Laura Lippman in Gainesville!

Meeting with authors I admire is like a big-old jolt of inspiration, and I got a Venti Double Shot of it last Saturday when Laura Lippman came to Gainesville!

I was introduced to her fiction several decades ago when my sister gave me a copy of Baltimore Blues as a Christmas present.  Since then, I've looked forward to every new Laura Lippman novel and consider her one of the premier crime novelists working today. As creator of the Tess Monaghan series along with several stand-alone novels, her books are expertly plotted--with more twists and turns than the wild Ocklawaha River--but it is the authentic and superbly-drawn characters that keep  me coming back for more.

Laura Lippman

Now, I had tried for years to meet Laura at some conference or book tour, but never quite got the timing right. So I was over the friggin' moon when I learned she was coming to our library in Gainesville--a mile from my home!

From her smart novels, I already knew Laura was a smart woman, but in finally meeting her, I found her to be kind and gracious as well, with an almost working-class approach to her writing that I can relate to.

  Simply put, writing is her job and she does it well.

Although Laura was there to talk about her latest novel Sunburn, she admitted that everything past the first two chapters contained spoilers, so the discussion was wide-ranging. One thing she shared about her own writing really struck home.

When Laura first set out to write, she made a conscious decision to cast herself as a genre writer, partly because the idea of writing the great American novel was a bit beyond her. I think it was a way to take some of the pressure that goes along with the craft. 

I experienced something similar when I decided to try my hand at writing fiction. As a former English teacher, I loved Fitzgerald and Shakespeare and Faulkner, but I was no Faulkner. Heck, I wasn't even Sidney Sheldon, though I wouldn't have minded having his sales. But I might be able to write a mystery. But I'd read enough mysteries to fill a library. Maybe--just maybe--I could write one. 

Sometimes we women are often way too hard on ourselves. We demand perfection of ourselves, yet

forgive all sorts of transgressions from those we love. So calling myself a genre writer was a way of giving myself a break. 

I think that learning the craft of writing is sort of like climbing a giant ladder, the top of which is hidden in the clouds. Rather than worry about what's beyond your reach, it's best to concentrate on getting onto the next rung.

And who knows? Maybe someday, you'll reach the clouds.

Love of Research

As a reader, I love to learn new things when I read fiction. I enjoy experiencing danger vicariously and seeing the world from a different perspective. As an author, I strive to craft that same thrill for my readers. Research is how to nail the details that create that you-are-there insider's experience.

We've all read stories that fail at this. I am an instrument-rated private pilot with a little training in aerobatics. When I encounter blunders in a story about aviation, the magic of being in the story falls apart. I don't want to be that author who breaks the magic.

Why write what you know when you can write about exciting things you are learning?

HEROS OF RESEARCH

Authors James A. Michener, Ridley Pearson, and David Morrell exemplify the serious kind of research that elevates their stories to the bestseller category. Michener's tome Hawaii presents the geologic formation of the islands to establish the setting for readers. Pearson's research in his crime stories is revered by detectives for thoroughness. Morrell spent 35 days carrying a 60-lb. backpack through the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming with the National Outdoor Wilderness School to research is book Testament.

Here's my process.

SETTING

Where does the story happen? For North of the Killing Hand, I drew on travel experience in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, and Columbia for the scenes in the Amazon. The photos taken in these remote places reminded me of the density and types of foliage. Journals reminded me of the smells, sounds, oppressive dampness, and dangers. Beyond personal experience there comes online research and trips to the library for demographics. How many people live there and who are they? What languages do they speak? How do they travel? How do they communicate? What cultural differences stand out? Crime? Education? How do people make a living in the Amazon? What are their religious and ethical beliefs?

For the upcoming West of Famous, I spent a week on a trawler because a huge portion of the story takes place on such a boat. All the library research in the world cannot capture the smell of diesel, the constant motion of the boat, the sounds of the engines, or how to find compartments large enough to stuff a body. The boat owners, Paul and Caryn Frink, went above and beyond in helping me. They took me to the oh-so-remote site in the Everglades where part of the story takes place and dropped anchor. They let me ride in the engine compartment while the boat was underway. I had to test if screaming could be heard over the sound of the engine.

I took copious notes and photographed everything at various times of day and night to nail the details. Online research cannot compare. Paul, retired navy with a strong engineering background, taught me more about boats and boat engines in a week than I learned from months of other research. Hands-on research beats online research any day! Fun, too! The rocking sensation stopped two days after I returned home.

CHARACTER

For each character, major and minor, I want to know who they are. What makes them behave the way they do? What does the character fear? What does the character want? For minor characters, the basic information reads like a police profile: height, weight, age, gender, race, education, and basic history. For major characters, deeper analysis works.

In South of Justice, the main character Dr. Terri Pinehurst-Clayton is a veterinarian. What does it take to become a veterinarian? The info uncovered during research appeared in the book, especially the items that grabbed my attention. Did you know it is tougher to enter veterinarian school than medical school? That tidbit of info led me to find out why. The answer found its way into the book because inquiring minds want to know. At one point in the story, Terri bolsters her courage by reminding herself that she graduated at the top of her class because of her intellectual tenacity. She then decides to begin her own investigation into her husband's past.

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the main characters empowers the author to leverage these traits in the story. I have interviewed experts to gain insight into the how and why of their work.

I suppose such research is similar to method acting. I want to learn so much that I can step inside a character to experience life from a new perspective in a new place under circumstances I pray I never have to experience in real life.

Which author do you admire for creating stories that make you feel you are there?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joni M. Fisher is a journalist, an instrument-rated private pilot, and an active member of the Florida Writers Association, the Kiss of Death Chapter and the Tampa Area Romance Authors Chapter of RWA, and the Women's Fiction Writers Association. Books in her Compass Crimes Series have garnered attention in Publisher's Weekly and earned recognition in the 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards, the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards, the Indiana Golden Opportunity Contest, the Sheila Contest, and earned a Reader's Favorite 5-Star Review. 

For more information, see www.jonimfisher.com | facebook

Yesterday, I attended a service to remember the thousands of men who lost their lives at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The uniforms, the marching band, the laying of wreaths at the Cenotaph, the lone bugler delivering the Last Post - it was very moving. 

As a writer, my mind tried to imagine what it felt like for those men as they headed straight for the guns and certain death and how this bloody battle impacted on the mothers, fathers, siblings and children left at home. Needless to say, I soon had a full cast of fictional characters in my head. 

As a crime writer, my mind soon had these fictional characters committing deadly deeds. I often toy with the idea of writing historical crime fiction and, with my latest novel almost finished, maybe it’s time to seriously think about it?

I love the idea of criminals being free to act in a time that was, in many ways, much simpler. There were no mobile phones, no internet, no CCTV on every street corner and no worries about leaving a speck of blood or a stray hair at the scene. On the other hand, without DNA and the advancements in technology, solving the crimes becomes much more difficult for our sleuths.  

Years ago, I used to read a lot of historical crime novels. Recently - nothing. I can’t remember the last crime/mystery novel I read that wasn’t contemporary. I intend to rectify that and I thought a fitting place to start would be with the 2011 winner of the CWA’s Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award, The Somme Stations by Andrew Martin. However, as this is book 7 in his Jim Stringer series, it may be a while before I get to it. :)

How do you feel about historical crime fiction? Do you read it? Do you have any recommendations? I'm curious. 

Something to Do

This is my first post for Not Your Usual Suspects, so I'll begin with … Hey, y'all!  So glad to be here.

If you're wondering who the heck I am, you're not alone. Until November of 2015, no one had heard of me. Ah, the life of a debut author. So, to borrow a phrase, allow myself to introduce … myself.

As you can guess from the y’all, I’m a southern girl. I was born and raised in a small town. I haunted the library from the time I was old enough to read, and I always wanted to write my own stories.

However, I didn’t always want to write romance.  When I picked up a pen a few years ago, I had a story to tell about brothers – all about choosing your life and making your family. As I told the tale, it became a romance between the hometown hero and his brother’s best friend – the girl who got away.

By the way, it’s a really awful story. (As in, "it's hidden on my computer and I refuse to look at" it awful.) It’s full of great characters, but they don’t have anything to do. There is no conflict, no plot, and no real goal other than to live happily-ever-after.

That’s how I ended up writing romantic suspense. I needed something for my characters to do. It was sort of a natural leap for me because I have a morbid curiosity with true crime and forensic television. That external conflict pushes them together and makes them form a team. It gives them motivation, a common enemy, and a goal. It makes them face something in themselves that’s frightening. 

Well, that and I can’t write mysteries – I can’t keep a secret for a whole book. I think a lot of the thrill of reading is when you can see the danger coming, and you’re hoping the characters see it before it’s too late. It’s one of the reasons we yell "don't go in the basement" during horror movies.

But there’s more to it than figuring out the villain before the characters do. A few days ago, I got into a discussion with a guy at the post office. I told him I write romances, and the conversation went like this:

Him: “But no crime?”

Me: “Well, I write romantic suspense, so, yes, there’s some crime - generally blood and mayhem, probably a murder or two.”

Him: “I thought so. If there’s romance, there has to be crime.”

And you know, he’s sort of right. Romance and crime are two very emotional aspects in fiction. Combined, they heighten each other, sharpen the characters’ relationships and the plot as a whole. 

If you look at one broad definition of crime, it’s: “any offense, serious wrongdoing, or sin. A foolish, senseless, or shameful act.” Every genre of romance has that, doesn’t it? The older brother who’s gambled away the family fortune, leaving his sister no choice but a marriage of convenience. The hero who’s returned home to recover after a horrible accident. The heroine who’s escaping a bankrupt business.

All those “serious wrongdoings” put the characters in an emotional blender – everything is more intense. It makes it more fun to read and tons more fun to write.

Romance gets a bum rap for being “escapist.” But what’s so wrong with that? Sometimes real life is too quiet. Escape from our calm routines might mean adventure that sends tingles up our spines and passion that steals our breath.

So, it’s nice to meet y’all. I’m Mia, a new writer who loves to write romantic suspense for the adventure of it all. Buckle up and hang on. And don't go in the basement.   

Mia Kay

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CRIME PAYS

     Crime writers who bring flamboyant characters and complex stories to life often find their stories born again in another medium. Agatha Christie who published her first novel in 1920 became one of the most famed authors in history with billions of copies of her work sold to avid readers. Christie was also a playwright and romance writer. Her play, The Mousetrap, is the world’s longest running play—opening on April 12, 1958—having its Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and is still on the boards today. She also penned the plays The Hollow, and Verdict plus Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile—both adapted into films. Writing over 70 detective novels earned her the title “Queen of Mystery.” Included in her repertoire were short fiction, and romantic narratives. Christie was made a dame in 1971 and we all know, “There is Nothing Like a Dame.”

     Among the first mystery novels is Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White published in 1859 and appearing in serial form in Charles Dickens “All Year Round Magazine” and in the United States in “Harper’s Weekly”. It was staged as a melodrama in 1975 and titled Egad, The Woman in White, became a stage play in 2005 and a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Zippel in 2004. Silent films of Wilkie’s play were made in America in 1912 and 1917 and in Great Britain in 1929 and in America in 1940, and 1948 and Russia in 1982. Two TV Miniseries produced by the BBC and one in Germany and a computer game created in 2010 titled Victorian Mysteries: Woman in White.

     A British Horror film titled The Woman in Black was adapted from a novel by Susan Hill in 1983 and became a play in 1987. I remember seeing the play on a visit to London, clutching my husband and screaming. A first for me—fortunately I wasn’t the only one in the audience who had the shudders.

       Attracted to ghost stories, Henry James wrote the The Turn of the Screw. Published in 1898 the story has had multiple interpretations—made into an opera, television play, motion picture, and radio and theatre productions.

     William Gillette, the actor, playwright and inventor began a correspondence with Arthur Conan Doyle in 1898. At their first meeting he arrived at Doyle’s home wearing a long, gray cape and wearing a deerstalker cap. Sherlock Holmes incarnate—he appeared to have stepped out of the pages of Doyle’s book. He gave the breath of life to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes extensively rewriting a five-act play that Doyle had written, then cabled Doyle asking to “Marry Holmes.”  Sir Arthur replied that he could marry Holmes or murder him or do anything he liked with him.” Gillette wrote two plays—“Sherlock Holmes,” and “The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes,” and earned over three million dollars, a hefty amount in those days, with his portrayal of the great detective. Doyle said he was “charmed both with the play, the acting and the pecuniary result.”

     W. Somerset Maugham wrote a short story, in 1926, that was included in his collection titled The Casuarina Tree. Based on a true story about a murder that occurred in 1911 when the wife of a headmaster was tried and convicted of murder after shooting a male friend. Maugham turned his story into a play that ran in London, toured the provinces and opened on Broadway with Katherine Cornell. The play has been revived, and made into films in America, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy and three television anthologies, a made for television movie, a musical titled The Bloomers and an opera produced by The Santa Fe Opera.

     In 1984, William March wrote a novel titled The Bad Seed adapted for the stage by Maxwell Anderson. The play opened on Broadway less than a year after its publication. The book was the last of March’s published works because of his untimely death. Both a critical and commercial success, the book was nominated for the 1955 National book Award for Fiction. The premise of the book and the play—which starred Nancy Kelly who won the Tony Award for her performance—was “nature vs. nurture” in explaining deviant behavior. Patty McCormack, the child actress played Rhoda—The Bad Seed. A film was made in 1956 and a television movie in 1985.

     Bram Stoker worked at the Lyceum Theatre—headed by the actor-manager Henry Irving—between 1878 and 1898. His novel Dracula bore many other titles until shortly before publication including The Dead Un-Dead and was not commercially successful at first despite the praise of critics. Stoker modeled Dracula on Sir Henry’s dramatic characteristics and gentlemanly comportment and hoped he would play Dracula in the stage version. Sir Henry never played the part but in 1928 the part was played by Bela Lugosi. It was adapted for the stage by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston in 1977 with the charming and sexy count played by Frank Langella and again made an appearance in 2004 as a musical. 

     Chicago is based on a play by a reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins who covered the 1924 trials of murderesses Beulah Annan and Belva Gartner for the Chicago Tribune. In the twenties, there were many homicides which involved women killing their husbands or lovers. Annan became the starting point for Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly is basis for Gaertner. Watkins pieces were extremely successful with the Tribune’s readers and became the heart of her play. The play appeared on Broadway in 1926 and a silent film version was produced by Cecil b. DeMille in 1927 and remade as Roxie Hart in 1942 starring Ginger Rogers but Ginger was accused of murder but never convicted. Gwen Verdon read the play in the 1960s and asked her husband Bob Fosse about adapting it as a musical. Fosse tried to buy the rights but Watkins had become a born-again Christian and believed her work glorified decadence and rejected his offer. After her death in 1969, her estate sold the rights to the producer Richard Fryer, Fosse and Verdon. The musical opened in 1975 and played 926-performances. Opened on the West End in 1979 and ran for 600 performances then was revived on Broadway in 1996 and is still playing today. Revived on the West End—it is the longest running American musical in history. The musical has played all over the world and won numerous prizes including the Tony. It also became a film starring Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta Jones and won the Academy Award for that year.

     Do you dream of the play, the musical, television or the motion picture?Sometimes crime pays.