What We're Writing - The Play's The Thing

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm not ready to show anything from UNTITLED CLARE AND RUSS NUMBER 10 (How's that for a catchy title?) It all seems a little too new and tender, and, perhaps more pertinently, I'm still figuring out the structure, so God knows how much of what I've already gotten down will ever make it in the long run. I have in the past written and tossed up to three book openings before settling on a way forward.

Instead, I'm going to share a cool project I've been working on: a stage adaptation of my (one and only) short story, A Collect for Noonday. For the past three years, the Portland Stage Company, our premiere professional theater, has produced an evening of staged readings from local crime fiction writers. This year, they asked several of us to write something original for the performance.  Rather than a ten-minute short story with a narrator, which is what most of the readings have been in the past, I adapted my short story into a stage play titled Small Town.

It was an exciting creative experience, and it's left me very interested in composing something else for the stage - or even trying my hand at a screenplay, which is, as I understand it, another thing altogether. (If I go for the latter, I'm going to ask for advice from my friend Jeff Cohen, who's been teaching writing for the screen for twenty years.) If you're going to be in southern Maine on February 10, please join Gerry Boyle, Brenda Buchanan, Dick Cass, Paul Doiron and me for the Fourth Annual Crime Writers Staged Reading!

EARLA is in the diner. CLARE FERGUSSON and RUSS VAN ALSTYNE enter.

EARLA: There you two are. I was beginning to worry.

CLARE: Worry? Why?

EARLA: It's Wednesday, in't it? If I don't have the chief of police and the Episcopal minister in my diner for lunch Wednesday, I figure there's trouble going on somewheres in town. Here, sit down, I saved your table.

RUSS ushers CLARE to their seats.

EARLA: How's Mrs. Van Alstyne?

RUSS: Fine, Earla. Busy. Thanks for asking.

EARLA (to the audience): If the reverend was my daughter, I'd tell her you’re too pretty and too smart to be settling for once-a-week lunch with a man who won’t never leave his wife, dear.

EARLA: I’ll go fetch your coffees. EARLA exits

JIM CAMERON enters

CAMERON: Reverend Fergusson. How are you? (CAMERON drops a file folder on the table.)

CLARE: Mayor Cameron?

CAMERON: I won’t interrupt your meal. I just need to touch base with Russ. How is everything at St. Alban’s? Any more Sunday parking problems?

CLARE: No, it’s fine. You’re here to see Chief Van Alstyne?

EARLA enters

CAMERON: It’s Wednesday. (to EARLA) Can I get a Coke? (to CLARE) Easier to catch him here than to try to track him down on while he’s patrolling. (EARLA sets two coffee cups and three menus by RUSS) Oh, I’m not staying. (He picks up a menu and begins reading)

RUSS (hands CLARE a coffee cup) Reverend Fergusson.

CLARE: Thank you, Chief Van Alstyne.

CAMERON (to the audience): For godsakes, why can't they just call each other by their first names? Everyone knows what's going on.

PAUL FOUBERT enters

FOUBERT: There you are, m’dear! I was going over to the church and then I realized, she’s not going to be there on a Wednesday afternoon.

CLARE: Does someone need me at the nursing home?

FOUBERT: No, no, no. I want to float an idea past you. (to EARLA) Cup of tea, please. No, make it a pot. I can still get a pot, can’t I?

EARLA: You sure can.

EARLA exits

RUSS: Jim. What are you doing here? Do you know Paul Foubert?

CAMERON: Of course I do. Half the nursing home budget comes from town taxes. (to RUSS) Look, the roadworks building’s been broken into and vandalized again.

RUSS: When?

CAMERON: Emory McFarland called me an hour ago.

RUSS: He’s supposed to call us, not you. Last time the damn fool washed away any possible evidence before we ever got there.

CLARE: This happened before?

RUSS: About a month ago.

EARLA enters. She distributes tea FOUBERT and a soda to CAMERON, then takes out her order pad.

EARLA: You folks know what you want?

RUSS nods toward CLARE

CLARE: Chili and fries.

FOUBERT: That sounds good. Make it two.

RUSS: The usual.

EARLA: Mr. Mayor?

CAMERON (buries his face in the menu.) I hadn’t really planned on staying.

FOUBERT (to CLARE) I wanted to ask if you would consider--

CLARE is shaking a huge amount of sugar into her mug.

 FOUBERT: Good Lord. Why don’t you just order a bottle of Karo syrup?

CLARE: No caffeine.

RUSS, amused, reaches for the sugar himself as she puts it back. Their fingers touch. They jerk away.

CLARE: If I would consider...?

FOUBERT: Consider doing an ecumenical service for the nursing home residents.

CLARE: You mean, separate from my individual visits?

FOUBERT: Exactly. I’ve read a fascinating study on the health benefits of community worship. I’ve seen how people respond after a visit from you, or from Rev. Inman or Dr. McFeely. I’d like to get something started that our patients who don’t have a prior church connection can participate in. As a group.

CLARE: Huh. An ecumenical service. I have to admit I like the idea...

RUSS: And you have so much spare time to devote to it, too.

CLARE makes a face at him.

 What do you think, dear readers? Do you like live theater? And have you ever been energized by trying a new sort of creative endeavor?

Terry Shames on Minor Character Magic

RHYS BOWEN: It's amazing how attached we get to minor characters in our series, isn't it? I've had characters who were only intended to have a cameo role but would not go away--Sid and Gus in the Molly Murphy books and the Princess ZouZou in the Royal Spyness books who inserted herself into the story in a major way!

well, today on Jungle Reds we are hosting my good friend Terry Shames who has had interesting encounters with her background characters and is going to tell us about them today.

TERRY SHAMES:

Thank you so much to the “Reds” for hosting me on the occasion of the publication of my eighth book in the Samuel Craddock series.

Today I would like to have a conversation about background characters in our books.

I base my mystery plots on real life events or tales that I craft into stories complete with clues and red herrings. But to me what feels like magic is how background characters participate. When I start a new book, I feel like I walk into town and say, “What has everybody been up to?” And they tell me.  This has not always been the case. I’ve had to grow into it.

I like to read series, because I like to watch characters change over time, sometimes in surprising ways. But I had no idea when I started my first Craddock book whether it would become a series.  I barged into the first book without a thought of how an older protagonist would stretch and grow, much less how minor characters would change over time.

The first three books had a natural arc and they were centered around the protagonist, Samuel Craddock. I wanted  Samuel, an ex-chief of police, to become the chief again. In the third book, Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek, when the town went broke, it gave him the opportunity to step into the role of chief. Craddock didn’t need a salary, so when the town couldn’t afford to pay a police chief, it was natural for him to step in.

By the fourth book, when Samuel’s neighbor, Jenny,  became the focus,  I was beginning to see that the stories of supporting characters were important in their own way. I could keep the series fresh by having minor characters’ lives change—the way real people’s lives change. But I couldn’t depend on “magic.” I had to have a sense of direction.

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But what direction? Sometimes, characters seemed to take off on their own. One character had an affair—and his wife did not take it well. Another left town. One got a new hobby. In one case, I took direction from my readers. Fans asked if Samuel, a widower, was ever going to have a relationship with a new woman. So in book three, I introduced a new character, Ellen Forester, who moved to town to start an art gallery and workshop. She became Samuel’s love interest. They didn’t have much in common, and after the next few  books, I began to grow a little weary of her. Meanwhile, Dru Ann Love asked me to do a “Day in the Life” portrait of Ellen, and to my surprise, at the end of the “interview” Ellen revealed that she had a secret. I didn’t know what the secret was, or how it was going to play out, but I knew it would come out at some point. And did it ever!

By book five I felt the series needed a jolt. I was still okay with Ellen and Samuel’s relationship with his friend Jenny had been thoroughly explored, so what next? More tweaking of minor characters .I decided to give  Samuel a new sidekick, Maria Trevino. It turned to be the perfect foil: Samuel’s wisdom and experience played off against Maria’s idealism and fresh perspective.

Several people were interested to know how Samuel “became” the man we know as an older man. The prequel, An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock, was written to explore Samuel’s past—including his relationships with his destructive family and his wife.

My last book, A Reckoning in the Back Country, was a particularly hard book to write because it was about dog fighting. I had to make the back story really enjoyable and compelling to balance the horrendous main story.  I was tired of Ellen and I wanted Samuel to have a frisky new “main squeeze.” Wendy Gleason showed up at a Thanksgiving feast when Ellen was out of town, and they were off. But what to do about Ellen? Aha! I remembered that she had a secret. The way it played out was so perfect, that it seemed as if I must have known long before what was going to happen. That’s magic at work.

In the book that just came out, I wanted to feature long-time character Loretta Singletary, whom  I think of as a Greek chorus. She provides a lot of knowledge about Jarrett Creek’s citizens that Samuel uses in his investigations. I was also interested in doing a story about on-line dating. Again, here’s where magic seemed to be at work. In the end of the previous book, Loretta had showed up at Samuel’s house with a new hairdo and wearing stylish clothing. At the time, I had no idea why she was doing that. So when I started A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary, I realized that the reason she had been gussied up was to find a new beau. On a dating website!

 Mystery plots unfold against a background of “real life” for ongoing characters. The characters grow, and learn, and try new things, sometimes at their peril. If that didn’t happen, the stories themselves would be stale. For me, it seems to have an element of magic to it. Their growth is not something I plan. It’s something I take advantage of.

How do  other series writers come up with movement for their minor characters? Do you meander along letting characters act much the way real life seems to—without particular intent, letting magic happen? Or are you keenly aware of exactly the direction you want your characters to go?

RHYS:  Terry is on her way to Malice today. Do say hi to her! I wish I could join all of you.

An Island of Her Own

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Some of you will recall from earlier blog comments that I've been away on a one-woman writer's retreat. I'm leaving Nantucket today, after spending almost two weeks in my agent's otherwise empty house. It's been the best vacation I ever had, and that includes lounging on the beach in Cancun and hiking around the Highlands of Scotland. Honestly? If I wasn't getting phone calls from my husband reminding me that he misses me - a lot, so please come home soon - I'd just hunker down here until spring.

Well, I do also miss my dogs.

What have I done while here? Not much. Walked into or out of town on errands or visits a few times. Had drinks twice with a brand-new friend who feels like an old friend. Shoveled out the drive after the second blizzard. Went to church on Sunday and Ash Wednesday. Mostly, I've written. And what a pleasure and gift it is, to get up in the morning and realize, after making the bed and getting dressed, that I have nothing at all to do except write. In a quiet, clean house, where there's no dinner to fix or laundry to fold.

I have also fallen in love with Nantucket. Specifically, Nantucket in winter. I'm sure it's quite lovely and all in the summer with the beaches and roses and beautiful young things with tan legs biking around town. But I love the beauty of wind-scoured headstones and empty streets heavy with snow, and the gray-on-on-gray compositions of shingle houses, bare trees, and looming storm clouds.

This one's not mine - I clipped it from CBS News.

I also love the small town that's left behind after the tourists go. I went to St. Paul's Episcopal twice, and by the second visit several people smiled and welcomed me back. I've kept company with Nantucket historian Frances Ruley Karttunen (my agent's Aunt Fran) who came with Uncle Al husband to stay at "my" house during the blizzard. She introduced me to a few people and when I went to see her speaking at the Whaling Museum, I felt like I was sitting with a bunch of neighbors.

Picking up groceries at the Stop and Shop was like an after-church coffee hour, one person after the next hailing a friend and catching up. I'm not sure if it would be possible to do a quick dash in and out if you were a native.  When I went walking, drivers would wave as they passed me. Not many drivers - as near as I can tell, half if not more of the houses in town are shuttered for the winter. I have the feeling if I stayed one more week I'd probably wind up on a committee for historical preservation, or as a volunteer at the Atheneum, the town library.

I confess there's also a glamorous side to the winter here, albeit a different kind of glamor than the New York media celebrities and Masters of Wall Street of summer. The new friend I mentioned above is New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer (who loves mysteries!) While eating lunch at the Fog Island cafe, she said, "Oh, here's another writer friend I want you to meet! Nat! Come over here!"



It was Nathaniel Philbrick, Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the National Book Award. (He was very nice.) Uncle Al turned out to be Professor Emeritus Alfred W. Crosby, who pretty much single-handedly invented the discipline of ecological history. Nancy's husband Charley Walters, who gave me a fabulous tour of their 1840 house, is a former music critic for Rolling Stone.

Can you imagine who I might have met if I got to stay another week?

Coming off this amazing opportunity for daily writing and connecting with so many fascinating people, I have come to the conclusion that we need some sort of foundation - a large, well-funded foundation - whose sole purpose is to give crazy-busy women the chance to be alone and quiet and work at ---you fill in the blank. Their paintings, their books, their sun salutations, their souffles. In the meantime, I hope you all get a chance to run away from home - for a little while - to a place as marvelous as Nantucket.

Many, many thanks to Meg Ruley, David Lovett and the many members of the Ruley family who made my writing retreat possible!

Me and Aunt Fran after her talk at the Whaling Museum.

Have You Seen This Boy? a guest blog by Todd Ritter

 Todd Ritter burst onto the scene a little over a year ago with the highly-acclaimed Death Notice, a small town mystery with some very sharp edges. While working at the Newark Star-Ledger (the same paper that brought us Brad Parks! Is there something in the coffee machine?) Todd's managed to publish an ebook novella, Vicious Circle, and another mystery, Bad Moon, all set in the same not-so-quaint town of Perry Hollow and featuring Police Chief Kat Campbell. 

Today, Todd shares with us part of his creative technique - and asks for your help in solving a real-life mystery.

I like to think of writing as being a kind of Impressionist painter. With a few sharp strokes of the pen (or a flourish of taps on the keyboard), writers can conjure up images that, while perhaps brighter and more distorted, still resemble the world we live in. And like the Impressionists of yore, many writers — myself included — base those images on something we’ve seen in real life.

Yes, that’s my highfalutin’ way of saying that I use photographs to help me write. Sometimes it’s out of necessity, like when I need to describe a specific object or real-life location that I’m not familiar with. Usually, though, it’s more for inspiration. Looking at a picture of a crumbling Victorian house on the wrong side of town helps me conjure up a different crumbling house in my head, which I then place, with a few more alterations, on the page.

I do the same thing with characters, which is why, not too long ago, I found myself scouring the Internet for pictures of children from 1969. The research was for my second mystery, BAD MOON, which, although set in the present day, focuses on the search for Charlie Olmstead, a boy who vanished on July 20, 1969. Because I’m quite possibly the most neurotic writer in existence, I knew I couldn’t complete a word of the book unless I knew what poor, little Charlie looked like.

So I fled into the comforting arms of Google, using a combination of weird (and, out of context, quite shady) search terms to find a suitable image on which to base Charlie. I typed things like “Boys+1969.” Or “Sixties+children+boys.” And “Pennsylvania+missing boys.” Thankfully, it wasn’t long before I stumbled upon the perfect Charlie.

Here’s the picture:  

And here’s how I described it in BAD MOON: The page was a reproduction of an old newspaper article, accompanied by a photograph of a boy who had a tiny nose and jug-ears. He wore a shirt and tie and had spit-slicked blond hair, leading Nick to assume it was a school picture. And although the boy was giving a lopsided smile, there was sadness in his eyes. Above the article and photo was a simple, devastating headline: PERRY HOLLOW BOY, 10, MISSING.

Not exactly what’s in the photograph, but not too far off, either. Like the picture in real life, I wanted the one in the book to be simple, but haunting. Enough for readers to keep tucked in their memory as they slowly discover what happened to young Charlie.

As for me, that picture is seared into my brain. I can’t think of BAD MOON without that image popping into my head. I also know that I never would have been able to write the book without it. They say a picture is a worth a thousand words. In this case, a picture was worth roughly a hundred-thousand words.

There’s only one problem: I have no idea who this person is. I forget the exact search terms I used to find it and, despite repeated attempts, haven’t been able to locate it again. Which is a shame. I’d love to track down whoever this person is, send him a copy of BAD MOON and thank him for inspiring the book.

This is where you come in, awesome Jungle Reds readers. I want you to help me solve this real-life mystery. Have you seen this boy? Maybe one of you out there recognized him. Perhaps he’s your brother or now your husband. Maybe he’s an old classmate or a former neighbor from way back when. Any information on his whereabouts would be greatly appreciated. So if you have an inkling as to who he might be, shoot me an e-mail at todd@toddritteronline.com.

I know it’s a long shot. The Internet is crammed with images, and the fact that one of you might know anything about this one is unlikely. But stranger things have happened. And if your information leads to me finding him, then you, too, will get a signed copy of BAD MOON.

Until I hear from you, I’ll be searching the unruly vortex that is the Internet, hoping that I’ll once again come face to face with the picture of the boy I only know as Charlie Olmstead.

Todd Ritter is an author and editor. His second mystery, BAD MOON, was released in October by St. Martin’s/Minotaur. You can visit him online at www.toddritteronline.com, read his blog, friend him on Facebook and chat with him on Twitter (@ToddARitter).