Quotes and other memories from Malice Domestic

I just returned from this year's Malice Domestic convention, where I had a lovely time celebrating my friends Marcia Talley, Donna Andrews,Gigi Pandian, and Les and Leslie Blatt, who were, respectively, the guest of honor, the lifetime achievement honoree, the toastmaster, and the co-fan guests of honor. (There also were two honorees with whom I have no personal connection. Lucy Worsley was honored as the Poirot Award recipient, and Dorothy Gilman was remembered--Malice's term for honoring a deceased mystery community member.)

While at the convention, I saw many friends, made some new ones, sat on one panel, moderated another, hosted a table at the banquet, won the Agatha Award for best short story of 2024 (for my whodunit "The Postman Always Flirts Twice," from Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy), received some other good news (for myself and for a fellow author), saw a character naming I donated to the charity auction go for $500, and listened to authors speak eloquently--and humorously--on panels. It was a great time, even if I did lose my retainer.

Here are some quotes from the panels. My apologies if I didn't get some of the wording exactly right.

"Motivation for a killer is so important. You have to set it up right away." -- Tina Kashian

Marcia Talley during guest
of honor speech

"Cozies are popular because they make people feel comfortable. Sure, people are killing each other, but they're doing it in a nice way." -- Marcia Talley

In response to a question about the best advice you ever received: "Find your community. As much as writing is a solo effort, you can't get through this alone. You need your people to help you when you get a bad review or a plot hole or ..." -- Sarah E. Burr. (Sarah didn't trail off in that last sentence, but I didn't get the end written down, hence the ellipsis.)

"A hate crime, such as a swastika painted on a synagogue, is dark, but when the whole town comes together to paint over the swastika and support the temple, that is the cozy treatment. That is how to use dark social issues in cozies." -- Kathleen Marple Kalb, who also writes as Nikki Knight

During a discussion about enjoying novels set during World War I and World War II, despite how horrific the wars were, Catriona McPherson made the following analogy: "You can be nostalgic for a time--like the lockdown--without being nostalgic about Covid. It's being nostalgic for the time spent with your family."

"Cozies are for optimistic readers. Bad things happen, but everything is right in the end. Noir is for pessimistic readers because the ending gives them what they expect from the world." -- Paula Munier

If you're interested in learning about Malice Domestic, which brings fans and authors together to celebrate the traditional mystery every April in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, click here. The website has not been updated yet for the 2026 convention, but it should be soon. I hope to see you there next year, when the honorees will be:

Guest of Honor Annette Dashofy

Lifetime Achievement Honoree Jacqueline Winspear

Toastmaster Ellen Byron

Poirot Award Honoree Jim Huang

Malice Remembers Margaret Maron

Fan Guest of Honor Billy Aguiar

Can You Have Too Much Inspiration?

Sometimes, something obvious to one person may not be as clear to another. That was true for me in high school (math and science). And it was true for me from the first time I heard "Escape: The Pina Colada Song" until just a few years ago, when I realized that the author of the personal ad (remember those?) in the song wanted someone not into yoga, rather than someone not into yogurt. (Not being a fan of yogurt's texture, its supposed inclusion in the ad had made a ton of sense to me. But I digress.)

I also had a hard time seeing something important about writing short stories inspired by things--often songs--and I didn't even realize it. Until recently. 

But before I tell you about that, I need to give a little backstory. Short story anthologies inspired by music have been popular for more than a decade. I've had stories in books inspired by the songs of Billy Joel and Joni Mitchell, as well as by songs that were one-hit wonders in the US. Now I am glad to add another story sparked by music to my list: "Keep It Dark" appears in In Too Deep: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Genesis. The book, edited by Adam Meyer, was published last week by Down & Out Books.

I spent a lot of time in high school listening to Genesis on the radio, as well as to the independent releases of Phil Collins, who was the band's drummer and its lead vocalist from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. But to my surprise, when I reviewed the list of Genesis's songs in anticipation of writing a story for this new anthology (thank you, Adam, for inviting me to contribute), there was one--okay, more than one, but bear with me--that I had never heard of: "Keep It Dark."

It appeared on the 1981 album Abacab. A Rolling Stone article from 2014 about twenty great Genesis songs that aren't well known said "Keep It Dark" was never released as a single in the US, which explained why I had never heard it. I eagerly streamed it, and for the first half, I sat confused, thinking, Is this really a Genesis song? It is bad. I can understand why it wasn't released as a single in the US. But then a funny thing happened; the song grew on me. By the time it ended, I immediately played it again. And now I love it! And I totally get why it was released individually in the UK and hit #33 on the UK singles chart. And I get why Rolling Stone thinks so highly of it.

The unusual beat is catchy, and the lyrics are interesting. They tell a story--one more detailed than a lot of songs do. I decided to use "Keep It Dark" as my story's inspiration. I needed to pay tribute to the song, but I didn't want to retell the story this song tells. That turned out to be difficult. Everything I was writing felt derivative. 

And this is where the thing that you may think is obvious--but it wasn't for me--comes into play. Needing help, I called my fellow SleuthSayer John Floyd, who is a very wise man. He told me not to get bogged down trying to work so many details from the song into my story. Just find a piece of it that I could run with. That advice felt like opening a window on a lovely spring day. Rejuvenated, I took John's advice, and I ended up with a story I am delighted with. If you listen to the song "Keep It Dark," I believe you will see that it sparked my story of the same name, yet my tale is different.

Here is what my "Keep It Dark" is about:

It's the spring of 1972, and life's been good for Gary. He loves working at the pawn shop, where he helps people out of their financial jams. But a sleazy new employee has changed the vibe, and Gary's in his crosshairs. Can this good guy find a way out of the jam he's about to find himself in?

I hope John's advice is as helpful to you as it was to me. Thanks again, John! And I hope you will pick up a copy of In Too Deep. It has seventeen stories, including ones by fellow SleuthSayers Michael Bracken, Joseph S. Walker, and Stacy Woodson. 

You can buy the book in ebook and trade paperback from the usual sources, as well as directly from the publisher. If you buy the paperback straight from Down & Out Books, you can have the ebook thrown in for free. Just click here. 

Do you have a favorite Genesis song? Which song and why? I would love to hear. And listen to "Keep It Dark" and let me know if it grows on you like it did on me.

Should You Be Persistent or Tenacious? What's the Difference?

This is a modified reprint of a column from January 2019. While it is geared toward writers, I think the information could be helpful toward meeting most any goal.

 

I planned to title this column The Power of Persistence. It seemed perfect for January, when so many people make resolutions for the new year. But then I thought, maybe "tenacity" would be a better word than "persistence." I had always treated the words as synonyms, but are they? Maybe, I thought, I should check. It turns out there's an important difference between the two words.

Persistence means trying repeatedly to reach a goal through the same method, figuring eventually you'll succeed. Tenacity means trying to reach a goal through varying methods, learning from each failure and trying different approaches. For anyone striving to achieve a goal, tenacity may be the better approach.

How does this apply to writing? First, let's talk about getting writing done. Everyone has their own method. Some people write every morning before daybreak. Others write at night. Some people write for a set number of hours each day. Others write as long as it takes to meet a daily quota. Some people plot out what they're going to write. Others write by the seat of their pants. 

 

It doesn't matter what your approach is, as long as it works for you. So, does it? Are you getting enough writing done? Enough revision done? Are you making the best use of your time?

I have a friend (and editing client) who used to be a pantser. But she found that after finishing every draft, she had so many loose ends to address and problems to fix, it took her much longer to revise than she'd like. So she started forcing herself to plot before she began writing each book. Not detailed outlines, but she figures out who kills whom, how, and why, what her subplot will be (again, just the basics), and what her theme is. These changes in her approach have enabled her to be so much more productive. She writes faster now, and she needs less time for revision. That's tenacity in action.

Moving on to a finished product, how do you react to rejection? If you have a rejected short story, for instance, after you curse the universe, do you find another venue and send that story out immediately? Or do you reread it and look for ways to improve it? If a story has been rejected several times (there's no shame here; we've all been there), do you keep sending it out anyway or do you put it in a drawer to let it cool off for a few months or until the market has changed or your skills have improved?

If sending a story out a few times without revising after each rejection usually results in a sale for you, great. Then your persistence works, and it means you have more time for other projects. But if you find yourself sending a story out a dozen times without success, then perhaps you should consider a new approach. After a story is rejected, say, three times, maybe you should give it a hard look and see how it can be changed. Maybe you should let it sit in a drawer for a while so when you review it, you'll have a fresh take.

And if you're getting a lot of rejections, perhaps it's time to re-evaluate your markets or what you write. I know some writers who started their careers writing science fiction, but it turned out that they were better suited to writing mysteries. Once they let their true selves out on the page, they started making sales. I know a writer who's been working on a novel for years, but she can't seem to finish it. Yet she's had a lot of success with short stories. If she were to decide to only write short stories and let the novel lie fallow, that wouldn't be a failure; it would be tenacity in action: finding what works for her.

I was about to write that the one thing you shouldn't do is give up, but there might be value in letting go. If your goal is to write a novel or short story but you never seem to finish your project, and if the mere thought of working on it feels like drudgery instead of joy, then maybe being a professional writer isn't for you. There's no shame in that. Not every person is suited to every task. 

 

When I was a kid I loved swimming, but I was never going to make a swim team. I wasn't fast enough. Maybe with a lot of practice and other changes I could have gotten there, but I didn't want to take those steps. And that's okay. I enjoyed swimming for the fun of it, and that was enough for me. Maybe writing for yourself, without the pressure of getting to write "The End," is what gives you joy. If so, more power to you. And maybe it turns out you don't want to finish that book or story you started writing. That's okay too, even if you did tell everyone that you were writing it. You're allowed to try things and stop if it turns out they aren't the right fit for you.

But if you believe writing is the right fit, yet you aren't as productive as you'd like, or your sales aren't as good as you want them to be, then be tenacious. Evaluate your approaches to getting writing done, to editing your work, to seeking publication.

 

Maybe you need to revise how you're doing things. Are you writing in the morning but are more alert in the evening? Change when you write. Is your work typically ready to be sent out into the world as soon as you finish? If you get a lot of rejections, maybe it's not. Maybe you need to force yourself to let your work sit for a while after you finish, so you can review it again with fresh eyes before you start submitting. Do you have a contract, but your books aren't selling as well as you'd like? Perhaps you should find someone you trust who can try to help you improve. 

 

No matter how successful you are, there's always something new to learn. The key is to figure out what works for you and keep doing it, and also figure out what isn't working for you and change it.

That, my fellow writers, is my advice for you. Be tenacious. Evaluate what you want, and evaluate your methods for getting there. If your methods aren't working, change them. If in six months your new methods aren't working, change them again. Work hard. Work smart. And be sure to enjoy yourself along the way, because if you're not enjoying writing, why bother doing it?

***

And now a friendly reminder: I'm honored to have two short stories nominated this year for the Agatha Award, "A Matter of Trust" from the anthology Three Strikes--You're Dead! and "The Postman Always Flirts Twice" from the anthology Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy. They, as well as the three other Agatha-nominated stories, can be read online for free. Click here to go to the Malice Domestic website and scroll down to the short story titles. Each one is a link to a pdf of that story.

 

Malice Domestic attendees will be able to vote for the Agatha winners during the convention next month, so this is a great time to sit down with a cup of tea and read all the nominated stories. Enjoy! 

They Have the Beat

In late December, an anthology I edited was published by Level Short. It's called Angel City Beat, and it includes fifteen stories by members of the Sisters in Crime Los Angeles chapter about the city they call home. On Monday evening--as I'm writing this--eight authors in the anthology are appearing on a panel moderated by Naomi Hirahara (who wrote the book's introduction) at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, California, as part of the book's launch party. I wasn't able to be there, but this is the perfect time to let you know about this book here.

Here is the book's description: The City of Angels has a dark side. Hidden beneath its shiny surface are misdeeds, miscreants, and murderers. From Santa Monica's sandy beaches to Hollywood’s glitzy streets, from Boyle Heights to Holmby Hills to the dirt trails of the San Gabriel Mountains, there are so many tales to tell. So many people on the beat. The police detectives seeking justice. The reporters seeking truth. Writers who build beats into their movies and TV shows. And people who choose violence to beat others and come out on top. Angel City Beat is an anthology of stories that show life behind the plastic smiles of the rich and famous, the desperate pleas of the overlooked, and the promises of dreams forgotten. Angel City Beat is the beat of a city told by those who love her. 

More than anything, what the stories have in common is the setting, the Los Angeles area. But LA is so big and diverse--its geography and its inhabitants--and these stories reflect that. They are, in order of appearance:

"The Missing Mariachi" by Aimee Kluck - this is a police procedural story about a kidnapped woman

"Murder Unjustified" by Daryl Wood Gerber - this whodunit starring a TV showrunner offers a behind-the-scenes look at writing for Hollywood

"Getting Warmer" by Kate Mooney - a newspaper reporter is on the trail of a cold case that is heating up

"What's Really Unforgettable" by Ken Funsten, CFA - an investment manager is determined to help a potential client after the man is attacked and lands in the hospital with amnesia

"The Feast of the Seven Fishes" by Gail Alexander - this is a suspense story starring two caterers who witness a murder on Christmas Eve day

"Death Beat" by Meredith Taylor - a hospice worker notices her patients are dying faster than they should

''Everything's Relative" by Jenny Carless - a dystopian story set in the near future, when water is so scarce, it inspires desperate behavior

"Settling the Score" by Anne-Marie Campbell - a high-tech whodunit involving the LA Philharmonic Orchestra

"A Thesis on Murder" by Paula Bernstein - a graduate student is close to getting her PhD, but someone stands in her way

"Underbelly" by Jacquie Wilvers - when a screenplay is stolen, its author has plans for the thief

"A Dead Line" by Ken Funsten, CFA - a suspense story about a teenager whose summer job involves making cold calls

"Fatal Return" by Sybil Johnson - a whodunit involving a murder at a library

"Crime Doesn't Play" by Norman Klein - a police detective good at puzzles puts his skills to good use

"Unbeatable" by Melinda Loomis - A pet psychic is hired to ensure an unbeaten horse is ready for his upcoming final race just days after his jockey died in a horrific accident

"Byline for Murder" by Nancy Cole Silverman - a newspaper reporter is assigned the explosive story of an A-list actress accused of killing her costar

I hope you are enticed to pick up this anthology and check out its diverse stories. The book is available from the usual online sources. It also is available at Vroman's Bookstore. Click here to order a copy from this independent bookstore. If you live in the LA area, the anthology also will soon be on the shelves at the Pasadena Public Library.

Good news!

I've had some good news recently that I am happy to share with you. 

Derringer Award nomination

First up is news that applies to all of us here at SleuthSayers. Our first anthology, Murder, Neat, is one of the six finalists for the Derringer Award in the new category of Best Anthology. Woo-hoo!

This book came out last February from Level Short and was edited by Michael Bracken and me. It includes twenty-four new stories from current and retired SleuthSayers, all set at locations where alcohol is available for sale. We are all pleased as punch--or something with a bit more kick--that we made the shortlist for this honor. 

The other Derringer Award finalists--for individual short stories in four categories based on length--will be announced on April 1, and then eligible members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society will have all of April to vote for all five awards. If you love short stories, I recommend you check out all of the finalists. You can find the full list by clicking here.

Murder, Neat can be purchased most anywhere you buy books. If your favorite physical store doesn't have it on the shelf, I bet they can order it for you. You can get the trade paperback and a Nook version from Barnes and Noble by clicking here. Like shopping at indies? You can use Bookshop.org to get the paperback from your local favorite. Just click here. And there is always Amazon. For them, click here. Cheers!

 

Agatha Award nominations

Yesterday, the Malice Domestic convention announced the finalists for this year's Agatha Awards. I am honored and delighted to share that I have two short stories that are nominated. 

First is "A Matter of Trust," which was published last April by Wildside Press in the anthology Three Strikes--You're Dead! In this story, when an emotional eater cycles past a donut shop, his weight-loss plans--and so much more--go awry. If you haven't read this anthology, I recommend it. It was edited by Donna Andrews, Marcia Talley and me, and it has fourteen new sports short stories. The book is available in trade paperback and ebook from all the usual sources, including Barnes and Noble and Amazon. If you would prefer to read my story only, it is available on my website. Just click here.

Second is "The Postman Always Flirts Twice," which was published last November by Down & Out Books in the anthology Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy. This anthology has all new cozy whodunits, each written by an author who has won the Agatha Award, the Derringer Award, or both. The book was edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer. 

In "The Postman Always Flirts Twice," someone murdered Hazel's mailman and hid his body in the woods behind her cul-de-sac. Fearing the police might look too closely at her, Hazel decides she needs to point them in another direction. So she starts her own investigation, focusing on her neighbors. If you haven't read this anthology, you can pick it up from Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org, or Amazon, among other places. I hope the publisher will allow me to share the story online for Agatha voters. I will let you know should it come to pass.

The full list of Agatha Award finalists is available here. Attendees of Malice Domestic will vote during the convention in April. If you've never been to Malice Domestic, I recommend you check it out. It is a fan convention that celebrates the traditional mystery, though you will find authors in attendance who write other mystery subgenres too.

Happy reading!

My Favorite Read of 2024

I have become an audiobook devotee. When I first started listening to books about fifteen years ago, I did it only when driving. Listening and driving seemed to require different parts of my brain, enabling me to pay attention to the road and a book at the same time– similar to listening to the radio. I didn't have the same experience at home. If I tried to listen to a book at home, I found myself itching to do something with my hands or eyes and became distracted from the book.

But in the last few years, I realized that there were things I could do at home that allowed me to stay busy and yet focus on an audiobook. I can do laundry and listen. Empty the dishwasher and listen. Make meals and listen. Eat meals and listen. I can brush my teeth, wash my face, change my clothes, and even lie in bed awaiting sleep and listen.

Sure, in the morning I may have to rewind a little to find the last spot I recall, but that is easy to do. And at the end of the workday, when my eyes are tired from reading books and short stories on my computer for clients, I can turn on an audiobook and do online jigsaw puzzles or game at the same time. The brain is a miraculous thing.

It is thanks to audiobooks that I was able to read (can you use the word read for listening to an audiobook? I feel like the answer is yes but it also is not quite right)158 books, as well as three novellas and two novelettes, for pleasure in 2024. What about short stories, you may be wondering. I read those on paper or Kindle. I find I am kinder to authors I listen to, am more willing to shrug off some problems that might have me reaching for my red pen with a paper copy. Since I buy reprint rights to short stories for Black Cat Weekly, I want to ensure I am always vigilant with shorts.

That said, I'm no pushover with novels, novellas, and novelettes. I keep notes on the ones I really enjoyed, what I liked, what concerns I had, and I rank them. It makes things easier come award season to figure out what to list on my nomination ballots. And should a book I enjoyed be named a finalist, I already have notes about that book to help me make up my mind before I vote.

That's not to say I won't reread a book or story that is named a finalist. Indeed, either last year or the year before that I narrowed my Anthony Award choice in one category to one book I had read a few months before and one I finished shortly before voting time, so I read the first book again to better compare the two. Anyway, this is all building up to my saying that I read– okay, listened to– a whole lot of books in 2024, and one easily topped my list. It is… drum roll, please…

“Blood Moon,” a novelette by Linda Castillo. It came out in 2022 from Minotaur Books. The print length is sixty-four pages. Audible says if you listen to it at regular speed, it should take about ninety minutes.

Castillo writes a series about Kate Burkholder, a formerly Amish sheriff in the village of Painters Mill, nestled in a rural Ohio county. When the series began with Sworn to Silence in 2009, Castillo had a book come out each year. A few years later, Minotaur started publishing a novelette by Castillo midway through each year for fans like me who needed their Castillo fix. The novelettes often are a bit lighter and more humorous than the novels. The crime might not even be murder. “Blood Moon” is a perfect example.

In this tale, there is a monster afoot in Painters Mill. Several people have an encounter with it. From their stories, you can imagine different urban legends, and Sheriff Burkholder and her significant other, John Tomasetti, an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Investigation, are on the case.

“Blood Moon” has great suspense, fantastic dialogue, and a solid ending. This novelette is set quite a ways into the series, and I think you would enjoy it even more if you read all the books and novelettes that came before it. There is character development throughout the series that would make the interactions in “Blood Moon” more meaningful to you if you followed the characters from the start. But you certainly could read “Blood Moon” as a standalone should you choose to.

Linda Castillo

You may be wondering why I read a 2022 novelette in 2024 if I love this series. I read so many series that I sometimes fall behind, and that has happened here. But don't worry. I will catch up. I have much to look forward to, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Books in this series have landed on the New York Times bestseller list, and just last year, Castillo's novel An Evil Heart won the Sue Grafton Memorial Award and her novelette “Hallowed Ground” won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story. If you like reading police procedurals, you won't go wrong by picking up anything in this series.

Want to learn more? Castillo has written interviews with Burkholder and Tomasetti. You can find them here and here.

Before I go, a little BSP. If you would like to read my short story “A Matter of Trust,” which his eligible for the Agatha Award, among others, you can find it on my newly revamped website. Just click here.

Happy reading!

Making Fictional Fodder from Emotional Wounds

What better thing to think about on the day after Festivus, in the hours before Hanukkah begins, and on Christmas Eve Day–all holidays that many people spend with family–than childhood emotional wounds. Often inflicted by family, of course. They can be terrible for kids and the adults they become. But for crime writers, they are gifts bundled in tissue paper and boxed with ribbons and bows, waiting to be unwrapped.

Do you enjoy reading or watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas?

There wouldn't be much to the story if the Grinch weren't a terrible being. He wouldn't sneak into the homes of the Whovians and steal their tinsel, toys, and trees if something hadn't happened to him to cause him to be so terrible. He wouldn't abuse his poor dog Max and tell little Cindy-Lou Who that he was Santa Claus if he didn't have an emotional wound driving him. Yes, yes, I know. Some have said that maybe he is so grinchy because his shoes are too tight or because his heart is two sizes too small. But how did his heart come to be so small?

I bet back in his childhood someone was mean to him. Maybe other kids. Maybe someone in his family. Maybe both. Bad for the Grinch and bad for the Whovians and bad for dear old Max, but for readers of the Dr. Seuss classic, the Grinch's emotional wound is pure gold. It drives the Grinch's actions and it gives him room to grow. A character arc in a half hour? Oh, yes, dear reader. The Grinch proves it can be done. Short story authors, take note.

Festivus pole

It isn't much,
but then again,
neither is Festivus.

© Matthew Keefe

The Seinfeld episode “The Strike” also shows how childhood emotional wounds can be wonderful entertainment fodder. This is the episode about Festivus. If young George Costanza had not been forced each December 23^rd to listen to his father detail his grievances, if George had not been raised in a home without a Christmas tree but with a tinsel-less aluminum pole–tinsel is distracting, you know–if George had not had to participate in the Feats of Strength each year, he might not have grown up to be a man who claims to make donations to a fake charity he created in order to get out of giving Christmas gifts.

Sure, you may be thinking, even without Festivus, George would have been doomed to become an extremely flawed adult because he grew up with Frank and Estelle as his parents. But that just shows the depth of his emotional wounds. Thanks to the suffering he experienced as a child–and yes, as an adult–TV viewers got to enjoy nine years of a complex, flawed character who drove many amusing storylines, even the ones that ultimately were about nothing. And viewers still can enjoy them, thanks to the wonders of syndication.

One of my stories that was published this year involves a man, Ethan, who suffered childhood emotional wounds at the hands of his father, and like with the Grinch and George Costanza, those wounds plague him to this day. Ethan can practically hear his father whispering in his ear whenever he doesn't measure up to some ingrained standard. Then he seeks refuge in his favorite comfort food. When that coping mechanism becomes unavailable, adult Ethan acts out. His childhood emotional wounds drive the man and thus the action in the story. Want to know more? You can read this story, “A Matter of Trust,” on my website by clicking here. It isn't funny like many of my stories, but I hope readers find it compelling.

Happy holidays and happy new year to you all. May you reach January without any new emotional wounds. The ones you writers have are likely more than enough.

Finding the sweet spot for detail

Thanks for coming by. This is a rerun of a column from 2016 with some updates. I hope it is helpful.

In search of blogging topics, I asked my friends for suggestions. This paraphrased question caught my eye right away:

How much detail should a writer use when describing the setting, what the characters look like, and what the characters are doing?

The amount of detail a writer should use is of course a personal matter. Some authors love expounding on setting and appearance, giving every detail so that a person could--if they had to--draw an exact replica of a room or a picture that would make a sketch artist proud. Other authors take a minimalist approach, preferring to leave setting to the readers' imagination. Readers' taste also varies, with some wanting to know every detail of each place and character's appearance, others not wanting their time wasted on that detail.
 
Given that readers' tastes do vary across the spectrum, an author obviously can't please everyone. I typically suggest something in the middle of the spectrum (though my personal taste is toward the minimalist side). You want to set the scene but you don't want to bore the reader or hold up the action.

When it comes to what characters look like, I suggest telling the reader one or two telling details, something to make the character stand out in the reader's mind. Does the character have a large mole on his cheek? Does she walk with a limp? Does she have extremely big hair? I wouldn't limit myself to thinking a character's description only applies to what he or she looks like--you might have guessed that from the question about the limp. Saying the woman who came to visit smelled like she worked in a kennel or her voice rumbled like she'd been smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for decades will hopefully be more memorable than simply saying she had shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes.

Now this is memorable.

I suggest getting this type of detail in early, before the reader decides for herself what the character looks like. But don't force the detail in right when we meet the character if it doesn't work there.

If there's something important about the character's appearance or description, make sure you get it in early too. You wouldn't want your bank robber to be described as someone who sometimes slurs her words, and not show the reader until the end of the book that this character sometimes slurs.

Of course sometimes you need to give a little more detail in order to create a smoke screen. If something about a character's appearance is an important clue (or red herring), try to weave that detail into the narrative, hiding it among other details so it doesn't appear important. For instance, if it's important that Jane has dark green eyes, don't make that the only thing you say about Jane because then that detail will stand out. Instead tell the reader that Jane has ratty brown hair that looks like it hasn't been washed for a week. Her hair is so nasty you can hardly see her dark green eyes or the scar on her forehead she got from a bar fight. The reader will hopefully focus on the scar and Jane's nasty hair, with the eye color fading into the recess of her brain.

These same techniques can be used for setting. You want to create your world, but you don't need to spell out every detail to do it. Are you creating a charming town? Tell me Main Street has an old-fashioned ice cream shop and a Mom and Pop diner that's been there for decades. Let me know that a large green is adjacent to Main Street with some Revolutionary War statues and large shade trees people picnic under in the summertime. That's more than enough for me get the quaint picture you're trying to set. I don't need the name of every store, of every statue, of every street. But if it's an important clue that a certain statue was defaced, don't have that be the only damage done. Bury that clue in a report of the damage supposedly all done by the vandal.

As to detail of what characters are doing, I also advocate for minimalism. If you have two characters driving and discussing the case, I don't need to know each time the driver changes gear or flips on the turn signal. If you tell me that Bob is driving, I can picture what he's doing, though an occasional mention that Bob changed lanes could work as a tag. In contrast, you definitely want to show things that are unusual--things that are important to the plot. If Bob is distracted and keeps looking at his phone or the radio or keeps checking out the rear-view mirror because he thinks they're being followed, I want to know.

There are some actions you don't need to show at all. If your character is beginning a new day, I don't need to see her brushing her teeth unless her toothpaste is poisoned or someone is going to strangle her while she's working on her incisors. I don't even need to know she brushed her teeth. Just show her arriving at her office, finding it in disarray from the burglars who struck overnight. And if your

When brushing teeth, less is more.

character is going to a staircase, intending to go up, and she thinks a bit, and then she's at the top of the stairs, that's just fine. The reader can infer that she just walked up those steps. You don't need to show every step as it's taken unless you're trying to show that she's wobbly or that a stair is creaking or if someone is going to push her over the banister. (Such fun!)

Of course, again, everyone's mileage may vary about the amount of detail preferred. I'd love to know what you think.

Bad Dates—I’ve Had A Few

My newest short story was published yesterday in the anthology Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy: Thirteen Tales of Murder, Mystery, and Master Detection. The book’s cozy mysteries are all written by winners of the Agatha and/or Derringer awards. My story is “The Postman Always Flirts Twice.”

You may be wondering about the title. Maybe you’re guessing that since The Postman Always Rings Twice was noir, for my cozy mystery, I decided to change Rings to Flirts because Flirts sounds cozy. To that I say ... buzz! (Think of the buzzer sound when a contestant gets something wrong on a game show.) I used the word Flirts because it makes for a much catchier title than The Postman Pressured Me Into a Date.

Say what?

To steal from Sophia on The Golden Girls:

Picture it. Indiana. Summer 1994.

I had my first full-time job as a newspaper reporter. My apartment complex had all the tenants’ mailboxes in one spot near the complex entrance, along with two newspaper boxes, one for each of the two—two!—dailies that small city had back then.

One day I stopped to get my mail while the postman was finishing filling the mailboxes. He started to chat. I’ve never been a fan of small talk, but I participated for a minute or two. The social niceties, you know. Then he glanced at the mail in my hand.

“I know your name from somewhere,” he said.

Wondering if I was being punked, I said, “Yeah, from the mail.” And I pointed at the envelopes in my other hand.

“No. That’s not it.”

So I nodded at one of the newspaper boxes. “I’m a reporter. You probably saw my name in the paper.” Back then, before everything was online, a lot more people read newspapers—on actual paper.

“No. That’s not it.”

I shrugged. “Well, those are the only ways I think you’d have heard my name. See ya.”

As I turned to go, he said, “Would you like to have dinner sometime?”

I offered him an uncomfortable smile. “Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

“Aw, come on. You gotta eat.”

That was true. But I didn’t have to eat with him. I shook my head.

“You sure? It’s just one dinner.”

Maybe it was his tone. Maybe it was my imagination. But I suddenly thought, if I don’t go on this date, I may never get my mail again. I was in my midtwenties, nowhere near as assertive as I am now. And back then, all your bills came in the mail. I needed my mail. So, reluctantly, I said yes. We agreed to meet the next evening at that hot spot of romance, Denny’s.

All of you who love meet-cutes are probably thinking the dinner must have been wonderful. Sparkling conversation, love in the air, the beginning of happily ever after.

Dream on.

The conversation was forgettable. The food was … Denny’s. And the only future I was looking forward to was getting home.

As the meal wound down, he said, “What would you like to do now?”

It wasn’t even 8 p.m., but I yawned and said I was going to have to call it a night. I had to get to work early the next morning. You’d think my meaning was clear. Subtle but clear. Not interested. And maybe it was, but he was determined to go out swinging.

“How about if I come back to your place and give you a massage?”

I may have wanted my mail, but I didn’t want it that badly.

I thanked him for my burger, went home—alone!—and called my best friend to fill him in on the date. When I got to the bit about the massage, his outraged voice boomed through the line. “If that isn’t a sex invite, I don’t know what is!”

In the end, I never heard from my mailman again, thankfully, and my mail kept coming. Now, all these years later, I put the experience to good use in “The Postman Always Flirts Twice.” If you read it, you’ll recognize some of the details. It’s a whodunit about love, family, and friendship. Someone murdered Hazel’s mailman and hid his body in the woods behind her cul-de-sac. Desperate to point the cops in another direction so they don’t discover her secret, Hazel starts her own investigation—focusing on her neighbors.

Who killed the mailman? What’s Hazel’s secret? You have to read the story to find out. 

Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy also has stories by fellow SleuthSlayers John Floyd and Robert Lopresti and SleuthSayers alum Art Taylor. The other ten authors with cozy stories in the book are Tara Laskowski, BV Lawson, Kris Neri, Alan Orloff, Josh Pachter, Stephen D. Rogers, Shawn Reilly Simmons, Marcia Talley, and Stacy Woodson. The book was edited by Gay Toltl Kinman and Andrew McAleer and published by Down & Out Books in trade paperback and ebook. I am including links to the book at the end.

So, if you’re wondering if it’s a good idea to mine your past for story ideas, yes, it is. If you’re wondering if I killed my mailman, no, I did not. 

With the caveat that I write fiction, that is my story, and I’m sticking to it. 

---

In addition to purchasing Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy from your favorite indie bookstore, you can buy it from:

• The publisher (buy the trade paperback and the ebook is included). Click here.
• Barnes & Noble. Click here.
• Amazon. Click here. 
• Amazon UK. Click here. 
• Kobo (ebook only). Click here.

Dialogue to Die For ... Again

Due to a medical issue, I am rerunning a column from 2017. If you love dialogue, it is worth reading--even if you read it seven years ago. After all, great dialogue is one thing that lures readers and viewers back over and over and over ...

Remember the TV show Name That Tune? The idea was to see how few notes of a song a person could hear and correctly name that tune. I don't know how well I'd do on that show, but if there were a Name That Movie show, I would clean up--assuming they asked about movies I've seen. Spoken dialogue, I've found, sticks with me. I adore snappy and heartfelt dialogue in books too, but for whatever reason, I don't retain it the way I do dialogue from movies and TV shows. (You'd think, then, that I would have good recall for dialogue from audio books, yet not so much.)

Anyway, I started thinking about ear memory the other day when I turned on the TV. I wasn't looking at the screen. All I heard was, "Always," and I knew it was the late Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. (I might have seen that movie a few times.) That one word transported me back right to the exact scene in the movie. Rickman delivered it perfectly, revealing so much about Snape's character. Even now, recalling the scene breaks my heart a little all over again.

Alan Rickman

 

Of course, Rickman had help. His dialogue was written for him. Great dialogue depends on the team of great writers and great actors working together, as well as the folks who add the background music that adds drama or tugs at your heart. When done right, dialogue can be magical. I only need hear certain words or a sentence in the right voice, with the right rhythm, and I know the film. I'm transported in my mind right back to that scene.

Here are a few examples. They may not be the most well-known from each movie, but they certainly stand out:

"I want the truth!" "You can't handle the truth." Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men

"You can't kiss her!" Sally Field in Soapdish

"Why can't I write shit like this?" Whoopi Goldberg in Soapdish

"Shall we play a game?" Joshua (computer) in War Games (even a computer can make dialogue memorable)

More Alan Rickman

"There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?" Emma Thompson in Love Actually

"Oh jeez. I'm getting pulled over. Everybody just pretend to be normal." Greg Kinnear in Little Miss Sunshine

"I guess it comes down to a simple choice. Get busy living or get busy dying." Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption

 

"And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don'tcha know that?" Frances McDorman in Fargo

"You don't really know how much you can do until you stand up and decide to try." Kevin Kline in Dave

"Here's looking at you, kid." Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca

"A toast to my big brother, George, the richest man in town." Todd Karns in It's a Wonderful Life (It's interesting that one of the most memorable lines in the film is from a minor character.)

And even more Alan Rickman

"I'll have what she's having." Estelle Reiner in When Harry Met Sally (another minor character who steals the scene)

"By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Warvan, you shall be avenged." Alan Rickman in Galaxy Quest

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Mandy Patinkin in The Princess Bride


"You're going to the cemetery with your toothbrush. How Egyptian." Robin Williams in The Birdcage

"Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?" Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark

"It was like ... magic." Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle 

"I'm not crazy. I've just been in a very bad mood for forty years." Shirley MacLaine in Steel Magnolias

"But I don't want to be a pirate." Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld

"I'm not insane. My mother had me tested." Jim Parsons in The Big Bang Theory

Alas, not Alan Rickman
but still wonderful

"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." Gordon Jump in WKRP in Cincinnati

Inspired to go watch a great movie or to try to write your own memorable dialogue? Great. But before you go, please share your favorite movie or TV show line(s) of dialogue. The lines that stick with you, that you remember sometimes out of nowhere. The words that transport you and make you smile. And if you know how to make dialogue on the page stand out in memory the way spoken dialogue does, please let me know. I'm open to any and all tips.

 

If You Think Your Life is Going to Pot, Call Annabelle ...

Where do you get your story ideas? I don't usually have a good answer to this question. They often seem to come from nowhere. I'm sure something must have sparked them, but what exactly, I would be hard-pressed to pinpoint. Still, sometimes I can tell you exactly where a story idea came from. My newest story is a prime example. 

A few years ago, a friend was posting somewhat regularly on Facebook about the people who rented the home to one side of her own. They were selfish people, not caring about how their actions affected the people who lived near them. One day, my friend wrote about how these neighbors often smoked pot outside, so close to her own home that even with the windows closed, the smell crept inside, and her house reeked. She felt without recourse. I decided to give her some fictional justice.

Yesterday, several years after I penned the first draft of that story, it was published. The story is called "Gone to Pot." Here is what it's about:

Annabelle loves her next-door neighbor Micki like family. Not so much the couple who live on the other side of Micki’s house, who regularly smoke pot on their back deck and don’t care who gets a contact high, even when the victim is poor Micki’s cat, Chairman Meow. But Annabelle cares. She cares a whole lot. 

I told my friend yesterday about this story, and she was as happy with the surprise as I had hoped she would be. You may not be able to tell from the description, but this is one of my funny stories. You can read it in the anthology Crimes Against Nature: New Stories of Environmental Villainy. The anthology is the brainchild of fellow SleuthSayer Robert Lopresti. It is published by Down & Out Books.

Here is the book’s description:

The way we treat the world is a crime—fifteen of them, in fact. Some of the best and most honored mystery writers today have written new stories for this book dealing with environmental issues including pollution, wildfire, invasive species, climate change, recycling, and many more.

Authors include Michael Bracken, Susan Breen, Sarah M. Chen, Barb Goffman, Karen Harrington, Janice Law, R.T. Lawton, Robert Lopresti, Jon McGoran, Josh Pachter, Gary Phillips, S.J. Rozan, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mark Stevens, and David Heska Wanbli Weiden.

The stories cover a wide variety of styles including noir, comic, caper, psychological, police procedural, and even a tale inspired by comic books.

Putting their money where their mouths are, the authors have chosen ecologically themed non-profits that will receive half the royalties. 

Barb again. So my environmental issue is secondhand smoke, a type of air pollution. I set the story in my beloved Ann Arbor, where I attended college. And my charity of choice is American Forests, an organization dedicated to fighting climate change through the planting of trees. I am not a scientist, so I won’t try to explain how that works. But you can read about it and this great organization at https://www.americanforests.org/. 

If you read my story, you'll see a mention of a court case involving a woman who sued over secondhand marijuana smoke and won. That isn't fiction. You can google it if you want to learn more. But for now, I hope I've enticed you to buy this anthology. You'll be able to find it elsewhere, but here are Amazon links. You can get the ebook by clicking here and the trade paperback by clicking here. Or skip the middleman and buy it straight from the publisher by clicking here, thus ensuring the authors, as well as the ecological charities referred to above, get more money. Buying books and helping the planet at the same time. Winner!