Can I Start Writing Now? Plotting Your Novel by David P. Wagner

Every author has a different way of starting work on a new book. Here's one.

I've always wondered how some authors can just sit down and begin writing without having any idea where their book is going, and especially if they write mysteries. Such writers are called “pantsers” in the literary lexicon since they write by the seat of their pants. Tony Hillerman was a pantser, and did pretty well, so it certainly can be done—just not by me. Instead, I want to have as much of the book planned out as I can before starting to write the first chapter. So, if you're a pantser, move to another blog entry. But if you are a “plotter” like I am, read on.  Not that you can't make changes as you write—of course you will, and lots of them. In one of my books, when I was close to the end, I decided to switch the murderer from one character to another. But as a general rule, before I start writing the first word, I have to know who did it, where and how the crime happened, the identities of all the suspects, and how it's all going to come together. Because I recently turned in the final draft of book number six in my series, I am well into the process right now for starting number seven. So, this is the perfect time to take a break and write about it here.

First things first

The hard part is right off the bat: deciding on a setting and a murder. To get there I create a document in my computer, cleverly named “ideas,” and begin to write down stuff. It's a stream-of-consciousness kind of writing, putting down quickly what comes into my head, and wiping it out just as quickly when it doesn't sound right. This takes a while, with a lot of breaks, and throughout I am constantly bouncing ideas off my wife. Usually, the setting comes first. All my books take place in Italy, so I have to decide in which wonderful Italian town my protagonist Rick Montoya will find himself this time, and what kind of work or play brings him there. Then I think about crime and a motive, usually tied in some way to the setting. An idea pops up, I write it down. The next day, I may get rid of it and come up with something else. Somehow, forcing myself to sit at my laptop and write down what comes to mind works for me. I talk to myself as I do it, though not out loud; that would be weird. Once I have a setting and a crime, Rick has to be pulled into the investigation somehow and in a way that makes sense. More pounding away at the keyboard, with lots of deletes when the ideas don't work. When that hook is made between my protagonist and the murder, and I know exactly why and how the crime took place, I start working on characters.

Characters next

Time for another new document, this one named—you guessed it— “characters.” Since my books are stand-alone, Rick will be meeting most of these people for the first time, though occasionally some face from a previous adventure appears. At this point in the preparation for my next book, I have a wealthy art collector (the victim), his assistant, his wife, an art dealer, a museum curator, and a local cop since Rick is an amateur sleuth and can't arrest people. Once I started to flesh out characters, I gave them each a name. I find it is easier to envision a person if I know their name, though names can be changed at any time, and often are, thanks to “find and replace.” Once they're named, I write down what they look like, so I will have an image in my head. Then I invent background, family, personality, life story, and, very importantly, what makes them a possible suspect in the crime. Such details can evolve or even change dramatically once I start writing. One time, a planned nasty personality became a nice guy after just a couple of sentences. But usually, these folks are required to accept what they were given on the “characters” page and be happy they made the cut. As you create your characters, remember that they are the most important aspect of your book. Readers may forget the plot, and even who committed the murder, but good characters will stick in their minds and bring them back for the next book.

Now you write?

Not yet. At this point, it's time to start thinking about the big picture, so the next document to create will be a synopsis of the plot, since by this time I should have a general idea of what's going to happen. I already have a number of storylines from my “ideas” document, and as I invented the characters other plot lines came to mind. This synopsis will be a couple of pages at most, and it will force me to think of the story and how it will flow. Pace is very important, you don't want your reader to get bored and fall asleep. Besides flowing well, it also has to make sense and be believable. Sometimes after reading a synopsis I sit back and have to tell myself, no David, that just doesn't make it, try again. So, I wipe it off the screen and begin anew. (Throughout each step of this process, in fact, you should not be afraid to do just that.)

“Scenery”

All right, now I've got the characters and the general plot of the story, it must be time to start writing. Not so fast. The next step is creating scenes. (New document: “scenes.”) Like a movie, a book is a collection of scenes, and they, not chapters, are its real building blocks. One good paragraph is all I need at this point to describe a scene, giving the essence of its action. Every scene must serve one of two purposes: move the storyline along or develop the characters. If it doesn't do at least one of those things, dump it. Later, after the scene has been written in the actual manuscript, I will go back and give each scene summary more detail and record any changes made during the writing process. In this way, it becomes a reference document, useful when I forget where something was dropped into the story and don't want to read through the whole manuscript to find it. In general, I create the scene summaries in the order they will appear in the book, but sometimes I jump ahead and do the climactic scenes before those that will fall in the middle. This can be helpful, since knowing how the book finishes assists me in building up suspense and tension before the climax. It also helps me decide what kind of red herrings I can drop along the way. Concocting the scenes will be a piece of cake since you have written a good synopsis and you know your characters. There will be a natural progression from the end of one scene to the start of the next.

Now?

Yes, you finally can begin writing—and aren't you glad you did all that work to prepare? You're sick and tired of weeks of outlines, plans, and summaries, and dying to write real sentences and dialog. Open up a new document—call it “manuscript”— and begin.

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David P. Wagner, a retired foreign service officer, is the author of five Rick Montoya Italian Mysteries. David lived in Italy for nine years, during which time he learned to love things Italian, many of which appear in his books. The latest in the series, A Funeral in Mantova, was published in March by Poisoned Pen Press. To find out more about his books, you can visit his website at davidpwagnerauthor.com.

Making Your Inner Writer Stand Out by Seven Jane

It’s a well-known fact: most writers—myself included—are introverts. We spend a lot of time with our faces either buried between the pages of books or awash in the glare of our laptop screens. We have an affinity for cats—just ask Neil Gaiman, Ernest Hemingway, or Charles Dickens—and probably drink a startling amount of coffee, tea, or perhaps something stronger (and sometimes we mix them, ahem). We have exceedingly strong opinions on things like literary classics and Oxford commas. We are either early birds or night owls and never both. Sometimes we wear tweed.

And while some of us are pros at things like social media and blogging, many of us—maybe most of us—are not. After all, our passion is developing other people’s stories, not necessarily doing a great job of sharing our own. Point of fact, some of the most incredible writers I know barely maintain a functioning author website. Others aren’t visible online at all.

No matter if you’re a social media recluse or an avid Tweeter; or if you’re a newbie, an aspiring author, or a veteran; if you’re self-published or traditionally represented, it’s important to consider the importance of branding yourself. Besides your stories, it’s the single most valuable asset you have—and unlike your next book, if you don’t write it, it will write itself.

Branding isn’t just for companies. It’s for people, too, and we—as authors—need to think what our brand is, or is not, saying about us. Brand, in case you’re wondering, isn’t limited to things like logos and social media handles, either. It’s connection—the lasting, emotional impact your readership has when they hear your name, see the cover of one of your books, or talk about one of your characters. And in a very loud, very competitive, and very prickly publishing market, it’s an integral part of building customer—or in our case, reader—loyalty. Likewise, and more practical, it could be an important component of your next query, too. Today, beyond showing your writing chomps in your actual writing, publishers are looking for authors who know how to sell themselves in addition to writing their books. Some are even considering asking authors to submit marketing plans alongside their manuscript submissions and quantifying your platform is part of that. It sounds scary, I know, but like going to med school before becoming a doctor, it’s kind of a big deal.

Luckily, there is some low-hanging fruit you can pluck from the tree of opportunity to get started cultivating your brand. Start by thinking about what sets you apart from other authors and makes you a consistent source of literary creativity that readers need to get their nose into. That’s what brands are: distinct, intentional, engaging, and consistent.

First things first, before you begin thinking about yourself, consider your audience. Who are you writing for? Who reads your books? Are these the same people? Put your audience in the role of a character if it helps. Flush out their interests, motivations. Once you know who you’re talking to, then you can start talking to them in a way you’re sure they’ll hear.

Next, develop your voice—your writing style for readers, so to speak. Think about your values, your opinions, your sense of humor…and then be consistent about how you share it with others. Remember, your branding yourself, not your books. Be you, or the best version of you—the you in your author bio. And be authentic.

Now, add some color. Literally. Choose your look, and apply it consistently. Make a logo, if you don’t have one. Build a website. Get on social media. You don’t have to do the same thing everywhere—in fact, you shouldn’t—but you should be consistent in each place and have a cohesive image everywhere you touch your audience. Different platforms reach different audiences—readers, media, agents, and so forth—so just like we want to write books that pique our reader’s interests, we want to build our brand in ways that pique the interest we’re looking for. There’s no one best way, but, for the sake of example, here’s what I do:

• Website: information about my books, characters, events and media updates, bio, and contacts for myself and my agent, publishers, and my publicist. Most importantly, this is where I keep a weekly blog as well as updates on other articles and editorial contributions. Don’t be static. Make sure you’re updating your website regularly to keep visitors coming back.

• A subscriber newsletter: monthly writing updates, giveaways, and sneak peeks. Fan club!

• Instagram: a daily photo journal of my writing life, often with pictures of coffee and my cats, using colors and images that support my brand—dark and mysterious, like me.

• Twitter: where I maintain my own writing and reading community, chatting daily with other authors and readers, bloggers, and other bookish folk. Follow like-minded authors, journals, publishers, editors, agents, and readers who share your interest. Use hashtags to build your brand and find your tribe.

• Facebook: I’m bad at Facebook, but my friend Rue Volley is amazing—check her out.

• Goodreads: when I’m not writing, I’m reading…and talking about it. You should be, too.

Cultivating an author brand doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, practice, and more than a little adaptation along the way. My best branding advice? Tackle building a brand like writing a new book: outline it, identify the characters, sort out your settings and story plot, and then get busy filling in the lines with the things that make you brilliantly you. Be your introverted self, safely at home with your coffee and cats and tweed (or whatever your writing heart fancies), and make your brand start working for you.

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Seven Jane is an author of dark fantasy and speculative fiction. Her debut novel, The Isle of Gold, was published by Black Spot Books in October 2018. She is represented by Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management and supported by Smith Publicity.

Seven is a member of The Author's Guild and Women's Fiction Writing Association. She writes a weekly column for WFWA's Industry News newsletter and is a regular contributor to The Nerd Daily.

Website: http://www.sevenjane.com

Social: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @sevenjanewrites

8 Tips for Writing Authentic Historical Mysteries by Erin Lindsey

So, you want to write a historical mystery. You want it to be authentic and meticulously-researched enough to please the pickiest pedants. But dammit, Jim, you’re a novelist, not a historian! Where do you start?

I have no idea. Or at least, I didn’t when I sat down to write Murder on Millionaires’ Row, a mystery set in Gilded Age New York. I’d never written historical fiction before. I cut my teeth writing fantasy, so while I was used to some light research on things like medieval architecture and technology, nothing I’d tackled up to that point prepared me for the rigours of setting my novel in a real place and time—let alone one as well-documented, and well-loved, as New York City.

But somehow, I blundered through, and two novels and half a dozen convention panels later, while I still wouldn’t consider myself an expert, I have accumulated a few tips and tricks for making your historical novel as accurate, authentic, and immersive as it can possibly be.

I’m going to skip the obvious ones – nonfiction books about the era, movies and television, visiting historical sites and so forth – and go straight to a few that might get overlooked.

1. Pick a setting you’re passionate about. It’s always a good idea to write what you love, but when it comes to historical fiction, you’re going to need that passion to sustain you through many long hours of research. Ideally, you have such a nerd crush on your setting that background reading doesn’t even feel like work.

2. Nose through the newspaper. Even if you don’t plan to include a specific historical event, browsing through local newspapers is a great way to get a feel for the day-to-day concerns of people living at that time, as well as the overall historical and political context. Since we’re talking historical mystery here, stories about crime are especially helpful. They give you a sense of what sorts of nefarious deeds the baddies of the day were up to, as well as helpful tidbits about policing and the justice system. Don’t pass over the advertisements, either. They’ll teach you a lot about what household items were in use, complete with brand names. Little details like that—what your heroine might find lying around her kitchen, say, or in her medicine cabinet—add wonderful texture.

3. Read autobiographies and memoirs. This is obviously important if you’re writing about real-life historical figures, but even if you aren’t, autobiographies and memoirs and a great way to get a feel for what it was like for people living in that time. What they worried about, how they spoke and wrote, who was important to them in their communities. Chances are you’ll find yourself drawing upon some of their experiences, however mundane.

4. Curl up with a good novel. Nonfiction is well and good, but I’m convinced there’s no better way to learn about the little things—etiquette, transport, clothing, food, dialect—than reading novels written in the era you’re writing about. Be careful with class and geography, though. If you’re writing about a housemaid in New York City, Madame Bovary is only going to get you so far.

5. Zoom out. Don’t forget to take account of the major social and technological developments of the day. For example, if you’re writing about 1870s America, the country is dealing with the aftermath of the Civil War. A hundred years later, it’s Vietnam and the civil rights movement. In the 1840s and 50s, the telegraph was changing the way humans communicated; by the 1880s electric lighting was igniting a revolution of its own. Even if you don’t refer to these big-picture issues directly, understanding them—and how they shape the worldviews and daily experiences of your characters—will add depth to the setting and the people living in it.

6.Add Etymonline to your favourites bar. If you’re keen to have your characters use only period-accurate words, this website is a goldmine. My New York City copper couldn’t have a “hunch” in 1886, because that word didn’t show up (at least in that way) until 1904. But my besotted heroine was safe referring to her “crush”, since that one’s been around since 1884. If you can pick up a book on period slang, so much the better. (For 19th century New York, I recommend The City in Slang: New York Life and Popular Speech by Irving Lewis Allen.)

7. Grab a guidebook. Credit for this one goes to Tasha Alexander, who turned me onto Baedeker guides. Think of these like a sort of historical Lonely Planet. Just like modern travel guides, they cover hotels, transport, restaurants, sightseeing, and so forth – complete with amazing details like how much things cost and what sort of clientele you’re likely to encounter in a particular establishment. My personal favourites are the warnings – places ladies shouldn’t go, for example, or gentlemen wishing to be considered respectable. Baedeker specialized in Europe; for the US, I suggest Rand McNally & Co. Admittedly, these particular ones are specific to the 19th century, but I’d be willing to bet there are analogues for earlier periods as well.

8.Find your people. One of the best things about the internet and social media is that it’s easier than ever to connect with your fellow enthusiasts. Bloggers, podcasters, Facebook groups, Pinterest boards—chances are someone out there is busily collecting exactly the sorts of resources you’re looking for. Browse their collections—and don’t be afraid to reach out, either. In my experience, when people are passionate about something, they’re only too happy to share it.

Et voila – these are my best trade secrets so far, though I’m learning all the time. I hope you find them as helpful as I did!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to researching the various accents of Missouri, to make sure I do justice to a certain famous gentleman who figures in the next Rose Gallagher mystery. Suggestions are, of course, welcome.

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Erin Lindsey has lived and worked in dozens of countries around the world, but has only ever called two places home: her native city of Calgary and her adopted hometown of New York. She is the author of the Bloodbound series of fantasy novels from Ace. Murder on Millionaires' Row is her debut mystery. She divides her time between Calgary and Brooklyn with her husband and a pair of half-domesticated cats.

A Plot to Publish by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli

In my entire writing life, I have only met one writer who didn’t want to be published. A member of the writing group I belonged to, she wrote small gems, her stories short and stunning. I suspected she’d tried agents and traditional publishers with no luck and had given up. But what if she’d come up with a plan? What if she’d got in on the Flash/Sudden Fiction phenomenon? What if she’d found little markets, magazines, and developed her genre? Wasn’t it worth a try?

Watching this woman take great pleasure in reading a new story each week, I vowed I wasn’t going to be her. I wouldn’t stop trying to publish my mysteries, go as big as I could go, not until those final flames got me and I went down still waving a manuscript in my hot little hand.

The PLAN began with what I was writing. It had to have a little more to it than the mass of other published stories—I concentrated on making my female characters a little quirky, a little deeper, having trauma in their lives—nobody perfect but all of them pretty damned special. I love my female characters. They are me—at my worst and best; all the friends I’ve cried with and laughed with over the years. They are the women I decry and those I admire. I wanted strength, individuality, and a past I could call on to fill in the ground beneath their feet. I didn’t even agree, always, with what they did in the novels—as long as they were true to who they’d come to be and were interested in creating a great story—no matter what I put them through.

Okay, I wrote the first of these female mysteries and finally—after a few years—was satisfied. Many drafts. More to come. I fell in love with nothing. If an editor would ask me to consider changing this or that—I would consider anything —and never find a hill worth dying on.

I sent the novel to five agents I’d researched closely. For me, each had to be a woman. Each had to have a decent client list—some of them writers I had heard of before. Each had to publish a lot of work by women. Each had to be listed almost monthly in Publishers’ Weekly with solid sales. Each had to have a great, client-friendly website with advice for writers on how to approach her, and often be quoted in articles about what agents want.

All five of these agents turned me down, but one said to send her my next novel and to stay in touch. This was the one I wanted most from the lot, so I started a file and began to send her any mention of me in media and news of what I was working on—always reminding her she said to keep in touch.

Never did I stalk her, as one writer did. She asked what they could do if she just came to their office and sat until they took her on. The answer was “Call the police.”

I only sent word of what I was doing when I had something to report—an article published, where I was on the new novel, conferences, seminars, and appearances.

I stayed friendly and kept my tone light.

All of this became the next part of my Grand Plot to Get Published!

I sold that first novel to a small, but solid, publisher on my own—listing articles I’d had in magazines and stories in newspapers. (This is a little like making it off-Broadway—not easy to do either). I included a local article on me in The Detroit News—as being president of a local writers’ organization (all things I’d done on my way to learning how to write and to connect with writers). I wrote about the famous writers I’d taken classes with and those I’d met while helping put on a writers’ conference.

I worked tirelessly at becoming a well-published writer, whether I was ever going to get anywhere or not. Actually, I never let myself entertain a single thought that I wouldn’t finally get where I wanted to go.

After that first book came out—very small thump in the publishing market—it did get me an offer of a contract on three more novels. I wrote these and with each got a little more attention, but not much. Smaller publishers give you credence, some bragging rights. Any kind of attention—newspaper, magazine, online; any good reviews (you ignore any other kind—though there won’t be many. People are starting to read you and will write nice things).

With each published novel, I let kept my Ideal Agent up to date with pub date, reviews—anything and everything. I told her where I was speaking, she had my website. If she was going to ignore everything, I’d give up eventually (but I doubt it). She began to answer—always congratulating me.

I wrote the contracted-for novels and then wrote a different series, with this agent in mind. I sent off exactly what she asked for on the website, no taking advantage of a make-believe friendship but still with very strong reminders of my contacts—and news of a call from a different New York Agent, asking to represent me (one not on my ideal list and definitely not this special woman I was after).

And then came the phone call. We already knew each other. It was fun talking and agreeing on what would be done with the new book. Now we are eleven books into our relationship. The relationship is all I wanted it to be. I’m being called an ‘emerging’ writer now (after all these books better to be ‘emerging’ than receding).

My plan wasn’t an easy one. Nothing was guaranteed. I listened to no one but myself, kept what I wanted at the front of everything. Never questioned what I was doing, nor asked advice. Maybe it’s the old thing about making a mental image of what you want and going after it. I have no magic mushrooms, no amulets, no secret book of phone numbers. All I’ve got is the best novel I could write and a plot, or plan, that I believed in. After all, if we can spend so much time writing the perfect plot for a mystery, why not for our own lives?

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Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli lives on a small lake in northern Michigan where crows and bears give her ideas for novels.

With three series out now, she has just turned in the fourth of the Little Library Series, due out next summer: AND THEN THEY WERE DOOMED. Her novels include: GIFT OF EVIL, the Emily Kincaid series, a Texas series, SHE STOPPED FOR DEATH, A MOST CURIOUS MURDER, and IN WANT OF A KNIFE (Just out). Having written fiction all of her life; having five children, ten grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren, her life is not only full but bursting with mystery and surprise.

Getting the Word Out by L.C. Blackwell

I spent more than eighteen months writing For Sale Murder. Draft after draft—researching, editing, formatting, designing a cover, finding beta readers, choosing an Indie distributor, prepping the book for upload, and more. I thought I was ready to release my very first mystery baby, all 85,000 words of it.

Wrong!

My domain, AuthorBlackwell.com, was locked up but I had no functioning website. I hadn’t plumped up my Facebook connections, either. Ditto for Twitter, LinkedIn. What’s more, I hadn't cleaned out my email contact list or beefed it up—I was too busy writing.

Developing a basic marketing plan was not a particularly challenging assignment; I was an advertising exec in an earlier life. My history, however, did not help me avoid making marketing mistakes.

Choosing to market my own book, I contracted with a print-on-demand distributor. My book is on all the right websites, but that doesn’t ring up sales. And hiring a publicist or paying a distributor to be your marketing arm doesn't take the burden away. You are still the captain of your sales force.

You must create noise about your book, and your name. You can’t be shy or apologetic. You must be brave, wear a mantle of courage. And most important, believe in yourself. Remember, not everyone will like your book, but if no one hears about it, those who could love it may not get a chance to read it.

Marketing to your target

My target was easy to define; it was integral to writing For Sale Murder. And that was a major advantage. I knew the who, the what, the where, and the how to direct my marketing efforts. It was easy to focus my message on postcards, email templates, bookmarks and everything else.

My first mistake: Not starting my marketing efforts sooner.

Developing a plan is vital. Initiating it in waves, I discovered, is critical.

A smart, early move: Creating a voting ballot for my book cover.

An L.A. Creative Director, a close friend, helped me. He recreated my rough cover design into three outstanding versions, which I sent to all my email and social media contacts for a vote. The ballot accomplished three things: 1. Great press. It announced to thousands of my contacts that I had written a new book; 2. A winning cover. I had a clear winner—by a landslide; 3. More press. In emails and posts, I announced the winner and included a teaser video.

Next Mistake: Not advertising my cover posts on social media.

I've since learned the value of a timed Facebook boost.

Catching up

Recognizing the need for more intel, I googled indie marketing tips, marketing groups, websites, et al. It was as though I was back at MSU cramming for finals. I downloaded free eBooks, articles, anything available to grasp publishing changes that could help fast-track my plan.

The results were formidable. And whittling down the number of resources and guides to a manageable list was a worthwhile task. I got new marketing directives and ideas I could put in place with little effort.

I also searched Google for mystery associations and mystery reading groups and websites. That search brought me a national list of Indie bookstores, mystery book clubs, mystery bloggers, book fairs, and shows. With slight changes to email templates, I was able to market to these groups. The result: an email response rate of 34% that equated to strong upticks in sales.

I am surprised and encouraged at the reaction to For Sale Murder. I was able to get a Publishers Weekly review, which I link to every email template I send. I’ve been interviewed and invited to guest post on wonderful blogger sites (DrusMusings.com is one of them). And, I’ve received invitations to join other mystery authors on mystery panels.

My marketing is not finished. My focus now? Libraries. What’s more, as I continue to build my brand, I’m writing my second book in the Peter Dumas series aiming for a late spring release. Marketing to start shortly!

My first mystery has been a learning journey in marketing. The websites and resources I discovered have contributed to my efforts and continue to do so. It is a time-consuming process to filter the best resources and the advice they offer, but the lessons learned are invaluable and will be a blueprint for my next book.

Every author competes with millions of books—on the shelf, online, in libraries, in bookstores.

And almost every sale depends on much more than just wonderful words between a front and back cover. The story description, the cover image, and how you present your book come into play. So, write your heart out. But don’t ever forget to strategize, target, and plan.

Some resources to help you on your writing and marketing journey:

GoCentral.com—GoDaddy’s sweet and easy website builder that anyone can manage. Plus, a support team that is unbelievable.

Blog.Reedsy.com—A British company with great info and an impressive list of available professionals—worldwide editors, artists, publishers and more.

The Self-Publishing Tools of Trade Every Author Must Know –by Lama Jabr.

Free Kindle download.

ttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LJS6TPQ/

A wonderful directory of tools and websites complete with description.

SistersinCrime.org—a supportive group with benefits for published and unpublished authors.

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L.C. Blackwell began a career in Chicago advertising agencies writing and producing Radio-TV and print advertising in a variety of industries that included Fashion, Food and Food Service, Consumer Products, Automotive, Children's Products and Retail. Among the client brands represented: Brown Shoe Company, Johnson's Wax, Armour (Dial Soap), Goodrich, Quaker Oats, Oldsmobile, Sportmart, Echo Housewares and American Dairy. A growing interest in programming saw Blackwell become an independent writer-producer developing creative for a select group of projects. Among them: "Belleza Latina," a 13-week package of daily short-form beauty programs written, produced and licensed to the Spanish Entertainment Network for a double run; A bull-riding documentary airing on ABC and Univision affiliates in Phoenix, Arizona; A multimedia promotion that included creative, jingle and presentation production for the National Fitness Foundation presidential appointee, George Allen. Additionally, L.C. Blackwell is the author of 2 children's books as well as a licensed Managing Broker in Illinois

What's the Point? by Mark de Castrique

A friend of mine was standing in line at the sales register of a local bookstore. The woman in front of her was checking out, and the clerk made a suggestion for a novel. She handed her customer a display copy and the woman quickly thumbed through a few pages. “Oh, this is written in first-person. I don’t read first-person.” She pushed the book aside.

“What?” I exclaimed when my friend related the incident. “She just threw out Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, and The Sun Also Rises, not to mention that icon of all mystery detectives, Sherlock Holmes.”

What was the point for making such a sweeping, excluding statement? The point was for some reason the first-person point-of-view kept this woman out of all first-person stories. She refused to allow herself to believe that a character could be talking to her, the reader. As a writer, I believe point-of-view should have the opposite effect. It draws the reader into the story through the connection established between the narrator and reader. For me, first-person is the most intimate and personal form of storytelling because a character is inviting the reader to share his or her experiences.

But point-of-view should always be chosen for its contribution to the impact a story has on the reader. Thus, there are objective reasons for choosing from a variety of subjective perspectives. As a writer of a particular story, do you want your reader to know more than your protagonist or discover revelations along with her or him? Going back to my English grad school days, I learned point-of-view is a distance set between a narrator and the story and thereby a distance set between the reader and the story. It provides a place for both the narrator and the reader to stand. That place should be consistent and not make the reader feel unfairly manipulated.

First-person in a traditional detective novel puts the reader inside the head of one character and one character only—usually the detective with great exceptions like the ever-faithful Dr. Watson. The reader discovers evidence and corresponding solutions along with the detective. As a writer, I’ve found first-person provides an easier entry into my character’s world, and I hope the entry is as easy for the reader, especially in my two series where a bond can be created between reader and character-narrator across multiple novels.

I realize first-person point-of-view isn’t the only and certainly not the most prolific narrative device. Third-person opens up limitless options for taking the reader into multiple minds and locations not privy to the protagonist. For the thriller, third-person sets up the suspense when the reader knows more than the protagonist and is well aware of the danger lurking ahead. For that reason, I chose third-person for my thrillers, The 13th Target, and The Singularity Race.

Yet, there is not just one point-of-view labeled third-person. This plurality of viewpoints is both the strength and potential weakness of third-person. To keep me immersed in the story to the desired extent that I forget I’m reading, the narrative perspective needs to be consistent. Otherwise, the perspective becomes overly manipulative and frustrating. Information and character thoughts are inconsistently revealed and withheld. For example, when a narrative omniscient voice describing, not only the actions but thoughts of each character suddenly and arbitrarily withholds vital information like the message the detective reads on the bloody note clutched in a murdered man’s hand, then the reader has a right to scream foul. The writer didn’t play fair. It might be a good cliffhanger for the end of a chapter, but not if it’s kept from the reader until the end of the novel.

Third-person can also be a close third-person. The story stays with the view of one character, but no thoughts are revealed for any characters. This point of view is used masterfully by Dashiell Hammett in The Maltese Falcon. Sam Spade appears in every scene, but the narrative style is one of objective description only, like a camera following Spade throughout the whole story. If you read the novel with point-of-view in mind, you’ll become aware of how often the descriptions are of characters’ eyes. These “windows of the soul” are as close as Hammett gets to revealing internal thoughts. Why? Because Hammett played absolutely fair with his readers! At the dramatic conclusion, the culprits come to realize they had misjudged what was motivating Sam Spade. But by keeping Sam’s viewpoint free of his thoughts, Hammett surprised the reader as well. The impact was heightened because Hammett not only wrote a great novel; he knew how to tell it with the most powerful point-of-view and he kept that view consistent.

So, point of view isn’t arbitrary. Whether it’s close third-person like Hammett’s, or limited to the thoughts of certain characters, or omniscient in all regards including narrator opinions, the choice should be made in service to the story and in service to the reader. How a story is told is inseparable from the story itself.

Which brings me back to the woman in the bookstore. In my opinion, she separated point-of-view from the potential power that the author’s narrative style brought for the most impactful way to experience the story. She built the first-person point-of-view into a wall and refused to accept it as the author’s gateway into the world he or she created.

And that, my friend, was the author’s point to begin with.

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Mark was born in Hendersonville, NC, near Asheville. He went straight from the hospital to the funeral home where his father was the funeral director and the family lived upstairs. The unusual setting sparked his popular Barry Clayton series and launched his mystery-writing career.

Mark is the author of eighteen novels: seven set in the fictional NC mountain town of Gainesboro, six set in Asheville, two in Washington D.C., one science thriller in the year 2030, and two mysteries written for Middle Graders.

His novels have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist. The CHICAGO TRIBUNE wrote, “As important and as impressive as the author’s narrative skills are the subtle ways he captures the geography – both physical and human – of a unique part of the American South.”

Mark is a veteran of the broadcast and film production business. In Washington D.C., he directed numerous news and public affairs programs and received an EMMY Award for his documentary film work.

Mark lives in Charlotte, but he and his wife Linda can be often found in the NC mountains or the nation’s capital.

Adding a Supernatural Element to Your Thriller by Nicholas Kaufmann

Growing up, I was a Monster Kid through and through. One of my favorite memories from my youth is how every Sunday morning at 11 AM, WPIX-TV out of New York City would show an old, black-and-white Abbott and Costello movie. It seemed like they showed every film the comedy duo ever made, and week after week I watched and laughed along with their classic mix of physical comedy and wordplay. I enjoyed all the films, but my true, whole-hearted devotion was reserved for the movies in which Bud Abbott and Lou Costello encountered monsters, haunted houses, and mad scientists, movies like Hold That Ghost, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, Abbott, and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, and of course their greatest film and one of my all-time favorite movies, the incomparable Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. In a similar vein (haha), I enjoyed swashbuckling adventure films, but if you wanted to keep my attention you needed to add some monsters to the mix, which is why young me would happily flip right past an Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks movie on TV to watch a Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movie. (Flynn might have been a greatsword-wielding sailor in The Sea Hawk, but he never fought a giant cyclops!) And needless to say, if the gang on Scooby Doo, Where Are You! was just solving regular mysteries instead of investigating monster sightings and hauntings, it probably wouldn’t have become my favorite Saturday morning cartoon.

I’m still a Monster Kid at heart, even though my youth is long behind me. (Long, long behind me. Don’t ask me how long, I won’t tell you.) I still love monsters and ghosts—anything supernatural. I love writing about them too, and have been doing so ever since I was a daydreamer in grade school scrawling stories of aliens and zombies in my notebook instead of paying attention to the teacher. In truth, I don’t feel any different from that schoolboy now, even with six novels and two story collections under my belt. That childhood love of all things supernatural has followed me into adulthood and played an enormous role in my writing. In fact, I can’t seem to write anything without adding the supernatural in some form or other!

For example, my Bram Stoker Award-nominated novelette General Slocum’s Gold isn’t just a heist story about a crew looking for a missing treasure trove on New York City’s abandoned North Brother Island, it also features ghosts, curses, and a thief with the supernatural ability to see through walls and doors with just a touch of his hand. My Thriller Award-nominated and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated novel Chasing the Dragon isn’t just about a heroin addict trying to get her life together; she also happens to be the last living descendant of St. George and is tasked with the same mission as her famous ancestor—to kill a very real and very deadly dragon. My urban fantasy novels, Dying Is My Business and Die and Stay Dead, are crime thrillers that take place in a contemporary New York City where all manner of magic and supernatural creatures hide in the shadows. And now my latest novel, 100 Fathoms Below, co-written with Steven L. Kent, is a Cold War submarine thriller with a supernatural threat onboard.

Adding a supernatural element to a thriller can do more than simply fold a fun, new ingredient into a recipe. It can also keep things fresh. There are lots of thrillers out there in which our heroes are chasing after a thumb drive with important, world-changing information on it, or rushing to stop a super virus from being unleashed or to stop a terrorist organization from detonating a bomb. These are classic plots for a reason, of course—readers still respond to them and are eager to see how particular characters deal with these threats—but sometimes the formula can feel stale. For better or worse, there can be a feeling of “been there, done that.” Adding a supernatural element can be a great way to shake things up. What if the ghost of the terrorists’ previous victim is what brings their new, insidious plot to our heroes’ attention? What if it’s not a super virus that’s in danger of being released but something more ancient, more malevolent? What if it’s not a thumb drive everyone’s after, but a powerful, cursed object?

Granted, the supernatural isn’t for everyone. Some authors prefer to keep things as strictly realistic as possible. In writing 100 Fathoms Below, Steve and I found what I think is just the right balance between the supernatural and the realistic. In the novel, everything about life in US Navy and life aboard a nuclear submarine was meticulously researched and kept utterly realistic. Into this verisimilitude, we threw a supernatural threat that is stalking and killing the submariners one by one. And perhaps that’s the key to successfully adding the supernatural to a thriller: keeping everything else as realistic and grounded as possible. Otherwise, you risk straining the suspension of disbelief.

So if you’ve been considering adding a supernatural element to your latest thriller but have found yourself on the fence about it, I wholeheartedly recommend giving it a try. As I mentioned, it’s a great way to shake things up and keep your readers on their toes. And who knows? You might even find yourself attracting a whole new audience of grown-up Monster Kids like me, who are always looking to discover new authors. Decades ago, it was those old Abbott and Costello movies that showed me how fun supernatural elements can be in an otherwise grounded story. Perhaps one day it will be a novel of yours that does the same for someone else.

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Nicholas Kaufmann is the Bram Stoker Award-nominated, Thriller Award-nominated, and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of two collections and six novels, the most recent of which is the horror novel 100 Fathoms Below, co-written with Steven L. Kent. His short fiction has appeared in Cemetery Dance, Black Static, Nightmare Magazine, Dark Discoveries, and others. In addition to his own original work, he has written for such properties as Zombies vs. Robots and The Rocketeer. He and his wife live in Brooklyn, New York.

Character Flaws and the Unpardonable Sin of 12 Angry Men by Tom Seigel

Some inconsistency in a fictional character is usually a good thing. Who wants to read about stereotypes, caricatures, or robots? We want complex, emotional, fallible, impetuous, and occasionally hypocritical types populating our fiction. They are the most human, the most interesting. Angels and demons have their places in thrillers and YA fiction—and I love books in both categories—but as a general rule, contradictions and imperfections give a character needed dimension. When a work of fiction, however, seeks to exalt an ideal through the actions of an idealized protagonist, that character cannot, in service of the principle, undercut its very essence. Ideological inconsistency, in such case, would be a fatal flaw. To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, would not work if Atticus Finch were to coach Tom Robinson to lie under oath or to blackmail the jurors. Sherlock Holmes could not take bribes to twist facts or to place blame on innocent bystanders.

Among the heroes of 20th century American literature few stand taller than Juror No. 8 in Twelve Angry Men, a play that resides deep in the secondary school canon, so deep it’s extraction would be unthinkable. Generations of middle and high school teachers have used the play as a civics lesson, holding up Juror No. 8 as a paragon of democratic virtues. I first read Reginald Rose’s gripping drama in an eighth grade English class, an abridged version in a weekly periodical. After we had read it, we watched the original movie in class. There was Henry Fonda, Juror No. 8, plain white suit, austere black eyes. With the other eleven jurors eager to condemn the young defendant for killing his father—just to make it home for dinner or to a ball game—Fonda stands firm, bracing himself upon the Constitution and the judge’s legal instructions against the impatience and prejudices of a surly majority. His brave not guilty vote forces the majority into unwanted but necessary deliberations.

For the remainder of the play, we watch the meticulous Juror No. 8 retry the case—asking questions not asked by defense counsel, scrutinizing inconsistencies, biases, and gaps in witness testimony. Fonda appears to be the model juror, demonstrating both a colorblind respect for the rights of every individual and a commitment to the deliberative process enshrined in our statutes and constitutional framework. Despite their initial antipathy toward Juror No. 8 and their certainty of the defendant’s guilt, the other jurors, one-by-one, eventually change their minds. The young defendant goes free. Whether guilty or innocent is beside the point. What matters is a process free from passion and prejudice steadfastly bound to the rule of law and its presumption of innocence. Juror No. 8’s identity, background, and status are irrelevant—just a law-abiding citizen holding true to his oath. A judicial lone ranger of sorts.

Except it ain’t necessarily so. Not even close. Juror No. 8 is fatally flawed. He knowingly and blatantly corrupts the process, introducing a taint so severe that only retrial before new jurors could offer any hope of a fair and lawful proceeding. This realization came to me years later, after graduating from law school and becoming a prosecutor. When watching the movie again, I noticed a flagrant violation of the juror’s oath by none other than Juror No. 8. It is a gross transgression in a moment of high drama. And it saps the play of moral authority.

A supposedly unique switchblade knife found buried in the victim’s chest is, not surprisingly, a key piece of evidence. There was no dispute at trial that the defendant had purchased an identical knife at a neighborhood store the night before his father’s murder. The majority of jurors rely heavily on this piece of damning circumstantial proof. Frustrated with Juror No. 8’s persistent doubts, Juror No. 4 stabs the knife into the conference table. Juror No. 8 then reaches into his pocket, pulls out a second switchblade knife, and stabs it into the table, right next to the murder weapon. They are identical. Juror No. 8 explains that the night before he had gone for a walk in the defendant’s neighborhood and picked up the duplicate knife for six bucks in a pawnshop three blocks from the victim’s apartment. With this stunning revelation, we see the icy confidence of the other jurors beginning to melt away. It is a pivotal exchange.

As a trial lawyer, I was in shock. Among the standard jury instructions judges give in all criminal cases is the admonition that jurors may consider only the evidence presented in court. They may not conduct their own external investigations, searching for additional evidence or interviewing other witnesses. It is an absolute rule. This prohibition is meant to ensure that any evidence—whether testimony, documents or objects—can be examined by both sides, objected to if potentially violative of the rules of evidence, and admitted or excluded as proof based on the judge’s interpretation of applicable law. Juror No. 8, however, gathered extra-judicial evidence and then gave testimony (not under oath or in open court) in the deliberations room as to his investigative efforts—all with the hope of persuading his fellow jurors. Lone wolf more than lone ranger.

The problems with a renegade juror are self-evident. How do we know where Juror No. 8 actually bought the knife? How much he paid? How many shops he went to? In which neighborhoods? How do we know what the shopkeepers may have said to him? Who will cross-examine him? In short, Juror No. 8, more interested in result than in purity of process, took the law into his own hands. He is, therefore, no better than the manipulative, opportunistic juror in Grisham’s Runaway Jury. Had any juror reported Juror No. 8’s misconduct to the judge, the court would have immediately declared a mistrial. There is no other remedy for such an egregious breach of the court’s rules. The jurors would have been sent home. A new trial with new jurors would have been ordered. Juror No. 8 would be lucky to get off with a firm tongue-lashing for what was nothing less than contempt of court.

Although, as a writer, I am a staunch defender of literary license, such license is not tantamount to carte blanche. In a quasi-allegorical work about the importance of due process, the hero-protagonist cannot choose which court instructions he will follow and those he will disregard in order to comport with personal standards of justice. Juror No. 8’s hypocrisy, far from making him a more interesting character, only enfeebles the play’s message. In a perverse way, Juror No. 8 actually represents a very anti-egalitarian Machiavellian philosophy. He thinks he knows better than the judge, the lawyers, and the other jurors; thus, getting the “just” result through unlawful means apparently causes him no moral heartburn.

If this were a character-driven story where we got to know Juror No. 8—his backstory, his family and financial circumstances, his yearnings, his frustrations—such hypocrisy might ring true and more fully illuminate a very complicated man, someone torn between a belief in democratic institutions and a superiority complex. But that is emphatically not Twelve Angry Men. We do not even know Juror No. 8’s name. He is an allegorical character, and in his representative capacity, he simply cannot be a hypocrite. So, next time you’re crafting a plot-driven book or short story with a human stand-in for Truth, Justice, or the American Way, you might want to think about how contradictions in character may diminish or even destroy your hero’s emblematic value.

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Tom Seigel has served as both Deputy Chief and Chief of the Justice Department’s Brooklyn Organized Crime Strike Force, prosecuting members and associates of La Cosa Nostra. After twenty years as a litigator, Tom earned an MFA in fiction writing. THE ASTRONAUT’S SON, published in September,is his debut novel.  For more information, visit his website: tomseigel.com

Vision and Betrayal by Ginger Bolton

Like almost everyone else, I started my first novel with “What if?”

There were really two what ifs.

One: What if that real-life woman didn’t return my call because she had mysteriously disappeared?

Two: What if I started writing, you know, just to see what happened, both to my character and to me? Could I actually stick to writing an entire novel, or was that idea as imaginary as my fictitious character and her search for a missing woman?

I started writing.

That, I’m sorry to say, was the end of my relaxed and comfy existence. My character moved into my brain and took over my life.

I knew what had happened to the real woman. She not only turned up, she brought me an enormous chocolate-chip cookie. I also knew what had happened to the imaginary woman, but my protagonist didn’t, and she was trying very hard, no matter how many obstacles I threw at her, to find out. She nagged and nagged at me to finish her story. Eventually, with my writing-obsessed early mornings and weekends, I did.

But I wasn’t done. I had drafted the original manuscript as a pantser. I started revising. I added scenes. I moved scenes. I embellished scenes. I trimmed them. I polished the entire manuscript and then tore it apart and had to polish it again, over and over . . .

Pantsing was exhilarating and fun.

It also took years.

One of my hobbies (if I can drag myself away from writing and revising) is sewing. Mostly, that means that I like to shop for fabrics. I often find one or several that I cannot possibly resist. I might not know how exactly I want to use the fabrics, so I stash them away and wait for inspiration. That’s kind of like the pantsing version of sewing, which is not to be confused with sewing up a pair of pants, in case you wondered.

Frequently, I know exactly what I want to sew, and I plan it all, complete with pattern, thread, buttons and zipper. Right. That’s like plotting.

So, back to writing. As I said, the manuscripts that I pantsed took a verrrrrry long time.

I was offered contracts for manuscripts that I had not yet written. I couldn’t take years to write them. I had deadlines. I continued pantsing, but in a more organized, structured, and, I have to admit, panicky fashion.

And then I got a new editor. He didn’t mind long outlines, he said. Like twenty pages, he said. I had already written a twenty-page synopsis for the first book in the series when he said that. . .

I had, somehow, edged into more plotting than panstsing.

Now, back to sewing.

There’s a problem. After I’ve planned exactly what I’m going to make with that fabric, that pattern, that thread, those buttons, and that zipper, I often simply stow the ingredients for the project with the other, unplanned fabrics. Unfortunately, visualizing the finished project can be enough. I might never construct it.

Uh-oh. You know where this is heading, right? The more I run my characters and their adventures through my head like a movie, the less I think I need to complete the manuscript.

Plotting was supposed to help, but my imagination had betrayed me.

However, if I actually want to wear a garment I’ve planned, I have to buckle down and finish it.

I definitely want to meet my deadlines, so I do what I do with sewing (when, that is, I actually sew.) I complete the project in logical (for me) steps.

Would I ever just start cutting into fabric with a firm mental picture of the finished product but only a hazy idea of how I would get from yardage to garment? Gulp, yes, I have done that, with dismaying results.

Would I ever just start writing to find out what path I’ll take to the end? I’ve done it and I might do it again, but for now, I have to admit that I’ve transformed myself, more or less by necessity, from a pantser to a plotter. Careful planning can, for me, yield speedier and more satisfying results—who knew?

Besides, I was never that crazy about making pants.

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Ginger Bolton writes the Deputy Donut Mysteries—coffee, donuts, cops, danger, and one curious cat . . . SURVIVAL OF THE FRITTERS and GOODBYE CRULLER WORLD have already been published. JEALOUSY-FILLED DONUTS will appear in September 2019, and three more Deputy Donut mysteries are in the works.

Ginger writes surrounded by unfinished knitting, sewing, and crocheting projects. She lives near a yummy donut and coffee shop which she avoids while walking her two rescue dogs, but maybe not other times. As Janet Bolin, she wrote the Threadville Mysteries—murder and mayhem in a village of crafty shops.

Imagine Me As A Little Old Lady / By Parnell Hall

Dropped. Desperate. Never going to write again.

Been there. Done that.

The scariest thing for a writer is to be dropped by your publisher. There you are, on top of the world, one of the chosen few, and suddenly it's snatched out from under you, and you find yourself in a Road Runner cartoon realizing you're standing on thin air.

When your publisher drops you, no one wants you. It's not a good job recommendation. "Why did I leave my publisher? They looked at my royalty statements."

When Warner Books dropped my Stanley Hastings series I was devastated. There I was, thirteen books into the series, with Edgar and Shamus nominations, getting reviewed regularly by the New York Times. Suddenly no one would touch me. I huddled with my agent to see what we could do.

No one wanted a private eye series by Parnell Hall. The problem was to get a publisher to publish something else. We decided to get as far away from Parnell Hall territory as possible.

Stanley Hastings was a New York City P.I. So, how about a little old lady who lived in a small New England town and solves crime? Fine, but it sounds like Jessica Fletcher. What would make it different?

Enter the gimmick.

My little old lady needed something that set her apart, made her special, made her someone people would want to read about.

We hit on crossword puzzles. It seemed a natural. A crime is a puzzle, so if you threw a crossword puzzle in it you'd have puzzles within puzzles. It was perfect.

I still wasn't happy. I would be writing about a sweet, little old lady with a nationally syndicated crossword column who solves crime on the side. The whole idea was so sugary sweet it made me sick.

So I twisted it. While Cora Felton looks like your favorite grandmother and even does breakfast cereal ads on TV for schoolchildren, she is actually a loopy old hellion who's been married so many times she's not sure exactly how many husbands she's had, only recently gave up drinking and can't remember much of the seventies and eighties, smokes like a chimney and swears like a sailor.

She is also the Milli Vanilli of the crossword puzzle community and couldn't solve a crossword with a gun to her head. Her niece Sherry constructs the puzzles, and Cora Felton is just the name on the column. This arrangement was initially to allow Sherry to hide from an abusive ex-husband. Now Cora can't admit to being a fraud without destroying her commercial career.

With those few tweaks, I liked the character a lot. I started in on the manuscript.

I had one problem.

I didn't know much more about crossword puzzles than Cora did. Sure, I'd done them as a kid, but not for over twenty years, and I wasn't good then. My Stanley Hastings books were based on my two years working as a private eye in New York City. I had never been a little old lady presumed to have an unusual talent for crosswords.

So I entered the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, the national tournament held in Stamford, Connecticut. I practiced for it by doing the daily puzzles in the New York Times, and by the time of the tournament I felt pretty good about it.

The first puzzle was easy. I flew right through it. I got about halfway done, I looked up, and the room was empty. Everyone had finished and left. Out of 254 contestants, I finished 250th, just ahead of the four people who failed to turn in a paper.

With this practical experience, I wrote the manuscript and gave it to my agent.

He liked it a lot, but we were still worried. Would an editor read a manuscript with the name Parnell Hall on it? The odds were not great.

So we put the name Alice Hastings on the manuscript and sent it around.

Bantam immediately snapped up this book by an unknown woman for more money than anyone had ever paid me. I did not take that as an insult. I took the check to the bank and cashed it.

Of course, we had to tell them I wrote it. That didn't worry them. They were happy to publish the book under the name Alice Hastings. They even asked me for her bio. I wrote, as I recall, "Alice Hastings was raised in a small New England town by English lit teachers with a fondness for Agatha Christie and the Sunday Times crossword. When not writing, Alice enjoys tennis, swimming, and co-ed softball."

Bantam was all set to go. Then they heard I was planning to take the author photo. At that point, they chickened out. They decided to put my name on the book.

I argued against it. Alice, I thought, would sell better. But we went with my name and the book did all right.

Still, I wonder what I might have made as a woman.

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Parnell Hall is the author of the Puzzle Lady, crossword puzzle mysteries, the Stanley Hastings private eye novels, and the Steve Winslow courtroom dramas. With Stuart Woods, he is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling Teddy Fay series. His latest Puzzle Lady book is The Purloined Puzzle. His next, Lights! Camera! Puzzles!, will be out in April.

When Mystery is Out of This World / by Claire Gem

Even in a world where people are suffocating under stress, many consciously and deliberately seek even more. Fans of mystery, thriller, and suspense novels not only want their reads to bring more tension into their lives, they demand it. Unless these books raise their blood pressure and deliver that rollercoaster ride of adrenalin, they will put them down, disappointed.

The difference, of course, is that the tension and anxiety, the stress and worry—none of it belongs to the reader, but to other people: characters in a world entirely apart from their own.

Ah, but there are different flavors of mystery, thriller, and suspense novels, each with its own nuance. I’d like to talk about the difference between these categories, as well as reader expectations for each. These expectations are the hurdles an author needs to pay particular attention to. Unless their stories fulfill these reader expectations, the book will not satisfy.

In a mystery, a crime has been committed. Reminiscent of Hasbro’s age-old board game, Clue (I’m dating myself here, but it’s still around), players (in this case, readers) are presented with a dead body, or a disappearance of a living body, or some other horrendous crime that is baffling and unexpected. An investigator, whether it be a police detective or simply a curious grandma (as in cozy mysteries) is determined to find out who did it and why. Then, just like the board game, clues begin to surface, and it’s up to the investigator (along with the reader) to figure out which clues are simply dead-ends, and which will lead to justice.

A mystery is a journey. The reader tags along with the protagonist to uncover a secret that isn’t revealed until the end.

A thriller novel differs from a mystery in that the tension we experience takes place largely inside the hero or heroine’s head. We become intensely emotionally invested in the protagonist from the first pages. They are in dire danger—the reader oftentimes knows even more about the threat than they do. Thriller novels combine elements of mystery and horror to immerse the reader inside a world of trouble, worry, and self-doubt. The themes? We live in a dangerous world. We are all vulnerable in some aspect. The unknown is the scariest threat of all.

A thriller differs from a mystery in that the danger—the bad guy or force—is usually known to the reader right from the start. Also, there is action. Twists and turns. Unlike the quiet, methodical journey of following clues in a mystery, the reader never knows what’s going to happen next.

So how do these genres differ from suspense? Aren’t they both suspenseful? Here’s where the lines become blurred. You can categorize your novel as a mystery/thriller, or as a mystery/suspense.

Once you throw the label “suspense” into the mix, you open up yet another realm, one where the danger or threat becomes all the more elusive. The pacing is also different. A suspense novel promises the reader an agonizingly slow build-up of tension. Not as much action. Clues are vague and not as obvious. As www.libraryjournal.com describes a psychological suspense, it’s not the inciting event, the “rock” or big splash (murder or other crime), but the “focus is on the ripples that rock makes.”

Now, all of these types of stories are titillating enough when they’re set in the real, normal world we live in. What happens when we throw in elements that are out of this world?

I’m not referring to the paranormal or fantasy genres. These are deliberately set in worlds entirely different from our own. Think Harry Potter, where wizards live at a magical place called Hogwarts. Or a world that looks like our familiar hometown until the guy with the fangs rises out of his coffin. Think Twilight, where falling in love with a vampire isn’t exactly a bad thing.

No, what I’m referring to is a story that takes place in the real world but carries definite elements of the supernatural.

And yes, before you ask, I do believe in ghosts. In poltergeist activity. In haunted houses. In psychic ability. If I didn’t believe in those things, I couldn’t possibly write stories about them with passion.

This raises the stakes, as well as reader expectations. What I write is supernatural suspense. The important difference, as I see it, between supernatural and realistic mystery/thriller/suspense is getting the reader to suspend disbelief.

It's easy to get a reader to buy into a mystery. Watch the news lately? There are plenty of human villains, crimes committed, and the eternal quest for who did it and why. In a thriller, we know the threat to the protagonist from the start. We feel their fear, doubt, and confusion. We may not completely understand the danger, but we believe—we know—that it’s real.

In supernatural suspense, the challenge is more difficult. We need to get the reader to buy into the notion that psychics can see and communicate with dead people, or their lingering spirits. That ghosts may exist. That haunted houses can truly be haunted. Until we can get the reader (who may not believe in ghosts or psychics) to buy into our premise, we can't possibly offer them the kind of thrill ride they seek.

How can an author accomplish this? Research is one way. I’m a stickler for historical accuracy, even if I’m describing a crumbling insane asylum. Bad stuff happened there, in that “mental hospital,” all those years ago. Torture, neglect, and psychological manipulation really were acceptable medical treatments for the insane, once upon a time. Remember One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?

When my ghost—a pathetic little girl—goes looking for her father in Spirits of the Heart, my readers get on board, emotionally. Daddy was once a patient in that terrible place (an asylum that actually existed in my hometown). Heaven only knows what horrors he faced while still alive. And why can’t she find him? Be reunited with him in the afterlife?

Once you grab a reader’s heart, you’ve got ‘em.

Another way to get a reader to suspend skepticism of the supernatural is to present them with a known legend. In Hearts Unloched, that’s exactly what I did. There really is a tiny town in upstate New York known as Loch Sheldrake. In its center, the “loch” is a small but extremely deep lake. Urban legend claims that back in the early twentieth century, the loch was a favorite dumping ground for the Mafia. Gangsters would make the two-hour drive from New York City to drop their victims into what was considered “a bottomless lake.”

Chained to an old jukebox or wearing cement overshoes.

The legend, although I first heard it from my husband who grew up in the area, has its basis in truth. The local museum in nearby Hurleyville has an entire file cabinet drawer filled with newspaper clippings...

If there is a documented urban legend about dead bodies disappearing into a tiny lake in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t the possibility exist that maybe some of those sunken souls are unsettled? Still trapped in their watery grave? Maybe a little ticked off and wanting vengeance?

By setting stories in the real world, with accurate detail and historical context, an author of supernatural suspense can plant his or her readers’ feet firmly on the ground—before presenting the stuff that might make them go “yeah, right. Uh huh.”

Here they are: actual historical facts and legends. In this way we lure them just a little closer to the edge of believing in something they might not ordinarily be willing to accept. But it takes one more element to get a reader to suspend disbelief.

Real people. Characters who are normal, everyday folks with problems, just like you and me. Characters we can identify with, who are struggling, lonely, flawed, who have physical or emotional scars.

Characters so real, they dive off the page and straight into the reader’s heart.

Supernatural suspense. Not thrillers: in these books the pace is slower, there is less action, and the tension builds slowly. They are not typical mysteries, since the dead bodies show up on their feet, with opinions and agendas of their own. They’ve been dead for dozens, if not hundreds of years. These spirits then become cast members—integral parts of the story.

Would it be easier to accommodate reader expectations of real-world mystery or thriller novels? Perhaps. But I’ve always loved a challenge. I believe in the supernatural. I believe in an afterlife. I want my readers to believe as well.

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Claire Gem is an award winning-author of supernatural suspense, contemporary romance, and women’s fiction. She also writes Author Resource guide books and presents seminars on writing craft and marketing. Her supernatural suspense, Hearts Unloched, won the 2016 New York Book Festival, and was a finalist in the 2017 RONE Awards.

Claire loves exploring the paranormal and holds a certificate in Parapsychology from Duke University’s Rhine Research Center. She earned her MFA in creative writing from Lesley University.

A New York native, Claire now lives in Massachusetts with her husband of 40 years. When she’s not writing, she works for Tufts University in the field of scientific research. She is available for seminars and media interviews and loves to travel for book promotional events. Find Claire on her website http://www.clairegem.com/.

Controlling the Flow of Information by Simon Brett

As a writer, you have one enormous advantage over your readers or audience. You know the whole story, and they don’t.

Except in very rare circumstances, you don’t start off knowing the whole story. You begin with an idea, which hopefully leads on to other ideas, which in turn act as springboards for further ideas. Characters begin to develop, as do conflicts between those characters. Settings become more solid and pertinent in your mind. A plot emerges. Gradually your story takes shape.

There’s no right or wrong way of building a story. Some writers don’t start the actual writing until they have the whole scenario worked out in their minds. Others begin with a sentence that intrigues and see where it leads them. Some regard the first draft as the exciting part of the process—telling themselves the story—and resent any changes that have to be made afterwards. Others find the first draft a terrible bore, creating a great block of material from which, rather like a sculptor with a mass of stone, they will carve out and perfect their work of art. For them the fun of writing lies in cutting away the dross, refining and reshaping.

But, by whatever process writers arrives at it, there comes a point when the whole story is known to them. And what they then have to decide is how much of that story they want their readers or audience to know at any given point in the narrative.

This is true in all writing, but particularly so in the two areas in which I specialise, crime fiction and comedy. The effect of both is weakened by giving out too little or too much information. For example, I remember my sister once saying to me, ‘I’ve just heard this very good joke about the Lunchpack of Notre Dame.’ I asked her to tell me more and she gave me the set-up question: ‘What’s put in a plastic box and swings from a bell-rope?’ I said I didn’t know and she told me the punch-line: ‘The Lunchpack of Notre Dame!’ She was disappointed at my lack of reaction to the joke, but then she had given me rather too much information too soon.

And that’s how storytelling works. The writer feeds out the narrative gradually, withholding clues and details until the optimum moment of revelation. A lot of a writer’s planning will involve thoughts like: ‘If that’s going to happen there, then it must have been set up earlier.’

For this reason, one of the most difficult parts of any book, play, or screenplay is the exposition. A lot of information has to be conveyed in as short a time as possible. In the visual media it’s easier. The look of a person, the environment in which they live, their clothes, their possessions can all increase their viewers’ knowledge of their character. And all that information comes across the moment the character walks on stage or appears on the screen.

In a book you don’t have that shortcut. Everything needs to be described, but it’s down to the writer to decide how much needs to be described. And here the general rule is: go for the minimum. If a character’s height is going to be important to your story, tell your readers how tall he is. If it isn’t, don’t bother. Two-page descriptions of every new character in the manner of Charles Dickens are completely unnecessary. The same goes for where they went to school, what their parents did for a living, how many siblings they had, whether their childhood was happy, and an infinite number of other details. Let your readers do some work for themselves; let them create their own pictures in their minds. Only supply the kind of information if it’s going to be relevant in the story you’re telling.

Some writers, I am aware, say they cannot begin a novel without knowing all the characters in detail, without having built up lengthy dossiers of all their personal data. In my view that’s just another displacement activity—and no one is more skilled in displacement activity than writers. Anything that puts off that dreadful moment of actually having to write is fulsomely welcomed.

The importance of exposition generally means that the opening of any piece of writing is the bit that gets most rewritten. As new ideas emerge in the course of creating the story, new information has to be injected into the set-up chapters or scenes. And it’s a task with which most writers have difficulties. If you ever feel uncertain about your own skills as a writer of exposition, I recommend that you take down from your bookshelves the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and turn to The Tempest. In Act One Scene Two of that classic play you will find one of the worst pieces of exposition you will ever encounter. The first 284 lines set up the backstory to the action in what is effectively a monologue by Prospero, with brief interjections from his daughter Miranda, on the lines of ‘What happened next, Dad?’ It is inept and tedious. So even the greats had their problems with exposition.

But there’s no way around it. Your readers or audience have to be given that information somehow. And it is in that ‘how’ that the writer’s skills are really tested. Particularly in a crime novel, the plot is often dependent on a detail which the readers cannot claim they haven’t been told of, but which is slipped into the narrative in a way that doesn’t draw attention to it. Something apparently trivial can frequently turn out to be of pivotal importance.

The skill required to shuffle in this kind of information can be compared to that of the conjuror. As he uses his patter to distract the audience from what he’s doing with his hands, so a crime novelist has to find his own means of distraction to disguise the importance of certain details. All you have to do is to obey the basic rules of story-telling. Make your scene so dramatic – or so funny – or so intriguing – that your readers have an emotional response to your writing and almost unconsciously assimilate the facts that you have so subtly shoehorned into the narrative.

Never forget that a book is an interactive medium. The relationship between writer and reader may develop and change, but it never disappears. And a skilful writer will be constantly aware of the effect that his or her words are having on the reader at any given point in the action. That’s what story-telling is about.

EXERCISE

A good way of honing your skills at controlling the flow of information is to write a page of dialogue which contains the fact that you are trying to hide. Say, for instance, the fact is: ‘The pastor had once been a professional footballer.’ Think of the various ways in which, without actually stating it in so many words, you can get that information across. The aim of the exercise is to make the little scene of dialogue you write so compelling that your readers become more concerned about the drama of the situation than about listening out for the facts which it contains. And the only restriction placed on what you write is that you are not allowed to hide your important fact in a catalogue of many.

A development of this exercise works even better with a group of writers. The tutor or moderator of the group writes on scraps of paper a number of pieces of simple information and gets each participant to pick one out of a hat or bag. The group then writes their dialogue and when everyone has finished, the pieces of work are read out in turn and the other participants have to try and guess what the hidden snippet of information was. The exercise combines the fun element of a party game with a useful lesson in writers’ diversionary tactics.

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Simon Brett has published over a hundred books, many of them crime novels, including the Charles Paris, Mrs. Pargeter, Fetheringand Blotto & Twinks series. His stand-alone thriller, A Shock to the System, was made into a feature film, starring Michael Caine. Simon’s writing for radio and television includes After Henry, No Commitments and Smelling of Roses. Bill Nighy plays Charles Paris in the Radio 4 adaptations of his books. In 2014 Simon was presented with the Crime Writers’ Association’s top award, the Diamond Dagger, and he was made an O.B.E. in the 2016 New Year’s Honours ‘for services to literature’.

You Don't Say? by Brad Harper

Dialogue is an ancient Greek stage direction, meaning "action through words." One of the first critiques I got from an agent, looking at my neatly printed manuscript was "There's not enough white space," meaning there was too much narrative description, and not enough dialogue.

Dialogue opens up the tight-knit block of words we are accustomed to in textbooks and allows your story to breathe through verbal exchanges between your characters. Frequent doses of white space make your work less intimidating and helps your reader speed along through your story.

Dialogue is used to accomplish three things: Exposition, to reveal character, and to provoke an action. Let's look at these in turn.

Exposition. I write historical fiction, so putting my reader into an unknown universe and making them quickly comfortable there requires that I give them a sense of time and place, but without the dreaded "Info Dump."  So how do I do that? I incorporate the information transfer into as graphic a manner as possible. In my first novel, A Knife in the Fog, my heroine, Margaret Harkness, is a female author from a proper middle-class British family temporarily living in Whitechapel to do research on her novels. As she takes my narrator, Arthur Conan Doyle, on a tour of Whitechapel, I interspace her narrative describing the conditions in that neighborhood with Doyle's own observations, reinforcing her comments while giving the reader strong visual scenes that bring her words to life. By the time they reach their destination, a site where Jack the Ripper killed one of his early victims, the reader is primed for the violence soon to follow.

In one of my early and most difficult scenes, I have Doyle meet with the Scotland Yard Inspector leading the hunt for Jack the Ripper. He has a lot of crucial information I need to slip into the reader's mind as painlessly as possible so that the rest of the story makes sense. To keep the Inspector from giving my hero a monologue I intersperse questions, requests for clarification, and brief descriptions of the Inspector in various stages of lighting his pipe and sending smoke up to the ceiling, (an example of dialogue provoking action).

Characterization. The vocabulary a character uses needs to be carefully considered. Any character with more than one scene gets a biography of some kind in my story bible, a summary of the major characters and the historical period I can refer to quickly as I work through my story. The words used should befit their education and station in life, and the tone consistent with the situation and their relationship to the person they are talking to.

On that same walking tour Margaret gives a very proper Conan Doyle, she at one point refers to the streetwalkers using backyards and stairwells for a "Four-Penny Knee Trembler," which so shocks Doyle he nearly comes to a dead halt as they walk through Whitechapel. Margaret's casual use of the term while otherwise speaking in the proper tone of a lady of her class, tells you much about how she has come to terms with her environment, while Doyle's reaction tells you much about him as well.

To provoke action. Much of human conversation is conducted nonverbally through facial expressions and body movements. To avoid your dialogue from becoming verbal tennis matches, intersperse them with small actions to give the reader an image to tie to the words, such as my pipe-lighting Inspector.

The action should be consistent with the situation and the character's motivation at the time, it can't be random, but with a good imagination you can come up with enough variety to keep the words fresh.

My final comment is not something you'll see in any books on writing, but something I discovered on my own. I have three main characters in my novel, Doyle, Miss Harkness, and Professor Joseph Bell, the real-life inspiration for Sherlock Holmes. I wish I was this clever to begin with, but as I completed my novel I realized that I'd ascribed to each of them one aspect of personality.

Doyle is pure Ego. A proper British gentleman, the peas could not touch the carrots. Bell is Super-Ego. He understood the need for rules, but could see the larger picture, so also knew when the rules should be ignored. Margaret is pure Id. She says what she thinks as soon as she thinks it, and is basically the person it requires two to three stiff drinks for most of us to become. I found that dialogues with the three of them challenging to write, but engaging.  Having a third person active in the conversation created an inherent tension and kept my readers engaged, wondering what would happen next.

Try it, and see if it works for you.

By the way, it is a rare thing if a dialogue only reveals character, provides exposition, or provokes an action. A good dialogue usually does all three, thus provoking "actions through words."

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Brad Haper is Board Certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, he has conducted over two-hundred autopsies, several of them forensic in nature, and uses his clinical experiences to inform his writing. He has worked as a professional Santa Claus for the past five years at a local theme park. A soft touch, he only threatens those on the Naughty List with burnt cookies.

His writing credits include a short story sold to The Strand and The Sherlock Holmes Magazine of Mystery, as well as his debut novel, A Knife in the Fog, featuring a young Arthur Conan Doyle, Professor Joseph Bell, Doyle's inspiration for Holmes, and Margaret Harkness. Miss Harkness was an author and Suffragette who lived in the East End of London for a while to do research on her novels featuring the working poor. Together these "Three Musketeers" assist the London Metropolitan Police in the hunt for the man who became known as Jack the Ripper, until he begins hunting them!

What is a Story Without Adverbs? by Lynn Truss

The question a lot of people have been asking me is, “So, Lynne, what’s the difference between writing these stories for radio and writing them as a novel?” This is because my new book A Shot in the Dark  (first in a series of comic crime novels set in 1957, featuring Constable Twitten of the Brighton Constabulary) has its origins in a long-running series of radio comedies for the BBC in the UK. So the question is a good one, and I certainly enjoy answering it, partly because I’m fascinated in general by the demands of different forms of writing, but also because adapting this particular material to novel form wasn’t at all the easy-peasy business you might imagine. “But I know these characters!” I wailed. “This shouldn’t be so hard!” But my familiarity with the characters was, of course, a large part of the problem, and I admit that at first I struggled. I admit that I needed help.

So I thought I would write here about adverbs, because adverbs are a minor (but quite interesting) aspect of the leap I had to make from one form to the other. The thing is, adverbs are rightly objects of disdain in most forms of writing, but are essential in writing for radio – they are your prop; your crutch; your helpmeet. For example, take the bald line of radio dialogue: “You’re right, Constable Twitten. I admit it. I murdered him.” Then imagine, in brackets before that speech, any one of the following adverbs: quietly; hotly; defiantly; sarcastically; coolly; dispassionately; self-pityingly; tauntingly. You see how helpful that is? You see how much work those adverbs are potentially doing? (I am told, by the way, that movie writers do not supply such prescriptive hints to actors, and that the practice is frowned on. But in the world of radio, where rehearsal time is minimal and studio time is limited, let me assure you: written stage directions really do cut the crap.)

So I would say that I have spent many an hour in my writing life reaching for – and nailing – the pertinent adverb for the sake of a radio script. And then, suddenly, I decide to write A Shot in the Dark and I find myself … free! I am no longer in the dark, hearing voices, and I no longer have to rely on modifying words ending in “ly”! Well, what a luxury. What brave new world is this? As a novelist, you have so many other ways of contextualising your character’s words: you can describe a person’s character, history, actions and demeanour. You can enter his very thoughts.

It was all up, then? Johnny felt all the bluster drain from him.

“You’re right, Constable Twitten,” he said, sitting down and wringing his hands. “I admit it. I murdered him.”

A Shot in the Dark isn’t my first novel, I ought to explain, but it’s the first time I have wrestled with the form, and I think the exercise has done my writing nothing but good. I expect there are still countless adverbs in A Shot in the Dark, but please don’t write to me to point them out, because a) that’s not the right way to read a book, and b) it’s too late to change them now, you idiot.

I think we should all remember (she concluded, somewhat grandly) the words of the great Stephen King in his excellent book On Writing, where he says, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” When I first read On Writing, I remember I found this dictum a tad harsh, but my own experience as a newly-emancipated radio writer has now confirmed for me that he’s right; there is simply no excuse for them – and I vow right here to be much more vigilant in future. Be merciless with the insidious adverb, King commands (authoritatively). Tear them out like dandelions, because once they (surreptitiously) take root in a person’s prose they (scarily) spread, and then you will find they are (alarmingly) much, much harder to get out.

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Lynne Truss is a celebrated author, scriptwriter, columnist, and broadcaster. Truss is the writer of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including the bestselling book on punctuation Eats, Shoots & Leaves. She lives on the south coast of England with two Norfolk terriers.

The Antibiotic Crisis Scares Me So Much I Wrote A Novel About It / By Rachael Sparks

When I decided to write a novel, I believed the adage that you should write what you know. For me, that topic was clear: the fact that we are running out of antibiotics faster than we can develop new ones. Gonorrhea, Staph, CRE, and tuberculosis are all displaying an ability to adapt and survive most of the medicines we’ve developed for them. 700,000 annual deaths are attributed to resistant bacteria worldwide; the accurate count is probably more since our systems for tracking this are faulty.

But weaving my experiences into my novel didn’t come easy. Instead, I found myself summoning old ghosts I didn’t necessarily want to unpack. I had to treat these memories as a research project: which ones would make an impact in my story if I only wanted the feelings to be recreated in the reader? Our impending antibiotic crisis first began to scare me in the early 2000s as a young tissue transplant coordinator in Austin, Texas. A daily job responsibility was to visit the medical examiner’s office. In most cases, medical records gave me enough info to screen; however, for certain deaths, especially those outside the hospital, coordinators sometimes need to perform a quick physical check of the injuries or donation exclusion indicators.

That day, a young woman of my age—24 at the time—lay on a gurney in the ME’s office after an atypical journey through the system that ensures each death is properly vetted by the county forensic officials. It’s not her real name, but we’ll call her Jane. Jane had died in a hospital and her cause of death was fairly evident: a fatal infection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA that spread to the blood. Blood cultures had long before confirmed her diagnosis, but because Jane was young and first admitted to the hospital for a different reason, the medical examiner investigators decided to order an autopsy. As a microbiologist, I thought that was a wise decision too. She was young, healthy, with complications post C-section. She shouldn’t have developed a severe infection and then died of it after weeks of treatment and surgeries.

But in a minor mix-up, she had been taken to a funeral home first, then transferred back to the ME’s. When I entered the morgue room to look over the bodies and saw her form on the metal gurney, I froze. Jane was a strange misty gray from head to toe, her body playing black-and-white in a Technicolor scene.

“Why is she . . . Isn’t this the young one who was septic?” I asked my investigator friend.

“Yeah. The funeral home guys embalmed her, like five minutes after she got there.”

“Why?” That would prevent many critical steps in the autopsy process, the most important being blood tests.

“Because they were terrified of getting MRSA.”

Their reaction seemed extreme, but people at the time didn’t know as much about why these resistant infections were happening more and more. I did, though.

As with many medical travesties, we did it to ourselves, and in ways innumerable. We took a miracle drug and used it so much that the bacteria, awash in it, naturally evolved ways around it. We demanded doctors prescribe us antibacterials for viral infections. In some countries, you can still buy antibiotics without a prescription. We threw antimicrobials into soaps, body gels, even cutting boards. We gave it to our cattle, our chickens, our fish farms, our pigs are given as much yearly as we use annually in healthcare. Why? Until January 2017, mostly for money. The meat industry has learned over half a century that these antibiotics can increase growth and overall herd yield. Now, it’s restricted to use for treatment of illnesses—but those are only getting worse too. It’s predicted that 10 million people will die of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections by the year 2050, but we haven’t approved a new human antibiotic in the last 30 years.

Until the Affordable Care Act, we didn’t hold health care facilities responsible for giving patients preventable infections. They got paid if you got sick due to their poor cleaning or neglect. A healthcare finance executive explained to me that treatment is more profitable than cure. And developing a cure isn’t profitable for pharmaceutical companies because we won’t buy that cure and use it with abandon. Now that we are learning from our mistakes with antibiotics, we’ll use new ones scarcely and responsibly. Not exactly a huge ROI for Big Pharma.

These truths frighten me. As a microbiologist and a lover of medical history, I can vividly imagine the day when a simple scratch could develop into an infection for which amputation is the only cure. While I don’t nibble my fingernails about it daily, I strictly enforce antibiotic stewardship on my family and remind friends that antibiotics won’t fix their cold. The image of Jane’s body has never left me. I still wonder how her child fared.

After years working to battle healthcare-associated infections, I realized I was tired of writing technical articles, marketing brochures, and polite blogs on the dangers ahead as our antibiotics lose their power. I was sick of stretching military metaphors to explain in layman’s terms how resistance builds among bacteria. I thought of the novels that have moved me, the authors whose imaginations left a dent in our collective awareness: Aldous Huxley. Upton Sinclair. Michael Crichton. Crichton saw genetic dabbling in recombinant DNA and fathomed a pterodactyl reanimated through a technology he knew could be both powerful and dangerous. Now “Jurassic Park” is a fable for several generations: research of dubious intentions yielding disastrous results.

And often, the lessons we chisel onto our collective consciousness are those in our fables.

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Rachael Sparks was born in Waco, Texas. She graduated with a degree in Microbiology from Texas A&M University. After a decade-long career in Austin, Texas, as a transplant specialist, she joined a startup fighting healthcare-acquired infections, thus satisfying her lifelong interest in infectious diseases and the science of human health. After relocating with her husband, daughter, and mother to Asheville, North Carolina, she finally put her first novel onto the page. In her free time, she serves on the board of the Asheville Museum of Science and loves to cook, brew, garden, and spend time with friends and family.  

What is a Cozy Mystery, Really? / By Vicki Delaney

What, exactly, is a cozy mystery?

On one hand, that seems to be an easy question to answer. A cozy mystery is often described as a book containing no overt violence or sex on the page. It’s a character-and-community based mystery featuring an amateur sleuth.

But I believe a cozy mystery is far more that than.

A mystery novel without sex and violence is not necessarily a cozy.  Plenty of intense psychological dramas have no sex and violence, but they can be very grim indeed. Books that are character and community based can also be dark and disturbing.  Mysteries with a frightening supernatural or horror element, for example.

In my interpretation, to be a cozy, the story must have no sense of tragedy or impending doom.

People in cozies do not live tragic lives, and they don’t fear tragic happenings.  They live in a very pleasant, close to idyllic, community, surround by good friends and close family.  Not everything is perfect in their lives (how boring would that be?) but generally they are good and happy people. 

Someone is murdered, and that’s never funny, but that person is (usually) not much liked by the community or strangers to it. Their death needs to be solved so that the perfect, orderly community can go back to the way it was—perfect and orderly.  The characters live in an essentially good world that needs to be put back to rights. No human trafficking rings, child prostitutes, mob hit men, gangs, or Russian assassins here.

A cozy mystery will never feature child-endangerment or abuse, terrorists, organized crime (unless handled with a humorous touch), or natural disaster. The murder is intimate and personal, and committed for personal reasons. There are no far-reaching or long-lasting implications. At  the end of the book, order has been restored and all is once again right in their world.

Cozy mysteries are not trying to make an important statement about the human condition, or hoping to change the world. A cozy mystery tells a story that attempts to be entertaining, that’s about people much like us (or like us if we were prettier, or smarter, or younger!) and our friends and family.

In terms of structure, cozy mysteries are very much ‘puzzle mysteries’: a game of wits between the author and the reader as to whether or not the astute reader can solve the crime before the amateur detective does (i.e. before the author reveals it). Clues must be laid down in such a way that the reader has a chance of reaching the conclusion on their own. The author lays red herrings in such a way as to hope to distract the reader from reaching the truth before all is revealed.

Cozy mysteries are about real people living real lives (except for that pesky murder bit), although writ large. Everything is exaggerated. The nosy neighbour is nosier, the ditzy friend is ditzier, the mean girl is meaner. And the handsome man is, well, handsomer.  Even better if there are two of them.

Readers who enjoy cozies often tell me that they read them to escape from the real world. They get enough bad news on TV, and sometimes even in their own life. Cozy mysteries really are an escape. 

I began my career writing gritty police procedurals and intense psychological thrillers and I recently switched to cozies. I’m having a lot of fun with them. Keep it light, keep it funny, and have a good time with it.

The word I often use for the cozies I write is FUN. They should be fun for the author and fun for the reader as well.

My newest book is the fourth in the Sherlock Holmes bookshop series, A Scandal in Scarlet from Crooked Lane Books.

These books are firmly in the cozy camp and are about a woman who owns The Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium in the Cape Cod town of West London, located at 222 Baker Street. The business next door is Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room, at 220 Baker Street.

The main character, Gemma Doyle, is a modern young woman who bears an intellectual resemblance to the Great Detective himself. Her side-kick Jayne Wilson is ever-confused but always loyal.

Sounds a bit silly? Sure it does. And it’s supposed to be. It’s nothing but fun, and what’s wrong with that?

So pull up a comfortable arm chair or get out your deck chair. Light a fire in the fireplace, or slap on that sunscreen, pour yourself a mug of hot tea or something icy and simply enjoy the adventures of a cozy heroine and her friends as they try to put their world back to rights.

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Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than thirty books:  clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing three cozy mystery series: the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane, the Year Round Christmas mysteries for Penguin Random House and, as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series, for Crooked Lane Books. 

Her newest book is the fourth Sherlock Holmes bookshop mystery, A Scandal in Scarlet.

Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario. She is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada.  Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards.

Visit Vicki at www.vickidelany.com. On Facebook at www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor. Twitter @vickidelany

Hungry for Murder with Jude Dillane by Cathi Stoler

There’s no getting around the fact that my protagonist in BAR NONE: A MURDER ON THE ROCKS MYSTERY, Jude Dillane, loves to eat. At five foot nine, it seems that everything she consumes goes to height, rather than her waistline, so she can slip into those long, lean vintage jumpsuits and couture jackets she loves to wear.

Creating a character who owns a restaurant—one who is so involved with food and drink and taking care of her bar—was a good way to give my readers an insight into Jude’s personality.

She hasn’t always had it easy, starting with being named after Saint Jude, the saint people pray to when all else fails, losing her family at an early age, and often choosing the wrong man when it comes to relationships.

All of these setbacks have made Jude strong and resilient. And being behind her bar at The Corner Lounge makes up for some of her past disappointments. It allows her to channel her energy into positive actions and face new challenges, like helping her friend and landlord, Thomas “Sully” Sullivan delve into a murder at the Big City Food Bank, where Sully volunteers. Maybe not so positive, but definitely a challenge.

Of course, solving a murder can be hungry-making work, not to mention frustrating, which is where her partner and chef, Pete Angel’s mac ‘n’ cheese comes in. It’s Jude’s favorite comfort food, one she indulges in while she’s thinking about the fraud and deceit she’s encountering at Big City. A stiff drink or two can help, as well. One of her favorites is The Corner Lounge’s signature tequila drink, Jalapeno Envy.

Taking on a dangerous assignment doesn’t mean Jude will be missing any meals. On the contrary, she finds lunchtime with the suspects at Big City an opportunity to try a few new dishes while she fishes for information that can help her solve the case. Her favorite lunchtime partner is Jamila, the pretty, young receptionist who raises gossip to an art form. At the front desk, Jamila sees all and reports all. She also loves taking Jude to dine at the food trucks around Big City with their delicious tapas and bocadillos, savory little sandwiches made with homemade Spanish bread. It does seem like sleuthing is more manageable when your stomach is not rumbling.

Food isn’t the only thing on her mind as she works through a list of suspects. It’s a dangerous business that Jude is involved in, and when Sully is injured and another Big City employee dies, Jude finds she may be in the killer’s sights and that her murder might be on the menu, as well.

Here’s the recipe for Jude’s favorite drink from The Corner Lounge. I hope you’ll enjoy it.

JALAPENO ENVY

• 2 oz. Patron Gold Tequila      

• 1 oz. Agave Syrup                 

• 1/4 Ripe Mango (peeled)

• Squeeze of lime

• Jalapeno pepper cut into thin rings

Place tequila, agave syrup, mango in blender with half dozen ice cubes.

Blend until smooth.

Pour into a cocktail glass and add a squeeze of lime.

Float jalapeno pepper rings on top.   

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Cathi Stoler is the author of the Laurel & Helen New York Mystery series, including Telling Lies, Keeping Secrets and The Hard Way, as well as the novella, Nick of Time. Her newest novel is Bar None, an urban thriller. 

She is the winner of the 2015 Derringer for Best Short Story “The Kaluki Kings of Queens,” as well as the 2012 Derringer Short Story finalist for “Fatal Flaw”. Her short mystery fiction has also been published in several anthologies and online. 

Cathi is an active member of the mystery community and is Co-Vice President of Sisters in Crime New York/Tri-State, and a member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. A native New Yorker, she lives in Manhattan with her husband Paul. Please visit her at www.cathistoler.com.

Order Bar None now! 

Think INTO The Box by CJ Lyons

Want to know a secret about writing great thrillers? It's not "think out of the box" but rather "think inside the box." Many thrillers are big, bold, anything-can-happen rushes of adrenaline. The key words being: anything can happen. That's an open system. There are no boundaries. Anything can happen. Once the audience believes that, they'll no longer be surprised by what you throw at them. So, the thriller writer is forced to go big just to get a reaction—even if that reaction is a simple startle.

They’ll pile on twists and turns and explosions and car chases and surprise endings but no, that's not really the ending, try this…and it becomes sensory overload. Yes, there's a release of adrenaline. But no release of endorphins, those chemicals that create a bond between the audience and the story. A reader might enjoy the thrill ride while it lasts, just like they would a two-minute rollercoaster, but it won't stand out as unique.

But, consider great thrillers. A great thriller doesn't rely on bigger, badder any-things happening. They aren't created in a world that is an open system where anything can happen. No. They're built in worlds where nothing can happen. And then the writer makes something happen. Something bad, very, very bad. Bad beyond the character's wildest expectations, because they live in a world where nothing like that can happen.

In these thrillers, the writer creates a closed system. A glass box if you will, where nothing bad can get inside and the people living there are like the folks you see on vacation, darting out in traffic without looking because they're on vacation and when you're on vacation nothing bad can happen.

(A lot of great comedy also works this way, only, in the end, the BAD thing ends up being a GOOD thing.)

Think Jaws. Idyllic seafront small town where nothing ever happens. Great place to raise your kid. In fact, the burnt-out big city cop moves his family to work there precisely because nothing ever happens. The town's budget depends on nothing ever happening. Their very existence relies on that.

And then…well, you know the rest.

Hitchcock was a master of this. Yes, he played with tons of great twists and turns but what makes them memorable was that they took place in closed systems, the worlds he meticulously crafted, where nothing like that could ever happen.

Most people will think of Psycho as a prime example of this, but my favorite Hitchcock movies where he takes this to an extreme are North by Northwest, Rear Window, and Shadow of Doubt.

I consciously have done the same in my Lucy Guardino Thrillers. I take Pittsburgh, one of the most livable cities in America, a sleepy former steel town bounded by three rivers and mountains and tunnels and bridges (geography that makes it a physically closed system in addition to being an emotional one) and then I turn the entire city into a killing zone, rife with murder and mayhem.

But wait, this is Pittsburgh. That could NEVER happen, right?

That's the point. Take a look at your own thrillers and see if you might not be better served by using a closed box for your world where “nothing can happen.”

Then go make SOMETHING happen and have fun with it!

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New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over forty novels, former pediatric ER doctor CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge Thrillers with Heart. 

CJ has been called a “master within the genre" (Pittsburgh Magazine) and her work has been praised as “breathtakingly fast-paced” and “riveting” (Publishers Weekly) with “characters with beating hearts and three dimensions” (Newsday).

Her novels have twice won the International Thriller Writers’ prestigious Thriller Award, the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Readers’ Choice Award, the RT Seal of Excellence, and the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery and Suspense.

Her latest thriller, THE COLOR OF LIES, releases from Harper-Collins in November. Learn more about CJ’s Thrillers with Heart at www.CJLyons.net

Writing From Opposite Genders / By LS Hawker

Jackie: How do you write women so well?

Melvin Udall: I think of a man. And I take away reason and accountability.

As Good As It Gets, 1997

I remember watching this movie when it came out, and Jack Nicholson’s character said the above line in response to a woman who asked him how he wrote women so well. It got a huge laugh.

I’ve been asked how I write men so well many times, but I’ll get to that in a second. The truth is complicated. But let me back up.

I started writing fiction when I was eight and wrote my first novel at 14, a god-awful, steaming pile called THE LAST RUN with a female protagonist my age. Among the myriad of problems was that protag—she was one-dimensional and wholly unbelievable.

It took a few more stabs at female MCs before I discovered what the problem was: my female characters were me, only prettier, cooler, taller, smarter. I couldn’t seem to craft a female protagonist who was not somehow a better version of me. So I decided if I would ever be able to stop Mary Sueing my main characters, I needed to write from a male perspective.

In my second novel, I did just that. It was a YA with a high school baseball-playing protagonist who falls in love with an older, ugly girl, and the resulting consequences in his rigid, rule-bound jock world. The very first place I sent it off to was the Delacorte Press First Young Adult Novel contest, and I was a finalist, right out of the gate. I realized I was on to something.

Writing in the male POV got me out of my own head, freeing me to stop thinking about how to make myself (ahem, I mean my character) look cool. I thought instead about how the character felt. What he thought about. What he did and said.

It worked so well that I wrote male protagonists exclusively until 2013, what my friend Marc called “Dick Lit” as opposed to Chick Lit. That year I decided to try out a female MC again. That novel was ironically the first one I ever sold, in a three-book deal to HarperCollins Witness Impulse. Imagine my shock when I read in my contract that all three books were required to have female protags. You mean I have to do it again? Twice? The answer was yes, but the curse was broken anyway. THE DROWNING GAME became a USA Today bestseller and ITW Thriller Awards finalist, so I guess I waited long enough to do females again. To be fair, there’s a secondary POV character who’s male, so I cheated just a little.

For my fourth novel, however, I felt the itch to go back to the male POV. In THE THROWAWAYS, which comes out January 22, 2019, we’re introduced to four lifelong friends in their late twenties who become embroiled in a dangerous situation. It’s a thriller, of course, and so there’s lots of action and near-death experiences. But there’s also exploration into the nature of male friendship that is often given short shrift thanks to our culture’s weirdness toward it (and inter-gender friendship, but that’s a topic for another time).

I’ve been lucky to have many close male friends over the years, so instead of just superimposing a portrayal of female friendship over male ciphers, I’m able to address the essence of male relationships from personal experience. This is thanks to my close-knit college group of guy friends, one of whom, John, likes to say that I was Elaine from Seinfeldbefore there was a Seinfeld. I was even invited to one of the guys’ bachelor parties back in the day. (Yes, I went. No, there were no strippers.)

I learned much from hanging out with those guys, and it’s thanks to their transparency and inclusiveness that I was given an insider’s look into the esoteric world of mandom. This group shaped how my male characters speak, think, and behave, and no matter how much we like to pretend otherwise, there is a distinct difference between the binary genders. Some of these lessons taught me that, in general, men:

1. Speak with conviction. They use fewer qualifying words like maybe, possibly, might, may, etc. Right or wrong, they believe what they believe, and you’re going to hear about it.

2. Say “I think” instead of “I feel.”

3. Believe they deserve—as we all should—to be heard, to pursue their passions, to exist.

4. Don’t sit around talking about their feelings when tragedy strikes. They go out and raise hell to take the tragedy-struck’s mind off his troubles.

5. Think in a linear fashion, i.e., A+B=C, unlike women, whose thought processes more resemble a spiral, seeing connections outside of the lines, thinking and feeling many things at once.

6. Don’t spend much time thinking about their looks.

7. Want to fix things. Not think about them, not solicit opinions, but to spring into action, even if that action makes no sense whatsoever.

8. Often don’t speak directly about difficult subjects, don’t express their feelings verbally, but speak around them or use humor to deflect.

As I said up top, I’ve been asked often how I write men so well, and like my male friends, I prefer to deflect. This is how I answer, by using a variation of Melvin Udall’s line from As Good As It Gets: “I think of a woman. And I add emotional tone-deafness and entitlement.”

It gets a laugh, but the truth is I write men so well because I love to do it. And I have to give credit where it’s due: it wouldn’t be possible without my friends.

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LS Hawker is the author of USA Today bestseller and ITW Thriller Awards finalist THE DROWNING GAME, BODY AND BONE, and END OF THE ROAD, published by HarperCollins Witness Impulse. THE THROWAWAYS, her fourth novel, will be released1/22/19 from The Vanishing Point Press. View the book trailers and read about her adventures as a cocktail waitress, traveling Kmart portrait photographer, and witness to basement exorcisms on LSHawker.com.

Time Management for Writers / By J. Lee

So what’s it like to write and publish a book with a full-time job and young family?

If my experience is any indication, the glib answer is it’s not for the lazy, the easily stressed or those incapable of routine.  The more philosophical response is that it requires big-picture thinking in a season where every day is spent doing several small-scale tasks.  And for me, in order to ensure all of those tasks added up to a book I was proud of – without impeding my responsibilities a dad or an employee – nearly every moment of the day was (and still is) meticulously scheduled. 

Sigh. 

Exhibits A, B, and C: I have a giant, laminated excel spreadsheet of critical writing tasks and life priorities taped to my bathroom mirror so it’s the first thing I see every day. My desk has a stack of printed, individually numbered sheets of paper on it counting down to the publication of The Hubley Case on November 6th.  And just to make sure I keep it every week, I handwrite “Date Night” on my old-school, At-A-Glance calendar.  No joke.  A typical Monday looks an awful lot like a typical Friday.  And if you’ve read the “quirks” section of jleethrillers.com, you know that consistency (to put it generously) is my jam these days.  What you might not know is it isn’t innate to my personality.  It’s learned behavior due to having a limited number of hours in the day with (at times) a seemingly limitless number of things to do. 

The truth is, there’s nothing outstanding about my process.  There are lots of ways to go about it.  In the end, it just takes honesty, commitment, and sacrifice.  And a whole lot of rinse and repeat.  My life is like a German train schedule.  That might not sound very glorious, and sometimes it isn’t, but to be the kind of dad and employee I want to be, I don’t see any way around it. 

During the year I wrote, edited and worked towards the publication of The Hubley Case, I awoke at 4:21 each morning and “wrote” – a loose term my wife and I use for anything related to the book – until around six-thirty. From then until seven, I played with my kids.  Now, if my one-year-old wanted me to walk with him to get the paper and it was 7:02, did I rebuff him?  Absolutely. Stick to the schedule, kid.  Okay, just kidding.  But were there plenty of times I’d take a work call while simultaneously backing out of the driveway, waving goodbye to the kiddos and shoving a flash drive into my pocket to finish a few edits during a 30-minute lunch break?  Youbetyourbippy.  And that’s just the first two and a half hours of the day.  But you get the point. 

Lots of folks wake up to exercise, commute, do daily devotions or get a jump on the day in whatever way suits them.  So like I said, the process itself isn’t a peek-behind-the-curtain-and-gasp kind of thing. It just involves scheduling your day around what’s most important to you and how you operate (early bird, night owl)…and then sticking to it like bacterial glue.  I’ve gotten the “opportunity” to practice the art of persistence throughout this busy season, and so will you.

But I’ve also learned something interesting.  Though my college self would balk, I’ve found the less time I have available, the more I get done.  And I’d suspect that that applies to many others as well.  Years ago, there was certainly more unscheduled, leisure time.  In college, I used to frit away hours pretending to study just to flirt – and then literally have to go back to study on my own – with the college girl who eventually became my wife.  I tented outside for almost four months with my buddies in below-freezing weather to get into Duke basketball games.  I was in four after-work sports leagues after college.  And I still didn’t get half the work or writing done that I do now. There’s something about forced discipline that simply brings out the efficiency in me. 

These days, my life is a writing-family-job-family-writing-bed daily sequence.  Is it sustainable forever?  Not a chance.  Does it mean that sometimes while watching “Daniel Tiger” with my two kids that I am thinking through the next murder or betrayal in my story?  Who doesn’t?  Has some of the whimsy (ok, most) in my life has been replaced with spreadsheets and timelines?  No doubt about it.  But the result has been worth it for me. 

Thanks a lot for your support…that’s a big part of what makes the sacrifice worth it.  And to those considering balancing the work, family and writing worlds that often don’t overlap much, I hope you found my perspective helpful.  Just remember…we don’t usually regret the chances we DO take in this life.  

Thanks for reading.  Shoot me a note if you have any questions.

Lee

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J. Lee lives in the suburbs of Chicago.  He graduated from Duke University with degrees in Engineering and Sociology and a minor in Business.  In his spare time, he can usually be found playing Frisbee Golf or reading in his La-Z-Boy. The Hubley Case is his first novel. To learn more about or contact him, please visit www.jleethrillers.com