Lea Wait's Blog, page 63
March 19, 2023
Bingeing on BritBox
Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today writing about bingeing on BritBox. I got hooked on binge-watching during Covid lockdown and used up most of what was free on Prime and on Spectrum’s On Demand and on Ovation Now. I watched a ton of movies and TV series on DVD, too, but streaming them on my iPad with headphones soon become a nightly habit.
By the time 2023 rolled around, I’d watched a heck of a lot of shows, including the complete series of Midsomer Murders, Boston Legal, The West Wing, Downton Abbey, Warehouse 13, Stargate: SG1, Stargate: Atlantis, The Good Wife, New Tricks, The Bletchley Circle, and Eureka.
There were other series I hadn’t seen and wanted to, but they either weren’t available or came with umpteen commercials. The local PBS station runs a lot of British shows, as does BBC America, but not always at convenient times and not with access to earlier (or later) episodes. I’d been hearing about BritBox for a few years (at Malice Domestic initially, so that’s definitely pre-Covid) and although I’m cheap and reluctant to commit to monthly payments for anything (Prime and our Spectrum bill being the major exceptions), I eventually realized that, for the price, subscribing to this streaming service is a real bargain.
Since signing on in mid-January, I’ve watched all twelve seasons (most of them with 4 episodes) of Vera, seasons 4-6 (8 episodes each) of Death in Paradise (I have 1 and 2 on DVD and remembered 3 well enough from seeing in on TV that I didn’t feel the need to rewatch), season 1 (10 episodes) of Father Brown, The Seven Dials Mystery (movie), Mrs. Bradley Mysteries (episode 1—the others are supposed to be included in BritBox but come up with a rental charge from Prime, so I’m obviously not watching those yet!), and Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (6 episodes).
I jump around a bit, sometimes bingeing and sometimes just watching one episode before going to another series. My BritBox “watchlist” currently consists of the following:
All Creatures Great and Small (1978 version)—I loved this the first time around and won’t watch the new version
As Time Goes By—Dame Judi Dench doing comedy
Ballykissangel—another I loved when it was on PBS years ago, especially for the Irish setting
Beyond Paradise (new series with one episode dropping each week)—spinoff from Death in Paradise featuring the detective from seasons 3-6 (he was also in Love, Actually)
Cranford—historical drama; episode one was hilarious, especially a bit with a cat, but I haven’t been able to get into episode 2. Since I like the cast, I’ll try again later
Death in Paradise (seasons 7-12)—mysteries set on a Caribbean island
Father Brown (seasons 2-9)—mysteries set in 1950s England
Pride and Prejudice—Colin Firth version in 6 episodes
Shakespeare and Hathaway—P.I. mysteries set in Stratford-upon-Avon
The Vicar of Dibley—another oldie with British comedienne Dawn French as the vicar
You’ll note that the mysteries are augmented by a scattering of comedies and historical dramas. There are lots of other older shows available of BritBox, too, some mystery series like Campion, Cadfael and Bergerac that I’ve seen before and some that are new to me, like Sister Boniface and Shetland—plenty to watch after I work my way through this first batch.
Of course, I still make time to watch other things. I watch three shows regularly on network TV: Young Sheldon, The Conners, and Finding Your Roots. Prime comes up with the odd new movie to rent or to buy not too long after they are in theaters, so this month I also saw 80 for Brady and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Did I mention that I love being semi-retired? I finally have time to binge-watch movies and TV shows to my heart’s content and, of course, to binge-read, too. I’m currently working my way through the first seventeen books in C. S. Harris’s Sebastian St. Cyr historical mystery series (second read on each) in anticipation of number eighteen being published next month.
What TV shows or mystery series (books or film) are you bingeing on? Do you go back to old favorites or only watch/read new material? Inquiring minds want to know.
Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others, including several children’s books. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Her most recent publications are The Valentine Veilleux Mysteries (a collection of three short stories and a novella, written as Kaitlyn) and I Kill People for a Living: A Collection of Essays by a Writer of Cozy Mysteries (written as Kathy). She maintains websites at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.
March 17, 2023
Weekend Update: March 18-19, 2023
Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Dick Cass (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Thursday), and Maureen Milliken (Friday).
In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:
An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.
And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora
March 16, 2023
Success: Ruin Meals. Write 5th Grade Prose.
Sandra Neily here: This post is about simple food and simple writing. Both, easily digestible.
Sugar Pie from “The Cruelest Month”
Author Louise Penny has ruined me for any restaurant or pub memories I used to cherish. What’s more, she may have ruined every attempt to enjoy future restaurant meals, no matter how much I might be willing to pay.
Nothing anyone serves me can measure up to the food in her novels. I’ve read most of Penny’s books. The food in them is literally to die for.
Instead of a book page I want a flaky, just-out-of-the-oven croissant stuffed with chunks of maple-baked ham and melted Gruyere wafting out fresh rosemary, and I want it next to crisp Pommes frites with the Bistro’s homemade mayonnaise.
French Onion Soup from “Bury Your Dead”
And that is just what she feeds her cops for lunch!
Even after a harrowing escape, bedraggled survivors covered in concrete dust stumble into a wood-stove warmed home where fragrant pea soup, pungent beef stew, and apple crisp exhaling cinnamon—greet them. I think I could be caught in a collapsed house if I could eat like that afterwards.
Her website has a featured recipe for various novels. Yum!
But that’s not what I am writing about today.
Food is just one of her talents for bringing readers deeply into her fiction. 
Driving along, I am listening to a Penny mystery novel filled with sophisticated, rambling discussions. We are asked to take deep dives down philosophical, moral, ethical, and sometimes literary rabbit holes.
How can she do that and still keep us turning page after page in anticipation?
Of course, there’s her amazing and artfully differentiated characters but also, pacing is the key. She reliably returns readers to drama, tension, and intense action, but here’s a deft trick she uses.
Penny’s syntax, grammar, and reading ease equal a fifth-grade readership. So, while much of the discussion is elevated, the language is easy to read.
I have no idea if she uses a Flesch Kincaid analysis or she just found her accessible, technical strategies as part of her talent, but here (below) I have used that device to analyze a passage from “The Brutal Telling.”
*********
“Chaos is coming, old son, and there’s no stopping it. It’s taken a long time, but it’s finally here.
The Hermit nodded, his eyes rheumy and runny, perhaps from the wood smoke, perhaps from something else. Olivier leaned back, surprised to feel his thirty-eighth-year-old body suddenly aching, and realized he’d sat tense through the whole awful telling.
I’m sorry. It’s getting late and Gabri will be worried. I have to go.”
“Already?”
Olivier got up and pumping cold, fresh water into the enamel sink, he cleaned his cup. Then he turned back to the room.
“I’ll be back soon,” he smiled.
Then before closing the door, he whispered the single word that was quickly devoured by the woods. Olivier wondered if the Hermit crossed himself and mumbled prayers, leaning against the door, which was thick but perhaps not quite thick enough.
And he wondered if the old man believed the stories of the great and grim army with Chaos looming and leading the Furies. Inexorable, unstoppable. Close.
And behind the something else. Something unspeakable. He finally broke through the trees and staggered to a stop, hands on his bent knees heaving for breath. Then, slowly straightening, he looked down on the village in the valley.
Three Pines was asleep, as it always seemed to be. At peace with itself and the world. Oblivious of what happened around it. Or perhaps aware of everything but choosing peace anyway. Soft light glowed at some of the windows.
***********
Here’s the Flesch Kincaid analysis. Penny has 2.4 sentences per paragraph, 10.2 words per sentence, and a reading ease of 73.6. That adds up to a fifth grade reading level. That’s eleven-year-olds. (See a reading ease graph at the end of the post.)
When I was writing my first novel, “Deadly Trespass,” I used the Flesch Kincaid device to analyze passages from other mystery and thriller authors. I wanted my work easy-to-read, even if the subject matter was complex.
Here’s what I found by typing up some pages from the following authors. (I included narrative as well as dialogue.)
Barr: Sentences per par 5.2. Words per sentence, 13. Reading ease, 78. Grade level, 5.6.
Evanovich: Sentences per par 6.2. Words per sentence, 7.5. Reading ease, 82. Grade level, 3.6.
Spencer Fleming: Sentences per par 4. Words per sentence, 10. Reading ease, 79.4. Grade level, 4.8.
Lee Child: Sentences per par, 7. Words per sentence, 16.4. Reading ease, 75.9. Grade level, 6.7.
(All authors averaged 4-5 characters per word. That’s a gross average that allows them to vary word length a lot. I think that goes to rhythm and pacing.)
How Did I Do?
At the end of my first “Deadly Trespass” draft: sentences per paragraph 3- 4.5. Words per sentence 9-10. Reading ease, 79-86. Grade level, 4-5.9
My readability was right in the middle of successful authors I admired. While I now occasionally check a chapter, this easy-to-read goal is now part of my author voice.
Yes, what makes a story sing has many magical elements that are not reduced to math or analysis, but I was teaching myself by reading other authors: how they pulled readers onward page-by-page, whether by design or talent. I just wanted to learn.
Here’s how to use the device in Word.
Sandy’s debut novel, “Deadly Trespass, A Mystery in Maine” won a national Mystery Writers of America award, was a finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest, and was a finalist for a Maine Literary Award.
The second Mystery in Maine, “Deadly Turn,” was published in 2021. Her third “Deadly” is due out in 2023. Find her novels at all Shermans Books (Maine) and on Amazon. Find more info on Sandy’s website.
The Flesch Reading Ease Score table. Writers should aim for a 60+ score minimum. The higher the page score, the easier it is to read. Especially on-line where scanning reigns!
ScoreSchool level: USANotes100.00–90.005th gradeVery easy to read. Easily understood, average 11-year-old90.0–80.06th gradeEasy to read. Conversational English for consumers.80.0–70.07th gradeFairly easy to read.70.0–60.08th & 9th gradePlain English. Easily understood: 13-15 age students.60.0–50.010th to 12th gradeFairly difficult to read.50.0–30.0CollegeDifficult to read.30.0–10.0College graduateVery difficult to read. Best understood, university grads10.0–0.0ProfessionalExtremely difficult to read. Best understood, univ. grads
A Restaurant Future: Ruined Forever?
Sandra Neily here:
Sugar Pie from “The Cruelest Month”
Author Louise Penny has ruined me for any restaurant or pub memories I used to cherish. What’s more, she may have ruined every attempt to enjoy future restaurant meals, no matter how much I might be willing to pay.
Nothing anyone serves me can measure up to the food in her novels. I’ve read most of Penny’s books. The food in them is literally to die for.
Instead of a book page I want a flaky, just-out-of-the-oven croissant stuffed with chunks of maple-baked ham and melted Gruyere wafting out fresh rosemary, and I want it next to crisp Pommes frites with the Bistro’s homemade mayonnaise.
French Onion Soup from “Bury Your Dead”
And that is just what she feeds her cops for lunch!
Even after a harrowing escape, bedraggled survivors covered in concrete dust stumble into a wood-stove warmed home where fragrant pea soup, pungent beef stew, and apple crisp exhaling cinnamon—greet them. I think I could be caught in a collapsed house if I could eat like that afterwards.
Her website has a featured recipe for various novels. Yum!
But that’s not what I am writing about today.
Food is just one of her talents for bringing readers deeply into her fiction. Driving along, I am listening to a Penny mystery novel filled with sophisticated, rambling discussions. We are asked to take deep dives down philosophical, moral, ethical, and sometimes literary rabbit holes.
How can she do that and still keep us turning page after page in anticipation?
Of course, there’s her amazing and artfully differentiated characters but also, pacing is the key. She reliably returns readers to drama, tension, and intense action, but here’s a deft trick she uses.
Penny’s syntax, grammar, and reading ease equal a fifth-grade readership. So, while much of the discussion is elevated, the language is easy to read.
I have no idea if she uses a Flesch Kincaid analysis or she just found her accessible, technical strategies as part of her talent, but here (below) I have used that device to analyze a passage from the” Brutal Telling”.
*********
“Chaos is coming, old son, and there’s no stopping it. It’s taken a long time, but it’s finally here.
The Hermit nodded, his eyes rheumy and runny, perhaps from the wood smoke, perhaps from something else. Olivier leaned back, surprised to feel his thirty-eighth-year-old body suddenly aching, and realized he’d sat tense through the whole awful telling.
I’m sorry. It’s getting late and Gabri will be worried. I have to go.”
“Already?”
Olivier got up and pumping cold, fresh water into the enamel sink, he cleaned his cup. Then he turned back to the room.
“I’ll be back soon,” he smiled.
Then before closing the door, he whispered the single word that was quickly devoured by the woods. Olivier wondered if the Hermit crossed himself and mumbled prayers, leaning against the door, which was thick but perhaps not quite thick enough.
And he wondered if the old man believed the stories of the great and grim army with Chaos looming and leading the Furies. Inexorable, unstoppable. Close.
And behind the something else. Something unspeakable. He finally broke through the trees and staggered to a stop, hands on his bent knees heaving for breath. Then, slowly straightening, he looked down on the village in the valley.
Three Pines was asleep, as it always seemed to be. At peace with itself and the world. Oblivious of what happened around it. Or perhaps aware of everything but choosing peace anyway. Soft light glowed at some of the windows.
***********
Here’s the Flesch Kincaid analysis. Penny has 2.4 sentences per paragraph, 10.2 words per sentence, and a reading ease of 73.6. That adds up to a fifth grade reading level. That’s eleven-year-olds. (See a reading ease graph at the end of the post.)
When I was writing my first novel, “Deadly Trespass,” I used the Flesch Kincaid device to analyze passages from other mystery and thriller authors. I wanted my work easy-to-read, even if the subject matter was complex.
Here’s what I found by typing up some pages from the following authors. (I included narrative as well as dialogue.)
Barr: Sentences per par 5.2. Words per sentence, 13. Reading ease, 78. Grade level, 5.6.
Evanovich: Sentences per par 6.2. Words per sentence, 7.5. Reading ease, 82. Grade level, 3.6.
Spencer Fleming: Sentences per par 4. Words per sentence, 10. Reading ease, 79.4. Grade level, 4.8.
Lee Child: Sentences per par, 7. Words per sentence, 16.4. Reading ease, 75.9. Grade level, 6.7.
(All authors averaged 4-5 characters per word. That’s a gross average that allows them to vary word length a lot. I think that goes to rhythm and pacing.)
How Did I Do?
At the end of my first “Deadly Trespass” draft: sentences per paragraph 3- 4.5. Words per sentence 9-10. Reading ease, 79-86. Grade level, 4-5.9
My readability was right in the middle of successful authors I admired. While I now occasionally check a chapter, this easy-to-read goal is now part of my author voice.
Yes, what makes a story sing has many magical elements that are not reduced to math or analysis, but I was teaching myself by reading other authors: how they pulled readers onward page-by-page, whether by design or talent. I just wanted to learn.
Here’s how to use the device in Word.
Sandy’s debut novel, “Deadly Trespass, A Mystery in Maine” won a national Mystery Writers of America award, was a finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest, and was a finalist for a Maine Literary Award. The second Mystery in Maine, “Deadly Turn,” was published in 2021. Her third “Deadly” is due out in 2023. Find her novels at all Shermans Books (Maine) and on Amazon. Find more info on Sandy’s website.
The Flesch Reading Ease Score table. Writers should aim for a 60+ score minimum. The higher the page score, the easier it is to read. Especially on-line where scanning reigns!
ScoreSchool level: USANotes100.00–90.005th gradeVery easy to read. Easily understood, average 11-year-old90.0–80.06th gradeEasy to read. Conversational English for consumers.80.0–70.07th gradeFairly easy to read.70.0–60.08th & 9th gradePlain English. Easily understood: 13-15 age students.60.0–50.010th to 12th gradeFairly difficult to read.50.0–30.0CollegeDifficult to read.30.0–10.0College graduateVery difficult to read. Best understood, university grads10.0–0.0ProfessionalExtremely difficult to read. Best understood, univ. grads
From Nancy Drew to Nancy Droop
Aging Baby Boomer here. And maybe because I am so old, I’m noticing a trend to take commercial/literary advantage of “women of a certain age” like me. And I’m all for it. I have been reading more books with older protagonists lately and enjoying them.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not discriminating against Nancy Drew, although I was a Judy Bolton girl. Youth may be wasted on the young, but they have rights, too. However, I am definitely in my Miss Marple phase. Give me the pearls and twinsets and sensible shoes.
Numerous actors have portrayed Jane Marple on the big and little screens, the radio, and there is even a Japanese anime series featuring her and Poirot. Would Agatha approve? Probably. I think she liked to keep current. And make money.
There are 32 Miss Silver books by Patricia Wentworth, written from 1928 to 1961. Miss Silver, a retired governess-turned-detective, gives Miss Marple a run for her reputation. Both are elderly, physically unprepossessing spinsters who are easily underestimated until they catch the crooks. I have not read all 32 and probably won’t, but they are fine examples of Golden Age mysteries.
I have raved here before about Richard Osman’s three Thursday Murder Club books, set in a posh retirement village in the UK. Four very diverse residents have banded together (on Thursdays) to look at cold cases, and some very hot cases as well. The supporting characters are equally compelling, and I look forward to the fourth book coming in September.
A Spoonful of Murder by J.M. Hall bands three retired teachers together to investigate the death of a former colleague over their weekly coffee date. Elly Griffiths’ The Postscript Murders has a dead 90-year-old and her somewhat younger neighbors who help solve her murder. One of the heroines in Robert Thorogood’s The Marlow Murder Club is a mysterious Crossword clue-setting septuagenarian who swims in the Thames daily (shudder). Deanna Raybourn’s recent Killers of a Certain Age features four sixty-somethings who try to quit the spy business, but their agency has other—deadly—plans. None of these characters are in any way doddering, which I appreciate. (Even if I’m a bit doddering on occasion.)
I am on Season 10 (out of 12) of Vera on BritBox. At the beginning of the series in 2011, Vera was a close-to-retirement Detective Chief Inspector with a newly diagnosed heart condition. In real life, star Brenda Blethyn is now 77, and I’m wondering if a Season 13 is planned for the future. It’s probably time for Vera (and Brenda) to throw away her awful hat, retire, and go to Spain for a holiday like any proper British pensioner. Blethyn is wonderful in the role, though, and has cute young detective sergeants to do the jumping over fences to chase the criminals.
In my own new cozy mystery series (yet to be published), the heroine May (my tribute to Auntie Mame with a dash of Miss Marple) would never admit to her age, and the hero Charles is a ready-to-rusticate Scotland Yard detective. In the words of May’s niece: One has merely to catch a glimpse of Aunt May to know one is in the presence of an Original. It’s not just that she is well-preserved for a woman her age (whatever that may be—she has struck the exact year out of the family Bible with an “accidental” thumb smudge), but her personality is, to put it mildly, forceful.
Sometimes I think she is far more modern than I am. She has plucked her distinctive eyebrows and shingled her currently auburn hair. From a distance, at twilight, she could pass for one of the Bright Young People who motor down from London to drink themselves blind at the week-end in one of the converted weavers’ cottages.
The Bible-fudging is a nod to my own red-headed great-aunts, a few of whom somehow blotted out the years they were born in my great-grandmother Mary Hester Hardwick Miller’s Bible. They were known collectively as “the beautiful Miller sisters.” I don’t know about their beauty, but their waists look impossibly small.
My grandmother Ruth, second from left, and some of her sisters
Ruth Hardwick Miller Lanman
Does age matter? Do you have a favorite geezer-series?
For more information on Maggie and her books, please visit www.maggierobinson.net
March 13, 2023
Online Interview With Lisa Haselton
My special guest helping me kick off a new month is mystery author Vaughn C. Hardacker. We’re chatting about his new crime thriller, Ripped Off.
Bio:
Vaughn C. Hardacker is a veteran of the US Marines, and he served in Vietnam. He holds degrees from Northern Maine Community College, the University of Maine, and Southern New Hampshire University. Hardacker is a member of the New England chapter of the Mystery Writers of America (MWA), the International Thriller Writers (ITW), and the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.
He is an avid reader of mysteries and crime/thrillers and the author of Sniper (finalist in the 2015 Maine Literary Awards Crime Fiction Category) and The Fisherman (finalist in the 2016 Maine Literary Awards Crime Fiction Category), and The Black Orchid. His thriller, Wendigo, was a finalist in the 2018 Maine Literary Awards. His seventh novel, Ripped Off, was released by Encircle Publications on January 25, 2023.
He blogs with the Maine Crime Writers and his personal blog and resides in Stockholm, Maine. Visit his website.
Welcome, Vaughn. Please tell us about your current release.
Upon leaving court after his fourth divorce, retired hitman Ian Connah learns that his financial manager has disappeared with his retirement funds. While he is determined to get his money back, Connah’s dilemma is that, to finance his quest, he must return to the trade.
Connah becomes a bodyguard for two former girlfriends (each a rival for his affection) who detest each other. When a million-dollar bounty is put on them, a team of three professional killers takes the contract. Connah takes the women to a remote lodge in Maine’s north woods to protect them from a killer afflicted with OCD, a ruthless former Irish Republican Army assassin, and a sadistic Mexican cartel hitman.
The search for Harry Sandberg will lead Connah from Maine to Boston, Boston to the Caribbean Islands, and to the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil. He will face crooked lawyers, South American drug lords, and the largest and most violent of Brazil’s criminal syndicates.
What inspired you to write this book?
I wanted to tell a story that allowed me to stay in the thriller genre. All my previous novels were written from the POV of a typical protagonist, and I wanted to do an anti-hero. I also wanted to interject more humor than my others.
Excerpt from Ripped Off:
Connah turned into his drive on Lake Osprey and saw his bank manager, Herbert Harvey, standing on his deck, staring at the lake. He walked to the deck and knew from the look on Harvey’s face that this was not a social call. Harvey was the only person, along with Harry Sandberg and Glenn Ouellette, Connah’s personal accountant, who knew about Connah’s turbulent past and how much money he had in his portfolio. “You don’t look happy, Herb.”
“If you think I’m unhappy, wait until I tell you what I learned this morning.”
“Why do I suddenly get the feeling that what has so far been a very crappy day is about to blow up into a full-fledged shit-storm?” Connah walked past Harvey and leaned forward, resting his forearms on the deck railing. He studied the unusually calm lake surface and said, “Okay, lay it on me.”
“You’re broke. Not quite to the point of insolvency, but broke just the same.”
Connah slowly turned his head, and his eyes narrowed. “Broke?”
“Broke.”
“What about the investments that Sandberg made for me?”
“There never were any investments.”
“I had three million dollars, not to mention that stock in that solar panel company he told me was going great guns.”
“Over the past five years, Sandberg and Ouellette sold all your shares in Sun Power, Incorporated, and bit-by-bit withdrew what money you had in my bank.”
“How in hell could they do that without my knowing it?”
“You may recall that, against my advice, by the way, you signed a Power of Attorney giving them full authority to make any and all financial transactions for you. My people knew that you’d done so and thought nothing of it. To cut to the chase, by the time you send out this month’s alimony checks, you’ll need a co-signer to buy a pack of gum.”
What exciting project are you working on next?
Actually, I’m working on several novels. I’ve always worked on multiple projects. I have a sequel to Ripped Off (title undetermined) and a sequel to my novel, Wendigo (finalist for the 2018 Maine Literary Award), entitled Loup Garou. I’ve also got two thrillers and two westerns in process.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I first started writing short stories in junior high school (I thank God on a daily basis that they are long gone). However, in the late 1980s, while battling PTSD, I was advised to write about the experiences that bothered me the most. Those writings ended up being ELEPHANT VALLEY. A novel about my experience as a helicopter door gunner in Vietnam. THE WAR WITHIN, in which I dealt with my teen years and how they affected me as an adult. WAR won second place in the June 1989 International Literary Awards contest. It was then that I knew I could be a writer. Little did I know that It would be twenty-plus years before I’d publish my first novel. I often tell people that I learned to write by the time I was in second grade — it took me a lifetime to learn HOW to write,
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write, and how do you find time to write?
I’m retired and write from home. Finding time to write has never been my problem. My constant battle against procrastination, now that’s another story. Like most writers, I’ve been asked, “What’s your writing style?” My reply is: “I don’t recommend my style to anyone — I can only describe it as prolonged periods of procrastination followed by frenetic periods of writing.” It takes me a while to decide what I want to write; however, once I know the basic plot, I write all day long (and sometimes late into the night).
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I think I described that in the above section. However, I will say that I can become addicted to research. The internet can be my best friend or my worst enemy. I often set out to research a topic and see something else that interests me and go down the rabbit hole.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I grew up in far northern Maine, Caribou. I was born there and then, at the age of 1, moved to New Jersey. When I was seven, we moved back to Caribou. I can honestly say all I wanted to be when I grew up was as far from Caribou as possible. Guess where I now live… yup, Stockholm, Maine, a little town northwest of Caribou.
Links:
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Personal Blog | Maine Crime Writers Blog
Thanks for being here today, Vaughn.
When Jane Addams Met Radar O’Reilly
John Clark on an unusual offshoot of his careers as author and librarian. One of my fellow graduates of the University of South Carolina masters in library and information science program, Debbie Lozito, once observed that librarians exist so people can get rid of books without feeling guilty.
As time has gone on, I’ve realized how correct she was. It began when I was the library director in Boothbay Harbor. The library was blessed with a great friends group that ran a used bookstore next to the library. When someone moved or died, the library was one of the first places to be contacted. I often took my pick-up to a residence and returned with boxes of books. I realized it was a smart move to triage donations and replace worn copies of popular fiction titles, saving money and keeping patrons happy.
My first ah-ha moment about how far such a process would go came when a woman I was helping with her Ph.D. by getting articles, called in a panic. She and her husband ran a motel and new owners fired them, giving them just a few days to vacate the premises. She asked if I would be willing to stop by and take things they couldn’t justify holding onto. By the time I drove home that night, my truck was piled high with everything from dried flower wreaths, maple syrup, chairs, and even a set of antique silverware.
There was a lull when I worked at the Maine State Library, but once I started at the Hartland Public Library, I was right back in business. The more folks learned about my willingness to accept and find homes for books, the higher the volume. One of the local church thrift stores brought their excess when they ran out of room. Some were added to the collection, some sold to a couple local book dealers, but then I discovered a new resource.
www.paperbackswap.com is a website (along with sister sites for music CDs and DVDs), where members can list books and audiobooks they want to swap. Each book claimed costs the requester one credit which goes to the person offering the book. I used it extensively to expand the mystery, christian fiction, and young adult fiction collections in the library. Even though retired, I continue to swap there, mostly for young adult and science fiction titles not held by a Maine library. Once I’ve read them, I pass them on, usually to a school library. As of this date, I have sent, or received 12,005 books.
In addition to becoming a resource for people looking to declutter/downsize their collections, I started selling surplus books online, initially to benefit the Hartland Library. Three academic institutions had books they needed to get rid of, stuff most wouldn’t think had much value, but I once sold a book on aircraft seat design for $400+. A batch of theology books went west with my brother-in-law to become part of my college professor nephew’s reference library. I also used Paperbackswap to acquire books for library patrons and family members.
When I retired seven years ago, I thought my book re-homing might slow or stop, but it hasn’t been the case. I’ve continued selling online, mostly for myself, but also for a library and a couple who were very generous to the Hartland library before moving to Massachusetts.
I’ve found homes for a couple hundred mysteries passed on by a judge in a national mystery contest. They all reside on shelves in smaller Maine libraries with limited budgets. Several times, I’ve gotten books from a fellow MCW blogger when they ran out of room. I’ve even had some of the people I swim with ask if I’d find homes for some of their surplus books.
Last summer, a fellow librarian contacted me about helping some house cleaners who were tasked with getting the former home of a professor of Chinese language ready to be sold. I got in touch with the cleaners and not only returned with a car full of books, but some classic Fisher-Price toys that my younger granddaughter now enjoys. Some of the books in Mandarin now reside with another retired Chinese language professor in Minnesota. The other morning, on a whim, I jokingly asked the swimmer who passed books on to me if she wanted any books in Mandarin. Well, it turns out she has a grandson who is Chinese, so I’m passing books on to her tomorrow.
Unless a book is too outdated, too torn up, or smells, I do my best to re-home it. It’s an enjoyable challenge and keeps retirement interesting.
March 10, 2023
Weekend Update: March 11-12, 2023
Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by John Clark (Monday), Vaughn Hardacker (Tuesday), Maggie Robinson (Thursday), and Sandra Neily (Friday).
In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:
March 30, 2023 – 6:00
pm
Local author Jule Selbo will be in conversation with writer/comedian Anna Conathan at the South Portland Public Library on Thursday, March 30th at 6PM. They’ll discuss writing – for novels, for tv and film and for comedy – and specifically Jule’s new book, 9 DAYS, the second installment of the Dee Rommel mystery series set right here in Portland, ME.
Anna is a writer and performer living in South Portland. Her experiences as a Hollywood actress, comic and screenwriter led to setting up a popular writer-coaching biz. She also has a favorite pastime – serving as a sternman on a lobster boat. Jule Selbo spent a few decades working as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Four years ago, she moved to Portland Maine to focus on writing novels. Five have been published so far – (two historical fiction Dreams of Discovery, Life of Explorer John Cabot, and Breaking Barriers, Laura Bassi’s Life (Goethe Award recognition) and a mystery romance Find Me In Florence (first place Chanticleer Award for Women’s Fiction). Finally ready to tackle her favorite genre, crime/mystery) she wrote 10 DAYS: A Dee Rommel Mystery (listed on the 2021 top-five list of Kirkus’ best crime/mysteries, nominated for a Clue Award, Maine Literary Award, received a Foreword Review Honorable Mention and a nomination for the Silver Falchion Award. 9 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery is the next book in the ten-part series and has just received another Kirkus Star Review.
An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.
And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora
Reading Pet Peeves
After reading two highly anticipated thrillers this past week, and becoming exasperated after finishing them, I started thinking about what bothers me in novels. And I’m also curious to know what your hang-ups are as a reader.
Okay, so I read a novel that utilized a novel-within-a-novel technique. Let’s just say that I did not enjoy the book. That being said, does anyone really think a novel-within-a-novel would be a better story if the larger novel containing it was not good? The main plot was dull and sophomoric, and the novel-within-a-novel segments bored the hell out of me. It sucked all the energy from the tepid plot. This is when I started skimming the text instead of reading it.
That being said, I’m not totally against the idea of writing a novel-within-a-novel. But the NWN would have to be as good, if not better, than the novel containing it. I just haven’t read one of these types of stories yet that pulled me in. Wouldn’t it be better to just summarize the NWN so as not to take the reader out of the story? I find it hard enough to write one really good novel, never mind adding a second one inside my plot. I think it can be done; I just haven’t read a good example of it yet. What do you guys think?
My next hang up has to with dream sequences. The second mystery novel I read featured numerous dream sequences that blended seamlessly into the plot. While I admired what the author was trying to do here, interspersing dream sequences into the meat of the story took me right out of the flow. Not only that, but it confused me about what was real and what was not. What I did like was the dark, surreal atmosphere the author created by using this immersive technique. But overall it didn’t really work as effectively as I would have liked.
Despite my hang-up about dream sequences, I must admit that I have written a few of these scenes in the novel I’m currently editing. Have I used it efficiently and in an effective manner? I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I have, but I can’t be totally sure. Maybe my editor will deem these scenes unnecessary and ask me to delete them. The dream sequences provide important information crucial to the protagonist’s character flaws. In addition, these sequences bring back old characters that appeared in two earlier books. So in some ways, these dream sequences acts as a recap of the two previous novels, reintroducing old characters that had been killed off.
I find that many authors use dream sequences to fill pages and make their novels seem literate and high brow. Most of the time I end up banging my head against the wall in frustration while reading these plot-killing passages. Or I skim over these parts until I get back to the crux of the story. Dream sequences need to be used for a specific purpose and be relevant to the story. And some authors make these so literal that they don’t even read like a dream. Give me some dark and twisted images in the vein of David Lynch if you’re going to write dream sequences.
Okay, here is my annual prologue rant. I hate prologues. Don’t like them. I dislike them possibly as much as novels-within-novels. Often times I won’t even buy a book if I see a prologue longer than a page.
But if they must be done, the shorter the better. And yes, I’ve used prologues before in my books, but only because I absolutely (honestly) had to to use one (although I probably didn’t need to). I’ve seen horrible uses of prologues that just as easily could have been incorporated into the gut of the story. I’ve read long, mind-numbing prologues that bored the crap out of me and made me slam the book down. Prologues that had nothing, if little, to do with the story that followed. If you’re gonna use a damn prologue, author people, use it only when absolutely necessary. And be as brief as possible.
There’s a show my wife are currently watching called Poker Face. I have to admit that it’s entertaining, but what really bugs me is the way the main character, Charlie, solves murders: she can tell instantly when people are lying. While this may sound cute, it strikes me as laziness. Whereas Colombo and Holmes used logic and reason to solve crimes, Charlie is able to solve the most difficult and complex murders by simply using her gift. While interesting on some levels, I just find this to be simplistic and an easy way out. And we don’t even know if her ability is supernatural or merely an ability to read facial expressions. Are there sociopaths out there who could lie convincingly and trick her? Maybe that will be addressed in a future episode. That said, I do enjoy the show.
Sadly, I have more hang-ups about reading than I should have. I despise shifting character POVs within the same chapter, as well as long segments written in italics, but that’s all I’ll complain to you about for right now. What are your hang-ups when reading a novel? What writerly tics and habits make you want to throw the book you’re reading out the window and shout, to quote the movie Network, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
And please forgive me when I break my own rule and one day write that novel-within-a-novel story in italics about a woman whose dreams reveal the real serial killer. Oh, and their will be a prologue.
Carry on!
March 9, 2023
CAN THE WRITING BRAIN BE TRAINED?
blogged by Jule Selbo
This is kind of jumping off from Shelley Burbank’s guest posting on Tuesday. Not on purpose – but when I read her blog – I thought – ahh! Minds in the same place!
My very first “writing sale” was to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I was in my early twenties and since childhood, I’d always picked up the small publication at various libraries or bookstores and read its stories. I can’t remember what made me decide to sit down and try my hand at writing one. I’ve tried to climb into the deep-memory state (lay down and let your mind go, Jule) or (take a walk, Jule, and some brain-pictures of the time might show themselves) but so far, no luck. I was totally into writing plays at the time – pretty silly ones because it was hard for me, in my twenties, to reveal I might have a few serious thoughts, worries, frustrations, wonderings. (Shameful now, in retrospect, that my self-confidence was so low and my cowardice so high).
But sit down I must have done. I’d just moved to NYC, so did I write them at the Greek Coffeeshop on the corner of Broadway and 72nd? At a long table in the NYC Public Library? Or at my pay-the-rent job in midtown Manhattan, in between trying to convince, via telephone, medical professionals to sign up for chat-and-sell sessions on the latest pharmaceutical marvels?
What I do remember is that they came from some part of my brain that was un-educated in the form (except for being an avid reader). And that it was fun. Fast. And somehow I had dipped into a junior high and high school “character voice”. And, until I got the acceptance and the paltry (I didn’t care) payment, I had no idea how cool it was to have a short story accepted by a publication.
I haven’t written a short story since. I have written short plays (10-minute, 20-minute plays are the most viable), short screenplays (11 to 12 minutes for the TV screen) but haven’t done anymore short prose. I think my short story career must have been halted when I was hired to write for a daytime soap and two night-time horror anthology shows (George Romero’s Tales from the Darkside and Monsters…
…in essence they were stand-alone 30 minute film stories so the short form was still there but…) – and writing just for “fun” had to be put aside.
Now thinking about going from writing long-form novels to experimenting with the short form again – I know my brain will take some re-training. I’ll have to lose some character complexity and my love of creating lots of obstacles and twists and turns. The point (as I think I see it, but ready for some edifying) of the short forms is to concentrate more on a single goal, a smaller cast of strong characters and maybe only one or two obstacles. Nuanced set-ups need to be put aside, and the pieces may often (must?) start in the “middle of the problem”.
QUESTION: For the short story writers out there – do you find yourself starting at the inciting incident? Or in the middle of the conflict (like looking at the dead body)? If set-ups are necessary – are they, in the short story form, truncated?
This desire to work in the form again has been a whisper in my ear for a few months, it’s now becoming a louder directive. Don’t know why – but it’s probably because I’m deep into the frustrating middle of 8 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery, and I’ve been longing to have something completed. My friend, Anne Elliott (South Portland) is a great short story writer and I read her stuff all the time and marvel at the succinct, literary set-ups and twists and completions (on average in about ten pages). She’s not writing crime/mysteries but tension and the reader’s “what’s gonna happen next” is definitely tweaked.
On the MWP site, I read about a short story read-and-talk taking place at Back Cove Books. I attended it last week. A.J. Bermudez and Josh Bodwell were presiding and
reading from their work. I bought A.J.’s book Stories No One Hopes Are About Them and read a few of the entries. Her style is heady, intellectual and focused on deep character studies – characters who are thrust into new, challenging situations. One reviewer on the back cover stated “…(she) mixes the daily and the outlandish in a vision that is often wrenching and surprising.” From my reading: they’re not crime mysteries but there’s a sense of foreboding and suspense in many of them – and they seem to be great set-ups for crime/mysteries – as if IF there were a next chapter, someone could be found, murdered. I also purchased North by NorthEast, New Short Stories By Maine Writers (2022). Joshua Bodwell’s story, “We Are The Tide” is earthy and grounded and again (because my mind always floats towards the crime genre) I read it as a fantastic character study of a man whose life (and the neighborhood bar he owns) are being taken away from him. IF the story had continued (doesn’t need to, it’s great as is), it could be ripe for violence and mayhem.
I did a Dee Rommel book event at Camden library last month (what a gorgeous library!!!) and browsed their “For Sale” table. I found Sue Grafton’s Kinsey and Me collection of short stories.
There was that tap on my shoulder again – a reminder to revisit the form. I hadn’t even known that Grafton wrote short stories. Reading Grafton’s preface was interesting – she wrote: “A mystery (detective) short story is a marvel of ingenuity. The writer works on a small canvas, word-painting with the equivalent of a brush with three hairs.” She listed the variations she considered when she decided to write some short stories:
QUESTION: The last observation– the crime must be in the roots of the past or present reality of the victim. Huh. Never heard it described that way. Do I agree? Do you agree?
Grafton also expanded on the detective/investigator variation. She wrote that the writer needs to:
Lay out the nature of the crimeIntroduce two or three suspectsCreate suspenseAdd a bit of action if possibleDemonstrate how the investigator investigatesArrive at a theory which must be tested for accuracy.I looked up S.S. Van Dine’s potent admonitions to writers of detective fiction on the Sisters in Crime (Indiana chapter) site: “A detective novel should contain no long descriptive passages, no literary dallying with side-issues, no subtly worked-out character analyses, no ‘atmospheric’ preoccupations. Such matters have no vital place in a record of crime and deduction.” Mr. Van Dine is (was) very opinionated and it’s an enjoyable read. https://www.speedcitysistersincrime.org/ss-van-dine—twenty-rules-for-writing-detective-stories.html
I’ve now read most of the Kinsey Millhone short stories in Kinsey and Me. (Kinsey is, of course, Grafton’s protagonist in her famous alphabet series that started with A is for Alibi). Most adhere to her own tenants, but there are a few where the bullet points above are given short shrift. Kinsey is awfully smart and fast at landing on a theory and testing it for accuracy (usually without cops involved), but every once in awhile, “create suspense” “add a bit of action if possible” are sidestepped. Some of the stories are gems of cleverness and almost satire (the very short ones). But in stories like “Non Sung Smoke” and the one about the antique firearm tick more of her “hope-to” elements.
QUESTIONS: Any thoughts/tips on how to create high suspense and action in a short story? Does Poe do it best? Susan Glaspell? Arthur Conan Doyle? Phillip K. Dick? I have Megan Abbott and Sarah Cortez and Agatha Christie shorts to check out, as well as Frankie Y. Bailey and more – including the short story writers on Maine Crime Writers Blog. I am loving my “research”
QUESTION: Is there a website/publication that includes short mystery/crime/investigator stories by Maine writers?
Yeah, it’s been a few decades since I’ve written a mystery/crime/investigator short story. Is this interest stemming because I want to avoid the “toughest” part of the full-length novel I’m writing now? Maybe. But I do remember the fun I had writing those Hitchcock stories. Looking for that “fun” again.
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