JUSTIFIED questions

I think any good suspense or mystery novel is riddled with questions. Figuring out the answers is what makes them interesting reads.

I've been thinking about the power of questions to build suspense as I watch each episode of the television show JUSTIFIED (Warning: Small Spoilers Included In This Post).

Despite the fact I think this is the program's weakest season, I keep tuning in because I want answers to the questions they've raised.

(Questions other than: What the hell has Raylan EVER seen in Winona? and Why isn't the best bromance ever (between Raylan and Boyd) not getting any screen time this season?)


This season I've particularly admired the use of "The Room". "The Room" where this season's biggest baddie, Robert Quarles, does his Very Bad Things, is brilliant in its simplicity. We got one glimpse inside it early on, and then "the room" has never been seen again.

We've heard terrible sounds coming from it, we've listened to Quarles talking about cleaning it and getting it painted (to cover up the evidence of the very bad things) and we've held our breath waiting to see if Raylan or a deputy would stumble in and discover the atrocities committed there. At this point "The Room" is practically a character.

And yet we don't REALLY know much about it. The writers have left it an open question and as viewers we try to fill in the disturbing answers. It is, in my opinion, a brilliant device.

I'm also loving the character of Ellstin Limehouse (played with sublime perfection by Mykelti Williamson). He reminds me of an older and wiser Boyd. We KNOW he's not a good guy, but he's so clever and charming that it's hard to root against him. Plus, he's been providing shelter to abused women for decades, so he does have his redeeming qualities. I love the way the writers have played with the question of just what was his relationship with Raylan's mother, way back when? And why on Earth would that crafty Mags Bennett do her banking with him? All the questions surrounding this man is what makes him an interesting character!

Even though my books THE FIRST VICTIM and CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN are very different styles, they both revolve around the central question: How far would you go for someone you love?

If you're a fan of JUSTIFIED, what do you think is the central question of the series?

If you're not a fan of the show, what kinds of questions do you like to see characters struggle with?

Do you prefer stories that leave questions open-ended or do you demand answers?

About That Contest

Are writing contests relevant? Worth the money?

Those questions surface periodically on loops and blogs, but I’ve heard from other contest coordinators that entries are down, perhaps in response to the lingering effects of a crummy economy, but maybe because people aren’t sure it’s something they should do.

Whether a contest is relevant or worth the money depends on what you’re hoping to accomplish. If you expect to get an agent or a book contract from them, you’re probably going to be disappointed. It does happen. Final judges often request full or partial manuscripts. Some people do sign with an agent or sell to an editor based upon a contest.

If you’re entering for feedback on your manuscript, then you may feel you’ve won something, regardless of your entry’s final placement. Even if you aren’t a finalist, you may receive enough positive responses to keep you encouraged.

What if your comments are less than stellar? Do the judges mention the same things? These strangers, who haven’t seen ten versions of your story like your critique partners, can tell you if what’s in your head is hitting the page. Allow for different tastes and perspectives, but if there are consistent references to… whatever, try to find a class or online workshop that can help you in those areas. Good critique partners or a good writers’ workshop can also help as you learn the craft of writing.

But let’s do the happy dance because maybe the contest coordinator just called and said your entry reached the finals. Does it really have an impact on your writing career?

Possibly.

Several years ago, one of my critique partners encouraged me to enter The Professor in an RWA contest. The first round judges pointed out spots to polish and I’m sure that helped my manuscript final in the Golden Heart. Of course the contest wins don’t guarantee a sale, but I suspect having those contest credentials in my query letter helped move the manuscript over the first set of hurdles when I sought publication. I’m happy to say Carina Press acquired The
Professor (it released in January!)

For me, those early contest finals were an affirmation by other professional and a much needed ego-boost when I wondered if I was beating my head against the proverbial brick wall. People liked the characters, the story, my voice – the encouragement I needed.

So what if things don’t go as you’d hoped? We’ve all heard the story of “that judge,” the grammar police who treat your paper as if it were part of English 101 (Side bar, I use sentence fragments. A lot. It’s fiction. Deal with it.), or the one who wants to rewrite your story the way they would write it.

They happen. Just like the rest of your life, chance is an element in contests. As the coordinator for the Daphne du Maurier mainstream category (deadline is March 15, get your entry turned in!) I can tell you most judges are trying to give back to the writing community, taking time away from their writing, family, the rest of their life, in an attempt to nurture other authors. I can also share that the overwhelming majority of our contest judges offer constructive feedback. (As the coordinator, I see all the entries) Any judge who isn’t doing so will not be invited back the next year. On the very positive side, our rate of returning judges is incredibly high.

There are numerous contests in addition to the Romance Writers of America ones I’ve mentioned. If you enter a contest, make sure you know who is actually sponsoring it, read the fine print and watch out for the scams.

With the explosive growth of self-publishing, I’ve heard people question whether contests add any value. Why try to attract an editor or agent if you plan to ‘do it yourself?’

Feedback.

Is your material ready for the harsh reality of publication? Are there still holes you need to patch in the all-important opening?

One last point. I’ve seen some concern on the loops about someone ‘stealing’ your contest material. An important thing to remember is your voice, the way you tell a story, is as unique as you are. Generally contests only cover the first 15 -25 pages. Even with a synopsis, no one is going to tell the story the same way you would. So put that worry aside and concentrate on writing the
story of your heart.

I polled a number of friends about this topic and this is the summary of their advice:

Benefits:
1) Inexpensive way to get impartial feedback
2) Learn how to work with negative feedback – protect your voice but stay open to constructive criticism
3) Compare your work/skill level to your peers

Potential drawbacks:
1) Subjective comments may not be consistent – learn to trust your voice after you acquire sufficient skills
2) Feedback can be overwhelming – and confidence shaking – to a new writer; make sure you and your manuscript are ready before entering a contest
3) Don’t turn into a contest junky – don’t endlessly polish the beginning and neglect the rest of the manuscript. You need the whole book to sell it.

What has your contest experience – as a judge, contestant or coordinator – been?

Can you add to the benefits or offer another caution?

That is the long and short of it ...

Calling all original authors!

So how often have our heroes “played fast and loose”? Or been “hoodwinked”? Or proved to be a “tower of strength” to their partners? How often have we written a “stony-hearted villain”, or “star-crossed lovers”, or had a character “laugh themselves into stitches”?

 

We authors are all individuals and proud of our original work. But if the truth were known, and as I have a tongue in my head – we’ve all been quoting Shakespeare!

I was recently given a wall poster from the Globe Theatre gift shop in London, showing a selection of some of the phrases he’s contributed to our language. Of course, Shakespeare himself borrowed inspiration - from other plays, from popular history, and from classical tales. But his work has caught the public imagination over the centuries, and stays in our mind, with its wonderful blend of irony and ire, drama and danger, passion, humour and happy-ever-after.

Isn’t that just perfect for romantic suspense plots?!

I love Shakespeare’s plays – at least, most of them, though only my son’s (abridged) school version of Hamlet managed to keep me awake until the end :). My favourite is Twelfth Night, a delicious blend of romance, mystery, angst, humour and passion. Oh, and some cross-dressing :).

So Barry Manilow may claim to write the songs, but it was William Shakespeare who coined the phrases - he contributed more phrases and sayings to the English language than any other individual, and most of them are still in daily use.

And if you think you’ll try to track back the source of some of our most favourite phrases …?

Oh that way madness lies!

Just for fun, try this link to the BBCwebsite, where there are some very witty 60-second plot summaries of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, in tabloid-style :).

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Clare London

Writing ... Man to Man

www.clarelondon.co.uk

A Suspect is a Suspect is a Suspect...

I wouldn’t say that I’m indecisive exactly, it’sjust that I’ve got a lot of things to say about a lot of different subjects so can’t seem to confine myself to just one genre. That’s why my name can be found on the covers of marine crime mysteries, romantic suspense and, my first love, historical romance. One thing all of my books do have in common is a strong ‘who-dun-it’ element, albeit murder, fraud, thieving or just general skulduggery.

Take The Perfect Impostor for instance, my third Regency romance with Carina Press which will be released on April 2^nd. Carina artists do awesome work on their covers, don’t you think, and I haven’t had one yet that doesn’t beautifully encapsulate the mood of the entire book. If readers do actually judge a book by its cover then I have high hopes for my impostor.

However, I digress. In regency times there wasn’t a red-hot squad of detectives standing by to keep the populace in order, so when valuable jewels start to go missing from society house parties and finish up funding Napoleon’s cause, the powers that be cry foul and despatch Lord Leo Kincade to the latest party to sort out the mess.

Three ladies are suspected of being involved in the scam, one of whom is Julia Dupont, now a marchioness, formerly engaged to Leo. Bit awkward that!

Katrina Sinclair, recently widowed, is struggling to make a name for herself as a modiste. Her childhood friend Julia Dupont could make that happen when she asks Katrina to design her wardrobe for an upcoming society house party. One small snag, though, Julia wants Katrina to swap places with her for the duration of that party. They did it often enough as children. No one could tell them apart then and can’t now.

Against her better judgement, Katrina agrees. What harm can come of it? Only problem is, Julia’s husband, equerry to the prince regent, puts in a surprise appearance, expecting to spend the night with his wife. Katrina will do much to protect Julia, but sleeping with her husband is several steps above and beyond the call of friendship. How will she get out of that one?

Leo knows almost at once that the woman he meets at Lady Marshall’s isn’t Julia Dupont. But who is she? Why is she pretending to be Julia and why is he drawn to her in a way that he never was to Julia? More to the point, what does she have to do with the thefts?

It doesn’t look too good for Katrina!

The Perfect Impostor by Wendy Soliman available from Carina Press and all good ebook stores from April 2^nd 2012.

Wendy

Write about what you know?

When I hear experts telling aspiring authors to write about what they know, I think “Yeah, right, and how many serial killers do you know?”.

Having said that…

It’s a well-known fact that I hate research. Hate it. I’m glad that, if I need to visit foreign shores, I can jump onto Google Earth and fly straight to the street, cathedral, house, park or whatever it is I’m describing. It’s not as good as actually being there, but it does help. On the whole though, I like to set my books locally so that if I need to describe a special place, I can whistle the dogs and set off with them to have a good look at it.

One advantage of this is that when I’m asked if there are any visual elements to the book that might help a cover artist, I can say “Why, yes…” and send a photo I’ve taken.

In Silent Witness for example, one scene takes place on a bleak hillside where the only signs of life are a few sheep and the Singing Ringing Tree. This a musical sculpture, designed to resemble a tree bending in the wind, that hums through specially designed pipes. For the story, I needed to hear it ‘sing‘ so I took the dogs for a walk and we had a good listen. I then needed to convey the impression of the sculpture to the cover artist so I sent her this:

The result was this - a fabulous cover showing one of my favourite places. 

This is from the back cover:

After his ex-wife bled to death in a bathtub covered in his fingerprints, the case against Aleksander Kaminski seemed open and shut. Though sentenced to life in prison, he swears he's innocent, a claim supported by his current wife.

Private investigator Dylan Scott finds himself drawn back to dreary Lancashire in a search for justice. The evidence against Kaminski is damning, but having been unjustly jailed himself, Dylan is compelled to pursue the case; if there's even a small chance the man is innocent, he has to help. The other obvious suspect--the victim's second husband--has a watertight alibi. But Dylan has a strong hunch that as usual, there's more going on than meets the eye in Dawson's Clough.

The deeper Dylan digs, the more secrets he unearths. The question remains: If Kaminski didn't murder his childhood sweetheart, who did?

Silent Witness releases today - yes, today! - and I'm busy celebrating. (Help yourself to virtual chocolates and champagne!) 

So while I’ve never had dinner with a killer (to my knowledge), perhaps being told to write about what you know isn’t quite as stupid as it sounds. What do you think?

WHAT MAKES YOU BUY A BOOK? By Kathy Ivan

I'm in the midst of a book buying binge courtesy of a generous gift card my sister gave me, so I'm loading up my Kindle Fire with new books. As I've been browsing various sites, the choices and variety of books is mind-boggling. Which in turn got me thinking—what attracts me to certain books?

1. Cover. A striking cover on a book will definitely get me to take a second look. Whether I'm in a physical brick and mortar store or cruising the internet, an eye-catching cover will make me pause, just to find out what the story is all about.

2. Author name. Of course, we all have our favorites, right? Some are auto-buys. Some have certain series that we read every single book therein. Others are authors recommended by a friend or colleague or somebody that we know, a fellow reader who passes along his/her favorite writers.

3. Back cover. How many times have you picked a book for whatever reason, turned it over and the back cover blurb just riveted your attention from the first word? You immediately turn that book into your basket, knowing you have to have it. Other times you will read the back and right back onto the shelf it goes. A good, well-define and thought-provoking back cover is an important component when choosing a book.

4. Reading the first few pages. Okay, admit it, some of you (me included) will open the book right there in the bookstore and read the first couple of pages to get a feel for whether it is a good fit, something you would read. Does it hold your interest? Is the author's voice one you want to continue reading? On-line sites sometimes offer the first portion of a book as a "sample" which really does help because as a reader, I really like to check out what I'm buying before shelling out my hard-earned dollars on something that I might not finish.

5. Reviews by readers/review sites. While not my highest criteria, I do tend to look at some of the reviews, especially if I'm buying books on-line. Just saying . . .

How do you choose your books? Do you do the same things I've listed above, or do you have another way of findings books—I want to know.

I-Spy: How to...Research

Join the authors and friends of Not Your Usual Suspects for an occasional series of posts about their world of reading, writing and publishing.

Short and sweet; hopefully both informative and entertaining - join us at I-Spy to find out the how's and why's of what we do.

TODAY'S POST: I-Spy How to ... Research with Toni Anderson

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No matter how diligent you are, the likelihood is, you WILL make mistakes. I’ve made errors that make me want to kick myself. My advice is this—let it go and move on. More advice—don’t advertise your mistakes unless you can fix them :) (why give someone ammunition with which to shoot you?). 

Most of the information below is pretty simple. I find the best advice often is :). As my stories often involve crime/murder/death the emphasis is on more law-enforcement based resources, however, the underlying principles remain the same whatever the genre.

So, how do you research a novel? First, decide what you need to know.

There’s always a lot to think about when writing a book: setting—including flora and fauna, culture, jobs/occupations, life experience, medical conditions (psychological and physical) and often in RS/Mystery stories, some sort of police or military procedure to grapple with that involves everything from weapons to law.

Figure out what details you need to know. Don’t go off on too many tangents or you’ll never get started on your novel.

There are so many resources available today that weren’t available when I finished my first novel, Her Sanctuary. Back then (not that long ago) the FBI hadn’t admitted to having a section dedicated to art fraud. So I made it up. Nowadays they have a fantastic website (FBI), so be sure to Google <insert search engine of your choice> the obvious. Most of the big organizations have great websites, FBI, CIA, even GCHQ :)

This leads me to the primary method of research in today’s technological world. The Internet.

After Google, Wikipedia is the next obvious step. My advice is don’t assume all the information here is gospel. Check the facts. What I find most useful about Wikipedia is the External Links citation section, and also finding alternative search terms (i.e. when researching the SAS, I was reminded by Wikipedia to also search ‘The Regiment’ which is another nickname for the British Special Air Service). 

For settings I spend a lot of time looking at images and watching videos on Youtube. I’m lucky, I’ve traveled a lot and, when possible, I use personal experience in my writing. But my last story was set in the Wakhan Corridor and, no matter how much I might want to, there’s no way I can leave my kids while I trek around Afghanistan on a yak. But YouTube has allowed me to visit this fascinating spit of land. 

I also borrow travel guides from the public library—my favourites are The Lonely Planet Guides. And I read autobiographies/essays set in places where I want to set my stories. Once, I remember dripping sweat in the heat of a Queensland summer and shivering as Rick Bass took me on a haunting journey through the wilderness of Montana.

And, for a literal look at the place you want to set your story, try GoogleEarth and get a 360° view. 

Blogs.
Blogs might have gone a little out of fashion, but if you want details about a particular way of life they are worth spending time reading through. I found blogs especially helpful when writing a character who has type-1 diabetes (Cameran Young in EDGE OF SURVIVAL). People talk about everything from their deepest fears to their most mundane routines. Every detail is important when creating realistic 3-D characters. A lot of front-line soldiers blog. Another fascinating blog I found when writing my snow leopard biologist heroine was this.  I found it an invaluable insight into the biologists’ daily routines and common frustrations. 

Books (More books. I love books). 
I also scour the local library search engine and Amazon (Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk because they list different books). If I find a suitable book I add it to my wishlist and go back and search for it in the library. I do the same with DVDs. Some of my wishlist books have been there for years—they are so expensive I just can’t justify getting them, but every time I see them I remember a story idea. Kids books can be really useful too. I have way too many books, but it will never be enough.

Writers groups.

In terms of delving for facts on anything from death to taxes, writers groups are an invaluable resource. I’m a member of Romance Writers of America (RWA) mainly because I wanted to join their Kiss of Death Chapter (KOD). RWA and KOD give me access to several writing loops where I can ask my questions. I also belong to Crimescenewriters which is a similar resource but free and with more law-enforcement personnel involved. Through these organizations and loops I’ve attended some phenomenal field-trips. Prior to RWA’s yearly national conference, KOD always arrange a tour. I’ve visited a Sheriff’s Department in Reno, the State Department, the US Postal Inspection Service, and other writers visited the Pentagon, Quantico and the Coastguard. Through Crimescenewriters I heard about the Writers’ Police Academy run by Lee Loftland. It’s offered down in North Carolina and offers a packed schedule of hands on experience for wannabe crime writers. This year the keynote speaker is Lee Child, when I went it was Jeffery Deaver :)

Experts.
If you can’t get to a workshop then see if you can find experts in the field you are interested in who will talk to you. I have friends in the secret echelons of the Ministry of Defence and, despite all the dirt I have on them, they won’t tell me a damn thing. I’ve actually found people who I don’t know personally to be more helpful than friends or relatives (I’m not sure what that says about me but what I’m hoping to encourage is the confidence to reach out). I did have a rather hilarious incident recently when I’d contacted a RCMP officer who wrote a newsletter. I then managed to get the email address of the media relations person. I received two replies pretty much on the same day. The former said, “We can’t tell you that sort of information. We don’t want the bad guys getting hold of it and, you’re writing fiction, so you can make it up.” I chuckled so hard I also gave myself a hernia. The second reply had all the details I needed for my story and he was happy with follow-up questions too. So, where possible, reach out to the media relations people from whatever organization you’re interested in. They will help you.

As a former scientist I want to say don’t be afraid of science/medical journals. The Introduction and Discussion sections often contain easy-to-understand information and might just summarize exactly what you want to know. 

I’m way over my word count for this post. I’m going to leave you with one more piece of advice. When you’re writing, your book you should only include the tip of the iceberg in terms of the information you have gleaned. The depth of your knowledge will shine through in the veracity of your writing, not in a dull list of facts.

I hope this helps.

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Toni Anderson, Ph.D., is a former Marine Biologist and Research Scientist turned Romantic Suspense writer who now lives in the Canadian prairies with her husband and two children. Her stories are set in the stunning locations where she’s been lucky enough to live and work—the blustery east coast of Scotland, the remote isolated mining communities of Northern Labrador, the rugged landscapes of the U.S. and Australia. You can learn more on her website. LIKE her on facebook :)

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FUTURE POSTS will cover:
Kindlegraph / the art of research / writing male/male romance / rejection and writer's block / building suspense / writing love scenes / anti-piracy strategies / audio books / interviews with editors and agents / using Calibre.
We welcome everyone's constructive comments and suggestions!