KN Magazine: Articles
Honk If You Love Stories / Robert Mangeot
A universal formula for the perfect story doesn’t exist. If it did, we’d all be billionaires with a library full of bestsellers apiece—or, perhaps, no one would. But there are critical elements that we must include to give our stories what they need. J. B. Manas’s post a few weeks ago broke several successful thrillers down into three key ingredients. Robert Mangeot’s blog this week continues the conversation on story mechanics with an ambitious single-engine approach.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
HONK IF YOU LOVE STORIES
by Robert Mangeot
Some would call it a bold claim, condensing millennia of storytelling power and purpose into a single word. Seriously, one lousy word for why some stories get retold around the campfire and on the page while others… well, not so much? Yes, only the too-bold would go bumper sticker on so rich a history, which is why I’m too-boldly saying the word rhymes with conch.
Honk.
As in honking. A Big Honking Moment, separating the great and memorable stories from the merely good.
Hang on a second. I don’t mean a story must end in a shoot-out or go purple with melodrama. In fact, the best BHMs may be understated, even fleeting. I mean a pitch-perfect moment, where the lens flips inward and something is lost or gained, and every element that came before gels into a wallop of truth.
Here’s a test: read start-to-finish a few stories by acknowledged masters. Somewhere at or near the end of each piece, I promise, will be a resonant burst the author has driven us toward. With Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia”, it is Holmes asking for a photo of Irene Adler, knowing she has bested him. In Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the insane narrator’s dementia finally hounds him into revealing the corpse. Other BHMs might be uplifting, bleak, funny, lyrical, brutal. A whiplash twist or the doom we’ve seen coming from Jump Street.
Which should not confuse a story’s BHM with its climax. Smarter people than I—say, those that don’t use big and honking as terms of literary analysis—define a climax as the height of action. Action, as in when the struggle against external forces is most intense. Our heroine or hero will win or lose that struggle, and from thence comes the internal. Consequences. Knowledge. Newfound strength or sudden regret. If the climax is the height of action, the BHM that follows is the height of resonance.
Take Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. To oversimplify genius, it is the story of an unlikeable grandmother who manipulates a family road trip into the one she prefers. Her conflicting duplicity and jumbled sense of personal goodness leads to a really unfortunate decision of country lane and a life-but-mostly-death situation. The slam-bang climax, 22 of 23 pages in, is the grandmother’s murder. The BHM slithers into the last few paragraphs, where her killer, the Misfit, then holds forth on life. Without O’Connor grounding things there, her painstaking build-up floats away disconnected, and the murder loses its intended point about morality and moral codes. Too smart for that, O’Connor constructed a moment so honking that it crackles sixty years after first publication.
If a BHM makes or breaks a memorable story, how does one honk up a manuscript? A few lessons learned the hard way:
1. Be intentional.
I’ve come to think of short stories as ending delivery mechanisms. A BHM at the close turns a solid piece into a fiction cruise missile armed with a major warhead. Simply being conscious of a BHM’s potential in the planning stages makes finding one more likely.
2. More is not more.
If one BHM makes a great story, then two or three must be awesomeness itself, right? Wrong. A story has its natural lifts, but only one of them can be the highest. That’s the one to focus on; too much honking risks imbalance and over-emotional noise.
3. Stop the clock.
The BHM marks when the main conflict and character shifts are over. There may be further events to resolve or consolidate things, but after the BHM, a story is all about the finish.
4. Thread it through.
BHMs may arrive by inspiration, but ultimately they are built through sentence-by-sentence lead-up, from the opening passage. The BHM ties up every narrative and character thread that came before into a unified whole. It’s not too bold to guess any loose threads are darlings, and like any darlings, they need to meet your Inner Misfit.
So, if you’re interested in pumping up your storytelling, do what the best storytellers have done for millennia: honk. Bring us a big and honking moment of truth. Make it anything from the subtlest whisper to the hardest hammer blow, anything that delivers the relatable jolt we other folks around the fire came to hear—and to hold onto.
Robert Mangeot lives in Nashville and is the current chapter Vice President for Sisters in Crime Middle Tennessee. His short fiction appears in various anthologies and journals, including Lowestoft Chronicle, Murder Under the Oaks, Mysterical-E, and Mystery Writers of America PresentsIce Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War. His work has won contests sponsored by the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild, On the Premises, and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. His third story for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine hits newsstands March 2016. Learn more about his writing and his wandering the snack food aisles. Find more of his work at www.robertmangeot.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Honk If You Love Stories / Robert Mangeot
A universal formula for the perfect story doesn’t exist. If it did, we’d all be billionaires with a library full of bestsellers apiece—or, perhaps, no one would. But there are critical elements that we must include to give our stories what they need. J. B. Manas’s post a few weeks ago broke several successful thrillers down into three key ingredients. Robert Mangeot’s blog this week continues the conversation on story mechanics with an ambitious single-engine approach.
Happy reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
HONK IF YOU LOVE STORIES
by Robert Mangeot
Some would call it a bold claim, condensing millennia of storytelling power and purpose into a single word. Seriously, one lousy word for why some stories get retold around the campfire and on the page while others… well, not so much? Yes, only the too-bold would go bumper sticker on so rich a history, which is why I’m too-boldly saying the word rhymes with conch.
Honk.
As in honking. A Big Honking Moment, separating the great and memorable stories from the merely good.
Hang on a second. I don’t mean a story must end in a shoot-out or go purple with melodrama. In fact, the best BHMs may be understated, even fleeting. I mean a pitch-perfect moment, where the lens flips inward and something is lost or gained, and every element that came before gels into a wallop of truth.
Here’s a test: read start-to-finish a few stories by acknowledged masters. Somewhere at or near the end of each piece, I promise, will be a resonant burst the author has driven us toward. With Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia”, it is Holmes asking for a photo of Irene Adler, knowing she has bested him. In Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the insane narrator’s dementia finally hounds him into revealing the corpse. Other BHMs might be uplifting, bleak, funny, lyrical, brutal. A whiplash twist or the doom we’ve seen coming from Jump Street.
Which should not confuse a story’s BHM with its climax. Smarter people than I—say, those that don’t use big and honking as terms of literary analysis—define a climax as the height of action. Action, as in when the struggle against external forces is most intense. Our heroine or hero will win or lose that struggle, and from thence comes the internal. Consequences. Knowledge. Newfound strength or sudden regret. If the climax is the height of action, the BHM that follows is the height of resonance.
Take Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. To oversimplify genius, it is the story of an unlikeable grandmother who manipulates a family road trip into the one she prefers. Her conflicting duplicity and jumbled sense of personal goodness leads to a really unfortunate decision of country lane and a life-but-mostly-death situation. The slam-bang climax, 22 of 23 pages in, is the grandmother’s murder. The BHM slithers into the last few paragraphs, where her killer, the Misfit, then holds forth on life. Without O’Connor grounding things there, her painstaking build-up floats away disconnected, and the murder loses its intended point about morality and moral codes. Too smart for that, O’Connor constructed a moment so honking that it crackles sixty years after first publication.
If a BHM makes or breaks a memorable story, how does one honk up a manuscript? A few lessons learned the hard way:
1. Be intentional.
I’ve come to think of short stories as ending delivery mechanisms. A BHM at the close turns a solid piece into a fiction cruise missile armed with a major warhead. Simply being conscious of a BHM’s potential in the planning stages makes finding one more likely.
2. More is not more.
If one BHM makes a great story, then two or three must be awesomeness itself, right? Wrong. A story has its natural lifts, but only one of them can be the highest. That’s the one to focus on; too much honking risks imbalance and over-emotional noise.
3. Stop the clock.
The BHM marks when the main conflict and character shifts are over. There may be further events to resolve or consolidate things, but after the BHM, a story is all about the finish.
4. Thread it through.
BHMs may arrive by inspiration, but ultimately they are built through sentence-by-sentence lead-up, from the opening passage. The BHM ties up every narrative and character thread that came before into a unified whole. It’s not too bold to guess any loose threads are darlings, and like any darlings, they need to meet your Inner Misfit.
So, if you’re interested in pumping up your storytelling, do what the best storytellers have done for millennia: honk. Bring us a big and honking moment of truth. Make it anything from the subtlest whisper to the hardest hammer blow, anything that delivers the relatable jolt we other folks around the fire came to hear—and to hold onto.
Robert Mangeot lives in Nashville and is the current chapter Vice President for Sisters in Crime Middle Tennessee. His short fiction appears in various anthologies and journals, including Lowestoft Chronicle, Murder Under the Oaks, Mysterical-E, and Mystery Writers of America Presents Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War. His work has won contests sponsored by the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild, On the Premises, and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. His third story for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine hits newsstands March 2016. Learn more about his writing and his wandering the snack food aisles. Find more of his work at www.robertmangeot.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Honk If You Love Stories / Robert Mangeot
A universal formula for the perfect story doesn’t exist. If it did, we’d all be billionaires with a library full of bestsellers apiece—or, perhaps, no one would. But there are critical elements that we must include to give our stories what they need. J. B. Manas’s post a few weeks ago broke several successful thrillers down into three key ingredients. Robert Mangeot’s blog this week continues the conversation on story mechanics with an ambitious single-engine approach.
Happy reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
HONK IF YOU LOVE STORIES
by Robert Mangeot
Some would call it a bold claim, condensing millennia of storytelling power and purpose into a single word. Seriously, one lousy word for why some stories get retold around the campfire and on the page while others… well, not so much? Yes, only the too-bold would go bumper sticker on so rich a history, which is why I’m too-boldly saying the word rhymes with conch.
Honk.
As in honking. A Big Honking Moment, separating the great and memorable stories from the merely good.
Hang on a second. I don’t mean a story must end in a shoot-out or go purple with melodrama. In fact, the best BHMs may be understated, even fleeting. I mean a pitch-perfect moment, where the lens flips inward and something is lost or gained, and every element that came before gels into a wallop of truth.
Here’s a test: read start-to-finish a few stories by acknowledged masters. Somewhere at or near the end of each piece, I promise, will be a resonant burst the author has driven us toward. With Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia”, it is Holmes asking for a photo of Irene Adler, knowing she has bested him. In Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the insane narrator’s dementia finally hounds him into revealing the corpse. Other BHMs might be uplifting, bleak, funny, lyrical, brutal. A whiplash twist or the doom we’ve seen coming from Jump Street.
Which should not confuse a story’s BHM with its climax. Smarter people than I—say, those that don’t use big and honking as terms of literary analysis—define a climax as the height of action. Action, as in when the struggle against external forces is most intense. Our heroine or hero will win or lose that struggle, and from thence comes the internal. Consequences. Knowledge. Newfound strength or sudden regret. If the climax is the height of action, the BHM that follows is the height of resonance.
Take Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. To oversimplify genius, it is the story of an unlikeable grandmother who manipulates a family road trip into the one she prefers. Her conflicting duplicity and jumbled sense of personal goodness leads to a really unfortunate decision of country lane and a life-but-mostly-death situation. The slam-bang climax, 22 of 23 pages in, is the grandmother’s murder. The BHM slithers into the last few paragraphs, where her killer, the Misfit, then holds forth on life. Without O’Connor grounding things there, her painstaking build-up floats away disconnected, and the murder loses its intended point about morality and moral codes. Too smart for that, O’Connor constructed a moment so honking that it crackles sixty years after first publication.
If a BHM makes or breaks a memorable story, how does one honk up a manuscript? A few lessons learned the hard way:
1. Be intentional.
I’ve come to think of short stories as ending delivery mechanisms. A BHM at the close turns a solid piece into a fiction cruise missile armed with a major warhead. Simply being conscious of a BHM’s potential in the planning stages makes finding one more likely.
2. More is not more.
If one BHM makes a great story, then two or three must be awesomeness itself, right? Wrong. A story has its natural lifts, but only one of them can be the highest. That’s the one to focus on; too much honking risks imbalance and over-emotional noise.
3. Stop the clock.
The BHM marks when the main conflict and character shifts are over. There may be further events to resolve or consolidate things, but after the BHM, a story is all about the finish.
4. Thread it through.
BHMs may arrive by inspiration, but ultimately they are built through sentence-by-sentence lead-up, from the opening passage. The BHM ties up every narrative and character thread that came before into a unified whole. It’s not too bold to guess any loose threads are darlings, and like any darlings, they need to meet your Inner Misfit.
So, if you’re interested in pumping up your storytelling, do what the best storytellers have done for millennia: honk. Bring us a big and honking moment of truth. Make it anything from the subtlest whisper to the hardest hammer blow, anything that delivers the relatable jolt we other folks around the fire came to hear—and to hold onto.
Robert Mangeot lives in Nashville and is the current chapter Vice President for Sisters in Crime Middle Tennessee. His short fiction appears in various anthologies and journals, including Lowestoft Chronicle, Murder Under the Oaks, Mysterical-E, and Mystery Writers of America Presents Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War. His work has won contests sponsored by the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild, On the Premises, and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. His third story for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine hits newsstands March 2016. Learn more about his writing and his wandering the snack food aisles. Find more of his work at www.robertmangeot.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Give "Go Set A Watchman" Its Due / Blake Fontenay
In the month since the passing of legendary American author Harper Lee, we have seen a great deal of turmoil, as a nation and as a world. Political unrest and racial tension continue to plague our society to this day, reminding us of the importance of books like To Kill A Mockingbird, which inspire us all to take a stand for what is right.
For many of her fans, Ms. Lee’s controversial Go Set A Watchman failed to live up to the moral caliber of To Kill A Mockingbird, but, as former journalist and Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded author Blake Fontenay examines in this week’s guest blog, there’s important and relevant inspiration to be found in Go Set A Watchman, as well.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Give Go Set A Watchman Its Due
By Blake Fontenay
(Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t yet read Go Set A Watchman but intend to, don’t look at this post until you have.)
When the news broke that a “new” Harper Lee novel had been discovered and was slated for publication, I remember what an uproar it caused.
There were some who worried that the book, Go Set A Watchman, would somehow tarnish the legacy Ms. Lee created for herself when she wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.
Since Ms. Lee’s passing on Feb. 19, I’ve been reflecting on that concern.
First of all, I believe Ms. Lee’s legacy is safe, on the strength of To Kill A Mockingbird alone. Unless we find out later that she was using the literary equivalent of steroids when she wrote that classic, I think her status as a hall of famer is assured.
Having said that, I would also add that I don’t think Go Set A Watchman is as bad a book as many critics have made it out to be.
My initial reaction to Go Set A Watchman was resentful. As a little-known author, I was irritated by the idea that some famous writer could submit to a publisher what was essentially a rough draft and it would immediately become a bestseller.
I thought about how many talented authors work in obscurity while a select few churn out books that the masses snap up in drugstores and airport kiosks.
But there’s no sense crying about that. It is what it is. Big-name authors like John Grisham, Michael Connelly, and Sandra Brown could publish 400 pages of random keystrokes that would sell like ice scrapers in Buffalo.
When I actually got around to reading Go Set A Watchman, I had other issues with the book.
For one, I thought there were way too many flashbacks. The story shifts so abruptly back and forth between the present and the past that I thought I would need to be fitted for a neck brace.
Also, I didn’t find the grown-up Scout to be a very likeable protagonist. Maybe I have some gender bias on this point. I attended a book club discussion about Go Set A Watchman in which the participants, who were primarily women, admiringly described her as spunky or feisty. In the book, Scout looks down her nose at just about everybody from her hometown and toys with the affections of the guy who has worshipped her since childhood. To me, that goes beyond spunkiness into the realm of something far less appealing.
But I’m sure the most controversial aspect of Go Set A Watchman is its depiction of Atticus Finch, Scout’s father, not as the pillar of moral rectitude he was in To Kill A Mockingbird, but as an unapologetic racist.
One of my friends, who loved To Kill A Mockingbird and worshipped Atticus Finch, said Go Set A Watchman was so bad that it ruined her memory of the first book. (I had a similar reaction to Aliens 3, so I can relate.)
Here’s the thing, though: The ending of Go Set A Watchman is what makes the book interesting and thought-provoking. After discovering her father and most of the people she has known all her life are racists, Scout decides against leaving her small Alabama hometown for a more enlightened life in New York City.
That’s not a classic Hollywood ending. However, I think it’s a lot more realistic.
Very few of us get the opportunity in our daily lives to face down an angry mob and show it the error of its ways, as Atticus Finch heroically did in To Kill A Mockingbird. Racism and other forms of bigotry are pervasive in our society, but they manifest themselves in subtle ways.
Most often they come in the form of comments from co-workers, neighbors or even family members. In Go Set A Watchman, Scout faces a similar scenario.
In real life, pulling up stakes and moving to some racial utopia isn’t an option. (Based on my reading of history, Scout’s New York of the 1950s wouldn’t have qualified as such a utopia, anyway.)
When Scout decides to remain in her hometown, she pledges to remain true to her own principles and try to affect change in attitudes wherever she can. And that’s probably the best any of us could hope to do in our own lives.
Go Set A Watchman may have been written more than half a century ago, but it’s very relevant to the times in which we live and the conflicts we must still confront.
In my mind, that doesn’t qualify the book a classic, but it’s not a legacy-spoiler, either.
Blake Fontenay spent more than 25 years as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for metropolitan daily newspapers—including the Sacramento Bee, (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union, Orlando Sentinel and (Memphis) Commercial Appeal. He won several awards for editorial writing while at the Commercial Appeal.
Since leaving the newspaper business, he has worked as the communications director for Tennessee’s Comptroller, Treasurer and Secretary of State. He is currently the coordinator for the Tri-Star Chronicles project at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
His debut novel, The Politics of Barbecue, was published by John F. Blair Publisher in September, 2012. The Politics of Barbecue won the Independent Publishers Book Awards gold medal for fiction in the South region in 2013. Scouts’ Honor, which was released in July 2014, is his second novel.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Give "Go Set A Watchman" Its Due / Blake Fontenay
In the month since the passing of legendary American author Harper Lee, we have seen a great deal of turmoil, as a nation and as a world. Political unrest and racial tension continue to plague our society to this day, reminding us of the importance of books like To Kill A Mockingbird, which inspire us all to take a stand for what is right.For many of her fans, Ms. Lee’s controversial Go Set A Watchman failed to live up to the moral caliber of To Kill A Mockingbird, but, as former journalist and Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded author Blake Fontenay examines in this week’s guest blog, there’s important and relevant inspiration to be found in Go Set A Watchman, as well.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Give Go Set A Watchman Its Due
By Blake Fontenay
(Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t yet read Go Set A Watchman but intend to, don’t look at this post until you have.)
When the news broke that a “new” Harper Lee novel had been discovered and was slated for publication, I remember what an uproar it caused.
There were some who worried that the book, Go Set A Watchman, would somehow tarnish the legacy Ms. Lee created for herself when she wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.
Since Ms. Lee’s passing on Feb. 19, I’ve been reflecting on that concern.
First of all, I believe Ms. Lee’s legacy is safe, on the strength of To Kill A Mockingbird alone. Unless we find out later that she was using the literary equivalent of steroids when she wrote that classic, I think her status as a hall of famer is assured.
Having said that, I would also add that I don’t think Go Set A Watchman is as bad a book as many critics have made it out to be.
My initial reaction to Go Set A Watchman was resentful. As a little-known author, I was irritated by the idea that some famous writer could submit to a publisher what was essentially a rough draft and it would immediately become a bestseller.
I thought about how many talented authors work in obscurity while a select few churn out books that the masses snap up in drugstores and airport kiosks.
But there’s no sense crying about that. It is what it is. Big-name authors like John Grisham, Michael Connelly, and Sandra Brown could publish 400 pages of random keystrokes that would sell like ice scrapers in Buffalo.
When I actually got around to reading Go Set A Watchman, I had other issues with the book.
For one, I thought there were way too many flashbacks. The story shifts so abruptly back and forth between the present and the past that I thought I would need to be fitted for a neck brace.
Also, I didn’t find the grown-up Scout to be a very likeable protagonist. Maybe I have some gender bias on this point. I attended a book club discussion about Go Set A Watchman in which the participants, who were primarily women, admiringly described her as spunky or feisty. In the book, Scout looks down her nose at just about everybody from her hometown and toys with the affections of the guy who has worshipped her since childhood. To me, that goes beyond spunkiness into the realm of something far less appealing.
But I’m sure the most controversial aspect of Go Set A Watchman is its depiction of Atticus Finch, Scout’s father, not as the pillar of moral rectitude he was in To Kill A Mockingbird, but as an unapologetic racist.
One of my friends, who loved To Kill A Mockingbird and worshipped Atticus Finch, said Go Set A Watchman was so bad that it ruined her memory of the first book. (I had a similar reaction to Aliens 3, so I can relate.)
Here’s the thing, though: The ending of Go Set A Watchman is what makes the book interesting and thought-provoking. After discovering her father and most of the people she has known all her life are racists, Scout decides against leaving her small Alabama hometown for a more enlightened life in New York City.
That’s not a classic Hollywood ending. However, I think it’s a lot more realistic.
Very few of us get the opportunity in our daily lives to face down an angry mob and show it the error of its ways, as Atticus Finch heroically did in To Kill A Mockingbird. Racism and other forms of bigotry are pervasive in our society, but they manifest themselves in subtle ways.
Most often they come in the form of comments from co-workers, neighbors or even family members. In Go Set A Watchman, Scout faces a similar scenario.
In real life, pulling up stakes and moving to some racial utopia isn’t an option. (Based on my reading of history, Scout’s New York of the 1950s wouldn’t have qualified as such a utopia, anyway.)
When Scout decides to remain in her hometown, she pledges to remain true to her own principles and try to affect change in attitudes wherever she can. And that’s probably the best any of us could hope to do in our own lives.
Go Set A Watchman may have been written more than half a century ago, but it’s very relevant to the times in which we live and the conflicts we must still confront.
In my mind, that doesn’t qualify the book a classic, but it’s not a legacy-spoiler, either.
Blake Fontenay spent more than 25 years as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for metropolitan daily newspapers—including the Sacramento Bee, (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union, Orlando Sentinel and (Memphis) Commercial Appeal. He won several awards for editorial writing while at the Commercial Appeal.
Since leaving the newspaper business, he has worked as the communications director for Tennessee’s Comptroller, Treasurer and Secretary of State. He is currently the coordinator for the Tri-Star Chronicles project at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
His debut novel, The Politics of Barbecue, was published by John F. Blair Publisher in September, 2012. The Politics of Barbecue won the Independent Publishers Book Awards gold medal for fiction in the South region in 2013. Scouts’ Honor, which was released in July 2014, is his second novel.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Give "Go Set A Watchman" Its Due / Blake Fontenay
In the month since the passing of legendary American author Harper Lee, we have seen a great deal of turmoil, as a nation and as a world. Political unrest and racial tension continue to plague our society to this day, reminding us of the importance of books like To Kill A Mockingbird, which inspire us all to take a stand for what is right.For many of her fans, Ms. Lee’s controversial Go Set A Watchman failed to live up to the moral caliber of To Kill A Mockingbird, but, as former journalist and Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded author Blake Fontenay examines in this week’s guest blog, there’s important and relevant inspiration to be found in Go Set A Watchman, as well.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Give Go Set A Watchman Its Due
By Blake Fontenay
(Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t yet read Go Set A Watchman but intend to, don’t look at this post until you have.)
When the news broke that a “new” Harper Lee novel had been discovered and was slated for publication, I remember what an uproar it caused.
There were some who worried that the book, Go Set A Watchman, would somehow tarnish the legacy Ms. Lee created for herself when she wrote her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird.
Since Ms. Lee’s passing on Feb. 19, I’ve been reflecting on that concern.
First of all, I believe Ms. Lee’s legacy is safe, on the strength of To Kill A Mockingbird alone. Unless we find out later that she was using the literary equivalent of steroids when she wrote that classic, I think her status as a hall of famer is assured.
Having said that, I would also add that I don’t think Go Set A Watchman is as bad a book as many critics have made it out to be.
My initial reaction to Go Set A Watchman was resentful. As a little-known author, I was irritated by the idea that some famous writer could submit to a publisher what was essentially a rough draft and it would immediately become a bestseller.
I thought about how many talented authors work in obscurity while a select few churn out books that the masses snap up in drugstores and airport kiosks.
But there’s no sense crying about that. It is what it is. Big-name authors like John Grisham, Michael Connelly, and Sandra Brown could publish 400 pages of random keystrokes that would sell like ice scrapers in Buffalo.
When I actually got around to reading Go Set A Watchman, I had other issues with the book.
For one, I thought there were way too many flashbacks. The story shifts so abruptly back and forth between the present and the past that I thought I would need to be fitted for a neck brace.
Also, I didn’t find the grown-up Scout to be a very likeable protagonist. Maybe I have some gender bias on this point. I attended a book club discussion about Go Set A Watchman in which the participants, who were primarily women, admiringly described her as spunky or feisty. In the book, Scout looks down her nose at just about everybody from her hometown and toys with the affections of the guy who has worshipped her since childhood. To me, that goes beyond spunkiness into the realm of something far less appealing.
But I’m sure the most controversial aspect of Go Set A Watchman is its depiction of Atticus Finch, Scout’s father, not as the pillar of moral rectitude he was in To Kill A Mockingbird, but as an unapologetic racist.
One of my friends, who loved To Kill A Mockingbird and worshipped Atticus Finch, said Go Set A Watchman was so bad that it ruined her memory of the first book. (I had a similar reaction to Aliens 3, so I can relate.)
Here’s the thing, though: The ending of Go Set A Watchman is what makes the book interesting and thought-provoking. After discovering her father and most of the people she has known all her life are racists, Scout decides against leaving her small Alabama hometown for a more enlightened life in New York City.
That’s not a classic Hollywood ending. However, I think it’s a lot more realistic.
Very few of us get the opportunity in our daily lives to face down an angry mob and show it the error of its ways, as Atticus Finch heroically did in To Kill A Mockingbird. Racism and other forms of bigotry are pervasive in our society, but they manifest themselves in subtle ways.
Most often they come in the form of comments from co-workers, neighbors or even family members. In Go Set A Watchman, Scout faces a similar scenario.
In real life, pulling up stakes and moving to some racial utopia isn’t an option. (Based on my reading of history, Scout’s New York of the 1950s wouldn’t have qualified as such a utopia, anyway.)
When Scout decides to remain in her hometown, she pledges to remain true to her own principles and try to affect change in attitudes wherever she can. And that’s probably the best any of us could hope to do in our own lives.
Go Set A Watchman may have been written more than half a century ago, but it’s very relevant to the times in which we live and the conflicts we must still confront.
In my mind, that doesn’t qualify the book a classic, but it’s not a legacy-spoiler, either.
Blake Fontenay spent more than 25 years as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for metropolitan daily newspapers—including the Sacramento Bee, (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union, Orlando Sentinel and (Memphis) Commercial Appeal. He won several awards for editorial writing while at the Commercial Appeal.
Since leaving the newspaper business, he has worked as the communications director for Tennessee’s Comptroller, Treasurer and Secretary of State. He is currently the coordinator for the Tri-Star Chronicles project at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
His debut novel, The Politics of Barbecue, was published by John F. Blair Publisher in September, 2012. The Politics of Barbecue won the Independent Publishers Book Awards gold medal for fiction in the South region in 2013. Scouts’ Honor, which was released in July 2014, is his second novel.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Turning Your Hobby Into a Mystery–The Basis of a Cozy / Lynn Cahoon
The types of stories you most enjoy are good indicators of the types of stories you’re destined to write. After all, you have no guarantee that anyone else will get a chance to read your masterpiece… might as well make it the kind of book you’d like! This week’s guest blogger Lynn Cahoon waxes eloquent on her greatest love: cozies. Follow her lead, and you just might discover—or reinvigorate—your authorial calling.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Turning Your Hobby Into a Mystery–The Basis of a Cozy
By Lynn Cahoon
I didn’t know what I was reading, but I liked it.
When I moved to Illinois almost ten years ago now, I was unemployed. Reading was my past time as I waited for returned calls from job applications. I kept checking books out of the mystery section at the library. One, I would love. The next, not so much. Turning to the spine, I wondered why the two books that couldn’t be so different had the same sticker: mystery.
Finally, I realized the books I loved were softer, less gritty, and all about the characters. Kind of like the Nancy Drew books I grew up reading. They were cozy mysteries. And when I started writing, that’s where my interests fell.
So why cozy?
The books often circle around a hobby. Knitting, crochet, sewing, and even scrapbooking; they’ve all had series where the main character and her/his friends are involved with said craft. Or they are about food. I like stories where food and food preparation are a big part of the plot. One long-running series just ended—Julie Hyzy with the White House Chef Mysteries. And Laura Bradford is moving from writing about the Amish to launching a dessert food truck mystery this year: Book One of the Emergency Dessert Squad series, Éclair and Present Danger, releases in June.
Most cozy mysteries center around what would have been called in the 70’s “the home arts”. (Yes, I’ll admit to taking Home Ec, Sewing, and even Crafting as high school electives.) There seems to be a resurgence of taking up crafting like knitting or quilting, and not just with women. All you have to do is check out Pinterest. Add in a dog or a cat, and the series is sure to sell.
All kidding aside, the main reason I write and read cozy mysteries is that I love the characters. My Tourist Trap series is set in South Cove, a fictional California tourist town. Writing about my main character Jill Gardner’s adventures in South Cove gives me a chance to catch up with the rest of the gang. What’s going on with Aunt Jackie? Is she still dating the overweight antique dealer, Josh? And who’s Toby, the part-time deputy/barista, with now? Why does Greg’s ex-wife care about who he’s seeing? Okay, maybe only Jill’s wondering about that one.
Yep, I’ve admitted it. I love the gossip. Real or fake, the small town chatter keeps me going back to learn more about my characters and the new ones that wander into South Cove. The fact that the bad guy gets his due at the end is just icing on the cupcake. (I sometimes worry I might be driving away real tourists from the Pacific Coast Highway, writing so many murders in one small central California coast town.)
Truth, justice, and the cozy way. Now that’s my kind of superpower.
For more of Jill’s adventures, check out my new cozy, Murder on Wheels, releasing February 2, 2016, in which robbery, vandalism, and murder sour South Cove’s brand-new food truck craze…
Lynn Cahoon is the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Tourist Trap cozy mystery series. Guidebook to Murder, book 1 of the series won the Reader's Crown for Mystery Fiction in 2015. She's also the author of the soon-to-be-released Cat Latimer series, with the first book, A STORY TO KILL, releasing in mass-market paperback September 2016. She lives in a small town like the ones she loves to write about, with her husband and two fur babies. Sign up for her newsletter at www.lynncahoon.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Turning Your Hobby Into a Mystery–The Basis of a Cozy / Lynn Cahoon
The types of stories you most enjoy are good indicators of the types of stories you’re destined to write. After all, you have no guarantee that anyone else will get a chance to read your masterpiece… might as well make it the kind of book you’d like! This week’s guest blogger Lynn Cahoon waxes eloquent on her greatest love: cozies. Follow her lead, and you just might discover—or reinvigorate—your authorial calling.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Turning Your Hobby Into a Mystery–The Basis of a Cozy
By Lynn Cahoon
I didn’t know what I was reading, but I liked it.
When I moved to Illinois almost ten years ago now, I was unemployed. Reading was my past time as I waited for returned calls from job applications. I kept checking books out of the mystery section at the library. One, I would love. The next, not so much. Turning to the spine, I wondered why the two books that couldn’t be so different had the same sticker: mystery.
Finally, I realized the books I loved were softer, less gritty, and all about the characters. Kind of like the Nancy Drew books I grew up reading. They were cozy mysteries. And when I started writing, that’s where my interests fell.
So why cozy?
The books often circle around a hobby. Knitting, crochet, sewing, and even scrapbooking; they’ve all had series where the main character and her/his friends are involved with said craft. Or they are about food. I like stories where food and food preparation are a big part of the plot. One long-running series just ended—Julie Hyzy with the White House Chef Mysteries. And Laura Bradford is moving from writing about the Amish to launching a dessert food truck mystery this year: Book One of the Emergency Dessert Squad series, Éclair and Present Danger, releases in June.
Most cozy mysteries center around what would have been called in the 70’s “the home arts”. (Yes, I’ll admit to taking Home Ec, Sewing, and even Crafting as high school electives.) There seems to be a resurgence of taking up crafting like knitting or quilting, and not just with women. All you have to do is check out Pinterest. Add in a dog or a cat, and the series is sure to sell.
All kidding aside, the main reason I write and read cozy mysteries is that I love the characters. My Tourist Trap series is set in South Cove, a fictional California tourist town. Writing about my main character Jill Gardner’s adventures in South Cove gives me a chance to catch up with the rest of the gang. What’s going on with Aunt Jackie? Is she still dating the overweight antique dealer, Josh? And who’s Toby, the part-time deputy/barista, with now? Why does Greg’s ex-wife care about who he’s seeing? Okay, maybe only Jill’s wondering about that one.
Yep, I’ve admitted it. I love the gossip. Real or fake, the small town chatter keeps me going back to learn more about my characters and the new ones that wander into South Cove. The fact that the bad guy gets his due at the end is just icing on the cupcake. (I sometimes worry I might be driving away real tourists from the Pacific Coast Highway, writing so many murders in one small central California coast town.)
Truth, justice, and the cozy way. Now that’s my kind of superpower.
For more of Jill’s adventures, check out my new cozy, Murder on Wheels, releasing February 2, 2016, in which robbery, vandalism, and murder sour South Cove’s brand-new food truck craze…
Lynn Cahoon is the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Tourist Trap cozy mystery series. Guidebook to Murder, book 1 of the series won the Reader's Crown for Mystery Fiction in 2015. She's also the author of the soon-to-be-released Cat Latimer series, with the first book, A STORY TO KILL, releasing in mass-market paperback September 2016. She lives in a small town like the ones she loves to write about, with her husband and two fur babies. Sign up for her newsletter at www.lynncahoon.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Turning Your Hobby Into a Mystery–The Basis of a Cozy / Lynn Cahoon
The types of stories you most enjoy are good indicators of the types of stories you’re destined to write. After all, you have no guarantee that anyone else will get a chance to read your masterpiece… might as well make it the kind of book you’d like! This week’s guest blogger Lynn Cahoon waxes eloquent on her greatest love: cozies. Follow her lead, and you just might discover—or reinvigorate—your authorial calling.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Turning Your Hobby Into a Mystery–The Basis of a Cozy
By Lynn Cahoon
I didn’t know what I was reading, but I liked it.
When I moved to Illinois almost ten years ago now, I was unemployed. Reading was my past time as I waited for returned calls from job applications. I kept checking books out of the mystery section at the library. One, I would love. The next, not so much. Turning to the spine, I wondered why the two books that couldn’t be so different had the same sticker: mystery.
Finally, I realized the books I loved were softer, less gritty, and all about the characters. Kind of like the Nancy Drew books I grew up reading. They were cozy mysteries. And when I started writing, that’s where my interests fell.
So why cozy?
The books often circle around a hobby. Knitting, crochet, sewing, and even scrapbooking; they’ve all had series where the main character and her/his friends are involved with said craft. Or they are about food. I like stories where food and food preparation are a big part of the plot. One long-running series just ended—Julie Hyzy with the White House Chef Mysteries. And Laura Bradford is moving from writing about the Amish to launching a dessert food truck mystery this year: Book One of the Emergency Dessert Squad series, Éclair and Present Danger, releases in June.
Most cozy mysteries center around what would have been called in the 70’s “the home arts”. (Yes, I’ll admit to taking Home Ec, Sewing, and even Crafting as high school electives.) There seems to be a resurgence of taking up crafting like knitting or quilting, and not just with women. All you have to do is check out Pinterest. Add in a dog or a cat, and the series is sure to sell.
All kidding aside, the main reason I write and read cozy mysteries is that I love the characters. My Tourist Trap series is set in South Cove, a fictional California tourist town. Writing about my main character Jill Gardner’s adventures in South Cove gives me a chance to catch up with the rest of the gang. What’s going on with Aunt Jackie? Is she still dating the overweight antique dealer, Josh? And who’s Toby, the part-time deputy/barista, with now? Why does Greg’s ex-wife care about who he’s seeing? Okay, maybe only Jill’s wondering about that one.
Yep, I’ve admitted it. I love the gossip. Real or fake, the small town chatter keeps me going back to learn more about my characters and the new ones that wander into South Cove. The fact that the bad guy gets his due at the end is just icing on the cupcake. (I sometimes worry I might be driving away real tourists from the Pacific Coast Highway, writing so many murders in one small central California coast town.)
Truth, justice, and the cozy way. Now that’s my kind of superpower.
For more of Jill’s adventures, check out my new cozy, Murder on Wheels, releasing February 2, 2016, in which robbery, vandalism, and murder sour South Cove’s brand-new food truck craze…
Lynn Cahoon is the author of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Tourist Trap cozy mystery series. Guidebook to Murder, book 1 of the series won the Reader's Crown for Mystery Fiction in 2015. She's also the author of the soon-to-be-released Cat Latimer series, with the first book, A STORY TO KILL, releasing in mass-market paperback September 2016. She lives in a small town like the ones she loves to write about, with her husband and two fur babies. Sign up for her newsletter at www.lynncahoon.com
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Finding the Magic: Three Ingredients for a Memorable Thriller / J. B. Manas
Irony, humor, and catharsis have been helping us tell better stories since Aristotle’s Poetics—and were probably there, instinctually, in the work of the best tale-spinners even before the terms had names. This week’s guest blogger, author J. B. Manas, applies these analytical essentials to successful thrillers to help us all upgrade our stories from “excellent” to “unforgettable”.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Finding the Magic: Three Ingredients for a Memorable Thriller
By J.B. Manas
For many of us, writing comes fairly easy. But giving it that extra, elusive “something” that lifts the story above others of its type? Creating a story that’s buzzworthy, emotionally satisfying, and able to withstand the test of time? That’s the difficult part. I like to call this “finding the magic”.
As I work on my current novel, a sci-fi thriller titled Atticus, I’ve been analyzing what elements it absolutely must have if it is to grip readers and lure potential fans. If we look at some of history’s greatest thrillers and adventure stories in literature and film, what variables elevate them above the crowded sea of mediocrity?
Sure, any good thriller has to have the usual things: compelling characters, snappy dialogue, a lead with a goal, a strong villain, high stakes, mounting conflict; the list goes on and on. While vitally important, these things are merely the staples of writing thriller and adventure stories. They have to be there, or the book will quickly fade into oblivion. But how do you find the magic that takes a thriller from good to great?
I’ve narrowed it down to three special ingredients: irony, humor, and catharsis. Let’s look at each.
1. Isn’t it Ironic?
A touch of irony can often be the missing ingredient that a story needs to take it to another level. For instance, in Jaws, a water-phobic sheriff must stop a great white shark that’s been devouring swimmers in high tourist season at the beach. Not just a sheriff, but a water-phobic one! In Jurassic Park, a paleontologist who hates kids has to spend much of the story rescuing two kids when real live dinosaurs run amok in a theme park. In Silence of the Lambs, to whom does Clarice Starling have to bare her soul in order to catch a serial killer? Why, another serial killer, of course!
When writing my debut novel with co-author Ed Miller, The Kronos Interference, I ruminated on this. In the story, a physicist is called to investigate an unusual deep-sea discovery. It takes him on a time-traveling journey that defies logic and, in some cases, science. So I suggested we start him out as a jaded skeptic who relies on “just the facts”. It was subtle irony, but it was there, and I like to think it made a difference.
2. The Best Medicine
Alfred Hitchcock often spoke about the need to balance tension with humor, and he was certainly a master at it, as evident in North by Northwest, with Cary Grant quipping his way through increasingly dire circumstances. This is also what made the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, such a standout, with the witty banter between Han, Luke, and Princess Leia. And think of the scene in Jurassic Park, after a scared young boy barely escapes death when the car he was trapped in plummeted down a tree following a terrifying T-Rex chase. His only words to his rescuer, Alan Grant, are, “I threw up.”
In my current work-in-progress, Atticus, the lead character is a 22-year-old geek girl who works in a comic book shop. So when a falling military craft nearly runs her off the road, and her rescue of a British amnesiac survivor leads them both to be chased by government assassins, on whom does she rely for help? Her geeky ex-boyfriend and his gruff veteran cop uncle. This allows for lots of pop culture references, generation-gap quips, and funny dialogue to offset the tense situations that follow.
3. A Perfect Ending
Silence of the Lambs was an exceptional story for many reasons. But, in the movie version, what made filmgoers exit the theaters with that elusive giddy feeling was not only psychotic cannibal Hannibal Lecter telling rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling, “The world is more interesting with you in it,” but also, his final line, “I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner.”
Not only was this funny AND ironic, but it was a delicious (pardon the pun) way to: (a) leave a final wink at Hannibal Lecter’s relationship with Clarice Starling, (b) offer just desserts (again, pardon the pun) for the corrupt Dr. Chilton, and (c) give a glimpse of Lecter enjoying his hard-earned freedom. This was cathartic on many levels, and I would argue, more powerful than the resolution of the main plot—the rescue of the senator’s daughter and the death of the main antagonist, Buffalo Bill.
In order for a catharsis to be achieved at the end, the groundwork must be laid. Strong character subplots must be put in place—a wish for something, a need for retribution, a relationship in need of healing. It should be over and above the resolution of the main plot. And it’s what I’m focused on now as I refine my current novel beyond its main, twisty plot and its (hopefully) colorful characters. Does your story have a cathartic ending? If not, what could be done to add one? I’d love to hear from you.
J. B. Manas is a Philadelphia-based author of fiction and nonfiction. His debut novel with co-author Edward Miller, The Kronos Interference, was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best of 2012, and earned a starred review. He is currently working on a sci-fi thriller, Atticus, targeted for release in 2016. His nonfiction books on organizational management and lessons from history have been translated into eight languages and course-adopted in universities worldwide. Manas is an avid movie buff, pop culture maven, popular comic con speaker, art lover, world traveler, songwriter and guitarist, technology geek, wine connoisseur, and an armchair philosopher–all of which make their way into his writing at one time or another. Visit his website at www.jbmanas.com or email him at jb@jbmanas.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Finding the Magic: Three Ingredients for a Memorable Thriller / J. B. Manas
Irony, humor, and catharsis have been helping us tell better stories since Aristotle’s Poetics—and were probably there, instinctually, in the work of the best tale-spinners even before the terms had names. This week’s guest blogger, author J. B. Manas, applies these analytical essentials to successful thrillers to help us all upgrade our stories from “excellent” to “unforgettable”.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Finding the Magic: Three Ingredients for a Memorable Thriller
By J.B. Manas
For many of us, writing comes fairly easy. But giving it that extra, elusive “something” that lifts the story above others of its type? Creating a story that’s buzzworthy, emotionally satisfying, and able to withstand the test of time? That’s the difficult part. I like to call this “finding the magic”.
As I work on my current novel, a sci-fi thriller titled Atticus, I’ve been analyzing what elements it absolutely must have if it is to grip readers and lure potential fans. If we look at some of history’s greatest thrillers and adventure stories in literature and film, what variables elevate them above the crowded sea of mediocrity?
Sure, any good thriller has to have the usual things: compelling characters, snappy dialogue, a lead with a goal, a strong villain, high stakes, mounting conflict; the list goes on and on. While vitally important, these things are merely the staples of writing thriller and adventure stories. They have to be there, or the book will quickly fade into oblivion. But how do you find the magic that takes a thriller from good to great?
I’ve narrowed it down to three special ingredients: irony, humor, and catharsis. Let’s look at each.
1. Isn’t it Ironic?
A touch of irony can often be the missing ingredient that a story needs to take it to another level. For instance, in Jaws, a water-phobic sheriff must stop a great white shark that’s been devouring swimmers in high tourist season at the beach. Not just a sheriff, but a water-phobic one! In Jurassic Park, a paleontologist who hates kids has to spend much of the story rescuing two kids when real live dinosaurs run amok in a theme park. In Silence of the Lambs, to whom does Clarice Starling have to bare her soul in order to catch a serial killer? Why, another serial killer, of course!
When writing my debut novel with co-author Ed Miller, The Kronos Interference, I ruminated on this. In the story, a physicist is called to investigate an unusual deep-sea discovery. It takes him on a time-traveling journey that defies logic and, in some cases, science. So I suggested we start him out as a jaded skeptic who relies on “just the facts”. It was subtle irony, but it was there, and I like to think it made a difference.
2. The Best Medicine
Alfred Hitchcock often spoke about the need to balance tension with humor, and he was certainly a master at it, as evident in North by Northwest, with Cary Grant quipping his way through increasingly dire circumstances. This is also what made the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, such a standout, with the witty banter between Han, Luke, and Princess Leia. And think of the scene in Jurassic Park, after a scared young boy barely escapes death when the car he was trapped in plummeted down a tree following a terrifying T-Rex chase. His only words to his rescuer, Alan Grant, are, “I threw up.”
In my current work-in-progress, Atticus, the lead character is a 22-year-old geek girl who works in a comic book shop. So when a falling military craft nearly runs her off the road, and her rescue of a British amnesiac survivor leads them both to be chased by government assassins, on whom does she rely for help? Her geeky ex-boyfriend and his gruff veteran cop uncle. This allows for lots of pop culture references, generation-gap quips, and funny dialogue to offset the tense situations that follow.
3. A Perfect Ending
Silence of the Lambs was an exceptional story for many reasons. But, in the movie version, what made filmgoers exit the theaters with that elusive giddy feeling was not only psychotic cannibal Hannibal Lecter telling rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling, “The world is more interesting with you in it,” but also, his final line, “I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner.”
Not only was this funny AND ironic, but it was a delicious (pardon the pun) way to: (a) leave a final wink at Hannibal Lecter’s relationship with Clarice Starling, (b) offer just desserts (again, pardon the pun) for the corrupt Dr. Chilton, and (c) give a glimpse of Lecter enjoying his hard-earned freedom. This was cathartic on many levels, and I would argue, more powerful than the resolution of the main plot—the rescue of the senator’s daughter and the death of the main antagonist, Buffalo Bill.
In order for a catharsis to be achieved at the end, the groundwork must be laid. Strong character subplots must be put in place—a wish for something, a need for retribution, a relationship in need of healing. It should be over and above the resolution of the main plot. And it’s what I’m focused on now as I refine my current novel beyond its main, twisty plot and its (hopefully) colorful characters. Does your story have a cathartic ending? If not, what could be done to add one? I’d love to hear from you.
J. B. Manas is a Philadelphia-based author of fiction and nonfiction. His debut novel with co-author Edward Miller, The Kronos Interference, was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best of 2012, and earned a starred review. He is currently working on a sci-fi thriller, Atticus, targeted for release in 2016. His nonfiction books on organizational management and lessons from history have been translated into eight languages and course-adopted in universities worldwide. Manas is an avid movie buff, pop culture maven, popular comic con speaker, art lover, world traveler, songwriter and guitarist, technology geek, wine connoisseur, and an armchair philosopher–all of which make their way into his writing at one time or another. Visit his website at www.jbmanas.com or email him at jb@jbmanas.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Finding the Magic: Three Ingredients for a Memorable Thriller / J. B. Manas
Irony, humor, and catharsis have been helping us tell better stories since Aristotle’s Poetics—and were probably there, instinctually, in the work of the best tale-spinners even before the terms had names. This week’s guest blogger, author J. B. Manas, applies these analytical essentials to successful thrillers to help us all upgrade our stories from “excellent” to “unforgettable”.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Finding the Magic: Three Ingredients for a Memorable Thriller
By J.B. Manas
For many of us, writing comes fairly easy. But giving it that extra, elusive “something” that lifts the story above others of its type? Creating a story that’s buzzworthy, emotionally satisfying, and able to withstand the test of time? That’s the difficult part. I like to call this “finding the magic”.
As I work on my current novel, a sci-fi thriller titled Atticus, I’ve been analyzing what elements it absolutely must have if it is to grip readers and lure potential fans. If we look at some of history’s greatest thrillers and adventure stories in literature and film, what variables elevate them above the crowded sea of mediocrity?
Sure, any good thriller has to have the usual things: compelling characters, snappy dialogue, a lead with a goal, a strong villain, high stakes, mounting conflict; the list goes on and on. While vitally important, these things are merely the staples of writing thriller and adventure stories. They have to be there, or the book will quickly fade into oblivion. But how do you find the magic that takes a thriller from good to great?
I’ve narrowed it down to three special ingredients: irony, humor, and catharsis. Let’s look at each.
1. Isn’t it Ironic?
A touch of irony can often be the missing ingredient that a story needs to take it to another level. For instance, in Jaws, a water-phobic sheriff must stop a great white shark that’s been devouring swimmers in high tourist season at the beach. Not just a sheriff, but a water-phobic one! In Jurassic Park, a paleontologist who hates kids has to spend much of the story rescuing two kids when real live dinosaurs run amok in a theme park. In Silence of the Lambs, to whom does Clarice Starling have to bare her soul in order to catch a serial killer? Why, another serial killer, of course!
When writing my debut novel with co-author Ed Miller, The Kronos Interference, I ruminated on this. In the story, a physicist is called to investigate an unusual deep-sea discovery. It takes him on a time-traveling journey that defies logic and, in some cases, science. So I suggested we start him out as a jaded skeptic who relies on “just the facts”. It was subtle irony, but it was there, and I like to think it made a difference.
2. The Best Medicine
Alfred Hitchcock often spoke about the need to balance tension with humor, and he was certainly a master at it, as evident in North by Northwest, with Cary Grant quipping his way through increasingly dire circumstances. This is also what made the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, such a standout, with the witty banter between Han, Luke, and Princess Leia. And think of the scene in Jurassic Park, after a scared young boy barely escapes death when the car he was trapped in plummeted down a tree following a terrifying T-Rex chase. His only words to his rescuer, Alan Grant, are, “I threw up.”
In my current work-in-progress, Atticus, the lead character is a 22-year-old geek girl who works in a comic book shop. So when a falling military craft nearly runs her off the road, and her rescue of a British amnesiac survivor leads them both to be chased by government assassins, on whom does she rely for help? Her geeky ex-boyfriend and his gruff veteran cop uncle. This allows for lots of pop culture references, generation-gap quips, and funny dialogue to offset the tense situations that follow.
3. A Perfect Ending
Silence of the Lambs was an exceptional story for many reasons. But, in the movie version, what made filmgoers exit the theaters with that elusive giddy feeling was not only psychotic cannibal Hannibal Lecter telling rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling, “The world is more interesting with you in it,” but also, his final line, “I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner.”
Not only was this funny AND ironic, but it was a delicious (pardon the pun) way to: (a) leave a final wink at Hannibal Lecter’s relationship with Clarice Starling, (b) offer just desserts (again, pardon the pun) for the corrupt Dr. Chilton, and (c) give a glimpse of Lecter enjoying his hard-earned freedom. This was cathartic on many levels, and I would argue, more powerful than the resolution of the main plot—the rescue of the senator’s daughter and the death of the main antagonist, Buffalo Bill.
In order for a catharsis to be achieved at the end, the groundwork must be laid. Strong character subplots must be put in place—a wish for something, a need for retribution, a relationship in need of healing. It should be over and above the resolution of the main plot. And it’s what I’m focused on now as I refine my current novel beyond its main, twisty plot and its (hopefully) colorful characters. Does your story have a cathartic ending? If not, what could be done to add one? I’d love to hear from you.
J. B. Manas is a Philadelphia-based author of fiction and nonfiction. His debut novel with co-author Edward Miller, The Kronos Interference, was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best of 2012, and earned a starred review. He is currently working on a sci-fi thriller, Atticus, targeted for release in 2016. His nonfiction books on organizational management and lessons from history have been translated into eight languages and course-adopted in universities worldwide. Manas is an avid movie buff, pop culture maven, popular comic con speaker, art lover, world traveler, songwriter and guitarist, technology geek, wine connoisseur, and an armchair philosopher–all of which make their way into his writing at one time or another. Visit his website at www.jbmanas.com or email him at jb@jbmanas.com.
(To be a part of the Killer Nashville Guest Blog, send a query to contact@killernashville.com. We’d love to hear from you.)
Thanks to Tom Wood, Emily Eytchison, and publisher/editorial director Clay Stafford for their assistance in putting together this week’s blog.
For more writer resources, visit us at www.KillerNashville.com, www.KillerNashvilleMagazine.com, and www.KillerNashvilleBookCon.com.
And be sure to check out our new book, Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded, an anthology of original short stories by New York Times bestselling authors and newbies alike.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale. Killer Nashville receives zero compensation (other than sometimes the book to review) from publishers who have been selected for the Book of the Day.
Self-Publishing: Gone Fishing
When you self-publish, you often don't have the good fortune of having an all-powerful, brilliant editor who's going to turn each of your caffeine-fueled lines into a polished gem. Rather, the onus falls on you, dear writer (brilliant in your own right), to keep the reader in the forefront of your mind and make each word, each scene, fraught with tension.
In this month's "Self-Publishing," author Tom Wood gives insight into how he builds suspense and how you, too, can become a fisher of men, so to speak.
Gone Fishing
By Tom Wood
When’s the last time you went fishing? It’s been years, maybe decades, since I wet a line (that’s fishin’ talk).
If like me — always behind the keyboard and busy writing, writing, writing, trying to meet a deadline — then it’s probably been a while for you, too.
Right now, I’ve got another Word document open and am hard at work on the sequel to my debut novel Vendetta Stone, a fictional true-crime thriller. So when my Killer Nashville Online Magazine editor e-mailed a request for me to contribute a column about literary suspense, I said, sure, no problem. What’s one more deadline?
As a journalist/author, I’ve lived a lifetime meeting deadlines.
But actually, I would rather be down at the ol’ fishing hole, gentle waters lapping at my feet and introducing Mister Minnow to Mister Bass.
That got me to thinking.
Building literary suspense is a lot like going fishing.
I mean, isn’t that what we are all trying to accomplish with our stories? Author Joe Fisherman wants to catch as many fish, er, readers as he can—no limits—and in doing so, he want to catch them off-guard.
All genre writers know the basic definition of literary suspense, though we may approach it from different angles—which makes us anglers, another synonym that fishermen use to describe themselves.
My quest in building literary suspense is to create enough compelling tension in the story and enough obstacles for the main characters that readers feel an empathy for them and concern for their safety and well-being. I want them hanging on every word, and when they get to the end of the chapter, I want them to breathlessly flip to the next page to find out what happens next.
In fishing parlance, that’s called playing the line. Get the reader hooked, let them run with the story going in one direction and then the other, a few tugs at the heartstrings and then worn out from holding their collective breaths, you slowly reel the reader back in.
One reader emailed how much they enjoyed Vendetta Stone, but complained that I made him late to work because he stayed up reading. I smiled, knowing I had done my job.
You need the right bait, the right lure, if you’re gonna reel in readers. That’s the compelling action of your story and what the stakes are for your protagonist versus his/her antagonist.
What’s your story hook? Figure that out, and you have them.
Patience is a virtue when you cast that line, but you must learn how to play it just right. You don’t want to lose the reader to sloppy writing, a boring story, a lack of action or any other number of things that lets them wiggle off the hook.
Some of the best writing advice I learned was at 2011 Killer Nashville during a session on story structure hosted by guest of honor Robert Dugoni. It wasn’t about fishing, but it would’ve been a good analogy.
Bob talked about the importance of the first sentence/paragraph of a chapter being so good that it compels readers to continue. The second-most important sentence/paragraph, Bob said, must close that chapter—the object being to compel the reader to quickly turn to the next chapter. And it didn’t matter how long—or short—the chapter was to get from Point A to Point B, just whatever it took.
That excellent advice helped me hone my story and take it from a good story to a publishable work of fiction.
When everything comes together, you’ve caught the reader—hook, line and sinker.
A veteran sports writer and copy editor, Tom Wood has covered a variety of events ranging from the Iroquois Memorial Steeplechase to the Atlanta Olympic Games for The Tennessean in Nashville. After retirement, he continues his passion for writing, contributing to the Civil War-based anthology, Filtered Through Time and conducting an interview with Stephen King for Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King. In the last year, Tom has begun writing Western fiction short stories, two of which have been published by Western Trail Blazer. “Tennesseans West” is his next project with four other authors involved. He is also an actor and can be seen in several episodes of the ABC series “Nashville”. He also coordinates the Killer Nashville guest blog series. Vendetta Stone is his first novel and he is working on the sequel.
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
Live From Bangalore: A Book's Journey
It’s no secret that the world is shrinking; globalization, social media, and widespread availability of the internet has made the exchange of information between distant locales easier and faster than ever before. But what effect does this brave new world have on publishing.
Author and Bangalore-based businessman Vasudev Murthy recounts his own publishing experiences and how this global market has allowed his works to take minds, and journies, of their own.
A Book's Journey
By Vasudev Murthy
They say that every book finds its reader. In 2016, that could well mean someone in a tiny town in Brazil or in Seoul in Korea.
I live in Bangalore, a city in southern India. I write on a variety of subjects—Music, Crime, Humour, Management . . . I have a lot to say and I shall keep writing. I’ve been published by Rupa, Sage, Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, Poisoned Pen Press and a few more. I realize that I’ve been very fortunate.
But this is not about my fortune but the interesting experience of suddenly finding my books being read in far-away places. Much happens by serendipity as I shall show.
I wrote Sherlock Holmes in Japan in 2012-13. It was published by HarperCollins India and was then showcased by them at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Robert Rosenwald, the CEO of Poisoned Pen Press bumped into someone at the HarperCollins stall and decided to acquire the US rights. PPP renamed the book Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Japan and did an additional round of editing and launched it in the US in March 2015 with a gorgeous cover.
Things became even more interesting. Shortly thereafter, HarperCollins sold the Portuguese language rights to Editora Vestigio in Brazil. It was translated with a great deal of finesse by Ana Oliviera and appears to have become very popular. The book’s production was quite wonderful and the cover design daring and different. What a pity I can’t read the language!
I developed a positive relationship with PPP (in distant Arizona) and worked with them on planning my next book. And soon, I signed a contract with PPP for Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Timbuktu. The book was published in January 2016.
Meanwhile, a Korean publisher called Gamesman reached out to HarperCollins and acquired the Korean language rights. Their particular speciality is the sale of one e-chapter at a time; Korea has apparently adopted e-Books in a very big way. Along with that has come new business models which allows readers to decide on moving ahead chapter by chapter; that’s pressure on a writer to keep things interesting throughout or lose the reader!
A friend in Japan introduced a major publisher Kokusho-Kankokai to HarperCollins India which resulted in the sale of the Japanese language rights, something that I was hoping for at the back of my mind.
But what has all this taught me?
One: the world is truly shrinking. Deals are made faster than ever before and publishers are unafraid of placing their bets on a relatively unknown writer if the theme is compelling enough.
Two: the book you write has a life of its own. I can no longer control its destination and I have no way of knowing how true the translation is. It’s a risk worth taking. One never knows what may happen. For instance, a reader in Brazil made a video about it!
Three: your neighbour in Bangalore does not know who you are, except as the guy with the barking dogs, but people in tiny towns in Brazil and the US do and often write in. I find it slightly surreal. The books have made me an international citizen in a way.
Four: it’s very exhilarating working with publishers and editors overseas and seeing how they think. It’s enriching for the writing process. For example, Timbuktu needed a great deal of research. The publisher worked with me from concept to completion. That’s a wonderful example of how the writing process need not be solitary in this age, and can call upon well-wishers from across vast distances.
Five: speed and responsiveness is king. The quick exchange of information, photographs and graphics ensures that a book is out faster than ever before. That means both publishers and writers need to have a great sense of urgency. And communication needs to be crisp and clear.
Six: Marketing has changed. Book launches don’t happen for me because it’s not possible to travel vast distances. I have to support my publisher in whichever way they think best, which these days may include video interviews or blog submissions. I am fairly active on twitter and that does help.
Seven: you may write for a certain audience and include unusual cultural references; the reader is liberal and prepared to find out what you mean. However, there is an additional responsibility placed on us to be rigorous in our research or risk criticism. And what about the poor translator who must be so precise in conveying the syntax as well as the nuance?
This is the journey my book has taken. I hope you find it self-explanatory. Who knows how this picture will look after the Timbuktu book gathers steam?
Vasudev Murthy has authored books on a variety of subjects including music, crime, management and humor. His publishers include Sage, HarperCollins, Bloomsbury, Poisoned Pen Press, Editora Vestigio, Gamesman, LiFi, Kokusho-Kankokai and Rupa, and his book Sherlock Holmes in Japan (Harper Collins, India) has been translated into Portuguese, Korean and Japanese.
Vasudev lives in Bangalore, India where he runs a consulting firm. When he's not knee deep in researching or writing his next book, he can be found teaching, conducting animal welfare seminars, playing the violin, or twisting his aging body into improbable yoga asanas. He has been rescued by six dogs who highly recommend his books as an excellent source of dietary fiber.
Live From Bangalore: A Book's Journey
It’s no secret that the world is shrinking; globalization, social media, and widespread availability of the internet has made the exchange of information between distant locales easier and faster than ever before. But what effect does this brave new world have on publishing.
Author and Bangalore-based businessman Vasudev Murthy recounts his own publishing experiences and how this global market has allowed his works to take minds, and journies, of their own.
A Book's Journey
By Vasudev Murthy
They say that every book finds its reader. In 2016, that could well mean someone in a tiny town in Brazil or in Seoul in Korea.
I live in Bangalore, a city in southern India. I write on a variety of subjects—Music, Crime, Humour, Management . . . I have a lot to say and I shall keep writing. I’ve been published by Rupa, Sage, Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, Poisoned Pen Press and a few more. I realize that I’ve been very fortunate.
But this is not about my fortune but the interesting experience of suddenly finding my books being read in far-away places. Much happens by serendipity as I shall show.
I wrote Sherlock Holmes in Japan in 2012-13. It was published by HarperCollins India and was then showcased by them at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Robert Rosenwald, the CEO of Poisoned Pen Press bumped into someone at the HarperCollins stall and decided to acquire the US rights. PPP renamed the book Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Japan and did an additional round of editing and launched it in the US in March 2015 with a gorgeous cover.
Things became even more interesting. Shortly thereafter, HarperCollins sold the Portuguese language rights to Editora Vestigio in Brazil. It was translated with a great deal of finesse by Ana Oliviera and appears to have become very popular. The book’s production was quite wonderful and the cover design daring and different. What a pity I can’t read the language!
I developed a positive relationship with PPP (in distant Arizona) and worked with them on planning my next book. And soon, I signed a contract with PPP for Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Timbuktu. The book was published in January 2016.
Meanwhile, a Korean publisher called Gamesman reached out to HarperCollins and acquired the Korean language rights. Their particular speciality is the sale of one e-chapter at a time; Korea has apparently adopted e-Books in a very big way. Along with that has come new business models which allows readers to decide on moving ahead chapter by chapter; that’s pressure on a writer to keep things interesting throughout or lose the reader!
A friend in Japan introduced a major publisher Kokusho-Kankokai to HarperCollins India which resulted in the sale of the Japanese language rights, something that I was hoping for at the back of my mind.
But what has all this taught me?
One: the world is truly shrinking. Deals are made faster than ever before and publishers are unafraid of placing their bets on a relatively unknown writer if the theme is compelling enough.
Two: the book you write has a life of its own. I can no longer control its destination and I have no way of knowing how true the translation is. It’s a risk worth taking. One never knows what may happen. For instance, a reader in Brazil made a video about it!
Three: your neighbour in Bangalore does not know who you are, except as the guy with the barking dogs, but people in tiny towns in Brazil and the US do and often write in. I find it slightly surreal. The books have made me an international citizen in a way.
Four: it’s very exhilarating working with publishers and editors overseas and seeing how they think. It’s enriching for the writing process. For example, Timbuktu needed a great deal of research. The publisher worked with me from concept to completion. That’s a wonderful example of how the writing process need not be solitary in this age, and can call upon well-wishers from across vast distances.
Five: speed and responsiveness is king. The quick exchange of information, photographs and graphics ensures that a book is out faster than ever before. That means both publishers and writers need to have a great sense of urgency. And communication needs to be crisp and clear.
Six: Marketing has changed. Book launches don’t happen for me because it’s not possible to travel vast distances. I have to support my publisher in whichever way they think best, which these days may include video interviews or blog submissions. I am fairly active on twitter and that does help.
Seven: you may write for a certain audience and include unusual cultural references; the reader is liberal and prepared to find out what you mean. However, there is an additional responsibility placed on us to be rigorous in our research or risk criticism. And what about the poor translator who must be so precise in conveying the syntax as well as the nuance?
This is the journey my book has taken. I hope you find it self-explanatory. Who knows how this picture will look after the Timbuktu book gathers steam?
Vasudev Murthy has authored books on a variety of subjects including music, crime, management and humor. His publishers include Sage, HarperCollins, Bloomsbury, Poisoned Pen Press, Editora Vestigio, Gamesman, LiFi, Kokusho-Kankokai and Rupa, and his book Sherlock Holmes in Japan (Harper Collins, India) has been translated into Portuguese, Korean and Japanese.
Vasudev lives in Bangalore, India where he runs a consulting firm. When he's not knee deep in researching or writing his next book, he can be found teaching, conducting animal welfare seminars, playing the violin, or twisting his aging body into improbable yoga asanas. He has been rescued by six dogs who highly recommend his books as an excellent source of dietary fiber.
Live From Bangalore: A Book's Journey
It’s no secret that the world is shrinking; globalization, social media, and widespread availability of the internet has made the exchange of information between distant locales easier and faster than ever before. But what effect does this brave new world have on publishing.
Author and Bangalore-based businessman Vasudev Murthy recounts his own publishing experiences and how this global market has allowed his works to take minds, and journies, of their own.
A Book's Journey
By Vasudev Murthy
They say that every book finds its reader. In 2016, that could well mean someone in a tiny town in Brazil or in Seoul in Korea.
I live in Bangalore, a city in southern India. I write on a variety of subjects—Music, Crime, Humour, Management . . . I have a lot to say and I shall keep writing. I’ve been published by Rupa, Sage, Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, Poisoned Pen Press and a few more. I realize that I’ve been very fortunate.
But this is not about my fortune but the interesting experience of suddenly finding my books being read in far-away places. Much happens by serendipity as I shall show.
I wrote Sherlock Holmes in Japan in 2012-13. It was published by HarperCollins India and was then showcased by them at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Robert Rosenwald, the CEO of Poisoned Pen Press bumped into someone at the HarperCollins stall and decided to acquire the US rights. PPP renamed the book Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Japan and did an additional round of editing and launched it in the US in March 2015 with a gorgeous cover.
Things became even more interesting. Shortly thereafter, HarperCollins sold the Portuguese language rights to Editora Vestigio in Brazil. It was translated with a great deal of finesse by Ana Oliviera and appears to have become very popular. The book’s production was quite wonderful and the cover design daring and different. What a pity I can’t read the language!
I developed a positive relationship with PPP (in distant Arizona) and worked with them on planning my next book. And soon, I signed a contract with PPP for Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Timbuktu. The book was published in January 2016.
Meanwhile, a Korean publisher called Gamesman reached out to HarperCollins and acquired the Korean language rights. Their particular speciality is the sale of one e-chapter at a time; Korea has apparently adopted e-Books in a very big way. Along with that has come new business models which allows readers to decide on moving ahead chapter by chapter; that’s pressure on a writer to keep things interesting throughout or lose the reader!
A friend in Japan introduced a major publisher Kokusho-Kankokai to HarperCollins India which resulted in the sale of the Japanese language rights, something that I was hoping for at the back of my mind.
But what has all this taught me?
One: the world is truly shrinking. Deals are made faster than ever before and publishers are unafraid of placing their bets on a relatively unknown writer if the theme is compelling enough.
Two: the book you write has a life of its own. I can no longer control its destination and I have no way of knowing how true the translation is. It’s a risk worth taking. One never knows what may happen. For instance, a reader in Brazil made a video about it!
Three: your neighbour in Bangalore does not know who you are, except as the guy with the barking dogs, but people in tiny towns in Brazil and the US do and often write in. I find it slightly surreal. The books have made me an international citizen in a way.
Four: it’s very exhilarating working with publishers and editors overseas and seeing how they think. It’s enriching for the writing process. For example, Timbuktu needed a great deal of research. The publisher worked with me from concept to completion. That’s a wonderful example of how the writing process need not be solitary in this age, and can call upon well-wishers from across vast distances.
Five: speed and responsiveness is king. The quick exchange of information, photographs and graphics ensures that a book is out faster than ever before. That means both publishers and writers need to have a great sense of urgency. And communication needs to be crisp and clear.
Six: Marketing has changed. Book launches don’t happen for me because it’s not possible to travel vast distances. I have to support my publisher in whichever way they think best, which these days may include video interviews or blog submissions. I am fairly active on twitter and that does help.
Seven: you may write for a certain audience and include unusual cultural references; the reader is liberal and prepared to find out what you mean. However, there is an additional responsibility placed on us to be rigorous in our research or risk criticism. And what about the poor translator who must be so precise in conveying the syntax as well as the nuance?
This is the journey my book has taken. I hope you find it self-explanatory. Who knows how this picture will look after the Timbuktu book gathers steam?
Vasudev Murthy has authored books on a variety of subjects including music, crime, management and humor. His publishers include Sage, HarperCollins, Bloomsbury, Poisoned Pen Press, Editora Vestigio, Gamesman, LiFi, Kokusho-Kankokai and Rupa, and his book Sherlock Holmes in Japan (Harper Collins, India) has been translated into Portuguese, Korean and Japanese.
Vasudev lives in Bangalore, India where he runs a consulting firm. When he's not knee deep in researching or writing his next book, he can be found teaching, conducting animal welfare seminars, playing the violin, or twisting his aging body into improbable yoga asanas. He has been rescued by six dogs who highly recommend his books as an excellent source of dietary fiber.
Dying for Dinner: Michael's Mother's Killer Kugel & Pearl’s Tennessee Honey Corn Pudding
Dying for Dinner
Michael's Mother's Killer Kugel
By Debra H. Goldstein
Ingredients:
1 (12 oz) pkg. medium egg noodles 1/2 tsp salt
1 Stick margarine 2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup plus a little bit granulated sugar 6 eggs
1 1/2 cup sour cream
1 (8 oz) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 1/2 cup cottage cheese (nonfat - mah jongg players watch their weight)
3/4 to 1 cup white raisins, soaked in apple and/or orange juice
Instructions:
Soak raisins in apple and/or orange juice. Set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook and drain noodles according to instructions on package. Put noodles back in pot and add margarine immediately. Add sugar and mix. Lightly beat eggs and add to noodles. Add vanilla, salt, sour cream and cottage cheese. Stir after adding each ingredient. Add pineapple. Drain raisins and add to mixture. Mix thoroughly. Pour mixture into 9x13 inch lightly greased (Pyrex) pan. Sprinkle cinnamon on top. Bake approximately 1 hour, uncovered. Turn oven off and leave pan in oven for 5 minutes. Remove kugel from oven and allow it to cool before cutting Serves 12-16.
For an even lower fat version, use 2 cups nonfat cottage cheese and 1 cup fat free sour cream (but do you really care?)
Pearl’s Tennessee Honey Corn Pudding
By Don Winston
Ingredients:
5 large eggs
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons Jack Daniel’s Whiskey
1 tablespoon orange juice
1/2 cup half/half
4 tablespoons cornstarch
2 (15.25-ounce) cans whole kernel white corn
2 (14.75-ounce) cans cream-style white corn
1 small green cayenne pepper, chopped fine
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Dash onion powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
Instructions:
In a large bowl, lightly beat eggs; add half/half and beat. Stir in the remaining ingredients, adding the corn last. Blend well. Pour mixture into a buttered 2 quart casserole dish. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for one hour or until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Serve warm.
Judge Debra H. Goldstein is the author of Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery (Five Star Publishing – April 2016) and the 2012 IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue, a mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus. She also writes short stories and non-fiction. Debra serves on the national Sisters in Crime, Guppy Chapter and Alabama Writers Conclave boards and is a MWA member. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, Joel, whose blood runs crimson.
Her website is: www.DebraHGoldstein.com .
Don Winston grew up in Nashville and graduated from Princeton University. After a stint at Ralph Lauren headquarters in New York, he moved to Los Angeles to work in entertainment as an actor, writer, and producer.
S’wanee: A Paranoid Thriller was his debut novel and hit #3 in Kindle Suspense Fiction, followed by his second novel—The Union Club: A Subversive Thriller. His new thriller—The Gristmill Playhouse: A Nightmare in Three Acts—was released spring 2015.
He’s currently working on a paranormal thriller inspired by the Bell Witch legend.
He lives in Hollywood.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
The Writer's Life: Your First Draft
Authors have long lamented that “there is nothing more intimidating than the blank page,” or other axioms to that effect. Whether you agree with that statement or not, one can’t deny that there’s a certain amount of anxiety—mingled with excitement, of course—involved when faced with the prospect of beginning a new work. One could argue that part of this trepidation stems from the fear of the uncertain (which, unfortunately, even writers are subject to). Maybe you don’t yet know the direction you want your story to take. Maybe you don’t yet even know your story.
In this installment of “The Writer’s Life,” Jaden Terrell shares some tips on how to map out your story. With these tricks in your arsenal, you’ll be able to approach that foreboding empty page with confidence.
Your First Draft
By Jaden Terrell
In the past several months, you’ve learned a lot about the characters in your story. You know what clues the perpetrator left, how he obscured his tracks, who the suspects are and what will cast suspicion on them, and where and how your protagonist will find these clues.
What else must happen in order for your character to get what she wants? What obstacles will she face? How will she be deceived or betrayed?
By now, you’ve probably envisioned a number of scenes. It’s finally time to start putting it all together.
Brainstorming and Index Cards
Based on what you’ve learned, take a few moments to brainstorm all the scenes you know you’ll need. You can make a list, write a summary, use a mind map or clustering exercise, or use whatever format best suits your needs.
I like to use index cards because the act of physically manipulating the cards helps solidify the story in my mind. If you prefer, you can use Post-It notes, a white board and dry-erase markers, an Excel spreadsheet, or Scrivener. If you choose one of these alternate methods, just mentally substitute your method every time I refer to index cards.
If you have several subplots, you may find it helpful to use white for the main plot and a different color for each subplot. When you’ve finished your planning, you’ll be able to see at a glance if your story is balanced and how the subplots are interwoven with the main plot. If one color is clumped at the beginning and then never appears again, you know you have a problem, and you can sort it out before you get too far along in your narrative.
Now, write a sentence or two about each scene you’ve envisioned, one per card. (Make sure to use the appropriate color, if you’re color coding your subplots.) You can go into more detail if there are things you want to be sure not to forget, but don’t worry about pretty writing, and don’t worry yet about putting them in order. It’s okay if there are gaps. You can always fill them in later.
Ordering, Bridges, and Turning Points
Once you have your cards written, put them in order. Don’t stress about this. You can always change things later. With each scene, ask what needs to happen to lead to the next one? What would logically follow? What if your character failed? What would make things worse? After your protagonist takes action, ask yourself if there’s any way your villain would know what your protagonist has done. If so, how would (s)he naturally react? After your villain takes an action, ask yourself what your protagonist would naturally and reasonably know about it and how (s)he would naturally react? Use these questions to build additional scenes, with important turning points at the ¼, ½, and ¾ marks.
Where do you start? As close as possible to the inciting incident (the thing that changes your character’s life and embroils him or her in the story) without confusing the reader. If you have to have a flashback immediately after your opening, chances are you’ve started your story too late.
Once you have your cards in order, you have a flexible outline. As you write, if the direction of your story changes, you can rearrange the cards or toss some out and make new ones. I like to keep them up to date, so I can lay them out and see the whole story at a glance.
Write Your Story
Pick a card, any card. I like to start at the beginning and write to the end (it keeps me from referencing events that haven’t happened yet), but it’s fine to write the scenes out of order if a later scene appeals to you more. Some writers like to write the last scene first so they know where they’re heading. That’s fine too. The important thing is to write.
You don’t have to wait until you know everything.
Whatever scene card you choose, start writing it. Don’t worry about making it perfect. Just get the story down.
When you’ve finished that scene, choose another card.
As you write, continue to ask yourself, “Does what I’m writing make sense, based on what’s come before and what’s going to happen? What would naturally and logically happen next? How would this character naturally and logically respond to this event? How could this be worse?”
To Revise or Not to Revise
There’s no hard-and-fast rule about whether or not to revise as you go. Because writing and editing require different thought processes, conventional wisdom says it’s best to get the whole book down on paper first, then go back and revise and polish. It’s very difficult to do both at the same time, but there are successful authors who manage it and turn out exceptional work year after year, all the while struggling to refine each shining sentence before moving on to the next one. If that’s the way you work, and if you’ve been able to use that method to actually complete a novel, by all means, carry on. You’ve found your process.
But if you suffer from the curse of perfectionism and you have trouble finishing anything because your editor brain refuses to let you move forward until each sentence is a glistening gem, I strongly suggest you follow the conventional advice. If your editor brain is such a tyrant you can’t move forward, you should probably show your editor brain a little tough love. Pack her bags, give her chocolate and strawberries and champagne, and send her away to a cottage on the beach with the promise that when she comes back, you and your writer brain will have a nice, messy draft for her to fix. She’ll tap on the door and look at you with sad puppy eyes, and when you refuse to let her in, she may resort to screeching that your work will be dreck and that, without her, you’re destined to be the laughingstock of the literary community. Put your fingers in your ears and tell her gently, “It’s not your turn yet, Pumpkin.”
When I started writing, I was paralyzed by the need to be perfect, and I had a drawer full of beautiful first chapters to show for it. I had to use the tough love approach before I could finish my first novel. Now my editor brain and my writer brain have made peace with each other, and my process is somewhere in between the two extremes. I like to do what Dean Wesley Smith calls “cycling.” I write a new chapter, then go back and revise previous chapters, then write another new one, then cycle back, and so on. I’m not allowed to revise until I’ve written at least 1000 new words. This keeps me moving forward but allows me to go back and fix problems as they arrive. So my “first drafts” are more polished than they used to be, because by the time I read the end, I’ve already been through it multiple times. The key is, though, that the writing and editing are still separate. Writer brain comes out to play; then the two brains work together to make sure everything works.
Choose the method that will get you to the end. And above all, have fun with it. Try different things. Backtrack if you have to. Give yourself permission to write badly, to tell instead of show, to let your writer brain play. There’s nothing you can do wrong that can’t be fixed.
Below are some things to think about as you plan and write. If you find yourself getting overwhelmed with it all, step back and go back to the basics. Ask yourself the simple questions: Does this make sense? What is the next, natural, logical thing that would happen? What would this character naturally, realistically do? How could this be worse?
Character
Are your characters consistent?
Does your protagonist have at least one heroic characteristic?
Is (s)he too perfect?
Have you used his/her fears and flaws to deepen the story and further the plot?
Does (s)he have enough internal conflict? Opposing desires? Conflicting emotions? (Desire, Motivation, Obstacle, Conflict)
Are the stakes high enough for the character? Is (s)he “all in”?
Have you given your protagonist room for growth? (What is something (s)he would never say, think, or do? Can you find a plausible way to make him think, say, do those things?
Does your character surprise us while remaining true to his/her character?
Have you shown us the emotional and/or spiritual effects of the turning points on the character?
Are all your characters’ motivations believable?
Are the supporting characters and antagonists well developed? Do they have lives, conflicts, and emotions of their own, independent of the protagonist? Do their strengths, weaknesses, and personality traits echo or complement the protagonist’s? Remember, “The villain is the hero of his own story.”
Plot
You’ll notice that several plot issues overlap with character.
Does everything make sense? Does the storyline hold together?
Does one thing lead logically to another, or are there gaps in the narrative? Does it pass the “what would logically happen next/what would the characters logically do” test?
Is there enough happening?
Is there enough conflict? (Conflict doesn’t necessarily mean fighting.)
Have you asked yourself, throughout the narrative, “How could this be worse?”
Do you have subplots and layers?
Are the overall stakes high enough?
Is there a moment of no turning back?
Do you have major turning points at the ¼, ½, and ¾ points of the story and other turning points throughout? Are there reversals throughout the story (places where the unexpected happens and changes the direction of the story).
Have you used these turning points as opportunities to heighten or understate emotion? Are you going for the obvious or can you bring more depth or subtlety to the scene? (Think Mel Gibson in LETHAL WEAPON, where he’s in the trailer putting the gun in his mouth. Originally, the director wanted him to scream, rant, rail at the universe. But Gibson asked to try something different. He made it smaller and quieter, and by doing so, gave it infinitely more power.)
Have you included moments of forgiveness, grace, redemption, and self-sacrifice?
Have you given your characters moral dilemmas and choices?
Does the resolution seem both unpredictable and inevitable?
Are all loose ends resolved?
It seems like a lot to hold in your head, but you can get there, one sentence, one page, one paragraph at a time. Remember Dorie, the incorrigible blue fish in the movie Finding Nemo. As long as you “just keep swimming,” you’ll finish that first draft and be able to type “The End.”
Jaden Terrell (Beth Terrell) is a Shamus Award finalist, a contributor to “Now Write! Mysteries” (a collection of writing exercises by Tarcher/Penguin), and the author of the Jared McKean private detective novels Racing The Devil, A Cup Full of Midnight, and River of Glass. Terrell is the special programs coordinator for the Killer Nashville conference and the winner of the 2009 Magnolia Award for service to the Southeastern Chapter of Mystery Writers of America (SEMWA). A former special education teacher, Terrell is now a writing coach and developmental editor whose leisure activities include ballroom dancing and equine massage therapy. www.jadenterrell.com
Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
From the Classroom: Oprah, High-Art, and Harry Potter
This month’s theme is Literary Suspense. So we got to wondering, “What, exactly, is considered ‘literature?’” The debate concerning the merits of literary works vs. those of genre/popular fiction is one as old as the chicken and its infamous egg. The folks in literature’s corner are often considered hifalutin—their work, inaccessible. Genre writers are often called formulaic, predictable. It can get almost as nasty as debates over fonts and the Oxford Comma (see Erik Deckers over in our “Marketing 101” column for more on that fight).
So who’s right, if anyone? What are the merits of both writing forms? Must popular fiction and “the literary” be considered mutually exclusive?
We reached out to Wayne Thomas—writer, editor, and creative writing teacher—to see if he could help us clear some of these questions up by sharing his thoughts on pedagogy and writing.
Oprah, High-Art, and Harry Potter: Can Literary and Genre Fiction Be Reconciled?
By Wayne Thomas
Just before 9-11, Oprah Winfrey selected novelist Jonathan Franzen and his The Corrections for her book club. The club wasn’t then noted for what it’d become. Certainly, we understood it to be an immediate in for commercial success, but—despite Oprah’s National Book Awards recognition two years prior for contributions to reading and literature—doubts lingered for many. Many of us waited for the endeavor to inevitably get swallowed into a venture to market pulp, and many couldn’t put our heads around the notion that talking books had staying power on a daytime talk show, that the scheme would somehow inevitably find a way to embarrass us believers in the written word.
Then, Oprah hadn’t yet established herself as an absolute champion of literature with one impressive literary selection followed by thoughtful discussion after another, the sort of reputation 15 years and 70 titles earns a person. She rarely missed the mark, and, consequently, when she did, it hardly mattered. She had viewers totaling in the millions reading and talking about the likes of Song of Solomon, A Lesson Before Dying, The Poisonwood Bible, House of Sand and Fog, East of Eden, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and Anna Karenina. She put the likes of Bret Lott, Pearl S. Buck, William Faulkner, Elie Wiesel, and Cormac McCarthy on bestseller lists. It’s time to admit, if we haven’t already, that Oprah’s more than a capable scholar. And we did eventually begin to notice and appreciate, as evidenced by a Time magazine write up in 2008. Indeed, it was a losing day for literature when her show ended May 25, 2011.
But just before 9-11, Oprah to Franzen wasn’t that. Franzen suggested an appearance on the talk show risked offending “the high-art literary tradition.” Though many purveyors of “high-art” rightfully went on to dismiss Franzen’s comments as ass-hattery, the debacle stirred conversations in the creative writing MFA program I’d just begun. So much brashness in an MFA program. Some of us didn’t mind agreeing with Franzen straight up, some wanted to disagree in ways that felt a whole lot like agreeing. A peer described a story I’d submitted to workshop as what might be considered on Oprah, and she didn’t intend for that to be construed as a compliment. My peer did counsel with a heavy, disappointed sigh that “a lot of people would probably read that stuff.” And there’s the rub: a constant assertion that being widely read means you sold out, that great art can really only exist for the select few. How dare Oprah try to prove otherwise?
I’ve long believed there are self-serving delusions involved in hiring “big name” writers to draw students to creative writing programs. Being able to intuit how to write well doesn’t mean you can teach how to write well, and I think most students, especially the graduate school candidates, make their decisions mostly based on who’s decided on them. On Writing, to my estimation, is the best craft book I’ve read. I suspect Stephen King would be a great teacher. It’d certainly be great to tell your friends how he showed up drunk and embarrassed you in workshop. But what if he has no time for your work because of his own. Believe me, friends, there are too many teachers like this. (Not Stephen King; On Writing is truly spectacular.)
In fact, the best creative writing programs are facilitated by teachers who realize the import of making pedagogical decisions. Instead of worrying about a “big name,” students would be better served to investigate the philosophy of the programs they’re considering. It starts with finding answers to two fundamental concerns. Will distinctions be made between literary and genre writing? And—especially if so—will students be allowed or required to produce genre/popular writing? It’s true that most quality programs say yes to the former and no to the latter. The reason should be obvious: writing the literary can only help write in genre should you’ve a hankering later in life, and the opposite isn’t necessarily true. One can see, then, how MFA programs lead so many in their early and mid-twenties—most who, according to all statistical data, will never write much after the institution has finished properly molding them—to poo poo all things not “high-art.”
I never really understood how you don’t distinguish between genre and literary. Penning a Jason Bourne flick requires different muscles than a Mario Puzo adaptation. Perhaps it’s the acknowledgement that’s disconcerting. I’ve colleagues who won’t let their students write in genre. Fair enough, I suppose, but some won’t even entertain the notion that anything genre can also be literary. Such always strikes me as a pretension to validates one’s own worth, and I always wonder what one sacrifices when one works so hard to validate one’s own worth. King will tell you he’s written more than his fair share of crap, but there are a number of King titles we’ll read in a hundred years, solitude or not. Shirley Jackson can write literary horror. Anne Rice can pen a sentence so well the sentence itself transcends genre. Can anyone really deny the brilliance of J. two R Tolkien? What fool will try? Sci-fi is full of masters: Octavia Butler, Angela Carter, and Arthur C. Clarke. Can anyone really question the brilliance of the two middle K’s, Philip Dick and Ursula Le Guin? I adore a Michael Chabon mystery. I adore a Larry McMurtry western. I adore Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. Yes: children’s literature can be literary, too.
But one more thing before moving on: Does the fantastic or magical immediately disqualify the literary? Are we mistaken, then, to hold in the highest regard the likes of Margaret Atwood and Gabriel García Márquez? Nonsense. And one more thing: Read Kate Bernheimer’s “Fairy Tale is Form, Form is Fairy Tale.”
I’ve noticed so many of the “high-art” teachers rarely address the literary. Seriously. Of all the conversations in creative writing programs about why one writes and one’s voice and what one has to say, there aren’t enough about what actually makes something literary. And, believe it or not, there isn’t a seminal definition of what makes something literary. Again, would-be students, learn the philosophy before saying “yes.” Otherwise, you risk being summarily dispatched because you got a goblin in your story. It shouldn’t be too much to ask your teachers what they demand of your writing. If it’s literary, know what that means—at least what they think it means.
What’s it, then? Best to begin with the more definable “genre” as one must understand it to understand the other. Genre, of course, identifies form: drama, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. More importantly for these purposes, genre writing subscribes to the conventions of categorization (sci-fi, mystery, romance, western, and so forth). Genre, then, aims to unearth new ways to tell familiar stories that are inhabited by familiar characters. Successful genre writing gets us to anticipate another showdown at sunrise, to want redemption for the hardened P.I. whose goodness was broken by betrayal, to yearn for Fabio’s sweat-matted hair to fall like a canopy across our faces as we stare into his lion eyes.
Literary writing more often than not doesn’t subscribe to conventions because literary writing is, more often than not, about real people in real predicaments. It’s the difference between a movie and a film, if you will. In the movies, as in genre, people tend to be exceptional, affluent, and beautiful. In films, as in literature, they’re often pedestrian, poor, and ugly. For me—my own philosophy here—the literary must challenge the human condition. I used to say “must speak to the human condition” or “must be about the human condition,” but I no longer find those words satisfying or true. Genre writing can speak to the human condition, but genre doesn’t aim to challenge as much as confirm. Genre writers titillate before giving us what we want, and they accomplish this by knowing and forming what we expect. Literary writers tend to titillate by taking us to task for what we expect, and they accomplish this by rarely giving us what we want.
There’s one absolute marked difference between literary and genre writing. Literary writers must be overly concerned with craft, which isn’t a prerequisite for genre writers. Literary writers must wonder over the possibilities of language and structure. They must tend to the rhythms and sounds and music of sentences. They’ve to make magic of imagery and voice and persona. Even the minimalists. Even those who write books for children. The prose must be rich, the poetry must be evident. Our best literary writers understand this, even if they work in genre.
So you may want to ask, as my students constantly do, why I’m resistant to let young writers work in genre. I teach undergraduates. If I taught MFA-ers, I don’t think I’d mind at all. One can assume graduate students come to the table with some experience. But the temptation is too great for young writers to simply put a twist to what Stephenie Meyer and J. K. Rowling already wrote and call it a day. The aim is to push young writers to new comfort zones, to challenge their already perceived conceptions of what humanity is capable of and explore those developing conceptions through their work. The best way to really navigate the possibilities of craft is to request they write of what they didn’t realize they’re capable.
If you didn’t before, you might now see why writing the literary can only help write in genre. Still, no need for the pretense that only one holds value. In fact, is it even arguable that genre writing has impacted more people for a longer time and seems destined that it always will? If you’re in the market for a creative writing program, see what your would-be teachers have to say about it.
Just before 9-11, Jonathan Franzen was an ass-hat and everybody but me had started reading Harry Potter. It was something to behold. My boyhood was the sort in which I didn’t read in front of people for fear of being ridiculed. I joined a creative writing program thinking it’d be nice to meet folks who were openly readers, and now everyone in the world but me had started reading Harry Potter. Openly. And cautioning one another to be careful not to ruin any surprises. I’ve never been a fan of fantasy. My lot was with Nero Wolfe and Hercule Poirot. In graduate school, I didn’t have much time even for a detective yarn with all the literature being stuffed down my throat, but everyone else in the program seemed to have time to read Harry Potter. And they were having a ball.
And I thought: Well, this is pretty great, too.
Wayne Thomas is currently working on a novel, Birth of the Okefenokees, for which he was awarded the Baltic Writing Residency. He co-edited Red Holler: Contemporary Appalachian Literature (Sarabande), which was awarded the Linda Bruckheimer Series in Literature. He is the former Managing Editor of Arts & Letters: Journal of Contemporary Culture and former Editor of The Tusculum Review. He teaches creative writing at Tusculum College, where he currently serves as the Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences.
Read more of Thomas’s thoughts on pedagogy in his interview with West Virginia University.
You can check out his micro fiction pieces “The Contract” and “The Black Bear” published at Spittoon.
*Killer Nashville is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you purchase a book from the links on this page, Amazon will give Killer Nashville a small percentage of the total sale.
In The Public Eye: Three Ways To Start Wooing Your Future Audience
The argument can be made that today’s authors have to do more self-promotion than ever before in the history of the written word. These days, it’s not enough to generate good work and shake the right hands. Modern publishers consider a number of external factors before extending that coveted contract.
One of the most important factors, in many publishers’ eyes, is how expansive your fan base is— your social media followings (among many other factors) are huge indicators of your ability to promote your work via your own connections and thus make yourself a profitable publishing investment.
In this installment of “In the Public Eye”, PR expert Julie Schoerke offers tips on establishing a large, loyal following whilst making general, real connections.
3 Ways to Start Wooing Your Future Audience
By Julie Schoerke
Founder, JKS Communications, A Book Publicity Firm
This week I had a fascinating call with a serial entrepreneur. Michael Lyons has a series of novels coming in the future. He has planned five books, and written two, but he already has 3,000 readers through social media, personally engaged with him and his series—which is the tip of the iceberg from what he’s targeted by the time the first book launches.
What does Michael Lyons have in common with veteran author Jenny Milchman? Jenny’s road to publishing is well-documented and celebrated as a success for those who persevere. It took her more than 12 years, but she got a Big Five publishing deal and is now well-known in in the mystery/thriller world.
Jenny’s passion has been connecting kids and independent bookstores. Not a direct link to mystery/thrillers, but it has given her the opportunity to connect with hundreds of bookstores, and she’s accrued thousands of fans in a really authentic way.
Jenny and Michael are both great examples of authors who start marketing and building influence before they even have a publishing date. They make real connections with real people.
What can you do now to make authentic connections with readers and/or tastemakers around the country?
Consider who your “people” are
How old are the people who will read your book and share it?
Where do they live?
What are they passionate about?
What groups or organizations do they belong to or identify with that you can begin cultivating?
Figure out where your “people” are on social media and jump in:
Facebook is great for middle-age readers
Instagram captures the attention of 20-somethings and younger
Pinterest may be ideal for “cozy mystery” fans who like a heaping helping of wholesomeness with their book
Twitter is a hashtagger’s dream for connecting with audiences of causes or specific interests
Make real connections
As you begin to build your base of contacts, don’t go for quantity over quality. Connect with other authors and tastemakers in the industry such as librarians, booksellers, book reviewers, bloggers, book club mavens, etc. Hiring someone in a third-world country to get you a bunch of followers is meaningless if they don’t actually share your passion.
When you connect on social media, don’t just “friend” someone, engage them. Ask their advice, let them know about some quirky fact you just picked up, as well as—of course—retweeting, liking their posts, etc.
Michael sends direct messages to each person he connects with on social media. He starts a dialogue that asks questions and their advice. This provides a back and forth exchange. His novels feature kids who grew up in military families, known as “brats”. As a former military “brat” himself, he knows where to look to find real groups and “virtual” (online) groups that cater to the interests of alumni of that lifestyle, and kids who are living it today.
Jenny meets hundreds of people in person and then connects with them on social media. She always engages in valuable conversations on a myriad of topics that are important to the people she is “friends” with. Jenny has a radio show that explores the topics that are of interest to mystery writers and readers. She is the founder of “Take Your Child To a Bookstore Day,” which occurs each December with more than 700 bookstores involved.
Be your real, genuine self. Cheryl Rainfield is a great example of an author who shares her triumphs, her challenges and her social concerns as well as her beloved dog’s health with her friends and fans on social media.
Lori Rader-Day is always posting funny, interesting things on Facebook. And she is the queen of events and fun! She makes herself available to groups in the Chicago metropolitan area all of the time and is a popular fixture at mystery conferences.
I wouldn’t miss Charles Salzberg’s posts on social media for anything because they make me laugh or enrage me. He knows how to entertain and inform in short pithy ways.
Kay Kendall is an author’s author who is always lifting up other’s careers and shining a bright light on her colleagues and those books she knows her sphere of influence will like.
In order to “woo” your future audiences, you must be diligent in staying connected with fans, tastemakers, and colleagues in the “real” world at conferences, book festivals, and professional organizations—as well as Facebook groups, Twitter meet-ups, etc. If you are visiting a city, collect data from your social media to learn who is in that area that you could meet face-to-face for a “Dutch” dinner or drinks.
Be on the lookout for valuable content (articles, blogs, etc.) that they will be interested in, and build your email list to share information with these folks that they will be glad to have. When your book is ready to release, these folks will feel like they have more of a stake because you are real to them. That is how you establish a loyal fan base while remaining authentic and genuine.
Julie Schoerke founded JKS Communications, a Literary Publicity Firm, 15 years ago, and the firm has gone on to represent more than 600 authors, as well as publishers and literary organizations. Personalizing creative campaigns for each author, having an accountability system in place throughout the authors' campaigns and including former journalists on the publicity team are hallmarks of her vision for the firm. Julie speaks at writers’ conferences, universities, and book festivals across the United States. She also writes book- marketing and book-promotion columns for trade publications and is a featured guest frequently on radio. JKS Communications is headquartered in Nashville, TN with operations in New Orleans and New York as well. For more information please visit www.jkscommunications.com
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