CATS AND COMPOSITION

by Janice Law

Is it just by chance that writers are so often photographed with cats? From Colette to Hemingway to yours truly, writers pose with their favorite felines. Dogs are lovely, but lets face it, a good dog lives on a much higher ethical plane than most of us. Loyal, kindly, protective, and brave, you have to be at the top of your game to live with dogs. The canine tribe is nice for after hours and doubtless fine for non-fiction writers, those philosophical folks out on the scent of truth and beauty, but we mendacious writers of fiction naturally prefer the cat—at least around the worksite.

Which, and not just by coincidence, they love, being curiously fond of the tools and circumstances of our trade: A warm lap, such as is provided by the writer at her desk. The assorted pens and pencils of the old days, so suitable for tipping off tables and rolling across floors, or in the case of quills, for shredding right down to the rib of the feather.

Doubtless, even the typewriter’s keys held a certain interest, but the composition cat has really come into its own with the computer age, or, more precisely from the cat’s point of view, the printer age, for they like nothing better than to drape themselves over a big one. A writer’s workhorse computer fits the bill nicely. Warm, elevated, and, in the case of mine, commanding the window, the printer is just nicely cat-sized.

Of course, the computer has its own attractions. Treading on the smooth keyboard produces an almost certain response from the writer, while the mouse with its attendant cable is a nice winter substitute for the real thing. But these are just the mechanical attractions. The cat’s affinity with writers, or rather now, the writer’s affinity for cats, goes much further.

Sly, shy, predatory, and curious, the cat is one of nature’s observers. They manage the trick of being at once lazy and alert, sleeping away the day until a sudden unexpected motion propels them into action. They wait, they dream, they pounce. What else does a writer do?

Proper writers are watchful and nosy, eager snoops and listeners. The merest gesture, an inclination of the head or a motion of the hand, can produce a revelation, as can a change in intonation or a murmur of assent or protest. Do these moments of insight come every day? Certainly not, and a good deal of the writer’s life is waiting.

This is preferably productive waiting, because the deities that govern the writing life, unlike those that govern cats, like to see busyness and effort. It is waiting nonetheless, until, out of the everyday, there appears a useful image or a turn of phrase on which the writer had better pounce.

For writer’s ideas are often as concrete as the chipmunks, moles and birds that are the focus of our feline companions. The late Paul Scott claimed that the entire Raj Trilogy started with the image of a young woman running under a stormy sky. Few of us can claim quite such pregnant images and even our best ideas rarely stretch to three fat volumes.

But we must seize what we can and hope that whatever it is—a person of distinctive and striking appearance, a particularly pungent turn of phrase, a brief in the newspaper, or a particularly atmospheric place or building—will begin to take on the shape of a story.

And how does this happen except in dreams, asleep or awake? I know that some writers can take an idea, turn it half a dozen ways and come up with a handful of plots before breakfast. They clearly have a different psyche than I do and probably a different totem animal. For me, a good idea is one that sinks down, very far down, leaving me to wait to see if it will re-surface bearing gifts in the form of a story. Like the cat, part of me sleeps.

Then, all going well, maybe days later, maybe weeks later, maybe years later a little immaterial voice, somewhere between the ordinary promptings of consciousness and an auditory hallucination, starts up. It’s always very definite with no confusion between whether this is a mouse or a vole, or in writer’s terms, between first and third person narration.

The voice is confiding and insistent. If in third person it’s expansive and sometimes moralistic. More often it is first person, self-justifying, amusing, frequently dishonest, occasionally outrageous, and it wants attention now. Will it become a story fit to print?

Not yet. Now like the cat, the writer must focus and start the stalk, creeping forward softly, softly, coaxing the voice to tell more, to come closer. Too much pressure and the story never makes a conclusion. Too little attention and it collapses in the dreaded middle. Just the right amount of work and waiting, just the right amount to trust in the dreaming brain, and voila, a beginning, a middle, an ending.

The results may be good, may be bad, more likely somewhere in the middle. But then, I suppose, not all kills are tasty, either, for once in a while, even a clever cat is tempted by a shrew.

BOWLED OVER

by Leigh Lundin

Earlier this week, I read news about a freshly minted teen tenpin champion that suprised me as I read his story.

So, you might ask, how does a story about Tim Wolchko, a student and bowling hero, relate to crime? Here’s how.

Wolchko’s feat provides interesting sports news, but by coincidence and thanks to the impeccable taste of my dazzling editor, Janet Hutchings, a parable called English appears this month in the May issue of Ellery Queen. English is about an unusual champion bowler who happens to use "a two-handed grip … in an odd cycling motion" down the boards, and a man who deals with crimes large and small his own way.

Until I saw Wolchko’s video this week, I thought two-handed bowling was my own flight of fancy. I admit I’d never seen or even heard of a two-handed bowler past the age of five, but in recent days I’ve received eMails about champion two-handed bowlers, including an article sent from Australia.

The Slow Lane

In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve bowled twice in my life, once in my teens and again a decade later in Massachusetts. You might not count my second attempt. New England sneers at fat ten-pins and huge sixteen pound bowling balls. "How could you miss?" they sniff haughtily. They roll a four pound 4½-inch ball at considerably thinner candlepins and duckpins. (According to those harsh guys at the International Candlepin Bowling Association, their highest sanctioned score is 245 out of a possible 300.)

In the past year, I noticed bowling enjoying a resurgence, but what in my vast ignorance of the sport qualifies me to write a fable about it? What would make any writer dream up a crime story about bowling?

Self-Made Man
Norah Vincent
Norah Vincent’s Self-Made Man should be on the reading list of every author who wants to get inside the head of the opposite sex. In the tradition of Black Like Me, Norah spent a year and a half as a man and she’s one of the few people to reveal the truth: most writers get it wrong. Not out of malice or wrongheadedness, but because we perceive one another based upon our internal models and experiences. One of Norah’s first steps was to join a men’s bowling league. The tale is humorous, touching, and sometimes tender. One of the wry moments comes when her bowling buddies– little knowing– tell her she bowls like a girl.

Get the Ball Rolling

‘Dream up’ in this case was literal. I find ideas for tales in that twilight state before drifting off to sleep or when waking. I literally dreamt the tale. I scribbled the story down and then plied the internet to research bowling, learning weights and physics of bowling. When it came to light my friend Steve had been a high-end roller in upstate New York, he read over the story and pronounced no glaring errors.

It seemed to me a two-handed bowl would give my hero a control edge, adding a boost of english. I didn’t come across mention of two-handed bowlers, but I’ve since confirmed two-handed bowlers can as much as double a ball’s spin up to 800 RPM. Two hands may signal the wave of the future.

Striking Influences

The story didn’t percolate entirely on its own. First, I’d watched a documentary about immigrants and bigotry. About the same time, I read Norah Vincent‘s bowling chapter in Self-Made Man, which likely influenced my creative process. The result sprang almost fully formed, rather than the usual incremental style.

Although the story’s only three pages, it’s character driven, literally character– about one’s moral center– bigotry, kindness, and risk in the face of danger. Besides the heroic, I appreciate people rehabilitating themselves, even if it’s sometimes self-serving, the reason Liam and his skanky girlfriend grew beyond their small-mindedness. That bowls me over.

King Pins

Congratulations to Tim Wolchko, Matt Jones, American pre-teen Chaz Dennis, Australian Jason Belmonte, Finnish Osku Palermaa, pretty much the entire Bolivian Federation, and other bowlers who dare to be different– those who find their own nonconformist way of winning. English is a tribute to that spirit.

THE SAME OLD STORY

by John M. Floyd

Something that we don’t often see is a rewritten version of a previously published novel or short story. (It does happen, of course: one example is the longer edition of Stephen King’s The Stand, which appeared twelve years after the original.) But a remake of an old movie is a common occurrence these days, especially with the advent of special effects that were unavailable in the past. Also, I’m sure there are folks in Hollywood who think it’s easier and cheaper to piggyback on an already proven idea than to have to come up with something new. Strangely enough (or maybe not so strangely), these second efforts often fail to match the originals.

Anyhow, I thought it might be interesting—or at least a different path down Memory Lane—to take a look at a few remakes.

Note: Some movies have different titles but the same storylines. I think three of the best of these were Heaven Can Wait (made from Here Comes Mr. Jordan), The Magnificent Seven (from Seven Samurai), and You’ve Got Mail (from The Shop Around the Corner); but others less well known are Pale Rider (suspiciously similar to Shane), Last Man Standing (from A Fistful of Dollars, which was itself a remake of Yojimbo), The Last Samurai (Dances With Wolves in the Far East), and Outland (High Noon in outer space). The remakes in the following list are those that kept the same, or almost the same, titles.

Remember these . . . ?

Not as good as the originals:

The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)
The Getaway (1993)
Lost Horizon (1973)
Planet of the Apes (2001)
The Stepford Wives (2004)
Sabrina (1995)
The Poseidon Adventure (2005)
Psycho (1998)
Breathless (1983)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
Flight of the Phoenix (2004)
Stagecoach (1966)
The Time Machine (2002)

Better than, or at least as good as (*), the originals:

True Grit (2010)
The Thing (1982)
Cape Fear (1991)*
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Cat People (1982)*
Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)*
King Kong (2005)
Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

As always, these are my opinions only. I know folks who think the 1998 version of The Thin Red Line and the 1933 version of King Kong were among the best movies ever. I don’t.

One more thing: the films I’ve listed are those that I’ve seen and remember well. Other remakes (The Lady Vanishes, The Omen, The Hitcher, Rollerball, Mister Roberts, Rear Window, Shadow of a Doubt, Vanishing Point, On the Beach, The Longest Yard, Alfie, The Karate Kid, Miracle on 34th Street, etc.) are as yet unwatched by me—but they’d have to be pretty good to surpass the originals. I also didn’t include any movie versions of TV series.

I hope all this brings back some memories. What are some of the movie remakes that you enjoyed? Did any of them make you want to stand up and cheer? Did any make you want to dig out that barf bag that you saved from flying Delta? Can you think of some films that should be remade, but haven’t? Maybe the second (or third) time is the charm.

Usually, though, I think it’s better to leave well enough alone.

FURTHER RUMINATIONS ON A DOG’S TALE

by Steven Steinbock

As I begin writing this week’s installment of Bandersnatches, I doubt I’ll be discussing dogs. If you feel that the title of today’s column misled you, I humbly apologize.

Midway through last week’s column I shared some thoughts on Fredric Brown. Midway is actually a good place for him, since carnival life (see next paragraph) played a role in several of Brown’s stories, and in his novels The Dead Ringer (1948) and Madball (1953).

(The term “dead ringer” doesn’t have any direct connection with carnivals. The expression originally referred to a horse with identical markings to another horse. Nor did the expression have anything to do with the urban legend of bells in graveyards. A “midway,” for the uninitiated, is the central path through a carnival or fair, often the main path to a circus tent. The midway is traditionally lined with games and concessions. In an earlier era you would have found burlesque shows, freak shows, and other sideshows as well as various and sordid scam-artists. An excellent website for carnival slang is the Dictionary of Carny, Circus, Sideshow & Vaudeville Lingo).

Last week, Brown came up in the context of “Shaggy Dog stories.” A word or two about Brown. He was born two days before Halloween, 1906. He worked as a shoemaker, proofreader, stenographer, an insurance salesman, a bookkeeper, a stock clerk, a dishwasher, a busboy, and a detective. He had a ten year career writing short stories, mostly for the detective pulps (Detective Story Magazine, Dime Mystery, Detective Tales, etc.) as well as a few science fiction pulps (Astounding, Thrilling Wonder Stories, etc) before seeing his first novel The Fabulous Clipjoint published in 1947. That book featured the amateur (and later professional) detective team of Ed Hunter and his Uncle Am (short for Ambrose). Ed and Am featured in seven novels.

Brown’s writing is fun, clever, and frequently cynical. Much of it is full of whimsy. Just as often, his writing can take a darker turn. Murder Can Be Fun (also published as A Plot for Murder) is a favorite of mine, about a writer for a radio crime series whose fictional crimes – including a murder rampage by a man in a Santa suit – suddenly start occurring in real life before anyone has seen the scripts except him. Or so it seems.

His science fiction, likewise, runs the gamut from whimsy to disturbed. What Mad Universe (1949) and Martians, Go Home (1955) are on the whimsical side, while Rogue in Space (1957) and The Mind Thing (1961) are more serious and thoughtful. His short science fiction has a strong dose of the ironic. I don’t know if any of his stories were adapted for “Twilight Zone” or “Outer Limits” but they easily could have. (Several of his mystery short stories were adapted for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and as I mentioned last week, his science fiction story “Arena” became a “Star Trek” episode with Captain Kirk as the human combatant).

The short story “To Slay a Man About a Dog!” (also published as “The Shaggy Dog Murders”) contains Brown’s trademark humor. It’s about a private detective trying to solve the mystery of a stray dog with a bizarre poem on his collar. The man who brings the dog to Peter Kidd’s office is a strange little man named Aloysius Smith. This intrigued me because the little man who visited Doc Bagden in “The Jabberwocky Murders” (Thrilling Mystery, Summer 1935), telling tales of a secret society of “Vorpal Blades” was named Yehudi Smith. (That story, as I mentioned last week, was the primary basis for Brown’s 1950 novel Night of the Jabberwock. In the novel, the hero’s name was changed to “Doc Stoeger,” but his bizarre visitor remained “Yehudi Smith”). Aloysius Smith and Yehudi Smith have more in common than just surnames. But I can’t go into that. As Doc Stoeger would say, “Read the damn stories yourself.”

It was the novel Night of the Jabberwock that inspired me to publish 49 issues of a mystery fanzine called “The Vorpal Blade.” (That’s another long story, deserving of a separate column, but mystery fans who’ve heard of a secret society called DAPA-EM will have a hint of what that’s about). Likewise, when James Lincoln Warren invited me to do a weekly column on Criminal Brief it was natural to call it “Bandersnatches.” (In case you’re baffled, all those nonsense words – Jabberwock, Vorpal, and Bandersnatch – come from a poem in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass).

Anyway, enough of my words. Go find yourself a Fredric Brown short story and enjoy.

CAN I JUST SAY NO TO THE SYNOPSIS?

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

I know one writer who swears she enjoys writing the synopsis for a novel. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s written so many of them herself, read so many as an editor, or if she’s just so talented that it comes easier to her and therefore enjoyable.

I know that I dislike the synopsis very, very much.

Okay, so I don’t really dislike reading them, but I do despise having to write them.

It’s like planning your baby’s name for nine months, and when she arrives, you look at your precious newborn and the name doesn’t fit at all. In high school, I met a fantastic girl named Lola. She was blonde, had a good figure, and a sweet face. She wasn’t a Lola, but had a girl-next-door personality and attitude. Don’t get me wrong, no one was nicer than Lola. But her name didn’t belong to her anymore than Bob Hope’s real first name of Leslie or Cary Grant’s of Archibald Leach. It would be like referring to Madonna as well, Donna. Or Donna Reed as Madonna. It just seems odd.

If the synopsis doesn’t ring true to the style of the manuscript, there’s a big problem. The author’s voice—that illusive creature—has to shine through the synopsis to show the writer that writes as a Lola is actually a Lola and not an Ann in disguise. Also, an Ann manuscript will not work if the synopsis sounds like a Lola.

Once an author has written a synopsis, it seems easier to have a few people you trust read it and make suggestions and send it out as quickly as possible just to be rid of the darn thing. But, of course, you can’t.

It’s like deciding to sell your house. You usually shouldn’t just call up a realtor and stick a FOR SALE sign on the lawn. First, a bit of sprucing up is probably necessary. A fresh coat of paint, replacing out-dated light fixtures, and cleaning out those overstuffed closets is in order to get top-dollar for your showplace.

The same is true of the synopsis written as a selling tool to agents and editors. It’s not easy to write a concise, yet compelling, one-page synopsis of an entire novel.

At any writers group, someone will be saying, “Why don’t they just read the book and then they’ll know how fantastic it is?”

Time once again is the culprit. The amount of Great American Novels crossing an editor’s desk is staggering. They have to depend on a synopsis (think of it like Cliff’s Notes) to entice them to a full reading of any novel.

Okay, so I have to write a great synopsis in order to find a publisher who is interested in buying my great novel. I’m working on it. These things take time.

Right now, I think I’ll finish polishing a short story. It doesn’t need a synopsis to accompany it to interest a publisher. One more reason I love being a short story author.

ASKING WHY, TELLING “WHY”

by Rob Lopresti

It’s always a great pleasure when I get a story published. For the past few years one part of that happy experience has been the chance to write about it here at Criminal Brief. Today it’s more of a mixed event.

My story “Why” is in the current, May 2011, issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. (And by the way, our new Criminal Briefer Janice Law has the lead position in that issue.) Mine is another shortie, more anecdote than full-blown story, but I like it a lot. So why do I have mixed feelings?

The story is about police investigating a man who killed a group of people in a public place. I am extremely glad it wasn’t in the issue on the newsstands when the horrific events occurred in Tucson last month. I am equally glad that I didn’t go in for a lot of gory details.

In my story there is no question about who committed the crime. The cops are trying to figure out, as the title implies, the why. It was inspired by hearing reporters earnestly saying things like this: “Yesterday a man wearing a bright tutu and an Indian headdress attacked five strangers with a machete. Authorities are trying to determine the motive for the assault.”

In cases like this I always want to hear somebody say: “Authorities suspect the man was crazy as a gravel sandwich.” But in the wake of Tucson, that’s a political statement, isn’t it?

Law and Order used to brag that its stories were “ripped from the headlines.” I’d prefer my stories to require a little more suspension of disbelief, thank you.

Structurally sound

But here’s what I intended to say about this story. I wanted to talk about the way I chose to tell it.

I don’t think I have ever succeeded in getting a story published after changing it as radically as I did this one. And if you have a copy of the magazine I can show you exactly how I changed it.

The story originally had three scenes, and I split them into four. But if you want to read it as originally written start with Scene 2 (beginning on the middle of page 30), then Scene 4 (bottom of page 32), then Scene 1, and finally Scene 3 (middle of page 32).

If you’re keeping score that means I replaced both the beginning and the end of the story with different scenes. Now, that is radical surgery.

The reason is simple: I wrote a story with two endings. In one finale, a character had an ah-ha moment, an epiphany if you will. In the second ending we see him reacting to that realization. Originally I went with chronological order, but I decided to end with the bigger bang, even though it meant losing an exit line I really liked.

I think it was the right choice, but I’d be glad to hear what you think. And in the mean time, dear friends, stay safe.

ANTICIPATION

by Melodie Johnson Howe

The sun is pushing through thick clouds, bullying its way through my office window and onto my desk. I can see my reflection in the monitor, on the “new page.” There is nothing as white as a new page. Wedding gown? Angel’s wings? First snow? First communion dress? No. This white is as white as nothing. It is a nothing white.

My body is leaning slightly forward as if anticipating. A shawl covers my shoulders, which are slumped as if they know it’s foolish to anticipate. Defiantly, I straighten them. My hands are on the keyboard. I look down at them. They are ready to type, waiting for the idea that will spark the fingers into quick assertive action. My hair hangs forward around my face. I can see the blunt ends of it bending toward the monitor. It’s as if my entire being is drawn toward this new white page.

Abruptly my left hand goes to my mouth, the fingers press against my lips. My right hand reaches out to my mug of coffee. I take hold if it and realize I have just made two opposing gestures. I can’t drink coffee while pressing my fingers against my mouth. I stay this way for a moment. I know I did this because my mind is fighting with itself. The part that is as sturdy and hard as a rock is trying to roll over the mysterious dangerous side. I let my hand fell back to the keyboard and take a sip of coffee. The taste is familiar but the sensation is alien to my anticipating body.

The sun gives up the battle with the cloud and disappears. My office darkens.

When I was young I wrote out of anger. It was a wonderful feeling, a powerful feeling. Righteous. Euphoric. It was as if I were in a constant state of epiphany; but part of maturity seems to be finding a form, a structure to put your vibrant energies into so that you don’t dissipate them.

Could I be too formed? Too structured? A bourgeois life can do that to you. I remember when I first heard that word in school. “Sooo bourgeois”. And I knew I was never going to be “sooo bourgeois”. But I had an innate survivor’s instinct, and while I said those words with great theatricality, I sensed I needed structure.

Now I sit here with a perfectly structured “new page” in front of me. A perfectly structured computer to reflect and confine my thoughts, my restless imagination. Again I stare down at the keyboard with its numbers, commands, and letters. I honestly don’t know what to do with some of the keys nor do I care. I only care about the letters. I will use them to break that static structure to form another: a story.

As I type my refection in the monitor slowly disappears . . .