You can't make this stuff up...

HALLIE EPHRON: Kicking off What we're writing week...

When I read aspiring writers' stories, I often encounter the up-to-now plucky strong investigator who runs pell-mell into a burning building. Why? Because the author needs her to run into that building because a big fat CLUE (or victim) is waiting just inside.

Never mind that no one in their right mind runs into a burning building (certainly not a smart, plucky sleuth/protagonist). Sane people call 911. (Unless they know there's a mama dog nesting in one of the bedroom closets and giving birth to a brood of puppies (see my novel "There Was an Old Woman" in which two characters, decades apart run into two different burning buildings... and live to tell about it.))

I get a lot of wonderful ideas from the news. Stuff that would be hard to make up because people (in real life) do the most outrageous things that would never pass muster in a work of fiction.

Just this week, for instance, there's the story of the enterprising folks who staged fake bear attacks on their luxury cars (think Rolls-Royce) in order to collect over $100K in insurance payouts.

The best part of this story is the HOW.

It involved a person getting into a bear suit (yes, bear suits are available on Amazon), climbing into a fancy car, and scraping away at the interior with sharp kitchen utensils leaving scratch marks. Then filing an insurance claim.

The mind boggles at that clever ways one could work this scenario in a mystery novel. (What do they find when they pop the trunk??) (What happens if the horn gets stuck blaring while the "bear" is at work) (What happens if (real) bears emerge from the surrounding wood...)

But, as my reviewers comments taught me, Reality is no excuse. For a plot point to work in a novel, it has to be credible. The characters' actions need to be believable.

Most authors know: Just because something really happened doesn't mean readers will swallow it.

Are there moments have you encountered in REAL LIFE that, if someone put it in a book, no one would believe?

Hallie's On-the-go bars

HALLIE EPHRON: I'm sure I'm not the only one who frequently needs a quick bite -- not a meal but SOMETHING to keep my energy up until I have time (and the inclination) for the next meal. 

Granola bars, of course, fit that niche. But have you had any lately? My experience is that they either taste like sawdust or a block of sugar. On top of that, they're pricey.

So I was thrilled when The New York Times ran a recipe for "energy bars" -- chopped nuts and dried fruit, glued together with some flour and egg, seasoned with cinnamon and salt. Baked, cooled, and cut into bars. VOILA!

I made my own version with nuts I had the fridge. Almonds, pine nuts, walnuts, and pistachios. But it would have been fine with pecans and unsweetened coconut or whatever other nut-like substances you like and have on hand. 

All I had in the dried fruit department was raisins, but now I'll stock up on some dried apricots and dates and cranberries to give it more zest next time out.

I wouldn't swap out the maple syrup, and it needed all that sweetness. And surprisingly the small amount of salt is a lovely touch.

So here's my version of "energy bars." Very nutty. Not too sweet. And helped me use up last bits of nuts I had hanging around in the fridge. Making it extremely economical.

INGREDIENTS 
Oil
2 eggs
4 T maple syrup
1/2 tsp of kosher salt plus a bit more
4 T flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups nuts - use whatever combination you love or happen to have on hand
1 1/2 cups of dried fruit (apricot, dates, raisins, cranberries, whatever you like or happen to have)

PREP 
1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Prep the pan: Lightly oil the bottom and sides of an 8x8 metal baking pan; line the pan with parchment (or foil); lightly oil the surface of the liner
3. Coarsely chop the nuts and dried fruit (raisins and cranberries don't need chopping)
4. Whisk the egg and maple syrup and salt in a large bowl until smooth. 
5. Add flour and cinnamon. Whisk til smooth. 
6. Add nuts and dried fruit. Mix. 
7. Spread the mixture in the pan
8. Bake about 30 minutes or until it's nicely brown and firm to the touch. Sprinkle with a little kosher salt.
9. Cool completely IN THE PAN on a rack.
10. Slide out the slab and cut into bars.

I stored mine in zip-lock bags, but a tin or any airtight container will do. 

Put it where you can GRAB AND GO.

So what's your go-to for a speedy (non-cooking) breakfast and mid-afternoon snack? Maybe there are some decent tasting, ready-made, affordable "energy bars" that I haven't yet discovered.

Hallie's going to Paris... c'mon along?!?!

 HALLIE EPHRON: I'm thrilled to report that I'll be teaching a 5-day master class on writing a mystery/suspense novel in (drum roll...) PARIS (31 May - 5 June 2026).

When the invitation to teach a master class at the 2026 WICE Paris Writers Workshop arrived, I pinched myself. 

I present at a lot of writing confeence, but it's not often that I get to teach a really intensive, down in the nitty-gritties, week-long master class on writing with a group SMALL enough (max 12). With plenty of time for me to get to know the writers in the room and for them to get to know each other. 

And Paris? Zoot alors!!

Then I scurried about making sure it was real... because, well, you know, sadly you've got to double and triple check everything that arrives via the Internet these days.

Turns out the Paris Writers Workshop, founded in 1989, is the oldest writers workshop in Europe. It's run by WICE ( Where Internationals Connect in English) which was started by a group of American expats back in 1978.

Earlier this week I caught up with Lorie Lichtlen, this year's workshop co-director. Thirty years ago, she came to Paris as a journalist and she's still there. More recently Lorie made her living writing for big businesses like Euro Disney. 


 
Lorie has been coming to the Paris Writers Workshop since 2014, and fondly recalls the year she got to learn from Carol Shields (that same year that Shields won the Pulitzer). 

She credits WICE for nurturing the creative nonfiction writer in her, and for introducing her to a community of writers. 

She was delighted to talk about this year's faculty - six of us - and their first time offering a master class on writing mystery and suspense.

To say I'm looking forward to this would be an understatement! Because I *love love love* Paris. And my happy place is teaching. 

The workshop will be held at the Paris College of Art, near the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Élysées.

I'm hoping that some of the aspiring writers among our Red readers will be up for joining me in Paris. (No you do not need to speak French.)

And today's question: Do you have memories of Paris, or is it on your travel wish list?

 
REGISTER WICE Paris Writers Workshop - 31 May - 5 June 2026
https://wice-paris.org/paris-writers-workshop
Early bird registration until 2 March
PROGRAM 
https://www.wice-paris.org/pww2026_program 

PHOTO of the Arc de Triomphe By Kainet - Flickr: Arc de Triomphe HDR, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30352419 

Sesame noodle salad: A new lunch to share with old friends

 HALLIE EPHRON: Earlier this week I was seeing old friends for lunch and decided I'd much rather make something rather than go out. But what to make? Something healthy, could be mostly made ahead, and used mostly ingredients I already have.

I hauled out my folders of recipes that I've saved over the years, most of which I've ever actually made. And there it was, the recipe from The Boston Globe back in 2014, SESAME-NOODLE SALAD: spaghetti, raw veggies, peanut butter, tossed with a gingery peanut butter.

First I rounded up the ingredients and put them on the counter. I modified the recipe with vegetables I happened to have in the fridge and added some shrimp I had in the freezer.

Here's the ingredients for the DRESSING:
1 T soy sauce
2 T rice vinegar
1 tsp siracha
Juice of 1 lime
2 tsp honey
A two-inch piece of fresh ginger finely chopped or grated
3 T smooth peanut butter
2 T sesame oil

In a large bowl, whisk the dressing ingredients together until blended. Set aside

TOASTED SESAME SEEDS
3 T sesame seeds

In a small skillet toast the sesame seeds for 5 minutes until golden.
Set aside.

SHRIMP
Boil a dozen thawed and deveined/shelled shrimp in water for 5-7 minutes.
Drain and set aside.

VEGGIES
1 sweet red pepper, cored and seeded and cut into thin strips
1 cup sugar snap peas, trimmed
1/2 cucumber, quartered lengthwise and cut into small pieces
1/2 cup sliced daikon radish
(Or whatever else you happen to have on hand)

Prep the veggies and set aside

Noodles
8 ounces of thin spaghetti

In a large pot of boiling water, cook the spaghetti for about 7-9 minutes.
Drain into colander.

COMBINE!

In a large bowl, whisk dressing
Stir in veggies and shrimp; blend
ADD DRAINED SPAGHETTI
Toss gently to coat with dressing.
Top with sesame seeds

VOILA! Serve and enjoy. (We had it warm but you could put it in the fridge and have it later, cold.)

Where do you go looking for something serve friends, or do you stick with your favorite stand-bys or order takeout?

Coming up with questions...

 

HALLIE EPHRON: One of my favorite things that, from time to time, I get invited to do is moderate a panel of authors whose work I admire. I admit, I love being in charge. (Jerry's nearly daily request of me was "Stop being so directive." As if I ever could.)

But also I'm fascinated by how different each of our writing processes is, AND how amazing it is that any of us actually writes a publishable novel. It's SO hard.

Yesterday, we posted the video of the wonderful panel of authors (Lucy Burdette, Elise Hart Kipess, and Sarah Stewart Taylor) talking and me moderating, talking about the ins and outs, the challenges and joys of writing a mystery.

The audience (full house at the Milton Public Library) was completely rapt from the first moment. It worked so well because these authors were wonderfully open and honest, articulate and smart. Also because their novels are so different from one other.

I can also take some credit for the evening's success. First of course I was on home turf. Then I did not hijack the discssion by talking about my books.

And finally I'd PLANNED, done my research, and come up with some really juicy questions that dug into the processes that these writers follow to write their books.

Today I thought I'd share some of those questions... and maybe next time you go to an author talk (which I hope will be often!) you will have ideas for questions you might ask near the end of the event when it opens up for questions."

QUESTIONS

• Was your published book's Page One the first thing you wrote, and how did it change from first draft to published book?
• What was the hardest thing for you about writing your first crime novel? And what about now after (how many?) books?
• Where would you categorize your latest book on the spectrum of crime fiction (cozy? thriller? hardboiled??), and do you think about the expectations of THAT audience when you're writing?
• How does who YOU are and your experiences shape your protagonist?
• How did you meet the challenge of making the reader believe that your main character would do all the dangerous things they do in order to solve the crime?
• Do you plan out the story or just sit down at the computer, pull the cord, and let 'er rip?
• What's your writing day like?
• Which part of a book is the most challenging for you to write? And which part do you enjoy most?
  
  I could go on and on but it was absolutely fascinating to hear Lucy, Elise, and Sarah address questions like these. If you missed it, go to yesterday's blog and watch the video.
  
  What kinds of questions do you like to hear answered at author talks??

Generative WHAT?

HALLIE EPHRON: Often it's only with 20/20 hindsight that we recognize (or misconstrue) the massive changes right under our noses.

Looking back, I was absolutely oblivious to the scope of the changes that were underway as computers took over, rendering typewriters and library card catalogues extinct.

I still remember my sister Nora swearing that she could not properly edit a manuscript with a computer. Pushing the words, line by line, page by page through the typewriter were essential to a proper rewrite.

Is there ANYONE out there today who actually starts over when they rewrite, "typing" the whole thing over?

My parents wrote a movie (The Desk Set, 1957) which features a gigantic (think: semi truck) mainframe computer matching wits with Katharine Hepburn (and losing). The first PC was 20 years away and today, a computer that powerful can fit into a well ventilated coat closet.

I was sure I'd never swap out my typewriter for a personal computer, my PC for a MAC. Or succumb to the siren song of a cell phone. Or ditch my land line. Or do my banking on line. 

Now we're going kicking and screaming into an age of generative artificial intelligence. Griping about "customer service" bots that run us around in circles. Yearning for the voice of another actual human being when we dial HELP.

Meanwhile some folks are singing its praises.

I've been keeping my distance, happily ignorant when it comes to AI tools. Unsure even of what vocabulary to use to describe them. Wondering, like everyone else, if AI will render writers obsolete. Swearing at phone bots and unhelpful "help" bots that seem to make it impossible to tell truth (whatever that is) from a bot's fever dream.

But my pessimism got dented recently.

I had a medical test and waited and waited for the results. After a few weeks of silence, PING, an email came that directed me to click and log into the medical "portal" (of hell?) and see what the tests think.

So, after waiting another week and getting up my courage, I clicked. Searched down the right password (every g-d doctor/practice seems to have their own "portal"). And read results that felt like instructions to a chemist.

There were numbers and percentages and... mixed in, a lot of words. I didn't know whether to be worried. Or relieved. Confused: absolutely. Baffled, for sure. 

Then, like a lifeline, the portal offered to run my test results through generative AI.

What's to lose? I clicked the link.

The bulleted list that came up was subtitled "Interpretation." The words were plain and simple, easy to parse. Brief and to the point. One word leapt out at me: Negative. Let's just say that in this case that result was a positive for me.

Maybe I can get used to this new world after all.

I will not be using AI to write or rewrite, and a cautionary tale in last week's New York Times illustrates how a chatbot can feed delusional thinking. 

No more than I'll be be hauling out my typewriter and running manuscript edits through it or trying to get Verizon to re-install my land line. But I am a bit less pessimistic about what the future holds and how I'll be adapting to it. 

Because, clear as can be, this is the way of the future.

Have you had any positive or negative experiences with generative AI? Or are you sitting there scratching your head and saying, "Generative what??"

Hallie on writing setting from her mind's eye

HALLIE EPHRON: One of the pitfalls of being me is that people assume that I know something about writing screenplays. Let me assure you (as I do them), I do not. 

My parents were screenwriters. My sisters, too. But my favorite things to write are setting and internal dialogue (narrator's thoughts)... none of which show up in a screenplay. In a screenplay it's mostly dialogue and (brief) suggestions on the staging and character affect.  

I love to write setting in combination with internal dialogue, neither of which show up much in a screenplay.

Moving the reader through the setting with the characters usually requires research. The writers has go GO somewhere and take notes, record sounds, take pictures, talking to locals. Research, if it's an historical setting. A ton of world building if it's fantasy.

But there's a special pleasure (and ease) writing a story that is set in in A PLACE FROM YOUR OWN PAST.  Possibly a place that no longer exists the way it was then.

I did this In "Night Night, Sleep Tight" which takes place Beverly Hills in the early 60's when I was growing up there. The THERE/there no longer exists except in my memory, so that's where I went to find the details I needed.

In one of the opening chapters, Deirdre reluctantly driving back to her childhood home to deal with her wayward father. Along the way she's flooded with memories, just as I was writing this since I'd taken that drive (decades ago) a gajillion times: Sunset Boulevard, from the San Diego Freeway to Beverly Hills. 

I remember every curve. Every stoplight...
**

Deirdre crossed into the left lane and accelerated. Power surged and her Mercedes SL automatically downshifted and shot forward, hugging the road as she pushed it around a bend. She braked into the curves and accelerated coming out, weaving between cars on the winding four-lane road. 

Forty, forty-five, fifty. The end of her crutch slid across the passenger seat, the cuff banging against the door.

The car drifted into the right lane coming around a tight curve and she had to slam on the brakes behind a red bus that straddled both lanes and poked along at twenty miles an hour, idling just outside walled estates. STARLINE TOURS was painted in slanting white script across the back.

Deirdre tapped the horn and crept along behind the bus, past pink stucco walls that surrounded the estate where Jayne Mansfield had supposedly once lived. 

It had been a big deal when the actress died, had to have been at least twenty years ago. And still tourists lined up to gawp at her wall. Breasts the size of watermelons and death in a grisly car accident (early news reports spawned the myth that she’d been decapitated)—those were achievements that merited lasting celebrity in Hollywood. 

That, or kill someone. 

It was the same old, same old, real talent ripening into stardom and then festering into notoriety. Deirdre sympathized with Jayne Mansfield’s children, though, who must have gone through their lives enduring the ghoulish curiosity of strangers.

Buses like the one belching exhaust in front of her now used to pull up in front of her own parents’ house, passengers glued to the windows. Most writers, unless they married Jayne Mansfield, did not merit stars on celebrity road maps. And in the flats between Sunset and Santa Monica where her father lived, notables were TV (not movie) actors, writers (not producers), and agents, all tucked in like plump raisins among the nouveau riche noncelebrity types who’d moved to Beverly Hills, so they’d say, because of the public schools. 

You had to live north of Sunset to score neighbors like Katharine Hepburn or Gregory Peck. Move up even farther, into the canyons to an ultramodern, super-expensive home to find neighbors like Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire.

Arthur Unger had earned his spot on the celebrity bus tour through an act of bravery that had lasted all of thirty seconds. It had been at a poolside party to celebrate the end of filming of Dark Waters, an action-packed saga with a plot recycled from an early Errol Flynn movie. 

Fox Pearson, the up-and-coming actor featured in the film, either jumped, fell, or was pushed into the pool. Sadly for him, no one noticed as the cast on the broken leg he’d suffered a week earlier doing his own stunts in the movie’s finale dragged him to the bottom of the deep end. Might as well have gone in with his foot stuck in a bucket of concrete.

A paparazzo had been on hand to immortalize Arthur shucking his shoes and jacket and diving in. Fox Pearson’s final stunt, along with its fortuitous synchronicity with the movie’s title, earned more headlines for the dead actor than any of his roles. Suddenly he was the second coming (and going) of James Dean, a talent that blazed bright and then . . . cue slow drum roll against a setting sun . . . sank below a watery horizon.

(Yes, I really did used to sit in our front window and wave at the tour busses.)

I have no idea how you'd write this as a screenplay. There's not a single line of dialogue, precious little action, and a ton of setting and internal dialogue. 

Flashbacks? Voice over?? Beats me.

Are there mental journeys that you can take with details of places that are long gone but still vivid in your mind's eye? To the corner store? To the drive-in movie, local dive bar, swimming hole, lover's lane, fabulous view???

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?

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?

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?

Nailing It

 

HALLIE EPHRON: This Christmas I got gifts from my grandchildren.

From my granddaughter, I got a package of press-on nails.

As you might imagine, this gift says more about her than it does about me. She is obsessed with her nails. There are shops stores near her in Brooklyn that sell nails. That’s it. Full stop. Press-on nails in an amazing range of colors and designs.

This is from my grandgirl who’s a gymnast and a competitive swimmer and who opted for a STEM-focused junior high. She saves up her pennies to buy nails, nails, and more nails.

Go figure.

So far I have not attempted to put on the nails she gave me. I’m waiting until she visits here or I’m in Brooklyn and she can guide me in the fine art. Bonding experiences are not to be passed up.

My grandson aso gave me a Christmas gift. This amazing fantastic and wonderful picture, which tells you as much about HIM as my granddaughter’s gift tells about her. I’m quite sure he’ll be wanting a motorcycle when he gets to be his sister’s age. And OMG hasn't he got talent!?! (He's 9.)

This got me thinking back to when I was my granddaughter's age. I was seriously into makeup. “Flesh” colored lipstick. Fake eyelashes and eyeliner. We rouged our cheeks and teased (and sprayed) our hair so it stood out like an astronaut’s helmet.

And somehow I survived.

Do you have youngsters in your extended family who are spreading their wings and proclaiming their identities through their arts?

A peek inside the sausage factory - What we're writing

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Welcome to What We’re Writing week!

Recently I put together materials for a class I gave for the Writers Digest Mystery and Thriller Writers Conference. (I get to do it via Zoom from the comfort of my new desk chair!) I was talking about one of my favorite topics: character-driven plotting.

I usually start off quoting what I once heard Walter Mosley say. It went something like this:

STORY is what happened. PLOT is the order in which it’s revealed to the reader

I’m still chewing on his words. I think this is what he means…

STORY in a mystery novel is the crime: what led up to the crime  (sometimes years or generations earlier), what the villain and suspects did and why. The pieces get revealed in dribs and drabs as the sleuth discovers them. It’s kind of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle that has no edges, the reader putting the pieces in place along with the sleuth.

PLOT is more about the sleuth’s journey. How they get involved in the investigation, why they care about the outcome, what they discover, what they discover about themselves, and how the investigation challenges and changes them. It's told sequentially.

That's one of the reasons why mystery novels are so hard to write: there are TWO stories. The investigation (the sleuth and their associates figure out what happened), told sequentially. The crime itself (what led up to it, what happened, who did it, and why), revealed as the sleuth puts the pieces together.

So… it’s complicated! And hopefully when you read one of our novels, you will be blissfully unaware of the two stories we’re trying to tell while keeping you bamboozled and finally gobsmacked when all is revealed.

Are you a fan of puzzling mysteries or do you prefer the adrenaline rush of a thriller, where you know who the villain is early on, and goal becomes beating the clock and keep the bad thing from happening again.

Writing from Experience by Pat Kennedy

LUCY BURDETTE: I'm particularly excited about today's guest--you'll see why. Pat is one of my good buddies in the Friends of the Key West Library, and she is an old friend of Hallie's. When I heard she had taken Hallie's writing class at the Studios of Key West, I asked (begged) her to blog about it. Welcome Pat!

PATRICIA (PAT) KENNEDY:  Hello to all you fascinating Reds!  It has been quite awhile since I’ve chimed in here – July of 2022 to be precise when I complained about the never-ending presence of “piles” at my home -– papers, shoes, electronic devices, grocery bags, stuff.  Since the piles never seem to diminish, I just gave up and moved to Key West for the winter.  

I spend my time in sunny Florida participating in and supporting the arts. Recently, I participated in a “Writing from Experience” workshop at The Studios of Key West, led by Jungle Red’s Hallie Ephron. I had never taken a writing workshop being somewhat shy about sharing my work with strangers – and Hallie too. I’m an amateur and she’s definitely a pro. 

I had an interesting childhood as both my parents were profoundly deaf so we four siblings (none deaf) grew up in a signing household.  Recently my sisters and I were interviewed by StoryWorth on their national podcast about the challenges of growing up in a different family life. It was an emotional experience for us. More so when we heard the final 18-minute podcast.  I can’t listen to it without getting weepy.  

This experience rekindled my desire to write more about my parents – especially our mom.  Our dad was tall, handsome, gregarious – a real star shine kind of guy.  Our mother was shy and very angry.  And she had good reasons to be that way. We learned by dribs and drabs how challenging her life had been at a school for the deaf run by the Sisters of St. Joseph in St. Louis, Missouri. And the challenges of being a deaf mother with un-sympathetic in-laws who lacked confidence in her ability to be a suitable “mother.” She fought back.

As Hallie said to me, “you have a deep well of experience to write about.” My reluctance has been how to write about HER experience but write in a way that reflected her lack of traditional English composition skills. She was an American Sign Language user so her English was rudimentary. 

As you probably know already, Hallie is a superb teacher.  And a kind one too.  Fourteen of us produced short essays for each of the three classes – some were absolute stunners which left me intimidated. I passed on reading aloud during the first and second sessions but knew I had to come up with something for the third. Hallie’s teaching and comments about my classmates’ work were precise and spot on. She emphasized the importance of “voice” and how it drives the whole trajectory – and authority – of a piece of writing.  “It must be authentic. Obviously if one is writing about one’s experience, then one must use the first-person voice.”

I had been trying to write about a life-changing experience my mother had as a four-year-old child, but I was using third person omniscient. I could see that the piece was stilted and false, but I didn’t know how to fix it.  Suddenly, with Halie’s simple “change the voice” instruction, I saw another way to write the story but as I experienced it.  An hour later I was doing final edits and ready to read to the class. My sisters and I are now moving forward on collaborative pieces to add to this first piece. 

If you want to hear the StoryWorth podcast that so influenced me to get going on writing, here is the link.

Are any of you writing teachers?  Any pearls you want to share with us?  And it would be fascinating to hear from you, dear readers, how a teacher has changed or improved your writing.  

Patricia Kennedy is a retired marketing consultant for healthcare organizations. She lives in Plymouth, MA and Key West during the winter.  

Hallie on What We're Writing (it's personal)

 HALLIE EPHRON: Here we are again, come full circle to WHAT WE’RE WRITING WEEK. And leading off, let me tell you about the class I’m putting together on “Writing from Experience.” It’s for people who reach a point in their life when they want to get their thoughts and memories down on the page and, in the process, figure out what the heck they think about all that stuff that went on.

I use examples from my own writing, examples that follow the memoir-writing advice of Philip Lopate ("To Show and To Tell") to make oneself into a character. And at the same time to take my own advice about storytelling: give the main character (me) a problem.

Here’s one of the examples:

It was September and I was starting eighth grade, the same year my sister Delia left for college. I’d moved out of the room I shared with my baby sister Amy and into Delia’s room, a sliver of space carved from the side of the house. The room was papered in fat yellow cabbage roses floating on a field of pale gray.

The room was so small that if I stood up from the bed and took giant step, I’d run into the door. But it was mine, all mine, even if the walk-through closet was still half-full of Delia’s clothes. Even if when Delia was on school breaks I had go back to sharing a bedroom with Amy.

My very own phone hung on the side of the desk beside the bed. I could talk to my best friend, any time of day or night with nobody watching me and asking, "Who are you talking to?" or "Do you have to breathe like a hippopotamus?" 

Problem was, at that moment, I was fresh out of best friends.

Just for fun, here's a photograph of me with my sister Delia on the left and Amy on the right, in about the year I'm writing about.

As I’ve been putting together the material for my class, I made a very short list of books to recommend… my own personal favorites.

Bossy Pants - Tina Fey
The Liars’ Club - Mary Karr
On Writing - Stephen King
The Color of Water - James McBride
Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls
This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
Left on Tenth by Delia Ephron

So two questions:
- Do you read memoirs, and if you do what memoir(s) would you recommend?
- And... If YOU were writing about your childhood bedroom, what detail would make it distinctly YOURS? (It's that thing that writing teachers go on and on about: the telling detail.)

What We're Writing: Hallie remembers a Thanksgiving...

HALLIE EPHRON: This Thanksgiving, surrounded by the glorious chaos of my children and grandchildren, I found myself remembering the Thanksgivings that I grew up with and my mother who detested domesticity but loved Thanksgiving.

Here's part of an essay I wrote about her final Thanksgiving.

**

Thanksgiving was my mother’s favorite holiday. I remember her last one. The four of us (my sisters and me) and our spouses and my dad are there with her in the living room of my parents’ New York apartment.

My mother is presiding from a sofa that was moved there from their house in Beverly Hills to this apartment on the upper East Side of Manhattan. Once upholstered in a shiny red-and-green floral print that felt cool against my face, it’s there that my mother read the Oz books to me after dinner when I was growing up. Now in their bright, modern condominium, the sofa had been re-covered in white linen.

I can still see my mother sitting there, nearly lost in a billowing gold brocade caftan. Her hair is, as always, short and brushed briskly away from her face. She smells, as always, of Eve Arden face cream, cigarettes, and Scotch whiskey.

Her cheeks are flushed and full, and she seems at first to be in the pink of health. But closer up, her face is puffy, the skin reddened with broken blood vessels. Her hair is thin. Her grey eyes rheumy. She seems at once paunchy and emaciated. A cigarette trembles between her fingers. She’s too weak to even stand and will retire to her bed before we sit down to eat.

A writer, first and foremost, her hands have always been her pride, the fingers short, stubby, and efficient, the nails cut short so as not to interfere with her typing. Thanksgiving was one of her annual days of domesticity, even if it was hired help who set the table, cooked and served the meal, and cleaned up after.

Even at that last Thanksgiving there was an elaborate centerpiece for the table – a riot of pineapple, eggplant, persimmon, nuts, and grapes. Two turkeys, three pies, three kinds of stuffing.

Not only did she have to be a successful lady writer but she had to run a perfect home and raise perfect children. And Thanksgiving, even her last one, was the time for that perfection to shine.

**

Do you have memories of a lost loved one, no longer with us, but whose memory pops up during the holidays?

Book KEEPING and what it say about us

 HALLIE EPHRON: This picture (it ran in my local paper) caught my eye... Someone’s idea of home decorating with books? 

As a decorating idea, I give it two thumbs down. But, to be fair, this is a house which is rented – the people who flipped the books didn’t acquire them. Books are so personal, So I suppose this is a way to live with someone else’s collection of books.

Still, It reminds me of a restaurant meal I had somewhere in Ohio – scallops (4 of them) served with a mound of naked spaghetti. And it needed salt. And pepper.

I do think how you display (or don’t) your books is a bit of a Rorschach.  So today’s question: How do you shelve (or not) your books, and what does it say about you?

- On shelves or in stacks on the floor?

- Spine out or spine in?

- Sorted by category? In my house there are shelves of books about New York City, and shelves about birds, and shelves of illustrated chidren’s books, and shelves about cartoons and illustration, and of course shelves of crime fiction and other shelves of how-to-write books.

- Randomly organized or alphabetized? How anal are you? My fiction is all shelved by author. And I have several bookcases devoted only to crime fiction. I save the books I've loved.

- Any under glass? I keep the ones have resale value under glass. Especially illustrated children's books or signed firsts.

- Stacks in the garage waiting to go to Goodwill or your library's resale shop?

What does the way you keep your books say about you?