful idea, but as anyone who has ever written a long series knows, after a couple of books all your plans for a story arc have been knocked into a cocked hat.

This photo has nothing to do with anything, but it's new and I like it

The reason this happened, at least to me, is that I seem to be writing about real people who have their own ideas about how things should be gone about, and once I put them into a situation, they react to it in ways I had never anticipated.

So much for a ten book arc. I think there will end up being twelve or thirteen books. I want to get all Alafair's kids out of the house and settled. Besides, I really want readers to be able to pick up any book in the series and have a satisfying experience without having to know anything about what went before. This poses the million dollar question for the author of a long series: How do you keep it fresh? How do you make every story stand alone, yet in its place as well? How do you keep from repeating yourself, or losing your spark?

I’ve had quite a journey with my protagonist over the last decade. Alafair is a farm wife with a very large family who lives in rural Oklahoma at the turn of the 20th century. She is a woman who knows her world and has made her place in it. Each of the books features a different one of Alafair’s newly-grown children, with whom Alafair either works to solve a crime, or works to save from him or herself. Since each child has his or her own distinct personality and interests, this gives me a great deal of latitude to explore all kinds of things that people were into in the early 20th Century.

For each book I must come up with a compelling reason for a farm wife and mother of ten to get involved in a murder investigation. I also have to figure out a convincing way for her to either solve the murder or at least contribute to the solution, which as you might guess, isn’t that easy. I have found over the course of nine books in the same series that I have begun to depart from the usual mystery novel format. The murders take place later and later in the story with each book I write. The later books are constructed more like thrillers than puzzles. In book seven, Hell With the Lid Blown Off, I told the reader who was going to die in the first sentence, but didn’t actually kill him for a hundred pages. In book eight, All Men Fear Me, we kind of knew who was doing at least some of the killing. But the question became why, and was there more than one killer. In book nine, Raven Mocker, I immediately start out with the information that we have the wrong guy.

I want to mix it up from book to book. I want to keep the readers on their toes. And I want to keep myself amused as well!

In the learning of an art, just how far will talent get you?

by Rick Blechta

Continuing on my topic two Tuesdays ago (How much do you need to know to successfully write a novel?), and building on what some of the other folks here on Type M have contributed in posts and comments since, I’d like to consider what the title of this week’s post suggests: if you have a talent for writing and storytelling, what else do you need to realize your ability?

Aline spoke about “nature and nurture” yesterday, and that’s a concept very important to this conversation. Take it from me as both a writer and a musician: you can have all the ability in the world (nature), but you must also study and work hard (nurture) to have any chance for success.

For those who may argue that there are any number of musicians or writers who were completely self-taught, “And doesn’t that blow a huge whole in your argument?” I would answer, “Sure they were self-taught, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have to study their craft diligently and work hard to get to any sort of level of excellence.”

As an example, no one says to themselves, “I think I can be a great guitarist!” then picks up an instrument, walks onto a stage and the world falls at their feet exclaiming on the sheer brilliance of their playing. Believe me, you have to spend many, many hours, slaving hard to master any instrument. Whether being guided by a teacher or picking things up on your own, you have to train muscles and memory to excel as a musician.

It’s much the same with writing. Whether you take creative writing lessons, work with a “master writer” or editor or simply take careful note of what other writers (good ones) do to tell their stories, time must be put in, analysis of the results made, and then multiple revisions undertaken to polish the prose so that the story not only comes out the way the author wants it to, but that it’s also intelligible to readers. That takes (learnable) skill and dedication.

So the bottom line here is, for any art form, the artist must be willing to put in the many hours needed to learn their craft. Can many of the fine points be taught to someone who has little or no natural talent? Sure. When I was teaching instrumental music in schools, I had whole classes filled with kids who had little natural ability to excel on an instrument. But if they would work hard, all of them could learn to play at an acceptable — and dare I say pleasant — level.

It works the same with writing.

Anyone who’s willing to learn the ins and outs of grammar, syntax, sentence construction, etc. can be taught to write workmanlike and understandable prose if they apply themselves. In other words, most people, given enough tutelage (taught by others or self-taught) can become competent in their field

But in the above two examples, can everyone become great musicians and writers? No. The innate talent also has to be present.

To answer this week’s question, if you have talent, you can be brought to a level that will allow you to realize that talent (and there are certainly different levels of talent), but anyone undertaking this must be willing to put in the hard hours studying whatever art form you undertake to learn. To my mind this means that there must be both nature and nurture to realize the potential that you carry within you.

Nature and nurture

I've come to this topic late having missed my post last week - sorry, sorry, an invasion of grandchildren put it right out of my head. But Rick's question about talent v tutelage, and the response from the others, really interests me.

If you've had a good agent or a good editor, you know that their comments and suggestions can improve your book. I've been grateful for that many times in the past, and some of what they have said has changed my writing afterwards. I've gone to lectures where a speaker has said something that has made a difference: I am still grateful many, many years later to Diane Doubtfire (yes, that was genuinely her name) who taught me that changing POV within a scene, unless very carefully managed, makes readers feel as if they are watching a tennis match from the sidelines, turning their heads first one way then the other.

The University of East Anglia with its celebrated creative writing department has alumni like Kasuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan and Rose Tremain. We can't know how successful they'd have been anyway, but it certainly didn't do them any harm.

I'm not sure I believe, though, that the magic could have been worked on someone without innate talent – that funny, sixth sense we all have that tells us when something we're writing sings and soars and when it's just trudging along in its sturdy shoes.

Like Barbara, I had no family background in creative writing (though I have fond hopes for one of the aforementioned grandchildren following in my footsteps!) and like her I began to read and write very early. I wasn't one of those children who tells stories to their siblings, though I always knew I was a writer. For me it was a very private occupation, a story I told myself as I wrote and saying it out loud would break the spell.

I had to write. And while I don't altogether go along with John Milton that it is 'that one talent which is death to hide' (DI Fleming isn't quite in the same category as Paradise Lost, after all ) I would feel guilty if I didn't use it.

But to be honest, if someone has no inner drive to tell a story, and no ear for the use of language, I don't believe that any training, however good, can make that person a writer. In the old Scots saying, which I guess probably has an American equivalent, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's lug. (ear).

Psychopaths and Sociopaths

I did a lot of strange research for my up-coming mystery, Fractured Families, which will be published March 2017. This is the first book to feature a serial killer.

My mysteries have varied from one type to another. That is probably not a good idea. It wasn't planned. It's just the way the stories have worked out. Deadly Descent is more of a traditional mystery with a healthy dollop of suspense. Lethal Lineage is a locked room mystery. It was the pits to write and more than a little scary from a construction viewpoint. Locked room mysteries are fiendishly difficult to write and the readers are a savage lot. They pounce on any inconsistency.

Hidden Heritage contained a secret. Back to a more traditional mystery again, with a strong mix of history. It dealt with water rights which will soon be the most lethal worldwide fight in this century.

The impetus to write each book has involved a powerful image. In the case of Deadly Descent it was a line from my favorite book of poetry, The Spoon River Anthology. A woman was standing in the crowd murmuring, "my son, my son," while a politician was giving a speech. With Lethal Lineage it was a female priest dropping the chalice during communion. The image in Hidden Heritage was that of a man drowning in a livestock truckline's washout pit.

For the new one, Fractured Families. . . well, let's just say a totally soulless serial killer was essential.

The words psychopaths and sociopaths are used interchangeably. Usually. Mostly. My editor asked for the proper word for describing my villain and I chose psychopath rather than sociopath because of the work done by some psychiatrists who describe psychopaths as being the more organized and intelligent of the two. And scarily enough quite a number of them had loving families.

In fact, most psychopaths and sociopaths are not killers. But they can sure play thunder in the workplace and in people's lives. One of most fascinating books was Snakes In Suits which described the chaos caused in the workplace by evil calculating persons who don't hesitate to ruin others' career and cause havoc.

I'm a rather peaceful soul by nature. I hope the image for my next book is something less scary.

Outlines and Themes

And so it goes.

Fall is upon us, kids are moving back to my boarding school, and I'm running department meetings and preparing for 46 kids to populate my dorm. Just dropped my oldest daughter at Kenyon College (why does a father's little girl feel to study and play lacrosse 10 hours from home?). In short, life is going 100 miles an hour, and I'm trying to keep pace.

And amid it all, the best part of my day continues to happen either predawn or just before midnight – when I can steal an hour or two to write.

I'm working from an outline this year, a first, for me. Several times in the past, I've written a five- or six-page synopsis. This time, knowing how busy I will be, knowing, too, I want to give my agent something she can sink her teeth into as we discuss the work-in-progress, I spent roughly a month on a 7,000-word, detailed outline – plenty of particulars on the roadmap for me to know where I'm going, but still enough room to explore and to be surprised. I attended the keynote at Sleuthfest a few years back when Jeffrey Deaver said he spends 8 months on an outline and 3 months to write a book. I'm not nearly there, but I'm sure seeing the merits, and I'm not driving to edge of my headlights, which is how I usually work. So far, so good. I'm enjoying it and love having the safety net: It allows me to write for an hour and a half before work, then not waste time when I steal 30 minutes here and there throughout my day.

I'm also enjoying the subject matter. My work life and my writing life are intersecting in this book – it's set at a New England boarding school. I just finished and am now rereading (something I don't often do) Blacklist, by Sara Paretsky.

It's not a new book (2004), but it remains relevant and important. Issues including race and money in the criminal justice system and something touching very close to McCarthyism post 9/11 are explored. These topics are rich, and Paretsky cultivates them very well – as she so often has and continues to do. She is, simply put, a tour de force. Yet it's a thematic work. No question. And in that way, Paretsky has an agenda and is providing questions for me to ponder, all the while spinning a great yarn.

Like all writers, my reading life feeds my writing life in ways I both know and don't know. Paretsky has me considering the adage I have heard so many times: "Theme is a critic's word, not a writer's." I'm sure I'll revisit this statement in an upcoming post, but I'd love to launch the thread here and see what others have to say about it. Should a writer be contemplating theme when at the keyboard?

One Writer's Obsession

by Sybil Johnson

A discussion has been ongoing here on Type M about crafting a novel. I don’t have anything to add so I’m going to talk about one of my current obsessions instead: The Great British Bake Off. Or the Great British Baking Show as it’s called when it airs here in the U.S. I don’t really know why they changed the title for the U.S. market. I know what a “bake off” is. I suspect a lot of other Americans do too. Book titles are often changed when they cross the pond, so I guess this is another example of that.

I love, love, love this show. Can’t get enough of it. It’s great fun to see people engage in friendly competition, bonding over baking, creating tasty treats with all-purpose flour, cake flour, bread flour... But, wait! What’s this? They don’t mention any of those in the show. Apparently, in Britain it’s strong flour, plain flour, soft flour...

Since I’m a naturally curious person, I looked these things up. It seems here in the U.S. we talk about flour based on what it’s usually used for, baking cakes or bread or for general purpose baking, while in Britain they talk about how much protein or gluten is in a flour. In the following, what it’s called in the U.S. is on the right of the equal sign, what it’s called in Britain is on the left. Here’s what I learned:

cake or pastry flour = soft flour
all-purpose flour = plain flour
bread flour = strong flour or hard flour
self-rising flour = self-raising flour
whole-wheat flour = wholemeal flour

These are rough equivalents. I did see a discussion online where someone from the U.K. noted that the plain flour there which is available to the home baker is not exactly equivalent to our all-purpose flour. If these are wrong, feel free to correct me.

And then there’s sugar. They kept on referring to caster sugar and icing sugar. I figured caster sugar is what I call granulated sugar or just sugar. The web tells me that’s not totally correct. Apparently, caster sugar is superfine, finer than granulated. Icing sugar is powdered sugar.

And then there’s the kinds of things they bake, many of which I’ve either never heard of or only having a passing acquaintance with. I now know what Victoria sponge, spotted dick, plum pudding all are. Though it’s strange for me to see puddings that are sliced.

I’m also still a bit confused about terminology. Maybe some of you readers can help me out here. First, there’s biscuit. Based on what I’ve seen on the show, I get the feeling that what we call cookies and crackers here in the U.S. are both referred to as biscuits in the U.K. Is that correct? And what about puddings? Is that a general term for desserts in the U.K.? Inquiring minds what to know.

I like baking myself though I’m not nearly at the level of these contestants. My favorite thing to do is play around with cheesecake recipes. I also enjoy checking out new recipes and techniques on websites. One of the contestants from season 1 of GBBO, Ruth Clemens, has a web page called The Pink Whisk. Great fun to wander around in.

Well, that’s enough about my GBBO obsession. What about you all? What are current obsessions?

Last Minute Opportunity!

My wife and I have decided to get the hell out of Dodge (as the saying goes) and take a few days off. It’s all very sudden and all very exciting.

And I’m going to be writing up a storm. Well, actually, there are no storms planned for this part of the book, but there you go. I may murder a character or two, though.

Not wanting to leave my weekly obligation to Type M to a sticky fate, I’ve decided to leave you all the following cartoon a friend sent me several months ago.

See you next week, refreshed and reinvigorated!

The Hungry Writer

By Vicki Delany

It looks as though the current topic on our blog is about the craft of writing novels.

I’m such a rebel I’m going to talk about tomatoes.

Because it’s tomato season and because I can.

I live in the country since retiring from my job as a systems analyst at a major bank some years ago, and I’ve become a real locovore. I love to eat as locally as I can, and this time of year, I’m pretty much on a ten mile diet.  The farmer’s gate stands are bursting with potatoes (Loooove fingerlings) squash, bok choy, Swiss chard, apples, onions, garlic. And on and on I go.  I make sauces and soups and muffins to pop into the freezer for the winter.

But of all the wonderful produce, one stands out.

Tomatoes.

I love tomatoes, but I truly believe a tomato has to be freshly picked to be worth eating. In the winter and spring I might buy a tomato or two from the supermarket but only if they are going to be put into a stew or soup. They’re just not good enough to eat raw or lightly cooked.

I believe in the pleasure of anticipation. I’ll wait ten months in order to really enjoy a fresh, warm, local tomato. I believe we’ve lost a lot when we’ve given up the pleasure of anticipation. In the world today we want what we want when we want it and that when is usually now. But you can’t grow a tomato in November in the north and you can’t pick it fresh from the vine in January. You have to wait.

And wait I will do.  

I have the great fortune of living in Prince Edward County, Ontario, one of the best agricultural areas in Canada. All I have to do is walk up the road to a farm gate stand or stop in at another one on the way into town and I can buy tomatoes they grew themselves. One of the best places for tomatoes in Prince Edward County, Ontario is Vicki’s Veggies (not me, another Vicki). www.vickisveggies.comwww.vickisveggies.com

On the upcoming Labour Day Weekend, Vicki’s Veggies will be having it’s annual heirloom tomato tasting event.  They lay out over one hundred different tomatoes for you to sample, to buy, and to place orders for next years seedlings. If you’re a tomato lover, it’s the place to be!

Talent—Innate or Learned?

In his Tuesday entry, below, Rick pondered the question of how much one actually needs to know in order to successfully write a novel. He concludes that howsoever much one studies the craft, a basic talent for storytelling has to be present in order to begin a novel.

I, Donis, find this a fascinating concept. I do believe that one can learn the basic precepts of writing and with practice become very competent at it, even successful. But it does seem to me that some people just have it—the natural ability to craft a tale that rises above the rest. A few years ago, I wrote an entry about talent on this site that addressed this very concept, which I reproduce below with a few modifications:

Do you believe in predestination? Are we born to write, to act, to paint, to be mommies or accountants? Or is it Karma? Is this our reward, our fulfillment? Perhaps our punishment. In his wonderful little book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield says that basically every human being is born with God-given, unique talents, and if you don’t use them, then you are a wastrel and an ingrate. (I paraphrase.)

Therefore, if you are driven to write (paint/parent/account), you must write, or fly in the very face of God.

How’s that for motivation?

Like most authors I know, I began writing when I was a child. In fact, I can’t remember when I didn’t write little stories. The earliest piece I remember clearly was called “The Black Cat”. The protagonist was a little girl who turned into a cat every night. I don’t remember what she did. I don’t think she used her powers to save kittens from storm drains, or any other catly heroics. I only remember her drinking cream from a saucer on the floor. Apparently she didn’t retain her human moral values when she transformed.

I loved to make up stories mostly because I loved to read stories. When I was a girl, the world in fiction was as real to me as my actual life, if not more so. Before I could read, I adored being read to - and here’s the key – I was read to, continually. I was given picture books when I was more interested in chewing on them than looking at them. I therefore learned to read very early, and consequently began writing very early. Bless you, Mama and Daddy. You gave me a gift that influenced and enriched my entire life.

Now, being an avid reader doesn’t necessarily make one want to be a writer, but I think it is a prerequisite. I do think a healthy self-regard is extremely helpful. Listen, learn, be guided, and practice, and never think you can’t improve, but never let anybody write your book for you, either. There is something each of us has to say or do that nobody else in the long history of this wide world can say or do, and if you don’t give it a try, you deprive the rest of us of your singular talent.

Born to be

Barbara here. Rick has invited us all to put in our two cents on the question of talent and storytelling. Canada abolished its one cent coin a few years ago, so here's my plug nickels's worth. I have no idea whether the talent for storytelling is born into us or not, bit I do believe that most of us, if not all, are born with a creative urge and the path through which it is expressed. This path may be guided by early exposure, as in musicians or artists who follow in their parents' footsteps, but sometimes it has nothing to do with the culture and interests of our families.

I was born into a family of musicians and painters. They did other things with their lives, but my grandfather, as a surgeon in France during World War I, painted scenes of rural France as an outlet and counterpoint to the horrific demands of his job. His talent for painting predated the war; I have a painting of his hanging in my house, done when he was 16 years old. My mother was a high school science teacher but inherited that painter's passion, and many of the other walls in my house hold paintings done by her, inspired by the sight of a child playing or a spectacular play of light on mountains or sea.

I, however have never had the slightest urge to pick up a sketchpad or capture a scene on canvas. I have absolutely zero talent for drawing, painting, or otherwise interpreting the world in visual form. But from the age of six, when I first learned how to spell, I have been inventing stories. Story ideas spin in my head all the time. The question is not where do I get my ideas (for they are in the line at the coffee shop and in the sidebars of the newspaper), but how do I know whether an idea has the legs for a 300-page novel, or whether it deserves to be a scene or a subplot in a larger story. Experience and practice have taught me that.

Writing, particularly fiction writing, occupied no part of my family tree. I am the first in my whole extended family to be obsessed with creating stories. However, some of the prerequisites to good storytelling were present in my family home. My parents were avid readers and our home was filled with books. Filled. Every kind of book from biography to history to great literature and poetry. I had free rein of the shelves and picked up books at random, reading William Faulkner and Alexander Solzhenitzyn at whim From them I learned the secrets of great drama and absorbed, without lectures or lessons, the techniques of story arc, characterization, and imagery.

I wrote all through my childhood and throughout adulthood, mostly dreadful sap that fortunately did not see the light of day but that helped me to learn my craft. My late husband, however, was a painter. He saw the world not in terms of story bites like me but in terms of images and framed scenes to be captured on canvas. Not in terms of characters and conflicts but in terms of colour, shapes. shadows, and contrasting light. Yet our children, with their DNA packed on both sides with a painter's genes and on one side with a storyteller's, followed neither path. Like me, they show no talent or inclination for visual art. One has some interest in writing song lyrics and another in writing scripts, so some of that has past on through the DNA. But their creativity has found its primary outlet in other forms -- in music and acting.

It is a strange, human beast, this creative urge. Who knows where it comes from, but I believe we all have it. Perhaps we are all born with our own primary outlet, whether it's writing, art, acting, music, dance, crafts, woodworking, photography, or even software design. It may be the random re-alligning of the DNA but it comes from the core of who who are. The rest -- the talent, training, and practice it takes to do it well -- are secondary, because if it's not your passion, you won't put yourself at the artist's easel or the writer's desk long enough to get anything done.

How much do you need to know to successfully write a novel?

by Rick Blechta

This past week, I had a very interesting (and stimulating) conversation with a young person about novel writing. Basically, it revolved around creating characters and how they seem to take on a life of their own. (I’ve blogged about this several times, as have others, right here on Type M.)

This conversation led me down another path over the next few days eventually leading me to question how much one actually needs to know in order to successfully write a novel. I have an idea this post is only going to serve to start the conversations since the topic is a big one — and will probably draw in others as it goes along.

So what is the most important thing/skill/idea to possess before you start down what will be a long and grueling path?

After a lot of cogitation, I tend to think it’s that you have to understand what a novel is and isn’t.

As others have said in the past, a novel tells a story, but the plot can’t be static (this happened then that happened, then this third thing happened). During the course of the story, something has to change. Usually, it’s one or more of the characters, although it can be a situation. It has to arrive at its conclusion with at least some sort of finality. Otherwise it’s not satisfying to the reader.

Over the years, I have read mss where it's clear the writer didn’t understand this very important fact. Bad grammar, sketchy character writing, dialogue, description can all be taught, slaved over and improved because, while requiring a certain amount of talent to excel at, these items are all mechanical sorts of things. I’ve a writer has a bit of flair and the will to work to improve, improvement will happen. If the writer didn’t understand this basic tenet of fiction writing, then more than likely, the ms will have to be completely rewritten — or scrapped altogether.

But if that basic storytelling flair isn’t present, I’m not sure how much any kind of tutelage will make someone a novelist.

Then there’s the idea for the story. It requires an initial interesting idea. What exactly is that? I can’t really tell you. It’s just something I seem to know when I begin writing a novel. This idea is interesting while the other thirty I considered while I was searching for the basic kernel of the next novel weren’t interesting. So far (eleven novels in), I haven't been wrong.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that a basic talent has to be present in order to begin. Certain abilities that can’t be taught have to be present, or the writer is not going to be all that successful. The rest can be worked on — if the writer is willing.

More on this topic next week. Please feel free to weigh in!

Surprise!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vacation!

I'm writing this from Old Orchard Beach, Maine, during my week off. My break comes on the heels of a wild summer -- I served as assistant director and academic dean of the Northfield Mount Hermon Summer School (eight weeks at 10 to 12 hours a day), I just finished a 7,000-word outline for a novel (even I can't believe I just wrote that -- plotting has never been my forte), and the lone signing on this vacation sold out.

I vowed to get away from the keyboard this week, so here are some pics from the vacation.

Writing Under Any Conditions

As I'm writing this, a jackhammer is going off in the background. This is the second day of that particular noise on my block. Yesterday, we heard it almost continuously from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Today it appears to be gracing us with its presence again.

This is not unusual in the city I live in. We seem to be "enjoying" a construction boom. You can't walk more than two blocks without finding some house being torn down or under construction or being remodeled. I'm happy for the construction industry, having all those jobs created, but it can be annoying.

Some writers can write no matter what's going on around them. I know a number of them who regularly write at Starbucks or some other coffee shop. I'm not one of those. I don't even like writing in a relatively quiet library. I want to be at home with my things surrounding me.

But, with all this construction going on, I'm learning to write despite all the distractions. A house next door to ours took almost 5 years to finish before they moved in. Yep, 5 years. That's 5 years of jackhammering, pounding, sawing, Mariachi music... And you have to realize this was all within a few feet of our house, which shook when they were driving in giant metal posts and digging out the basement. Once the construction moved inside, things got better, but there was still plenty of noise.

The noise bothers me more when I'm in the first draft writing phase, less when I'm plotting or doing later edits. How much noise bothers me also depends on how I'm feeling. If I'm a bit under the weather, it bothers me a lot more. But if you have deadlines, you have to learn how to deal with it. I wrote some construction issues into my second book, PAINT THE TOWN DEAD, and I have a short story outlined, which I have yet to write, that involves conflict over construction. And I have other ideas: bodies found in porta potties, bodies falling off of roofs, bodies found in poured concrete...the possibilities are endless

I also invested in some noise-canceling headphones and play my own music to counteract what’s coming in from outside. The construction is still annoying, but I’m learning to deal with it.

What about you all? Are you sensitive to what’s going on around you? Can you do your work (whatever it is) with lots of noise?

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.