Simsubs: Yes or No?

   

NOTE: The topic of this post will probably be of interest only to writers of short stories--I doubt other people would even know what we mean by "simsubs." Even writers and those who DO know what we mean might be tired of the subject by now. But, because of the many recent discussions about it in some writer's groups I belong to . . .

Let's talk about simultaneous submissions. It's an issue that seems to pop up every year or two, with strong opinions being voiced from both sides, and--as always--most juries are still out on whether simsubs are good or bad. The simple question remains: Should I submit my story to more than one market at the same time?

I think this most recent rekindling of interest is because response times seem to be growing longer and longer for the few publications still left out there that publish short mystery stories--which is mostly what I. and friends of mine, write. One market in particular--Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine--is known to take around a year to respond to most submissions. (Some time ago it seemed to have dwindled to around 11 months, and now it's back to 13 or 14 months between submission and response.) A year, plus or minus, is a long time for a story to sit around in a queue, completely out of circulation, and when you consider the fact that your story can end up rejected after all that time, you might be sorely tempted to send that story someplace else while you're waiting. A hedging, shall we say, of bets.

So . . . should you do it?

Definitions and rules

First, for those who don't know, a simultaneous submission is the act of sending of the same short-story manuscript to more than one market at the same time--and not to be confused with "multiple submission," which means sending more than one story to the same market. The simsub practice can obviously be a good thing because it improves your odds of a timely acceptance. But it's also risky. If more than one place decides to accept your story, presto!--you've got two dates to the prom, which is never a good situation.

Even if only one of the two markets accepts your story, you must still notify the other market to tell them your story's no longer available for consideration, and that withdrawal can in itself be irritating to an editor. More on that later.

The upside

Let's break all this down a bit. On the plus side of the ledger, if you simultaneously submit a story, (1) you'll almost certainly sell it sooner, and (2) the risk is small because the chances are small that you'll receive two acceptances for the same story at around the same time. And hey, if you wind up with an acceptance from the first market and you have to withdraw an as-yet-unaccepted story from consideration at the second market, it's certainly possible that the second editor won't mind a bit. Maybe she hasn't even gotten around to considering your story yet.

Still thinking positively, and being realistic, simsubs usually result in one of two things happening: Either you get a rejection from both markets or you get an acceptance from one and a rejection from the other. Obviously, neither of those situations presents a problem. All is well with the world.

The downside

On the other hand, the possibilities are: (1) the worst could happen, and both markets could send you an acceptance letter--and one of them will have to be told OOPS--Sorry, that story's already sold. And (2) you might get an acceptance from Market #1 and when you notify #2 that it's no longer available, they might've already spent time considering your story, in which case they won't be pleased that you've wasted their time. They probably won't tell you that--you might never find it out--but you also might've unintentionally made an enemy. So, either of those situations could mean your name is now on a  particular editor's sh*t list, and the * doesn't stand for or.

Another point. Some places will say, in their guidelines, that simultaneous submissions are permitted. That means you'll NEVER get in trouble with simsubs, right?

Wrong. Even if they do say it, they won't like it. No editor likes simultaneous submissions. If you withdraw a story from them in midstream--and believe me, they'll probably know why you're withdrawing it--there's a fair chance they won't be happy hikers.

Conclusions

As I have said before at this blog, I think the risks of simultaneous submissions outweigh the advantages. That's my opinion only, but I do believe that. Since we know that withdrawals can be annoying to editors, and the last thing I want to to do is annoy an editor, I just don't do it. I'm annoying enough as it is.

My personal "bad" experience with simultaneous submissions is a bit unusual. What happened to me is that I once submitted a story to a place (Strand Magazine, in my case) that is known to never respond at all unless it's an acceptance, and after waiting many months without getting a response, I assumed that story must've been rejected, and I sent it elsewhere (AHMM, in my case). Then I was told by the first publication that they in fact did want to buy my story, so I dutifully notified (confessed to) the second market that I had sent them a story that I thought had been rejected elsewhere but had not. Actually, this kind of misfire happened to me twice, with these same two publications. Both times, the editor of the second market--Linda Landrigan--told me there was no problem, and allowed me to easily withdraw my story so it could be published at the first market--but it still gave me a terrible feeling, and the second time it happened I resolved never to do it again. Since that point, I have never submitted a story to two different places at the same time, and I have never submitted a story anywhere unless I know for certain that that story is no longer under consideration elsewhere. Better safe than sorry.

Questions

How do you feel about this whole issue? Do you submit simultaneously, or not? Is it an always thing? A sometimes thing? Only with certain markets? If you haven't done it already, would you or wouldn't you, in the future? Is it really worth the risk? Any war stories, about this kind of thing? Please let me know, in the comments section below. I'd also love to hear the opinions of editors, if any of you decision-makers are reading this.

I assure you, by the way, that SleuthSayers is the only place to which I submitted this post.  

King of Ashes

 As I've written before, SA Cosby has replaced Ken Bruen as the first crime author I read in a given year. That's probably going to slow down unless he's got another one coming out this year. (Shame on me for not checking.) So, instead of Jack Taylor, I get to read about a side of Virginia we never see. Set in fictional Jefferson City, Cosby establishes his setting as lying near the real city of Roanoke, in the southwestern part of the state. This region has little in common with the Tidewater, Chesapeake Bay, or the urban sprawl of Richmond and the DC suburbs. It has more in common with West Virginia, just on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

We open with Roman Carruthers, a financial mogul in Atlanta who makes money magic happen for all manner of athlete, musician, and actor. We briefly see Roman in his element, living in Buckheads, approaching his craft like a science, and contracting the services of a dominatrix to relax him before a major meeting or decision. Like you do.

Then he gets a phone call. His father is in a coma after being hit by a train. Roman flies home after a five-year absence to help with the family business. A crematorium. His sister Neveah runs the shop with her father and is pretty much in charge when we meet her. Brother Danta...

Well, he's why Dad is in a coma. And then there's the matter of their mother, who disappeared. Their father caught her cheating. She disappeared. When the wife of a crematorium operator disappears, it's almost impossible to conclude what happened to her and why there is no body.

But the present situation, someone pushing the elder Carruthers' car into an oncoming freight train's path, ties back to Dante. By his own description, he is the family disappointment. So Roman sets about to fix this. Dante is in debt to some very bad characters named Torrent and Tagent, both sociopaths, and both ruling by fear. Roman works his way into their inner circle by offering to make them money instead of straight up paying Dante's debt. Things spiral from there.

Roman uses his talents both to bring in money for those Dante owes and to set Torrent and Tangent's people against each other and their enemies against them. Complicating matters is a woman Roman meets at a party: Jealousy. Jealousy, or Jae as she calls herself, works for the mayor. She's also Torrent and Tanget's sister. Roman falls for her, but he's out to kill her brothers. It's as messy as messy can be. 

Roman is, of course, the center of this mess. While trying to save his siblings, he becomes the reverse of The Wire's Stringer Bell. Whereas Bell used his money to get out of the game and into respectability, Roman starts out respectable and spirals into the game. 

Over all, this is what Cosby does best. He mixes Southern life, race, poverty, and the disruption of crime into a mile-a-minute tale. The crematory makes for an interesting backdrop and a plot point in several threads. However, it doesn't quite live up to his masterpieces, Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears. But then not every Beatles album is Sgt. Pepper's or every Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. Just as reaching for those bands off your streaming service still delivers great music, so does pulling SA Cosby from the shelf.

A Rumination on the Artist as Reviewer

 I recently stumbled upon a quote from a writer I know, singing the praises of a second writer with whose work I am well acquainted. This second writer's work is quite popular, in my opinion deservedly so. In fact I quite agree with the opinions expressed by the writer praising his work.

What brought me up short was what seems to have been an attempt on said writer's part to establish authority to offer any comments on the work of this second writer. Without quoting or getting into specifics (I like the writer I know and have enjoyed his work as well, and I'm certainly not looking to throw anyone under any particular bus), suffice to say that Writer 1 said something to the effect of being able to really comprehend the difficulty of Writer 2's accomplishment with this certain book only because he was a fellow writer.

And while I think I get what he was trying to say, this statement got me thinking.

Here's the point I began to ponder: "Is it only truly in the eyes of a fellow artist that one's work can find genuine validation?"

Bearing in mind that these days phrases like, "The death of expertise" get tossed around quite a bit, and the internet and social media have done much to democratize the vast array of opinions on offer across a whole host of subjects, I began to wrestle with this question. And the answer I've reached can best be summed up with the rousing and self-assured phrase: "yes/no/it depends."

Let me see if I can explain.

First, let's distinguish between what we consider "art" and what we consider "science." For me, art is and always has been about what reaction it inspires in the person experiencing it. Art is about "feel," I guess would be another way of putting it.

And "science" is everything else. Facts are facts. They are not open to interpretation, only to analysis. And while art can also be analyzed, its impact is by turns differentiated, and frequently unique, dependent upon who is doing the analysis.

Take vaccines, for example. I have read the arguments against them. I am unconvinced. I am living proof that vaccines work. So is nearly everyone I know. Like someone a lot smarter than me once said: "Facts don't care about your feelings."

Art is a different matter entirely.

Facts might make you feel something. In fact, they often do. A baby is born. Her parents are thrilled. Her family is thrilled. It happened. It was real.

Art is visceral. It forces a reaction. Otherwise it's doodling (regardless of the medium). I get a visceral reaction when I hear the opening notes of any number of songs. Miles Davis' "All Blues." "Stevie Ray Vaughan's cover of Hendryx's "Voodoo Chile." The opening movement of Antonín Dvořàk's 9th Symphony.

All pleasant experiences.

Which is not to say that all artistic experiences need be pleasant, enjoyable, what-have-you. Revulsion is a perfectly acceptable reaction to be exposed to certain types of art. Photographer Andres Seranno's "Immersion (Piss Christ)" disgusts me, but I suppose that's what Serrano might well have been going for. True art is affecting. Regardless of the type of reaction, the reaction is the point.

Not so with facts. So to sum up: facts can be affecting, but need not be to qualify as facts. Art must be affecting, or it's not art.

Which leads me to the notion of the artist as reviewer/critic/influencer/what-have-you.

We've all heard the expression, "All taste is relative." Cliché or truism, it's a generally accepted rule of thumb when discussing something as personal as "taste." Another such notion is the idea that "There's no accounting for taste."

For example, I've known people about whom I've actually thought, "All of that guy's taste is in his mouth." Others, where I admired their taste, their sense of style, their panache, if you will. 

Kill me.

Wed "personal taste" with the notion of defining what art is and is not, and you can get into the weeds pretty quickly. Which is both foolish and a colossal waste of time.

Dismissing art one does not like as somehow not being art is equally ridiculous. Take the soundtrack for Saturday Night Fever.

Please!

(*rimshot*)

At the risk of dating myself, I'll admit that I hit my teen years right about the time this soundtrack ensconced itself in the Top 40 Charts, and flatly refused to leave for what seemed like an eternity.

I despise this album. I loathe it. I would sooner listen to Lawrence Welk (further dating myself!) than ever hear "Night Fever" or "Stayin' Alive" ever again.

And yet for all that, I cannot and would not dispute that the music on this album is definitely art. Not only does it evoke a strong visceral reaction in me when I hear it (Hey-revulsion is a valid reaction...), but I have had any number of musician friends attempt to explain to me how brilliant a feat the making of this album actually was.

Which takes me back to the question: "Is it only truly in the eyes of a fellow artist that one's work can find genuine validation?"

In this instance, as with so many others, I'd have to say, "No." My friends are experts on music and what makes it, well, music, and therefore, "art." And they like the BeeGees.

I don't need to be able to read sheet music and run scales to be able to have an informed opinion on this album. 

Is it art? 

"Yes." 

Is it well-done, well-written, well-played, well-constructed? 

"Yes, to all of the above."

Do I like it?

"Hell no."

Guh.

Same goes for Burt Bacharach. If I concede that the guy was a musical genius, producing all manner of well-crafted songs, can I be allowed to term his stuff "Boring as shit"?

Yes. Bacharach's work is art, accomplished, affecting art.

And I don't like it, either. What's more, I don't need to actually be a fellow musician to appreciate the skill involved in the creation of said music.

Let's shift gears and bring this train back to what initially sparked this extended rumination: writers and the work of other writers, and whether one needs to be a writer to validate said work.

Obviously, I'm coming to the conclusion that one need not be a writer to be able to effectively review/critique the work of a writer. One need only be affected by said work.

Two quick examples: I love the work of humorist David Sedaris. And I try to inject a bit of "funny" into my own work. But even if I didn't, my opinion on Sedaris' work would be no less valid.

Is Sedaris' work great art? I don't know. It clearly is art. And I enjoy it.

And yet there are writers out there whose work, accomplished, polished, well-conceived and well-executed, just flat leaves me cold. 

Like Cormac McCarthy (Whenver I've read something of his, I can never seem to shake the feeling that he's punishing the reader for attempting to take on his work).

Tana French is another one (Incredibly skilled. A virtuoso. Master of prose, of description, of narrative. An amazing writer. And yet I don't like what I've read of her work. Sometimes feel as if she doesn't quite play fair with the reader. Objective? Nah. But there it is.).

And there you have it. Does validation coming from a fellow artist mean more than that coming from a non-writer who is clearly deeply affected by one's work?

I say no.

But it's a free country. That's the beauty of art:

Your Mileage May Vary.

See you in two weeks!

The Best is My Guest

This is my seventeenth review of the best short mysteries of the year. 

If you mention this list, and I hope you do, please refer to it as something like "Robert Lopresti's best short mysteries of the year list at SleuthSayers," NOT as the "SleuthSayers' best of..." because my fellow bloggers are ruggedly independent and may well have opinions of my own. 

18 stories made my list this year, a tie for the highest with 2017. 11 were written by men and 7 by women.  And that brings up a question that has been bugging me for a while: men have always outnumbered women on my best-of list. Does that coincide with the number of stories I read or is something else going on? So last year I kept track of the gender of the authors I read.  These charts tell the story. You can decide what the results mean.

As long as we are looking at statistics, two sources were responsible for half the winners:  Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, with 5 stories, and Level Best with 4, Wildside scored  2.

5 stories were funny, 4, historic, and 4 had science fiction/fantasy elements. 3 were by foreign authors and 3 by my fellow SleuthSayers.

One author made the list twice this year, which I believe has happened only 4 times before.  And one author has achieved a record-breaking score of 6 appearances.

Okay, let's get started.

Andrews, Donna, "Dirty Deeds,"  in Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Michael Bracken, and Carla Coupe, Wildside Press, 2025.

The protagonist  is trying to be a dutiful niece, but Aunt Josephine is not making it easy.  Niece wants her to get rid of most of the stuff that is cluttering her house in a dangerous way. She should be glad when a nosy neighbor tells her a junk removal firm has just arrived at the aunt's house, but  Dirty Deeds is not any of the companies the niece helpfully researched... 

Beck, Zöe "Abreast Schwarztonnensand," in Hamburg Noir, edited by Jan Karsten, Akashic Press, 2025.

The publisher sent me a free copy of this book. Beck is making her second appearance on this list.

This story  is written as a film script, dialog with occasional description. 

Kai-Uwe is a billionaire and the owner of a Hamburg family business. He has been cruising on the Elbe River in his yacht and has run over a man in a sailboat.  The story consists of  the man and his cronies discussing ways to avoid all responsibility, legal and financial, for the accident. 

Beetner, Eric, "The Cutting Room Floor,"  in Hollywood Kills, edited by Adam Meyer and Alan Orloff, Level Short, 2005.

Scott is editing episodes of a reality show.  Its success has been based on one of the contestants. Violet is blunt, rude, short-tempered. She "didn't come here to make friends." She was "a bad bitch and I know it, honey." She was ratings gold. 

But all bad things come to an end and she was getting kicked off the show. Who would have guessed that she wouldn't take the news well? 

Benedetto, J.F. "Never Bet Against Death,"  in Crimeucopia: A Load of Balls, edited by John Connor, Murderous Ink Press, 2025.

Tien-Tsin, China in 1901. The Boxer Rebellion has failed and Europeans and Americans have the run of the place. One of those Americans is Hezekiah Sauer, ex-cowboy, retired Marine, now a traveling man. 

An Englishman, a baronet no less, invites Sauer to watch a game of Ts'uchu or cuju, a ball game played by - gasp - women. The game is interrupted by the murder of a Russian consul and the Russian army officers who arrive to investigate enlist Sauer's aid.

Coward, Mat, "Come Forth and Be Glad in the Sun,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, March/April 2025. 

These two mark Coward's third and fourth appearances on my best list.  

"Of all the people we have ever kidnapped, you are by far the rudest."

Gemma and Nathan, sister and brother, are the victims.  Nathan is the genius who never found anything to do with his life. Gemma is the grouchy businesswoman who runs an escape room business.

The kidnappers  are "permanent security consultants" but their boss is getting old and it "had been ages since they'd last been required to consult anyone concerning their security and their baseball bats and steel-capped boots were growing old with neglect." 

Coward, Mat, "Splash,"  in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2025.

Whatever happens -- environmental crises, pandemics, economic collapses -- rich people always end up richer, with the sole exception of those events which involve rich people having their heads chopped off.  It is largely for this reason that I am strongly in favour of rich people having their heads chopped off on a pretty regular basis.

And so we meet Pewter who has the unlikely occupation of helping the disgustingly rich (not to be confused with the merely rich or the insanely rich) find new ways to spend their money.  No doubt encounters with his clients led him to his opinion of decapitation.  But that isn't why he becomes a serial killer...

Hatcher, Alice. "Into the Weeds,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2025.

Mark Rousseau  is the only cop in a small town.  He laments that "There's a certain kind of loneliness that comes from living in a place where you know everyone, but where most people associate you with the worst day of their lives."

An interesting observation, but the real star here is  Mrs. Stockard, eighty-five years old and, well: "People who don't know any better -- tourists -- would probably call Mrs. Stockard 'spry' or 'feisty'. I would call her 'mean.'"

She interrupts the cop's breakfast to tell him she struck a man on a back road that morning. Not her fault, of course. He "walked into my truck... Am I talking too fast for you?"

Kudlacz, C. J. "Paradise by the Dashboard Light,"  in Bat Out of Hell, edited by Don Bruns, 2025.

Ten miles to Canada and Jacob Mills has an empty gas tank, a flat tire, and his stepfather's body in the trunk.  Oh, it's also snowing.   And he's vague about who killed Clint, largely because of his concussion.  

Mallory, Michael, "The Eyes That Won't Die," in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January/February 2025.

This marks the third appearance here by my fellow SleuthSayer.

It's 1946 and Jim Beckley survived the war but, like many of his comrades, he is having trouble with the peace.  He is living with his wife (who he only met three months before they married) in a hastily built Quonset hut village for ex-GIs and their families.  Memories of people he killed are haunting him and no one seems to understand.  Jobs are hard to find and so, for Jim, is the gumption to hunt for one. 

When the ex-GI living in the other half of his barrack is murdered and dumped in the street, Jim is  suspected of the murder.  

Mansfield, Nina, "Wax On, Wax Off," in  Malice Domestic: Mystery Most Humorous, edited by John Betancourt, Michael Bracken, and Carla Coupe, Wildside Press, 2025.

Our protagonist is "Andrea Kalinski, PTA treasurer, locally known mommy-blogger, and founder of The Ageless Change, a recently launched skin-care line that targeted menopausal women." 

Unfortunately for her the Body Hair Acceptance Movement has moved into power and twenty-eight states have banned "unnatural hair removal for profit."  

Andrea is forced to go to an illegal waxing parlor to prepare for her work-and-recreation trip to Brazil, but someone gets killed.  "I hadn't signed up to investigate a murder. I wanted to battle an unjust law and wear a thong at Ipanema Beach."

Narvaez, Richie, "The Skies Are Red,"  in On Fire and Under Water, edited by Curtis Ippolito, Rock and a Hard Place Press, 2025.

The second appearance here for Mr. Narvaez.

This is an oral history of  a TV series that never aired, told in fragments of interviews with the cast and crew.  Criminal Takedown: Climate Change Cops was supposed to be the latest hit spinoff from that hugely successful television empire. 

This particular show was the brainchild  of Sal Cassady, who had made it big in hippy movies and was a dedicated environmentalist.  He thought that he could change hearts and minds by approaching the issue of climate change through the classic crime format.

Didn't quite work out.  The interviews show us a toxic combination of Hollywood ego, corporate doubletalk, denialism, and just bad (hah) chemistry. 

Phillips, Gary, "What Ned Said,"  in Hollywood Kills, edited by Adam Meyer and Alan Orloff, Level Short, 2005.

I learned a new term from this story: grief tech, the use of advanced to technology to help with the mourning process. 

In this story it refers to Ethereal Essence, a company  which uses videos, text messages, and other mementos to create a virtual reality experience between the mourner and the deceased.  The mourner here is Clayton and the deceased is his old friend Ned.  They have a terrific session together - right up to the end when Ned tells his pal that he had been murdered.

Ross, Stephen, "Murder in F Sharp,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, September/October 2025.

Ross is a fellow SleuthSayer.

My name is Thomas Phipps, and I discovered a dead body today.

Thomas is sixteen and he doesn't have to investigate the murder because he has a strong suspicion about who did it.  Anyway, his bigger problem is that  his father wants him to keep taking classical piano lessons but Thomas wants to learn jazz.  

Simmons, Shawn Reilly,  "Level Up," in The Most Dangerous Games, edited by Deborah Lacy, Level Short, 2025.

 I have a story in this book.

Natalie is a PhD student in Medieval Literature.  No surprise then that she is in desperate financial straits.  The big surprise is when she receives an invitation from DARE+ that begins:

Congratulations! You've been selected for an exclusive opportunity to earn real money through fun challenges.  Based on your profile, you could earn up to $500 in your first week. Interested? 

What could possibly go wrong?

Spencer, David,  "The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea," in Every Day A Little Death: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Song of Stephen Sondheim, edited by Josh Pachter, Level Best Books, 2025.

Teaser is a master thief and he has scuba dived to a private island to steal an ancient Japanese artifact.  His backup team, Pran and Gadge, are following him on radio.  In a story like this the reader usually contemplates one question: Will the gang triumph or will things fall apart at the last moment?

But halfway through the story there is a plot reversal.  And suddenly the action is quite different and so are the stakes.  

Tashiro, Tia. "The Temporary Murder of Thomas Monroe,"  in Clarkesworld, #220, January 2025.

College student Tom Monroe has just been murdered, and he finds it very inconvenient, but no worse than that. You see, ihs parents are very rich and have supplied him with a medtag which alerts the authorities when he dies and they have the money to have him revived.

Someone killed Tom in order to steal his money which is protected by voice and fingerprints.  His memories of the previous two months are cloudy, due to the revival process.  Can he figure out how this happened?

Van Dessel, Jessica, "The Violent Season,"  in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2025

Helen wants a divorce.  Ed is reluctantly willing to go along, so she has "the look of defiant guilt that is displayed by people who are about to get their own way."  (Ooh, that's good.) 

Problem is it is 1956 and in New York the only grounds for divorce are desertion or adultery.  Ed is willing to provide the latter.  Well, he doesn't actually want to commit adultery but he has contacts who will put him in touch with a woman willing to pretend in front of a camera.

Pretty messy stuff but it gets worse when somebody ends up murdered.  And just when Ed thinks he has that problem solved, along comes...

Walker, Joseph S. "The Right Size of Favor,"  in Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun, edited by Michael Bracken, Down and Out Books, 2025.

Joe is, of course, another SleuthSayer. This is his sixth appearance on my best of the year list, which makes him the World Champion, so far.

My name is Josh Branson. I'm a seventh-grade English teacher, and I'm married to [private eye] Hard Line Graham's daughter.  I didn't get a summer school assignment, and Hard Line doesn't like people sitting around, so he told me I'm working for him.  He sent me here because he owes somebody a big enough favor to help Brenda Roman, but not a big enough one to show up himself.  I have precious little idea what I'm doing and I'm frankly terrified.

Brenda Roman is the county coordinator for a national charity fundraiser.  Someone is demanding a share of the money raised for charity: a protection racket.  Our teacher-turned-P.I. has no trouble finding the gangsters but they may not be so easy to deal with: "Christ, this guy's huge. He looks like he bullies offensive linemen for their lunch money." 

And that's all. Congratulations to the winners. The checks are in the mail. See you next year!

 

 

Senior Sleuths and Sinners

Senior sleuths may be all the rage thanks to The Thursday Murder Club series and Only Murders in the Building, among others. But authors have been making use of older sleuths--and older sinners--for a long time. (Paging Miss Marple.) 

 

I tackled this topic back in 2017. Given the increasing popularity of senior characters since then, this seems a good time to rerun that column, with minor edits. I hope you find it helpful.

Looks can be deceiving.  No one knows that better than people who try to slip something past you. Con artists. Murderers. Even wide-eyed children and little old ladies. When you appear nice and innocent, folks will let you get away with murder.

 

I've written before about using teenage girls as protagonists. They work well as evil-doers or crime-committers because no one suspects them. They're young and peppy and can come across as sweet if they try. They're also fearless and their brains aren't fully developed, so they'll do stupid things few adults would. Today, I'm going to focus on the other end of the age spectrum: the senior set. (I know some people don't like that term, but I mean no animus, so please bear with me.)

Imagine you come home to find your house burglarized, with your files ransacked and your computer--with all your notes--stolen. In real life, you'd call the cops, never thinking you personally could find the culprit. It could be anyone. But things are different for fictional Amateur Sleuth Sally. 

Sally knows she's been investigating the arson death of poor Mr. Hooper, who owned the corner store. So with the neighbors leaning on their porches or whispering in small groups on their lawns, watching the police spectacle (it's a small town, so there's spectacle), Sally goes outside and studies her prime suspects in the arson murder and her own burglary: those very same neighbors.

Is the culprit Oscar, the grouchy guy in the green bathrobe across the street who puts out his trash too early in the morning? Sally heard he owed Mr. Hooper money. Or is it Maria, the skinny lady who works at the library? She lives two doors down, and Sally has heard she spends time with Mr. Hooper when Mrs. Hooper is away on business--or at least she used to until Mrs. Hooper put a stop to it. Or is it Mrs. Hooper herself, the betrayed spouse? Sally has lots of questions and suspects, but she never stops to think about kindly Katrina, the grandmother who lives next door. Surely a woman who bakes cookies and serves as a crossing guard couldn't have done in Mr. Hooper.

You all know. Of course she did. And Sally Sleuth's failure to recognize that appearances can be deceiving will almost be her undoing. (Almost. This is a cozy novel I'm outlining, so Sally must prevail in the end.)

But things don't always tie up so neatly in short stories. In short stories, the bad guy can win. Or the ending can really surprise you. Or both. And kindly Katrina could end up pulling one over on Sally Sleuth. I've made use of this aspect of short stories in several of my own.

In my 2017 story "Whose Wine Is It Anyway?," seventy-year-old Myra Wilkinson is in her final week of work. She's retiring on Friday after working for forty-five years as a law firm secretary, forty of them for the same guy, Douglas. But as her final day looms, Myra isn't as excited as she anticipated because Douglas has chosen Jessica, a husband-hunting hussy, to replace her. Jessica doesn't care about doing the job right, and this is bothering Myra to no end. Then something happens, and Myra realizes that Douglas has been taking her for granted. So she comes up with a scheme involving Douglas's favorite wine to teach Douglas a lesson and reveal Jessica for the slacker she really is.

The beauty of the plan is no one will see Myra coming. On the outside she's kind and helpful. She calls people "dear." As one character says, she's "the heart of this department." Myra's nice on the inside, too, but she also has sass and a temper, which come into play as she hatches her scheme and it plays out.

Another great thing about Myra is she's known Douglas for so long that she knows his weaknesses, and she makes use of them. (This reminds me of a wonderful scene from the movie Groundhog Day. Bill Murray's character says of God, "Maybe he's not omnipotent. He's just been around so long, he knows everything.") The older a character is, the more knowledge she'll have--information she can use against others.

Towanda!

An older person like Myra also might be willing to throw caution to the wind, seeing she's made it so far already. (That reminds me of a wonderful scene from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes in which Kathy Bates's middle-aged character is cheated out of a parking spot by two twenty-something women, one of whom says, "Face it, lady, we're younger and faster." Kathy Bates goes on to repeatedly ram her car into the the other woman's car, then says, "Face it, girls. I'm older and have more insurance." Granted Kathy Bates's character wasn't a senior citizen, but she had reached the point where she wasn't going to just take things anymore.)

Anyway, what happens to Myra, Douglas, and Jessica? You'll have to read the story to find out. You can find "Whose Wine Is It Anyway?" as a standalone e-story at Barnes and Noble (click here) and Amazon (click here). The story originally appeared in the anthology 50 Shades of Cabernet. It was a finalist for the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards for best short story in 2018.

 

Getting back to seniors, I had fun writing another senior character in a story that came out in 2016, "The Best-Laid Plans." Eloise Nickel is a mystery writer, a grande dame of her profession, and she's being honored for her lifetime achievement at this year's Malice International convention. (Does this convention's name sound familiar? Good.) It's too bad for Eloise that the convention's guest of honor this year is Kimberly Siger, Eloise's nemesis. Then, to make matters worse, a few weeks before the convention, Kimberly insults Eloise in Mystery Queen Magazine. Eloise isn't going to take that, so she plans to make Kimberly suffer during the convention. Because she's known Kimberly for many years, Eloise knows Kimberly's weak spots. And because she's thought of as a nice, aging lady, she figures no one will suspect her of any nefarious doings. Do her plans work out? Read "The Best-Laid Plans" to find out. This story, published in the anthology Malice Domestic 11: Murder Most Conventional, was a finalist for the Agatha Award in 2017. The anthology remains available in paper and digital formats from a lot of retailers.

So, fellow mystery authors, when you're thinking about your next plot and want a bad guy or gal who can hide in plain sight, think about a senior citizen. The same goes when you're devising your sleuth. A bad guy may not spill his guts if thirty-something Sally Sleuth is nearby, but he certainly might if Grandma Greta is. He thinks she's so innocuous, he won't see her coming--until she pulls a gun on him.

Do you have a favorite character--good gal or bad--who's a senior citizen? Please share in the comments. We can never have enough good short stories and books to read.

Intimations of Immortality.

               I used to know how to set the points and plugs on an internal combustion engine.  I worked on main frame computers from a dumb terminal.  I used an operator to place a long-distance call.  Every few months I had to chisel the ice out of a refrigerator freezer.  Changed the ribbon on the typewriter, threaded film onto little sprockets, found my way around the country by asking directions at the gas station.

All these life skills are now totally obsolete, along with hundreds of others, as a result of advancing technology.  About which I am not the least bit mournful.  I partly wish I could clear some of that antediluvian junk out of my memory so I can fit in more durable information, though I’m glad I got to do all those things, since they represent interesting threads of experience that help stitch the whole thing together. 

This bolsters my belief that there is no such thing as useless information.  I once edited mind-numbingly dense technical papers for a big hydrocarbon processing company.  I don’t remember a single thing I read, corrected for clarity or reassembled to provide a more convincing argument, but I remember how I felt performing the task.  Tired and drained, but also satisfied with myself for having accomplished something about which I was startlingly unqualified.

There’s a silver lining in having worked through the various phases of technological development.  These tasks leave behind tools and skills that can be repurposed for emerging challenges.  Every time I repair something around the house, I use hacks and work arounds only learnable tearing apart car engines and old radios.  The most satisfying is when I can fix something designed to simply toss out and replace.  I feel like I’m sticking it to the obsolescence man. 

            I have difficulty with the word nostalgia.  I think it’s because of the sentimentality and fruitless yearning nestled in the definition.  While I feel enriched by memories of past experience, I have no desire to return to those moments.  The fact is, you can’t go back again, and I don’t want to.  I just don’t want to forget, distort into oblivion, or disrespect, the memories. 

Aside from the people you love, the experiences you have are the only truly meaningful value in having lived.   If you’re a writer, it’s your toolbox, your chef’s knives, color palette, chromatic scale, source code and cheat sheet.    

            Luckily, most acquired knowledge isn’t as perishable as the technological.  The trouble here is accessing it, especially when the content piles up and gears in the retrieval mechanism wear down.  I use this as an excuse for holding on to mountains of books, a trillion nuts/bolts/screws/thingmajigs/tools/spares (ad finitum), bins of curling photographs and old friends.  Also, I may have the short-term memory of a drunken gnat, but I’m great at dredging up the particulars of a high school keg party or a day wandering around Fiesole looking down on the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore di Firenze rising up out of the fog.  The sight of Jimi Hendrix lighting his Stratocaster on fire under the blue lights and strobes at the Electric Factory.  Looking behind me and seeing the dinghy we were towing behind a sailboat rise up ten feet above my head.

Since the brain isn't a digital recorder, I’ve come to learn that many of these remembrances are approximate representations of what actually transpired.  They’re more like 8mm movies with the disclaimer, "Based on the experiences of Chris Knopf, as told to whoever was still around to listen.”

But so what.  Once they’ve been fed into the fiction-writing machine, the provenance is of little importance.   

 

From the Wall O' Inspiration

I do most of my writing– and most of my work– since my day job is teaching online classes--sitting at a computer in my home office. I do have a laptop, but given my preference, I like a setup that feels more substantial--a big honking PC with a couple of screens, external speakers and a full-size keyboard. By today's standards I guess that makes me a bit old-fashioned. Of course I got through college using an actual honest-to-gosh typewriter, so this still feels pretty fancy to me.

Because of some peculiarities in the design of my house, sitting at the computer means I'm facing a wall that's about a foot behind my primary monitor. I'd prefer to be facing a window, but hey, I'm not the one who designed the wiring in here. Just above the level of my head (when sitting), the wall slopes sharply inward, following the roofline. So I don't have room for, say, a poster with a kitten clinging to a branch and telling me to "hang in there."

What I do have are three pieces of paper that I've taped to the wall in my eyeline. Most of the time, of course, my gaze just kind of skims past them, since they've become a part of the scene I just take for granted. Once in a while I do take conscious notice of them, though, and hopefully they provide a bit of inspiration or encouragement that's almost as good as the kitten poster.

Harlan Ellison producing

The first is a quote from Thomas Carlyle, though I got it from an essay by Harlan Ellison, the writer who made me want to be a writer. It reads:

PRODUCE! PRODUCE! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee: out with it, then. Up! Up! Whatsoever thy hand findest to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called Today; FOR THE NIGHT COMETH, WHEREIN NO MAN CAN WORK.

Cheerful, right? To put it in modern terms: get yer ass in the chair, kid, and your fingers on the keys.

The second scrap of paper is a passage from Rainer Maria Rilke, though again I cribbed it from a secondary source– in this case, the ending of Taika Waititi's 2019 film Jojo Rabbit. And it reads:

Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror

Just keep going

No feeling is final.

This went up on the wall in the opening months of the COVID pandemic, when the world seemed like a pretty dark place and a reminder that it wouldn't be that way forever had daily value. These days, of course, all I have to worry about is creeping fascism, AI, and the possibility that we're about to invade Greenland, so everything is peachy.

The final piece of paper is the simplest. It's a single word, rendered in plain font:

REFINE

I put this up most recently, because it's a principle I've been thinking about a lot: refinement as a mode of living. It's long been part of my writing; I favor something of a sparse style, and there's nothing I love better than revising a piece of writing by carving away everything that is unneeded. I've been thinking that this isn't a bad way to approach most days: removing the things that aren't of value, that contribute no meaning. Doomscrolling, for example. Mindlessly surfing through YouTube. Distractions. "Refine" is meant to remind me to, whenever possible, make choices and take actions that are essential to the things I want to accomplish. I don't often actually accomplish it, of course, but it's something to aim for.

As for the desk itself, mostly it's cluttered with papers and mail I haven't yet dealt with--another thing I need to refine. There is, however, a small collection of rocks and shells from various trips I've taken, to remind me there's a world beyond that wall I'm facing. And there are also two Lego minifigures, there to remind me that what I should be doing is writing a crime story: Lego Shakespeare, and Lego Detective (complete with magnifying glass and red herring!).

So those are the things I've chosen to try to provide me with a bit of fortitude as I craft my little tales. What about you? Do you have inspirational images or words on your walls? How did you choose them, and what do they mean to you?

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