A Neglected Aspect of the Writer's Life

The last two years with the pandemic and the changes it brought about has forced me to confront one aspect of life as a writer that I've mostly ignored. Every writer I know is careful in the area of craft. We think hard about word choices, sentences, paragraphs, and the arc of the story. We read widely and carefully, learning from our peers and colleagues and sharing our expertise when asked. We support each other as beta readers, at book events, and in online groups. We swap books and share reviews. But there's one area I tend to neglect, and I know I'm not the only one. 

 

After two years with no place to go but the computer, my shoulders are no longer shaped the way nature intended. Instead of exercise classes or running to catch a train after visiting friends in Boston, I get my exercise holding the dog in check when he wants to lunge after a rabbit. 

 

I used to meditate twice a day, first thing in the morning, and last thing in the evening before I closed up the house. These days I feel like I'm in a state of suspended fuzziness. I'm not sure my brain is strong enough now to meditate. (I exaggerate, but you get the idea.) The thought of cooking a real meal makes me want to take a nap but after two years I think a lot about where I can go to eat or the best places for ordering in. I still sleep well at night but bad news about Covid or anything else (war in Ukraine) can disrupt that. The pandemic has taken its toll, and like many others I didn't notice until the damage was done. 

 

Self-care is a very real aspect of doing any job well. Working hard at anything takes a toll, and once the burst of energy has been used up and it's time to rest and refill the well, any one of us may want to take a nap, grab some junk food, and fall onto the sofa for a few hours. This is not self-care.

 

This spring has been all about getting back into a better way of managing my care as a writer. Walking the dog is an exercise now in deportment, bringing those shoulders up and back, opening up the lungs, and taking longer strides. Instead of sitting at my desk for hours straight, I make a point of getting up and doing odd bits around the house. Meditation can be only ten minutes, and it's still enough to bring the mind home. And taking time for a decent meal pays benefits in many ways.

 

When I dropped in on a painter friend several years ago I found her lying on her back on the floor of her studio. "My body is a tool for my art," she said. "It needs to be restored now and then."

In the beginning I thought of creative work as something that came out of my head. But that is too simple. I use my imagination, of course, but I use my body also, and not only body memory. Creativity draws on how we feel in the morning and throughout the day, the weather that shifts us one way on the street or another, the taste of food and the fragrances in the air. Ambient noise seeps into a scene, and an idea that was barely linked to an incipient philosophy shows up in a character's monologue. We need good health to be fully in the world, from which we draw our stories and develop our abilities to tell them well. Self-care allows us to feed ourselves, which in turn feeds our work. It feels good to be back on that familiar path. 

Story and Plot

Every now and then I pull off the shelf one of my favorite books on writing. Recently I've been thinking about John Gardner's observation that it's better to be a little slow in making up your mind if you're going to be a novelist. Don't rush to find an answer or fill in a blank in the story line. Slower is better than speed when it comes to letting ideas develop. When I first read this, I was relieved because my mind does take a while to bring all the threads of a narrative together.

 

One of my bad habits is thinking a story is done before it is. The original idea excites me, so I rush to get it down on paper, but near the end I tend to falter and wonder about the ending I've come up with. Instead of setting the story aside at once, I tend to tinker a little and then write to the end. Sometimes that works, but often not. I'm liable to come up with a much better ending if I set the story aside for a couple of weeks or wait until a better idea comes along. That can take months. This is a lesson I have to remind myself of every time I think I've finished something.

 

Katherine Anne Porter said she didn't begin a story with intent for its meaning or significance, but discovered it at the end. She's talking about finding the organic wholeness of a story rather than imposing one on it. Some call this theme or "meaning" of a story, but whatever the term, it is the vision we see when we step back and see the whole. I too hang out in the camp of the discoverers, waiting to hoist my binoculars for the grand view after I've reached the top of the mountain.

 

My copy of Stephen King's book On Writing is dog-eared (and don't complain to me about marring a book by turning down corners; a book is to be read and used and loved). I especially like his discussion on the difference between plot and story. "Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest." He goes on to describe an exercise that is designed to force the writer to be as honest as she or he can be, knowing that without honesty no story is worth the time.

 

When I'm working on the final draft of a novel I have to ask myself how honest have my characters been? Have they admitted, if not to others, then to themselves what their deeper motivations are, their goals and what they're willing to do to get there? Have they admitted to something unattractive, even offensive in themselves? Have I shown them in every aspect, letting the reader decide how to feel about them? We are heavily socialized in this society, and sometimes getting to the truth is harder than we imagine. We're not used to it in daily life. But we have to find it in fiction if our stories are not going to fall flat.

 

These are my thoughts as I contemplate 312 pages of my current WIP. I know the whole "plot" is there, and that all the threads come together. What I'm wondering about is something deeper, more organic. Have I captured a vision of an authentic life, and will readers recognize it? This morning I'm standing on the top of the mountain, binoculars raised, scanning the landscape.

Staying Focused

I envy my dog his powers of concentration. I walk our chocolate lab, Rob, three times a day, and sometimes I let him run through our unfenced and ungroomed back yard. But the walk is the more interesting exercise for me.  

Dogs have focus, and Rob is no exception. When he gets a scent in the middle of the street I assume he'll track it to the nearest tree, since this attention usually means a squirrel or, less likely, a rabbit. But he has to follow each meandering, circling path, and that often means I'm going around in circles trying to keep up with him and not get tied up in the leash. 

 

Day after day I follow this short, sturdy five-year-old down the street. It takes something major to break his concentration and let go of whatever he has found. He breaks off only when he's ready. Or sees another dog.

 

As a writer I envy that total commitment to the moment and the task at hand, to the ability to block out everything else to learn everything he can from that spot on the neighbor's lawn. I'm easily distracted by email, especially if I'm having trouble with a scene. Worse, all I have to do is look up from my computer and let my eye wander to the bookshelves and I can think of a hundred reorganizing jobs waiting for my attention. And then there's the window looking out on the sidewalk and street. The parade of life is always more fascinating than my faltering plot. These moments add up so that at the end of the day I wonder why it has taken me so long to write fifteen hundred words.

 

I'm a big believer in daydreaming, letting the mind wander until a solution shows up. That's one excuse for not forcing myself to focus. But it isn't always good enough. I've learned to shut down the Internet while I'm writing, turn off the phone, and tell friends my writing time is not a good time to call. This works a lot of the time but not all of the time.

 

I've accepted that I'll never have the total focus my pup has. But then he has no interest in creating anything more important than a soft bed at the end of his walk. Even this I occasionally envy. Time to get back to work.

Trimming the Text

One of my flaws as a writer is writing too much. I confess to overwriting, adding in long descriptions because I'm not sure the reader will understand if I'm terse. Sometimes I add a short paragraph to flesh out a setting or a character, how they behaved in an earlier moment to give the reader a sense of this person's identity, quirks, or ways of dealing with others. Unfortunately, I really like some of these paragraphs and they tend to survive repeated revisions. When I reach the trimming stage, I go after them. It isn't always easy, but I know I have to cut them.

 

Most of us have learned to skip, omit, erase adverbs. They slow down the reader, entangle her in an unnecessary stop along the way, and add nothing that isn't better expressed by recasting the sentence and revealing character or behavior through action. Adjectives can be useful, but, again, if they show up too often I rewrite the sentence and remind myself there are better ways of getting the point across.

 

Now that I'm an editor for a new anthology I'm more conscious than ever of overwriting, one of my bad habits and apparently one that a lot of other writers suffer from. This is too bad because some of the stories I read would be good choices for the anthology if the writer had trimmed the text, removing unnecessary words and overlengthy paragraphs.

 

George Saunders recognizes this weakness in himself as well as the rest of us, and addresses it in his book on short fiction, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. Saunders includes an exercise in an appendix that asks the writer to cut a six-hundred-word passage down to three hundred words. It sounds easy but it isn't. Of course, anyone can slash three hundred words but the goal isn't just to reduce the number of words but to remove the clutter and let the essence of the piece emerge, stronger and clearer. I think about this whenever I think I've finished a story and have arrived at the final stages of editing. I think I'm looking for typos and missing words, but really I'm looking at all those unnecessary lines, the extras that I couldn't let go of. I reread and trim, I read aloud and trim, I read again looking for more words to trim. 

 

Trimming forces me to find the essence of each line, the core idea and expression. When I do the story moves swiftly and clearly, and the point of each line is made, sharp and quick. The reader doesn't know what has been taken out. She or he only knows how well the story moves, how precise and exact the telling. At least, that's what I hope happens.

Writers and Predators

Over the last several months I've listened to a writer friend talk about the challenges of working with a small press. He's an excellent writer and tells gritty stories based on his experience as a lawyer. I wasn't surprised that he was able to sell his novel, as hard as it is today to get published, but the press that picked him up has turned a high moment in his life into a nightmare.

This post isn't about how bad a predatory press can be when the purpose of the offer is to reel in a new writer who will be pushed and prodded and almost forced into hiring their editors to "fix" and "finish" and "polish" his novel. Before signing with them, the writer did everything he knew he should do, talking with others published by this press, reading the contract carefully, and considering other possibilities. He knew I was skeptical, and I understood how much this meant to him. After signing, he approached the entire process professionally, met all the deadlines despite the editor's tightening the screws on him. Near the end he had to face down a patently illegal rights grab, and did so. But in the end, the experience was worse than anything he could have imagined. (Well, maybe not. He's got a pretty good imagination.)

 

The reason I'm talking about the experience here is because on my FB page another new writer announced with great joy that she had just signed with the same press for her first novel. She's over the moon. She's not someone I know personally—I only see her comments occasionally on my page—but all I could think about was what was in store for her. Since many writers are beaten down by a bullying "editor" in one of these predatory outfits, I wondered if she'd stand up to them, meet the absurd deadlines for rewrites, etc., or cave in and pay for their "editors" to do the work. The goal of many of these small "presses" is to get income from writers, not to publish and promote work so that the writer earns royalties.

 

This country is full of people preying on writers. Every week I get a few "offers" from PR outfits who have found my second or third or tenth novel on the web and want me to know that this book is just ripe for a break-out—with their help, of course. I also hear from "editors" who are expanding their line and my books seem just "perfect" for their house. I'm sure they have cousins in Nigeria or wherever those generous people live who want to give me a few million dollars just for helping them out with my banking information.

 

I did not contact the second writer in question and tell her what I knew about the press. I've thought about this, and I don't know if I am right or wrong. She has signed the contract, so she's committed. But my heart goes out to her knowing what she's about to experience.

 

So, two rules if you are a writer looking for a publishing house.

 

First, the publisher gives you money and pays you royalties. The publisher pays for the editor, proofreader, designer, and publicist. You do not pay them and you do not do their work for them.

 

Second, if you are thinking of signing (or have signed) with a small press, visit Writer Beware (link below), type in the name, and read everything that comes up. If what you find concerns you, be prepared. Get out of your contract if you can. Otherwise, be ready to write fast, sometimes needlessly, to meet absurd deadlines. And don't expect any warm and fuzzy lunches with your "editor."

 

And if you're a traditionally published writer or successfully published indie writer, I have a question for you. Would you have contacted the woman who had just signed and told her what you know?  Let me know what you think.

 

https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/

 

In the future, after they finish their new site, also check out Preditors and Editors. Follow their progress on FB. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/prededitors/

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. 

 

 

Graphomania?

Over the years I've subscribed to probably hundreds of websites, but only a few have survived my decluttering process. One of these is wordsmith.org, and its A.Word.A.Day. I enjoy the etymology of rarely used words, and especially of those that are arcane. But today's word caught my attention more than most. Graphomania isn't rare, but the description was a little different from what I expected. 

Image by Nile from Pixabay

The definition, "an obsessive inclination to write," seems obvious from the term's construction (graph + mania), but the description after that seemed less so. After describing Leonardo da Vinci's passion for filling thousands of pages in his notebooks, the editor added this:

 

Do you carry a notebook and pen with you at all times? Do you wake up in the middle of the night to write? 

 

And my first thought was, Doesn't everyone? I know the answer to that is no. I know not everyone carries a notebook or wakes up in the middle of the night to jot down a good idea for a story or a perfect line for a certain character. My desk is littered with scraps of paper for story ideas, scenes to add to my WIP, a pad of paper filled with notes that will remain with the printed ms after I'm truly finished, and stacks of notecards that I add to as I go along in the story. But does this mean I'm really a graphomaniac?

 

Once in a while I stop to wonder how it was that I knew as a teenager that writing was my life. I don't wonder too hard because I'm honest about this—beyond the question is the recognition that I felt early on the compulsion to write. I was never someone who "wanted" to write. I was someone who wrote, made up stories, reworked them, and wrote more. I sent them out and, sadly, they came back, but that didn't matter too much. I just wrote more and sent out more. I also learned early on to be careful about uninvited commentary from anyone, since most people think young ones should have a practical career in mind. I ignored them because I knew, beneath it all, writing was a compulsion and the wise response was to give in and work at it.

 

In India I often spent time with a British couple. The husband was an artist whose work, small sculptures, funded their annual trips to India and other countries. His wife asked me one day why I wrote. I was about to launch into some explanation about liking mysteries, or whatever, when I stopped and said, "It's a compulsion. I just have to." Her husband nodded and said, "Yes, exactly."

 

The reader who occasionally asks the writer why she does what she does probably wants to hear something grander than "It's a compulsion," but that is the truth. I would be miserable if I didn't write, and so would most of the other writers I know. So which is better? Graphomaniac or compulsive? I don't really like either one, so I'll just jot that question down in my notebook as something to think about. How about you? Do you have a preference?

 

Authenticity in Fiction

I've been thinking about the details used in historical novels to create a sense of time and place a sense of authenticity. The 1950s seems to be an increasingly popular period, but it is the period of my childhood so I look for the details that tell me this is in fact written by someone who understands the period and pulls out the just-right details. 

 

We lived near the ocean and much of my early life involved heading to the beach, sailing with my family, or hiking in the nearby woods. Just about anyone who could get to the water had some kind of boat, and sailing out of the harbor meant waving to a wide variety of ocean goers. Managing movement on the water is a great leveler—the fanciest boat in the world means nothing with a poor skipper. This is still true.

 

As children, we were outdoors most of the summer day, off riding on our bikes without much thought given to the kinds of dangers adults worry about today. As long as we were home by dinner time, no one seemed to care where we went. We walked or rode the bus to school; parents didn't drive us as a rule. 

 

Other details also seem to be missing. In a TV ad for something now forgotten, the female voice over said, "This generation has known nothing but war or the threat of war or talk of war." I'm not sure what the point was but it came on regularly. The other TV ads that were so common were for cigarettes. It may seem absurd but when I went for a checkup before getting married, my doctor actually said, if you're going to smoke try something bland like . . .  and he named a particular brand. Seems unreal now, but I remember the conversation well and only later learned that he smoked. Most historicals set in the 1950s select the TV shows as the authentic detail, but skip the ads and ignore the test patterns that ran after the station ended programming. A cousin visiting from New York City in the 1960s was shocked to find that Boston stations ended programming at 1:00 a.m. What was he going to do all night?

 

The story might be taking place in a small town or city, but the big events of the time touched everyone. The McCarthy hearings in 1953 and 1954 led to the well-known black lists but they also explain why some writers of nonfiction felt it necessary to include passages clarifying their opposition to Communism. I came across this in a nonfiction book on mental health. It's an oddity in American publications that I haven't encountered in any other period. McCarthy frightened a lot of people. The other background hum came from the Korean War, which is now mostly remembered through the movie and TV series MASH.

 

That decade also saw the widespread introduction of antibiotics. The 1950s have been called the golden age of antibiotic discovery, and up to half of all drugs commonly used today were discovered in that decade. Of course, our overuse of these drugs may have brought us back to the original problem—diseases with no treatment, but now with treatment ineffective because of growing drug resistance.

 

We may think technology is the defining feature of ages since the 1950s but I'd point to something else: the level of trust, which was taken for granted. We knew our neighbors and expected to be able to call on them when needed. A car accident brought sympathy and help rather than an automatic lawsuit. Pizza was a treat and not a regular one, and people rarely went out to dinner. And there was fewer of everything—fewer cars in the driveway, fewer clothes in the closet, fewer (many fewer) telephones in the house. But there were lots of jobs. Unemployment hovered between 2.7% and, briefly, 6.2%, the same rate as today when businesses are complaining about finding enough workers. We thought transistor radios and TV were amazing. Except for Ray Bradbury and his colleagues, most of us couldn't imagine what was coming in the future.

What decades do you feel more familiar with? What features do you look for in an historical novel in that or any other time? What makes the story feel authentic? 

Getting through the First Draft

Recently I posted a comment on FB that I had reached 57,000+ words in my work-in-progress and now, at last, knew how it was going to end. This sounds absurd to anyone but another writer, and has become more and more likely in my work. 

When I began writing the Mellingham series in the 1990s, I knew who the killer was, the motive, and how the final scenes would play out. The problem was getting there, how did I begin with a killer and a sleuth and keep them occupied through 70,000 words. My first step was to decide on ten chapters with ten scenes each. This idea had flaws, which I discovered in chapter one. Some scenes were long and others were short and some were repetitive because I was determined to get those ten scenes into that chapter. By the end of the book I might not even have ten chapters; instead I had eleven or nine. Sticking to a rigid plan was harder than I expected. I dropped the ten-chapters idea.

 By the time I began the Anita Ray series, set in a hotel in South India, I wanted my scenes to be of somewhat even length, approximately three pages or fifteen hundred words. Confident in my new plan, I scribbled along happily until I found some scenes running fifteen pages and others barely one. I once asked another mystery reader what was the shortest chapter she had encountered, and she replied, "It was one word. 'Help!' "  It's nice to know another writer has won that competition and the rest of us can stop worrying about it. The only conclusion I was ready to draw was that each chapter should have more than one scene, but I soon had to abandon that rule also.

I once read a short story that went on for almost fifty pages without a single scene break. (Some of you may know this story, and if so, leave me a note in the comments.) I read with one part of my brain watching how she did this, how she managed to keep the pace and scenes threaded together without exhausting the reader, who usually expects a moment of rest for a deep breath and assimilation. I'm not likely to try this approach in crime fiction.

 

My current approach is to give each day a chapter regardless of how many scenes that involves. In a busy day for my MC, that could mean up to nine scenes. My tendency is to mark a scene change when the emotional tone of the action changes, and this can be even in the middle of a conversation. My Beta readers often comment on this in negative terms so I've had to revise my thinking, but I do so somewhat reluctantly. I like my placement of scene changes because I think they signal something to the reader.

 

After I have a completed first draft I expect I'll have to go back to the beginning and reorganize the scenes into more logical chapters, but right now this is the structure that gets me through the writing and keeps me moving forward. I didn't say it was logical. It's useful. And as a writer I am always practical. What devices do you use to push your way through the first draft?

Time Away

Since my first book, A Reader's Guide to the Classic British Mystery (1988), I've stuck to the basic rule of writing every day, which for me has also meant developing a story idea, doing research, revising, rounding out characters, and working out ideas for the narrative. That's been a pretty good guide for all the years since my first mystery, Murder in Mellingham (1993), though I haven't published nearly as much as more prolific writers. I also include in my writing history hundreds of grants, essays, reviews, and other nonfiction work. But this month, I found I'd taken a hiatus of almost ten days. Was it a disaster? Did it ruin my WIP? (And where did the time go anyway?) 

When I took the time to assess where I was in the ms along with my list of questions about the plot, I found that the ten days' respite had given my unconscious time to resolve the issues, and the narrative gaps and bumps had been filled in and smoothed out. It was a relief.

 

I didn't expect this to happen, and I'm not convinced it would have if I'd planned it. Writers learn to trust the unconscious, our intuition, to solve story issues. Would this character actually do this? or say this? Does that sound like him? Would she really want that to be the end of it? If I let her do this, can she really follow it with that? Sometimes I can't answer these questions until the end of the first draft, and then I have to go back and pull scenes into line, straighten out the wobbly character or fill in the missing dialogue. But this time none of the resolutions were forced, and each seemed exactly right.

 

The time away from writing while I was absorbed elsewhere served me well, but I'm not going to make a practice of it. When the first draft is finished, I generally set the ms aside for two or three weeks so I can come to it fresh and see more clearly where it falters, when something is missing or a passage sounds clunky or confusing. But I avoid taking time off in the middle of the first draft because it feels risky. I'm afraid of losing the thread of the plot, or the energy propelling the story forward. But I'm glad to know I can survive a hiatus if I have to.

 

Do you have the same worries, or is taking a break in the middle of the first draft easy for you?

 

 

Exploring Narrative Form: Review: Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi.

As part of my reading around the world in the company of women, my project to read a book by a woman from every country, I read Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi. Those who expect a linear narrative will find this novel challenging. Several characters move to center stage and give us their view of their life. In the end we have a vision of the people of Oman, the impact of significant changes since the 1920s, and the web holding several women together. 

Translated from the Arabic by Marilyn Booth.

First published in Arabic in Oman in 2010.

Published in English by Catapult Press, 2019.

Winner of the Man Booker International Prize.

 

Mayya is a young girl, silent and devoted to her sewing machine. Around her swirls the life of her large family, her two younger sisters Asmi, who hoards books recovered from the trash, and Khawla, who fixates on her beauty and the cousin who promised they were to marry; her mother, Salima, and the girls' father, Azzan; the servants and newly freed slaves; and the various relatives and neighbor women who come in and out of the house, visiting, paying condolence or congratulation calls. 

 

Told in the setting of a deeply conservative culture, sprinkled with historical turning points and Arabic poetry, the narration explores the family members, each one getting short chapters of his or her own. The narrators circle around the mysteries of their lives: Mayya, Abdallah her husband, London, their first daughter given an unusual name that elicits distress from others; Asma, Mayya's younger sister, who wants an education but is too old for the early grades; Qamar, a Bedouin woman who has carved out a life of near-total freedom for herself among her people who live camped outside the village and turns her desire on Mayya's father; Zarifa, a slave who was sold and forced to marry, who takes it upon herself to defy her slavery by sheer force of will and who challenges her son who insists now that he is free he can violate all the traditions if he wants to, but she knows secrets; Masouda, a wife locked into a room, cared for by her daughter, who may or may not be mad; Khawla, who is determined to remain true to her childhood sweetheart; Salima, the girls' mother, who grew up neither slave nor daughter of the house; Ankabuta, a slave woman and Zarifa's mother; Khalid, Asma's husband; Fatima, Abdallah's mother; Marwan the Pure, who isn't; Sulayman, a young merchant who founds a long family line with his wealth from the slave trade beginning in the 1890s.

 

The author only hints at linearity in the narration, and yet the stories hold together, the lives intersect, and mysteries are answered.

Goals 2022

I've been thinking about setting goals and whether or not it's worth the effort. I can't even remember what my goals for this past year were, and I'm not eager to check and see if I met them. The pandemic has thrown everything off for me as well as many others, but as I look forward into the new year I admit that I have hoped to get certain things done.

First, the fifth Anita Ray is ready to go, so one goal is to publish and promote In Sita's Shadow. This means promotion, so . . . 

 

Second, I will try at least one new promotional approach in sending Anita Ray out into the world again so I can feel I'm not stagnating in that department (I won't mention backsliding).

 

Third, I've enjoyed doing more with my blog, so I'll continue that (or this).

 

Fourth, a certain magazine continues to reject my stories, even though I sometimes get a nice note from the editor. I'll keep trying to place one story in that magazine. Maybe I'm becoming obsessive, but at least I'm motivated.

 

That's enough pre-planning for one year. I'll leave world peace and ending poverty to those more powerful than I am.

 

What about your goals? Are they simple, practical steps or are they larger, more abstract?

 

 

Five Words

Part of the process of writing is improving one's craft. The more I write, the more I learn, and the better I become. I assume this is true of other writers. Even so, I encounter fairly often a few slip-ups that grate on me, so I'm closing out the year with what matters most to me—words and how we use them.

 

Presently. This word does not mean now, at present. It means soon. Currently means now. Currently I'm reading Catherine Dilts, and presently I shall be reading John Floyd. And now you should be able to guess what I'm reading.

 

Uninterested/Disinterested.  These two words do not mean the same thing. Uninterested means to lack interest in something. You don't want the judge in your case to be uninterested in what's happening in the courtroom. You want him to be disinterested, without selfish or personal interest in the court activities; without bias; impartial. You definitely want the judge to be impartial. Ignore the suggestions in dictionaries that the words are beginning to share a single definition. There are some of us who will be massively confused by your writing if you do so.

 

Indifferent. Just to confuse things, we have the word indifferent. This word can mean the same as uninterested, but with nuances that make it less than a good substitute for it. The word means something that is neither good nor bad, or someone who has no interest in something, apathetic, or doesn't care. The word leaves us with a shrug.

 

And now a pesky reminder about I and me, she and her, he and him. In each pair, the first is the nominative case and the second is the objective. She and I gave weapons to him, and then he gave ammunition to me and to her. There is today among many speakers as well as writers an effort to sound correct. Hence we hear sentences like "Will you go with he and I?" I cringe. I hope you wouldn't say, "Me cringe." Talk (and write) as though you're with an old friend, or your grandmother, and let the words flow unselfconsciously.

 

As one of my favorite grammarians said in relation to the objective case, Use it with confidence. And so I do, and urge you to do so too.

 

 

My Notebooks

The holiday season is a time for getting together with family and friends, and this year though different has already brought out moments to be treasured and recorded. And, as I do year-round, I pulled out my notebook and began to jot down a few comments to remember—a book title that someone mentioned, an idea for a story that popped up when an interesting-looking stranger passed me on the street, a plan for a spring get-together, the name of a shop I wanted to return to. No one comments when I pulled out my little composition book, and I doubt anyone who knows me well even registers what I'm doing.

I have stacks of them. Each one usually covers about six months. The stacks are high enough to prevent the desk from closing properly, so I'm wondering about where I'll put them. Curious, I pulled out one from June 1998, when I attended a city planning meeting and noted the statistics someone gave. What would our little city look like if every lot were built on? This was all part of the city's master plan, and giving residents a chance to debate the proposals. I can't remember why I went, but the notes are evocative. 

 

A few pages later I had notes on Emotional Intelligence by David Goleman (1995), along with the Boston public library and its call number, followed by a few quotes.

 

In the beginning of one book is a short dialogue with two gay men, recorded moments after the fact.

 

First man to second: "You're a goodlooking guy. Here's a hug."

And then to me: "And you too."

Me: "I'm a distant second."

First man: "It's in the reading, not in the text."

 

This dialogue hasn't made it into a story yet, but other snippets overheard have. 

 

One of the best locations for catching dialogue is on Amtrak (sometimes even the Quiet Car), where riders are comfortable enough to shout over the rocking and clacking of the train. Coffee shops seem to be overrated for eavesdropping, but a hair salon is still a good spot along with certain grocery aisles.  

 

Sometimes I'm recording minutes of a meeting or drafting a grant proposal (when I was still working) or working out the idea of a letter I'm drafting. Lots of pages are filled with trial sentences. If the topics have changed over the years, my handwriting hasn't.

 

A colleague noticed my note taking one day and commented that she did the same thing. I asked if she reread her booklets at the end of the year. She said no, she threw them out. She never kept one.

 

My notebooks are inelegant, subjective, personal, and practical. They reflect my life and way of doing things, and I can't imagine throwing them out. 

 

Do you keep a journal? Any kind of record? Would you throw it out when it was filled? This is the kind of quirk that could lead to an interesting story character.

 

 

 

 

 

Characters not from Real People

A few weeks ago a friend taking a writing workshop was given the assignment to write a piece that included a description of someone she knew. She gave me part of the essay to read, and asked if her description of me seemed accurate. I was sure that it was, but I read it anyway.

 

Friends of writers have different reactions to hearing that we're working on a story and developing certain characters. Some are worried that they'll pick up a copy of the finished book and find themselves in it, and not appearing in a flattering light. Others pick up a copy of the same book and are blind to their appearance. I know one writer who regularly includes a sibling she's dislikes who never recognizes herself in her sister's work. And then there's the acquaintance who barely suppresses the hope that she is in the book, perhaps as the heroine or as a brilliant walk-on. 

 

Maybe it's the nature of the traditional mystery to attract this kind of fevered attention, emotions seesawing between avid desire for a moment of fame—or infamy—and a chilling, nearly paralyzing fear of being exposed, put on display for the babbling reviewers on social media. I haven't encountered the same concern highlighted to the same extent from thriller or romance writers, but perhaps that will change.

 

Fortunately, I've steered clear of including anyone I know in my fiction, but that hasn't stopped numerous people from quietly turning to me at a party or a meeting, when they think no one is listening, and asking, "Is that so-and-so?" Sometimes I'm shocked at the question because it tells me more about how the questioner see so-and-so than the idea that I might include him or her in a story. Usually I can't see the connection, and it's easy to say, "No, the character you're asking about came strictly from my imagination, except for the shoes. I saw a man wearing those on the T one day and never forgot them." And that is the truth.

 

During a reading at a book group populated mostly by older women, one guest asked after I finished reading a particular passage, "Is that your mother?" The question surprised me because I had never seen my mother act at all like the woman in the story, and said so. But thirty years later, as she coped with aging, my mother did indeed act exactly like the woman in the story. Either the guest was prescient, or I had given something away without realizing it.

 

Fiction is about creating a world in which characters the writer has invented behave in a way that is so true to life and their character, their personality and beliefs and expressed principles, that readers accept and follow them as though they were as real as the local mayor or postman or neighbor out mowing his lawn late on Thursday night. Fiction is a lie we believe because we can see that it is true to life as we have lived it. We take from people we know the off-hand remark that reveals a deeper sense of the person and give it to our protagonist at a crucial point in the story. We borrow a hair color, strawberry blond, to make a woman more distinctive. But the person we create will be nothing like the person borrowed from. She doesn't have to be; she only has to be true to her fictional self.

 

In her essay, my friend composed a revealing portrait of me, so much so that I winced, surprised that she had been so perceptive and able to express what she saw and felt so clearly. But if this had been fiction, the rest of me would have disappeared behind a new personality designed to carry an action and trajectory that I would not have taken. No matter how close some people think we might be getting to a real person, the writer borrows only details and remakes their significance to support a larger understanding in her fiction.

Naming My Characters

Most of my fiction begins with an image of a man or woman engaged in some act, caught in a freeze-frame of intent and purpose. I can see him or her, usually her, moving forward, the goal just out of view but I know it's there. This person's identity is only partly unknown. I don't have a name or full view of family and friends but I can see how she or he behaves. 

I spend time thinking about the names for my characters. Only once, after writing most of my first novel, in college, I had the bizarre idea that the main character's name was wrong for him, and decided to change it. The student who was typing my handwritten drafts was surprisingly upset. She said the story just didn't feel the same. And she was right. I took the lesson to heart. 

 

The name for any character may come as a sudden inspiration or after several minutes—or days—thinking about it. The name for my first series character, Chief of Police Joe Silva of the Mellingham series, reflects the Portuguese heritage of the area, as well as his approachability. Silva is a common Portuguese name in the towns and cities around Boston, and Joe, from Jose, underscores his basic amiability and implies all that he brings, from the Hebrew meaning "God will add." It also sounded very familiar, as typical of the Portuguese I encountered growing up.

 

In the second series, featuring Indian-American photographer Anita Ray, I wanted a name that could be both Indian and American, as well as having the lightness and cleanness of sound that most Indian names have. (This is just my bias.) I wanted the last name to also sound both Indian and American Irish, and gave considerable thought to both. When a friend casually remarked that another writer had once said her name was perfect for a character, I knew I was on the right track, and Anita Ray was born. Auntie Meena, who in India would be addressed as Meena Auntie, came easily after hearing a child call out.

 

The main character in Below the Tree Line, the beginning of a new series, had to express her Irish heritage but also her particular heritage of the female line, as a healer. The women in her family tree carried names that are mostly forgotten today—Justice, Charity, Faith—but I wanted one that expressed her character. Felicity O'Brien inherited the family farm, and practices her healing gift among friends. 

 

In a short story that first appeared in AHMM ("How Do You Know What You Want"), a social worker in child welfare delivers a teenager to a new foster family. It's a walk-on part but I knew who she was and her name just popped into my head. I didn't expect to deal with her again, but she has shown up in two more stories and is now the protagonist in a novel I'm working on. Ginny Means is forty, unmarried, and devoted to her work, but she has a secret that she carries uneasily, but someone else wants it exposed. In an online discussion I mentioned her and another participant said, "That's a good name for a social worker." 

 

When I struggle with naming a character, I think of Dickens, who was brilliant at this along with just about everything else in composing stories. Capturing the right name, one that doesn't feel "wrong" or "ill-suited" two months or two years later, takes time and effort. It doesn't have to be unusual or startling, like Sarah Strohmeyer's Bubbles Yablonsky or Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. But it should be like the name Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, able to tell you about the character on some level. The right name lifts the story and carries the personality.

 

That's where my thoughts are now as I ponder naming the minor characters in my current WIP, beginning with the various villains (and there are several) and the townspeople who encounter them.

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Getting It Right on Page One

A couple of weeks ago I began a working on a new mystery featuring a series character who has shown up in a number of short stories. The opening scene told the reader everything she needed to know and moved the story forward, but I wasn't happy with it. I kept writing scene after scene, exploring the characters and pleased with the ideas that came to me as I was writing farther into the story. I kept notes, deepened the characters and complicated the plot. But still, though I could feel the story was developing the way I wanted it to, I wasn't happy. I made more notes.

When a story idea feels like a good one to me, little pieces of the plot, snippets of dialogue, visuals show up waiting to be put in place. I don't try to force the ideas to come, sitting down and deciding this is the motive or that is the backstory. I let the ideas unfold. It's a slow process in the beginning but I pick up speed once I have the basic idea. The problem I was having was with the beginning--the scene that tells you what's going to come sooner or later, the promise and the expectations. I trust my process and I trust my ideas.

We've had wonderfully warm days lately, so my midday walk with the dog is especially enjoyable. A few days ago as we strolled down a quiet side street a helicopter flew overhead. This isn't terribly unusual here. Occasionally a news copter shows up and we all wonder what's been going on. I looked up and watched it hover and move on, not in any great hurry, as though the pilot were looking or perhaps teaching someone how to fly. Watching the copter from below as it flew nearly directly overhead I thought it looked like a tadpole. And just at that moment I had the opening of my new mystery--a young woman racing to get home before curfew who sees a copter flying overhead and stops to wonder why.

I won't tell the rest of the opening, but I knew I had it right by the the scene that took shape in that minute and the eagerness I felt to get to my computer and get to work. Because I had things I had to do at the end of the dog walk, I couldn't go back to work, but the idea stayed warm and grew warmer, with little details coming along to vivify the moment when the main character looks up and sees the copter overhead.

Because of the actions of the main character in the new opening scene, some of what I've already written needs to be recast. This is not unexpected, and I already know how I'll change a few things, adding and deleting. But the relief and excitement at having found the perfect opening for this tale is buoying. It feels like a different mystery now, and it is.

I need this kind of energy to keep the story flowing so the writing, the construction of the story, doesn't start to feel mechanical. The total narrative now has a somewhat different arc from my original intent, but the new one is much better. My desk is now littered with notes, a map of my fictional town, and research tidbits to work into the story. The month of November promises to be productive.

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.

Definitions of the Cozy Mystery

A spirited discussion on the Short Mystery Fiction Society list led to several short or longer definitions of the beloved cozy mystery. I collected most of them, and list them here. Some are tongue-in-cheek, some are serious, but all give insight into the genre. I've omitted the writers whose definitions are quoted and edited lightly.

 

A cozy mystery is one in which the blood is dry before it hits the page.

They are a place for the reader to escape, a place the reader will like being. The language used is soft, not harsh, the people are those the reader would like as neighbors, and the killer has a very good reason--at least in their own head--for doing the deed. That pleasant place where order will be restored.

 

A cozy is a mystery in which someone gets killed but no one gets hurt.

 

I think of the word cozies as mysteries to which the word "cozy" applies in two ways.

First, cozy in the sense of comfortable. They're not disturbing to read. Violence happens offstage, sex is only suggested, the language is mild.

Second, cozy in the sense of close and contained. The story takes place in a community of limited size, such as a small town and there is only a handful of suspects.

Life as it should be with a little excitement added in (murder).

 

There’s a lot of hairsplitting over the definition of a cozy and the difference between cozies and traditional mysteries.  The lines are definitely blurred. Basically a cozy has no on-page sex or violence, with little or no profanity (preferably none). They often take place in a small town. I never heard the bit about no one getting hurt. Traditional mysteries are grittier and perhaps more realistic. I would put Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple in the cozy category. Sayers more traditional.

 

I would also note that cozies have a strong element of female empowerment. The protagonists are busy making a life for themselves, often a new life after a tragedy, and often against the odds. They run businesses and libraries and community theaters, and sometimes families. Their world is disrupted, and they do everything it takes to put it back together. They get sugar done. 

 

"Cozy" is essentially synonymous with "traditional mystery."

 

I do want to say that although the cozy genre is very heavily weighted towards female protagonists, there are some authors who have done a great job making male protagonists work in a cozy as well. I’m thinking about M.K. Wren’s Conan Flagg series, Jack Ewing’s Primed for Murder, Stephen Humphrey Bogart’s R.J. Brooks mysteries, Matt Witten’s Jacob Burns mysteries and many more.

 

Cozies have nothing in them that will upset *anybody,* even the most strict reader.

For traditional mysteries, the most important thing is the puzzle. 
The level of action and danger varies, and we don't always like the protagonist that much, but the puzzle needs to hang together. The reader gets intellectual satisfaction from the solution of the puzzle.

For cozies, the most important thing is that the reader feels that the protagonist is a friend, and they feel comfortable in their company. 

Cozies can have some mild action, and some danger, and they have a puzzle, but all of that is subordinated to creating an emotional bond between the protagonist and the reader.
The reader gets emotional satisfaction from having spent an enjoyable few hours in the company of their friend.

 

A cozy is a book you can read before going to sleep at night, and still be able to go to sleep at night.

Both cozies and traditionals: no excessive, graphic, gratuitous sex or violence on the page, plus very little or, preferably, no “expletive deleted” words. Usually a small-town setting. Emphasis on backstory, character development, whydunit as well as whodunit.

Difference between cozies and traditionals: in a cozy, the sleuth is always an amateur, generally female. In a traditional, it is a professional, sometimes a police officer, but more often a private investigator, and more often male. 

Christie’s Poirot books are traditional; Miss Marple books are cozies. 

 

Someone dies, no one gets hurt.

There’s a lot of hairsplitting over the definition of a cozy and the
difference between cozies and traditional mysteries.  The lines are
definitely blurred. Basically a cozy has no on-page sex or violence, with
little or no profanity (preferably none). They often take place in a small
town. I never heard the bit about no one getting hurt. Traditional
mysteries are grittier and perhaps more realistic. I would put Agatha
Christie’s Jane Marple in the cozy category. Sayers more traditional.