The Birth of a Novel

This is the story about how this:

 

 

Became This:

 

And turned into this:

The Cold Room is a novel that underwent many changes. It started as a challenge, the tiniest spark of an idea. I wanted to write a serial killer novel that didn’t have any blood. I don’t think you need blood and gore to make a book exciting and different. The psychology behind these acts of violence are where my interests lie anyway, so I decided to try a different approach.

But of course, then I had to figure out HOW exactly the killer worked. And to do that, you start with victimology.

I was teaching a fiction weekend for the Tennessee Mountain Writers, and we were working on developing characters. Since that’s sometimes a very difficult task, I took a different tack – I gave my class photographs of ordinary people and asked them to list everything they could about them – name, age, sexual orientation, biggest shame, etc. The first female character was this woman.

There was something about her that screamed to me. Along with my class, I spent five minutes writing down everything I knew about her, but I did it in story context. You see, I needed a victim.

For the record, I have no idea who this woman is. I’m probably pirating this shot, because I have no earthly idea where I got it from. It’s been two years since I wrote that paragraph, but the words stayed with me:

There was that spark again, right there, the fourth shot. Oh, the power in those eyes. The slim jaw, the hollowed cheekbones, her clavicle sticking out like a sword from her shoulder. The hint of her breasts, just the slightest swelling. The memory of those dark ruby nipples.

Click.

The next shot wasn’t as intoxicating. The spark faded to resignation. He’d captured the moment perfectly. He preferred the righteous indignation she’d showered into the lens, though there was something to be said for the moment of truth.

Click. Click.

Click, click. Click, click.

 

Those words became the opening of a novel I had titled SYNCHRONICITY.

There were problems immediately. The concept of the book was on a scope so large that I had my doubts whether I could pull it off or not. My editor needed a new title: the word was too big, the associations to a particular band too immediate. I tossed around a few and ended up with the title Edge of Black. We all loved it. I tried to write the story, using my opening above. Struggled and struggled and struggled, knowing there was something wrong, but not knowing what it was.

It hit me in a flash of light one stormy morning. It was a single word. Dark. Those dark ruby nipples.

My victim wasn’t white. She was black.

 

The words came easier after that. I knew my victim was terribly thin, terribly scared, and doomed. I didn’t know why she was black, didn’t know why she was so thin. But I kept writing, moving the story forward, confident that she would tell me why.

She did.

The progression went something like this.

She’s not white, she’s black. Okay, that makes more sense. But why is she so thin? Is she anorexic? No, that doesn’t work. Oh, but he’s starving her to death. He starves his victims to death. Why would he do that? So they won’t suffer. He has no desire to see them suffer. But why… oh. Oh! That’s why. Because he wants to have sex with her, but needs her to be dead first. He’s a necrophiliac. No, he’s a necrosadist. He’s preying on small women who are easily overpowered and won’t linger too long so he can have sex with their dead bodies. And he’s left his first victim in a tribute to his favorite artist, Picasso, and his incredible Desmoiselles D’Avignon. And that opening scene isn’t the right opening. It needs to be something less obvious, something creepy. Something…

I wrote the new opening chapter on a Thursday. I was so freaked out by it that I didn’t open the manuscript again until Monday. That’s how I measure my success – if I creep myself out, I’ll creep everyone out.

Suddenly, I had a story.

And then the nightmares started.

Wicked bad nightmares, ones that drove me, shaking, out of bed to turn on lights to chase away the shadows and check the locks on the doors.

Writing about necrosadism isn’t something I necessarily set out to do. But once I realized that’s who my killer was, and that’s why his victims were so thin, the whole book came together with a crash.

I needed to do research about this, and that’s where I ran into trouble. There are a number of what’s called “sleepy sex” message boards on the Internet. I learned that necrophilia isn’t only what we think – at its basest, it’s about unresisting sex. I learned that men who use drugs to incapacitate women before having sex with their lifeless bodies are necrophiliacs, and much more common than we can imagine. I saw photographs and video of people creating sleepy sex scenarios – down to the man whose girlfriend got in a coffin so he could sneak in, take her out, undress her, have sex with her, redress her, then close her back in the coffin.

Harmless, right?

Disturbing, for sure. For some reason, it bugged me, though everyone around me loved the story.

There are times when I wish I could just write a book without doing the research, just so I can avoid polluting my brain with these kinds of images.

But then I’d be shirking my responsibility as a writer examining the human condition, and where would that leave me?

Probably sleeping better, if I’m honest. But not as satisfied that I’ve done my best to portray the bizarre philias and fetishes that exist in this particular fictional world.

The book grew from there. It became about so much more than necrosadism. It turned into an exploration of self, of betrayal, of courage. I was pleased with the results. Finally finished, it went through the usual motions.

I began to sleep again.

Edge of Black was about to go to print when my editor called. They had pulled the book. They wanted to go in a different direction, one that would ultimately benefit me and my career. We needed a new title, to start. We would get new art. We had a new release date. And I needed to go back to the book I was so happy was behind me and make some changes. Not to the crime plot, mind you, just a few tweaks to my main character. The story was so grim, she needed to have a little bit of something more to temper it out.

Cue the nightmares again. Because even when you’re just putting a few touches here and there, you’ve got to reread. And re copyedit, and re just about everything.

Ugh.

But as always, my editor’s instinct were right.

Retitling a book whose title I was in love with wasn’t the easiest thing to do. But I did it. Immediately. Because when my editor said they wanted something more concrete, I thought of a basement. There is a basement in this book. A basement with a glass coffin. And a killer who is obsessed with both art and classical music, who sings arias from his favorite operas to his victims, once they’re dead.

And you, my princess, in your cold room…

It’s a translation from Turandot. He sings it to his victim. It was already in the book, waiting for me. And that was it. I’ve never felt so strongly about a title before. Thank God everyone agreed.

And so THE COLD ROOM was born.

The book comes out this Tuesday, February 23. I have a crazy fun tour schedule in place, with lots of local events, plus North Carolina, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and D.C. I’m looking forward to spending some time with good friends on the road. We’re also giving away a free ebook of ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS, and for the first time, I’ll be in audio too – with the incomparable Joyce Bean narrating. And all the books are available in ebook format for any kind of ereader.

So what do you think, ‘Rati? There’s a lot here to talk about on the road, too much to cover everything. What parts of this story do you suggest I speak to?

Wine of the Week – Well, we should probably have a bottle of Zardetto Prosecco to celebrate the birth of the book, don’t you think? Cheers!

Laying It Out

 

by Zoë Sharp

I’m fussy when it comes to presentation. For someone with precious little fashion sense, I do take a lot of care about the way my work looks when it goes out, and I always have. Maybe that makes me vain, in a way. I’m not sure.

I could try to say that always preferring to print out an address label rather than hand-write the package is just to save the postal system misdirecting it, but the truth is, I just think it looks neater.

I bought my first word processor – the almighty Amstrad – back in the mid-1980s. It allowed me to present a piece of work that was spell-checked and laid out properly. Even a dot-matrix printer – set on high quality – could produce decent looking type. And although this was not the model I owned, you’ll notice something about this PC – no mouse. Everything was keyboard-driven. I loved it, and hung on to my old version of LocoScript as a word processing package for years after it had gone out of date. The thesaurus program knocks later ones into the proverbial cocked hat. Ah, nostalgia – it isn’t what it used to be. <sigh>

And now, when I send out sets of digital images on DVD-R, they have a fully printed label, the pictures are sorted into order, renamed to relate to the subject matter, and numbered. I even rename the disk itself, so as soon as it goes into the drive, you know what it is.

Sounds a bit daft, doesn’t it?

Not if you keep getting the work.

I’m not saying that laying your work out correctly, numbering the pages right from the start of the typescript, and spell-checking the document, will get you a deal. Let’s be honest about this. It won’t. There’s an old motor-racing saying that goes, “You can tidy up speed, but you can’t speed up tidiness.” And so it is with writing. If the style and the voice is there, it’s going to shine through regardless. But why make things difficult for yourself?

People may think that they make considered decisions, but the truth is that most job interviews are passed or failed within the first three minutes. Sending out a piece of work for consideration is like an interview. And quite beyond the quality of the writing, sending stuff out that needs rearranging before it can be printed or read, is asking for a negative response.

I have recently been reading work from various unpublished writers, who wanted my opinion (for what it’s worth!) and found the following difficulties:

Block paragraphs instead of indented.
OK, not a great problem, until you try and print out the pages to read. Then you find out just how many blank spaces there are, and how many extra pages of print it takes up. I’m not made of ink, and think of the poor trees!

Double line spacing instead of one-and-a-half.
Again, not a big problem, and one that’s a lot easier to block-alter. I have always presented typescripts in 1½ spacing rather than double, purely because it looks better on the page – more like a book and less like a manuscript – but still allows room for comments between the lines, if necessary. And again, it saves on trees. I quickly re-spaced the t/s of FOURTH DAY and discovered it went from 329 A4 pages to 427. That’s a lot of extra paper.

Font size.
This is starting to make me sound really picky, but I’ve had stuff sent to me in everything from eight-point, which makes you go cross-eyed halfway down the first page, to fourteen-point, which feels like the writer is shouting at you. I use a 23in widescreen computer monitor, and this makes me feel like I’m going deaf. Please, twelve-point is fine.

Page numbering.
Either you get no page numbers at all, and have to add them in, or occasionally I’ve had each chapter sent as a separate file, with the numbering returning to 1 for each one. And no identification of the author or title in the file title, or occasionally nothing in the header or footer in the document itself. Mind you, I think that’s better than putting a © copyright symbol in with their name, like they expect I’m going to steal their work. If you’re that worried, don’t send it to me.

Be consistent.
Most of the time, it really doesn’t matter if you spell something as one word, two words, or hyphenated. But not all three. In the same paragraph. UK publishers use single speech quotes, and US publishers use double. Either is fine, but not a mix from one page to the next.

These may seem like basic, basic points, and indeed they are. Most are easily fixed with a few keystrokes, but why make the person you are sending your work out to, have to do this before they can read your actual words? Remember those three minutes? How many of them have you wasted in making your good impression?

And then there’s attitude. I love to try to help and encourage writers to achieve their dream of publication. It gives me a real thrill to pay it forwards, it really does. But you can take the pish.

I’ve had approach email from people that actually start, “I’ve never read any of your work, but…” and end up attaching their opening chapter for my opinion. I have a website I’ve taken a lot of time and trouble over. It has extracts – both audio and print – and opening chapters of all my books, plus openers of short stories. Don’t you think it might be worth five minutes having a click round? OK, I don’t expect you to go out and buy a book on the off-chance, but at least go and check one out of the library.

I’ve also had approaches that ask for an opinion, and then admit that they’ve already sent the work out on submission anyway. In which case, what does my opinion matter? Why are you asking if it’s too late to do anything about it anyway?

I’m happy to help, really I am. Most writers are. But you can really help yourself if you do a little research first. At least pick a writer whose work you know and admire, so you know in advance that their comments on your style are relevant. We all ask dumb questions occasionally. We all make mistakes, we’re all human, but give yourself a chance to give us a chance to help.

This week’s Word of the Week is subsultive, meaning moving by sudden leaps or starts; twitching, and also subsultus, meaning an abnormal convulsive or twitching movement, usually of the muscles, from the Latin subsultare, to jump, hop, from sub up, and salire to leap.

I’m in and out of the office in fits and starts today, but I’ll get back to everyone as soon as I can!

 

Breaking News!

 

Busted Flush have just announced all four covers for the backlist of the early Charlie Fox books, coming out in the States over the next twelve months, and I think they look fabulous! I’ve been grinning ever since I got them ;-]

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Long and Winding Road

by Rob Gregory Browne

I wrote this last week when I first got the news I’m about to share.  But after reading Louise’s post yesterday, I wondered if I should be sharing my good news on the heels of such a heartbreaking post.   Then I thought that Louise probably wouldn’t want us to hold back, so I decided to let it stand.

Before I get started, however — Louise, I want you to know that my heart goes out to you and your husband.   You are in my thoughts and prayers.

——————-

When I was seventeen years old, I wrote my first serious piece of fiction.

Okay, maybe not that serious.  Let me revise that.

When I was seventeen years old, I took my writing seriously for the first time.  

A lover of all things David Janssen, and a huge fan of the show HARRY O, in which Janssen played a retired San Diego cop, I sat down one day and wrote a sixty page teleplay for the show.

No, I don’t consider HARRY O serious fiction.  But I do — and did then — consider it FUN fiction and wanted very badly to write episodes for the show for the rest of my life.  I didn’t know anything about writing teleplays except what I’d read in some obscure book at the time (which probably got most of it wrong), but that didn’t keep me from sitting down and pumping out those sixty pages in a frenzy of enthusiasm.

When I was done, my father — being the world’s greatest salesman — managed to get my script to the producers of the show.

Now let me tell you how impossible a feat like that is.  Especially back then, in the stone age.  As anyone who has ever tried to market a screenplay knows, Hollywood is a closed playground.  There are ways to get your scripts read, but they’re often a combination of luck and really good fence climbing skills.  If you’re from a different neighborhood, you might as well take your toys and go home.

My dad was an amazing fence climber.  And once he got over that fence, he had this uncanny ability to make the people whose land he was trespassing on fall in love with him.  It’s a gift I’ve always envied but never acquired.

So, anyway, he got my script to the producers of the show and a couple weeks later, I got a letter (yes, this was before email) from one of the producers who kindly explained to me what overwriting is, thus giving me one of the best writing lessons I’ve ever received.

After that, I wrote a ROCKFORD FILES (which my dad managed to get to one of the show’s stars), an original movie of the week (something about a husband and wife truck driving team) and a couple other teleplays for shows I can’t remember the names of.

Getting no success, however, I gave up for a while and concentrated on music — which was my true passion — and tried to be the next James Taylor by writing a lot of songs but never performing for anyone outside my family and friends.  Kinda of a tough way to go about it.

But the bug to write for television never left me.  At one point I wrote an episode of LOU GRANT and got it into the hands of the producers (I was a messenger in Hollywood by then and was on the studio lot nearly every day).  

Several years later, I fell in love with a show called THE EQUALIZER.  And when the writers went on strike during that time — a long, drawn out strike that seemed to last forever — I wrote an episode of the show, NOT to be a strike breaker, but to have a script ready to go the MOMENT the strike was over, because I knew they’d be hungry for scripts.

And guess what?  Based only on a letter, the producers agreed to read it two days after the strike ended.

Unfortunately, they didn’t like it and that script, like all those other attempts, sits in a box somewhere in my cluttered garage.

A few years later I wrote my first feature screenplay — a thriller about a navy guy coming back from sea to find his wife has been murdered — and happened to win the Nicholl fellowship with it, which got me an agent and a deal with Showtime.

I had finally arrived.  Unfortunately, after casting, location scouting, etc., the whole project fell apart and the script was never made.  Flash forward about ten years or so and you’ve got a very frustrated Robby writing Spider-Man cartoons to make a living.  A story I’ve bored you all with before, and while fun, not exactly what I’d had in mind when I wrote that HARRY O.

So, after giving up on Hollywood, I took a friend’s advice and wrote a book — my first novel, called KISS HER GOODBYE.  It took me a long time to write it, but once it was done, it sold it to St. Martin’s, in large part because I had a fabulous agent who felt passionate about my work.  (Thanks, Scott!)

Writing that novel was liberating.  I no longer felt constrained by the restrictions of screenplays — although the idea for the book had originally been a movie idea.  And I have to say, I felt like I had finally found my home.

So where am I going with this, other than to rehash history once again?

Just this past Thursday I was sent a teleplay.  A teleplay written by a VERY talented man.  And as I sat reading the teleplay — which, quite frankly, was one of the best I’ve ever read — I got about halfway through it when I started to choke up a little and got tears in my eyes.

You see, that teleplay was the pilot episode for a proposed television series on a major network.  The network loved the idea, loved the pilot teleplay and has ordered the pilot into production in Chicago.  So there will soon be actors, cameras and crew running around the streets of Chicago shooting what will hopefully be the first episode of a new series.  

Oh, and I’ll be there too.  I’ve been invited to visit the set.

Why?  The same reason I got so choked up when I was reading another man’s teleplay.  Because that teleplay was an adaptation of KISS HER GOODBYE.  And because that very talented man did an amazing job of adapting it.  He stayed true to the book, and when he had to stray from the storyline — which was rare — it made the story even better, ending with a setup for the series that is extremely compelling.

So, after this long and winding road that has lasted almost my entire life, something I wrote (beyond cartoon super heroes) is finally making it to TV.  Whether it will actually become a series, is anyone’s guess — such things are always a crapshoot — but at least it’s getting to the screen. 

And, believe me, I couldn’t be happier right now.  While I didn’t write the script myself, I don’t care.  It’s my story.  My characters.  My situations.  And I certainly couldn’t have done a better job of it.

And those characters could potentially live on TV for years to come: ATF agent Jack Donovan, his daughter Jessie, his partners A.J. and Waxman, his assistant Rachel Wu, and the baddest of bad guys, Alex Gunderson.

Although not quite as he envisioned it, the dream of that seventeen year old kid who sat down to write an episode of HARRY O is finally being fulfilled.

I think I like this version better.

 

Coming Clean

 

By Louise Ure

 

Several days ago, two of our ‘Rati readers, PK and Berenmind, commented that, when we’re faced with a paucity of topics for blog posts, they’d be just as happy reading about the daily life of the ‘Rati authors. What we’re doing. What we’re thinking. How we’re faring.

That was a joy to know. That somewhere out in that shimmery internet there are friends who I’ve only met here at Murderati. People who come to visit even though we don’t always write about murder or mysteries or the marketing thereof. People who might just want to know how we are.

It’s time I come clean and tell you how I’ve been.

Horrid.

Just after Thanksgiving weekend, my husband, Bruce, was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. It has already metastasized to his bones, his adrenal gland and to an area surrounding his heart. It is incurable. It is inoperable. And the chemo doesn’t seem to be working.

He had a small cough and went in to see our doctor the Monday after the holiday weekend. She said his lungs sounded fine, but recommended a chest x-ray just to be sure. Our lives changed as of that day.

These last ten weeks have been a horror of hospital stays, white blood cell counts, plummeting weight loss, radiation, PICC lines, chemotherapy and nausea. I’m learning a new language of pain and loss. And it was hard to hide that in my blog posts and comments.

No more.

I promise not to make Murderati a bi-monthly update on this personal hell, but it’s nice to know that friends can be open with each other if need be.

My real life neighbors, friends and family have been extraordinarily kind. They bring soups and sweets and lists of clinical trials that we may not have considered yet. Other friends have been supportive by email and by phone.

Even the insurance company has exceeded my expectations with their courtesy and competence.

Bruce’s attitude is great. He is a man of dogged determinism and his optimism is unflagging.

We say “I love you” more often these days.

I’m not writing at all. Not even a diary. I know some people say it was helpful to them to do so, but for the moment it seems too much like rubbing sandpaper across a suppurating wound. My only jottings are to note the date for a visiting nurse or to monitor a change in oxygen levels.

I’ll try to keep up my end here at Murderati, but please understand if some weeks my posts are short, or sad, or maybe filled with dark humor. Whatever it takes to get through the day.

 

 

Much love to you all,

 

Louise

 

I Don’t Want to Grow Up…So Why Must My Characters?

by Alafair Burke

A pop psychologist coined the phrase Peter Pan Syndrome to describe men who want to remain boys.  If there’s a female version of the syndrome, I suppose I probably suffer from it.

Don’t get me wrong.  I like to think I’ve matured in the ways that matter.  I confront my problems.  I deal with people directly.  I don’t lie to my parents even when the truth is uncomfortable.  And when I want to lose weight, I do it sensibly – not like that popcorn and pickle diet I tried my sophomore year. 

There are perks that have come with age as well.  I have a real car instead of that oxidized baby-blue Chevy Chevette POS I used to share with my sisters.  I no longer work at Benetton.  I can stay up late whenever I want.

But, deep down, inside, where it really counts?  I don’t want to grow up.  I still dance in my living room, stomp in snow piles, and break out into the occasional handstand.  Last Thursday, I ate pudding for lunch an hour before teaching the search incident to arrest doctrine to my crim pro students. 

The world changes around me, but I’m still the same oddball interacting with it.

I used to be a choir geek obssessed with 

 

 

 

                + 

 

 

 

 

 These days, I inner choir geek watches America Idol and Glee, and, although I no longer tape posters to my walls — honestly?  I’d love for just one day (maybe week) to be

or   

Am I alone in feeling that external time passes far more quickly than our internal clocks can possibly register?  I don’t think so.

My mother told me when I turned thirty that she still looks in the mirror and expects to see her thirty-year-old self.  These guys?  I know they don’t define themselves through biological age.

So what’s my point?  If, at heart, most of us don’t want to grow up — and don’t really acknowledge that we have — why must our fictional characters age on the same clock as those of us stuck in the real world?  My husband always tell me to face the music: the only alternative to aging is death.  But why must that be true for the characters who live through our words?

One of my favorite writers once told me that his biggest writing regret was that he’d given his beloved series character a year of birth.  By doing so, he forever locked his character in the continuum of time, and inevitably that character will face the realities of grey hair and back pain.  And we’ve all experienced that as readers, haven’t we?  We watch as our favorite protagonists reach their seventh and eighth decades but suspend disbelief as they continue to kick in doors, crack heads, and score with the ladies.

My good pal Kinsey Millhone, on the other hand, gets to stay in her thirties.  But to keep Kinsey from aging in real time, author Sue Grafton created a time capsule, freezing the alphabet series forever in the 1980’s.  With no computers or cell phones, Kinsey’s world falls further into the distance from the present with each new book. 

But why must a writer have to choose between youth and the present?  Having celebrated its twentieth anniversary, The Simpsons is now the longest-running prime time show in TV history.  But Bart’s not a middle manager in an office park, Lisa’s not contemplating her biological clock, Homer and Marge are still ambiguously middle aged, and Maggie’s still working on her pacifier.  But the world around the family changes.  For example, in an early flashback, Homer was into Steve Miller’s The Joker.

 More recently, we learned that Homer spent college in a 1990’s Kurt Cobain-like state.

My Ellie Hatcher series is (hopefully) still in its inchoate stages at the third novel.*  Although I could always change my mind, my plan is to pull a Simpsons,** always setting the books in the present, but having only a short period of time supposedly pass between books.  The year will change.  So will the cultural references.  But the people in Ellie Hatcher’s world get to stay young.

If I’m lucky enough to enjoy a long-running series, I fully expect to receive emails complaining about “continuity problems,” but I plan to find a polite way to tell the haters to suck it.  If it’s intentional, it’s not a problem.  I pride myself on the authenticity of my work, but who says fictional characters have to age like the rest of us? 

I’d love to hear comments:  What have other series authors done to tackle the age issue?  And would you think less of a series if the protaganist got to experience a changing external world without having to age like the rest of us? 

*B-ish (because it’s a footnote) SP: 212, the third novel in the series, is out March 23.  Read awesome reviews here and here.  Watch my low-budget, home-made video trailer, set to one of the aforementioned pop idols, here.

** A lesson on knowing your audience: I unleashed my the-Simpsons-don’t-age observation at a book event, and it turned out that no one in the audience — I mean no one — had ever seen a single episode of the Simpsons.  They looked at me like a child who ate pudding for lunch.

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So who would play the villain?

By Allison Brennan

I never visualize real people when I create a character. They are as unique as anyone, and I don’t model them after specific people. But they do tend to certain “types” and I’ve had fun over the last few years picturing which actor or actress would play my heroes. For example, Nathan Fillion from FIREFLY (a more serious Nathan than Nathan Fillion from CASTLE) would make a good Quinn Peterson from THE HUNT. And Evangeline Lilly would make a good Miranda Moore from THE HUNT. Or David Boreanaz as Jack Kincaid. I would say Hugh Jackman would make a great Rafe Cooper from ORIGINAL SIN, but long-time JD Robb fans have Jackman pictured as Roarke, and I really can’t argue with that (though I picture Roarke taller and broader . . . )

 

 

And then there’s who would play Moira O’Donnell . . . that one I’m not so sure yet. She’s so real to me that no one seems to fit, and I think I need to watch some more of the teen movies to find the right actress.

But honestly? It’s the villains who intrigue me. I especially like actors who don’t traditional play a villainous role as villains because they tend to be more compelling, less stereotypical, and creepier. Anthony Hopkins was brilliant as Hannibal Lecter of course, and I also loved him as the killer in FRACTURE which was a sleeper that was still a good movie. Anthony Hopkins is so well-known as Hannibal that I’d much rather see him as a hero in the future. He’s already played the ultimate villain.

Actors who are truly talented should be able to play both a hero and a villain.

Johnny Depp in THE SECRET WINDOW from Stephen King’s short story. Glenn Close in FATAL ATTRACTION. 

I saw this photo of Colin Firth and instantly thought he’d make a great villain–disarming, attractive, but with the potential of being evil.

 

He could be the attractive, extremely intelligent sociopath Theodore Glenn from KILLING FEAR. Or maybe Matthew Walker from ORIGINAL SIN, someone who can look and seem very helpful and then turn on you on a dime.

Other talented actors I’d love to see as a really good villain . . . Russell Crowe. Brad Pitt. Johnny Depp. Robert Downey, Jr. Maybe John Cusack as the very tragic erotomaniac Aaron Doherty from TEMPTING EVIL. I doubt Meg Ryan would ever play a bad guy, but I’d love to see her play a sociopath. I think she could pull it off. Or someone like Emma Thompson.

What about you? Is there an actor or actress you’d like to see stretch to play a villain? A specific villain?

I’ll be responding late as I’m at Disneyland all day. But I’m interested in hearing all your ideas!

What’s the next book?

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I am (THANK YOU GOD, ANGELS, AND THE UNIVERSE) closing in on the end of my current book, my first paranormal, part of The Keepers trilogy coming out in the fall.  

This is the stage of a book in which I have no earthly interest in doing anything other than to just get the damn thing done.    Even though I am comfortably within my deadline, though not entirely of my own doing,  I am not doing much of anything these days but waking and working, pausing once during the day to go work out (because if I didn’t, I would kill people).   And falling into an exhausted sleep after, if not during.

Not that there isn’t a lot of procrastination going on within the day, but I really don’t WANT to do anything else – I don’t want to talk to anyone, I don’t want to watch movies or TV, I definitely don’t want to blog, I don’t want to go out to lunch or dinner or Superbowl parties (although I was thrilled  at the outcome).   The state of discomfort of being near the end of a book but not quite finished is so great to me that I would rather put everything else aside and push through to the end and pick up the pieces of whatever life I have left when it’s actually over and there is that feeling of relief so vast that you actually remember why you ever wanted to write in the first place.

But I find myself in an interesting dilemma, for maybe the first time in my professional writing life.

I don’t know what to write next.

That’s not entirely true – I am 3/4ths done with a YA I was writing at the same time that I was writing this paranormal, but I bailed on it around Christmas when I realized it was just too hard to be writing two books at the same stage of the writing process – that is, first draft, second half.   That’s the HARDEST stage of any book for me and I couldn’t handle doing two at that same stage.    So yes, I will go back and finish that book with some of this new “I finished the book!” energy.

Oh yeah, and also about the same time I was finishing my Screenwriting Tricks For Authors workbook.  (Um, the next time anyone hears me whining about not getting enough work done, can you just gently remind me…)

What I mean is, I don’t know what I’m writing after that YA, and that’s an issue, because as you know, or for those of you who don’t know, as I’m about to tell you, you always need to be at least a year ahead of publication, so I need to have another book in the pipeline for NEXT year.

Now the fact is, I have several complete proposals done.   Whole stories worked out.  Could bash out a screenplay on any number of them in six weeks, easily  – have done it a million times before.   (Well, dozens.)   Actually I have a whole first draft of a book done, too, but that I can’t go back to right now because it’s just too painful a reminder of a very painful year last year – I need more distance to finish that one sanely.

And I probably will write the books in those proposals one day.   Or I won’t.   I have so many books I am never going to be able to write.    But I know they’re not the right book right now.   At this stage of writing I can’t afford to be working on any book that isn’t the RIGHT book.

In the past I would have just jumped into one of those ideas, just decided and soldiered on.    I HATE the not knowing.    It is excruciating.   But we really have such limited time – as writers and on earth.   

And the truth is, I’ve had a cataclysmic year.  Profound changes.  I’m not the same person I was when I wrote those proposals.  I feel I need to start from where I am now – wherever that is, and I’m not even pretending that I know.

So as uncomfortable as I am about it, I am not jumping into the first thing that I think of, or the first thing that pleases me but that might not be a big enough book.    I am waiting. I am meditating.    I am reading randomly.   I am paying attention to dream images, songs, people, that catch my attention.    And I am taking my own writing advice.   I am making lists.

On my own blog, at the prompting of a reader, I have started a gargantuan series on “How to Write A Novel, From Start To Finish.”   (No, I never once said I wasn’t insane).

And I’m doing it for ME as much as anyone. 

I’ve already done four or five posts on just generating that perfect idea  – and I intend to do several more –  because this is a part of the writing process that people rarely spend enough time on, and is crucial if you want to develop a riveting book, even more crucial if you have any hope of being paid to write. You are going to spend two years of your life, minimum, on this book (and that’s truly a minimum). 

So that brings us to the eternal question:   

How DO you get your ideas?

When people ask this of authors, many of us tend to clam up or worse, get sarcastic – because the only real answer to that is, “Where DON’T I get ideas?” or even more to the point, “How do I turn these ideas OFF?”

The thing is, “Where do you get your ideas?” is not the real question these people are asking. The real question is “How do you go from an idea to a coherent story line that holds up – and holds a reader’s interest – for 400 pages of a book?”

Or more concisely: “How do you come up with your PREMISES?”

We all have story ideas all the time. Even non-writers, and non-aspiring writers – I truly mean, EVERYONE, has story ideas all the time. Those story ideas are called daydreams, or fantasies, or often “Porn starring me and Edward Cullen, or me and Stringer Bell,” (or maybe both. Wrap your mind around that one for a second…)

But you see what I mean.

We all create stories in our own heads all the time, minimal as some of our – uh – plot lines may be.

A better question is “What’s a GOOD story idea?”

I see two essential ingredients:

a) What idea gets you excited enough to spend a year (or most likely more) of your life completely immersed in it –

and

b) Gets other people excited enough about it to buy it and read it and even maybe possibly make it into a movie or TV series with an amusement park ride spinoff and a Guess clothing line based on the story?

a) is good if you just want to write for yourself.

But b) is essential if you want to be a professional writer.

As many of you know, I’m all about learning by making lists. Because let’s face it – we have to trick ourselves into writing, every single day, and what could be simpler and more non-threatening than making a list? Anything to avoid the actual rest of it!

So here are two lists I encourage my workshop students to do to get those ideas flowing, which I am now doing for myself.

List # 1: Make a list of all your story ideas.
 
This is a great exercise because it gets your subconscious churning and invites it to choose what it truly wants to be working on. Your subconscious knows WAY more than you do about writing. None of us can do the kind of deep work that writing is all on our own. And with a little help from the Universe you could find yourself writing the next Harry Potter or Twilight.   That’s my plan, anyway.  

Also this exercise gives you an overall idea of what your THEMES are as a writer (and very likely the themes you have as a person). I absolutely believe that writers only have about six or seven themes that they’re dealing with over and over and over again. It’s my experience that your writing improves exponentially when you become more aware of the themes that you’re working with.

You may be amazed, looking over this list that you’ve generated, how much overlap there is in theme (and in central characters, hero/ines and villains, and dynamics between characters, and tone of endings).

You may even find that two of your story ideas, or a premise line plus a character from a totally different premise line, might combine to form a bigger, more exciting idea.

But in any case, you should have a much better idea at the end of the exercise of what turns you on as a writer, and what would sustain you emotionally over the long process of writing a novel.

Then just let that percolate for a while. Give yourself a little time for the right idea to take hold of you.  We all know what that feels like – it’s a little like falling in love.

List # 2: The Master List

The other list I always encourage my workshop students to do is a list of your ten (at least) favorite movies and books in the genre that you’re writing, or if you don’t have a premise yet, ten movies and books that you WISH you had written.

It’s good to compare and contrast your idea list with this IDEAL list.

So that’s another thing I’ve been doing again for myself.   Here’s part of it, in no particular order.

Rosemary’s Baby
Silence of the Lambs
Alice in Wonderland
The Haunting of Hill House (book and film)
The Shining (book and film)
Room with a View (film)
Withnail and I
A Wrinkle in Time
The Witching Hour
Pet Sematery
Hamlet
Arcadia
Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead
The Fountainhead
Atlas Shrugged
Notorious
Vertigo
Suspicion
Rebecca (book and film)
Ten Little Indians/And Then There Were None
It (the book)
Bringing Up Baby
The Thin Man
The Little Foxes
The Children’s Hour
Pride and Prejudice
Bridget Jones’ Diary (book and film)
The Wire
Deadwood
Mad Men
I, Claudius
Fawlty Towers
Rome
Philadelphia Story
It’s A Wonderful Life
Groundhog Day
The Breakfast Club
Poltergeist
The Stand (book)
Carrie (book and film)

I included my favorite TV, and I could go into musicals, too, but I’ll spare you. Well, except I have to mention Sweeny Todd. And Phantom of the Opera. And Chicago. And…

And on the myth and fairy tale front:

Ariadne (Theseus and the Minotaur)
East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Eros and Psyche
Beauty and the Beast (all three of those last are the same story, essentially).
The Handless Maiden
The Yellow Dwarf
1001 Nights
Sleeping Beauty

Now, that’s a BIG list, of all-time favorites that I see/read over and over and over again, and it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.  And on the surface, it seems to have a lot of disparate genres there. But there are underlying commonalities that are very specific to my own taste (and I’m the only one who can truly say what those are, just as you are the only one who can say what your emotional preferences are).

What do I see about that list?

Dark dark dark dark dark…. Except for the romantic comedies and swoony Room With A View.

Lots of horror, but more psychological than gory. Lots of psychological thrillers. Some adventure fantasy and fantasy fantasy. The Stoppard is about trippy extra-dimensional occurrences, plus he’s a genius. Actually that goes for Shakespeare, too, extra-dimensionally. Lots of psychology – the Lillian Hellman plays are dramas, but very dark ones that explore ordinary and completely chilling human evil. I especially like human evil so big it seems almost supernatural (as in Silence of the Lambs and Rebecca). Withnail and I is a flat-out drug movie, and has the British comedy of chaos I so love in Fawlty Towers. Lots of sex, or at least, the sex is part of what I love about a lot of those choices. (The Wire and Deadwood, for example…). Lots of Cary Grant. Oh, right, that would be sex.

What are some of the themes and subthemes of these stories? (For me, personally, I mean, and not trying to be too analytical about it – just spewing:)

Good vs. evil (and good usually triumphing, ambiguously). Inability to distinguish the supernatural from reality. Inter-dimensionality. Erotic tension. Loss of control (and that absolutely includes the comedies on there – Fawlty Towers, Bringing Up Baby, Withnail and I, are complete rollercoaster rides of hysteria.) What is reality? Man Must Not Meddle. The deal wit
h the devil. What it means to be a hero or heroine. Unlikely heroes and heroines. Coming to terms (or not) with one’s extraordinary gifts. Disparate people uniting to accomplish something as a team. A man and a woman who don’t trust each other having to work together, discovering they are divinely matched.

And even more importantly, what FEELING am I looking for when I read and watch these stories? What EXPERIENCE am I looking for? Again, this may be the most important indicator of what genre you’re writing in.

I like a lot of sensation in my stories. That is, I want a story to make me experience a lot of sensation. And not easy, light, fun sensations either, for the most part. Fear, thrills, doubt, sex, urgency, loss of control, violent surprise. I love the overwhelming feeling of having something huge, possibly supernatural, going on around me (in the form of the characters I’m projecting myself onto). Something evil, even, but so powerful and mesmerizing I have to explore it, understand it. And that can be a situation, as in Rosemary’s Baby or The Shining, or a person, as in The Children’s Hour. I want a sense of cosmic wonder. I want a sense that good does conquer evil, that good people can make a difference, but without sugar coating. I like a lot of game playing, matching wits (Philadelphia Story, Thin Man, Silence of the Lambs).

So, what I write is psychological horror, or supernatural thriller, or supernatural mystery, or psychological thrillers with an extra-dimensional twist. And while that sometimes makes my books frustratingly hard to categorize (in libraries, for example…) it also has branded me in a way that has been useful to me as an author, and that I’m pretty obligated to stick with now.    Let’s face it – I’m not going to suddenly resurrect the chick lit genre.   And in a happy non-coincidence, what I’m looking for in a book is what my readers read my books for, or so they tell me.  

So this week as I make my lists (and finish that damn book), I am concentrating on the FEELING of my next book, and letting the details come as they will.

I hope.

Authors, my question for the day is – What are you trying to make your reader or audience FEEL? Horror? Thrills? The glow of romance? The adrenaline and exhilaration of adventure?

And readers, what are you hoping a book will make you feel?

– Alex

————————————————————————-

PS.  The Price was released in the UK this week, from Little, Brown:

 

Buy it here…

 

 



THE GOOD STUFF

By Stephen Jay Schwartz

“Would you rather vomit out your eyeballs or your nose and ears?”

My nine-year old boy has taken to asking such questions lately.  It reminds me of that scene in the movie “Parenthood” when the kids are in the back seat of the car singing disgusting lyrics to favorite camp songs, and Steve Martin says, “This is what we get for sending them to that expensive summer camp?”

My wife and I both chose to vomit the nose and ears and keep the eyes.  I realize that I’d rather vomit the whole shebang than lose the hair.

It’s been heavenly coming home from work every night to spend time with my family.  For years now I’ve been doing the day job then going to the café to spend another five or six hours writing.  And my weekends have been ten to twelve hour writing days.  But the second book in my two-book deal is done and when I come home now I see my wife and my kids and there’s simply nothing else I want to do but hang with them.

I’ve been playing chess with my nine-year old and he kicks my ass every time.  I finally got one win from him a couple weeks ago and I’m holding onto that feeling with everything I’ve got.  I don’t expect to be able to beat him again.  It was a fluke, it took all my mental energy and I didn’t have a clear thought for days after.  The kids have also got me onto their internet game-making site called Playcrafter.  They design and publish these cool little video games, and now I’m part of their world. 

And I’m just listening.  Hearing what they have to say, on a whole host of subjects.  My eleven-year old reads Scientific American and Discover and Night Sky and he tells me about the shrinking stars and inflationary expansion of the universe and the evolution of species and String Theory and I don’t understand half of it.  They tell me about the world of their Imagination, which is an actual creation, a story they’ve been building between themselves for years.  They add characters and adventures and they’ve put together this long family tree that covers a half-dozen generations.  They spend some time every day on this, and it’s like watching “story improv” to see them going at it.  I told them someday we’ll put all of that into a cool, YA book, written by them, with the help of their parents. 

And they both take violin lessons and, home from work yesterday, I watched them, with their long hair pulled back to keep from getting caught in the bows, and I felt warm and wonderful inside, with the rain pounding on the roof and the labradoodle like a lump of black sugar at their feet.

This time is fleeting.  I have to begin work on a proposal for my third book, which will be a standalone.  And I have to sweep up the mess of my life, what fell between the cracks while I wrote the first two.  There’s a foreclosure in the works, and maybe a bankruptcy, and the likely, looming loss of my day job, and more and more and more.  What I’d really love to do is make a clean break and go straight to writing full-time, which is what most of us would like to do, I’m sure.  Maybe a writer-in-residency program at some artist colony, a place to keep myself and the family for six months or more.  If anyone has any ideas…I’m all ears.

I’ll take my time on the book proposal.  I don’t want it to get in the way of daddy time.  I know that, soon enough, I’ll be back in the trenches, with deadlines and page-count expectations hanging over me.  My boys will see me with my head buried in the laptop and they’ll wonder what happened to the guy who used to end up at the bottom of every dog pile. 

Tonight, instead of burying myself in research, I’ll curl up on the couch under a blanket with the wife and kids and watch “The Witches of Waverly Place,” or my favorite, “Phineas and Ferb.”   Their world is simply much more fun than anything else I can think to do.  Sure, there’s a lot of crying and stomping of feet.  But, once I’m done, the kids always find a way to make me laugh.  We’re in that perfect, magical time, the time when kids actually want their parents around.  And their perspective is always refreshing.  We’ve had a huge “Happy Birthday!” banner on the wall for two years now, because the kids didn’t want to take it down.  Because, as I’m told, “it’s always someone’s birthday, somewhere.” 

They keep the Peter Pan in me alive.  I don’t ever want to take them for granted.  After all, this is the good stuff.

 

FLOUNDERING IN THE DIGITAL MORASS

By Brett Battles

 

When I started to write this blog entry, I began a piece on what I consider to be the new newspaper. Interesting? Perhaps. But I found the voice in my head going “blah, blah, blah” after a while. So maybe I’ll save that for another time. That’ll be up to you (read to the end).

Can I be honest here? I’ll pretend I’m hearing a resounding SURE.

Thanks. Okay, here goes. Sometimes trying to write a blog post sucks. All of you who blog know what I mean. Am I even saying anything anyone cares about? Is this interesting? Am I making sense?

A few years ago, I used to post multiple times a week on my own blog. Some of you reading this do that now. Again with the honesty…there’s no way in hell I could do that today. I would go CRAZY. Give me a book to write any day. But two, three or, my God, four or more posts a week? Stripping me bare and dropping me in the middle of Time Square in January would be less painful! (More humiliating, perhaps, but it’s a trade off I might be willing to make.)

The problem is I only blog every other week now and I STILL run out of ideas! Okay, that’s not completely accurate. It’s more of a I-don’t-know-what-to-write-that-people-will-find-interesting kind of thing.

There are some weeks when my Thursday is getting closer and closer, and I am starting to sweat. “Pull your head out of your ass and think of something,” I tell myself. I always do, but sometimes the gap between that doing and there being a gaping blank hole on Murderati where my post should be is a razor thin line. (And just so you don’t think I’m a complete flake, there are times when I get a post written and up ready to go a week or even more ahead of time. This week was not one of those weeks.)

But those doubts about whether I’m writing posts that people are interested in remains. That’s fueled a lot by the fact that I’m pretty sure I’m Murderati’s least commented on poster. (This is not a pity plea, just stating potential facts here…if there is anything like a “potential fact.” I guess I should go back and do a scientific survey, but…yeah…I’m not going to do that.) (I should also note that about a year ago I sent our wonderful JT an email saying I was obviously not writing the kind of things people wanted to read, and was considering leaving the blog. Among other things, she pointed out that it would be helpful if I actually commented on the other Murderati folks posts, to remind our readers I was out here, and to engage more in the general conversation. OUCH! But damn if she wasn’t right. Though I did comment on occasion, it was rare. Duly chastened, I forged on. My commenting has still be somewhat sporadic, but I’m trying. But I know me, and on the perfect/not-so-perfect scale in this area the needle of my meter will always to tend to trend to the not-so-perfect side. Sincere apologies to all my fellow Murderati contributors…I’m not giving up, though.)

ANYWAY, back to the non-parenthesis’d portion of today’s entertainment. And that would be the fact that I’m looking for your help. What I really want to do is write about things you’d be interested in reading. So far, I don’t know if I’ve hit that mark. Perhaps, but perhaps not. (Maybe what I need to do is to go off on a rant like Rob did a few weeks ago. That was HILARIOUS. But, see, I’m generally not a ranter. I’m the appeaser, the peace-maker, the Vaseline on dry skin…wait, strike that last one.) Oops…more parenthesises, sorry about that.

So back to what I was trying to say… Today, I want you to be “where I get my ideas from.” (At least, blog-wise. Story ideas, I’m good.) Parenthesises, Brett! Parenthesises! I can’t promise to address every topic suggested, but those I either have knowledge of or an option about, I will.

So tell me Murderati faithful, what do you want to read about here?

In anticipation of your suggestions, I’ve lined up a little something interesting.

It’s an idea, that, whether you think it’s good or not, you have to admit is pretty ingenious.

Via Boingboing.net I bring you part of a patent request for the latest idea in coffin technology:

(click here to see the boingboing article, and click here to see the whole patent)

 

 

We Suck

As I’m sure you’re aware, the underdog New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl the other day. They’re probably still partying in NOLA. It was a great game, and a joy to watch, and I’m really happy for those guys, and their city.

I need to hang on to all that happiness and joy right now, because tonight at 9:00 ET, my beloved UNC Tar Heels take to the basketball court against the  hated Duke Blue Devils.

Normally, I’d be getting really psyched for this game. We usually play the spoiled crybaby  prima donnas from Duke and their rat-faced little coach at least two, sometimes three or even four times a season (depending on the tournament brackets), and each game, by virtue of the intense rivalry between the teams, becomes the Biggest Game of the Season.

It’s difficult to explain to outsiders just how intense this rivalry is. It can best be summed up by the title of a book (yes, an entire book)  by Will Blythe about it: “To Hate Like This Is To Be Happy Forever.”

But I’m not foreseeing much happiness tonight. See, the problem is, the Tar Heels SUCK this year. I mean we really, REALLY suck. We’ve lost six of our last seven games. We lost to COLLEGE OF FUCKING CHARLESTON. It wouldn’t be so bad if we hadn’t, you know, WON THE NCAA TOURNAMENT LAST YEAR. I know it’s a rebuilding season, but JESUS, I cannot BELIEVE THESE GUYS…

Oh. Sorry. Was I shouting? I get a little carried away. Our old dog used to get up and leave the room every time he heard the sound of  shoes squeaking on a basketball court on the TV, because he knew that yelling was soon to follow.  It’s kind of a  family tradition.

So, anyway, it’s probable that we’re not going to do all that well against those smug, insufferable pantywaists and their coach with the ridiculous and unpronounceable name. And it’s kinda got me down.

It’s not just me.  UNC Coach Roy Williams, as you might imagine,  is really in the dumps about how poorly our team is doing. In a recent interview, Roy (we call him Roy, ’cause we’re all like family) said : “The way I’m feeling now,  I’m wondering if I’m worth anything, wondering what I’m doing.”

I read that, and I thought, “hey, that sounds familiar.” And I bet it does to you, too, if you’re a writer. You know the feeling I mean. The one you get after getting a rejection that  things suck, they’re never going to get better, that let’s face it, YOU suck, and why do you even try?  It’s even more discouraging if, like a lot of writers, you had some success in the past few years, only to get caught in the recent publishing bloodbaths. Clearly, any success you had was a fluke, an aberration, a mistake. Just admit it and move on, right? There are wonderful opportunities waiting in the ever-growing food-service industry.

But, you know, the team’s had bad times before, most recently in what we call The Dark Years (2000-2003), when Matt Doherty, who was clearly not ready for the stress,  took over.  Doherty managed to not only lead the Heels to their first losing record since 1962 (8 and 20), but also managed to drive away both key players and long time Athletic Department staff by, basically, being a world class jerk.

But we bounced back from that, with a vengeance. Did I mention last year’s NCAA Championship? And that makes it easier to believe we can do it again.

In the mystery world, look to the  example of Charlaine Harris. Her first novel, REAL MURDERS, got nominated for an Agatha. But subsequent books and series did not, as her website delicately puts it, “set the world on fire.” Until she wrote DEAD UNTIL DARK, the first Sookie Stackhouse book. It won the Anthony, and more importantly for Charlaine’s career,  hit the NYT bestseller list, as have the sequels. The Sookie books became a series on HBO, and I hope they’re making Miz  Harris dirty rotten filthy stinking rich, ’cause she’s a nice lady.

So, despite the bleak season,  the Heels lace up their shoes and get out on the court, and we go back to the keyboard. In the meantime, Roy has some more words of wisdom:

“I don’t think there’s any question you need to enjoy the ride and enjoy the journey…If you don’t enjoy the good times, the bad times can just kill you.” Williams said.

Amen, Brother Roy.

And,  in writing as well as in sports,  I always try to remember this classic conversation between two fans of the British football club Arsenal in the original UK version of the movie FEVER PITCH:

Fan 1: What about last season?
Fan 2: What about it?
Fan 1: They were rubbish. They were fucking rubbish.
Fan 2: They weren’t that bad.
Fan 1: They were fucking rubbish last year. And they were fucking rubbish the year before. And I don’t care if they are top of the League, they’ll be fucking rubbish this year, too. And next year. And the year after that. I’m not joking.
Fan 2: I don’t know why you come, Frank. Honest I don’t.
Fan 1: Well, you live in hope, don’t you?

Yeah, Frank, we do. Who knows…it’s the Atlantic Coast Conference. Anything can happen!

 

GO HEELS!


BEAT DOOK!