Category Archives: #amwriting

Who Do You Believe?

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Distrust and caution are the parents of security. –Benjamin Franklin

The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool. –Stephen King

* * *

I left the kitchen and was strolling down the long hall toward my office, sipping a cup of coffee as I considered what new disasters I could throw at my characters, when something happened that I had never experienced before.

Picture this: the door at the end of the hall that leads into a utility room was open. Suddenly, an animal leaped out of the utility room into the hall and ran furiously. TOWARD ME! It was a chipmunk.

Now I’m not one to panic in a situation like that, and I know little critters are afraid of big humans, so I waved my arm (the one not holding the coffee—I didn’t want to spill on the carpet), and I shouted, “STOP! GO BACK!” as if Mr. Cutie could understand me. He didn’t play his part in the drama, though. He just kept coming.

At this point, I was afraid I might be in danger of getting bitten by the rodent, so I used that tried-and-true defense mechanism: I screamed for my husband to come quick.

When the chipmunk got within a foot or two from me, he made an incredible right-hand turn at full speed into an adjacent hall. Any tight end would have appreciated that maneuver. Then he turned again and ran straight into MY OFFICE. Not good.

While I was standing there looking dumbfounded and considering the next steps in the chipmunk eviction process, my husband sauntered in from another part of the house. “Did you call me?” he asked.

“Yes!” I said. “A chipmunk came running down the hall. I thought he was going to attack me!”

Now you have to visualize his reaction. Eyebrows slightly raised, a disbelieving tilt of the head, and body language that shouted, “I don’t think so.” What he actually said was “A chipmunk?.”

Now my husband knows I wouldn’t make something like that up, but he still didn’t believe me. We live in a suburban neighborhood. We rarely even see a squirrel around here, so he assumed I was mistaken, and it must have been a mouse or a baby squirrel or something else. After a suitably sarcastic remark, I described the cute little face and the stripe down the back of our unexpected visitor, and that convinced Frank that I had indeed been accosted by real, live chipmunk. So we barricaded Mr. Chips in my office, drove to the hardware store, bought a cage, and finally trapped our unwanted guest without harming a single hair on his cute little head.

After we dropped Chippie off at a park many miles away from our home, I reflected on our experience, and how useful the concept of disbelief or distrust is to authors, especially writers of mystery.

In any murder mystery, there are characters who mislead the authorities, and other characters who are trying to find the truth amidst all the noise. But even more important are the readers who are trying to figure out who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. If the author can mislead the reader artfully enough, it will result in a surprising climax that readers love.

* * *

In my second novel, Dead Man’s Watch, a man has been accused of murder and everybody thinks he’s guilty. He had motive (his wife died of a drug overdose from drugs bought from the murder victim) and opportunity. He admitted that he had met the drug dealer on the night of the murder with the intent to kill him. But he claims he didn’t go through with his plan.

However, the main character was a childhood friend of the accused and doesn’t want to think he could be guilty. She doesn’t believe he would lie to her, so she visits him in prison. Here’s a snippet of their conversation:

He smiled sadly and turned back. “Kathryn, I know you’re a real nice person, but you don’t owe me anything. Let it go.”

“I can’t let it go, Brad. I have to do this.” She paused and waited for him to focus back on her. “But first I have to know. Did you kill him, Brad?”

He jerked his head up so fast, she sat back in her chair. His eyes burned into hers. “Do you think I could be a killer?”

“No.”

“Good. That makes one person in the world who thinks I’m innocent. Maybe you can convince the jury.”

“Did you kill him, Brad?” She had to hear him say it.

Did you notice Brad avoided answering the question the first time? But Kathryn persists. She needs to hear him say he didn’t kill the man. Different readers might come away with different opinions on whether Brad is innocent, or just willing to use his friend to help him.

* * *

While the character Kathryn in the Watch series is a determined but naïve young woman, the main character in my new novel, Lacey’s Star, is different. Cassie Deakin is just as determined as Kathryn, but her outlook on life is far more skeptical. She is reminded frequently in the course of the book to be careful who she puts her trust in.

At one point in the book, Cassie and Detective Frank White are searching for Sinclair, a man who claims to have evidence that his young sister was murdered. Unable to track down Sinclair, they meet with law enforcement officers who had talked to him recently. When Cassie hears that Sinclair had trusted a group of strangers enough to share some important information with them, this is her reaction:

“Sinclair sounds like an idiot. If he convinced those bikers there was something of real value in Uncle Charlie’s barn, the only explanation is that some of those bikers decided to steal it. If that’s what happened, then Sinclair is the reason Uncle Charlie got injured.” I could feel the heat rising in my face. I wanted to get my hands on Sinclair and shake him until his teeth fell out.

* * *

In both books cited above, the matter of trust is an important theme. Characters have to decide who they can trust, and the reader has to decide who’s telling the truth. My job is to tilt the playing field without the reader noticing.

So TKZers: How do you handle issues of believability and trust in your books? Do you incorporate an unreliable narrator? Do you try to mislead your readers?

* * *

GET IN, SIT DOWN, BUCKLE UP, AND HANG ON!

Come along for the ride as private pilot Cassie Deakin lands in the middle of an unwanted adventure and discovers her beloved Uncle Charlie has been attacked and seriously injured by thieves.

But Cassie has a problem. She doesn’t know who she can trust. Still, she reluctantly agrees to team up with Deputy Frank White, a man she definitely does not trust, to solve the mystery behind the attack on her uncle.

But as Cassie and Frank peel back the layers of one mystery, they uncover a deeper and more sinister crime: the murder of an eight-year-old girl decades earlier. Armed with only a single, cryptic clue to the death of young Lacey Alderson, Cassie makes a crucial discovery that lands her in the crosshairs of a murderer.

Lacey’s Star is now available for pre-order for $1.99. Click here.

 

Remember to Breathe

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I wrote this post four years ago, but the subject is important enough to redux. Plus, I needed the reminder. Maybe you do, too.

When chaos starts shaking the to-do list in my face, I close my eyes, lean back, and breathe… It’s amazing what a few deep breaths can do. There’s a running joke in my family that I’m so chill, I’m practically a corpse. It’s true! My blood pressure rarely, if ever, rises above 110/60, even under stressful conditions. And you know why? Because I take advantage of the most powerful and the most basic gift we have — the ability to breathe.

It may not sound like much of a superpower, but controlled breathing improves overall health. Controlled breaths can calm the brain, regulate blood pressure, improve memory, feed the emotional region of the brain, boost the immune system, and increase energy and metabolism levels.

The Brain’s Breathing Pacemaker

A 2016 study accidentally discovered a neural circuit in the brainstem that plays a pivotal role in the breathing-brain control connection. This circuit is called “the brain’s breathing pacemaker,” because it can be adjusted by alternating breathing rhythm, which influences our emotional state. Slow, controlled breathing decreases activity in the circuit while fast, erratic breathing increases activity. Why this occurs is still largely unknown, but knowing this circuit exists is a huge step closer to figuring it out.

Breathing Decreases Pain 

Specifically, diaphragmatic breathing exercises. Ever watch an infant sleep? Their little tummy expands on the inhale and depletes on the exhale. They’re breathing through their diaphragm. We’re born breathing this way. It’s only as we grow older that we start depending on our lungs to do all the work.

Singers and athletes take advantage of diaphragmatic breathing techniques. Why not writers? If you find yourself hunched over the keyboard for too long, take a few moments to lay flat and concentrate on inflating your belly as you inhale through your nostrils. Then exhale while pulling your belly button toward your core. It takes a little practice to master the technique. Once you do, you can diaphragmatically breathe in any position. The best part is, it works!

Count Breaths for Emotional Well-Being

In 2018, another scientific study found that the mere act of counting breaths influenced “neuronal oscillations throughout the brain” in regions related to emotion. When participants counted correctly, brain activity showed a more organized pattern in the regions related to emotion, memory, and awareness, verse participants who breathed normally (without counting).

Controlled Breathing Boosts Memory

The rhythm of our breathing generates electrical activity in the brain that affects how well we remember. Scientists linked inhaling to a greater recall of fearful faces, but only when the participants breathed through their nose. They were also able to remember certain objects in greater detail while inhaling. Thus, researchers believe nasal inhalation triggers more electrical activity in the amygdala (brain’s emotional center). Inhaling also seems key to greater activity in the hippocampus, “the seat of memory,” according to Forbes.

Relaxation Response

The “Relaxation Response” (RR) is a physiological and psychological state opposite to the fight-or-flight response. RR therapy includes meditation, yoga, and repetitive prayer, and has been practiced for thousands of years. These stress-reducing practices counteract the adverse clinical effect of stress in disorders like hypertension, anxiety, insomnia, and aging.

Yet, research on the underlying molecular mechanisms of why it works remained undetermined until a 2017 study unearthed a fascinating discovery. Both short-term and long-term practitioners of meditation, yoga, and repetitive prayer showed “enhanced expression of genes associated with energy metabolism, mitochondrial function…” and more efficient insulin secretion, which helps with blood sugar management. Relaxation Response also reduces the expression of genes linked to inflammatory responses and stress-related pathways. In simpler terms, controlled breathing helps boost the immune system and improve energy metabolism.

Creativity

This probably goes without saying, but I’m mentioning it anyway. Good brain health increases creativity. Creativity helps inspiration. And inspiration ups the word count.

Shawnee and Mayhem continue to wreak havoc on the Killzme Corporation — the largest animal trafficking ring in the country — by killing one poacher at a time. The stakes grow increasingly higher when the nefarious group retaliates by putting a bounty on their heads.

Meanwhile, the traffickers set their sights on capturing Orca for profit and pleasure.

With a ticking clock and no place left to hide, Shawnee and Mayhem alternate between undercover surveillance and clandestine battles to save their loved ones and the Innocent Ones from Killzme’s evil plans. Skills are tested. Tenuous alliances are formed. Not everyone will make it out alive.

Set in a world of cultural wonder, environmental threats, and looming danger, this heart-stopping eco-thriller will have you glued to the page from the first sentence to the last.

Now available for preorder! Steal it for the special preorder price of 99c.

Name That Car

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What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. –William Shakespeare

* * *

Last week Sue Coletta wrote a post in which James Scott Bell facetiously commented his dream job would be to be a wine critic. That got me thinking about a vocation I’ve always said was my dream job: naming new models of automobiles.

Driving down the street is like sailing through a sea of fantasia. Those little boxes that are designed to carry people from here to there in various states of luxury have names that have nothing to do with their engineering.

Take the Aston Martin Valkyrie for example. If there were a contest of fantastic auto names, this would surely be the winner. According to Merriam-Webster, the meaning of VALKYRIE is “any of the maidens of Odin who choose the heroes to be slain in battle and conduct them to Valhalla.”

I have to say I haven’t seen any Valkyries driving around in my neighborhood, but I’m keeping an eye out just to see which end of this car is the front and which is the rear.

* * *

Many automakers prefer animal names for their cars. Here are a few:

  • Chevrolet Impala
  • Plymouth Barracuda
  • Dodge Viper
  • Mercury Cougar
  • Ford Raptor
  • Ford Bronco
  • Ford Mustang — My husband owned one of these when we were married.
  • The Jaguar — I owned a Jaguar XKE when I was young, single, and foolish. To this day, I’m not sure if I owned the car or the car owned me. It seems like I spent a lot of time taking care of its issues.

 

  • Volkswagon Beetle — A hugely popular car that didn’t follow the ferocious animal paradigm.

 

 

* * *

Weather seems to be big in car names. Consider these

  • Mercury Cyclone
  • GMC Syclone — The misspelling was intentional and used to avoid trademark infringement. But who would buy a misspelled name?
  • GMC Typhoon – GMC apparently likes weather names
  • Oldsmobile Toronado – Toronado is not actually a word, so I assume Oldsmobile was looking for a cool name to conjure up the force of a tornado.

 

  • And then there’s the Renault Wind. I don’t think this one was intended to invoke feelings of a powerful storm:

 

 

* * *

Other notable car names:

  • Jeep Gladiator
  • Dodge Stealth
  • AMC Javelin
  • Triumph Spitfire
  • Acura Legend
  • Nissan Armada (One car is an armada?)
  • Aston Martin Superleggera (And the name doesn’t have anything to do with legroom!)

  • Nissan Maxima – Years ago, my husband and I had to replace an old car, and I had picked out a new Maxima as my car of choice. When I took Frank to the dealership to show him the car, the salesman took great pains and a lot of time to describe all the fantastic features. When the spiel finally concluded, Frank asked about the price. The salesman spouted a big number, then said, “But remember, this is a MAXIMA!” Frank didn’t bat an eyelash, but replied, “Do you have a Minima?”

(In case you’re wondering, we bought that Maxima and kept it for over ten years.)

* * *

Another of the great cars I owned in my life was the Audi A4. Uninspired name. Fabulous car.

* * *

I identify the cars my characters drive. Kathryn in The Watch Mysteries drives an old Maxima. Her boyfriend, Phil, owns a car repair shop and drives an Audi. Cassie Deakin in Lady Pilot-in-Command drives a Mustang. None of the cars in my stories have a personal name, but Cassie’s airplane is named Scout.

* * *

So TKZers: What cars were special to you in your life? Do you identify the cars your characters drive? Do you give them names? If you could give a name to a new model car, what would it be?

* * *

 

Kathryn Frasier prefers running to driving. You can find her training for marathons in The Watch Mysteries. The ebook boxset is on sale for $1.99

 

 

What Does Coffee Taste Like?

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I recently had a reader comment, “I noticed most of your characters are tea drinkers. Is that because you are?”

I said yes. Here’s the expanded answer…

I’m allergic to coffee. So, I have no frame of reference for it. None. I’ve never stepped foot inside Starbucks. Wouldn’t even know what one looked like, never mind the sights and smells inside. When my son and daughter-in-law rattle off half-cap, blah, blah, blah, with a shot of blah, blah, blah, they may as well be speaking a foreign language. They’d gain the same reaction from me—a blank stare, my eyes glazed over.

Now, I’ve never serial killed, either, but neither have my readers (I hope). Coffee is too well-known for me to fake it. And let’s face it, we live in a coffee-rich environment, where it’s one of the most popular products on the market. Even if I researched the subject to death, I’m bound to screw up a minor detail. And nothing tears a reader out of a story faster than a mistake about something they know well. The few times I’ve ever even mentioned coffee, I got in and out in one sentence.

I’m not a wine connoisseur, yet Mayhem is. The difference is, I’ve tasted wine. Many wines. 😉 It’s not a favorite of mine, but at least I have some frame of reference. Mayhem is also well-versed in fine dining, and I’m not. But the average reader won’t spend $500-$1,000 on one meal, either. For those that do, I listen to my editor, who not only knows her wine but has made almost all of the fancy dishes I’ve included in my books. When she says that appetizer doesn’t go well with this meal, I change it. No questions asked.

I love how she handles it, too. The comment will read something like, “Mm-mm, sounds yummy… but you know what works better with that dish? Blah, blah, blah.” Or “Yum, but that dish isn’t typically made with cream. It’s made with blah, blah, blah.” Cracks me up every time!

Know your limits. It’s okay to include a detail you’re unfamiliar with if you’re willing to reach out to consultants to check your scene. If you get it wrong, don’t be too stubborn to fix it. We can’t know everything.

You might be thinking, “Why don’t you ask someone about coffee?” It wouldn’t work. I’d have to follow a coffee drinker around to figure out the tiny details they don’t even consider. Things like:

  • How do you order? In the movies it looks complicated.
  • How does it feel to wait in line for your morning coffee?
  • What if they run out of your favorite? Then what?
  • Does everyone have a backup flavor?
  • What’s the difference between flavor and brew?
  • When is the right time of day to switch from hot to iced?
  • Does iced taste different from hot? How so?
  • What do all those pumps do?
  • What do those cap things mean?
  • Do you get jittery afterward?
  • Do you get tired without it?
  • How many cups is enough? How many is too much?
  • What does it taste like? (Describe coffee to someone with no frame of reference)
  • Is it an addiction or pleasure? Or both?
  • How did you decide on half-caps and pumps? What did that transition look like?
  • Does everyone start out drinking it black?
  • Why is espresso served in a tiny cup?
  • Is espresso different from regular coffee? I know it’s stronger, but why?
  • Is coffee measured by caffeine? Quality of beans?
  • What about cappuccino? How is that different from regular?
  • How do they draw those little hearts on top?
  • Do baristas use special tools? What do those look like? Do they get hot? Cold?
  • Why are coffee shops so popular?
  • Why do people hang out in coffee shops? Is it a social thing?
  • Why do the sound of coffee shops soothe some people?
  • Describe the sound and smells of Starbucks.
  • How long would you wait in line for your favorite coffee?
  • Why can’t you make it at home?
  • How much do the fancy coffees cost per cup?
  • Is iced cheaper than hot? Or vice versa? And why.

I could go on and on. There are too many variables with coffee.

Anyone want to take a crack at any of my questions? Try describing the taste to me.

Lost Words

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By Elaine Viets

I needed everyday phrases for a project partly set in the early 20th century. Old words and phrases are clues to how people thought more than a hundred years ago.  Conversation was more formal and swear words were rare. Here are a few lost words I found:

Tickled pink: My Aunt Tillie, who was as cute as her name, was “tickled pink to attend a party,” or hear about a wedding, a birth, or any other good news.

Puzzle bones and sauerkraut: My grandfather’s favorite meal: pork neck bones with boiled sauerkraut.

You drive like Barney Oldfield: In other words, really fast. More than a hundred years ago, pioneer race car driver Oldfield set a number of speed records, including the world speed record for driving 131.724 mph at Dayton Beach, Florida.

He’s a (real) daisy: A deadly insult men used to insult one another. Calling a man a daisy meant he was anything from a jerk to a prize scumbag – or worse. Women were never daisies, just Daisies.

Mutton dressed as lamb: An older woman dressed like a much younger one. A form of age-shaming.

Elbow grease: What you use when you clean vigorously. As in, “Plain old elbow grease will get rid of that ring around your bathtub.”

Frog strangler: A heavy rain.

Three sheets to the wind: Really drunk. As in, “He came home from the bar three sheets to the wind.”

Wound up like a clock: Overexcited. Before digital clocks and sugar highs, children who were running around inside the house and shrieking were “wound up like a clock.” This usually meant it was naptime.

Grass widow: A divorced woman. Divorced men can be grass widowers, but that phrase didn’t seem to be used as often.

Tinker’s dam: Mom wasn’t big on swearing, so she’d say, “I don’t give a tinker’s dam.” Mom thought she was avoiding the other D-word, but that may not be true. The Phrase Finder says, “There’s some debate over whether this phrase should be ‘tinker’s dam’– a small dam to hold solder, used by tinkers when mending pans, or ‘tinker’s damn’ — a tinker’s curse, considered of little significance because tinkers were reputed to swear habitually.”

      Some experts sided with Mom. They said a tinker’s dam was a socially acceptable way to curse. But others dug out a sentence from John Mactaggart’s The Scottish Gallovidian Encyclopedia, from 1824, which said, “A tinker’s curse she did na care what she did think or say.”

The Phrase Finder says, “In the Grant County Herald, Wisconsin, 1854, we have: ‘There never was a book gotten up by authority and State pay, that was worth a tinker’s cuss.’

“So, we can forget about plumbing,” Phrase Finder concludes. “The earlier phrase simply migrated the short distance from ‘curse’ to ‘damn’ to give us the proper spelling of the phrase – tinker’s damn.”

Damn straight.

Six ax handles wide: Body shaming was big in the old days, too. A hefty woman was described as “six ax handles wide.”

Farting like a brewery horse: A condition presumably caused by the horses’ rich diet. Not sure that this phrase is entirely forgotten. Bud Light made the following commercial, where a girl’s hair is set on fire by a gas-passing sleigh horse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBU-lWs6Cn0

More brass than a government mule: One of my grandmother’s favorite phrases, to describe someone who is outrageously bold. As in, “He had no business being there, but that man has more brass than a government mule. He marched right in.”

         I have no idea where Grandma got that phrase. I’m pretty sure she never listened to the southern rock band, Gov’t Mule. Or heard legendary wrestling commentator Jim Ross say someone was “being beat like a government mule.”

So where does that phrase come from?

Beats me.

Readers, what are your favorite lost words?

 

 

 

What Spelling Bee Taught Me About Writing

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“Handle a book as a bee does a flower, extract its sweetness but do not damage it.” –John Muir

* * *

If you haven’t played the NY Times Spelling Bee game, here’s a brief intro:

The game involves making words out of seven letters. I suppose one reason I’m attracted to it is how the game is presented: Each of the seven letters is inside a hexagon-shaped cell. Six of the cells surround a central one, and it all looks like a honeycomb. Clever, eh?

The idea is to make words (at least four letters in length) using the letters. You can use a letter more than once, but you must use the center letter in every word you make. For example, the word “TAUNT” wouldn’t work in the example above because it doesn’t contain the letter G. “GAUNT” would be a good word.

You get one point for a four-letter word. If the word is longer than four letters, you get a point for each letter in the word. If you use all seven letters in a word, you get the number of points for the word plus another seven. It’s called a pangram. In the example above “UNTAGGED” would be a pangram.

As you rack up points, you move up a scale from Beginner to Genius. If you get to the Genius stage, a screen pops up telling you how wonderful you are. If you continue and get every possible word, you achieve Queen Bee status. (Very hard to do without using hints.)

* * *

My husband and I play this game almost every day while we eat lunch. We figure it takes both our brains to get to Genius. In our experience, we usually move up the scale and get one step short of Genius, but getting that last step is hard. Sometimes we make it and other times we don’t. So why am I telling you all this? What does it have to do with writing?

It’s because of a “boys in the basement” pattern that’s developed.

* * *

If we haven’t reached Genius by the time I finish lunch, I’m ready to move on. I may stay around for a few minutes, but I have other things to do. (My husband, on the other hand, will diligently stare at the letters for much longer, and he sometimes gets us to that last step by himself.)

I leave the table and either clean up a little in the kitchen or retire to my office to invent some new disaster to throw at the characters in my WIP. However, in either case, I’ve put the word game out of my mind, and I’m thinking of the next thing on the schedule.

Lately, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that occurs frequently during these “moving on” sessions: As I’m dealing with another item on my to-do list, a word will pop into my mind. It’s not something I was thinking about or trying to come up with. It just appears.

For example, a while back I had stopped working on the puzzle and was putting dishes in the dishwasher when the word “EJECTABLE” popped into my mind. Now that’s not a word I think of very often. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember ever having heard of it before. I wasn’t even sure it was an actual word. I turned to my husband. “Does ‘ejectable’ work in the puzzle?”

Yep. And it was a pangram.

* * *

The process seems to be that I stare at the letters, make words, and keep trying until I’m convinced I’ve made all the words I can possibly make. I walk away, my brain relaxes, and those little neuron pathways that were blocked by my mental overexertion clear up. Then a word slips through and presents itself in tiny little neon letters.

I’ve noticed the same thing happens when I work on a tough crossword puzzle. I’ll get stuck on a clue and can’t find a solution, so I put the puzzle aside. When I return to it the next day, I immediately think of the word I was looking for. If that had happened once or twice, I wouldn’t be mentioning it now. But it happens often enough that I’m wondering how to consistently apply this to writing.

* * *

Is the same process possible as we pound away at developing our stories? Like so many cells in a honeycomb, the answer we’re looking for may be there, but we can’t seem to dig it out. We have to let it come to us.

So TKZers: Do you play word games? What are your favorites? Have you had a similar experience of ideas popping up only after you start another project? Do you deliberately try to use a shift in focus to get those boys in the basement into the game?

 

Does it Matter When You Release a New Book?

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Strategic timing of a book’s publication date can give it a boost and have a major impact on its long-term success. Commercial publishers and booksellers have known this forever.

*Full disclosure: I wrote this post for Writers Helping Writers, but I thought you could also benefit from my research.

Are certain days, months, or dates better than others?

Well, it depends on the book.

January – March

The first quarter of the year is the perfect time of year for business, self-improvement, health, and writing craft books, as people are eager to stick to their New Year’s resolutions.

Genre fiction also does well in the first quarter. For many of us, the first quarter means terrible weather (I’m in New England). We’re looking for new books to pass the time while stuck indoors. Also, many readers received new tablets, e-readers, or gift cards for gifts. Shiny, new books become irresistible.

Peak reading and buying season are very much tied to the weather. February and March are generally good times to release a novel because the weather’s not great. Snow and ice forces readers to browse the web for their next adventure.

The exception is children’s books. If you’re a children’s book author, wait for the second quarter of the year. Kids received books during the holidays and parents feel they’ve spent enough already. Also, they’re back in school, which leaves less time for pleasure reading.

April – June

The second quarter is another perfect time to release genre fiction, as people are going on vacation and finally getting to that book they’ve been dying to read all year. It makes sense to release a genre novel in the spring, so momentum can carry over into the summer.

What about children’s books? Easter is the second busiest time of year for kids and gifts. Parents are looking for various things to occupy their kids’ time. Books offer a great way to keep children learning and occupied. Activity books for kids also do well during this time.

July – September

In the third quarter, business books and self-help books become popular again. Releasing virtually any book ahead of the holiday season is a smart idea. August isn’t ideal for two reasons. First, readers are often away, and things are quiet. Vacationers have already purchased their beach reads. Second, media outlets are slower to respond in August, if you’d hoped to advertise or score a review.

October – December

October is a terrific month for horror, thrillers, and mysteries—these genres dominate the marketplace, the darker the better. A cozy mystery or HEA romance may not do well in October. Historical fiction, depending on the subject matter, or dark romance might be all right. Really think about your genre and when you tend to buy books. It will help you understand the best time of year to release your book.

If you wait until the latter half of November, you might be too late unless you’re targeting a niche market.

December is the worst month of the year for new books. Even if you’re releasing a Christmas-related title, you’re better off planning for Christmas in July (and use the hashtag!).

If this logic doesn’t make sense to you, consider this: When do stores change their seasonal displays? They don’t wait till December, do they? Nor should we. Even if you write a series with eager fans, try to hold off till after the new year. Your readers are too busy with the bustling holiday season to read and review a new release.

Niche Markets

Whenever possible, try to find a niche for your new book baby. Consider the themes, locations, and plot of your book. Character flaws, race, worldviews, etc. can also fall into niche markets. Is there an element of your book that you can tie to a holiday or commonly known date? Think: Romance novels releasing near Valentine’s Day.

Dig deeper than the holidays. What if the protagonist is a 9/11 survivor? Or the heroine lost her life partner in the bombing? A September release makes sense, right? If your MC is a new bride, release during peak wedding season and show the connection in your marketing.

I found this calendar on Self-Publishing Review to help spark new ideas for you.

Does the Day of the Week Matter?

Big 5 publishers release on Tuesdays. Since major bestsellers are compiled on Tuesdays, some say a Tuesday release gives the title a full week to gain traction before the weekend. Readers and booksellers look forward to Tuesdays because of the hot-off-the-press releases. Why not take advantage of the buzz?

That’s up to you, of course, but let’s look at why the beginning of the week—Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday—tends to work better than the end.

In addition to the Big 5 releasing on Tuesdays, movies come out on DVD on that day as well. So, it’s a well-accepted day to release new material into the hands of eager readers. That said, many indie authors agree that Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday are all beneficial. While Tuesday may be more traditional, we don’t need to stick to tradition, do we?

The beginning of the week works best because of the way Amazon records weekly sales. If you’re shooting for a bestseller category, you’ll want time to garner sales before the weekend.

The same holds true for monthly sales.

Releases in the first two weeks of the month gain better traction than books released during the last two weeks because of how Amazon records sales (I learned this the hard way). Also, readers are more willing to spend money at the beginning of a month. But again, if you’re releasing series novels and your readers are foaming at the mouth, you may want to publish as soon as they’re ready, regardless of the date.

Do you consider the date of book launches? What month/day/date worked well for your books, and why?

Readers, does timing influence when you buy books?

Check out the amazing “Poe Pen” Steve created for monthly giveaways for my newsletter subscribers!

The wood dates back to 1850 (“1850 Antebellum Cherry”) and the rings are burned into the pen by wrapping copper wire halfway around the pen while the pen is turning, creating friction, and thus heat. They represent crow talons (like my imprint name), as if a crow picked up the pen. Love it! The crow “Poe” he branded into the wood.

Gorgeous, right?

Interview with Karen Odden, Historical Mystery Author

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By Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Recently I attended a Zoom workshop by bestselling historical mystery author Karen Odden. The opening slide of her PowerPoint presentation wowed us. It was a striking photo of an old-fashioned steam locomotive that had rammed through a wall on an upper floor of a building and was hanging down to the street below.

Karen Odden, historical mystery author

 

For the next 90 minutes, Karen kept us riveted with tales of actual catastrophes from Victorian England. Those events launched her down the research rabbit hole for her historical mystery series. Every discovery led to new story possibilities.

In addition to sharing her research adventures, Karen incorporated an advanced character-building workshop with fresh ideas I hadn’t run across before.

She kindly agreed to visit TKZ for an interview.

Welcome, Karen!

Debbie Burke: The inspiration process for your historical mystery series is a compelling study in itself. Would you walk us through that, including the turning points in the development? What was the moment of realization when you knew you had a winning concept?

Karen Odden: My fascination with the Victorian era began in grad school at NYU, in the 1990s, with a class called “The Dead Mother and Victorian Novels.” The professor noticed all these orphans running around Victorian novels – Jane Eyre, Pip, Oliver, Daniel Deronda, etc. She suggested the orphan was a trope for a profound historical change in England. Whereas in the 18th century, someone’s fortune and social status was inherited from their parents, in the 19th century, people (largely men) could make their own fortunes, in manufacturing, shipping, or whatever. So the orphan was a marker for how it was newly possible to define one’s self without reference to parents.

I found this way of thinking about literature and history fascinating, and I took more classes on Victorian literature, reading everything from Browning’s poems to Henry Morton Stanley’s African memoirs to Darwin’s scientific papers. I wrote my dissertation on the medical, legal, and popular literature written about Victorian railway disasters and the injuries they caused – with an eye to showing how those texts provided a framework for later theories, including shell shock and PTSD.

After graduating, I taught at UW-Milwaukee and did some free-lance editing. But around 2006, I decided I wanted to try writing a novel. For my topic, I leaned into my dissertation, putting a young woman and her laudanum-addicted mother on a railway train and sending it off the rails in 1874 London.

After many false starts, it was published, and I have remained in 1870s London for all my subsequent books. It’s a world I know, down to the shape of the ship rigging and the smells of tallow and lye, and although I have been told (more than once) that WWII books are an easier sell, I hope my books show the Victorian world in all its messy complexity, with all the possibilities for redemption. 

DB: What is TDEC?

KO: TDEC is The Day Everything Changes. Basically, it’s the time when the main character’s equilibrium is thrown off, and (with few exceptions) it occurs in chapter one. For example, it’s the moment when Magwitch grabs Pip on the marsh, or Scarlett attends the ball that will devastate her as she finds out Ashley is engaged to Melanie. The reason TDEC is important is every character brings their own personal myth – what they have gleaned from their unique past experiences – to page 1, and that personal myth shapes the way they approach, perceive, and make meaning of every important experience that happens from TDEC on.

A funny story – when I was writing the book that became A LADY IN THE SMOKE (2016), TDEC is when Lady Elizabeth and her laudanum-addicted mother are in a railway crash. But I originally had it in chapter 8. (!) The first seven chapters were backstory about why Elizabeth and her mother didn’t get along and historical facts about railways, accidents, Victorian medical men, and so on. My free-lance editor told me I had to cut it. When I winced, she said it was fascinating; however, it needed to be in my head as I was writing, but not on the page, at least not like that. Much of the material in those 7 chapters is feathered in throughout the book, but the train wreck happens in chapter 1, as it should.

DB: One of your themes is PTSD, a psychiatric disorder that can be traced throughout history under different names. Could you talk about how you identified the condition in the past?

KO: One of the starting points for my dissertation was the account of Charles Dickens, who was in the Staplehurst, Kent railway crash in 1865.

Charles Dickens, Getty Images

He climbed out of his overturned carriage, helped his mistress Ellen Ternan and her mother out, and then began ministering to people. The railway company sent an express to bring passengers back to London, and Dickens went home to bed. But the next day he was so shaky he couldn’t sign his name. He developed ringing in his ears, nervous tremors, and terrible nightmares, dying five years to the day afterward.

Some of the medical men at the time called this “railway spine” — the theory being that all the shaking around passengers experienced inside the toppling carriage caused tiny lesions in the spinal matter, which resulted in symptoms across the whole body. Of course, these lesions were a complete fabrication — but under existing medical jurisprudence, people couldn’t obtain financial compensation for injuries that were only “nervous”; they had to be organic — literally, tied to an organ — and the spine counted.

I am persistently curious about what injuries and experiences “count” in our culture — and how they reach the tipping point of being worth discussing, litigating, researching, compensating, and curing. To my mind, the medical profession has failed us at certain times in history; and these failures can be devastating because the disavowal of injury lays on a whole second layer of trauma.

DB: You divide conflict into two categories: intrapersonal and interpersonal. Please explain the difference and how you use them in your fiction.

KO: For me, intrapersonal conflict occurs within a character and is usually the result of a conflict between an MC’s personal myth – the beliefs they have about the world and themselves, derived from past experiences – and their current lived experience. For example, in The Queen’s Gambit, chess prodigy Beth Harmon learned early on, in the orphanage, that mind-numbing drugs are an acceptable way to escape her world; but later, her lived experience shows that she loses chess tournaments when she plays hung over. So she must amend her personal myth, if she wants to achieve her desire of being chess champion. In parenting, sometimes this is called “natural consequences.”

Interpersonal conflict happens when two characters have personal myths that cannot be reconciled. In The Queen’s Gambit, Beth is a distrustful loner who doesn’t like to depend on others; but secondary character Benny Watts finds a sense of self-worth through teaching other people chess and being appreciated for his efforts. At the level of plot, Beth and Benny are in conflict because both want to be chess champions; at the level of character, they are in conflict because Beth’s personal myth includes the belief that gratitude is a sign of weakness, while for Benny other people’s gratitude contributes to his self-worth.

In my Inspector Corravan mysteries, Michael Corravan is a former thief, dock-worker, and bare-knuckles boxer who was orphaned as a youth and earned his place in his adoptive family by saving young Pat Doyle from a vicious beating. So Corravan comes out of Whitechapel scrappy, good with his fists, and with a belief that his value lies, in part, in his ability to rescue others. These are all fine traits for a Yard inspector.

But as his love interest Belinda points out, being a rescuer means Corravan never has to be vulnerable, and being vulnerable would make him a better listener and a better policeman. At first Corravan ridicules the idea, but when he finally allows himself to empathize with a powerless victim, the case breaks open. So there’s a combination of interpersonal and intrapersonal conflict that brings about a change in Corravan. He’s still a rescuer, but he understands the value of abandoning that role on occasion.

DB: Many writers fall into the bottomless well of historical research and can’t climb out to finish their story. How do you decide when you’ve done enough research and are ready to write the book?

Thames Disaster, Getty Images

KO: Often I begin with a single, large nugget of Victorian history – for example, in UNDER A VEILED MOON, it was the Princess Alice steamship disaster of 1878, in which over 550 people drowned in the Thames. But after a few chapters of writing, I wanted to add complexity to what history says was a mere accident, so I read more and discovered that there was no passenger manifest because it was a pleasure steamer, like our hop-on-hop-off buses. No one had any idea who was on the boat!

I also read some articles about anti-Irish discrimination and thought it would be a good element to have the Irish Republican Brotherhood blamed initially, especially as Corrovan is Irish.

What I’ve noticed about myself is that as I reach somewhere around the half-way mark and know how my story is unfolding, I stop directed reading about the topic, but everything I read and hear incidentally becomes fodder. As I was finishing A TRACE OF DECEIT (about the theft and forgery of priceless paintings), I happened to read a New Yorker article that mentioned a piece of little-known English law that added a new, crazy twist. I try to stay flexible; when I find something intriguing that might fit into my book, I give it a try.

To some extent, setting all my books in 1870s London makes it easy. I have a repository of historical information about economics, laws, social mores, buildings, railways, injuries and illnesses, etc. So I don’t have to reinvent the world with each book. In fact, I’ve recycled several secondary characters, most notably Tom Flynn, the newspaperman for the (fictional) London Falcon.

DB: In How to Write a Mystery, Gayle Lynds wrote, “In the end, we novelists use perhaps a tenth of a percent of the research we’ve done for any one book.” What percentage actually makes it into your books? Do you have suggestions of what to do with leftover material?

KO: I would agree with that! Somewhere around 10-20 per cent. The key thing is to have it firmly in my head as I write — the way I know how to use a toaster, for example — so that historical information feathers in organically. I try to avoid info-dumps (unprocessed history plopped in) and what I call shoe-horning. Sometimes I want to stick in some cool historical factoid, and it just doesn’t fit. So I save it for a fun blogpost!

DB: Is there anything else you’d like to talk about that I haven’t asked?

KO: I’d just like to share that I’ve found it vitally important to develop a robust community of practice. Writing is often solitary; but my books are certainly better because of my beta-readers, and my writing life more joyful and productive (and successful) because of the librarians, booksellers, and other writing professionals I have met. No one told me this about being a writer – that I’d find a smart, generous community, which helps immensely as we all navigate the often challenging publishing industry.

~~~

Thank you, Karen, for sharing your fascinating journey with TKZ!

USA Today bestselling author Karen Odden received her PhD in English from NYU, writing her dissertation on Victorian literature, and taught at UW-Milwaukee before writing mysteries set in 1870s London. Her fifth, Under a Veiled Moon (2022), features Michael Corravan, a former thief turned Scotland Yard Inspector; it was nominated for the Agatha, Lefty, and Anthony Awards for Best Historical Mystery. Karen serves on the national board of Sisters in Crime, and she lives in Arizona where she hikes the desert while plotting murder. Find out more about Karen’s books and writing workshops at www.karenodden.com.

FB: @karenodden

twitter: @karen_odden

IG: @karen_m_odden

~~~

TKZers: Do you read and/or write historical fiction? What era interests you the most? What’s your favorite research trick? 

Getting Cozy

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“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.” – Neil Armstrong

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What is a cozy mystery? And how has this popular sub-genre evolved over time? Since fellow TKZ contributor Dale Ivan Smith and I both write cozies, we thought it would be fun to co-write a post on the subject.

WHAT MAKES A MYSTERY “COZY?”

These are the basic “rules” as I understand them:

  1. No explicit violence.
  2. No explicit sexual content.
  3. Usually, no profanity. But if there is any, it’s mild.

Although there are many variations, a cozy mystery often involves a murder that has taken place “off stage” before the story begins. The mystery is usually presented as a puzzle where the reader tries to figure out the solution along with the protagonist.

This quote from an article on novelsuspects.com sums it up nicely:

“Overall, cozy mysteries are the perfect mix of smart, thoughtful stories that challenge you to think as you read while also being a relaxing escape from everyday life.“

HISTORY

Mysteries have been around for a long time. The first mystery novel is usually identified as The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, published in 1859. But Agatha Christie changed the landscape in 20th century.

According to an article on the website of the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library in Mansfield, Ohio:

“Agatha Christie is usually credited with being the (unintentional) mother of the cozy mystery genre with her Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series. The term “cozy” was first coined in the late 20th century when various writers produced work in an attempt to re-create the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.”

* * *

Since its inception, the cozy mystery genre has evolved, and a few new trends have grown up around it. For example, many of today’s cozies have paranormal elements you wouldn’t have found in the mid-20th century. It also isn’t unusual for stories to center around food or pets.

Book covers have also morphed to reflect a more playful approach, and many titles have become something of a pun contest. To the best of my knowledge, the images shown below were the first edition covers. Consider how things have changed from the 20th century …

… to the 21st century:

* * *

Over to Dale to give us background on the cozy narrative:

We’re so often advised to begin with action. However, cozies tend to call for the grounding of the reader in the character’s background and setting right at the start, to help give that cozy feel and connect the reader with our heroine. The heroine is often introduced in a summary of who-the-character is fashion, rather than an in-media-res opening that other mysteries might.

Often we also learn how she arrived at this point in her life—perhaps she just went through a divorce, or lost a job, and moved to the small community, possibly inheriting a business and meeting a character who will be significant in their life. If they are already established, like in Jenn McKinlay’s Books Can Be Deceiving, the first of her Library Lovers series which opens with the Thursday “Crafternoon” group meeting at the library.

The murder can occur in the opening, but often occurs later, and serves as the gateway to Act II. While the opening of a cozy often establishes the world before the murder, the discovery of a body puts the sleuth on a quest to restore order to her little world. The heroine will follow an “arc of suspicion” where she uncovers secrets that may lead to the actual crime, or may be a red herring, and she will be looking for the motive.

The police are on the wrong trail when it comes to finding the murderer, so it is up to the amateur sleuth to find the true culprit. Often a friend, relative or other innocent is arrested. A police arrest of an innocent may occur at the midpoint, and/or the person the sleuth believed was the murderer themselves is killed, or something else that sends our heroine’s investigation on a new course.

She sifts through competing ideas (theories) about what was behind the murder, until she finds a crucial clue or insight which leads her to the revelation and confrontation with the killer. Just before this climax of the book, circumstances and/or choices she makes isolate her from her friends and allies.

As the investigation continues, it is counterbalanced with a cozy subplot, such a baking competition, parade, event at the library etc. which the main character is involved with, until the isolating nature of the investigation pushes her away from that cozy storyline.

There is often also a slow-burn romance. In H.Y. Hanna’s English Cottage Garden series Poppy has a slow-burn mutual attraction, alternating with frustration, for her neighbor, a crime writer, who also helps her at times in solving the mystery. Each book features a moment where the two draw together in attraction other, but another moment or moments were they are pushed apart by a disagreement or other conflict.

Humor in a cozy mystery serves to lighten the mood and up the fun quotient of the story, often surprising the reader right after a plot turn or a revelation, though things get serious as we head into Act III and the confrontation with the murderer. But often comedy returns at the end, when we have a scene or even a short sequence of scenes validating the restoration of order to the community.

So, TKZers: Do you read cozy mysteries? Tell us about your favorite books and authors.

 

 

Writers, have you fired “Chekhov’s Gun”?

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I’ve got a special treat for you today. My dear friend Anne R. Allen is here! If you’re not following her blog, you should remedy that immediately. It’s a must-read for all writers.

Linked to Amazon

So okay, what the heck is “Chekhov’s gun?”

It’s a reference to advice the great Russian playwright and short story writer, Anton Chekhov, (1860-1904) gave young writers:

“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”

In other words, he says we shouldn’t clutter the story with things that have no relevance. If chapter one says your heroine won a bunch of trophies for javelin throwing, which she displays prominently on the wall alongside a javelin once thrown by Uwe Hohn, somebody had better darn well throw a javelin before the story is done.

Setting Details vs. Chekhov’s Gun

Yeah, but what if that javelin is there to show us what her apartment looks like? It’s good to show her décor, because it gives an insight into her character, right?

It depends. Yes, it’s good to use details to set tone and give depth to our characters.

But what’s all important is how you stress those details when you first present them. If there’s a whole page about those javelin throwing trophies, and the characters have a conversation about whether anyone will ever break Uwe Hohn’s throw record of 104.80 meters, you gotta toss some javelins. But if there’s just a cursory mention, “her apartment walls were decorated with an odd assortment of personal trophies and long spears,” then you can leave them on the wall.

In other words, not every lampshade the author mentions has to show up two chapters later on the head of a drunken ex-boyfriend, but you need to be careful how much emphasis you put on that lampshade.

What, No Red Herrings?

Wait just a goldern minute, sez you. I write mysteries! Mysteries need to have irrelevant clues and red herrings. Otherwise the story will be over before chapter seven.

This is true. But mystery writers need to manage their red herrings. If the deceased met his demise via long pointy spear-thing, probably thrown from a considerable distance, then your sleuth is going to look like a very viable suspect to the local constabulary.

But of course she didn’t do it because she’s our hero, so the javelin on the wall and the trophies are red herrings.

But they still need to be “fired.” Maybe not like Chekhov’s gun, but they need to come back into the story and be reckoned with. Like maybe the real killer visited her apartment earlier when delivering pizza, then broke in to “borrow” the Hwe Hohn javelin, but he couldn’t get it into his Kia, so in the end he used a shorter, more modern javelin…

Chekhov’s Gun and Subplots

I’ve been running into this problem in a lot of fiction lately: I find myself flipping through whole chapters that have nothing to do with the main story. That’s because the subplot isn’t hooked in with the main plot. It’s just hanging there, not furthering the action.

The subplot becomes the unfired Chekhov’s gun.

For instance, one mystery had the protagonist go through endless chapters of police academy training after the discovery of the body. The mysterious murder wasn’t even mentioned for a good six chapters. I kept trying to figure out how her crush on a fellow aspiring policeperson was going to solve the mystery.

I finally realized it wasn’t. None of the romance stuff had to do with the mystery. When I finally flipped through to a place where the main plot resumed, the hot fellow student didn’t even make an appearance. He’d already gone off with a hotter fellow recruit.

It’s fine to have a romance subplot in a mystery — in fact, that’s my favorite kind. But the romance has to take place while some mystery-solving is going on.

But if that romance doesn’t trigger a new plot twist or reveal a clue, then it’s an unfired gun on the wall. It’s just hanging there, annoying your reader, who expects it to be relevant.

Naming a Character Creates a Chekhov’s Gun.

Another “unfired Chekhov’s gun” situation often comes up with the introduction of minor characters and, um, “spear-carriers.”

You don’t want to introduce the pizza delivery guy by telling us how he got the nickname “Spear” followed by two paragraphs about his javelin-throwing expertise — unless he’s going to reappear later in the story. And he’d better be doing something more javelin-related than delivering another pie with extra pepperoni.

This is a common problem with newbie fiction. In creative writing courses we’re taught to make every character vivid and alive. So every time you introduce a new character, no matter how minor, you want to make them memorable. You want to give them names and create great backstories for them.

Don’t give into the urge, no matter what the creative writing teacher in your head is saying.

If the character is not going to reappear, or be involved with the plot or subplot, don’t give him a name. Just call him “the pizza guy” or “the Uber driver” or “the barista.”

A named character becomes a Chekhov’s gun. The reader will expect that character to come back and do something related to the plot.

Beware Research-itis

A lot of unfired guns come from what I call research-itis. That’s when the author did a heckuva lot of research and goldernit, they’re going to tell you every single fact they dug up.

You’ll get three chapters on the historical significance of the javelin in Olympic competitions, going back to ancient Greece. And the popularity of depictions of javelin throwers in Hellenistic art. And how both Zeus and Poseidon are depicted throwing their thunderbolts and tridents like javelins…

None of which has anything to do with the dead guy in the back yard with the big pointy spear in his back.

If the reader doesn’t need to know it to solve the mystery and it’s not a red herring, keep it to yourself.

Although a lot of that research will come in very handy for blogposts and newsletters when you’re marketing the book, so don’t delete any of those research notes!

Beta Readers and Editors Can Take Chekhov’s Gun Off Your Wall

It’s tough to weed out all those unfired guns in your own work.

You’re sure you absolutely need to tell us that our heroine won those trophies when she was on her college javelin team where her nemesis, Rosalie Rich, once stole her glasses before a meet…and she found out she could throw better without them and didn’t need glasses after all, which was great because her glasses made her look dorky and after she stopped wearing them, Lance Spears noticed her for the first time. He turned out to be a creep, but…

Your editor will disagree. And eventually you will thank her for it.

So will your readers.

Have you ever left a Chekhov’s gun on the wall? Are you annoyed when you find them in published books? What’s the worst Chekhov’s gun mistake you’ve found in fiction? 

Anne R. Allen is a popular blogger and the author of the bestselling Camilla Randall Mysteries as well as the Boomer Women Trilogy and the anthology Why Grandma Bought that Car (Kotu Beach Press.) Her most recent mystery is Catfishing in America (Thalia Press) a comic look at romance scams. Her mystery The Gatsby Game is being published in French at the end of this month. Anne’s nonfiction guide, The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors, is an Amazon #1 bestseller that was named one of the 101 Best Blogging Books of All Time by Book Authority.  She’s also the co-author, with Catherine Ryan Hyde, of the writer’s guide How to Be a Writer in the E-Age. She blogs with NYT million-copy seller, Ruth Harris, at “Anne R. Allen’s Blog…with Ruth Harris.” You can find them at annerallen.com.

Don’t miss Anne’s new release! CATFISHING IN AMERICA is a mashup of mystery, romcom, and satire.