Give Me A Nice Locked Room

After the last week, a padded, soundproof cell sounds heavenly.  But actually, this blog is about locked room mysteries.

Mystery fans know I mean the kind of story where the corpse is found alone in a room with limited access, and that access has been cut off from the outside with a lock or other means. The fun of solving this kind of enigma is figuring out how the murderer got in and back out again.

Back in the 5th century, Herodotus told of a headless robber whose body was found in a sealed chamber. What we think of as the first "modern" detective story came from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe: The Murders in The Rue Morgue, published in 1841. This was also a locked room mystery and no doubt inspired variations on the plot that followed--Collins' The Moonstone, Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room, and several Sherlock Holmes tales such as The Sign of Four and "The Speckled Band."

During the Golden Age of detective fiction, locked room mysteries were some of the most popular, and it seems like nearly every author of the genre tried their hand at this kind of plot. Dorothy Sayers set one outdoors--a recent corpse found in the middle of a wet beach, yet with no footprints in sight (Have His
Carcase). Agatha Christie used a whole island as her locked room (And Then There Were None). Christie used the technique in other works as well. One of my favorites is her short story, "The Blue Geranium."

Authors are still writing locked room mysteries, but they're hard to find these days. Maybe the pressure put on authors to churn out novels in a hurry discourages the creation of intricate plots. Or perhaps the trend toward action-oriented thrillers discourages plots based on mental puzzles. It seems a shame, now that we have all kinds of technology--surveillance cameras, motion detectors, ID card, fingerprint and retina-scan door openers--that could make for the ultimate locked room.

So, to kick off the next locked-room renaissance, I wrote the novel TWO-FACED (available only (for now) on Kindle and Nook). Any authors out there wiling to give it a try?

Do you have a favorite locked room mystery?

Peace,
Elena

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

A Case of the Broodies

Agatha Christie stated in her autobiography that she'd get a "broody" feeling when she was between books, or when her writing wasn't going well.

The last month, I've had a serious case of the broodies. I was working on the last 3 chapters of DOUBLE CROSS, the second novel in my Twins mystery series. As I was tying up loose ends, I discovered a few loopholes.

Writing a book is like building a house. You need a good structure and you need a floor plan that flows. The rest is cosmetics and can be changed once the first draft is complete. But if you're putting on the roof and realize walls need to be moved around or eliminated, it's easier (for me, anyway) to go back, make decisions on plot changes and implement them right away.

What brings on the broodies is losing momentum. Momentum is what keeps a story's energy level high. Most writers handing out advice will tell you to keep writing no matter what. Save rewrites until your first draft is complete. Absolutely sound advice, yet for me, it only works for cosmetic changes. Easy enough, once the house is built, to adjust the paint color, or even move non-load-bearing walls. Structural repairs are different. I can't keep working on a building in danger of collapse.

Going back to fix problems is part of the craft. Sometimes it's a pain, but more often it's a good challenge, even fun. You see a better way to tell the story, and that's always satisfying.

The good news is, the loopholes are gone and yesterday I finished the first draft. I celebrated by turning off the PC, making a big pot of soup and watching a Ghost Whisperer marathon on TV. Now I'm ready for rewrites.

Peace,
Elena

SUBPLOTS

I posted a fortnight ago about the new TV season. Now, two weeks into it, I realized what I love about the show Chuck. The plotting.

The main plot is always some sort of spy story--whodunit, howdunit, howcatchem, whatever. There's always a great moment of epiphany that allows the protagonists to solve the case. We mystery fans LOVE great moments of epiphany. Put in the action, danger and suspense, and that's all you need, right?

But Chuck always has a great comic subplot, too, usually having to with the quirky sidekick, Morgan, and the big box electronics store that's the home base setting for the series. Yes, these comic plots are usually completely off the wall, sometimes bordering on Three Stooges humor, often going off into Get Smart farce. But hey, they make me laugh. And like Shakespearean comedy, they provide relief whenever the main plot and the love story have to get serious.

The love story? An ongoing subplot between the two protagonists, Chuck and Sarah. Several other series characters also have their own subplots. This week, I counted three subplots in addition to the main and comic plots. Five tales, all within 43 minutes of storytelling. And not one of the plots was disappointing or felt like extra weight.

Balancing subplots is a tightrope walk. You have to move from one to the other smoothly. You have to tie up all the extra loose ends created by them. You can't spend too much time on subplots and make the main story weak. One other show last week did just that, trying to catch the viewer up on all the individual character lines, but failing to bind those stories together with a main plot that was suspenseful and satisfying. Even the subplots were anemic in their development.

My Possessed novels each contain a present-day mystery and a historical mystery as main plots, but I'm often asked about the character subplots. Will Pat and Hugh get together? Will Miss Maggie survive her nineties? Will Beth Ann ever become a psychic sleuth in her own right? And since it's fun to give each of my suspect characters a secret, that creates another possible subplots to be resolved. In POISON TO PURGE MELANCHOLY, I actually had to cut one subplot because the book was getting too long.

As a mystery reader, I hate books that are too thin plot-wise (especially if they aren't physically thin). Give me my money's worth. If I slap down fifteen to thirty bucks for a novel, it had better be stuffed full of good stories. I should come away wanting more NOT because the plate served to me was nearly empty. Rather, a great novel ought to be like a yummy dinner with an array of tasty side dishes. If I enjoy every bite, I'll be back.

Peace,
Elena

BUILDING A FOUNDATION

I'm posting this a few days early. Next week I'm unplugging myself from the world to concentrate on writing. With any luck, I'll get some work done. Or I'll figure out new ways to play with my pen. I'll let you know.

Meantime, here's the question of the week:

What do you believe are the basics, or necessities, for a good story?

First and absolutely most important, you need a good storyteller. Whether you write in first or third person, your narrator is your connection to your reader. No, more than that--the narrator should take the reader by the hand and lead him or her into and through the story. That means your narrator has to be completely engaging and trustworthy. Readers will not suffer fools much past page 50.

The narrator must be a skilled actor, the kind who could act out a fairy tale you've heard hundreds of times, yet keep you enthralled right up to the inevitable happy-ever-after. Unlike an actor, though, your narrator can't use gestures or facial expressions. Everything relies on language: words and the way they're used. The narrator's voice needs to be unique and command attention. In other words--and I've said this before on this blog--the narrator should NEVER be the author. Even if you're writing in third-person omniscient, that mysterious, godlike, all-seeing narrator ought to be a character with its own perspective and opinions. And hey, a sense of humor never hurts.

Of course, a great storyteller could read a shopping list and keep the audience interested, but will they come back for more?

So, second, you need a story with a beginning, middle and end. You need to say who your characters are, then what happens to them, then how they're changed by what happened.

Say two people meet for dinner and have a conversation. That isn't a story in itself. It shouldn't even be a chapter. BUT, what if the conversation becomes more like a roller coaster ride, with ups and downs, witty banter one moment, argument the next? If this conversation changes each character significantly--in the way they feel about each other, or about their worlds, or in what their next actions will be--THEN you have a story. If the story makes the reader think a little, so much the better.

Now, sure, add great characters and a nifty setting and a completely surprising twists throughout and you've got a great mystery novel. But the necessities are storyteller and story.

Peace,
Elena

Learning to be Creative

I've had more questions sent my way, which makes writing this blog easier, so keep 'em coming.

What is the best way to avoid currently public story lines from integrating into your work?

I'm going to assume that by "public story line" you mean something detailed and recognizable like "Boy finds out he's a wizard, goes to wizarding school and battles evil archenemy." Because something like "Girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy" has been done over and over. Every modern romance is based on that plot line. Nobody's going to hang you for using it. Even recognizable stories like Romeo & Juliet and Pygmalion have been redone as West Side Story and My Fair Lady (and Pretty Woman).

My theory is that human beings instinctively learn storytelling, character development, narrative description, et cetera, through stealing.

As we grow up, we hear stories, read books, watch TV and movies, and go to plays. We latch onto, say, certain authors or TV shows that fire our imaginations more than others. Most children cook up stories involving their dolls and stuffed animals. If a youngster goes on to dream up tales starring their favorite book characters, or imagines friends or fictional characters in an existing TV story, chances are that youngster's going to be a novelist or playwright someday. I used to write parodies of fairy tales with my friends in the main roles, and I still write parodies of songs.

My point here is that this kind of stealing is how we learn to trust our imaginations. Creating every aspect of a novel from scratch is too overwhelming for most beginners. If you start with an established framework--a story or characters that you already know will work--you can let yourself play what-if with the other aspects of the tale, until you work out all the kinks in the writing process. This is a great way to learn the craft.

If you're going to steal plots for works you intend to sell someday, though, stick with the tried-and-true. Read the classics, both in literature and mystery fiction--Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, et al. Not only are these stories public domain, they've stood the test of time.

Interesting that you can bake a cake using a mix or someone else's recipe, sell it at a bake sale, or even in a bakery, and no one will bring you to court over it.

But you can't do the writing equivalent. So just steal enough to learn each aspect of writing--characters, plots, settings, dialogue--then start trusting your own imagination. Start baking completely from scratch.

Peace,
Elena