That Book You Have to Write

There are books you write and tuck away. Practice books. Those with no current market appeal. Then there are the books you have to write...and...rewrite...until they are published.

LAST SUMMER IN EDEN, set in the mountain resort town Bethlehem, NH, in 1929, is the story I need to tell. The main character is Dorothy Brooks, 17, a young singer and member of the invisible class serving wealthy visitors. EDEN has flappers and bootlegging and theater and music and tender first love. And lots of pretty dresses. Has a decade ever had so many gorgeous clothes? Sequins, silks, beads, and embroidery--oh my.

Through her new friendship with a New York summer girl, Dorothy enjoys her foray into the resort's naughty fun. She wins a leading role in a romantic farce, where she must perform opposite the man who broke her heart. While fending him off, she falls for a new man--someone not quite "suitable," according to society's standards. She must make a choice, one that will define the rest of her life.

Bethlehem is beautiful and quirky, even now when most of the 30 hotels are gone. Eclectic cottages line the streets and there is an art deco theater, one of the last standing.  The air is still fresh and the views magnificent.

I used to walk the quiet streets on sweet summer nights, wishing I could get into a time machine and go back to...oh, 1929, maybe...  

Imagine standing in front of the Sinclair, a
four-story hotel that once filled a city block. Inside, a jazz band is wailing away. A flapper
and her companion slip out to the wide porch for a cigarette and a swig from a flask. They stand close together by the rail, shoulders touching as they flirt and laugh.

Below them, late night walkers throng the sidewalks. A surprisingly diverse crowd. Flashy, well-dressed Cubans. Proper Episcopalians in black tie and evening dress. Clusters of young men and women cruising the street, vying to see and be seen. And, strolling quietly, careful not to attract attention, an Orthodox Jewish family.

Bethlehem's pivotal role in New England tourism was colored by two serious issues: anti-Semitism and bootlegging. It's an ugly truth that religious bigotry was rife in New England hotels and vacation areas--not just in Bethlehem. It was never overt, but ads that state "Christian clientele" and "select clientele"are code for "no Jews welcome." The '20s were the time of a great shift for tourism, as motor touring rose and the hotel vacation went out of style. The formerly unwanted visitors saved the town during the Depression and World War II, when many other resorts shuddered to a whimpering demise. Bethlehem became a Jewish resort.

The booming hotel trade and proximity to Canada also meant a whole lot of illicit drinking going on. The town librarian told me how her father brewed beer and distributed it in a truck with fabric flaps so they could ditch the load when necessary. Accounts of car chases and shootings filled the local weekly. One elderly resident told me was also illegal gambling in the hotels. But with the amount of money that flowed into town, the hotels were left alone. In one hotel nearby, the spectacular Mount Washington Hotel, you can have a drink in the former underground speakeasy, the Cave.

LAST SUMMER IN EDEN explores that fascinating pivotal moment when old and new met, just before the jarring crash of 1929 and the end of the glorious Jazz Age. 

5 Things I Learned Writing Mysteries

This month I'm finishing another cozy mystery for Annie's Fiction book club, and in the process, I've learned so much--tips and techniques I'm using in all my writing, not just mysteries, since I'm not a one-genre girl.

So on to the lessons I've learned...

1. Outlining is your friend. Until my editor required it, I was a confirmed pantser. Oh, I'd sketch out plot ideas and mini outlines for sections of the book as I went, but the idea of writing a full outline gave me the heebie-jeebies. It's still painful for me, since I have one of those NF brains--intuitive. But the outline process forces me to figure out the plot arc for all the threads and noodle out issues in advance. This makes the writing process go much faster. Of course, an outline is just a guide. As you write, things get rearranged, dropped or added, whatever is needed to make the book stronger.

2. Pace carries your reader through the book. Mysteries not only have strong plot structures, they also have built-in pace. As the sleuth discovers clues, events build to the climax of solving the mystery. Often, chapters end on "cliffhangers"--exciting revelations or events--that keep the reader turning pages. The same technique can apply to any genre. The basic idea is to create suspense by raising an issue or question that will be answered later in the story. Narrative drive is another term--your novel needs an intrinsic energy that propels the reader on a journey.

3. Don't drop the sub-plot. Single-focus books seem to be a thing of the past, even in the crime genre. Detectives have personal lives and problems beyond solving their latest case. Weaving together plot and sub-plot can be tricky since you don't want big blocks of one focus then the other. Instead, include elements of plot and sub-plot in each chapter. Minor subplot can be brought in every few chapters. Creating an arc and/or outline for each sub-plot will help you make sure they weave into the main story perfectly.

4. Motivation and goals enrich your characters. I have to say it again--Deborah Dixon's Goal, Motivation, and Conflict really turned on the light bulbs for me. Yes, my sleuth was motivated to solve the mystery (and why is important, too) but what about the big picture? Identifying my character's internal goals, motivations, and conflicts added so much richness to the story. This also leads to believable reactions and behaviors and creates opportunity for interesting sub-plots and plot twists. There are layers of sophistication here with mirroring and sub-text that I admit I'm still learning about and striving to incorporate.

5. Take your readers somewhere special. The books I enjoy most immerse me into the character's world. Cozies often excel at that, since they are mainly escape reading. Whether the setting is a romantic country inn in autumn, a ski resort in January, or an exotic island getaway, readers want to feel like they are there. Sensual details abound. I've read some books that have a great set-up, characterization, and dialogue, but the setting is as bland as an airport hotel. It could happen anywhere. Great settings don't mean pages of description. Often a few specific and vivid details can convey a richness of experience.

Putting Flesh on the Bones: Structure and Meat in Your Story

Cookie photo by Anneheathen

Until recently I was a pantser. A character, a setting, a situation would come to me and I'd be off. Sometimes I knew where I wanted the story to end up--but I muddled through the middle all the way. 

I've written mysteries where I, along with my future readers, didn't know whodunnit. 

When I started writing for Annie's, my editor said an outline was a requirement. To that point, I'd only done mini-outlines as I wrote--sketching out the next few scenes. 

Ouch and ugh. Instinct wasn't going to cut it anymore.

My editor provided materials to help. At Entangled, too, authors are given tools to help ensure that their books have solid "beats" - plot points that structure the story.

I groaned my way through the outline and got the contract. When it came to writing the book, it was amazingly fast and required very little revision. Most of the sticky places had been thought through in advance. I still had to add scenes and work through some issues, of course.

Now I'm applying these tools to my YA romance and other projects I'm tossing around. I now see how a solid grasp of the plot arc will help me write a book for maximum impact. And how defining the characters' goals and motivations will enrich both the plot and the book as a whole.

Major light bulbs went off when an Entangled editor recommended Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Debra Dixon to an author. In Dixon's approach, goals (what) and motivations (why) create characters with depth and a personal path. Along the path, they encounter--and must overcome--conflict.  Understanding a character's goals and both internal and external motivations help you increase the stakes in a story. I can't recommend this book enough.

It immediately helped me hone the goals and motivations of my couple in Last Summer in Eden. They both feel boxed in by their place in society and long for creative freedom. The fulfillment of those desires comes into conflict for my MC due to the mores of the day, although in the 1920s, much was shifting--for women and in the setting of my book.

An often recommended tool for plotting is Blake Snyder's beat sheet. Blake is now gone, unfortunately, but his screenplay methods are still being taught. I use the beat sheet to plot the major incidents and turning points of a book. The page numbers cited are for a screenplay but you can convert the beats into percentages and apply to a novel.

The concept of key events at certain points in a book or film is promoted by other writers. Screen guru Michael Hague discusses the five turning points of a story. Specifically concerning YA novels, Anne Greenwood Brown posted on Writer Unboxed about applying two plot points another screen expert Christopher Vogler calls crossing over and near-death to YA novels. A crossing over point--a significant event--occurs at 25%. Examples Brown cites include turning 18, getting a new job, leaving home, etc. At 50%, the near-death occurs, a high conflict, often game-changing, scene. I made sure that my YA romance has one of those, although it has to do with my B-story--another Snyder term. But it greatly affects my MC and directly leads to dramatic events later in the story that influence her choices.

It's interesting that many of these tools come from screenwriting, and even Dixon uses movies as her teaching tools. I had some initial reluctance toward beat plotting because the last thing I want to create is a predictable, formulaic work, whether it's one of my screenplays or a novel. Sometimes plot points are applied in a clunky way. "Here comes the XYZ scene." But I believe that if you know your characters well enough, their goals and motivations and therefore their actions and response to conflict will be organic--meaning that the story will feel logical and natural. Yet hopefully will have suspense and narrative drive...but that's a topic for another day.

The Alchemy of Setting

When choosing a book, setting is something that can definitely draw me in. We all have personal favorites but I love gorgeous natural locations, old buildings, rich cultural activity, interesting businesses or hobbies, and atmosphere. One of the pleasures of reading is entering into a fully realized world that you can see, smell, taste, and hear. Feel.

I lived in New England most of my life, in Maine and New Hampshire with frequent visits to Vermont. Now that I live in Georgia, I enjoy excursions to New England through both reading and writing. I have to say I like reading about snow much more than I did living it! New England is a setting rich in history, weather, beauty, and architecture. The resort history of the White Mountains inspired two of my historical works. Other settings are just as fascinating, though. I have a YA set in Hollywood and adult books set in Oregon and Arizona. I also plan to set something in Italy, where my ancestors came from.

Setting influences character and plot, of course, as I like to work within the constraints of the possible. I spend almost as much time researching as writing, finding that I need to be fully grounded in my location before I can write about it. Yet creating effective setting doesn't mean pages of description. Rather, choose details that best evoke your setting, then use them to flavor action and narrative and dialogue.

Here is an excerpt from Blame It on the Aliens, published in the Live Free or Sci Fi anthology.  The characters drive through a depressed mill town to go fishing.

         “Man, this place is depressing,” Matt muttered as we cruised past decaying apartment houses and boarded-up storefronts.  Here and there, yellow tape guarded the charred, collapsed carcasses of those that had burned.

            But I was almost more unsettled by what was missing: the behemoth bulk of the pulp mill with its 300-foot stacks and multi-acre sprawl. All demolished and trucked away. A lone chimney standing in a tidy patch of grass the only testament to more than one hundred years of transforming logs to pulp to paper to prosperity.

            I stepped on the gas. Hopefully the fish hadn’t left as well.

            A couple of hours of drifting on the smooth mercury surface of Success Pond had the tranquilizing effect I’d hoped for. It was dead quiet, the only sounds occasional birdsong or a duck quacking as it flew over. So late in the season, no one else was on the water. The camps lining the shore were already shuttered and tucked in for the winter.

            I cast my line into the water, watching the gold spinner spiral down into the clear shallows of the cove. We’d only caught a couple of smallmouth bass so far, all under the limit, so we tossed them back.

Which settings do you find most compelling--as reader and writer?

Note: The photograph was taken outside the mill town in the story. Those tiny islands are all that remains of boom piers - guides for logs sent down the Androscoggin River.

The Alchemy of Emotion

I have noticed something mysterious as both writer and reader: the way emotion is transmitted through words. It isn't just the words used or their arrangements. Often they are quite ordinary words.

I've read beautiful works that left me cold. And in contrast, I've read clunky fiction that engaged me and evoked feeling. I'm convinced that the writer has to feel the emotions before they will be conveyed. Certain things that I've written--alone or in partnership with my husband--provoke tears or laughter upon multiple readings. That is odd because you would think familiarity would dull any reaction. This happened recently with the poignant voice-over to our coming of age story, Up the Tracks. I choked up like a dork when reading it to my husband.

Only my readers can tell me if I succeed. But what I consciously do when writing a high-intensity scene--be it love, reconciliation, sadness, fear, or anger--is put myself in my character's head as much as possible. Sometimes I even act out the physical movements, pretending I am acting a role in a film. Sort of. In my writing room. Good thing I don't write erotica. The neighbors and the cat might object, though my husband might not.

I'm curious if others have the same experience--as readers or writers. 

The Writing Process... A Mystery

I was recently asked how Dan and I write screenplays together. "Do you just sit down and write?" she asked. Well, yes and no.

Yesterday we started working on yet another zany comedy. I know, we just finished a screenplay last week but we enjoy having a project in process. It's fun for us, not merely "work." We write-a-holics feel empty without a project going; two or three is even better. 

We'd had the concept for the new one sometime last year. Brief notes were tucked in a file called "script ideas." Lots of things trigger ideas. Often life itself with its challenges, quirks and craziness. Airspac'd, about the trials and tribulations of today's air travel was sparked by, yes, flights from hell. 

So we went down to AJ's, our favorite pub, with folder and notebook in hand. AJ's was quiet on a Sunday afternoon. We took a wooden booth, ordered beers and cups of homemade chili and got to work. 

I read over our old notes. Hmmm. Some of it it didn't resonate any more. What were we thinking? The main arc of the story was OK. We just needed all the details. We sat there for a few minutes staring at each other. Inspiration had left the building. 

We decided to focus on identifying our main characters. Who are they? What happens to them? How do they intersect? After a couple of hours brainstorming we had them nailed down, names and life situations included. Along the way we also created tangental characters, decided how to open the movie and we had several ideas for plot complications. All scrawled in cryptic handwritten notes. 

All our works start the same way. A pile of notes and half-formed ideas swirling in our heads. We'll probably draft up the first few scenes on the computer, then go back to brainstorming. Sometimes the process of actually writing description, action and dialogue sparks ideas for the next scenes. The characters come alive and start to "speak." 

It continues to amaze me that out of such meager beginnings, a full-fledged, 120 page plus screenplay will eventually emerge. It can't be forced yet you have to be disciplined. Once underway, it simmers in the back of your mind constantly. Often we wake up with ideas. 

It's not all pleasure. Sometimes we're stuck. Sometimes we argue. We have different visions for how things should go. We hammer them out and often the result is better for it. 

Check in with us in two or three months. With any luck, we'll have another funny, entertaining work ready to shop around.