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 Julia Spencer-Fleming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julia Spencer-Fleming. Show all posts
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Interview with Julia Spencer-Fleming
Interviewer: Elizabeth Zelvin
Liz: One Was A Soldier, the seventh mystery in your series featuring Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and small-town police chief Russ Van Alstyne, is about to hit the shelves in bookstores, and I’m one of many readers who can’t wait to find out not only what murder and mayhem these two intelligent and lovable people will have to disentangle, but what will happen next in their star-crossed relationship. What can you tell us about the new book without committing any spoilers?
Julia: You had to start with a hard question! Can I quote from the flap copy that will be on the finished books?
I wrote it myself, so it’s not cheating...much.
On a warm September evening in the Millers Kill community center, five veterans sit down in rickety chairs to try to make sense of their experiences in Iraq. What they will find is murder, conspiracy, and the unbreakable ties that bind them to one other and their small Adirondack town.
The Rev. Clare Fergusson wants to forget the things she saw as a combat helicopter pilot and concentrate on her relationship with Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. MP Eric McCrea needs to control the explosive anger threatening his job as a police officer. Will Ellis, high school track star, faces the reality of life as a double amputee. Orthopedist Trip Stillman is denying the extent of his traumatic brain injury. And bookkeeper Tally McNabb wrestles with guilt over the in-country affair that may derail her marriage.
But coming home is harder than it looks. One vet will struggle with drugs and alcohol. One will lose his family and friends. One will die.
Since their first meeting, Russ and Clare's bond has been tried, torn, and forged by adversity. But when he rules the veteran's death a suicide, she violently rejects his verdict, drawing the surviving vets into an unorthodox investigation that threatens jobs, relationships, and her own future with Russ.
As the days cool and the nights grow longer, they will uncover a trail of deceit that runs from their tiny town to the upper ranks of the U.S. Army, and from the waters of the Millers Kill to the unforgiving streets of Baghdad.
Liz: Your website bio tells us that you were an Army brat. That life might provide an exciting, even glamorous childhood for one kid and a miserably dysfunctional one for another. What kind of experience was it for you?
Julia: It was all of those things, I suspect. It taught me to make friends quickly and let go easily, to adapt to new climate and customs readily, and to realize the stuff I carry in my head is the only stuff that can’t be lost or left behind or given away in the next move. I think it made me into a bookworm--moving from post to post and country to country, the books in the libraries stayed constant. I might be in Alabama, or Germany, or New York, but Narnia and River Heights and the Mushroom Planet were always right there with me.
Sometimes it catches me by surprise when I realize how many years I’ve been living in the same state, in the same house. My kids, whose childhoods have been as settled as mine was roaming, can’t imagine leaving, but I know if I had to, I could pack up our things tomorrow and decamp. “There’s always something to like, wherever you are,” my mother used to say. I agree with that.
Liz: How much research have you had to do for the military aspect of Clare’s life and the law enforcement aspect of Russ’s? What does “doing research” entail for you? Is it a pleasurable part of writing a new book?
Julia: I enjoy research a little too much, which is why I try to do the minimum to get into the book. Usually, I do the research necessary to understand, say, logging in the Adirondacks or bootlegging in the 1930s. Then, as issues arise while I’m writing the book, I write down notes for myself and add them to my Questions File. Later on, I’ll go back and look up whatever it is I didn’t know at the time--the type of gun or the name of a state agency, for instance.
Writing about returning vets, I felt I had to do a great deal more research to get into the situation and to do justice to the experiences of the men and women I was portraying. I probably spent a good six months reading books, newspapers, blogs and interviewing people. (One of the reasons the book was turned in so late!) I normally use all those resources when prepping a novel--this was just a lot bigger in scale and deeper.
Of course, the book I’m writing now is basically Russ and Clare trapped by a killer in a cabin in the frozen woods. My goal is to not have to research anything for this one!
Liz: What about Clare’s role as a priest? You give readers a lot about the daily tasks of being responsible for a church and congregation as well as her role as a leader in the community. How about Clare’s spiritual life? Beyond her ethical concerns, social conscience, and pastoral counseling role, how interested are you in how she gets along with God and whether she struggles to maintain her faith?
Julia: When I started the series, I purposely cheated a bit in order to emphasise Clare’s isolation. Under normal circumstances, a priest would have a spiritual advisor to meet with, probably on a weekly basis. She didn’t get that until I introduced Deacon Willard Aberforth in the fourth book. I figured I could get away with it because Clare’s issue isn’t maintaining her faith so much as it is trying to decide of she’s the right person for the job she’s doing. The goad she lashes herself with--repeatedly--is that she’s a “bad priest.”
One Was A Soldier comes closest to Clare struggling with her own faith. She’s not doing well after returning from her tour of duty. She’s drinking and dosing herself with pills and eventually winds up in therapy with several other vets. Intellectually, she knows she needs help, but emotionally, on a level she’s not really quite aware of, she feels God ought to be enough.
To me, the most important thing to get across is that religious faith doesn’t mean the end of doubt or fear or sadness. Clare, and others in the books, are genuinely faithful--and also sarcastic, self-centered and stupid at times. Contrary to the popular portrayal of religion, believing in God doesn’t make life an endless Candyland Game. And conversely, as we see in Clare, experiencing pain and darkness isn’t necessarily a reason to stop believing.
Liz: At what point did you realize that Russ had to become a co-protagonist in the series, not just Clare’s love interest and law enforcement buddy? You’ve taken a traditional-mystery formulathe team of amateur sleuth and small-town cop or sheriff and ratcheted it way up in complexity and emotional intensity (and frustration for the reader). I think it’s an extraordinary love story: two decent people trying to connect with each other in spite of a host of both internal and external obstacles. Did you mean it to turn out so achingly romantic? Can you see a conclusion to their story somewhere down the line?
Julia: Russ became the co-protagonist early on, while I was writing my first book. I realized I didn’t want the cops of Millers Kill to look foolish or lazy--you know how sometimes you read amateur sleuths and find yourself thinking, wait a minute! Where are the police? I wanted to give each of them control over a different area--Russ, the professional investigation and Clare, the social/emotional insights that come to her via her job.
I wanted their relationship to have romantic tension--a lot of romantic tension--as a way to keep the reader’s attention. When the investigation slacks off, as it invariably does in a mystery, the personal story steps to the fore. In one scene, a reader is (hopefully) biting her nails over an important clue. In the next scene, she is (hopefully) chewing her lip over a shared, meaningful glance between two almost-but-never-quite lovers. I did mean it to be painfully, achingly romantic, the sort of relationship that elicits big emotions from the readers, because that’s what I like to experience when I read. I like my heart to pound and my hands to sweat, and I hope that happens when people read my books.
I used to think the conclusion to their story would be in the fifth book. Then the sixth. Now...I just say as long as I have a story about Russ and Clare I really want to tell, I keep on writing them.
Liz: Like quite a few writers, you started out as a lawyer. What got you into the law, what got you out, and do you have any regrets? Do you bring any of the skills or mindset of being an attorney into the writer’s life and/or the stories you tell?
Julia: The best lawyer-related skill set for writing mysteries is the ability to think logically about a chain of events. Law school trains one to look for the primary cause, the proximate cause, the intervening cause--all useful when planning and covering up several murders per book.
What got me in? I was working as a non-profit fund-raiser. I loved my job, did well at it, and earned enough money to live with four other people in a house outside of DC and eat canned soup for dinner. I decided I wanted to earn enough money to buy a car someday. I wasn’t good at chemistry, so no med school. I wasn’t good at math, so no business school. Law school was the default. I loved law school, and have no regrets about going--but I also have no regrets about leaving the field as soon as I was making a little money writing.
Liz: You’ve won an impressive number of awards as well as getting your start by winning the Malice Domestic Best First Novel competition. How important is that aspect of success, and is there any one honor that was particularly meaningful to you?
Julia: It’s nice to win awards, I won’t lie. It is extremely gratifying to have groups of people say, “You’re book is so good, we’re going to give you this teapot/plaque/bust of Nero Wolfe to let everybody know.”
Having said that, I’m pretty relaxed about the whole process. Winning awards didn’t make me write better, or make my children magically start picking up their bedrooms without nagging.
The honor that was particularly meaningful? Probably, oddly enough, one I didn’t win. My third book, Out of the Deep I Cry, was nominated for an Edgar for Best Novel. (Jeff Parker won with his amazing California Girl.) Having served on an Edgars committee, I realized the sort of work my peers did to select those five nominees--and how very many books they had under consideration. It really, truly was an honor to be nominated.
Liz: Can you tell us something about your creative process? What is your schedule like? In what kind of environment do you write best? How much planning do you do before writing the first draft? Do you ever get stuck, and if so, what do you do about it? Do you show your work to anyone before you hand it in?
Julia: Schedule: none. Environment: upstairs, downstairs, in public libraries, in university libraries, at friend’s vacation homes. Planning: not enough, because I always get stuck after the mid-way point, convinced I’m never going to solve the crime and that the book stinks and I’ll have to go back to being a lawyer. I deal with this by complaining bitterly to my husband until he says, “Just write the damn book already. You can always change it later.” (His solution to any sticky plot point is to have a meteor fall on the characters, or a volcano erupt in Millers Kill or something along those lines. I’m always so outraged at his suggestions, they wind up jump-starting me.)
And no, I don’t show the work to anyone until after I’ve typed “The End.” Which doesn’t appear in the book, but which is SO satisfying to write.
Liz: Clare and Russ are the kind of characters that feel very real to the reader. How real are they to you? Do they talk to you in your head? Do they ever say or do things you don’t expect them to? Do you love them?
Julia: I don’t think anyone’s ever asked if I love my characters before. I guess I do, in the way you love someone you’ve known well the whole of your life. I know their flaws and their blind spots and I can tell when they’re going to make mistakes. I can’t protect them or glamorize them. They do feel very real to me, as if they have their lives apart from my imagination. As a result, they do and say things I don’t expect. If you, the author, really know a character, you don’t move him around and make him say things. You set the scene and then sit back and watch how the characters act and react and interact.
Liz: The late great Ruth Cavin was your editor, so not only have you experienced a recent loss, but you’re having the new experience of working with an editor who hasn’t been with you from the beginning. Can you say something about the process of working with editors? What did you learn from Ruth? Is switching a big deal or not? Also, how much input does your agent have into what you write, and has your path with agents been smooth or bumpy?
Julia: I’ve had the great good fortune to work with several wonderful editors at St. Martin’s--which of course is different than switching over and being a part of someone’s stable of authors. Ruth cut a broad swath with her editorial notes-I’d get three paragraphs that would result in cutting 40,000 words and a major recasting of roles. My current editors, Pete Wolverton and Katie Gilligan, are a lot more detailed oriented--I almost cried when I got something like ten pages of notes from Pete on the first go-round! Then I realized he was working at a sentence-and-language level Ruth usually didn’t tackle until much later in he process.
A lot of switching editors is like that--getting to know one another’s quirks. Fortunately, I share two passions with my new editors: Pete and I are both huge University of Alabama fans (Roll Tide!) and Katie is an alumna of Smith, where my oldest daughter is going to college.
I’ve been very fortunate with agents. I was ably represented by Jimmy Vines, and when he retired, I signed with the fabulous Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency. She’s less of a critical reader and more the sort to call me up weeping and laughing over the phone to tell me how much she loves the latest book. Which isn’t to say she doesn’t express strong opinions at times! I feel lucky to have so many smart, story-loving people looking at what I write and spending so much time making it better.
Liz: One Was A Soldier, the seventh mystery in your series featuring Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and small-town police chief Russ Van Alstyne, is about to hit the shelves in bookstores, and I’m one of many readers who can’t wait to find out not only what murder and mayhem these two intelligent and lovable people will have to disentangle, but what will happen next in their star-crossed relationship. What can you tell us about the new book without committing any spoilers?
Julia: You had to start with a hard question! Can I quote from the flap copy that will be on the finished books?
I wrote it myself, so it’s not cheating...much.On a warm September evening in the Millers Kill community center, five veterans sit down in rickety chairs to try to make sense of their experiences in Iraq. What they will find is murder, conspiracy, and the unbreakable ties that bind them to one other and their small Adirondack town.
The Rev. Clare Fergusson wants to forget the things she saw as a combat helicopter pilot and concentrate on her relationship with Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne. MP Eric McCrea needs to control the explosive anger threatening his job as a police officer. Will Ellis, high school track star, faces the reality of life as a double amputee. Orthopedist Trip Stillman is denying the extent of his traumatic brain injury. And bookkeeper Tally McNabb wrestles with guilt over the in-country affair that may derail her marriage.
But coming home is harder than it looks. One vet will struggle with drugs and alcohol. One will lose his family and friends. One will die.
Since their first meeting, Russ and Clare's bond has been tried, torn, and forged by adversity. But when he rules the veteran's death a suicide, she violently rejects his verdict, drawing the surviving vets into an unorthodox investigation that threatens jobs, relationships, and her own future with Russ.
As the days cool and the nights grow longer, they will uncover a trail of deceit that runs from their tiny town to the upper ranks of the U.S. Army, and from the waters of the Millers Kill to the unforgiving streets of Baghdad.
Liz: Your website bio tells us that you were an Army brat. That life might provide an exciting, even glamorous childhood for one kid and a miserably dysfunctional one for another. What kind of experience was it for you?
Julia: It was all of those things, I suspect. It taught me to make friends quickly and let go easily, to adapt to new climate and customs readily, and to realize the stuff I carry in my head is the only stuff that can’t be lost or left behind or given away in the next move. I think it made me into a bookworm--moving from post to post and country to country, the books in the libraries stayed constant. I might be in Alabama, or Germany, or New York, but Narnia and River Heights and the Mushroom Planet were always right there with me.
Sometimes it catches me by surprise when I realize how many years I’ve been living in the same state, in the same house. My kids, whose childhoods have been as settled as mine was roaming, can’t imagine leaving, but I know if I had to, I could pack up our things tomorrow and decamp. “There’s always something to like, wherever you are,” my mother used to say. I agree with that.
Liz: How much research have you had to do for the military aspect of Clare’s life and the law enforcement aspect of Russ’s? What does “doing research” entail for you? Is it a pleasurable part of writing a new book?
Julia: I enjoy research a little too much, which is why I try to do the minimum to get into the book. Usually, I do the research necessary to understand, say, logging in the Adirondacks or bootlegging in the 1930s. Then, as issues arise while I’m writing the book, I write down notes for myself and add them to my Questions File. Later on, I’ll go back and look up whatever it is I didn’t know at the time--the type of gun or the name of a state agency, for instance.
Writing about returning vets, I felt I had to do a great deal more research to get into the situation and to do justice to the experiences of the men and women I was portraying. I probably spent a good six months reading books, newspapers, blogs and interviewing people. (One of the reasons the book was turned in so late!) I normally use all those resources when prepping a novel--this was just a lot bigger in scale and deeper.
Of course, the book I’m writing now is basically Russ and Clare trapped by a killer in a cabin in the frozen woods. My goal is to not have to research anything for this one!
Liz: What about Clare’s role as a priest? You give readers a lot about the daily tasks of being responsible for a church and congregation as well as her role as a leader in the community. How about Clare’s spiritual life? Beyond her ethical concerns, social conscience, and pastoral counseling role, how interested are you in how she gets along with God and whether she struggles to maintain her faith?
Julia: When I started the series, I purposely cheated a bit in order to emphasise Clare’s isolation. Under normal circumstances, a priest would have a spiritual advisor to meet with, probably on a weekly basis. She didn’t get that until I introduced Deacon Willard Aberforth in the fourth book. I figured I could get away with it because Clare’s issue isn’t maintaining her faith so much as it is trying to decide of she’s the right person for the job she’s doing. The goad she lashes herself with--repeatedly--is that she’s a “bad priest.”
One Was A Soldier comes closest to Clare struggling with her own faith. She’s not doing well after returning from her tour of duty. She’s drinking and dosing herself with pills and eventually winds up in therapy with several other vets. Intellectually, she knows she needs help, but emotionally, on a level she’s not really quite aware of, she feels God ought to be enough.
To me, the most important thing to get across is that religious faith doesn’t mean the end of doubt or fear or sadness. Clare, and others in the books, are genuinely faithful--and also sarcastic, self-centered and stupid at times. Contrary to the popular portrayal of religion, believing in God doesn’t make life an endless Candyland Game. And conversely, as we see in Clare, experiencing pain and darkness isn’t necessarily a reason to stop believing.
Liz: At what point did you realize that Russ had to become a co-protagonist in the series, not just Clare’s love interest and law enforcement buddy? You’ve taken a traditional-mystery formulathe team of amateur sleuth and small-town cop or sheriff and ratcheted it way up in complexity and emotional intensity (and frustration for the reader). I think it’s an extraordinary love story: two decent people trying to connect with each other in spite of a host of both internal and external obstacles. Did you mean it to turn out so achingly romantic? Can you see a conclusion to their story somewhere down the line?
Julia: Russ became the co-protagonist early on, while I was writing my first book. I realized I didn’t want the cops of Millers Kill to look foolish or lazy--you know how sometimes you read amateur sleuths and find yourself thinking, wait a minute! Where are the police? I wanted to give each of them control over a different area--Russ, the professional investigation and Clare, the social/emotional insights that come to her via her job.
I wanted their relationship to have romantic tension--a lot of romantic tension--as a way to keep the reader’s attention. When the investigation slacks off, as it invariably does in a mystery, the personal story steps to the fore. In one scene, a reader is (hopefully) biting her nails over an important clue. In the next scene, she is (hopefully) chewing her lip over a shared, meaningful glance between two almost-but-never-quite lovers. I did mean it to be painfully, achingly romantic, the sort of relationship that elicits big emotions from the readers, because that’s what I like to experience when I read. I like my heart to pound and my hands to sweat, and I hope that happens when people read my books.
I used to think the conclusion to their story would be in the fifth book. Then the sixth. Now...I just say as long as I have a story about Russ and Clare I really want to tell, I keep on writing them.
Liz: Like quite a few writers, you started out as a lawyer. What got you into the law, what got you out, and do you have any regrets? Do you bring any of the skills or mindset of being an attorney into the writer’s life and/or the stories you tell?
Julia: The best lawyer-related skill set for writing mysteries is the ability to think logically about a chain of events. Law school trains one to look for the primary cause, the proximate cause, the intervening cause--all useful when planning and covering up several murders per book.
What got me in? I was working as a non-profit fund-raiser. I loved my job, did well at it, and earned enough money to live with four other people in a house outside of DC and eat canned soup for dinner. I decided I wanted to earn enough money to buy a car someday. I wasn’t good at chemistry, so no med school. I wasn’t good at math, so no business school. Law school was the default. I loved law school, and have no regrets about going--but I also have no regrets about leaving the field as soon as I was making a little money writing.
Liz: You’ve won an impressive number of awards as well as getting your start by winning the Malice Domestic Best First Novel competition. How important is that aspect of success, and is there any one honor that was particularly meaningful to you?
Julia: It’s nice to win awards, I won’t lie. It is extremely gratifying to have groups of people say, “You’re book is so good, we’re going to give you this teapot/plaque/bust of Nero Wolfe to let everybody know.”
Having said that, I’m pretty relaxed about the whole process. Winning awards didn’t make me write better, or make my children magically start picking up their bedrooms without nagging.
The honor that was particularly meaningful? Probably, oddly enough, one I didn’t win. My third book, Out of the Deep I Cry, was nominated for an Edgar for Best Novel. (Jeff Parker won with his amazing California Girl.) Having served on an Edgars committee, I realized the sort of work my peers did to select those five nominees--and how very many books they had under consideration. It really, truly was an honor to be nominated.
Liz: Can you tell us something about your creative process? What is your schedule like? In what kind of environment do you write best? How much planning do you do before writing the first draft? Do you ever get stuck, and if so, what do you do about it? Do you show your work to anyone before you hand it in?
Julia: Schedule: none. Environment: upstairs, downstairs, in public libraries, in university libraries, at friend’s vacation homes. Planning: not enough, because I always get stuck after the mid-way point, convinced I’m never going to solve the crime and that the book stinks and I’ll have to go back to being a lawyer. I deal with this by complaining bitterly to my husband until he says, “Just write the damn book already. You can always change it later.” (His solution to any sticky plot point is to have a meteor fall on the characters, or a volcano erupt in Millers Kill or something along those lines. I’m always so outraged at his suggestions, they wind up jump-starting me.)
And no, I don’t show the work to anyone until after I’ve typed “The End.” Which doesn’t appear in the book, but which is SO satisfying to write.
Liz: Clare and Russ are the kind of characters that feel very real to the reader. How real are they to you? Do they talk to you in your head? Do they ever say or do things you don’t expect them to? Do you love them?
Julia: I don’t think anyone’s ever asked if I love my characters before. I guess I do, in the way you love someone you’ve known well the whole of your life. I know their flaws and their blind spots and I can tell when they’re going to make mistakes. I can’t protect them or glamorize them. They do feel very real to me, as if they have their lives apart from my imagination. As a result, they do and say things I don’t expect. If you, the author, really know a character, you don’t move him around and make him say things. You set the scene and then sit back and watch how the characters act and react and interact.
Liz: The late great Ruth Cavin was your editor, so not only have you experienced a recent loss, but you’re having the new experience of working with an editor who hasn’t been with you from the beginning. Can you say something about the process of working with editors? What did you learn from Ruth? Is switching a big deal or not? Also, how much input does your agent have into what you write, and has your path with agents been smooth or bumpy?
Julia: I’ve had the great good fortune to work with several wonderful editors at St. Martin’s--which of course is different than switching over and being a part of someone’s stable of authors. Ruth cut a broad swath with her editorial notes-I’d get three paragraphs that would result in cutting 40,000 words and a major recasting of roles. My current editors, Pete Wolverton and Katie Gilligan, are a lot more detailed oriented--I almost cried when I got something like ten pages of notes from Pete on the first go-round! Then I realized he was working at a sentence-and-language level Ruth usually didn’t tackle until much later in he process.
A lot of switching editors is like that--getting to know one another’s quirks. Fortunately, I share two passions with my new editors: Pete and I are both huge University of Alabama fans (Roll Tide!) and Katie is an alumna of Smith, where my oldest daughter is going to college.
I’ve been very fortunate with agents. I was ably represented by Jimmy Vines, and when he retired, I signed with the fabulous Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency. She’s less of a critical reader and more the sort to call me up weeping and laughing over the phone to tell me how much she loves the latest book. Which isn’t to say she doesn’t express strong opinions at times! I feel lucky to have so many smart, story-loving people looking at what I write and spending so much time making it better.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
What writers learn from reading
Sandra Parshall
Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to interview a lot of wonderful mystery and suspense writers, and one of my favorite questions for them has been, “What writers have influenced you? Who has taught you by example?” Here are some of their answers.
Laura Lippman
“Richard Price has shown me what one can do with a voice, an ear and endless empathy; I can't begin to reach his heights, but I'm inspired by his work. George Pelecanos has proven that crime novels can be very serious. Also huge and sprawling (Hard Revolution) or as tight and laconic as the author himself (Drama City). Daniel Woodrell works the English language, Ozarks style, like no writer I've ever known. Val McDermid and S.J. Rozan have shown me the sky's the limit. I could go on and on and on.”
Karin Slaughter
“I grew up on Flannery O’Connor and Margaret Mitchell. I loved the novel (to me) idea of women writing meaty stories. What I learned from them is a sort of fearlessness. I suppose I benefitted from not knowing that women are supposed to stick to romance or children’s books. I wanted to write about violence and social issues and tie them all up with some sort of social statement. I think good writers do this effortlessly, so it’s always been my goal to reach that point of craftsmanship.”
Julia Spencer-Fleming
“Margaret Maron, Archer Mayor and Sharyn McCrumb for their regional settings. Lawrence Block, Steve Hamilton, and Elmore Leonard for language and dialogue (although I'll never manage to be as spare as they are). Outside the genre, Lois McMaster Bujold, Joanna Trollope, Jodi Picoult--women who create the perfect reading experience for me.”
Cornelia Read
“Listing the fiction writers who've taught me by example would crash your server. Every book you read can teach you about writing--both what works and what doesn't.
"[These] books are examples of what works superbly well: Ken Bruen's Priest, Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, Alan Furst's Dark Star. “
Erin Hart
“Some of my favorite crime writers are P. D. James, Elizabeth George, Martin Cruz Smith, Ian Rankin, Minette Walters, and Iain Pears, among others. I've also [enjoyed] books by Leslie Silbert, Michael Connelly, Denise Hamilton, Mark Billingham, Natsuo Kirino, John Connolly, David Hewson, Janet Gleeson--there are so many others I've been meaning to read, too, but haven't had a chance yet. I seem to have a weakness for historical crime novels, and stories that are grounded in very specific places or cultures.
“To me, there's an element of mystery in all great fiction writing; there may not be a murder or a swindle at the heart of the story, but not knowing what will happen next keeps you turning the pages. My taste in mainstream fiction is pretty eclectic, but I'm extremely fond of A.S. Byatt and Edna O'Brien. The list could go on and on--Roddy Doyle, John Fowles, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Alice Munro, Tim O'Brien, Michael Frayn. For sheer glorious entertainment, you still can't beat Dickens, Austen, and Tolstoy. And I'm a theater person at heart, so of course you must include Shakespeare, Shaw, and Chekhov, along with contemporary writers like David Hare, Michael Frayn (again), Brian Friel, August Wilson.”
Cynthia Riggs
“One of my favorite writers is Donald Westlake, who's not exactly a mystery writer, but I find him one of the funniest writers ever. I try to copy his manic sense of humor in my writing, but of course it can't compare with his. I love Agatha Christie, Rex Stout's Nero Wolf, Ruth Rendel,l P.D. James, Michael Dibdin. I tend to keep the mystery books I buy, and have run out of bookcase room. I probably read two to three books a week, mostly mysteries, and borrow a lot from my local library. Just last night I learned a tip from reading Patricia Highsmith, how to allow a point of view character to see into another character's thoughts without the reader suspecting it's a trick.”
Over the years I’ve been fortunate enough to interview a lot of wonderful mystery and suspense writers, and one of my favorite questions for them has been, “What writers have influenced you? Who has taught you by example?” Here are some of their answers.
Laura Lippman
“Richard Price has shown me what one can do with a voice, an ear and endless empathy; I can't begin to reach his heights, but I'm inspired by his work. George Pelecanos has proven that crime novels can be very serious. Also huge and sprawling (Hard Revolution) or as tight and laconic as the author himself (Drama City). Daniel Woodrell works the English language, Ozarks style, like no writer I've ever known. Val McDermid and S.J. Rozan have shown me the sky's the limit. I could go on and on and on.”Karin Slaughter
“I grew up on Flannery O’Connor and Margaret Mitchell. I loved the novel (to me) idea of women writing meaty stories. What I learned from them is a sort of fearlessness. I suppose I benefitted from not knowing that women are supposed to stick to romance or children’s books. I wanted to write about violence and social issues and tie them all up with some sort of social statement. I think good writers do this effortlessly, so it’s always been my goal to reach that point of craftsmanship.”Julia Spencer-Fleming
“Margaret Maron, Archer Mayor and Sharyn McCrumb for their regional settings. Lawrence Block, Steve Hamilton, and Elmore Leonard for language and dialogue (although I'll never manage to be as spare as they are). Outside the genre, Lois McMaster Bujold, Joanna Trollope, Jodi Picoult--women who create the perfect reading experience for me.”Cornelia Read
“Listing the fiction writers who've taught me by example would crash your server. Every book you read can teach you about writing--both what works and what doesn't."[These] books are examples of what works superbly well: Ken Bruen's Priest, Daniel Mendelsohn's The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million, Alan Furst's Dark Star. “
Erin Hart
“Some of my favorite crime writers are P. D. James, Elizabeth George, Martin Cruz Smith, Ian Rankin, Minette Walters, and Iain Pears, among others. I've also [enjoyed] books by Leslie Silbert, Michael Connelly, Denise Hamilton, Mark Billingham, Natsuo Kirino, John Connolly, David Hewson, Janet Gleeson--there are so many others I've been meaning to read, too, but haven't had a chance yet. I seem to have a weakness for historical crime novels, and stories that are grounded in very specific places or cultures.“To me, there's an element of mystery in all great fiction writing; there may not be a murder or a swindle at the heart of the story, but not knowing what will happen next keeps you turning the pages. My taste in mainstream fiction is pretty eclectic, but I'm extremely fond of A.S. Byatt and Edna O'Brien. The list could go on and on--Roddy Doyle, John Fowles, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Alice Munro, Tim O'Brien, Michael Frayn. For sheer glorious entertainment, you still can't beat Dickens, Austen, and Tolstoy. And I'm a theater person at heart, so of course you must include Shakespeare, Shaw, and Chekhov, along with contemporary writers like David Hare, Michael Frayn (again), Brian Friel, August Wilson.”
Cynthia Riggs
“One of my favorite writers is Donald Westlake, who's not exactly a mystery writer, but I find him one of the funniest writers ever. I try to copy his manic sense of humor in my writing, but of course it can't compare with his. I love Agatha Christie, Rex Stout's Nero Wolf, Ruth Rendel,l P.D. James, Michael Dibdin. I tend to keep the mystery books I buy, and have run out of bookcase room. I probably read two to three books a week, mostly mysteries, and borrow a lot from my local library. Just last night I learned a tip from reading Patricia Highsmith, how to allow a point of view character to see into another character's thoughts without the reader suspecting it's a trick.”Thursday, March 25, 2010
In A Series, When Is the Story Over?
Elizabeth Zelvin
I spent last weekend at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, VA, where I was one of about forty mystery authors who made up the Crime Wave portion of the event. The luncheon speaker was multiple award-winning author Julia Spencer-Fleming, whose readers are champing at the bit for the seventh installment of her traditional but far from cozy series, which combines murder, serious issues such as the environment vs developers in her small-town upstate New York setting, and the star-crossed relationship between Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ Van Alstyne.
In the course of her remarks, Julia touched on an aspect of mysteries that is crucial to an appreciation of the genre: the series, in which the story arc of each novel falls under the umbrella of the bigger story arc of a series. The arc of the novel is the solving of a mystery, or, if it’s a thriller, the foiling of a villain. In many cases, there’s another arc or subplot, whose resolution may involve secondary characters or some issue in the protagonist’s life and relationships. The series arc has a broader scope. Indeed, in a long-running series, the arc may be like the rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of it: you can start at the beginning and follow it...and follow it, and follow it. But you may never reach the pot of gold. Nor do you want to. When you get the pot of gold, the story will be over.
What is the pot of gold in a mystery series? Not the solution to the crime in a single book. Not the success of the quest for a MacGuffin, crime fiction’s equivalent of the Holy Grail. Happily ever after? That’s the pot of gold in a romance novel, and the reader closes the book with a sense of satisfaction. But in a series, the author must avoid the kind of closure that leaves no room for the story to continue. For several books, Spencer-Fleming’s Clare and Russ were divided by his marriage and the highly developed consciences of both characters. At the end of the last book, they are finally free to be together—just as Clare is deployed to Iraq. The unabashed romantic in me grinds her teeth in frustration. But the mystery reader is gleeful, because now there has to be another book.
To switch genres for a moment, I recently opened the new novel by Elizabeth Moon, author of the classic fantasy trilogy The Deed of Paksennarion. For the past twenty years, Moon has published a substantial number of bestselling hard science fiction novels, while I’ve been reading and rereading Paks’s story. Now she’s returned to her fantasy world with Oath of Fealty, which not only takes us back to Paks’s world but picks up exactly where she left off twenty years ago. At the end of the last book, as Moon puts it in her foreword, our heroine “rode off into the fictional sunset.” But all the other familiar characters have returned. (Even Paks makes a brief appearance, since we return to the same moment of crisis that ended the trilogy.) Moon makes the same point Spencer-Fleming did: that even if one character’s story ends, the world of the series may include other characters whose stories still need to be told.
I spent last weekend at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, VA, where I was one of about forty mystery authors who made up the Crime Wave portion of the event. The luncheon speaker was multiple award-winning author Julia Spencer-Fleming, whose readers are champing at the bit for the seventh installment of her traditional but far from cozy series, which combines murder, serious issues such as the environment vs developers in her small-town upstate New York setting, and the star-crossed relationship between Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ Van Alstyne.
In the course of her remarks, Julia touched on an aspect of mysteries that is crucial to an appreciation of the genre: the series, in which the story arc of each novel falls under the umbrella of the bigger story arc of a series. The arc of the novel is the solving of a mystery, or, if it’s a thriller, the foiling of a villain. In many cases, there’s another arc or subplot, whose resolution may involve secondary characters or some issue in the protagonist’s life and relationships. The series arc has a broader scope. Indeed, in a long-running series, the arc may be like the rainbow with a pot of gold at the end of it: you can start at the beginning and follow it...and follow it, and follow it. But you may never reach the pot of gold. Nor do you want to. When you get the pot of gold, the story will be over.
What is the pot of gold in a mystery series? Not the solution to the crime in a single book. Not the success of the quest for a MacGuffin, crime fiction’s equivalent of the Holy Grail. Happily ever after? That’s the pot of gold in a romance novel, and the reader closes the book with a sense of satisfaction. But in a series, the author must avoid the kind of closure that leaves no room for the story to continue. For several books, Spencer-Fleming’s Clare and Russ were divided by his marriage and the highly developed consciences of both characters. At the end of the last book, they are finally free to be together—just as Clare is deployed to Iraq. The unabashed romantic in me grinds her teeth in frustration. But the mystery reader is gleeful, because now there has to be another book.
To switch genres for a moment, I recently opened the new novel by Elizabeth Moon, author of the classic fantasy trilogy The Deed of Paksennarion. For the past twenty years, Moon has published a substantial number of bestselling hard science fiction novels, while I’ve been reading and rereading Paks’s story. Now she’s returned to her fantasy world with Oath of Fealty, which not only takes us back to Paks’s world but picks up exactly where she left off twenty years ago. At the end of the last book, as Moon puts it in her foreword, our heroine “rode off into the fictional sunset.” But all the other familiar characters have returned. (Even Paks makes a brief appearance, since we return to the same moment of crisis that ended the trilogy.) Moon makes the same point Spencer-Fleming did: that even if one character’s story ends, the world of the series may include other characters whose stories still need to be told.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Interview with Julia Spencer-Fleming
Sandra Parshall
Julia Spencer-Fleming began her career with In the Bleak Midwinter, which was published after winning the St. Martin’s Press contest for best first mystery novel and went on to win a string of major awards. Julia’s series about the Rev. Clare Fergusson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne, who solve mysteries together in Millers Kill, NY, while struggling with their forbidden love for one another, has grown in popularity with each entry. Her fifth book, All Mortal Flesh, is a current Agatha Award nominee for Best Novel.
Congratulations on your latest award nomination. You've had so many nominations and wins -- does it ever get old? Are you blase about it now?
Trust me, having readers, critics or fellow writers say they like your work never gets old. Nor does it make me blase--I assure you, I'll be as nervous as anyone else at the Agathas Banquet at Malice Domestic. What those past nominations or wins do give me is perspective--I know if I win, I'm not going to wake up the next day any richer, wiser or more beloved, and I know if I lose, I haven't lost any of the support of my readers, my friends, and my publishing company. And I know that either way, I'll be in the bar afterwards!
What changes have you seen in your writing over the years, and what aspects of craft have you consciously worked to improve?
With each book, I find I'm more and more letting go of rules and trusting in my own voice, my own choices about language and structure. In In the Bleak Midwinter, for example, I bent over backwards to ensure no adverb ever got past my keyboard, because I knew the rule is to convey everything through the dialogue and through active verbs. I've loosened up on that. I trust myself now to use adverbs for color and clarification, not as a crutch for lazy writing.
When I started, I worked very hard to improve my scene setting. Members of my writer's group told me my characters seemed to be talking in a gray fog somewhere! Consciously addressing that weakness obviously helped--critics have frequently commented on my vivid sense of place. Now, I'm working on paring my descriptions down, while still giving readers a clear image of the setting. I've been rereading Lee Child's work to help me with this--Lee is a master at giving you just enough to make the setting come to life,without throwing in a single extraneous detail. I'm trying to figure out how he does it. I suspect, like most of writing, it's practice, practice, practice.
What writers have influenced you most?
Margaret Maron, Archer Mayor and Sharyn McCrumb for their regional settings. Lawrence Block, Steve Hamilton, and Elmore Leonard for language and dialogue (although I'll never manage to be as spare as they are). Outside the genre, Lois McMaster Bujold, Joanna Trollope, Jodi Picoult--women who create the perfect reading experience for me.
Everyone who has read All Mortal Flesh is dying to know how you'll get Clare and Russ through the situation you set up at the end of the book. Can you give us even a tiny hint of what's to come for these two?
Boy, do I wish St. Martin's had put a burst on the cover of All Mortal Flesh: NOT THE LAST BOOK! It came out last October and I'm still getting four or five emails a day asking me if this is the end of Russ and Clare. No. It's not. I'm finishing up the sixth book, (very) tentatively titled When A Stranger. (Or maybe A Stranger Wandering. Or Now the Silence. Or In Mercy Broken.) It opens a few weeks after the end of All Mortal Flesh and takes us through a whole year in Millers Kill, NY. We get to see the Van Alstyne family expanding their dairy farm (with the help of illegal migrant workers), how Clare's life and ministry are affected by her decision to join the National Guard, and we're introduced to the MKPD's first-ever female officer. And of course, there's lots more Russ and Clare, as they struggle to come back from the terrible events of All Mortal Flesh.
You've reached the stage where a lot of writers try stand-alone novels. Do you have plans for one (or more)?
Definitely. I'm committed to a seventh Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne book, and then I'd like to turn my hand to a project I've been researching on and off for a few years. In 2002, Maine closed its 178-year-old state prison in Thomaston. Secretly, over the course of a few nights, every maximum security prisoner in the state was transferred by bus to the new SuperMax facility in the neighboring town of Warren. In February. When Maine gets some of its worst winter weather. I started thinking: what if one of the terrible ice storms we sometimes see blew in suddenly? What if the roads iced over, the power lines came down, the state troopers' cars and the busses went skidding off the narrow county highway? What if the last load of men and a handful of civilian observers were trapped together in an unlit, unheated, unsecured antiquity of a prison?
I can't wait to dive into that and see what happens. I also have other ideas, including a possible series featuring a sort of "anti-Clare Fergusson"--an Episcopal priest who's so burned out by 20+ years of ministering that she retires to what she hopes will be a hermit-like existence on a Maine island. And I'd love to do something lighter and more romantic, set in Alabama, where my father's side of the family is from.
Visit Julia's web site at www.juliaspencerfleming.com.
Julia Spencer-Fleming began her career with In the Bleak Midwinter, which was published after winning the St. Martin’s Press contest for best first mystery novel and went on to win a string of major awards. Julia’s series about the Rev. Clare Fergusson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne, who solve mysteries together in Millers Kill, NY, while struggling with their forbidden love for one another, has grown in popularity with each entry. Her fifth book, All Mortal Flesh, is a current Agatha Award nominee for Best Novel.
Congratulations on your latest award nomination. You've had so many nominations and wins -- does it ever get old? Are you blase about it now?
Trust me, having readers, critics or fellow writers say they like your work never gets old. Nor does it make me blase--I assure you, I'll be as nervous as anyone else at the Agathas Banquet at Malice Domestic. What those past nominations or wins do give me is perspective--I know if I win, I'm not going to wake up the next day any richer, wiser or more beloved, and I know if I lose, I haven't lost any of the support of my readers, my friends, and my publishing company. And I know that either way, I'll be in the bar afterwards!
What changes have you seen in your writing over the years, and what aspects of craft have you consciously worked to improve?
With each book, I find I'm more and more letting go of rules and trusting in my own voice, my own choices about language and structure. In In the Bleak Midwinter, for example, I bent over backwards to ensure no adverb ever got past my keyboard, because I knew the rule is to convey everything through the dialogue and through active verbs. I've loosened up on that. I trust myself now to use adverbs for color and clarification, not as a crutch for lazy writing.
When I started, I worked very hard to improve my scene setting. Members of my writer's group told me my characters seemed to be talking in a gray fog somewhere! Consciously addressing that weakness obviously helped--critics have frequently commented on my vivid sense of place. Now, I'm working on paring my descriptions down, while still giving readers a clear image of the setting. I've been rereading Lee Child's work to help me with this--Lee is a master at giving you just enough to make the setting come to life,without throwing in a single extraneous detail. I'm trying to figure out how he does it. I suspect, like most of writing, it's practice, practice, practice.
What writers have influenced you most?
Margaret Maron, Archer Mayor and Sharyn McCrumb for their regional settings. Lawrence Block, Steve Hamilton, and Elmore Leonard for language and dialogue (although I'll never manage to be as spare as they are). Outside the genre, Lois McMaster Bujold, Joanna Trollope, Jodi Picoult--women who create the perfect reading experience for me.
Everyone who has read All Mortal Flesh is dying to know how you'll get Clare and Russ through the situation you set up at the end of the book. Can you give us even a tiny hint of what's to come for these two?
Boy, do I wish St. Martin's had put a burst on the cover of All Mortal Flesh: NOT THE LAST BOOK! It came out last October and I'm still getting four or five emails a day asking me if this is the end of Russ and Clare. No. It's not. I'm finishing up the sixth book, (very) tentatively titled When A Stranger. (Or maybe A Stranger Wandering. Or Now the Silence. Or In Mercy Broken.) It opens a few weeks after the end of All Mortal Flesh and takes us through a whole year in Millers Kill, NY. We get to see the Van Alstyne family expanding their dairy farm (with the help of illegal migrant workers), how Clare's life and ministry are affected by her decision to join the National Guard, and we're introduced to the MKPD's first-ever female officer. And of course, there's lots more Russ and Clare, as they struggle to come back from the terrible events of All Mortal Flesh.
You've reached the stage where a lot of writers try stand-alone novels. Do you have plans for one (or more)?
Definitely. I'm committed to a seventh Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne book, and then I'd like to turn my hand to a project I've been researching on and off for a few years. In 2002, Maine closed its 178-year-old state prison in Thomaston. Secretly, over the course of a few nights, every maximum security prisoner in the state was transferred by bus to the new SuperMax facility in the neighboring town of Warren. In February. When Maine gets some of its worst winter weather. I started thinking: what if one of the terrible ice storms we sometimes see blew in suddenly? What if the roads iced over, the power lines came down, the state troopers' cars and the busses went skidding off the narrow county highway? What if the last load of men and a handful of civilian observers were trapped together in an unlit, unheated, unsecured antiquity of a prison?
I can't wait to dive into that and see what happens. I also have other ideas, including a possible series featuring a sort of "anti-Clare Fergusson"--an Episcopal priest who's so burned out by 20+ years of ministering that she retires to what she hopes will be a hermit-like existence on a Maine island. And I'd love to do something lighter and more romantic, set in Alabama, where my father's side of the family is from.
Visit Julia's web site at www.juliaspencerfleming.com.
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