Why are some authors like harp seals?

Hurrah! Who Wants To Live Forever is out in the world. Yay! This will be—allegedly—Georgia Pattison's last case. 

And, as is always the case, the most enjoyable part of writing any book is…the writing. So, where do harp seals come into this, I hear you ask. Because it is the bit after the birth of the book that is a complete pain in the neck. Let me explain.

Did you know snakes have no maternal instincts? At all. They lay eggs and don’t bother to hang about to see if they hatch or if the snakelets manage to fight off predators. Female harp seals are little better. They are glued to their pups for about 2 weeks, during which, mum doesn’t eat anything. After that, she abandons her offspring—presumably to nip up to the local fish shop. 

Some authors, of whom I am one, are a bit like that. 

We get the “great idea”, play “What-if?” for a while to see if it has legs, and jot down a few notes or create a detailed plot line. We “see” our characters, imagine them in different scenarios. Then, we sit and write that first draft, which for this author, is a white-hot, full-pelt, romp through about 90,000 words, not bothering to agonise as to whether any particular word is the right one, simply getting the story on the page. Finishing that first draft is a mixed blessing. The story is there, in black and white, but it is never the spectacular, perfect entity that I imagined. And how could it be? But it has been fu

In the case of Who Wants To Live Forever, the what-if? spark was What if someone was murdered at a wedding and then it transpired the victim was..... And off I went.

Then begins the sojourn in the Editing Cave. Some authors love editing. I have grown to quite like it. This is the time when I can agonise over making sure I have the right word in the right place. First of all, does the structure of the book hold together? Are there any plot holes, anywhere where your reader is going to say How did she know that? Have the clues been seeded carefully enough? One of my readers paid me the enormous compliment of saying I went back and the clue was there and I still didn’t see it.

And, as with snakes and harp seals, it is time for the fledgling to leave the nest—or be kicked out of it. I always do promo for a couple of weeks, but then, just like the snakelets and harp seal cubs, it has to fend for itself. My books don’t so much get launched, as slide in through the back door. Why? Because the joy is in the writing, not in the promotion. And, allied to that, I cannot force anyone to buy my books and neither would I want to. But mostly, because I am usually in the process of trying to produce the next book, which will be perfect.

So for the next two weeks Who Wants To Live Forever will be looked after, shown to the world, and nurtured in the hope that a few people buy it, yes, but that they also enjoy it. And after that, it will fend for itself, except when I get a spare few minutes to think about tweeting it or Facebooking it. 

If you would like to read Who Wants to Live Forever, you can find it here: https://mybook.to/RRGsWE

But until January, I shall give the keyboard—and myself— a rest. 

A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous 2023 to you all!

And if you want to know more about me:

You can find me on Facebook, Twitter Amazon UK 

So you want to write a crime novel: Part 12: The Writing Life

 

This blog is about trying to avoid unnecessary heartache, as well as mental and physical stress when you try to achieve your writing dream.

The buzz word is Time Management but you don't manage time, you manage yourself.

I started writing when I was still working full-time. In order to find time to follow my passion, my life needed consistent discipline, focus and planning to live a balanced life. If you have a full-time job and run a house and have children, you need to manage your time so that not only do you find time to write, you also carve out what is now called “me” time. You must manage to achieve this in order to avoid unnecessary stress and anxiety or having to give up your dreams and goals.

Writing:

First and foremost, you must get your family and friends onside. Your writing time may be limited. You do not need to be interrupted to be asked where your partner’s shirt is! Make it a rule that your writing time can only be interrupted if the house is on fire or someone is ill. If they don't think it important, compare it to something in their lives that they think is important. Be strong, be persistent. This is your dream we are talking about.

Keep setting writing goals. Make them time-defined to keep you on track but never allow a deadline to loom so large it paralyses you. Unless you are writing to a publisher’s deadline, of course, in which case, at the first hint of a problem with the deadline, contact your editor, explain, and sort the situation.

Keep reading in your genre. This is especially true of contemporary crime because the laws of investigation, evidence etc., change very quickly. However, the more you read the more you will discover new ideas, new ways of expressing yourself on the page and new ways to write that killer twist at the end.

Never be rigid about your writing mindset. This also applies to the way you organise your stories, for example, how you plot or outline. Always be open to new ideas about how to perfect your craft. These days, the emphasis is on making everything computerised or on an app. If pen and paper works for you, don’t feel bad about sticking to it but do try these new packages out. They might just work for you. Most of them have a 7-day trial period. Use it.

When you encounter problems, decide if it is a problem or an inconvenience. A problem needs a solution. An inconvenience is simply annoying. And also remember that sometimes, however much you want to write X, you may need to throw in the towel. By delaying the inevitable, you are wasting time and energy when you could be working on something new that will work.

 Your (other) life:

Decide whether you are a lark or an owl. I’m a lark, often up at 04.30, with the dog walked by 06.00. Coffee. Then to my desk. Work until breakfast and after breakfast until morning coffee. I use a ‘productive’ diary in which I write what I will be working on the following day. So I sit down at my desk at 06.15, knowing what I will be doing and, of course, knowing this, my subconscious has also been thinking about it overnight, so the ideas flow—mostly! My time is mine by 11.00 at which time I find my life balance by indulging a hobby, going out or just chilling. Just as well because after lunch, I am brain-fogged and I cannot use my age as an excuse for this: it’s just the way it’s always been for me.

If you are an owl, you need to adjust your day the other way around. I had to do this when I was at university in the 1970s. My husband met me from the train station at 17.30, we made dinner, after which I sat down for 30 minutes and chilled. Then it was upstairs to study until 10pm followed by a quick walk to the pub and a drink. 

If you have children and a job, planning becomes an essential. Try and do several loads of washing during the week - keep it under control. Get out the clothes you are wearing the next day just before you go to bed so you don't discover the shirt you were going to wear has a stain down the front 5 minutes before you are supposed to walk out of the door. 

Teach the children to make their beds when they get out of them—their future spouses will thank you. Wash up as you cook the meal so only the plates and cutlery are left. Set times for bed, especially for the children, and stick to them because, of all the important people in the house, you are the most important. If you fall apart, everything falls apart. If you can’t follow your passion, it will impact on your mental health. That is why you must organise, plan and be disciplined. It may be a pain but it pays. If your passion is to write, do not let having to plan, organise, and be disciplined get in the way of achieving your dream. 

Be organised. I can’t say this enough. Plan the week’s meals ahead and buy in the food you need to make them. I had a very organised friend who planned a month’s meals, went out and bought the whole caboodle on Friday evening and then spent all Saturday cooking, labelling and freezing. Of course, she had to buy veggies/milk in between times but each morning she took the meal for that day out of the freezer. Job done. I’ve done this. It’s a pain. It needs initial input time to work out a month’s meals, but after that, you just recycle from Day 1. It takes discipline, but it works and it gives you back so much time.

 Time you could spend writing.

 

So you want to write a crime novel: Part 11: Pulling it all together

 

From the first minute you get that initial what if? moment, you spend the next few days playing about in your head with ideas. Why is this such fun? Because everything is new and nothing is off the table.

 In St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he tells us about faith, hope and love and adds that the greatest of these is love. Borrowing from Paul’s example when you are writing any novel, there are three things that are key. Plot, setting and characters. But the greatest of these is characters. Most new crime writers do not realise this. They believe plot is everything but without characters in conflict, you do not have a book.

 The plot—see my May 2021 blog here —is simply the events that happen in your story. The setting can be wherever you want it to be, especially if you are writing a genre novel like a crime novel. You can set it in mediaeval times, Tudor times, the 1950s or on a space station. The elements of your story remain the same. Of course, the setting will affect everything to do with your characters. So if you are setting it on a space station in 2025, your characters will not behave in the same way as a group of ordinary people in, say, 1381.

 This is when your research begins—see my March 2021 blog here. If your research is not thorough and accurate, you will lose your reader. I know of one quite popular author who regularly gets facts wrong—-facts that are easily checked by a fast Internet search. For me, this is unforgivable and it shows contempt for the reader. Don’t do it.

 If you are researching something historical, make sure that everything—dress, speech, events, social mores etc—is accurate to that period. As an extreme example, it would be very stupid for anybody to suggest that William the Conqueror’s troops used guns at the Battle of Hastings. Getting research wrong is lazy and sloppy.

 Once you know your characters—see my July 2021 blog here—and you know that your research is accurate, start working on the conflict, suspense, and tension between the characters and in the events of your story—see my August 2021 blog here. Do bear in mind that in a crime novel the protagonist and antagonist have a mirror-image of the same need. The protagonist needs to solve the crime and find the perpetrator. The antagonist needs to make sure the crime isn’t solved and he/she stays free, even if that means a couple more murders.

 When I get to this stage, I have several methods of working my ideas through to the stage where they either will or will not work. One is a timeline for the protagonist and, more importantly for the antagonist. Of course, in a crime novel you also need clues so that you can seed, together with red herrings, throughout the text. Your entire focus where clues are concerned is not simply to enable the protagonist and the reader to solve the mystery, but also to confuse the protagonist and the reader with those delightful little side alleys that lead to dead ends. This is where you can make the antagonist have such fun.

 If you can make your protagonist and the reader not know which way is up, you have the basis of an excellent crime novel. However, always remember that without believable characters who are in conflict with each other and sometimes with themselves, the book will not come across as a satisfactory whole. We all know that you can make cakes using no eggs or no flour and they taste okay, but the most satisfactory cakes contain both eggs and flour.

 My next task is always to plan the events in the order in which they happen—see my April 2021 blog here—where I talk about the different ways to outline your book and how to decide how much or how little outlining is best for the way you work. I have used index cards that can be moved about to change the order, a white board to connect A with B etc. I have also used the Scrivener software. Find what works for you.

Now comes the not-so-easy bit. Writing the first draft. For me, this has to be a white-hot romp with no second thoughts (they are for the editing process), following the outline I’ve written but with plenty of space for me to veer off the main path if I get a oooh, if X does that, it will make Y think this moment. Keep your dialogue realistic but sharp—see my October 2021 blog here. Keep raising the stakes for all the characters. Above all, enjoy watching your story grow under your fingers/as you dictate etc.

 While we are on this subject, it has been scientifically proven that we use different sides of our brains for creative stuff and evaluation stuff. I know many authors who absolutely cannot write a sentence without going back over it and polishing there and then. That, for me, is absolute death to my creativity. I am quite happy to write a chapter and edit it first thing next morning before writing the next one, but to edit while writing is not working in an effective partnership with how your brain works. It slows down that first draft from a canter to crawling through mud. The book may well, in consequence, lose momentum.

 
Over to you. Have fun. Next month, in the final blog in this series, I will write about how to fit your writing in with your life. It’s all about balance and discipline and planning. See you there.

So you want to write a crime novel: Part 10 - Dialogue

 

Dialogue is one of the trickiest aspects of writing a novel. The plain truth is that the dialogue we read in books is nothing like the dialogue we use when we actually speak and interact with other people. When we are face to face with someone, we use their facial expressions to interpret what they are saying. That feeds how we then respond. 

That cannot happen in a book unless you actively make one character—your POV character use others’ facial expressions as part of your deductive plan.

 If for example you have a group of characters who are all familiar with each other, their habits, and anything that the group uses will be familiar to all. Let’s say we have a group of security consultants in a thriller—if one character then says, for example, “We can ask our IT guy, Michael.”, this becomes unbelievably clunky dialogue. The group knows their IT guy is called Michael. The person saying the sentence knows the IT guy is called Michael as does the person listening to the sentence. “Give it to Mike, he’ll sort it,” would be far more realistic while still conveying information.

 The secret to successful dialogue is making it sound effortless and realistic. Widespread reading in your particular genre will soon aid you in identifying who writes excellent dialogue and who does not. Knowing the difference is key. One thing I would highly recommend is that you go to YouTube and watch small scenes from films to get an idea of how written dialogue can sound real. Look up Oscar winners for screenplays and go find their work.

As a writer, you should always be aware of people around you in public situations. Listen to their speech patterns. Listen to what I call the music of their sentences. You will find that someone who speaks in a Yorkshire accent will not speak the same song as someone from Norfolk, for example. Eavesdropping is an essential part of learning how to write effective dialogue.

 Dialogue is not just communication between characters. It gives information to the reader. If you are writing a crime novel written in the first person, one of your biggest problems is that whatever that person witnesses is all that person knows. So if for example Georgia Pattison, needs to know that X has happened, she needs somebody else to tell her it has happened because she was not there to witness it herself. Phone conversations and eavesdropping are useful for this. If the book is written in the third person, this issue becomes less of a problem.

 One of the most common problems writers encounter in writing effective dialogue is that because they are creating the speeches from within their own brain, it is very easy to fall into the trap of all the characters’ dialogue sounding the same. The same speech patterns, the same rhythm. But, not only will the words each character uses be different, their phrasing will be different: the emphasis will be different. 

The successful writer must pick this up and encompass it. One way to do this and I think it is especially important in the crime novel, is to know your characters inside out - and this includes their speech patterns and the vocabulary they use. For example, your villain, Hugo, because of his background/upbringing/goals, will have different patterns and vocabulary from Inspector Daniels with his upbringing etc.

What does Hugo’s voice sound like? Is it a snide voice? How does his view of the world and his place in it affect his speech patterns?

Your dialogue should reveal something about the character who is speaking. If it is a stand-off between your protagonist and your antagonist, they may have different but related goals. Hugo will want to avoid arrest. Daniels will work towards solving the crime and arresting Hugo. That will affect how they interact with each other.

 As an exercise, let us pretend that Hugo has slipped away from his office, come home, murdered his wife, and slipped back to his office. Inspector Daniels is the Senior Investigating Officer. Hugo, being the husband, is his prime suspect. Now, you must decide how clever or how sloppy Hugo has been in the execution of this crime. That will affect how Inspector Daniels interviews Hugo and how Hugo's ego believes he can pull the wool over the inspector’s eyes.

Now write the scene. It doesn't have to be long. Remember to make your dialogue individual to each man so that the reader does not need to read many “he said/she said”. The aim of this exercise is for you to make it clear to the reader who is speaking.

If the dialogue is a long one, you can have one character say the other character’s name. For example Daniels could say: 

' Hugo, we checked with your office. Your car was not in its parking space for 45 minutes at the time your wife was murdered.'

'Oh, for heaven's sake, this is stupid. I've just lost my wife and you're wittering on about where I parked my car. I don't suppose you have a specific time of death yet. You see, I do know about how tricky TOD is for pathologists. I'm not the moron you seem to think I am.'

'We have witnesses who are adamant your car was not in its space. Why?'

'If you must know, inspector, I parked at the other end of the car park this morning under a tree out of the sun. If you had a Merc., you'd do the same.'

'Then where were you? Your secretary couldn't find you.'

Daniels is keeping his sentences short and succinct while baiting them to make Hugo lose his cool. Hugo's sentences are longer with what he thinks are appropriately condescending comments, trying to undermine Daniels, make him believe Hugo is superior, and must be treated with more respect. It isn't working. Or, if it does work, you have to find a way to make Daniels realise he has been manipulated and formulate a plan for the next time he interviews Hugo.

Over to you. You aren't trying to write a crime novel here, just a short scene, so there is absolutely no pressure, but a lot of fun to be had.

 

 

So you want to write a crime novel: Part 8. Suspense

 

Suspense is a vital component of writing a crime novel. At its most basic, suspense is based on fear. The reader’s fear. The more anxiety you can make your reader feel, the more successful your story will be.

Conflict. The most important aspect of engaging readers to the extent of them being fearful, is your protagonist and your antagonist. Unless readers not only like your main character, but are mentally cheering them on, why would they be in the least bit bothered when danger threatens and there is the danger the antagonist might win? But then, you can also make the antagonist engaging, too. A likeable rogue with a hard edge that may make the reader overlook him/her. More conflict within the reader.

Strong characters, with flaws that they are fighting to overcome in order to obtain their objective will make your story unputdownable. You must make sure your main character and your antagonist are determined. The one to obtain the objective and the other to make sure that doesn’t happen. Sometimes your protagonist and antagonist will want the same thing. That ups the ante on the conflict. It’s like two people fighting for the love of a third person, except that in a crime novel, it is much nastier and devious.

Time. If you make your characters fight against the clock, the suspense level spikes immediately. If John cannot get to Isabel by 4pm, chances are the killer will get there first and she is next on his list. Can John reach Isabel in time? Make your time short.

There’s a song in Singing in the Rain called Make ’em Laugh. In a crime novel, you make them wait. And you do this by scene cutting; closing the scene on a cliffhanger. You have set up the action but right at the point where the reader is desperate to know what happens, you end the scene and go onto another character doing something different. However, part of the agreement between writer and readers is that the writer does not leave readers hanging for too long. Otherwise they will lose interest and shut the book. Tom Clancy did this very well. He had multiple characters, all facing huge problems and switch from one to the next and so on. If your readers are fully engaged with the characters, the suspense will be incredible. Use time to your advantage.

Foreshadowing. In other words, hints. Sometimes subtle, sometimes up-front. These are a joy to play with because you are trying to lead the reader up the garden path of misleading facts that don’t mean anything. Some hints will, of course, be crucial to the central action of the book. A hint might be, for example, the way a character behaves; something that indicates a state of mind or mindset. Who can forget Bogart in The Caine Mutiny constantly playing with small steel balls? It doesn’t foreshadow an event but sets up the perception of the character’s behaviour and makes what happens later logical.

Foreshadowing for events is less subtle. Perhaps one character is afraid of the dark but is abducted and shut in a cellar with no light. How will he/she deal with the panic on that fear on top of being abducted? Foreshadowing is necessary for suspense and, if done with finesse, can have your readers going in any direction you want to send them.

High Stakes. This is a good accompaniment to the time element above. If the stakes are high and the time is tight, readers are going to be glued to your story with their hearts thumping. Let’s go back to John trying to reach Isabel before the killer does. We already know he must get to her before 4pm. So you introduce a really high stake twist. The hospital is 20 minutes away: he should be ok. But then, he is caught up in a huge accident and its resultant traffic jam halfway to the hospital . Up the stakes, up the suspense.

Plot Twists. (Spoiler Alert) An essential part of a crime novel. Many how-to­ books advise trying a twist on a twist. The extra one you don’t see coming even if you think you’ve worked out who the killer is. Look at the end of the film Sixth Sense. How many people—including me— didn’t work out that the main character was, in fact a ghost? 

How about your protagonist trying to help his brother who has been accused of a murder he didn’t commit. You follow your protagonist’s actions using short time constraints and the high stakes of brotherly love, trying to find evidence to prove the brother innocent and you show the brother twisting painfully on this hook, with his distraught wife and children suffering too. And then the protagonist does find enough evidence to clear his brother. He is declared innocent. The next day, the brother confesses he was guilty. The twist on the twist can also be tightened by how your protagonist finds out the truth. And what they do about it.

Red Herrings and Clues. You need to seed these so carefully. Experienced readers will spot them a mile off. But sometimes, you want them to. And some of the subtle ones will be misleading and a couple of the not-so-subtle ones will be true. I try to plant a significant clue, in passing, early on in the book before the reader has settled down. Throughout, you must be fair to the reader. No sudden appearance of someone at the end who wasn't there at the beginning. The clues must be hidden in plain sight. Drip-feed your clues, don’t give them all at once. And don't answer them all at once, either. Make the reader work for the solution.

 In conclusion, if you put a strong, likeable but flawed character who has a goal and who will take readers with him/her on a cake-walk journey with plenty of conflict, red herrings, twists and high stakes, exacerbated by time constraints and any other problems you can manufacture, you will have a solid, absorbing and enthralling crime novel.

 

So you want to write a crime novel. Part 7. Characters

 

Character is how you develop through your life experiences. The dictionary definition is the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.

A character is also a person in a novel or play or film.

The one impacts on the other.

 When you create the characters in your crime novel, obviously, the ones who will occupy most of your interest are your main character (Protagonist) and the killer (Antagonist).

These two characters may often be very similar in character. In other words, they may be aiming for the same prize but what that prize is, will be altered by their mental and moral qualities.

Your protagonist will not be all good, just as your antagonist will not be all bad. Everybody, even serial killers, have good and bad qualities and your writing will be much richer is you exploit this.

Your protagonist wants to catch the killer. The killer does not want to be caught.  Killers in crime novels are frequently portrayed as being so arrogant they think they will never be caught, but just as your killer is a human being, he or she will have doubts and be indecisive just as we all are.

Your protagonist may also be arrogant enough to think he or she will catch the killer, but, unless they are the boring stereotypical flawed drunk with inner demons and everyone’s hand turned against them — how boring that trope has become — the one difference will be that your protagonist will have an ally who supports them. That could be a murder squad if you are writing a police procedural or a close friend/partner who acts as a sounding board for your amateur sleuth and helps them clarify their thinking.

By contrast, unless the murder(s) are a joint enterprise, your killer will only have him or herself to talk to and that may well increase their arrogance and certainty.

But what about the other characters? You must have a big enough ‘stable’ of characters in your novel to make the mystery a mystery. And remember that one of Agatha Christie’s main strengths was that all her books have a huge range of characters. That gave her so much leeway to seed clues and red herrings aplenty and lead us down a usually very winding garden path.

Think of five friends. They will all have differing characteristics because they will all have had differing life experiences.

Joanna might have been raped by her stepfather, was too frightened to tell anyone, so never gained justice. That experience will have coloured her view of men. She may shun relationships or, worse, she may have a behavioural habit of choosing controlling, abusive men because her self-worth is under the floorboards - like her husband might be if she suddenly snaps.

Now compare Joanna to Rebecca, whose upbringing was sunny and secure and whose parents encouraged her to be happy. Rebecca will be as different in character as chalk is to cheese, because she has not had Joanna’s experiences. But does that make Rebecca ripe for being a victim because she will automatically be more trusting?

What about Tom? He’s working for his dad in the family firm of builders. Tom was brought up to think there was no alternative, but his one desire is to go to art school and paint. He earns good money but spends it to compensate for not being what he wants to be.

 Compare Tom to Ian, whose father walked out when Ian was three and his baby sister was just turned one. Dad told Ian that he must now be the man of the family.

Tom might be resentful but unable to break away from the security of a good family and a steady income. Ian has been hustling to help his mother since before he went to school. He worked three jobs. A paper round, helping people with their gardens and walking neighbours’ dogs. You might presume Ian is more likely to succumb to the lure of earning easy money by working for the local drug lord

And then we throw in the what-if? How would knowing Tom and Ian's characters affect your novel if you turned that presumption on its head and made Tom the drug runner because he wants to salt enough money away to go to art school while not giving up being able to spend his earnings?

I would counsel not creating your characters to fit your plot. There will always be something off kilter with the resulting book. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of crib sheets for creating characters, some of which go to ridiculous lengths in terms of what your character eats, hates etc.

Why do I think that is overkill? Because, in truth, our likes and dislikes in terms of colours won’t affect the story one iota - unless the character is colour-blind. All it will do is confuse you, the writer, because you will have spent so much time making everyone completely different, you will feel a need to include all of it in the book.

If you decide one of your characters is allergic to shellfish, that food preference may be relevant as a clue or a red herring. But knowing that Greg likes steak but hates lamb is meaningless unless it has a purpose in the book. Don’t bog yourself down.

Think of the 2 most popular detectives in the last 140 years. Christie’s Poirot and Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. What do we know and what do we need to know about each?

We know Poirot is egg-shaped, vain, fussy, and meticulous. We have no idea what colours he likes or dislikes or even his food choices because those are irrelevant to the stories.

There is nowhere in the Poirot stories where he says ‘Look at that woman in the red dress, Hastings. She must be guilty because I abhor red.’ No. He might say ‘Look at that woman in the red dress, Hastings. See how she looks around. I wonder why her hand is in her pocket.’

Similarly, we know that Holmes is tall, fit, vain and smokes a lot. Conan Doyle sees Holmes as a machine so the reader couldn’t give a Flying Fortress whether he likes dogs or cats. We don’t need to know it.

I am a visual writer so like to find pictures that fit the character in my mind’s eye. For example, in The Tudor Enigma books, my protagonist, apothecary, Luke Ballard, looks like a younger William Petersen, who played Grissom in CSI. The minute I saw one particular picture, I knew just what Luke Ballard was like as a person.

Try it. Let’s say you want a man in his 20s who is a bit of a flirt, a charmer, but who has a look in his eye that says he uses it for his own ends. Keep those characteristics in mind. A charmer with a nasty edge. Now go into your preferred search engine and check out images of men in their 20s. It may take some time but one may well just pop off the screen. That’s what your character looks like.

Look again. What can you imagine him doing? Would he kill someone without a second thought? Would he go to Africa and build schools for children? Could he be one of twins? Plenty of playing room for creating havoc in your story with that one.

Once you know the essence of your character, you have something to build on. What does it matter what he wears or what toothpaste he uses unless the events in your story demand we know he would never use whitening toothpaste? And if he is the victim, why was whitening toothpaste found in his hotel bathroom?

When you have enough characters to people your story, start thinking about how their characteristics will impact on your basic plot. You will find that they affect it greatly and sometimes they can send you in a totally different direction. In Long Shadows, I have one character who made an unplanned declaration of love. Not only had he not planned it, neither had I. But, knowing what he was like—his characteristics—I knew exactly what new path I could make him tread and it strengthened the book. Long Shadows is due out shortly.

Last words. Don’t hurry your characters into the world. Let them stay by your side as you walk the dog, cook dinner or cut the lawn. Let them talk to you as you wander around the supermarket. When you know them and you know the bones of your plot, you can create a compelling story.

 

 

So you want to write a crime novel: Part 4. Outlining

 

Outlining aka A Can of Worms

 In many ways, crime novels are no different in terms of structure from other genres, but they certainly differ in details, character traits and action scenes and sometimes these need careful plotting.

 I am going to say right up front that “how to” books can be helpful to a writer of any experience to help them write better and faster. There are hundreds of authors who earn more money by writing books on how to write than by their fiction and thousands of books out there telling you how to outline your books for surefire success. If you are a novice, it is easy to glaze over at the amount of advice, some of which is in direct contradiction to other advice. Even experienced writers who remain alert to the possibilities of new ways to look at how they write can get stuck in a rut of reading advice after advice. You may think that buying several books – I have at least 9 – on structure, outlining etc., will make you a better writer.

 I am here to tell you it doesn’t work like that. Because you are you and your thought patterns and how you see the world is different from mine or anybody else’s. In short, you have to read, try and keep it if it works for you and discard it if it doesn’t. Otherwise you will spend all your time trying to find that perfect system and no time doing the creative bit, which is why you wanted to write in the first place.

 There are two types of writer when it comes to outlining and plotting. The pantser and the planner. Whichever you are, a crime writer will need a crime (murder, usually), a detective, clues, red herrings and several characters including the villain(s).

 If you are a pantser (someone who sits at the keyboard without a thought in their head and who puts fingers to keyboard to see what happens), you will say you never outline. I beg to disagree in part. Yes, you might have no idea when you start, but I certainly believe that your first draft is, in effect, your outline to see what has and has not worked; what needs changing and what needs discarding. By the time you have finished that first draft, you will know your characters and their motivations, but you might have written yourself into a couple of corners and need to do some major re-writing.

There are varying degrees of planner. Jeffery Deaver, for example, plots every nuance so meticulously, he almost writes a short novel in the plotting phase. Hybrids – and I am one – write a loose road map but allow enough wriggle room for change when you are in the heat of the first draft. Following the road map analogy, I know the beginning and the end and which towns (clues) I have to go through to get to my destination. But whilst on the journey I am more than likely to go off the main road at a tangent. Sometimes that strengthens the story; sometimes it leads into a cul-de-sac. Sometimes getting out of the cul-de-sac gives a glorious opportunity to seed a really obscure clue.

 Some successful authors, such as Minette Walters, have no idea who the villain is until over halfway through. There is a certain logic in this. If the author doesn’t know, then the clues will not point to one particular person and you have an opportunity to confuse the reader still further.

So, let’s look at a few ways of outlining your crime novel.

 Physical – and usually cheaper – methods.

 Index cards. I use these, even though I have Scrivener (more later). I prefer a physical system where I can jot down disjointed ideas — clues, character actions, events — on separate index cards. They are useful because you can rearrange them to see if you have the best flow line for your book. Sometimes shuffling them up will lead to a clue or red herring you hadn’t thought of.

 Notebooks with sections. You can use one section for the characters – a page for each; one section for details of your setting; a section for your plot, i.e. the events in your book and a section for clues and red herrings.

 Whiteboard or very large post-it notes/pieces of paper. When you have that first what-if? thought, it might be the central tenet of your story. It might be a what if X is found dead in a locked room with no weapon in sight? It might be the theme of your novel and every novel has a theme whether or not the author realises what it is. It might be the motive for the murder(s). Write that in the centre of your whiteboard/post-it note/paper. From that central point, you can make a mind map – simple or complicated. As ideas come to you, you look along the arrows out from that central point and make a note along the most relevant arm. Or, it may be more relevant for you to jot down the events, bits of character traits and the clues in different colours. I sometimes do this, then take a picture of the whiteboard, download it to my computer and use it as the basis for my outline.

 

Techno methods

 Most writing software includes sections on research, characters, settings, and things to help the writer write the book. My only advice is to be familiar with what the package does, but only use those parts of it that are relevant for your way of planning your book.

 Instead of giving my opinion here, I will put a link to a review page and you can make up your own mind.

Book Writing Software (2020): Top 10 Pieces of Software for Writers (thewritepractice.com)

 Mind maps: As with the writing software, I state no opinions. But you can find out more here: 

Compare The 10 Best Mind Mapping Software of 2021 - The Digital Project Manager

 

Whichever methods you use and I emphasise they must suit your writing methods, only take from them what you need.

 So my last advice is to take a look at all these methods, try them out – many software packages have a one month trial – and see what is the best fit for you.

 Next month, I shall be covering Plot and Theme in your crime novel.

 

So you want to write a crime novel - Part 3. Research

 Research is absolutely key to the success of your book. Why? Because somebody, somewhere will know what you don’t and if you get your information wrong, you will lose a reader. I once read of the ‘stink of carbon monoxide’, whereas it is odourless. I’ve never read another book by that author.

So, the watchword with research is get it right and go the extra mile to make sure it’s right.

 Is your setting contemporary, recent past, historical, the future? That will massively affect your research and the behaviour of your characters. Someone on a 25^th century space mission to a distant star will have completely different behaviour/social mores/beliefs/knowledge than an 11^th century monk in England.

 Likewise, the country in which you set your novel will need to be believable. So, if your detective is in 19^th century Paris, you need to know what Paris looked like then. No point in mentioning the Eiffel Tower before January 1887 when its construction began and it didn’t open until May 1889, the lifts weren’t working properly and it took an hour to climb to the top. You may not need to put that in the novel, but you need to know it.

 Something as small as time can trip up the unwary novelist. We are so used to clocks now that it would be easy to make an error if you are writing historical novels. Sundials and water clocks have been around since before the time of Christ, but the first non-water clock in England was at Dunstable Priory in 1283 and its sole purpose was to regulate canonical hours. The first mechanical clocks did not appear until the 14^th century. Check your facts.

 Research your chosen setting thoroughly. There are plenty of online resources to help you.

Google Earth/Maps where you can “travel” along the roads your book takes place in. Yes, it may be a few years out of date, but not many.

 If your book is set in the future, common everyday things may have a more catchy name. J D Robb’s Eve Dallas books are set in 2060 New York, where they have wrist units that tell the time apart from other capabilities.

 Make your characters believable, but, as you are writing crime, your characters – good and bad – will have traits other genres do not need. I will say this in a later post, but don’t set them in a vacuum. All chars were doing something before the book opens; they had a life, work, went shopping etc. Make them real for your period and that means the language they use.

 My own view on language in historical books is not to be too welded to the truth of the period. In my own Tudor Engima novels set in an alternate Tudor history, I use a few slight differences, for example mayhap for maybe and I sometimes alter the word order to make it sound more archaic, but your reader must not have to wonder what your character is saying. This also applies to accents. I remember trying to read a Scottish crime book, which was probably very good, but written in such abstruse dialect I had no idea what anybody was saying.

 Don’t make your main character or your killer (or any character, come to that) all good or all bad. People are people and have been since we came out of the cave system. Greed, revenge, money, fear and love live in all of us; it’s part of our DNA, so although modern man has many resources to use in the implementation of the crime, his/her instincts are exactly the same as someone living in Ancient Egypt.

 Technology is beguiling for those writing books set in the future. The world really is your oyster, but, again quoting the J D Robb books, the author has a world where everybody’s DNA is on file, so dead bodies can be identified immediately and the technology also permits the investigating officer to determine the precise time of death. 12th century Brother Cadfael had to rely on his knowledge of where plants were found, properties of herbs etc. So, unless you are writing a book set in the 11^th century where your detective has been sent back from the late 21^st century, be very careful about what was available for your detective at the time your book is set.

 Your method of murder will also depend on the time your novel is set.  Firearms has an interesting history. The Chinese used fire lances in the 10^th century. The first cannons used in Europe were in the early part of the 14^th century and hand-held cannons in the late 14^th century. So check your ballistics. A rifle is not a pistol is not a revolver.

 A knife wound will mean blood spatter. Even if your novel is set before the forensics of blood spatter were documented, your detective will notice what the spatter looks like and, if he/she is experienced, will be able to surmise how the crime happened.

 If you use poison, be sure you know doses, effects and times of activity; ditto drugs. With some drugs, your killer will have to know where to source them and that, in itself, can be part of your plot. If your killer decides to strangle the victim, make sure your forensic knowledge is in accordance with the time in which your novel is set.

 With all your methods of murder, make sure you know what the post-mortem will discover and how the pathologist knows it.

 As with all research, you will only use a sentence or two in passing to add believability to your text. Do not be tempted to display your new-found knowledge because that will not only stop the flow of the novel, it will make your reader roll their eyes and shut the book. Do not preach.

If you would like to explore internet resources, I have included links below, but also a link to my own book, gleaned from over 30 years experience as an information professional and over 20 years searching the Internet. You can find my book here.

 Below are some of the resources you may find useful and I hope you have found this blog useful. Next month, I shall deal with outlining your book.

 Research Resources for Mystery and Crime Writers (writerswrite.com)

 7 Great Websites for Crime Writers | WordDreams... (wordpress.com) – USA emphasis

 Resources for Crime Fiction Writers (addictivebooks.com)

 England / United Kingdom - Guide to Online Primary Sources - LibGuides at University of California San Diego

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So you want to write a crime novel. Part 2: First Thoughts

How do ideas come for a crime story – or any story, come to that? Some people read a piece in a newspaper and that turns their imagination on. In fact, some famous crime writers have based their novels on real life events. Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d was one such, which relied heavily – some might say too heavily – on the life events of film star Gene Tierney.

Sometimes the first thought will be What-if? My own Dearly Ransomed Soul was born while sitting in the chorus at the Three Choirs Festival’s opening performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius and wondering what-if the soloist was murdered just after the performance?

What-If? can be born anytime, anywhere. From seeing two people talking on the bus to someone overtaking you on a dangerous corner, to finding a single red rose on your doorstep. The only limit to What-if? is your imagination.

Sometimes your first thought will be the method of murder. It was my mother who suggested a hatpin through the eye and into the victim’s brain as an imaginative way to dispose of an enemy. I winced at the immediate mental vision but used it all the same.

 Of course, with the method, will come research. If your killer has used a gun, you need some knowledge of ballistics and gunshot residue. Ditto a knife wound – blood spatter etc - especially if you are writing a police procedural which will include details of the post-mortem. If you poison your victim, you need to know how long it will take to kill him/her. Will it be something you find in the garden or the garden shed? The method of murder and the method of investigation will also be dependent on the time in which your novel is set. They didn’t have DNA in medieval times. That may affect your choice of detective, if you are writing a historical crime. I will mention Ellis Peters’s Brother Cadfael novels here. Although he is a monk, he spent 40 years in the world, went on crusade and learned about herbs and poisons en route. Dorothy Sayers novel Unnatural Death used an innovative murder method that had the police and Lord Peter Wimsey stumped for quite a while.

 So, who is going to be your Main Character (MC)? Some authors, for example, Janet Lawrence and Ann Granger had their MC married to or involved with a police officer. If your MC is a police officer, you must be conversant with the procedures in place at the time your novel is set. Your MC must also fit the time in which the novel is set. Police attitudes and procedures in the 21^st century are completely different to those of, say, the 1970s or 1950s. You couldn’t have the politically incorrect, corrupt DCI Gene Hunt (Life on Mars) working successfully in 2021.

 Where are you going to set your novel? Setting can play a huge part in the tone of the novel and also affect how you seed your clues. If your setting is 12^th century York, for example, the clues will need to be in harmony with the setting. Again, do your research and make sure everything was present then. Your MC cannot rely on technology, so must watch the other characters’ behaviour and be alert to things that appear out of kilter. Candace Robb’s Owen Archer is an excellent people watcher. Make your setting vibrant, not by huge paragraphs of description, but by passing comments that highlight it. Paul Doherty’s Hugh Corbett books perfectly capture the reality of 14^th century London. But the same would hold if you set your book on a space station. Or, like J D Robb’s Eve Dallas, you could set it in a real place in the future, and play what-if? with the technology.  

 How are you going to present your murder? Locked room murders were very popular in the golden age of fiction – Carter Dickson’s Sir Henry Merrivale is a good example. Where will your body be found? On a beach? Or a space station? All this will affect how you present the body to your reader. Will the victim be sprawled up the steps of the Town Hall or hanging from a lamppost? Will the murderer have tried to present the killing as suicide and, if so, how will the detective discover it was murder?

Another popular way of writing crime novels is that of the pastiche. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of Sherlock Holmes pastiche novels. When I studied for my first degree, I made my dissertation - tongue in cheek - about the change of metaphor in the pre and post Reichenbach stories of Sherlock Holmes. My tutor was so amused, she made me promise to write a Sherlock Holmes story at some point. It took 30 years to honour the promise. If you decide to do this, please make sure you are not infringing copyright.

 Now we come to the fun bit. The suspects and clues. Make sure you have enough characters to confuse the reader. But, as I have stressed before, you must seed your true clues very carefully and present plenty of red herrings that are believable – more in a later post. And make sure you know what was available to the detective at the time. Fingerprints, for example, were first accepted in British courts in 1901.

 And the most difficult question. How will your detective catch the killer? If you make the clues abstruse, then you must also make them believable and form a link that leads to the murderer. That’s another fun bit. I find the best way is to think up the clues, then turn them on their heads so they are not obvious and seed them amongst the red herrings.

 Still want to write a crime novel? Excellent!

 Join me next month when I will be talking about effective research, possibly the most important component of ensuring that your novel is believable.

 

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Do you want to write a crime story?

 

"There is evil everywhere under the sun” Agatha Christie.

 Perhaps you have always wanted to write a crime novel. Now is your chance.

 This is the first in a monthly series of posts about writing crime fiction. Let’s start at the very beginning.

 What kind of crime novel do you want to write? There are many forms from which to choose:

·       The cosy, where sometimes you get to eat cake and are given the recipe.

·       The gritty crime novel, which has a hard edge.

·       Noir, which can be scary and gory with no punches pulled.

·       Historical, set in any era from Ancient Egypt to the recent past.

·       Psychological novels, which have a lot of suspense and careful plotting. They major on detailing the innermost workings of the mind of the main character and how the MC concentrates on his/her victims’ weaknesses.

·       Legal novels where the lawyer sometimes does the detecting or aids the police investigation.

 You can choose, within these categories to write a police procedural, with the investigating officer as your main character; or a private detective; or an amateur sleuth who can either be a nuisance to the police or a helping hand. Do you want your story to be utterly serious, humorous or a mix of the two? Some stories mix up forms, so a historical crime can also be a police procedural etc.

 So your first and most important decision is to decide which form of crime novel you want to write. It must suit you, otherwise it’s a non-starter. Don’t write a gritty police procedural if the thought of gory murder scenes turns your stomach or you don’t want to be confined by the strictures under which the police have to work. Likewise, if the thought of a light-hearted, witty amateur sleuth getting in the way of the police puts your teeth on edge, don’t go there. Above all, my advice is that, irrespective of which is the best-selling kind, only write what you want to write. If you try and shoehorn your style to noir if you really want to write a cosy murder set in a teashop with recipes for lemon drizzle cake, you will fall at the first hurdle.

 The crime genre has a slightly different set of needs to other types of genre. You need a crime – usually murder and, usually at least two of those. You will need to plot and plan a little more precisely, although I will deal with allowing yourself off the plotting leash in a later post. You will need a main character. He/she does not have to be the detective. Many successful crime novels have been written with the killer as the main character and the book deals with how the killer does/does not get away with the crime.

 You will need enough suspects to give the reader enough of a puzzle to solve. One of the reasons Agatha Christie was so successful was because she gave the reader so many suspects to consider. Each suspect must have a logical reason why they might want the victim(s) dead. Their motivations must be logical and compelling. Each character must always act “in character”. You will have to learn to “seed” clues and red herrings so that your reader isn’t sure what is going on. The more you can confuse the reader, the more they will love the read. But there is one absolute rule. You must be fair to the reader. You must present all the clues so that, if the reader is able to see through your red herrings and pick them up, they can solve the murder. Hopefully, your red herrings will hide the real clues and that is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing crime.

 Have I whetted your appetite to try your hand at a crime novel? If so, make sure that when you have chosen your particular type of novel, you set about reading as many in your chosen category as you can by different authors. If you are still unsure, here are a few suggestions to kickstart your reading:

 

·       Cosy – Lynne Florkiewicz: Faith Martin and, may I also suggest my own Georgia Pattison series?

·       Gritty – Stuart MacBride: Ross Greenwood

·       Police Procedurals – Ann Cleeves: Peter Grainger: Michael Hambling: Damien Boyd

·       Noir – Val McDermid: J M Dalgliesh: James Carol

·       Historical – S J Parris: Paul Doherty: Candace Robb

·       Psychological – Angela Marsons: Minette Walters: Phoebe Morgan

·       Legal – Natasha Cooper: John Grisham: Scott Pratt

 

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