In my novel debuting August 15th, Cleopatraalmost Slept Here, I discovered I was writing narration for pages and pages and pages. My bad. One cannot/should not/must not do excessive narration. I was taught that in every writing class I took. Although, I’m not completely sure why you mustn’t. How did the “show not tell” aspect of writing come into popularity? When Wilkie Collins wrote two pages describing the act of simply opening a door I was right there with him — along with the rest of the world — devouring his words.
For those who may not remember off-hand who Wilkie Collins was, he was a pioneering English novelist and playwright (1824-1889). His most famous works include The Woman in White (1859), one of the earliest mystery novels, and The Moonstone (1868), considered by many to be the first modern English detective novel. I lifted that last sentence from the Great God Google. No doubt one of GGG’s AI buddies lifted it beforehand from a long-suffering author. There’s a history of that sort of thing. But that is another post.
Picture this: we are in Egypt. A character is standing before the Grand Pyramid. As the author, you want to wax poetic about the experience. The problem as I see it about not doing plain narrative when your heart and soul sings for it, is that then you need to have at least two people in the scene. Being pretty sharp, I realized right away it would be no good to have a character carry on a discussion with the pyramid because it was going to be short. Not the pyramid. The Great Pyramid is tall. And wide. And astonishing. But the conversation was going to be — shall we say — fairly one-sided. Unless it’s a paranormal or sci-fi. I don’t write any of those, but okay, we will imagine a conversation between a person — whom we shall call X — and the Great Pyramid:
X: “Helloooooo, GP. How are you feeling today? Old? ha-ha.” Silence. “Now that we’re alone together, I’ve been wanting to tell you this joke. What did the pyramid say to the pharaoh?” Silence. ” Don’t know? Are you ready for it?? I’ll bet you were dying to see me. Ha-ha.” Now at this point, if the pyramid doesn’t throw one of its small car-sized stones at X to end this idiot’s very existence, I’d like to know why.
When you’re standing in front of one of the seven wonders of the world, it’s a phenomenal moment. It’s a time that makes most writers want to describe the emotions, sights, and sounds in great detail. And that would be down to a spider crawling up one enormous, car-sized stone of the 2.3 million that make up the Great Pyramid. This is when a picture is NOT worth a thousand words. The words are right.
Putting aside the narration, Cleo Blah Blah has many people chatting with one another about just about everything. Families tend to do that. At least, the Alvarez family does. Often, it was more of how do I shut them up? So, it was easy for me to have dialog that informed, entertained, or thrilled … hopefully. But still, that didn’t keep me from describing the scenery, the action, the story, when I thought it was needed. Narration. Grounding in so many ways.
But when is enough enough? The time for me to back off from narration is when I begin to bore myself with silly imagery like the sun dancing across the rippling waters of the Nile. For the fifteenth time. Or when I’m in the middle of pounding on the keyboard and suddenly throw my hands in the air and cry out, “Who cares, you ninny? Get on with it!”
So, this ninny gets on with it. Or tries to. Like now. I’m done.
Okay, I was trying to be provocative. There isn’t a perfect anything, not even a perfect mystery. Although Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express comes awfully close. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca does, too. And there are more modern reads like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. But I digress. Back to me writing a perfect whodunit. It’s a worthy goal.
I am heartened by the fact that writing a good mystery is a practiced art. If I play tennis five hours every day, which I don’t but let’s just say I do, I’m going to get pretty good at it. Same with writing a mystery. I keep in mind that a mystery is a well-written novel that happens to center around a dead body done in by person or persons unknown.
There are some who believe there is a definite separation between the genres of mystery, suspense, and thriller, although many of us combine the three elements when writing our novels. I certainly do. Regardless, I like to keep the definitions straight in my head in case one of our two cats ask what’s the dif. Daphne and Niles are an inquisitive pair (Niles is the one with his belly hanging out).
Mystery – A puzzle of person, place or thing, a ‘whodunit.’ The reader is given clues but has no idea, along with the protagonist, what the outcome will be. If the protagonist is in danger, it’s only when s/he is getting closer to the truth. Mysteries are more of the mind than anything else. Will the protagonist solve the mystery?
Suspense – A ticking time bomb that must be resolved. It has danger but not necessarily action. The reader is often aware of the clues sooner than the protagonist, who must work against time. Suspense plays more on the readers’ emotions. Will the protagonist stop the culprit in time?
Thriller – From the onset, the protagonist is in jeopardy and knows it. The protagonist and reader share the same information at the same time. The thriller has lots of action and keeps the reader on the edge of the seat. No time for thinking or feeling. Will the protagonist survive?
The Cozy Mystery is usually solved by an amateur, often someone who just ‘happens’ to be around at the moment or ‘happens’ to become involved no matter how many books there are in the series. This person does something else for a living but is always bright and committed. The plus side for this type of mystery is the writer ‘merely’ needs to come up with a good story and run with it. No special knowledge is necessary. The protagonist often doesn’t know much more than the reader from the onset of the story. The protagonist learns as s/he goes along, often helped out by a loved one or friend, who tends to have ‘insider info’ that’s missing from our hero. Well, someone has to help advance the plot!
The Detective Mystery revolves around a professional private investigator or law officer, someone who does this for a living. The plus side of this kind of mystery is the writer can dig deeper, go into more detail, reveal maximum facts to the reader, often getting into scenes and places otherwise not available to the average Joe Schmoe. This protagonist is usually more committed to the cause than anyone else, for whatever reason. When I find that reason I’ve got the heart of my story.
Speaking of protagonists, it is essential to have an interesting protagonist, not necessarily likeable, but one with redeeming characteristics. This protagonist should be intelligent and different, someone who knows the rules, but breaks them. S/he has something personal to overcome such as yearning to be a better person or feeling guilty because s/he can’t be. They should also want something, even if it’s a glass of water. Nothing propels a character forward more than wanting something.
When I read mysteries containing successful protagonists, from Miss Marple to Nero Wolf, Sam Spade to Hamish Macbeth, Sherlock Holmes to V.I. Warshawski, I find they all have one thing in common: they are unique. It is essential the protagonist is someone I would want to spend time with at a dinner party, even if once I get home I say, “Wow! What an oddball. I’m glad I don’t have to live with her/him.” Being normal and ordinary just isn’t part of the package. I tend to save that for my youthful love interests.
After I’ve created my protagonist, I occasionally do an essay or interview with her/him in order to flesh the character out. I ask questions, such as: How do they react under pressure? What do they cherish? What do they abhor? Do they believe in justice above all else? Where is their point of mercy? Would they, themselves, take a life? If so, how do they live with that? Then of course, I have to ask what is their favorite color? Not only does that make them feel more ‘real’ to me, but sometimes the mundane can be very revealing.
Now I’ve got the protagonist who’s going to solve the crime(s). Good for me. But where’s my plot? It’s murderous, of course, but I’ve got 175 plus pages to fill out. When I have no idea what kind of plot to wrap around my victim(s), I pick up a magazine, newspaper, listen to a newscast, or search the internet. Sometimes people in my own life have weird stories they love to talk about. So, I listen, absorb, and delve.
The 2nd novel of the Alvarez Family Murder Mystery Series, A Wedding to Die For, started with an article from National Geographic. It was about an extended family of Egyptian grave robbers, who discovered an ancient royal burial chamber containing precious artifacts. They kept the knowledge to themselves and pilfered from the tomb taking one piece at a time. They did this for generations. They took just enough to feed, clothe, and educate themselves. After decades of careful use of the money, this family came into positions of power within their community and Egypt. Unfortunately, one of them got greedy. Their chicanery was revealed, but it took 60 years to do so. I was entranced. I knew I wanted to take this situation, transfer it to Mexico, and create a powerful family to become the nemesis of the Alvarez clan.
The sub-plot of A Wedding to Die For was a mythical search engine start-up company, Bingo-Bango, and its inhabitants. I felt the sub-plot added a lot of fun and depth to the story, even though it had little to do with the main plot. I did manage, however, to have a situation arise from the sub-plot that gave the protagonist, Lee, an answer to a big problem in the main plot. That was yummy. The finale was the wedding, of course. When I tied everything together, I had the skeleton of my book.
Finally, I go on to the dastardly deed of the murder itself. When my imagination is doing the victim in, the sky’s the limit. What I need to keep in mind, though, is the type of mystery I’m writing. Soft and sweet? Hard-boiled and gritty? Having a disabled little old lady, raped, mutilated and dismembered on page 5 of a story sets up a dark flavor, no matter how many doilies and kittens I throw in.
I have discovered with the cozy it’s best to have the murder victim go in a way that’s more palatable to the reader and off-scene, if possible. But that doesn’t stop me from trying to make it inventive. Drowned in a vat of cabernet sauvignon comes to mind. Someday I may try that. I live in wine country, so forgive me.
If I’m writing a hard-boiled detective story where the protagonist eats rusty nails, drinks rotgut, spits on people’s shoes, and hasn’t talked to his mother since he was eight, dismemberment might not be a bad way to go. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.
After choosing the protagonist and victim, I try to provide a myriad of suspects with access to the victim(s) at the time of demise. Or just the opposite – no one at all. Right away tension is created. Who, who, who? How, how, how? I ratchet it up whenever I can because I have a pretty fertile imagination. Some say demented. Whatever. You say potato, I say potahto.
Whatever method I choose, I try to do something unusual with it. The method of death, the way the body is discovered, the person discovering it, etc., might have an unusual bend. If I go for the disabled little old lady, for instance, I might have my protagonist find out she was a scam artist on the side, bilking widows and orphans. If I have my victim drown in a vat of 1997 Mouton-Rothschild Bordeaux Blend, maybe I’ll have him be a tea-totaler.
Now that I have some sort of murder going, I start popping in characters that might work with the story. Sometimes I have a chat with these characters as I drive to the supermarket. Maybe when I stop for a light or while standing in the checkout line I’ll go through a scene in my head, acting out certain things. Thank God for cell phones. Nowadays, those nearby assume I’m having an animated conversation on my phone and not demented. Ah! There’s that word again.
When the plot and characters come together, and I’ve eliminated things that don’t work but glom on like crazy to things that do, I sit down and start writing. This is usually the time when the first draft almost writes itself. I just try to keep up.
Hanging over my head all the while is the fervent prayer that this novel will get as near as possible to the proverbial perfect mystery. Wish me luck.
It can be done but straighten your lederhosen, it will be tough. When I started my latest book of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, Cleopatra Almost Slept Here (set to debut mid-August), I thought it would be an easy write. Here was my reasoning: A – it would be my 19th novel, the 11th of the Alvarez series. By now I should know what I’m doing. Pardon my naivete. B – It takes place in Egypt. I love Egypt. It is a country chockful of history, hope, and filled with wonderful people. I even met a sweetheart of a camel named KFC who so captivated me, he became a central part of the novel. So, wouldn’t you think this would be an easy book to write? Pardon my belly-laugh.
Here was my problem: Book 9 of the series is called The Drop-Dead Temple of Doom. It takes place in the jungles of Guatemala and is about, among other things, ancient Mayans, their temples, and their pyramids. Book 11, Cleopatra almost Slept Here, takes place in the deserts of Egypt and is about, among other things, ancient Egyptians, their temples, and their pyramids. These minor similarities got by me until I finished writing the first chapter of Cleo blah-blah. Then something seemed eerily familiar. Sure enough, it was almost word for word as chapter one of Drop-Dead.
After realization clobbered me over the head, I buried my face in the warm, furry belly of one of our two cats, Niles, sleeping on his back next to the monitor with all four paws in the air. Niles has gained a few pounds as of late and his belly was soooo comforting and soft. But his ‘tude was not.
Said feline is on a diet, as is his twin sister, Daphne, who has to lose a pound or two herself. Like any hungry being whose food supply has been rationed, he was not in a good mood. Instead of lying there purring and patting my head with a paw in a ‘there, there’ fashion, he got up, jumped off my desk, and ran to his cereal bowl. A bowl, which as far as he was concerned, was seeing too much light of day and not enough action. He began caterwauling. I’m sure if he could have gotten to any pots and pans, he would have started banging on them with a spoon. He was joined at the cereal bowls by Daphne who is never one to let a good time go on without her. She began yowling in harmony. My not-so-little love buckets.
After giving them a limited amount of treats, for which there was no thanks, I went back to my problem: how to keep Cleo from bearing any resemblance to Drop-Dead, especially with me being my own worst enemy. That meant I had to throw away any preconceived notions of the novel. How can I make a story different when it takes place in a foreign country as exotic and magical as Egypt? Then I had it. While in Egypt, my protagonist, Lee Alvarez, was not going to see one single sight. She would be too busy solving ‘the mystery.’ Imagine the frustration? While the family visits such places as the Valley of the Kings, she tackles thieves, hides in closets, and files reports at Egyptian police stations, which are, as she says, surprisingly similar to American ones.
That meant there wouldn’t be a lot of travelogue. But still there would be KFC who likes to bury his face in Lee’s neck while making a sound somewhere between a hum and a purr. To the left is KFC and me in Giza. When I met him, he did that to me. Of course, I initiated it by wrapping my arms around his neck and hugging him. When he began to hum/purr, I knew I had to have him in my story. My great big love-bucket.
There are also no heavy-duty descriptions of well-known tourist destinations, either. Well, I did throw in the pyramids. One has to. When seen in person, the pyramids are astonishing. And then there’s the Nile River. But Lee gets to know the Nile a little better than she wants. She has to jump in to save … hmmm. Too much info?
Cleopatra almost Slept Here is a mystery about a family on the vacation of a lifetime that seems to be out to kill them. Menacing notes, car chases, Egyptian cobras, crumbling temples, passenger ships that go nowhere, and a drug lord with an appetite for murder are only part of the daily routine. The final draft came back from the editors and the beta readers seem to like this story. They are calling it another winner. Yay! And it’s nothing like Drop-Dead.
On to Daphne and Niles’ success rate. Or, rather, lack of it. After a weigh in, neither of them lost or gained an ounce! As that didn’t seem possible, I reflected. The vet told me to give them ¼ cup of food each, but I was thinking about Cleo blah-blah at the time and neglected to ask how many times a day I should do this. Was it three? Six? Hmmm. I may have another ‘realization’ moment ahead of me. Where’s that warm, fat, furry belly?
Below is what I hope is the final version of the cover. I just love it, but the CA may still have a tweak or two.
Being a writer has a lot of perks. One of them is everyone around thinks of you as rather a wizard. There’s something magical about writing to those who don’t. And here you are, making up all this stuff that goes on for chapters and chapters. Then wham! You have a novel, complete sentences and all. Impressive stuff.
There is a drawback, however. Whatever we write, we try to do it to the best of our ability. That works fine for a novel, short story, eulogy, or speech about water rights. When it comes to how many quarts of milk we need or should we have spaghetti or fish for dinner, it’s another matter. Just how eloquent should you be on a grocery list? But we try. How we try. We can’t let our readers down, even if they are only the cats, who in my case, think I’m overrated, anyway.
Speaking of quarts of milk, that reminds me of the writer, Scott Turow. I remember him giving an interview years ago and telling a wonderful story. His wife asked him to write a note to the milkman about cancelling a future delivery. Remember when we had those? People who delivered one thing to your home at no extra monthly cost to you? Now, of course, there is Safeway, Nob Hill, and Walmart delivering the whole kit and kaboodle for a fee. From bathing suits to prescriptions to food. One Stop Shopping without having to stop and shop. Sometimes the milk is warm, the eggs are cracked, and they’ve thrown in baby wipes which I didn’t order, but nobody’s perfect.
But I digress. Back to Scott Turow, his wife, and the milkman. After an hour, his wife appeared at Turow’s desk and seized the scratched-out paper he labored upon. She sat down and scribbled, hold the milk on Thursday. Thanks. Then she got up and taped it to the front door.
As Mr. Turow was speaking to a room full of writers, his story not only got a big guffaw, but a round of applause. Nobody knows better than we do how the search for the perfect word becomes all encompassing. And how long it takes to find that word matters not. We are writers and that’s our job.
I tell people repeatedly when I give a lecture or speak to a book club, that what we do isn’t smoke and mirrors. It’s like tennis. The more you practice, the better you get. Yes, you have to have a certain amount of talent, but what it really takes is hard work, tenacity, and joy.
Joy is a definite perk. No matter what’s going on in the world out there or in my world at home, when I sit down to write, I am taken to a place I want to be.
My name is Heather Haven; I am 28 years old, and weigh 123 pounds. The first statement was true. If you saw me in person, you would know immediately the last two statements were a bald-faced lie. But that’s okay. I am allowed to lie. I write fiction.
As a writer of fiction, I get away with making stuff up. In fact, it’s encouraged. I can lie like a rug covered in cat hairs. And do. Of course, at one time I was 28 and weighed 123, so I did ‘ground’ myself in the truth. Or did I ‘grind’ the truth?
In the happy world of fiction, the truth is not all it’s cracked up to be, anyway. I mean if it was, would fiction be so prevalent? Would it be so clamored for? Would Agatha Christie’s book sales be second only to the Bible?
As we know, fiction shines a light on the truth. Fiction writers get rid of the flotsam and jetsam floating in a sea of facts, obscuring real issues. As for me, I also try to throw in a few laughs along the way.
All my books are grounded in truth. They have to be. When I started writing the 9th book of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, The Drop-Dead Temple of Doom, I did eight months of research before I could write a word. It was a crash course in the ancient Mayans, the jungles of Guatemala, and the worlds of orchids and coffee. Not only did the book win a prestigious award, but most importantly, several archeologists wrote to tell me how spot on the information included inside was.
The award, frankly, was just the icing on the cake. There are wonderful books out there that never receive any accolade whatsoever. But if you’re in the right place at the right time and get lucky, it can happen.
The real reward for research and banging on the keyboard for months and months, was hearing from people who lived the life I wrote about. They were appreciative I’d gotten things right, that I didn’t confuse the reader with misinformation. While I didn’t overload the story with facts, when I did relay something, I tried to keep it real.
Being a fiction writer can often be like walking a tightrope, But I come from a circus background, my parents being performers at Ringling Brothers Circus back in its heyday.
Whoops! Did I just give a clue as to my real age? Well, rats.
Ladies of Mystery 
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