Author Archives: Murderati


Second Henchman From The Left

by Zoë Sharp

The main protagonist of a crime thriller – in fact, of any novel – may be the one who gets the star billing, but for me it’s so often the supporting players who make or break a book.

And I’m not just talking about the sidekicks, either. They deserve a whole separate section to themselves. What I mean is the real minor characters – the walk-on extras of the literary world. The ones who may only have a few lines of dialogue, but who completely steal whatever scene they happen to be in.

Sometimes, in a few broad brushstrokes, those are ones who jump off the page to become real people, quite out of proportion to the role they were supposed to play in the story. The ones who most stick in my mind after the final page is done. The characters who really should have had a chapter all of their own, or maybe even an entire novel.

Certain bit-part players are sneaky, I’ve found. They just cry out to have their role extended and expanded, and they rewrite their part when I’m not looking. Occasionally I give in to the urge and write them to the grander scale they feel they deserve. Almost inevitably, those scenes end up on the cutting room floor. They’re great, yes. I love them, but if they don’t move the story forwards, back out they come.

Even so, I’m always left with a lingering sense of regret, that they had a greater story to tell, and by not allowing them to speak freely, I’m missing something worthwhile.

I envisaged just such a minor player in FIRST DROP. His name was Walt and he was purely supposed to be a friendly face for Charlie, someone to offer her temporary sanctuary when she was on the run in a strange country with her teenage principal, Trey. A typical walk-on part. But Walt was made of sterner stuff, I quickly discovered. He’d spent time in the navy and was a retired FBI agent, living right on the beach in Daytona with his wife, Harriet. They fostered problem kids, and while Walt now spent his time just bumming around, beach combing and drinking coffee, he still had the power to disperse a gang of teenage tearaways with a few quiet, well-chosen words.

By the time I’d finished the book, I couldn’t get Walt out of my head. He became such a complete person that for a while afterwards I seriously considered making him the central character of his own novel. Possibly even the mainstay of a new series. And I really wanted to bring him back in THIRD STRIKE. Once again, I thought, he could be there for Charlie in a way she’s always felt – rightly or wrongly – her own father never was. A good counterpoint figure.

But the more I tried to follow that path, the more I realised that Walt just didn’t have a role to play in the book. The more I pushed, the more the story just wouldn’t come. Eventually, with much kicking and mewling, I had to face up to the fact that he simply didn’t fit, and out he came.

But I did manage to sneak in another minor character from a previous book. Gleet was a builder of custom motorcycles, an artist in steel and paint, who worked out of a farmyard barn in rural Lancashire. He and his shotgun-toting sister, May, both make a fleeting visit in THIRD STRIKE. May, in particular, has only one piece of dialogue, but it just feels right. I felt their inclusion worked on several levels, not just in the current story, but as an important link to Charlie’s past, a reminder of who she was before she moved to New York to take up very different life.

And there were others who acted their socks off for the brief time they took centre page. There’s one character who’s identified only as Buzz-cut, for the style of his hair. A former soldier by his bearing. A dedicated, fiercely loyal man by his actions. Misguided, maybe. Misinformed, almost certainly, but not a cut-and-dried bad guy by any means. As minor villains go – the second henchman from the left of the title – he’s another who won’t quite let go.

There was a character like that in SECOND SHOT. Someone I only ever knew as Man with the Glasses. He didn’t stay long, didn’t say much while he was there, but something about him has remained with me, some time after he departed.

So, my question is this. Have you ever written a minor character who just seemed to have that star quality, who refused to be contained by the itsy role you were initially determined they should play? Do you ever have to rein them in, ruthlessly prune their ad libs, or even strip them from the narrative altogether, to service the greater good of the story? Even though, in your heart, you really want to hear their song?

Or, has a minor character in an early, perhaps unpublished, draft, ever stepped into the spotlight, and looked you firmly in the eye, and said, "Hey, this book should be about ME!" and, if so, what did you do about it?

This week’s Word of the Week is camaïeu, originally a cameo; a painting in monochrome or in simple colours not imitating nature; a style of printing pictures producing the effect of pencil-drawing; a literary work or play that is monotonous or lacks interest. And thus, cameo, which among its meanings includes that of a short literary piece; a small role in a play or film that often gives scope for character acting. Adj miniature, small and perfect of its kind.

Eight Thousand Stories in the Semi-Naked City

by J.D. Rhoades

First off, thanks to Rob Gregory Browne for filling in while I was at
the beach. We had a great time, and I got to catch up on my reading
(about which more in future posts).

You
may remember last year about this time, I was getting ready to head for
the beach and wondering if I should just leave the laptop at home and
not write for a week. I ended up leaving the computer, but taking the
notebook, in which quite a few ideas, character sketches, one-liners,
dreams, and other flotsam and jetsam got jotted down.

This year, I busted my tail getting my WIP in submittable form, getting in a short story that I’d promised,  doing a couple of guest blogs, writing enough newspaper columns to get through the vacation, and generally working it so there was no deadline hanging over my head and no project due after I got back.   

But even when I’m not officially writing,  I noticed something. If you’re a writer, there are some things you can’t turn off. One of
those is the habit of wondering about, then spinning stories around,
the things that you see.

People always ask writers, "where do you get your ideas?" But, if you think like a writer, ideas…stories…are everywhere. Sometimes it seems like everything you see is an invitation to say to yourself, "I wonder what that guy’s story is?" then let your brain rush in to fill the void.

For example, we saw:

*
A young couple who came into a very nice seafood restaurant with their
toddler, sat down at a nearby table, ordered tea….then before their order was even taken, got up
and rushed out, in the middle of a thunderstorm so violent that the
mother had to pull her jacket over her and her little girl’s head to
protect them from the driving rain.

* A
beautiful blue-sailed catamaran  bounding joyously along the waves in the
morning, only to be seen later being dragged, sideways and half submerged,
behind a small motorboat that was laboring hard to pull the disabled
cat.

*The
mysterious phone calls to the  beach house at 8:30 in the morning. When
I finally stirred myself  go out in the living room an answer one, I
got a recorded message stating "This is attorney Melvin Weinstein
trying to reach (pause) Samuel A. Jones (pause)*. I have been trying to
get in touch with you for some time. It is VERY IMPORTANT that I speak
with you. Please press ‘9’ to connect." When I pressed ‘9’ to tell them
they had a rental beach house and there was no one there by that
name…silence, then a dial tone.

* A
huge freighter that paced back and forth on the horizon for a day and a
half, neither coming in to the Port of Wilmington nor sailing away.

* Two large  hand-made, but neatly lettered signs along the beach road  proclaiming ‘NO MOORE, MAY MOORE!"

Where
were these folks going in such a hurry? What happened to the catamaran and the people on it?
Why is Melvin Weinstein after Samuel A. Jones? Why couldn’t the
freighter come in or sail away? Who’s May Moore, and who’s had enough?

So have at it, folks! Post your own ideas of the stories behind those weird occurrences. I’ll tell you what I and the kids came up with in the comments.

*names changed

Does Size Matter?

By Louise Ure

My husband came home from CostCo a few days ago and unloaded our usual cache of red wine, paper towels, hamburger and typing paper. I was gracious and grateful. After all, I hadn’t had to go down and brave the hordes with fifty-pound bags of rice and four steel-belted radials in their carts.


Bagofrice_2

I didn’t once mention that the cranberry juice he thought would “come in handy” was the same size container that I’ve hauled gasoline in, and the metal canister of olive oil is big enough to drape with a cloth and use as a side table.

“I asked Brian to come by and help with the rest of it,” he said.

The rest of it?

If it required Brian, our well-muscled, 28-year old, foster son-firefighter, it was gonna be big.

And it was.


Tv42stortsort32lw10



A Jolly Green Giant sized flat-screen, high-definition TV.

Did I mention that we have thirty-three stairs up from the street to our house? Brian was doing his best not to break a sweat. It wasn’t working.

And did I also mention that our den is approximately ten foot by ten foot?

The new TV fit nicely onto the existing shelves … if I took out the three rows of books above it and knocked out the west wall.

And it does look good.

Joe Biden’s smile on the Sunday talk show is as wide and bright as the dawning sun. The weather forecast looks like it’s coming from the hand of God. Giada DeLaurentis’ s head is bigger, and yes, Simon, so are her breasts.


Giada

 



My new favorite find is “Sunrise Earth,” on the HDT channel (754 on my cable channel) that shows nothing but pictures of dawn with ambient sound at 7:00 o’clock every morning. Sunrise in Patagonia. In Tahiti. In the Arctic. It’s my new meditation.

But then the Bobbleheadedness set in. I found myself craning from left to right, following the arc of a golf ball’s drive from the tee. Nausea set in when I switched to the Nascar race at Sears Point. I don’t ever want to see Bullitt on this TV.


Bullitt




“I thought it looked so small,” my husband said.

It does. If what you’re comparing it to is the screen at a drive-in.

CostCo sizing had struck again.

Is bigger automatically better? Or is bigger just what you get used to if you only shop at CostCo?

I see the same CostCo sizing in books. James Patterson has long been known for the wide margins in his books in order to increase page count, but we’ve also had a raft of really long mysteries and thrillers hitting the best seller lists of late.

Tom Rob Smith’s debut novel, Child 44, comes in at 448 pages. Katherine Neville, who awed us twenty years ago with The Eight (at 550 pages) has a new book coming out in October called The Fire. She dieted this one down to only 464 pages, but Elizabeth George’s most recent, Careless in Red, is a whopping 640 pages, and weighs two pounds.

These books are the 52” flat screens of crime fiction. They needed all those extra pages to tell the story right. In their case, bigger really does mean better.

But what about the lean, mean shorter books? Books by James Sallis (Drive, 158 pages) and Megan Abbott (Queenpin, 192 pages). Richard Aleas (Little Girl Lost, 221 pages) and Anne Argula (Homicide My Own, 219 pages).

Stripped down to the barest of bare bones words, they might well be the handheld video playback machines of the literary world. But that format fits the story they tell just fine.

I sent the big screen TV back for a smaller one.

It turns out that the big screen wasn’t important at all, it was the High Definition that mattered, and that holds for the world of crime fiction, too.

A six-hundred page thriller or a hundred and fifty page noir novel? In the hands of a great writer, it makes no difference. It’s the sharp character definition and focus on a riveting plot that counts after all.

High Definition, indeed.

Tell me, my friends, have you ever judged a book by the number of pages? (I’ll fess up early and admit that a couple of times I’ve wavered in the face of a $23.95 price tag for a very thin hard cover book. Would it last me for the weekend or the whole airplane flight, or would I be shelling out another $25 by Saturday night?)

And writers, do you have an “ideal screen size” in mind for your own work?

LU

Taking the punch

by Pari

Img_6059Every Friday night when I’m in Albuquerque, I do something no sane person would do.

I spar.

This isn’t light contact; it’s the real thing. Granted, we use protective gear (mouthpieces are my friends), but most of us don’t wear face masks. Sorry to say . . . I get nailed with embarrassing frequency.

So why do I do it?

First of all, I think it’s important to experience taking a punch — especially for women. It’s important to know what it feels like to have a man attack you. There’s also something incredibly powerful about getting clocked in the jaw or gut and realizing that you have to keep going. In three years, I’ve caught a fingernail to my cornea, sidekicks that have knocked the wind out of me, and at least four punches right in the nose. Sometimes I’ve learned from my mistakes in missing the blocks. Other times I haven’t. That’s not the point. The big lesson is that I’ve stood up and kept at it.

The second reason sparring is so important to me is that it’s both predictable and unpredictable, kind of like life. It’s guaranteed that every single person sparring on any given night is going to miss a block and get punched or kicked. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are, how quick or agile. It happens to everyone. No exceptions. The unpredictability comes in because you never know who is going to really challenge you to be better that same night and who is going to make it too easy.

Sparring is also great practice for writers who want their work to be read by anyone other than friends/family. Because, you know what? It’s predictable that your writing is going to get slammed; it doesn’t matter how good or famous you are. There are going to be nasty critics out to get you. And, it’s just as unpredictable because you’re going to find confirmation in places you never expected.

The important thing is to know as a writer that you can — and must — keep going.

Rejections, bad reviews, snarky readers, misunderstood themes/messages, rotten buzz campaigns, insults, trolls . . . yeah, we’ve all caught at least some of these on the chin. But those of us who work on our protective blocks, who step up and learn how to counterpunch and kick . . .

We’ll survive no matter what.

Today, I’d love to learn about your own sparring experiences, your tests in life, that have made you more resilient, determined and strong.

___________________________________________________________________________

Next Monday, Murderati alum Jeff Cohen is going to take the helm. He’s got a new book coming out. Please stop by and make him feel welcome. I know I will.

one hand in my pocket…

by Toni

Punching through radio programs, picking up songs, random associations, which end up telling a story.

#1

Mustang Sally  (ZZ Top)
She’s Got A Way (Billy Joel)
I’m Gonna Miss Her  (Brad Paisley)

#2

Before He Cheats  (Carrie Underwood)
I Can’t Make You Love Me  (Bonnie Rait)
Johnny Be Good (Chuck Berry)

#3

I Stay Away  (Alice in Chains)
Alone  (Alice in Chains)
All She Wants To Do Is Dance  (Don Henley)

#4

How Do You Tell Someone  (Cowboy Mouth)
What Might Have Been  (Diamond Rio)
So Hard  (Dixie Chicks)

#5

One Hand In My Pocket  (Alanis Morrisette)
Don’t Make Me (Blake Shelton)
Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy  (Big & Rich)

~*~

Now, I thought about making this all "Trust Your Reader" or "How Random Associations Spark Ideas" or even "Brevity Works" and then I realized you all knew me well enough not to be fooled by any of that. This is totally "My Brains Have Melted, SEND HELP" — so let’s just pretend I said something smart up there and now you get to be smart, too. Your turn.

-toni

Congrats go out to Brett Battles for his super cool starred review in Library Journal for THE DECEIVED this week and J.D. (Dusty) Rhoades for the fantastic Publisher’s Weekly rave review of BREAKING COVER. Way to go, guys!

What’s your type?

by Alex

I was out dancing last night and chatting with one of my partners who asked me what I did and then had that awestruck reaction when he heard I’m an author. He said something I hear pretty often, and I’m sure a lot of you do, too: “Wow, that’s much more interesting than being an (in this case, environmental designer, but you know, substitute whatever profession…).” And I tried to say what I always try to say in these situations, which is, “Not really,” but of course no one ever believes me so I move quickly on to “I think environmental design sounds really interesting, what’s a typical day like for you?”

Because one of the most interesting things about being a writer, in my opinion, is that you get to be every single other profession under the sun. I think without that aspect of writing I pretty much would die of boredom, or maybe I mean inertia, as in SITTING all damn day.

Of course all of us mystery authors have been cops by now, and DAs and defense attorneys; we’ve been serial killers and doctors and usually teachers, and parents, and hitmen (actually I haven’t and can’t imagine I ever will be, SO not my thing.). You never know when you’re going to have to be an environmental designer, either.

In my new book four of my main characters are psychologists and psych professors so I did some immersion in psychiatric theories. I love that kind of work especially, because it’s not just useful for the particular characters I was creating, but it’s great research for character in general.

One test I’m sure a lot of people here are familiar with is the Myers-Briggs personality inventory, always a fun one to look at when you’re refining character. I myself am of the personality type that can never get through a test that long, especially multiple choice which has always been the bane of my existence, so I can’t tell you my own classification, but I do know I split evenly down the line between Extravert and Introvert. Here are some good sites on the test and the personality types:

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

http://www.personalitypathways.com/MBTI_intro.html

I came across two books this time that I particularly like: PERSONALITY SELF-PORTRAIT, by Oldham and Morris, and SHADOW SYNDROMES, by John J. Ratey, MD.

The first one sounds like just some basic self-help pablum but it’s actually VERY useful – it breaks character down into 13 personality “styles” that are mild versions of much more serious personality disorders.

Conscientious Style – Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder.
Self-Confident Style – Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Devoted Style – Dependent Personality Disorder
Dramatic Style – Histrionic Personality Disorder
Vigilant Style – Paranoid Personality Disorder
Sensitive Style – Avoidant Personality Disorder
Leisurely Style – Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder
Adventurous Style – Antisocial Personality Disorder
Idiosyncratic Style – Schizotypal Personality Disorder
Solitary Style – Schizoid Personality Disorder
Mercurial Style – Borderline Personality Disorder
Self-Sacrificing Style – Self-Defeating Personality Disorder
Aggressive Style – Sadistic Personality Disorder

SHADOW SYNDROMES does basically the same thing, but goes into shadow forms of autism, intermittent rage disorder and bipolar disorder as well. I guarantee you will see people you know or even yourself in some of these descriptions. Me? OCD, I mean Conscientious, for sure, with a large dose of Self-Confident thrown in.

For a more Jungian approach, I’ve never found anything better than Jean Shinoda Bolen’s GODDESSES IN EVERY WOMAN and GODS IN EVERY MAN, which relates personality types to the Greek pantheon (we’ve talked about those books here before.).

So the question is, what personality types are you all, based on what favorite tests? Got any great links or books for us?

And what was YOUR favorite profession to research?

Michael is dealing with my OCD this week by taking me to the beach with NO INTERNET ALLOWED, but he’s going to be fishing half the time so what is he really going to know? I’ll try to check in.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Just. Do. It.

by J.T. Ellison

I’ve had one of those strange weeks, when good things shower down from the sky like raindrops, and I sit back and ask myself when the other shoe is going to drop.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as optimistic as they come. But sometimes, I worry that things are too good. Have you ever had that feeling?

And it’s funny, because that’s not how my week started. On Saturday, after reading Alex’s wonderful post, I was super bummed. I’ve been having an incredibly difficult time with this new book. The subject matter is hard to digest — one of those where I wonder what in the world I was thinking when I started it, no one is going to want to read about this… all the usual doubts creeping around. And those doubts can derail a writer pretty damn quick. As I’ve just experienced.

It’s not happened like this before. I’ve had moments of concern, worry that I wasn’t doing the right thing, but the story has always been paramount, and I knew deep down that it would be okay. This time… not so much. So I’ve been pouting, words trickling onto the screen. Not meeting my daily goals, fretting all the time. It’s just not ME.

So I read Alex’s post. Then I watched the U.S. Open.

I don’t know how many of you follow golf, but the Open this past weekend was unreal. Historic. Full of grace and power, hardships and triumphs. It was a battle, mano e mano, between two of my all time favorites – Tiger Woods and the "Walking Smile" Rocco Mediate. I’m a golfer, so I usually plant myself on weekends during the season to watch my guys shoot it out on the links.

Both of them, Tiger and Rocco, gave me inspiration this week.Thursday was the first time Tiger had walked more than nine holes since his most recent knee surgery. He hurt. He was in pain. So much pain that word came out Tuesday that he is done for the season, needing another surgery on his poor knee. You knew it hurt, could tell by the shortened stride, the grimaces and grunts when he took his shots. I am telling you, that took some serious
guts to finish the tournament.

And here comes Rocco, Mr. Smiley, jittery, jumpy guy who can’t settle
in his stance, giving the best golfer in the world a massive run for
his money.The lovely thing is I haven’t heard anyone grumbling about
this. All I’ve heard is pure, unadulterated pleasure at seeing two
athletes, who are good friends in real life, quiet and full of
concentration, battling it out on the links, forcing each other to new
heights of skill. Rocco pushed Tiger, Tiger pushed Rocco, and they gave
us 91 holes of pure joy. I honestly didn’t know who I wanted to win
more. I didn’t want either of them to lose. How often does that happen?

I saw an interview with Tiger Sunday night. They asked about the pain. He said:

"Pain. It’s just pain. It is what it is. You just work through it."

And I thought to myself:

"Block. It’s just writer’s block. It is what it is. You just work through it."

Because that’s what professionals do — they work through it. They Just. Do. It. No excuses. No BS. They work hard, even when it hurts, because that’s their job.

When I finished watching on Monday, I realized my anxiety was gone. I talked with my editor and she likes the premise for the book. I cut away some things that I realized were going to hold the story back. The story got too big, and it needs to be tamed a bit. We also had to do an excerpt for the back of JUDAS KISS, and what I sent wasn’t right for it. It’s the bane of the two books a year — you’re sending draft material that’s not ready for public consumption. I got worried all over again, but just as quickly we realized that I’d buried my lead (AGAIN. This is the third time I’ve had to move my third of fourth chapter to the forefront. I find it amusing, and heartening, to know that it’s just my way of doing it.)

Suddenly, everything clicked. I barreled through the halfway point. I’ve written over fifty pages of actual, usable story this week so far. HUGE sighs of relief. I haven’t forgotten how to do it after all. And I’m reminded again that writer’s block is your story telling you you’re going in the wrong direction.

Now we’ll see if I can actually type THE END on this sucker. My new mantra: JUST DO IT!

So between a historic golf match and a well-timed kick in the pants from Ms. Sokoloff, I’m feeling a little more optimistic at the end of this week than I did in the beginning.

I’d love to hear about your inspirations — those little bits of grace that fall unexpectedly and turn things around for you.

Wine of the Week: To fit with our grace and inspiration theme — a 2002 St. Francis Merlot from Sonoma

It’s a Beautiful Day

By Brett Battles

Last year at about this time, it took everything I had not to stand up and continually pace around the room. It wasn’t so much a smile I was wearing on my face, than the beginnings of a giddy grin. It was less than 7 days until my debut novel would hit the bookstores.

Last year, I didn’t know what to expect. I mean, I’d been planning this day since sixth grade. For God’s sake, part of me expected to I’d wake up on my pub date to the sound of trumpets proclaiming my arrival to reading world! At the very least there would be rose pedals scattered at the foot of my bed. Okay. None of that happened, but it didn’t keep me from floating through the day. What I did find was that just because it was my pub date, didn’t mean all the bookstore had unpacked my novel and put them on the shelves. In fact, I went to one to do a drop in signing that was arranged by my publisher on the Saturday after the release, and the books were still packed in back. I also learned that a book release is not a day, but a process that goes for weeks and hopefully months. While the day itself is special, it’s just the beginning. But I do have to say, all in all, it was a marvelous first week.

And now it’s that time again. This being Thursday, and if we count it, there are 5 days until my next novel, THE DECEIVED, is released. Not only that, Tuesday the 24th is a double day for me: hardcover of THE DECEIVED and the mass paperback of THE CLEANER coming out together. It’s enough to make me dizzy…no, wait, that’s the vertigo that set in a few weeks ago from too much time in the sun. (Seriously, it’s annoying.) But no matter. You get the picture. I’m giddy again.

This time, I think I know what to expect. I know the ramp up. I know it’s not just a day. I’ve been doing what I can on the PR front (some of you probably have already received my newsletter…if not and you don’t want to miss the next one sign up here). I’ve been emailing fans and friends to help spread the word. Hell, I even finished book 3 a few weeks ago so that I could concentrate on the release. (Okay…I finished it because it was due, but still…) Not only that, but I think I’ve figured out the plot for the fourth book in the Quinn series just the other night.

Getting a lot of great reviews already, PW and several blogs. Received news that Japan has picked up the rights for both THE CLEANER and THE DECEIVED. That Russia has picked up THE DECEIVED to go with THE CLEANER they purchased last year. Got my box of books from my publisher, and a box of the UK hard covers that also look amazing.

And here I am again, with that little smile on my face. But is it the same as last year? No, of course not. Nothing is the same as your debut release. But it is damn good. And damn scary. All the hopes and the fears are there again. This is what we live with as writers. Right now I’m approaching one of the great times, but it will be immediately followed by that time when I wonder if I’m doing enough. Tess had often talked about the worries writers have on her personal blog. And she was right. They are all there, all the time.

But right now? This is the good moment. And to tell you the truth, when Tuesday morning comes, I know I won’t be able to help turning my head a little when I wake up, straining to catch a hint of trumpets on the air. And, damn it, I may even go out and buy my own rose pedals this year.

________________________

If you’re in the L.A. area this Saturday at 5:00 p.m., come by the Mystery Bookstore in Westwood (1036 Broxton Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024). We’re having my launch party and everyone is welcome. Champagne and snacks! (And Naomi…you’d better be there! Rob’s coming down and he lives a lot farther away than you do. I’m just saying…)

Good Books, Bad Movies

by Rob Gregory Browne

Dusty’s off today, so I’m filling in.  He’ll pick things up next week.  In the meantime:

Like many of my writer friends, I absolutely love movies.  Almost as much as I love books.  And after years of watching movies, writing screenplays and, of course, reading and writing books, if there’s one bit of wisdom I’ve always lived by, it’s this:

Latob_16Let’s face it.  How many times have you read a truly wonderful book, only to see it destroyed by Hollywood?  Sometimes they get it right (Mystic River, Godfather, Gone Baby Gone), and sometimes they do it better (ha, you thought I was going to tell you the titles and insult some poor novelist?  Think again.) 

But most of the time, Hollywood screws it up.  Badly.

People who read my books often say to me, "Oh, this would make a wonderful movie."  Now, I agree that it would nice to see my books turned into movies, partially because of the financial rewards, but also because it would be exciting to see the books in a form I so love.  But chances are fairly good that my books would wind up unrecognizable on the screen.

And who would get the blame?  I’m guessing me.  A bad movie version of your book can, I believe, kill books sales.  Because, after all, if the movie stinks, the book must, too, right?

In fact, I was told recently that one very well-known author’s career was severely damaged by the god-awful excuse for a movie they made of her book.  I have no verification of this bit of gossip, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true.

What follows are a few book to movie translations that I think completely missed the mark.  I had a lot more, but for the sake of space, I pared it down to what I think are three of Hollywood’s most egregious sins.  And I might as well start big.

………

THE SHINING

Yes, you read that right.  This is one of Stephen King’s most popular books and there have been two versions of it made for the screen.  But I’m not talking about the mini-series version.  I haven’t seen it.  What I’m talking about is Kubrick’s completely f’d up interpretation of the book.

I love Kubrick.  Paths of Glory is one of my favorite war movies.  Barry Lyndon another favorite.  A Clockwork Orange changed my life.  I even loved Eyes Wide Shut.  And I know there are people out there who absolutely love Kubrick’s version of The Shining.   

But I just hated it.  What was supposed to be a suspensful, nerve-shattering horror story turned out to be a complete and utter bore.  Except for a nice reveal ("All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"), and the last fifteen or so minutes when wife and son are being chased through the maze by crazy dad, this movie completely fails to deliver. 

Nicholson chews the hell out of the scenery and half the time Kubrick seems to be snoozing behind the camera.  If you’re gonna do King, please, please, please give Rob Reiner, William Goldman or Frank Darabount a call.

BLACK DAHLIA

I don’t even know where to begin with this one.  James Ellroy wrote the book.  Considered a masterpiece by many.  And when I heard Brian DePalma was doing the movie adaptation, I thought, hmmm, this might actually work.  DePalma is known for doing over-the-top set pieces, but it’s usually over-the-top in a good way.

But Black Dahlia?  Brian, Brian, Brian — what the hell were you thinking?  This movie wasn’t just bad, it made no sense whatsoever.  Disjointed scenes.  Weird changes of tone.   Characters played as if they were all in different eras.  Scarlet Johanssen delivered her lines as if she were straight out of a really bad forties noir film, while Josh Hartnet seemed to be a fugitive from CSI Miami, minus the red hair.  And I don’t put blame on the actors.  They’re both normally very good.  But they were betrayed by De Palma and an unworkable screenplay.  (Sorry, Brian — I love you, but…)

The Black Dahlia is a mess from beginning to end.  When it was over, my wife and daughter and I turned to one another and said, "WTF was that?" 

We still haven’t gotten an answer.  I don’t know how Ellroy felt about it, but I would’ve been crying.

FLETCH

This one is my biggest book to movie pet peeve of all. 

I absolutely love Gregory McDonald’s dialog heavy mystery/thriller Fletch.  It moves quickly,  is a real page turner, and the plot is as clever as it is hip.  Fletch Is a tall, tanned, smart-ass beach bum reporter who gets tangled up in a murder plot. 

The first time I read it, back in the late seventies, I kept envisioning William Hurt or Jeff Bridges in the lead.  Today I could see Pitt or possibly even Clooney doing it.  But, of course, when Hollywood got hold of it, who got the role of Fletch?

Chevy Chase.   Chevy f’ing Chase.  And Chase played Fletch as if he were…well… I think you can figure it out.  With Chase at the wheel, Fletch became a buffoon.  Who wore outlandish disguises.   And never said or did anything remotely clever.

The ONLY thing that saved the movie was that they stayed fairly true to the plot.  And the sad thing about it?  Whenever you mention the book Fletch, the first thing that pops into people’s mind is Chase.  Ugh.

I firmly believe that anyone who loved the movie — and there are more than a few — has never read the book.  Or, if they have, they read it AFTER they saw the movie.

Now I hear talk of a remake.  Ahh, finally, Hollywood gets a chance to redeem itself on this one.

So who’s up for the role?  Zach Braff.  Zach Braff?  I mean, sure it’s an improvement, but he isn’t the Fletch I know and love.

……..

So that’s it.  It was tough to pare it down to just those three — I could go on and on — and I’m sure a lot of you could, too.

So tell me what books you think have been destroyed by Hollywood.  And while you’re at it, tell us the ones you think worked.

HOUSEKEEPING

No, I haven’t forgotten about the solution to the Gerritsen/Browne video mystery.  Due to technical difficulties, however, I’ll have to show it next time.  But I can say that of the eight or so people who actually commented on the first part, one of them got the answer right.  So we have a winner — to be revealed…

Is it safe to come out?

Tess Gerritsen

            Today I’m going to blog about why it’s a bad idea to blog.


And I’ll try not to write anything controversial.


Which may be a difficult feat for me to pull off because, if you’ve followed my travails, you know that recently I’ve had trouble staying out of hot water. A few months ago, I suspended my own blog because of some unpleasantness. The sad, sordid story, in a nutshell, is this: I wrote a post about a certain author who, upset by a bad Amazon reader review of her book, decided to retaliate against that reader and harassed her on the internet. While I didn’t defend her, I did admit that I completely understood the emotions that might drive an author to behave badly after a nasty review. Hey, we’re human, I wrote. Of course we get angry when our books are attacked, and we fantasize about how we might defend ourselves.


The blogosphere erupted in outrage at my confession. They called for a boycott on my books and accused me of being a washed-up author and the moral equivalent of a crazed stalker. As one angry person pointed out to me, “You are a public person, and you should expect to be attacked when you publicly say such offensive things.”


I retreated into a cave and have not blogged since.


What I’ve learned from this is that, yes, to my amazement, I am indeed a public person, although I never thought of myself that way. It’s hard to think of yourself as a public person when you don’t leave your house for weeks on end. But in truth, every published author is a public person. Our words will be scrutinized. Our opinions will be noted. Attacks on us come with the territory. And writing a blog is like shouting into a big, honking megaphone. While you sip a gin and tonic and type away in your underwear (something I’ve occasionally done, sometimes to my regret), you may feel like you’re having an intimate conversation with your dearest friends. You may feel moved to confess secrets or to rant or whine. But blogs are not intimate conversations. Your words are out there, and I mean out there, and they are being read by certain numbers of Easily Offended People.


Which brings me to the other lesson I learned from my blogging misadventures. There are quite a few Easily Offended People. The problem is, you don’t always know when something you say will be considered offensive. Unfortunately, you only find out after the fact.


Stephen King recently got into trouble when he gave a speech in defense of literacy. If there’s a less offensive topic, I can’t think of it. But during his speech, he wandered a bit off topic and got into trouble with certain Easily Offended People. The end result was that he got slimed on national TV (Fox, of course) as a leftist and a traitor. I happen to know that Steve is a man with a huge heart and he’s a big supporter of the troops, and he felt pretty darn beat-up after this incident. I bet he wasn’t too eager to accept any other speaking gig, even if it were on a topic as uncontroversial as, say, the cuteness of kitty cats. He too probably felt like ducking into a cave.


Another friend of mine is an internationally known singer/songwriter who’s so well known that if I were to name one of his songs, 99 percent of you could probably start singing it. We sometimes get together to talk about finances, fame, and the creative process. “I can talk to you,” he said. “You understand the issues and we can be honest with each other.” But he can’t be open with the public. The more famous he got, the more reclusive he became. Over time, he too retreated into a cave. He’s a brilliant businessman, a superb songwriter, and he knows the music business like no one else. But he doesn’t see the point of publicly sharing his opinions, however valuable they may be to others. It just isn’t worth the possible backlash. “Protect yourself” is his motto. People either want a piece of you, or they just want to find a reason to trash you.


Needless to say, he doesn’t blog.


Ironically enough, the more “public” a person is, the more reclusive they usually become. They end up as cave dwellers who whisper only to other cave dwellers. They may trade secrets and insights with each other, but only with each other. They try to stay out of earshot of Easily Offended People but damn, there are so many of them trying to listen in and make their lives miserable.


It’s taken me a long time to emerge from my own cave. Since my own bad blog experience, I’ve been turning down all speaking engagements and avoiding all conferences. I even grew leery of dropping into out-of-town bookstores, for fear that I’d say something or do something to offend someone. Instead I hung out with my donkeys (who are never offended by anything) and I worked on my manuscript. I rediscovered the joy of being the solitary writer, focused only on the work and not on the noise and hoopla and the occasional mean-spiritedness that goes along with the business.


With this post, I’ve anxiously dipped my toe back in the blogging waters. I’m curious to find out if I’ve managed to offend anyone with this post. And if I have, I swear the topic of my next blog will be limited entirely to the cuteness of kitty cats.