Suspense: publishing's most misused label

by Sandra Parshall

After abandoning a slew of “suspense” novels after 50 or 100 pages, I’m left wondering whether the definition of suspense changed while I wasn’t paying attention.

A lot of writers – and since these books keep getting published and bought, I guess a lot of readers too – apparently believe “suspense” means hitting somebody over the head, or shooting somebody, or having a catastrophe befall a character out of the blue in nearly every chapter.

I still cling to the old-fashioned idea that suspense is in the anticipation, not the actual event – the fear that something lurks behind a door, rather than the door banging open without warning and a bogeyman jumping out. The latter produces a moment of excitement, quickly over, then the plot has to shift into a different mode: dealing with the consequences of the attack. The former can be milked for a long, slow rise in the reader’s heart rate and level of discomfort. If the writer is any good at all, no reader will be able to put the book down while the heroine is trapped in a house where a monster may, or may not, be crouching behind a door, waiting for the right opportunity to pounce.

Violence in itself is not suspense. Constant action is not suspense. If a book has an explosion or a shooting or an assault in every chapter, I grow tired and bored very quickly and give up on the book. It’s just movement, which is fine for fans of action stories, but it doesn’t feel suspenseful to me.

Suspense is fear. Suspense is dread of what’s going to happen. Suspense is anticipation.

I want to be inside the protagonist’s head, agonizing along with her as she wonders and waits and tries to find a way out.

But before I can care what happens to the character, I have to care about the character herself. She doesn’t have to be warm and cuddly. She has to be human, real, an ordinary person but one with both the intellectual and emotional resources to carry her through the ordeal she faces. I don’t want to read about a helpless weakling being battered by villains. I’m also not intrigued by invincible action heroes who can stroll through a hail of bullets unscathed. I want the protagonist to struggle, but I want to believe she can prevail if she digs deep within herself for strength she may not even know she possesses.

Publishers need to put a label on everything. The labels sometimes bear little relation to what’s between the covers. But few labels are misused as widely these days as the word  “suspense.” So I continue dipping into book after book and discarding them after a few chapters, until I come across a gem that actually lives up to the claims on the cover.

Maggie Sefton's Washington DC

Today Maggie Sefton talks about her hometown as a setting.

Whenever I watch movies that use my hometown, Washington, DC, as part of the setting, I get a kick out of seeing all the “set shots” the moviemakers use.  You know what I mean---a shot of the U.S. Capitol, shot of the Pentagon, shot of the White House, a panoramic view of tourists roaming around the Washington monument, black limos cruising nameless streets, black limos pulling into White House gates, talking heads inside limos, and so on.

For a lot of Americans, those are the only images they have of Washington, DC.  That’s why I always encourage people I meet in other states to visit their Nation’s Capital.  Explore it and enjoy.  The city is literally made to order for tourists.  Most of the important monuments and museums are located around The Mall so it’s easy to get around---and they’re free.  J  There’s even a Metro stop there (Smithsonian) , so people can leave their cars parked in the suburbs at a Metro parking garage and not bother with the awful---and it truly is awful---traffic. 

Like Paris, Washington, DC is a walk-able city.  Not surprising, since the City’s designer was Frenchman and supporter of our Revolution, Pierre L’Enfant.  People can safely wander a few blocks away from The Mall and explore Washington’s many cafes and shops. 

You can tell I’m a big booster of “my town,” and I love showing it off.  Since I grew up in Arlington, Virginia, a stone’s throw across the Potomac River, I have spent a lifetime wandering around Washington’s many streets and avenues, hidden corners and treasures.  Naturally, when I started writing the first in the Molly Malone Suspense trilogy, DEADLY POLITICS, which takes place in Washington, I included several of my favorite locales---picturesque Georgetown streets with their brick-paved sidewalks and Historic Registry homes; the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and towpath, which mules once trod 300 years ago; cafes along the Potomac and feasts of fresh seafood.  The characters roam all over these areas.

Molly Malone, the heroine-sleuth, has Washington, DC in her blood, having grown up the daughter of a U.S. Senator.  Mid-50s, Molly has seen it all in Washington politics--the cynics, the sincere, and the schemers.  But the brutal murder of her Congressional staffer niece brings Molly up close with Washington’s darker side.  “The beautiful monuments and parks are deceiving.  Washington can be ugly.”

Politics is a blood sport in Washington, DC, and only the strongest survive.  Like the politicians she’s rubbed shoulders with for a lifetime, Molly is smart and tough and savvy enough to stay out of trouble---most of the time.  However, trouble has a way of finding Molly.   You can read more about DEADLY POLITICS and see the great reviews at my website:  www.maggiesefton.com

Maggie Sefton is the author of the New York Times and Barnes & Noble Bestselling Kelly Flynn Knitting Mysteries.  The second in her Washington, DC-based suspense trilogy, POISONED POLITICS, will be out this August 2013.

In Praise of Standalones

by Sandra Parshall

Mystery writers hear it all the time: the surest route to success is with a series – characters that readers will grow to love and want to see again and again. Even the majority of thriller writers have taken this course (ex: Lee Child and his Jack Reacher novels).

That leaves readers like me, who love standalone suspense, with little to choose from. Yet a look at bestseller lists should tell us a vast audience for this kind of novel exists. Which author is about to celebrate a solid year in the top ten? Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, her third standalone. Its success has brought new sales of her first and second books, Sharp Objects and Dark Places. No one, to my knowledge, is clamoring to see 20 more books about any of Flynn’s characters. Instead, we’re dying see what unique creation she comes up with next.

Harlan Coben had a moderately successful series about sports agent Myron Bolitar. Then he wrote a standalone called Tell No One and became a #1 worldwide bestselling author. He’s written a string of standalones, all huge hits with readers. I tried his Bolitar books and couldn’t get interested. I never miss one of his standalones. Laura Lippman also broke out to greater fame when she began writing standalones.

As a reader, I’m not happy when a favorite author goes the other way, turning from single titles to a series, although as a writer I wouldn’t challenge someone else’s decision to take any direction that feels right. I loved the standalones by Nicci French, a pseudonymous husband/wife team, and I was disappointed when they started the Frieda Klein series about a quirky  psychotherapist who works with the police. In the first book, Blue Monday, the insomniac psychotherapist seems a cold and off-putting, not the sort of passionate protagonist I expected from a French novel. In the second, Tuesday’s Gone, Frieda seems warmer and we learn more about her, but the story is less a suspense novel than a police procedural.

Many series, of course, are popular and regularly make bestselling lists. Even those that aren’t bestsellers (such as mine) have their devoted fans who want them to go on forever. However, when a series continues indefinitely – book 15 or 20 or beyond – fans may tire of the characters and the plots may seem increasingly unrealistic. Readers begin to skip books, then stop reading the series altogether. 

Among the authors who have kept their long-running series fresh, Margaret Maron stands out as a shining example. Her characters have grown older, their lives have evolved, and they are never boring. The Buzzard Table, #18 in the Deborah Knott series, is one of the best. Karin Slaughter has held onto most of her fans, myself among them, by making drastic changes in her characters’ lives and merging two series. A few fans may be unhappy, but her sales have never been better. I never miss one of her books and have usually read each one without a week or two of publication. I also read several other series that have held up well.

Standalones, though, have an attraction all their own. The author captures the protagonist at a crisis point, undergoing the most dramatic experience of his or her life. We know the character's life will never be the same after the events of the book.

I've found several new favorite authors of single title suspense in the past couple of years. I was hooked by Still Missing, the first novel by Chevy Stevens, and also loved the second, Never Knowing. Her third, Always Watching, comes out in the U.S. on June 18, and I will grab it as soon as I can. The first standalone by Elizabeth Haynes, Into the Darkest Corner, was unforgettable. Her second, Dark Tide, was radically different and equally absorbing. Her third, Human Remains, will be out in August. S.J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep is phenomenal (and it's being made into a film starring Nicole Kidman).

These authors produce what I love most: unique stories of psychological suspense. That intimate emotional intensity is nearly impossible to sustain in a long-running series without making the protagonist look like a basket case with the world’s worst luck. In a series, the writer has to move outside the protagonist, building a story out of external elements. A series can be tremendously satisfying for both author and reader, but it’s not the same type of storytelling that’s needed in a standalone.

I intended my first published novel, The Heat of the Moon, to be standalone suspense. It’s intense, personal, and told in first person by Rachel Goddard. To build a series around Rachel, I moved her to a new environment, switched to third person, added the viewpoint of Tom Bridger, a Sheriff’s Department investigator, and began writing murder mysteries with strong suspense/thriller elements.

But I’ve never lost the desire to write what I love most to read: standalone psychological suspense. And one of these days, probably after I finish the Rachel mystery I’m working on now, I will do just that.

Don't engage the copy editor

by Sara J. Henry
Author of the Troy Chance suspense novels

Leave a comment this weekend and you'll be entered in a drawing for a copy of A COLD AND LONELY PLACE.

The best piece of advice I ever got – pretty much bar none – came from my writer friend Jamie Ford.

I’d just received the copy edits on my first novel, on a Saturday, and had to fly out on a busy trip that Wednesday. I’ve worked as a copy editor and when I was with Rodale Books I worked with them (and learned a lot from them), but this was something entirely different.

This person had made changes that seemed completely unnecessary (I know my way around the Chicago Manual of Style), questioned actions and motivations of the characters, and in places penciled in snide comments and erased them… but left them legible.

And this was all on paper, which to me seemed antediluvian – back when Windows were something you used Windex on, I’d been working with on-screen copy editing, using a word processing program called XyWrite where you had to type in codes to designate italics (little did I realize I was learning the basics of HTML).

I had no idea what to do. So I called Jamie, whose novel had come out the year before. Here's what he told me (besides just to write STET beside every change I didn't want):  “Don’t engage the copy editor.”

It was excellent advice. Not just for that manuscript – I found myself repeating it, over and over, as I went through it – but for many things in life. I say it often to myself: “Don’t engage the (fill in the blank).”

Someone sends an email suggesting he should get his money back because of a typo in your novel? Don’t engage the irate reader. A relative sends emails aimed at provoking you? Don’t engage the evil mother-in-law. You’re doing five miles over the speed limit in the fast lane, passing someone, and an idiot in a gas-guzzler looms up on your bumper, clearly not understanding the laws of physics and gravely overestimating the stopping power of his brakes? Don’t engage the Neanderthal driver.

No good can come of it – and you will have let the bad guys win, a little.

And in these days of Internet trolls, and places where anyone can trash you or your novel, it’s an unfortunate fact of publishing life that most of us cannot afford to piss anyone off. One author friend cheered on her fans to vote for her book in an online contest – and fans of the other, better-known, novelist attacked her with vicious comments. It was ugly.

At times I’ve engaged, gently. When someone gave Learning to Swim a half-hearted blog review and complained about the Canadian parts not being convincing, I posted a comment thanking her for reading my book and asking what parts she had trouble with (I’d lived in Ontario several years, and had that novel vetted by four Canadian readers, and was curious what we could have missed). It turned out that she lived in western Canada, where the RCMP is basically the only police force, and had assumed the same was true in the rest of Canada. Another time a German reader complained about something, and I responded on her blog – she was so pleased by my response that she ended up doing an engaging Q&A interview with me.

One of my first Amazon reviews complained at length about the main character’s name (and I can quote, because this was my first scathing review: “No one is named Troy Chance. No one. Not even porn stars. Not even gay porn stars.” (Note: my novel has no porn stars, gay or straight.)

A bookstore friend wrote me that he had done some research and that reader was right: There are no porn stars named Troy Chance! There are, however, people with that name.

So there, anonymous reviewer.

To round this out, here are the opening paragraphs of my newest novel, A Cold and Lonely Place:

We could feel the reverberation of the ice-cutting machine through the frozen lake beneath our feet. Matt Boudoin was telling me this would be the best ice palace ever, and I was nodding, because of course every year the palace seems better than the one the year before. At the same moment he stopped talking and I stopped nodding, because the machine had halted and the crew of men was staring down at the ice. Then, in unison, like marionettes with their strings being pulled, they turned their heads to look at Matt. Their faces were blank, but we knew something was wrong, very wrong.

We started moving forward. Because this is an Adirondack mountain town and Matt has an ingrained sense of chivalry, he held his arm out in that protective gesture you make toward a passenger in your car when you have to slam on the brakes. But it didn’t stop me.

Later, I would wish it had.

************************
Leave a comment this weekend and you'll be entered in a drawing for a copy of A COLD AND LONELY PLACE.
Sara J. Henry’s Learning to Swim won the Anthony and Agatha awards for best first novel and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Its sequel, A Cold and Lonely Place, will be published February 5. Sara hails from Tennessee but has lived all over the U.S. (and in Canada) and now calls Vermont home. You can find her website at www.SaraJHenry.com – not to be confused with the nutrition writer Sarah Henry, as they are indeed two different people.

Jenny Milchman's "Made It" Year

by Sandra Parshall

Everyone who leaves a comment Saturday or Sunday will be entered in a drawing for a signed copy of Jenny's book. An additional reader will be entered in a drawing to win the unpublished prologue of Cover of Snow after the book is released.


For years Jenny Milchman has been known and loved in the mystery community for her contributions to the DorothyL discussion group and the “Made It Moment” feature of her blog. Now, after persuading a legion of other writers to describe the time when they knew they had made it and were real writers, Jenny has arrived at her own made it moment: publication of her suspense novel, Cover of Snow. 

Like a lot of writers, Jenny traveled a long and twisting road through a wasteland strewn with rejection letters before achieving success. In this interview Jenny talks about the eleven years she struggled to sell a book and how her life is changing as her first published novel reaches readers at last.

Was Cover of Snow the first novel you wrote? You didn’t spend eleven years trying to sell one book, did you? How many times did you “come close” to making a sale, and how did you finally get that magic door to open for you?

Actually, this may be a part of the story I haven’t made clear enough, so I’m glad you asked this question. Cover of Snow is actually my eighth novel, although it will be the first one published.

While I was trying to get published, I kept getting close. I had three different agents represent five different novels and we had a total of fifteen “almost offers”—editors presenting a book to their editorial boards without getting the okay to make a deal. The last time before It Finally Happened, the novel in question had made it all the way up the ladder, and was turned down by the publisher herself. That was…crushing. (But in hindsight, the best thing that could’ve happened, in the same way that once you meet your husband, you’re awfully glad that last guy before him dumped you.)

Anyway, at a certain point during this process, I thought, Well, I’m hoping to get to do this for my career, so let me just act as if I already have a career. (That was a hard feat of pretend at times.) And I began writing something like a book a year, slowing down when my kids were born. Most of those are in a cyber drawer—probably forever—although there’s one I hope does see the light of day.

In terms of how the door magically opened…it did feel like magic, you’re right. I think it was a combination of me getting better, improving my craft, and also the intervention of a person who feels like a good fairy in my life. An author whose work I loved agreed to read my unpublished manuscript, and she wound up putting it into her own editor’s hands. A few weeks later, that editor became my own.

How much rewriting did you put into Cover of Snow before it sold? How different is the published book from the first version you began marketing?

This question too points me to something a lot of people may not know. (You Deadly Daughters are good.) So…Cover of Snow, my eighth novel, began life as my second novel. Let me clarify.

The idea behind Cover of Snow was a question that grabbed me around the throat and just wouldn’t let go. What would make a good man do the worst thing he possibly could to his wife? Of course, first I had to figure out what that worst thing would be, but once I did, I had a premise and an opening scene that was hard to get out of my mind. The problem was that I didn’t have a whole lot else. No coherent idea of how to structure a plot or communicate the mystery to readers. Though that novel earned me an offer of representation, my agent got lots of rejections talking about “the pace flagging,” and not, as she put it, “one nibble” from editors. I drawered that novel and went on to write another. And another. And another. See above. Oy.

But the throat-grabbing question was still…grabby. And one day I sat down and reread the manuscript—whose title I will probably never reveal—and saw how I had gotten it all wrong. A decade and six novels had passed. I thought I could turn this premise into a new book, and I did. That turned out to be Cover of Snow. In terms of how different it is from the original… the premise and several of the characters are the same. But I would call the version that readers will (hopefully) read the 22nd draft. And of 103,000 words that were in the first version, only 250 remain.

Would you say you learned from the rejections, or were they mostly form letters? Have you kept all of them?
 
I would go so far as to say that the rejections I received taught me how to write a novel. I was lucky enough to get very few form letters. When I began querying, email still wasn’t in wide use, not ubiquitous anyway, and I snail-mailed my packages. I got back pages of typed feedback, used those criticisms to revise, and in some cases, sent back the reworked pages to the agents who were taking time to school me. In one case, this led to an offer of representation—my first. It arrived electronically. I actually had to open an email account just to receive it. Yes, it was a long time ago.

I’ve kept my rejections, and in case there is anybody reading this who feels like they’ve been rejected a lot, and should they go on, I offer this photo to say: You should go on. Please. I want to read your book one day. If rejections surround you higher than a drift of snow, don’t despair. This only means you haven’t made it…yet.

When you sold Cover of Snow did you have a second book ready to go?

I did have other books—at least one—ready to go. However, my editor felt that my follow-up book should contain certain elements, which I couldn’t have predicted before we began working together. She took me to a long, lovely lunch that still counts as one of the more enjoyable events on this pre-publication ride, and we talked about what I might want to go for in a second novel. None of it would I have thought of on my own, but as soon as I heard her perspective, it hit me how spot-on right she was. 

This has been my experience of working with my editor from the moment we met—and it’s one of the things I’m most grateful for. Anyway, as I write these responses, I am just approaching the climax of that next book, which is always such a fun point to be: when you feel all the threads you’ve knotted finally start to unwind.

Is Cover of Snow a standalone or the beginning of a series? 

Cover of Snow is set in a fictional Adirondack town called Wedeskyull, and I think of the novels set there as the Wedeskyull stories. The recurring ‘character’ is the place. So in subsequent books, you might see cameos or walk-ons by characters who played a big role in another book, while minor characters might go on to have lead parts. I’m fascinated by life in a small town, the ‘heart of darkness’ there, and I hope that I can get to know my town through the prism of many different stories.

What kind of person is your protagonist, Nora Hamilton? What is her greatest strength? Her greatest weakness?

Nora’s greatest weakness makes her singularly unequipped to deal with the situation she faces on page five of the book. She tends to turn away from hard truths, to be willing to accept a smooth skin on things rather than look below the surface. And at the start of the story, she’s about to be faced with the worst truth there is.

Her greatest strength is probably that she can own up to this trait…and try to change it in herself.

Does it make you sad to let go of Nora after living with her for so long?

Nora, if she does reappear in subsequent books, will never do as much as she did in Cover of Snow. I’ll never get to spend as much time with her again. And yes, I miss her very much. I wonder how she’s adapting to all the changes in her life. I wonder if she’s healed as much as I hope she has.

Are the events of the book completely imaginary or inspired by something in real life? Did your original concept morph into something else as you were writing (and rewriting and rewriting)?

You know, I would’ve said that the events were completely fictional. And they are. Nothing like this ever happened to me or anyone I know. But…one day someone was asking me this question, and this memory came back to me.

When I was 8 years old, my babysitter came to me after bedtime one night, sat down on the edge of the bed, and said that he planned to commit suicide when he got home. He told me not to tell anyone. And I lay awake, until late, late, late, when my parents arrived, and I wrestled with what to do. My mom came into say goodnight, and I tattled. I couldn’t keep the secret. My mother called my babysitter’s mother, who entered her son’s room and found him with a bottle of pills.

If you read the book, you’ll see that this situation isn’t in it. But did it cast a shadow—over me, and my life? A ‘what could’ve have happened on that other side of the line’, where things don’t turn out right? I think it must have.

What draws you to psychological suspense? What can you do in this form that you might not be able to do in a different subgenre of crime fiction? 
 
When I’m standing on a subway, I imagine being pushed. If I’m in a movie theater, I look for the exit. I imagine danger everywhere. There’s something about the moment when the main character’s life crosses a line, and nothing is the same…what writer Rosellen Brown calls the before and after. But it’s really the psychological that engages me—how one person copes with crossing that line whereas another person would have an entirely different response. Before I turned to writing—or turned back to it, I should say, since I always, always wanted to write—I practiced as a psychotherapist. I think I was doing the same thing, except that I was helping other people tell their stories. Now I’m making up my own.

A question from Deadly Daughter Liz Zelvin: On DorothyL, they have a lot to say in praise of “our Jenny Milchman”. Having watched you blossom from an enthusiastic mystery fan to a published author, they're kvelling like proud grandparents about your success. How do you feel about that?
From Sandy: I’ve been wondering about the same thing. Do you ever experience a twinge of worry that you might disappoint them?
 
Without DL, I wouldn’t be getting published, at least not now and in this way. That’s not an exaggeration, and I’ve promised to tell the whole story over a drink one day, maybe at a conference, hopefully with some of you. But for now let me just say that I love the people of DL. It’s the extended family every reader and writer must wish for. I am grateful to the community for their wisdom and support and encouragement, and the sheer joy in mystery they provided during the years when I wondered if I ever would be a writer in addition to a fan. I dearly hope I won’t disappoint anybody. They may not like my book, of course, but I hope I live up to the kind of mystery lover they have been to me.

From Julia Buckley: Do you like your cover? I think it’s cool. (No pun intended.)
From Sandy: Did you have any input on the cover design? Did you offer suggestions before the artist began working on it? (And yes, it is cool. Eerie and intriguing.)
 
Cool, ha. It is, right? Those chilling blues.

So…my agent got me what’s called “cover input,” which basically means I got to see the cover and weigh in. Now I truly don’t know what would’ve been the response at my publisher if I had said, “You know, I realize this has nothing whatsoever to do with the story, but I always envisioned a snake…and some blood…and a measuring cup…” or what have you. But luckily I didn’t. One of the things about me is that I know what I can do—a few choice things—and I know the many, many things I can’t. Art and design are two of them. I would’ve added nothing to the cover process. Plus, when I saw what the art department came up with, I was so blown away that all I could do was tingle. To take 93,000 words and distill them into one single scene strikes me as a sort of genius that I will never possess.

From Julia: How do you do all the things you’ve taken on? How do you divide your time among different projects?
From Sandy: After publication, most writers discover that they aren’t super-authors with unlimited time and something has to give. As you begin promoting your book, with your publisher expecting you to deliver more regularly, what other activities in your life will you have to cut back on?

Well, I’ve been cooking a lot less! My friend, the fabulous family thriller—to use Oline Cogdill’s term—author, Carla Buckley, calls this “the year I stopped making dinner”. I worry that my kids won’t have warm, cozy memories of mom by the hearth. Periodically I remind them that I make a mean meatball…or used to.

I don’t really know the answer to this question. As of now, I write first draft material in the mornings and devote the afternoons to fun things like a post such as this. I write novels on a machine that is not internet enabled—it’s running Windows 98, and I have to backup on floppies. (I’m running low, and believe it or not, they don’t seem to make them anymore, so if you have any, please send ’em my way.) That way I can really be in the story with no distractions—I’ve noticed that my muscles are often sore after I write, as if I’ve been the one running or fighting, and heating up. (Yay—an excuse not to go to the gym. Another thing I don’t have time for.) Then in the afternoon, I email and Facebook and Twitter.

The kids get home from school around 3 and I try to be largely done until after bedtime so that I can help with homework or activities—of which we have few due to time constraints, another thing I suppose they’ll blame me for one day, along with the missing meatballs.

How is your family reacting to your success? Are they astonished, relieved, proud of your persistence, or a mixture of all three?

Well, first you have to understand that when you use the words “your” and “success” in the same sentence, I have to look around to see who you’re talking about. Or about whom you’re talking. See? I couldn’t possibly be a successful writer. My image of myself is as a struggling writer. I don’t know if that will ever change. I don’t know how people will react to this book once it’s out. I hear the criticisms, and I shiver. Success seems to be an optimistic prediction—and I thank you for having it.

But in terms of my family’s level of support, it’s another factor that enabled me to reach this point, whatever we call it. My husband worked for years so I could stay home with the kids and write while they were napping—and tolerating missing meatballs; thanks, kids, I really can cook, you know—and most of all, convincing me that I should go on because it was all going to work out one day.

A long, long time ago, my mother said something that I scoffed at.

“I think you’re going to make it,” she said. “You have talent. But I think it’s going to take a long time. You’re coming at this completely cold, and you’re learning it all from scratch. Ten years is not a long time to build everything a person needs.”

What was my response? Something shame-worthy, like: “Ten years? Ten years! That’s crazy. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Mom. I could never do this for ten years without getting where I wanted to go.”

It took me eleven.

Thanks, Mom. And thank you to the Deadly Daughters, for being some of the people who propped me up and inspired me along the way.

********************************
Jenny Milchman is a suspense novelist from New Jersey whose short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Adirondack Mysteries II, and in an e-published volume called Lunch Reads. Jenny is the founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day, and the chair of International Thriller Writers’ Debut Authors Program. Her first novel, Cover of Snow, is published by Ballantine. Jenny can be reached at http://jennymilchman.com and she blogs at http://suspenseyourdisbelief.com.

Everyone who leaves a comment Saturday or Sunday will be entered in a drawing for a signed copy of Jenny's book. One additional reader will win the unpublished prologue of Cover of Snow after the book is released.

Why?

by Sheila Connolly

Recently I've been taking another look at a manuscript that I wrote over five years ago, to see if it's worth salvaging for publication in some form. I've always liked it, and it still makes me laugh. Plus I hate to waste anything I've written.

I reread it, and I still like it. But I've learned some things since I wrote it, and the biggest change I'm making is to axe about 20,000 words from the end. As I reread it, I was caught up in the pacing of the story, which reached a resolution about 80,000 words in—and then I realized the book as written didn't end there, but meandered on for another five chapters. Well, it ends there now.

I've usually called this a romantic suspense. It's suspense because there's a lot of running away from something and trying to get to something else to save something important, while being pursued by a variety of people. And the action takes place within a week's time, which is much faster than most of my books. It's romantic only because the protagonists hate each other until the last chapter when they fall into each other's arms--they spend a lot of time sniping at each other up until then.

I've probably said before that I'm a "pantser"—I don't plan ahead in meticulous (that is, boring) detail, I just follow my characters and see where they go. I make an outline, but only as I write. That allows me to see where the pacing isn't right: chapters are either too long or too short, or sometimes too much happens in one fictional day. That's easy to fix.

But this time in looking critically at it, I'm taking a different approach: I'm asking "why?"

In writing suspense, I think some writers (or at least me) have a tendency to assume that the fast pace will conceal the fact that the logic doesn't always work. The characters are racing around like crazy, reacting without thinking—why shouldn't the reader do that too?

But then I hear my editor's soft voice in my head: "why would he (or she) do that?" And I realize that I need to answer that question, whether or not the reader notices, at least consciously. I like to assume my subconscious is taking care of pesky details like that, but it's not always true. And sometimes saying "it's good enough" is really not enough.

So I sat down and made a list of all the "whys" I thought needed to be answered within the story. Why is he there? Why would the FBI be at the house? Why did the protagonists leave town in a hurry rather than going to the authorities? Why did the bad guy do what he did?

I ended up with four pages of whys. Now I have to figure out how many of those I answered in the story.

Sometimes we as writers get so caught up in the plot that we lose sight of the characters. Action is all well and good, but we can't ask our characters to do things that are, well, out of character, just because it makes the plot work. At the same time, if we're writing suspense, we can't have the characters sit down and calmly discuss what has happened so far and what the next step should be—not when they're running from gunmen or trying to reach another city in time to save the world. There's no time to think and reflect, because it would kill the tension we’ve been trying to build.

But we can't have them do things that aren't true to their nature—the nature we created for them. Either their actions have to make sense given what we know about them, or we need to change the person. I don't know that readers reach a point where they say, "no, he would never do that!" and then stop reading. But once that little seed of doubt is planted, the reader may find the rest of the book less enjoyable.

The funny thing is, it's relatively easy to fix those pesky "whys." Sometimes all it takes is a sentence or two. For example,

She: "Why can't we just go to a hotel?"

He: "Because that's the first place anyone with half a brain would look for us. And we can't use our credit cards and we have no cash."

She: "Oh."

See? Fixed. (I promise to avoid the "darn, I forgot to charge my cell phone," or at least use it only once per book.)

Reader may never notice that the fix is there—but I bet they would notice if it wasn't.  Wouldn't you?

Interview with Lisa Unger

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall


My guest today published four novels in the Lydia Strong series under the name Lisa Miscione before she switched to her married name, Lisa Unger, for publication of the bestselling suspense novels Beautiful Lies and A Sliver of Truth. Her new book, Black Out, will be released May 27 and is already garnering rave reviews and has been named a Booksense Notable Book for June. Lisa was born in Connecticut, but her family moved a lot – as far as Holland and England – during her childhood before settling in New Jersey. Before becoming a full-time writer, she worked as a publicist for a major publisher. She lives in Florida with her husband and young child.


Q. Would you tell us about your upcoming book, Black Out?

A. Black Out is about a woman name Annie Fowler, whose perfect life in a wealthy Florida beach community is little more than a façade.

She’s literally and figuratively left a horrible past behind -- having fled her true identity and forgotten most of the trauma of her childhood and adolescence. But a series of terrifying events start triggering unwanted memories. And she realizes that she has to face the past she’d rather forget to claim her future -- and save her daughter.

Black Out was my most intense writing experience, and Annie is my darkest, most complicated heroine. I see the resolution of a lot of themes that started in my Lydia Strong books and continued through to Ridley Jones -- the lost girl, fractured identity, how we must claim ourselves rather than wait to be rescued. I felt a terrible urgency to resolve these themes in Black Out.

Q. Why did you decide to use the name Unger after writing four Lydia Strong novels as Lisa Miscione?

A. There are a lot of reasons. First, Beautiful Lies represented such a departure, such an evolution in my writing that it didn’t seem like a Lisa Miscione book at all. I was moving on from the Lydia Strong series and from St. Martin’s Minotaur to be published at Shaye Areheart Books/ Crown. Unger is my married name. So it seemed like a normal and even necessary step. So, I just sent an email to the five people who’d read my Lydia Strong books and let them know to look for Lisa Unger in the future. The transition was fairly smooth, thanks to mostly supportive mystery independent stores who did a lot of handselling and the chains that have supported the Lisa Unger books in a big way.

Q. I see Beautiful Lies and A Sliver of Truth as a single story told in two parts, and it’s hard to imagine that you didn’t originally intend to write a second book about Ridley. At what point did you realize there would be a second book?

A. I didn’t know there was a second book until after Beautiful Lies was done and I’d decided that there wouldn’t be a series. I didn’t want to write another Ridley. I knew the ending wasn’t easy. I knew that a lot of things went unanswered. And I knew that in BL Jake had lied to Ridley, and fooled her completely. But that’s life, right? There’s so much that never gets resolved, people go unpunished, some answers are never found. But I thought, Ridley’s okay. She’s on her own. After a while, though, all those unresolved points kept nagging, and I kept hearing Ridley’s voice. So I wrote Sliver of Truth. Now, of course, there are a lot of unresolved issues at the end of that book, too.
So …

Q. Have you decided yet whether you’ll write a third Ridley book? Do you think it would be possible to make a third story as deeply personal for Ridley as the first two are?

A. I do still think about Ridley a lot. I think about Max and Ace, even Jake, still. I also wonder about Grace from time to time. So, never say never. I feel connected to Ridley, so I know if I choose to write about her again, it will be a deeply personal story, about the next level of her journey. I wouldn’t write it by design, under some outside influence to write more about her. All my novels well up from within, each of them had to be written for reasons largely unknown to me at the time. This is especially true with the Lisa Unger books. I feel like I really found my voice with Beautiful Lies. I started writing Angel Fire when I was 19 years old. Lydia was a product of a very young woman’s imagination, of very young issues working in my subconscious. As much as Beautiful Lies and Sliver of Truth are Ridley’s coming of age story, they’re mine, as well. So yes, I’m confident that any evolution of Ridley’s story, should it demand to be written, would be deeply personal for her, and for me.

Q. To me, the most striking quality of your writing is its sheer emotional intensity. Do you have to work at heightening the emotion during the revision process, or does it all come tumbling out of you as you write the first draft?

A. I am a very emotional person, so if anything, I think … god, is this too over-wrought? I don’t know if one can fake -- or heighten, as you say -- emotional intensity. If it is possible, I don’t know how.

Q. How much planning or outlining, if any, do you do before you begin writing? What is the first day of working on a new book like for you? Do you choose a day to begin, or wait until you reach a point where you feel compelled to sit down and get started?

A. When I sit down to write, I have no idea what’s going to happen. I might hear a voice in my head, a phrase, see a news story, a song lyric, an image and I’m off. I don’t know how things are going to end, who is going to turn up on the page. For example, in Black Out, Dax -- one of my favorite characters from the Lydia Strong books -- turned up. How did he get into this new universe? No idea.

My golden writing hours are from 5 AM to noon. That’s generally when I work. Of course, I have a toddler now, so she takes precedence over almost everything, including my writing. So I have to be a bit more flexible. I write again the way I did when I had a full time job -- I make the time, squeeze it in between the other demands on me. Luckily, it’s really harder for me not to write than to find the time, so somehow it all seems to work out.

As for choosing the day or not, it’s kind of some combination between discipline and inspiration. You can’t always make the magic come, but you have to be open and available to it. If you are disciplined about making time to work, then the magic finds you. But, usually, the idea for a new book comes like a lightning bolt. There’s no seeking it and no avoiding it.

Q. Do you revise as you go, or concentrate on getting the whole story down before you rewrite?

A. I tend to do a bit of rewriting and revision as I go along. Going back and reworking this paragraph or that scene helps settle me into the manuscript for the day and often leads to a propulsion forward. I don’t spend too much time on revision during the first draft, though; forward momentum is very important.

Q. How much time do you devote to research, and how do you go about it? For example, when you wrote Twice, how did you learn about the lives of the homeless who live in tunnels beneath Manhattan?

A. I spend quite a bit of time on research. Mainly because I know next to nothing and have to learn about everything! I love the Internet for its immediacy and wealth of information. But there’s nothing like anecdotal research, talking to people, hearing their stories. I have a couple of people who I really rely on for the nuts and bolts of crime and police work. And for Black Out, I conducted a number of interviews -- a clinical psychiatrist, the head honchos at a privatized military company. I also read a lot of non-fiction, and this is in a way a kind of research just because I’m a knowledge and experience junkie, just taking it all in, never knowing what I’ll use later.

With Twice, I’d been fascinated for a long time about the people living in the tunnels beneath Manhattan. A book by Jennifer Toth called The Mole People had really captured my imagination when I was in college. And then I was in a seven-year relationship with a New York City police officer (a whole other kind of research, not for the faint-hearted). And he confirmed that there was an indeed a whole community of homeless living beneath the streets of New York, though no one wanted to admit that. So a lot of what I learned came long before I wrote the book. There have also been a number of great documentary films made on this topic, which served as research and inspiration. I also did a lot of investigating about the system of tunnels beneath the city, unmapped and uncharted, miles and miles of old tracks and abandoned stations. That just always impressed me as enormously cool. For a dark imagination like mine, it’s heaven on earth.

Q. Why do you prefer thrillers to straight mystery? What does the experience of writing a thriller offer you as a writer?

A. Strangely enough, I’m not sure I understand the difference. I get that it’s a pacing and intensity thing.

But, in my heart, I feel as though these are labels created by publishing companies and booksellers to categorize books for sale. I just write what I write, and some people think I’m a thriller writer, others think I’m a mystery writer. I read a review of Beautiful Lies that called it chick-lit. I’ll leave it to others to decide what I am. I’m a writer who tends toward crime and the dark side of things … that’s where my imagination takes me. What other people call me is up to them, I suppose.

Q. Thrillers used to be the domain of male writers. Do you think women have achieved equal status with readers -- or have you encountered male readers who still won’t touch a thriller written by a woman?

A. Hmm … good question. I do have quite a few male readers and am amazed to get mail from them, telling me how much they enjoyed the books. I guess I don’t really expect to have male readers in the first place. So when they take the time to write, I’m really shocked. I had one bookseller in California tell me that the Lydia Strong books were hard-boiled and that male readers in his store who don’t read women, read me. I did take that as a compliment -- sort of.

I do think there’s a bit of a boys club in the genre -- and not just among readers. Maybe it is simply because so many writers and readers of the thriller/mystery genre were forged by noir, which was very much so dominated by men. I definitely feel that a certain type of reader -- uncomfortable with strong female characters, emotional content, sex as told from the feminine perspective - might still shy away from books written by women. But they’re missing out. We have a lot to offer the genre, a new perspective, a fresh voice. Some of the best people writing are writing crime fiction, and quite of few of those writers are women.

Q. What kind of work did you do in publishing? Were you writing throughout that time? When did you decide to go for a full-time career as a novelist?

A. I was a publicist, booking author tours, setting up interviews, appearances, parties, etc. It was a very cool job and I learned everything I ever wanted to know about the industry.

But I have always been a writer and went into publishing as a way to get closer to my dreams without actually committing to it. But, of course, my job got bigger and bigger and I wrote less and less. Finally I had an epiphany -- I realized that I had stopped writing, had never been further away from my dreams and if I didn’t start writing again, I’d have to look back and myself in five years, ten years and say, “You know what? You never even tried to do this.” I couldn’t live with that, so I started writing again, every day, staying up late, getting up early, staying in on weekends, writing at lunch. From that point it took me another year to finish Angel Fire. I started it when I was 19 and finished it when I was 29. Ten years and it’s not a very long book. It’s a little embarrassing, actually.

Q. Do you think finding an agent and selling your first novel was made easier by your experience in publishing?

A. It was easier and harder at the same time. It was easier to find an agent because an editor friend liked the book -- but not enough to buy it. She did, however, suggest a few agents who might like it enough to work on it with me. One of those agents, Elaine Markson, signed me on and helped me rework the manuscript into something publishable.

I may not have had that opportunity if I hadn’t worked in the industry. On the other hand, anyone who wants to slave away in publishing for no money for ten years as a way to get her foot in the door, be my guest. We all pay our dues, one way or another, and no one does anybody any favors in this or any money-making industry.

None of the editors I had known, and none of the publishing companies where I’d worked made offers on my manuscript. They all, in fact, turned it down. When Angel Fire went to St. Martin’s, it was to an editor I’d never met.

I think people don’t want you to change. They see you one way, in my case as a book publicist, and they don’t want to see you any other way. So I think that made it harder to sell my first book.

Q. Do you have a pet peeve about the publishing business?

A. I actually love the business. I love everything about it. I think it’s a wonderfully romantic way to make a living -- as a writer, or an editor or even a publicist. Which is not to say that it isn’t as brutal as any other industry -- dreams are made and crushed everyday; talent doesn’t necessarily mean success; numbers matter more than high achievement in craft. The highs are dizzying; the lows are abysmal.

Success is not guaranteed, no matter how auspicious your beginning -- in fact it’s harder to succeed as a published writer than it is to get published in the first place. But I have never wanted to do anything else but write, so I’m profoundly grateful to make a living in this business.

Q. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

A. Write every day. Dig deeper every day. Be true to yourself. Think of publishing as an incidental element to the act of striving to be the best writer you can be, secondary to getting better every day for your experiences and dedication to the craft.

Q. Will you be at any mystery or thriller conferences this year where fans can meet you?

A. I’m planning to make it to Bouchercon this year, schedule permitting. Hope to see you all there!

Visit Lisa’s web sites at www.lisaunger.com and www.lisamiscione.com

A Chat with Vicki Delany

Sandra Parshall

Vicki Delany is the author of two psychological suspense novels and the upcoming first book in a police procedural series. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised mostly in Ontario, she traveled to South Africa in her twenties, married a man she met there and had three daughters. After eleven years, Vicki returned to Canada, where she still lives. Her stay in Africa, she says, gave her “an insight into to the politics of power and oppression that few Canadians get to experience.”

Would you tell us about your path to publication? How long were writing before you published your first book?

Several years at least. When I look back now, I can see that my first efforts weren't really good enough, so I'm not surprised that they were rejected. But then I began taking advice, and criticism, and got Scare the Light Away to the point where Poisoned Pen Press were kind enough to accept it.

Have you found readers in the U.S. receptive to your Canadian settings and characters?

Generally when I meet American readers they seem to enjoy the Canadian elements. Either because they like reading about people in different countries, or because they have some sort of link with Canada and love to read books that reinforce that link.

What attracted you to the World War II era as a background and setting for fiction?

My books Scare the Light Away and Burden of Memory are both contemporary stories with flashbacks to World War II. I think that the war years were so tramautic for almost everyone who lived through them, particularly, of course, in places where the bombs were actually falling and shots being fired, that it is easy to imagine that some of the drama, the consequences, of that time can effect families and individuals all these years later. And old secrets are the life-blood of suspense novels. My new novel, In the Shadow of the Glacier, due out in September, is strictly a contemporary setting - some of the drama in that book is influenced by things that happened during the Vietnam War, but there are no flashbacks or remembrances. Glacier, incidently, is the first in a series featuring Constable Molly Smith and Seargant John Winters of the (fictional) Trafalgar City Police.

You lived in South Africa for a number of years. Do you plan to use your experiences there in your fiction?

I would like to, very much. For one thing, I haven't been back to South Africa for more than twenty years, and I'd love to. I thought a bit about having a back story during the Boer War (in which Canadians were involved), but that seems to have been abandoned. Perhaps some day I'll resurrect the idea.

What attracts you to psychological suspense, as opposed to straight mystery?

I like family dynamics - families are a gold mine for crime writers! Although I hasten to add that there is nothing in my own family that might cause me to think so! I like books that are character driven as much as, or more than, plot driven. For In the Shadow of the Glacier I wanted to write a traditional police procedural, but it has some elements of psychological suspense as well. The setting is a very small town and the police have to deal with their own families, and their own relationships, which may (or may not) have some involvement with the crime they are investigating.

Do you work full-time? How do you fit writing and promotion into your life?

I was fortunate enough to reitre at the end of March. Up until then I had been working full time as a systems analyst at a major bank. And it was tough finding the time for my writing. What suffered was the promotion end of the business. But this year I'm planning to really get out there any promote the books. I'm going to Murder in the Grove in June, to Bouchercon in September, and plan to take In the Shadow of the Glacier on a book tour down the west coast in October/November. I'm spending the summer in the interior of British Columbia, close to where the Constable Molly Smith books are set, and I'll really enjoy writing the next book when I'm right there. I even have a lunch date coming up with the police detective kind enough to help me with In the Shadow of the Glacer.

What aspects of your writing have you consciously tried to improve?

Plot!
Characters and setting have always been inportant to me, more than plot.
But now that I'm doing a police procedural series, the plot has to be tight and focused. I'm working very hard on that

What writers have influenced you? What qualities attract you in another author's work?

The book about writing that I enjoyed the most was On Writing, by Stephen King. The books I most like to read are the standard British police procedurals -- Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson, the (sadly) late Jill McGown. Books with real depth of character combined with an intricate plot.

What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

In On Writing, Stephen King says that if you want to be a writer you have to do two things - you have to write and you have to read. Sounds simple but that's about it. There's no point in thinking about how one day you'll start that book. You have to sit down and write it. And if you want to know what people want to read, then you have to read as well.

Learn more about the author and her work at www.vickidelany.com.

Rebecca and the Pleasure of Suspense

posted by Julia Buckley


Back in January I listed Rebecca as one of my all-time favorite suspense novels; I would also suggest that the Hitchcock movie with Joan Fontaine and Lawrence Olivier almost does justice to the book, and is a piece of art in its own right. While I can't go into any spoiler-type details about the book or the movie, I can assure any blog readers who haven't encountered one or the other that either would provide hours of delicious suspense. I have a colleague who once saw me holding the book and said, "Oh, you're reading Rebecca? That book is the reason I became an English teacher."

Books like this remind us why it's such a pleasure to be a reader, and why I feel sorry for people who tell me they don't read, or they never "got into" reading. There's so much satisfaction in getting lost in a good book, and it's nothing like the more passive act of watching a film. Reading a book involves the reader; the reader almost becomes a character in the drama.

Recently I re-discovered a little gem on my bookshelf called The Freebody Heiress, by Ethel Edison Gordon. (1974) Like Rebecca, the mystery has an intriguing first line; both have to do with houses, which is of course a very gothic touch.

The first line of Rebecca is, I believe, "Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again."

In Freebody, the narrator draws us in with this: "Sexton never looked for the gatehouse, no matter what anyone thought or said afterward. Neither did he intend it as a ploy, a deliberate excuse to meet Iris Freebody. He came upon it quite by chance, on the Friday before the first week of classes began at the college where he'd come to teach."

Gordon's matter-of-fact tone is at odds with the suggestion of mystery and conflict, and it's the sort of opener that draws me right in, that would have me reading right there in the library or bookstore aisle. This book, as a matter of fact, is a relic from a library, something I found at a booksale, and on its title page the word CANCELLED is stamped in red. How sad that word is to me now, as both a reader and a writer. A book this good should never be cancelled, but should bring enjoyment to lovers of suspense for years to come.

I've read the entire book and enjoyed it thoroughly, as have my mother and sister, who are my mini reading club. Anyone reading this blog can join that club, too! Here's to the oldies, which are always fun to mix in with the newies. Next time you're in between books, try one of the dusties at the back of the library shelf, or find Du Maurier's or Edison's books and give one a try. Not only do they provide suspenseful journeys, but they are permeated with a sense of nostalgia.

Image: http://i.timeinc.net/ew/img/review/011123/rebecca_l.jpg

Suspense, "24," and "The Departed"

Elizabeth Zelvin

I saw Martin Scorsese’s film “The Departed” the other night, and it started me thinking about suspense. The difference between mystery and suspense is a much discussed topic among mystery lovers. The marketing folks who make so many of the decisions in publishing nowadays seem to think that slapping “A Novel of Suspense” on the cover of a mystery—even if it’s part of a longstanding series of police procedurals or private eye novels—will make it sell better. Maybe it does. But I think it would be a mistake to blur the distinction between mystery and suspense.

For me, a mystery is a whodunit. The basic skeleton of the plot is that a crime is committed, one or more people try to find out who did it, how, and why, and those questions are answered in the end. That skeleton is fleshed out by character and clothed in setting, ie place and culture. All of those things keep us reading mystery after mystery: the challenge of the puzzle and the drive to resolve it; empathy and liking or fascination with the characters, especially the protagonist; and interest in all the detail and color that the writer throws into the mix.

Suspense is something else. In suspense, the reader may know all along who the good guys and the bad guys are. The tension lies in uncertainty about what will happen. Will the good guys be okay? Will the plot be foiled in time? Will Jack Bauer save the world—again? Well, yes, Jack Bauer always saves the world in the TV series “24.” But except for that given, anything can happen. I watched the first season of “24” on video after hearing it extolled on DorothyL as an exemplar of suspense. And boy, is it ever suspenseful. I’ve now seen Seasons 2 through 4 on video too and have no intention of watching the current Season 6 on the tube until I’ve had a chance to get the Season 5 DVDs. I don’t see how those who watch when it's first aired can stand not knowing from week to week what will happen next. Many books and shows follow the unwritten rule that certain characters have to be okay, no matter how many harrowing experiences they live through. On “24,” that rule gets broken all the time. You really don’t know whether a good guy will turn out to be a bad guy, whether a familiar character will do something unexpected, when or how your personal favorite will die. The first season was the most excruciating, because the viewer didn’t know till it was over how far the show would go. But talk about cliffhangers! Every time I thought they couldn’t possibly increase the tension, they’d ratchet it up yet another notch. And to say the ending was a shocker is anything but hype. It really was a shocker!

“The Departed” is suspenseful but in a different way. I’ve gone in and out of watching “The Sopranos.” And I saw “The Godfather” about 25 years after everybody else without being sorry I’d waited so long. But this movie blew me away. If they don’t finally give Scorcese his long delayed Oscar for this one, I’ll be severely disappointed. The final 20 minutes (just guessing about the duration) were a jolt—a twisty multiple jolt. But that’s not what drove the movie. It was the journey, not the destination, that kept the audience enthralled. The characters all had moral ambiguities—except Jack Nicholson, who played the evil crime boss in his inimitable style—so the suspense wasn’t focused on reversals and revelations (although there were a few of those). But from scene to scene, I wanted to know what happened next. The movie made me care about the characters, the crisp pace kept the tension up, and the sheer delight of brilliant script, marvelous acting, and expert cinematography made me want this roller coaster ride to keep going.

I don’t know why it’s sometimes easier to talk about suspense with reference to a film or TV show than about a book. Maybe it’s that we can’t control the unfolding of the tale—except at home with our DVD or on-demand TV, where the watching experience is indeed less suspenseful. I don’t even want a book to be too suspenseful most of the time. Either I rush to find out what happened, missing all the joys of the writing along the way, or I find it unbearable and close the book. I don’t peek at the end, though I know some people do. At the movies, nobody can peek.

I can’t say enough about how powerful and yes, enjoyable, in spite of the horrendous subject matter, I found “The Departed.” (By contrast, I found the beautifully acted and filmed “Babel” totally depressing, and I won’t even go to see “Letters from Iwo Jima”—I’m sending my husband, who appreciates a good war movie.) In the theater on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, the whole audience was having a communal cultural experience throughout the movie. There were chuckles as we watched Jack Nicholson—you never forget it’s him, but it doesn’t matter—embody the quintessential villain. When Martin Sheen, near the end—no, better not tell you, it’s a spoiler—but anyhow, when the audience gasped, I believe they were reacting to seeing President Bartlet (“West Wing”)…in the situation on the screen. My husband wasn’t the only one who howled with laughter at some of the Irish one-liners, like when Matt Damon tells his girlfriend he’ll never leave: “I’m Irish: if something’s wrong, I’ll live with it for the rest of my life.” (I just tried to google the exact wording of this, and instead found a whole bunch of comments by people who didn’t like the movie. Oh well.) And yes, Freud really did say, “The Irish are one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever."

So—about suspense. Does suspense in a book differ from suspense in a movie or TV show? How it’s created? How you react to it? What are your favorite novels of suspense? Have you read novels described as suspense that weren’t? Or vice versa? How much suspense do you want in your mysteries? And did you like “The Departed”? (No spoilers, please—if I could control myself, so can you.)