Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 81

Whose side am I on?

Which side of the fence are you most comfortable writing from, the good, the bad, or the ugly? Do you consider one side or the other more marketable?

by Dietrich 

I feel at home writing from either side of the fence. I never feel the need to agree or disagree with the way my characters think or behave. It’s simply about picking the viewpoint that will best suit a given scene, chapter, or entire novel.

No matter whether it’s the good or the bad doing the telling, I love watching the characters sprin...

Mayhem, Malice, or Sweetness

 

Terry here. Our topic this week is about our essential writing intention: whether we write from the good, the bad, or the ugly. And whether we consider one more marketable that another. 
I love to read a well-written book full of mayhem and nasty characters. Don Winslow’s The Power of the Dog is a case in point. It's one of my all-time favorite crime novels. It held my interest from the first page to the end hundreds of pages later. Some of the characters were mobsters, members of the mafia, and...

Playing Favourites

Which side of the fence are you most comfortable writing from, the good, the bad, or the ugly? Do you consider one side or the other more marketable?

Brenda starting off the week.

What a good question. This reminds me of actors saying that while they like playing 'good' characters, they love acting as the downright evil ones.

I'm comfortable writing whatever character I'm working on because I don't see them as all good or all bad. Even the bad ones have moments of regret or humanity, and the good o...

Genre? We Don't Need No Stinking Genre, by Josh Stallings

Q: Okay, we write about crime, but if you had to dip a toe into another genre, which would you add to the mix, and why?

A: This is a wonderful question in that it runs my mind down multiple tracks of thought. I call myself a crime writer, and yet I’m not sure I believe in genre except as a way to organize bookstore shelves. 

Gary Phillips One-Shot Harry is clearly a crime book, and it is equally a historical novel about race, civil rights, politics and the police in 1963 Los Angeles. It is also a ...

Three's the Charm, by Catriona

Craft: Okay, we write about crime, but if you had to dip a toe into another genre, which would you add to the mix, and why?

Hmmmmm. Well, it wouldn't be poetry. I love poetry - read it, learn it, recite it (when alone - don't worry), buy slim volumes by my favourite poets. But it doesn't come out of me. I am prosaic to the marrow. Recommendation: Kathleen Jamie, whose poem about Ospreys arriving in Scotland, or rather in Scottish weather, begins "You’ll be wondering why you bothered: beating up f...

Staying in my lane... by Cathy Ace

Craft: Okay, we write about crime, but if you had to dip a toe into another genre, which would you add to the mix, and why?

Tough question, because I’ve only ever wanted to write crime fiction. That said, I have written nine books that are not fiction…but I dare say that textbooks for managers about marketing, brand building, and promotional planning for e-business are not top of your list of books to read!

Some of the textbooks I have written

So, because I know I really don’t want to write anyth...

Space. The Funtastic Frontier.

Okay, we write about crime, but if you had to dip a toe into another genre, which would you add to the mix, and why?

        Make no mistake about it: Crime fiction has been very good to me, both reading and writing.

        Reading such crime fiction luminaries as Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, Rex Stout, Sujata Massey, Ed Lin, Ace Atkins, Rachel Howzell Hall, Ian Rankin and the criminally talented contributors to this
blog has been both highly entertaining and extraordinarily educational. An...

Toe-dipping into new genres

 Q: Okay, we write about crime, but if you had to dip a toe into another genre, which would you add to the mix, and why?

 

-from Susan

 

Right now, I’m toe-dipping into what’s called “women’s fiction,” a term that makes me wince, but is quite popular. In my mind at least it means stories that center on women and how they interact with the world in ways that are different than men. Of course, this means huge generalizations unless authors work hard to avoid clichés and myths. I’m actually playing wit...

The Future's Historical

by AbirWhat are the best books you’ve read lately? What’s on the stack that you’re looking forward to?

 

 

Summer is now well and truly upon us, and that means the return of festival season. One of the best things about life getting back to normal post covid is the return of physical crime fiction festivals. It’s been six years since my first novel was published and in that time, these festivals have become a cherished part of my annual calendar. In the first few years, I was invited mainly as a pa...

Don’t Bother Me I’m Reading from James W. Ziskin

What are the best books you’ve read lately? What’s on the stack that you’re looking forward to?

This is a great topic. It gives us all a chance to crow about someone else’s work. In no particular order, here are some books I’ve read recently. I only wish I could read more. But now I’m trying to write a new book myself, so I might have to scale back for a couple of months. I enjoyed all these books. If my comments pique your interest, you should give them a try.

The Corpse with the Granite Heart, C...