Since CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR launched, I’ve been running around speaking at bookstores and libraries and events and teaching at writing conferences. Since August I’ve given writing workshops at:
- Willamette Writers Conference in Portland Oregon teaching a master class in suspense and two shorter workshops
- Book Passage Mystery Writing Conference in near San Francisco teaching a master class on creating memorable characters and a workshop on plotting
- Southwest Washington Writer Conference in Centralia teaching a master class on character plus two workshops and a keynote
- Surrey International Writers Conference in Vancouver, BC, teaching a new workshop I call "Classic Fiction Writing Rules and When You Can Break Them" plus "Suspense 3 Ways" (which turned out to be Suspense 5 Ways.)
- And the New England Crime Bake last weekend where I taught a master class on creating a cast of characters and was honored with their Lifetime Achievement Award
- … Looking ahead, in January I'll be at Algonkian's St. Autustine Author-Mentor Novel Workshop and in June the Yale Summer Writers’ Workshop
I love to teach, and I’ve been a teacher for far longer than I’ve been a writer. I think of my book on how to write a mystery novel as my ‘ticket to ride.’ There's no greater thrill than returning to a writing conference, meeting writers whom I met with a year or two earlier, and hearing how their work is progressing and the epiphanies they've had along the way.
You’d think by now I’d have at least a dozen ‘canned’ presentations ready to go, but I hate teaching exactly the same thing twice, and each time out I have new things to say about those old chestnuts: character, setting, plot, dialogue, suspense, viewpoint…
Recently I noticed one of the problem many aspiring writers had was figuring out what exactly they were writing. It often boiled down to: mystery, thriller, or suspense? Of course most crime novels are a mixture but when you’re pitching your idea, it’s good to know where it most comfortably fits. It’s not that easy to articulate the differences. Like porn, you know it when you see it.
But I gave it a shot. Beginning with the idea that some novels fit neatly into one category. Then starting with some examples, we went from the cover, to the author photo, to the jacket copy, talking about mystery/suspense/thriller, and the fundamental question the novels addresses:
Whodunnit? A mystery
What’s going on here? Suspense
What’s going to happen next? Thriller
Some novels fit neatly into one category.
Others are a blend.
And, most importantly, each of us has a sweet spot, somewhere in that Venn diagram. As a writer or as a reader, what’s yours?
