05 July 2025

A Series Discussion


When we categorize fiction, we usually say it's either short or long, literary or genre, lighthearted or gritty, mystery or SF, etc.--but there's another distinction: Is it a series story or a standalone story?

Most of my short stores are standalones, meaning they're not part of an ongoing series using the same characters and locations. I like writing standalone stories because the plots and players are always new and interesting to explore. I can go anyplace I want to, in any time period, and live there for a while. ("A while" being the key phrase. That's probably the reason I'd rather write shorts than novels.)


Series differences

Having said that … I occasionally like to write "series" stories as well. One reason is that some characters and some settings turn out to be interesting and/or enjoyable enough (to me, at least) that I want to revisit them from time to time. Another is that a number of editors have told me that they, and their readers, like short-story series--and I'm not one to ignore that kind of hint. A third reason is that series installments (if they're subsequent stories and not the very first in the series) are sometimes easier to put together because both I and the reader already know the characters, and I can spend less time with setup and backstory and more time developing the plot--and plotting is probably my favorite part of writing. This works especially well if the stories are really short, as is the case of markets like Woman's World. I have found, though, that when I do write series stories, I tend to not write several in a row. I almost always sandwich one or more standalones in between series installments. That just seems to work better, for me.

I should also mention that there's one thing you have to consider with series stories that you don't have to worry about with standalones: continuity. If you're lucky enough to sell a few stories in a series, you'll find that you must keep careful track of facts about your recurring characters (primary and supporting), and locations and relationships as well. You don't want to carelessly change, say, the names of certain people, streets, restaurants, bars, and businesses later in the series. And if it seems that things like that would be easy for the writer to remember--well, they're not. You also don't want to repeat certain phrases, descriptions, or anything that might seem too repetitive, from story to story. Another thing to remember: Not everyone will read those installments in order. Every story in the series should be written such that it can stand on its own.

One more point. I'm not quite sure how to say this, but there seems to be a different feeling that goes along with the writing of each of these two kinds of stories. When I begin a standalone story I get a little tingle of adventure and daring and experimentation, of trying something brand new. (Yes, I know how silly that sounds, but it's true.) On the other hand, when I begin a series story, I feel more comfortable and secure because I'm on familiar ground--I already know the characters pretty well, and how they think and how they'll act. I'm not saying one "feeling" is better or worse than the other. Both are welcome, because they make me want to keep writing. 


Series notes and numbers

Personally, I have written and published eight different series of mystery shorts. The first of them began in 2001, with a bossy retired schoolteacher named Angela Potts, a character based roughly on my mother. Mom wasn't bossy and she wasn't a teacher, but she was quick-witted and she was curious about everything and everyone in my little hometown--she loved sitting in one particular rocker on her front porch and observing the neighborhood and every single car and pedestrian that passed by. Nothing happened in that town that she didn't know about.

So that's what got me started. But Mom's similarity to my protagonist ended there. My fictional heroine not only knows what's happening, she also doesn't mind interfering with those happenings, and investigating anything she finds the least bit suspicious. She especially enjoys "helping"--and irritating--the local sheriff, who was a student of hers in the fifth grade. Sheriff Charles "Chunky" Jones always allows her to butt into police business, not because he wants to but because he knows that "Ms. Potts" is smart and cunning enough to solve cases that he can't. Having his procedures criticized and his grammar corrected at every turn is, he figures, a small price to pay. So far, I've had more than 150 stories published about those two characters and their little Southern town, most of them mini-mysteries at Woman's World

In 2003 I started a different series of stories, this one about a small-town sheriff named Lucy Valentine and her mother Frances. Like Angela Potts, Fran Valentine is a former teacher, and in her retirement she's concerned mostly with two things: (1) assisting in the never-ending fight against crime and (2) finding Lucy a husband. (The first is easier than the second, since her daughter doesn't want a husband.) Around 100 of those Fran & Lucy stories, sometimes billed as the "Law and Daughter" series, have been published in more than a dozen different magazines, seven anthologies, and three story collections. (Woman's World published one of the Fran & Lucy stories in 2010, but the then-editor told me she'd rather I go back to the Angela mysteries, so I did.)

My third crime series, and one of those I've enjoyed the most, features Mississippi sheriff Raymond Kirk Douglas ("Please, no more Spartacus jokes") and his on-and-off girlfriend Jennifer Parker, who's a former lawyer and Ray's childhood sweetheart. Seven of these stories, which are much longer than most of my mysteries, have been published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and one in the short-lived Down & Out: The Magazine--and the latest installment is now hanging around in the AHMM submission queue. the Ray Douglas stories have been extra fun to write because most of them include not one mystery case but two or three different cases per story. 

My fourth series stars private investigator Thomas Langford, and also features a female partner-in-crime-solving: Tom's fiancee Debra Jo Wells, a paralegal at a local law firm. The first installment of that series was published in a special PI issue of Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and holds a glowing place in my heart (thank you, Michael Bracken) because it won a Shamus Award in 2021. The next Tom Langford mystery appeared in Strand Magazine, the third in Black Cat Weekly (thanks again, Michael), and three more installments have been accepted for an upcoming collection of my detective stories. (I should note that, as usual, Tom's female counterpart is smarter than he is, and he knows it. After all, our stories are supposed to reflect real life . . .)

My fifth mystery series revolves around accountant Katie Rogers and her younger sister Anna, the police chief in (you guessed it) their small Southern town--three of the Katie & Anna stories have also appeared in Woman's World. My sixth series features Old West private investigator Will Parker, whose first story (actually a novella) appeared in one of John Connor's Crimeucopia anthologies; the second story was published in a private-eye anthology and was later selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories. My seventh crime series stars New Orleans shopowner Madame Zoufou, Queen of Voodoo, who has made three appearances so far, one of them in a Mardi Gras anthology. And my eighth series features private eye Luke Walker and his sister Lavinia (Vinnie), and is set in the 1940s in New Orleans. The first of those appeared in an anthology of stories by previous Edgar- or Shamus-winners, the second has been accepted and is upcoming in an anthology based on S.S. Van Dine, and the third is in progress. 

In summary, six of my eight mystery series are set in the present day, two are set in the past, seven are set in the southeastern U.S., three are about county sheriffs, three are about PIs, one's about a police chief, and one's about a voodoo sorceress, with helpful partners and amateur sleuths joining the cast in all of them.

What's your story?

So that's my background, with regard to series. How about the rest of you? Do you prefer writing standalone stories or series installments? Do you like reading short-story series? Do you have any favorites? If you've written series stories, are they set in a familiar (to you) area? Are they written with particular publications or markets in mind? Have you found that writing them is more fun than standalones? Which do you find easier to write? Have you found series stories easier to sell?


Whatever your experience is and your preferences are, I hope you keep reading stories and keep putting them on paper. 

I'll be back in two weeks. See you then.



03 July 2025

Artificial Intelligence: 2025's Offering For Chicken Littles Worldwide


 "Y2K is gonna demolish the world's banking system."

                                                                            – Some Tech Guru to his Followers, Probably

"Ebooks will completely destroy the publishing industry."

                                                                 – An agent I met at a publishing conference in 2005

"AI is going to be the end of writing. All writing."

                                             – Far too many click-bait articles currently littering the Internet

It's 2025, and once again, the sky is falling.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

See above.

Look, I get it. Doom-scrolling has practically become an olympic-level sport over the last decade. And yes, both of the examples I noted above were change events in their own distinct ways.

But Y2K didn't destroy the banking system (although it did manage to scare the pants off of multitudes of people who ought to have known better, plus, without Y2K would we have ever had the glorious piece of film-making which was Mike Judge's Office Space?). And neither has it done in online commerce, for that matter.

"Peter....whaaaat's happening...."

And ebooks haven't decimated the publishing industry. If anything, more people are making more money from writing, both fiction and non-fiction, than ever before. Not since the paperback revolution of the late 1950s and '60s, has the occupation of "author" been so democratized. And mentioning 2005 is important for context, too. Because 2005 was the year I got my first book deal. And in the six years that followed I wrote nine more books in rapid succession, all of them for money. All of them on contracts.

(And it was a good thing I had the fairly lucrative opportunity to publish so many books so quickly. Because I really needed the scratch!)

All of this is not to say that there hasn't been rapid, technology-induced paradigm change, especially in publishing. And yes, there certainly has been some consolidation among the "Big Five" traditional publishing groups.

And so what? Movies come in color, too, these days.

I am no more prepared to shed tears over the demise shake-up of the insular, competition-averse, NYC-centric "traditional publishing" system than any of those publishers would be ready to cry over the long breaks I have taken between writing projects.

And here, in a nutshell, is why I find the current brouhaha over AI "writing" so much hyperventilating.

Because, in a word, it sucks.

AI in its current iteration isn't, in the strictest sense, even the most basic form of "intelligence." AI possesses no agency, forms no opinions, sets no goals and doesn't know the sting of failure. It's really just a bunch of LLM ("Large Language Model") programs that have been fed massive amounts of data, much of it proprietary, all of it purloined. And when asked a question, it collates the data it possesses, and spits out an answer.

And, surprise, surprise, just around half the time that answer is at least partially inaccurate. Often wildly so. For straight research you're likely better off with a targeted google search. And even if it gets the facts correct, then there's its massive problem with proper citation of sources (see my own source for this contention here. Fascinating read. Well worth your time!)

Doesn't that sound actionable? Shouldn't the creators of the mass of content these AI companies stole without their consent in order to kick-start their "revolution" be compensated for their work being used for purposes for which it was never intended?

Absolutely. And the lawsuits are just now beginning to get filed.

And don't get me started on the loopy, elliptical nature of the "fiction" it will spit out on command. Aggregate all of the purple prose that is currently floating around out there, and shake it up and spew it out, and turns out, all you've done is make it even more unreadable!

Anyway, I'm currently on vacation (the Coast, natch.) with my family, so this will be a two-parter, and I'm gonna close for now. When I post again in a couple of weeks, I'm bringing examples and receipts.

In the meantime, how about you? Please feel free to share your own AI experiences, good, bad, or mediocre in the comments, and I will incorporate responses to them in next time's exposition of the myriad shortcomings of "Artificial Intelligence."

In the meantime, here's the view from our deck, courtesy of my son:

The fog rolling in at Ecola Head, with Ecola Head Lighthouse in the distance (photo: James Thornton)

See you in two weeks!

02 July 2025

Music to Write by


I have always enjoyed having music on while I write but as I get older I find that lyrics are too distracting, so I go for instrumental stuff.

I was thinking about this because of something I discovered this week on Freegal --

A word of explanation (or explanation of a word.) Freegal is a free legal (hence the name) music streaming service which is available through some libraries.

It's a mixed bag; clearly some companies are not cooperating with it so you may find all the works of a performer and none of another, or an odd assortment  based on what shows up on, say, a compilation album from some minor company.  And before you ask, I don't know how much the artists are paid per stream.  I know at least one librarian is trying to find out.

Back to our story.  While searching for something else I found Nathan Barr's soundtrack album for Carnival Row, a fantasy TV series I had never heard of.  And, boy, it just worked for me. I tend to like soundtracks as background for writing, I guess because they are dramatic, emotional, and mercurial.

I sent a link to my sister, Diane Chamberlain, who also writes with soundtracks and she approved, so it is good to have my opinion  confirmed by a New York Times bestselling author.

Other soundtracks I like?  Danny Elfman's brooding, hypnotic work for the Batman movies.   

Also the Star Trek themes by many composers.

But there's more to life than soundtracks.  I am not a big fan of classical music, preferring early music.  One group I love is Hesperion XXI, which focuses on 16th-18th centuries, especially Spanish and Sephardic music.

Don't confuse them with the equally excellent Hesperus which performs early American music.

I also enjoy the Belgian cafe jazz of Jacques Brel. You may say that' isn't instrumental, to which I would reply: If you don't speak French it is.

So, writers, what do you listen to when you are creating your masterpieces?

And just for funsies, here is my favorite recording of a Jacques Brel song (not sung by him), complete with subtitles.

01 July 2025

Some Great Books


The first half of the year will end in about thirty-five minutes on the East Coast of the US, so this is a perfect time for me to share my five favorite crime/mystery reads of the year so far. If you choose to check any of them out, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

In reverse order, they are ...

5. The Busy Body by Kemper Donovan - This excellent Sherlock-and-Watson-type amateur-sleuth mystery came out in 2024. It is the first in a series and was extremely well plotted with strong voices and witty, clever, and wonderfully descriptive writing. 

I wish the main character, who played the Watson role, wasn't as closed off as she was, but I expect the author did this to give her room to grow, as well as personal secrets--especially one big one--to reveal, in future books. But these are small issues in an otherwise strong book, especially considering it is the author's first published mystery (though not his first published novel).

4. Bearer of Bad News by Elizabeth Dini - This is a wonderful book, especially for an author's first published novel. It came out in April of this year. It's an intriguing story with delightful writing that often had me laughing. It has strong voice and characters, especially the main character, who has a nice arc. The writing was often insightful, with emotional depth. While mainly set in modern day, the book also has a historical component that is timely. Those sections can be dark (but not gory), but that element of the book is offset by the lightheartedness of the main character. I hope it is the start of a series.

The only drawback worth mentioning is that there were a lot of characters, and I had a bit of a hard time keeping track of who was who and who did what. I think if I had read the book with my eyes, I would not have had that problem. (That said, the audio reader was fantastic.) 

3. A Sinister Revenge by Deanna Raybourn - This is the eighth book in the Veronica Speedwell series, and it came out in 2023. It was a great read. It has a strong voice, as usual, as well as a charming setting, an interesting mystery, enjoyable characters, and the main character had a strong arc through which she grew and her romantic relationship was strengthened. 

I had some small quibbles with the resolution, which I won't go into because I don't want to spoil things. Just know they should not keep you from reading this book. If you like historical mysteries, I highly recommend this whole series, which is largely set in England in the 1890s. Start with the first book, A Curious Beginning.

2.  The Case of the Missing Maid by Rob Osler - This book, which came out last year, is the first book in a new series by Osler. I enjoyed it so much, I read it in one day. It is set in 1898 Chicago and stars a gay female private eye. The book has a great voice, a charming main character, as well as an enjoyable supporting cast. It also has an intriguing plot. 

My concerns were minor (one scene in which the main character's thoughts went on too long for my taste, and there was one anachronism). If you like historical mysteries, you will want to pick this one up.

And my favorite mystery read of the year so far ...

1. The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter - This witty 2024 romantic cozy mystery has great voices, characters who grow, well-planted clues, a marvelous setting, and strong writing. I did have an issue with the main characters' failure to realize in a timely manner something that seemed obvious to me, but I am willing to let this issue go because I loved this book so much. 

What mystery/crime novels have you read this year that you have loved? I would appreciate your recommendations.

And, before I go, a little news. I am delighted that my short story "The Postman Always Flirts Twice" was named a finalist two weeks ago for this year's Macavity Award. This story won the Agatha Award in April. It was published in the anthology Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy. While I highly recommend you buy the book, if you would like to read my story, it is available for free reading for a limited time by clicking here

 

 

30 June 2025

There’s a place for us.


 

            When I published my first mystery novel, I knew nothing about the mystery world and the writers, readers, reviewers and journalists who inhabit it.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  I’d written the thing in complete isolation, informed only by the hardboiled classics and my

twisted imagination.   So I brought my book to a mystery bookstore, The Black Orchid in New York run by Bonnie Claeson and Joe Guglielmelli.  Bonnie spent about two hours giving me advice, the first of which was to “Go to Bouchercon and hang out at the bar.”  I thought, this is something I know how to do.

            What I discovered has been as meaningful to me as publishing the books and short stories.  A big community filled with intelligent, witty, gracious and generous people.  I never would have expected this in a million years.  I assumed that writers were all introverted shut-ins, protective of their work and privacy above all else.  Not even close.  All I heard at that first Bouchercon was wall-to-wall counsel, useful information and welcoming words.  And encouragement.  Not just from the writers, but the booksellers, reviewers and magazine publishers, people like George Easter, Chris Aldrich and Jon Jordan. 

            I was hardly ever a shut-in, but I’m by nature an introvert who fancies solitary pursuits.  So I’m not naturally a joiner.  But in the mystery world, I fell in with a good crowd.  Aside from Bouchercon, I became devoted to Crime Bake in New England, which had some overlap with Bouchercon, but introduced me to a different sort of writer-oriented, and extremely involving conference.  Likewise Killer Nashville, ThrillerFest and SleuthFest.

            Twenty years later, I have a whole crop of lifelong friends.  I’m not a sentimental person, but I’m deeply grateful for these associations and all the experiences that have come from entangling myself in this hidden, delightful subculture. 

           

            I joined the New York Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America, which is geographically enormous.  Richie Narvaez, then chapter president, was eager to bring more programming out to his far-flung domain, and asked if I could do something in Connecticut.  The result was CrimeCONN, a one-day conference co-sponsored by MWA/NY and the Ferguson Library in Stamford.  I teamed up with my longtime editor, Jill Fletcher, to create the programs and we’ve been doing it now for eleven years.  It’s been a rollicking success, and you should come next year, especially if you live in the Greater New York area. 

            I imagine most readers of SleuthSayers have been in the game a long time and are familiar with everything I’m writing here.  The people who really need to read it are the aspiring, at any age, who feel isolated as I did, in a state of doubt and confusion.  The social element is great, and I treasure it, but equally valuable is the ongoing education.  I walk away from every conference, including ours – especially ours – having learned something I didn’t know before, and wouldn’t if I hadn’t been there listening.  I may or may not find it useful for my writing, but I love to learn in general, and nothing makes me happier than gaining an insight that topples a pre-conceived notion, or a bit of knowledge that is entirely novel. 

            I’m not exactly sure why people pre-occupied with murder and dastardly criminal behavior would be such convivial companions, but there you go.  Through all this I’ve also become friends with people in law enforcement, and feel the same way about them.  They

don’t fit the stereotype at all, especially the detectives, attorneys and forensic experts.  They are universally bright, self-effacing and quick witted.  Even cheerful in a disarming, irreverent sort of way.  They tend to admire us fiction writers as much as we admire them, even though we often test their patience with our accuracy and fact-checking.  But they’ll tell you, “That’s okay.  You’re just trying to tell a good story.”

            Lilly Tomlin once said, “No matter how cynical you get, you just can’t keep up.”  That’s how it feels these days, and it’s easy to just succumb to the prevailing oppressive mood.  But just coming off our most recent CrimeCONN, I feel like declaring for the optimists – that there are good people in the world doing good work, and supporting one another, with thoughtfulness and generosity of spirit. 

29 June 2025

Finding A Glimmer of Hope, A Thousand Pieces at a Time


Anyone who's taught writing (or, I suspect, most other topics) in the last few years would have found little surprising in the recent news about an MIT study revealing that people who make regular use of AI tools like ChatGPT quickly show a serious reduction in cognitive activity.  After only a few months, such users "consistently underperformed neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels."

Lydia the Tattooed Lady
Magnolia Puzzles
Artist: Mark Fredrickson

I've certainly seen evidence of this in my own students. (For those unaware, I teach composition and literature courses for a number of online schools on an adjunct basis.) More and more of them are not just choosing to make use of AI, but fundamentally feel they have no other option, because they lack the reading and writing skills necessary to complete assignments on their own.

The situation isn't helped by the increasing number of schools that have essentially thrown in the towel, designing courses that actively encourage or even require the use of AI while giving lip service to the idea of training students to use it "ethically and responsibly."

This makes about as much sense as training someone to run a marathon by having them drive 26 miles a day and eat a meal from every fast food restaurant they pass on the trip.  And yes, in case you were wondering, it does make teaching depressing as hell.

An aside: I want to be clear here that I'm not blaming the students, certainly not on an individual level.  They can't help growing up in a world where literacy is consistently degraded and marginalized; they can't help having screens shoved in front of their faces all day long, starting before they can talk. What I can say is that, if I was under 25 years old, I would be in a constant state of white-hot rage over the world previous generations propose to leave me: a world that is less safe, less clean, less kind, less thoughtful, and far lonelier than it should be.  I would be furious to live in the richest, most technologically advanced society in human history, while millions have no access to healthcare or secure occupations.  It's no wonder so many of them are on antidepressants.

Aspic Hunt
Art & Fable
Artist: John Rego

But to get back to today's specific crisis…

AI has, in a very few years, become a source of existential terror for writers and other artists--not to mention those in a score of other occupations it threatens to wipe from existence (including, ironically, computer programmers, since it turns out AI is great at writing code).  It's a little quaint to look back at the many giants of science fiction who confidently predicted that robots would free humanity from dangerous or tiresome tasks like mining or washing dishes.  We've still got plenty of people dying of black lung or scraping by on scandalously low minimum wage gigs, but folks who want to write or create art have to compete with machines pretending they can do the same thing.

Believe it or not, I've painted this picture of doom and gloom because I want to share a tiny glimmer of hope I've found in an unexpected place: jigsaw puzzles.

Puzzling as a hobby exploded during the pandemic, when so many of us were looking for ways to pass the time, and my household is one of many that got caught up in the craze (see the pictures here of a few puzzles we've completed in recent weeks).  Even now that the pandemic is (sort of) over, it continues to be a thriving activity and means of connecting a huge number of people.  There are puzzling competitions around the globe, popular puzzling websites and content creators online, forums for discussion and news, and a lot of companies (many small, many new) turning out high-quality, beautiful puzzles in every corner of the globe.

Princess on the Pea
Enjoy Puzzles
Artist: Larissa Kulik

Not surprisingly, some of these companies use AI to create the artwork for the puzzles.  I can't report that these companies are immediately run out of business, and no doubt they're doing fine, for the most part.  But I can report this: there are a lot of puzzlers who actively refuse to buy those puzzles, and they tend to be fairly vocal about it.  They want to know that the puzzles they do were created by real artists, they want those artists to be clearly identified, and they (or at least some of them) are willing to pay a little more for puzzles that meet those demands.

As AI writing and art becomes more widespread, maybe it's people like these we can invest a little optimism in.  Maybe there will come to be people who demand this of their fiction and poetry and essays, and who aren't willing to just hop on Amazon and download one of the 5000 AI "books" that pop up every day.  Maybe they'll be willing to pay, just a little more, for the knowledge that a real person created the thing they're looking at, and will benefit from their patronage.

Maybe there will be just enough of these people that reading and writing– real reading and writing, not a simulation– will continue to be a worthwhile, and occasionally even rewarding, way for a lot of people to spend their time.

It wouldn't take much.  After all, the number of people willing to pay money to read, say, short mystery stories has been a small part of the population for a long time.  It doesn't seem unreasonable to hope that it won't die out completely.

The Happy Sheep Yarn Shop
Ravensburger Puzzles
Artist: Nathanael Mortensen

That's my hope, anyway. In the meantime, I'll be continuing to follow my personal policy of never using AI– not for brainstorming, not for drafting, not for editing.  What possible satisfaction could I get from asking a machine to write something and then putting my name on it?