Tag: writing

Punctuation

~ susanoleksiw ~ 10 Comments

I’m a fan of punctuation. It’s not something I thought much about in my earlier years, except when a teacher told me I was using commas incorrectly. For my next paper I made sure to use commas as correctly as I could manage. Her response was, “It looks like you sprinkled them like salt.” This did not mar my love of all those black marks on the page also known as letters and punctuation marks, but I did grow skeptical of her instructional skills. 
 
When I arrived in graduate school and stared down at a passage composed in Sanskrit and printed in Devanagari (the script usually associated with that language) at the end of the first semester, I came to appreciate those little marks even more. Not all languages use them, and not even Western languages used them until the medieval period. Until then most paragraphs looked like this.
 
Wordswerewrittenallbunchedtogetherwithnoindicationofwheretoputastoporcommaorquestionmarkthatwouldmakesenseifweallreadwordsthesamewayitwouldntmatterwhatwasmissingbecausetherewouldbenodisagreementwheresomethingendsorbeginswouldbedeterminedtobethesamebyallreadersbutwouldthatbethecaseiftherewerenomarkertoshowwouldweknowhowotherreaderswereinterpretingaparticularpassagecouldbereadinanynumberofways
 
Now consider reading passages like this in a foreign language and a different script. Why am I thinking about all of this?
 
My partners and I have just finished editing and setting the new anthology from Crime Spell Books this year titled Devil’s Snare. One of them remarked that there were a lot of dashes and ellipses in this year’s crop of stories. We agreed that was so. But why?
 
In general most writers understand the correct use of the comma, colon, semicolon, period, quotation marks, question mark, and exclamation point. We know the basic purpose of the dash and the ellipses. I for one blame Emily Dickinson for the overuse of the dash. If she hadn’t been such an inspired poet, that particular mark might have faded into disuse. As it is, it’s at least as popular as the ellipsis. Why do I care?
 
I’m not sure that I do care about these marks. I use them but not nearly as often as many other writers I read. What I do care about is the reading experience. These two marks are so ubiquitous that I finally had to wonder why, and I think I have an answer. 
 
When I read I form a picture of the characters going about their actions in the setting given. I hear them speaking, usually in a manner that conforms to my image of them. If the writer is a good one, my imagination is stimulated and those characters are robust, filling my head. I hear the intonation that tells me Stella is annoyed, hinted by the way the author has described her posture and glance. When the little boy is frightened by the store owner on his first attempt at shoplifting, showing off to his friends, I can hear him stutter, pause, unsure whether he should go on or go quiet or get out as fast as he can. But sometimes my imaginings of the characters’ doings are interrupted by the text. The author wants me to hear an interruption, and ends a sentence with a dash, just so I’ll be sure to notice that the character is interrupted. And if the character should pause to reflect, the author uses an ellipsis to make sure I know the character is pausing, unsure what to say next. But why do this? Doesn’t the writer trust the reader’s imagination?
 
At this point I don’t think the writer is thinking about the reader. I think he or she is thinking about how this scene looks on a stage, in front of a camera. I think he or she has slipped into writing stage directions in the prose text for the actors. The writer is telling the actors how to interpret the scene, and the reader who has imagined something that seems rich and satisfying comes to a series of these doctored lines and the imagination is blunted. It comes to a halt. Clunk.
 
There is a valid use for both marks, but I see it less and less often. When I’m tempted to use one or the other, I take that as a hint from the writing unconscious that I may be getting lazy and it’s time to rework the sentence or the scene. I don’t want to do anything to hinder a reader’s imagination.
 
Perhaps I’m being irked by overuse, so in the interests of fairness I pulled out a copy of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. The Great Man uses dashes and ellipses, not with abandon, but with care and precision. Hammett was too good a writer to get lazy in the middle of a scene; he could rely on his characters getting across how they felt, what they were doing, and why. I doubt he was thinking about his books being turned into movies, or how a particular actor would interpret a particular scene. (Yes, I know, I could be wrong.)
 
I have finally reached the point where I want to eliminate every ellipsis I encounter, and slip back into my own imagining of the story and its characters. And this may well become my policy as an editor.

Reframing

~ susanoleksiw ~ 6 Comments

Reframing is a well-established psychological tool for tackling problems that may seem intractable, and I found myself appreciating it recently.

For the last three years two other writers and I spend much of the spring and summer working on the annual anthology Best New England Crime Stories published by Crime Spell Books. All three of us read and select the stories, and all three of us edit. All the other duties are split. Ang Pompano sends out the acceptance or rejection emails and works on promotion, developing ads and the like. Leslie Wheeler manages the books, and works on sales opportunities. I get to write jacket copy, and lay out the book for POD. We have a great cover designer, and all three of us weigh in on the art and design. We review each other’s work, offer suggestions, and manage to put out a book we’re proud of every year while also having fun at our launch at Crime Bake in November.

Writing jacket copy is perhaps the least onerous job of a writer with a book going to press. My practice has been to look over the list of stories, arrange them in loose groups, and talk about the kinds of crimes they contain. I wrote the copy this month and sent it around to Ang and Leslie. Both liked it but Leslie had a response I hadn’t expected but found provocative. With all the talk of crime in the news today, depressing for everyone, perhaps we could focus on the characters who are fighting back, challenging the criminals or the system. This immediately appealed to me, and I ditched the first draft and reshuffled my note cards.

Looking at these stories from the perspective of the range of characters caught up in circumstance of crime and its consequences changed the way I viewed them and let me see beyond the cleverness of the plot, the range of characters swirling around incidents, the grounding bit of information, the unexpected twist. Most were ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances finding something within they didn’t realize they had. They were sometimes stymied by their situations, tripped up by bad luck or trapped by betrayal, but they were a match to the challenge, though not all succeeded in bringing about justice.

By reframing I also got closer to a different view of the crime. When a crime is committed it is most often by a person shriveled by life and seeking an unimaginative solution. An ordinary scam inspires a docile matron, and a drug addict discovers how far he has gone on the path to a. new life, and what his world is really like, something most readers will never experience. For others, following clues and solving a crime leads to a painful reckoning. Rewriting the jacket copy turned out, also, to be more challenging than cataloging a variety of crimes. As expected, the protagonists in these twenty-four stories were a varied lot.

With every year, we three editors choose stories that we think are well written, well thought out, and interesting as fiction. Because it’s crime fiction there is an understandable emphasis on the structure, the plot with a crime and its solution. But with a change in perspective, a reframing, I find myself appreciating the range of personalities grappling with life’s body blows. There is a richness not as easily appreciated otherwise. I hope our readers will feel the same way when the book is out in November.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen… by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 8 Comments

The song from The Sound of Music kept popping up in my head as I struggled to choose a title for this blog, which will be my last for Ladies of Mystery.  I started writing these shortly after the first book in my Edmund DeCleryk mystery series, Murder in the Museum, was published in early spring, 2018, and other than missing one a while back, I’ve managed to write every month for the past six years.

You’ve read not only about my books, investigative procedures and writing processes, but also what it’s like to live in the northern Finger Lakes region of New York, our travel experiences and family gatherings, and even eulogies for those I’ve loved. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it and feel gratified by how many wonderful and positive comments I’ve received as a result, and friends I’ve made along the way.

The decision has not been easy, it’s taken me weeks to feel comfortable with it. As I’ve grown older (and by most standards I’m in the elderly category), simplifying my life and deciding what takes priority seems tantamount to residing in a world that’s become far too complex for me as of late. Family always takes precedence, we’ve committed to spending more time with our children and siblings; also with friends whom we hold dear to our hearts. Some live hours and sometimes a plane trip away.

When I wrote the first book, my publisher asked for a series, and that’s what she got. I’m now working on book four, Murder at Chimney Bluffs, which, like the others, includes a historical backstory that provides clues to why the murder occurred, this time Prohibition and rumrunning. There was much activity between Canada and our side of Lake Ontario during that period of time, with contraband liquor unloaded onto a beach beneath Chimney Bluffs, drumlins that were created from icebergs millions of years ago.

Authoring books is a time-consuming process and one that I integrate into the other facets of my life, which include writing a monthly blog for Life in the Finger Lakes magazine, serving on the board of directors at our local library, and occasionally volunteering for other organizations here. An active social life and attendance at a multitude of cultural events are included in the colorful tapestry of our lives.

I truly appreciate that I, as a newly published author of mysteries, was given the opportunity to show off my writing skills here. Thanks so much, Paty Jager, for your unwavering support along the way and for understanding my decision at this juncture of my life, and to the rest of you who have steadfastly been with me throughout this journey.

 So, for now, so long, good-bye, auf wiedersehen, good night, and may peace and love follow you everywhere you go.

Karen Shughart is the author of the Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery series, published by Cozy Cat Press and set in the Finger Lakes. She has also co-written two mysteries with Cozy Cat authors, two non-fiction books, and pens a monthly blog for Life in the Finger Lakes magazine https://www.lifeinthefingerlakes.com/.  A member of CWA, North America Chapter, and F.LARE (Finger Lakes Authors and Readers Experience), she lives with her husband, Lyle, in Sodus Point, NY.  Her books are available at local gift shops and bookstores and in multiple formats at  amazon.com

Anatomy of a Villain

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 2 Comments

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.

Three Hydrangeas

~ susanoleksiw ~ 6 Comments

I’ve been reading up on hydrangeas—where to plant, when to bloom, what to feed. I planted three on a gentle slope in the back yard, just off the small patio, several years ago. This area gets lots of morning sun, midday sun, and some afternoon sun. I never feed them, never prune though I do remove old stems that are woody and falling off. And, like many other plants in New England, these three no longer wait for the traditional August blooming. They begin in mid June. 

All three plants have been productive since I planted them perhaps fifteen years ago, and two have reached their full height, over three feet. The third grew more slowly, and two years ago, as I was weeding out whatever had crept up through the mulch, I found an invasive plant had twined itself around the third plant. I rooted it out, and hoped the hydrangea would survive and do better now.

Last year the runt of the trio bloomed nicely, and I congratulated myself for planting it a little higher than the other two, thinking now it gets more sun instead of being somewhat sheltered between two other plants and a fast-growing false spirea, which is another object of my (unfriendly) attentions.

As the spring drifted into June, I admired the first two hydrangeas, which were getting larger and larger, with more and more blooms. I pondered the third plant, which has now arrived at the top of the slope and is only a few inches from the patio. How did it get there? 

It’s been two years since my husband died, and while I thought my life was continuing on its established trajectory, I’m beginning to see that it’s not. A few weeks after Michael died, a mutual friend, also a widow, asked me if I was now reinventing myself. The question surprised me because we’d known each other for years both as writers and as neighbors. My first reaction was, no, of course not. I’m who I have always been. But in the intervening months I have noticed that interests I didn’t pay much attention to are coming to the fore, or I’m taking them more seriously. Some of them involve fixing things myself instead of asking Michael, who loved broken things for the chance to tinker, or hiring someone. 

I’m doing a lot more photography, and looking back on four solo shows and wondering why I didn’t take the work more seriously. My newest project involves lace and exploring experimental photography, which involves poking into analogue work. I don’t feel like I’m reinventing myself so much as sprawling over boundaries established arbitrarily and no longer useful. 

So now when I look at the hydrangea working its way up the slope and getting ready to grow as large as the other two, I don’t wonder how it got here or why. It’s where it needs to be.