Posts Categorized: The Writing Life

Creating Delilah West: Can’t swim? Dive in Anyway

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Death is Forever by author Maxine O'Callaghan

When I began writing my first novel, I was blissfully ignorant of that sage piece of advice: Write what you know. I wasn't a cop, or a pathologist, or a special agent for the FBI. Besides a stint in the Marine Corp Reserve, I was, first, a secretary, then a stay-at-home housewife and mother who read. A lot. Mostly mysteries and suspense with an emphasis on private eye fiction. So it seemed perfectly natural to me that when one of my first short stories, A Change of Clients, appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in 1974, it featured a private detective. My only concession to the write-what-you-know maxim was to make my detective a woman, because, well, I was one. It really... more

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Michael Stone on Writing The STREETER Novels

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Low End Of Nowhere by author Michael Stone

I’ve always loved the write. I was a newspaper reporter for twelve years before I started my private investigations business. I also took a whack at writing a mystery/crime fiction novel back in the mid 1980s. I really liked noir crime movies so I tried to write a novel along those lines. I got some interest from a fairly well-known New York agent. She liked my writing but not the book I wrote. Go figure. She asked me what crime fiction authors I read. I thought about and realized I never actually read any crime fiction or mystery novels. The agent was surprised. She made two suggestions. One, keep writing and, two, start reading novels in the genre. Get the feel for what makes a good... more

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Writing the JUAN DOE MURDERS: What’s Old is New, What’s New is Old

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The Juan Doe Murders by author Noreen Ayres

The Juan Doe Murders could have spun right off today’s headlines. Back in the ‘90s when I was living in Southern California, I was touched by the fate of Hispanics who arrived without, shall we say, government permission. Driving south just twenty miles from my home, I’d see highway signs with the black silhouettes of a running man and a woman just behind him grasping the hand of young child whose pigtails are flying as she seems lifted nearly off the ground; above them, the word “Caution.” The signs were to notify drivers that illegal aliens were told by their “coyotes” to jump out of vehicles near the immigration checkpoint and run across the freeway to hide in the shrubs... more

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“Dick Lochte is Writing a Mystery Novel” — The Story Behind SLEEPING DOG

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Sleeping Dog by author Dick Lockte

My guess is that most writers become novelists in the usual way. Their muse convinces them to buy writing software. They use it to complete a manuscript. They’re lucky enough to find an agent and an editor who like what they’ve done. That’s not how I did it. The words “Chapter One,” hadn’t even occurred to me when I parlayed several essays that appeared in the Los Angeles Times into a weekly column in the paper’s Book Review section. The editor of the Book Review, Digby Diehl, had established a policy of running a short biographical line at the bottom of each article. I suggested “Dick Lochte is working on a screenplay,” which was the truth. But Digby didn’t like... more

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Creating Waverly: The Story Behind MICHIGAN ROLL

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The day after Labor Day, 1986, I sat down at my desk in the cramped room I called, without a pinch of irony, my “study,” and faced one more time the terror of the blank page. More accurately, one last time, for with three and a half rejection-dusty manuscripts on a shelf behind me, I had pledged to myself this would be my final attempt at fiction writing. Another failure and I would settle in my dwindling years for the genteel poverty of the academician’s life, complete with a variety of harmless hobbies and arcane interests. After all—a 56 year old first novelist? Seemed preposterous, a bad joke. Nevertheless, a promise is a promise, and so I set to work, and slowly, painfully,... more

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Writing Blind – To Outline or Not to Outline

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Novelist John Connolly has an interesting approach to writing his highly-acclaimed novels: My first draft tends to be a little rough. There will be inconsistencies of dialogue and character. Some characters will appear in the early stages only to disappear later, their failure to manifest themselves once again left entirely unexplained. Some things seem like good ideas at the start, but quickly prove to be distractions from the main thrust of the book, and as soon as that realisation hits me I tend to let those elements slide. I don't fret too much about how untidy the text may be (although, in my darker moments, I wonder what might happen if I didn't live to finish the book and... more

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