[Guest Post]: Ask the Next Question by Richard Helms, an author of “A Kind and Savage Place”

My today’s guest is Richard Helms. His historical mystery “A Kind and Savage Place” will be released in March 2022 by New Arc Books / Level Best Books.

ASK THE NEXT QUESTION

by Richard Helms

When I was seven years old, a neighbor gave me an already worn copy of Groff
Conklin’s Big Book of Science Fiction. I was a precocious reader, my mother having taught me to read almost before I was out of diapers. I didn’t completely understand every one of the stories by John D. McDonald, Murray Leinster, Ray Bradbury, Fredric Brown, Theodore Sturgeon, Fletcher Pratt, Clifford D. Simak, and many more, but I read them nonetheless, over and over. As I read it for the tenth or twelfth time, a light went on over my head and I realized the names attached to the stories meant someone created them! It was my first inkling that books didn’t just materialize out of the ether. I think it was that moment that I determined to become a writer.

Fifteen years later, when I was in college and endeavoring to learn the writing craft, I finally met one of those creators, Theodore Sturgeon. I enjoyed dinner with Sturgeon and a small group of fellow fanboys. I brought along my copy of the anthology and asked him to autograph his story in it. He signed it with a flourish and a strange symbol I hadn’t seen before, like a letter ‘Q’ with an arrow pointing out at about two o’clock.

I asked him what the symbol was, and he said, “It means Ask The Next Question.” In an interview with David Duncan at Emory University, Sturgeon famously explained, “This guy is sitting in a cave and he says, ‘Why can't man fly?’ Well, that's the question. The answer may not help him, but the question now has been asked. The next question is what? How? And so all through the ages, people have been trying to find out the answer to that question. We've found the answer, and we do fly. This is true of every accomplishment, whether it's technology or literature, poetry, political systems or anything else. That is it. Ask the next question. And the one after that.”

I realized that the same philosophy applies to writing. We can pretend to be God and micromanage our characters’ actions, or we can listen to them, ask the next question, and let them lead us into the uncharted waters of their story. When we Ask The Next Question, we give our stories depth and color and tone.I still own my disintegrating copy of Groff Conklin’s Big Book of Science Fiction. The spine is held together by thirty-year-old masking tape, and I keep it in a baggie to prevent pages from falling out. It is my most prized physical possession, and if the house ever catches fire it will be the first thing I save after making sure everyone is outside. When I look at it, I remember Theodore Sturgeon’s admonition to Ask The Next Question, and how his advice has made me a better writer over the years.

About the Book

Genre: Historical Mystery

Date Published: 1st March 2022

Publisher: New Arc Books / Level Best Books

It’s 1954. The place is Prosperity, North Carolina, a small farming community in Bliss County. Three teenagers, the 1953 championship-winning offensive backfield for Prosperity High, are unwilling participants in a horrific event that results in a young man’s death.

One of the friends harbors a tragic secret that could have prevented the crime. Divulging it would ruin his life, so he stays quiet, fully aware he will carry a stain of guilt for the rest of his life.

The three buddies go their separate ways for almost a decade, before another tragedy brings them back to Prosperity in 1968. Now in their thirties, it is a time of civil and racial unrest in America.

They discover the man who committed murder back in ’54 is now the mayor, and rules the town with an autocratic iron fist. He’s backed by his own private force of sheriff’s deputies and forcibly intimidates and silences any malcontents.

Worse, now he’s set his sights on Congress.

A Kind and Savage Place spans half a century from 1942 to 1989 and examines the dramatic racial and societal turmoil of that period through the microcosmic lens of a flyspeck North Carolina agricultural community.

About the Author

Richard Helms is a retired college professor and forensic psychologist. He has been nominated eight times for the SMFS Derringer Award, winning it twice; seven times for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award, with a win in 2021; twice for the ITW Thriller Award, with one win; four times for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award with one win: and once for the Mystery Readers International Macavity Award. He is a frequent contributor to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, along with other periodicals and short story anthologies. His story “See Humble and Die” was included in Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt’s Best American Mystery Stories 2020. A Kind and Savage Place is his twenty-second novel. Mr. Helms is a former member of the Board of Directors of Mystery Writers of America, and the former president of the Southeast Regional Chapter of MWA. When not writing, Mr. Helms enjoys travel, gourmet cooking, simracing, rooting for his beloved Carolina Tar Heels and Carolina Panthers, and playing with his grandsons. Richard Helms and his wife Elaine live in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Contact Links

Website: http://www.richardhelms.net

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rickhelms051

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rickhelmsauthor

Purchase Links

Coming Soon…

Giveaway

$5 Amazon Gift Card + eBook Copy