Scaring Myself: The Challenges of Writing a Dual Time-Line Thriller

It's always nice to know many fellow mystery authors, either personally or at least via social media, because then I often can contact someone to ask if they'd be kind enough to write an article for me.  It happened just the other day, after I'd finished reading Lee Goldberg's latest title, Calico.

As a writer I was fascinated by the idea of writing a story, involving two different genres, and two different timelines in the same book. With Calico he's done something I think maybe only a handful of authors today could do successfully.  
Lee's an amazing best selling book writer but is also a TV screen writer, producer and developer, from Diagnosis Murder to Monk, to Bond & Goldberg Terrorize a Nursing Home. Okay, he lied about that last one or perhaps I lied. Honestly, he's written numerous books, including five with Janet Evonavich. He is a two-time Edgar nominee from MWA, a Shamus nominee from PWA, and a 2024  SPur nominee for contemporary western from  Western Writers. He's also a book publisher. I just have no idea when he sleeps, eats or enjoys family time. Unless, he's like Asimov and has a basement of trained monkeys banging away on keyboards.

So when I contacted, my pal, he happened to already have written about the origins and evolving of writing Calico, and which he immediately sent to me. Now it's with great pleasure, I present Lee's article, "Scaring Myself."  - Jan Grape


Scaring Myself: The Challenges of Writing a Dual Time-Line Thriller 

by Lee Goldberg
 
My thriller Calico, out this week in a new paperback and deeply discounted ebook editions, is both a contemporary police procedural…and a traditional western set in 1883. What the two storylines share is a body, buried in a shallow grave in California’s desolate Mojave desert.

I’d been thinking about the story for years… but put off writing it because I had too many contractual commitments and not enough time in-between them to do it. Those are lies, of course, excuses I told myself to justify not writing the book.

The truth is, the story terrified me. Thrillers are hard enough to write without trying to balance two time-lines and, on top of that, two wildly different genres (actually, three genres, but talking about that would be a spoiler).

The challenge of telling two connected stories, one in the past and one in the present, is making sure the reader isn’t ahead of the characters in either time-line. Because if you fail, it will kill the suspense and the mystery. There will be no surprises. Yet, you also don’t want to withhold information from the reader, because that would be cheating. The trick is knowing when to cut away from one time-line to the other, so the reader is never quite sure how much they really know. Maintaining that delicate balancing act throughout the story is the sweet spot because, if you can pull it off, it creates a palpable tension that generates excitement… the thrill in thriller.

You also have to create two protagonists, one in each time-line, that the reader will find equally compelling and that will anchor the reader so they can endure the shifting POVs. In Calico, those characters are Beth McDade, a disgraced ex-LAPD cop, seeking redemption as a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s detective in the Mojave Desert in present day…and, in 1882, it’s unskilled wanderer Ben, desperately trying to survive in a silver mining camp located in a scorching, dry, desolate hell-scape. Ben’s choices in the past will have a profound impact on Beth’s life over 135 years later, when a homicide investigation will either redeem her… or destroy her.

I created a spreadsheet to track the two time lines…as well as the key plot moves/reveals which, if given away too soon or too late, could ruin the entire book. I also used the spread sheet to get a sense of the pacing, of when it would be the right time, emotionally or thematically, to shift time periods, to keep the narrative momentum moving at warp-speed.

Beyond telling a two-track story, I wanted to take the two genres (actually three) and, while delivering on the familiar tropes, also subvert all the baked-in cliches and expectations. So, I gave myself another delicate balancing act to perform: delivering a true police procedural and a western (and that other genre I’m not revealing), while also de-constructing them to create something new.

And if you’re crossing genres, and time-lines, it’s essential that you maintain the same tone and pacing across them both, so it doesn’t feel like two different books, but one relentlessly engaging thriller.

Calico was the hardest book I’ve ever written (out of nearly 40) but, in some ways, it’s been the most creatively rewarding. I’m glad I took the risk. Because I believe if I don’t occasionally scare or challenge myself, I’m going to fail anyway – because my writing will become formulaic and complacent. 

I hope you’ll read Calico… and that you’ll let me know if my high-wire act worked…or if I hit the ground with a sickening splat.  

How to Kick @ss: Janet Evanovich

by Melissa Yi

Who debuts at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, handles up to 3000 fans at her signings, and sustains three million hits on her website per month?
Yep. The one, the only Janet Evanovich.
Here are six tips from her singular career:

1. You can be a late bloomer.

Janet’s first book was published in her early forties. In a BookPage interview, she said, "In that respect, I think I'm a great role model for my children. I have shown them that you are never to old to try something new.”
Isn’t that terrific? Usually, you hear about how you’re over the hill if you haven’t started creating masterpieces by age six, like Mozart.

2. But figure out your weaknesses, and improve on them.

In an interview with Island Packet, Janet said that because she was trained as an artist instead of a writer, her dialogue “was very stiff and boring. But I had a friend who was doing acting classes, so I joined one of the improv classes that she was doing. What we do as writers is very similar to what actors do.”

3. Learn the writing business

In Mystery Scene, Janet recommends
a) Romance Writers of America. Even if you don’t write a romance, she says RWA is “a very nurturing organization for establishing peers, for learning skills, for getting market information.”
b) Sisters in Crime
c) Publishers Weekly “to see what’s going on. You want to look at the bestseller lists and see what people are reading and enjoying, and see if you can stay in front of the curve.”
She says that learning the business helped her figure out that her timing was perfect. “I came in on top of the wave…right behind the crest of the wave—Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky—and I rode that in. And I think that’s important when you’re starting out to understand where the market is going and see if you can look to the future, see if you’re riding a wave—if a wave exists.”

4. Work hard.

She told BookPage, “I’m just a boring workaholic. I motivate myself to write by spending the money I make before it comes in.”
In Janet’s book, How I write, she describes this schedule:

 Weekdays: 05:15-14:00 Write
14:00: Business (phone calls, mail, publicity, website work with daughter etc.)
1-2 hours of exercise “in the middle of the day”

Weekends:
Write in the morning only
Afternoon/evening: fun

On a book deadline: writing 24/7

Mystery Scene

5. Love your fans.

As she told Mystery Scene, “I didn’t want to be an author in an ivory tower. Maybe it’s the mother in me, but I think of my readers as an extended family.”
Her website has contests and polls every month, and readers can submit photos of their pets.
Because so many people come to her signings, they can get bracelets so they don’t have to wait in line for hours, and she makes the signings an event, “because if somebody is going to be driving for four or five hours to come see me, we should have something interesting for them to see. For a couple of cities, we brought in a live band, and this year in New York, I dragged a friend of mine, Lance Storm the wrestler, onstage with me to take his shirt off and read Joe Morelli, and because you can’t have a WWE wrestler without a slut, my daughter volunteered to be the slut of the night.”

6. Team up to make the best work possible.

Janet involves her whole family in her business. She told the Island Packet,“My son (Peter) is my agent. He's very detail oriented. My daughter (Alex) interfaces with my publisher and handles all the online stuff and social media. My husband, Pete, manages all aspects of the business and tries to keep me on time. It's great.”
Janet talked to Forbes about pairing up with popular authors like Lee Goldberg, Charlotte Hughes, Dorien Kelly, and Leanne Banks, so she can offer more books for her readers. “I like being able to provide consistent and frequent literary choices for my fans. Since I can barely write two books a year the best solution seems to be co-author projects. My goal isn’t to get another writer to clone me …it’s more to produce a book that shares my vision of positive, fun entertainment.”