Making It Look Easy

by Sheila Connolly

It takes a lot of work to make something look effortless.

The New England Crime Bake conference was held this past weekend. I was Co-Chair of the event for the first and most likely last time, and I learned a lot from the experience.

Over twenty committee members—most with day jobs, many with active writing careers—came together to deal with the nuts and bolts of the conference. Some have been doing this since the conference's first year (2001); for others, this was their first time. Some elements have not changed significantly—like recruiting New England authors. Others represented significant change—like the implementation of a new automated registration system. Everything worked. Lesson #1: Pick good people and let them do what they do best.

Since this is an ongoing conference, we on the committee don't often step back and ask, why are we doing this? Who are we doing it for? And who is best qualified to make it all happen? The more specific questions about how big we want the event to be, and where we want to hold it, are more often debated, but we're happy with the size (250 attendees plus panelists) and location (outside of Boston, in a hotel that we effectively take over for the weekend).

Why do we do it? To celebrate New England authors (there are many!), and to give New England writers and fans a chance to meet the authors and hear what they have to offer. We do collect and study statistics, which shows that 40% of attendees have come before—which means that the other 60% are newcomers, while at the same time, a surprising 17 people have attended all ten Crime Bakes. Most attendees belong to one or another writers' organization. Lesson #2: Figure out what people want and give it to them.

How do you manage to serve the needs of such a diverse group? By offering classes and panels on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from the craft of writing and forensic details, through creativity and how to use real-world events and craft a story from them.

We have always had an outstanding guest of honor; this year, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the event, we had two—Barry Eisler and Nancy Pickard. It was an interesting choice, because they write in divergent styles, and they did not know each other. We threw them together for the keynote speech at the Saturday luncheon and let them have their heads, and the results were great. It was a pleasure to watch the pros shape a dialogue in a way that was fair and balanced, and yet which brought out much in information about how they write. Lesson #3: Quality shows.

So much for the mechanics. More important, there are still moments of magic that can surprise you. A few examples:

--at breakfast, on the Saturday of the conference, I was standing at the podium, waiting to read a list of mundane announcements—like which room assignments have been switched and please don't eat a vegetarian box lunch unless you signed up for one—when I took a moment to just listen. The energy and excitement in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. It was wonderful.

--As I said before, the dialogue between the guests of honor was delightful. They were courteous and fair to each other, yet each conveyed his or her passion about what and how they were writing and publishing. It could have gone on far past the allotted hour.

--At one of the final panels offered, on Sunday afternoon when many people are usually running on fumes, Nancy Pickard moderated a panel called "I've Got a Secret". Now, people who moderate have many different styles, from those moderators who hog the microphone to talk about themselves or banter with their good buddies on the panel, to those who toss out vague questions and then say "Anybody want to take that one?"

Nancy Pickard did none of these. Certainly the panelists had known the stated subject of their panel before they arrived, but the way in which Nancy defined the question she put to them inspired an "aha!" moment from all of them—you could see it. She made each of those multi-published writers (not to mention the rest of us in the audience) look at their own work in a different light.

That's what makes putting together these events so rewarding, no matter how much work it is or how the many little details will threaten to push you over the edge in the final week. It's worth it when you experience that crystalline moment when you know you've heard something important—something that will color your appreciation of other writers' work, and may even help you with your own.

I am grateful for the efforts of all the committee members, who made the event flow seamlessly, and I'm proud to have been a part of Crime Bake 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.

Interview with Nancy Pickard

Interviewer: Elizabeth Zelvin


Have you always been a writer? Have you had day jobs or always made your living as a novelist? Have you put any other dreams aside for writing?

I've always been a writer, though I was not one of those precocious children who wrote a novel at age 12. I graduated from journalism school at the University of Missouri and then held day jobs until I was about 35, at which time I plunged fulltime, right from Day One, into being a novelist. Other dreams? You mean like paying the mortgage? lol. Yes, I've put aside some dreams, but none of them lured me on as writing has done.

I first discovered your work when I read and loved the first Jenny Cain mystery, GENEROUS DEATH. What prompted you to pick a charitable foundation as the focus of your mystery series. Did you plan a series when you wrote the first one? And why mystery?

Thank you! I picked a charitable foundation because I decided that where there's death and money, there's the opportunity for foul play. I wasn't thinking of a series until after Generous Death was published and I heard from readers that they wanted more of it. Mystery? Because it was the form of the novel with which I was the most familiar, and because I was a Nancy Drew girl.

One of the things that makes Jenny Cain interesting is that she comes from quite a dysfunctional family, including a father who’s a terrible liability. Where did they come from? Did the Cains grow out of a germ of reality or a “what if”?

I still don't know where they came from. Honest. I don't have a sister, my mother is extremely sane, and my father was spacy only in the sweetest, kindest way.

How did it feel to let go of Jenny and move on to another series? How did the process of launching a multi-book story arc differ the second time around? What had you learned that made it easier—or harder? Or simply different?

It felt okay, because she seemed to have done all she wanted to do by then. It was just a feeling that the time was right for her and for me. When I started the Marie Lightfoot series I knew from the start that it would be a trilogy, because I wanted to do other things after that. I learned so much from the Jenny books! It's almost impossible to start listing them, so I'll just settle for saying that I learned how to write novels.

How did you come to write the cooking mysteries based on the late Virginia Rich’s work? What did you expect when you decided to do this, and did it turn out the way you expected, or were there surprises?

I was asked by her editor, with the approval of her widower, to take up the series. I had been a fan and had even very briefly corresponded with her, so that just felt right, too. It didn't turn out as I expected--it was much, much harder. The biggest--and nicest--surprise was discovering how "older women" welcomed a sleuth who was still alive and kicking in every way, including love. Now I'm almost as old as Eugenia Potter, and I wish I'd made her seem even younger!

How do you write? Do you have routines or rituals? Do you outline beforehand, and if so, do you stick to the outline? How much do you revise? Who reads or critiques your work before it takes its final form?

I write by the seat of my pants. I have no rituals, unless multiple cups of coffee counts, which I suppose it does. I can write almost anywhere, at almost any time of day. I write a proposal in order to go to contract, and then I mostly ignore my own proposal and let the book develop as it will. I revise constantly. With short stories, I ask writer friends to read them before I submit them. I used to do the same with my novels. But now I have so many readers at Ballantine--my editor, Linda Marrow, plus two other editors who help her, and other people at the publishing house--that I just let them tell me everything I need to know. It's a great editorial team, and I'm grateful.

Along with the novels, your short stories are widely admired, especially “Afraid All the Time” and “There Is No Crime on Easter Island.” Do you have any stories to tell about the writing of these or readers’ response to them?

A couple of things--one, it is true that sometimes readers will find our novels because they've read a short story they liked. And two--I had to learn that every short story needs an epiphany--an ah ha moment for a character or for the reader--before it will work.

Have you had mentors? Who has inspired and/or helped you along the way?

I've been inspired by and helped by so many people, including mystery writers. My senior high school English teacher, Nina Mackey, always comes to mind. And there was a novelist, Alice Winter, who was a mentor for several years.

What was it like being one of the founding mothers of Sisters in Crime? How do you think women mystery writers are faring 20 years later? What still needs to be done?

It was exciting, it was scary, it was fun. We were so lucky to be part of that, as is anybody who gets in on the ground floor of a revolution that actually leads to good things. As for how we're faring now, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure. Certainly, we're an established part of the scene. Are we getting equal treatment in terms of money, reviews, advertising, etc.? I don't know. I, personally, feel fairly treated, but there seems to be some evidence that some things have not changed all that much for the better.

You’ve just won the Agatha for Best Novel for your standalone, THE VIRGIN OF SMALL PLAINS. Did you know when you wrote it that this was something special?

I only knew it was special to me, because it was the culmination of a lot of years of work and learning, and because it allowed me to write the kind of book, starring the kind of people, I'd been wanting to write.

You’ve won several Agathas over the years and many other awards? Is any of them especially meaningful to you, and why?

Out of my four teapots, the one I just won for Virgin probably means the most, because it was a welcome back after years of hibernation while I was working on improving my writing. It was an affirmation that I was on the right track. But I was thrilled to get the first one, for Bum Steer, and thrilled to win one the very next year, for I.O.U., and the one I won for a short story, "Out of Africa," meant a lot, because I particularly loved that story.

THE VIRGIN OF SMALL PLAINS is set in a part of Kansas most of us don’t know exists, as was the Jenny Cain book BUM STEER. The first time we met, I mentioned that BUM STEER was my favorite in the series, and you said it was yours too. Would you care to comment on that—on Kansas, on the importance of setting, and/or on writing about home?

I've been so slow to come home to Kansas, in terms of my novels. And now it's so important to me. I love so many of the landscapes of this state, and I know so many wonderful people here, that it gives me tremendous pleasure to bust a few stereotypes about it when I get the chance.

Do you have any words of wisdom for writers starting out today—both young ones and those of us who have had a long journey to the point of first publication?

This may seem an odd, even discouraging piece of advice, but I promise you it's a good one: in the phrase, "professional writer," the word professional is as important as the word writer. "Professional". . .like doctors are professionals, and lawyers, and everybody else who takes many years and makes sacrifices and goes through hard times to reach their goal. They say it takes l0 years to become good at anything, and I think it's helpful to remember that's applicable to writing. That's ten years of writing, writing, writing, maybe without being published during that time. That's years of focusing on the writing, not on the publishing, though there will certainly be dreams of that. It's keeping the horse of writing in front of the cart of publishing, where they both belong. Starting writers, apprentice writers, master writers, all can benefit from being patient with themselves and the process. It's a long process. A lifetime. Go easy on yourself and give your dreams plenty of time to develop fully. Even if you're 80 years old. In ten years, you'll be 90, and not only is there nothing wrong with being published for the first time at 90, trust me, it will get you good publicity!