Annual meetings of library associations are always a fun way to meet librarians from your state or region, and my local chapter of Sisters in Crime (New England chapter) signs up for every one of them in our area. We make new contacts and catch up with colleagues, and I always learn something. 

I make a point of wandering the exhibitors’ room to find out how libraries are changing and what’s new in how things are done. This year turned out to be an eye-opener. I met Susan Ostrowski, co-founder and owner of Reading2Connect, who talked about her work with Alzheimer’s patients, and this is where my eyes were opened.

People with Alzheimer’s are losing their short-term memory but they’re not losing their level of intelligence and intellectual curiosity, which can make once pleasurable activities like reading frustrating and disappointing. The purpose of Susan Ostrowski’s program is to provide these readers with books tailored to their interests and limitations. 

The typical “book” published by Reading2Connect is 4,000 words in 30 pages and approximately five chapters, along with illustrations. The stories are written and structured to accommodate the specific limitations of fading short-term memory. The program has published dozens of stories in various genres but none in mystery fiction. They hope to change that, and to that end Susan Ostrowski explained at length the requirements for one of their books.

Each story will have only two to four named characters, and few or no other proper nouns such as the names of towns, streets, businesses, special buildings. The story is written linearly, with no flashbacks. Each chapter opens with a summary of what has gone before, and what the reader needs to know moving forward. A mystery must still include clues and all the other features of a mystery—crime, motive, clues, investigation, conclusion. The syntax is straightforward, with short sentences in basic declarative form with some variation. Susan stressed that they can take a short story and modify the syntax to meet their needs if the writer overall understands and fulfills their other requirements.

Her description brought to mind the short “Solve-it-yourself” mystery stories in Woman’s World magazine. Through the Short Mystery Fiction Society chat group I’ve met several writers who have published stories there, and appreciate the purity, if you will, of their construction. Although those stories are under 700 words (or thereabouts), they are clear, concise, few characters, usually one setting, etc. The language, though, is probably not exactly what Reading2Connect is looking for, but as I indicated Susan and her editors can work with that.

It’s rare to come across a new genre or even a new publisher today—more often they’re going out of business—but this one is intriguing. Over the years I’ve written short and long fiction, academic articles, nonfiction long and short, reviews, advertising, essays, themed stories and essays, brochures, research grants, fundraising appeals, and probably a lot of other stuff I can’t recall. But this Reading2Connect format is different and something of a challenge. 

Like many other people, the thought of Alzheimer’s is daunting, but I hadn’t stopped to think about it from the person’s point of view—to continue with the same level of intellectual ability and interest thwarted by an unreliable memory. I remember my grandmother at 85 working so hard to pull out of her brain something she knew she knew and just couldn’t find. She was a great reader and continued to read until it became too confusing and frustrating to bear, but she still kept a book nearby.

Susan Ostrowski changed how I look at Alzheimer’s patients in the early stages when they still should be able to enjoy as many of their former pleasures and activities as possible. Finding books written so they can enjoy them must be a great delight.

A final word on Reading2Connect. They have recently received a grant that will enable them to buy short stories for their program. They will pay $300 per mystery story (and perhaps other genres as well).

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

                                                                                                         Sylvia Plath

               If I had a thousand good reviews and one bad one, I’d concentrate on the bad.

               Recently, I’ve heard from three writing friends who’ve had negative comments on their work. One was from agents, another from a family member, and the other a critique partner. All three felt like the comments were unwarranted, but they were still upset.

Why do we dwell on bad comments? It seems that we all do. Is it that self-doubt cretin that sits on our shoulder telling us that we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not creative enough to be a writer? Are we so convinced that it’s right that we have our feelings confirmed when someone says something is wrong?

I’ve heard many times that a bad review is just one person’s perspective. I’ve even said it myself. And it’s true, but it still lingers in our mind for days, a month, a year until we get enough distance and move on. A great review never stays in our mind that long!

               One of my writing friends never looks at her reviews. I think that’s smart, but I’m too nosey. I have to know what people say. Most of my written reviews on Amazon have been good, but I’ve gotten some one or two stars. Those never come with a written review and usually come when a book is first out. The last time this happened my book had only been out for a day. I don’t think they had time to read it before they went in and gave it a one and two star. Other authors I’ve talked to have had the same experience. Are there trolls out there who just love to mess up an author’s reviews?

               My books are on Goodreads, but I’ve never really paid a lot of attention to the reviews. The other day I went on their website and looked and there were a couple reviews that were hard to read. Did they have merit? Maybe if I look closely at what was written but I’m still dealing with the condescending way the writers gave their opinions. 

               I know we need to try and take the good out of a bad review and move on. But, oh my goodness is that hard to do. It’s the same with being rejected. They both sting.

               When I decided to write this article, I went online and typed “famous authors whose books were rejected” into google. There was quite a list. What if they all quit before they received a yes? We’d be missing some great literary works. J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, Dr. Seuss, John Grisham, Madeline L’Engle, and Frank Herbert to name a few. Some famous writers gave up on traditional publishing and went on to self-publish and were discovered and have gone on to have great success. What if they’d given up instead?

               My dad loved Louis L’Amour’s books. He read them all many, many times. So many that we’d tease him and tell him there were other authors out there who were just as good. He agreed, there was also Zane Grey, and he read his books over and over too. I don’t know about Zane Grey, but Louis L’Amour was rejected 200 times and went on to sell 330 million copies. My dad was glad he persevered.

               I guess the takeaway of this post is don’t let one bad review or a hundred rejections determine whether your book or short story is good or not. It’s your story. You know in your heart whether it’s good or not. And I’m certain that if you love it, there will be readers out there who will also love it. Everyone has opinions and likes and dislikes about stories. Just like a painting. You may look at a painting and think it looks very amateurish, while I look at it and think it’s amazing.

               I’m sure that we all feel the sting of a rejection or a bad review but try to put it in perspective. Don’t let one bad comment define your work. Do the best you can and keep sending your work out into the world. It will find its way to someone who will love it.            

by donalee Moulton

We’ve been talking about editing, an essential element in the writing process that writers relish. When you’re creating characters, polishing plot, and tossing red herrings around to mystify readers, it can be easy to lose sight of the book as a whole, to remember what happened in chapter four when you’re on chapter fourteen.

Writers also get close to their work, sometimes too close. We spend time, often at 4 a.m., thinking about the novel, the action, the actors, the unfolding of the story. It’s hard to see the whole when you’re immersed in the parts.

That’s where editing comes in. But we’ve been talking about editing as if it’s one thing. It isn’t. There are several kinds of editing, and they take place at different points in the writing process.

Substantive Editing.

This is where the high-level work begins, the 30,000-foot view before we delve into the weeds. It involves rethinking and rewriting. This may mean rewriting whole paragraphs or the entire document. It may involve restructuring or reorganizing parts of the text. It may include identifying where new information is required or existing information should be deleted.

Editors Canada has this to say about substantive editing, which is also called structural or developmental editing.

Structural Editing.

Assessing and shaping draft material to improve its organization and content. Changes may be suggested to or drafted for the writer. It may include:
– revising, reordering, cutting, or expanding material
– writing original material
– determining whether permissions are necessary for third-party material
– recasting material that would be better presented in another form
– revising material for a different medium (such as revising print copy for web copy)
– clarifying plot, characterization, or thematic elements

Substantive editing is major surgery. It is about ensuring the medical team is ready to operate. Blood work has been analyzed, the plan for the procedure reviewed, the instruments lined up neatly, everything and everyone sterilized. The goal: to ensure a successful outcome.

That’s what writers want for their readers. Substantive editing helps them do that. Editors Canada notes that this type of editing supports writers as they define their goals, identify their readers, and shape the manuscript in the best possible way. It enables writers to clarify the argument, fix the pacing, suggest improvements, and draw missing pieces from the author.

It makes the view from 30,000 feet truly spectacular.

Learn More.

You can learn more about this in donalee’s book The Thong Principle: Saying What You Mean and Meaning What You Say.

I wrote my first book, The Death Contingency, when I was an active realtor. It became part of a seven-book series, the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries, but when I was working on that first book, it was only a game for me, a puzzle to be solved, and an opportunity to right a few wrongs in dealings where I felt slighted or abused by the realtor on the other side of a transaction. You might say in addition to being a murder mystery, it was a revenge book.

Most realtors are nice hard-working people who care about their clients, but if you work in that business long enough, you come across people who aren’t. Writing a book outing some shady dealers promised to be satisfying.

 I assumed the people who read the book would be realtors holding open houses so it was designed to be read in small bursts during downtime between visitors. I thought if I carefully dropped clues about the identities of the real agents I turned into villains, astute fellow realtors would figure out who they were even if their names had been changed.

I was mistaken about that first book on many levels. It turns out most realtors don’t read books, or at least not mysteries written about their associates.  The few local realtors who did read my first book didn’t have any idea who I used as my characters even when it was incredibly obvious and it was great fun when they argued with me about the real identity of a character.

But based on the messages I received from realtors working in other communities, there must be many people out there who’s actions are similar because they’d say things like, “You never met Kathy from my office, but you sure nailed her.”

I always use the phrase, “This is a work of fiction. Unless specifically credited, names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.” It’s a lie.

I eavesdrop unabashedly. I freely steal snippets of other people’s lives to use in my books. The admonition, “Be nice to me or I’ll kill you in a book,” works for me. And that’s not all. Some of my best side stories come from writing about the foibles of others. (I’m not proud, though.  Sometimes I’m the one being parodied.) When I speak at book clubs or in front of audiences about the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries, I always tell people that the murders are made up but the real estate stories, no matter how farfetched they seem, are real and happened to me or to an associate.

I have the feeling other writers do the same sort of things. The baker-protagonist writer has probably seen real flour-throwing incidents similar to the one she used to help her character escape from a killer. The yachting-protagonist writer may have watched an attempted drowning. The chef-protagonist writer has all those handy knives to work with not to mention flaming cooktops and opportunities to add poison to a dish.

Who knew writing murder mysteries could be so much fun…and so therapeutic?