Q: Crime fiction has tried and true conventions, such as a murder/crime in the first chapter (or soon thereafter), an investigation, believable motive, hidden clues etc. Add to this, the conventions for each subgenre, such as cozy or police procedural. Have you ever ignored or deviated from these established conventions? Do you find them restrictive or do you like working within them?
Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Concept Album and other adventures, by Catriona
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
A is for Ambiguity and D is for Deviant
Crime fiction has tried and true conventions, such as a murder/crime in the first chapter (or soon thereafter), an investigation, believable motive, hidden clues etc. Add to this, the conventions for each subgenre, such as cozy or police procedural. Have you ever ignored or deviated from these established conventions? Do you find them restrictive or do you like working within them?
I see rules as guidelines, as training wheels. I break rules, but they’re not the usual suspects.
I’ll save us time and quote Lionel Twain in the dramedy Murder by Death for some of the ways authors infuriate readers:
You’ve tortured us with surprise endings that made no sense. You’ve introduced characters at the end that weren’t in the book before! You’ve withheld clues and information that made it impossible for us to guess who did it.
Lionel’s complaint speaks to the violation of the contract between Author and Reader. In my mind, THE most unforgivable crime any mystery author can make is to kill an animal. Do that and, as Australian author Sulari Gentill pointed out at CrimeReads, it’s a deal-breaker.
I do like to subvert expectations, though. I’m tired of the indestructible hero, who, like a Timex watch, ‘takes a licking and keeps on ticking.’ Pounced, punched, thrown from heights, burned, iced, hit by a car, struck with a baseball bat, stabbed, and shot, the guy or gal carries on. It’s as if descendants of the knight-errant Marlowe are Monty Python’s Black Knight, who says, “Tis but a flesh wound.” In my novels, pain is real, and violence has consequences. In real life, violence is ugly, often brutal and fast. I don’t feel compelled to dwell on violence or be graphic about it in my writing. Like sex, which I think is often comical in real life and which most writers write horribly, violence is best implied or kept minimalistic.
My Shane Cleary dishes it out and receives it in kind, but I make short work of it. There is context, purpose. It is never gratuitous, though I like to surprise readers. This year’s Agatha and Left Coast Crime nominated author of Time’s Undoing Cheryl Head wrote me after reading HUSH HUSH (curious, or) upset that Shane had thrown a guy down a flight of stairs after he’d attacked Shane’s cat Delilah, but did nothing when thugs attacked his girlfriend Bonnie. The short answer is Shane’s relationship with Delilah was stronger and deeper than his with Bonnie. Sorry, not sorry.
My characters are subversive, against type. My ‘bad guys’ do good things. Mafioso
Tony Two-Times defends a drag queen in THE BIG LIE. Criminals are people, and
individuals in my novels are gray. Behavior is neither all black nor all white.
People are, however, motivated by self-interest. People are capable of darkness
and light. As a person, I seem able to tolerate ambiguity in others better than
most. I see both sides of the street in unique ways. The mafia, for example, is
‘bad’ but I don’t see the government and its RICO laws against organized crime
as ‘better.’ Why? The quest for justice starts with a crime, then proceeds to an
investigation. With RICO, it’s the opposite: law enforcement targets an
individual first and then ‘looks for’ the crime second. The legal logic is bonkers. A person could be
acquitted of a charge, but that same alleged crime can count as a ‘predicate act’
a decade later for another bite at the apple. That’s gray and very real world.
Our world. That's why I don’t follow all the rules.
I tend to favor open endings over tidy resolutions because, again, that’s life. The traditional denouement where the detective explains all the clues, exposes the red herrings, and the bad guy is dragged off is too traditional and clean. Sometimes the villain gets away with it, and returns to commit more crimes another day.
We would like to think life is rational and linear. A leads to B, then C. This is perception.
It’s more ‘realistic’ to factor in chaos. A might lead to B, or maybe C. This is perspective.
I don’t want to be a predictable writer. I put forth the idea that sometimes the truth is unknowable, and we are forced to embrace that. The movie Anatomy of a Fall masters this point perfectly. Did the wife do it? Was it murder or suicide? This embrace is a form of empathy.
Monday, March 25, 2024
Are Rules Made to Be Broken?
Q: Crime fiction has tried and true conventions, such as a murder/crime in the first chapter (or soon thereafter), an investigation, believable motive, hidden clues etc. Add to this, the conventions for each subgenre, such as cozy or police procedural. Have you ever ignored or deviated from these established conventions? Do you find them restrictive or do you like working within them?
-from Susan
My first thought when I looked at this week’s question was that rules make me itchy. But that’s from the perspective of someone who’s found a voice, a rhythm of writing, and who reads widely and in great gobs within the crime fiction genre. It’s easier for me to say to hell with abstract rules, I write from my own confidence, than it is for a writer just feeling her way into the profession.
The examples in the question of conventions to follow are not wrong as long as they’re not accepted as rigid rules. It helps to understand the scaffolding that supports a genre, and to use it to build a story – as long as it doesn’t squash a good tale. I’ve been flattered to be part of a crime writing conference faculty and we’re gearing up for the 2024 program. When I was a learning writer and attended this same conference, I wanted to know what the rules were, in part because I feared I’d never get published if I colored outside the lines. It gave me confidence to know how to create the story within some kind of frame, so it didn’t just drift around. Now, I share many of those ideas with other writers trying to do the same thing. Many of the other faculty say the same thing: you need to know what the conventions are, and to follow the ones that will get your book into the hands of readers, but not to feel so bound by them that you get blocked.
One aspect of the conventions is significant and has to be faced: It’s often the readers who are the strictest followers of the rules. We love readers, their opinions mean a great deal. But think about it – are we self-censoring, giving up on our belief in what makes the best story, if we’re writing too much in response to what we fear readers will say? How many of us who’ve become published have gotten blowback in reader reviews because we didn’t hew to a convention?
“There was swearing!”
“It started too slowly!”
“I knew who the killer was right away!”
“I never figured out who did it – not enough clues!”
“It was depressing!”
“A dog died – I’ll never read him again!”
Get too many of those and any author has to face the crits honestly. Am I going to lose readers (and, therefore publishers) by ignoring a major expectation? Did I make some unforced errors in the book that I can learn from? Who am I writing for?
As an unpublished author getting feedback from beta readers, those responses properly demand attention and serious, non-defensive thinking. Are there ways to re-frame what you’ve written so it doesn’t bury clues too deeply, starts a bit faster, eliminates all but the essential expletives. (Don’t tell me, dear reader, that someone who stumbles over a dead body in 2024 says “Oh dear.”) As a published author, you may have a strong following of readers who love what you do your way. Then, the complaints may be outliers and you can smile, bless them, and keep on your chosen path.
I think following the conventions at least loosely is a good thing, as long as it doesn’t mean you’re trying to fit your size 10 foot into a size 8 shoe! It helps agents sell your book, it helps publishers market it, it helps booksellers shelve it, and it helps readers who have preferences for a sub-genre find it. The caveat for me is that if you believe it’s vitally important to the story to have readers get to know and care about the characters before one of them is killed, for example, and a death on page two crushes that, then you have to write so persuasively and engagingly that the readers you want stick with you.
Rules, someone has said, are made to be broken. I would only add, yes, but proceed with caution.
Two current books. If you read them, you can look for the breaks from convention and decide if I blew it!
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Marketing Books - A Novice's Tale, by Harini Nagendra
Having one’s book rise above the crowded marketplace is difficult. What have you tried to get yours noticed — what has worked and what has not?
This is the million dollar/rupee question, isn't it? My fellow Criminal Mind'ers, Brenda, Terry, Dietrich and Jim, have terrific and very varied responses to this, which I hope you get to read.
Compared to my other friends here, I'm still very much the novice. While I do have six published books, and a seventh on the way - four of these are non-fiction, sold to an Indian market. I've only published two fiction books as yet - The Bangalore Detectives Club, and its sequel, Murder Under A Red Moon, both released to a worldwide audience in March 2022 and May 2023. The third in the series, A Nest of Vipers, will be out in May 2024.
At heart I'm a number crunching scientist who likes to deal with data, but I have a relatively short time series to work with. I am already finding some interesting patterns, though. I'm a writer living in Bangalore, but selling books to an audience primarily in India, USA, Canada and UK, with some sales in other parts of the world. The patterns seem to differ across geographies, and what I am able to do with marketing also differs across locations.
In India, most of my sales come from print books. The independent bookstores in Bangalore - most of whom are on one tiny stretch of Church Street - account for many thousands of sales in themselves, and the very knowledgeable owners and staff in these stores are amongst my biggest supporters. I drop by these stores regularly to sign and personalize books and to do book events. Because I already have an audience in the country for my ecology books, it's much easier for me to spread the word here.
In the UK, where my main publisher, Little Brown Books' Constable Crime is based, half my sales come from print books, and half from ebooks. I haven't been able to visit the UK since the books were released, or to do much publicity there. I got some help from bookstagrammers - I posted on Instagram asking book readers if they would like to read and review. A number of them responded asking for the books, creating and posting videos with stunning backdrops, mood boards and the like. Many Indian bookstagrammers also picked up the books, and continue to ask for them, posting terrific reels. I have no idea how these impact sales, but they do attract a lot of viewers, and I love it - that's the best way I would love books to reach readers, via word of mouth.
In the US, ebooks far outstrip my print book sales, and audio books are doing very well too. It does seem like the modes in which people like to access their books varies hugely from location to location. In both the US and in Canada, libraries and library readers have been terrific supporters - The Bangalore Detectives Club has been featured in a number of library book club discussions (which makes me very happy, because public libraries are the best). I can't claim to have influenced this in any planned way. I can't, because I live so far away - I haven't been able to attend any writer's conferences, visit bookstores, or promote my book in-person in any way.
More than anything I did, though, it was some very good breaks that I got with book reviews that helped. The Bangalore Detectives Club and Murder Under A Red Moon got terrific reviews in the New York Times, and were selected as Amazon Editor's Choices, as well as starred reviews in influential magazines like Publishers' Weekly, BookList and Library Journal. All of this made libraries order the book, which led to more library patrons reading the book, and reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, which (I hope) led to organic sales. Book 1 was on the NYT list of Notable Books of 2022, shortlisted for a Lefty, Agatha, Anthony award in the US and for a Crime Writers Association Historical Dagger. I didn't win any of these, but being shortlisted certainly helped keep it in bookstores, which means that potential readers got to see the book.
This was good luck, I lay no claims to brilliant planning or strategy, or even just being around and making myself a familiar face. I did get to Canada last year to the Motive Crime and Mystery Festival in June 2023, and met some readers and fellow-writers like Vaseem Khan, which was a blast!
So far, the books are doing much better than I hoped, and I'm very happy. I would really love to spend more time with my readers outside India though, and I need to find innovative, low carbon ways to do this.
And so - here's the promo! Libraries, bookstores, book clubs, readers - if you see this and would like me to interact online or on email, let me know. I'd be happy to join you virtually, and if I can manage it, even in person. Please visit my website at www.harininagendra.com, or send me an email at harini (at) harininagendra.com, to reach out.
--Harini
I’m Always Chasing Rainbows from James W. Ziskin
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
One reader at a time …
Having one’s book rise above the crowded marketplace is difficult. What have you tried to get yours noticed — what has worked and what has not?
by Dietrich
My publisher Jack David once gave me this bit of advice: “Don’t guess what the book-reading public wants, because you never will. Just write the best book you can.” He also told me Elmore Leonard wasn’t recognized right out of the gate, but he just kept on writing. A New York Times piece back in October ’83 said this about Elmore: “Novelist discovered after 23 books.”
So from early on, I decided I was in it for the long haul, and I put my focus on improving my chops. As well improving my writing, I learned it was key to pen the best synopsis I could, and to always have an elevator pitch ready for when someone asked what the book was about. And it’s a good idea to have a carefully chosen book excerpt at the ready as well.
Of course, I never held my breath, thinking that was all there was to it, hoping for the best as far as promoting my books. I heeded the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” and I considered what I could do to get the book noticed. I was pleased (and relieved) to know there were publicists and marketers out there — those who knew much more about it than I did — and they were the ones who sought out advance reviews, took care of sales catalogues, trade publications, and the like.
“The first page sells this book. The last page sells your next book.”
― Mickey Spillane
I attended conferences and festivals, and there were the Noir at the Bar and LitCrawl events where I got to know other authors and readers alike, and I made many lasting friendships along the way. And although nervous about it at first, I discovered it’s great fun to read to an audience, both large and small, and the same goes for doing a live interview or a panel discussion.
There have been book tours, both in-person and online, as well as guest posts and podcasts, and all of these have been well worthwhile. The same goes for having a professional-looking website, which needs to be updated regularly, along with an up-to-date bio and event calendar. And there are the blog sites I contribute to regularly: Off the Cuff, and right here at Criminal Minds.
Although results may be hard to track, there are other way to promote books which may be worth considering: Social media ads and other paid promotion, teasers and trailers, giveaways, newsletters to build a mailing list, Q & As, merch (okay even a simple bookmark counts as merch), so you don’t need to go to hats and keychains and t-shirts.
I’m sure Brenda, Terry, James, and Harini will all have worthwhile tips to add to the mix, so be sure to check out their posts all this week.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Hello! Is Anyone Out There?
Terry here, lamenting the answer to this week's question: Having one’s book rise above the crowded marketplace is difficult. What have you tried to get yours noticed — what has worked and what has not?
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Book Marketing Tips
Having one’s book rise above the crowded marketplace is difficult. What have you tried to get yours noticed — what has worked and what has not?
Brenda at the keyboard.
Such a pertinent question for all authors. It's been 20 years since my first release, and my marketing ventures have run the gamut from the good to the bad to the ugly.
First, the ugly.
I remember my first event was with about five fellow authors at a used book sale at a public school in the east end of Ottawa. It was the school's annual fundraiser and the books were being sold for next to nothing. Bad idea, therefore, to attempt to sell new books at a profitable price. Author books sold (for all 6 of us) = 0.
I used to agree to participate in just about any event that came along. My favourite misadventures included a turkey parade in a neighbouring village, and a plowing match at a different neighbouring village. Between the two events, books sold = 1. Selling one book didn't even begin to cover gas, time and humiliation.
Events such as these were not a total waste, however. I learned to be discriminating and only agreed to participate in events that attracted readers and book buyers. Yet, I've occasionally been fooled by these too.
I once travelled to Toronto to be part of a street book fair that was spread out over quite an area with many tables, lots of authors, and no way to stand out. People were looking for handouts and freebies and those actually selling their books at a reasonable price didn't stand a chance. Books sold = 0.
Book signings in stores can also be hit and miss. I tend to do better in my own city but line up signings when I'm travelling. I had one at a Chapters in Regina several years ago - we were in Moose Jaw watching our daughter curl and drove to Regina for the signing - no publicity in the store and no absolutely no interest by anybody. Books sold = 2 (only because my husband bought them for people back in Ottawa).
I was once in Saskatoon on business as the communications advisor of an Indigenous retreat. I set up a signing one evening at the McNally Robinson bookstore. They had about 40 chairs set up for a reading and asked if I'd invited anyone. When I said no, I didn't know anybody in Saskatoon, the woman said, "Oh dear, normally authors have their own people come out. Well, we can scrap the reading." As the time drew nearer only two people were sitting in the chairs (I hoped not just resting for a minute), and I prepared myself for the humiliation to come. And then ... all of my colleagues from Ottawa began arriving (I hadn't invited them because it seemed inappropriate), bought books and filled the seats for my reading. I still think of them with immense fondness and gratitude. (a potentially awful situation turned wonderful.) Books sold = lots.
Now, more of the good.
An even better idea than bookstore signings are book clubs. The members buy and read your chosen book and will continue buying other books in the series. They also tell friends about you and your books and this results in more invitations. I've even done virtual book club visits with clubs in other towns and cities. Recently, a woman at a book club asked if her charity could raffle off a book club visit and a couple of my donated books, and I said of course. This resulted in meeting a great group of new readers and helping out a cause. She's lined me up for another raffle this year.
Media and book reviews in traditional outlets have been terrific for sales over the years, but these opportunities are becoming scarcer. I've been fortunate to connect with a couple of local community newspapers and a local tv station and recommend fostering relationships where possible. A good website and social media are also imperative for getting the word out. I've maintained a personal blog for a number of years, talking about my writing and projects, and this keeps me in the public eye. I'm surprised sometimes by the number of people who read the blog and comment, either through social media or in person.
I can't stress enough the importance of getting to know booksellers and librarians in your town and region. Booksellers will hand sell your books, hold signings and recommend you to festivals or other events. Likewise, librarians will order in your books and help to spread the word, and word of mouth is huge in marketing. It's the intangible, biggest factor in turning your book into a success and rising it above the multitude.
I'll end here with a few last truisms I've learned during my two decades in the book business. The best way to sell books is gently. In my experience, the aggressive sales approach doesn't work in the long run. (Someone told me only last week about a woman who forced her book on a customer in a bookstore, even signing it to them. The customer left the book on a shelf before leaving the store.) I will also add that you should stay true to yourself and to your values, as in any business. Accept opportunities that stretch your comfort zone and don't be afraid of failure. When this happens, refuse to become discouraged. There will always be another opportunity. Think of marketing as a muscle that strengthens the more you work it. Control what you can control and accept the rest with humour and grace.
Website: www.brendachapman.ca
Facebook & Instagram: BrendaChapmanAuthor
Twitter (X): brendaAchapman
Friday, March 15, 2024
Everybody’s Talking at Me, The Art of Dialogue, by Josh Stallings
A: David Mamet said he always carries a pad and pen with him so when he overheard good dialogue he wrote it down. When I steal words from a chainsaw sculptor, it isn’t theft, it’s an homage. I try and always have a Moleskine notebook and a Fisher Bullet Space Pen with me to capture story ideas and snippets of dialogue that I either hear in my head or in the world around me.
In the early stages of writing a new character they tend to sound wooden. It takes me getting to know them well enough to dial in how they think and feel. Cisco in TRICKY was easy to start with because he was based on my son Dylan. I’ve listened to Dylan his whole life, his rhythm, word choice, and humor all came through. As I got deeper into the writing, Cisco’s life growing up in East LA added its own flavor to the dialogue.
Grandpa Hem in the same novel grew up in Deaf Smith Texas. My friend Amy loves a good turn of phrase. She was raised in Texas and she had a relative who used to say, “It’s hotter than two rats fucking in a wool sock.” That became a touchstone to Hem’s dialogue. I made the mistake of googling Texas Slang. Every phrase I found came out corny. I’ve spent time in Texas so it is best to draw on what I’ve heard than to trust Google. A little regionalism goes a long way. Planting a line like rats fucking early on tunes the reader’s ear so that they will hear all that character's dialogue with the tone or accent. Little things help remind them. “Git.” instead of “Time for you to leave.” Lets you know it’s Hem talking.
I write until I know a character and then go back and revise early dialogue. I also have a file about every character and as I discover more about them I add to their bio description. I note if they are frivolous with their words or miserly. Do they want to sound better educated than they are because they feel insecure? Do they front with street slang to sound tough and cover fear? By building this file I can refer to it a hundred pages later when they reappear and I’ve forgotten what color their eyes were or that they spoke in broken Spanglish in chapter two.
I have been told by enough women to believe them that I write wonderful female characters. I’ve been asked how I do it. Simple. I have never written a woman character. I have written many characters that are women. Gender identity, affectional orientation, cultural, or racial backgrounds are not characters. They are monolithic generalizations and of very little value when writing a character’s dialogue.
A good place to study dialogue is by reading plays. David Mamet’s American Buffalo is a master class in rhythm. Sam Shepard’s True West delivers complete fully rounded flawed characters using only dialogue. I love films, but a screenplay relies on knowing it is a visual medium. So much can be said with a close up on an actor, that the dialogue doesn’t need to carry the work. When reading a play I was taught to only read the dialogue. Stage directions of any kind are almost always written by the stage manager after the play has been mounted and might not reflect what the writer was thinking at all.
Find writers whose dialogue speaks to you. Reread their books and ask yourself “Why do I like this? How does it work?” Take it apart and look at the lines. Steal freely.
Here are a couple of books with dialogue I dig…
Set in LA 1963 Gary Phillips’ One-Shot Harry subtly uses dialogue to remind the reader of the era and place without ever clubbing you over the head with it. He writes about Black characters that come from every educational level and social strata.
Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows covers characters from multiple levels of LA’s social classes. Actors, film makers, petty thieves, executives, cops, each with their own coded language. He captures but never mocks his characters.
In Lou Berney’s Dark Ride he writes with love and respect about a stoner slacker thrown into a situation that calls forth his need to be a hero or as close to an approximation of a hero as he can pull off. It vibes a Hitchcockian everyman for our times. Written in first person even the descriptions read like dialogue.
“I’m the kid in the back row, moving his lips and just pretending to sing. I’m the dude with a fake badge and a toy gun. The dumbest thing you can do, if you’re someone like me, is believe you can be more than you are.” — Dark Ride: A Thriller by Lou Berney
I haven’t answered the last two parts of this question. How do I know good dialogue? It’s like the court’s take on pornography vs art, I know good dialogue when I read it. It’s one of those intuitive things that ultimately inform what becomes our individual voices.
How much is too much or too little dialogue? Same answer as above. Tana French’s Murder Squad books all come down to these incredibly long dialogue driven interrogations. They read almost like transcriptions of an interview. It gives a level of authenticity that’s hard to achieve. I haven’t ever used that much dialogue, but I’m damn glad she does. Her books sing a brutal tune that I love to read. As a writer or a reader there are NO RULES… Okay, there is one rule, everything is possible if you can pull it off. I’m not Tana French, I love what she does but I’ll leave real time interrogations to her.
Last thought - I have been lucky enough to work with editors I trust to guide me when I stray too far off the map. And editors who push me when I stay too safely inside the known lines.