The new heroism

by Rick Blechta

It’s interesting that Tom wrote his post about characters yesterday (and it’s well worth reading) because I was planning to write something on the same topic. Well, put it this way, I had decided to write about characters as the subject matter of this week’s post, although what I want to say is nothing like what he wrote.

My wife and I have been buying university-level courses from thegreatcourses.com. We’d talked about doing this for years but the cost was way out of our price range. When Covid hit, the price for most of the website’s offerings dropped very significantly, so we bought a couple, enjoyed them a lot, and bought a few more. So far we’ve gotten through four and learned quite a lot. They really are good — plus there’s no homework or exams!

The latest one we’re enjoying, “Heroes and Legends: The Most influential Characters of Literature,” gave me the idea for this week’s post.

Titled “Frodo Baggins — A Reluctant Hero,” it posits that this character’s journey from reluctant participant to hero follows a much different arc than the classic story of a hero. It is a more modern take on the protagonist and it struck me as one that anyone who reads crime fiction is quite familiar with. It is exactly this type of character we often meet in those novels featuring an amateur sleuth or in a cozy, as examples.

The professor, Thomas Shippey, explains that after the disaster that was World War 1, the hero mold had been broken. Society became very cynical in the aftermath of what was in reality a very unnecessary conflict. A new type of hero was needed, one standing more on feet of clay, to use a cliché. His feeling is that this is a major reason Tolkien’s works were so wildly successful. Hobbits are almost anti-heroes by nature. They are small, unwarlike, easily overlooked, and keep to themselves. Not the stuff of memorable heroes, right?

But in a newly cynical world, they were just what readers were craving, something new, something we could believe in. Frodo, much like what the rest of the world had just experienced, got dragged very reluctantly into something he did not want to face and could not understand.

At the start of crime fiction, most characters were of the old heroic mold (Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Lord Peter Wimsey, etc.) seemingly superhuman in their ability to solve perplexing crimes. They did things the common person could not. Would it be a stretch to say we looked up to them as better than us?

I’ve always felt, as do many others, that WW1 changed humanity more than any previous conflict in history. A lot of what we thought about ourselves and our place in the world got broken irrevocably. It is only after this conflict that crime fiction began to see a move towards protagonists in the same roles as Frodo Baggins, heroes reluctant to take on a difficult task, not equipped with the necessary skills, and constantly filled with self-doubt.

In other words, very much like us. Ordinary people if you will.

Even mores today as we face unprecedented global problems, we crave these common people who are forced into uncommon, often horrendous situations, people who need to find their courage whether it be in our daily existence or in a goblin cave.

Too Many Characters?

 By Thomas Kies

How many characters in a book are too many?  I’m struggling with that because in the book I’m working on now, it just feels like there may be too many.

I found one opinion that 4-7 characters should be the number, except for an epic where 20 or more are acceptable. I found another opinion that set the number of characters as 8. Period.

I took a look around the internet and the consensus seems to be that there is no set number.  The number of characters is what it will take to tell the story. But there is agreement that each character should have their own identity.  They should stand out from the crowd somehow.  

Sometimes, that’s as simple as identifying their profession, like Joe is a cop or Mike is a chef or Clara is a Supreme Court judge.  Sometimes it is as simple as giving them a distinctive name, like Clara.

Maybe the distinction is in the physical description.  Ted is tall and built like a linebacker or Sally is petite, had dark hair and one eye is blue and one eye is brown.  

So, make the character vivid and memorable when they’re first introduced. 

One bit of advice I saw was avoid introducing a lot of characters all at once.  It’s like walking into a crowded room and your host tells you the name of everyone there.  I don’t know about you, but that’s information overload and more often than not, I don’t recall anyone’s name.

Speaking of names, don’t give the extras names.  If the pizza guy is delivering dinner, he’s just the pizza guy.  If the Uber driver is taking your protagonist to the airport, he’s just the Uber driver. Don’t confuse the reader with more names than they need to recall. 

Don’t give characters similar names.  In a book that was never published, I was admonished for using Jake, John, Jim, and Jack. All different characters but with names like that, who could keep them straight?

All of your characters should have some relevance to your story.  Why are they there? If they don’t add something to the storyline, kill your darlings.  

An example of that is in A Song in Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin upon which the hit series Game of Thrones was based.  Just when you identify with one of his characters, he kills him or her off.  Most likely in the most gruesome manner imaginable. But in their death, that character has become more relevant.  It often becomes a reason for revenge.

I distracted myself with the Game of Thrones.  What I really mean, if the character doesn’t add something to the story, they shouldn’t be there in the first place. 

A disadvantage to a bunch of characters, especially in the same scene, is the use of dialogue tags.  We all try to stay away from them as best we can, instead, showing some action and then the dialogue.  But when you have more than two characters in the same scene, sooner or later you’re going to have to write Roberto said- or Matilda argued- or Ludmilla shouted...

Giving your characters distinctive names helps the reader recognize the players more easily when they show up.  I hope that I do that in my mystery series.  Geneva Chase-a crime journalist, John Stillwater-ex-cop and now a private detective, Shana Neese-dominatrix and leader of an organization that fights human trafficking, and Nathaniel Ruben-owner of Lodestar Analytics, an open-source research company. 

Time to go back to my work in progress and see if I need to kill any of my darlings. 

After the First Draft

 After having spent a couple of hours trying to get my laptop, that seemed to be frozen, to unlock, I decided to Google the problem before calling my tech guy about dropping it off. Sure enough, all I had to do was type my problem in the search box. Immediately, the exact wording of my search popped up on multiple sites. My battery could be reached by finding the little symbol on the back, inserting the tip of a small paper clip in the hole, and pressing. Another website provided step-by-step instructions for turning the laptop off and getting to the advance options for troubleshooting. But before I ventured into those murky waters, I saw a third website that advised the technically-challenged to look for the simplest issue first. The simplest issue was that I had managed to touch the wrong key. All I needed to do was press "Alt" then tap the "F7" key. Problem solved. 

However, I'm now well into my day and I haven't got a lot done. I still need to get to the supermarket and do a couple of errands before it gets later. I don't have time to write about what I had intended. But last week, I did come across a post I wrote back in 2013. I have no idea where I used it, or if I did. After as a quick read, I realized that -- although I am no longer with the same publisher -- my process is still much the same.

After the First Draft

Depending on your approach to the first draft – whether you are a “plotter” or a “pantser” – your first draft will be either an organized progression of events or a sprawling, intuitive plunge into telling your story. Or, maybe you’re a “hybrid,” who begins with an outline and allows your story to evolve organically. Whatever your approach to writing the first draft, you have finished. Now, what?

 You’ve probably seen the advice that you should put your first draft away and return to it with fresh eyes. This assumes that you are not pushing against an unyielding deadline for submission. If this is a first book and you have no obligations to a publisher, you have the luxury of time. If you are writing with a clock ticking, the length of time that you can put your first draft aside is limited.

 I like to hand my first draft off to my “first readers” – a small group of friends who I can depend on to come at the draft in the ways that reflect their backgrounds and reading personalities. Two are lawyers, who are organized and detail-oriented. The “genre expert” reads widely within the genre of crime fiction and understands the conventions and innovations. The “character expert” has a feeling for characters as “people” (i.e., who they are and how they would behave). I give the first draft to these readers and then try to step away from the writing for at least a couple of weeks.  

 I say that I “try” because I want to plunge right back in and start revising. I want to “fix” the things that I already know need fixing. I have finally settled on allowing myself to read the manuscript and make a list of problems, but not make changes. I’ve discovered that using this time for research is also productive. I do research before I begin writing and during the first draft, but it is the nature of crime fiction that things will come up that need to be verified or that you need to learn more about. Time away from the first draft allows you to get away from your computer and make field trips to the library or to consult with your expert or back to the location that you are using as your setting.

 But eventually – to the relief of those of us who love revising – the time comes to return to your first draft. A systematic approach to revising reduces stress and ensures you will deal with first-draft problems. The process I favor – learned from the copyeditor I’ve worked with for years on my first mystery series – involves three cycles of editing. We begin with the problems that are obvious (e.g., continuity issues). During the next two cycles, we zoom in. By the third cycle, we are debating issues such as word choice and checking details such as the color of the eyes of a certain breed of cat. I’ve adapted this three-cycle process to my own self-editing during the revising process and am applying it prior to submission with my new series. During this revision process, I also consider and often incorporate the feedback I’ve received from my first readers. I am now – because I have less time between draft and submission deadline with my new series – moving to a checklist for my first readers. That will help us all be more systematic and help me to be a better writer.  

 

Long After Valentine's Day

 Donis here, writing onValentine's day, a couple of days before this entry appears, since I'll be busy for the next couple of days. It seems like I'm leaving my house more lately than I have in the past two years. I hope that signals the beginning of a return to something like normal in the world. 

Speaking of beginnings, I've enjoyed reading my blogmates' entries on finding the beginning of your novel. I relate very much. I usually write at least three beginnings for every novel, and they're hardly ever at the front of the manuscript. They're usually buried somewhere later in the story, and after I finish the MS, I have to go hunting for each one, pull it out, and in the end decide which is the very best way to begin. It's not an efficient method, but thus far it's worked out for me.

Donis and Don, 1974

...and speaking of even bigger beginnings, today, Valentine's Day, marks the anniversary of my first date with Beloved Spouse, an event that occurred long ago, in the misty past. He and I have never really celebrated Valentine's Day since it's all commercial, etc. etc., but I do think of that first date every year.

We met when we were in graduate school. We had a class together, and later ran into one another at a Christmas party where we talked for a long time. He asked me out several times and I turned him down each time. I was NOT looking for a relationship (a story for another time). 

He was persistent.

I liked him. Damn.

Finally I decided, what the hell. He invited to me go to a Feminist Film Festival with him. I thought that sounded safe enough, so I said I would go as long as we met at the theatre. Afterwards, we walked to a nearby cafe for coffee and talked about modern American literature. 

He knew more about modern American authors than I did. I had never dated anyone who knew more about literature than I did. I literally broke out in flop sweat. I knew I was doomed.

We were married exactly nine months later. I wasn't looking to get married, either, but we graduated and he got a job in Texas before I got one somewhere else. These days I might have gone with him without getting married, but this was the 1970s and neither of us wanted to offend our families. So we went to a Justice of the Peace one Friday after work and tied the knot.

My mother was thrilled. However, I didn't change my name, so that gave her something to be unhappy about instead. After we had been married about 20 years, she got used to it, more or less.

Forty-seven years later I still think about that beginning. Before that Valentine's Day I considered myself mistress of my own fate, but there are tides in our lives we are helpless to resist.

Wreck Bay moves one step closer

 Good morning! I'm late with this post for three reasons. First, because things have been a little crazy here in Ottawa and I've been distracted by news and social media for days as my city's occupation continues, the prime minister invokes the Emergencies Act (despite all the hand-wringing from civil libertarians, a much tamer tool than its predecessor the War Measures Act), our police chief is forced to resign, and the area around our venerable Parliament buildings has been turned into a giant trailer park party. Picture this scene clogged with idling, forty-ton big rigs.

Secondly, because my beloved dog Eva, on whom my fictional dog Kaylee is based, has fallen seriously ill, but that's not a subject for a blog post.

And lastly, because in the midst of this chaos, I've been racing to finish the final draft of my latest Amanda Doucette mystery before the submission deadline, which was yesterday, February 15. I am a few hours late, but it's done! And that's what I want to write about today. 

Now the in-house editorial process begins, which grinds exceedingly slow. The release date has been pushed back from this fall, and now lands with a thud into the middle of post-holiday January 2023. Ugh. In a recent post, I mentioned that the publisher's marketing department didn't like my chosen title THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE, the title of a 60s protest song and very apt for the story. I have now come up with another one, which has passed the test. WRECK BAY.

So tadah!! Announcing the title of my forthcoming fifth book in the Amanda Doucette series. WRECK BAY! I am not unhappy with the title, which refers in the book to the hippie commune set up at the edge of Long Beach near Tofino on Vancouver Island. It has a nice ring to it and, with its multiple layers of meaning, will suit the story well enough. 

So onward. I expect the usual to-and-fro between me and the editor, in which aspects are expanded, clarified, and polished. I like this part of the process, provided the editor likes the basic story to begin with. In the past, I've usually had very few major editorial quibbles and the small ones are easily resolved. Editors generally have not asked for major shifts in the storyline (like "I hate the ending"). Having an open mind and a supportive, perhaps even enthusiastic attitude from the editor makes this an opportunity to make a good story great.

In my last book, I did have a peculiar experience with an overly enthusiastic proofreader. These are the people who don't change the story substantially but pick apart the exact choice of words, grammatical structures, even commas (the bane of every writer's existence). Copy-editors and proofreaders have to be detail people– one might even say micromanagers– by nature. and for a big-picture person like myself, they can be frustrating. But I want it to be ungrammatical! That's how this character thinks!

During the last proofreading exercise, I learned something new. Apparently the newest stye guidelines discourage the use of foods to describe features or traits of the characters. Gone are "coffee-coloured skin" and "chocolate brown eyes". I did briefly wonder - what do they want "mud-coloured"? Foods conjure up vivid sensory impressions, both delicious and unpleasant, beyond the colour. Chocolate is a whole lot more appealing than mud. And what about the adjectives that are both food and colour, like honey, caramel, orange, etc?

If I recall, the new guidelines were because such adjectives were often used for characters of colour and might be subtly demeaning in some way. For over twenty years, I've been describing Green's wife (white, although Jewish) wife as having chocolate brown eyes. Similarly, I think white as well as ugly when I read "he had a face like lumpy dough" or cauliflower ears. 

Regardless, in this book I have tried to avoid all food unless it's on a plate. Fortunately there are a lot of words in the English language. What are your thoughts both as reader and writer? Writers, is this a new thing?

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.