Unfortunately, I haven’t been allowed to be lazy lately. In fact, I’ve been very, very, very, very busy. (And I don’t think there were enough “verys” there.)
And by busy, I mean I’ve been busy writing. I’m working on a terrific project and am really putting the nose to the grindstone because a) my deadline is not that far off; and b) I want this to be the best thing I’ve ever written. So far I think it is.
So you’ll have to forgive me. I’ve kicked around the idea of quitting the blog business altogether, but since the day job will be gone soon, I’ll have more time to devote to blogging. Not that this will necessarily make a difference in the quality of my posts — there are only a few blog ideas and it seems that every blog in the universe has recycled most of them again and again — but at least I’ll have time to actually POST.
Which, again unfortunately, I don’t have time to do today.
So what does this mean to you, the Murderati diehard reader?
How the hell would I know? I’m not you. (Did I mention I’m tired and cranky, too?)
But instead of completely abandoning you, I thought I’d leave you with a couple of videos I did for Murderati back when I was still semi-sane. Or, at least, pretended to be.
I’ll have a question or two after the jump.
RERUN #1
So, question: What song do you sing badly and where do you sing it?
RERUN #2
Old chestnut question: What’s your favorite book opening?
Okay. Sorry. That’s it for me. But the author of the answer I like best will win a book of mine of your choice: Hardcover Kiss Her Goodbye (upcoming news on that front) or paperback Whisper in the Dark or Kill Her Again, or… a pre-publication copy of my newest thriller (coming in June), Down Among the Dead Men.
If you want the whole world to like you, becoming a writer is not the way to do it.
I was reminded of that a few weeks ago when I received a number of emails from readers who had just read THE KEEPSAKE, and they had a bone to pick with me. They were all miffed because of a scene where my heroine must fight off a ferocious pit bull, which is defending the bad guy’s lair. How dare you malign pit bulls, the readers said. You’ve slandered an entire breed of dog! Pit bulls are as gentle as any other breed, and you are perpetuating a harmful myth. Because of this, you have lost our respect, etc., etc., etc. These complaints all came in within days of each other, so I think I must be on the fecal roster of a pit bull club, whose members decided to simultaneously flagellate the author for her crimes.
Now, it’s true that they do have a point. Pit bulls are no more likely to attack a human than is any other breed. And the pit bulls I know personally are all disarmingly sweet and utterly harmless. So why did I choose to identify the vicious dog as a pit bull when, statistically speaking, you’re far more likely to be bitten by a chihuahua?
Because, quite frankly, “vicious guard chihuahua” just doesn’t do it for me.
I wrote back to these readers and apologized for maligning their beloved breed, and promised to do better by pit bulls next time. But honestly. If I write about vicious German Shepherds or poodles or schnauzers in my next book, I’m bound to get complaints about that as well. I guess I could just describe the dog as “enormous, with razor-sharp teeth” and avoid singling out any breed. But then some dog lover, somewhere, would be offended that I made the vicious animal a dog to begin with. “Why couldn’t you have made it a chained leopard or something?” they’ll suggest.
The point is, with every book you write, you are bound to offend someone, somewhere. And chances are, they will write you about it. Like the hospital laboratory tech who read THE SURGEON, and was spitting mad at me because my villain was — you guessed it — a hospital lab tech. “Do you really think I sit in my laboratory, dreaming up ways to torture women?” he asked. “You’ve maligned lab techs everywhere!”
As a novelist, you are forced to make choices in every scene you write, and those choices mean you will occasionally cast some profession, some hobby, some product, even some dog breed, in a bad light. And readers will assume that you are revealing your own personal bias.
Men have written accusing me of being a man-hater, because my villains are so often men. Nurses have written accusing me of disrespect for their profession because one of my fictional doctors was brusque with a fictional nurse. Hunters are angry at me for writing about a clueless hunter who shoots himself in the foot. (As we all know, hunters never shoot themselves, doctors are never brusque with nurses, and serial killers are never men.)
What’s a writer to do?
Consider disabling the email feature on your website. (I’m thinking about it.) Or learn to ignore the upsetting ones. If a reader has a politely worded criticism, that’s one thing. But when you open an email and see it turning angry, just hit delete. Don’t let it ruin your day. Such people don’t deserve a response. They’re probably not even expecting a response. They just want to scream at you, and as we’ve all learned from watching those angry town hall meetings, it’s the red-faced screamers who come off looking bad. There are a lot of angry people out there, and their hair triggers are set to go off at the slightest provocation. That provocation may be as minor as you writing about a forgetful octogenarian (you’re showing your ageism!) or an overweight girl (what do you have against hefty folk?) If we live in fear of all the people who might get angry at us because of something we’ve written, we won’t dare to write another word.
Okay, you know the rules. Add a sentence or even a paragraph to the story and let’s see where it goes. Last time, a couple of entries were out of order. I’ll try to patch in every once in a while to move things along if necessary.
I hope this works . . . Pari
Lorena Jackson stood just below the stage with her back to the angry parents assembled in the school’s cafeteria. She used a felt tip pen on the overhead transparency to explain why Walt Whitman Elementary School had failed to meet the state’s Adequate Yearly Progress requirements for the fourth year in a row.
“We’ve appealed the decision on several of the standards,” she said, regretting her misguided decision to be the school’s principal, to try to lift it up from its horrid reputation and ghastly neighborhood. “Given our demographics, it’s not fair to expect progress every year.”
“How about one in four?” shouted someone in the middle of the crowd. Other parents mumbled. Just because most of them worked two jobs didn’t mean they wanted to blow off their kids’ education. How dare this woman act so high and mighty?
“Now, now. Let’s have a little decorum here,” said the principal. “You wouldn’t use that behavior in front of your children.” These people were barbarians. Half of them never showed up for their parent/teacher conferences . . . let alone when there was a school performance or team-spirit event.
“Hey, Lady! Stop treating us like idiots!” yelled someone else. Didn’t the principal know how much it took for them to get to this damn meeting in the first place? The lost time at work?
“Stop acting like one,” said Alesha Freeman softly enough so that only her friend Rosa could hear.
They’d been sitting there in that hot building just like everyone else. But unlike some, they actually thought Jackson had been doing a pretty good job. She’d gotten rid of deadwood, cleaned up the drug problem– little kindergartner thugs– and had even gotten computers in some of the classrooms. Why were people trying to lynch her now?
Rosa frowned. This wasn’t how the evening was supposed to go. Jackson was supposed to give her presentation and get parents in the mood to visit their children’s classrooms to meet the teachers. It was supposed to be a real feel-good event, not a feel-like-hell one.
“Come on,” said Alesha. “Let’s get out of here before someone decides to shoot her.”
“Yeah.” Her friend nodded. “I want to meet Alejandro’s teacher. He’s real happy in her class.”
The two women edged through the pressing bodies of standing parents to the double doors. Outside, the air was crisp with the first real night of Autumn. Someone a couple of blocks away was cooking barbecue. Alesha and Rosa walked to one of the rows of portables, searching for their children’s classrooms.
Rosa found hers first. “Hey, let’s meet near the office and walk home together.”
Alesha smiled. “See you then.”
Two hours later, Rosa waited for her friend. She hugged herself, regretting she’d left her sweater on the kitchen chair when she’d rushed out of the house to get to the school in time. Rosa opened her cell phone to check the time. Alesha should’ve been there by now.
Keeping with the theme from my last post here, I’ve been looking at various other disciplines, at their fundamental truths, and using that perspective to think about writing. This practice is a bit like seeing the furniture moved around in your favorite room—you start to notice the walls again, and the windows and the scenery, where it had become too predictable before to prick your awareness.
So, here are a few fundamental truths about writing and creativity that I’ve observed:
#1
A strong writer isn’t afraid to toss out a good idea.
I like Alex’s approach to collecting ideas that she blogged on yesterday, and it’s a tremendously useful exercise. One of the things I’ve found in the classes I’ve taught is that a lot of writers (whether new or experienced) are afraid to let go of a really good idea.
They’ve got the experience to grasp that it is a really good idea, one that has weight and length and depth and texture and lights and darks and those are hard to come by. But just like every cute thing is not something you can hold onto, not every idea is one you should write. Not every idea is right for you, no matter how good it is. And hanging onto that really good idea that you can’t make work means that you’re not able to have the freedom to explore other ideas and see if, maybe, instead of just really good, they could be great.
A lot of times, people think that they’re holding onto that really good idea because it’s not professional to quit on something, or that it’s indicative that they won’t finish what they’ve started, so they are determined to soldier through. And while this can be true, if it’s a perpetual thing, I’d believe that if you already know you’re tenacious and not prone to quitting, then the real reason behind hanging onto a really good idea that just isn’t working for you is fear: fear that you’re not going to have another really good idea. Or worse, that you’ll never have another idea at all.
This is the same trait that induces people to latch onto an offer or a sale or a relationship because they feel like it’s the best they’re going to get, that another one isn’t going to come along. It’s human nature to wonder about that, but it’s generally wrong. If you latch onto something because you’re in love with it? Wonderful. If you think that’s the best you can do and you’re settling? Even a little? Set it aside, and give yourself the chance to find out what else you can do.
All of which boils down to trust. Trust your instincts. Trust your gut. If you can’t let go of the really good idea because you love it beyond measure, but it’s just not working, then set it aside and trust that you’ll come back to it when you have the chops to do so. If you never ever have another idea, it’ll still be there, won’t it? But give yourself the chance to explore, to see what else is out there in the universe.
#2
To enrich the full experience, you sometimes have to hold back a part of it for delayed gratification.
In architecture and in landscaping, this is called “denial and reward.” If you walk up to a house that is clearly magnificent, but easily visible from every angle on the grounds, there may be a sense of awe, but that experience is flat and over once the totality is already perceived.
However, create a winding path to the building where the view is obscured, but hinted at through partial views, or framed by unique architectural features such as an arch of a tree or a grove of oaks or suddenly rising out of a path of stunning gardens, and the anticipation of the total experience increases—the appetite is whetted—so that when the building is finally viewed, there is a greater satisfaction.
Life is replete with examples. The person who walks up and starts yammering about their entire life history the first time you meet them is going to be off-putting.
They may have had an interesting life, but it’s too much, too soon, to fully appreciate it. However, give us a little to whet our appetite and then let us discover more on our own, and that same person, same life history, could be fascinating.
Or, put in another example, we allow kids to dress up and trick or treat for candy rather than just go buy them a couple of sacks of their favorite junk, because it’s the work they have to do for it that gives them pleasure. They have to be creative, they have to cover a lot of ground, they have to see themselves as a different creature—all to get the thing that is rather common, but it’s the experience that they’ll remember.
So it’s true with stories. Resist the urge to give every piece of back story up front, every detail of history, the total of who the people are. Let us wind down some paths toward the totality by creating denial and rewards—give us greater and greater glimpses along the way, expose angles of the characters in new light and new detail as we go. We will love you for it.
#3
Use juxtaposition to frame the quality you care about.
I want you to watch this video of an artist drawing the subject of a woman, and I want you to especially note a couple of things:
1) the artist uses decisive dark lines for some features and builds the shadows stage by stage until they are not just dark, but they are layers of charcoal from grey to black which give the subject contour and depth
2) those dark decisive marks are juxtaposed against the white of the rest of the image which
3) gives us a really strong image of a very soft, curvy, vulnerable face.
Had the artist used soft shades, backed off of those shadows, the overall effect wouldn’t have been a softer woman, but a poorer image. It’s the juxtaposition of lights to dark, hard strokes to soft that frames and evokes the quality that the artist wanted to achieve.
Juxtaposition is one of the best tools we have as a writer. If we never see the darks of the character, we can’t appreciate the lights, whether they’re the protagonist or the antagonist.
#4
A straight path is a boring path.
Have you ever driven through Texas? Or Oklahoma? I have. That big, wide-open plain is shocking for someone like me who is constantly surrounded by immediate horizon here, with trees on every perspective, so the first few moments of traveling through that big big sky feels utterly freeing.
And then, not terribly long afterward, all that freedom and that straight line of road from here to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over there, with no bends or turns or scenery in the middle gets extremely boring. (No offense to those who live in the great big plains, but wow, how you do not fall asleep driving is a flat miracle.)
Now, on the other hand, hairpin turns that are organic to the story–meaning, it’s a mountain, of course there will be hairpin turns (organic) but how they’ll happen and when and how the characters will navigate them will keep us interested.
If, in your stories, the story arc is carried straight through – problem……solution – then the story will be flat and boring. Each problem should have what the characters believe is a straightforward solution—but that very solution should create a new problem that whiplashes them into a different direction. They need to be challenged in new and greater ways with each failure as they keep trying to solve the problems in order to accomplish the one overall task set up at the beginning of the story. Keep the curves in the road and you’ll keep us interested.
#5
“If you can’t explain your ideas to your grandmother in terms that she understands, you don’t know your subject well enough.” – Matthew Frederick in 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
I think that’s pretty self-explanatory.
#6
Be persuasive.
You have opinions, you believe in something. You do, whether you’re bashful about it or not, you have some perspective on the world that is uniquely you. If you’re a writer or endeavoring in any other creative art, you do so because you think you have something to say.
So say it.
Have faith in it.
No execution of any art is perfect. But persuasiveness in art, absolute conviction in a viewpoint often makes us forget the imperfections, particularly if we get to see that conviction through unique characters and conflict.
#7
You cannot know everything in the beginning in order to prevent yourself from failing, so you might as well move forward and try for success anyway. To stand still and do nothing is to fail already.
When you were two and toddling around…
(my granddaughter, Angela Grace)
… you didn’t know what the joy of being able to run and leap was going to feel like, and you didn’t know that what you were doing was taking baby steps, though you might have perceived some difference in what you were doing vs. what your siblings or parents could do. Still, you put one foot in front of the other and when you mastered walking, you moved on to running.
When you were four and riding your tricycle, you did not yet know what driving or flying would be like, though you saw cars and planes. You may have even been inside those vehicles, but until you were responsible for navigating the actual car or plane or truck or train, you could not know all of the obstacles you’d have to avoid, preparations you’d have to make, maintenance you’d have to see to, obligations you’d have to field, or the freedom of the open road. Yet, you peddled that tricycle for all it was worth, racing around the yard.
Writing is the same. Start somewhere. You’ll eventually grow and improve and then you’ll see the next level to learn. But you’ll never see that next level if you don’t master the one you’re on now.
#8
It’s not always about you.
It takes a tremendous amount of ego (and hope) to believe that if we create something, someone somewhere else is going to want to see it or hear it or read it. It takes even more ego to think those people might want to pay for the privilege to do so. This is normal. It takes a big ego to sustain any sense of self while going through the learning curve and getting negative feedback. It’s that sort of ego that is a distinctive divide between those who will send out their work for potential evisceration and those who will keep it safe from persecution—which, of course, prevents it from being seen/purchased.
However, once a work has left the artist, it is no longer about him or her, any more than a child is “about” his or her mother. That work has to go out into the world and interact with the world on the world’s terms, not the artist’s.
Everyone who views/sees/hears art does so with their entire life informing them as to how to respond.
All of their experiences, their hopes, dreams, failures, frustrations, lies, truths, expectations, cynicism, education (etc.) comes to bear in that first moment when they interact with the art.
Their mood of the moment, their stress, their time limits all have influence in their perception.
The artist cannot control those things. Because of that, art… arts… in that moment when the participant and art intersect. It is not about the artist in that moment, but is, rather, about the experience of the person interacting with the art. You can’t make everyone appreciate the same thing or appreciate it in the exact same way—they’ve come to that thing with too many differences. So, keeping that in mind, it is no wonder that the very thing some people love, other people hate. There is no universal when it comes to art, because there is no one single experience we all share, save for being human, and even that is somewhat questionable.
So when a work is out in the world, expect it to be hated, hope that it will be loved, and move on to the next piece. The world’s reactions to the art no more validates you as a person than it does eviscerate you. It just is. Let it go.
#9
“No” is not the end; it is simply an invitation to pursue new ideas, new angles, new opportunities to re-think, reconfigure, and persuade.
#10
Work the problem.
You do not build a city in a day. You build it brick by brick, yard by yard, building by building, road by road.
You won’t solve the problem by simply naming it and then whining about it. You solve it by breaking it down into solvable parts, working those solutions, and using those solutions to help you break down the bigger problems. You solve the problem by asking for others’ perspectives, by researching, working, listening and learning. You solve the problem by going to see what had been done before you historically and how someone else solved something similar.
If all of that fails, then you challenge how you’ve defined the problem, because often our failure in problem resolution is that we don’t fully grasp the organic cause of the problem to begin with. If linear cause and effect aren’t cutting it, think in 3-D.
Think associationally. [My Word doc is informing me that I totally pulled that word out of the ether.] Think in context. Think in layers. Turn the problem around and upside down.
One of the things that bugs me about watching a lot of sci-fi shows with ships in space is that they often treat space with an up/down forward/back context, as if the ships are cars on a highway. But as Orson Scott Card’s fabulous Ender’s Game so beautifully illustrated, there is no up and down in space.
The solution to problems can sometimes require us to break out of our own mold of thinking—how we think can be as much a part of the problem as the problem itself. So challenge the way you’ve defined the problem, challenge your assumptions. You may surprise yourself in that you are suddenly seeing the problem from a different angle and there, lo and behold, is the solution.
So that’s my ten. How about you? Any premise that you learned in one field that you can now apply to writing or any creative endeavor?
I am at Bouchercon, with Brett, JT, Steve, Kaye Barley, and other Murderati regulars. SO many questions from so many apsiring authors. But they’ve already made a gigantic leap in their careers by committing to B’Con.
This is something I’ve been talking about and thinking about, here:
When people ask authors, “Where do you get your ideas?”, authors 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?”
Look, 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 plot lines may be.
So I bet you have dozens of ideas, hundreds. A better question is “What’s a goodstory 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 actual writing!
So here are two lists to do to get those ideas flowing, and then we can start to narrow it all down to the best one.
List # 1: Make a list of all your story ideas
Yes, you read that right. ALL of them.
This is a great exercise because it gets your subconscious churning and forces it to choose what it truly wants to be working on, and with a little help from the Universe you could find yourself writing the next Harry Potter or Twilight. And it 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. You’ll 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 students to do is a list of your ten 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. This list of ten (or more, if you want – ten is just a minimum!) – is going to be enormously helpful to you in structuring and outlining your own novel. Now, all of your novelists may be wondering why I’m asking you to list movies as well as books. Good question.
The thing is, for the purposes of structural analysis, film is such a compressed and concise medium that it’s like seeing an X ray of a story. In film you have two hours, really a little less, to tell the story. It’s a very stripped-down form that even so, often has enormous emotional power. Plus we’ve usually seen more of these movies than we’ve read specific books, so they’re a more universal form of reference for discussion.
It’s often easier to see the mechanics of structure in a film than in a novel, which makes looking at films that are similar to your own novel story a great way to jump start your novel outline. And just practically, film has had an enormous influence on contemporary novels, and on publishing. Editors love books with the high concept premises, pacing, and visual and emotional impact of movies, so being aware of classic and blockbuster films and the film techniques that got them that status can help you write novels that will actually sell in today’s market.
And even beyond that – studying movies is fun, and fun is something writers just don’t let themselves have enough of. If you train yourself to view movies looking for for some of these structural elements I’m going to be talking about, then every time you go to the movies or watch something on television, you’re actually honing your craft (even on a date or while spending quality time with your loved ones!), and after a while you won’t even notice you’re doing it.
When the work is play, you’ve got the best of all possible worlds.
So go make your lists, and if you feel inspired, let’s talk about some of your results!
After four years of blogging, I’ve simply run out of things to say.
But that’s not a choice I can make. Even when there’s nothing floating around in my brain, no pithy comments, no stellar advice, no embarrassing moments to share, I have to write my blog. It’s a commitment I’ve made to you, the reader, to my blog mates, and ultimately, to myself.
So.
I will force the words onto the page, and hope for the best.
Thankfully, I’m not having this problem with the books. Books are fine. Books are groovy. The ideas are flowing non-stop, and so are the words. I’m at that awkward time of year that I’m writing a new book and editing a forthcoming title, which is always hard. It happens every time I’m just getting my legs under me with a story, boom – I have to all stop and go focus on the one prior. This is good and bad.
For starters, I am writing a series, which means the characters, their foibles and triumphs, all build from book to book. It makes life easy because the world is already built, the characters, for the most part, are the same, and I can simply insert them into a new case. But now that I’m six books in, changes are happening. Characters lives are altered.
One of the tricks I was using is coming back to bite me in the ass – setting each book seasonally instead of annually. As a matter of fact, book five begins within a couple of weeks of book four, and book six starts literally a few days after the end of book five. The fifth book takes place over three days. So that’s a lot of Taylor’s world sandwiched into a very short period of time. How much can a character change in three days?
Well, the obvious answer is as much as I want her to. But I’ve always tried to avoid major changes in her life – she is who she is, and if I’m writing her correctly, her reactions are going to be consistent regardless of circumstance. Consistent, in my mind, is good. But is consistent good for the character, the series, the stories?
I guess I don’t have anything to blog about because I am so involved in the decision making process of these two books that it’s taking all of my mental energy.
And of course, now that I’m forcing myself to type, it seems I have a topic after all.
Remember the old tongue twister: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
That’s kind of where I am with my girl. How much change can she sustain and still stay true to her nature? What kind of change is good, and builds the character? What kind of change is too much to handle? If I want to keep moving her story forward, she’s going to have to change, and change significantly.
Meh. I am starting to understand how shortsighted I was way back when I started writing these books. An iconic character is a noble goal, but no matter what you do, they have to change or the series becomes stagnant.
Let’s use our venerable favorite, Jack Reacher, as an example.
In my mind, Reacher is the ultimate series character. He is iconic in every sense of the word. He is a hero. He is consistent. You know what you’re going to get when you pick up a book by Lee Child.
But Reacher is far from predictable, and therein lies the true majesty of an iconic character. One who can alter subtly instead of “CHANGING” is the goal I had in mind. He even tries to change himself, but always ends up back where he started.
John Connolly’s Charlie Parker is another example I draw from when thinking of excellent series character. Parker does change, appreciably, but that change is a dynamic reaction to his circumstance in the opening book, and the rest of his changing is that subtle altering over the course of the series that Reacher does. Every time Parker tries to change, he ends up ruining things, so it’s easier to stay the same. (I’m simplifying this a wee bit, but remember, I’m struggling for cogent thought today, so bear with me.)
Well. I’ve now given myself a lot to think about.
How about you? How do you feel about series characters, and their evolution over time? Do you like drastic change, or something less appreciable? Any examples you could toss into the mix to help me think this through would be great appreciated!
(I’m at Bouchercon this weekend, so forgive me if I’m a bit lackadaisical. I’ll try to get to everyone over the course of the day.)
I wish all the best to my fellow ‘Rati who are attending. Have a glass of something non-alcoholic (well, maybe at breakfast?) for me.
You see, I realised quite a while ago that attending conventions like Bouchercon – and the Morley Literature Festival, which is where I was on Monday evening – is all bound up in what I love about being a writer. How good or bad I am at public speaking is another matter but, like someone who sings loud and lusty in the shower, at least I have a good time while I’m doing it.
I was mentioning this to my Other Half, Andy, while moodily clutching a hot water bottle to my busted rib as I contemplated not being in Indianapolis this weekend, and he came out with a question that brought me up short.
“But what is it you enjoy about actually writing?”
Now, Andy has a perfect right to ask that question, because he has to live with me when I’m trying to wrestle a book into submission, and it’s a long drawn-out and often extremely painful exercise. And when we first met I was only just a writer, with a couple of very minor published articles under my belt. In fact, he was the one who encouraged me to throw in the job I was doing and try writing articles full time. Without his support, I couldn’t have done it at all.
And, for a number of years, I wrote non-fiction with enough success for him to give up his job in turn and join me in the business. I diversified into the photography and we ambled along like that, doing very nicely thank you.
But I’d always wanted to write fiction and that urge kept coming back to taunt me. The sensible plan, of course, would have been to introduce short stories, interspersed with the feature articles I was already doing, and would have been less of a commitment in time and effort.
Well, nobody ever said I was sensible. (Can I draw your attention to the broken rib again?)
And then there was the whole death-threat letters business, which I won’t bore you with at this point. Suffice to say, that episode reawakened my interest in storytelling in general, and crime fiction in particular.
So I wrote a novel, had it turned down, rewrote it a couple of times, and that became my first book, KILLER INSTINCT, which will finally be coming back into print next year from Busted Flush Press. (Woo hoo!) I can’t remember much now about the actual writing process of that book, but I know there were long periods when I didn’t work on it at all. Nothing to do with not knowing what happened next, more to do with being convinced that nobody else would care what happened next.
I don’t suffer from writer’s block. I suffer from writer’s ‘oh-my-god-this-is-the-biggest-pile-of-crap-and-nobody’s-ever-going-to-want-to-read-it’ instead.
And, I admit, I’ve probably had a lot more of those moments since I was published than I had before.
So, why do I do it?
It has to have something to do with wanting to be creative in some way. Creativity is a very difficult character trait to define, and is probably worthy of a blog topic all by itself. But being creative in itself isn’t enough. Photography is a creative art in its own way – finding locations, angles, lighting – and I get a huge amount of satisfaction from being reasonably good at my job, to the point where I’d really be very reluctant to give it up completely because it fulfils a need for physical activity that sitting in front of a computer screen simply doesn’t provide.
Writing is a very focused kind of creativity. It’s not just the putting of words on paper, or I would have been more than happy to carry on writing non-fiction articles. The field was of interest to me and I was making a nice living doing it.
So, what do I actually enjoy about writing a novel? Maybe it’s the business of making ideas live and breathe, feeling them step off the page and speak their thoughts to me, take control of their own actions instead of being puppets who collapse, wholly inanimate, as soon as I stop working their strings.
After all, what child hasn’t harboured a secret hope that their toys come to life when you’re not looking and live lives of their own when we’re not looking? (No? Ah, that was just me then …) But I can still remember as a small child, sneaking up to the toy cupboard and yanking open the door in the hopes that I’d catch them at it, or at least not quite where I remembered leaving them. Hardly surprising the Toy Story movies were such a success.
Writing has to be one of the most difficult and often frustrating things to do. Sometimes, working out the intricacies of the plots makes you want to grab a Black & Decker and drill holes in your own head, just to get the ideas out of there. (No? Ah, just me again, then …)
The days I’ve agonised. The nights I’ve sweated. And at the end of it, someone can dismiss months or even years of effort with a contemptuous flick of the red pen, a dashed-off Amazon review. There are no marks for trying in this game. No quarter given.
So, what DO I enjoy? The business of creating my story and my world, and peopling it with characters who become real and bring pleasure to those who read them? Originally, I thought I was in control of my characters, but I’ve come to realise I’m much more of an observer, putting them down and watching them do things I didn’t plan on and can’t seem to influence beyond a nudge here or there. You can’t shove them into a course of action they really don’t want to follow. Believe me, I’ve tried. That’s when things really do grind to a full-scale halt.
And then we’re back to the agonising days and sweating nights again.
So, at the end of all this, I’m not entirely sure why I write. I just know it’s a compulsion. Something I have to do, however much the process often has distinct similarities with banging your head repeatedly and bloodily against a very stout brick wall.
My question, obviously, is why do YOU do it? If you’re not yet published, what dreams do you harbour for when you are finally in print? What is it about creating a work of fiction that appeals to you so much?
And if you have a good answer, can you let me know?
This week’s Word of the Week is periscian, which is a person living inside the polar circle, whose shadow moves round in a complete circle on those days on which the sun does not set. From the Greek peri, around, and skia, a shadow.
It should come as no surprise to readers of my books or of this blog that music has a huge influence on me. The titles of the first three books, THE DEVIL’S RIGHT HAND, GOOD DAY IN HELL, and SAFE AND SOUND, come from songs by Steve Earle, The Eagles, and Sheryl Crow, respectively. Favorite tunes are often a springboard for plot points or for whole books, even if the books themselves end up bearing no relation to what actually happens in the song.
Sometimes, I like to use music directly in a scene to emphasize or comment on what’s going on. It’s a cinematic-type effect and a by-product of my own creative process, which often involves seeing the story as a movie playing in my head. Some of my favorite movies use music playing over a scene, or playing or being played by the characters. Scorsese’s GOODFELLAS, for example, would be a lesser movie if it didn’t have that awesome soundtrack serving as a sort of Greek chorus to the action on the screen.
As an author, though, you have to be careful when using music on the page. It can get a little too cutesy if you overuse it, for one thing. But there’s a more practical concern, namely that getting the permission to use a song lyric can be a major pain in the ass.
One of the many things that surprised me when I got into the business is that it’s the author, not the publisher, who’s responsible for obtaining (and if necessary paying for) the proper permissions. The first question is, when do you need permission do use bits of a song (or quotes from someone else’s poetry or prose)? While the US Copyright Office insists that “there is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission,” I’d always heard that two lines was pretty safe. More than that, however, and your publisher may start to get nervous. There’s a concept called “Fair Use” that might save you, but it’s murky and convoluted even by the standards of copyright law, so just assume you’re going to need permission.
So how do you go about getting the permission you need? First you have to find the song’s publisher. Note that this is not the record company, at least not much these days. A savvy songwriter will set up his or her own publishing company, which is the actual owner of the rights to the song, and thus the entity entitled to the money from performances and other uses.
There are a couple of ways to find out who the publisher is. One is to look on the album itself. There’s usually some fine print, somewhere around where you find the list of tracks on the album. It’ll say something like “All songs copyright Insert Name Here Music.” The other, easier way is to do a search on the websites of the two big music licensing services, ASCAP or BMI. Let’s try to find who owns, say, John Hiatt’s “Have a Little Faith In Me.”
UNIVERSAL MUSIC MGB NA LLC DBA UNIVERSAL MUSIC CAREERS 2440 SEPULVEDA BLVD STE 100 LOS ANGELES, CA 90064-1712 http://www.umusic.com
So then you can call, write, or e-mail, tell them you’d like to use a lyric from one of their artists in a book, and ask to be directed to the proper person. They’ll take it from there.
Steve Earle‘s people were great to work with, and let me use a few lines from “The Devil’s Right Hand” for a pittance. My experience with “Good Day In Hell” was a little different. It was my screw up, actually: I’d put off tracking down the publishers until the book was already being typeset. I found that, since the song was co-written by Glenn Frey and Don Henley of the Eagles, there were actually two publishers that had the rights: Cass County Music and Red Cloud Music. An e-mail to one, however, got me in touch with a very nice lady who let me know she could handle both. However, she said “The guys almost never give anyone permission to do this.” I began quietly freaking out at this point. After a couple of days, she got back with me and said they wanted to see the passage where the lyric would be used. Heart in throat, I sent her an excerpt, along with a note that contained some of my best groveling. Within a day she’d e-mailed and said “I caught up with them in two separate airports. They say okay, and all they want you to do is make a small donation to each of their favorite charities.” Which I promptly and gratefully did. Mr. Henley, Mr Frey: thank you from the bottom of my heart. In a profession full of jerks and prima donnas, you guys showed real class.
You may decide after reading this that using someone else’s lyrics is just too much damn trouble. Certainly, after the “Good Day In Hell” scare, I went back and rewrote the scene in SAFE AND SOUND that contained the Sheryl Crow lyrics, because no way was I going through that kind of fear again if I didn’t have to. But if you think the story just won’t be the same without it, start early.
On September 22, Joan Rosenthal, a 75-year old grandmother of five and a woman with a passion for reading, was shot dead on her front patio in the upscale community of Tiburon, California. This was only the fourth murder in the town’s history.
She was “dressed the way a lot of us look when we first get up in the morning,” police chief Mike Cronin said at the news conference later in the day. Nothing was taken from the house.
For reasons they haven’t yet specified, the police believe that Mrs. Rosenthal’s death was caused by someone she knew.
…
Less than a mile away as the crow flies is the home of mystery writer Judy Greber (Gillian Roberts). She was a friend of Rosenthal’s in the way that many Tiburon residents are friends. They would greet each other and chat at the local Safeway, comparing grandchildren’s antics and proclivities. They might run into each other at the Tuburon library: one the author of books there and a presenter, the other an organizer of reading groups and a docent.
But on September 22, all that changed. Joan Rosenthal lost her life. And Judy Greber was assaulted by the unthinking comment of a neighbor, “I’ll bet that would make a good mystery novel for you.”
…
She didn’t know whether to grimace, grin or slap the questioner.
I understand her reaction. What is it about some people that they don’t understand the distinction between writing about death and deception and having to bear witness to it as part of our lives?
I think I told you that when I was interviewed for jury duty this summer the prosecutor asked me, “How can we be sure that you can tell the difference between what you hear here in the courtroom and what you write on that page when you get home at night?”
“That’s easy,” I told her. “One is fact and the other fiction.”
What I could have said is that one is a mental exercise where I’m creating characters and angst and pathos out of the thin air, and the other is the gut-churning, eye-reddening, sleep-depriving horror of man’s inhumanity to man, reaching far too close to home.
It is true that writers draw inspiration from everything around them. I’m happy to use my neighbor’s squeaky voice, my high school teacher’s illogical mantra, a colleague’s singular tattoo.
But I could never write a crime novel based on someone close to me.
I cannot use that real rape. I cannot depict that real bi-polar relative. I cannot fictionalize a real neighbor’s murder.
It would be akin to posting someone else’s naked pictures online. Sure, you can do it, but only because you have betrayed a trust, because you have taken advantage of special access and abused the privilege.
And it’s a step away from humanity that I do not choose to take.
I can evoke the smell of fresh-spilled blood but I do not wish to imagine that that pool of blood springs from a friend of mine. I can write about violence and abuse but do not wish to paint the faces of my family into those imaginings.
I don’t mean to disparage writers of non-fiction works here. To catalog the descent of a Ted Bundy or The Son of Sam somehow falls into a different category for me. (Perhaps it’s only because they weren’t part of my circle of family and friends.)
Nor do I mean to condemn our fascination with celebrity (Michael Jackson’s or Steve McNair’s murder, for example). But if that celebrity was my step-sister, I don’t think I could read about it.
Call me a coward. Call me empathetic. But do not discuss the murder of a neighbor as if it’s all grist for the mill and tell me “it would make a good mystery novel” for me.
How about you readers and writers? Do you wish to write about a real life crime or violence close to you? And how would you feel reading about real crimes that have effected people you feel you’ve known?
This Friday is October 16, significant to many people, I’m sure, for a variety of reasons. Odds being what they are, someone reading this is probably having an anniversary. Or a birthday. Or a new book published.
According to the handy dandy Interwebs, this Friday will mark a number of important historical events: the guillotining of Marie Antoinette in 1793, the births of Oscar Wilde and Eugene O’Neill, n 1854 and 1888, respectively, the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and the launch of Ross Perot’s infomercial in 1992.
But I have my eye on this Friday for two reasons. First, it’s the Friday of Bouchercon weekend. There’s no shortage of terrific programming for the weekend, and Friday is chock full of good stuff: 2009 Anthony nominees for short story, like Sean Chercover and Jane Cleland, discuss their work; panels on setting, plotting, and noir (oh my!); talk of police procedurals, PI novels, series characters, and women in the genre; and, of course, Michael Koryta’s interview of guest of honor (and god of writing) Michael Connelly.
So much for a photo with both Michaels at the same time
I think I just felt a tear roll down my right cheek. Why? Because I won’t be in Indianapolis. Nope, no Bouchercon for me this year. Why not? Because the second reason I’ve been eyeballing the approach of October 16, 2009, is that it marks the fortieth anniversary of my birth. I believe that makes it my fortieth birthday.
When I first realized last winter that Bouchercon fell on my birthday, I assumed I’d go. Given the timing of the annual conference, I’ve had Bouchercon birthdays before. I spent my 33rd at that memorable hotel in Las Vegas. My editor took me off-site to see Tom Jones where I was not the only birthday girl, but was apparently the only one who held on to her lingerie.
But as early 2009 whizzed by and my travel plans went left unmade, I realized I was procrastinating for a reason. I was trying to guess how I’d feel on the big day. I was imagining my own future state of mind. Stupid idea. Speculating about the future is risky. Understanding one’s current mood and its relationship to external factors is also imprecise. Throwing the two together was…well, stupid.
Several months ago, past-me imagined future-me on October 16, 2009, and did not like what she saw: Me wandering around alone at Bouchercon; sitting at my signing table, saying goodbye to the last person in my modest line as the crowd waiting to see the author next to me tried to mask its pity; sobbing into my martini at the bar as I realized I was officially half way to eighty, well over a third of the way to dead.
Bummer, huh?
Turns out past-me sucks at both remembering the past and predicting the future.
As Bouchercon approaches, I find myself recalling not those past moments of humble pie (almost) every rookie writer experiences at Bouchercon — meandering around with a hotel map and a conference brochure as the seasoned vets exchange enthusiastic and kissy welcomes and hold court at the bar. Instead, my mind is flooded with good memories of friendships formed and a love of writing shared: the Reacher Creature parties; that amazing panel in 2006 with Ken Bruen, Laura Lippman, and fellow Ratis, Cornelia Read and Zoe Sharp; the night these guys became my pals and we smiled like people in a toothpaste ad:
Bouchercon Chicago with Ben Rehder, James Born, and Barry Eisler And, although October 16 is still a few days off, it looks like past-me also got the future wrong. I don’t feel like crap about 40 after all. I have an amazing husband and two kickass jobs. I get love from good friends and my awesome dog. I ran twenty-five miles last week, which I couldn’t do when I was 30. Or 20. And I live (and get to write about) the coolest city in the world.
If I cried at the Bouchercon bar about entering a fifth decade of this life I’ve got, I’d deserve to get my butt kicked.
Yet for reasons I had months ago, I won’t be in Indianapolis. I’ll be having a different kind of fun: that husband and a few of the good friends I mentioned will be hanging out at a beach house, frying a turkey. Today’s me predicts Friday-me will have a fabulous time.
But I’ll miss you folks who are going to Bouchercon. I hope you’ll use the comments to remember the past or predict the future. What are some of your favorite Bouchercon memories or most anticipated Bouchercon events? Feel free to throw in some birthday chat as well. You never know…Friday-me might need the encouragement after all.
