Why would ANYONE want to write a Novel? (a humorous post)

Wacky thoughts as my 21st novel hits bookstores across the continent...

I actually wrote my first novel on a dare.  This is not a particularly good reason to embark on such an endeavor, and probably illustrates exactly why my kids think I shouldn’t be allowed outside of the condo without a leash.

But true, it is.  Some years ago, I was having a good time at the bar of the Toronto Press Club, and a local columnist (an older guy) said to me, “You’ve written comedy, you’re a syndicated columnist, and you’ve got a slew of short story publications to your name.  Why haven’t you written a novel?”

Upshot, he dared me.  Since then, I have sworn off scotch and older men.

That doesn’t tell the whole story though.

I love writing fiction.  I wrote my first story at eight, and won my first award at eighteen. 

It started even before that.  At four, I was making up stories.  My parents called it lying. I figure that was short-sighted of them.

Still, after 21 books, I have to ask myself, Why would ANYONE want to write a novel?  Truly, I don't understand why so many people do.

Writing a short story is FUN!

Writing a novel is HARD.

It takes me a year to write a 70,000 word novel.  Tons of research and 1000 hours of slumping over a keyboard.  This is a peculiar way to spend your time.  Wouldn’t it be more fun to be out on the golf course?  Or meeting friends for lunch?

Speaking of friends...my pal and colleague Lisa de Nikolits puts it so well:

 "I keep telling myself it's an honour and a privilege to still be on the playing field while so many others aren't and that's true, but still - more work rewarded by more work!"

(Lisa joins us in June for a guest column.) 

I suspect new novelists like to think they will achieve fame with a novel, that they couldn’t achieve with a collection of published short stories in respectable magazines.  I don’t know about that.  That hasn't been my experience.  You can have ten awards, and continual contracts and still not be a household name.  

Not to mention, everybody who can sit at a keyboard feels they have the right to criticize your year's work. 

So why do I do it? I really have to wonder.  I'm not sure the answer below will satisfy even me.

I seem to have this mental illness that involves characters in my head demanding that I write their stories.  If I try to ignore them, it gets awfully noisy in there, and I can’t think.

Or put another way, writing novels is cheaper than a therapist.

Melodie Campbell fights with her characters while thumping out their stories on the shore of Lake Ontario.  Her 21^st book, The Pharaoh’s Curse Murders, is now available at B&N, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo and all the usual suspects..  If you like the humour in The Goddaughter series, look for Pizza Wars, first in a new novella-length series!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Maintain a Career in Fiction Writing

 Today, I'm combining the wisdom of two authors I much admire, Benjamin Stevenson and John Floyd.

Two nights ago, I hosted/interviewed Australian author Benjamin Stevenson on stage at the Centennial Theatre in Burlington, Canada.  To say I was 'outnumbered' is an understatement:  Benjamin's book "Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone" has sold a million copies!  I don't believe I've sold even half that if you were to combine all my books, short stories, and comedy pieces put together.  (Okay, the newspaper columns had audiences in the millions, but that wasn't fiction.)

It was an electric night on stage with Benjamin, as we both got our start writing standup.  Lots of fun!  But some of the things we talked about have really resonated with me after the event.

Benjamin said it takes him two years to write a book.  (It takes me one year.  I sit in awe of cozy writers who can write three a year, frankly.)  We both agreed on one thing:  We have to be really excited about a book project to sit down, bum in chair, and write every day until that one project is done.

Excited.  I've thought back to my own career as a novelist, and can see that this drives me as well.

I didn't start as a novelist.  I began life as a short story writer.  But when the short story market began to shrink, I started to think about meeting the challenge of writing a novel. 

My first series is still my bestselling individual series.  Rowena Through the Wall was epic fantasy, or what they would call Romantasy these days.  It was featured in USA Today some years ago, and took off (a top 50 Amazon bestseller, all books.)  That series was great fun to write, but once I finished it, it felt that fantasy was kind of done for me.  I looked around for something that would excite me. 

This brings me to John Floyd's column from a few weeks ago, The Old Genre Switcheroo, about moving between genres or subgenres.  I realized that this is what I've been doing.  It's how I've stayed excited, while continuing to write novels.

My next series was The Goddaughter mob caper series.  You can't get more different from dark ages fantasy than that!  A contemporary mob goddaughter in Hamilton doesn't want to be one, but keeps getting dragged back in to bail out her family.  

Totally different genres with different rules.  What they did have in common?  Both series were high comedy.   

When that series ended, I looked around for another genre or subgenre that I could get excited about.  Something that would challenge me, and provide a host of fresh ideas.

Which led to The Pharaoh's Curse Murders (out this week!) and the historical Merry Widow Murder series.  Still humorous, but with the challenge of a 1929 setting and - new for me - classic mystery plotting requirements.

Challenging and therefore exciting, for this writer. 

What does all this prove?  This is what I've learned:

The secret to having a multi-decade career in fiction writing is to be versatile.  Move where the market goes.  Keep yourself fresh by exploring new genres or sub-genres.  

Versatility.  Which begs the question, what's next for this writer, after The Kennel Club Murders, out April 2027?

I'm excited to see.  

Melodie Campbell is the winner of ten awards, including The Derringer and the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence, for her 21 novels and 60 short stories.  She didn't even steal them.

NOW AVAILABLE AT B&N, AMAZON, CHAPTERS/INDIGO AND INDEPENDENTS! 

 

 

You can't take the Italian out of the Writer

It’s been brought to my attention that some readers here might not know that I got my start writing stand-up.  (30 years later, I have to work hard to simply stand up, but that’s another column.)

It’s also quite possible that since I collect husbands with Celtic last names (Campbell and O’Connell), readers might not know that I am predominantly Italian.

So when I was asked by Gemma Media – a terrific publisher of short, easy to read adult books- to write a crime series for them, it was just possible that my Italian background might come through.  As it did for The Goddaughter series.  As it did for…okay, all the others.  I’m an Italian gal masquerading as a WASP, and I couldn’t keep a straight face if they ironed and botoxed it.

Melodie Campbell is Canada’s “Queen of Comedy” – The Toronto Sun

Comedy is my lifeline.  Laughter is my survival kit.  I love the Merry Widow Murder series that I’m currently writing for Cormorant books.  It has humour in the form of my beloved character Elf.  But I miss the old standup days.

Writing PIZZA WARS brought me back to my early comedy-writing days.  It’s perhaps my most loopy book.  Take a city (Hamilton) that’s known for steel mills.  Take a population where a good many came from Sicily between the wars. 

Take all that, try to fit it into a Police precinct, arm the place with Officer Rita “Mom” Gallo, and you can have some pretty funny things take place.

After all, who needs a gun when you have a wooden spoon?

Now available!  At Amazon, and all the usual suspects.  (If you like The Goddaughter books, check out PIZZA WARS!)

 

Pulpwood Fiction

I like that term. Pulpwood Fiction isn't an established genre, but it's a definite--and different--area of storytelling, one that focuses on the gritty, blue-collar people of the rural South, where the setting plays a central role. I've also heard it called Redneck Noir, and Grit Lit. A blog I found a few years ago refers to it as "good old-fashioned noirish pulp fiction with a Southern twist."

One reason I like those kinds of stories is, of course, that I grew up in that part of the country, with all its weird food and scenery and characters and traditions. As I said in one of my private-eye stories a few years ago, the Deep South is like the song: fish are jumpin', the cotton is high, and the livin' is easy. At least usually. Everyone moves at a slower pace and many things get done at a slower pace, including talking. Most of us sound like Billy Bob Thornton, or Holly Hunter, or Walton Goggins.

Some of my short stories that were the most fun to write are set in that world, both past and present--partly because it's familiar ground and partly because it's just easier. I don't have to do as much research. 

I think the best writer of so-called pulpwood fiction is Joe R. Lansdale. Most of his novels and short stories are set in East Texas, in and around the fictional town of LaBorde (often compared to Nacogdoches, the author's hometown). My favorite Lansdale books are standalones, but I also love his series of novels and stories featuring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. 

A quick description of those two: Hap is a white, straight, liberal redneck who doesn't like guns and Leonard is a gay black Republican who doesn't like much of anything except Dr Peppers and vanilla cookies. They've been best friends since childhood, and despite mostly-good intentions they wind up in deep trouble at every turn--and often have to shoot their way out. 

So far, three movies have been made from Lansdale's novels and novellas. Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) with Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis, Cold in July (2014) with Sam Shepard and Don Johnson, and The Thicket (2024) with Juliette Lewis and Peter Dinklage. All are worth watching, and The Bottoms, which won an Edgar for Best Novel in 2001, is supposedly under film development. There's also an excellent TV series appropriately called Hap & Leonard, starring James Purefoy and the late Michael Kenneth Williams. The first of the three H&L seasons is the most fun, but all of them are good.

Another thing worth mentioning: We've talked a lot at this blog about humor in fiction writing--and Lansdale is one of the best at this. I've learned a lot from him, and I think any writer can.

Here are some of my favorite Lansdale standalone novels:

Edge of Dark Water

Sunset and Sawdust

The Bottoms

Paradise Sky

A Fine Dark Line

The Thicket

And my favorite Hap & Leonard novels:

Savage Season

Mucho Mojo

The Two-Bear Mambo

Vanilla Ride

Rusty Puppy

Hatchet Girls

The Elephant of Surprise

If you're interested, Lansdale has also written plenty of short-story collections, my favorite of which is Driving to Geronimo's Grave.

That's all I can think of, for today. If you haven't read Joe Lansdale, I hope you will. I believe I have everything he's written right here on the shelves of my home office, and I've read several of his novels and many of his stories two or three times each.

And why not? I can identify with these folks.

Applying the Bechdel Test to Real Life

SleuthSister Melodie Campbell and I have written about the Bechdel Test, a measure of whether a movie has 1. two named female characters; 2. who talk to one another; 3. about something other than a man. Both Melodie and I came up with excellent lists of movies that met the Bechdel criteria, neither of which included most of the movies our SleuthBrothers spend a lot of what journalists used to call column inches writing about.

https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2024/06/sleuthsisters-movies-and-bechdel-test.html
https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2024/06/sleuthsisters-movies-and-bechdel-test_01994901369.html

The thought that bubbled up one morning, as I lay in that state between sleeping and waking when so many of my creative notions come to me, was that it might be illuminating to apply the Bechdel standard to real life. We get a strong cultural message that when women talk to each other, it is mostly about "men," as in the award-winning country song: I'm gonna love you forever/ forever and ever, amen/ as long as old men sit and talk about the weather/ as long as old women sit and talk about old men... or in these enlightened times, about intimate relationships regardless of gender—or else about sex, clothes, and shopping, as in Sex in the City. Maybe that describes some women's lives, but it has nothing to do with mine.

So what do I talk about with the women in my life?

Let's start with my SleuthSisters: Melodie Campbell and Eve Fisher, with whom I share an ongoing conversation via daily comments on the SleuthSayers blog posts, sometimes joined by Janice Law and blog newcomer Anna Scotti on literature, writing, language, movies and tv; and on to one-on-one emails for fuller exchanges on politics; sharing, comparing, and discussing our own childhoods, ethnicities, families, and environments; telling funny stories, and laughing at each other’s jokes.

I meet weekly on Zoom with a group of women in our sixties, seventies, and eighties to discuss how we experience the aging process. There's a lot of common ground as well as striking differences in how we're doing and how we're taking getting older. Many of us have become friends who stay in touch via group and individual texts as well as phone calls and Zoom visits. Some conversations are the proverbial “organ recital” of consequences of aging, from deficits in hearing, mobility, and memory to diagnoses such as Parkinson’s, heart disease, and cancer to procedures from colonoscopy to hip and knee replacement to nuisances like shrinking in height. We also talk about our children, grandchildren, and aging parents if we still have them. We also talk about retirement, which everybody perceives differently; creativity, which does not diminish with age; travel, which some of us do extensively; and how we use structured and unstructured time. We talk about loss, death, and sexuality from the perspective of aging women, which is a far cry from "talking about old men." We talk about self-care, including exercise, bodywork, spiritual practice of various kinds. Occasionally we talk about our childhoods and families. And like everybody else in these complicated times, we compare notes on how we deal with the state of the world without freaking out.

As for my longtime friends of sixty and seventy years: what don’t we talk about! My surviving friends in other countries (six in France, one each in the Netherlands, UK, Africa, and Australia) are always interested in my perspective on what’s happening in the US, political, economic, and sociological. With my Jewish women friends from childhood on, I always had a tremendous amount of common ground. Now political challenges have fragmented our opinions, but we still call on longtime affection and frankness to connect with each other across various divides. So we still talk about family, aging, losses, life cycle changes, activities and new ventures, the organ recital, what the kids and grandkids are doing, and what happened to the world we tried so hard to make a better place.

What about my most active friendships? With one friend, who lives in New York, I talk about the state of academia, finances, and music. With another, who lives in San Francisco and whom I've known since we were eleven, we talk about our mothers and our sisters; good food—she's a recreational cook, and we both live in foodie cities; memories, mutual friends, and losses; she talks about Bay Area culture, I about New York museums and concerts; she about her activities, bocce and knitting, I about my writing, my mystery activities, my garden, my photography, my ocean swimming, and my relationship with Central Park.

We all have plenty to talk about besides men!

When They Stop Teaching the Classics...and Cursive

I heard recently that the school district I am in has decided to stop teaching Shakespeare.  That alarms me for so many reasons, but also for a personal one.

Quite simply, I'm having a hard time finding books to use as examples in teaching fiction writing.

I used to have a lovely example, when trying to show what was meant by 'plot'.  I'd ask my class:  "What is the plot of Gone with the Wind?"

Several people would put up their hands, and say, "It's about the Civil War." 

And I would say, "No it isn't.  You've just described setting.  The SETTING of Gone with the Wind is the civil war.  The PLOT is something like this:  Scarlet O'Hara falls in love with a man who does not return her love, and she spends the entire civil war chasing after him.  Until in the end, she decides other things are more important."

Lots of Ohs! and Ahs!  Smiles all around.

Flash forward to my last term. I ask the same question of the class (all adults):  "What is the plot of Gone with the Wind?"

Not a single hand went up.

Nobody had read it or even seen the movie.

Me:  "Come on, people!  I can't use Harry Potter for EVERY example!"  (lots of laughter)

Yes, Harry Potter seemed to be the only book everyone in the class had read.  And - dare I say it - most had seen the movie Twilight (but not necessarily read the book.)  This does not leave a lot for me to reference as examples.

Further gripe: 

So here we are today, taking Shakespeare out of the school system.  Does anyone honestly think kids will read Shakespeare on their own?  Are we honestly to face a world in which no one knows the lessons learned in The Scottish Play, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, the Richards and Henry's?  And so many more.

A world in which I could say, "He would make a great Caliban" in a business meeting, and no one would know what I meant?  (I made the mistake of saying that once.  Probably not my best political move...)

So this leads me to my latest fear:

I hear they are no longer teaching Cursive.  Which means, in a few years, only a very very few people will be able to read any historical documents.  Any manuscripts in the original.

In fact, I was told today that a California town is asking people who know Cursive to apply for town jobs. 

Does this not scare others?  When only a few can access original text, I worry that everything will be 'as interpreted' by a central body.  

We already know how Homer's work was translated and tinkered with by men centuries ago to change and sometimes diminish the role of women in it.

Dammit, I'm worried.  I want a world where everyone is given the chance to be exposed to ideas.

Not a world where only a few can refute the masters (AI or other) who control the narrative.

Melodie Campbell worries and writes on the shores of Lake Ontario.  Her latest book (available for pre-order everwhere) was given the following review by BOOKLIST (we're permitted to post one sentence in advance of issue date):

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Festivus! (a fun post)

This year, we have decided to embrace the spirit of Festivus.  This is because, I am the quintessential Canadian mutt.  Four parts Italian, one part Irish, one part English, a touch Chippewa, and the final bit was confusing. 

The Italian part is easy to explain.  Every year, my Sicilian grandmother put the plastic lighted crucifixes (made in Japan) in glaring rainbow colours, on the Christmas tree.  I was a bit confused by that, not only because it was gawd-awful tacky and fought with my budding interior designer.  But the part in the 10 Commandments about ‘no graven images’ seemed to be at risk here.

Nevertheless, we all looked forward to the blazing orange, green and red crucifixes, unaware that it was a sort of macabre thing to do to a Christmas tree.  Did I mention Halloween is my favorite holiday?

The Chippewa part was a tad more elusive.  I first got a hint that there might have been First Nations blood in our family when someone asked why we put ground venison in our traditional Christmas Eve spaghetti sauce.  True, we had a freezer full of deer, moose, salmon, and not much else.  Later, it occurred to me that I actually hadn’t tasted beef until I was ten, when for my birthday, Dad took us to the A&W for a real treat.  “This tastes weird,” I said, wrinkling my nose.  “It’s made from cow,” Dad said.

Of course, if I had been more on the ball, there were other clues.  But at the age of six, you don’t necessarily see things as out of the norm.  That summer in Toronto, I loved day camp.  They split us kids into groups named for First Nations tribes.  By happy coincidence, I got placed in the Chippewa tribe.  When I got home and announced this, the reaction was: “Thank God it wasn’t Mohawk.” 

The camp leaders were really impressed with my almost-authentic costume.  (Everyone else was wearing painted pillow cases.)

There's more, but it can be nicely summed up by saying that someone in the extended family always managed to put Halvah in my Christmas stocking.  The tradition continues. Talk about confusing...

So this year, I will put beef in the Italian spaghetti sauce, we’ll put up a Festivus tree, and there will be Halvah.  Happy Festivus to all!

Melodie Campbell celebrates Festivus on the shores of Lake Ontario, where she continues to write silly stuff for unsuspecting publishers.

 

 

Criminal Words! (how I miss Latin!) (a fun post)

Here's what happens when you're teaching college these days:  humorous cultural references go right over the head of many of your students.

This was brought home when I was teaching a humour writing class (ages 18-50), and started with a survey of the greatest skits of all time.  

Remember this one?  Wayne and Shuster (probably our best export from Canada) and the infamous

 Rinse the Blood off my Toga.

Frank goes into Cicero's Bar (I have to snicker at that alone!) and strolls up to the bar:

Frank:  "Give me a martinus. 

Cicero:   "You mean a martini."

Frank:  "If I want more than one, I'll ask for it!"

Zing!  Over the head of everyone in my class.   

Honestly.  Did they all miss the Latin slogan on Roger Ramjet?  (let's see who remembers, in the comments)

Now, I went to high school in the mid-70s, when Latin had pretty well disappeared in BC and Ontario high schools.  However, I had an Italian mother, and a Brit father who was a lover of Latin and the arcane.  So early on, when learning street Italian, I got a taste of the Latin basics.

Things like (feel free to correct my spelling):

Nil illegitimi carborundum

(a Dad favourite, which he translated to: Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down

Which brings me to this nifty little book that I was given a few years back.

LATIN FOR ALL OCCASIONS, by Henry Beard.

Truly, I wonder how the rest of the world manages without these handy translations.  (Notice I've chosen ones that might be especially useful to my er family.)

      I have a catapult.  Give me all the money or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.

Catapultam habeo.  Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.

 

     Look at the time!  My wife will kill me!

Di! Ecce hora! Exor mea me necabil!

 

    I didn't expect you home so soon!

Non sperabam te domum tam cito revenire!

 

    Do you by any chance happen to own a large, yellowish, very flat cat?

Estne tibi forte magna feles  fulva et planissima? 

 

    Things to say to your Lawyer:  You charge how much an hour?

Quantum in una hora imputas? 

 

   Watch out - you might end up divided  into three parts, like Gaul.

Prospice tibi - ut Gallia, tu quoque in tres parte dividaris.

 

   You and whose army?

Tutene Atque cuius exercitus?

 

   What did you call me?

Quid me appellavisti? 

 

 And finally...bringing it back to me...

A comedian, huh?

ita vero  esne comoedus? 

                                          (Any errors in spelling are mine.)

 

Next  time I'll talk about how not a single person in my college  fiction writing class could tell me the plot of Gone with the Wind, because nobody had seen it.  (Let alone read it.)  <Hits head against desk>

Melodie Campbell laments the demise of cultural references while writing wacky stuff in the True North.  The Toronto Sun called her Canada's Queen of Comedy.

What it takes to Survive Decades in this Business!

Michael's column in October reminded me of how long we'd both been in the business, and what it takes to stay here and be continually published.

In a word:  

Versatility

As Michael pointed out, we are seeing a time of catastrophic change in the writers' market.  Magazines and publishing houses are closing shop.  Entire subgenres are disappearing from the shelves.

I saw a version of this happen in the 90s, when I was first teaching genre fiction writing.  The romance market was in crisis.  Why?  Because even in a romance book, you need conflict.  You need a reason why the two leads can't get together.  It used to be we had class, money, religion, race, and all those lovely things to keep people apart.  Things they would have to overcome to be together.

Now, if you look at cosmopolitan Toronto (7 million+) for instance, those conflicts seem rather quaint nowadays.  None of the young adults in my class would buy such reasons for not getting together.  In fact, when I challenged my last class to come up with a realistic reason why a young Toronto man and woman (or same sex) couldn't get together, a single (older) man came up with this glorious reason:  the traffic!

Ever wonder about those Vampires? 

Humour aside (as if I can ever do that) the writers of romance had to come up with a way to introduce new conflict into their 70,000 word romance novels.  And guess what happened?  The vampire age was born!  Now, *there's* conflict.  Young lady falls for a gorgeous young something she thinks is a man, but is actually a vampire, and he has to control himself to keep from killing her.  You think I kid?  Vampires were the perfect conflict. Ditto Werewolves and Zombies.

And many romance writers became versatile (that word again) writers of Romantasy.  (romance combined with fantasy - very hot right now.)  They followed the market.

Another example?

In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down.  And with it, the spy novels that were in production at the time.  My agent told me that publishers shelved books that were on the production line, because Russian and East Berlin spies were 'so passe'.  

So what did those writers of spy novels do?  They became versatile!  And wrote micro-thrillers.

Myself?  I started by writing short stories.  Some magazines paid me as much as $2000 a story in the 90s.  (or what the young ones are now calling, 'the late 1900s' - gaK)  Ten to fifteen years after that, I was lucky to get an average of $200 a story.

So what did I do, to make money?  I started writing novels.

It was hard for me.  I had to rework the way I came up with plots.  Since I started in the biz as a humour writer, it seemed easiest for me to write comic capers.  I did that for 10 years.

And then a personal tragedy (death of my husband) took me to a very dark place.  I lost my comedy chops for a while, and had to change subgenre.  Now I write historical golden age mystery (although with some humour).

I had to be versatile, in order to still be able to write.

I want to go back to all those writing students I taught - over 2000, through the years, and put this up on the board.

"The key to writing success over the decades?  The ability to be VERSATILE."

So I add to my three things necessary to become a writer. It's now four:

Talent, Craft, Passion and Versatility! 

 

Melodie Campbell writes a bunch of stuff, from the shores of Lake Ontario. 

 

 

 

Bright Babble From The Bayou.

Two weeks ago I wrote about Bouchercon in New Orleans last month.  Here are some words of wisdom I gathered there:

"Historical fiction is very liberating because you don't have to explain why the cell phone doesn't work." -  Laura Joh Rowland

"Writing is a hobby that I don't have to buy golf clubs for, or worms for fishing." - Josh Pachter

"What if I write about that but not at all about that?" - Brandi Bradley

"I have killed my ex-husband about twelve times." - Pamela Ebel

"I love editing. I love publishing. I love bookselling. I hate writing." - Otto Penzler

"Research is a deep dark rabbit hole that I just love." -Wendy Gee

"We fistfight a lot in the South because everything's so far apart we can't wait for the police to show up." - S.A. Cosby

"I've never seen a writers' block problem that couldn't be solved by conversation with other writers." - Jonathan Maberry

"What's romance without a good murder?" - Meredith Anthony

'If you find my stuff funny it says more about what's wrong with you than what's wrong with me." - Jeff Markowitz

"I was tired of the Civil War before I was born." - Henry Wise

"A great opening line is a cheap magic trick." - Ivy Pochoda

"I've built a career on sarcasm." - Gini Koch

"You're writing a story to entertain people, not put them to sleep.  We have Ulysses for that." - Charles Todd

"What are you saving your time for?" - Polly Stewart

"How can you write about crime fiction if you don't do crime?" - William Boyle

"In school I read 'The Lottery' and it broke me.  I don't think you should read it at the age I read it." - Jason Powell

"That which we call a dead body smells the same in all time periods." - Laura Joh Rowland

"All of America has become the South." - Ace Atkins

"My editor always calls my books cozies on crack." - Rachel Howzell Hall 

"Deadlines are the writer's friend." - Thekla Madsen

"My agent and I had a difficult divorce." - Bonnar Spring

"Only Elmore Leonard was born Elmore Leonard, but we can all get closer." - Mysti Berry

"The pillars of the South are religion, class, sex, and race." - S.A. Cosby

"Can her friendship survive being a serial killer?" - Emma C. Wells

"What do you kids call dancing these days? Just dancing? You're letting us down on the slang." - Gini Koch

"If I'm stuck in the doldrums I give my characters a side quest." - Brandi Bradley

"Sometimes the tipping point doesn't tip for many years after the pre-tipping." -  Laura Joh Rowland

"I go to the library because that's where the cool kids are hanging out." - Jonathan Maberry

"The adage that it's a privilege just to be nominated is bullshit." - Don Bruns

"Write about characters, not caricatures. We're not all Boo Radley. We have shoes now." - S.A. Cosby 

"I don't think you can have a story without character development." - Steve Steinbock

"I'm very much a Joseph Campbell meets Save the Cat kind of writer." - Rachel Howzell Hall  

"A crime novel without a bar is like a day without sunshine." - Eric Beetner

"I have a lottery ticket. It proves that math education in public schools is a failure." -Wendy Gee

"Humor comes from a place of trauma. You figure if I make the guys laugh, maybe they'll stop hitting me." - Libby Klein

"Scanty-cladness is a futuristic trope." -  Laura Joh Rowland

"My grandmother made the best sweet potato pie in Virginia and I will fight you about that." - S. A. Cosby

"I was going to say something unflattering about myself but I'm vain." - James Lincoln Warren

"Everything you cede to a machine is something you are not learning to do. You are the passenger, not the driver." - Jonathan Maberry

"My Victorian series you can blame on PBS." - Laura Joh Rowland

"I was born in the 1960s, so how is that a historical period?" - Nancy Herriman

"Books that have no humor in them I find unrealistic." - Matt Goldman

"Hopefully this novel that I'm working on right now will be out before we're all dead." - Rob Byrnes

"I google great first lines. Sometimes I see my friends' lines there and I get sad." - Rachel Howzell Hall 

"Someone said I like your books but I don't like your main character at all. I said, you know that's me, right?" - Libby Klein

"Aristotle also wore a Snoopy hat." - Tim Maleeny

"If you're trying to be timeless, good luck. "We've already got Pride and Prejudice." - Elizabeth Rose Quinn 

"It's like la la la, oh shit." - Rachel Howzell Hall 

I'm Pretty Sure This Book Tried to Kill Me: Writing the second book in a series

What is it about second books?  Anne R. Allen and I got musing about that, and this blog post was the result:

The second book of the Merry Widow Murder series, The Silent Film Star Murders, came out this year.  I'm pretty sure this book tried to kill me (some might say, rather appropriate for a crime series...)

It's not as if I'm a virgin to series.

 (Probably, I should reword that; I am a happily married woman, after all.) 

What I mean is,  I've done this before.  The Merry Widow is my 4th series.  The first three didn't kill me, so why should this darn book?

The trouble with second books is four-fold:

1.  The Expectations are HUGE.

We all dread the following review: "It was okay, but not as good as the first book."   

Everyone - and I do mean everyone -expects the second book will be just as good or better than the first.  In fact, they demand it.  You've set their high hopes with the first book.  If you didn't, then they wouldn't buy a second book in the first place.  And if they don't buy a second book, your publisher won't want a third.

I was lucky with the Rowena Through the Wall series.  The second book (Rowena and the Dark Lord) garnered better reviews than the first.

And I was even luckier with The Goddaughter's Revenge.  That novella (part of The Goddaughter series) won the Derringer and the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence.  Several more followed.

But will that luck hold?  I have no idea how Silent Film Star will do, compared to the first book, and the suspense may just kill me.

2.  You have to be a bit of a magician.

Meaning, you have to weave in enough backstory about the first book so that people who read this book without having read the first will not be lost. At the same time, you have to weave backstory in a way that is quick and lively, so as not to bore the people who read the first book.  

It's a learned skill you get better at with practice.

 3.  You lose an important suspense element of stand-alone books.

The trouble with a crime series is your protagonist must survive to be in the next book.  Whatever happens, your protagonist must live through it.  And if your reader knows this is a series, they know this part. 

 For some readers, it's why they like series books.  They WANT the reassurance that they are not reading for four hours, just to find out their beloved protagonist kicks the bucket in the end.  I'm in that category.  I don't like books that end badly for the main character.

BUT - it also means an important element of surprise has been eliminated from the story.  In a stand-alone, when you start reading, you won't know the reason it's a stand-alone.  Could be the main character didn't survive to be in another story.  That adds suspense.

4.  What about Character Arc?

If you study how to write a novel, you will probably come across the concept of Character Arc.  Basically, it means that by the end of the book, your protagonist should be changed in some way by his experiences in the story.  

A classic example would be:  A woman is a very nice, kind, unassuming mother.  But then her child is kidnapped and she becomes a fierce fighter in his recovery, finding violence in her that she didn't know possible.

That's an extreme example. You can probably remember a popular sci-fi movie with this theme.  

Our problem with series books: some lit courses teach that every book should have a character arc.

Trouble is, if you have six book series, is your character going to change six times in six different ways?  That becomes impossible, if not darn silly.

So in a series,  I try to make my characters become even more what they are.  As the series grows, they become even more determined in their goals, more devoted to their individual causes.  And in The Merry Widow Murders series, more determined to see justice done, whether inside or outside the law.

 SO WHY DO WE DO IT?

By now, any reasonable person must be wondering why anyone would want to write a series, taking into the account above.

For that, I can come up with two reasons:

1. We're insane.
2. We cannot leave our beloved characters behind.

I don't know about the first, but the second is me.  I'm a suck.  I love my characters like wayward children.  They stay in my mind for years and years, begging me to write more about them.  I've had readers tell me that reading the next book in The Goddaughter series was like revisiting old friends.

So forgive me now if I leave this post.  I'm just finishing up book 3, and my characters are calling.
 

 

Compared to Agatha Christie by The Toronto Star, Melodie Campbell hopes to survive book 3. In the meantime, you can see how she survived the above by ordering book 2, The Silent Film Star Murders.  Available at all the usual suspects (Barnes&Noble, Chapters/Indigo, Amazon, etc.)