Author: C. Michele Dorsey

            I have a fascination with doors. I take lots of photos of doors wherever I go. Recently I found no shortage of doors that interested me in Mexico, but the same has been true no matter where I go.  I love the rich colors some people paint doors, while others shine natural wood to a sheen you can almost see your reflection in. Doors with windows are particularly fun because sometimes you can actually see what is behind the door, although door windows have curtains over them. My favorite is when they are covered with lace. Others are boldly bare daring you to look right in.            Doors can be Spartan, a statement in their own right. But many doors are flanked with flowering bushes or containers filled with seasonal flowers. The can be ornate, simple, artistic, or boring.            What is about doors and me? Other people have commented they share the same obsession. I’ve decided that writers are particularly drawn to doors for a logical reason. It’s not so much the door, but the story that lies behind the door that grabs us. We’re a curious lot, not satisfied to simply look at an entrance and say, “Nice door.” No, we want to know more. Who lives behind the dilapidated door where the paint peeled off decades ago and the only thing growing in the cracked planter next to it are a couple of old cigarette butts and an empty nip or two?              The door can be a clue to what is actually happening behind it or it can unleash the imagination allowing a writer to guess what goes on inside. What is with the guy who lives behind the ornate red door with the brass kick plate and elaborate handle? Is he just confident or is he flamboyant?              And that lady with the periwinkle door? Matching flags, twin black pots with identical plants, lanterns, even her gnomes come in sets. Is she a perfectionist or does she just have too much time on her hands? Maybe she should take a lesson from her free-spirited neighbor with the yellow door, who seems content with a whimsical pot of unmatched plants.            The person behind the crimson door with yellow trimmed panels must be an artist. Who else would dare to combine those colors? But his untrimmed shrubs suggest he has a lazy streak. I wonder if he should visit the woman behind the rounded midnight blue door with the welcoming two red Adirondack chairs next to it waiting for a chat and a glass of ice tea.             The ornate white door must belong to a European aristocrat who never gives a thought about his door as long as someone opens it and has a G & T waiting for him after his long day at the embassy where he is consorting with spies from a foreign country long at odds with his own.             A writer can do well during a dry spell to turn off the laptop and lace up her walking shoes. Take to the streets, study those doors you are passing by, and ask yourself, “What’s going on in there?”            Just don’t get me started about windows. What do you think about when you pass by a door? Share in the comments or join the discussion on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/missdemeanorsbooks/  

 I asked my fellow Miss Demeanors, what are your five favorite writing tools and why do you love them? Pens, pencils, spiral notebooks, erasers, spreadsheets, index cards, Post-its, bottles of wine or whiskey, etc. Feel free to send some photos and have some fun while doing it. Well, I guess they did. I’ll start by saying when I’m traveling all I need is a spiral notebook, pens and pencils, stickies of different shapes and sizes, pens and pencils, and a flash drive for my laptop. I can forget to pack clothes, toiletries, or shoes, but not these essential items.   Tracee:  Index cards (can I list them twice?), wine and Perfect Manhattans (judiciously), and the all important outlines in multiple forms. For that – big white pieces of paper, tape, colored markers and highlighters. And then I’ll need my Apple computer because my hand cramps when I write long hand for too long…. a final necessity is my small cow, Vacherin. Always willing to lend an ear and offer encouragement.    Cate:  You have a cow? Was this after the rabbits? Does it make cheese?I need my apple computer with Word, for writing, and Excel, for my outlines. I also need The Google, especially Google maps.   Alexia:    Sharpie pen. Spiral notebook. Bar/pub/lounge (whiskey/cocktail optional–they’re just to justify taking up space at the bar). Laptop (because my publisher won’t take handwritten drafts). Cat (since I don’t have a writing totem. Or writing cow).   Robin:     Mmmmmm Kit Kats….I love Post-Its. I used them to jot down plot ideas and character traits. The notes will clutter my desk or be stuck in a notebook until I use them or decide to stash them for another book. So, Post-Its are #1. Thinking about the answer to this question made me realize that I use a different “favorite” pen for notes and longhand drafts of each book I’ve written, so the pen is #2. I hadn’t noticed that penchant til now. Less unusual is a dedicated notebook, #3. Maybe a little unusual is a Snoopy calendar. The date isn’t important, it’s the subliminal message to not take myself too seriously and have fun with what I write. That’s #4. And, of course, my laptop. Susan:   I wish I had a cow! All I have are two cockapoos. I love to write in small notebooks. It gives me the feeling of pages building up. I also love color-coded post-it notes. I heard Jeffrey Deaver speak at an MWA event and he talked about the value of post-it notes and I thought, if it works for him…. So I’ve now got them all over my wall. I write on a computer that has no internet access, which cuts down on distractions, but I have my phone with me for research, or Candy Crush. There’s also a stack of books by my desk and I look through them often, usually for ideas about how chapters should begin or pacing. And then I have lots of inspirational stuff all over the walls. Nice notes people have written or awards or pictures of people I love. I also have a stash of Kit Kat bars, for when inspiration fails. Tracee:  A small stuffed cow who came to life on the Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich. She’s been everywhere with me for over 20 years. If Michele includes my photo you will meet her on Friday :)She actually has a bit of an attitude problem.  (Vacherin, the cow, not Michele) (Ed. note: Could be true about Michele, too, says Michele.) Alison: My laptop (Word for my editor and Scrivener for first drafts). I start my mornings reading and write down sentences I particularly love in my light blue Semikolon notebook. I’ve never gone back to read what I’ve written, but I like the act of writing down something by hand. I have three fountain pens: a brown and black Waterman that my husband gave me for our first anniversary, a heavy black Waterman my parents gave my husband when he got his Ph.D., but he writes in pencil, so I inherited it, and a purple one I found in the most wonderful paper store in Paris. The store sold sealing wax. How can you not love a store that sells sealing wax? If I’m stuck in my writing, I light a candle if I can. I don’t know why. Paula:  You all know the tools and rituals I use in the sanctity of my office at home: The index cards on which I jot scene ideas, the Waterman of Paris pen with which I write first drafts, the pretty box in which I throw maps, notes, postcards, and other esoterica related to my WIP. But when I’m on the road, I have to find a way to recreate the peace and solitude of my little lakeside cottage. So I read the interviews with writers The Paris Review posts on Twitter (I’m a subscriber) and poetry (I downloaded A Year with Rumi for this trip) to remind me why I write. Then I put in my headphones and listen to Gregorian chant and kirtan, open a notebook, and write. This centers me, so I can work anywhere, like right here at the Geneva Airport.   What are your five essential writing tools?     

 It’s award season, not only for books, but also music, movies, and plays. A lot of the time, I’ve never heard the names of people nominated, although that shouldn’t diminish the recognition that they deserve. But I’ve been thinking, well, maybe I ought to give out a few awards of my own. (DISCLAIMER: The awards made in this blog entry are solely attributable to the blog post writer, me, C. Michele Dorsey. No blame should be placed on the shoulders of my fabulous blog mates, the Miss Demeanors. ) Now that we have that out of the way, I am announcing the SASSIES, Still Awesome Sustainable Series I Enjoy Savoring.             I read a ton of books, lots of them are marvelous, but the SASSIES are about books I wait for, as in I usually know the pub date and anticipate it eagerly. The SASSIES have characters I consider longtime companions if not friends. Their authors are writers whom I admire and frankly have a literary crush on. I write sentences from their books in a notebook reserved for “Sentences I Wish I Had Written.”            Some of these writers have been writing the same series since the 1980’s. While I confess I may find an occasional entry in the series a little less perfect than the others, the character evolution and plot development always are at a level I seek to emulate. The writing never fails. Never.             And so please roll out the red carpet for Dorsey’s SASSIES:  1.        Elizabeth George for her Inspector Lynley series. George combines intricacy of plot, fallible characters, and bucolic settings in England to deliver time after time. Her vocabulary has challenged me more than once in each book to head for the dictionary, a trip I thoroughly enjoy. The books can be a tad long, but when they are this good, who cares? The best in the series was“Playing for the Ashes.” 2.        Peter Robinson for his Inspector Banks series. Alan Banks and I are growing old together, but I haven’t minded because Robinson is able to humanize his police procedurals, also set in England. Like in George’s series, the reoccurring cast of characters live lives almost as messy as those of the criminals they pursue, but Robinson never lets that get in the way of the story. My favorite in the series was “In A Dry Season.’ I do wish Inspector Banks hadn’t changed his taste from opera and classical music to rock.  3.        Tana French for the Dublin Murder Squad series. Stunning writing, brutal storytelling, and characters that stay with you make this newer series one of my favorites. I’m hard pressed to pick a favorite, but I can tell you “Broken Harbor” was spellbinding and haunts me to this day. French’s books keep me up at night and often have me switching from audio to print versions so I don’t have to put them down.   4        Louise Penny for the Inspector Gamache series. I came late to this party, reading the tenth book, “The Long Way Home” first.  By the third chapter, I wanted to move to Three Pines where Penny has created a village of imperfect characters who all care about each other even as bodies fall around them. I was so taken with Penny’s writing and ability to create characters you truly feel you know, that I vowed to read the all in order. A year ago I ventured back to Three Pines and read each book in the series in succession. When I was done, I felt a void. I tried the if-you-like-Louise-Penny-try this author without success, which is a true tribute to the cast of characters she has brought alive for readers. My favorite is “The Beautiful Mystery” set in a cloister of monks in the wilderness of Quebec, a brave endeavor skillfully executed.  5.        Robert Galbraith (J.K.Rowling’s pseudonym) for the Cormoran Srike series. I hadn’t followed the Harry Potter series closely, so was surprised at how well the characters captured me and had me waiting for the next in the series.  Strike is former military police and an amputee who has begun his own private investigation business. The tension between Strike and his assistant, Robin, rivals Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting.  6.        Sue Grafton for her Kinsey Milhone series. I went through the alphabet with this series, never imagining it would be cut short at “Y” by Grafton’s recent death. Kinsey’s quirkiness coupled with a truly sad childhood not born of cliché made me bond with her early. Grafton’s ability to use small details to flesh out her characters inspired me to write. My favorite was “M is for Malice,” in which she portrayed the murder victim with such melancholy, I felt the need to mourn him, much as I do now this gifted author. I will miss Kinsey Milhone.  7        William Tapply for his Brady Coyne series. Tapply died nine years ago, but I gave him a SASSIES award because every year, I miss having a new Brady Coyne mystery to ready. A wonderful writer, Tapply created an irreverent lawyer who preferred to be fishing on a river than in a courtroom. All of his books are good, so if you’re looking for a series to devour, consider this one.So there you have it. The 2018 SASSIES are now history. I am grateful to each of these authors for consistently giving me something to look forward to each year. Keep on writing!Who would you give a SASSIES award to?

 By definition, writers love words. They are the building blocks for our tales. We obsess over them. We debate about their use and how they should be punctuated. We even become animated each year when several new words are entered, if not universally welcomed into the dictionary.            I love words. Any author that sends me to a dictionary has won a fan. I used to keep a notebook to list the words I didn’t know in a book so I could look them up. Now when reading on my Kindle I need only highlight and press.            I wouldn’t have thought I took words for granted, but now that I am traveling extensively, I must confess to exactly that.            In Greece, I was grateful to have a tour guide who saw her role more as a professor. She helped our group understand key words we needed to use. I was grateful that she was so generous, but frustrated that I couldn’t find my words on my own. I learned firsthand where the phrase, “It’s all Greek to me,” originated.            When I went to Italy for the third time, I decided it was time to take a course in advance of our trip. Just an adult ed. class, which was supposed to be fun. It turned out to be not what I expected, but I did learn enough Italian to order food and wine competently.              Provence during lavender season had been on my bucket list since before we talked about bucket lists. Since my Italian class had disappointed, I decided I would learn on my own through an audio book/course. I loved studying languages in high school. I took French, Spanish, and Latin. Why I remember the lyrics to “The Red Rubber Ball” better than any word I learned in those classes escapes me.              Still, I was enthusiastic as I sat in traffic repeating, “Il n’y pas de quoi,” like a fool. I learned how useless much of what I learned was when we had a suitcase stolen off the bus in Provence and ended up in the Aix police station.            Now I am in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for eight weeks, what locals are calling, “The Fun Side of the Wall”, a fairly long time to spend in a country whose language you don’t speak. While I am fortunate to have a dear friend, who is both a Mexican and U.S. citizen, spending the same time here, I am reminded about how important words are for even the most basic needs. Victor’s generosity in teaching the culture and language of this beautiful country inspire me to forge on and learn.            I thought I had bathrooms (“banos”) down, knowing “Damas” signaled the ladies room. But then I went somewhere that didn’t use it on either bathroom door. In the grocery store, the sugar and the salt looked the same, both packaged in plastic bags. “Sel” struck a bell with me, a small victory I carried over to buying butter (“mantequilla”) with (“con”) or without (“sin”) sel.            I am humbled by my ignorance, challenged to overcome it, because I know not only do I love my words, I need them. I want to embrace the cultures and stories of the places I visit from the tongues of the people who live there.            Victor promises me I will learn by listening and opening my heart to the experience available to me while I am in Mexico. I keep trying because now I know, words are not only the building blocks of stories, they are the nexus between one human being to another. I have mastered another sentence to that end. Me gustaria aprender un poco de su lengua (indigena). I’d like to learn some of your (indigenous) language. The sign over the door reads “Yo Los Contre,” “I found them.” I like to think it means I found my words.   

Michele: Here was my question of the week for my fellow Miss Demeanors:   You get to have the author of your choice, dead or alive, all to yourself for a couple of hours. Who is that author, what three questions would you ask him or her, and what setting would you choose for the meeting?    I know, it’s more than one question and it’s fun. I’m taking Jane Austen for a mani/pedi. No doubt she could use one after walking around the grounds of Pemberly in those dreadful shoes and doing all that needlework, let alone writing by hand with a quill pen.Here’s what I’d ask her:1. Do you intentionally write funny material or does the comedy seep in through the stories you tell?2. How did your own relationships with men influence your portrayal of them in your books?3. How do you view the status of women in the world today compared to the era during which you lived and wrote?  Paula: So many writers, so many choices! I could watch a rehearsal of Hamlet at the Globe Theater with William Shakespeare, attend a Regency ball with Jane Austen, or sail down the Nile with Agatha Christie. But since nobody said anything about time travel, and in the spirit of the season, I’d risk the strike of lightning and go to church and Sunday luncheon with Marilynne Robinson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and essayist whose Gilead trilogy is my current literary obsession. I’d ask her: 1) How does she take complicated matters of faith and humanity and make them so accessible?2) To what does she attribute her ability to create such living, breathing, heartbreaking characters?3) How does her writing process facilitate the creation of such fully imagined and fully realized fiction?  Tracee: My answer sprang to mind! William Shakespeare. This was triggered by, of all things, the new biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. I purchased it as a Christmas gift and promptly spent some time gently skimming (really being careful to not give it that gently used look!). I was struck by how much we know about da Vinci and by the breadth of his creativity beyond the visual arts, medical studies and scientific inventions (who knew that he wrote plays?). This is a long way of getting to Shakespeare. Such an icon of English literature and yet we know very little, or possibly nothing about him – depending on which side of the fence you are on about current scholarship. I would like to watch Hamlet with him, then have the chance to ask the basics about his life and writing. Shakespeare’s life is such a tabula rasa that anything he said would be a gem. Would it be fair to ask how it feels to be a genius for the ages? (I would have to judge his temperament first….)    Susan:   Charles Dickens. I would love to have gone to one of his public readings of A Christmas Carol.  He was said to be a great reader and acted out all the parts. I can just about hear him reciting the last lines, about Scrooge: “it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!” As to questions:1. I would love to go on a tour of London with him and ask him how he sees everything so clearly?2. How does he make me feel emotions so strongly?3. How does he transform grief into something so beautiful?  Robin: My first thought was to go to Disneyland with JD Salinger just because of the juxtaposition of being at the “happiest place on Earth” with the creator of a misanthropic icon. But the hands’ down winner is mimosas with Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin, where I pay my respects every time I’m in NYC. I would have only one question: what are your thoughts on the current state of the world? There have been so many cultural advances and yet so many current parallels, it would be fascinating – and I suspect hilarious – to hear the perspective of a woman who was ahead of her time. What surprises her? What doesn’t surprise her at all? How many mimosas can we put away in 2 hours? I guess I do have multiple questions 🙂  Cate: Since so many picked past greats, I am going to go contemporary. I’d like to have a drink with Trevor Noah. I am listening to his audio book Born A Crime (AMAZING!). I would ask:1. Your life was like a thriller plot (real father not in his life because a white man having a romantic relationship, let alone a child, with a black woman was illegal under Apartheid. His abusive stepfather then shot his mother and got a slap on the wrist for her attempted murder). How do you infuse so much love and humor into painful stories?2. How do you strike a balance between talking about race and acknowledging prejudice in your stories without losing the ability to connect with people and being overtly political?3. Which is a better way to handle traumatic past experiences? Compartmentalization or exploration?   Alison:Such a good question, and such a difficult one. I thought about having a cocktail party with a guest list of about fifty, but decided that wouldn’t be playing fair. I vacillated between funny (David Sedaris) and intellectually rigorous (Nobel prize winner Hermann Hesse) before deciding to toss a coin between two other favorites. Heads went to Hemingway. I read The Sun Also Rises on a flight to Madrid and was lucky enough to stay at the Palace Hotel. I would meet him at the hotel bar for a drink (or two or three) and ask: (1) How do you write with such spare and understated style yet still convey so much emotion? (2) How do you engage serious philosophical topics with a breeziness that makes ideas accessible to everyone, and (3) What writer would you meet for a drink and where would he meet him or her? Alexia: I’m still trying to decide who I want to hang with and what my 2nd and 3rd questions would be. But I want to go to The Flying Fish in Little Rock, AR and my first question is,  “Hush puppies or French fries? “I’m inviting Keith Laumer, the late science fiction author and creator of one of my literary crushes, Jame Retief. After we settled the hush puppy/french fry issue, I’d ask him–How did you translate your experiences as a diplomat with the US Foreign Service into a satirical sci-fi series?–Will humans ever travel to other planets in real life? And you, dear readers, how would you answer these questions?    

  I was talking to another writer the other day about how my plans to be in St. John right now had been interrupted by one of Mother Nature’s temper tantrums. Her girls, Irma and Maria, sent my schedule into a tizzy, but more seriously affected the lives of so many people who live in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Being “stuck” on outer Cape Cod in the winter is hardly something to complain about, but I do, until I see the pictures of the fires in California and remember the families waiting to see if their children had survived the earthquake in Mexico.            So let me get my complaints out first. The temperature here isn’t terribly low. I can remember a time in February, when the high 30’s felt like a heat wave. But the bone chill of dampness that seeps in when the ocean is less than a mile away in either direction crawls under the layers of my clothes and is difficult to shake off.            Then there are the colors, or lack thereof, unless you consider gray and brown to be colors. They are the opposite of the vibrant shades of green and blue I revel in while in St. John. The dullness of the brown and gray numbs my soul, making me wonder if I am even alive as I stumble around my winter habitat. Even the blue of the ocean that drew me here has turned a steely gray. Only the occasional heroic bright sunset reminds me that times can be very different here on what many consider the edge of the earth.            There’s that too, of course. Three months ago, my complaints were very different. “When will all of these people go home?” “There can’t be single person left in New York, because they are all here.” “Doesn’t anyone teach beach manners anymore?” I grocery shop at 6:00 a.m. to avoid the crowds, frequent secret beaches undiscovered by most (no I will not tell you where they are), and avoid restaurants at all costs. Why would I wait an hour and a half to eat something I can buy fresh here and cook at home?            They are all gone now, except the occasional brave beach stroller I see get out of a car with New York plates. “Those New Yorkers are hardy souls, aren’t they?” I ask my husband with a seasonal kindness I lack at the height of summer.            I explained to my writer friend how Cape Cod can feel desolate in the winter. But then I confessed. “I kind of like desolate.” She agreed and commented it was because we are both writers.            I’ve thought about that during the gray of every day since our conversation. The barrenness of winter is a blank canvas for a writer. While the merriment and colors of summer can inspire stories, the naked branches, brown leaves, and furious ocean make you reach deeper. You can’t escape thoughts about fear, survival and death, which are less prominent in your mind when you are inhaling the fragrance of beach roses and watching children build a sandcastle.              I’ve decided there may be a season and a reason for the desolation of gray and brown for writers. A character I have been writing for more than a year has revealed more of herself to me, sharing a darkness I suspected lay beneath. I welcome her revelations.  I am less afraid to face the challenge of the blank canvas and the shades of brown and gray on my palette. The words find their way onto the page and I am grateful.            By the time the day has ended, which is early in the season of brown and gray, I am eager for a sunset. Any glimpse of light to remind me that there are seasons and that nothing is forever.                          

 I was writing in my “she shed,” what I call my writing sanctuary, and what I’ve recently learned my neighbors call the Taj Mahal because of my plastic $99.00 Maria Theresa chandelier from Home Depot, when I first heard the words.   “Your bedroom is falling off.” The neighborhood plumber, who is also a surfer and a grandfather (because everyone in this neighborhood defies convention), was talking to the neighborhood jack-of-all-trades and my husband. My fingers froze hovering over my keyboard, my novel halted, while four small words screamed in my mind. I told you so. All summer long while attending meetings of the 500 Club (happy hour) on my neighbor’s porch across the street, I would gaze at our little tindominium where we had moved two years ago after opting to downsize big time. A sign my husband found now hangs over our couch and defines our life. “Less house. More home.” “Our bedroom is crooked,” I would say, but no one seemed particularly concerned. I was referring to the push-out part of the 1995 Seville trailer that is our home on outer Cape Cod six months of the year where our bedroom is located. Specifically, the push-out is where the head and most of the queen size bed sit.“Maybe you should go on a diet. The bedroom is sinking lower on your side of the bed,” I said to my husband more than once. He and others would chuckle and then the conversation returned to oystering, shark sighting, and surfing. The daily staples on Cape Cod during the summer. Now, in the depth of December, when our six-month stay in tropical St. John in the Virgin Islands had been delayed due to Hurricane Irma, our bedroom was going to fall off. I hadn’t planned on either.What we had signed up for was an adventure. Selling our ten room home by the ocean with gardens and porches and decks had taken fortitude, but once we committed to letting go so we could go, we were exhilarated. We would travel. I would write. He would play on his boat. But our bedroom wouldn’t fall off. I fought the impulse to declare our decision to say, “F*** It, let’s just go for it,” a colossal mistake. I tend to run to the edge of the cliff during crises and have learned to rein myself in. During the two years we have been on this crazy adventure, we’ve traveled to Italy, Ireland, and France. We’ve moved four times on St. John. I’ve published books. We’ve met wonderful new friends who have already enriched our lives.Like the guys I could hear from the writing sanctuary. “We can jack it up,” Jack-of-all-Trades says. He not talk a lot, but has brilliant moments, and always looks for a way to fix a problem. Plumber-Surfer concurs and a plan is born. Our bedroom will not fall off. It will be stronger and get a new coat of paint, an ignored item on the honey-do list until now. The adventure will continue. One of the biggest rewards for daring to downsize is having new people in your life who bring far more joy than the “stuff” we left behind. Back to writing. .. But please, tell me about your own writing distractions.                                                 

  Michele:    Some books have such unexpected endings that the reader reacts physically. I have thrown books twice in my life when I felt duped by the writer. Anita Shreve invoked the wrath of many fans with The Last Time They Met. I know readers have reacted hysterically when a favorite character is killed, particularly if he or she is part of series. Ask Elizabeth George. I’ve heard authors discuss invoking terror and distress in the hearts of their readers just to shake things up a bit and to challenge themselves.    The question is what book(s) had an ending that inspired a dramatic reaction from you and why? What do you think about using this as a technique as a writer?   Paula:   There’s an old adage in publishing: The first page sells the book, the last page sellsthe next book. So writers should beware endings that infuriate or frustrate orperplex readers. For my part, I’m a typical reader: I don’t much like ambiguousendings, or endings in which the main action is not resolved, or endings whereeverybody dies. I remember the ending of My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoultwhich dismayed me. I saw it coming, and still it dismayed me. And I wasn’t alone.I saw Jodi Picoult at an event for the book, she wrote after that one, and she toldthe audience she had a feeling that many readers had not forgiven her for thatending quite yet. And the visceral response of the audience confirmed herfeeling. If that had been her first book, she may not be the bestselling authorshe is today. A cautionary tale I take very seriously as a writer, an editor, andan agent. Note: XXX below is to avoid a SPOILER Susan:  I love Game of Thrones and I felt I took XXX’s death reasonably well. But after I saw the Red Wedding, I sat there with my mouth agape. (I read the book afterwards and it wasn’t as shocking by then.) I think XXX’s death actually changed my feeling about the book. I still enjoy it and am awed by Martin’s imagination and writing. But I will never trust him again and because of that I don’t think I ever loved the later characters as much as the early ones. But that might just be me being dramatic. Paula:    I love Game of Thrones. George RR Martin is a hoot. He’ll kill off anybody. It takes a really skilled writer with a large cast of characters to pull that off and get away with it.  Susan:   I think I saw somewhere a query letter that he wrote before GOT was published, warning the publishers that no one would be safe. Clearly, it has worked for him!  Tracee:    I can’t think of an ending that angered me. Okay, when Tolstoy killed off Prince Andrei in War and Peace I didn’t forgive him, but that’s been a very, very long time ago and I’ve come to terms with it. Andrei did act like an arrogant heel and I suppose it had to end this way (maybe I do have some latent anger…..).ps I may have to go on Wikipedia and read the episode descriptions for Game of Thrones so I don’t get too attached to characters who have a short life span….. Cate:    Shutter Island inspired a dramatic reaction from me along the lines of “Holy S—, how did I not see that coming?” Then I reread the book and realized I should have totally figured out that–spoiler alert–something was wrong with the main character. I think some of my favorite books have spurred that kind of “how was I duped” reaction. But I always re-read to see if the author was playing fair and, if I find that they weren’t (the amnesia was selective or they were consciously lying to the reader the whole time even when we were supposed to be hearing their unadulterated thoughts from a first person perspective, for example, then I get pretty upset).  Susan:    Disregard what I said, Tracee. No one dies. 🙂 Robin:    Stephen King is notorious for killing off sympathetic characters. It was hard to take at first but now I’m used to it. When I read new King books I try to guess who’s he building up to kill off. Usually I’m right but Mr. Mercedes set up two characters for sacrifice. I had a 50/50 chance and guessed wrong. There’s a certain pattern to the sympathetic death in his recent work and I’d hoped the setup was because he would break it. He didn’t. I won’t elaborate because it would be a spoiler to at least 3 books I can name off the top of my head.The twists in Gone Girl made me reread previous chapters to see if there were clues I missed. In that case I wasn’t angry, I was impressed. Except for the ending. It was unexpected because the rest of the book was so tightly wound, the ending seemed banal by contrast.An older book I really struggled with was Bless The Beasts And Children. It angered me for lots of reasons and I do recall throwing it across the room when I finished. I expected redemption. The rest of the book was horrendous and I held out hope for some sort of a happy ending. It packed such an emotional punch that I still remember scenes vividly and I was in middle school when I read it. On the off chance it’s on someone’s “to be read” list I don’t want to reveal much. Let’s just say I’m really happy about certain taboos now so I don’t have to go through chapter after chapter of unpleasant surprises. Alexia:   I can’t think of any book that made me mad enough to throw it. I don’t mind if sympathetic characters are killed off if their death serves some purpose. (Yes, I’m a Hero’s Journey believer.) My favorite characters often don’t survive for the sequel because I’m drawn to the character most in need of redemption (you know, the “bad guy” who, like Han Solo, is really a good guy underneath the selfish exterior) and finding redemption seems to make characters number one with a bullet. They’re redeemed by sacrificing themselves for the good of others. I’m okay with tragic endings.  I find “happy ever after” cloying if it’s just done to “disney-fy” the story and didn’t follow from events. I can think of several short stories and books that disappointed me. Some were about rotten characters doing rotten things to other rotten characters because the author saw one too many 3rd-rate, neo-noir movies and thought they should write that way because that’s all there is to noir fiction. Some failed to live up to their super-hype. Their twists weren’t half as clever as the author thought they were and/or the main characters were too stupid to live past chapter three. Some were obvious rip offs of better books or they were so “trendy” they were nauseating. Or they were as pretentious as their authors–ten pages in and you knew the author was convinced they were writing an “Important Book”. My reaction to these is usually just to close the book and put it in the Donate to Charity pile (or return it unfinished to the library). The only type of books I genuinely dislike, as a class, are those where someone takes an iconic series character created by a now-deceased author and tries to continue the series but can’t resist adding their own spin. (“Reinterprets the character for a modern audience.” No. Just don’t.)  I don’t care much for re-tellings of iconic stories for the same reason. The only books that have really pissed me off fell into this category. I swore at them but didn’t throw them. Alison: Hmmm. I had to think about this question because my threshold for throwing a book across the room is too low to wait until the end. I’ll close a book never to open it again for a number of reasons, mostly dealing with sloppy research, writing or underestimating the reader’s intelligence. My persnickety list of my pet peeves includes: not getting historical details right, making a main character an expert in an area and then misspelling a word in said area of expertise, not playing fair (although I love to watch Sherlock and Elementary, I do not read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle because he pulls rabbits out of his hat), being able to guess whodunit as easily as figuring out romantic entanglements in the first five minutes of the Love Boat, and anachronistic dialogue. As I write this, I have now doomed myself to make all of these errors. I will conclude with this: please forgive me. Your turn, dear readers. And like our not-so-dainty Miss Demeanors, don’t hold back/