The Writer Wasting Time

There was a time in my life, not so long ago, when I could say that I never wasted time. I couldn't because I simply had so much to do. I worked full time, produced a semiannual literary journal with a colleague and later an anthology of crime fiction with two other colleagues, ran a monthly writers' group, critiqued friends' mss, and oversaw my mother's health care during a critical time. And I wrote.

My focus was on crime fiction, novels in two series with a few short stories based on the main character in one, Anita Ray. I wrote both stories and novels during the brief interlude between arriving home from work and dinner, after taking snatches of time during lunch or while walking to a meeting or waiting on hold to think through what I wanted to write in the next scene or passage when I got home. When I could I attended writers' conferences and participated in a few volunteer projects. And then I retired.

I have long felt that writers' block is an indulgence. I may not feel like writing, but once I sit down and begin, the words come. No matter how bad the writing might seem at the moment I know I can always return later and rework it. The point for me is to keep going. Once I retired I didn't feel the same pressure, but I also didn't stop writing. While working I had to use every minute I could find but now I could begin earlier in the day, whenever I wanted, and take more time working through what I was trying to say. I might still sit down unready to write, as it were, but I still wrote no matter what. I wasn't at my desk to play solitaire. Nothing changed in retirement, just my attitude to time now that I had more of it. I let myself daydream more, stare out the window more, talk to the dog more.

Did having more time make a difference? Did I write more? Did I write better? Did I think more deeply? The only question I'm sure about is the latitude retirement gave me to try new things--new characters, new settings, new problems. And then last year I began thinking differently about how to construct a story, and that produced a very different novel from my usual fare. 

Last summer I set aside the reliable and much enjoyed cozy/traditional format and pulled up one character and got her into trouble in the first line and kept her there. The story is obviously suspense and not a cozy. I learned a lot about a different style of writing but in the end I also learned about me. I see the world in a certain way, and even in a suspense novel with danger in every room, threats at every corner, the main character is going to have a certain world view and certain beliefs that might be shaken but won't be destroyed.

Writing suspense meant going deeper into certain characters but it also meant uncovering the roots of principles, the drive leading to the goals that can be misdirected, and inchoate beliefs that can underlie a life and be twisted before being recovered in a truer form. I spent a lot more time thinking about these issues before I began writing--weeks, even months.

Being willing to take the time to explore these discoveries in fiction might not have happened in earlier years when writing another cozy seemed the obvious choice, the easier path. I might have ended up wasting a lot of time--months if not years--in producing another series that was okay but not much more. But in the end I finished with a novel that is different from my usual work and a level above it. And now comes the test. My agent has it and now I wait. Once again, the issue is time. Waiting time. 

And also thinking time, thinking about the next character who will be in trouble in the first line and stay there until a few paragraphs from the end. Time is set only as we choose to set it.

What's in an Ending?

After writing every day for three months I'm coming up to the final scenes in a new stand-alone. This is usually an exciting time for me because I have an idea of what will happen and I'm eager to see how all the elements play out. But as I approach this section I'm not as decided on the various threads as I usually am, which means I have far greater flexibility on the ending. So, how much choice do I have? What do I want in my ending?

In a cozy or traditional mystery, all the questions should be answered. Based on the form of comedy, the cozy mystery is expected to answer all questions, solve all problems, mete out punishment, and bring the community together again into a coherent whole. We want to see the villain get what he has coming to him or her. We want the virtuous sleuth to be rewarded with praise and new regard. That's exactly what happens in The Widows of Malabar Hillby Sujata Massey. The tidy ending is heartwarming and clear, much tidier than in real life. 

The second type of ending is a variation on the first. In this one the villain is caught, but another criminal in the midst of the community is revealed and departs. It doesn't matter how involved in the instigating crime this second party is; only that he or she walks away. This is the ending I chose in Friends and Enemies: A Mellingham Mystery.

The third type of ending is popular in a series that the reader especially likes. In this type the mystery is solved but then another mystery or problem occurs, and the sleuth doesn't have a moment to rest in glory. One crime is solved, and another is hinted at or committed, which means the sleuth can't walk away and move on. This is the ending chosen by Alexia Gordon in Murder in G Major.

In the fourth type the reader confronts a question of responsibility that transforms the mystery and its crime into a larger question, and no two readers may have the same response. In The Nine Tailorsby Dorothy L. Sayers, a man is found dead from what looks like a tortuous experience. Lord Peter Wimsey searches doggedly for a murderer to no avail. He stumbles on the answer quite by accident, but how the victim came to be where he was, unable to escape and thus unable to protect himself from death, raises questions of the nature of guilt, of responsibility and justice. No villain is arrested, no one is charged. Sayers addresses the underlying questions and offers one possible response.

There is a fifth type that few writers attempt, but it is delicious when tackled successfully. In this form, the crime may or may not be a murder but there is always deception around a death, perhaps a lesser crime, and a question of justice and responsibility. In The New Sonia Wayward(The Case of Sonia Wayward) by Michael Innes, a man goes sailing with his wife, a famous novelist who has been supporting him generously all their married life. When she falls overboard and drowns, he faces a bleak future. He decides to conceal her death, tell everyone she has gone on a trip, and write her romance novels himself. This has been called Innes's most cynical novel, though written with his light, wry touch.

The ending chosen tells us about the story structure, for example, but it also challenges the reader's view of justice and right or wrong. Not everyone will agree with Sayers's conclusion in The Nine Tailors, and not everyone will agree that community is restored in Murder in Mellingham, the first Mellingham mystery. Each ending is an interpretation of what justice means in a particular situation, and forces the reader to think about the choice that has been made. In a few more days I will have to choose one of the five possibilities, and right now I only know that it won't be the first one.