LIES, DAMN LIES, AND MYSTERY FICTION

by James Lincoln Warren

Bouchercon 2011 is just around the corner, September 15 through 18, in St. Louis, MO. This year there will only be two of us Criminal Briefers attending, Steve Steinbock and me. Both of us have been assigned to moderate panels, and both of our panels have been scheduled for the crack of dawn. OK, I exaggerate, but for such night owls as we mystery writers tend to be, 8:30 a.m. is the crack of dawn’s moral equivalent.

Steve’s panel, “All About Eve: Creating believable female characters”, is at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 16. Fittingly, he’s the only male on the panel, the others being Sandra Brannan (Steve’s recent visit to whom is chronicled here), Vicki Hendricks (with whom I once served on a MWA short story anthology jury), Sara Henry, Nora McFarland (who was one of the people who assisted me in creating my own believable female character, Erica Wooding), and Cathi Stoler (who sat with Steve, Nora, and me at three-time Agatha for Best Short Story nominee Elizabeth Zelvin‘s table earlier this year at Malice Domestic). It should be a fun panel and I look forward to it.

My panel is on Sunday, September 18, at 8:30 a.m. As if Saturday night at Bouchercon isn’t one big party. I therefore think it is likely that many persons will be more interested in their pillow than in the panel. But not all.

On the positive side, it is the only panel on Sunday at 8:30—Steve has to compete with four others. And on the really positive side, I have a stellar group of authors: Sara Blædel, a wildly popular mystery writer in Denmark who is making her début to American audiences, Bruce DeSilva, whose novel Rogue Island walked away with the Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Author this year, the bestselling and much-loved Carolyn Hart, the critically acclaimed Julie Kramer, and Edgar-nominee Craig McDonald.

The title of the panel is “Justice Painted Blind: Truth in reporting”. You see, O Gentle Reader, what all of my panelists have in common is that at one time or another they have all had (or now do have) careers in print or television news. I actually pitched this panel to the Bouchercon organizers, and so I was very pleased when I got it, because I’m interested in hearing these brilliant writers teach us about what separates reporting fact and telling fiction, and how both are used to demonstrate truth.

All five of the panelists know what it means to track down the facts behind a story and present them to the public in a coherent way, upholding the reporter’s ethical standards in reporting as accurately as possible. But all five of them also know how to present an fictional story, where if nothing else the circumstances are invented. I want to find out how and why they made the transition from one to the other, because it is my belief that fiction can be made to present higher truths than mere facts.

I’m not just talking about achieving verisimilitude in fiction, the importance of which I’ve covered here before. What I’m interested in is the purpose of fictional narrative, as seen through the eyes of professionals with a foot in both camps.

One thing every writer wants is to tell a meaningful story, one that will resonate with the readers and stimulate them in some way in their very real lives. You can’t do that by doing nothing but telling lies; in the end, what is told in a story has to have some bearing on human experience that is not illusory.

Perhaps the most obvious example of what I mean is the fable. Aesop’s world was populated with animals capable of human speech. Now, we all know that animals do not really talk. But because Aesop’s tales were intended to impart wisdom, to make some ethical point, they are promoting truth. Jesus had a similar explanation for why he taught in parables: “And he said, Unto you [i.e., his disciples] it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.” (Luke 8:10)

As far as the topic goes, I more interested in mundane than sacred mysteries, but the point is still valid. Not all fiction is fable or parable, but I think that most crime writers at least have a distinct interest in the nature of justice, and the administration of justice is fundamental to social order. It is often said that writing is a solitary activity, but that old saw is extremely misleading, because reading is the ultimate social activity, one that is capable of transcending all the boundaries of human existence while ultimately affirming what it means to be a human in the first place.

So I hope you will join us. I’m going do my best to make the most of the opportunity. I only hope that the subject won’t be too obtuse for everybody in the audience nursing a hangover.

FILM FUN

by Leigh Lundin

Stephen King wrote an eerie novella, The Langoliers, in which monstrous flytraps chomp away at the world, Pacman-like creatures that consume everything in their path. Recently a friend sent a couple of short films, one which reminded me of a mini-version of The Langoliers.

These two short film stories share an unusual distinction, both were shot using high-resolution cell phones. Both were made using Nokia cell phones, which the British crew pronounces ‘KNOCK-ee-ah’. One has bragging rights to the smallest stop-animation character thus far filmed and the other claims the largest canvas for a stop-animation movie.

• Dot, smallest stop-motion animation character shot on a cellphone
  • The Making of ‘Dot’
• Gulp, world’s largest stop-motion animation shot on a cellphone
  • The making of ‘Gulp’

Dot

This story is The Langoliers under a magnifying glass. Fortunately our girl takes matters well in hand.

Sumo Science created the Dot character using a fascinating CAD technique, ‘3-D printing’, the ability to sculpt by computer.

Gulp

If Dot is The Langoliers in miniature, then Gulp is Moby Dick as viewed by Sumo Science.

Even better than the Gulp clip is how the film was made.

There you have it, cinema in the small and cinema in the large. See you at the movies!

FUN AND NAMES

by John M. Floyd

Tom and Ray Magliotti of NPR’s Car Talk

These days we all do a lot of driving, to work or play, and almost everyone listens to music or books-on-tape or radio news programs somewhere along the way. As for myself, my wife has converted me to National Public Radio. Some of their broadcasts I enjoy more than others, but one of my favorites is Car Talk—a delightful hour-long discussion of everything from callers’ automotive questions to math puzzles and brain teasers—and it’s especially appropriate for me, because I listen to it only on my car radio.

One of the best things about the program is its humor. The hosts, two brothers from the Boston area who have an engineering background, are—besides being smart—funnier than most professional comedians. One of the highlights, to me, is that at the end of every broadcast they list the names of certain members of their office staff.

The following names are some of those I either remember from hearing them mentioned on the air or seeing them on the Car Talk web site. (It’s a long list, but I simply love this kind of craziness, and I admire the wit that’s required to create it.) Since you’re reading this blog I assume you know how much we at CB enjoy words and wordplay—we have to, since we’re all writers—and I hope you’ll appreciate these names as much as I do.

NOTE: I didn’t list the staff positions these strange folks occupy—but you can probably guess some of them. Examples: the first one I’ve listed below is “Chief Accountant” and the second is “Airline Seat Tester.”

Candace B. Rittenoff
Wilma Butfit
Saul Wellingood
Amanda Livering Cole
Nadia Belimi
Joaquin Matilda
Natasha D’Merchandise
Orson Buggy
Amadeus O. Earley
Veronica Lizzioncourse
Vera Lee Isay
Odessa Paige Turner
Eureka Garlic
Erasmus B. Dragon
Ben Thayer and Don Thatt
C. Colin Backslash
Eileen Tudor-Wright
Evan Elpus
Heronimus B. Blind
Isaiah Lilprair
Haywood Jabuzoff
Donatella Nobatti
U. Lyon Sack
Tony von Thinkett
Ella Fynoe
Heidi Ductible
Ian Bobby McGee
Oscar Lavista
Hugh Don Wannano
Sosumi Areti
Phil Mataleven
Hannah Mia Cannatuna
Anita Degroin
Wanda Y. Datso
Frank Lee Scarlett
Trudy Door and Donna Hall
Howard M. Burgers
Theresa Crowd
Lotta B. Essen
Ivan Inkling
Avery Haffenauer
Marge Innovera
Sasha Royal Payne-Diaz
Roxanne Debris
Don B. Zonozi
Hugh Sherlock Familia

I can relate especially to their Cruise Activity Planner: Eton Doolittle.

A word of caution: if you’re a fellow writer, try not to give any of your characters a name that’s unintentionally funny, like Art Majors or Max Stout or Jim Shortz. That can happen, now and then.

I’ve been told that I am easily entertained, and sure enough, hearing some of these staffers’ names made me laugh out loud. (At least my reaction didn’t bother anybody; I was alone in my car at the time.) And seriously, if you’ve not listened to Car Talk, I hope you’ll tune ’em in.

Do the rest of you wordlovers like this kind of nonsense? Or are you just Gladys Overwith?

LOCATION LOCATION

by Steven Steinbock

I’ve probably written about some of this before. Some but not all. So if you feel you’re experiencing déjà vu, don’t try to adjust your set. I promise to include new with the old (along with a few things borrowed, and I’m not sure about the blue).

When I began outlining the novel that I recently finished, I was faced with a dilemma: Where to set it? I considered places along the West Coast where I’d lived. I considered places I’d visited but not lived. Having lived in Maine for nearly two decades, I considered placing the novel in Portland or Bath or Brusnwick, Maine. All of these options had their advantages, but they all served up a lot of problematic restrictions.

I reflected on the settings of some of the books I’ve read.

A few years back I’d reread Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. When I’d first read it I was a kid living in Seattle, and had never been to Maine. Reading it all those years later, after having gotten to know the Maine landscape fairly well, I found myself surrounded by familiar places while reading King’s book. The town of Jerusalem’s Lot, lousy as it was with vampires, seemed to be located right where I was. According to the landmarks, highways, and neighboring towns that King mentioned, I was sitting in the very heart of King’s fictional town. (King did make a few passing mentions of my actual town – someone who came from here and someone else who stopped at a liquor store here – but my little village never appeared on stage). My town, of course, isn’t Jerusalem’s Lot. King obviously used the collective knowledge of various Maine towns when he wove the landscape of that early novel. But it did give me a nice case of the giddy willies imagining vampires in my neighbor’s cellar.

Evan Hunter, writing as Ed McBain, did the same thing several decades earlier when he set his “87th Precinct” series in the fictional metropolis of Isola. But it was obvious to most readers that Carella, Kling, Meyer, and Hawes were chasing criminals in an alternate version of Manhattan. Rather than restricting himself to the actual streets, neighborhoods, and precincts of New York City, McBain had freed himself up by inventing a new city. By renaming the five boroughs, the rivers, the roads, and the bridges, he could have Steve Carella go where he wanted without the risk of geographical errors or libel suits.

Why couldn’t I do the same thing? I live in a beautiful village. Although it isn’t large enough to sustain a fraction of the action, institutions, and characters that I needed for my novel, it has a beautiful landscape and an interesting history. There’s a river that runs through the center of the town along which you can find the remnants of old mills. The river opens to a harbor where multiple shipbuilders had their yards and factories more than a century ago. A hill atop one of the points that rim the harbor you can take in breathtaking views of dozens of islands, and nearby I’d once even spied upon Coast Guard and State Patrol boats investigating a murder.

What if . . .? I asked myself.

What if in 1814 it had been a college rather than an elite prep school had been build on the hill above the southern shore of the river? What if some of the shipyards had remained open into the 20th century and during WWII had brought a population boom to the town? What if, instead of the two blocks of boutiques, antique shops, and dry-cleaners there was a downtown of twenty-or-so square blocks, and on the other side of the river a shopping mall? What if the population today were close to 40,000 rather than its current 8,400?

If I changed the names of the town and it’s river, I could do with it what I wanted and no one would know the better. Most of the towns along the Maine coast are named for cities in England from which the settlers had migrated. I pulled out a map of England and found a city-name in the East of England, in Norfolk County. It fit. I checked to make sure there wasn’t an actual city in Maine with that name. And so my book had a setting: the town of Norwich, Maine.

Stop by some time. You might like it and stay.

Our lovely and talented Femme Fatale is not feeling as well as she ought this week, and asked me to choose one of her former columns to run this week until she’s back on her feet. I’ve chosen this one from last year (August 19) because it’s one of my favorites and demonstrates how her devious brain (in complete contradistinction to her warm heart) operates. I’m sure the Gentle Reader will join me in wishing Deborah a speedy recovery!

—JLW

SHOW ME A STORY

by Deborah Elliott-Upton

If one picture is worth a thousand words, how many pictures would one short story be worth?

I was thumbing through an art book and stumbled upon a painting by Jacques-Louis David, La Mort de Marat (The Death of Marat), that had always fascinated me. When I was younger, I didn’t think of it so much as a crime scene, but in fact, that is exactly what David captured. The corpse, a letter in his hand from the assailant asking for an audience with him and the murder weapon, a knife on the floor, is displayed.

If I remember correctly, there was a witness and so no doubt as to who the murderer was, and therefore little to classify this sight as a mystery, but suppose we had written a short story concerning this crime scene? And for us, the short story lover, the game is afoot, my dear friends.

Consider our victim. Marat was a prominent doctor in 1770s London when he was appointed physician at the French court of Louis XVI’s brother, the Count d’Artois. Marat was known for his published scientific writings, but also as an author of inciting political pamphlets. Marat won many followers from the lower stations in France, but also made many enemies. See the conflict?

Our killer was a young woman who during the French Revolution was a Girondin supporter – enemy of Marat’s advocacies of an extensive social legislation programs. History tells us Charlotte Corday came to Marat’s Paris room and stabbed him while he soaked in his bath. The murder was certainly premeditated since she brought the weapon with her. She was rewarded by being sent to the guillotine and instead of making him go away, propelled Marat to become a martyr.

But what if there had been no witness? Or what if he himself were an accomplice? In studying the painting, would there be any clues not noticed by the police? It’s known Marat was ill with some sort of need for medicinal baths. It’s known that whatever condition he had was excruciating and the frequent and lengthy baths were the only method of relieving the pain. Could he have been in such torment that he took his own life in order to make the opposing side take the blame?

Was an innocent woman killed when she only wanted to plead with Marat to see the other side of the cause? Would a jury (had there been a trial) have convicted Corday, or could she have gotten off on grounds of reasonable doubt? Personally, I have no idea if the French courts at that time considered reasonable doubt, but I am sure someone reading this probably does, so, please leave a comment so we will all know.

Would much depend on a competent lawyer or an amateur sleuth or two? Or on courtroom prejudices? Of the young woman’s beauty or lack of it?

A painting of one man’s death by his close friend and skilled artist surely leads to a thousand words we could say about the work. I suggest one short story can just as surely lead to many pictures in our minds, turning like a carousel of memories long after the story has reached its end.

AN HOUR IN PURGATORY

by Rob Lopresti

Ladies and gentlemen, we may see a world record set here today. Mr. Lopresti is attempting to squeeze a fourth weekly blog entry out of a single week of vacation. The smart money says it can’t be done. The dumb money has already been spent on lottery tickets. Watch closely, he has nothing up his sleeves.

As you may have heard, we recently took a vacation. My wife spent most of the week on music lessons and I spent the time writing fiction. And we had a lovely time; thanks for asking.

But now I’m back home and it’s time for the most satisfying part. I get to copy the stories I wrote and the stories I edited onto my main computer and print them out for future tinkering.

No problemo. I crank up the laptop I took on vacation and copy all the files I touched in the last week onto my flash drive. Then I stick the flash drive into my desktop machine and copy away.

Next step: print each of the files. This goes swimmingly until I get to the last one (and yes, I know it is a cliché that the problem is on the last file, but that’s what happened. Don’t blame me, blame reality.)

The last file was called DEVIL, which was the first word of the story title. Oddly appropriate.

I opened DEVIL and up comes . . . a story called (cue the irony1 police) THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY.

Uh oh. That’s not good.

Every notebook or netbook computer I have ever owned has had weird eccentricities. I now remember that one of this particular machine’s charms is that occasionally when you change directories and try to save a file it offers you the title of the last file you used there. So when I revised THE ONE it went into the DEVIL file and erased it.

Okay, no need to panic. I always make copies. I opened my backup file, cleverly titled DEVIL2, and there is—THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY.

Son of a green goat.

Let’s think this through. I essentially erased both versions of DEVIL on the laptop. Then I copied the wrong files to my flash drive—erasing perfectly good versions of the story which I had carefully stored there. Then I had copied the damned files to my main computer, thereby killing the versions that were on that one.

Houston, we have a problem.

I wrote the first draft of DEVIL in 2009 and have been tinkering with it ever since. I have always said I am a rewriter, not a writer, but that does not mean I could or want to rewrite the whole story again from scratch.

Panic is definitely becoming an option. Think, think. Think thinkity think.

Okay, I have a netbook computer I sometimes use. Let’s see if there a copy there. Crank that one up.

And there it is. The date is from April, which means I have lost a few cycles of revision, but that is small potatoes. Compared to what I thought I was facing, that is, in fact, spuds of microscopic size.

The next day I had a brainstorm. I had recently purchased an external drive! I plugged it in and changed my back-up. The copy of DEVIL was the same April one. Okay, I’m still ahead of the game.

So what have we learned today, kiddos?

Back up your files.

Back up your back-ups.

Some of your back-ups should be to different directories.

Some of your back-ups should be to different computers.

Don’t automatically accept file titles your computer offers you.

If you have several copies of a file (and you should) don’t copy them all to the same place at the same time.

Get an external drive and use it regularly.

And, above all, don’t let your deal go down till your last gold dollar is gone.

1. For those who are about to write to tell me that this is not what irony means, look up situational irony. [↩]

THE LETTER A

by Melodie Johnson Howe

In The Scarlet Letter, the character Hester Prynne is burdened and shamed by the letter A. But at least she got a little nookie on the side, (as much as Hawthorn and the puritans allowed her) to earn her adulteress label.

I too am burdened by that notorious letter. Not for having a fling but for creating female characters whose names end with it. For instance in my novel I have Nora, Bianca, Vanessa, Celia and Latisha. And of course Diana Poole. Bones, who is copy editing it, was beginning to have trouble keeping them apart.

I know that a writer should use distinctive names for her characters. Names that don’t confuse the reader. Bert and Bart are too similar, unless she’s
going for humor. The writer Bob Crais says don’t name a character Fred, because then you have “Fred said” all through your book.

When I tried to figure out a new name for the charter Vanessa, I immediately came up with the name Cara. But that was too close to Celia. Wait. I could change Celia’s name to Belinda. That’s nothing like Vanessa. I mean Cara. But Belinda could be confused with Bianca. So I’ll call Bianca Karen! That name is too harsh sounding. Not to worry, Bianca can be Vanessa since Vanessa is called Belinda. I mean Cara. And Latisha could be changed to Bianca since I don’t have a charter named Bianca. Or do I?

Names aside, Bones had another problem. He explained that when Diana is in a scene talking in the present she is sometimes making connections with the information she is hearing to another character in the past. That’s confusing because he can’t remember the other character.

My fist response was very rational. I would burn my novel. My second response was more mature. I would tell my husband that he is not a very careful reader. Thank God, I did neither. Holding my tongue and my pages I trudged back into my office. Glaring at my computer, like a baseball player sneering at his bat when he doesn’t make contact, I sat at my desk.

Slowly, my brain began to work. The vengeful writer turned into a thinking one and I realized what I had done. I had used a minor character, her name ending in “a” to convey important information. Diana, when asked thirty pages latter, how she knew this information, remembers the minor character. But since this person is not seen again or talked about the reader isn’t going to remember either.

I don’t have this problem when writing short stories. The truly minor characters should create atmosphere or serve a function that create a sense of reality such as bartender, receptionist, etc. And none of their names, if they even need one, should end in the letter A! And yes, they can convey a piece of information that directs the protagonist because the story is short and the reader will remember it.

To paraphrase the gentleman who said, “The rent is too damn high.” I say, “The novel is too damn long.” I can hardly wait to get back to writing short stories.

Bones just read this column and said it was confusing.