HANK
PHILLIPPI RYAN: Because I am the past vice-president
of the Midwest chapter of the National Beatles Fan Club, I am thrilled to
welcome a fellow music lover today…And hey. Steve Liskow can actually sing. Which
I cannot. He can play music, and write music. And he can write about music! In fact, music is pivotal in all he does. And today, he offers a terrific bit of
advice:
Music Makes the Plot Go ‘Round
By Steve Liskow
Several
years ago, my wife and I returned to Michigan for my high school reunion and
met a classmate I’d never known in high school. Susie Woodman was now a session
keyboard player in Detroit, and her escort that weekend was Bob Seger’s former
drummer. Susie and Charlie joined the band that night for a song, and if I’d
had a few more drinks, I might have joined them on guitar. I didn’t, but that
moment stayed with me when I retired from teaching and returned to writing a few
years later.
As the story
morphed from a cozy involving a high school reunion into a noir-ish mystery,
the protagonist shifted from a reporter to a PI and the reunion disappeared. I
decided the PI was a wannabe guitar-slinger—hey, write what you know, right?—and
I planned a series, so I listed all the song titles I could think of that
suggested a mystery. Good songs are very compressed short stories so they
inspire plot ideas from the start. Since plotting comes hard for me, I’ll take
any advantage I can find.
After over
100 rejections under at least three titles, I finally self-published the first
book in the series a few years ago. The main premise of the old reunion idea—a
cold case inspired by the Bobby Fuller murder (remember “I Fought the Law and
the Law Won?”)—stayed constant, but everything around it changed radically, so
the eventual title was Blood on the
Tracks, a Bob Dylan LP in the mid-seventies.
Even though only three of my
novels involve Chris “Woody” Guthrie and his companion, former session keyboard
legend Megan Traine (Inspired by Susie Woodman, see above), most of my novels
and short stories still use song titles or allusions. People recognize them, so
it’s sort of my brand—although younger readers think The Kids Are All Right comes from the film instead of the early
single by The Who.
Song titles
work for several reasons. First, if people recognize them, it gives them a hook
or a way in. Second, as I said above, lots of songs suggest a story. “Ring of
Fire,” for example, is about a missing wedding ring. The Kids Are All Right concerns plagiarism and drug use at an
exclusive private school. Cherry Bomb
is based on a true story—teen trafficking on the Berlin Turnpike, what used to
be the main highway between Hartford and New Haven—and people make the
connection pretty easily if they’re old enough to remember The Runaways.
Some songs
suggest an emotional tone, too. I called the second Guthrie book Hot Rod Lincoln until the first draft
reduced the car thief with that nickname to a minor character. I tried other
car songs, but Spring Little Cobra and
Little GTO sounded stupid. My cover designer suggested Hyundai Bloody Hyundai and we both loved it even though we knew it
was all wrong. My wife finally came up with Oh
Lord, Won’t You Steal Me a Mercedes Benz and we knew we had a winner, with
apologies to Janis Joplin. The story is a comic caper, so the title gave us
everything we needed.
After a long
hiatus, I picked up a guitar again a few years ago and started performing at
open mic nights in the area. I ran into two or three other avid blues players
who play rings around me, but I decided to buckle down again and go back to the
real stuff: Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell and Blind
Reverend Gary Davis.
Children of the sixties remember Eric Clapton’s version of
Johnson’s “Crossroads Blues,” which he performed with Cream, but Clapton
combined lyrics of that song and “Travelin’ Riverside Blues” so I never heard
one original verse until I bought the re-mastered collection of Johnson’s
limited output (He was murdered at age 27 after recording only 29 songs). The
first time I heard the verse, I knew I’d found another title:
“Sun goin’
down, dark goin’ catch me here.”
What a great
image. Visual, tactile, emotional, really creepy. I told my cover designer I had
the title for the next book but had no idea what the story was. He said, “You’re
going to have to go darker than usual.” A month later, before I even sent him a
synopsis, never mind finished the first draft, he sent me a mock-up of his
cover idea.
“Here’s
where you’re going,” he said. He was right.
Dark Gonna Catch Me Here is one of the only works where the
title stayed constant from the very beginning. Maybe it’s a sign.
Some titles
don’t work nearly as well. I’m still having trouble with “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida.”
HANK
PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ah. Yes, that is a
toughie! Who sang it? Oh, right. Iron Butterfly. Which is much, much easier. I loved
what you said about a good song being a compressed short story. And not just
the ones that i stantly spring to mind, like the truly unlistenable Honey, or
Ode to Billie Joe. But you know Crescent City by Emmylou Harris? And Carey, by
Joni Mitchell. Eleanor Rigby. And of course,
Dead End Curve. Hey—you could use that one! I could go on. But you take over,
Reds and readers:
What songs
could be great crime fiction novels?
Steve Liskow is a
mentor and panelist for both Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.
His short stories
have earned an Edgar nomination, the Black Orchid Novella Award, and two
Honorable Mentions for the Al Blanchard Story Award. Seven of his eleven novels
are set in Connecticut and deal with issues such as teen sex-trafficking, a
shooting in a public school and teen drug abuse. The Kids Are All Right was a finalist for the Shamus Award. The
Chris “Woody” Guthrie novels, including Dark
Gonna Catch Me Here, are set in Detroit.
When he’s not
writing, he does freelance editing and conducts fiction writing workshops
throughout Connecticut, where he lives with his wife Barbara and two rescued
cats.
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004V031H
DARK GONNA CATCH ME HERE
Darkness
creeps into the motor city…
Detroit
homicide detective Eleanor “Shoobie” Dube pursues a killer who leaves his
victims in abandoned buildings throughout the city. When builders uncover a
skeleton, Shoobie tentatively identifies the remains as Megan Traine’s long
vanished aunt. Meg turns to her long-time companion, Detroit PI Chris “Woody”
Guthrie, for help.
To help Meg,
Guthrie puts the ugly divorce he’s investigating on hold. Then the couple’s
daughter Shannon flees from her parent’s warfare and meets a disturbed young
man who knows every hiding place in the area. Now, Guthrie, Shoobie, and Megan race
to find the girl before darkness claims yet another victim.
