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? 

 As far as I can tell, nothing I’ve done has ever worked to raise my books “above.” I am a solidly midlist writer (or lower than midlist), who has never “broken out.” That’s not to say I haven’t had some local and minor success with sales. But I mean I sold “tens of books.” Rising above means selling hundreds, or thousands, of books. 

Oddly, someone told me that most people think I’ve made a lot of money from writing because I’ve had ten books published (#11 is coming April, #12, sometime in the fall.) But as any midlist writer can tell you, being published in the lower echelons is largely a vanity undertaking. I love being in the spotlight, love doing events at bookstores and book clubs. I enjoy being on panels at conferences, which gives me the illusion of “success.”
But it doesn’t make money, and the only way to make money in the writing game is to get noticed—big time. 

 One would think that touring the country for a book tour would get some notice. (By the way, touring is on my dime. Publishers don’t pay anything for midlist writers to tour. And it’s expensive! Flights, hotel rooms, ground transportation—all obscenely expensive—and without much to show for it, except ego boosts.)
I have routinely publicized bookstore tours on social media and in newsletters. And sometimes I’ve sold quite a few books at bookstore events. But those were usually in bookstores in the Bay Area, where I lived—friends and family! One little breakout was a reading in a wine store, where I sold a lot. Also, I have sold a number of books in Texas, where my books are set. But no matter how many books I’ve sold at these events, it’s small potatoes in the larger scheme of “success.” 

 I’ve had more success at drawing people to book club talks and libraries. But bottom line, no book “events” have ever moved the needle to permanent best-seller status. 

 I have always been with medium-size presses, and they don’t budget much for author publicity. I’m usually on my own paying for any publicity. Occasionally I’ve wheedled a publisher to pay half of an ad. And occasionally they’ve sprung for an ad when several of their authors are being promoted. But it’s rare. 

 Some authors do break out of the pack of midlist doldrums, and it’s usually because they are picked up by a large publisher—one that’s willing to put money into promoting and publicizing. 

 The only thing that ever really got my books noticed was when a widely-read author, Carolyn Hart mentioned my first book as her favorite of the year. That created the coveted “buzz.” And for one shining moment I had great book sales. But as so often happens with series, the first few sell well, and then sales drop off. 

 How about awards and good reviews? Do they affect sales? My first few books were finalists for awards, including the Strand Critics Award and the Left Coast Crime “Lefty” awards.
The fifth book won a critics award from the now defunct RT Reviews. Have the awards garnered sales? I don’t think so. 

 All of my books have garnered terrific reviews, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. It’s exciting to get those great reviews and I holler about them on social media. But have those reviews resulted in being noticed? Not that I can tell. 

Happily, I do have a loyal fan base, to whom I’m very grateful. They email me, rave about my books on social media, and tell their friends. They buy multiple copies. And that, as far as I can tell, has been the only thing that works—word of mouth. 

One problem I have is that the books are set in small-town Texas. Regional. As Library Journal, said, “The Samuel Craddock series may be the best regional crime series around today.” But even in Texas, I don’t think that resonates with book buyers. I was on TV in Dallas, I’ve had long reviews in the Dallas Morning News. But nothing has ever sparked the buying public to buy my books by the carload. 

 I have high hopes that my new series, a thriller series set in various places around the globe,
might be more generally read. But the question remains, how do you get “noticed?” Bottom line: I haven’t figured it out.

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




Q:  Share your tips for writing believable dialogue. What separates good dialogue from poor, and how do you strike a balance between too much and too little in a scene/book?


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.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

A Case For the Ladies, by Edith Maxwell

Catriona writes: As someone who, herself, writes all over this beloved genre of ours, I always feel an affinity for fellow authors who do the same. Edith Maxwell is a great example. I first knew her as the author of a Quaker midwife series, but she had some full-on cozies to her name too. And then came a California-set wine-country caper (which is splendid, by the way) and now this! Amelia Earhart investigates. I imagine there wil lbe a bit of premise envy amongst authors who wish we'd they'd though of that first. But great delight amongst readers.

And now, Edith!
 

Thank you to my pal Catriona for inviting me over to talk about my new historical mystery,
A Case for the Ladies. It’s hot off the press (or off the ebook compiler, according to your preference) and available wherever books are sold. 

You all dwell on (or HAVE?) criminal minds over here. Let me tell you, 1926 Boston had no shortage of them.



Here is the blurb: Amid Prohibition, Irish gangs, the KKK, and rampant mistreatment of immigrant women, intrepid private investigator Dorothy Henderson and her pal Amelia Earhart seek justice for several murdered young women in 1926 Boston. As tensions mount, the sleuths, along with their reporter friend Jeanette Colby and Dot’s maiden Aunt Etta Rogers, a Wellesley College professor, experience their own mistreatment at the hand of society and wonder who they can really trust.

I made up the attacks on young immigrant women, but they could have happened. Most immigrants, especially if they came from poorer countries or didn’t have pale skin, were treated with disrespect and abuse. Gosh, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

I didn’t invent the smuggling of alcohol, or the ruthless nature of the men who ran those rackets. When I read about the Tailgate Gang, run by Irish-American men, I knew I had to include them. This was during the years when the Volstead Act, otherwise known as Prohibition, was the law of the land. This gang would stop trucks carrying alcohol and steal it off the tailgates.

You’ll read casual mention of Mayor James Michael Curley and Mayor John “Honey Fitz” Fitzpatrick, who, if not outright criminals, did their share of shady political dealings. A rumor floats around about Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. having his finger in the alchohol trade, but historically that seems to be inaccurate.

Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic fervor was also rampant, and the KKK was alive and kicking. Part of my story involves people from The Ville, aka West Medford, a section of that town northwest of Boston settled by Pullman porters. At the time, most residents were Black, and the KKK was a constant menace.

Nearby is also where Amelia lived with her mother and sister while she worked at the Denison Settlement House in Boston (this was all before she became famous, but she was already avid about flying and piloted a plane out of Quincy on Massachusetts’s South Shore, on the weekends).

Speaking of immigrants, the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were in prison in 1926 for murder and armed robbery south of Boston (Braintree, to be precise), but appeals were coming in from around the world pleading their innocence and asking for their freedom. Alas, they were executed the next year in a Boston jail (Charlestown, if you’re local).

One true crime I didn’t bring in was the horrific death of Edith Greene, an unmarried pregnant woman. She went for an abortion in 1926. Instead she died at the doctor’s hands, who then carved up her body and dumped the parts around town. (Insert shiver here.)

I hope you love reading about a real person (Amelia) assisting another real person (my grandmother Dorothy in an alternate reality as a lady PI) to come to the fictional aid of women all over the Boston of nearly a hundred years ago.

Readers: What’s your favorite era to read about? Share any factoids about Amelia you happen to know! I’d love to send one of you a Case for the Ladies tote bag. 


Maddie Day pens the Dot and Amelia Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries. As author Edith Maxwell, she’s the author of the historical and Agatha Award-winning Quaker Midwife Mysteries and short crime fiction. Day/Maxwell lives with her beau and cat Martin north of Boston, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook. Find the author under both names at EdithMaxwell.com, wickedauthors.com, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and on social media: Twitter Facebook Instagram


Wednesday, March 13, 2024

SPEAKING OF DIALOGUE by Eric Beetner

     Writing good dialogue can be helped by a single word: listen. Listen to how people speak. Eavesdrop, lurk, spy and loiter around conversations from different walks of life. Pay attention to how people speak, not just what they say. “believable” dialogue in a book mostly means that the reader can hear it in their head and it sounds like overhearing a conversation. 
      Some keys to making that happen: 
      People don’t often come right out and say exactly what they’re trying to say. Bluntness and spright talk is a rare commodity and we rarely do it in our normal day-to-day conversation. By slightly hiding what your character has to say you will create more believable dialogue.                  Embrace filler words. Most of us start a sentence with little filler such as “well” or “look”. Not every Um and Uh needs to be on the page, but filler words can also be quick and easy ways to differentiate characters. If someone has a speech pattern that leans heavily on filler, i.e. the girl who says “like” all the time, then when that person speaks in their distinctive way it becomes easier to identify who is speaking without always having to add speech tags. Think about how often you or people you know end a sentence with the phrase, “y’know?” It’s unnecessary and therefore a copy editors nightmare, but if a character uses the phrase frequently in your book, you’ll set them apart and the reader will always know who is talking.        People often stop and start a sentence while they organize their thoughts. If someone is in a stressful situation, as often happens in crime novels, then their thoughts won’t always come out cleanly the first time. Real dialogue can have some false starts. 
      Embrace interruptions. People cut each other off quite often, especially in an argument. Don’t shy away from this messiness. 
      Listen for regionalisms. If you have someone from a specific region, a different country or some city with a distinctive accent – search up those words, phrases, pronunciations that make it unique. If a guy from Brooklyn is talking to a guy from Nashville, their dialogue should look and feel different on the page. 
       Sometimes the best answer is a non-answer. Moments in any conversation can often end in something as non-committal is “Huh.” or “Well, whatever.” These are perfectly legit uses of dialogue even if they don’t feel like they are “saying” anything. Real people don’t often speak in finely crafted gems of insight and truths. 
       I tend to lean heavily on dialogue in my books and I think you can learn about a character as they speak as well as push the story forward. There are dialogue heavy books like The Friends Of Eddie Coyle where probably 75% of that book is told in dialogue and it works brilliantly, often because the pattern of speech is so authentic. I know of at least one book, Barry Gifford’s Wyoming, which is nothing but dialogue. Hard to pull off, but I was never lost about the story. 
        The biggest pitfall in writing dialogue is to keep from having all the characters sound like the author. It’s easy to have a conversation with yourself in your head and just transcribe that, but it’s all going to be one voice. Find those little things, the unique quirk that makes that character unique.
        In the end, let your voice be heard and let your characters speak loud and proud!

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

What We're Talking About When We Talk About Dialogue

 

Share your tips for writing believable dialogue. What separates good dialogue from poor, and how do you strike a balance between too much and too little in a scene/book?


I am struggling with this topic. I’ve been told that to write dialogue well, you need skills in observation and good ears. My eyes are fine, but my hearing is terrible. Seriously. I’m considered profoundly hard of hearing, with 70% damage in one ear and 50% in the good ear. I can’t hear anything behind me, and if I did I couldn’t locate the noise. I read lips, so if I can’t see it, I can’t hear it most of the time. I’ve made serious gaffes in social interactions, enough so that I avoided people for years. I’ve come to laugh at what I’ve gotten horribly wrong. If you meet me, ask me about the “Cat and Calf in a Bar” story. Something most people don’t want to hear (pun intended) is that people are not neither patient nor pleasant with those of us who are hard of hearing, or with disabilities, in general.

 

That I’m told that I write crisp dialogue well perplexes me because I sincerely don’t know how to describe how I do what I do. I simply do it. I’ve known intelligent people who can’t write worth a lick, and polyglots who would write dialogue so wooden that it should’ve sank with the deck chairs on the Titanic. I know this isn’t helpful to readers, but I write dialogue leaning forward, into the story. I dislike dead air because life is movement, even when it doesn’t look that way. Think of the ocean. It’s both beautiful but there’s menace beneath the surface. Dialogue appears to be all surface, but what is beneath is character, psychology, and subtext. We can discern a lot about a person by the words they use.

 

I’ll write two or three paragraphs of description or action before I have someone talk. I do this, because I know attention spans are short. Writing good speech requires a good ear, and both of mine are faulty, so I guess what “works” in my dialogue is humor and that I fit speech patterns to the personality of the speaker. I think I do some form of The Method from acting to sync speech to character. I become that character. Then there’s cadence, the way one of my characters talks, the use of contractions and fragments. In real life, talk is not grammatically correct nor does it require an extensive vocabulary. 

Speech is meant to communicate ideas and information. Dialogue is transactional. Two people want something from each other. Sometimes I’ll have characters answer a question with a question, either for clarification, or because they have something to hide. This is called mirroring. To see how effective this strategy is for tension or creating a comedic effect, watch the movie Midnight Run. The logic behind the interrogative is that a Yes or No ends the conversation, but questions or a paraphrase of what the other person said will keep the ball in the air.

Subtext in dialogue is difficult. It’s talking about Lord Voldemort, without saying his name. It’s hard to execute well, but think of it as every conversation must have have consequences. Permit me a stark but real example. The rules to a sit-down meeting in the world of organized crime provides an example of subtext, and it’s no different than a confrontation in the corporate boardroom. You’ve been invited into a room. A peer has accused you of something, be it something financial or a personal slight. The grievance is aired and you sit there like a samurai. You don’t say a word until you’re told you could speak. The catch? You know the person is lying through their teeth. The stakes? Lose your temper and you die. Call them a liar, you die. When you respond, you do it in a way so those around the table know that without you saying the word LIAR you’ve proven your innocence and demonstrated your integrity. Subtext.

There are thorns in the rose garden of dialogue, and the recent movie American Fiction illustrates some of them. I won’t delve into the intersection of Art and Commerce here, but writers have to make ethical decisions around dialogue. A writer has to choose between the Ideal and the Real, to wear rose-tinted glasses or not. There is the Ideal or Utopia, where people do and say the right things, and then there is real life, where what people say and do contradict each other.

My Shane mysteries have ethnic groups opposed to each other, class distinction, gay and straight characters. Nobody in Shane’s world is a complete innocent. I wrote dialogue in the Shane novels that was somewhat accurate to the 1970s, the era in the Shane Cleary mysteries are set. I say ‘somewhat’ because I downplay the racism and sexism in dialogue. I don’t use much of the profanity or epithets people used casually then. I’m aware that some of my readers were not alive during Shane’s decade, but I will tell you that language in the 70s was raw and it had energy, for better or worse. Language that would be considered ‘offensive’ today was used on both sides of the table, across gender, race, and social class. Neither sensitivity nor politeness were issues because “Feelings” was a song on the radio, and it was a one-hit wonder for a reason.

You didn’t need to hear well to experience the way people talked then, but you could feel the pulse with your fingertips.

I try to put that across from the keyboard to the screen, to the page.

THE BIG LIE, the fifth Shane Cleary mystery is out today, March 12, 2024.

 

Monday, March 11, 2024

The Pleasures of Dialogue

Q: Share your tips for writing believable dialogue. What separates good dialogue from poor, and how do you strike a balance between too much and too little in a scene/book?

 

-from Susan

 

I love to hear my characters talking. In a way, I’m eavesdropping on them because I don’t always know exactly what they’re going to say when they (I, I guess) open their mouths! Good dialogue has to sound real even though it isn’t. Why not? Because we salt our conversations with words and phrases that give us a couple of seconds to think about what we want to say, or to soften our meanings, or to present ourselves favorably. To our ears, that works. On the page, not so much. 

 

For me, dialogue has to serve a purpose. It moves the plot, reveals a character, creates or dissipates tension, may even carry a very small bit of background. 

 

How long is too long? The same amount that makes your eyes glaze at a party, that reduces you to “uh huh”s as you look for an escape. Some of us read our entire manuscripts out loud to catch long-winded treatises, or listen to the texts with audio apps that read for us. I just put down a much-praised noir novel because the private eye narrator not only used every cliché ever written for the genre, but carried on with the longest self-important monologues I’ve ever tried to endure. At a party, the character would be the person everyone else tries desperately to evade! Sadly, I don’t think the author was trying to paint him as such.

 

MURDER AND THE MISSING DOG, my newest mystery, launched formally last week, so I decided to include an excerpt in which dialogue does everything I wanted it to.

 

Bonjour, Madame. Viens ici vite!’ the widow called, beckoning with her free arm and hurrying over to the garden gate. Ariel thought, not for the first time, that Madame must have cut discreet eyeholes in the hat brim because, otherwise, how could she see everyone and everything that passed her? 

Bonjour, ma chrie,’ Katherine called back. ‘Shoot,’ she said in a low voice to Ariel, ‘I’m not supposed to use endearments when speaking to the women in the neighborhood. My American habit of assuming friendships that haven’t been cemented by decades of connections leads me into danger all the time.’ 

Madame Pomfort’s downturned mouth said she had heard and disapproved of Katherine’s familiarity as much as ever, but Ariel wondered why she was distressed. The woman unlatched the gate and stepped through. ‘This was bound to happen once those Bellegardes took over our village for their benefit. I warned everyone, did I not, that vagrants and rude people and voleurs would descend on us?’ 

‘What’s happened?’ Ariel looked around but saw no streams of threatening, swaggering strangers, much less curious strangers begging to spend money in Reigny. 

‘Well, it is you who should be the most concerned, Katherine, since it is happening at your’ – here Madame paused to sniff, her long nose adding emphasis – ‘shop. I saw it with my own eyes not ten minutes ago.’ 

‘Saw what? I’m on my way there now. Surely no one has broken into it?’ Katherine’s face registered fear. ‘A small negative cash flow is one thing, but the loss of so many exciting finds would be a catastrophe.’ Katherine’s hand went to her mouth. ‘I blame myself for not asking Michael to fix the back window that doesn’t close properly.’ 

Madame Pomfort would not be distracted from her most severe warning. ‘A vagrant, a homeless person just sleeping in your doorway. What does he think – that we shall all feed him, give him our own money, let him sleep in our houses? We will be run out of our homes, next thing.’ Her mouth turned down into a dramatic frown to register all kinds of nasty possibilities. ‘We will not be safe in our beds at this rate.’ She clutched one gloved hand to her heart, waved her hoe around and her voice trembled. 

Ariel frowned. A vagrant wasn’t a good thing overall, but Madame Pomfort had a habit, fed by an overactive imagination and old biases, of seeing the fall of civilization in anything that disturbed the routine of the village over which she reigned by dint of willpower. The gardener had taken off her apron, settled her long-handled hoe at her side and was clearly not going to miss any action from this invasion. 

As the defenders of Reigny’s safety rounded the bend and the whitewashed old house that now housed the little shop on the ground floor came into view, Ariel saw there was, indeed, someone curled up in the recessed doorway. But the beret, slightly askew on a head of gray hair, and the long shapeless coat were familiar. 

‘Could it be Madame Toussaint from Noyers?’ Ariel asked. The poor woman had probably arrived before dawn and was exhausted by what must have been a long walk. 

Katherine made a clucking noise and hurried forward. For Madame Pomfort’s benefit, she said, ‘She brings me little things to buy. She’s harmless, but she’s quite old.’ 

Ariel stepped closer. ‘I’ll wake her gently. No need to hold that over her.’ Madame Pomfort had advanced slowly to about six feet away and the hoe was poised as if to strike the small bundle of a woman. 

  


Thursday, March 7, 2024

Creating mood through setting and ecology in 1920s Bangalore - Harini Nagendra

This week's topic is a fascinating one. 

Creating mood through setting is important in crime fiction. Can you give examples from books that have inspired or moved you? Also, please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it.

My books - The Bangalore Detectives Club series, set in 1920s Bangalore - are all about the setting. For me, the place and setting - 1920s Bangalore in the times of the British Raj - in a princely state, at a time when women were beginning to step outside the home in large numbers - is critical to the story. In that sense, I think of 1920s Bangalore with its bungalows, lakes, trees, monkeys and wildlife - as a character too, one of the protagonists that shape my tale. As an ecologist, of course nature plays a major role in my books. That's why, as soon as I read this prompt, I knew the book I would select as an example. These short extracts are from Sally Andrew's wonderful Tannie Maria series, set in the South African Karoo, a semi-desertic plateau dominated by heat. Tannie Maria is a baker, an excellent cook who writes an agony aunt column, and a woman struggling to come terms with her own traumatic past, as she gets entangled in murders. The combination of local food, ecology and geography that Andrews writes about conjures up a sense of place almost instantly, as the brief extracts below - from her first book, Recipes for Love and Murder - demonstrate.


Extract 1

I shifted in my chair. The shrike flew back up to a branch with something it had caught.

‘I phoned them on Friday,’ said Hattie, ‘to tell them, Sorry we just can’t do it, not right now, I said.’ Her throat became all squeezed like a plastic straw. ‘They said we can cut out the recipe column.’

Her voice sounded far away. I was watching the shrike; it had a lizard in its beak. It stabbed its meat onto a big white thorn.

‘Tannie Maria.’

Was the lizard still alive, I wondered?

‘I argued, told them how much the readers adored your column. But they said the advice column was non-negotiable.’

Was the butcher bird going to leave the meat out to dry, and make biltong?

 

Extract 2

 

The next morning my phone rang. It was Hattie.

‘Have you heard?’ she said. ‘Nelson Mandela died last night.’

When I put the phone down, I made myself a cup of coffee and took two rusks and sat out on the stoep. But before I could bring the coffee to my lips, the tears started leaking out of me.

Mandela was ninety-five and had been sick for a while, but it still came as a shock. I looked out at the brown veld and the wrinkled gwarrie trees and the distant mountains. My tears made it seem like rain was falling, but the sky was wide and empty. I knew that people all over the land were crying with me for Tata Mandela.

And now, for the next question - "please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it." 

Here's an extract from book 3, A Nest of Vipers, out on May 2

The women navigated a muddy river of clayey, sticky slush, balancing carefully on the small slabs of stone as they made their way past the semicircular arena that served as the makeshift parking area of the circus, to the ramshackle homes at the back.

What a contrast the circus grounds were from the last time she had been there. The tent stood in a far corner, covering the stage where the performance was held. No longer exciting or magical, as it had seemed at night, its then attractive bright colours now appeared cheap and faded in the sunlight. The parking lot where they had encountered Pawan’s body was pitted with car tracks, seeming like it had not been swept in years. A high line of eucalyptus trees enclosed the clearing, pale and tall like eerie silver sentinels. The peeling bark on the trees appeared like distorted faces, watching them as they moved. She could not see people anywhere, though as they neared the wicker gate, she could hear sounds. Metal clanked and water splashed in the distance. Women, cleaning vessels and washing clothes, called to each other as they worked.

They had almost reached the edge of the stone path. Once they were out of the clearing, the women entered an area bounded by a makeshift bamboo fence, ill constructed shacks with crooked walls and aluminium sheets for roofs standing cheek-by-jowl with each other.

‘Strange, that a famous magician like Das would agree to live in such seedy quarters,’ Uma aunty said.

Occupied with domestic chores, the circus performers chattered to each other, shouting loudly to be heard above the din. After the silence of the open grounds, the noise seemed deafening.

Muscular grey-haired women squatted next to large stone slabs, taking out heavy bed sheets that had been soaked in large tin buckets. They bundled up the sheets, slapping them against the slabs to loosen the dirt before sluicing them with clean water, squeezing them dry and hanging them out on long clothes lines. Tied to the trees around the edge, the clothes lines dipped drunkenly down to the ground, creating an obstacle course that criss-crossed the clearing. Short and plump, Uma aunty was able to navigate them with ease, but long-limbed Kaveri had to bend and duck to move.

Children capered around playing with cork balls made from the pods of the raintree whose branches shaded them from above, making it even harder for her to get across. Crows cawed, diving down to attack the plates of food that the older children held in their hands as they chased their younger siblings around, trying to feed them. She saw a lot of older people, too, but most of the performers must have left for Mysore.

‘Do you know where Suman is?’ Kaveri asked an exhausted-looking young woman with a swollen belly, one child on her hip and the other tugging at her hand. But she only stared at her with compressed lips, not saying a word.

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How did I come to write this? The Sampangi circus is fictional, but the dried lake in which the circus is situated is real, and has an especially rich ecological history which Hita Unnikrishnan, one of my former PhD students, studied in detail. Through most of the 19th century Sampangi lake was one of Bangalore's largest lakes, a thriving water body used by farmers, fishers, grazers, weavers and potters. But by the late 19th century, the British administrators began demanding that the lake be drained, because water from the lake flowed into their bungalows and breweries (which they built on the lake bed!). The farmers protested, but the lake was eventually drained so that the British regiments could play polo on the lake bed. After the demise of the lake, the grounds were eventually converted into a sports stadium - we documented the sad tale in this short article here, but it was such a fascinating (and sad) story, that I knew I had to work it into a book somewhere! 

The Lake That Became a Sports Stadium

And now, I hope you don't mind the obligatory writer's pitch - A Nest of Vipers is now available for pre-order, so if this excerpt makes you want to read a bit more, here's the link!

A Nest of Vipers: A Bangalore Detectives Club Mystery   




Opening Salvos from James W. Ziskin

Creating mood through setting is important in crime fiction. Can you give examples from books that have inspired or moved you? Also, please share an evocative paragraph from your own work and tell us how you came to write it.


Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series has some of the most compelling openings I’ve ever read. They’re visual, gritty, and poetic. The writing is beautiful, and I confess to being envious. I love all seven of the Sean Duffy books, set in 1980s Belfast and Carrickfergus in Northern Ireland against the backdrop of the Troubles. 

Sean Duffy is a detective sergeant in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. But he happens to be Catholic, which means pretty much everyone hates him. His Protestant comrades distrust him, and the IRA wants him dead. It’s a terrific series. The fifth book, Rain Dogs, won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original in 2017. (Should I be jealous that my own Heart of Stone was also a finalist for that Edgar that year? Perhaps, but I’m not.) The series concluded last year with The Detective up Late, and I’ll miss Sean Duffy.


I’ve chosen the opening passage of The Cold Cold Ground (book 1), because, for me, it’s a masterpiece of description.















The scene roars to life, blitzing the reader with shapes, sounds, geometry, light, and colors. Flames and improvised bombs. (The use of the word “gasoline” instead of “petrol” intrigues me...) And I was so impressed by the brilliant choice to introduce the police helicopters—not by the beating of their rotors as you might expect—but by their searchlights casting about ineffectually, as they scan the dark, riotous landscape, only to land on others of their kind. But the most powerful image in this passage is that of the men yelling below decks on a torpedoed prison ship. Wow! You can’t describe desperation and panic any better than that. The curt, one-sentence paragraph at the end reminds us that it rains in Belfast. And it rains oily. A perfect codicil.

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As for my own modest efforts to create mood through setting, I thought it would be fitting to offer the opening of Heart of Stone, the very same book nominated for the Edgar that Adrian won. I’ve posted it before, but here it is again.



I remember the cool breath of the night woods on my neck. I see the glow of moonlight on the highest boughs, filtering down in a pale cast, weak and washed-out, fading into darkness. I smell the moss and the decay of the forest floor, heady, damp, musky. And I can taste the earthy mushrooms and bitter berries on my tongue. But most of all, I hear the pines whisper and sigh, their needles, like millions of tiny blades, carving voices into the breeze.

 

Heart of Stone















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