In Another Man's Shoes

There's a fellow member in our Denver MWA Chapter who keeps telling me that I write like Damon Runyon. In case you haven't heard of him, Runyon was a famous journalist from about the 1910s until the 1940s who also wrote short stories about New York characters who hung out on the streets around Broadway. If you are old enough, you have probably seen Marlon Brando in some version of Guys and Dolls based on a few of Runyon's story characters.

As for me, I didn't see the resemblance between my writing and Runyon's writing. If it was that some of the type of characters which I wrote about were similar to Runyon's, then fine. But the styles of writing were completely different in my mind, so I bought a couple of Runyon's collections of short stories to find out what Runyon and his street people were all about and how Runyon wrote, So now, let me introduce you to a few of Runyon's characters and his style of writing.

In More Than Somewhat the reader is introduced to people such as Judge Goldfobber, who is a lawyer, but not a real judge. It pleases him to be called judge and people like to please him because "He is a wonderful hand for keeping citizens from getting into the sneezer (jail), and better than Houdini when it comes to getting them out out of the sneezer after they are in." Furthermore,, "He is such a guy as loves to mingle with the public in these spots (night clubs and other deadfalls)), as he picks up much law business there and sometimes a nice doll."

The Unnamed Narrator of many of these stories "get(s) to thinking of Harry the Horse and Spanish John and Little Isadore, and the reason (he) figure(s) they must be suffering from the underemployment situation is because if nobody is working and making any money, there is nobody for them to rob, and if there is nobody for them to rob, Harry the Horse, Spanish John and Little Isadore are just naturally bound to be feeling the depression keenly." To remedy the Judge's most recent problem and the three criminals underemployment, the Unnamed Narrator reluctantly recommends the three criminals to the Judge for a job the Judge needs done.

On another front, we meet Dave the Dude. "Only a rank sucker will think of taking two peeks at Dave the Dude's doll, because while Dave may stand for the first peek, figuring it's a mistake, it is a sure thing he will get sored up at the second peek and Dave the Dude is certainly not a man to have sored up at you."

"But this Waldo Winchester is one hundred percent sucker, which is why he takes quite a number of peeks at Dave's doll. And what is more, she takes quite a number of peeks right back at him. And there you are. When a guy and a doll get to taking peeks back and forth at each other, why, there you are indeed." "Now this is bad news, because when Dave the Dude takes a guy out for an airing, this guy very often does not come back."

In Damon Runyon Favorites, along comes Big Butch the safe cracker. "It seems that there is a big coal company which has an office in an old building down in West Eleventh Street, and in that office is an old safe, and in that safe is the company payroll of twenty thousand-dollars cash money. Harry the Horse knows the money is there because a personal friend of his who is the paymaster of the company puts it there this very afternoon.

It seems that this paymaster enters into a dicker with Harry the Horse and Little Isadore and Spanish John for them to slug him while he is carrying the payroll from the bank to the office in  the afternoon, but something happens that they miss connections on the exact spot so the paymaster has to carry the sugar to the office without being slugged, and there it is now in two fat bundles."

To remedy this situation, the three criminals are trying to enlist the talents of Big Butch, however Big Butch has some reluctance to open said safe due to having already been in Sing Sing on three prior occasions for opening safes and should he go for a fourth time, he will be required to stay for life, no argument. Furthermore, he has to mind the baby, little John Ignatius Junior, who is now asleep.

Harry the Horse convinces Butch that this is an old pete box which he can open with a toothpick. "Listen, Butch," Harry says in a whisper, "we can take the baby with us, and you can mind it and work, too." In final negotiations, the sleeping baby gets cut in for five percent of the take, which all concerned figure is only fair since the baby will be going along. As it is, the baby turns out to be more than worth his participation.

And in turn, both story collections were worth the price of admission to Runyon's world. I tried to mimic Runyon's story telling ability and some of his style when I wrote "Most Important Meal of the Day." It sold to Black Cat Mystery Magazine and will be published in a forthcoming edition. Buy that issue when it comes out, read the story and let me know how I did. Thanks.

The Advantage of Networking

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but this topic is important enough that I believe it bears mentioning again. You just never know when networking will bring you an unexpected gift or boost at just the right time.

In a previous blog, I told about Brian Thornton (a fellow SleuthSayer) and me taking an MWA Board Member to the Russian Vodka Room in Manhattan for Baltika #3 beers and finding out later that particular member was an editor. This little outing subsequently led to me getting talked into a non-fiction book contract written under an alias. And yes, that was good beer.

Okay, so several years later, I'm on a short story panel at a Bouchercon in Dallas where Barb Goffman is the panel moderator. While waiting for the panel to begin, we start chatting and she happens to mention that she likes my short story "Black Friday" (the 10th story in  my Holiday Burglar series) which was published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine Nov/Dec 2017 issue.

Then, a couple of months ago, Barb looks me up in an e-mail asking if she can reprint "Black Frida" in Black Cat Weekly of which she does the Barb Goffman Presents section and is an Associate Editor of the magazine. (And no, no beer was involved.) But yes, not only does this e-mail come at a good time, Barn also wishes to pay me in good, solid U.S. American Dollars. So, you see this networking thing does pay off in the end.

NOTE: Black Cat Weekly #13 is an e-format, 479 page publication of good reading put out by Wildside Press LLC. Maybe you should buy a copy of this publication and see if it is a good market for you and your work. At least you'll enjoy the reading, if nothing else.

And While you're at it, you too should try some of this networking stuff at critique groups, writers' conferences, chapter meetings, readings, library gatherings, getting involved in writing organizations and/or whatever works for you. Get you and your stories and your name out there by being there.

And, don't be shy. Let us know how it all comes out.

Making characters come alive

I was once asked to explain voice, and I thought it was kind of like the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity: You know it when you see it. Voice is attitude. Voice is how characters come alive off the page. Voice is making characters' feelings so real that readers feel like they know them and understand them.

Knowing who characters are deep down and being able to show it through their voice is important to writers because when you throw your characters into whatever you've cooked up for them, you want readers to believe the characters do what they do, even if they disapprove of the characters' actions. It's even better if you can get readers to feel like they're wearing the characters' shoes, to essentially become them. One way to accomplish this, to make a character feel that real, is to use detail to pull readers in.

I attempted this in my newest short story, "Out of a Fog," published last week in issue ten of Black Cat Mystery Magazine. The story opens with a college senior who is blindsided by her boyfriend of three years when he breaks up with her. I wanted the reader to feel her pain and dismay, how she's shocked to her core when the relationship she'd built her world around is ended with such suddenness, like an unexpected death. Here's how the story opens:

My boyfriend dumped me a week before Thanksgiving. It felt like a Mack truck slammed into me, and after I skidded across the pavement, leaving behind torn flesh and what remained of my heart, it kept on coming, rolling right over me. First the front tires, huge and heavy, their treads filled with razor-sharp pebbles. Then the back ones, too, ensuring I was good and flattened.

I then take you right into the breakup, showing it happening, how the boyfriend tries to make things better but every word is a twist of the knife. And the main character is left at the end of the scene emotionally destroyed and capable of doing ... well, who knows what? Pushed to her limit, she now can do things that the reader would condemn but also understand at the same time. 

That was my goal at least, to make the character's anguish so real that readers get why she does what she does as the story progresses, despite knowing it's wrong. Did I succeed? That's for readers to decide. 

If you'd like to read the story (as well as ten other new stories, including ones from fellow SleuthSayers Janice Law, Steve Liskow, and Elizabeth Zelvin) you'll need to pick up issue ten of Black Cat Mystery Magazine. Click here to download it directly from the publisher in epub and Kindle formats. You can pick it up in paper and Kindle formats from Amazon by clicking here. The issue should also show up soon in other online bookshops. 

Thanks to editor Michael Bracken for publishing the story. And, authors, if you have other voice tips, feel free to mention them in the chat.

My American Project—How to Write Like an American

Anne van Doorn is a regular reader and back blogger here at SleuthSayers. He's also an author (with a charming way with words) and a friend of mine. I'm pleased to share his guest column with you today. Welcome, Anne. 

                                                                                                            -- Barb Goffman

My American Project—How to Write Like an American

Avid readers of SleuthSayers may have seen my name appear in the comments section here. I came across this blog through Google and instantly liked how professional writers shared their experiences. It's an honest, entertaining, and informative blog—a tempting combination. Now I have also been invited to write an article too, which I consider a great honor.

My name is Anne van Doorn. It's one of my two pen names; the other is M.P.O. Books. I'm a professional writer from the Netherlands, where I earn a modest but sufficient income. In my spare time, I work on a book on 600 years of my family's history.

None other than Josh Pachter introduced me to an international readership. He translated from Dutch my story "The Poet Who Locked Himself In." It was published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine's Sept/Oct 2019 issue. I feel very grateful to Josh and the staff at EQMM for giving me this opportunity. Editor Janet Hutchings even gave me the chance to write a guest post for her blog Something is Going to Happen.

In case you're starting to think I'm writing this post to BSP myself—no, I'm here to enlist your assistance, dear SleuthSayers. 

I like a challenge. My introduction to an international audience made me wonder if I would be able to write an American detective novel. I'm sure I can—but to what level of performance? How convincing will it be? Your help is direly needed!

Dutch Writers Crossing Borders

Other writers from the Netherlands have tried this before—writing in English. Maarten Maartens (1858-1915), who lived the last years of his life in my hometown of Doorn, is said to be the first Dutchman to have written a detective novel for adults. It was titled The Black Box Murder (Remington & Co, London, 1889), and he wrote it in English. In fact, the novel has never been translated into Dutch. Maartens, who lived in England from 1864-1870, wrote almost exclusively in English. Regrettably, The Black Box Murder is his only detective novel. 

Other glowing examples are Robert van Gulik (1910-1967), who is famed for his wonderful Judge Dee stories, set in ancient China, and Janwillem van de Wetering (1931-2008), noted for his characters Grijpstra and De Gier, two Amsterdam police detectives. By the way, Josh Pachter translated two short stories by Janwillem van de Wetering for EQMM. One of them, "There Goes Ravelaar!," was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story of 1986 by Mystery Writers of America. 

It was also Josh Pachter who encouraged me to translate my short stories and gave me solid advice. Last year, I took on the challenge of translating "The Doctor Who Fell Into Sin" and submitted it to EQMM. I inked their contract in November. It was all the encouragement I needed. Apparently, my English is good enough—at least in short form.

The American Project

At the moment, my full-length so-called "American Project" is in the preliminary stages. I'm improving my understanding of the language and creating what I call my "palette."

I learned British English in school, so now I need to know how it differs from American English. I've made a list of idioms. I also study from the Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation. Furthermore, I've created an extensive list of words I don't use and write down their meanings and synonyms to discover their connotations. This should allow me to use them. I also list police jargon, slang, abbreviations, and terms of abuse. As a Christian, I don't like expletives, so I'm selective in this regard. 

And I'm making my palette. It's a document full of all kinds of expressions for motions and positions. Take for instance the way you move through a room. There are many variations for it. You can walk, run, stroll, tiptoe, lumber, and so on. Some of these words are new to me, so I need to write them down. While writing a novel, I can consult my palette document, choose the best option, adapt it to the situation, and use it. 

And by positions, I mean variations like these:

    "The statuette rested on a shelf."

    "The statuette was displayed on a shelf."

The same applies to non-verbal communication—the way we express our emotions and thoughts. I'm talking about shrugs, frowns, blushes, looks, and so on. You probably know them all, but I have to write them down to choose the best option for a given situation. And, of course, I also need to know all the ways of speaking: saying, whispering, screaming, stammering, and all other variants. 

Eventually, my palette will be a helpful tool.

Learn by Reading Others

I read a lot of American English. Besides a daily visit to SleuthSayers, I read a short story every day. To cater to my needs, I subscribed to EQMM. Recently, I purchased Black Cat Mystery Magazine #8, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #13, and Shanks on Crime by Robert Lopresti in ebook format. Crime novels by Lou Manfredo (Rizzo's War), Anthony Boucher (The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars), and Steven Torres (Precinct Puerto Rico) are at the top of my TBR pile. I'm sure all these books will help me in one way or another.

Even then, I'm well aware that I will make mistakes. I'm not a flawless writer. But thank God there are copy editors who can save me from my follies! Dis article, for a sample, was copi-editit by Barb Goffman—accept vor dis sentins. (Yeah, copy editing is hard labor!) I hope she's willing to help me on my American Project too, but I'm not sure she can, as this brave lady is learning to say no.

Now, my dear SleuthSayers, I turn to you. Over the years, this blog has published countless articles on the use of language, grammar, punctuation, and related topics. You've spotted my gravest mistakes in my comments on your posts. What particular article would you recommend to get me started?

When Red Herrings Stink

I'm going to go out on a limb and say something that may be controversial, at least among writers: Readers should understand why a red herring (something that is said or happens in a novel or story that leads the reader to a false conclusion) was not the solution to the puzzle by the time the tale is over.

Until recently I didn't think this was a controversial opinion. I thought it was a standard approach to writing mysteries. Sure, I'd sometimes heard authors say before that they didn't need to explain by the end of their stories why Character X said Y because Y was a red herring, but I thought they were mistaken, and since I wasn't their teacher, it wasn't my place to correct their misguided notion. But recently I edited a story by an author I respect, someone who's a solid writer, and the issue arose. Since I was this person's editor, it was my job to say my piece.

I'm going to talk about the story, but I'm completely changing the names and plot so that you can't identify the author because who this person is doesn't matter. In the whodunit story, Princess Consuella tells Annie the Amateur Sleuth that murder suspect Bad Bad Leroy Brown lied about something, based on personal observation, and therefore, it seems, Leroy must be the killer. Princess Consuella was believable and seemed absolutely certain, so I suspect most readers would have finished that scene believing Leroy had indeed lied and thus must have been the killer. It's what I thought. Yet at the end of the story, I learned I'd been fooled. Leroy may be bad, but he never killed anyone--at least not in that story.

I raised the problem with the author--that no explanation of Princess Consuella's statement about Bad Bad Leroy Brown was provided by the story's end. Either Leroy did lie (which by the story's end didn't seem right, since we never learned any reason Leroy would have lied about the issue in question) or the princess had been wrong (but how could that have been true, since she had seen with her own eyes the thing she was certain Leroy lied about, and it wasn't the type of thing that could have been misunderstood, and she had no reason to lie, either). The reader would be left wondering how to reconcile this situation, so some  explanation should be provided, I said. The author pushed back, saying that no explanation was necessary since it was a red herring designed to fool the reader into thinking the wrong suspect was the killer. The reader learns who the actual killer is by the end, and that's what matters, the author said; we don't need to revisit the red herring. 

That response prompted me to do some research about red herrings. Had I been wrong all these years? Did red herrings, by their very nature, not require explanation? To my surprise, I found nothing addressing this issue. There are a lot of articles about crafting solid red herrings, but I found nothing addressing the idea that red herrings should be explained by a story's end, that the reader should be able to understand how she got fooled. Even now, some time later, I remain quite surprised, because if authors can toss in red herrings without eventually providing an explanation for them, it makes writing too easy. It feels like a cheat.

In the case of Bad Bad Leroy Brown, sure, he could have been lying for reasons the reader never learns, despite seeming to have no reason to lie. Alternately, Princess Consuella could have lied for reasons the reader never learns about or she could have been wrong, despite being so certain and giving the reader no reason to explain how she could have been so mistaken. It certainly would make life easy for authors if they could write red herrings that didn't have to be explained in the end, but I think it would leave readers with a bad taste in their mouths. That is why I believe such scenarios need to be resolved. Did Leroy lie and why? Or did the princess get it wrong and how could that be? Without an explanation, the red herring feels contrived. It makes me feel like the author was playing games with me. 

This is why I recommended the author use a little misdirection when the red herring was introduced. More specifically, I suggested that when the princess called Leroy a liar, the author should use the wiggle word "recall" in the dialogue. Notice the slight difference:

Scenario A: The princess slams her hand on the table, its sound echoing throughout the castle. "Bad Bad Leroy Brown is a liar! I was sitting right next to him in the dungeon cafe last week, and he didn't leave money for his meal on the table when he left. I wonder what else he's lying about. I bet he rips off restaurants throughout the kingdom all the time. He's a rip-off artist."

Scenario B: The princess slams her hand on the table, its sound echoing throughout the castle. "Bad Bad Leroy Brown is a liar! I was sitting right next to him in the dungeon cafe last week, and I don't recall him leaving money for his meal on the table when he left. I wonder what else he's lying about. I bet he rips off restaurants throughout the kingdom all the time. He's a rip-off artist."

In Scenario A, the reader ends the story shrugging, thinking Leroy (who has a reputation for honesty, despite his name) had no reason to lie when he said he paid for his lunch, yet the princess's adamant accusation against Leroy remains unexplained. (She too had no reason to lie and her certainty indicated she hadn't made a mistake.)  In Scenario B, the reader can go back and reread the language of the princess's accusation and think, "Oh. The author fooled me."

Here's why Scenario B works: Because (1) the reader has no reason to think the princess lied; (2) the princess seems so certain, so the reader will believe her account; and (3) the princess distracts the reader by slamming the table, muttering about what else Leroy might have lied about, and declaring that he's a rip-off artist, the reader easily could read right past the key words--the princess didn't recall Leroy leaving his payment. When the reader gets to the end of the story, she could flip back to reread the princess's accusation and think, "Oh! It was right there. She merely didn't remember it. I was distracted by her certainty. I was fooled fair and square." That's the way to make a red herring work. That's the way to make the reader feel satisfied rather than feeling played.

Alternately, the reader could learn by the story's end that Leroy did lie for reasons unrelated to the murder. If there was a good reason for his lie, especially something that worked well with the plot, then revealing both the lie and the reason for it could have elevated the story. It also could have left the reader feeling satisfied because, while she was fooled, she wasn't played for a fool. Distracting the reader into missing a key word is playing fair with the reader. In contrast, dropping a lie into the story to fool the reader without any ultimate explanation isn't playing fair,  not to me, at least.

So that's my advice about red herrings. If you're going to use them,  make sure they're explained by the end so they don't seem contrived. Otherwise, you're taking an easy way out and you're not playing fair with the reader. Just like fish that sits out too long, that approach stinks.

I welcome your comments on this issue. And if I'm wrong and there are tons of articles addressing this subject and I need to brush up on my research skills, please share that information too.

***

In other news, here's a little BSP: I recently had a new short story published. "An Inconvenient Sleuth" appears in issue eight of Black Cat Mystery Magazine. In this whodunit, Kendra Silver, Dogwood Valley's celebrated amateur sleuth, is murdered. Who saw that coming? Certainly not anyone who thought  Kendra was invincible because she led a cozy life in a cozy town. But now that someone has killed Kendra, her best friend, Whitney, feels compelled to help the police unmask the culprit.  

Black Cat Mystery Magazine is available in trade paperback and ebooks from all the usual sources. You also can buy it directly from the publisher, Wildside Press, by clicking here.

Black Cat Mystery & Science Fiction Ebook Club

If you like reading crime short stories, and let's face it, you wouldn't be a regular SleuthSayers reader if you didn't, then you should know about Black Cat Mystery & Science Fiction Ebook Club. An offering of Wildside Press--which publishes a lot of mystery anthologies, including the Malice Domestic anthologies since their revival a few years ago and this year's upcoming Bouchercon anthology--the ebook club is nearing its third anniversary. It's like a book-of-the-month club, but weekly and with electronic short stories (and some novellas), mostly reprints. The ebook club is different from Black Cat Mystery Magazine, which is edited by my fellow SleuthSayer Michael Bracken, though the quarterly magazine is sometimes included as a weekly offering to the ebook club members.
Every week, paid club members get an email telling them about the seven (sometimes more) stories they can download that week in mobi or epub versions. Three or four are crime/mystery stories, the rest are science fiction. Unpaid club members get the same weekly email giving them access to one free story, a specific one each week. All of the ebook club stories are available for two weeks only, giving members an incentive to check in each week (or every other one) to download the new offerings.

A lot of the mystery stories are traditional, in the classic mode, originally published early in the twentieth century. But in June, Wildside began including a contemporary story with the mysteries each week. It is these modern stories with which I'm most familiar because I'm the person who's been choosing them. In the spring, Wildside's publisher reached out to me, asking if I would head up this series of stories, finding reprints I thought were really good. He's labeled this imprint Barb Goffman Presents. (That was a big surprise--a nice one--because I thought I was going to be solely behind the scenes.)
Since then I've read more short stories than I have in years, trying to find ones I love and think would be a good fit for Black Cat readers. (Stories originally published by Wildside Press are off the table.) When I find a story I think would work, I reach out to the author. It makes me feel like Santa Claus, which is pretty cool.

This work has given me an excuse to read many of the anthologies that I bought over the years but never found the time to read. And it's enabled me to share with readers stories that I think are special but might have been overlooked when they came out.
The first story I presented was "Debbie and Bernie and Belle," written by my fellow SleuthSayer John Floyd and published in 2008 in the Strand Magazine. Last week's story, which is still available to paid club members for a few more days, is "The Greatest Criminal Mind Ever" by Frank Cook, originally published in 2009 in Quarry (Level Best Books). And this week's story, which has been chosen as the week's free story for paid and unpaid members, is "The Kiss of Death" by Rebecca Pawel, originally published in 2007 in A Hell of a Woman (Busted Flush Press). Pawel's story is set in the New York City tango community and is a delight to read.
If you want to check out the ebook club, go on over to https://bcmystery.com/. And happy reading!

Worse Than Janice?

Sometimes a wrong turn can take you to a wonderful address.

SeuthSayer Janice Law is one of my favorite living short story writers.  She has made my Best-Story-of-the-week six times and my best-of-the-year four.

Back in 2012 Janice had a story in Mystery Writers of America Present Vengeance.  The title was "The General" and it concerned a Latin American dictator, living in exile in the United States, who becomes convinced that his wise and elderly gardener is stealing away his son's love and respect.

When I read the story I was pretty sure I knew where it was going.  To my delight I was completely wrong. Janice fooled me completely.

But, I realized, just because Janice didn't choose the direction that occurred to me doesn't mean it is a dead end.  I could drive that way on my own.

And so I wrote "Worse Than Death," which is now available in the sixth issue of Black Cat Mystery Magazine.  In my story, a dictator named Hidalgo is still very much in power.  His son, Teo, is kidnapped by a gang led by a wise old teacher.

They don't want money.  They don't even ask Hidalgo to resign.  What they demand is that he send them a confession of all his crimes.  Well, not all.

"I am only interested in wrongful deaths.  Not torture, not robbery, not false imprisonment.  Or graft, of course!  My God, if we tried to cover all your sins poor Teo would die of old age, wouldn't he?'

The viewpoint character is Hidalgo's head of security. He knows if the boy is harmed he will died for it.  But if Hidalgo writes the confession the whole government is likely to wind up on trial at the World Court.  So you might say he is highly motivated...

Clearly this is not one of my laugh-a-minute romps.

 It is also my third (and I sincerely hope, last) story about a child kidnapping.  (See this one and that one.)  When I told a friend about this he said he wasn't going to let me anywhere near his kids.

Some people are so suspicious. 

Not Like Us

Hanging out with Kevin Tipple
at Wild Detectives shortly before
Noir at the Bar-Dallas,
August 2, 2018.

About a month ago, as I write this, I dined with an early career writer who shared his experience during a recent writing workshop’s critique session. One of the authors who workshopped this writer’s story criticized him for cultural appropriation because he—a middle-aged white male—wrote about an older black woman.

My immediate response was a flippant, “If you aren’t creative enough to write about people who aren’t like you, you aren’t creative enough to write.”

I’ve thought often about that discussion, have not changed my opinion, but realize I may not be the person best suited to make the argument. After all, a lifetime of both male privilege and white privilege likely colors my viewpoint.

WRITES LIKE A WOMAN?

Several years ago, Bev Vincent experienced a similar dilemma, which he describes in “Apparently I Write Like a Girl,” when an editor rejected one of his stories, stating, “It’s quite a challenge for a writer of one sex to explore writing from the perspective of the opposite sex. Bev Vincent has not done a convincing job.” Bev is male and the protagonist of his story is male. The editor saw his byline, falsely presumed his gender, and savaged Bev’s story based on that false presumption.

I had a similar experience many years ago when an editor rejected one of my stories because it had a male byline and a female protagonist, and the editor expressed her belief that no writer could successfully write from the opposite gender’s perspective.

WRITES LIKE A WOMAN!

I’ve never presented myself as other than what I am—a middle-aged, middle-class white male—yet I’ve sold more than 350 stories with female protagonists and at least 100 stories in which the protagonist differs from me in some other significant way (ethnicity or sexual orientation, for example). In most cases the acquiring editors matched my submissions’ protagonists more closely than I did.

AND NOT JUST LIKE A WOMAN.

For an interview published in The Digest Enthusiast #8, Richard Krauss asked, “In ‘Professionals,’ Out of the Gutter No. 2 (Summer 2007), the narrator is a gay prostitute. In ‘My Sister’s Husband,’ Pulp Adventures No. 27 (Fall 2017), the narrator is a middle-aged woman. How do you ensure your characters act and speak authentically, with respect to their gender, sexual orientation, race, etc.?”

Part of my response described how I develop characters: “The key [...] is to build characters from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Regardless of our gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and whatever else divides us, we share many commonalities. We want to love and be loved. We want to feel safe and free from fear. We want to be happy and healthy. We want to be appreciated by our families and respected by our peers. The list goes on and on.

“If we build characters from the inside out, the characters will ‘speak’ appropriately and more genuinely than if we build characters from the outside in and rely on stereotypes.”

BUT SHOULD WE?

Where is the line in the sand that we dare not cross when writing from the perspective of a character unlike ourselves? I don’t believe such a line exists, and if it does, I hope a rising tide washes it away.

Rather than limiting ourselves for fear of offending others, we should instead strive to create characters out of whole cloth, making them as authentic as our skills allow, and we should strive to improve those skills with each story we write. We should not be accused of cultural appropriation simply for writing about those who are not like us, but should rightly be called to task if fail to do the job well.

And those who critique our work should not make presumptions about our work because of who wrote it, but should instead judge the work on its own merits. A piece of writing succeeds or fails within the context of itself, not because the fingers on the keyboard were male or female; old or young; gay, straight, or bi; black, white, or any other shade of the rainbow.

We all benefit by reading and writing about characters that are not like us.

John Floyd and I have stories in the third issue of Black Cat Mystery Magazine, the only writers to have fiction in all three issues. I’m uncertain how many stories John has upcoming in BCMM, but I have three in the pipeline, so we’ll likely share space between the covers several more times. Fellow SleuthSayer Eve Fisher also has a story in the third issue, so order your copy now and get a SleuthSayer three-fer.

Stiffed

by Michael Bracken

When I began writing crime fiction in the early 1980s, many magazines published mysteries, but there were only three mystery magazines—the digest-sized Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. (Two more digests were soon to join them, the short-lived Espionage Magazine, which published fourteen issues beginning in December 1984 and ending in September 1987, and the even shorter-lived The Saint Magazine, which published three monthly issues—June, July, and August—in 1984.) I was deep into my career before I cracked EQMM and even deeper before I cracked AHMM, but four of my first seven published mysteries appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine.

My first two mysteries appeared in Gentleman’s Companion (“City Desk,” January 1983; “Adam’s Rib,” March 1983) and my third appeared in Mike Shayne that same year. “Vengeance to Show in the Third” (October 1983)—the story of an ex-jockey, a girlfriend who isn’t who she appears to be, and race fixing—was clearly influenced by reading Dick Francis. Just like my initial sale to Espionage, I targeted the men’s magazines first and, after rejections from Hustler, Gallery, Stag, and Cavalier, I stripped out 500 words of graphic sex and submitted the story to Mike Shayne on March 8, 1983. A postcard from editor Charles E. Fritch dated July 10 notified me of my first Mike Shayne acceptance.

I described the genesis of “With Extreme Prejudice” (August 1984), my second appearance in the magazine, in “You Only Live Twice,” when I explored by brief foray into writing spy fiction.

The story of an insurance investigator who steals from the company’s clients, “A Matter of Policy,” my third appearance in Mike Shayne (February 1985), was also first submitted to several men’s magazine. After rejections from Hustler, Playboy, Gem, Buf, Cavalier, Gallery, and Swank, I stripped out 600 words of graphic sex and saw the new version rejected by The Saint Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine before acceptance by Mike Shayne on November 11, 1984. Unlike the postcards I received for the first two acceptances, this one came typed at the bottom of a rejection for another story. (The rejected story, “All My Yesterdays,” finally saw publication in Suddenly V [Stone River Press, 2003] and, in 2004, earned a Derringer Award for Best Flash.)

My final appearance in Mike Shayne—“The Great Little Train Robbery” (June 1985), the story of a gang preparing for a train robbery—is the first story the magazine published that did not start life intended for a men’s magazine. AHMM, Spiderweb, and EQMM all passed on the story before Mike Shayne accepted it February 13, 1985, and “The Great Little Train Robbery” has become one of my most-often reprinted short stories: Detective Mystery Stories, September 2002; Sniplits, April 2008; and Kings River Life (as “The Great Train Robbery”), August 19, 2017.

Just like when Espionage bit the dust with an accepted story in its files, Mike Shayne also had an accepted story in its files when it ceased publication in August 1985, and that story—“Fresh Kill”—finally appeared in the April/May 2001 Blue Murder.

(Though The Saint Magazine never published my work, it also accepted one of my stories prior to its demise, and “Sharing” did not see publication until the July 2001 Judas_ezine. That means each of the three mystery magazines that died in the mid-1980s died clinging to one of my stories. Maybe it’s a good thing for us all that neither AHMM nor EQMM began accepting my work until well into the twenty-first century.)

“Unfortunately,” notes James Reasoner, frequent contributor and ghostwriter of many of the magazine’s Mike Shayne stories, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine “had a habit of not paying their writers unless they were badgered and threatened into it.”

Apparently, I never mastered the art of badgering and threatening because Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine stiffed me. I was never paid for the four stories they published.

Unfortunately, they aren’t the last publication to go belly up owing me money.

Of more recent vintage: “Texas Hot Flash” appears in Tough and “Skirts” appears in Black Cat Mystery Magazine #2. “Smoked,” which first appeared in Noir at the Salad Bar, has been selected for inclusion in this year’s The Best American Mystery Stories.

Black Cats and Roosters

Robert Lopresti mentioned here at SleuthSayers a few weeks ago that he enjoys reading behind-the-scenes reports about the writing of short stories. Where authors get their ideas, where they find their characters, how they come up with titles, how/why they construct plots in a certain way. And Art Taylor's column yesterday featured some of those stories-within-the-stories from the current Anthony Award nominees.

I agree with Rob, and Art too--I think that kind of thing is fascinating. Because of that (and because I couldn't think of anything else to write about, for today), I decided to post a "look-inside" view of my short story "Rooster Creek," which appears in the current, and debut, issue of Black Cat Mystery Magazine.

First, a word about that issue. One of the thrills, for me, of being included there was the fact that just about every author in the story lineup is a friend of mine. I've always especially enjoyed reading stories written by people I already know, and this was a chance for me to do a lot of that. I'd like to take this opportunity to once again thank John Betancourt and Carla Coupe of Wildside Press for allowing me a spot at the table with such talented writers.


Story time

"Rooster Creek" is a 7500-word tale that combines three genres: western, mystery, and (to a lesser degree) romance. That was an easy choice for me, since (1) I've always been crazy about westerns, probably because I grew up watching so many on primetime TV; (2) I'm sappy enough to like a good love story; and (3) one of the job requirements of working in the SleuthSayers asylum is a fondness for anything with an element of mystery/suspense.

Here's a quick description of my story: After the death of her mother, twentysomething Katie Harrison is traveling cross-country by stagecoach to live with her older sister, and stops along the way to visit her childhood home. She runs into a multitude of problems, including the theft of her cash and luggage, and is forced to remain at the remote homestead as a servant to its current owners, Maureen and Jesse Carter, until she can earn enough in wages to continue her passage west. At the core of the story is a mystery: the Carters' former housemaid has disappeared, and Katie soon suspects that she's been murdered. With the help of two unlikely allies--a giant black handyman named Booley Jones and a traveling firearms-salesman named Clay Wallace--Katie burrows deeper into the strange lives of her employers/captors, and she eventually winds up alone and fighting for her life.

Structurewise, I decided early on that this story needed to be "framed" such that it begins very near the end then flashes back to the beginning and tells the story in the past. The action then builds to the point where the reader left off, and the climax and conclusion follow shortly afterward. This nonlinear approach--the first scene is sort of a glimpse-into-the-future prologue--doesn't always work, but when it does, I think it can make for more effective storytelling. I hope that's what I accomplished here.


Getting started

Having said that, here are the opening paragraphs of the story:


Katie Harrison swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and looked out at the greenish-brown plains and hills stretching away to the horizon. Sparrows flitted and chirped in the branches overhead, and even in the dappled shade the midday sun was warm on her shoulders. But Katie barely heard the birds, barely felt the heat.

Underneath her feet, the chair shifted an inch, and her heart lurched. She winced as the noose tightened around her neck. The fingernails of her bound hands bit into her palms, behind her back. Then the wobbly chair on which she stood stabilized and she let herself breathe again. Above her, although she couldn't see it, the rope was looped over the limb of an oak that had once supported a wooden swing that she'd played on as a child, twenty years ago.

Ten feet away and to her left, a silent and stonefaced woman with red hair sat and watched from a second chair. Beside the redheaded woman stood a huge black man in a battered hat and bib overalls. His face, usually relaxed and peaceful, had a pained look. Katie had met both of them only a month earlier, after she'd trudged empty-handed and muddy all the way up the wagon-rutted road from the town of Perdition. Only a month. In one sense, the time had passed quickly; in another, it seemed like years since she stopped down off the stagecoach from Lincoln Wells and asked the old fellow behind the counter in the stage office where she could hire a buggy to take her up the old north road.

Ain't much out that way, he had said to her, hunched over his paperwork.

I know, she'd replied. That's where I grew up.



And then we hop back to a scene with her in the stagecoach office, and the real adventure begins there.

Plot and characters

Another point, about the structure of this story. As in most novels and screenplays and in some longer short-stories, a lot of elements of the mythic-structure/heroic-journey model apply here. First, in Act 1, there's the heroine's usual and uncomplicated life, then a "disturbance" that upsets the routine (in this case, her inability to rent transportation to get her where she wants to go), then an unexpected encounter (with a young boy who needs her help) which delays her acceptance of the "call to adventure," and finally her eventual crossing-the-threshold transition into unfamiliar and threatening territory. Act 2 features the appearance of mentors and allies (a kindly hired hand and a traveling gun salesman), several run-ins with evil forces, steadily rising action, and finally a crisis/setback that paves the way for the climax. Then, in Act 3, there's the final confrontation between the heroine and the villain and the heroine's later return, as an older and wiser person, to her everyday, pre-adventure life. The old hero's-journey template still works.

I knew before I started writing "Rooster Creek" that I wanted the protagonist to be a strong-willed young woman, which is a little unusual for me, and it turned out later that the main antagonist was a woman as well, which was a lot unusual for me. But it seemed to fit, and the more I got into writing about the villain the more I could see her and hear her. I even had the villain always speaking of herself in the third person, which (as fellow SleuthSayer Janice Law and I discussed, when we talked about this), made her seem not only weird but even more sinister. These crazy little extra "quirks" can be the difference, I've found, between a merely okay character and a really vivid character. Janet Hutchings told me a couple of years ago that one reason she bought one of my mysteries for EQMM was that my main female character was seven feet tall. But that--literally--is another story.

The hired hand in this piece, Booley Jones, is a composite of a number of folks I knew, growing up in small-town Mississippi, and the same is true for some of the other characters. As for detailed descriptions of the players, I never do much of that. I can see these people clearly in my imagination as I'm writing about them, but I think it's important that the reader be allowed the freedom to also imagine what they look like. Stephen King once said, in his book On Writing, "I'd rather let the reader supply the faces, the builds, and the clothing as well." I'm no Stephen King, but I think that's good advice.


Entitlement

One more thing. The title of this story was a result of my not being able to decide on a satisfactory title even after the writing was finished. I tried using embedded phrases, characters' names, double meanings. and just about every other technique, and when nothing worked, I came up with the name of a geographical feature instead--Rooster Creek--and went back and set the house and farm and most of the action alongside its willow-shaded banks. Sometimes simple is best.

And that's the story of my story. If you read it, I hope you'll like it, and even if you don't read it (or don't like it), be sure to read the other stories in the magazine. John and Carla have put together a great debut issue.

Long live Black Cat Mystery Magazine.