KN Magazine: Articles
Location as a Character / Lisa Harris
When creating a story, it’s vital to connect with your readers on as many levels as possible. One way to strengthen that connection is to spend an ample amount of time on your setting. Attention to detail for your location choice can be as important as what your characters are doing in it. In this week’s Killer Nashville guest blog, Lisa Harris provides insight of how to take your setting beyond description and how to make it an essential part of your story. Harris details the craft in books one and two of The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta and Missing.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Location as a Character
By Lisa Harris
Try to imagine Frodo’s journey in The Lord of the Rings set not among the rolling hills of the Shire and the eerie volcanic region of Mordor, but instead the flat plains of Kansas. Or imagine if Anne of Green had taken place in the bustling city of modern New York instead of a farm on Prince Edward Island. The novels simply wouldn’t be the same, because the settings in both are an integral part of those series.
When I first started writing nearly two decades ago, a story’s setting was simply a necessity. I thought all I needed was a generic town in Anywhere, USA with a few descriptions sprinkled throughout, because the location didn’t fit into my focus on the story line. What I didn’t understand was how a well-planned and well-developed setting can suck your reader even deeper into the story. Which is exactly what a writer wants.
But how does a writer take a setting beyond a few paragraphs of descriptions and create a location that becomes an essential part of the story?
When I started writing my Nikki Boyd Files series, I began thinking through different locations that would not only be interesting to the reader, but that would also help set the tone for the series. I soon decided to set the books in the beautiful state of Tennessee where I once lived, but that wasn’t enough. I needed to narrow down the setting even further and find the perfect backdrop for an intense missing person case.
I started looking at the area around the Smoky Mountains. I read stories by people who’d walked the Appalachian Trail and told how the mountains themselves could be deadly with unexpected storms popping up. They were a place where one could disappear if they wanted to, and where others—including small planes—had somehow managed to vanish unintentionally without a trace. Thick canopies in the mountains were described by those lost in them as laurel hells, a terrifying place to discover you were lost. So not only did I find the Smoky Mountains beautiful and mysterious, but they became the perfect backdrop for when Nikki finds her own life in danger.
With my setting chosen, I decided to open my first book in The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta, with a tense scene in Northeast Tennessee near the Obed River. Nikki is repelling off a sandstone cliff into a ravine, when her rope catches and threatens to snap above her. It doesn’t take long, though, for the tension to shift from the narrow ledge of the sheer cliff to the Smoky Mountains when a call comes through from her boss about a missing teen. As she and her team investigate the disappearance of the young woman, Nikki finds herself forced to relive her past when clues from her sister’s kidnapping a decade ago emerge, and Nikki discovers that her sister’s abductor is back. As she follows the clues deeper into the vast, mountainous landscape, the danger Nikki faces simultaneously intensifies.
For book two, Missing, I decided to switch the setting to the Nashville area, which gave the book a completely different feel from the sometimes sinister woods of the Smoky Mountains. Setting the book in the city allowed me to write very different scenes, including a confrontation with a sniper, a frantic boat chase after a possible murderer, and a tense hostage scene on the roof of an apartment building.
Right around the time of the book’s release last fall, I had the opportunity to return to Tennessee and visit the Smoky Mountains, a part of the state I’d never seen before. After spending hours and hours of research online, it was uncanny how it felt as if I was stepping back into a familiar place. I became my family’s tour guide to a place I might have never visited in person, but I felt like I knew. The craziest part, though, was that I kept expecting to run into Nikki!
Lisa Harris is a Christy Award finalist for Blood Ransom (2010) and Vendetta (2016), Christy Award winner for Dangerous Passage, and the winner of the Best Inspirational Suspense Novel for Blood Covenant (2011) and Vendetta (2016) from Romantic Times. She has over thirty novels and novella collections in print. She and her family have spent over twelve years working as missionaries in Africa. When she's not working she loves hanging out with her family, cooking different ethnic dishes, photography, and heading into the African bush on safari. For more information about her books and life in Africa visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Location as a Character / Lisa Harris
When creating a story, it's vital to connect with your readers on as many levels as possible. One way to strengthen that connection is to spend an ample amount of time on your setting. Attention to detail for your location choice can be as important as what your characters are doing in it. In this week's Killer Nashville guest blog, Lisa Harris provides insight of how to take your setting beyond description and how to make it an essential part of your story. Harris details the craft in books one and two of The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta and Missing.Happy reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Location as a Character
By Lisa Harris
Try to imagine Frodo’s journey in The Lord of the Rings set not among the rolling hills of the Shire and the eerie volcanic region of Mordor, but instead the flat plains of Kansas. Or imagine if Anne of Green had taken place in the bustling city of modern New York instead of a farm on Prince Edward Island. The novels simply wouldn’t be the same, because the settings in both are an integral part of those series.
When I first started writing nearly two decades ago, a story’s setting was simply a necessity. I thought all I needed was a generic town in Anywhere, USA with a few descriptions sprinkled throughout, because the location didn’t fit into my focus on the story line. What I didn’t understand was how a well-planned and well-developed setting can suck your reader even deeper into the story. Which is exactly what a writer wants.
But how does a writer take a setting beyond a few paragraphs of descriptions and create a location that becomes an essential part of the story?
When I started writing my Nikki Boyd Files series, I began thinking through different locations that would not only be interesting to the reader, but that would also help set the tone for the series. I soon decided to set the books in the beautiful state of Tennessee where I once lived, but that wasn’t enough. I needed to narrow down the setting even further and find the perfect backdrop for an intense missing person case.
I started looking at the area around the Smoky Mountains. I read stories by people who’d walked the Appalachian Trail and told how the mountains themselves could be deadly with unexpected storms popping up. They were a place where one could disappear if they wanted to, and where others—including small planes—had somehow managed to vanish unintentionally without a trace. Thick canopies in the mountains were described by those lost in them as laurel hells, a terrifying place to discover you were lost. So not only did I find the Smoky Mountains beautiful and mysterious, but they became the perfect backdrop for when Nikki finds her own life in danger.
With my setting chosen, I decided to open my first book in The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta, with a tense scene in Northeast Tennessee near the Obed River. Nikki is repelling off a sandstone cliff into a ravine, when her rope catches and threatens to snap above her. It doesn’t take long, though, for the tension to shift from the narrow ledge of the sheer cliff to the Smoky Mountains when a call comes through from her boss about a missing teen. As she and her team investigate the disappearance of the young woman, Nikki finds herself forced to relive her past when clues from her sister’s kidnapping a decade ago emerge, and Nikki discovers that her sister’s abductor is back. As she follows the clues deeper into the vast, mountainous landscape, the danger Nikki faces simultaneously intensifies.
For book two, Missing, I decided to switch the setting to the Nashville area, which gave the book a completely different feel from the sometimes sinister woods of the Smoky Mountains. Setting the book in the city allowed me to write very different scenes, including a confrontation with a sniper, a frantic boat chase after a possible murderer, and a tense hostage scene on the roof of an apartment building.
Right around the time of the book’s release last fall, I had the opportunity to return to Tennessee and visit the Smoky Mountains, a part of the state I’d never seen before. After spending hours and hours of research online, it was uncanny how it felt as if I was stepping back into a familiar place. I became my family’s tour guide to a place I might have never visited in person, but I felt like I knew. The craziest part, though, was that I kept expecting to run into Nikki!
Lisa Harris is a Christy Award finalist for Blood Ransom (2010) and Vendetta (2016), Christy Award winner for Dangerous Passage, and the winner of the Best Inspirational Suspense Novel for Blood Covenant (2011) and Vendetta (2016) from Romantic Times. She has over thirty novels and novella collections in print. She and her family have spent over twelve years working as missionaries in Africa. When she's not working she loves hanging out with her family, cooking different ethnic dishes, photography, and heading into the African bush on safari. For more information about her books and life in Africa visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Location as a Character / Lisa Harris
When creating a story, it's vital to connect with your readers on as many levels as possible. One way to strengthen that connection is to spend an ample amount of time on your setting. Attention to detail for your location choice can be as important as what your characters are doing in it. In this week's Killer Nashville guest blog, Lisa Harris provides insight of how to take your setting beyond description and how to make it an essential part of your story. Harris details the craft in books one and two of The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta and Missing.Happy reading!
Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Location as a Character
By Lisa Harris
Try to imagine Frodo’s journey in The Lord of the Rings set not among the rolling hills of the Shire and the eerie volcanic region of Mordor, but instead the flat plains of Kansas. Or imagine if Anne of Green had taken place in the bustling city of modern New York instead of a farm on Prince Edward Island. The novels simply wouldn’t be the same, because the settings in both are an integral part of those series.
When I first started writing nearly two decades ago, a story’s setting was simply a necessity. I thought all I needed was a generic town in Anywhere, USA with a few descriptions sprinkled throughout, because the location didn’t fit into my focus on the story line. What I didn’t understand was how a well-planned and well-developed setting can suck your reader even deeper into the story. Which is exactly what a writer wants.
But how does a writer take a setting beyond a few paragraphs of descriptions and create a location that becomes an essential part of the story?
When I started writing my Nikki Boyd Files series, I began thinking through different locations that would not only be interesting to the reader, but that would also help set the tone for the series. I soon decided to set the books in the beautiful state of Tennessee where I once lived, but that wasn’t enough. I needed to narrow down the setting even further and find the perfect backdrop for an intense missing person case.
I started looking at the area around the Smoky Mountains. I read stories by people who’d walked the Appalachian Trail and told how the mountains themselves could be deadly with unexpected storms popping up. They were a place where one could disappear if they wanted to, and where others—including small planes—had somehow managed to vanish unintentionally without a trace. Thick canopies in the mountains were described by those lost in them as laurel hells, a terrifying place to discover you were lost. So not only did I find the Smoky Mountains beautiful and mysterious, but they became the perfect backdrop for when Nikki finds her own life in danger.
With my setting chosen, I decided to open my first book in The Nikki Boyd Files series, Vendetta, with a tense scene in Northeast Tennessee near the Obed River. Nikki is repelling off a sandstone cliff into a ravine, when her rope catches and threatens to snap above her. It doesn’t take long, though, for the tension to shift from the narrow ledge of the sheer cliff to the Smoky Mountains when a call comes through from her boss about a missing teen. As she and her team investigate the disappearance of the young woman, Nikki finds herself forced to relive her past when clues from her sister’s kidnapping a decade ago emerge, and Nikki discovers that her sister’s abductor is back. As she follows the clues deeper into the vast, mountainous landscape, the danger Nikki faces simultaneously intensifies.
For book two, Missing, I decided to switch the setting to the Nashville area, which gave the book a completely different feel from the sometimes sinister woods of the Smoky Mountains. Setting the book in the city allowed me to write very different scenes, including a confrontation with a sniper, a frantic boat chase after a possible murderer, and a tense hostage scene on the roof of an apartment building.
Right around the time of the book’s release last fall, I had the opportunity to return to Tennessee and visit the Smoky Mountains, a part of the state I’d never seen before. After spending hours and hours of research online, it was uncanny how it felt as if I was stepping back into a familiar place. I became my family’s tour guide to a place I might have never visited in person, but I felt like I knew. The craziest part, though, was that I kept expecting to run into Nikki!
Lisa Harris is a Christy Award finalist for Blood Ransom (2010) and Vendetta (2016), Christy Award winner for Dangerous Passage, and the winner of the Best Inspirational Suspense Novel for Blood Covenant (2011) and Vendetta (2016) from Romantic Times. She has over thirty novels and novella collections in print. She and her family have spent over twelve years working as missionaries in Africa. When she's not working she loves hanging out with her family, cooking different ethnic dishes, photography, and heading into the African bush on safari. For more information about her books and life in Africa visit her website here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters / Debra H. Goldstein
Writing a mystery piece is like playing an intricate game with the reader. While the writer might know how the cards will fall, they have to keep a poker face and leave the reader in suspense. This week’s Killer Nashville guest blogger Debra H. Goldstein is well versed in both strategic games and mystery writing and uses that to her advantage in her newest book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery. Goldstein pours her real life experiences into character development, making the plot feel that much more natural to the reader. Her blog details some methods of balancing character traits with an intense murder/mystery plot.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters
By Debra H. Goldstein
I love to play games. Whether cards, Mah jongg, board games, it doesn’t matter, my competitive streak comes out. Can’t help it — besting my opponents becomes my goal. Not only do I accomplish this through strategic moves, but by observing and taking advantage of the other players’ body language while maintaining a poker face. It’s a perverse kind of entertainment. I use the same techniques in writing mysteries because I believe readers want mysteries to be engaging and FUN.
On a personal note, I am part of a regular Thursday Mah jongg game. After months of playing with the same women, I know their quirks. When one has a good hand, she tends to lean forward in her chair, eyes intent on the tiles being thrown. Another, when frustrated by her tiles or unable to settle on a hand, picks up her ever-present beverage and sips at it while glancing aimlessly around the room. If they watch me when I’m waiting for one last tile, they would notice I tend to rest my left arm on the table while I pick and discard with my non-dominant right hand — the only time I use that hand during the game. It is a subconscious giveaway habit I consciously am trying to break.
When I plot a mystery, I give my characters their own particular features to help advance the plot. The plot is simply the tale with its twists and turns. The addition of the character’s individual characteristics puts meat on the plotline.
In my new book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery, the protagonist, Carrie Martin is a young lawyer whose mother reappears in her life after a twenty-six year absence. She leaves Carrie with a sealed envelope and the knowledge she once considered killing Carrie’s father. Before Carrie can fully process this information, her mother is murdered at the retirement home where her father resides. Compelled to solve her mother’s murder, Carrie’s efforts put her in danger and show her that truth and integrity aren’t always what she was taught to believe.
Carrie is a serious protagonist. At twenty-nine, she doesn’t know everything which allows other characters to educate her in ways that may or may not be true. She can be impulsive, but tries to appear polished. This image is repeatedly shattered when she does things like blurting out to the Detective assigned to her mother’s case, Carrie’s former live-in lover, that except for when she visits her father, she works nonstop seven days a week. As she notes, “Great, I’ve just told him I am a workaholic with no social life.”
A serious protagonist must have moments of humor for the reader to identify with her, but the plot itself requires a greater amount of comic relief. The pink-haired Sunshine Village Mah jongg players are Carrie’s comic foil. From the ring-leader whose hair, nails, and lipstick are the same shade of pink to the one who is either sharp as a tack or completely out to lunch, each player has an identifying characteristic that moves the plot forward. It may be something the character says, a physical action involving a prop like a cane, or a way of behaving. Each identifying quirk helps establish red herrings and definitive clues.
The key is to work the trait into the story so that it amuses the reader, but also subliminally triggers the reader’s mind. The outcome may result in believing something false is true, ignoring a blatant fact, or understanding the link to the next part of the story. It also serves to distinguish each of the characters.
Without individual characterization, any story would be one dimensional which translates to boring. By contrasting the humorous characters against my more serious protagonist, my hope in Should Have Played Poker is to make its reading FUN – sort of like playing a game.
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. Her short stories and essays have been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Mardi Gras Murderand The Killer Wore Cranberry: a Fourth Meal of Mayhem. 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.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters / Debra H. Goldstein
Writing a mystery piece is like playing an intricate game with the reader. While the writer might know how the cards will fall, they have to keep a poker face and leave the reader in suspense. This week's Killer Nashville guest blogger Debra H. Goldstein is well versed in both strategic games and mystery writing and uses that to her advantage in her newest book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery. Goldstein pours her real life experiences into character development, making the plot feel that much more natural to the reader. Her blog details some methods of balancing character traits with an intense murder/mystery plot.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters
By Debra H. Goldstein
I love to play games. Whether cards, Mah jongg, board games, it doesn’t matter, my competitive streak comes out. Can’t help it — besting my opponents becomes my goal. Not only do I accomplish this through strategic moves, but by observing and taking advantage of the other players’ body language while maintaining a poker face. It’s a perverse kind of entertainment. I use the same techniques in writing mysteries because I believe readers want mysteries to be engaging and FUN.
On a personal note, I am part of a regular Thursday Mah jongg game. After months of playing with the same women, I know their quirks. When one has a good hand, she tends to lean forward in her chair, eyes intent on the tiles being thrown. Another, when frustrated by her tiles or unable to settle on a hand, picks up her ever-present beverage and sips at it while glancing aimlessly around the room. If they watch me when I’m waiting for one last tile, they would notice I tend to rest my left arm on the table while I pick and discard with my non-dominant right hand — the only time I use that hand during the game. It is a subconscious giveaway habit I consciously am trying to break.
When I plot a mystery, I give my characters their own particular features to help advance the plot. The plot is simply the tale with its twists and turns. The addition of the character’s individual characteristics puts meat on the plotline.
I
n my new book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery, the protagonist, Carrie Martin is a young lawyer whose mother reappears in her life after a twenty-six year absence. She leaves Carrie with a sealed envelope and the knowledge she once considered killing Carrie’s father. Before Carrie can fully process this information, her mother is murdered at the retirement home where her father resides. Compelled to solve her mother’s murder, Carrie’s efforts put her in danger and show her that truth and integrity aren’t always what she was taught to believe.
Carrie is a serious protagonist. At twenty-nine, she doesn’t know everything which allows other characters to educate her in ways that may or may not be true. She can be impulsive, but tries to appear polished. This image is repeatedly shattered when she does things like blurting out to the Detective assigned to her mother’s case, Carrie’s former live-in lover, that except for when she visits her father, she works nonstop seven days a week. As she notes, “Great, I’ve just told him I am a workaholic with no social life.”
A serious protagonist must have moments of humor for the reader to identify with her, but the plot itself requires a greater amount of comic relief. The pink-haired Sunshine Village Mah jongg players are Carrie’s comic foil. From the ring-leader whose hair, nails, and lipstick are the same shade of pink to the one who is either sharp as a tack or completely out to lunch, each player has an identifying characteristic that moves the plot forward. It may be something the character says, a physical action involving a prop like a cane, or a way of behaving. Each identifying quirk helps establish red herrings and definitive clues.
The key is to work the trait into the story so that it amuses the reader, but also subliminally triggers the reader’s mind. The outcome may result in believing something false is true, ignoring a blatant fact, or understanding the link to the next part of the story. It also serves to distinguish each of the characters.
Without individual characterization, any story would be one dimensional which translates to boring. By contrasting the humorous characters against my more serious protagonist, my hope in Should Have Played Poker is to make its reading FUN – sort of like playing a game.
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. Her short stories and essays have been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Mardi Gras Murder and The Killer Wore Cranberry: a Fourth Meal of Mayhem. 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.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters / Debra H. Goldstein
Writing a mystery piece is like playing an intricate game with the reader. While the writer might know how the cards will fall, they have to keep a poker face and leave the reader in suspense. This week's Killer Nashville guest blogger Debra H. Goldstein is well versed in both strategic games and mystery writing and uses that to her advantage in her newest book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery. Goldstein pours her real life experiences into character development, making the plot feel that much more natural to the reader. Her blog details some methods of balancing character traits with an intense murder/mystery plot.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Fun and Games – Plot and Characters
By Debra H. Goldstein
I love to play games. Whether cards, Mah jongg, board games, it doesn’t matter, my competitive streak comes out. Can’t help it — besting my opponents becomes my goal. Not only do I accomplish this through strategic moves, but by observing and taking advantage of the other players’ body language while maintaining a poker face. It’s a perverse kind of entertainment. I use the same techniques in writing mysteries because I believe readers want mysteries to be engaging and FUN.
On a personal note, I am part of a regular Thursday Mah jongg game. After months of playing with the same women, I know their quirks. When one has a good hand, she tends to lean forward in her chair, eyes intent on the tiles being thrown. Another, when frustrated by her tiles or unable to settle on a hand, picks up her ever-present beverage and sips at it while glancing aimlessly around the room. If they watch me when I’m waiting for one last tile, they would notice I tend to rest my left arm on the table while I pick and discard with my non-dominant right hand — the only time I use that hand during the game. It is a subconscious giveaway habit I consciously am trying to break.
When I plot a mystery, I give my characters their own particular features to help advance the plot. The plot is simply the tale with its twists and turns. The addition of the character’s individual characteristics puts meat on the plotline.
I
n my new book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery, the protagonist, Carrie Martin is a young lawyer whose mother reappears in her life after a twenty-six year absence. She leaves Carrie with a sealed envelope and the knowledge she once considered killing Carrie’s father. Before Carrie can fully process this information, her mother is murdered at the retirement home where her father resides. Compelled to solve her mother’s murder, Carrie’s efforts put her in danger and show her that truth and integrity aren’t always what she was taught to believe.
Carrie is a serious protagonist. At twenty-nine, she doesn’t know everything which allows other characters to educate her in ways that may or may not be true. She can be impulsive, but tries to appear polished. This image is repeatedly shattered when she does things like blurting out to the Detective assigned to her mother’s case, Carrie’s former live-in lover, that except for when she visits her father, she works nonstop seven days a week. As she notes, “Great, I’ve just told him I am a workaholic with no social life.”
A serious protagonist must have moments of humor for the reader to identify with her, but the plot itself requires a greater amount of comic relief. The pink-haired Sunshine Village Mah jongg players are Carrie’s comic foil. From the ring-leader whose hair, nails, and lipstick are the same shade of pink to the one who is either sharp as a tack or completely out to lunch, each player has an identifying characteristic that moves the plot forward. It may be something the character says, a physical action involving a prop like a cane, or a way of behaving. Each identifying quirk helps establish red herrings and definitive clues.
The key is to work the trait into the story so that it amuses the reader, but also subliminally triggers the reader’s mind. The outcome may result in believing something false is true, ignoring a blatant fact, or understanding the link to the next part of the story. It also serves to distinguish each of the characters.
Without individual characterization, any story would be one dimensional which translates to boring. By contrasting the humorous characters against my more serious protagonist, my hope in Should Have Played Poker is to make its reading FUN – sort of like playing a game.
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. Her short stories and essays have been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including Mardi Gras Murder and The Killer Wore Cranberry: a Fourth Meal of Mayhem. 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.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Beyond Google: Using Subject Matter Experts / Ross Carley
Researching your subject matter is crucial when it comes to comprising your work, especially in the mystery genre. One small, incorrect fact can jar the reader from your storyline. Ultimately, you can lose the trust you have gained with your reader. That’s why it is always important to refer to experts in their field to help smooth over any areas that you are unfamiliar with. Balancing this new information is important as well. Killer Nashville guest blogger Ross Carley explains that it is necessary to engage the reader without overwhelming them, as he did in his novel, Dead Drive.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Beyond Google: Using Subject Matter Experts
By Ross Carley
If your mystery significantly involves an unfamiliar topic, utilizing a subject-matter expert may be essential. In today’s world, topics such as terrorism and cyber-warfare that dominate the news provide excitement and interest for readers. If your plot involves cybersecurity and cybercrime, though, you’d better understand the difference between computer malware and a virus, and explain it at an appropriate level that engages readers without overwhelming them.
Some activities may feel straightforward to write about, depending on the author’s experience and background. For example, most of us are comfortable with processing email and doing research on the Internet, but when should you stop trying to wring information out of the Internet, or the library, or your social buddies, and find an expert who really knows your topic?
My favorite advice from mystery author and mentor Les Roberts (past president of the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League), early on in the days when I was trying to figure out what to write was, “Write what floats your boat.” Do I need to know a lot about such-and-such (fill in the blank) to write about it? Paraphrasing Les, ‘No. Write what you’re passionate about. Write what interests you. Your reader won’t be interested or passionate if you’re not.’
What if you’re really interested in horse racing, or cybercrime, or baseball, and you’re not an expert? You may wonder how to decide when you need to involve someone who is an expert, what a subject-matter expert is, and how to find one. You should involve an expert at some level for any area you don’t feel completely comfortable writing about. You may think that it isn’t really necessary if the subject area isn’t central to the plot.
Let’s say you’re writing a scene at a baseball game, but it could take place elsewhere. The fact that there’s a baseball game going on isn’t important to the story. So you think nobody will notice and you can gloss over it.
You might get away with it, but if you commit a baseball knowledge faux pas that could occur due to ignorance of the structure or rules of the game, you stand a good chance of creating a distraction for your reader that jerks them away from the plot. Put another way, it interrupts their suspension of disbelief that helps keep them involved. Put more bluntly, you lose credibility, and maybe you lose them.
I recently edited a story set in motorsports racing. The author apparently didn’t know the difference between an engine and a motor. The whole thing fell apart for me at that point.
So, find a subject matter expert to review your work if for no other reason than to ensure that you’ve eliminated unwanted distractions.
It’s generally agreed that a subject matter expert is a person who is an authority in a particular area or topic. Perhaps it’s a little too restrictive, but I think of a subject-matter expert as someone whose testimony on the subject would be admitted in a court of law. I have served as an expert witness and taught courses in topics including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), so when I needed to drop a little espionage into Dead Drive, I felt OK writing it myself. The trick was to make sure that people (editors, reviewers, readers) who had never heard of ITAR not only understood it, but liked it.
Expertise can come from years of experience, or from a relevant educational background. Most of the time, experience wins out over education. To understand how things happen on a cop’s beat, don’t query someone with a Ph.D. in criminal justice. Ask a working police officer with significant relevant experience, as I did while writing Dead Drive. An example was my question of how a police officer who becomes a murder suspect would be treated by his/her peers.
Although you often need to go beyond information found on the Internet, it’s a good place to identify subject-matter expert “candidates.” They may refer you to someone else, but I’ve always found people helpful.
I’m now writing a murder mystery based in the motorsports industry (formula racing). Tentatively entitled Formula Murder, it is scheduled to be published in early 2017. I have limited experience in racing (most of it decades old), and I needed to create a formula racing series and venue out of whole cloth. A colleague with contacts in the industry introduced me to the former Race Engineer for Helio Castroneves. We’re having a ball working together!
The bottom line is to find a recognized authority in the area, and don’t be afraid to ask anyone. Working with these experts can be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of writing.
Ross Carley, pen name for Russ Eberhart, is the author of Dead Drive, a PI murder mystery. Russ has served as a military intelligence officer, an engineering professor, and the CTO of a defense contractor. He is a consultant in cybersecurity and computational intelligence. He lives with the love of his life Francie in Indianapolis. If you want to learn more, you can reach him at his website.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Beyond Google: Using Subject Matter Experts / Ross Carley
Researching your subject matter is crucial when it comes to comprising your work, especially in the mystery genre. One small, incorrect fact can jar the reader from your storyline. Ultimately, you can lose the trust you have gained with your reader. That's why it is always important to refer to experts in their field to help smooth over any areas that you are unfamiliar with. Balancing this new information is important as well. Killer Nashville guest blogger Ross Carley explains that it is necessary to engage the reader without overwhelming them, as he did in his novel, Dead Drive.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Beyond Google: Using Subject Matter Experts
By Ross Carley
If your mystery significantly involves an unfamiliar topic, utilizing a subject-matter expert may be essential. In today’s world, topics such as terrorism and cyber-warfare that dominate the news provide excitement and interest for readers. If your plot involves cybersecurity and cybercrime, though, you’d better understand the difference between computer malware and a virus, and explain it at an appropriate level that engages readers without overwhelming them.
Some activities may feel straightforward to write about, depending on the author’s experience and background. For example, most of us are comfortable with processing email and doing research on the Internet, but when should you stop trying to wring information out of the Internet, or the library, or your social buddies, and find an expert who really knows your topic?
My favorite advice from mystery author and mentor Les Roberts (past president of the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League), early on in the days when I was trying to figure out what to write was, “Write what floats your boat.” Do I need to know a lot about such-and-such (fill in the blank) to write about it? Paraphrasing Les, ‘No. Write what you’re passionate about. Write what interests you. Your reader won’t be interested or passionate if you’re not.’
What if you’re really interested in horse racing, or cybercrime, or baseball, and you’re not an expert? You may wonder how to decide when you need to involve someone who is an expert, what a subject-matter expert is, and how to find one. You should involve an expert at some level for any area you don’t feel completely comfortable writing about. You may think that it isn’t really necessary if the subject area isn’t central to the plot.
Let’s say you’re writing a scene at a baseball game, but it could take place elsewhere. The fact that there’s a baseball game going on isn’t important to the story. So you think nobody will notice and you can gloss over it.
You might get away with it, but if you commit a baseball knowledge faux pas that could occur due to ignorance of the structure or rules of the game, you stand a good chance of creating a distraction for your reader that jerks them away from the plot. Put another way, it interrupts their suspension of disbelief that helps keep them involved. Put more bluntly, you lose credibility, and maybe you lose them.
I recently edited a story set in motorsports racing. The author apparently didn’t know the difference between an engine and a motor. The whole thing fell apart for me at that point.
So, find a subject matter expert to review your work if for no other reason than to ensure that you’ve eliminated unwanted distractions.
It’s generally agreed that a subject matter expert is a person who is an authority in a particular area or topic. Perhaps it’s a little too restrictive, but I think of a subject-matter expert as someone whose testimony on the subject would be admitted in a court of law. I have served as an expert witness and taught courses in topics including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), so when I needed to drop a little espionage into Dead Drive, I felt OK writing it myself. The trick was to make sure that people (editors, reviewers, readers) who had never heard of ITAR not only understood it, but liked it.
Expertise can come from years of experience, or from a relevant educational background. Most of the time, experience wins out over education. To understand how things happen on a cop’s beat, don’t query someone with a Ph.D. in criminal justice. Ask a working police officer with significant relevant experience, as I did while writing Dead Drive. An example was my question of how a police officer who becomes a murder suspect would be treated by his/her peers.
Although you often need to go beyond information found on the Internet, it’s a good place to identify subject-matter expert “candidates.” They may refer you to someone else, but I’ve always found people helpful.
I’m now writing a murder mystery based in the motorsports industry (formula racing). Tentatively entitled Formula Murder, it is scheduled to be published in early 2017. I have limited experience in racing (most of it decades old), and I needed to create a formula racing series and venue out of whole cloth. A colleague with contacts in the industry introduced me to the former Race Engineer for Helio Castroneves. We’re having a ball working together!
The bottom line is to find a recognized authority in the area, and don’t be afraid to ask anyone. Working with these experts can be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of writing.
Ross Carley, pen name for Russ Eberhart, is the author of Dead Drive, a PI murder mystery. Russ has served as a military intelligence officer, an engineering professor, and the CTO of a defense contractor. He is a consultant in cybersecurity and computational intelligence. He lives with the love of his life Francie in Indianapolis. If you want to learn more, you can reach him at his website.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Beyond Google: Using Subject Matter Experts / Ross Carley
Researching your subject matter is crucial when it comes to comprising your work, especially in the mystery genre. One small, incorrect fact can jar the reader from your storyline. Ultimately, you can lose the trust you have gained with your reader. That's why it is always important to refer to experts in their field to help smooth over any areas that you are unfamiliar with. Balancing this new information is important as well. Killer Nashville guest blogger Ross Carley explains that it is necessary to engage the reader without overwhelming them, as he did in his novel, Dead Drive.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Beyond Google: Using Subject Matter Experts
By Ross Carley
If your mystery significantly involves an unfamiliar topic, utilizing a subject-matter expert may be essential. In today’s world, topics such as terrorism and cyber-warfare that dominate the news provide excitement and interest for readers. If your plot involves cybersecurity and cybercrime, though, you’d better understand the difference between computer malware and a virus, and explain it at an appropriate level that engages readers without overwhelming them.
Some activities may feel straightforward to write about, depending on the author’s experience and background. For example, most of us are comfortable with processing email and doing research on the Internet, but when should you stop trying to wring information out of the Internet, or the library, or your social buddies, and find an expert who really knows your topic?
My favorite advice from mystery author and mentor Les Roberts (past president of the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League), early on in the days when I was trying to figure out what to write was, “Write what floats your boat.” Do I need to know a lot about such-and-such (fill in the blank) to write about it? Paraphrasing Les, ‘No. Write what you’re passionate about. Write what interests you. Your reader won’t be interested or passionate if you’re not.’
What if you’re really interested in horse racing, or cybercrime, or baseball, and you’re not an expert? You may wonder how to decide when you need to involve someone who is an expert, what a subject-matter expert is, and how to find one. You should involve an expert at some level for any area you don’t feel completely comfortable writing about. You may think that it isn’t really necessary if the subject area isn’t central to the plot.
Let’s say you’re writing a scene at a baseball game, but it could take place elsewhere. The fact that there’s a baseball game going on isn’t important to the story. So you think nobody will notice and you can gloss over it.
You might get away with it, but if you commit a baseball knowledge faux pas that could occur due to ignorance of the structure or rules of the game, you stand a good chance of creating a distraction for your reader that jerks them away from the plot. Put another way, it interrupts their suspension of disbelief that helps keep them involved. Put more bluntly, you lose credibility, and maybe you lose them.
I recently edited a story set in motorsports racing. The author apparently didn’t know the difference between an engine and a motor. The whole thing fell apart for me at that point.
So, find a subject matter expert to review your work if for no other reason than to ensure that you’ve eliminated unwanted distractions.
It’s generally agreed that a subject matter expert is a person who is an authority in a particular area or topic. Perhaps it’s a little too restrictive, but I think of a subject-matter expert as someone whose testimony on the subject would be admitted in a court of law. I have served as an expert witness and taught courses in topics including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), so when I needed to drop a little espionage into Dead Drive, I felt OK writing it myself. The trick was to make sure that people (editors, reviewers, readers) who had never heard of ITAR not only understood it, but liked it.
Expertise can come from years of experience, or from a relevant educational background. Most of the time, experience wins out over education. To understand how things happen on a cop’s beat, don’t query someone with a Ph.D. in criminal justice. Ask a working police officer with significant relevant experience, as I did while writing Dead Drive. An example was my question of how a police officer who becomes a murder suspect would be treated by his/her peers.
Although you often need to go beyond information found on the Internet, it’s a good place to identify subject-matter expert “candidates.” They may refer you to someone else, but I’ve always found people helpful.
I’m now writing a murder mystery based in the motorsports industry (formula racing). Tentatively entitled Formula Murder, it is scheduled to be published in early 2017. I have limited experience in racing (most of it decades old), and I needed to create a formula racing series and venue out of whole cloth. A colleague with contacts in the industry introduced me to the former Race Engineer for Helio Castroneves. We’re having a ball working together!
The bottom line is to find a recognized authority in the area, and don’t be afraid to ask anyone. Working with these experts can be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding parts of writing.
Ross Carley, pen name for Russ Eberhart, is the author of Dead Drive, a PI murder mystery. Russ has served as a military intelligence officer, an engineering professor, and the CTO of a defense contractor. He is a consultant in cybersecurity and computational intelligence. He lives with the love of his life Francie in Indianapolis. If you want to learn more, you can reach him at his website.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Keeping Characters Relevant in an Ever-Changing Media Landscape / R.G. Belsky
In the rapidly changing world that we live in, it is important not only for the writer to change with it, but for the literary character as well. A character’s evolution through time, especially in a series of work, allows for the reader to build a connection with the character. Social media proves to be ever-changing the way that society receives news, and thus should be reflected in literary characters. In this weeks guest blog, author R.G. Belsky shows how he has adapted the culture of today with his reporter protagonist Gil Malloy in his most recent novel, Blonde Ice.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Keeping Characters Relevant in an Ever-Changing Media Landscape
By R.G. Belsky
Fictional PIs today are a lot different than Philip Marlowe was back in the 1940s and ’50s. They use DNA evidence, online research and social media to help solve crimes. Same thing with lawyers who operate with modern techniques that Perry Mason could never imagine. And police officers in novels now certainly have to be a lot more sophisticated (not to mention socially aware) than the Jack Webb stereotype of yesteryear.
The bottom line is that a fictional character — just like in real life — needs to keep up with the changing times.
But it’s not always that easy to do for a mystery writer.
My protagonist is a New York City newspaper reporter named Gil Malloy. And there is no industry undergoing changes more rapidly today than the newspaper business — with papers folding, staffers being laid off and readers turning more and more to blogs and other online media for the news.
So how do I deal with this in my novels?
Well, in The Kennedy Connection — the first Gil Malloy mystery published in 2014 — I didn’t deal with it much at all. Gil was still very much the traditional old-fashioned newspaper reporter working for the print editions of his paper, the New York Daily News. By the time of Shooting For The Stars in 2015, Gil was spending a lot more time putting his stories online before print. Now, in Blonde Ice— which comes out Oct. 18 — Gil has gone viral big time. He tweets constantly, Live Stream reports from crime scenes and works for a tech-obsessed twenty-something year old new boss who cares more about web traffic than selling newspapers.
So that familiar image of a newspaper reporter pounding away on his story in the newsroom or racing to a payphone to call in his scoop to rewrite is just a memory from the past.
But the problem for a novelist like me — who writes about newspaper reporters and the media — is that everything in that world is changing so fast it’s almost impossible to keep up with it all.
A few years ago, newspapers barely had websites. Then came Facebook and Twitter and Live Video Chat and all the rest. A book generally takes 12-18 months to make it to publication. There’s simply no way any of us can foresee what new social media developments there will be by the time our book comes out.
But I still try my best to keep my character Gil Malloy up-to-date with the latest developments in the media world in order to make sure he seems authentic to the reader. Best-selling mystery writer Janet Evanovich touched on this briefly at Killer Nashville 2016 when she was asked how she felt about mystery characters aging during a series. Her reply was: You can keep your character the same age if you want, but you do have to be aware of and acknowledge changes in the world around them.
The only alternative for an author is to set a novel in another time period. Like Sue Grafton does with Kinsey Millhone in the ‘80s. Those pay phones Kinsey uses are sure a lot simpler to write about than keeping up with the latest updates on smartphones, iPads and social media apps.
But you want to know something? It really doesn’t matter all that much in the end for me and my books.
Sure, the media is changing all around us so rapidly that sometimes it’s hard to keep up. But it’s always been that way. And always will be.
There used to be twelve newspapers in New York City — now there are ten times that many local news outlets available online. People once got their breaking news first from radio, then from television and now from Twitter. CNN changed the face of journalism with a 24-hour news channel a generation ago in the same way blogs and websites and social media are doing it now. TMZ is breaking big scandal stories online every day the way the National Enquirer used to do once a week at the supermarket checkout counter. But the news is still the same. The only thing different is the way it’s delivered. Or, to paraphrase The Who, “meet the new media, same as the old media.”
In the end, the only thing that really matters to me — both in the newspaper business and in writing my Gil Malloy mystery novels — is the story.
People always want to read a good story.
And that’s one thing that never changes!
R.G. Belsky is an author of crime fiction and a New York City journalist. His new mystery Blonde Ice — the latest in a series featuring newspaper reporter Gil Malloy — will be published by Atria on October 18. Previous books include Shooting For The Stars (2015) and The Kennedy Connection (2014). Belsky is a former managing editor at the New York Daily News; city editor of the New York Post; news editor at Star magazine and — most recently — was a managing editor at NBC News. He recently won the Claymore Award at Killer Nashville 2016 for Forget Me Not, a new book project — and was a Finalist for the Silver Falchion Best Mystery and Best Thriller awards with Shooting For The Stars. Reach him here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Keeping Characters Relevant in an Ever-Changing Media Landscape / R.G. Belsky
In the rapidly changing world that we live in, it is important not only for the writer to change with it, but for the literary character as well. A character's evolution through time, especially in a series of work, allows for the reader to build a connection with the character. Social media proves to be ever-changing the way that society receives news, and thus should be reflected in literary characters. In this weeks guest blog, author R.G. Belsky shows how he has adapted the culture of today with his reporter protagonist Gil Malloy in his most recent novel, Blonde Ice.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Keeping Characters Relevant in an Ever-Changing Media Landscape
By R.G. Belsky
Fictional PIs today are a lot different than Philip Marlowe was back in the 1940s and ’50s. They use DNA evidence, online research and social media to help solve crimes. Same thing with lawyers who operate with modern techniques that Perry Mason could never imagine. And police officers in novels now certainly have to be a lot more sophisticated (not to mention socially aware) than the Jack Webb stereotype of yesteryear.
The bottom line is that a fictional character — just like in real life — needs to keep up with the changing times.
But it’s not always that easy to do for a mystery writer.
My protagonist is a New York City newspaper reporter named Gil Malloy. And there is no industry undergoing changes more rapidly today than the newspaper business — with papers folding, staffers being laid off and readers turning more and more to blogs and other online media for the news.
So how do I deal with this in my novels?
Well, in The Kennedy Connection — the first Gil Malloy mystery published in 2014 
— I didn’t deal with it much at all. Gil was still very much the traditional old-fashioned newspaper reporter working for the print editions of his paper, the New York Daily News. By the time of Shooting For The Stars in 2015, Gil was spending a lot more time putting his stories online before print. Now, in Blonde Ice — which comes out Oct. 18 — Gil has gone viral big time. He tweets constantly, Live Stream reports from crime scenes and works for a tech-obsessed twenty-something year old new boss who cares more about web traffic than selling newspapers.
So that familiar image of a newspaper reporter pounding away on his story in the newsroom or racing to a payphone to call in his scoop to rewrite is just a memory from the past.
But the problem for a novelist like me — who writes about newspaper reporters and the media — is that everything in that world is changing so fast it’s almost impossible to keep up with it all.
A few years ago, newspapers barely had websites. Then came Facebook and Twitter and Live Video Chat and all the rest. A book generally takes 12-18 months to make it to publication. There’s simply no way any of us can foresee what new social media developments there will be by the time our book comes out.
But I still try my best to keep my character Gil Malloy up-to-date with the latest developments in the media world in order to make sure he seems authentic to the reader. Best-selling mystery writer Janet Evanovich touched on this briefly at Killer Nashville 2016 when she was asked how she felt about mystery characters aging during a series. Her reply was: You can keep your character the same age if you want, but you do have to be aware of and acknowledge changes in the world around them.
The only alternative for an author is to set a novel in another time period. Like Sue Grafton does with Kinsey Millhone in the ‘80s. Those pay phones Kinsey uses are sure a lot simpler to write about than keeping up with the latest updates on smartphones, iPads and social media apps.
But you want to know something? It really doesn’t matter all that much in the end for me and my books.
Sure, the media is changing all around us so rapidly that sometimes it’s hard to keep up. But it’s always been that way. And always will be.
There used to be twelve newspapers in New York City — now there are ten times that many local news outlets available online. People once got their breaking news first from radio, then from television and now from Twitter. CNN changed the face of journalism with a 24-hour news channel a generation ago in the same way blogs and websites and social media are doing it now. TMZ is breaking big scandal stories online every day the way the National Enquirer used to do once a week at the supermarket checkout counter. But the news is still the same. The only thing different is the way it’s delivered. Or, to paraphrase The Who, “meet the new media, same as the old media.”
In the end, the only thing that really matters to me — both in the newspaper business and in writing my Gil Malloy mystery novels — is the story.
People always want to read a good story.
And that’s one thing that never changes!
R.G. Belsky is an author of crime fiction and a New York City journalist. His new mystery Blonde Ice — the latest in a series featuring newspaper reporter Gil Malloy — will be published by Atria on October 18. Previous books include Shooting For The Stars (2015) and The Kennedy Connection (2014). Belsky is a former managing editor at the New York Daily News; city editor of the New York Post; news editor at Star magazine and — most recently — was a managing editor at NBC News. He recently won the Claymore Award at Killer Nashville 2016 for Forget Me Not, a new book project — and was a Finalist for the Silver Falchion Best Mystery and Best Thriller awards with Shooting For The Stars. Reach him here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Keeping Characters Relevant in an Ever-Changing Media Landscape / R.G. Belsky
In the rapidly changing world that we live in, it is important not only for the writer to change with it, but for the literary character as well. A character's evolution through time, especially in a series of work, allows for the reader to build a connection with the character. Social media proves to be ever-changing the way that society receives news, and thus should be reflected in literary characters. In this weeks guest blog, author R.G. Belsky shows how he has adapted the culture of today with his reporter protagonist Gil Malloy in his most recent novel, Blonde Ice.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Keeping Characters Relevant in an Ever-Changing Media Landscape
By R.G. Belsky
Fictional PIs today are a lot different than Philip Marlowe was back in the 1940s and ’50s. They use DNA evidence, online research and social media to help solve crimes. Same thing with lawyers who operate with modern techniques that Perry Mason could never imagine. And police officers in novels now certainly have to be a lot more sophisticated (not to mention socially aware) than the Jack Webb stereotype of yesteryear.
The bottom line is that a fictional character — just like in real life — needs to keep up with the changing times.
But it’s not always that easy to do for a mystery writer.
My protagonist is a New York City newspaper reporter named Gil Malloy. And there is no industry undergoing changes more rapidly today than the newspaper business — with papers folding, staffers being laid off and readers turning more and more to blogs and other online media for the news.
So how do I deal with this in my novels?
Well, in The Kennedy Connection — the first Gil Malloy mystery published in 2014 
— I didn’t deal with it much at all. Gil was still very much the traditional old-fashioned newspaper reporter working for the print editions of his paper, the New York Daily News. By the time of Shooting For The Stars in 2015, Gil was spending a lot more time putting his stories online before print. Now, in Blonde Ice — which comes out Oct. 18 — Gil has gone viral big time. He tweets constantly, Live Stream reports from crime scenes and works for a tech-obsessed twenty-something year old new boss who cares more about web traffic than selling newspapers.
So that familiar image of a newspaper reporter pounding away on his story in the newsroom or racing to a payphone to call in his scoop to rewrite is just a memory from the past.
But the problem for a novelist like me — who writes about newspaper reporters and the media — is that everything in that world is changing so fast it’s almost impossible to keep up with it all.
A few years ago, newspapers barely had websites. Then came Facebook and Twitter and Live Video Chat and all the rest. A book generally takes 12-18 months to make it to publication. There’s simply no way any of us can foresee what new social media developments there will be by the time our book comes out.
But I still try my best to keep my character Gil Malloy up-to-date with the latest developments in the media world in order to make sure he seems authentic to the reader. Best-selling mystery writer Janet Evanovich touched on this briefly at Killer Nashville 2016 when she was asked how she felt about mystery characters aging during a series. Her reply was: You can keep your character the same age if you want, but you do have to be aware of and acknowledge changes in the world around them.
The only alternative for an author is to set a novel in another time period. Like Sue Grafton does with Kinsey Millhone in the ‘80s. Those pay phones Kinsey uses are sure a lot simpler to write about than keeping up with the latest updates on smartphones, iPads and social media apps.
But you want to know something? It really doesn’t matter all that much in the end for me and my books.
Sure, the media is changing all around us so rapidly that sometimes it’s hard to keep up. But it’s always been that way. And always will be.
There used to be twelve newspapers in New York City — now there are ten times that many local news outlets available online. People once got their breaking news first from radio, then from television and now from Twitter. CNN changed the face of journalism with a 24-hour news channel a generation ago in the same way blogs and websites and social media are doing it now. TMZ is breaking big scandal stories online every day the way the National Enquirer used to do once a week at the supermarket checkout counter. But the news is still the same. The only thing different is the way it’s delivered. Or, to paraphrase The Who, “meet the new media, same as the old media.”
In the end, the only thing that really matters to me — both in the newspaper business and in writing my Gil Malloy mystery novels — is the story.
People always want to read a good story.
And that’s one thing that never changes!
R.G. Belsky is an author of crime fiction and a New York City journalist. His new mystery Blonde Ice — the latest in a series featuring newspaper reporter Gil Malloy — will be published by Atria on October 18. Previous books include Shooting For The Stars (2015) and The Kennedy Connection (2014). Belsky is a former managing editor at the New York Daily News; city editor of the New York Post; news editor at Star magazine and — most recently — was a managing editor at NBC News. He recently won the Claymore Award at Killer Nashville 2016 for Forget Me Not, a new book project — and was a Finalist for the Silver Falchion Best Mystery and Best Thriller awards with Shooting For The Stars. Reach him here.
(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, Jonathan Nash, 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.
Taking the Self-Publishing Plunge is Swim or Sink / Russ Snyder
Self-publishing is a mixture of years of dedication towards your particular craft and perseverance to have your voice heard. Russ Snyder’s success is a testament that self-publishing can be worth the uphill battle. Snyder emphasizes the fact that research and editing are two key components in the life of a self-publisher. Snyder’s testimony reminds us what it takes to find ourselves as writers and to believe in the essence of your work.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Taking the Self-Publishing Plunge is Swim or Sink
By Russ Snyder
I don’t believe there is a single manner in which one decides to become a writer. With me, it was a culmination of many years of wondering, ‘Can I do this?’ I started reading the Hardy Boys as a child, and just kept reading. Looking back, I would say Robert B. Parker and his ‘Spenser’ series was probably the largest single influence on me. I absolutely loved the dialogue between Spenser and his longtime cohort, Hawk. It is my personal favorite repartee between any characters I’ve had the pleasure to read. Many books stand out as particular favorites; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is a strong favorite, and of course, Vince Flynn, Lee Child, and Brad Thor.
Like most of you, I went through the ‘Rejection Stage’ for over four years. My way of coping was to continue writing. I was not about to give up as I knew I offered a good story; actually two good stories as I write two separate series; The Sgt. Marvin Styles Assignments and the Jonathan Steele Adventures. I finally decided that I had to get my work out in front of the reading public, as that would be the true test of my efforts. My answer was to self-publish.
As we all know the road to self-publishing is bumpy, to say the least. You must do your due diligence deciding exactly how you want to self-publish, and more importantly, what do you realistically expect to get out of it? Are you writing a book for personal reasons to show your friends and family, or are you writing to become a commercial success? If you choose the latter, I will tell you now, you are in for a long haul and there are no shortcuts. You pay the piper; but it can be worth it. It was for me.
My first work, The President’s Weapon, published Jan. 24, 2015, introduces us to Sgt. Marvin Styles. Ultimately, Styles heads up a civilian black ops team put together by the President of the United States. That work broke the Kindle Download record book in the Thriller Genre by a first-time/self-published author.
In late July of 2015, it hit #441 on the overall available Kindle list. No other newbie had ever cracked the top 2,500. How did I do it? I never gave up. I never got discouraged. I admit at times I got frustrated, but never discouraged. Besides having a good story of course, the two most important aspects in offering a quality product is research and editing, editing, and more editing. Don’t make the mistake I did and feel that you can edit your own work. You can’t. Plain and simple, you can’t. There are two types of writers; the creative artistic ones who can conceive a story. Then there are the analytical writers, who can spot mistakes seemingly by natural ability, but oddly, have great difficulty in creating a story. My experience has taught me the hard way that the two don’t mix, much like oil and water. In order to provide a professional quality product, you are going to have to spend money on a professional editor. There is just no way around that.
In order to create your own series, and make it unique, you must research other authors and see what they write. No one likes a copycat. I have incorporated a unique approach in my own writing style; it is different from anyone else out there. In my reviews I have constantly been equally compared to Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and Lee Child, as well as a host of others. Please don’t misunderstand that statement, I’m not saying I am as good as them, because I let my readers do the talking; what I am saying, is research the authors who write in the same genre, and change your style up a bit so as, again, not to copy others. I’ve read novels in which four or five names could be listed as the author and I would not have known the difference. If that’s the case in which we find ourselves, we’ve failed. Put your story away for a month, take a break. Come back to it, keep your main storyline, but study and find how you can make it different; make it come alive in your own voice, and that my friends, is possibly the main key.
My second work, Dead Water, and sequel to my first, was released on May 4. In this offering, I can see for myself where I have grown as a writer, and to give credit where credit is due, my editors have much to do with this. Remember; edit, edit, and edit some more. You can’t go wrong. Good luck.
After thirty years in the construction and property management businesses in Florida, Russ Snyder decided it was time to pursue his lifelong writing dream. Now living in Tennessee, Russ has written two series — the Jonathan Steele Adventures (Black Kayak and Relentless Pursuit) and the Sgt. Marvin Styles series (The President’s Weapon and Dead Water). Reach him at www.russellsnyderjr.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, Arthur Jackson, 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.
Taking the Self-Publishing Plunge is Swim or Sink / Russ Snyder
Self-publishing is a mixture of years of dedication towards your particular craft and perseverance to have your voice heard. Russ Snyder's success is a testament that self-publishing can be worth the uphill battle. Snyder emphasizes the fact that research and editing are two key components in the life of a self-publisher. Snyder's testimony reminds us what it takes to find ourselves as writers and to believe in the essence of your work.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Taking the Self-Publishing Plunge is Swim or Sink
By Russ Snyder
I don’t believe there is a single manner in which one decides to become a writer. With me, it was a culmination of many years of wondering, ‘Can I do this?’ I started reading the Hardy Boys as a child, and just kept reading. Looking back, I would say Robert B. Parker and his ‘Spenser’ series was probably the largest single influence on me. I absolutely loved the dialogue between Spenser and his longtime cohort, Hawk. It is my personal favorite repartee between any characters I’ve had the pleasure to read. Many books stand out as particular favorites; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is a strong favorite, and of course, Vince Flynn, Lee Child, and Brad Thor.
Like most of you, I went through the ‘Rejection Stage’ for over four years. My way of coping was to continue writing. I was not about to give up as I knew I offered a good story; actually two good stories as I write two separate series; The Sgt. Marvin Styles Assignments and the Jonathan Steele Adventures. I finally decided that I had to get my work out in front of the reading public, as that would be the true test of my efforts. My answer was to self-publish.
As we all know the road to self-publishing is bumpy, to say the least. You must do your due diligence deciding exactly how you want to self-publish, and more importantly, what do you realistically expect to get out of it? Are you writing a book for personal reasons to show your friends and family, or are you writing to become a commercial success? If you choose the latter, I will tell you now, you are in for a long haul and there are no shortcuts. You pay the piper; but it can be worth it. It was for me.
My first work, The President’s Weapon, published Jan. 24, 2015, introduces us to Sgt. Marvin Styles. Ultimately, Styles heads up a civilian black ops team put together by the President of the United States. That work broke the Kindle Download record book in the Thriller Genre by a first-time/self-published author.
In late July of 2015, it hit #441 on the overall available Kindle list. No other newbie had ever cracked the top 2,500. How did I do it? I never gave up. I never got discouraged. I admit at times I got frustrated, but never discouraged. Besides having a good story of course, the two most important aspects in offering a quality product is research and editing, editing, and more editing. Don’t make the mistake I did and feel that you can edit your own work. You can’t. Plain and simple, you can’t. There are two types of writers; the creative artistic ones who can conceive a story. Then there are the analytical writers, who can spot mistakes seemingly by natural ability, but oddly, have great difficulty in creating a story. My experience has taught me the hard way that the two don’t mix, much like oil and water. In order to provide a professional quality product, you are going to have to spend money on a professional editor. There is just no way around that.
In order to create your own series, and make it unique, you must research other authors and see what they write. No one likes a copycat. I have incorporated a unique approach in my own writing style; it is different from anyone else out there. In my reviews I have constantly been equally compared to Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and Lee Child, as well as a host of others. Please don’t misunderstand that statement, I’m not saying I am as good as them, because I let my readers do the talking; what I am saying, is research the authors who write in the same genre, and change your style up a bit so as, again, not to copy others. I’ve read novels in which four or five names could be listed as the author and I would not have known the difference. If that’s the case in which we find ourselves, we’ve failed. Put your story away for a month, take a break. Come back to it, keep your main storyline, but study and find how you can make it different; make it come alive in your own voice, and that my friends, is possibly the main key.
My second work, Dead Water, and sequel to my first, was released on May 4. In this offering, I can see for myself where I have grown as a writer, and to give credit where credit is due, my editors have much to do with this. Remember; edit, edit, and edit some more. You can’t go wrong. Good luck.
After thirty years in the construction and property management businesses in Florida, Russ Snyder decided it was time to pursue his lifelong writing dream. Now living in Tennessee, Russ has written two series — the Jonathan Steele Adventures (Black Kayak and Relentless Pursuit) and the Sgt. Marvin Styles series (The President’s Weapon and Dead Water). Reach him at www.russellsnyderjr.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, Arthur Jackson, 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.
Taking the Self-Publishing Plunge is Swim or Sink / Russ Snyder
Self-publishing is a mixture of years of dedication towards your particular craft and perseverance to have your voice heard. Russ Snyder's success is a testament that self-publishing can be worth the uphill battle. Snyder emphasizes the fact that research and editing are two key components in the life of a self-publisher. Snyder's testimony reminds us what it takes to find ourselves as writers and to believe in the essence of your work.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Taking the Self-Publishing Plunge is Swim or Sink
By Russ Snyder
I don’t believe there is a single manner in which one decides to become a writer. With me, it was a culmination of many years of wondering, ‘Can I do this?’ I started reading the Hardy Boys as a child, and just kept reading. Looking back, I would say Robert B. Parker and his ‘Spenser’ series was probably the largest single influence on me. I absolutely loved the dialogue between Spenser and his longtime cohort, Hawk. It is my personal favorite repartee between any characters I’ve had the pleasure to read. Many books stand out as particular favorites; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is a strong favorite, and of course, Vince Flynn, Lee Child, and Brad Thor.
Like most of you, I went through the ‘Rejection Stage’ for over four years. My way of coping was to continue writing. I was not about to give up as I knew I offered a good story; actually two good stories as I write two separate series; The Sgt. Marvin Styles Assignments and the Jonathan Steele Adventures. I finally decided that I had to get my work out in front of the reading public, as that would be the true test of my efforts. My answer was to self-publish.
As we all know the road to self-publishing is bumpy, to say the least. You must do your due diligence deciding exactly how you want to self-publish, and more importantly, what do you realistically expect to get out of it? Are you writing a book for personal reasons to show your friends and family, or are you writing to become a commercial success? If you choose the latter, I will tell you now, you are in for a long haul and there are no shortcuts. You pay the piper; but it can be worth it. It was for me.
My first work, The President’s Weapon, published Jan. 24, 2015, introduces us to Sgt. Marvin Styles. Ultimately, Styles heads up a civilian black ops team put together by the President of the United States. That work broke the Kindle Download record book in the Thriller Genre by a first-time/self-published author.
In late July of 2015, it hit #441 on the overall available Kindle list. No other newbie had ever cracked the top 2,500. How did I do it? I never gave up. I never got discouraged. I admit at times I got frustrated, but never discouraged. Besides having a good story of course, the two most important aspects in offering a quality product is research and editing, editing, and more editing. Don’t make the mistake I did and feel that you can edit your own work. You can’t. Plain and simple, you can’t. There are two types of writers; the creative artistic ones who can conceive a story. Then there are the analytical writers, who can spot mistakes seemingly by natural ability, but oddly, have great difficulty in creating a story. My experience has taught me the hard way that the two don’t mix, much like oil and water. In order to provide a professional quality product, you are going to have to spend money on a professional editor. There is just no way around that.
In order to create your own series, and make it unique, you must research other authors and see what they write. No one likes a copycat. I have incorporated a unique approach in my own writing style; it is different from anyone else out there. In my reviews I have constantly been equally compared to Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and Lee Child, as well as a host of others. Please don’t misunderstand that statement, I’m not saying I am as good as them, because I let my readers do the talking; what I am saying, is research the authors who write in the same genre, and change your style up a bit so as, again, not to copy others. I’ve read novels in which four or five names could be listed as the author and I would not have known the difference. If that’s the case in which we find ourselves, we’ve failed. Put your story away for a month, take a break. Come back to it, keep your main storyline, but study and find how you can make it different; make it come alive in your own voice, and that my friends, is possibly the main key.
My second work, Dead Water, and sequel to my first, was released on May 4. In this offering, I can see for myself where I have grown as a writer, and to give credit where credit is due, my editors have much to do with this. Remember; edit, edit, and edit some more. You can’t go wrong. Good luck.
After thirty years in the construction and property management businesses in Florida, Russ Snyder decided it was time to pursue his lifelong writing dream. Now living in Tennessee, Russ has written two series — the Jonathan Steele Adventures (Black Kayak and Relentless Pursuit) and the Sgt. Marvin Styles series (The President’s Weapon and Dead Water). Reach him at www.russellsnyderjr.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, Arthur Jackson, 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.
Raising the Stakes for Your Writing Skills / M. Elizabeth Lee
Writing a thriller has proven time and time again to be one of the most mind-boggling and challenging genres to write. With a thriller you need to keep your reader reading while building up to an exciting event slowly. Keeping your reader interested during this escalation, while at the same time keeping your twist well-hidden, is the challenge we are tasked with overcoming. In this week’s guest blog, author M. Elizabeth Lee gives some fantastic tips and tricks for building a compelling thriller.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Raising the Stakes for Your Writing Skills
By M. Elizabeth Lee
Writing suspense is like trying to climb a ladder while simultaneously building it. Do it correctly and you lead your reader on a thrilling journey where the stakes grow higher as dangers known and unforeseen press ever closer. If a thriller is successful, the reader leaps from the top of the ladder, filled with exhilaration after the crazy ride he or she has just completed. But when thrillers go wrong, and readers are not pulled along by a taut plot, compelling mystery and believable characters, they have no incentive to keep climbing the ladder, and instead, slide limply back to earth, where they use their last ounce of squandered energy to assign a one star rating. Sad!
The desire to know what happens next is the driving force of all fiction, and no more so than in the suspense genre, where the whole point is to keep the reader so spellbound that they miss their train stop or forget to walk the dog. That addictive sense of what happens next is the benchmark of great suspense writing, but creating that feeling is a feat like none other. Executing suspense successfully requires a complex mind trick; crafting your twisty, surprise-laden story while hiding what you’re doing from the reader, and simultaneously attempting to distance yourself enough to evaluate whether any of it is working. It’s enough to make a suspense writer wish for a second brain, or a timely case of temporary amnesia.
But as most of us have only one mind at our disposal, the evaluation process must be sidelined for the majority of the writing process. It’s much more beneficial to focus on the juggling act/magic trick of creating suspense, which has everything to do with manipulating reader expectations.
Expectation is tricky in thrillers, because serious fans of the genre a.) Love surprises, and b.) Have read it all before. In a typical thriller, some misdeed has been committed and the protagonist must figure out who did it and why before something even more horrible happens. Thriller writers are ingenious at ways of finding fresh angles to explore this basic construct, but to be successful, most thrillers do these four things:
Establish High Stakes (and then raise them) — Tension is at its highest when everything is on the line. Start with a big problem, and make it bigger. For example, in Love Her Madly, Glo, the protagonist, is faced with either losing her best friend or the guy she thinks might be her true love. That’s a tough decision, but it’s kid stuff compared to the choice Glo faces later when she must either follow her best friend into the clutches of armed strangers or swim across a dangerous channel to get help. Boxing characters into near hopeless situations and forcing them to act is a foolproof way to create dramatic tension. Extremes are interesting and characters are (fortunately) not real, so writers can push all they want and no one gets hurt.
Taut Pacing — Opening with a tight focus helps build momentum quickly. Keep extraneous detail to a minimum. Remember that bestselling European author who devoted pages to descriptions of computer hardware? Don’t do that. Your story is stronger without it.
Mystery — Readers will be happiest if they can’t guess by chapter two who the villain is and why he plans to poison the reservoir. Shocking twists are the genre’s beating heart. Come up with a good one, and gain a fan for life.
Payoff — Thrillers don’t have to end with an epic warehouse shootout, but they should have a climactic payoff. It doesn’t have to tie up every loose end, or even signal that the protagonist’s quest is over, but it should resolve the plot’s main mystery. Show your readers some love by giving them a payoff that will cast the journey they’ve taken in an entirely new light. Or conversely (or perhaps, perversely), keep a little extra mystery simmering on the back burner. By the final pages of Love Her Madly, Glo finally learns what has become of her lost friend, but a final discovery throws the truth Glo thought she had gleaned back into question. A little residual doubt can make a novel linger, ghostlike, long after a book has been shelved.
Thriller writers are constantly finding new ways to advance the genre. While a traditional “lone wolf overcoming adversity to find the truth” tale is a trope that is here to stay, I’m a fan of unreliable narrators and enjoy both writing and reading this style of thriller. Using a suspect narrator provides a tricky “Can I trust this?” intimacy with characters who might be lying through their teeth, half-crazy, deluded, or all of the above. When I was writing Love Her Madly I had to decide how truthful to make Glo about the night her best friend disappeared. Will readers take her story at face value? I can’t say. With this type of thriller, part of the fun is trying to suss out all the manipulations that are in play. The truth may be out there, but unless your narrator permits, you might never discover it.
Whatever the approach, readers of suspense want that thrill, and it’s our job to bring it. As mentioned earlier, one of the most difficult aspects of authoring suspense is handling doubt. After working on a story for months, sometimes years, it would be wonderful to automatically know that all those painstakingly placed dominoes will topple just right. But the truth is, you can’t know. You must wait for your readers to tell you their experience, keeping in mind that it is the rare author who nails it perfectly the first time.
It’s why our fellow writers, agents, editors and loyal reader friends are so essential to the work. They want to help us excavate the outstanding thriller lurking just beneath the surface of that killer draft. Accept feedback. Make it better. Keep reading. Keep writing. That’s our path.
Suspense writers are daredevils at heart, and the stakes are incredibly high. When a thriller doesn’t thrill, it’s a failure. But for those focused on the high wire act of creating a visceral thrill from words spun on paper, nothing else will satisfy.
Elizabeth Lee is a novelist, screenwriter and actress living in New York City. Her thriller, Love Her Madly, was released this August from Atria Books/Simon & Schuster. Reach her at www.melizabethlee.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, Arthur Jackson, 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.
Raising the Stakes for Your Writing Skills / M. Elizabeth Lee
Writing a thriller has proven time and time again to be one of the most mind-boggling and challenging genres to write. With a thriller you need to keep your reader reading while building up to an exciting event slowly. Keeping your reader interested during this escalation, while at the same time keeping your twist well-hidden, is the challenge we are tasked with overcoming. In this week’s guest blog, author M. Elizabeth Lee gives some fantastic tips and tricks for building a compelling thriller.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Raising the Stakes for Your Writing Skills
By M. Elizabeth Lee
Writing suspense is like trying to climb a ladder while simultaneously building it. Do it correctly and you lead your reader on a thrilling journey where the stakes grow higher as dangers known and unforeseen press ever closer. If a thriller is successful, the reader leaps from the top of the ladder, filled with exhilaration after the crazy ride he or she has just completed. But when thrillers go wrong, and readers are not pulled along by a taut plot, compelling mystery and believable characters, they have no incentive to keep climbing the ladder, and instead, slide limply back to earth, where they use their last ounce of squandered energy to assign a one star rating. Sad!
The desire to know what happens next is the driving force of all fiction, and no more so than in the suspense genre, where the whole point is to keep the reader so spellbound that they miss their train stop or forget to walk the dog. That addictive sense of what happens next is the benchmark of great suspense writing, but creating that feeling is a feat like none other. Executing suspense successfully requires a complex mind trick; crafting your twisty, surprise-laden story while hiding what you’re doing from the reader, and simultaneously attempting to distance yourself enough to evaluate whether any of it is working. It’s enough to make a suspense writer wish for a second brain, or a timely case of temporary amnesia.
But as most of us have only one mind at our disposal, the evaluation process must be sidelined for the majority of the writing process. It’s much more beneficial to focus on the juggling act/magic trick of creating suspense, which has everything to do with manipulating reader expectations.
Expectation is tricky in thrillers, because serious fans of the genre a.) Love surprises, and b.) Have read it all before. In a typical thriller, some misdeed has been committed and the protagonist must figure out who did it and why before something even more horrible happens. Thriller writers are ingenious at ways of finding fresh angles to explore this basic construct, but to be successful, most thrillers do these four things:
- Establish High Stakes (and then raise them) — Tension is at its highest when everything is on the line. Start with a big problem, and make it bigger. For example, in Love Her Madly, Glo, the protagonist, is faced with either losing her best friend or the guy she thinks might be her true love. That’s a tough decision, but it’s kid stuff compared to the choice Glo faces later when she must either follow her best friend into the clutches of armed strangers or swim across a dangerous channel to get help. Boxing characters into near hopeless situations and forcing them to act is a foolproof way to create dramatic tension. Extremes are interesting and characters are (fortunately) not real, so writers can push all they want and no one gets hurt.
- Taut Pacing — Opening with a tight focus helps build momentum quickly. Keep extraneous detail to a minimum. Remember that bestselling European author who devoted pages to descriptions of computer hardware? Don’t do that. Your story is stronger without it.
- Mystery — Readers will be happiest if they can’t guess by chapter two who the villain is and why he plans to poison the reservoir. Shocking twists are the genre’s beating heart. Come up with a good one, and gain a fan for life.
- Payoff — Thrillers don’t have to end with an epic warehouse shootout, but they should have a climactic payoff. It doesn’t have to tie up every loose end, or even signal that the protagonist’s quest is over, but it should resolve the plot’s main mystery. Show your readers some love by giving them a payoff that will cast the journey they’ve taken in an entirely new light. Or conversely (or perhaps, perversely), keep a little extra mystery simmering on the back burner. By the final pages of Love Her Madly, Glo finally learns what has become of her lost friend, but a final discovery throws the truth Glo thought she had gleaned back into question. A little residual doubt can make a novel linger, ghostlike, long after a book has been shelved.
Thriller writers are constantly finding new ways to advance the genre. While a traditional “lone wolf overcoming adversity to find the truth” tale is a trope that is here to stay, I’m a fan of unreliable narrators and enjoy both writing 
and reading this style of thriller. Using a suspect narrator provides a tricky “Can I trust this?” intimacy with characters who might be lying through their teeth, half-crazy, deluded, or all of the above. When I was writing Love Her Madly I had to decide how truthful to make Glo about the night her best friend disappeared. Will readers take her story at face value? I can’t say. With this type of thriller, part of the fun is trying to suss out all the manipulations that are in play. The truth may be out there, but unless your narrator permits, you might never discover it.
Whatever the approach, readers of suspense want that thrill, and it’s our job to bring it. As mentioned earlier, one of the most difficult aspects of authoring suspense is handling doubt. After working on a story for months, sometimes years, it would be wonderful to automatically know that all those painstakingly placed dominoes will topple just right. But the truth is, you can’t know. You must wait for your readers to tell you their experience, keeping in mind that it is the rare author who nails it perfectly the first time.
It’s why our fellow writers, agents, editors and loyal reader friends are so essential to the work. They want to help us excavate the outstanding thriller lurking just beneath the surface of that killer draft. Accept feedback. Make it better. Keep reading. Keep writing. That’s our path.
Suspense writers are daredevils at heart, and the stakes are incredibly high. When a thriller doesn’t thrill, it’s a failure. But for those focused on the high wire act of creating a visceral thrill from words spun on paper, nothing else will satisfy.
Elizabeth Lee is a novelist, screenwriter and actress living in New York City. Her thriller, Love Her Madly, was released this August from Atria Books/Simon & Schuster. Reach her at www.melizabethlee.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, Arthur Jackson, 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.
Raising the Stakes for Your Writing Skills / M. Elizabeth Lee
Writing a thriller has proven time and time again to be one of the most mind-boggling and challenging genres to write. With a thriller you need to keep your reader reading while building up to an exciting event slowly. Keeping your reader interested during this escalation, while at the same time keeping your twist well-hidden, is the challenge we are tasked with overcoming. In this week’s guest blog, author M. Elizabeth Lee gives some fantastic tips and tricks for building a compelling thriller.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Raising the Stakes for Your Writing Skills
By M. Elizabeth Lee
Writing suspense is like trying to climb a ladder while simultaneously building it. Do it correctly and you lead your reader on a thrilling journey where the stakes grow higher as dangers known and unforeseen press ever closer. If a thriller is successful, the reader leaps from the top of the ladder, filled with exhilaration after the crazy ride he or she has just completed. But when thrillers go wrong, and readers are not pulled along by a taut plot, compelling mystery and believable characters, they have no incentive to keep climbing the ladder, and instead, slide limply back to earth, where they use their last ounce of squandered energy to assign a one star rating. Sad!
The desire to know what happens next is the driving force of all fiction, and no more so than in the suspense genre, where the whole point is to keep the reader so spellbound that they miss their train stop or forget to walk the dog. That addictive sense of what happens next is the benchmark of great suspense writing, but creating that feeling is a feat like none other. Executing suspense successfully requires a complex mind trick; crafting your twisty, surprise-laden story while hiding what you’re doing from the reader, and simultaneously attempting to distance yourself enough to evaluate whether any of it is working. It’s enough to make a suspense writer wish for a second brain, or a timely case of temporary amnesia.
But as most of us have only one mind at our disposal, the evaluation process must be sidelined for the majority of the writing process. It’s much more beneficial to focus on the juggling act/magic trick of creating suspense, which has everything to do with manipulating reader expectations.
Expectation is tricky in thrillers, because serious fans of the genre a.) Love surprises, and b.) Have read it all before. In a typical thriller, some misdeed has been committed and the protagonist must figure out who did it and why before something even more horrible happens. Thriller writers are ingenious at ways of finding fresh angles to explore this basic construct, but to be successful, most thrillers do these four things:
- Establish High Stakes (and then raise them) — Tension is at its highest when everything is on the line. Start with a big problem, and make it bigger. For example, in Love Her Madly, Glo, the protagonist, is faced with either losing her best friend or the guy she thinks might be her true love. That’s a tough decision, but it’s kid stuff compared to the choice Glo faces later when she must either follow her best friend into the clutches of armed strangers or swim across a dangerous channel to get help. Boxing characters into near hopeless situations and forcing them to act is a foolproof way to create dramatic tension. Extremes are interesting and characters are (fortunately) not real, so writers can push all they want and no one gets hurt.
- Taut Pacing — Opening with a tight focus helps build momentum quickly. Keep extraneous detail to a minimum. Remember that bestselling European author who devoted pages to descriptions of computer hardware? Don’t do that. Your story is stronger without it.
- Mystery — Readers will be happiest if they can’t guess by chapter two who the villain is and why he plans to poison the reservoir. Shocking twists are the genre’s beating heart. Come up with a good one, and gain a fan for life.
- Payoff — Thrillers don’t have to end with an epic warehouse shootout, but they should have a climactic payoff. It doesn’t have to tie up every loose end, or even signal that the protagonist’s quest is over, but it should resolve the plot’s main mystery. Show your readers some love by giving them a payoff that will cast the journey they’ve taken in an entirely new light. Or conversely (or perhaps, perversely), keep a little extra mystery simmering on the back burner. By the final pages of Love Her Madly, Glo finally learns what has become of her lost friend, but a final discovery throws the truth Glo thought she had gleaned back into question. A little residual doubt can make a novel linger, ghostlike, long after a book has been shelved.
Thriller writers are constantly finding new ways to advance the genre. While a traditional “lone wolf overcoming adversity to find the truth” tale is a trope that is here to stay, I’m a fan of unreliable narrators and enjoy both writing 
and reading this style of thriller. Using a suspect narrator provides a tricky “Can I trust this?” intimacy with characters who might be lying through their teeth, half-crazy, deluded, or all of the above. When I was writing Love Her Madly I had to decide how truthful to make Glo about the night her best friend disappeared. Will readers take her story at face value? I can’t say. With this type of thriller, part of the fun is trying to suss out all the manipulations that are in play. The truth may be out there, but unless your narrator permits, you might never discover it.
Whatever the approach, readers of suspense want that thrill, and it’s our job to bring it. As mentioned earlier, one of the most difficult aspects of authoring suspense is handling doubt. After working on a story for months, sometimes years, it would be wonderful to automatically know that all those painstakingly placed dominoes will topple just right. But the truth is, you can’t know. You must wait for your readers to tell you their experience, keeping in mind that it is the rare author who nails it perfectly the first time.
It’s why our fellow writers, agents, editors and loyal reader friends are so essential to the work. They want to help us excavate the outstanding thriller lurking just beneath the surface of that killer draft. Accept feedback. Make it better. Keep reading. Keep writing. That’s our path.
Suspense writers are daredevils at heart, and the stakes are incredibly high. When a thriller doesn’t thrill, it’s a failure. But for those focused on the high wire act of creating a visceral thrill from words spun on paper, nothing else will satisfy.
Elizabeth Lee is a novelist, screenwriter and actress living in New York City. Her thriller, Love Her Madly, was released this August from Atria Books/Simon & Schuster. Reach her at www.melizabethlee.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, Arthur Jackson, 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.
Was, Had Been, Is / Fran Stewart
Over time the way that we use words and phrases has a tendency to change. Ideally this would work towards the evolution and continued improvement of the language. As of late, however, the more common trend is bending the rules and taking shortcuts until these incorrect methods of writing become the accepted norms. In this week’s guest blog, author Fran Stewart shares her thoughts on the subject.
Happy reading!
Clay Stafford
Founder Killer Nashville
Publisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Was / Had Been / Is
By Fran Stewart
The English language expands and contracts, usually without our being aware of it. Language always evolves, with the additions of new words as new technologies come into their own, as musical forms or pop cultural icons rise or wane in popularity.
This recent change, though, seems more basic to me than the simple addition of words. We seem to have forgotten what it was to remember the past. I’d noticed the change in newspaper quotations, in magazine interviews, and in the conversations of people around me. But it all came to an explosive awareness recently when I heard a Public Radio commentator – that’s right, National Public Radio, that bastion of proper speech and erudite ideas – say, “So here I am walking down the street yesterday, and . . .”
Whatever happened to past tense? There I was yesterday, walking down the street. The street experience happened yesterday, so wouldn’t past tense be appropriate in reporting it? Apparently not. More and more, I find that people tend to think in present tense, speak in present tense, and write entire novels in that same tense. The use of the present tense is so ubiquitous now, that I’ve experimented with mentioning it to writers with whom I’ve been speaking, calling their attention to their own use of the present tense, only to be met with incredulous denials. “I don’t do that,” they’ve said. “Do I?”
Maybe I’m more aware of past versus present since I began writing the ScotShop Mysteries. A Wee Murder in My Shop, the first book in the series, introduces Macbeath Donlevy Freusach Findlay Macearachar Macpheidiran of Clan Farquharson, otherwise known as Dirk. Did I mention that Dirk is the wonderful ghost of a 14th century Scotsman? The 14th century was a time during which the English language changed drastically, from the almost entirely incomprehensible (to us) Old English to the Middle English used by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales.
I’ve had great fun listening to Dirk talk and watching as he struggles to integrate 21st-century Americanisms into his ghostly psyche. He’s in the process of gradually enhancing the vocabulary of Peggy Winn, owner of the ScotShop, with words like whinge and beceorest. When Dirk tells Peggy Ye needna whinge so, or Why d’ye beceorest when ye canna do any the thing about it? she can usually decipher the meaning from the context in which he says these things. (I’m happy to report that the narrator for the WEE MURDER audiobook got Dirk’s voice and accent exactly right.) Whinge and beceorest are similar in the same way complain and grumble are—they’re both nuances of the same sort of idea. But each one adds its own flavor, one closer to a whine; the other nearer to a grouch. And those nuances are part of the beauty of the English language.
For decades, I’ve had a personal vendetta against the Smurfs, who taught an entire generation that the use of an exact word was never necessary when one could simply use smurf as a verb, a noun, any part of speech. Now, I don’t consider this move to expressing oneself almost exclusively in present tense to be nearly as insidious as the dumbing-down of our language by the little blue critters (or rather, by their TV script-writers). It does give me pause though, to wonder whatever will happen to a handy little word like had. As every writer knows, or should know, when we write in past tense, if we have to go even farther back in time, we stick in a had (or two) to make the timing clear. After that, we can dispense with the auxiliary word. Here’s an example:
Gladiola Grim played the piano at every social function. We hated it. Her sense of rhythm had always been atrocious, but the last time I heard her play, just before she was murdered, she exceeded our lowest expectations when she executed her variations on Moonlight Sonata. I use the term executed judiciously, of course, since poor Beethoven would have gleefully strangled her if the stranger wearing a black cape hadn’t obliged shortly after the musical fiasco.
There is no need, as you can see, to put another had before the word exceeded. The timing is perfectly clear. Without the past tenses and past perfects, though, the chronology becomes harder to follow:
Gladiola Grim plays the piano at every social function. We hate it. Her sense of rhythm is atrocious, but the last time I’m listening to her play, just before she’s murdered, she exceeds our lowest expectations when she executes her variations on Moonlight Sonata. I use the term executes judiciously, of course. Poor Beethoven misses out on strangling her because the stranger wearing a black cape beats him to it.
I would like to keep had in the running. If English has to evolve—and what language doesn’t?—Dirk and I would vote for clarity rather than what I see as a lazy approach to tenses.
Fran Stewart is the author of the Biscuit McKee Mysteries – Gray as Ashes is the seventh book in that series – as well as a standalone mystery – A Slaying Song Tonight, set during the Great Depression. Her non-fiction work includes From the Tip of My Pen: A Workbook for Writers. Her new ScotShop Mystery Series from Berkley Press began with A Wee Murder in My Shop. The second book in that series, A Wee Doe of Death, was released in early 2016. Book number 3 of the ScotShop Mysteries, A Wee Homicide in the Hotel, will be released February 7, 2017. Fran lives quietly with various rescued cats beside a creek on the other side of Hog Mountain, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta. She is a member of the National League of American Pen Women, Sisters in Crime, and Mystery Writers of America. Read more about Fran and her works at www.franstewart.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, Arthur Jackson, 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.
Was, Had Been, Is / Fran Stewart
Over time the way that we use words and phrases has a tendency to change. Ideally this would work towards the evolution and continued improvement of the language. As of late, however, the more common trend is bending the rules and taking shortcuts until these incorrect methods of writing become the accepted norms. In this week’s guest blog, author Fran Stewart shares her thoughts on the subject.Happy reading!Clay StaffordFounder Killer NashvillePublisher / Editorial Director Killer Nashville Magazine
Was / Had Been / Is
By Fran Stewart
The English language expands and contracts, usually without our being aware of it. Language always evolves, with the additions of new words as new technologies come into their own, as musical forms or pop cultural icons rise or wane in popularity.
This recent change, though, seems more basic to me than the simple addition of words. We seem to have forgotten what it was to remember the past. I’d noticed the change in newspaper quotations, in magazine interviews, and in the conversations of people around me. But it all came to an explosive awareness recently when I heard a Public Radio commentator – that’s right, National Public Radio, that bastion of proper speech and erudite ideas – say, “So here I am walking down the street yesterday, and . . .”
Whatever happened to past tense? There I was yesterday, walking down the street. The street experience happened yesterday, so wouldn’t past tense be appropriate in reporting it? Apparently not. More and more, I find that people tend to think in present tense, speak in present tense, and write entire novels in that same tense. The use of the present tense is so ubiquitous now, that I’ve experimented with mentioning it to writers with whom I’ve been speaking, calling their attention to their own use of the present tense, only to be met with incredulous denials. “I don’t do that,” they’ve said. “Do I?”
Maybe I’m more aware of past versus present since I began writing the ScotShop Mysteries. A Wee Murder in My Shop, the first book in the series, introduces Macbeath Donlevy Freusach Findlay Macearachar Macpheidiran of Clan Farquharson, otherwise known as Dirk. Did I mention that Dirk is the wonderful ghost of a 14th century Scotsman? The 14th century was a time during which the English language changed drastically, from the almost entirely incomprehensible (to us) Old English to the Middle English used by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales.
I’ve had great fun listening to Dirk talk and watching as he struggles to integrate 21st-century Americanisms into his ghostly psyche. He’s in the process of gradually enhancing the vocabulary of Peggy Winn, owner of the ScotShop, with words like whinge and beceorest. When Dirk tells Peggy Ye needna whinge so, or Why d’ye beceorest when ye canna do any the thing about it? she can usually decipher the meaning from the context in which he says these things. (I’m happy to report that the narrator for the WEE MURDER audiobook got Dirk’s voice and accent exactly right.) Whinge and beceorest are similar in the same way complain and grumble are—they’re both nuances of the same sort of idea. But each one adds its own flavor, one closer to a whine; the other nearer to a grouch. And those nuances are part of the beauty of the English language.
For decades, I’ve had a personal vendetta against the Smurfs, who taught an entire generation that the use of an exact word was never necessary when one could simply use smurf as a verb, a noun, any part of speech. Now, I don’t consider this move to expressing oneself almost exclusively in present tense to be nearly as insidious as the dumbing-down of our language by the little blue critters (or rather, by their TV script-writers). It does give me pause though, to wonder whatever will happen to a handy little word like had. As every writer knows, or should know, when we write in past tense, if we have to go even farther back in time, we stick in a had (or two) to make the timing clear. After that, we can dispense with the auxiliary word. Here’s an example:
Gladiola Grim played the piano at every social function. We hated it. Her sense of rhythm had always been atrocious, but the last time I heard her play, just before she was murdered, she exceeded our lowest expectations when she executed her variations on Moonlight Sonata. I use the term executed judiciously, of course, since poor Beethoven would have gleefully strangled her if the stranger wearing a black cape hadn’t obliged shortly after the musical fiasco.
There is no need, as you can see, to put another had before the word exceeded. The timing is perfectly clear. Without the past tenses and past perfects, though, the chronology becomes harder to follow:
Gladiola Grim plays the piano at every social function. We hate it. Her sense of rhythm is atrocious, but the last time I’m listening to her play, just before she’s murdered, she exceeds our lowest expectations when she executes her variations on Moonlight Sonata. I use the term executes judiciously, of course. Poor Beethoven misses out on strangling her because the stranger wearing a black cape beats him to it.
I would like to keep had in the running. If English has to evolve—and what language doesn’t?—Dirk and I would vote for clarity rather than what I see as a lazy approach to tenses.
Fran Stewart is the author of the Biscuit McKee Mysteries – Gray as Ashes is the seventh book in that series – as well as a standalone mystery – A Slaying Song Tonight, set during the Great Depression. Her non-fiction work includes From the Tip of My Pen: A Workbook for Writers. Her new ScotShop Mystery Series from Berkley Press began with A Wee Murder in My Shop. The second book in that series, A Wee Doe of Death, was released in early 2016. Book number 3 of the ScotShop Mysteries, A Wee Homicide in the Hotel, will be released February 7, 2017. Fran lives quietly with various rescued cats beside a creek on the other side of Hog Mountain, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta. She is a member of the National League of American Pen Women, Sisters in Crime, and Mystery Writers of America. Read more about Fran and her works at www.franstewart.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, Arthur Jackson, 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.
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