Meet Katherine MacGilvary Pt. 1

by Pari Noskin Taichert

When I first met Kat, she was the events coordinator for one of New Mexico’s most wonderful independent bookstores. Alas, Bound to be Read closed. After a few months at another indy, she make the jump onto the other side of the telephone and became the booking coordinator for the University of New Mexico Press.

I’ve decided to split her interview into two posts because she has so much good information.

Here’s Part 1.

What were some of the challenges working as an events coordinator at an indy? Did your experiences vary depending on the kinds of publishers or authors with whom you worked?
When I was at the bookstore, my major challenge was getting the big publishing houses to acknowledge Albuquerque as a potential stop for book tours. That was frustrating and a seemingly endless battle — despite the fact the we could point to many large events that had gone exceptionally well.

What was your "typical" day like at the bookstore?
I don’t think there ever was a "typical day" at the bookstore. We all wore many hats, so while a majority of my job was scheduling events and handling marketing and publicity, I also worked on the floor — in the coffee bar, at the cash register, reading books to kids at story time, shelving, and helping customers.

Describe your ideal event. What made it click?
I suppose people expect to hear, "The event that 200 people showed up for and we sold 400 books," or something like that. And, of course, those are always great for authors and venues. But honestly, I’ve seen authors really enjoy an evening with a handful of people. So, I guess my idea of an ideal event is one in which the author has a genuine opportunity to connect with readers. That doesn’t always translate into book sales, but you have to look at it from the point of view of the customer: If you’re an author, you my have created a lifetime fan who will recommend your books to others. If you’re a bookstore, you’ve made one of your customers happy and he or she will come back, hopefully to other events. I’ve seen events where an author stayed until well past midnight to ensure that everyone who attended had their books signed and I’ve seen authors sit with small book clubs and have in-depth conversations for several hours. If the author and the audience walk away happy. I’m happy.

What was the event from hell? Can you pinpoint what went wrong?
Without naming names, right?

Events from hell tend to stem from bad attitudes or poor communication or both. I have a really hard time with prima donna authors. At the bookstore, we had events almost every night of the month and inevitably there would be authors who did everything in their power to monopolize my time. So, before the event even happened, they’d succeeded in driving me, and a large portion of the bookstore staff, crazy.

How did you feel about authors approaching you directly?
I think it’s really important for authors to establish relationships with bookstores. So, to answer your question: It depended on the situation. I admired ambitious authors when they were cooperative because I knew I could count on working together to create successful events.

But there’s a big difference between a friendly face that shows up every once in awhile — and daily phone calls inquiring about that week’s book sales.

What did you wish authors knew — would know — from your experiences in a bookstore?
I’ve dealt with a lot of pushy authors. There’s a fine line between ambition and sheer annoyance. As I said above, I respect ambitious authors, those who you know, when you schedule an event for them, will work with a venue to ensure a success. Then there are those who won’t take "no" for an answer.

Authors need to acknowledge that a bookstore knows its clientele better than they do. If staff at a venue don’t think a book will fit in the store, authors need to respect that.

. . . and there’s more:

It’s really difficult to call authors and tell them a place they were hoping for has declined an event. Usually, bookstores feel just as awkward, so they’ll say something like, "It’s not a fit for our store," or, "We’re booked for the next six months." Calling them back and asking again is usually not a good idea. There’s something to be said for the squeaky wheel, but a lot of the time you’re pushing people towards an emphatic "no," and that can easily turn into a "NEVER."

Also,
I think I speak for booksellers universally when I say: DO NOT under any circumstances go to a bookstore and rearrange the books!

Do not put your book in the front window.
Do not face it out on the shelf, etc.
We know who you are.
After repeat offenses, your book will likely end up in the darkest corner of the store.

There are better ways to develop a relationship with a bookstore that will ensure staff recommendations, events, displays that feature your works and more.

(A special thank-you to B.G. Ritts for helping to get Kat’s photo in shape to post here.)

Knuckle Sandwich with a Side of Bullets

by Mike MacLean

Way back in December, Bryon Quertermous, editor of Demolition Magazine, blogged on a subject I hold dear to my heart–action scenes.

Chances are, if you write crime fiction or thrillers sooner or later someone is going to throw down. Fists will fly. Muzzles will flash. Blood will spill.

But what’s the best way to go about writing these sequences?

Duane Swierczynski, author of The Blonde, is no stranger to this bloody art. He commented that keeping descriptions to a bare minimum allows the scene to "take place in the reader’s mind." On the other hand, too much detail in an action scene can distract a reader.

Swierczynski makes a good point. Years ago, I attempted to read a thriller by an ex-special forces dude (who will remain nameless because I’d rather not end up in the cross hairs of sniper scope). I put the book down after the very first action scene. An entire paragraph was used to painstakingly describe the simple act of drawing a pistol. It was like reading a technical "how-to" manual. Needless to say, my heart was not pounding with excitement.

And that’s the key. A good action scene should make the old ticker go thump, thump, thump. Often, it’s not the bullets and roundhouse kicks that accomplish this; it’s the SET UP. The emotional build up before the fight. The conflict assembled into the narrative. The trash talking that fills the pages with tension.

But sometimes, as both writer and reader, I yearn for blood on the page. I Pistoloptics1_2 want justice served up with a machinegun or nice crushing elbow strike to the larynx. Simply put, I want my protagonist to kick ass.

Too much description can bog the reader down, boring him into skimming pages (a cardinal sin among crime and thriller writers). Too little can leave the reader feeling unsatisfied (another sin if you’re looking to sell your next book).

So, what do you think Murderati readers? What makes a good action scene? Who writes the best? Who does the best job of the "set up"?

Alchemy on the First Page

I‘m at Malice Domestic this weekend and so have begged one of our favorite Murderati regulars, Billie Hinton, to guest, today. Billie is a Jungian therapist and is constantly amazing us here with her meta-comments. I’m finding today’s topic particularly relevant as I mingle with so many dedicated readers here at Malice. I’ll try to blog a little about it later in the day.

– Meanshile, enjoy! – Alex

ALCHEMY ON THE FIRST PAGE

In Carl Gustav Jung’s field of work model, the therapist and client interact on a conscious level – what is said and done in the room. But they also interact on an unconscious level, and Jung felt that when the therapist and the client both drop into this deeper level of work, there is opportunity for transformation.

He suggests that if the therapist holds her own conscious/unconscious material as well as the client’s, this “alehemical container” creates the space where transformation happens.

I commented recently here that I’m a reader “willing to be amazed.” I’m also a writer who wants to amaze. As an adjunct to both those things, I’m slightly obsessed by the writing process and recently seized on Jung’s field of work model as I venture/stumble into the bowels of a second novel ms that needs revision. The goal: to try and make sense of what exactly I need to do with this book. Actually, it’s more than that. I want to perform alchemy.

I suspect something akin to Jung’s “alchemical container” happens when a masterful author writes a book that resonates with a huge number of readers, mixing insight and character, story and plot in a way that creates the space for readers to open the book and immediately sink deep – into action and narrative and dialogue and motivation. And when it works well, magic and transformation.

A tall order!

I think I’ve mastered creating some magic in my books – but I’m still struggling with how to get that alchemical container in place on page one and sustain it for the rest of the novel.

I suspect in my case, I have to wrench myself out of therapist mode and move fully into the role of writer as alchemist – not writer protecting readers or characters or anybody else. Not walking the reader in slowly, but inviting the bold jump into deep waters.

As a writer, how do you go deep on that very first page and create the alchemy that carries through to transformation?

And as a reader, what works for you? What alchemy happens on the first page of the book you aren’t willing to put down?

Home Again, Home Again…

JT Ellison

Part One…

Call me crazy, but I am loving the first day back to work after the big vacation. Catching up on what’s been happening over the past two weeks has brought me nothing but joy today. First I see Naomi won the Edgar (YES!), then I see Rob got a new contract with St. M’s (YES!), Julia Spenser-Fleming won the Gumshoe (YES! — and thanks, Sarah Weinman, for all the fantastic coverage!), all the Killer Year folks have news and reviews galore, my email holds nothing but good news from my editor and publisher… damn, folks, I need to leave town more often!

And there’s that odd sense of dislocation that accompanies international travel — the time change screws my clock royally, so I woke up full of energy at seven this morning and now, at five o’clock, I’m ready for bed. Top it all off with a lovely rainy, thunder-stormy day, and I think I will heed my editor’s advice, who firmly instructed me to lie down. I call that a free pass, and am shutting the computer until tomorrow.

Part Two…

I tried so hard to be good while I was in Italy. I brought along a travel diary and planned to journal the trip, writing daily about what we’d seen, experienced, ate and drank. I’ve established once and for all that I am not a journaling kind of girl. I made it four days. How sad am I??? So instead I have this massive accumulation of business cards, hotel magazines, wine labels, scratched notes, napkins, and notepads to document the trip. There’s so much to talk about and so many pictures, I’m not sure what to include. People keep saying, "Tell me all about your trip! Was it just fantastic? Did you have just so much fun?" And of course I must answer yes, because what sort of ungrateful charlatan could go to Italy for two weeks and NOT have a fabulous time?

Of course we had a fabulous time. So do I admit that there were… issues? That I blew the charger on the camera and it pissed me off, ergo I was crappy to everyone for a day? That I was horribly upset when my favorite pair of glasses broke, literally in half, for no apparent reason? That we were really getting sick and tired of repacking every day and wished we’d gone with plan one, to stay in a bed and breakfast in Tuscany for four nights and day trip instead, knowing that if we HAD, we’d be miserable and bored being stuck in one spot??? Or do you just want the shiny happy version? Regardless, there’s a lot, so I think I may do a two-weeker, allow myself some time to catch up and not bore you too much while I recharge. It will all affect my writing in the long run anyway, so here goes…

Week One:

We started in Pinerolo with the famiglia. (Buongiorno, e grazie mille!)

My father’s Great-Uncle Nando, his lovely wife Alma, and my cousin Daniele were so welcoming. (Yes, there was a couple of generation skips in our family tree) My Italian has certainly improved since the last trip, and Daniele’s English is superb, so we had no trouble at all communicating.

We were staying in our favorite place in all of Italy, the
Tenute la Cassinetta. It’s beautful, we got the same room as last time, the aptly-named Ambrosia Suite. The wisteria was in bloom, Daniele has fabulous taste in wine, and dinner was incredible.

We left early the next day for a trip into the mountains. We checked into the hotel in St. Vincent, a very special place we loved. Then we drove up to see the Matterhorn, in a city called Brueil-Cervina.

It was a stunning day, and they were closing the mountain for skiing, having a laid back party day, which definitely fit our moods. I’ve rediscovered a childhood problem, carsickness at altitude. I hate riding in the backseat, and I did it through several rather large mountains. I don’t know if it’s acrophobia, claustrophobia, or if I’m just a massive control freak (gee, wonder which it is?) but I was happy to get out of the car and breathe the super fresh air.

After a phenomenal night in St. Vincent, we took to the road again and meandered toward Lago Como.

We stayed in Cernobbio,
and Miss Snark, if you happen across this
column,
please know that I looked for Mr. Clooney everywhere, even here at Harry’s Bar. Hubby was obviously thrilled by the pursuit.

Clooney was MIA, so the next day we moved on to Stresa, on Lago Maggiore. A very cool town. We stayed in the Astoria, and the strip of old motels along the water are reminiscient of the 40’s when the movie starts used to come stay here. The flowers were incredible, the zoo and botanical gardens stunning, and the pizza excellent.

Though all in all, I think I prefer Como.

Despite the sea planes and helicopters buzzing about trying to make us feel like the area was "important," the lake seemed a little more unspoiled, and we stayed up on the mountain, where the views were absolutely fabulous.

We went back to Pinerolo to pick up my brother, then took a cool trip to Sestriere, home of the winter Olympics in 2004. Sestriere is one of those places that lets you feel a little closer to God.

It’s on the border of Italy and France, snow-capped mountains as far as the eye can see. The mountains were sharp, the air clear and softer than what we’re used to (growing up in Colorado, I’m used to the mind searing clearness of the air at altitude; the Alps are much smaller than the Rockies and the air has more humidity.) Daniele is a ski instructor in Sestriere so we got the special tour. I could write here.

Had a great dinner that night in a restaurant literally perched on a mountain side. While I’m not a fan of
grappa, the proprietress made her own liqueur which was astounding. Delicately flavored with a local flower, I could have drunk the whole bottle. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, the bottle was a little large.

Now in possession of several days of Italian and increasing fluency, we flew to Rome, which was just as easy as hopping a shuttle between New York and Washington. Security was straightforward, the flight was good, no issues at all.

They say all roads lead to Rome. Thankfully, all roads lead OUT of Rome too. It’s funny. Looking back, the place we liked the least was actually the best part of the trip. Rome is dirty, and smelly, covered in graffiti, trash, pickpockets and thieves shoving roses and whirly plastic fliers in our faces. Within ten minutes, we were groaning that we had to spend two nights.

We took a quick bus tour to get oriented, and the tour guide was very knowledgeable. Dinner the first night was great. Heartened, and despite our dismay at the state of things, we decided to walk the city the next day. The weather was postcard perfect, skies so blue it hurt to look at them for too long. We started in Trevi (wow, the fountain was incredible but the crowds were gross.) We did the Pantheon, the Piazza Navona,(though the fabulous Borromini fountain was under wraps for refurbishment) St. Agnes’s, walked and walked and walked until we hit the Area Sacre. It doesn’t even have a real name on the map, and it’s just been recently rediscovered– during a 1920’s excavation, I believe, in the Largo Argentina. Four divine temples used to sit on this spot. It was a tiny piece of sanity in the midst of the city. Until it started to move.

Cats are protected in Rome. And this sacred place was home to many of them. Sleek and sassy, what seemed to be stones in the grass became frisky kittens, stately mouse catchers, domineering bullies… a veritable commentary on life slipped into a grass-filled ruin. We must have stood there for half and hour watching them play. That was cool.

We then promptly got caught in a protest parade. Skinheads, communists, anarchists — all blaring American music as their protest songs and some Aretha Franklin (go figure). I was captivated by the riot polizia. If you’re going to go to Rome, choose April 25th, Festa Della Liberazione, marking the end of the Nazi occupation and the end of World War II. It was less crowded, and you might get to see irony in action. (pics of this after the second camera returns home…)

The Coliseum managed to exceed expectation. I always assumed it had simply crumbled over time — not so. The Romans cannibalized their treasures to build more buildings. Embarrassment over the excesses of the Roman Empire, what it stood for, what it meant, drove them to destroy what they built. And the conquering hordes contributed their own desecration. It’s astounding that any of the ancient city is still standing. I’d recommend Palatine Hill. There’s something very special about that view on what we used to be.

Next week, I’ll wrap things up with a tour through Umbria and Tuscany. In the meantime, a brilliant Piedmont wine for you.

Wine of the Week, thanks to my dear cousin Daniele… Langhe Nebbolio

A little taste of heaven on earth. Every bottle, from every vineyard, was excellent.

Killer Ideas

I live with a cold blooded killer. I haven’t turned him into the cops because he’s my cat, Tegan.

He’s on a roll at the moment. It’s spring and that means young and inexperienced creatures are poking their heads from their protective homes and Tegan is there to bite them off. I spent last week picking up the chewed remains of mice, rats, birds and a lizard. As soon as I’d drop a carcass in the trash, he’d have the remains of something else dangling from his jaws.

“Tegan, you git. Stop killing things.”

He’d look at me with a typical cat arrogance that said, “Yeah, right.”

After I’d dealt with his latest trophy and sat down, he joined me on the couch for cuddle and a purr (okay, I purr. It’s what I do). I stared into his big eyes and I looked for a sign of remorse and obviously saw none. Morally, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He’s an animal and his genetic code is programmed with the need to hunt and kill—irrespective of how much kibble I give him. He’s doing what he’s supposed to do. But he takes lives on a pretty regular basis without a hint of killer’s repentance.

That chilled my human sensibilities.

Transpose Tegan’s killer instinct to a person and that person wouldn’t be a cute, furry companion, that person would be a psychopath, no ifs or buts. Tegan can wander in from a kill, snuggle up to me for companionship then clean up the two kittens he’s rearing. Sounds cool for a cat, because we accept this as cat behavior, but we don’t accept this behavior in all things. Substitute a person for Tegan and Tegan’s behavior would present a very different picture. Imagine a father like any other caring for his family while there is still blood under his fingernails. This is serial killer country.

People always ask, ‘where do you get your ideas?’ I don’t have to trawl through the aisles of the true crime section to learn about killers, or even experience terrible events. Sometimes, I don’t have to leave the house.

Stories are out there waiting to be discovered. Anything and everything can be the ignition source for a story. It’s all about watching the world around me and seeing how things interact and what everyone else misses. Usually, it’s the little things that people miss that make for the best stories. With a little ingenuity, the mundane can become the extraordinary.

So Tegan could be the genesis for a very nasty killer. All it takes is a little imagination and a dash of transposition. J

Yours on golden pondering,
Simon Wood
PS: My local Sisters in Crime chapter is putting on a 1-day writer’s workshop. If you’d like details, please email me at simonwoodwrites@yahoo.com

Dialing for Dopplegangers

by Rob Gregory Browne

When I was planning my upcoming book, I decided to use a premise I’d had banging around in my head for several years. It was one of those great story hooks that seem to take hold and won’t let go. I had originally conceived of it as a movie idea, but had never really fleshed it out as a screenplay.

When it came time to pitch a book to my publisher, the first thing that came to mind was this premise, so I wrote up a few paragraphs and sent it off. They liked it.

After getting the deal, I set about trying to figure out how to plot the thing. I had a lot of ideas in mind, including a solution to the “mystery”(although the story is more thriller than mystery), but I was still struggling to find the right path, and eventually, every writer’s foe — insecurity — set in.

Was I going to be able to write this thing?

Then one day I was tooling around the Internet and I happened across a description for a book written by one of my favorite authors. It was a book I didn’t know about, had somehow missed, and I was excited by the discovery.

But when I read the description, my jaw just about dropped. Oh, my god. The author had used a very similar hook to the one I was gearing up to write. Worse yet, it looked like the solution to the “mystery” was identical to mine.

Needless to say, I was filled with dismay. How could I write my book now? I might as well give it up.

This kind of thing has happened to me over and over again in my many years as a writer. I come up with what I think is a unique idea only to discover that someone else has come up with the very same or a similar idea.

As upsetting as this is, whenever it happens I just say to myself, at least your ideas are commercial.

Several months ago, Tess Gerritsen talked about this on her blog after readers had contacted her to ask if she had sold her book VANISH to the movies. An upcoming TV movie had a similar premise to Tess’s story, the tale of a ruthless U.S. crime syndicate that forces foreign women into sexual slavery.

Tess explained that, no, she hadn’t sold the rights, but that these things happen. And much more frequently than we’d like.

A few days later, she and I traded emails about the subject. I told her how, fifteen or so years ago, I had sold a script to Showtime about — guess what? — a ruthless U.S. crime syndicate that forces foreign women into slavery.

So, sometimes I just have to shake my head and ask: How many stories are there out there?

How often does this idea dopplegangbang happen to other writers?

Are there only so many ideas sitting in some universal collection box, waiting to be grabbed by people like us, first come first served?

It certainly seems so.

The good thing is that my dilemma with my own upcoming book has a happy ending. Reading the synopsis of that other writer’s story turned out to be the best thing that could ever happen, because it forced me to think on my feet and to take my idea in a completely different direction.

It forced me to stretch as a writer. While that basic hook remains, the new solution to the “mystery” has made the story much richer, deeper, more complex than before.

Once I came up with that new solution, the path seemed to open up for me, introducing me to new supporting characters and situations that I would never have thought of had I stuck to the original version.

The result is a book that both my US and UK editors think is even better than the previous one, and it certainly never hurts to please your editors.

And in the end, I’ve come to realize that the premise itself is only that — a premise.

It’s execution that’s key.

A Touch of Genius

By Louise

Do we recognize genius when we see it?

Earlier this year, the world-renowned classical violinist Joshua Bell put on a baseball cap and played a 43-minute free concert in a Metro Station in Washington D.C. Few rush hour commuters stopped to listen. Most didn’t even remember a musician in the station that day. He collected a total of $32.17, if you don’t count the $20 from the woman who recognized him from a concert at the Library of Congress three weeks earlier.

This link will take you to the Washington Post story about the musical experiment, along with some fascinating video and an audio download of the entire concert.

Clearly, the answer to the question above is, “not many of us.”

For the record, Bruce Springsteen pulled a similar stunt almost twenty years ago, stopping to sing The River with a street musician in Copenhagen. The video’s here. He had a better response from the crowd, and they were polite enough not to mob him. But I don’t know if that says more about Springsteen or about the Danes.

Anyway, this all got me thinking about the rigors of publishing, as well. Whether we’re agents or editors, members of award judging panels, reviewers, or readers, do we recognize great writing when we see it?

Pity the poor agent. Hundreds of query letters come in each week. If they’re done professionally, they have, at most, one paragraph of description of the work on offer. They might have a few sample pages, but that’s only if your agency accepts that kind of thing in an initial query. And if it’s not professionally done, the agent might be reading cat scratches made with a No. 3 pencil or a red crayon.

After hours of flinging sound-alike, seen-that-before plots and characters onto the slush pyre, do agents still have the openness of spirit to recognize gold when it crosses their desk?

What must those agents have first thought of Jasper Fforde’s submission? “Well, it’s all done tongue-in-cheek, with lots of plays on words and literary references, and it’s kind of sci-fi … but more like a fairy tale. And there’s a bit of a mystery to it.” And a bit of genius too, I think.

For the most part, editors at least can start with the summary and praise from an agent they trust. The manuscript was at least good enough to get an agent’s attention. That doesn’t mean that an editor will agree, but it’s a good start. What then? Do they wait for their heart to beat faster? Do they cock an ear to hear a voice in the writing that is as clear and sweet as a bell ringing?

Judges on awards panels try to be objective in their reading, just like the editor or agent would be. But does that mean they would have judged Joshua Bell relative to all the other musicians in the Metro? Or relative to the best music they’d ever heard?

Reviewers try to be objective, too, although personal preferences and bias figure in sometimes. All in all, I think they’re listening for that perfect pitch, that single note that says "this is something special."

As readers, we have more options. We can take the word of a trusted bookseller or friend. We can read blurbs or reviews or chat list recommendations. Some of us are swayed by awards. Or by advertising. Or by the first sentence. Others wait until Oprah has blessed it.

But without those signposts of previous accolades, would we know great writing if we came across it in an unusual place?

Last Fall, I commented on one of Patty Smiley’s Naked Author blogs, and fessed up to having stolen somebody’s manuscript out of the dumpster. My next door neighbor, a software engineer, had placed her recycling bin right next to mine. And there, on the top, was a complete, rubber-banded manuscript. I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed it, stuffed it under my sweatshirt and hotfooted it back upstairs.

Now let’s be honest about the motivations here. I couldn’t stand the woman. She had a pinched and sour face, and looked like the Wicked Witch of the West as she pedaled off to work in the morning. She took great pleasure in attending planning commission meetings to protest any additions or improvements our neighbors wanted to make to their houses. She called the cops every time I worked on the race car, saying that the smell of the idling engine gave her a migraine.

I wanted to read her manuscript to take small green-toad pleasure in how bad it was. I didn’t have an open mind. I didn’t wish her well.

Upstairs, I slipped off the rubber bands.

It was a memoir – the saddest story I’ve ever read – of three generations of women in her family dying of breast cancer. She used simple language to express the deepest of emotions. She touched the most primal and vulnerable part of me. And she made sense of a senseless world.

It ended with the news of her own illness.

She died last year and I never had the guts to tell her how much her writing had meant to me.

Maybe — even without an open heart — we can find the glint of genius in unlikely places. I’ve learned my lesson. I now approach all my reading with an open mind. And I give every street musician a little money.

How about all you readers and reviewers and agents and editors and judges out there? Have you recognized something extraordinary where you didn’t expect to find it?

Voice Lessons?

What is this thing we call voice?

When Crimepace was first up and running, there was an interesting discussion there about voice – whether or not it could be taught. I weighed in on the side that a writer could be taught elements of voice and that this type of knowledge could help them speed up the process of creating it. (I don’t believe anyone could teach the specific voice any specific writer should use.) Others argued that none of it could be taught, that it absolutely was something a writer had to find their way to, through trial-and-error or maybe just blind luck, but that it wasn’t something which could be dissected and analyzed and then created.

That’s when it occurred to me that maybe we were making some basic assumptions that everyone actually knew and/or agreed as to what voice meant.

Is voice a style of prose, and approach to story-telling created by and author which is his or her way of expressing story—any story—insomuch as you would recognize the author if you read just bits of the story out of context? This would be the Hemingway or Faulkner type of voice, where their styles were immediately recognizable, no matter the book.

Or, is voice supposed to serve a specific story—is it the voice of the world, the tonal / language combination which is very specific to that world of the story and characters therein insomuch as it conveys something about the story itself and it (the voice) wouldn’t fit any other story? (One example which leaps to mind which is a mystery set in an SF setting is Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog which is nothing like her other books’ voices. It also happens to do first person POV and voice brilliantly.)

If voice is story-specific, then logically, a story’s needs help to shape the voice used. An author can look at their own intent (is this supposed to be funny, dramatic, said, etc.) and tonal need, they can look at whether multiple POVs or a single one is needed, they can decide how much authorial distance they want (do they want to be commenting on the world or shoving the reader right up into it), they can take into consideration the world of the story (upperclass, poorly educated, rich, destitute, post-war, etc.) and use these needs to influence how they want to tell the story. An author who wants the readers to be up close to a poorly educated, steeped-in-crime sort of main character isn’t likely to choose ponderous, oblique six syllable words which would have the readers running to a dictionary. (And sometimes, choosing the voice is knowing what not to do.) Likewise, a story with an attorney at the center isn’t likely to be filled with the latest rap phrases and expletives every other word. Paring away at what won’t work leaves the author a much smaller subset of choices and then the characters influence the rest.

The above tools are handy… but none apply if what we mean when we say voice is an overall perspective / approach of an individual author—a.k.a. style.

So… what do you think it is? Are we using it to mean overall authorial style? Or specific style for a specific story? Do you think it can be taught? If not, why not?

-toni

p/s… Murderati is not turning into the Toni show, I promise. I just happened to substitute this weekend while everyone was away. Pari and Alex will be back next week.

War of the Words: Scripts vs. Novels

As I began my new screenwriting gig, a memory struck me.

Years ago at a book signing, a fan asked a respected mystery author to compare the challenges of writing a novel to that of writing a screenplay. At the mention of the word "screenplay" the author’s face went sour.

For him, there was NO comparison. While novels were full of complexity and style, a screenplay was merely "an outline."

I shrunk in my seat.

You see, one of my favorite courses in college had been Screenwriting. From it, I not only leaned proper screenplay formatting, but I also took away a nuts-and-bolts understanding of story structure and an economy of language that still influences my writing today. Valuable skills in my book.

Yet here was this author, a man I admired, telling me the craft was second rate.

He wasn’t alone in his sentiments. Months later, I attended another reading where another famous author was asked essentially the same question. His answer was almost identical. Novel writing is real writing. Screenwriting is outlining.

While I would’ve never said so out loud, that line of thinking strikes me as narrow-minded, perhaps even insecure.

Screenwriting is not a lesser form of literature. In fact, it presents many challenges the novelist doesn’t face. As Richard Walter puts it in his book Screenwriting: The Art, Craft, and Business of Film and Television Writing…

"The limitations of sight and sound require that a screenwriter never write what a character "thinks," "realizes," "recalls," or "remembers"… This requirement to present such information visually is one reason that the screenplay, contrary to popular misconception, represents a more demanding form of writing than the novel."

More demanding than a novel? Maybe not. But the challenges of writing a screenplay–a good screenplay–shouldn’t be understated.

Of course, all this is just one man’s opinion.

What do you think Murderati readers? (I’m looking at you Alex!)

Is a screenplay easier to write than a finely crafted novel? Of course the politically correct answer would be that they’re different art forms with different demands. But is there anyone out there willing to go on a ledge and side with one over the other? What makes a screenplay easier to write? What makes a novel easier?

Letting Your Freak Flag Fly

First, congratulations to Naomi! Such terrific news!

Alex is away at RT this weekend (and I’ll bet having a blast) and asked me to post today, and what’s been on my mind lately regarding writing is how much (or how little) we push ourselves to push our own limits. Or the limits of the genre.

Many times when you hear or read advice to new writers, the old cliché write what you know is generally hanging in there, tenacious. It’s not bad advice—it’s just that it skims across the surface of the issue, creating tiny ripples atop the flat expanse of what’s possible instead of plunging in, fishing the deep.

Taking the risk.

Exposing ourselves, being vulnerable in front of the world.

Not necessarily because the characters think or do what we’d think or do, but because we’ve pushed some internal boundary we have, we’ve flown in the face of convention, or we’ve reached for some level of writing and maybe we didn’t quite make it (and we’re waiting for the world to agree). And sometimes, we have to push past our own comfort level to grow and that’s difficult, I think, because we’re flying our freak flag and people are going to see. It requires a lot of bravery, this thing we do.

Maybe the better advice is to mine what you’re afraid of; write not only what you know, but what you fear.

There is an attraction to sticking with what we know, feeling comfortable in the world we create, feeling comfortable with whatever level of ability we have, because if we’ve done it well at all at least once, maybe we can stay there and not embarrass ourselves. The problem, of course, is that staying in one place digs a rut, and we’re not surprising ourselves anymore, and in all likelihood, we’re not surprising the reader.

I was thinking about that recently as I wrapped up the first draft of the second book in the series, and I wondered just what in the hell I’d gotten myself into. I write capers. Comedy. Have you ever had one of those weeks where everything just goes all to hell and back, absolutely nothing works, Karma is not only putting out the banana peel, but greasing the floor for extra measure? And when you’re flat on your back, you hit a point of incredulity where it’s just damned funny, this absurd thing we call life. Yeah, that’s the kind of comedy I write. (We are so not going to get into comparisons between my life and my character’s. Thank you.) But to write that kind of comedy, I have to push the characters emotionally into hard places, bad moments, and the comedy has to be organic. There has to be real fear or heartache or worse underneath the comic actions, beneath the laughter, or it would all just be slapstick. Surface. And ultimately, common.

The problem with this is carrying it forward in book 2—pushing that suffering. Making the choices the characters have to make more heartbreaking, and still finding the absurd, keeping the reader laughing. I found myself hedging on a particular emotional point because it was not only difficult, it’s stretching the boundary of that particular genre. It’s saying, “yeah, caper books can be funny, but sometimes, they can also make you ache.” If I pull it off. I’m not convinced on this draft I have, yet. Part of me wanted to pull back a little, make it a little easier on myself, because seriously, I have set myself up for a fall with this one if I can’t make it work. I know it. I feel it. I see where I’m heading into book 3 and I know I could have made my life a lot more sane with a simpler emotional choice. I could cheat that choice and have something happen to one of the characters to where the choice becomes slightly simpler. It would still resonate, it would make sense, it would still have a gut-punch. And since I write caper, it wouldn’t pull the story too far off-track, tonally.

But it would be the coward’s way out.

Damnit.

So I’m trying to push there, find the way to make that choice heart-rending because, I hope, by that point, you really care about that character and the choice she’s facing and you realize, she’s never ever ever had this sort of moment in her life and she does not have a clue how to make this choice. Or how to live with it, once done. And there are ramifications for that. Meanwhile, I’ve got to watch it, tonally, and make it work within the genre. Or throw over the conventions a bit and say screw it, this is the story and I’m sticking to it. Somehow, figure out the balance, while still flying the freak flag.

What are you afraid of?

What have you read lately which feels like it pushes the genre? Reaches for something and accomplishes it? Takes a risk and makes it work?