Posts
Elizabeth Zelvin
Do you believe in “happily ever after”? If you read romance novels, you insist on it. While the classic fairy tales of Andersen and Grimm were often depressing and, well, grim, 20th-century American culture offered its children only tales that turned out well. In literary fiction too, the happy ending has been with us since Jane Austen. Many readers seek the satisfaction of conflict resolved in the personal lives of the characters they read about. Others protest that in reality, that moment of resolution is just the beginning of relationships that are true to life.
Mystery series offer writers, and thus readers, the opportunity to explore the arc of characters and their relationships over what in a prolonged series may amount to thousands of pages. The series format allows writers to give us a variety of relationship scenarios.
Some popular series authors suspend indefinitely their character’s choice of a permanent mate. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum forever hesitates between the reliable if somewhat high-handed Moretti and the mysterious, intensely sexy Ranger. Charlaine Harris has taken Sookie Stackhouse to what at first looked like true love with vampire Bill to a complicated series of relationships with vampire Eric and at least a couple of attractive shapeshifters.
Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone is perennially single with only a few ventures into romance. Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone had a series of failed relationships, none as important as her friendships with both men and women, before she found her soulmate in the unfortunately named Hy Ripinsky. Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski gets periodically involved with a man, but it’s certainly not the focus of her life and sometimes proves a pesky complication.
At least two bestselling authors, Elizabeth George and Dana Stabenow, have taken the radical step of killing off the soulmate: Thomas Lynley’s wife Helen and Kate Shugak’s true love Jack Morgan respectively, to the indignation of many readers. Going by past performance, I think George is going to torture Lynley before she lets him find love again. I found the mating dance between Stabenow’s Kate and her new partner Jim Chopin annoying—with Jim portrayed over the course of several books as a womanizer suddenly struck faithful by the sturdy, practical Kate’s irresistible sexual allure, and both concealing that they have any feelings whatever except for lust—until the most recent book, when they seem finally to be settling down to what I would call a relationship.
Even when authors let their character find a perfect partner, they may choose to postpone the happily ever after indefinitely by throwing one curve ball after another into the couple’s lives. Julia Spencer-Fleming’s ratcheting up of tension and heartache over the series has been masterful as Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne struggle with their feelings for each other. Readers may grind their teeth when Russ’s wife dies, and Clare, instead of falling into his arms, re-ups in the Army to go fly a helicopter in Iraq—but they couldn’t wait for the next book, when Clare came home. (If you haven’t read it, I won’t tell you what cliffhanger that one ends with.) Cynthia Harrod-Eagles put Inspector Bill Slider and the love of his life, Joanna—not to mention the reader—through agonies of frustration involving his awful marriage, her career as a violinist, his procrastination and guilt feelings, and of course the demands of The Job, ending each book with a whammy of a cliffhanger that had this reader groaning—and yes, eager for the next book.
And then there are the couples who, having achieved happily ever after, continue to evolve, whether dealing with further crises in the life cycle (pregnancy and child rearing; parents’ aging, illness, and death; the conflicting demands of career), not unlike what happens in real life. They may also continue to solve mysteries as partners. Deborah Crombie’s British detectives, Lloyd (first name nobody’s business) and Gemma James are doing a good job, as are Margaret Maron’s Judge Deborah Knott and Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant. So are Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane in Jill Paton Walsh’s recent additions to Dorothy L. Sayers’s classic series. The latest one is a dilly, posing the couple a challenge you don’t often see in mysteries. On the other hand, something similar just happened to another of my favorite couples (not straight mystery, but a cross-genre series with plenty of mystery plotting), Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan and his wife Ekaterin. My prediction is that Walsh will let us see Peter and Harriet coping with their new condition, but the Vorkosigans, alas, may live happily ever after.
Showing posts with label Charlaine Harris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charlaine Harris. Show all posts
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
A writer/reader’s take on mystery series
Elizabeth Zelvin
Most mystery readers of a certain age first discovered the genre through series, whether they cut their eyeteeth on Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie, Nancy Drew or Erle Stanley Gardner. In these early series, the protagonist never changed: Holmes always smoked his pipe and played his violin, Poirot applied his little gray cells to every problem, Miss Marple found a parallel to every evil in the world in the village life of St. Mary Mead. When Nancy got into trouble, she always had the perfect tools for the emergency about her person. Perry Mason always stood up in court to object and grandstanded a confession out of the true villain. (I’ve heard that counsel used to say, “I object!” during a trial, and that “Objection!” originated with Perry Mason. Anyone know if it’s true?)
Then, in the Golden Age of mysteries, when the airtight, fair play puzzle was at its height, Dorothy L. Sayers changed the rules by developing Lord Peter Wimsey from a Bertie Wooster-like flat character into a complex and very human being over the course of the series. And mystery reading got a lot more interesting to readers like me, who want to fall in love with their characters, root for them in adversity, and cheer when they triumph, not only by solving the murder but by resolving some genuine personal dilemma. My favorite characters feel real to me. I’ve said before that I’d like to play my guitar and sing with Judge Deborah Knott’s family and have dinner with the Vorkosigans.
What we read has changed precisely because the fashion in what we write has changed. For example, Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver, who appeared in dozens of mysteries in the 1940s and 1950s, was always described in exactly the same words, as was her home. Encountering the familiar phrases was part of the pleasure of reading the series, which is still on my list of comfort reads. Now, we wouldn’t dare repeat even the most clever way of describing a protagonist that we’ve already used. Today’s writers are exhorted to kill our darlings, not repeat them in book after book.
No longer does every mystery series, even a successful and popular one, go on ad infinitum. Part of this is due to the changing face—and economics—of publishing. In the paperback cozy world, an author may get a three-book contract. She brings her protagonist and setting to life, thousands of readers eagerly anticipate Book Four—and the publisher decides they’re not satisfied with sales and drops the series, perhaps inviting the author to start a new series under a pseudonym. In the world of hardcover mysteries, a debut author is typically offered a contract for one book or two—and the publisher’s decision not to let the series go on may be based on sales before publication of the first or second book or as little as a month after it comes out. It is notoriously hard to get another publisher to pick up a dropped series—again, for business reasons—so readers who have become attached to a series protagonist and his or her world are left disappointed and dissatisfied.
Perhaps as a result of the precarious nature of series today, many mystery writers have adopted a pattern in which, once the series gets going, they try their hand at a standalone. Until recently, I would have said that I never liked an author’s standalones as much as her series, because my love of and loyalty to the series was based on the development of the series protagonist and the family, friends, and colleagues who had sprung to life around her. Writers with successful series have written some fine standalones—and maybe I’m also getting used to the new fashion. Some standalones by accomplished series writers that I’ve loved in the past few years include Nancy Pickard’s The Virgin of Small Plains and The Scent of Rain and Lightning, Earlene Fowler’s The Saddlemaker’s Wife, the late Ariana Franklin’s City of Shadows, and Laurie R. King's Touchstone.
Another consequence of how things have changed is that writers may now conceive their series as having a limited story arc, rather than going on indefinitely. Charlaine Harris’s Harper Connelly series comes to mind. When the unresolved personal dilemma that underlies all Harper’s professional dilemmas gets resolved in Book Five, the series comes to a satisfying conclusion. With two other series behind her and the Sookie Stackhouse series going on and on, thanks to the success of the TV adaptation, True Blood, it makes sense for Charlaine to move on. And now it seems that Harper Connelly is coming to TV, so her story may continue after all.
Most mystery readers of a certain age first discovered the genre through series, whether they cut their eyeteeth on Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie, Nancy Drew or Erle Stanley Gardner. In these early series, the protagonist never changed: Holmes always smoked his pipe and played his violin, Poirot applied his little gray cells to every problem, Miss Marple found a parallel to every evil in the world in the village life of St. Mary Mead. When Nancy got into trouble, she always had the perfect tools for the emergency about her person. Perry Mason always stood up in court to object and grandstanded a confession out of the true villain. (I’ve heard that counsel used to say, “I object!” during a trial, and that “Objection!” originated with Perry Mason. Anyone know if it’s true?)
Then, in the Golden Age of mysteries, when the airtight, fair play puzzle was at its height, Dorothy L. Sayers changed the rules by developing Lord Peter Wimsey from a Bertie Wooster-like flat character into a complex and very human being over the course of the series. And mystery reading got a lot more interesting to readers like me, who want to fall in love with their characters, root for them in adversity, and cheer when they triumph, not only by solving the murder but by resolving some genuine personal dilemma. My favorite characters feel real to me. I’ve said before that I’d like to play my guitar and sing with Judge Deborah Knott’s family and have dinner with the Vorkosigans.
What we read has changed precisely because the fashion in what we write has changed. For example, Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver, who appeared in dozens of mysteries in the 1940s and 1950s, was always described in exactly the same words, as was her home. Encountering the familiar phrases was part of the pleasure of reading the series, which is still on my list of comfort reads. Now, we wouldn’t dare repeat even the most clever way of describing a protagonist that we’ve already used. Today’s writers are exhorted to kill our darlings, not repeat them in book after book.
No longer does every mystery series, even a successful and popular one, go on ad infinitum. Part of this is due to the changing face—and economics—of publishing. In the paperback cozy world, an author may get a three-book contract. She brings her protagonist and setting to life, thousands of readers eagerly anticipate Book Four—and the publisher decides they’re not satisfied with sales and drops the series, perhaps inviting the author to start a new series under a pseudonym. In the world of hardcover mysteries, a debut author is typically offered a contract for one book or two—and the publisher’s decision not to let the series go on may be based on sales before publication of the first or second book or as little as a month after it comes out. It is notoriously hard to get another publisher to pick up a dropped series—again, for business reasons—so readers who have become attached to a series protagonist and his or her world are left disappointed and dissatisfied.
Perhaps as a result of the precarious nature of series today, many mystery writers have adopted a pattern in which, once the series gets going, they try their hand at a standalone. Until recently, I would have said that I never liked an author’s standalones as much as her series, because my love of and loyalty to the series was based on the development of the series protagonist and the family, friends, and colleagues who had sprung to life around her. Writers with successful series have written some fine standalones—and maybe I’m also getting used to the new fashion. Some standalones by accomplished series writers that I’ve loved in the past few years include Nancy Pickard’s The Virgin of Small Plains and The Scent of Rain and Lightning, Earlene Fowler’s The Saddlemaker’s Wife, the late Ariana Franklin’s City of Shadows, and Laurie R. King's Touchstone.
Another consequence of how things have changed is that writers may now conceive their series as having a limited story arc, rather than going on indefinitely. Charlaine Harris’s Harper Connelly series comes to mind. When the unresolved personal dilemma that underlies all Harper’s professional dilemmas gets resolved in Book Five, the series comes to a satisfying conclusion. With two other series behind her and the Sookie Stackhouse series going on and on, thanks to the success of the TV adaptation, True Blood, it makes sense for Charlaine to move on. And now it seems that Harper Connelly is coming to TV, so her story may continue after all.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
But have you read the book?
Elizabeth Zelvin
When I was out in Seattle a couple of years ago, I spent some time with a girl who’s my first cousin once removed. Now she’s a young woman who’s planning to be a veterinarian and has enough focus to have achieved the grades to get her into school. But back then she was a soccer girl with no intellectual pretensions whatsoever. The movie Troy had recently come out. It made a total hash of the Iliad, with the Trojan War reduced from ten years to three days and a bi Colin Farrell as Achilles running around in what my memory is telling me looked like a tennis skirt. My young cousin and her dad (my own first cousin, hence the “removed”) hadn’t seen it, but my husband and I had. The actual topic under discussion was how what distinguishes a good historical (or fantasy) epic with brilliant special effects from a bad one is the script. Yeah, the part that writers do, which never got any respect in Hollywood and has now become optional on TV. But my young cousin delivered the punch line of the conversation when she asked innocently, “Have you read the book?”
I found myself thinking of this incident while watching and enjoying the TV series True Blood, based on Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels, as every mystery lover knows.
As a result of having her characters translated to TV, Charlaine Harris’s books, I’ve heard, outsold James Patterson’s last year—and he’s the guy who wrote (or co-wrote or had written under his name) one out of every seventeen books sold in America. So a lot of Americans are reading the books. But what’s interesting is that the story line of the series is not the same as the story that’s still continuing in the books.
I’ve heard Charlaine Harris herself comment on this difference. At some point during Season One, she said, “They’ve already established a backstory that’s different from mine, and that’s fine. I’m just going ahead and writing my story.” When asked how she felt about all the upfront sex that producer Alan Ball put into the first five episodes of Season One, she said, “I was taken aback at first, but now I’m used to it.” In fact, there’s always been a mildly erotic thread running through her novels. She doesn’t belabor it, but she doesn’t slam the bedroom door in the reader’s face either.
The overall story line of Season Two of True Blood was invented for the series, with a key character, Marianne, who didn’t exist in the books (unless my senior memory is a lot worse than I hope it is). I wasn’t crazy about that particular plot, which I thought got overelaborate and a bit silly. But in Season Three (writing this after seeing Episode Ten), they are using a lot of elements of the novels: Sookie’s cousin Hadley and her little boy, her brother Jason’s relationship with Crystal out in Hotshot, the introduction of Claudine and the revelation of “what Sookie is.” This last is done more subtly in the books, and TV has given her extra powers she didn’t get from Charlaine.
I’m not complaining. I understand that what’s on the screen has to be more dramatic than what’s on the page, since the drama can be supplied by the reader’s brain. I’m still reading the books, and I love the series. But by using the material from the books, the show has created a subset of viewers (and a huge one, considering what bestsellers the books have become) who know what’s supposed to happen next. The suspense, for me, has become about whether they’ll go ahead and do it or resolve it differently. Will what’s supposed to happen to Jason actually happen? (Trying to avoid spoilers here.) I’m guessing it will, and it sure will be an interesting twist. Will what’s supposed to happen to Hadley happen? I’m hoping it won’t. And most important, will the secret Bill’s still keeping from Sookie (if there is a secret and not just Eric being competitive) be the one that, in the books (at least so far), drives a stake through the heart of that relationship? They’re already offering “Who will survive?” teasers for the season finale coming up. I wouldn’t mind betting on two of the deaths, and in one case I’m glad, in the other I’m sorry.
When I was out in Seattle a couple of years ago, I spent some time with a girl who’s my first cousin once removed. Now she’s a young woman who’s planning to be a veterinarian and has enough focus to have achieved the grades to get her into school. But back then she was a soccer girl with no intellectual pretensions whatsoever. The movie Troy had recently come out. It made a total hash of the Iliad, with the Trojan War reduced from ten years to three days and a bi Colin Farrell as Achilles running around in what my memory is telling me looked like a tennis skirt. My young cousin and her dad (my own first cousin, hence the “removed”) hadn’t seen it, but my husband and I had. The actual topic under discussion was how what distinguishes a good historical (or fantasy) epic with brilliant special effects from a bad one is the script. Yeah, the part that writers do, which never got any respect in Hollywood and has now become optional on TV. But my young cousin delivered the punch line of the conversation when she asked innocently, “Have you read the book?”
I found myself thinking of this incident while watching and enjoying the TV series True Blood, based on Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels, as every mystery lover knows.
As a result of having her characters translated to TV, Charlaine Harris’s books, I’ve heard, outsold James Patterson’s last year—and he’s the guy who wrote (or co-wrote or had written under his name) one out of every seventeen books sold in America. So a lot of Americans are reading the books. But what’s interesting is that the story line of the series is not the same as the story that’s still continuing in the books.I’ve heard Charlaine Harris herself comment on this difference. At some point during Season One, she said, “They’ve already established a backstory that’s different from mine, and that’s fine. I’m just going ahead and writing my story.” When asked how she felt about all the upfront sex that producer Alan Ball put into the first five episodes of Season One, she said, “I was taken aback at first, but now I’m used to it.” In fact, there’s always been a mildly erotic thread running through her novels. She doesn’t belabor it, but she doesn’t slam the bedroom door in the reader’s face either.
The overall story line of Season Two of True Blood was invented for the series, with a key character, Marianne, who didn’t exist in the books (unless my senior memory is a lot worse than I hope it is). I wasn’t crazy about that particular plot, which I thought got overelaborate and a bit silly. But in Season Three (writing this after seeing Episode Ten), they are using a lot of elements of the novels: Sookie’s cousin Hadley and her little boy, her brother Jason’s relationship with Crystal out in Hotshot, the introduction of Claudine and the revelation of “what Sookie is.” This last is done more subtly in the books, and TV has given her extra powers she didn’t get from Charlaine.
I’m not complaining. I understand that what’s on the screen has to be more dramatic than what’s on the page, since the drama can be supplied by the reader’s brain. I’m still reading the books, and I love the series. But by using the material from the books, the show has created a subset of viewers (and a huge one, considering what bestsellers the books have become) who know what’s supposed to happen next. The suspense, for me, has become about whether they’ll go ahead and do it or resolve it differently. Will what’s supposed to happen to Jason actually happen? (Trying to avoid spoilers here.) I’m guessing it will, and it sure will be an interesting twist. Will what’s supposed to happen to Hadley happen? I’m hoping it won’t. And most important, will the secret Bill’s still keeping from Sookie (if there is a secret and not just Eric being competitive) be the one that, in the books (at least so far), drives a stake through the heart of that relationship? They’re already offering “Who will survive?” teasers for the season finale coming up. I wouldn’t mind betting on two of the deaths, and in one case I’m glad, in the other I’m sorry.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Mystery Anthology Boom
Sandra Parshall
Magazine markets for short crime fiction are scarce, but readers who want a sharp little dose of murder and mayhem have plenty of anthologies to choose from. These collections have popped up like mushrooms across the genre in the last few years, bringing us everything from tales of murder on family holidays (haven’t we all been tempted at least once?) to crime with a supernatural flavor.
While some anthologies are made up entirely of work by crime fiction stars, most also give exposure to work by beginners or lesser-known writers. The number of anthology stories nominated for major mystery awards is an indication of how important the collections have become to the genre.
Some anthologies are highly visible, like the International Thriller Writers 2006 anthology Thriller, which has sold more than 400,000 copies and been published in nine foreign countries. Others have more modest ambitions but are worth looking for if you want to read the best short crime fiction being published.
A lot of anthologies are focused on themes. Akashic has produced a series of noir collections set in various cities and features dark tales from Orange County, California, in its latest. Tony Burton at Wolfmont Press publishes Christmas-themed mystery anthologies, and the profits go to Toys for Tots.
Hook, Line & Sinister, an April release from Countryman Press, is another themed collection that will benefit charity, in this case two organizations that use fly-fishing as therapy. Casting for Recovery helps breast cancer patients and Project Healing Waters aids returning veterans. The anthology’s theme, naturally, is fishing, and 16 bestselling mystery authors came up with stories that involve the sport. Edited by T. Jefferson Parker, the book includes work by such notables as Michael Connelly, C.J. Box, Ridley Pearson, John Lescroart, and Dana Stabenow. And no, you don’t have to enjoy fishing to appreciate these mini-mysteries.
Charlaine Harris’s name on the cover as editor tells you that Crimes by Moonlight is devoted to supernatural mysteries, but it’s not exactly what you might expect. Along with a new Sookie Stackhouse story, the collection includes shorts by Carolyn Hart, Barbara D’Amato, Margaret Maron and other authors we don’t usually associate with the woo-woo end of
the genre. Writing these stories gave the writers a chance to stretch, and even readers who don’t normally enjoy the supernatural mixed with crime may be pleasantly surprised.
Unusual Suspects, a fantasy/mystery anthology edited by Dana Stabenow, also features a new Sookie Stackhouse story and work by writers like Laurie R. King who haven’t produced this type of fiction before.
Two of the Deadliest, edited by Elizabeth George, features stories by 18 established women authors and five relative unknowns. In its anthology In the Shadow of the Master, Mystery Writers of America also gives exposure to a few lesser-known writers by placing them in the company of stars.
A number of Sisters in Crime chapters across the country have published anthologies, giving some SinC members their first professional publications. Stories contributed by “name” authors lend cachet and draw the attention of readers. The Los Angeles Chapter will launch Murder in La-La Land on May 22 (early copies will be available this weekend at Malice Domestic). The Desert
Sleuths Sisters in Crime recently brought out How Not to Survive the Holidays.
If you have a secret hit list but know you’ll never act on it, you can savor an ample helping of vicarious satisfaction when you read They Had It Comin’, the fourth Chesapeake Crimes anthology from the Chesapeake Chapter. Stories from previous CC collections have been nominated for, and have won, major awards. A fifth anthology is already in the works. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Chessie Chapter and I’m honored to be on the editorial committee for the fifth anthology.)
Have you read a good crime fiction anthology lately? Have you contributed to one?
Magazine markets for short crime fiction are scarce, but readers who want a sharp little dose of murder and mayhem have plenty of anthologies to choose from. These collections have popped up like mushrooms across the genre in the last few years, bringing us everything from tales of murder on family holidays (haven’t we all been tempted at least once?) to crime with a supernatural flavor.While some anthologies are made up entirely of work by crime fiction stars, most also give exposure to work by beginners or lesser-known writers. The number of anthology stories nominated for major mystery awards is an indication of how important the collections have become to the genre.
Some anthologies are highly visible, like the International Thriller Writers 2006 anthology Thriller, which has sold more than 400,000 copies and been published in nine foreign countries. Others have more modest ambitions but are worth looking for if you want to read the best short crime fiction being published.
A lot of anthologies are focused on themes. Akashic has produced a series of noir collections set in various cities and features dark tales from Orange County, California, in its latest. Tony Burton at Wolfmont Press publishes Christmas-themed mystery anthologies, and the profits go to Toys for Tots.
Hook, Line & Sinister, an April release from Countryman Press, is another themed collection that will benefit charity, in this case two organizations that use fly-fishing as therapy. Casting for Recovery helps breast cancer patients and Project Healing Waters aids returning veterans. The anthology’s theme, naturally, is fishing, and 16 bestselling mystery authors came up with stories that involve the sport. Edited by T. Jefferson Parker, the book includes work by such notables as Michael Connelly, C.J. Box, Ridley Pearson, John Lescroart, and Dana Stabenow. And no, you don’t have to enjoy fishing to appreciate these mini-mysteries.Charlaine Harris’s name on the cover as editor tells you that Crimes by Moonlight is devoted to supernatural mysteries, but it’s not exactly what you might expect. Along with a new Sookie Stackhouse story, the collection includes shorts by Carolyn Hart, Barbara D’Amato, Margaret Maron and other authors we don’t usually associate with the woo-woo end of
the genre. Writing these stories gave the writers a chance to stretch, and even readers who don’t normally enjoy the supernatural mixed with crime may be pleasantly surprised.Unusual Suspects, a fantasy/mystery anthology edited by Dana Stabenow, also features a new Sookie Stackhouse story and work by writers like Laurie R. King who haven’t produced this type of fiction before.
Two of the Deadliest, edited by Elizabeth George, features stories by 18 established women authors and five relative unknowns. In its anthology In the Shadow of the Master, Mystery Writers of America also gives exposure to a few lesser-known writers by placing them in the company of stars.
A number of Sisters in Crime chapters across the country have published anthologies, giving some SinC members their first professional publications. Stories contributed by “name” authors lend cachet and draw the attention of readers. The Los Angeles Chapter will launch Murder in La-La Land on May 22 (early copies will be available this weekend at Malice Domestic). The Desert
Sleuths Sisters in Crime recently brought out How Not to Survive the Holidays.
If you have a secret hit list but know you’ll never act on it, you can savor an ample helping of vicarious satisfaction when you read They Had It Comin’, the fourth Chesapeake Crimes anthology from the Chesapeake Chapter. Stories from previous CC collections have been nominated for, and have won, major awards. A fifth anthology is already in the works. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Chessie Chapter and I’m honored to be on the editorial committee for the fifth anthology.)Have you read a good crime fiction anthology lately? Have you contributed to one?
Saturday, November 22, 2008
A Mother's Writing Is Never Done
Toni L.P. Kelner
I have two daughters, and I’ve often thought that writing is one of the best possible jobs for a parent. I work at home, the hours are flexible, and now that my girls are older, I can even work once they come back from school.
But lately, I’ve come to realize an even bigger benefit. Writing is the perfect job for bugging the heck out of my kids.
Let’s look at some of the parental pluses to the writer lifestyle, organized into a bulleted list:
• There’s an endless supply of puns and bad jokes. I mean, I get to say things like “bulleted list” and then add, “Har! Bullets! Isn’t that perfect for a mystery writer!” Remarks like this are almost guaranteed to get an eyeball roll, and in some cases, even a groan. I get extra points when I make this kind of remark in front of my kids’ friends.
• I get to groan about how hard my job is. So when my eighth-grader complains about having to write a five-page paper over the course of a semester, I can drop a manuscript in her lap and tell her what my deadline is. Ditto for when one of her teachers insists on extra drafts or corrections--I go through many more drafts than most students, and copy editors are far more annoying than teachers. So she gets no sympathy from me, even though she really hates to accept that somebody else has a rougher time than she does.
• Staying at home looks wonderful from the outside. No matter how hard I actually work, all my daughters see is me hanging around in my nightgown as I chase them out the door into the wet, cold, or even snowy weather. It’s even better when I grin while I wave good-bye, or mention that I’m going to crawl back into bed for another hour as soon as they’re gone.
• My kids freak a little over the violence in my books, and even more over the sex scenes. Admittedly, my books are hardly the most violent ones on the shelf, and I don’t let the girls read that kind of book anyway, even if it is one of mine. But they do hear me discussing creative methods of murder, how long rigor mortis lasts, and great places to hide a body. I get some strange looks during those conversations, let me tell you. As for the sex, my Laura Fleming books were pretty light on that, too, but the protagonist in my new series is a single woman with an active sex life. Again, I won’t let my kids read the book, but you should have seen them wince when I told them why I won’t let them read Ton. No kid wants to admit her mother even knows about sex, let alone writes about it!
• Going to the bookstore makes them crazy. Not that they don’t love going to bookstores, mind you. We’re all book lovers around here. The part that drives them insane is my pointing to books and saying, “I know Donna Andrews. I did a panel with J. A. Konrath. I don’t know Mary Higgins Clark, but I did a panel with her daughter Carol.” I can even get a rise out of them by pointing and saying, “I’ve never met John Grisham.” The corollary is pointing a Harlan Coben book and saying, “I know you don’t remember, but he hugged you when you were just a baby.”
Admittedly, there are some downsides, like when my older daughter started to read Down Home Murder, and then didn’t finish it. Did she hate it? Did she lose it? What’s the problem? And it can be embarrassing when the other didn’t get an A on her English paper, especially since I’d read it over for her.
But overall, a writing parent is a happy parent. After all, these are only the everyday joys. Just wait until career day....
Toni L.P. Kelner is the author of the "Where are They Now" mysteries and the Laura Fleming series. Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, the second anthology she's co-edited with Charlaine Harris, recently debuted on the New York Times best seller list.
I have two daughters, and I’ve often thought that writing is one of the best possible jobs for a parent. I work at home, the hours are flexible, and now that my girls are older, I can even work once they come back from school.
But lately, I’ve come to realize an even bigger benefit. Writing is the perfect job for bugging the heck out of my kids.
Let’s look at some of the parental pluses to the writer lifestyle, organized into a bulleted list:
• There’s an endless supply of puns and bad jokes. I mean, I get to say things like “bulleted list” and then add, “Har! Bullets! Isn’t that perfect for a mystery writer!” Remarks like this are almost guaranteed to get an eyeball roll, and in some cases, even a groan. I get extra points when I make this kind of remark in front of my kids’ friends.
• I get to groan about how hard my job is. So when my eighth-grader complains about having to write a five-page paper over the course of a semester, I can drop a manuscript in her lap and tell her what my deadline is. Ditto for when one of her teachers insists on extra drafts or corrections--I go through many more drafts than most students, and copy editors are far more annoying than teachers. So she gets no sympathy from me, even though she really hates to accept that somebody else has a rougher time than she does.
• Staying at home looks wonderful from the outside. No matter how hard I actually work, all my daughters see is me hanging around in my nightgown as I chase them out the door into the wet, cold, or even snowy weather. It’s even better when I grin while I wave good-bye, or mention that I’m going to crawl back into bed for another hour as soon as they’re gone.
• My kids freak a little over the violence in my books, and even more over the sex scenes. Admittedly, my books are hardly the most violent ones on the shelf, and I don’t let the girls read that kind of book anyway, even if it is one of mine. But they do hear me discussing creative methods of murder, how long rigor mortis lasts, and great places to hide a body. I get some strange looks during those conversations, let me tell you. As for the sex, my Laura Fleming books were pretty light on that, too, but the protagonist in my new series is a single woman with an active sex life. Again, I won’t let my kids read the book, but you should have seen them wince when I told them why I won’t let them read Ton. No kid wants to admit her mother even knows about sex, let alone writes about it!
• Going to the bookstore makes them crazy. Not that they don’t love going to bookstores, mind you. We’re all book lovers around here. The part that drives them insane is my pointing to books and saying, “I know Donna Andrews. I did a panel with J. A. Konrath. I don’t know Mary Higgins Clark, but I did a panel with her daughter Carol.” I can even get a rise out of them by pointing and saying, “I’ve never met John Grisham.” The corollary is pointing a Harlan Coben book and saying, “I know you don’t remember, but he hugged you when you were just a baby.”
Admittedly, there are some downsides, like when my older daughter started to read Down Home Murder, and then didn’t finish it. Did she hate it? Did she lose it? What’s the problem? And it can be embarrassing when the other didn’t get an A on her English paper, especially since I’d read it over for her.
But overall, a writing parent is a happy parent. After all, these are only the everyday joys. Just wait until career day....
Toni L.P. Kelner is the author of the "Where are They Now" mysteries and the Laura Fleming series. Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, the second anthology she's co-edited with Charlaine Harris, recently debuted on the New York Times best seller list.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Characters We Love
Elizabeth Zelvin
I woke up this morning thinking about Brat Farrar: not just Josephine Tey’s 1949 mystery, but Brat himself, the horse-loving orphan who agrees to impersonate a lost heir and finds his “belonging-place.” Yep, I remember the dialogue as well as the characters, decades after I last reread the book. If that’s not a measure of the novelist’s art, I don’t know what is.
Nowadays we hear a lot about “crime fiction,” sometimes accompanied by a dismissal of the traditional mystery. For me, character is the heart of a good book, and my favorite traditional mysteries have it. No matter how long it’s been since I visited them, I’m not going to confuse Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane with anybody else or forget the important events in their lives. The same goes for Judge Deborah Knott, Sharon McCone, Mary Russell, Kate Shugak, Anna Pigeon, and Skip Langdon. All of these characters go through a process of growth and change in the course of a series arc.
One of my newer favorite authors is Charlaine Harris, not because her deft mixing of subgenres started a trend but because each of her protagonists is distinct and memorable. Lily Bard’s the one who survived a horrific abduction and rape, learned martial arts, cleans houses, and roams the streets at night. Sookie Stackhouse is the telepathic barmaid who dates vampires. Harper Connelly got struck by lightning at fifteen and now finds dead people, arousing suspicion and challenging disbelief with her knowledge of how they died. Nor are these details simply backstory stuck onto a generic protagonist figure. All these women have depth and complexity. All are endearing. After reading about them, I’m always eager to come back for more.
My favorite characters in other genres share this ability to leap off the page and into the reader’s heart: Jamie and Claire Fraser, Miles Vorkosigan and Ekaterin, Francis Crawford of Lymond and Philippa. To me these are real people, whether they live in the past or in the future. In a weird way it doesn’t matter that they exist only on the page. Great characters forge a bond between the author’s imagination and the reader’s and create a small miracle every time we open a book.
Now I’ve got a book and characters of my own. I would be thrilled if they find their way into readers’ hearts like those I’ve mentioned. A few people are starting to talk about my protagonist Bruce and his sidekicks Barbara and Jimmy as if they’re real, as if they have a past and a future outside the covers of Death Will Get You Sober. In fact, I know they do, because they talk to me in my head while I drive or take my daily run. They’re insistent, opinionated, and sometimes smarter and funnier than I am. For sure they’ve got fewer inhibitions about what they’ll say. Come to think of it, they’ve already found their way into at least one real-life person’s heart: my own.
I woke up this morning thinking about Brat Farrar: not just Josephine Tey’s 1949 mystery, but Brat himself, the horse-loving orphan who agrees to impersonate a lost heir and finds his “belonging-place.” Yep, I remember the dialogue as well as the characters, decades after I last reread the book. If that’s not a measure of the novelist’s art, I don’t know what is.
Nowadays we hear a lot about “crime fiction,” sometimes accompanied by a dismissal of the traditional mystery. For me, character is the heart of a good book, and my favorite traditional mysteries have it. No matter how long it’s been since I visited them, I’m not going to confuse Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane with anybody else or forget the important events in their lives. The same goes for Judge Deborah Knott, Sharon McCone, Mary Russell, Kate Shugak, Anna Pigeon, and Skip Langdon. All of these characters go through a process of growth and change in the course of a series arc.
One of my newer favorite authors is Charlaine Harris, not because her deft mixing of subgenres started a trend but because each of her protagonists is distinct and memorable. Lily Bard’s the one who survived a horrific abduction and rape, learned martial arts, cleans houses, and roams the streets at night. Sookie Stackhouse is the telepathic barmaid who dates vampires. Harper Connelly got struck by lightning at fifteen and now finds dead people, arousing suspicion and challenging disbelief with her knowledge of how they died. Nor are these details simply backstory stuck onto a generic protagonist figure. All these women have depth and complexity. All are endearing. After reading about them, I’m always eager to come back for more.
My favorite characters in other genres share this ability to leap off the page and into the reader’s heart: Jamie and Claire Fraser, Miles Vorkosigan and Ekaterin, Francis Crawford of Lymond and Philippa. To me these are real people, whether they live in the past or in the future. In a weird way it doesn’t matter that they exist only on the page. Great characters forge a bond between the author’s imagination and the reader’s and create a small miracle every time we open a book.
Now I’ve got a book and characters of my own. I would be thrilled if they find their way into readers’ hearts like those I’ve mentioned. A few people are starting to talk about my protagonist Bruce and his sidekicks Barbara and Jimmy as if they’re real, as if they have a past and a future outside the covers of Death Will Get You Sober. In fact, I know they do, because they talk to me in my head while I drive or take my daily run. They’re insistent, opinionated, and sometimes smarter and funnier than I am. For sure they’ve got fewer inhibitions about what they’ll say. Come to think of it, they’ve already found their way into at least one real-life person’s heart: my own.
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