To Be A Fly On The Brain, by Josh Stallings

Q: Which author(s) (living or dead) would you like to meet one-on-one to talk about the writing craft? What is it about their writing or life that most interests you?

A: My father, Tobias Jean, was a painter, a sculptor, a poet, a jeweler, and much more. He lived his life immersed in the river of creativity. Walking through a museum he never wanted me to read the cards beside a painting, the ones written by a curator giving the work’s context. 

“That,” he’d point at the painting, “Is the artist’s first statement in a conversation between them and you the viewer. The next line comes from you, what do you think about it on first glance. Later maybe you notice the deep powerful brush strokes, that is the next part of the conversation. This conversation between artist and viewer can last ten minutes or a lifetime.

I remember my father spotting Henry Moore’s sculpture Knife Edge. He gave it a smile of recognition, “There you are.” He had been in conversation with that work for many many years. He was fascinated with “the line” of a thing. He searched for a single simple line that could carry the weight of a object. One line with all the sensual power of a swan. Not a line that stood for a swan, but one that was a swan at its purest. His conversation with Knife Edge was more enriching than anything Henry Moore might have said about it, much less a curator.

I would give much to have another couple of nights with my father, drinking coffee and talking about the creative life. I wish I’d asked him more about what colors felt like to him. And how did he know when a piece was finished? I’d like to hear his laugh and riff about nothing important. Film editing, writing fiction, painting a dragon god, all come from the same place. But the tools used are very different.

Over the years I have become suspect of what we writers say about our work. It’s complicated to decipher our true motives for writing what we write or how we write it. 

Books are rich beasts. First there is the book we intended to write. Below that is the book we did write. And below that are the truths about ourselves that we never meant to tell anyone. When readers discover and point out pieces of me I was unaware I had exposed, I love it. It means I’m being honest down to a micro level.

Then there is discussing craft with writers. What we say in public about craft is tinted by marketing, what we want readers to think we think. This may be even how we remember it, but memory is massively subjective. Our brains are big old justifying machines. They tell us what ever it takes to help confirm that our world view is correct.  This creates two realities, what we say happens in our minds when we write and what really happens up stairs when we type. 

Rather than talking craft, I’d like to be a fly on James Crumley’s or William Shakespeare’s brain while they were creating… Wow, that sounded much less creepy in my head than it looks on the page. What I’m trying to say is I’d like to see how they solved story and literary problems without being confused by their explanations.

Things I would like to do with master writers: I’d love to go fly fishing with James Lee Burke. The way he describes a river makes me want to stand in it with him. That or tour Bayou Têche with Burke as my guide. He writes a swamp richly beautiful, I’d love to have him show me what inspires him to step out of a tense crime novel and take the reader for a drift on the water.  

“I was conceived in a Morris Minor on the Mexico side of the border traveling between Ensenada and Los Angeles.” Is an opening sentence I never imagined typing while talking about hanging with writers. But it is important back story. Before and after my birth my family lived for a time in an artist’s colony in Baja. I was too young to have memories of that time, but it lives large in my mythos. Many a grand time took place south of the border. Much of Out There Bad the second Moses book took place in Baja. For that personal reason I would love to travel through the US Mexico borderland with Don Winslow, Cormac McCarthy, and Gabino Iglesias. They each are amazing writers with very different takes on the border. Their books have helped me sort out my own feelings on the the messy land between two nations. Reading about a location, even one I know well, from multiple perspectives creates a three dimensional picture for me to draw from.

Stop the presses. I may be about to actually answer the question… 

Here goes: I’d love to spend time talking craft with David Mitchell. He writes incredibly complex multi-character multi-timeline novels. Utopia Avenue and The Bone Clocks being among my favorites. What I want to know is how the hell he knows the exact moment to end a chapter so that it feels both natural and acts like a cliffhanger but free of the feeling that I’m being manipulated. And then how does he return to a storyline at the very moment I’m wondering about it. What is his trick? Skill and talent I suspect. Does he plot it out on the world’s largest whiteboard or does he intuitively know where he needs to be. David Mitchell, if you read this and find yourself in Southern California, I’ll buy dinner if you explain how you do what you do. 

Reality check: These are fantasy ideas. In the real world, I am lucky enough to count some amazing writers as true friends. When we get together we share what we’re working on at that moment. Talk about our struggles, stumbles, and successes. Hearing another writer’s struggles I feel less alone in my own. Having friends to share this journey with is one of the great gifts of a life spent writing.

“Don’t wait for the muse, just write, because you are the muse, and the only way the muse shows up is if you show up.” - Joe R. Lansdale, The Donut Legion 

Before you go, by Catriona

Which author(s) (living or dead) would you like to meet one-on-one to talk about the writing craft? What is it about their writing or life that most interests you?

I can't lie: I don't want to have dinner with any writers, living or dead, at the moment. I'm trying to wrangle a second draft into a third draft and hoping it's a final draft, and I want to have dinner with editors. I don't even want to have dinner with them (look at that; I can lie). I want to lock them in a basement and force them to fix this book for me. I'll pay them the advance and all the royalties in perpetuity. They can have their names on the cover instead of mine. Anything they want, just so I don't have to plug these plot holes and make this nonense hang together.

I really hate being a pantser.

Okay, now that's out of the way. I was fortunate enough to be nominated for the Bill Gottfried memorial award for historical fiction this year, and it got me thinking. As the years pass, this award will become like the Anthony, the Bruce Alexander and the Sue Feder, in that the award will continue to be coveted but the name won't resonate with the winners and nominees. I feel extremely lucky to have overlapped with Bill in the American mystery community. To know him as a salty, peppery, sometimes vinegary presence at literary salons and a wise and kind man all round.

So for my dream dinner party I'm choosing some writers I wish I had overlapped with a wee bit more than I did.

First, Mary Higgins Clark. I did meet her once or twice and I was in the same room as her a few more times, at the Edgars, while not winning the Mary Higgins Clark award, but I only heard her speak at length one time, during a librarians' tea at Bouchercon. She was a pistol: good without being sweet and sharp without being harsh. I'd love to sit with her and talk about her debut novel WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN and the upcoming sequel, WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN NOW, by her frequent co-author, Alafair Burke. (Is any of that because she might bring a copy and I wouldn't have to wait the five days till it comes out? I couldn't possibly comment.) 

My first question at this dinner would be "You know how a lot of writers say they can't write (or read) about children being harmed once they become parents? And you know how you were a widowed mother of five, and got up before dawn to write before the children were awake? And your first book was about murdered children? Is that mental toughness the thing that made you such a staggering success?"

I think I just answered my own question.

The first MHC I ever read,
in NYC, at Christmastime.
 

The next seat at this dinner table will be drawn out for Sue Grafton. I met her once too, very briefly, at a convention and couldn't quite believe that this un-grand, un-flashy mystery fan, completely absorbed in perusing the books for sale in the dealer's room was Kinsey Millhone's creator. Another good, lovely (but not sweetie-sweet) woman, as tough as she was talented, I'd love to get the chance to ask her all about keeping a long series up to scratch, I'm on sixteen; she wrote twenty-five and each one was as fine as the first.

The last place at my dream dinner party - it's just four of us, round a card table - is for a writer I admire enormously and feel I know even though she died in 2010, the year I moved the USA, and I never met her. Eleanor Taylor Bland wrote the absoutely stupendous Marti MacAlister series, a light touch on some pretty heavy issues, an odd couple to end all odd couples, and a - yes, okay - kick-ass heroine but one with a believable, complex, nuanced life that matters to her as much as the latest case ever could. What would I ask her? I would be at great risk of just fan-girling until she excused herself and climbed out of the loo window, I'm afraid. I would certainly tell her I named one of my characters Martine MacAllister, in an act of homage, and I'd tell her that my proudest job as Sisters in Crime president was overseeing the Eleanor Taylor Bland Award for emerging writers of colour.

That just leaves one writer. After the meal, over coffee and bonbons, and if it was okay with the other three, I'd summon William Shakespeare. It's the law. My question would be "How?" but that's too big so I'd pick one play, a short one, not one of the really complicated ones - Macbeth would be ideal - and ask him to walk me, Mary, Sue and Eleanor through the process from lightbulb-moment to curtain-up. Because seriously, how?

Cx

 

The "Dream Team" by Cathy Ace

Which author(s) (living or dead) would you like to meet one-on-one to talk about the writing craft? What is it about their writing or life that most interests you?

To be honest, even ten years ago I’d have had a list as long as my arm in answer to this question; since then, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be able to meet many authors whose work has given me great pleasure over the decades, and to listen to them giving interviews or speaking on panels – or even to have spent some personal time with them – wherein I know I’ve learned a great deal about the way they work, which has, in turn, given me much food for thought when considering how I work.

On my bookshelf

But there are authors whose work I admire a great deal with whom I have never, and can never, cross paths, so I’ll focus on them today.

I dare say for anyone who knows me, my first pick won’t come as a surprise: Agatha Christie’s work entertained then inspired me. I enjoyed her autobiography, as well as reading about the notebooks she kept, but to spend time with her…to ask about her plotting, and her use of language…that would be a treat indeed. Though I’ll admit I’m not sure how much I’d learn from her because I’d probably be too shy to ask what I really want to know, which is – how did she find it within herself to just keep going for so very many years?

Other people to have a quiet chat with? Ngaio Marsh? Yes please: to move from one culture to another, then dominated in her field, that would be a wonderful story to hear. Could I also, please, spend some time with PD James and Ruth Rendell too? And, yes, I know these are all women, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing, because I, too, am a woman working in this world of writing and publishing, and I bet they could help me plot my way forward to build a long and healthy career.

And there’s one more name to add to my list: MC Beaton. Unfortunately for me I never had the chance to meet her before she died, but I bet I could learn a great deal from her about – again – the passion for writing which burned in her that allowed her to keep writing for as long as she did. I often find my work, especially my WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries, compared with her Agatha Raisin books. I have a wonderful opportunity, in Aberystwyth later this month, to meet RW Green who is the author with the responsibility of taking the Agatha Raisin books forward – so at least I can grill him then about the essence of Marion Chesney’s work that he’s alighted upon to ensure that the style and tone she created in her books is continued. I'm so chuffed to be appearing on a panel with him at Wales’s first in-person crime writers’ conference Gwyl Crime Cymru Festival. You can find out all about it here: https://gwylcrimecymrufestival.co.uk/

Also, you can find out more about my work at my website: https://www.cathyace.com/

If I Had A Hammett by Gabriel Valjan

 

Which author(s) (living or dead) would you like to meet one-on-one to talk about the writing craft? What is it about their writing or life that most interests you?

 

No disrespect intended, but I dislike talks on craft. I can tell you what I was thinking when I wrote X or Y, why I did this or that, but, ultimately, I can’t describe how I write. As for my answer to this question, it would have to be Dashiell Hammett, but not for the obvious reasons.

 

I would like to discuss with him Poetry, Humor, and Cancel Culture.

 

POETRY

 

Like me (and most writers) Dash read broadly, but our first love was verse. We were quick to learn Poetry doesn’t pay. I should note that both Hammett and Raymond Chandler adored poetry, but they each took the poetic use of language in different directions. Chandler’s prose is more pyrotechnic and replete with similes and metaphors, and lyrical turns of phrase. Hammett’s style is stark, shaped by the patois heard on the street. Speech in Hammett’s work moves forward and with menace. In Marlowe’s world, speech stops, contemplates the scene and provides commentary. Chandler’s dialogue is witty at best, snark at its worst.

 

Herein is the fundamental difference between Dash and Ray. For all that Spade says, you ‘see’ how he thinks but never how he ‘feels’ about the world or the people in it. His slice of the hard-boiled perspective borders on anonymity, and the ‘Just the facts’ mentality annihilates emotions. The Op and Spade are perhaps realistic and predatory, but it’s always the job and nothing more. Marlowe is idealistic, philosophical, romantic, and the opposite of the Op and Spade. He is sentimental.

 

HUMOR

 

Hammett wrote one Thin Man novel that inspired six movies. Hollywood’s penchant for milking sequels until the cow runs dry soured Hammett. He would call Nick and Nora “insufferably smug.” Read his Thin Man and watch the first movie to see what Hollywood could not put on the screen. The Thin Man was banned in Boston and Canada because Nora Charles asked Nick, “Tell me something, Nick. Tell me the truth: when you were wrestling with Mimi, didn’t you have an erection?” [end of Chapter 25].

 

Hammett’s prose and setup in The Thin Man are risqué, sexy, and funny. It’s a social comedy, a popular film genre in the 30’s, but it’s really a mishmash of war between the sexes and a murder-mystery, with all the frenetic pacing Hammett packed into his crime novels.

 

Writing comedy is harder than you think. I’ll tackle this topic on April 19 on Career Authors.

 

POLITICS

 

We call it Cancel Culture today, but its name yesterday was being Blacklisted. Details, however, matter. Hammett didn’t say or do anything offensive in public. He simply refused to kowtow to Joe McCarthy’s committee. Dash invoked his right not to incriminate himself. Hollywood celebs fast to cite the privileges afforded to them under the First and Fifth Amendments quickly relented. Dash stood his ground. Unlike Arthur Miller who also wouldn’t name names, Dash paid the price. He would serve five months in jail for contempt of court and be humiliated while incarcerated: assigned to clean toilets. He never complained.

 

Once freed, the final insult came at him like twins: first, the US government barred publishers from paying him royalties; and second, the IRS ordered him to pay $100k in back taxes. Asked to pay fines with money he didn’t have or access to, he was forced into poverty. Always in frail health throughout his life due to TB and other illness—he drank to combat chronic pain, though he had quit Drink in 1948. Dash, like most men of his generation, smoked. Lung cancer claimed him in 1961. A veteran of both world wars, the battle with Joe McCarthy had left him a pariah and dependent on the largess of Lillian Hellman for the last decade of his life. If he were still here, how I would’ve loved to hear his take on Cancel Culture and the current political landscape. Literary talent and hedonism and poor decisions are not new in the literary pantheon. Dashiell Samuel Hammett is more than that. He is a reaction to the rotund and baroque prose of the nineteenth century. He is also a cautionary tale of governmental overreach and a victim of the malignant virus in American politics and society: conformity.

Fangirl Stuff

 Q: Which author(s) (living or dead) would you like to meet one-on-one to talk about the writing craft? What is it about their writing or life that most interests you?

 

-from Susan

 

Lucky me, I’ve met, dined with, learned from, and listened to many wonderful crime fiction writers working today, thanks to our conferences, conventions, and pandemic zoom sessions. There are other authors, many outside of the genre, that I’ve also heard and met. In fact, Catriona and I are going to a talk by the fearsomely talented Leila Mottley (Nightcrawling) later this month. 

 

Writers have become accessible, partly as a way for us to promote our books, and talking one-on-one with them via email after meeting them is also possible, as long as we’re not shy. I’m going to turn my focus toward the harder to reach writers I’d liked to share a day or evening with. They’re dead bodily, although their writing keeps them alive to me. 

 

I’d love to know how Agatha Christie plotted her mysteries. Did she start with a clear sense of the victim and the murderer, draw a mental straight line between them, and then muddy things up so readers couldn’t figure out who did it until all was revealed at the end? The Body in the Library is as good an example as any – she even withheld the victim’s real identity and had a devilish answer to the whole business. They may not meet current standards of deeper character development, but she really knew how to contrive a tricky plot and keep readers guessing.

 

When I need to step back from the current crime fiction tropes, I look for the old mass paperback editions of Nero Wolfe by Rex Stout. Yes, I know, sexist; I plead it was the times. Stout wrote 33 Nero Wolfe novels and 39 novellas. I guess I’d like to know if he ever felt he’d had enough of the fat man and Archie, or if new ways to set them in motion kept him engaged as a writer? Were they fun to write? Did he want his characters to grow (they didn’t) or was he content with having them behave in the same predictable ways as new plots swirled around them? Was that his magic potion for success?

 

Aside from crime fiction, I’d relish time with Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) to hear how he managed to embed serious social criticisms into superficially entertaining stories without turning off readers? He needed to make money from his writing so he had to think about seducing his audiences, but he made a personal decision not to avoid thorny topics, even as he disguised the bitter within classic storytelling. He also kept his sense of humor in his work. I read he was privately impatient at times, though, so he might not respond to my invitation to dinner.

 

Will Shakespeare, of course, but he was quick-witted, gregarious, dramatic, and always writing. Even if I could snare him for coffee, I expect I’d be tongue-tied and awestruck, and he’d show off a bit and then tell me he had to run because he was overseeing the production of a new play, something called As You Like It. Maybe he’d offer to leave a ticket for me at the Globe door. Anyway, what could I ask him? “How can I bring a character to eternal robust life using only dialogue?”

 

As I think about this, I have a hunch they would end up thinking they’d wasted good writing time talking with me, even if the roast beef, Cabernet, and chocolate mousse had been delicious. 

Note: Photos of these long gone authors that I found are owned - have been, as they say, "monetized"  - by large companies that suck them up, so I can't include them, even in a short, editorial tribute. I can share this so I will: Newest book out to some very nice reviews. If you're up for an armchair visit to France, please consider: 

Surrender-not

by Abir 

Which secondary character have you created that you find the most intriguing and memorable? Please share the scene where they appeared and outline the impact they had on the story and on you.

Surendranath Banerjee is a young sergeant, newly recruited into the Calcutta Police. He’s a bright lad, one of the first Indians to be inducted into CID, and he did pretty well in the police entrance exams too. The third son of an influential and well-to-do Bengali family, he was educated in England, before returning to India.

While his name is Surendranath, but his British superiors found that too difficult to pronounce and instead christened him Surrender-not. While he didn’t mind at first, it’s a name that’s beginning to grate. 

His decision to join the police force has led to tensions within his family. His father in particular was shocked by his son’s decision, accusing him of siding with oppressors of his own people. Surrender-not sees it differently. His view is that even when the British leave, Indians will probably still keep murdering each other and someone’s going to need the skills to solve them.

In contrast to his boss, Sam Wyndham, he’s still fresh and idealistic, with an innate belief in justice and the rule of law. But his idealism is sorely tested by reality. To some extent, Surendranath embodies the conflict felt by many educated Indians of the time, torn between their rose-coloured view of British justice and the repression of their own people.

At the point where we meet him, Surendranath is pretty much in awe of Sam. He finds him different from the other British officers, but he’s not quite sure what to make of him. On one level I think he’s worried about his new boss, who seems to have his own problems and doesn’t know the first thing about India, but Surrender-not is far too shy and too Indian to say anything.

Unfortunately his shyness doesn’t stop with his boss. He’s particularly inept at talking to women, white or Indian – unless they have an interest in cricket that is.

Fadge: Ellie Stone’s Second to None from James W. Ziskin

Which secondary character have you created that you find the most intriguing and memorable? Please share the scene where they appeared and outline the impact they had on the story and on you.

Fadge dealing with a deadbeat teenage customer

Readers of my Ellie Stone mysteries have often expressed their affection for Ellie’s best friend, Ron “Fadge” Fiorello. He’s my favorite secondary character, too. Fadge is 6’ 2” tall and weighs more than 300 pounds. He owns the ice-cream shop across the street from Ellie’s apartment. A large man with larger appetites, he’s an inveterate gambler who wins big and loses even bigger.

Fadge is Watson to Ellie’s Holmes. But he’s also her protector.

I’ll let Ellie describe him here through five passages, one from the series debut, STYX & STONE, and four more from A STONE’S THROW, the sixth Ellie Stone mystery. That’s the book where Fadge takes on a starring role.

STYX & STONE — Fadge’s first appearance

Having recently moved to New Holland, I had been frequenting the shop for a few weeks, enjoying the occasional cup of coffee over a newspaper, which I liked to read in a booth near the back. On that day, I arrived just before lunch, and Fadge greeted me at the door, a magazine tucked under his arm.

“Hi,” he said. He looked distressed. “You’re Ellie, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Watch the store for a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”
He rushed to the backroom and disappeared into the toilet, where he remained for nearly forty-five minutes. When he finally emerged, looking relieved and not the least bit embarrassed, he thanked me and asked me how I’d fared.

“Not a soul came in, so I read the dirty books,” I said, motioning to the magazine rack against the wall.

“Didn’t I see your picture in one of them?” he asked, so sweetly that I fell in love with him on the spot.

A STONE’S THROW — Fadge concentrates on the Racing Form

“Do you know anything about the Tempesta stud farm?” I asked Fadge over a cup of coffee at Fiorello’s, the ice-cream shop across from my apartment on Lincoln Avenue.

The big guy—six-two and tipping the scales at more than three hundred pounds—held the undisputed title of My Dearest Friend in the World. A boon companion for sharing late-night pizzas and off-color jokes, he was, I knew, also more than a little sweet on me. But at that moment, he was seated on a stool at the counter brooding over the Daily Racing Form in preparation for our day in Saratoga and indifferent to, if not unaware of, my presence.

Absorbed in his study of the Racing Form, he hadn’t heard a word I’d said, so I repeated my question about the stud farm. Still nothing. To test his hearing, I slipped off the stool at the counter and approached the cash register behind the nearby candy case. I pushed down hard on the stiff No Sale button, and the cash drawer popped open, producing a bright ching as it did. Fadge remained oblivious. I could have emptied the till and tapped-danced my way out the door, and he wouldn’t have been any the wiser.

At the racetrack, Fadge is ready to defend Ellie if necessary

“Look, miss,” Fleischman said. “I’ve got a horse in the next race and don’t have time for some girl reporter.” 

Fadge pushed past me. “Hey, pal, talk nice to the lady, or I’ll give you a lesson in manners.” Fleischman backed away. The third man stepped forward. 

I knew Fadge to be a sweetheart but also a hothead with a short fuse. He was double extra-large, quite strong, and ferociously protective of me. A quick assessment of the comparative ages and health of the men convinced me that my hero would have little trouble pounding Louis Fleischman, the jockey, and even the third man into a flattened blob of Play-Doh.

Ellie finds Fadge in a nervous state at the ice cream parlor

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. 

He motioned for me to follow him to the backroom. There among the cases of soda and ice-cream freezers, he wiped his perspired face with the skirt of his new apron. 

“What is it?” I repeated. 

“El, you can’t tell anyone.” 

“Tell them what?” 

“I just got back from the races.”

“The races? Who was minding the store?” 

“No one. I closed up today. But that’s not the point. Listen to me.” 

“Fadge, you’re going to go broke if you close in August. Come January you’ll be bellyaching that no one’s buying ice cream.” 

He was nearly shaking now, glancing through the open door to the empty store outside. 

“El, will you shut up and listen? I closed the store and went to the track.” 

“And?” 

“And?” He licked his lips. “I won three thousand dollars.” 

I stumbled back against the ice-cream freezer. “You won how much?” 

“I was on fire. Couldn’t miss. Everything I picked came in.”

Fadge gets all dressed up to take Ellie to the big event of the Saratoga meet, Travers Day

And on cue, the big fella emerged from the rear of the store wearing a pair of white linen trousers, a red-and-white-striped jacket, and—if you please—a scarlet cravat. 

“What are you all duded up for?” I asked. “The Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race?” 

He gaped at me open-mouthed. When he finally found speech, he said he was dressed for Travers Day. 

“That’s too informal,” he said, referring to my outfit. “Go put on something flowery, summery, will you? You’re going to the clubhouse, not a pool hall.”

Mildly insulted by his insinuation about my dress, I nevertheless resisted the urge to ask him which way to the bandstand.

Bonus passage 

(At the close of STYX & STONE, Fadge drops by Ellie’s place late at night to comfort her over a terrible, tragic loss in her life. He’s brought two quarts of beer and a bag of potato chips for a late dinner. Ellie remarks that a girl doesn’t stand a chance with such a big spender. Fadge jokes if that’s the case he’d like to get her out of her sweater.)

“Why did you come over tonight?” I asked. “Don’t tell me you were hoping to get lucky.”

He shook his head. “With a skinny girl like you? Naw.” He paused, thinking of something. “I just wanted to have a beer,” he said finally.

I smiled gently at him as he looked away. I knew why he had come, and it almost felt like he’d saved my life. I’ve loved that fat guy ever since.

RIP, Fadge 

You lived big and died way too fucking young.

Supporting Cast

Which secondary character have you created that you find the most intriguing and memorable? Please share the scene where they appeared and outline the impact they had on the story and on you.

by Dietrich

Secondary characters play significant roles by adding interesting counterpoint to the main characters. They bring along their own subplots, back stories and baggage. Like the main characters, I love writing them and watching them come to life. Here are two who I’d like to introduce you to. 

Wren McKenna’s from my current novel, Nobody from Somewhere. She’s a teen running from an abusive foster home. She’s tough as nails, street savvy and plays well off the main character, Fitch Henry Haut, an aging and ailing retired cop who sets out to save her from a couple of crooks trying to drag her into their SUV. Maybe by the end of the story, readers get a sense that maybe it’s Wren saving him from himself. Here’s the scene where we first meet her.   

The Snows put Wren up on the Murphy bed in the main-floor den. Pulled down, the bed left a foot and a half between the desk and a shelf of books, mostly self-help books: The power of this, the art of that. Growing rich and awakening giants. Titles like Unfuc*ing Yourself, and Not Giving a Sh*t, with lots of astericks. A grocery-store print above the pullout, a still life with fruit and purplish shadows.

Being next to the kitchen, Wren could hear the hum and rattle of the old Frigidaire, keeping her company on those nights when sleep dodged her. Propped against her pillow in the dark, she was thinking about her mom. 

The third night she tiptoed in the dark past the noisy fridge, crossing the cold tiles, heading to the powder room in her undies, needing to pee. Kevin sat in the dark at the kitchen nook, a short drink of whisky in front of him. Clicking on the light, he smiled, eyes sweeping up her bare legs. Wren covering up and hurrying to the bathroom, saying, “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Kevin was smiling, leaving the light on and waiting when she hurried back to her room. Finishing his drink, Kevin came to her door, whispering from the other side, “Nighty night.” The stairs creaking as he went back to his room, switching off the lights.

Sitting on the bed, Wren looked around the dark room for something like a weapon, one of the self-help books could do the trick. If he came through that door, she’d bonk him with the corner of Unfuc* Yourself. But, he didn’t try it, not that night. Nothing but the sound of the clunking Frigidaire.

Next, I’d like to introduce Isaac Levine. He shows up in The Get, which will be released by ECW on June 6th. He’s a senior, though you wouldn’t know it — just a rock of a guy who’s obviously done a lot of living. He’s a respected jeweler and father to Paulina, and he’s just added beefed-up security doors to his jewelry shop as we meet him.

“We have insurance, Poppa,” Paulina said, still on about the mantrap, looking at the doors.

“And now lower premiums,” Isaac said. “Pays for itself in five years, six tops. You’re going to see.” He waved a hand in the air like it was already done.

She pointed to the front, saying, “And what kind of name is that, mantrap?”

“A good name. Exactly what it does, it traps.”

“Traps your customers?” She laughed, taking the wrapped sandwiches from the bag. “Don’t stand there, buy something. Then you can leave.”

Isaac loved her sense of humor. Told himself it’s what kept him going. Pinching a dill spear, he took a bite, then tried changing the subject. “This from Mica’s?”

“Where else?”

“Got to admit, the boy works hard, he’ll give the rest a run for their money. Mark it down.” Isaac looked at the sandwiches she took from the bag, piled high with meat, a half inch extra for family.

“Everyone knows you, Poppa. Isaac the Jeweler.” Paulina not swayed from the conversation, saying, “Who would even think of robbing you?”

He smiled at her: beautiful and smart, but maybe a touch naïve. Saying, “And you with a gun in your purse.”

“It’s a derringer, Poppa. A lot of Jewelers carry these days. It’s almost stylish.”

“But, you do the books, schatz.”

“Think the crooks know it?”

“And you can shoot?”

“Yes, I can shoot, and stop changing the subject, and tell me, how much?”

And his smile widened. Yes, just like his Helen. God, he missed her, but it felt like she was living in this girl, a mirror image of his darling wife.

“You look at me like that, Poppa — like I’m your little girl — I already know it’s too expensive.” She folded her arms, trying to look stern. Paulina steadfast as a hound, going to find out what the mantrap cost.

“Eat your lunch, ketsele,” he said, smiling. “Not like I can send the doors back.”

“I’ll have to enter it in the books.”

“Yes, you’ll find out in time, but now, let’s eat.” He finished the spear of pickle, tapping the glass display of bracelets and necklaces. “Let me show you the Buccellati, just came in. And here, the Cartier Panther, white gold and emerald eyes. What do you think?”

“I think I’m going to eat.” She didn’t look at the case, her eyes going from her sandwich back to those doors. Saying, “I mean, if we can still afford food.” Adding, “But, you know I will find out.”

“Of course you will, schatz.”

Who's On Second?

 

Terry here:

Our question this week is about secondary characters--which ones we've created that we find the most intriguing and memorable? I've included the scene where they appeared and said a few words about the impact they had on the story. 

The obvious best answer would be Loretta Singletary, who eventually deserved her own book (A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary.) From the opening line of A Killing at Cotton Hill, the first in the Samuel Craddock series, she has played a pivotal role in every book. 

Here’s the scene where she first appeared: 

 “I watch Loretta Singletary hurry up the steps to my house. She hasn’t seen me on the porch in my beat-up old rocker where I often sit to catch any early morning breeze. Usually Loretta doesn’t miss a thing, so I know she’s on a mission. So as not to scare her, I start rocking and clear my throat. She jumps like a weasel has crossed her path. 

 “Samuel, you liked to’ve scared me to death,” she says.” 

 In the scene, she’s bringing news, but she goes into Samuel’s house get herself a glass of water before she tells the news. The description of her: “she still has a brisk bounce in her walk…she’s short and a little on the plump side, with gray hair that she keeps in tight curls like a halo around her face, and pale blue eyes. She always had nice legs, and they are still her pride, so she wears skirts and disapproves of women who wear pants.” 

 Everything you need to know about Loretta is in those few paragraphs: her physical description; that she is a good enough friend of Samuel’s that she can go into his house without asking; and that she bring news. Also there is the subtle hint that she’s a good person in the “tight curls like a halo…” 

 I think of Loretta like a Greek chorus. She knows what goes on in town and when Samuel wants to get the low-down on any happenings around town, she’s the one he goes to. She is a gossip, but not in a mean way. She doesn’t gossip to hurt people. She knows when to keep her mouth shut. 

But probably her most endearing trait to those who know her is that she keeps everyone supplied with baked goods!

When she first showed up, I thought of her as a figure of fun, but she soon put that out of my mind. She has opinions, but they are reasoned ones. She cares about people. The longer I’ve known her, the more I admire her. And over time, she has changed, deciding to change her hairdo and to start wearing slacks. She even dates! 

 In every, single book there is a character who intrigues me and demands to be seen and heard. Again, in “Cotton Hill,” Caroline Parjeter rolls into town for her mother’s funeral. She’s a good-time girl whose life hasn’t turned out so well. Here’s how Samuel first sees her, in the funeral home for the viewing of his old friend Dora Lee Parjeter: 

 “I hear a little ruffle of sound in the front room that alerts me. It’s like a rush of swallows in an evening out near the tank. I turn around look toward the door. A woman is standing poised there, and for a second I catch my breath. It could be Dora Lee twenty years ago, but in a different kind of life. The woman, Caroline, is dressed in a black and high heels and has a polished look that you see on TV women. I don’t know fashion, but the suit has a cut that takes advantage of every curve of Caroline’s body without being showy. She’s wearing pearls and carrying a compact little bag. She’s way over-dressed for a visitation, and the other ladies won’t forgive her for it.”

Caroline completely changes the story, inserting herself into it in ways I never suspected when I started writing the book. 

 In the second book, The Last Death of Jack Harbin, I liked the character of Walter Dunn so much that I brought him back in the most recent book, Murder at the Jubilee Rally. 

Here’s my (and the readers’) first glance at him: “He’s a good two inches taller than me, at least six feet four inches, and muscled. His face is rough from a bad case of acne, and his features don’t quite come together , with big, flabby lips and little ears. But his blue eyes burn intensely, and I’ll that’s what most people end up remembering about him.” 

What I’ve found is that the most intriguing secondary characters, though, are the ones that have “issues.” They are prickly, weak, egotistical, greedy, careless, or some combination. They can be the villains or sometimes just bystanders. They show up in every book, muscling their way in without a care in the world about how I, the author, might feel about them. 

 Everyone from Maria Trevino, who I intended to be a one-book character in The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake, and who came to stay; to Slate McClusky, in Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek, who is not a good guy but does everything he can to protect his brother. From Samuel’s brother, Horace, a weak man who Samuel cares about nonetheless; to Gabe LoPresto, a peacock of a man who strayed and came back. And finally, to Samuel’s grand-niece, Hailey, a surly teenager who showed in the latest book, Murder at the Jubilee Rally, and practically took over. 

 Without strong secondary characters, I think the books would start to get repetitious, so it’s important to me that I pay attention to those who show up and give them their due.

A Secondary Character, First in Readers' Hearts

Which secondary character have you created that you find the most intriguing and memorable? Please share the scene where they appeared and outline the impact they had on the story and on you.

Brenda starting off the week.

So this happens to be a big week for me with When Last Seen, book two in the Hunter and Tate mysteries, newly released on April 1st. This is my twenty-fourth published book but it never gets old :-)

There are a number of secondary characters I could choose to answer this week's question from my previous books, but in recognition of my new book, I'll choose a fellow named Tony, who appeared out of the blue and quickly became a force in Blind Date, first in the series.

One of my main protagonists is Ella Tate, a laid-off newspaper reporter forced to downsize into a cramped apartment in the eaves of a house in a neighbourhood called the Glebe near downtown Ottawa. Ella is of the prickly sort but intelligent and resourceful. She starts up a true crime podcast to help make ends meet. Tony lives in the second floor apartment with his boyfriend Sander, and he makes his first appearance in the series when he waylays Ella.

She was putting on her leather jacket when the sound of excited barking came through her front door. She yanked it open, and her downstairs neighbour Tony’s miniature dachshund, Luvy, jumped up on her legs before scooting past her and racing around what little space there was in the apartment. The dog ended by stretching out on the area rug under Ella’s desk, staring up at her with sorrowful brown eyes, head resting on her front paws.

“Nice try, dog,” Ella said, but Tony leapt up the stairs from the second floor before she had a chance to crawl under the desk to scoop her up. He carried a plate of grapes and sliced melon that he handed to her, saying, “You’re welcome,” as he slid past her into the apartment.

“You and Luvy moving in?” she asked, selecting a piece of cantaloupe. A moan rolled up her throat. The fruit tasted like a sun-kissed July day, juicy and sweet. 

“Thought you could use some male company now that Greg’s vacated. Where did you say the fucker went anyway?” He picked up a pencil from her desktop and twirled it from one hand to the other.

She shut the door and crossed the living room to sit in her desk chair. “Off to find himself, so that could be anywhere with a barstool.”

“He did like the drink. You know you’re probably better off, right, Ella?”

“I miss his half of the rent money.”

“You can do better."

Tony is irreverent with a dry sense of humour and kind as the dickens. He's also heart-broken when Sander moves out and turns his attentions to Ella's social life, taking it on as his personal mission. He worms his way into her investigative career as well and becomes her personal assistant even though she'd rather he not. He's a hairdresser and knows everybody who's anybody with a waiting list for his cuts and colours.

As most reoccurring characters, Tony grows and changes through the books. He starts off somewhat stereotypical, but this perception is turned on its head by the last chapters. I might add that since Tony is gay, I had a sensitivity reader to make certain I got things right.

Tony's impact on the books is clear when I hear from readers. Some have commented that they wished he were real and could move in next door. He proves a foil to Ella and much of the humour in the books originates with him. As for his impact on me, I agree with the readers who love him and wish he were real. I'd like to drop by his apartment for a glass of wine and one of his fabulous meals. If he wanted to trim my hair, update my wardrobe, and show me how to throw a fastball I sure wouldn't say no.

Website; www.brendachapman.ca

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