Mattresses, guns and cannoli

Earlier this week I tweeted that the film version of 'The Godfather' is 50 years old this year.

Think about that.

It means that 50 years before  I first saw this seminal movie, the flicks were silent.

Mind. Blown.

I don't see 'The Godfather' as an old movie at all. I don't see any films from the 70s as old, really. But to many, they really are.

I still remember watching it for the first time. It was in the Coliseum Cinema in Glasgow, like many  old picture palaces no longer with us. It was an X certificate in the UK, which I meant I was too young but often that restriction was taken as more a guideline than a rule. 

My mother was unimpressed by it - she thought it slow - but I loved it. I loved Gordon Willis' dark photography (not for nothing was he known as the Prince of Darkness). I loved the languid approach. I loved the rich detail. I loved the bursts of action. 

Did I mention that I loved it?

I still have the commemorative booklet that you could buy in the cinema, for this was an event movie. I bought the soundtrack album and I still have that, too. I bought and devoured the book. And yes, I still have it.

The book fires off in a lot of different directions, with a lot more involving the Hollywood star Johnny Fontaine (a thinly-disguised Frank Sinatra). It ran for less than 450 pages. Think about the epic sweep, the number of characters and incidents and the impact it had, much to author Mario Puzo's relief. Then think about those modern day crime novels that are longer.

What Francis Coppola did was streamline the plot to focus on the family at the story's core and the darkness at the heart of US and international commerce. The first film and its two sequels - yes, I seem to be in the minority regarding the third one in that I like it - are masterclasses in mixing popular storytelling with art.

Of course, he is aided by a superb cast. Pacino, Duvall, Caan, Cazale and, of course, Brando. But let's not forget Diane Keaton who did wonders with what is really a nothing part. And Talia Shire whose arc over the three, in just a few scenes, is brilliant.

And then there's the lines, so wonderfully utilised by the much-missed Nora Ephron in 'You've Got Mail' very much as the secret of life.

Going to the mattresses.

Leave the gun, take the cannoli.

This is business, not personal.

And that offer that cannot be refused.

It wasn't the first mob movie, of course, although in the late 60s Paramount had lost a bundle on the Kirk Douglas starrer 'The Brotherhood'. The original 'Scarface' apart, the gangster flicks of the golden years didn't have Italian-American protagonists in the main. With James Cagney strutting his stuff they were very much of Irish descent.

Later came movies like 'The Black Hand' (1950) with J. Carroll Naish as a fictional version of Joseph Petrosino, the real-life cop who waged war against the forerunner of what became popularly known as the Mafia. Ernest Borgnine played the actual Petrosino on 1960's 'Pay or Die'. In 'The Enforcer' (the 1951 film not the later Clint Eastwood police thriller), Humphrey Bogart took on Murder Inc, although the real-life leader Albert Anastasia became a character called Mendoza.

On TV, of course, there was 'The Untouchables', based on the book by Oscar Fraley and Elliot Ness. The show was a huge hit but drew criticism over its depiction of Italian-Americans. To make up for it, they added an Italian-American to Ness's team. The show ran for five years - success not met by 'The Silent Force' which ran for only 15 episodes in 1970/71.

But it was Coppola's movie that had the greatest impact, spawning the aforementioned sequels, a mini-series in which the three films were edited into chronological order and a host of copy cats, most notable for me being 'The Valachi Papers', the true story of informer Joe Valachi, played in 1972 by Charles Bronson. Valachi was the first member of the Cosa Nostra to admit that it existed - for years J. Edgar Hoover had denied it - and this Italian-French co-production was based on the bestseller by Peter Maas, one of many Mafia-related books that I read post-Godfather. Another was journalist Fred J. Cook's Mafia!, which I read and re-read but lost when it was borrowed and never returned. I wish I could find a new copy. The Valachi movie, which took some liberties with fact, must have been in production when 'The Godfather' was being filmed and released. It's an inferior film, certainly, and in places overly bloody, but interesting. It does look dated though.

Unlike 'The Godfather, which to me looks as fresh and fascinating now as it was back in 1972. 

If only those of us of similar vintage - and older - did the same.

Great Writing Advice

I'm responding to Rick's post on the best writing advice he's ever received. There are two pieces of writing advice I've received and treasured through the years. The advice from my first agent, the late great Claire Smith is still my lodestone. 

I had called Claire in despair because an editor who hoped her house would acquire my manuscript had sent my novel, Come Spring, for an outside reading. She paid for his analysis out of her own pocket. The reader's mega view was that I had a talent for plot and character (I liked that part) but his specifics were way off. He clearly wanted to change the novel from a straight historical to a historical bodice ripper type. 

He was simply wrong. I told Claire I wanted to learn and grow and did not want to be the kind of writer who could not stand any kind of criticism. How could I tell when someone was right?

Her reply: "You don't trust nobody, kid. You don't trust your enemies and you certainly don't trust your friends. And you never change your work just because you think someone is smart. You only change your work when you know in your gut, they are right."

Wow! It's amazing how I really do know when someone's criticism is right on. My editor, Annette Rogers, at Poisoned Pen said of one of my mysteries, "what is Lottie actually doing besides turning out lights and making coffee?"

I went through the book and looked at every scene. She was right! The revision involved a lot of work, but I could see at once that it was necessary. Good editors are worth their weight in gold. 

Insights can come from anywhere. I was once part of group touring historical sites and one of the participants taught creative writing at Kansas University. We visited about writing and he mentioned that he stressed "follow the man." Lights went on in my brain! That was the biggest flaw with my work in progress. It was another multiple character historical novel and I had written the first chapter from the wrong person's point of view. He was of second tier importance.

The second piece of advice I've thought about a lot was "write what you want to write. There's so little money in it, it's stupid to do for any other reason." This is true, but rather bittersweet. Truth is, I like to write a lot of different things and it's hurt me financially. I would have better off if I had focused. I merrily switch from mysteries to historical novels, then short stories and articles, with academic work thrown in when it strikes my fancy. It does not endear me to agents and editors or readers.  

I've been very fortunate in that I've been with the same agency, Harold Ober Associates, from the beginning and then was accepted into Folio Literary Management when that house bought Harold Ober. I've never had to wrestle with some of the heart-breaking issues some of my friends have dealt with. 

Turning Points

 

I think every writer has at least one turning point in their writing. Something that sets them on a different path. It might be an illness, a chance comment, or a teacher like Rick noted in his post yesterday. For me it was two online mystery writing courses and their instructors, G. Miki Hayden and Kris Neri.

So many authors I know have wanted to write since they were kids. Not me. Sure I wrote stories in grade school and junior high and enjoyed it, but I never had a desire to write books or short stories. I never even had a desire to take a creative writing class in high school or college. 

 Then I hit my 40s and decided it would be fun to try writing a cozy mystery. I’d read so many of them I figured I knew how to write one. I soon found out how wrong I was. So I started reading books on writing mysteries and worked on my story. Then I decided I needed more guidance and took a couple online classes on writing mysteries. 

 I chose online classes because I don’t take criticism well. I figured it would be easier to hear critique of my work online. I could read it, weep for a couple hours in a corner, then go back to reading the comments and really understanding what they were talking about. 

The first online course was one I found through the Writers Digest website. G. Miki Hayden pointed out so many things I was doing wrong, but also told me those things I was doing right. The second was through UCLA extension taught by Kris Neri, which built on what I’d learned in the other course.

I credit both of these teachers with setting me on the right path. 

What about you all? Do you have any turning points in your writing journey?

In other news, I have an interview on John Hoda’s podcast, My Favorite Detective Stories. It was a fun conversation. You can listen to it here

The best advice

by Rick Blechta

Needing to fill a whole in my university timetable with an “academic” course — when what I really wished to do was take an advanced orchestration course — I signed up for a creative writing class. It was likely the only course in which I had any interest that slotted into my timetable correctly, but I don’t clearly remember.

One thing that became apparent once snow fell, which it does early in Montreal, so I’d have to trudge across campus when I really didn’t want to. However, the instructor was quite good and I was becoming more “engaged” in learning to improve my writing.

Just before the Christmas holiday we were given an assignment to write two pages of dialogue between two people who weren’t well acquainted but were also angry. Something twigged in me and I spent a lot of time working on the assignment. Handing it in, I felt pretty good about what I’d done.

At the end of the last class of the year, my assignment came back with a big red C at the top and the comment, “This could have been much better.” I was puzzled and more than a bit angry. Unfortunately I had to wait until after the holiday break to speak with the instructor. I had to know where I’d gone wrong. Why had I gotten such a poor grade? I had no idea what the comment was getting at. Even after a gap of two weeks, my assignment still seemed pretty good to me.

After the first class back, I made an appointment to speak with the instructor. She looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I got the feeling she’d expected this.

The next afternoon we sat down in her shared office.

I wasted no time. “Could you explain to me why my grade was so low?” I asked, sliding the two pages of dialogue across her desk.

“Ah, yes. I wish I’d had the time to write more, so I’m glad you came in.”

Here’s a sample of what I’d written. (Yes, I still have the assignment.)

The man entered the room without knocking.

“I have to talk to you!” he said to the woman.

She looked up from her desk.

“Yes, what is it?”

Not answering, the man instead turned his back and proceeded to look out the window.

The woman sighed and put down her pen.

“First, you barge in here, disturbing my concentration, and now you won’t talk? Say something or get out!”

After a bit of time, the man turned.

“Can’t you guess?” he answered angrily.

Now, did you spot what my instructor didn’t like? (Besides a fair number of what she’d refer to as “dead words.”)

“You’re moving your characters like chessmen. There’s movement, one speaks. There’s another movement. The other answers. Your scene becomes stiff and jerky. Think for a moment. Can’t you do both at the same time?”

She spent a good half hour showing me how to combine description, emotional state and dialogue into one seamless flow. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have the sheet of notes and corrections I made that day, but I do remember what I learned.

Maybe I should write my memories out, so I can refresh my memory every time I have to edit a manuscript, because I often discover I haven’t followed those sage words and have created yet another in a long line of non-flowing scenes. I don’t do it every time, certainly, but even one in a story is too many.

And I still owe that terrific instructor a tremendous thank you because that day I took a huge step forward as a writer.

Opening Lines- Great Beginnings

 By Thomas Kies

With great interest, I read Frankie Y. Bailey’s blog about wrestling with the opening scene of her new work in progress. (In the same blog, she posted a link to a video from 1939 when 20,000 Americans crowded into Madison Square Garden…all of them except one were Nazi sympathizers.  It was chilling and reminded me of Charlottesville.)

Opening scenes, indeed opening lines, are absolutely key to getting a reader to keep turning pages.  My agent once told me that she gets at least a hundred queries a day.  If the first scene…first sentence…doesn’t grab her, she sets it aside and moves on to the next. 

She made that announcement at the Book Passage Mystery Conference back in 2016 a week after she’d secured my first contract with Poisoned Pen Press.  I was in the audience, and she asked me to stand up and recite the first sentence of Random Road.

 Last night Hieronymus Bosch met the rich and famous.

The rest of the scene goes: 

That was the lead sentence of the story I filed later that night with the Sheffield Post. My editor spiked it, saying, “Nobody who reads this newspaper knows who Hieronymus Bosch is.”

Instead, the story began:

‘Six people were found brutally murdered, their nude bodies mutilated, in the exclusive gated Sheffield community of Connor’s Landing.’

--So, in the spirit of great openings and great opening lines, some of my favorites are:

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” George Orwell, 1984

“This is my favorite book in the world, though I have never read it.” William Goldman, The Princess Bride.

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.” Iain Banks, The Crow Road.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

“James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death.”  Ian Fleming, Goldfinger. 

Opening lines and opening scenes set your expectations for the rest of the book.  In a bookstore, someone who picks up your book will quickly look at the blurbs and quotes on the back cover, scan the synopsis on the inside front cover, and then take a look at your opening scene.  If they take your book to the front counter, credit card in hand, then you’ve won them over. 

One of the absolute best opening scenes from a book I read in 2021 is from Carl Hiaasen’s Squeeze Me. 

“On the night of January twenty-third, unseasonably calm and warm, a woman named Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons went missing during a charity gala in the exclusive island town of Palm Beach, Florida.

Kiki Pew was seventy-two years old and, like most of her friends, twice widowed and wealthy beyond a need for calculation.  With a check for fifty thousand dollars, she had purchased a Diamond Patrons table at the annual White Ibis Ball.  The event was the marquee fundraiser for the Gold Coast chapter of the IBS Wellness Foundation, a group globally committed to defeating Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Mrs. Fitzsimmons had no personal experience with intestinal mayhem, but she loved a good party.”

Don’t we all?

Where the Story Begins

Frankie, here.  Sorry I'm late. I'm snowbound today. The dog is home from daycare, and I'm working on my class material for next week, while taking breaks by thinking about my 1939 historical novel (that is a slow-boil thriller).

I can't decide where and with which character to begin. The problem is I have two POV characters. I started out thinking that Jacob, my sleeping car porter, would be the first character to appear "on stage" and that would be on Easter Sunday 1939 when he attends Marian Anderson's concert at the Lincoln Memorial. But then Ophelia, the other POV character, came into focus. Her story begins in December 1938 and continues in February 1939 when she arrives in NYC on the same evening that the Nazis were holding a rally at Madison Square Garden. Yes, the rally really happened:

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan

One of the selling points for this book is all of the noteworthy events that happened in 1939. Logically, I should go through that year in chronological order, avoiding flashbacks. But although the events are told from the POV of both characters, Jacob is the character who will be engaged in the battle of wits with Cullen, the antagonist.

I'm trying to move forward and just get the first draft done so that I can go back and revise, but I keep circling back to think about how it begins. (I won't even get into the 2020 option involving the time capsule from 1939. If I used that it would be a prologue and I would still have to decide between the Ophelia and Jacob options). A second possibility for Jacob is the later action scene, when he encounters a woman in the hotel hallway after the bell boy he has come to see goes off the roof. But that isn't a legitimate prologue. It happens in May and he would have to have a flashback to the concert in April.

In the second Ophelia chapter, I've skipped ahead to February 1939, and she is leaving town on a train headed for NYC. Her husband is dead. I could call the two Ophelia chapters a prologue. Then pick up with Jacob on Easter Sunday 1939. That's where I introduce Cullen. . 

If I begin with Jacob, Ophelia won't appear on stage until well into the book, in May or June. And I'll need to work in flashbacks to get in the Dec. 1938 and February 1939 scenes. That means I'll be looping back rather than move all of the characters forward but when she arrives in NYC, Ophelia accepts a ride with a woman she meets in the train station and her male friend. 

Here is the first (really rough) page of each version. Thoughts?

Chapter 1

Gallagher, Virginia

December 28, 1938

Ophelia Scott

 

   He shoved back his chair, scrapping it across the floor.

Ophelia came upright leaving the broken plate where it was. She caught her breath at the pain from her bruised ribs.

He lurched at her. “Boo!”

She jumped back, and he chortled.

“Scare you?  Yeah, you’re better get back from me before I give you a reason. All this time, and you still can’t even cook a pork chop.”

“I do my best,” she said.

“Your best, Miss Teacher? Your best ain’t worth dilly squat.” He rubbed his hand across his upper lip where there was a trace of sweat. “How much wood did you put in that stove? It’s hot in here.”

“You’re hot because you were drinking,” she said.

“Have to drink to eat your cooking,” he said. “I gonna go see a woman that knows how to take care of her man.”

“Go then.” She glanced at his left hand, at the fingers flexing to loosen the taut muscles under the burn scars. When he had been courting her, she would hold his hand and rub it. “Go on. She’s welcome to you.” 

Or:

Chapter 1

        Washington, D.C.

         Sunday, April 9, 1939

         Jacob Baldwin

 Some lies are easy to believe, especially when people need to believe them.  Jacob thought about that later.  That Sunday afternoon all he had on his mind was getting his work done.

As soon as he had finished his count of the sheets and blankets and his paperwork, he spoke to the conductor. Then he changed out of his uniform and almost ran out of the station.

He was hoping to get there in time to get a place up front.

The best he could do was half-way. But it was close enough to see.

He tugged up the collar of his coat against the brisk wind coming off the river and looked around.

His daddy, a country preacher, was down home in Marietta, Georgia. But he could hear his voice in his ear like he was standing there beside him.

“Good day in the morning, Lord,” his daddy would be saying. “Good day in the morning.”

The sun was peeping from behind the clouds. And all these people had gathered to hear a Negro woman sing. Negro and white, rich and poor, up there in the seats for the mayor and senators and other important people or crowded together on either side of the Reflecting Pool and stretching back at least another three quarters of a mile. Thousands of people. 

Revealing Character - or You Are What You Eat

 I've loved the recent discussions about how much character backstory to include in a novel. This is something I have to think about quite a bit. Backstory is incredibly important for Bianca LaBelle, the protagonist in my second series. Why is she such a private, even secretive person about her past? The entire first book in the series is her backstory, but how much should the author refer back to that, especially if you want your books to be able to stand alone? 

What I like is subtle hints about your characters' character, unfolded slowly through their conversations, how they dress, what they drive, and one of my favorite telling details, what they eat.

Sylvester Stallone once said that he ate lots of protein before filming Rocky, because lots of protein builds your muscles and slows your thinking, and lots of carbs before filming the movie Assassins* because carbs give you a shot of energy and help you think fast. When you saw Rocky Balboa slug down a glassful of raw eggs, did that tell you anything about his character?

Just as a character’s surroundings, clothing, dialect and vocabulary, or choice of friends and activities show you a lot about what kind of a person she is without the author having to tell you, I’ve been noticing that what the character eats and how, and his attitude toward food, can do the same.

I mentioned this to my husband, and he told me that a particular passage in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises has stuck with him for years since it set such a scene for him. He read about a group of men traveling through Spain together who take time out to eat lunch, and, forty years later he still remembers the menu : They drank red wine out of a goatskin bag and ate tuna, boiled eggs, and lettuce with a little vinegar on it. Can you see it? The camaraderie, the Spanish countryside, the young men roughing it with a makeshift meal.

To test this theory, I closed my eyes and pulled three random mysteries off my shelf and leafed through to see if I could find a place where the author used food to set a scene or gave us insight into a character.

1. Bailey Ruth may be a ghost, but that doesn’t mean she’s not interested in food. This is a scene from Merry Merry Ghost, by Carolyn Hart : “On a sideboard stretched an array of tantalizing holiday treats: cheese, fruity, crackers, brownies, and what might be the remnants of a birthday cake.

I was ravenously hungry. Being on the earth, even when not visible, I needed food and sleep. I found that interesting. I zoomed to the sideboard, eyeing the Brie."

2. Does Ellie Foreman feel comfortable with her wealthy and privileged lunch companions? What do you think? From An Image of Death, by Libby Fischer Hellmann: “...I shoveled salad into my mouth feeling just a bit overwhelmed.

The waiters cleared our plates, then brought out brandy snifters filled with sorbet. As I smiled up my thanks, I caught the waiter staring at my chest. I looked down. A dark, oily stain was spreading across my blouse ...I propped an elbow o the table, in an effort to hide the offending spot. Resting my chin on my hand, I tried to appear thoughtful."

3. I think we know just what Jessie’s ex-cop dad and dad’s old partner were like, now. Taken from Liars Anonymous, by Louise Ure : “After five eight-hour shifts a week, they fished Pena Blanca Lake together for stipers, smallies, and wahoo, and practiced their fire-extinguishing skills every weekend barbecuing ribs and beer-soaked chicken in the backyard."

I was three for three.

What's in a backstory?

 What interesting posts we've had on Type M recently! A theme has emerged about the development of character in mysteries, especially the revelation of backstory. How much backstory is so much that it clogs up the plot? How can you reveal it so that it doesn't clog up the plot? Do we need backstory anyway?

Most of these questions relate to the main protagonist in the story or series, but all main characters should have a story. Backstory means the past experience of the character that influences what they are doing in the story and why. Biographical detail, like where they grew up and what their parents did for a living, is relevant mostly insofar as it informs what they do in the story, although writers may put it in to capture a historical time or add richness and layers. Some readers will love the detail, others will skip it, just as they do description. Because of this, deciding how far a writer can tax his reader's patience is tricky.

As a psychologist, I love character in stories, and the more richness and depth in that character, the better. Backstory is essential to adding layers, but I have a sixth sense for simplistic psychology that doesn't ring true. Don't just toss in an abusive childhood, or overbearing mother, or absent father, and expect me to believe it explains everything. People's lives are complex and full of different influences, and they make sense of their experiences in different ways. 

I like to create stories in which the reader can imagine walking in the character's shoes. It doesn't matter if it's the sixteenth century or the future, or even if the character is an alien or a cat, the reader should be able to relate to the universal experiences.

The protagonists in all three of my series have significant backstories that play a huge role in why they act as they do. I'm basically a pantser. I don't draw up character sketches or biographies ahead of time, because I only get to know my characters as we go along. In all cases, when I started the series, I had only the vaguest ideas of what their stories were, and the details unfolded gradually over the series. This was not a deliberately coy decision on my part to stretch out the suspense, but rather the result of my adding details to their backstory that related to the theme of each book. In one book I might explore their relationship to their siblings, because siblings played a big role in that book. In another book it might be fathers.

Two examples come to mind. Inspector Green is an obsessive homicide investigator who is passionate about justice. When I wrote the first book, I didn't have a clear idea why; I just knew I needed a detective determined to catch bad guys. The second book, ONCE UPON A TIME, involved an old war crime from the Second World War, and suddenly I realized the story would be more powerful if Green had a person connection, and before I even thought about it, I had made his elderly father a Holocaust survivor. As I explored that backstory, I realized that was the basis for his drive for justice.

My second example is Amanda Doucette's penchant for getting herself into trouble by trying to help people. I knew the reason why she did this; a traumatic experience during her time as a foreign air worker that had left her chasing redemption. I had hinted about the details in the first four books in the series, but it's not until the latest book (in progress and set for release next year) that I truly delve into the backstory. One of the characters in the book has PTSD, and in helping him, Amanda faces her own.

Relating the backstory to the theme of the book helps to enrich both the character and the theme, and should go some way to ensuring it facilitates the plot instead of clogging it up.

The joy of reading

by Rick Blechta

A few posts back, I wrote about the point where a human brain starts to unscramble a bunch of wiggly lines and how groups of them can impart information, in other words learning how to read. It is a wonderful thing.

I sort of remember the point this incredible realization happened to me in kindergarten, and I remember precisely when it happened to our two sons. And now with our two grandchildren, one is off and running and our five-year-old granddaughter hasn’t really quite worked it out. But she’s close.

Jackson, who’s now eight, reads very well. During a recent sleepover we were playing a card game about animals and he read one card and zipped right through “Madagascar” without so much as.a bump. To say the least, I was really impressed.

Today when we saw him briefly, he was taking a library book back to school and I asked him whether he’d enjoyed it.

“It was okay, I guess. It was sort of boring.”

The book didn’t have that many pages, and thinking back to the reading skills he demonstrated during his sleepover, I had a brainstorm.

“Would you like to read a real mystery story?”

Jax knows I write crime fiction, though he isn’t quite clear on the concept. “I guess so.”

“I think you’ll really enjoy it, although it’s quite a bit longer than this book,” I told him, holding up his library book. “Are you up for a challenge?” (Baiting the hook!)

In my mind was the Encyclopedia Brown series. I actually read the first book when I was 12. It had just been published and was recommended to me by the children’s librarian at the village library. It was pretty simple to me, but I enjoyed the puzzles, trying to beat Brown to the solution. I also know from my teaching days how much the books in this series have been enjoyed by kids ever since. As well, because they’re a series of short story puzzles, I figure Jax will have no trouble handling it.

So as soon as I post this on Type M, I’m going to call up our fabulous children’s bookstore here in Toronto, Mabel’s Fables, and hopefully it will be in stock. If not, I’ll get them to order a copy.

Jax, like most modern boys, is more interested in video games, but I’m hoping he’ll really enjoy the book featuring a boy detective in which case I’ll happily buy more. Since we see our grandkids often, I can do a little pushing about reading when he’s here and see where it goes. I’d love nothing more than to see him become an avid reader. His uncle is one, his dad not so much.

Let’s hope Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol can work some magic and another person gets hooked on reading.

Creating a new character and a new series

I believe I've hinted a time or two about a new series I'm embarking upon (embarking on? On which I am embarking? Ach - you know what I mean).

Well, the news has now dropped.

I will now have two series running in tandem.

In addition to my ongoing contemporary Rebecca Connolly series, published by Polygon in the UK and Skyhorse in the US, Dumont in Germany and Cicero in Denmark (get me, Mr International), in October the first of my new historical crime series will be published here in the UK by Canelo. 

'An Honourable Thief' is set in 1715 against a turbulent political backdrop (when is it ever not?) and features Jonas Flynt - thief, gambler, unwilling agent of the Crown and, when he has to be, killer. The action moves from London to Edinburgh at the time of the Mar Rising, when a Scottish noble with an eye to the main chance raised the Jacobite standard in Scotland. The catalyst to Flynt's involvement - the Maguffin, if you will - is a mysterious document written by Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, which may (or may not) have somehow pledged the throne to her half-brother James and not George of Hanover. Flynt must find the document before it falls into the hands of the Jacobites.

I've mixed real-life historical figures with those of my own inventions and actual events with those I have imagined. There is even one historical incident that I have fictionalised and moved around 20 years back in time.   

My approach was to present a fast-moving tale featuring what is hopefully an interesting protagonist. Along the way the reader will learn more about Flynt and why he is the way he is - an 18th century version of Chandler's tarnished knight walking the mean streets of the 18th century. And boy, were they mean!

Which takes me on to the posts by Rick and Sybil about character background. 

I think we need to make our characters as real as we can, even if they are involved in fantastical events as in fantasy and science fiction. This first book is as much about Flynt and his past as it is about the plot because I need people to understand him a little in order to propel the series forward. He begins as a blank page but bit by bit I hope I have filled in enough of his past to help him walk from those pages - and out of the 18th century - and into the reader's room here in the 21st.

It's a tricky business - how far do you deviate from what is designed as a rip-roaring read to sketch in the character bits? While also painting a picture of life back then? And also leaving enough wiggle room for future development as the series progresses?

I'm not an historian, I'm a storyteller but I do hope I have not made any serious factual howlers. In the end, though, the entire world is one that I created and manipulated to my own ends. Hence lifting that real-life incident from 1736 to 1715 and tinkering with it a little for my story. Again, the use of that incident was all part of the character development, to show how Flynt and others peopling my story react, interact and act. 

And that's the secret I think. Elmore Leonard said that all character can be shown through dialogue and to an extent he was right but I would also add that it can be revealed by the actions they take and why they take them.

It's a difficult job but hey, that's why we get the big bucks.

I'll pause here to let you all roll about the floor in hysterical laughter.

Revival of the Fittest

 

Today my cousin brought me an old rocking chair that belonged to my great grandmother. I was delighted! We estimated that it dated from about 1870. It's a very small piece of furniture and needs to be refinished. As you can tell by the photo, it needs a lot of work. I'll begin with a good scrubbing and then decide about the finish. Fortunately, my cousin took care of any necessary repairs. 

Then comes the fun part--replacing all the fabric. I'm looking forward to finding just the right upholstery material. The seat is comprised entirely of cloth, so the fabric needs to be sturdy. Every bit of it is sewn by hand. When I looked closely, the hand construction explained how the top was fitted around the spindles. There are tabs between the spindles attaching the back and front cushion.

The fabric seat--also attached by hand stitching--was simply run around the rods and neatly attached underneath. I love the bent wood construction. This wee rocker is ideal for sewing and all manner of needlework. It's difficult to knit, darn, and quilt in chairs with high arms. My elbows bump into the wood. 

Reviving old projects seems to apply to my writing too. Apparently, I have a rescue gene. 

When a news reporter talked about the impact of inflation on the American economy and it was reminiscent of the 1980s, I dragged out a manuscript that has nearly been published four times. Twice by university presses. Something clicked. This manuscript would have great marketing potential right now. It falls into the historical novel category and deals with issues that are emerging again. Wow. Some of my best research was done on the disastrous savings and loan crisis in rural communities. Bank failures in small towns were devasting. 

As I mentioned in my previous blog, when I reread a short story that my husband and agent disliked, I decided they were both wrong and sent it to Ellery Queen and they bought it immediately. I've had awfully good luck with short stories and don't have a backlog. Nor do I write them regularly. Once in a while I have a good idea and it perks in back of my mind until I sit down and write it. 

However, I have another historical novel that I would like to revive. The background is that of the frontier Catholic Church. I'm a better writer now and I suspect if I will do the work, it can be brought back to life. 

My brand new mystery is going reasonably well and my agent wants it accompanied by a synopsis of a following book. I loved Doug Skelton's recent post. It really is a matter of buckling down and getting to work. 

Have a great rest of the year everyone. 

Same story, told differently

Four years ago, I finished my Peyton Cote contract, the publisher was in trouble, and it felt like time to turn the proverbial page. I told my agent I wanted to get back to writing a male protagonist, to writing something I knew, something that wouldn’t require copious amounts of research into the world in which the books were set.

My first five books are set on the PGA Tour –– fun research, but lots of it, nonetheless; my most recent three books are set in the world of the U.S. Border Patrol, a tight-lipped agency, where research is tough to come by, and my “ride-alongs” were acquired playing pick-up hockey with a group of agents, are now banned, and, frankly, probably illegal.

So I turned to what I knew and created a world set at a New England boarding school, a world we see through the eyes of an English teacher, who says his “nose is a little too crooked, his tie a little too low” to truly fit in. Bo Whitney is an outsider in an insider’s world.

I wrote a book featuring him four years ago. The plot was a good one, I thought, but it got complicated and got away from me. I rewrote the book, changing the point of view from first to multiple third, bringing in more characters, and veered off course. I still liked the plot, still believed there was something in that story that was compelling. So about a year ago, I went back at it –– same character, same plot, but first-person, much tighter, much more direct. Now I’ve got a finished draft, whittled down from 100,000 words in the first version to 65,000 now. Same story, told differently.

So we’ll see what happens. I’m combing through it one more time, then sending it to my former English teacher, a man who taught at a boarding school while reviewing crime novels for Publisher’s Weekly for years to get his two cents, before sending it to my agent.

Insanity, we’ve all heard, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different outcomes. Maybe that’s what this is: believing in a plot so much that you’re willing to write the same book three times, three different ways. Maybe it’s blind faith.

Or maybe it’s simply the writing life, the one we’ve chosen.

More on Character Background

 

I read with interest Rick’s post yesterday, “How much character background is too much?” As I see it, how much character background is tolerated depends on the type of book. As he pointed out, too much character background in thrillers can slow down the story. I’ll tolerate the personal stuff in a thriller, like family situation, as long as the personal stuff intersects with the main story. e.g. the a character’s family is threatened in some way because of their actions in trying to solve a crime.

Cozies are a different animal. Readers of these types of stories like to know about the personal life of the amateur sleuth. Still, you don’t want to go overboard. But, if you write a craft-based cozy like I do, you should have your sleuth doing the craft in some areas of the book. Ideally this would lead to a sleuthing opportunity or something to do with the crime.

I usually have three plot lines going through my books – a main crime, a secondary crime that may or may not be related to the main one, it could just be muddying the waters making it difficult to figure out what’s really going on, and a personal story line. The challenge and fun is figuring out how to make the personal story line intersect with the main crime.

I’m not a fan of a lot of description in stories, but I think there does have to be enough to get a feel for where you are, especially if it’s a location not everyone knows about. That goes for descriptions of clothing as well. I try to make those as brief as possible and to do it in some sort of action like “She put the piece of paper in the pocket of her jeans.” I’ve not stopped reading a book because of too much description, but I have hesitated to read a second book in the series.

It can be quite difficult at times to figure out how much is too much. That’s where a good editor comes in.

How much character background is too much?

by Rick Blechta

As I read novels, especially in established series, I often find to many diverging sub-plots getting in the way of the storyline. At the same time I understand why they are there and why the books’ editors didn’t strike them out with multiple slashes of their blue pens. Fans of series generally buy in because of the characters’ backstories.

Maybe it’s just me. I read because I want to be told a story, and if it’s a really engaging one, I don’t want multiple detours getting in the way. This is the main reason that I generally prefer thrillers to other genres, even when they are part of a series. If we do take detours with the characters, they are kept short, more quick hits then prolonged sidebars.

Trouble is many thrillers’ plots get to be too relentless by the time you’re approaching the climax. I am not suggesting that a background detour would be a good thing at that point, but sometimes it would be nice to catch one’s breath before plunging back into the fray.

I know. I know. That’s just a terrible contradiction. I don’t want sidebars into the characters’ love lives or home situations stopping the story too much at critical plot junctures.

The thing that I don’t understand is why authors’ feel compelled to feed us too much background at one time when they’re writing a series. I mean, don’t they have multiple upcoming novels, allowing the to dole information out more slowly. Unless the background is critical to a particular plot in order to more easily understand/believe that character’s response, can’t it just be hinted at with an eye to adding to it in a later book?

I put down a relatively good book recently because of three “character-developing” subplots derailing the forward motion of the story. I’ll probably pick it up again when I’m in a more forgiving headspace. I don’t like to skip things in a book, but I was getting my “not another sidebar” response too many times. However, since I haven’t read the entire book, I might miss something really important by skimming past things I find irritating.

It’s a conundrum. Does anyone else feel this way about certain series?

Ice, Titles, and Edgars

By Thomas Kies

I’m writing this in my home office, gazing out my second-floor window over the garage, with two pairs of socks on my feet, wearing jeans, a sweatshirt and denim shirt over that.  There’s ice covering the trees in our yard, and I can feel the cold radiating from the floor.  The garage, after all, is not insulated. 

We were hit with an ice storm last night.  Rare for this part of the country.  It was bad enough that the weight of the ice brought down a huge oak tree on top of our neighbors’ house.  One of the limbs came right through the ceiling of their bedroom.  Luckily, no one was injured.

According to the social media platforms, where I can spend way too much time, there were multiple power outages around our county, but they are all in the process of being restored. All in all, things could have been much worse.

In much of the country, it is.  Bitter cold, blowing snow, impassable roads all make life miserable, particularly in some of the mid-western and northern states.  Before moving to North Carolina, my wife and I lived in Connecticut.  Both of us could weather our winters pretty well. But since moving south of the Mason-Dixon Line, we’ve lost all capacity to withstand the cold. 

So, today I’m preparing for my Creative Writing class that begins again in a week. I'm also drafting a synopsis for my next book that I’m working on. I'm anxious to get it to my editor along with the early chapters. 

Like some of my brother and sister bloggers, I’m struggling with the title.  Usually, I have one in my head before I even type out the first line. Not this time.

I’ve put myself in a box as far as my Geneva Chase mysteries go.  The titles of the first four books have been place names: Random Road, Darkness Lane, Graveyard Bay, and Shadow Hill.  My fifth book will be out in August, and it’s called Whisper Room.

Are you seeing a pattern? The first word has been a descriptor with two syllables and the second word is the place with just one syllable. I know it’s kind of silly to make myself hold to that, but the pattern has been lucky for me. 

And yes, I’m kind of superstitious. 

Every one of my books has been saved on the same thumb drive. Would it be bad luck to use a different thumb drive?  I don’t know and I don’t want to find out.

So, book number six has no official name yet but I’m about eighty pages into it and casting about for a two-word title that fits the pattern.  Something like Murder Street or Poison Pit or Viper House. And, no, I’m not using any of those. 

As I look out my window, the only title popping into my mind is Icy Mess.

Totally unrelated, I got news on Thursday that my fourth book, Shadow Hill, has been Edgar nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for the G.P Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award.  The award honors work that has the hallmarks of Sue’s writing as well as those of her most famous character, Detective Kinsey Millhone: "a woman with quirks but also with a sense of herself, with empathy but also with savvy, intelligence, and wit."

I hope that Geneva Chase fits the bill.

I’ve never been nominated for any sort of literary award before and I’m deeply honored, especially for this one.  I’ve been a huge fan of Sue Grafton’s work and I’m proud to say that my books have been favorably compared to hers. 

I can think of no higher honor than that.

The Mezzanine Bookstore

 As a writer, I love to read and I've always loved books. I could lose myself for hours in a library or a bookstore. As a kid I accompanied my dad for his twice-a-month trip taking my grandmother to visit her sisters in El Paso and to buy groceries in Juarez. Even though I was in elementary school, I had to wear a coat and tie because back then, you got dressed up when venturing into public. Think about it, during World War Two, soldiers wore ties into combat. Unlike now, where people go to a fancy dinner looking like slobs.

One highlight of the trip to the big city was our stop at the Popular Dry Goods Company in downtown El Paso. It was the quintessential department store, a bustling maze no matter the time of year. Most of what I remember is a blur but what comes into focus is the candy counter where you could buy fudge by the pound (like that ever happened); the elevator operated by a guy in a red coat manipulating a brass lever; the toy department in the basement with stacks of model airplanes, and my favorite place of all, the mezzanine level with the bookstore. My dad would leave me there unattended while he went to pay an installment on whatever my mom had put on layaway.

I wandered the tables and shelves of hardbacks. I avoided children's books and was on the prowl for a good read about airplanes, warships, or army tanks. The one book that particularly fascinated me was about 19th century train accidents, complete with illustrations. I learned about boiler explosions turning locomotives into bombs. One memorable tragedy involved a company outing. On the way home, the women gathered the children in the last railcar, away from the men who were a mob of loutish drunks. The locomotive boiler blew up, hurtling what was left of the locomotive high into the air, to land...you guessed it. On the car with the women and children. A gruesome detail of period train wrecks was "telescoping," where one railcar slides inside another, usually a freight car ramming through a passenger coach, smearing the human contents into goo. No Dr. Seuss for me.

From the mezzanine, you could look through the glass barrier upon the ground floor with its labyrinth of cosmetic counters and women's fashions. Above the cacophony of customer chatter, sounded chimes summoning sales clerks. Incredibly, when researching for this post, I found this photo of the mezzanine view, though from years after I was last there. Memories.

Photo courtesy Keith Andrews

About Titles

 Frankie here. Sorry to have missed my last Friday post. 2022 started before I got around to setting up the calendar that I intended to do to keep myself on schedule. 

Now I'm trying to finish the craft essay I was invited to write about setting in crime fiction. Classes begin on Monday, so I want to get it out the door today.

I do want to comment on the title discussion. I find it almost impossible to focus on what I'm writing  until I have a title. Some titles come easier than others. The title of my first Lizzie Stuart book is Death's Favorite Child. That came from associating a line about death in a poem with Lizzie's sleuthing and the presence of a child in the book. It took me all of the five years of drafts and revisions to come up with that title. In contrast, as I began to outline the sixth book in the series after a long hiatus, I knew exactly what that title should be -- A Rainy Night in Gallagher. The story begins on a rainy night. And the title is a reference to "A Rainy Night in Georgia" (one of my favorite songs and the TV series theme song for In the Heat of the Night).

The title of my 1939 historical thriller came after months of trying different titles. I was inspired by another TV show. On an old episode of The Andy Griffith Show, little Ronnie Howard (now director Ron Howard) asked his father for a penny to put outside during a storm. A friend claimed that a penny struck by lightning would multiple. Since one of the exhibits at the 1939 New York World's Fair was about electricity and the World of Tomorrow, I suddenly thought A Penny Struck by Lightning. That was it. The contrast between past and future. 

But I'm still struggling to find a title for my nonfiction book about dress, appearance, and impression management in crime and justice. The book is for a general audience rather than academic. I want a title that will be intriguing enough to delight both an editor and the marketing department in a publishing house and to stop bookstore browsers in their tracks (not too ambitious, right?). My agent says a one or two word title would work well in the current market. I can use a subtitle to provide more information about the contents. I've been looking for a word that describes clothing in disarray -- frayed, shabby, stained, bedraggled, hemmed? A reference to Justice's robes and to four hundred plus years of American crime and justice history from colonial era to present. I've considered "Clothing Justice" or "Naked Justice."  I thought of "Strip Search" and "Dressed to Kill" (already used). I'm still looking for a title that captures the biases, stereotypes, and conflicts in the criminal justice system involving victims, offenders, police officers, courts, and prisons. The title should also suggest that the book draws on popular culture and mass media. 

I really need a title that I can stick up on the wall in front of my computer as I revise my introduction and the sample chapters of my proposal, then write the final chapters. Any suggestions appreciated.

Back to work on my essay. Have a great  weekend.

The Perfect Word

 Donis here, at last. I missed my last Thursday slot because I've been having lots of trouble with my eyes, but today is a pretty good day, so I'm writing while the writing is good. 

First of all, I extend my dearest sympathy to those of you who live in blizzard-land. I hesitate to point out that the temperature here in the Phoenix area has been around 70ºF for the past few weeks lest you think I'm gloating, but remember that this is our reward for living through our Southern Arizona summers. Check back with me in July. You can gloat then.

I've been enjoying my blogmates' entries on titles. Titles are important. You want to convey something of the spirit of the story, catch the reader’s eye, intrigue her enough that she wants to read that book. For the first book in my Alafair Tucker series, I went through several titles before I landed on The Old Buzzard Had It Coming. Since the book takes place in Oklahoma in the dead of the winter of 1912, I first tried to find a title with the word “cold” in it, as in “cold blooded murder”. For a long time, the working title was Blood Run Cold, but in the end, I decided that wasn’t ethnic enough, and changed it to He Had It Coming, since the murder victim is quite a horrible person. Then, one day my mother described a man who lived in her apartment complex as an “old buzzard”. Aha!

That title has served me well, even if early on, my late sister-in-law Dolores couldn’t quite remember how the title went and called it The Old Coot Deserved What He Got, which is pretty good, too. In fact, we considered an entire series with similar titles: The Miserable Son-of-a-Gun Got What Was Coming to Him, The Skunk Couldn’t Have Died Soon Enough, and the like.

I decided to go for something short for the second book, and agonized for a long time before my husband actually dreamed the title Hornswoggled. Since that book, I’ve more or less given up on short titles. The production manager at my press used to tease me for using such long titles that she couldn’t fit them on the spine. But what can you do? 

I sometimes have a title before I have a story in mind. That’s what happened with my sixth book, The Wrong Hill To Die On. The idea for that title was given me by an Illinois mystery author, Denisa Hanania. People are always giving me ideas for book titles. Seems every person living has heard her grandmother reel off a folksy saying that would fit right into the world of my early 20th Century Oklahoma family.

Most of the time I don’t have a title in mind. I just wait until one of the characters says something that sums it all up in one eye-catching phrase. Often for me, good title is like pornography. I can’t really define it, but I know it when I see it. That’s what happened with Hell With the Lid Blown Off. One of the characters was surveying the devastation following a tornado that rolled over Muskogee County Oklahoma. It looked like hell with the lid blown off, says he. 

I'm working on a new Alafair manuscript right now. I have no title in mind. I've always been lucky enough to choose my own titles - at least until my second series, the Adventures of Bianca Dangereuse, was acquired by a different publisher. They chose the title for first book in the series, The Wrong Girl, which was also something one of the characters said (One of these days, you're going to pick the wrong girl).

It made sense, but to my ear, it just didn't have quite the cachet...

They let me pick my own title for book two, Valentino Will Die, since it's about, what else, the death of Rudolph Valentino. I like that better. The third book, which has yet to be picked up, is called The Beasts of Hollywood. I feel like I'm hitting my stride.

And last but not least, my guest on my own website for this month's Tell Me Your Story is the fabulous Mary Miley, who tells us how she got into the historical mystery business. If you missed her guest entry here at Type M, you missed a treat. Check it out here.

Finding the perfect title

 My apologies for the lateness and brevity of this post. Like Rick, I spent most of Monday and yesterday digging out from 47+ cm of snow (that's about 20 inches) that had blown all over the place. It was very pretty and I was happy to see it, but moving it off the car and driveway, as well as off the paths and my three porches (one I use, one the postal and delivery people use, and one the dogs use) took a large part of the day and blew all my other plans out the window. And in between, the delighted dogs needed their walks. All this on a strained ankle that I am supposed to be "resting". A concept unknown to the dogs.

My back deck

The positive in all this, besides the beautiful, fresh powder, is how much neighbours come out to help each other. The person with the snowblower becomes everyone's best friend. And the kids are thrilled. Watching them sliding down snow piles, making snow angels, and digging snow forts brought a smile to even the most disgruntled, exhausted passerby. The kids have had so much taken away from them the past two years that it was nice of Mother Nature to give them this little gift of joy.

While I was digging away, my mind was wandering around in alleys trying to figure out another title for my current book. I had just received word from the publisher that marketing did not like my title THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE. It doesn't roll the tongue. Does too, I thought, saying it fast several times in a row to prove my point. Besides, THE HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPEARED, doesn't exactly roll off the tongue either. My title is perfect and it captures the essence of the book in four words that harken back to the 1960s where the tragedies in my story began. That title hadn't just fallen from the sky; it came from hours and hours of searching. So I huffed and grumbled for awhile as writers always do when someone challenges a word of our perfect prose. Then the snow came, and I had to put all my grumbling aside to focus on real life. 

My front porch

Outside in the crisp, pristine world of white, I stopped mourning the loss of my beloved title and started to idly consider alternatives. Not staring at the screen demanding an answer but just playing with combinations of words and themes in my head. THERE BUT FOR FOTUNE is a perfect title, but it isn't the only perfect title. All day long I played, laughing at some of my comical creations, rejecting many as cliched or pretentious or meaningless. Nowadays snappy two-word titles are all the rage among the thriller crowd, also probably driven by the marketing set, but I did not want a title that sounded like everyone else's.

By the end of the day, I had a couple of viable alternatives – one of them only two words long! – and am now letting those percolate and roll around on my tongue for a few days before writing the publisher back. So stay tuned, and eventually I will announce who the winner is. 

Meanwhile, it has started to snow again. To the shovels!

It's all part of growing up and living in Canada…

We had a heck of a blizzard yesterday. Our driveway is about 60 feet in length in a 9-foot space between our house and the triplex next to us. Sometimes, when the wind is coming from exactly the wrong direction, the snow drifts in something awful. One thing we’ve learned over the years is to never begin shovelling until the snow stops, especially if we have the wind sending the snow between the houses, because you’ll wind up doing the same job twice — and it’s not fun the first time.

This morning we walk up to a sunny day and decided we needed to get our driveway clear. What we found was drifted snow that was close to four feet.

It took us until a few minutes ago to clear the mess. So now our small front yard is now at least five feet higher than it was before the storm.

I’m bushed and so that’s why I haven’t posted anything better than this excuse. I was planning on writing a post this morning. Honest!