Mystery Writers of America

Recently I was accepted into Mystery Writers of America. The only challenge is that I don’t write mysteries. OK, their website says they cover writers in the “crime/mystery/suspense” fields, which is what motivated me to join.

This weekend I went to a monthly meeting for my local chapter. It was a great experience — a room full of writers with books, not a book, but several books, a whole string of books, out in readers’ hot little hands. I listened to advice, watched them promote their work, and heard a speaker talk about working with chain bookstores on book promotion. This topic was hugely premature for un-agented me, but I’m in learning-about-the-industry mode, so I tucked her pointers away in my notebook.

I learned two things related to my WIFE (that’s Work In Final Edit):

1. My verbal pitch needs a LOT of work. I thought I’d given it some thought, but found myself saying – it’s the story of 3 suburban women and one of them “goes over the edge” when an unconventional stranger enters her life. Not exactly a hook. I have a hook, but it was interesting to see that when put on the spot, my  mind reverted immediately into the challenges that are uppermost in my thoughts.

2. When I say “psychological suspense”, most people hear “thriller”. After yet another genre melt-down yesterday, I’ve decided not to worry about it. I can’t waste any more time on this angst. There’s too much work to be done. When my novel is published, they’ll understand.

I was advised to join Sisters In Crime, advised to attend Left Coast Crime and invited to a critique group. I have a love-hate relationship with the social side of writing. Spending time with other writers is a thrill. When I was in a critique group, it was one of the highlights of my week. But I’m a writer! I enjoy writing, I love writing, writing takes a tremendous amount of time. I have the obligatory “day job”. I want to hang out with all these kindred spirits, I know I’d benefit from going back to a critique group, but where to find the time?

How do you manage the delicate balance of Life, Writing & Writerly Friends & Associations?

Flying Out of Control

The worst part of flying is not cruising at thirty thousand feet cuddled next to strangers in a silver tube, it’s not the child behind you kicking your seat while the parent bellows, “He’s being so good,” and it’s not eating salty cheese spread and broken bread sticks out of a cardboard box. Yes, all of those things make one feel as if her life has been wrenched from her control, but the worst part is the security line.

I hate having all my emblems of personal security (credit card, migraine medication, cash) and one of my most precious possessions (Mac laptop) spread out in a series of tubs while I walk away to pass through a gate that checks me for weapons and extraneous buckles. It takes me five tubs to properly hand over my life to a blank-faced man or woman in plastic gloves.

One tub holds my laptop, another my laptop bag. I need separate tubs for shoes and jacket, purse, and freezer bag filled with “liquids”. So I dance along beside the conveyor belt, fretting over which should go first and be left unattended at the other end versus what should remain lingering at the front end. Laptop in the middle of the line, or first so it’s there when I emerge? Small suitcase first or last? Shoes are my scruffy travel shoes, I don’t care if they’re stolen and they’re not likely to be, but it would be awkward without them.

I know everyone is looking out for their own string of tubs, but still. I’m tossing my credit identity, my keys, a nice jacket and the laptop containing all the blood-letting that’s my novels and short stories on a counter in front of hordes of cranky people and security personnel. My laptop is backed-up, but I love that Mac. I’d sleep with it under my pillow if I could. And there’s some visceral terror that grips my throat when I leave all these things scattered about while I turn my back. I dare not scurry through the security door because I know they’ll send me right where I came from to walk through at the proper pace.

My logical side says it would be impossible for anyone to take my laptop and no one cares about my other precious possessions, but there’s that voice shouting, don’t spread all your things out in front of a bunch of strangers and walk away. Fear, or paranoia? I don’t know.

Once again, all my possessions survived a trip across the country, but I can’t help but wonder how the anxiety of the flying public ratchets up as each traveler is forced to trust a random, disorganized, shoeless, belt-less cluster of people with what feels like all one’s worldly possessions.

No Longer Spun About Genre

After years, yes I mean, years of spinning, obsessing, talking, googling, studying other books that “might” be like mine, I’m finally settled about my “genre”.

I have badgered family and friends and critique group partners about my obsession. I’m embarrassed to say that I even rushed up to a stranger at a writers’ group and moaned about my dilemma. (He had introduced himself and offered to share insights into the publishing business, so I felt somewhat justified.) I’ve blogged about my obsession. I’ve settled on a view and then unsettled. I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with it. In part, it’s a marketing thing. Although I’ve read some agent blogs that state it’s not critical, others say it’s important to know where you fit in the market.

Since I’m very close to finishing my final draft – as in tomorrow! I plan to spend the next few months pulling out the silver polish and a buffing pad. For me, that means reading my entire novel out loud. I’ve learned the hard way that this is critical to polishing my fiction. Reading a short story aloud is slow going. I imagine reading 90,000 words aloud will take some time.

When my voice gets raw and I need a break, I’ll be working on my one-line pitch, my synopsis and my query letter. Hence the intensifying of my panic – how do I describe this novel?

Categorizations of fiction in Writer’s Digest  and the like tell me Psychological Suspense is a sub-genre of Mystery / Crime, but a lot of research points to thrillers and suspense as in clock-ticking, global stakes and violently murderous high drama. So I’ve been, I think rightfully, concerned that using the term Psychological Suspense would mis-lead. For years, I clung to this descriptioin, but worried that it discusses film more than novels.

I was settling on Psychological Suspense, feeling a bit more comfortable, using the term on my website, but still, the unease nagged at the back of my mind.

Today, I was wasting time, as I’m prone to do when I’m writing and I pause and my brain panics and leaps to that great time-wasting universe called the web. I ambled over to the Mystery Writers of America website … no idea why. I saw that they didn’t restrict their membership to “mystery” writers, but included crime. I dropped down a level and found they invite writers of Mystery/Crime/Suspense to join. hmmm. I don’t recall seeing the “suspense” category before.

For the hundredth time, I googled, this time with a slightly different phrase, “what is suspense novel”. The first hit was this article. I struck gold. I found these nuggets:

1. The writer of a suspense novel casts his dispassionate eye as much upon the passion, as upon the deed it produced
2. Suspense novels are not even necessarily about crime, whether committed or contemplated, though it is true that most include some form of law-breaking or misdeed.
3. Suspense novels often have an undertone of unease, of nebulous threats. This is perhaps especially common in those about domestic life, by such writers as Ruth Rendell herself, or Celia Fremlin.
4. [Patricia]  Highsmith believes that only criminals are free; but also that we are all criminals, to a greater or lesser extent. It is much more common though, for criminals in suspense novels to be demonstrably deranged.
5. Those of Ruth Rendell, for example, have their peculiarities traced in approved psychological style, to childhood experiences and deprivations, and often their misdeeds are sparked off when a precarious equilibrium is accidentally destroyed.
6. In Ruth Rendell’s books, the bland faces mask obsession and neurosis.

The passion as much as the deed … some form of law-breaking or misdeed … an undertone of unease, of nebulous threats … domestic life … we are all criminals … their peculiarities traced to childhood experiences and deprivations … a precarious equilibrium is accidentally destroyed … bland faces mask obsession and neurosis. That describes my current novel, and the others lurking in my mind, dribbling out into my notebook, fermenting in the virtual desk drawer.

I regret the long post, I try to keep it brief. And I know this post is mostly for me, because I just had to blog about how very happy I am today. A perfect place to be the day before I finish the final draft of my  novel.

(I guess I can cut my hair.)

Spun About Genre – Part II

This isn’t really about genre per se, it’s more about where my gestating novel might be shelved among the vast spectrum of books housed in libraries, bookstores, living rooms and the digital universe. Where do I fit?

There are books that inspire me in their style, but how do I know my book is “like” another writer’s work? I’ve seen some people note, “in the tradition of”. I’m not even really sure what that means. Is every elderly woman quietly identifying clues “in the tradition of” Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple?

I adore Ruth Rendell’s psychological suspense, but do I write with the eloquence of a woman educated in the UK? Absolutely not. My stories weave through the minds of those driven to homicide, like the characters in Patricia Highsmith’s novels, but my tales aren’t as amoral as hers, so I don’t know that I’d say I write in that “tradition”.

Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorite writers. At one time she published psychological suspense-like novels under a pen name. But I don’t have the chutzpah in this life or the next to use her name in the same sentence as my own.

What is “like”? How is one novel “like” another? What am I telling a prospective agent when I compare my novel? Am I setting up the expectation that my writing is in the same class, or only that my subject matter is similar? And how do I define “similar”?

Then there’s the question of what I strive for and what is …

I am a very analytical person. Some have told me I’m over-analyzing this to death. Do I ask writing friends to read not only my WIP but also six or seven other novels so they might help me compare? That seems like a lot to ask.

Spun About Genre – Part I

As I move closer to the final polish of my novel, I’m thinking more about query letters, reading a few agent blogs and spinning in mental circles. Apparently, one query letter must-have is a reference to genre, not to mention a comparison to books “like mine” that the agent has represented. I’m not sure I’ll find a large pool of agents with books “like mine”, but I’ll save that for another post.

It seems simple to classify my novel: Psychological Suspense. I stumbled across an overview of psychological suspense by 2Blowhards in which they note Ruth Rendell – yes! – and Patricia Highsmith – yes! – as examples of the genre. They oh-so-casually added: the genre is not well-known in the U.S., they think it might be too low-key for mass American tastes.

I think I can live with that. So I’ve considered how I might phrase this: My work is in the tradition of Patricia Highsmith (who is deceased) and Ruth Rendell who also writes detective mysteries, but I don’t mean her detective mysteries I mean her psychological crime, sometimes called psychological thriller novels even though most people think of thrillers quite differently. Not quite the tightly written sentence I’m aiming for.

I had put the genre research aside for awhile, but recently I returned to discover Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge for the digital age, has tricked me. They’ve redirected the “psychological suspense novel” entry to “psychological thriller”. My somewhat shaky genre, wiped out with a bit of html code.

I could fall back on commercial, but that seems a bit arrogant, as I appear to be claiming: this novel will generate extraordinary sales. Is that was commercial refers to? I’ve also seen the term used synonymously with mainstream. It’s possible my novel is literary. My critique group suggested I fit in that arena, and Ruth Rendell and Patricia Highsmith have been classified as literary genre writers, but the standard I hold for what I consider literary fiction is quite high and it’s going to take a lot of convincing before I would compare myself to the likes of those writers. But maybe there’s a spectrum, maybe I’m over-analyzing and being too narrow in my definition. Nathan Bransford (agent with Curtis Brown) says he separates genre from commercial according to whether the plot is above or below the surface.

Now I am spinning like a whirling dervish: psychological suspense, psychological thriller, commercial, mainstream, crime, literary, psychological horror. Psychological horror is a new one, but I can’t point to a writer who fits the category. According to my two-faced friend, Wikipedia, psychological horror is a subgenre of horror fiction that relies on character fears, guilt, beliefs, and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot. That describes my fiction perfectly, but I can’t very well claim to write in a genre I’ve never read.

Have any of you struggled with fitting your fiction into a category?

I’m in love

Flash Fiction has been in my peripheral vision for years. I even own a collection of Flash Fiction that was published before the short attention spans generated by the ability to leap around the world with a click of the mouse elevated Flash Fiction to a more prominent position. (How’s that for a long sentence? Not very flash-like.)

I started writing Flash Fiction as a way to integrate my fiction experiments into my blogging. It allows me to put some of my fiction out there and play around without trying to be perfect (which is something I spend a horrendous amount of time thinking about and, of course, failing to achieve). It allows me to try out  ideas that interest me without a huge commitment, helps me improve my ability to trim my writing and keeps me writing fiction every day.

It’s also intriguing to see how much can be accomplished in a very few words. As I’ve explored Flash Fiction on line, I’ve been amazed by the ability of writers to set a mood, tell a bona fide story, stir emotions in less than 1,000 words, sometimes less than 300.

So … I’m in love. With all the elation and lack of criticism that goes with the first rush of love.

You can find some of my Flash Fiction here: Flash Fiction for the Cocktail Hour. Feel free to comment, positive or negative. So far, most of it isn’t in the psychological suspense genre that I usually write in, but more of that will be coming soon.

Next week I’ll list some of my favorite Flash Fiction sites.

Where Am I?

It’s a good sign that I’m zeroing in on details like street names — it tells me I’m nearing the finish line with my novel.

Although I’m currently focused on the street names for my fictional world, the larger question has been hissing at the base of my skull for some time: Where am I?

I know that my novel takes place in a city “like” the one where I live, but what to do with that? How do I blend my fictional world with the physical details of a place so the reader will be grounded? (Note my assumption that there will be readers?!)

In her novel, You Must Remember This, Joyce Carol Oates used a  composite of Buffalo and Lockport, New York to create Port Oriskany, which somehow manages, to me, to sound exactly like a smallish city in New York state.

A novel set in a large city obviously adheres to that city’s geography and landmarks. I haven’t researched enough to know whether fictitious streets or restaurants are ever plopped down onto real streets in San Francisco or Sydney, or if the names are changed. Do you know?

Since untimely death, possibly homicide, happens in my fictitious town, I definitely don’t want to use an accurate rendering. So I’ll make up a name (which continues to elude me), and I’ll use some factual street names, but what about the two or three restaurants that appear?

Another question that doesn’t come into play in my novel but may become important in a short story I’m working on:  are there any issues with using a restaurant name in an identified location with a fictitious server? If the restaurant comes out looking good, I’m sure that’s fine, but …?

How do you handle this blending of reality and imagination in your settings?

Minor Character Commits Mutiny

This is not what I need. Swimming along on rewrite number six, so-called because some sections of my psychological suspense novel have been re-written twelve or thirteen times, others only 2 or 3, so six seems like a good average.

Everything is going well, I’m working on making sure the character arc works by just re-writing sections from my protagonist’s POV. Suddenly, without warning, her husband announces, I would never do that.

Like a fat needle poked into a balloon, I hear the air hissing out … if he doesn’t do that, then this scene doesn’t work. If that scene is cut, then this scene makes no sense. If that scene makes no sense, then this could never happen.

Almost the exact center of the novel and I see a major piece of the plot collapsed on the floor like a basketball that’s had the air let out.

Okay, enough airless metaphors. I’ll take a deep breath. At least I can refresh my creativity with some new writing instead of re-writing. But that guy, the mutinous one, has it coming.

An account of connected events

Narration is a problem for me. According to wikianswers.com, narration is an account of connected events, a story.

Sounds simple enough. I write fiction, short stories and novels = stories. I’ve read enough books about the craft of fiction to mire my stories in theories for eternity. So I know what a story is — through line, arc, 3 acts, want/obstacle/action/resolution, climax, plot points, inciting incident, reversals, building suspense by withholding information … you get the point.

I definitely know about showing and not telling. Another definition for narration is telling. And I can’t figure out how to narrate well without deteriorating into telling. I can manage dialog, have had good feedback on my ability to show a scene, describe action and create internal monologue.

Narration is hard. All the literary fiction I read has magnificent narration, a flow from dialog and scene into narrative that’s like Cabernet pouring into a glass. I read a bit about good narration being a kind of show/tell hybrid. The concept seems simple, but I haven’t figured out how to implement it well.

Tell me, how do you practice the craft of narration?

Lazy Writer

I wasted a good six months trying to figure out the perfect way to rewrite my psychological suspense novel.

I was on the third or fifth draft, depending on how you count — some chapters and scenes written five or six times, others in a purgatory of draft 2.5. The novel had been through critique group feedback and I could now see, more or less clearly, that my instinct on what was wrong had been correct. There was a blurry vision of how that should be corrected.

Every day I’d stare at printed pages, shuffle them around, make maps of how the book should be restructured. I’d talk incessantly to anyone who would listen about my frustration over how, exactly, one re-writes a novel. Start writing from scratch, go chapter by chapter, re-write key scenes first. I couldn’t seem to make up my mind. I’d start with one approach, and three weeks into it, stop, convinced it was the “wrong” way.

Gradually I began to realize the problem. I’m lazy. My search for the perfect re-write method was rooted in a subconscious thought that I could re-write once, polish and be finished. I’d already put in so much time, I didn’t want to face the three re-writes and polish I’ve now realized is required.

It’s the going over familiar territory again and again that builds the novel. I learned this from my short stories. As I re-wrote and re-read a story, I saw how connections were made and the story became richer and more polished even before the official polishing.

I can hold a short story in the palm of my hand, re-reading and going over the words and the structure repeatedly can be done fairly quickly. After a few passes, the whole piece sits firmly in my mind. Going over a novel enough times to get the whole lodged into the brain is a lot of work.

The up side is that I can also be lazy. The pressure of trying to fix a lot of problems in one magically perfect rewrite slows down the writing and kills the creative process. Knowing I still have two more re-writes ahead of me allows me to write faster, obsess less and be just slightly lazy, knowing it can be fixed next time. Each time, less fixing is required.