Monkey Mind

 

Mind monkey or monkey mind, from Chinese xinyuan and Sino-Japanese shin’en 心猿 [lit. “heart-/mind-monkey”], is a Buddhist term meaning “unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable”. Wikipedia

That’s the official definition of monkey mind – well, official if you buy Wikipedia’s definition. A group of writers were discussing the concept on another blog. We’d all heard of it, although we all discovered it in yoga and/or mediation classes. It’s amazing how many writers participate in yoga and meditation. Oops, that’s the perfect example of monkey mind. So, why would writers be talking about distraction?

Writing is all about creating and living in alternate worlds. We have to believe our worlds before we can effectively portray them to our readers. That makes a scary kind of sense and I’m hoping no one has a copy of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders handy because I’m thinking what I just wrote might be included in a few its definitions.

 Writers also talk about “the zone.” I expect its different for every writer, but for me, it’s the place where the story is unreeling in my mind like a movie and all I’m doing is taking dictation. That’s when the story writes itself. It’s a heady, wonderful, feeling and if someone dares to interrupt me…family are you reading this…well, that’s why the justice system created justifiable homicide.

So how does monkey mind figure into writing? The zone is not always a stop on the way to a story. Most times writing is hard work. Writers literally sweat words and it’s not a pretty sight. We write, delete, write, edit, write, curse, write, cry.  In the old days, this was accompanied by a small mountain of crumpled paper growing alongside our chairs. These days, we create sub files on our computers with various titles of despair. Inevitably, monkey mind takes over.

by Caspar David Friedrich

We start out writing a dark and stormy night, but our mind jumps to broad daylight and a man standing on a cliff gazing at a raging storm tossed sea below him. Then the monkey leaps to the hand thrusting out of those wild waves grasping desperately at nothing. A face, pale and pinched breaks through the froth, the mouth visible as it gasps for air before sinking again. The man on the cliff laughs and turns away.

Little vignettes pulled not from the story we intended to write, but from the depths of our imagination. The monkey may leave us there, or it may take us to a crime scene in the woods. The body of a woman found half buried by leaves, her face a rictus of pain and fear. And then flash us to a small child playing tea party in a garden. The sound of weeping in drifting out to her from the open windows of the house.

Monkey mind takes my stories in different directions than I intend. It never gives me whole scenes, just little itchy brain cells with tantalizing hints of possible complications. My monkey leads me down the path of rabbit holes as often as it leads me to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but whenever I’m stuck, I can count on my monkey mind to kick in. It’s monkey mind that often answers the question, “What’s the worst thing that could happen here?”

Do you have a monkey mind? How do you feel about it? How do you control it? Do you even try?

Kait loves to hear from fans, check out her website at www.kaitcarson.com; follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kaitcarsonauthor, on twitter at @kaitcarson, or e-mail her at kait.carson@gmail.com.

How Can I Write Better Dialogue? 4 Quick Tips

Dialogue matters.  A lot.  In fact, I have stopped reading many an otherwise solid novel due to sub-par dialogue, and I wanted to provide a friendly warning to authors out there: even casual readers can sniff out sloppy dialogue, and that could cause said readers to stop reading, which could mean they write a bad review, or worse, no review at all.  And what happens to the novelist then?  Well, that lack of reviews could lead the writer in question to quit writing and take up drinking, which could lead to the downfall of his marriage, which could lead to him losing custody of his kids, which could lead to more drinking and financial problems, which could lead to getting behind on the mortgage.  The end result: the writer ends up homeless.  . . .all because he wrote piss-poor dialogue. Tragic.

Anyhew, I’m in the midst of new writing project, and to remind myself not to screw up dialogue and end up drunk, divorced, destitute, and only seeing my adorable son Harry on every other weekend, I’ve jotted down 4 quick tips. Enjoy.

Tip #1: Dialogue creates tension.

• Speaking in completely reductive but useful terms, I lump all novel writing to do with tension-building into two broad categories: characters either DO things that create tension, or characters SAY things that create tension. So when writing dialogue remember to allow a character’s true personality to come out to play. If they’re mysterious, dole out their words carefully, and with utmost attention paid to timing. If they’re a smartass, dialogue is an ideal place to showcase that particular talent (yes, it qualifies as a talent; otherwise, I would have no discernible talent). All of these should help increase tension between the characters.

Tip #2: Dialogue builds a character’s backstory.

• It takes a seasoned novelist to achieve what I’m about to suggest, but it can be done and done well: use dialogue to help round out a character’s backstory. Now I’m not suggesting nor do I advocate for information dumps; those take readers out of the story, which defeats the purpose. But if you can weave in memorable (and, occasionally, important) bits about a character’s biography then dialogue is wonderfully efficient place to do so. Plus, it saves time and space. Being lazy, I like that.

Tip #3: Dialogue helps create separate and unique characters.

• Every character, from the protagonist to a minor character with only a few lines, should have a distinct way of speaking. This helps brand them as unique characters, and it helps readers differentiate between characters, especially recurring ones who have lots of dialogue. Find ways to make every character’s speech memorable. Does a character stutter? Talk really fast? Speak in clipped phrases? Whatever, just make it memorable.

Tip #4: Dialogue, on occasion, reveals a character’s most important thoughts and feelings.

• Again, a seasoned novelist will do this sparingly. Unless, of course, the character in question is someone who wears his or her heart on his or her sleeve and keeps up a constant monologue. But still, dialogue is a nice place to, on occasion, toss in how a character feels about an issue (say, the crime in question, for example). This will help cement a reader’s feelings toward the character, and it will also help other characters who are involved in the dialogue parse their own feelings.

So how important is dialogue to you as a reader? Got any tips on how to create meaningful and memorable dialogue? Have any Italian sandwiches you’d like to send my way? (What, I’m hungry.) Would love to hear from you. Drop a comment.

 

SlumpBusters: An Obscure Mystery Novelist Recommends Flash Fiction for Getting Out of a Writing Funk

Prepare for some shameless self-congratulation: a story I wrote last month was just accepted for publication by Shotgun Honey, an excellent website that features crime/noir/mystery flash fiction.

Why do I care, you might ask, and rightly so.

Answer: you shouldn’t. Unless you’re a writer who is or ever has been in a writing “funk.”

If you are, fear not. I have a solution for what ails you, one that helped me break the cycle of bad writing and even worse moods. (By the way, writers tend to be moody SOBs, or DOBs, if you’re a female scribe. My old man has somewhat charitably labeled me mercurial, which is a college man’s way of saying I’m a moody SOB.)

Oh yeah, back to my point: write a flash fiction piece to help get out of a writer’s funk. Below are some bullet-pointed reasons why.

Benefits of Writing Flash Fiction

• They’re short. No s—, Sherlock. But yeah, for those who don’t know, flash fiction stories are 1,000 words or less, and that is advantageous, particularly for a novelist struggling to break out of a funk. Because of its abbreviated length, flash fiction is a manageable goal; it’s easy to see the finish line while working on it, and when you finish one, you feel a much-needed sense of accomplishment.
• They’re stories. Meaning they still must have a recognizable beginning, middle, and end. They must have interesting and dynamic characters. They must, on some level, “mean something.” Sounds similar to a novel, no? Also, flash fiction forces you to focus on the story, on writing a scene or scenes with no fat, no filler, no frills. That, too, will aid in your novel writing, especially those penning fast-paced mystery novels, which is what we here at MMO pride ourselves on writing, and writing well.
• They’re fun. This is crucial because whenever I’m in a writing funk, I’m definitely not having any fun. I get bogged down on deadlines and bad reviews; I shrink under the weight of self-doubt, and whenever I wrote my flash fiction piece, all of that crap went away, and I had fun writing again, which is why I started this hobby in the first place.

So give it try. Write a flash fiction piece. Best part is, if it sucks, at least it didn’t take that long to write.

 

Papa Was Wrong: An Obscure Mystery Novelist Challenges Hemingway’s ‘White Bull’ Metaphor

On Hemingway’s metaphor for writing: But Papa’s whole bit about the blank page being akin to a writer facing down a “white bull” is just bull—-. Worse, it’s macho bull—-.  Sure, the “white bull” is a useful metaphor, and it certainly jibes with the Tough Guy/Big Game Hunter/Hard-Drinking persona Hemingway cultivated. And yes, Hemingway did win a Nobel Prize in literature, so who am I to argue with the man?

By Max Everhart

Aside from leaving behind at least two literary masterpieces (The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea), as well as the only perfect short story in existence (“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place”), Ernest Hemingway was extremely quotable, and in today’s sound bite-driven culture where attention span’s are measured in nanoseconds, and celebrities become famous for their sex tapes and being witty on twitter, and. . .

Apologies.

Forgot where I was going with that.

Right. Hemingway.  Yeah, the man made for good copy, my favorite among his quotes being this gem: “Always do drunk what you said you’d do sober.” That has heft to it. Speaks to a person’s character. I like that.

But Papa’s whole bit about the blank page being akin to a writer facing down a “white bull” is just bull—-. Worse, it’s macho bull—-.  Sure, the “white bull” is a useful metaphor, and it certainly jibes with the Tough Guy/Big Game Hunter/Hard-Drinking persona Hemingway cultivated. And yes, Hemingway did win a Nobel Prize in literature, so who am I to argue with the man?

Well, I’ll tell you who I am: a guy who took 3^rd place in the Reflections Writing Contest when he was eight; a guy whose written countless short stories, mostly for now defunct publications; a guy whose novels have sold in excess of 100 copies. That’s who I am.

So, now that we’ve established my impeccable credentials, I can explain, in eloquent, yet pity detail, exactly why Hemingway’s metaphor is bull—-.

It annoys me.

Hemingway took himself (and his work) too seriously, and we all know how that turned out. Too, and pardon me while I trample on the man’s grave, the “white bull” metaphor just adds fuel to the fire of Papa’s legend as a writer/adventurer who valued (overvalued?) “grace under pressure.” (Sidenote: the whole Camelot-JFK myth rubs me the wrong way, too, as that pretty boy was NOT a good president; he was just a guy with a silver spoon in his mouth whose father bought him a Pulitzer Prize and a presidential election).

Which leads me back to my point (if I had one to begin with): don’t over-complicate things; don’t be pretentious and insecure, man.  When it comes to writing, forget about Hemingway’s white bull nonsense.  Instead, remember Max’s Dog Rule: Sit at your computer, and stay.

Okay, maybe bang your head against the desk if things aren’t flowing the way you’d like.

 

 

From Stage to Page: How a Playwright Became a Writer by Elena Hartwell

I wanted to be a novelist. It wasn’t just that fiction might pay better (it does) or that playwrights aren’t “real writers” (they are), it was that fiction — especially mysteries — was still my first love.

By Elena Hartwell

I cut my teeth on murder mysteries. Starting with Nancy Drew. Then moving on to Tony Hillerman — the entire series sat on my granny’s bookshelf — then, later, falling in love with Kinsey Millhone. As a reader, I have run the mystery genre gauntlet from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Rich Zahradnik.

I was sure I’d be a writer.

Then I discovered theater. And fell into a dark place. Well, dark much of the time, because we’re always working with the house lights off and nothing but a glow coming from the stage. I loved working in the theater. Directing, building, lighting, propping, acting, and sometimes … writing.

But something nagged at me. I wanted to be a novelist. It wasn’t just that fiction might pay better (it does) or that playwrights aren’t “real writers” (they are), it was that fiction — especially mysteries — was still my first love. I wanted to be a part of that amazing group of writers who filled so many of my reading hours with thrills, suspense, danger, and sometimes humor.

Playwriting taught me a lot about story structure, dramatic tension, and especially dialogue.

Playwriting taught me a lot about story structure, dramatic tension, and especially dialogue. When I started sending my fiction out to agents and publishers — even when I was told “no” — I often got personal notes about the success of my dialogue. Much of what I’d honed for years onstage, turned out to work very well on the page.

The same held true for character development. To create a blueprint for an actor to fill out as a full-blown character, a playwright has to understand backstory and psychology and intention. All of this experience went into my first book, which didn’t sell, and my second book, which didn’t sell, and my third book, which didn’t sell… and into my fourth, which did. I’d finally learned how to write like a novelist.

Story editors are gifts from the gods. . .While those early manuscripts were extremely valuable, helping me become a successful writer, working with a talented editor was the final, missing piece in my puzzle.

Finding a home for One Dead, Two to Go taught me another valuable lesson. Story editors are gifts from the gods. I learned as much about how to shape a mystery and how to set up a series in the months I worked with my editor as I had writing my first couple of manuscripts. While those early manuscripts were extremely valuable, helping me become a successful writer, working with a talented editor was the final, missing piece in my puzzle.

I started writing for the theater twenty years ago. I’ve had productions around the US and abroad. And now, my first book launched on April 15, 2016. They are all my children: my plays, my novels, my short stories and blog posts. Every word I write matters to me. Will I continue to write plays? I think so. I hope so. I love the theater and even now feel its siren call. But writing my “first” novel was also special. It felt like coming home. I cut my teeth on murder mysteries, and now, here I am, all grown up, with one of my very own.

For more of Elena Hartwell and her writing:
https://twitter.com/Elena_Hartwell

https://www.facebook.com/ElenaHartwellAuthor

http://www.arcofawriter.com

http://www.elenahartwell.com

 

 

Give Up to Get Ahead: An Obscure Mystery Novelist Briefly Explains How to Quit Writing a Novel in Order to Grow as a Writer

Discipline trumps talent.

That’s my motto, anyway. You want to be a mystery novelist (or any kind of writer, for that matter) you need to work on your craft. Every day. No exceptions. No excuses. You need to apply your posterior in a chair and type, and type, and type, and stare out the window, and think, and then keep typing until something good appears on that stupid little white screen.

But here’s the rub: a good bit of what you write will, I can assure you with supreme confidence, be crap. At first. Write it anyway. And then edit. And then drink–for courage to soldier on.

So today’s post is meant purely to inspire those of you struggling to write your first book (or your second, or your eighteenth). Below is the first 350 words or so if my first attempt at a mystery novel. I wrote another 30,000 after this, but what you’ll read below is the only bit worth saving. The rest was crap, but writing that crap taught me something invaluable: that I had a “voice.” I just didn’t have anything else yet. The rest of it I would have to work on, and you should, too.

So enjoy this tiny glimpse into my first big failure as a writer.

Say you’re fifty-six years old and you’ve got something you love that isn’t a wife or kids.  Suppose it’s a restaurant: a huge hollowed out sailboat made of eighty-year old oak that’s docked in an inlet on the North Carolina coast.  Call it SHARKEY’s.  Picture a cartoon-y-looking killer shark with white fangs painted on the hull outside.  Three massive white sails up top, flapping in the breeze.  Go inside and order a strong pomegranate margarita from Kitty, the bartender.  Check out the autographed glossies of Jack Nicholas and Catfish Hunter behind the bar.  The circular windows to starboard offer a peephole view of the water.  Creaking floorboards and the smell of saltwater make you feel like you’re walking the plank for Blackbeard.  There are tuna steak sandwiches and homemade potato chips on the menu, plenty of Handy-Wipes for the greasy fingers.  When the weather’s nice, a solid eight months out of the year, there are picnic tables on the rectangular deck facing the water, a long pier adjacent to work off those extra jumbo shrimp.

Now, picture yourself there, with your old man paunch, a full head of gray hair, and most of your own teeth.  You flash those sparklers at everyone, wear Levis and boat shoes the whole year ‘round.  Like most poor boys that figured out a way to keep your belly full, you take pride in your work.  Slapping high-fives with little sluggers in ball uniforms.  Refilling sweet ice tea for the red-faced tourists.  Lying to the Country Club Set about your single-digit handicap, all the fish you’ve caught.  You turn a healthy profit and keep a bulk of the cash in a wall-safe at your second-story condo overlooking the Atlantic.  But somehow you pick up bad habits like drinking Jim Bean before noon and blabbing to everyone about your nest egg.  It isn’t long before someone cracks your safe and now the IRS says you’re in arrears.

So, about to lose the one thing you love, what do you do?

The answer: you invite Jack Burns, local millionaire and quasi-philanthropist, and his idiot son, Greg, over to your bar to see if there is anything you can do to help get Greg elected the Mayor of Kill Devil Island next week.

What do you do when the Muse is missing?

Writers are not usually a spiritual bunch. But if there is one thing we all worship, it’s our muse. We court it, placate it, promise it whatever it wants, and we live to serve it. Now, if only it would return the favor by showing up on demand!

My usual muse a/k/a Hutch

My muse seems to have left me in the lurch. I am dry, feeling completely uncreative (is that a word?). I’ll get an idea, start a topic, and watch it fizzle in the embers of my mental disarray. What’s a writer to do? Not much? More? Everything!

My muse today

My first solution for desertion of the muse (a/k/a writer’s block) is to remember what a romance writer once said on a magazine television show. The story chronicled everyday people who wrote and published romance novels. This group all had contracts with Harlequin. Some had day jobs, some were retired, and all were having a great time and loving seeing their words in print. One of the women had contracts with three of the popular lines of the day. The interviewer asked her, “What do you do when you get writer’s block?” Her expression stopped just this side of an eye roll and she replied, “Do you ask plumbers what they do when they get plumber block? This is a job. I write.”

Write. Is that that cure for writer’s block? Does it summon the muse from its distant place bringing a renewed well of creativity with it? No. But you can’t edit the blank page. Get the words on the paper (or the screen these days) trust in the process and maybe, just maybe, the process will trust you too. At the end of the day whether or not you can wait for your muse depends on how you view your writing. If it’s a hobby, yep, you can wait. If you see your writing life as a job—that leaky faucet needs to be fixed so—get back to work!

What’s your favorite solution for writer’s block? How do you call the muse?

I Wanna Be Bad: An Obscure Mystery Novelist Talks Bad Guys

On a villain’s true worth: villains serve an important function in society: they allow us to play out our deepest, darkest fantasies without suffering the moral and/or legal and/or spiritual consequences.

By Max Everhart

I wanna be bad.

Really bad.

Come on, it’s fun to be naughty, but what’s even more fun (and safer) is reading about other people misbehaving. Ah, literary villains. How I envy you all. From contract assassins to femme fatales to serial killers who hunt serial killers (shout out to Dexter!), villains just have more fun than the rest of us so-called civilized folk. What’s more, villains serve an important function in society: they allow us to play out our deepest, darkest fantasies without suffering the moral and/or legal and/or spiritual consequences. If only I could be a walking ID for just one day. . . but, alas, I must reluctantly abide by our government’s laws and my own conscience, a nuisance though they both may be.

But the question I want to ponder today is not why do we dig villains, but how are they created? How do writers draw us deeper into the story using bad guys and gals? To answer that question, I wanted to provide an excerpt from The Short Drop by Matthew Fitzsimmons. Apart from being a suspenseful and well-paced book incorporating politics, cyber-hacking, kidnapping, murder, and incest, it has an eerie and alluring bad guy.

Tinsley had made a life-time study of the way time affected people. The way it toyed with their good judgment and perspective. Made them impatient or rash. Made them take irrational risks. Time was the great leveler, and neither money nor power held sway over its relentless march. That was precisely what made Tinsley so good at his work. . .Most people were overawed by time. They allowed time to bully them, fearing that it was passing too fast or too slowly, sometimes both simultaneously. But not Tinsley. He was indifferent to the passage of time, and it flowed around him effortlessly. . .When he was a young man and still plied his trade with a rifle, Tinsley once spent twenty-six days in a sewer drain in Sarajevo. . .Tinsley lay in burbling stream of human waste, waiting for a shot. . .

Fine, okay, maybe this Tinsley character didn’t have so much fun while sitting for a month in human feces waiting to kill a guy, but it’s pretty cool to read about it. As are the philosophical bits about time.

And that’s how you hook a reader: reveal unique aspects about a character. That’s what I did in my latest work Ed, Not Eddie, which has a suspect that, aside from being named after a piece of famous American junk food, sells pot out of the back of a 1957 Chevy. (Buy the book for more).

The best villains enthrall us in a variety of ways. Some use humor, others terror. Some, like Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, entice us with their words, and others, like Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old men, are more taciturn. Whatever the method, villains have the capacity to be hilarious and revolting in equal measure. . .and that’s why we love to hate them.

My Desert Island Top 5 Literary Villains. Leave a comment, and tell me yours.

• The Judge from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
• Professor Moriarty from The Final Problem
• Patrick Bateman from American Psycho
• Nurse Ratchet from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• Hannibal Lecter from Red Dragon

 

 

E. Michael Helms: “Dissecting the Mystery”

On mystery: Without a well-paced and intriguing plot (storyline), the mystery is dead in the water.

By E. Michael Helms

Dissecting the Mystery

What makes a good mystery? Could there be a simpler question? On the flipside, could there be a more general, broad-based question? Each reader has his or her tastes and opinions, as does every writer. I can’t—and won’t— presume to have the answers. What I will do is share some aspects of what I believe—as a reader, makes a good mystery—and as a writer, what works for me.

In a good mystery no “cardboard” allowed.

(Okay, book covers are the exception.) Characters are foremost! Characters, especially the protagonist/hero and important secondary characters, must be well-rounded and three-dimensional. “Real” characters have good traits. “Real” characters have flaws. Superman may be “faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive,” but he’s also vulnerable to kryptonite (and Lois Lane). Mac McClellan is a Southern gentleman, a combat veteran, and has a wry sense of humor. He’s also suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is bitter toward his ex-wife, drinks too much, and can be bossy. Kate Bell, Mac’s girlfriend and Girl Friday in solving cases, is independent and strong-willed. She also has a slightly shady past that she keeps hidden from Mac until it comes out in the second Mac McClellan Mystery, Deadly Ruse.The villain must also be a complex person. Satan need not apply. Every good (meaning bad) villain should have a redeeming quality or two. In an upcoming Mac McClellan Mystery, Deadly Spirits, the villain suffered abuse as a child. Said villain (no spoilers here) is also intelligent and a great achiever. But the past often overpowers and warps the future despite the best intentions. Even minor characters must be minimally fleshed-out. If they are worth mentioning by name or have a speaking role, they deserve to be more than cardboard cutouts.

In a good mystery no plodding plots allowed.

Without a well-paced and intriguing plot (storyline), the mystery is dead in the water. You’ve heard it a million times, but it’s worth repeating: you must pull the reader into the story, and the sooner the better. In my first Mac McClellan Mystery, Deadly Catch, the opening sentence sets the stage: The first cast of the day turned my dream vacation into a nightmare. Short and sweet, but doesn’t it make you want to read more and find out why?Had I opened with back-story, how Mac had recently retired from the Marine Corps and traveled to the Florida panhandle for a fishing vacation, you might have kept on reading for a while hoping the pace picked up. Personally, I would’ve thought, “Ho-hum.” By the fourteenth page, Mac discovers a body, is suspected of murder, and warned not to leave the area by the local sheriff. Information important to back-story can be fed in piecemeal as the story progress, but keep that plot moving! And speaking of moving, it is the characters who drive the plot! Every scene, every action, every sentence or phrase of dialogue, must be used to reveal character, information, or propel the storyline forward. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t belong.

In a good mystery the crime must be worthy of the story.

Meaning—almost without exception—murder! Even most cozies have a murder as the catalyst of the plot. Violence and bloodshed should fit the mystery’s sub-genre. Most cozies involve a murder happening “offstage.” And, in most cases, there is little or no blood and gore. The darker the mystery, the more ramped-up the murder and violence can be.Also, the murder should happen fairly early in the story. It’s what draws the hero/heroine into the plot, the driving force behind his/her compulsion to dig deep and solve the mystery. In Deadly Catch a body is discovered in Chapter One. There are/have been exceptions, but today’s reader generally wants things upfront and happening quickly. In this “I want it now!” world, there is way too much competition for an author to chance dragging things out too long.

In a good mystery the killer shouldn’t come from “out of left field.”

Nothing infuriates mystery readers more than having a character introduced late and with little involvement in the story, only to learn that he/she is the real perpetrator of the crime. The bad guy/gal should be inserted into the plot early and often. The perp can be a “friendly” or a suspect, one of few or several. In Deadly Catch Mac is acquainted with the real villain (via back-story, fed-in later) before the opening scene. Of course, Mac is unaware that he/she is the murderer. That info comes later—much later—as it should. Generally, in a good mystery, the later the killer is revealed, the better.A couple of years ago I read a mystery by a well-known author (who shall remain nameless) where the killer turned out to be the brother of a secondary character who wasn’t an important “player” in the story. The problem is, this brother was introduced late in the storyline, with very little information revealed about him. Only near the end (after the case was wrapped) did I learn the brother had a very sordid past. That was a “left field villain” if I ever saw one.

In a good mystery authors better get their facts right!

Today’s readers are a savvy bunch. Almost nothing slips by them. If the murder victim has a big hole blown through him, the murder weapon had better not be a .22 caliber rifle or pistol. If the victim dies of poisoning, the poison used better match the dying throes a witness observes, or the autopsy results. Radio transmissions should be accurate. For example, if a cop is taking a break for coffee and doughnuts, he’d better not call in an “11-99!” If the private eye is tailing a suspect in a real location, the streets and landmarks had better be correct. There is no excuse for not getting the facts straight in this day and age of the Internet and computer access.

In a good mystery there are red herrings, dead ends, and clues—oh my!

Tidbits of information and misinformation scattered here and there throughout the story are inherent to a good mystery. Red herrings, dead ends, and clues are key elements to get the reader involved in solving the mystery alongside the protagonist.With apologies for preaching to the choir, a red herring is simply a clue that sends the reader and protagonist in the wrong direction. Think smoke and mirrors, or in football, a misdirection play: offensive linemen pull and block to the right side as the quarterback fakes a handoff to the running back and then slips the ball to the fullback who hits the left side of the line of scrimmage. By faking to the right and running to the left, the offense has just handed the defense a red herring.A dead end is simply a clue that leads nowhere, wasting the sleuth’s time. Or does it? Maybe following the false lead, only to be stymied, allows our hero to cross off a suspect, or points the finger at another possible perp, or leads the protag in an entirely new direction that might prove invaluable as the case unfolds.In a good mystery, when a clue actually points to the real killer, it shouldn’t be obvious. No bells and whistles allowed. Subtlety is the keyword here. Perhaps pursuing a red herring or dead end results in our hero eliminating a suspect from his list, only to realize later, as things play out, that “this” minor clue and “that” subtle clue were telltale signs he’d overlooked earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

In a good mystery the hero will face conflict, resistance, danger . . . and prevail!

There is no room in a good mystery for the hero to have a pleasant walk in the park, conveniently find and pocket clues, and waltz to the other end unopposed. There must be conflict and resistance, even from those close to the protagonist. “Yes” people are boring beyond words. The pathway through the park (the plot/storyline) must be strewn with tripwires, stumbling blocks, antagonistic characters, and other dangers. Without these elements, why bother? Will the reader give a hoot? I don’t think so. Above all, our hero must find himself in hot water, the hotter the better. And just when it looks like all is lost, he must use intestinal fortitude, wit, and a bit of (believable) luck to turn the tables.

After all, as Sherlock Holmes would say, it’s “Elementary.”

 

 

It’s Sooo Easy: An Obscure Mystery Novelist Explains How to Write a Private Eye Novel

Hey, would-be writers of mystery!: To celebrate the launch of my latest book Ed, Not Eddie, I thought I’d show everyone just how easy it is to write a P.I. novel. Follow these simple steps and join the pantheon of great detective writers: Raymond Chandler, P.D. James,  Ross MacDonald. . .Fill-In-Your-Name-Here.  

by Max Everhart

Part One (average length: one to two chapters at most): P.I. meets client. Client describes the case, usually withholding some important information.  In classic noir tales, the P.I. will be sarcastic, jaded, and more than likely attempt to talk the client out of engaging his/her investigative services. But, reluctantly, the detective is hired, and then he/she asks pertinent questions about the case and the people involved. This initial meeting sets up Part Two.

Tips for Part One:

• Establish a clear setting, which includes not only the physical environment, but the time period as well.
• Establish the narrative perspective and tone of the book.  Most private eye tales are in either first person or a tight third person narration, but there are exceptions. Regarding tone, ask yourself if you want the book to be funny, serious, whimsical, satirical. . .whatever, just write accordingly. And keep it consistent throughout the narrative.
• Sprinkle in interesting details about the P.I., but do not, under any circumstances, do an information dump.

Part Two (average length: four to seven chapters, depending on the complexity of the case): P.I. meets/interrogates all relevant suspects/witnesses. He/she asks basic questions that establish each character’s motive, means, and opportunity regarding the crime, all the while taking notes (mental or otherwise).  During this phase, the detective also performs research, collects “clues,” and forms general impressions about the suspects/witnesses and the case at large.

Tips for Part Two:

• All suspects should have a credible motive, means, and opportunity regarding the crime. Translation: anyone could have been responsible for the crime in question.
• Create an atmosphere of distrust, especially between the P.I. and all the suspects, but it helps for the P.I. to start to doubt the intentions of the client as well.
• Establish a clear timeline for the crime. This helps the reader better understand the crime and allows him/her to investigate right alongside the P.I.
• Write scenes, not chapters. Scenes are based on action; characters in a particular place, hopefully an interesting one, working out the basic dramatic conflict.
• Periodically have the P.I. briefly summarize what he/she “knows” or “thinks” about the case thus far. Keeps the reader orientated. Helps you, the writer, as well.
• Keep the pace brisk. Translation: move the story forward, always. Remove any long-winded backstory, exposition, or stalled scenes.

Part Three: (average length: three to four chapters): P.I. narrows the pool of suspects. Accomplish this by eliminating suspects that could not have committed the crime in question. Have the P.I. hone in on his/her favorite suspects and really squeeze them.  At this point, the dramatic tension gets ratcheted up a notch, which helps lead toward the climax and resolution.  Typically, the detective will bark up the wrong tree a bit before discovering the true villain(s). Keeps the reader guessing. Keeps the detective on his/her toes.

Tips for Part Three:

• Throw in a red herring or two.
• Have the P.I. involved in a dangerous scuffle/gunfight or two. Helps increase the tension and build toward a satisfying conclusion.
• End each chapter provocatively—with a startling image, interesting dialogue. . .anything that demands the reader keep reading til the end.

Part Four (average length: two to three chapters): P.I. figures out the culprit.  A showdown ensues (aka: the climax).  Depending on the type of mystery (hardboiled, cozy, murder, etc), the climax may or may not involve violence, but remember, there need not be bloodshed in order to create drama and excitement for the reader. Just remember that the ending should be surprising, yet inevitable.

Tips for Part Four:

• Don’t cheat! No acts of God. No surprise villains. You have to play fair with the reader, which means you should have given the reader just barely enough information to deduce the ending.
• Make it dramatic! Novels can have flaws and problems (and all of them do), but if you play fair and still wow them in the end, it’s a successful book. And those same readers will want to read another one by you.

Recommended Books and Articles

• P.D. James, Talking About Detective Fiction
• Raymond Chandler, “The Simple Art of Murder”
• Susan Spann, “25 Things You Need to Know About Writing Mysteries”
• Colleen Collins, “Props & Peeves: Private Eye Stories from a Real-Life P.I.”

Well, that’s about it. Tune in again when I discuss the two basic types of private detectives: Intuitives and Scientifics. Until then, go buy Ed, Not Eddie!