By Elaine Viets

Does your mind wander when you read the hot new thriller? Does that blockbuster mystery sag worse than a flophouse couch?
Yep, I’ve been running into lots of those: Highly touted bestsellers that make excellent doorstops.
This isn’t about how to fix the sagging middle in your novels. It’s a question about what causes them:
Are modern mysteries too long? Are we forced to produce bloated books?
Most commercial mysteries are 75,000 words or so. The average mystery weighs in at about 325 pages. Many are twice that size.

But thrillers and mysteries didn’t used to be so big. Once they were as slender as that deadly dame in black. Many Golden Age mysteries were 150 to 200 pages LESS than today’s mysteries.
Raymond Chandler’s The High Window was a scrawny 206 pages when it was published by Pocket Books in 1945. Curt Cannon’s I Like ’Em Tough (“Me?” he says, “I’m a down-and-out private eye with nothing to lose”) delivered 143 action-packed pages a princely 25 cents in 1958. Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale was 144 pages in 1953.
Makes you wonder if Fleming’s spy classic could be published today.

Or would an editor tell him, “Nice story, Ian, but you need to flesh it out a bit. Maybe add another subplot. Or get more of Vesper’s life before she met Bond to justify her actions. And we know almost nothing about Bond’s childhood. Clearly he’s got some daddy issues with M.”
Personally, I like the Bond novels better than the movies. Ian Fleming’s Bond in the original novels is more sensitive and less cartoonish than the man in the movies – and I’ve seen them all. For the record, I like Daniel Craig best as Bond, even better than Sean Connery.

By the way, if you haven’t read the original Bond novels, you’re missing some elegant writing.
Here’s the opening to Casino Royale: “The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling – a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension – become unbearable, and the senses awake and revolt from it.
“James Bond suddenly knew that he was tired.”
And so the adventure starts and “hums with tension,” according to Time magazine.
The plot is clean and unburdened by armchair psychology. The ending is swift, free of the current trends for corkscrew plotting.
As the end of the contemporary overcomplicated doorstop nears, I find myself saying, “Yes, he did it! I knew it was the American tourist. No, wait, it was the Russian! No, not the Russian, the undercover CIA agent who betrayed his country. Wrong again! It was his gay lover, who wanted revenge.”
When the book finally ends, I’m so exhausted, I don’t much care.
Hardcovers are $25 to $30 now. Maybe we’d have more readers if we wrote smaller books.
Maybe we’re breaking that important writing rule: Less is more.

Win KILLER CUTS, Dead-End Job No. 8, set at a posh salon where a color and cut are $300. Click Contests at www.elaineviets.com

By Elaine Viets

By Elaine Viets　

Recently, I’ve seen a rash of news stories with headlines like these:

“Retired Air Force four-star general opens up about Wright-Patt, DDC.”

“Marine general opens up about battle with prostate cancer.”

“Wells Fargo CEO opens up about his childhood in poverty.”

Opens up? No, they didn’t.

“Opens up” implies that a person hesitates to talk about a subject, then relaxes and spills the information they didn’t intend to. “Opens up” paints a cozy word picture: We see the reluctant subject settling in over a beer or a cup of coffee, looking a bit nervous. After skillful questioning, the interviewer pries that pearl of information out of the oyster. The subject opens up and reveals a deep secret.

Wrong.

Retired generals and CEOs don’t open up. They didn’t get to the top by opening up anything, especially their mouths. Every word they say in public is carefully calculated.

Even clown prince Donald Trump knows what he’s doing when he shoots off his mouth. His outrageous remarks get him the attention he needs to rack up the poll numbers – he wants to be one of the top ten in the Republican presidential debate.

And while we’re talking about opening up, why doesn’t Trump’s barber open up and say the Donald’s hair looks lousy?

Anyway, about that so-called opening up: The retired four-star general didn’t open up about the air force base.

He told a newspaper he didn’t like “the focus on a potential Base Realignment and Closure process — because he sees bigger dangers to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — and warns of complacency because the base has fared well in recent years.”

That isn’t “opening up.” The general is sounding off, possibly to preserve a local pork barrel. He’s been put up to “open up,” and the headline writers fell for it.

And the Marine General who “opened up” about his prostate cancer?

More careful calculation. The story says, “In the midst of planning a complicated drawdown in forces, the Marine Corps’ three-star manpower chief received startling news: He had cancer.”

But he soldiered on, did his military duty and survived his battle with cancer.

That was one brave general. But the article stresses that many men, important men, get prostate cancer, get treated and survive.

I salute the general for discussing a sensitive issue. But he didn’t “open up” – as an ex-reporter I smell a carefully calculated public relations opportunity. He discussed prostate cancer and urged other men to get the exam they fear.

Then there’s that Wells Fargo CEO. Did he really “open up” about his poverty-stricken childhood? Absolutely. Right after he handed out free money to the first one thousand customers.

Hell, no. That “opening up” was another PR ploy. Wells Fargo has had a wagon load of bad publicity about its foreclosures. But here’s this CEO, “one of 11 children growing up on a farm in small-town Minnesota,” who “knows how much trouble we were in financially by the time I was 6 years old . . . We bounced between bankruptcy and foreclosure until I was 15 or 16, when we got a chicken farm, where we had 15,000 laying hens. All of a sudden we had regular income.”

Oh, and by the way, Well Fargo “will continue serving real customers in the real economy.”

Sniff! Sniff! What’s that smell? Is it coming from that team of Wells Fargo horses?

Watch where you step, writers. And be careful about “opening up.”

You can fall into a dangerous word trap.

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Win Elaine’s latest hardcover mystery, “Checked Out.”  Click on Contests at www.elaineviets.com

By Elaine Viets

“She’s awake,” announced Julia.

“It’s about time,” replied her husband.

“Why is she even here,” Susan inquired.

She sighed. He whispered. She volunteered. He requested. She laughed.

I lost track of the plot, but I was fascinated by the synonyms for said. The novel was truly gripping as the author performed verbal gymnastics to avoid this four-letter word.

Characters inquired, interjected, blurted, agreed, argued, insisted, demanded, relented, confirmed, continued, conceded, spewed and squealed – yes, squealed.

That’s when I threw down the book and roared: “What happened to said?”

If I wanted to read a thesaurus, I’d get out my Roget’s.

Said is the wallflower of the writing world. It’s nearly invisible. That’s why we love it. Said showcases your dialogue. Said doesn’t get in the way of your story.

Said doesn’t try to do what’s physically impossible: You cannot talk and laugh at the same time. You cannot squeal a sentence. And spewing is too disgusting to contemplate.

My editor chopped “she laughed” out of my first novel, though she did let me say, “She said with a laugh.”

Here’s what I’m trying to say: If you want snappy dialogue, don’t clutter up your story with ridiculous verbs and impossible acts. Let it be said and be done with it.

I used said to start “Checked Out,” my new Dead-End Job mystery. Here’s the first chapter. Said gets the novel off to a good start, if I do say so myself.

Checked Out Chapter 1

“I need your help,” Elizabeth Cateman Kingsley said. “My late father misplaced a million dollars in a library book. I want it back.”

Helen Hawthorne caught herself before she said, “You’re joking.” Private eyes were supposed to be cool. Helen and her husband, Phil Sagemont, were partners in Coronado Investigations, a Fort Lauderdale firm.

Elizabeth seemed unnaturally calm for someone with a misplaced million. Her sensational statement had grabbed the attention of Helen and Phil, but now Elizabeth sat quietly in the yellow client chair, her slender, well-shaped hands folded in her lap.

Helen studied the woman from her chrome-and-black partner’s chair. Somewhere in her fifties, Elizabeth Kingsley kept her gunmetal hair defiantly undyed and pulled into a knot. A thin, knife-blade nose gave her makeup-free face distinction. Helen thought she looked practical, confident and intelligent.

Elizabeth’s well-cut gray suit was slightly worn. Her turquoise-and-pink silk scarf gave it a bold splash of color. Elizabeth had money once, Helen decided, but she was on hard times now. But how the heck did you leave a million bucks in a library book?

Phil asked the question Helen had been thinking a little more tactfully: “How do you misplace millions in a library book?”

“I didn’t,” Elizabeth said. “My father, Davis Kingsley, did.”

“Was it a check? A bank book?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “It’s a watercolor.”

By Elaine Viets

Gremlins are loose in our writing,  wreaking – not reeking – havoc. How else can we explain the ridiculous mistakes popping up in novels and news reports. It has to be those evil little monsters.

I spotted these ten, but there are hordes of gremlins turning your carefully crafted novels and short stories into jokes.

(1) “State Superior Court Judge Donna Taylor ruled in favor of the Golden Nugget casino,” the news report said, “in its dispute with 14 gamblers who say it was not there fault the cards were not shuffled and should be allowed to keep their winnings.”

Not there fault? If you say so, Judge. But I know it was definitely their fault.

(2) “The business has benefited from a strong cough, cold and flue season,” Fortune magazine online said.

Eeee! The sneezing season is flu season. Flues are for chimneys.

(3) “A slight tap of her breaks sent the car swerving into the oncoming lane of traffic.”

This glitch put the brakes on my concentration.

(4) “She gasped as the camera panned an open-air cabana in an exotic local.”

I bet the local gasped, too. Having your open-air cabana panned has to hurt. The camera really panned the cabana in an exotic locale. Add that E and you have a whole different word.

(5) “He was stuck in a 1950s time warp of gentile behavior.”

Another wayward E. This nice man’s behavior was gentle, not gentile. His religion was never mentioned.

(6) “There was something she couldn’t bare to look at.”

Me, either. I hope she kept her clothes on. The novelist’s publisher should have known this was something she couldn’t “bear to look at.”

(7) The hale was pelting down.

Hail, no, it wasn’t! Those pelting ice balls are hail.

(8) “Everyone keeps referring to the internment of Richard III,” a woman wrote on a mystery list. “If they’re buryin’ him, it’s interment.”

Right you are, ma’am and thanks for defending the English King’s English. Richard III, the last York king, was found under a British parking lot, and reburied with the white roses that were the symbols of his royal house.

(9) “A half-eaten pizza slice (crust in tact)”

I don’t care about tact in my pizzas. But intact crust – definitely.

(10) Dexter is a blood spatter expert. This bloody word is a trap for unwary writers. Blood splatter marks you as a forensic amateur. Get the L out of there. It’s blood spatter.

By Elaine Viets

Libraries are like Las Vegas.
Seriously.
The bookies may look different, but the attitude is the same: What happens at the library, stays there.
In Checked Out, my 14th Dead-End Job Mystery, private eye Helen Hawthorne’s search for a missing million dollars hidden in a South Florida library leads to murder. Meanwhile, her private eye husband and partner, Phil, is booked to broil in the sun while he hunts for a ruby necklace stolen at a scandalous party.
I researched Checked Out by volunteering at my local library. That’s where I learned that libraries don’t blab about their patrons.
Helen found this out when she was snooping through the browser histories in the library’s computers. Alexa, the library director, caught her. Here’s the scene:

 “Helen!” Alexa said.
 Helen jumped. She didn’t hear Alexa enter the room.
  “Please tell me you aren’t violating our patrons’ privacy by reading their browsing history,” Alexa said.
 “Uh,” Helen said.
 “I’ll excuse you this time, since you didn’t know,” Alexa said. “But we don’t release information on what our patrons check out. We don’t tell anyone their reference questions. Actually, we don’t keep records on those, though some of our librarians keep lists of unusual questions.
 “We also consider database searches, interlibrary loans, any materials or equipment they use, even library fines and lost books, private information. Even law enforcement agencies can’t have this information unless they get a subpoena.
 “Now, are we clear on this policy?” 
 “Yes,” Helen said. “A library is like Las Vegas. What happens here, stays here.”
 Alexa looked a little startled, then said, “Yes, that’s correct. Unless a patron breaks the law in the library, then we call the police.”

This is good news for mystery writers. It means if our editor is found with a knife in her heart after she butchered our novel, the police can’t check the library computer where we researched “How to Stab Someone and Get Away With It” without a subpoena. And by that time, they’ll have caught the real killer.
I thought the libraries and Las Vegas line had promo possibilities: Both librarians and patrons would appreciate it. I asked Kelly Nichols, one-half of the talented PJ Parrish writing team, to make me a meme. (Which rhymes with “theme.” I found that on the Internet, so I know it’s true.)
 Now I have this free downloadable poster on my Website, www.elaineviets.com
But I wanted more. I also have Elaine Viets Merchandise, and my Webmaster made this T-shirt.
Take my meme to heart, library lovers. Better yet, wear it over your heart.
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 Check out the freebies and good offers at www.elaineviets.com:
 (1) Download the Libraries and Las Vegas poster on the Home Page.
(2) Buy the T-shirt on the  Merchandise Page.
(3) Win a free hardcover Checked Out by clicking Contests at www.elaineviets.com.
  

By Elaine Viets

Some bookstores are mad as hell at writers, and for good reason.
We writers still need bookstores. Even self-published writers like to see their work displayed on store shelves – at least the ones I know.
And bookstores need to fill those shelves with our pretty books.

So why is it so hard to make this work?
I used to be a bookseller, and a couple of members of the tribe told me why writers’ books may not make it onto their shelves. I’m not using their names because they spoke bluntly about the issues.
Here’s what booksellers want you to do:
(1) Give me a real new release.
An independent bookstore owner said, “I’m not interested in mysteries that authors have been trying to sell on their own for six weeks, but are still calling new releases. When your book is first out, bring it to me.”
(2) Give me time to display your new release.
Make sure your books are at the store in plenty of time. Either hound your publisher or personally deliver the books to the store. “For an April 1 release, I’ll need to have a copy of the book in my store by March 25,” an indie bookseller said.
(3) It costs money to stock your books.
“Many traditional publishers are charging restocking fees now,” the indie bookseller said. “So if your books don’t sell, my store loses money. Self-published books require paperwork and have storage, pickup and delivery problems. I don’t have to the space to keep them.”
(4) A fact of book selling life: Some local authors don’t sell in my store.
The authors are charming. Their covers are good-looking. “But their books don’t sell. I’ve had some authors’ books for a year and no one bought them,” he said. The big box stores would have returned those books months ago.
“I can display your books as a new release for two or three weeks, but if they don’t sell, I can’t afford to give those books shelf space.” If this bookstore isn’t the right fit for your work, look for one that can sell your books.
(5) A bookstore is a place to buy books – not a showroom.
“I’ve had people buy the books on Amazon – Amazon!” he said. “Then these same people come to hear the author at my store, eat my snacks and drink my bottled water and soda. Can they do that on Amazon? No!
“I’ve watched people in the audience take out their e-readers or their iPhones during the talk and order from Amazon. That’s why booksellers are starting to charge for signings.
“Authors, if you have a signing at my store, please ask your friends and fans to buy the book here.”
  (6) Avoid the A-word.
That’s Amazon. A Barnes & Noble community relations manager told me this story:
“A customer wanted a local author to speak and sign books for her group. I gave her the names of several people I thought would be a good fit for her organization. We spent half an hour discussing various authors, and then I gave her their contact information.
“ ‘Now,’ I said, ‘when you get the author, how many copies would you like to order for your event?’
“ ‘Oh, I’ll get the books from Amazon,’ she said. ‘They’re cheaper.’ ”

Win a free hardcover. I’m giving away my first Dead-End Job Mystery that was in hardcover, “Murder Unleashed.” Enter to win by clicking Contests at www.elaineviets.com