Meeting heroes

I can date the moment I became interested in Tudor history. It was back in the 1990s, when I was a young mother and happened to pick up Alison Weir’s book, The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Enthralled is not too strong a word to use to describe my reaction. Since then I’ve read all her books, and for the last two weeks, I’ve gotten to spend time with her as I traveled around England as part of her Tudor tour. I’m happy to report that she’s just as lovely and smart as I would have hoped, but that led me to ask my fellow Miss Demeanors: Have you ever met any of your heroes? How did that go? And this is what they said: Tracee: I can’t say that I’ve met one of my heroes – perhaps I don’t have a concrete fix on who they would be! I’ve certainly met people I admire and I’ve never had a bad experience. In fact, I’ve always been amazed that they are in fact nice ordinary people despite their ‘day jobs’ or worldwide fame. In particularly I had this experience when I met Juan Carlos of Spain. I was struck by how difficult it must be to live your life entirely in the public eye, yet remain gracious and quite frankly normal. I had quite a different experience when I met Viktor Yushchenko at the papal funeral. I only knew that he was president of Ukraine and married to an American. When he shook my hand I confess that half of my brain thought, oh my gosh this is what they meant by horribly disfigured by the failed assassination attempt with dioxin. (This was only months afterward.) At the exact same time, emphasis on exact, the other half of my brain thought, I have never met such a handsome charismatic person. Which is a little insight into what real charisma can do for a person. While not a hero of mine, he was memorable and charming, and certainly I won’t forget meeting him. Robin: I’ve gotten to meet not one but two of my heroes (so far), Dean Koontz and Joseph Finder. I met Mr. Koontz at a book signing (his, not mine, darn it). I met Joe Finder at a conference and went full fan girl on him before I could stop myself. He handled it with good grace and humor. A cool aspect of that encounter is that Hank Phillipi Ryan is the one who introduced us. She’s also fabulous. Alexia: I heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak but there were about a gazillion people attending the lecture so I didn’t get anywhere near him. I’ve heard Walter Mosley speak at conferences twice but I confess I never worked up the courage to actually meet him. I felt kind of like Dorothy in the courtyard of the Great and Powerful Oz. Jonathan Kellerman wasn’t my hero until I met him at Left Coast Crime. He turned out to be so normal instead of a Big Name Author who couldn’t be bothered with the hoi polloi. He even came over to me and congratulated me on my Lefty win. So now he’s my hero. Michele: I’ve always been politically active so I’ve had the opportunity to meet many political figures that I admire, although few qualify as heroes. My real heroes are writers. In 1988, I bought a debut novel in hardcover for one of my early trips to St. John, taking a chance on a new author. The writing and plot in A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George blew me away. I’ve read every book written by her since then, loving that she still sends me to the dictionary almost thirty years later. In 2015, I got to meet Elizabeth at the New England Crime Bake and to take a class with her. She is a gifted and generous writing teacher. At an earlier Crime Bake, I had breakfast with Sue Grafton whom I’ve traveled almost the entire alphabet with for twenty years. She was more interested in what writer Ang Pompano (on her other side) and I had to say, than in regaling us with tales about her. She shares a wry sense of humor with her protagonist, Kinsey Milhone. I have to include Hank Phillippi Ryan as another hero. She is a very talented writer, but also is the most generous and inclusive author I know. She gladly encourages, supports, and launches new and veteran writers. Hank epitomizes how sharing a writing community can and should be. Paula: I’ve had the good fortune to meet many of my heroes, all of whom are writers. Starting with Alice Hoffman. I collect first editions of her work, and so I go to her signings, where I’ve met her several times. She’s as wonderful as her books. I made her laugh once, and that was a very good day. I’ve also met Lee Child, the loveliest man ever. And Elizabeth George and John Updike and Stephen King and Elizabeth Berg and William Kent Krueger and Judy Blume and Julia Cameron and, well, I could go on forever, because I’ve been going to writer’s conferences and books signings forever. On my list to meet next are Louise Penny and Mark Nepo and Abigail Thomas. And if I ever make it to that big writer’s retreat in the sky, I hope to meet Maya Angelou and Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen and Shakespeare and Nora Ephron and Agatha Christie and….  

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The Unofficial Miss Demeanors Conference Packing List

The Unofficial Miss Demeanors Conference Packing List   The Miss Demeanors are off and running this week. Alexia (who is an nominee for an Agatha for Best First Novel), Tracee (who is a writing conference virgin), Paula, and I will be attending the Malice Domestic conference sponsored by Sisters in Crime. Poor Susan is traveling to England where she will be meeting her writing hero, Alison Weir. I asked each what they considered to be essential items to pack for a conference.             I’d say my list pretty much mirrors theirs, although Robin’s got an idea only a cyber expert would think of. I do pack a swimsuit because most hotels have a pool and for solitary writers who are spend lots of time alone, conferences can feel stressful, although fun. A quiet dip in a pool can revive me. And I confess that I bring a flask with some libation in it, cocktail napkins, and perhaps some nuts or crackers for the same reason. A quiet drink in your room alone or with just a few people can bring a little relief to the chaos of a conference. Never let it be said, I undermined the reputation of writers with a handy flask. Paula:I always take business cards, postcards featuring my books, copies of my books, my cell and my iPad and my chargers. I have a couple of trade paperbacks as well as e-books and manuscripts on my tablet so I’m never without good reading material. My conference wardrobe consists of four-season clothes only and a makeup bag that goes everywhere with me. I have been searching for the perfect leather backpack with a padded laptop pocket for years and if I find it, I’m buying it. I have several that turned out not to be perfect, and so the search goes on…. Alexia: I haven’t been traveling to conferences for long, only about a year. I pack for conferences, clothes-wise, the same as I pack for any other trip: travel-friendly separates that fold up small, resist wrinkles, can be washed, and fit into a carry-on. Traveling solo taught me not to pack more than I can carry. I usually pack a duffel bag and tote because I hate checking luggage.  However, I’ve started using my hard-sided wheeled 21″ case as a checked bag so I have a way to carry books home post-conference. I also bring business cards and postcards/bookmarks, pens to give away, pens to write with, notebooks to write in, a paperback book to read, a 7 inch tablet, my phone, chargers, a battery pack, and both a 3 foot and a 6 foot charger cord. I only rarely take my laptop–the tablet is smaller, lighter, and more TSA-friendly  (not every airport offers TSA Precheck). Other than a tiny bottle of hand lotion, chapstick, and hand sanitizer which I use in transit, and sample sizes of my face creams, I don’t pack toiletries because I can buy them when I get where I’m going. The only truly “can’t live without” items are my phone, which can do everything a laptop and tablet can do (tiny screen and keyboard get tedious, though), the charger and the 6 foot cord (outlets are never in convenient places), and pen and paper. And credit/debit cards. Tracee:This will be my first conference as a published author so I’m sure the list will change from here on out. At previous conferences I’ve made sure I have business cards and notebook/pens. Going forward, I’m adding book swag (postcards or bookmarks, etc.) and a copy of my book (for the table during a panel). Of course, there is the other general travel stuff – I love itineraries! The thing I really wouldn’t want to be without is my current book (even though technically I should be able to get one there….). I also never travel without Benadryl as a sleeping aid (I mean allergy relief) in case a hotel doesn’t quite agree with me or I’m on a different time zone. I’m looking forward to reading your lists. This may prevent me from forgetting the very thing I couldn’t do without.  Susan:I always bring bookmarks. Since my Maggie Doves are digital, I always have some sort of gift coupon so people can download it. Of course, I’m always reading a book, and it becomes a nice memory that I associate with the conference. For example, I was reading a book about Patty Hearst at the Writers Police Academy and those two things are linked in my brain. Robin:I pack business cards, a notebook, pens, my laptop, Kindle and chargers for all electronics. I get paranoid about backups of WIPs so I usually carry at least one USB thumb drive. Something I bring that I’m betting is unique is a spare webcam cover that I stick over hotel door peepholes. Reverse viewers are much too easy to buy or make as the world found out during the Erin Andrews privacy trial. Until I have a debut ready to hawk, I suspect I can make a memorable impression by giving away webcam covers featuring our Miss Demeanors logo. I’m ordering enough for all of us to have a supply to give away 🙂 Cate:When I go to conferences, I bring business cards and my Kindle-equipped phone for all the books that I hear about and need to start reading immediately. I also bring my computer. Whenever I can find a moment, I write. Sometimes, even when I should be marketing, I’m in my room writing. It’s quiet time with just me in a hotel. Who can pass up such a nice chance to get real work done?

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Where Do You Get Ideas?

  Where do you get your ideas? This is one of the most frequent questions I am asked as an author. I know from the multiple author events I have attended I am not alone. I sometimes feel like my brain is so clogged with ideas I don’t know how to pull them out one at a time. Or worse, that time will run out before I’ve been able to do them all justice.          Without scaring you into thinking this is going to be a Buddhist moment or one which you need to be sitting on a map to hear, I want to make a writer’s pitch for being in the present moment. We miss so much of what is going on around us while we are staring at a tiny screen that removes us from our surroundings. I am guilty of this, so I am not preaching. During our winter stay in St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, my husband will be driving us on a road that essentially runs through a rain forest filled with natural wonders. There are clouds above so billowy you want to plop them onto a cup of hot chocolate. Enormous cows will stand in the middle of the road and stop traffic. Donkeys climb the hills without effort, not too shy to come to your car window to check if you have snacks for them. And I’m looking at my phone. Really? Yes, really, although I’m working on it.            I do make a conscious effort to be in my surroundings. Yesterday I traveled from St. John to Bethesda, Maryland where I will be attending the Malice Domestic Conference held by Sisters in Crime. I took a car ferry to St. Thomas, a plane to San Juan and then Washington, D.C. and finally a shuttle to my hotel. Where do I get my ideas?  I watched the various cars back onto the ferry. I wondered where everyone was going. I looked at the guys driving Mac trucks in reverse up close to other trucks. I pondered whether the person driving the DHL van liked that he had to drive over water to do his route. I watched the staff of the ferry meet and greet passengers, coaching them to get just a little closer to the car next to them, sometimes with tender patience, other times barking. All of the people on this ferry have stories. I may not know what they are, but if I take the time to watch and listen to them, I start to get “ideas.”            At the airport, I sat next to a middle-aged multi-cultural couple with a son around four. I wondered where did the couple meet? Would they have just this one child? (You can wonder about questions you might not feel comfortable asking, but go ahead and think about them. It primes the story pump.) I was amazed by the prowess of the child on a Kid Kindle playing some game, while his dad struggled next to him on his own device, trying to keep up with the same. When the father said with delight, “Yes, I found it,” and the son said, “Good job, Dad,” I smiled. What would this child be like as a teenager? How would the father cope when he’s already behind? The mother looked on patiently at the two, but also at her phone. What is this little family’s story? It’s as if someone handed me a page out of a coloring book with the family’s portrait drawn, ready for me to color in with my version of their story.            Where do I get ideas? Waiting rooms, any form of public transportation, at the grocery store. Any place that there is a line of people waiting. Even better if they are waiting for their government to service them, like at a motor vehicle department. Courtrooms.             Get outdoors to find ideas. When I find a gecko on the windshield after leaving a beach in St. John, I worry I’ve taken him away from his family on Francis Bay and that he will have to find a new life over on Coral Bay. I’ve thought about writing a child’s book “Do You Know the Way to Francis Bay” starring Larry, the Lizard for years. And what about that cow sitting in the middle of the road? Who owns her and why? Does she enjoy the attention she gets or is she just having a bad day and taking it out on tourists trying to get to the beach?            Remember what your parents told you to do before you crossed a street? Stop. Look. Listen. If you stop and ask, “What’s the story?” with whatever you are observing, you may be flooded with ideas. Go ahead and pick one or more. And write that story.               

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Orange Juice and The DON’T Do Lists

 One morning last November, I strolled into the Market Basket just over the Sagamore Bridge, the entrance to Cape Cod, to pick up a few items on my way home to the tindominium. Right in front of me stood a display filled with various sizes of freshly squeezed orange juice with a sign saying, “Squeezed Today.” I headed right for it, reaching for one of the largest size bottles.            Then I heard the voices of the invisible committee, sitting on my shoulders, whispering in my ears. “Orange juice, Michele?” asked one. “All that sugar,” said the one on my other shoulder. I silently told the orange juice was good for me. Vitamin C. “Sure, if it survived the pesticides,” chortled a voice. “How old do you think those oranges were before they were squeezed?” sniggered the other. I told them to shut up and placed the bottle in my basket, wheeling it quickly away into the bakery section before I was shamed out of buying orange juice by them. I glanced at a package of fresh baked pecan cinnamon rolls, which I had never noticed or purchased before, and defiantly put them next to the orange juice.            The next morning, my husband and I sat in the toasty November sun, reading the Sunday papers, welcoming a new week with fresh orange juice and warmed pecan rolls we even buttered. I refused to listen to the committee of “they.”  You know who that is. It’s the preface to a sentence that starts with, “They say you should never eat these three items if you want to rid yourself of belly fat” or “Always tell your children the truth about…” They is a very diverse and busy committee, especially now with the Internet and social media. Sometimes they can be identified as a source from Huff Post or even the New York Times, but often the committee’s roots are vague and its name an acronym no one had the time to figure out. They tell us how to spend our money, raise our children, what foods we must and must not eat, and what to read before we die with such authority, it’s hard to resist. The committee’s advice is often distilled into lists. “Ten Reasons Never to Drink Milk in Your Coffee.” “The Twenty Things You Must Do to Live Longer.” It’s exhausting.            Writers are faced with these lists all of the time. On any given day, Facebook will have a dozen lists telling a writer what she should do to become successful. Some of these lists are from professional agents and editors and can be very help, but others come from less reliable sources and can cripple a writer. In 57 seconds, Google handed me more than 93 million choices for advice for writers.            I certainly take Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules for Writers that the New York Times had to persuade him to share seriously, probably because it isn’t dished out as dogma. “Try to leave out the parts readers tend to skip.” But even one of Leonard’s rules was a myth debunked by Lee Child, who pointed to successful authors who start with weather, another Leonard prohibition. Child says the rule that a writer must show, not tell a story is wrong and that it’s fine for a writer to tell a story.            Getting an agent can be as difficult as writing an entire book, so advice from professional agents like my own, Paula Munier, who has penned three excellent books on writing, can be helpful. Agent Jessica Faust of Book Ends recently blogged five very helpful “Do’s and Don’ts” for writing a query letter. Jane Friedman’s blog is filled with great information. There is wonderful information available for writers. You just have to remember three things (and now I’ve slipped into writing a list of my own): 1. Consider the source of the advice and its credibility. 2. Remember that some of the most successful writers have hit the NY Times best seller lists by abandoning well established writing conventions.3. Writing advice, be it in a list or any other form, should help you to write. It should not shut you down.           Take one example on this last important point. “You must write every day” is a rule spouted by many wonderful and successful authors. When I worked as a lawyer, mediator, and adjunct professor, I would arise early to review my case for the day, head out to court, return to the office to meet clients and conduct mediations. At the end of the day, I’d drive to Boston to teach law students who miraculously invigorated me. When was I supposed to write? Oh, I listened and watched lawyers, clients, court officers, and judges and took notes, jotting down ideas. But writing everyday wasn’t going to happen. Did I quit because I wasn’t a real writer if I couldn’t write every day? No. I’d write for ten hours on weekends, considered writing a priority when I’d take a vacation, and managed to write eight books, two of which were published during that time.            So go ahead, read the advice after you’re sure it’s coming from a reliable source. Then, start writing. And while you’re doing it, treat yourself to a glass of orange juice.    

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Finding Space and Place in a Caribbean Cottage

  In earlier posts, I’ve shared what it was like to come to the decision to downsize from a ten-room house by the ocean to a mobile home, which isn’t mobile, in outer Cape Cod. Part of that decision was motivated by a thirty-year desire to spend winters in St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where we had vacationed for decades. We’re just about to return to the “tindominium” on the Cape after our second winter here in St. John.            We are not living in a luxurious villa in St. John. We live in a sweet one-room cottage with a separate kitchen and a “bedroom area” next to our “living space.” There is a covered porch that runs the length of the cottage and overlooks Hurricane Hole. And there is a community pool for our tiny community of five.             Our winter cottage is in Coral Bay, where the bumper sticker, “We’re all here, because we’re not all there,” was inspired. We live among artists, writers, musicians, activists, and environmentalists, some of whom are supposed to be retired but you’d never know it. I’ve met real characters here that defy imagination and beg to be placed on a page. They don’t have to plead with me.            The transition to smaller quarters has been easier than we imagined, but we were really only living in three rooms in our former home in the end. The other seven were occupied by “stuff” now long gone, or at least most of it. Living in a warmer climate in the winter and on Cape Cod in the summer allows us to do most of our living outdoors. Our porch is where we perch most often when we are home. I write there, but also often take my laptop to a quiet shady spot on a beach where the fresh salt air seems to enhance my word count. There is a rooster who frequently visits me when I am writing. Sometimes he will sit on a branch and take a nap, occasionally opening one eye. Whether he is checking to see if I am still writing or that I’m keeping an eye out for him while he has his siesta, I don’t know, but it seems to be working for us.            How has life changed? We find that downsizing the size of our living quarters has made our lives huge. We have met many new wonderful friends with whom we share food, music, and island festivities. We don’t worry if we should be “working on the house” because we rent the cottage, which hasn’t diminished our affection for it as our little island home.             There have been some challenges. We have one car and one bathroom, but we’ve adjusted. Our kitchen is tiny but that didn’t stop us from cooking a kick-ass Bolognese and berry clafouti for friends the other night. Steve works part-time a few days a week at the local recycle center where he gets to meet lots of island folk and tinker with items they bring in to donate.  We’ve created individual space for each other even in a tiny cottage.             The sunrise each morning seems as if it were meant just for us. But soon we will be fluttering those wings we rediscovered and will return to our tindominium on the Cape with adventures planned in Provence, Dublin, and Virginia.                Writers often talk about “place” and how important it is to a story. I’m finding that it is the space I have cracked open within myself that is opening me to places I only dreamed about and letting me write my own story.     

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Seeking Anne Boleyn

For the last few years I’ve been working on a book in which Anne Boleyn is a character. One of the thing that intrigues me, as a fiction writer, is that there are so few agreed upon facts about her. Even the year of her birth is up for debate. Some people say she was born in 1501, which would make her around 35 years old at the time of her death, a comparatively old woman in Tudor times. Others say she was born in 1507. The arguments on both sides are compelling (I think I lean toward 1507), but without knowing the precise details, we also don’t know precisely where she was born. We also don’t know if she was the oldest daughter or the youngest. So it’s fun to make up stories about her because you get to fill in all those gaps.   For the next two weeks, I’ll be traveling around England as part of a Tudor Tapestry tour led by Alison Weir, (who you may know because she’s written many wonderful books, among them Six Wives of Henry VIII, which was the book that sparked my interest in the whole subject. )I’ll be writing about my adventures for QueenAnneBoleyn.com, which is a fabulous site. You can also find them on Facebook. So prepare for Tudor Week on the Miss Demeanors!  

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Procrastination: Let Me Count the Ways

 Procrastination, how do I practice thee? Let me count the ways.            The practice of procrastination isn’t limited to writers. Most procrastinators can remember “cramming” for an exam or starting a term paper at the last minute. I remember when I was in high school waiting until the night before all of the lab reports due in my chemistry class for the entire semester were due. I agonized over what my notes written months before meant, and vowed never to put myself in the position of pulling an “all-nighter” ever again as I finished the last report. I peeked out my window to see if it was light yet and saw that I had missed the heavy snowfall that had occurred during the night. There was no school that day! I had stayed up all night before a snow day just because I had procrastinated.            Did this experience reform me? Of course not. I wrote some of my best legal briefs on the cusp of a deadline. But I always wondered, would they have been better if I’d started writing them just a tad before?            My writing career has given my procrastination habits a whole new dimension. Many deadlines for writers are self-imposed, such as, I want to get this out to my agent or send five queries by the end of the month. Those can be tougher than when an editor says your first draft is due in three months.            But what is it that makes us procrastinate? Many theorize it comes from a fear that we will not achieve perfection. Others debunk that as a water cooler myth and say it has other causes. I actually tried to procrastinate writing this blog post by taking an online quiz on procrastination to determine if I was the garden variety or had “Procrastinator” tattooed on my back. Unfortunately, the quiz is no longer available. I guess I’ll have to continue writing the blog.            How do I procrastinate? Any way I can. But there does seem to be a pattern, so I’ll confess.            Facebook quizzes. I know they are stupid and probably make private information about me available to the Russians, but if I’m in a procrastination kind of mood, I’ll take the risk. “Whose Name Is Written on Your Future Marriage Certificate?” will grab me even though I will soon celebrate my fortieth anniversary.  “What color is your personality/chakra?” seemed irresistible when I had a deadline looming. “Plan an afternoon tea party and we’ll predict how many children you’ll have” sounded scientifically sound to me when I was supposed to be editing. “What is your real age?” only primed the pump for this procrastinator when I learned I was truly decades younger than I am.            When I find myself taking these quizzes, I force myself to post the results on Facebook with the comment, “Someone is procrastinating.” Does this self-admission embarrass me into jumping on task?            Often, it only makes me realize how badly the bathroom needs to be cleaned. Or that I am in desperate need for a pedicure. Occasionally I will decide it is the perfect moment to cook Bolognese sauce. When I am really desperate, I will leaf through my daily “To Do” lists, which I keep in a notebook. I will look back months for items which were not crossed off.            Ultimately I apply a little “ass glue” and plop my butt in a chair and start to write. After the first sentence, I realize whatever task I had feared doing was less painful than the act of procrastination. With each word, I feel better. Am I cured of procrastination? Hell, no. This sequence promises to repeat itself.            Will you share how you procrastinate? I’m getting tired of those silly quizzes and could use some new ideas.             

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I Can't Go For That, No, No Can Do…

   I read a blog post a few weeks ago about a novel that had celebrated—or notorious, depending on which side of the debate you fell on—twist ending. Comments on the blog lined up in one of two columns—loved it or hated it. The haters complained the book had run afoul of one of their pet peeves: cop-out/too-convenient endings, genre switching, unconvincing characters, etc. The reactions to that novel prompted me to ask my fellow Missdemeanors:  What do you hate most in fiction writing, mystery or otherwise? What’s your pet peeve? Alexia: I hate it when a mystery author conceals a fact from readers when that fact is critical to solving the puzzle, then has the sleuth produce the fact out of nowhere, leaving readers saying, “Where’d that come from?”. For example, Snuffy Smith’s long-lost identical twin is revealed as the murderer but his twin was never, even once, mentioned/hinted at/alluded to–not even the suggestion of the possibility Snuffy might have a twin–before the big reveal.  That’s cheating. To paraphrase the rules of the Detection Club, a detective can’t have out-of-the-blue hunches that turn out to be right, can’t withhold clues from the reader, the solution to the crime can’t be chalked up to “divine revelation, feminine intuition, mumbo jumbo, jiggery pokery, coincidence, or Act of God”.(I’ll make allowances for “Act of God” if it’s a paranormal mystery and God is the sleuth.) Michele: Since you asked, and since I recently ranted about this on Facebook… I hate it when an author pulls a cheap trick at the end of a book so that the reader is unfairly surprised. It’s a variation of what Alexia has said. Instead of spinning a plot that thrilled the reader, in a book I recently read, the author purposely deceives the reader about something not central to the plot and uses it as a cheap “thrill” at the end. If it weren’t on my Kindle, it would have been the third book I’ve thrown across the room in my entire life. The author used the deception as substitute for an exciting plot twist. Years ago, I read a book while sick with the flu that had fabulous writing, a good plot, likable characters. There was no hint that it was going paranormal until at the very end, a character walked through a door. I mean THROUGH A DOOR. And don’t get me started on the one Anita Shreve pulled. At a conference, she told livid readers that she still gets complaints on what she did in one of her books, years later. (No spoilers here). Come on, guys. Play fair! Cate: I hate it when the villain is just evil. Bad people typically have a way of justifying their actions or they weren’t fully in control when they did the bad thing and now feel remorse. I HATE the sociopathic gun-for-hire killers. Fine if the writer explains how the killer got that way—a lá Grosse Pointe Blank. But I refuse to accept the bad-just-because explanation. Robin: I have 2 pet peeves in all genres:1) “Was.” I stopped reading a best seller on page 2 after counting 26 instances of “was.” Used sparingly it can be appropriate but not 26x in the first 2 pages. Whenever I see “was,” I rewrite the sentence in my head to make it active rather than passive. Overuse just exhausts me and irritates my inner editor.2) “Fortunately” or “unfortunately.” This kind of echoes your sentiment, Alexia. These statements of coincidence dropped out of thin air with no prior context will make me stop reading. Show me the build-up as characters arrive at their opinions of good or bad circumstances, or lead me to draw my own conclusions as the story unfolds. The only time I kept reading past the repeated use of “unfortunately” was Gone Girl. It fit with the character’s voice (no spoilers so I’m not saying who said it). Susan: I hate it when I get to the end of a book and can’t remember who on earth the suspects are. You could insert any name and it wouldn’t matter. Then comes the big reveal and I think, Oh. Nice. Who? Paula: I’m not a big fan of ambiguous endings. Nor endings which play out the theme of “Life is shit.” I don’t mind “life is shit but it’s all we’ve got so enjoy what you can,” but the “life is shit, we may as well all slit our wrists now” endings I find intolerable. I don’t need a happy ending, but I at least want a hopeful one. Tracee: Can I simply agree with you all? My pet peeves are variations on your themes, although the ‘life is shit’ one is really a no-go for me. Purely evil character with no deeper meaning is probably second. Honestly, I’m so fixated on making Michele tell us which Anita Shreve pulled the ‘character out of the air’ trick that I can’t focus on anything else. I haven’t read all her books, so don’t think I simply don’t remember it. I’m going to take Michele out for drinks at Malice and force her to tell me. Then maybe that will be my top pet peeve.

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B.O.A.T.S. (Based on a True Story)

 I heard information today at work that made me say to myself, “That would make a great movie.” (No details here–it’s an active project.) It got me thinking about other true stories that would make gripping fiction. The art world provides a plethora of material suitable for a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller. Art isn’t nearly as sedate as those 6th grade field trips to dim, musty museums led you to believe. A search of Artsy turned up an article about an agoraphobic photographer who uses Google Street View to take screenshots of the people and landscapes she encounters in her virtual world travels. What if she grabbed a screenshot of a crime committed thousands of miles away? What would this homebound woman do? A deeper dip into Artsy’s archives turns up several articles on the hunt for, recovery of, and restoration of Nazi-looted art. What’s been described as the world’s greatest art theft has already inspired novels, movies, and TV shows: Portrait of a Woman in White, Girl in Hyacinth Blue, The Woman in Gold, and episodes of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, Father Brown, and Agatha Christie’s Marple, to name a few. Newspapers and magazines often feature stranger-than-fiction stories. The Telegraph and Business Insider report on professional mourners hired to grieve at funerals. (Rent A Mourner is a legit UK-based business offering “discreet and professional mourners”.) Turns out, this isn’t a new thing. Mourners for hire date back to ancient Greece and are traditional in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. They’re called moirologists and in 1910, in Paris, threatened to go on strike, complaining of not being paid living wages. Imagine an experienced moirologist noticing something odd about the deceased she’s been hired to mourn. An unusual Mark on the body? A bruise not hidden by the undertaker’s makeup? A face she recognized? I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the Internet and good, old-fashioned eavesdropping as sources for strange-but-true material. Last week I listened, fascinated, as the man at the table next to me recounted how his brother witnessed a massacre during a coup and developed PTSD so severe he suffered violent outbursts that eventually led to a life-or-death fight with the storyteller. Literally life-or-death. Think broken bones, manual strangulation, and bystander intervention. Drama fit for a Man Booker prize. Google “can’t make this stuff up” and get 18 million hits: links to newspaper articles, listicles, blogs, and Facebook pages. Here’s a recent one from FB: a woman breaks into a celebrity’s house (Drake, if you must know) and steals Pepsi, Sprite, Fiji water, and a hoodie. What if an obsessed fan broke into a celebrity’s house and found Nazi-looted art or witnessed his idol committing a crime? What life-imitates-art stories would you like to see fictionalized?

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Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do…

 Another confession. I’m crushing on men who don’t exist. No, I’m not delusional. I have fictional crushes. It’s a thing. Google it. I watched Father Brown, the BBC series streaming on Netflix, last night while doing my taxes. (Filed ’em at 11:55 pm–all hail the Queen of the Last Minute.) By the time I hit send in the e-file program, I realized (read: admitted) I had a crush on Inspector Sullivan and Hercule Flambeau. An odd dichotomy to crush on–a by-the-book law enforcement officer and a ruthless master thief. But they have something in common. They’re both Father Brown’s antagonists. Inspector Sullivan reminds me of Inspector Javert. Not actually a villain, but a man so dedicated to law and order he’s sometimes blinded to the greater cause of justice. Flambeau, on the other hand, is an antagonist along the lines of Professor Moriarty. A criminal mastermind, he’s Father Brown’s true nemesis. What, aside from the skill of the casting director in choosing talented, attractive actors, makes antagonists on-screen (and in-print) crush-worthy? Or at least appealing? Unforgettable? What draws us to the Dexter’s, Jokers, Moriartys, Voldemorts, and, yes, even Lucifers of the fiction world? I doubt there’s a single answer. Each reader and viewer has their own thoughts about what makes a good bad guy. Someone told me they preferred villains who behaved badly because some past experience damaged them. No bad-just-because allowed. I like antagonists who either aren’t villains–the single-minded or overzealous or rigid cop who opposes the unorthodox sleuth but ultimately wants the same thing, to see justice prevail and order restored–or the bad guy who offers some hope, however tiny, of redemption, the villain whose dormant (but not absent) conscience flares up occasionally and spurs them to do the right thing. Some like antagonists who are so well-crafted and fully developed they generate a visceral reaction, even if the reaction is to the completeness of their evil. What do you think makes a bad guy oh-so-good? Do you go for the villain who feels remorse? The one you hope to  (vicariously) save? Or the one you love to hate?

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