Mayra Calvani's Blog - Posts Tagged "handwriting-analysis"

Like her fictional character Claudia Rose, Sheila Lowe is a real-life forensic handwriting expert who testifies in court cases. Mom to a tattoo artist and a former rock star, she lives in Ventura with Lexie the Very Bad Cat, where she writes the award-winning Forensic Handwriting mystery series. Despite sharing living space with a cat, however, Sheila’s books are decidedly non-cozy.

Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, WRITTEN OFF. To begin with, can you give us a brief summary of what the story is about and what compelled you to write it?   

A: In the dead of winter, handwriting expert Claudia Rose journeys to Maine to retrieve a manuscript about convicted female serial killer, Roxanne Becker. In her search for the manuscript, written by Professor Madeleine Maynard, who was, herself, brutally murdered, Claudia stumbles upon a shocking secret: explosive research about a group of mentally unstable grad students, selected for a special project, and dubbed “Maynard’s Maniacs.” Was Madeleine conducting research that was at best, unprofessional—and at worst, downright harmful, and potentially dangerous? Could that unorthodox research have turned deadly?

Swept up in the mystery of Madeleine’s life—and death—Claudia soon realizes that Madeleine left behind more questions than answers, and no shortage of suspects. Seems the professor’s personal life yields a number of persons who might have wanted her dead—and her academic success and personal fortune clearly made her the envy of fellow faculty members. The University anticipates being the beneficiary of Madeline’s estate—but that seems in question when a charming stranger, claiming to be Madeleine’s nephew, turns up brandishing a new will.

The local police chief prevails upon Claudia to travel into town to examine the newly produced, handwritten will. Rushing back to Madeleine’s isolated house to escape an impending storm, Claudia becomes trapped in a blizzard. With a killer.



Q: What do you think makes a good psychological suspense/mystery?

A: I’ve heard it said that there are three rules to mystery writing, but nobody knows what they are. Still, there are certain conventions a mystery/psychological suspense writer is supposed to follow. Unlike thrillers, which are plot-driven, the genre in which I write is more character-driven, so character development is one of the three most important elements. Your reader has to form a bond with your characters, even the villain, to understand what motivates them to do what they do. Plotting, of course, is just as important. The rule is to start as far into the story as possible. Don’t let back story, which can be sprinkled throughout, bog you down and lose the reader’s interest early on. Third, tension on every page keeps things moving, but doesn’t have to be huge drama. There are numerous ways to ratchet up the tension, including conflict between characters, raising the stakes—I once attended a seminar given by well-known agent, Donald Maas, who basically told us, make the situation as bad as you can for your protagonist. Then make it worse. Then make it even worse. Then make it as bad as it can possibly be. For me, that’s a bit more tension than I want to feel, but you get the idea.

Q: How did you go about plotting your story?

A: I’ve tried working without an outline before and ended up meandering around until I realized my deadline was looming and I only had five chapters done. Panicked, I sat down and wrote the outline and it got moving. Good thing I did, as I discovered in the middle of the book that what I had planned for the ending needed to happen right then. I had to find a new ending. With Written Off, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, made some notes, explored the new characters’ backgrounds quite thoroughly, and then outlined each scene before I started the actual writing. I liked doing it that way, as I really got to know the characters in a deeper way.

Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist and how you developed him or her. A: I started writing my series in 1997, but the first book, Poison Pen, was not published until 2007. Obviously, I was a lot younger then, and so was my protagonist, Claudia Rose. She’s still in her early forties, while I have ‘progressed.’ I did write a detailed character sketch for all of the main characters, including Claudia, Joel Jovanic, the homicide detective who becomes her romantic partner (now fiancé), and her two close friends, family law attorney Kelly Brennan, and psychologist Dr. Zebediah Gold.

Q: In the same light, how did you create your antagonist or villain?

A: Over the seven books I’ve written in the series, I’ve always tried to pay as close attention to the antagonist as the good guys. In Written Off, there is quite a large pool of suspects, and as mentioned above, I got to know them well before beginning to write. As a handwriting analyst, understanding personality is my career, and part of that is being familiar with different personality typologies. I particularly like the Enneagram, so I figured out which Ennea-type each character was, which immediately gave me a lot of information about them.

Q: How did you keep your narrative exciting throughout the novel?

A: I may have already answered that to some degree when I wrote about tension on every page. Giving some (or all) characters a secret they need to protect, putting the protagonist in jeopardy, but making sure that every situation is plausible. Unfortunately, there are some real-life situations that, if we read them in a book, we would say, “that would never happen!” There’s a careful balance between what a reader will accept and what is real. Having said all that, it’s important to give the reader something to dig into early on. Because my stories are psychological suspense, which means they unwind over the course of the book, I sometimes use a prologue that shows the crime at the beginning and promises the reader a whodunit to solve. One other thing—sometimes there are coincidences in life. We can rarely get away with them in fiction.

Q: Setting is also quite important and in many cases, it becomes like a character itself.

A: Written Off takes place in Maine, which is a place I would love to visit, but so far have not. I do have friends who live there, though, who were helpful in answering my questions. I also found some great youtube videos of Maine in a blizzard, and even though I couldn’t feel the freezing air or the biting wind, watching them helped me imagine the sensations. In my work as a forensic handwriting expert I have visited two prisons, one being the Chowchilla Women’s facility, so for the scene that takes place in a prison I had an idea of the flavor. However, every facility is different. I am grateful for the contact made with Amanda Woolford, director of the Women’s Center at the Maine prison facility. She not only answered all my questions, she sent me photos of the interior and the women inmates in their uniforms (which were different from what I imagined). She kindly read the book after it was finished, to ensure I’d got it all right.

Q: Did you know the theme(s) of your novel from the start?

A: Not from the start, but as I got close to the end of Written Off, I realized that this time, the theme had to do with what happens to children who had a bad start. This is loosely related to an overall theme that an interviewer pointed out to me in my last book: mothers and daughters. This makes perfect sense because, due to her religious beliefs, I have no relationship with own mother, and have to not seen her since 2000 when she surprised me by attending my daughter’s funeral. That’s the other half of the equation. My daughter was the victim in a murder-suicide. I had not realized that these experiences had seeped through into my mystery series.

Q: Where does craft end and art begin?

A: Dashiell Hammett once said that he could edit a book down to one line if given the opportunity. Editing is the part of writing that I love the best. For me, that’s when I get to fill out the story and the characters, expand on dialogue and ruthlessly prune away the stuff people don’t read (to paraphrase another famous mystery writer, Elmore Leonard). I edit in two ways: the first thing is to go over what I wrote in my last session, editing until I’m satisfied before moving forward. I do that over and over and over throughout the book. When it’s finished, I send it off to the publisher for a first read, with the caveat that while the editor is reading it, I will continue tweaking, tweaking, and tweaking some more. After I get the editorial comments and comments from a couple of beta readers, I edit the whole thing again. Then my publisher reads it again and hopefully, will be happy with it. I would keep editing until it went to press if she would let me. And, btw, before I send it to the publisher, I first work with an independent editor at my own expense, to make sure that substantively, it makes sense.

Q: What three things, in your opinion, make a successful novelist?

A: That’s a hard question to answer. A lot of it is luck and who you know. There are some successful novelists whose books I have read and wonder…why?! And there are some writers who have not been published, but whose books should be required reading. So, the answer is, I don’t know. You asked my opinion: First learn your craft. I started out not knowing what I was doing, which is why I wasn’t getting published. I started working with a friend who had successfully published a bunch of novels with Random House, and that helped a lot. I also read about forty books on writing, some specifically on mystery writing, publishing, and marketing. I then retained an editor who came highly recommended and was proficient in mystery. And with every rejection, I worked harder. Note, I had seven different agents, none of whom sold any of my books. But that’s another story.

Q: A famous writer once wrote that being an author is like having to do homework for the rest of your life.

A: I think it’s true. If you’re a writer, you’re a researcher, and that the fun in it.

Q: Are there any resources, books, workshops or sites about craft that you’ve found helpful during your writing career?

A: Too many to name. One of my favorite books is Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Rennie Brown. It’s important to join organizations such as Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and/or Sisters in Crime if you’re writing in the mystery genre, and Romance Writers of America if you’re a romance writer. There are at least fifteen conventions a year where you’ll not only learn better writing skills, you’ll meet good agents and publicists who are looking for clients. You will also get to network with people just like you, who can commiserate and celebrate about whatever level you have achieved.

Q:  Is there anything else you’d like to share with my readers about the craft of writing?

A: Getting published can be a heartbreaking business, but if you’re a writer, you have to write. It’s one thing if you write just for fun, as one of my good friends does. He doesn’t care how many books he sells, he just enjoys the process. But if you want to be published and succeed, it takes a strong commitment, not only to writing the book, but to getting it published, whether you have a publisher or you do it yourself, and then marketing it. In my experience doing it both ways, even the big publishing houses do little-to-almost-no marketing for midlist authors—most of the money goes into promoting the big names. So, be prepared to put time, effort, and some money into publicizing your work. And of course, first make sure your work is ready for publication, which means working with an independent editor. That’s an investment and not a small one, but I believe it is vital to your success.