I had no idea what I was going to write about today until I read Alex’s blog yesterday.

Then it came to me. On-line personality tests. Why not just dump out my strengths and weaknesses for the world to see?

There’s so many of these things out there, I don’t know where to begin. They are hardly scientific—at least, most of them seem fairly simplistic. For example, I’m right brained. Woo woo, big surprise there. (But you may be surprised that I’m not extreme right-brain–only 62%.)

There’s the “big five” test.

And one of the many ennegram tests. (I’m #3: The Achiever.)

About ten years ago, I worked for a guy who was a big proponent of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter. Greg had married into a large, close-knit family that had a family run business in the agricultural area. They hired a management consultant to help solve some problems inherent in running a family business. You can just imagine, right? Growing up with the same people, working with the same people, living in the same town with the same people, bringing in spouses to help with the business, and kids were being born—arguments are inevitable, but when you’re family there is no firing or quitting.

The consultant suggested they each take the Keirsey test (based on the Myers-Brigges personality types) so that they could understand the other people in the business/family. Apparently, the results were accurate and helped the family members see how the other people thought, resulting in more patience and ultimately fostered a better working and living environment.

So Greg was big on the test and suggested that all of us on staff take it.

I was surprised at my results, but when I read the book cover to cover (Greg gave it to me), I realized I definitely fit about 80%+ into my “temperament.” 

According to the Keirsey website:

Each temperament has its own unique qualities and shortcomings, strengths and challenges. What accounts for these differences? To use the idea of Temperament most effectively, it is important to understand that the four temperaments are not simply arbitrary collections of characteristics, but spring from an interaction of the two basic dimensions of human behavior: our communication and our action, our words and our deeds, or, simply, what we say and what we do.

 

 

As a writer, and someone interested in human nature in general, I’m very interested in why people do what they do. As someone who likes to get along with others, understanding they whys and the hows of people’s thought processes and where they are coming from, helps to keep a modicum of peace, especially in a work environment.

I know many writers who use the Temperament Sorter to help them with their characters. I’m not one of them. But hey, if you like to ask your characters questions, go for it! As a personality test, I think this is one of the most accurate I’ve seen based on people I’ve worked with.

So for fun–because I’m on deadline (again, surprise) I’m going to run another contest. Guess which of the 16 temperaments I am and you get a copy of any book in my backlist. I’ll give up to five books away, randomly, to those who guess right.

More about the Myers-Briggs/Keirsey Temperament Sorter:

There are four basic temperaments, and each temperament has four parts. Click on the temperament for more information. First, a run down of what the Myers-Briggs letters stand for. (pg 12 in the book PLEASE UNDERSTAND ME II.) Everyone is one or the other:

E= Extraverted            or            I=Introverted

S= Sensory                        or            N=Intuitive

T=Thinking                        or            F=Feeling

J=Judging                        or             P=Perceiving

 

From the website (and you can click through for more detailed information)

Artisans

All Artisans (SPs) share the following core characteristics:

Artisans tend to be fun-loving, optimistic, realistic, and focused on the here and now

Artisans pride themselves on being unconventional, bold, and spontaneous.

Artisans make playful mates, creative parents, and troubleshooting leaders.

Artisans are excitable, trust their impulses, want to make a splash, seek stimulation, prize freedom, and dream of mastering action skills.

Artisans are the temperament with a natural ability to excel in any of the arts, not only the fine arts such as painting and sculpting, or the performing arts such as music, theater, and dance, but also the athletic, military, political, mechanical, and industrial arts, as well as the “art of the deal” in business.

The four SPs:

ESTP (Promoter)

ISTP (Crafter)

ESFP (Performer)

ISFP (Composer) 

Guardians

All Guardians (SJs) share the following core characteristics:

Guardians pride themselves on being dependable, helpful, and hard-working.

Guardians make loyal mates, responsible parents, and stabilizing leaders.

Guardians tend to be dutiful, cautious, humble, and focused on credentials and traditions.

Guardians are concerned citizens who trust authority, join groups, seek security, prize gratitude, and dream of meting out justice. 

Guardians are the cornerstone of society, for they are the temperament given to serving and preserving our most important social institutions. Guardians have natural talent in managing goods and services–from supervision to maintenance and supply — and they use all their skills to keep things running smoothly in their families, communities, schools, churches, hospitals, and businesses.

 

The four SJs:

 ESTJ (Supervisor)

ISTJ (Inspector)

ESFJ (Provider)

ISFJ (Protector)

 

Idealists

All Idealists (NFs) share the following core characteristics:

Idealists are enthusiastic, they trust their intuition, yearn for romance, seek their true self, prize meaningful relationships, and dream of attaining wisdom.

Idealists pride themselves on being loving, kindhearted, and authentic.

Idealists tend to be giving, trusting, spiritual, and they are focused on personal journeys and human potentials.

Idealists make intense mates, nurturing parents, and inspirational leaders.

Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self — always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

 

The four NFs:

 

ENFJ (Teacher)

INFJ (Counselor)

ENFP (Champion)

INFP (Healer)

 

Rationals

 

All Rationals (NTs) share the following core characteristics:

Rationals tend to be pragmatic, skeptical, self-contained, and focused on problem-solving and systems analysis.

Rationals pride themselves on being ingenious, independent, and strong willed.

Rationals make reasonable mates, individualizing parents, and strategic leaders.

Rationals are even-tempered, they trust logic, yearn for achievement, seek knowledge, prize technology, and dream of understanding how the world works.

Rationals are the problem solving temperament, particularly if the problem has to do with the many complex systems that make up the world around us. Rationals might tackle problems in organic systems such as plants and animals, or in mechanical systems such as railroads and computers, or in social systems such as families and companies and governments. But whatever systems fire their curiosity, Rationals will analyze them to understand how they work, so they can figure out how to make them work better.

The four NTs

ENTJ (Fieldmarshal)

INTJ (Mastermind)

ENTP (Inventor)

INTP (Architect)

 

It benefits writers to understand basic human temperament, at least from a character point of view. Reading the book (versus the less detailed website) provides insights into character traits you might not even be aware of, simply because they’re not in us. This is particularly helpful when you find your secondary characters all alike or stereotypical. And when all else fails and you need some conflict, try putting an Artisan with a Rational and watch them explode.

I was going to try to guess what all my Murderati partners in crime were, but it was much harder than I thought. I’m pretty sure that Alex is an Artisan Performer, that Alafair is a Guardian, Toni is a Idealist, and Tess is a Rational; I’m certain that Rob and Pari and Stephen are introverts and that Dusty and Brett and JT are extraverts. But when I tried to break it all down, I realized maybe I don’t read people as well as I thought, and rather than embarrass myself, I would just quit here.  But if any of my compatriots want to participate and take the online test and share . . . I’m sure everyone here would enjoy it! You have to register to take the online test, but it’s free.

And again, if you can figure out what I am (and yes, it does fit surprising well and I’ll tell you why at the end of the day) you get a book from my backlist. Enjoy!

By Allison Brennan

When writers dream of being published, they picture their first book with a shiny hard cover. The pretty, sturdy tome that doesn’t fall apart after two readings, with beautiful covers that look fabulous on the bookshelf–face out or spine out. Hardcover authors automatically receive respect, reviews, and a larger percentage of royalties on a hefty cover price. People look at you with respect and admiration because you’re published and you have an actual hardcover real book to show for it; something that looks and feels professional and respectable.

Mass market paperbacks (MMP—also known as Paperback Originals, or PBO—I use them almost interchangeably, depending on the sentence) became popular as a commercial alternative to the hardcover in the 1930s. They’re produced more cheaply than hardcovers. The paper is of lower quality–both the pages of the book and the physical cover– and the books are “mass produced” at a lower per-unit cost, thus profit (for both the publisher and the author) is less per book—for example, roughly SIX copies of a mass market equals the royalties for ONE hardcover.

The average MMP is priced at $6.99 or $7.99. Some are lower (special releases, re-issues, special promos, Harlequin category novels); some higher (the over-sized paperback—see Sandra Brown, James Patterson, Jonathon Kellerman, etc); but the average maximum price point both MMPs coming out in 2009 and 2010 is about $7.99. Just take a look at IPDA.

In researching the history of paperbacks, I was surprised by a comment I saw on multiple websites, including Wikipedia (not the best site for research, but one that people crazily trust) which says in part:

“Paperbacks can be the preferred medium when a book is not expected to be a major seller.”

Times are a’changing. And I wonder if anyone truly knows what the market is going to look like in 5, 10, 20 years. But MMP are major sellers and a staple of the publishing industry. While hardcovers are the elite–and where the profit is–MMP are no longer the cheap dime store throwaways. (Which, BTW, are no longer cheap or throwaways, if you peruse the collector websites!)

My mother used to believe that the superior books were published in hardcover, and the inferior books in MMP. She used to buy books from the Mystery Guild, believing they were simply cheaper hardcover releases printed on inexpensive, poorly trimmed paper, not realizing that many of the books she enjoyed were originally published as MMP!

After I was published in MMP, my mom tried many other PBO authors and was surprised that they were just as good as many of her hardcovers. And as she read more hardcover authors she was surprised that some of the books were poor (in her opinion) and said to me that she didn’t understand how publishers decide who gets to be hardcover vs. MMP because some of the hardcovers are “really bad” (her words!) and some of the MMPs are “good enough for hardcover” (her words!)

Today, the decision to publish in MMP, trade paperback, or hardcover is largely an economic one—not based as much on the subjective quality of the story, but on the targeted readership. Marketing, baby. In the end, it’s all about where the money is.

Romance has historically been published in MMP, led by the boon of Harlequin who still dominates romance today. Romance readers read a lot—four, five books a week. They also are willing to try a variety of genres and more open to blended genres (i.e. romantic suspense, mysteries, thrillers, fantasy, etc. The only genre that is still very hard to break into among romance readers is science fiction, still a predominately male genre.)

When someone reads 15-20 books a month, spending $20-25 per book is almost impossible. Libraries come in handy, but romance readers also like to re-read their favorite books (something I don’t understand, as I rarely re-read books.) The $6.99-$7.99 price point is easier to swallow.

And if you agree that the quality is comparable to a hardcover, then the lower price is a time for celebration.

It used to be that hardcover authors had to sell XX books in order to get a lucrative paperback deal, which would put them in all the groceries and drug stores. It was coveted, as Stephen King notes in his book ON WRITING when he sold the paperback rights to CARRIE. This is why I don’t understand why PBO authors get dissed today.

But we do.

I have 12 published MMP novels, all of which hit the NYT list and each have spent 3-5 weeks on the USAT list. (The first three books hit the extended list.) They do pretty well, at least well enough that I was able to get another contract. Yet you won’t find them in most indie bookstores.

I’ve wondered why, and I haven’t figured out if indies don’t like my books because they are labelled “romantic suspense” or if they don’t like them because they are MMPs. I’m inclined to think that it’s a combination, though I know that some of my fellow Murderati PBO authors have had trouble finding their releases in indie stores.

I want to support Independent bookstores. I love indies. In high school, I shopped at Kepler’s in Menlo Park, and here in Sacramento I used to love Tower Books. But everytime I see a link or blog about supporting an indie, I feel a brief stab of anger. Why am I asked to support indies when they don’t stock my NYT bestselling books? Even my hometown major indie only stocks two copies of my newest release (and rarely, if ever, my backlist)—and it’s right down the street from the State Capitol where I used to work. The manager told me that he reorders when he sells a copy, but as we all know it’s the displays—the face out, the front of store placement, the handselling—that makes the difference.

The best indies, for me, are the new and used bookstores that specialize in romance and mystery titles. They stock my books, both new and used. (I have no problem with new & used bookstores, BTW, but that’s a debate for another day.)

CUTTING EDGE, my latest release, was supposed to be my first hardcover. I didn’t want it to be a hardcover—it was the last book in a trilogy—but when we went to contract in early 2008, my publisher felt it was the right time to launch me in hardcover. Fast forward six months . . .the economy crashed and burned and they felt that maybe now it wasn’t such a good time to be coming out in hardcover.

I’ll admit, though I was a teeny tiny disappoints, I was mostly relieved—primarily because I really, really, REALLY didn’t want the third book of a trilogy coming out in hardcover. I understand their reasoning (marketing, sales), but as a reader FIRST I didn’t agree. So I was fine sticking with PBO.

I do want to come out in hardcover someday, for reasons that I’ll outline below. But if I do, I want to write a series or stand alone novels—not change up the format mid-series or at the end of a trilogy. Now in my career I might have a little more say in it. But ultimately, it’ll be the call of the publisher. Because in the end, it’s about growing sales. You can say it’s about money–and obviously that’s part of it–but format is about maximizing sales.

Romance isn’t the only genre that is predominantly PBO. More and more mysteries and thrillers are being released as PBOs (either as trade paperbacks or MMP.) Jason Pinter, JT Ellison, Joseph Teller, Rick Mofina all started as PBO authors. James Swain, Robert Gregory Browne are two very talented authors I can think of who started in hardcover, but moved to PBO to find their market. And as the economy stagnates and as readers pinch pennies, the PBO format looks better and better to launch authors.

Post dime novels, and putting straight romance aside, PBOs are predominately used to build an audience to eventually launch an author into hardcover. This has been successfully done with Nora Roberts, Jayne Anne Krentz, Sandra Brown, Lisa Gardner, Tami Hoag, etc. Notice how these are romance or romantic suspense or former romantic suspense authors? Anyone jump in with non-romance writers who started as PBO in the last ten years and successfully made the leap into hardcover. As the publishing industry changes there will be more names like Rick Mofina and Jason Pinter on the “jump” list as well because in the end we all want to be in hardcover even when we’re happy with MMP. 

And believe it or not, it’s not about the money. (Or, it’s not ALL about the money.)

PROS of Mass Market Originals

• Price point. Readers are more willing to give new authors a chance when they don’t have to spend a lot of money to read the book. Avid readers care about this as well. Not everyone wants to wait for a library book.
• Format. A paperback is easy to cart around and read in the doctors office, on an airplane, at your son’s football game.
• Quality. MMP are comparable in storytelling quality as hardcovers. I’d wager that the same percentage of MMP that you consider crappy you’d assign the same percentage to hardcovers.
• Audience. MMP are widely available. Because they are cheaply produced and take up less space than a comparable hardcover, they are available in groceries, drug stores, walmart, target, etc. Distribution is fantastic. You can build an audience—starting small, then moving to hardcover when you’ve reached the “magic first printing” (I’ve heard anywhere from a first printing of 400,000-600,000, but I think for comfort publishers are looking at over 500K mimimum.) The reason? You’ve built your base. And they know that you’re not going to be selling 250K in hardcover, because you’ll split your readership between your hardcore fans and those who aren’t willing to fork over $25 for 4-8 hours of entertainment.) For example, if you’re selling 250,000 units in a PBO, you’re not going to be selling 250,000 hardcovers. Probably between 50-100K is my guess, but since I have no empirical evidence.)
• Potential. If you do well in MMP, you can make a good living writing paperbacks. Advances are similar, and often higher, than many of the hardcover book deals. (For new and midlist authors at least. Big hardcover bestsellers generally make shitloads more money than most bestselling PBO authors.) Authors can “fail” in MMP with their first book or two but still rebound. It’s much harder for a hardcover author to fail and rebound, especially in this economy. It’s happened, but Robert Gottlieb, the President of Trident Media Group, once said that you get one shot at hardcover. I believe him, which is why I’m in no rush to make the jump.
• Production. It’s very easy (and relatively cheap) to go back to press. Books are stripped for credit, as opposed to being returned whole (at the publisher’s shipping cost.) A 50% sell-through for a well-distributed bestselling PBO is good; a 50% sell-through in hardcover is the kiss of death. (Let me make something clear. There is a dispute as to what a good sell-through is. Rule of thumb is 50% in MMP, but I’ve heard many authors quote their editors saying that 80% was “ok.” The bigger your print run, the closer to 50% you can get and still be considered successful. If you have an 80% sell-through in MMP, your publisher didn’t print enough books.)
• Print Runs. Publishers are often more willing to push a MMP with a greater print run because the per unit cost is so much less. If it flops, they don’t lose as much as if a big hardcover flops. They’re more willing to take risks because the investment is less.

 

CONS of Mass Market Originals

• Reviews. Don’t expect to get many (if any), and don’t expect to get noticed by newspapers and industry publications. When PW reviews dozens and dozens of hardcovers and trade paperbacks and only 4 MMP per issue—and I’d wager that the number of MMPs released is 2-3 times greater each month than hardcovers and trade combined—there is definitely a bias against the MMP format, at least for review space. And as more review space is cut in print media, it’s the MMPs that will be axed first.
• Respect. Like writing romance to many genre writers, or commercial fiction to many literary fiction authors, PBO authors are often snubbed by the industry or fellow authors. I think this is getting better over the last few years as more authors who are not writing romance are bring published as PBO, but there’s still this perception that lesser quality books are published in MMP. This is an extremely hard perception to break. (Tess Gerritsen has blogged about this, having done both–write romantic suspenseand be a PBO author, before writing hardcover crime fiction. In an interview with THE DARK SCRIBE in October of 2008 after THE KEEPSAKE–great book BTW–came out, the intro included the sentence: “Gerritsen continued to churn out formulaic romantic suspense novels until a chance dinner conversation about the Russian mafia and organ harvesting ignited the idea to blend her medical background with the suspense formula she knew so well.” I doubt that Tess would call her early books “formulaic” or that she “churned” them out. I’ll bet she worked damned hard on writing an entertaining romantic suspense novel.)
• Pigeonholed. You get stuck writing MMP unless you change it up dramatically, which may also piss off your readership. It’s like when I was working in the California State Assembly–I had a specialty, and I was good at it, but I was bored out of my mind after doing the same thing for years and years. I kept asking to do something different. I even came up with new ideas. They kept giving me more money to do what I was doing. (And it was about this time I started seriously writing. I was BORED.) Sometimes, it’s not about the money. But in publishing, you also have the risk-aversion factor. If it’s working, why mess with it? (Author boredom maybe? Creative flexing?)
• Library market. Very small for MMP. You pretty much have to be a bestseller to get into the library market. This is expected, since MMP have a limited shelf life—hardcovers can be read multiple times, but MMPs begin to fall apart after 4-5 reads even when treated with care.
• Shelf-life. If you’re in MMP your book is generally stripped 3-6 months after release date. If you’re a NYT author you MAY have your backlist on the shelves of major bookstores (but they’ll strip copies that go over the corporate designated stock number.) In Walmart, Target, airports, groceries, etc. you have 1-2 months. Maybe three months if it’s a major release (paperback releases/reissues by mega hardcover authors–not PBOs–often last longer.) Harlequin authors have a one-month shelf life. If you’re writing a single title series, having your backlist unavailable can be the kiss of death. (On the flipside, if your flopping hardcover fails you might have longer shelf-life, but they still get shipped back. Ouch.)
• Publicity/Marketing/Tours/Signings. If you’re in mass market, you don’t tour unless you pay for it (usually—I’m sure there are some MMP authors who have had publisher-paid-for tours; speak up or forever hold your peace. I haven’t heard of them except for special promotions like a Levy Bus Tour with multiple authors.) The bulk of the publicity and marketing $$ is spent on hardcover releases, which have a higher profit margin for the publisher than MMP.
• Rights. Hardcovers get more exposure, more recognition, more subsidiary sales, greater chance at book club deals, film options, audio rights, etc. The risk is greater, therefore they get the bigger push.
• Releases Dates. Hardcovers are generally released on ANY Tuesday (sometimes Mondays). MMPs are generally released en-masse by the publisher on the same date. For example, all Random House PBO titles for August 2009 were released on July 28th. Some publishers will split their releases between the last Tuesday of the month before and the first Tuesday of the release month. But you’re fighting for finite slots in stores. 

 

BOTH PRO AND CON

• Quantity. In hardcover, one book a year is standard. Sometimes two. Some authors (Linda Howard, Nora Roberts, Lisa Jackson) will release 1-2 hardcovers a year and 1-2 PBOs. James Rollins has one hardcover under the Rollins name, and a MMP fantasy series under James Clemens, per year. (And he’s adding a YA novel—three books a year. Who heard of such a thing!?!) But PBO authors are expected to write at least two books a year, and three is smiled upon. For fast writers, this is great. You can build your name faster, and if you are consistently producing good stories, you’ll grow your audience through word of mouth and name recognition (if you always have a new book out readers see your name a lot. But the book has to support the investment.) But if you’re not a fast writer, being a PBO author means it takes much longer to build your audience because of all the “cons” listed above (lack of industry attention, shorter shelf life, no reviews, etc.) My friend and very talented romance writer Susan Andersen writes one PBO a year. She couldn’t write faster to save her soul (we’ve talked about this!) Nor should she. But it can be a negative in a format that expects speed. On the flipside, hardcover authors who can and want to write more than one book a year often are held back (or used to be) because the market has a hard time supporting multiple hardcovers (this, too, is changing–but I’m still not sure how it will play out.)
• Genre. Some genres sell exceptionally well as MMP and flop in hardcover; some sell better in hardcover than as a PBO. Romances generally perform much, much better as paperbacks, while straight mysteries don’t. And when you blend genres, you can get screwed if you’re published the wrong way. But who knows what’s the right way? This is where risk and trial and error come in.
• Covers. THIS is changing. Cover art for MMP has been getting so much better, but historically the covers were pretty much interchangeable. I see a lot of hope for cover art (especially after getting my cover for ORIGINAL SIN.)

I, personally, love being a PBO author. There’s no way I could have built the audience I have now, as quickly as I have—and an audience who consistent puts me on the New York Times list (thank you thank you thank you!)—as a hardcover author. But that doesn’t mean that someday I wouldn’t like to have a hardcover. My Seven Deadly Sins series will be published as PBO and that works for me, though as I finish the revisions on ORIGINAL SIN (no, I don’t have an ending yet, but I’m working on it!) I can’t help but think that, but for the economy, this book would have worked very well as a hardcover.

For more on the history of MMP: IOBA or here.

I’m sure there are many other PROS and CONS to the MMP, and for some authors the PROS may be a negative and vice versa. I’d be interested in your comments. And don’t forget (blatant self promo here!) that CUTTING EDGE is on sale now (by me) and the third Bobbie Faye book (all new!) called WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON is also on sale now. BOTH original mass markets. 

AND the winner from my last blog, who gets a copy of Toni McGee Causey’s CHARMED AND DANGEROUS (Bobbie Faye #1) and SUDDEN DEATH (the first of my trilogy) is . . . . Eika!!! Please email me your mailing address and I’ll get those right out 🙂

 

 By Allison Brennan

On Monday, Pari wrote about honesty in writing. Her post, specifically her question at the end, really stuck with me because I have been thinking about this exact thing lately, but without a name for it:

“What the heck is ‘honesty in writing’ anyway?” she asked.

Honesty in writing is authorial voice. It’s staying true to yourself, writing to discover your voice. We talk about the market a lot, but truly the market is so big that no author should write to the market but instead should write to their voice.

But what in the world is ‘voice’ and how do you find it?

Two days after Thrillerfest officially ended, I had a call from my editor about revisions for ORIGINAL SIN, the first book in my Seven Deadly Sins series. We’d scheduled it ahead of time, because I wanted to jump on revisions quickly. I’d turned in the book without an ending because I honestly didn’t know how it would end. Being the first book in my first series with continuing characters, I’ll admit I was nervous (still am. And no, I still don’t have an ending, but I have two weeks.) I know how to write a climax and finish a story, but how to end a book while keeping interest piqued for the next book?

Fortunately, I planned on revisions, so I sent my editor my first draft. (Caveat: since I edit as I go, my first drafts are pretty clean. I didn’t send her complete crap. Just slightly stinky crap.)

The first thing she said was that when she started reading the manuscript, she was unnerved. It sounded “just like an Allison Brennan novel” but it was paranormal. She went on for several minutes about how odd it was to “hear” me in the story but have something so different than I’ve written for twelve books . . . different yet it was the same.

My editor told me during our first conversation after she bought me, that I had a “commercial voice.” I didn’t know what it meant, and while I won’t say I was insulted . . . I didn’t take it as a compliment at that time. Now, I understand what she meant. At least I think I do—I write in an accessible voice using universal themes. To entertain, not educate.

I rarely talk about voice because you can’t teach it. You can’t tell someone what their voice is or how to write in their voice. “Voice” is one of those ethereal elements in writing that is hard to define. One definition I’ve heard in the past is that voice is the author’s fingerprint on the written page, similar to a singer’s musical voice and a speaker’s talking voice.

Voice is a combination of everything that makes an author unique. Tone, style, and most importantly, the rhythm of the written story. Voice is not genre or theme, though those elements could be part of an author’s voice. When an author is told they have a “strong voice” it generally means that readers love them or hate them. But either way, their voice hits the reader emotionally in both extremes.

I believe it was Lori Foster who said at an RWA workshop several years ago that she hated 3-star reviews. 3-stars meant “blah” or “just okay” or “average.” She’d rather have a bunch of 5-star and 1-star reviews because that meant she hit all the right notes—even if someone hated the book. I tend to agree, because no one wants to be average. No one wants their book to be blah. We may not be writing the Great American Novel, but whatever we DO write, we want our voice to be memorable, so readers will be excited or scared or amused or sad or happy or angry. We want the reader to FEEL SOMETHING, to bring out their emotions, so they become part of the story, not a disinterested third party.  

And that connection is what makes a strong voice. When the writer connects with the reader in such a way that the reader is sucked in, whether the book is commercial or literary, a thriller or a romance, a coming-of-age novel or an epic saga. The words themselves should almost disappear as the reader absorbs the story, becomes part of it, immersed and invested, through the strength of the author’s voice.

I’m of the mind to believe that every voice is unique, like fingerprints. I also believe that most—or all–writers have one, strong voice. Toni and I have discussed this many times and she disagreed with me up until recently (she can share the story if she wants!) My argument is that a writer’s natural voice is, well, natural. It’s how we best tell a story on paper. When we try to write using an unnatural voice—one that doesn’t “feel” right to us—we are then writing for the market or for someone else, fighting our natural rhythm, forcing words and phrases and ultimately the story out onto the paper. It’s stiff, artificial, phony. Dishonest.

One of the biggest hurdles for unpublished writers is a lack of voice. It’s not that they can’t write—they could be technically perfect—but their voice is weak, or it’s not natural to them. Weak voices—and I’ve seen it a lot in contests—tends to be stiff and labored, as if you can actually see the author thinking about what to put on the page. The voice is blah, a 3-star voice, it doesn’t stand out as anything different, even if there’s nothing you can pinpoint as being wrong.

When starting out, some writers mimic their favorite authors, thinking that if Stephen King is successful then they need to write like Stephen King. Since an author’s rhythm is part of voice, to write against your natural rhythm is hard and frustrating. Some new writers also grow scared that their voice is not strong enough, so they pack gimmicks into the story—usually plot devices—to hide a weaker voice.

As most Murderati readers know, I wrote five books before I sold. My first four books I wrote I was still trying to find my voice. I wrote what I thought I should write without letting my natural voice take over. They were all romantic suspense, but I held back, hesitating, and the reader could see the hesitation on the page. I was scared because I didn’t know what I was doing or how to do it, but I was trying to find something–something that I couldn’t articulate at the time.

It was with THE PREY that I let myself go, so-to-speak. I have said I “discovered” my voice writing that book, and that’s as close to an accurate description of what happened as I can get. I literally found my voice in the writing. I let myself write without constraint, without fear of the market, or whether it sounded good, or whether it would sell. I was excited, even when I was stuck. I just knew this was it, this was me. While in writing THE PREY I found my voice, I don’t think I was truly comfortable with it until I wrote my fourth published book, SPEAK NO EVIL. And while every book is harder to write than the last, it’s not the writing itself that is hard. (Which sounds like another blog post on another day!)

You recognize authorial voice just like you recognize a singer on the radio. It’s distinctive, it’s strong, it’s natural. 

When you pick up a book by one of your favorite authors, you read the first page and feel like you’re coming home. It’s comfortable, familiar, and you let the rhythm of their story carry you to the end.

Alex’s post yesterday discussed who we are as part of our voice. She didn’t exactly say that–and maybe she didn’t mean it, I just inferred because I’d already written most of this essay. Voice is more part of us than we realize, which is why when a writer discovers her voice, when the writing—though not easy—becomes natural, comfortable, seemingly effortless—at least on the final draft; we physically yearn to write. We couldn’t not write, because the storytelling is as much a part of us as our verbal voice.

I’d argue that even if you’re switching genres, your voice is unique and moves with you. As in my supernatural thrillers and my romantic suspense novels, I “sound” the same—even though the subject matter is different.

I give a workshop called No Plotters Allowed every year or so. One question I ask people, “If you knew today that you would never sell, would you continue to write?”

I believe that if you answer yes, you’ve found your voice—because it’s so much a part of you, that you could no more stop writing than stop breathing. And once you find your voice, you’re halfway there. You might need to hone it, strengthen it, practice it, but when you find it you know.

Think about one of your favorite authors. What about their voice resonates with you? Would you recognize them in whatever genre they wrote because of their “fingerprint?” Would you follow them wherever they went because you love the way they “sound” in print? 

All the Murderati authors have strong voices–but Toni McGee Causey is truly unique. Perhaps because she’s humorous as well, something that is not only difficult to write but rare in a thriller. I find myself attracted to comedy because it’s something I can not do. I’ve tried. My agent told me I’m not funny. (She denies it, but it’s the God-honest truth.) So I particularly enjoy authors who write with a humorous voice–dark or light.

I flipped open the first Bobbie Faye book, CHARMED AND DANGEROUS, and found this opening for Chapter Seven:

Bobbie Faye had barely turned toward him when Trevor took her gun–so quickly, she hadn’t even known he’d done it until he waved it at her.

“You can decide to shoot me later.”

“Oh, sure, make promises you won’t have to keep after I’ve drowned already,” she said, hugging herself, trying to sustain the snark in order to fake the calm while the water rushed into the truck and crept up her calves. She was calm, damnit. Of course she was calm. She was so one-with-the freaking-calm that after she had drowned, they were going to call her St. Bobbie Faye, Patron Saint of the Calm People. There was a big drawback to that, because calm people don’t really need any help and only the crazies would be haranguing her in the afterlife. Fuck.

Trevor snapped his fingers in front of her face and she lasered a glare at him.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked, leaning past her, grabbing the flashlight from his glove box.

“I’m a little busy working out my afterlife schedule, thank you very much.”

So last time Murderati regular Billie won books from Toni and me, and to celebrate our dual release month of August (Toni’s WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON comes out this Tuesday, and my CUTTING EDGE came out last Tuesday) I’m giving away more books. Yeah! Free books! So comment about voice–or anything for that matter!–for a chance to win SUDDEN DEATH (by me) and CHARMED AND DANGEROUS (by Toni) both firsts in a trilogy.

 

At least a dozen times these last two weeks I’ve heard or thought about something and said, “OH! That would make a good blog for Murderati.” But as I sit down today to write a blog, none of those past quasi-brilliant ideas are coming to mind. I’m on overload. I’ve been on the East Coast for eleven days and very ready to go home.

I completely enjoyed Thrillerfest and miss New York and the Grand Hyatt. I’ve also been enjoying RWA, though I’m tired. Unfortunately, I’ve been sorely disappointed with the Marriott-Wardman Park where I am at the RWA conference, except for the extremely helpful staff member available near the registration desk who should be given a raise because she’s one of two staffers who smiled, the other being the friendly clerk at the shipping counter downstairs.

Since I just came back from the St. Martin’s book giveaway, I was thinking about what, if anything, I’d change about Thrillerfest and what I’d change about RWA to make the conferences better. What do they do right that the other group can take to make their conference even better?

First, you have to understand the differences between the two organizations. I blogged about this on Thursday at Murder She Writes, which is really geared more toward romantic suspense of all stripes.

In a nutshell, ITW is an author-centric organization with a strong author support structure. I would not change that. It’s what makes it appealing to me as a romantic thriller and supernatural thriller author. They do it extremely well, and amazingly keep getting better. RWA is a writer-centric organization with a strong writer support structure. There is no better organization to begin with to learn not only the business but the craft of writing. There are a lot of amazing storytellers out there who just need a little guidance in order to make a good story great. Whereas 80% of the members of ITW are published, only 20% of RWA members are published. And that’s okay because of the mission of each organization.

So keeping in mind the mission of each organization, I’ve thought about how each group could become stronger in support of their mission.

ITW: International Thriller Writers

The ITW author signings are twice a day after morning and afternoon workshops. For thirty minutes, the authors who presented during the previous “session” sign books after they are purchased.

Unfortunately, these signings are short, crowded, and cumbersome. They feel tacked on and almost like an afterthought.

RWA has two hugely successful programs. The first is the literacy signing where publishers donate books. It is open to the public. Readers—not just conference attendees—can come in to purchase books and all proceeds go to literacy (this year raising over $60,000.) RT has a similar signing, but it’s run through a bookstore similar to the way ITW does it now, though like RWA it’s during one two-hour time period and also open to the public.

It seems to me that having one larger signing open to the public—whether a literacy signing or a traditional bookseller signing—would draw in the public and allow for a larger venue and more potential sales and/or exposure. We (i.e. the authors) would be able to promote it to our newsletters, helping not only ourselves but other authors who our fans may enjoy. ITW can promote it to local media. Perhaps we can entice the bookseller to donate 20% of the proceeds to literacy. Something to draw in readers, encourage librarians and the participating bookstore to advertise it in their stores and libraries during the weeks leading up to the big event. We can even name it something catchy like The Big Thrill: Live. (Ok, that’s bad, but you get the point.)

The second book signing that RWA does is the publisher giveaways, where to promote their authors (and as a benefit to conference attendees) publishers put on a “signing” and give away free books. The authors are present to sign. It’s in many ways better than leaving books on tables or chairs because it gives face time with fans or potential fans, and it’s a great way to introduce new authors. I don’t personally think that this is a good idea for ITW, as there are far fewer authors in attendance, but it might be something to think about for the debut authors who people might want to try but aren’t sure about spending the money without a taste.

If I had my way, I’d opt to have the single two-hour signing on (for example) Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon and find ways to bring in readers who aren’t registered for the conference. 

 

RWA: Romance Writers of America

RWA provides valuable information to writers of most levels, from the just-starting to the established author. Their workshops are fantastic and varied and writers can pick and choose based on their craft level and experience. I’ve generally be impressed with the quality level of the presentations, and I’ve particularly enjoyed the PAN (published author) workshops that avoid the basic craft issues and focus on business issues. Because of the vast numbers of RWA, we can draw a wide variety of people to present workshops and offer unique experience and information. RWA is also unique it that it offers a huge support and networking opportunity to unpublished authors that is, frankly, unsurpassed by any other professional writers organization. The sheer size of RWA helps in providing opportunities to a vast number of writers.

However, in RWA’s effort to appeal to all their members, they’ve extended that to the workshop presenters. I was puzzled when I noticed for the first time (after a publishing professional commented on it) that there were many craft and business workshops being offered by unpublished authors. Perhaps this “me scratching head” moment was because I had just come back from Thrillerfest where during the Craftfest portion we had such incredible instructors as Lee Child and Lisa Gardner (my heroes.) Unless the writer has another area of expertise—such as they are a copyright attorney as well as a romance writer and talking about copyright law—I don’t see the benefit of learning the craft or the business from writers who haven’t sold.

I think it would benefit the unpublished members of RWA—as well as the published members—to find instructors who are established and well versed in the subject they are teaching. I have nothing against unpublished writers talking about an area of expertise, but if they haven’t sold I don’t think that they are the best person to talk about how to write, market or promote a book.

I am a huge fan of both RWA and ITW. I think they serve their members very well, and in no way can they be all things to all writers. These are just two things I noticed after the back-to-back conference where I think that each organization can learn from the other to the benefit of their members.

I’m interested in what you all think as well. What do you like about going to conferences? Published or unpublished or non-writing readers, how do you benefit? Why do you go . . . or not go? Comments, theories, suggestions? If you aren’t a writer, would you travel thirty, sixty, ninety minutes to attend a booksigning with multiple (more than 50) authors?

I won’t be able to respond until tonight, as I am flying home today, but I will respond once I get home and settled (unless my plane is delayed, then I’ll be posting angrily from the airport.)

Oh! And the winner of SUDDEN DEATH by me and CHARMED AND DANGEROUS by Toni is . . . .Billie!!!! Please email me your snail mail address and I’ll get those out on Tuesday. Congratulations!

By Allison Brennan

Genre is important. So important that publishers market to genre expectations and authors write to genre expectations. Not because they are selling out, but because they want people to know–in a moment–what type of story they’re getting. If it’s a mystery, there needs to be a crime or puzzle to be solved. If it’s a thriller, there needs to be a fast, page-turning pace and high stakes. If it’s a suspense, there needs to be high, page-turning tension. If it’s a romance, there needs to be a happily ever after. If it’s a paranormal, there needs to be fantastical elements–be them grounded in the “real world” like Kay Hooper’s psychic FBI series or urban fantasy like Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake vampire huntress or true fantasy like Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings.

Genre blending is popular with both authors and readers because we like to take common, accessible story elements and twist them a bit to make something just a little bit different. Romantic suspense is a blended genre that has become it’s own separate genre from which other genres can be blended.

In romantic suspense (or romantic thrillers–same thing, just romantic thrillers, IMO, focuses more on the thrill than the romance and romantic suspense tends to be more romance driven. But that’s just my personal definition.) Anyway, my knee-jerk definition of romantic suspense is, “A thriller with a hero and a heroine who both live and are together at the end of the book.” But the truth is, there is a broad range of romantic thrillers, with very light on the suspense (my very good and talented friend Roxanne St. Claire writes the incredible Bullet Catchers series which has a suspense subplot, but the romance–with hot guys–take center stage) to very light on the romance (such as one of my all-time favorites–even before she gave me a quote for my FBI Trilogy–Lisa Gardner who writes thrillers with relationship subplots, such as her Quincy/Rainey series or Kim/Mac.) Some authors are very well balanced, such as the incomparable Linda Howard.

With the wide range of romantic thrillers, it’s no surprise that those of us who are writing them start incorporating other elements.

JD Robb’s futuristic romantic suspense novels, her IN DEATH series, is one of the strongest out there. Set in 2059, she has a compelling mystery, strong characters, and a constantly developing and growing relationship between the richest man in the universe (Roarke) and New York City’s top cop (Eve Dallas.) I remember Kay Hooper as one of the first to write a back-to-back-to-back trilogy, in 2002 I believe, with her SHADOW books, introducing psychic FBI agents. Real life crimes solved by real life FBI agents–who had a six sense. It added an interesting twist on an established genre.

In 2003, before I sold, I had sent out a bunch of queries for what ended up being my debut novel, and while I was waiting for responses, I came up with an idea I really loved. While it was still vague in my head, I wrote a few chapters. What if an evil coven releases the seven deadly sins into the world? What if the seven deadly sins were demons? Who could stop them? How?

I ended up selling my romantic suspense, and I put the seven deadly sins series on the back burner. Partly because I knew, in my heart, that I didn’t have the skill to write the story I could picture in my head. Nor did I have the discipline to write it. This isn’t to say that romantic suspense is easy or formulaic, but there is a comfort in writing genre fiction. I KNOW that my hero and heroine are going to live. I KNOW that the crime is going to be solved. I may not know anything else about the story, but the two musts of the genre keep me focused toward the goal. And I’ll admit it’s really fun to throw lots of danger in the mix and figure out how on earth these characters are going to survive.

Twelve romantic thrillers later, and I am on the verge of completing the first of my Seven Deadly Sins series. ORIGINAL SIN will be released on January 26, 2010. I’m excited and scared to death at the same time.

Genre is like comfort food. You always go back to it because it makes you feel good. It’s there when you need it, it’s satisfying, it’s rich and full and thoroughly delicious. You know what to expect. This is good.

As Alex said yesterday (and no, we didn’t plan to blog on similar topics!):

The challenge of genre is delivering something unique and compelling within a proscribed form.

Now, I happen to be grateful for a proscribed form, because it gives a shape to a story from the very beginning, and let’s face it, when you first embark on a project, story is a vast and amorphous mass, or maybe that’s mess. Any signposts in that chaos are lifesaving.

Amen. This is why I love forensics. When I get stuck in a book, I focus on the evidence. What do my characters know? What is my villain doing? What does the evidence show? It’s a signpost that keeps me focused on the GOAL which is solving the crime in (hopefully) a “unique and compelling” way.

In all fiction, but paranormal in particular, worldbuilding is crucial. One definition:

Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world, usually associated with a fictional universe.

Okay, I see that . . . but is the world completely imaginary? According to the continuing article it is, including:

It describes a key role in the task of a fantasy writer: that of developing an imaginary setting that is coherent and possesses a history, geography, ecology, and so forth. The process usually involves the creation of maps, listing the back-story of the world and the people of the world, amongst other features.

This is where I diverge. Worldbuilding does not necessarily mean a completely new world. What if we like the one we have? I do. I don’t have to create a map, for example, or an entire history. There’s enough in our own several thousands of years that will do nicely. I’ll just pick and choose what I want, and then adhere to those rules.

So I’m worldbuilding . . . but I’m not.

I created a fictitious town in Central California between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. I call it Santa Louisa and it’s home of the Lost Mission of California, or Santa Louisa de Los Padres Mission, which was “lost” because it was built too far off the mission trail. 

I’ve always been fascinated by a noble group of people who band together for the common good, battling evil to protect the many from violent death. Isn’t that what crime fiction is all about, anyway? Cops, prosecutors, and others battling personal demons while saving innocent people from violence, solving a crime, and catching the bad guy.

Really, my seven deadly sins series is the same thing. Just not cops, and their battling inhuman evil, not only human evil (though they battle that, too.)

And in worldbuilding, according to several articles, you have to answer a bunch of questions about your world and the people who populate it. Hmm, that sounds a bit too much like plotting, so I skipped it.

But as I wrote the first book, I needed some basic rules. I couldn’t just make them up as I went. (okay, okay, I admit it. I made it all up as I went. That’s what revisions are for, to clean up the messy beginning.) I grounded everything in the real world. I have a sheriff as a main character, for example, who investigates the crimes as any cop would. But she knows there’s something supernatural at work as well. Her theory and focus is that if she can stop the HUMANS responsible for summoning demons, she can beat them. She’s grounded in law and order; right and wrong. 

The hardest part of creating this world (read: writing the book) was figuring out the rules the villains had to follow. I couldn’t have magicians ala Harry Potter flying around on broomsticks, but in truth, the occult is essentially the practice of magic–controlling physical and supernatural forces.

When in doubt, I fall back to research books. Over the last two years I’ve lined my shelves with a wide-variety of religious and supernatural and occult books. In my crime novels, I get inside the head of the villains; I had to do it with the coven as well. And I learned a tremendous amount of information about what true witches–magicians–aspire to. It’s not about making a deal with the devil–in fact, one author commented that it was the weak magicians who resorted to pacts with demons–it was about amassing enough power and knowledge to gain control over supernatural forces.

That gave me exactly what I needed. Real-life beliefs and mythology (for lack of a better world) that I could build into a fictional occult group. They have immense power because they have honed their skills, but there are physical and emotional limits to their power. This isn’t Samantha Stevens twitching her nose, or the Charmed sisters casting spells.

As I finish up book one, I noticed something about how I wrote it. When I got stuck, I fell back into my comfort zone: forensics. The investigation. Trying to figure out how someone died when there is no physical evidence. When I didn’t know where the story was going, I went over to the sheriff, my comfort character, to see what she was doing. She’s the cop, the real-world foundation. Once, she was interviewing a suspect in his best friend’s murder. Oh, an interrogation! I can write that.

And his answers gave my the big break I needed for my characters to figure out what was going on. Wow. I love it when a story comes together.

All this is leading me back to one of Alex’s main points: that genre provides a signpost in chaos. And I so needed to hear that right now.

Toni and I have often talked about what happens when you write a book that doesn’t fit neatly into the mold. Toni’s BOBBIE FAYE series (book two: GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE GUNS is out as of last week!) doesn’t neatly fit the mold of thriller or romantic suspense–it’s sort of an combo. And when you already have one established “blended” genre (romantic suspense) it’s hard to tack on another genre to “re-blend.”

But the book is incredible. One of the most fun series I have ever read. But when you blend too many genres, you sometimes get stuck in the middle of the Dead Zone–also known as the “general fiction” aisle. These are where the out-of-genre books go to (usually) die. At least, commercially die because most commercial readers browse the genre sections first.

I have written twelve romantic thrillers. They are in the romance section of the bookstore. (And there’s a reason for that, some good, some not-so-good, but that’s a blog for another day.) I’m happy in romance. I have a happily ever after in all my books and the bad guy ALWAYS gets what’s coming to him. (If I killed off the heroine and the bad guy sometimes got away, I’d be in suspense, but I’d be depressed and wouldn’t write anymore, so that’s that.) But it’s true that my books tend to lean a little heavier on the suspense side.

Now add on another tag: paranormal. My series is a paranormal romantic suspense.

But there’s no genre tag for that.

Which really screws me.

My base is in romantic suspense. Thus, my book is listed as a “paranormal romance.” Which really doesn’t fit. There IS a romance, but it’s a multi-book relationship arc. And there is paranormal, but it’s grounded in real-world mythology and physics. For example, one plot point in either book two or three (I’m not that far yet!) is the reality that in America, witchcraft isn’t illegal and summoning demons from hell isn’t illegal, so if you kill a witch who summons a demon from hell, and you get caught, you’re going to stand trial for murder.

I feel like I’m in genre limbo. I’m not trying to write outside of genre, because I love genre fiction. 97% of my fiction shelves are genre. But I’m neither “paranormal romance” or “supernatural thriller”–I’m both. I’m a “supernatural romantic thriller” . . . but there’s no code for that in the system.

Sometimes, the system needs fixing. Because creative people can and will mix and match genre to entertain readers. It’s what we do.

So, I was thinking about some of my favorite “paranormal” stories. THE MATRIX and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK; SUPERNATURAL and FRINGE; and THE STAND by Stephen King. They all have one thing in common: real, ordinary (or extraordinary) people in the real world with a paranormal twist.

Hmm, is it any surprise that’s what I’m writing now?

Do you like the supernatural? What are some of your favorite paranormal movies, tv shows, books? Comment and you get a two-fer . . . two books for the price of one comment. Bawahaha — you’ll get CHARMED AND DANGEROUS by Toni McGee Causey (Bobbie Faye book one) and SUDDEN DEATH by me (FBI Trilogy book one.) 

And a winner! The winner of last week’s contest hosted by Toni and open to everyone who commented on the “Dear Summer” entry is Marisa. She did not register an email with us, so Marisa, please contact Toni at toni [dot] causey [at]gmail.com. Thanks for playing!

 

 

 

By Allison Brennan

Stephen is jealous. He told me so on Facebook.

On Thursday I took the day off from writing (the day—not the night!) and participated in drills with the FBI. FBI Swat has a training program for agents and local law enforcement, and generally has a good mix of cops. The training program is for established and new agents to improve on their tactical procedures and includes class work, lectures, and drills. The more training a cop receives opens up more opportunities down the road for advancement or special assignments, so these type of programs and generally popular.

And I got to play this time!

The call (via email) went out on Tuesday asking for volunteers to play bad guys during tactical drills. Of course I replied, “Pick me!” On Thursday I headed over to the former McClellan Air Force Base for my assignment. I parked, so a bunch of firefighters training, and went that way . . . it was the wrong way, but a chivalrous fireman escorted me to the opposite end of the structure to where the feds run their drills.

I met up with Brian Jones, the FBI SWAT Senior Team Leader and Trainer (whose motto is “Failing to Train = Training to Fail.” I’d first met Brian when I participated in the FBI Citizens Academy last year. He let me blow up stuff, so he’s one of my favorite people. He’s also a fan—I gave him and his wife a book last year, and they have since bought my backlist.

The set up is multiple stations where teams of eight are run through life-like scenarios in order to improve their tactical response to common situations. The four stations this day were the “House of Pain” which is a hostage situation; traffic stops (which I believe is the most dangerous for law enforcement); searching; and serving warrants (my drill!)

I was able to observe all the stations except the hostage drill because I couldn’t see it from my vantage point on the catwalk during our “break.” But I learned tremendously from the other drills.

The guns involved all discharge paint bullets (I’m sure there’s a technical name for these, but I forget) and we’re all required to wear protective gear because being hit by the projectile hurts. There were two air force MPs running the drills with us, and they took the brunt of the hits. Both had torn shirt sleeves and bruises by the end of the day!

The searching drill—for lack of a better name because I missed the initial set-up—had a team going into a house searching for a known felon. There were two or three people hiding in the “house” and the primary purpose was to teach the team how to expeditiously and properly search the facility and stay safe. Whenever cops go into a residence with minimal intelligence, they put themselves at risk. So the drill was to give them a practical experience. Each team went through each drill twice under different scenarios (for example, the role players may be told by the trainer to be compliant in one drill, but in the next resist, or hide—or in one drill be unarmed, but in the next be armed.)

One drill had a girl hiding in a couch hide-a-bed. Just a month before, the trainer had been involved in executing a search warrant where two prostitutes hid in a hide-a-bed for three HOURS before they were found. The room they were in had been declared clear—but obviously it wasn’t. In another drill, a bad guy was hiding behind a door that was open. There was another suspect in the open room, who was dealt with appropriately, but the agents had intelligence that there were two men in the facilities, so they went down the hall to search the last room . . . then the door slowly opens and the “bad guy” (Air Force Raven Jeff) opened fire. (NOTE: I learned all about the Ravens, a special security unit in the Air Force that has only been around for about ten years. It’s going in a book someday . . . )

Every team was caught with multiple injuries (probably fatalities) before the bad guy was taken (killed.)

I was up on the catwalk and I couldn’t see the bad guy, but I could see that there was space behind the door and I wanted to shout, “Look behind the door!” Don’t these guys ever go to movies? LOL.

In the traffic stops, there were multiple scenarios, but each ended in a shooting, and as I watched I couldn’t help but remember several high-profile traffic stops that ended up with cops dead.

Every drill we ran had elements taken from real-life tactical situations, so these weren’t just classroom fantasy scenarios.

Okay, now the fun part—my drill.

My group had four role players. In Drill #1, the agents had an arrest warrant but not a search warrant so they had to talk themselves into the house. In Drill #2, they had a search warrant.

I played the belligerent, white trash wife. My “husband” Larry was a drunk known pedophile. The arrest warrant was for “Billy” who was a pimp who transported an underage prostitute across state lines (a federal crime.) The prostitute was played by an 18-year-old- FBI intern, and “Billy” was really another Air Force MP.

The cops had to talk their way by me, and I didn’t want to let them in. My orders were to make them “work” for it, so they had to try different approaches. I made the first team really work for it, and it was fun. In the middle of my demanding ID, complaining, not wanting to let anyone into my house, and asking if they wanted Larry, my good-for-nothing husband (using appropriate profanity along the way), Larry would come out of the back and start swearing and stumbling and ordering me to shut the effing door. I’d push him and tell him not to effing tell me what to do (which is probably what I would do if my husband acted the same way—before I packed my bags and left. Hmm, but if I knew he was a pedophile, I’d probably be on my way to prison because he’d be dead or castrated. But I digress.)

It was usually this point that I’d swing open the door and tell the cops to go ahead and do whatever they damn well pleased, while still fighting with Larry—they had to deal with a domestic situation before the primary arrest warrant could be served. I was cuffed, searched, and questioned about who else was in the house and who had guns.

The second situation, Larry and I were in bed (asleep!) and the cops had a search warrant. We didn’t get up—they had to break in. And then search, not knowing how many people were in the house. This was a little scarier than the first scenario, and I was also cuffed, made to lie on the floor of my “bedroom” because of the unstable situation in the hall.

I learned later that our drill was also a deadly force drill. In the second scenario, “Billy” came out of hiding after the prostitute escaped from him, and he had a gun to his head.

Do you shoot him?

The primary exercise is to help cops learn and understand deadly force policy, but to ascertain their personal deadly force policy in different situations.

Do you shoot a man with a loaded gun to his head?

Yes.

Why?

Because action beats reaction every time.

During the last rotation, the trainer told the group that every time they ran the scenario where the agents were told not to shoot until the muzzle moved from the suspects head, an agent was injured (shot with a paint bullet.) Every single time. Because the suspect has the intent and “inside knowledge” so to speak, and the agent is reacting to the movement, which delays response.

The best part of the scenarios was listening to the trainer after the drill go through and tell them what they did right and wrong. For example, one team didn’t cuff or search me in my first scenario, which puts a potentially dangerous people (if I had a gun hidden on me) behind their line.

They only do this once a year in my hometown, and I hope they invite me back next time! I might be willing to get shot then.

What’s valuable for me, as a civilian, is to see first hand the pressure and split-second decisions that cops have to make in the field. It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback, but when things are happening now and an innocent life is in danger, they have to rely on their intel and their training to obtain the best possible outcome.

I didn’t think anything could beat the morgue, but the SWAT drills surpassed it by far. And I can hardly wait to go to Quantico this fall.

For me, as an author, I gain a lot of insight not only into practical situations, but into the people involved. It’s invaluable.  And a hell of a lot of fun.

By Allison Brennan

After reading Brett’s post on Thursday and Stephen’s post on Friday, I suddenly felt the urge to also talk about research.

While Brett and Stephen’s research trips sound wonderful, my approach to research is a bit different. Part of this is from necessity. As a mom of five, all of whom are still at home, overnight travel is difficult. Day trips are much easier. I toured the Sacramento County morgue (which you can read more about in July’s issue of RT Book Reviews) and I participated in the FBI’s Citizen’s Academy, an eight-week course (of sorts) that many jurisdictions around the country hold. In mine, I had a wonderfully eclectic group of fellow students—a prosecutor, a bank VP, a field rep for a US Senator, a labor lawyer, the children’s home director, and the guy who owned a vehicle light company specializing in undercover cars.

I stumbled into being invited to participate in a session while researching TEMPTING EVIL. I had a secondary character, fugitive apprehension specialist Mitch Bianchi, who was tracking an escaped convict. He followed him from San Quentin (after the big earthquake that destroyed it in KILLING FEAR) to Montana. I was working on revisions and had a few questions that my regular contacts couldn’t seem to answer, so I somehow made contact with the PIO of the Sac FBI. Once I was cleared by Washington, I sent him a bunch of questions.

Low and behold—my entire set-up was wrong. Mitch would never have tracked the fugitive through multiple jurisdictions. If he had information that the fugitive was in another state, he would contact that jurisdiction and they’d follow up.

This was not good news. I was on a tight deadline—I was working on editor revisions, the book was DONE, and I was just cleaning it up. I couldn’t change his character because that would change the whole book—and I’d introduced him in the first place because he was to be the hero of the next book and his obsession with tracking this fugitive was crucial to that story as well.

I asked the PIO a bunch of questions, trying to dig myself out of the hole I’d written (thank you television) and then hit on the right question.

“Well, if an agent disobeyed orders or broke the rules by following a fugitive into another jurisdiction without following established protocols, what would happen?”

The answer? Anything from a reprimand to termination.

I love shades of gray!

Now only did this work for the book (and saved me a major last minute rewrite) but it worked for my character. Mitch doesn’t play by the rules, he’s been reprimanded many times and gone before the Office of Professional Responsibility more than once. He’s also smart, dedicated, and decorated.

So at the beginning of the next book, Mitch is off the case because of his blatant disregard of direct orders in TEMPTING EVIL, and is confronted with another difficult choice. I had not only established his character, but his initial internal conflict in PLAYING DEAD. It worked so well you’d have thought I’d planned it.

Which of course I didn’t. Because, well, you know I don’t plan out such things. Dodged another bullet THAT time.

After eight weeks in the citizens academy, I met more than a dozen agents, many of them squad leaders. Some of them were a bit bureaucratic for my taste, some of them a bit too authoritarian in their approach to law enforcement. But the majority of them were simply dedicated cops who liked their job. The head of Violent Crimes and Major Offenders was fantastic. He had fun with his job. He acted the most like a street cop, someone who probably didn’t work well behind a desk—a lot like my hero, Mitch. (But in my books, the head of VCMO is a woman.) The SWAT team leader is probably tied with VCMO as my favorite. He’s a former Marine and was sent to Afghanistan as part of an ERT to work several bombings. (And he let me blow up a coffee can in the back lot. How cool is that?) The former Texas female cop who worked closely with the Sheriff’s Department to stop child prostitution was also hugely compelling in her down-to-earth presentation on how these girls get into soliciting themselves on Craigs List. (Or, I should say, how they are manipulated and used into having their pimps prostitute them on Craigs List.) 

I got to dust for fingerprints, analyze blood spatter, and spent a day at the shooting range. (I won an award—“My Characters Shoot Better Than I Do.” I’m taking lessons from a retired cop this summer so I can, ahem, prove myself worthier than my characters. But I have excuses—after my kids were born, I stopped going to the gun range every week, and I did much better on the practice round, choking on the competitive round. And I shoot a .357, and they had me shooting 9mm. Where’s Toni when I need her, dammit?)

Anyway, being a graduate of the citizen’s academy has some perks—namely, I’m going on a trip to Quantico this fall. Perfect timing, too, since I’m launching a series in late 2010 staring Lucy Kincaid which will take place in part at Quantico. I am so excited about the trip I can hardly wait! (Sorry to rub it in, Stephen. LOL.)

Another fantastic thing about the academy is the ideas that started coming. The research I love the most is not about forensics, or shooting, or the rate of decomposition—though all that is fun and extremely interesting. But the research I love the most is people.

Why do people do what they do? What makes them tick? Why do they become cops or soldiers or FBI agents or doctors or lawyers or killers? I am hugely fascinated by human psychology. While my husband prefers to figure out how things work, I like to figure out how people work.

One young agent who specialized in domestic terrorism shared a case he’d worked where ELF (Earth Liberation Front) were claiming responsibility for setting construction sites on fire. He went through the entire investigation and how they caught them. The whole thing was fascinating largely because the agent really understood how these kids thought (and they were all older teens/early 20s.) He didn’t condone or condemn them, other than of course their illegal activities, but explained why they did things the way they did them—the psychology behind not only the crime itself, but the relations between the people involved.

He then shared a case that stuck with me. They were investigating an Anarchist terrorist conspiracy but had next to nothing. A young woman contacted the FBI and offered to be an informant. She was privy to inside information about the conspiracy that was planning on making a major political statement through bombings in Northern California. While the facts of the case were interesting, I was far more interested in why this young woman became an informant.

The way the FBI agent who worked with her talked about her, I thought he was a bit in love. (Ok, that’s the romance writer in me. So shoot me.) I started thinking about why she did what she did. What was her background? Who were her parents? How did she live? Where? I thought about writing a book very similar to the true story, but it just wasn’t working for me.

Fast forward a year.

I was writing CUTTING EDGE and my heroine is the heard of the domestic terrorism squad. I didn’t know anything about her. In fact, I thought she was a bitch and I was having a hard time dealing with her. I had a great premise and set-up, but my heroine was just not cooperating.

So I stop and thought: Who is she? Why is she a domestic terrorism agent? Why is she so confident? Why did she pick this particular focus? Who were her parents? How was she raised? What type of house does she live in? Had she ever married? If not, why? How were her past relationships with her boyfriends? What’s her relationship to her sister?

And it came to me. She’s that girl I’d heard about . . . twenty years later. I made up her backstory, imagining what type of person would become an FBI informant. Especially someone who’s raised in an environment that is naturally distrustful of law enforcement. As soon as I knew who she was in the past, I understood every action she took in the present. She was no longer a bitch–she was a bit icy, a bit callous on the surface, but with cause. And as long as I did a good job showing her motivation and goals to the reader, I believe they’ll forgive her the icy, reserved exterior.

I can’t travel a lot, or do a lot of ride-a-longs, though I long to. I live vicariously through others. I’m really good asking questions and listening to what they say . . . and don’t say. For example, my son’s former babysitter’s daughter (say that ten times fast) was in paramedic training. All I had to do was ask what she’d done that week and I had an hour long dissertation from someone who was 1) excited about what she was doing and 2) had all the information right there because she’d just gone through it. My favorite story was when she played a “hostage” during a mock high school shooting drill. As the hostage, she was actually in the room with the head hostage negotiator who was playing the bad guy, so she heard everything that was going on. (Okay, I hate to put this in writing, but boy oh boy do I wish I could have played the hostage!)

But the thing is, while I love hearing the stories, I’m not passionate about being a paramedic (or a hostage.) I’m not passionate about being an FBI Agent, or a coroner, or a private investigator. That’s why talking to people who are passionate about their jobs is so exciting. (Okay, okay, not everyone is—but my heroes and heroines need to want to be doing their job, otherwise I’m not interesting in writing their stories. Who wants to write a book about a cop who hates his job? Maybe he hates PARTS of his job, but he has to be passionate about SOMETHING otherwise he doesn’t interest me.)

It’s the human nuances that intrigue me. That’s my favorite part of research.

So in the name of research, I have a few questions if ya’ll want to share (I’ve been talking to Toni too much lately! Haha.)

What do you do for a living and is it something you love (for the most part) and why? If not, what would you rather be doing and why?

Is your passion more with your career or something you do outside your career? Why?

If you have a hobby that you spend time with on a regular basis, what about that hobby satisfies you?

 

Allison Brennan

Sometimes, I wonder why I’m so easy. It’s as if I have a tattoo on my forehead that reads: ASK ME! I’LL SAY YES!

My recent “YES!” came when Kathleen Antrim asked me if I’d present a workshop at CraftFest, the sort of “pre-ThrillerFest” craft portion of the programming.

The thing is, I need to TAKE some of those classes. I’ve always enjoyed listening to better storytellers than me share their wisdom. I don’t always agree with them, but I always take away a golden nugget that then becomes a valuable tool in my writers toolkit.

For example, Suzanne Brockmann, a fabulous NYT bestselling author, gave a workshop two months before I got my agent and sold. It was about writing connected books. Not specifically a series, like our Tess or Toni or Brett, but books where a secondary character gets a future story. I’d been thinking about writing something like that–when I first started writing THE PREY, I imagined the three Flynn siblings would each get their own book, which is why I signed up for the class in the first place (and because it was Suzanne Brockmann, storytelling extraordinaire.) But one of the brothers ends up dead, and the sister I didn’t feel any connection with by the time I was done writing, so I finished the book as a stand-alone.

Now, if anyone knows Suzanne, you know that she’s an uber-anal plotter. She has color-coded character charts and timelines. She has a 100+ page color-coded outline that takes her longer to write than the actual book. She has multi-book character-arcs. Did I mention they, too, are color-coded?

She shared with the class a link to her color-coded multi-book character chart. I nearly died. I thought, “If I have to do this to sell, I will never sell. I’m doomed.” I’m not joking, folks. I started to panic. I can’t plot to save my life. I might have hyperventilated. I’m sure I poured another glass of wine.

You might think I didn’t learn anything from Suzanne’s class. On the contrary, I learned at least two valuable lessons. 1) Every author writes differently. I don’t need to be a plotter or an organic writer or an outliner or a free-spirit. All I need is to put one word after another and finish the story–however I am able to do it. And 2) when writing connected stories, secondary characters are important. Throwing out a named character who has even a small role in the book will undoubtably lead to reader mail, and you’re pretty much wed to their backstory as you gave it in the intro book.

This actually caused me some problems in writing SUDDEN DEATH because I introduced Jack and gave him a mysterious backstory. I had absolutely NO idea what his backstory was–all I knew was that he had come home twice in 18 years–once for his nephew’s funeral, and once when his sister was kidnapped. Why? Hell if I knew then. But I was handcuffed into the details I did share about Jack, and had to develop a story with those restrictions.

Yet, it was even harder to write FATAL SECRETS where I had two main characters I had never met before and had absolutely no threads to pull from previous stories that grounded them. I had to figure out everything about them as I wrote. (Well, I knew Dean Hooper because he was Will Hooper’s brother from KILLING FEAR, in a scene that I apparently deleted in the copyedits because I can’t find it in the finished book, but I knew he was a year older, was a hotshot with the FBI, and lived in Washington. So even though the scene was gone, I couldn’t ditch that impression of him.)

Anyway, I’ve taken a lot of classes. I took an on-line class on romantic suspense taught by the brilliant and talented Lisa Gardner (who generously gave me a quote for my FBI trilogy–I love her even more now!) Margie Lawson, a brilliant psychologist, teaches a class on editing that, ahem, truly tested me. She uses color-coding to dissect writing in order to empower your stories. Yes, color-coding (sheesh, does everyone else use color-coding? Am I the only black-and-white writer out there? Black=ink; white=paper.) But I learned from Margie how to fix my prose. When I edit, I usually read outloud–and sometimes, the rhythm is off but I don’t know why. While I don’t get out my highlighter and start marking up my manuscript, I think about her advice on weak words, unnecessary repetition, and finding the emotional key of the scene. I was able to absorb her lectures and use the lessons that fit in with my writing style.

I’ve taken classes from cops, from retired CSIs, from attorneys. Before I was published, I took classes on how to write a synopsis (I still can’t write one to save my soul, but Laurie Campbell‘s fantastic class “Writing the Selling Synopsis” really helped me put together something half-way decent for THE PREY by focusing on the selling points of the story, not necessarily what I as the author thought was important.) At Romance Writers of America, I’m presenting a workshop with our Toni, her publisher Matthew Shear, and our agent Kim Whalen called “Smart Women, Short Skirts” about writing kick-ass, intelligent female characters who are STILL women.

I’ve given several workshops with Toni, and taken several, and I can tell you . . . if you’re going to RWA, you don’t want to miss this. So many workshops focus on the heroes, that writers–especially romance writers–sometimes forget to make the heroine stellar in her own right.

RWA always has an incredible list of presentations for all levels of writers, from the unpublished to the newly contracted to the seasoned professional (and they also have a special track of workshops just for published authors.) I’m particularly looking forward to the Chat with Nora Roberts, which I always seem to miss every year; Evil 101: Where True Crime Meets Terrific Fiction presented by a retired judge; and He Said, She Said: Doing the Other Sex and Doing Them Well by Andrew Gross and Carla Neggers. And more. A couple years ago, the published author keynote was a panel of book-buyers from Borders, Walmart, BN and BAMM and it was to this day the single best presentation I’ve ever heard at a conference. I learned more about distribution, buy-in, sell-through, and shelving than before and since.

Maybe because I’ve been attending RWA for years and feel comfortable there, I don’t have a problem talking about the few things I’ve learned since I’ve been published. 

But ThrillerFest is different.

Maybe because I straddle two genres I don’t know if I’m ready to present a workshop–on my own–at TFest. A panel? No problem. I love panels. If I don’t know anything I can just smile and nod at the wiser person next to me–one year in Arizona it was Sandra Brown, last year in NY it was Carla Neggers. Both very successful, long-time, talented romantic thriller writers. This year, I have a panel with James Rollins et. al., and I’ll gladly defer to the funny and talented Jim. But on my own?

Yet I said yes.

Banging head on desk. Ouch.

Honestly, I love workshops, both presenting and attending. But I still have so much to learn that I don’t know if I can impart nuggets of wisdom on my chosen topic, STORY IS CHARACTER. I believe it, I write it, I live by it. To me, the story is nothing without characters. But can I help anyone? That, I don’t know.

Anyway, I’ve gone through the list of programming at ThrillerFest and once again, I’m floored. I want to go to so many of these workshops because I know that I’ll learn something; yet I’m not going to be able to fit them all into my schedule. And some, sniff sniff, conflict.

Lee Child’s “Creating a Series Character: Some Readers Want Growth, Some Don’t. Where’s the Sweet Spot?” I mean this is exactly what I need because I’m creating a series character! Something I’ve never done before! And Jim Rollins’ class about writing three books a year and still having a life–I write three books a year, but I have no life. I want to find out where I get one. And Jim’s also on a panel on Friday about blending genre, which he did solo for my RWA chapter a few years ago and what I learned there I’ve applied to my writing. I’d love to hear him and the rest of the panel talk about the pros and cons. Then there’s the publisher/writer relationship presented by top editors and agents–something that is a must for every published author, I’d think. And of course the gun panel . . . “How to go Ballistic . . . gotta go to that one. And the panel that has Carla Neggers, Lisa Gardner, Jeffrey Deaver, John Lescroart, and more . . . I’d listen to them talk about anything. Why? Because I know that I’ll learn something. I always do.

And that’s the reason I go to the panels. To learn. Even if it’s a topic I know a lot about, often the way the information is presented makes me grow as an author and businesswoman. The minute I think I know everything about writing, the moment I say, “Well, it’s only James Rollins, what does he know?” is the minute I fail. If I’m ever going to improve as a writer, a storyteller, a businesswoman, or a person, I need to keep listening to others. It’s why I still read craft books, re-read my favorites, attend workshops, enjoy speeches, and even present workshops. Because even in the presentation, I’m learning something through the questions and through my preparation (ok, I don’t prepare for workshops. I’ll just admit that now and get it over with. It’s too much like plotting. It’s why I love Q&A best.)

One of the best teachers out there is our Toni. She gave an incredible workshop at the PASIC conference about writing for Hollywood–and shared several side-splitting stories. Sometimes, you sit down and talk with Toni and she’s just one of the gals. Fun, funny, smart, but just regular folk like me. But when she goes into “the teacher mode” she rocks. If you ever get a chance to take a workshop from her, run to it and get a front seat.

Sometimes, it’s not the workshops at conferences that yield the best nuggets of wisdom. I remember two years ago when Toni and I were at the RWA conference–or was it the ITW conference?–and she explained acts to me.

Yes, you’re thinking I’m dense. And I am when it comes to story structure. I really don’t think in terms of acts or scenes or turning points. And I don’t know how Toni and I got on the subject of story structure, but she took out a little piece of paper and drew a bunch of line graphs. One she split into a three act structure with neat little peaks and valleys, leading to the final climax, with a dip for the final resolution (the hero rides off in the sunset with his horse.) Then she drew out how someone, and I can’t remember who or what movie, changed the way the three act structure was thought about, but going up, up, up, up without the little valleys. I suppose that’s constantly escalating stakes or something, but I don’t know. She also explained the four act structure with the midpoint. I’d recently listened to a story analyst speak to my San Francisco RWA chapter about the four act structure and then ran home to check the midpoint of all my published books, certain that I didn’t have a midpoint as he defined it. But, ironically, I did have a major turning point–all seems golden, or all seems lost–at every midpoint within 10 pages. I was shocked. I just pulled open FATAL SECRETS (okay, BSP moment here, the book came out last Tuesday.) The midpoint is where the hero and heroine are learning a steady stream of information in their investigation and they are thinking they are close to victory . . . only to have everything fall apart on them shortly thereafter. And then more and more losses. And more bad news. In SUDDEN DEATH, they are at the end of their rope, the bottom of the investigation, they have no idea who’s killing these people, and then they get even worse news.

But I didn’t plan it that way. It just . . . happened.

I don’t think writers need to know why all the time. Writing is so personal in so many ways, that to dissect it kind of makes it mechanical. I don’t mind looking at the story after the fact–usually in copyedits where the process seems more clinical anyway–but I don’t consciously plan the story, plot the story, or push the story in any direction. Yet, looking back, I can see how the advice, suggestions and guidelines of great writers, storytellers, agents, editors and friends, have all unconsciously become part of my process.

We all take classes, whether writers or readers, for a day job or just for fun. What’s the best thing you’ve learned, the tidbit or teacher that keeps you coming back for more?

 

In April of 2007, I bought my first iPod. It was the fifth generation, on which I could watch television shows and movies as well as listen to music and play games. I bought it primarily to watch the second season of my favorite show, SUPERNATURAL, and the first season of HEROES so I didn’t have to wait for the DVD set to come out the following fall.

Between my husband and I, we had a lot of records and CDs. Because you are allowed to make an archive version of purchased music, I downloaded my favorite albums onto my iPod. But I didn’t actually expect to listen to the music while writing. I first plugged my iPod into my car to listen to the audio version of ON WRITING by Stephen King–read by Stephen King. If you like this book, and enjoy Stephen King, you’ll LOVE him reading it. It was as if he was sitting in my passenger seat talking to me like an old friend. And I’m not usually a fan of audio books because I can read faster than I can listen.

I was writing at Starbucks at the time, and eventually started bringing in my iPod without much thought. I realized over that summer that I found I wrote faster when I listened to music. In fact, harder and louder the rock, faster I wrote. So I went home and spent a fortune on iTunes buying favorite songs that I didn’t have on CD. My library is now over 1300 songs, though there’s roughly 250 that I listen to far more than the rest. (For example, I love Pink Floyd. But Pink Floyd is album music, and you have to listen to the entire album. For some reason, I find this distracting when I’m writing.)

I’ve realized that it’s partly to trick my mind–if my ears are focused on music, I’m not eavesdropping on conversations around me. Or distracted by birds chirping outside my home office. (I found out real quick that there’s a big difference listening to music through earbuds and listening through home stereo speakers. Only the earbuds work to focus my writing.)

When I have my earbuds in–and I invested in real nice, clear Bose earbuds–I hear and see nothing but the story in front of me. Amazing when you think of it — I thought music would be distracting. But I’m not actively listening–the music is simply in my head, giving part of my mind something to do so it doesn’t distract me from the story. Sounds strange, I know. I think because I’m so used to multi-tasking–not just as a mom, but in my previous career in the Legislature when I was used to juggling many projects and thinking about one thing while doing something completely different–I find it hard to focus on just one thing. The music helps me do that.

When talking to writers, I’ve found there are just as many who need complete silence or white noise–our Rob is one–in order to write as there are those who need music. And those who need music, there are about as many who can only listen to instrumental and those who need songs with lyrics. I’m someone who needs songs with lyrics. I think this is because instrumental music is distracting because I’m making up a visual story to go with the sound; with lyrics, that story is already there. And because I know the songs so well, the lyrics almost disappear. 

My 5th Generation iPod crashed and instead of getting it fixed, I bought the iPod Touch. I love it. (Well, I love everything about it–the sound, the calendar, the games–except for the sucky battery life.)

To celebrate my new toy, I created a playlist of music from my favorite television show, SUPERNATURAL, largely because the program plays music that I like. I bought some new stuff–songs written in the 2000s. For me, this is huge because I’ve always believed that no good music was made after about 1983. (I credit my oldest daughter with my ability to expand my musical horizons. She introduced me to some terrific, new rock music. So I can now listen to Led Zeppelin in the same playlist as 3 Doors Down; and Katie is one of the few teenagers who appreciates classic rock. She created her own playlists on my iPod and my husband’s iPod so when we drive together, we listen to music we both like.) Some of the songs are not available on iTunes, so I’m debating buying the CD. Some of the songs not available I already had–like AC/DC.

Right now I have 46 songs on this playlist, and I’m adding to it every week. “Oldies” like BAD MOON RISING by CCR; CARRY ON WAYWARD SON by Kansas; RENEGADE by Styx; STRANGLEHOLD by Ted Nugent; and TURN TO STONE by Joe Walsh. And “Newsies” like EVERY ROSE HAS ITS THORN by Poison; SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE by Muse; SPEAKING IN TONGUES by Eagles of Death Metal; and MEAN LITTLE TOWN by Howling Diablos.

I think one of the reasons I’m so tickled about finding new music that I like is because for the longest time I believed that only rap was produced for the last ten years. Lots of people–particularly young people–love rap. Great. But I don’t. If it comes on the radio station my teens like, I hit the classic rock station without hesitation. Because while there is some popular music I can tolerate, rap ain’t it.

My oldest daughter is a music addict. So much so that she did her science project on whether music had an impact on the behavior of goldfish (I still have two of the four alive in a bowl in my office . . . ) She learned they don’t like hard rap music anymore than I do–they swam erratically at the bottom of the bowl. And they love the Righteous Brothers and swam smoothly, using the full bowl. At least, that’s our story 🙂

For fun, I went to my “Top 25 Most Played” songs and was surprised at the rather eclectic top ten:

 

• Sweet Home Alabama Lynyrd Skynyrd
• I’m Shipping Up to Boston Dropkick Murphys
• We Used to Be Friends  The Dandy Warhols        
• Sunday Bloody Sunday  U2        
• I Hear the Bells Mike Doughty
• Carry On Wayward Son Kansas
• Bohemian Rhapsody Queen
• Rocky Road to Dublin Dropkick Murphys
• Spybreak (Short One) Propellerheads
• Tom Sawyer Rush

 

Some of the Top 25 surprised me (like #21 “Every Day I Write the Book” by Elvis Costello.) There’s one thing that the top 25 songs have in common–they made it onto multiple playlists. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed over the next few months . . . 

Does music help you work, whether you’re a writer or not? What are your top five most played songs on your iPod (if you have one) or what CD is in your player? 

(As an aside . . . recently my husband bought a thingie to plug a turntable into the computer to burn CDs because, alas, we don’t have a record player anymore. Can you even buy records anymore new? I don’t think so. When my 15 year old came into the room while he was lovingly fondling the ancient vinyl, she asked, “What’s that?” And VCR tapes are fast becoming obsolete as well. Does anyone remember 8-tracks tapes? My mom had a car with an 8-track tape player. Yep, I feel old. And I had a black-and-white television until I was five.)

Two weeks ago I participated in Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford’s “agent for a day” contest. I contributed the query letter I used for THE COPYCAT KILLER, my fifth completed manuscript that became my debut novel THE PREY. The contest was simple: read fifty query letters and request only five. Amidst the fifty were three published novels, mine plus two in production.

If you’re interested in the contest, you can go to Nathan’s site, my blog to read my reaction to the rejections of my query, or Murder She Writes where I reflected a bit more. I don’t want this blog to be about the contest, but since it’s Sunday and you might have some reading time, it is interesting to review the contest, especially Nathan’s post on the results and his subsequent post on concepts.

One of the comments on my blog has bugged me since I read it. Both Nathan and I had blogged that ultimately, selling was all about the writing–not whether the query letter followed all the “rules” or whether the premise wasn’t “unique.” (Seriously, it’s all been done before–and long before printing presses were invented.)

But Adam said:

A lot of people like to say this but it just isn’t as true as we’d like it to be. Marketability is more important than writing. I got a slew feedback from agents and editors that was of the “great book, very well written but I don’t know how to sell this,” variety.

On the other side of that coin, a good friend of mine has had several books published at a major house and he readily admits they aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. He had no trouble selling them though because they fit a certain market. Those books are so bad that we routinely mock them in conversation and he loves it…he also loves paying the bills with the money they make.

In short, if it’ll sell, the writing need only be mediocre. Sad but true.

I’m not picking on Adam–I don’t know him from, well, Adam . . . and he didn’t leave his email. His comment is certainly valid and based on his experience. Yet it annoyed me. Immensely.

What successful published author is going to go around and mock his readers? Because, ultimately, that’s exactly what he’s doing. It’s not that the books are “so bad,” it’s that people are willing to pay money for these allegedly “bad books.” To me, this is the epitome of elitism: “The masses don’t know what’s good” or “they’re ignorant.” 

“The masses” make the world go ’round. Commercial fiction sells because it’s entertaining. Authors with a mass fan base give their readers what they want, which is the emotional or physical feeling the reader gets from reading that author’s stories. The story is only the vehicle; readers want the feeling of the story.

Is it the puzzle of the mystery, or the feeling of being intelligent or observant we have while trying to solve the mystery with the protagonist? Is it the sex in a romance or the emotional warmth of knowing two people who love each other will live happily ever after? Is it the stakes in a thriller, or the physical reaction to a fast-paced dangerous situation? 

If a novelist is churning out books that “aren’t worth the paper they are written on” then they’re not going to sell en masse. They apparently “fit a certain market.” Obviously, a market that craves bad books.

Oh, to make a living writing bad books. That would be easy. /sarcasm.

I’m not so naive to think that every book published by a major house is outstanding and worthy of awards and NYT status. And honestly, I’m sure all of us have read a NYT bestselling book and thought, hmm, why? And then there’s the books we love that never seem to go anywhere, and we think, for the love of God, why isn’t this a #1 NYT bestseller? Is everyone an idiot?

The first time I had that “Why isn’t this a NYT bestselling author” was when I read PSYCHOPATH by Dr. Keith Ablow. You might think the name sounds familiar–he did write a #1 NYT bestselling book called INSIDE THE MIND OF SCOTT PETERSON. It was a good book. Rather simple and direct, but illuminating. But Dr. Ablow published six thrillers with St. Martins and never hit a list. They are among the best books of the genre, and he’s not writing them anymore. Probably because he’s making plenty of money in the NF world. The books are very dark and edgy, the protagonist–Dr. Frank Clevenger, a forensic psychiatrist like his creator–is certainly flawed, but they’re captivating stories.

What if we shouldn’t say, “It’s all about the writing;” and instead say, “It’s all about the story?”

Are you more willing to forgive an author who writes simply but tells a terrific story, or an author who writes beautifully but the story is mediocre?

This leads me to Adam’s key point:

In short, if it’ll sell, the writing need only be mediocre. Sad but true.

 

I’d like to know what “mediocre” means. Because if something is selling like hotcakes, I doubt it’s mediocre. There’s SOMETHING about the book that resonates with readers. And if it truly is mediocre, maybe the author is selling based on past performance–we all know this happens to some authors. They get burned out and start writing retreads. But I think I speak for most authors when I say we are always trying to write a better book than the one that came before. For me, this is my greatest struggle. I have been late turning in my last two books because of a great fear that my writing is subpar. You’d think that after writing eleven books that number twelve would be a breeze. Not! If anything, it’s harder than all the books that came before. (Okay, that’s not quite true. Number eleven, FATAL SECRETS, was the hardest book I ever wrote. It gave me fits. I wondered if my readers would allow me a dud. If my career was over. I just found out it got a top pick in RT Book Reviews. Which goes to show that authors absolutely can NOT judge their own writing.)

I think, perhaps, that Adam and his published friend have a love-hate affair with commercial fiction. Because, let’s face it, the money is primarily in commercial fiction. Read: stories for the masses. These are stories that resonate with readers because they tackle universal themes; they may be adequately written or beautiful written, but they are 1) accessible to the average reader and 2) they tell a universal story well.

Telling a story well doesn’t necessarily mean the writing is exceptional.

I recently read an email where someone had in their signature attributed to a best selling author (and I can’t remember who–but this is not my quote) “It’s hard to write a book that’s easy to read.” That sums up commercial fiction. I’ve never been offended when readers tell me my books are “easy” or “a quick read.” People are busy; I want to satisfy their human need to be entertained. And most of the time, we don’t want to work to be entertained.

I don’t want my readers to pull out a dictionary and look up words. I don’t want them to be confused or have to re-read sentences that are beautifully, but archaically, structured. For me, it’s not about the words, they’re almost the necessary evil of a story well-told. Because in the best of commercial fiction, the words themselves almost disappear.

But there are people out there who think that anything “easy” is therefore “inferior” or “bad.” Books that are fun and accessible are thus “mediocre writing.”

And sometimes that’s true. But ultimately, it’s about the STORY.

There was a brouhaha a few months ago about Stephen King saying that Stephanie Meyer was a poor writer. But he acknowledged that she was a good storyteller writing for a specific audience. I’m sure some people focused on the “she’s not a very good writer” part of the story and missed the “people are attracted to the stories” part. He commented that Dean Koontz could “write like hell” and sometimes is “just awful.” King has been self-critical of many of his own books and I, a diehard King fan, never made it through a couple of them. But King is all about the story–and most of the time, he tells it better than anyone.

Publishers want to make money. It’s business. This is something I tell myself every time I go into negotiations. It’s not personal, it’s business. Publishers want to make a profit, and publishing itself has a low-profit margin. So yes, marketability is important. Crucial. Publishers need to know where the book fits into the realm of sales. That’s why they love genre so much. It’s a romance! It’s a mystery! It’s a fantasy! They know the audience, they know how to design the cover to appeal to that audience (well, we hope they do–sometimes they, too get it wrong), and they know how to sell-in to the buyers. They’ll say, “This debut author will appeal to fans of Janet Evanovich” or in my case, my publisher put, “Julie Garwood meets Thomas Harris.” Sales needs to sell the book, and thus marketability–the value the book has to a defined readership–IS important.

But is it MORE important than the story?

I doubt it. The story has to resonate in some way for readers to pick up the next book and the next book. The story has to deliver on the story promise.

If it’s a romance, it has to have a happily ever after.

If it’s a mystery, the crime has to be solved.

If it’s horror, it has to be scary.

If it’s comedy, it has to be funny.

Marketability is important otherwise publishers don’t know where to plug in the book. Fair? No. Reality? Generally. It’s much harder as a female author to sell as a straight thriller writer than to sell as a romantic suspense writer, which is why many women choose to adopt gender-neutral names if they’re not writing romance.

It kind of sucks, really, but it’s not so much the publishers as the readers.

When I worked in the California State Legislature, it was common knowledge that if you were going to have a major tax policy or economy statement, you had a man present it. If you were going to have a major education initiative or statement, a woman had better be the speaker. This was based on extensive polling that showed that voters had a more positive impression of an economic plan if it was “male” and a more positive impression of an education plan if it was “female.”

I suppose one could argue that the industry is continuing the bias by feeding the bias. But when it comes down to it, it’s not the industry as much as deep-seated values that are neither right nor wrong. So politicians, and publishers, and every other successful enterprise will look at who the consumer is and target their idea or product to that “type” of person.

So yes, marketability is important. But if you don’t have a good story–however it is told–you have nothing to market.