MY INVITATION'S LOST IN THE POST ...

So how on earth did I get the poisoned chalice of today's blog post? When the eyes of most of Britain - and, I may say, the world - are on an event as far removed from Clare London blogging as the sun from the earth? :)

I've spent the morning at a friend's, watching The Royal Wedding, and searching my rather weary brain for a connection with the NYUS blog. And ... failing. So, if you'll excuse a rather scribbled moment after a jug of Pimms - here's some mystery fiction instead!

***

I crossed the darkened room on bare feet and leaned against the closed door, listening with fierce concentration, my sharp hearing on alert. There were no sounds from the corridor outside. I blinked in the darkness, but nothing was out of place: no movement, no answering breath, no cry of alarm. Excellent. I was alone in the room, just as I had been when I slid the window open and climbed in from the garden.

A special day, they’d said. Yes, indeed. The happy couple would get what they deserved today, and I’d be the one to deliver it.

Who was there to stop me?

I bent on supple knees, the dark fabric of my clothing stretching over my muscles, then moved across the room in a crouch. My gloved hands moved swiftly across the furniture, feeling my way. The geography of the room was just as I’d anticipated. The package at my side hung awkwardly, pressing into my thigh. Slipping a hand down, I patted it back into place. There must be no noise; no warning given.

Just what they deserved.

Maybe just one more touch? My mouth went dry at the promise. After all, I couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong now. They would be back from the church any time now, and I … I wanted things to be ready for them. Preparation was everything.

I’d been waiting for this moment for a long time.

Pausing, balanced on my knees and heels, I grasped the thick, velvet cloth in my pocket and drew out my burden. My heartbeat quickened. Biting my lip to hold back a moan of satisfaction, I ran a tentative finger along the sharp edge inside.

And then the lights snapped on.

Blinking with shock, I jumped to my feet. The door had slammed open, a large, solid shape silhouetted in the frame. For a second’s flash, I couldn’t focus, yet knew it was a human shape. How many were there? Just one? A whole team? Three running steps would take me back to the window and escape.

“Stay there,” said a strong voice. “It’s all over now.” The shadow broke away from the doorway and started walking towards me. A man in uniform. A large man. The voice was low and harsh. “I told you to wait with the others, didn’t I?”

“You can’t stop me. This is for them.” I gripped my precious parcel.

The man shook his head slowly, almost sadly, still walking forward. There were mere feet between us now. “Now come along quietly. You know it’s for the best, don’t you?”

No. I shook my head too, but angrily: with frustration.

“Give that to me,” the man said. His voice was kinder now.

With a sob in my throat, I held out the parcel. I watched the other man take hold of it. For one brief moment, I wouldn’t let go. “It’s what I planned for. What I must do.”

The man nodded, almost sympathetically. “Of course.” The parcel had changed hands. I was bereft. I stood  in the room, disarmed, thwarted.

“Look around,” the man said. “You see?”

I looked around slowly, expecting a trick, dreading the truth. The room was opulently furnished, every surface covered with greetings cards of all shapes and sizes. Over the fireplace was a large banner proclaiming “Congratulations to the happy couple”. And on a large dining table at the far side of the room was a pile of sumptuously wrapped gifts.

“I’ve checked them all in,” the man said. “It’s my job, as steward of the Royal Household.” He shook his head again and gestured with my parcel. “And there are twenty five of these already.”

“Twenty five?” Surely not. Surely my dreams were unique, my promises treasured…

The man took my arm, guiding me firmly but carefully towards the exit. “Send them a gift voucher instead, why don’t you?”

“No –”

“Yes,” he said, with a sigh that spoke of a very long day, and the aftermath of a stream of challenging well-wishers at the doors of Clarence House. “Because you can have too many kitchen knife sets.”

Location, Location, Location

When my first romantic suspense novel, The Paris Secret, was on submission to publishers, I was stunned when an editor rejected it because of the Parisian setting. This editor said that foreign settings didn’t work for her readers. Really? I’m a reader and I certainly enjoy books set in foreign countries. And I know I’m not the only one. Can you say Stieg Larsson? Reading about far off places I’ve never been brings those places alive for me. They take me on journeys I might not otherwise take and all from the comfort of my own home. Here are some of my favorite mystery/suspense/thrillers set in foreign countries.

Murder in the Marais By Cara Black – This is the first book in Cara Black’s wonderful series set in Paris and featuring half French half American private investigator, Aimee Leduc. In this first book, Aimee encounters neo-Nazis; corrupt government officials and fierce anti-Semitism.

Garnethill By Denise Mina - Set in a Glasgow suburb of the same name, Garnethill features troubled Maureen O’Donnell, a woman just released from a stint in a Glasgow psychiatric institute who becomes the prime suspect in the murder of a social worker.

Labyrinth By Kate Mosse – If you’ve read my book, The Paris Secret, you can probably tell I’m a big fan of ‘timeslip’ novels. Set in the Languedoc region of France, Labyrinth features two heroines born centuries apart and connected through time by a quest for the Holy Grail.

Haunted Ground By Erin Hart – The first book to feature American pathologist Nora Gavin and Irish archeologist Cormac Maguire. The two meet when the perfectly preserved head of a young woman is found in a bog west of Ireland.

Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death By MC Beaton – This is the first book that introduced the world to the unforgettable Agatha Raisin, a London publicist who takes early retirement and moves to a village in the Cotswold’s. When she cheats by entering a store bought quiche in a local competition, a judge ends up poisoned and Agatha is the prime suspect.

Vodka Neat By Anna Blundy - features Faith Zanetti, the new Moscow correspondent for a leading newspaper--chosen for the job because she married a Russian when she was a teenager. But the minute she steps on Russian soil, she is instantly arrested in connection with the murders, fifteen years before, of a couple from a neighboring apartment.

What about you guys? Do you like reading books set in foreign cities?

Angela : )

BE A SUCCESSFUL HOOKER.

Hooker?
Did you come to the blog thinking I was going to talk about a very old profession? If you did well……. HA! Made you look. You fell for my hook.
So what is a hook?
I think instructor Mary Buckham, in her lecture packet on Hooks and Pacing, says it best.
"Hooks create an emotional response from a reader. Not just any emotional response but one that gets under your subconscious, raises a question and compels a reader to turn one more page in order to find an answer.
Hooks can, and should be used, in the opening sentence of a book, the opening paragraph, the end of the first page, the end of the third page, the end of the third chapter, opening a chapter as well as an ending one, at each new scene and, if you're writing a series, the last sentence."
In her book How I Write Janet Evanovich says: "The beginning is the most important part of the book. It must capture the reader immediately and force them to keep reading."
Agent Donald Maas says hooks are vital to open your book, open each chapter, open each scene, and end the book. The best books contain one or more of twelve different hooks.
* Action or danger
* Overpowering emotion
* A surprising situation
* An evocative description that pulls a reader into a setting [think a specific setting here that impacts the story line vs simply description per se – simple description of a generic or vague nature is not evocative nor qualifies as a setting]
* Introducing a unique character [Introduction of a character is not enough – they must be unique.
* Warning or foreshadowing
* Shocking or witty dialogue [internal or external]
* The totally unexpected
* Raising a direct question

Still not convinced hooks are important? Take five of your favorite books from the shelf and read the first paragraph. Is there a hook? I had twenty-one books on the table and all save one had a hook. All but a handful had the story GMC in the first pages. My very favorite opening is Michael Connelly’s first page of The Brass Verdict. It completely lays out the story.
Recently I was at a luncheon and ladies were talking about a book on the best seller list. One asked if the book was any good, should she read it. They other’s response blew me away. She said, “It’s great once you get past the first hundred pages.” I knew the book, it was two hundred seventy-five pages. My mouth is always forty feet in front of the rest of me spoke up and asked why on earth would anyone continue to read a book after the first five pages if it didn’t interest you. To me those are chuckawalla books. They don’t grab my attention in those fist pages and they get chucked against the wall.
Does your opening immediately draw the reader in? Want to share? Or tell me what you most favorite ever opening is.
Here’s my opening for Under Fire.

“We have a visual on the boat.” Coast Guard Lt. Commander Olivia Carver’s gloved fingers tightened around the helicopter’s control stick and she increased airspeed. The chase was on.
Olivia’s heartbeat matched the tempo of the rotors. Sweat bonded her flight suit to her body and trickled between her breasts. Counter-narcotics had become her reason for existing and she was damn good at it.

THIS MAY TAKE MORE WORK…

In my last blog, I confessed that I wasn’t evil enough and needed to become meaner if I was to create a credible bad guy. I promised I’d work on my evil-twin side and report back on my success.

Well. It turns out there’s not much to report.

Being mean—let alone evil—is work. It’s hard to go against a lifetime of conditioning. Sort of like learning to eat healthy when you’ve always been able to eat whatever you want. (Not that this has been my personal experience, you understand.)

Even when I had an impulse to lash out with a cutting comment or place a metaphoric tack on someone’s seat, I resisted. Why? Because there’s a reason we’re polite. We are social creatures and have developed conventions and customs that allow us to live tightly packed in small spaces without killing each other.

I learned, however, that my inner bad guy rises much closer to the surface when I’m cranky and tired. It becomes oh so easy to sharpen my tongue on friends and family. But that’s as bad as I get. More like an inner bitch than an inner bad guy.

I did have an insight, however. An acquaintance made a mistake. It was a stupid mistake, involving another friend, but instead of owning up to it, she proceeded to dig herself in deeper and deeper until it all fell apart. Slow motion car wreck.

So if I extend this experience to fiction, I find that bad guys aren’t necessarily evil, or even bad. They could be normal people pushed into desperate action by extraordinary circumstances—sort of like heroes.

My latest villain appears in The Shoeless Kid, on May 16, from Carina Press. Check it out and see if he—or she—meets your criteria for a good villain. What about you? Any favourite villains?

Marcelle
http://www.marcelledube.com/

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Who’s your favourite sleuth?

As soon as people know my novels feature crime solving detectives and private investigators, they want to know the identity of my favourite sleuth. Am I a Morse fan or do I prefer Rebus? Kojak or Columbo? Miss Marple or Poirot? 

There’s a clue in the title of this post that I’m British. (Thankfully, Carina Press allows me to keep British spellings in my books.) I was born in a tiny village in the lee of Meon Hill where you would be safe to assume that nothing happened. Ever.

But… One day, years before I was born, something did happen. On Valentine’s Day, 1945, a seventy-four-year-old man was brutally murdered. 

Charles Walton, a farm labourer, was tending fences on Meon Hill. Walton was a recluse so he wasn’t a popular man. Also, he had a gift for calling animals and birds to his hand to feed. Some believed Walton was clairvoyant. Others swore he was involved in witchcraft.

The fact is that his body was found on that barren hillside. He’d been badly beaten, his neck had been slashed and he’d been pinned to the ground with his own pitchfork. There were no witnesses and no suspects. Warwickshire police officers were baffled and Scotland Yard was asked to assist.

Enter ace detective Inspector Robert Fabian.

All this may have happened long before I was born, but I still get a thrill from knowing that Fabian came to my little village where nothing ever happened. (Except the odd murder, that is.)

One of the earliest police procedurals made for British TV, Fabian of the Yard, was based on Fabian’s memoirs. The episodes were broadcast in 1954/55 and were later shown in the US under the name Fabian of Scotland Yard. Each episode was based on a real crime that had made national headlines at the time. And each episode ended with the real Fabian explaining what had happened to the criminal.

So did Charles Walton’s case appear on Fabian of the Yard? No. It remains unsolved to this day. Fabian says he was met with a wall of silence. Locals were tight-lipped. Tales of witchcraft continued to circulate. All these years later, a search on the internet for “witchcraft murder” will bring up the case of Charles Walton.

As children, we heard about the murder and frightened ourselves silly with tales of ghostly black dogs and murderous witches roaming our hill. Adults would say, in hushed tones, that even Fabian of the Yard had been unable to solve the mystery.

Robert Fabian died in 1978, but he remains my favourite detective. He showed flashes of genius, he was way ahead of his time when it came to forensic science and he possessed the ability to get inside a killer’s mind which is exactly what I try to do when I write. 

(Talking of writing, if you look at the book cover, you’ll see that Fabian was published by none other than Harlequin).

So who’s your favourite detective? Is he/she real or fictional? Enquiring minds need to know.

WRITE WHAT YOU LOVE AND LOVE WHAT YOU WRITE

I had an emergency come up over the last week, and completely forgot that I was blogging this morning. So I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to post a previous blog that I wrote, as the words in it are just as true today as they were when I wrote it. :-)

A good friend once told me write what you love and love what you write. I firmly believe that. She said unless you love your story and what you have written, how can you expect the reader to love it? I sometimes forget that’s my job as a storyteller. It’s the reason I love to write. I want to tell people a story, with a compelling beginning, middle, and an emotionally satisfying ending that they will remember and think about after they have “put down the book.”

That’s the case with Desperate Choices. I loved the story as I outlined it, figuring out who each of the characters was, what motivated them to make the choices they make throughout the book. If I was in the same situation, would I make the same choices?

Back cover: When psychic Theresa Crawford’s former beau walks into her New Orleans New Age shop, she senses trouble. Big trouble. Max Lamoreaux hasn’t come to discuss their relationship—the private investigator is on a case, and he needs Theresa’s help.

Max’s godson is missing. The police have declared Tommy a runaway, but Max’s gut tells him otherwise. While he’s highly skeptical of Theresa’s abilities, her visions provide the only clue as to who’s taken Tommy. The longer Max works with Theresa, the harder it is to resist his desire for the sexy woman.

As they inch closer to finding Tommy, Max and Theresa also discover that time hasn’t diminished their powerful attraction. But Theresa harbors her own dark secrets from her past. Secrets that broke them up before—and could drive them apart again, unless Theresa can learn to trust Max with everything….

For those of you who are readers, there is an excerpt from Desperate Choices on my website www.kathyivan.com. There’s also a book trailer there for the book.

For those of you who are writers (or interested in writing), here are a few tips I’ve learned along the way.

WRITING TIPS:
1. Never give up. I know everybody says that, but it’s the truth. I decided it was time to retire Desperate Choices. After making a deal with one of my critique partners that I’d send it out one last time (to Carina Press), I gave it one final shot. That was on March 6, 2010. I got the call on May 11, 2010.
2. Get good critique partners. Have people read your manuscript who will give you honest constructive feedback. It’s easy to find people who will read your work and gush and say how wonderful it is, but that won’t get you one step closer to publication; it’ll just make you feel good for the moment. Having people who aren’t afraid of yielding the dreaded red pen and slashing and hacking at your baby may hurt, but it will ultimately make you a better writer.
3. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; be true to what you write and write what you love. If you don’t believe and love the story you’re writing, trust me, the reader will be able to tell that in a minute.

Writing, Real Life and Tax Deductions by Janis Patterson

            If you notice the ‘posted by’ at the top, you’ll see it was done by our own marvelous Toni Anderson and not by me. That’s because I’m not here – I’m in Paris (yes, that Paris!) celebrating a wonderful, romantic tenth wedding anniversary with The Husband. A Captain in the Navy Reserve, he was activated last year for the fourth time in eight years and posted to Germany. He was very upset that we would be spending our wedding anniversary apart. Again.

            Me: It’s okay, honey, it’s not the first anniversary you’ve missed.

            The Husband: But the tenth is special, so you’ll just have to come over and we’ll go to Paris.

            Me, gulping : Okay!

            So that’s wonderful for me, but how does that tie in with writing?

            Simple. EVERYTHING ties in with writing, from a romantic trip to Paris to getting your tires rotated.

            I used to have a sweatshirt that said “Nothing bad ever happens to writers –it’s all research.” Oh, so true! The sweatshirt finally dissolved from pure age, but the saying is still as meaningful as ever.

            Whatever is happening is grist for your mill. Even if you aren’t conscious of doing it, your brain is constantly absorbing little bits of information – smells, sights, sounds. Occasionally, simple curiosity will drive you ask a question, even if you don’t have an exact usage for it at the time. For example, I was having my tires rotated when I asked a somewhat bemused mechanic how to make sure a car would crash. Luckily he has known me for the many years we’ve patronized that station, so instead of calling the police he patiently explained several very nifty ways to ensure a spectacular smash-up. There’s one involving a block of wood and some glue that I can’t wait to use… in a story, just in a story…

            One of the benefits of being a writer is that there is so much you can claim as a business-related deduction. Books. Movies. Parts of some trips. A home office. Lunches with fellow writers. Conferences. Workshops. Classes. Postage. Mileage. Some writers even claim a portion of their home for an office and a portion of their internet fees. You need to check with the tax code or a good accountant well versed in writerly deductions to see if everything you’ve claimed is legal and justifiable. You also need to keep impeccable records and receipts. The minutiae of that, however, is fodder for a post by someone more gifted with numbers and laws than I.

            I am trying to make the point that everything in your life affects your writing. When you smell the first roses of spring, it doesn’t mean that you have to put them in your current work; it does mean that when you need a fresh, springlike odor or even a reference, there is the memory of those first, dewy roses just waiting in the back of your mind. Same thing with other, less pleasant events/ideas/odors/sights/emotions.

            Whatever affects you can also affect your readers. Good writing invokes nuance and texture. Instead of just telling your readers there is a coat on the chair, let them know what kind of coat it is. Lush fur? Ratty denim? Cashmere, freshly cleaned or down-at-the-heels grubby? Plaid or plain? Pristine or torn? Whatever that coat is gives us an insight into the owner. For example, “The jacket had originally been dark indigo, but time and wear had faded the denim to a pale blue with streaks of white around the edges. One of the pockets had been torn and carefully mended with thread that didn’t quite match, but it was clean and had been neatly pressed.” That not only describes the physical coat, but also says a lot about its owner.

            That does not mean you have to go into a detailed treatise on fabrics, coat manufacture or dry cleaning processes. A great indigestible lump of information is as bad as none at all, and sometimes worse. Readers have sparks, gems, archetypes in their minds, too. As writers it is our job to activate them.

            Too many of us wander around in the fog of the immediate (our minds concentrated on what to serve for supper tonight, who is going to take the kids to soccer practice, when the roast should come out of the oven) for us to acknowledge the real world around us. Life, the tiny little gems of life, are passing us by and we haven’t even noticed.

            One of the purposes of fiction is to take the reader to a different world; if we don’t notice these gems, how can we pass them on to our readers? How can we create a complete and believable world? Oh, it can be done, but without those gems of the senses the end product is usually flat and sterile and does nothing for the reader. It says nothing good about the writer, either.

            So, while I am in Paris I shall be looking at the magnificent buildings and listening to the accents and tasting the food, but when I come home I shall be just as assiduous in noting the play of light through the grapevines on the pergola roof and the strange whine coming from my car’s newly aligned tires and smelling the heat of a drowsy spring afternoon, all so I can use them accurately in my work. My readers deserve nothing less.

            Tout allors, ma cheres – c’est finit! My space – and my French – are just about finished, so I will close with the promise to tell you about April in Paris in my next entry. (May 23.) À bientôt!