Keyboard Synergy: Making a Writing Partnership Work and Work Well

© Deborah Shlian and Linda Reid 2009 all rights reserved

For many writers, putting words to paper is a solitary calling—but we prefer to seek our muse in each other’s imaginations. We’ve been friends and medical colleagues for over 20 years, and have successfully collaborated to give birth to Sammy Greene, our dynamic, redheaded investigative reporter and amateur detective in DEAD AIR, the first book in our new mystery thriller series. We’ve continued to write together even though a continent now divides us—it’s not surprising that the question most asked at our book signings is “how do you manage to write with someone else?” Our answer—synergy; the sum is greater than the parts.

It’s frustrating to sit at the computer alone, staring at a blank page on a flickering screen and wondering if the true definition of writer is “masochist”. Being able to bounce ideas off a writing buddy is a way to expand creativity – especially when faced with a challenge on a plot point or some issue related to a character’s personality. Partnering also helps keep us on track—and on deadline. If your co-author is waiting, you’re more motivated to get that chapter done. And the gentle feedback when improvement is needed is kinder than an editor’s blue pencil, as is the word of encouragement when your energy or inspiration flags. And best of all, when you are lucky enough to have your novel published and you’re scheduled for TV or radio appearances, you have someone to lean on and chase away those pesky butterflies in your stomach.

Okay, 1 + 1 = 11. But how do we make a partnership work?

I suppose we could say a writing partnership is a marriage of sorts. Both of us have been married (to our husbands) for years and figured that we were pros at collaboration. But writing with a colleague and friend presented a new set of challenges. First, Linda lives in LA and Deborah lives in Florida. It wasn’t the miles, but the time zones that made our communications a challenge. Early bird Deborah in the East and night owl Linda in the West had to scramble to find a time for those necessary phone conversations when e-mails didn’t fit the bill. And, each of us brought a slightly different shade to the lead character in our series, Sammy Greene—we had to ensure that the five foot red-haired, Yiddish sprouting investigative reporter didn’t end up with a “split personality”. Naturally, some of our “discussions” became highly spirited, but, our friendship endured, and the Sammy Greene thriller series was born.

How can you avoid the pitfalls of partnerships?

It’s probably a good idea to start with a written document with agreed upon items stipulated formally. Think of it as the equivalent of a prenup – hopefully the relationship won’t break up, but if it does, you’ve clarified “who gets what” so that a breakup doesn’t have to be acrimonious.

1. How will you share the money you make from the book? We recommend 50/50 for an equal partnership—with the copyright in both names.

2. How will you share any expenses that arise while you are writing (for example: copying costs, postage, supplies, long-distance phone charges)?

3. Once your book is sold, how will you share marketing expenses above and beyond what your publisher may provide? Unless you’re Dan Brown, your publisher will probably expect you to pitch-in for publicity.

4. Who will have the final word on contract negotiations? You both want to sell your novel, but may disagree on the terms. If you don’t agree to present a united front, it puts you both in a weaker bargaining position. (See: parenting teenagers.)

Then, some tips for working together with a smile.

• Agree that you will meet deadlines. That means finishing your assigned chapter or completing rewrites or edits when you say you will.

• Agree that you will let your partner know if personal life issues are keeping you from meeting your obligations.

• Agree to talk about problems—professionally and politely. That way you don’t let upsets simmer, or explode.

Finally:

Don’t forsake your friendship for your work relationship. Because we both had full-time jobs and family responsibilities, we tended to communicate in work mode only, trying to get our writing finished in between the rest of our lives. We finally realized that we’d stopped talking about anything else. Now we try to make time to catch up on mutual friends and other non-writing related topics. It’s really helped to strengthen our friendship and our writing partnership. We‘ve finished novel #2 in our Sammy Greene thriller series, “Devil Wind” and are starting on novel #3--as co-authors and good friends.

Author Website: www.sammygreene.com

Other novels by Deborah:
RABBIT IN THE MOON BY DEBORAH & JOEL SHLIAN
DOUBLE ILLUSION BY DEBORAH & JOEL SHLIAN
WEDNESDAY’S CHILD BY DEBORAH & JOEL SHLIAN

Other novels by Linda:
WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD (AKA YOLANDA PASCAL)

About the authors:

Deborah and Joel practiced medicine together for years before trying their hand at fiction. Their first novel, Double Illusion, won rave reviews from the LA Times and was optioned for film. Their second book, Wednesday's Child, was compared to Mary Higgins Clark and was nominated for an Edgar Award. Their latest novel, Rabbit in the Moon is in hardback and on Kindle and has won numerous awards including the Gold Medal for Genre Fiction, Florida Book Award and Silver Medal for Mystery Book of the Year from ForeWord Magazine.


Linda is a physician, medical manager as well as author of nonfiction and now fiction. She also has worked in TV and radio, bringing an authenticity to our character, Sammy Greene.

Settings in mystery

I have been doing a little research on mystery novel settings. My research is mine and mileage may vary, but if you check your own library I bet you will find much the same.

I found these settings for mystery novels in my bookcase. A coffee shop, a bakery, PI offices, old lady homes, a dating service, and of course, police stations.

Why are there so many different settings for mysteries?

One reason could be the very nature of the story itself. Mystery is not contained to any single locale. You can set a murder in a lot of places. Robbery happens everywhere, and if you are clever, missing “anything” can happen anywhere and send your characters off on an adventure.

My characters of Shannon and Dwayne have a new adventure coming for you in January 2010 and I used the backdrop of a cemetery as my mystery setting. It was creepy and filled with a lot of fun possibilities.

When you mix good setting with likeable characters, you have a truly winning combination and readers will keep turning the page.

Another reason there are so many different settings could be that settings need to take on lifelike qualities. They need to be as much a character in your book as the characters themselves. Give it depth and color and let it take on emotional qualities and you will give your reader the feeling that you hope to invoke whether it be fear, love, hate etc.

Nothing says spooky like a dreary old cemetery with wind whistling through bare trees and an ominous tinkle of a graveside chime. Give your setting some “oomph” by adding sensory detail. Make them see it, hear it, smell it, and feel it, and you will have them hooked from page one to the end.

_____________________

Kim Smith is the author of the zany Shannon Wallace Mysteries. The newest book in the series is Buried Angel and is coming soon at Red Rose Publishing.

Book Signings, Sales, & Expectations

© Marta Stephens 2009 all rights reserved

Since my first novel, "Silenced Cry" was published in 2007, I’ve done several book signings at bookstores, libraries, book clubs, writers conferences, and various other local and regional events. Sales at these venues have ranged from zero to several hundred dollars in sales. I never know what to expect and for me, not having high expectations works because I’m rarely disappointed and usually walk away with a few surprise encounters.

The not so big news is that book signings are not all about making a sales. Last weekend, I participated in a local holiday event that included an author showcase. I sold a handful of books, talked with countless number of people, and passed out tons of bookmarks. One of the people I spoke with was a school librarian who is now interested in placing my novels in several school libraries within her system. I also did an on-the-spot interview with a reporter from our university’s newspaper.

I walked away from this event with a few dollars in my pocket and I look forward to hearing from the librarian. And that article? It will be published this week in a newspaper that is available to 3,500 university employees and approximately 20,000 students. Okay, so these two encounters didn’t provide me with immediate sales, but I know they will have an impact in future sales. So my advice is to not stress over book signings or feel defeated if you don’t sell many books. You never know who you’ll meet or where that connection will lead and that's what's important.

About the author:
Marta Stephens writes crime mystery/suspense. Her books are available online at familiar shops such as all the Amazons, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, and Powells. Other locations include, but are not limited to those listed on her website.


THE DEVIL CAN WAIT (2008), Bronze Medal Finalist, 2009 IPPY Awards, Top Ten, 2008 Preditors and Editors Reader Poll (mystery).


SILENCED CRY (2007) Honorable Mention, 2008 New York Book Festival, Top Ten, 2007 Preditors and Editors Reader Poll (mystery),

Personal site: http://www.martastephens-author.com/
Blog: http://novelworks2.blogspot.com/
Character Blog: http://www.samharpercrimescene.blogspot.com/

Now, THIS is a Book Trailer!

Well, actually... it's not. It's more of a reading trailer. Though it does highlight a specific book, this wonderful - dare I say, enchanting - little video is meant to entice you to read, read, read (preferably by getting involved with the New Zealand Book Council, who put the video out).

Enjoy!

Cool Writing Opportunities On the Horizon

Thought writers might be interested in learning about a few opportunities available to them.


Cookbook planned featuring favorite of mystery writers.

Friend and fellow writer, Susan Whitfield is planning to compile a cookbook during 2010 called "Killer Recipes."

She wants the book to feature favorites of mystery writers, hence, the title. Below each recipe, she will feature the author’s name, published titles, and his/her website. If there are duplicate recipes, she’ll publish all contributors with that recipe. For more information, please contact Susan at ssn.whitfield@gmail.com .  She hopes to organize and get Killer Recipes published no later than October 2010.

***

"Once Again With Feeling" e-zine looking to publish previously published short stories.

Susie Hawes would like to reprint your story or a nonfiction article/book review/interview for her new ezine, Once Again With Feeling. She will publish it quarterly with the launch in mid January. It will specialize in reprints. No pay, but the e-zine will publicize your work. The idea is to bring work back that hasn't been seen for a while and is worth a second (third, etc.) viewing.

The ideal story is one you have posted in public, like on your web site, or one you don't intend to send out for a while. Stories intended for a pay publication are not eligible. Please send a bio: 300 to 500 words, and any photos, banners, book cover art or links to sites you want to show off. For more information e-mail Susie at: susie76306@yahoo.com

***

There following are reprinted from an e-zine developed by C. Hope Clark of Funds For Writers http://www.fundsforwriters.com/

GEIST LITERAL LITERARY POSTCARD STORY CONTEST

http://www.geist.com/contest/6th-annual-geist-literal-literary-postcard-story-contest

$20 ENTRY FEE (includes a one-year subscription) Deadline January 15, 2010. First prize $250. Second prize $150. Third prize $100. Honorable mentions. Send a postcard along with a story that relates to the image. The relationship can be as tangential as you like, so long as there is some clear connection to the image or place. Maximum length: 500 words, fiction or non-fiction. Winning entries will be published in Geist and at geist.com.

MICRO AWARD http://www.microaward.com/

NO ENTRY FEE

The Micro Award is presented annually to a work of prose fiction written in English, not above 1,000 words in length. Poetry, performance scripts, non-fiction, translated fiction, excerpts from longer works of fiction, and visual art with literary texts are all ineligible. Deadline January 7, 2010. Winner receives $100.

BACKHOME http://www.backhomemagazine.com/guidlines.htm

BackHome is a down-to-earth, how-to magazine whose primary purpose is to help people gain more control over their own lives by doing more for themselves. We are looking for

interesting, lively, preferably first-person articles based upon actual experience in the fields of gardening, home construction and repair, workshop projects, cooking, crafts, outdoor recreation, family activities and vacations, livestock, home business, home-based and other education,

and community/ neighborhood action. Pays $35 per printed page with a $25 kill fee.

GOOD OLD DAYS http://www.goodolddaysmagazine.com/contributor_guidelines.php

Tells the real stories of the people who lived and grew up in "the good old days" (about 1935-1965). Accept seasonal stories year 'round, from holidays to harvest, shivarees to maple-sugaring. Looks for real stories; happy, sad, the good, the bad. Humor is always a plus. Preferred word length is 500-1,500 words. Payment generally ranges from $20-$100.

Original Ideas: Do they exist?

 copyright 2009 aaron paul lazar


Have you heard the news? Apparently, there are no original ideas left in this great big old world of ours. Some say that no matter how hard you try to create something new, it's been done before.

When you step back and look at major themes, it's probably true. But don't let that deter you - because even if you're writing a Gone-With-The-Wind type saga, the characters, scene painting, and dialog are all yours. And that's something nobody can take away from you.

As a matter of fact, there are many creative minds out there, and I've run into the "hey, that was my idea!" situation several times, especially when it comes to book titles. Sometimes it lets the air out of your tires and can be incredibly frustrating. The only sensible reaction, however, is to realize that "great minds think alike" and be glad you're among them.

I originally entitled the fifth book in the LeGarde Series And Nature Sings, because nature goes crazy in this book with a tornado, forest fire, a flooded underground salt mine. In this series, I try to use a musical or theatrical reference in my titles, and since the book includes a scene where the local minister is trying out the new church organ, playing Christmas carols, I thought And Nature Sings would tie in fairly well. Of course, I went through tons of hymns to find something that referred to nature, etc. before settling on what I thought was the last few words of Joy to the World. 

One of my beta readers reviewed an early version of the book, and mentioned that if I was referring to the lyrics in Joy to the World, the actual quote was And Nature Sing ("...and Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.")

Well, that took the wind out of my sails. And Nature Sing sounded like a pretty dumb title, so I started searching for a replacement.

My usual process when picking a title is to list the themes of the work, then start brainstorming off of the ideas with anything and everything that comes to mind. Single words, phrases, common sayings, lyrics, all are fair game.

After spending many hours listing the major and minor themes in the book, I came up with Firesong. I was pretty pleased with myself after making up this neat compound word. It combined the epic fire that nearly killed off my protagonist, his best friend, and his grandson, and linked to another theme which included an enslaved man singing hymns in the tunnels from the old salt mine. I figured Firesong was unique and completely mine. I added a subtitle, so the new work became, Firesong: an unholy grave, since a most unholy discovery is made beneath Gus's country church.

After I'd finally honed the title to something I felt proud of, I did my usual search on Amazon to make sure no one else had used the title.

That's when my ego took a blow. Firesong was coined long before I "invented" it, and was used in several titles already. Crushed, I finally accepted that maybe there really weren't any original ideas, and that my subtitle would have to make my book stand out from the others. Also, lots of books have the same titles - there are no copyrights on book or movie titles, only on the content.

I spent a long time working on the cover image, too, hopeful that my publisher would like the design. I'm still not sure of the fonts, those will likely change. But I wonder if I did an image search if I'd find something just like this? I sure hope not, since it was made from my original photography and photoshopped by yours truly.

Since I wrote this book, I've had a similar experience with other books and their titles. I've grown to accept that my most original ideas may have been thought of by other creative minds, and that there's nothing I can do about it, but accept it. After all, no matter what the book title, nobody will have recreated the same words that are bound within the covers. Those will be always and uniquely be my own ;o)


(Firesong is scheduled to be released through Twilight Times Books late in 2010.)

WRITE WHAT YOU LOVE

© Joanna Challis 2009 all rights reserved

That is one piece of advice I ignored for far too long.

When writers start becoming focused on the publication dream, we often forget two golden rules: Voice and Write what you love. We study the market, we enter competitions and somewhere along this journey the need to ‘conform’ rears its head and completely transforms us. We read endless articles on how we should write, what we should write about, what to target, and even the more specific – write it this way.

The advice can come from anyone in the industry from agent xyz to writer’s critique group and down to Aunt Jane the reader. We take all this advice on board and try to conform. If the market is publishing this…I’ll need to write like this. If xyz subject is hot, I’ll need to jump on it. Often in our quest to conform, to fit in, to break out of the slush pile, we commit the mortal sin of forgetting about voice.

What’s voice? Voice is our most precious writing weapon. No one else can have your unique voice. It’s what sets your writing apart from everybody else. It’s your version of the Chinese whisper and eventually, it’s your voice is what sells your story.

How do we harness our voice? It comes back to that other golden rule: write what you love. No matter what the market is doing, concentrate on the core essential of why you want to write. You write because you have a burning idea in your head that refuses to go away. You write because you love reading stories in that genre. You write because you have your own story to tell. Never lose that original focus. Doing so jeopardizes your natural voice and don’t be fooled. When we try to ‘conform’ we single-handedly kill our natural voice and that turns off agents and editors.

Maybe we forget agents and editors are ardent book lovers too. They want to find a great story. But more importantly, they want to find a great voice. A new voice on a tried subject. A new voice on a new series. A new voice willing to go beyond the boundaries of the popular and stick with their first love: whatever drives them to write.

So how do we write what we love? After going back to the roots, the answer should be staring at us from our computer screens. Maybe it’s that first attempted novel with all those hand-written notes. Or a character diary we charted and never finished. It could be anything but whatever it is, we feel a passion for it. We feel comfortable with the character, setting, and plot. It’s familiar to us, as familiar as our closest family member. It’s real and it motivates us to keep writing, to finish the story of our heart, that novel we always wanted to write.

Doing so requires courage. It might put us out of our “perceived writing-for-the-market” routine. We might fear writing what we love will push back publication for years. But it won’t if you believe in your work, you love your work, and you are aggressive in marketing it. You’ve honed your unique gift, “your voice,” and now are just waiting for it to find the right home or capture the attention of the right agent/editor.

I learned this lesson the hard way. Writing for the market. Writing in a genre that I liked to read but I didn’t love it. It wasn’t my first love and when I look back over those novels, my natural voice is worse than in a captive’s state. It’s short. It’s doctored. It’s not me. It’s…conformed. Dead. And no doubt that is what agents & editors thought when they pushed it aside and printed out a rejection letter. Sometimes, a glimmer of our precious gift of voice shines through and prompts an editor to give a more in-depth feed-back. Treasure those rejection letters. Study them. Often they all will point to the missing element: voice and maturation of voice.

Then I remember a well-known published author giving the advice: write what you love. Light bulb moment! So simple and so right. I remember drinking in the words, closing the book on projects and starting something new, something I loved. Something which came naturally to me and it did end in publication, my first hardcover, and it also led me to my new agent and a 3-book contract with a print publisher.

So remember to write what you love. And you’ll never lose.

Joanna Challis’ new release MURDER ON THE CLIFFS, St Martin’s Minotaur, out this month, is the result of writing what you love. http://www.joanna-challis.com/

About the author:

Joanna Challis lives and writes in a colonial house with wrap-around verandahs and an English garden in Queensland, Australia, surrounded by family, old paintings, and anything fleur-de-lys. She is the author of several romantic suspense novels; Murder on the Cliffs is her first series mystery.

Kooky Thursday!

You know it is not going to be a good day when your horoscope says :

"You're uncharacteristically scatterbrained at the moment, and you can't seem to remember even the most trivial of things. Stop for a minute and give yourself time to adjust to this new sensation of confusion. You have the feeling you might just lose your head if it weren't attached to you right now. It won't last forever, but it might last long enough to frustrate you thoroughly. You might want to start writing things down so you can at least remember where you put things."

This is not how I want to endure my day! What a kooky day! What does this even mean? Well, for me, let me break it down.

1. You are going to not be able to find clean clothes today.
2. You forgot to buy milk for cereal.
3. You have to scrape your car today (GOOD LORD! THERE'S ICE ON MY CAR!)
4. You may discover that your job would be much easier if you remembered to run the edit for the invoices BEFORE you tried to post.
5. You MEANT to go another way home, but your car is fixated on your usual route.

Maybe by the time I finally get home, get my laptop turned on, get my tired weary feet under a blanket and nice and toasty warm, the gods will bless me with alertness enough to write a few lines. That would make it all worthwhile!

What do you do when the muse is asleep, and your brain is overtaxed? Do you struggle to write something, anything? Or do you turn it all off and try again tomorrow?

Some authors believe that in order to keep going, you should try to write every day regardless of the situation. I find that hard to do. In my case, writing is a luxurious activity and I enjoy it. If my mindset is not in the right place, it's hard to do.

What about you?

Do you set deadlines for your writing? Sometimes when you are under contract you have deadlines to meet per your publisher. Sometimes you do it just to yourself. It is my honest belief that if you do not begin setting deadlines for yourself early in your writing life, you will have issues when they are imposed by someone else later down the road.

Right now I don't have a deadline, other than self-imposed, and I am curious to know how others are managing this.

Happy Kooky Thursday!
----------------------------
Kim Smith is the author of the zany fun mystery series starring Shannon Wallace and her kooky sidekick, Dwayne Brown. The next installment in their series will be available at Red Rose Publishing on January 14, 2010.

Listen To Your Words

© Marta Stephens 2009 all rights reserved

Have you ever gotten to a point in your writing when the words blur together? They're coming out onto the page, but without direction?

Me too.

I’m working on the final edits of a novel I’ve titled SHROUD OF LIES. The edits were going well until I reached a scene that involves my PI, Rhonie Lude, questioning the woman she’s been paid to investigate.

The chapter started off fine, but quickly got bogged down with lengthy descriptions and long stretches of dialogue that had gotten lost on their way to making a point. The worst part was that I knew there was a problem with the scene, but no matter how many times I read it, I still couldn’t "see" it.

When this happens, I find that reading the text out loud often helps. For some reason, this time it didn't. I decided to take it a step further and recorded myself reading the chapter. I wasn’t concerned about the tone of my voice or how many times I tripped over words. All I was listening for was the flow—did the set of questions and answers I’d given the characters make sense? Was the interaction between the characters tense enough to make the reader turn the page? The minute I played it back I knew what worked, what needed to be moved, and what had to be cut. This is were the real test of your nerve will come into play. Ruthless edits and cuts are often the sure cure for a chapter section that drags.

Next time you can’t pinpoint the problem in a chapter, record yourself reading it. You’ll be amazed at how quickly problems like repeated words, awkward phrases, excessive use of pronouns and inappropriate punctuation will jump out and beg to be fixed.

To listen to this video tip go to Novel Works and scroll down to the bottom of the page!

About the author:

Marta Stephens writes crime mystery/suspense. Her books are available online at familiar shops such as all the Amazons, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, and Powells. Other locations include, but are not limited to those listed on her website.

THE DEVIL CAN WAIT (2008), Bronze Medal Finalist, 2009 IPPY Awards, Top Ten, 2008 Preditors and Editors Reader Poll (mystery).

SILENCED CRY (2007) Honorable Mention, 2008 New York Book Festival, Top Ten, 2007 Preditors and Editors Reader Poll (mystery),

Personal site: www.martastephens-author.com

Blog: http://novelworks2.blogspot.com

Character Blog: http://www.samharpercrimescene.blogspot.com  

Using Stuff that Really Happened in Your Writing

They say truth is stranger than fiction - and in a lot of cases, they're right. Real life is full of coincidences and bizarre events that, if written into a story, would cause the reader to sit up and say, 'No way! I'm not buying that would ever happen.'

But, says the writer of such strange things, it did happen! It happened to me!

Well, not every weird real-life event you experience (or read about in the paper) is suitable to include in fiction. Here's an example of a real event, and its fictionalized version, to illustrate my point.

Once upon a time, when my son was just a baby, I had dropped my husband off for a late shift at work and was driving home at around two in the morning. For some reason, even though it was illegal, I decided I was going to buckle the baby and his carseat into the front seat next to me, instead of the back. On the highway, the car started smoking. I'm no stranger to engine trouble or breakdowns, so I pulled over, thinking the radiator was overheating and I might have to putter home at 15 mph with the flashers on and the heat up to full blast to keep the car from seizing.

When I shut the engine off to let it cool down, I noticed black smoke coming from the space between the hood and the windshield. Usually, an overheating car will release white smoke from the far end of the hood, by the front bumper. This worried me, because it meant a possible new problem that I hadn't dealt with before.

And then I saw the flames licking at the windshield.

Somebody was watching out for us that night. I grabbed my son - didn't bother taking the seat, just the baby - opened the door, and ran like hell down the shoulder of the highway. I'd gotten maybe a few hundred feet away when the ground shook beneath me, and when I looked back, there was a ball of fire engulfing my car. If I'd put my son in the back seat like I was supposed to, we never would have gotten far enough away before the explosion.

Years later, I wrote part of the experience into one of my novels. I had written a high-speed car chase, and since I'm the kind of person who likes to make things as hard as possible for my characters, I let them escape - and then I had the car break down and explode. It was enough to leave them without transportation... because who would believe that they'd have just enough time to run before they got crispy-fried, just from a mechanical failure? If it was a bomb, the savvy reader would think, sure they'd have to run. But a simple breakdown? Plenty of time.

Here's another part of my personal experience that won't ever make it into my fiction because it's just too crazy to be true. After the blur of finding help, calling the police, watching the fire department hose down my car, and crying with relief and panic (it was, of course, our only car, and at that point we were screwed) -- a kindly firefighter returned my purse to me, soaking wet and reeking of smoke.

And it turned out that I needed it to show the cops my license, so they could write me a ticket for the expired inspection sticker on the smoldering hunk of metal and glass that used to be my car.

That's the kind of cruelty I wouldn't even subject my characters to.

The Power of No

© Dana Stabenow 2009 all rights reserved


The first Kate Shugak novel, A COLD DAY FOR MURDER, was published in 1992, and there was immediate interest in Hollywood for the screenrights. Demi Moore and Kate Jackson among other actresses were said to be interested in playing Kate, and one producer offered me $60,000 to make an HBO film.


I was and am your typical self-employed writer, I live paycheck to paycheck and back then even more so, when I was making barely four figures a book with a 4 percent royalty rate (don’t ask). I like to eat, so it was a grave temptation to sell. The problem was it would also have meant selling out, because no one would even consider shooting the film in Alaska.

Here’s the thing. Every movie and television series you thought was shot in Alaska? Wasn’t. The Proposal? Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with like one exterior shot in Sitka. Northern Exposure? Central Washington State. The Edge? Alberta and British Columbia. Insomnia? You might have seen Hyder or Valdez, if you didn’t blink, but mostly you saw British Columbia. And so on.

I could go on, if it weren't so depressing. Alaska is notably lacking in films about Alaska. The reasons are as much economic (at that time no state film incentives) as weenie and ignorant (It’s too far! It’s too dark! It’s too cold! You can’t use American money there! You need a visa to travel there!). I understood this, but Alaska is as much a character in the Kate Shugak series as are Kate and Mutt, and I was determined that all three would have equal screen time in any film adaptation.

I’ve read the books about business in Hollywood, FINAL CUT, ADVENTURES IN THE SCREEN TRADE, INDECENT EXPOSURE. I know the story about how furious Joseph Wambaugh was over the first films made from his books and how he held on to the rights to THE ONION FIELD until he had enough power and money to get it made his way. I read how pissed off Tom Clancy was when Hollywood killed off Admiral Greer. I’ve heard Sue Grafton say that she has enjoined all her heirs and assigns from ever selling the screen rights to the Kinsey Millhone series because Sue started in screenwriting and she knows exactly what the business is like.

So I know that no writer can ever expect script approval or cast approval or location approval, or for the producer really even to pay any attention to them whatever after the producer has wooed and won the contract.

I did have one power, though. It was the power of No.

So I said “No,” repeatedly. I said “No” for years. I said “No” for nearly two decades. Once I said “Yes” to an Alaskan producer and actress, who couldn’t pull it off before the option lapsed because, again, they couldn’t find anyone with money who would back them to film in Alaska. So it was back to “No” again.

My agent wasn’t real happy with me.

Until a guy named Mike Devlin, an ex-software mogul who wants to make movies came to Alaska and fell in love with it. He wanted to put Alaska up on the screen, too. To do so, he needed a local film industry, which he is going to have to build from the ground up, because we don’t have one. Fortuitously, at very nearly the same moment, the state of Alaska finally got it’s celluloid shit together and passed a film incentive law.

A film industry requires sound stages for interior shoots. Interested investors want to be assured that the sound stages will be in continuous use, i.e., productive of income in rent, before the investors write checks to finance them. Continuous use of sound stages requires a long term film project, ideally a drama series made for television. Mutual friends recommended the Kate Shugak series, and Mike started reading the books.

We met for the first time in May 2009. I’d never heard of him beyond a story written in the local newspaper, and my expectations were not high. I didn’t even think to bring a copy of the latest book with me so I could give it to him.

I walked into a post-production studio on a mountain in Anchorage equipped with technology so state of the art it reduces geeks to salt tears. Mike showed me footage of a boat with a high-def camera on an articulated arm capable of filming above and below the water. He had already premiered one film from Alaska, a documentary on salmon sharks called “Icy Killers,” for the National Geographic Channel. You have to really work at it to take a bad picture of Alaska, but he showed me a trailer of footage he’d shot over the past two years, and I’m here to tell you, he has raised Alaskan photography to an art form.

Mike had nothing left to prove to me, and it’s not every day a girl gets asked to help kickstart a new industry in her home state. So, this time, I said “Yes!” and we signed the contract the week before the press conference announcing the deal.

Since this is a blog primarily for writers, I’ll tell you straight out that the option payment is very small. The pickup payment isn’t half of what I get for a single novel, and I won’t get that unless and until the Kate Shugak series moves from development into production. If by some miracle the series is picked up by a network, and if by another miracle it runs for more than two years, best case scenario is I earn enough to pay off my mortgage.

This is a pretty standard screenrights contract, one that might even be considered generous, because by now my power of “No!” was pretty well known and there weren’t people exactly lining up to option the series. Okay by me, I got what I wanted.

And, at Mike’s suggestion, I’ve just ordered a copy of J. Michael Straczynski’s THE COMPLETE BOOK OF SCRIPTWRITING.

About the author:

Dana Stabenow is a native of Anchorage and raised on a 75-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska. She received a B.A. in journalism from the University of Alaska in 1973 and later enrolled in UAA’s MFA program and graduated in 1985 with a goal to sell a book before she went broke. According to Stabenow, she barely made it. “Second Star was bought by Ace Science Fiction in 1990. It fell with an almighty thud on the marketplace and was never heard from again. Oh dear.”

In 1991 Stabenow was offered a three-book contract for her Kate Shugak mystery series. A Cold Day for Murder had been nominated for an Edgar award and won in 1993.

For an extended bio, please visit: http://www.stabenow.com/about-dana

Response to "It's Over"

Response to “It’s Over.” (this piece was published a few weeks ago - read it first if you have't yet.)

Copyright 2009, aaron paul lazar

When I found you that morning in the barn – your neck encircled in that rope, all purple and swollen – you were barely breathing. If it hadn’t been for that rotten beam, you would have died, my friend. It makes me shudder just to think of the horrible possibility.

If you had been successful… I hate to think of it. Never again would we sit in your glider, admiring your beautiful flower gardens, and exploring deep thoughts that pass the time so pleasantly. My heart breaks to think of that ending.

Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me you were sad? And why didn’t I notice when we sat and talked in front of your woodstove drinking your superb Riesling and chatting about art? I hadn’t the slightest hint of your inner demons, and you know I pride myself on being observant of human nature.

You have so much to offer the world. Your kinds eyes and gentle manner have soothed many a child. I brag about your sumptuous gardens to all my friends. You have a superb eye for photography and I know someday you’ll be world-renowned, with a coffee table book filled with amazing photographs of the wild.

But most of all, you are a writer who enthralls, thrills, comforts, and teaches. I fell in love with your characters in your first book, and it’s still my favorite. I know some day your books will line the shelves of bookstores world wide, and that they’ll fill people’s homes and hearts. That’s why I keep your books locked in ziplock bags and put them away for safety. I know they’ll be treasures in the future. It frustrates me to no end that you haven’t been “discovered” yet, at least in the best-seller realm.

I know you’ve been worried about the job hunt. I’ve been so worried that you’ll jump in a new direction that won’t support your primary role as an author. That would not be good for you, or the world. It would be a disaster! Sure, you’d be good at all those things you keep thinking up, but what you are is a writer! Now’s the time to prove that to the agents, to push like hell and get them to recognize your value! Please don’t let the job hunt interfere with your true calling.

As I sit here by your hospital bed and watch you struggle to breathe, I feel like the world’s worst failure. What could I have done to have prevented this?

Carl

PS Did I ever tell you that you're my best friend in the world?

***

Note: This is the response to the piece I posted a few weeks ago from the man who was literally at his rope's end. I wrote it to illustrate how communication is so often lost between two people, and how misinterpretations can lead to horrific endings. Let me know you think, below.

                                                                                                                         - Aaron

****

Join me on Barry Eva's "Book and a Chat" today at 11:00 EST

Hi, Folks!

Here's hoping those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving has a wonderful holiday. We sure did - I cooked for the whole family and it was a fantastic day with my wife, mother-in-law, three daughters, the grandkids, Balto, and Toby. And yes, the food I made was exactly the same as Gus prepares in Upstaged, the second LeGarde mystery!

If you're not off shopping at the malls (LOL), please join me today (Saturday, 11-28-09) on Barry Eva's radio show "A Book and a Chat" from 11:00-11:30 EST. We'll have a lovely talk about my latest books, writing, and whatever else comes up in this friendly half hour. We'd love to have you in the audience! Just click on the link from your computer, and turn up the sound. Hope to see you there. ;o)

Aaron

***

Sunday, Nov. 29th: 

Barry and I had a ball on his show. He's a great host. Here's the link to the podcast, if you'd like to listen at your leisure. ;o)

Listen to the Podcast


(http://www.blogtalkradio.com/across-the-pond/2009/11/28/a-book-and-a-chat-aaron-paul-lazar)



Aaron

Interview with author, Pamela Samuels Young

Murder By 4 is pleased to introduce Los Angeles attorney Pamela Samuels Young, author of BUYING TIME and three other legal thrillers.

1. Please tell us a little about yourself and your writing journey.

I’m a wife, step-mother and practicing employment attorney in the Los Angeles area. When I finished law school many years ago, I developed a passion for reading legal thrillers. But I never saw women or people of color depicted as attorneys in any of the books I read. I would close the novels feeling satisfied with the story, but disappointed about the lack of diversity of the characters. One day, I decided that I would write the kind of characters that I wanted to see. In the process, I discovered my passion.

At the time, I was an associate at a large corporate law firm in downtown Los Angeles. Despite the demands of my law practice, I somehow managed to get up at four in the morning to squeeze in a couple of hours of writing before work. I wrote all weekend, in hotels, in airports, whenever and wherever I could find the time. I never really had a true passion in my life until I discovered mystery writing. I’m currently practicing law as an in-house employment attorney for a major corporation, yet I’ve still managed to publish a book a year for the last four years. Nothing short of passion made that possible.

2. Why BUYING TIME? Why this book? What prompted you to write it and what do you hope your readers will get out of it?

I was at a party chatting with a guy who mentioned that he was a viatical broker. I had never heard of the viatical industry before, and once he explained what it was, I knew immediately that it would make an excellent setting for a legal thriller. The fact that it’s actually legal to advance money to a terminally ill patient in exchange for full beneficiary right to their insurance policy once they die was amazing to me.

The viatical industry is something most people know very little about and it’s rife with opportunities for fraud and abuse. When I began scouring the internet for more information, I learned that both investors and terminally ill patients are frequent targets of viatical scams. In a matter of days, I had developed the central plot for BUYING TIME.

In addition to introducing readers to the viatical industry, BUYING TIME deals with the issue of domestic violence. I think there’s a perception that professional women are immune to it. That’s simply not the case.

3. Please share with our readers a little about the plot, the characters, the setting, of your novel.

In BUYING TIME, Waverly Sloan is a down-on-his-luck lawyer who lends a helping hand to terminally ill patients by helping them sell their insurance policies. Waverly gets a commission on every sale and the money is pouring in. But when Waverly’s clients start dying sooner than they should, he is unwittingly drawn into a murder scheme with ties to Washington.

Angela Evans is an assistant U.S. Attorney who is hoping to nail Waverly for defrauding the terminally ill. She’s unable to completely focus on the case, however, because of the drama in her own personal life. She’s weeks away from marrying a prominent judge, but soon finds herself the victim of domestic violence. She turns to her friend Dre, unaware of his dangerous sideline.

As Angela’s life continues to unravel, so does Waverly’s, and the two lawyers are soon on the run with Dre calling the shots.

4. Tell us a bit about how your protagonist, Waverly Sloan, came about.

The Waverly character came to me one day while I was driving home, which is how most of my characters originate. I swear there’s something magical about L.A. traffic, at least for me. Waverly is an average lawyer who means well, but somehow seems to repeatedly end up in trouble. I wanted the reader to root for him despite all his missteps. So I had to make sure he was a sympathetic character. His biggest problem is his desire to please his money-grubbing wife. Being married to such a diva is just one reason to feel sorry for him.

5. Please describe the greatest challenge you faced in writing BUYING TIME, why it was difficult, and how you resolved it.

The only real difficulty I faced in writing BUYING TIME was finding the time to write. I resolved the problem by using what little time I had efficiently. If I had thirty minutes while waiting in the doctor’s office, I used it. Instead of socializing on Friday and Saturday nights, I wrote. I even dictated a few chapters during my evening compute using a voice recognition software. I didn’t make excuses about not having sufficient time to write. If I had a free hour, I used it.

6. How much and/or what kind of research went into writing this book?

I read loads of books and articles on the viatical industry and also studied legal cases dealing with viatical fraud. I was completely fascinated with this industry, which is really premised upon profiting from death. I discovered many, many lawsuits involving both terminally ill people and investors who were defrauded.

The most interesting research involved my work in developing the character Dre, who is a successful drug dealer. I actually interviewed a drug dealer about his upbringing and the journey that led him into his profession. He had a really compelling personal story, which I adapted for Dre’s character. He openly shared what led him into the business, discussed the economics, the distribution channels, and even explained how crack cocaine is made.

7. What do you find the most difficult part of writing in general and what do you do to overcome it?

I love writing dialogue and it’s rather easy for me. Describing my characters, on the other hand, is almost like pulling teeth. I see them in my head, but I can’t always translate that for the reader. Personally, I prefer not to provide too many physical characteristics. I like the idea of readers using their own imagination as I do when I’m reading. But you have to work a balance. When I get stuck on what a character looks like, I will browse through magazines for interesting people or check people out in the grocery store.

8. How do you balance your time to make time for writing?

With the demands of practicing law, writing my next book and promoting my current ones, my life is extremely hectic. While it can be overwhelming at times, I love every single minute of it. I typically schedule my writing time whenever I can squeeze it in. If you look at my date book right now, you will see “writing time” written into my schedule along with my work appointments and book signing events. I have a three-day writing trip coming up that I’m really psyched about. I’m going to Palm Springs for three days of all-day writing. I write from an outline, so I know exactly where my story is going. I can probably complete 50 “first-draft” pages during a weekend trip. I write my first draft from beginning to end without doing any real editing. Once I have a solid first draft, I spend as much time as necessary revising the draft until I’m happy with the final product. That typically takes about six months.

9. What impact would you say completing BUYING TIME has had on you personally and on your writing?

Writing BUYING TIME was really a confidence builder for me. It’s my fourth legal thriller, but my first stand-alone book. My first three books, EVERY  REASONABLE DOUBT (2006), IN FIRM PURSUIT (2007)and MURDER ON THE DOWN LOW (2008) are part of my Vernetta Henderson mystery series. So when I started writing BUYING TIME, I really missed the characters from my first three novels. I knew them extremely well and they were very easy to write. Fortunately, I soon forgot about them as the BUYING TIME story line progressed. I also wrote Buying Time under very challenging circumstances. I had expected to be practicing law on a part-time basis, but that arrangement fell through. As my deadline approached for finishing the book, I really had to hunker down and get it done. I managed to do so and I’m really proud of the final product.

10. Who has been the greatest influence on you with respect to encouraging you to write and become a published author?

My husband has been extremely encouraging. He understands that writing is my passion. On the days when I’m physically exhausted, he’s the one who encourages me to just stick with it.

11. With respect to your writing, please give us some insight into your writing process. In other words, did you outline the chapters? Did you think about the plot for a while before writing it? What steps did you take before you wrote the first sentence?

I will spend anywhere from a few weeks to as long as three months outlining a book before I sit down to write. I also mull over my story quite a bit. I'm thinking about it in the shower, while I'm standing in line at the grocery store, and during my 45-minute commute to work. Even during the outlining stage, I can almost see each chapter as if it were a scene in a movie. Only after I have a completed outline do I start writing. And when I write, I go from page one to the last page without doing much editing along the way. For me, it's psychologically motivating to complete that first draft, even if it's so bad I'd never dare show it to anyone. Once I have a first draft, then the real writing starts. I revise, and revise and revise some more. That process generally takes about six months.

12. What are you working on now? What's next?

The legal thriller I’m currently working on is another Vernetta Henderson mystery and will be the fourth book in the series. It’s called ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE. Vernetta squares off against an unscrupulous female attorney in an explosive gender discrimination case that could bring down a corporation. Just when you think Vernetta is about to prevail, her opponent Riko Yamada pulls a fast one. Vernetta is now out for blood, but before she can strike back, Riko becomes a prime suspect for murder. Assuming I can continue to keep all my balls in the air, ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE will be released in November 2010.

13. Any words of wisdom and advice to aspiring writers?

First and foremost, Master your craft. Take the time to study writing the same way you would study any other profession. Also, read like a writer. When you read a book you enjoy, study the author’s writing style and the book’s story structure. Ask yourself why the book was a great read. One of the most helpful things I did as a new writer was outline John Grisham’s The Firm and examine the story structure. It helped me tremendously in learning how to build suspense.

Second, don’t let anyone deter you from pursuing your dream. Rejection is simply part of the publishing business. Most successful authors experienced years of rejection. So if you think you have a marketable book, don’t give up on your dream. My goal is to become a New York Times bestselling author and to eventually write full time. I recognize that few authors ever achieve that level of success. That fact doesn’t stop me from dreaming big. I feel very strongly that there’s a significant market for my legal thrillers and I’m confident that I’ll eventually break out of the pack. Until that happens, I plan to continue publishing a book a year and watching my fan base grow. My best quality is my ability to get back up after a fall. The publishing industry may knock me down, but I’ll continue to get back up again and again and again.

About the author:

Los Angeles attorney Pamela Samuels Young is the author of four legal thrillers, Murder on the Down Low, In Firm Pursuit, Every Reasonable Doubt and the just-released Buying Time. Fed up with legal thrillers which never depicted women or people of color as savvy, hotshot attorneys, Pamela decided to create her own characters. She is Managing Counsel for Labor and Employment Law for Toyota. A former journalist, Pamela serves on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and writes a column on fiction writing for BizyMoms.com.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November is the month where we all count our blessings. According to Wikipedia, :
“Thanksgiving Day is a harvest festival. Traditionally, it is a time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude in general. It is a holiday celebrated primarily in Canada and the United States. While perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday.
The date and location of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topic of modest contention. Though the earliest attested Thanksgiving celebration was on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida[1][2], the traditional "first Thanksgiving" is venerated as having occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621. The Plymouth celebration occurred early in the history in one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States, and this celebration became an important part of the American myth by the 1800s.
Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Thanksgiving dinner is held on this day, usually as a gathering of family members and friends.
Well, I don’t know about all that, but I know it’s my favorite holiday, and I am always thankful to be in America, in the South, and in my family on that most honored day.

I love my country, and I really love my region (especially the food at Thanksgiving!) but being in my family is the best of it all. My kids are pretty well grown now with the youngest about to depart college with an undergrad degree, the eldest about to deliver a new baby, and the two in-betweens surprising us with their very-grown-up lives.

I also thank the Pilgrims. If it weren’t for them, I would never have taken up writing. Yes, it is true, my first story was about the Pilgrims in Plymouth and how they celebrated Thanksgiving. My mother, God rest her soul, saved the whole thing and gave it to me years later when I was an adult expressing the desire to write, with the advice to remember my humble beginnings.

Boy, do I remember them! And I am very thankful as well, that my humble beginnings were about something like Thanksgiving.

I hope everyone has a great holiday!

Kim Smith is the author of the zany mystery series featuring Shannon Wallace. She has penned several contemporary romances including the recent release Love Waltzes In. You can download her work at http:///www.redrosepublishing.com

The Nose Knows

© Marta Stephens 2009 all rights reserved

What better thing to write about today than how easily our memories can trigger our senses? Think about a wonderful holiday at home and all of a sudden, you’re there, hearing the joyous laughter filling the house and smelling whatever is cooking on the stove.

When I sat down to write chapter 18 of my second novel in the Sam Harper series, it was months away from my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, but I wanted the reader to get that “going home” feeling. I wanted them to smell the turkey roasting in the oven and the scent of nutmeg and cinnamon rising from the baked goods on the sideboard. Cooking and family get together is one thing I know—after thirty years of it, I should.

I thought about that chapter for a while and then immediately drew from my experiences--the excitement in knowing that the family is coming home and wanting everything from the food to the table decoration to be … perfect.

Okay, so back to my book …

For those who haven’t read THE DEVIL CAN WAIT, Walt Harper is Detective Sam Harper’s widowed father. Walt is also a retired homicide cop who not only likes to poke around into Sam’s cases, but is also handy in the kitchen. Readers will see much more of Sam’s relationship with his father in the first book, SILENCED CRY than in the second book, but for some reason, this scene struck a chord with many.

The scene begins early on Thanksgiving morning. Harper has four victims in the city morgue and his first stop is the lab where he reviews the forensic evidence that Carter Graves has uncovered in the case before going home.

***

THE DEVIL CAN WAIT
Excerpt from Chapter 18
© Marta Stephens 2008 all rights reserved

… Harper headed north toward his father’s farmhouse, located in the small community of Litchfield thirty miles from Chandler. Only a few weeks ago, the foliage along this road had been a vibrant display of color. Now it was reduced to browns, grays and barren tree barks. An amber tint filtered through the overcast sky; a color he recognized as a sign of more snow. It was two in the afternoon and his only thought was to have no thoughts in the few hours left of this Thanksgiving Day. He was going to kick back, eat too much, have a few beers, and watch too many football games before he returned to work in the morning. His father’s two-story home was visible from between the pine trees that lined the narrow road leading to the driveway. As he nosed his black Jeep Commander into park, a familiar figure stepped out onto the porch to greet him.

“Hey Dad. Were you waiting behind the door?”

“Heard you pull up.” Walt waited for his son to walk up the front steps before giving him his usual pat on the back. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Right. You look like crap and you’ve lost more weight.”

“I’m all right.”

“Come on, I left something simmering on the stove.”

Harper placed his duffle bag on one of the living room chairs and followed Walt into the kitchen. Since his mother’s death a few years before, Harper’s father insisted on maintaining the Thanksgiving tradition.

The aroma filling the kitchen assured Harper that he was home. Cinnamon and nutmeg lingered in the air as steam rolled off the freshly baked pumpkin pies on the counter. Next to the pies sat a container filled with Snicker Doodles, his favorite kind of sugar cookies. As far back as he could remember it had been his job to scoop the dough into inch-size balls and roll them in a mixture of sugar and powdered cinnamon. Sometimes he’d placed them too close together on the cookie sheet and they’d baked into one. Whether a solid mass or perfectly formed three-inch circles of sweetened dough, they always baked into a flat chewy cinnamon encrusted cookie he couldn’t resist.

Walt’s fifteen-pound turkey had a couple more hours of roasting to go. Harper glanced at the finely chopped celery and onions on the cutting board; the key ingredients that would go into his favorite oyster dressing. Harper’s father always complained that he couldn’t figure out his late wife’s secret ingredient for her sweet potato pie. Harper suspected it was his father’s way to finagle a compliment which Harper was glad to give. Creamed spinach, on the other hand, would need a lot of doctoring before he would try it. Still, it was a Thanksgiving staple. Everything was out on the counter, including the cranberry sauce, waiting their turn in the process of Walt Harper’s well-timed annual ritual.

“How many are you planning to feed?”

“Elaine and Bernie.”

Aunt Elaine, his father’s older sister, was a retired phone operator who had settled nicely into the official post of family meddler. Every year, she asked Harper the same question: “When are you going to find a nice girl and settle down?” Every year his reply was the same: “When I find her, you’ll be the first to know.” That seemed to satisfy her for a few weeks until her next visit. She and his Uncle Bernie were as different as any two people could be, yet they were forty years into what seemed to be a happy marriage. One of these days, he’d ask for their secret.

The chapter goes on for several more pages and ends the following morning like this:

Dawn had barely gleamed above the horizon. The smell of fresh coffee and his dad’s tinkering around in the kitchen lured Harper downstairs.

“Morning,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

“Morning – you’re up early. Sleep okay?”

“Yeah.” Harper brushed one of the kitchen curtains aside and glanced across the side yard then up at the clouds. “Temperature is supposed to drop again today.” The sight of the blue-purple hues painted over the snow-covered ground gave him a shiver. He poured himself a cup of coffee and pulled out a kitchen chair across from his father. He was seconds away from taking his first sip of the day when his cell phone rang.

“Forensics,” he told his dad when he saw the number flash across the screen. He listened, drew in a breath, and assured the technician he appreciated the call.

“Trouble?”

“Just more of the same.” He took that first drink of coffee while the words formed in his thoughts. “That fine thread holding my case together just snapped.

***

For me, writing what I know involves all my collective experiences, but more important is showing the things that I see, feel, smell, taste, and hear that will place the reader there in the kitchen with Walt Haprer, drinking his coffee and eating one of Sam’s (and mine) favorite Snicker Doodle cookies.

Great food and good times are the magic ingredient that go into making great family memories. Best wishes to all for a wonderful Thanksgiving!

About the author:
Marta Stephens writes crime mystery/suspense. Her books are available online at familiar shops such as all the Amazons, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million, and Powells. Other locations include, but are not limited to those listed on her website.


THE DEVIL CAN WAIT (2008), Bronze Medal Finalist, 2009 IPPY Awards, Top Ten, 2008 Preditors and Editors Reader Poll (mystery).
SILENCED CRY (2007) Honorable Mention, 2008 New York Book Festival, Top Ten, 2007 Preditors and Editors Reader Poll (mystery),
Personal site: www.martastephens-author.com
Blog: http://novelworks2.blogspot.com
Character Blog: http://www.samharpercrimescene.blogspot.com

Your First Line: The “Hook” That Gets Your Novel Off the Bookshelves and Onto the Check-out Counter

© JP O’Donnell 2009 all rights reserved

JP O'Donnell

Author of FATAL GAMBLE and DEADLY CODES: A GALLAGHER NOVEL

Charles Dickens could never have imagined that his first line in A TALE OF TWO CITIES would become a benchmark in the lexicon of literary fiction. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …” It was also the perfect choice of words to make us want to read more. Authors, particularly those in the genre of mystery fiction, have long since recognized the critical importance of the first line. Without an attention-grabbing, knock ‘em dead first line, your novel is destined to gather dust on the shelves of the local bookshop, if it ever gets that far.

If you want to test this theory, simply observe the behavior of browsers at a bookstore. Unless they are looking for the latest effort by James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark or any of the other prominent best-selling mystery writers, they walk down the aisles slowly until a title or a book cover attracts their attention. Then they open the book and read the first line. If it grabs their interest, they read on; if not, the book is placed back on the shelf in a heartbeat.

Your first line—you have less than ten seconds to sink your hook or else the reader will move on to another option.

What is the essence of a great first line? First of all, it can’t be bland or trite. Avoid overused references to the elements or time of the year. If you choose to write about the weather, be careful. You run the risk of inviting comparisons to “It was a dark and stormy night,” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s classic first line from his 1830 novel, PAUL CLIFFORD) and your book won’t stand a chance. Instead, try to incorporate the mood or theme of your story. Begin to establish the background of the mystery that will unfold in the coming pages. If the weather is important to your opening scene, you’ll have plenty of time to write about it in the ensuing lines of the first chapter.

Some of the most successful mystery authors of our time are masters at writing a great first line. Consider Harlan Coben in GONE FOR GOOD: “Three days before her death, my mother told me—they weren’t her last words but they were pretty close—that my brother was still alive.” Did the narrator think that his brother was dead? The reader has to wonder why the narrator’s mother kept this secret and never told him about his brother. Certainly, more pages have to be read. A chilling first line is also found in another Harlan Coben thriller, THE WOODS: “I see my father with that shovel.” One has to keep reading to find out the significance of the shovel in his father’s hands. Is he burying something? Has he used it as a weapon? Our interest is piqued; we read on.

Or this from Jesse Kellerman in TROUBLE: “Jonah Stern heard a scream. He was walking to Times Square at two-forty five in the morning to buy new shoes.” Again, the reader asks why this person would be buying shoes at that hour of the morning. And what caused someone to scream? A brutal assault or a frightening discovery? The hook has been sunk; more pages will be turned. Notice how a brief first line can be immediately tied to a second line to create a continuous compelling thought. Be creative; let your imagination explore all of the possibilities in garnering the reader’s interest. But keep in mind that word efficiency is critical in writing a first line. Don’t be overly descriptive or your line will lose its punch. In THE MEPHISTO CLUB, Tess Gerritsen begins with, “They looked like the perfect family.” Short, but to the point. However, shades of doubt creep into our minds. We wonder what’s wrong with this family; we want to read more about them.

Agatha Christie, the most popular mystery writer of all time, considered THE MOVING FINGER as one of her best novels. She masterfully draws us into the story with a brilliant opening line: “I have often recalled the morning when the first of the anonymous letters came.” The mystery is immediately established! We ask: More than one anonymous letter? What did the letters say? Who wrote them? We can’t resist the temptation to keep reading and discover the answers.

Plato said, “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” A mystery writer, therefore, can’t spend too much time working on a first line. Don’t be surprised if you have to finish the initial draft of your manuscript before the right first line crystallizes in your mind. Sometimes it takes knowing where your story begins and how it ends in order to come up with the “hook” you need.

If you have a friend or a fellow writer who can be brutally honest about your writing, ask them to review samples of your first line. They can tell you if it delivers an impact and stimulates interest. What you’re looking for is someone to say, “That’s it! Now I want to read more.”

About the author:
JP O'Donnell is a board-certified pediatric dentist who holds graduate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and Tufts University. He has been involved in clinical practice and dental education for more than thirty-five years. Dr. O’Donnell is an Associate Clinical Professor at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine and has lectured extensively on pediatric restorative dentistry, the management of pediatric dental trauma and dentistry for special needs individuals. "Fatal Gamble" and "Deadly Codes: A Gallagher Novel" are his first efforts in the genre of mystery fiction. He resides in the Boston area with his wife, Ronney. They have two grown children: Jonathan, an electrician in Nevada and Randi, a law student in New York. Visit http://www.jpodonnell.com/ .

How to Commit a Good Murder and Keep It a Mystery

© Gale Laure 2009 all rights reserved

As a murder and mystery author, I always start with a villain--a . I like mine to be a mysterious person. He or she should be realistic, and maybe even a wee bit likable. In my current murder, mystery and romance novel, I start with the murder in the first chapter. I want my readers to wonder why she is murdered. The killer enters through a locked door. Thus, I add the mystery of how the killer entered.

I add a victim who is usually a pretty nice person. Strength is something I like to see in my victims – sometimes physical and sometimes mental. I like the angle that even a tough broad or a macho man could be victimized. This adds a tiny degree of suspense for my reader. Kizzy, the main character in my murder mystery book, is a unique character. She is invulnerable at times as the reader discovers throughout the story.

I put my characters in a good location. I like to use a location that is usually a safe place or a fun place - a place you would not expect murder to happen. Kizzy was in her own home. People usually feel safe in their own homes. In my next novel, due out in 2010, the victim is in a fun place, a golf course.

To get inside the heads of my killer and my victim, I start with each one separately. I try to see, feel, think and respond just like each of them. I concentrate on the anger or the planning of the killer. Does my killer touch the doorknob? What does my killer hear, see or smell? Is my killer thrilled with this kill? This is important.

Subsequently, I go inside my victim. Does the victim feel fear, curiosity or anger? Do they feel trapped? Do they try to defend themselves? What do they see, smell or hear? All this is vital to a good story.

Next, I put my killer and victim together. How do they interact? What happens between them?

Violence is the next ingredient to stir into my murder and mystery story. I attempt to make the reader ask why this violence is occurring. I want them to question the reason for the killer’s actions. This brings in a psychological element from the reader. In my current novel, the reader understands why the murder has happened before the end of the book.

Blood is the source of life. I always add blood in my books. Blood, so rich and dark red actually stirs a passion in us. The smell of it repulses us. Whatever blood does, it causes a reaction within the human. I want my readers to react. I want them to imagine the sight, smell and even touch of the blood. There is plenty of blood in my current book.

Emotion must be blended within the pages of your murder mystery. The reader must care about the victim, the other characters and maybe even the killer. I use love, frustration, and self-doubt in my novel. My characters have a human factor that makes them doubt their actions. When a person is under a lot of stress I believe they do doubt themselves. We question ourselves. Do we find the answers?

I enjoy a little crime detective in my books. Woven within the pages of my novel are the investigators. Sometimes they are police detectives. In current novel I used two police detectives and four novices. My novices were average men. I want my readers to experience the professional knowledge of the detectives and the amateur clues of the novices.

Betwixt and between the pages of my murder mystery books, I always sprinkle a small amount of romance. Romance is the biggest mystery of all. No one ever has all the answers to love. We search for them our entire lives. I like to tug at my reader’s hearts a little with love. My current novel has five men who love the same beautiful woman, Kizzy. These men are strangers. Imagine the meeting of these five men. Would they compare love notes? Did their love for her lead to her murder? Romance and love are powerful implements for murder.

As I write my novels, I commit murder everyday. It is my life! What a wonderful thing it is to commit murder and keep it a great mystery!

About the Author:

Gale Laure is the International selling author of EVOLUTION OF A SAD WOMAN. A native Texan, she was born along the coast of Texas in an area called the Golden Triangle. Laure has resided in a small suburban town in the Houston  rea for more than twenty years with her husband and family.

As mysterious as her mystery, suspense, thriller book, Laure writes under a pseudonym. Adamant about maintaining her privacy and the privacy of her family, she keeps her identity a mystery!


With an attitude that you can do anything you set your mind to, Laure travels forward in life fulfilling all of her dreams. She credits her huge imagination and true love for research for taking her to this career decision to be an author. She also credits some special people in her life that offered her the encouragement to become a writer of mystery, romance and suspense.

Laure gained her experience for writing from her careers including owner of a business service, marketing and consulting company, owner of her own travel agency, employment in the medical field including office manager, a short time as a legal assistant, a paralegal, and employment in an insurance office and CPA's office.

Gale Laure enjoys her career and life as an author. She finds inspiration from her readers, friends and family. Laure’s hobbies include genealogical research, movies, creating stories for the children around her, involvement in her church and people watching. By watching people she obtains ideas for the characters in her books. So watch out! You may see some of your own traits in a character in her mystery, romance, and suspense thriller books. She loves the human being and everything about them, both good and bad.

Gale Laure is known for her informal Southern style of writing. Books written by Gale Laure include her current debut, mystery,suspense, thriller romance, EVOLUTION OF A SAD WOMAN. It is selling as an ebook, Kindle and as a trade softcover paperback internationally.

For more information about Gale Laure visit www.galelaure.com  (website), www.evolutionofasadwoman.com  (blog) or the following:
www.twitter.com/wwwgalelaurecom 
www.facebook.com/Author.GaleLaure 
www.authorsden.com/galelaure
www.goodreads.com/galelaureauthor 
www.myspace.com/galelaure-author