Monday, June 19, 2017

Wonder Woman: The Bechdel and Delany Tests

By Vicki Delany

Way back on New Years Week 2015 I discussed the Bechdel test, which is applied to movies, and invented my own test which I call the Delany test.  http://typem4murder.blogspot.ca/2015/01/the-bechdel-test.html


The Bechdel test:

To pass the test the movie must fulfill three criteria:
  • ·         It has to have at least two [named] women in it
  • ·         Who talk to each other
  • ·         About something besides a man

The Delany Test:
  • Female characters must be portrayed as people, not just women.

Both tests, we realized, are surprisingly hard to pass in movies.  TV shows and books are much more likely to pass both tests.  Probably because of the long plot lines in most TV shows today as well as the rich ensemble casts.  Books, frankly, are a lot more realistic than movies anyway and thus their portrait of women’s relationships with each other and their lives are more realistic.

What prompted me to return to this subject is that last week I went to see Wonder Woman.  First of all, just going to the movies is an unusual outing for me.  I probably see one, maybe two movies a year. Not much appeals to me (see above Blechdel and Delany tests). And I certainly don’t go to superhero movies.  

However, with all the attention and praise Wonder Woman is getting, I thought I’d see what it’s all about.

My thoughts, briefly, are that the beginning is great.  I loved the Amazons.  The middle (when they are in London) was amusing and well done.  The second half of the middle, particularly the battle in the trenches of WWI was thrilling.  And then it all fell apart when we had the climactic battle between WW and the ultimate baddie.  Much destruction ensues. Yawn.

As for the Bechdel test and Delany test?

The first part (on the Amazon Island) passed both with flying colours.


Vicki Writing (not exactly as shown)
Vicki Reading (not exactly as shown)

The London part sorta passed the Bechdel test when the secretary and Diana interact. (Although why a spy and airman has a secretary is never mentioned).  Unfortunately they mostly talked about womanly things, like dressing.  Although, and good for the movie producers, the secretary is a robust middle-aged woman, not some sexy Hollywood thing.

Unfortunately, from then on, the Bechdel test fails. Once they leave London, Diana interacts with no other women and she is surrounded only by men. (Hey, it’s a fantasy: if WW can dodge bullets why can’t French village women at least ask her what’s going on here, if not charge the trenches behind her?)


It does pass the Delany test, in that the evil scientist is played by a woman, in a role that could very easily have been done by a man. Meaning the character is a person, who just happens to be female.  

And WW, despite her skimpy costume and love interest with Chris Pine could be, and has been many, many times, a male role.

For what it’s worth, there’s my analysis!

Do the Bechdel test and the Delany test matter to you? Let me know in the comments.
  

Friday, June 16, 2017

Characters and Seasons

Donis's blog yesterday about summer reading reminded me of what I've always liked about summer. As a child (student) and as an adult (teacher), I have three months of "summer vacation." Of course, now that I'm a grown-up, I do need to use my summer to get some work done. But summer is the time when I can stay up late reading a book or go to a matinee in the middle of the day (Wonder Woman is at the top of my list).

What has changed is that I don't go outside as much as I did when I was a child. Of course, I've never been a fan of summer heat and bug bites. But growing up in the country in Virginia with a big back yard and paths through woods and dogs, I would never have thought of wasting a summer day inside. Nowadays, living in a house in the city, I've been contemplating setting up my empty (until winter) garage as an "outdoor" space. The problem with the grass in my small yard is that it might have ticks. And, besides, even with sunscreen, I could get too much sun. Grilling -- I remember those wonder family barbecues in the front yard under the big old tree. But I could blow myself up trying to start a grill and what about the health risks of hot dogs?

My seasonal preferences have carried over to my characters. My Southern-born protagonist, Lizzie Stuart, loves the South but hates heat and storms. Hannah McCabe, my police detective, lives in Albany, New York, and is dealing with the sizzling summers produced by climate change. I've set some books during the summer, but haven't had to think like a "summer person".

That brings me to my challenge with one of my major characters in my 1939 historical thriller. He lives in Georgia, and summer is his season. The heat and the sun. The smell of his own sweat. He stands out in a field watching the black clouds roll in. Then he sits on his porch with a drink watching the storm erupt.

He loves the land and the smell of the soil. If I don't capture this part of who this character is, then his motivation for the things he does will fall flat. But I need to step into his work boots.

So in answer to Donis's question about summer reading, I'm heading South with books (fiction and non-fiction) written during the 1930s. Books about summer, with heat and sweat and storms. And I'm hoping that the weather here in Albany will not echo what I'm reading.

Does your character have a favorite season? A time of year that he or she loves, but you don't?

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Summer Reading

My latest Alafair Tucker novel, Forty Dead Men, is in the can, as they say, and I await my editor’s final approval. I’ve already begun researching my next novel, but the major thing I want to do before I get deep into writing again is really clean the house—and maybe do some summer reading. I read a lot, but I don’t often get to read what I want. Most of my reading is either a novel for review or something that will help me prepare to teach a writing class.

Since I live in the Phoenix, Arizona, metro area, summer is NOT the time for reading a good book out by the pool. That pleasure is reserved for any other time of year. In the middle of summer, the best one can do is close all the curtains, crank up the A/C (and hope that the electricity doesn’t go out), drink lots of water, and lie very still. And if you think I’m kidding, the forecast temperature for the weekend is 116º F, and a projection of 120º F by Tuesday (close to 49º C). As I write this, it’s a reasonable 104º, which by the end of next week will seem almost chilly. All we can do is pray that the National Weather Service prediction is wrong.

In short, when it’s summer in Phoenix, don’t go outside. Stay inside and read a good book.

I have a tendency to choose works by author rather than random title, though a few really great titles have drawn me in. Allow me to list a few authors for your summer reading consideration, present Type M company excepted, because really you can’t go wrong with any of the contributors to this blog. Otherwise:


I love the Hamish Macbeth Mysteries by M.C. Beaton. Her latest is Death of a Ghost.

Mark Pryor’s The Paris Librarian is entertaining and a great way to take a cheap trip to Paris. His latest, The Sorbonne Affair, won't be out until August.


Charlaine Harris’ Aurora Teagarden Mysteries feature a Georgia librarian who is recently married to a mystery novelist. This series is back after a long hiatus. I like them because they have a certain depth and humanity without being ponderous about it. The latest is All The Little Liars.


Any Louise Penny book will take you away to a  mystical world in Quebec. Inspector Armand Gamache is an amazing creation. I find this series rather uneven, but the village of Three Pines is such a nice place to visit that it doesn’t really matter that much. The first novel in the series, Still Life, is the place to start.


If you’re into Regencies (which I can take ‘em or leave ‘em, as a rule), I was impressed with A Useful Woman by Darcie Wilde. Wilde’s description of the haute monde in early 19th Century London is fascinating, and her characters seem like real people.
I also like biographies and non-fiction, and I really thought The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown, was exceptionally good.


Do you have a delightful summer reading suggestion for me, Dear Reader?

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Guiding the string

Aline's Monday post made me smile, especially the "pounds, shillings, and ounces" in Winnie the Pooh's poem. But she poses a serious question; how long is the book you're writing at the moment going to be? Do you know?

This has always been a source of wonderment for me. As I am writing a book, I don't know where it's going, how long it will take to get there, or indeed, most terrifying of all, will it get there at all? As a modified "pantser", I set off on the book's journey with only a few guideposts and a blind trust that others will come into view as I draw nearer to them. I travel this unknown, uncharted road with the thrill of adventure and discovery, as well as the terror that I might never get to the end of it.

And yet, I always do get there, and in my case, almost always within roughly 90,000 to 100,000 words, coincidentally the word count specified on my contracts. How do I do it? What magic guides me? I don't know, nor do I want to put my creativity under a microscope, because I'm afraid it would fly the coop. But I do keep in mind a few crucial guidelines while I'm writing, and one of them is to keep the ounces out of the pounds and shillings. We want complications in our stories. They are the heart of tension. Without throwing obstacles in the protagonist's path, the story would be over in thirty pages. But an irrelevancy is not a complication; it's a distraction, and as Aline says, it pulls the reader away rather than pulling them forward. Sometimes a cool sidetrack pops into my head as I'm writing, and I feel like exploring it, but all the while I am trying to see if I can fit it into the main storyline. If it can add tension or intrigue to the overall question of the book, then I keep it. Otherwise, sadly, I kill it.

There are a few other guidelines that I use to keep my story moving forward and on track. I call myself a modified pantser because as I am writing, I try to see at least three or four scenes ahead. Since in my current Amanda Doucette series I have three main point-of-view characters each pursuing their own story lines, which have to be braided together into one story with proper pacing, tension, and timelines, I have discovered I need to plan ahead a bit.

Usually the idea for the next scene comes out the scene I am writing. I ask myself one or two of the following questions: "What would logically happen next?" Or "What would this character do next?" And in some cases, "What is the worst thing that could happen?" The first question helps to keep the plot on track, the second keeps the story character-driven, so that characters are not doing things they'd never do just for the sake of the plot. And the third - it's where the spice of the story comes from. It creates the twists, which are often as much a surprise to me as they are to the reader. In FIRE IN THE STARS, for example, I had Amanda's dog running up the path ahead of her, on their way to visit a hermit with some information. I hadn't figured out what Amanda would discover, so I asked myself "What will the dog find?" Followed by "What's the worst thing she could find?" And presto ...

But use the spice sparingly. Otherwise it will lose its punch. I once read a book which had a car chase or fire or explosion in every chapter. After awhile I thought, Oh yawn, not another explosion.

I agree with Aline. Life is too short to spend time on a 500-page novel that meanders and rambles. Some long novels are spell-binding and draw the reader deep into a fascinating world that we never want to leave. But the more I read and write, the less patience I have for padded verbiage and precious literary devices that leaves me feeling as if I'm spinning off-kilter. As writers we have to be ruthless with ourselves and our prose. That's what rewrites (and rewrites and rewrites) are for – to ask ourselves Do I really need this? Does it add to the story? Is it predictable? Boring? Irrelevant? Sometimes ounces are useful in a mystery novel, as red herrings that lead the reader down the garden path, but they need to do that in a way that is tied to the resolution of the story.

I don't need the story to be all neatly tied up in a bow at the end. Life is not tidy. I like ambiguity and even loose ends, especially in a series, where some questions remain to be answered in the next book. But the central question of the book has to be answered somehow, and I would find a tangle of irrelevancies and loose ends utterly unsatisfying. So the final job for a pantser is to hunt down all the loose threads and make sure you've tied them off.









Tuesday, June 13, 2017

The visceral image of the “smoking gun”

by Rick Blechta

“The smoking gun.”

This is a very much-used — you could easily say overused — colloquial term, especially in the supercharged political climate of the US. But its use paints such a strong visual, it doesn’t tend to grate with me. Maybe I’m just not that sensitive to cliché or maybe it’s just that there really is no better term.

We crime writers deal a lot with smoking guns in our plots, but I can’t think of a time where the exact term was used in a book I’ve read. Certainly I’ve never used it — and I did a cursory check to be sure, going back six publications.

Personally, I still like it in that it allows one to immediately cut to the heart of an issue. “We’ve finally discovered the smoking gun and that’s going to lead us to exactly what has been going on.” “Smoking gun” tells you all you need to know, doesn’t it?

Not that the media cares much about overuse of a term, but good writing practice dictates that clichés should generally be avoided, and “smoking gun” certainly is used often enough to fall into that category. I’m sure it’s continued wide use is due to the fact that conveys so much information in only two words. That kind of shorthand is very useful for the media and people’s quick general understanding of what can be complicated ideas.

My question is this: since it’s become such an overused term, what would we substitute for it if it’s now time to move it onto the cliché pile?

Would anyone out there be willing to make a suggestion?

Monday, June 12, 2017

How Long is a Piece of String?

Or rather, how long is the book you're writing at the moment going to be?  Do you know?

Perhaps you are the sort of writer I greatly admire, who has it all mapped out chapter by chapter to exactly the appropriate length?  Or perhaps you're like me and the book will be as long as it takes to tell the story?

I've always done it that way and in fact most of my books tend to work out around the 120,000 word mark, plus or minus. But recently I've wondered whether letting the story have its head is actually the best idea.  I found myself thinking about Winnie the Pooh writing a poem that mentioned 'pounds, shillings and ounces'; when Piglet protested that he didn't think the ounces ought to be there, he replied, 'They wanted to come in after the pounds, so I let them.'

What prompted this was recently reading two or three very long books - 500, 600 pages. The story was usually very complicated; it seems to be a current fashion for having more than one timescale.  Though I always started off with great enthusiasm I found myself struggling well before the end.

The problem was that just at the point where you had got involved with the characters, the author allowed another story to butt in, not because it was essential to the plot but because it wanted to come in.  Very often the intervention went on so long that by the time you got back to the first subject you couldn't remember anything about those characters at all.

I read quickly, but even so reading a very long book can take a week or more. If you are a slow reader you must be living with some of these books for months at a time.  And I find books tend to go off with long keeping, just the way milk does, so I wonder how many doorstep books do actually get read right to the end.

For most of my life I operated the 'I've started so I'll finish' rule.  More recently I've decided that unless you're talking about something with the calibre of War and Peace, life's too short to go on with a book I'm not enjoying.

I think perhaps I'd better take a harder line with my own plots if I want to be sure that doesn't happen to mine.


Saturday, June 10, 2017

Guest Blogger Dan Baldwin


Type M is thrilled to welcome guest blogger Dan Baldwin. To say than Dan is a prolific author would be an understatement. He is both traditionally and self-published in non-fiction and in multiple-genre fiction. He is also a paranormal investigator who uses his pendulum dowsing skills to help find missing persons and solve crimes. His non-fiction book on psychic detecting, They Are Not Yet Lost, earned the Winner designation in the Arizona-New Mexico Book Awards.



Write What You Know.

(And You Know More than You Think)

Dan Baldwin

Writers are advised to “write what you know.” That’s great advice, but what if you believe your genre makes it impossible to know? I’ve never looked for the Maltese Falcon, never fought organized crime in the Tombstone of the 1880s, played a game of thrones, fought seven samurai, or, try as I may, warped through space to the Lost Planet of NFL Cheerleaders. How can a writer make unknown worlds real when he or she has no experience in them?

Take heart; you know far more than you think.

Obviously, none of us know the ins and outs of faraway places with strange sounding names. (Have you ever fought a Slugorthian Flame Dancer at the Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe?) So how do we run that literary blockade?

Writing is about people and you know people. You can fill in the blanks through research and imagination when crafting your worlds. I’ve never been a gumshoe investigating a burglary during the 1950s. But if I want to write about crime solving in those years I can turn to my copy of Modern Criminal Investigation by Charles O’Hara for the facts and figures and the ins and outs of that time. Research is the easy (and fun) part.

All that’s great, but the writing will succeed or fail on conflict and character.

Transplant the information you have stored up in your life experience into your scenes. For example, you’ve never been in a dangerous confrontation between ace detectives Samantha Spade and Mildred Pharlowe and their nemesis, Casper Gutman. But you have probably been to a board meeting. You have certainly been to a committee meeting. You’ve experienced conflict in the club’s locker room, the Friday night get together, the break room at work, the golf course, the women’s political action committee, the supermarket and any number of other places. You’ve seen bullying, cowardice, bravery and people looking the other way. All those emotions and more come into play in a good story - and you know those emotions.

Use that experience to fuel the scene in your book, short story, screenplay or Internet post.

For example, if you’re writing a crime novel set in the Wild West, think back to that committee meeting. The pushy chairman with his own agenda becomes the greedy cattle baron determined to take over the town. The yes men on the committee are his hired guns. That quiet guy from accounting becomes the alcoholic doctor trying to find some dignity before cashing in his chips. The attractive woman across the table is the school marm fighting against the odds to civilize an uncivilized town. Or, she could be the soiled dove with the heart of gold. The others members are the defenseless towns folk fearful and in need of a hero. You, well, of course, you’re John Wayne. Or Annie Oakley. Or even Rin Tin Tin.

Take the events and conflict of that meeting or confrontation, transpose them to your work, expand and exaggerate where appropriate. “I call this meeting to order” becomes “All right, cyber-copper, now I’m gonna plug yer memory hole.” You’ll be surprised at how accurate your scene becomes – because it’s real. It’s based on genuine human emotion and interaction. Readers will respond because your words reach them with the common language of emotion regardless of whether it’s spoken in the slang of film noir, cowboy drawl, Scottish brogue or the slimy syntax of a Slugorthian Flame Dancer.

Plug in the details as needed. For example, Casper Gutman’s swarthy assistant no longer carries “a big gun.” He carries a Colt .45 1917 Service Model revolver, “a roscoe like the punk’s mouth - too big and guaranteed to get him into trouble.” Details are important. But you can dig up the details you need in books, online, in interviews, and through personal research.

The key to successful writing, however, is the true human emotion you put into your work.

But you already know that.

_________















Dan Baldwin is the author of the Caldera series of westerns, Trapp Canyon, Bock’s Canyon, and A Stalking Death, also westerns; the mysteries Desecration, Heresy and Vengeance; and the thriller Sparky and the King; two short story collections – Dank Summit and Other Stories and Vampire Bimbos on Spring Break (as Michael Baudoin). Baldwin’s short stories Two to Go and Jimi Strawberry’s Gas Bomb earned a 1st and 2nd place, and Flat Busted earned an Honorable Mention, and his poem "Ol’ Marty He Done What He Should" earned 3rd place in the Society of Southwestern Authors writing competition. He is also the author/photographer of the Wildflower Stew series of photo books on wildflowers of the Southwest. Other non-fiction works include Find Me as told to Dan Baldwin, The Practical Pendulum, The Levine Project-Fighting Terror in Tucson, and Time Served-Investigating History Through the Voices of Those Who Lived It.

Contact Dan at baldco@msn.com, www.danbaldwin.biz, www.fourknightspress.com\

https://www.amazon.com/Dan-Baldwin/e/B0080Z24CO

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/666742



Thursday, June 08, 2017

Don Henley and Voice

Tuesday night, I drove two hours across Massachusetts on Route 2 and into Boston to see Don Henley play at an outdoor venue on the waterfront in 40-degrees and rain. He played all the songs I remember from the 80s, and (along with 5,000 other gray-haired aficionados) I stood and sang along with him. At one point, I turned to my friend Greg Leeds and said, “The guy’s voice never changes.”

Which got me thinking: the songs (the lyrics about memories and about loves lost; the blend of guitars and horns; and the long, sweeping choruses) sound the same. And so too does Don Henley –– that whiskey voice we all recognize instantly.

Voice, we talk about when discussing authors, is a writer’s DNA. I can take a paragraph from Annie Dillard, set it next to one from Alice Walker, and a reader will immediately be able to name the author of each paragraph.

So what is voice?

Technically, it’s the nuances of diction and syntax that roll into a sound/personality/persona on the page. I read somewhere that a writer finds his or her voice when they’ve written a stack of pages that exceeds their own height. I’ve also read that you know you’ve found your voice when you know it. I had that experience: seated in the damp basement of our first home early one morning, writing my third novel, I sat back and re-read the sentence I’d just written, realizing it sounded precisely as I’d hoped. To a guy who loves writing because you always feel like the dog chasing its own tail, this was a startling moment: I had produced one sentence that offered the absolute clarity I hoped for. (Hopefully, there have been a few more and others along the way.)

It was Hemingway, who, after all, also wrote, “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” Does truth equate to voice? Maybe not entirely. Consider James Crumley’s opening line to The Last Good Kiss (1978): “When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.” We can examine the line for its rolling syntax, subordinate and main clauses, look at the clever adjectives, and as Billy Collins would say, “beat it with a hose.” But what’s the use? We know everything we need to know about the speaker, C.W. Sughrue, an alcoholic former military man now a private investigator. And we know a thing or two about his creator: Crumley’s voice –– cynical, observant, and lyrical –– appears in his opening line. You meet the writer, the speaker, and want to spend more time with both of them.

Which brings me back to Don Henley and Voice. We can all try new sounds. I’ve written from the perspective of men, women, children; tough guys and mothers; people who hold my political convictions, and those who do not. Yet in the end, I’m certain there are aspects of my syntax that does not vary. I wish I was as fluid as Crumley but admittedly am not. For, as Hemingway said, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master,” which keeps us all writing –– and searching for our own voices.

Wednesday, June 07, 2017

Persistence is Key

This weekend I’ll be in Culver City attending the California Crime Writers Conference. On Sunday, I’ll be moderating a panel on surviving the ups and downs of the publishing world with Sue Ann Jaffarian, Patricia Smiley and Jeri Westerson. Between the three of them, they’ve published over 50 books plus numerous novellas and short stories. I didn’t count, but I’ve probably read at least half of them.

Even though I’ve known these folks awhile, I learned even more about them while preparing the questions for the panel. They’ve all had their problems from agents and editors dying or quitting to publishers dropping a series. Through it all they persisted.

I think persistence is key in all walks of life. Sometimes things run smoothly and go as you planned, but more often you run into stumbling blocks, some big, some small. The key is not to let those problems prevent you from reaching your goal, whatever that is. Sometimes that means events not happening at the time you expected or wanted them to.

I’m also a firm believer that most things happen for a reason. I was disappointed years and years ago when I couldn’t get an agent or find a publisher for my first book. Now that I look back, I’m glad I didn’t. The version of the book that eventually did get published is so much better than the one I’d originally shopped around. Over the years I grew as a writer and learned how to better tell a story.

My wish for you all: Whatever your goal, may you sail through the calm waters and navigate the rough seas successfully.

Tuesday, June 06, 2017

Here’s a thing we writers need to remember

by Rick Blechta

Driving back from a book event I attended this weekend (Limestone Genre Expo), I had plenty of time to reflect on plenty of things.

Sure, I did a lot of scrolling back over what my experience had been, but one small comment from a reader rose to the surface and has stuck in my brain: “About ten years ago I ran across one of your books at during a cottage stay with a friend. She didn’t remember how it had even gotten there but I picked it up on a rainy day and I couldn’t put it down.”

The book in question turned out to be Cemetery of the Nameless. We struck up a more lengthy conversation about some details from the book (she remembered them still!) and I answered as best I could. She also bought a copy of The Fallen One (my recommendation, though she was taken with the cover and probably would have chosen it anyway) and I hope she’s enjoying that story as much as the first.

Now here’s why the conversation has really stuck with me. Putting aside the fact that it’s nice to have one’s ego stroked a bit like that, I have 11 books that are floating around out there. When I put down my pen for the last time, they’ll still be around. Somebody perhaps a hundred years in the future might pick one up, read and enjoy it and wonder who this Blechta character was.

We all tend to live in the here and now and a little in the “not-too-distant future”, but do we often think of ourselves 100 years hence? Of course not. But when we publish books, produce paintings or sculptures, compose music, or do anything artistic or creative, we’re actually making it possible to outlive our mortal timespan.

Now isn’t that a very cool thing to keep in mind when the going is tough?

Monday, June 05, 2017

Thank you.

by Vicki Delany

It has often been said that writers toil in solitude. We then release a book and wait anxiously for reviews to start coming in.  We might meet a few readers at conferences or book signings but generally we then retreat back to our unheated garrets and toil on the next book.

Image result for thank you images

There is some truth to that, but the rise of social media has given us a way of interacting with our readers that previous generations of writers could only dream of.  

This was brought home to me this past week when I announced on Facebook and Twitter that my Lighthouse Library cozy series (written under the pen name of Eva Gates) has been saved. As you may know Penguin Random House did a massive cull of their mass market line, and cozies were particularly hard hit. The Lighthouse Library series included. As the series was a work for hire, the publisher owned the copyright and thus I couldn’t continue to write it.

The people at Crooked Lane Books, who publish the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, wanted to take it on, so they asked my agent, the marvellous Kim Lionetti of Bookends, if she would ask Penguin if they’d release it.

And they did! I got the copyright and then signed a contract with Crooked Lane for the next three books in the series.

I made the announcement on social media, and the response from readers was overwhelming and heartfelt. I was genuinely touched at what people had to say.

So, thank you to everyone who wrote to me.

We don’t have a publication date yet, but probably spring 2018 for Lighthouse Library #4. And I will be keeping the Eva Gates name.

Saturday, June 03, 2017

Weekend Guest - Kate Ellis

Aline here.  It's my great pleasure to introduce Kate Ellis to you.  Her hugely popular books are set in one of the most picturesque parts of England and I'm deeply envious of her having an excuse for constant visits - tax-deductible too!

THE ART OF SERIAL KILLING – OR THE PLEASURES AND PITFALLS OF WRITING A SERIES

 In 1998 I wrote my first Wesley Peterson novel, The Merchant’s House, and back then I never imagined that I’d still be writing about the same characters nineteen years later. Having just published my twenty first Wesley Peterson novel The Mermaid’s Scream, I am constantly surprised that I still keep thinking up new ways to keep Wesley and his colleagues occupied, but somehow I always managed to produce a crime full of twists and turns for them to solve.

 Those intrepid detectives who first inhabited my head when I was a novice writer have stayed with me loyally over the years. There’s DI Wesley Peterson, an archaeology graduate whose parents hail from Trinidad, who abandoned the past for a career in the police force, spurred on by a youthful passion for Sherlock Holmes. His boss is DCI Gerry Heffernan (a Liverpudlian like myself) who is ex Merchant Navy and has a well hidden heart of gold.

 Then there are all the other members of the investigation team who’ve become like old friends. Wesley’s old friend from university, Dr Neil Watson, is County Archaeologist and always introduces a historical mystery into the mix and I never tire of finding parallels between Neil’s investigations and Wesley’s present day murder cases.

 One of the best things about writing a series is that I’ve come to know the place where the books are set – South Devon and the lovely medieval port of Dartmouth in particular. My research gives me the perfect excuse to return there every year, drink in the atmosphere and stumble over new ideas. I’ve deliberately altered the names of the locations I use in my books as I like to use my imagination and change things around. However, if readers are familiar with the area there are a lot of things they will recognise and many people tell me they enjoy the game of ‘guess where the body was found’.

Writing about the same people in each book means that you have to keep up to date with developments in their private life. It’s important to remember the ins and outs of various relationships and how old your characters’ children are. This means that readers tend to become involved with the lives of my detectives and their families (and form opinions about the decisions they make).

So will I ever get tired of Wesley’s company? Well, at the moment I still enjoy writing about him and there are plenty of new ideas for grisly crimes in beautiful Devon swirling around in my brain.

 I think it helps that I write short stories as this gives me a ‘change of scene’ and keep my writing fresh. And recently I’ve tackled something completely new and published A High Mortality of Doves, the first book in a new historical crime trilogy set in the North West of England in the aftermath of the First World War.

. I really enjoyed writing about new characters and a new location, even a different time, but I know I'll always return to the 'mean lanes' of South Devon.

Friday, June 02, 2017

Following the Shiny Object

Yesterday I came home to find a package on my doorstep. A small box that turned out to be from friends who moved South. The package contained a souvenir from their new hometown and an invitation to visit. The package contained bubble wrap for Harry and inspiration for me. 

Struck by an idea, I rushed to Google to get more information about the city where my friends now live. I ended up on YouTube watching a video of a Ghost Tour of an old house. Someone on the tour had recorded the video. The lighting was bad, but the story told by the tour guide gave me an idea for a character's backstory.

The unexpected backstory of that character will add another layer to the plot. Because of this character's past, my villain will be faced with a dilemma. He will have to make a choice, and that choice will raise the stakes for him. 

And then I thought, "What if?" What if I followed the shiny object of this new city. The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became that the city was perfect for the last third of my historical thriller. I now have an additional location to deal with -- but I do have that invitation from my friends to visit.

The need to make that research trip will help to keep me on track this summer. I have roughly three months to write full time. This is something I never have during the academic year. First, I need to finish the draft of my non-fiction book. Then while I'm having my various readers go through that manuscript and provide feedback, I will plunge in and work on the historical thriller. It will be a quick and dirty first draft, but I'll have the story on paper. That will allow me to see what I have and get to the part of writing I like best -- revising.

I have my calendar. I know how many pages I need to write each day. I've planned to spend every afternoon at my office standing at my vertical desk. A much safer place to be than at home where I both sit and would be tempted to watch soap operas and old movies on TCM.

This summer, I'm going to stick with my game plan. But first I need to send my friends a huge thank you for the unexpected gift of the perfect shiny object at just the right moment.

When you're writing, do you follow intriguing trails that lead you astray?

Thursday, June 01, 2017

The Book Lover's Disease


Don't make me choose

I belong to a women's charitable organization that meets once a month, and the theme for the June meeting is the Summer Reading List. Our assignment is to bring some books we like to exchange with other members. I've been going through my collection to see what I can part with, and it didn't take me long to realize I can't part with anything. I have the Book Lover's Disease. Books are like gold to me, and the idea of getting rid of a book that I enjoyed makes me break out into a sweat.

I know that several of my books can be checked out of the library when I want to read them again, but how can I let go of a book that the author signed? Especially if the author is a friend? I can't, that's how. So what am I going to do? I have been reviewing books for Publishers Weekly and do receive advance reading copies galore. Many of those books are fine, but not my cup of tea, so one would think that those would be give-away candidates. The only problem with that is I've already had that idea and have given them all away to a women's shelter.

I can certainly make a list of recommended reading. As for finding a physical book to give away, I'm just going to have to suck it up and part with something.

In other news, I've finally finished my tenth Alafair Tucker Mystery, Forty Dead Men. Finished-ish, that is. My early readers have done their duty and pronounced it ready to go. The only thing I have left to do, aside from one last read-over to catch typos, etc., is write the accompanying material--the historical notes, the early 20th century recipes, the acknowledgements. Still, I can't help but rewrite, and then go back and do it again. And again. I think that most authors are never really satisfied with what they’ve created. I’ll tinker with the book until I absolutely have to turn it in for the last time. Years after a book is published, I’ll find myself coming up with fresh ideas for a scene and wishing I could go back and work on it some more.

My editor is out of the country until the end of this week. She told me that she wants the book in June, and today is June 1. So whether I like it or not, I shall have to call the book done and let it go. That is, until she returns it with corrections and a two week deadline. Then I'll get one last crack at it.

And finally, let me once again congratulate Type M's fearless leader, Rick Blechta, on winning the 2017 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novella.
 

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

The non-professional hero

Barbara here. The first review of my upcoming novel, THE TRICKSTER'S LULLABY, landed in my email inbox this morning, courtesy of my publicist. I suspect all writers are like me, anxiously awaiting that first review of our precious darling, which we have just set afloat out into the world with no idea whether readers will hate it or love it. 



Reviews almost always start with a summary of the plot, which is of no real concern to us authors, since we wrote the thing. So here is the critical meat of the review ...

This is an extremely well written and plotted novel. The characters were likeable, except for Amanda’s tendency not to listen to advice and run off half-cocked into danger. This is my first Barbara Fradkin book, but it certainly won’t be my last. I truly enjoyed this novel. It was a refreshing and original storyline.

Overall, this is a very good review and allows me to take my first tentative breath of relief. However, there is that small prick of criticism, contained in most reviews: "The characters were likeable, except for Amanda’s tendency not to listen to advice and run off half-cocked into danger."  This one is minor and does not appear to detract from the reader's enjoyment of the story, but it got me thinking about the challenge of writing about ordinary people as sleuths. 

In my two previous series, I did not face this problem. In the ten Inspector Green novels, it was Inspector Green's job to go after bad guys, even to put himself in danger for the public good. Even some of his more outlandish breaches of normal protocol could be supported by the demands of the situation. In my Cedric O'Toole novels  Cedric was a reluctant sleuth and rarely set out to fix things, instead finding himself in the midst of a mess.

But Amanda Doucette is a different sort of hero, a former international aid worker whose concern for people in trouble often has her chasing it. 

As I wrote TRICKSTER, I was aware that I was venturing into the realm of the improbable and that the reader would need some suspension of disbelief, but it's a rare book that stays within the lines of a safe, predictable story. This is particularly true of thrillers and of books where the main hero is not a person habitually involved in enforcing the law or saving lives. In real life, most ordinary people would simply phone 911 and trust the professionals to handle things. The trick for the writer is to make the story believable one step at a time, to draw the reader out onto that limb of disbelief without having them pause, look around, and say to themselves "OHG, this is ridiculous, I shouldn't be here." 




Character is crucial here. The reader has to think the character's choice makes perfect sense given the type of person they are and their state of mind at the time. The moment the reader thinks this character would never do that or is making a choice that is blatantly stupid (like going down into the dark basement to investigate a noise, carrying only a candle), the reader disengages from the story. Creating the perfect character for this role of hero is more difficult that one might think. The character needs to be smart, resourceful, brave, determined, and self-reliant, which is why there is a recurrent trope of intelligence, stubbornness, and "feistiness" among these sleuths. In fact, it's a challenge to avoid cliches. The character also has to be distrustful of the authorities' ability to solve the case, which is why so many books portray the police as incompetent, corrupt, overworked, or some combination of these. Again a cliche that is hard to avoid.

Above and beyond all this, the character has to have a powerful personal motive for getting involved in the case. This can be something from their past, a friend or themselves being suspected of the crime, or a threat to themselves, a loved one, or someone in their care. Writers want the reader to care whether the hero solves the case and to root for them along the way. There are a lot of dangers and pitfalls for the writer to navigate along the way, including motives that are cliched or overdone, unsympathetic, or just plain ridiculous. 

In this review, the reader found Amanda's tendency not to listen to advice and to go off half-cocked annoying. But that's who Amanda is, so I'm not sure I could have avoided that. It's part of her nature, springing in part from her action-oriented temperament and in part from her past demons. Like real people, characters have flaws which make them human and, one hopes, more interesting and sympathetic. As a writer, I can only hope that people will understand her drive, forgive her pig-headedness, and root for her anyway. It seems as if, in this reader's case, that happened.

I'd love to hear readers' and writers'  thoughts on this challenge of believability, and also what cliches are most bothersome, what is getting old and tired. In the service of a good story, I think the suspension of disbelief can stretch pretty far. Talking cats, anyone? 


Tuesday, May 30, 2017

And then there was this…

by Rick Blechta

Something strange happened to me last Thursday. I won an Arthur Ellis Award from Crime Writers of Canada for my writing.

To say the very least, I was shocked. It was completely unexpected, and at the time, I wasn’t really paying attention the way I should have been. Allow me to explain.

In case you don’t know — and if the Canadian media is any kind of example, ignoring the winners of this year’s Arthurs with nearly complete unanimity, so you probably don’t — the Arthurs are one of the top awards in the crime writing world. It is an exceptional honour to receive one. (It is also an extremely cool statuette.)

Type M even boasts a multiple-Arthur winner (for Best Novel): Barbara Fradkin, receiving them in back-to-back years which had never been done before or since.

So it’s a Big Deal to get one.

I had been asked to be the Arthur Ellis Gala’s photographer for the evening, so I was hovering backstage waiting to leap out to take shots of the various winners and presenters. I fully did not expect to win because the field for Best Novella was very strong, and included Peter Robinson who has won more Arthurs than anyone else. My mind was focused on lining up the next shot as my old friend Linda Wiken walked onstage to reveal the winner of this year’s Best Novella Arthur. The names of the nominees, their books and the publishers of each were read and the envelope opened. “And the winner of the Best Novella is Rick Blechta, Rundown, Orca Book Publishers.” (Or something like that.)

My first thought upon hearing that was, “Oh God! Who’s going to take the photo?” I’d joked a few times over the past week that if I were to win, I’d have to take a selfie, but fortunately I didn’t remember that at the time. I was rescued by the CWC’s able Chair, Cathy Ace, who took the camera from my shaking hands (I would have taken a terrific photo with shaking hands, wouldn’t I?) who snapped a great shot.

After my moment in the sun, during which I hope I babbled out something appropriate, thanking the right people and all — I had not given a moment’s thought as to what I might say in the event Rundown won — I put my Arthur down on the floor backstage and went back to work with my camera.

As soon as the gala ended, I got busy packing away all the CWC gear my wife (who is the organization’s executive director) had brought. By the time I’d finished, I looked around and everyone was gone.

So much for the glamour of being an “award-winning author”.
 __________________________

Click HERE for a link to the complete list of Arthur Ellis Winners for 2017.

And a special shout-out to my fellow nominees: Brenda Chapman, Jas. R. Petrin, Linda L. Richards, and Peter Robinson who all wrote really great books. You should definitely check them out. Click HERE for all those details (scroll down the page a bit).