The View From My Mountaintop

My Visit with Sue Grafton

2012-02-26T08:10:00.001-08:00

Sue Grafton published ‘A’ is for Alibi in 1982, following 15 years in Hollywood as a television script writer. The Louisville, Kentucky, native is currently on tour to publicize her 22^nd novel in the series, ‘V’ is for Vengeance, released on November 14. She has been published in 28 countries in 26 languages, her books selling in the millions.

Sue is featured in my soon to be released book, The Mystery Writers, with Lawrence Block, J.A. Jance and other mystery writers.

Sue, does ’V’ is for Vengeance differ significantly from your previous novels?

It does, indeed, differ from the other novels in the series. In writing these books over a span of some twenty-eight years, I’ve kept detailed charts, which denote the gender of every killer I write about, the gender of the victim, the motive for the crime, and the nature of the climax. I also keep a set of log lines for each novel, describing the set-up for each book.

In ‘A’ . . . Kinsey’s hired to prove the innocence of a woman just out of prison after serving seven years for the murder of her husband.

In ‘B’ . . . Kinsey’s hired to find a woman whose signature is required on a minor document.

In ‘C’ . . . Kinsey’s hired by a kid to find out who’s been trying to murder him.

And so on. This way, I can be certain I’m not inadvertently repeating myself. In ‘V,’ Kinsey witnesses a shoplifting incident and alerts a sales clerk who notifies store security. The shoplifter is arrested and two days after her fiancé makes bail, she dies from a leap off a 400 foot high bridge. While it appears to be a suicide, the woman’s fiancé is convinced she was murdered and hires Kinsey to look into her death. Kinsey’s investigation uncovers an organized retail theft ring with which the shoplifter has been working. There are two other subplots woven into the overall storyline and all connect at the end.

How do you and Kinsey Millhone differ and which characteristics do you share?

As for Kinsey, I think of her as my alter-ego . . . the person I might have been had I not married young and had children. We’re like one soul in two bodies and she got the good one. The ’68 VW she drove (until ‘G’ is For Gumshoe) was a car I owned some years ago. In ‘H’ is for Homicide, she acquires the 1974 VW that was sitting out behind my house until I donated it to a local charity that raffled it off. That car was pale blue with only one minor ding in the left rear fender

I own both handguns she talks about and in fact, I learned to shoot so that I would know what it felt like. I also own the all-purpose back dress she wears. Like Kinsey, I’ve been married and divorced twice, though I’m now married to husband number three and intend to remain so for life. I’m much more domestic than she is and I cuss just as much, if not more.

What’s going to happen to Kinsey when you‘ve finished ‘Z’ is for Zero?

It’s going to take me another eight to ten years to complete the series at the pace I’ve settled on so I have close to a decade to decide what I’ll do after ‘Z’ is for Zero. I may well continue to chronicle her adventures, but I’ll do so as stand-alone novels. No more linking titles!

What’s your work schedule like?

I usually arrive at my desk at 9:00 am, check e-mails and Facebook, and then log into the current working journal for the novel I’m in the process of writing. I use these journals to talk to myself about the story, the characters, the pacing, problems I foresee, and any scene that worries me. Any research I do is recorded in the journal as well. I break briefly for lunch and then return to my desk and work until mid-afternoon when I stop and do a walk of three to five miles. My guess is that on a good day, I work productively for two hours. The rest is writer’s block and Free Cell. I’ve been known to work by page count and on that theory, I consider two pages a day a good run. In fact, I consider page count a better way to operate. It’s way too easy to claim you’ve worked for six hours when in reality you’ve talked on the phone, cleaned your desk drawers, and dawdled the time away.

What do you want your readers to experience from your novels?

I’d like for my readers to experience an entire range of emotions, from laughter to fear, to suspense to anxiety to tears depending on where they are in any given book. I want them to feel connected to Kinsey Millhone, to see the world as she sees it, and to come away from a story understanding how it’s affected her. These are the same emotions I look for in any book I read. I want to be touched and moved and I want to come away from a writer’s work feeling renewed and refreshed.

Thank you, Sue.

You can communicate with Sue Grafton at Facebook.

Canadian Author Joan Hall Hovey

2012-02-22T09:59:00.000-08:00

In addition to Joan Hall Hovey's critically acclaimed novels, her articles and short stories have appeared in a number of diverse publications. She has also held workshops, given talks at various schools and libraries, and taught a course in creative writing at the University of New Brunswick as well as tutoring with Winghill, a distance education school in Ottawa for aspiring writers.

Joan is featured in the soon to be released book, The Mystery Writers, with Sue Grafton, Lawrence Block and other well-known and bestselling authors.

Joan, your work has been compared to Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King. How would you describe your suspense novels?

I'm always flattered to be compared with authors I admire, but I like to think my own writing is unique to me. Of course being a voracious reader all my life, I'm sure my writing has been influenced by many fine authors. We all stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us and paved the way. I'm a big Stephen King fan. Other authors I enjoy are Edgar Allan Poe, Peter Straub, Ruth Rendell and more than I can list here. It's not easy to describe one's own novels, but I will say that I always strive to give the reader a roller coaster ride and a satisfying conclusion. And characters that will resonate with my reader long after the books is closed.

I like to write about ordinary women who are at a difficult time in their lives, and are suddenly faced with an external evil force. I didn't think a whole lot about theme until I had written a couple of books, but I realized with the writing of Chill Waters that my books generally have to do with betrayal and abandonment, and learning to trust again. And more important, learning to trust oneself. Almost any good book will tell you something about the author herself. (or himself.) You can't avoid it.

All my books are generally rooted in childhood. I draw on my life for inspiration and an emotional connection. Then I'm off and running. The seeds for Night Corridor, for example, were planted in my childhood. On Sundays, I went with my grandmother to visit an aunt in the mental institution, once called The Lunatic Asylum. She'd spent much of her life within those walls. They said she was 'melancholy'. Though the sprawling, prison-like building has long since been torn down, the sights, sounds and smells of the place infiltrated the senses of the 12 year old girl I was, and never left. Night Corridor is not about my Aunt Alice, but it was indeed inspired by her.

My latest novel The Abduction of Mary Rose was inspired by a true story as well. After her adopted mother dies of cancer, Naomi Waters learns from a malicious aunt that she is a child of a brutal rape. Her birth mother, a teenager of MicMac ancestry, lay in a coma for eight months before giving birth to Naomi, and died five days later. Feeling angry and betrayed, but with new purpose in her life, Naomi vows to track down the man responsible and bring him to justice.

Are your novels set in your home territory of New Brunswick, Canada? And what inspired them?

My novels are set in fictional towns that could be anywhere in New Brunswick or Maine, since the flora and fauna are similar. Although I did set part of Nowhere To Hide (Eppie Award) in New York. I researched the city but I also spent time there. But New Brunswick, which lies on the Bay of Fundy, Canada, is part of my DNA. And the town where I live, whose streets and hills and shops are bred in my bones, is probably in essence where all my novels are set, whatever fictional name I give them.

What have you stressed in your creative writing classes at the University of New Brunswick?

I stress to students (and myself because we teach to learn) to relax and let the story come to them. Not that you don't have to think; you do of course. But sometimes we think too hard. Imagine, I tell them. Imagine.

Please explain the distance education school in Ottawa for aspiring writers.

I have been a tutor with Winghill School for writing for over 20 years. Most of the correspondence is conducted over the Internet, though a few students prefer to correspond by mail. It's a great school. I enjoy my work and get almost as excited when my students publish as when I do myself. I'm sure I learn as much from them as they do from me.

How has your writing evolved since your first books, Nowhere to Hide and Listen to the Shadows.

Language is important to me, and I hope my work is always improving in some way. Maybe the dialogue is crisper, the transitions smoother, the characterizations deeper, but always evolving. And that comes simply from being an avid reader of the best there is, both in my own and other genres. And writing and writing and writing. Since I both love to read and write, it's not a chore. Too, I like to think I've grown as a human being over the years. I've become more insightful, more compassionate. And that reflects in your writing.

What, in your opinion constitutes a good suspense novel? And what’s more important, character or plot?

With any novel, regardless of genre, characterization is the most important element. Without a character readers can care about and identify with at some level, the most ingenious plot won’t matter. That doesn’t mean your character is without flaws, quite the contrary. Consider the late Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. He is a ruthless killer, but we are fascinated by his complexities and we're happy to follow him throughout the books.

In the end, I don’t think you can separate character and plot. They are interwoven. With suspense, I am always aware of the thread in my story and I hold it taut, letting it out a little at a time, but never letting the thread go slack. It should grow tighter and tighter until it fairly sings. This is what constitutes a page-turner. It’s a promise I make to my readers and one I take very seriously. Reviews tell me I’ve succeeded for the most part, and that makes me happy.

How has the ebook revolution affected your own work and are the electronic versions outselling your print editions?

Absolutely. It’s totally different now. My first two novels were published by Zebra/Kensington Books, New York, and sold thousands of books. They didn’t take the third one and I was suddenly without a publisher. I didn’t feel up to doing the rounds of agents and publishers again, so I went with a small Canadian publisher, BWLPP Publishing, mainly an ebook publisher who published authors with a track record, but also bring the books out in print.

With ebooks you promote in a totally different way, mainly on the Internet. Although I still do book signings in my local bookstores, I can see that my focus is different now. I’m quite sure I’ll not see those big numbers again, and I really don’t mind. That doesn’t mean I’m not always looking for new ways to promote the books, and without annoying people. Pretty much like most ebook authors. Once, my books could be found in bookstores across Canada and the U.S. That's no longer true.

Now they're available worldwide on the Internet. Sounds great, but that means that you're vying for readers with literally thousands more writers showing up every day, many of whom are self-publishing. Some of those books should never have seen the light of day. But I've also found some excellent new authors among them. We have stars like J.A. Konrath, James Scott Bell, Timothy Hallinan, L.J. Sellers and others who are making a very good living selling their ebooks. So in the midst of this gargantuan storefront window, you have to somehow find a way to make your books stand out. 'Ay, there's the rub'. But the possibilities are endless.

Describe your writing schedule.

I write in mornings when I’m freshest and the day has not yet had a chance to intrude on the muses. I work on other things in the afternoon – tutoring, promoting and whatever else needs doing.

Advice for aspiring suspense novelists.

Try to write true, whatever you write. Find that truth inside the fiction. Write out of yourself. That’s important.

Thank you, Joan.

You can visit Joan at her website: http://www.joanhallhovey.com/
She's also on Facebook, Twitter, My Space and Booktown.

A Visit with English Author Morgen Bailey

2012-02-15T18:59:00.000-08:00

Morgen Bailey is a writing-related blogger who also hosts the weekly Bailey’s Writing Tips audio podcast, two in-person writing groups (based in Northamptonshire, England). She's the author of numerous short stories, novels, and articles, and has dabbled with poetry, but admits that she doesn’t “get it,” and is a regular Radio Litopia contributor.

She's also Chair of another local writing group (which runs the annual HE Bates Short Story Competition), belongs to a fourth, and can regularly be found on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. When she’s not researching for her writing groups, she's a British Red Cross volunteer, walks her dog (often while reading, writing or editing) and reads (though not as often as she’d like, but is spurred on by her new Kindle).

Morgen, you conduct so many great interviews with writers, how do you find time to write?

<laughs> By giving up my day job. Still trying actually. I quit 1st October 2011 but they’ve only just found someone to replace me (I guess I should be flattered) starting next month so I’ll leave after I’ve trained her. To answer your question properly, I find time by being given a deadline. http://NaNoWriMo.org or http://StoryADay.org no problem. Tell me I’ve got as long as I like to do something? Not a good idea. :) I have just joined Tuesday Tales and Indies Unlimited – both give prompts for a short story a week. The Tuesday Tale story (no word limit) goes on my blog then is linked on TT (which I then promote) alongside an average of 20 other writers. Indies Unlimited have a 250 word limit and you paste the story in the relevant comment section by Tuesday afternoon (US MST time) then voting opens on the Wednesday and closes on the Thursday with the winner announced on the Friday. I’ve only done one of these (this week’s) so far but the combination of both sites are getting me writing at least two stories a week and I’m loving it.

I love your profile caricature, but why do you prefer it to your photograph?

Oh, thank you. Despite (or maybe because of) being a photographer’s daughter I don’t think I’m particularly photogenic but then most people don’t like their own photographs. I walked past Adrian’s (Teal) studio to and from work and have always love cartoons, so couldn’t resist then I put it online and it stayed. I’d put a proper photo on Facebook, tagging friends who were sitting either side of me and had a few people raving about it so I put it as my profile pic on Twitter. I’m still fond of the caricature though (which remains my main Facebook picture).

Have you found differences in the way writers on both sides of the pond promote their books?

I can’t say I have. The only way I can tell the difference when an author approaches me for an interview is if they have a .co.uk email address (for example) or phone number (if they’ve put it) or if they tell me. Regardless of where an author comes from they all want the same thing; to have their ‘voices’ heard – figuratively and literally. :)

When did you begin your own writing and when were you first published?

English was one my favourite subjects at school (next to Art – my least favourite being history and the sciences – my physics teacher telling my parents the first time they met that I should give it up… which I did gladly at the first opportunity) and I’d buy every Stephen King book as it came out in my teens (I blame him for me wearing glasses – torch / duvet) so always loved reading. I’d write limericks for colleagues in my 20s (I now write them for Facebook friends’ birthdays) but life took over. I wasn’t until January 2006 when I went to SallySpedding’s creative writing workshop class (which I took over in 2008) that I was hooked. Then a couple of years ago I decided I wanted to do nothing else for the rest of my life and I’m still working on that. :)

Who most influenced your own writing?

I write more dark than light and put it down to Roald Dahl being my favourite author (Kate Atkinson’s a close second). I love his mentality and his complete short stories (inc. all the Tales of the Unexpected) would be my desert island choice. My father died before I got into writing but I think he’d have been a big influence. My mum’s supportive but I have to be selective with what I show her (the ‘nice’ stuff).

For whom do you write and in which genres?

Initially authors must write for themselves. If you don’t enjoy your writing then it will show in the reading of it. I have a lot of works in files (including four and a bit novels) which I plan to dust off and scrub up until they’re worthy so I do write to be read and grin stupidly every time I receive a review (especially the good ones :)) because it means someone’s read something I’ve written. I received an email from a young (under 13) lady the other day raving about my free eShort April’s Fool and wanted a sequel, to know where she could read more of my writing – that has to be the best a writer can hear, although “you’ve won the Booker Prize” would be pretty good.

Who are your favorite writers in the UK and US?

Ah. Roald Dahl and Kate Atkinson in the UK (Alexis Sayle’s ‘Barcelona Plates’ would a runner up for superb short story). US? Good question. Being into short stories I like Alice Munro (if Canadian is close enough) and Stephen King does a mean short.

What’s the best and worst aspects of writing for you?

Working backwards, I’m not a fan of editing or research although the internet has made life a lot easier, as has having a re-life editor who not only picks out the errors but also comes up with some great suggestions. The best bit has to be not knowing what will come out when pen hits paper or fingertips keyboard. I love it when characters and you get to know each other.

Tell us about your latest release and your WIP.

I put out four free eShorts and not quite so free ($1.49) 31-story anthology and writer’s block workbook on Smashwords last November and was planning to get the novels out on Amazon shortly thereafter but have been swamped with the blog recently. They’re in my grand scheme when the day job goes. So current WIPs are whatever Tuesday Tales and Indies Unlimited throw at me.

Advice to fledgling writers?

Don’t worry about quality. Sure, you want to put good work, the best you can do, out to the world but a first draft is going to be that; a draft. You can’t edit a blank page so sit, stand, lie – it doesn’t matter. You just need to do it.

Thanks for reachng across the pond, Morgen. It's great to have you join us here.

You can learn more about Morgen Bailey at her web and blog sites:

http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com

https://twitter.com/#!/morgenwriteruk

http://www.facebook.com/morgenwriteruk

http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/morgen-bailey/26/933/866

My interview with Jeffrey Deaver

2012-02-15T07:55:00.000-08:00

International bestselling novelist Jeffrey Deaver has had a varied background as a journalist, folk singer and lawyer. His first novel, Manhattan is My Beat, was published in 1988. More than two dozen of his have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including The New York Times and The Times of London. His books have sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages.

Jeff, have your past careers served you well as a novelist?

My other careers have always been ways to allow me to make a living while I went after my goal of becoming a full-time novelist. I began publishing various stories and poems in my teens and finally published my first novel in my thirties. Journalism taught me to research, and law, curiously, was helpful in organizing my books—I outline fanatically.

When and where did your writing begin and did your early environment influence your work?

I began writing when I was about 11. I wrote my first novel then (really a short story, though I called it a novel). I was a nerd when I was young and thus I was drawn to reading and writing. My parents were both creative and encouraged me. I was reading mainstream novels, thrillers and fantasy mostly, at a very young age.

How did Kathryn Dance come into being and why did you decide to write about a female California Bureau of Investigation agent and body language expert?

I realized that I had many ideas for what I thought would be compelling thrillers, but they weren't appropriate for my evidence-driven forensics novels (my Lincoln Rhyme series). So I decided to create a character who was the opposite of Lincoln: A woman, with children, who lives in California. She would have little interest in the science of crime solving, but rather focus on the human factor—body language, linguistics, interrogation and interviewing. The psychology of crime. I've been very pleased at how popular she's become. Even readers who love Lincoln Rhyme appreciate Kathryn's skills. After all, they are friends.

You’ve won or been nominated in a number of countries for too many writing awards to list here. Which one means the most to you and do awards translate into bigger sales?

I think I'm most pleased that my stand-alone, The Bodies Left Behind, was named the novel of the year by the prestigious International Thriller Writers organization. It was a book that I spent a great amount of time on and was challenging to write—it contains one of the best twists I've been able to work into my fiction. As far as sales go, certainly awards get readers' attention, but in the end it's a book quality that dictates high or low sales.

Which of your mystery thrillers required the most research and do you have CBI agents at the ready to call when you need information?

Garden of Beasts took the most research. It's set in Berlin in 1936, and I wanted the details and atmosphere to be 100% accurate. Apparently it was, since a fan who escaped Germany in the late '30s reported to me that it was the most accurate—and moving--novel about that time that he'd ever read. Regarding research, I tend not to use living, breathing sources much. I prefer book and internet research, since when you talk to practitioners, you tend to skew the story to tell theirs; I want to make sure to tell my story.

Your Roadside Crosses novel, third in your high tech trilogy, features a teenage boy bent on revenge for real or imagined abuse, and is chilling. Did your antagonist evolve from Columbine and the University of Virginia killings? And why the crosses along the highway foretelling his planned murders?

I was actually inspired to write Roadside Crosses by another tragic incident: the teenage girl in St. Louis who was "befriended" by the mother of her former friend, posing as a boyfriend. He then told her that the world would be better off without her—and she killed herself. I wanted to write about the responsibility of bloggers and the social networking phenomenon.

Were you pleased or disappointed in the screen adaptations of HBO’s A Maiden’s Grave starring James Gardner and/or Universal Studios’ adaptation of The Bone Collector starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie? Did you take part in any way in the filming?

My theory about movies is that I respect the process of filmmaking very much, but I don't want to have anything to do with it. My skill—and pleasure—is in writing thrillers, not scripts. I don't have a lot of patience for authors who complain about Hollywood's treatment of their books. How many of them have sent the check's back in protest? None that I know of.

What was it like to play a corrupt lawyer on your favorite soap opera, “As the World Turns?”

Exhausting! I've never worked so hard in my life. I have great respect for actors too, as I do for scriptwriters and directors, as I mentioned above. But, despite the fact I love to experience new things, I'll probably hang up my acting hat for the time being.

What’s your writing environment like and your schedule? Do you outline or wing it?

I work eight to ten hours a day, six days a week. I do at least one book a year, and so I work even when I'm on book tour (which generally amounts to about three months every year). Yes, I outline. I spend eight months outlining each book. And the outlines end up being about 150-200 pages. Thrillers of the sort I write must be structured. It's a waste of time to start writing and hope for inspiration along the way. Pilots and surgeons don't wait for inspiration. Why should authors?

Advice to fledgling mystery/thriller writers?

Write the sort of book you enjoy reading. Outline the books of your favorite authors (the successful ones only!) and study how they create their fiction. Write your own outline. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite and rewrite. Ignore rejection. Keep writing; never stop!

Jeff's website is www.jefferydeaver.com

(Excertped from my book, Mysterious Writers)

My Interview with C. J. Box

2012-02-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

Blue Heaven, C.J. Box's first stand-alone novel, won an Edgar Award for Best Novel of 2008 and has been optioned for film. Three Weeks to Say Goodbye was published in January 2009 and debuted on the NY Times extended bestseller list. His ninth Joe Pickett novel, Below Zero, became his biggest bestseller to date.

Chuck, how do you manage to write two novels a year? What’s your writing schedule like?

Two books a year is kind of a temporary predicament that came about because I've got two publishers: Putnam for the Joe Pickett series and St. Martins Press for the stand-alone novels. Each wants a book a year. It's worked out because the first stand-alone Blue Heaven was already written so, for me, it's been more like nine months between writing the books which is just about right for me.

I work every day with my best work in the mornings. I edit and do other things in the afternoons.When I'm at my cabin or an isolated place, I work in one or two more writing sessions and sometimes go deep into the night. My goal is always 1,000 good words a day, but sometimes I exceed that. And sometimes I fall short.

I know that you’re an avid hunter-fisherman. Were you in the Wyoming outback when you conceived your series characters, game warden Joe Pickett?

I was working as a newspaper reporter in Saratoga, Wyoming, when I first started working on the novel which would later become Open Season, the first Joe Pickett novel. I spent (and spend) a lot of time outdoors and while I was coming up with the premise I was doing ride-alongs with the local game warden for newspaper stories.As I learned more about the duties and responsibilities (and home life) of a game warden, I thought a game warden would be a great protagonist.I'm glad I chose correctly.

Would you rather be hunting or fishing than writing?

I'd rather be combining the three, to be honest. Do a productive session at the computer, grab my fly rod, and come back later to write a little more. That, for me, is the perfect day.

How does it feel to not only win an Edgar Award but to make the New York Times bestseller list?

It feels fantastic, because the Edgar is an honor bestowed on my fellow novelists for quality and being on the NYT list means readers are buying the books.I think all Edgar winners want to be best-selling authors, and all best-selling crime novelists want to win an Edgar.So I'm a lucky guy.

How did your novel, Below Zero, evolve?

I'd heard about carbon offset companies over the years and was both fascinated and repulsed by the concept of, in effect, buying out ones guilt for producing a carbon footprint by paying money to one of the organizations.I researched the concept and built it into one of the primary storylines of the novel.In it, a dying mobster finds out the only way he can reconcile with his extreme environmentalist son is to try and bring his massive carbon footprint to "below zero" by the time he passes.Because he only has a few weeks to live, he has to commit large-scale crimes to make his balance drop.

At the same time, Joe Pickett's daughters start receiving text messages from a foster sister who they thought had died six years before.Investigation reveals the texts have originated from locations where major crimes have occurred.As Joe pursues this, the two storylines merge.

Which of your novels was the most difficult to write and do you have a favorite among them?

Blue Heaven was the most difficult because of the structure.The novel is told from six points of view within 60 hours in real time.Only the reader knows completely what's going on.Multiple points-of-view can get really, really tricky.If the reader doesn't think of the structure or difficulty, that means it worked.But getting there is tough.

I like all my novels for different reasons the way a parent likes his or her children.But if someone held a gun to my head and made me choose, I'd say Blue Heaven, Free Fire, Winterkill, and Open Season are my favorites.

What’s the best way to promote your books? Personal appearances or the Internet?

Books are still sold one at a time by people to other people. It's a very basic, low-tech business and it's driven by word-of-mouth. Getting out and meeting readers and potential readers is the best way to build a career, I think.Of course, if the books aren't good it doesn't matter either way.

Advice to budding western mystery novelists?

Read!It always amazes me when fledgling novelists don't read widely or often.More can be learned from reading than classes or courses.And if you choose to use the west as your location, please be authentic and stay away from western "characters" and hokum.

What makes a novel successful?

The reader must empathize with a character or several characters. And the novel should be structured so the reader wants to keep turning pages.There are so many entertainment options out there an author must realize the reader has choices, and one of the easiest choices of all is to put the book down if it isn't compelling.

You can visit C.J. Box at his website: http://www.cjbox.net/

Driving by Braille (My Dangerous On-the-Road Research)

2012-02-08T07:48:00.000-08:00

When our business required extensive Southwest travel, I opted to go along because we had recently suffered “empty nest” syndrome and I didn’t relish staying home alone. So we bought a 36 ft. motorhome and 19 ft. trailer to tow my car. Little did I know that I would drive the RV in such dangenrous circumstances as I followed my husband and our employees as they drove the equipment.

Our first trip was over the Guadalupe Mountains in the dead of night—we mystery writers try to avoid clichés, but that’s what it was—darker than the inside of a boot and as winding and narrow as the Great Wall of China. The western slope is also extremely steep.

Was I afraid? You bet I was. I honestly didn’t think I would ever reach the top. I made the Lord a lot of promises that night, some of which I was able to keep. It was after midnight when we reached the summit and the road straightened out into a gentle downward slope. My heart still races when I think about that trip, but it actually did wonders for my self-confidence.

It wasn’t long afterward that I was driving down another mountainside, this one nearly as steep as the Guadalupes, when a deer jumped out in front of me. I almost stood the RV on its front wheels. Fortunately, the deer was faster than the motorhome and we avoided a fatal collision.

During another mountainous trip we were engulfed in a Rocky Mountain blizzard and stopping was out of the question. I followed taillights and prayed like I’ve never done before, or since. But even that was topped by a monsoon in the Phoenix area where large sheets of plywood were flying across the highway from a construction site during a torrential rain. It was also in Arizona where I had a flat tire in heavy traffic on the interstate. Not just a flat but an explosion. Major pieces of the tire exploded upward through the bottom of the coach into my underwear drawer, leaving tread marks on my unmentionables. How I managed to pull out of traffic to safety I’ll never know.

A few days later I fell asleep at the wheel while moving from one jobsite to the next. Fortunately, it was in a rural area with groves along the sides of the road—which truckers call “driving by braille.” The noise woke me just before I drove into a ditch, so I held up the equipment parade by insisting on a nap.

When driving into El Paso, the equipment drivers decided to take an off-ramp before I could change lanes with my 55-foot rig. I yelled into my CB mic that traffic wouldn’t allow me to get over, and was told to engage my blinker and begin pulling into the exit lane. I was tempted to close my eyes as I did, but managed to take the ramp at the last second. I’m sure there was a lot of cursing going on in the vehicles behind me.

Speaking of CB radios, truckers were my main source of entertainment, unless their conversations grew less than gentlemanly, which was often. During the months that I drove Matilda, I learned trucker jargon well enough to write a mystery novel with authentic trucker language. Murder on the Interstate, the third novel in my Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series, features not only a woman trucker named “Big Ruby” McCurdy—who provides some humor—but an actual account of driving though heavy road construction that was “necked down” to one bumper-to-bumper lane in a northern Arizona nocturnal downpour. There my two feisty 60-year old amateur women sleuths discover the body of a young woman in her Mercedes convertible.

In the previous novel, Diary of Murder, Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty are surprised by a Rocky Mountain blizzard while driving their motorhome from Colorado to Wyoming, which I also experienced..

So my accidental research has been put to good use. Would I do it all again? Not in this lifetime!

The Perfect Villain

2012-02-05T08:18:00.000-08:00

While researching the criminal mind, I came across the narcissistic personality disorder, which I thought would conger up a great antagonist for my next novel. I had no idea that the disorder was so complex or that it bordered on psychosis.

A person suffering from the disorder is characterized by an excessive need to be admired as well as feelings of grandiosity—probably what used to be called “The Napoleon complex.” I couldn’t quite picture my villain running around with his hand stuffed in his shirt, so I looked for further symptoms.

This is what I found:

~People with the disorder have achieved great things because they consider themselves so special that they can’t possibly fail.
~They confine their relationships to only those people they feel are worthy of them.
~They have no qualms about taking advantage of others.
~They’re so self absorbed that they have no empathy for anyone.
~They feel that everyone else envies them.
~They’re preoccupied with fantasies of power and success.
~They think they deserve adoration from everyone.
~They have a sense of entitlement to everything they desire.
~They’re arrogant to the extreme.

Know anyone like this? I always thought that narcissistic people spent a lot of time in front of mirrors, totally in love with themselves. I had no idea that they would make the perfect fictinal villains.

Psychologist Phyllis Beren revealed red flags that alert her to someone with the disorder: a desire to control other people, excessive lying, running other people down, an attitude of “my way or the highway,” sadistic behavior and over development of one area of the personality at the expense of others.

So, if someone values himself over others, has little empathy, grandiose ideas and little self-awareness, he wouldn’t hesitate to commit a crime to achieve his goals. He’s like Raskolnikov’s extraordinary man in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and above the law.

I think I’ve found the perfect villain.

The Pain of Killing Your Characters

2012-01-31T22:01:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder how novelists decide which of their characters to eliminate? I was forced to kill a character I loved because I had written myself into a corner. I was so upset that I cried and had to stop writing that day. I then remembered something Benjamin Capps once told me during an interview:

“Probably no reader of mine ever felt so strongly or shed a small tear unless I had already done so in the writing.”

Emotional investment in a writer’s characters is undoubtedly what makes a novel successful. If an author doesn’t really care about her characters, why should the reader? But how involved does a writer have to be to make her readers care? That’s a question someone smarrter than I am will have to answer.

I do know, however, that many of us live with our characters 24/7, until the book is finished. That's when it’s hard for me to let go, which is why I like writing a series. The characters to whom I’ve given birth can age right along with me, unless, of course, I’m forced to kill them off.

After covering a police beat for eight years and writing about the worst aspects of human nature, I decided to write an amateur sleuth series. My Logan & Cafferty series features two 60-year-old women; one a private investigator’s widow, the other a mystery novel buff. In the first book, A Village Shattered, the women are forced to discover the identity of a compulsive murderer, who is alphabetically doing away with their friends. They also discover that their own names are on the killer’s list.

In the second novel, Diary of Murder, I placed them in a motorhome in the midst of a Rocky Mountain blizzard. I had previously killed one my character’s sister, but the reader doesn’t get to know her until her diary is found and read throughout the novel.

I like my main characters because they’re witty and sassy, according to one reviewer, and I could never bring myself to eliminate them as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attempted with Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie with Herculue Peroit. They're like old friends whom I enjoy visiting every day to listen in on their conversations.

Do you love your main characters or do you tire of writing about them and want to kill them off?

Suspense Plays an Important Role in Novels

2012-01-26T22:30:00.001-08:00

Centuries ago storytelling was a dangerous pastime. Tales were told around a campfire and, if the storyteller droned on and bored his listeners, they either fell asleep or killed him, according to Sol Stein in his book, Stein on Writing. Fortunately for modern writers, the worst thing that can happen is that the reader will put your book aside and never pick it up again. So, in order insure that your work is read, don’t include the boring stuff that readers tend to skip over. That’s usually descriptive passages that should be spooned in with light doses, not all in one large lump. Or it can be tedious dialogue that has nothing to do with the plot’s race to the finish line. Editors call that padding and ask that writers delete it, or even worse, they reject the manuscript and return it.

Suspense is one of the most important elements of plotting. It keeps your reader reading and unable to put the book down. How many times have you read until two or three in the morning because you couldn’t go to sleep without first learning the plot’s resolution? And then couldn’t fall asleep because the book was so good that it continually replayed in your mind?

No matter how unique your style or intriguing your characters, if you don’t pique your reader’s curiosity and keep her hooked until the end of the story, you might as well be the campfire storyteller with a club over your head. Keep your reader in suspense with occasional rest periods so that he can catch his breath with a little description and backstory. Always keep your eye on the finish line and make the race to the book’s conclusion as suspenseful as possible.

The greatest compliment a writer can receive is for someone to say, “I couldn’t put the book down.” How many times have you said that, yourself? And what was it about that book that kept you reading? Nine times out of ten, you’ll say it was suspense and your own curiosity that kept you reading to learn what was going to happen next. Suspense, according to Stein, is the strong glue between reader and writer. And, of course, caring about the characters and wanting them to resolve their problems.

The word suspense comes from the Latin word “to hang.” So consider yourself an executioner who takes your reader to the edge of a cliff. Once there you hang your protagonist by his fingertips. It’s not your job to feel sorry for the cliff hanger or to immediately rescue him. Leave him hanging until his fingers are slipping and he’s about to fall into a deep, dark canyon. Suspense builds as the reader anxiously waits for someone to rescue the hero, but it’s not happening yet; or the villain is stomping on the hero’s fingers and the reader wants him to stop. That’s an exaggerated example of suspense, but one that a writer can use it to his advantage.

There are various forms of suspense: potential or immediate danger to your protagonist, unwanted confrontations, a fear of what’s about to happen, and a crisis that needs to be met head on. A writer's job is to set up a situation or problem that needs a resolution, but without an immediate answer. Your detective is a novel killer if he picks up a clue in chapter two and says, “Ah ha, I know who this button belongs to. I’ll contact the police and have her arrested for the murder.” Unless, of course, you’re writing a short story or very short novella. Stretch out suspense as long as possible like a rubber band on the verge of breaking.

Choosing a Compatible Critique Group

2012-01-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

I recently formed a mystery writer's critique group with authors whose work is similar to mine. I hadn’t taken part in one since 1999, when I joined a large online group comprised of novice writers. As a journalist for more than a decade, making the transition to fiction was a real challenge. My years as a police reporter was a plus when I began writing mysteries but my prose was too terse and lacked description. So feedback from the group made the difference. The downside was that there were so many members in the group that my writing time consisted of critiquing their manuscripts. My lesson learned was to find a few like-minded writers whose work I admire.

How do you form a good critique group? If you write mysteries, don’t invite a science fiction writer to critique your work. It’s obviously not a match because the genres are so different. Even someone who writes mysteries may not be compatible. If you write cozies, a crime writer is not a good choice and you run the risk of boring your critique partner(s). Choose a small group of writers who are experienced with your subgenre and who enjoy it. Many books are genre specific, such as commercial romance novels, which have a common structure.

Above all, choose fellow critiquers who don’t have an axe to grind or envy your publishing successes. Writer Nancy Kress has said that some people are less objective than others, “due to stubborn personality traits. Some people must find fault with everything in order to bolster their own superiority. They’re a bad source of constructive feedback. Conversely, others have such sweet natures that they hate to offend anyone. They will tell you everything in the novel works beautifully, even if it doesn’t.”

My Visit with Julie Garwood

2012-01-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

Julie Garwood is the author of more than 30 historical and romantic suspense novels, and 36 million copies of her books are in print. Twenty of them have appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers list. She also writes YA novels as Emily Chase.

Julie, tell us about The Ideal Man.

It's a story of a young woman who is facing two threats.The first one has been with her from her childhood, and the second one comes from an incident that she is thrown into by coincidental circumstance.

Despite the fear she's faced since she was young, she's managed to become a dedicated surgeon. She's successful and self assured; yet, there's always that vulnerability inside. She's never really allowed herself to let go . . . until the second threat appears. She accidentally becomes a witness to a crime, and the FBI agent on the case not only helps her resolve her fears but also opens her up to emotions she's never felt before.

How did growing up in a large Irish family lend
itself to storytelling?

    The Irish are by nature great storytellers I think. It seems to come with the genes. They bring out all the nuances of a situation, and I loved sitting around the dinner table listening to my family talk. Also, growing up in a family of seven children taught me that self-expression had to be quick and forceful.

Why did you begin writing YA books and historicals?

    I had young children when I began, so I was drawn to that genre, but I was also interested in historical novels. I had taken a medieval history class in college that I absolutely loved, so I was following that passion as well. My first book, A Girl Named Summer, was published by Scholastic, and shortly after that, Gentle Warrior was published by Pocket Books. The historical novels found a growing audience, and the publishers asked for more of them, so that's that direction my writing has taken.

    While I really enjoy writing the adult books, I'm hoping to find the time to write a few more for young readers someday.

How have your books evolved over the years?

    I haven't changed my themes much. I still write about family and loyalty, and I try to insert some humor into my stories. There's always an element of intrigue or suspense and the romance between the hero and heroine is absolutely key. The setting has changed somewhat. I started with historical novels and I've moved into contemporary settings in the last few years. I enjoy each of them, so my goal is to find the time to write both.

What's your writing schedule like?

     I like to begin writing early in the morning. It's a routine I started when my children were young. I'd get up early and work on my book before they were awake. I usually have the TV on, though I'm not watching it. It's just background noise. This is a habit that developed when I was a child doing my homework around a table with my siblings. In order to concentrate, I learned to block out the distractions.

Do you outline your novels and do you aim for a certain amount of words each day?

    I know where the story is headed, but I don't follow a rigid outline. I find that if I let the story evolve, there will always be some surprises along the way that make it more fun. I can't predict how much I'll produce. There are times when the words just flow and I'll write one or two chapters in a day. Then there are times when I can't seem to get a scene right and I may spend two or three days on one page.

Why do some books make the bestseller lists while other equally well-written books fail?

    That's a million dollar question. If I had the answer to that, I'd be a genius. I do believe, though, that there are a great many elements involved. They include some marketing, some talent, and a great deal of luck.

Advice to fledgling novelists?

    First, stay focused and set aside some time each and every day to work on your writing. It's important that you get into a rhythm and have the discipline to finish your manuscript.

    Second, let your voice be heard in your writing. If your reader can hear you talking to them in your words, they're more likely to listen to what you have to say.

    Third, develop a network. Writers' organizations and conferences and conferences give you opportunities to meet agents and editor, and that will help you learn more about the publishing business and perhaps give you a leg up in getting published.

How would you occupy your time if you weren't writing?

    Family would probably take up most of my time. I have a large extended family, so there's always something going on.

Thank you for an enjoyable visit.
You can visit Julie Garwood's website at: http://www.juliegarwood.com/
At Facebook: www.Facebook.com/juliegarwood
and at Twitter: @JulieGarwood

Julie Garwood's interview will be among those featured in my forthcoming book, The Mystery Writers, including Sue Grafton, Lawrence Block, J.A. Jance and many others.

Writing a Series

2012-01-12T17:47:00.000-08:00

After you write that standalone novel, your publisher may suggest that it become a series. So it’s important that you like your protagonist(s) and want to continue writing about them. Agatha Christie grew tired of writing about Hercule Poirot and wanted to kill him off, just as Conan Doyle attempted to rid himself of Sherlock Holmes.

When I began my Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series, I named my two protagonists Shirley Lock and Dora Holmes. They were known as Shirl Lock & Holmes, a corny spin on the detective and his physician narrator. When my publisher closed its doors, I resold the series and changed the names to Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty. By that time my two women sleuths had become like old friends, whom I enjoy visiting to eavesdrop on their conversations.

Dana is a bit autobiographical while Sarah is like my friend Marge, who is outspoken and often so funny that she has me laughing tears. Dana is a mystery novel buff, who, with her friend Sarah, a private investigator’s widow, buy a motorhome to travel the West, as I’ve done. Making the two women mobile provides them new settings in each novel. Although two of their motorhomes have been wrecked in the first three books, Dana’s wealthy sister dies and leaves her a considerable sum of money as well as a Wyoming mansion. The money allows them additional mystery solving opportunities as well as extensive travel.

Most protagonists have a job and the author needs to be knowledgeable about the occupation, or at least know the basics. And above all, enjoy writing about the job on a continuing basis, without becoming bored. Another pitfall is to change the tone of the writing. For instance, you shouldn't begin writing a cozy and decide in the middle of the series to darken it to a noir. Readers will complain. I’ve covered various subjects in my series, including adultery, drug gangs and homegrown terrorists, but with humor, so I’ve been able to get away with subjects not usually associated with two 60-year-old feisty amateur sleuths. And readers have fortunately told me that each book has been a fun read.

If your series becomes popular, you may have to continue writing it longer than you had planned. J. K. Rowling was able to discontinue her Harry Potter series after seven books but Sue Grafton is committed to 26. Her schedule has changed over the years and she now only writes three hours a day with one published novel every two years. At 71, she’ll be nearly 80 when Z is for Zero is released, but she plans to continue writing about her private investigator on a standalone basis after the series ends. She admits that Kinsey Millhone is her alter ego and that she enjoys writing about her.

I can't imagine writing 26 novels about someone you don't like and I'm glad that I enjoy my characters, especially my lovesick sheriff.

A Visit with Cheryl Kaye Tardif

2012-01-07T08:45:00.000-08:00

Cheryl Kaye Tardif's work is called Canadian suspense with a killer twist. The bestselling suspense author from north of the border tackles sensitive and terrifying situations that that most people wouldn't want to consider. From psychic investigations to serial killers and assisted suicides, she delves into the human psyche and spotlights our worst fears.

Cheryl, how did your first novel, Whale Song, come about and had you written/published anything prior to it?

Whale Song was in my head for two years before I ever wrote down the title. In fact, I wasn't even sure I was going to write it. At the time, I had pretty much given up hope of getting published; I had tried for years. But the story of Whale Song haunted me. I couldn't shake the characters or the plot. Finally, a friend said, "Cheryl, don't worry whether it gets published.Write it for yourself. Write it because you have to." That was the best advice I've ever been given.

Since Whale Song, which was first published in 2003, I've had six more novels published (Children of the Fog, Devine Intervention, Devine Justice, The River, Lancelot's Lady and Whale Song: School Edition), as well as Skeletons in the Closet, Other Creepy Stories, and Remote Control, a novelette. All my works are available in ebook editions and all but the novelette are out in trade paperback. I've also had a short story published in What Fears Become: An Anthology From the Horror Zone.

You've written in a number of genres and under a pseudonym. Which genre do you prefer and which has been the most successful?

Suspense is my forte. And any combination of suspense, mystery, paranormal has been successful for me.

Why do you think all your novels have made the bestseller lists?

In general, readers don't like predictable, formulaic works. They'll never have that with my novels. I strive to be unpredictable and I don't use any kind of formula when writing my books. My stories are a mix of plot-driven and character-driven tales. And I bring emotion into each story, whether it's fear, sorrow, happiness, excitement or another emotion. I want my readers to feel like they're right there in the story, seeing everything, feeling everything.

How do you promote your work?

I have two main websites and a blog, plus I belong to various social networks. Most of my marketing is done online through various websites and promotions. And my books are promoted via Imajin Books, my publishing company.

Why did you decide to go the indie route with your own publishing company and how long was it before you began publishing the work of other writers?

I began my career as an indie published author, self-publishing three titles from 2003-2005. With their success I was able to secure a New York agent and a traditional publisher. I recognized a lot of serious problems with my publisher early on and ended up removing my books just before they went under. My experience wasn't entirely negative though; I learned a lot from them--especially what NOT to do as a publishing company.

After leaving my publisher, I decided to return to indie publishing and set up my books again under my publishing company, Imajin Books. Over the next year or so I was approached by other authors who asked me if I'd consider publishing them. I said no, but it made me think. I realized there was a need for what I could offer.

So, on January 15, 2011, I opened Imajin Books to accept other authors. We now have a great group on board; some will be publishing their second book with us this spring/summer.

How does your publishing company differ from other small presses?

Imagin Books is an innovative company. We offer a hybrid form of publishing, kind of a cross between indie publishing and traditional. We offer a small advance and much higher than average royalties on ebooks and trade paperback sales. We consider ebooks to be primary rights, with print a subsidiary right. We only secure these rights so authors are free to purse film and other rights.

Our authors have more input into the creation of their books. We go through various editing stages, which they're part of, and they have input into their cover and trailer as well. We treat our authors like partners. Yet they pay nothing up front. We are NOT a subsidiary publisher. We focus on ebooks sales and market accordingly.

How do your print books sales compare with ebooks? And when did your ebooks begin outselling print editions in Canada?

Print sales are a small percentage of what we sell.
Our ebooks far outsell our paperbacks. Last time I looked at the numbers we were selling 50 ebooks for every paperback. We have always sold more ebooks than print.

What's your work schedule like?

I work six to seven days a week. My hours vary, but I rarely work less than eight hours a day and often more. I love what I do and I take frequent breaks, so it doesn't really seem like I'm working that long. The great thing is that I can take days off when I need them.

My schedule is divided between answering email, reading submissions, coordinating editors and authors, assigning covers to designers, checking back with everyone, arranging our promotions, updating the website and blog, and anything else that comes up.

Advice for novice writers?

Learn the business of writing and publishing.Too many writers think all they need to do is write a good story. That's just not true in today's market. If you want to be successful you need to have a firm grasp of the business, of what it takes to make your book shine and stand out amongst all others. So take writing/editing courses, join writers' groups, join a critique group (if you can't take criticism you in the wrong business), and be sure you have a website, blog, Twitter and Facebook account BEFORE you query a publisher or agent. A book won't sell without consistent marketing on the part of the author.

Thanks, Cheryl. You can learn more about Cheryl at her websites: http://www.cherylktardif.com and http://www.whalesongbook.com and http://www.imajinbooks.comHer blogs: http://www.cherylktardif.blogspot.comand http://www.imajinbooks.Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cherylktardif and http://www.twitter.com/imajinbooksFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cheryl-Kaye-Tardif-novels/29769736630 and https://www.facebook.com/imajinbooks

All That Research!

2012-01-03T10:45:00.001-08:00

I love research. In fact, it’s my favorite part of writing. When I was young and foolish, I spent two years at a microfilm machine to research a centennial history. Needless to say, I’ve since done my research online, in person or on the phone. The benefit was having a stack of typewritten notes leftover that I used for my first historical novels, with enough notes remaining to write several more.

When I began writing mysteries, I had my own police procedural information at hand because my husband is a former highway patrolman. And I was a police reporter. However, because I had written about so many disturbing and heartbreaking events, I decided my series would feature mature women amateur sleuths and a lovesick sheriff. Humor is an integral part of my work and I include it in all my books, both fiction and nonfiction, with a little romance sprinkled in.

I brought my two feisty women sleuths along when we moved from my native California to my husband’s hometown in Wyoming. So Dana and Sarah also sell their homes in the San Joaquin Valley— where a serial killer has murdered their friends alphabetically in A Village Shattered—and buy a motorhome. They’re traveling in Colorado in Diary of Murder when Dana Logan gets word that her sister Georgi has taken her own life. Dana knows that would never happen so they drive through a Rocky Mountain blizzard to reach Wyoming.

The research for that scene happened several years earlier when I had to drive our motorhome through an unexpected snowstorm. I couldn’t let the terrifying experience go to waste so I began my second mystery novel with it. Then, in Murder on the Interstate, I used my experience driving the RV along a Northern Arizona highway in a rainstorm while listening to truckers on my CB radio. It's there that Dana and Sarah discover a Mercedes convertible with a murdered woman inside, “Big Ruby” McCurdy, a woman trucker, comes to their rescue.

The humorous CB chatter that follows is authentic because I had listened to it for weeks. I interviewed a woman trucker who hauled produce, so I knew that drivers have to pay for their loads if the lettuce wilts before it gets to market.

Later, when Dana and Sarah conduct research to find the killer, I sent them to the newspaper morgue and library, and have them interview witnesses, along with Dana’s journalist daughter. My own news reporting came in handy but I also used online sources such as the Wikipedia for information on sulfuric acid spills. I then interviewed a chemical engineer to write about homegrown terrorism. Map Quest refreshed my memory of the Arizona terrain as well as an Indian Reservation south of Scottsdale, where the chemical spills occur.

If I had any doubts about the accuracy of the Wikipedia, I was reassured by bestselling author Lucia St. Clair Robson, a former librarian, who told me that the Wiki is as accurate, if not more, that the Encyclopedia Britannica. I use the online source extensively, but also check the facts in other ways as well.

The only research problem I have is spending too much time reading instead of writing. There are so many fascinating subjects that I have a difficult time putting the research aside to begin spooning it into my novels.

Happy New Year!!! (Fascinating Japanese New Year Customs)

2011-12-31T10:02:00.000-08:00

Among New Year's celebrations around the world, the Japanese shōgatsu is one of the longest in duration. The New Year is celebrated on January 1, but the holiday continues well into January. Just as we prepare for Christmas and Thanksgiving, the Japanese take their holiday preparations seriously, especially New Year's Eve, which is known as Omisoka.

Buddhist temples around the country ring their bells a total of 108 times on New Year’s Eve to symbolize the 108 human sins and to rid themselves of the 108 worldly desires. A major attraction is “The Watched Night Bell” in Tokyo, which is reminiscent of the Times Square ball drop. The Japanese believe that the ringing of bells can rid them of their sins of the previous year. After the bells stop ringing, they celebrate and feast on soba noodles.

The New Year season is also celebrated with a special selection of food called osechirvori, or osechi, which consists of boiled seaweed, fish cakes, chesnuts, sweet potatoes, burdock roots and sweetened black soybeans. Another popular dish is ozoni, a mocha rice cake, which is often eaten with sushi and later a seven herb rice soup that is prepared on Jimijitsu, the seventh day of January.

Japanese post offices are their busiest during the end of December and beginning of January, due to the country’s custom of sending postcards called nengjo. Like our oun custom of sending Christmas cards, the postcards are delivered on New Year’s Day. However, the cards are not sent if someone in the family has died during the year. Instead, a simple postcard called mochyyn hgaski is sent to friends and relatives.

Children are customarily given money on New Year’s Day, which is handed out in small decorated envelopes called pochibukuro, which are similar to the Chinese red envelopes and the Scottish handsel. The custom, called otoshidama, began during the Edo period when large stores and wealthy families gave children small bags of mochi, a boiled, sticky rice cake topped with a a slice of Mandarin orange. The amount of money they receive depends on the child’s age but has been known to exceed $120 U.S.

The custom of giving mochi is a dangerous one because it has caused a number of chocking deaths, especially in the elderly. The death toll from eating mochi is reported annually in newspapers following the New Year, yet the custom continues.

Games are also part of the New Year’s celebration, including kite flying, or hanetsuki, and a game called sugoaroku, fukunwarai, which resembles our “Pin the Tail on the Donkey,” using paper facial parts to tack blindfolded to a wall. Other entertainment includes TV programming, which pits members of two teams of popular music artists against each other.

Another Japanese New Year's tradition is poetry, including haiku, a 17 syllable verse, as well as renga, or linked poetry. Some haiiku celebrates a number of “firsts” for the New Year, including the first sunrise, first laughter and first dream. And before sunrise on January 1, people often climb a mountain or drive to the coast to watch the first sunrise of the new year while others visit a shrine after midnight.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is played throughout Japan during the New Year’s season, often accompanied by a chorus. The symphony was introduced by German prisoners of war during World War 1, and was first played by the renowned NHK Symphony Orchestra in 1925. The Imperial government encouraged performances of the symphony during the Second World War, especially on New Year’s Eve, to promote Japanese nationalism because, at that time, Germany was an ally. The symphony became a tradition after the war and continues to this day.

No matter how you plan to celebrate the New Year, I hope that 2012 is the happiest and most successful ever!

The Importance of Novel Settings

2011-12-29T08:08:00.000-08:00

Setting is always an important element of fiction. Marlys Millhiser chooses settings before her characters. She once said that she spotted an old Victorian house and thought it needed a ghost, so she wrote a novel about it. Phyllis Whitney also planned her novels around a setting. She wanted a place that gave her fresh and interesting material, although it may have been in her own backyard. For her first mystery novel, Red is for Murder, she went to Chicago’s loop to get behind-the-scenes background on the window decorating business. But, because the book only sold 3,000 copies, she returned to writing for children. Years later, the book was reprinted in a number of paperback editions as The Red Carnelian.

For my own first mystery novel, A Village Shattered, I decided to set my story of a serial killer’s revenge in a San Joaquin Valley retirement village where retirees were dropping dead in the Tule fog. I lived in the valley for more than a dozen years and thought it was a great place to hide a murderer, although an unlikely place for a retirement village. However, I’ve since discovered several.

Diary of Murder, the second novel in my Logan and Cafferty series, is set in Wyoming, where I now reside. The state’s severe winter weather and isolated areas make it fertile ground for mystery novels. Unfortunately, it’s becoming one of the methamphetamine capitals of the nation and that serves as the background for my book.

Murder on the Interstate begins along I-40 in northern Arizona, where my protagonists, Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty, discover the body of a young woman in her Mercedes convertible. The plot takes them to the Phoenix-Scottsdale area and the Pima-Maricopa Indian Reservation, where a chemical spill contaminates the Arizona Canal as far west as Sun City. I set the novel in Arizona because of the state’s problems with illegal emigrants, murders, home invasions, kidnappings and the ever present drug problem. Again, fertile ground for mystery/suspense novels.

I write about areas where I’ve lived or visited and later Google them to ensure accuracy although I may be familiar with the setting. I’m currently working on an historical mystery based on an actual event, which took place here in Wyoming in 1889. I’ve visited the area often and have taken copious pictures, but will return again before I write the conclusion. It’s a breathtaking setting not far from Independence Rock, where hundreds of thousands of travelers stopped to carve their names along the Oregon Trail. A great many of them died along the way, which lends the area an eerie feeling—at least for me. I hope I’ll be able to convey that feeling to my readers.

In some novels, settings hold an equal footing with characters and subject matter. What would Hemingway’s Old Man have done without the Sea? Or Sherlock Holmes without Baker Street? A mystery set in a New York tenement has an entirely different tone than one set in a Beverly Hills mansion. So, when plotting a novel, consider where best to place your protagonist in order to produce maximum mystery, emotion, conflict and suspense.

My Writing Routine

2011-12-26T08:26:00.000-08:00

I’m often ask about my writing routine. How it evolved, whether it breaks down from time to time and how I jump start it when it does.

I consider myself fortunate to live on a mountaintop at 7,000 feet—and no, I don’t need oxygen. (I’ve been asked that question.) What better place to write? I rise between six and seven each morning and go straight to my computer in my pajamas with a bowl of cereal. By fortunate I mean all those hours of uninterrupted writing. We only have cell phone service available here and that doesn’t work half the time, so I’m usually not bothered by telemarketers. My life may sound boring to some but my husband and I are basically hermits who make a trip to town once or twice once or twice a month to buy supplies and visit friends; less often during the winter. It takes planning but the solitude and beauty of the landscape are well worth any inconveniences isolation may cause.

A cup of chai tea topped with whipped cream opens my eyes in the mornings while I answer email and check on my books’ sales numbers. I then launch into one of three books I’m currently working on: my fourth Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense novel, (tentatively titled Magnets for Murder), second historical (No Escape: the Sweetwater Tragedy), and another book of interviews (The Mystery Writers) from my blog, Mysterious Writers. So, when I occasionally hit a blank wall—I hate the term “writer’s block”—I switch from the manuscript I’m currently working on to another. And if all else fails, I sit on the back deck and watch deer and antelope roam our land. I also enjoy watching the neighboring rancher’s horses as well as the mountain scenery, whether green with grass or covered in snow. That always gets my creative juices flowing. But, because I began my writing career as a journalist and was trained to sit down and write, I rarely hit a snag.

I’m also asked how I develop my ideas. Do I plot in advance or write by the seat of my pants?

I’m defintely a pantser. My characters are so familiar by now that they’re old friends whom I look forward to visiting every day. I always read the chapter I worked on the day before, making minor changes, which carries me into that day’s work. I use the film strip method, which means I watch and listen to my characters in my mind’s eye and type as fast as I can to keep up with them. I rarely plot in advance and only outline my nonfiction books. I sometimes write myself into a corner although not very often. I also enjoy doing research at night while working on a book.

When asked for advice from fledgling writers I usually tell them that when I finish a book I place it aside for a few weeks, then take it out and read it as though someone else had written it. I then edit again before I consider it finished.

The best advice I’ve received from other writers over the years is to never send out a manuscript before it’s finished. Aspiring writers are so anxious to see their books in print that they send them out too soon. If a freelance editor is affordable, by all means hire one before you seek publication. And make sure that your manuscript is the very best you can produce before you send it to a publisher or go the indie route. Especially if you self publish.

2011-12-24T18:21:00.000-08:00

I received this from my brother and I'm passing it along:

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I'm making a conscious effort to wish everyone
a Merry Christmas this year ...
My way of saying that I am celebrating
the birth Of Jesus Christ.
So I am asking my email friends,
if you agree with me,
to please do the same.
And if you'll pass this on to
your email friends, and so on...
maybe we can prevent one more
American tradition from being lost in the sea of
"Political Correctness."

A White Christmas

2011-12-21T10:06:00.000-08:00

It’s snowing up a storm here on the mountain—pun intended—our eighth storm of the season, and from the amount of accumulation, it’s sure to be a White Christmas. Unless, of course, one of our famous Wyoming windstorms comes up and blows all this white stuff to Nebraska.

Having grown up in Los Angeles, where it only snowed once duirng my formative years, it doesn’t bring back memories of Christmas past, although I do remember scooping up an inch or two of snow with my bunny fur mittens (and ruining them) while in junior high. The storm caused multiple car accidents in southern California that day although the kids had the snow well scooped up and thrown at each other before the noon lunch break. We also made snowballs to stash in the freezer for a hot summer day.

I didn’t grow up in an affluent family but Santa always brought us several nice gifts—not great by today’s standards—by enough to get excited about. On Christmas Eve, Dad would read us the poem, “The Night Before Christmas” and I can still almost recite it entirely by heart. I later read the poem to my own five children.

Mom always prepared a gigantic turkey with a large table full of festive food and the best homemade dinner rolls I’ve ever eaten. No wonder we always had a houseful of relatives and friends for dinner. And since I was usually the only girl present, it was my job to clear the table and wash the dishes. That was during the dark ages— before dishwashers—and the other kids always managed to disappear. With my hands in the soaps suds, I dreamed up stories that I later wrote down, including my first novel when I was nine. (Thank goodness it was never published.)

My four younger brothers and I were close in age and I was a tomboy because I was the only girl in the neighborhood, with the exception of my friend, Diane, who lived half a mile away on another hill, and is still my friend to this day. I remember sitting at her player piano and pretending to play when we were five or six years old. Now I can’t remember what I had for lunch. But the Christmas holidays bring back fond memories of family togetherness and the best food I’ve ever eaten.

When all this frenetic shopping and gift wrapping is over and everyone’s stuffed with Christmas feasts, I hope we’ll all take a moment to remember why we celebrate CHRISTmas.

Why I Write

2011-12-18T08:16:00.000-08:00

Publishing is a crazy, unstable business and few writers earn enough money to pay their expenses. The last I heard, 95% of us earn less than $15,000 a year and the average book sells fewer than 99 copies.

So why would anyone in her right mind devote so much time and effort to writing and marketing books? Is it the desire to give birth to something unique? A need for recognition? Or the desire to inform and entertain? Perhaps I can’t answer the question. I just know that writing is imprinted in my DNA.

I sold my first book in 1981, a collection of interviews with politicians, authors, artists, craftsmen and ordinary people who had accomplished extraordinary things. The book was published by Pruett Publishing in Boulder, Colorado, and sold some 2,000 copies. I traveled around the state to take part in signing parties and sold 40 books the first time at a small town in eastern Wyoming. My signing parties slid downhill from there.

My second book required more than three years of research and writing. I shudder to think how little I’ve earned for my time spent although the books sold steadily over the years from two publishers and eventually became a college textbook. My third was a book of interviews with well-known writers of the West, including Louis L’Amour and Hollywood screenwriters. It’s still selling online but I’ve never received a royalty payment because I was told it didn’t earn out its advance.

After checking WorldCat, the library site, I found that there are still copies of Maverick Writers available in 114 libraries, including Yale, Harvard, Stanford and Baverische Staaftsbibliothek in Munich, Germany. Now, there’s a reason to continue writing. The advance I received barely covered travel expenses, so satisfaction and eternal hope are also motivations to continue writing as well as the satisfaction I receive from it.

I then decided to write my first novel from leftover microfilm research. Escape on the Wind took a number of years to write and was helped along by the advice of two award-winning western authors, Richard S. Wheeler and Fred Grove. It’s now in its fourth edition and retitled Escape, a Wyoming Historical Novel. It remains my best selling book.

I next began work on my first mystery novel, originally titled Shirl Lock & Holmes, a humorous senior sleuth novel, which was originally published in 1999 as an ebook and later in hardcover with another publisher, which eventually closed its doors. I then changed the characters’ names and it was republished as A Village Shattered in print, Kindle and multi-format.

I’ve written a number of nonfiction books along the way, none of which sold more than several hundred copies, so I decided to write what I enjoy reading most: another mystery novel, Diary of Murder, the second in my Logan & Cafferty series, which was followed by my recent release, Murder on the Interstate. I enjoy writing about my senior sleuths, Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty, two 60-year-old, feisty widows who are not afraid to push the envelope when it comes to crime detection, or to brave the elements by driving their motorhome through a Rocky Mountain blizzard. Dana and Sarah are like old friends whom I thoroughly enjoy visiting each day and eavesdropping on their conversations.

I think I’ve found the answer to the question I asked. I write because it’s fun and deeply satisfying.

Wyoming "Firsts"

2011-12-13T07:48:00.000-08:00

I recently edited an unusual book,Wyoming Historical Trivia, by J. J. Hammond, which contains some interesting, disturbing and amusing facts about Wyoming, including the state's many "firsts."

Which state first gave women the right to vote?

A bill granting Wyoming women the right to vote was signed into law by John Campbell, first territorial governor on December 10, 1869, but it was a Utah woman who cast the first vote on February 14, 1870. The Utah Territorial Legislature had passed its suffrage law four days earlier. Wyoming women didn’t vote until August of that year, but they, unlike Utah women, were allowed to hold public office.

Who was this nation’s first woman bailiff?

Mary Atkinson of Albany County, Wyoming, was appointed to her job in 1870, as was Esther Hobart Morris, this nation’s first woman justice of the peace.

When did the first all-women jury serve?

They were sworn in on March 7, 1870, in the town of Laramie, Wyoming.

Which Wyoming town was governed entirely by women?

Jackson was governed from 1920-1921 entirely by women. Grace Miller was elected mayor and Rose Crabtree defeated her husband, Henry, the former mayor, for a city council seat. The all-women council also approved the election of Pearl Williams as town marshal and Edna Huff as the Jackson health officer, among others.

Who was Wyoming’s first woman doctor?

Lillian Heath Nelson was one of three doctors in 1881 to perform an autopsy on outlaw George Manuse, aka “Big Nose George” Parrott. The autopsy was performed by removing the top of the outlaw’s skull to determine any criminal abnormalities. None apparently was found. Nelson reportedly dressed like a man and wore pistols strapped to her hips while studying obstetrics with a Wyoming doctor. (I’m not making this up.)

Who had shoes made from Big Nose George’s hide?

Dr. J. E. Osborne, who performed the outlaw’s autopsy, had shoes and a medical bag crafted from” Big Nose” George’s hide. The doctor, who became Wyoming’s governor (1893-95) is said to have worn the shoes while holding office. The shoes and George’s skull are on display at the Carbon County Museum. (I believe that’s another first, and hopefully the only time it happened.)

There are many other firsts: Yellowstone Park was the first nationally designated park, Devil’s Tower the first national monument, and the nation’s first ranger station was established 30 miles west of Cody, Wyoming, in 1903, in the Shoshone National Forest. Also, the first library system was established in Laramie County in 1886.

And last but certainly not least, the first woman governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross, was elected in 1925 and was later appointed by FDR to head the U.S. Mint, a position she held until 1953.

Wyoming Historical Trivia is on sale for 99 cents on Kindle
and Nook and will be available in print before Christmas.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

The "Mystery We Write" Virtual Book Tour ended last night at midnight, and it was both fun and exhilarating. We made new friends and acquired new readers as well as giving away over 60 of our mystery novels, in the spirit of Christmas.

I'd like to thank Anne K. Albert for arranging the tour as well as my fellow mystery writers:

Tim Hallinan http://www.timothyhallinan.com/blog/
Jackie King http://bnbmysteries.blogspot.com/
M. M. Gornell http://mmgornell.wordpress.com/

Marilyn Meredith http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/

Mike Orenduff http://thepotthief.blogspot.com/
Earl Staggs: http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com/

Alice Duncan http://aliceduncanblog.blogspot.com/

Jinx Schwartz: http://jinxschwartz.blogspot.com/

Beth Anderson http://www.bethanderson-hotclue.com/blog/
Ron Benrey http://blog.benrey.com/
John M. Daniel http://johnmdaniel.blogspot.com/
Pat Browning http://pbrowning.blogspot.com/

I hope you'll continue to visit our blog sites and read and share our books. And most of all, I wish everyone the happiest and merriest Christmas and New Year!

A list of my ebook and print winners are on the right side panel. Please get in touch at MedallionBooks@aol.com if you haven't heard from me.

Best wishes,

Jean

Make a Writer happy: Buy books for Christmas!

Novel Settings by Marilyn Meredith

2011-12-08T00:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the mountain, Marilyn, on this last day of our "Mystery We Write" Holiday tour. It's been a lot of fun and it's great to have you here. Please tell us why novel settings are so important.

I judge a lot of writing contests and read many books by new writers they’ve self-published and I often see the same problem—a lack of setting. It’s very disconcerting to read about two or three people having a conversation or doing something in an unmentioned location. I want to know where people are while they’re talking. Are they in a kitchen? If so whose kitchen and what does it look like? What does it smell like? So much can be added to what’s going on by including the setting.

Setting is important. Readers like to learn about new places whether they are real or fictional. If you’re going to use a real place be sure you are accurate when describing places and how to get there. If you aren’t, someone will let you know about your errors.

If you make up a place, be sure to keep track of where you put things, the names of the places, and the geography. If it’s in a certain place in a particular state, be sure to have trees and flowers and geographical details that are true to that area.

What’s in the location and setting can add another dimension to your story. Think about the obstacles your character will face because to what’s around him or her.

Don’t forget weather. Weather can add to the tension and the atmosphere of the story. Decide on the time of year for your tale and what weather goes along with it in the area you’ve placed your characters.

Smells can add a lot too. Take a deep breath every time you enter someone’s home. What does it smell like? What about when you’re in the city? Or the country? You are always surrounded by smells, use them in your writing.

And when is your story taking place? Is it a period piece? If so, be sure to be accurate about the technology that is or isn’t available, what is going on politically and historically, what kind of clothes people wear and foods they eat.

If it’s present day, let the reader know right away. Have your characters use the technology that everyone uses today—unless of course, one of them absolutely hates cell phones, or won’t touch a computer as one of his character traits.

My Deputy Tempe Crabtree series is set in the Southern Sierra of California. The town of Bear Creek has a definite resemblance to the town I live in though I’ve moved it a 1000 feet higher in the mountains—giving the area better trees and the possibility of more snow in winter. Another reason I wanted to change the name of the town was because businesses change too often in my town. By the time a book came out where I named a particular restaurant it might be closed.

Nearby is the Bear Creek Indian Reservation which is quite similar to the Tule River Indian Reservation that is close to where I live. In Bears Are Us, Tempe doesn’t have a reason to visit the reservation though she does in several of the other books in the series. I do use some of the Tule River Indian’s legends in my books.

Obviously, there are bears in Bears Are Us. We have an occasionally bear visit in the lower elevations—but having Bear Creek be higher makes if more plausible that bears would become a nuisance and in some cases a threat.

Deputy Tempe Crabtree has her hands full when bears turn up in and around Bear Creek, a young teen commits suicide and his parents’ actions are suspicious, a prominent woman files a complaint against Tempe and her preacher husband Hutch, a love affair from long ago comes to light, and a woman suffering from dementia disappears.

http://mundania.com/book.php?title=Bears+With+Us/

Marilyn Meredith is the author of over thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Bears With Us from Mundania Press. Writing as F. M. Meredith, her latest Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel is Angel Lost, the third from Oak Tree Press. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, Four chapters of Sisters in Crime, including the Central Coast chapter, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com and her blog at http://marilymeredith.blogspot.com/

Dialog Tags by Award-Winning J. Michael Orenduff

2011-12-06T17:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my mountaintop, Mike. I've been a reader-fan since I read The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein. You arrived at a good time. The sun's shining and the snow's melting. Have a cuppa coffee and tell us about dialog tags.

Robert Parker was one of the most successful crime writers of all time, having penned almost seventy books in the Spenser, Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall series. He wrote a thousand words every day, no more and no less. His many books in the pipeline led me to quip a year after his death that he had published more books dead than I have alive.

In a review of one of Parker’s books shortly before he died, I was surprised by the reviewer’s criticism of Parker’s reliance on “he said” and “I said” in dialog. I had read all his books and never noticed any overuse of dialog tags. So I grabbed a Parker off the shelf and started reading. The reviewer was right. Parker ended most sentences in his dialogs with “he said,” “she said” or “I said.” I was astonished that I had never noticed. I finally put it down to Parker’s prose being so good that he could get away with it.

If I could miss that in Robert Parker, maybe I could also miss it in my own writing. So I reviewed my own use of dialog tags. I found I didn’t use them as frequently as Parker. But I did notice in my review of my dialogs that my most successful ones used fewer or no tags at all.

In the time since I read that review, I’ve given a lot of thought to dialog tags. I always notice them when I read. I have come to believe the best dialog has no tags.

“I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
“It’s the restaurant syndrome, Hubie.”
“Restaurant syndrome? I’ve never heard of it."
“Maybe you know it by its original name, le syndrome de restaurant.”
I groaned. “Please, no more French words and phrases."
“But that’s it. That’s the syndrome. You start working in a restaurant, and you have to learn all those French terms. It begins to affect your thinking, like the twins thing.”
“The twins thing?”
“Yeah. You know, like how twins have this special language that makes it easy for them to communicate with each other, but it messes them up when they try to deal with normal people. Restaurant workers are like that. We may start out normal, but after you begin using words like prix fixe, hors-d’œuvres, à la carte, escargots, and raison d'être, you get a little crazy.”
“Raison d'être?”
“I think it’s a raisin soufflé.”

This passage is a conversation between my protagonist, Hubie, and his sidekick, Susannah. The context makes it clear they are alone at a table in their favorite watering hole. How does the reader know the first speaker is Hubie? Because he is the one having problems. But even if the reader didn’t make the connection, it is clear Hubie is speaking because the response mentions him. If could have started the dialog with: “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” I said

That would not be bad. But I like it better without the tag. People don’t use dialog tags when they speak, so keeping tags out of your dialog makes it easier for the reader to fall into that perfect state of mind when reading dialog – thinking you are there listening to the characters.

***

Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson wrote of Michael Orenhuff's mystery: "The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras has all the components of a great read – an intricate plot, quirky characters, crackling dialog, and a surprise ending. What’s more, Orenduff successfully captures the essence of New Mexico through humor, romance, and even a little philosophical musing. New Mexico’s rich history, people, food, and landscape come alive on its pages. . ."

You can visit the Lefty award-winning author at his website: http://www.orenduff.org/

When It All Comes Together by Earl Staggs

2011-12-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

Hey, Earl, I'm glad you braved the icy roads and foot of snow to visit us here on the mountain. I just finished reading your book of short stories and enjoyed them very much. Have a seat by the fire and a cup of coffee to warm you. Then you can tell us about your work.

Sometimes the planets align and all is right with the world. Sometimes your gravy and your biscuit end up at the same time for one last mouthful. Sometimes, for writers, a story idea comes along, you write it, and it all comes together perfectly at the end. That happened to me with a story called “Where Billy Died.”

The story idea came when my wife and I took a day trip with friends to the tiny town of Hico, Texas. There I learned a local legend. They have convincing evidence that one of the most famous outlaws of the old west did not die at the wrong end of a gun as the history books claim.

Nope, they insist, he lived out his final years in Hico and died there in 1950, a month after his 90^th birthday. I visited the museum devoted to him and stood on the exact spot where they say he dropped dead of a heart attack. Whether the legend is true or not didn’t matter. I was fascinated and knew I had to use it in a story someday.

But, I reminded myself, I don’t write westerns.

So I came up with a contemporary story about a modern day bounty hunter named Jack who travels to Hico to bring back a young bail jumper named Billy Joe Raynor. Piece of cake, thinks Jack, until he discovers he has a tail. The chief bonebreaker for a New Jersey mobster has followed Jack to Hico. Is it because Jack beat up the mobster’s brother, or because of something young Billy did before he skipped town? Jack only knows he’s tangled with the hulking bruiser before and will have to again. Jack doesn’t know he’ll also get tangled up in Hico’s legend about another young outlaw named Billy and that the past and present will merge in a surprising conclusion.

I’m sure all writers feel the same when a story comes together as well as this one did for me. I hope it happens again someday.

“Where Billy Died” was published by Untreed Reads and is available for $1.99 at:

http://store.untreedreads.com/

Now, to everyone who read all the way to here, you’re invited to drop by my Blog/Website at: http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com/and visit with my special guest for the day. While you're there, you can read Chapter One of Memory of a Murder, my first mystery novel, which earned thirteen Five Star reviews. Also while you’re there, don't forget to sign up for the drawing on December 9. The first name drawn from those who leave a comment will receive a print copy of Memory of a Murder. The second name drawn will have a choice of an ebook or print copy of Short Stories by Earl Staggs, a collection of sixteen of my best short stories.

*****

Derringer Award winning author Earl Staggs has seen many of his short stories published in magazines and anthologies. He served as Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Magazine and as President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. His novel Memory of a Murder earned thirteen Five Star reviews online at Amazon and B&N. His column “Write Tight” appears in the online magazine Apollo’s Lyre. He is also a contributing blog member of Murderous Musings and Make Mine Mystery. He hosts workshops for the Muse Online Writers Conferences and the Catholic Writers Conference Online and is a frequent speaker at conferences and writers groups.

You can email earlstaggs@sbglobal.net.
His website is: http://earlwstaggs.worpress.com/

An Excerpt From the Award-Winning Frank, Incense and Muriel by Anne K. Albert

2011-12-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Laramie Mountains, Anne. It's 11 degres and more snow coming down, but there's a crackling fire and a pot of coffee as well as plenty of chai tea. It's good to have you brave the cold to visit. I've enjoyed your award-winning book and look forward to the next in your Muriel Reeves mystery series.

Thanks for featuring me today, Jean. It’s hard to believe today is Day 10 of the second 2011 "Mystery We Write Blog Tour."

The holiday season is here, which is rather fitting because Frank, Incense and Muriel is set the week before Christmas when the stress of the holidays is enough to frazzle anyone’s nerves. Tensions increase when a friend begs Muriel to team up with a sexy private investigator to find a missing woman. Forced to deal with an embezzler, kidnapper, and femme fatale is bad enough, but add Muriel’s zany yet loveable family to the mix and their desire to win the coveted D-DAY (Death Defying Act of the Year) Award, and the situation can only get worse. This cozy, comedic mystery is recipient of the prestigious 2011 Holt Medallion Award of Merit.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Why are you here, Frankie?”

“My client wants you to help with the investigation.”

“Who’s your client?”

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I’d rather not say until after you make up your mind.”

“Ah. Client confidentiality. I get it. So tell me about Rachel.”

“She didn’t show up for work this morning and my client hopes you’ll be able to shed some light on what happened to her.”

“Me?”

“You knew her.”

So did most of the football team, but I kept that to myself. “Forget Rachel. I’m curious why you’d agree to let me–someone you haven’t seen in fifteen years, as well as a complete novice–work on one of your investigations?”

He fixed me with a level stare but before he could reply, the outside door, that lead from the kitchen to the backyard, swung open.

“You-hoo, Muriel.”

“It’s my Aunt Val,” I explained. “We’re supposed to go to the mall after we drop off her dog at-”

Loud, frantic yowls drowned out the remainder of my sentence. The massive, furry creature galloped toward us. Long legs a blur, its claws scraped the ceramic tile like fingernails on a blackboard. Thick blobs of drool splattered in all directions. I braced myself for the inevitable gooey assault, but the animal bypassed me completely.

Frankie bolted to his feet. “What the–?”

The dog pinned him against the kitchen counter. Prancing on hind legs with uncontrollable delight, it plastered his snout against Frankie’s crotch. A damp spot spread out from the zipper of his trousers and slowly stretched across his groin.

Oblivious to the confrontation between man and beast, my aunt ambled inside the kitchen, and handed me a round cookie tin. A rosy-cheeked Santa smiled up at me.

I gave the tin a gentle shake and asked, “Day two?”

The dog made yelping sounds. At least I think it was the dog. It was hard to tell with his muzzle embedded beneath Frankie’s thighs.

“You bet,” Val said, referring to her gift. “I made a dozen mincemeat tarts. Each decorated with two of the cutest little ceramic turtledoves you’ve ever seen.” She shrugged off her coat and gloves, and then spun in a circle as she patted her hair. “What do you think?”

I wasn’t certain if neon red curls coated with multiple layers of hairspray until each strand glistened like polished brass suited a short, plump Caucasian woman nearing her sixty-fifth birthday, but I decided to throw caution to the wind. “I like it.”

“Me, too.” With that, she turned her attention to Frankie. “He doesn’t bite, you know.”

“That’s reassuring.” P Placing his hand between his fly and the calico-colored dog, he nudged the animal away. It refused to take the hint, and wedged its nose deeper. The yelping sounds continued.

Yeah. It was the dog. I was sure of it now.

I watched the process repeated three more times. Nudge, nudge. Sniff. Sniff. Yelp. The damp spot on Frankie’s slacks now stretched all the way to his knees. A thick layer of mucous coated his hands. I might have laughed out loud, but I’d been on the receiving end of that goop more times than I cared to recall.

Val strolled over to Frankie. “Hey, Big Boy.”

He grinned. I rolled my eyes.

“That’s the name of the dog,” I told him.

To read more of Frank, Incense and Muriel click here: http://amzn.to/pg67sx.

Or visit my website http://www.AnneKAlbert.com/ and blogs http://anne-k-albert.blogspot.com/ and http://muriel-reeves-mysteries.blogspot.com. I’m also on Facebook www.facebook.com/annekalbert and Twitter www.twitter.com/AnneKAlbert.

Thanks for featuring me, Jean. Before I say adios, I’d like to encourage readers to enter my Comment-to-Win Contest!

CONTEST DETAILS: Three names will be selected at random from comments on all 14 of Anne’s Mystery We Write Blog Tour guest appearances. Winners will receive an e-copy of Frank, Incense and Muriel, and book one of the Muriel Reeves Mysteries. Visit http://tinyurl.com/3hzpqvv for her schedule and contest details. Good luck!

* * *

Anne K. Albert’s award winning stories chill the spine, warm the heart and soothe the soul…all with a delightful touch of humor. A member of Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and married to her high school sweetheart for more than a quarter of a century, it's a given she'd write mystery and romantic suspense. When not writing she loves to travel, visit friends and family, and of course, read using ‘Threegio’ her cherished and much beloved Kindle 3G!

Her novel is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Incense-and-Muriel-ebook/dp/B004CLYDRO/

Is it Mystery, Suspense or a Thriller? by Beth Anderson

2011-12-02T18:19:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my snowy mountaintop, Beth, on this ninth day of the "Mystery We Write" virtual holiday tour. Have a cuppa chai tea to warm up and tell us about the differences between mysteries, suspense and thriller novels while I toss another log on the fire. Then I'll show you my porcelain doll collection.

Okay, first a few notes to new writers trying to decide whether your book will be a mystery or a suspense. At the outset, there are two big differences. A traditionally published mystery is shorter, the norm is around 70 to 75,000 words. With digital publishing, the word count doesn’t matter so much anymore until you get into the hundred thousand word range. At that point the publisher, no matter who it is, has to make a decision because now you’re going into a bigger print version, which will cost more to print.

A traditionally published suspense, on the other hand, has a much higher word count, anywhere from 85,000 words up to over a hundred thousand, depending on how long you’ve been writing and for whom. Also, in a suspense, you often (but not always) know who the criminal is, or at least see him in action from almost the beginning, and the book is involved with following both criminal and detective/heroine/hero through the process of catching the criminal.

Suspense is also split out into more sub-sub-genres. Female in Jeopardy, femjep, was big a few years ago, but there's not so much emphasis on that anymore because by and large, people don’t really like to see women in serious physical danger. Nowadays, they expect women to be stronger and smarter than any villain, so make sure your suspense protagonist is sharp and strong, or at least working toward that. (Actually, that’s good advice no matter what you’re writing.)

Then there’s Romantic Suspense, which often contains a scenario where the heroine is never sure, until the last moment, whether the man she’s attracted to is the hero or the villain. Those books can and generally do contain sex, and they will almost always be promoted as Romantic Suspense so that the reader will know what she’s getting. The market in women’s fiction is always pretty good for romantic suspense because no matter what, people love romance, and the more the better, to that audience.

A lot of what you do here depends on who—thinking ahead to your long term career goals—you want your eventual market to be. If you want mainly women, by all means hang a lot of romance and hot sex in there, but if you’re aiming for the mainstream market, be aware that most men won’t voluntarily read books promoted as romantic suspense. I didn’t say all men, but I do say most.

Also be aware that in a traditionally published category romantic suspense, as in a Harlequin Superromance, romance takes precedence, with a very strong suspense subplot.

In mainstream/single title romantic suspense, suspense takes precedence. Your own sense of pacing, with your publisher’s guidelines, will determine how much of each element you should have. But generally speaking, just so you know, you don’t want sex between the protagonists to be your ultra-main focus in any mainstream mystery or suspense novel because it distracts from the mystery and becomes primarily a romance, also limiting your male audience.

Pure suspense is a longer book in which the reader often knows almost from the beginning who the killer is, and the suspense comes from trying to keep the hero or heroine (maybe both) from getting killed while they figure it out. The stakes are very high, uncertainty is constant and enormous, and has to be kept that way throughout the whole story. These sell well and almost certainly will for a long, long time.

In pure suspense novels, romance is allowed, but don’t try writing any of those eight-page detailed love scenes in this type of book if you’re aiming at the mainstream audience because for one thing, if you do and it’s bought, particularly by any traditional publisher, it’s going to be promoted as a romantic suspense, and your market will automatically become mainly women. Just so you know.

That’s not all bad, because women buy the majority of books. But if you want the word “romantic” left out of your promotion, leave the romance out of the book, or only have a hint of it. In other words, if you want to hit the mainstream market, your suspense novel shouldn’t be full of one hot and heavy love scene after another because to many traditional suspense readers, as I already mentioned, the sex distracts from the plot. I’ve heard them say this time and again, although there may be exceptions and truly, sex in mysteries is more and more accepted now than it was ten years ago. So it’s up to you to decide who you want your reading audience to be.

But also be aware, pacing has a lot to do with how your book is perceived. If you have a large chunk of nothing but mystery, your reader is going to be expecting it to be mostly mystery. If you switch to long, protracted sex scenes right in the middle of this book, which started out all mystery, you’ve got a huge pacing problem that throws the whole story out of whack. So decide at the beginning which it’s going to be, and pace your love scenes accordingly, weaving them in and out of the main plot, which is the mystery.

Of course there are exceptions. Brand name romance authors who have branched out into mainstream suspense, Nora Roberts for one. There are quite a few big name former strictly romance authors who are doing this now, with long, long sex scenes, but keep in mind, they’ve made their bones. Their names are already built and their names will sell the book both to publisher and public.

So let your protags have sex if you want, but don’t let them have overly graphic sex or it can easily turn into erotica and that's a whole ‘nother discussion (by someone other than me).

Next we have thrillers, which can be considered either general fiction or crime fiction, depending on the plot. Steve King is a master at this category, as is Dean Koontz, but there’s plenty of room for more because the American public loves thrillers and the good ones out there are making big money.

To further complicate this issue, consider Jurassic Park, a thriller for sure, although the villains are prehistoric animals. This would fall under general fiction, not mystery, if you’re looking for it in the library.

The main thread to watch for in a thriller is that an extremely high level of mind-blowing excitement is maintained all the way throughout the novel—with small dips from time to time to allow the reader time to catch his breath. If you can do that and keep doing it for five hundred pages or so, you’ve got the potential of having yourself a major bidding-war blockbuster.

Thrillers also make great movies because they’re so visual, and publishers love books that have a high chance of becoming a movie because it increases their book sales. So in writing one of these, keep in mind the level of sophistication of your potential readers, and realize that these books will appeal to the mainstream reader even though they’re basically part of the mystery genre.

***

Beth Anderson is the author of seven crime novels. Two of her books have been nominated for the International Frankfurt Award and two were EPPIE finalists in their e-book editions. Her bestselling release, Second Generation, won the AllAboutMurder Bloody Dagger Award, the Rendezvous Review Magazine Rosebud Award, and the FMAM (Futures Magazine) Fire to Fly Award.

"Mystery We Write" Holiday Virtual Book Tour, Nov. 25-Dec. 9

2011-12-02T13:26:00.000-08:00

The virtual tour features 15 mystery writers and a 60 plus novel giveaway. Blog visitors who leave comments at the individual sites are eligible to win mystery novels from writers: Marilyn Meredith, Earl Staggs, Tim Hallinan, J. Michael Orenduff, Anne K. Albert, Beth Anderson, Alice Duncan, John Daniel, M.M. Gornell, Wendy Gager, Jackie King, Jinx Schwartz, Pat Browning, Ron Benrey and me.

I’m giving away 14 Kindle or Nook books—one at each blog site--as well as three print copies at the conclusion of the tour. I would love to be eligible to win some of the great books offered by my fellow tour writers.

A lot of good writing advice and interviews are going to be featured, including book excerpts and photos of the writers’ latest books and work spaces. You can win one or more mystery novels by leaving a comment and email address at as many host sites as you have time to visit during the next two weeks. The tour ends on December 8.

My tour schedule is listed at: "Mystery We Write" Holiday Tour along with links to all the other blog sites. There's also a slideshow of all our books on the site, created by our tour coordinator Anne K. Albert.

I’m appearing at Pat Browning's site, talking about some of the strange ways I've researched my novels.

I’ll also be signing books December 3 at Tomcat Learning Center in the Sunrise Mall , Casper, Wyoming, from 1-3 p.m., so if you’re in the area, please stop in to say hello (if you can find a parking space during the Craft's Fair).

We wish you the happiest of holidays and hope to see you along the tour.

My Favorite First Lines by Pat Browning

2011-11-30T17:21:00.000-08:00

Pat Browning was born and raised in Oklahoma. A longtime resident of California's San Joaquin Valley before moving back to Oklahoma in 2005, her professional writing credits go back to the 1960s, when she was a stringer for The Fresno Bee while working full time in a Hanford law office.

Her globetrotting in the 1970s led her into the travel business, first as a travel agent, then as a correspondent for TravelAge West, a trade journal published in San Francisco. In the 1990s, she signed on fulltime as a newspaper reporter and columnist, first at The Selma Enterprise and then at The Hanford Sentinel.

Pat's first mystery, Full Circle, was set in a fictional version of Hanford, and published through iUniverse in 2001. It was revised and reissued as Absinthe of Malice by Krill Press in 2008. An extensive excerpt can be read at Google Books:
http://tinyurl.com/23pojdm.

Welcome to my snowy mountaintop, Pat, on this 6th day of our holiday virtual tour. Grab a cuppa chai tea to warm yourself before you tell us what attracts you to books.

The first question I have is always: What is this book about? You can’t depend on cover blurbs to tell you. Often they’re so much gush. I’m not impressed when some famous author says the book in question is the best book ever written. How do I know the famous author even read it?

For me, the easiest way to find out what a book’s about is to check online at Amazon.com. If a book has been published it will be listed there with some kind of story line or summary. Yet even when I know what a book’s about, I like to hold it in my hand. I like to riffle through the pages to get a feeling for writing style, characters, dialogue.

I always open a book to the first page. A funny first line gets my attention. Other than that I can’t really say why the first few lines pull me into a book or turn me off, but here are some opening lines that I love, for whatever reason.

My favorite first line of all time:

“He loved to watch fat women dance.” -- From Goodnight, Irene by Jan Burke:

Some others I like:

"I was a nice Jewish boy who had gone astray." -- Tropic of Murder by Lev Raphael.

"My mind was on Steinbeck; my foot was on a hand." --Till the End of Tom by Gillian Roberts.

"Afterwards, Sarah could never be quite sure whether it was the moonlight or that soft, furtive sound that had awakened her." -- Death in Kashmir by M.M. Kaye.

"Through the slit in the closed drapes, a thin bar of afternoon sunlight fell across the soldier's chest, highlighting the small, dark bullet hole." – Some Welcome Home by Sharon Wildwind.

”My back’s broken,” I said. “I’m too old to sit in a cotton field in the middle of the night.” Absinthe of Malice by Pat Browning.

Not a complete list, but it’s a start. Writers take note: The first line is the hardest but it may sell your book.

Metaphor for Murder is my work in progress. Log line: Small town reporter Penny Mackenzie tracks an offbeat Christmas story and finds herself in the middle of a murder and the mysterious desecration of an old Chinese cemetery. Stay tuned …

Praise for Absinthe of Malice: “Browning's obvious knowledge of the small town newspaper business is a perfect background for the savvy Penny Mackenzie, who by the end of the book has not only solved the mystery of several deaths and disappearances, righted an ancient wrong or two, but also has her personal life set on a most interesting track.” – Donna Fletcher Crow, author of The Shadow of Reality, Book 1 of The Elizabeth & Richard Mysteries, and A Midsummer Eve's Nightmare, Book 2 in the series.

ABSINTHE OF MALICE can be ordered through any bookstore or online from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Barnes and Noble, print and Nook
http://tinyurl.com/43lgk5u
Amazon, print and Kindle
http://tinyurl.com/3ry9gya

Invisible Ink by Tim Hallinan

2011-11-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's my pleasure to welcome Tim Hallinan to my mountaintop on this second day of the "Mystery We Write" Holiday Virtual Tour.

Timothy Hallinan is the Edgar- and Macavity-nominated author of the traditionally-published Poke Rafferty Bangkok thrillers (most recently THE QUEEN OF PATPONG), and the Junior Bender mysteries, which are ebook originals. The newest Junior book is LITTLE ELVISES. Earlier this year, Hallinan conceived and edited a volume of original short stories by twenty first-rate mystery writers, SHAKEN: STORIES FOR JAPAN, which is available for the Kindle at $3.99, with every penny of the price going to the 2011 Japan Relief Fund. (Please buy it.) He lives in Santa Monica and Southeast Asia, and he is lucky enough to be married to Munyin Choy. His website is www.timothyhallinan.com.
__

Jean asked for a short piece on “the craft of writing,” and the first thing I did was summon up the questions people ask most often at fan events and bookstores. And then I thought, no, let's write about the thing nobody asks about: prose style.

Much of the time, I think people confuse fine writing with fancy writing. (I know I do.) The phrase that stops the reader in her tracks, the perfectly structured paragraph, the word used in such a striking way the reader thinks, “I want to remember that.”

Well, I'm a contrarian. I don't like that stuff very much. I think the ideal prose is pretty much invisible; it's a clean, transparent window through which the reader sees the characters and the action. Enjoying a book, I believe, is a one-on-one relationship: reader and book. When the prose calls attention to itself, I think it reminds the reader that there's a third person present, a writer, and that reminds the reader that this world she's caught up in is actually something that someone, probably caffeinated to the gills, sat down and made up for hours and hours.

In other words, these people are just marks on paper.

This was brought home forcefully to me when I heard someone—a professional actor—read the audiobook of my first Poke Rafferty thriller, A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART. In the first chapter, just as all heck breaks loose on a crowded Bangkok sidewalk and and Rafferty realizes his adopted daughter has disappeared after bolting across the street, he pauses and takes stock, and this is what I wrote.

“When in doubt, Rafferty thinks, stop.

“The sky is low enough to scrape a nail against, that peculiar sullen gray that usually precedes one of Bangkok’s frequent rainstorms.”

When the actor got to the line about the sky, he became Orson Welles: “The sky is low enough to scrape-a-nail-against . . .” and I winced with shame. The sky was gray and low, okay? It was gonna rain. The rest of it is all showing off.

This kind of stuff comes easily to me. I'm Irish. I can turn anything into greeting-card poetry, and I do, if I'm not careful.

That's not to say that writing should read like assembly instructions for a barbecue. It needs to have energy, I think, and personality—but it should be the characters' personality, not the writer's. When I'm reading something in third person and there's a really snappy description in the narrative, I always think, “Who said that?” And you know what? It's not that difficult for the writer to attribute the thought to a character: “The sky looked to Rafferty as though it were low enough to scrape a nail against.” It's still not good, but at least we know where it comes from, and the perspective tells us something about Rafferty.

I'm not going to beat this to death. I think the best prose in fiction is prose that stays out of the way. The author may be able to turn handstands, but I'm actually interested in the characters, not the author, and the last thing I want when I'm enjoying a book is some five-year-old with an inferiority complex continually yelling, “Look at me.”

When I want to look at you, Mr. or Ms. Author, I'll check out your photo on the back of the book.

-----

I'm appearing today at Mike Orenduff's site: http://thepotthief.blogspot.com/

I'm appearing

Falling in Love With Wordsmithing by Jackie King

2011-11-24T22:34:00.000-08:00

Jackie King loves books, words, and writing tall tales. She especially enjoys murdering the people she dislikes on paper. She's a full time writer who sometimes teaches writing at Tulsa Community College. Her latest novel, The Inconveninet Corpse, is a traditional mystery. She's also written five novellas as co-author of the Foxy Hens Series. Warm Love on Cold Streets is her latest novella and is included in the anthology The Foxy Hens Meet an Adventurer. Her nonfiction book is Devoted to Cooking. She's a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, Oklahoma Writers Federation, and Tulsa Night Writers.

Jackie, it's great to have you join us here on this first day of the "Mystery We Write Holiday Book Tour." We've been planning the tour for months and it's finally arrived.

Jean, what a delight to visit your mountaintop. A cyber-hug to you and to each writer and reader who stops by. (Yes, I’m one of those ‘huggers,’ so grit your teeth, close your eyes and endure a quick trespass into your private cyberspace.)

Today I’d like to share an anecdote from my writing past. I was 22 and visiting my mother in the tiny town of Tipton, Oklahoma, when on a bright summer day, I learned the importance of revision. (Warning to authors and would-be authors: I started writing early in my life and then allowed other things to interfere with my love for the craft of storytelling. Don’t let this happen to you.) I’ll call my little story:

Falling in Love with Wordsmithing

Do you love or hate revision? When I first started writing I hated what seemed to me a tedious and mostly unnecessary exercise. What could need correcting except perhaps, punctuation and spelling? I had stories to tell and a passion to write these tales from the depth of my heart. I did a fair job of it, too, I thought. I even managed to sell a couple of short stories. (This was some time ago and the short story market was good.)

My mother, an English teacher, also wrote and hung around with folks having the same inclination. One of her more successful writer friends, a local journalist named Vera Holding, dropped by with a draft she’d just banged out on her typewriter. (Those were the clickety-clackety, non-electrical machines that writers, businesses and students used for letters, manuscripts and such back in the dark ages.)

“Would you listen to my story and give me so me feedback?” Vera asked, and we agreed, so she began to read aloud. I had seen this woman’s published work and expected smooth and polished prose, but that didn’t happen. Her story was so bad I couldn’t think of anything to suggest that might help. Her work was unsalable in my opinion. So I decided to be kind and lie. “That’s just fine,” I said, and smiled.

Mother, who knew the woman and her work much better than I did, made some suggestions to strengthen the plot, but nothing could save that story. Or so I thought. Her work had no plot; her characters were shallow and her writing seemed lifeless. But bless her heart, I thought, she’d not learn that from me.

The next day Vera came back and asked to read her revised story aloud. I could hardly keep from rolling my eyes, disappointed that I had to listen to that drivel a second time. But I was raised to be polite, so I folded my hands in my lap, crossed my ankles, and pasted a smile on my lips.

When Vera began to read something magical happened. The day before I’d been bored and even a little embarrassed by her writing. Now I was transfixed. Somehow this author had breathed life into her characters, their dialogue and the narration. The plot was still weak, but the protagonist was so compelling that I knew the story would sell. And it did.

That day I became a devotee to the power of revision. I also learned the difference between a wanna-be writer and a professional writer. Learning and applying good writing technique takes time and many, many hours of writing. But anyone who is willing to make the effort and to revise their work until its right, can master this skill.

Years have passed and wordsmithing is my favorite part of writing.

Thanks, Jackie. Great story.

Jean, thanks a million for inviting me to visit. I hope each person who visits your site will leave a comment!

My pleasure.

You can learn more about Jackie by visiting her website: www.jacqking.com

Her blogsite: Cozy Mysteries and Other Madness: http://bnbmysteries.blogspot.com

Her novel, Inconvenient Corpse : (including Kindle for $2.99) http://amzn.to/gMv7CH

Barnes & Noble (including Nook for $2.99) http://bit.ly/fovbLR

Jackie would like to have readers ‘friend’ her on Facebook where she's listed as Jacqueline King.

"Mystery We Write" Holiday Virtual Book Tour Begins Friday!

2011-11-23T11:53:00.000-08:00

The virtual tour kicks off Friday with 15 mystery writers taking part--and a 60 plus novel giveaway. Blog visitors who leave comments at the individual sites are eligible to win mystery novels from writers: Marilyn Meredith, Earl Staggs, Tim Hallinan, J. Michael Orenduff, Anne K. Albert, Beth Anderson, Alice Duncan, John Daniel, M.M. Gornell, Wendy Gager, Jackie King, Jinx Schwartz, Pat Browning, Ron Benrey and me.

I’m giving away 14 Kindle or Nook books—one at each blog site--as well as three print copies at the conclusion of the tour. I would love to be eligible to win some of the great books offered by my fellow tour writers.

My tour schedule is listed at: "Mystery We Write" Holiday Tour along with links to all the other blog sites. There's also a slideshow of all our books on the site, created by our tour coordinator Anne K. Albert.

I’m appearing at Marilyn Meredith’s blog site Friday to talk about the importance of novel settings, and Jackie King is featured on my blog site to tell us why she fell in love with “wordsmithing.”

I’m also signing books Friday at the Blue Heron bookstore in downtown Casper, Wyoming, from 1-3 p.m., so if you’re in the area, please stop in to say hello (if you can find a parking space on Black Friday).

We wish you the happiest of holidays and hope to see you along the tour.

How to Impress an Agent (or an Editor)

2011-11-20T15:29:00.001-08:00

I was going through a stack of writer magazines, trying to decide whether to toss or keep them when I discovered an article written by agent Lori Perkins. Her essay on impressing an agent made me laugh because the tips are obvious. But I’ve been writing a long time and maybe there’s someone reading this article who doesn’t know the basics.

The most important thing you can do to impress an agent is to submit a cleanly typed and professional query. And never longer than one page because editors are very busy people who read a lot of queries and successful agents receive a thousand or more a month. Make sure your letter of inquiry is on white paper—colored stationery doesn’t impress an agent or grab the right kind of attention. Use 8.5 by 11 inch 20 bond paper. Absolutely nothing lighter.

Perkins said, “A dirty, tattered, handwritten letter” just doesn’t impress," no matter how good your manuscript happens to be. Because she represents a number of horror writers, Perkins receives some strange queries. Some have been written on black paper with white ink or red ink to represent blood. She’s also received computer-generated stationery with vampire bats, skulls and coffin decorations, which wind up buried in the trash.

Use 10 or 12-point type and Times New Roman or Courier typefaces. The agent said not to type chapter heads as they appear in a book. And don’t try to bribe the agent with booze, Cuban cigars, coffee mugs or a box of Vidalia onions. (I’m not making this up.) Your work has to stand on its own merit. Never tell the agent that you have ten completed manuscripts in your closet that you’re willing to share. And wait six to eight weeks to call after you’ve submitted three chapters for her approval. Another NEVER is to tell the agent you’ve tried to sell the book yourself or have been rejected by every editor listed in Writer’s Market. Sounds silly but some would-be writers have done just that.

For heaven sake, don’t lie to impress the agent. There’s a well-told story about a writer who made up a quote from a bestselling novelist, which helped his agent sell the book for a six-figure book deal. When the bestseller heard about it and called The New York Times to repute the quote, the publisher dropped the writer before the ink was dry on his contract.

Perkins also said too much personal information call kill the deal. Wait until an agent-writer relationship has been established before you talk about your ex-spouse or that your car's been repossessed. If it doesn’t pertain to your book, don’t talk about it.

Don’t make assumptions about your book before you’ve even signed the contract. And don’t ask the agent about whether a movie deal will be in the works or how large an advance a publishing company is willing to pay. Start work on your next book and let the agent do her work. Give her your phone number, email address and enclose an S.A.S. E. (self-addressed envelope). And get those three chapters in the mail as soon as possible after they’ve been requested. Or an email attachment, if the agent accepts them. If there’s some kind of delay, be sure to let the agent know.

Don’t forget to briefly list your literary credits. Perkins said, “Don’t be afraid to blow your own horn,” but do it as briefly as possible.

Breathing New Life into Orphaned Books

2011-11-17T10:32:00.000-08:00

How would you react if your publisher suddenly died and orphaned your series? Panic? Tears? Or would you follow the trend and republish the books yourself? Few publishers will consider a series after the third novel is published, so I resurrected my small press, which I operated years ago to feature fledgling authors.

I’m electronically challenged, but my husband learned to upload files for both ebooks and print editions. And, because the books were previously published, there was little editing to do. It wasn’t long before we had seven books online as well as local stores stocking them.

We have a temporary publishing website www.medallionbooks.com and plan to publish other writers’ work as well. Fortunately, I’ve served as a news, magazine and small press editor, and my husband does a good job designing book covers. We’re both bibliophiles with a large home library, so our love of books keeps us motivated.

The next problem is how to promote our books. With so much competition from more than a million ebooks, and thousands more published each day; we need to find ways to make our books stand out. But how to do that? Too many blurbs on Facebook and other social media sites only turn readers away. So how do you let readers know about your books on a limited budget?

Besides guest blogging at popular sites, I decided to take part in virtual book tours. I was asked to join the “Mystery We Write” Holiday Tour, which will run from November 25 until December 9. Fifteen mystery writers, including award-winning Tim Hallinan and Michael Orenduff, are taking part in the tour and we’ll be collectively giving away more than 60 mystery novels from our individual sites.

My own tour schedule is up at: /http://jeansblogtour.blogspot.com/ (as well as the other writers’ sites) and I’ll be giving away 14 ebooks, one each day of the tour to visitors who leave comments and screen names. I’ll also draw three additional names at the conclusion of the tour for print copies of my mystery novels.

The best part of blog tours is hearing from readers who stop to say hello and comment about our books. Having someone say, “My husband grabbed your book before I had a chance to read it,” really makes a writer’s day—an entire week even. So I hope you’ll have a look at my tour schedule and choose a number of the tour sites to visit. There’s a good chance you’ll win a great mystery novel (or two) and enjoy what we all have to say.

Before I close, I’d like to ask you, my visitors, how publishers attract your attention and what makes you decide to buy their books? I appreciate any comments you’d like to make.

Wishing you all the best holiday season ever!

Creativity Exercises

2011-11-15T18:30:00.000-08:00

Not so long ago, if someone said you were creative, they meant you were different, or what author Nancy Slonim Aronie called “tapped by the goddess of artistic sensibilities.”

We’re all born with innate talents that are creative in their own way. Florists are creative in their arrangements as are plumbers who create unusual designs that hopefully don’t leak. And I’ve always admired the creative talents of wedding cake designers and chefs who garnish their gourmet dishes with sprigs of parsley and mounds of berries and whipped cream.

Aronie says, “Creativity is your soul expressing itself. Creativity is a continuing process. And process and souls expressing themselves have nothing do with selling or reviews or results or commercial success. They have everything to do with taking chances, being honest, letting us experiment with what feels right, letting ourselves make—as Annie Lamott puts it in Bird by Bird—'[lousy] first drafts.' This brainstorming of the gut will nourish your innards.”

Aronie’s creativity exercise is an interesting one. She basically says to allow yourself 30 minutes to decide which ordinary thing you’ll turn into something extraordinary. Then write about it. “What was the experience like for you? How will you remember it? How will you change the channel from ‘what a drag’ to ‘what a joy?’”

Some of the exercises she suggests are:
~Clean the hydrator in the refrigerator.
~Match all the socks in the sock drawer.
~Throw out all the stretched–out underwear that you never wear.
~Organize your videotapes.
~Rip pages from a magazine and make a collage that says ‘I’m creative’.
~Add a plant to your work area.
~Make an exotic mushroom sandwich on toasted country French bread. Serve it on your nicest plate with yellow and orange nasturtium.
~Put a love note under someone’s pillow.

Most of these things fall under the dreaded category of “housework,” and I can think of better things to do with the little time I have to be creative, although I have to admit that her suggestions are challenging.

Aronie has taught a workshop, telling students that “creativity is maintaining the balance between the heart and the mind, the dedication to the moment and the ability to stand by and surrender and let the stuff flow through.”

Not a bad idea.

One of My Characters Tells Me Off!

2011-11-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

Sarah Cafferty is one of two amateur sleuths in my Logan and Cafferty mystery series. She's not her usual self in Murder on the Interstate and I want to know why.

Author: Sarah, why are you so cranky? You’ve shown good humor in the previous two books and you're too old for PMS.

Sarah: Cranky? What do you expect? You send a killer to stalk us and cause Dana to crash our motorhome to escape. Then we're nearly swept away in a flash flood. The downpour scared me so badly that I irrigated my underwear.

Author: I’m sorry, Sarah. I know it was traumatic, but you have to admit that it was suspenseful.

Sarah: Where were you while we were nearly drowned? Sitting in your comfortable chair thinking up ways to get us in deeper trouble?

Author: That’s my job.Would you rather I replaced you with a younger sleuth?

Sarah: Dana and I are only 60. Not some elderly widows with walkers. We can do everything that younger sleuths can do.

Author: Well—

Sarah: With the possible exception of skateboarding and scaling tall buildings.

Author: I was thinking of having you bungee jump in the next novel.

Sarah: Unless you’re joking, Dana and I are taking a hiatus from your mystery series.

Author: What about our readers? You don’t want to disappoint them, do you?

Sarah: Haven’t we done enough? In The Village Shatered you send a serial killer after us, in Diary of Murder a vicious drug gang. In Murder on the Inteerstate you have a homegrown terrorist group kidnap us while they’re planning to take down the entire country. How can you possibly top that?

Author: I’ve got some ideas that will knock your socks off.

Sarah: That settles it! You can email us in Brazil. That’s where we’re going on vacation. If we don’t answer, you’ll know that some other novelist has decided to adopt us and treat us fairly.

Author: You’ll be bored within a week and out of a job in a month. Novelists that are nice to their protagonists don’t last long in the publishing business. Readers want suspense as well as mystery.

Sarah: I’ve got a great idea. You take my place and I’ll write you into some mysterious and suspenseful situations. You’ll love bungee jumping over a crocodile pit or waking up with rattlesnakes. I can think of lots of exciting situations to place you in.

Author: Point taken, Sarah. From now on we’ll concentrate on mystery and go easy on the suspense.

Forget About Perfect Grammar

2011-11-08T22:33:00.000-08:00

It’s often difficult for novices to break the writing habits they've learned in school. Perfect grammar, especially when writing dialogue, is one of the worst mistakes a writer can make. I was in an online critique group a dozen years ago, comprised mainly of unpublished writers. I’ll never forget a critique that said, “You need to clean up your characters’ grammar.” The characters were uneducated farmers.

Author William Noble once said, “The grammar rules we learned in eighth grade should never be followed absolutely. At best they are one choice among several, and at worst, they will dampen our creative instincts.”

The use of clichés is another fledgling blunder. The rule of thumb is: if it sounds familiar, don’t use it. If you can’t come up with something original and your muse is tugging you on, type in a row of Xs and write it later during the second draft. But if you must use a cliché, add the word proverbial as in "as profitable as the proverbial golden goose."

Of course there are rules that must be followed, such as adding commas for clarity and periods at the end of sentences. Some writers have felt that innovative sentence structure signals creativity, but the practice is only acceptable now in poetry. In Ulysses, for example, James Joyce’s last chapter begins with:

Yes, because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs. Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for the masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever...

Joyce’s stream of conscience continues for forty pages without a single period. I wonder how many people actually read it to the end. Creative and innovative? In my opinion, anything that slows the reader for even a few words may cause him to abandon the book.

On the opposite end of the sentence spectrum, Hemingway taught novices to write declarative sentences: “The day had been hot.” “The rifle was long and cold and strange.” “She wore black shoes, a red cape and a white tunic. . .” However, short, choppy sentences must be interspersed with longer ones to make them read well. A good practice for beginning writers is to read one’s work aloud to avoid clumsy phrasing. If words don’t flow well together and your reader stumbles over them, you’ve lost her.

Reading the classics doesn't prepare anyone well to write for today’s market. I’ve judged writing contest entries that contain the most formal language I’ve read since reading War and Peace. Some fledglings avoid contractions entirely, even when writing dialogue. The result is stilted language.

Studying the bestsellers for style, content, description and characterization helps the beginner gain a handhold in the current market. Some writing teachers advise copying your favorite author’s work, as artists have done with the masters—as long as it’s only practice and doesn't result in plagiarism.

I learned to write fiction by studying the work of Dean Koontz and others. Whose writing have you studied and did it teach you the language of fiction?

Psychic Mysteries

2011-11-06T18:34:00.000-08:00

A ouija board introduced me to the realm of mystery. As a young teen, my cousins and I also discovered table tapping. Sitting around a small table with our hands lightly resting on its top, we asked the table questions. The room was dark with the exception of a burning candle.

After the question was asked, the table would lift high enough to tap two legs on the floor, once for yes, twice for no. Each of us swore we weren't causing the table to move, but tap the floor it did, causing some of us to run from the room screaming. But that didn't stop us from repeating our spooky game every chance we could.

The ouija board was supposed to predict the future, but my cousin Mary didn't marry Sam Gufstason, the name spelled out on the board more than once. It was during this period that I discovered my psychic ability. One night before spending the night at Mary's house, I dreamed she would be waiting to scare me in a dark, L-shaped hallway.

The following night, after leaving the bathroom to return to bed, I knew that she was there in the hall, although I couldn't see her. From then on, I had premonitions of things to come. Once, unbeknown to me, my sister-in-law gave birth to a premature baby. When the phone rang, I grasped the receiver, saying, "It's a boy." When I put the phone to my ear, I heard my brother-in-law say exactly the same thing. I always seemed know who was on the phone years before caller I.D. was available. I have to admit it was a bit unnerving.

A news reporter during the Vietnam War, my beat was the nation's largest Naval Air Station in Lemoore, California. I instintively knew which pilots would never return home. I didn't want to know and did my best to block out any psychic revelations that came my way. Eventually, I was successful. Now, I welcome them and the premonitions are beginning to return. I also found that I could accurately read palms and people appeared at my door asking for readings. I obliged them and probably could have made a career of it, but foretelling unfortunte events really takes its toll.

I haven't read a palm since visiting my brother at his coast guard station years ago. One night at the base in Neah Bay, I did an impromptu reading at the NCO club. A young man asked if I knew when he had been born. When I told him, he backed away, yelling, "You're a witch." Another reason I blocked my psychic power. I don't look good in tall, black, pointed hats.

I now realize that I was probably responsible for the table taping as a teen, and years later I actually met Sam Gufstason, who was married to a woman named Mary.

Do Trailers Really Sell Books?

2011-11-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

The jury’s still out on whether trailers actually sell books. Regardless, they showcase your work if you place them on YouTube and promote them on Blazing Trailers, Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

The videos range in price from less than a hundred dollars to several thousand, or you can produce them youself. My first book trailer for my historical novel, Escape, was created by a student who did a credible job for $60, but I wasn’t impressed with the music or photo quality. So I hired a professional to produce my second trailer, for $475, which carved a nice chunk from my royalties. A Village Shattered video earned four and a half points out of a possible five from a video judging site, First Turning Point. The only nit mentioned was punctuation within the video, but it wasn't produced by a writer.

My self produced video, Diary of Murder, only earned three points from the same site. Among the nits, the judge said the music was too recognizable. The bottom line is that both books have sold equally well, so the expensive trailer was probably a waste of hard earned royalties. But you can judge for yourself. I haven't produced a trailer for my latest releases and have noticed a difference in sales figures, so I conclude, in my own case, that trailers do help sales. And new software has been developed since my own efforts, which produce much better videos, including Windows Movie Maker and iMovie which comes packaged in a bundle called iLife for iMac users. A good description of how to produce your own free video: http://www.jungleredwriters.com/2011/10/how-to-make-your-own-book-trailer-free.html at the Jungle Red Writers blog site.

Whichever route you decide to take, book trailers are worth the investment if you have the time and energy to promote them.

Note: I've since changed Diary of Murder's cover and the books are no longer available on Fictionwise because my publisher died and orphaned the books. They are, however, now available on Kindle, Nook and print editions.

Publishing Etiquette

2011-11-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Assuming that you’ve done your homework, selected the right publisher and submitted a near perfect manuscript, there are guidelines to follow in order to maintain a good working relationship.

~ Be positive in your dealings with a potential editor or publisher. When the decision is made to acquire your manuscript, an editor is committed to working with you for as long as a year or more. So, you need to present yourself as a willing and passionate partner, according to New York Editor Nicole Diamond Austin. She advises writers to be prepared to answer questions about the manuscript and most important, to be flexible, especially if the editor gives critical feedback.

~ Be willing to share your career vision, especially if it’s your first novel. Share your expertise and how you want to be known. Compare your work realistically to other authors and explain how you plan to promote your books.

~ Explain your “platform”—anything that uniquely qualifies you to write your book or provides you with a ready audience of readers. For example, if you’re a doctor, your medical thriller will be more readily accepted than if it were written by a pet store owner.

~ Honesty will win the publisher over. Don’t claim to be Lawrence Block’s friend when you only met him once at a writer’s convention. It’s tempting to try to impress a publisher but it will come back to haunt you later, as some novelists have learned. Feel free to briefly talk about your writing accomplishments but make sure you're accurate. Publishing is a close knit industry.

~ Respect an editor’s time and realize that you’re only one of many writers in his stable. And be patient if your calls are not immediately answered. Make sure you have a good reason to call because publishers, editors and publicists are very busy people.

~ Don’t get pegged as a difficult writer to work with. You may not like your book cover or the way the publicist is handling your PR campaign but you need to trust that they have your best interests at heart. Make sure that whatever is bothering you is worth potentially damaging your relationship.

~ Always be nice to the publishing assistants. Remember their names and ask how they’re doing when you call or email. Writers are often surprised at what an assistant can accomplish and the speed with which they get back to you.

~ Keep your editor informed, both before and after publication. If you’re a guest speaker, write a magazine article about your book or appear on a convention panel, make sure he or she knows about it ahead of time. The event may serve as a good reason to reorder additional copies of your book. But don’t overwhelm your editor with details.

~ Give your publisher a list of names of people who are willing to endorse your book and make sure your memo isn't longer than three pages. Again, those who work in a publishing company are very busy, so, don’t overload them with too much information.

And, finally, always thank your editor, publicist and publisher for the opportunity they’ve afforded you as well as the hard work they’ve given your manuscript. Thank them personally as well as in your book’s acknowledgements. A little appreciation goes a long way. . .

Weather Villains

2011-10-29T23:15:00.000-07:00

Severe weather can be a great antagonist in any genre, particularly suspense, horror and mysteries in all its subgenres. I often use weather in my books: pea soup fog, rain, blizzards. floods, tornadoes or high winds because weather creates drama and pits humans against nature.

In my novel, A Village Shattered, a San Joaquin Valley serial killer hides in opaque fog and kills residents of a retirement village alphabetically. Two widows, Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty, realize their names are on the killer's list and brave the fog to discover who's killing their friends.

Diary of Murder begins in a Rocky Mountain blizzard while Dana and Sarah are vacationing in Colorado when they learn of Dana’s sister’s death. Her husband claims it was suicide but Dana knows better and drives their 37-foot motorhome through a storm, which no one in her right mind would attempt, but I wrote that scene from experience.

In Murder on the Interstate, Dana and Sarah discover the body of a young woman in her Mercedes convertible during a rainstorm in northern Arizona. Later, they’re caught in a flash flood in a rented Hummer while pursed by a serial killer during a severe downpour. They have to be rescued by helicopter but they’re still not out of the woods.

I can’t think of a villain much worse than Hurricane Irene, which threatened the lives of millions of residents on the Eastern seaboard. Weather can set the mood for a scene, serve as a barrier to solve a problem or kill those foolhardy enough to venture into it. However, weather scenes that aren't designed to further the plot should be avoided.

What Do We Writers Need?

2011-10-27T18:23:00.000-07:00

Some writers compose on laptops at their kitchen tables while others require an elaborately designed office like Mary Higgins Clark. But whether your writing space is large or small, drafty or air conditioned, there are things we all need in order to create, although they differ widely.

Many writers need quiet with a capital Q. But those of us who began our writing careers as news reporters and can literally write in the midst of traffic jam, so great is our ability to concentrate. So what do other writers require?

According to Bethane Kelly Patrick in her Writer’s magazine article, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s writing desk was filled with objects d’art, souvenirs and books. On the other hand, Henry David Thoreau’s sparsely furnished shelter by the pond was as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. He must have been easily distracted. And in those days, a quill and ink well were necessary tools. Now, a keyboard is all we need to create.

Writing is a lonely avocation and pets, especially well-mannered dogs, make great companions. Cats are also great companions although they’ve been known to walk the keyboard and create some interesting literature of their own.

Music is a requirement for some while others want to be surrounded by family photos to inspire them, or a jar of jelly beans or cup of stimulant, whether it’s coffee, tea or soda.

Writers from the past were known for their drinking habits, among them Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. Hemingway claimed that he never drank while he wrote but said that he could tell when Faulkner began drinking during the writing process by simply reading his prose.

A Christian novelist I know says that he has a special baseball cap that he wears while writing. Once misplaced, he developed writer’s block. A romance writer told me that she carries a charm in her pocket and that it helps her to develop her muse.

I write surrounded by book cases and a stack of manuscripts and research notes. A neat, sterile environment just isn’t conducive to my creativity. As long as I have more than one work in progress, I know that I’m not going to bog down with writer’s block. Especially if I have a steaming cup of chai tea.

How about you? Which things do you keep handy to stimulate your creativity and what’s your writing environment like?

Creating and Naming Your Characters

2011-10-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

Some of us are tempted to create characters based on people we know. And that's fine as long as you don’t describe them accurately. Your relatives probably won’t sue if they find themselves in your novels, but others might.

To successfully sue, a plaintiff must prove that your fictional character is negatively based on her, and that your depiction has injured her emotionally, financially or socially. It’s safer to write about a public figure or someone deceased, although their relatives can sue for defaming them posthumously. To avoid lawsuits, disguise your characters in ways to make them unrecognizable. That includes physical appearances as well as mannerisms. By combining the traits of one person with another, you'll have a unique character.

How much disguise is necessary? There aren’t any hard and fast rules but merely changing a person’s name will not keep you out of court. The only safe way to avoid litigation is to change the character’s name, sex, age, occupation and appearance. On the other hand, wouldn’t it be better to create an entirely new character?

Creating enough characters to inhabit a novel is easier if the writer is a people watcher. A good imagination is also a plus when you flesh out your characters so they're real to your readers. That's also true of names. You have to be careful what you name your villains because someone with the same name may take offense and claim to have been libeled. To avoid this, give your villains simple names such as Bob Smith, Joe Brown or Pat Wilson. If you’re unsure, there’s a website, “How Many of Me?” which lists how many people have a certain name. I also check with various people finders online to make sure no one has the name when I decide on an unusual one. I was surprised to learn that out of more than 312,000,000 people in this country, no one else has my name.

Character names are important because they conger up images in a reader’s mind. You wouldn’t name a contemporary character Ebenezer any more than you would call a Roman Emperor Mike. Sometimes you can get away with stretching the rules. In my first mystery/suspense novel, A Village Shattered, I named one of my contemporary characters Elisibub because his southern parents named him for his great-grandfather, a Civil War captain. So everyone calls him “Bub.”

Writers can create some wonderful names for their characters by reading newspapers or the phonebook. I knew a western writer, Stanley Locke, who chose Ormly Gumfudgin as his pen name. I’ve also known people with unusual names such as Fayfern Dinkle, Damery Binkle, Wakley Peacock and Sissie Muddle, but I wouldn’t dream of using them in a novel. Like my name, they’re one of a kind, but that doesn't stop me from tweaking them a little and coming up with Wilber Birdsnest, Damer Winkle and Fannie Dinkley. I like to insert humor in my work, including my nonfiction books.

Male protagonists with names like Daniel, Michael, George and David seem to instill confidence in the reader that they will accomplish their goals or overcome a problem before the book’s conclusion. Female characters have an ever wider range of names and writers have been known to create some unusual ones. I prefer short, common names such as Dana, Sarah, James and Carole, which are characters in my latest novel. It’s only when I choose surnames that I'm creative.

Flawed Characters

2011-10-22T09:32:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest mistakes novice writers make is to produce flawless characters. Handsome or beautiful, they have perfect marriages, lots of money, fine cars and homes, good educations and the best of everything. The problem is that few readers can identify with them.

Characters, aside from villains, should be lovable, or at least likable. Never perfect. Your characters must have flaws for readers to be able to empathize with them. Remember Emma Bovary in Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones?

The most important thing to remember is to focus on your character's vulnerabilities, according to writing instructor Bret Anthony Johnston."Your focus can be on physical or emotional vulnerability, but it has to be intimately tied to the character. What makes her sad, embarrasses her? What frightens her, what does she regret? What minor or major trespasses has she committed?"

In the case of Emma Bovary, we can sympathize with her mistakes and how they affect her life.

What does your character need or want? And what does he stand to gain or lose by the conclusion of the plot? Whether or not the character achieves his goal isn't as important as how badly he wants it. Your reader will hang in there with your protagonist once she understands his goals and desires. Make that desire as compelling as possible. A character who wants to achieve world peace is far less desirable, according to Johnston, than someone who craves a gourmet dinner, because the goal is attainable.

Once you decide what it is your protagonist wants, emphasize it throughout the story. From the first paragraph, your reader should understand the character's goal and it should color everything he does. And the more he wants something, the more the reader likes him.

Dialogue is a great way to portray a character's weakness. If he talks about someone else, the reader picks up information about the character himself by his description. The type of food he eats or the genre of music he listens to gives us some insight into his character. Does he stop by a fast food place for a burger instead of a restaurant for a good meal? Does he smoke a pack of cigarettes while on stakeout?

In The Great Gatsby when Nick Caraway tries to describe how Daisy Buchannan speaks, he says, "Her voice is full of money." Fitzgerald's few words tells us a lot about both Caraway and Buchannan.

A writer's job is should be more like a method actor than a news reporter. Striving to see the world through your protagonist's eyes is most important. Focus on the details and events happening in his or her life. But that doesn't mean that your fictional characters should like the same things you do or share the same views. Nor should they become your parrot. Each character should have his own distinct speech pattern and outlook on life.

Keep your protagonist in proverbial hot water as much as possible. Allow the water to cool periodically to avoid melodrama, but keep turning up the heat until events come to a boil. When your character has achieved his goal or solved his dilemma, remove him from the pot and dry him off for a satisfying ending.

Believable Characters

2011-10-20T00:06:00.000-07:00

Readers need to understand your characters and why they react the way they do. The difference between a good story and a great one is the result of careful weaving of characterization and style.

Most important is to create characters that are totally human, unpredictable and involved in the action of the plot. Authors Nan Leslie and Jack Smith wrote in a Writer’s magazine article that “You begin with the principal physical and psychological traits of your characters. A plethora of commonplace details is not the answer. This is mind-numbing to your audience, and readers will not relate on an emotional level to your characters. Once you have in mind a few recognizable traits, make your characters come alive by suggesting these traits or qualities. Avoid direct statement. Rather than explain everything about your character, use dramatic action to imply what you, as the author, already know to be true.”

In other words, a few character traits—three or four—are enough to make your reader identify with your protagonist. A laundry list of character flaws does not endear your reader to those who people your books. By capturing your protagonist’s emotional state, you not only hook the reader with the anger, jealousy, suspicion or other emotion, you enlist his or her empathy. In order to do this, you must place your characters in scenes that reveal their thoughts and goals. Portray your main character’s struggles to make the right decisions. The more he struggles, the more your reader becomes involved in the plot.

Make the reader worry about your character and plunge her progressively deeper into danger (or other problems). Hang her over a cliff and have the villain stomp on her fingers. If she falls, don’t have the hero rush to her rescue. Allow her to save herself, if at all possible. But don’t make her rescue improbable. The protagonist’s salvation must not only be clever but believable. Don’t use coincidence as a way to solve your story’s problem. Suspension of disbelief is what you’re aiming for as well as a satisfying ending.

Point of view and characterization must blend well together. Which of your characters is best suited to tell the story? Writing mainly from inside your characters’ heads—their thoughts, feelings and fears—seeing events through their eyes not only makes the story believable but pulls the reader into the plot. Multiple POVs can add depth to your story but head hopping within a scene can confuse the reader and disengage him from the action. Keep him in focus as though viewing the scene through a movie camera.

Surprise your reader at every turn. If she guesses the outcome of a scene, you haven’t done your job well. Strive to not only produce unique characters but to find a better way of saying things. Never rely on time-worn phrases or portray your characters as blatant stereotypes or cardboard cutouts. And be sure to invent unusual circumstances in which to place your characters.

Fear of Writing

2011-10-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

The single most important drawback to a writer’s success is fear. Fear of criticism from one’s peers or condemnation from the general public. Fear of negative reviews or of spending a year or more writing a book that doesn’t sell. Fear of hiring an agent who won’t send your book to the right publishers. The list is endless.

Fear is a natural human response, especially when you step off into unknown territory such as a new genre, new publisher, new editor. Even bestselling authors fear losing their readers. So how does a writer overcome those fears?

By believing in your abilities and talents. Persistence or staying power must be a tool in every writer’s bag. Marcel Proust couldn’t finish his epic Remembrance of Things Past until his mother died because he feared hurting her feelings. How many other books have been set aside and never published because writers feared repercussions?

The writing profession kindles fear and involves taking risks but writers have to come to grips with their fears and channel them into their work such as thriller novelists who produce chilling stories for their readers. Writer Greg Lavoy advises fellow scribblers not to ignore fear. “Whatever is suppressed not only has power over you, but will help create obstacles to continually remind you of what you’re hiding from, where you feel you don’t measure up, and whether you don’t have faith in yourself. Success often has as much to do with finding what is standing in your way as with talent or persistence.”

Just as plugging in a night light for those who fear the dark doesn’t eliminate fear of the dark, only the darkness, not sending out submissions to new publishers only eliminates fear of rejection. It also eliminates the ladder to success.

The poet W.H. Auden said, “Believe in your pain. Take it seriously, know that it has meaning and utility, and that it grows a powerful kind of writing.” Unfortunately, most of us will do everything in our power to avoid fear and rejection so we don’t learn from it.

Rejections and Writer Envy

2011-10-15T15:51:00.000-07:00

When a rejection letter arrives, allow yourself an hour to grieve, then get thyself back to the computer and query that same editor with another story idea. Or, if the rejection was harsh, dig out your list of editors and begin querying again. Don’t think that John Grisham was immune to rejections. His first novel was rejected nearly thirty times before it was accepted for publication.

If it isn’t happening for you right now, don’t let the green-eyed monster invade your soul when you read congratulations to other writers who announce a sale or writing award. They’ve been where you are any number of times before they were discovered.

Professional envy seems to be more prevalent in writers than other professions because we invest more of ourselves in our work. Psychologist Eric Maisel, the author of Coaching the Artist Within, says the wide gap between successful writers and those still struggling to succeed enhances feelings of envy. And, unlike most occupations, there is no linear path to success.

You may have been writing steadily for years, selling sporadically, when you notice that someone half your age is on the bestseller list. How could that happen when you’re a much better writer? Maybe she’s the editor’s cousin or she happened to meet a top agent at a cocktail party. Luck does play a role in publishing successes. So you’ve got to put yourself out there and make your work known. What better place than the Internet?

Diana Burrell wrote that “envy is a real burden for writers because it can derail a promising career. Envy manifests itself in two destructive ways: as psychological pain, such as lowered self-confidence or depression, and acting out behaviors that include self-sabotage (sending out sloppy query letters, for example) and withdrawal (failing to network with other writers for fear of reading or hearing someone else’s good news).”

Mansel said, “It becomes a vicious cycle. You have more to envy because you have fewer successes because you’ve been hiding out.” In the long run, depression and negative feelings can cause writers to develop creative blocks and they may stop writing altogether. The good news is that you can conquer your feelings of envy by admitting them aloud to yourself, which helps to dissipate the power they hold over you.

“You must take action in spite of how you feel," Mansel said. Burrell defined that action as transforming envy into desire. Begrudging a shameless self promoter only causes you pain. Instead, study how the writer works his or her press and create a promotional plan of your own.

Success is relative. For some it’s getting a single book published. For others it’s the bestseller list. Create your own list of goals you wish to achieve and figure out how to get there. Some writers consider themselves successful if they earn enough money to quit their day job. What are your writing goals? Write them down and paste them to your computer so that you never lose sight of them.

Now, what if one or more of your writer friends is envious of you and it’s ruining your relationships? How do you handle that? Mansel advises us to “Be your best self. Act as a mentor, freely giving advice to those who ask for it, and try to be of help. It can be painful when you sense other writers are rejoicing in your setbacks, so take a deep breath, smile and remain compassionate. If you take your successes too seriously and notice that your relationships with other writers are becoming difficult, he advises: “Get over yourself.”

How to Repair Your Manuscript

2011-10-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

Something’s not quite right with your manuscript but how do you solve the problem? There’s so much to consider: characterization, pacing, theme, plot, rhythm, style and more. Early drafts only sketch in the story while final drafts define your characters and fine tune the plot.

First of all, you need to compartmentalize your approach, according to editor Raymond Obstfeld. His plan is to revise one step at a time by ignoring other aspects of the story while focusing on characters or plot. He also advices revising in short sections such as scenes or chapters. The sense is that while revising, you’re rethinking what you’ve written and who your characters really are. By beginning the scene anew, you can rethink the process and eliminate any unnecessary asides or uncharacteristic dialogue. Take your time to figure out what in the storyline is bothering you.

Develop a clear and engaging storyline. Then look for passive, talking-head characters. Also look for a lack of plot build-up and anti-climatic action. If your characters are just sitting around talking with a lack of tension or conflict in a scene, stir some up. Place your characters in traffic and have them arguing. Maybe the wife is tired of her husband’s careless driving or she’s dragging him to a dinner with people he doesn’t like.

Each scene should be a mini-story with a beginning, middle and end. A scene should be like a boxing match, with plenty of conflict and a winner or "knockout" at the end of each one. Obstfeld says that every scene should have a “hot spot,” a “point in which the action and/or emotions reach an apex. When revising for structure, make sure you locate the hot spot—and that it generates enough heat to justify the scene.”

Once the entire story is complete, you need to revise the structure of the entire manuscript. Before playing musical chairs with your scenes, make note cards of each one, noting which characters are in the scene or chapter and briefly summarize the action. This can be done on the computer by filing each scene separately. You may find that you've strung too many passive scenes together and need to insert some tension and conflict.

Mystery writer Marlys Millhiser once showed me her charts for each scene. Using colored pencils, she drew a graft of different aspects of the plot in various colors to prevent melodrama as well as passivity. Other writers have different techniques to hold a reader’s interest.

Some novelists use a lot of description, others very little. There’s no rule of thumb unless description gets in the way of action and the plot moving forward. I write little description, leaving it up to the reader’s imagination. Of course, too little description can leave the reader feeling left out of the scene entirely. It’s a careful balancing act at best.

Too much technical information can frustrate the reader and information dump can accomplish the same result. Don’t try to use all your research in one manuscript. Save most of it for future projects.

Forget About Perfect Grammar

2011-10-12T13:13:00.000-07:00

It’s often difficult for novices to break the writing habits they've learned in school. Perfect grammar, especially when writing dialogue, is one of the worst mistakes a writer can make. I was in an online critique group a dozen years ago, comprised mainly of unpublished writers. I’ll never forget a critique that said, “You need to clean up your characters’ grammar.” The characters were uneducated farmers.

Author William Noble once said, “The grammar rules we learned in eighth grade should never be followed absolutely. At best they are one choice among several, and at worst, they will dampen our creative instincts.”

The use of clichés is another fledgling blunder. The rule of thumb is: if it sounds familiar, don’t use it. If you can’t come up with something original and your muse is tugging you on, type in a row of Xs and write it later during the second draft. But if you must use a cliché, add the word proverbial as in "as profitable as the proverbial golden goose."

Of course there are rules that must be followed, such as adding commas for clarity and periods at the end of sentences. Some writers have felt that innovative sentence structure signals creativity, but the practice is only acceptable now in poetry. In Ulysses, for example, James Joyce’s last chapter begins with:

Yes, because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs. Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for the masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever. . .

Joyce’s stream of conscience continues for forty pages without a single period. I wonder how many people actually read it to the end. Creative and innovative? In my opinion, anything that slows the reader for even a few words may cause him to abandon the book.

On the opposite end of the sentence spectrum, Hemingway taught novices to write declarative sentences: “The day had been hot.” “The rifle was long and cold and strange.” “She wore black shoes, a red cape and a white tunic. . .” However, short, choppy sentences must be interspersed with longer ones to make them read well. A good practice for beginning writers is to read one’s work aloud to avoid clumsy phrasing. If words don’t flow well together and your reader stumbles over them, you’ve lost her.

Reading the classics doesn't prepare anyone well to write for today’s market. I’ve judged writing contest entries that contain the most formal language I’ve read since reading War and Peace. Some fledglings avoid contractions entirely, even when writing dialogue. The result is stilted language.

Studying the bestsellers for style, content, description and characterization helps the beginner gain a handhold in the current market. Some writing teachers advise copying your favorite author’s work, as artists have done with the masters—as long as it’s only practice and doesn't result in plagiarism.

I learned to write fiction by studying the work of Dean Koontz and others. Whose writing have you studied and did it teach you the language of fiction?

Make Every Word Count

2011-10-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

I recall a workshop where the instructor impressed upon his students that each word committed to paper should pull its own weight. And that every unnecessary word needs to be culled from the plot.

Writers need to engage their readers, not simply enlighten and entertain them. Creating word images that readers can relate to is preferable to forcing them to fill in the blanks. A Hummer conveys a much stronger image than riding to someone's rescue in a Volkswagen. Strong verbs are necessary to give one’s plot a dynamic, energetic tone--words such as leaped, scurried and rumbled. And as we’ve all been told, stay away from the verb to be in all its forms because it’s the weakest of words.

Adverbs that end in –ly also weaken your prose. On the other hand, strong specific verbs give writing vitality. I’m reminded of my interview with A.B. Guthrie, Jr. who said, “The adjective is the enemy of the noun and the adverb is the enemy of [almost] everything else. Writers use too many descriptive words. "As for adjectives, author Lois J. Peterson once said, “One well-chosen adjective can be more effective than two or more, which used together might weaken the idea or image.”

Do we really need adverbs? Not unless it's impossible to come up with strong verbs, such as substituting rumbled instead of drove noisily. Delete the adverbs in your second draft and replace them with muscular verbs. As for adjectives, the rundown house can be rewritten as a hovel.

Word choices affect the plot’s pace. If every symphony movement maintained the same pace, the audience would either be exhausted or asleep before the finale. So writers need to think of themselves as conductors, controlling the pace with word choices, syntax and variety. Long sentences and paragraphs slow the pace and seem to be introspective while short, choppy sentences are much more dramatic and conducive of action scenes. So, in order to keep your reader reading, alternate your sentences and paragraphs in a variety of lengths.

Sentence rhythm is important so be sure to read your work aloud before committing it to a final draft. Some word choices bring a sentence to an abrupt halt and should be rewritten or replaced, along with all unnecessary words. The musical analogy is a good one because sentence flow is so important.

Why Must You Write?

2011-10-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many of us are born with a compulsion to write. I've interviewed a number of writers who have created not only elaborate stories, while still in elementary school, but novels and three or four-act plays. I'm one who wrote a novel at age nine, a chapter a day to entertain classmates.

But why do we feel we have to write?

Mignon G. Eberhart once said: “I write because I like to, sometimes hate to, but I have to write. I started when I was very young, almost as soon as I could put pencil to paper.”

Fellow mystery writer Lawrence Kamarck added: “I suppose I have a storyteller’s compulsion. I want to tell somebody what’s happening to all of us. I’m convinced nobody really knows but me. And because I want to keep the [reader’s] attention, I tell my story with as much force and drama as possible, within credible limits.”

Pulitzer winner A. B. Guthrie, Jr. told me during an interview that “the fun is having written well.” But he confessed that he didn’t enjoy the actual process of writing. “At the end of the day, I go back over it and say to myself, ‘By golly, that’s right, that’s right.’ And then I’m rewarded.”

Ross MacDonald once said: “Mystery stories have always interested me because they seem to correspond with life. They deal with the problems of causality and guilt that concern me.”

Loren D. Estleman wrote as an adolescent and sold his first novel at 23. He saw little of his parents because he spent so much time in his unheated, upstairs room, his only companion a typewriter. "I lived in my study and I didn’t have much of a private life,” he said. “It revolved around my writing . . .”

I like Estleman’s description of a mystery. “For me, a good mystery places story and character ahead of all else, yet never loses sight of the simple truth that in order to be a mystery, a question must be asked. It needn’t be a whodunit, and might be something as simple and maddening as why the murdered man had three left shoes in his closet and no mates. If the writer has done his job well, the reader will forget the question as the story draws him in. But there had damn well better be a mystery involved if he’s going to call it one.”

I pulled an aging copy of Mystery Writers Handbook from one of my book shelves and found the following quote from the editor, Lawrence Treat:. “Great ‘mysteries are great novels, like Crime and Punishment, A Tale of Two Cities and The Scarlet Pimpernel. And they’re clearly mysteries.”

I then asked my fellow Murderous Musings blog team members why they write mysteries. Ben Small, during one of his more serious moments, had this to say:

“I write mysteries and thrillers because I love the high stakes competition between good and evil, the uncertainty of justice, and the suspense of the ticking clock as the protagonist puzzles out a solution. Good stuff, escaping into a make-believe puzzle-world where I push the reader to beat me to the solution.”

Beth Terrell said that she loves the fact that the detective puts his own life at risk to protect others. She also loves the fact that “the good guy always wins--or almost always--even if it’s at a terrible cost. I feel like mysteries work on so many different levels. They are ripping good stories, thought-provoking puzzles, and wonderful vehicles to write about real human problems—things that matter. They’re a challenge to write; a good mystery or thriller has to do all the things a literary novel does and weave a gripping plot as well.”

Pat Browning concluded that a mystery is the oldest form of storytelling--with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Sometimes there's a moral, sometimes it's a cautionary tale. It reassures us that good triumphs over evil. It satisfies our need to know that everything turns out all right in the end. Contemporary mysteries often have a romantic angle, and a humorous twist In short, the mystery offers something for every reader.

Writing Books I Recommend

2011-10-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

There are a number of good books on writing available, many of value to even the most experienced writers. I’ve accumulated quite a few during my many years in the publishing industry and I’d like to share a few of the best:

~Richard Curtis’s How to be Your Own Literary Agent has been around since 1983, and was revised and expanded in 2003. Curtis doesn’t advise fledglings to become their own agents, despite the book’s title, but offers advice for those brave enough to try. A top notch agent with forty plus year's experience, he outlines in detail what his job entails. He also lists the reasons why publishers can no longer afford over the transom submissions.

How to negotiate your own contract alone is worth the price of the book as well as termination and revision rights, royalty statements and the bookkeeping games that publishers play. He also talks about warranties, permissions, option causes, ancillary rights, cyberbooks and hyper authors, ebooks, movie and TV deals and what writers need to know to launch their careers in today’s publishing environment, among other insider tips.

~Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: How to Knock ‘em Dead with Style is another book writers should read. Novelist and broadcast journalist Hank Phillippi Ryan swears that Ephron’s book enabled her to write her award winning novels. Ephron talks about planning a novel, writing a dramatic opening, creating a sense of place, fixing plots and characters, and targeting agents.

Ephron also discusses villains, choosing a title for your book, introducing your protagonist, planting clues or red herrings, laying in backstory, minor characters, point of view, dialogue and everything in between. I highly recommend this book written by a best selling novelist.

~How to Write Killer Fiction is another book writers should have on their shelves. I especially enjoyed her chapter on writing killer fiction. Her introduction quotes the late John Gardner, who wrote, “Fiction is like a dream.” She goes on to say that “Fiction can send us on a roller coaster ride of sensation, or it can produce images as distorted as any to be seen in the funhouse mirror in the carnival.” And “If fiction is like a dream, then suspense is a nightmare. The hero, and through the hero the reader, is plunged into chaos, driven from one extreme to the other, hounded and disbelieved and threatened with ultimate danger.”

Wheat writes of many aspects of her “Funhouse of Mystery,” including organizing your novel, the two-layered ending, spy fiction offshoots, the hero’s journey, how to finish your book before it finishes you, endings that satisfy, the storyboard, comic relief and much more.

Another how-to book I’ve been hearing about for some time but only acquired recently is Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, an abstract and somewhat shocking account of her journey as a writer. A fiction writing teacher, she writes of her experiences growing up, in her classroom, as well as writing her own novels. In the book she says, “Now, who knows if any of this is usable material? There’s no way to tell until you’ve got it all down, and then there might just be one sentence or one character or one theme that you end up using. But you get it all down. You just write.” Word by word. Bird by bird. The writing advice and lessons she offers her students as well as her readers is invaluable.

I’ve saved some of the best for last: Chris Roerden’s award winning books, Don't Murder Your Mystery and Don’t Sabotage Your Submission. The former New York editor, freelance editor and author lists ten reasons writers cause editors to cringe: Arrogance, as in

~ My book is so good it doesn’t need editing.
~ The only thing it could use is maybe a light proofreading.
~ Everyone will want to buy it.
~ Every publisher will want to publish it.
~ They’re getting a bargain at 150,000 words.
~ To make sure no one steals my ideas, I’ve already registered the copyright.
~ I don’t have to read guidelines, write a synopsis, or play by any of those other Mickey Mouse rules because those are for amateurs.
~ I never read books about writing.
~ What genre is it, you ask? Let the publisher figure that out. They’re in the business. It’s got romance, mystery, history, and biography, and autobiography.
~There isn’t another book like it.

(Excerpted from my ebook, Mysterious Writers: The Many Facets of Mystery Writing.

Mistakes Novice Writers Make

2011-10-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

It’s often difficult for novices to break the writing habits they've learned in school. Perfect grammar, especially when writing dialogue, is one of the worst mistakes a writer can make. I was once a member of an online critique group comprised of unpublished writers. I’ll never forget a critique that said, “You need to clean up your characters’ grammar.” The characters were uneducated farmers.

Author William Noble said, “The grammar rules we learned in eighth grade should never be followed absolutely. At best they are one choice among several, and at worst, they will dampen our creative instincts.”

The use of clichés is another fledgling blunder. The rule of thumb is: if it sounds familiar, don’t use it. If you can’t come up with something original and your muse is tugging you on, type in a row of Xs and write it later during the second draft. But if you must use a cliché, add the word proverbial as in "as profitable as the proverbial golden goose."

Of course there are rules that must be followed, such as adding commas for clarity and periods at the end of sentences. Some writers have felt that innovative sentence structure signals creativity, but the practice is only acceptable now in poetry. In Ulysses, for example, James Joyce’s last chapter begins with:

Yes, because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the City Arms hotel when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his highness to make himself interesting to that old faggot Mrs. Riordan that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing all for the masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever. . .

Joyce’s stream of conscience continues for forty pages without a single period. I wonder how many people actually read it to the end. Creative and innovative? Anything that slows the reader for even a few words may cause her to abandon the book.

On the opposite end of the sentence spectrum, Hemingway taught novices to write declarative sentences: “The day had been hot.” “The rifle was long and cold and strange.” “She wore black shoes, a red cape and a white tunic. . .” However, short, choppy sentences must be interspersed with longer ones to make them read well. A good practice for beginning writers is to read one’s work aloud to avoid clumsy phrasing. If words don’t flow well together and your reader stumbles over them, you’ve lost him.

Reading the classics doesn't prepare anyone to write for today’s market. I’ve judged writing contest entries that contain the most formal language I’ve seen since reading War and Peace. Some fledglings avoid contractions entirely, even when writing dialogue. The result is stilted language.

Studying the bestsellers for style, content, description and characterization helps the beginner gain a handhold in the current market. Some writing teachers advise copying your favorite author’s work, as artists have done with the masters—as long as it’s only practice and doesn't result in plagiarism.

I learned to write fiction by studying the work of Dean Koontz and Sue Grafton. Whose writing have you studied and did it teach you the language of fiction?

And the winner is: Dellani Oakes

2011-10-02T07:39:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions for a new book cover for Diary of Murder. We've decided on the black cover with red and gold letters.

The Three Rules of Dialogue

2011-10-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

I’m one of those writers who fills the page with dialogue rather than narrative because dialogue is my forte. Those of us with an ear for accents and speech patterns are fortunate to be able to transcribe them onto the page. But dialogue that doesn’t further the story or define characters will cause a manuscript to be rejected, no matter how well it’s written.

I remember reading Robyn Carr’s article years ago about the three rules of dialogue, which I copied onto 3 x 5 cards for future reference.

Rule #1: Dialogue should tell the reader something about the character’s personality or emotions, or at least reinforce something already established, like anger, timidity, cruelty, impatience or perfectionism. Instead of having a character greet someone by simply saying “hello,” have him say, “Where've you been?” or “Do you know what time it is?” while tapping his foot impatiently.

Rule #2: Dialogue needs to propel the plot forward while the reader gets to know the characters through the way they react to stimuli that directly affects their lives. Their conversations need to establish or reinforce their emotions, their relationships, and the roles they play in the plot to enhance conflict and tension. Even when writing comedy, the characters' reactions to one another are actually conflict in its truest sense.

Rule #3: Dialogue must individualize each character. No two characters should sound alike just as no two people use the same words or phrases. Each character needs to have his or her own expressions, dialects, euphemisms, speech styles and inflections. But that’s not all. They must also have their own value systems, motivations, personal habits and other traits that are expressed in dialogue.

For example, if you assigned each character a number instead of a name and gender, would they be distinguishable from one another?

Every line of dialogue has a job to do. When you’re editing and polishing a second draft, eliminate every word that doesn’t need to be there. People rarely speak in complete sentences so make sure your characters don’t sound as though they’re reciting an English lesson.

Creating a character sheet is a good way to establish who your characters really are. Describe each one physically and include his or her basic background information. Then consider pertinent information that will determine her dialogue. How well educated is she? Is her voice husky, squeaky, soft or loud? Does she have verbal ticks? Is he shy and does she stutter when she speaks? Does she use slang? Does he speak haltingly? Or is she articulate and chooses her words well?

How motivated is your protagonist? Is he aggressive, single-minded, abrasive, generous or power hungry? Any or all those traits should show up in his dialogue. Geographical differences also affect a character’s dialogue as does his education, or lack of schooling. If a character dropped out of school in the fifth grade, he won’t have an impressive vocabulary, unless he’s very motivated and schooled on his own. If that’s the case, make sure your reader knows it. One way is to have other characters talk about his education, or lack of schooling, when he’s not around, or praise him for it when he is.

According to Robin Carr, "Characters come alive when every bit of dialogue develops their personalities; when the action, tension and drama are heightened because of what they said, how they said it and when they chose to speak and when the characters’ complex individualism sets them apart from each other."

Publishing Etiquette

2011-09-28T22:21:00.000-07:00

Elmore Leonard's Ten Writing Rules

2011-09-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people.

2. Avoid prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.” This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly. Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It’s my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

Which Book Cover?

2011-09-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

Please help me decide which book cover to choose from for the second edition of my mystery novel, Diary of Murder. My books were orphaned when my publisher died recenlty and I'm trying to upload again online. Your opinions are greatly appreciated. I'll draw names from among those who comment for a free print copy when it's published next month (or a Kindle or Nook, if you prefer).

Thanks for your help!

Or none of the above. :)

If you're unable to leave a comment, you can email me at: http://www.jeanhenrymead.com/contact.htm

The Rocky Road to Publication Has Become Much Smoother

2011-09-25T08:05:00.000-07:00

Now that there so many small presses and online writing courses, a fledgling writer has a much smoother path to publication than those of us who began writing in the dark ages (before computers). I wrote my first novel in fourth grade—a chapter a day to entertain classmates—but it was many years before I actually published one, and not before five of my nonfiction books were in print.

No novel writing courses were available when I served as editor of my college newspaper, so my logical career choice was journalism. I then wrote for three dailies, two in California before marrying a Wyomingite and moving to Casper, where I served as staff writer for the statewide newspaper. I was later editor of In Wyoming Magazine and freelanced for other publications, but what I really wanted to write were novels.

My forte has been interviews, which I still conduct to this day on my blog sites Mysterious Writers and Writers of the West. While I enjoyed interviewing interesting people, the yearning to write fiction was always there, like an itch I couldn’t quite scratch. I studied the work of Dean Koontz, whose stories horrified me (which they’re meant to do) until I read The Watchers, one of my favorite novels. I still like the poetic way Koontz strings his words together.

I spent two and a half years behind a microfilm machine during the mid-1980s to research my centennial history book, and had so many notes left over that I decided to incorporate them into an historical novel. The book, Escape on the Wind, took a number ofl years to write and rewrite, and has been published by three royalty publishers since 1999. It remains my best selling book and was retitled: Escape, A Wyoming Historical Novel. But writing the book was akin to climbing Mount. Everest.

A member of Mystery Writers of America as well as Western Writers of America, I was fortunate to have two award-winning novelists take me under their wings during the writing process. The late Fred Grove and Richard S. Wheeler read my manuscript and offered advice. Fred allowed me to send him my chapters via snail mail, and made suggestions although he didn’t edit my work. Both writers were continuing the work of their own mentors by giving me advice and I promised to pass along the favor by mentoring on my own. Now that I'm blogging and writing for more than one publisher, I regret I no longer have the time. But now there are many blogs offering writing advice that we didn't have years ago, as well as online courses. There are also numerous small publishers receptive to new writers.

The past year has seen an explosion of new ebooks on the market, now totaling over a million titles on Kindle alone. More than 70% of them are self-published and not all of them are worthy of reader’s hard earned money, but new and talented writers have been discovered and it’s an exciting time for new writers.

Writing and publishing novels has never been easy but it's now a far cry from the days of typewriters, carbon copies and white-out. I can’t imagine what writing a book was like with quills, inkwells and foolscap. We novelists have come a long way . . .

Writing for Older Readers

2011-09-23T06:34:00.000-07:00

I write senior sleuth novels because there’s a growing market for retirees who like to read in their own age group. I was intrigued years ago by Miss Marple and Hercule Periot, who were wise and perceptive, but never seemed to have any fun.

That’s not true of today’s seniors who are less inclined to retire to their rocking chairs than previous generations.

Pat Browning, who wrote Absinthe of Malice, said: “A St. Martin's editor gave me a piece of advice I have never forgotten: ‘Be careful not to turn your characters into cartoons.’ I try to picture older characters as they are--the same people they always were, only older. This is especially true when it comes to romance and sex. For all the jokes about senior sex, it is a very real part of senior life, and it's no joke to those lucky enough to have a romantic partner late in life.”

I agree. Not unlike Janet Evanovich’s character, Grandma Mazur, who is eccentric enough for a cartoon character, most seniors have the same interests they’ve always had, with the possible exception of roller blading and downhill skiing. On second thought, I once interviewed Buffalo Bill’s grandson Bill Cody, who learned to donwhill ski at 65 to keep up with his much younger wife.

Mike Befeler writes what he calls “Geezer-lit.” His first novel, Retirement Homes are Murder, features his octogenarian protagonist, “who is short on memory but has a sense of humor and love of life. He accepts his ‘geezerhood,’ solves a mystery and enjoys romance along the way.” He followed it up with Living With Your Kids Can Be Murder and is busy working on another book in the series.

My second senior sleuth mystery, A Village Shattered, takes place in a California retirement village. The plot is generously sprinkled with humor but none of the seniors resemble cartoon characters, although a couple come close, a redneck Casanova and love starved widow. Diary of Murder followed and I portrayed the two 60-year-old protagonist widows as quite capable of traveling the country in their motorhome as well as chasing down killers who happened to be drug dealers.

Another senior writer, Beth Solheim, spent years working in a nursing home and says she loves the elderly and their “humorous, quirky insight to life, love and longevity.” Her protagonists are 64-year-old twins in her humorous, paranormal cozy series, The Fifi Witt Mysteries.

Chester Campbell, an octogenarian, writes the Greg McKenzie Mysteries. He said, “My friends in this [age] bracket are out going places and doing things. Some, like me, continue to work at jobs they enjoy. I chose to use a senior couple in my books who are long married, get along fine, and do a competent job as private investigators. Greg, who narrates the books, is aware of his limitations from age and makes up for physical shortcomings by outsmarting his adversaries. My hope is to dispel some of the absurdity of the stereotypes about seniors that are all too familiar. Like the old song says, "Anything you can do I can do better."

Like so many other novelists, I write what I enjoy reading. My readers are mainly retirees and baby boomers who number over 78 million. Some 8,000 boomers are moving into the senior column every day, the fastest growing potential book buying market on record.

We’re experiencing the graying of America. What better subgenre to write for?

Plotting Your Mystery

2011-09-21T07:46:00.000-07:00

A strong opening sentence is obviously the best way to pull your reader into the story:

~Today is the last day of my life.

~The body was hanging at eye level.

~ The snow was so deep that only his cap was visible.

I know that you can write better opening sentences to entice your reader into your fictional world. It’s a writer’s job to seduce and lure, one carefully crafted step at a time into an adventure away from reality.

The reader needs to know where you’re taking her and why. Is your fictional world believable? Fantasy writers can get away with great stretches of the imagination but mystery writers need to stick to the facts. So don’t have a body suspended in mid-air unless you have a logical reason to do so.

Your opening sentence should lead directly into your main theme. Don’t start with a couple kissing on a park bench unless one or both are shot or witness to a nearby killing. And don’t start with boring backstory or you’ll soon lose your reader. Jump immediately into the action. Keep your reader breathless for pages before you let him up for air.

Motivation and goals are essential in developing your plot. Another good way to lose your reader is to have your protagonist risk his life simply because he had his foot stepped on. If the killer murdered the character’s mother, you have a believable reason for him to go after the culprit. Some amateur sleuth stories border on the ridiculous when ordinary people decide to trap a killer simply because they think they can. Give them good reasons to place their own lives in danger.

Don’t people your plots with too many characters. Mark Twain wrote that the best way to get rid of characters when they’re no longer needed is to have them jump down a well. Better yet, make sure characters are only there to further the plot and can be eliminated when you tie up all the story’s loose ends.

Killing off characters can be painful for the writer but extraneous side plots can kill a story. In the old western films cowboys rode off into the sunset with the townspeople staring after them. Not so with mystery novels, no matter what the sub genre. We want to leave the reader wanting more. Readers like to solve the mystery on their own before the conclusion, so don’t make the killer’s identity the most unlikely candidate in your plot. Be fair when you plant red herrings and clues so that the reader will be able say, “Aha, I should have known it was him (or her).”

What’s the best opening sentence you’ve written or read?

Your Own Manuscript Critic

2011-09-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

William G. Tapply wrote an interesting article about acquiring a personal critic to read your work—someone you can trust who is well read--a spouse who may also be a writer, a literate friend who won’t just tell you what you’ve written is great, or someone who can “read your manuscript with fresh eyes and give you straight-forward feedback that will help guide you through the vital process of revision.”

Even well-established novelists such as Stephen King rely on others to look over their work. Fortunately for King, his wife Tabitha is also a writer. He’s been quoted as saying that his wife has always been an extremely sympathetic and supportive first reader . . . but she’s also unflinching when she sees something wrong. “When she does, she lets me know loud and clear.”

Tapply says that sympathy and support as well as unflinching honesty is what you need from a personal critic. He suggests the following guidelines:

~ Don’t expect your critic to be an editor. Simply ask for an impartial read.

~ Have your critic read the manuscript with a pen in hand and write his or her views in the margins. Don’t expect the critic to censor himself, but simply write down whatever comes to mind.

~ The most useful feedback is what doesn’t work for the reader.

~Tell your critic not to worry about hurting your feelings. You want candor, not kindness.

~ You’re not asking for solutions because repairing what’s wrong is your responsibility.

~ However, if your critic has ideas about how you can handle something differently, you should be receptive to suggestions.

~Ask your critic to note her emotional responses to the story, both positive and negative.

~ Ask that notations be made if a passage is boring. All your critic has to write in the margin is “Ho, hum,” or if confused, “Huh?”

~Did your reader skip parts or an entire scene? Have him note it in the margin.

~Did anything in the story contradict itself or seem inconsistent?

~Were any of your characters or events unbelievable?

~ Were there any factual errors?

~ Ask that any words or punctuation marks be circled that don’t quite ring true.

And because criticism is much easier to give than take, ask that your critic write you a letter that points out and explains the most important observations and overall responses to your story. When you receive your marked up manuscript, give yourself at least a week to absorb the comments. Then, if you feel like screaming, hopefully no one will hear you.

Writing for Middle-grade Children

2011-09-17T07:44:00.000-07:00

Plotting a children’s chapter novel is easy, right? All you have to do is chart a path from the beginning through the middle to the end while filling in significant events.

Plotting is actually hard work, even when writing for kids. You need settings, situations and the kind of people that children can relate to. However, even the most talented writers often fall by the plotting wayside. Some start a manuscript with a great character who has a problem but the writing project often loses momentum and is never finished. Why? Because of plot problems.

You need more than a strong central theme, memorable characters and a problem that can be solved over the course of the book. I write middle grade mystery novels in addition to my books for adults, so I’m referring to the 9-12 age group although plotting techniques apply to all novels. Plotting for middle graders, especially when writing mysteries, requires technique.

Aristotle’s three-act structure has been used since the Greek philosopher lived during the 4^th century BC. Plots are structured around three acts, the first and third comprising half the work.The second act comprises the other half, which is the middle, where most novels seem to fall flat. So you should plan to introduce your character(s) and the problem at hand in the first 25% of your novel.

The middle half is when you make things more difficult for your protagonist by placing more barriers in her path. And the remaining 25% is when you present the climax and resolution. Decide on setting. Most middle graders’ lives are centered around school so you have to decide if your plot takes place during those hours or during vacation or after school.

You need to develop a time schedule when events are going to take place. That means outlining. (I hear groans from the pansers). The outline doesn’t have to be detailed, but it should include events that are going to get progressively worse as the plot continues.

Otherwise you can paint yourself into a corner, which I’ve done in the past. Then decide which activities you need to write that will complicate your character’s problem. Kids are well aware of stereotypes, so make sure your characters are unique Your protagonist will interact with her friends, teacher, principal, school librarian , bus driver and parents, among others, so decide which ones to include and keep them to a minimum. Unless characters are directly involved in solving your protagonist’s problem, they shouldn’t appear in the book.

Middle graders don’t require complicated plots so it’s usually best to concentrate on one powerful theme in a simple plot line, such as bullying, teasing, losing a best friend, etc. And don’t attempt to write only from experience. Do your homework and as much research on the subject as time allows. Talking to your children and grandchildren about problems they currently face will help tremendously. It also helps with learning their language.

Saturday morning childrens' programming is also a great resource. And be sure to check out Penny Warner's terrific site for kids: http://www.codebustersclub.com./

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Converting Your Blog Articles into a Book

2011-09-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

I never dreamed of converting my interviews at Mysterious Writers into a book when I started the blog site two years ago. But such good advice and life stories evolved that I couldn’t allow the material go to waste. I recycled a great many interviews and decided that saving them for posterity was the right thing to do, especially after Carolyn Hart and Jeffrey Deaver agreed to contribute to the series.

Since the interviews were accepted for publication by Poisoned Pen Press, I’ve seen Internet ads offering to turn blogs into books for $14.95. A great idea for a blogger’s memoirs but it's not very profitable for resale. I offered my book to three publishers, all of which accepted, so I was faced with a dilemma. Do I go with PPP, which only offered to publish for Kindle, Barnes and Noble and Sony readers? Two small, well respected presses also offered a print version but wanted to make changes. I finally decided to accept Poisoned Pen’s contract with the hope they would also publish a print edition or sell the print rights to another publisher. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The next edition, however, will also appear in print.

Interviews that only feature unknown writers usually don't sell well, and I found that the best time to approach a bestselling author is just before a new release, which is probably why Sue Grafton agreed to an interview when V is for Vengeance hits the market in November. Embolded from acceptances from Elmore Leonard, Lawrence Block, Nancy Pickard, J.A. Jance and other publishing giants, I ask Janet Evanovich for an interview. So far I haven’t received an answer, but you can’t win them all.

I’ve featured quotes from interviewees at my Facebook sites to advertise the book. Among my favorites is one from Nancy Means Wright: "Vermont writer Howard Frank Mosher nails up rejection slips and adverse reviews on the side of his barn and shoots holes in them. I just leave mine in a cardboard box and let my Maine Coon cats make a nest or pee on them. So send that manuscript out again!"

And from Louise Penny: "Finish the book. Most people who start books never finish them. Don't be one of those. Do it, for God's sake. You have nothing to fear--it won't kill you. It won't even bite you. This is your dream--this is your chance. You sure don't want to be lying on your death bed regretting you didn't finish the book." Lawrence Block was more succinct with his advice: "Write to please yourself. And don't expect too much."

If starting that first novel has you discouraged or you think you'll never get it finished, read what some of these writers have also gone through. Their stories are not only inspiring, they'll make you laugh and you'll wonder how the publishing business ever survived. (We writers must have inspired the invention of the straight jacket.)

I’ve had so many good interviews since Mysterious Writers was accepted that I plan to publish another collection next year. I’d really rather be writing mystery novels but I began my writing career a news reporter, so interviewing is second nature. And the rewards are immeasurable.

It doesn't matter what the subject of your blog posts are, including potpourri, there's a niche market for it. Small presses are receptive to various subjects, especially if you tell them about your target audience and the number of blog visitors to your site. And, if all else fails, you can go the indie route with Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook, Smashwords and Createspeace, among others. There's never been a better or easier time to publish.

Why You Should Write Everyday

2011-09-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

When I sat down to write, I thought of a long ago interview with bestselling romance novelist Parris Afton Bonds for my book, Maverick Writers. Bonds emphasized the need for writers to write everyday. The mother of five lively sons, she wrote between diaper changes as well as on the job, which cost her several secretarial positions before she decided to write full time.

“I write when I’m sick,” she said, “and even as I shove that turkey into the oven on Thanksgiving and Christmas. There are no legal holidays for [professional] writers.”

A steady writing schedule is one of the most important aspects of publishing one’s work. Whether you rise two hours early to write before leaving for your day job, or at night before you go to bed, it needs to be done at least five days a week. Women with small children can schedule their writing time when the young ones are down for a nap, if only for an hour, but the same hour each day until it becomes a habit. But if you only have a few minutes now and then, use that time to jot down notes or bits of dialogue as Don Coldsmith did on the backs of prescription pads during his daily medical practice.

Mystery novelist Marlys Millhiser echoed Bond’s work ethic. She begins writing at 10:00 a.m. and continues until 4:00 in the afternoons. Both writers stressed the fact that you must stay at the computer (or note pad) no matter how difficult the writing is going that day.

“My first draft is pretty bad,” Millhiser said. “But no matter how difficult it is, I hang in there. Sometimes you have to backtrack and begin again, but don’t stop to polish a chapter until the first draft is finished. When I’m on a run and the plot floats along, the characters take over and it’s wonderful. But most of the time, I’m just sitting there and sweating it out. And I’ve found, I’m sorry to say, that the stuff I sweated out and got three pages by working my pants off, was about the same quality as when the story just flowed along and I’ve gotten ten pages.”

Brian Garfield, author of “Death Wish” and countless other novels and screenplays, said, “I took up writing partly because some of the stuff that was published seemed so awful and so easy to do, and of course it isn’t easy to do, as you find out when you sit down to try to do it. And it took a long time—a lot of apprenticeship practice before I could write anything that was worth publishing. But you don’t know that until you try. At the time of the interview, he wrote five hours a day, from 8:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. No longer because of back problems.

Set your pace, as steady as walking on a treadmill. Before long you’ll feel that you must write during those hours. It becomes as important to those who want to succeed as breathing. Writing is a way of life and a regular schedule is necessary.

I'm at my computer by eight in the morning, with few exceptions, and write until three or later in the afternoon. A half hour treadmill break gives me a chance to loosen up and recharge my brain cells.

When do you write and how often?

How to Rescue a Stalled Plot

2011-09-11T11:59:00.000-07:00

We’ve all been there at one time or another. Your story’s going along great and all of a sudden you come to a complete stop as though a stone wall stands in your path. Surprised and a little fearful, you can’t seem to get going again. You either abandon the project or put it aside, hoping you’ll eventually come back to it.

A good plot is like a good marriage. It begins with plenty of enthusiasm and energy, but after that first rush you have to settle in for the long haul. Your story has to deepen and acquire rich details so that your reader doesn’t lose interest. Sometimes, when you’ve run out of action and detail you might begin to hate your story and wish you’d never started it. That’s when you’ve run out of what William McCranor Henderson calls “character knowledge.” He says, “When you hit that wall and don’t know where to go next, the best solution is to dig deeper.”

Start by digging up intimate facts about your characters. Not everything about them, just the things we really need to know. Ideally, this includes the two or three key nuggets of personality or character history than can make you fall back in love with your story.

An example of character knowledge may be that Terry likes ice cream and is allergic to chocolate. These facts don’t necessarily add up to character knowledge unless they cause something crucial to happen in the story. If Terry is investigating a murder case and eats a dish of ice cream containing white chocolate that he’s unaware of, he may wind up in the hospital just as he’s about to crack the case. Or Julie comes down with a bad case of poison ivy just before her wedding because her jealous rival puts snippets of the woody vines in her bouquet.

One way to dig deeper into your character's past is to interview yourself. In a focused freewrite, you jot down a few lines and answer the questions honestly. Such as:

Q. Why would Johnny marry a girl he doesn’t love?

A. Her father owns a large company and will offer Johnny a management job. His wife will inherit the company some day, making Johnny a wealthy man. Maybe the old man will have an unfortunate accident and Johnny won’t have to wait that long for the money.

Q. But won’t his wife know that he doesn’t love her.

A. He’ll shower her with gifts and pretend that she’s the love of his life.

Q. But everyone thinks he’s a great guy.

A. So did I until I started digging into his character.

If you’re not getting the right answers from yourself, interview your characters.

Q. Why were you involved in the accident?

A. The road was slick and I lost control of my car.

Q. Weren't you paying attention to your driving?

A. I overcorrected because Sara distracted me.

Interviewing characters can reveal traits and faults you never knew existed, which can lead to various plot complications and solutions. Then, when you rewrite that blocked scene, you can take a new run at the wall and watch it disappear because you have character knowledge that allows you to view the scene through new eyes.

~Jean Henry Mead

And the winners are . . .

2011-09-01T07:02:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to William Cook, Angela Guillaume and Richard Mabry, who each won a copy of MURDER ON THE INTERSTATE. Please email me with your mailing addresses at: http://www.jeanhenrymead.com/contact.htm Thank you to everyone who entered the drawing. I hope you'll get a chance to read the book as well as the rest of the series.

2011-08-20T07:47:00.000-07:00

A Guest Blog by Timothy Hallinan

I once knew a woman who translated hieroglyphics, and one of the texts she rendered into English was one of the oldest poems known to man, dating from about 3000 BC. And what was it about?

It was about how things were better before. It was a lament for having missed the Golden Age.

It seems to be human nature to think in terms of lost Golden Ages. The operative word is “lost.” It's not even fashionable to suggest that we're living in a golden age.

But I think we are. I think this is a golden age for mysteries and thrillers.

Sure, some of the great ones are gone: Christie, Hammett, Chandler, Sayers, Tey, Highsmith, Stout, McDonald, Parker, and many others. But we have an enormous number of exceptional writers working now, and more titles to choose from than at any time in history. I'd put the best writers working today up against the best working at any time since Poe kicked things off. Who's better than James Lee Burke, Sue Grafton, Louise Penney, Laura Lippman, SJ Rozan, Lee Child, John LeCarre, Donna Leon – I could go on for pages – all writing right now?

Golden.

I think this Golden Age has come about for three reasons:
First, the ubiquity of relatively inexpensive books; until just a few years ago, despite all their moans and groans, the world's publishers put out, in editions of varying costs, more books than at any other time in history. And with all those books being published, good writing usually found a champion.
Second, the durability of the genre. The mystery or thriller is the one of the oldest genres (what is “Oedipus Rex” but a mystery?) and one of the most universal. Mysteries and thrillers help readers work through some of the most difficult aspects of human existence. They present a world in which order, even though it's been temporarily broken down, can be restored. They ignore the fashion of nihilism and despair that mars so much supposedly “literary” fiction.

Third, women have come full circle. Once the royalty of the genre, they faded during the heyday of the pulps. the hard-boiled noir, and the five-testicle PI fiction of the 40s through the 60s. And then, starting in the 70s, the entire genre tilted; women re-emerged with a vengeance, no longer confined to the classic and/or cozy end of the spectrum, but ranging straight across, from one extreme to another. And in one of the most remarkable shifts in modern marketing history, women became the driving force in mystery writing.

So now we have women writing all kinds of books and also some of the best male writers who have ever worked in the genre. Jackpot. We've also seen a loosening (pretty much an abandonment) of the old restrictions on what people can write about, which has produced some terrible books but also some really serious explorations of the darkest corners of human behavior.

And now we're seeing things open up even more widely. The ebook has broken New York's stranglehold on what we can read—and what we can write, too. Once again, we're seeing a lot of books that should have remained in people's desk drawers, but we're also seeing some tremendous stuff.
It's certainly opened things up for me. Like most writers, I've been restricted in what I could write because publishers would only buy a certain kind of book from me. But now I can write literally anything I want and put it out there to sink or swim.

I've always had an ambition to write a series in which the thrills were real but there were also a lot of laughs. And now, thanks to ebooks, I am. I just put out LITTLE ELVISES, the second in a series starring a Los Angeles burglar named Junior Bender who moonlights as a private eye for crooks. It's got some rough stuff in it, but it's also pretty funny, or so people tell me.

I believe it's a uniquely human experience to be frightened and amused at the same time, and I love writing books that attempt to put the reader in that position. Junior's first outing was CRASHED, and it did well enough that I had offers from traditional publishers to buy the series, but I decided to stay with the e-book channel, direct from me to the reader.

Do I think LITTLE ELVISES is golden age material? I doubt it—I can't take myself that seriously. But they're the product of a writer doing what he wants instead of what a corporation wants him to do, and in the long run that has to be good for everyone. When people look back on this particular golden age, I think they'll say the emergence of the ebook both broadened and prolonged it.

A Little Humor, A Little Romance, A Little Murder

2011-08-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

A guest blog by Marja McGraw

I write two mystery series: The Sandi Webster Mysteries and The Bogey Man Mysteries. My logo is “a little humor, a little romance, A Little Murder!” It suits my books. They’re lighter with a little humor, and while there is some romance, there are no sex scenes. They aren’t necessary to my stories, and I’m old school – I’ve always felt like anticipation and imagination are much sexier that reading about it with the details all laid out for me.

Some books have sex thrown in just for shock value. It doesn’t progress the story at all. I’ve also read stories where this element was pertinent to the story. In addition, there are books that don’t have any sex and they’re as entertaining as any story can be. I believe that the anticipation of what’s to come can be very titillating, especially when you fill in the blanks yourself. Think about it. John Doe whispered something in Jane Smith’s ear, and smiling, followed her through a door, pulling it closed behind him. Do you want someone to tell you what happened behind that door? Or would you rather dream up your own scenario? Hmm. All kinds of possibilities there.

I have a friend, Shirley Kennedy, who wanted to write contemporary romances. Well, she wrote a good book and submitted it to a publisher. The publisher was interested, but only if she’d add sexual content. So Shirley sat down in front of her computer and started adding sex scenes. It turned out there was a problem. She suddenly realized that as she wrote this graphic, sensual scene, she couldn’t bring herself to look at the computer screen. She looked up, to the right, to the left, and out the window – anywhere except at the screen. She’d been asked to write something that she wasn’t comfortable with. When she told me this story, I laughed. I could picture the whole thing in my mind. Still wanting to write romances, she changed from Contemporary to Regency romances, where she didn’t have to include sex scenes. By the way, Shirley is a terrific writer and now writes other types of romance stories, too.

The thing is, when I laughed at this story and pictured it in my mind, the woman sitting in front of the computer unexpectedly turned into me. Talk about surprising yourself! I write mysteries, and the stories I write don’t involve graphic sexual encounters. They’re about mysteries and solving crimes. They center around the characters and their growth, and they include some humor.

I won’t knock any author who writes graphic material, because there is a market for it – and some of it is extremely well-written. I simply prefer something entertaining and mysterious. I won’t even try to change any minds here. However, I will add that a young woman approached me after reading my first book and told me two things. First, she said that she never, ever reads anything that doesn’t contain graphic sex. Secondly, she said that it was two weeks after she read the book before she realized there wasn’t any sex in it. Draw your own conclusions.

Take a chance and try reading Bogey Nights – A Bogey Man Mystery, which was released in March of 2011. It will entertain you, even without sexual content.

Jean, thank you for inviting me today. I’ve enjoyed my visitWebsite: http://www.marjamcgraw.com/
Blog: http://blog.marjamcgraw.com/
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