What do we want from our leaders?

by Sheila Connolly

The other day I was driving somewhere and found myself wondering, “did Napoleon have anxiety attacks?” Don’t ask me why I was thinking of Napoleon—it’s not something I do often. But I asked myself, did he wake up in the middle of the night and ask himself, Am I doing the right thing?

Think about it. Here’s the man who wanted to take over most of the civilized world. But physically he was tiny: I once saw a uniform that had been his, in the chateau of Malmaison in France where he lived with his wife Josephine, and he was far shorter than I am, and slighter (although pudgy in his later years). One source I looked at said he was 5 feet 6½ inches tall. My daughter is taller than that. This man was an emperor and commanded armies. Don’t you ever wonder how he did that?

And what about all those other historical figures that we grew up hearing about (the condensed version, at least). Do you ever find yourself pondering, Was Julius Caesar allergic to grain? Was Joan of Arc afraid of spiders?

We don’t have answers to many thing like this because it clouds our cherished vision of these people as somehow larger than life, or more than merely mortal. They had power; people followed them, and sometimes died for them. How could they be flawed?

There was an interesting article in the Boston Globe recently, titled “The myth of the visionary leader,” by Leon Neyfakh, about whether the public figures who we admire—presidents and the like—are actually the best leaders. We think we want vision and charisma and boldness, which are obvious traits. According to a 1977 paper by Abraham Zaleznik, classically heroic leaders possess imagination and a tendency toward risk-taking. In other words, they are bigger and better than we are.

Charisma may not be a good tool for actually getting things done, although that doesn’t stop us from voting for charm and good looks. But what we really need is someone who can make things happen, who is flexible, who can make effective compromises—not the people who hog the limelight and are in the love with the sound of their own voices.

Curiously, two weeks later in the Globe there was another related article, this one by Joanna Weiss. She was addressing the fact that it was kind of hard to distinguish between the two Boston mayoral candidates, both decent people and accomplished politicians (and both men of Irish background). In order to separate themselves they fell back on their own life stories. Weiss included in her analysis the example of Abraham Lincoln, cited by historian Michael Vorenberg. When Lincoln ran for President in 1860, he perceived that what the people wanted was an independent, self-reliant, strong individual; someone who stood out from the other politicians, who were mainly elite urban lawyers. So Lincoln’s handlers polished up the story of the boy raised in a log cabin, splitting rails and reading by firelight—a story we still repeat in schools today. The reality was that Lincoln was, yes, a smart lawyer in a suit (and without a beard), but that wasn’t what the voters wanted. Lincoln tailored his public image and won.

 

Would you vote for this man?

 

Should we as voters feel cheated? Manipulated? Or are we totally jaded by the endless onslaught of political spin? What do we really want from our leaders, and what does it look like? (By the way, Boston will have a new Irish mayor. Now, which one was he…?)

 

 

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Coming November 22nd

 

The Green Book and the Importance of Storytelling

Elizabeth Zelvin

I’ve blogged before about the failure of our most imaginative creative artists—science fiction or speculative fiction writers—to anticipate in the 1980s and 1990s many of the technological developments that permeate, even dominate our daily lives in 2013. But the subject still fascinates me. I recently read a book that’s short enough to analyze in this regard. It’s what we’d now call a middle grade children’s book: The Green Book by British author Jill Paton Walsh, whom I knew and admired for her skillful and entertaining continuation of the Lord Peter Wimsey saga.

With millions of books available on my Kindle at the touch of a finger, I was desperate for something to read. I have become a very picky reader, and I didn’t want to read a book I might not care to finish. I had three new hardcovers by cherished authors on my TBR pile at home, but I wasn’t at home. On my Kindle, I’d just given up on Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel’s novel about the French revolution. I enjoy the occasional children’s book, I was predisposed to like Walsh’s work, so why not try it?

The Green Book, published in 1982, is about a family that’s part of a small group fleeing Earth in anticipation of a coming event that’s expected to destroy the planet, mentioned only as “The Disaster.” Since they’re from “an old and poorer country,” presumably England, their space ship is ill equipped. In 2013, we have libraries that are better equipped with technology. We have city buses that are better equipped.

Each voyager is allowed to take one book. No e-readers, no mobile devices, not even microfilm or any other kind of text storage to provide basic knowledge. The father of the family reluctantly leaves Shakespeare behind and takes “an ugly big volume called A Dictionary of Intermediate Technology. Several travelers take The Swiss Family Robinson, which turns out to be not much help as the new planet lacks most of the raw materials of Earth, The youngest child takes a book of blank pages with a beautiful green cover.

The space ship sounds exactly like an old-fashioned plane. “When we could undo our seatbelts and look out of the windows…[the children] “stood at a porthole all day long…And then we were flying in a wide black starry sky, where none of the stars had names.” If astronomers could identify a potentially habitable planet, surely they would have names for the stars along the way.

“Our computer was intended for exploration journeys, not for colonization. It has no spare memory; it can barely manage our minimum needs.” This passage alone demonstrates how far we have come since 1982, when Walsh couldn’t imagine today’s information highway and how quickly and exponentially our ability to increase, store, and access knowledge has grown.

By the time the ship nears its destination, the passengers’ sedentary life aboard has left them in need of fitness training: “…people began to do pushups in their cabins, and line up for a turn on the cycle machine for exercising legs.” Why aren’t they doing aerobics all along? Where are the Nautilus machines, or even the inflatable Swedish exercise balls and stretchy bands for muscle toning and cardio workouts? How about isometrics, which take neither space nor equipment? I was almost forty in 1982, but as I read this, it seemed like a long, long time ago.

By the time the colonists have figured out how to feed themselves on a planet whose soil has a crystalline structure, they are desperate for something new to read. They tell each other stories they remember, but it’s not enough, and the younger colonists, who can’t remember Earth, can’t relate to the details. The youngest child, who’s taken a lot of flak for bringing along a blank book, turns out to have been writing the entire narrative. So the community rediscovers storytelling and gets to hear their own story. The Green Book assures us, as we still need to hear in this age of rapidly expanding new ways of “delivering content,” that our hunger for stories is still as basic as our need for food and shelter.

Suspense: publishing's most misused label

by Sandra Parshall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Makes a Mystery?

Sharon Wildwind

Books about mystery writing focus, in large part, on the same things found in other how-to writing books. Strong characters. High sakes. Dynamite first lines. Immediate hooks. Impeccable writing. Tension on every page. Story arcs. Knowing the writing and publishing business.

So what makes a mystery unique?

The great Y split: is it a thriller or a mystery?

A mystery asks who committed the crime? The reader’s task is to discover clues, filter out false leads, and solve the puzzle. Thinking wins the day. The reader should always know less than the characters; that is, each character knows where his/her guilt lies. The reader doesn’t, until secrets are revealed. Clues turn the plot. Most mysteries contain at least one murder.

A thriller asks how much with the villain get away with before being brought to justice? In many books, the villain’s identity is already known. A thriller may contain murder(s), but the reader’s task is to root for the protagonist to overcome persistent, life-threatening odds. Emotional reaction wins the day. The reader should always know more than the characters; that is, the reader knows how close the world is to catastrophe, but the protagonist comes to this realization in the course of the book. Betrayals turn the plot.

Above all, both mystery and thriller are marketing words. The terms tell agents and publishers where to place the book; tell booksellers and librarians where to shelve them.

No matter what the author thinks he/she is writing, it’s the publisher who decides in which category to place a book.

Sandra Parshall will have more to say about suspense tomorrow.

Defining Characteristics of Mysteries and Thrillers

The fight between good and evil

Mysteries and thrillers are about the fight between good and evil. A hook is what grabs the reader in the first three pages, preferably on the first page. It should focus on the emotional complexity of the task at hand.

It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark little clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

~ Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

The emotional complexity of The Big Sleep is the conflict between appearances and money. Some characters are going to do things to keep up appearances; others are going to commit crimes strictly for money.

Match strong motives and strong oppositions. Characters are in a fight, literally to the death. Some characters will die a physical death; some will die an emotional death, or their values will die.

Expect the protagonist to pay a price at every opportunity. At first, the price is small: coffee spilled on a new dress or being embarrassed by being late for a meeting. The closer the protagonist gets to the resolution, the larger and more personal the price paid.

All detectives should have a turning point where solving the mystery becomes a personal quest. This is true even for professionals, such as cops, lawyers, forensics specialists, and so on.

This turning-point loss is usually the second most serious in the story, and involves a physical loss, such as destruction of property, death of a valued individual, being fired, having their reputation besmirched, being locked up for a crime they didn’t commit, etc.

The largest loss is the shattering of a long-held belief, and that comes during or after the story’s climax.

No character is all good or all bad

What does the protagonist fear? Consider not only how to make that fear a reality, but make it worse. (We are so mean to our characters.) Isolate the protagonist at every opportunity. Make a beeline for the worst possible situation.

Make another beeline for character flaws. What makes the protagonist flawed and vulnerable? How can those flaws and vulnerabilities be exploited?

All villains are human. Give them human traits, foibles, and redeeming qualities along with their villainy. The more ambiguous a villain on the good/bad spectrum, the more time the reader spends thinking about them.

Life makes sense to the villain. There are good reasons he/she must act in the way they are acting, even if this includes torture, kidnapping, murder, and other bad things.

Play fair

In a mystery — as opposed to a thriller — three to five serious suspects are a good number to start with. Develop strong secrets, breaking points, motives, means, and opportunities for each suspect, not just the real villain. In other words everyone is guilty of something, but not necessarily the murder(s).

Allow characters to lie, even the protagonist.

Play fair with the reader. Don’t hold back critical information. If the murderer needs to be a crack shot, put something in his/her background that relates to being a crack shot. Hide the tree in the forest. If the book is set at a shooting club, everyone has the potential for being a crack shot.

Humor is another good way to hide important information. Slip in an important fact in the middle of a funny exchange and the reader is likely to give it less weight than it deserves.

Treat violence with respect

Violence is a form of dialog. It should advance the plot and set characters in opposition to one another, not only physically, but in their values on how they view violence and the proper use of violence.

Violence has repercussions, both immediate and long-term.

In real life, the average bar fight lasts 20 to 30 seconds.

At the very least, in the immediate aftermath, broken glass has to be swept away; bloody shirts changed; maybe a visit to the Emergency Room, or someone being booked at the police station. Living with having killed or severely injured someone lasts for years.

Violence changes place, mood, and atmosphere. Consider how the place where violence occurred was been wounded by that violence. Why is that place now different? Is it going to recover or will it forever be changed? If it’s going to recover, who will help it do so? If it won’t recover, what scar or stigmata will it carry forever?

More Gift Ideas for the Booklover

by Julia Buckley

If you're like me, you start your holiday shopping early--perhaps because you're excited about giving gifts to those you love, or perhaps because it's more affordable to space the buying over several paychecks.  And if you're like me, you enjoy shopping at stationery stores or office supply stores, where there are endless products for those who love paper and pen. If there are people among your family and friends who love books, reading, or writing, here are some terrific gift ideas for them (from inexpensive to very expensive)!]

Even in this computer age, some people prefer to write longhand.  Barnes and Noble has all sorts of writer's journals, including this one with a Thoreau quote on the cover:

It's a lined journal, and costs less than fifteen dollars.  Search "inspirational journals" at the Barnes and Noble site and you'll find this one, along with all sorts of beautifully-illustrated blank books to please the creative soul in your life.

Do you have writers on your list?  Do they often get their inspiration while away from a notepad to jot it down upon? Even those who aren't novelists might appreciate being able to jot down grocery list items before they forget them. Consider giving them this--a waterproof notepad for the shower, made by Aquanotes.  This little stocking stuffer costs only eight dollars, but might lead to a million-dollar idea.  It has a nearly five star product rating.

If your giftee reads a kindle, iPad or other electronic reader, consider getting them a caddy which not only props up the device, but offers little pockets for reading glasses, tissue (for sad books), pens, and a phone.  Nothing like giving someone the gift of convenience and organization.  This particular caddy is on sale for 25 dollars at Levenger.com.  Click on the tab called "gift ideas" for more great reading and writing products, divided by price range.

For those who like to keep track of every book they read (for the sake of recommending or re-reading), here's a pretty journal for recording books.  Find it on Amazon or at Potter Style.

Finally, Etsy has all sorts of jewelry for booklovers, including this lovely Polonius quote necklace from Shakespeare's HAMLET.  I have bought a variety of literary jewelry from Etsy artisans, and I've never been disappointed in the quality of the work. 

Hopefully these images have inspired some gift-buying ideas.  May you enjoy the gift-seeking journey.  

Who's the best?

The Crime Writers’ Association recently polled its members and produced this list of the “best ever” crime fiction authors:

WINNER: Agatha Christie
Raymond Chandler
Arthur Conan Doyle
Reginald Hill
Dashiell Hammett
Dorothy L Sayers
Elmore Leonard
Georges Simenon
PD James
Ruth Rendell

(See lists of other categories here.)  

While no one can discount the talent of these authors – and certainly Christie and Doyle have been among the most influential crime writers of all time – readers and authors in North America might find the list a bit lacking in diversity. We thought we’d give PDD readers a chance to vote for their own “best” choices among U.S. and Canadian authors, and we’re dividing them into two categories, past and current. But these are only suggestions. Because we’re doing this the American way, you’re free to declare “None of the above” and add another name.

Best North American crime fiction writer of the past:

James Cain
John Dickson Carr
Raymond Chandler
Mignon Eberhart
Erle Stanley Gardner
Dashiell Hammett
Patricia Highsmith
Ross MacDonald
Ellery Queen
Rex Stout
Cornell Woolrich
Write in:

Best North American crime fiction writer currently publishing:

James Lee Burke
Mary Higgins Clark
Patricia Cornwell
Tess Gerritsen
Sue Grafton
Dennis Lehane
Elmore Leonard
Walter Mosley
Sara Paretsky
George Pelecanos
Louise Penny
Nancy Pickard
Write in:

Okay, let’s see your votes in the comments!

Getting Started

by Sheila Connolly

I’m supposed to be starting to write a new book, with a deadline of February 1.  But “starting” is such a slippery term!

This new book will be the third in a series, which means that the setting and characters are already established, although I have the option (and maybe even the need) to introduce a few new ones.

A plot might be helpful. That’s not to say that the plot doesn’t change during the course of the writing, but I need a starting point, a hook, a key, a precipitating idea that starts the story rolling. It doesn’t have to appear in the first chapter, although it should be close to the beginning, else the writer spends a while meandering around admiring the scenery and introducing the characters (for some readers, not for the first time). Note:  the body doesn’t have to be appear in the first chapter either, although that does make a striking start, giving you the opportunity to explore the who and the why immediately.  Who is this person covered with blood, and what’s he doing lying on my floor?  I’ve ever seen him before!

But I do write murder mysteries, therefore there should be a murder. That means I have to decide what concept is worthy of killing someone for. I assume the cast of characters—both official and amateur—will be able to solve it, but I have to give them a crime to solve.

All this sounds as though I know what I’m doing; that I plan ahead and know where a story is going to go when I first open that first file or type “Chapter 1.”  I don’t.

I sent off edits to two books last week, so those books are essential done, save for some proofing.  Sigh of relief.  Now, what do I do with some free time?  Worry—about getting the next book started.  But after writing quite a few books, I’ve discovered something:  if I wait for it, the book starts demanding to be written.  It’s not a conscious process, but if I turn my attention to something else (like polishing the furniture or raking leaves), a scene will start jelling in my head.  I have to work from the beginning, although I do visualize snippets of what will follow, so the first scene is first to emerge, like an (old-fashioned!) photo materializing on the paper in a tray of developer. 

And that’s where I am right now.  I “see” the opening scene, and I see how it leads to the one that follows and the one after that.  No body yet, although I think I know who dies, and the new character that will lead us to the murder appears up front.  That first chapter is a tricky one, because I have to fill in just the right amount of backstory (who are these people and why should I care? sez the reader) and also kick off the action so the story moves forward.  I have to make sure that I don’t depart from the personalities of the existing characters—a person can’t have been morose for the entire last book and suddenly become cheerful, or not without a good reason, which would probably be a clue to something.  I have to remind readers why they liked the last book in the series enough to pick up this next one.

I know the scene in my head is the place to start because it won’t go away. I have to set it down.  It’s almost a physical itch, to put my fingers on the keys and get started, and writing anything but that chapter just won’t do.

So, in the third County Cork book (still nameless), Maura Donovan is sitting at the well-worn kitchen table in the century-old cottage in Ireland that she inherited, trying to figure out how she can possibly afford to keep her pub running on the paltry profits she’s been making over the past few months—and she doesn’t know that the answer is sitting on a barstool at the pub waiting for her.

Coming November 22

New York: Been there, seen it change

Elizabeth Zelvin

I’m a genuine New Yorker: born in Manhattan, lived here my whole adult life. I grew up in Queens, a short subway ride to the delights of “the city” every weekend: dance and cello lessons when I was a kid, the Museum of Modern Art and hanging out in Washington Square during my high school years. New York is a favorite setting for mystery writers. Many of them, like me, “write what they know.” I’d give the blue ribbon to Lawrence Block. His New York, or that of his protagonists Matt Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr, is different from mine, but it’s deeply authentic. Others have to do the research. For some, it includes emailing friends like me for tips on accuracy in location, speech, and culture.

The catch in writing about New York settings is that the city is constantly changing. When I started counting up the changes I’d witnessed over the course of sixty-plus years, I found the list is almost endless.

I saw West Side Story when it first appeared on Broadway in 1957, the year I graduated junior high. The gang-ridden, working class neighborhood it portrayed was not what we now call the Upper West Side (which runs from 59th to 125th Street), but Hell’s Kitchen, just below it. That whole side of town changed irrevocably when Lincoln Center opened in 1962. I moved into my present building at West 86th Street and Columbus Avenue in 1967. I remember the first time I heard someone say “fashionable Columbus Avenue.” I laughed myself silly. Later, a gentrifying Hell’s Kitchen was renamed Clinton (my series protagonist Bruce refers to it as “a grateful recovering neighborhood.” But the name didn’t stick. In the past year or two, I’ve noticed that shops and restaurants in the West Fifties and on Ninth Avenue use the name Hell’s Kitchen as a sign of the neighborhood’s panache.

I don’t remember the Third Avenue El, an elevated subway line that closed in Manhattan in 1955, but the neighborhood was seedy for a while after it came down. The transformation came with the building of glass and steel skyscrapers in the East Forties and Fifties, some of which housed the publishing companies I worked for in the 1960s. Sixth Avenue underwent a similar metamorphosis: I worked in one of those glass and steel towers, still in publishing, in the 1970s. Avenue of the Americas was another name that didn’t take—I’ve never heard anyone but a tourist use it—and in the last year or two, the name Sixth Avenue has finally been restored to street signs.

The earliest change I remember—a fragmentary memory: I must have been four—was the groundbreaking for PS 164 in Queens, where I was part of the first first-grade class. No, probably even earlier was the building of the Jewish Center of Kew Gardens Hills, on Main Street down the block from my house. It replaced a small farm with chickens and other domestic animals that remains another of my earliest memories.

The recent change that shocks me the most is the disappearance of the Bowery as New York’s Skid Row. I first knew it in 1983, when the Men’s Shelter on Third Street was notorious for knifings and drug deals. I visited the last few bars and flophouses with the last few cops whose job had changed from rounding up drunks to throw in jail in the “drunk tank” to recruits for the alcohol detox program where I trained as a counseling intern. By the time I directed an alcohol program there in the 1990s, the shelter had become a model facility providing services for homeless substance abusers. The view out the window of my office was a magical wilderness hidden by the square block of buildings that bounded it, originally an 18th century cemetery, though any remaining gravestones were hidden by tall grasses, wildflowers, and the occasional tree. Today, the whole neighborhood is unrecognizable: a fashionable 21st century enclave of chic shops and restaurants (one has an outdoor patio from which you can see that hidden graveyard) and high rise residential buildings.

Another New York landmark that didn’t exist when I was a kid: Columbus Circle before the Coliseum, much less the high-end mall that replaced it. The buses to my Girl Scout camp at Bear Mountain used to leave from there before they built the New York State Thruway. Harlem has changed considerably, but until a few years ago, who knew that it would succumb to colonization by white yuppies? Other places that didn’t exist include the South Street Seaport, Battery Park City (built on landfill) Chelsea Piers, SoHo, NoHo, and TriBeca; the latest is Trump Place in the West Sixties overlooking the Hudson, where the old railroad yards used to be. I remember when the World Trade Center opened: my first husband had a photographer friend who worked on the 77th floor; we laughed when we discovered he never looked at the magnificent view, because he spent all his time in the darkroom. I’m one of those who found the twin towers beautiful only after they were gone.

Transformed in my lifetime: Roosevelt Island; the Christopher Street pier; the white working class neighborhood Yorkville to the upscale Upper East Side. And in the boroughs, my own Queens neighborhood from secular to Orthodox Jewish; Flushing to Asians; Astoria and Jackson Heights to a variety of ethnic groups and a lively restaurant and cultural scene. I could go on and on, and the change continues. So writers, if you set your scene in New York, make sure you do your homework! .

Is the e-book boom over?

by Sandra Parshall

For years we’ve heard that e-books are taking over publishing, that sales are increasing at a phenomenal rate every year, that digital is going to save writers and the book business as a whole. Common estimates had e-book market share reaching as much as 80% in the near future.

But all that is over. Digital Book World, an incessant promoter of the e-book form, is now asking “What happened to e-book growth?” A Book Industry Study Group (BISG) report has the answer: it’s stagnating. 

According to BISG, e-book market share has been flat, at around 30%, for the past year. Digital books account for under 15% of earnings.

And while a recent survey indicates that owners of e-book devices read as much as 60% more than other readers, BISG reports that the percentage of book buyers who read e-books at least once a week is stuck at around 20%. Only 25% of readers buy an e-book at least once a week.

However, BISG found that many readers plan to purchase e-book devices in the future, and say they will continue buying and reading e-books. The market may continue to grow, although much more slowly than in the first wild years of e-book popularity. Both the devices and the book format have quickly become established, acceptable alternatives to print, creating more and less expensive reading options and encouraging people to turn to books more often for entertainment. Mass market paperbacks, the most obvious victims of the digital revolution, continue to lose sales.

Digital book production is now an integral part of daily business at publishing houses large and small, and has inevitably led to changes as publishers view each acquisition as two separate entities, a print volume and an e-book. This article looks at how digital has altered production and workflow.

Agents and authors are increasingly concerned that publishers will eliminate print altogether for writers who aren’t proven mega-bestsellers. Publishers Weekly recently took a look at contracts that omit any guarantee of a print edition. 

Meanwhile, the booming world of self-publishing is experiencing its own growing pains. Bowker reported that the number of self-published titles in 2012 was the highest ever.

But in writers’ groups around the internet, what you’ll see these days are a lot of posts about a dropoff in sales and, consequently, earnings. Free books no longer lead to big bumps in sales. Lowering prices doesn’t work as well as it used to. Some writers think the answer is to write faster and put out more titles, closer together. Others point out that readers already have devices loaded with more e-books, many of them downloaded for free, than they can ever hope to read. Whether they will devote additional space and reading time to more and more books by the same writers is questionable. An increasing number of authors prefer to be hybrids, publishing in both digital and traditional print forms, rather than limiting their options.

Meanwhile, who rules the e-book bestseller lists? The same Big Five publishers who own the print lists. The top 10 e-books for the week ending October 27 were:

Allegiant by Veronica Roth, HarperCollins
Sycamore Row by John Grisham, Penguin Random House
The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty, Penguin Random House
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, Macmillan
Divergent by Veronica Roth, HarperCollins
Killing Jesus: A History by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, Macmillan
The House of Hades by Rick Riordan, Hachette
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, Simon & Schuster
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, Penguin Random House
The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks, Hachette

She could, but did she?

Sharon Wildwind

What’s wrong with this paragraph?

When Marta had almost reached the ridge crest, she could see the trading post in the small valley. The adobe building appeared to shimmer in late morning heat. Maybe it was Tuesday morning. A brown-and-white pinto pony should have been tied to the wooden railing; its deep woven baskets might have been filled with turquoise, russet, and squash-blossom yellow wool rovings that her friend Sarasota had likely spent the last week dying and combing. Maybe Sarasota was sick; maybe she had been trying new dye combination and lost track of what day it was, too. No, when Sarasota said she would be some place, she was likely to be there. Marta almost felt uneasy as she started down the dry, rocky path to the store.

What’s wrong? Marta, and the author, have a bad case of the wishy-washes. Here’s a list of wishy-washy words: almost, appeared, could, likely, maybe, might, should, and would.

The first reason that a writer uses wishy-washy words is that she mistakes a progression in time for a potential in action. Confusing enough for you? It is for me.

“When Marta had almost reached the ridge crest, she could see the trading post in the small valley.” What the author intends to convey is that Marta is going up a hill. Until she’s almost at the top (the progression in time), she can’t see over the ridge.

This sentence can also mean that when Marta had almost reached the ridge crest, it was physically possible for her to see the trading post (the potential in action). She could have seen it, but did she? She might have been temporarily blinded by tears or dust. The trading post might stir up bad memories and she avoided looking at it.

The second reason that a writer uses a wishy-washy word is to attempt to convey that the character is experiencing a sense of confusion. She hasn’t made up her mind. She’s thinking of options. She doesn’t know what the heck is really going on.

The problem is that wishy-washy words leave the reader not-quite-sure what is really going on as well.

There is, however, one place that these words can work. That’s an occasional use in dialog to illustrate something about the person who is speaking, something like

“I should, I suppose, but---”

“But you don’t want to take the time away from your manicures and yoga lessons to waste half an hour on your sister.”

In a perfect world, we’d eliminate wishy-washy words even in our first drafts, but goodness knows we—and first drafts—aren’t perfect. At some point in rewrites, it’s a good idea to find and eliminate all of those conditional words. If you write on a computer, the machine can do the work of finding them for you. If you write or proof-read from hard copy, colored markers work well.

Here’s a rewrite of the opening, with one “should” left in, just to show you can get away with it occasionally.

Marta pushed hard to climb the last, steepest part of the path. At the ridge crest, she saw the trading post in the small valley. The adobe building shimmered in late morning heat. A brown-and-white pinto pony should have been tied to the wooden railing; its deep woven baskets filled with turquoise, russet, and squash-blossom yellow wool rovings that her friend Sarasota had spent the last week dying and combing.

Was it Tuesday morning? Marta counted the number of meals she’d eaten since Mass on Sunday. Yes, it was Tuesday.

She hoped Sarasota wasn’t sick. What if she had been trying new dye combinations and lost track of what day it was, too? No, when Sarasota committed to delivering wool every Tuesday, she delivered it every Tuesday.

Marta’s feet slipped as she started down the dry, rocky path to the store. The first thing was to find out of the trader had heard from Sarasota. If he hadn’t, she had to . . . she haden't decided yet what she had to do, but whatever it was would involve John Silver Buckle. Seeing John again was the one thing she dreaded.

Quote for the week
It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
~ H. L. Mencken, (1880 – 1956), American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, culture critic, and English scholar

Here's my honest disclosure: this blog was originally written for Author Exchange in 2009. I still like it and didn't think I could say it any clearer if I rewrote it, so I am reposting it, as it. I hope everyone is okay with that.