Category: Uncategorized

The Day Packed A Whallop

Uncategorized

See what I did there in the blog title? There are lots of great pieces of advice for new writers. Two of the best pointers I heard early on went hand in hand. First, show, don’t tell. Second, active, not passive. Both feed into the heart of every story’s core: character. Characters don’t happen to a story, a story happens to a character. Telling the story of how your character reacts is passive, showing their story unfold is active, thus engaging for readers. One of my tricks to know I’m getting it right is paying attention to the use of one word: was. It’s a subtle but powerful test: She was cocking the gun. She cocked the gun. Which version grabs you? They both essentially say the same thing but the second version shows an action as it takes place. Removing “was” puts the reader in the character’s shoes and creates tension. “Was” keeps the action – thus the reader – at arm’s length. Showing your characters act/react reveals their nature. It’s like meeting someone you befriend over time. You learn who the person is through your experiences with them. They can tell you they prefer beignets to donuts but it’s more interesting to see their annoyance at the multitude of decisions when faced with donuts. Cake, raised, or old fashioned? Glazed with just sugar, just chocolate or both? This bakery vs that chain store? Hear the person complain about a donut’s the lack of density and too much sugar. Then watch their relief at finding a shop that sells traditional, New Orleans-style beignets. Listen to them order, “One please.” See the way their eyes close as they take the first bite. Did you notice how many times I used “was” in that last paragraph? Do you have any tricks to help strengthen your story telling? 

Read more

Should you go to a conference?

Uncategorized

 I sold my first novel, The Fiction Class, to an editor I met at the NY Pitch Conference. A few years later,  I met my fabulous agent, Paula Munier,  at the NY Pitch Conference. She sold my Maggie Dove mystery series to an editor I had met at the NY Pitch Conference. So it would be fair to say, I’m in the pro-conference camp. (I should add that I now work at the NY Pitch Conference.)  Last year, with my new mystery series debuting, I thought it  important to get out and meet people in the mystery-writing community, and so I went to three new (to me) conferences: Malice Domestic, which is geared toward cozies, Bouchercon, which is huge and was in New Orleans, and Writers’ Police Academy, which was in Wisconsin and gave me lots of hands-on experience. The conferences were thrilling, exhausting and educational and I’m still going through my notes. So, I asked my fellow Miss Demeanors what they felt about conferences and this is what they said:  Count me among the big fans, too. I attend a lot of conferences for both my day job and my writing career and learned early on that you get out of them what you put in. Like most experiences in life. Through writers’ conferences I’ve learned the difference between writing for myself and writing for commercial markets, continually learn how to hone my craft, and offer my technology expertise to fellow authors during social events to anyone who asks. I’ve also seized opportunities to hang out with a couple of my heroes whose careers I intend to mimic. And, of course, I met my wonderful agent, Paula, at a conference 🙂
–Robin Stuart Conferences? I’m a huge advocate. There’s no other place where you can learn about the business, network, and feel like a part of a vibrant community. Of course I met Paula at my first writer’s conference so I’m predisposed to like them. And there are so many choices – near and far, for craft, networking or to meet fans. Anywhere or any type, I return home re-charged. –Tracee de Hahn It’s how I found Paula. That was super helpful for me. I don’t know from a sales perspective. They always seem like writers talking to other writers. I makes me feel like I have a community, though–Cate Holahan I love writer’s conferences. As a writer, I love them for craft, camaraderie, and creativity. As an author, I love them for selling books and networking. As an agent, I love them for meeting new writers and hanging out with editors and agents and clients. Best of all, they’re fun!–Paula Munier I adore writing conferences where I can get lots of information about craft and the business of writing and seek the comfort and company of fellow writers. This year I am co-chair of my favorite conference, The New England Crime Bake. I’d love to see you there. 

–Michele Dorsey  

Read more

My walk on the west side

Uncategorized

I spend most of my time holed up in my office and occasionally going into the woods with my dogs. But on Wednesdays, I venture into New York City. There I teach writing classes for Gotham Writers. So every Wednesday I walk from Grand Central over to Eighth Avenue, and every Wednesday I see some amazing things.   First, I go past Library Walk, which I love. It’s a collection of plaques on the street which feature quotes by various writers. (Let me tell you that it was not easy to take this picture. I was almost trampled alive.)  Then, I keep on going until I get to the flower beds in front of the NY Public Library. In the spring, this is filled with tulips. In February it has these white branches, but it’s always changing and I never know what to expect.   Then I continue on, heading West, and the vibe begins to change. Things begin to get a bit more gritty and crowded.  I pass by the Millinery synagogue, which is an old building tucked in between a lot of new ones. I always stop and pay my respects.   Then I keep on going west, and I pass by what I think is the single most disgusting menu in New York:  Keep going west and now I’m in the heart of the Garment District, which I love. There are so many stores filled with zippers and buttons and beautiful fabrics. In the summer there are sample sales and for $5, you can buy clothes off the rack. Occasionally I am almost run down by one of those racks.                          And then I’m at Eighth Avenue and it’s time to work, and I walk into my office, chat for a few minutes and then begin talking about novels with my students. How do you get to work? 

Read more

Seeds

Uncategorized

 One of my favorite books is Seeds by Richard Horan, which tells of his quest to find the “trees that inspired famous American writers.” At the back of the book are some wonderful quotes about trees and here are some of my favorites: “You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet.”  –Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons “A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt startling methods.”–Robert Henri “He who plants a tree,/Plants a hope.”–Lucy Larcom “For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.”–Martin Luther “Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.”–Albert Schweitzer What inspires you? 

Read more

The best romantic books

Uncategorized

It’s Valentine’s Day. So whose mind doesn’t turn to reading?  Or romantic reading anyway. I’ve been having a grand time trying to make a list of some of my favorite Valentine’s Day reading and this is what I’ve come up with. 1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.  I’ve read it a thousand times and I still swoon when Mr. Rochester shows up on his horse. 2. Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart. For years I wanted to be a governess because of this book. 3. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. The movie is fabulous, but the book is pretty fabulous too. I just love the way they talk to each other. 4. The Devil’s Cub by Georgette Heyer and basically anything by Georgette Heyer. 5. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. It’s about a thousand pages long, but I think I read it in five minutes. 6.  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which is not actually a romance, except I spent so much time obsessing over Atticus Finch that it might just as well have been,  and when I met husband, my first thought was: He’s just like Atticus. So it wound up being a romance after all. Happy Valentine’s Day, Brad! How about you? Do you have a favorite Valentine’s Day read? 

Read more

Mystery women

Uncategorized

On March 1, I’ll be speaking at  a feminist mystery writing panel at the Book Culture bookstore in NYC, with several of my fellow Miss Demeanors. Whenever I think about feminism, I think about my mother, who was a very reluctant feminist. My mother got married in 1955 and she embraced the whole suburban dream. She used to joke that she was one of the few people in the world who actually wanted to be a housewife. We lived near Levittown, Long Island, which was the epicenter of suburbia at that time.  My father worked as a display animator, which meant that he made mannequins move. You might have seen his work at the It’s a Small World ride at Disney World. Everything was going to plan, except that, when he turned 30, my father came down with a form of Multiple Sclerosis so virulent that within a few years he couldn’t move.  My mother found herself in desperate need of a job. We were blessed to have a business in the family and she got work there, but the experience taught her, and me, that no matter what your plans, a woman has got to be able to rely on herself. When writing my Maggie Dove mysteries, I was drawn to yet another woman whose life did not go to plan. Maggie Dove was a woman content with her life as a mother and wife. She thought she had everything all figured out, but then her life was jolted by tragedy and she had to build everything up all over again. She solved a mystery, started up a detective agency, made new friends. Took risks. If I had my life to do over, I would take many more risks than I have done, and yet I’m glad that now, as I hit my sixth decade, I’m not yet too old to take challenges. This January I went on the Women’s March, which was not at all the sort of thing I would have done in years past, but as I looked around at all the strong women around me, I thought how proud I was of all of us for speaking up, for taking a stand. My mother would have been right at the front of the line. Info about the panel:https://www.bookculture.com/event/112th-kelly-oliver-susan-breen-tracee-de-hahn-carrie-smith-cate-holahan

Read more

Pub Day Jitters

Uncategorized

In honor of Tracee de Hahn’s publication day this week for Swiss Vendetta, the MissDemeanors all weighed in on the flurry of feelings they experienced on their first “Pub Day.” (Excuse the snow metaphors. The New York Area, where I live, was just buried beneath a foot of the stuff). For me, I remember a vague feeling of nausea. I was concerned that my first novel, Dark Turns, would be ruthlessly criticized. I was emotional and easily aggravated all day. I am happy to say that those feelings lessened for my second novel, The Widower’s Wife, and I am hoping that I may even approach happiness on the launch day for my third, Lies She Told, next September.  Here’s how the rest of the crew felt:  Susan Breen: I had two book launch days in 2016. On June 14, my first Maggie Dove book was published and I was an absolute wreck because it’s set in a village very much like my own and I worried everyone would hate it. (They didn’t.) On November 8, (Election Day), my second Maggie Dove mystery was published and I was a wreck because I was so worried about the election. So I guess there’s a theme there. C. Michele Dorsey: When No Virgin Island was published, there was a great party held at the James Library in Norwell, Massachusetts, which was attended by more than 100 people, including friends, relatives, clients, fellow-writers, and former classmates. The very generous, effervescent, and talented Hank Phillippi Ryan interviewed me with her usual charm and wit. Later, she wrote, “Now that was a launch party.” As I looked out at the crowd of people who had so kindly supported me, I thought, this is like being at your own wake. The final honor came when relatives of a murder victim in St. John whom I had mentioned in the acknowledgements of No Virgin Island came to honor me and to buy my books. That moment can never be duplicated. Alexia Gordon: I felt nauseated on book launch day. I thought everyone would hate me and no one would buy my book. (No, I’m not at all insecure. ) I distracted myself by hopping on a plane to New Orleans to listen to Walter Moseley’s awesome speech at the Sisters in Crime SinC into Diverse Writing Pre-Bouchercon Workshop. The next day I hopped on a plane to Ireland. So, I guess you could say I dealt with my book launch by high-tailing it to a different continent. Tracee de Hahn: Three days into my launch I have to say that book launch and for me tour is tremendous fun! Interacting with real readers! In real stores! My first two visits were to Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington and in Cincinnati and the stores, the people who work there, and the great job they do promoting books each and every day made for a fantastic experience. Can’t wait to visit the other stores. Robin Stuart: My non-fiction book launch was anticlimactic. On the one hand, I achieved an arbitrary goal I’d set for myself to be traditionally published in my field. And it’s cool to think that university students read my words to learn about digital forensics. But my stretch goal, as we call it in dayjob-land, has been to fill a shelf (or several) with a series of novels bearing my name on their spines. I’ve been planning my debut launch for a couple of years now, pulling together a series of promotional events with a little (okay, a lot) of help from my friends. That’s one I can’t wait to see come to life. In the meantime, I have been and continue to hone the craft. It all begins and ends with spinning a good yarn, after all.

Read more

How Much Rejection Is Too Much

Uncategorized

We’ve all heard the stories of writers who had their debut novels rejected dozens of times before they ultimately became best sellers. Or, more often these days, novels that were rejected only to achieve rousing success after being self-published. I love these stories! But a downside to them is that they often urge writers–and have encouraged me–to keep spending money shopping work that should be put in a drawer.  Every writer has trunk junk, those novels that served as course work in our own, free, MFA programs. If you have a book, you know what I’m talking about. That coming-of-age book filled with exposition or stilted dialogue. The thriller where, maybe, there was a giant backstory dump for the first five chapters before the action started. The mystery where we couldn’t get the plot right or kept forcing characters into situations that didn’t grow naturally from their personality profiles and back stories. The “great story” that had, basically, no real genre and didn’t qualify as literary.  Sometimes, trunk junk is resurrected. But, more often than not, it stays in a drawer, an embarrassment to the writer who has since learned better. In the worst cases, it never goes into the trunk and the writer keeps laboring to get it published even though his or her time would be better spent moving on to the next, publishable, story.  So, how many rejection letters should a writer stomach before moving on? After querying and being rejected by every agent in that year’s annual agent guide for my first novel before moving on to my next novel, which got an agent, I have some thoughts. Number one is forget cold calls. Go to a couple great pitch conferences, get critiqued, and then try to attract the attention of an agent who has seen your face. If, after doing this a few times, you still don’t have any takers, put the novel in a drawer and move on to the next one. The next one might sell. And, if the first is really that great, you can publish it when you’re better known with a proven track record of sales.  I’ll add an asterisk to this advice. If you, marketing maven, have the power to personally publicize your self-published work thanks to, say, a large blog following or hook-up with local radio stations or personal level of celebrity, then go for it. You might be the success story that inspires us all to keep writing in the face of rejection. 

Read more

Best Punishment Ever?

Uncategorized

Thriller writers are necessarily consumed with crime and punishment. Who gets off? Who gets caught? Is the killer murdered or sent to prison? Does he or she go free? Our novels are our worlds where we can deliver justice as we see fit, or as we believe it is doled out in real life.  Perhaps this obsession with punishment is one of the reasons that I was drawn to this NPR story: Teens Who Vandalized Historic Schoolhouse With Swastikas Sentenced To Reading. It has been shown that reading fiction improves the ability to empathize, perhaps because it encourages individuals to get into the mind of a character whose circumstances are undoubtedly different from their own. What better way to rehabilitate teenage perpetrators of non-violent hate crimes than by encouraging them to empathize with the people whom they had targeted? The teens were sentenced to go to the Holocaust museum and write a book report per month from a reading list curated by the judge. The books include Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner, and Richard Wright’s Native Son. I’ve read all of these and loved them. Two I read in high school and I think they definitely gave me more of an understanding of the legacy of discrimination, both economic and on the collective conscious of those discriminated against. What do you think of the judge’s actions?     

Read more

My Relationship Status With E-Books: It's Complicated.

Uncategorized

 As a reader, I love e-books.  I love their immediacy. If I hear about an interesting novel, within seconds I can have it on the Kindle app on my iPhone or on my e-reader device. Books arrive to me faster than prime shipping. It’s like living in a library with all the new releases.     Digital books are also cheaper than hardcovers. E-reader apps have built in highlighters so I don’t need to sit with a sharpie by my bed to make note of favorite passages. Best of all, they have built in dictionaries. Never must I stumble on a word like Margaret Atwood favorite “alacrity” (definition: brisk cheerful readiness). As a writer, though, e-books can be infuriating. Aside from the sheer economics of them (many writers I know that have both physical and e-books earn less off their digital books), there’s the black box of sales reporting. While Amazon gladly releases Bookscan data detailing physical book sales, there is no tool tallying digital downloads that can be seen by outside authors. There are apps that allow me to guess based on my hourly-changing Kindle rank what my sales are likely to be, but I do not know how accurate these are. For example, today, The Widower’s Wife is #70 in all Kindle books. According to JungleScout, that rank would mean I was likely selling over 1,000 books per month. Kindlepreneur has a formula that would put that at over 1,000 books per day. Big difference. Who is right?  I don’t know if either of them are even close. Some discussion groups say that a better estimator of sales is to take the number of reviews and multiply them by 100.  I assume my publisher has this data–or at least gets reports on a monthly basis–but they probably won’t say anything until my first check is in the mail. I’ve asked… What are your thoughts on digital data? Is your publisher forthcoming with information? Do you use calculators? Is it all a black hole until that royalty check comes in?  

Read more