Journaling for Your Work in Progress

Riffing on Rob's terrific post from yesterday on how writing about his novel actually helps him stay creative in the writing of his novel. I think anything you can do during the drafting process that will help you keep your characters/settings/situations/plot fresh and mobile in your mind is going to be of assistance in getting to the finish line with your novel.
This is true of other pieces of work as well, short stories, nonfiction, what have you. And for my money the single most effective way to do all of the above is to journal about your work-in-progress.

Plot diagrams are nice. Character sketches are really important. But for me, I need the internal monologue (and yes, sometimes dialogue) that comes from writing about my writing.

Everyone ought to have a writing journal. If you don't, whatever the format, either Word doc or notebook, you're missing out on something that can help keep your chops sharp and your story in your head. I have notebooks full of entries about the books and short stories I've written. They've been fruitful contributors in a multitude of ways, especially when I hit a dry spell and can't seem to keep my plot moving forward, or once it's stalled, get it rolling again.

That's when I go back to the well. And sometimes re-reading what I've written about my various works-in-progress, even if it bears no fruit at the time, comes back to life when I delve into my oeuvre seeking some sort of fresh idea, some spark to get things rolling again.

Take short stories for example.

I've been known to start one, write myself into a corner, and leave it to work on something else for a while. Then there are the ones I've written that went nowhere when I tried to place them for publication.

Those I set aside too; resolving to re-work them later. One of them ("Suicide Blonde") was written specifically for AHMM, so when Linda Landrigan (rightly) passed on it, I set it aside for a while. And when I journaled about my next work-in-progress, I threw in asides about what ideas I had about re-working "Suicide Blonde" to make it a more successful piece. I also solicited feedback from my critique partners and journaled about their input.

Devoting this sort of headspace to the story (and we're only talking about the amount of time it took to write a few lines per night about it) paid off in the long run. I re-worked the story, submitted it for the MWA themed-anthology contest for that year, don't make that cut, then turned around and re-submitted it to AHMM. This time Linda bought it.

As I've mentioned in previous blog entries I am currently hard at work on an historical mystery novel set in mid-1840s Washington DC. I've done two previous drafts (One full and the other a partial re-write) while trying to work out the plot to my satisfaction. After a couple of false starts I really feel like I'm on the road to completing this novel.

So when a friend recently started up a quarterly e-zine (published electronically and available on Kindle, etc., and a paying venue, to boot) and expressly requested a short story from me, I viewed the notion of writing a short story from scratch, research, etc. (remember, I write historicals. They require a ton  of research!), as a potential distraction, and demurred. He asked again, and he's a good guy and one hell of a writer, so it's an honor to be asked.

Plus, I'd reached a slow-down patch in my novel, so I shifted gears and went back to the notebooks, and dug up an idea I'd initially had for a short story featuring Renaissance Italian adventurers attempting to break the ultimate political prisoner out of the Turkish sultan's toughest prison in 1580s Constantinople.

And I began to journal.

I had a couple of false starts to fall back on (I keep all of my "didn't make the cut" drafts, so I can "cannibalize" anything useful in later work. After all, no need to re-thread the needle if you've already done it before!), plus a fair bit of notes from my research (my story idea was based on actual events).

I finished the final draft of that short story last night, putting the final touches to it after receiving feedback on the rough draft I pounded out based on my previous notes/drafts and the  pages I devoted to the journaling process and writing about my writing.

And while it's true that sometimes setting aside a good story until you can get all of its parts working right in your head (and that usually takes time, in this case, years!), I couldn't have pulled together all the complex threads for this story and developed them in 8,000 words had I not written about what I was writing: my process, my ideas for fleshing out the story. What worked, what didn't, and so on.

So there you have it. Want to finish a writing project? Well then get to journaling!

Brian

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern want something

by Robert Lopresti

I hope you people aren't sick to death of hearing about my work in progress, alias The Novel.   I keep finding things related to it that our relevant to our subject, which I am assured is Wriitng Mystery Fiction.

And honestly, writing about it helps me.  In the process of writing about it I keep learning things I didn't know.

For example, This is my first attempt to write a book from multiple viewpoints - a thought that didn't occur to me until I started to write this piece - and so this week I have been doing character checks.  In other words I have traced Mickey in each chapter he appears, to see if his personality and verbal mannerisms are consistent throughout.  once Mickey is clear, then I move on to Deedee, and so on.

Most of the time everything works fine, but I have made a few nasty discoveries.  One character was  so completely out of, uh, character in a single chapter that I decided it was easier to replace him in that scene with a newly invented guy, rather than rewriting the dialog.

But there was another more interesting surprise.  I should explain that I started my hunt with the minor characters, the ones who only appear in a few places.  Everything there went easily enough,  but when I moved to the mid-level characters, those people who appear in, say, a quarter or more of the chapters, I had a very odd sensation.

It was as if I were seeing the entire story from their points of view.  Yes, that's what multiple viewpoint implies, but this felt as if I was reading a different book, a short novel about, say, Adrianna, or Henry, when I know that isn't what I have written.  (And this being the kind of novel it is, several of those shorter one-character books end suddenly with a bullet.)

I don't know if you have seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Tom Stoppard's absurdist, existentialist comedy.  Basically we see Hamlet from the viewpoint of two minor characters.  At the proper places Hamlet and Polonius and the rest of the Denmark gang stroll onto the stage and our unlikely heroes say their appointed lines, but the rest of the time they stand around, bewildered, wondering what they are supposed to be doing.  They do have a long unBarded conversation with, appropriately enough, the troupe of players.

And that got me thinking about Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, one of my favorite near-mystery novels.  (There is a mysterious death, and many issues to investigate, but that isn't the focus.)  The title refers to a concept in Scandanavian opera (an artform which, I assure you, is not mentioned again in the book).  A singer could specialize in performing the part of hero, villain, heroine, or confidante, or he could specialize in all the other roles, which were summarized as Fifth Business.  In other words, the narrator of the novel didn't consider himself to be the main character of his own life.

One more connection, if I may.  I have often said that the reason Elmore Leonard is such a great writer is that he convinces you that each person in his books thinks he or she is the main character.  When working on this piece I finally asked myself what the hell I meant by that glib statement.

And here is my answer.  Leonard's characters aren't just standing around like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern waiting to be spoken to.  Each of them wants something.  They have goals and they firmly believe the story is about their efforts to achieve them.

I think it was David Mamet in his book on screenwriting who said in every scene every character must want something.

Right now, what I want is to go back to my novel and attend to some people's needs.

Smiley's Series

As part of its Pioneers of Television, PBS did a segment on the miniseries, a dramatic form that was extremely popular in the late seventies and all through the eighties. It's a shame that it isn't more popular today. Some of the failed Lost clones, like FlashForward and The Event, might have succeeded as miniseries. Viewers might have been more willing to invest their time if they'd known that the big questions posed by these shows' high-concept premises were going to be resolved in a reasonable amount of time and without endless (and increasingly crazy) plot complications.
During its heyday, the miniseries usually focused on sweeping, multigenerational sagas, but mystery novels were occasionally included. I remember a late seventies adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Dane Curse starring James Colburn. And there were the two BBC productions I revisited this past winter, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People, which were both based on novels by John le Carré. The inspiration for my video trip down memory lane was the much more recent film version of Tinker, Tailor, which starred Gary Oldman. I enjoyed the movie, but it left me nostalgic for the 1979 miniseries, in which Alec Guinness played George Smiley, "retired" spy.

If that reference to Smiley's profession (or your own knowledge of le Carré's works) has you thinking that these books are espionage stories and not mysteries, you're half right. They're espionage stories and mysteries. In fact, Tinker, Tailor is a whodunit, as were le Carré's two earlier Smiley books, Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality. I still remember the suspense that slowly built during the original broadcast of Tinker, Tailor (which didn't occur in the U.S. until 1980) over the true identity of Gerald, the Russian mole inside British Intelligence. Reviewing the miniseries courtesy of Netflix, I felt that old suspense again. (Netflix did its best to encourage this by only entrusting me with one of the series' three discs at a time.)

Smiley's People is somewhat less satisfying as a story but just as well adapted. (Both series were scripted by le Carré himself.) There is a murder to be solved, but Smiley is more interested in why it happened than in who did it. Though made three years after Tinker, Tailor, Smiley's People reunites many members of the original cast. In fact, the casts of both miniseries are uniformly excellent. They include future stars Alan Rickman, doing a bit as a desk clerk, and Patrick Stewart, in the nonspeaking (!) role of Russian master spy Karla. Two of the strengths of Smiley's People are some great location shooting and an increased amount of screen time for Alec Guinness, who functions like a loner P.I., warned off the case by the authorities and hunted by the bad guys.

It would be hard to overpraise Alec Guinness's two performances as George Smiley. Guinness was an actor who could play broadly if the role called for it, but his real forte was underplaying. His talent for quiet was put to good use here, as George Smiley is one of the great listeners of popular literature. Both miniseries feature powerful scenes in which some other, more flamboyant character wanders far from the point of the conversation while Smiley sits quietly, waiting to draw him or her back. Depending on the situation, he might cajole or flatter or wheedle or simply will the wanderer to focus. I've written that sort of interaction many times, as has any writer of detective fiction, and it's a pleasure to see it done this well. And Guinness/Smiley's reactions to the constant references to his wife's infidelities--tiny winces or a slight narrowing of his eyes or just blank resignation--are equally wonderful.

I'll mention one last point of interest, at least for the writer of historical fiction. There are only two types of films and television shows: those done as period pieces and those that become period pieces over time. Smiley's miniseries are in the second group. I'd forgotten that the three-year gap between the two series marked a sea change in men's fashions. In Tinker, Tailor, wide, loud ties and wider lapels predominate. By Smiley's People, styles (or should I say widths?) had returned to a more classic look.

The late seventies might have been a bad time for clothes, but it was a really good time for long-form dramatic television. If you haven't seen these two examples recently, check them out.

YOU CAN'T GO HOME - Why I Write

If you ever listen to radio, I'm sure you've heard at least one song called "You Can't Go Home Again" from performers like Lari White, The Judds, Bon Jovi, Sugarland, The Statler Brothers, Miranda Lambert, and many others.

Chuck Cannon

One of those songs was written by Chuck Cannon, performer and writer with hits recorded by many of my country favorites including Toby Keith, Willie Nelson, and Ricky Van Shelton.  To me personally, Chuck bears the distinction of being the person who made me aware that I'm short. 

Let me explain that I come from a family in which the women tend to be 4'11", so when I grew up to be 5'3", I looked tall when with my female family members.  I felt tall. 

At a songwriters' meeting where Chuck Cannon was the featured speaker, he performed his original "You Can't Go Home Again."  The host wanted a picture of the guests and said, "Taller people in the back."

I stepped to the back row beside Chuck.  He gently took my shoulders and moved me to the front row, saying, "You belong up here."  Sure enough, when I received a copy of the photo, not only was the front row the place for me, I was the SHORTEST person there!

Bet you're wondering, "Now where is she going with this?  It should be related to writing and/or mystery, but then, perhaps that's the mystery...what's she writing about today?"

Could it be about short people, even short writers?  William Faulkner was only five feet, five inches tall--taller than I am, but not especially tall for a man. 

Could it be about Chuck Cannon?  He wrote many of my favorite songs, including "How Do You Like Me Now?"

Could it be about literary techniques?  We've recently had blogs about constrained writing and frame stories.  (Actually the stream of consciousness technique is related to the writer today's blog is about.  He's classified as writing his Bildungsroman novels in stream of consciousness technique.)

"Dixieland"

None of those are right.  Some of you liked reading about my awesome moments in music.  Today I'm writing about an awesome moment in my teenaged years involving the person who made me want to be a writer.

The photo to the right shows one of American literature's most famous landmarks.  In an epic, autobiographical novel, this rambling Victorian building was called "Dixieland," but in reality the author grew up there when it was called "Old Kentucky Home."  I read the book when I was about thirteen.  When I got a car and license at sixteen, I took myself to Asheville, North Carolina, to see the house. 

There was a small card on one of the bedroom door frames.  On it was printed, "This is the room where Ben died."  Now, I was a pretty flip teenager, and Ben was a character in the book, but standing at that door brought tears to my eyes.  I thought, "If just the memory of a fiction scene can make me cry, then words are powerful stuff!  I want to do that."

While in Asheville that trip and many times since then, I visited the graves of O. Henry and, within walking distance, the writer who impressed me so --- Thomas Wolfe.

Cover of the first
edition, published
in 1929

I'm not talking about Tom Wolfe, who wrote Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and feuded with John Updike, Norman Mailer, and Gore Vidal.  I'm speaking of North Carolina's Thomas Wolfe who wrote Look Homeward Angel, which has not been out of print since it was first published in 1929.

Classified as possibly the most autobiographical Bildungsroman (a specific type of coming of age novel) by an American novelist, Look Homeward Angel follows the life of protagonist Eugene Gant from birth to age nineteen.  While I loved visiting the Asheville places Wolfe had used and renamed in the book, the people of Asheville weren't happy with his frank and realistic reminiscences. In fact,  Look Homeward Angel was banned from Asheville's public libraries for seven years. Today, Wolfe has become one of Asheville's most famous citizens, and his boyhood home is a National Historic Landmark museum in his honor.

Thomas Wolfe, 1930-1938

As an early teenager, I simply assumed that the title Look Homeward Angel referred to a stone statue of an angel that both Eugene and Wolfe's fathers used as porch advertisements at family graveyard monument shops each owned. (I saw the angel in a cemetery in Hendersonville, NC.) Wolfe's first title was The Building of a Wall, which he changed to O Lost before renaming it Look Homeward Angel: A Story of a Buried Life.  The title comes from the John Milton poem Lycidas. 

"Look homeward angel now, and melt with ruth; 
And, O ye Dolphins, waft the hapless youth."
                                                            ---   John Milton


Asheville's reaction to Look Homeward Angel played a large part in Wolfe's next book--You Can't Go Home Again, that line so frequently used by songwriters.  (Chuck Cannon also has a song entitled "Look Homeward, Angel.")  I don't believe the inspiration for songs and other prose using Wolfe's titles came directly from Milton. Their influence is Thomas Wolfe.  Wouldn't each of us be filled with pride to have one or more of the titles of our writings inspire the work of so many other writers?

When young Thomas Wolfe gave his manuscript to Scribner's Maxwell Perkins, the editor insisted it be condensed to a more manageable publication size.  They cut sixty thousand words from Wolfe's manuscript before it was published at five hundred, forty-four pages. 

Why do I want to praise Thomas Wolfe to mystery writers?  In addition to being the writer who convinced me I wanted to write, I  believe good writing shares common features, whether literary or specific genre.  My words don't have the power of those of Thomas Wolfe, but I always aim to do for my readers what he did for me.  I want them to react with some kind of emotion.  I want to make them happy or sad or scared, but I always want to create feelings for Callie's fans.  (I cleaned up that last line.  At book-talks, I've been known to say I want my readers to laugh, cry, or wet their undies, but, as I've told you before, I'm trying to become more lady-like in my old age.)

The other reason is to give me the chance to share with you a quote from Thomas Wolfe in the event you have an editor who wants to cut some little darlings from your work:

U S Postage Thomas Wolfe
Memorial Stamp

"What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn , was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one wishes to publish."

                                                        --- Thomas Wolfe
                                                                                                     
How about you?  Is there a particular author, book, or event that made you want to be a writer?

Until we meet again... take care of you!

Lords of the Ring

Imagine a world where good guys and bad guys fight out their grievances in front of an audience. Imagine a blood sport so intense fans not only confuse mythology with reality, but it spills over into the real world. That scene isn't ancient Rome and the venue isn't the Colosseum. It's modern day North America and the venue is the television set.

My excuse for today's article related to crime… umm, well, it's about a despised so-called sport– televised wrestling. I don't need much of a reason to relate it to a crime, do I? And as you'll see, it certainly involves story-telling.

It's always mystified me why grownups watch fake wrestling, but I'm told the reason isn't the bashing– it's the storyline. While Rob, Dixon, RT, Elizabeth and others sometimes appeal to intellect, I spent the weekend doing the opposite, reading about the ancient sport of wrestling.

And it does date back: The ancient Greeks wrestled naked, which I prefer not to dwell on, other than to mention my Aunt Rae– Professor Kemper to her students– included a sculpture slide in her art classes of a wrestler holding another around the waist upside down– and the upside-down wrestler seizes the advantage– or at least the delicate bits of his opponent. It all slid downhill from there.

Religion on Sunday

When my brothers and I were kids, my parents didn't allow television, which ruined our childhood but has proved immensely useful as an adult. Thus it came to pass, each Sunday after church, we boys ran down the hill to my grandmother's house to watch Bugs, Daffy, Elmer, Woody, Sylvester, Mighty Mouse, and Heckle and Jeckle. (As an aside, don't you love the classical music in those old Warner Bros cartoons?)

Unfortunately, my grandmother took in a boarder, my partially senile great uncle Ott. I say 'unfortunately' because Uncle Ott loved wrestling more than he loved Jesus, which was why he worshiped the idiot box. Having higher status in grandmother's home than we kids, he chose to watch it on the only television in the house to the exclusion of everything else.

His devotion to obviously fake 'rasslin' mystified us. How could a grown man watch this drivel? Even when it wasn't on, he fruitlessly checked and rechecked channels trying to find The Destroyer, Chief Don Eagle, Gorgeous George, or other denizens of the ring. It's claimed Gorgeous George, the Liberace of wrestling, prompted as many sales of TV sets as Milton Berle.

Uncle Ott's monopolization of the telly seemed unfair to us kids who had only a precious hour to watch, but he possessed an Achilles Heel, or at least an Achilles bladder. Every forty minutes or so, he'd totter off to the bathroom for several minutes. We'd immediately switch the telly to cartoons or that great science fiction program, The Invaders. Upon his return, Uncle Ott wouldn't immediately realize his channel had been switched. It usually took him another five or ten minutes to figure out his station had gone missing then snarling, "Those damn kids!"

We developed delaying tactics: "Oh, let us help you find it, Uncle…" (twiddle, twiddle) "Where, O where is that rasslin program?" Because he was one skinny-ass man with a petite intestinal system and we were devious, er, devoted and kind, we plied him with goodies. "How about another oatmeal molasses cookie, Uncle? Yum, lots of fiber."

Behind the Scenes

A couple of years ago, I read the opening of a new writer's novel about professional wrestlers. To them, it was just a job they shared with colleagues. In a clinch, a conversation might run something like: "Didn't hurt you, did I? Jane says you're not coming to the pub?" "No, we're going to Ben's bar mitzvah. You're coming, aren't you?" "Glad you reminded me. Ready for the next pinfall?"

Fighters are designated either 'faces' or 'heels'. Faces are the good guys and heels are bad guys, loathed by audiences, usually for cheating but sometimes for their personalities and peccadillos.

One thing that can't be argued is that most of these so-called wrestlers are athletes. Fake wrestling is hard work and they labor to avoid injuring themselves and others. Still things go wrong as Stone Cold Steve Austin learned when a mistimed pile-drive broke his neck. Even steroids became a problem as uncovered following the Chris Benoit double murder / suicide.

Get with the Program

As much as the action is choreographed, so are the 'story lines' scripted. They usually center around one or more contrived feuds among players, but can include subplots of affairs, one's sexuality, or abuse. Most feuds feature faces versus heels, usually involving cheating, underhanded tactics, or public humiliation. The heels story line possibly peaked during the 'Mr. McMahon' years, when executive Vince McMahon played the part of an abusive, dictatorial CEO who wasn't above bumping off his own wife.

Historians can't say when wrestling changed from competitive natch wrestling into pretense entertainment. Early promoters opted to maintain a constant and complete illusion for outsiders and considered it necessary to keep audience interest. Wrestlers who performed under their own names lived their public lives as though they were their character. Others maintained their secret identity much like Bruce Wayne and Batman.

I suspect wrestling gives devotees a chance to join in a sort of mythology greater than their immediate world. Fans find the story lines as immersive as sci-fi events and murder mystery gatherings and far more real. They take fake wrestling so seriously, that Wikipedia devotes dozens upon dozens of articles and thousands of words to the subject, usually treating the story lines as 'real'.

I don't get it, but I don't have to. The real winners are shareholders.

New Kid on the (Chopping) Block

I maintain a dim view of wrestling and the ongoing WWF and WCW soap operas are beyond me. But if you thought fake wrestling was passé, Latin American and especially Mexico have taken it to a new level called Lucha Libre.

Lucha means fighting or combat in Spanish, and lucha libre means freestyle fighting. They do the 1950s TV wrestlers, er, proud, if that doesn't sound contradictory. They're loud, flamboyant, and all about the show. These players aren't merely athletic, they're acrobatic.

Then there are the babes. Spanish television is known for hot women. I used to watch Jorge Porcel's variety show on Telemundo without understanding a word and loved every minute.

Lucha libre mixes male and female fighters, which offends my sensibilities. My chivalrous instincts kick in when I see a woman hit, even if it's sport, even if it's fake. It's bad enough men can be persuaded to hit each other, but I worry lucha libre gives tacit permission for a guy to hit a girl.

Refereeing is a loose term. Refs like Sexy Starr are often buxom beauties in skimpy outfits who waggle their derrières as much as their fingers. I'm not sure they know the rules, assuming there are any.

Skip the first third of this clip, Hèroes Inmortales VI. It's oddly hypnotic as if I'd been transported back to my grandmother's living room with my great uncle watching television. But now the wrestlers have become cartoons– or perhaps they've always been. I begin to see this as grist for a Stephen King novel.

Flying Blind or Outlined?

by John M. Floyd

I've always enjoyed hearing writers talk about the process of writing. Everyone seems to have different ways of getting ideas, describing settings, using dialogue, developing characters and plots, even rewriting and marketing.

Last week at this blog, Rob Lopresti posted what I thought was a fascinating column about the way he constructs a short story. He first writes the parts that are the most important and enjoyable (to him), and fills in the other parts later. I also read with interest the comment by our new colleague Terence Faherty, which mentioned his preference for outlining. And although I'd never thought about it before, I realized then that I use a combination of those two techniques. I always do an outline and I also always write my favorite parts first--the opening and the ending, usually, and a few scenes in the middle--and, as Rob said, build a bridge between the islands. Rob and Terry both turn out great stories, so I feel I'm doing at least a few things right. (I also like to use lists similar to those that R.T. Lawton talked about in his column yesterday--devious minds do indeed think alike.)

The question of whether to outline or to fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants has always been interesting to me both as a writer and a teacher. In my fiction-writing courses my students are usually divided equally, on that subject. Some are outliners and some are freewheelers, and I never ever try to steer them away from their chosen path--mainly because I don't think it's chosen at all; I think our brains are just wired either one way or the other. Some folks need to begin with a blank slate and let their creativity run wild, and others need to have that preconceived structure firmly in mind before they start writing.

Thinking inside the box

I've always said, at this blog and at Criminal Brief, that I'm an outliner. Not because I want to be--I actually admire those who can start from scratch and see their story develop as they go, never knowing what's around the next corner. I'm an outliner only because I wouldn't be able to do it any other way.

I often hear writer friends say they outline their novels but not their short stories, because the stories are, well, short. I maintain that if you're an outliner you're an outliner, period. The difference is, the outline for a novel is almost always written out, whereas the outline for a short story might be solely in your head. My short stories are always outlined that way--I map out the plot in my mind, all the way through to the ending, for several days or even several weeks before I begin writing. The plot might change as the actual writing is done, and usually does, but that unwritten layout of the story is always in place beforehand. It's just the way I have to do it.

Unplugging the GPS

As an outliner and primarily a "genre" writer, I was surprised to learn that many of my favorite genre authors (Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, and others) have stated that they never outline their work before they start writing. King has said he enjoys not knowing what will happen before it flows from his pen or keyboard, and Leonard has said the same. I respect their views, but I suspect that they do in fact outline to some degree. After writing so many successful novels and stories, I imagine they have a pretty good idea of what the storyline will be and how it will flow, when they start out. After a while, that kind of thing becomes second nature. If you've hiked the same woods over and over for many years you probably don't need a map anymore, and--as I believe Loren Estleman once said--if you've built a thousand houses, number 1001 can probably be finished without your having to rely on a blueprint.

Authors can sometimes go to extremes as well, where outlining is concerned. I once heard a famous writer say his novel outlines sometimes run two hundred pages or more. To me, that doesn't sound like an outline at all; it sounds like a first draft. And the late Robert B. Parker said he liked to compromise, and do a pseudo-outline, maybe of certain parts of the novel. Whatever the case, I'm a believer in doing what works for the individual writer, however different and/or crazy that might be. Forgive the cliche, but if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Holding the course

A quick word about one of the biggest criticisms of outlining. Many think that once a writer knows what happens in his story, his interest in the story flies right out the window, and he loses the incentive to keep writing it. I don't feel that way. Knowing my ending ahead of time ensures that I won't put anything in the story that doesn't point toward that ending. I'm also one of those odd folks who truly enjoy the process of rewriting and polishing a story, so it doesn't bother me to put up the framework first and then hammer merrily away at a half-finished structure.

Besides, I didn't major in writing in college. I majored in engineering. How could I not want to plan my stories out beforehand?

Question

This has been asked before, but now that we have new SleuthSayers in the fold, and hopefully new readers as well, I'll ask it again: if you're a writer, are you an outliner or a blank-pager? And why do you like your side of that fence?

Either way, I hope you write a zillion stories and sell every one.

Choices

by R.T. Lawton

Most times, a character or potential scene will pop into my head while I am half-asleep and dreaming or when my conscious mind runs free and daydreams take over. With either set of circumstances, I try to write down those ideas or impressions as soon as possible, retrieve them later and insert them into specific story categories in my computer files. Then, when it is time to write another story, I have something to start with rather than facing that empty white page with a blank mind to work on it.

And, to assist my muse and I, while she is sitting there on my shoulder impatiently waiting for me to get on with it, I have various cheat sheets to help move the story forward. These cheat sheets may be considered as low tech and not on a scholarly level, but they work for me. Here is my list of categories used in writing mystery short stories, as I tend to break them down. You probably already have similar info stored in your brain, but go ahead and take a peek, see if anything sparks a new idea for you, or if you have your own brainstorming ideas to add to this particular list.

Dupin questions sailor in
"The Murders in the
Rue Morgue"  (US PD)

01) The Locked Room ~ a crime occurs in a locked room and the detective/reader must figure out how the crime was committed and who did it, such as:
     a) "Murder in the Rue Morgue" - an orangutan climbs in the locked door apartment, kills and escapes up the chimney.
     b) "In Bond" - the warehouse roof is purposely hinged and the thief uses a nearby construction crane to lift out the bonded wine.
     c) "The Bond Market" - a bond courier is killed in a locked and safety chained hotel room. Thief/killer uses a bent metal strip fashioned to re-hook the safety chain after he leaves the room. (It's a modern burglar tool.)
     d) strings have been used remotely to fire a gun, etc.
     e) what NEW ideas can be brainstormed?

02) Deductions ~ the detective derives a conclusion by reasoning and/or clues.
     a) amateurs - Miss Marple, Cletus Johnston & Theodore, etc.
     b) PI stories - to include Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe & Archie, Sam Spade, Marlowe, Mike Hammer, etc.
     c) Police procedural - 87th Precinct stories, Law and Order, CSI
     d) the pertinent clue comes out in a witness or suspect interview.
     e) what other ideas for how the crime or criminal was deduced? Or, what clue can be inserted and how?



03) A Mistake ~ the criminal makes a mistake.
     a) Mister X's alibi doesn't hold up because he was in the wrong place to see something, or he wasn't left
       handed, or couldn't have known important info, etc.
     b) He left behind an incriminating piece of evidence.
     c) What fresh and innovative types of mistakes can be capitalized on?

04) Confusion & Red Herrings ~ a misleading clue has been inserted into the story.
     a) The clues make someone appear to be the criminal, but the detective/reader doesn't have a full
       understanding of the clue yet.
     b) The real clue is hidden in with several other clues.
     c) The important clue is glossed over by one of the characters for some reason.
     d) What other Blue Smoke and Mirrors can be used?

05) Suspense or Thriller ~ a feeling of intenseness, may be combined with action
     a) The ticking time bomb - will hero get there in time and do what must be done?
     b) Reader knows the killer - will hero stop killer in time?
     c) What new gimmicks can be conjured up, other than:
          1) runaway train, car with no brakes, bus with speed bomb device, aircraft with no live pilot
          2) bomb with timer, which wire to cut?
          3) will an object central to story be found and acquired?

work in progress: my 5th e-book

06) Caper ~ the theft or attempted theft of a valuable object or commodity, often by humorous criminals
      (one of my favorites)
     a) Donald Westlake's stories - Dortmunder series
     b) Lawrence Block's stories - Bernie Rhodenbarr series
     c) Holiday Burglars series

07) Historical ~ use a lot of research to set these (another favorite of mine)
     a) The crime, solution, setting and characters come from the research into that time period.

08) Noir ~ dark atmosphere, hero loses out (haven't written one of these
                                                        yet)

Many of those listed above can be intermingled with one of the other categories.

Anyway, this is one sample of many lists or cheat sheets I keep around while writing short mysteries. By having a reference to glance at when needed, I can have a jump start on brainstorming, or in the case of other lists; names for characters of different ethnicity; crimes to commit other than common murder; types of swag to be acquired from various crimes; a chronology of historical events; a catalog of series character's traits, history and happenings for individual historical series; and so on. In short, I have choices which can be quickly made without interrupting the story writing in order to research for the needed information. The information is already available at hand and is added to periodically as I find new data.

So what lists do you use to make your writing easier for you?