Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 166

Advice or No Advice?

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Advice to Take or Drop

Q: Which writing advice tropes do you follow, and which do you ignore in your books and short stories?
- from Susan

Trope:  a word or expression used in a figurative sense : figure of speech. b : a common or overused theme or device : cliché the usual horror movie tropes. 
Let’s go with b. Here are a few we hear often:
Write what you know.Show don’t tell.Something must happen on page one.If you introduce a gun in the first act, the gun must be fired in the third.In a mystery,...

Always leave 'em laughing

What do you remember about the first time you read your crime fiction work in progress or finished novel/short story to an audience?
From Abir

The first time I read from my own work was t a month after my first novel, ‘A Rising Man’, had been published in the UK. I’d been invited to a summer party, entitled ‘What’s Your Poison’ at Heffers in Cambridge, England, a bookshop which is a bit of an institution in those parts.
I was extremely grateful for the invite but had no idea what to expect....

I Brive a Dus

What do you remember about the first time you read your crime fiction work in progress or finished novel/short story to an audience?

From Jim



I was nervous. And why not? My Ellie Stone mysteries are written in the first person. How does a man of a certain age pull off reading in the voice of a twenty-something female reporter without sounding ridiculous? It kind of breaks the spell you’re trying to cast, with the audience wondering what fresh hell is this.

I don’t do many rea...

Over the Moon

What do you remember about the first time you read your crime fiction work in progress or finished novel/short story to an audience?
by Dietrich
Before my first novel Ride the Lightning came out, I was over the moon. I signed a three-book deal with ECW Press and I got a chance to go to my first Bouchercon in September 2013, traveling by car from Toronto to Albany with one of my favorite Canadian authors, John McFetridge. And I met so many great authors while I was there, like 7 Criminal Minds’...

Keep It Short

By R.J. Harlick
What do you remember about the first time you read your crime fiction work in progress or finished novel/short story to an audience?
I remember my first reading very clearly. I was scarred sh-----s. My knees were doing the proverbial knocking.  My throat was so dry I could barely squeak out the first words. I was attending Humber College’s fabulous week long summer workshop on creative writing.  Though it wasn’t required, we were encouraged to read a short ex...

Connecting with the Audience - Brenda Chapman

Question: What do you remember about the first time you read your crime fiction work in progress or finished novel/short story to an audience?
My first novel was a young adult mystery entitled Running Scared, which pretty much sums up how I felt reading from my own work in front of those first young audiences. I'd worked as a special education teacher, but somehow, presenting my own writing was more daunting than working from a curriculum that somebody else had devised.

I cannot remember the ex...

Character Incognito – Or: Revenge is a Dish Best Served…On Paper (if you don’t want to go to jail)

Do family and friends and their lives become fodder for your stories and, if so, do they ever recognize themselves and complain? 

by Paul D. Marks

Of course I use family, friends, frenemies, enemies, and virtually anyone else who crosses my path! Don’t we all. That’s not to say there’s a 1:1 relationship between a character and a real person. And most characters are composites of more than one person. But characters are definitely inspired by people I know, people I come across. Everyone I...

All in the Family

LIFE: Do family and friends and their lives become fodder for your stories and, if so, do they ever recognize themselves and complain?

I just read this question out loud to my husband. He said "No." Then thought, laughed, and amended it to "No, we don't because we're morons."

To be fair, two of the three times I've slotted a family member straight into a novel it was as a tribute after their death. 

In THE BURRY MAN'S DAY (Dandy Gilver No.2) I put my Godmother and aunt Doreen McPherson (nee...

Inspiring people... by Cathy Ace

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