by Lynne | Mar 28, 2016 | Reading
Have you had trouble finding a good read lately? I know, I know, most folks say they have so many books waiting to be read that it’s no problem. But, it seems that every sample I pick up these days just hasn’t made it. Jeez, what did we do before we could download samples? We’d stand around in B&N and read the first chapter, I guess.
What makes you put the book down? And how long do you give it? I still have friends that feel obligated to finish a book once they’ve started. Not me. Life’s too short. So I thought I’d try to figure out what makes me give up on a book. This is a very helpful exercise for writers – if you can figure out what you don’t like to read and why, maybe you can avoid writing the same. Let’s see.
The usual writers’ mistakes come to mind. Too many clichés, too many adjectives and adverbs, passive verbs, poor grammar, spelling or punctuation, run on sentences, which gets you all flummoxed. These are a given for dropping a book quickly.
How about tension? If the characters are just moseying along, going shopping, dying their hair, cleaning their kitchen – I’m bored to tears. If they’re walking through a dimly- lit parking garage at midnight, glancing over their shoulder nervously (ach, an adverb!) I’m still bored. It’s been done.
What about characters? There’s such a thing as too much description. I want to picture the character, but I don’t need to know height, weight, hair and eye color and where every beauty mark is. It’s more about their personality, attitude, sense of humor, values. But I like that in short doses, building as I read on. And character names that all begin with the same letter drive me nuts. Jane, Joan, Jim, John, Jasmine, Judy, Jonathan. Aiyiyiyiyi. How can I keep them straight?
Then there’s plot. I’m sick of serial killers, abductions, sexual abuse and missing kids. Surely there are some other interesting plot lines out there. Or, at the very least, a twist on an old one. What? A missing kid who’s a serial killer. Ugh. I’m beginning to agree with agents and publishers who say it’s all been done . . . many times. Are there really no new plot lines out there?
Background description. I really like to get the atmosphere of the work early so I can step into the character’s shoes. But, again, no trite descriptions, please. No white sails against a deep blue sea, please. Also, flashbacks and back fill to give us the history is okay, but only in bits and pieces at a time. Nice if it comes from the character’s head, too, and not from the omniscient observer.
So, who can I suggest as a writer who has the skill, maybe talent is a better word, to carry all this out? A writer I’m usually not disappointed in? Believe it or not, it’s not often a mystery writer. I think one of the best writers I’ve read is Barbara Kingsolver. She has a splendid way with words and makes the English language sing. I highly recommend “The Poisonwood Bible” or “Prodigal Summer.”
If you’re more interested in characters than beautiful phrasing, try “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry (OMG, a Western!) And if you want a dynamite mystery that has all plus oodles of atmosphere, try “The Blackhouse” by Peter May.
I would have made a good literary agent. If I don’t fall in love with the book in the first five (okay ten) pages, it’s a goner. How about you?
by Lynne | Mar 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
After visiting an art museum recently, I began to wonder about the similarities between art and writing. Fine art, as in a painting, can be considered subjective in terms of good vs. bad. What’s pleasing for one individual is not necessarily for another. You might adore Renoir, I might love Kandinsky. Artists and art critics, however, do have their own standards about good art. These revolve around color, texture, line, impasto and chiaroscuro (shadows and light) among other qualities. But in general, most people would agree that art is subjective. (I might fail to see how a large canvas simply painted red is art, but if you like it, well . . .)
History proves this subjectivity. In the 1930s and 40s, the Nazis not only murdered people, they exterminated art, artifacts, and literature. Hitler and his comrades (Goebbels, in particular) decided which pieces of art were good and which were bad. To them, the old masters, artists that portrayed life as it really was, like Rembrandt, were worthy. The modernists, impressionists and post-impressionists were entartete kunst – degenerate and despicable, destined for flames. (It is worth noting that in 1937, an exhibition titled Entartete Kunst opened in Munich. The exhibition was designed to ridicule creative works by such artists as Picasso, because it insulted German womanhood. Ironically, it turned out to be one of the most popular museum exhibitions ever displayed, with queues out the door from opening to closing, every day. )
Beyond art, the Nazis attacked literature. Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, and Theodore Dreiser, considered socialists and “corrupting foreign influences,” were among the authors whose books were burned. In the eyes of Hitler, it was the social impacts of the writing that condemned them to the fire.
So, what about prose? Is it subjective like art? Are there standards for quality writing? What are those standards, then, and who determines them? Is it merely the telling of a good story in a compelling manner? What about proper grammar and spelling? Sentence structure? Dialogue, description, character development? Is it a function of the time period in which they are written? How does Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” hold up to Anne Rice’s “Interview with a Vampire” today? Is one objectively “better” than the other? What about classics like “Ulysses” by James Joyce where grammar, sentence structure, et al, are lost in a stream of consciousness?
Bottom line: Is writing simply subjective? Can books, like art, be judged good or bad . . . based on the eye of the beholder?
What do you think?
by Lynne | Mar 14, 2016 | Uncategorized
An article in the New York Times about seven children killed in a fire in Brooklyn last March (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/nyregion/funerals-for-7-victims-of-brooklyn-fire.html) reminded me of the deadly fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory 105 years ago. The Triangle fire lasted only half an hour, from the initial spark to final burning embers but in the end, 146 perished.
Near closing time on Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire erupted on the eighth floor in a bin of scrap materials and fabrics. A steady flow of wind rushed through the elevator shafts from the street and fed the flames. Smoke began its way upward to the ninth floor. Garment workers, seamstresses, mostly women and young girls, raced to the exit door on Washington Place. It was locked. Later, some claimed the doors were kept locked so the girls didn’t steal the fabrics. Within minutes the eighth and ninth floors were raging infernos.
Forensic science, often called forensics, is the application of science to the legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action. The word itself is derived from the Latin for?nsis, meaning “of or before the forum.” In Roman times, criminals would present their case before a group of individuals in the Forum.
Today, with the preponderance of CSI programs and movies, forensics is a household word. Law enforcement and crime-lab teams, however, view these programs as a hindrance since it colors the public’s (and the jury’s) view of the real work involved.
In 1911, fire forensics (in fact, all forensics) was in its infancy. In my book, The Triangle Murders, Cormac Mead searched the two destroyed floors at the Triangle factory for evidence that would prove his wife was murdered. If he suspected arson, what would he have been looking for? Probably things similar to what fire investigators look for today when investigating fires: evidence of accelerants, igniters, pieces of a bomb and explosive residues (if an explosion is suspected), point of origin, and point of entry and exit of the arsonist (if arson is suspected.) Interestingly, unlike crime suspects who are innocent until proven guilty, fires are considered suspicious until proven otherwise.
Photo: An officer stands at the Asch Building’s 9th floor window after the Triangle fire. Sewing machines, drive shafts, and other wreckage of the Triangle factory fire are piled in the center of the blaze-scoured room. (Photographer: Brown Brothers, 1911, Copyright: Kheel Center, Cornell University, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/.)
by Lynne | Mar 7, 2016 | Uncategorized
March 25th, 2016, will commemorate the 105th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The 1911 fire was the deadliest workplace disaster in NYC before 9-11. It was significant not because 146 workers died, but because it instigated significant reform. At the time workplace safety was barely regulated and rarely thought about . . . except, perhaps, by the workers themselves. Other workplace disasters had occurred in the past and would again in the future. You may remember a similar fire at a factory in Bangladesh last year.
When I decided to write a mystery against the backdrop of the Triangle, I had no idea what I was in for. Research took me in several directions: the forensics of fire, the consequences of “defenestration,” that is, vertical falls from high places, the difficulty in identifying bodies falling from such heights, the safety hazards for garment workers, women’s rights, workers’ rights, changes in the American workplace.
But I also researched the time and place of the disaster. 1911, Greenwich Village, New York City. A time when Ellis Island kept its arms open to immigrants from many countries — immigrants who came for a better life, but often wound up in sweatshops, or worse. A time of Tammany Hall and corruption. A time of women’s suppression. But also a time of new beginnings, hope, and freedom in a new land.
I am a native New Yorker and was amazed at the fantastic bits of information I dug up. I learned, for instance, that Washington Square Park is built on what was once a potter’s field, where 100,000 people were buried for a century and a half. I walked the streets of Greenwich Village, saw the buildings my characters would have seen, drank in bars they patronized, and gazed up at the ninth story of the Asch Building (now part of NYU) to visualize the flames bursting through the windows and the workers leaping to their deaths.
The cover of my book is a photo I took of the building in 2010, with smoke and color added for dramatic effect. For those of you who write about history, or simply enjoy reading it, I know you’ll agree that real-life events in the past make a grand backdrop for a fictional story.
Murder, in particular.
