Tag: Janis Susan May

Experience vs Research

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by Janis Patterson

I’ll admit it – I’m a travel junkie. So is The Husband. We love to fill our bags, I grab my travel computer (an aged MacBookAir) and then we head off. I’ve gotten several books from my various trips and many more ideas than I can ever use. (Plus, to be honest, a lot of fun and a few downright scary moments…) Being older, we’re trying to squeeze in as much travel as we can afford before it becomes physically unfeasible. Travel is one of the greatest gifts life can offer. It is not a guaranteed gateway to a career.


I really did think everyone sort of thought the same way, but not long ago someone whom up until then I had thought intelligent gave me a rather unpleasant shock. Now you know because I have written again and again I believe there are ideas everywhere – you can get more workable ideas in a couple of days than a dozen writers could work up in a dozen lifetimes. I still believe that, which is why I was absolutely gobsmacked when this person said they really planned on becoming a novelist but they couldn’t start until they had more money to travel with.


This happened at a speaking venue where – among other things – I talked about the research value of travel. After my presentation was over there was a reception, and this person came to talk to me and dropped his bomb about not being able to write until he could afford to travel. Of course I questioned the idea that one had to travel to write novels. He became very defensive and said he didn’t want to be limited to writing only about what he knew, because all he knew was domestic and boring and in his opinion not worthy of his time, talent or effort. He didn’t think it was fair that established writers should have such a prejudicial leg up.


Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but I am not always sweet and well-mannered, especially when I am irritated and this person’s somewhat belligerently skewed vision definitely irritated me.


So, I asked, if you haven’t been to a place you can’t write about it? (Now I am not stupid; there are innumerable advantages to actually having been to a place – I just don’t believe it is an absolute requirement.)


He said yes.


I then asked how he thought people wrote historical novels, as time travel machines are pretty rare on the ground. Or sci-fi. Or high fantasy, since I hadn’t seen any dragons zipping around lately either.


Now he was getting angry, saying I was just clouding the issue and trying to discourage him and, he accused, like other multi-published professional writers keep the market for myself. He was an adventure writer, he declared, one who wrote about exotic places and cultures – not a ‘kitchen sink’ drone. He was special and he’d prove it once he could get started.


The rest of the conversation, I am somewhat sad to say, was too intense and impolite for recording here. However, it did make me think… and grieve for those who agree with him. I have always and will always say that research is essential; you have to write about what you know, and if you don’t know about it when you start you should know a great deal about it before you finish – whatever ‘it’ is. However, that does not mean you have to personally experience it! Sometimes that is indeed preferable, sometimes it is just pleasurable, sometimes it is impossible. (At least until they start tourist runs to 1860 or Alpha Centauri.)


If personal, on-the-spot research is impossible and there are no research facts are available, what’s a writer to do? My answer is logical extrapolation. If you’re writing about a space colony with a mixed alien population, you should think about physical makeup, reactions to varying gravitational pulls, breathing (oxygen or methane, for example), eating (fat/carbohydrate vs silicon/mineral sustenance) and the like. Now I know this is far from the world of terrestrial, ‘normal’ mysteries, about which there is thankfully an abundance of research available, but the principle is the same.


You have to know what you’re writing about whether you already know it, research it, create it, experience it or learn it. You are creating a world and in some worlds what you say goes – but once you have said it, it must stay the same for the length of time you are in that world. Even ‘playing God’ as writers do albeit on a limited basis, there are still rules.
In a nutshell, research is necessary; personal experience is not.


I don’t know what happened to that deluded young would-be writer; I do hope he absorbed and accepted what I told him – though I fear not, at least not now. Perhaps the writing-fairy lightning will strike him and he will have his beliefs validated – doubtful, but it does happen very very very rarely.


All I know is that we made a deposit on a great trip the other day and I’m already thinking about what to take and make sure my traveling computer is up to date and ready to go. Even though it’s early, I’ll start as soon as I finish the current project, which is set in ‘today’ and just down the street. No travel needed.

And… just in case you’re interested, all four volumes of my newest release – 50 BLOGS ON WRITING AND THE WRITING LIFE – are available at Amazon for just $.99 each!

Hold, Enough!

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by Janis Patterson


The cry ‘Hold, Enough!’ comes from a quote from Macbeth (or as stage people call it, The Scottish Play) which I can drag only as a paraphrase from my memory – “Lay on, MacDuff, and curst be he that first cries, “Hold, Enough!””


So why am I writing about The Scottish Play?


Because I have cried, ‘Hold, Enough.’


As writers we soon become accustomed to playing God. We can, as P. D . James so famously said, ‘kill with a glance and leave the body lying right there on the page.’ We can create towns, people, populations, even worlds to our own specifications. Want to change it? Toss in a hurricane or a plague, or just toss the whole thing and start over. The only rules in our writing are the ones we set for ourselves.


Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? In many ways it is. Unfortunately, though, sometimes such an arrogant attitude seeps into real life. We forget we can’t change the timeline, or change the cast of characters, or eradicate anything that annoys us. (Well, we can, but it can be illegal, to say nothing of quite messy.)


We write in a world of endless possibilities and power. We live in a world of concrete limitations and restrictions. No wonder writers are both frustrated and a little testy.


So what brings on this rant? Once again I have been brought up short by the constraints of reality. Time is a constant. Energy is entropic. We can’t have/do everything we want.


When I am presented with a project that excites me it doesn’t really matter what I have on my plate already. Of course I can squeeze it in. If I do X number of words a day it will be easy…


Well, not always. Maybe I am just getting older, or slower, or just choosier – or more disinterested – but I find myself getting more interested in luxuries like sleeping, cooking something that doesn’t have air fryer directions on the box, spending quality time with friends and family… The tipping point might have been when I could not make my hot tub exercise time and my poor arthritic joints went into rebellion, so I joined them and revolted.


I still make my word count… most days… but the cost is higher. More contracts equal more projects equal more demands on my time… and the bitter knowledge that the problem is all my fault. I took on the projects. I signed the contracts. It’s like being in front of the largest candy counter in the world – I’ll take two of those, and a half dozen of those, and a pound of those… all the while you know you should be eating sensibly. You want, but you know you can’t have. At least, not everything.


So I did something I have only done once before in my life. I cried “Hold, Enough!”


After a dispassionate analysis I bought back one of my contracts. Now I only have two projects, both partially completed and fairly short, due before the end of the year. And they truly will be easy.


Yesterday I wrote only half a day; I did make my word count easily enough, then ‘frittered’ (as I once would have called it) the afternoon away making a holiday Rumtoph. The kitchen is redolent with the scents of fruits and the enticing aroma of rum. It should be ready to use in about six weeks, when I will bake some holiday cakes. It is a heady prospect in more ways than one.


Life without writing is unthinkable, but life with writing has to be balanced.

Anatomy of a Villain

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by Janis Patterson

Everyone agrees that every genre story has to have a hero/protagonist, which means that it also needs a villain/antagonist. Both are needed to create conflict, which is what the story is about. One thing most people do not admit is that while the hero pretty much has to be human or at least act in a fashion that humans would find sympathetic, the villain/antagonist does not have to be human or sympathetic. It only has to be someone/something that prevents the protagonist from attaining his goal. Plus, just to make it easy for writers (not!), the villain has to have his own agenda and goal. And, need I add, not the cartoonish ‘evil for the sake of evil.’

No character – or person, for that matter – is ever all evil or all good. There are heroes who are selfish and cold on certain subjects. There are villainous people who, after killing or ruining several people, will put himself in danger to rescue a kitten. Also, as difficult as it might be to understand – and more so to write – the hero and the villain might be the same except in their goals. What is good and what is evil is decided by the character and the story.

All right, I see your looks of doubt. Try this – One character is an ecologist, who wants to maintain a certain field in a natural state where children can play, animals can graze and the plants hold on to the rainfall, preventing landslides. Another character wants to build an office building on that same piece of land, employ both builders and later employees in the nearby – and economically depressed – town, landscape the property to maximize its beauty and usefulness. Both men believe passionately in their vision and will do anything to see it come to fruition.

Which is the villain?

As with so many things, it depends. What is the thrust, the ethos of the story? Preserving pastoral paradise? Creating an economic bonanza for a dying town? That is your choice. Just make sure the villain – whichever he is – is passionate about his desires. Give him and the hero both something to want. And a hint – no matter how good their goals might be or whatever other good qualities they might have villains are usually less honorable and honest than heroes.

Of course, all that above doesn’t mean anything if the villain has no sense of honor or justice – if he is truly bad, if he deliberately destroys things or kills people to further his goals, whatever values he might have are totally overshadowed.

The trick is, he has to truly believe his actions in pursuit of his goals are not only necessary but righteous – no matter what he feels he has to do. It makes no difference if no one else can understand what he does (what kind of a man sacrifices turtles for a love spell or burns down an orphanage to save a rare plant?) the important thing is that it makes sense to him and to him it is not only necessary but right.

One of the pitfalls of writing a well-crafted villain is that they are often so much more interesting than the hero. I think that accounts for the popularity of the ‘bad-boy’ hero – the usually scruffy, usually somewhat tough and morally ambiguous man who turns up trumps at the end. I have never seen the attraction to an unshaven, grotesquely muscled semi-lout with little to no sophistication, but the trope is very popular. Unfortunately, the kind of character to which I resonate – urbane, in suit, shirt and tie, successful and sophisticated – is normally cast as a villain of the deepest dye. In so many books these days once you see a successful, sophisticated, well-dressed man you know immediately he will probably turn out to be some sort of bad guy… sad. Using success as an indicator of villainy makes no sense whatsoever.

A villain has to have a goal, an agenda in which he believes that will get him what he wants, otherwise he becomes little more than a cardboard marionette jumping to the writer’s whim, and no one wants that. A villain has to be a real person, perhaps with less moral fibre than a protagonist, but with some good qualities. No one is ever all one thing or another.

Remember, a well-crafted villain is always the hero of his own story who is just doing what he has to do in order to triumph.

Adventures in Anthology-Land

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by Janis Patterson


I like the anthology format – a short (ca 20K words) length which is appealing to today’s sound-bite sensibilities, several authors, which means several different stories, several different viewpoints, several different styles even if written around the same theme. This broadens the target audience and exposes every one of the contributors to readers they might not otherwise have reached.


On top of my standalone releases I do two Regency-set romance anthologies every year – one with a summer theme and one set at Christmas. Great experience, great publisher, good financial returns – everything needed to give me a totally overblown opinion of my own knowledge and powers.


At an informal gathering of some long-time (multiple decades) writer friends (all working professionals) we were talking about the market and what we could do to improve our sales. Suddenly struck with an attack of the stupids, I suggested “Why don’t we do an anthology ourselves? A mystery anthology?” (Yes, I have seen all the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movies where someone always cries, “Hey! We’ve got a barn… why don’t we put on a show?”)


After a lot of chatter and very little good sense, we decided to peg our anthology to underserved holidays. I mean, who needs another Christmas or Valentine’s Day anthology? Who has even seen a Labor Day or Memorial Day or St. Swithin’s Day anthology? It’s practically a virgin field.


We decided to start with July Fourth, each of us writing a story about our choice of the various wars that have defended our freedoms. I – for some unknown and unfathomable reason – chose World War I, about which I knew next to nothing. Now I know a lot, much more than is needed for a 20,000 word novella, but that’s the way things go.


Fortunately, as all of us are long-time professionals, all skilled in the mystery genre, coming up with the ideas and actually writing the stories were not difficult at all. What drew us all up short was the non-writing stuff.
Who is going to do the formatting? We all have different formatters, or do it ourselves. What about covers? Same thing. But those were small problems, easily handled.


It was the business side that drew us up short. Now we have all self-published with varying degrees of success, so the mechanical part didn’t faze us, but the financial part did. The vendors only take one name and social security number, so whomever we used would get stuck with the tax bill. There are ways around that, with a portion of the buy-in to be set aside to recompense that person, but it seemed dreadfully complicated. None of us are particular mathematical geniuses (genii?) so through the kind generosity of several other writers we got names of a couple of companies that did fee-splitting, which relieved our minds immensely. The only sad thing is, by the time we got this far it is much too late to get the July Fourth book release on track for a proper pre-release. The only choices we had were to rush it through and sell a less-than-ideal product or put it off a year so we could give it the professional send off – and offer our readers a professional product.


So what did we do? Of course none of us could face putting out a less-than-professional product, so it should be ready for pre-order next June. You expected something different? Of course, that left the question of what to do between now and then… go back to our individual projects after making a release schedule for the July Fourth anthology? Take a much-needed break from writing at all?


Hey, people, we’re writers. What on earth would make you think we would do anything so sensible?
The new anthology is titled Bloody New Year! and is centered on New Year’s Eve/Day. It will be ready for pre-order 15 November. Don’t forget to get your copy!

Musing on the Moon and a Miracle

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by Janis Patterson

Today is Thursday. On Monday I experienced a miracle. A true miracle. I am fortunate enough to live in the path of totality of the Solar Eclipse. For several days thick clouds had been forecast (putting my husband into a fearsome temper – he had actually bought a special solar telescope for the event) and on Monday morning the sky was indeed thickly clouded. We had been invited to some friends’ house with an upper deck perfect for viewing; The Husband didn’t even want to go, saying it was a lost cause, but I insisted, so we did.


The whole group – about 10 people – was worried about the eclipse being invisible, but we went on and took our lunch up to the deck and had a lovely meal and good companionship and – Mirabile Dictu! – just about the time the event was supposed to start holes began to appear in the clouds. To make a long story short, we saw most of the eclipse. We did lose a little of the first part of it, but by about one-quarter of the first half there were only a few thin rags of clouds that really didn’t obscure the view. Seeing the dark circle that was the moon inexorably sliding across the face of the sun, nibbling away at the light, was incredible. Sometimes being seen through the thin scraps of cloud it was even more impressive.


The totality was perfectly visible – and perfectly magnificent. While it is both dangerous and extremely stupid to look at an eclipse without proper protective lenses (you can damage or lose your sight permanently), during the totality you can take a short – SHORT, like a couple of seconds – look because the visible corona is the gas, not the sun itself. Seeing that great dark circle, like a hole in the sky, surrounded by a sparkling halo of white is a sight like none other.
During the totality it is pure magic. The world darkens to a late evening hue, but it is not the same – there is a different quality to the light, an almost aqueous thickening unlike any moment in a regular day. One instantly thinks of fairyland or hidden realms – at least I did. The temperature drops perceptibly and there is a silence almost as if time itself has been suspended.


During the 2017 eclipse in Missouri we were set up in the parking lot of our hotel and there was a dog park for the guests. There were about a dozen dogs in residence and during the totality they went mad, barking and jumping and howling and almost knocking over the fence. I had always thought such a reaction was an old wives’ tale, but no – it happened. Perhaps the ‘old wives’ know a lot more than we give them credit for. There were no dogs where we were on Monday, so no chance of hearing any barking, but I did notice that there were no birds flying during the totality. Neither was there any wind, at least where we were, as if the entire world were caught in a gelatinous stasis.
The totality did not last long and the moon began a stately progression away from the face of the sun, inch by inch retreating and bringing back the light. Eclipse glasses went back on, movement resumed and the light became normal again.


I can see why primitive peoples went in such terror of eclipses. Even in our scientific era, when we know exactly why and how they happen and can predict its happening almost to the exact minute it is a wondrous and somewhat unnerving experience.


So what does all this have to do with writing? To be honest, not much. Oh, we can draw neat little moral aphorisms such as ‘expect a miracle’ or ‘never give up’ and they would be true, but really I just wanted to share the magic I felt. We can always use a little bit of magic, can’t we?