Interview with Alafair Burke

Interviewer: Elizabeth Zelvin

When, how, and why did you decide to become a writer? And what made you decide to become a lawyer?

I came to writing as a reader. My early favorite books as a child were mysteries, and I remained a lifelong fan of the genre. And of course I’d always been interested in crime. That’s why I became a prosecutor. But it wasn’t until I was at the D.A.’s Office--surrounded by fascinating stories, hearing the stylized way of speaking, seeing how real policing and prosecuting worked–-that I started to think I had enough material to try my hand at writing.

You went to law school in California, worked as a deputy district attorney in Oregon, teach law on Long Island, and live in New York City. Where did you grow up? To what extent, if any, have childhood, family, and a sense of place affected your writing?

To add some more geography to my resume, I grew up as a little kid in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and then grew up some more in Wichita, Kansas. My whole family has always moved around a lot. I think you can tell when people have had nomadic lives. It makes you a good observer. It makes you sensitive to changes in dialect and perspectives. You don’t take for granted that any particular thing you’re used to is the way it is for everyone else. That helps in writing, especially in creating a sense of place, by helping you really identify what makes a specific region unique.

How do you write? Do you have any rituals? Do you need privacy, or can you write with other people around you? How much do you revise? What do you love about writing or the creative process? What, if anything, do you hate or fear about it?

I prefer to have an entire day completely open to write, in which case I tend to stay in my pajamas until 3 pm, go to the gym, then come home to a shower, more PJs, and more writing. I rarely have those kinds of days, though. I’ve learned to write on a lap top in airports, hotel rooms, and restaurants. I’ve learned to get in whatever time I can at the computer each night when I’m done at school.

As far as process, I try to get everything as good as I can get it as I go. The next day, I start by reading what I wrote the day before and tinker as appropriate. Then I’ll do another couple of rounds of big revisions once I’ve got a complete manuscript. What I love, and hate, about writing is the complete solitude of it. Not just physically, but intellectually. You start with a cursor blinking on a fake piece of paper depicted on a screen, and then you have to make choice after choice after choice until an entire book is complete. That’s fabulous freedom. But for someone who has a hard time deciding what to eat for dinner each night, it can be terrifying. I’m actually happiest during editing. I love tinkering. I love the big renovations you can make to the tone of a book with relatively small changes. But the actual creation of that first draft still scares me to death (although I of course love it when it’s over).

After reading your new book, Dead Connection, I’d like to know whether you outline. Surely you didn’t create that complex, tightly woven plot just writing into the mist—or did you?

I start with a synopsis that lays out the bare bones plot—who did it and why. It’s usually about 10 pages. For Dead Connection, that synopsis included all of the various layers of the story. I do not prepare a scene by scene outline. I usually have only the next two or three scenes in mind as I write.

You’ve been going great guns with your Samantha Kincaid series. Yet after three books, you’ve started a new series with Dead Connection: cop instead of prosecutor, New York instead of Portland. How come? Will you continue to write about Samantha as you develop your new protagonist, Ellie Hatcher?

I had an idea for a great plot that didn’t work as a Samantha book. After meeting my husband online, I wanted to talk about the darkest potential of meeting people on the internet. To pull it off, I needed to set the story in a city where people enjoyed real anonymity. Portland lacks that. Big time. New York doesn’t. And I wanted the pace to be fast. Police investigating cases move faster than lawyers prosecuting them. So NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher was born. I originally intended Dead Connection to be a standalone, but Ellie has so much potential as a series character, I want to see that through. I’ll find a way to get back to Samantha, though. She’s my girl.

How do you coordinate your different worlds—the law, academia, the literary and mystery community? Is finding time a problem? You’ve certainly integrated your legal knowledge and experience into the novels and done it very well indeed, as an impressive roster of peers attest, including Linda Fairstein, Tess Gerritsen, Sue Grafton, and Lee Child. Are your law students at Hofstra aware of your reputation as a writer? Do they read your books? Have you ever thought of assigning them as required reading?

Ha! That would be a fast way to sell some books, but, no, I haven’t made them assigned reading. (A colleague, however, did, in his law and literature class.) I honestly have no idea what my students think. Only a few bold students have talked to me about my books. Apparently one study group would invoke the question “What would Samantha Kincaid do?” when studying criminal law. Quite a few former students show up at readings, but I suspect the vast majority of my current students are too busy trying to learn how to be lawyers to bother with my fiction.

You wear yet another hat, as a consultant for Court TV and other television and radio programs. How did you get that gig, and is it fun?

As a law professor and former prosecutor based in New York, I get phone calls from time to time asking for commentary. As long as I’m available, I agree to do it. Otherwise, I can’t complain about the wanna-be celebrity lawyers who use those gigs to make a name for themselves by being as outrageous and obnoxious as possible.

What do you do in your spare time? Do you have any spare time?

I run and do Pilates. I spend a ton of time doting on my French bulldog Duffer. My husband and I golf, go to way too many restaurants, and appreciate wine.

I’m sure every interviewer mentions your famous father, esteemed writer James Lee Burke. How do you feel about that?

I appreciate the strong feelings people have about his work, and it’s natural that those feelings would be the start of finding common ground when people first meet me. I’m more perplexed when people confuse me with the fictional Alafair Robicheaux. My mom put it best years ago when she said, “How do you think I feel when people are surprised I’m not Bootsie?”

Your dad is known for his extremely lyrical writing; he’s one of those writers about whom critics tend to say that he “transcends the genre.” To what extent, if any, has his writing influenced yours? Does he read your work in manuscript? Does he critique it? Do you read his?

I like to think that his dedication to writing rubbed off on me, but our books are completely different. We talk about books like family members, not workshop partners. No drafts. No edits.

How long have you been living in New York, and what made you decide to switch coasts? What do you like about New York? What do you hate about it?

I’ve been in Manhattan for four years now. I love that I can walk to anything I need and can have egg whites delivered at two in the morning. I hate the hassle of any car travel in or out of Manhattan.

How much touring do you do to promote your books? Do you enjoy it? Does any moment stand out? An encounter with a reader that was particularly moving or funny or embarrassing?

I’ve been going to 12-15 cities each summer. It’s a ton of fun, about as close to living like a rock star as I’m likely to get. It’s tangible proof that real people out there are actually reading my books, which is pretty darn cool. Stand out moment? This summer, a woman at a reading screamed out of fright when I read the opening scene of Dead Connection.

What’s next for Alafair Burke as a writer, professionally as an attorney and law professor, and personally? What goals and dreams are on your to-do list for the future?

I have an incredible husband, a wicked cool dog, and two jobs I actually like and am not horrible at. As long as I can keep all of that going, I’m good. If I had to be greedy and ask for more in the future, I want to play in the ladies’ senior LPGA.

A New Voice: Ashna Graves

Interviewed by Sandra Parshall

This is the first in a series of occasional interviews with authors who have recently published their first mysteries. Ashna Graves is the pseudonym of Wendy Madar, co-author of the biography Through Another Lens: My Years with Edward Weston. Ashna's first mystery, Death Pans Out, was published last spring by Poisoned Pen Press. She lives in Oregon, where her mysteries are set.

Was your first published mystery the first novel you wrote?

I blush to admit this, but it was my sixth book-length work of fiction. It was preceded by three other mysteries that I did not try very hard to publish—their day may come yet—and a mainstream novel that I’ve been working on for years, and hope to finish before long. There was also a strange work, a sort of fictional autobiography, that is unlikely to be resurrected. All of this adds up to many thousands of words as I felt my way into a fiction style. While I am absolutely attached to the act of writing, I’m not very attached to my own words and happily set aside hundreds of pages that don’t seem to be working. Nothing feels truly wasted because every word written is another word practiced. This isn’t to say that I’d be contented not to publish. When a manuscript turns into a book that finds readers, it stops being a soliloquy and becomes a conversation—and you can finally stop rewriting the damned thing!

How long did you spend writing the book?

This is a difficult question to answer because I tend to work on several projects at once, plus I rewrite exhaustively. A reasonable estimate is probably four or five months for the first draft of Death Pans Out, followed by reworking that must have added up to another half a year. This includes time spent making some changes recommended by the publisher’s readers and the editor. Considerable stretches of time sometimes elapsed between reworkings, and the manuscript sat in the digital drawer for more than a year while I turned to other writing. This was probably good in that it provided distance and a fresh eye when I went back to it.

Tell us about your road to publication -- pitfalls, detours and all. How long did it take, from the time you finished the book to the time you sold it?

This mystery turned out to be fairly easy to sell once it reached a publisher. It languished for a while with an agent (not my current agent) who liked one of my earlier mysteries better and let this one sit. As it turned out, I did a bit of research and thinking, and decided that Poisoned Pen Press might be a good match because it’s in the west and the few eastern editors who did see the book, didn’t “get” it. They didn’t find it credible that a woman would live alone at a remote cabin for a summer, though they seemed to have no problem with women PI’s who go down dark alleys after absent-mindedly forgetting their handgun in the car.

I sent the manuscript to Poisoned Pen myself (I was between agents by then) and though I love the press, I have to say their process is grueling. The manuscript had to pass eight readers before reaching the editor. What with a few slip-ups, this took a full year. Once the book was accepted, however, things moved fast and it was out in less than a year. Everyone at the press proved delightful to work with, and the responses were always quick to any questions or problems.

When did you decide to write a mystery? What drew you to the genre, and why were you attracted to the time period and setting you used?

Oddly, I’m not a mystery reader but I love listening to mysteries on tape, especially during long drives, and Mystery! on public television is always a treat. I feel like a clone admitting it (lately I’ve read similar admissions by several other mystery writers) but the original decision to write mysteries was spurred by a divorce and the money worries that followed. This is really ridiculous; just about any job would pay better than mystery writing unless you really hit it big and become a bestseller. And as it happened, I didn’t sell a mystery until about ten years later, though I did get a nonfiction book into print meanwhile. I was already earning my living as a writer, mainly through journalism.

The main character, Jeneva Leopold, is a small town journalist, which I chose because of my own experience as a reporter and columnist. It seemed a perfect occupation for a PI in that journalists are invited to snoop into other people’s business. They don’t have as much license to ask difficult questions as a police detective does, but they have more than in most other lines of work, plus a good journalist is easy to confide in and hears truly incredible things. Though Jeneva is a columnist for the newspaper in the fictional town of Willamette, Death Pans Out is set at an idle gold mine in eastern Oregon because I spent a summer in just such a place and it had a dramatic effect on me. Like Jeneva, I went to the mine exhausted and ill following breast cancer and some other problems, and quickly gained strength walking the rocky ridges day after day under the desert sun.

I felt no inclination to turn this experience into a “serious” book—it would have felt too earnest—but it was great fun to use as a mystery setting because it allowed me to spend a lot of imagined time at a place I love.

You published a nonfiction book in the past under your real name. Why did you use a pseudonym for your mystery? How did you select the name?

It was exactly because I publish other things under Wendy Madar that a pseudonym seemed a good idea for mysteries. It can be confusing for readers and publishers alike to have too many kinds of work come out under the same name, especially mysteries or other genre writing along with mainstream fiction. This distinction is less sharp than it once was, with a number of recognized literary authors producing mysteries (John Banville and Jane Smiley, for example), but there is also another reason to take a pseudonym—just plain fun. It’s a lark to have two identities. My lovely local bookstore, Grass Roots, played with this idea by advertising my reading as “two authors for the price of one.”

The name Ashna came from the first pioneer baby born in Kings Valley, Oregon, where I lived at the time on a 500-acre park where Ashna had been the farm matriarch into the 1930s. We sometimes felt that her spirit still haunted the place. I liked the name as a name, plus having never known an Ashna I had no prior notions of what an Ashna would be like. Graves just seemed to go with Ashna (and it comes right after Grafton on the shelf!) though I did worry that reference to the grave might be too unsubtle for a mystery writer. I go by Ashna at conferences and readings, and have enjoyed the fact that some new acquaintances who meet me as Ashna and later discover that I’m actually Wendy just shake their heads. “No, you’re not a Wendy, you’re an Ashna.”

One other important benefit of this pseudonym: it Googles perfectly. There is no other Ashna Graves.

Have the two experiences -- mystery publishing vs nonfiction -- been markedly different?

Not really. The two have more in common than not, the whole process of manuscript submission and revision being very similar for fiction and nonfiction. In both cases, I was very involved in the cover design, writing jacket copy, promotion, and so on. The main differences had to do with working with a big New York publisher (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) versus the smaller mystery publisher in the west (Poisoned Pen). While both experiences were positive and even fun, the mystery process was less formal, with a lot more chatting back and forth with the editor, associate publisher, designer and so on. Nearly all my interactions with FSG were with one editor who was in charge of the book. The overall effect with the smaller publisher was to make me feel closer to the process and, as a result, the book itself when it came out. I had a greater sense of having “made” the mystery as well as written it than I did with the nonfiction.

I got a much larger advance for the nonfiction—but then got no royalties until it was paid back. At this point, I’d rather enjoy the earned royalties than gamble on a book selling well and take a big advance.

What has surprised you -- pleasantly or not -- about being a published mystery writer? Did you anticipate the sense of community that mystery authors feel?

The first surprise is how involved mystery readers become with the story and the characters. I’m very fond of the characters—most are based on real people I met at the gold mine and in the area—but I did not expect readers to care so much about them. I have also been surprised to get such good reviews and quite a bit of attention in general given that this mystery is on the quiet end of the spectrum, and relatively leisurely in getting started, that is, no body on the first page or for quite a few pages. A few readers have confessed to a bit of impatience, but many say they enjoyed having the scene well set and the characters established before the first corpse turned up.

I’m also surprised by the number of mystery conferences, organizations, websites and events, which I knew nothing about before Death Pans Out hit the bookstores. It would be easy to get swept up in the current, so establishing the right level of involvement to be helpful without taking up too much writing time is a challenge.

The sense of community among mystery writers is a definite surprise and a delight. At conferences and online, other writers have freely reached out to me with supportive comments, answers to questions, and helpful tales of their own adventures and misadventures, with never a hint of competition or one-upmanship. I have found mystery writers in general to be bright, funny, and modest. One of the best things about being a mystery writer is being included in this jolly, interested, extended “club”—even though Ashna Graves is not a clubby sort of gal in general. I suspect that this mutually supportive atmosphere has a lot to do with gender. Though the male writers I’ve met are fine fellows, it’s the many women mystery writers who treat the craft as a sort of quilting bee. I don’t spend a lot of time online or on the telephone with other writers, but I know I could if I wanted to, and whenever I do, the interactions are worthwhile and best of all entertaining.

Has promotion been harder work, or more expensive, than you anticipated? Do you think most first novelists realize what a drain promotion can be on both energy and finances?

The best thing about promotion is talking to readers. The worst is having to organize appearances and travel, especially when the publicity has not been good and not very many people show up. It is also very expensive, and for all but the really big sellers the return is not financially worth it, especially for a first book with a modest print run. But it has to be done because those contacts, especially with bookstore owners, are what get people reading your work. To make money is not a good reason to go into mystery writing, though some people do manage reasonable income after a few books. I consider that a bonus. The way things are going, I will clear a few thousand dollars on my first mystery, which would figure out to pennies per hour. Babysitting would be a sounder investment of time!

Do you feel you’ve made any mistakes the first time around that you’ve learned from?

About the only thing I might do differently is to take a stronger hand in the publicity that precedes a visit to a region. Sometimes bookstores say they have this well in hand, and it turns out they mean a weekly calendar notice in the local newspaper. Often, by contacting a reporter, it’s possible to get a feature story, pictures, the whole shebang, which really lets community members know who you are if you aren’t famous. They won’t come to your reading if they don’t know about it, or have some idea that you’ll be worth hearing. My experience, consistently, is that with good publicity I get a good turnout, and without good publicity I don’t get a good turnout. Once people are there and listening, they tend to become enthusiastic and buy the book.

Have reviews been helpful to you as a writer? Do you feel you’ve learned anything from them about your strengths and weaknesses?

Reviews seem to have more to do with self-confidence and sales than with practical book advice. For one thing, they differ in what the reviewers like and don’t like. It’s important to get reviews for publicity’s sake, and really reassuring to get good reviews, but I take far more notice of what readers say when it comes to deciding what worked in a book and what didn’t. If I get consistent responses from readers about some aspect of the story, it’s worth paying attention.

What advice can you offer other novelists who are about to be published for the first time?
Take time to enjoy the triumph. Don’t start worrying right away about the next book, or let yourself get too anxious about book signings, or fret about reviews. You’ve done the difficult job of writing a book, survived the lengthy hunt for a publisher, got through all the production issues—so kick back and feel good about it.

Critique—VAD: Violence as dialog

Sharon Wildwind

I love my critique partners. I’ve had the privilege of being asked to critique a whole range of works in progress. Some were just so bang on I felt as though I was reading an award-winning book. Others needed work before they got to that stage.

After about the umptidith critique, I saw patterns. There were five areas that most writers—including me—oh boy, including me—needed to work on. Because they popped up so often, I devised a set of initials for the big five that I could jot down in the margins. The five areas are
• What body language? (WBL)
• Perfectly nice syndrome (PNS)
• Stop telling, start showing (STSS)
• Very special old pale (VSOP)
• Violence as dialog (VAD)

For the next five weeks, I’m going to blog on one of those areas each week. Let’s start with violence as dialog. Much of what I learned about using violence in writing was taught to me by a fight choreographer who works in television and the movies, and by my husband, who practices a western martial art.

Violence should flow out of the story. It is a dialog in which physical actions replace words. Plant seeds early and throughout the book for the characters’ ability to meet violence with violence. The character doesn’t have to be a martial artist expert or have super strength, but if a ninety-pound weakling takes on a motorcycle gang single-handed, with no foreshadowing, it won’t read true.

Start with something small: a character taking a swing at an inanimate object, or squashing a bug, or getting red-faced, uncontrollably furious when life frustrates them to the max. Show that they have a potential for rage.

Build in a physical component. Give them some regular exercise, a reasonable diet. You don’t have to send them off to the gun range or the dojo, but if you do, see how you can use that as a story element.

Build in an emotional component as well. Maybe it’s a fear of heights. If my character doesn’t like high places, I can get a lot more emotional mileage out of setting the final, violent confrontation on a swinging bridge, or the glass-floor of the Calgary tower, where there seems to be nothing but air and a sheer drop under the character’s feet.

Violence may be one of the lines your characters won’t cross, which we all know, really means they won’t cross until this book. Being the crafty authors we are, we’ll poke and prod and twist both the situation and the character until they MUST resort to violence. Watch the movie, “High Noon,” which is one of the best examples of how people behave when faced with violence.

Be as sparing with physical dialog as you are with verbal dialog. All violence should advance the plot. Match the consequences of the violence to the importance of the violence in advancing the plot; the violence on which the resolution of the story turns should have the most emotional and/or physical costs.

When violence happens, the body kicks into a flight-or-fight reaction. Time slows down. Senses become more acute. In extreme cases, beserker rage takes over and the person may not remember details of the fight. This is also known as a fugue or dissociative state and may cause the person to selectively forget the violent encounter.

If your character goes into a true fugue state, she may not have the capacity to remember the violent encounter because the chemicals coursing through her body may have prevented the memory from being laid down. She will, however, retain the emotional reactions to something she can neither remember nor understand.

All violence has physical costs. It must cost the character something, even if it is only having to buy a new shirt or make a quick trip to the doctor. Physical effects may take hours or days to appear after a fight. This is especially true with a blow to the head. Injuries may not be painful at first. Vomiting and the shakes are common a few minutes after a fight, as is an intense desire to eat uncontrollably and/or to have sex.

The effects of violence linger. It may take days or weeks to recover emotionally from a violent act, even if the physical consequences were minimal. Nightmares after a fight are a common reaction.

All violence should be a turning point in a character’s emotional life. A character may discover she loves violence, or hates it, but she should not come away emotionally unaffected.
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Writing quote for the week:

In a series, as the character becomes deeper (more well-developed), the stakes go up when the character is exposed to violence. Part of the power in a violent scene has to do with where it takes place. ~unattributed quote from a panel member, Lover is Murder Conference, 2007

Research Librarians are the Superheroes of the Computer Age

by Julia Buckley
My favorite librarians: Molly Klowden and Sue Tindall.

There's always a time, even when one is writing fiction, that research becomes a necessity. I've had to research things for all of my literate life, and I consider myself relatively capable. But just as the folks in cartoons sometimes need to call on the help of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman or some other caped crusader, so too do I need to occasionally call my own favorite superhero: the research librarian.

Why do I love them? Let me count the ways.

1. They are always cheerful. I assume that this is because they genuinely love learning and the acquisition of new information; that's why they went into the library game in the first place.

2. Nothing is too weird or obscure. I have asked questions about DNA, inheritance law, incest, conflict of interest, the history of Chicago, forgotten politicians--the list will go on forever (as I keep adding to it). But those wonderful researchers hop right on. Sometimes they say, "Hmmm! That's an interesting question. Let me look into it and I'll call you back."

3. They always call back. And when they do, they have information. Sometimes they'll even mail, fax or e-mail it to me, which is ultra convenient. Why do more people not take advantage of this service? Here are these wonderful people, smart, savvy, with books at the ready, willing to save us from our own ignorance. And it's never been easier.

4. They answer e-mails. Too lazy to use the phone? Research librarians have e-mail addresses, and all of the ones I've worked with will respond to queries sent via e-mail. Computers are changing the world in many ways--generally good ways. The fact that I literally have information help at my fingertips is, to me, something akin to a miracle.

5. They are everywhere! I have utilized the help of reference librarians at my local library, Chicago libraries, my university library, and the library at the school where I teach (see librarians above!) All of them have been quick to help and clever in the extreme.

6. They get it right. Research librarians are painstaking in their research, which is why they often want to call back. They won't toss you an off-the-cuff answer, but will do the proper thing: check and double check, comparing one source against another. In other words, they do what I should do but don't always have the time to do.

There are many more reasons why these librarians are my heroes, and I suppose the biggest one is that THEY SEE THE WISDOM IN SPENDING THEIR TIME IN A ROOM FULL OF BOOKS.

Three cheers for research librarians!

The Clues in Handwriting

Sheila Lowe (Guest Blogger)



With more than 35 years experience in the field of handwriting, Sheila Lowe has been qualified as a handwriting expert in the California Court system since 1985. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and was certified by the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation in 1981, as well as the Society of Handwriting Analysts in 1985. She is an active member of the National Association of Document Examiners. Sheila is also the author of a mystery series, beginning with Poison Pen, featuring a sleuth who shares her expertise. Visit her web site at www.shelialowe.com.

While the Zodiac Killer terrorized the San Francisco area in the late 1960s and early ’70s, he wrote letters to the police and newspapers, taunting them in his own handwriting with terrifying threats of torture. The Zodiac was never caught, but more than thirty years later those handwritten letters remain, as accurate a representation of personality as the picture of Dorian Gray. We may not know what the man looked like on the outside, but his handwriting tells us who he really was inside.

After studying the handwritings of more than twenty serial killers, one thing becomes abundantly, frighteningly clear: in many ways, these men and women do not appear to be so different from the rest of us. That’s why many of them get away with their crimes for years -- their ability to hide a compulsion to kill under the mask of civility allows them to function somewhat successfully in the world. Yet, their handwriting tells the truth, and as the need to kill builds, forcing its way to the surface like the Incredible Hulk straining to overtake David Banner, changes in the handwriting reflect what’s going on inside.

But don’t get the idea that handwriting is like a crystal ball that can predict that someone is definitely going to kill. It’s not. But the potential for violence is easily seen if you know what to look for, and those red flags for danger alert the handwriting analyst. I’ve been asked whether the handwriting of a friend or acquaintance has ever made me decide to distance myself from that person. As a matter of fact, it has.

I’ve written and spoken in many places about the alarm I felt when my 27-year-old daughter showed me the handwriting of a new man in her life. He was a special agent for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and he taught hand-to-hand combat to other agents. His handwriting showed a controlling personality, a “do as I say, not as I do” mentality, a potential for violent behavior. In addition, I saw something in the handwriting that prompted me to ask whether he had sustained a blow to the head. He said he had, and that he suffered severe headaches as a result.

What do you get when you add an authoritarian personality to a head injury, mix it with alcohol abuse and stress at work? An explosion waiting to happen. Within a year my daughter had become the victim of murder by this man, who also killed himself. Handwriting doesn’t lie, but we have to listen to what it says. My daughter’s killer never struck her before he shot her eight times, but he had threatened her. I share this story in the hope that it will help at least one person make the choice to leave an abusive relationship before it’s too late. Abuse isn’t just about physical violence. It includes verbal mistreatment, too.

Although I’ve been writing about handwriting and what it reveals about personality for more than thirty years, I’ve wanted to write mystery since I was fourteen. So, it was a natural progression to create a character who works as a forensic handwriting expert, as I do. Remember the old TV show that started with the line, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City”? Well, behind every story is a handwriting, and my expert, Claudia Rose, has already investigated two of them in Poison Pen (in stores now) and Written in Blood (coming 12/08). Like me, Claudia is both a handwriting expert who testifies in cases of forgery, and a behavioral profiler through handwriting.

But besides potential for violence, there are lots of other clues that handwriting provides. Social skills for one -- whether you’re an outgoing, gregarious type of person, or a loner, for instance. Thinking style is another -- logical, common sense, creative? The condition of your self-image. Sexual attitudes. How well you organize your life. Where your fears come from.

So, what did the Zodiac’s handwriting say about him? Google turns up samples on several web sites. You’ll see that the flow of ink is heavy and muddy-looking, an indication of dammed-up anger and frustration. There are letters that suddenly flop over to the right, which signals a sudden eruption of emotion. The way letters and words are spaced show his feelings of isolation and profound inability to connect with another person. Whether it’s the Zodiac, the Night Stalker, Aileen Wuornos, or any of the dozens of other less-known killers on death row, their handwriting reveals the truth about who they really are.

Handwriting can’t tell everything about a person, but understanding what motivates others, what makes them tick, puts an investigator way ahead of the game. It provides a great deal of important information that can be added to other evidence and build an accurate portrait of personality. Having access to that kind of information gives the graphologist an edge when she becomes involved in a murder investigation, or white collar crime, or a child abuse case, or even just analyzing someone who wants to know himself better. So next time you pick up a pen and paper and begin to write, you might want to ask yourself what clues your handwriting reveals about you...

When a book is about to be released . . .

Lonnie Cruse

Reviews, do you read 'em? Write 'em? Know anything about 'em?

I just received the advance reader copies for my new book Fifty-Seven Heaven which will be released by Five Star (mystery line) on December 12, 2007. Now I'm faced with asking reviewers to review. Luckily, Five Star sends out a LOT of copies for review. BUT I'm expected to do my share and send to places they don't. Where to send? Eeeeek!

Okay, I'm in a small town in a very rural area. Two strikes. BUT we have lovely libraries, here and across the river in Paducah, so they are very high on my list. Then I'm sending to reviewers who loved my first series, the Metropolis Mystery series, featuring Sheriff Joe Dalton. Crossing my fingers that they will love this one as well. Crossing my fingers that the list of possible reviewers I got from friends and fellow Five Star authors will help, (networking, it's where it's at!) Crossing my fingers that the well-known reviewers who receive the copies from my publisher will decide to review it. Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to type with every finger crossed?

It's also my job to get blurbers to blurb for the hard cover book. I've sent those books off to the agreeable authors I asked. Here again, networking was HUGE. I'd met each of these very well-known authors at writer's conferences, they know me, even if slightly, so they were willing to read the book and see if they can blurb it for me. If I hadn't met them, I doubt I'd have the courage to ask for a blurb.

This is a business of total opposites. Meaning we write in solitude, often threatening anyone or anything interfering with our "quiet time" with real physical harm. But getting the book criqitqued/edited, creating a decent synopsis or query, finding an agent or publisher, getting blurbs and reviews, marketing/promoting the book, those ALL require an author to come out from under her rock of choice and meet with others. Network!

Sooo, put on your sunglasses, lest the light of day blind you, come out of your cave, and start networking. It's fun, and you never know when you will run into one of your favorite authors. Sigh, time for me to go back into the darkness of re-writes. Thanks for stopping by!

Only So Many Stories: The Seven Original Plots

Elizabeth Zelvin

I first learned that there are only seven original plots
by reading Emily of New Moon, my favorite book as a child. I found the text of L.M. Montgomery’s 1923 classic about the other little orphan girl on Prince Edward Island on the Internet at Project Gutenberg of Australia, which states its “eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia.” So I can cite the memorable passage:

“I’m in a scrape and I’ve been in it all summer. You see”—Emily was very sober—“I am a poetess.”

“Holy Mike! That is serious. I don’t know if I can do much for you. How long have you been that way?”

“Are you making fun of me?” asked Emily gravely.

Father Cassidy swallowed something besides plum cake.

“The saints forbid!...Have another slice av cake and tell me all about it.”

“It’s like this—I’m writing an epic….My epic,” said Emily, diligently devouring plum cake, “is about a very beautiful high-born girl who was stolen away from her real parents when she was a baby and brought up in a woodcutter’s hut.”

“One av the seven original plots in the world,” murmured Father Cassidy.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just a bad habit av thinking aloud. Go on.”

“She had a lover of high degree but his family did not want him to marry her because she was only a woodcutter’s daughter—”

“Another av the seven plots—excuse me.”

“—so they sent him away to the Holy Land on a crusade and word came back that he was killed and then Editha—her name was Editha—went into a convent—”

Emily paused for a bite of plum cake and Father Cassidy took up the strain.

“And now her lover comes back very much alive, though covered with Paynim scars, and the secret av her birth is discovered through the dying confession av the old nurse and the birthmark on her arm.”

“How did you know?” gasped Emily in amazement.

“Oh, I guessed it—I’m a good guesser.”

Is that priceless or what? I’ve quoted as little as I could bear to. Having been imprinted on Father Cassidy’s list, but not having read it for many years, I’ve always assumed the list of seven ran something like this:
. Boy meets girl
.The lost heir
.The disguised hero or role reversal
.The hero’s quest (with subsets that include David and Goliath, Hero saves world, and Disney’s favorite, The lost mother)
.Coming of age (or is that another subset of The hero’s quest too?)
and let’s round out the list with two plots essential to mystery writers:
.Boy murders girl
.Sleuth solves crime

When I consulted the Internet, I found that not everybody’s list of seven is the same as everybody else’s. On several sites, I found (with and without attribution), this very different list. The reference is Foster Harris, William. The Basic Patterns of Plot. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959.

.[wo]man vs nature
.[wo]man vs man
.[wo]man vs. the environment
.[wo]man vs. machines/technology
.[wo]man vs the supernatural
.[wo]man vs. self
.[wo]man vs God/religion

Yet another seven are proposed by Christopher Booker in The Seven Basic Plots. London/NY: Continuum, 2005.

.Overcoming the monster
.Rags to riches
.The quest
.Voyage and return
.Comedy
.Tragedy
.Rebirth

And I can’t resist quoting a passage from a review of Booker’s book by Adam Mars-Jones in The Observer, Sunday, November 21, 2004. It’s almost as delicious as Emily’s conversation with Father Cassidy.

Christopher Booker’s hefty tome of cultural archaeology is peculiar, repetitive, near-barmy, and occasionally rather good. He takes the commonplace idea that there are only so many stories in the world and follows it very far indeed. Obsession is almost too small a word to describe an enterprise which has consumed 34 years and required a reading list more or less synonymous with the history of literature.

Hmm, I wonder if Mr. Booker blogs.

Even though these ways of conceiving the basic plot are not identical, they are certainly interrelated. On a structural level, the writer is unlikely to break entirely new ground, at least without abandoning plot altogether. Our plots can’t possibly be original. And that explains what’s wrong with all those benighted friends and strangers who tell us they have a marvelous idea for a book and they bet we’d love to write it. The knack of telling a good story is not the plot itself. It’s in how we tell the story: how we paint the scene and how we populate it, what our characters get up to and what they say in the course of meeting and murdering each other, pursuing the quest, solving the crime, and so on.

After a recent panel, a young man came up to me and expressed concern because the brief description of Death Will Get You Sober on my promotional bookmark resembled the novel he’s working on: his protagonist is a drug addict who goes into treatment, somebody is murdered, etc. (Now where does “Boy gets clean and sober” fit in? The hero’s quest? Man vs self? Coming of age—belatedly?) As I assured him, neither of us need worry. I don’t need to read his work to know he can’t possibly write just like me.

.

You Couldn't Make This Up

Sandra Parshall

True crime story #1: Guy walked into a bank, handed the teller a note that politely informed her this was a robbery and asked her to please put all the money into his bag. The note was signed with the full name of the bank robber, who was apprehended soon afterward.

True crime story #2: Guy walked into a bank, handed the teller a note ordering her to give him all the cash. She pointed out that he didn’t bring a bag with him and asked with some irritation if he really expected her to go looking for a bag to put the money in. Flustered and embarrassed, the would-be robber fled, only to be apprehended within minutes.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

And even though it really happened, you’d have a hard time using such an incident in fiction because nobody would find it believable. Writers with names like Hiaasen, Evanovich and Leonard can get away with these scenarios because readers don’t expect to find their stories believable. They’re praised for their vivid, over-the-top imaginations, although many of the wild and crazy things they write have actually happened out there in the real world.

I find all this very puzzling.

Why do we apply tougher standards of believability to fiction than we do to real life? I often watch a horrifying event on the evening news and declare, “I just don’t believe this.” But the press has the tape or pictures to prove it really happened. If I read about something similar in fiction, I might have a harder time taking it seriously.

True crime story #3: A couple broke into the home of a sheriff’s deputy, stole $10,000 worth of his possessions, among them his badge and several guns, threw the loot into the deputy’s truck and absconded. Before long the fleeing burglars felt an overwhelming urge to express their affection for one another. They pulled to the curb on a nice residential street, quiet and deserted in the very early morning, and left the engine idling while they expressed their affection. By coincidence, the newspaper carrier was making his rounds at the same time. He took one look at the crammed-full truck bed (but apparently didn’t glance into the cab), assumed a burglary was in progress, and called the cops.

This is not something you could use in fiction, unless you’re writing farce. Coincidences happen in real life all the time, but they’re anathema in fiction, especially crime fiction, because they make things too easy. We want characters to struggle all the way to the end and triumph or fail due to their own efforts, not because a coincidence brings matters to a conclusion. I can understand this. The writer has to tell a good story, and using coincidence is simple laziness. That isn’t what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about the kind of thing that makes every writer say, “Oh, that would be great in a story... but nobody would believe it.” We have to tone down reality to avoid accusations of melodrama.

True crime story #4: A burglar was found dead in a Miami store, dangling from the blades of a large ventilation fan. Police speculated that the man had been trying to crawl through the fan, which was shut off for the night, and accidentally flipped the switch.

Hiaasen, maybe Leonard, could write a scene like that. I don’t think Evanovich would touch it.

True crime story #5: According to the FBI, a person (gender unknown) has been sending threatening letters, some containing powdered insecticide, to TV networks and college athletic departments since 2004. Failure to comply with his/her demands, this person warns, “will cause 88 people to be assaulted and shot at.” Any writer has to love the specificity of “88 people.” A detail, if you’ll pardon the expression, to die for.

This would appear to have the makings of a thriller plot. Unfortunately, the story is rendered ridiculous and unusable in fiction because of the would-be killer’s motive: she/he doesn’t like the “disrespectful” way women’s sports are covered.

Some outrageous real events teeter on the brink and need only minor tweaking to push them all the way into the “Yeah, I’d believe that in a novel” category. Here’s one:

True crime story #6: A man badgered his reluctant wife into joining a sex club with him. She liked it more than she expected and, in fact, fell in love with one of her new fun-and-games partners. The husband was not happy with this turn of events.

What makes this story unsuitable for fiction is the husband’s method of dealing with the situation: he sued the other guy for alienation of affection (and won, by the way). Absurd. Put a gun in his hand, though, and red-hot revenge in his heart -- voila, you’ve got a mystery that anybody would find believable.

Crazy things happen around us -- or to us -- every day. Next time you give up on a mystery or thriller because you think it’s unrealistic, go turn on CNN and watch for a few minutes. Then ask yourself what the definition of “believable” is.

Mystery Fatigue

Sharon Wildwind

Dreams are my bellwether.

When I’ve been going at this mystery thing too hard and too long, I dream complete mysteries. They have wonderful complex plots; I wrap everything up neatly in the last few minutes before I wake up; and they’re almost always set in a tough police procedural world.

Only . . . there’s always something ghastly wrong. Like the one where the squad room was painted bright pink, and cops sat on large marshmallows while smoking hookahs. It resembled The Wire meets Alice in Wonderland. Try pitching that concept to an editor.

Or there is the not-to-automatic grammar editor. That’s another warning sign. That’s when I’m typing along and I do a no-no such as split an infinitive, as in Kirk’s legendary, “to boldly go.” My fingers automatically hit the delete key, then I spend five minutes staring at the screen trying to decide whether “to go boldly” or “boldly to go” captures the essence of what I’m trying to say.

Lately it’s been fish. Everywhere, something piscine. A water-colored, rice paper wall hanging of carp at the restaurant where we had supper last night. A red-and-white fishing bobble abandoned in the parking lot. Fish rubber stamps. Fish decals. Fish buttons. My favorite frozen fish on sale in the grocery. Fish and baby shrimp in oyster sauce at the above mentioned restaurant.

The point is, mysteries are a tough world. As a mystery writer, I live several hours every day in an imaginary environment where people hurt one another. There’s blood, gore, body fluids, forensic evidence, motives, repercussions, and conflict. Always conflict.

When I leave the fictional world to devote time to the business of writing, selling, and marketing mysteries, at least there is less blood and body fluids. Mystery writers are, on the whole, a well behaved lot. But there is still a heck of a lot of repercussions—What will happen if I don’t get a good review? How do I stand in relation to the competition? Is there a young hot-shot writer coming up hard on my heels?—and conflict. My needs, my agent’s needs, my editor’s needs, the publisher’s needs, the readers’ needs, the bookseller’s needs. Always conflict.

That’s why I’m going on vacation. Hopefully, after a few days of not doing mystery things—well, okay, I have a deadline and I’ll probably knock out several chapters—but I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary, I’ll be able to get that dream-world squad room back to it’s dingy green walls, and get those darn fish out of my head.

Of course, there was that one dream where Captain Frank Furillo—he of Hill Street Blues fame—was actually a giant goldfish, and his office was an aquarium, and all the people in the squad room were watching him swimming around in his office. Maybe . . .

Never mind. See you on the flip side of my holidays.

-----
Writing quote for the week:

As soon as I think I know anything for sure about the creative process, I should open a fruit stand.
~Michael Conforti, script writer

Drama and Mystery in Daily Life

by Julia Buckley

The conspirators, caught in the act.

I realized today, while doing the humdrum things that are required of me as a householder, a mother, and a teacher, that my everyday life, when broken down, contains many of the elements of a good mystery. Here are some examples from Labor Day Weekend alone:

Prevention of Murder: “There will be no smothering.” (This spoken by me as one boy’s voice distinctly faded, as if under a pillow, during a valiant struggle).

Dramatic Revelation: “Your brother didn’t get rid of your giant rhino. I did.” (This resulted in tears and a trip to Toys R Us for another giant rhino; sadly, there were no longer rhinos in the stuffed animal section, so the price of forgiveness ended up being a small dog and two small tigers).

Warning to the Miscreant: “Stop squeezing the cat!” (This is issued daily, but so far the cat is remarkably good-natured about the squeezing).

Desperate Plea of the Detective: “Who put this here?” (The answer to this, ALWAYS, is “I don’t know.” There is usually a lot of shrugging involved).

War of the Arch Enemies:

“You said I could smack you as part of the game!”

“But you punched me in the chest, and now I’m taking your monkey out of the competition.” (I don’t know what this means, but I overheard it while grading papers. I believe said monkey is a large, stuffed, molting thing that was somehow a part of the drama).

Murder Itself: “Who did this to my necklace?” (As I hold up the remnants of what was nice jewelry).

The Co-Conspirator’s Betrayal: “Graham was swinging it around as his lasso, so I just tried to rope the dog with it. But I didn’t break it. I don’t know what happened.”

Good cop, Bad cop:

Boy one: (Bad cop) “Mom, you never let us play Playstation. Most kids get to play during the summer. It’s called having a childhood.” (He is also a sarcastic cop).

Boy two: (Good cop) “But mom has been really nice lately about letting us play games, and I bet if we walk the dog she’ll let us play, right, Mom?”

Unraveling the Mystery: “Mom, we found the remote! We tried to think back over our day, and we remembered that Dad had it on his belly when he fell asleep, so we knew it was on the couch somewhere or maybe under it, and there it was, under the couch!”

The Sting: “Mom, here’s some Diet Coke with ice the way you like it. And I put in the stirrer with the hula girl on it, and a little paper umbrella. Can I have five dollars?”

Wow—life is full of mystery and drama. It’s not all fascinating, but it’s there! Can anyone share one of his or her own?