Tag: writing

Thankful Thursday

~ lanamfox ~ 4 Comments

I loved the last mystery I read, but I don’t remember who the killer was. I do remember being deep in the story because the author took me on a wonderful journey. The book was set in the 1940’s, and she did such an amazing job of immersing me in the story world. The setting, characters, and storyline were so exquisite that the solving of the crime seemed less important.

Now, I know that those of you who read mysteries for the puzzle might have a different take on this, and sometimes I do too, especially when I’m totally surprised by the killer. But at times, the story journey is so special that the ending is inconsequential.

Today, I’m thankful for all the writers who’ve gone before me. I was a huge fan of Mary Higgins Clark’s books. When I sat down to read one, it was like sitting down with a good friend while they told me something that happened to them. I would get so engrossed in the story I didn’t want it to end. I read her books straight through and was sorry I did because I had to wait a year for the next one.

A few years ago, I took a class on writing from Robert Dugoni. It was such an amazing class by a wonderful writer and teacher. The class was small, maybe twenty people, and I still think about what he taught and how fortunate I was to be there. Robert talked a lot about finding the heart of the story. At the time, I was new at writing novels and even though I loved what he said, I didn’t know how to apply it to my work.

Now, after publishing three mystery novels, I feel like I have a better understanding of what he meant. The main character in my Hood River Valley Mystery Series is a woman detective, Liz Ellisen. Liz is the driving force of the story, but as I thought about this, I asked myself, what about her draws the reader in? What makes them ask for more books about her?

Liz puts her heart into solving crimes, and she wants to find justice for the victims. She can be strong and tough, but she can also be tender and loving. And even though her own life hasn’t always been easy, she wants to make the world a better place for others.

I recently had my books for sale at a holiday bazaar. A lady came in and bought three copies of my latest book, one for each of her sister’s for Christmas. She said, “I loved all of your books, but this one is my favorite.”

As with most writers, I hope that my books get better with each one. But I’ve found that some people like my stand alone novel, which was my first published novel, better than the series. And other people like the series best. It’s such a thrill when someone buys my books for their friends or family because they enjoyed them so much.

I feel that finding the driving force of the story is also about finding the heart of the story. Thank you to Robert Dugoni for sharing that. I would love a sign to put up in my office that says, “What is the heart of this story?” I’m hoping I’ll remember to dig deeper to really find what drives my characters and in so doing, find a way to connect to my reader’s hearts.

So this Thanksgiving I’m thankful for all of the writers, teachers and readers who have brought me such joy over the years. I’m also thankful to each of you for reading this blogpost and to Ladies of Mystery for inviting me to write a post on the blog.

Happy Thanksgiving. May your heart be full of love and may we all find the heart in our stories.

My view as I write. Yes, sometimes it’s difficult to concentrate, but not today. Today it was pouring rain and the mountain was hiding. Blessings, Lana

Falling In Love With Your Characters

~ janispattersonmysteries

by Janis Patterson

Don’t worry – this isn’t a post about romantic love, though show me a woman who writes romance (as I do sometimes) who doesn’t get all hot and bothered over writing the perfect hero. Just imagine… you can create the perfect man with muscles, a twinkle in his eye, a rugged but handsome face, sensitivity, strength… the perfect Build-A-Hunk kit.
That said, however, we all know there are many kinds of love, so for this post, at least, let’s forget the idea of hearts-and-flowers romantic love.


Do you believe writers should love their characters? I do. Now I will admit that any competent professional writer can create a believable character on technique alone, without anything empathetic or sympathetic or even liking between writer and character. I’m not talking about whether this character is a villain or a hero – we’ve all either written or read a story where the villain is the most likable character. I’m talking about a deeper connection – an instinctual, inner knowing how the character feels/reacts opposed to declaring through technique how the character will feel/react.


Personally, I am all for the empathetic (it’s more than that, but we need to give it a codeword for this essay) approach than the purely technique-driven format. You and the character – perhaps all the major characters, and yes, it’s possible to jump from head to head – almost meld into one. You know what he is going to say. You know what he is going to do. It is almost as if you were doing it yourself.


By contrast, the technique way is very one sided. You have created a character, maybe even using the old trick of the character interview – a questionnaire which you answer as your character. This is supposed to give you an insight into the character’s mind and being. There are the standard questions of name and age and eye color, but some are so detailed they go in to truly deep (and in my opinion useless unless there is a direct tie-in to the plot) question such as the maiden name of the character’s grandmother and his favorite flavor of Jell-O. My personal reaction is this creates a Frankenstein-like character – everything is there, everything works, but it isn’t really alive.


Most of my writer friends look at me askance when we talk about character development. Many of them use some version of the character interview model, whether or not they use a written sheet of questions or just keep the information in their head. Some brainstorm with other writers. I’ve never heard of anyone using my method, which really isn’t a ‘method’ at all.


I get a wisp of an idea – a situation, a relationship, sometimes a thing – and start to build from there. Then the characters come. They just walk in, tell me their names and a little something about them (but not everything, as they like to keep surprises for me for later in the book, mischievous little creatures that they are) and the story starts to grow.


And they are not always little darlings, either. One hero in particular had a name that I just hated, so in a moment of hubris I decided that I was the writer, I was in control, and I could change his name to something I liked. Except I couldn’t. He shut up and for at least a week refused to talk to me. The story died. Oh, I wrote every day, and then spent the next morning tearing up what I had written the day before.


Finally I caved and gave him back the name he liked – the name I hated – and from that moment on the book was one of the easiest I’ve ever written. I liked the book, but I didn’t like that character, which was a shame, as he was a great protagonist – strong, smart, courageous, with just enough flaws to make him totally human. My readers loved him and I’ve gotten requests to put him in another book.


Perhaps the reader won’t realize the difference between an empathetic and a created character, and with a skilled writer they shouldn’t be able to, so some people will ask if it makes a difference. To the writer it makes a lot of difference, the difference between being a collaborator and a puppet master. Each technique has its adherents, and a writer can use either or both according to his need. Thank goodness there are no hard and fast rules in how to write – other than the obvious dictate to produce the best book you can.


Now you know I can’t go without a commercial, and this is a good one – Christmas is coming, and I’ve got news of a great sale for you! I have blogged for years with a wonderful group of women mystery writers called Ladies of Mystery and this year to celebrate the season we’ve put together a bunch of 29 books about Christmas. Some are mysteries, some are romance, some are on special sale, some are not, but they’re all good stories by proven and popular writers. The sale begins 15 November, so you’ll have a good long time to read and enjoy a bunch of Christmas stories! Go take a look – here’s the link:

Ladies of Mystery Catalog

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

T Is for Thanksgiving – and Tea

~ Margaret Lucke

By Margaret Lucke

’Tis the season for gratitude, and I hope that as you sit down later this month at your Thanksgiving table, you’ll have plenty of things to be grateful for. For me, one of the main entries on this year’s things-I’m-glad-to-have-in-my-life list is tea.

In fact that’s on my list every year, in fact every day. Each morning as I sit down at my desk to write, I give thanks to Shen Nung, who gave humanity one of its greatest gifts.

Shen Nung was an emperor of ancient China, revered for teaching his people the art of cultivating grain and for researching the medicinal value of herbs. He believed drinking water should be boiled to make it clean and healthy.

Legend says that one day in 2737 BC, while traveling through a remote region, he rested in the shade of a wild bush while his servants boiled a pot of water for him. A gust of breeze blew some leaves and twigs into the water, but the thirsty emperor drank it anyway. To his delight, the brew had a wonderful aroma and flavor.

The bush was Camellia sinensis, and the drink he discovered was tea. Shen Nung proclaimed it to be a beverage of many virtues. He claimed the person who consumed it would gain “vigor of body, contentment of mind, and determination of purpose.”

Who can argue with an emperor?

I would add one more benefit to the list—tea stimulates creativity. My creativity, anyway.

A mug of tea is my constant companion through the workday. In the morning I like to be fueled by one of the breakfast teas, like English Breakfast or Irish Breakfast, or by Newman’s Own Organic Black, which I favor because it tastes good and the company gives its profits to charity. I’ll take mine black, thank you—no milk, sugar, or lemon.

Later on I often invite the distinguished Earl Grey to join me at my desk. His namesake tea is the perfect pick-me-up in the late afternoon. For my birthday one year a friend gave me a fun present, an Earl Grey tasting: six packages of Earl Grey tea, each a different brand. I was surprised to discover how dissimilar they were—six very different flavors, even though they were all made to the same basic formula: black tea permeated with oil of bergamot.

Sometimes I vary my routine by indulging in something more exotic. Oolong, Darjeeling, Kilgiri, Keemun, Assam, Russian Caravan—the names alone are enough to spark the imagination.

I stop drinking tea around 6 p.m., in deference to my desire for a good night’s sleep. Tea does contain caffeine. Pound for pound it has more caffeine than coffee. However, tea gives you many more cups from a pound than coffee does, so cup for cup there’s less caffeine in tea. I’ve never noticed that drinking black tea in the evening really inhibits my sleep. But I prefer to err on the safe side, so my bedtime libation isn’t real tea but something herbal, like ginger or mint.

My kitchen cupboard holds several delicate porcelain teacups with matching saucers, and the cupboard is where they stay. You have to fill one of them three times to get enough tea to taste. I prefer a mug that has a generous capacity and a wide curve to the handle so it’s easy to hold.

I consider tea to be one of the most important tools of the writer’s trade, right up there with my writing software program and my solitaire game. A tool is something that helps you accomplish a task. Without tea, I’d never get any writing done. Uh-oh, my mug is empty. Excuse me while I go and refill it. Thanks again, Shen Nung!

~

Here’s something else to be thankful for this season—the Ladies of Mystery Cavalcade of Books! This catalog goes live from November 15 through December 31, 2024 and features books by all of the Ladies, some at special prices just for you! A great opportunity to get wonderful gifts for your favorite readers or yourself (you deserve some gifts too). You can find our Cavalcade of Books by clicking here.

The Secret

~ susanoleksiw ~ 5 Comments

Many of us in the writing community have a secret, and it’s not exactly the same secret. We write our books, talk about our characters, whom we love, and gnash our teeth over the plot holes, the ever-jiggling middle that refuses to settle down and dash forward, and the ending that leaves us dissatisfied, rewritten three or thirty-three times. You know this because you read us here. None of this is kept secret from anyone who reads a writer’s blog. And then we have to edit the soggy mess, find beta readers, edit it again, and then pop over to our editor, if we have one, or switch hats and become our own publisher.

Somewhere in this scenario is one step that every writer loves. We each have our own. Which one is mine? Those who know me can probably guess.

When I was in college I was the editor of the student humor magazine, which meant handling proofs and working with the printer. I loved working with the printer, seeing those strips of paper with types-set pages on them with little red pencil marks and handing them over to the printer. For some reason I prefer to forget, I always seemed to get him at dinner time. Yes, I love the publishing/printing process. And that brings me to the topic of today—Crime Spell Books.

CSB is the third publishing venture I’ve undertaken with friends or colleagues. What may seem daunting to others has an irresistible pull for me. Two other writers and I began Crime Spell Books after the new editors/owners of Level Best Books, another venture I began with another two friends, dropped the anthology for New England mysteries. They lived in the DC area, so it was understandable. But New England needed its own anthology, so Ang Pompano and Leslie Wheeler and I grabbed the opportunity, and published our first in 2021.

Devil’s Snare: Best New England Crime Stories 2024, now availables is our latest offering, with twenty-four stories, in every sub-genre. We post a call for stories in January, and we read every one that comes in over the next several months (to end of April). We rank the stories 1, 2, or 3 on our own lists, and then we share them to see what we have. It’s always gratifying to see how close we are on most of them. When we decide how many stories we want, we begin discussing the remaining stories that came close, and work for agreement.

Anthologies are among the best works we in the writing community can produce. They show a variety of writers and interests. They require strong collaboration. Each editor loves certain stories and not others, and here we rely on a deep respect for each other’s experience and taste so we can come to agreement. Not every story I love gets into the anthology, and the other two editors probably feel the same. But the result—a list of excellent mysteries and crime stories by known and unknown writers—is something we’re all proud of. And then we come to my special love/hate experience—formatting. I do this because I think there is something wonderful about holding in our hands a finished book that we made, with the chapters and lines of text laid out properly—no unruly paragraphs or rebellious headers or recalcitrant page numbers. Everything is in order and proper and beautiful.

So that’s my favorite part, as much as anyone might question that statement while I’m working on it. The end is worth the frustration, gnashing of teeth, moments of panic, and sheer terror that one wrong punch of a button will send the whole thing to oblivion. And then it’s done. The proof comes in the mail, and then the final copy. And I look up from my desk and there it is. Beautiful. Finished. I can rest of my masses of edited copy and have another cup of tea.

Experience vs Research

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 4 Comments


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!