Crime Fiction: The Odd Cousin?

by L.J. Sellers

[Ed. Note: This entry was originally published on the SinC blog on May 17, 2010. During the weekend, the piece was mentioned a few times on the DorothyL listserv -- which made it seem like a good time to publish the blog entry again. ]


Does the crime writer sit in the same chair at the table of literature as a transvestite cousin at a family gathering?”

Say what?

That question came to me, via Facebook, from a researcher working on a PhD dissertation about the mystery/crime genre. The analogy both amused and disheartened me. Over the years, I’ve tried to accept that genre fiction isn’t counted in the same category as literary fiction. I’ve tried to ignore the occasions where a reviewer declared that a particular mystery or thriller “transcends the genre,” as if crime fiction had built-in limitations and readers had to approach it with low expectations.

But now that I’ve been compared to an "odd" cousin, I have to respond. What a load of nonsense.

From my perspective, crime fiction offers the best reading on nearly every level. The genre confronts the realities of life across various cultures more often and more honestly than mainstream/literary fiction does.

Crime novels are suited to exploring provocative social issues and showing how those hot-button subjects affect various people’s lives, often from diverse perspectives. Crime fiction can be surprisingly poignant and analytical about problems such as illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug use. These novels highlight deep-rooted cultural ills such as racism, sexism, bigotry, and the dangers of stereotypes. Sometimes a mystery will show a stereotype in all its glory, reminding us of why stereotypes exist and how we all fit into one … at least a little bit. The crime genre often forces us to see the world from perspectives that make us think outside our comfort zone.

As crime writers and readers, we get to make sense of things that would otherwise haunt us. We learn why the family next door disappeared one day or what’s really going on in the creepy warehouse across the street. Sometimes that knowledge helps us sleep better and sometimes it doesn’t, but at least we learn one version of the truth.

Police procedurals and thrillers give us a medium through which we can experience the triumph of good over evil. For short while with each story, we get to be the good guy, the hero who rescues the kidnapped child or saves the president’s life. We get to drag the bad guys off to jail or shoot them dead if “they need killing”— fantasies we can’t act out in our everyday lives. The real-world events around us can be unjust and inexplicable. It’s important to our collective mental health to experience justice, order, and revelation through fiction.

Novels with well-written protagonists and antagonists bring us to terms with the duality within ourselves. Humans are all deeply flawed, with the capacity for great goodness as well as for deceit, jealousy, schadenfreude, addiction, selfishness, and often worse. When crime fiction heroes—detectives, FBI agents, and prosecutors—possess such flaws, we not only relate to those characters, we forgive ourselves for the same shortcomings. When a killer calls his mother or pets a stray dog, we hate him a little less and remember to look for good qualities in everyone.

Crime novels explore relationships in a way that few other genres can. What better mechanism to test a bond between husband and wife, parent and child, or lifelong friends than to embroil the relationship in a crime, either as victims, suspects, or perpetrators. Similar to natural disasters, the aftermath of a crime can bring out the best—or worst—in humans.

The genre is rich with possibilities for exploring the complexity of the human condition. Victims become predators; predators become victims. A person is guilty, but not in the way we’ve been led to believe. Most of all, crime fiction is full of surprises, and we readers love the unexpected. When was the last time a reviewer used the word twist when discussing a literary novel?

If the detective writer is the odd cousin at the literary family gathering, then perhaps the family is a bit dysfunctional to begin with.


L.J. Sellers is an award-winning journalist, editor and the author of the Detective Jackson mystery/suspense series. Her most recently published novels are Passions of the Dead, the latest work featuring Detective Jackson, and The Baby Thief, a standalone thriller. When not plotting murders, L.J. enjoys performing stand-up comedy, cycling, social networking, attending mystery conferences, and editing fiction manuscripts.

You don't scare me, Kindle!

By Guest Blogger Dana Stabenow

Kindle. eReader. EZReader. The Alex. The Que. The Nook, iRex, Plastic Logic.

Every time a new e-reader debuts, the book world hurls itself into a panic.“…[P]ublishers are distracting themselves by fretting over the price of eBooks, withholding eBook releases so as not to cannibalize hardcover book sales, and watching helplessly as their businesses erode,” Reuters quoted Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps. (RedOrbit.com).

So. Is this the end of the book? Am I about to be out of a job? Man, I was just getting started here.

I’m bucking the trend. I don’t think so.

The October 25 Sunday New York Times wrote, “Amazon says Kindle owners buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before getting one. Sony says its e-book users are also inspired. “You are going to see very significant growth rates,” said Jeffrey P. Bezos, the head of Amazon.

Gen Xers were raised reading on screens, and that’s how many of them are now reading books. Further, the explosion of online social networking and personal and professional blogs is accustoming many in the baby boomer generation to the habit of reading onscreen. An e-format book is going to look more familiar and reassuring every time they log on to Facebook.

I myself recently downloaded a Great Books app to my iPhone, and guess what? If I were stuck in an airport waiting for a late plane and I’d accidentally packed my book in my checked baggage (it’s happened, and the horror), I could reread Pride and Prejudice on my iPhone just fine. It scrolls past at a speed I set in a font I choose and I’ve got over 150 public domain titles from which to pick, including all of Sherlock Holmes and The Three Musketeers plus both sequels. If I were toting all that around in book form my bag would never fit into the overhead bin. Not to mention what it would do to my back trying to get it there.

So I’m selling my Star Svensdotter and Liam Campbell novels, long out of print, on Kindle and iPhone, and as soon as I get five minutes I’m going to get tech-friendly with uploading all my out-of-print titles, including short stories, for sale on all the other e-devices as well.

As I was writing this post, I checked the iTunes App store book page. The number one free app? Kindle for iPhone. Number two? The B&N eReader. As it happens, I don’t need either one of them because my app has its own built-in reader. And it and all the books it comes with cost me the magnificent sum of $1.99. At that price, you think I won’t buy more?

Eric over at Pimp My Novel says, “These cheap books might be the death of publishing, book sharing might be the death of publishing, Stephen King is delaying his e-book because e-books are the death of publishing…is anyone else bored of this conversation?” and then links to Lit Drift’s 5 Reasons Why the Novel is Not a Dying Medium, where they channel Mark Twain in saying that the death of the novel is greatly exaggerated.

On his blog, literary agent Nathan Bransford says, “Things are changing, it’s going to be an interesting/challenging couple of years as we gradually succumb to our coming e-book overlords, but it doesn’t mean the novel is going to disappear or that we’re all going to hell in a handbasket. Things aren’t going to be worse (at least in the long term), they’re just going to be different…”

I can do different. My feeling is that the more ways you can read, the more you will read, which is only good news for me. I do not mean to make light of the real changes facing everyone at every level of the publishing industry. Change is always scary.

But change doesn’t have to be bad, and in this case, I don’t believe it is.
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Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage and raised on 75-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska. She knew there was a warmer, drier job out there somewhere and found it in writing books. Her first science fiction novel, Second Star, sank without a trace, her first crime fiction novel, A Cold Day for Murder, won an Edgar award, her first thriller, Blindfold Game, hit the New York Times bestseller list, and her twenty-seventh novel and eighteenth Kate Shugak novel, Though Not Dead, comes out in February 2011.  Visit her web site:  http://www.stabenow.com/

DREW’S CLUES TO CREATIVE WRITING

By guest blogger Penny Warner

Nancy Drew turned 80 this year. Yet she still doesn’t look a day over 18. I want to be Nancy Drew. Now, after selling over 50 books to publishers, including and THE OFFICIAL NANCY DREW HANDBOOK and my new series, HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, which features a “Nancy Drew” character and several of Nancy Drew’s sleuthing skills, I realized that everything I know about writing, I learned from reading Nancy Drew mysteries. Here are 13 of Drew’s clues to improving your writing skills—and sell your own sleuthing mystery!

1. Create unforgettable characters: “You know Nancy.” All agreed she possessed an appealing quality, which people never forgot. ~ Clue in the Diary

All stories are based on interesting characters—there are no exceptions. Introduce us to your character a little at a time, using action and dialogue (showing), rather than a thumbnail sketch (telling). Create realistic characters without using stereotypical traits, and include some surprises about the character that are believable. Finally, give the characters conflict—happy characters make dull characters.

2. Use dialogue: Suddenly the young sleuth snapped her fingers. “I know what I’ll do! I’ll set a trap for that ghost!” ~ The Hidden Staircase

Dialogue makes a story come alive. It also helps move the story along, increases pace and creates drama. Listen to real conversations for realism, then edit and tighten them to make the dialogue readable. Keep attribution simple—use action or “said,” rather than adverbs and euphemisms for “said.” Finally, read your dialogue aloud.

3. Set the scene: Many Colonial houses had secret passageways. “Do you know any entrances a thief could use?” ~The Hidden Staircase

A vivid setting pulls the reader into the story. It also intensifies suspense and becomes a character in itself. Show the setting through the character’s eyes and include all five senses, telling details, and occasional metaphors.

4. Add mood and atmosphere: Nancy had heard music, thumps and creaking noises at night, and had seen eerie, shadows on walls. ~ The Hidden Staircase

Give a sense of foreboding through description. Mood and atmosphere give the story depth and stimulate the emotions of the readers. Use foreshadowing to give the reader a feeling of unease.

5. Outline your plot: Ellen was alarmed. “We must do something to stop him!” “I have a little plan,” Nancy said. ~ Quest of the Missing Map

Before you begin writing, outline your plot so you know, generally, where the story is headed. You can keep it simple and just jot down the major plot points of the story—where the story takes a surprising turn and how it ratchets up the suspense. Or you can write a detailed chapter-by-chapter outline, with the option of veering off if the story requires an alteration.

6. Start the clock ticking: “Hurry, girls, or we’ll miss the train to River Heights!” Nancy knew being on time was important. ~ Secret of Red Gate Farm

Begin with the inciting incident, which starts the clock ticking. Include not only the situation, but where it takes place, and who’s involved. This is where you ask the story questions: What if….? Think about your goal as start the story and where it will lead.

7. Create conflict: Nancy struggled to get away. She twisted, kicked and clawed. “Let me go!” Nancy cried. ~ Secret of the Old Clock

There is no story without conflict. The protagonist must come up against an antagonist, which can be a person, an idea, a corporation, or some kind of evil. Conflict helps reveal the protagonist’s needs, values, and fears, and causes her to confront her demons, challenge herself, and become a hero of sorts.

8. Pack it with action: “How do we get in?” “Over the top, commando style,” George urged. “Lucky we wore jeans.” ~ Clue in the Crumbling Wall

Today’s reader wants action, so give your protagonist opportunities to do something physical. Give her a choice between fight or flight, and when she fights—make her strong but still vulnerable.

9. Spark reader’s emotions: Nancy was too frightened to think logically. She beat on the door, but the panels would not give way. ~ Secret of the Old Clock

Crank up the reader’s involvement but increasing the character’s emotional risk. This way the reader will care about the story. If she can relate to the protagonist’s emotional jeopardy, she’ll be hooked on finding out what happens.

10. Raise the stakes: In a desperate attempt to break down the door Nancy threw her weight against it again and again. ~ Secret of the Old Clock

The story begins with a challenge for the protagonist. But that’s not enough. As the story moves along, something worse must happen. And just when you think it’s safe to go back into the water, things become even worse. Keep raising the stakes to keep those pages turning.

11. Make the situation hopeless: “We’re locked in!” Nancy exclaimed, and began banging on the door with her fist. ~ Nancy’s Mysterious Letter

When all seems lost and the protagonist is about to give up because she’s running out of time and is under extreme pressure, she must find the courage to go on, make other decisions, and get herself out of this devastating trouble.

12. Give the protagonist strength: “Girls don’t faint these days,” George scoffed. ~ Secret of Red Gate Farm

As the protagonist comes face to face with the antagonist, she must pull out all her reserves and use her own skills to change the situation. This heroic attempt must also create growth and change in the protagonist.

13. Don’t give up: Nancy tried to open the door. It was locked. Not easily discouraged, she tried a window; it was unlocked. ~The Hidden Staircase

I really believe the reason I’ve had over 50 books published is simply because—like Nancy Drew—I never gave up!
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Penny Warner is the author of THE OFFICIAL NANCY DREW HANDBOOK, and the party-planning mystery series, HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY and HOW TO CRASH A KILLER BASH, from Penguin. She can be reached at www.pennywarner.com.

Writing the Other

By Guest Blogger Sarah Smith

Recently I finished a novel, The Other Side of Dark, in which one of the two first-person point-of-view characters is a teenaged African-American boy. Though members of my family are of African ancestry, I self-identify as white (and I’m not teenaged either). I was terrified to even attempt a first-person character whose life experience was so different from mine. 

Still, SJ Rozan had created Lydia Chin, Barbara Hambly had written about Benjamin January.  If they could succeed—well, at least I could try to write about Law Walker, and try to find his voice.

Here are a couple of things I learned.  They might apply to writing about any character who is significantly different in age, gender, class, or ethnicity from you. 

First, though people made me welcome, often I was way out of my comfort zone. It felt impolite to ask about race and class.  It was unfamiliar to read books written for the assumptions of African Americans.  (Nat Turner was a revolutionary hero?  In a kids’ book?)  I visited places where I felt like an unwelcome minority. 

My friends from various “different” groups just rolled their eyes when I thought this was unusual.

I genuinely knew nothing. Barbara Neely gave me some wonderful advice, early on. “You can learn,” she said.  “You can read.  Ask questions.  Listen.”  Research would help?  Research I could do.  I learned new ways of looking at American history, read marvelous authors, and heard stories whose existence I had never suspected. 

Still, research only goes so far; I knew I’d get things wrong.  My friends read drafts and told me what I should change.  I went out and recruited people to read The Other Side of Dark, from historians to landscape architects and African-American activists.  They helped to ground the characters in the details of real life and saved me from repeated stupidity.  They graciously accepted my apologies when I was especially dense.

One of the many rewards of working on this book was hearing new opinions and new voices. I read everything -- mystery novels and history, popular fiction and self-help books—and listened, and I heard people speaking their minds forcefully and persuasively.  I adapted and echoed some of those voices for characters in The Other Side of Dark. Law’s father, for instance, owes a lot to a radical American historian whose work I admire. 

Recently, a white student at a historically black university was asked the cringe-worthy question, “What are black people like?”  He blinked and said, “What are white people like?”  Books about someone who’s different from you are not about the difference, they’re about the someone.  In The Other Side of Dark, Law has wanted to date the same girl for four years without ever daring to ask her out; he wants to be an architect but his successful father looms over him. Mrs. Wilson has to stop a girl getting killed. Law’s father wants success too hard … They all happen to be African Americans, but their problems are no more “African American problems” than (white) Katie’s seeing ghosts is a “white problem.”

What are “different” people like? 

What are people like?

There is one problem about “writing the difference” that does bother me deeply.  Writers who write about “different” people, and who are not “different”, can find it easier to get published than people who are “different”.  (Hard to believe that anyone, ever, finds it easy to get published.)  White privilege exists, the way homophobia and sexism and ageism exist.  “Different” itself is a prejudicial term that assumes something else is  “normal.”  Nisi Shawl’s and Cynthia Ward’s classic book on writing and cultural variety puts it much better: Writing the Other.

If you’re the beneficiary of not being “different,” pay it forward.  Don’t just read books; if you like them, buy them.  Add them to your LibraryThing or Goodreads library.  Review them.  Tell your friends about them.  Friend their authors on Facebook so your friends can find them more easily.

Visit my site or Facebook page in coming weeks for some of the books I like and some of the stories I’ve heard. 
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Sarah Smith’s The Other Side of Dark, a YA ghost thriller, will be published by Atheneum in November. Her Web site is www.sarahsmith.com; you can visit and friend her at www.facebook.com/sarahwriter or www.facebook.com/SarahSmithBooks

Writing the Other is available from Aqueduct Press, www.aqueduct.com

Twenty Laws for Writing “Unbelievable” Mysteries

By Lori L. Lake

I’ve been reading adult mysteries since the age of nine, when I first tackled the Perry Mason series. (Encyclopedia Brown probably doesn’t count.) Over the years, I’ve read more than 3,000 mysteries and thrillers, some of them fabulous and some disappointing duds. Over that time, I’ve developed a list of conventions that sometimes work – but that also often spell trouble. 

Here are my thoughts on various conventions in some of the most “unbelievable” mysteries – and you can take that “unbelievable” as a plus or a minus.

1.  Don’t bother to go into the real world and research how cops, investigators, lawyers, and detectives actually do their jobs. This kind of information will only confuse and upset your audiences who already have preconceived notions from TV and the movies which must not be dispelled. Feel free to use terms like “Book ’im, Dano” and LUDS (for phone records), and of course every suspect is, indeed, called a “perp.”

2.  Don’t worry about forensics or technology. Everyone knows that all fluids and substances can be dabbed or placed on a slide, popped into a machine, and spun around by centrifugal force like in the “CSI” TV show, resulting in the emergence of a ticker tape of information that reveals all the chemicals and toxins. In addition, footprints, chips of paint, and tire impressions can be tracked with ease; DNA results from body fluids are obtainable overnight; retinal scans are common; and a fingerprint can be lifted from any surface: Velcro, felt, onion skin paper, etc.

3.  Criminals in league with each other typically spend a lot of time explaining their crimes to one another so the reader will understand what they mean to do. In addition, one of the conspirators is almost always a hot-head who cannot be relied upon to follow the plan. In fact, he is easily distracted, and in a fit of rage, usually kills the key person he and his cronies will need to escape. Example: “Haufsnau! You know we meant to just rob the place, not shoot anyone. You were only supposed to hold the blindfolded guard hostage. He was our ticket out. Now we’re stuck with a dead body and an alarm that will go off when we leave. Idiot!”

4.  Criminals, especially bank robbers, NEVER give themselves up, preferring instead to have major shootouts that are guaranteed to leave them riddled with holes. If, by some strange chance, they manage to be captured alive, they can also be counted upon to brag to those with whom they are incarcerated ensuring their ultimate conviction.

5.  A gun is a gun is a gun. Really classy detectives carry Glocks—with or without safeties—and most criminals (especially drug dealers) carry sawed off shotguns or automatic rifles. Cops sometimes still have to carry those old-fashioned, single-action revolvers. Every shot smells like cordite, and nobody ever has trouble hearing even after firing a weapon within an enclosed space.

6.  Even though danger and possible death is patently obvious to the reader, sleuths or detectives will always take off on their own without telling anyone, usually because they think they won’t be believed or they are positive they are the only ones who can handle the situation. They will open doors they shouldn’t, enter huge complexes where it is easy to get lost, and often become trapped and have to fight themselves out of warehouses, meat-packing plants, or machinery such as presses or crushers.

7.  The majority of supervisors of the non-amateur protagonists are nitwits, personally motivated by greed and desire for wealth and power, or they are political animals who will eat up the detective and spit him or her out. This causes the sleuth to have to hide everything, including legally required reports and evidence. Luckily, such illegal activity rarely gets them fired (Lucas Davenport excepted).

8.  Police experts, the FBI, the Secret Service, and various private detectives and lawyers have studied almost every facet of law enforcement and generally know all there is to know—or they always know who to find it out from—and that person usually works just one office or one street away. Nobody is a specialist in their own little world…except the medical examiner who always looks like s/he’s been up all night drinking, crying, and not sleeping because of the horrid job s/he has to do. If, by chance, the detective does not know some small piece of information about forensics, technology, procedure, etc., s/he will not be given that information until it is too late for it to: 1) make sense, 2) save lives, or 3) keep him or her out of big trouble with the boss. If the detective has to get the information from an expert, usually s/he will have to travel by plane to Quantico or Miami or New York or Hollywood or some other sexy hotspot where people s/he meets there will coincidentally have something nefarious to do with the case.

9.   In order to obfuscate and in an attempt to mislead the reader, make sure to have the protagonist puzzle internally and obsessively over bizarre or weighty red herrings hoping that the reader will lose track of the real clues. Or if that doesn’t work, give the detective some sort of major dysfunction or impossible-to-bear pain (dead spouse, murdered kid, lost sanity, physical deformity, etc.) and focus on that repeatedly whenever possible as a diversionary tactic.

10.  All head wounds render the detective only temporarily out, or, at the very least, groggy, but still retaining most faculties. In addition, despite cranial fracture or concussion, s/he is still able to wrestle the evil villain off the edges of roofs, over small cliffs, in the rain or cesspools of mud, and through fire, explosions, or gunshots.

11. Most gunshot wounds hit the detective in the shoulder or in the “bullet-proof” vest, requiring only a short time in the hospital – if the detective actually allows him or herself to be taken to the hospital. When under medical care, usually protagonists refuse treatment, or they accept treatment and wait until no one is looking, then manage all by themselves to disconnect the oxygen, morphine drip, feeding line, and heart monitors so they can put on their bloody clothes and sneak out of the hospital.

12.  Many sleuths worth their salt have at least one of the following: 1) a shadowy protector good with a gun and his or her fists (ie. Bubba in Dennis LeHane’s books or Ranger in the Stephanie Plum series); or 2) an investigative partner with whom they are supposed to share everything, but from whom they keep key data and information (see most police books); or 3) a spry, elderly man or woman who watches out for them (ie. Sue Grafton’s or Sara Paretsky’s books); or 4) someone at home from whom they keep all their worries, instead choosing to carry the weight of all the pain, anguish, responsibility, etc. right up to the point where their spouse/lover/child/parent is threatened or harmed. The exception to this rule is Robert B. Parker whose girlfriend is a great listener and actually a psychiatrist with whom he shares a lot…however, he DOES have Hawk as a protector.

13. A perky, impetuous, smart, and/or exceedingly clever female sleuth manages throughout the course of an entire novel to unearth clues the men don’t find, put the pieces together, and solve the crime – only to be captured by the Bad Guys before she can arrange their capture. She is very nearly killed. She may also be tortured. Instead of her managing to get herself out of the situation in a death-defying show of pluck, brains, and skill, her sidekick or a cop or a passing homeless guy or some other meaningless bystander pops into the picture and saves her bacon. Instead of being mad as hell, she falls in love with him and lives happily ever after.

14.  It is possible for the average citizen to stumble upon as many as 20 or 30 dead bodies in the course of one series of novels. This even happens with sleuths who are technically criminals (Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr, for instance).

15.  All drug dealers are badly shaven, take drugs themselves, and are ready to kill at the drop of a hat—except the king of the drug cartel who lives in Beverly Hills or some rich part of NYC next door to the mayor or Clint Eastwood or someone else famous, and he is able to order others to kill on command.  Unfortunately, the hired killers are usually inept in some way, leaving vital clues and/or living witnesses which lead right back to the kingpin.

16.  It is almost always necessary for hired killers to use automatic weapons, drive-by shootings, and intentional sprays of gunfire to kill their victims rather than quieter, sneaky, well-planned, and cleverly executed assassinations. The exception to this rule is when the killer is hired by the Mob, in which case, all Mob killings are “execution-style,” a/k/a “double-tap,” i.e. two shots to the head while kneeling. As soon as such a pattern of murder is found, it is always attributed to the Mob and never to anyone else.

17.  A disproportionate number of villains are represented by minorities, especially Middle Easterners, German scientists, Asians, Colombians, and Russians. Most of these villains are intent on taking over the world. Nobody ever explains why they would WANT to take over the world.

18.   Serial killers and psychopathic murderers usually got that way because of poor mothering. Their fathers are rarely, if ever, mentioned. Serial killers usually seem perfectly normal to everyone around them, holding down regular jobs, keeping up their yards, and apparently just enjoying murder and mayhem for recreational purposes…except for when they are caught, in which case they turn to bizarre, frothing-at-the-mouth behavior that is liable to throw everyone into a complete panic. They also become supernaturally strong and can carry dead bodies or passed-out detectives twice their weight right over their shoulders.

19. Sociopaths have problems with their consciences. Psychopaths are clever but crazy and bloodthirsty. Both of the terms are obsolete synonyms for “anti-social personality disorder. Whatever they’re called, in fiction both have a tendency to lurk around in the darkness, just out of the sight or hearing of their victims, thinking bizarre, discombobulated thoughts that show them to be bonkers. But somehow they still manage to carry off their murders without leaving much in the way of clues, and it usually takes 300 pages or more for the intrepid sleuth(s) to catch them. When they get caught, they’re usually either bonkers - or fully aware and laughing maniacally. Or both.

20.  Once the villains have captured the detective or sleuth, they are never in any hurry to dispose of them. Instead, the villains spend considerable time explaining how and why and when they committed their crimes, often exulting in their cleverness. They also often say things like, “I’m real sorry I have to do this, but you just happen to know too much. You should never have seen/done (fill in the blank).”  Even when it is clear that reinforcements are on the way, the arrogant criminal just has to get those last bits of explanation in so he or she can chortle at the sleuth, which inevitably gives our hero just enough time to get free and safe the day.

And those are my “laws” so far. Anybody have others to add?

© 2010 Lori L. Lake, www.LoriLLake.com
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Lori L. Lake is the award-winning author of Snow Moon Rising and the “Gun” series. She’s published six novels, two collections of short stories, and had her short stories included in The Silence of the Loons and Once Upon A Crime. Now relocated from Minnesota to Portland, Oregon, Lori is putting the finishing touches on the first book in a mainstream mystery series.  Visit her web site at:  http://www.lorillake.com/

By Guest Blogger Jeri Westerson

Ah history! I loved history in school. I know some of you cringe at the thought. But I was lucky enough to have parents who also loved history and I suppose I absorbed it my osmosis. To me, history was never a dead story or a bunch of dates to be memorized. That’s the mistake that many a history teacher makes. Yes, it’s good to know what happened when, but the reasons behind what happened gives it the human story.

And that’s what it’s about when you write mysteries in an historical setting. You have to make the human story matter.

But the history is not just window dressing. Readers who like their mystery with history are pretty discriminating. It must be integral to the story, else why put it in that setting? You might as well dress the characters in colorful costumes and paint some cardboard backgrounds. No, the history is also the story.

I write a series of “medieval noir” novels, set in fourteenth century London. And though I call it “hardboiled detective fiction in a medieval setting” that’s not window dressing. It’s taking the tropes of hardboiled fiction and finding those similarities in the Middle Ages and, surprisingly, there were a lot of comparisons. In the Middle Ages, the sense of community was of great importance and anyone who set themselves outside of the norm was bound to be shunned, so having my protagonist, Crispin Guest, an ex-knight turned detective, set apart from his peers because of treason and made a pariah not only follows the dictates of the history but sets him up as the hard drinking, chip on his shoulder, lone wolf detective found so often in hardboiled tales.

In an historical, there is a special set of challenges. It involves a lot of world-building to allow the reader a soft landing into the time and place you are writing about. You can’t just dump all the info about the period in their laps. It requires a more subtle progression. The reader needs to be made aware of the mores of the time, the clothing, the food, what the culture was like and how the detective does or does not fit into it. What is his struggle along with the other characters who inhabit the plot?

Is he a man of his time or can you substitute any timeframe? That’s always a danger, making the character too modern. But your hero should definitely be a man of his time, that his circumstances couldn’t have happened in any other time period (except for those very human emotions that we can all relate to: love, hate, humiliation, loss) and that his socialization is firmly entrenched in his era. That might mean imbuing your character with certain prejudices that rub you the wrong way but it could also mean creating the circumstances by which he can change his mind by story’s end without compromising the time period.

Yeah, did I say challenges?

And then there is the research. In this internet age we live in, there is no time or place we can’t research. But the internet is no substitute for good old-fashioned book reading. I still find myself in libraries, usually university libraries and archives, reading big textbooks for the information I need. But the internet does offer almost instantaneous access to places and people you wouldn’t have had before. I can reach people in specific archives across the pond and have received generous help that way, even articles and Xeroxed copies of floorplans and such snail mailed to me from afar. I can talk to a whole group of medieval scholars, professors, and historians around the world on one email list I belong to, gleaning research recommendations, translations of phrases into Latin and medieval French, and posing seemingly innocuous questions that turn into treatises (you can’t take the least bit of everyday life for granted. You’ll stumble where you least expect it).

If you start with the internet, there are a few caveats. Never use information from a website that doesn’t offer a bibliography for further research. While researching my third novel that’s coming out in October, THE DEMON’S PARCHMENT, I had to look into the blood libels against medieval Jews. The blood libels concerned the Christian belief that Jews killed children by crucifying them and drinking their blood for the Passover in retribution for all that the Jews suffered. Many innocent Jews and whole neighborhoods were wiped out because of these false accusations. But while scanning the net for more reading material, I came across what seem to be a very literate site about the blood libels, intimating that some of them might be true. I found this curious as I had not come across this sort of information before and I read the site and their list of citations. Finally, it gave a few links to other sites for more information and when I clicked on to the next link all sorts of swastikas and Arian Nation stuff popped up and I thought “Oh. That’s why I never heard of these before.” So, always check your sources.

Why write stories in an historical setting? I think that the distant past seems a bit exotic and even romantic to us. I think that readers, including me, like to get lost in another place and time when people acted and thought differently, where the clothes they wore and even the food they ate informed their every move and philosophy.

As for me, chivalry is not dead but it is also not polite Dutch-boy coifed knights and velvet gowned ladies in sunlight groves. It’s a gritty time of hardship, of love and loss, of just trying to get by. And let’s not forget, it’s also about murder and solving it the best way my detective can without benefit of a bevy of scientists and police. He’s a man alone in more ways than one.
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Jeri Westerson makes her “man alone” come alive in her Crispin Guest Medieval Noir novels. Her latest, SERPENT IN THE THORNS, has her ex-knight detective in a suspenseful fight to stop the assassination of King Richard II while fighting his own demons and his past. Read an excerpt on her website http://www.jeriwesterson.com/.         

Jeri is president of the Orange County chapter of Sisters in Crime and a member of Sisters in Crime Los Angeles.

And, compliments of Jeri ... free chocolate cake (with raspberries).  Yum!

So, Where do you get your ideas?

By Guest Blogger Carl Brookins

That’s the marvelous cliché that purports to drive authors crazy because it’s asked so many times in a variety of ways. All right, let’s examine the question. A friend of mine once said she thought that writers are like cosmic vacuum cleaners. They suck up all sorts of dust and detritus from the universe, massage it, group, list and categorize it, and store it until a good use for it shows up.

I do that. A few years ago, as I was wandering through some buildings at our Minnesota State Fair, I saw a man demonstrating some really sharp knives. Of course, I thought about how easy it would be to slice some flesh with one of those things. A little while later I was in one of the food buildings and a man at one of the counters was just starting to cut into a round of cheese. You know, those things that are usually round with a hard waxy covering? They come in all sizes, but these were about as big as a hockey puck, maybe a little larger. As I watched him—he had a really sharp knife too—it occurred to me that those rounds might make ideal containers. If they were carefully hollowed out you could transport a small measure of powder in them. You know, like talcum powder?

Right.

Now you take a common Aussie and British phrase meaning it’s tough, old stick, or words to that effect, and what do you get? Maybe you get this:

So there’s just one example. Places sometimes suggest stories. “Devils Island,” for example. “The Keep.” Doesn’t that sound a little ominous? What’s a “keep” anyway? I don’t know but I bet if I look it up something will come to me that might be made into a story. How about “Vermillion Drift?” Is that a place or an activity? Is it dangerous, like “Wicked Games?”

So the answer to the question is that authors get their ideas from almost any and every-where. Do you ever get the feeling when you are around an author that he or she is listening and observing you? I’ve noticed that some really good authors in a crowd of people seem to spend more time listening than they do talking. I think they are cataloging ideas and language from the people around them. Now, I wouldn’t want you to get paranoid, dear reader, but sometimes there is somebody following you. Thankfully, she isn’t green.
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Before he became a mystery writer and reviewer, Brookins was a freelance photographer, worked in public television and cable TV, and was a counselor and faculty member at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He has reviewed mystery fiction for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press and for Mystery Scene Magazine. His reviews also appear on his own internet web site, and on others, including Books n’ Bytes and ReviewingtheEvidence. Brookins writes the sailing adventure series featuring Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney, the Sean NMI Sean private investigator detective series, and a series featuring the adventures of a mid-level administrator, Jack Marsden, at an unusual urban college.

Visit Carl's web site:  http://www.carlbrookins.com/

Murder As Therapy?

By Eve Sandstrom  / Joanna Carl

I collect the books of Patricia Wentworth, a British writer of the 30s, 40s and 50s. In some ways her books are dreadful, but I think they are perfect bedtime reading. Her characters and plots are so predictable that they're as comforting as macaroni and cheese with a chocolate bar on top, and I've read each of her books so often that a single chapter knocks me out for at least eight hours.


I am currently reading one that I remember checking out of the library when I was in high school. My mother and I both read it, and I remember we laughed together at the solution to the crime. The reason? In Patricia Wentworth the reader can absolutely rely on one thing -- the villain will not turn out to be a sympathetic character. And this book had only one unsympathetic character, and that character was the victim. My mom and I were both stumped. (Spoiler: It finally turned out that the victim tried to kill someone else and accidently killed herself. Not very believable, but believability isn't the reason you read Mrs. Wentworth.)

Rereading this book made me think a bit about how victims should be selected.

On panels I often mention the emotional satisfactions of killing people fictionally. For example, I say, everyone who has e-mail has some so-called friend who daily sends us 'special' items -- jokes, political comment, cartoons, or poems.

The sender sees these items as inspirational or amusing.

I can guarantee that those items will not amuse or inspire the person who gets them. They will annoy and anger the recipient.

I continue this panel comment by saying, "In one of my books, I killed that person."

The panel audience never fails to respond with loud and prolonged applause.

Like Patricia Wentworth, I prefer to have both villain and victim be obnoxious -- people for whom the reader will feel no particular grief or sympathy. Does this prove I'm a mean, rotten person? I hope not. I think all it means is that I'm writing mysteries that depend on the puzzle to keep the reader interested and, yes, entertained. If the reader my books attract gets bogged down in the psychological aspects of grief, or of villainy, my mysteries are not going to be fun for them to read. If, for example, the detective's favorite uncle is the victim, he has to have died long ago, long enough ago that the viewpoint character has dealt with her grief and can get down to solving the mystery. I admit, I hate books where someone wonderful is killed and nobody seems to miss them.

Another writer, writing another type of book, may emphasize thought-provoking situations my readers would find too heavy. She may need a truly pitiful victim, maybe a child, to show how heartless the villain is. Or perhaps a cruel drug dealer who needs to be killed to justify her tough detective taking care of the matter. Or a serial killer for a serial killer who kills serial killers (sound familiar?) to handle. You gotta write what you gotta write. Each of us is different, as a reader and as a writer.

But there are still people I'm considering for the role of victim in future books, people my escapist readers would enjoy seeing dead.

How about those people who talk on their cell phones loudly in public places? Oh, sure, this is a minor annoyance. None of us is really going to kill somebody over this. Except in fiction. (The caller is overheard calling the wrong person, see? So the bad guy has to shut him up before he can reveal what he asked. Bingo! Down the elevator shaft.)

How about those guys with the loud cars who roar up and down the collector street near us in the middle of the night? No, annoying as they are, I don't intend to dig a ditch out there and flip their roaring cars over. Not in real life. But I could do it in a book.

How about snotty writers who tell others how to pick their victims. They probably deserve to face the fictional blunt instrument, too.

How about a writer who's getting a lot of hype for a first book, and thinks she/he deserves it because of its literary excellence. Almost always the book lacks literary excellence and the writer has been singled out for some other reason. I remember one who was the publisher's darling because of his unusual research technique. He's no longer publishing at all, but that first book had a heck of an ad budget, and he preened his feathers at every convention that year. When we meet these people we have to smile graciously, but it's sure fun to kill'em when we get back to the computer.

( I don't think this is simply jealousy on my part. I don't begrudge success for fellow writers most of the time. It's something about the way these particular writers handle it. Does anyone remember the New Yorker cartoon of the writer telling his girlfriend, "The worst part of my never making it big is, I could handle it." That's me.)

Anyway, when I disguise these people and shoot'em dead, it doesn't hurt them at all. And it makes me feel deeply satisfied.
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JoAnna Carl is a pseudonym for Eve K. Sandstrom, who early in the present century was president of Sisters in Crime. She writes the Chocoholic books, which feature as a detective a young woman who is business manager for a chocolate shop in an exclusive Lake Michigan resort. The ninth book will be The Chocolate Pirate Plot, due out next October. In this one the victim was not selected according to the suggestions in the preceding blog, but it you want to live, she suggests that you don't tick her off.  Check out her web site here.

Risk Management and Other Writerly Thoughts

by Annette Meyers

So, last year I had this intriguing, exciting first line of a book or maybe a short story in my head. I’d been playing with it for months while I was finishing what I hoped would be the final draft of my new novel, and while I was serving sporadically as an arbitrator on cases for FINRA.

I’ve always worked on the start of a book this way: The first line comes and I store it away in my brain and take it out and look at it and play with it, then put it back and keep doing it until I’m ready to sit down at the computer and begin writing.

But last spring I woke in the morning and called up my intriguing first line and it didn’t come. And it didn’t come during the day. And it didn’t come during my meditation. And it didn’t come when I planted the request in my thoughts before I went to sleep at night. I couldn’t believe it. I called a long time friend (writer) and asked if this had ever happened to her. She said it had. Sometimes it comes back, sometimes it doesn’t. But it didn’t make me feel any better.

And then I was watching Mad Men one night and one of the creative team, Paul, had stayed late into the night trying to work on copy for an ad and early in the morning he had it, the perfect line. He toasted himself and fell asleep at his desk and in the morning, the line was gone. When he met with Don Draper and Peggy Olson to talk about the copy, he said he’d had the perfect line and when he woke up it was gone. And Don and Peggy both said, oh, I hate when that happens.

What I decided to do was open a file called “Opening Lines” so it will never happen to me again. The file has grown to include titles, character descriptions, dialogue, ideas, whole paragraphs. It’s become my safety net.

But my intriguing, exciting first line has never come back. What has come to me is a new opening line for my novel SOMETHING DARKER, a police procedural, and taking no chances, I typed it onto the first page for me to rewrite. It’s a police procedural because when I was asked to do a story for SISTERS ON THE CASE, I wanted to try something different and since I’d never done a police procedural, I wrote “Not Just the Facts.” I decided that my next novel would be a police procedural, and that’s exactly what SOMETHING DARKER is.

I’ve always believed that I must keep coming through a different door, keep stretching, not grow stale writing the same characters over and over. To keep challenging myself as a writer, I went from contemporary Smith and Wetzon, third person through Wetzon’s eyes, to historical (fictional poet) Olivia Brown in first person, to Maan Meyers historicals with Marty, multiple points of view and omniscient author. I’ve written short stories in present tense. I like the immediacy of

But I did a really big stretch this winter. When I wrote Olivia Brown I reacquainted myself with various poetic forms so that I could feel comfortable writing Olivia’s poems. I came across the villanelle with its rhyming and pentameter restrictions and made a note on a post-it and stuck it to a photo on my desk. This winter I began to wonder if I could turn a vicious crime story I’d clipped from the newspapers several years ago into a villanelle. I wrote “The Villain’s Villanelle,” and EQMM just told me  "The Villain's Villanelle" will go on sale on June 22, in what they call the August issue.

It’s a magnificent obsession, this writing thing. Whenever I think, that’s it--especially considering the publishing climate these days and most of the editors I knew not around any--more--and I’m ready to put my feet up and read and do all the things I don’t do when I’m writing, an idea comes. But I’ve learned my lesson: This time it goes into my Opening Lines files.
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Annette Meyers is the author of eight Smith and Wetzon Wall Street mysteries, two Olivia Brown 1920s mysteries, and a standalone suspense novel: Repentances. As Maan Meyers, she and her husband Martin have written seven history mysteries and numerous short stories set in New York in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. One of Annette’s short stories was included in Best American Mystery Stories, 2002. She was the 10th president of Sister in Crime and serves on the board of the International Association of Crime Writers, NA. Website: http://www.meyersmysteries.com/

Let's Be Honest: Success Equals Fame and Big Bucks

By Guest Blogger Elizabeth Sims

Not long ago I spoke on a panel of authors, agents, and editors in a bookstore in Alaska. As we took our places in front of the audience, I wondered, "What are aspiring authors in Alaska like?"

My unasked question was answered by a man in the front row who raised his hand. "We all know we're supposed to just be glad that we write," he said. "We're supposed to not care whether we get a big contract or not. But let's be honest: we all want to make it big, we all want to write bestsellers, we all want to be famous, and we all want to be millionaires. Now my question to you people is: what's the main thing I have to do to get there?"

In other words, aspiring authors in Alaska are exactly like aspiring authors everywhere. I admired that man's honesty. Indeed, although I've reached the enviable level of midlist author, I'm just like him. I too want to make it big and all the rest. Especially the millions of dollars. Hell, yes!

Which provokes the question: how should an author define success?

Most amateur writers I talk to are shocked to learn that none—none—of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books were in print when he died. He was a has-been in his own time. That's happened to tons of tremendously talented authors. Worse still, any of us can point to some bestselling idiot who doesn't have a tenth of the talent we do.

The writing life ain't fair and that's that.

However, I have no patience for writing experts who tell aspiring authors things like, "Forget fame and fortune. Odds are against you ever achieving them with your writing." When somebody says that, I want to kill her. I want to hack off her head with a machete and kick it down a ravine.

Life is tough enough for authors without that bullshit. We know we've chosen a challenging path. We know, empirically and intuitively, that the odds are against us. Anybody attempting to do something extraordinary knows the odds are long. Win a marathon, develop a new cancer drug, find a lost civilization, be CEO before age 30, write a book, get a book published, have a big-time successful writing career.

The paradox is this: if you believe the odds are against you, you won't produce your best work. Why? Because you'll be too busy battling depression. It's damaging to listen to naysayers, especially ones disguised as helpers.

You've got to act as if the odds are in your favor. You've got to believe it in your heart or you're doomed.

You've got to believe that you'll achieve everything you can dream of: Glowing reviews, a thick stream of royalty checks, booksignings attended not only by your friends and relatives but by strangers who have actually read and loved your books. You've got to be able to visualize an ugly little statuette of a man's head with a painted-on mustache sitting in a place of prominence on your shelf. If you do that, you'll find yourself committed to developing your talent as far as it can go. You'll have a shot at the big time.

Believe. That's my answer to the man in Alaska.

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Elizabeth Sims is the author of the Rita Farmer mysteries (The Extra, The Actress, and the forthcoming On Location) as well as the Lambda Award-winning Lillian Byrd mysteries. She is also a Contributing Editor at Writer's Digest magazine, where she specializes in the art and craft of fiction. Her formative years were spent investigating the lives of Nancy Drew, Laura Ingalls, and Sherlock Holmes, as well as making gunpowder in the basement with her chemistry set. Now, as a published crime author, she's living proof that studying literature and misbehaving with reactive compounds can work out. She's a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Mensa International. www.elizabethsims.com.

Crime Fiction—the Odd Cousin?

By Guest Blogger L.J. Sellers

“Does the crime writer sit in the same chair at the table of literature as a transvestite cousin at a family gathering?”

Say what?

That question came to me, via Facebook, from a researcher working on a PhD dissertation about the mystery/crime genre. The analogy both amused and disheartened me. Over the years, I’ve tried to accept that genre fiction isn’t counted in the same category as literary fiction. I’ve tried to ignore the occasions where a reviewer declared that a particular mystery or thriller “transcends the genre,” as if crime fiction had built-in limitations and readers had to approach it with low expectations.

But now that I’ve been compared to an "odd" cousin, I have to respond. What a load of nonsense.

From my perspective, crime fiction offers the best reading on nearly every level. The genre confronts the realities of life across various cultures more often and more honestly than mainstream/literary fiction does.

Crime novels are suited to exploring provocative social issues and showing how those hot-button subjects affect various people’s lives, often from diverse perspectives. Crime fiction can be surprisingly poignant and analytical about problems such as illegal immigration, human trafficking, and drug use. These novels highlight deep-rooted cultural ills such as racism, sexism, bigotry, and the dangers of stereotypes. Sometimes a mystery will show a stereotype in all its glory, reminding us of why stereotypes exist and how we all fit into one … at least a little bit. The crime genre often forces us to see the world from perspectives that make us think outside our comfort zone.

As crime writers and readers, we get to make sense of things that would otherwise haunt us. We learn why the family next door disappeared one day or what’s really going on in the creepy warehouse across the street. Sometimes that knowledge helps us sleep better and sometimes it doesn’t, but at least we learn one version of the truth.

Police procedurals and thrillers give us a medium through which we can experience the triumph of good over evil. For short while with each story, we get to be the good guy, the hero who rescues the kidnapped child or saves the president’s life. We get to drag the bad guys off to jail or shoot them dead if “they need killing”— fantasies we can’t act out in our everyday lives. The real-world events around us can be unjust and inexplicable. It’s important to our collective mental health to experience justice, order, and revelation through fiction.

Novels with well-written protagonists and antagonists bring us to terms with the duality within ourselves. Humans are all deeply flawed, with the capacity for great goodness as well as for deceit, jealousy, schadenfreude, addiction, selfishness, and often worse. When crime fiction heroes—detectives, FBI agents, and prosecutors—possess such flaws, we not only relate to those characters, we forgive ourselves for the same shortcomings. When a killer calls his mother or pets a stray dog, we hate him a little less and remember to look for good qualities in everyone.

Crime novels explore relationships in a way that few other genres can. What better mechanism to test a bond between husband and wife, parent and child, or lifelong friends than to embroil the relationship in a crime, either as victims, suspects, or perpetrators. Similar to natural disasters, the aftermath of a crime can bring out the best—or worst—in humans.

The genre is rich with possibilities for exploring the complexity of the human condition. Victims become predators; predators become victims. A person is guilty, but not in the way we’ve been led to believe. Most of all, crime fiction is full of surprises, and we readers love the unexpected. When was the last time a reviewer used the word twist when discussing a literary novel?

If the detective writer is the odd cousin at the literary family gathering, then perhaps the family is a bit dysfunctional to begin with.

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L.J. Sellers is an award-winning journalist, editor, and the author of the Detective Jackson mystery/suspense series. The first two books, The Sex Club and Secrets to Die For, have been highly praised, and the third book, Thrilled to Death, will be released in August. Her next two novels, Passions of the Dead and The Baby Thief, will be published in 2011. When not plotting murders, L.J. enjoys performing standup comedy, cycling, social networking, attending mystery conferences, and editing fiction manuscripts.  Be sure to visit L.J.'s web site.

Finding A Way

By Carolyn Hart

I would love to say after publishing 44 books that I have captured the magic elixir and that I toss off books as easily as a conjuror pulls a rabbit from a top hat.

No.

Writing is hard. Always. Every book is a challenge. If I knew more about magic and top hats, very likely I would realize that producing a rabbit is always a challenge, too. Nothing worth doing is easy.

Every book is like climbing a new, taller, more dangerous mountain, a crevasse here, a slippery rock there, an unexpected overhang blocking the way. But when a writer reaches the top, that rarefied perch with the earth spread below, the writer has gained in skill. I don’t pretend to have many answers, much less all the answers, but I can share some techniques that I have learned over the years in writing classic puzzles.

Long ago as an aspiring writer I was informed that YOU MUST OUTLINE. That is not true for many writers. For some, for those whose minds can entertain the far flung needs of a story from the outset, an outline is essential and their way to begin. For as many authors, myself included, there will never be a formal outline.

Here is what I know when I begin: the protagonist(s), the victim, the identity of the murderer and the motive, the setting, and a working title. I am a "what if" writer. The story happens as I write. To me, that affords joy in writing. In Death of the Party, Annie and Max Darling go to a remote sea island to investigate a death which occurred a year earlier. Early in the book, Max decides to take a walk about the island. On a path in the woods, he hears someone approaching. As he comes around a bend, he meets a burly, muscular, middle-aged man. I had no idea what Max would find when he set out on the walk. I was as surprised as he at the unexpected encounter. The new character becomes very important in the book and I didn’t know he was coming.

I am suggesting that you can discover a book by letting your main character take a walk or pick up the phone or run after a taxi or climb a fire escape. What if . . .

Be particular about your characters’ names. I try to have each name begin with a different letter. I have so many recurring characters in the Death on Demand series that occasionally names will begin with the same letter, but it is rare. Make it easy for readers by using names that sound and look different.

Present clues fairly to the readers while hiding them in plain sight. I have a short passage in Deadly Valentine in which I describe an older man who is a murder victim. The reader will not be surprised because his unpleasant personality was described. The description also included the inference that he was impotent and that was a major clue. However, to the reader the emphasis was on his nasty disposition.

Readers are accustomed to attending movies and sorting out the hero and the villain by the action. You don’t have to tell readers. Let them see for themselves. Often when I write a scene, I summarize too much because I’m focused on the main point I want to achieve. I find that I’ve told the readers. I go back and rewrite and let the readers see and hear and feel what led up to the important action in the scene.

When I had written about 23 books, I had a Eureka moment. I don’t outline before I start, but I outline as I am writing. That way I have a breakdown of the action and can easily find a certain passage if I feel it needs changes. I write the outline by chapters in a yellow legal pad. In the left margin, I write the day and time and, if important, weather. I also write the ms. page numbers.

As I write, I make notes about what I want to add or subtract or modify and I have many, many scraps of paper floating around. It isn’t orderly, but it captures fleeting thoughts that can make a difference in the ms.

When writing a scene, I am always aware that the protagonist has a goal and I as author have a goal. Annie Darling in the opening pages of The Christie Caper is thinking about getting ready for a marvelous party to kick off her conference in honor of Agatha Christie. That is her goal. My goal is to introduce important characters to the reader.   

Treat editors with courtesy and respect. They are editors because they love books. On occasion an editor will not be helpful, but most editorial suggestions will be helpful. The editor can see the forest when the author is lost in the trees.

I have been blessed with extraordinarily good editors. Sometimes I decline to make a suggested change, but often I see that I can indeed improve the scene. In Deadly Valentine, the editor suggested that I introduce the main characters before Annie Darling encounters them at a Valentine Ball. I had Annie’s ditzy mother-in-law invite Annie down to the dock where Laurel casually inquires about the residences ringing the lagoon. As Annie describes her neighbors, the reader meets these characters before the crush of the ball. The editor made the suggestion that the characters be introduced. It was up to me as the author to figure out how to accomplish that task.

The challenge in writing is that it is always hard. The joy is that once the first draft is done, writing is fun. At that point, you have the book. Take that ms., mold and smooth and straighten and correct. When the work is done, be proud. You have created a story that no one else could have written.

God Bless.
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An accomplished master of mystery, Carolyn Hart is the author of over forty crime novels in three different series.  Her books have won multiple Agatha, Anthony and Macavity awards. Her latest release is Laughed 'Til He Died.  She lives in Oklahoma City, and is one of the founders of Sisters in Crime. Visit her website at:  www.carolynhart.com

THE BUSINESS OF WRITING

by Margaret Maron

I have yet to meet a writer who doesn’t want to quit her day job and write full time, but I’ve met lots of writers who don’t pay enough attention to the business aspects of writing and who wind up giving the IRS money they could have kept in their own pockets.

I am not a tax expert and I certainly don’t play one on television, but these are some of the things I’ve learned about the tax code along the way to becoming a fulltime writer. If you proceed with caution and don’t try to carry your fictional skills too far over onto your 1040 form, you should be okay with the IRS.

First off, is writing your hobby or is it your business? You’ve always loved to write and now you’ve sold some short stories for a few hundred dollars or you received a modest advance on your first book and then didn’t sell anything else for a couple of years. Are you a professional writer or not? If you aren’t sure, then go to the IRS website and search for “FS-2007-18, April 2007 - Business or Hobby?” The guidelines laid out there are fairly simple, especially the statement: “The IRS presumes that an activity is carried on for profit if it makes a profit during at least three of the last five tax years, including the current year.” That’s the key. Three out of the last five years. It doesn’t have to be a large profit, just enough that the IRS won’t audit you because you deducted your writing expenses as losses those other two years.

So what are business expenses? To quote FS-2007-18 again, “An ordinary expense is an expense that is common and accepted in the taxpayer’s trade or business. A necessary expense is one that is appropriate for the business.”

In other words, a plain-vanilla computer would be an ordinary expense. A high-end computer with all the bells and whistles could also be considered appropriate for a writer. So would a camera to document scenes for your book. A weekly manicure to keep your nails short for typing? Don’t bet on it. But a trip to England might be.

Most writers don’t earn as much as doctors or lawyers or bankers, but we get to deduct everything they can; and because our “work product” grows out of our imagination and experience, we get to deduct almost everything that feeds that imagination: magazines, newspapers, professional and trade journals for research, membership in professional organizations (Sisters in Crime, MWA, Authors Guild), registration fees for related conferences, writing classes, every penny you spend in a book store or office supply store, expenses related to your website, and trips to exotic locales where your books are set.

Repeat after me: All travel is research. Never mind that the kids are along or that you’re visiting your sick Aunt Minnie in Toledo. Hey, you might want to set a scene on a cruise ship or in Disney World or in Toledo. Who knows? You do not actually have to write a scene set on a cruise ship or in Disney World or Toledo as long as you take a few notes and keep a log. Most cities have book stores and libraries. If you arrange to go by and sign stock at the store or to speak at the library, then it’s automatically a business trip. A trip to Venice resulted in a short story that I sold to EQMM and my accountant thought that deducting 80% of my expenses for the whole trip was reasonable. I took notes along the way and I kept a log.

If you don’t have a log, please go out and get one right now—your mileage to get to the store and the cost of the log itself are both tax-deductible. Force yourself to use it. Yes, your favorite electronic gizmo can record data, too, but an old-fashioned paper log will never disappear into an electronic black hole. I use one of those week-at-a-glance calendar books and staple a flat plastic bag inside the back cover. Every trip into town to buy a ballpoint pen, an ink cartridge or a ream of paper is a business trip. I record the miles in red ink at the top of that day’s space along with the cost of the supplies, and put the receipts in the plastic bag. If you had lunch that day with your writing group, you can jot down a note or two about any writing or publishing tips that you might have picked up, along with the cost of your “business lunch.”

At the end of the year, I hand the log to whoever’s doing my taxes and all she has to do is add up the red figures. She doesn’t have to look at the receipts, but they are there should the IRS start asking questions. Again though, the IRS recognizes the validity of logs, especially when backed up by receipts or cancelled checks. You will be amazed at how quickly mileage and expenses will add up. At 50¢ a mile, I can document about 4500 business miles a year. That’s a deductible worth $2250.

Then there’s per diem, the amount you can claim over and above hotel and airfare for the various cities you visit to promote your books or do research.

For example, say you’re going to Bouchercon in San Francisco this fall. You can deduct all travel expenses: your mileage to and from the airport, your parking fees, your air fare, your transportation from airport to the hotel, your hotel room, the $2 you will leave on the bathroom counter for the maid every morning (you do tip the maid every day, don’t you?), the cab you’ll take to a restaurant to meet your editor or agent, etc.

Google “Per diem rates” and you’ll see that for the year 2010, the IRS will allow you to deduct $71 a day for your meals and incidental expenses in San Francisco. (In Toledo, it’s only $51. Sorry, Aunt Minnie!) Yes, you could list your meals and incidentals individually, but it’s simpler just to take the per diem rate rather than try to get a receipt for every hot dog, drink, or tube of toothpaste. Your accountant will appreciate it, too.

Speaking of which, the accountant’s fees are deductible as are payments to a research assistant, a web guru, or anyone hired to help you in your work as a writer.

If you rent an office, all expenses related to it are deductible. If you have an office in your home, you can deduct a percentage of your mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, and the new roof. The definition here is that your work space is that part of your home “used regularly and exclusively in your work.” This means you can’t claim the whole dining room if the family still eats dinner there every evening. But you can claim a corner of any room where you regularly work if those few square feet are maintained exclusively for your work.

Again though, let me state for the record that I am not a tax lawyer nor an accountant, so if in doubt, talk to an IRS agent. They can be very helpful and will sometimes suggests deductions you may not have thought of. (I’ll never forget the time an IRS agent told a friend’s husband, “She’s hired you to be her chauffeur and body guard? Then you can deduct your gym fees to stay in shape!”) For what it’s worth though, I’ve been following these modest practices for thirty years and have never been audited even though I claim several thousand in deductible expenses every year. Good citizens should gladly pay their honest share of taxes, but nothing says you have to pay more than that unless you’re too lazy to document your deductions.

Good luck and here’s hoping you’ll soon earn enough to think about becoming an S-Corp
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Margaret Maron is a founding member and former president of Sisters in Crime. Her current book is Sand Sharks.  The 16th in her Judge Deborah Knott series, Christmas Mourning, will be published November 2010.  Visit her web site:  http://www.margaretmaron.com/

I'm Erin Hart, and I write slowly.

By Erin Hart

My name is Erin, and I’m a slow writer.

We’re talking tortoise-speed. Molasses-in-January slow.

I don’t suppose that comes as a complete surprise to anyone who knows me well. In medieval history class years ago, each student had to come up with an emblem for a personal coat of arms. Mine featured a snail couchant (how else?), and the motto, “L’escargot, c’est moi.”

I could make up a whole lot of excuses, or tell you that I work slowly on purpose, deliberately honing and shaping language, setting up a strong sense of place, developing three-dimensional characters, gathering up and tying all the disparate plotlines into a delightfully satisfying knot. I’d like to say that I’m just that choosy about what I put down on the page.

But the plain truth is that I have no idea how to write any faster.

One of the main reasons that I’m so slow is that I have no idea who the killer is when I begin writing a book. Seriously. (And by the way, that’s true of about ninety percent of crime writers I’ve polled over the years.) I may have some theories about whodunit, but sometimes I’m completely off the mark.

As a result, my novels develop at a pace that is somewhat leisurely (some might even say glacial), but it’s a fact that seems quite beyond my control. So when people ask, “What’s your typical writing day like?” I’ve taken to quoting Oscar Wilde:

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”

Some days are like that. Or worse. All right, so a lot of the agony of creation is just second-guessing oneself, riding the see-saw over every adverb and pronoun, endlessly tweaking dialogue and description, tossing out page after page of drecky first, second, and third drafts, and re-reading prose that seemed so brilliant yesterday only to find that it’s turned to absolute rubbish in the space of twenty-four hours.

I first heard the story that inspired my first novel, HAUNTED GROUND, in the summer of 1986: two brothers cutting turf in the west of Ireland stumbled upon the perfectly-preserved, severed head of a beautiful red-haired girl. Although my first instinct said that I’d just been handed a perfect opening for a mystery, I didn’t write a single word of that story for a full decade. In my own defense, there was a hurdle. Just a minor thing, really—I wasn’t a writer. Had never written anything except a few angst-ridden songs as an angst-ridden teenager, plus all the usual term papers for school. I never had dreams of becoming a writer. I always read like a fiend, but somehow writing books was outside the sphere of possibility. Until I heard the story of that red-haired girl. She continued to haunt me, eventually forcing me to try my hand—even ten years later.

I began writing HAUNTED GROUND in 1996. As I recall, Frank McCourt had just published ANGELA’S ASHES, which won huge critical acclaim and became an instant bestseller. And as I also recall, my wonderfully patient agent kept urging me to hurry up and finish my novel before all things Irish went out of fashion. (Not realizing, I guess, that thanks to the Famine and resulting diaspora, Irish-ness has never gone out of fashion, and probably never will.)

So HAUNTED GROUND came along at its own pace, which turned out to be roughly sixteen years from initial idea to publication. There are probably several main reasons for its long gestation: I was pretty busy, working full time, and freelancing as a theater critic and writing teacher. I had never written a novel and had to learn how to construct a mystery as I went along. (In this one respect, ignorance was my friend—I didn’t know that I couldn’t write a novel, because I’d never tried.) On top of all that, I also had to do an awful lot of research—reading dozens of books, interviewing experts on wetland and dryland archaeology, forensic science, museum preservation, antiquities, Irish history, architecture, police procedure—the list goes on and on. Finally, there was that pesky streak of perfectionism that made me re-work the manuscript over and over again, trying to make the story on the page at least approach the complex, utterly brilliant story that existed in my imagination.

Some writers can actually make a plan and churn out so many hundred words a day. Or they schedule six months for research, three months for a first draft, and three months for revision, and voilá—at the end of a year they have a finished manuscript. Although writing is my full-time job these days, my so-called “process” is completely unpredictable and organic. The initial idea generates the first few chapters, and (ideally) a setting and a theme to explore. The setting and theme in turn trigger the research; the research scours up all sorts of interesting details and connections that go back into the story through the plot and characters. Eventually, the process becomes ever more circular: one thing feeds the other, to the point that the writing and the research become virtually inseparable. For me, there’s no other way to fashion the many layers necessary for a satisfying story.

“Surely it gets easier with the second or third book?” hopeful readers sometimes ask. “Once you get the hang of it.”

In fact, LAKE OF SORROWS, my second book, seemed to follow directly on the heels of the first—it was published just eighteen months after HAUNTED GROUND, even though it actually took three years to write, most of that time that was invisible to readers, since it was masked by the two full years of editing, design, promotion, and marketing that it takes to launch a debut novelist these days.

FALSE MERMAID, the third and latest in the series, also had quite a long gestation—five and a half years from inception to publication. To be honest, the third book was a real struggle—partly because it was such a different animal from the first two: much more psychological, and much more focused on the experiences of a single character, pathologist Nora Gavin. I struggled with the fragments of backstory I’d set up in the previous books—Nora’s sister Tríona had been murdered, most likely by her husband, but I didn’t want to make it an open-and-shut case. If it were that simple, I told myself, the crime would have been solved long ago. No, there had to be something extra mysterious about Nora’s sister and the circumstances that led to her terrible death. And then there was my own penchant for parallel mysteries, one contemporary and one historical, that would somehow come together at the end of the book. It also didn’t help that most of FALSE MERMAID was set in Saint Paul, Minnesota—my wonderful home town, but far from the exotic and other-worldly Irish locales that usually get my creative juices flowing.

So it took a while. And people started to get impatient. In the last few months before FALSE MERMAID was finished, I was out weeding the garden, and a neighbor’s car came screeching to a halt at the curb. She rolled down the window: “Where’s the new book?”

A few weeks later, just before the first frost, I was painting the trim around our new garage door. Another neighbor, out walking her dog, stopped to ask, “What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you inside writing?”

When at last I had galleys in hand, and began making calls to bookstores, Sara Barnes from Booked for Murder in Madison, Wisconsin, said she got questioned fairly often about when I’d have a new book out: “I try to explain that you probably have a personal life. No one gives a rip. Sorry, but they want you chained to that desk.”

After FALSE MERMAID was released on March 2, the most wonderful (and depressing) reader response went something like this: “I gobbled it up in a single sitting! When is your next book out?”

I guess I still don’t have the hang of writing novels on a tight schedule. I’m beginning to get the feeling that I never will. For now, I just have to accept the way I work (see escargot reference, above) and continue to forge ahead.

I’m thinking of starting a support group for slow writers.

Here’s hoping that in Book Four, I’ll find out whodunit sooner rather than later. I’ve got a killer opening: a man driving a backhoe discovers a car buried in a bog... with the body of a ninth-century monk in the boot. “How on earth did a ninth-century monk get into the boot of a car?” I hear you ask.

Honest answer? Right now, I haven’t the foggiest. But I’m planning to have fun figuring it out!
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Before straying serendipitously into crime fiction, Erin Hart worked as an arts administrator, editor, copywriter, journalist and theater critic. Her debut novel, HAUNTED GROUND (Scribner, 2003), introduced Irish archaeologist Cormac Maguire and American pathologist Nora Gavin. In addition to being included on several "Best" lists, HAUNTED GROUND won the Friends of American Writers award and Romantic Times' Best First Mystery, was shortlisted for Anthony and Agatha awards, and translated into eleven foreign languages. LAKE OF SORROWS (Scribner, 2004) was shortlisted for a Minnesota Book Award and also published around the world. FALSE MERMAID, third in the series, was published by Scribner in March 2010 to broad critical acclaim. Erin and her husband, Irish button accordionist Paddy Orien, live in Minnesota and travel frequently to Ireland. Visit her website at: http://www.erinhart.com/.