Story Ideas from Readers

Well before the lockdown, social distancing, and masks (which make it hard to hear conversations at other tables in a restaurant), I listened to two women talk about a circumstance that seemed ordinary until one said, "Can you imagine if . . . " With those simple words, she flipped over the situation and I saw a story.

This is how stories come to me, when I'm listening to someone else talk, or reading an article that holds a twist that isn't meant to be one. The Boston Globe regularly revisits the theft of art at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a stain on our Yankee preserve that shows no sign of being removed. The story included a note on the brief interview some years earlier with one of the guards who lived very modestly in another state. Pressed with the old news that some wondered if he'd been involved, he replied, "Would I be living like this if I had been?" 

Once in a while a reader will ask a question that opens up a possibility I hadn't thought of. At a mystery conference in England a fan of the Mellingham series featuring Chief of Police Joe Silva wanted to know about Joe's family. She asked about what I was holding back from readers. She was convinced there was a secret in Joe's life because I never said much about his family. The details were scant--a Portuguese son in a large family who had fished with his father and brothers during his earlier years. His parents were alive, and he spoke to his mother regularly (as did his landlady). That was about it.

Unlike many other writers, I never did a full backstory on the main character of my series. I knew who I wanted him to be but I didn't flesh out a lot of detail about his life before he became a cop and was hired by the town of Mellingham. But her question startled me. She had read closely, she had questions, she wanted answers. I thought about her for years until an idea came to me. The result was Last Call for Justice, when Joe drives south of Boston for a family reunion that his elderly father has insisted on. The old man is convinced he has one last chance to see all his children before death comes for him, and he draws them all home. It is a story of old fears and grudges, a settling of scores, and a discovery no one wants to make.

My new series features Felicity O'Brien, a farmer who has inherited the ability to heal with her hands, a gift passed down from mother to daughter through several generations. Her gift is on display in the first book, Below the Tree Line, but plays only a small role. One editor wanted more of that part of Felicity's life, and another wanted less. In the second book in the series (now under consideration), the healing plays an important role, but in the third book, which is now taking shape, Felicity's ability to read through her hands a person's state of health plays a pivotal role. 

The difference between an acquaintance offering a story line they just know would make a good novel and a question from a reader is obvious to me. The engagement with the series means the reader is thinking about who these characters are and what they would do, how they would engage the world. They can see what I've left out, and are curious about the missing backstory, or they catch on to an inkling I've had but haven't wanted to develop just yet. I'm grateful for these kinds of reactions from readers, and look forward to them. They always lead to a good idea.

The End of Five Star Mystery Line

The volatility and unpredictability of the publishing world hit home last week for Five Star/Gale, Cengage authors. Our publisher has decided to drop the mystery line and focus on the Western and Frontier Fiction lines, though it will publish all those titles already contracted. I read through the list and found my name there, as I expected. Five Star will publish the fourth in the Anita Ray series, When Krishna Calls, and the fifth novel will sit unfinished on my desk a little longer, but I will finish it.

Five Star/Gale, Cengage appended a list of publishers of mystery fiction, to help authors find a new home for their work. This was considerate and I hope it will prove useful.

The ending of the mystery line hasn't upset me as much as I thought it would. My heart goes out to the other writers who have seen their first book pushed aside for months, contract talks silenced, and future books left in the slush pile. If I were at an earlier stage in my career, I would be devastated at least for a while, but too much has happened recently to let this drag me down.

For the last few years I've considered myself fortunate to be published with Five Star. They have a good reputation for their fiction lines, treat the writers fairly (at least they've always treated me well), and are easy to work with. But complacency is dangerous, and the jolt from Corporate probably means now is the time to try something new.

Perhaps the reason I'm so calm about the changes at Five Star is my perspective. Last year, in late 2015, Harlequin Worldwide Mystery accepted For the Love of Parvati, the third Anita Ray mystery, for the mass market paperback line, and then asked to see the second, The Wrath of Shiva, which they promptly accepted also. I didn't tell them they'd turned the book down two years earlier. But that was then, and this is now. New editor, new tastes, new policy. I signed the contract and received the first payment.

In February 2015, almost exactly a year ago, I sent Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine a short story. They accepted it yesterday. I had been thinking about withdrawing it, to save the editor the trouble of rejecting it. I wrote The Strand to withdraw a short story they'd had for almost two years and the editor said he never saw it and would I send it again? I did.

Well over a year ago an agent asked me about what I was working on, we talked, and one thing led to another, which in the end turned into a new novel. It's different from anything else I've tried, though it is a mystery. I like it, she likes it, and we hope someone else will like it. Who knows? But it is ready to go out into the world and find a home.

The day before I received the email from Five Star announcing the end of the mystery line I had sent a query about the seventh Mellingham/Joe Silva mystery. At the moment the novel is homeless, but I'm sure I can figure out something.

Five Star was founded by Ed Gorman and Marty Greenberg, to provide an opportunity to writers who were dropped by their publishers in the 1990s, when publishing went through a period of upheaval. Scribner went from 24 mysteries a year to 12, more stand-alones than series. Lots of well-published, talented writers were looking for a home for at least a few books, and Ed and Marty stepped up. Since then, the publishing world has changed even more, and the opportunities are now in self-publishing and the numerous small presses popping up all over the map. Writers have to be savvier and more astute in business practices, but the opportunities are there, just different.

I don't try to make sense of the publishing world. I write, I submit, I write some more. Change is inevitable, and it's been a fact of my professional life from the beginning. In 1985 I signed a contract with G.K. Hall, and the next day it was taken over by Macmillan.

I will miss Five Star in the years to come, especially the editors I've worked with. I have no idea what the future holds, but I invite the writers whose careers have been temporarily disrupted to consider this an opportunity to try something new and perhaps better. In any event, take the long view. There is always more to come.

Whose story is it?

My current project is rewriting a Mellingham mystery from Chief Joe Silva's point of view. I first wrote the novel as an extension of a short story centered around a day spent sailing along the coast. I liked the idea of the discovery of the attempted murder so much that I decided to turn the story into a novel, making the intended victim the sleuth. This went along well, I thought, until my editor rejected the novel. (Another editor is reading the short story.)

For several months I felt stuck with a novel whose basic story I loved but whose lead character didn't seem to rise to the necessary heights. Something was lacking. At the same time I came to be interested in writing more about Joe's family. Readers like hearing about Joe's birth family, and I thought it was time to write more about the blended family he created when he married Gwen, who came with two young children, Jennie and Philip. I'd already written about Jennie in Last Call for Justice, and I thought now it was time for Philip to make an appearance. I decided to rewrite the rejected novel with the focus on Joe with his family in a supportive role.

When I taught writing courses, years ago, I used a variety of exercises to make various points. One point I liked to get across is that each story depends on who is telling it, or, in my case, who is the protagonist leading the investigation, however informal or formal that may be. I assigned students the task of writing the first few paragraphs of a story from the point of view of each character in the story, to find out whose story it was. Students were almost always surprised to find that the story differed according to who became the main character. I'm learning this lesson again. The story of a woman who drowns while out sailing told from the point of view of the surviving sister is a very different story from the one told by Joe Silva in his role as chief of police of Mellingham.

As I recast each scene, expanding some and eliminating others, and add more, I can see where I went wrong with the creation of the protagonist in the first version. Annie Beckwith, given a name I thought would lead to a great career as an amateur sleuth, seemed stunted and edgy. Under the astute gaze of the chief of police, however, she is emerging as a woman grappling with the loss of a dearly loved sister and her sister's husband, and learning things about her sister's life that she'd never known and never would have guessed.

Here I imagine the reader is thinking, "Ah, dark secrets are uncovered." Well, the reader is partly correct. Not all secrets are dark. But any secret can change the one who discovers it, and faces the challenge of abandoning old assumptions for new truths.

When I began the rewrite, I wasn't sure it would be worth the effort, but I felt compelled to see it through. I love the Joe Silva/Mellingham series, and willingly block out stories to write when I have the time. But now that I'm deep into this story, I am once again hooked. I think about Joe and his little family, Gwen and Jennie and Philip, and the life they have created for themselves in the small town on the water. In this installment Joe teaches Philip to sail, and Philip turns out to be the son the townspeople of Mellingham might expect for their beloved Chief Silva. 

Beta Readers

I recently gave a short story to a friend to critique, and because it involved an activity her husband enjoys, sailing, she gave it to him to read also. Both came back with useful and pertinent suggestions, and I felt fortunate to have their reviews. As I finish an Anita Ray story, I'm getting ready to send it to someone who has also lived in India and will warn me when I conflate the ways Indian and Americans think.

These particular readers are among the three or four I rely on to comment on my work, and I have always felt comfortable with that group because their critiques are spot on and precise. But when I look at the acknowledgments in some of the books I've been reading lately, I notice the author often includes a long list of names of people who have read and commented on or helped with the book. The list includes friends and relatives as well as editors and a large number of beta readers. Sometimes the number of people in the last category can reach forty or more.

At a writers' conference I listened to another mystery writer describe her process. She sent out her ms to four writers, read their comments and edited her ms accordingly, and then retyped from word one the entire ms. Then she sent it out again. She did this until she had sixteen reviews, retyping the book each time. (Yes, that's a lot of typing, and a topic for another time.)

When I was writing my first mystery and learning about structure and character and plot and clues and all the rest of it, I read chapters of the book that would become Murder in Mellingham to my writers' group and sent opening chapters to friends in the publishing world. I learned from all the comments, but the total number of beta readers did not number more than ten.

How many beta readers do you need? I don't know the answer but I am wondering. A quick Google search for "Beta readers" brings up 55,400 entries, including a call for beta readers, a listing for a group on Goodreads, advice on how to apply to be one, things to do and not do, what to expect if you become one, and more. It there has been an explosion of writers in the marketplace, there has also been an explosion of beta readers and posts about them.

But there is one big difference between today, 2015, and the 1980s, when I began writing my first mystery novel. When I began I knew all my readers, and asked them for their views because I knew, first, that they liked to read and, second, they read carefully and often made astute comments about a story line or character. I wanted the benefit of their expertise. I didn't know about anyone who served as a beta reader for a writer they didn't know personally, and I didn't know any writers who sent their mss to readers they didn't know personally.

Today, in many case, beta readers are strangers to the writer seeking feedback. We have no idea if the people who post reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, or any other site can read well or easily, like reading, or even care about books.

I don't know how many beta readers are considered enough, but I know that a good one is worth every effort it takes to find him or her. I consider myself fortunate to have several who have supported and guided me over the years.

But as I watch the writing and publishing world evolve, I wonder how the institution of the beta reader will also develop. How many will be considered enough? Will a group spring up to set standards for becoming a beta reader? Will we formalize the process? Will writers be expected to find strangers to serve as readers? I don't have any answers but I'm curious to hear what others think.

What does it mean to write what you know?

Several years ago I attended a Memorial Day neighborhood picnic, and met several newcomers to the area. One woman scowled at me when she heard I was a writer. She said, "I suppose you look around at us for characters and use what we say in your books." I've remembered her comment for its naked suspicion and hostility, as though every writer were out to exploit the people we meet. Perhaps some writers do, but for the most part writers don't misuse real people. So, what does it mean when we tell beginning writers to write what you know?

During a recent talk I tried to explain how writers use their own lives to give depth and authenticity to a

story. In the Mellingham series, Chief of Police Joe Silva is the middle of seven children. I'm only the third of four, so I don't know what such a large family feels like. But my father was the middle of nine children, and he often told stories about growing up in a large family living in a small house. He lived in a household with his parents and six sisters, two brothers, and one bathroom. The dining table couldn't seat everyone, and his father was a great reader, with a special chair in the living room by the front window. This is all I needed to imagine Joe's birth family.

Anita Ray lives in Hotel Delite, a tourist hotel in a resort in South India. I once stayed at a hotel on the beach that had been a private home. The layout ensured that all rooms viewed the sea, and when it was converted to a hotel the small size made it easy to manage. In other parts of India I encountered hotels named Delite, which I found charming, so I borrowed the name. The original home/hotel has since been greatly enlarged, the restaurant enlarged, the kitchen moved, and the dining room moved. The hotel I write about is long gone, but the atmosphere lives on.

As a photographer, I enjoy working ideas about this art, or craft, into the story, as well as pointing out how it affects the way Anita looks at things. But I have to work to learn more about photography, to keep up with Anita, who is far more expert than I am. I learn from other photographers, and include some of their insights and discoveries and practices.

Every writer overhears a conversation that is tantalizing, but as Henry James warned, we don't want to hear too much. We want just enough to spark the imaginative journey; otherwise it's just unpleasant gossip. In any city or town, we see people pass by and barely notice them. But if we did, we'd find our visual vocabulary strikingly enriched. A father and his son, the boy a perfect miniature of the man with red curly hair, slight body, pigeon-toed walk, and tipping shoulders, stroll a beach. A teenage girl wearing a black slip as a dress under a red denim jacket, purple hair and dangly earrings recites what she told her boyfriend the night before, insisting that he should behave better and act like an adult, an admonition that might have come out of her grandmother's mouth. There are no secrets here, no confidences violated and no intent to mock or demean.

Neighbors and others have every reason to feel vulnerable around their writer friends, because writers have an outlet and an audience denied to most. But responsible writers, and most are, don't use that their position to balance a perceived injustice, or exploit someone's powerlessness. The small details we pull out of real life are shimmering proof of authenticity of feeling and experience, not of one particular person's life.

Writers can protect against using anything real that might injure another. I take great care in inventing names that cannot be traced to any real person in my area. I ask friends if I can use the layout of their house or apartment for a character. I sometimes even ask if I can use a special phrase a friend uses because I suspect she'll recognize it if she reads the final book. I invent towns, street names, shops, and businesses because the point is to tell a good story, not delve into someone else's private life.

The advice to write what you know might be emended, following Hemingway, to "write what you know is true," true to life, true to your own experience, true to your perceptions of the world and its people. Anything else is false to your calling as a writer.