Lea Wait's Blog, page 70

Weekend Update: February 18-19, 2023

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kate Flora (Monday), Matt Cost (Tuesday), Maureen Milliken (Thursday), and Dick Cass (Friday). On Wednesday there will be a special giveaway from Maggie Robinson.

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

 

What a Great Cast

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today musing about something both books and movies have in common. When a new movie’s promo starts up, it produces various reactions, but the one that I have most often (besides “Who would pay good money to see that?) is “What a great cast!”

In books, especially novels in a series, a continuing cast of interesting characters is one of the most important elements of the whole. When relationships click, they keep readers coming back. The characters make the stories more memorable. Readers have even been known to complain if a favorite secondary character doesn’t appear in the newest entry in the series. The residents of my fictional towns of Moosetookalook and Lenape Hollow are “real” to a lot of Kaitlyn Dunnett fans.

Some writers “cast” the parts in their novels by imagining real life actors in them. I rarely do this. In fact, I can only think of two occasions. The first was when I created the character of Sir Robert Appleton, my heroine’s dastardly husband in the Face Down mysteries I wrote as Kathy Lynn Emerson. I’d recently seen Shakespeare in Love and Colin Firth’s villainous earl was exactly what I had in mind for Robert. So was making Robert the victim in the fourth book in the series.

In The Scottie Barked at Midnight, one of the Liss MacCrimmon mysteries written as Kaitlyn Dunnett, I was faced with having to create a whole flock of one-off characters to compete in a fictional television show being filmed at an equally fictional Maine ski resort. To make things easier on myself, I printed photos of the contestants and judges from a recent season of Dancing with the Stars and used those for inspiration.

Turning back to movies and that “what a great cast!” reaction, I have to confess that although I’m not a moviegoer in the sense of seeing current films in theaters, I do stream a lot of movies, some of them recent and some not. I pick what to watch as much because of a good ensemble cast as for the plot. Sometimes the plot turns out to be pretty thin but watching seasoned actors work together makes up for a lot. When both the actors and the writing are good, watching is pure pleasure.

Most recently I had the “what a great cast” reaction to the promos for 80 for Brady and will stream it as soon as it is available. What’s not to like about Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field, and Rita Moreno? Aside from the casting, I have admit to having been a Tom Brady fan . . . until he turned traitor and left the Patriots. Fortunately the film takes place during the time he was still playing for the Pats.

What other movies have grabbed my attention on the basis of a great cast? There are too many to name them all, but here, in no particular order, is a sampling:

First Wives Club: Goldie Hawn, Bette Milder, Diane Keaton

Calendar Girls: Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Annette Crosbie, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Celie Imrie, Penelope Wilton

Ocean’s 8: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham-Carter, Sarah Paulson

Tea with Mussolini: Judi Dench, Cher, Maggie Smith, Lily Tomlin, Joan Plowright

Love, Actually: Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Martin Freeman, Chjwetel Ejiofor, and more

Book Club: Jane Fonda, Candace Bergen, Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen

These Old Broads: Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins (written by Carrie Fisher)

Great plots? Great writing? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Great casts? Definitely.

So, readers—what movies have provoked the “what a great cast” reaction from you. Please share.

 

 

 

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.

 

Pithy. Pithy. Pithy! (am so eager for more of it …)

 

Sandra Neily here:

Are you, like me, pining for the world to get a bit more … Pithy?

A pithy phrase or statement is brief but full of substance and meaning. It often feels like a shot of truth.

(I don’t mean a hit of social media that assumes humans’ attention spans are shorter than a cream shot hitting expresso.)

Can a fiction writer be pithy? Use the pithy phrase successfully and not lose readers? Avoid that moment when readers feel an author reaching through to lecture … or (I’m cringing) hector them?

Wow them with that arresting moment that might define a character and have us thinking about a possible truth long after a page is turned?

Yes! Of course. But, like me, it might be surprising.

I’ve been listening to Agatha Christie’s short stories as I drive. The pithy is jumping out at me in the midst of bodies and more bodies, and even more bodies (and lots of stolen jewels).

So here she is.

 

  From Agatha Christie’s fiction:

I do not argue with obstinate men. I act in spite of them.” Agatha Christie, The Mystery of the Blue Train

“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorseless.” Agatha Christie, The Hound of Death and Other Stories

“As a matter of fact it wouldn’t be safe to tell any man the truth about his wife! Funnily enough, I’d trust most women with the truth about their husbands. Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine, without batting an eyelash, and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least. Women are wonderful realists.” Agatha Christie, Murder in Mesopotamia

“If you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, he will usually admit it – often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect.” Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express

“Everybody always knows something,” said Adam, “even if it’s something they don’t know they know.” Agatha Christie, Cat Among the Pigeons

And a few more from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels:

If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” Sirius Black, The Goblet of Fire

Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic. Capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.” Dumbledore, Deathly Hallows: part 2“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Dumbledore, Chanmber of Secrets.What’s comin’ will come, an’ we’ll meet it when it does.” Hagrid, The Goblet of Fire*********

I went back to look for pithy, truth-sounding moments in my novels and found them, but I think they should be Agatha-short. Or shorter. I thank her for being a pithy role model!

From my Deadly Trespass:

“… wild animal health depends on our setting up the outdoors as a zoo—a zoo without bars. I know it’s a contradiction, but today no animal can be free until we accept responsibility for its freedom.” (Patton)

It helped that I knew real conservation started in the human heart, not out where animals actually lived.

I replayed my mother’s message three times just to hear her voice, because a mother’s voice is a mother’s voice no matter what.

From my Deadly Turn:

I thought I might understand his caution—his hard-learned silence. Sometimes I thought there was a whole tribe of men who’d forced women onto smaller, meaner plots of ground where we were also supposed to be content and silent. I knew the scale of intimidation was different, even if the pain was real for both of us. My relatives had never been hunted down and slaughtered …

[about moose] “Maintaining the fiction that they are usually solitary and hard to locate in winter may save them from becoming easy targets. Remote locations often seduce lawful people into criminal behavior.”

…  the girl-be-silent disease. It was often a secret disease—not visible as it worked its way through our deepest selves. After enough messages telling us we weren’t acceptable, we took over the infection process. We helped the disease metastasize to our brains so no one had to remind us that our words and voices needed careful pruning to get and hold jobs—get and hold most men we met. We carried scalpels inside to accomplish our own voice reduction surgery.

*********

A fav pithy of mine: The president of the U.S. Senate thought he’d insult Senator Elizabeth Warren by saying this as he tried to gavel her down. Nope! The phrase was immediately seen as a compliment and went viral. My mug arrived the next day.

Please, while enjoying your cocoa, send me a comment with a favorite pithy phrase, either yours or a favorite of yours! Thanks….

The second Mystery in Maine, Deadly Turn, was published in 2021. Her 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. Find her novels at all Shermans Books (Maine) and on Amazon. Find more info on Sandy’s website.

Island Hopping

Happy Valentine’s Day! At this stage of the winter, who hasn’t wanted to run away to a beautiful, private island with a sweetheart? I can’t supply the companion*, and this island may not be tropical, but at least it’s close to home—Islesboro, in Penobscot Bay.

My daughter Jessie is the caretaker of a large waterfront estate there, and lives in a nineteenth century farmhouse on the property with her son, Ryder, a rescue dog named Georgia (who is the star of several of the pictures below), and two rescue cats. This sounds like the perfect set-up for a cozy mystery series to me. Alert the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries Channel. Jessie could even act in it as she has a degree in Theater from USM, although I don’t guess she’d like to dig up any dead bodies on the grounds for real.

Islesboro is a twenty-minute ferry ride from the mainland (“America”), but even if you’re from Maine, you may not have visited it in all its glory. The island is well-known as a discreet destination for the rich and famous; I once spotted Teddy Kennedy at the ferry terminal, and I sold two angel food cakes to Kirstie Alley at the preschool fair when we lived out there. John Travolta’s house,( John Travolta Lists Resort-Sized Maine Estate for $5 Million – Mansion Global )the former Drexel compound, would be the perfect location for a crazy Clue 2 movie. It was Miss Scarlett in the conservatory with a candlestick! It’s been on the market for only $5 million. We can all chip in and have an amazing writers’ retreat.

If you’re not familiar with the area, Jessie will take care of that with her unfiltered photos of one of the most spectacular places in Maine, or, in fact, America. Soon enough, her garden will be in bloom, as will mine. In the meantime, enjoy the armchair travel and dream of spring!

*For a sweetheart you can curl up with on a cold winter’s night, the first book in the cozy, 1920s-set Lady Adelaide Mysteries, Nobody’s Sweetheart Now, is only $1.99 during the month of February. You can read the first chapter and access buy links here: Nobody’s Sweetheart Now | Maggie Robinson

For more info about Islesboro: Islesboro | Maine: An Encyclopedia (maineanencyclopedia.com)

 

 

Characters

Vaughn C. Hardacker

One of the things that will turn me off on a book is Tom Swift style characters, you know the hero who excels at everything they have ever done. You know The Great Leslie Gallant character of the Warner Brothers 1965 movie THE GREAT RACE. The movie is one of my all time favorites and it is great satire. However the characters are all shallow. Tony Curtis as Great Leslie is the protagonist and Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate Leslie’s nemesis and antagonist. Are satirical illustrations of the heroes and villains of silent films. The problem is they are one dimensional (albeit I believe intentionally so).
As writers we must never forget that people are not one or even two dimensional, they are multi-faceted.  They have hopes and fears, hates, likes and failures.  Yet, when we think

of their personalities, we tend to key on one or two dominant traits.  We describe someone we know to another person as, “He’s the pushy one.”  Or “She’s so sweet, but a bit ditsy.”  It’s what, in our minds, makes these people individuals to us.

So, too, the characters we write are multi-faceted.  When we write them as such, they all blend one into another, with no personality distinctions.  Their physical attributes are different, but you could probably swap around and notice little difference.  The most recent rejection letter says, “Your characters are cookie cutter.”  Of course, in your mind, you (as the writer) see all these “people” as distinct.
Remember the way we describe people?  Define your characters the same way.  Give your hero two or three traits.  That’s all.  Give him two good and one bad (or two bad and one good, if your character is evil).  Lesser characters get fewer traits.
I’m currently working on a novel where my protagonist is moral (good) and long-suffering in patience (good), but when he’s had enough, he’s brutal (bad).  My antagonist, by necessity is almost the opposite:  arrogant (bad) and insecure (bad), which makes him a bully.

Released January 25, 2023

I try to make all of my writing character driven (we sort of have to, after all virtually every plot today is derived from Shakespeare), so even though there’s a “bad guy” in my Bouchard and Houston novels one of my readers’ favorite characters is an anti-hero. Jimmy O could easily be the antagonist.  However, as interesting as many of my readers have found him, he’s a supporting character (they get only two traits, in Jimmy O’s case he can be brutal and violent while on the other hand uses that trait to help people less fortunate as he). He is as a member of one of my writing groups said: a gangster with morals.
It’s important to remember that sometimes stories change as we write them.  A minor character (Jimmy O) could suddenly become important and move into a supporting character role.  If this happens, give that character one more trait.  But only one; you don’t want to interfere with the importance of the primary characters.
Likewise, a supporting character may fall back to supporting status.  In that case, focus on just one of his chosen traits.
The most important thing to remember is what is your character’s role in the story…does his or her presence move the story forward?  If you don’t know that, then your characters will have too many traits and once again, they’ll become cookie cutter people with different roles.

Weekend Update: February 11-12, 2023

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Vaughn Hardacker (Monday), Maggie Robinson (Tuesday), Sandra Neily (Thursday), and Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

If you’re in the mood for a good Valentine’s Day romance, Kate Flora reminds you to pick up a copy of her romance, Wedding Bell Ruse.

https://www.amazon.com/Wedding-Bell-Ruse-Kate-Flora-ebook/dp/B086K46QHX/ref=sr_1_2?crid=E0I16ENI9G4U&keywords=Wedding+Bell+Ruse&qid=1676059119&sprefix=wedding+bell+rose%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-2

 

What could be more Maine than this?

 

And a question for you: What is your favorite Maine product? We’d love our giveaways to include some of your faves.

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

 

I got them steadily depressin’, low down mind messin’ February in winter blues.

John Clark echoing others who have posted about darkness, bleak feelings, and being stuck in a rut. It’s been a number of years since winter in general, and February in specific bit me in the backside. This year, cumulative ‘stuff’ has conspired to make the evil spirit of Doldrums reside on my shoulder.

Remember the fall off the wall back in October? That has turned into the gift that keeps on giving. Its most recent iteration is an inflamed TMJ on my left side that makes opening my mouth wide enough to eat, akin to a roulette wheel. Come up red, intense pain, come up black, chew carefully.

I’ve been on a very effective anti-depressant for years that has built a reliable floor under my darker moods. Unfortunately, fate left the door open and a prickle (I had to look this one up) of porcupines snuck in and chewed multiple holes in said floor, making emotional navigation a tricky business.

My blood pressure has chosen to spike after being well behaved for years. I walk around wondering what invisible damage it’s doing to my cardiovascular system. I’m checking it three times a week per my PCP’s orders and have to resist calling in panic at the more dire numbers.

Don’t get me started on how much other drivers’ behavior has deteriorated. Whether from watching the news, COVID, mental degradation, or a bad astrological sign, it seems nobody considers the consequences of running yellow or red lights, texting while driving, or being so close to my bumper they can count individual paint molecules. It’s at a point where I don’t dare stop for a yellow light because there’s no way to be sure what the driver behind me will do. I’m tempted to buy a pound of loose buckshot pellets and toss a handful out the window to deter tailgaters.

Then there’s the winter edition of Whack-A-Mole we call black ice. Any driving after dark these days on back roads is an adventure, particularly on sharp curves. Makes me wanna buy a Sherman Tank.

My energy level has me yearning to be horizontal with a book more often than vertical, so I can keep writing my current one. A disturbed sleep pattern probably doesn’t help, although I’d love to capture my dreams on DVR so I could re-watch them and make sense of what transpires.

Right in the middle of all this, reality stalked in, wearing steel-toed boots and sporting the mother of bad attitudes. Beth’s laptop decided her PIN was expired and she needed to create a new one. Sounds like a simple process, but it became anything but. In order to get a new one, she was required to have it sent to an expired email account, then texted to our landline, and finally could only be reset if she admitted to buying a Microsoft product, providing them with the last four numbers of the credit card used for the purchase, as well as the zip code where we lived at the time. RIGHT.

She bought MS Office at least 8 years ago with who knows what credit card, her TDS. Email is long gone and there was no way to change the phone # so she could have something texted to her cell phone. Wait, it gets better. I did some digging as did she and we found a potential work around involving creating a boot program on a USB drive. I went ahead, downloaded the files and reformatted what I thought was an old thumb drive…WRONG. I managed to format my 4 terrabyte SSD that I store all my programs and written work on. First off, the workaround failed and when I went to open up my current book I’m writing…Nothing.

I went and lay on the bed, giving serious thought to getting drunk for the first time in ages. Instead, I did some breathing exercises, went and researched recovery after formatting a SSD drive. The first program wasn’t worth buying, but the second one was…after it took 24 hours to churn through all the mashed data. I ended up spending $120 for the full version and have most of my written work recovered, but you can bet I’m double copying everything from now on.

Thanks to our very talented friend Clif Graves, and a linux boot disk, we have retrieved all Beth’s documents and photos. I immediately ordered her a new HP laptop with an SSD hard drive so her frustration level when starting up will diminish. Naturally that success was immediately offset when I searched for the $150 BJs wholesale card I won and it refused to be found and remains in hiding following a thorough search of the house. (I did come across a $50 Amazon card I got for a birthday present in the course of looking for it, though—spent it immediately, just in case).

Let’s not get started on the disaster we call congress. I’m afraid to blow my nose for fear someone there will call for an investigation on which way I blew, right or left.

I’ve provided the whine, but the cheese is on you.

A Blog Post About Absolutely Nothing At All

I have no idea what I’m going to write today in this blog post. Let’s just say that this is definitely a pantser blog, as opposed to a blog about pantser writers versus plotters. I feel like the schoolboy having to write a five hundred word essay and using ‘the’ and ‘and’ and ‘that’ as many times as possible. I could talk about the actual craft of writing, but then again I suppose I’m getting to the essence of writing by writing about this topic: I’m waiting for my blog muse to show up.

I’m still waiting.

There was that cold snap that threw me for a loop. It might have been the coldest snap I’ve ever experienced as a New Englander. My car’s engine light came on and started blinking wildly, warning me to shut off the engine during this snap. So I got in my truck, only to discover that the heat refused to come on. I thought, “Who in their right mind would want to commit murder during a cold snap where the temperature is below negative forty?” On Mount Washington the temperature hit negative one hundred and eight. I hate wind chill. I like chilled shrimp, but that’s a totally different kind of chill. You can’t fly a kite or sail a boat when there is a wind chill. My son tells me all the time, “Chill out, Dad.” Or, “Dad, take a chill pill.” If there was a pill I could have taken to fight off the wind chill, don’t you think I would have taken it?

Where are you blog muse? I’m getting nervous and making a fool out of myself.

Anyway, I’m still thinking about what to write. I called my son out in L.A. and asked what movie or commercial he was working on. After telling me to chill out, he said he was working on a movie starring John Cena. But when I asked him if he had seen John Cena he said he hadn’t. That would have been an interesting blog topic to write about if he had seen John Cena and talked to John Cena. Because John Cena is a behometh wrestler from Boston and I was once a wrestler from Boston, although far from a behometh. But alas, that didn’t turn out well for my son, as John Cena didn’t appear that day. He was probably lifting weights. Or wrestling. Or acting like he was wrestling. Anyway, my son’s current assignment is working on a H&R commercial, and that reminded me that I had to do my taxes, and I hate doing my taxes as much as I hate paying my taxes. It makes me have to look at my royalty statements, although that doesn’t get taxed much.

Still waiting, Blog Muse.

Which got me thinking about writing. Which I like doing at times — thinking about writing. Then I remembered I had a blog post to write, which meant I had to think about what I was going to write for my blog post instead of thinking about the plot of my new novel, which is definitely more plotted than pantsed. So instead I sat down and watched a movie called The Menu about a five star chef who is sick of cooking fancy meals for fancy pants diners, and decides (SPOILER ALERT) to kill them all at the end of the dinner service. It was a good movie. It made me want to cook, because I love cooking. But not die after the meal.

I’m afraid you’re not showing up today, dear Muse.

So I went out and bought two more pizza pans because when I cook I like to make pizzas because they are definitely not fancy pants meals. I have one pan for grandma style pizzas; one pan for Detroit style pizzas; one more pan for more grandma style pizzas; and a slab of baking steel for coal oven Brooklyn style pizzas. Cooking pizzas helps take my mind off thinking about this blog post. Beer helps too. Beer and pizza go well together. Like Abbott and Costello. Pantser versus plotter.

I’ve given up. Let’s land this puppy.

So you want to be a writer. Hmmm. Take note. I am writing this thrilling blog from the seat of my pants right now. Stream-of-consciousness blogging, I think they call it. I am a blogger extraordinaire, although not really. I know that people like to talk about the weather a lot, and we did have some great weather to talk about. Cold weather and rain really gets peoples juices flowing, but bad weather pays the bills. Celebrities are usually a good topic to blog about, although my son never saw John Cena, so I can’t talk about that. Movie recommendations work well, so go watch The Menu. And who doesn’t like to cook for diners who will not live to blog about it. I could even have my own crime writing cooking show on the Food Network called The Barefoot Blogger.

Oh, (SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION SPOILER ALERT BECAUSE THE MUSE FAILED TO SHOW UP) and I have two psychological thrillers coming out this year.

And there was one funny thing that happened, although it’s not very funny to me. In fact, it’s a little embarrassing to blog about seeing as how I think I’m losing my mind. I sat down to watch the Kansas City versus Cincinnati football game a few Sundays ago. I had my pizza, which I had cooked to absolute perfection, and my chilled beer, which was chilled the way I like it. I just got off the phone with my son, who told me he hadn’t yet seen or talked to John Cena. I figured that by watching the football game, I wouldn’t need to think about writing this stupid blog post. Then I watched the game, cheering and pumping my fist, not the least bit concerned what I would blog about.

I stood cheering at the end of the game on account that my team won. Yes, Joe Burrows did it again. Then my wife checked the TV guide and told me that I had watched LAST years game, and that this years game would start in fifteen minutes, and that it served me right because I should have been working hard on my blog instead of watching a stupid football, cooking and eating my own pizza, and quaffing chilled lagers. A true story. No joke. I mean it, man.

Hey, Muse, you showed up! Better late than never.

Maybe I’ve found my muse and that’s been the gist of this blog post: I’m losing my mind. Yes, I’m officially losing it. Your congratulations are duly noted and appreciated. This is what I’ve been meaning to say to you wonderful people all this time. I’ve found my muse, but lost my mind: all in all a good trade off. But now it’s time to go gently into the night. Every blog post must end or they tend to become rambling, nonsensical soliloquies, like that bridge to nowhere the government built years ago in Alaska. Maybe I’ll talk more about losing my mind in a future blog post, as my mind tends to lose more of itself the older I get. Unless my son meets John Cena. If that happens, then I’ll most happily talk about that — if I remember.

(SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION SPOILER ALERT) And don’t forget about my two psychological thrillers coming out this year. I already have.

PAGE 130 AND THEN WHAT?

blogged by Jule Selbo

It happens every time I get to this point in a book – and yet I’m still surprised and angry and frustrated and consider taking up the less stressful (maybe it’s not) job of wearing an over-sized neon vest and holding STOP and SLOW traffic signs at road construction sites.

If you’re reading the Maine Crime Writers’ Blog, chances are you write or like to read crime/mysteries and are interested in how to structure the set-up, the placing of clues and red herrings, and creating possible suspects and reasons for the crime. And/or maybe you’ve grown attached to a certain investigator and want to know more (whether they be amateur or pro) about how he/she is setting out to solve the puzzles and/or nab the villains.

And, in a very human-predictable way, you’re interested in the WHY people do BAD things. How they do them and how they plan to get away with their nefarious deeds. I wonder, sometimes, if that’s the driving force behind writing/reading crime mysteries- most of us aren’t criminals and it’s compelling and fascinating to see how the bad guys’ minds work as they execute or mask their crimes.

I like the school of thought that states that antagonists should be as interesting as the protagonists – that ‘simply crazy’ or ‘just evil’ isn’t enough. I appreciate the advice that states the villain needs a raison d’être (even if skewed or malevolent or ‘all id’). The reader, through coming to an understanding of the perp’s reasons, can glean clues and food for thought about society/humanity buried in that raison d’être. The antagonist helps to flesh out the story, and the lives of the supporting characters and more.

So, by page 130, I hope I have a large percentage (all? most?) of the set-up structured, that possible villains/antagonists have been introduced, that the reader is engaged in the personal journey of the protagonist as well as invested in the solving of the crime.

And then, there’s that morning (usually when the moon is full) that a crisis of confidence crashes into my psyche. The page 130 burning questions flame: What, indeed, do I have? Is it enough? Is it too much? Is the content too fatty or too slim?

Does it need an influx of protein (more meaty events/chewier morsels of villainous behaviors)? Does it need more sugar (a little humor to lighten the load, that sprinkle of fairy dust and maybe a coincidence that won’t be deemed too much of a coincidence and will allow the story to move forward at a livelier pace)?

Or do I need more carb – when the protagonist (mine is the heroine of the Dee Rommel mystery series) is able to make lists, sit and think (drink?) and/or chat about the challenges of solving the crime and let all the clues and reasons and motives fill her stomach and brain and hope that digestion will bring about an epiphany?

(FYI, I have just sat down at The Works on Temple Street in Portland and ordered one of their great ‘everything bagels’ – just toasted, please, serve it plain), so sorry about the food mentions, I must be hungry.

 

So, at page 130, what does ‘my today’ look like?  Looks like back-to-outline day. First item on the agenda: Examine the original outline and see where it’s still holding true. Then adjust it to include the grace notes/fresh ideas/character impulses that I hadn’t predicted when I did the first rough outline and have added to the story.

Because my Dee Rommel series has an author-imposed (me) perimeter to each book, it’s clear (to me) how the outline needs to be structured. The first book, 10 DAYS, the crime/mystery had to be solved in ten days.  In 9 DAYS, Dee had nine days before the carriage turned into a decimated pumpkin. (Ah, more food, but this time it’s the fairy tale I’m thinking about.)  I’m working on 8 DAYS right now, and at page 130, find myself at the ‘four day’s left to solve the crime’ mark. If private investigator Dee can’t get the bad guys identified and off the streets in the remaining four days, her client’s well-being (possibly his life) is in great danger.

So, today I’ll put eight pages of plain white paper in front of me (horizontally) and label each one with the days: 8 days, 7 days, 6 days left to solve the crime and so on and so on. I’ll divide each page into six columns; one column for THE CRIME, one for  PERSONAL GROWTH, one for RELATIONSHIPS (here I’ll use different colored pens to signify friendships, her boss and romance), one for SUPPORTING CHARACTERS (use of different colors here will also be helpful), one for MAIN ANTAGONIST, one for WHAT HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN, DINGBAT BRAIN.

I’m expecting that this halfway mark outline will look a lot different from the initial one. Why? A: ‘Cause I now know more about the new characters I’ve created for 8 DAYS. And B: Because there’s been the natural organic growth of the story (for me) – the growth that only happens while actually writing the pages – and thus I may have had a new idea or two and now they have to be incorporated.

QUESTIONS:

If you are an outliner – does the outline change during the writing process? At what point do you need to take a look at it again? Perhaps adjust it?If you are a pant-ser – do you ever have to step back and list the events/beats/major plot points or character changes along the way. Or can you keep it all in your head?

ONE MORE THING:

I’ve just finished a crime/mystery book (started and completed during the two-day Portland Great Chill that took place last week). I was taken aback by the author’s predilection to repeat information. Maybe he/she/they (take your pick) decided that the typical reader rarely sits down and reads an entire book in one or two days. Maybe it was the writer’s way to remind himself/herself/themselves of what had gone down (in the story) for the characters – just the day or hour before – and in the edit, no one excised the unnecessary.

I imagine most readers’ brains work in similar fashion. Even if I’ve put a book aside for a few days or a week, once I pick it up and start reading again, the memory cells jump out of the pocket in my brain where they’ve been resting and become clear and usable.  I don’t need the constant repetition.

QUESTION:

Since reading mysteries is an art and targets those people who like to solve puzzles and embrace clues in their brains, how much do you think the reader retains? Does repetition serve a purpose and how can it be used judiciously? How much is too much?

Would love to hear what you think… read what you think…

How Cold Was It Where You Were?

How cold was it at your house last weekend? The short, intense cold snap had everyone comparing notes and reminiscing about their personal histories of facing down bitter temperatures, a can-you-top-this competition of sorts, familiar to those of us raised where the winters were long and brutal.

The thermometer on our back deck, Saturday morning, February 4.

I grew up in north central Massachusetts, in hilly terrain near the New Hampshire border.  In my youthful world, cold snaps were not a reason to stay inside. We simply dressed for the weather.

I’ve written on this blog before about the bright red rubber boots into which we slid our shod feet, insulated with our older brother’s cast-off wool socks and waterproofed with recycled bread bags. https://mainecrimewriters.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?post_type=post&jetpack-copy=25528

The rest of our winter outerwear was creative as well, out of necessity. Kids tend to grow out of snowsuits before they wear them out. Same with ski pants and parkas. In my family, we had a big swaperoo every fall, when older siblings and cousins passed along whatever insulated clothing didn’t fit them anymore, a boon for the younger siblings and cousins. Our outfits did not always match, but we were warm and dry, whether sledding, skiing or building snow forts.

I wasn’t the only one hiking down memory lane this weekend.

In this week’s Weekly Packet out of Blue Hill, Pat Shepard, a researcher at the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, wrote a column that recounted how in 1934, “Hilton Turner’s grandfather walked from Isle au Haut to Stonington 14 times.” Isle au Haut is nearly 6 miles across Penobscot Bay, folks. Darned impressive.

Shepard also reported that “when Tim Emerson was a youngster, he struck out from Oceanville [on the east side of Stonington] on his bicycle (!) for Swan’s Island,” which is a heck of a long pedal across Jericho Bay. “Returning home in a stiff northwest wind was the hard part,” Shepard noted.

I hope Tim had a good hat.

Hiking on frozen bays was a necessary part of life other places as well. Here’s a memorable photo from the archives of the Portland newspapers, showing folks hiking across Casco Bay in 1862.

Credit – Portland Press Herald

Climate change makes such feats remarkable now. Sustained bitter cold is no longer a fact of life in Northern New England, and its relative rarity makes it news. Every meteorological outlet in the country did stories about the conditions atop Mount Washington this past weekend.  Here’s a link to The Weather Channel’s coverage: https://weather.com/news/weather/news/2023-02-02-mount-washington-new-hampshire-extreme-weather-wind-chill

And the Boston Globe featured a story on Saturday by a guy who went skiing at Pat’s Peak in Henniker, New Hampshire when the wind was howling. Here’s a link to his tale: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/02/04/sports/yes-i-went-skiing-this-cold-heres-how-it-went/

I’ve not checked with my pal Sandy Emerson about whether he was out on the slopes in Franklin County last Friday.  Perhaps he’ll let us know in the comment section, and if he didn’t ski last weekend, perhaps he’ll recount for us his coldest schussing memories.

How about the rest of you?  Do you have a story from this past weekend or one from your childhood about being out in the cold?  I’d be especially keen to hear from Vaughn and Kait, up in the County.

Brenda Buchanan brings years of experience as a journalist and a lawyer to her crime fiction. She has published three books featuring Joe Gale, a newspaper reporter who covers the crime and courts beat. She is now hard at work on new projects. FMI, go to http://brendabuchananwrites.com