Welcome to our newly designed Murderati website. We hope you like the look.
Before I go any further, let’s all give a huge shout-out to J.T. Ellison and her husband Randy! The two of them designed this entire new site and migrated all the info from our former host. They did so with aplomb, grace and nary a word of complaint.
It was a monstrous task and I think they did a magnificent job.
Thank you so much!
As for today’s topic, I thought I’d keep it simple since everyone is returning from a brief holiday and I’m still recovering from my Passover Seder . . .
I’M LOOKING FOR TWENTY-SOMETHINGS
As most of you know, I’m working on a new project. It’s not like anything I’ve written so far. One of the biggest challenges is that the protags are all in their mid-late twenties. In my own life, I don’t have access to many people that age – especially ones that are single and childless – so I’m looking for television programs (on mainstream TV), books, internet sites, YouTube references, etc. – where I can get a good current feel for this age group.
I'm eschewing a regular post today to give you some information about the new site, which will be up and running Monday, April 13. We won't have posts over the weekend. Why?
MURDERATI is moving, RIGHT NOW!!!!
The truck has already left and is about to pull up to the new site, dumping every bit of information that we can glean into the new archives. The new site will be searchable, will be organized differently, and has a cleaner, more open look to it. We hope you love it as much as we do.
The new web address will be https://murderati.com. The new site feed will be active on Monday, as will the new web address. Please update your bookmarks with the new site address. This post will stay up for a month or so to redirect people, but the feed will be running from the new site.
Why move? Well, any long-time reader of Murderati has experienced the pains we've had with comment eating, formatting, cutting and pasting issues, broken feeds, etc. With any luck, the new site will have none of these problems.
Let me also take this moment to let you know that Neil Nyren, Sr. VP, Editor in Chief and Publisher of Penguin Putnam (and one of our favorite guys) will be here next Friday with his annual STATE OF THE INDUSTRY interview. It's got some fascinating and valuable information, and we're so happy he's decided to join us again.
Forgive me for not posting today, I'm directing the moving trucks and trying to get everything up and running over the weekend. We'll be open for business bright and early Monday morning.
Thanks you for making the move with us! Have a blessed weekend.
Last Friday I got a call from an old college friend who had an extra ticket for that night’s pre-season baseball game at Dodger Stadium. It was the Dodgers vs. the Brewers. I’m a big baseball fan, but not necessarily a fan of the Dodgers. (I’m more an Angels fan.) But I do enjoy going to a game, and it was going to be a great opportunity for my friend and I to catch up. So, of course, I say yes.
In the bottom of the first inning, Manny Ramirez comes to bat. Now you may not be a baseball fan, but there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Manny Ramirez. He was the guy who made a huge stink to be traded from the Red Sox last summer that they finally sent him to the Dodgers. And no matter what you think of him, he also happens to be a helluva hitter.
Back to the game…
On the third or forth pitch to Manny, he takes a swing and hits a line drive that is definitely going into the stands. How do I know this? Because as I watched the ball, I realized it was going to hit near our seats. Awesome, I though. Foul balls always tend to fall far from wherever I’m sitting. (I should say this wasn’t one of those pop up foul balls that leisurely arc into the seats. This was a line drive, a ball travelling at high speed and heading on an almost straight line for it’s final destination.)
So as this ball, this line drive that’s screaming toward our section, got closer, I realized something new…not only was it heading toward my section, it was going to hit close. Wait…hold on…not close…not even in the seat next to me. That ball, off the bat of Manny Ramirez, is heading straight for my…
WHAP!
The sting was UNBELIEVABLE. Son of a–
If I hadn’t thrown my hand out, the ball would have slammed into my chest.
Did I catch it?
No. After hitting my right palm just below my index and ring finger, it bounced off into the empty seat in front of us. Thankfully my friend was able to grab it before anyone else could.
Suddenly, I was very popular. The fans around us suddenly talked to us like we were old friends. The usher checked if I was all right. (First we said a free beer would make me feel better. She laughed. But then I started thinking I could use an ice pack.) Next thing I knew there were paramedics and security and everything. Whoa. (It was probably a good think I got the ice pack. My hand was definitely sore and the next day there was a bruise.)
So what does this all have to do with writing? Two things, actually.
First: It wasn’t until we were leaving the game and my hand was starting to feel better that it crossed my mind I could have easily broken my fingers or my hand. Which would have meant that I wouldn’t have been able to use it to type. Which would have meant that the May 1st deadline which is staring down at me on my next book would be in SERIOUS jeopardy. Which would have meant pushing other things back that I didn’t want to push back. Double whoa!
Thankfully that didn’t happen.
Second: (And this, ultimately was the point I was trying to make, meager as it is) Getting published takes a lot of hard work, sweat, perseverance, and often seemingly endless trips to the mailbox to send of queries. But there’s also another part, a part that’s often has nothing to do with us. And that is, for lack of a better word, luck.
Hitting the right desk at the right time.
While we can’t always create our luck, we can, to a certain extent, help control it. By this I mean being ready when it comes our way.
In my Manny story, if I’d been sitting in the upper deck, that ball would have never gotten to me, not as a line drive anyway. If I’d chosen not to go, it wouldn’t have hit me either. But the seats my friend got were in prime foul ball territory. That didn’t guarantee we’d have a ball hit to us. But if we kept coming game after game, if we were persistent, there would be a good chance a ball would at least land in our area. And let’s say we worked hard, had spent years playing catch, and were actually pretty good at it, so good that we even took our glove with us to games. Let’s say Manny hit that ball at me again, only this time I caught it.
Luck that it would come in my direction, but a conscious decision to put myself in a place where it might happen, and hard work that I allowed me to catch it.
So if you’re out there and still hoping to be published, just keep working and getting better. You never know when luck might come your way, but when it does, you want to be at your best.
Okay…maybe I’m stretching the analogy here a bit. But it’s valid, and, come on, I couldn’t waste such a great story, right?
All right, brushes with fame stories…let’s have ‘em!
Today’s fun video…KILL BILL Vol. 1 & 2 told hilariously in 1 minute:
This week I’m stealing a page from our own Ms. Alex and going the “craft” route. In order to share my ideas about the craft of writing both novels and screenplays — hell, fiction of any kind — I’ve started a new website called CASTING THE BONES, where you’ll find a collection of my articles on craft.
What follows is one of those articles. Not strictly about craft, but certainly about process. A side of the writing game that we don’t often share. It’s called:
HOW TO SURVIVE WORKING WITH AN EDITOR
A lot of you who have been working toward getting a book published have no idea what happens once you sign a contract with a publishing house. Well, I’m here to tell you:
Nine times out of ten, that contract will be the result of the sale of a completed book. You’ve written a 100,000 word manuscript, had an agent shop it around, and an editor at one of the publishing houses has taken a liking to it, made an offer, and you’ve accepted.
Eeehaaaa! Your dreams have come true.
Believe me, I still remember the exhilaration of that phone call from my agent, telling me I could now call myself a published author. I literally started dancing. Like a freakin’ fool.
For those of you still working on it, that contract is the pot at the end of the rainbow. But the contract is only the beginning. Even before the thing has been signed, you’ll get a call of congratulations from your editor and he/she will tell you that he/she is planning to reread the book with an eye toward editing.
This is when your heart sinks a little. Isn’t the book perfect the way it is?
Not usually, no. If you’re like me, you like to write very clean manuscripts. A clean manuscript is one that’s very tightly plotted, concisely written and polished to a lovely shine.
But even those manuscripts get edited. How extensively it’s edited depends on the manuscript’s needs and your editor — whose only desire is to help you put out a book that goes straight to the bestseller list. This rarely happens, of course, but that’s a different matter.
Once your editor has re-read the manuscript, you may get a phone call, but you’ll more likely get an editorial letter. This is where the editor goes through your manuscript, scene by scene, and makes suggestions for changes.
Assuming, of course, he/she feels it needs any.
Here’s an example of what you might see, which comes from my former UK editor regarding one of my books:
p. 7/ line 16
South Dakota – does this refer to a special police unit/ or a geographical thing? I understand the meaning but we might need to change this for UK readers if possible (also see p. 9/15)
p. 9
Cover Girl change to CoverGirl (without space)
p. 13
Anna’s thoughts on shaking hands with men – not sure if we need this; or does this refer to something else later on I have possibly missed
p. 15
It turns out later that the killing of Kimberly was a mistake – should we explain at some stage towards the end why Red Cap killed the whole family?
p. 19 / 13
‘The minute it stops bothering you…’ – Is this a deliberate repetition from page 13 when Anna also uses the expression. It sounds slightly cynical here though and as it comes from Jake, I wasn’t sure if it would match with his character.
p. 22 / last three lines
I’d cut the neighbourhood staring at her. Doesn’t seem to fit.
p. 24
Anna’s self-criticism and her views on the past. She’s not confident about her work anymore – should we reflect on this later? Do the events change the way she thinks about her confidence?
Using this as a guide, I then go through the manuscript, read the passages in question, then make changes if necessary.
I then take this very same table and write a reply to my editor explaining why I didn’t make a suggested change, or if I did, what I changed it to.
Once the changes have been made, you then email or snail mail (depending on your editor’s preference) the revised manuscript and your editor reads it again, looking to see how it flows and whether the changes work.
If all is good, it’s a wrap. If all is NOT good, then you’re likely to get another letter/email/phone call with more suggested changes.
I normally get two or three pages like this. Much of it consists of line edits, simple corrections of spelling, missing words, that kind of thing, but some of it goes to character motivation and story.
I have friends who have gotten 10-30 pages worth. It all depends on the book and what your process is. Many writers send in a first draft that reads like a first draft, and they’re looking to the editor to give them feedback before the next draft (or two or three) and the final polish.
The key is that you have to trust your editor. Know that he or she is trying to get the best book possible out of you. And they, in turn, have to trust your judgment when it comes to which changes you decide to ignore and which ones you choose to make.
I remember after the editing process was done for my first book, I said to my American editor, “So what happens now? Do you take it to your boss and get final approval on the manuscript?”
He laughed and said, “This isn’t Hollywood, Rob. As far as I’m concerned, the book is good to go. It’s YOUR book. So if you think it’s ready, it’s ready.”
—-
And that’s it. I hope you’ll go over to Casting the Bones and take a look at some of the other articles. I plan to contribute more, and hope to get some of my writer friends to contribute as well. Murderati?
An entry over on Sarah Weinman's blog alerted me to a fascinating study claiming that signs of early Alzheimer's Disease are detectable in an author's work long before other signs of dementia become apparent. University of Toronto researchers compared Agatha Christie's early novels with novels she wrote late in life, and based on a drop in her vocabulary and repetitive use of phrases, as well as other indicators, they felt it was clear that she was already suffering from dementia when her last books were written.
That study got me to thinking about how much we writers reveal about ourselves through our stories. I'm not just talking about dementia, a nightmarish diagnosis that strikes terror in any writer's heart. Nor am I referring to the quality of the writing itself. I'm talking about what clues our books may reveal about our personalities, our attitudes, and our beliefs. Can you judge a writer's character by his books? If Jane Trueheart writes tender romances, can we assume she's the sort of woman who adores animals and children, weeps at sad movies, and doesn't possess a mean bone in her body? If Jack Slaughter writes bloody serial killer books, do we shudder at the thought of being his next-door neighbor?
It's natural to assume that an author's books reflect his personality. As a physician, I've noticed that each specialty tends to attract certain personality types. Ophthalmologists are painstakingly neat people, orthopedic surgeons are jocks, dermatologists are natty dressers, and pathologists are least likely to be chatty. These are generalizations, true, but I'll bet that most doctors who read this are nodding their heads in agreement. Can we say the same about writers? Does the genre we choose say something about our personalities?
I'm part of several different genre communities, and have mingled with a number of writers from every field. As a former romance author, I've attended RWA conferences and Romantic Times conventions. As a thriller writer, I know quite a few suspense, mystery, and thriller authors. I also count, as good friends or acquaintances, authors who write science fiction, fantasy, or horror. If there's some common personality type that defines all the people who write thrillers and all the people who write romance, I haven't noticed it. I know many warm and generous women who write romance. But that genre also harbors some of the scariest, most aggressive people I know — not at all what you'd expect from people who write about love.
You would think that those who write bloody crime or horror novels would be the truly scary people. I myself have fallen into the trap of assuming that a sicko book must have been created by a sicko author, and then I'm startled when I finally meet the "sicko author," and discover she's a sweet, shy vegetarian who can't stand the thought of animals being hurt. Weirdly enough, If I were to pick which genre has the gentlest people, I would say it's horror writers. So far I haven't met any nasty ones. Maybe they're just really good actors. Maybe at night they shed their human masks and assume their true reptilian forms.
While it's always a temptation to assume a fictional character is really the author in disguise, I know so many authors whose characters are their polar opposites. Actors will often tell you that their favorite roles are villains, because it's their chance to play someone completely unlike themselves. I too have the most fun when my character is completely unlike me. I live my whole life in my own skin; when I dive into my fictional world, I really love the chance to think and behave like someone else. Which is why Jane Rizzoli is bold, aggressive, and courageous. Just like me… not. With the exception of Maura Isles (who comes the closest to my own personality), my characters have had no resemblance to me at all. Yet readers make any number of assumptions about me, because of things that my characters do or think. Over the years, various readers have written to tell me that I'm a bitter feminist who has a real problem with men, that I'm an ageist pig (because one of my characters said "old fart"), that I'm a nutso liberal or a whacked-out right-winger, and that I should clean up my foul mouth.
And there's one thing they all agree on: I am a very creepy person. Because my characters are creepy, and of course we are our characters.
Every writer has had to deal with reader preconceptions of who we really are. Every horror writer has probably heard: "You're not as scary as I thought you'd be." Every adventure writer is supposed to be tall and manly. And thriller novelists are expected to show up in black leather. (Which explains why so many of them do.)
But you can't judge a book by its cover, and you can't judge a writer by his book.
With two exceptions.
All science fiction writers are seriously intelligent people. I can't think of any exceptions. Of all novelists, the highest I.Q.'s will be found among the SF crowd.
And people who write funny books are funny people in real life. You can fake readers into thinking you're tough, adventurous, ruthless, passionate, outrageous, or bloodthirsty. But you can't fake funny.
Wednesday evening this week marks the beginning of Passover. It's my favorite holiday. I prepare for days for the seder — a traditional meal and home-based spiritual service — and usually invite more than a dozen guests for the first evening.
While I cook and clean house, I have plenty of time to think about many of the biggest themes of Pesach including: the Exodus, religious persecution, the shedding of unnecessary items in one's life, slavery — present and past, and what freedom truly means.
This year my thoughts also turn to my own creativity and professional life. I found out recently that my publisher, The University of New Mexico Press, is making some major personnel cuts that will impact its ability to market, promote books, and serve its various customers. I won't go into the specifics of what's happening there, but you can read more here.
Alex wrote a wonderful piece on Saturday about finishing what you start and I commented that I agreed with her almost completely. However, given what I know about the Press, I've decided not to finish my new Sasha book.
And, boy, does it hurt.
The truth is that writing takes time for me. I can slam out a rough draft in a matter of months and end up with a nice blob of text that will someday be a good book. The bulk of my work comes during the editing and rewriting. Though I adore Sasha, I'm not willing to go through the tremendous effort to hone a novel when I don't have the confidence it'll be introduced and supported effectively in the national market by the publisher.
Which brings me back to freedom . . .
Slavery is a fascinating subject and the source of much conversation during the seders at my home. We talk about its tangible manifestations in horrid businesses such as the international child trade as well as its mental/emotional ones. This year, I'm interested to know what my guests think of the new laws vis a vis women in Afghanistan.
I've been thinking about my own creative fetters. This topic has been stewing, bubbling uncomfortably, for months now. It may sound strange given that I'm a two-time Agatha Award nominee, but I've always fought the traditional mystery "formula" because I've been more interested in character development than the placing of clues and the puzzle of solved crimes. It's not that I dislike these components of the novels; I just don't naturally write them.
Have I been imprisoning myself?
With all the talk of conforming to genre, have I forced myself into writing things that I'm not as passionate about because I have to meet some amorphous expectation of how it's supposed to be done?
I don't know.
What I do know is that I'm feeling uneasy and adrift. And at the same time, I'm excited.
I love my new series (and hope my agent feels the same way). It's a cross between mystery and fantasy and has the kind of female character I love to write. I've just started a new book that I don't know how to categorize yet — comedy? suspense? It's a project I've deferred in favor of others for years and now, because of my decision vis a vis Sasha, I'm going to finally pursue. I also have ideas for a women's fiction/mainstream novel AND a YA.
So . . .
This week while I prepare the matzo balls and chicken soup; poach the salmon; cook the pot roast; whip up the chopped liver and mock chopped liver; and wait for those meringues to warm to perfection, I'll be examining my self-imposed shackles. Where are they in my creative life? How can I free myself from the ones that most limit me?
Today I'd like to know: What's one of your own creative manacles?
And I'll ask you to think about this for your private consideration: Is there a way for you to free yourself from that restraint's insidious hold?
Of note: Will Bereswill, a frequent commenter here at Murderati and a new novelist, asked me to mention that he has a guest author and a really embarrassing video up at http://www.workingstiffs.blogspot.com today. I, for one, am in the mood to be amused.
MURDERATI NEWS On the subject of freedom, Murderati will be migrating to a new blog host starting next Monday, April 13. We're doing this for a variety of reasons. Most of all we hope the new site will be more convenient for you — and for us.
In order to get up and running, we'll need to close down Murderati for two days — April 11 and 12 — during Easter weekend. We hope you'll join us on the 13th and that you'll like the new look.
Some writers sell their first completed manuscript. I wasn't one of them. I sold my fifth.
When I speak to non-writing groups (and, unfortunately, some writing groups) and share that fact, they're surprised. Why did it take me so many books? Why didn't I self-publish if NY didn't see my genius? Why didn't I rewrite my first book to make it better? My husband told me once that he would have rewritten and edited and tweaked his first book until it sold or he was dead.
If I had done that with HOT LATTE, I'd be dead before I found a publisher.
I told this story over drinks at the PASIC conference to Toni and Roxanne St. Claire–the talented writer of the Bulletcatchers romantic suspense series. Rocki stared at me, mouth open, and said, "YOU–YOU Allison Brennan–actually wrote a book called HOT LATTE?!?!"
I had a good reason. Every morning my heroine walked to the local coffeehouse and ordered a hot latte. Duh.
HOT LATTE was a romantic suspense. It had all the elements of a romantic suspense novel–and then some. I wrote it in three months, edited it, proofread it, and thought it would certainly land me an agent and sell. Because, after all, FINISHING a book was certainly the hardest part of writing! (Stop laughing. Now. I mean it, Toni.)
I sent out over fifty queries to agents I'd "pre-qualified"–I didn't know anything about writers groups or critique groups. I was ignorant of most things, except I did know that I shouldn't pay to get my book read or published. I actually found the Preditors & Editors site before I heard of RWA! So my pre-qualifications were kind of limited–they couldn't charge fees, they couldn't be "not recommended" by P&E, and they needed to be looking for romantic suspense. (After this first set of queries, I greatly improved my querying system! But this was my first book.)
After I sent the queries, confident that I would get an offer, I started on my next book. I had a lot of rejections, but that was ok–already, I knew my new book was a better story. I wanted to have it done before I had that contract in hand, so I'd have another book all ready for my new publisher.
Oh, the joys of ignorance.
I ended up with one request for a full manuscript. I was elated. Certainly she loved my voice, and all it takes is one person (well, two if you count the editor who will buy it . . . )
I sent that puppy off, with a nice cover page, an SASE (though I suspected she'd call if she was offering representation, so we could chat), and hope. I mentioned in a new cover letter that she'd requested the manuscript, and I was almost done with my second novel–PROTECTING HART–(Dammit, Toni, if you don't stop laughing at me . . . ) and would she like to see that too?
A few weeks later, I received my SASE. The agent had enclosed my cover letter (attached to writers classes that she and her agenting partner offered–be wary, scams come in many shapes and sizes!) with one word double-underlined:
SUPERFICIAL.
Fortunately, I have a pretty thick skin. While the scant criticism stung, I had already finished my second novel and had started querying that one. (And no, I never sent another query to that agent again. But recently, said agent asked if I could do her a favor by speaking at a small, regional writers conference because she was a great admirer of my work. Saying no felt really good. Is that petty?)
I have since analyzed my first completed manuscript and "superficial" is the last thing I'd call it. Convoluted, messy, poorly written–yes. But there was a plot–a whole lotta plot–that changed the boundaries of "six degrees of separation" theory to, I don't know, two degrees of separation . . .
If I were writing my logline for HOT LATTE today, I'd have something like this:
Seattle detective investigating a string of serial rapes that take a sudden deadly turn, he realizes that his new, sexy neighbor alarmingly fits the profile–and the web of attacks is getting closer to home.
Okay, that's rough, but it doesn't sound TOO bad, right?
Except that the book had so much . . . more. In fact, it had EVERYTHING.
HOT LATTE
Romantic Suspense–120,000 words
By Allison Brennan
Leah Cavanaugh is a virgin. (Dammit, I know that hysterical laugh is coming from Alex this time . . . )
Leah works from home, the top floor of a Victorian flat, for a Seattle-based computer company similar to Microsoft. Her primary job is computer security–monitoring the network, testing new security protocols, etc. (I know nothing about this, I made it all up–didn't even know enough to know I knew nothing.) She hears a noise in the vacant second floor apartment. Because even then I couldn't stand too-stupid-to-live females, I didn't have her investigate. She called the police. (Yeah!) Except then she remembered her first floor elderly neighbors, the owners of the building, and she feared they would be hurt or injured by the evil intruder. So grabbing a baseball bat, she ventures downstairs, not wanting to confront anyone, but to get to her neighbors so she could be with them until the police arrived. (Don't ask me why she didn't call.) The intruder is in the stairwell and she hits him; he attacks. Just to defend himself, mind you, because he is after all a cop and the new tenant.
Ta-da. A classic romantic suspense set-up.
The opening chapter wasn't bad, which is probably why I got that request for a full and finaled in a contest.
It gets worse. A whole lot worse.
Det. Mark Travis, sex crimes, moved to the apartment because he was being stalked by his psychotic ex-girlfriend. He got a restraining order against her when she went all Fatal Attraction on him, and he's embarrassed by it.
Leah is a virgin. Mark is a womanizer.
Leah was engaged to a charming VP in her company, who she learned was having an affair. She broke off the engagement.
Leah's best friend is the kind VP colleague of her cheating ex.
The kind friend discovers someone is stealing secrets from the company, and Leah is tasked with figuring out who it is.
Meanwhile, Mark and his partner Dave are investigating a string of rapes. Now one of the victims is dead.
Leah goes to a coffeehouse every morning (remember: HOT LATTE. As if anyone could forget . . . ) The guy behind the counter is infatuated with her.
We learn soon that he's stalking her.
Mark and Leah start talking. They're attracted. They kiss. (This takes about 100 pages, there's a lot of other stuff going on! Corporate espionage, stalking, police work . . . )
Mark's ex-girlfriend tracks him down and sees him kiss Leah. She plans revenge.
Leah's ex-boyfriend turns out to be the one stealing secrets. She turns him in. He disappears.
Someone trashes Leah's apartment. (It's Mark's ex-girlfriend, but they don't know that.)
Leah's stalker sees a confrontation between Mark and his ex.
Leah moves into the rectory with her brother, an ex-Marine turned priest. (No one laugh–in SUDDEN DEATH I used this too, only he was ex-special operations turned priest. And it worked this time . . . )
Mark continues his investigation and begins to suspect that Leah is in danger because of the physical victimology and because the pattern of attacks is getting closer to her apartment, spiraling in.
Her ex tracks her down with his two partners in crime. He's furious she foiled his plans and wants her to break into the payroll system and transfer payroll to his Swiss bank account before it's direct deposited into employee accounts. She refuses. He shoots her brother. Peter is dying and she's forced to help.
Mark and his partner come in and rescue them, arrest the bad guys.
Mark and Leah have sex.
He tells her his theory. She doesn't believe him. He suspects her "kind" friend in the company. She's furious.
The stalker breaks into Mark's apartment and steals a knife. He kills Mark's ex-girlfriend and frames him.
Mark's arrested and put in jail.
The stalker kidnaps Leah. Takes her to his house. She tries to escape, but fails. He returns, re-captures her, and takes her to a cabin in the Cascades because he learned the police had found his identity.
Mark's partner helps prove he couldn't have killed the ex. They learn Leah is missing.
Because of the investigation that's been going on, Mark figures out the killer had to be the guy at the coffeehouse. They go to his house–no one is there.
Except the killer's mother, who's long-dead in her bedroom. (Yeah, yeah, I know. Don't say it.)
They have evidence Leah was there; through property records track down the cabin.
Surround it.
The killer wants to get married. He sets up a fake wedding and makes Leah wear a wedding dress.
Bedlam ensues. Mark rescues Leah, but I think Leah ends up killing the stalker–I don't remember. It's been seven years . . .
Is it any surprise the book was 120K words? It had virtually every element that romantic suspense has–all in one book! No wonder I thought I was brilliant. ROFLOL.
And I didn't even tell you about the crime scenes. Suffice it to say . . . I had some timely memories from previous victims to help Mark figure out Leah was in jeopardy.
Murder, rape, stalking, corporate espionage, virgins, jilted lovers, sex–HOT LATTE had it all. And then some.
I've used many of these elements in future books: Seattle setting/sex crimes detective (THE KILL); stalker/rapist (SPEAK NO EVIL); psychotic ex-girlfriend (KILLING FEAR); ex-soldier priest (SUDDEN DEATH). They work much better solo . . .
I've never regretted writing this book, even though it never sold (and it never SHOULD sell.) I learned so much about story, about pacing, characters, and suspense. Writing HOT LATTE helped me develop my voice. There are some things in that book that are still true for me today:
I always develop a villains POV.
I usually have at least one law enforcement/investigator as a protagonist.
I have a hero and heroine, they get to have sex, and they survive by the end of the book. (Really, the very basic frame of all romantic thrillers.)
I love writing romantic suspense.
I'm finishing my twelfth romantic thriller now. After, I'll be doing something a little different, but sometimes authors need to flex their writing muscle after writing similar books, or we get burned out. I don't want to be burned out, I want to love what I write, so this diversion into supernatural evil rather than human evil will be a welcome change.
I've been thinking a lot about debut novels. My debut was THE PREY (my fifth completed manuscript.) Because I enjoy being mentally tortured, I read my reviews. Most people think that my books have gotten better, with minor exceptions. (My mom is always honest with her opinion!) Some people love THE PREY and my first trilogy, and pretty much think everything I've written since is crap. But one review for THE PREY recently said something very interesting:
I have to be honest; If this had been the first Brennan novel I've read, I probably would have enjoyed it more. But because I've read her more recent work, I found this one lacking.
I don't regret writing and publishing THE PREY. I love the story. But I happen to agree with this reviewer. If I wrote that story today, there are some things I would have done different. Not major story points, but there are some scenes that didn't need to be in the book, and others I should have written. I would have limited the introspection more (during revisions, my editor asked for introspection in a variety of places. In hindsight, she didn't want them in EVERY space–she just wanted more depth. I went overboard.) And I would have made my heroine more sympathetic. She was too cold, I think. (But she had good reason!)
I'm proud of the book because it was my first publishable book. Not the first book I wrote, but the first book that was good enough to see print. But like HOT LATTE and PROTECTING HART where I learned about story elements and structure and pacing, I have learned a lot since writing my first trilogy. And I think most authors will agree that, with some exceptions, they've improved.
It's only when we get bored with our stories do they lose the spark that make our books appeal to their rightful audience.
What do you think? Have your favorite authors gotten better? Stayed about the same? Disintegrated into a pile of mush? Do others feel the same, or was it just you?
As an author, do you feel you've improved? Did you sell your first book? Tenth? If you didn't sell your first book, knowing what you know today about your voice and writing, be honest: is that book publishable? Could it be salvaged? Or is it a valuable lesson learned that helped you become the author you are today?
I didn't have my trailer up and ready for my last post, but this time I did something a little different: I advertised the entire trilogy in one trailer. (Yes, I know, book trailers don't sell books–but I still love doing them, so I tell myself it's because I want to give something back to my readers. But I do it for me first, just like I write.)
It’s an interesting thing about blogging – it’s made us able to get a glimpse of hundreds of people’s lives on a moment-by-moment basis. I don’t have a lot of time (well, more to the point, I have no time at
all) to read other blogs; I can barely keep up with posting to Murderati and my own blog. But I do click through on people’s signature lines sometimes to see what they’re up to; it’s an extension of my
natural writerly voyeurism.
And a certain pattern has emerged with the not-yet-published writers I spy on.
It goes something like this: “My current WIP is stalled, so I’ve been working on a short story.” “I’ve gotten nothing done on my WIP this week.” “I have reached the halfway point and have no idea where to go from here.” “I had a great idea for a new book this week and I’ve been wondering if I should just give up on my WIP and start on this far superior idea.”
Do you start to see what I’m seeing? People are getting about midway through a book, and then lose interest, or have no idea where to go from where they currently are, or realize that a different idea is superior to what they’re working on and panic that they’re wasting their time with the project they’re working on, and hysteria ensues.
So I wanted to take today’s blog to say this, because it really can’t be said often enough.
Your first draft is always going to suck.
I’ve been a professional writer for almost all of my adult life and I’ve never written anything that I didn’t hit the wall on, at one point or another. There is always a day, week, month, when I will lose all
interest in the project I’m working on. I will realize it was insanity to think that I could ever write the fucking thing to begin with, or that anyone in their right mind would ever be interested in it, much
less pay me for it. I will be sure that I would rather clean houses (not my own house, you understand, but other people’s) than ever have to look at the story again.
And that stage can last for a good long time. Even to the end of the book, and beyond, for months, in which I will torture my significant other for week after week with my daily rants about how I will never be
able to make the thing make any sense at all and will simply have to give back the advance money.
And I am not the only one. Not by a long shot. It’s an occupational hazard that MOST of the people I know are writers, and I would say, based on anecdotal evidence, that this is by far the majority
experience – even though there are a few people like Rob, here, (or so he SAYS) who revise as they’re going along and when they type “The End” they actually mean it.
Hah. I have no idea what that could possibly feel like.
Even though you will inevitably end up writing on projects that SHOULD be abandoned, you cannot afford to abandon ANY project. You must finish what you start, no matter how you feel about it. If that project never goes anywhere, that’s tough, I feel your pain. But it happens to all of us. You do not know if you are going to be able to pull it off or not. The only way you will ever be able to pull it off is to get in the unwavering, completely non-negotiable habit of JUST DOING IT.
Your only hope is to keep going. Sit your ass down in the chair and keep cranking out your non-negotiable minimum number of daily pages, or words, in order, until you get to the end.
This is the way writing gets done.
Some of those pages will be decent, some of them will be unendurable. All of them will be fixable, even if fixing them means throwing them away. But you must get to the end, even if what you’re writing seems to make no sense of all.
You have to finish.
I’ve had a couple of weeks in which my page marker has not moved past the number 198 because I keep deleting. Nothing I write makes any sense. I don’t have enough characters, I’m not giving the characters I have enough time in these scenes, I have no conception of yacht terminology and am spending hours of my days researching only to find I’m more confused about how things work on a boat than when I started.
I have Hit. The. Wall.
Yeah, yeah, cue World’s Smallest Violin.
Because – so what?
It always happens. I’m not special.
At some point you will come to hate what you're writing. That's normal. That pretty much describes the process of writing. It never gets better. But you MUST get over this and FINISH. Get to the end, and everything gets better from there, I promise. You will learn how to write in layers, and not care so much that your first draft sucks. Everyone's first draft sucks. It's what you do from there that counts.
That is not to say you can't set aside a special notebook and take 15 minutes a day AFTER you've done your minimum pages on the main project, and brainstorm on that other one. I'm a big fan of multitasking.
But working on that project is your reward for keeping moving on your main project.
Finish what you start. It’s your only hope.
– Alex
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For anyone in the New Orleans area, I'm signing and teaching my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors workshop at the Jubilee Jambalaya Writers Conference in Houma, LA this weekend. More info here.
A few months ago, my friend Tim Hallinan asked me to participate in a series he was doing on creativity. I loved the concept, and though a bit terrorized to be included in the company of Emmy and Oscar winners, I gamely tried my hand. The basic question he asked us to contemplate: What Is Creativity?
I thought it might be interesting to have that debate here at Murderati, so today's blog is an adaptation of the one I wrote for Tim. I'd love to hear what YOU think.
Defining creativity to me is akin to the
government’s views on obscenity – it’s something you recognize when you see it,
but no one knows exactly the moment art crosses the line into obscenity. How do you define creativity? What does it mean? Is there a good definition?
I
went back to the basics, and looked at what the word creativity means to the
official folks who write the dictionary. They’re smart, they’ll have a good
sense of it, right?
I loved the definition I found:
Creativity is “the ability
to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like,
and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.;
originality, progressiveness, or imagination.”
Transcendence. Now we’re
talking.
But it’s still not perfect.
There is a difference, I think, between creativity and the
creation of art. Creativity is simply a new way of doing things, a solution
addressing a need. Creativity is problem solving. Anyone, given the right tools
and motivation, can be creative. Art, on the other hand, is problem solving in
its most esoteric form. Art gives solutions to problems that no one knew
existed. Art creates problems to solve.
Look at it this way. You’re lost in a strange city. You
approach a friendly looking fellow and ask, “How do I get from point A to point
B?”
A normal person will tell you.
A creative person will give you a few routes and look at you
quizzically, as if to say, “why couldn’t you think of that yourself?”
An artist, though, will argue about why you have to go from
point A to point B. What about trying Point A to C instead, or, better yet, how
about forgoing the path altogether and seeking a route to X?
When faced with a problem, a creative person will find a
new, different way to solve it. An artist will find multiple solutions,
different paths that are laden with color, sound, scent, characters and plot,
try them all, figure out which ones work, then discard all of the solutions in
favor of the most treacherous, difficult path, the one where no one has traveled
before.
Ah, the road less travelled. That’s what separates the
creative among us from the artists.
But you can’t get to the point of being an artist without
being creative. So we’re back to the same old conundrum: What is creativity?
Creativity, obviously, is creation. It’s as simple, and as
complex, as that.
Art, on the other hand, is something creative that transcends
conventional ideology to develop something new and original that speaks to the
audience. It is a contract between your mind and the rest of the world. Stephen
King calls it a psychic connection between the writer and reader; the same
could be said of a painter, or a musician, or an architect. Where there once
was nothing, now there is something, and the audience sees that. They experience
your thoughts through your medium. It’s overwhelming, if you think about it.
All of this psychic communication, there for the taking.
That said, you don’t need to have any kind of approval, or
recognition, to be creative. But it is the simple act of creating something new,
something no one else has before, that makes you an artist – be it a novel, a
poem, a screenplay, a painting, a ballet, a composition, a guitar lick, a new
angle on an architectural drawing – anything that is creative in its nature can
be art.
I realized that I was tightrope-walking the thin line
between creativity and art early on, but had that budding insouciance nipped by
a decidedly non-creative teacher who told me I’d never be published. There is
nothing, nothing worse than fettering an artist. Some rise above the criticism, become because of it. I,
unfortunately, did not. I walked away and spent fifteen soulless years looking
for something. I knew what I was doing wasn’t right, I knew I wasn’t happy, I
knew I was being stifled, but it never occurred to me to sit down and create my
way through it.
I found that voice again through reading. I was recovering from a surgery, had oodles of time on my hands, and I lost myself
in books. I read a lot during that year, everything I could get my hands on –
historical, mysteries, thrillers, literary fiction. The words on the page were
my lifeline back to a creative life.
It’s funny how the mind works. I wish I could say that I
planned to become a novelist, that I wanted to play with the form, to create a
literary thriller series that showcased my characters, my setting and my words.
But I wasn’t that prescient. I had an idea, a spark. A creative moment, if you
will, and my main character leapt into my head fully formed. She was tall, like
me, blond-haired, gray-eyed, spoke with a slow, smoky southern accent. She was
righteous, and good, and would be the protector of Nashville. Her name, of
course, was Taylor Jackson. My very own Athena.
And with the name came a storyline from a dream – twin girls
leading separate lives, one who would do anything to further her career, one
who was dissatisfied with the life she’d been striving to build. And suddenly
there was an antagonist, a man who was killing young girls. A backstory.
Before I knew it, I’d written an opening paragraph. In a
move so utterly subconscious that I can only look back on it and laugh, I wrote
about a murder on the steps of the Parthenon. The skies were sapphire blue, and
a squirrel toyed with an acorn.
I actually was moved to tears by that paragraph, not because
it was any good – it wasn’t – but because it was the first creative thing I’d
written in so very long. Suddenly, I had a story to tell, and I buckled down to
tell it. While I did, a strange thing happened. I began to feel lighter, and
freer. I became so incredibly happy. I didn’t really think about being
published, that came later. Instead, I reveled in the moment, the realization
that I needed to do research to make the story come alive, that I was building,
slowly, a rather large file of pages that moved me.
It was then that I started to wonder. If this story moved
me, might it move someone else?
And there it was. My moment of transcendent creativity. It
was a simple thought that broke me free, that allowed me to make the leap from just
being creative to becoming an artist. That moment, about halfway through the
manuscript, when I realized I wasn’t writing just for me.
Last week, we went out and finally managed to buy a new car. Well, not a new new car, but new to us. And that has means braving the world of the Used Car Salesman.
This has been a frustrating experience, because, what with the economy being in the state it’s in, we decided to tighten our budget for a new motor, and that has meant we’re not exactly dealing with the cream of the crop. So, off we went to the Autotrader website and entered our particular requirements. From the thousands of cars for sale across the whole of the UK, this narrowed things down to a final choice of just six. Which means it’s very much a sellers’ market.
You might have thought, in that case, that there was no need for embroidery in sales’ technique. You might have thought that a simple, “It is what it is, but there’s not many of them about, so take it or leave it,” kind of attitude would work best. Oh no. That would be too easy.
Instead, they have to lie to you.
Now, I expect to be lied to. Not just by used car salesman, but generally. It’s a fact of life. Sad but true.
Everybody lies.
Let’s be honest about this, if you’ll forgive the irony. Little lies make the world go round. Nobody likes being told they look older, unless it’s a sixteen-year-old girl, dressing to try and buy alcohol on a Friday night. Nobody likes to be greeted with the words, “Gosh, you’ve put so much weight on, I hardly recognised you!” at their school reunion, unless they spent their entire academic career suffering from anorexia.
So, everybody lies. Sometimes with the best of intentions. Sometimes by omission. But everybody does it. From little white ones to huge whoppers. With clear intent to deceive or entirely by accident. In adoration or with malice aforethought.
But what I object to are people who lie badly. The ones who say, for instance, “This car’s immaculate. You won’t be disappointed,” and trick you into a 260-mile round trip to view something that’s been owned by somebody who patently believes parking is a full-contact sport, and who appears to have thrown up all over the passenger seat, which is as good an argument as I can think of against perforated leather trim.
Just about every panel on this particular vehicle was a different colour, and some of them no longer fitted quite the way they should. And when I asked the salesman just how bad an accident it had been in, his Teflon-shouldered answer was that the car had passed its HPI check. “Yes,” I said, “but that just proves it wasn’t a write-off, not that it hasn’t had a major thump and been repaired.” Quick as a flash he came back with, “But everything this age has had some paint.” Yeah, and some of it even matches the original …
The business of lying is fascinating. Some people can do it without a flicker, a constant stream of invention without repetition or hesitation. The art of the great lie, of course, is one where the person being lied to never realises that fact. The art of the great liar, on the other hand, is someone who can spout blatant untruths with such conviction that the person being lied to knows it full well, but begins to doubt their own understanding of the truth.
As writers of crime fiction, we have to understand the art of the lie. Some characters, inevitably, will lie during the course of the story. I remember being pulled up by one editor for making a character lie too well. She wanted some better indication that this person was not telling my protagonist the truth. And that’s a tricky one. I’ve come across some brilliant liars, and some lousy ones. Making someone an OK liar is much more difficult.
At ThrillerFest in NYC in 2007, Christine Kling moderated the Liars’ Panel, where she got her panellists to tell the audience something about themselves that was not well known. Some surprising facts emerged, including that one author could not read or write until they were seven, and another had once been arrested on suspicion of murder. And then Chris told us that most of these authors were lying and we had to separate fact from fiction. It was surprisingly difficult, so does that mean the average trusting human being is very bad at detecting barefaced lies, or that that fiction writers are simply good liars? Do we, by definition, spend our lives constructing intricate webs of what are, essentially, lies?
How aware are you of the lies contained within the story when you write? When you read? And what’s the best – or the worst – lie you’ve either ever told, or had told to you?
On a slightly different note, I am very pleased to have been included in to a new short story anthology that’s out next week from Crème de la Crime and edited by the delightful Lynne Patrick. CRIMINAL TENDENCIES has tales from an array of British crime writers, all of which have been contributed for the benefit of The National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline, The Genesis Appeal (the only UK charity entirely dedicated to the prevention of breast cancer) and The National Breast Cancer Coalition in the States. My story, ‘Off Duty’ is a Charlie Fox tale that slots into the time frame between the last two series books and tells what happens should you be foolish enough to try and get between a girl and her motorcyle.
This week’s Word of the Week is zyxt, which is a Kentish dialect word meaning to see. And not a bad score in Scrabble, either …
Apologies in advance, also. By the time this posts I shall be on a ferry to Northern Ireland but will try to respond to comments as soon as I can.
