Robin Hathaway's Short Story Tips

My guest today is Robin Hathaway, who writes the Dr. Fenimore mystery series and the Jo Banks mystery series. Both feature medical professional sleuths battling crime in South Jersey and the Philadelphia area. Robin is the winner of the Malice Domestic St. Martin's Press Contest and an Agatha Award for her novel The Doctor Digs a Grave. Besides her novels, Robin has had many short stories published and that's her topic today.  Visit her website at www.robinhathaway.com.

SHORT STORY TIPS

The following tips are just that. They are not rules, but suggestions.

1.  Know your ending before you start writing. This is not necessarily true when writing a novel, in which the ending may evolve gradually as you write. But with a short story, I usually write backward, with the ending clearly in mind from the beginning.

2.  Economy and precision. These two things should be foremost in your mind when you are writing a short story. You must choose your sentences carefully, making each one count. There is no room for lengthy descriptions of setting or characters. You must choose exact details that say what you mean, rather than generalizations. Be precise.

3.  Limit your characters to 3 or 4 at the most. A large cast of characters is unwieldy and confusing in a short story.

4.  Have your plot clearly in mind before you begin, if possible. If you know your ending this shouldn’t be too hard.

5.  Read some good short stories before you begin, by Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, etc. and sample some contemporary authors in Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines. Study how others succeed.

6.  Have fun!

Robin Hathaway

Mouse Turds on the Cheese

(and Other Disgusting Historical Details)

I'VE spent the last two weeks in the 17th century.

My Possessed Mysteries are half historical, with a different era in each novel. That means starting historical research from scratch with each new project. Until I understand the world in which my period characters lived, I can't begin writing.

Think of it this way, human beings make lists. When we wake in the morning, we have in our minds what has to be done that day. Fridge getting a bit barren? Grocery shopping. Last pair of clean undies? Laundry. Car has less than a quarter tank? Get gas. And maybe a hope for something enjoyable when work is done--a nice meal, a walk, a movie, a good book.

Before my historical narrators open their mouths to speak, I need to know what kind of lists they wake up with. I've realized that, until now, most of my main historic characters have lived in circumstances where they depend on others to provide for them or at least, tell them where they need to be each day. For instance, in BY BLOOD POSSESSED, my protagonist is in the Confederate Army. Being a pawn moved around a  battlefield, the character can't plan for food and clothing, and needs be alert and resourceful in supplementing the meager army supplies. Which leaves the mind more free time to plot revenge.

For the fifth book, though, I'm picturing a woman living on a farm along the Chesapeake around the year 1700. What she did and didn't accomplish each day might determine in part whether or not residents of the farm survived. Her head would be filled with chores that needed to be done: daily chores like mucking out animal pens and milking cows, weekly chores like making bread, and seasonal chores like sowing the garden. Sure, I've done living history and I plant my own garden each year, but there are so many details, like butter making, that are completely foreign to my experience. And frankly, I'm having trouble getting into the head of someone who has to be that organized simply to stay alive.

So this past week, besides reading up on recipes and clothes and diaries of the period, I watched a 12 part BBC series called Tales from the Green Valley. Five historians lived on a 17th century farm on the Welsh border for a year, running it as it would have been run in 1628. This was an excellent series, filling in many of the details necessary for writing historic fiction (some of them truly gross--for example, using fermented urine as a stain remover). I highly recommend this documentary to anyone who likes history.

I now have 30 pages of notes and more questions to look up, but a believable character is emerging at last, along with the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the period.

Peace,
Elena

The New and Unexpected

Back when I was in high school, I remember half-waking up in the middle of the night, thinking I heard the window make noise. I blinked at the room for maybe a second, then fell back to sleep. Next morning I heard we had an earthquake. I live on the East Coast. Once in a lifetime experience. I was bummed that I'd missed it.

Yesterday at 1:50 pm, I was in my 2nd floor office, sitting at my PC, writing, totally in the zone. The rest of the world didn't exist.

Some independent part of left brain heard what sounded exactly like someone running up my stairs. The house is old--running up the stairs shakes the floorboards. Didn't faze me until I realized I ought to be alone in the house. Noise stopped, but the vibration increased until it felt like someone wiggling my desk chair from behind. That brought me out of the zone. Heavy truck going by? Explosion across town? The desk moved under my hands.

The vibration stopped abruptly. I was turning in my chair when it began again and this time, the room swayed. The Venetian blind rods moved, my bobble-head moose nodded, my PC monitor was wiggling like it was made of Jello. Now I knew an earthquake was passing through. But I sat frozen. And geek that I am, my first thought was "How cool!"

All this lasted maybe 4 seconds. I went outside, not because I felt unsafe--I only wanted to ask the neighbors what they felt. I was fascinated.

Of course, by now I was so out of the zone, I gave up on writing for the day. But it got me thinking about how often we mystery writers put our characters in new and unexpected situations.

In BY BLOOD POSSESSED, someone shoots at my protagonist. She's not expecting it, she's never been shot at before. Like me in the earthquake, it takes her a moment to realize what's happening, then she freezes. I think I got her reaction right in that instance. After yesterday, though, I'm not so sure of other scenes where she experiences something new.

Reactions, of course, must be personality-driven, but no one should react to a new experience with perfect reflexes, even characters with emergency training of some sort. Yet, I've read too many novels where the protagonist reacts instantly, somehow instinctively doing the right thing. To me, that's the fastest way to dehumanize a character.

Last night quite a few of the people I heard from said they never wanted to feel an earthquake again. Me? If no one gets hurt and no property is damaged, I wouldn't mind another chance to observe the experience.

Like I said, I'm a geek...and a writer.

Peace,
Elena

Who Says What and How Often?

I've written other blogs about voice, but I'm a bit obsessed by the subject this week.  For one thing, I don't have much of a voice myself right now.  Normal speaking tones feel like shouts in my throat.  I tried to sing along with the song "Yesterday" on the radio last week.  Paul McCartney could sing higher than I could.  The longest I ever had to wait for a body part to heal was 6 weeks (a broken toe).  I'm told my speaking voice will likely take 3-4 months to heal, and my singing voice could be 6 months to 2 years.  And patience isn't one of my virtues.

Besides that, I've also been thinking about the way people speak because I'm working on rewrites for FEAR ITSELF.  These particular revisions are the easiest kind--the sort where the proofreader tells me that I used certain words too often.  All I had to do was search for those words, then decide if the word could be changed in each instance.  Words repeated too often are a common problem of any first draft manuscript.  While your brain is trying to get the story down, you don't always notice that you, for instance, put the phrase "even so" three times on one page.

But this time--since I have "voice" on the brain, and since one of my online mystery groups was discussing the overuse of cuss words in some books--I began to think of too-often used words and phrases in character terms.  Not everyone in a book should curse and the ones who do shouldn't use the same words or phrases. Otherwise, it's difficult to tell characters apart.  Shortened versions of certain words, like 'em for them, or 'cause for because, or 'til for until?  Each of those might also be uttered by only one or two characters, to make the voices clearer and not overuse the words.

Unique phrases, especially, ought to be reserved for one voice.  Tony Hillerman often used "so forth" at the end of a sentence after a comma (with no "and" before it).  This never bothered me until he had more than one character say it.  I'd come to think of it as the unique speaking trait of the detective.  When another character said the phrase, I was pulled out the story.  What if Agatha Christie had given "mon ami" to both Poirot and Hastings?  It wouldn't have worked.  Yet Poirot alone can say it often and it doesn't seem odd.

Even so, mon ami, peace, so forth,
Elena

The Writer on TV

Next week a new season of network TV begins. I admit to an addiction to a few good shows: Chuck, Bones, and Castle.

I grew up watching a slew of great mystery/spy shows--Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen (photo), both the Man and Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (why was he a "man" and she a "girl"?), Get Smart, The Avengers, MacMillan & Wife, Burke's Law, Ironsides, The Rockford Files, and later on, Matlock, Murder She Wrote, Magnum P.I., The Scarecrow & Mrs. King, and Cagney & Lacey.

What did they have in common? A good story, a little (or a lot of) humor, characters, directors and writers who didn't take themselves too seriously, who knew how to play. How to be creative.

But today's blog isn't about those old shows. It's about how mystery writers are portrayed on TV.

In Castle's opening, we always hear how writing pays better than crime. I'm always tempted to hit "mute" on that part. The writer lives in an apartment or condo bigger than most houses, presumably in Manhattan, since he never seems to be late because of being stuck in a tunnel or on a bridge. In Manhattan, living space that size probably doesn't exist, but if it does, you'd run through a cool million each quarter renting it. Even that I can overlook--maybe Castle inherited his bucks from his family--but what's most unbelievable is his lack of books. The writers I know (self included) have books lying around everywhere. Boxes of your own books for promos, stacks of novels other author gave you, stacks of freebies brought home from conventions, stacks of research books, and stacks you actually want to read for pleasure. The realistic thing about him is that he hangs out with other authors. He plays poker while he talks shop. My writer friends and I eat.

Jessica Fletcher and Ellery Queen are probably most like writers I know. Their wardrobes were (for the most part) modest. I don't remember much of the Queen household, but Jessica's digs were small and cozy. But I don't remember stacks of books with either of them, or piles of research materials, or even a handy dictionary or thesaurus next to their typewriters. I do recall Jessica standing in front of a bookshelf for one of her author photos, but the books behind her? No modern mysteries, no torn, sensational jackets, no paperbacks, not even a tome on forensics or bullet calibers or undetectable poisons.

Most true-to-life about all TV mystery writers is how they avoid writing. Of course, they do it by solving murders--the rest of us avoid writing by, say, cleaning out the garage. But the sentiment is the same. Said best, perhaps, on one Castle episode where he answers the phone with something like "Please tell me there's been a murder or I'll have to write."

Happy viewing,
Elena

Pat Montella in the Kitchen

Snow is blowing sideways past my window at the moment. We already have a foot of the white stuff on the ground and the storm won't be over for another 10 hours. Yesterday at noon, our local TV news showed the masses of humanity in the grocery stores, loading up not only on Super Bowl munchies, but on milk, bread and eggs. Something about the thought of being snowed in makes people want those 3 items handy. A friend of mine deduced from this that snow=french toast.

The news made me do my own inventory. Lots of eggs, but only 4 slices of bread and slightly more than a cup of milk which was beginning to develop enough of a personality, I knew I'd be throwing it out today if I didn't use it up (I made pudding last night). Did I rush out to the store? No. A few days, even a week, without milk and bread isn't going to kill me. Milk and bread aren't worth fighting those crowds.

But it got me thinking about food. Frankly, it doesn't take much to get me thinking about food.

My protagonist, Pat Montella, loves to cook. When I began the series, I wasn't much of a chef myself. My mom was supreme and undisputed empress of our kitchen when I was growing up. Once in a while, she'd indulge me if I wanted to try a recipe, but I never got those urges often. Why should I when she was such an amazing cook?

But when I was developing Pat's character, I knew I needed to give her some creative outlet for stress and boredom. She couldn't just slog back and forth to her dead-end job each day and watch TV at night. She'd be as dull as she thought she was.

I considered hobbies I'd done first, simply because I knew about them--needlepoint, embroidery, macrame, woodworking, music. Nothing seemed to be a good fit for Pat. Cooking kept niggling at the back of my mind, but I resisted it. For one thing, since Pat was Italian-American, it seemed stereotypical. For another, I'd have to do RESEARCH. You can't make someone sound like a good cook if you have no clue yourself.

I didn't decide for sure until I was writing Pat's first scene with Miss Maggie. All of a sudden, Miss Maggie asked if Pat could make tomato sauce and Pat said yes. That recipe, Grandmom Montella's Zucchini Sauce, I got from hanging over my mom's shoulder at the stove, taking notes as she made it, writing down her measurements for ingredients--that is, a palmful of oregano, a fistful of basil leaves, etc.

My mom died a couple years ago, and about the same time, I was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance (meaning a lot of packaged foods are taboo), so I had to, at last, learn to cook. I found out that I love it as much as Pat. I now have some of my recipes online. You can view them at http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/more-about-me.asp?user=5404215 (or just google Sparkrecipes ElenaSan).

As I get time, I'll be putting Pat's recipes up on the site, in a virtual cookbook titled "From the Pat Montella Mysteries."

As for today, I plan to make a big pot of chicken corn soup. I also remember my mom saying how her mom would lean out their window, scoop fresh snow off the porch roof, add vanilla and sugar, and voila, Italian water ice. Well, the snow on my porch roof now is already up to the window, so....

Who needs milk and bread?

Mangia,
Elena

Please Don't Kill Off Miss Maggie!

Last week, PBS's Independent Lens aired the documentary "Young @ Heart" about a chorus of seniors, average age about 81. The trailer for this film (link below) begins with a solo by a feisty 92 year-old woman. When I saw it I thought of Miss Maggie--that is, Magnolia Shelby, the 91 year-old sidekick character in my series.

My first novel, By Blood Possessed, was originally going to be a stand-alone, that is, I wasn't thinking of a continuing series when I wrote it. Still, when an editor says "We love your book. You're going to do it as a series, aren't you?" answering no isn't an option.

Putting a 91 year-old in a single book is no big deal, but a series is another matter. I considered taking a couple decades off of Miss Maggie before publication. Problem was, much of Pat's early motivation in the book comes from the fact that Miss Maggie is a nonagenarian. And frankly, much of Miss Maggie's character grows from the fact that she experienced so much of the 20th century. But I never dreamt that Magnolia would become such a popular character, and that more fan mail would mention her than Pat, often with the plea "Please don't ever kill off Miss Maggie!"

So I told myself, I'll just make the timeline of the series move rather slowly. That way Miss Maggie won't age quickly. At the same time, of course, I have to balance "Cabot Cove syndrome"--how many murders should one expect in a small village within one year? But hey, folks, this is fiction. If you want entertainment, you have to help the author out by playing along.

In her autobiography, Agatha Christie said that her biggest regret about Hercule Poirot was that she'd made him elderly to begin with. She didn't feel as strongly about Miss Marple, I guess because she was supposed to be old anyway. Think about it, Miss Marple is described as a white-haired woman wearing Victorian garb (black-lace mittens!) in 1925, yet she's still solving crimes nearly fifty years later.

The most difficult aspect I find of writing about the elderly is trying to remember how physically fragile they can be. A simple fall can end up being fatal. In Miss Maggie's own mind, she's still young. In fact, Pat often remarks that living with her is sometimes like minding a precocious tot. But Miss Maggie also takes stairs one tread at a time, her legs get stiff if she sits too long, she's supposed to stick to a heart-healthy diet, and she takes meds. I have to be careful to keep these physical limitations consistent. She obviously isn't going to go running after the bad guy. That's actually what makes her appealing to me. She has to solve problems with brains alone.

So take a look at the "Young@Heart" trailer. If I'm half that alive in 35+ years, I'll be happy.

http://www.youngatheartchorus.com/film.php

Peace,
Elena

THE INVISIBLE MAN

In my Possessed series, I have one character who is never seen and never speaks, and yet he's been mentioned in every book and plays a more important role than I ever imagined him playing. Is he some evil mastermind, controlling dark forces from afar? Or the opposite? Like the guy who makes the recordings for Mr. Phelps in Mission Impossible?

No, my character is a mental health patient, Miss Maggie's son, Frank. When he came home from World War II, his demons followed. He's been living with chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder since 1945. His family has, too, because that's the nature of the condition. Miss Maggie's a strong, forthright woman, but if you asked her about having a son like Frank, I'm guessing she wouldn't tell you her feelings straight out. Watching PTSD destroy a loved one's life isn't something most folks can talk about--one of the reasons it's taken this long in history to even give the disorder a proper name and submit it to serious medical study.

People say "write what you know" and in this case, I did. Frank is based on my Uncle Joe Chicco. I dedicated BY BLOOD POSSESSED to his memory. He died not long before the novel was published, after suffering fifty-five years with chronic PTSD. My grandmother took care of him most of those years and yes, part of Miss Maggie is Jennie Chicco, her strength not the least of all. After my grandmother died, my mom and her other brother took over. My mom sent Uncle Joe meals and groceries, kept after him to take his meds, and got him to his doctor and mental clinic appointments. She called him every night to make sure he was okay. When he didn't take the meds--usually when some change came to his life, like when my grandmother died--he'd have relapses. So for 19 years, quite a bit of each week for my mom and by extension, our family, was spent trying to keep Uncle Joe's life as predictable as possible.

In my book, Miss Maggie has the same sort of burden, though she at least has the aid of the VA Hospital in Richmond, which is how she's got time to solve mysteries. But Frank is still a huge part of her life and she plans her schedule around her regular visits to see him. Because her son can't deal with change any easier than my uncle could, she knows she's better off keeping that part of Frank's existence stable.

I've realized lately that characters like Frank are what keep me writing. No matter how bad the market is, no matter whether mysteries aren't selling, I keep writing because people like my Uncle Joe need their stories told.

What got me thinking about both Uncle Joe and Frank Shelby was a special Veterans' Day presentation of Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS this past week, in which he aired a documentary called THE GOOD SOLDIER. You can watch a portion of this at

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11062009/profile.html

and if you'd like to learn more about PTSD (which can hit not only soldiers but all kinds of victims of traumatic events and long-term stress), the absolute best website is the National Center for PTSD:

http://www.ptsd.va.gov/

We're fond of saying that death is the ultimate sacrifice of war. I won't argue that it's a great sacrifice, but at least there's rest for the fallen and closure for the family. Military personnel like my uncle, and their families, continue to sacrifice for their country long after the war is over, sometimes for the rest of their lives. On top of that, all too often, society and fellow vets treat them poorly.

If we're going to keep sending people to war, we need to get a clue.

Happy Veteran's Day,
and above all
Peace,
Elena