Breathing New Life into Orphaned Books

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.

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. The best part of blog tours was hearing from readers who stop to 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. 

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.

The Mystery Writers

When I began writing back in the dark ages (before computers), the only creative writing instructions available were from the Famous Writers School, which was beyond my limited budget at the time. Fledgling writers had to suffer through enough rejection slips to wallpaper an entire room and many gave up in frustration. I nearly did until I was hired as a news reporter, which taught me brevity, a useful tool for novelists.

Then, after my first novel was published,  following five nonfiction books, I decided to share what I’d learned with other writers. One way was to interview bestselling, award-winning and other mid-list authors for my blog sites. My first mystery writer interview book was published by Poisoned Pen Press in 2010, titled Mysterious Writers. It did so well that I was encouraged to put together another book so that all those informative interviews wouldn’t disappear into cyber space.

The Mystery Writers is finally available and features Sue Grafton, Lawrence Block, J. A. Jance, James Scott Bell (former Writer’s Digest fiction columnist) and Julie Garwood, among other bestselling, award-winning and mid-list novelists. Their articles of writing advice not only entertain and inform, some will literally shock you. They're also generic and excellent for any genre, whether for novice or veteran writers.

A number of them have been written from as far away as South Africa, Thailand, Brazil, England and Canada. They write private eye and crime novels, police procedurals, historicals, noir, suspense, thrillers, amateur sleuths, cozies, humorous novels, contemporary western as well as traditional mysteries. Something for nearly every reader (and writer).

There are also a number of independently published authors such as Tim Hallinan, who turned down publishing contracts to publish his own e-books, which are now earning thousands of dollars each month. Many authors are currently following in his keystrokes now that the stigma of self-publishing seems to have lifted.

I’ve proud of this collection, although I’m only the editor, and I hope you’ll take a look at the print edition, which was just released  by Medallion Books and is currently available at: Amazon.com in print and Kindle, where you can read a sample of the execllent advice.  It will also be available on Nook.

The Pain of Killing Your Characters

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?

All That Research!

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.

One of My Characters Tells Me Off!

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.

What Do We Writers Need?

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?

Your Own Manuscript Critic

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.

How to Rescue a Stalled Plot

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

Pacing the Suspense in Your Novel

I once read an article written by mystery novelist Phyllis Whitney concerning story pacing and suspense. She said the best advice she received was from the editor of Weird Tales Magazine, a highly respected pulp magazine published before she began writing novels. The editor said she shouldn't try to keep her stories at constant  pitch, that readers grow as bored with continuous excitement as they do with nothing happening at all.

Pacing suspense is important because a reader needs time to relax between the action scenes. Another important aspect of writing suspense novels is that your reader will find endless passages of defeat and discouragement too unpleasant to read. Writers are, first and foremost, entertainers. And main characters’ lives should never be easy although small victories have to be paced strategically along the way to keep the plot interesting.

Much like mystery novelist Marlys Millhiser, Whitney started her novels with a setting, a place that gave her fresh and interesting material, although it may be located in her own backyard. In her first mystery novel, Red is for Murder, she went to Chicago’s loop to get behind-the-scenes research of the window dresssing business. Because the book only sold 3,000 copies, she returned to writing for children, but years later, the book was reprinted in a number of paperback editions as The Red Carnelian.

Once she had her setting, Whitney searched for a protagonist driven to solve a life and death situation. The more serious and threatening the problem, the higher the reader’s interest. Writera need to plot their stories around action scenes rather than the mundane. However, inner turmoil can be just as suspenseful as the threat of bodily harm if the writer remains aware of the character’s desperate need to reach a certain goal. Action doesn’t necessarily have to be violent.

The protagonist doesn’t know from the beginning of the story how to solve his problem, but sooner or later, he decides something needs to be done. That’s when the story actually begins. The character may make the wrong decision but he needs to do something rather than just drift along through several chapters.

Give your character(s) purpose and a goal to reach by the end of the book. If your protagonist is unable to reach her goal or solve her problem, bring in another character who can help. This new character may have ulterior motives or a different goal, and therein lies suspense.

An eccentric character can also provide suspense by doing the unexpected, thus making the situation worse. Whitney advised against more than one strange character per novel because it suspends belief. But any character doing the unexpected can build suspense. If the reader knows what’s going to happen next, she soon becomes bored and may lay the book aside. So to prevent that from happening, surprise your reader with something unusual although logical. Whitney had one of her characters making her way down a long, dark, narrow passageway when she suddenly touches a human face.

That’s not only unexpected, it's suspenseful.

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