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!

Writing is just a job, let's not get dramatic

When does being creative become a job?

I'm presuming that everyone who dips into these pages is either actively involved or actively interested in the process of stringing words together in some semblance of order.

So when does that act of stringing words together transform from an art (hobby, pastime, wish, ambition) to a means of employment.

I don't mean the moment when you are paid for the first time. I mean at what point is the creative process deemed work like any other? In other words, it becomes merely what we do.

I've held that view for some time, probably because even before I made a living (of sorts) from writing books I was making a living (a regular one) from writing news and features. Thanks to that, I have shown open disdain for any notion of the muse alighting upon a fevered brow and, its stablemate in the big book of author's myths, writer's block.

As the late Terry Pratchett once said - and I believe I have quoted here before - writer's block was created by people in California who couldn't write. (Sorry, Californians, I think you're lovely)

That doesn't mean we can't get stuck, of course we can. Those of us who don't plan run the risk of wandering down a blind alley with our stories. But what do you do if that happens in the real world? You turn around and go back, because somewhere you have made a wrong turn. You don't stand there and wail, 'I can't go on any further. This walking business is just too hard!', then collapse on a chaise longue, your palm pressed to your forehead and sip absinthe, there always being a handy couch and some strong aniseed flavoured liquor available up a blind alley. Well, at least in Glasgow.

So, no - I don't believe in writer's block. If something's not working then fix it. We are the creators of our little world of words and we can change whatever the hell we want. If things have come to a standstill creativity-wise in whatever we are writing then it probably means we've gone wrong somewhere back along the road. And as we made that stuff up, we can remake it up.

It could also mean you are writing entirely the wrong thing. I've been there.

There's an old adage that writer's write. Authors far more successful and wiser than I (me? Who knows? I'm no English professor) often advise that writing every day, no matter what, is the way forward. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be written, as they say. Today's nonsense is tomorrow's bestseller, with a little work and application.

And there we have another point - what is needed is such application, not inspiration. Inspiration is the initial idea. I often visualise Peter Benchley thinking something along these lines: I think I'll write a book about a great white shark terrorising an island community. And I'll call it MUNCH! Okay, maybe the title needs a little work but I will now sit down and get the damn thing written and fame and fortune will follow. Maybe I'll get to meet that young guy Steven Spielberg some day - I did so enjoy 'Duel'.

That's the inspiration, that's the muse crash-landing on the old napper - that tiny little electrical impulse in the brain that sets the creative juices flowing. After that it's down to hard work, even when you don't feel like it.

When I was in newspapers I couldn't say to my boss, 'You know what? I'm just not feeling it today. Is it okay if I don't write these stories?'

I would have been told in no uncertain terms, no doubt in some choice Anglo-Saxon, that such a position was untenable in the workplace. 

The same would be said if I was a carpenter or a plumber or an electrician, all creative pursuits in their own ways.

So here's my advice in a nutshell: just as a journey is begun with a single step, so writing a book (play, short story, script) commences with one word. Then another. Then another. Don't agonise too much over them, just pile them in. If you're a planner you should know where you want the story to go. If you're a pantster - like me - you may have some semblance of an idea. It might be vague but you should have some sort of notion. 

If you're lucky it will flow. If you hit a roadblock just treat it as such and either go through it, over it, round it - or back up.

Get that first draft done, ideally as quickly as possible. It might be as rough a badger's butt but at least it's down and then you can work at it. Don't listen to authors who say their first draft is always what's printed. If that is the case - and I am always sceptical - then it in no way demeans your work. Never mind what they're doing - concentrate on yourself.

Incidentally, I may appear to be lecturing. I'm not - everything I have said above is something I've said to myself many times in the past and in fact it was the very same talking to I have myself at the turn of the year.

Now.

I'm off to pile some words into my current project. I've been at it for two weeks and I've got 26,000 words done.

The problem is, to paraphrase Neil Simon, I haven't thought of a story yet.

A Nice Surprise

 My short story, "Lizzie Noel," will be published by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. I'm simply thrilled. I had a story published there many years ago--"The Family Rose"--which was subsequently picked up by two anthologies, Death on the Veranduh, and Murder to Music. 

My agent, Phyllis Westberg, wasn't very enthusiastic about "Lizzie Noel," and my husband didn't like it at all. So, I never submitted it, although I thought they were both wrong. 

Besides, Ellery Queen had turned down a couple of stories after "The Family Rose," was published. 

Last July I re-read the story and quite liked it. I always had. I sent it July 20th and it took forever for the staff to read it. When I checked on it last month, I was told they were just now getting to the July submissions. When they did, they sent the contract with the acceptance letter. 

I was elated! I had another story that I submitted yesterday. It will be interesting to see if they read this one faster because they bought another recently. No one has seen this one. Phyllis loved short stories, and everything went through the agency except for the articles I did for BlackPast.org. 

A couple of years ago Folio Literary Management bought Harold Ober Associates. Phyllis Westberg retired, and Claudia Cross is my wonderful new agent. 

This week I've been thinking about an older shelved manuscript that I believe has become more marketable. It might not be a good idea to interrupt my thinking on the mystery I'm currently writing. On the other hand, I'm finished with the first draft of the mystery, the story line is there. Perhaps I can work on the mystery in the morning and tackle the historical novel in the afternoon. The historical doesn't require any more research. It's been polished and polished. But it's too long. 

Through the marvelous tutelage I received from Barbara Peters and Annette Rogers at Poisoned Pen Press, I became a better writer. If I go through the historical novel again, I'll bet I find plenty to cut. I'll start with a global search for words ending in "ing." And about a jillion other little things that need spiffed up.

With my first ever manuscript at PPP the number of times I used the word "just" just drove Annette crazy. But I just couldn't help myself. 

I envied Barbara's outdoor bravery in her blog. I have hamstring tendonitis right now and will start physical therapy. My temperament is ideal for lying around, so I appreciated Doug Skelton's post. 

It turned out that I don't now and have never had Covid. My home test was a very faint false positive. December was a bleak month. Two friends were killed as pedestrians in separate accidents, and I have a nephew in ICU with Covid who has been intubated for about five weeks. 

Like my other Type M buddies, I'm tip-toeing a little warily into the New Year. I'm grateful for unexpected breaks and praying for families of friends who dealing with unexpected tragedies. 

Highs and Lows

This has been a week of highs and lows. I finished a manuscript I began a year ago, which capped a nice couple of months that saw me get a job that will take us away from New England for the first time in 25 years. However, Monday, I learned a dear friend and mentor passed away unexpectedly.

Highs and lows.

I started working on a new series, a new concept, four years ago. I had an idea for a character and a series set in a locale I know well, a New England boarding school, a setting rife with power, privilege, and money, all elements that make for interesting crime novels. So, four years ago, I went about writing and produced a convoluted plot that my agent struggled with.

Now I’m a believer in the Raymond Chandler adage “There are no dull stories, only dull minds,” so I believed in the plot and figured my dull mind just didn’t execute it well. I went back to work, re-envisioning the entire storyline and changing the point of view, producing a manuscript that is 20,000 words lighter. The manuscript will be in my agent’s hands within a month. A highpoint in a stretch that has left me feeling blessed. In late November I accepted a job at Detroit Country Day School, an opportunity my family is excited for. After living at a boarding school for 15 years, we will buy a house and embark on civilian life.

Then two weeks ago, Hugh Silbaugh, my friend, the man who hired me and mentored me, a guy my mother said was “like the older brother you never had,” was diagnosed with cancer. On Monday, we learned he passed, unexpectedly. News that rocked me, my community, and teachers he mentored and students he impacted across the nation. A low.

Highs and lows. The things that make our lives and provide the inspiration for the art we try to produce.

My Year in Books, 2021

 

Happy New Year to everyone. I successfully made it back from a very snowy Seattle pretty much on time. Quite a feat considering how many flights were cancelled the last week of the year.

Now it’s time for my annual reading wrap-up.

In 2021 I “consumed” 119 books, 2 more than last year. Consumed because it’s a combination of listening to audio books and reading. The largest category was mystery/thriller at 48%. This would go up to 66% if I included Nancy Drew, which I put in a separate Children’s/YA category. 10% of the books I read were in the non-fiction category, down from last year. This has been a trend ever since Covid struck. Before that, close to 50% of the books I read were nonfiction. Not sure why as reading non-fiction is very calming for me.

I also read some sci-fi/fantasy and general fiction. Also quite a few Children’s/YA books including 19 Nancy Drew books. These are mostly the 1960s/1970s editions, but I did read a few of the 1930s/40s versions. Mostly the ones where the stories drastically changed. Interesting to see the differences.

I listened to 20 audiobooks. Once again, most of those were the audio versions of the Dark Shadows books by Marilyn Ross, originally published in the 1960s/70s. I’ve finished those now and moved on to other things.

In the mystery category, the majority of them were cozies. This time I noticed an interesting trend, a large portion of them had a paranormal bent: ghosts, witches, vampires, etc. Prior to this past year I really didn’t read many paranormal cozies. Didn’t really find any that interested me. Over the last year I discovered quite a few that I find interesting.

The Oxford Key mysteries by Lynn Morrison are set in Oxford, England. Fun reads, good characters, interesting mysteries. I found out about them through an interview she did on a podcast. Either Leah Bailey’s or Alexia Gordon’s. Don’t remember which one.

I learned about The Vampire Knitting Club mysteries through a cozy group on Goodreads. Couldn’t resist reading a book with that title. This one is yes, set in Oxford, England. Really like the characters and stories. I’m on book 6 of 13 right now.

Another great series, though only 3 books long, is the Movie Palace series by Margaret Dumas. Really great books that feature an old movie theater, which has a ghost, an usherette who plunged to her death off the balcony of the theater.

I also read a lot of historical mysteries, quite a few of them the Redmond and Haze mysteries by Irina Shapiro.

My favorite book of the year in the non-fiction category is a true crime: The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer by Dean Jobb. I’d heard a bit about Dr. Cream before, but didn’t know a lot of the details. Now I do. 

I have two books that are vying for my favorite book of the year in the fiction category. One is Bluff by Jane Stanton Hitchcock. It’s more of a thriller than a mystery. One reviewer called it social noir. However you categorize it, it’s just a great read. The other book is The Vineyards of Champagne by Juliet Blackwell. This is a general fiction book set in France. Just a wonderful book. You may know Juliet’s name from one of her cozy mystery series.

That’s it for my reading wrap-up. Onto another topic next time. I’m curious, did you find yourself reading more last year than in previous years? Did you read different things?

Dystopian News and Focusing on Writing

 By Thomas Kies

I’m an unabashed news junkie.  My career for over thirty years was in newspapers and magazines so being a news geek just comes naturally.  I love the physical feel of a newspaper and we get our local paper delivered here twice a week (we really don’t have enough going on here for more editions than that), the News and Observer out of Raleigh every day except for Saturday, and the Sunday New York Times.  Additionally, I subscribe to the online versions of the Washington Post and my old newspaper, the Norwalk Hour. 

Put that together with all of the other free news websites available and I’m down a rabbit hole instead of writing. 

It is so darned easy to get distracted.  Just in a single Op-Ed section of a Sunday New York Times, there were pieces about how different countries were being affected by climate change, how the new covid variant was raging through the country, and how the divisive nature of our political and cultural landscape is slowly leading up to more violence and the possible end of our democracy.

If those aren’t the ingredients for a dystopian novel, I don’t know what is.  How on earth can anyone concentrate on writing a mystery with so many crazy things happening all at once?

I do a number of things to give myself direction.  I’m very lucky that I live on a barrier island here on the coast of North Carolina, so when I want to clear my head, I’ll take a ten-minute walk to the beach.  Usually, by the time I’ve gotten back home, I can sit down and hit the keyboard.

If I get stalled, I’ll bribe myself.  I’m a coffee addict so before I top off my latest cup of caffeine, I’ll force myself to write at least another couple of paragraphs. 

If I get frustrated with my progress, I’ll get up from my desk and wander around the house, thinking of dialogue.  Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don’t. But it gets the creative juices flowing.

Here’s a question.  Do all writers hear voices in their heads?

For me, starting a new book is the absolute hardest because you’re creating a new plotline, new characters, and new locations.  Everything is being made up of whole cloth. 

Right now, I’m about eighty pages into my new project and yesterday, I went back to the first few chapters to smooth out the rough edges and polish the prose. That was fun!  This afternoon I’ll do another few chapters.

Hopefully, by the time I get back to where I left off, I’ll have hit that place when the story starts to write itself.  It’s where the characters take on a life of their own and you know where the book is going.

Right now, however, I don’t even know who the bad guy is.  Bu that really is part of the fun, isn’t it?

Guest Blogger Mary Miley

Mary Miley

Type M is proud to start the New Year off right with our first guest blogger of 2022, the wonderful Mary Miley, author of 15 nonfiction books, 200 magazine articles and 7 historical mysteries, including her new mystery series set in Chicago during the truly roaring 1920s. The first, The Mystic’s Accomplice, hit US shelves last year and the second, Spirits and Smoke, was released in ebook last December and in hardcover on January 4, 2022. Spirits and Smoke features Maddie Pastore, a reluctant sleuth struggling to survive in 1925 Chicago, when gangsters ruled the streets and Prohibition turned law-abiding citizens into criminals. The word “Spirits” in the title refers both to bootleg hooch and to the ghosts a fraudulent medium conjures up in her seances; “Smoke” is present at the seances and is also Twenties slang for deadly wood alcohol, the murder weapon of choice in this whodunnit. I (Donis) read an advance copy of Spirits and Smoke, and I can vouch for the fact that it is a great read, evocative and fun, and Maddie is a character to root for! Visit Mary's website here.

Spirits and Smoke

    Mary Miley

With the new year came the release of Spirits and Smoke, the second in my Mystic’s Accomplice series. The story follows Maddie Pastore, a young widow struggling to keep herself and her baby boy safe during the violent years of Chicago’s Roaring Twenties. Maddie works as a shill and investigator for a fraudulent mystic, ferreting out information that Madame Carlotta can use in her seances to convince clients she’s the real deal. “I wasn’t proud of what I did,” says Maddie, “but I was proud of how well I did it.” But what to do when, in the course of her investigations, she stumbles across evidence that the deceased didn’t die of natural causes?

Maddie’s talents draw unwelcome attention from one sharp-eyed police detective. He doesn’t believe in Spiritualism but in a city stuffed with gangsters, con artists, and criminals, he’ll take whatever help he can get. Maddie brings him a puzzling case: why did teetotal banker Herman Quillen die of drinking “smoke” (AKA methanol or wood alcohol), and who is the gold-tooth man at Carlotta’s séance falsely claiming to be his brother and demanding that the spirits reveal where Herman hid the money?

For a historian turned mystery writer, the decade of the Roaring Twenties offers infinite possibilities for murder and mayhem plus access to some of the weirdest people and the most incredible true events in American history—I include several in this book. Prohibition is the defining characteristic of the era because it affected all Americans, turning most of them into lawbreakers. Corruption and violence leached into every level of society as cops, judges, juries, and politicians were bought off. No decade has been as violent: this is the era that saw not only the rise of organized crime but the high point of the Ku Klux Klan. Add to that the excitement of speakeasies, flappers, the women’s vote, jazz, radio, and vaudeville, and the potential for trouble is endless. 

Chicago was the epicenter of crime in the 1920s. Sure, there was crime before Prohibition, but it was largely local, not terrible violent, and not all that profitable. The opportunity to supply the thirsty public with illegal booze raised the stakes to unthinkable heights. With literally billions of dollars in play, the murder rate doubled as bootleggers organized themselves into international gangs, the predecessors of today’s drug cartels. With my research, I was able to weave real people (like Alice Clement, Chicago’s flamboyant female policewoman) and real events (like the murder of gang leader Hymie Weiss on the cathedral steps) into what Kirkus Reviews calls “plentiful historical detail and a sparkling cast of characters.” 

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http://marymileytheobald.com

New Years reflections

I'll start this first blog of 2022 with a wish for a speedy, complication-free recovery to my fellow bloggers, their families, and everyone else who's been affected by Covid, which as you know, unless you've been completely unplugged, is absolutely rampaging across the globe. These are unnerving times and not what we'd hoped for as we enter the third year of this plague.

Welcome to 2022 indeed. Bah.

The next point I want to make is about the meaning of New Years and all this talk about accompanying resolutions. As Douglas said, New Years is supposed to be about new beginnings and endless possibilities. But it has never felt like the right time of year to celebrate new beginnings. New life. New hope. For us Canadians, and for much of the far northern world, January 1st means staring down the two darkest, coldest, and bleakest months of the year before the warmth and light of March. I love winter. I love getting out to play in the snow. Ottawa where I live has plenty of exciting activities. Tobogganing with your kids, cross-country and downhill skiing, skating on the canal, snowshoeing or hiking the crisp, white trails through forests of maple and pine. I have done all of them, and still enjoy cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, and hiking.

Snowshoeing up a mountain

But there are often about three good hours in the day during which to enjoy them. This morning it is -17 C outside, which will warm up to -11 by two o'clock. The sun sets at 4:30. The day, indeed the week, is planned around weather forecasts, which fluctuate wildly. Most times, it takes about fifteen minutes to get dressed up to take the dogs for a walk, let alone go skiing. It's hard work. So much of my day is spent inside, even before the long, dark evenings. During the pandemic, with its isolation and restrictions, even cinema, theatre, shopping, and dining out have often been off limits. January 1st as the promise of new beginning? It doesn't feel like a time to be starting afresh with new resolutions and new determination.

February view from my TV room

The Jewish New Year falls in September. Although that might herald new beginnings in the southern hemisphere, it is the start of the end in the north. Crops ripen, daylight wanes, temperatures begin to drop. It's a beautiful time of year, but it's the culmination of what has been, not a celebration of what's to come.

To me, the perfect time to mark the new year is spring. Maybe the spring equinox. That is truly the time when spirits feel renewed and hope rises. In my case I watch the snow melt at the fringes of the garden and the first spring crocuses poke up. Days become longer than nights, and neighbours come out from behind their snowbanks to greet each other. Smiles everywhere. My thoughts begin to turn to the cottage. 

My morning coffee place

This year it feels especially sensible to put off hopeful thoughts of 2022 for a couple of months. The virus has us by the throat again, exhausting essential workers, stressing business owners, and once again confining to quarters many of us, especially seniors like me. All my hopes of seeing friends and family are on hold with the words "let's see how the case count is in a month". So I limp along with social chats and books events with Zoom and What's App. I read, I write, I watch TV, and try to keep the dogs and myself exercised and entertained. It's a time for small pleasures. 

The time to think big will come.

Looking forward with hope

By Rick Blechta

Some folks are energized by a fresh new year. Some find themselves fighting off depression.

I belong in the former camp, and much like Mssr. Skelton, I always make resolutions for the new year. Sometime I even keep them!

This year, it’s tougher. My family’s recent brush with covid and the ongoing issues — Ontario where I live is going into a limited lockdown again tomorrow (this should have been done before Christmas, but our government decided not to heed the warnings, sigh) — it’s harder to see a clear path ahead.

I’ve found the trick with resolutions is to not make them too tough. How many times have I made the exercise one into “I’m going to walk 5 miles every day” and then fail by the end of the month?

So considering what we’re currently facing and how the way ahead is more clouded than ever, I’m being particularly modest this year.

Here in no particular order is my list of resolutions for 2022:

• Go out for a walk 4 times a week (as long as it’s not slippery. I don’t need another fall!)
• Write at least 1000 words per day — even if I throw them all out the next day
• Make the bed every day (I’m four for four on that, in fact I even started before the new year!)
• Weigh less on December 31, 2022 than I did the previous New Year’s Eve
• Contact at least one old friend per week for no reason other than to hear their voice
• Keep at least four of the above resolutions.

I know my list sounds uninspiring, but it is carefully-crafted and doable, I believe. If I keep to it, I will leave 2022 behind feeling satisfied with my progress.

Three years ago, one of my resolutions was to practise every day. That one has been a great success. In 2021, for example, I at least warmed up on 349 days, and on five of the empty days, I was sick.

Six years ago, my resolution was to reorganize our kitchen, making sure everything was in a logical place, and then sticking to the reorganization by putting everything back in its place when I was done with it. That too worked really well. Now I don’t even think about it. I just put everything away.

Two big, although modest wins.

That’s what I aim to do this year. Go into 2023 feeling good about myself because I stuck to it.

And in these dark times, isn’t that a big plus?

New year, new beginnings (yeah, I know it's a cliche but it works)

Happy New Year to you all!

How many have made new year resolutions? 

My new year resolution is not to make new year resolutions, so I guess I've broken it already.

Some people look back at this time of year but I have learned that it's a bad habit, as Will Munny says in Unforgiven. I force myself to look forward. After all, look what happened to Lot's wife. 

It's natural to think about making changes at this time of year, whether it be appearance, circumstance or outlook. Those bad habits may die hard but sooner or later you have to stick a stake through their hearts. Things that aren't working have to be assessed and redefined. New beginnings kick off with that first step.

So, what is ahead for me?

A busy year, I think - and further details will emerge in a few weeks time. I have lots of writing to do and hopefully there will be festivals and events in libraries and bookshops. 

And because it's going to be extremely busy there are changes I will have to make changes to my daily routine. 

Basically, I will have to stop faffing around and get my butt in gear. My day will have to be structured in a way that it hasn't been since I stopped working for a living.

I also have to at least nod towards those new year regulars - losing weight and getting, if not fit, then at least fitter.

Don't get me wrong, I've not reached the stage where the scales groan when I stand on them but I do need to shed a few pounds.

As for the fitness side I'm ok for a guy of my advancing years but I'm not about to run any marathons. Or walk them. I think perhaps even crawling will be troublesome.

So I've begun monitoring my steps with one of those apps. You know, the ones that tell you if you've reached the 10k target. I did it on my first day so colour me self-satisfied. That was yesterday so we'll see how I do today.

Of course, walking Mickey (my dog) goes a long way in increasing the tally, as does climbing the stairs in my home. 

But that's not enough. I must do some exercises too.

There is one problem with that.

I'm a lazy cuss and I'd much rather sit on the couch and watch TV. I don't think working the remote counts as exercise.

So - my routine has to be up early. Write in the morning from 8am (or 9am at the latest). Make sure I hit or exceed my daily word count (ideally three thousand words. They don't need to be good, they just need to be written). Do whatever else I have to do in the afternoon - that may be other projects or, as I will be writing one book while editing another, doing those edits. 

Of course, there also has to be time to see to Tom and Mickey, clean the house, cook (those takeaways must stop), see friends, go shopping. All that jazz.

As we say in Glasgow, Come ahead if you think you're hard enough.

Quadruple Whammy

 I have been debating over the content of this post. It seems unnecessarily ghoulish to list unhappy events on this site. Especially when everyone is looking forward to a vibrant New Year. 

I'm in North Carolina visiting my daughter. We've had a very Merry Christmas. And an unusual number of deaths and illnesses in our family and friends during the last month. 

About an hour ago I learned I have Covid, which involved cancelling tomorrow's flight home. I'm throwing in the towel and making this very short. 

Nevertheless, I feel like the New Year will be a turning point with a happy ending. So onward and upward everyone. 

Crazy Times & Resolutions

So this year we spent the holidays in Florida. It was a great vacation, one near family, one spent mostly outside, and one in which we met new friends at several family gatherings. The upshot  –– at a time when the COVID variant omicron rages –– is, in hindsight, predictable: a couple members of our crew tested positive.

The good news is our clan members’ symptoms are mild. (“Cold symptoms and body aches?” I told my wife. “With my sinuses and my old man’s hockey back, that’s my permanent state.”) I tested negative and flew home to Massachusetts

late Monday night, thinking of a significant change COVID has had on the world (and I’m probably late to the game in facing this realization) is that you now need to seriously weigh your health risks before seeing people or attending events before doing so much of what was once part of everyday life because you could now find yourself ill or quarantining.

Our close-contact exposure has us cancelling upcoming domestic trips. This is part of our collective new reality –– the need to weigh the risks of exposure; it’s something many of us probably did not do prior to March 2020, a true new reality.

Crazy times that aren’t ending soon.

*

Resolutions . . .

. . . as we head into the new year, here are mine  –– short and simple:

3) Fall in love with a new author. 2021 was the year of Megan Abbott, for me. I’ll be on the lookout for a new author to read widely.

2) Improve fitness. I’m avoiding putting specific goals here. But the more I exercise, the better I feel, so . . . 

1) Outline more effectively. I'm finishing a novel right now that has an ending I did not see coming until I was halfway through, which, if you believe in the no-surprise-for-the-writer, no-surprise-for-the-reader method, is excellent. However, if you try to keep three balls in the air, which I do, it's terrifying and can lead you wasting lots of time. It's something I'll continue working on in 2022.

Happy (early) New Year to all.

Best Wishes for the Coming Year

 This will be a short post. Wishing you all the best in the coming year. We are in the Seattle area where we're experiencing an unusual amount of snow. Had a nice Christmas with my mom and sister. Hoping the trip home will be uneventful. This is what we woke up to the day after Christmas.

I got good reasons. Honest!

by Rick Blechta

I know I’ve missed two postings in a row and that’s never happened in over 15 years of posts here on Type M.

Two weeks ago it was because I was totally wrapped up in trying to finish a graphic design job that in retrospect I never should have agreed to do. My posting day just blew right by me before I knew it.

Last Tuesday was spent in a car driving to New York for Christmas with my wife’s 92-year-old mother as well as my brother and his family.

Unfortunately, my wife and I are now back in Toronto four days early because one of our relatives came down with Covid on Sunday. Being in another country and having Covid is not a thing I want to contemplate, so we threw everything into our car, and yesterday morning at 5 a.m. raced back to Toronto in order to get across the border before we started exhibiting any symptoms (or be contagious) since our exposure to this person was two days before. New we’re quarantining at home, waiting for the illness to show itself. 

I doubt very much we’ll dodge this bullet. Everyone we were with on Christmas Eve who had been together previously before we got together with them has come down with Covid. Every. Single. One. We thought we’d be safe because we’re all so careful. It was stupidly arrogant of us.

My wife and I have both had 3 Covid vaccinations, so we’re pretty sanguine about our chances, but we are still worried. The big one is my wife’s mother, regardless of the fact she is triple-vaccinated and in reasonable health. Ninety-two and Covid don’t mix really well.

Take this new Covid strain seriously, folks. It will find you and get you if you are not hyper-vigilant. If you haven’t bothered to get vaccinated, good luck to you. You’re playing a dangerous game. If you cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons, the only safe plan is to completely cut yourself off — and believe me, I feel for you.

It was my intention to close this post, my last of 2021, with the wish that we all find peace and happiness in the coming year, that things a year hence would find us all living our normal lives.

Now I’m just hoping that the last days of 2022 will find us all still here.

High Anxiety

 By Thomas Kies

When writing a thriller, I’ve been told that you need to keep ramping up the stakes, turn up the heat, and escalate the danger.  But throughout your story, you need to leave some room for your reader to take a breath and rest a moment or you run the risk of exhausting him or her to the point that they have to put your book down. 

We felt like we were at that resting point sometime over the summer.  My wife and I had gotten our vaccinations and the world seemed to be opening up again.  I was able to hold a couple of wildly successful book signings, attend some great functions, and even emcee a couple of events. 

Just seeing people again was exciting.  Back in April, I’d been asked to be the auctioneer at a school fundraiser at a local country club.  Before my part of the evening, we ate dinner and my wife asked, “What’s wrong?  Why are you so quiet?”

I glanced around the room and with a slight shrug I answered, “I’m not used to being in a room with all these people. The last time we were at any kind of event, it was over a year ago."

I managed to shake it off, ham it up, and we raised a ton of money for the school and for the kids.  On the spot, they asked me to come back in 2022.

Things were looking so rosy by October that I signed up for the Suffolk Mystery Writers Festival in March, Malice Domestic in April, and Thrillerfest in June. My wife and I booked a cruise to Alaska in May.

We were vaxxed and boosted and it seemed like the pandemic crisis had abated.

Then the omicron variant showed up.  

The stakes have ramped up, the heat is on, and the danger is escalating.  All bets are off.

It’s like those damned apocalypse movies you see on Netflix.  If everyone would just do what they need to do for self-preservation we’d all be better off.  But with every story, there must be a lunatic fringe.  

I have a reporter friend who had a trip booked for Europe in a few months and he bemoaned what was going on in the world now that omicron was the dominant strain.

I just said, “Plot twist.”

He asked me, “Would people believe all this if you had written it into one of your novels?”

Probably not.

This blog is blessedly brief because I’m writing in on Christmas Day and I really should be downstairs in the kitchen putting together coq au vin for dinner for tonight.

I’m wishing you a belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year with the hopes that our plot twists be few and trivial.

A Debt Paid

 The Christmas Season is a time for celebration and recollection. I have much to be grateful for, to include the opportunity on Type M to share anecdotes and observations. This post I'll take the occasion to reflect on a debt paid to the acclaimed Denver Chicano artist, Stevon Lucero, who recently passed away from health complications (not Covid).  An imaginative painter, more of a shaman who used paint as his way to share his visions, he was known for his fusion of Mexican and Indigenous folklore, the metaphysical, and American pop culture. He was also a scholarly fan of science-fiction, from the cerebral to the cheesy. 

Photo: Stevon Lucero Metastudios

I'd stop by his studio at the CHAC Gallery and we'd chat about art and writing. He could make connections between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Batman and Carlos Castaneda. How this worked in my favor was that in my Felix Gomez series, I had written myself into a corner. I'd penned each book as a stand alone and never gave much thought to a series arc. Then I got stuck. What had happened was that in my third book, The Undead Kama Sutra, I decided to throw a curve ball to the readers. Carmen Arellano, vampire femme fatale extraordinaire, had been captured by alien gangsters. The reader expected Felix to rescue Carmen but he failed. At the end of the book, she was a captive of aliens in deep space and I had no idea how to rescue her. Felix's dilemma weighed on his mind and mine.

At one First Friday Art Walk, I was chatting with Stevon when he said, "Mario, that was brilliant." Though I had no idea what he was talking about, I agreed with him. 

"What you did, vato. The psychic plane. In every book you build more about accessing the psychic plane. That's how you're going to rescue Carmen, using the psychic plane." He proceeded to explain about the supernatural vortexes at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. Reflecting on what he'd said, Stevon was right. Only I as the author didn't see it but to Stevon, the path across the galaxy using paranormal portals was obvious. And so, his insights unfolded into Rescue From Planet Pleasure. After I wrote the book I sat with Stevon to share my thoughts. With his usual self-effacing manner, he told me that he'd moved on to other things. But at least I had the chance to thank him. 

While Stevon's memorial service was Roman Catholic, more or less, his funeral drew upon Mayan and Aztec traditions. 

A Darth Vader censer violated no rules in Stevon Lucero's universe.

Aztec dancers lead the procession back to the chapel.

Merry Christmas. Best Wishes and Happy Writing to you all.

The Bad Guy Question

Sorry to have been away. It was end of semester and I lost track of my day to blog while reading student papers and getting my grades in. 

Douglas's Monday post caught my eye. I've thought a bit about The Sopranos and the bad guy question. As I may have mentioned here, I've been working on a book about the factual aspects of gangster films. The publisher asked me to do nine films and include The Sopranos as my tenth entry because of the TV series influence on popular culture.

I hadn't seen all of the episodes of The Sopranos  because I didn't have a subscription to HBO when it was on. I only caught an occasional episode when I was staying at a hotel during a conference. Even so, the show was popular enough that I was able to watch clips and read the commentary by critics and fans. With the book in progress, I decided to watch all six seasons. A daunting undertaking (86 episodes), but fascinating.

Tony Soprano and his crew presented me with a dilemma. It was the same moral dissonance that I experienced with the protagonists in the other gangster movies that I watched or re-watched. As Douglas noted about Tony and Christopher in The Sopranos, the display of humanity by characters who do really bad things can be disorienting. 

Michael Corleone in The Godfather does not intend to become a mobster. He has served in World War II and returned home planning to have a life outside the "family business". But when his father, Don Corleone, becomes the target of a rival crime family, Michael kills two men as they are dining in a restaurant. Sent off to Sicily, he marries and suffers the loss of his innocent young bride when one of his men plants a car bomb. Back home in America, his brother Sonny is ambushed and killed. Michael comes home, seeks out Kay, the woman who told he would never become a mobster, and persuades her to marry him. When Don Corleone dies of a heart attack while playing with his grandson in the garden, Michael steps into a role that his other brother is unable to assume. Michael becomes the head of his crime family.

Although many fans rate The Godfather, Part II as a even better movie than the first, I have to say that I find Michael Corleone unredeemable. He has settled too comfortably into his reign as don. He enjoys power too much. He is a dark character, ruthless, cruel. He is not a tragic hero, and I don't care about his fate. Oddly enough, Tony Soprano does worst things, literally has blood on his hands. But the life he leads give him panic attacks. He needs to see a psychiatrist to cope with his anxiety. I care about whether Tony will live or die, and still feel frustrated by the way the series ended. Was Tony dead or alive when the screen went to black?

Ray Liotta's portrayal of real-life mob soldier, Henry Hill, in Goodfellas is another riveting depiction of an incredibly violent man. But Liotta's voiceover narration is engaging. Liotta's Hill is unrepentant and jaunty. He normalizes the violence that he and the other mobsters engage in. He draws us into the subculture, makes us complicit as we root for him because he seems less vicious than other members of his crime family. 

Thinking about these two gangsters and the others in the films and the television series I've watched has been useful as I plotted my 1939 historical thriller. I have a character who is a bad guy. He cheats, he lies, he kills. But the deeper I go into his motivation, the more I understand his "why." The more I try to step into his shoes, the better I am able to understand why he is who he is. This makes my feelings about him more ambivalent. I want to be on the side of my protagonist, but I find my bad guy more complex. I need to restore balance between the two.

At any rate, Douglas's post has given me more to think about as I work on my bad guy's back story. I'll ponder the matter after I've enjoyed my Christmas dinner with friends. Speaking of food, that reminds me of the Liotta's detailed description of the meal he was preparing in between the errands he had to do to prepare his female drug courier for a flight she was scheduled to make. . . .

Happy Holidays, everyone!  I'll check in with you again in the new year. Wishing us all less stress and more joy.

Cookies for Christmas

LaNell's Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

I cannot improve on Barbara's Christmas message for this year. The best I can do to improve your holiday is treat you to my late sister-in-law LaNell’s recipe for boiled chocolate oatmeal cookies. These are oh, so delicious, and very easy. I have this recipe in LaNell’s handwriting, and have lovingly pressed it into my personal cookbook. It would be a shame not to perk up your Christmas with these cookies.

1 stick butter

1/2 cup milk

2/3 cup cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups uncooked quick oats

1 cup chopped nuts

Combine first five ingredients in a saucepan and boil two minutes. Add 1 tsp vanilla. Remove from the fire and add 3 cups of uncooked one-minute oats. Add one cup of chopped nuts. Mix in well. Drop by teaspoons-full onto wax paper and let set. Yields about 40 cookies.

Happy Holidays!

 Today is going to be a very short post. Possibly two or three short paragraphs. We are in tough times yet again and all over the world, we are hunkering down to try to defeat another round of this never-ending plague. I hope everyone is staying safe and sane, hanging in, and trying to connect with friends or family in some fashion over the next ten days.

As my celebration for the holiday, I just finished third rewrites of THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE, the fifth Amanda Doucette novel set in British Columbia. I have sent it off to my trusted Ladies Killing Circle and dusted my hands of the whole thing until I get feedback. 

So to everyone, please take care and stay safe. Get your shots if you can, follow precautions, do the simple things that bring you joy, and have a very MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS or WINTER SOLSTICE or whatever way you honour this time of the year. And may the NEW YEAR of 2022 be a better year, full of hope, friendship, and freedom from fear.

Do you need to like a character?

Do you need to like a character in order to enjoy them?

It's a question that has occurred to me many times over the years, most recently in a conversation I had this morning with bestselling author and friend Denzil Meyrick.

He's a huge fan of The Sopranos and if there's something to know about that series he doesn't know then, frankly, it's not worth knowing. I had tried to watch the show when it first aired here in the UK but didn't get into it. I can't explain why it didn't resonate with me at that time. Anyway, Denzil urged me to give it a second try so I bought the DVD box set (yes, I am very retro) and began to watch. Soon I was hooked.

He is also a big fan of 'Succession'. That's one I have tried to watch, mainly because Brian Cox is in it, but it didn't gel with me.

How can I enjoy one series about people who are not very nice, doing some not very nice things in a not very nice way but not another?

Well, I'll tell you. I don't know.

Let's make something quite clear here - just because I favour one over the other does not mean that it is better. It does not mean that any part of the production - whether writing, performance, direction, scoring, set design, catering or best boying - is superior or inferior. It just means I prefer it. Simple as.

Both deal with power and the toxic effect thereof. But one is about criminals wishing to make more money and the other is about rich people wanting to make more money and I do tend to lean towards crime fiction. (Yeah, I know - shocker).

But here's the thing. With The Sopranos, however, there is a duality that I didn't pick up from Succession (although admittedly I only saw part of the first season). It may be there, it just didn't ping on my radar (hence the reason I only saw part of the first season).

Yes, many of the characters are unlikeable but in Tony Soprano there is often a little bit of humanity, of regret. It often doesn't last long. That he does monstrous things is an inescapable fact but there is a depth of character there, whether in the writing or James Gandolfini's performance, that suggests a lot more.

I told Denzil that I felt the character wanted out of the life but he put it better - he said Tony Soprano regretted ever being in it but is realistic enough to know that the die is cast.

The other characters are equally as complex, though some are outright monsters. They all have that little spark of humanity - whether love for a child, a parent, even Tony's early affection for the ducks in his pool and Christopher's yen to break into movies - that lift them from the run-of-the-mill.

Then they do something like shooting someone in the head.

Their morality is different from yours and mine, something they share I believe with the characters in Succession.

Character, whether in long form TV, movies or books, is everything. And as the success of both series shows, no, we don't need to like a character to be interested in them.

But if I am to stay with that character then I do have to have some interest in what happens to them, whether it is their ultimate redemption or punishment. 

If a character doesn't come of the page or step from the screen and take root in my head then I am not committed to the piece. They don't need to be likeable but I do have to care and I think that is why I have stuck with the boys and girls in New Jersey and not the rich kids of a media mogul. 

But perhaps I should give Succession another go.

Maybe my head was in the same space as it was when I first tried to watch The Sopranos.

And, as I said, Brian Cox is in it.

It's Christmas this weekend (how did that happen?) and I'm not due back until we have stared 2022 in the face and asked it what it's intentions are even though there's no way we can prevent it from crossing the threshold. So let me take this opportunity to wish you all a merry Christmas and that the new year fulfils any promises it makes on that doorstep.

Here's a wee card for you all.

Book Hoarder or Preserver?

 

I read an article recently about famous people and how many books they have/had in their personal libraries. I learned that, of the people mentioned, Karl Lagerfeld had the most at 300,000 books and Hannah Arendt had the least at 4,000 books. Michael Jackson had 10,000+ books and Thomas Jefferson had 6,487. You can read the entire article here.

That got me thinking about how many books I have in my own house. I did a very rough count and came up with (drum roll, please) between 2,000 and 3,000 books. Most are in bookcases in one room, others are scattered around the house, including a bookcase filled with about 100 books signed by the authors.

The title of the article I read was “10 Famous Book Hoarders”. Apparently, anyone who has 1,000 books or more is considered a book hoarder. I prefer to think of myself as a book preserver. I have all sorts of books from mysteries (by far the largest percentage of my library) to books on linguistics, books on the Coptic and Egyptian languages, history books, technical books like those on the Jave programming language, books on forensics and writing... The list goes on.

Okay, okay, I haven’t read every book in my house, but I do intend to read them. Just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Apparently, there’s a word for that: the Japanese word tsundoku – acquiring reading materials and letting them pile up without reading them.

I know I’ve made this vow before, but I am going to make more of an effort in the new year to read more of these books in my library.

How about you? How large is your library? Do you consider yourself a book hoarder?

Playing Pretend

By Thomas Kies

Last Friday was the third birthday of my twin grandchildren, Thomas and Caroline.  Not recalling what three-year-old children enjoy getting as a present, I asked my daughter, Jessica, what she thought the kiddos would like.  She told me, “They like to play dress up. They also like to play with a plain cardboard box.  So…”

I decided to go with something the kids could dress up as, rather than a plain cardboard box. I’d leave that for another time.  I went to the internet and found firefighter outfits, complete with hard hat, fire extinguisher, and wait for it, a real siren.

On their birthday, my daughter posted photos and video of the kiddos in their firefighter coats and hats (on backwards) with the siren wailing.  At the end of the video, the twins say, “Thank you, Grandpa Tom and we love you, Grandpa Tom.”

Yeah, it melted my heart.  I wished I could have been there, but we’re still being Covid cautious.

Oh, and I apologized to my daughter and son-in-law for the sirens. I'm not sure I convinced my son-in-law that I'm being genuine.

Watching the kids enjoy themselves, it made me think how much I liked playing pretend when I was a child.  

Is that why we enjoy writing?  Because we get to play pretend?

At my last Advanced Creative Writing class of the year, I talked a little bit about a writer’s voice.  It’s about the perception, not as the writer, but as the character.

People see the same scene, event, occurrence, but we all perceive it just a little bit differently from each other.  When we write, we have to get inside our characters’ heads and tell the story from their point of view.

We’re pretending to be someone else.

We’re the the bold protagonist, complete with all his or her flaws, including, sometimes their skewed perceptions.  On paper, we’re pretending to be as brave and as adventurous as they are. 

We’re the unscrupulous and homicidal villain, complete with their deeply flawed perceptions. As we're writing them, we're as evil and cruel and twisted as they are. 

When we’re writing, it’s not only okay to pretend, it’s our job. When we’re not writing, however, we are often still pretending, depending on where we are and who we're around. Are we the same person with our spouse that we are with our boss?

Are we the same person when we’re driving, and someone cuts us off and nobody can hear us cussing out the stupid driver who had just put us in danger?  I hope not.

When we’re young, we love trying out different personas and pretending we’re explorers, pirates, cops, and firefighters.  As we grow up, unless we become actors and actresses, we start to lose the joy of pretending, although we never really lose the ability.

For a time, I tried my hand at marketing and sales. I wasn’t a natural at it and I was uncomfortable trying to persuade someone to buy something they might not be interested in in the first place.  I also hated the idea of being rejected and told no.

Which is really weird, because starting out as a writer, you have to be able to accept rejection gracefully. Over and over again.

So, in my head, I channeled Jack Nicholson.  Before walking in to see a client, I asked myself, “How would Jack Nicholson handle this.  What would he say and how would he say it?"

And then it was fun. Why Jack Nicholson? Jake Gittes from the movie Chinatown didn’t give a damn about rejection. 

So, for me, writing is playing pretend.  I get to be all kinds of different people. Getting to be my protagonist, Geneva Chase, is the most fun of all.  She gets to say all the things that I may have in my head but could never say in real life. The lady is a real snarky, smart-ass.

This is my last posting before Christmas, so I’m going be genuine for a moment and take this opportunity to say have a wonderful and safe holiday.  Cheers. 

Critique Group!

 I have finally joined a critique group. I have been writing for untold years and I have never been in a critique group before. The major reason for that is because, historically speaking, whenever anyone criticized my work my first thought was "You're an idiot." Then I'd reconsider and realize the suggestions were spot on and I needed to make a bunch of corrections. It's exhausting.

I think that one has to be incredibly careful to find a group of people to work with who are simpatico, and that's not easy. I function better on my own. I tend not to show my first draft to anyone. After writing thirteen published novels, I feel like I know the direction I want to go, and I don't want to be influenced by someone else's ideas.

However, since the pandemic I feel I've really lost my mojo, so I need the motivation to stay on top of things. I joined a great group, only six experienced authors, all published, all with a very good eye for plot and characterization. When others critique my work, sometimes I listen, and sometimes I don’t, but I am always shown an original way to approach the story/characters//plot.

Having to have something to show at every meeting has really made me pay attention to the way I write. When I teach writing classes, I tell the participants that a good way to pound out a first draft is to start at the beginning and go go go straight through to the end. Don't worry about quality or even making sense, just get that manuscript out. The real art of writing comes in the many subsequent drafts as you go over it and over it, shaping, changing, making it beautiful. Yes, writing is rewriting. 

Well. The truth is I don't' really do that, as a rule. Joining this group has taught me that I don't follow my own advice when I'm working on a first draft. Every book I've written has come about in its own individual way. My usual method seems to be like quilting. I write scenes out of order, like individual quilt blocks, then sew them together in an order that makes sense, advances the plot, makes a beautiful picture. 

Maybe next time I'll go from beginning to end. I've done it before. I've started at the end and written the beginning last, too. As long as a book comes out of it, whatever works is the right way to do it!

I hope my new critique partners are patient with me.