PD James: Time Traveler from the Golden Age of Detection

Elizabeth Zelvin

I recently read PD James’s 2005 mystery, The Lighthouse. It’s a stately read that is best savored at a leisurely pace rather than gobbled up in a night. In fact, I had saved it for airplane reading to and from a signing in Minneapolis, where it not only entertained me but provided a promotional bookmark (mine, not James’s) to give to the potential reader in the next seat.

Even in the first 50 pages, it struck me that James, at 80 a revered and much honored author, is allowed to construct a mystery that would never pass muster with agents or editors from a newbie, even if a beginning writer could achieve her magnificent prose style. Today we’re exhorted to put the murder up front—in the first chapter if not on the first page—and keep the action non-stop. Some respected authors who teach writing insist that the right amount of backstory in a manuscript is none whatsoever. It’s considered amateurish to “tell, not show” what our characters are like. The omniscient author point of view is out of fashion, and if we introduce too many POV characters, we’re castigated for “head hopping.”

It’s inevitable that the literary world says James’s Adam Dalgleish series “transcends the genre.” Yet The Lighthouse is constructed quite like a Golden Age mystery of the Thirties, when Agatha Christie reigned and Dorothy L. Sayers ruled the Detective Club with an iron hand. In the opening scene, Dalgleish is presented with the case by his superiors. Each of his subordinates gets a scene detailing the daily life that gets interrupted when the murder call comes. This tells us that we’re reading a police procedural, in which all the investigators will have their turn on center stage. The scene then shifts to the isolated island where the murder has occurred, rolling back time to the day before and giving us in turn the close third-person point of view of the victim and each of the nine or ten characters who will become suspects. Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh did the same, whether in narrative form like James or by listing a “cast of characters” at the beginning of the novel. The scene in which the body is discovered begins on page 55, too late, or on the brink, if it appeared in an unpublished writer’s manuscript.

The Lighthouse abounds in magnificent and detailed descriptions of the isolated island off the Cornish coast which acts as a “locked room”—another favorite Golden Age device—for the murder. Today’s mystery writing gurus suggest avoiding unbroken passages of description. “Don’t start with a weather report,” one of them, I forget which, advises. James’s landscapes and interiors run for paragraphs, sometimes for pages. Characterization too, for the most part, proceeds by “telling, not showing.” Interior monologues present characters with texture and complexity. But except for the victim and his daughter, characters’ behavior seldom demonstrates the truth of the analysis.

Along with the subtleties, James throws in stereotyped characterizations that are far less convincing from the perspective of today’s worldview than they were in the Golden Age. “It was a scholar’s face,” she says of one suspect from the detective’s point of view. What is a scholar’s face? Like Homer’s “wine-dark sea,” it’s a stock epithet rather than a description based on observed reality. Actually, I think I know what James meant: a resemblance to the portraits of such historical figures as Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. Such assumptions used to abound in British fiction, not just in the Thirties but through the Fifties. Example: the classic The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, in which the detective comes to believe that King Richard III was framed because in his portrait, he looks like, yep, a scholar and someone who’s known suffering rather than like a villain.

I enjoyed reading The Lighthouse, even though I guessed more of the plot than I would have before I started writing mysteries of my own. It held my interest, and the literate prose was a pleasure to read. I prefer series, with their extended character arcs, so I was interested to hear more about the recurring characters’ lives, even though I still don’t find the relationship between Dalgleish and Emma quite convincing. In general, James at 80 is finally writing, if not erotic scenes, scenes of and passages about sexuality, which she never used to do. Overall, it’s a fine novel—but reading it is a very different experience from reading the mysteries of 21st century authors.

Learning Today’s Publishing While U Wait

Elizabeth Zelvin

I first said I wanted to be a writer in 1951. I got my first rave rejection, for a children’s story, in 1970. (“So the next sentence should be an offer of contract. Unfortunately, Mr. Nixon…the economy….” Some things never change. And some things a writer never forgets.) I had an agent but failed to sell three mystery manuscripts in 1975 or so. I began my current journey toward publication in 2002, and my mystery came out just ten days ago.

What’s changed in publishing since 1951, or even 1991? What hasn’t changed? Small companies that cherished their authors and readers have become conglomerates focused on the bottom line as calculated by computers. Some have stopped publishing mysteries as a result. I know personally at least two award-nominated authors whose series have died because houses whose names were synonymous with mysteries—Walker for hardcovers, Pocket Books for paperbacks—stopped putting out that kind of book.

Thanks to the Internet, I know dozens, perhaps hundreds of mystery writers trying to break into print. I was one of them for five years between completing the first draft and getting an offer for Death Will Get You Sober. The process is rigorous and discouraging. The odds against are enormous. The pool of writers is vast and the pool of publishers small, even including small presses. My mantras throughout those five years were, “Talent, persistence, and luck,” and, “Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle.” May you never experience such a long five minutes!

Waiting was agony, and so were the many, many rejections. It was hard not to take them personally, even though thanks to the Internet I was in touch with others getting the same scribbled notes on their query letters, the same coffee-stained manuscripts returned; even though, in the long run, I came to agree with and learn from some of the criticisms offered.

Looking back, however, I can see that not a single day of that interminable wait was truly wasted. I used it to learn the craft of today’s mystery writing, which differs from the standards of twenty-five years ago in structure and pace and point of view and how people interact and what’s a viable motive for murder among other elements. And I served a priceless apprenticeship—in Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, e-lists like DorothyL and Murder Must Advertise, and social networks like CrimeSpace—in the business of 21st century publishing.

As a result, I'm arriving on the field well equipped to beat the odds. Will I succeed? As Dick Francis has written, anything can happen in a horse race. The same is true of the gamble of mystery publishing. But at least I’m not starting out with blinders on. I find that when well-meaning friends offer suggestions or ask questions, I can bring a lot of knowledge to my answers. Just a few:

Q. Why don’t you go on Oprah?
A. That would be great—do you know anyone who has a contact with her? You can’t send her your book—it doesn’t work that way. She has to find it for herself.

Q. I’ll wait for the paperback to come out.
A. Unfortunately, if we don’t sell enough of the hardcover, the publisher won’t bring out a paperback. The book will go out of print, and in most cases, no other publisher will take the series.

Q. What about John Grisham and J.K. Rowling?
A. The odds are about the same as winning the lottery.

Q. The publisher doesn’t arrange your book tour?
A. No, not for a debut fiction author unless you’re a celebrity or have written a blockbuster. But that doesn’t mean the publisher’s publicity department does nothing. My publicist at St. Martin’s has worked actively with me to sell the book to booksellers, make sure reviewers get it, and make the most of any kind of hook so I’ll stand out from the crowd.

Q. Isn’t MySpace just for kids?
A. Not at all. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process of building up to 1160 friends on MySpace. They include fellow writers, mystery lovers, and people in recovery from alcoholism, other addictions, and codependency—the very people who might get a kick out of Death Will Get You Sober. There’s a culture and a community on MySpace, and it’s fascinating. You can learn so much about people—their interests, their dreams, their heroes—as well as what they read and whether they drink. What a great way to find readers!

A Taste for Killing

Elizabeth Zelvin

Books have always provided a way for both readers and writers to live vicariously. They sweep us off into another place and time, invite us inside the heads of people we’re unlikely ever to meet, and make our hearts ache and soar for strangers who exist only on the page. But only mystery writers routinely get to kill. A mostly law-abiding and compassionate bunch in RL, as Internet users call real life, we are not merely permitted but required by our trade to knock off at least one victim in every book. We even get to choose our murderees, so we can seize the occasion to get rid of those who displease us blamelessly and with great satisfaction.

In the first mystery I ever wrote (thirty years ago, unpublished and unpublishable today), I killed off the wife of a young man I knew, in fictional guise, of course. She was not a very nice person, and her existence was the reason that particular friendship never blossomed into romance. In the long run, I can say now with perfect hindsight, it was for the best, since we have remained friends all these years. He’s now married to someone much nicer—and so am I. But man, it felt good to let my murderer kill her. (Hmm, maybe I’m the one who’s not so nice. But mystery readers will surely understand.)

The victim in a mystery is not necessarily an unsympathetic character. Murdering a good person can elicit a strong desire for justice in both reader and protagonist. Or the victim may be deeply flawed but likable, so that the protagonist cares enough about his or her death to be driven to find out what happened.

The first draft of Death Will Get You Sober had only one victim. I didn’t start talking with other mystery writers about our craft and how it has changed in recent years until after I finished the manuscript. I learned that the leisurely build-up, letting the reader get thoroughly acquainted with the characters before anything happens, is passé. Editors and especially agents nowadays want to be gripped on the first page, preferably by a body. I also learned that many traditional mysteries solve the problem of “sagging middle” in a book-length story by killing off a second character—often the prime suspect, so that his or her death forces the investigation to take a new turn.

The basic premise and circumstances of the plot did not allow me to kill off my original victim any sooner. I brought the death as far forward as I could by eliminating a lot of backstory—another thing I learned from other writers. But to kick-start the action, literally, I had my protagonist stumble over a body at the end of what at that time was Chapter One. I then needed a reason for this new death. That led to other victims. At the same time, I added suspense to the ongoing investigation by killing off some of the suspects along the way. I found that murder was addictive. By the time I was through, my simple one-victim mystery had turned into one of which Edgar-winning author Julie Smith (who kindly gave me a great blurb) said that my characters “maneuver their way through a forest of bodies.”

A forest? How did that spring up? I only spat out a single murder seed….

Writing in the Spaces

by Darlene Ryan

When I wrote my first book—A Mother’s Adoption Journey—the munchkin was a baby, just over a year old. Her father was away five days out of every nine working in another city. There wasn’t a lot of time to write. One of the things I learned back then was if I waited for inspiration to hit I’d never write. And the other was that I had to take advantage of whatever bits of time I could find. I call it writing in the spaces—taking advantage of all those chunks of lost time in a day—time waiting for someone or something else. Five minutes here, fifteen there can very quickly add up to a page a day. And in a year a page a day becomes a book.

Take time where you find it.

I carry a notebook with me most of the time. Several of my writing friends never go out the door without their Alphasmarts. I’ve spent time writing in the doctor’s waiting room, at the orthodontist’s office, at the Diabetic Clinic, and at the back of the school gym during a speech by the principal—she was a little long-winded that day.

Inspire yourself.

I’ve been hit by the boom on a sailboat, by a soccer ball, a two-by-four, a car door and a sewer pipe—which is partly why I’ve spent so much time writing in my doctor’s waiting room. I’ve rarely been hit by inspiration. But I’m often writing something in my head while I’m doing something else—which might explain all those “non-inspirational” whacks to the head I have suffered.

When I’m scrubbing the kitchen floor I’m also writing a scene in my mind. Waiting at the express checkout in Wal-mart I’m trying to fix a plot-hole in my outline. And if you notice me mumbling to myself when I’m out on my daily walk that’s because I’m working on dialogue—or practicing to sing back-up for Rascal Flatts.

Don’t finish that thought.

Whether you’ve been writing for ten minutes or two hours, when you stop, set up your next starting point. Scribble a few notes about what happens next. Read the next paragraph in your outline. Some writers swear by stopping in the middle of a scene or even the middle of a sentence.

Just do it.

Don’t waste time staring at an empty page or blank monitor. (Which you won’t have if you’ve already set up your starting point.) No checking emails just one more time or warming up your fingers with a quick game of Solitaire. When you have time to write, write. Don’t worry about exact grammar or finding the perfect adjective. Get the words down on paper. Churning out words without obsessing about every one may feel weird at first. The more you do it, the easier it gets. I swear.

Maybe you’ll end up with a scene you’re certain is badly constructed, poorly written drivel. Maybe next month when you’re looking at the same scene in rewrites you’ll be surprised at how good it was.

Don’t write.

Yep. That wasn’t a typo. Spending every spare minute writing or thinking about writing will turn you into a twitching, stressed out drudge. Make sure some of those free minutes in the day go to your family, your friends and you. Have coffee with a friend instead of your notebook sometime. Once in a while spend those few minutes standing in line imagining yourself chatting up Matt Lauer on the Today Show. (Love you, Matt!)

So how about giving it a try for the next month? Five minutes here, twenty there. At the end of the month see if you’ve written more than you usually do. That’s it. Let me know how it works. You can email me through my website: www.darleneryan.com I promise to take five minutes to answer.

Writing VS Re-writing, sigh...

By Lonnie Cruse

Oh, the dreaded first draft. So much harder than re-writes/edits. I recently finished the first rough draft in the fifth book of the Metropolis Mystery Series. Throughout the writing process, I always struggle to turn off what writers call “The Inner Editor” which tells me my work stinks (Maybe it does? Eeeek!) That nobody will read it. (Maybe they won’t??? Eeeek!) That I should give up writing and go back to needlework. (Maybe I should? But then I’d miss writing! Eeeek!)

During the rough draft process I keep thinking how much easier the re-writing/editing process is, and I can’t wait to get there. Because while I know the beginning of the story, and usually the ending, I don’t have a clue how to fill the two hundred to three hundred pages between! What am I going to write? Where will I take my characters? What will happen to them? Can I pull it all together? Will it make any sense if I do? Yes, the re-write/edit will be MUCH easier. Can’t wait to get there. So, I plod along, trying to write a story that does make sense, that will catch the reader’s attention. I make notes along the way to remind me what to research and which errors to fix when I realize I’ve made them. And I worry and fret. Then the story is done and I write those magic words THE END.

Someone on the DorothyL discussion list recently asked if writers always type the words, THE END. Nearly all said they type something to indicate that the story is finished. Might be the words, or it might be some journalism sign, but they do type it. It gives the author closure, indicating the story really is done, and now it’s time for re-writes/edits.

Oh, the dreaded re-writes/edits. Once I’m in that stage, I suddenly remember how easy it was to write the first draft and how difficult to edit it. How long will the edit take? Can I make my deadline? Can my critique group critique it by my deadline? Will my publisher love it or reject it? What if I miss something that the reader catches, after the book is in print, for the whole world to see? What if people fall in the floor, laughing at my stupidity? Eeeeek!

Whatever stage I’m at in my writing, that stage seems to be the toughest, and other writers seem to feel the same. And I hate writers who swear their first draft is always suitable to send to their editor. Without editing it (they claim they edit out errors as they type) without anyone critiquing it first. Nearly ready for publication. I rank them with women I’ve met who didn’t have stitches when they gave birth to their children, and who swear those same children slept all night from the very day they came home from the hospital. Snort.

Well, sigh, time to get back to the dreaded edits. But, I do have an idea for a new manuscript I’d like to start. Perhaps I should do that first? Surely that first draft will go quickly? Maybe I won’t even have to edit it?

Wow, anyone else see the pig that just flew by my window?

What's Up With That House?

By Lonnie Cruse

Anybody watched that show on HGTV? I've seen it a few times, and the houses they feature ARE pretty weird. The picture on the right is one I took in a nearby town several years ago. If you look closely, you'll see it's shaped like a tow boat. I presume the owner worked on a tow boat for most of his/her life. I've always liked this house, and I'd love to see what it looks like on the inside. And whenever I pass an odd house, particularly an old, abandoned one, I find myself wondering about the people who built it and lived in it. Who were they? What were they like? And, sometimes, why was the house abandoned to gradually fall into ruin?

Which brings me to the subject of today's blog . . . INSPIRATION!


Lots of authors take pictures of people, places, or things that inspire a story line. Then we post them on some sort of bulletin board near our desks so we can stare at those pictures rather than at THE BLANK PAGE when our current story line screams to a halt. And stare, and stare. But having a picture of someone who represents a character, or a place where we're setting the scene, or a particular object, (Machine gun, anyone? Bloody knife?) is an excellent way for a writer to visualize what we're writing without having to give the reader a description that is soooo detailed, the reader falls asleep halfway through, just to make sure we've covered all the bases. And readers are very vocal about the fact that they like to visualize some things in our books for themselves: how a character looks, or a place, things like that. Too much information from an author is . . . um . . . well . . . too much information.

My particular "bulletin board" is pictured to the right. It's an antique message board from a mollasses company, and I love that thing. Holds tons of inspiration.


One of the things I love most about my fellow writers is that we seldom have the SAME vision. You can give a group of writers a picture, a paragraph, a sentence, or a word, and tell them to write about it, and rarely will two have the same take on it. Or should I say take off? As in letting the fingers fly and the story tell itself? Variety, something readers crave and writers strive for. Which makes me wonder: What kind of story would you write about the house in the picture to the right? Hmmmm? I found this one while bike riding on a wonderful trail near Tunnel Hill, IL.

So if you are lacking inspiration, take a camera with you everywhere, and snap photos of whatever captures your attention. I once took pictures of Kudzu covering an object so thoroughly that I couldn't tell exactly what WAS underneath the heavy growth. That lead to an article that appeared in a newsletter. Inspire yourself with pictures, and write, write, write.


Okay, I've gotta quit playing around on here and get my character out of the latest mess I've written him into. But it's such a pretty day, maybe I'll . . . .

A Time to Kill?

Hank Phillippi Ryan (Guest Blogger)



It was The Clue in the Old Clock that did it. I read that first Nancy Drew when I was–maybe ten or eleven years old? And I knew I wanted to be–not Nancy herself, (although that would have been cool: roadster, good hair, boyfriend, none of which I had at the time) but a mystery writer. I barreled through The Clue in the Diary (which I thought was Clue in the Dairy, and read the whole thing baffled about when the cows were going to show up), then went on to devour every Sherlock Holmes story, and I mean every one, and then Agatha Christie. And the rest is...well, then my career took a turn. Thirty years ago, I got my first job as a TV reporter. And I’m still on the on the air.

But as my very first mystery novel, Prime Time, is now on bookstore shelves, I keep realizing how being an investigative reporter is a lot like being a mystery writer. You’re looking for clues, tracking down evidence, putting the puzzle pieces together, searching for the bad guys, and trying to find justice in the end.

But two elements are different. Big things.
One, as a TV reporter you can’t make anything up. Fiction by a reporter—is bad news.
Two, as a TV reporter you don’t have to kill anyone. Murder by a reporter—is also bad news.

Writing murder mysteries as I do now? You’ve gotta make it all up. And you’ve got to kill someone. Or several someones. In every book.
Making it up? No problem for me. I see almost a movie unreeling in my brain. Sometimes it feels as if I’m just transcribing what I see and hear.
Killing someone? You know, it’s a problem, I must admit to you. Strangely, I’m finding that difficult to do.

Okay, they’re fictional people. No one really gets hurt, there are no actual grieving families, no real blood or secret graves or bedrooms spattered with red or disgusting maggot-filled corpses or hacked-off body parts in hidden surprising places.

And I really don’t mind reading about murders. From the grisliest serial killings to the most lady-like poisonings. All good. Hannibal Lecter? Wish I had thought of him. That guy who put the moth in victims’ mouths? Cool idea. The Orient Express? The Speckled Band? Genius.

But for me. Actually plotting to murder someone--even though it’s just via Microsoft Word—has developed into an interestingly self-analytical exercise. It gives me—pause. Am I—a wimp?

I think—I’ll only kill people who are really bad. Hmmm. Not so interesting. Or people who absolutely no one will miss. Boring. Who are sick already? Nope. Who no one will care about? Then why read the book? So I kill off someone who is critical, and who people care about, and who is important to the plot. They’re just paper people. But I still feel kind of—sorry for them.

A pal of mine—whose thriller I’m sure will someday be on all of our nightstands—let me read an early draft. In the opening scene, 700 people get blown up by terrorists in an office building. Then the main character—who had narrowly escaped--went home and had a glass of wine and made dinner. I said—you know, you’ve described an unforgettable and terrifying occurrence, one that would be devastating to all involved and the ramifications would be endless. Are you sure you need to kill off 700 people? And wouldn’t the main character be, um, a lot more upset?

And the writer said: yeah, Hank, but they’re all fictional people. And the main character didn’t die.

I said: why not have them all almost die? The bomb almost goes off, and they all escape. That’s just as scary, even scarier, right?

The writer was perplexed. But for me, as you can tell, I still can’t get those 700 fictional dead people out of my head.

In writing Prime Time, I had to face committing murder. When veteran TV reporter Charlie McNally discovers that some of that annoying SPAM clogging her computer is more than just cyber junk mail—but I’d better just let you read it for yourself. And see who I got up the gumption to kill off.

Did you see the very thought-provoking movie Stranger Than Fiction? In it, a writer discovered that what came out of her typewriter really happened. The main character heard—and experienced—everything she was creating. Finally, he appeared at her door to beg her to stop writing about his death. And she was haunted with wondering—what if the other characters she killed had been real?

Sometimes it almost does feel a bit like that. Haunting. Do you worry about the dead guys? Could you kill someone—in a book, I mean? Am I—a wimp? Does murder get any easier? Even on the page?

You know, I don’t think so. But I’m going to keep at it. Because for a mystery writer, just like a reporter, it’s so satisfying to be able to tell a good story.

Investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan’s dozens of awards include 24 Emmys. She is currently is on the air at Boston's NBC affiliate. PRIME TIME, her first mystery features investigative reporter Charlie McNally. The second in the series, FACE TIME, will appear in October 2007.

Cornelia Read: From Stringbean to Maddy Dare

Interviewed by
Sandra Parshall

Cornelia Read is a refugee from the Social Register who was raised by hippies on the California coast. Her first novel, A Field of Darkness, was published in 2006 to rave reviews and was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Her second book, The Crazy School, will be out in January 2008. She lives in California with her husband and two daughters.

Loved the photo of you in a tux at the Edgars banquet. How much work was involved in getting into it?

You can’t tell in the photo, but it’s actually tails. I got the shirt, vest, tie, and collar from Brooks Brothers. The shirtbox was printed with an eight-step set of directions for getting all of it on, which took half an hour with my sister Freya’s and friend Heidi’s assistance.

I have gained a new and profound empathy for the plight of Victorian men.

What was it like to be at the Edgar Awards as a nominee? Stressful, dream come true, or less exciting than you expected?

I cannot remember ever having more fun during the course of a single twenty-four-hour period. I mean, getting to hang out in a banquet hall jammed to the rafters with my favorite people… the only thing at all comparable would be joining up with a bunch of scathingly well-read and articulate pirates to commandeer a super-tanker of Dom Perignon off the coast of Monte Carlo.

Seriously.

Now that you’ve accumulated all the rave reviews, plus an Edgar nomination, you can relax in the knowledge that your first book has been a success. But did you have any doubts and fears before it was released? Did you have nightmares about it ending up on remainder tables, marked down to $2.95?

I still have those nightmares, only there’s a huge DayGlo sign on each table that says, “Three for $.99! Burns like a charm in campfires, woodstoves!”

How long were you writing before you published? Did you always want to write mysteries?

I’ve been writing since second grade—mostly dreck, but it was fun.

I was more about espionage than mystery, as a kid. Passed through a serious Harriet-the-Spy/Ian Fleming phase, following close on the heels of my Batman/Lawrence-of-Arabia period.

I wrote the diary of a child CIA agent when I was in sixth grade. The title was “Call Me Stringbean.”

Like most writers, you probably spent a long time perfecting your first book before you sold it. Do you remember how many drafts you did of A Field of Darkness?

I started writing it the week before 9/11, 2001 and my agent was finally happy with the final version just before New Year’s, 2005. I did two more rewrites with my first editor, Kristen Weber.

I don’t know exactly how many drafts that was, all told, but I still have every page of them piled up in the top shelf of my desk—each incarnation of the thing, in chronological order—and the stack’s over two feet tall. Weyerhauser loves me.

Was the second book more challenging, or less, than the first?

Writing The Crazy School was terrifying. Partly because I didn’t want to disappoint the people who were so kind about Field, and partly because I am a total wuss whose self-confidence is a delicate little flower—pale and wan, trembling in the slightest zephyr.

Did you always intend to write a series, or did you want to write stand-alones?

I hoped a publisher would like A Field of Darkness well enough to entertain the idea of a series featuring Madeline Dare. She seemed like a chick it would be fun for me to embark on continuing adventures with, but I didn’t know if anyone else would agree.

I’ve just started the third novel in the series, but am hoping to try my hand at a World War II thriller for number four. I am completely, obsessively smitten with the idea I have for that book—very much hope my agent and editor think it’s worth doing.

Does your editor require that you submit an outline or proposal for a book before you start writing?

They didn’t for the first two. I described the third one over the phone and my new editor, Les Pockell, liked the idea. Madeline travels to Kashmir around 1990, and the first line is, “ ‘I hate India,’ said my mother. ‘It’s just so Sixties.’ ”

For the fourth they’ve requested a written pitch.

You’re a wife and the mother of two daughters. Has it been hard to balance home life, book promotion and travel, and writing?

Very, very, very hard… on everyone. I never feel as though I’m doing any of it well enough: parenting, writing, promotion, marriage. I live with a constant undercurrent of guilt and unfolded laundry.

I’ve started daydreaming about kibbutzes—also polygamy.

Do you still have the same critique partners you had before you sold your first book?

Yes, and they’re amazing. I am lucky lucky lucky lucky to have found my writing group. May blessings rain upon them for all eternity. [Cornelia, second from left in the above photo, is shown with her critique partners, Daisy James, Sharon Johnson, and Karen Murphy.]

What’s the best thing about being a published writer? What’s the worst?

The best thing is the people I’ve had the great good fortune to meet as a result. See above: Pirates. Dom Perignon.

The worst is when things don’t go the way I want for fellow writers. This is a subjective, no-backs-no-gives, despite-our-best-intentions-and-purity-of-essence crapshoot of a business, for all concerned.

I want the good guys to win, damn it.

What aspects of your writing have you worked hardest to improve? Who are some of the writers you’ve learned from, and what have you learned from them?

I have the hardest time with tangents. I get carried away, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the… um… yeah.

Suffice it to say that my revisions require stout boots and a sharp machete.

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.

The last three books I’ve read 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.

Books specifically on writing that I’ve learned crucial stuff from include:

You Can Write a Mystery
Gillian Roberts

Writing & Selling Your Mystery Novel: How To Knock 'Em Dead With Style
Hallie Ephron

If You Want to Write
Brenda Ueland

On Writing
Stephen King

Bird by Bird
Anne Lamott

The Art of the Novel
Milan Kundera

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
John Gardner

Self-editing for Fiction Writers
Renni Brown and Dave King

A friend of mine says it’s bad enough that The Sopranos is coming to an end and The Wire’s new season doesn’t start till September -- why does she also have to wait so long for your next book? Can you give her a little taste of the story to help her survive?

Can I say I am in love L-U-V with your friend? Because I so am.

Here is a brief rundown of The Crazy School: Madeline has fled Syracuse, New York, for the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. She’s teaching at a boarding school for disturbed kids, but soon discovers that the only true psychos on campus are the grownups in charge. The book also features a helicopter, Sixties nostalgia, Eighties ennui, contraband caffeine and nicotine, the Loma Prieta Earthquake, and a missing batch of C-4 explosive.

Visit Cornelia’s website at www.corneliaread.com.

Cell phoneitus...

By Lonnie Cruse


Picture on left is the side of the Super Museum with a fake telephone booth. And yes, that's me posing as a super hero. Anything for the camera.

It's a wonder to me that everyone, including me, doesn't have missing, or at the very least, mangled ears from constantly holding a cell phone against the sides of our heads. I even know people who have the kind that actually hook ONTO the ear, like a hearing aide, so they walk around looking like they have a huge black roach attached to their ears. Ewww.

Practically ever single person shopping in the huge discount stores or grocery stores are chatting to someone. It's like we can't go for five minutes without conversation. Anywhere. I felt really sorry for an older lady I spotted in a restaurant a while back, eating her dinner in silence because her younger male companion chatted on the phone from the time they arrived, throughout the meal, and was still at it as we left. I'm assuming he was her son, but it struck me as a bit rude. Couldn't he chat with HER through the meal and call the person back when he was alone? Sigh.

Of course, I'm a child of the 50's and our home phone back then was firmly attached to the wall in the dining room which was right behind and fully open to the living room. So my parents could hear every single word. And that did get me into trouble, more than once. When hubby and I got our first house, in the 60's, our phone was in the kitchen, with possibly the longest cord in history, which allowed me to work in the kitchen and even reach part of the living room to sit down and chat. Of course, our sons always got *just out of reach* of the cord, so while I could threaten, I couldn't actually touch them while they wrestled each other or bounced on the couch. Luckily, it was vinyl. Where was I?

Growing up, I never dreamed of cordless phones, much less cell phones which gave users the ability to talk in the grocery store OR the car, while on a trip. I do love that. I confess, though, I once put the cordless phone down and couldn't find it. Pressed the handy little locater button, but no sound to lead me to it. Then I looked out the window. I'd left the receiver on top of the dog's house when I fed her. She didn't bother to answer the phone. Probably knew the call wasn't for her.

Last Tuesday was sort of the "be all, end all" cell phone spotting for me. We took our grandsons to the waterfall at Ferne Clyffe State Park (Southern Illinois, if you are ever in our area, check it out.) The boys climbed around, over, and under the rocks while Grandpa supervised from a safe distance and I sat on a nearby bench and enjoyed a good book and the lovely scenery. From time to time other visitors sauntered up to where we were, admiring the scenery. One group of teens included a young man chatting on his cell phone, informing the listener that he was at the waterfall. Which tells me there is now no place that is cell phone free except certain hospital areas, and people have been known to sneak them in there. And where was my cell phone while we admired the flora and fauna at Ferne Clyffe, you ask? In my pocket, of course! You didn't think I was dumb enough to take a hike in the woods without it, did you?

But I do have to wonder what kind of society we've evolved into, when you rarely see anyone without a cell phone tucked into the ear and/or between ear and shoulder while people go about their daily business. And whether or not the next generation will still have two ears and/or be able to stand fully upright, with ear not attached to shoulder permenantly. Should be interesting to see. And cell phones have given multitudinous writers ideas for stories. I'm sure there are plenty more out there.

'Scuse me, my cell phone is ringing. That would be the new one the company just sent me that takes pictures and has some sort of direction finder, for when I get lost. Have a good day. And don't forget to charge your cell phone.

Doing Research

Elizabeth Zelvin

I’ve never been fond of doing research. I majored in English back in college because it meant I got to read novels. Decades later, when I went back to school for a master’s in social work, I always felt slightly over my head in the university library. The Internet made things easier. When I don’t know something, I google it. But the systematic hunt for facts still scares me. I’d much rather make it up.

As a mystery writer, I’ve learned that there are things I’m allowed to make up and things I’m not. It seems unfair that writers for television are apparently allowed to get everything wrong, while novelists get scolded via email by their readers for the smallest error in fact. But who said life was fair? I can—in fact, I must—make up my characters and the situations I put them in. I may make up the settings of my stories, if I choose. But forensics, police procedure, and any kind of technical detail had better be accurate.

I didn’t know this when I wrote the first draft of Death Will Get You Sober. But when I started sending the manuscript out and networking with other mystery writers and readers, I soon learned that I couldn’t afford to ignore this stuff. To some extent, I could bypass it. I chose as my setting a milieu I know well: the world of alcoholism treatment programs and recovery from addictions and codependency. As a professional, I had published in the field. I didn’t need to look much up, and writing quirky characters and snappy dialogue instead of clinical prose was fun. I also chose to make my protagonist an amateur sleuth. My recovering alcoholic and his two sidekicks get suspicious about a death that’s fallen through the cracks in the system and make their own investigation. The convention of the traditional whodunit—mine is too gritty to be called a cozy—allowed me to do this. If I’d tried to write a police procedural, a PI novel, or a technothriller, I’d have had to research it. So I didn’t.

The police crept into the next two manuscripts, Death Will Improve Your Relationship and Death Will Help You Leave Him, which will appear in due course provided the first book does well. I contrived to keep them more or less in the background. But now I’m working on the fourth, Death Will Extend Your Vacation, and the moment of truth has arrived. My amateur detectives take shares in a group house in the Hamptons and find a body on the beach. The problem is not so much a case of Cabot Cove Syndrome (How can Jessica Fletcher manage to find so many bodies in one small town?) as that there’s no way the group can go on with its summer without police involvement. One of their housemates is dead. Sure, my protagonist and his buddies can snoop. But trying to get the story going, I quickly found myself stuck. I needed to know what the police were doing. Hence: research.

So one morning I waltzed into the headquarters of the Town of East Hampton Police Department, introduced myself as a mystery writer, and said the magic words (courtesy of writer Robin Hathaway), “I want to get it right.” As she’d predicted, they were glad to help. In minutes, I was seated across the desk from a handsome young sergeant with a gold shield pinned to his blue uniform.

“How do I know you are who you say you are?” he asked.

“Here’s my card,” I said. “And my bookmark.” (Better than a passport, with my picture and bio on one side and my book title and blurb on the other.) I showed him the Malice Domestic pad I’d brought along to take notes. I also mentioned my former affiliation with POPPA as a clinician doing outreach to NYPD officers on the subject of post-traumatic stress.

“It’s set in an imaginary Hampton,” I began.

He grinned and gestured at the room around him.

“This is it,” he said. I can imagine that policing in the Hamptons must be stranger than fiction some of the time.

I proceeded to describe my scenario and ask what the police would be doing at every point along the way, especially where they would necessarily be interacting with my characters. The sergeant generously gave me an hour of his time. He not only answered all my questions, but told me a few facts I didn’t even know I didn’t know. For one thing, group houses are illegal anywhere in the Town of East Hampton (from Wainscott to Sag Harbor to Montauk). Oops. Luckily, it’ll be the landlord, not the renters, who get in trouble when the murder bring the house to the law’s attention. Best of all, in explaining why the police and the medical examiner must be called to the scene of any death, the sergeant uttered one line so good that I absolutely must use it in the book.

“It’s against the law to die in the State of New York.”

All the Same in the End

Sandra Parshall

“The first chapter sells the book. And the last chapter sells the next book.” --Mickey Spillane

The End.

No other part of the crime novels I read disappoints me as often as the ending. No other part of the books I write makes me crazy the way the ending does. You can have a great plot, wonderful characters, atmospheric setting, graceful writing, but if the ending is lame or over-the-top or seems grafted on from some other subgenre, that’s what readers will remember. If they hate the ending of your current book, they might not bother reading the next.

Does any other genre place such a heavy burden on the poor writers who are just trying to find a good way to wrap it all up? Both critics and readers complain about “formulaic” crime fiction, but at the end, the formula is what they want. They want a confrontation between villain and protagonist. The motive behind the crime must be explained, which often leads to ludicrous scenes in which a killer blathers on and on about his actions, while holding the protagonist’s life in his hands. Once the full confession is out, the hero or heroine calls on inner reserves of strength and ingenuity, good triumphs over evil, and the world is set right again. Never mind that this sort of thing almost never happens in real life. In crime fiction, it’s expected, and if the writer doesn’t deliver it, the majority of readers will feel cheated.

And it all has to be suspenseful, exciting, scary, even though the reader knows how it will turn out.

In trying to lend originality to the formulaic ending, some writers have gone in for ever-bigger and more spectacular concluding action. Reading these over-the-top endings, I’m never sure whether the writers were desperately reaching for something new to excite fans or simply trying to keep themselves from falling asleep out of sheer boredom with the formula.

When I was struggling recently with the ending of my own work in progress, I asked some writing friends, published and unpublished, what they want to read -- and write -- at the end of a crime novel. Most of them have the same complaint I do about weak or preposterous climaxes.

Sheila Connolly, aka Sarah Atwell, who has two mysteries coming out from Berkley Prime Crime next year, said, “I know more than one book that I’ve enjoyed thoroughly -- up until the end, when it read as though the writer had simply run out steam and wanted nothing more than to finish the bleeping story. I’ve also read too many where the killer came out of left field at the end. Readers want closure, but we also want it to be believable, not contrived.”

The ending must answer what Lori Lake, author of Snow Moon Rising, calls “The Big Question” -- the central conflict that drives the entire story. “Your opening promises something, and in order for your ending to work, you must fulfill that promise.”

Darlene Ryan, author of Saving Grace and Rules for Life, admits to enjoying climactic scenes where the protagonist is in physical danger -- although “I know it can get preposterous in long-running series.”

K.B. Inglee, on the other hand, doesn’t require that the protagonist be endangered, and if he or she is, “I have a tendency to skip over that part.” Still, she adds, “the wisdom is...gotta have a threat, even do damage to your protag.”

Nobody wants to return to the style of mystery writing that has the sleuth explaining everything in great detail at the end. “I hate endings where the detective explains what happened," says Leslie Budewitz of LawAndFiction.com. "I want to figure it out with the protagonist.”

What about epilogues that take the characters beyond the climax? “I usually stop reading once the murderer is uncovered,” K.B. says. But others want more. “After the killer is caught,” Leslie says, “I like a short chapter -- two to three pages -- that gives a bit of wrapup that shows me how the protagonist and the victims or other characters are doing in the next few hours or days.” Sheila has “mixed feelings” about epilogues but believes they can be “intellectually satisfying.” Janet Koch, however, loves them. “I typically enjoy epilogues tremendously, especially when I’ve grown to love the book. Feels like a little treat at the end, or maybe an extended goodbye.”

Not everyone in my mini-survey demanded that the villain be brought to justice. “Sometimes,” Jaye Stock said, “the villain can carry over to another book. Even if the villain is carried over, there [must] be a sense of completion and closure to the story -- a stopping place for the current work.”

Everyone agreed on these points:

The ending must be logical, flowing from the events of the story. It can’t depend on a previously unknown fact or character.

The ending must be appropriate in tone to the story as a whole. The writer can’t turn a cozy into a thriller in the final pages and expect readers to be happy.

The plot and the ending must be plausible. “It ruins the story for me,” Bobbie Gosnell said, “if my final thought on the book is, Give me a break.”

Oh, and one more thing: Modern crime novel protagonists, in contrast to Miss Marple, Poirot, and Holmes, must show “growth and change” by the end of every book. But that’s another topic.

What do you want in an ending? Do you care whether the protagonist is endangered? Do you mind if the villain gets away? How far can a writer go without making you throw the book against the wall in disgust?

How to Get Your Creativity in Gear

Cynthia Baxter (Guest Blogger)

Cynthia Baxter writes the Reigning Cats and Dogs series featuring veterinarian Jessica Popper.

Chances are good that when I sit down at my computer to start working tomorrow morning, I won’t feel like it.

I won’t have an idea in my head, I won’t be able to remember which crisis I left my heroine in, and the lure of playing around on the Internet, searching for a good price on Rockports or a new chocolate cheesecake recipe, will be almost irresistibly strong.

In short, that famous quote that’s usually attributed to Dorothy Parker, “I hate writing but love having written,” could not be truer.

But deadlines loom, even if they’re months away. So over the years, I’ve developed a few tricks that I play on myself in order to get myself in gear.

1. Start with something easy. I find the best way to get going is to assign myself a simple, non-threatening task, one that’s easily achievable in a short amount of time. “Go back to chapter 2 and write that paragraph describing the living room” or “Check one of your past books to see what color your heroine’s boyfriend’s eyes are.” Here’s a favorite: Each chapter in all my books begins with a quotation, and a really good way for me to feel as if I’m accomplishing something important without having to tax my brain is finding clever little bons mots that other people have written – usually Mark Twain. Once I’ve spent some time doing that, I usually find I’ve slipped into a working mode.

2. Reread and revise. The more I write, the more I rewrite. Every time I go back and read something, even something I thought was pretty much finished, I find little things to change. A comma here, a stronger adjective here…it’s all part of the process of polishing my prose until it gleams. It needs to be done, but somehow it never seems as daunting as creating something new. Revising an old section or chapter not only gets my brain in gear; it’s also a task that I find can never be done too many times.

3. Set a time limit. It’s 9:42, and I’m staring at a blank screen. “Okay,” I tell myself, “writing is your job. You’re sitting at a desk. You are not allowed to get up from that desk until 11:00.” Somehow, the idea of writing for a finite amount of time doesn’t seem as horrifying as facing an open-ended challenge like, “Write a book.” I can usually make it to whatever time I’ve chosen – and on a good day I can get a respectable amount of work done. I also find that most of the time, I can’t help going longer, since by that point the creative juices are usually flowing with abandon.

4. Eliminate excuses to get up and leave the room. Before I sit down to work, I make sure everything I need for my personal comfort and safety is within arm’s reach. That includes a glass of water, a box of tissues, dental floss, lip balm, hand lotion, and a myriad of nail products, from nail polish remover to a cuticle cutter. If I try really hard, I can still come up with a million excuses to abandon my computer – put in the laundry, look up a phone number downstairs, all kinds of things that most people wouldn’t consider the least bit fun but which suddenly seem better than working. But at least I have the basic, most obvious ones covered.

5. Create a reward. “Just write 5 pages – and then you can go check the mail.” Or leaf through the new Chico’s catalog or call a friend or do something else that only takes five or ten minutes but which can break up my concentration. Somehow, knowing there’s something easier than writing in the distant future makes the process just a little less painful.

Once I get past my resistance and start writing, I usually find it’s easier than I thought – and much more fun.

Did I mention that a strong shot of caffeine also helps?

It's Hard to Write a Mystery

Elizabeth Zelvin

I wrote a poem the other day. I’m well qualified to do this. I have been writing poetry for 30 years. I’ve had two books published, I Am the Daughter (1981) and Gifts and Secrets: Poems of the Therapeutic Relationship (1999). I turned to writing mysteries a year or two after the second book came out, putting the poetry on the back burner. I never sat down to write poetry on a regular basis, the way novelists have to do if they want to produce a completed manuscript. I waited for the poems to come to me. Here’s how my creative process worked, from a poem called “Night Poem” that appeared in Gifts and Secrets. As you’ll notice, besides being about writing, it’s a love poem.

it’s like The Red Shoes only instead of dancing
I keep getting up to write poems
a dozen times between 3 and 6 AM
I curl back around you in the dark
and pull the blankets up
but then a line tugs at my mind
and I go stumbling through the hall
groping for light and pen
each time I lie back down
the images pop up like frogs
clamoring to be made princes
and you grumble and roll over
as I shuffle into my slippers once again
and go kiss the page

That’s pretty much how it worked this time, except that it happened in the daytime, so I didn’t lose any sleep over it. (I have a light-up LED pen on my bedside table nowadays, anyhow.) If I have a muse inside my head, that’s how it gets my attention: it tugs. I rushed to the computer, the images already forming in my mind. In 20 minutes, the thing was done. I felt as I imagine a hen might when she’s laid an egg. There it was, a whole poem. I didn’t need to change a word, and I was ready to cluck with satisfaction.

Writing a mystery, on the other hand, is a messy process. It takes time—lots of time. No way can it come out all at once. It involves reams of scribbles and cryptic notes in Word files. If you’re an “into the mist” writer like me, the plot dribbles out bit by bit onto many post-its. I also carry a digital recorder, especially when I run, so many of my pearls of prose get recorded in jerky syllables with panting in between and the slap of running shoes on the track in the background. My protagonist’s voice frequently starts talking in my head, but there’s no guarantee that I’ll use what he says on any one occasion. The good news is that after writing three full-length mysteries and a short story about him, I’m finally convinced I don’t have to worry about his having nothing more to say. The bad news is that I’m never finished.

Then there’s the story. Many of my poems are stories, too. But they’re short stories. Very, very short. Furthermore, as I have said to audiences at many readings over the years, everything in my poems is true. As my husband once said to an enthusiastic fan who burbled about how wonderful it must be to live with a poet, “Yeah, well, now you know I snore and get kicked out of bed for it.” A novelist can’t get away with that kind of candor. Instead, we say, “Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” And that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. We make it up. Yet we have to get it right—“it” being anything from forensics and police procedure to beekeeping or quilting or whatever occupation our fictional protagonist happens to take up. For mystery writers, “they do it on CSI” is on a par with “the dog ate my homework.”

Above all, our fictional characters must ring true. One of the characters in my mystery has a few traits in common with my husband. It would have been fun to make this character a bit of a curmudgeon. But my husband, whom I love dearly, is a bit of a curmudgeon. So my character had to be sweet. In fact, I had to work hard not to make him so sweet he was too good to be true.

The First Time Comes Only Once

Sandra Parshall

Attending Malice Domestic last spring as a first novelist was just about the most nerve-wracking experience of my life up to that point. I had been warned that if I did or said anything foolish, the other writers present would never forgive or forget. I was too terrified to approach anyone and hardly dared to open my mouth. I wanted to find a big potted palm and hide behind it all weekend.

Why, then, do I feel nostalgic about that conference? Why do I wish I could do it all over again?

Because it was incredibly exciting, and because now I know that I didn't have to be so scared. I've learned that most mystery writers are generous souls who will forgive a beginner almost anything short of arrogance and deliberate insults. They were beginners once too, and they understand that newbies are frantic and need a helping hand.

Despite the fear factor, I did pretty well at my first conference — I didn’t embarrass myself or anyone else, I met a lot of online friends in person for the first time, I moderated a panel that all present seemed to enjoy (the panelists get the credit for that; I was just the verbal traffic cop), and by the end of it I felt like A Real Writer at last.

Malice Domestic 2007 starts Friday, May 4 and runs through Sunday. I don’t have to travel, thank heaven, because it’s held in Northern Virginia, where I live. This time around, I’ll be a veteran, with my second book, Disturbing the Dead, already out. And I’ll be watching with a mixture of pride and envy as several friends make their Malice debuts as published, or about to be published, mystery novelists and short story writers: Terry Hoover, Deb Baker, June Shaw, Beth Groundwater, Elizabeth Zelvin, Kaye George (aka Judy Egner). During the wild and crazy literary equivalent of speed-dating called Malice-Go-Round, I get to sit at a table and listen as the first-timers race about the room, giving their pitches over and over and talking themselves hoarse. I know I’ll be itching to get up and run around with them, but at the same time I’m grateful that I don’t ever have to do that again.

I’m not completely finished with firsts, though. The Heat of the Moon is a nominee for Best First Novel, and I’ll attend the Agatha Awards banquet on Saturday for the first time. A year ago, I could not have imagined this happening. To tell the truth, I’m still more than a little amazed by the nomination, so I doubt I’ll be crushed if I don’t win. Hey, it’s enough that I get to be on the New Kids on the Block panel, which is fantastic for two reasons: Margaret Maron will moderate, and I’ll be called a kid again for the first time in numerous decades.

The journey from pure terror last spring to relative ease this year hasn’t always been smooth. I’ve stumbled here and there, but I’ve learned a lot (such as: only your dearest friends will want ballpoint pens with your title and name on them), and gained more confidence as a speaker than I ever thought possible. Being an old hand has its rewards.

I still envy the first-timers, though. The experience feels like jumping off a tall building with no safety net below, but that first major conference as a published writer is also one of the most exhilarating events of a mystery writer’s life. My friends are going to shine, and I’ll be grinning like a proud sister in crime all weekend.

One sad note to this year’s Malice will be the absence of the talented and charming Elaine Viets, who was scheduled to act as toastmaster. As most in the mystery community know, Elaine suffered a stroke several weeks ago and has been forced to cancel all appearances for the foreseeable future. She’s doing remarkably well, though, and there’s reason to hope for a full recovery. Murder With Reservations, her new entry in the Dead-End Job series, is out now and available at any mystery or general bookstore, and a number of writers on tour this spring will be talking about her book as well as their own. Elaine will be missed at Malice this weekend, but we all believe she’ll be back among us soon.

Screeching to a Halt on a Manicured Lawn

Sandra Parshall

There it was, in the middle of a beautifully-written book I'd been enjoying.

The hero hears a noise on the floor above and starts up the steps to investigate. Something slams into him, he feels a blinding pain... "then all was blackness." That means he was knocked out. Loss of consciousness is a fairly common occurrence in crime novels because it's so useful. It always creates a sense of urgency and danger — when the main character is clobbered, the reader knows the situation is heating up and more excitement is on the way. It also removes the protagonist from the action long enough for the villain, now unhampered, to do something dastardly in the background. If you read a lot of crime novels, you're likely to see a lot of characters getting knocked out. The descriptions will be remarkably similar. "...then all was blackness." "...then everything went black." "...then the world went black." I suffered a concussion once, and that was exactly what happened: everything went black. But I've read the description so many times that I grind my teeth when I come across it in yet another mystery or thriller.

Like most readers, I have my personal list of pet peeves, and that's just one of them. I also groan every time I spot the phrase manicured lawn. I picture a salon manicurist on her hands and knees, clipping the grass with those tiny cuticle scissors. Manicured lawn has become the most common shortcut phrase for telling the reader that a landscape is well-maintained. Even Webster's lists it: "[Colloq.] to trim, clip, etc., meticulously [to manicure a lawn]." But I don't think it makes sense. For me it's another teeth-grinder.

Speaking of landscapes, what about all those tree-lined streets? If the writer wants us to know that a character inhabits a placid, pleasant neighborhood, he mentions the tree-lined streets. But how many residential neighborhoods don't have trees on the streets? Some of the worst slums I've ever seen had tree-lined streets. The phrase creates a vague image in my mind because it tells me nothing new. The writer hasn't given me a single striking detail that would make the setting specific and memorable.

Now let's talk about the manner in which a vehicle ceases motion in an emergency. It screeches to a halt, of course. Or, for variety, it screeches to a stop. Once when I was proofreading a manuscript of my own, I stumbled onto this and had a strong urge to bang my head on my desk until all was blackness. They're insidious, these cliched descriptions. Let your guard down for a second and they march right in and make themselves comfortable. All too often, though, writers deliberately usher them onto the page. We need a quick way to convey an idea, so we reach into our handy Bag of Cliches and come up with a manicured lawn or a tree-lined street, and we continue without a second thought. I'm not claiming the high ground here, because I'm as guilty of lazy writing as anyone else.

Also abundant in fiction are situational cliches, those scenes where coincidences crop up or characters do absurd things because it's easiest for us to write them that way. (The unarmed hero or heroine who goes upstairs or downstairs alone to investigate a weird noise is a prime example, so the writer who prompted this rant committed two sins, not one.) Too much of that stuff in an unpublished manuscript will deaden a story and doom its chances of selling. Too much of it in an established writer's work can turn off the most ardent fans and leave them feeling cheated.

I can easily see all these flaws in other people's writing. I can't always spot them right away in my own. But I have vowed to be more vigilant. From now on, I'll give every chapter, every scene, one reading that will focus on cliches and lazy descriptions. I might not get rid of your pet peeves, but I can make sure the things I hate are rooted out. It's a start.

***************
All the Deadly Daughters are amazed and delighted to find our site on a list of "Eight Top Mystery Blogs" in the April 15 issue of Library Journal. It's nice to be noticed!

It's Called Confidence

By Lonnie Cruse

Yesterday morning I was returning home from an appointment in Paducah. As I reached Metropolis and headed down the shortcut that leads through town, I spotted a young boy walking on the opposite side of the road, his back to traffic. My first thought was to say a quick prayer that he'd stay safely off the shoulder, away from the edge of the road, and not get run over. Then I saw him glance over his shoulder, obviously keeping an eye on traffic. As I drew closer, I was struck by several things about him.

He was young, probably eight to ten years old, walking on a busy street by himself. But it's a small town, and kids here do that. He reminded me of my boys at that age, blonde hair, large eyes, cute as a button. But what really got my attention was his attire and what he carried in his hands.

He wore large rubber boots that came to his knees and a jacket to guard against the chilly spring wind. In one hand he carried a large empty bucket. I wondered about that bucket for a brief second or two. Was he picking up soda cans to recycle/sell? Then I saw the fishing pole in his other hand.

I tried to remember if there was a pond at that end of town (we're a rural area, here in Southern Illinois, lots of farms, lots of ponds) but I couldn't remember any in the direction he was headed. There IS, however, a very large creek at the end of that road where it runs into Highway 45, and the Ohio River also backs into that area when the river stages are high, as they likely are now (recent heavy rains) so my guess is he was headed that-a-way. With a fishing pole and an empty bucket. I didn't see any bait, but there might have been a plastic lure tied on the end of his pole, or he might've carried some bait stuck down in his pocket.

As a longtime fisherman (fisherwoman?) I was awed by his confidence, for obviously the purpose of the bucket was to carry home whatever he could catch via the pole. Apparently it didn't occur to him that he might not catch any fish. Confidence. A wonderful thing.

Many writers have that kind of innocent, steady confidence. I'd already decided to write this piece when I happened to read a post yesterday on a writer's list by my Poe sister, Sandy Parshall. Sandy, apparently in response to something an unpublished writer had written to the list, said she wrote her second book before her first was even accepted or published. I did the same thing, wrote the second before the first in my Metropolis series even found a home. A lot of authors do that. We don't wait to see if someone will publish our first highly polished and ready-to-submit manuscript because we believe in it, not in a haughty or superior way, but in a confident way. Confident about our stories, that someone will want to publish them, and confident others will want to read them. It's what keeps us going, through difficult critiques, harsh criticisms, doubtful head shakes from friends or family, rejection from agents or publishers, and other difficult times.

Confidence. Yeah, it wavers a bit at times. We want to move to a cave some days (sans computer and Internet) and hide. Or toss our work-in-progress in the trash. Or kill the person who dares say we'll never be published. But we keep going. Keep writing.

I hope that little boy's mom fried his catch-of-the-day because I'm sure he caught some fish. Do you have the confidence to carry through with whatever is important to you? Hey, don't give up, grab a bucket.

This Writing Stuff Ain't As Easy As It Looks...

By Lonnie Cruse

Writing a mystery novel, particularly dealing with the saggy baggy middle, isn't as easy as it looks. And it isn't all about "talent" because I firmly believe we ALL have the talent to write a novel, be it science fiction, romance, fantasy, mystery, or main stream (whatever that is.) We ALL have stories buried deep inside us that only WE can tell. We just have to learn HOW to tell them.

Some of us keep our stories forever buried, fearing what the reader would discover about us, IF we actually wrote them down on paper.

Others of us actually write them down (not being able to resist) then bury them deep inside a desk drawer, fearing rejection by publishers, agents, and/or family members who read them.

Then there are those of us who dare to tread where angels fear, typing our stories out, spiffing them up, firing them off to every available agent/publisher, and eventually getting to see them in print. At which point our friends and neighbors announce to all and sundry that they never suspected we had such a "dark side" until they read our work. Most likely the very same people who keep their stories hidden from us. Sigh.

Which very thing happened to me just last night. I met someone who hadn't read my work, and while she was eagerly buying a personalized, autographed copy from me, another friend sidled up to say she never knew I had a dark side (never mind that I write cozy, but I DO have to include a murder or two if I want to be considered as a mystery writer, sigh. And never mind that HER mind is every bit as dark as mine!)

Where was I? Oh, yeah, the saggy baggy middle. Assuming you ARE ready to write your thoughts down, into a novel, you most likely have the beginning in mind, and possibly even the ending, meaning you know who was murdered, who did the dastardly deed, who will be your suspects, who will have alibis, who won't, but how are you going to connect the beginning to the ending? In other words, how are you going to fill the 250-300 pages in the MIDDLE??? Yikes.

So you stare at blank pages, go for a walk, eat chocolate (which fills an entirely different middle that you did not wish to fill) and you worry. Some writers even stop writing THAT story all together and switch to writing a new work. Maybe even several new works, never getting past the MIDDLE. What to do? Okay, for what it's worth, here's what I do.

Eat chocolate. Which, incidentally, I'm doing at the moment. But I also jot down notes on 3 X 5 index cards (pastel colors, thank you very much, the plain white ones aren't girley enough for me.) I jot down ideas of ANYTHING that could happen to my characters. Doesn't have to fit the story. In fact I have a left over card from a book that's about to come into print this year that says "send character out to play golf." Unfortunately this character positively refuses to play golf. So, I'm stuck with that card. But the other possibilities I'd written on cards for that story worked. I'll find a spot for the golfing card somewhere, someday.

Something else I do is a variation of journaling. Now, don't start gagging on me just yet. I know some authors love journaling, others run shrieking into the night if they even see a book with blank pages. I fall somewhere in the middle (there's that nasty word again.) I buy beautiful books with blank pages, journal my life every day for a week or two, then put the books down to gather dust. Then I took a class from Margie Lawson at http://www.writeruniv.com/ and she insisted the students do SOME journaling, but only bits and pieces a day. Nothing lengthy, just quick thoughts, ideas, etc, and keeping the journaling brief. It has REALLY helped me to jot down short ideas for my overall story. Character names. Overheard conversations that could lead to a story line. Possible new story lines. Etc. Works wonders, so if you are having trouble with your writing, buy a nice journal, and jot just a FEW words in it each day.

One other thing that helps (and I couldn't live, not to mention write without) is my little Alphasmart. IF you've never heard of them, check out www.alphasmart.com This is a small keyboard that is very durable and goes anywhere. It runs on batteries that last forever and are cheap to replace. It only shows four lines of verbage at a time, but I can arrow up or down if I need to, to see what I've written above or below. The beauty of the machine is that I generally don't want to arrow up or down, and I'm really not facing a blank page, so I just type whatever comes to mind. Then I upload what I've typed into the ongoing story on my computer.

If I have a thought that doesn't go into the story line at that spot, I type a reminder to myself in ALL CAPS to work on later. Or if I don't want to describe the scene I'm working on, just want to get the dialogue down, I put a note to describe it later. When the file is full, I upload it into my manuscript on the computer, save it, back it up on disc or thumb drive, delete it off Alphie, and begin a new section. Alphasmarts aren't real expensive, and eBay likely has used ones. I can type anywhere in the house, or riding in the car with my hubby. The Alphasmart is great for getting me through the middle of my manuscript because ONLY the part I'm working on at the moment is there. Therefore I can NOT go back and edit earlier parts of my manuscript until the first rough draft is done.

And if you are someone who wants to write a novel, but you don't think you have the talent, TAKE CLASSES! They are all over the Internet. Some pricey, some reasonable. IF you have a story you want to tell but don't know how, learn how. It is NOT about talent, (though, yes, some have more than others, and most writers are far more talented than me!) it's about YOUR individual story. No one can tell it like you. So write it down, tell it, get it published, and let us read it. And tell your friends you are no more weird than they are.

Spring Makes Everything New

by Julia Buckley
















It's officially spring, and the weather in Chicagoland today was so sublime, with its alluring breezes and warm sun, that I wondered why I have yet to set a mystery novel in the spring.

My first book, THE DARK BACKWARD, is set in the fall, as is my first series mystery, MADELINE MANN, which comes out in August. I suppose I figured that the symbolism we attach to fall events works well with the idea of murder and death. Things die in autumn.

Because my first Madeline mystery happens in the fall, the next one is a natural progression, a couple of months later in Madeline's story, and therefore is set in winter. Lots of great mystery imagery in snow, too. The third, which is still waiting at the publisher (keep your fingers crossed), happens in the summer. Therefore, if I'm going in order, the next book will be in the fall again.

Somehow I skipped spring, and now that spring is here I am reminded anew of its wonders: the warmer air, still cool in frequent breezes; the scent of flowers which will suddenly be blooming everywhere; the chirping of birds who were silent all through the cold months.

In my own yard I inherited, years ago, another woman's garden treasures: lily-of-the-valley, peony bushes, tulips, day lilies, lilacs, and honeysuckle vines twining over the fence. They are wonderful, free gifts that came with our house and return every spring, and I enjoy strolling in my yard each morning before work (something I never care to do in any other season) so that I can breathe in the loveliness before I march off to school.

I'm not sure which flowers I've photographed here, but I snapped the shot last spring when we visited Brookfield Zoo.

In any case, I'm hoping to write a spring story soon. For you readers, do you like books to be set in a particular season?

Writers, what season do you set your novels in? Do you lean toward a particular time of year?

What If? The Heart of the Story

Elizabeth Zelvin

I’ve heard it said that every story starts with a “what if,” a question in the writer’s mind that provides the seed from which all the rest grows. It makes sense to me. Let’s look at the classics. Romeo and Juliet: What if the children of two families engaged in a bitter feud fall in love? King Lear: What if a man divides his estate among his heirs while he’s still alive? Hamlet: What if a man finds out his uncle may have murdered his father—but he’s not sure? Pride and Prejudice: What if a rich bachelor moves into the neighborhood of a family with an entailed estate and five daughters with no dowries? Jane Eyre: What if a man with a mad wife locked in the attic falls in love with the governess?

In a whodunit or a novel of suspense, “what if” can trigger the action, the plot, the mystery itself. Josephine Tey, Brat Farrar: What if a foundling with a yearning to belong is persuaded to impersonate the missing heir to a family whose members look just like him and share his passion for horses? Stuart Woods, Chiefs: What if a serial killer is a pillar of the community who spreads his murders out over 40 years? The DaVinci Code: What if Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child whose descendant still lives in the present day?

But for some writers, the plot is not the starting point. A situation, setting, or relationship can generate a “what if” that becomes the stage on which the solving of the mystery is played out. Or the “what if” may generate a whole series. Laurie R. King: What if the aging Sherlock Holmes meets a young woman who’s just as smart as he is? Margaret Maron: What if a modern Southern woman whose father was a famous bootlegger becomes a judge? In science fiction, sometimes called speculative fiction, “what if” is the whole point. But mystery writers too need a reason to set their characters in motion, a burning curiosity that they can impart to the reader.

I didn’t consciously think “what if” when I sat down to write Death Will Get You Sober. But when I applied the question to what I’d written, I realized that my central “what if” did not pertain to the murder and its solution but to the characters I had created to solve it and future mysteries in the series: Bruce, the newly sober alcoholic, and his friends, Jimmy and Barbara. What if there were two best friends, inseparable from childhood? What if both were alcoholics? What if one of them got sober and the other didn’t? What if 15 years later the other one stopped drinking too? What would happen to the friendship? What if we throw in a codependent girlfriend who cares as much about what happens between them as they do—and is much more eager to talk about it? To me, the relationships of the protagonist and his friends give life to the mystery. And in the projected series, they keep evolving. I want to know what happens next, and I hope the reader will too.

Interview with Lee Goldberg

Interviewer: Elizabeth Zelvin

Lee Goldberg is a versatile and prolific author whose mystery novels based on the TV shows Diagnosis Murder and Monk have been highly praised.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

When I was ten or eleven, I was already pecking novels out on my Mom's old typewriters. The first one was a futuristic tale about a cop born in an underwater sperm bank. I don't know why the bank was underwater, or how deposits were made, but I thought it was very cool. I followed that up with a series of books about gentleman thief Brian Lockwood, aka "The Perfect Sinner,” a thinly disguised rip-off of Simon Templar, aka "The Saint." I sold these stories for a dime to my friends and even managed to make a dollar or two. In fact, I think my royalties per book were better then than they are now.

I continued writing novels all through my teenage years. Some of my other unpublished masterpieces featured a hapless detective named Kevin Dangler. Being a packrat, I still have most of those novels today in boxes in my garage (some were destroyed in flooding a few years back).

By the time I was 17, I was writing articles for The Contra Costa Times and other Bay Area newspapers and applying to colleges. I didn't get a book published, but my detective stories got me into UCLA's School of Communications. My grades weren't wonderful, so I knew I had to kick ass on my application essay. I wrote it first person as a hard-boiled detective story in Kevin Dangler's voice. The committee, at first, had doubts that I actually wrote it myself -- until they reviewed articles I'd written for the Times, including one that used the same device as my essay. Once I got into UCLA, I put myself through school as a freelance writer...for American Film, Los Angeles Times Syndicate, UPI, Newsweek. Anybody who would pay me. I had a girlfriend at Playgirl and she got me a gig writing sexually explicit Letters-to-the-Editor at Playgirl for $25 each.

You broke into journalism and then into TV relatively young. How did you do it—besides having scads of talent and an exceptional sense of humor?

I had a journalism advisor at UCLA who wrote spy novels. We became friends and talked a lot about mysteries, thrillers, plotting, etc. One day his publisher came to him and asked him if he’d write a “men’s action adventure series,” sort of the male equivalent of the Harlequin romance. He said he wasn’t desperate enough, hungry enough, or stupid enough to do it…but he knew someone who was: Me. So I wrote an outline and some sample chapters and they bought it. The book was called .357 Vigilante I wrote it as “Ian Ludlow” so I'd be on the shelf next to Robert Ludlum and had plenty of Letter-to-the-Editor-of-Playgirl quality sex in it.

The West Coast Review of Books called my literary debut "as stunning as the report of a .357 Magnum, a dynamic premiere effort," singling the book out as "The Best New Paperback Series" of the year. I ended up writing four books in the series. Naturally, the publisher promptly went bankrupt and I never saw a dime in royalties.

But New World Pictures bought the movie rights to .357 Vigilante and hired me to write the screenplay. I didn’t know anything about writing scripts…luckily, I had a good friend who did, William Rabkin. We worked together on the UCLA Daily Bruin. So the two of us teamed up. The movie never got made, but we had so much fun that we are still a writing team today…twenty years later.

Bill and I broke in to TV by writing a spec episode of Spenser For Hire which, against all odds, they bought and shot… and then hired us to write three more episodes. We’ve been writing for TV ever since.

Why mystery? To what extent did you choose the genre, or if you didn’t, how did it happen?

I've always loved reading mysteries...starting with "Encyclopedia Brown," "The Hardy Boys," and "Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators." And before I knew it, I graduated to Lew Archer, Travis McGee, Phillip Marlowe, Shell Scott, etc. I didn't know it then, but I think what I liked about mysteries was the strong central conflict and the relentless, forward motion of the stories. There's always a lot at stake for the characters, always something to discover. Then again, I believe all the best stories are mysteries...whether they are called mysteries or not.

You’ve been closely associated with the long-running TV show Diagnosis Murder. Was the concept your idea? Besides the writing, what exactly did you do on the show?

I didn't create the show, author Joyce Burditt did. One of my mentors in TV was Michael Gleason (creator/EP of Remington Steele). He was running DM during the second season and signed Bill and me to write four freelance episodes, one of which turned out to be the season premiere. We were thrilled. But a few weeks later, we got hired as supervising producers on The Cosby Mysteries. So we found ourselves balancing two jobs and two TV icons at once ...Bill Cosby by day and Dick Van Dyke by night. We did it and somehow we even managed to write a pilot that year, too. Little did we know that our relationship with Diagnosis Murder was only just beginning. Gleason left the show after a season and, a year or so later, we were hired by his replacement to be supervising producers. The following season, the guy who hired us was fired and we took his place. We were executive producers of the show for the next two years before deciding to quit to take over a show called Martial Law.

As executive producers, you not only are in charge of the scripts...you are in charge of everything. Casting, editing, hiring the directors, the budget, everything. It's a big job. There's a reason so many showrunners end up becoming alcoholics and drug addicts!

What’s your favorite kind of writing as a writer? As a reader?

Mysteries and thrillers of course! Though, as a reader, I also devour mainstream novels and western fiction. I love Larry McMurtry, John Irving, Elmer Kelton, Richard Wheeler, William Hoffman, Thomas Berger, Billie Letts, Frederick Manfred, to name a few. Anita Shreve is a guilty pleasure of mine. And I loved Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I really enjoyed the first few Stephen King novels, and then I just got burned out on him.

How does writing a TV script differ from writing a novel?

It would take a book to answer that question...luckily, I've written one (Successful Television Writing). They are, basically, two entirely different story-telling forms with very different rules, structure, techniques, etc. The only thing that TV and books have in common is that both are mediums for sharing stories...in books, you tell stories, in TV you show them. That simple distinction is a difficult one for many writers to overcome when moving into one field from the other.

How different is writing a novel based on a TV show from writing a novel from scratch?

Again, there's a big difference -- you are working with someone else's characters and, in effect, writing in their voice. You are also trying to take something that was created for a visual medium and translate it, without losing any of its character or appeal, into an entirely different form. It's not easy. On the other hand, you are working with terrific characters with clear voices...something you don't have to create on your own. It's a help...but also a constraint. You also face the challenge of trying to live up to the pre-existing expectations of readers...and the performances of the actors, which are indelibly etched in the reader's mind.

Has there ever been a writing project you wanted but either couldn’t get or couldn’t complete? Any failures or disappointments? Any items on your long-term wish list of dreams or achievements?

Oh, sure, there have been lots of failures and disappointments, but I don't dwell on them. I still would like to write a novel that isn't a mystery or a thriller. And I wouldn't mind creating and exec-producing a hit TV series, either!

What do you find most rewarding about the TV business?

I love the writing, of course. I like knowing that most of what I write will actually get produced (unlike, say, toiling in features). And I like seeing how other people shape what I have written. Because writing for TV is a group effort…and what you envision when you create a story and what eventually ends up on screen are never the same. Most of the time, that’s not a bad thing. The creative contributions that the director, the actors, the editors, the composers, the wardrobe people, the stunt people, etc. bring to what you’ve written are often surprising, exciting and inspiring.

The best part of being a TV writer… besides the money… is the time you spend with other writers. I love sitting in a room with some of the cleverest, most creative people you will ever meet, and talking story for hours. It’s exhausting…but in a good way.

What are some of the pitfalls of the TV profession and how do you deal with them?

The job insecurity. The fact is, unless you reach a certain star level in the business, it never gets easier to find work. You are always pitching, always looking for the next gig, always auditioning, always competing for a limited number of available positions and assignments. It’s exhausting…but in a bad way.

There is also an enormous amount of ego and dick-measuring in TV. I’m sure I’m guilty of it, too…sadly, it’s part of the TV culture. But I’m lucky that I have some perspective. I am fortunate to also be very active and reasonably successful in publishing, specifically in the mystery-writing genre, and there is surprisingly little professional competitiveness and ego.

The majority of superstar authors of the mystery novels – the wealthiest and most acclaimed in the field – are amazingly nice, approachable, and helpful to their fellow writers and to “fans.” They will treat an unknown, first-time author or someone mired in the mid-list with the same respect and courtesy as they do a fellow “superstar.” I’ve seen it time after time and it always impresses me. I don’t think the same can be said of writer/producers in the TV business.

What is your philosophy toward your two professions?

I decided long ago that I was going to be a writer first and a TV writer second. There's no question that I make most of my living in television...but I believe it's important to me professionally, financially, psychologically and creatively not to concentrate on just one field of writing. (It probably helps that I started my career as a freelance journalist, then became a novelist, then a non-fiction author, and finally, a TV writer/producer.) So I write books, both fiction and non-fiction, I teach TV writing, and occasionally I write articles and short stories... most of the time while I'm simultaneously writing & producing TV shows (though the TV work always takes priority over everything else, except, of course, my family).

While the income from books, teaching, and articles doesn't come close to matching what I make in TV, those gigs keep some cash coming in when TV (inevitably) lets me down, keep me "alive" in other fields, and, more importantly, keep my spirits up. As a result, who I am as a writer isn't entirely wrapped up in whether or not I have a TV job or a book on the shelves. I often have both, or one or the other -- but if I have neither, I have a class to teach or an article to write.

The other thing I try to be is a nice guy. Writing isn’t my life…it’s what I do. There are more important things than a TV show. And I know that’s also true for the writers and other professionals who work for me and with me. I respect their time and I try not to waste it as a result of my own disorganization, ego or insecurity.

What advice would you give to someone trying to "break in" to TV?

I get asked this question a lot. Everybody’s story of breaking in is unique. Most of those stories, however, share one common element. You have to put yourself in the right place to get your lucky break. And it’s easier than you think.
The first thing you have to do is learn your craft. Take classes, preferably taught by people who have had some success as TV writers. There’s no point taking a class from someone who isn’t an experienced TV writer themselves.

You’d think that would be common sense, but you’d be astonished how many TV courses are taught by people who don’t know the first thing about writing for television. Even more surprising is how many desperate people shell out money to take courses from instructors who should be taking TV writing courses themselves.

There’s another reason to take a TV writing course besides learning the basics of the craft. If you’re the least bit likeable, you’ll make a few friends among the other classmates. This is good, because you’ll have other people you can show your work to. This is also good because somebody in the class may sell his or her first script before you do… and suddenly you’ll have a friend in the business.

Many of my writer/producer friends today are writers I knew back when I was in college, when we were all dreaming of breaking into TV some day.

A writer we hired on staff on the first season of Missing was in a Santa Monica screenwriters group… and was the first member of her class to get a paying writing gig. Now her friends in the class suddenly had a friend on a network TV show who could share her knowledge, give them practical advice and even recommend them to her new agent and the writer/producers she was working with.

Another route is to try and get a job as a writer/producer’s assistant on an hour-long drama. Not only will you get a meager salary, but you will see how a show works from the inside. You’ll read lots of scripts and revisions and, simply by observation, get a graduate course in TV writing. More important, you’ll establish relationships with the writers on the show and the freelancers who come through the door. Many of today’s top TV producers were writer/producer assistants once. All of the assistants we’ve had have gone on to become working TV writers themselves… and not because we gave them a script assignment or recommended them for one. We didn’t do either.

But the one thing you simply have to do is write a spec episodic teleplay. There are lots of books out there -- including mine -- that will tell you how to do that.

You can read more about Lee at www.leegoldberg.com and www.diagnosis-murder.com.