Playing fair: The mystery writer's high-wire act

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Today I'm posing a wonky writing question.

Mystery writers write genre fiction. Genre. Which means there are a ton of expectations we need to meet or address. And two of them have always seemed to me to be in conflict with one another.

#1: Play fair with the reader.

This translates to: whatever the narrator knows, the reader should also know. If the narrator sees something, the reader should "see" it, too.

In other words, it's not kosher for the narrator to say, "I couldn't believe what I saw!" or "There, in the corner, I saw something that made me realize what was going on." And then not, right then and there, when the narrator has the realization, reveal it to the reader.

The reasoning here is that readers want a fair crack at solving the mystery along with the sleuth. They don’t want to feel cheated because the sleuth hid key clues.

#2: Create suspense by posing unanswered questions and delaying the answer.

This can involve saying something like, "I couldn't believe what I saw!" and then waiting three more chapters before revealing what that seen thing was.

The reasoning here is that suspense will keep reading. Turning those pages. Looking for the answers to those unanswered questions.

So I feel that push/pull when I'm structuring my tale: how to create suspense by posing unanswered questions and delaying the answer, on the one hand, and playing fair with the reader on the other?

So todays queston: How have you reconciled those competing goals to create a page turner? Or do you you just ignore both "rules" and let the chips fall?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: What a tough question, Hallie! I think I'm cheating a little bit because I write in third person with multiple viewpoints, so sometimes the reader may know things that my detectives don't.

But I absolutely play fair–my detectives never make a big discovery that the reader doesn't learn, too. I think scene and chapter breaks as the characters are ABOUT to learn something go a long way towards creating tension, but no cheating by keeping that information a secret allowed.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: When I teach my seminar on suspense, one of the works I reference is, believe it or not, Cinderella.

Everyone knows the story, and it points out the underlying basics of suspense: the reader needs to CARE about the character and the character’s goal needs to be desperately important to them. (I could go into a whole ‘nother seminar on why caring is different from liking, but I’ll save it for another day.)

I don’t think the suspense is in “I can’t believe what I saw,” because the answer to “what did the sleuth see?” should immediately lead to another question, or another obstacle blocking the sleuth from racing their goal.

An amazing example of this is K.J. Erickson’s THE LAST WITNESS, where the detective knows the victim’s husband murdered her. But he doesn’t know how and he can’t find the body. It’s a great example of the suspense coming from the character’s goal, not the solution to the murder.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I think suspense is the way authors can use time. We have control over whether time passes quickly or slowly, and can play with that to tease out suspense.

In my classes, I teach suspense with—-Baseball! It’s the bottom of the ninth, tie game, two outs, bases loaded, and the guy comes to the bat.

The ballpark is full. But! Half the people are rooting passionately for the batter to score–and the other half is rooting just as passionately for him to fail. Two groups rooting passionately for the OPPOSITE outcome! ANd it’s good guys and bad guys, depending on where you sit. It’s the highest moment of the highest stakes in baseball. We all hold our breath. WHAT will happen? In seconds we will be cheering or devastated. And the batter will be running! Or slinking back to the dugout.

But it’s the moment BETWEEN that’s the jewel of suspense. The moment before the pitch and the swing. In real life, it’s an instant. But in a book, in that intense moment of the book’s real life, the author can pause. Put the action on hold. And, depending on POV, tease that moment out while the reader is holding a hope in their minds. And then boom, come back to it.

And yes ,as a result, it’s all about motivation. What does someone want, and how far will they go to get it? Will they get it? What will happen if they fail? That’s suspense.

JENN McKINLAY: I’m a let the chips fall sort of writer. I always leave a trail back to the killer but I throw in a lot of misdirection.

I write in first or third but only one point of view so the reader is the sleuth and learns everything the sleuth does. There are no “I can’t believe what I just saw” moments as I feel that’s unfair!

RHYS BOWEN: it’s all a question of who do we trust, isn’t it? Who is good and who is bad.

I do like to play fair with the reader. Writing mysteries mainly in the first person we learn clues at the same time as the sleuth. But this is also useful for suspense if the reader puts two and two together quicker than the sleuth. She goes into a house of a person we don’t think we can trust.

HALLIE: So, as a reader, does it drive you nuts when the writer plays fast and loose with the "play fair" rule. Do contrived "cliffhangers" drive you bananas? Or do you just let yourself go with the flow if everything else is working?

Gerri Lewis knows all about death...

 

HALLIE EPHRON: As mystery writers, it's a given that we write about death.

This comes with the warning: Respect death! DON'T allow your characters to make light of death or reduce it to a plot point. Even (and especially!) when you're writing an amateur sleuth

We're supposed to engage and entertain even as the body count mounts.

Gerri Lewis comes at this challenge with with exceptional credentials and hard-earned sensitivity to the reality of death.

Her second "Deadly Deadlines" mystery (Grave Words, dropping June 10) features Winter Snow, an obituary writer who is as equipped to investigate deaths as Gerri herself is to write about them.

GERRI LEWIS: The comments I get about the character (Winter Snow) in my Deadly Deadlines Mystery series sometimes pile up faster than a publisher’s slush pile.

So, you probably want to know what a nice girl like me is doing writing about obituaries?

Writers crave praise like a chocoholic needs a daily fix because those validations can be the confidence boost it takes to write the next word. And yet, the greatest writing compliments I've ever received didn't come from the many awards and accolades I've accumulated during my career as a journalist.

The compliments I treasure come from people like the father of a young man who was barely out of his teens when he died in a car accident. The dad had pulled a yellowing news clip from his pocket and told a crowd of a hundred people at my library talk that an obit I had written had brought their family comfort.

Sometimes praise is unexpected like that from the family of a young woman who committed suicide. They used the obit to notify long distance acquaintances. Then there was the obituary I wrote about a 101-year-old woman whose family never realized that one of the many quilts she created sits in a museum.

Since the early years of my writing career when I was first sent by our local newspaper to write obituaries, I’ve become a go-to person in my community to help people tell the stories.

What I’ve learned is that obituaries aren’t only end-of-life notices. They facilitate acceptance for those grieving. They immortalize a person for their earthly accomplishments. They will live in genealogical and historical documents, community memory and on the internet for perpetuity.

I think of an obituary writer as the keeper of the collective conscience.

Not to mention, obituaries are great fodder for mystery writers.

And so, meet obit writer Winter Snow, the protagonist in my debut mystery, The Last Word, and my second book, Grave Words, releasing June 10. Winter is a 29-year-old former reporter forced to take a buy out when the paper was taken over by a large conglomerate.

I can’t think of anyone better to go through the growing pains of writing than a person who must balance the seriousness of her job with the humor she finds along the way. And who better than Winter and her friends to happen upon the deadly mysteries set in my charming hometown of Ridgefield.

If "write what you know" is an author’s mantra, I can tell you that I’ve written many obituaries. Incorporating the things I’ve learned into Winter’s character and nudging her fledgling business along while offering something sinister is great fun.

If Marie Kondo can find joy in my messy closet, then Winter Snow can find joy in writing obits.

Did the deceased survive two pandemics and two world wars?
Did they like potato chips?
Or secretly write poetry? Which makes Winter wonder—what other secrets did they have?

Obituaries are also a great segue into many other aspects of a story. How do you share historical fact without sounding like a history lesson?

In THE LAST WORD, Winter is asked to write obituaries for three Revolutionary War soldiers whose remains were found when a renovation turned to an excavation on a Main Street property in Ridgefield.

Funeral parlors, caskets and wakes are all good ways for Winter and her friend Carla, a funeral home director, to balance the somber with humor.

 Ask yourself. Would you climb into a casket to hide from a potential murderer?

So why did a nice girl like me pick an obituary writer as a protagonist? Maybe because life stories matter. Besides, as Winter would shrug her shoulders and say, “it’s a living.”

HALLIE: Gerri will be here today to talk about her high wire act, incorporating (respectfully) suspicious deaths into a page turner with an amateur sleuth at the helm.

Victoria Zackheim's novel realizes a dream -- literally

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Today it's my great pleasure to introduce you all to Victoria Zackheim. Her new book, The Curtain Falls in Paris, is just out after (mumble mumble) decades of gestation during which she was anything but idle and unpublished.

Her blurbs are the kind that are worth waiting for. Here's a rave from Robert Dugoni:

“I loved The Curtain Falls in Paris. From the enigmatic Chief Inspector Noah Roche and his nemesis, American journalist Aria Nevins, to the rich descriptions of Paris, a glorious old theater and a grisly murder backstage, reading this novel was like the joy of watching a play unfold. Zackheim’s writing is vivid, passionate and always entertaining.” Robert Dugoni, New York Times Best Selling Author of The Tracy Crosswhite Series

Victoria's is an inspiring story of perseverance and determination which began in an almost other-worldly fashion..

I'll let her tell you how it happened...

VICTORIA ZACKHEIM: The journey leading to The Curtain Falls in Paris began in 1996.

I had moved back to the States after nearly five years in Paris. (It was supposed to be three months, but that’s another story.) I was a freelance tech-marketing writer for such companies as Apple, HP, SunMicro, and my primary challenge was understanding the technology. (Yes, you can write about something in a voice of great authority while having NO comprehension whatsoever.) 

I awoke one morning, turned on the PC, and got to work.

And then a little thought arrived: Had I dreamed something? If so, what was it?

I continued working, and then another thought: Did I get up in the middle of the night, turn on the PC, and write it down?

To my amazement, there it was, a file on my computer: mystery. I opened it and found three single-spaced pages describing a murder that takes place in a Paris theater.

And so began an exercise in patience, tenacity, and hope.

Over the next twenty-eight years, I wrote, revised, tore apart, and then revised again… and again.

During that time, I created several anthologies, all under the guidance of a patient and supportive agent who loved my anthologies, but not my Paris mystery.

Nevertheless, I plowed on, trying to implement her editing suggestions. When she finally admitted that getting the novel published would require that I seek another agent, I was heartbroken. It felt like a divorce.

I was so pleased when I signed with Darlene Chan, from the Linda Chester Literary Agency. After more revisions, Darlene sent out the manuscript… and it sold!

The editor came back with that one suggestion that changed everything. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course, Chapter Four should be the first chapter. Who couldn’t see that?

Well, for starters, me.

On May 13, The Curtain Falls in Paris was published. Nearly thirty years after I had dreamed the story.

My mother often suggested that I was a late bloomer, but I was around fifty when she said that. I wonder what she would say today, now that I’m eighty… and working on the first sequel to the Paris novel, with the second sequel a jumble of ideas racing through my head. (Perhaps not exactly racing… age slows down more than just the body.)

So, Jungle Red Writers and readers, my story is about never giving up, never pushing a dream aside, and how we need to shut out those discouraging thoughts (and comments we hear from others) about not having the time, the energy, the heart or the skill.

Tell me, what is on your wish list? And what obstacles are you discovering along the way? I’d love to hear about that project, trip, adventure on your hope-to list!

ABOUT THE CURTAIN FALLS IN PARIS: It's a one-night-only performance of a glamorous play in a Paris theater, and the drama is onstage... and off... when an unscripted murder stops the performance. In this suspenseful mystery, Aria Nevins, formerly a respected American journalist with her reputation ruined by a serious lapse in judgment leading to a woman’s death, has fled to a questionable job in Paris, where she’s embedded with top French homicide detective Noah Roche and his team for one week, her task to follow them and write about their work. When Roche suspects her motives, she finds herself fighting for credibility, while trying to gain access to every aspect of the murder investigation. Each member of the play’s star-filled cast and crew is a suspect in this shocking and grisly crime. When the case is marred by false leads, an attempted murder at the theater, old loyalties, and obstacles placed in their path by entitled theater luminaries, it’s a race against time to find the murderer.

Birds! We're surrounded...

HALLIE EPHRON: As I was posting yesterday's blog about birding, I picked up my head and looked around. Yes, there are birds outside. But INDOORS I'm surrounded by them, too.

It all started with (wait for it) a yard sale. And of course it was my husband who spotted a pair of framed bird prints someone was asking $5 for. We bought them.

Turns out they're hand-colored lithographs by John and Elizabeth Gould, published in the 1830s and part of their "Birds of Europe" series. One (on the right) is a "Doubtful Sparrow" and the other a "Lesser Grey Shrike." (Aren't bird names wonderful?!)

Leap ahead to, what else, another yard sale, and he picked up a pair of framed Audubon bird prints. Not, of course, from the original folio, but big and beautiful and framed.

Then, upgrading years later, Jerry picked up a later Gould print at an antiquarian book fair. We framed it and have it hanging on the stairs.

Much funkier, there's a pair of bird prints (1950s?) that I picked up at a yard sale and have hanging in our guest room. I love them but I think I'm alone in that sentiment.

Then there's a sassy smokin' pelican that I bought for Jerry at a print shop in Baltimore. It's advertising art. French. A VERY large bird with long eyelashes. And I knew Jerry would love it.

On our mantle there's a fleet of birds. Picked up on our travels. My favorite is the cast rooster which must have been used in a fireplace. I bought it at a flea market in Spain and schlepped it all over Europe and finally home.

Then there are the bird mugs. Lots of them. Including an utterly goofy pair that our daughter brought back for us from Europe.

And finally my favorite is a collage by artist Barbara Baum. A bird (robin?) is lifting a silverly strand of words from a rain battered urban landscaping. I got it for one of my bigger birthdays. How it looks changes with the light, and what it shows is a perfect metaphor for writing.

Are you a collector? Did your collection creep up on you or was it deliberate? 

Birds are having their moment...

HALLIE EPHRON: I remember years ago when I was just working on my first mystery novel, I heard a fellow writer talking about the birding mystery series she'd pitched to a New York editor. The editor wasn't interested -- said she'd recently acquired a birding mystery. What she was looking for was a bowling mystery.

I wonder if that birding mystery would have met the same shrug today, given that birds are definitely having their moment. Amy Tan's memoir and nature book The Backyard Bird Chronicles has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 33 weeks. The memoir Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper, about birding in Central Park, was on the New York Times bestseller list for 27 weeks.

And recently it feels like newsfeeds have been full of birds. There was the widely reported story about a pileated woodpecker that was terrorizing drivers in Rockport, Massachusetts, pecking out car mirrors.

A pileated woodpecker is formidable -- it's as big as a turkey vulture, looks like Woody Woodpecker, and sounds like a jackhammer when it goes after a tree trunk.

Reading about it, I was reminded of a male cardinal that spent a week attacking our car mirror -- apparently mistaking his reflection for a rival -- and leaving the side of our white Honda Civic bloodstreaked. I wonder what forensics would make of bird blood.

Then there was the lone wild turkey (a female) who went in search of a mate in midtown Manhattan. We've got herds of them here in the Boston. Named by locals as "Astoria," apparently she's is friendly (unlike a male turkey), walks on sidewalks without bothering pedestrians, and forages peacefully for food.

As for me, my yard is full of noisy poultry looking for mates and nesting. Cardinals, bluejays, song sparrows, house finches, mourning doves, circling red tail hawks... I'm thrilled when a Carolina wren or a yellow warbler shows up in my birdbath.

Maybe it's time for me to work on a birding mystery... Or maybe it's already too late. I'm sure I'm not alone enjoying THE RESIDENCE (streaming on Netflix). Set in the White House, it features rabid birdwatcher slash brilliant detective Cordelia Cupp (played by Uzo Aduba).

Do you notice birds or are they like the weather, just the background to whatever else that's going on?

Which of our characters has the most ME in them?

 

HALLIE EPHRON: The other day I was fresh out of new titles so I plucked one of my own books from my shelf: There Was an Old Woman. And I started to read.

From Page One I was stunned. The character I created back in 2012, Mina Yetner, looks and sounds a lot like the nonfictional ME, today.

The novel opens with elderly Mina reading the death notices as she drinks her morning tea. Among the “dearly departed” she finds the name of a neighbor and adds it to her ongoing (four pages so far) list of dead people she’s known.

So far so good. Feels like a good story brewing. (I do not keep a list of the dead people I’ve known.)

“Mina found lists calming, even this one. These days she couldn’t live without them. Some mornings she’d pick up her toothbrush to brush her teeth and realize it was already wet. She kept her Lipitor in a little plastic pillbox with compartments for each day of the week, though sometimes she had to check the newspaper to be sure what day it was.”

Now THAT paragraph could easily describe me today…

I continued to read the book, amazed at how much the character of Minda Yetner, whom I wrote so long ago, feels like me now.

How did I know?? Is writing a novel the same as creating a self fulfilling prophecy?

So, today’s question: Which character in which of your books is most nearly YOU? And is there an up-side or a down-side (or both) to that?

LUCY BURDETTE: I’m amazed as I look back at how much each main character contains a kernel of me. Cassie the golfer is determined yet hobbled by her doubts.

Rebecca Butterman is serious about her work, a little lonely, completely loyal. One scene written about the next door neighbor who ends up as victim, comes directly from my life when I was newly divorced.

Hayley Snow, of course, is devoted to her family even when they drive her crazy. And devoted to food. Here she is in the opening of the first book, An Appetite for Murder.

“Lots of people think they’d love to eat for a living. Me? I’d kill for it. Which makes total sense, coming from my family. FTD told my mother to say it with flowers, but she said it with food. Lost a pet? Your job? Your mind? Life always felt better with a serving of Mom’s braised short ribs or red velvet cake in your belly. In my family, we ate when happy or sad but especially, we ate when we were worried.”

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I agree, Lucy, there’s a bit of my in all my characters, because that’s how I create them. It’s the way I was taught when studying acting; you find the kernel of experience or emotion from your own life and use that as the starting point when fleshing out the character.

That being said, I was much more like Clare when I started writing my series at the end of the Twentieth Century! I was impulsive, asking what it meant to live out my faith in a secular world, and so, so familiar with being the outsider from my childhood and young adult years.

Now, a quarter century later, I’m much more like Russ. More cautious, definitely more skeptical, and someone who can’t think of anything more pleasing than staying in my little home town forever.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Such a fun question! And the “me/not me” situation turned out to be pivotal in my writing.

When I was first trying to write PRIME TIME–my first book, in 2005!--the main character Charlotte McNally was a Boston TV reporter who worried she was getting too old-looking for her job. (You can see how I scraped the bottom for inspiration.)

But early on, I had a scene where she had to drive somewhere. And I thought: oh, this isn’t going to work, because I hate to drive, so Charlie hates to drive, and now she’ll be thinking about how to avoid it. Rats. In this scene, she really MUST drive.

And then it struck me. She’s a fictional character! She can LOVE to drive! I remember that moment, so clearly. It was the moment I realized I could make stuff up!

Charlie was as close to me as a character gets. Reporter Jane Ryland, in my Jane series, was definitely NOT me. Very different from me, except for her devotion to journalism But she is much braver.

After that, no one is ME, but of course, because of who I am and my personal experiences, no one could have created those particular characters but me.

RHYS BOWEN: I suppose we all put our values, our world-view into all our protagonists. It would be hard for me to write about someone I completely despised.

Both Molly and Lady Georgie have some of my traits. I created Molly because I wanted a feisty female sleuth with a strong sense of justice who doesn’t always know when to shut up or back off. That’s quite a lot like me in my younger years. Now I’m more mellow.

And Georgie? I have made her suffer through several of my more embarrassing situations like her brief and disastrous modeling career that mirrored mine. Also she tends to be clumsy when nervous. Also a little like me.

But they are both really young and I have to remember that they don’t have the wisdom or patience that comes with age.

On the other hand I really loved creating Mrs. Endicott for my upcoming stand-alone. A woman of middle age, the perfect British wife, who has lived her husband’s life and now has a chance to discover who she really is and what she wants. So empowering! And I loved who she becomes by the end of the story.

JENN MCKINLAY: Such an interesting question! I think there are elements of myself in many of my characters. Lindsey the librarian (occupation), Mel the cupcake baker (love of baked goods), Scarlett the hat shop owner (extrovert) – I see bits of me in all of them.

In my upcoming fantasy, I see skeptical me with childhood baggage in my heroine Zoe Ziakas.

But as for which one is most like me, I have no idea. Even in the romcoms I write, I see bits of me in the characters but not a close match to any of them as I give them drama and personally I loathe drama. LOL.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: When I first started writing my series, I felt like Duncan was my male alter ego, and I made an effort to make Gemma as different in personality traits as I could. He was more contemplative, more of an observer, while Gemma was prone to leap into situations feet first. She was quicker to judge but also quicker to form attachments that could sometimes affect her judgement.

Now I think they've both absorbed some of the other's traits, but they've also become more themselves. I'm sure I'm in the mix somewhere but I couldn't pick something out and say "that's me." On the other hand, I don't think we can imagine any characters that don't have some element of ourselves.

HALLIE: So today's question... Is there a character in a mystery novel that you can identify with? Sherlock? Hercule? Nancy Drew? Miss Marple? Stephanie Plum? Kinsey Milhone? V. I. Warshawski? Or....?

What We're Writing: Jenn Edition

 JENN McKINLAY: I finished a manuscript and page proofs, took a few days off to regroup (clean my office) and now I'm back at my desk working on proposals. 

What am I proposing? I'm working on an outline for the second cozy fantasy in the Books of Dubious Origin series. The first in the  series Witches of Dubious Origin comes out on October 28th and the manuscript for the second (no title as yet) is due on August 1st, so I need to get cracking!

PREORDER HERE

What do I have so far in my proposal? The opening scene. I want to open the story at the Museum of Literature, where the Books of Dubious Origin collection is housed, during a booklover's ball where everyone in attendance is dressed as a character of fiction. I think the hardest part will be to keep the descriptions to a minimum. 

What happens after that...I have no idea. I should. I wrote a proposal for it last year but there were some issues. I wanted to set it in London, my editor wants it in New York. I had many story lines for the supporting cast, my editor encouraged me to whittle it down to the strongest few. My version of the love interests is them hooking up in book two (it's only a two book contract), my editor would like to drag out the romance into later volumes in the series (so I guess it's going to be more than two books--yay!)!

I wish I could share the new outline but it's definitely in the pupa stage of development so we'll just have to see what comes out of the chrysalis when I turn it in on Tuesday.

Since I'm also going to start writing that first scene on Tuesday, tell me Reds and Readers, if you were going to a Met Gala level ball for booklovers, what character of fiction would you dress as? Inspire me, please.

About WITCHES OF DUBIOUS ORIGIN: 

When a librarian discovers she’s descended from a long line of powerful witches, she’ll need all of her bookish knowledge to harness her family’s magic, in this enchanting cozy fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay.

Zoe Ziakas enjoys a quiet life, working as a librarian in her quaint New England town. When a mysterious black book with an unbreakable latch is delivered to the library, Zoe has a strange feeling the tome is somehow calling to her. She decides to consult the Museum of Literature, home to volumes of indecipherable secrets, some possessing dark magic that must be guarded.

Here, among their most dangerous collection, the Books of Dubious Origin, Zoe discovers that she is the last descendant of a family of witches and this little black book is their grimoire. Zoe knows she must decode the family’s spell book and solve the mystery of what happened to her mother and her grandmother. However, the book’s potential power draws all things magical to it, and Zoe finds herself under the constant watch of a pesky raven, while being chased by undead Vikings, ghost pirates, and assorted ghouls.

With assistance from the eccentric staff of the Books of Dubious Origin department—including their annoyingly smart and handsome containment specialist, Jasper Griffin—Zoe must confront her past and the legacy of her family. But as their adventure unfolds, she’ll have to decide whether or not she’s ready to embrace her destiny.

What We're Writing: Julia on pre-Sales and Promotions

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm working on something new, but it's kind of tiny and fragile with sharp claws and needle-like teeth, so I'm not going to be talking about it for some time yet.

I can definitely talk about AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY, and in fact, my publisher would love me to do so. We're at the stage where the book's publication seems both impossibly far away and also holy cow it's coming up fast. The quantum novel: it will never be on the shelves, it will be here practically tomorrow.

My agent and editor have sent out requests for blurbs and they're coming in (many, many thanks to Rhys, who took time she couldn't spare to say very nice things about the book) and there have already been a couple pre-ordering deals. St. Martin's is running a giveaway contest at Goodreads, the second ebook in the series is priced at $2.99 all month, and Steve, my really, really nice marketing manager, has been sharing graphics with me I don't even know what to do with.

This is a "short vertical." I bet Jenn knows how to use this.

I was Zooming with my bestie in Colorado (Hi, Roxanne!) and her husband popped on to say he'd seen a promotion from Barnes & Noble and got all excited about the book being here soon and was shocked to see the pub date was November 18th.

This one's supposed to go on top of my Bluesky profile, I think.

 That's November 18, folks! Find it in fine bookstores everywhere! 

I laughed and said 1) I would send them a book so don't worry and 2) the publisher likes to get way out ahead.

But why?

I've written about what pre-ordering means to the author before: it shows the publisher the amount of reader enthusiasm, and gets bookstores excited, and more likely to up their orders. However, there's another point of view to consider: the publisher's.

I think this version would look nice silk screened on a bolster cushion, what do you think?

Book publishing, you will not be surprised to hear, is a business with slim margins. The old joke goes, "How do you make a small fortune in publishing? Start with a large fortune." Like many businesses, the Big Five try to cut material costs wherever they can. The price for print-quality paper has been rising since 2021, and the looming trade deficits won't help that trend, since a considerable amount of it comes from Canada. (67% of the "uncoated" paper used in the US - that's the stuff you stick in your printer or copy machine, as well as what you find between the covers of your favorite books - comes from our friendly neighbors to the North.)

This is for my Instagram Story. I've never done an Instagram Story! I have a feeling I'm going to let Steve down.

However, publishers have a limit to the amount of raw material they can save. Mars can sell you a mini Snickers bar, but no one is going to read a book that tops out at 87 pages because it's been printed in this size font! 

 In addition, the number of large-scale printing companies in the US have been shrinking over the past twenty years. Scheduling the when, where and most importantly, how many copies of of the book to be produced begins to look like another moon launch at times. 75,000 copies of THE WELL-LOVED DETECTIVE INVESTIGATES? Slot it in between the 25,000 run of AN MFA STUDENT'S STORY and the 200,000 copies of QUIRKY MILLENNIALS IN LOVE. God forbid two weeks ahead of time, AN MFA STUDENT'S STORY gets featured on Fresh Air with Teri Gross and you've got fourteen days to figure out how to double the print run. (I mean, that's a good problem, but it's still a problem.)

Also for my Instagram Story. I'm going to have to call Virginia in De Haag and have her walk me through this.

Every book that doesn't sell, and that has to be pulped, is a waste of resources. Conversely, getting a book on the shelves and immediately having to go back to print is expensive and can lead to a lot of upset bookstore owners who have to send those Teri Gross listeners away. "Sorry, we can have it in two or three weeks, do you want to get on the list?" is not a winning commercial strategy.

So, dear readers, this is why we have pre-sale specials, and contests and publicity and all that other stuff: so when St. Martin's pushes the button for AT MIDNIGHT COMES THE CRY, the printing presses will chunder out exactly the right number of copies to meet the demand - the demand you, dear readers, establish. Fingers crossed I outsell QUIRKY MILLENNIALS IN LOVE...

What We're Writing: Debs on Cars and Characters

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I want to talk about cars. This is partly because I just bought a new car, the first in 17 YEARS, which some of my fellow REDs will be fed up hearing me talk about!  But also because the very emotionally weighty business of making that choice got me thinking about the cars (or the historical equivalents) we give our fictional characters and what it says about them.

In my very first Kincaid/James book I gave Duncan a classic, if slightly worn, red MG Midget. It looked like this.

This is the car my ex and I owned when we lived in England. I never drove it much, because a) right-hand drive, and b) the driver's seat springs were so sprung that I couldn't see out the windscreen! But it was fun, on a sunny day, driving with the top down along the Cheshire lanes in search of afternoon tea. Not so fun when it rained and the top leaked...

So it was partly familiarity that made me give Duncan this car. I also liked that he is a tall guy and I had an image of him disentangling himself from the little low MG. In the very first scene in the book he is driving through the Yorkshire countryside with the top down on a perfect autumn day, a picture of the romantic detective.

There was, on the other hand, nothing sexy about Gemma's little Ford Escort. This was a budget, single-mom-with-baby car and you could imagine the safety seat in the back and the detritus of spare nappies, teething biscuits, and juice drinks.

In short, Duncan was a cool if slightly eccentric guy, and Gemma was underpaid, overwhelmed, and over worked.

Eventually, their lives joined and moved on. With the advent of dogs and children, the Midget no longer suited and Duncan accepted a hand-me-down from his parents, an elderly green Vauxhall estate car. In American parlance, a station wagon, and about as nerdily uncool as one could get, much to now-teenaged Kit's humiliation. 

When the Astra came to an untimely--or timely, depending on your point of view--end, it was Gemma who got the long-deserved new car, a Land Rover Discovery the same copper color as her hair, and Duncan who was left with the little orchid-colored Ford runabout. I spent a lot of time picking out that fictional new car for Gemma--almost as much as I spent picking out my own! But these cars are more than cars, they are a snapshot of the characters' personalities and of the progress--and balance--of their relationship.

So what does the fact that I drove my green Honda Accord for seventeen years say about me? If I was a character in a book, would I be frugal, dull, totally uninterested in cars, or in my image? Or would it say that I form lasting emotional attachments? None of the first things are entirely true, but the second maybe more so--I did love the Accord. And I do, actually, really like cars, and had been daydreaming about something that was a little sporty as well as practical, and RED, so this is what I bought!

With a "parchment", aka white, interior, just to prove I have a thoroughly impractical streak.

So, darling Reds, do you think about what your characters' cars say about them?

And readers, do you notice what cars fictional characters drive, and do those cars lead you to make assumptions? Do you have favorite cars in books?

(Two of my fictional heroes, Inspector Morse and Thomas Nightingale, drive classic Jaguars!)

PS! The car is a Mazda CX-5 in Soul Red Crystal.

PSS!!! I almost forgot the writing update! Besides car shopping, I have been writing!! I'm about to hit 80,000 words, which may not mean much to readers but fellow writers will recognize as a good progress marker, a good two-thirds of the book. I'm reaching the point where, as  Hank said on Monday, I've passed, "Do I really have enough for a book?" and tipped over into, "Oh my God, how am I ever going to get it all in????"

Next time I will try to find a snippet, and we will hope I'll be closing in on THE END.

Hallie's going on about what makes us stop reading

HALLIE EPHRON: Last weekend I had the great pleasure of giving a talk at CrimeCONN 2025, a day-long mystery lovers' conference at the wonderful Ferguson Library in Stratford, CT, and sponsored by the New York chapter of Mystery Writers of America.

My talk: "DEADLY DOZEN: How not to shoot yourself in the foot writing a mystery novel."

Here's me, revving up the crowd with the still sturdy Detection Club Oath, coined in 1930 by Golden Age British mystery writers who included G. K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L. Sayers.

In the process of preparing for my talk, I unearthed an article ("What makes me stop reading a mystery") that I wrote in 2009 for (the sadly now defunct) THE WRITER magazine. As part of my research for that piece, I'd interviewed our wonderful Boston area mystery bookseller Kate Mattes, mystery reader/reviewer and librarian Lesa Holstine, St. Martin's Minotaur editor Kelley Ragland, and literary agent Janet Reid.

So pause for a moment and think of the mystery novels you've started, read a chapter or maybe two, and then set the book aside. What made you abandon it: Reasons?

Here's some of the reasons the experts I interviewed said they stop reading:
1. Taking too long to get going. "That doesn't mean there has to be a murder right away but I have to be interested enough to get to the murder." (Kate Mattes)
2. A main character who doesn't actively solve the mystery. "I have to care what happens to the main character." (Lesa Holstine)
3. Too much introductory material, background information, or one-by-one introductions to the main characters complete with description. "A savvy writer jumps right into things and feathers in the necessary information as she moves forward." (Kelly Ragland)
4. A dull narrator's voice. "Voice and character can keep me reading even if nothing is happening." (Janet Reid)

What would you add to (or strike from) the list?

Rhys is in Scotland (vicariously).

 RHYS BOWEN:  When you read this I'll be on a plane, about to land in London. It will be a short trip just long enough for John to visit his sister in Cornwall and for a few days in London. We'll be seeing family and maybe doing a little shopping (and eating cream teas, Cornish pasties, full English breakfast and all those delicious things that make your cardiologist turn pale.)

This was supposed to include a trip to Scotland, to check on sites for the novel I'm writing at the moment, FROM SEA TO SKYE, but we both felt that John was not up to changing trains and going through rugged scenery. So my trip to Skye has to be entirely in my head this time.

Luckily I have been there and can picture all the scenery and there are all kinds of wonderful tools to remind me of the island. I've been gazing at the map, watching YouTube videos and spent most of last week on Google Earth. As you know, I like to keep things as accurate as possible, so I've been checking on exactly what I would see at any point in a journey from A to B on Skye. The one thing that is very clear to me is that there are so few people on the island, apart from summer visitors who come in campers. It truly is a remote and fairly hostile sort of place--bare hillsides, steep and craggy mountains and a few tiny villages, even today.

And the weather? I remember the weather so clearly. We had had a glorious week driving through Scotland. We took the ferry across to Skye with the view of the mountainous island ahead of us, and watched a magnificent sunset. It was indeed a magical sort of place. The next morning the mist had come in and had blotted out every single feature on the island. We drove around with me in the back seat, reading from the guidebook :To our left is probably the best view of the magnificent Cuillin mountains..

"Shut up," the other occupants of the car snapped. We could see literally ten feet around the car and that was it. So I never saw the famous rock formation or the Cuillins close up. We stayed three days with permanent rain, mist, cloud and finally gave up and retreated back to the mainland. So now I'm seeing the sights I missed via YouTube. Thank heavens for the internet.

I'm almost finished with the first draft and there will be a lot of editing and shifting scenes around because it's a book within a book--an old woman who is writing a story we think is fiction, but turns out to be fact. So I've a character in 1965 reading a story set in 1935 but that really took place in 1903. Yes, it's complicated!

Here is a snippet to whet your interest:

Excerpt from THE WILD GIRL, by Iris Blackburn

When McIntyre saw the size of the car ferry he was even more grateful that he had not accepted the offer of a vehicle. This car ferry was a recent addition to the crossing but it was not a huge steamer, rather a flat bottomed crate that didn’t look as if it was sea worthy, with space for only two cars at once. He watched a driver trying to maneuver his delivery van on board while the swell of the sea lifted the ramp up and down. 

To his relief he found that the passenger ferry to the island was a bigger craft, a proper steamer that looked seaworthy. He paid his money and walked on board, taking a seat at the prow of the vehicle. Across a strait of shining silver water he saw the island, a low shoreline rising to a chain of blue-grey mountains in the distance.   It was a fine blustery spring day and whitecaps dotted the sea. Remembering the way his stomach had reacted on that coach ride as a boy he hoped he was not prone to sea-sickness.  It would be ironic since his father had spent his life building boats, although to McIntyre’s knowledge his dad had never actually been on one.

                Exactly on the hour the gangplank was raised, the engine sputtered to life and the boat moved away from the dock. As it met the oncoming waves it rose and fell, sending fine spray over the side and making McIntyre hastily move into the center. He found he was holding his breath, waiting for the sea-sickness to strike. When it didn’t he looked around, rather surprised. The other passengers across from him, two women with shopping baskets and local tweed shawls wrapped over their heads and shoulders,  a man with a suitcase and an older couple, were chatting easily as if this crossing on the wild seas was the most normal thing in the world. McIntyre heard the soft Gaelic sounds of their speech, so different from the harsh Glasgow dialect. It look him a while to realize they were actually speaking Gaelic, not English and he found himself wondering if he’d be able to communicate once he got to Skye. Surely all school children had to learn English, didn’t they?

                Once away from shore the boat settled into a more gentle rhythm, rocking from side to side as it turned toward the island, as if it was in a giant cradle. Unbidden the words of a song came to McIntyre—a song learned by every school child in Scotland. Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing, onward the sailors cry. Carry the lad who was born to be king over the sea to Skye.

                The Skye Boat song, telling of Bonnie Prince Charlie, escaping from the English after his failed attempt to gain the throne. He’d been assisted by the local Scots and got away safely after risking the stormy sea crossing, remaining a romantic figure for all Scots. Anything that defied the English was treasured here in Scotland, where they were still seen as the invaders and conquerors after all those hundreds of years. As McIntyre hummed along to the rocking of the boat a strange felling came over him.  His first time leaving the shores of his birth, being transported, like Bonnie Prince Charlie, over the sea to Skye. It almost felt like a rite of passage, as if he was leaving the shackles of his past life behind him and was somehow being reborn, free to be the person he wanted.

The story takes place in an inhabited castle and there are several for inspiration. Such atmosphere. I'm having fun writing it.

So fellow writers especially, who uses Google Earth? Isn't it wonderful, how you can go down to street level and there you are? I love it.

From Sea to Skye comes out July 2026.

What Hank's WRITTEN!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Fanfare! Ruffles and flourishes! I am so incredibly excited. I am writing this at 6:11 PM on Monday, and yes, that is very very late to be writing a blog for Tuesday but there is a reason.

My book was due Monday. Yes, ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS will be out this September. It’s all done! But I’ve been working for the last year on the next book.

Which I cannot tell you the name of, because it is not final, but you will hear it here first. it will come out in September of 2026, a date that I cannot fathom.

But here is the year in the life of my new book.

1. I will never have a good idea again.

2. I will never have a good idea again and my life is over, and I am utterly and totally doomed. I have no idea how I wrote my other books, and I will never be able to write another one. What am I going to do? I'm going to have to tell everybody that I cannot do it, and no one will be happy about this. Plus, I will have to give back the money.

3. I have an idea!

4. It's a terrible idea. I will never have a good idea again.

5. I have a possible good idea. Possibly. It's possibly a good idea.

6. It's a terrible idea. I am so doomed, there isn't even a word for that.

7. I have a good idea. I do, I really do. This is going to work.

8. It's a fabulous idea, I cannot wait to write this. I type “Chapter 1.” I am so excited, I fly through the first chapter. I fly through the second chapter. New York Times bestseller, here we come. There’s a story question, there’s conflict, there’s a wonderful main character. Or two.

9. When I hit page 36, I know it is a big turning point, if I can get to page 37 the idea will hold up for the rest of the book.

10. I hit page 37! I rock, I am such a rock star, the process never fails me, this is absolutely going to work.

11. Page 100. And without even working on it very hard there's a massive twist. I am a genius! I am an utter genius! This is my calling and my passion. FABULOUS.

12. Page 105. Okay, now what. I've got 285 pages to go, what the heck is that going to be. How is this story going to last for all those more words? Plus, this was a TERRIBLE idea. Whose idea was this, anyway?

13. What does someone want, and what will they do to get it. How far will they go to get it. What would someone really do. What is the worst thing that could possibly happen, and what is worse than that. What will happen if the character fails?  I ask myself all the questions that are supposed to work. Sometimes they do.

14. Time to reassure myself! Writing a book is a process, I say. One page at a time, one word at a time period don't worry about the end. The end will come when you get there. Just type type type type type even if it's terrible just keep going, just keep going. Just keep going.

15. Sometimes this is OK. Sometimes this is terrible. Most of the time I don't know which. Procrastinating. Maybe I’ll alphabetize my books. NO. Write.

16. Page 300. Ohhh no, it's going to take too long to get to the ending. The beginning is way too long. I'm really going to have to cut the heck out of the beginning because if I write at this rhythm, this will be 500 pages long and that's never going to work. I will just keep going, and cut later. But what should I cut? How do I know?

17. Still, maybe I should go back and cut now.

18. No, I'll just go ahead. I can’t cut until I know the ending.

19. Page 350. Getting there! If only I knew what the ending was. 

20. I totally don't know the ending. I’ll edit from the beginning, editing is good. I’ll also take out all the uses of “baffled” and “somehow” and “maybe.” Edit edit edit. And the momentum will swing me right into the ending.

21. Nope. Lots of wonderful edits, but I still utterly and totally don't know the ending, and moreover I have created a mystery that I cannot solve. I should have thought of this. I wish I had an outline, but I don't know how to make outlines. And I don't want to make an outline. I just want the ending.

22. I don't have an ending. I have 110,000 words, and no ending. This is not good. Who lives, who dies, who tells the story. I have one of those.

23. See #14. One word at a time. Something will happen. It’s worked before. Keep going keep going keep going.

24. I totally don't know the ending. Still. And the deadline is two days away.

25. The deadline is one day away.

26. Wait! I might have it! Yes. I have it.

27. Deadline day. Typing like a maniac. Typing like crazy. Working working working working working. EDITING EDITING EDITING. Taking out” actually” and “of course.” And “little.” Wearing my special deadline hoodie.

28. Done!

29. Not really done. Checking checking checking. Rewriting. Cutting. Cutting cutting cutting.

30. DONE! For now at least. But that is enough.

And I hit SEND. At two minutes until deadline, and I am incredibly grateful.

Now. I need a new idea. Ahhh. See #1.

Reds and Readers, thank you for being here through this! ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS will be out in September, and I wish I’d had this chart then to reassure me it’s ALWAYS this way. Next year, when I complain, you’ll remind me, right?

Writers, does this sound familiar? 

Readers, see #15. Do you alphabetize your books?