Star-gazing in Seattle

 

In August my family went to Seattle for the World Science Fiction Conference. Worldcon is a huge annual event (more than 6,000 full members, plus hundreds more who dropped in for at least one of the five days).

A few of the panels I attended: *Why Anthologies?, *No Wrong Way to Write Folk Songs, *Bring on the Bad Guys,  *Alternative Histories from Outside the West, *Cascadia's Many Climates, *Growing Food and Eating in Space, *The Sounds of the Sound,  *An Hour of the Strange, Unusual, Creepy, and  *Home Recording for Non-Techies. 

A lot more than rehash discussions of Star Trek, huh?

I spent a few hours on the Information Desk answering questions for attendees (often the answer was "I don't know." Communication in an ever-changing environment of 6,000+ people is a challenge).  Notice in the picture that some brilliant soul wrote out all the FAQ's, and even put them in alphabetical order.  My people!

One of my favorite totally random moments: I was on an escalator going up while a man going down yelled at his phone: "Stop autocorrecting piroshkies!" Very good food around the Seattle Convention Center, by the way. And speaking of food, Anne Harlan Prather passed on a bit of advice she received for people with a lack of appetite: Eat brightly colored things. They are full of anti-oxidants. 

The Hugo Awards were given out.  They are similar to our Anthonys, voted on by the convention members. I mention this because the winner of Best Novel was The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, which was also a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel, and how often does that happen?  I read it and it is terrific.  Think Nero Wolfe on a planet where most of the technology is based on vegetation.

Some actual titles panelists mentioned: Lesbians in Space: Where No Man Has Gone Before, 101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered, Thyme Travelers, "Syphillis Sysiphus," My Tropey Life: How Pop Culture Stereotypes Make Disabled Lives Harder, and Unidentified Funny Objects.

A few panels deserve more discussion. One was "Is it Appropriation? Writing the Other."  Moderator  James Mendez Hodes said "A cultural consultant is when you hire someone to tell you you're a racist." Hodes is, of course, a cultural consultant. Panelists talked about outsiders "wearing the culture as a costume."

When asked for an example of cultural appropriation Annie Carl talked about  able-bodied actors playing disabled characters. (She noted that the blind engineer in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was played by a blind man. I might note that panelists also enthusiastically supported Killers of the flower Moon and Chief of War.) Gregg Castro talked about "Indian shopping," which is when writers looking for a Native American who will approve whatever they hope to write. Panelist K. Tempest Bradford runs an educational website, Writing the Other.  She noted that after a certain Beyonce song came out White friends asked her to explain it. "Am I the Beyonce whisperer?"  Shay Kauwe said, approximately, that writer friends will ask her "Can I do this?" when they should be asking "Should I do this? Why am I doing it?" 

I loved the Editing Pet Peeves panel.   Elektra Hammond won my heart by saying her number one complaint is authors who give characters similar names.  Yes!  Another panelist mentioned an author who sent a book pitch to 100 authors - listing them all in the "To" line.  There was a lengthy passionate discussion of hyphens vs em-dashes and en-dashes.  Heather Tracy: "When in doubt ask your copy editor. They will be happy to talk to you for an hour about em-dashes." Editor Atlin Merrick: "I have had new writers treat me like a servant." Also Merrick: "Read the guidelines and you're in the top 30%. Be easy to work with and you're in the top 10%. Send me humor you're in 5%."

The panel on anthologies was particularly interesting. One panelist called them "curated collections." Publisher William C. Tracy pointed out that they are more expensive, since so many writers need to be paid. A lot of them in the science fiction field are funded by kickstarters, with an average of $7500 being raised.  

Oh, and as for payment, here's a shocker.  Reckoning Magazine pays 15 cents per word, Clarkesworld almost as much. 

Come back in two weeks for my favorite quotations from the con.  Until then, keep watching the skies!

Breaking a Writing Rule to Humorous Effect

Two years ago, the fine folks at Crippen & Landru released an anthology called School of Hard Knox, in which all the stories broke one of the ten rules handed down by Father Ronald Knox back in the golden age of mysteries. Last year, I was pleased to be asked to contribute to the follow-up anthology, in which all the stories would break one of the twenty rules for writing detective stories handed down by golden age author S. S. Van Dine. That book, titled Double Crossing Van Dine, was released two weeks ago.

When Donna Andrews, one of the editors of these two anthologies (along with Greg Herren and Art Taylor), asked me to write a story, I quickly looked at the twenty rules to see which one might inspire me. As soon as I saw rule #3, my mind was off and running. This rule states:  

"There must be no love interest in the story. To introduce amour is to clutter up a purely intellectual experience with irrelevant sentiment. The business in hand is to bring a criminal to the bar of justice, not to bring a lovelorn couple to the hymeneal altar."

Heavens, we wouldn't want a little love--and lust--to gum up the works.

Or would we? 

What if, I thought, a private eye is hired by his next-door neighbor to solve a case dear to the PI's heart, but at the same time his ovulating wife is eager to get pregnant, and she keeps trying to lure him to bed. It is an amusing premise. I figured this scenario would drive Van Dine up the wall. It is exactly why he declared there should be no romance in detective stories--a desire for amour should not impede an investigation. 

But I wasn't done. I love writing funny stories, and I had an idea to ratchet up the humor: Every seductive step the wife takes gives her husband an idea for the next step he should take in his investigation. In the end, it is the wife's desire to distract her husband that leads him to solve the case. 

Take that, Van Dine! I think if he were to read this story, "Baby Love," he might decide he was a bit too harsh with rule #3. In the right circumstance, amour could be just what the detective needs.

I think Van Dine's ghost is working at the
fortune cookie factory.

I hope you will check out this anthology, which has a great list of contributors and an introduction by Catriona McPherson. The trade paperback version can be bought from the usual sources, as well as directly from the publisher. Just click here. (You also can purchase straight from the publisher a clothbound numbered edition--signed by the editors--with a Van Dine pastiche written by Jon L. Breen thrown in.) I believe an ebook version will be coming out soon too. 

Imaginary Friends

by Janice Law 

Like a lot of small children, I had an imaginary friend. Not surprisingly, since I was passionately fond of animals, mine was a Mr. Fox. On wet afternoons, I would go down the hall to what had once been a chambermaid's room and get into the dressing up box. As this included a moth eaten jacket of some indeterminate blond fur, I assume the contents came from the "big house" across from the estate garage that held our apartment. There was a variety of vintage dresses and hats with feathers and a necklace of green beads.

Attired in this ancient finery, I would make my way back down the dark wood paneled hall, knock on our kitchen door, and greet my mother with the formal curtesy Edwardian Scots women used: Good afternoon, Mrs. Law. 

Mother would, in turn, greet Mrs. Fox, who came in for milk and cookies and what my mom would call a wee natter.

I've thinking about imaginary friends, both childhood and literary lately, because Ray Wilde, one of my characters, seems unexpectedly to be hanging around, moving from a useful if ephemeral narrator ( "The House on Maple Street") to what recently became his fifth outing. He's becoming that peculiar being, an adult imaginary friend, which is one of several relationships writers can have with their characters.

There are writers, way more clever than I am, who know everything about their heroes, who write up their back stories, examine their genealogies, and honestly claim to have created their protagonists from start to finish. I suspect they are people who do not like surprises and who enjoy control over their creations and plots.

I take a different tack. Characters, whether sparked by invention, observation, or historical knowledge– and I have written examples of each– first appear casually. They are useful in presenting a story. They have an interesting voice and suggest interesting adventures, but they are one-offs, imaginary acquaintances, if you like. 

Characters like Eddie and Tony in "The Smart One" (now appearing in Crimes Against Nature) or Grant ( "Up and Gone" in a recent AHMM) whisper in some inner ear and then depart, almost certainly never to return. They are creatures of one particular story and have no life beyond it.

Converted mill

I thought that would be the case with Ray Wilde, my middle-aged private detective whose modest agency I set in one of our old eastern Connecticut mill towns. I needed a narrator for an idea I had about teen athlete steroid use, and it was not Ray, but the house of the title, ( "The House on Maple Street") that really jump-started the story.

Basically, I knew nothing about Ray beyond his profession, his past work as a cop in a larger town, the make of his car, the condition of one damaged knee, and his attitude of tolerant skepticism. I was surprised when he turned up again with a part-time bookkeeper and an older client who turned out to be most unusual. "The Client" later appeared in The Best Mystery Stories of 2021, so Ray rose in my estimation, although I still expected nothing more of him.

Clearly he had other ideas. "The Man from Hong Kong," appearing in the MarchApril issue of AHMM, is where I learned that Ray has interesting friends, quick reflexes, a long disused Glock, and an older home that probably needs work. What about his personal life? Significant others? Family?  I haven't a clue. We are not at that stage yet.

more Ray Wilde territory

Will we ever be is the question. All I know is that he keeps showing up. A story about a man who loves Halloween decorations has gone out and another story is even now in the computer. But Ray's a cagey fellow. Just this week, I learned that he pitched softball in the Twilight League; aside from that, his personal life remains opaque. I think, though, that we are now on good enough terms that I can consider him an imaginary friend, a grown up Mr. Fox.