Author Archives: Murderati

Pairing Off

I think one of the reasons I never got along very well in Hollywood is because I've never been big on collaboration. It just isn't really my thing.

I don't know why. Probably because I like the idea of succeeding or failing on my own terms. I have no interest in writing somebody else's idea.

Oh, I've done it. I worked many days together with my old friend Larry Brody — Mr. Television — writing animated shows like Spider-Man and Diabolik. Brody and I had a lot of fun together, and were so well suited to each other professionally and personally that our collaboration was a successful and productive one.

I also collaborate with my editors. They give me notes on my books, I make a few changes, and everyone is happy.

And when I'm stuck on a story, I've been known to bounce a scene off my buddies Brett Battles and Bill Cameron (we IM most every day), and they're always a huge help.

But for the most part, I'm happy to sit alone in a room writing my stories without input from anyone but my muse.

Still, I know there are a lot of people out there who love to collaborate. Two writers feeding off each other, telling each other what sucks and what's great, creating characters and worlds together — I can see how that might be appealing to some.

And as I was thinking about such collaborations today, I thought, what if everyone on Murderati were to pair off and write something together? We might have six interesting new books.

Or maybe not:

BRETT RHOADES – THE CLEANER'S RIGHT HAND.

Bounty hunter Jonathan Keller loses an appendage to a runaway power scrubber.

ALEXANDRA READ – THE PRICE OF DARKNESS

A fledgling journalist follows the trail of a family of blue bloods to a hospital full of monstrous nuns.

ZOE BRENNAN – SUDDEN STRIKE

Two soldiers-for-hire, Jack Fox and Charlie Kincaid, spend a harrowing week on the picket line.

JT GERRITSEN – THE MEPHISTO KISS

A Boston medical examiner meets a Nashville homicide detective and their accents collide.

PARI NOSKIN URE – ANONYMOUS HITCH

A public relations consultant gets roadside assistance from a blind woman and all hell breaks loose.

ROBBI MCGEE GREGORY CAUSEY
– KISS HER FAMILY JEWELS (kinda sorta)

While making love to a slightly trashy but oh-so-hot Southern gal, an ATF agent finds himself rocketed into the afterlife.

Okay, maybe I do need a collaborator. Somebody who's actually funny (or better at Photoshop than I am…)

When is a series over?

by Tess Gerritsen

When the movie "Fellowship of the Ring" was first released, I was among the first waiting in line at the theater to see it. I was completely enchanted by the film, but I also dreaded for it to end, because I knew it was only the first installment of the epic Lord of the Rings, and there'd be a long wait until the next one came out. As reluctant heroes Frodo and Sam slowly made their way toward the horrors of Mordor, the film ended. And a man sitting behind me blurted out, "That's the ending? What a stupid movie! What the f!*k happens next?"

He had no idea that "Fellowship of the Ring" was the first part of a trilogy.

I encounter similar bewilderment from readers when they first pick up an installment of my Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles series. Among the Amazon.com reader reviews are these complaints: The author left too many threads hanging! The love story wasn't resolved! What the hell happens next? Does Maura end up with the priest or what? Where's the damn ending?!!

What they don't understand is that a continuing series lives and breathes because of those hanging plot threads.

I think that a good mystery series is actually one long, continuing saga with characters who grow and change over time. Yes, a particular crime may be solved in the span of one book, but that investigation takes up only a few weeks in a character's life. Do all his problems get solved in that same span of time? Does he catch the bad guy, find true love, and pay off his debts in 400 pages?

If your hero manages to accomplish all that in a single book, then you're not writing a series; you're writing a stand-alone novel. And you might as well kiss that character good-bye because there's nowhere left to take him.

I'm often asked, "how long will you be writing the Jane and Maura series?" And this is my answer: "Until both my characters find complete happiness. Because once they're happy, the series is over."

My biggest challenge while writing this series isn't about dreaming up new and more grotesque ways to murder people. It's not about being the first to use some cool setting or forensic detail. It's about finding believable ways to keep tormenting my main characters. The engine of any good plot is conflict, and I want Jane or Maura to always be in conflict with someone.

In The Surgeon, which was the first book in the series, Jane was only a secondary character. She was, in fact, supposed to die in that book. But she refused to surrender to me, her creator, and she survived the story — physically scarred, and psychically wounded, but she did survive because she was a ferocious creature. That was what I liked most about Jane Rizzoli, the fact she was so often in conflict with her colleagues and her family.

Which made her the perfect star of a series.

As the series progressed, Jane found love, got married, and had a baby. Naturally, none of it came easy. (Who else but Jane Rizzoli would give birth while being held hostage at gunpoint?) But by the time I started writing Mephisto Club, I had a bit of a problem. Jane's life was happy and settled — which meant Jane's story was winding down.

That's when Maura's life took a sudden turn toward misery. I had introduced Maura Isles in The Apprentice, not realizing that she would later become an integral part to the series. By the third installment, she was front and center in the plot. Which meant it was her turn to be tormented by her creator.

In the span of seven books, these two women have known heartbreak and tragedy and terror. They've fallen in and out of love and made decisions they've come to bitterly regret. They are like real women with complex lives and complicated families. Even if at one particular moment everything seems to be going fine, you just know that somehow, something is about to go wrong. It could be Jane's father walking out on her mother, or Jane's partner Barry Frost having a marital meltdown, but it's always something.

Just like real life.

There are dangers, though, in drawing this out too long. Throw too many crises into the mix, and the series eventually jumps the shark. How many times can you kill off a lover? How many times can a character be arrested and accused of murder? How many nervous breakdowns/head injuries/stabbings/bullet wounds can a hero endure before he turns into a mere cartoon character? I've watched several good series spiral into silliness because the heroine is no longer believable — or has become so tortured and morose that I can't stand her any longer, and I want the author to put the poor sleuth out of her misery.

When to close off a series is probably the most difficult decision an author will ever face. Your editor, your fans, and your accountant will all try to talk you out of it. If you've been earning a good income from your series, then abruptly ending it to start something new could prove to be a career killer.

But books are more than just about money; they're also about creative integrity. Dennis Lehane, when asked why he stopped writing his popular Patrick and Angie series, said: "Because the characters stopped talking to me." He just couldn't force it, so he abandoned them. For nearly a decade, the series has been dead to him. He moved on to other projects, for which he's received wild acclaim.

Then something miraculous happened, something he didn't expect. Dennis says that recently Patrick suddenly started talking to him again. Now Dennis is writing another Patrick and Angie book.

A series that had ended has been reborn.

It’s about time

by Pari

"What is it with all the clocks in this house?" complained my husband the other day. "None of them have the right time."

"Yeah . . . well," I said.

"You know, if you'd just leave them alone, we wouldn't be so confused all the time."

Ah, time.

You see, I have this incredibly weird relationship with it. Basically, I think that time is a stupid human construct with no real purpose but to make us all miserable. So, I mess with its instruments whenever possible. In real terms, that means that all our clocks are off by minutes . . . or hours.

After 16 years, you'd think my dear hubby would be used to this, but it still drives him batty.

On the plus side, my children are both quite good at math. You'd have to be in our house; every clock is an equation waiting to be solved.

Given this strange quirk, you'd might assume I'd eschew timers. But I noticed a couple of weeks ago that my efforts to free myself from the confines of time were thwarted by the little, accurate, clock on my computer. It's a damn distraction.

What could help me focus more on the task at hand and less on the passage of minutes that meant I'd have to stop what I was writing to go pick up the kids or get dinner started?

A timer?

When I was a child, my mother used one to get me to eat my meals faster. So, I had some emotional baggage there, too. Still, when I looked at the tool as a possible aid for my work, it made sense.

Guess what?

A cheapo deapo timer has made a tremendous difference in my focus and output. I'm able to let myself go in deeply to that creative place because I know that no matter how long or short the session, I won't lose myself so completely that I shirk my family responsibilities.

Who'd would've thought that something with a crappy display and an obnoxious alarm could be one of my best friends in my professional endeavors?

So there you have it. Nothing earth-shattering or profound about a timer, but it's really shaking up my way of working.

What about you?

If you could only have one new tool to help you work more efficiently — something small and inexpensive (I'm talking about less than $10) — what would it be?

Better Late . . .

By Allison Brennan

My fault, I'm late posting. All day yesterday I was thinking that I had to write this blog. I was up at 6:00 to get out of the house with my oldest daughter by 7:00 to drive an hour to a volleyball tournament. There, I wrote on my laptop while she wasn't playing (I have another deadline mid-March) and watched her play. Then we had to leave early to get her to basketball practice back home at 2:00. Then, because my other kids were cooped up all day, I took them to see HOTEL FOR DOGS (cute, good for little kids, but not as funny as BEDTIME STORIES which we saw last month.) Then, pick up oldest daughter from basketball practice at 4:30, go home so she could shower, then haul everyone over to meet my mom for dinner at six. We got home at eight–all the little kids went to bed. My older two and I were going to watch BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (we're in the middle of season three) and I planned on writing the blog while watching . . . except daughter #1 fell to sleep (surprise–Friday was a late day too–choir at seven a.m., basketball game at 6 p.m., and back to school for talent show where we didn't leave until 10 . . . )

Tangent: My daughter's varsity basketball team won their season undefeated and host playoffs next week. Another long week . . . but it'll be fun!

I sat in bed (first mistake) laptop on my night stand . . . and the next thing I know, it's four in the morning and my littlest Brennan is crawling into bed with me. I'm sweating because my husband turned up the heater sometime in the middle of the night (I usually am the last to bed, and I make sure the heater is low, but sometimes it's the battle of the temperatures throughout the night. I should win–you can always put on more blankets, but there's only so much you can take off . . . especially when you have little kids who crawl into bed with you in the middle of the night!)

Then I woke up and made coffee and sat down to read email and then clicked on my blogroll and saw Alex's post and realized, damn! I forgot my blog!

I had wanted to write about character development because of an interesting thread on one of my writers loops that began lamenting the changes in books from leisurely openings to fast-paced, know everything about the protagonist opening as soon as possible.

Because I don't have time to write the blog I'd been thinking–it's Sunday morning and we have church and then I promised my older girls a mall trip–I thought I'd beg forgiveness and simply ask about the last fiction book you enjoyed and would recommend to others. It can be any book, any genre and I'll ask you:

Title

Author

Why you recommend the book–what did you love most about it?

Then look at the first three pages. Did they start with action, backstory, dialogue, the protagonist, the villain, or what? Were you engaged by the content or the voice or both?

Me:

STRANGERS IN DEATH

JD Robb

Another GREAT installment in the IN DEATH series. I swear, she's getting better with each book. (And yes, I know I'm a book behind. I've been busy.)

The books almost always start with a dead body (my favorite openings.) So I'd say it starts with action. There is no dialogue on the first page, but the protagonist, Lieutenant Eve Dallas, is recording her visual observations by page two. So we know the victim, the manner of death, the surroundings, and in that the mystery begins instantly.

Some of my favorite opening paragraphs come from the JD Robb books. This one:

"Murder harbored no bigotry, no bias. It subscribed to no class system. In its gleeful, deadly, and terminally judicious way, murder turned a blind eye on race, creed, gender, and social stratum. As Lieutenant Eve Dallas stood in the sumptuous bedroom of the recently departed Thomas A. Anders, she considered that."

The nice things about the Robb books is that I can sit down and read one in a night, a few hours were I completely immerse myself in another world and end it completely satisfied.

So what about you? Latest great read and why?

Next time, I promise a meatier post.

And the Oscar goes to…

by Alexandra Sokoloff

I didn’t participate in J.T.’s “Who Influenced You?” thread yesterday, not because I don’t
have tons of people I should be on my knees thanking every day for their
inspirations. But really,
it’s the meme thing. There’s
just something soul-killing about it.
Look, the whole reason I
started writing story structure articles to begin with was that I just didn’t
have anything more to say about myself.

But if I HAD participated in the meme that was or maybe
still is going around, “Twenty-Five Things You Don’t Know About Me”, this would
have been one of them.

I win Oscar pools.

I don’t gamble, hate cards, don’t buy lottery tickets, am
bored senseless in casinos… but over the years I have won thousands of dollars
on casual Oscar pools, and have made other friends who took my picks a few
hundred here and there, too. And let me be clear – the vast majority of these Oscar pools that I've won have been at parties IN HOLLYWOOD, where I was betting against other screenwriters, directors, actors, agents, DPs, editors, production designers – many of whom were arguably more clued in than I was.

I
actually won my first Oscar Derby when I was sixteen years old and entered a
contest in the local paper.
I think that’s young enough to count as evidence of a genetic
predisposition.

Or maybe it was just foreshadowing.

So I was going to post another story structure article
today, but hell, it’s Oscar weekend, and why should we at Murderati be exempt? I bet you all want to dish.  And myself, I’m curious if this
talent I have was mostly a product of living in Southern California and just
having it all in the air.
This year I am NOT in California and in fact just got back from out of
the country, so I don’t feel at all plugged in.
In other words, no promises!

All that disclaimed, let’s take a look, here. And here’s a link to a printable
Oscar ballot, for your own purposes and so that I don’t have to list all the
nominees, myself.

Best Picture.    I’m not going out on a limb to say that SLUMDOG
MILLIONAIRE is a juggernaut.
But if you’ll remember, I raved about it the second I saw it.

Best Director:
SLUMDOG’S Danny Boyle, whom I’ve loved since the outrageous
TRAINSPOTTING.

Best Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black for MILK. And anyone who hasn’t seen this one – what are you
waiting for? Bio pics are
about the hardest genre of all to pull off, and this one lets you live this
history AND a wrenching, uplifting story at the same time.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy for SLUMDOG. I understand perfectly why
Indians would take offense at the character changes he made to Vikas Swarup’s
novel. This is a
quintessentially Hollywood film, stereotypes and all. But as Hollywood films go, it’s magic.

(Note how Oscar ballots don’t list the names of the
nominated screenwriters. The
“Big Six” Oscar ballots don’t list the screenwriting categories at all. Now, aren’t you glad you’re an
author?)

Best Actress:
Kate Winslet.
Haven’t seen THE READER yet – that’s tonight.   Didn’t particularly care for her performance in
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (and the film – not recommended!!) No matter what
she does in READER, and no matter how much I love her, and I truly do, I cannot
in my wildest imagining believe that she even comes close to Meryl Streep’s
literally breathtaking performance in DOUBT.   But if you’re voting to win, that’s the buzz.   (I heard someone put it
perfectly, in Hollywood terms:
“The movie’s about the Holocaust.   How can she lose?”)

Best Actor:
Here’s the real race.
If I were voting my heart, Sean Penn, hands down.   He didn’t play Harvey Milk – he
became Harvey Milk.   I
completely forgot that was Sean Penn up there.    But Mickey Rourke was heartbreaking in THE
WRESTLER, and Hollywood loves a comeback.    And Frank Langella was truly mesmerizing in
FROST/NIXON, and as another prognosticator put it, Rourke and Penn have the
same fan base so they might split the vote and give Langella the edge (these
are the things you REALLY have to consider when you’re handicapping the
Oscars).   Every one of these
men deserves an Oscar for his performance.    I say Penn, but my guess is as good as yours,
here.

Best Supporting Actress: Here’s a rule of thumb for voting this category:   “Youngest, cutest.”   Sad, but true.   The race is between Viola Davis
and Penelope Cruz.
Both stellar, Oscar-worthy performances in polar opposite roles.   I hear people saying, “Viola
might get it because of Obama.”
This is the kind of talk you hear for months around Hollywood, really,
it’s fascinating.    I’d
love to see Viola, but Penelope was better than I’ve ever seen her (and I’m not
really a fan) in VICKI CHRISTINA BARCELONA.   I say Penelope gets it.

Best Supporting Actor: And this is no race at all. Heath Ledger, and it’s really just too sad.

Now, if you’re going for the whole ballot, there are a couple of other good bets I
can give you.

SLUMDOG will probably sweep, so you can’t go too far wrong
just marking it down for all the tech categories, sound, editing, effects, it’s
nominated for. It won’t WIN in all
of them, probably, but if you’re playing to win, it’s still your best bet.

Animated Feature:
WALL-E – unbeatable.

Best Editing:
almost always wins along with director. Chris Dickens for SLUMDOG, in case you were thinking
of voting for something else.

Cinematography:
This is the one that I think has a chance of going elsewhere.   This might be the one big award
that BENJAMIN BUTTON gets.
But that’s a lot about my personal taste.

Best Song: I’d
go for the one from WALL-E, but haven’t heard it.

Art Direction, Makeup, Visual Effects – SLUMDOG’S out of the
running for all of these and it’s going to be a battle between BENJAMIN BUTTON
and THE DARK KNIGHT. As a matter
of fact I’m most curious about these production awards. I found BUTTON a very
unsatisfying movie but the look of it was just stupefyingly lovely, and I’d like
to see it rewarded for that.
There’s sort of a backlash against the film, though, a lot of grumbling,
and a lot of Hollywood talkers think THE DARK KNIGHT hasn’t been recognized
enough.

Documentary feature, short feature, animated short: the handicapping rule of thumb here is
– Is there a Holocaust movie? Vote
for that one. This
year I know nothing about any of them but I have heard people rave about MAN ON
WIRE, for whatever that’s worth.

So there you go.
Not all-inclusive, but if you don’t generally have luck at these Oscar
pools, it might help you. Or – not. That's why they call it gambling.

Me, I actually have other plans tomorrow night, so I’ll be
speeding through the show on DVR later.
If you’re not at an actual Oscar party, and drinking heavily, it’s the only way to get through
it. ;)

I do have to say that I’m grateful for some truly
exceptional films and performances this year. I can’t remember when I was last excited about so many
films in a single year – DOUBT, SLUMDOG, MILK, FROST/NIXON, THE VISITOR, THE
WRESTLER, GRAN TORINO (but I definitely don’t want to get into THAT debate
right now!).

If you haven’t seen some of these, do yourself a favor and
go. Sometimes Hollywood just gets it right.

Okay, people – let’s hear it.   Your favorite films?   Writing?
Performance?
Production design?
Who should win, and who do you think WILL win?

Are there any other Oscar pool pros out there?

And Monday, we can talk about the clothes.

– Alex

25 Writers

by JT Ellison

Before I start, I'd like to share some sad news. Louise Ure's mother, Jeanne Ure, passed away Wednesday night. I know I've treasured Louise's posts about Jeanne – told with such eloquence, detailing the hardship and agony of losing one you love piece by piece, and the beauty and joy that has been her life. Please join all of us as we send our prayers and condolences to Louise and her family.

It's fitting, really, that this post is about influences.

There have been a million and one memes floating around lately. I usually don't participate, for a variety of reasons. This one, though, is too cool not to participate in. I got it through Facebook, but it comes up on DorothyL sometimes, and other listserves.

Who are you influenced by? What writers have had such an impact on you that when asked to list them, you'll think of them immediately?

To satisfy the meme's mission, I decided to list mine out – along with the one book or story or play or poem that was the most influential to me with a random tidbit as to why. It was hard to keep the list to 25, as you'll see…

25 Writers:

1. Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita

I've never been as affected by a novel as I was Lolita. It taught me voice, and passion, and how an unreliable narrator can squeeze out your soul. Something I've never forgotten.

2. Virginia Woolf – A Room of One's Own

Because I've always ascribed to the belief that, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Amen to that, Sister.

3. Harper Lee – To Kill A Mockingbird

My first moments of social awareness.

4. Mary Stewart – The Wicked Day

I've always been fascinated with the Arthurian Legend, and this book, from Mordred's point of view and partially set in Wales, is my favorite of the lot.

5. Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged

I read it at the suggestion of a boyfriend in high school I wanted to impress, and was blown away by the concepts. Her short novel Anthem is my favorite book.

6. Sun Tzu – The Art of War

I fancied myself a Taoist for a while, but the logic of the simple dictum make sure your enemy has a way to escape stuck with me. Fitting for war, and life. And how can you not love a book that's influenced the art of war throughout history?

7. John Connolly – Every Dead Thing

His first, and possibly one of the finest debut novels I'll ever read. Connolly has long been an influence on my writing – his literary style is unmistakable and effective.

8. John Sandford – Mind Prey

The book I was reading when I decided I wanted to try my hand at writing again.

9. Carolyn Keene – Nancy Drew and The Secret of the Old Clock

After reading the Nancy Drew' books, I spent several years insisting on being called George, even going so far as to sign my school photographs George M. To say I was a tomboy is putting it mildly.

10. Ernest Hemingway – Short Story: Hills Like White Elephants

I've never been so affected by a story in my life. Possibly the best example of metaphor ever written, and certainly one of the best shorts of all time.

11. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein

I always hated the movie, because the book gave Frankenstein's monster a conscience. I've always felt that evil is a choice, and this book encapsulates that concept for me.

12. Emily Bronte – Wuthering Heights

I'm in love with Heathcliff, mental illness and all. There, I said it. And I thought the most recent BBC offering of the story was grand, if a little off the mark.

13. Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice

I'm also a bit in love with Mr. Darcy. And I married my own, so this book was a helpful guide to the path of true love.

14. Diana Gabaldon – Outlander

The book that precipitated my shift away from politics and back to writing. Grand, sweeping, and another main character I've got the hots for.

15. Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince

The art of the State, an essential book for me when I was planning my political career.

16. A.A. Milne – The House at Pooh Corner

I felt a great affinity for Christopher Robbins, because my stuffed animals had lives too.

17. Lee Child – Running Blind

My first Child book, with one of the most incredibly effective and affecting scenes I've ever read. A true impetus to get it right.

18. C.S. Lewis – The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

I was an imaginative child, so fantasy novels really worked for me. I cried so hard when Aslan died, and found joy again when he resurrected. I saw what power writers have and started writing.

19. Elizabeth George – Write Away

One of the first writing books I ever read, and a great influence on how to build a story.

20. Stephen King – On Writing

The most important book in my toolbox, simple, straightforward, and definitely a help in improving my writing.

21. Percy Bysshe Shelley – Ozymandias

This poem is one of my favorites – succinct yet powerful.

22. Alfred, Lord Tennyson – The Eagle, A Fragment

My all time favorite poem – I recited it for an assignment in third grade, my first speaking part. It spoke to me, touched something in my soul. It still does.

23. Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness

A journey into the heart of man, one not easily forgotten.

24. Jean Rhys – Wide Sargasso Sea

The idea of one of the greatest novels of all time (Jane Eyre) having a backstory floored me. Lush and evocative.

25. Shakespeare – A Midsummer Night's Dream

This was impossible to narrow down, because I'm a Shakespeare fiend. But this is one of my favorites, along with Taming of the Shrew.

So what about you? Who are your influences?

Wine of the Week: A gift from a friend, the best way to enjoy wine.

2005 Nickel & Nickel Branding Iron Cabernet Sauvignon Yummy!!!!! The tasting notes from the Nickel & Nickel website say it best:

The 2005 Branding Iron is very fruity with flavors of blackberry and cranberry prevalent on the palate. This sweet fruit is accompanied by some peppermint and earth, while the oak offers up a warm toast and spice. The longer growing season this year allowed for good resolution of the tannins. The wine is fat and velvety with a long, coating texture that progresses into a warm, lingering finish.

“Hang on a minute, lads, I’ve got a great idea!”

by Zoë Sharp

It has to be one of the best known classic cliff-hanger endings. The final scene from 'The Italian Job' with Michael Caine. The bus teetering balanced on the edge of the Alpine ravine, with Charlie Croker and his gang of gold thieves stuck watching their bullion booty sliding ever further towards the abyss as the bus rocks gently back and forth. Then Croker turns back to the gang and says, "Hang on a minute, lads, I’ve got a great idea!"

But what was it? And did it work?

This year is the fortieth anniversary of the original version of 'The Italian Job', and to mark the occasion The Telegraph in the UK held a competition to see if anyone could come up with that grand plan to rescue the gold. The rules were simple – no helicopters, and it must be a scientifically provable theory. Over 2000 people tried their hand, with solutions ranging from the surreal (Superman flies in and saves the day) to the comedic. One gentleman claimed to have "a foolproof way of recovering the gold. However, since the occupants of the truck are a bunch of criminals and the gold does not belong to them, I refuse to divulge the method."

So, how would you do it?

The eventual winner did indeed have a very cunning plan, as Baldrick might have said, which I promise to share with you later, but first I wanted to see if anyone here could come up with something equally ingenious?

The reason for mentioning 'The Italian Job', and its ending, is that when we write a mystery or thriller novel, for me the ending is crucial. So often, it seems, a book can be front-loaded to the extreme. So much thought and energy – not to mention that low-down cunning – has gone into hooking the reader at the outset, that the eventual explanation can never hope to live up to it. I have even, on rare occasions, thrown a book down after the final page, feeling cheated.

There seem to be two main types of endings for the journey of your story. One is very circular, bringing with it some kind of closure or completion, and the other a lot more open-ended. According to Christopher Vogler in THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, which details mythic structure for storytellers and screenwriters, American culture tends to lean towards the circular, whereas Europe, Asia and Australia are happy not to have everything brought to such a neat conclusion. (And I do realise I’m speaking in generalisations here.)

Personally, I like some kind of conclusion, providing it doesn’t stray into the saccharine. I believe that is one of the reasons we are happy to read quite graphic and gory crime fiction. Because we know it’s all going to be all right in the end. Terrible things may happen in real life, inexplicable tragedies where nobody is ever brought to justice for what they’ve done, so we turn to fiction to provide that reassurance. We know that, although the ending might not be entirely happy, it will have some kind of a resolution that satisfies us.

Writing my Charlie Fox series, I have always tried to make the books free-standing, rather than standalones. Yes, there are continuing characters and there are returning characters, but I have always tried hard to make it so that if you pick a book up from later in the series, you won’t be baffled by in-jokes, nor will you encounter (too many) plot spoilers about what has gone before. Each plot is completely self-contained.

But that all changed with the last book, THIRD STRIKE. I ended with something that I knew would have to be addressed in the next book, and for the first time I realised I’d broken away from quite such a neat and tidy circular ending, and had left things a lot more open-ended.

I did a blog back in November last year, 'Tune in Next Week…' in which I talked about series books and whether it was possible to have cataclysmic change in a series, and the comments were very interesting indeed.

But this takes that question a step further. Do you need to have a neat and tidy conclusion to a crime novel? Does the hero have to catch the bad guy, or do you turn the bad guy into an ongoing nemesis of the Professor Moriarty ilk? To a certain extent, I feel this can lessen the threat posed by the villain. After all, if you know they’re not going to die, or get caught, then something of the thrill goes out of the chase. How long would greyhounds continue to chase the fake rabbit, if they were never allowed to catch it?

So, if you’d just written a thriller that just happened to be about a gold bullion heist in Turin, in which the intrepid heroes made their escape in three Mini Coopers, and ended with them pushing said cars out of the back of their bus as they drove over the Alps, celebrating their victory, would you, on the final page, be content to have the bus driver misjudge a corner and end up see-sawing precariously over the edge of a very long drop?

And, as a reader, would you throw the book against the wall if the final line was, "Hang on a minute, lads, I’ve got a great idea!" Would 'The Usual Suspects' have been quite as satisfying if you’d never found out the identity of Keyser Soze? Did it matter in 'Ronin' that you never find out what’s in the case?

As always seems to be the case at the moment, I’m away on photoshoots all day today, but will reply to all comments when I get back this evening, so please bear with me.

This week’s Word of the Week is dénouement, which means the unravelling of a plot or story, from the Old French desnoer, to untie, and nodus, a knot.

The Heretic

by J.D. Rhoades

While reading Tess' post last week on how it's not enough to be a writer anymore, I had a bit of an epiphany. It was expressed this comment in which I said:

I wonder if [publishers would] be saying that, say, book trailers were so vital if the publishers were required by law to write, produce, and pay for them, or if they'd say "aw, why bother, book trailers don't really sell more books."

And websites…you think anyone bought THE DA VINCI CODE because of Dan Brown's website? Does he even HAVE one? How many if the people who made Michael Connelly's last book a bestseller discovered him through his website?

I'll admit, that comment came off perhaps a little crankier than I had intended. Actually, truth be told, I was a little crankier than usual that day for reasons we don't need to go into right now. But I think the point's still valid: you may sell some books through the kind of marketing "everybody says" you have to do. But I really don't think that the people who make blockbusters blockbusters are buying books because they saw a trailer, or even because they saw a website.

I know this sounds like heresy. But I think we here at Murderati, and all of us folks who frequent the book blogs, are a bit of a skewed sample. Most of us are not only hard-core book geeks, we also probably spend a lot of time on the Internet.

But here's something I've noticed. A lot of the biggest readers I know, including mystery readers, don't spend a lot of time Web-surfing, and those that do aren't hitting the book sites. My in-laws are voracious readers, and they don't even have a computer (which gives them more time to read). Several of my colleagues in the law biz read a lot, and I can't remember a single one of them telling me they bought a book because they saw a trailer for it on YouTube or stumbled across the author's website. I know I've sold some books via people I've met on Facebook, and a few due to the blogging I do, but none of those sales were enough to kick me up to the bestseller lists. And while there have been a couple of times I'd have had to take off my shoes and socks to count the number of books I've sold at bookstore events, more often than not I can just use the fingers of one hand. There have only been a couple times when the sales themselves justified the cost of the gas.

Now, do I think that publishers are just being evil and sadistic by telling us we need to do more and more, and pay for more and more out of our own pockets? Not at all. I think they're just as baffled as we are, and when something looks like a good idea, and they don't have to pay for it, they're willing to say "hey, go for it," especially if everyone else seems to be doing it.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Lord knows, that's happened before. So writers and readers, I want to ask you to do me a solid. I'm going to pose a few questions that I not only want YOU to answer, I want you to ask at least one friend or relative who reads and who you know IN PERSON, not just on the ''net.

1. Have you ever bought a book by an author who you'd never heard of because you saw the trailer for it on the Internet?

2. Have you ever bought a book by an author who you'd never heard of based on their website, blog, or MyFace page?Or did you more often find the author's 'net presence AFTER you read them?

3. Have you ever bought a book by an author who you'd never heard of because they were appearing in a bookstore and they caught your interest?

4. Have you ever bought a book by an author who you'd never heard of because you saw it in the store and it looked interesting? Where was it in the store?

5. If you've ever bought a book from an author who you'd never heard of for any other reason, why was that?

It's a totally unscientific survey, of course, but I'm interested in the replies.

Tribute Pains

By Louise Ure

I woke this morning with cramps up the length of my left leg, culminating in a white hot vortex of pain at the hip, just where my mother broke her leg a couple of weeks ago. And there was a scaly patch of skin about the size of a cigarette pack on my spine, just above where the bra line would have been if a 93-year old woman wore a bra in a hospital bed and asked to have her back scratched.

"Sympathy pains," I said to Deeply Supportive Spouse.

I've just returned from two and a half weeks at my mother's bedside, trying to remind a woman with dementia about why her hip hurt and calm her when she woke confused and frightened in a strange room.

"Tribute pains," Strong Silent Spouse replied.

I like that better. Tribute Pains, like Tribute Bands playing covers of their idols' hit singles.

So here are some of the hit singles from my Tucson sojourn. Not all are songs that you can sing without crying.

* A sure sign of changing times, it snowed in Tucson. White stuff covered the Catalina Mountains and the saguaros were frost-rimed in the morning air.

* The woman in the next bed had a more aggressive Tourette's-like version of dementia than my mother's. She started with a single sound … sh … sh … then worked it into shirt … skirt … short … shit … ending with the shouted refrain of "My shit. Eat Shit. Shit me!" I learned to duck when the repetition of "eff" worked its way into "fish." "Here's one fish," she'd call as she threw her top denture at me. "Here's a second fish!" was the lower denture. She had a good arm.

* William in Physical Therapy had been an army sergeant in Desert Storm. When asked to re-up, he declined. "They wanted me to treat my troops as numbers – as tasks – not as men. I couldn't do it. I'm doing what I want now." He promised to wear his Stetson, tight jeans and cowboy boots the next day if my mother would try to stand. I'd seen him in those jeans. I encouraged her to make the effort.

* Dementia is a selective thing. Why does her mind refuse to recognize her daughter-in-law but also carve a deeply etched memory of the pain of breaking her leg? She wakes from restive sleep crying, "Don't hurt me!"

* Having a Strong Silent Deeply Supportive Spouse who takes his mother-in-law's soiled bedclothes back to the hotel each night and washes them is a pearl beyond price.

* She clings to her faith in her pain, but at the end, she's a realist. The muttered prayer I overheard as she drifted off to sleep was, "Dear Heavenly Father, if this is my time, take me now." A pause. "But if it's not, then cut this shit out."

* They've rigged up a hookah-like pipe for Rose, a young Asian woman with cerebral palsy, so she can have a puff of cigarette out on the patio without flinging embers all over herself. We high five when we see each other in the hall, but that may be just her regular flailing. I'm not sure that she means to connect with my flat palm at all.

* CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistants) should be paid more. They changed diapers, spoon-fed and put lotion on my mother, all the time crooning "mamacita" or "mi hijita" to calm a frazzled mind. Steff, a raging gay Mexican man in hot pink scrubs, strewed rose petals over a patient's bed when he heard that she was returning from a doctor's visit with bad news.

* A moment in the winter sun on the patio can make it seem as if the world hasn't shifted on its axis and everything might be right once again.

* My brothers deal with the crisis of her injury the same way they face every other obstacle in their lives. Jim adds it to the already formidable list of things to be done. Robert, unable to watch the pain, runs from it, sure that somehow it is a failing on his part not to have made things right.

* My mother will return home today. Not because she's improved to that point, but because the insurance money will run out. A sweet Mexican woman named Socorro will be there to help clean her and feed her and my sister is flying in. We found thirteen gold coins in mom's safety deposit box to pay for the help for a few months.

* There were moments of semi-lucidity that I will treasure forever. As I left her that final night I leaned down to kiss my mother and tell her I loved her.

"I know it's been a tough few weeks for you but I loved our time together."

"Take it with you," she replied. "You can keep it."

I take it with me. It is my Tribute Pain.

Deliberate mistakes

by Pari

We novelists have been known to take liberties with the truth when it furthers a story. Sometimes we do it unconsciously. Other times, we know that the reality would bore readers to death.

I mean, who really wants to know how private investigators work? I did. I interviewed a well respected former policewoman who now runs a great agency in NM. She spoke about people’s expectations about the job, the ideas formed and nurtured by fiction and television, that were so far from her day-to-day efforts. In fact, the biggest parts of her work centered on research — at her computer or going through printed records — and then writing reports. Only once or twice in her career had she ever confronted a “suspect” and she regretted it. In fact, the impression I got from her was that most PIs deliberately strive not to be larger than life; they want to melt into the background, to be as invisible as possible in order to get the info they need.

However, reading about report-writing doesn’t rock most people’s world. It just doesn’t have enough oomph.

What about the CSI phenomenon?
Let’s face it, an octogenarian claiming she’s a 21-year-old Playboy model on her MySpace page is closer to the truth than most fictional depictions of crime scene analysis these days.

Yet, we writers have the resources to tell it like it is. In addition to the experts we cultivate as acquaintances and friends, there are marvelous online sources such as crimescenewriter.com, Jan Burke’s emails about crime labs, Lee Lofland’s wonderful blog — and reference books galore.

Sometimes I feel like I have an obligation to the truth, to try to counter all the misperceptions out there. However, I don’t write procedurals and to include too much info about how police — or professional PIs — investigate crimes wouldn’t mesh with what my books are about. All I can do is try to be accurate in how my protags perceive what’s going on . . . and my protags aren’t always right.

Yet I think that readers’ expectations have changed dramatically in the last decade or so. They want more procedure, more DNA analysis and national computer databases that in reality don’t exist or are too costly to conduct.

They have all of these ideas about what the truth is and those ideas simply are wrong.

Where’s the balance? Do we keep giving them the exciting confrontation between PI and perp because it makes a good climax to our book? Do we throw in a nifty piece of evidence scraped off a ladybug’s footpad because the insect crawled on the victim’s lips after he died and that makes our take unique?

Do we write these jacked-up versions, thereby creating even more erroneous expectations?

I don’t have the answers. That’s why I’m asking you.

Writers: How do you handle the balance? Do you put in the reality — the length of time things really take, the lack of resources, the mistakes — or do you take liberties?
Readers: Am I totally off? Do you want more and more procedure and CSI techniques or are you sick of those being stuck into everything?
Everyone: What’s YOUR favorite lie/mistake in print or television vis a vis crime solving or law enforcement?