by Lynne | Oct 30, 2012 | Uncategorized
What on Earth is Wrong With This Book?
Did you ever find yourself reading a book, a good book, but find that something is bothering you about it? You can’t quite put your finger on it, so you sigh, throw it down for a while then pick it up later. The story is compelling, the descriptions atmospheric, the characters well-drawn. So what’s the problem?
This has happened to me a number of times and I finally decided it was time to solve the mystery. Ha! After all, as a writer, I could be doing exactly the same “wrong” thing. My readers could be throwing down my book . . . and not picking it up again.
So I decided to become a detective, a writing sleuth. My plan: the next time I came across this dilemma, I would stop and carefully dissect the pages and analyze the situation. Well, as it turns out, this happened on my very next book. I started reading an British WhoDunnit, one with good reviews, which means it’s good, right? Since I paid $12.99 for the e-version, I knew it was not a self-published book. Ahh, a real book. It must be good.
I will not name the book, because I don’t think that’s fair to the writer. In fact, it is pretty good so far. (I’m only a quarter of the way through at this writing.) The book is dark, historic, lots of murders, a country manor, an inspector with baggage. Hmm. Could be any book. But seriously, it’s nicely written and I keep turning the page.
Enter the problem. Point of View. I am in the head of the inspector as he visits one of the key characters, an attractive woman, in the story. I see the room through his eyes, hear the world with his ears, and think his thoughts about the situation as he speaks to her.
Suddenly, I am looking at the inspector through the woman’s eyes. No space break, no page break, just boom. In one sentence he notices her good looks, etc. etc. In the next, she is unnerved by the dark look on his face. She is thinking about what he’s like, etc. etc. Then back to the inspector.
Aha. Caught you! Because this writer is skillful, it wasn’t easy to discern exactly what the problem was. But these subtle POV shifts are disconcerting and give the book an uncomfortable edge. Frankly, they just annoy me, now that I recognize them for what they are.
I have no doubt that many authors are guilty of this POV faux pas. And some may be able to get away with it. I say may because I doubt it. Some of the more acclaimed literary authors like Pat Conroy, whose southern saga, South of Broad, I just finished, or Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, would never shift POVs in this choppy manner. I haven’t read Stephen King or John Grisham in a while, but I’m betting they don’t shift this way either. It’s actually amateurish and indicative of newer writers.
Why do authors do it? It’s tempting to try to get a lot of information to the readers quickly and to establish who your characters are early. If you go back and forth between characters and get inside each one’s head, the reader will learn a lot right away. The problem is the reader may very well quit reading because they’re confused and never learn anything more. You’re also doing an injustice to your characters by giving them only a few lines of introspection or a brief emotional outburst, rather than a whole scene to themselves. Think about your characters. What’s the best way to get to know them? Flip-flopping inner thoughts with another character? Or devoting a whole scene, even a short one, to them? Tight, snappy dialogue can also give truer insight into a character than myriad POV shifts.
I’m tuned in to these pesky POV shifts now, so I spot them easily. When you start reading your next book, keep this concept in the back of your mind. If something is bugging you and you can’t figure out what on earth it is, see if POV shifts aren’t the reason.
And, more important, keep it in mind when you start writing your next book.
by Lynne | Oct 23, 2012 | Uncategorized
Use Your Five Senses to Jazz up Your Writing
One of the simplest techniques to add life and breadth to your stories is by using your senses. All five of them: smell, taste, touch, auditory and visual. Okay, you may include a sixth–that extrasensory sense we all have but need to fine-tune: intuition. For now, let’s talk about the Big Five. See how many you can spot in the first paragraphs of my book, THE TRIANGLE MURDERS:
At twenty minutes to quitting time, Fiona stopped typing and let her hands fall still. Something was wrong.
She smelled it first, a familiar odor, like she’d left the iron on a shirt too long. Then she saw it. Wispy ribbons of smoke coiling up into the room from a gap at the bottom of the door. Fiona could almost taste it now, foul and acrid, an insidious miasma curling around her feet, her legs.
She leaped up, rushed to the exit and threw the door wide. In the corridor, a screen of smoke shimmered like a gathering of ghosts in the hallway but no flames were visible. The floor felt warm. Hot. She tread on the balls of her feet toward the elevator. That’s when she heard it. The sound of glass breaking. Not a tinkling like a whisper, but a painful splintering. Then a rumble shook the building. Fiona’s heart thrashed crazily and for a moment that was all she could hear. She had to get out, down, all the way down to the street. Ten floors.
In these few sentences, my character uses four of five of her senses to experience the smoke and fire. I could make the case for touch too, if you count her typing, throwing the door open, and treading on the balls of her feet. Indeed she is “touching” her environment. Voilà, all five senses!
In mysteries, in particular, the senses are important. A scene in the morgue would not be as effective without a mention of the smells, first of the chemicals, disinfectants, etc. and then of the body. Depending upon the cause of death, bodies will not all smell the same. A victim found floating in the river will have a different smell from one who was burned to death in a fire. Describing these smells is vital for the reader to get the visceral reaction you want. Visit a morgue if you can (or care to) to be able to describe those smells firsthand.
Sprinkle a few pleasant smells around as well. The ocean spray at the beach, a freshly washed puppy, a new car, a newly-diapered baby, or oils, lotions, perfumes wafting off your characters. Add interesting smells like the pages of an old musty book, a worn-out leather jacket, or an old storage unit recently opened after many years.
Detectives, cops, amateur sleuths, FBI agents–all law enforcement professionals need to be observant, starting with the most obvious sense: sight. They must notice things the average person doesn’t. Not only what a suspect looks like, but little details like did he have manicured nails, did she wear earrings, were his teeth yellow, crooked, were his eyes bloodshot, did the roots of her hair show? Pros are trained to pay attention to these details, so your professional law enforcement characters must also.
The sense of sight can be used effectively in many ways. Did your character witness a crime? How? Did she see the perp? Or did she just hear a shot behind closed doors? Was she the victim of a rape? What did the rapist look like?
What did your character really see or think she saw? Eyewitnesses, as you know, are notoriously unreliable. In a museum exhibition on “psychology” we hosted at the Science Center I worked at, visitors were asked to watch a video of a purse snatching in action at a train station, then asked to select the snatcher from several photos after. Very few were able to pick the real thief. Why? Hair color changed, mustache gone, new glasses on.
Plus, did the witness herself wear glasses or contacts and have poor distance eyesight? Did something interfere with the visual cues, ie: a distraction to turn her focus from the crime? You can have lots of fun with the sense of sight.
Sounds are just as important. Or the absence of sounds as when a prowler tiptoes around a carpeted house but then steps on a squeaky joist. Background sounds give readers clues about where the scene takes place. The sounds of ocean waves, train whistles, foghorns, or freeway noise help set the stage as can crickets chirping, owls hooting, or a lion roaring.
Characters’ “voices” are reflective of their personality and attitude. What does the voice sound like? High-pitched, deep, gravelly, squeaky, soft? These auditory cues give the readers insight into the character and where he’s from. Does he have an accent or speak in a distinctive dialect? Is she shrieking or whining all the time? Can you barely hear her whispery voice? How does the voice shed light on the character’s early development? Was she always shy and fearful, or self-confident, aggressive, even a bully? How would the voice reflect these characteristics? Use voice to paint a fuller, more complete picture of your characters.
And finally touch, the kinesthetic sense. A little harder to use, but if woven well into scenes, can be very effective. Feeling the smoothness of a new wood floor on your bare feet, crying out after your fingers touched a hot stove, feeling soothed as the warm bathwater reaches up to your neck.
A mother and her child can demonstrate love with a simple kiss, an erotic sex scene can heat up the pages with the proper “touches,” and petting or hugging an animal will surely make the reader feel the sweet bond between species that just a look or a word of love can never do. Touch, feel, experience.
It’s easy to forget the senses and just get on with the story. Without them, however, your prose will be flat, dry and, frankly, boring. So who will read your story in the end?
by Lynne | Oct 16, 2012 | Uncategorized
Choosing a Name for Your Character
One of the most important, but often most difficult part of writing a novel is selecting names for your characters. When you begin you might already have some in mind. But as the characters morph during the writing process, that name might no longer fit. If you’re writing a series and the same characters reappear, you still need to name new characters.
Villains’ names are particularly important to get right. Common sense tells you that “Melvin Fuddrucker” is probably not the best handle for a serial killer. Or is it? Do you want to throw the reader off and let him like or sympathize with your bad guy? Do you want the reader to think: Melvin, hmm, an accountant or a store clerk, when in reality, Melvin is a triathlete, computer genius, and serial killer? Obfuscation may be a good thing.
The good guys shouldn’t be shortchanged either. You want your characters to be memorable and to have your readers calling them by name six months after they’ve read your book. I have a hard time remembering names six hours after reading some books. But characters from other books stay with me for a lifetime. LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry comes to mind. How can you forget Augustus, Call, Newt, or for heaven’s sake, Pea Eye?
So how do you choose names?
One thing to remember. Try not to have too many characters with the same first initial. So, Bob, Bill, Binky, Belinda, and Bruce would probably be confusing. A couple are okay, of course. My two main characters are Maggie and Mead. Duh. One’s a first name, one’s a last. But I’ve avoided other “M” names unless they are historically necessary.
Also, unusual names are okay but too many are dicey. Throw a few Jenovas in with the Jennifers. Don’t make them too hard to pronounce, either out loud or in the reader’s head. It’s frustrating. Of course, if many of your characters are from countries other than the States, throw that idea out the window. But, perhaps, giving them a nickname will make them easier to recall.
One problem with historical novels is that using the real names of people involved can present problems. For instance, in some books by Sharon Kay Penman, one of my all-time favorite writers of historical England, she explained that the spelling of some characters had to be changed to distinguish one Maud from another Maude. (Lots of Henrys, Johns and James, as well! Yoiks!)
Timing is very important. Names fall in and out of favor over the years, so take care not to use a very modern YA name like Aisha or Brandon in a book about merry old England.
When you’re creating a character name from scratch, consider these: personality, looks, age, ethnicity, stature in the community, occupation, attitudes toward politics, etc., values, whether the character is single, married, gay. Does the character remind you of a good friend, a bad friend, a worker, colleague, television or movie character (Dexter? Miss Marple? Morse? Lynley? Zen?) Does the character have a sense of humor? Is the character always depressed, upbeat, brutally honest, or unbearably shy? What are their quirks, flaws, hobbies, passions, hates? Does he carry around a blue plastic bag instead of a briefcase like Tony Hill?
Do you want the character’s name to conjure up something in the reader’s mind? Like Charlie Parker in John Connolly’s books makes me automatically think of the jazz musician.
I had a difficult time giving my villain in TIME EXPOSURE a meaningful name. He was, by profession, a Shakespearean actor in disguise on the battlefield as a sutler (a guy who went around selling goods to the foot soldiers.) What name would this actor choose for himself? He selected the name Jack Cade for his cover. Why?
Jack Cade was actually a real person who led the peasants in the Kent rebellion of 1450. He was also a character in Shakespeare’s play Henry VI, Part 2. In the play he talks to his friend, Dick the Butcher, whose most famous line is “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” I thought my villain would get a kick out of that, and since he probably didn’t want to be called Dick the Butcher, Jack Cade he became.
Don’t underestimate the importance of your character’s names. If you want your readers to love a character, naming him Hitler or Attila would be a tough sell. Find names you like as you read books or newspapers, watch movies, or meet new folks at a party, and jot them down for the future. You might even try the phone book, but then you don’t have the advantage of seeing the name in action on a real person. Make something up, but explain in the novel what the name means to the characters involved.
While Shakespeare said “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” it would be hard to conjure up a picture of a beautiful flower if you called the rose, Limburger.
by Lynne | Oct 9, 2012 | Uncategorized
How I Choose Historical Themes to Create My Mysteries
I have two passions behind my writing: history and forensics. How do I bring the two together, when forensics is relatively new and history, well, relatively old. When scouting out time periods that are of interest to me, several things come into play. I get ideas from books, movies, television, current events, the world at large, and just chatting with people. As all writers do.
In the case of my newly released book, TIME EXPOSURE, I got the idea from a surprising source. Some years ago when I was a director at a science museum in world-renowned Balboa Park, I worked with the Smithsonian to bring a lecture series to town. Speakers from various Smithsonian museums gave lectures at the museums in Balboa Park. In our “theater” we hosted a speaker from the National Air & Space Museum to talk about space missions.
But in our smaller lecture hall, we sponsored a guest speaker from The National Museum of American History. His name was Will Stapp and he did an illustrated program on Civil War photography. It transformed my life. I was so taken with the images of the mid-nineteenth century that I knew I had to do something about it.
At the same time, I was working with my staff to develop programs around forensic science, since CSI was a household word and teachers, students and the general public hungered for more. I, too, being an avid mystery reader, loved the science of forensics and learned a great deal from the local police and law enforcement agencies that helped us design the programs.
Now, how did I blend these two loves together?
I created a mystery/conspiracy that revolved around the Civil War but is solved today with digital photography. Two birds, one book.
TIME EXPOSURE was the first novel I ever wrote, and has been re-written at least 20 times since the first draft. But the theme is the same, and carries over to my other novels. A mystery that takes place in the past but is solved today by modern technology.
It’s not easy. You have two parallel stories and myriad characters to keep track of. You have gobs of research to do (and get right!), you have forensic details to include, and you have to come up with a satisfying ending in the modern story (we all know how it ends historically.) After all, there has to be a credible reason why your modern character would be in mortal danger today from a murder or conspiracy that took place a long time ago.
I’m always looking for new ways to blend history, mystery and forensics. I’d be very interested in learning how other fiction writers get their ideas so please write and let me know!
by Lynne | Oct 2, 2012 | Uncategorized
Writing Vs. Marketing: Which is More Important for Success?
This may sound like a silly question but ever since I’ve self-published two books, I’m beginning to wonder. Many writers set aside a time of day, or a set number of hours, words, pages per day to write. If you’re organized and determined, this may work for you. It did for me, for a while. Interestingly, it worked better for me when I actually worked for a living as a museum professional. Now that I’m retired, it seems to be a less than effective strategy. Perhaps because I have two books completed and am spending time marketing them.
Sounds crazy, I know, but when I decided to self-publish, my days became filled with first, the logistics of self-publishing (see earlier blogs on this!) and now I’m trying to get the books out there so they’re even noticed in the swirling maelstrom of the Indie book market.
Seriously, has anyone recently tried searching for a new mystery on Amazon or B&N? Let’s say you go onto B&N Nook Books and search for mysteries under $5. After three clicks you’ll land on a page with five rows of six books in each row (30 books per page.) Look down at the bottom and you’ll see this is page 1 of 793. Discouraging.
So how do you get noticed? I don’t have the answer, but I hope someone out there does and tells me. Here’s what I’m doing so far. I’ve set up a web site where the chapters of the books can be read before purchase. I’m contacting all my friends, relatives and appropriate acquaintances to let them know my books are out. I’m mentioning the books on Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In and their groups. Here you have to be really careful, however, because people are becoming increasingly annoyed at any attempts at self-promotion. After all, these are “social” media venues.
Yes, you can send out an occasional announcement on a new book or product. You can send out a new review you might have received. And you can send out an invitation to read your blog (and here’s mine!) But that’s about where it ends.
I’m way too new at this to know about paid advertising or paid reviews and, frankly, am not sure I’m interested. There are lots of discussions out there now on “fake” reviews, by the way and how damaging they can be. Check the Crimes Group on Linked-In for one.
A friend of mine suggested she host a book-signing party and discussion group. This means, however, that the attendees must purchase and read book in advance (paperback versions if they want to get a signed copy.) Does this work? Will people prepare in advance? Maybe.
So marketing self-published books is, indeed, a challenge. I’m open to any and all advice. One thing I do know. If you don’t have a good product — a well-written, well-proofed, compelling story to sell, aggressive marketing and promotion will only make it fail that much sooner.
Sigh.
by Lynne | Sep 25, 2012 | Uncategorized
How Book Research Makes You (and Your Reader) Smarter
When I started researching the Triangle Factory fire, I knew there were a lot of stories hidden in the rubble of the fire. In earlier blogs I discussed the social conditions of the garment workers, the tragedy of the fire itself and the forensics of fire. There are many stories of the survivors and the victims that I might get to eventually, but in this blog I wanted to talk about a real-life hero. Samuel Jesse Battle.
Cormac Mead, my fictional NYPD cop, befriends another cop in the story – in reality, the first black NYPD cop in history. In a bar scene, at McSorley’s Old Ale House (a real pub that still exists) Cormac takes offense when the bartender refuses to serve Battle a drink. Cormac defends Battle and considers him a “brother.” All cops are brothers.
In THE TRIANGLE MURDERS, Battle helps Fiona escape the harassment of Mike Sweeney, the lecherous oaf who does many dirty deeds. After the fire and Fiona is killed, Battle goes on to help Cormac collect forensic evidence.
In actuality, however, Samuel Battle didn’t become a member of the NYPD until three months after the fire. But I couldn’t resist him as a character. Ahh, the power of fiction.
In 1911, NYC’s population was about 2% black. Today, it’s 23%. They also make up 18% of the police population. A hundred years makes a big difference.
Battle went on to become the first black sergeant in 1926, the first black lieutenant in 1935 and the city’s first black parole commissioner in 1941.
Another interesting side note. Fiorello LaGuardia also appears in THE TRIANGLE MURDERS. In the book he is a young interpreter at Ellis Island, which, indeed he was. In 1943, however, during a race riot triggered by the shooting of an African-American suspect by a white police officer, LaGuardia requested Samuel Battle to quell the Harlem area where the riot erupted.
Battle shakes hands with LaGuardia Photo appeared in article in Your Black World by Ayvaunn Penn, June 2011.
Those of you writers familiar with doing research know how often these coincidences occur. What’s difficult is picking and choosing the real-life incidents and characters to enhance your story.
