Picking up on Hints

One of my steps in revising the already partly revised first draft is to catch all the hints and suggestions for ideas to develop that linger in the text. These usually are ideas that could have been developed and taken the story in a different direction, or hints for clues to be planted or red herrings to be dragged through the next twenty scenes that were never used. They have all been rejected if not consciously then de facto. I catch them as I read through, and usually don't think about them again. In any story the options are many before we begin writing, but with each scene they are narrowed. 

In my current WIP, however, I've taken them more seriously as astute suggestions from my unconscious, and not to be ignored. As a result of thinking about them harder, I've solved some problems that I was lazily going to just read past (until the final draft, of course, one of my bad habits). Ginny Means, a social worker whose caseload focuses on teenage girls in foster homes, has already appeared in two short stories in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, with a third in the pipeline. The one hint I grappled with the hardest is the idea of giving Ginny a rescue dog.

In Below the Tree Line, Felicity O'Brien is given a rescue dog after she finds signs of someone getting too close to her barn and house late at night. Virtually every farm has a dog, and here was my main character, owner of a farm, without one. Writing one in was easy, and I enjoyed getting to know Shadow, a little black-haired mutt.

 

In my current WIP I thought the idea of a dog seemed too cliched, since the main character was a single woman who worked, so when I scribbled the line in the first few chapters that Ginny fostered dogs occasionally, I thought I'd just leave it like that. There wasn't really any reason to develop this, so I let it just sit there while I focused on the plot and other characters. 

 

As I kept going I had the usual plot holes to fill, motivations to figure out, and details about her life to clarify. In one instance the presence of a dog could be a crucial clue, and I thought about giving her one of her own. But that posed other issues. She needed to be someone who could roam late into the night without worrying about a dog in the back seat barking loudly at shadows or others in a passing car or walking along on a leash on the sidewalk. But Ginny also had to be seen as compassion outside of her work as well. The idea of the fostered dog reappeared, and once I began to look at this more seriously, I could see all sorts of possibilities for her character as well as another pivotal figure. 

 

I was slightly worried that I was creating another character who had to be seen in part as a villain who had some good qualities. He felt like a cliche and I wasn't sure how to deal with this. I didn't want it to be easy for the reader to dislike him, so somehow he had to be shown to be a decent guy. He got a dog, and Ginny was sympathetic. The foster dog was in.

 

When I talk about writing as a process of discovery I'm usually thinking about the personalities and quirks of specific figures in the story, their appearance and family relationships. I'm not thinking about dogs determining clues and character, but that's what happened in this WIP. Giving Ginny a foster dog to care for occasionally doesn't change other aspects of her life given in previously published short stories, and remains a feature I can use or not depending on the plot. Those hints and suggestions I usually eliminate have turned out to be important sign posts in this WIP and I'm reading them more carefully now. 

 

 

My New Series Character

Over the summer I came up with the idea for a new mystery, a stand-alone I thought, but as the story line itself evolved, the woman at the center of the investigation or conflict grew hazier and hazier. I couldn't seem to get a handle on her. I let the idea sit and germinate, and one day, while I was straightening out my husband's studio, onto the stage of my stalled novel walked a character I knew, a woman who had already appeared in two short stories with a third on the way to publication. 

 

Social worker Ginny Means first appeared in "How Do You Know What You Want" (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, March/April 32017) as a walk-on. Her job was to deliver a teenage girl to a new foster home, and not much else. I didn't think about her again for a while until I got another idea for a story, and there she was, ready to introduce the setting and problem in "Just Another Runaway" (AHMM November/December 2019), and now scheduled to appear again in AHMM in "The Deacon's Mistake." 

 

Ginny Means has evolved in each story. The details of her life appeared as needed, but I kept track of them, and now as I look over my notecards I can see she's ready for her own novel. She's the middle of three girls, unmarried and childless, and prone to casual attire. Her mother and sisters are yard salers, scouring the countryside on weekends for their "finds." Her case work focuses primarily on teenage girls in foster care. 

 

When my imagination plucked Ginny Means from the list of possible main characters I was reluctant to consider her because, after all, who really wants to read about teenage girls getting in and out of trouble all the time. Aside from being depressing, it could also be monotonous. Ginny needed more in her life, and that turned out to be easier to solve than I at first expected.

 

In Massachusetts at least whenever there is a severe budget crunch, the state lays off vast numbers of social workers. Many never return to the field, and others limp along on part-time work. Ginny became one of those, supplementing her reduced hours with a small counseling business on the side. With a MSW in social work from a major university and several courses toward her PhD, she earned for a license as a counselor. Now a LICSW, she comes into contact with a much more varied population of troubled and troubling individuals, mostly adults. And that's where my novel stuck in a ditch climbed out and began to move forward.

 

But not all my problems are solved. A character who works in a short story may not expand well into a novel. I have yet to spend enough time with Ginny Means and her family to know her well and anticipate what she'll do, how she'll face other problems and challenges. Her thoughts and inner life are still mostly unknown. An additional consideration is that I located her and her work in the Pioneer Valley, where my short-lived third series featuring Felicity O'Brien is set. I'm not inclined yet to move her (a decision that can be made at almost any time), since I like what I've seen (created?) so far. The most important element, however, is my new-found enthusiasm for Ginny as a lead character. I like the way she thinks and confronts people and problems, and I like spending time with her. It's time to let her take over the story and see where it goes.

"Variable Winds," in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

Yesterday, the mailman brought me my contributor’s copies of the October issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I’d already had an email from AHMM telling me my entry would be the cover story, but I didn’t realize how great that would feel until I opened the package and saw the cover. “Variable Winds” draws on some of my experiences as a sailor years and years ago.

I rarely mine my early years for fiction, or so I like to think, so when I set out to write this story, I was surprised at how much I remembered. (The idea for the story came from a particular experience, which I recount in Trace Evidence, the AHMM blog.) The memory is a tricky creature, serving up tantalizing tidbits that any sane person would ignore but every writer is more likely to think would be just the thing. I could feel the smooth wood of the tiller in my hands, the winding threads of the metal stays, the resistance as I pulled on the downhaul, and the sudden snap and tug on the sheets for the genoa. I could hear the sound of the mainsail luffing, and the click of the winch as I brought in the sheet. I could smell the water, the marsh at low tide, and the change in the direction of the wind. And I will always remember how the boat shuddered when the bow crashed into a trough as a wave traveled beneath us.

We used to take our dog on some outings and he sat upright on the deck. I always wondered why he didn’t slide off into the water, but the pads of his feet seemed to have the same qualities as the suction cups of lizards. He tilted as the boat listed, his nose into the wind. He had to return to the cockpit when we came about or raised the jib, his one concession to gravity.

I thought I’d put sailing off the coast of Massachusetts behind me, but a few memories seem to have stuck. When I shared the story with a colleague, she launched into tales of her own years on the water, sailing off New Jersey. We learned in different boats and had different experiences, but shared the same sense of what it meant to be on the water.

The boats I sailed in are long gone, but the memories seem to have lingered. Writing the story got me hooked, and I began to explore my earliest lessons, and that became the subject of the newest Mellingham mystery. In Come About for Murder, Chief Joe Silva teaches his stepson, Philip, to sail. It turns out Philip is a natural, which is a good thing because he’s sailing for his life before the story ends. 

Random Observations after Compiling a Short Story Collection

One of my resolutions for the New Year was to gather a number of Anita Ray stories into a collection for publication in response to requests from readers. These stories about life in a South Indian resort are scattered among Level Best Books anthologies and issues of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. The first story appeared in 2003, and thirteen have followed over the years. The current collection gathers those only from LBB anthologies. I’m almost finished with the editing and arranging, and it’s been educational and enlightening.

First, the Anita Ray stories are uniform in length, all of them ranging from five to seven thousand words. I’m not sure why this is but it may have to do with the time I take to establish the setting and traditional cultural issues involved in the mystery. As a result, I plan to write a number of shorter stories, closer to two thousand words, to introduce greater variety.

Second, not every story includes a murder though every one includes a crime. This is something I’d like to do more with. One of my favorite Marian Babson mysteries is Line Up for Murder (1981; English title: Queue Here for Murder, 1980), which takes place on a London sidewalk outside a department store in the days leading up to the store’s famous New Year’s Day sale.  There is no murder, but there is the threat of one. The novel has stayed with me partly for the setting and partly for the skill with which Babson manages to create suspense without the usual corpse.

Third, the Anita Ray stories hover around two main themes—jealousy and greed. These are the same themes found in the Anita Ray novels, in particular For the Love of Parvati. I didn’t intend these themes in the short fiction but it became obvious when I lined up the stories. When I get an idea and start writing, I begin with a character and follow his or her behavior, not intending any specific motive for murder or a crime, but I evidently take a familiar path. The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing (1999), for which I served as consulting editor, dedicates four and a half columns to “Motives,” with numerous references and discussion. The author considers greed the most common, but I’m now looking to the many others listed for future stories.

Fourth, I am an American woman writing about South Asia, and there are many who now say that no one outside a culture should try to write about it. This is nonsense. But I am sensitive to any charge that I am writing with less than respect for the India I love, so rereading the stories was an absolute requirement, to search out anything that smacks of the “otherness” that academics search for so avidly. (Oh, dear, my biases are showing.) Anyway, I think the stories hold up well, and if anyone thinks there is anything subtly disparaging in them, I certainly want to hear about it.

Fifth, one of the themes throughout the stories is the clash of old and new, traditional and modern. Another theme is the changing role of women in modern India, though the settings and individuals belong often to a traditional culture. But I am an equal-opportunity writer of villains and victims—both groups include representatives of all cultures found in South India. The visiting Western tourist is just as venal and vicious as the middle-class Indian.

As it stands now the Anita Ray collection includes eleven stories, three of them new for this publication. The ms now heads out to beta readers before getting a final read-through and a cover. Until then, try these books featuring Anita and her Auntie Meena.

http://www.amazon.com/Under-Kali-Anita-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B00BGH9CCS

http://www.amazon.com/Wrath-Shiva-Anita-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B00GBFISY8/

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Parvati-Five-Star-Mystery/dp/1432828568

The Anita Ray Short Stories

Some of the best fun I have as a writer is coming up with situations for an Anita Ray short story. These allow me to explore the culture of India as well as work out a crime and its solution. Modern India is a mix of traditional and rapidly modernizing features, with people who live as their ancestors did several hundred years ago and scientists who are the match for any in the United States today. Figuring out the interplay of these different worlds in one of my favorite challenges.

Dorothy L. Sayers talked about the tactile pleasure in plotting the mystery, planting clues and red herrings, and moving characters through the story. The Anita Ray stories have the added pleasure of giving me an opportunity to talk about a culture and a people that I have loved since I was a young girl.

At the beginning of the year I set myself a few goals, one of which was to blog each week. Mostly I’ve met that one, though every now and then I miss one or two weeks. One of my other goals was to self-publish the Anita Ray short stories published earlier in anthologies and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I may eventually gather these in one collection but right now I want to repost them as individual stories, available as eBooks for $0.99 each. I enjoy using my own photographs for the cover, and matching cover and story.

I posted “The Secret of the Pulluvan Drum” in January 2015. In this story, Anita is impressed with a young woman who has just opened her own shop despite her family’s opposition. Anita is excited for her, but when the shop suddenly closes, she is worried. She quickly learns that the new shop owner has died. She has no suspicions until she visits the family to offer her condolences and comes away feeling very uncomfortable as well as suspicious. The Pulluvans are a caste little known today outside of the world of anthropology but these small groups have ways of organizing their lives that can teach us about how much is possible in the way humans live. If you're interested in reading the rest of the story, go here:


 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SHWPSPA?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

I posted “The Silver House” just this month. Anita wants to know why a well-off man known for his generosity to local temples would fall into a canal and drown, especially when the path along the canal was very familiar to him. He walked it for most of his life. He had recently had made a special offering to a temple, a perfect replica in silver and gold of a miniature house, which the silversmith called the finest work he had ever completed. If you're interested in reading the rest of the story, go here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0165WGQP4?*Version*=1&*entries*=0


There are a total of fourteen Anita Ray stories to date, and I will be posting them over the next year, at the hoped-for rate of one each month.

Writing every day . . . including holidays

For the last year or so I've been doing library and other events, talking about my two mystery series and the life of a writer. I expect and get the usual questions. How do you write? With a computer or a typewriter or pen and paper? Do you write every day? Even on holidays? Where do you get your ideas? Do you have an agent? These and other questions come so often and so predictably that I barely think about the answers, but this weekend I found myself thinking about one in particular. Do you write every day? What exactly does that mean, to write every day? And what does it mean to the non-writer in the audience asking the question? Does it mean the same thing?

This is Memorial Day and a holiday on Monday for those with jobs that require someone to show up at

an office or worksite. But I'm a writer, and I work at home. I have a ten-second commute from the kitchen to my desk in the next room. Do I have to show up?

Every year, on the day before Memorial Day and Fourth of July, I pull out my great-grandmother's flag and promise myself I will hang it up on the porch in honor of those who fought to defend our country. Sometimes I forget and the flag sits on the chair in my bedroom until late at night, when I put it away, gnashing my teeth. But today, in 2015, I remembered, and got the flag up there soon after nine o'clock. The flag has 39 stars, and my mother recalled watching my great-grandmother sew on the last star when she was a little girl, before World War I. The flag is fragile, so I don't put it out on windy or stormy days.

Getting the flag up this year bodes well for my working memory because it's the first on my list of things to do today. Writing this blog is the second.

This blog fulfills the requirement of writing every day, but what about the days when I never write a word, in a blog or story or novel? What else counts as "writing every day"?

At the beginning of a new work I make a list of the main characters I think will appear in the novel, usually about four or five, not including the series and support characters. When I have my list, I think about names and pull out naming books as well as lists of names I've developed over the years. The characters start to take shape in my imagination and I jot down physical or psychological characteristics that intrigue me. Is this writing?

When I was first starting out, years ago, I was well aware of my weaknesses. I could capture the emotional content of a character, and depict the behavior of children, but I doubted my abilities in writing dialogue. With that in mind, I read writers who could carry an entire story in dialogue, and read them to see how they did it? Is that writing?

I have published thirteen short stories featuring Anita Ray, the Indian-American photographer sleuth in my India series. After a particularly successful panel, a member of the audience will ask where they can buy a copy of the stories. All the stories were published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine or Level Best Books anthologies, so I have the rights to them if I want to compile them for a book of my own. I've looked at the stories and considered possible arrangements, and searched among my own photographs for a cover image. Is that writing?

The fourth book in the Anita Ray series will be coming out in spring 2016. I've just finished reviewing the copy-edited manuscript, accepting the corrections of my editor and adding a few things here and there. Is that writing?

One of my longstanding habits is to clean off the top of my desk after I finish a story or novel. This means going through all the papers and books and notes that accumulate while I'm composing, keeping some, returning the borrowed items, and filing the rest. If I didn't do this, I'd have my own stand-up desk, situating my computer atop stacks of paper two-feet thick. Is this writing?

When I was in graduate school, working on my dissertation, a colleague used to call all this "other"

work "fussing." He likened it to a dog circling a spot on the floor before it falls down in a heap to sleep. Perhaps. But whatever it is I'm doing when I'm not composing on my computer, it feels necessary in order to get the project finished and out the door (or into cyberspace) to my editor. All the activities I engage in may not be what someone else would consider writing, but I wouldn't be able to finish a project without them.

So, on this glorious Memorial Day, I will be writing in some way. And I hope you will also be doing something you love.

Short Fiction and Anita Ray

One of the pleasures of crime fiction and the mystery writing community is the respect given to short fiction by writers and editors and readers. Today we have a fair number of magazines in which to publish short fiction.

At the top of the list are the two Dell magazines, Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen. Close behind are the Level Best Books annual anthologies for New England writers. Sisters in Crime chapters and Mystery Writers of American produce solid collections of stories, and numerous ezines publish a wide variety of stories--no subgenre is overlooked, it seems. Also close to the top is the "solve-it-yourself Mystery" in Woman's World. I can't think of another genre in which writers can move so easily between long and short forms, and often do.

Sandra Seamans lists a large number of publications for short fiction at her blog site, My Little Corner (http://sandraseamans.blogspot.com) and her site is a must-look for short story writers.

I have a special affection for short mystery stories because I discovered Anita Ray, my Indian-American sleuth, in one. I had a sense of who Anita was but I couldn't capture her whenever I started writing the opening scenes of a novel. It seemed that the demands of the longer story crowded out the space and authorial focus she needed to emerge. Once I started a short story, where she had to carry the story line, Anita Ray came through, with her irreverence, sense of humor, and unflappable commitment to justice.

Writing an Anita Ray story never seems like work. The dialogue flows, the clues pop up, and the characters throw themselves into the plot. I wish everything I wrote came that easily.

This month, and through the summer, I'm republishing Anita Ray stories originally published in AHMM and Level Best Books. Adding to the fun will be the chance to use some of my own photographs of India for the covers. First up is "The Secret of the Pulluvan Drum," which first appeared in Deadfall: Crime Stories by New England Writers (Level Best Books, 2008). I hope you have a chance to take a look.

For more Anita Ray stories, go to: http://www.amazon.com/Susan-Oleksiw/e/B001JS3P7C