Getting caught up in a good book . . .

By Lonnie Cruse

Last week I was cooking for company and listening to BONES TO PICK by Carolyn Haines. Unfortunately, my MP3 player ran out of battery before I ran out of mashed potatoes to mash or green beans to stir. As the cooking tasks progressed, I found myself wondering what was going on with the characters. What would Tinkie do about her angry husband? What would Sarah Booth do about the men in her life? And more to the point, WHO is the killer? I had to re-charge and still haven't found time to listen to the rest of the book. Grrrr.

I can remember reading a book as a child (stop me if I've told this story before. No? Great!) while my step-mother was driving us somewhere. She turned a corner just as the character in the book fell out of a canoe. I jumped and prepared to swim for it until reality reasserted itself.

I adore getting lost in a good book. Hating to put it down to stir the soup or turn out the lights and go to sleep. I wonder what the characters are getting up to while I'm not looking. And I adore that about writing, wondering what my characters are getting themselves into while I'm busy, away from my laptop. For me, those books generally have to be of a cozy nature with a smidge of humor. However, I will read a thriller or suspense if it keeps my interest and doesn't try to see how many more grey hairs it can give me. Or how much torture can be inflicted on the lead character without killing her/him.

What sort of books have to be pried from your stiff hands before you'll stop reading for the day? Do you ever embarrass yourself by laughing out loud when reading in a public place? (I, for one, can not allow myself to read a Bill Crider or Donna Andrews book anywhere in public. Too embarrassing when I start giggling and snorting.) When you close the book, do you ever feel like you are waking up from a dream? And then do you want to go back to that world right away? In other words, what floats your boat in the book world?

How being a shrink is like writing a mystery

Elizabeth Zelvin

I’m at a stage in life when about half my friends are reaching retirement age—specifically, those who have been doing the same thing, such as teaching or working for the government, for thirty years or more. Having managed to reinvent myself several times over the course of my adult life, I’m farther from retirement than ever. And that’s okay.

Each new manifestation of who I am and what I do has in some way built on the choices that I’ve made in the past. Without going into all the ideologies and isms I’ve traveled through, or the lifestyle choices and personal roles, I can say that the overall movement has been from writer to therapist to writer. Along the way, I got sidetracked into various publishing jobs in the mistaken belief that they would help me be a writer. (Okay, they did make me a demon editor, which helps.) Similarly, I’ve performed various functions as a social worker and administrator that did not exactly add up to being a therapist. But the heart of what I’ve wanted to do has remained the same.

Writer SJ Rozan talks about the mystery (or crime fiction in general) as one of the great ur-stories in our culture. It is a story of righting wrongs and seeing justice done, and that is why we want to hear it over and over, says Rozan. If publishers and film and movie makers won’t give us good stories, we (the reading public, the media consumer) will take bad stories, so great is our hunger to see things made better, villains caught, safety restored, unfairness exposed and punished, and everything put back in place. We’d like law and order in real life, but too often we’re offered only a tarnished simulacrum. So we’ll take it however we can get it: in the stories we tell and hear.

Therapy is also about righting wrongs. It can’t enforce the law or get wrongdoers, in most cases, to acknowledge and correct their faults. Therapy doesn’t work that way. But to those hurt by the acts and deficiencies of others, it can provide corrective experiences. Those who’ve been rejected and abandoned can experience unconditional love. Those who have repeatedly chosen abusive partners can learn to select and sustain healthy relationships. Those who have internalized harsh parental criticism can come to accept and nurture themselves. It may not sound like an exact analogy for investigating, discovering whodunit, and putting the culprit in the slammer. But in a way, it’s close.

I’ve found that what I do as a therapist—listening—is a lot like what I do (fate and the publishing industry willing) as a writer—being heard. EM Forster’s famous tag, “Only connect,” sums it up for me. In both roles, I am seeking the human connection. I am trying to make contact with another human being, whether it is the client who pours out his or her soul without knowing much about me beyond my capacity for empathy and compassion, or the reader to whom I pour out my own soul and the fruits of my imagination without knowing any more of him or her than their willingness to open my book.

Being a therapist, like being a writer—and a reader—is a way of opening the door to a secret garden. One of the greatest rewards in both is the closeup view I get of other people’s lives. Both legitimate my elephant’s-child curiosity about others’ innermost feelings, passions, and motivations. When I write fiction, I even get to make the other people up, so that I can explore all the possibilities my imagination can reach. At the same time, I make myself vulnerable to every reader who sees my work. That is both scary and exciting. Back in my poetry days, in a poem called “Secrets of the Therapeutic Relationship,” I wrote:

between therapist and client
more tender intimacies are shared
than if we two lay touching on a bed

The same is true of writers and their readers.

Late Bloomer

Sandra Parshall

I’m sure the man in the bookstore didn’t mean to hurt my feelings.

I was doing my thing, standing by a table near the door and inviting customers to stop and look at/hear about my books. I gave this particular man my spiel, including the information that The Heat of the Moon won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel of 2006. He picked up a copy, studied it, looked back at me and said, “This was your first novel?” Yes, I said with a smile. He scrutinized my face with narrowed eyes and finally remarked, “So I guess you took up writing very late in life.”

I wanted to grab the guy by his polo shirt and scream into his face, “Do you have ANY IDEA how many books I’ve written? Do you have ANY IDEA how hard it is to sell a book to a publisher? I'd like to see YOU try it. And I don’t look THAT danged old.” I could have simply hit him, of course, but striking the customers probably wouldn’t go down well with the bookstore manager. What I did was smile – by now, my smile felt fixed in concrete – and say, pleasantly, “Getting a book published is wonderful, at any time of life. I’m really enjoying it.”

And that’s true. Except...

Many writers have unsold manuscripts stacked in a closet, and although we may claim to be glad those earlier, imperfect efforts were never foisted on the public, a sense of regret is inevitable. Regret that books we labored over and loved at the time were deemed unworthy. Regret for the years of rejection that left permanent bruises on our egos. Regret that we had to wait so long to enjoy the satisfaction of sharing our work with readers.

I’ve been writing since I was a child. I started trying to get my fiction (short stories back then) published when I was in my teens. I started working as a newspaper reporter in my twenties and also began writing novels. I wrote and wrote and wrote and got absolutely nowhere. One agent after another took me on and failed to sell my work. One manuscript after another went into the closet. I never seemed to be writing whatever it was that editors were looking for at any particular time.

I didn’t even start reading mysteries and suspense until I was around 30, and it was years after that before I decided to write them. The Heat of the Moon was my first attempts at suspense. It didn’t do any better with New York publishers than my previous literary efforts had. One editor wanted to buy it, but shortly after she informed my agent she intended to make an offer, she lost her job in one of the corporate takeovers that were rampant at the time. My book deal went down with her. Another editor – my dream editor, in fact – loved the book. Wanted to publish it, but didn’t have room for it on her list. She asked my agent to resubmit it in three months if it hadn’t sold. My agent resubmitted, the editor read it again, decided she didn’t like the ending, and rejected it. All the other editors – 20, I believe – turned it down because they thought it lacked suspense and readers wouldn’t stick with it. I put it away and would never have submitted it anywhere again if a couple of friends hadn’t read the manuscript and urged me to keep trying. An editor named Barbara Peters eventually bought it, and Poisoned Pen Press published the book exactly as it was originally written. A year later, it won the Agatha Award. At last, I had bloomed – but late, very late, by comparison to my youthful hopes for a writing career.

So now I’ve arrived, right? I’m secure, no longer a wannabe. Well, one thing I’ve learned since becoming a published writer and getting to know others is that only the mega-bestselling authors are secure. In the past several years, a lot of wonderful writers with solid followings have been dropped by their publishers because they haven’t “broken out” of the midlist to major sales. I’m sure James Patterson sleeps well at night, but I imagine quite a few less prominent writers are having nightmares about being dumped in the near future.

It’s a hard world out there. Every aspiring writer should be aware of how difficult it can be to sell your work. But if you’re a true writer, the knowledge of disappointments ahead won’t stop you – it will only make you more determined. If you're a reader and you meet a middle-aged author selling his or her first novel, recognize that this probably isn’t someone who “started late.” In all likelihood, what you see before you is a survivor. Offer your congratulations, buy a copy of the book, and please keep your thoughts about the writer’s age to yourself!

**************************
For another look at life as a middle-aged beginner, be sure to read this weekend’s guest blog by June Shaw. June is one of the most charming, vivacious people I’ve ever met, and she’s thoroughly enjoying her new career as a mystery author.

The Gift

Last night I watched a wonderfully complex, dark comedy in which Cary Grant tried to murder Cecil Kelloway and Mildred Natwick so he could inherit an old airplane and an airport. They, in turn, were trying to cheat him out of his helicopter. The plot was full of marvelous comedic twists, including a poisoned Thanksgiving turkey, and a window seat in which people hid, always overhearing things they weren’t meant to hear.

Don’t strain yourself trying to remember the name of this movie, because it all happened in my head. I dreamed it.

Before I started writing seriously, the only time I had these complicated, lucid-at-the-time, make-no-sense-later dreams was when I had dental work. A couple of post-root-canal Codeine tablets, and I was ready to pack my bags and and take the next train to Hollywood.

As the plots in my books have been come more complex—at least, I hope they are becoming more complex—more of my dreams have taken on the aspects of old movies, often in black-and-white, and I tend to favor British actors. Okay, so Mildred Natwick was from Baltimore, but Grant, AKA Archie Leach was from England, and Cecil Kelloway from South Africa, so two out of three isn’t bad.

Every writer has had the experience of someone saying to them, “I have this wonderful story. I’ll tell it to you, you turn it into a book, and we’ll split the profits.” Except, when they do tell it to you, it’s not a story. At best, it’s a screamingly funny anecdote or a heart-bending tale of woe, but it’s not story. What’s the difference?

Story is plot. Beginnings, middles, and ends: a progression along what’s glibly known as the story arc. Tension. Twists and turns. Rising and falling action. Characters who have a life-changing event. Seemingly unrelated elements strung together in a way, which not only make sense the day you finish the book, but contain hidden gems. Good stories resemble those pop in your mouth candies that had a brief popularity when I was a child. Days or weeks after you finish it, a good story suddenly bursts forth with a little surprise, as you remember a line or dialog or an event and suddenly understand the story in a whole new way.

Story is also voice. It’s the cadence and rhythm, the choice of what to include and what to leave out. At one time I lived near the Appalachian mountains, an area with a rich tradition of oral storytelling. Going to story-telling festivals was fascinating, particularly one workshop where five story tellers all told the same story, a common “Jack tale.” If you’re not familiar with Jack tales, they all involve a young boy named Jack, who goes on a quest and, with a magical helper—like say, some magic beans—triumphs in the end and wins his heart’s desire.

Anyway, five storytellers, two men and three women, all told an identical Jack tale. Except that they were far from identical. Sure, the story elements were the same, but each teller’s voice was different. In this case, literally different, involving different postures, accents, rhythms, choice of words, and way that the story teller interacted with the audience. I came away feeling as though I’d heard five different stories.

Being able to make story is a gift, and not everyone has it. Some people have it in different ways. A friend of mine who is a musician, dreams in musical sequences, which I find both intriguing and downright scary.

Wherever this gift comes from—even if it’s in wonderfully wacky dreams—I’m grateful to have even a tiny part of it. If I can nurture that gift, help it set down roots, pass on even a tiny part to someone else, all the better. Go little story, go!

------
Writing quote for the week:

You can always fix plot—you can’t fix voice.
~ Barbara Peters, editor, Poisoned Pen Press

Fun at Love is Murder

by Julia Buckley
















I had fun at this year's Love is Murder. I was lucky enough to meet my friend Lonnie Cruse for a third time, and we spent much of Saturday together attending panels or being on them, and sharing meals including a High Tea with some delectable frosted cakes that knocked me briefly off of my New Year's diet. :)

At lunch time we heard Jon Jordan interview Lee Child about his career and the whimsical world of publishing. Child noted that in a series one can fall prey to a certain sameness, and it was one of the reasons that he did not make his Reacher character geographically constant. In this sense, at least, each book would be unique. Child pointed out that in writing a series, one must acknowledge what people are already doing and then NOT do that. As he put it, "When you see a bandwagon, it's already too late to jump on."

It was the first time I'd heard Lee Child speak, and I found his advice simple and refreshingly honest. His take on writing advice? "Don't listen to advice."

At dinner our keynote speaker was William Kent Krueger. He spoke of his love for mysteries, but noted that he had originally wanted to write the proverbial "great American novel." Only eventually did he realize that he could write a great novel in a great genre, which is full of conflicts that need to be solved. In his summation he read a heartfelt poem about why he chooses mysteries (and which I cannot remember in its entirety).

The panels I attended included an interesting discussion of suspense and how to create it; Marcus Sakey made the interesting comparison of a book being a roadtrip: you have the basic idea of where you are going, but can't be certain of all the stops or detours along the way.

I also enjoyed hearing a panel of reviewers. It was interesting to hear their side of the story--that is, why they can't review every book that people ask them to review, how they are inundated with boxes of books (often books sent at the wrong time--too late for a publication about that month's releases), or how they receive nasty e-mails asking why a book wasn't reviewed about a week after the book was sent. They all seemed to be not only loyal readers, but compassionate people who understood the plight of authors. Jon Jordan was particularly amusing in his comments, and he also noted that he likes to give a great deal of his page room to the books that reviewers LIKED, because those are the books his readers want to read.

Barry Eisler gave a brief presentation at teatime about how to be prepared and always thinking about self-defense. Master classes were offered with such notables as Tess Gerritson, and agents were taking pitches for books throughout the weekend.















I was thrilled to meet Tess Gerritson, who happened to be the moderator of my first panel. She was, despite what I consider her superstar status, most kind and approachable, as were all the bigwigs at this event. I managed to swallow my shyness long enough to get books signed by Lee Child and Barry Eisler--and not just because they are very handsome. :)
















Since Carl Brookins was kind enough to take the photo of Lonnie and me, I returned the favor by posing him with Luisa Buehler and Tony Perona.















At dinner we were all a bit exhausted, but Jonathan Quist and Shane Gericke were still smiling; Shane even earned a kiss from Jonathan for reasons unknown--although I think it was Quist's attempt to embarrass the unflappable Gericke.

In any case, another fine conference! I congratulate its organizers: Hanley Kanar, Luisa Buehler, Silvia Foti, Susan Gibberman, Julie Hyzy, Ophelia Julien, Marlene Leonardi, Terri Stone, Todd Stone, and Mary Welk.

Canada Calling: Lyn Hamilton

Canada Calling for January was postponed until today, so we could have our birthday celebration a couple of weeks ago. Darlene Ryan graciously gave us her weekend-slot. If you're looking for Darlene's post, she will be back, as usual, on the first week-end in March.

Lyn Hamilton is a Canadian author who writes an archaeological mystery series featuring Toronto antiques dealer, Lara McClintoch. Each of the books is set in a different, usually exotic, location, and uses the ancient past as part of the mystery. Lyn has twice been nominated for an Arthur Ellis Award for crime writing, and her fourth novel, The Celtic Riddle was the basis for a Murder She Wrote TV Movie of the week, starring Angela Lansbury.

What are the affinities between mysteries and archeology? How does one make the other a more enjoyable read?

“Why archaeology?” is a question I hear often from my mystery reading and writing friends. “Why mysteries?” is the question I get from archaeologists I have worked with. It seems to me there are many parallels between the two. Both detection, in the mystery sense, and archaeology require the search for and analysis of clues, whether these are blood spatters now, or pottery shards of some ancient culture.

I also learned when I was Director of Cultural Programs in the Ontario Government, the branch responsible for the licensing of all archaeology in the province, that there is, indeed, a criminal element in the antiquities field: the looting of tombs and the smuggling and illicit sale of artifacts, for example. Also, my visits to dig sites revealed that there are many ways to dispatch a victim: cave-ins and landslides, poisonous insects to be introduced in tight spaces, and so on. From a mystery writer’s standpoint, it was the motherlode.

On a more philosophical note, I think that both the detective and the archaeologist in some sense speak for the dead. The archaeologist subjects both historical accounts and the clues left behind to reveal an ancient people, and the detective weighs contemporary evidence to unveil the killer, and find justice for the victim.

In terms of making the read more enjoyable, I think readers of mysteries like to learn something along with the mystery plot, and I hope I provide that.


The paperback edition of the 11th Lara McClintoch novel came out this month. What do you think of the rumors that publisher support for long series is disappearing, and that authors should aim for stand-alones or a short series of three to five books?

I’m often asked where I think the mystery market is going, and I always say that an author is the last person you should ask. It does seem as if series are shorter than they used to be, although I’m not sure why that would be. If publishers are supporting only the shorter series, it must be some reflection on what readers want. Perhaps we just want novelty, get bored more easily. I don’t know. I do know that several authors of my acquaintance do think of their series as only four or five books, and plan the series that way. I confess I just kept writing them because I was interested in Lara, and besotted with the archaeology.

On your web site, you provide annotated bibliographies and photographs of the historic sites that form backdrops for your books. You’ve lead tours to some of those same sites. How do you see a fiction author’s responsibility to provide a real-world connection through supplementary material?

That’s an interesting question. I started writing these mysteries because I was interested in ancient cultures and mythology. I wasn’t even sure I was writing a mystery when I started, but probably because mysteries are what I read for enjoyment, that is what I wrote. I did the bibliographies in part because people kept asking me if the history in my books was real, and also because people asked me for more information about the background of the books. As well, I do a lot of research, and I thought the authors whose work I had found most useful should get some credit. You can’t put footnotes in mysteries. It would completely destroy the pace. But because of my interest, I hoped others might be interested as well, and I wanted those who are, to be able to find additional information.

Do I think I had a responsibility to do that? No, but one of the reasons I wrote the series was to illuminate, in what I hoped to be an entertaining way, some of the issues associated with heritage. This was part of that effort.

I did lead two tours, one to Malta, and another to both Malta and Tunisia. I hope that people enjoyed them. It had a slightly different focus from your average tour: travelers got to see the usual sights, but also learned more than usual, I think, about the archaeology. My last planned tour, to Peru, did not happen, as there were not enough people interested in it, and I haven’t planned any since.

You’ve been writer-in-residence at the North York Central Library and the Kitchener Public Library. How does a writer get a gig like that, and what does a writer-in-residence do? In what ways do you grow as a writer during that year you are in residence?

I have no idea how you get a gig like that. In both cases, I was invited by the libraries. As writer-in-residence, I was asked to critique submitted manuscripts. There was a deadline for submissions, and a limit of twenty or thirty pages. I read each submission several times, and then met with the author and talked about the manuscript. I hope I was able to offer some good advice. You are also supposed to be working on a manuscript of your own, in the case of North York, which I did.

I learned a lot in both cases. For one thing, all of us make the same mistakes when we begin writing, and it’s a lot easier to see those mistakes in someone else’s work, rather than your own. So in helping these authors, I was helping myself. Over the years, I suppose I’ve seen at least part of over a hundred manuscripts, most of them mysteries or suspense/thrillers. As a result I was able to develop a course on mystery and suspense writing. This past fall, I taught at the University of Toronto’s School for Continuing Studies, in the Creative Writing program. It was a great way to share what I’ve learned over the years, and it’s always rewarding to find someone you know will get published.

As an antiques addict, what is your favourite antique find to date.

Difficult to answer that one. I collect shadow puppets and was thrilled to find an old Chinese shadow puppet. We think of shadow puppets as Indonesian really, but many cultures had them, and this was a find.

I was also thrilled to find some old prints (I also collect antique prints of places I’ve been and loved) of David Roberts’ drawings of Egypt. And I’m always happy to find some Canadian and American pressed glass water and cordial glasses.

For more about Lyn and her books, visit http://www.lynhamilton.com/index.html
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Next month, Canada calling visits Michael Steinberg, writer and editor of StoryTeller magazine.

Technology . . . ain't it grand?

By Lonnie Cruse

Sigh.

That Ronzoni pasta advertisement on television reminds me of my childhood. Not because of the pasta but because of Ronzoni's, the huge department store that was once and long ago located in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, waaay back in the fifties. One of my favorite dresses of all time came from there. Pink and grey striped (or was it checked?) HUGE puff sleeves, tight waist, full skirt. Those were the days. Rarely find a department or dress store in ANY downtown area in this decade. It's all about the malls. Which somehow brings me to technology. Okay, hang onto my shirt tail and you won't get lost. Really.

Since the time of the aforementioned dress, I've seen a lot of amazing changes in the world. Computers that were the size of a room now fit on our laps. People chat on phones while shopping at stores that sell everything from lettuce to lamps, with Leggos located on aisle five. Have a directional problem (which Sandy Parshall and I seem to share) get a GPS system. And I do adore my Tom Tom. My friend, Ann, got another brand and I must tell you hers is downright rude if you miss a designated turn. Mine scratches its little electronic head and reroutes me. So there.

High deffinition television puts us right on the mountain top with the elk or mountain goats or deep in the desert with the meerkats. It's almost like being there in person. Machines wash not only our clothes but our dishes as well, and small ovens now heat our supper in seconds. Palm devices (and cell phones and other like units) keep our address books, calendars (reminding us to be where and when) and some even hold books for us to read, right there on the little screen. MP3s or iPods let us take tons of pictures and music everywhere we go, or even better, books on tape. (I love being able to download practically any book I want off Net Library and listen to it on my MP3.) We are truly in an electronic age and I shudder to think of what would happen if all the batteries in the world suddenly disappeared. And by the way, does anybody know if that irritating little pink bunny is still going and going, banging on that noisy drum?

Is there a point here? I sure hope so. Many of the items I've listed above were not available to the general public when I was growing up, or even as a very young newlywed. And we've all come to enjoy and depend on them. Trust me, anybody who tries to take my Tom Tom is dead. Totally. But I have to wonder what the next fifty to seventy-five years will bring in the way of amazing inventions for my grandchildren to use and depend on. Every now and then I see a television program about someone who has moved to a very remote spot like the volcano some guy lives on/near in Hawaii (all his neighbors have left, he checks the lava level every day, and he could die there if it suddenly decides to belch) or the back woods of Montana, the middle of the Nevada desert, etc. These folks choose to live alone, with no neighbors, no modern conveniences, and they survive. And they seem happy. Don't think I could do it. Yet I do worry that we are overly dependant on electronics.

As for hubby and me, yeah, we have most of the modern conveniences. We also have coal oil lamps and a fireplace for those times when the power goes out and we are stuck out here in the country with modern-day conveniences that suddenly don't work. But as a writer, I'd be hard put to survive without my laptop, Internet access, Alphasmart, cell phone, etc. They keep me going and keep me on time. I have a very old typewriter that belonged to a friend sitting on top of my bookshelf in my office. I enjoy glancing at it from time to time, remembering how I first learned to type. I have no desire to get any closer to it than that.

So how have all these electronic helps actually helped you? And can you imagine doing whatever you do without them? I'm afraid they've pretty much spoiled me.

Sigh.

A Taste for Killing

Elizabeth Zelvin

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love it? Don't read it again

Sandra Parshall

One thing I’ve learned from moderating a mystery book discussion group for writers is that few crime novels stand up to close inspection or even a second reading for pleasure. More than once I’ve recommended a book to the group because I loved it and thought we could learn from it, only to discover during our detailed (and merciless) discussions that I don’t admire it that much after all.

You might think this happens because a mystery or suspense novel – any novel, actually – is an artificial construct, with the clear beginning, middle, and neat ending we seldom see in real life. The more closely we look at a novel, the more unreal it seems. That certainly has an effect, but it’s not the only reason why books we love can disappoint us on a second reading.

One explanation is that people change but books don’t. If you read a novel for the second time a month after the first, you will be a marginally different person and might see some flaws you missed initially. Wait five years and your interests and emotional life might be so different that you wonder how anything in that book could have pleased or moved you.

The books we never grow tired of, the ones we label “classics” – Jane Austin’s novels, for example, or the works of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens – stand up to repeated readings or viewings as movies or TV dramatizations because they tell universal stories that touch us regardless of where we are in our own lives.

To Kill a Mockingbird is widely regarded as the greatest American novel ever written, and it continues to sell many thousands of
copies every year. I have read it more than once and seen the movie more than once, and I doubt I’ll ever tire of it. But each time, I’ve seen it in a different light because I’m a different person. Sometimes I’ve identified with Scout, at other times with Atticus, and for a while, Boo Radley was the character I felt I had the most in common with. Mockingbird is a perfect novel – beautifully written, cleanly structured, with characters and a message that transcend time and place. The story makes sense, however many times you read it.

Few books have all of those virtues, and the mystery genre, like romance, is the home of many novels that are intended to entertain and quickly be forgotten. If you read them a second time, your emotions won’t be fully engaged again, and your mind will rebel against any clunky writing, questionable plot turns, shallow characters, and weak motivations you overlooked (or noticed but forgave) the first time around. Just as few novels have all the virtues, few have all the flaws, but most books have some of them.

In discussing crime novels, a major problem my group often sees is weak motivation. I’ve been surprised more than once, when re-reading a novel I enjoyed the first time, to discover the characters have little reason to behave the way they do. This flaw comes hand in hand with weak characterization. The character might be vividly depicted, we might be able to “see” him or her clearly, but if we don’t understand the person’s inner life, we can’t understand why an apparently sensible human being is doing dangerous or hurtful things. Without that understanding, the plot won’t make sense. Why didn’t I see the flaw on the first reading? Maybe I liked the writing style or the atmosphere or the suspense and let those elements blind me to the problems.

Some books, though, not only stand up to more than one reading but provide me with fresh insights each time. I’ve admired Thomas H. Cook’s Mortal Memory and Breakheart Hill more with each reading. Laura Lippman’s Every Secret Thing did not disappoint me the second time around (and it was a great book for discussion and dissection). I have a feeling that Laura's What the Dead Know will seem just as wonderful if I read it again. I’ve studied some of Tess Gerritsen’s and Lisa Gardner’s books in great detail in the hope of absorbing their suspense techniques. I’ve read parts of Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River over and over. Reading crime fiction is probably the best way to learn how to write it, but you have to choose your study material carefully.

As for my own published books, in the course of rewriting, editing, and proofing, I've read both of them so many times that I'm thoroughly sick of them. I know what their flaws are. But if you read them only once, maybe you'll overlook the flaws -- or at least not mind them too much.

Have you ever read a book a second time and wondered why you liked it the first time? What is most likely to disappoint you if you look too closely – plot, character, writing style?

Building a Career

by Darlene Ryan

If you came looking for Sharon Wildwind who's usually in this space on Tuesdays, check back on Saturday, Sharon will be here then, interviewing mystery writer, Lyn Hamilton.

Since we’re almost a month into the new year I thought this would be a good time to talk about building a writing career. Think of this as a list of things I’ve learned the hard way, things your mother would tell you, except she’s not a writer.

1. Writing for a living is not the same as getting published no matter what. The desire to have your book in print—to be able to wave it in the face of all those nay-sayers who’ve delighted in telling you it was never going to happen—can be enough to make otherwise intelligent people act as though their brains just fell out of their noses. If what you want is to make writing your career, stop pouncing on every gimmick and dubious opportunity that pops up. Set goals. Make a plan. If you don’t take your writing seriously neither will anyone else.

2. Writing is a profession. Behave professionally. Trashing your agent, your editor, your publishing house, or that writer you know who just signed a contract with a lot of zeros, in any public forum, will come back to bite you. With pointy teeth. In a place that hurts a lot. A conference is a public forum. So is a book signing, a workshop and a critique group. So is a blog. When that big vein in your forehead starts throbbing think twice about where you blow off steam.

3. Writing is a business. Educate yourself. Agents, publishers, genres, trends, marketing-- find out the basics about all of it. Read. Take workshops. Go to book signings. Make friends with librarians and booksellers and other writers. Ask questions. It takes years, a lot of studying, a lot of hands-on work, and more than a few shocks to become an electrician. Building a writing career isn’t a whole lot different.

4. Other writers are not the enemy. The publishing business is not like a cake. If Sandy and Liz and Julia and Sharon and Lonnie get to a cake first it’s likely there won’t be anything left by the time I show up—especially if it’s chocolate. But if Sandy and Liz and Julia and Sharon and Lonnie all get book contracts it doesn’t mean there’s no longer anyone who wants my book. I admit I’m not that highly evolved a person that I haven’t felt some twinges of jealousy, or eaten half a cake when a writer I know signs with the hotshot agent or gets a multi-book deal. But the feeling doesn’t last. And it gives me the push to get back at it, so that next time I’ll be the one with the good news.

5. Published writers don’t have some inside knowledge that gets them published and keeps you out. There’s no secret handshake or special code we add to our correspondence. We don’t say, “The scarecrow walks at midnight,” when we meet an agent or an editor so they’ll know we’re part of the club. We just write. We write the very best book we can. Then we send it out into the world and start writing another one.

6. Write the book. This one seems so simple but it’s also what messes up a lot of writers. You have to finish the book. And that won’t happen if you never get past chapter twelve. “But there’s this voice in my head that keeps telling me it’s all a pile of dreck,” I’ve heard more than one writer say. It’s your head. Ignore the voice. Kick it out. Tell it to go do something anatomically impossible.

And that’s it.

You want to be a writer? Go write.

That’s what it takes.