The Tale of the Talking Animals

Guest Post by Susan Wittig Albert

Okay, I confess. I didn’t set out to write a mystery series with talking animals.

With apologies to Rita Mae Brown, Carole Nelson Douglas, and others, I’ve never been a fan of talking animals in mysteries. So why am I writing an eight-book series (The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter) that features even more talking animals than Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book? The answer to that question is a tale in itself: the tale of the talking animals.

If you know anything about Beatrix Potter’s life, you know it was full of animals, both real and imaginary. You can’t write about her without a mischief of mice underfoot, or a basket of bunnies in the corner. But while her animals talk in a pleasantly amusing way, I didn’t intend to allow them to say a word while they were putting in their obligatory appearances in my books. As I said, I wasn’t a big fan of talking animals in mysteries.

But while writers may have the best of intentions, things don’t always work out the way they plan. In this case, it was Mrs. Tiggywinkle who started the whole thing. In real life, Mrs. T was Beatrix’s favorite hedgehog, as well as the model for the character of Mrs. Tiggywinkle in The Tale of Mrs. Tiggywinkle. In 1905, when Beatrix went to the village of Near Sawrey to take possession of Hill Top Farm, she took her animals with her: Mrs. T, Mopsy and Josie Bunny, and Tom Thumb the Mouse. So I included these creatures in The Tale of Hill Top Farm, to further characterize Beatrix as an artist (they were her models) and as a woman who dearly loved all sorts of little animals.


However, when I reached the third chapter (this is where Beatrix is lying in bed in her rented room with her animals in their cages in the corners), I was in for a surprise. Mrs. T spoke up—at length. She was offended, it turns out, that Miss Potter made her a common washerwoman in The Tale of Mrs. Tiggywinkle. She preferred to be pictured as a duchess.

Now, I have been aware for many years that I am only partially in control of my characters. Sure—I can give them a history, equip them with a personality, and confront them with a set of circumstances (commonly known as the “plot”). But once created, characters have their own minds and don’t always take directions. In the China Bayles mysteries, for instance, I’m always learning new things about China. (Who knew she had a brother? I didn’t!) And in The Tale of Hill Top Farm, Mrs. T surprised me by having her own story to tell, as did Tom Thumb the mouse. It turns out that he is a recent widower, since Hunca Munca, his wife, had fallen from a chandelier and broken her neck. (This is a true story, according to one of Beatrix’s letters.) And Tom is also on the lookout for romance, which could lead to all kinds of interesting plot twists.

What can I say? I’m an opportunist. When a character pops up and wants to take over, I’m disposed to let that happen. The animals wanted to talk? Well, fine. I’d listen and take notes.

And so I did, happily. In fact, I enjoyed the results so much that I invited a few animals of my own to join the gang—hence Bosworth Badger, Professor Galileo Newton Owl, Crumpet (a village cat), and Rascal (a village dog). Not wanting to just sit around and be decorative, these industrious characters got busy and developed their own plots. How’s that for easy? It turns out that my big task in these books is integrating the animal plots with the people plots, which sometimes gets a little complicated.

I learned a few things about animals in this process. Like people, they have their own behavioral characteristics, preferences, and habits. They also have their own dialects and linguistic idiosyncrasies.

Tibbie, the gossipy Herdwick sheep, bleats: “Nobody ever baathers to listen to a sheeeep.”

Professor Owl hoots: “I am perfectly aware of whooo youoo are.”

Jemima Puddleduck (not the brightest bird in the barnyard), quacks: “My eggs are not QUACK spoilt! They are the very finest of duCK eGGs!”

Animals are incredibly useful as point-of-view characters because they go everywhere and know things people don’t. In the village, the animals go from garden to garden, eavesdropping and carrying tales. Professor Owl keeps an eye on events from high in the sky. And the mice behind the cupboard often know more about what’s going on than Beatrix Potter does. This allows me (as the author) to play some interesting games of who-knows-what.

Some of these animals, however, gave me a different challenge, since they aren’t mine. They belong to Beatrix Potter—or rather, to Frederick Warne, her publisher and the owner of her copyrights. I felt I didn’t need to ask permission to use Mrs. T and her friends as props in a stage-setting. But when these animals started to talk and fashion their own plots, I knew I’d have to get permission to use them. Not as easily done as said, but the details of the licensing agreement were finally worked out. My manuscripts go to England, where they are vetted by a Frederick Warne editor (to make sure I haven’t blasphemed Miss Potter’s literary creations) before they go into production here in the U.S.

I’m glad Mrs. Tiggywinkle cured me of my prejudice against talking animals. It seems to me that they animals give the series a unique whimsicality, and that the multiple plots (people plots, animal plots) make the books more agreeably entertaining, surprising, and enjoyably complex. And the readership is broadened, too. Kids enjoy the animals, making the books perfect for family read-alouds.

All in all, I think Miss Potter would be pleased. I know I am.

About the drawing:
If you would like to enter the drawing for a copy of The Tale of Hawthorn House, go here. We’ll be giving away three copies of this book. You may also be eligible for the grand prize drawing, which will be held at the end of Susan’s blog tour. But you’d better hurry. This drawing for Poe’s Deadly Daughters will close at noon on November 8!

www.cottagetales.com
www.mysterypartners.com
blogging at:
www.susanalbert.typepad.com/lifescapes
www.susanalbert.typepad.com/pecanspringsjournal

Getting Started

by Darlene Ryan

In general, writers fall into one of two groups; those who outline and those who don’t. I’m an outliner. When I start writing I already know a lot what’s going to happen in the story. Writers who don’t work from an outline--seat-of-the-pants writers--just start writing and discover the story as they go.

I outline because I’ve learned the hard way that if I try to wing it, I’ll never get to the end of the story. It’s why I have to follow a map when I’m traveling, so I can actually get to Montreal or Boston, instead of ending up at the Museum of SPAM* in some town I’ve never heard of. The one time I wrote a book without an outline I ended up with a story I couldn’t sell and no clue how to fix it. Every writer learns—through trial and error and a few melt-downs in front of the computer—what works best for her. (Or him.)

All my books begin with a what-if. In the case of Responsible, my latest young adult novel, the what-if was, What if you did the right thing and it messed up your life? I started thinking about this person who had tried to do the right thing and Kevin Frasier began to take shape. He was HHHtall and needed a haircut. His mother was dead. He was a mediocre student who didn’t really fit in anywhere.

Some writers create pages of background for every major character in a book. Not me. What I need to figure out before I start writing is who the person is—what does he need, what does he want? Kevin wasn’t a jock, a brainiac or into drama. He was a bully by default.

Once I knew Kevin I could work out the rest of the story. At this point in the outlining process I know where the story starts and how I want things to end. And I usually have a couple of what I call “crisis points” figured out for the middle. I start with the first scene, work toward the last scene and keep asking, Now what? Having those crisis points figured out for the middle makes it easier to work my way through the giant black hole between the beginning and the end of the book. After I’ve figured out the main story points, I go back and think about the other characters in the story.

I write down everything that occurs to me as I’m outlining--lines of dialogue, even an entire scene—but for the most part the outline lacks all the details that make a good story. Here is how a scene from Responsible was described in the outline. Just two sentences: Kevin sticks a dead mouse in Erin’s locker. Erin confronts Nick and stuffs the dead mouse in his pocket.

Here’s the same scene from the finished manuscript:

I slid the burger box out of my pack.

There was a mouse inside, gray and black with a long hairless tail and blood, dried brown on its neck. I looked at it, curled in the bottom of its Styrofoam coffin and I thought, I could just shut Erin’s locker and tell Nick I hadn’t been able to pop the lock after all. No. No. I could tell him the janitor had been doing the floors and I couldn’t even get to her locker.

I looked down at the grungy gray and yellow tiles. Nick wouldn’t believe that. No one would believe that.

I could just shut the locker, throw the box in the garbage and go home. Of course I’d never be able to come to school or go anywhere else ever again. I’d heard rumors about what Nick did to guys who went up against him. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get a mouse like this stuck in my locker. I’d probably be the mouse, curled up in a ball with blood on the side of my head. It was me or her. What the hell else could I do?

I hauled my sweatshirt down over my fingers again and picked up the mouse. I thought it would have been stiff, but it was as floppy as a stuffed toy. I set it on Erin’s math book, right at the front of her locker so she’d at least see it first thing. That way she wouldn’t be feeling around for her books and get a handful of dead rodent instead. She was going to freak no matter what.

I felt like the mouse was looking at me, sitting there on the middle of the locker shelf. A cold shiver rolled from my shoulders all the way down my back. “Sorry,” I whispered as I closed the locker door. I wasn’t sure if the sorry was for the poor dead mouse, or for Erin.

I couldn’t get going in the morning so by the time I got to school it was almost first bell. Nick was standing at the bottom of the main stairs with Zach and Brendan and some geeky kid from grade nine who talked way too much. I thought his name was Oliver. I knew Nick was just hanging there waiting to see what happened when Erin opened her locker.

I walked over to them. I just wanted to go to my locker or homeroom, but it would have looked weird if I had. I didn’t look down the hall. We’d know soon enough when Erin opened her locker.

Nick was going on about video games and playing Doom Master. He thought he was hot stuff because he’d gotten to level six in the game. I’d gotten as far as level fourteen. That wasn’t something I’d ever told him, though.

I didn’t see Erin until she was right behind Nick. “Uh, Nick,” Zach said, pointing. I looked around. It seemed like half the school was hanging around, watching. I wondered if Nick had put the word out.

Erin was holding the mouse up by its tail with her bare hand. If she was scared I couldn’t tell. In fact, she was sort of smirking. “Geez, Nick,” she said. “I thought you could come up with something better than a dead mouse.”

Then she reached over and stuffed the mouse in the pocket of Nick’s Zipperhead tee shirt. “Here you go,” she said, giving the pocket a pat. Yeah, she was definitely smirking.

Nick jerked. He grabbed the mouse out of his pocket and hurled it down the hall. It landed with a splat by the water fountain. He wiped his hand on his jeans. He was breathing hard and there was sweat on his forehead. Erin wasn’t afraid of a dead mouse but Nick sure as hell was.

How long an outline ends up, depends on the book. I’ve written outlines as short as two pages and as long as eighteen. I keep going until I know the story. And by that time I’m usually getting itchy to write the book. For me, this is part of the creative process. There are a zillion decisions to make writing a book. I like to get a lot of them out of the way before I start writing.

• There really is a Museum of SPAM. It’s in Austin, Minnesota.

Research: Like Salt To Mashed Potatoes, Part 7

PACKING MY BAGS
or
How can I use my vacations or other trips for research?

I recently wrote a setting into a new manuscript that I’d unknowingly researched for several years. I love visiting Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and riding through the Smoky Mountains. My husband and I have visited there several times over the years. I’ve taken a lot of pictures and bought postcards, so it seemed natural to set the second book in my new series there.

I can’t count those past trips off my taxes, unfortunately, only future trips where I actively do research, but we authors need to keep our eyes open on any business trips or vacations, take lots of pictures, buy postcards, and maybe even keep local newspapers of interest or other publications in our research folders. We never know when an idea might be germinating in the backs of our heads or when that idea will suddenly demand to be put down on paper.

In the Pigeon Forge book, my character is attending a car show in the area, just like my husband and I did a few years back, so I had the information already at hand. I wanted my character’s husband to idolize Dolly Parton like my hubby does, and where better for my character to “meet” her than in Pigeon Forge where Dollywood is located? Pigeon Forge and Sevierville each have the country or rural setting outside of town that I needed for my story. Having spent so much time there allowed me to bring my setting to life.

Where do you like to visit? What setting sticks in your mind? Would make a great background for your story? Remember, our story setting usually becomes a silent character in our books, giving color and texture to our manuscripts. Visiting and exploring the ins and outs of a place will help us to layer our settings into the story in a very real way we can’t if we choose a place we’ve never visited and are researching via maps or the net.

Now, I’m not discounting that type of research. We may not be able to afford a research trip to Siberia to scout out our setting, in which case, the Internet, chats with friends who have been there, maps, etc. may be our only option. But using places we’ve actually spent time exploring is the best option, particularly for getting the real “feel” for the place.

Restaurants we love can be incorporated into the story (strongly suggest not having any one suffer food poisoning or other disasters when using a real restaurant. It’s always a good idea to make the scene positive when you use the real name of any existing business.) When we use the tourist attractions we visit (such as Dollywood or Cade’s Cove in Pigeon Forge) in our story, we’ll have a good idea of what the local hotels are like, stores, and other businesses. Be sure to investigate some of the out-of-the-way places as well. I’m using the NAPA store in my manuscript where my husband and I spent an afternoon while he repaired our car. In fact, that car repair became a focal point in my story. And we accidentally happened on one of the most beautiful rivers I’ve ever seen at a place called Chimney Rock. There were several people picnicking nearby, but most of them were simply sitting on the huge rocks and boulders, listening to the water rush by, and enjoying nature. That setting is going into a different book.

I mentioned pictures and postcards. I keep a couple of those tacked to my story board to inspire me as I write. Small trinkets or souvenirs can also be inspiring.


SUGGESTION: Choose a place you enjoyed visiting in the past (or found scary, boring, ugly, romantic, whatever) that you would like to incorporate into a novel someday and write a short story about it. You can turn it into a novel, if you like how the story is progressing.





We were listening to the radio while traveling in the Pigeon Forge area several years ago, and the news reporter, obviously a country boy, was talking about a dead body found that day on the side of the road. The announcer simply could not pronounce a famous name brand of clothing the victim was wearing, giving up after several abortive tries, and I’ve never forgotten it, so I’m incorporating that news report into my story. Had I not been in the area at that time, I’d never have heard it. That also became part of the setting.

My Mother and the Brooklyn Bridge

Elizabeth Zelvin

I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge one recent bright October day. It was my first time and long overdue. I had spent the afternoon serving as a volunteer facilitator for a group of caregivers at the annual conference of the Lymphoma Research Foundation, which happened to take place in the shadow of the bridge on the Brooklyn side. My husband had warned me when I left that he would be watching an “important” football game when I got home, so I was in no hurry. A friend and professional colleague, also volunteering, offered to come with me. It was a golden opportunity.

When my mother, who graduated Brooklyn Law School in 1924, was a very young attorney living in Brooklyn, she used to walk to work across the bridge every day.

Here’s my poem about that, which first appeared in my 1999 book, Gifts & Secrets: Poems of the Therapeutic Relationship.

Colossa

my mother has always been larger than life
the pared-down version you see
the little old lady in the wheelchair
the only ninety-six-year-old on the beach
fretting as the glinting sea winks back at her
because she can’t go for a swim

is just a shadow in the Platonian cave
the ideal, the real Judy is a girl of twenty
first lawyer in the family
striding in a cleaner sun
across the Brooklyn Bridge to work
cheese sandwiches in her pocket
severe Etruscan profile
so much more beautiful than she imagines
lifted to the dreaming morning towers
like Manhattan reaching for the sky

The building of the Brooklyn Bridge began in 1870, and the bridge opened in 1883. Quite a few people died in the course of its construction, including its designer, John Roebling, whose possibly apocryphal references to his “great erection” were made much of in the movie Kate and Leopold. At the time, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world, and for a while, its towers were the highest manmade structures in the western hemisphere.
The Gothic stone arches, so different from the steel cables of most suspension bridges, give it the grandeur of a cathedral.

My cell phone took this snapshot of me on the bridge. It’s not art, but you can see the wooden walkway, the spires of lower Manhattan, and the crowd of pedestrians who had the same idea on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Many were speaking foreign languages. I suspect that the walk across the bridge, like the walk around the Central Park Reservoir, figures in a lot of guidebooks as a don’t-miss New York attraction. It took us only half an hour to cross the bridge, chatting as we strolled and stopping to take pictures. My guess is it’s less than a mile and a half across from the pedestrian’s perspective, an easy walk in this walker-friendly city. I can hardly wait to do it again.

A New Voice: Sherry Scarpaci

Sandra Parshall

In Sherry Scarpaci’s debut mystery, Lullaby, Vicky Langford is raising her 18-month-old son, Josh, alone after her policeman husband was murdered on the job. A former police officer herself, Vicky is using her current position as an investigative reporter to gather evidence against the crime boss she blames for her husband’s death. Someone is stalking and threatening Vicky, but she refuses to let that stop her investigation. When Josh is kidnapped, though, the intimidation becomes pure terror for his mother. The author, a former magazine and newspaper writer, is the mother of two grown sons and lives in the Chicago area.

You’ve said it took you many years to write Lullaby. What slowed you down?

Pretty much life and the fact that I had no outline for Lullaby, just an idea. I sat down and started writing with no clear cut vision of where I wanted the story to go. That was just one problem. Along the way I detoured into non-fiction. I ended up writing for a local newspaper for a year and then Woman’s World magazine for about six years. During that time I also had to work outside of the home because of a divorce. Working full time and writing for the magazine left no time to pursue any other writing. Then when the magazine writing dried up, I had to take a second job in order to take care of my family. Again, there was virtually no time to write, or so I thought.

Ironically that was when I finished the first draft of Lullaby. I’ve always been an early riser, so I’d get up at 4 a.m. and work on the novel until I had to leave for work. I had a lap top I took to work with me, and I’d write during my lunch break. After getting home at 9:30 – 10 p.m. from my second job, I’d write till around midnight, go to bed, get up at 4 and start all over again.

When I finished the manuscript, I sent it to Harlequin, who expressed a strong interest in it. I really thought I had it sold. Harlequin had it for months, only to reject me with a very nice letter telling me that I had a strong plot and wrote well, but the romantic theme wasn’t strong enough and they thought the subject matter wouldn’t “sit well” with their readership. Then began the rounds of revisions and the search for an agent. Lullaby would be out there for months at a time and along the way I’d get great rejection letters, sometimes a page or page-and-a-half, suggesting ways to improve my story. I always wrote thank you notes to those people and rewrote Lullaby again.

Then about four years ago I joined a second writer’s group, this one a critique group, and it made a huge difference. They made suggestions, caught mistakes and inconsistencies. I did two more revisions and submitted it to Five Star at a writer’s conference in February of 2006. Two months later they accepted it.

Was it difficult to maintain enthusiasm for the story and characters over a long period? Did you ever consider dropping it and starting something new?

I never thought about not finishing it. The problem was that when I’d send it out, I’d start another project, then get the rejection with suggestions and decide to rewrite Lullaby. That meant putting aside the other projects. I must admit I did get a little sick -- no, make that a lot sick -- of Lullaby after a while. By the time I got it back from Five Star for final revisions I had had enough. There were other characters bothering me, wanting a voice.

Did the characters and story change a lot over the years you worked on it?

My heroine, Vicky Langford, pretty much stayed the same, but the finished manuscript bears no resemblance to what I started out with. That story is still in the back of my mind and maybe I’ll tell that one some day.

The story in Lullaby is about the abduction of a young child. You have children yourself -- was this a hard topic for you to deal with? What made you want to write this particular story?

The idea for Lullaby came about because I had a friend who was babysitting for a young woman who was being stalked by her baby’s father. I was telling my brother about it one day, thinking it was a good story idea. We started playing “what if,” and Lullaby was born.

To a degree it was a hard story to work on because my own kids were young at the time I started it. It was more difficult though, to write stories for the magazine about sick children. (I wrote a lot of those.) By far the worst story, and the one that impacted me the most, was a story I did on parents of murdered children. That was absolutely heart wrenching, and I can still recall every detail. I was on the phone with those mothers for hours, them crying, me crying. It was awful. I felt like I was picking at wounds that were still fresh, but they were eager to talk about their children. They told me other people shied away from talking about what happened because it made them uncomfortable. Talking to me served as a kind of outlet, I think. I became more paranoid about my kids after that, though. I was always a bit over-protective and I got much, much worse.

Where did Vicky come from? Is she based on you or on anyone you know?

I didn’t base Vicky’s character on anyone in particular. I just wanted to craft a strong character. I love kick-ass women in movies and books, and I wanted Vicky to be the same. No damsel in distress here. No knights charging in on horses to save the day. I wanted Vicky to be the one to do that.

What aspect of the writing craft have you worked hardest to improve?

Editing, by far. In the beginning everything I wrote seemed so important. I had to learn to be brutal and get rid of things even if I liked them. Someone once told me to think of editing like packing a suitcase. Only so much will fit and you have to leave some stuff out. That concept helps me, but I still struggle with it.

Once you had the book in its final form, how long did it take you to find a publisher?

Once I had rewritten the book for the umpteenth time, not long. I think I finished the rewrites in October of 2005 and pitched to Five Star at the writer’s conference in February of 2006. My acceptance came in April of the same year. This was after a lot of years of searching for an agent and suffering through enough rejections that I can paper an 8 X 10 room.

Now that you’re published, you’ll have to speed up the writing. Have you completed a second book yet? If so, was it easier to write than the first? Do you think you can handle the book-a-year schedule that most mystery writers are on?

I’m working on a new book that will definitely be a series. It’s called Resurrection, and I’m about two-thirds of the way through the first draft. I’m really enjoying writing this one. I think because I’m working smarter this time around. I worked on an outline first, and that really helps me keep on track. Doesn’t mean I stick to it strictly, but I at least have a sense of direction that I didn’t have with Lullaby. And yes, I will have to speed up my writing. I’m 51. If it takes me as long to finish this new book as it did Lullaby, I’ll probably be published posthumously. I wouldn’t say this story is easier to write, but I have a stronger sense of the story and the characters this time. I’m not sure about the book-a-year thing. Life gets in the way of writing Resurrection just as it did when I was writing Lullaby. Writing a book a year is something I would like to work toward. That’s one of my writing goals.

Did anything about the publication process come as a surprise to you?

How long it takes to actually get the book into print, and how hard it would be to get it onto shelves in book stores. I didn’t realize I’d have to contact booksellers and ask them to please carry my book.

Do you have a day job? How do you fit in writing and promotion?

I’ve been with the same company, Linear Electric, for the last 13 years. They have been very supportive of my writing since the day I started. I’m very blessed. I fit in the writing and the promotion where I can. I still get up early, 4–4:15, and try to fit in writing before leaving for work. I try to write on weekends, but it’s difficult at times. I’m very busy. Promoting Lullaby eats into the little time I have to write. I’d be interested to hear how other writers do it when they work full time. I’m constantly nagged by guilt, knowing I should be writing more, but not sure how to fit it in anymore than I do.

How much promotion are you planning for Lullaby? Will you attend any mystery conferences?

I know for sure I’ll be at Love Is Murder in 2008, beyond that I’m not sure. I’m trying to line up as many book signings as possible and take advantage of opportunities like the one you offered me, to be interviewed. I’ve also been fortunate enough to have some very nice press. I pass out postcards everywhere, the bank, the doctor’s office. My mom is hawking my book, too. She carries my postcards with her and hands them out wherever she goes.

Who are your favorite mystery and suspense authors? Have you learned writing techniques from studying other writers’ novels?

I love Agatha Christie. Ten Little Indians is one of my favorite stories. I’m also a huge fan of Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia McDonald, and Janet Evanovich. I do try to learn from what I read. See how other authors use dialogue to move the story along, for example.

Where would you like to be as writer five years from now?

Knocking out that book a year would be great. I would love to be home writing full time. That’s a dream. Who knows, maybe it will happen. So five years from now I would like to have three to five published novels under my belt. Guess that means I’d better get busy.

Visit the author's web site at www.sherryscarpaci.com.

All Hallow E'ven

Sharon Wildwind

Today's blog is brought to you by the librarians at the Springfield City Library; Springfield, MA

I hate gucky, bloody, scary movies, so the proliferation of TV marathons like "Blood Feast/24" does not thrill me. I asked myself if there could possibly be any nice Halloween stories out there, things reminiscent of when we would dress up in bed sheets or our mom and dad's old clothes, and go out with paper bags to collect Tootsie Roll pops and home-made popcorn balls? Yes, I go all the way back to that kinder, gentler time.

Anyway the librarians in Springfield apparently had a smiliar idea, because they collected a whole bunch of "nice" or "nearly nice" mystery titles for Halloween. Some of them do have a sharp edge, but I don't think any of them drip blood. An abbreviated list is below. If you still want more, check out http://www.springfieldlibrary.org

Susan Wittig Albert Witches Bane
Texas herb shop owner and part-time private eye China Bayles sets out to catch a Halloween night killer when one of her friends turns up dead at witching hour.

Carol Lea Benjamin The Long Good Boy
Three transsexual prostitutes, working a warehouse district in lower Manhattan, enlist private detective Rachel Alexander to find the murderer of one of their coworkers, who was killed following the infamous Greenwich Village Halloween parade. As Rachel investigates, with the help of her pit bull, Dash, she finds the death tied to the murder of an undercover cop.

Rita Mae Brown The Hunt Ball
When a faculty member from the local prep school turns up dead at the annual Halloween dance, "Sister" Jane Arnold discovers that the case is complicated by a controversy over local historical artifacts in the school collection that were made by slaves.

W J Burley Wycliffe and the Scapegoat
Every year, at Halloween, high on the Cornish cliffs, a life-sized effigy of a man is strapped to a blazing wheel and run into the sea -- a re-enactment of a hideous old legend where the figure had been a living sacrifice. And now Jonathan Riddle, well-known and respected local builder and undertaker, has disappeared -- and it seems all too likely that his corpse has gone the way of the historic 'scapegoat'. As Chief Superintendent Wycliffe begins to investigate, more and more unpleasant facts emerge until he is left with an incredible, and seemingly impossible, solution.

Agatha Christie Hallowe'en Party
Mystery writer Ariadne Oliver joins a Hallowe'en party where a girl falls victim to a game of apple-bobbing gone mysteriously wrong. Now she's joined forces with Hercule Poirot to unmask the killer.

Denise Dietz Throw Darts at a Cheesecake
Ellie Bernstein joins forces with homicide detective Peter Miller to investigate the murder of Jeannie Dobson and the "accidents" that are befalling her fellow members of Weight Winners.

Carole Nelson Douglas Cat with an Emerald Eye
Rough-and-tumble tomcat Midnight Louie, and his redheaded human companion, Temple Barr, are up to their ears in trouble when a Halloween seance to resurrect the spirit of Harry Houdini results in supernatural murder, and it is up to them to find out who -- or what -- was responsible.

Rosemary Edghill The Bowl of Night
When a local resident is killed at an outdoor pagan festival in upstate New York, Bast -- a.k.a. Karen Hightower -- discovers that her suspects include modern-day witches, a ceremonial magician, a survivalist, a dominatrix, an ex-boyfriend, and a few would-be Klingons.

Jerrilyn Farmer Sympathy For The Devil
Madeline Bean, caterer to the stars, is in the middle of the biggest job of her career. She and her partner Wesley have pulled off Hollywood's most outrageous A-list Halloween party for notorious producer Bruno Huntley, complete with an eerie fortuneteller who is astonishingly accurate, and exotic food that's to die for. Before long, Bruno is thrashing and writhing out on the dance floor. Just one problem: he's not standing up, And soon, he's not even breathing.

Jane Haddam Skeleton Key
The death of a glamorous and fabulously wealthy debutante finds Gregor Demarkian investivating a quiet Connecticut town to find troubling passions lurking just under the surface.

Carolyn Haines Hallowed Bones
Sarah Booth Delaney is both a Southern lady and a skilled detective, but her latest case takes her into the murky world of New Orleans where motives for murder, and a list of suspects, are as numerous as the stories of spiritual malfeasance that permeate the air.

Carolyn Hart Southern Ghost
Bookstore owner Annie Darling must set aside her shame and do some serious sleuthing when her husband Max becomes the prime suspect in an unspecified crime involving a beautiful blonde.

Leslie Meier Trick or Treat Murder
While preparing for the annual Halloween festival in Tinker's Cove, Maine, Lucy Stone investigates a series of arson fires that are destroying local architectural treasures, crimes that claim the life of the owner of the town's oldest home and turn an arsonist into a killer.

Tamar Myers Nightmare in Shining Armor
After a fire ruins her costume party, Den of Antiquity proprietress Abigail Timberlake is shocked to discover the body of her ex-husband's new wife, Tweetie Timberlake, stuffed into a suit of armor, and she must race against time to catch a killer before she becomes the next victim.

Katherine Hall Page The Body in the Moonlight
Minister's wife, professional caterer, and amateur sleuth Faith Fairchild does not know if she can stand the heat in the kitchen when a woman drops dead, ostensibly from Faith's yummy but poisoned dessert.

Corinne Holt Sawyer Murder OlÉ!
Angela Benbow and Caledonia Wingate, two savvy senior-citizen sleuths, find themselves embroiled in a south-of-the-border mystery when the residents of their California retirement home take a group trip for Halloween to Tijuana, Mexico, and two people fail to return.

Kathleen Taylor Mourning Shift
Sassy waitress and amateur sleuth takes on greedy relatives, old secrets, and a killer when a mysterious old man, the long-estranged husband of the cook at the Delphi Cafe, turns up dead in the diner's restroom on Halloween.

Kathy Hogan Trochek Strange Brew
When a local business is forced to close in order to accommodate a microbrewery and the head of the brewery is found murdered, Callahan uncovers some disturbing secrets that are better left hidden.
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Writing quote for the week:

The narrator is a 60-year-old parrot. Having been raised by Carmelite nuns, she is incorruptible (Down these mean streets a bird must waddle who is not herself mean). As the Carmelites are a silent order, Polly Phonic can't talk but her calligraphy is to die for. ~Karen Affinbeck, mystery writer

This was the silliest quote I could find and I'm all for restoring the silly part of Halloween.

Thurber for Mystery Lovers

by Julia Buckley
Recently I've been reading to my sons from James Thurber's wonderful humor anthology called The Thurber Carnival; they're having such fun with it that they've been picking it up and reading it themselves in quiet moments. The other day we asked my son if he had readied his uniform for school, and he yelled, "No, sorry, Mom--I was reading Thurber!"

Hard to be upset about an excuse like that, especially when it comes from a nine-year-old boy (who is currently writing his own novel, called The Vengeance Story). :)

Anyway, all this talk of Thurber put me in mind of a book of his that all mystery lovers would enjoy, called Thurber on Crime. Donald Westlake writes the Foreword to this fun volume of Thurber's crime-related humor, and he is obviously a Thurber fan. Only Thurber fans really "get" the idea that the little bland man with a shy manner and a deeply repressed desire for revenge can be amusing. Thurber is, of course, the author of such famous stories as "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (once made into a movie with Danny Kaye that was nothing like the original and became something Thurber himself would have quietly parodied) and "The Night the Bed Fell," which are not mysteries at all. But in this book, Thurber's daughter Rosemary provides stories that can be linked by Thurber's bent toward the sly, the mysterious, even the subtly macabre.

Westlake writes, "Gentle comedy is the hardest to make work." This a good assessment of Thurber, whose jokes are not always obvious, but become funnier the more one thinks about them, the more his dialogues roll around in the back of one's mind. "Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife," seems to be much more an indictment of marriage than of murder, and "The Catbird Seat" continues the theme of the henpecked man, although both men get their revenge in the end, despite their mild-mannered reputations. In "The Macbeth Murder Mystery" a misguided woman decides that the solution to Macbeth was all wrong, that Macbeth didn't do it, and that she, a rather dubious sleuth, has it all figured out.

Added to the wonderful stories are Thurber's famous cartoons. Westlake writes, in the foreword, that a critic once called Thurber, whose cartoons famously appeared in The New Yorker, a "Fifth Rate Artist." Harold Ross defended him, saying "You're wrong. Thurber is a third-rate artist." Thurber's art, though, has an undeniable charm, and is even more impressive when one considers that toward the end of his life Thurber was almost totally blind, and had to create his cartoons on huge sheets of paper that were later photographed and shrunk down to size. Thurber once joked about this, saying he intended to title his autobiography Long Time, No See.

The cartoons, the vignettes and the stories all capture Thurber's sense of irony (and his capable use of parody) as well as his appreciation of crime fiction. Donald Westlake summed it up the best: "Thurber on Crime. There's nothing in the world quite like it."

Soon-To-Be-Published

Rosemary Harris (Guest Blogger)

The gestation period for an African elephant (loxodonta Africana) is 22 months. I can top that. Even if I only go back as far as the date I got my agent, (as opposed to when I finished my book) I've been expecting for 27 months - with another 5 months to go.


I don't know this information first-hand, but I understand nausea, cravings, crying jags, moodswings, and insomnia all feature prominently in the expectant mother's life. What a minute! I DO know that stuff first-hand, I’m soon-to-be-published.

My story goes back even further. I never dreamed I’d write a book, but once I did, my husband encouraged me to find an agent. That in itself took about a year. I sent the manuscript to the first agent I’d heard of (insert eyeroll) and then waited six months for her to get back to me. Unsurprisingly, it was a rejection. Foolishly, I let that scenario repeat itself two more times before I did the math and calculated that at that rate I could be ninety before I connected with someone who recognized my book for what it was – a good, publishable mystery.

I rewrote the first chapter on a fourteen hour flight from Hong Kong to New York, with one leg suspended in the air due to an accident in Beijing the day before. I don’t know if writing in that position caused more blood to flow to my brain, but by the time we landed, I knew I’d made it better.

Instead of waiting around like I’d done in the past, I sent the new first chapter and a letter to ten agents I’d identified as being cozy-friendly. Within two weeks, three of them had gotten back to me. I chose the one who seemed like the best fit for me, and I was right.

So, the bubbly flowed in the Harris household and I engaged in what my husband affectionately refers to as the “Rosemary dance,” probably because he’s too kind to use the word goofy. In my naiveté, I thought the book would be sold in sixty days and likely be released the following year. (Insert second eyeroll.)

Between “it’s summer and everyone’s away,” “it’s Frankfurt and no one’s here,” “it’s the holidays, sales conference, fill in the blank..” I began to cobble together quite an image of the average book editor – tanned, athletic, a cross between Anna Wintour and Joan Crawford, constantly jetting off to one glamorous location or another, only stopping to check her mail periodically and break the hearts of little people like me.

By the time I got my book deal, another nine months had passed. I was beginning to sense a pattern of hurry up and wait, but I was still ecstatic. More champagne! More goofy gyrations! After two agonizing months, the long-awaited meeting with my editor took place. I was instructed to meet Anna/Joan at a cool restaurant in Manhattan. Since I was early (overeager?) I was ushered to her preferred table in the back to wait.

I’ve grown to love MM dearly, and I don’t think she’ll mind if I say she is not especially athletic and definitely not tanned. We had a wonderful lunch – she loved my character, my book, and me. She thought it needed very little editing – “yes,” she said, poking at her grilled watermelon, “we’ll release it Winter 2008.” What?? It was summer ’06, what was she talking about? “Well, these things take time.” Apparently. The only good news was that Winter 2008, didn’t mean December 2008.

For the first six months I gnashed my teeth. Friends were starting to lose interest, or worse, thought I was delusional, like that writer who lied and told his friends he was going to be on Oprah. Then a veteran publishing person said to me “Enjoy it. You’re soon-to-be-published. Anything can happen.” He was right. Hell, maybe I could get on Oprah. Or Victoria Beckham could be spotted in an airport with my book. The possibilities were limitless.

Since then, I have embraced my STBP status, going to shows, joining groups, and more importantly learning from the generous writers who’ve been down this road before and have been kind enough to share information with a newcomer. When you’re STBP the world is your oyster.

When Rosemary Harris finally does deliver, happily it won’t be a 260 lb calf, it will be a 290 page book, Pushing Up Daisies, her debut novel and the first in the Dirty Business Mystery series. St Martin's Minotaur, February 2008. (She does not really think she’s going to be on Oprah.)

Research: Like Salt To Mashed Potatoes, Part 6

HANDS-ON!
or
How can I get real-life experience in the areas I love to write?

Judy Clemens, author of TILL THE COWS COME HOME, said in my blog interview with her some time ago that she worked on a dairy farm to research her novel. Now that’s hands-on!

Remember I mentioned earlier that I might be getting you involved in a high speed chase or two? Well, no time like the present. Metropolis, Illinois is a small town that has a sheriff’s department and a police department, but neither offer a Citizen’s Police Academy or ride-alongs. The Paducah, Kentucky police department (across the river from Metropolis, IL) DOES offer them, but primarily for McCracken County residents. I attend church with two Paducah cops, so I wheedled, and one of them helped me get into the class. (Never underestimate the value of your contacts to your writing.)

As a mystery writer of procedurals, I was in hog heaven attending the Paducah Citizens Police Academy. Class at 6 PM every Thursday night for eleven weeks, with coffee and cookies. Who could ask for more? Among other things, we took shooting lessons at the firing range, watched the bomb squad blow up things, did fake traffic stops, and studied a made-up crime scene. We learned tons of information about drugs, and at the end, had a graduation ceremony with a lovely plaque. The alumni from the first class formed a group that helps the police department by participating in fake drug busts so officers get more training, among other things.

My point is, writing about subjects we love gives us the chance to research same and participate in some of those activities. Get our hands ON.

For science fiction writers, this may seem tricky, but there are planetariums all over the country where you can observe the universe. And if you’re lucky, you might be able to observe a shuttle launch. (Side trip on a vacation? Tax deductible? Works for me.) There are classes in various places for wannabe astronauts.

Romance writers, how about a visit to a bed and breakfast, or some other romantic local spot you’ve always wanted to try? Either as a guest or to see how the employees work? Or maybe your story takes place at a race track? There’s a NASCAR operation in a mall in St. Louis where you can practice driving.

Western writers? The old west is still alive and well in parts of Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. And there are plenty of places to learn to shoot antique firearms or ride horseback all across the country. When my class arrived at the shooting range in Paducah, we had to wait for an antique firearms club (dressed in costume) to finish their practice time.

Fantasy writers? See all of the above. Most likely the planetarium would be your best bet. Or joining a fantasy writer’s group on the Internet. A search will give you options.

Want to write about golf, bowling, baseball, or other sports? Great time to take lessons. Want to write about a new hobby or craft? Now’s your chance. Thinking about changing jobs (and have the wherewithal to do it?) Maybe the job your hero does is the job you’d love to try?

All the other research methods I’m giving you are great, but hands-on is the very best way I know to get a true feel for your character(s) your setting, and your story. Okay, maybe you already are a lawyer, writing a novel about lawyers. So you know the drill. Great. But ALL of your characters can’t be lawyers or the book is going to be a bit boring. You need some diversity. If you already know all you need to about your hero, pick another character to do hands-on research about.

And if you’re REALLY brave, give some thought to trying something you’re too chicken to do, but one of your characters isn’t. Sky diving, anyone?

SUGGESTION: Choose something you’d like to research hands-on, not just on the Internet or in the newspaper. I realize you may not be able to actually do it right now, but make the commitment. Call and get information, leave your name and contact information, have flyers sent to you, or make some other kind of preparation.

The best part of the Citizens’ Police Academy was the ride-along. I’m still telling stories about that one. Trust me, watching Cops on television doesn’t come close to riding beside a real cop as he shoots down a main thoroughfare at eighty plus in the middle of the night. Loved it!

Hearing A Music Legend

Elizabeth Zelvin

One reason I love living in New York is that, even if I usually spend my days glued to the computer and my evenings as a couch potato, an infinite smorgasbord of activities—no, whole worlds—are there for the taking any time I want to get off my duff and join in. The other night, I hopped on the subway down to Times Square to hear legendary bluegrass banjo picker Earl Scruggs at B.B. King’s Blues Club. I hadn’t even known he was still alive till I spotted the show advertised at a great price on TDF. Scruggs, who invented the three-finger picking style of banjo playing, is going on 84. He appeared with
“family and friends” including his sons Gary and Randy, the latter a virtuoso git-tar picker in his own right, equally brilliant guitarists Jon Randall and Bryan Sutton, Grand Old Opry fiddle player Hoot Hester, and 23-year-old miniskirted Kentucky “Dobro Gal” Jennifer Kennedy Meredith, who kept right up with these world-class musicians on a notoriously challenging instrument.

It was quite a trip, not only back into the world of traditional music, which I rotated to the back burner five years ago when I finished the first draft of Death Will Get You Sober and plunged into the world of mystery writers and readers, but back in time to my high school days, when my friend Judy and I and a coupla guys got up on stage—at a talent show? almost half a century later, I can’t remember—and belted out a near-high-lonesome version of the wailer “Darlin’ Corey,” popularized by the Weavers, who were at their peak at the time. Judy was happy to come with me to hear Earl Scruggs, along with my grumbling hubby, who tends to be short on enthusiasm on a weeknight. Back in the day (when did “old days” become “day”?), we adored bluegrass, though most of us strummed rather than picked the guitars we carried with us everywhere, and I don’t remember anybody who could actually play the banjo.

Scruggs and Flatt, with their band, the Foggy Mountain Boys, were (to use two comparisons I found on Google without even trying) the Paganini and Babe Ruth of their respective instruments, known not only among traditional music lovers but generally for the theme of The Beverly Hillbillies and the soundtrack for Bonnie and Clyde. Flatt died in 1979, but there was Scruggs, recently inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame for such instrumentals as “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” natty in a dark suit and tie. The banjo is out of fashion nowadays. It’s largely absent from the New Country, except for the Dixie Chicks, now divorced from the country genre. But I've always found it a joyous and exhilarating instrument, and I was thrilled to hear a master—THE master—play it. The music had me from the high-energy opening bars of "Salty Dog." Scruggs didn’t say a word the whole time he was onstage—son Gary did the talking—but his fingers still can fly.