Promote or write?

Dear SleuthSayers,

My medical thriller, Stockholm Syndrome, hit the shelves December first. I slammed the promotion hard for three weeks before the holidays and managed to rise to #12 on the Kobo bestseller list. My question for you is, do I stop now?

I burned myself out last month. At least two people reminded me of the metaphor of a candle burning at both ends, and I replied, “Up ’til now, I’ve had enough candle!” But it was a good reminder that no one’s candle is infinite.

However, I have hardly made a dent in Amazon, which is troubling. Amazon gives you a month on its Hot New Releases list and then you drop into obscurity.

What I really want is to cut into the national (for me, Canadian), American, and international market. To do that, I can’t keep bugging my 700 Facebook friends. I need to get more sales outside as well as within my area. And for that, I need more exposure. Because when there are 2 million books on the Kindle, it’s hard to get readers to notice you. Discoverability—everybody wants some, but it’s hard to find.

Some writers go the organic route. Write good books, publish them often, and your readers will find you. Trust the algorithm. Spend your time writing, not shilling yourself on ads and shows that may or may not pan out.

Pro: you write a lot more books this way. I pretty much stopped writing in December, which is unheard-of for me, but it’s hard to promote full-tilt and write full-tilt and work and look after kids at the same time—hence the burn-out.

Con: It’s possible that no significant number of readers will find you and you’ll die with just a handful of fans.

The opposite route: pimp yourself non-stop and never write another book.

Pro: people will hear about you.

Con: they will get sick of you, you don’t have enough product to attract repeat readers, and you can impoverish and humiliate yourself while braying about your one accomplishment.

So what’s a girl to do? I see both sides. I wrote in obscurity for years, so I’ve amped up my stage presence over the past year or so. But I know that in the big scheme of things, I’ve captured only the most minuscule crumb out of the pie. Stockholm Syndrome is a seriously good book. I don’t want it to disappear after a hundred people read it.

On the other hand, I feel stupid talking about one book over and over. I like creating new things, and my brain will stagnate if I dwell on one item.

Here are some potential marketing choices/goals.

1. Hire a publicist.
2. Try to get more radio interviews.
3. Try to get more television coverage.
4. Try to cut into the Ottawa/Montreal market, which is pretty much untouched right now, for me, let alone national/international markets.
5. Get some blog reviews--unlocked yesterday! Murder in Common's June Lorraine says, "A page turner....Dr. Hope Sze is a resident at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Montreal. She is on-call when the labour and delivery unit is turned into a danger zone.…An introspective thriller…A shaky, claustrophobic and menacing situation [with] reflective humour as chaos whirls around her."
6. Get some print reviews.
7. Get some awards.

Alternatively, here are some writing choices/goals.

Look carefully
and you'll spot my
EQ card at the top right.

1. Write the next Hope Sze novel.
2. Write related short stories. On Crimefiction.fm, Stephen Campbell and I talked about how a short story is the perfect ad for your work: the magazine or reader pays *you*, you get pages of exposure to your ideal reader, and Ellery Queen even sends you an annual Christmas card afterward.
3. I’m also working on a collection of mystery short stories, called Reckless Homicide, at the request of a reader.
4. Write something completely unrelated. This month, I aim to publish The Emergency Doctor’s Guide to a Pain-Free Back.
5. Write something that has a high chance of getting published. In my case, the Medical Post has been very, very good to me, and I need to submit more columns.
6. Write unrelated short stories/novels for fun.
7. Market stories already written--something that has fallen off my radar with the time crunch, but I should be more aggressive about this.

So what do you think, SleuthSayers? I’m at a crossroads.

What would you do? What have you done, what have you learned, and which way do you lean? Do you write or promote?

Either way, Happy New Year, happy writing, and happy reading,

Melissa Yi

The Obstacle Ahead is a Mirror

Michael Bracken and Josh Pachter
celebrate September birthdays
while at Bouchercon.

I’ve been writing long enough to recognize many of the obstacles that interfere with productivity. I’ve experienced the death of a parent, the death of a spouse, two divorces, four marriages, multiple job changes and relocations, heart surgery, and any number of other consequential life events. Yet, I can’t recall ever facing the obstacle that blocked my writing path throughout the middle half of this year.

During 2016 and 2017 my writing took a great leap forward, and my work was recognized in unexpected ways—leading to a lifetime achievement award in 2016; having a story included in The Best American Mystery Stories in 2018; placing stories in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and several new publications; and having other mystery writing opportunities fall into my lap. Unfortunately, sometime this spring all that good news overwhelmed me.

For many years, my schtick was to tout my productivity. I was the back-of-the-magazine, middle-of-the-anthology guy, the writer editors relied on to fill pages because they knew I was likely to turn in something on time and on theme that required little or no editorial sweat to make publishable.

For years I pounded out stories because writing was fun, and my head was (and is) filled with more stories than I will ever put on paper.

And then I stopped being that guy.

PLAY BECOMES WORK

I don’t know exactly when things changed, but I began to view my writing through a different lens. Instead of asking myself, “Is this fun?” I began asking myself, “Is this important? Is this significant? Is this noteworthy?”

And the answer, too often, was “no.”

I didn’t stop writing, but I set stories aside because they weren’t important, significant, or noteworthy. Then stories I did think were important, significant, and noteworthy—stories I felt confident would sell the first time out because I knew my markets—bounced back from editors with form rejections.

My mojo was no mo’.

WORK BECOMES PLAY

I did not have writer’s block. I didn’t stop writing but writing became a job I didn’t want to go to and didn’t want to do when I got there because it had stopped being fun.

This is how I felt in early September when Temple and I left home for Bouchercon in St. Petersburg, Florida. Unlike New Orleans, where Temple and I spent almost as much time wandering around the French Quarter as we spent at the convention, and Toronto, where I participated in numerous events, St. Petersburg was more about hanging out.

Like many attendees, too many interactions with fellow writers were little more than “how ya doin’?” as we crossed paths on our way from one place to another. I did manage some interesting conversations about writing with Barb Goffman and Art Taylor, had some long conversations with Josh Pachter about all manner of things, and spent time with Trey R. Barker, both alone and in the company of our wives.

Michael Bracken, Frank Zafiro, and
Trey R. Barker bond over a mutual love
of taco truck cuisine.

I also spent a great deal of time hanging out on the veranda with a revolving group of editors and writers affiliated with Down & Out Books. Over the course of the convention, a joke Trey and I shared expanded into a project that we pitched to D&O Publisher Eric Campbell on that veranda. As we did, Frank Zafiro and other writers made suggestions that expanded the scope of our idea into something Eric liked so much he asked for a formal proposal.

By the time Temple and I reached the airport to leave St. Petersburg on the last day of Bouchercon, Frank Zafiro had already written several thousand words for the project, and within a week of returning home Trey and I put the formal proposal in Eric’s hands and began work on our own contributions.

As I write this, we have not yet received the go-ahead from Eric, but it doesn’t matter. I’m about 9,000 words into a 15,000+ word novella that isn’t important, significant, or noteworthy.

And writing it is damned fun.

“Mr. Sugarman Visits the Bookmobile” appears in Shhhh…Murder! (Darkhouse Books, edited by Andrew MacRae), and it’s the fifth story of mine to be included in Robert Lopresti’s list of best stories he’s “read this week” at Little Big Crimes.

Rangers in the Night

I ran an army story as one of my SS posts, some time back, and got a pretty positive response. So, I thought I’d give it a second shot. And, in the interests of challenging Leigh for the longest post to date (and praying it’s more satisfying than a mystery written by an ancient Russian!), I hereby present the following:

In Phase I of the Special Forces Qualification Course, I learned a new version of an old song. Sung to the tune of "Strangers in the Night," it went:

Rangers in the Night, 

                   Exchanging Azimuths. 

     Land navigational fr-ight, 

                                 They lost their a#* sure enough. 

It went on for several verses, which I no longer recall, but I’m sure you get the idea. And, NO, it wasn’t written by anyone who was any good at song writing.

During the Q-Course (sometimes called S.F.Q.C.) the Land Navigation Exam was probably the single greatest factor in student attrition. It knocked out about half the guys we lost in Phase I—all by itself.

Uwharrie National Forest Location

The Land Nav section of Phase I lasted a week, during which we bivouacked in poncho hooches, in North Carolina’s Uwharrie National Forest, packing up our stuff every morning so we could run practice land navigation courses. We ran two each day—morning and afternoon—and one each night. Some guys, such as myself, tried to run each course. Others hiked over the first low ridge line, dropped their rucksacks and got some sleep.

A fellow I won’t name, who became a good buddy of mine during the course, (unbeknownst to me during Phase I) used some of these opportunities to hike out to a specific intersection of dirt roads, where—at prearranged times—he’d meet a friend of his, who was scheduled to go through the next iteration of Phase I. That friend would bring him pizza and beer, a cheeseburger and shake or something similar, each time they met.

It just kills me that I never came up with fun ideas like that!

The Land Nav test would take place at the end of the week, then we would go back to Camp MacKall for Survival Training, followed by the Patrolling section—which culminated in a several-day patrol through the woods, coupled with raids and ambushes.

Camp MacKall during WWII.
When I was there, only the area just above the T-intersection
 of the paved roads still existed.  We lived in tar-paper shacks.

We lost a lot of guys before Land Nav week, of course, because the Q-Course wasn’t designed to test only a man’s physical strength and endurance, it also pushed him to his psychological limits. Guys went down to heat injuries, sprains or simple exhaustion, as you might expect.

The Airfield at Camp MacKall.
We parachuted in and out of Phase I.

But, we also lost a lot of students who just quit. They decided they didn’t want to be there anymore, or that they could no longer take wondering which night our scant sleep (usually from about midnight to 4:30 am) would be interrupted by bright lights, loud music and everyone being called out to perform a couple hours of calisthenics, on the road, in our underwear. (This happened fairly often.)

And—surprising me at the time—some guys quit because they got mad. During those midnight calisthenics, for instance, the cadre would rotate out between exercises, which meant we students would be near exhaustion when a fresh instructor jumped in and started leading a new exercise, barking at us and calling us names if we had a hard time keeping up.

There was a lot of complaint, particularly among guys who’d been through Ranger School, that this was unfair, that our instructors should match us exercise-for-exercise, or else they were cheating. Some of the complainers quit over things like this.

In truth, this and other aspects of the course were designed to eliminate people who couldn’t handle emotional stress, which is often a critical factor in SF operations. It’s easy to conduct an operation in which everything goes right. But, when the rubber meets the road, things usually go wrong—often dangerously wrong. If a guy can’t handle the emotional stress of knowing how bad things are—can’t deal with how unfair his current situation feels—then the operation probably won’t succeed. You simply can’t get mad and throw in the towel, when you’re operating in a denied area—not only the mission, but also the life of every team member would be jeopardized.

So we dealt with a lot of physical and emotional stress. But, some sections of the Q-Course, such as the Land Navigation Exam, also added a third component of difficulty: Mental Pressure.

What our feet looked like BEFORE the test.

Running resection or declination calculations, maintaining a pace count over long distance and constantly maintaining a comparison of the terrain around you to the map in your hand—all while working against the clock, fighting fatigue and the knowledge that you’re all alone in the middle of a vast, dark forest—can be a bit mentally taxing. Particularly when you were already pretty wiped out before starting the thing.

The exam worked like this:

The class was divided into groups of around 20, and each group was driven—in closed trucks so we couldn’t see where we were being taken—to some place in the Uwharrie National Forest. When the truck stopped, on a dirt road, we climbed out and followed an instructor back into the forest, where he had a small campsite set up. We dropped rucks and ate some dinner, then tried to sleep. Around 1:30 am, the instructor set off a grenade simulator to wake us. We packed our gear and gathered around him. He then read off the grid coordinates of the point we occupied. Each student plotted it on his map, then showed his map to the instructor.

If the student got it wrong, the instructor didn’t tell him. Instead, his job was to note where the student thought he was, so finding him later might be a little easier. Additionally, the instructor would give each student the grid coordinate for the next point he had to find. Each student had a different grid coordinate, because the test is run alone.

After plotting the new grid coordinate on his map, the student had to show it to the instructor—who would remain silent, of course; he just wanted to know where we thought we were going, so they’d have an easier time finding us if we got lost.

After that, we were allowed to fill our canteens completely. Then, as we sat around waiting for the test to begin, the instructor read over the rules to us. We’d already heard the rules a dozen times, but regulations required that we hear them again, just before starting the test.

A partial list of these rules includes: 

• The course begins at 2:00 am. 

•  No clear-lens light may be used at any time. Only a red-lens flashlight may be used. Anyone caught using a light source, with anything other than a red lens, is out! 

• A red lens flashlight may ONLY be used when COMPLETELY STOPPED, to conduct a map check. It must be shut off before moving on. Anyone caught walking with a light on, is out! 

• Each student must forge his own path through the terrain. No using roads, trails, bridges, or any other improved surface. Anyone caught using a road, trail, or bridge is out! 

• Roads may be crossed at a 90-DEGREE ANGLE. OR, if a student can prove he was on azimuth, he may cross diagonally for up to a thirty-foot length of roadway. Anyone caught crossing a road diagonally, who cannot PROVE he was on azimuth, or who walks more than a thirty-foot length of roadway while crossing at a diagonal—for any reason—is out! 

• A bridge may NEVER be used, for any reason. If the bridge crosses a water obstacle, such as a stream, lake, pond, river or swamp, you must enter the water obstacle from one bank, swim or wade with your equipment to the far bank and exit there. Anyone caught setting foot on a bridge is out!

• The courses run between 20 kms and 25 kms, therefore some students will have a longer course than others. You will not know how long your course is, until you have finished it. 

• In order to complete the course, some students must find three points, while others must find four points. You will not know how many points you must find, until you reach your third point. The instructor at that point will give you your fourth point’s grid coordinates if you have one. BE ADVISED: The number of points has little to do with the distance covered while on the course. 

• A student will only be given the grid coordinates of his very next point. When he arrives at that next point, he will then be given the grid coordinates of the following point, and so on. 

• No speaking to anyone. A student may speak with an instructor, at the instructor’s point, ONLY TO VERIFY he has correctly copied the grid coordinates that the instructor has given him for his next point. Other than that—anyone caught speaking is out! 

• Each student must carry a 35 lbs. pack, plus weapon and Load Bearing Equipment. Packs will be weighed before and after the course is run, to ensure compliance. 

• To pass the exam, the student must complete his course by 10:00 am, in the prescribed manner, while carrying the prescribed load. 

Less than two minutes after the instructor was done reading, it hit two o’clock. As we set out from the starting point, each of us heading in a different direction, every man carried two quarters and a slip of paper with a phone number on it. We had instructions that, if completely lost, and we somehow stumbled across a payphone (they existed back then), we should call that number and the first words out of our mouths had to be, “Help. I am a lost Land Nav student.” We were also each issued one aerial flare, to signal for help in the event we became badly injured. Buoyed by these safety comforts, I set out through the pitch dark forest. 

There was no moon that night, which wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because the sky was overcast, cutting off any starlight. So, I walked forward with my head bent over my compass, which pulled the bill of my head gear (cap) down to protect my eyes. But, quickly tiring of bumping my head on tree branches I couldn’t see—even when looking directly at them!—I started to carry my free hand out a little ahead of me, as a sort of warning rod.

Reaching a small dirt road, I stopped and took a knee, using my red-lens Mini-Mag to check my map. As I did so, a dark body lumbered across the road toward me, hissing to get my attention. He stopped inside the wood line, a couple meters away. Pitching his voice low, he asked, “Hey, do know where we are?” When I ignored him, he whispered a bit louder, “Hey! Hey, can you show me where we are?”

I’ve always been the sort of guy who likes to help people. Heck, I was a Boy Scout; I promised to be “Helpful.” So, it wasn’t easy to ignore this guy, but I told myself I wasn’t here to help anyone, right now. I was here to earn a Green Beret, and I had to obey the exam rules to do that.

I picked up and crossed the road, but I hadn’t gone more than a few feet into the woods on the far side, when I again heard him asking for help. This time, a guy who’d just passed me in the opposite direction, answered, whispering, “Look at my map. We’re right here.”

In a completely different voice, and very loud, I heard the first man bark: “I’m an instructor! Give me your score card. You’re out!” Now that he wasn't whispering, I recognized his voice and realized the man who’d been asking me for help, had been the company commander.

Throughout the night, I occasionally heard screams, yells and accelerating vehicles as instructors gave chase to “Road Runners”—men who tried to make time by using the roads at night. And, the instructors weren’t dumb; they kept watch on known chokepoints in the area, using Night Vision Goggles to observe from the tree line, other instructors waiting nearby in hidden vehicles.

The funny thing is, they told us, in advance, that they were going to do this. Still, the Road Runners tried. And they were caught by the boatload. I’ve spoken to a lot of guys who told me they got caught, but only a very few who told me they managed to get away. And, those few admitted: They didn’t even THINK of using a road for the rest of the test.

I also saw a lot of flares climb into the night sky and burst overhead. We’d been told to ignore them, and let the instructors assist anyone in trouble. So, that’s what I did, but one of them was probably fired by my friend, Heise (pronounced like the fruit punch Hi-C, but with the inflection on the first syllable).

Heise had walked into a tree branch in the dark. A twig on that branch had run up between his eye socket and eye ball. In immense pain, Heise couldn’t move. He was stuck, standing there in the middle of nowhere, impaled on a tree. Digging out his flare, he fired it, then waited interminably until he finally heard voices shouting in the woods. He shouted back, the instructors arrived, and they cut the twig from the tree, bandaged him up and ran him into the infirmary at Camp McKall. He was back, later that day, wearing an eye patch taped over his face. He passed the Land Nav retest, a week later, using only one eye.

Another guy—whose name I can’t recall—completely disappeared until late that night. He got lost and wound up walking miles, finally coming across a small backwoods town, where he found a payphone, put in his money and got ready to say, “Help. I am a lost Land Nav student.” He told me he never got the chance, however. The instructor who picked up the phone immediately demanded, “Is this (the guy’s name)?” When the guy said yes, the instructor barked, “Where the hell are you?!”

I don’t recall that guy’s name, because he didn’t pass the retest, so he was gone a week later. I remember the story, because I remember the look on the guy’s face, that night, when he told me: “I couldn’t believe it. I call up, as a lost Land Nav student, and HE asks ME where I am! How the hell am I supposed to know? I was f—ing lost!”

As for me, it took me all night to reach my first point. A desert native, I’d tried to follow a streambed up to the point—which does not work in the “wait-a-minute-vine” terrain of North Carolina. I made good time to my second point, reaching my third with about 45 minutes left in the test. The instructor gave me the grid coordinates for my fourth point (Yes, I was a four-pointer!), and I set out.

But, I never found it.

I went right to it; I'm quite sure. But, it wasn’t there, I’d missed it somehow. I boxed and circled the area until time ran out. Then, I headed back to Land Nav Control, the little trailer the instructors used as an office, which sat beside our bivouac site.

When I got there, I saw a group of about twenty angry men standing to one side. I turned in my card, telling the sergeant I hadn’t found my last point. He looked at my card, then told me to stand over with that group of angry men.

When I got to them, they asked what point I couldn’t find. I gave them my grid coordinates and said I hadn’t been able to find my last point. “That’s because it wasn’t there!” shouted one of the guys.

Come to find out, there are so many points that have to be manned during the exam, the Special Warfare Center and School (which runs the Q-Course) has to borrow soldiers to staff them all. One of the guys they borrowed, had been in charge of my last point. I never met him—at least, not to my knowledge—but the story I heard later, was that he got too hot, where he was sitting, and so he moved his point over a hundred meters away, where it was shadier! LOL

The problem for those of us who had that point, that day, was that the instructors couldn’t give us a passing grade, because none of us had completed the course. As they put it: “How do we know you’d have found the point, if it was there? We don’t even know if you wound up anywhere near where you were supposed to be.”

We’d have to go back to MacKall for Survival Training, then retest at the end of the week—running the whole thing over again. Most of those twenty guys quit, right then. The instructor asked us each, in turn, if we were staying or going. And, when he got to me, he looked like he hoped I would quit.

I wish I could say I was surprised, but I wasn’t. Most of the guys going through the Q-Course had come from Infantry or Ranger units. They were field hardened and almost all muscle. I’d come from the cushy world of Military Intelligence, and my body showed it. Looking at the quitters, most of whom looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bigger brother, I just shook my head and told him, “Sergeant, I didn’t come here to quit.”

Don't get the idea there was any pride in my voice when I said that. I was just stating a fact. It had been very difficult to wrangle my way over from Military Intelligence to Special Forces; I finally had to reenlist to do it. I wasn't about to jeopardize all that work, just because some bonehead had done something that was beyond my control.

I was thinking: Why would I pack-up almost everything I own and put it in storage, leave my '65 Mustang at Ft. Campbell, KY, hop a plane for Fayetteville, NC with only a five-dollar bill in my pocket, then finagle a ride to Smoke Bomb Hill from a Special Warfare Lieutenant  who just happened to be at the Fayetteville airport to pick up a visiting African officer (Thank God the Lt. wore his uniform, so I could recognize him, or I'd have had a long hike!)—if I were just going to quit over a stupid thing like this?

An SF sergeant I knew, when I was studying Arabic at DLI, once told me: "EVERYTHING in the Q-Course is a test.  Whether it intentionally  is one, or not—EVERYTHING you meet out there is a TEST!"  In my view, this was just one more example of that guy having been right.

A week later, I passed the retest. Though, it was kind of a close thing … meaning ... I remember running hell for leather toward my last point, and watching the instructor standing with spread  legs, holding up one arm, while staring at his watch on the other, as he called out the count-down to ten o’clock. When I slid past him, like a runner sliding home, he waved his arms like an umpire and called, “SAFE!—with seven seconds left on the clock.” (Or, something close to that; I can’t remember how many seconds it was—but it wasn’t many!)

About a month later, having passed Phase I and returned to Smoke Bomb Hill in Fort Bragg, I saw those guys who’d quit over the Land Nav screw-up in Phase I. I was in the Engineer portion of my training (Phase II) at the time.  They were cleaning out an empty barracks, things like that. As I walked past, they looked up and I looked back. There they were: guys who looked like a recruiting poster dream. And here I came, having passed—the guy the instructor had hoped would quit. Every one of them looked as if he was sorry he’d thrown in the towel.

As things turned out, however, I had to run that test one more time before they gave me my beret.

In Phase III, the last part of the Q-Course, in which students are formed into Student A-Teams and parachute into a field problem where they have to train and lead inexperienced soldiers, to conduct a successful guerrilla campaign, I had this crazy instructor (Literally; they were in the process of putting him out, a few months later, on what used to be called a “Section 8,” when he died in an automobile accident.) He claimed I’d gotten lost, at one point, during the Phase III field problem. On the other hand, he only passed two men on my 14-man Student A-Team, so the powers that be weren’t so sure his claim was valid.

They couldn’t be sure it wasn’t valid, however, so … back I went for that Land Nav Test!

This time, when the instructor handed me my score card at the beginning, he said, “We’ve got a special course laid-on—just for you, buddy! Enjoy…” The evil grin on his face was later explained, when I learned that I’d been given a course they never used anymore, because it was considered too difficult. But—though I had to swim Bones Fork Creek (which is actually a very deep swamp) TWICE!—I reached my third point with an hour and a half left on the clock.

When the instructor there said, “Prepare to copy!” I bent my head, pencil poised to write the grid coordinates for my fourth point. He continued: “Your last point is this one ...”

I waited. I knew the fourth point would be my last; they didn’t have courses with more than four points—at least, I hoped to GOD they didn’t! After a while, I looked up at him.

He shook his head. “Your last point is this one.” He pointed at the ground. “THIS ONE, knuckle-head! You’re done. Have a seat. Relax.”

Back at Land Nav Control, the instructor with the reputation for being the meanest guy, and who was always busting everybody’s body parts, looked at my score card and smiled at me. “So, you finished the ‘special course’ with an hour and a half left over. You were never lost! I always knew Sergeant —— was crazy!”

What does this have to do with writing? Two things:

Don’t quit when things look bleak. 
Resubmitting after rejection is almost never easy, but it’s the mark of a successful writer.

                   —and—

Sometimes it takes a while to find your way. 
I’m no longer taking care of my dad; we’ve left that up to his hired helpers now. I’ve been finding my way through this change in my life at the same time that I’ve finally had the opportunity to find my way through writing the synopsis for my novel—which I completed about two years ago, just before my mother went into the hospital.

I’ve got the first draft completed, and am working to make it sing. Today, I told you how I negotiated the Land Navigation Test. In two weeks, I’ll tell you how I’ve negotiated the previously unfamiliar terrain of synopsis writing. And, I’ll probably be asking for your own tips on the subject. 

See you then, buddy!
--Dixon

Boucherconnections 2015

A week ago today, at Bouchercon, something happened that I'd been looking forward to for several years: I met fellow SleuthSayer Rob Lopresti for the first time. Rob was one of half a dozen writers at the former Criminal Brief mystery blog (Leigh Lundin was another) who invited me in 2007 to join their ranks, and since then Rob and I have swapped so many emails and read so many (hundreds) of each other's blog posts, it seemed as if I knew him already. But we'd never met face-to-face until last Saturday, when I caught him hurrying down a hallway in the conference hotel, carrying a sheaf of papers and looking appropriately librariany.

That, to me, is the most appealing thing about Bouchercon. It's a rare opportunity to not only make new friends in the literary world, but to put faces to familiar names that I've corresponded with or seen many times in bylines or on bookcovers. That's also the way I met Leigh (at the Baltimore B'con in 2008), and, over the years, most of the other Criminal Briefers and SleuthSayers as well.

At this year's conference in Raleigh, I was able to shake hands for the first time with e-friends Bonnie (B.K.) Stevens, Art Taylor, R.T. Lawton, Brendan DuBois, Paula Benson, Su Kopil, and others. And meeting a person in the flesh does make a difference. I doubt I'll exchange emails or Facebook messages with these folks any more often now than I used to, but when I do, it will somehow feel even more comfortable. I'll finally be able to picture them in my mind.

Other highlights of my trip to Raleigh included a delightful group lunch with members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society; an afternoon meeting with EQMM editor Janet Hutchings and Canadian writer Rob Brunet (who turned out to know my fellow SleuthSayer Melodie Campbell); a long and high-decibel bar conversation with Joe D'Agnese, his wife Denise Kiernan, Reavis Wortham, Tom Pluck, and John Gilstrap; pecan pie and ice cream with Strand editor Andrew Gulli and screenwriter David Rich (who will always be my hero for having written several episodes of MacGyver); and dinner with author and friend Josh Pachter. Josh, if you're reading this, I bought your book the following day and I still need you to autograph it for me.

I was also able to reconnect with several other editors and old buddies I'd met at previous conferences--Linda Landrigan, Terrie Moran, Cathy Pickens, Steve Hamilton, Bill Crider, Austin Camacho, Barb Goffman, and others (in that sense B'con always feels like old home week)--and to meet a number of writers and readers I'd never even spoken with before. And I should mention that the panels were, as usual, interesting and informative. My favorite was the panel of contributors to this year's Bouchercon anthology, Murder Under the Oaks. Several SleuthSayers and other friends were among the 21 authors, and Art Taylor did a great job of moderating.

All in all, my wife and I enjoyed our four days in Raleigh and our stay at the Marriott, and I even managed to sell some books via the conference bookstore and the great folks at Ontario's Scene of the Crime Books (thanks as always, Don and Jennifer Longmuir!). The only disconcerting thing about the whole trip was that the waitress who served the aforementioned pecan pie at the Mecca Restaurant one afternoon informed me and my two companions that we were eating pee-can pie. Pee can? My childhood home had fourteen pecan trees in the back yard, and I've been cracking and eating pecans since I was old enough to walk, and until last week I was convinced that all southerners called them pa-CONs (sort of like B'cons). For me, pee can has a whole different meaning, but our waitress insisted that that's the way Raleighites pronounce it. Live and learn.

One more thing about Bouchercons, in general. Unlike many mystery conferences, B'con is for fans as well as for writers. It's easy to lose sight of the fact that none of what we authors create would ever be published without readers to read it, and I'm always able to meet (and learn from) some of the huge number of mystery fans in attendance. They're quick to tell me what they like and what they don't and why they like it or not, and as writers we'd be crazy not to listen to those opinions.

In closing, let me say that I'm already planning to go to Bouchercon 2016, in New Orleans. Otto Penzler told me he expects the attendance to be the largest in years--the location itself will be a big draw, and many attendees will probably bring their spouses. Besides, it's a no-brainer for me, since New Orleans is less than three hours from where I live. The only problem is that it might be hard to corral audiences for the panels. Let's see . . . on the one hand you have a hotel meeting-room full of writers and readers, and on the other hand you have a French Quarter bar, also full of writers and readers. Where would you rather be?

By the way, Otto also said that next year will be his 41st Bouchercon. I've been to four, he's been to forty. But I'll tell you this: I have enjoyed each one more than the last.

I hope to see you in N.O.

How Much Violence Against Women can YOU Read in your Fiction?

This is a difficult post.

The Globe and Mail newspaper this morning mentioned that Stig Larson died on this day in 2004. I mentioned this to a man I know who is a reader - a man I like and respect - and he said, "I really liked his books."  This brought about a discussion that has gotten me thinking.

Now, as you may recall, the writing community was quite split on Larson's book 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' when it first came out.  Most authors I know, at the time, thought it needed severe editing.  But others were more concerned with aspects of the content.

I remember being at the bar of the Drake Hotel in Toronto, a notorious hangout for crime writers like ourselves, and hearing the following from a well-known male crime writer sitting beside me.  "Stig Larson was one sick puppy."

I asked him to elaborate.  After all, he was a male thriller writer of some note.  Here's what he said:

"That graphic torture scene of a young woman?  We all know how long it takes to write a book.  He would have been weeks writing that chapter.  What kind of sicko could spend that much time devising ways to describe that kind of horrific torture?"

His words really hit home with a lot of us, all of whom were published crime authors.  

Another male author at the table said, "He glorifies violence against women."

I write mainly heists and capers.  My Goddaughter series is about a mob crime family, so I'm not exactly a cozy writer.  In my short stories, I can go quite dark, but never to the point of torture.  I can't write grim novels - I simply can't spend day after day in a dark world.  It affects me mentally.

Violence is absolutely at the core of a lot of crime fiction.  It's not the topic of violence that was at issue here.  What my male author friends at The Drake were commenting on was the stunning increase in graphic description of heinous acts in fiction. It's not offstage in any way, in these books.  But I think what bothered me today is the following:  my fellow reader friend didn't even remember the torture scene that has haunted me for years.  ( I won't go into details here.)  His memory of the series was that of a woman getting her own back.  Fair enough.

So I asked him:  "Would you be able to read a scene in which a child is tortured in that way?"

He said:  "No, definitely not.  I'd have to put it down."

Telling, isn't it?  And that of course is the issue that haunts me today.  Those books of Stig Larson - and some like it that are extremely graphic in their abuse and murder of women - have done well.  Readers seem to accept it as a means to advance a plot in which - hopefully - justice will be done in the end.  (One could argue that if you are a woman killed in a horrible way, there is no justice, but that's a topic for another post.)

The end justifies the means now, so to speak.  Or is it deeper than that?  Does this reflect a deeper societal desensitization, nonchalance, or fatigue when it comes to the topic of violence against women?

My friend is not the only one.  At some point, and I think it took off with the publishing of the Stig Larson books, the fiction reading society moved to embrace a more graphic description of violence against women as entertainment.  And I have to admit, this bothers me.

Comments welcome.  I'm struggling with this one and could use others' insights.

Melodie Campbell writes about the mob in Hamilton Ontario, with tongue firmly in cheek.  You can get her books at all the usual suspects.

What is Real Courage?

Earlier this week, Melodie Campbell ran a column here at SleuthSayers about courage—how it takes guts to be a writer. She mentioned Harper Lee's groundbreaking book, To Kill a Mockingbird, which addressed what true courage is in a conversation between Atticus, the father in the story, and his son, Jem. Atticus says, "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."

Interestingly, I was planning to write about the same subject today. I have a new story that should be available soon titled "Real Courage," inspired in part by the same goal that Harper Lee mentioned, showing what real courage can be. My story doesn't involve a good man standing up to a town full of racists. Harper Lee did that better than I ever could. In my story, you'll see some courageous acts that are big and others that might seem small, but they all take guts. Here are some of them:

• Standing up for yourself when the other person can ruin you
  
• Following through with a promise to help a friend no matter what, even if the "no matter what" is risky—something no one would expect of you
  
• Covering up a crime to protect your child
• Risking your future to make things right

"Real Courage" is told linearly from four points of view, starting with a teenage girl in the 1980s, moving on to her child more than thirty years later, then onto her husband, and ending with the perspective of another teenage girl, one the mother tried to help. It's a story about the ramifications of a seemingly insignificant incident and how it winds up affecting so many lives over so many years. It's a story about unexpected consequences. And it's a story about courage.

I don't want to go into too many details. I'd rather you read the story and be surprised. But I will say that one thing I wanted to illustrate with the story is that sometimes what seems right yet difficult, what can be courageous to do, is also the wrong choice. Not always but sometimes. 

"Real Courage" is included in issue 14 of Black Cat Mystery Magazine. The issue is listed as available for purchase on Amazon, but due to some behind-the-scene issues, the only current seller is a bookshop in England. I'm told Amazon itself should show up as the seller soon (I believe, I hope, that means in the next week or two), enabling people in the US to get local delivery.

Finally, a bit of BSP before I finish: I'm happy to share that last week my story "Beauty and the Beyotch" won this year's Macavity Award for Best Mystery Short Story. The story also won the Agatha Award in the spring and the Anthony Award in September. It originally appeared in issue 29 of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine. I'm beyond thrilled by the reception the story has received. If you haven't read it yet, I hope you will.

A Greek God in Every Book

Jim Winter

Born near Cleveland in 1966, Jim Winter had a vivid imagination – maybe too vivid for his own good – that he spun into a career as a writer. He is the author of Northcoast Shakedown, a tale of sex, lies, and insurance fraud – and Road Rules, an absurd heist story involving a stolen holy relic.

Jim now lives in Cincinnati with his wife Nita and stepson AJ. To keep the lights on, he is a web developer and network administrator by day. Visit him at JamesRWinter.net , like Jim Winter Fiction on Facebook, or follow him on Twitter @authorjimwinter.

There’s a Greek God in Every Book

by Jim Winter

Lately, a lot has been made about the Hero’s Journey, Joseph Campbell’s template for myths and legends. It’s most obvious examples in modern times are Star Wars and the Harry Potter series. But sometimes, trying to plot around the Hero’s Journey can lead to formulaic writing. It can also lead to some very shallow clichés. There’s a difference between paying homage to The Maltese Falcon and creating unintentional parody.

Not that I know anyone who’s ever done that.

A few years ago, however, someone introduced me to a pair of books by psychologist Jean Shinoda Bolen. The first was called The Goddesses in Every Woman. It had a companion book, which I also read called The Gods in Every Man. In them, Bolen posits that the pantheon of Greek gods served as a personality spectrum for the human race. If you find a Greek god or goddess to attach to a character, I discovered, you can use that to flesh out a character. Does it apply to crime fiction?

Oh, come on! Really? Let’s take a look at some of the more common ones. You’ll be surprised.

ZEUS: Zeus is the king of the Greek gods. His personality is simultaneously the calm, solid leader and the petulant overlord who will preserve his position at all costs. Think of most CEO’s. They range from the brilliant innovators (Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google) to the self-absorbed jerk with too much money and power (Donald Trump). Perhaps the darkest crime fiction example is Noah Cross, the water baron in Chinatown.

ATHENA: Athena was the goddess of wisdom and the goddess of the law. Athena types tend to be a bit aloof, a little ruthless if only because their mission calls for it, and extremely logical. Hilary Clinton is an Athena, as are tech CEO’s Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. In crime fiction, they are the female judges, who tend to be less hot-headed and more strict than their male counterparts.

POSEIDON: Brother of Zeus, king of the seas, Poseidons either wish they could be leaders, blaming others for their shortcomings, or they are leaders lacking confidence. History’s best known Poseidon is Richard Nixon, whose worst enemy was himself. A more benign example might be Bill Lumberg from the cult classic movie Office Space, who can’t relate to his underlings and speaks with a huge lack of confidence. Many male PI characters are Poseidons, such as Philip Marlowe. Marlowe does not play nice with others and vents his cynicism and anger at the system through wisecracks and semi-poetic similes.

ARTEMIS: Artemis is the twin brother of Apollo. Like her twin, she is often competitive and fiercely independent. Artemis types are a good model for female PI characters as they don’t really like being told what to do. Erin Brokovitch, the brassy activist, is a good example of an Artemis, refusing to accept the status quo. In crime, Kinsey Millhonne is a prime example.

HADES: The lord of the underworld is a tough one to figure out. He’s the role model for both Obi-wan Kenobi and for Hannibal Lecter. It all depends on which direction you want to go. Hades types spend a lot of time up in their heads. When it works, they’re contemplative philosophers. When it doesn’t, they’re in a world of their own that can be dangerous to those around them. The Dalai Lama and Ted Bundy are two sides of this very strange coin. Dexter would be a crime fiction example. Then again, so would Joe Pike.

HERA/DEMETER: Hera is the wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage. Demeter is the goddess of the harvest and mother of Persephone. I put these two together because they are defined by fierce loyalty. Hera is fiercely loyal to her husband. Demeter is loyal to the point of murder to her daughter. One is proverbial woman behind the man. Think Nancy Reagan. The other can easily be the overbearing mother. Think Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest.

HERMES: Messenger of the gods and the Greeks’ answer to the Trickster archetype. (Think Loki, Thor fans.) Hermes is forever boyish and forever the smartass. A typical Hermes response to a stressful situation is to crack wise. That’s almost every male (and quite a few female) PI character you ever met. Spenser is the king of the Hermes PI character, followed very closely by Elvis Cole.

APHRODITE: You’d probably think Aphrodite is the archetypal slut. You’d be right, but you’d also be wrong. It’s much deeper than that. The movie There’s Something About Mary is a whole treatise on the Aphrodite personality. Cameron Diaz’s Mary is hardly a loose woman, but every male character in the movie falls hopelessly in love with her to the point of insanity. Sometimes, a woman of this time knows how she affects those around her and uses it. That’s the classic definition of the femme fatale. Other times, they seem oblivious to it. They may or may not be the damsel in distress, but men either want to her or to possess her.

DIONYSUS: This is the strangest one of all, and you need only look at the prime examples of this personality type. Dionysus, the god of wine and debauchery, also had a rebirth component to his myth. So Dionysus is either the eternal hedonist or the martyred messiah. In crime fiction, rock star Johnny Boz dies at the hands of Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct. Both are hedonistic Dionysus types. From the more messianic perspective, take a look at Sean Chercover’s The Trinity Game, where huckster televangelist Tim Trinity finds himself becoming an unwilling mouthpiece for God. You know where this is going to end.

There’s more, of course, and Dr. Bolen’s books aren’t really writing guides. Nonetheless, they offer a fascinating insight into how ancient cultures tried to use their religions to sort out the confusing vagaries of human behavior. They were almost the first psychology guides ever written.

Fare Thee Well, Paul D. Marks

Paul D. Marks joined SleuthSayers in 2015 and has been a treasured member of the gang ever since. He died on February 28th of this year. His wife Amy Marks wrote on Facebook: "He died peacefully listening to Beatles and cowboy music. He loved sharing his film noir alerts, his dog walking pictures, his love of writing and his thoughts on life with you. He used to boast that he could go anywhere in the country and would have a Facebook friend he could have lunch with." Some of us had a few thoughts to share:

Eve Fisher: While I never met Paul, I loved his SleuthSayers posts, because they were always centered around L.A. Often the L.A. of the past, which was my stomping grounds back in the very early 1970s. His writing was so time, place and music centered that it enveloped you in the past: time travel for pedestrians. I remember reading the 8/3/20 interview with him on Mystery Playground, where he said, interestingly enough, that, "My favorite book of all time isn't a mystery. It's The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham. It's about someone trying to make sense of the world and where they fit into everything, which is something I relate to and which also comes through in Bobby's character. Another favorite book is Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. I like revenge stories and that's the revenge story to end all revenge stories. My favorite mystery would probably be Chandler's The Long Goodbye. Just so good." I love all three myself, which are set in a very specific time / place / mood. At the time I thought, I'll have to talk / write to him about that some time. I never thought that time would run out.

Melodie Campbell: I didn't know Paul well, but I always enjoyed his posts. And he was kind in his comments when responding to my posts, which I always appreciated. I feel so sad. We've lost one of our own.

David Dean: Paul's death affected me far more than I thought it could. After all, we'd only met briefly in NYC and corresponded through email and Facebook for a few short years. Yet, the words we shared revealed him to me as a kind, supportive presence that, over time, became a welcome part of my life. He had an honesty, an integrity, that was palpable even in the virtual sphere of our relationship. Paul seemed to me a quietly passionate man. He was a superb writer, an historian of both noir films and the gritty, decadent Hollywood that produced them, and a proud father to his "boys," the dogs he and Amy raised, both past and present. I'm proud to say that I made him happy once when I wrote a story that featured a relationship between a boy and a dog. They prevailed over adversity, of course, and that pleased him very much. I still have the email he wrote me about it. I miss you, Paul, but I, along with so many others, will remember you.

Janice Law: I am so sorry to hear about Paul. We all knew he was very ill but had hoped that he would recover. I never met him but enjoyed his glimpses of Hollywood old and new and respected him as a fine editor. He will be very much missed.

Leigh Lundin: Paul impressed everyone and me in particular with his historical knowledge of Los Angeles and his childlike love of Hollywood. I couldn’t watch an episode of Bosch without remembering what Paul said about Angel’s Flight or the Bradbury Building, or wanting to ask him something about Gehry’s concert hall. His memory seemed encyclopedic and detailed, knowing who attended which famed restaurant when and where. Paul, loyal to the core, cared about us and worried he might miss an article. His attitude was so positive, I thought he was going to make it and, if it was up to will alone, he would have. I’m grateful he had Amy by his side. Somewhere in old Hollywood, a young Paul still strolls those streets.

Barb Goffman: When I first got to know Paul over Facebook we bonded over our love of dogs. I loved when he shared photos of his dogs, walking them, playing with them, just being with them, especially Pepper, who I think held a special place in his heart. You could see the joy they shared spending time together. When my prior dog, Scout, slowed down with age, Paul was often ready with words of encouragement and support, which I'll never forget. It's often said that if dogs like you, it's a sure sign you're a good person. Paul was the ultimate good person. He'll be missed.

Lawrence Maddox: I met Paul in 2014 after reviewing his short story collection L.A. Late @ Night for All Due Respect Magazine. It was written with the voice of one who "got" L.A., who lived it from the inside out. I gushed about it in my review. Paul and I bonded over our shared Native-Angeleno status. We often reminisced about the city we loved, the places we remembered, and the vagaries of the movie biz. One of my favorite memories of Paul is bringing him to the set of Santa Clarita Diet, a TV show I edited. He was so excited to be there. He'd worked in production years earlier, and all the new tech fascinated him. "A lot is different, but a lot is the same, too," he said. I can still picture him grinning like a kid as he watched the crew shoot a scene. I was looking for the craft service table to get some coffee when Paul grabbed my arm. "Larry, is that her?" He pointed to an actress getting ready for a scene. "Is that Drew Barrymore?" Paul had told me about his own experiences working in Hollywood with weariness, but there he was, in awe. "I can't believe I'm practically standing next to Drew Barrymore! Do you think I can meet her? I can't wait to tell Amy." He was genuinely thrilled. The Drew sighting became a goofy joke between us. It would pop up in our conversations until some of our last emails together while he was fighting cancer. Paul could have a jaundiced view of L.A., as he expressed in his unforgettable novels and short stories. That day on set he was as star struck as any tourist at Grauman's Chinese Theater. It was uncharacteristic, which made it even more endearing. Besides remembering him as a dear friend, as someone who championed my own start as a writer, I'll remember Paul like he was on set that day. Smiling. Happy. Caught up in a dream.

Steve Liskow: I never met Paul, but I loved his stories, especially the ones about "old" Hollywood and L.A. His posts on Sleuthsayers were always both informative and entertaining, and they showed how much he loved and respected writing. Even though I never "really" knew him, I feel like I've lost a great friend. My thoughts and sympathy go out to his family and friends.

Travis Richardson: If you had the opportunity to meet Paul Marks for the first time, you would not have any idea that he had once directed movies and played in a rock band. Humble and soft-spoken, Paul was genuinely kind and caring. He always asked about my wife and daughter, and it was always a pleasure to see him at conferences, book launches, and SoCal MWA and Sisters in Crime meetings. As a crime writer, he wrote compelling stories with a spotlight on his hometown, Los Angeles. His award-winning stories captured various parts of LA, highlighting the city’s beauty as well as its warts. Whether he wrote about the LA riots, wandering ghosts solving murders, or a PI living in a bomb shelter, Paul’s stories always made a lasting impression. I wish his wife, Amy, strength in this time of sorrow. As his constant companion, she knew Paul better than all of us and saw his full greatness while we only caught glimpses of it. Rest in peace, Paul.

John Floyd: Like so many others, I never met Paul face-to-face but felt I knew him from his blog posts and emails. That was especially true for me because of the many notes he and I exchanged over the past few years about our mutual love of movies. I was always amazed and impressed by his firsthand knowledge of film and filmmaking, and we sometimes agreed that NO one else would probably be interested in the kinds of things we talked about. Which somehow made it even more fun.

Paul and I had planned to meet at the Dallas Bouchercon in 2019, and when he was unable to make it and then the pandemic came along we resolved to get together somehow after all this is over. Who could’ve known? it’s still hard to believe that this friend to so many of us was lost so early and unexpectedly. My heartfelt condolences go out to Amy and all of Paul’s family—he will be sorely missed. I’m grateful at least that we will always have his writing—both his novels and his short stories—to enjoy and to remind us of his great talent.

Art Taylor: While I was honored to share space with Paul here at SleuthSayers, we first “met” on another group blog, 7 Criminal Minds, where he and I alternated the Friday posts, batting clean-up each week. Even before I knew Paul as a gifted short story and novelist, I knew him as a dedicated and thoughtful blogger, and his posts there and here were always a marvel to read—whether he was writing about writing and reading or about music or film noir (an enthusiast and expert in both) or about more personal matters or more. Many Fridays at our first blog, I not only left a comment on his post but also reached out by email with an extra note. Over time, those occasional notes became a regular correspondence—and not just a correspondence but a friendship too, one of my best in the mystery community. He was a great supporter of my work—both when it was going well and when it was going poorly—and I was thrilled with every success he had, both at novel length (we talked often about his works-in-progress) and especially with his short stories, which I loved so much. He and I were both finalists for the Macavity Award for Best Short Story in 2018—both of us for stories from the second Coast to Coast anthology he edited—and as Janet Rudolph was on stage announcing the finalists, I kept thinking, “Paul’s story, Paul’s story, please.” An absolute joy to see him win that night, a writer who deserved all honors that came his way, and I just wish there were more books and stories ahead.

Stephen Ross: Paul and I were Facebook friends, but I knew him better through his writing and his posts on Sleuthsayers. We had a mutual love of noir. He will be missed.

Robert Lopresti: I thought Paul might enjoy my reprinting this from Little Big Crimes: "There's an Alligator in my Purse," by Paul D. Marks, in Florida Happens, edited by Greg Herren, Three Rooms Press, 2018. The latest Bouchercon anthology is all about that most interesting state in our southeast. This tale is by my fellow SleuthSayer, Paul D. Marks. Our narrator is Ed, a cheerful professional. He likes to satisfy his customers, so he takes lots of photos of the corpses. Corpses the clients wanted dead, obviously. In this case that client is Ashley Smith - the lady with the titular pocket book reptile. She had expected to inherit a lot of money when her elderly husband died happily due to her enthusiastic ministrations. When she found out the dough was going to the first wife, she went looking for someone with Ed's skill set. It wasn't really his photographic skills that she was interested in… A breezy tale of multiple conspiracies.

Elizabeth Zelvin: I'm shocked to hear about Paul's death. I met him several times in person at New York events—where he was usually getting an award—and both face to face and in cyberspace, he struck me as such a bounce-back kind of person that I fully expected him to beat his illness and get better. He's a great loss to the crime fiction and short story communities and to everyone who knew him personally. I went over to his Facebook page when I heard the news. Tributes hadn't yet started appearing, but a couple of weeks ago, Paul posted, "Don't give up," with a gallery of "famous failures" including Einstein, Michael Jordan, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Oprah, and the Beatles, who'd all been fired, demoted, or told they wouldn't amount to anything at some point. The tag line was, "If you've never failed, you've never tried anything new." What a heartening message to leave us with.

ACK Not Again! Five Crime Series Plots that Deserve to Die

You have to admire the Brits.  If they have a successful crime series, they don't automatically grow it

beyond one season (Midsomer, excepted.)  But the trouble with most crime series filmed, and also successful crime series in print, is they go beyond their best before date.  And by this I mean, they start to run out of plots - healthy original plots - and search madly for something, anything they haven't done before, including things that have been done to death <sic>.  The following tropes drive me crazy.

1.  The protagonist sleuth is the murder suspect.
By far, this one has me fired up to throw things.  Inevitably, every long-running series has one episode where the Detective Inspector, the PI or the well-respected amateur sleuth, becomes the prime suspect for a murder well into the series.  Into jail they go.  They've done it with Father Brown.  They've done it with Don Matteo.  Hinterland.  You name it.  Whenever I see this happening, I grit my teeth.  Why?

That plot is boring, man.  Obviously, they didn't do it.  If they did, then it is 'series over'.  And it can't be series over, because there are several episodes left, or a new season to download, and I can see that right on the screen.  So all we're doing is tediously waiting for the sidekicks to get proof that our beloved protagonist didn't do it.

2.  The protagonist and/or sidekick is held hostage.
This is the second plot trope that has me screaming Italian curse words at the screen.  This month, it was Don Matteo and Rosewood.  You can name others.  And again, this is boring. If they are all killed and don't get out, end of show.  But there are more episodes, so they obviously get away.  If we know the ending at the beginning, what's the pleasure in watching?

3.  The police officer protagonist is hated by his immediate superior.
One of the reasons I like Endeavor is because Morse's boss Thursday is such a good guy to young Morse.  In so many shows, including the original Morse, the detective superintendent or chief constable behaves like an out-of-control teen, lambasting our hero with manic fury.  He hates the protagonist, for no good reason we can see.  Or is it that he is so insecure, he can't stand someone who makes him and his department look good?  How demeaning.  By all that's holy, make this stop. 

4.  Young female sargeant has affair with older boss.
Okay, we all learned in the 80s and 90s: you don't have an affair with your boss.  It's stupid. It's career-killing.  It's also unethical, if he's married or you're married.  And yet, time after time we see this on the screen.  STILL.  IN 2018.

I cringe, because it perpetuates the ancient stereotype that young female police officers are not serious about their jobs.  They are slaves to their emotions.  They are willing to risk all for romance.  Writers, DON'T take me back to the seventies.  Just don't.

5.  The male Detective Inspector invites prime female suspect/witness to a romantic dinner.
Similar to the 'affair with the boss' above, this scenario gives high-ranking police officers I've talked to apoplexy.  No police officer is that idiotic.

Look, we all understand that tension is ramped up if there is personal involvement.  But come on, writers!  Don't make our extremely professional boys (and girls) in blue look adolescent.  It's insulting.

Just do the right thing.  Tell us a damn good story. And wrap things up before you sink to these tropes.

Melodie Campbell writes seriously wild comedy. You can find her latest crime books (The Bootlegger's Goddaughter and The B-Team) at all the usual suspects.  See this latest ad in Mystery Scene Magazine.   www.melodiecampbell.com

What Are You Reading?

As soon as I saw my fellow SleuthSayer, Dale C. Andrews post for Sunday, I knew I was on to something. I'd been wracking my brain for days to come up with something to write about today. Suddenly, I found myself staring at a stack of books on the lamp table next to my perch on the sofa. I'll tell you my reading pile this week and you tell me yours, Just a quick note on this Mother's Day to clue everyone in on what a fantastic and versatile group of writers who keep this site going each day. I knew there are award nominees and winners here and I thought it might be high time we tooted our own horns. So in no particular order check out these your daily sleuth sayers.

Eve Fisher: Her short story, "A Time to Mourn" was shortlisted for Otto Penzler's 2011 Best American Short Stories.

John Floyd: won a 2007 Derringer Award for short Story"Four for Dinner."
Nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize "Creativity" 1999 for Short Story
"The Messenger 2001 for Short Story and for a poem "Literary vs Genre" 2005
Shortlisted three times for Otto Penzler's Best American Mystery Stories, "The Proposal," (2000)
"The Powder Room," (2010), "Turnabout" (2012)
And "Molly's Plan" was published in 2015 Best American Short Stories

Nominated for an EDGAR AWARD for the short story "200 Feet" 2015

Janice Trecker: Nominated for an EDGAR AWARD for Best First Novel years ago,

A Lambda award for Best Gay Mystery Novel for one of the Bacon Books a year ago and a

nomination for Best Local Mystery book on the History of Hampton, CT now my home town.

Dale Andrews: My first Ellery Queen Pastiche, "The Book Case," won second place in the EQMM 2007 Reader's Choice and was also nominated for the Barry Award for Best Short Story that year.

Rob Lopresti: I've been a finalist for the Derringer three times, winning twice.

I won the Black Orchid Novella Award.

I was nominated for the Anthony Award.

Paul D. Marks: won the SHAMUS AWARD for White Heat.
Nominated this year for an ANTHONY AWARD for Best Short Story for "Howling at the Moon."

David Dean: his short stories have appeared regularly in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, as well as a number of Anthologies since 1990. His stories have been nominated for SHAMUS, Barry, and Derringer Awards and "Ibraham's Eyes" was the Reader's Choice Award for 2007. His story "Tomorrow's Dead" was a finalist for the EDGAR AWARD for Best Short Story of 2011.

David Edgerley Gates: has been nominated for the SHAMUS, the EDGAR (twice) and the International Thriller Writers Award.

Melissa Yuan-Innes: Derringer Award Finalist 2015 for "Because" Best Mystery Short Fiction in the English Language
Roswell Award for Short Fiction Finalist 2015 for "Cardiopulmonary Arrest."
Won the Aurora Award 2011 Best English related Work and her story " Dancers With Red Shoes" is featured in Dragons and Stars edited by Derwin Mak and Edwin Choi. Her story "Indian Time was named one of the best short mysteries of 2010 by criminalbrief.com
Year's Best Science Fiction, Honorable Mentions for "Iron Mask," "Growing up Sam," and "Waiting for Jenny Rex."
CBS Radio Noon Romance Writing Contest- Runner-up
Melissa has also won Creative Writing contests and Best First Chapter of a Novel in 2008 and second place for Writers of the Future and won McMaster University "Unearthly Love Affair" writing contest.

Melodie Campbell: is the winner of nine awards: 2014 ARTHUR ELLIS award for (novella) The Goddaughter's Revenge. which also won the 2014 Derringer.
Finalist for 2014 ARTHUR ELLIS award for "Hook, Line and Sinker" and this story also won the Northwest Journal short story.
Finalist for 2013 ARTHUR ELLIS award for "Life Without George." which took second prize in Arts Hamilton national short fiction.
Finalist 2012 ARTHUR ELLIS award for "The Perfect Mark" which also won the Derringer award.
Winner 2011 Holiday Short Story Contest for "Blue Satin and Love."
Finalist for 2008 Arts Hamilton award for national short fiction for "Santa Baby."
Third Prize 2006 Bony Pete Short Story contest "School for Burgulars"
Winner 1991 Murder and Mayhem and the Macabre, "City of Mississauga, 2 categories
Third Prize 1989 Canadian Living Magazine, Romance Story "Jive Talk."
Melodie is also a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for best short story for 2015 which will be announced on May 28th.

Robert Lawton: nominated for the Derringer Award for "The Right Track" in 2010
Nominated for the Derringer Award for "The Little Nogai Boy" in 2011.

Jan Grape: Nominated along with my co-editor, Dr. Dean James, for an Edgar and an Agatha Award for Deadly Women for Best Biographical/Critical Non-Fiction. 1998
Won the mccavity award along with my co-editor Dr. Dean James for Deadly Women for Best Non-fiction.
Won the Anthony Award for Best Short Story, 1998 for "A Front-Row Seat" in Vengeance is Hers anthology.
Nominated for Anthony for Best First Novel, 2001 for Austin City Blue.
Jan will receive the Sage Award from the Barbara Burnet Smith Aspiring Writers Foundation on May 17. This award is for mentoring aspiring writers.

We all have to admit, our SleuthSayer authors are a multi-talented group.

On this Mother's Day, one little personal note, my mother, PeeWee Pierce and my bonus mom, Ann T. Barrow, both taught me to be a strong, independent, caring woman and I was blessed to have them in my life and I still miss them. Both were able to read some of my published work and I'm glad they were.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone.

Me and the Derringers. (Maybe.)

At the end of my emergency room shift, I got a Twitter message that looked like this:

Quoi? Dr_sassy and the Derringers? That's never happened before. Sounds like a good band title, though.

My first thought was, Did someone tag me by accident? As in, they want me to know about the Derringer Award, which honours the best short mystery fiction published in the English language?

But another tag-ee, Britni Patterson, was already celebrating, so my heart kicked into high gear, just wondering if I was a chosen one.

And if so, which story was it? I had two eligible tales. “Because,” a biting tale of 490 words published in Fiction River: Crime, and “Gone Fishing,” a 12,000-word serialized Hope Sze novella commissioned by Kobo and kindly mentioned by Sleuthsayers last year.

I clicked on the link and found this Derringer short list:

For Best Flash (Up to 1,000 words)

• Joseph D’Agnese, “How Lil Jimmy Beat the Big C” (Shotgun Honey, May 12, 2014)
• Rob Hart, “Foodies” (Shotgun Honey, May 2, 2014)
• Jed Power, “Sweet Smells” (Shotgun Honey, July 28, 2014)
• Eryk Pruitt, “Knockout” (Out of the Gutter Online, August 31, 2014)
• Travis Richardson, “Because” (Out of the Gutter Online, May 15, 2014)*
• Melissa Yuan-Innes, “Because” (Fiction River: Crime, March 2014)*

Ah. Because.

I do love that story.

Warning: it’s extremely noir. I don’t find it scary, but then I face blood, guts, vomit and potentially Ebola every day in the emergency room. I’ve already alerted the SleuthSayers powers that be that I’m not especially cozy. I’ve written what I consider cozies, and I love Precious Ramotswe and Agatha Raisin, but I also regularly stare into the darkness and take notes. When I attended the Writers of the Future winners’ workshop in 2000 and turned in a pitiless story about werewolves, the Grand Prize winner, Gary Murphy, stared at me and said, “I can’t believe that such a sweet-looking woman wrote this!"

I laughed. I adore werewolves. And good stories of any stripe.

But Cozy Monday may need a new name. Any suggestions? Cozy or Not; Cozy and Noir; Alternatively Cozy Mondays (because I’ll bet Jan Grape can stick to one genre better than literary sluts like Fran Rizer and Melodie Campbell and me); Cozy and Crazy…hmm.

Back to the Derringer. Until now, I never really understood why awards have a short list. Well, I understood whittling down the list so that celebrity judges don’t need to plow through a mountain of stories.

But now I get the glory of the finalist. I’ve won other prizes in a binary announcement. Either I win the award or I don’t. But right now, the uncertainty makes it all the more treacherous and exciting!

If you're curious, I’ve published “Because” for free on my website for the next week only. You can download it to your friendly neighbourhood Kindle, Kobo, iBooks device, Smashwords, or any format for a whopping 99 cents. That price will triple in a week. Please admire the cover photo by 28-year-old French photographer Olivier Potet. The non-cropped version is even better.

If Because tickled your fancy, you can also download Code Blues, the first Hope Sze novel, for free, as part of a bundle on Vuze, until March 16th.

And please tune in on March 23^rd, when I plan to write about how medicine trains your mind for detective work. Watson, anyone?