How do you know when you're done?

This is a question I’m asked frequently by my students, and I wish I had a clear-cut answer. Having an agent is a huge help in this respect because I’m done when Paula says I’m done. But how do I know I’m done enough to send it to Paula?  I have two indicators: When I reach a point when I can read through the manuscript and have nothing else to add. When I begin daydreaming about a different story. That’s usually a sign that my mind has moved on. For further insights, I asked my fellow Miss Demeanors for their thoughts and this is how they replied: Tracee: I’m done when the deadline hits (well, really once the final round of edits are finished, but those have a deadline as well…. ). That’s when the manuscript gets pulled from my fingers. Of course that kind of deadline is for work that will be published – it’s due! I’ve written many full length manuscripts that I’ve never submitted for publication. Those were also ‘completed’ but it is trickier because you can keep on and on and on editing. I’ve always stopped when I felt it was good enough for a professional to view (although that would probably mean an agent which would likely mean a few more edits before submission.). I’ve always liked to ‘finish’ things. It will never be perfect but more time won’t necessarily make it so. And that applies to most anything. Paula:Ha! With my deadline looming on April 1, I’ll be done when it’s April 1. Until I get notes from my editor. In truth, the work is never really done.  Robin: I know I’m done when Paula says I’m done 🙂 My non-fiction and journalism work has all been under deadline so the date played a major part but I stopped tinkering when beta readers previously unfamiliar with the subject matter understood the points I endeavored to make and found the message delivery entertaining. I’m looking forward to fiction deadlines when I can say the same. Michele: The same way I know when I’m done with a recipe, or a garden. When one more ingredient, plant, or word would detract from the work done. Knowing what’s enough doesn’t come easy. Alexia: I’m done at some obscene hour of the morning on the date of the deadline for the final round of edits. Even then, in my head I’m not really done. The nagging thought, “Oh, I should have…,” is ever present, circling like a hungry wolf. Or laughing hyena.
 Cate: Since I write standalone novels, I know it’s done when my protagonist’s arc feels complete. She or he has solved the mystery and the character has grown in some way. Then, I give it a few weeks and read it with fresh eyes, and if it still feels done, it’s done…. At least until my editor tells me I have to change it up. 🙂 

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What drives me crazy

I need to vent. Somebody just said something that almost pushed me over the edge. It was a gentleman looking for some help with his writing, and he asked me to read something for him, and I asked him what sorts of things he likes to read and he said, “Oh I don’t read. I don’t have time for it.”  You might just as well hit me with a stick. First of all, if you don’t read, but you’re writing, that means you are expecting other people to do the exact thing you don’t have time to do. Or to put it another way, You expect me to read your book, but you will not read mine. Why? That’s just me being petty, of course. The deeper reason is that we learn so much from reading. Every time you read a book, you are absorbing structure. You may not be conscious of it at the time, but it’s happening. Your mind is storing away all these templates and so when you start to lay out your story, your mind will automatically help you do what you need to do.  Alternatively, if you do not read, you do not absorb that structure and very bad things happen. I promise. I teach a novel-writing class (and they are very good writers!) and there is nothing so fun as when we all begin discussing the books we’ve been reading. Novelists have a passion for books. This is how it should be. We know we’re part of a wide community of people and we respect that community. Or, as the great Stephen King writes, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.” Amen! How about you? What issues push your buttons?

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Poisons

Were I to murder someone, I would choose poison as a weapon. (Note to my husband: chew carefully!) There are so many benefits. First of all, it’s not bloody. It requires no physical strength. And if you plan ahead, you don’t even need to be around. Also, it’s so hard to detect.  So you can imagine the pleasure I’m having reading Kathryn Harkup’s wonderful book, A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie. Harkup, who describes herself as a “chemist, author and Agatha Christie fanatic,” goes through 14 Christie novels, and explains the poisons used, the real-life cases that inspired Christie, and the occasional thing she got wrong. She also includes all sorts of weird information.  For example: Cleopatra considered poisoning herself with arsenic, but felt it would leave her corpse looking too unattractive, so she opted for the asp (though Harkup reports this would still not have been a pain-free way to die and her cadaver would have needed some cosmetic retouching.) In Sparkling Cyanide, there was a potential antidote on the dinner table in the form of sugar in champagne. She goes on to say that Rasputin (of Russian religious fanatic fame) might have survived the poisoning attempts against him because of all the Madeira he drank on his final night.  Then there’s the case of the real-life serial murderer Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, who used strychnine on his victims. When he was eventually hanged, in the 1890s, is it said that he last words were, “I am Jack the…”   Of course the best part of reading this book is having a chance to go over Agatha Christie’s great stories again, and with a guide who enjoys them so much. It makes me want to pick up one of my favorites, and perhaps I will. How about you? Do you have a favorite Agatha Christie?   

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Why does it take so long?

I’ve been working on my current novel for five years. Thinking about it for ten, or even more. I remember that when the idea first hit me,  I was out to dinner with my husband and we had to go home because we had a babysitter. My daughter is now planning her wedding. So that gives me some orientation.  Of course, I haven’t been working on it non-stop for all these years. During the time I’ve been working on this one, I wrote another book, about India, and then my two Maggie Dove books. Still, the story for this one has been running like an undercurrent through everything I’ve done, and when I run into old friends they always ask, How’s that book? I know I’m not alone. Several of the students in my novel writing class have been working on the same manuscript for years. They’re working hard, thinking, revising. It’s great to be with them because we’re a sort of support group for each other.  But why is it taking so long? Partly because I chose a subject that I didn’t know much about, but wanted to, and in order to feel qualified to write about it I had to study and learn. Partly because the characters were complicated to me and I had to spend a lot of time trying to understand them. Partly because it took me forever to figure out the right point of view, but once I did, everything fell into place. Also, it took me a very long time to understand how the crime could be committed.  But now that I’m almost done (I think) I’m really pleased. I’ve given it my best shot. I think it warrants all the time I’ve spent on it. Or I hope so. How about you? What’s the longest you’ve ever worked on something?   

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Rosie

Some years ago I was working on a novel and needed to set a scene in an Indian orphanage. It wasn’t a big scene, but I wanted details to bring it alive. So one afternoon I went scrolling around Indian orphanage sites and one thing led to another and I wound up sponsoring a young woman named Rosie.  Rosie lives in a small village on the very northernmost part of India, close to Nepal. So she is physically about as far from me as it’s possible to be. And yet one thing I’ve discovered, as we’ve exchanged letters every month or so, is that we have so much to talk about.(Her English is excellent. Far better than my Hindi. I was taking Hindi classes for a while, and she was so supportive of me. Praying for my success, though those particular prayers were vain.) She is fascinated by the arrangements for my daughter’s wedding. She loves all the details about the dresses and the food. She’s also very well-read. What I find surprising is that so many of the books she reads are the same as the ones American girls her age are reading, such as Hunger Games. She is in some ways so similar to the girls I know and in some ways so different. She works on a farm. She had a terribly difficult beginning to her life. She’s had experiences I will never understand. But somehow this beautiful shining spirit comes through. For years, in almost every letter Rosie has sent, she’s asked when I will be coming to visit, and I always say I’d love to come, but it’s just so difficult. But this year, for my birthday, my oldest son said that if I wanted to go to India, he’d go with me. Joy! So, it’s going to take a lot of planning, but in a year or so you will be getting a picture of me on a farm, hugging my dear young friend. How about you? Where do you dream of going? (Note: If you’re interested in where Rosie lives, you can check out the site at www.indianorphanage.com)

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What's your favorite genre?

What’s your favorite genre? It’s a loaded question to ask a group of mystery writers. We all love mysteries, thrillers and suspense novels. Otherwise, we wouldn’t write them. So I asked my fellow MissDemeanors, aside from mysteries, what genres they enjoyed the most. Mine is magical realism. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of my favorite books. I love the genre, I think, because it forces me to think differently: to imagine yellow butterflies and passionate love affairs and see history through the remove of fantasy.  My writing mind is more inclined towards present-day and the gritty realism of true crime headlines.   Here’s what the rest of the MissDemeanors read when not whittling down their TBR mystery lists.  Susan Breen:I love romance novels. The old-fashioned kind, like Georgette Heyer and Mary Stewart. In my first novel, The Fiction Class, I named my protagonist Arabella after the heroine of one of Georgette Heyer’s novels. There was one novel, Jamaica Inn, by Daphne DuMaurier that I liked so much when I was a girl that the library wouldn’t allow me to take it out anymore and so I tried to copy it out by hand. Pre-internet. Tracee de Hahn: My second genre is a toss up. I love reading history….. literal textbook kind (well, perhaps not textbooks but non fiction history). That makes it easy to believe that my second fiction genre is historical fiction (I add things to this that are only “historical” to our eyes- Tolstoy, Austen, you get the picture.). Writing this makes me want to pull out the Colleen McCullough Rome series…. takes me back to high school! C. Michele Dorsey:I’m more interested in reading good writing than focusing on what the genre is. I enjoy memoir, humor, travel, poetry, “literary” fiction (whatever that is), and yes, romance. I also read lots of nonfiction and I adore reading cookbooks, especially when they are about a particular place. Right now I’m reading May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude and Between You and Me, Confessions of a Comma Queen, and I’m ready for my next mystery from the TBR pile.  Alexia Gordon: Science fiction. Sci-fi has rockets and lasers and aliens and sexy, hotshot pilots/smugglers/rogues. Plus the occasional robot and awesome travel itineraries. Oh yeah, and important stuff like satire and commentary on human nature, bigotry, politics, commercialism, bureaucracy, war, and universal fears. But mostly hotshot pilots. (Faves: The Space Merchants by Kornbluth and Pohl and the Retief series by Laumer.) Paula Munier: Oh, geez, this is like choosing among your children. When I’m not reading crime fiction, I’m reading best sellers across genres, which as an agent is an obligatory pleasure, as I need to keep up on what’s working out there in the marketplace. I also read a lot of nonfiction, especially in the areas of science, business, memoir, and mind/body/spirit. I’m a sucker for anything about dogs, baseball, nature, writing, and/or yoga. When I need inspiration, I read poetry and Shakespeare. To wit: I read a lot. Robin Stuart: Hm, I’d say I’m genre-agnostic. I’m one of those people who chooses books by opening them to a random page and if I keep reading, I’ll buy it. The same rule applies to ebooks that allow me to “look inside,” in which case I’ll advance to a random page near the end of the look-see. My recent non-mystery/suspense/thriller reading list includes historical non-fiction (Hidden Figures, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks), YA (This is Where It Ends) and literary (The Assistants, Beautiful Ruins). The “why” of being drawn to pick them up/look in the first place is usually because I read about the book or author in the New York Times or San Francisco Chronicle book sections.   

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The Better Book Battle: Mystery Fiction vs. Literary Fiction.

There’s been renewed debate, recently, about the relative value of mystery fiction vs. its “literary” counterpart thanks to a self-described “passing remark” by Notre Dame English professor William O’Rourke that disparaged the mystery writing community as suffering from a “fatal lack of talent.” In a subsequent article in the Irish Times, O’Rourke clarified that he did not intend for his remark to insult mystery writers in particular but, instead, to denigrate the entire literary culture in America.  After reading both articles, it’s clear that O’Rourke believes our nation subsists on the literary equivalent of McDonald’s, formulaic, processed writing intended to keep readers turning pages thanks to contrived cliff hangers. Other cultures, he argues, consume the good stuff–books that make folks stop and think.  I don’t believe O’Rourke is entirely wrong in his assessment of the average American’s fiction diet. Our busy culture values easily digested entertainment. And, in my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with that. I like having a cheeseburger now and again. Sometimes, I want something fun to read on a plane, or at the beach, or to listen to in the car. However, I certainly disagree that mystery writing as a whole is formulaic fast food. Good writing–and there is plenty of it in the mystery realm–transcends genre and turns formulas upside down. A recent example (which guessing from Mr. O’Rourke’s criticism he’d probably dislike) is Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. It’s a fantasy. It’s a mystery. It’s a family drama. Above all, it’s a story that forces readers to contemplate grief. What does losing a child do to a family? How do gender expectations limit an individual’s ability to properly mourn? Do people really survive the murder of a loved one with their former self intact or is violent loss so transformative that there is forever a person before and a person after?   Last night, I saw GET OUT, a movie by comedian, writer and actor Jordan Peele which manages to be a fantastic commentary on race and related micro-aggressions wrapped in a horror film. It certainly made me think about how the construct of race divides Americans, even when people are trying for it not to. At one point, for example, a character tries to prove he is not racist by saying how many times he voted for former President Obama, as though supporting a black political candidate was proof of post-racial colorblindness. Of course, the character brought up his vote precisely because he was seeing the color of the person he was talking to and assuming his support would create a bond.  Personally, I think the best writing is not the sort that purports to be literary from the get go. Sure, authors may applaud themselves for writing a “difficult book” filled with words intended to elevate the Flesch-Kincaid reading level. But those writers certainly don’t win many fans among readers.  The best authors aim to tell an engaging story that also makes their audience contemplate some larger issue. There are plenty of mystery books that do this. Emma Cline’s The Girls, Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl are examples. Each made me consider the nature of crime and punishment as much as I did when reading Dostoyevsky’s novel named for the very subject. These books, each in their own way, made me ponder what constitutes real justice. Can living with the knowledge of an immoral act and evading legal retribution prove worse than serving time?  Perhaps more importantly, these stories stayed with me long after I finished reading them, and I suspect they did for most readers. They were popular and they were smart. As I tell my daughters all the time, it’s quite possible to be both. 

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Agatha Best First Novel Nominees Reveal…

What piece of advice do you wish you had before you started writing? Nadine Nettmann, author of Decanting a Murder (Midnight Ink)While there are many gems I’ve learned along the way that I wish I had known before, I think the most pertinent one is how fast things move once the contract is signed. You can take years to write a book but suddenly it’s edits, then more edits, then the cover arrives, then the ARCs go out, and the next thing you know, the book that you wrote is now out in the world. During which time, if you’re writing a series, the next one is already due. It’s a wonderful journey, but a very fast one after waiting for so many years. Renee Patrick (Rosemarie and Vince Keenan), author of Design for Dying (Forge)Rosemarie here, answering this question solo. I wish someone had told me how tempting it would be to edit as I wrote the first draft. When I sat down each evening I had to battle the overwhelming urge to polish and tweak–make that heavily revise–the work I’d done the previous day. All I could see were my mistakes. Saggy similes, obvious jokes, and so, so many adverbs lazily standing in for powerful dialogue. I almost talked myself nightly into fixing those flaws, because it seemed easier than pressing on and writing something new. Here’s where having a more experienced co-author gave me a big advantage. Vince told me everyone’s first drafts were the same: they might seem terrible, but when considered rationally always had good bits and passages that could be salvaged. To gain that perspective, though, I had to keep going. When you’re editing you’re not writing, and writing is the only way to finish a novel. Hard as that may be to believe. Marla Cooper, author of Terror in Taffeta (Minotaur Books)I wish someone had told me to relish every moment of writing my first novel. It would have helped to have had a fairy godmother come whisper in my ear that everything would be fine and it would get published and I would someday have the overwhelming good fortune to be writing a group post with my fellow Best First Novel nominees. (!!!!) But here’s the thing: when you write your first book, you have the freedom to do whatever you want with the characters and the setting, and you can take your time figuring out the tricky bits. But when you’re writing a series, suddenly there are deadlines and expectations, and you’ve already committed to your characters so you can’t go in a wildly different direction. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a good problem to have. But there is a certain magic to writing your first book… even if you don’t exactly realize it at the time. Cynthia Kuhn, author of The Semester of Our Discontent (Henery Press)Oh, so many things! But mostly, I wish someone had said, “Just do it. Start today.” I waited a long time—years—to begin after I’d had the idea for the book. Sure, there were things happening that made it difficult to carve out the time, but that’s always the case. Mostly what gave me pause was the sense that I needed to take more classes and go to more workshops [or insert other activities here] until I was somehow “ready.” Yet the truth is, until you begin putting words on the page, nothing else can happen—the feedback, the revision, and so on. It does require a rather large leap of faith, that first step. But it launches the journey. Alexia Gordon, author of Murder in G Major (Henery Press)I wish I’d known how different publishing is from writing. I thought once you wrote your book you were done and could relax. Really, the work begins once you finish writing. There’s the search for a publisher and an agent, the contracts, the marketing, advertising, social media. Being an author is a job. An exciting, wonderful, joyful, awesome job, but definitely, a job. Author Bios:Marla Cooper is the author of Terror in Taffeta, an Agatha and Lefty nominee for Best First Mystery and book one in the Kelsey McKenna Destination Wedding Mysteries. Her second book, Dying on the Vine, is set in the California wine country and comes out April 4. As a freelance writer, Marla has written all sorts of things, from advertising copy to travel guidebooks to the occasional haiku, and it was while ghostwriting a guide to destination weddings that she found inspiration for her series. Originally hailing from Texas, Marla lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and her polydactyl tuxedo cat. Learn more at www.marla-cooper.com.
Alexia Gordon has been a writer since childhood. She continued writing through college but put literary endeavors on hold to finish medical school and Family Medicine residency training. Medical career established, she returned to writing fiction. She completed SMU’s Writer’s Path program in Dallas, Texas. Henery Press published her first novel, Murder in G Major, book one of the Gethsemane Brown mysteries, in September 2016. Book two, Death in D Minor, premiers July 2017. A member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and the Writers’ League of Texas, she listens to classical music, drinks whiskey, and blogs at www.missdemeanors.com. AlexiaGordon.net

 Cynthia Kuhn writes the Lila Maclean Academic Mystery series, which includes The Semester of Our Discontent and The Art of Vanishing. She teaches English at MSU Denver and serves as president of Sisters in Crime-Colorado. For more information, please visit cynthiakuhn.net. Nadine Nettmann, a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers, is always on the lookout for great wines and the stories behind them. She has visited wine regions around the world, from France to Chile to South Africa, but chose Napa Valley as the setting for her debut novel, Decanting a Murder. The next book in the Sommelier Mystery Series, Uncorking a Lie, releases in May 2017. Chapters are paired with wine recommendations. NadineNettmann.com
Renee Patrick is the pseudonym of married authors Rosemarie and Vince Keenan. Rosemarie is a research administrator and a poet. Vince is a screenwriter and a journalist. Both native New Yorkers, they currently live in Seattle, Washington.

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Time to Read AND Write

 One of the reasons I became a writer is that I LOVE to read. As a child, I loved immersing myself in fantastical mysteries like Madeleine L’Engle’s Wrinkle In Time and anything with Nancy Drew in it. As I grew older, I enjoyed squeezing in a book by James Patterson, Agatha Christie, or Stephen King in between the required reading for school English classes. When I had my kids, reading the work of Gillian Flynn, Katherine Slaughter, Dennis Lehane, Tana French and Scott Turow allowed me to escape the world of sippy cups and bottle sanitizers and give my mind some much needed exercise.                                                                                          (I am so jealous of this woman in the picture—->) Unfortunately, as a writer with a full time day job of taking care of two young kids, I don’t have much time to read for pleasure. Like most novelists, I must read the other works in my genre (psychological and domestic suspense, for me) so that I am aware of what’s been done in my market. I must read upcoming books from authors that I admire who have kindly asked that I provide a review for their covers. I must read other authors in my publishing house who may be paired with me for upcoming publicity events. And, I can’t do any of this reading while actively writing lest I unintentionally absorb the cadence of other talented scribes and let it slip into my own work. I’m thinking about this, I guess, because I decided to reward myself for finishing some recent edits by reading the wonderful Brad Parks’s latest book Say Nothing. It was so good and it made me regret that I don’t have more time to read all the authors that I admire or with whom I’m friendly. When do you read? How do you fit in it? What do you read first?

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The Lefty Goes To…

Every year, mystery readers and authors gather in some beautiful state on the West Coast to celebrate the genre and highlight some of the best books of the year with the prestigious LEFTY award. I would like to congratulate fellow Missdemeanor Alexia Gordon for WINNING in the Best Debut Mystery category for her novel Murder in G Major.  This year the awards ceremony was held in Hawaii. The award was crafted out of Koa wood (check it out below. Thanks Alexia!) She had some tough competition from many great new authors. Just to be nominated is an honor. Winning is something extra special.  On the 22nd, we will welcome authors nominated for the Agatha in the best first novel category to this blog for a guest post series. Led by Agatha nominee Alexia, they will be weighing in on what they wish they had known before embarking on a writing career.      

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