Disappointment

 Have you ever tried an author your friends have told you about for too long and really liked what you read? Sure you have. Then you go back a while later, read something else by the same author, maybe in a genre he’s better known for?

 

And were bitterly disappointed?

 

I have. I’ve been on a roll the past few years. Finally got around to writers like Joe Lansdale, Lawrence Block, and Don Winslow. Loved them all so much I immediately bumped them to my “Be sure to read at least once a year” list.

 

I had every reason to believe this year’s personal breakout author would be __________. Last month I read the first book in the series for which he is best known and cannot remember being more disappointed. Frankly, the only benefit I saw was to be reminded how much we can learn from such books about what not to do.

 

(I’m not going to identify the author. He is far more accomplished than I, and I do not wish this post to sound like sour grapes. This is just, like, my opinion, man; maybe I just don’t get his writing. That doesn’t make me wrong, either. We all like what we like.)

 

What didn’t I like?

 

·       Too much description. The similes are good and elegant, but we don’t need multiples of them and at least a page to describe a character or location we’re never going to see again. I get that this is a PI novel and we’re being told what the first-person narrator notices, but by the time he finished describing a character the guy could have left the building.

·       While the dialog in general is good, sometimes excellent, characters are prone to giving speeches, sometimes at length.

·       No research is wasted. I do not mean that as a compliment. Obscure facts that don’t convey anything useful to readers are recited in detail. Example: A series of streets are named for key figures in the city’s history, alphabetically. It would be one thing to tell us about the figure the street the hero is looking for is named after. Maybe one more. What we get goes on for a couple of pages, noting not only names of streets we don’t care about, but the narrator’s opinion as to whether that person was more deserving of the honor than someone else whose name started with the same letter. I know the rap on Don Winslow is that he goes on for pages giving the readers background in books such as The Dawn Patrol and California Fire and Life, but Winslow makes those entertaining, even engrossing. In this example they’re tedious.

·       Talking about how things don’t work a certain way in real life, then doing them. Example: the hero takes a serious ass kicking that results in multiple injuries. The author notes this isn’t like a TV show, where a full recovery can occur during a commercial break. In this case, the hero gets laid less than an hour after he regains consciousness; the next day he’s kicking ass himself.

·       Way too many coincidences. The girl he’s looking for just happens to be involved with an unsolved murder from months ago; meanwhile, the detective, working an unrelated insurance fraud case, sees someone he recognizes being kidnapped off the street by people who are behind the unsolved murder.

It occurs to me now that maybe the book was written as a satire and I just didn’t get it; it wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe the humor was too subtle for me. I’ll give the author another chance, but not right away. If I don’t like the next book a lot better, I’ll check out his other genre from time to time, as his work there was exceptional. Until then, I appreciate the reminder of why I don’t do some of the things I don’t do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rewrite!

 I began the second draft of the new Nick Forte novel last week after taking time off to let things ferment. As expected, the first day was a bit of a haul, what with getting back into the rhythm of writing and refreshing my memory. I still got 1,000 words in, and they seem like pretty good words. At least they’re all in the dictionary.

 

My “second drafts” are no longer edits; they’re re-writes. I split the screen, place the first draft on top and retype everything into a window at the bottom. Some passages transfer verbatim. Some change dramatically. Some get left out altogether, while entire new passages are added. This is the third book I’ve done this way and I like how it’s working out.

 

A few things jumped out at me in the early stages:

 

·       Forte’s world has changed dramatically since Bad Samaritan. I needed to get this information out right away, so I used a story originally written for another character to show how things were with Nick. I was happy with it – even read an abridged version for Noir at the Voir in July – but realized as I finished the expanded rewrite that it's not right for this book, as its open-ended conclusion leads into a story other than the one I’m working on now. The good news is

o   I caught it early.

o   I now have the foundation of another good story in mind.

·       I’m doing much better with the PI voice than I did the first time. The rough draft wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t as rich as I like Forte’s voice. My edits typically cut words to make the book tighter. In a rewrite I’m more willing to add bits here and there to make Forte’s voice distinct from what I established for Penns River.

·       Rewriting instead of editing also frees me to add small bits that better set up what’s coming. I work from an outline and while I know what’s going to happen later, I don’t know how it’s going to happen. For the rewrite I do.

 

Rewrites are the most relaxing part of my writing process. First drafts are heavy lifting. Editing and polishing are not as tough, but there’s pressure to get as much right as possible so the process doesn’t drag on. Beginning the rewrite, I have the whole story and I know a good solid edit is on the way, so I can indulge myself. The plan is for there to be one edit after the rewrite, then let the book sit for several weeks before launching into my polishing process, after which I’ll get to type “THE END” at the bottom and move onto the next project.

Breaking News (1 April 2022)

I don’t vaguebook. Avoid it like The Plague. (Camus’s book is too long and depressing.) Still, today is perfect to release information I can’t go into much detail about but is too exciting to keep to myself.

 

I have an offer to write the memoir of a leading political figure. While this person and I differ in our philosophies, we both understand that whoring oneself out for suitable sums of money is as American as racial prejudice. (Which is among the things we disagree about.)

 

There are still a few details we need to work out that stem from the previously mentioned political differences, but these are all on the margins and include

·       Climate change

·       COVID prevention

·       Economic policy

·       Energy policy

·       Foreign relations

·       Hair care

·       Immigration

·       Inequality of wealth

·       Marital fidelity

·       Race relations

·       Responsibilities of a role model

·       Taxation

·       Voting

I’d love to say more, but the non-disclosure agreement I have to sign is as thick as a typical Bible, but on legal-size paper. It’s so complete it may preclude release of the completed book.

 

Such is life. I’m just trying to do my small part in making America great again.

The Process Evolves

 

I have long considered first drafts to be the heavy lifting of writing. I enjoy playing with ideas as I put together the outline, and there’s great satisfaction in editing and rewriting, as I can see the raw material of the first draft evolve into what I’d consider an acceptable book.

 

I’m trying something new with the first draft of the next Penns River book (working title The Spread). It’s early on – only a handful of chapters in – but the idea shows great promise, and it’s making the first draft a lot more fun to write.

 

A little background: I used Scrivener for the first drafts of the last couple of books, mainly so I can re-arrange the outline as needed, and to keep notes on the same screen as the chapter I’m working on. For the second draft, I split my screen, with Scrivener on top and Word below, then retype everything. To me, that’s better than trying to edit what I’ve already written, as once it’s on the screen, there’s a certain permanence implied. I talked about this before when discussing how it’s easier to leave one’s darlings along the side of the road than it is to kill them.

 

For The Spread I decided to leverage the idea that I was re-writing the first draft no matter how it went. This first draft is much sketchier. What I know goes in, which is mostly dialog, I write up. Everything else – attributions, narrative, descriptions, action – is condensed into a more or less comprehensive set of notes that I can flesh out when I do the rewrite. The end result is somewhat similar to a screenplay, at least visually:

 

[THEY ROLL UP ON THE HOUSE. MCGINNISS COVERs THE BACK. SISLER AND BOSTON GO TO THE DOOR. AS DOC DOESN’T HAVE HIS VEST ON, SISLER KNOCKS.]

S. Jamal Whitlock!

[WHITLOCK STEPS ONTO STOOP BETWEEN COPS.]

JW. Took ya’ll motherfuckers long enough to get here.

S. Stop right there.

JW. I’m give myself up. [DOC DRAWS HIS WEAPON.] Whoa. Ain’t no need for gun play. I told you I’ze giving up.

[CONFUSION. THE COPS DON’T WANT HIM THAT CLOSE, HANDS OPEN OR NOT. THERE’S SOME TUSSLING WHILE THEY GET THE SITUATION HOW THEY WANT IT. PART OF IT CONSISTS OF THEM TRYING TO GET WHITLOCK INTO THE HOUSE AND HIM TRYING TO STAY ON THE PORCH.]

JW. Motherfuckers! I told you I’m coming out, let me get out and you can cuff me up right here on the stoop.

[DOC HAS HIS GUN DRAWN AND AIMED]

D. put your hands out to the sides with your palms facing me.

 

The idea is not to get bogged down in describing things that are peripheral to the main point of the scene. I’ll make those decisions in the second draft

 

What I don’t know yet, and won’t for a couple or three months, is if this makes the second draft as burdensome as the first draft used to be. I’m betting that it doesn’t. First, much of what I’ll have to describe will have had time to ripen in the back of my mind. I’ll also have the context of what else is to come, so if I want to drop in a telling detail, I’ll already know it’s telling.

 

It may also give me an opportunity to decide something doesn’t need to be said. I’ve noticed George V. Higgins having more of an influence on my writing of late, without me consciously making an effort to allow him to do so. (Unlike how I deliberately added some Joe Wambaugh-esque elements in recent books.) I’m not trying to be Higgins – no one can do that – but if that’s where my voice seems to want to go, I know better than to tell it not to.

 

Like I said, it’s an experiment, and it’s early days. Check back here when I’m halfway through the second draft and see how pissy I am. Or, hopefully, not.

Staying Fresh

 

Last week I wrote about the convergence of my writing process with Joe Lansdale’s description of his before I even knew what his was. This week I’ll conclude those thoughts; great rejoicing may ensue.

 

We left off with how much more free time retirement provides, which doesn’t mean I spend all that time with fingers on keyboard. I try to write at least three times a day, in bursts of 45 minutes to an hour. Longer than that and my ego starts to intrude, and, as Milch says, the ego is the enemy of creativity. Set it aside, do anything else for a while, come back. Worries about this process being more indicative of sloth than art were put to rest in Joe’s post: “I try to write only about three hours a day. I stay fresh that way, and don't get so tuckered out that next day I do nothing.” Staying fresh is a big deal. I now look forward to the next session, rather than feeling as though I have to get it in out of a sense of duty.

 

Staying fresh is also forestalls burnout, as taking too many “maintenance” days can make it too easy to postpone writing altogether. Joe again: “I try to work five to seven days a week, and it takes something special to throw off that approach.” That’s exactly what I do. Paraphrasing Stephen King, “It’s true you do your best work when the Muse strikes. It’s helpful if the Muse knows when and where to look for you.”

 

All this cultivation of the subconscious is necessary and fruitful, but the subconscious is not the best arbiter of what’s good or we’d all get rich by transcribing dreams. Per Joe: “There's a lot of stuff there in the subconscious, and the disorganized materials have to be trained to line up, and this is a primary duty of the conscious mind, which for me works best after the subconscious has sorted things, and has in fact done a lot of secret plotting. The conscious mind scrapes off the edges, jettisons the useless, the materials that will not work in your story.” In other, less entertaining words, editing.

 

Two other great writers’ ideas come to mind:

Hemingway: Write drunk. Edit sober.

Milch: There are no mistakes, only things that need to be better.

How I think of it: The subconscious can create a baby but only the conscious can properly prepare the little bastard to go out into the world.

 

I could go on, but I won’t. As the philosopher Harry Callahan said, “A man has got to know his limitations.” Writing is not hard; it’s difficult. It’s not ditch digging, but it’s also not for the faint of heart. Understanding what we’re doing won’t necessarily make us better, but it will prevent us spending our free time learning to tie nooses and looking for open beams. If you have to take your medicine, it might as well come from someone like Joe Lansdale, who can make it go down so much easier.

 

(Thanks to Joe for allowing me to quote him in these posts.)

De- and Re-fining Process

 Last week I wrote about Joe Lansdale’s thoughts on first readers and got tangential a few times. This week I have more from Joe’s Facebook posts on writing, dealing with the process itself.

 

Again, it’s gratifying and validating for someone with my level of accomplishment to see my method has evolved along the lines of one of the greats. I am comfortable with not having the same level of talent or success. What matters is, however good my writing may or may not be, it’s not because of things that are under my control. I’ve done my due diligence.

 

The topic of Joe’s post was, “How Many Drafts Should You Write?” Joe’s answer fits in with what my practice and research have shown me: there is no right answer. Joe writes: “Each writer finds their path. I do one, and then a polish. Now and again I end up doing more polish than expected, and each day I revise as I go, so how many drafts do I do daily? No idea.”

 

I’m a bit more OCD, so I have a pretty good idea, but the number of drafts has changed dramatically over the years. I used to keep hacking until I couldn’t bear to look at the manuscript anymore and was spending most of my time adding and removing the same commas. Then I started using each draft for specific things: one for descriptions, one for each character to get their voices right and unique, one for action and narrative, then the overall polishing. That took forever and require too much polishing, as the multiple drafts left me with a story that didn’t seem organic.

 

I winnowed that down by beginning each day by looking over and tidying up yesterday’s work. This probably saved a draft and had the added benefit of reminding me exactly where I was the day before.

 

Then I came across David Milch’s concept of “resting transparently.” (It’s actually Kierkegaard’s concept, but since Milch distilled it into something I can understand, I give him the credit.) My version is to think as little as possible about what needs to be written today because that’s the conscious mind looking for a logical continuation of what I wrote yesterday, which is not always where the story needs to go. Now I sit quietly, letting my mind wander until I know what I want to do. At first I’d often as not fall asleep. Now there are days where I sit for as little as thirty seconds before I’m virtually propelled out of the chair and off to the keyboard.

 

This isn’t much different from Joe’s advice, though arrived at from a different direction: “The most important thing I learned as a writer was to work from the subconscious. This sounds easy, and pretty much is once you are able to tap into it, but it takes practice.” Resting transparently is my way of releasing my subconscious. With practice I find I barely need the actual process. My subconscious now knows when to feed me what it’s been working right when I need it.

 

What stimulates my subconscious? Many of the same things Joe describes. “Reading novels, stories, comics, non-fiction and viewing films, TV shows, are fuel for the subconscious…” I used to feel like I was stealing when I took an idea from a previous work and adapted to my needs until I saw a d read enough to realize how many stories are adaptations of things that came before. Just because I first saw a scene by Author A doesn’t mean he hadn’t seen a variant of it elsewhere. I used to feel bashful about changing the ending of my first Nick Forte book to use a concept I saw in the movie Three Days of the Condor, especially after it received a Shamus nomination. Now I’m looking forward to thanking James Grady the next time I see him, less for “giving” me the idea, than for putting something out there I was able to adapt to my own purposes.

 

The subconscious is not as low maintenance as one might suppose, especially when you hope to get some benefit from it. Milch tries never to think about writing except when he’s doing it. Unsaid is that his subconscious, left to its own devices, is always churning away, whether he’s aware of it or not. He likes to operate on faith and I believe a lot of that faith is that his subconscious will not abandon him.

 

Lansdale has a similar attitude: “But, during the day, if I could learn to relax and think about anything but story, ideas would develop, and certainly at night a seed would be found.” I retired at the end of last year and now, a month or so down the road, I find I’m much more creative. More story ideas, more ideas on how to improve what’s in progress, more ideas about what I might want to revisit. I believe that’s because I’m no longer tied to thinking about workaday things half my waking hours, five days a week, with those concerns also intruding on my “free” time. Now I spend an hour or three most days taking care of household business, then my day is free.

 

(Next week I’ll conclude this series with a post on pacing yourself to stay fresh. Thank to Joe Lansdale for allowing me to quote from his posts.

 

 

 

 

 

Avoiding the Perils of Mission Creep

 

The inciting incident of the work-in-progress (working title: Officer Involved) is the shooting of a white man by a black officer. Within 24 hours we learn this wasn’t just any white guy; Richie Johnson was a white supremacist. The book spends most of its time dealing with the tightie whites, neo-Nazis, and fellow travelers who come to town to protest this latest example of “white genocide.”

 

The first draft is done. Right now I’m going through each chapter in Scrivener to make sure it all makes sense before retyping everything in Word. I had more to correct than usual due to a large number of moving parts and simultaneous actions. Nothing that couldn’t be surmounted.

 

Then Trump Nation stormed the Capitol.

 

Don’t worry. This post will not turn political. Those who took over the Capitol for a few hours last week are seditious traitors no matter why they did it. I’ll say no more about them. What rattled me as an author were parallels between what I saw and heard and things I already had in my story. Then I started thinking about the things that weren’t in the story but would fit quite well.

 

I kept plugging along, fixing what I had already decided needed it, letting the new ideas percolate in my subconscious. Over the weekend bits of writing advice I stole from Edith Wharton came to mind, several of which apply here.

 

·       Do less, better. I had this book refined pretty well. Mission creep could be a problem. This led directly to

·       Know you scope. I’ve read too many books and worked on too many projects (remember when I had a job?) that started out tight and right and concluded as bloated messes. John McNally taught me to beware of putting too much into the container. If I still feel a need to cover these other ideas, I can write another book.

·       Lead with your characters. Making the story too broad inevitably leads to either an unrealistic time frame or a population explosion. Adding more characters would dilute the impact of the those more principal to the story.

·       Dialog is where you learn most about characters. Dialog is what I do best, but if there are too many characters (see above) the book requires either more narrative or door-stop length.

·       Create peaks and valleys. Throwing too much into the stew could make the story run too hot for too long. There’s a reason I rarely watch superhero movies.

·       Have a point. The book has a point now; no book needs a point and a half. The next Penns River novel, taking shape as we speak, can accommodate the new ideas.

I need an outline to write a novel. Without one I tend to get off-track and risk throwing away large chunks of writing that don’t go anywhere. The outline is flexible, but I can more reliably take detours if I have the map handy. This has been a good object lesson, on two levels. The one I’ve been discussing here, and that no matter how long one has been doing something, occasional reminders of basic lessons are never bad thing.

From the Vault: Are You Going to Believe Me, or Your Private Eyes?

 As with many, the election and post-election trauma has taken much of my attention of late, so I haven’t spent as much time thinking of a blog post as I like to. That’s okay, because I spent a lot of that time re-acquainting myself with PI fiction through several outstanding books (Behind the Wall of Sleep, Red Harvest, Jackrabbit Smile) and preparing to dip my toe back into Nick Forte country when I get a little time.

 

With that in mind, I’m going to open the vault for a post I wrote back in 2009 about how I feel about the PI genre when properly done. While dated (there are others that have earned mention should I ever update the post, and no one thinks of Reed Farrel Coleman as even a "relative" newcomer anymore), this still sums up my philosophy about PI stories and why, when well done, they are the highest form of crime fiction.

 

Are You Going to Believe Me, or Your Private Eyes?

 

I’ve been lucky over the past few weeks to have read three books that reminded me why I got interested in crime fiction and writing in the first place: first person private investigator stories.

Libby Fischer Hellmann’s Easy Innocence takes the attitudes of an affluent suburb and shows consequences not often considered. Her detective, Georgia Davis, avoids the pitfalls of many female protagonists. She is not a man in a skirt, ready and willing to kick ass as necessary; neither is she dependent on either a big, strong man or divine intervention to get her out of tough spots. Best of all, she’s smart enough to know the difference and act accordingly.

The Silent Hour, by Michael Koryta, is a cold-case story. Lincoln Perry has many of the characteristics of a stereotypical PI—former cop who left under a cloud, bends and breaks his own rules, trouble maintaining relationships—though Koryta never lets him fall off that edge. His problems are the problems anyone in his situation could have, and he’s anything but omnipotent. Perry takes a beating and keeps on ticking, learning about himself as the books progress.

Declan Hughes’s detective, Ed Loy, takes beatings that make what Perry endures seem like air kisses from a friendly but distant aunt. In All the Dead Voices, Ed inadvertently finds himself cleaning up leftovers from the Irish Troubles, caught between republican terror groups, drug gangs, and government agencies whose interests do not include what most would call a classic sense of justice.

What all three have in common—aside from tight plots and uniformly exceptional writing—is what makes the PI series the highest form of crime fiction; they’re primarily character studies of the hero. (Or heroine, in Georgia’s case.) A good series—as all of these are—works even better, allowing the character to evolve. Attitudes change, as do relationships. Physical and emotional trauma accumulates. The character may grow emotionally, or become embittered. What he deems worthy of description, and how it is described, matures.

For all the talk of the decline of PI fiction, the quantity of expert practitioners isn’t hurting. James Lee Burke and Robert Crais still have hop on their fastballs after twenty years. (Burke’s Dave Robicheaux is actually a cop, but the length of leash he is provided in New Iberia and his personal journey through the series make his stories read more like PI fiction than police procedurals.) Relative newcomers like Sean Chercover and Reed Farrell Coleman prove the talent pool is deep as ever. Dennis Lehane’s upcoming Kenzie-Gennaro novel is much anticipated.

The fictional PI can look into things the average cop never touches. Could Ross Macdonald have explored the rotting foundations of crumbling families with a cop, or did Lew Archer have to be a PI? A cop concerns himself with who and what; why is nice, but is primarily important as a way to get to what, or to help to convince a jury as to who. His caseload is too great to do otherwise. Private eyes are paid to find out why, which often compels some worthy introspection. Cops are about closing cases; PIs are about closure.

PI stories are also better suited for ambivalent endings. A cop’s job is to catch the bad guy. The PI can appreciate the bittersweet nature of all cases, balancing the satisfaction of solving the mystery with the knowledge of his pre-ordained failure: no matter what he discovers, things can never be put right. The dead are still gone. The cop can catch the killer and exact a measure of justice; the PI may be brought in to clean up the mess that doesn’t quite meet the necessary standard of illegality.

It’s no surprise so many of the “genre” writers who receive acclaim from the “literary” community come from detective fiction. Chandler, Hammett, Macdonald, and Burke are all accepted as great writers, not subject to the backhanded acclaim of “great genre writer.” No one thought Lehane presumptuous when The Given Day looked into issues well beyond crime; he’d been doing it for years. Gone, Baby, Gone is as thought-provoking a book as one is likely to read.

Declan Hughes may be the foremost advocate of the virtues of detective fiction, not just in his novels, but in his public statements. If I had a transcript of his comments from Bouchercon 2008, I would have printed them here and saved you the trouble of reading my interpretation; his is clearer and more impassioned. Few books—of any genre, or of no genre—are more likely to make you wonder, “What would I do here?” or, more hauntingly, “What would I have done differently?” When done well, what more can anyone ask from a book?

 

Backstory

 

Last week I read a book by a favorite author that was, frankly, disappointing. I identified the problem about halfway through: too much time spent on backstory. I don’t remember this being an issue with this author in the past, but I imagined an editor saying, “People like characters with personal struggles that have nothing to do with the story. They eat that shit up.”

 

Not all people.

 

Backstory is like research: don’t use any more than is necessary. The author should at least have an idea, but the reader doesn’t have to know everything. The way to develop characters is in the context of what’s happening now. The backstory and research should seem to live between the lines as much as possible.

 

Several years ago a good friend or mind (yes, I have them), a sorely underrated author, was taken to task by the critic for a major newspaper because the critic wanted to know why the drug dealer had become a drug dealer. I read the book. It didn’t matter. The man was a drug dealer when the book started. Unless his background was unique and important to the story—which it was not—it’s not germane.  The book wasn’t about that. It was about what’s happening now.

        

This is among the reasons I detest serial killer stories. (The book in question has a serial killer, but that’s not what the book is really about.) I do not care about the psychological underpinnings of this asshole’s need to seduce, rape, mutilate, and kill women. It may be important to the cops, but even they don’t need to know everything. Just tell us what we need to make sense of things. You know, leave out the parts we’d tend to skip, like I did the parts of the book under discussion where the killer describes his crimes in a journal. The author had already presented him as a sick fuck. Everything else was piling on.

 

Hint at backstory. Tease the reader with it. Here are two outstanding example, both from moves, but movies where the writing was paramount.

 

In Spike Lee’s Inside Man, screenwriter Russell Gewirtz tells us nothing of Dalton Russell’s (Clive Owen) background, except that he knows things about Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer) no one else knows. How does he know these things? Doesn’t matter. He knows them and the whole story revolves around what Russell is willing, and not willing, to do about it.

 

We do get insights into Detective Keith Frazier’s (Denzel Washington) background. He’s pondering marriage but has financial concerns. He’s also under a cloud due to a large sums of money that went missing from a previous case. Both matter to the story, as the suspicion makes his assignment to thie case tenuous, and his marital dilemma provides opportunity for a peek inside Russell’s character. (If you haven’t seen Inside Man, by all means do so. It’s wonderful, start to finish.)

 

Another, micro, example is from Deadwood: The Movie, written by David Milch. In a crowd scene near the end where the townspeople pelt series villain George Hearst (Gerald McRaney) with all manner of projectiles and invective, a man in the crowd hollers out, “I hope you die in the street like my father.” There’s an epithet, and a hint at why the man said it, all in ten words. Let your mind explore the possibilities. All Milch had to do was open the door. (As Timothy Olyphant said in the interview that drew my attention to this, “Wow. Backstory.”.)

 

Backstory, research, and description all exist to support the story, not crush it. Engage the reader’s mind. We all caution to “show, don’t tell” but what is it but telling to say the character was “Six-feet-one-inch tall, with blue eyes and brown hair that grazed his ears and collar. He had a well-defined nose with bumps that hinted at multiple breaks and fingers disproportionately thick for his hands.” How much of that do we need to know? He’s tall, but not exceptionally so. Unless his eyes and hair come into play later, why not leave them to the reader’s imagination?

 

 

First Cousins

“Write what you know” is the hoariest piece of writing advice. Also the worst, when taken too seriously. Used responsibly and wisely it can add depth and nuance to any project.

 I got comfortable writing what I knew when I began the Penns River books. Previous efforts involved things I’d learned or come to know. Penns River I knew. I never had to learn it. I grew up there. Many of its qualities, better and worse, are as ingrained in me as my hair color.

 Like hair color, what you “know” changes over time. Perspectives that made perfect sense in your twenties now seem silly or even embarrassing. That doesn’t mean you deny their existence. Keep them in your toolbox. A character come along sooner or later who suits your discredited ideas. Not only can you use them, you get to look at them from the outside. There’s potential gold there.

 I wrote a few weeks ago about David Milch’s talks on “The Idea of the Writer.” In one he discusses the concept of looking for the first cousins of ideas. I’m still finding my way around this at the story level, but it’s already paying dividends on the character level as a great way to keep from being too “on the nose.” It’s particularly useful when dealing with a personal experience too painful or too close to write as well as you’d like. Often those situations become either preachy or heavy-handed, or the characters start to wallow in the writer’s self-pity.

I moved back into my parents’ house a few years ago when my mother couldn’t handle the day-to-day needs of Dad’s home hospice care. I wouldn’t trade most of that month for the world, as it was an opportunity for a son who’d moved away to show he cared about, and for, his parents. That said, I wouldn’t wish Dad’s last few days on anyone. Nor would I wish it on anyone’s family. (Home hospice care is a wonderful thing. The doctors, nurses, and clergy truly are angels on earth. There also comes a time when the professionals need to take over, both for the comfort of the patient and the sanity of the family.)

 I can’t write that story, nor work it into a larger piece. I can find its first cousin. I know what it feels like to watch someone you love become les vital until what’s left is hard to remember as anything except what he’s become. I know the odd mixture of relief and guilt that comes when he finally dies. That’s the “what I know” to write about.

 A friend of mine wrote a first-rate story for our writers’ group years ago about a homeless man. The story gripped everyone from the start until the ending, which fell flat. The consensus was to leave everything else alone and fix the ending. Suggestions flowed like a spring, as so often happens when critiquing something that’s thisclose.

Within minutes, our friend was almost in tears. It was a true story. The homeless man was her brother. She was way too close to make any changes without feeling like she was betraying him.

 The ending was weak because it was too on the nose, which made it land heavy. What she needed was the first cousin for it to kick ass. I wish I’d known about it then. Everyone could’ve left happy that night. 

I Did That on Purpose

Ed McBain used to tell of readers who’d point out inconsistencies in Isola geography between books written years apart. One even sent McBain what amounted to an atlas of every location he’d ever mentioned in all the 87^th Precinct novels. (If memory serves, this included hand-drawn maps.) McBain couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or concerned. I mean, the guy clearly loved the books and bought them as soon as they were available. On the other hand, what kind of holes was he filing in his life that he took that kind of time living in Isola’s alternate universe?

All writers are subject to this, though not to the same extent. Readers love to point out errors. Sometimes it’s out of affection and a desire to see a favorite author get something right. Sometimes it’s a way to show their knowledge of a certain field is superior to the author’s. (Or at least that they think it is. Readers who point out perceived errors are not always correct themselves.) And some are just pricks playing “Gotcha” in the hope of proving (to themselves, likely) that while this big shot author may be making money off his writing, he’s no smarter than I am.

Authors respond in different ways. Some ignore any such comments. Some engage, either to agree with the reader and apologize for the error, or to point out the reader’s error. The latter can be fraught with peril. Among my favorite panels at Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conferences is when the guests of honor get together to talk about their mail and detail some of the exchanges they’ve had over accuracy, or, more precisely, the lack thereof. The stories range from hilarious to chilling.

Some authors argue, which even I, argumentative as anyone, see no profit in. Even worse are those who argue publicly when a reviewer points out an error in a forum such as Amazon or Goodreads. There’s no upside to that. It deteriorates into a pissing contest no one can win and the author can’t help but come off as the bad guy, punching down in weight class.

The best response to readers who point out errors, the one I’m adopting right now and from this point forward, the one I’m pissed I hadn’t thought of, and the one I consider PFG (Pure Fucking Genius), comes courtesy of Adrian McKinty, author of the Sean Duffy series. (Which I cannot recommend highly enough.) It’s from an old blog post I stumbled onto while reading a recent entry.

In short, when a reader points out an inconsistency with fact in one of the Duffy books—say, a road not yet built when the story takes place—Adrian explains that Duffy’s fictional world exists in an alternate universe where the road had been built. He freely cops to inconsistencies such as a character’s eyes changing color during the book: Sorry, mate, you caught me out there. I’ll see can it be changed for the paperback. Facts are more fluid and may need adjustment to get to the greater truth. (To a point. The Duffy books take place in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. I believe the chances that Queen Elizabeth will come to an untimely demise are roughly equivalent to Lord Mountbatten surviving his attack.)

The Duffy books are historical, but the principle applies to non-period works. I actually made a conscious decision to do exactly this in Penns River without realizing it. Penns River stands in for three small, adjacent cities in Western Pennsylvania. I’ve even gone so far as to make a Google map of “Penns River” that encompasses the three cities (and one township) that make up Neshannock County. I use actual street names and locations so I never have to worry about McBain’s conundrum of forgetting where I put things.

This also allows me to create places as needed. Just because I used Leechburg Road and Drey Street and the coffee shop on Tarentum Bridge Road doesn’t mean any of this is real; there is no such place as Penns River or Neshannock County in Pennsylvania. This frees me up to create whatever else I want, such as a casino in an abandoned shopping mall, or to decide Ben Dougherty lives in the last townhouse in the row near the top of Garver’s Ferry Hill. They exist in that fictional version of the Tri-Cities. Reader response to Worst Enemies and Grind Joint implies the technique is effective.

Let’s hope that remains true in Resurrection Mall.

The Writer's Guide to Weapons

It’s safe to assume most, if not all, of this blog’s readers have an interest in crime fiction. (Since I don’t really talk about anything else, one-trick pony that I am. At least I’m not a Tijuana one-trick pony.) That said, let’s hope none of you have any delusions that weapons—notably guns and knives—work at all the way they do on television or in the movies. For readers, such blissful ignorance may allow them to suspend disbelief enough to keep the firearms errors from ruining the story. Writers don’t have that escape hatch: we’re supposed to do it right. (At least we say we are. How many writers do you know openly admit they don’t care how their weapons work, or the violence they describe? All claim to take pains to “get it right.”) Now there’s no excuse. Ben Sobieck’s The Writer’s Guide to Weapons is finally available, and it was worth waiting for. (And, boy howdy did we have to wait for it. Writer’s Digest delayed publication so long I worried they’d have to add a chapter on ray guns and antimatter bullets to keep things current.)

This is a true guide: more than a primer, not a textbook. Sobieck breaks things into useful sections, including the Ten Golden Tips For Writing About Weapons. (Number 3: YouTube is your friend.) Even more fun are the 25 Top Weapons Myths (Number 22: “Being shot with a gun is like getting hit by a train loaded with concrete and circus animals;” Number 24: “Handguns go click-click-click when they’re empty.”) There’s also a brief section on half-myths, and a run-down of which weapons may be mots practical for a specific character, taking into consideration, gender, size, age, physical condition, and bad-assedness.

Those are great for learning what not to do, and how to handle certain thigs, but the meat of this book lies in the two core sections. Part One (Firearms) has sections titled, Firearm Safety; entry-level courses on shotguns, handguns, and rifles (including advantages and disadvantages of each); ammunition; suppressors and silencers; ballistics; and how to kill a character with a firearm, among others. The Knives section covers all the similar, applicable general topics, as well as worthwhile information on sharpening and sheaths. (I had no idea why knives are stropped to keen the edge, and I’m not going to tell you here. Buy the book, cheapskate.) There is also contans an excellent list of references and external resources, as well as a comprehensive glossary.

This material could be dry as a desert road in a sand storm in less skilled—and compassionate—hands, but Sobieck keeps things moving, with some help from his ongoing series character, “gal-damned” detective Maynard Soloman. Maynard and a couple of assistants provide examples of what not to do, then show how to do it better; Sobieck describes what was wrong. His tongue remains firmly in cheek during these anecdotes, but the points are valid, and well made. (Maynard does take a beating, though. So it goes. Spoiler alert: he lives.)

It’s not like Sobieck has to depend too much on Maynard to keep things moving. His writing style naturally lends itself to page turning. (He’s a fiction author, as well. His first book, Cleansing Eden, might be my favorite take on serial killers; his newest is Glass Eye, which currently holds a high position on my To-Be Read List.) His descriptions and warnings are entertaining without losing all gravitas. (These are items of death we’re talking about here.) It’s fun to read, not at all like a chore. I found myself pausing often to read aloud a passage to The Beloved Spouse, who carse not nearly as much about accurate firearm descriptions as I do, but does love her some good writing.

No writer without a solid weapons background should write weapons without having this book handy. I have a decent layman’s knowledge, and have an honest-to-God firearms expert on call for any questions, and I ate this book up, learning things I would never have thought to ask. (It also saved me from an embarrassing oversight in the work-in-progress.) Studiously researched, engagingly delivered, The Writer’s Guide to Weapons should be on the short list of most valuable writer’s aids for the crime fiction community.