Uncertain Endings

Three times lately I've read mysteries where the ending is up to my imagination. How everything turns out is entirely up to me.

The three books have one thing in common. I will never buy another book from these authors.

Seriously. Fuzzy endings are to be expected in most of The New Yorker short stories and a great many literary books. But when they occur in mysteries I feel betrayed. I don't think I'm unusual in this reaction. We're living in really uncertain times. It's as though we are required to realign our thinking on a daily basis.

Coping with the Orwellian nightmare thrust on us by politicians is bad enough, but we can't open the paper or click on our websites without another icon biting the dust.

I believe so many of the best-sellers right are mysteries because--usually--we know who the good guys are and blessedly, they know who the bad guys are. Villains are brought to justice. The world is aching for stories that draw a line between good and evil.

Recently a friend of mine--another writer--whose father had left at an early age said during an acceptance speech for an award that he learned what men were supposed to be like by watching old westerns when he was a little kid. He had no other role models.

Simplistic? Sentimental? Probably, but he could have done a lot worse. I adored the old Gunsmoke series. And how about the lovable bumbling Columbo who had an uncanny ability to smoke out evil-doers?

I realize that I'm confessing to a broad streak of immaturity, but I insist on proper endings. No one has to tell me the world exists in broad strokes of gray. I can put up with an unhappy ending if I must, but please, end the story.

Fairy tale touches still happen. People still do wonderful things. I read a newspaper article last week about a UPS driver who walked eleven miles to work every day. He was too ashamed to tell anyone he couldn't afford a vehicle. When his co-workers found out about it, they secretly started a fund to buy him a car. The unveiling and his expression of deep gratitude was posted all over the web.

People still care and cry and feel. My idea of an ideal ending was that of the men's snowboard competition at the Olympics and Shaun White's extraordinary display of emotion. For an instant we were allowed to view what was at stake internally after physically dedicating one's life to performing in a single event. For an instant we could participate in his joy and his embrasure of people who had made it all possible.

And this is the end of this post. In case you're wondering how it's all going to turn out in the long run, I'll be back in two weeks.

Little Voices Inside My Head

The little voice in the back of my head began whispering to me around page 200 of the novel I’m writing. I’ve heard the voice before, and like the other times, it began like a bad radio transmission: static muffling a cryptic message.

As always –– when I plant myself in front of the computer to compose, print the hard copy, read that with pencil in hand, and compose again –– the whisper isn’t so distant. Static fades. Eventually the whisper turns to a shout. Plot twists and turns come into view.

I grew up on a steady diet of Conan, Agatha, and detectives like Spenser and Kinsey. I experienced all kinds of plots, from the traditional mystery, to the intricate and complicated, to, dare I say, even the outlandish.

Plot, I’ve come to believe, is simply the natural sequence of events done by people whose personalities dictate said sequence.

Common sense? Of course. But I’m a genre writer (proud to be one, in fact), and even though I consider myself a character-driven writer, I know there’s an unspoken agreement between my reader and me. I’m tasked with having something to say about a contemporary issue, creating a characters you want to spend time with, and keeping you on the edge of your seat while we follow the story together to the end. These tasks are things I’m more likely to be aware of before I start a novel. When working on the book, the end game changes: I’m focused on telling the story as clearly and economically as I can.

So now, around 200 pages in, the little voice is shouting: Would he say that so easily? Wouldn’t the suspect have acted differently? Should she say this?

Revision turns to rewriting. Revision, thanks to the whispers, is truly a re-envisioning of the work. I'm adding scenes and rewriting to make suspects better drawn and clarify the logic behind the sequence of events.

Because of this, composition rarely feels like forward progress. Rather, reclining on my sofa, manuscript pages on my clipboard, pencil cutting words, adding words, drawing arrows, the voice becomes louder and writing becomes clearer and more focused. And I trust that the plot will come into light.

Sometimes, all it takes are the voices inside my head.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I’m taking a break from working on my book, which is due very, very soon, to wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day. My hero, Snoopy, does it better than I can so here’s a short video for you.


Last time you heard from me, I was in a sorry state, quite convinced that I was doomed. Things are looking brighter now. I had a bit of an epiphany regarding the last bit of the book, which I wasn’t terribly happy with. I’m not quite at the G&T stage, but I’m getting there.

I don’t have much else to say right now. I thought you’d enjoy this clip from the TV show “Mike and Molly”, one of the funniest ones on writing I’ve seen. Makes me laugh every time.

A SPECIAL special guest blogger: Deborah Atkinson returns!

I am thrilled to tell you that one of our former bloggers is returning today for a special appearance. If yours truly weren’t such a dunce, you would have been reading this on the first weekend of this month — but I got my dates wrong. So I am happily giving up my regular Tuesday spot to my good friend to bring you what I promise is something out of the ordinary for Type M. So take it away, Deborah!

Deborah Atkinson weaves the legends and folklore of Hawaii into suspense-filled contemporary crime fiction. Atkinson lives in Honolulu, Hawaii and is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan, University of Iowa Writers’ Summer Workshop, and a recipient of the University of Hawaii’s Meryl Clark Award for Fiction. Her books include Primitive Secrets, which is the introduction to the Storm Kayama series, The Green Room, which was a Book Sense Notable pick, Fire Prayer, and Pleasing the Dead. Visit www.deborahatkinson.com for more information about her work.
 

Detour

Thanks, Rick, for asking me to be your guest blogger today. It’s great to be back among my mystery/suspense colleagues. I have missed you all!

Some of you know that the reason I have been missing from the mystery scene is because our family struggled with our younger son’s opiate addiction. It’s true that addiction is a family disease; the fear that he would overdose and die before he could overcome the incomprehensible pull of the drug ran our lives. Andrew has just passed his fourth birthday of sobriety and is doing well, and he has worked hard at it. You may already know that an opiate addict relapses an average of eleven times, and each relapse is life-threatening.

Though my mystery writing stalled, I wrote about our family’s struggle with Substance Use Disorder, hoping that what we learned along this long path (and it is long—much longer than the average 28-day treatment program) might help other families shorten their own roads to recovery. As I learned more about the problem, I realized how little most people know about it—including doctors and some “specialists.”

Recognizing a substance use disorder in a family member is difficult, and that is only the first step of a long journey. Even after you recognize the problem, where do you go next? And how to get your loved one to go along with the idea? He or she is in the deepest denial of all. There’s even a term for denial of a mental illness, anosognosia.
I collaborated with several addiction specialists on this book, which I’m calling Feathers in the Soul: A Guide for Families Struggling with a Child’s Addiction. It is complete and I’m looking for a publisher. I hope other people can learn from our experience and avoid some of our mistakes. Knowledge is how we as a culture and society will conquer this rampant scourge.

My favorite genre, though, remains mystery/suspense, and I am looking forward to returning to this group of down-to-earth, enthusiastic and erudite storytellers. Just so I didn’t get swallowed in the often-heartbreaking reality of addiction, I also wrote a thriller titled Impact Zone. It, too, is complete and looking for a good home.

Here’s a short synopsis. The protagonist, Hawaii native Rod Tautala, is in recovery. (Surprise!) But Rod’s real problem begins when an army buddy calls and announces that he’s mailed photographs from their time in Afghanistan. The package includes pictures of Rod’s older brother Cliff, who died there. Rod is leaving for Honolulu to visit his sick father and he asks his best friend, Sam, to pick up the package. The next day, Rod learns that Sam has been stabbed to death in front of Rod’s apartment. Stunned, Rod also finds himself guardian to Sam’s precocious and grieving sixteen-year-old daughter, Bahati, who pressures him to find her father’s murderer.

Rod and Bahati must return to Hawaii to uncover a scheme involving hundreds of millions in cash skimmed from the U.S. government during Rod’s tour in Afghanistan. (This part is based in reality.) Not only is Rod’s army buddy implicated, but Rod’s brother may also have been involved—and it looks like the helicopter crash that killed Cliff wasn’t an accident after all. Of course, a cadre of nasty killers within the U.S. government are hunting Rod and Bahati, who must overcome internal and external demons to survive.

Thanks again Rick, for asking me to guest blog. I hope to see you all in libraries, bookstores, online, and at mystery conferences. Read on!

To splash out or not to splash out?

This year here in Edinburgh, Scotland, we are celebrating the centenary one of our most famous novelists, Muriel Spark. In 2008 the Times newspaper named Spark as No. 8 in its list of "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945." She is possibly most well know for her novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. However, Spark is quoted as saying her favourite of all her novels is The Driver's Seat. The Driver's Seat involves a killing and is often referred to as a “whydunnit”, so I think I can legitimately sneak Spark into the Type M for Murder blog ;)



However, I'm not writing about Muriel because of her writing but because of her dress. You see, in 1951 and very early in Spark's writing career she entered a short story competition run by the Observer newspaper. She came first out of 6,700 entrants, including many from well-established writers. The win changed the course of her writing life. Now at this time she was also struggling financially. But instead of being sensible and using the very considerable prize money of £250 to pay her gas bill or buy food she treated herself to a very expensive, beautiful blue velvet dress and a complete set of Proust's 'A la Recherche du Temps Perdu'. I saw the very dress she bought this weekend in an exhibition about Muriel's life and writing at the National Library of Scotland. It is indeed a very lovely dress (as you can see from my photo). My question is this, was it a crime for her to have splashed out like this when she was so close to the breadline? What would you have done with the money – £250 is probably worth about £5500 in today's money? Would you have been sensible or splashed out on something special. If you had splashed out, what would you have bought?



I think, like Muriel, I may have treated myself to a posh new frock 😉

Author Mike Martin on knowing when to let go

As our guest author this weekend, I am pleased to welcome friend and fellow Ottawa writer Mike Martin. Mike is the author of the gentle, atmospheric Sgt. Windflower mystery series set amid the rugged capes and whimsical villages of Newfoundland. There are six books in the series, the latest being A Tangled Web. The previous book, A Long Ways from Home, was shortlisted for the Bony Blithe Award as the best light mystery of the year. Take it away, Mike.

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” —Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Stephen King’s advice to authors refers to our beloved characters and it’s true that most of us have trouble killing off our main players. But if that’s hard, how can we ever let go of a whole series? That’s one of the questions on my mind these days as I weave my way through Book 7, just barely dribbling out of the creative ooze, of my Sgt. Windflower Mystery Series.

Some people say that 3 books are enough in a series and others claim that there are no limits on how many books an author can pen in that type of medium. That the story only ends when the author dies. Like the alphabet ending at Y when Sue Grafton passed. But I have to admit that I had doubts while writing A Tangled Web, Book 6 in the series. Midway through I stopped, and I almost didn’t finish. But then another wave of something, I like to think of it as inspiration, came along and carried me over the finish line.

But when is the right time to let go? And is it just my decision to make? Once I create a character and a story line and put it out into the world, I think I have more obligations that my ‘egocentric little scribbler’s heart’. Maybe I owe something to readers who have committed to the series, and even to the characters themselves, as crazy as that sounds.

Loyal readers of a series are more than passionate bystanders. They are part of the process. Without them, the words on paper would have no life, no echo. Being a writer is like yelling down into the canyon. Without readers we are talking to ourselves about imaginary lives. They give our voices resonance and make the stories real. Because they are to them. So, however I decide to stop writing this series, at Book 7 or 11, I have to think about them.

And the characters. Our precious darlings. I know that some writers, famous and infamous, have just dropped them because they were bored or tired or wanted to do something more exciting. Maybe I’m old-fashioned but that sounds to me like giving up your long-term spouse for something younger, flashier. It doesn’t feel right. I have no idea how to consult my characters about leaving them behind, but I’m prepared to at least listen and let my conscience guide me.

 

Finally, I believe that if I am too old, or too tired, or if my writing dulls, I hope that my beta readers will tell me that I have reached the end of this series. If I return to the same crime or the same set-up, motive or start to mirror past stories, I think they will tell me. I also think I’ll know myself. We all want to write forever. That is what we do. But maybe it will be time to do something else, to test the boundaries of the written page. To find new adventures. Or just quietly let the characters and the series fade to black.

 

There is ‘a tide in the affairs of men’, as Sgt. Windflower might quote the Bard. But so too is there a tide in the life of a series. Knowing when to sail or to stay in port may be our greatest challenge. As you might have guessed, I have many more questions than answers. What do you think? When is the right time to suspend or even cease a series? 

 

To learn more, check out Mike's website at sgtwindflowermysteries.com.

What I Learned About My First Book

I'm about to complete a tedious project. I thought it would take a few days. With interruptions to do other necessary tasks, it has taken two months. But what I've learned has been both eye-opening and rewarding.

I mentioned at the end of last year that a new publisher was about to re-issue my Lizzie Stuart series in both e-books and print. I was really excited when I saw the new cover and then the first book in the series, Death's Favorite Child, was available on Amazon.  And then we hit a glitch. I looked at the excerpt on Amazon and discovered typos that had occurred in the process. I contacted my new publisher. He asked me to send him the list of typos so that he could contact the company that had handled the conversion process. When he saw how many errors were in the excerpt, he decided the book needed to be redone.

Good news, the publisher really cared about the quality of what we were offering readers. I offered to proofread. That was when the publisher explained that the process worked best if we could use a Word manuscript. Even better news when I found the original manuscript -- and even though the book had been done in Word circa 2000, I was able to upgrade.

Minor bad news when I discovered that the upgrade had converted all the opening quotation marks to "A" and that apostrophes had also changed to another symbol. The apostrophes could be fixed with a change and replace. The quotation marks had to be done by hand. Still not a problem.

But then I hit the major "ouch". I discovered that the manuscript was missing the last chapter. That was when I realized that the only version I could find on a CD was the last draft. This was the version that I had sent out to my beta reader who had been with me in Cornwall, England when I was doing the research for the book. Our meet-up vacation as she and her son were en route to her academic fellowship had inspired the book that I had written as a "writing exercise." She had read the manuscript and liked it--except for the last chapter. She had been unhappy that nothing had happened at the end between Lizzie Stuart, my criminal justice professor, who was vacationing with her friend, Tess Alvarez, a travel writer, and John Quinn, the Philadelphia police detective. I had added a final chapter to deal with that and to set myself up for the next book.

And there was going to be a next book because opportunity had come in the form of a tip from a friend about a new imprint, and I had sold a book that I had written when all I'd intended to do was try my hand at moving my characters from another book to a new setting. Fast, forward to 2017, and my discovery that this was not only the unedited manuscript on the CD, but my next to last version.

That's where the tedious came in. I have been reading and correcting the Word manuscript with the published book in hand. The amazing part is that aside from revisions I seem to have made in the final version to add to the book, the three rounds of editing the book went through were about my writing quirks. My excellent editor had made my writing better, but not tampered with the plot.

Reading every word of my first published book left me feeling pretty good. Death's Favorite Child was the fourth book I had written--counting the two romantic suspense novels I had written years earlier and my first mystery that was intended to be the first in the Lizzie Stuart series (and eventually became the much revised second book set back home in Gallagher, Virginia). I could see the rewards of having spent four years when I thought I was only spinning my wheels as I wrote and revised what I thought would be my first book in the series. I had known Lizzie by the time we got to Cornwall. I could hear her voice in my head.

And -- having no expectation at all that the Cornwall book would ever be published -- I had given myself the liberty to write exactly the kind of book I would like to read. I had written a book that was my take on an Agatha Christie mystery with an African American female sleuth and a diverse cast of characters -- from a Philadelphia homicide detective who was dealing with a "bad year" to an famous artist, who was a lesbian who challenged stereotypes to a Southern-born teenager who walked in and set a pivotal twist in motion.

What did I learn?  That there were some things I got right in that first book. I also rediscovered a minor character who is now going to make a return as the catalyst for a short story that I promised to write for an anthology. Sometimes even a tedious task can yield unexpected rewards.

Set to Launch and Reading Reviews

My newest Alafair Tucker novel, Forty Dead Men, has finally been released into the world—at last! It seems to me that this book was a LONG time coming. I turned in the final revised manuscript months ago. A few years back I went to a book launch for a novel that was number 12 in a series, and the author said he was currently working on number 14 and could hardly remember what number 12 was about! I’m not that bad, but I have moved on and sometimes have to remind myself that such and such an event happened in this novel and not that one.

I’ve been gearing up for the personal appearances that go with a launch. This always entails a new outfit and a new hair color. I always plan on it entailing a 20 pound weight loss as well, but as yet that goal has never been accomplished.

Forty Dead Men has been released both in paper and as an ebook. If you would like to check it out, I invite you to breeze over to my website where I have have posted the first couple of chapters. I hope you will find yourself intrigued. This week Barnes & Noble has chosen to feature Forty Dead Men on the first page of B&N Press Presents.

The early reviews have been excellent, I am happy to say. I don’t read my reviews as religiously as I did early in my writing career. I like it when the review strokes my ego. I try not to let it bother me if someone is less than enthusiastic. Of course, having said that, I can get dozens of five star reviews and one three star review and the less effusive one is the one I remember. I think that reviews tell me quite a bit about the reviewer. In fact, they may tell me more about the reviewer than they do the book itself.

Readers will often love something about your writing that you never anticipated. They’ll make connections that you didn’t even realize you had put in there, or attribute something to a character’s motives that you didn’t mean AT ALL. Still, once a book is published it isn’t yours any more, it’s the reader’s, so you can’t really complain. (Well, you can, but you shouldn’t) Sometimes reviews are on the nose. A review of one of my early books said, “The writing style is humorous, and odd.”  That pretty much summarizes my view of humankind. All it’s members are very humorous and odd.  That includes reviewers.

My official book launch will be in a couple of weeks. It won’t be a media event, but it’ll be fun and I hope you’ll come if you’re in the area. Here’s your invitation:

Please join me for the launch of my tenth Alafair Tucker Mystery, 
Forty Dead Men

 February 24, 2:00 p.m. at Poisoned Pen Bookstore,
1404 N. Goldwater Blvd, Suite 101, Scottsdale, AZ 85251

I’ll be joined by authors Dennis Palumbo and Priscilla Royal, and Dana Stabenow will join us for a tribute to the late, much beloved Frederick Ramsay.

Please come.

Forty Dead Men is a tragic, bittersweet story of a returning veteran and PTSD. While there’s a mystery, the story actually revolves around Gee Dub. Even if you haven’t read the previous Alafair Tucker mysteries, you can pick up this book. And, if you’re a fan of the Ian Rutledge mysteries, you might want to meet another veteran of World War I. Lesa’s Book Critiques, February 5, 2018

Confronting dull as dust

More thoughts on Sybil's and Aline's posts, both of which resonate so vividly with us all. It's so nice to feel we writers are not alone in our madness.

I have a twist to add to Aline's seven stages of writing. In my case, the desperation stage usually hits when I realize not only do I not have enough plot thrills and twists to fill 300+ pages, but the 64 pages I have written are as dull as dust.

I write two different types of books – my Rapid Reads novellas which are about 20,000 words, and my regular mystery novels, typically 90,000. The Rapid Reads have several constraints, including a linear storyline with no flashbacks or subplots, and a limited number of characters. I suspect we all cheat a bit on the subplot bit; they are, after all, often an integral part of the main plot.

Writing my full-length mysteries, I used to be a pure pantser writer, putting pen to paper as soon as I had the opening scene in mind and moving forward as each next scene came to me. Hence I never had an idea where I was going, how long it would take, and where I would land up. Everyone who writes this way knows how terrifying it can be. Periods of desperation, inspiration, and elation oscillate throughout the whole first draft. As I've evolved into more complex plots with several points of view, intersecting storylines and flashbacks, however, I've discovered that flying purely by the seat of my pants doesn't work too well; I need to keep track of where things are going and make sure the different storylines mesh. So I have developed a hybrid pantser/plotter style. I still don't know where the whole thing is going nor where it will end up, but I can see a half dozen scenes ahead and know what needs to come next.

I credit this change to my Rapid Reads experience. Because in the beginning, the publisher required a detailed chapter outline before sending the contract, I learned to think the story through from beginning to end, with each step along the way. I didn't enjoy it, but I discovered with a linear, 20,000 story, it was fairly easy to do. And it does make writing that first draft a much smoother, less terrifying process.

This is where the "desperation because this story is dull as dust" problem rears its head, however. What looked in the outline to be enough story to fill 20,000 pages turned out to be plodding and flat. Outlines do not give you the sense of drama that is needed to sustain interest. "And then he talked to the police and learned..." looks as if it should fill a chapter, but much more conflict is needed. Not just obvious, simple conflicts, like the cop doesn't want to talk to him, or the cop is dating his ex-wife, but an unexpected twist that adds a new dimension to the story and often takes it on another path entirely. Which is why I never liked outlines in the first place. Inspiration comes to me when I am deep in the scene, when a character says or does something, and I think "ahah! that's a way cooler idea!"

I am at that stage in my current Rapid Reads project. Halfway through, and aware that I need something to spice it up. The joke among crime writers is this is where you drop another body down the chimney, or send a woman through the door with a gun. But merely adding random twists will not always make a book more intriguing – we've all read books where we rolled our eyes and said "oh not another car chase, or explosion, or even dead body." The truly great twists come out of the story that came before and affect the characters on a powerful personal level. They need to deepen the tension, raise the suspense, and confound the characters as well as the readers.

A neat trick. Finding that perfect twist is the challenge of this "dull as dust" stage. I fret and argue and reread and ask "What if? What else? What is the worst that can happen?" And sometimes I just carry on, hoping the inspiration will fall into my lap somewhere down the line. Sometimes it only comes during the rewrites. All I can do is hope that eventually it does. Stay tuned.

Writing to a target

by Rick Blechta

I’ve been working on my next fictional foray for far too long now. Yeah, there are some excellent extenuating circumstances involved, but the fact is I really want to get on with this, get to the end of the novel and then sit back and see what I’ve got.

Several years ago while in Italy scouting locations for my most recently published full-length novel, Roses for a Diva, I saw Michelangelo’s final (unfinished) works, the Florentine Pietà. Everything is roughed out fairly well (the figure of Christ seems to be nearly finished), but the work is not by any means completed.

This is the way I now view a completed first draft. Everything is there (generally) but it’s all very coarse. Those polishing edits are still very much needed.

I want to get to that point with my current ms!

Thing is I’m also laying the foundation for a (hoped for) series and there’s a lot of spadework involved to set things up properly. There are very few relationships that are ongoing at the beginning of the story — especially between the two protagonists. So I have to include a good dose of context and information.

What I realize now is that I’m faced with having a novel that could be too long for most publishers. Working on my side: it’s a thriller (which tend to be longer than most crime novels), plus it’s a political thriller (allowed to be even longer it seems). Working against me: I don’t see how I can tell my story in fewer than 100,000 words.

All that being said, the editing process allows me the opportunity to whittle things down, chip away at my “sculpture”, polishing and refining it in much the same way Michelangelo would have done had he finished his work. I’d prefer to keep my ms to 100,000 words more or less, but at the rate I’m piling up the verbiage, that could become a tall order to tell my story effectively.

Time will tell.

Does anyone else out there have trouble keeping their mss to an appropriate length for publishing norms or am I a (verbose) exception?

For readers, do you have problems with longer novels or does good quality writing — something that’s first and foremost in my mind, believe me — enough to keep you going in longer stories?
___________________

Interesting sidebar: You'll notice the older man holding up the body of Christ in the sculpture. That’s Michelangelo who included himself in the work. So we have a very clear idea of what this famous artist looked like at the end of his life.

The Seven Stages of Writing a Novel

It was Sybil's post the other day, talking about the stage we all know  - that crisis of confidence we get near the end of a book and suddenly start panicking about the approaching deadline when no ending appears to be in sight - that got me thinking about all the different stages on the way through - seven, I reckon.

1.  Inspiration.
This is the good bit.  This is the time when your head is teeming with ideas, so many that you can't write fast enough to get them on to the screen.  Your characters spring to life, the plot sweeps them along and you just know this is the best book you're ever going to write.

2. Deflation.
What Ian Rankin described as  the 'page 64' problem kicks in.  All those fantastic ideas that were going to fill a whole book have been worked through and it's still only, yes, page 64.  Now you have to find more ideas to take you through the next 235.  At least.

3.  Perspiration
This is what separates the writers from the people who think it must be lovely to write a book.  This is when you grit your teeth, sit at your desk and graft and graft until the whole thing starts to take shape in your hands. By way of reward, you do occasionally get spells when the story takes over and again your fingers are flying across the keys.  This is the addictive bit, the cruelly seductive charm of creative writing - cruel, because the next stage is

4. Trepidation
You pause to reread what you've written and suddenly you're not sure it's working as well as you had thought it was. Or at all.  Indeed, maybe you should never have started this book. You had other ideas at the time - why did you decide on this one? You're now frightened that you have wasted months - months! - of your life that you will never get back.

5. Desperation
And the deadline is approaching so you haven't time to scrap it and start over, but you have no idea how you're going to bring this wretched thing to any sort of conclusion, let alone the sort that leaves the reader immediately clicking on Amazon to find another one.   Putting a wet cloth round your head, you read it again and again till two in the morning - and then you discover the meaning of the phrase 'the inspiration born of desperation'. There are two or three things you see now that you can do that would help a bit - actually, quite a lot, and they're not even very radical.

6.Elation
You've cracked it!  There will be a book after all!  You're racing to the finish line, and everything is falling into place.  There!  And now you can type the beautiful words, 'The End.'  And maybe it isn't quite as amazing as it was in your mind before you actually started to write it, but still you know you've done a good job.

7. Consumption

Champagne, if you like, though personally, I find a really stiff gin and tonic hits the spot more precisely. And after a couple of those you'll forget that any minute now you're going to have to start another one.  Still, you've got a couple of brilliant ideas for it already...   

Chopping Wood

I came up as a newspaperman, covering meetings, scribbling in a narrow notepad (I still carry one with me), and printing out stories to edit with a pencil before the final submission. The hard copy was often flooded with annotations, slashed words, arrows, and my cryptic block letters. This was how I learned to revise –– from a burly, bearded, redhead at the city desk of the Dunkirk Observer. He took one of my early stories and slashed, drew lines to indicate relocation, and simplified, then handed it back with a simple, “Get it?”

Got it.

And, after a few weeks, I realized how it should be done. That was 1991. I was working nights at the Observer during my junior year in college, spending days as an English major who rarely left the newsroom at my college paper.

The process was simple: write, print, stack the pages on a clipboard, sit down with my pencil, and “chop the wood,” as Clyde Phillips told me recently, describing revision. “Keep chopping that wood.”

For a while, I put down the ax.

Maybe I didn’t put it down so much as I replaced it. With a computer. Moving and deleting became so much faster, and time is everything in the news business. And moving text could be done with a click of the mouse. Why draw lines and arrows? After all, it takes me an hour to go through 20 manuscript pages with my trusted pencil.

But that’s the thing, it’s trusted for a reason. The process of revising on hard copy yields better results. For me.

Why? Not sure, exactly. Maybe it’s no more real than a paper vs. plastic preference. Maybe it’s psychological, a mental preference of a neurotic writer. But I don’t think so. My prose is better –– clearer, more refined, cleaner, and more sparse –– when I work on the hard copy.

My clipboard is the chopping block, and I’ll continue to whittle away.

Snollygosters and Grumbletonians

I’m at the tail end of my WIP with a deadline looming over me. One minute I’m convinced I’ve got it, the next I’m sure I’m doomed. Endings are difficult for me. They always have been. I discovered this when I came across stories I wrote in grade school and junior high. You can read about them here.

So I’m in need of a little distraction. For me that means finding interesting words. Yes, I was that kid who liked to read the dictionary and encyclopedia for fun.

Here are a few interesting words I’ve run across recently:

suffonsified or sophonsified – I heard this one on an episode of Sleepy Hollow. Couldn’t find it in the OED, but I did find it online. Supposedly, it’s informal Canadian speak meaning satisfied. Does that ring a bell for all of you Canadians out there?

gillygaupus – I also got this one from Sleepy Hollow. According to the OED it originated in the 1700s and means a foolish or awkward person. Variations include gilly-gaucus and gilly-gawpy 

fudgel - This is an eighteenth-century term meaning “Pretending to work when you're not actually doing anything at all.” I have to say I’m pretty good at this one. A lot of people would say writers, in particular, do this a lot. But, really, sometimes when we’re staring off into space we’re actually working!

perendinate - to put off until the day after tomorrow. I’m also really good at this one, though I’m trying to be better.

uhtceare - (OOT-key-ARE-a) This is an Old English word meaning lying awake and worrying about the day ahead. That’s me these days with that deadline looming.

slugabed – This one’s from the 16th century and means someone who lies in bed through laziness or past the time they should be up. I’ve actually heard this one in my life, from my mom when she was trying to get me up for school. I am not a morning person!

grumbletonians - people who are unhappy with their government. I think there are a lot of people in the U.S. these days (and probably in other countries) that could be called grumbletonians these days. The OED says: “A contemptuous designation applied in the latter part of the 17th c. to the members of the so-called ‘Country Party’ in English politics, who were accused by the ‘Court party’ of being actuated by dissatisfied personal ambition; hence in later times applied to supporters of the Opposition.”

snollygoster - A shrewd, unprincipled person, esp. a politician. Love this one. I shall start using it immediately!

So there you have it, some fun new words for you to use. Now, I must get back to writing!

When the complete plot for a crime novel arrives on your doorstep

b)y Rick Blechta

Actually, change that title to “when a complete plot for a believable crime novel arrives on your doorstep”, because that’s exactly what is taking place right now in Toronto (where I live).

First, here’s a pretty good article that lays out how the man at the centre of this case came to be arrested and also includes some more recent details of the investigation: http://www.680news.com/2018/01/30/man-handcuffed-to-mcarthurs-bed/

Pretty good place to begin the novel, right? The police have staked out a suspect’s apartment and our protagonist detective and his team observe a young man go inside. Realizing the danger this person could be in, they decide they have to take action and break down the door to the apartment.

Next, the investigation leaps into high gear as the crime team fans out across the city to gather information. They’re suspecting the arrested man could be a serial killer, but they are completely unprepared for what they go on to discover.

Looking at the internet, I see this story is being covered everywhere and you’ve probably seen or heard something about it by now. Like any crime of this kind, the details are really quite horrible, but it’s not as if this sort of thing hasn’t been plotted numerous times in crime novels already. If you read my post about the Bosch series from Amazon Studios, it probably struck you as it did me that the subject would fit right into one of their seasons. The first season in fact featured the hunt for a serial killer of male prostitutes.

What moves this Toronto case into exceptional territory is the manner in which the bodies were disposed of. Put yourself in the place where the couple living on quiet Toronto street find out the beautiful planters that have been decorating their backyard for several years actually contain the remains of murder victims. I have no idea how I would handle news like that. They seem to be taking it in their stride, however.

While the details that have come out are heartbreaking, as a writer of crime fiction, I have to admit I am utterly fascinated by what is happening. Call me ghoulish or unsympathetic, but I’m just being honest.

Another factor in the developing story is that the police as recently as last year were insisting there wasn’t a serial killer active in Toronto’s Gay Village (as it’s known) when two men, now confirmed murdered by McArthur, went missing. A lot could be made of this as a secondary plot in our imaginary crime novel, and the Toronto Police Services are certainly going to have explain just why they made that statement.

They’ve already stepped into this sort of situation a number of years ago when they didn’t publicize that a serial rapist was at work in an area of the city because they were hoping to catch the individual red-handed, which they did, but not before he raped another woman. The lawsuit on behalf of the victim that followed and the investigation of police methods was not a pretty sight (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/jane-doe-wins-case-against-police-force-1.163867).

It’s going to happen again, I’m sure.

And now here in Toronto, the police feel certain the body count is going to go up — perhaps very high.

I’m sure some writer is going to take up this situation and turn it into a novel. There won’t be a lot of imagination required in coming up with plot details. It’s all in the newspaper reports.

Is there such a thing as a "book club" book?

I listen to the radio a lot – these are pics of just three of the radios we have around the house 😊. The other day I heard an excellent review of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I enjoyed the book when I first read it a few years ago so I thought I might reread it. Interestingly, The Kite Runner started as a short story – it was the first thing Khaled ever wrote. It stayed in a drawer for a long time before Khaled plucked up the courage to show it to his uncle. After reading it, his uncle told him it wasn't finished. So, Khaled went back to his computer and every morning before he went to work he wrote a bit more and a bit more of the story. Finally, it became The Kite Runner. Perhaps beginning life as a short story is one of the reasons why I find second half of the novel less engaging than the first half? Who knows? But I'm digressing.

Prompted by the review, I was keen to discuss The Kite Runner with a writing chum. To my surprise, he said he'd not read the novel. Worse still, he called it a "book club" book, as if a "book club" book was somehow inferior to other books. I asked him to explain. He said "book club" books were generally books which had been "sensationalised" in the media – The Book Thief was another such book – and easier reads and more sentimental than other books. Gosh! I disagreed (rather strongly!).

The point of being in a book club, in my opinion, is to boldly explore books and writers we wouldn't normally explore. It definitely isn't to read the one type of book, and certainly not to be restricted to reading sentimental, easy-read books, whatever that means. At least, in the book club I go to we read a wide range of fiction. But perhaps I'm wrong? What do you think? Are you a member of a book club? If so, is there such a thing as a "book club" book and what exactly is that?

Finally, all you writers, how would feel if one of your books was a "book club" book? For my part, I'm always delighted, if not honoured, when a book club picks one of my books to read.

I be the teacher

When I first got published way back in 2006, I looked for opportunities to share what I'd learned both to promote myself as an author and to make a little scratch teaching on the side. I contacted the creative writing department at my alma mater, the University of Denver, and was politely told that despite my three-book deal from HarperCollins, thanks, but no thanks. The reason for turning me down was that I lacked an MFA.

Since then, I've been on scads of panels and seminars, mostly gratis. One exception to the no-money-for-you situation was Lighthouse Writers Workshops, who take pride in making sure that presenting writers are rewarded with more than thank yous. Those gigs led to other paying opportunities at the Colorado Writing School, the occasional honorarium from libraries and assorted universities, and teaching a course on graphic novels at Front Range Community College.

Interestingly, my latest teaching assignment was with the Regis University Mile High MFA program, me still sans MFA. Like other creative writing programs they've expanded to include genre fiction, meaning commercial fiction, which is what I write. My first opportunity with them was to teach an afternoon craft seminar. The next semester I was assigned a student to mentor, and the following semester I got two different students. What I just finished was the 2018 Winter Residency, during which the students arrive on campus for an intense ten-day schedule of workshops and seminars, from 9AM to 8PM everyday. It might not sound that grueling but by the mid-residency intermezzo, I was ready for the break. The last two days of the residency felt like the final miles of an army conditioning march.

What most impressed me about the experience were the wonderful writers that I met, both the students and the faculty. The poets were especially noteworthy with their incisive and inspiring works. My students were exceptionally well read and very articulate during their critiques of one another's submissions.

A notable moment: At a meeting with my fellow instructors--all literary writers--several of them discussed upcoming works scheduled to be published in Ploughshares and Glimmer Train, which got me thinking...that if I were to get something published in those magazines it wouldn't add much to my credentials as a writer of speculative fiction. Then again, if I mentioned that I had pieces in Clarkesworld or Alfred Hitchcock's Mysteries (which I don't), it wouldn't have meant anything to these instructors. Aside from that, we shared a lot of similar experiences about the publishing industry. Mostly like, don't expect much promotion or a lot of money!

One unexpected accolade was that another instructor told me she recognized my input on a student's work because of the strong improvements in structure and plot development. I've learned a few things writing genre.

Among the new friends that I met at Regis were Kristen Iversen, Sophfronia Scott, and Christine Sneed, who were all visiting professors and acclaimed writers. Kristen wrote Full Body Burden, a memoir about growing up close to the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant (and she had read my book, The Nymphos of Rocky Flats). Sophfronia presented an amazing look at her newest novel, Unforgiveable Love, a retelling of Dangerous Liaisons set in post-WWII Harlem. Christine has earned an enviable reputation for her short fiction, and her collection, Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry, is at the top of my reading list.

Sick Days

In my on-going effort to understand the characters in my 1939 book-in-progress, I've been thinking about how my characters respond to being ill. This was inspired in part by my annual physical, after which I was given my flu shot. I thought about it again when I saw three people in the same row on my plane flight wearing masks. They looked young, college-aged. Seeing them made me glad I'd had my flu shot. But I saw them again after we landed – just as the young man – having discarded his mask – was turning his baseball cap backward. He strolled away, wearing his backpack, one of the young women at his side. She had ditched her mask, too, and looked unlike someone who would have needed or donned one. The other young woman, who had seemed to be with them, wasn't in sight. I was left curious about them. Had their parents told them to wear masks? Or, had they thought it would be cool to do it? Or, really been concerned about ruining their trip by coming down with something?

That sighting made me think of Adrian Monk, and the final episode of the show that I had seen last weekend. Monk, who should have owned stock in a company that manufactured anti-bacterial wipes, had learned his dead wife's secret and found the daughter that she thought had died but that had been adopted. With his wife's murder solved and her daughter now in his life, Monk had begun to heal. On his way to a crime scene, he wore a turtleneck sweater under his jacket instead of a white shirt and tie. And one suspected that he was less concerned about shaking hands and being hugged.

In my 1939 book, there are several characters who don't have the time to be ill. If they were sick, they would try to conceal it and keep working. My sleeping car porter and train cook need the money. But the cook -- who wants to own a restaurant would have his grandma's recipe for chicken soup. The sleeping car porter, whose mother died when he was a boy, would shiver in his jacket and blow his nose out of sight of the passengers. He might dose himself with cough medicine (Was it being sold in 1939? What brand was popular?). He was raised by his father and had no grandma (why not? both dead? Estranged? But his father was a preacher).

Then there is my villain. How would he handle being under the weather? Stretched out in his bed, under warm covers.

Hot toddy brought to him by a servant on his nightstand. Flipping through a book that the woman he is courting was reading the last time he saw her. What book is it? What does he think about it?

So my thoughts about my sick characters – down with a cold or the flu – has taken me a bit deeper as I think about how they would respond. I've generated a few more questions about them that might provide useful insights.

How do your characters handle sick days?

Late, Late, for a Very Important Date

Donis here, posting very late today because I thought yesterday was my Thursday to post and I had missed it, but then our fearless leader Rick pointed out to me that today is Thursday--and I have already spent the top half of the day doing doctor stuff. But never fear. Tattered and out of breath, I am here.

The reason I am in such a state of dishabille is severalfold. My beloved husband underwent yet another surgery recently (he's doing fine, thank you for asking), I have been involved in preparing a writer-in-reidence program at my local library for the summer, and I've been gearing up for the release of my tenth Alafair Tucker Mystery, Forty Dead Men,  in two weeks.

I've updated my website, as well as done something I should have done years ago--I created author pages for myself on BookBub and on Facebook where I'll be announcing appearances, news, and giveaways, so I invite you come by and "Like" or "Follow" me, Dear Reader. Which by the way, if you enjoy the work of any author, it always helps her or him if you follow their pages and/or leave a review on Amazon or another site.

Forty Dead Men has not even been released yet, but the early reviews have been excellent, I am happy to say. I you would like to check it out, I invite you to breeze over to my website where I have have posted the first couple of chapters. I hope you will find yourself intrigued. You don't even have to wait for the official release date of the book to acquire an e-copy. Forty Dead Men has an early eBook release on Barnes & Noble. It is first on the list under Nook First Look!

I am off on more life-errands now, so I will leave you with an apology for my tardiness, and a wish for a lovely day of reading. I'll write you again in two weeks. I promise. I made a note on my calendar.

Going gentle, or not

In my last post about forks and roundabouts, I talked about having an open vista ahead now that I'd completed my existing book contracts, and I mused about what writing project to tackle next. Thanks to all the readers who wrote in to ask for one series or the other, I've suggested a three-book contract for two Doucette novels and one Green. At my current publication rate, this would bring me to the early 2020's.

When I did the math, it gave me pause and forced me to consider the question of how long I want to continue writing. And the more important and more ominous question of how long I should continue. Writing a mystery novel is a complex task. It demands not just verbal fluency and sophistication but also stamina, determination, novel thinking and creative, unusual mental leaps. And perhaps most importantly - memory. Keeping track of all the characters, their stories, actions and motivations, the subplots and twists inherent in a mystery is a tremendous feat of memory, particularly for a mostly pantser writer like me who pulls things together on the fly.

I've been writing since I was six years old. Even though I had school, a busy career, and children along the way, I've always been a writer. An inventor of stories. I can't imagine my life without a story percolating in my brain. And now that I have retired from other things to become a full-time writer, it shapes my every day. Apart from the activity and the purpose it brings to my life, it also brings me a community of friends, opportunities to travel, and constant interaction with new people.

That is a lot to give up.

I've always said that I would continue writing as long as I had the brains to do it. But who knows when that will be, and whether I will know? In a recent interview with the New York Times, Philip Roth was asked about his decision to retire from writing when he was in his late seventies. He replied: "By 2010 I had a strong suspicion that I’d done my best work and anything more would be inferior. I was by this time no longer in possession of the mental vitality or the verbal energy or the physical fitness needed to mount and sustain a large creative attack of any duration on a complex structure as demanding as a novel."

Powerfully honest. How does a writer recognize that their time is up? This decline in mental vitality and verbal energy sneaks up on you. All of us, as we age, find we have to work harder to remember that perfect word that dances just out of reach in our mental storehouse. To compensate, we develop tricks, one of the most useful being the thesaurus. I love that "Ahah, that's it!" moment. We find it more difficult to keep track of details, but can use notes, lists, and outlines to jog our memory. When we forget where we are in a story, or where we left off, we can reread the last chapter as a way to relaunch ourselves.

As I've grown older, I've changed my writing process too. As I wrap up my writing for the day, I jot down a sentence or two about what comes next in order to have a place to start the next day. Like all writers, some of my most brilliant ideas come to me during the "off-writing" hours such as driving down the highway or walking the dog. I now use my iPhone to record those ideas before I forget them.

There will likely come a time when all these tricks are not enough, but I hope it's still a few years off. My mother lived to 97 and wrote a book when she was 86. Some people maintain their mental acuity well into their nineties whereas an alarming number start cognitive decline in their late sixties. In many ways, life is a roll of the dice and who knows what the next roll brings. All we can do, to fight that dying of the light, is stay active and engaged, eat well, and keep challenging our brains. Luckily, what better challenge than trying to write a novel?

Impact

by Rick Blechta

My wife and I have been enjoying the Bosch series on Amazon. I’ve read pretty well all Michael Connelly’s Bosch novels over the years and enjoyed most of them immensely. Being a former LA Times crime reporter, his prose has real immediacy. Or would it be better to use the word “impact” to describe Michael’s prose style?

If you haven’t read any Connelly, his prose is rather sparse. With only bare bones description — just enough to set a scene — a lot is left to the reader’s “mind’s eye” to flesh things out but because he’s writing about Los Angeles and the surrounding area most of the time and we’re all familiar with that from a myriad of TV shows set in that city, this is no great handicap.

His dialogue is crisp and again pretty sparse. He’s certainly got the cop lingo down, even in his earlier books. I would guess this is a result from being a crime reporter. I also never get the feeling he’s showing off how much he knows. All those “cop details” come out in asides or they’re organically woven into the plot. I know for a fact how tough that is to do!

Anyway, getting back to the Amazon series, I’m finding it really quite superb. The cast is well-chosen — especially Titus Welliver as the title character — and more than get the job done. Production design is excellent and the writing uniformly terrific.

What’s interesting about that is numerous screenwriters have been employed — Connelly among them. You’d expect a dog’s breakfast of styles and colliding interpretations of characterization. None of that happens which is really quite surprising. If I hadn’t noticed the screenwriting credits, I never would have suspected that most of the episodes have different writers.

But the real takeaway from watching these episodes — we’re halfway through the second season — is the fact that I find myself constantly thinking about what I’ve seen. I’m not talking about mentally rehashing the most recently watched episode, either. Before sitting down to write this post, a couple of things that happened back in series one was going through my feeble brain.

To me, that’s the gold standard of impact. We’ve all read books or seen movies or plays that have stuck with us for a long time. What is it about those that causes them to stick with us? Why do these have such an impact?

The really interesting thing is that Bosch is having the same effect on my wife, so it’s not just me and my likes and dislikes that is causing a reaction. To be fair, she also enjoys reading Connelly, but I think something else is at work past that.

One last thing, Bosch is not retellings of the Bosch novels. Yes, they freely use characters and  situations but combine several books in each series to create something wholly new. I don’t believe I’ve seen that done to such an extent before.

But at the end of the day I’m left with this: How the heck can I accomplish this in my own writing?

Okay, Type M readers, if you’ve watched Bosch, what did you think of it? Am I correct about its impact?