My Stranded Stories

  

For years now, anytime I'm the focus of a Q&A session--at a conference, booksigning, writers' meeting, wherever--I'm asked to address some of the same questions. The most-often-asked so far has been, without fail, "Where do you get your ideas?" (It would seem that I'd have a good answer for that one by now, at least an answer better than the old "ideas are everywhere." But I don't.)

Two more often-asked questions always surprise me a bit, because they deal not with writing style or writing processes but with two specific markets. Many of my fellow writers, whether we already happen to know each other or not, ask what tips I might have for submitting short stories to (1) Woman's World and (2) Strand Magazine.

On the one hand, they're fair questions. I've been fortunate at both publications ever since I sold my first stories there, which happened in the same year: 1999. On the other hand, as all you writers know, any answer to "How do I sell stories to a certain market?" is as difficult and subjective as the answer to "Where do you get your ideas?"

Stranded in Storyland

Since I've attempted in several different SleuthSayers posts (here's one of them, from a year ago) to steer writers in the right direction with regard to writing mysteries for Woman's World, I decided to try, today, to do the same kind of thing with Strand Magazine. Bear in mind that the very best way to learn what stories a market likes, whether it's The Strand or WW or anyplace else, is to read the stories in the magazine--but failing that, or maybe in addition to it, I hope this might be of at least some help. Bear in mind also that I don't have all the answers. I still get rejections too, even after all this time, from both these markets. 

Having said all that . . . what I've done is put together a list of the stories I've sold to The Strand so far, along with their wordcounts, a quick summary of each story, the types of crimes that were involved, and, as an afterthought, some notes about any later recognition given to those stories. (It's a fact that stories published in The Strand often show up in annual best-of anthologies and award-nomination lists.) And after that I'll talk about some other submission pointers.

So here are my Strand stories. I can't guarantee that you'll be published there if you write stories of similar length and with similar plots and crimes, but I can tell you what has worked for me. 

"The Proposal" -- About 4600 words. A Texas oilman who's being blackmailed discovers a way out of his dilemma. The type of crime: murder. This story was later named as one of the year's "Other Distinguished Stories" in Best American Mystery Stories 2000.

"Murphy's Lawyer" -- 2400 words. An engineer for a chemical company convinces an attorney to help him fake a laboratory accident. The crimes: murder, insurance fraud.

"Debbie and Bernie and Belle" -- 4500 words. A lovesick law student enlists the help of a mysterious ten-year-old girl to try to repair a break-up with his fiancee. The crime: robbery.

"Reunions" -- 4100 words. Two airline travelers, one of them on a secret mission, meet and then drift apart, neither realizing they'll soon meet again. The crime: murder.

"Turnabout" -- 4800 words. A highway rest-stop near the site of a recent bank robbery soon becomes a battleground. The crimes: robbery, murder. Named as one of the year's "Other Distinguished Stories" in Best American Mystery Stories 2012.

"Bennigan's Key" -- 4400 words. When mob employee George Bennigan is rewarded with a vacation to a remote island resort, he finds himself wondering about the possible reasons. The crime: murder.

"Blackjack Road" -- 4000 words. Two loners--one a convict, the other a man considering suicide--are thrown together in a chance meeting. The crimes: prison escape, murder.

"Secrets" -- 3200 words. Two ferry passengers with dark secrets discover a surprising and deadly connection. The crime: murder.

"200 Feet" -- 4400 words. One man, one woman, and a narrow ledge on the side of building twenty floors above the street. The crime: murder. Nominated for an Edgar in 2015.

"Molly's Plan" -- 5000 words. Most successful bank robberies are simple. Owen McKay's was not. The crime: robbery. Selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2015. 

"Driver" -- 9500 words. When a U.S. senator's missteps lead to what could be a career-ending scandal, only one person can save him: his limo driver. The crimes: blackmail, fraud, murder. Won a 2016 Derringer Award and was named as one of the year's "Other Distinguished Stories" in Best American Mystery Stories 2016.

"Arrowhead Lake" -- 7500 words. A robbery in a hi-tech company's remote headquarters comes down to a battle using primitive weapons. The crimes: murder, robbery, manslaughter.

"A Million Volts" -- 4500 words. Two romantic affairs on a college campus turn violent. The crimes: murder, assault, terrorism.

"Jackpot Mode" -- 7900 words. A pair of ATM experts--one in software, one in hardware--attempt to steal a small fortune from a local bank. The crime: robbery. Named as one of the year's "Other Distinguished Stories" in Best American Mystery Stories 2017. 

"Flag Day" -- 6500 words. The employees of a suburban ice-cream shop stage a false theft in order to hide a real and bigger one--and run into problems. The crime: robbery.

"Crow Mountain" -- 4100 words. A handicapped fisherman encounters an escaped convict in the middle of nowhere. The crimes: prison escape, murder.

"Foreverglow" -- 2400 words. Two young sweethearts plan the heist of a special jewelry exhibit from a local department store. The crime: robbery.

"Lucian's Cadillac" -- 2400 words. Many years after their graduation, three classmates come together to fight an old enemy. The crime: murder.

"Biloxi Bound" -- 4800 words. Two cafe owners in a crime-infested city neighborhood decide to relocate . . . but not soon enough. The crimes: murder, robbery. Selected for inclusion in Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021 and in Best Crime Stories of the Year 2021.

"The Ironwood File" -- 3100 words. A tyrannical boss, an employee, and a former employee bent on revenge converge one day in a downtown office building. The crimes: industrial negligence, attempted murder, sexual harassment.

"Nobody's Business" -- 2300 words. Two strangers--a man fleeing from his debts and an old woman hunting alligators--team up in the woods against other kinds of varmints. The crimes: loan-sharking, murder. 

"The Road to Bellville" -- 6200 words. A female sheriff transporting an inmate between prisons stops for a break at the wrong roadside cafe. The crimes: robbery, prison escape, murder.

"Sentry" -- 6700 words. Private investigator Tom Langford hires on as a bodyguard to the wife of a mob boss. The crimes: murder, racketeering.

 

Other info

For what it's worth, none of the above stories were locked-room mysteries, none were whodunits, none had supernatural elements, only one was a PI story, none were written in present tense, and they're pretty equally divided between first-person and third-person POV. Also, all of them were contemporary crime stories, not historicals, BUT this market does seem to like Sherlock Holmes stories and historical mysteries.

As for other submission pointers, remember that The Strand usually doesn't publish stories with otherworldly elements, although its guidelines say they'll consider them, and they frown on too much sexual content and strong language. Another thing: they prefer stories of between 2000 and 6000 words. The guidelines say they're occasionally receptive to stories of less than 1000 words as well, and my own experience has shown me they'll sometimes take stores longer than 6000--see my list, above. You'll also see that the first ten stories I sold them were safely in that 2000-6000 range, so I wasn't taking any chances; after that I tended to sneak in much longer stories now and then. 

One of the biggest things to keep in mind is that The Strand almost never responds to a submission unless it's with an acceptance. That means that you must keep close track of your submissions--something you're probably doing anyway--and that after a reasonable wait (three months or so, in my opinion) you should probably withdraw a story that hasn't gotten a response and submit it elsewhere. Woman's World works the same way.

Last but not least, The Strand's editor is Andrew F. Gulli and the submission email address is submissions@strandmag.com.

Have any of you tried sending stories to The Strand? Any successes? Anything you can add to the observations I've made? As always, comments are welcome.

I hope this helps. If you do choose to submit a story there, best of luck!

Can't Happen Here

 It happened in January. On my street, we park our cars along the street. There are big, wide spaces that are clearly not part of the road, but do give us enough space to park one or two cars. Not surprisingly, we get possessive of these spaces. The guy across the street, universally considered the nicest guy in the neighborhood, can get nasty about someone parking in front of his house. Never mind that it's actually public parking.

After five years living in this house, someone hit my car. Alcohol was not likely involved. No, it was one of my own neighbors from literally up the street. I had taken late December and early January off from Uber and had planned to go out the next evening. I would not drive again until March. My response?

BUT THAT NEVER HAPPENS HERE!

It's a fender bender. So, naturally, I'm not nearly as skittish about parking out front. It took five years for someone to hit my car. Plus, if you'd seen our driveway, for which I still haven't forgiven the previous owner, you'd understand why I'm still risking it. And no one was killed. Though there's a black cat my neighbor attempted to miss that's in danger of landing in the violin factory.

Yet, as I type this tonight racing a deadline, I'm watching a news story from nearby Arlington Heights. The towns surrounding Lockland, including Arlington Heights, have fallen on such hard times since the disappearance of Lockland's industrial heart that some of them no longer have police departments. A woman was attacked inside her home despite her street now patrolled heavily by neighboring Reading. The woman says, "You hear of this elsewhere, not here." 

She wants to leave. Granted, someone knocking in your car's door because their driving skills leave a lot to be desired doesn't compare to an assault inside your own home by two strangers. Violence traumatizes people. It's a leading cause of PTSD. If someone beats the hell out of you where you live, leaving is not an unreasonable reaction.

It happened to me once when I first moved to Cincinnati. Taking my girlfriend on an afternoon trip downtown, we wandered around the late, lamented Skywalk. Walking between Carew Tower and the Westin, a guy came up and started muttering about violence to someone who did him wrong. Then he asked us for a couple dollars. My response to the homeless had been sometimes to give them money to make them go away. There is a subset of people who will make intimidation or aggravation a means of getting money out of hassled passersby. This guy did not go away. Back in the Tower, we thought we'd grab lunch. Only our friend was back. With a friend of his own. We thought it was because that was his territory. Only he followed us. We went down to the food court. He and his new friend followed. We crossed to the elevators. He made a beeline for us.

We escaped by taking an elevator up a floor, then jumping into another car, taking it up ten floors. It bewildered the people at the law firm on that floor, but we were able to leave in peace. We had lunch across the river in Kentucky. 

That was 1992. I did not visit Carew Tower again for five years. By then, my experience with the characters downtown had deepened. I could spot the bad actors, the harmless cranks, and those who actually needed help.

It only takes one incident, no matter how rare. My stepson AJ will not ride his motorcycle on Ronald Reagan Highway after a hit-and-run sent him to the hospital. His mother won't drive in nearby Covington alone after a carjacking. We like to think we understand the risks, but especially these days, we've become risk averse. If it happens once, it's hard to imagine it won't happen again.

Some Writing How-To Links

Earlier this week, R.T. Lawton, fellow Sleuthsayer, Edgar Award winner and one of my oldest and dearest writing friends, mentioned in a blog entry that he had recently taken on the challenge of writing his first ever P.I. story, and that he was naming both his protagonist and the P.I. firm he works for after Yours Truly.

To say I was touched by the gesture would be an understatement. What an honor!

But that's not why I have linked to said blog post. It's because in it he pulls aside the curtain and shows how the sausage gets made. I find these sorts of "where writers get their ideas"/"how to do XYZ in your writing" posts fascinating. And having done a fair number of them myself (including most recently the one about seeing the Buddhist monk playing the Lotto.).

So I got to thinking that it might be helpful to post a few of my own favorites here as a resource for fellow writers. And on that note, here they are in no particular order:

Three Tips For Organizing Your Writing

I've Got This Great Character in Search of a Story

Writing Pain

At Loose Ends

Working With A Timeline

Who Talks Like This? (Reader Participation Edition)

Secondary Characters, Primary Prose

Setting As Character

Setting As Character: Coda

Crowd-Sourcing Writer's Block

And I think that will do it for this go-round. I hope these links are half so instructive for anyone browsing through them I found the writing of them to be.

See you in two weeks!

To Protect the Innocent, and Other Reasons

About a decade ago at a mystery conference a friend told me about an anthology he had been invited to write a story for.  Hmm, thought I.  I could create something for that one.

Instantly I had an appropriate story idea (and that's the way it always works, kids, ha ha).  I pulled out my notebook and wrote down the title and a one-sentence summary.  I believe I even wrote down the last paragraph.

Now as it happens, the editor never invited me to submit for that book.  And that's fine.  You can't ask everyone to the dance.

But I wrote the story and since then it has been looking for a happy home.  No luck, until Maxim Jakubowski announced he was going to edit a book called The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories.  

Jakubowski is a well-known author and anthologist in Britain. Back in the nineties I had stories in two of his books (and am very fond of them, since one earned me my only Anthony Award nomination, and the other got me my first recognition from Publishers Weekly).  So I figured I might have a chance.

"The Dance of Love and Hunger" is narrated by a young man who is not the brightest and a bit too malleable.  His friends already talked him into a jail sentence.  Now he has fallen in love with a beautiful musician and when both of their families have financial troubles... well, stuff happens.

I originally set the story in Bellingham,WA, where I live, but the story is just so  bleak I couldn't bear to impose it on my lovely city, so I changed the names to protect the innocent.  Bellingham was named for one of the people involved in George Vancouver's expedition to the Northwest, so I magically changed it to Broughton, an officer on the ship.

Cornwall Avenue drifted east on the English coast and became Devon Avenue.  Indian Street turned into Treaty Street.  Which brings me to an interesting anecdote, because Indian Street also changed its name in real life.

Back when I worked at the university library I spent some time on the search committee.  One day it was my duty to drive a candidate to campus.  He was actually an alum of the school but had been out of town for several years.

The streets in this neighborhood were: Forest, Garden, High, Indian, and Jersey.  But when we reached the appropriate corner he said "They changed the street name." 

"That's right," I said.  "Indian Street is now named for Billy Frank, Jr.  He was an important Native American leader in the state."  

We drove for another block and then he blurted out: "But now the streets aren't in alphabetical order!"

"I know!" I said.  "Why couldn't they find a Native American who's name began with I?"

Something only a librarian (or someone with OCD) would even notice.

"The Dance of Love and Hunger" made it into The Book of Extraordinary Femme Fatale Stories, which was released on July 26.

 

Deadlines, Shmeadlines

One of the many attributes of successful writers and editors is the ability to meet deadlines, and the ability to meet deadlines is one of the ways I have managed to sustain a multi-decade writing and editing career. I try not to over-commit my available time, and I try to plan large projects with built-in buffers in case unexpected events—family emergencies, for example—demand my attention or a high-value project with a tight turn-around drops into my lap.

How do you keep track of projects
and meet deadlines?

On the rare occasions when it looks like I might miss a deadline, I work with my editor, publisher, or client to find a satisfactory solution. Not to be too cocky, but it’s been a long time since I missed a hard deadline.

Until three weeks ago.

Y’all were treated to one of Shifty’s animated adventures on July 12 because I whiffed the ball. I wish I had a great excuse—while on a humanitarian mission to rescue zoo animals from Ukraine, I resuscitated a penguin that had choked on a sardine, midwifed the birth of twin albino Siberian tigers, and taught a malformed baby porpoise to swim with a prosthetic tail I crafted from Mountain Dew bottles—but I don’t.

My excuse is far more mundane: I entered my SleuthSayers deadline on the wrong calendar date.

By the time the secret master of SleuthSayers emailed a reminder that my blog post was due that night, I had already shut down my computer and had shifted my attention elsewhere.

LEARNING TO JUGGLE

Meeting deadlines means learning to juggle. I edit a bi-monthly consumer magazine and a weekly newsletter, and I’m associate editor for a weekly magazine. These publications all have hard deadlines, as do the anthologies I edit. I also edit a quasi-quarterly mystery magazine, which has spongy deadlines, and I create marketing material (TV, radio, and print ads along with brochures, flyers, social media posts, and more) for a professional orchestra with constantly changing deadlines determined by concert dates and media requirements.

And in the nooks and crannies between all these deadlines I’m also writing new stories, some of which have hard deadlines (when I’m writing to invitation, for example) and some of which don’t.

Once upon a time I was able to keep all these deadlines in my head and remember what I ate for breakfast. No longer. I’ve grown older at the same time I’ve become busier, and I just can’t remember every deadline. I’m now relying on my computer’s calendar and a to-do list I keep next to my computer.

But when I fail to add something to the to-do list or I enter a deadline incorrectly into my computer calendar...well, that’s when I risk missing a deadline.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DESK

I have found ways to ensure that I (nearly always) meet my deadlines, but as an editor I find it difficult to ride herd on writers. Professional writers know that editors have deadlines. We can’t publish anthologies, magazines, and newsletters with blank pages. And, unless you’re George R.R. Martin writing the next volume of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, not many editors are willing to wait until you get around to putting words on paper. We’re going to press with you or without you.

But beginning and early career writers don’t always understand how important it is.

Get a reputation as someone who fails to deliver promised manuscripts on time, fails to approve copyedits and page proofs on time, fails to show up on time for a panel, or fails to meet any of dozens of other deadlines and commitments that are part and parcel of being a professional writer and the opportunities will slowly disappear.

And that once-promising career becomes nothing but memory dust.

I stumbled. I’ll recover. And I’ll turn in this post several days early.

But what about you? How do you keep track of your deadlines?

---

My story “Sparks” appears in the Summer 2022 issue of Vautrin.

My co-authors’ blog posts for AHMM and EQMM appeared the same week. Read Sandra Murphy’s “Add (Your) Life to Your Writing” at Something is Going to Happen and James A. Hearn’s “A Writer’s Tears” at Trace Evidence.

And I’m moderating a panel at Bouchercon next month. “Groovy Kind of Death: Murders Set in the 60s/70s” is scheduled for 1:45-2:30 p.m., Thursday, and panelists include Lou Berney, Wanda M. Morris, Richie Narvaez, Marcie Rendon, and Gabriel Valjan.

What I Didn't Know Then (Pretty Much Everything)

I was nine when the Mickey Mouse Club serialized the first Hardy Boys book. For my tenth birthday, my parents gave me the first five in the series, and I devoured the rest of the 36 in print over the next year or so. I read the Rick Brant series and the Ken Holt books, too. I just discovered that those books still exist on Kindle. Who knew?

With those tales as my model, I wrote my own mystery stories. One chapter took both sides of a wide-ruled tablet page, and they usually ended with the burning car plunging over the cliff or someone getting hit on the head and "everything went black." My mother, who had been a secretary before she married my father, typed the stories, and when I saw my words in print, there was no going back. I knew I wanted to be a writer.

Over the next ten or fifteen years, that idea always lurked in my subconscious even though my parents discouraged it. They were probably afraid I'd starve, and they were probably right. I started college as a pre-dentistry major, hated it, and changed my major to English. In grad school, I took a course on the American short story that unleashed the urge to write again. That fall, I picked up Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust, and the opening set-up--combined with a scandal in my own senior year of high school--gave me an idea for a novel of my own.

By then, I'd taught English for two or three years and was working toward my Master's. I knew how to write a decent sentence and an effective paragraph, so I thought I knew how to write a book. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Yes, I could write a paragraph, but I couldn't tell a story. Plot and pace were unexplored terrain. Over the next three years, I used summers (around more grad courses) and Christmas vacations to finish that first book. I had no outline and only a vague idea where I was going. At one point, I went back and discovered I had named over 150 characters, most of whom only appeared in one particular scene. I cut most of them. I bought the collection of writers' markets from The Writer and sent my MS out to publishers I knew were waiting with palpitating hearts and bated breath.

I didn't know about a synopsis or a query letter. I simply sent out the whole MS (I did know about the fourth-class postal rate for books) and was disappointed when it came back unread. I put the book away for two or three years, then took a writing workshop at a local college and got some advice. I did a massive revision of the horrible first version and sent it out again, still with no synopsis or query letter. Guess what?

I got another idea and wrote a mystery over the course of the next school year.  I think the characters and some parts of the plot were much better than the first book, but I still didn't know how to approach agents or publishers and I still had no outline. It would never sell now because a crucial plot point was a double-exposure photograph. That was a big deal in 1978, but now you can get the same effect in seconds on a computer.

In 1980– eight years after starting to write that first book– I finagled Wesleyan's Graduate Studies center into letting me use the book as my sixth year project if I could find an advisor. Joseph Reed, the Chair of the English department, remembered me from his Faulkner seminar and when I asked if he'd be interested, he said, "Probably not, but why don't you come in and we can discuss it."

For the first time, I wrote an outline, incorporating the changes I wanted to make. I tightened the plot and cut or changed several characters. That outline was simply a list of three or four events that would happen in a chapter, but it was a lean clean roadmap. Reed studied it, then told me to give him a chapter the following week and he'd make his final decision. Then he offered the best advice I'd had so far.

"You have an outline," he said. "So you don't have to write this in order. If you're stuck on chapter five, write chapter ten. You're going to go back and re-write transitions anyway, so it won't be a big deal. And learn to compose at the typewriter. You're too busy to waste time writing everything out longhand and re-typing it."

He was right. I was teaching five high school English classes a day, taking a political novel class with a heavy reading load that met Thursday nights, and working weekends for a photography studio. I had nine months to write the book, revise it, and type two final copies to submit to the grad center.

I did it. Between 1972 and 1980 (I still have a bound copy of that final draft) the book went through at least six title changes. Almost everything except the main premise changed, too. Dr. Reed encouraged me to send the book to publishers, but ten or twelve of them rejected in seconds. I wonder if someone would have read it if I'd sent a proper query letter or synopsis. We'll never know, will we?

The following summer, using my experience composing at the typewriter, I pounded out a 400-page novel in three weeks. It was awful, but I kept it for a few years, telling myself I'd fix it until sanity prevailed and I tossed it. By then, I'd written five unsold novels in about nine years while teaching full-time, earning two graduate degrees, and going through a divorce.

The followng summer, I got persuaded to take part in a play, and loved it. I dove into theater head-first. Between 1982 and 2009, I acted, directed, produced or designed for 100 productions throughout central Connecticut (and took several graduate courses in theater arts, too). I met Barbara, who still acts, too. When our theater lost its performance space in 2003– the same week I retired from teaching--I pulled out that sixth-year novel to fix it one more time.

This time, I attended writing workshops and read books on how to get published. I learned about a synopsis and a query letter. I learned how to write narration (I depended too much on dialogue, probably because I'd done so much theater) and description. My daughter learned of the New England Crime Bake and the Al Blanchard Story Award, so I submitted a short story. It placed in the top ten and the contest co-ordinator encouraged me to re-submit it to the publisher of an anthology of New England writers. It became my first published story, and I attended the conference the next five years, selling a few more stories and meeting agents, editors, and loads of other writers who helped me do it right. I sold my first novel in 2009.

I self-published the sixth-year novel in 2014, and it averages a 4-star rating on Amazon.

I'm an overnight success.

Writing My First PI Story

.38 Super

Last September, I wrote a blog article in SleuthSayers challenging myself to create my  first PI story. In that article, I bemoaned the fact that any new PI story would need to come up with a new angle for the PI's background. I didn't have one yet and all the good ones seemed to have already been taken. Intense brainstorming would have to commence. And, it did.

I have now acquired a new slant on a background for a Private Investigator. Will it work? DAMFINO. All I do know is that it is different from what is currently being used out there. The true test will be when I submit it to an editor.

NOTE: It went out on 03/24/22. If it sells at the first submission, you'll hear about it. If it doesn't, then the story will be submitted elsewhere down the line of diminishing payments until it dies a quiet death.

Unfortunately, since I have a certain loyalty, plus a bit of a mercenary bent, I tend to start at the top of the market, it will probably take me a year to find out if this concept will work. In the meantime, I have already written the sequel and have a working title  ("Recidivism") which will stick.

Of course, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I do have a few series which never got past the sequel stage.

SIDE NOTE: It seems that a kind gentleman, whom I was discussing series with at the Bouchercon in Madison several years ago, informed me that one story was a standalone,  it takes two stories to have a sequel and three to make a series. Intentions don't count until they are published. Personally, I would have responded that three stories makes a trilogy and that it took four to make a series, but I wasn't quick enough on the uptake. He was gone. His ride had arrived.

Obviously, I'm not going to tell you what the new concept entails. That would be a spoiler. You'll just have to wait about two years to see if it comes out in print. In any case, I hope to get it into the running for the Shamus Awards before I die. Trust me, it's a great concept, different and fresh. Have I lied to you yet? Well, not that you're aware of.

To keep you occupied in the meantime, there is some trivia about the story which I can entertain you with. You know how some famous authors auction off the rights to name a character in their story after some real person. Well, in this case there was no auction, but the PI character is named Ray, which is Brian Thornton's middle name, and the name of the PI firm is B. Thornton Investigations.

The next bit of trivia was totally unexpected. My wife and I were on a cruise  in the Caribbean from late February into early March and on Day One in the evening dining room, our junior waiter from Indonesia looked at me and asked if I was a Texas Ranger. He said I looked like one (or at least his concept of one). I admitted to being a retired federal agent and a writer. He was impressed more than he should have been, and asked if he could be in one of my stories. Okay, there was a bit of a language barrier and maybe neither one of us totally understood what we were talking about. but I then agreed to name one of my characters after him. In retrospect, I think he envisioned himself as a rescuing knight in shining armor, but the knights in my stories tend to have a lot of tarnish on their armor. The result was that he ended up becoming the PI's contract employee (side kick), and the first story and character got renamed ("Leonardo") after him.  

Oh, the situations we get into when we let those in the general public know that we are writers. But then, I'm sure you have your own tales to tell.

Isn't This Where We Came In?

The idea for this post came to me a few weeks ago, when my daughter and I went to see Top Gun: Maverick at a multiplex nearby. (Unlike my wife, our daughter loves movies almost as much as I do.) What happened was, TG:M was being shown in two different theaters in the multiplex, and we were directed by the ticket-taker to the wrong one. When we walked in, the feature was already in progress. It was an easy problem to fix; we just left and found the correct theater, and all was well. Nobody wants to walk in during the middle of a movie.

But I used to do it all the time.

Here's the deal. When I was in high school I saw a lot of movies. And not on TV, either--there weren't that many movies on TV in the mid-sixties. I went instead to the Strand Theater, just off the town square in Kosciusko, Mississippi. I was one of the Strand's regular customers.

The funny thing, though, is that I wasn't particular about whether I arrived at the start of the feature or somewhere in the middle. This probably had something to do with the fact that I was usually bumming a ride with someone else, but whatever the reason, my goofy high-school friends and I often strolled in after the film was well under way. We'd plop down in the then-uncomfortable seats and sit there and watch the second half or so of the movie, and then sit there while the end credits rolled and the old crowd left, and then keep sitting there while the new crowd filed in and the same movie started up again. Then we'd stay through the first half (or the first two-thirds or whatever we hadn't yet seen) and leave when we got to the part that was playing when we first arrived. Seriously. A question I remember well, because I was usually the one asking it, was "Isn't this where we came in?"

At that point we would get up and leave--or, if we had enough time, just sit through the feature again all the way to the end, thereby seeing the second part twice. We did that many, many times. 

What does all this have to do with writing?

Well, I've mentioned on many occasions that I am one of those writers who "outline" short stories, or at least map them out in their heads--including the ending--before the writing starts. And I think my teenaged habit of going into a movie halfway through the feature might've led to this preference for plotting a story out before getting to the actual writing.

I especially remember wondering what I had missed, as we waited in a silent and otherwise empty theater between showings. Wondering what had happened in the story earlier to lead up to the ending I'd already seen. And when the film started again, and I watched the introduction of the characters and watched the plot develop and thicken, I could sense the way the writer (or screenwriter, I suppose), must have felt as he planned the story and set the mood and dropped the clues and missing pieces into place and made the suspense build steadily toward a satisfying end. It was there that I learned firsthand about the importance of hooks and reversals and foreshadowing.

Now, many years later, I find myself doing the same kind of thinking, before and during the process of writing a short story. Once in a while I even come up with the ending first, and then backtrack to lay the plotting groundwork that will eventually lead to it. I once heard that every single thing in a short story must propel the story toward its conclusion. I believe that's true, and I can't think of a better way to make sure that happens than to know the ending ahead of time.

I heard someplace that Margaret Mitchell wrote the last chapter of Gone with the Wind first, and didn't write the opening chapter until ten years later, when the book was accepted for publication. Frankly, my dear, you probably don't give a damn, but I thought I'd mention it.

Once again, as I've often said in discussions about outlining, I'm not encouraging other writers, especially aspiring writers, to think or write that way, planning and plotting almost everything ahead of time. I'm just saying that's what works for me, in my stories. And I think it all might've started when our dumb little high-school movie group was always wandering in after Bogie or John Wayne or Paul Newman (or Clark Gable) was already halfway through his adventure. 

Not that it was the dumbest thing we did as teenagers. If I could convince you it was, I would be a good fiction writer.

Questions: What's your process? Are you an outliner or a free-wheeler, a plotter or a pantser? Or maybe a combination of the two? If you are an outliner, do you plan a story all the way through to the end, or discover the ending as you go?

Full disclosure: Fourteen years ago I wrote a post for the Criminal Brief blog on this same subject. This is a different and updated version, but I confess I happily stole some of the thoughts from my previous post. My apologies to any reader who might recall that column--I myself remembered it only when I was halfway done with this one.

Happy writing and reading (and moviegoing!) to all of you.

You Should Totally Tweet About This

You are totally a winner, dude!

Photo by Japheth Mast on Unsplash

Everyone always said he was a genius, and finally the proof had come. After being quoted in some very important newspapers and magazines, after doing a couple of TEDx talks, he had landed a Big New York City Agent. He had worked with a ghostwriter who crafted a superb nonfiction book proposal, putting some of his most abstruse ideas on paper for the very first time. So many Big New York City editors raved about the proposal and these ideas of his—ones that would radically transform the worlds of finance, politics, economics and culture—that the agent chose to hold an auction to sell the book.

When the smoke cleared, our genius walked away with a $100,000 book deal from what was then a Big Six publisher. Colleagues at his firm were envious, but such success had always been in the cards for our boy. Everyone knew he did great PowerPoints. The firm always sent him to the big conferences because he always knew just what to say. At hotel bars after those sessions, he was the flashy dresser ordering obscure cocktails, schmoozing with the local journalists, and sharing his theory about how this One Single Factor was underlying various disciplines.

So certain was our man of the book’s success that on weekends, he and his spouse took long rides into the New Jersey countryside, looking at grand, multi-acre estates that they might very possibly upgrade to when the book hit the bestseller lists and even bigger money came pouring in.

He and “his” book writer slaved over the tome for a year. Through first drafts, second drafts, the dreaded editorial letter, the copyedit, the galleys, and so on. When the publisher’s catalog came out, the author humble-bragged his way around the office, showing the book’s cover and the lovely blurbs to his colleagues. The book was “front-list,” singled out for a major push by the marketing and sales forces. “We know how to make bestsellers,” the editor had said in one of those early phone conferences when rounds of editors had vied for the chance to bid on his book. Front-list placement proved it! In the parlance of the industry, his was a “Big Think” book. It would out-blink Blink, topple The Tipping Point, and drown The Black Swan.

During the long slog to publication, the agent managed to lock in a movie option from a television development company. This was admittedly strange, since the book had no characters, no plot, no setting—just ideas. Nevertheless, some obviously brilliant people had perceived the book’s inherent genius, and planned to make a movie, TV show, or possibly a cable channel show about those concepts.

His agent urged the author to do a podcast, but the author didn’t really have time for that. He didn’t want to give away his ideas for free. Besides, he was busier than ever these days. In addition to reviewing the galleys, he was now fielding calls from “his” Hollywood writer. (The young screenwriter had read the galleys, and was at a loss for how to turn this mishegoss into a workable pitch and treatment for her bosses. But since the development company was paying her to turn the material into something saleable, she was not about to reveal her misgivings.)

The author could almost taste that multi-acre estate now. He could practically smell the grass! He could hear the horses whickering in the stables. He could hear the thump of his sweet children’s tennis balls on the clay courts.

Eagerly he looked forward to the Big Marketing Call when the Whole Team would talk about the book launch. He waited. And waited.

The call came on a Friday, four days before the book launch. The person on the other end was a harried, twenty-three-year-old publicist who was juggling the release of 18 other books that month. They spoke for forty minutes, mostly about how excited the Team was about the author’s book. Editors in the book world were supposed to be great wordsmiths, but no one seemed to be able to reach for any other word to convey their excitement. They were always over-the-moon, freaking excited.

“Are you on social media?” the publicist said. Our author wasn’t. He never bought into that crap. His wife did Facebook, but he’d ignored his account for years. He had a mortgage, a car loan, three kids in private schools, a briefcase full of never-ending work, and no time for anything else. “You totally should be,” the publicist said. “Twitter is probably best for a book like yours. Very intellectual content. You should totally Tweet about it.”

Thus ended the Great Marketing Call. The author felt unsatisfied…puzzled…confused. He could not shake the feeling that something was a little…off. Where was the book tour? Where was the appearance on MSNBC he’d dropped hints about in those early conference calls with his editor?

He worked the phones for a few days to get his agent on the line. She did some digging and returned with an explanation. In the months leading up to the book’s launch, the sales staff of the business imprint had mailed postcards to everyone on their list to gauge interest in the book. The response was robust from one very specific demographic: university librarians.

This made sense; our author’s deep, profound thoughts were going to change the world someday. Librarians at university business management schools were interested in those ideas—and apparently no one else. The marketing, sales, and publicity plans dried up immediately. There was not even a conversation about this, because every person in trade publishing knows that a book that appeals solely to business school librarians is the kiss of death. Big Six peeps know this so deeply in their bones that they do not feel it necessary to articulate it.

“But it was front list!” the author said. “They paid me six figures!”

Yes, the agent said. But there’s no point in throwing good money after bad. You get that, right? You’re a business dude.

“They’re willing to lose all that money?”

Yeah. They are. Because that’s what big companies do. They lose money all the time on books like yours. They’ve gotten very good at cutting their losses. A hundred thousand dollars is chump change to them. A “big” advance guarantees nothing.

“But there’s a movie deal!”

Well, there’s an option, which is very different, and maybe one of these days a movie or TV show will get made. That is, if the producer chooses to renew the option when the contract expires in 15 months. Until then, keep cashing the $1,800 check they’re contractually obligated to send you every six months until the term expires.

Our author’s world was spinning out of control.

Take heart, the agent said. Hollywood responds to success. They really do. So do publishers. In a year, if the hardcover and ebook do well, maybe they’ll even do a paperback.

“You mean to say that there might not even be a paperback?”

I believe in you, the agent waxed on, deflecting. I know the kind of go-getter you are. You will promote the living sht out of this book. You will never give up. Because that’s the kind of winner you are.

Our man didn’t feel like a winner. He had spent the advance after splitting it three ways with the ghostwriter, the agent, and the tax man. Yes, he made a hefty salary as a big-city exec, but that money was spoken for. Even if he could convince his wife to throw some money at the book, he had no idea where to begin. He had no clue how one propelled a book to the top of the bestseller list. In that respect, publishing was so…opaque. Yes, he could ask the bookstore in his Jersey suburb to carry the book, but he’d never set foot in the place. What about all the others? There had to be hundreds, thousands, of such mom-and-pop entities in the nation. Even if he could crack them, how would he convince people who didn’t know him to buy the damn book? Such a thing was well outside his realm of expertise.

Having a “big” one-off book published by a “big” publisher was beginning to feel like a fruitless exercise in vanity. Like getting some very expensive business cards printed up. He was known to be a genius! But now he felt like an ordinary dude with some very interesting ideas. Somewhere in the distance, a breeze kicked up in the horse stables, bringing with it the scent of manure.

 

***

Joseph D’Agnese is a professional ghostwriter who occasionally writes fiction. He wishes the foregoing were fiction.

A Mixed Bag

First off, nursery rhymes and how they got that way.  Before the technological revolution and the industrial revolution, life was very, very quiet, and you had to make your own entertainment. Anything loud was very popular.  

I just found out that the "weasel" in "Pop Goes the Weasel" could well be a spinner's weasel.  Now a spinner's weasel is "a mechanical yarn-measuring device consisting of a spoked wheel with gears attached to a pointer on a marked face (which looks like a clock) and an internal mechanism which makes a "pop" sound after the desired length of yarn is measured" (usually a skein, or 80 yards). (Wikipedia)

On a sleepy rainy day, back in the 1700s, that could really the kids up, couldn't it?  Plus it gave them something to do…

And speaking of things to do, they weren't all as useful and harmless as a spinner's weasel.  Doolin 'Dalton sent me a link to the story of Whipping Tom:

"Whipping Tom and Skiping Ione", detail from the Yale Center 'Panorama'

Actually, there were three Toms:  1672 and 1681 in London and in 1712 in the village of Hackney.  Basically, each of them would attack women walking alone and beat them more or less savagely on their rear ends. We don't know much about the 1st Tom, except that he may have given the example to the 2nd Tom in London.  2nd Tom was known for yelling "Spanko!" as he beat them.  He also got into print:  

"His first Adventure, as near as we can learn, was on a Servant Maid in New-street, who being sent out to look for her Master, as she was turning a Corner, perceived a Tall black Man[n 2] standing up against the wall, as if he had been making water, but she had not passed far, but with great speed and violence seized her, and in a trice, laying her across his knee, took up her Linnen, and lay'd so hard up-on her Backside, as made her cry out most piteously for help, the which he no sooner perceiving to approach (as she declares) then he vanished."

- Whipping Tom Brought to Light and Exposed to View, 1681

Eventually a haberdasher and his apprentice (?) were arrested and tried for it.

The Hackney Tom was even more savage, attacking 70 women and using a "Great Rodd of Birch". Thomas Wallis was captured and confessed to the attacks. According to Wallis, he was "resolved to be Revenged on all the women he could come at after that manner, for the sake of one Perjur'd Female, who had been Barbarously False to him".  (Historian Andrew Martin, Citation from Ashton, John (1937), Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne, vol. 2, London: Chatto & Windus.  HERE)   

Sadly, all documents of the trial and conviction of any of the Whipping Toms have been lost over time... And no one knows who Skipping Joan is.  I tried to find it, and just couldn't.  

Actually, what surprises me most about this case is that they actually investigated and punished the Whipping Toms, because the Middle Ages was not known for its high opinion of women and their rights.  BTW, if you want something frightening, there's a self-described Christo-fascist on social media spouting that what he and his fellows all want is to return to the Middle Ages! When life was sweet! Life was great!  Obviously the jackass didn't realize (1) that they'd all be serfs back then, with all the backbreaking labor that entailed and (2) medieval dentistry & medicine:  

(Wikipedia)

Of course it wasn't all plagues, leeches and purges.  Some of the stuff that sounds the weirdest actually worked:

 

FOR BURNS:  “Take a live snail and rub its slime against the burn and it will heal”

A nice, simple DIY remedy – and yes, it would help reduce blistering and ease the pain! Recent research has shown that snail slime contains antioxidants, antiseptic, anesthetic, anti-irritant, anti-inflammatory, antibiotic and antiviral properties, as well as collagen and elastin, vital for skin repair.  Modern science now utilizes snail slime, under the heading ‘Snail Gel’, as skin preparations and for treating minor injuries, such as cuts, burns and scalds. It seems that medieval medicine got this one right.  (History Extra)

So keep a snail around - you never know when you might need one.

And now for something completely different, my favorite new streaming channel is Retro Reels, which you can get through Roku for the reasonable price of $2.99 a month.  It has just about every movie you can imagine from the 30s and 40s, and we are having a great time.  The only down side is that it has no search engine, so you have to scroll until you find a title you want to watch. And there's everything - from Charlie Chan to Cary Grant - so you're bound to get distracted from your original search.  Happy accidents abound!

The other night we watched The Public Enemy (1931) with James Cagney, and while everybody knows about this scene:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Public_Enemy#/media/File:Mae_Clarke_and_James_Cagney.jpg

imho, it's nowhere near the most shocking scene in the picture.  But we'll get to that in a minute.  

You can tell The Public Enemy was made pre-Hays Code.  You can also tell it was made in America, because all the good guys are so squeaky-clean they'd bore Billy Graham.  Even Ma... (Oh, Ma, get a new dress and quit pretending you don't know what your Tom does for a living.)  

(I've said it before, and I'll say it again, people really need to reread Victorian novels and find out how to make good people interesting. The stupidest line I ever heard was about 10 years ago on a show where the squeaky-clean hero's girlfriend said "It's easy to be good, but it's so hard to go bad." No, dimwit, it's the exact freaking opposite. The Victorians at least knew that temptation was actually tempting.)  

Speaking of pre-Hays, how about Jean Harlow?  She didn't have a lot of scenes, and she really wasn't that good at delivering her lines (I much prefer her in Red Dust - she and Gable had great chemistry, and they went on to make 6 movies together), but that white silk/satin lounge outfit made all of that irrelevant. 

(Triva: On the set one day, Cagney stared at Harlow's cleavage and asked, "How do you keep those things up?" "I ice them," Harlow said.  IMDB)

Meanwhile, there's Cagney, with charm, energy, one hell of a great grin, and a real gift for that 1930s fast dialog which he made sound like the smartest wisecracks you ever heard, which they often weren't.  The result is that (almost) no matter what he was doing, you root for him. Same as in Angels With Dirty Faces.  (Some people have that gift - watching The Public Enemy, I realized one of the inmates at the pen looks like Cagney's reincarnation, and that explains a lot about his career.)  

Anyway, that charm is what makes the last scene of the movie so shocking. Watch it and see.  All I'll say is, his eyes are open.  

Oh, and one final tidbit I found and am now passing around like cracker jacks at a ball game:  

The One Sentence Persuasion Course:

"People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, assuage their fears, justify their failures, confirm their suspicions, and throw rocks at their enemies."  - Blair Warren

It explains so much...  

A Dangerous Place

  

After the tenth book in her Maisie Dobbs series, Jackie Winspear took a break.  She wrote a standalone, and then two years later she brought Maisie back in A Dangerous Place.  It seems to me to signal a significant - not to say wrenching – turn. 

A Dangerous Place finds Maisie in Gibraltar.  The year is 1937, and just across the line in Spain, the savagery of the Civil War is drawing in the major combatants.  Britain pretends neutrality; the Germans bomb Guernica, and the Russians support the Republicans, but this is a dress rehearsal for a wider war, between the Fascists and the Reds, and the larger pretense is that this is purely local, and of no consequence to the calculations of the Great Powers.  Gibraltar is awash in spies.  Although it appears sunlit and cheerful, the subtext is more akin to Casablanca than The Wizard of Oz.

I want to pause for a moment, and consider the background.  Europe in the 1930’s was a snakepit.  There was enormous income disparity and class division.  The old ruling class was terrified of Bolshevism; the working classes wanted a living wage.  Hitler didn’t arise in a vacuum.  There were the Black Hundreds in Russia, the Iron Guard in Romania, the Arrow Cross in Hungary.  The common denominator was of course hatred for the Jews – not that the Poles and the French (or the British and Americans, for that matter) were shy in this regard. 

My point, here, is that Maisie, herself a survivor of the first war, 1914-1918, a battlefield triage nurse, with combat fatigue – post-traumatic stress – is no stranger to these questions and concerns, but the stories hitherto have been domestic, by and large.  They hinge on the personal, and the close observation of detail.  You could easily call them cozies, and not be far off the mark.

Let’s not beat around the bush.  A Dangerous Place is a spy story.  Maisie even gets herself smuggled into wartime Madrid, as a visiting fireman, trading on a title she isn’t sure she deserves. 

The dangerous place, however, isn’t on the outside.  The turmoil, the doubt, the anxieties, are all internal.  The inciting, compelling incidents, the dramatic engines, if you will, take place off-stage.  The discovery of the dead guy, which sets the story in motion, happens in the reader’s peripheral vision.  You’re not there.  You’re told about it afterwards.  The huge hole in Maisie’s life, what happened in the two years she was absent from us, is explained (not explained, simply retailed) in a series of letters at the beginning of the book.  Winspear wants to get this plot furniture out of the way, and get on with the real story, which is Maisie’s disintegration and recovery.

There’s a moment about halfway through.  “She knew she had been remiss.  …It was long past time to bring her whole heart to the investigation, instead of leaving something of herself behind, curled up, lost, grieving, and afraid.”  Something of herself left behind.  This is really what the book’s about.  And although much of Maisie’s history, in the previous books, has been about unlocking and engaging with the past, this is the first time she’s seemed to actually come untethered, to disassociate – if that’s the right term.  She steps outside herself, she disengages, because if she were to stay inside, madness would beckon.  Maisie is a healer; she finds her purpose in repairing the damage other people have suffered.  Here, she has to turn her attention to herself, and apply those skills to her own incapacitating grief.  Rescue is in retreat.

This isn’t the book to start with, by any means.  I’ve mentioned before that I read Jackie’s memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing, before I read any of the Maisie mysteries, and that’s what got me started.  I began with Maisie Dobbs, and read them serially.  A Dangerous Place packs the punch it does, for me, because it takes the familiar, and subverts expectations. 

The Importance of Tenacity

Hi, everyone. I'm taking a mental-health break. Instead of writing a new column to run today, I'm rerunning one from New Year's Day 2019. Sorry about that, but to use that old NBC slogan, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you!

The Power of Tenacity

I planned to title this column the Power of Persistence and to write about writing goals. It seemed perfect for January 1st, when so many people make resolutions for the new year. And I do love alliteration. But then I thought, maybe "tenacity" would be a better word than "persistence." The Power of Tenacity might not have the same cadence as the Power of Persistence, but is it more on point? I had always treated the words as synonyms, but maybe, I began to think, they aren't. Maybe I should check. So I did, and it turns out there's an important difference between the two words. Persistence means trying repeatedly to reach a goal through the same method, figuring eventually you'll succeed. Tenacity means trying to reach a goal through varying methods, learning from each failure and trying different approaches. For anyone with goals for the new year, tenacity seems the better approach.

How does this apply to writing? First, let's talk about getting writing done. Everyone has their own method. Some people write every morning before daybreak. Others write at night. Some people say they will write for a set number of hours each day. Others say they'll write as long as it takes to meet a daily quota. Some people plot out what they're going to write. Others write by the seat of their pants. It doesn't matter what your approach is, as long as it works for you. So with the new year here, perhaps this is a good time to take stock of your approach. Is your approach working for you? Are you getting enough writing done? Enough revision done? Are you making the best use of your time?

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

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

If sending a story out a few times without revising after each rejection usually results in a sale for you, great. Then your persistence works, and it means you have more time for other projects. But if it doesn't, if you find yourself sending a story out a dozen times without success, then perhaps you should consider a new approach. After a story is rejected, say, three times, maybe you should give it a hard look and see how it can be changed. Maybe you should let it sit in a drawer for a while first, so when you review it, you'll have a fresh take.

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

I was about to write that the one thing you shouldn't do is give up, but there might be value in letting go. If your goal is to write a novel or short story, but you never seem to finish your project, and the mere thought of working on it feels like drudgery instead of joy, then maybe being a professional writer isn't for you. There's no shame in that. Not every person is suited to every task. When I was a kid I loved swimming, but I was never going to make a swim team. I wasn't fast enough. Maybe with a lot of practice and other changes I could have gotten there, but I didn't want to take those steps. And that's okay. I enjoyed swimming for the fun of it, and that was enough for me. Maybe writing for yourself, without the pressure of getting to write "The End," is what gives you joy. If so, more power to you. And maybe it turns out you don't want to finish that book or story you started writing. That's okay too, even if you did tell everyone that you were writing it. You're allowed to try things and stop if it turns out they aren't the right fit for you.

But if you believe writing is the right fit, yet your writing isn't as productive as you want it to be, or your sales aren't as good as you want them to be, then be tenacious. Evaluate your approaches to getting writing done, to editing your work, to seeking publication. Maybe you need to revise how you're doing things. Are you writing in the morning but are more alert in the evening? Change when you write. Is your work typically ready to be sent out into the world as soon as you finish? If you get a lot of rejections, maybe it's not. Maybe you need to force yourself to let your work sit for a while after you finish, so you can review it again with fresh eyes before you start submitting. Do you have a contract, but your books aren't selling as well as you'd like? Perhaps you should find someone you trust who can try to help you improve. No matter how successful you are, there's always something new to learn. The key is to figure out what works for you and keep doing it, and also figure out what isn't working for you and change it.

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

What’s It All About, Reader?

A couple of posts on DorothyL, the mystery lovers’ e-list, got me thinking the other day. DLers read widely and voraciously, and are a great source of recommendations for both reading and watching that I might otherwise have missed. One topic under discussion on this particular occasion was how certain independently published authors attract a huge following. Someone mentioned an “independently published author with a large fan base” whose "series about ... art crimes consistently gets high ratings and apparently good enough sales to keep [the author] turning them out. I do not find the main character credible but I seem to be in the minority.” A disappointed reader who’d enjoyed a traditionally published author’s previous books commented that they have “written some really good mysteries,” but this book “is less about good character development and in depth stories and more about jumping from one thrill to the next.”

The first thought that sprang to my mind on reading these two comments was, “For me, it’s all about the voice.” And “voice,” while it’s not a new word, not a trendy 21st-century word in the way that “curated” is the new word for “selected” and “canceled” is the new word for “shunned,” is more or less what we used to call “the writing.” Amazon’s algorithms can’t detect voice, which is why they constantly make book recommendations I have no interest in buying for my Kindle. As I said last month, Lois McMaster Bujold takes space opera to the stratosphere of high art, marrying it with political thriller, comedy of manners, and other beautifully nuanced genres. Those algorithms can recommend ordinary space operas until the extragalactic cows come without piquing my interest. It’s not about what the book’s about at all. So slap all the “gripping” and “riveting” you want into the blurb, or worse, these days, the subtitle. When I start to read—for economy’s sake, the free sample if it’s not a known and beloved author—I want the voice to sweep me away.

My second thought was, “I can’t say it’s all about voice without mentioning character development, which is crucial to my enjoyment of a read. As a writer, I use character to convey voice in a variety of forms: dialogue, first person narrative, and more subtly in the third person narrative, ie where “voice” meets “writing.” I put down a book I was reading recently because I realized I was reading dutifully, which is my signal that it’s okay not to finish it. It was a Jewish historical novel, and those are of interest to me, because I write Jewish historical novels and stories myself. It wasn’t exactly in my period (18th century vs my 15th and 16th centuries), but it was about secret Jews still living in Spain (as my Mendoza family did until 1492) who had to flee with the Inquisition at their heels.

It could have been an exciting story. When I asked myself why it wasn’t, I decided the characters weren’t well developed. The wife is young and has a baby. The husband is older. She’s Jewish, he’s not. She puts the family in danger by not buying pork at the market on Friday. (That’s right, how could she not realize how stupid that is, just like the damsel going down the cellar alone without a flashlight or a cell phone when the serial killer’s on the loose.) She feels appropriate emotions: dread, fear, uncertainty, hope, love for her baby, determination to practice her religion, which she learned at her mother’s knee. But who is she as a person? The reader has no idea. The author tells us it’s a love match, and that the husband persisted until she said yes. Why did she fall for an older man? What did he think when he found out she was a secret Jew? We’re told he was okay with it because he loved her—stock emotions for a supportive husband, not character development. They flee to America. They meet a slave-holding relative. The situations are interesting, but somehow, the characters were not, at least to me.

Then I asked myself whether as a writer, I’ve done better at making my Jewish historical characters true individuals. Let’s take a look.

We first meet Rachel Mendoza in my novel, Voyage of Strangers, in 1493, escaping from the stuffy convent school where she’s been hidden. She plans to seek out her brother Diego, who is at King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella’s Court, having just returned with Columbus from the voyage of discovery. The first line from her point of view is in close third person narrative:

How hard could it be to be a boy?

After various adventures, Rachel finds herself in enough danger that Diego is forced to abet her escape from the guardianship of their strict converso aunt, temporarily abandoning his post guarding the half dozen Taino Columbus has brought from the Caribbean along with gold and brightly colored parrots to show the King and Queen. Diego says:

“I must contrive to leave the Taino in good hands. I don’t want them to suffer because of my absence. I believe my friend Fernando will be willing to take my place. He doesn’t care for the Indians as I do, but he has a good heart.”

I glanced over at the Taino, who still slumbered in their poppy-induced stupor. “You can’t imagine how robust and comely they were,” I said, “when we first came upon them.”

“Perhaps,” Rachel said, “being slaves in Spain doesn’t agree with them.”