COVERING THE STORY (Conclusion)

by James Lincoln Warren

So I’d written a story about a cop reacting to a crime against children for a target market. My two writing buddies, Paul and Deborah had written very similar stories. I was worried that all three stories were too much alike. My friends offered me some criticism, and I offered them some criticism.

I decided to ignore their criticism.

Both Debbie and Paul had not liked my murderer for not being a character in the story until the climax. They both liked the same minor character, introduced earlier, for the rôle. Now usually, my rule is if I get the same criticism from two different readers, I address the problem. But in this case, I was firmly against the change. If two readers had chosen the same character as the murderer, then that must be too obvious to use. You never want people to read a story and identify the murderer with ease. I thought making the murderer an unknown person made him more distant and chilling.

Then Margaret (i.e., Mrs. Warren), with her J.D. and M.A. in Brit Lit, agreed conclusively with Paul and Deb. Colleagues you can politely brush off, but the opinion of a spouse carries the weight of nations. (This seems to be a recurrent theme here at C.B. these past few days.) And it is categorically not possible to prevail in a debate with my wife the trial lawyer, who, after all, argues for a living.

So I reluctantly changed the identity of the murderer. While I was at it, I also decided to incorporate another gem of Paul’s advice, that my detective had lost his own child many years before, to make the crimes personally resonate with him.

I chose the title right after finishing the first draft. It is not unusual for crime writers to use lines from nursery rhymes as titles. It is not unusual for crime writers to see sleep as a metaphor for death (while we’re on the subject of Raymond Chandler, never mind William Shakespeare). I had a pervasive wind as a recurring image. So I took the title from the best known lullaby of them all—but I wonder which came first: the lullaby, or the modus operandi? Because my victims are all dropped from high places to their deaths.

Rock-a-bye, baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
Down will come baby, cradle and all.

I was pleased with my effort. Into the envelope it went, into the post. The Long Wait began.

Paul’s story, which he had extensively rewritten largely following my advice—before we go a step further, I want to state categorically that I take no credit whatsoever for Paul’s story, which is exclusively his, any more than he can take credit for mine, where his advice was liberally applied—was chosen by the editors of the anthology as one of the unsolicited stories to be included. (The book should be available this fall.) “When the Wind Blows” and “Texas Ruby” did not make the cut. (I had warned Deb that naming her victim after a grapefruit might be problematical.)

Was the crime against children angle too much of a cliché?

So I sent the story to Ellery Queen. Janet Hutchings liked the writing, but found the plot too contrived.

I began to think maybe the plot was too much of a cliché.

By this time, Edgar Week had rolled around, so I brought a copy of the story with me to New York and dropped it off at Dell Magazines’office on Park Avenue for Linda Landrigan at Hitchcock. (photo credit: Jiro Kimura at The Gumshoe Site) The next day, I had lunch with Linda, who is one of the sweetest women on earth, and her young and sassy assistant editor, Nicole Sia.

During lunch, they both bemoaned the fact that they had been seeing a slew of stories about men abusing women. Not a good sign. My murderer beat his wife.

I have a special place in my heart for Linda. She’s the one who rescued me off the slush pile when she was Cathleen Jordan’s assistant at AHMM. I had a feeling I was letting her down badly by offering her a story about a serial baby killer.

The weeks passed. And to my complete surprise, Linda bought the story.

I guess it wasn’t too much of a cliché.

And then, the biggest surprise of all. The first commissioned cover in a long time, just for my story.

See what I mean when I say, “You never can tell”?