Series Finales: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

by Michelle Gagnon

Let’s talk about endings today. I’ve been in a bit of a fugue state since LOST concluded on Sunday night. Endings tend to be bittersweet, and this one got me mulling over the final episodes of some of my other all-time favorite shows. Fans of LOST, THE SHIELD, THE WIRE, LAW & ORDER, SEINFELD, THE SOPRANOS, and SIX FEET UNDER, here’s your warning: if you haven’t seen the final episode of these series yet, there are spoilers ahead…

I became hooked on LOST early on. Over the past six seasons it was sometimes fantastic, occasionally maddening, and always puzzling. At the moment, how to draw something to a close is a particularly relevant subject for me, since I recently finished the fourth book in my series. All of those books have primarily focused on the arc of two characters, and with this final book, that arc needed to draw to a close. Mind you, I’m not done with the series, but the focal point will shift with the next book. Because of that, I really wanted to wrap things up in a way that was ultimately satisfying (although not necessarily “happy”). It’s a challenge that most series face. Some rise to the occasion, others fall flat.

So here’s my rundown of the best and worst television series finales. Feel free to chime in on what you thought of each:

  • LOST: To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations for this finale. I knew going in that there were so many dangling threads, there was simply no way the writers would be able to tie them all up. Yet I was pleasantly surprised. What I think they gave us, in the end, was viscerally satisfying. The characters that we’ve grown to care about all completed their journey, there were some nice tie-ins to incidents going all the way back to the pilot. That initial episode concluded with Jack saying, “If we can’t live together, we’ll die alone.” As it turned out, living together meant that when they did die, they weren’t alone. The finale didn’t answer every lingering question (what was the island after all? Just a giant MacGuffin?) but it managed to deliver what the show has alwayLost.jpgs provided in its best moments. Since the debut it was an emotional ride, focused on the characters and the journey they’ve undertaken together. It provided enough answers to give some satisfaction, while still leaving quite a bit open to debate. I suspect that if the writers had known from the outset how many episodes total they’d have to play with, it would have been a much tighter story arc. But alas, that’s not how the world of TV works. Going in, they never could have guessed what a hit the show would become, and how many slavering fans would dissect every scene. That being said, I think they did a great job. In the end the series shone a light on the true meaning of love and friendship, redemption, and mortality. Some people complained that it was mawkish and maudlin. For me, the sentimentality worked. After all, I’d spent years with these characters. I cared about what happened to them. I wanted things to work out for them- and based on my interpretation of the finale, it did.

  • THE WIRE: Still, hands down, the best show ever produced for television. And the conclusion delivered. As always with this show, things weren’t tied up with a neat bow, because real life isn’t like that. But we saw the torch being passed to a younger generation, for better and for worse. We saw redemption for McNulty, justice for Daniels, and Bubs getting a new lease on life. This was probably my favorite series finale ever. Well done across the board.

  • THE SHIELD: Tough one here. I loved the show from the outset for the moral gray area that all of the characters occupied. Like the WIRE, it felt more real than the vast majority of police dramas. It was never as simple as the good guys vs. the bad guys, the-shield.jpg because every character possessed the capacity for both good and evil acts (even Dutch: remember him strangling that cat?) And the conclusion here was grim. In the end, Vic Mackey ended up losing his family and friends, stuck in a day job that was for him a living hell, with all of his crimes brought to light. Things didn’t really end well for most of the characters we cared about: they were either dead, in jail, or alone and isolated. It was the furthest thing from a happy ending, yet it was satisfying, because there was a sense that justice had been done, and everyone ended up paying the price for it.

  • SIX FEET UNDER: This finale if right up there for me. The final few minutes in particular, when Claire was driving away from her family to start a new life, interspersed with flash forwards that tied in so nicely to the opening of every episode, were sheer genius. Viewers witnessed the death of every major character in a sort of time-lapse montage video: some demises were funny, others tragic or mundane. Thanks to those snapshots of their future lives, it was probably the most satisfying series ending I’ve ever seen.

  • LAW & ORDER: I just watched this last night. I’m not sure if the writers were aware that this particular episode would mark the end of the second longest-running drama on television. Either way, I like that they didn’t over do it. Most of the episode was just like any other installment, although this time (interestingly enough) there was no actual homicide (and if you’re going to get picky, no real reason for Lupo and Bernard to be investigating a potential terrorist threat. But I digress). The final scene with the lieutenant was heartwarming, although the great strength of the show was that viewers were left largely unaware of the personal lives of the characters. You were treated to tantalizing tidbits here and there, but the focus always remained firmly on their work lives (this is why they were able to keep going for twenty years despite a slew of cast changes, in my opinion).

Now, on to some finales that disappointed.

  • I realize that this is probably going to spark some debate, but I was one of the people who really loathed THE SOPRANOS finale. There were many far more interesting things they could have done, as opposed to that surreal, disjointed final scene in the diner (Speaking of which, if you missed the LOST alternate endings odeadwood.jpgn Jimmy Kimmel, see them here. Brilliant). The writers could have gone back to the pilot, bringing back those damn ducks. They could have had that Russian finally wander back out of the woods (speaking of threads that were never tied up). While I appreciated that they ended with the family, which is largely what the show was about, I still felt let down.
  • SEINFELD: Terrible. Just awful. Having the characters end up in jail was absurd, and not in the trademark manner of the rest of the show. It felt forced, nasty, and just plain silly. Worse yet, there was nothing funny about it- which is downright criminal for the conclusion of one of the all-time funniest sitcoms. I have never been more disappointed by the end of a series.

  • DEADWOOD: This show ended prematurely, and on a flat note thanks to some serious missteps by HBO. It’s a shame that they’ll probably never be able to get everyone together again for that hinted-at film that was supposed to make up for it. What started with a roar ended with a whimper.

So I’d love to hear what you think of these, and other shows I might have missed. Who did it well? Which finales bombed?

    The Future is Now

    by Michelle Gagnon

    I heard an interesting term the other day. A friend was discussing the book she’s reading for her book club, and she referred to it as a “pBook.”
    I was initially mystified.
    Turns out a “pBook,” as she explained, is a book in print form. Or, as I like to refer to it, a book.

    But is this the wave of the future? As eBooks become more prevalent, will the term “pBook” enter our lexicon?

    Recently Andrew Gross announced that for his latest release, RECKLESS, a full 35% of his sales were digital downloads. I noticed that he made the long list for New York Times bestsellers, and it made me wonder. Do digital sales count toward the list now? I’d love an answer if anyone knows.

    Regardless, 35% is simply remarkable, considering what a leap that likely is from previous years. I know that in the past, my books averaged between 5-10%. I’m currently awaiting my most recent royalty statement, and I wonder what kind of increase I’ll see for my titles.

    The iPad: Is it really all that?

    by Michelle Gagnon

    ibooks_hero_20100403.jpgI’ll start by saying that I don’t completely understand the Apple mystique, in fact I’m a little perplexed by their cult following. I appreciate my iPod and iPhone as much as the next person (although AT&T easily takes the prize for the worst network). But in my experience, some of the Apple products leave much to be desired. My husband finally convinced me to switch from a PC to a Mac last year–which has absolutely been a mixed bag. Some of the programs, like iPhoto and Scrivener, I love. Yet I can’t fathom why there isn’t a blogging program for Macs that holds a candle to Live Writer. On the plus side: fewer viruses and crashes. But I sorely miss Microsoft Outlook.

    So with all the hoopla surrounding the release of the iPad, I was skeptical. It looked big, for one thing. What I like about the Kindle and the Sony Reader is that they manage to mimic the experience of reading a book. You open something, hold it in both hands. In comparison the iPad appears unwieldy, roughly the size of a dinner plate. I couldn’t imagine holding this big flat thing and reading off it.

    But then a friend brought one over for me to test drive. Wow. It has all the features of the Kindle, Nook, and Sony Reader. It’s light and comfortable to hold. The pages actually appear to turn, which is a neat trick. And that’s just the beginning.

    There’s been a lot of chatter about eBooks and what they mean for the industry. Most of the debate has centered around issues like the recent Amazon/Macmillan pricing standoff, and what kind of ebook rights authors should be getting. There are those who claim that within a decade print books will be a rarity, limited editions published exclusively for collectors. Others say that’s an exaggeration, books are here to stay.

    What’s been lost in the debate (because until now it was largely irrelevant) was how books and the entire reading experience could change. The Kindle and the Sony Reader were great, but they basically just enabled a reader to experience a book the same way they always had. The main benefit was that the font size could be adjusted, and the reader could hold a full library. Neither offered true interactivity, a bridge between books and other media.

    That bridge is exactly what the iPad provides.

    Check out this video of the iPad version of Alice in Wonderland (but be forewarned, it’s a little frenetic. I’d advise against clicking on the link if you’re prone to seizures).

    Wow. Seeing that, I finally grasped the iPad’s potential. For one thing, it could revolutionize children’s books (although I’m hard pressed to name a parent who would hand a relatively fragile $500 device over to their child). And for graphic novels, this is a complete game changer. aliceforipad041610b.jpg

    On my book tour for THE GATEKEEPER, I assembled a PowerPoint display of real-life settings from the book and other materials to provide a frame of reference for readers. Just imagine if that information could actually be incorporated into the text itself.

    It reminded me of reading The Da Vinci Code while vacationing in Costa Rica. I found it maddening that when so much of the plot was focused on specific paintings and statues, there were no images included in the text. With the iPad, a book could include those, plus links to video interviews with the author, related sources- really, the sky is the limit.

    I’ll save a discussion of other iPad features for another day, including apps (movies look amazing on it, though, in case you’re curious). But I have to say, I’m a convert. I’ll probably wait for the inevitable price drop. When that comes, (and I suspect we’ll be seeing a huge decline in prices for eReaders across the board soon), Apple could corner the publishing market the same way that they basically appropriated the music industry. And along the way, they might end up changing what constitutes a book.


    Lost in Translation

    by Michelle Gagnon

    I’ve been fortunate enough to have my books translated into five languages. The other night my sister asked if I had read the French editions of any them yet. I shuddered at the very thought.

    Let me explain why. I recently gave my Norwegian friend an edition of THE TUNNELS in her native tongue. She started reading the bio–the BIO, mind you–and burst out laughing. When I asked why, she translated it for me. Turns out that the Norwegian editors didn’t use my official book bio, they lifted the one off my website, which is fairly tongue-in-cheek. And a lot of that humor doesn’t translate.

    Things like, “To the delight of her parents, she gave up all these occupations for an infinitely more stable and lucrative career as a crime fiction writer,” became: “Her parents were beside themselves with enthusiasm at her new career since she was finally making a fortune.”

    And:

    “In her spare time she runs errands and indulges a weakness for stale cinema popcorn and Hollywood blockbusters,” turned into, “whenever she gets the chance she races off to the cinema to the neglect of everything else.”

    Not good. It reminds me of discussing Kathleen Turner’s voice with a French friend, who said, “What are you talking about? She sounds just like everyone else.” Turns out only a handful of actors and actresses dub the movies into French, so George Clooney, Tom Cruise, and Steve Buscemi comes across as having the exact same voice.

    As writers, all we can do is hope that our translators do us justice. That being said, on the off chance that mine didn’t, I don’t want to know about it.

    Which brings us to today’s anonymous first page submission.The author originally wrote THE UNTOUCHABLE in Portuguese, but translated the page for us. I’ve placed her original below, followed by an edited version for clarity.

    The Untouchable

    Police know a lot of things. But between knowing, proving and making it official, there is a huge distance.

    That declaration had been credited to José Carlos Lino, one of the commissaries at the 89º district in São Paulo. It was among the notes of Jair Silvestre, a journalist murdered with five shots to the chest almost two years ago. And at the top of the notebook page, in a very round handwriting: THE UNTOUCHABLE.

    The crime was never solved.

    I don’t know why I had remembered that. An agent from another team came to talk about the frustration his colleagues felt when they found out this guy they had taken to justice was declared innocent on court. Common thing.

    Then I thought it was quite an awry declaration, that from the 89º district commissary. We knew well that not even proving was enough. I stopped believing in justice after the first two months studying at law school. I still got it wrong trying to figure out in what I should believe.

    It dawned.

    We arrived at the crime scene around five-thirty in the morning. It was a quiet street. A few commercial buildings and houses. All the shops were closed. A man and a woman that had been walking their dogs were standing at the corner. A biker stopped across the street to watch what was going on. The police cars parked alerted those that are used to wake up early.

    Commissary Daniel went first. He made his way through the military police. He greeted the district commissary and asked for the scientific police. The man pointed ahead and we walked past the entrance to a construction site. They were preparing the foundations of a building. I noticed a chain thrown on the ground in the inside. A broken padlock.

    The terrain was an L and the neighbor house still covered the crime. I recognized on of the 15º district detectives ahead, and he was looking up as if waiting for rain to fall. The sky was clear. It had rained overnight and there was a cold wind blowing.

    I could hear the sound of our footsteps on the dirt ground. A hard ground. A few superficial truck tire marks. I felt an uneasiness in my stomach, and remembered I hadn’t eaten for over six hours. I stopped by the commissary’s side and followed everyone else’s eyes. Because it was already impossible to pay attention to anything other than the body in a large hole they had started digging.

    Daniel put a hand to his mouth and my partner looked away.

    “Holy shit.”

    One of the CSI stopped his movement to look at Daniel and offer an uncertain smile. It was certainly the most appropriate at that situation. I kept staring. This morbid curiosity that we build after all these years facing two or three dead a week. Least. But the scene was indeed a bit worse then I was used to. It was a scene to remind us that we never should have gotten used to any of that.

    One couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The body was deformed. The head a shapeless mass of blood, brain and hair. His guts were torn and formed an impossible angle with the rest of the thorax. I could see the jeans and a shirt that once probably had been of a light color. It was covered with blood, mixed with pieces of his bowels and dirt. He was barefoot, without socks. It was the only thing that still reminded a human being. Very white feet.

    Had it been a city in the countryside, I would be sure it had been an attack by a wild animal. But it was São Paulo, in the Itaim Bibi neighborhood, about five blocks from the police district.

    My empty stomach rolled. I looked at one of the CSIs standing by the district detective. She was staring at the victim. The expression was disgust, sleepiness and resignation. It was too early and she had to touch that rotten body. The coroner was talking to another CSI. No one seemed very happy.

    The Untouchable

    Police know a lot of things. But there’s a huge gap between knowing something and officially proving it.

    That declaration by José Carlos Lino, one of the commissaries from the 89º district in São Paulo, was found among the notes of a journalist murdered almost two years ago. Jair Silvestre had taken five shots to the chest. At the top of his notebook page in very round handwriting: THE UNTOUCHABLE.

    The crime was never solved.

    I don’t know why I remembered that. An agent from another team expressed the frustration his colleagues felt when they found out a guy they knew was responsible was declared innocent on court. It happens all the time.

    I thought Lino’s declaration was odd. We all knew that sometimes even proving a thing was not enough. After two months of law school, I stopped believing in justice. I’m still trying to figure out what to believe in.

    We arrived at the crime scene around five-thirty in the morning. Dawn was breaking. It was a quiet street with a mix of commercial buildings and houses. All the shops were closed. The parked police cars alerted the early risers. A man and woman stood at the corner with their dogs, and a biker stopped across the street to watch what was going on.

    Commissary Daniel went first, making his way through the military police. He greeted the district commissary and asked for the scientific police. The man pointed, and we walked through the entrance on to a construction site where they were laying the foundations of a building. On the ground inside, a chain lay beside a broken padlock.

    The terrain was an L and the neighbor house still covered the crime (?). I recognized one of the 15º district detectives, he was looking up at the sky as if waiting for rain to fall. A cold wind was blowing.

    The sound of our footsteps on the hard dirt. We were careful to avoid a few superficial truck tire marks. I felt queasy, and realized that I hadn’t eaten in over six hours. I stopped by the commissary’s side and followed everyone’s eyes. It was impossible to pay attention to anything other than the body in the large hole.

    Daniel put a hand to his mouth and my partner looked away.

    “Holy shit.”

    One of the CSI techs looked at Daniel and offered an uncertain smile (?). I kept staring. After all these years of facing at least two or three bodies a week, we tended to be inured. But this scene was much worse than what I was used to. It was bad enough to remind us that we should never have gotten used to any of it.

    The body was so deformed it was impossible to determine gender. The head was a shapeless mass of blood, brain and hair. The guts were torn and formed an impossible angle with the rest of the thorax. I could see jeans and a shirt that had probably once been white. It was covered with blood, mixed with pieces of bowels and dirt. The corpse was barefoot. Those pale feet were the only thing that still called to mind a human being.

    Had it been found in the countryside, I would have categorized it as an attack by a wild animal. But this was São Paulo, in the Itaim Bibi neighborhood, about five blocks from the police district.

    My stomach rolled. The CSI tech standing by the district detective was staring at the victim with an expression of disgust, sleepiness and resignation. It was too early and she had to touch that rotten body. The coroner was talking to another CSI. No one seemed very happy.

    Notes:

    I’m intrigued by this storyline. I think the bones of an interesting character and plotline are here in spades. I like some of the descriptive passages quite a bit.

    Still, there were a lot of things I found confusing. Some of that was due to the translation, I suspect, but some might be endemic to the story itself. Firstly, why start off with the quote? It’s not a particularly powerful one (at least in the English translation). I also was confused as to how the murder of the journalist played into things- does it have anything to do with the body we encounter further down the page? Does it enter the story later, and if so, why include it at the outset? At this point, I know that the main character is a lawyer, but why is she present at the scene? She also appears to be a cop, or at least sees a lot of corpses in her line of work.

    Introducing a character is a tricky thing. You want to provide enough information to make them intriguing and to give a reader something to latch on to, without falling into the “information dump” trap. Here, the author has made an interesting choice. I’m told that the main character doesn’t know what to believe in before I find out anything concrete about her. This could work, but I’d need more to be sold on her first.

    Dialogue could be used to address some of these issues. For example, instead of having everyone standing around looking at each other, let them discuss what they’re seeing.

    “Nasty one,” said Daniel.

    I nodded but didn’t respond. The only thing identifying the bloodied mass before me as human was the pair of pale feet, oddly untouched by the carnage.

    The CSI tech wrinkled her nose, taking it in. “Why do the bad ones always come in when I’ve been up all night?”

    What do the rest of you think of THE UNTOUCHABLE?








    Pardon my french

    by Michelle Gagnon

    During our first page critiques, we discussed the danger of incorporating strong language on page 1 of your manuscript. Encountering an f-bomb at the outset of a novel can turn off a lot of readers, so editors are understandably leery of acquiring works with it.

    However, I think that strong language does have a place in novels- at least in mine. I frequently get emails or reviews from people who say things like, “I loved this book, but wish that someone had gone through and crossed out all the f-bombs for me.” Equally perplexing to me are the people who claim that they “didn’t mind the f-bombs, but at times Gagnon takes the name of the Lord in vain.”

    Here’s the thing: I’m not the one doing it. My characters are, and they’re doing it because in real life, that’s how people in their particular professions and circumstances talk.

    I understand that we don’t all approve of strong language- I certainly don’t use it frequently. But then, I’m rarely chasing serial killers, or trying to stop a domestic terror group from destroying Phoenix. When my characters are staring at the timer on a bomb, I don’t think “gosh” is going to be the first word to leave their lips. I try to be judicious with the swearing, but it’s most important to me to remain true to the characters spouting it. From my admittedly somewhat limited exposure to them, gang members and ex-con skinheads tend to have foul mouths. So do many law enforcement officers, especially when they’re talking to each other. I strive for accuracy in every other facet of my books. So why should I be expected to compromise on this one?

    Maybe I’ve simply become inured. The places I’ve lived (including San Francisco), it’s rare to get through the day without hearing random swearing (and now that people are constantly talking loudly into their cell phones, they really seem to have lost their filter). I’ll join in on any bemoaning of what that means for us as a society. But since that experience informs my work, I can’t pretend it’s not the current reality, allowing my characters to speak as though they just stumbled off the Leave it to Beaver set.

    I was raised a Unitarian, which is a religion that promotes tolerance of all beliefs. So I empathize with people who don’t condone taking the name of the Lord in vain. And yet, I can attest that my characters harken from a wide range of religious beliefs. Because of that, chances are they’re going to use such terms from time to time. And in the interest of realistic dialogue, I believe in letting them. If I were writing Inspirational thrillers, it would be an entirely different story. But I’m not.

    I’m curious to hear what people think about this. Does strong language have a place in thrillers? Does it bother you, or not?

    Can you really be desensitized to violence?

    by Michelle Gagnon

    During the Left Coast Crime Conference a few weeks ago, I attended, “Forensic Science Day.” We were images-5.jpgpromised that the “California Forensic Science Institute (CFSI) and the Crime Lab Project (CLP) would provide expert speakers and programming.”

    And let me tell you, they weren’t kidding.

    The eight hour event included a tour of the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center on the CSU Los Angeles campus, a lab which serves the LAPD and the LA Sheriff’s Department.

    It kicked off with Don Johnson (not the one of Miami Vice fame-although he was wearing a pastel shirt) from the school of Criminal Justice and Criminalistics walking us through a quadruple homicide as it was initially encountered by the CSI team. Which meant dozens of photos of the victims as they were found, in addition to the trail of carnage through their house which gave you an extremely clear picture of the attack and how it proceeded. It wasn’t pleasant.

    Now, I watch a lot of procedural shows on television-not CSI, because frankly I think it’s just silly. But the Law and Order franchise, The Closer, Southland, and in the past The Wire and The Shield. I’m no stranger to graphic depictions of violence. And what we were seeing was still photos, not video. images-4.jpg

    Yet what really struck me was how when it comes down to it, there is a difference between a fictionalized vs. a real crime scene. I had expected to be somewhat desensitized, but somehow knowing that what we were seeing had really happened, that these were real victims who weren’t going to get up and walk away, made it almost too much to stomach. It didn’t help that two of the victims were an elderly disabled woman and a four year-old girl. During their close-ups, I almost had to leave the room.

    images-3.jpgIn the course of researching serial killers a few years ago, I experienced something similar. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve sat through “Silence of the Lambs,” or movies of that ilk. When I read about some of the things that serial killers had actually done to their victims, it was a gut punch. Some of the stories were so horrible it took weeks to get them out of my head. There were things I encountered that honestly I wish I’d never seen- and those of you who have read my books know that I don’t shy away from violent crime. So it surprised me to have such a strong reaction.

    Since Columbine there’s been a lot of discussion regarding whether the violence on TV, in movies, and in video games has desensitized kids to a point where they’re more liable to commit violence in real life. I himages-2.jpgave to wonder, based on my reaction to that quadruple homicide scene. Is it true that for some people, the line between truth and fiction has become blurred? Or would a kid hooked on Grand Theft Auto have the same reaction I did to images from a real crime scene? I suspect that for the most part, they would. What do you think?

    On a side note, the rest of the day was very cool. A trace evidence specialist led us through the Phil images-1.jpg Spector case (which, oddly enough, wasn’t nearly as disturbing. But then, what happened to Lana Clarkson wasn’t as terrible as what was done to that little girl). We also had a fantastic presentation from a “Questioned Documents” examiner who explained exactly how easy it is to forge a signature, and what to do to combat that (sign your name over itself 2-3 times) and we toured the labs, including the rooms that hold stainless steel water tanks where guns are fired to match ballistics from crime scenes. Very cool. More information on the lab and the Crime Lab project is available here.

    More, more, more…

    by Michelle Gagnon images.jpg

    So like Clare, I’m currently out of town on vacation (nowhere as exotic as Australia, but I’m still enjoying a bit of a break from the San Francisco fog).

    Last week I attended Left Coast Crime in LA, where I was fortunate to have the opportunity to catch up with John Gilstrap and James, and to meet Kathryn for the first time. Which was kind of shocking-the funny thing about blogging like this is how well you get to know each other without ever meeting face to face. For instance, I feel like Basil is practically family at this point (albeit as that crazy cousin who kicks off the conga line at family events). The post 9/11 literature panel that John and I were on made episodes of the Jerry Springer show look dull in comparison. In the bar afterward, almost every passerby stopped to tell John that they’d heard about his performance. He’s officially a legend now, and will probably start showing up late to our Denny’s meetings, if he makes them at all.

    I got the chance to talk to Lee Child briefly at the conference (I know, I’m a shameless name dropper), and we were discussing the fact that for the first time he’s releasing not one but two books this year. This has become a trend with the recent industry downturn. It’s easier for publishers to push more books written by their stable of well known authors than to build up a new name, so old faithfuls like James Rollins, John Sandford, and of course James Patterson are being offered nice bonuses for increased productivity.

    Even authors who aren’t household names are being urged to try to churn out multiple titles a year. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t people who do this well. But when my agent and I were negotiating my last contract, and they pushed for an increase to two or three books a year, I said no.

    It’s a struggle for me to finish one book a year. It takes between 4-6 months for me to compose the initial draft, then I send it off to my editor and have a few weeks head start on the next book. Then the edits come back, and I have in general another month to polish it. At which point I mail it back, work a little bit more on the next book…just when I’m getting in the groove again, it’s time for round three. Add in the months I need to coordinate marketing for that book before its release, and it’s always about a year, start to finish. The thought of adding another book, never mind two, into the mix would be hive-inducing.

    Yet many writers do manage to produce more than one book a year. Which raises a few questions for me. Firstly, does the quality suffer? Dennis Lehane claimed that the book a year grind made him feel like his work was deteriorating, so he took two full years off to write the next book- which turned out to be MYSTIC RIVER.

    I also question whether or not having an author flood the market with books actually helps their sales if they’re not James Patterson or Stephen King. Is it better to come out with three books a year, rather than one? What does everyone think?

    Now, back to the sun…


    The Fifty Page Mark

    by Michelle Gagnon

    Recently a friend asked for writing advice on behalf of her husband, who started writing a book a few yeaYou Are Here.JPGrs ago but hasn’t made much progress.

    “Let me guess,” I asked. “He’s right around the fifty page mark.” She double-checked with him, and he’d stopped at sixty pages even.

    I’m willing to bet that most of the people who never finish writing a book stall out right around that point, somewhere between 40-60 pages. And here’s my theory as to why.

    After months or years of talking about writing a book (because at least as far as my experience at cocktail parties dictates, almost everyone believes they have a book in them), they’ve finally sat down and hammered some of those words on to the page! Initially, that’s excitement enough.

    Because the outset is always thrilling. And things usually go swimmingly for ten to twenty pages. Then, something gets in the way–maybe they can’t figure out what to tackle next in terms of the storyline, or their day to day life intrudes. So they leave for a bit, and come back to it. Or they manage to overcome whatever hurdle they encountered, plot-wise or life-wise, and forge ahead. Another twenty pages in, they’re feeling a genuine sense of accomplishment. They’re doing what so many people talk about but never achieve–and they’ve already written around fifty pages! The rest should be a breeze, right?

    So what do they do at this point?

    Most people sit back and say, “Better take a minute to look back over what I wrote, see how it is.”

    And that’s their downfall. Because invariably as they go back over their work, they start editing. And editing is generally a slow, time-consuming process. Upon review a significant chunk of what they wrote won’t be as good as they thought it was–which is disheartening. Other sections might be better than remembered, but still a little rough.

    So after a few weeks or months of editing, they find themselves back where they ended: at the fifty page mark. And suddenly, having written fifty pages doesn’t feel like such an accomplishment.

    Here’s my analogy. Awhile back I read Bill Bryson’s A WALK IN THE WOODS, an extremely funny account of his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail in its entirety.

    After a rough start, the hike was going well. Bryson and his buddy were starting to feel seasoned, like they finally knew what they were doing and had gotten into the rhythm of the trail, so to speak. They stopped at an outfitters in Tennessee. Mounted on the wall was a map of the trail. For fun, they checked out how much ground they’d coveredBill_Bryson_A_Walk_In_The_Woods.jpg– and realized that they’d only made it through a tiny portion of the entire trail. At that point they flew home, took a break, and met up again later in Virginia, skipping a huge chunk of the hike.

    And that’s exactly how it feels to be a writer at the fifty page mark looking up at the mountain of work looming above you. But unlike Bryson, you can’t just jump ahead to page 300. You’ll have to slog through every page.

    For many people, that’s just too overwhelming. So they put the book away, resolving to come back to it when they have more time. And more often than not, that time never materializes.

    Awhile back I wrote a post about never looking back. Especially for writers setting out to finish their first book, I think that is absolutely critical. If you’ve been through the process before, you know where you’re going to start experiencing that dread, and how to overcome it. You’ve hiked this particular trail. so although you know that at times it will prove relentless, you’ll get through it, the same way you have in the past.

    New writers don’t have that experience to fall back on, so they tend to get discouraged. Here’s my advice on conquering the fifty page mark:

    • Don’t look back until you have at least the bones of the book laid out in its entirety.
    • Accept that your first draft is going to be just that- a draft. Editing can come later, but allow yourself to be just plain bad at times. You can go back and craft every turn of phrase later.

    • Even if you only manage to write a page a day, at the end of a year you’ll have a book, more or less. Set small, achievable goals, and feel proud for meeting each of them.

    Remember that every writer has been at that exact same spot and felt just as daunted. What separates those who end up finishing with those who don’t has nothing to do with character or skill–it comes down to sheer force of will. As my mom always said, anything worth doing is a challenge. Rise to meet it and you won’t regret it. If nothing else, you’ll have accomplished what you set out to do: you’ve written your book. And no matter where it goes from there, that alone is a victory.

    My Hurt Locker Experience

    by Michelle GagnonIMG_0646.JPG

    Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am to have this job.

    This past Monday I was given a one-on-one tour of the SFPD Bomb Squad. I realize that might not be everyone’s idea of a good time, but geek that I am, I was positively giddy.

    For over two hours I got to see the inner workings of the bomb squad, from the various trucks and equipment in their warehouse to the robots they use to check out suspicious packages. A few things I learned:

    • Many of the most dangerous calls that they get start out this way: Grandpa passes on. Turns out he was a WWII vet in the Pacific Theater. While cleaning out his apartment, relatives stumble across the live ordnance he took home as a souvenir. The officer who IMG_0673.JPGgave me the tour said that his first call out involved a mortar made out of a highly dangerous and unstable primary explosive, picric acid. They’d all handled the darn thing before one member of the squad turned it around, saw the Japanese characters, and realized that one wrong move could blow the whole place. Fortunately, they made it to their containment unit outside safely (check out the photo of their containment unit. It strongly resembles one of those underwater mines. Any time they pick up explosive material, it gets put in here for the trek back across the city).
    • Anyone else see THE HURT LOCKER? I was a little disheartened to learn that bomb techs consider it to be roughly equivalent to TOP GUN in terms of accuracy. However, he said they did get the suits right. Eighty pounds of suit, although thanks to the even weight distribution, the cop said that if you needed to run in one, you could (I’m guessing that under those circumstances, adrenaline helps tremendously). Even in our famously temperate sixty degree weather, the suits become extraordinarily hot and uncomfoIMG_0669.JPGrtable after a few minutes. I asked how they decided which unlucky squad member is sent out in it, and he told me that they usually Rochambeau for it–however, the winner GETS to wear the suit. Apparently being the guy tucked safely in the command vehicle watching everything unfold onscreen is viewed as the unlucky one. Go figure.
    • The suit is topped by what they call the “Helm of Ignorance,” which he was kind enough to let me try on. Unlike the military ones depicted in HURT LOCKER, theirs do not have the capability for radio communication–which he thought was a good thing, since it would mainly serve as a distraction. And distractions are not good when working with explosives.
    • Here in San Francisco, all ten members of the bomb squad are SCUBA certified, since they also respond to any threats at the port. They’re also all trained in tactical response, since they share the warehouse with SWAT. That way if anything major goes down, they’re able to serve as a backup unit.
    • I asked the nice young man who gave me the tour why he decided to join this particular unit, and how his mother felt about it. He explained that he’d initially been working out of the Bayview/Hunters Point Station (one of the worst neighborhoods here in SF). But after he got married and had kids, he figured it would be a good idea to transfer to a safer unit. So he joined the bomb squad. That’s right, the bomb squad. I couldn’t help but wonder if the mounted division was full.
    • Every bomb tech in the US spends six weeks training in-house, then goes to a school in Huntsville Alabama that’s run jointly by the FBI and the military for an additional six weeks of training. My tour was interrupting a day spent on maintenance, making sure that the robots and trucks were all in working order, the SCBA tanks full- you name it.

    IMG_0660.JPG


    • Oh, and here I am with their “Big Robot,” who I strongly feel needs a better nickname. Although possibly they just don’t want to get too attached. Remember the movie SHORT CIRCUIT? Couldn’t get it out of my head the whole time I was watching this guy maneuver. The photo above this one is of a napalm bomb, which he assured me had been rendered safe. Or at least, he was pretty sure it had. It was in the workshop, so…I took that as my hint to leave.

    Namesakes

    by Michelle Gagnon

    Like many other writers, I’ve set up a Google alert based on my name. Generally this lets me know when a review of one of my books has posted, or when they’re being sold on ebay (the latter more than the former, sadly). However, due to an error on my part when I was establishing the account, it turns out that I receive news pertaining not just to me, but to pretty much every Gagnon in the English- and French-speaking world.

    I was going to adjust it, but some of the tidbits trickling in were so interesting I decided to stick with the original search parameters. After all, I’m probably related to all of these people somewhere down the line. One of my aunts did a full family tree awhile back, and apparently nearly every Gagnon in North America is descended from one of three brothers who immigrated from Normandy to Canada back in the 1600’s. I even have a list of what they brought over on the boat with them- the most interesting item being a jar of worms, since they weren’t certain there would be any in the New World and, as farmers, this was a matter of great concern to them.

    What I’ve learned: Gagnons tend to do well in school. Nearly every day I get a post about someone making the honor roll. Sadly, they also have an unfortunate predilection for a life in crime, although apparently they’re not very good at it, since according to local crime blotters the overwhelming majority of them get caught. I wonder what kind of trajectory that indicates. How does Matt Gagnon go from the Dean’s list to knocking over pharmacies? It’s a conundrum.

    One name tends to pop up more than the others, however, especially this week. Marie-Michele Gagnon is an alpine skiier from Quebec (where those farmers initially set up homesteads-apparently in some parts of Quebec, “Gagnon” is as common a name as “Smith” in the US.) This year, the twenty year-old made the Canadian Olympic team, and will be representing them (and us) in Vancouver.

    I confess to experiencing a swell of pride when that news came over the wire. I’ve been inadvertently tracking Marie-Michele’s career for some time now. She started popping up regularly as a finalist (and occasional winner) of downhill events. Since our names are so similar, it piqued my interest even though I’ve never been much of a skiing fan in the past (this is largely thanks to an unfortunate experience the first time I hit the slopes, when my best friend at the time took me down a black diamond as a joke. It turned out that it wasn’t very funny, and I haven’t been on skis since).

    I was beyond thrilled to learn that Marie-Michele won the Nor-Am overall title for 2008-09 season–although I ‘m not entirely certain what that means, it certainly sounds like she’s doing well. And it’s reassuring to know that although I clearly didn’t get the skiing gene, at least one of my distant relatives did. Maybe I’m descended from the wrong brother.

    Marie-Michele will be participating in the Ladies’ Slalom and the Ladies’ Giant Slalom next week. I’m feeling quite nervous for her. Come prime time, I’ll be sitting in front of the television, clutching my honorary jar of worms, fervently hoping that she doesn’t experience one of those terrible wipeouts that seem to occur regularly in these events. I hope you’ll join me in wishing Marie-Michele the best–after all, she’s a tribute to Gagnons everywhere. And if this doesn’t work out for her, I sincerely hope she resists the temptation to turn to the dark side.

    I’m tagging her in this post, because who knows- maybe she’s been inadvertently tracking me as well.