If you're going to give advice . . .

(This post was originally published on Author Expressions, August 2, 2013. It generated so many interesting comments that I felt I should reprint it here.)

Everyone who writes at some point has the same experience. I finish a short story or a novel, go over it for the tenth or twentieth time, and print out a clean copy to give a friend to read. Perhaps I’ve been reading chapters to the members of my writing group as I go along, or perhaps I am a solitary writer with no group and a strong reluctance to share my work till I think it’s finished. But at some point it will be finished enough to share, and I will have to show it to someone. What I get in return can be significant.

A recent discussion on a chat list for writers touched on the problem of getting nothing but negative feedback from a first reader. The reader even went so far as to tell the writer to stop writing. The reaction of the other writers, including me, was that this negativity is not useful. It’s destructive and there’s no point in destroying a new writer’s dreams and determination. The discussion and comments reminded me of two things—my early efforts and how kind some of my first readers had been and a story I was asked to read by someone who thought he was destined to write the great American novel. In my opinion I didn’t think he could write a grocery list. I learned from both experiences how to make useful comments without judgment. (And I have always been grateful to the editors who were kind. When I look back at my early work . . .)

First, I ask the writer to describe the “aboutness” of the story. What is the story about? Tell me in one or two sentences. Don’t give me a plot summary—that’s different. Tell me what this story is for me as a reader. Some writers will never have thought about this, and it helps any writer focus on the story and what is or is not relevant in the telling of it.

Second, I ask about the opening line (and sometimes about the closing line). Where did it come from? What is it supposed to achieve? Is the writer satisfied with it? I’m almost never satisfied with my opening lines, but I sometimes am very happy with the closing lines. Are there alternatives that were discarded? Why?

Third, I try to find a sentence with an interesting or unusual word usage and ask about that. Why did he or she choose this word? What is the writer trying to achieve?

Fourth, if the story is a mystery or paranormal or science fiction, I try to ask relevant questions on structure and formula (I’m limited to mystery fiction mostly), and how the writer understands the formula.

Fifth, I might ask about characters’ names if there is anything unusual about them, or if too many characters are named Joe or Mary. I might also point out that the ethnic identities of the characters do or do not match the setting or story line.

I could go on, but you get the idea. There is nothing in any of my comments that is a judgment or an evaluation. Each comment is meant to take the reader and the writer deeper into understanding the story and the writer’s goals. This can be edifying for both writer and reader because getting another writer to articulate a way of viewing the world and trying to present it means that I have to stretch my thinking.

In addition, if I read something I think is awful and have to discuss it, I am forced to dig deeper, to reach beyond my prejudices and blinders. I have to listen to another writer’s reasons for doing something I probably wouldn’t have done. And I have to read with possibility in mind, with the idea that the writer is reaching for something. All of this makes me think harder.

Being asked to read someone else’s work is a compliment as well as a responsibility. Anyone who agrees to do so, therefore, is, in my view, obligated to provide something useful and productive to the writer. Offering up a visceral reaction isn’t enough, and that doesn’t count as any kind of thoughtful reading. There is nothing to be gained by telling a struggling writer that he can’t writer. I am well aware that the one person whom I think can’t write a phone message may turn out to be the next Scott Turow.

A Writer's Advice: Write what you . . .

The first advice most writers get is the cliché “Write what you know.” This seems to be safe advice because, after all, if you’re writing about something you know, you are less likely to make a fool of yourself or sound embarrassingly ignorant. But it can also be frustrating to the beginning writer. No one wants to write about a family that seems boring or that is painfully dysfunctional.

A few months ago I had an idea for a story that surprised me. A divorced man finds himself alone in a large house with a life not of his making. His wife has left him the trappings of a life he doesn’t know how to live—she was an avid sailor, for one thing, and he did little more than pick up the sail bags and follow her out to the boat. He took orders when she gave them, and otherwise sat in the cockpit and watched the waves. He had little or no idea what she did to make the boat “go.” Now that he’s alone, he finds himself the owner of a boat, books about boats, and the reputation of being a good crew on a racing boat. He hardly knows who this person is. The story grew from there.

It has been almost over 45 years since I was in a sailboat or raced one. I could barely remember the terms for things, racing rules, and all the rest, but the story appeared, and I started writing. If someone had told me I should write about sailing, I would have dismissed him or her with a laugh and an off-hand comment.

A few years ago I had just returned from India after an absence of many years, and ran into an old family friend. There was something different about her, and I didn’t know what it was until an hour later, after we had parted company. She had walked away to her car, and I kept seeing that image of her walking away. Then I remembered. She’d been born with a bone deformity in the 1940s, and lived with it almost her entire adult life, until she reached her forties, when someone told her the deformity could be “fixed.” I know next to nothing about medicine and not a lot about life in an Indian village (I lived in a city when I was there), but I began to see a young woman in a village in India born with a deformity that a visiting western doctor says he can “fix.”

One day several years ago I ran out of typing paper. This led to a search (before the big box office supply stores) on Saturday morning for paper. That led to an encounter with a paper salesman, which was the genesis for the fourth Mellingham mystery, Friends and Enemies, featuring Chief of Police Joe Silva. The story revolves around the loyalty employees feel for the paper industry, and after I finished researching it for the story, I understood their commitment to their individual companies.

If I only wrote what I knew, these and other stories wouldn’t have been written. If new writers ask (and only if they ask) for advice I tell them, “Write what you love” or “Write what you’re curious about” or “Write what you think you need to learn about life.” But whatever you write about, stretch yourself. Go somewhere new in your imagination.

A Moment of Bliss

This will probably be one of the oddest blogs I’ve ever written, but I have decided to post it anyway because the thought behind it will not go away.

About a month ago I borrowed from the library a book of essays recommended by a fellow writer. I don’t normally read Zadie Smith’s fiction, but my friend assured me I would enjoy her nonfiction, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, published by Penguin in 2009. The book arrived by mail from a lending library I belong to, and when I opened it up I at first thought this was just another book. I opened the book at random and had a moment of exhilaration and bliss. There, on the page, beneath my fingers, sat a five-line footnote.

Perhaps you are thinking this is silly, or pretentious, or a waste of time. Perhaps it is. But for me, it was a surprise because I hardly thought I cared about nonfiction anymore beyond the occasional interesting book of pop culture. I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell’s take on things, but he’s not a scientist or anyone whose opinion I would accept over my own, not without a lot more research. But the discovery of the footnote in Smith’s book brought me back to something I do care about.

The collection of essays is thoughtful and wide ranging, and it shows in the construction of the book, something I had missed without realizing it. This book opened the door to a room I had closed off years ago when I finished graduate school and left teaching (my teaching career was nothing to be excited about). The book has all the working parts of a carefully constructed work: Dedication, Epigram, Table of Contents, Foreword, seventeen essays distributed by theme in five parts, with footnotes as necessary, Acknowledgments (yes, at the back of the book), and an index. Do you have any idea how rare an index is these days?

A book with footnotes, index, along with the work is a body to be enjoyed on many levels. The footnotes answer those moments of curiosity that can’t be explored well in the main text but yet call out to be considered, or provide additional information that enhances our understanding of the main point, or tells us the author has a sense of humor, a personality sometimes more playful or thoughtful or something not fully in accord with the tone of the main text.

At this point I might have concluded that the discovery of a well-put-together book was enough joy for one day, and left the book on the table to be read at a later date. But I delved in at once, reading the first essay. (I am methodical, and almost put that aside in a footnote, but here it is, casually dropped in.)

The first essay rewarded me with another pleasure—the discussion of a word, in this case soulful, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Smith discusses her first encounter with this book, and growing into over the years. Her experience reflects several I had at that age, fourteen, when my mother offered books for me to read and I would have nothing to do with them. I had my own choices at that age.

I haven’t finished the collection yet, and when I spoke with the librarian she said, “Don’t feel you have to get to it in a hurry. This is an eight-week book.” Another moment of bliss at all that generosity. That sounds like a long time, and to merely read pages, perhaps it is. But to enjoy every aspect of this book I know I’ll want more time. I plan to renew.

Time: Where to Find It and How to Use It

This post originally appeared on Author Expressions on Friday, April 5, 2013.

We live in an age of "not enough time." How often have you said it? How often have you heard someone else say it, when you nod and murmur agreement? For anyone who writes, the phrase comes often, sometimes every day. But is it accurate?

Every writer needs time to write, think, rewrite, edit, revise, review, critique, and polish. There seems never enough time when I start writing, and I slog along wishing I had more time. But I'm starting to think this is one of those automatic thoughts, and I would do well to ignore it. When I stop to think about it, I find time in lots of corners of my day.

One morning last month, because of the snowstorm, I left for work three hours later than usual. These three hours were a luxury, and instead of doing something mundane like vacuuming or sorting laundry, I proofed a copy of the paper back of my newest work, Last Call for Justice: A Mellingham Mystery. I knew the text was correct, since I'd already read it through, but I wanted to go through each page to make sure no lines had fallen off, the pagination hadn't suddenly gone awry, and similar concerns. That took less than an hour.

After proofing, I took the time to review a short story I'd written several months earlier, sent out for review to a reader, and revised. It was ready to send out, but where? I spent half an hour considering where to send it, made a choice, and submitted it online to a literary journal. (I write all sorts of things, with and without dead bodies. This one was without, but it did feature a homeless teenager.)

Next came a friend's mss, which I had eagerly offered to read and comment on. She's been kind enough to read almost all of my work and I wanted to return the favor. I gave the story a first reading, made notes, and mentally scheduled a second reading for the next day, when I'd have had time to digest the first one. After that I had a little time left so I read. My current reading is Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn, a Jackson Brodie mystery.

I can't always count on a snowstorm to start my day, but I can find half an hour before I go to work to do one or two things--send out a short story, read a few chapters, make notes for a scene.

On my drive into work on that snowy day, I thought about the first draft of my current work-in-progress, which has been sitting on my desk for over two weeks. It's taken me over three years to finish the draft, and I have already made a mental list of the main changes I want to make. The ending is a little too perfect, unlike life, and in this mss I want the reader to come to the end and think, yes, this is how it would end; this is what would happen. I know I also want to strengthen the first chapter. Occasionally I hear perfect lines in my head and I hope I can hold onto them till I get to work, or can pull over and write them down. I am a firm believer in both hands on the wheel. I do not answer my cell or make a call while driving. (Warning: Do not call me on a cell when you're driving. I'll ask you to call back when you've parked the car.)

When I got home after work, I turned on my computer, checked email, viewed FB, and made a few notes for editing. I started dinner and left it simmering on the stove while I returned to my mss. Later, my husband and I ate dinner, he did the dishes, and I tidied up. After dinner I drafted this short essay. And now, as I come to the end of this piece, I'm glancing around for my book. I have fewer than one hundred pages left in Atkinson's mystery and want to finish it tonight.

Even without those extra three hours this morning, I would have completed almost all of the writing tasks I got through. My day is like anyone else's, with little pockets of time I can use for writing or for something else or for nothing. But since I'm a writer above all else, I'm going to use them to write, edit, revise, read, and more.

Would I like more time? Certainly. Do I need more time? I'm not sure. Having more time would be a luxury, but anyone who thinks he or she needs days and weeks of uninterrupted time in order to write will probably never write. Each one of us has many things to do, but if we want to write, we will. Writers write. That's what we do. We find the time, however much or little it is, and we use it. So when someone tells me he or she doesn't have enough time to write, I smile and nod, and then I think about making them a character in my next story.

If you're interested in my current work, go here for Last Call for Justice: A Mellingham Mystery.

Comparison is the thief of joy, unless ...

This post appeared on March 1, 2013, on Author Expressions. I'm reposting it here because of some of the feedback I received on it.

The usual misery of February was ameliorated this year with the riveting tale of Patricia Cornwell taking on her financial manager in a case of financial mismanagement, and winning a $50 million settlement. I don't know how this story played out in your home, but it became the undercurrent in the swells of dinner conversation and the rogue wave that crashed during a quiet evening of reading.

The first, and really the only, question was, How many books do you have to sell to make $15 million a year? My answer? How would I know? I can barely figure out how much money I need to get half a tank of gas in the car. Fifteen million dollars for books? I look at that lowly plural "books" and think it needs more oomph to match that amount of money. The word looks so puny by comparison.

The story of a writer who makes huge sums of money will make life much more difficult for the rest of us. Now, every time someone asks me what I do and I admit that I'm a writer, their eyes light up, they stand a little taller, and they ask about my books. I know (and you do too) that they're thinking I'm so rich that I must shed gold dust. As I disabuse them of this notion, their eyes fade to the usual dullness of strangers when I explain the term "mid-list" writer.

The Cornwell saga of loss and triumph has brought a certain glamour to writing once again--for writers. We know our work is mostly drudgery, but now others think we are "almost" important. Anyone who makes that kind of money certainly must be important. Even if other writers don't come close to making what Cornwell makes, we can see the potential is there. It's a heady moment.

Or it would be if I could relate to the court award. But I can't. Cornwell is so far off in another universe that if someone told me she had been awarded $50 billion I would have thought it bizarre but equally irrelevant to me and my life. Furthermore, I don't wade in the mainstream, or swim in the ocean of popular culture. I would never expect any book of mine to sell millions of copies, and if it did, well, my thought processes don't stretch into that realm.

My inability to connect with Patricia Cornwell's circumstances, beyond wishing her a heart-felt congratulations, is perhaps one of the best things that could happen to me or any other writer. Theodore Roosevelt was right when he said, "Comparison is the thief of joy." I love to write, I love hearing the stories that come to me, I love watching human beings act out their dreams and fantasies. If I start watching other writers develop their work and careers, I'm sure to start seeing flaws and emptiness in my own. Even worse, I'll take time away from my own work and what gives me satisfaction.

Writers are celebrating the success of one writer who triumphed in court. But in the quiet of the early morning, or the end of the night, during the time F. Scott Fitzgerald called "the dark night of the soul," writers are also thinking about all those books people are buying. $15 million, which is what Cornwell gave as her annual income, is a lot of royalties for a lot of books. And she's not the only one selling in big numbers. Somewhere out there millions of people are buying books--books, books, books. That little one-syllable word, "books," still has the power to fill a universe.

A few writers in this world will look at Cornwell's court judgment and think they make almost as much, but all writers can look at the news story and know in comparison they live in the same world with her. They write books that go out into the world and someone, somewhere, buys them and loves them. The real news in the Cornwell story, for writers, is how big the world is for their work.

So, to Patricia Cornwell, a brief message, Hearty congratulations, and Thank you.

Motive and Motivations

Writers of crime fiction think hard about motive and motivation in an effort to give authenticity to their characters' behavior. My motive in this short piece has something to do with surprise, my own.

In the Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing (1999), B. J. Rahn explores the subject of motives in crime fiction, citing two main publications on the topic as well as numerous mystery novels. F. Tennyson Jesse, in Murder and Its Motives (1924), a study of true crime, isolates six motives: "gain, revenge, elimination, jealousy, conviction, and blood lust." Rahn next cites Ruth Rendell's The Reason Why (1995), in which the author also cites six motives for murder: "gain, revenge, escape, altruism or duty, insanity, and impulse or curiosity." Rahn explores these systems more extensively and cites numerous mystery novels as illustrations.

When I begin a new story my first question is who are these characters and what do they want? It's the one who desperately wants something that drives the story. In one form or structure, the one most driven is the detective seeking the truth, or the solution to the question of who did what. And beneath that is the reconstructing of an earlier story--what did the villain do? The crime mystery moves forward in investigation by moving backward in reconstructing a crime and its motivations.

The essay on motives in the Oxford Companion is helpful in pushing at least this writer to think about possibilities. We all have our favorite ruts, or stories, and every writer is in danger of recreating a favorite plot. We can too easily fall into a formula within the genre formula. Reading broadly in both fiction and nonfiction is a way of pushing ourselves out of that rut and away from at least one danger in writing.

But the motive for this piece?

On the Five Star chat list a writer posted a link to a newly discovered "service." At the site a writer can type in her blog or website and determine its general ranking, on a scale of 1 to 10. Since I'm just as ego driven as any other writer, I went to the site expecting to find my blog or website ranked near or at zero. To my continuing amazement, it ranked 4 out of 10. This is surely an error and a warning to other writers not to take this ranking system seriously.

Nevertheless, the ranking made me feel I was shirking my duty, not living up to the standard that at least someone else thought I had met. I decided I'd better get writing--on my blog. So here it is. Motive and motivation.

If you have a blog or website and want to face an entirely arbitrary ranking, go to the site below. And I hope you are as pleasantly misinformed as I was.

http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

My Next Big Thing

Today I'm participating in a blog tour called The Next Big Thing. The Internet is full of blog tours but this one looked like fun when I learned I could "tag" some of my friends and give them some well-deserved publicity--all three are terrific writers, and I've learned lots from all of them.  I've given their links below.

My thanks for inviting me to participate go to June Shaw, whose work you can find at http://murderousmusings.blogspot.com/ Many people who read mysteries already know her blog, and for those who don't you'll be glad of the introduction.

The purpose behind this tour is to give writers a chance to talk about our  "Next Big Thing." And to keep us all on track, we have a list of questions to answer. (Some things in life really are easy and fun.)

What is your working title of your book?



My current book is the sixth book in the Chief Joe Silva/Mellingham series. I chose the title Last Call for Justice because Joe's father, now a very old man, he wants to settle a crime from almost forty years ago. Joe's father has little time left and is determined to see this through.

Where did the idea come from for the book?


Some years ago at a conference a reader asked me about Joe's family. She was quite concerned that I never introduced his family in any of the Mellingham books. I hadn't thought about it because I wanted Joe to be the quintessential outsider in a small town, someone who could concentrate on the crime and the citizens; I didn't want the story to be about him. The reader said, "So what's the story about Joe's family." She was so certain there was a story that I started thinking about all the little things I'd said about Joe's family scattered throughout the books. The story grew gradually until the day came when I knew I had to write it.


What genre does your book fall under?



This is a traditional mystery. It's not really a cozy, though not far from it, because it's not as light as most cozies are.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

That kind of question stumps me. Joe is tall and handsome--Portuguese with dark hair and dark eyes. Gwen is Irish American and looks it. She's not beautiful, but she's good looking and her character and personality shape people's reaction to her. 



What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?


Joe's father brings together all his children in order to settle the question of an old crime only to find that a family reunion is fertile ground for a new crime.


Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?


I offered this book to Five Star just when I was starting the Anita Ray series, and the editor wanted me to focus on one series or the other. I held back the Mellingham book and focused on Anita's adventures. But the story about Joe's family kept coming back to me, so I decided to publish it myself--this is my first self-publishing effort.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

A first draft usually takes me three to six months. I write about 1500 words a day but I then do a lot of editing before I feel I have anything that is strong enough to consider a "first draft." And then the real editing begins. I usually do at least 6 or 7 drafts after that.



What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?


My books are like some of the traditional British mysteries and perhaps some of Margaret Maron's work.


Who or what inspired you to write this book?

In addition to the reader who was insistent on knowing about Joe's family, Joe himself pushed me to write this book. I wanted to know more about him and his family, about how he grew up and what his siblings were like. I kept notes on some of the comments I'd made about him and his family throughout the five other books, and there were enough loose ends there to suggest I had ideas I could easily develop. The inspiration, I think, really came from writing about Joe for so many years. (When I first wrote this last sentence, I wrote, "came from working with Joe." I guess that's how I feel about it. He's my co-writer in all of this.)

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?



When ethnic groups come to the United States they are safe to be who they are, to preserve the parts of their culture that matter most to them. In some cases the traditional culture is better preserved in the United States than in the home countries. But when people within an ethnic group begin to move outside, their choices tend to be consistent across their own culture. That was something I wanted to explore. I also wanted to look at how different relatives handle the same loss over time.

One of the comments I made about Joe at a talk drew a very strong response from the audience, and if I'd had a thousand copies of the book I could have sold every one of them in a nanosecond. I described Joe as a chief of police and a very decent guy. When I began writing I didn't feel I had to make him the typical protagonist who is forever struggling with alcohol, depression, a conveniently flexible interpretation of the law, and the rest of the flaws writers have given their characters. I felt he could be a good cop and a good protagonist and a good man. Part of this was because I was bored with the predictable cops and detectives I came across in crime fiction, and I wanted something different. I wanted a sense of realism in my stories. And I do think Joe is realistic. In my other life working in a social service agency I have encountered several police chiefs and police officers who are like Joe--decent people doing a difficult job with kindness and firmness and without all the literary flaws.

The best part of doing something like this blog tour is the unexpected turns in the process. Until I came across the last question I'd forgotten about the way people responded to my casual remark that I wanted to write about a policeman who was a decent guy and not an alcoholic or anything else. It reminds me of how much I enjoyed writing about Joe even when I was struggling to get something in the story to work.

And the other best part is finding out how my fellow writers will answer the same questions. Next week you can follow Skye Alexander, Rae Francoeur, and Kathleen Valentine.

Skye Alexander is the author of more than thirty fiction and nonfiction books. www.skyealexander.blogspot.com

Rae Padilla Francoeur's memoir Free Fall: A Late-in-Life Love Affair was published by Seal Press in 2010. She's working on a new memoir, "Partial Recall," while operating her arts and nonprofit creative marketing business New Arts Collaborative and publishing weekly book reviews. http://freefallrae.blogspot.com

Kathleen Valentine is the author of over ten books including fiction, knitting, and a cookbook/memoir about growing up Pennsylvania Dutch. Her fiction has been number 1 in Amazon's Horror category. http://kathleenvalentine.com

Kathleen is also the designer of my cover for Last Call for Justice.