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Novel Development From Concept to Query - Welcome to Algonkian Author Connect
Haste is a Writer's Second Worst Enemy, Hubris Being the First
AND BAD ADVICE IS SECONDS BEHIND THEM BOTH... Welcome to Algonkian Author Connect (AAC). This is a literary and novel development website dedicated to educating aspiring authors in all genres. A majority of the separate forum sites are non-commercial (i.e., no relation to courses or events) and they will provide you with the best and most comprehensive guidance available online. You might well ask, for starters, what is the best approach for utilizing this website as efficiently as possible? If you are new to AAC, best to begin with our "Novel Writing on Edge" forum. Peruse the novel development and editorial topics arrayed before you, and once done, proceed to the more exclusive NWOE guide broken into three major sections.
In tandem, you will also benefit by perusing the review and development forums found below. Each one contains valuable content to guide you on a path to publication. Let AAC be your primary and tie-breaker source for realistic novel writing advice.
Your Primary and Tie-Breaking Source
For the record, our novel writing direction in all its forms derives not from the slapdash Internet dartboard (where you'll find a very poor ratio of good advice to bad), but solely from the time-tested works of great genre and literary authors as well as the advice of select professionals with proven track records. Click on "About Author Connect" to learn more about the mission, and on the AAC Development and Pitch Sitemap for a more detailed layout.
Btw, it's also advisable to learn from a "negative" by paying close attention to the forum that focuses on bad novel writing advice. Don't neglect. It's worth a close look, i.e, if you're truly serious about writing a good novel.
There are no great writers, only great rewriters.
Forums
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Novel Writing Courses and "Novel Writing on Edge" Work and Study Forums
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Novel Writing on Edge - Nuance, Bewares, Actual Results
Platitudes, entitled amateurism, popular delusions, and erroneous information are all conspicuously absent from this collection. From concept to query, the goal is to provide you, the aspiring author, with the skills and knowledge it takes to realistically compete in today's market. Just beware because we do have a sense of humor.
I've Just Landed So Where Do I go Now?
Labors, Sins, and Six Acts - NWOE Novel Writing Guide
Crucial Self-editing Techniques - No Hostages- 46
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Art and Life in Novel Writing
Misc pearls of utility plus takeaways on craft learned from books utilized in the AAC novel writing program including "Write Away" by Elizabeth George, "The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner, "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass, and "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard:
The Perfect Query Letter
The Pub Board - Your Worst Enemy?
Eight Best Prep Steps Prior to Agent Query
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Bad Novel Writing Advice - Will it Never End?
The best "bad novel writing advice" articles culled from Novel Writing on Edge. The point isn't to axe grind, rather to warn writers about the many horrid and writer-crippling viruses that float about like asteroids of doom in the novel writing universe. All topics are unlocked and open for comment.
Margaret Atwood Said What?
Don't Outline the Novel?
Critique Criteria for Writer Groups- 23
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The Short and Long of It
Our veteran of ten thousand submissions, Walter Cummins, pens various essays and observations regarding the art of short fiction writing, as well as long fiction. Writer? Author? Editor? Walt has done it all. And worthy of note, he was the second person to ever place a literary journal on the Internet, and that was back in early 1996. We LOVE this guy!
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Quiet Hands, Unicorn Mech, Novel Writing Vid Reviews, and More
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Novel Writing Advice Videos - Who Has it Right?
Archived AAC reviews of informative, entertaining, and ridiculous novel writing videos found on Youtube. The mission here is to validate good advice while exposing terrible advice that withers under scrutiny. Members of the Algonkian Critics Film Board (ACFB) include Kara Bosshardt, Richard Hacker, Joseph Hall, Elise Kipness, Michael Neff, and Audrey Woods.
Stephen King's War on Plot
Writing a Hot Sex Scene
The "Secret" to Writing Award Winning Novels?- 91
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Writing With Quiet Hands
All manner of craft, market, and valuable agent tips from someone who has done it all: Paula Munier. We couldn't be happier she's chosen Algonkian Author Connect as a base from where she can share her experience and wisdom. We're also hoping for more doggie pics!
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Unicorn Mech Suit
Olivia's UMS is a place where SF and fantasy writers of all types can acquire inspiration, read a few fascinating articles, learn something useful, and perhaps even absorb an interview with one of the most popular aliens from the Orion east side.
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Crime Reads - Suspense, Thrillers, Crime, Gun!
CrimeReads is a culture website for people who believe suspense is the essence of storytelling, questions are as important as answers, and nothing beats the thrill of a good book. It's a single, trusted source where readers can find the best from the world of crime, mystery, and thrillers. No joke,
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Audrey's Archive - Reviews for Aspiring Authors
An archive of book reviews taken to the next level for the benefit of aspiring authors. This includes a unique novel-development analysis of contemporary novels by Algonkian Editor Audrey Woods. If you're in the early or middle stages of novel writing, you'll get a lot from this. We cannot thank her enough for this collection of literary dissection.
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New York Write to Pitch and Algonkian Writer Conferences 2024
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New York Write to Pitch 2023 and 2024
- New York Write to Pitch "First Pages" - 2022, 2023, 2024
- Algonkian and New York Write to Pitch Prep Forum
- New York Write to Pitch Conference Reviews
For New York Write to Pitch or Algonkian attendees or alums posting assignments related to their novel or nonfiction. Assignments include conflict levels, antagonist and protagonist sketches, plot lines, setting, and story premise. Publishers use this forum to obtain information before and after the conference event, therefore, writers should edit as necessary. Included are NY conference reviews, narrative critique sub-forums, and most importantly, the pre-event Novel Development Sitemap.
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Algonkian Writer Conferences - Events, FAQ, Contracts
Algonkian Writer Conferences nurture intimate, carefully managed environments conducive to practicing the skills and learning the knowledge necessary to approach the development and writing of a competitive commercial or literary novel. Learn more below.
Upcoming Events and Programs
Pre-event - Models, Pub Market, Etc.
Algonkian Conferences - Book Contracts
Algonkian Conferences - Ugly Reviews
Algonkian's Eight Prior Steps to Query
Why do Passionate Writers Fail?- 236
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Algonkian Novel Development and Writing Program
This novel development and writing program conducted online here at AAC was brainstormed by the faculty of Algonkian Writer Conferences and later tested by NYC publishing professionals for practical and time-sensitive utilization by genre writers (SF/F, YA, Mystery, Thriller, Historical, etc.) as well as upmarket literary writers. More Information
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Writer, Woman, Playwright, Spy: How Espionage Influenced Aphra Behn’s Writing
Any study of Aphra Behn is really a study of shifting disguises and political guesswork. She is remembered in history as the first woman to make a living by writing in English, all the way back in the seventeenth century. Few know that she became a writer while exploring her first intriguing career: Spy for the British crown. Fittingly for a spy, Behn was secretive and her reputed garrulity among friends did not extend to anything autobiographical for future generations to rely on. Most of what we know of her is uncertain, gleaned from the literature she left us. Her espionage career might have begun in 1659, when she was about nineteen years old. The death of Oliver Cromwell sent the bumbling Sealed Knot secret society into a flurry of activity on behalf of the Royalist cause. Her foster-brother Sir Thomas Colepeper and his half-brother Lord Strangford were caught up in covert activities. Behn would have been able to travel to France to liaise with Lord Strangford more easily than Colepeper, who was being watched. She also may have served as a living dropbox for letters exchanged between plotters. But true to the nature of spies and covert plots, no solid evidence of this role survives. Her presence in it is only hinted at by her relationships with others involved. A version of Behn’s life story says that she was one of the children of John Johnson, a gentleman appointed Lieutenant General of Surinam, a short-lived English colony in what is now Suriname, South America. In this tale, Johnson died during the transatlantic voyage to his appointment, which meant his widow and his children, including young Aphra, were temporarily stranded in South America. This tale is almost certainly false though. Crucially, there is no record of a Johnson destined for a high office in Surinam, nor any Johnsons among the recorded settlers of the colony. However, that Behn did go to Surinam in the 1660s is not in question. The descriptions of the colony in her most famous novel, Oroonoko, are too detailed for her to have gleaned them only by reading other people’s reports. In the other stories she wrote, Behn didn’t trouble herself much with research. Stories she wrote set in France and Spain are no different from stories set in England. The setting often remains a mere suggestion, but Oroonoko is different: It gives the impression of the author writing down what she heard and saw around her, lending it a reality that she clearly wasn’t achieving through meticulous research. The setting often remains a mere suggestion, but Oroonoko is different: It gives the impression of the author writing down what she heard and saw around her, lending it a reality that she clearly wasn’t achieving through meticulous research. It is how and why Behn ended up in Surinam that is up for debate. Her biographer, Janet Todd, argues that Behn went to Surinam as part of a spying mission for King Charles II. This would explain why, on her return to England, she had an audience with the king to “give him ‘An Account of his Affairs there,'” an incredibly unusual outcome for a young woman’s family trip to South America. Surinam was supposedly overrun with spies at the time, probably because a far-flung colonial outpost was a perfect place for any dissidents in Restoration Era England who had plans for seizing control of a colony or fomenting a revolution. She may have been there to spy on any number of brewing conflicts. The governor of Surinam at the time, Lord Willoughby, was absent, leaving a power vacuum filled by various personalities. This was also a time of “gold, glory, and God” and various people were reporting back to King Charles II about the possibilities of any and all of these plans succeeding. Spain had already grown immensely rich from riches found in North America, but England hadn’t struck gold yet. Many were taken in by promises of El Dorado, including Behn, who would find herself disappointed that Charles II was already tired of the empty promises of the mythical city. Behn was profoundly impacted by her trip to Surinam. Though she did have a mission to complete, with few friends and more time on her hands than usual, she began writing. Possibly she was already considering plays or translations as sources of income in case she could no longer engage in spy craft due to age, shifting political tides, or notoriety. She also had connections to the theater world back in England, and may have already been considering how to further insert herself in those circles. Interestingly, she does not seem to have been considering marriage as part of her future at all at this stage, though it would have been the thing to do for a woman her age in Restoration society. She found much inspiration in the social mobility colonists found in the Americas, especially Virginia, where transported criminals found themselves impossibly rich from tobacco and beaver hunting. Behn hated this sort of class mobility and frequently lampooned it in her work for the rest of her life. She also made time to meet the Indigenous population living near the English colony. Like many European colonists of her time, she found in the Surinamese a sort of pastoral innocence, and she carefully recorded her exchange of her garters for a set of feathers which she took with her back to England. Her work often reflected a paternalistic attitude toward any person of color. An avid reader, especially of pastoral romances like the works of dramatist Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède’s, Behn tended to see her own surroundings through that lens. When she transposed the reality of Surinam back into fiction, the very real political dramas took on the pastoral lens of the fiction she enjoyed. While in Surinam, she probably wrote her play The Young King, a tragicomedy of heroic lovers in Arcadian pastoral settings. It was written with an eye toward pleasing Charles II–he was known to love Spanish-style drama. Though the play wasn’t staged for at least fifteen years after her return to England, she never seems to have edited it–it retains youthful criticisms of power and privilege that she refused to engage in again later in life. Female spies were—and continue to be—positioned as fetishes and commodities, constantly sexualized and reduced to a roadblock to be overcome by the dominant male spy. While Behn was in Surinam, she almost certainly met William Scot, the exiled son of an executed republican. His father Thomas Scot had been a member of the House of Commons and instrumental in the trial and execution of Charles I. William also had political aspirations, and though he probably would have been safer somewhere further from English society, he was in Surinam, probably making deals and trying to find his way back into political influence. Rumor had it at the time that Behn and Scot were having an affair. He was married with a child, though living apart from them. The affair was remarked upon by their contemporaries in letters home, though Behn’s given name is Astrea, taken from the seventeenth-century French pastoral romance L’Astrée by Honoré d’Urfé. She later adopted the name as her pen name; she may have already been using it as a pseudonym in Surinam. The immensely long novel centers on a fictionalized pastoral idyll in France during the fifth century, where a young shepherdess and shepherd—Astrée and Celadon—fall in love. Celadon is a perfect lover, but Astrée is “a curious combination of vanity, caprice and virtue; of an imperious, suspicious and jealous nature, she is not at all the ideal creature of older pastorals.” It makes sense that Behn would choose such a codename. She would challenge many of the “superficial associations of such a name” throughout her life, and though a lot of her writing relied on pastoral imagery and tropes, she often challenged those as well. Behn returned to England in 1665. She gave her report of English affairs in Surinam to Charles II. What she was up to for the next year is unclear, though we know that she kept up with the ongoing dramas of the colony through the pamphlets that were published about it. Some of these intrigues found their way into Oroonoko, her novel published in 1688. The failed rebellion of the eponymous enslaved prince, Oronooko, was foretold in an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Surinam’s Governor Lord Willoughby. The would-be assassin, the troublesome Thomas Allin, was someone Behn may have reported on during her time there. He died by suicide rather than be executed for his attempt; her protagonist was executed instead. She must have made inroads in the political and theatrical spheres, because in 1666, Thomas Killigrew sent Behn to the Netherlands as a spy. Killigrew was the dramatist heading up the King’s Company troupe and secretly working in intelligence for the King. This was during the darkest point of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, so Behn probably only landed this precarious role because she had done good enough work in Surinam. Her mission on behalf of the English king was to meet with her old flame William Scot, who now claimed to have information for the Royalists about a Dutch-sponsored uprising in England. She was to assess what information he had and whether it was worth anything. Killigrew knew of their romance in Surinam and was happy to exploit it for the king’s gain. Behn was ill-equipped for this dangerous mission. Though adept at role-playing, she was somewhat naive. She was a bad judge of character and more easily fooled by false sincerity than someone undertaking a third espionage mission should have been. She was also quite talkative and would never be remembered as discreet. Unsurprisingly, she was not successful. Scot was hard to deal with, and Behn didn’t have the resources to succeed even if he had been helpful. They both asked for too much from their spymasters and received nearly nothing. It was a plight shared by all Royalist agents taking risks for the Crown. Behn returned to London in May 1667, having had the good fortune of missing the catastrophic Great Fire of London the year before, but with little else to show from her trip. Writing became an urgent necessity after her return from the Netherlands. Charles II was infamously stingy with payments to his spies, often simply not paying them at all. Behn’s stay in Antwerp had left her in immense debt, and she spent time in a London debtor’s prison before being released with a patron’s help. She had good handwriting, so she began copying manuscripts for fast money before looking toward the theater for her next adventure. On September 20, 1670, Behn had her theatrical debut: her play, The Forc’d Marriage, was staged by the Duke’s Company. Like many of her works, it was a tragicomedy that ends in two noblemen marrying commoners against their parents’ directives, a scandalous concept at the time. She would return to the concept of escaping a bad marriage numerous times in her work; her biographer Janet Todd assumes the repeating theme was inspired by Behn’s own bad luck in love. The women in Behn’s stories often live bleak lives, even when they’re removed to pastoral idylls. They are forced to manipulate and negotiate through places where men have all the power. Behn led a similar life working in the theater; calling her a whore would have been only a slightly lower insult than calling her a poetess at the time. Yet, it was threatening to men that this female writer was so popular. In an essay, Rutgers University professor Elin Diamond writes, The conflict between (as she puts it) her “defenceless” woman’s body and her “masculine part” is staged in her insistence, in play after play, on the equation between female body and fetish, fetish and commodity….Like the actress, the woman dramatist is sexualized, circulated, denied a subject position in a theatre hierarchy. Similarly, female spies were—and continue to be—positioned as fetishes and commodities, constantly sexualized and reduced to a roadblock to be overcome by the dominant male spy. Behn’s experience in both worlds would have led her to navigate them as only she could–an independent agent set on getting what was hers. ______________________________ Unruly Figures by Valorie Castellanos Clark is available via Princeton University Press. View the full article -
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10 New Books Coming Out This Week
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Steve Cavanagh, Kill for Me Kill For You (Atria) “Explosive, game-changing reveals that, combined with an uncommon attunement to the central characters’ emotional arcs, make for a wild, deliciously satisfying ride.” –Publishers Weekly Sulari Gentill, The Mystery Writer (Poisoned Pen Press) “Gentill’s worthwhile novel is full of compelling characters, including doomsday preppers, online conspiracy theorists, and overzealous publishing agents. Recommended for readers who enjoy mysteries from Riley Sager, Ruth Ware, or Louise Penny.” –Library Journal Nova Jacobs, The Stars Turned Inside Out (Atria) “Jacobs elevates the death-in-the-workplace trope to staggering heights in this science-based thriller that fuses physics and philosophy in mindbending ways… Jacobs delves into subjects as deep as the nature of the universe and the space-time continuum and as quotidian as romantic love and professional jealousy, giving careful readers much to contemplate.” –Booklist Nicci French, Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter? (William Morrow) “Husband and wife writing duo Nicci French are always a must read, and their latest, Has Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?, is one of their very best. Compelling, moving and beautifully written, it’s about how real people are affected by (and driven to) murder…. An absolute winner.” –Guardian Cynthia Pelayo, Forgotten Sisters (Thomas and Mercer) “This compelling mystery within a unique haunted-house story is told in gorgeous prose, with sympathetic, complicated characters who feel as if they could materialize off the page. Pelayo has given readers another can’t-miss novel, marked by its pervasive unease and riveting storyline. For fans of ghost stories that mine memory, fairy tales, and mystery, such as the works of Simone St. James, Jennifer McMahon, and Helen Oyeyemi.” –Library Journal Ron Corbett, Cape Rage (Berkley) “Corbett enhances his nail-biting plot with vivid depictions of the moody rural Washington State setting and convincing characterizations of cops and criminals alike.” –Publishers Weekly Gigi Pandian, A Midnight Puzzle (Minotaur) “Pandian triumphs again… with this fiendishly clever, intricately constructed whodunit. It’s another home run from a major talent.” –Publishers Weekly Alexia Casale, The Best Way to Bury Your Husband (Penguin Books) “A wife and her trusty frying pan fighting the patriarchy can elicit a silent cheer… Casale’s book goes beyond the statistics to tell four very human stories — morbid, funny and sadly relevant.” –The Washington Post Eric Rickstad, Lilith (Blackstone) “Rickstad delivers a second suspenseful thriller, one that reflects our politically divided times.” –Booklist Parker Adams, The Lock Box (Crooked Lane) “This taut, page-turner debut from Adams is perfect for fans of James Patterson and Jonathan Kellerman.” –Booklist View the full article -
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Chris Bohjalian on Misdirection, Multiple POVs, and the Lure of Las Vegas
If Chris Bohjalian were to write a memoir—or a manifesto on craft—it could be called: I was a teenage magician. It’s a history that has served him well. A master of misdirection, Bohjalian—the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books including The Lioness and The Flight Attendant—occupies unique territory in the literary landscape. While his novels often incorporate crime, they aren’t often considered crime novels (which is why you’ll usually find them shelved in Fiction as opposed to Mystery). And yet Bohjalian considers crime his MacGuffin, or the pistol that marks an opening salvo. Case in point: While Bohjalian’s newest genre-bender, The Princess of Las Vegas (March 19, 2024; Doubleday), centers on a popular Diana impersonator simultaneously losing and finding herself in Sin City, it opens with a gunshot—and more bullets fly (and more bodies fall) before the final curtain comes down. It’s casino culture meets cryptocurrency meets organized crime on Nevada’s infamous strip, and everybody’s secrets will be laid bare in a high stakes game of survival that has the potential to become a royal mess. But the story is really about estranged sisters floundering in the wake of their mother’s (suspicious?) death. Crissy (aka Diana) and Betsy are forced to reconcile when Betsy—who recently adopted a surprisingly worldly teenage girl—follows her boyfriend from Vermont to Vegas, where they’ve both found employment in a lucrative bitcoin venture. The promise of a fresh start, however, is tempered by the reality that their new “business associates” hold all the cards … and can cash out their lives if they don’t fall in line with the family way. Now, Chris Bohjalian talks about the sleights of hand that add elements of magic and mystery to his transcendent tales. John B. Valeri: The Princess of Las Vegas, like many of your books, straddles genre lines (i.e., it may not be a crime novel but it’s a novel that contains crime). How do you conceptualize crime as a catalyst for storytelling – and what does the threat of (further) violence/death jeopardize here? Chris Bohjalian: Crime is often the MacGuffin for me, that element of a story that seems critical, but is actually a bit of storytelling misdirection. (I was a teenage magician, and so I love misdirection.) In some of my novels it figures more critically than in others: it’s more important to The Princess of Las Vegas than to The Guest Room, for instance, even though The Guest Room has rivers of blood in the first two pages, and plenty more later on. But I never viewed The Flight Attendant as a crime novel, even though it literally begins with a dead body in a bed. I always viewed that book as a story of a functional alcoholic with serious demons. In my mind, The Princess of Las Vegas is an exploration of two damaged siblings, and how they deal with their childhood traumas. But I also wanted to explore the meaning of Princess Diana, and why this remarkable woman is still in the zeitgeist decades after her death. (For the record, I never considered a novel about the Princess herself. I love to write “historical fiction,” but I couldn’t write “novelized history” about a woman whose children and husband are still alive. That feels unfair to them and her memory.) Now, as I dove deeper into the novel, Las Vegas loomed larger as a character. I’m fascinated by the city and its history. Most people are, even if they prefer not to admit it. And what might have been merely another MacGuffin in another novel grew more integral to the plot. To use a gambling term, it upped the ante for me. It got me excited, because the stakes grew ever higher. JBV: Crissy Dowling has reinvented herself as a Princess Diana tribute performer in Vegas after having escaped the childhood trauma(s) she survived in Vermont. What of the princess’s life (and death) resonates with her – and how is Chrissy able to both lose and find herself within Diana’s persona? CB: I think Diana was Crissy’s savior. I shudder to think where Crissy would be if she hadn’t begun channeling her inner Diana. Other than the fact they resemble each other, Crissy shares one thing with Diana, and that is what leads to the profound identification. And I think Crissy understands that the late Princess saved her. Her sister, Betsy, might not agree with that. But – on some level – Crissy views herself as another of the sick and the sad and the wounded who have been touched by the Princess, and, if not healed, made better. JBV: Speaking of Princess Diana: What drew you to explore the royal family and their enduring cultural significance – and how did you endeavor to balance an honest yet respectful commentary, knowing they’ve inspired endless fascination and reverence among so many? CB: That first decision I made was the best one: the book would not be historical fiction about the woman set at Kensington Palace or on a Mediterranean yacht. It would be about a wannabe princess, someone who has studied her but is not her. I must admit, there is so much about Diana I learned that I did not use in the novel, because the book is about two American sisters in Las Vegas, not the Royal Family. Still, I think I was drawn there for a variety of reasons, including my own interest in the Royals, my interest in Las Vegas, and the idea of marrying the two. I think it’s fascinating that there is a Princess Diana museum in Vegas. Alas, it opened in September 2022, after I had finished writing the novel. Still, I hope it’s an indication that my pairing has an unexpected logic. JBV: Crissy’s estranged sister, Betsy, and Betsy’s newly adopted teenage daughter, Marisa, are also POV characters (Crissy and Marisa in the first-person and Betsy in the third). Tell us about the appeal of this narrative structure. How did using multiple perspectives allow for both an organic sense of character development as well as the heightening of suspense and tensions? CB: I’m a fan of narratives with multiple perspectives – that Rashomon effect. I’ve used it (off the top of my head) in The Lioness, The Sandcastle Girls, The Flight Attendant, Secrets of Eden, and The Guest Room. The truth is, in real life, no two witnesses see one event the same way. Why not use that reality in fiction? And, as you observed correctly, it increases the tension, because readers can know things that a character doesn’t. JBV: Betsy unwittingly finds herself mixed up with members of organized crime when she follows her boyfriend to Sin City, where they’ve found employment in a burgeoning bitcoin enterprise. Share with us why Vegas, with its colorful past and ever-evolving present, presented itself as the ideal setting for a cautionary tale about the mob’s influence on the cryptocurrency business (which remains a mystery to many of us). CB: Las Vegas is that fiery meteor that shoots across all our skies at some point in our lives, and demands that we watch. It’s a fever dream of hope and desire. And while the city is known for many things, crime is certainly a part of its DNA, and has been since it was founded. My apologies to the teams in tourism there, but let’s face it: it was a city mayor who helped create a mob museum in Vegas. Organized crime is a part of – and I love your use of this expression – “its colorful past.” I’m not sure if or when cryptocurrency will become big in Vegas or a currency on casino floors. And most of us barely understood cryptocurrency. So, crypto is – to use that word again – a MacGuffin. It’s a basis for possible next-generation criminality and corruption. But to enjoy the novel, you don’t need to know anything at all about crypto. Moreover, Vegas is at once ahead of the curve and behind it. It’s cutting edge and old school at the same time. It’s always changing. So, I set the novel in the summer and fall of 2022, because I needed a marker that wouldn’t change. I have no idea the role that crypto will play in the city, or in all our lives, in five or ten years. JBV: Like crime (organized or other!), history also informs many of your stories. Why is it important to look at the past in contextualizing the present – and how does your Armenian heritage factor into this desire to enlighten readers as you entertain them? CB: One of the most quoted lines from any of my novels is this one from The Sandcastle Girls: “But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans.” We know that fiction engenders empathy and it can teach history. (I suspect that perhaps millions of people first learned about the Armenian Genocide from The Sandcastle Girls and the publicity around the novel.) I fear that a lot of Americans know too little about history, and if you don’t understand the past, well. . . We know how that goes. We repeat mistakes and we do that with far more cataclysmic consequences. So, yes, as a novelist, I want to entertain. But as a human being, I hope to share some of the things I’ve learned. JBV: In addition to being a novelist, you are also an accomplished playwright and screenwriter. While some might argue that writing is writing, each of these formats requires a distinct skillset (understanding of dialogue, direction, story structure, etc.). Tell us about the disparities and similarities of these disciplines. How can working in one area open up unexpected channels into the others? CB: I’ve written screenplays and teleplays, but I’m not an accomplished screenwriter. Of the three movies and the TV series that sprang from my novels, I wrote. . .nothing for the screen. Those plaudits belong to other writers. I have, however, had three plays that I am really proud of, including The Club, which had its world premiere at the George Street Playhouse just last month. Two of my plays were original stories and one was an adaptation of my novel, Midwives. And one thing I have learned is this: it is a hell of a lot easier to write a new play than it is to adapt an existing novel for the stage. Writing the Midwives play was much harder than writing Wingspan or The Club. The reason is pretty simple. A novel, by design, can be big and unwieldy and you have dozens of settings and scenes and characters. A play has to have a lot fewer. It is not less profound or complex than a novel, but you know your parameters (not limitations) going in. Also, a play has a cast and crew to solve a lot of problems the playwright hasn’t. I bow before all of the people in theatre who have dramatically elevated my work there. JBV: You refer to yourself as the “3rd most talented artist in a family of 3”—which includes your wife, photographer Victoria Blewer, and daughter, Grace Experience, an actor who has also narrated several of your books. What has been the importance of curiosity and creativity in your home – and how has watching your wife and daughter pursue their art emboldened your own approach to craft, assuming it has? CB: Lord, the two of them are so much more talented than I am – and in much harder fields for artists. The fact they do with their lives what they want is inspiring. I have always depended on my wife as my first reader, but now she is joined by our daughter. I depend on them and my editor, Jenny Jackson. (Jenny is also a brilliant novelist herself – Pineapple Street.) As my wife once said to me, when I was pushing back against a criticism, “Wouldn’t you rather hear it from me than the New York Times?” (Answer? Yes.) In any case, I love that as a playwright and novelist I have gotten to work with Grace Experience. And I love that – since we were eighteen years old – my lovely bride has been candid with me about almost every word I have written. View the full article -
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The Evolution of the Private Investigator in Historical Romance
Who is a lady going to call if she’s been wronged by an insufferable rake in Victorian England? If the lady is the main character in a historical romance, a lady’s reputation—and the reader’s favorite tropes—call for the FPI. The Fictional Private Investigator. Unlike PIs in contemporary crime fiction, the FPIs of historical romance do not sit outside a cheating man’s house in a beat-up Ford peeing in a bottle. Instead, they have a backstory that leaves them flawed and brooding, usually in possession of a small fortune or at least enough money to make a good match, and with muscular forearms. (That last part is just my humble opinion.) My latest release, The Love Remedy, features such a man who is a single father and deliciously grumpy to boot. You’re welcome. One reason authors who write British-set historical romances rely on our FPIs, is that London’s Metropolitan Police Force, responsible for prevention of crime and apprehension of criminals, only came into being after the Regency; the era in which the bulk of historical romance novels take place. The police force as we know it was introduced in 1829—a mere twelve years before the events in my early-Victorian set series begin. The rank of Detective was not created until 1842, the year my first book is set. I could, of course, fudge the timeline a bit and give the Met’s detectives a little more experience, but then we confront the second reason romance authors prefer our FPIs. No one liked the cops. The idea of a city-wide police department was not a popular one in the 1830s. Many in London considered them a threat to civil liberties. This fear was justified when those first ten years the primary use of the police force was to “keep the peace” or, in other words, crowd control. The bulk of police action was against crowds who gathered to advocate for political reforms such as universal suffrage (For men. For women? Not so much.). In Regency-set historical romances, an FPI was also preferable to the Bow Street Runners. While fictional liberties can and are taken in the portrayal of this private force, the Runners were thief takers without governmental oversight; men who received a fee for each criminal at large they brought to jail. In a romance this is awfully heroic. In real life? Not so much. Over in the colonies—sorry—in America during the early- to mid-1800’s, centralized police departments were also unpopular. In many large cities, folks were spontaneously deputized, leading to justice in some corners and mayhem in others. Obviously, not all sheriffs were hero material for the author whose novels chronicle the love lives of those men called by the gold rush or women who braved all manner of danger to make a new life out West. Even if the author keeps their stories set in the East, say New York City, police still aren’t sympathetic. Ever heard of the New York City police riot? In 1857 violence broke out between two competing forces, the NY Municipal Police Force, and the Metropolitan Police Force. Not so alluring, the specter of police men coming to fisticuffs and interfering in each other’s cases. For those historical romance authors whose stories are American-set, there is an actual historical alternative to the questionable public lawman. The questionable private lawman. The Pinkerton Detective Agency, still in existence, was founded in 1850. In the beginning, Pinkerton agents were used in the same spirit as Metropolitan police in England. The oligarchs of the day hired Pinkerton agents to infiltrate unions and undermine the budding American labor movement. They have a kinder historical reputation than they deserve, however, because of the success attributed to them in protecting Lincoln from assassination. The first couple of times. Indeed, the first recorded woman detective, Kate Warne, was a Pinkerton employee and one of the agents credited with foiling the first assassination attempt on Lincoln before he reached office. Later, during the civil war, Pinkerton agents were part of the “secret service” of agents overseen by the then War Office —precursors to the US Secret Service. The USSS is charged with protection of the president as well as their original purpose, to stamp out counterfeit currency. Pinkerton agents to this day have a reputation for being anti-union. In 2022 it’s reported that a Pinkerton agent infiltrated the movement to unionize Starbucks employees. Or, maybe, they were an adolescent girl posing as a Pinkerton to justify spending an inordinate amount of time in the ubiquitous coffee shop. In other words, while most historical romance authors conduct exhaustive research into the socio-economic, political, and fashion trends in the period in which they write, they are also charged with creating sympathetic romantic heroes and heroines. This is why the FPI is so vital to any historical romance that involves a crime and the impetus of what I call “the duke conundrum.” Readers, editors, and publishers would like a historical romance with a duke in the title and on the cover, please. Never mind there were only twenty-five ducal houses in 1812, including the dukedom of Wellington, created by the King specifically for the hero who defeated Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo. Slim pickings for an island full of beautiful, kind-hearted milk maids who long for men with all their teeth, were free of venereal disease, and bathed more than once a fortnight. Hence, historical romance authors are expert at presenting the outlier. We manage to find a scrap of evidence suggesting a duke might possibly be an early consumer of tooth powder. We conjure an earl, based on a murky historical figure, who’s defining characteristic is his unwillingness to profit from the sugar trade of the West Indies. Finally, for those of us who cannot contort our policemen (the first policewoman in the UK, Edith Smith, didn’t appear on the scene until 1915, and even then, was limited to arrests involving only women) into sympathetic love interests, we gift readers with the presence of an FPI to catch a killer, save the day, and marry the girl (or guy. Yes, there were same sex relationships in the 1800’s, but this is a whole ‘nother topic.) So, when it comes to historical detectives, give us romance authors a bit of grace. We walk a fine, fine line between history and romance. Lucky for us, FPI’s are there to bridge the divide. *** View the full article -
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Algonkian Retreats and Workshops - Assignments 2024
THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT Hook Line As a conflict that will rend the nation escalates into a war of brother against brother, a New England tradesman navigates the halls of a contentious government and parlays his business skills and a special friendship into making sure that the symbol of the Union survives. Inspired by a magical fountain on her family’s property in South Carolina, which had not flowed since the Civil War, author Ann Waigand went searching for its origins only to discover not just Charles Fowler but a web of relationships that connected from her family and their community in the Antebellum South to the U.S. Capitol dome. It’s a story of enduring friendships as well as friendships shattered. THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT Montgomery Meigs, Engineer in Charge of the Capitol Extension His mother described him, at age six, as “high-tempered, unyielding, tyrannical toward his brothers, and very persevering in pursuit of anything he wishes” and by the time he is overseeing the Capitol dome work, he has grown into a full-fledged megalomaniac (check out his name, preserved for eternity in the ironwork of every single riser on the steps of the Washington Aqueduct). He’s in constant battle with architect Walter—and just about anyone who stands in his way. A control freak, he records everything in a diary written in his own, self-created shorthand that will take someone decades to decipher. And he holds grudges. Just ask Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. Meigs ignored Varina Davis’ plea to help secure the release of his former friend and mentor, Jefferson, from prison and ordered grave diggers at the newly-created Arlington Cemetery to put graves as close to Lee’s family mansion as possible. According to his nemesis, Thomas Walter, Architect of the Capitol, “that old scamp makes trouble wherever he goes, and like the skunk he leaves a long odor behind him.” And to make matters worse, Meigs’ taste, for the Capitol Extension, runs to opulence—to the point of garishness. CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE My Dear Charlie: A Friendship Forged in Iron that Forever Changed the Landscape of American Democracy My Dear Charlie: The Iron-Clad Friendship that Built the U.S. Capitol Dome A Friendship Forged in Iron: Charles Fowler, Thomas Walter, and the Building of the U.S. Capitol Dome DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES GENRE: Now, that is the question! My original intent was to write a narrative nonfiction book about the friendship between architect Thomas Walter and iron tradesman Charles Fowler. Frankly, interleaving multiple stories, in the North and in the South, creates a far more compelling narrative. Taking into account the disparity in verifiable facts from one character to another, I have resolved to write a novel which will let the characters meet and interact in ways that adhering to straight history would not allow. COMPARABLES: Becoming Jane Austen by John Hunter Spence…plus the film Becoming Jane, described as a biographical romantic film, screenplay by Sarah Williams and Kevin Hood Reading the book, in tandem with watching the film, is a master class in how to turn a rather dull, poorly structured, cleave-to-the-facts, nonfiction book into a compelling dramatic work—which is (as stated above) my goal. America’s First Daughter: A Novel. by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie From Monticello to Jefferson’s White House She Shaped the Legacy of a Nation “richly researched…draws from thousands of letters…(to) tell the fascinating untold story (that) shaped…not just (her father’s) political legacy, but that of the nation he founded…bringing to life a colorful cast of characters who conceived our new nation” CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT Wounded pride, an overpowering need for ownership and control, fundamental disagreements in taste, a battle to take center stage in history—all characterize a conflagration between Architect of the Capitol, Thomas U. Walter, and Engineer in Charge, Montgomery C. Meigs, that consumes more than a decade. In Walter’s words, “I have been in open war…contending for the dignity of our [architectural] Profession against the assumptions and despotism of a military upstart who happens to have the power to annoy.” The battle reaches its climax when Meigs’ successor takes away the contract for the Congressional Library extension awarded to Walter’s friend and compatriot in the years of struggle, Charles Fowler. What makes it even worse, the contract is not with Janes, Fowler, Kirtland & Co., the firm Fowler represented for almost two decades, the firm that built the Capitol dome. Instead the government has contracted Fowler alone, acting as his own company, and Walter knows that this has been the ultimate goal of his friend’s years of work. Walter’s resigns the job he loves, that has been his life, his ambition, his raison d’être. “There comes a time when a man has to stand up not just for himself but for his friend. That time is now.” OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT (TWO MORE LEVELS) Inner Conflict: For Fowler: My friendship with Walter was originally driven solely by business but now I really like the man, our families have become close, and I find myself having to be careful that the insider deals we strike don’t ricochet back against him. I’m a straightforward businessman, and this is a complication I hadn’t reckoned with. And to get the work done, I have to be cordial with his worst enemy, Meigs, while at the same time commiserating with Walter. I’m constantly watching what I say and do, knowing that I have to keep it a secret that I’m getting along with—and talking to—people who are each other’s mortal enemies. For Walter: It’s bad enough I’m having to deal with that snake Meigs, and all these different administrations, I have personal worries, too. My son Thomas, my namesake, is a failure and a scoundrel. My friend Charlie (Fowler) tried to help him, got him into the guano business, but Thomas messed that up, too. Now he’s gone and joined the Confederate Army. I’ve told my wife (and Charlie) that Thomas is dead to me but I still worry about him and about my sons Robert and Horace, those two honorably fighting to preserve our great union. For Meigs: I was left to work in Washington, DC, while my former commanding officer Robert E. Lee and many of my fellow West Pointers garnered fame in the Mexican War. I have to do something to equal—no, to surpass—their accomplishments. In the Washington Aqueduct project, I’ve accomplished something that will “connect my name imperishably with a work greater in its beneficial results than all the military glory of the Mexican War”,,,but that’s not enough. I can’t stop there. I’ve got to keep proving my worth, in fact, that I’m better than everybody else. Other Conflicts: Conflict between architecture and engineering Conflict between senses of style (classicism versus opulence/gaudiness) Conflict between professions and tradesmen THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING Hartford, CT; Philadelphia, PA; New York City, Abbeville, SC, but primarily: WASHINGTON, DC The U.S. Capitol, a relatively small building with an anemic dome, exemplifies the promise of a democratic nation but the country has simply outgrown it. In disarray, it remains a work in progress (for more than a decade), where conflict and contention are ever-present challenges, and dueling forces preen, pander, and pounce every time a decision needs to be made. Elected representatives and government bureaucrats squabble and scheme, almost as much over building plans as in defense of, or opposition to, the all-important issue of slavery. A congressman is viciously caned, and crippled, by a fellow “lawmaker.” As if in eerie reflection of a ruptured nation, both chambers of Congress and even the very heart of the building above which the dome is taking shape are torn apart. The smell of burned timbers and paper permeates the building; the background symphony combines a timpani of hammers with the percussion of iron dragged from the grounds and forced into place. By the early 1860s, troops drill in the Capitol’s halls; the army’s commissary bakes bread in the building’s basement, with smoke and soot invading the Congressional Library above; and Union regiments bivouac on the grounds. The noble attempt to create a space large enough to accommodate a growing nation, and worthy enough to celebrate a great national union, is happening at exactly the time this very union is being ripped asunder. -
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Algonkian Retreats and Workshops - Assignments 2024
Pre-event Assignments 1. THE STORY STATEMENT Jen must protect her teenage daughter Isabelle from a terrible truth that could destroy them both. 2. THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS Who will blow Jen’s cancer survivor cover? Will it be Jade, her daughter’s freshman dorm roommate, a young woman fighting for her life and selected to room with Isabelle because of her own cancer diagnosis? Will it be her philandering husband Brian, whose careful crafting of a life of lies gave Jen the idea and the excuse to plunge herself into this game of deceit? Perhaps it will be Reggie from the yoga studio, who sees in Jen’s survival affirmation of the wondrous powers of the angel Ariel, and whose own life depends on belief in her access to another realm. Perhaps Jen will be forced to face the truth herself? 3. BREAKOUT TITLE “Cancer Mom” “Mutations” “Sex, Lies, and Chemotherapy” 4. GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES “Beyond Suspicion” An insurance salesman's humdrum existence takes a turn when a stranger, ex-con Auggie Rose, unexpectedly dies in his arms. Assuming the identity of the dead man, the salesman embarks on a double life, keeping it secret from his live-in girlfriend. “Dear Evan Hansen” A teen builds a false self based on undeserved sympathy and compassion and struggles mightily to maintain it upon reaping benefits—including (almost) getting the girl—that had been forever outside his reach. Genre fits into the “Psychological Thriller with a Sense of Humor” drawer 5. CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT “Cancer Mom” asks a simple but elemental question: Can you lie your way to the truth? Jen, the protagonist, becomes obsessed with the secret life her husband leads as he carries on an affair. She constructs her own secret life in response, and then a cancer scare, and a subsequent biopsy, leads her to a tantalizing opportunity. Becoming a cancer patient, and then a survivor, results in the end of her husband’s affair, and Jen becomes a hero in her daughter’s eyes, who uses the experience in her application letter to Wesleyan University. Her life complete and whole again, Jen is ready to move on, until… 6. CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS Having been “Cancer Mom” during her daughter’s last two years of high school, can Jen return to the role for another full year, especially when confronted with her daughter’s ill roommate, fighting her own battle against the disease? What could the discovery of Jen’s deception do to her family’s reputation? Could her husband’s integrity as a lawyer survive the revelation? Would Wesleyan kick her daughter out, since so much of her admission was weighted on her touching mother-fights-cancer personal statement? 7. Setting This manuscript is currently a play, and so setting is determined by the nature of the sets, which so far include a yoga studio, a cemetery plot, a dorm room, and the dining room table around which the crisis comes to a head. -
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Tana French on Embracing Discomfort, Irish Wit, and Chosen Family in The Hunter
In The Hunter, her ninth novel, Irish-American author Tana French takes us back to the small West Ireland village that she introduced in The Searcher. Retired detective Cal Hooper has made a home in Ardnakelty at the foot of the mountain, away from police cases and the city bustle. It’s a blazing hot summer, and while farmers worry about their crops, Cal’s life seems to have settled in a peaceful groove. His relationship with local Lena is going strong; meanwhile Cal keeps a watchful eye over teenage neighbor Trey, his now trusted carpentry assistant. But Cal’s makeshift family comes under threat when Trey’s father, Johnny, marches back into town with a scheme to find gold on local land and a sleek London millionaire in tow. Readers jonesing for the tightly plotted procedurals of French’s Dublin Murder Squad series should adjust their expectations. The Hunter, like The Searcher before it, is a slow burn. But it may be French’s best novel yet. The myriad narrative skills the author has honed in her eight previous novels are on full display here, immersing the reader into a deeply atmospheric, character-driven tale. At times poignant and others hilarious, The Hunter delivers a taut, intelligent examination of loyalty, instinct, and community. French masterfully excavates the secrets we keep for love or revenge and explores the lengths we go to to protect our family, be it blood or chosen. I had the thrill of speaking with Tana French over Zoom. We discussed her characters, her creative process, the ethics of writing the detective as hero, the joys of Irish banter, and much more. Jenny Bartoy: Where did you get the idea for The Hunter’s premise, about finding gold in Ireland? Tana French: My last book, The Searcher, was basically mystery software running on western hardware. I’d been reading westerns and thought many of the western tropes would map really well onto the west of Ireland. There’s a lot in common in setting, that sort of wild beauty that demands a lot of physical and mental toughness. And there’s a sense of place that’s so removed from the centers of power, both culturally and geographically, that anyone who wants to create a functioning cohesive society [is] going to have to make their own rules. I felt, when I finished The Searcher, that there were more Western tropes to play with in that west of Ireland setting, and the first one that sprang to mind was the “gold in them thar hills” trope. It doesn’t sound like a very Irish thing, but it’s true what Johnny says in the book: there have been a ton of ancient gold artifacts found in Ireland, and there have been many gold rushes over the centuries. So it didn’t seem like a particularly implausible thing to happen. Cal and Trey’s relationship at the end of The Searcher got left at quite an interesting point where they have built the foundation of a solid relationship but they haven’t had time for it to set firm. I thought, what would happen if something came in to disrupt this delicate balance? And the obvious thing was Trey’s absent dad, Johnny, who’s been off in London somewhere. He seemed like exactly the kind of guy who would come in with some big get-rich-quick scheme that might or might not be legit. And that just added up with the gold trope. JB: In The Hunter, instead of a single point-of-view (POV) narrative focused on Cal Hooper’s experience, this book is told in three POVs: Cal, his lover Lena, and his protégé Trey. In the Dublin Murder Squad series, you changed the single narrator in each book. How did this expansion, rather than lateral shift, in narrative perspective change things for you as a storyteller? TF: That was the scary part with this book because I had never done [multiple points of view] before. But I’ve discovered that as a writer, I’m really only happy when I’m a little bit outside my comfort zone. I like doing things where I feel like I have to learn on the fly and just pick it up as I go along. So this definitely satisfied that instinct! But also it felt like a very different kind of book, in that The Searcher was about one guy’s journey: Cal coming to this little village looking for peace and obviously not really finding it. But The Hunter is about a pseudo family relationship between Cal and Lena and this sort of semi-feral kid whom they’re trying to turn into a good human being. And because it is about this family and the ways in which it comes under threat, when Johnny and his British millionaire and his gold scheme arrive in the townland, the book needed to be from the perspectives of the whole family. It couldn’t just be one person’s POV; it had to be how the three fit into each other, how the dynamic reflected and rippled back between those three people. JB: Did you enjoy splitting up the narrative perspectives in the end? TF: It was hugely enjoyable. I had a lot of fun especially writing Trey, because she’s definitely an odd kid. She’s grown up in this village who has no time for her or any of her family. Her father is even less use when he’s there than when he isn’t. Her mother does her best, but she’s basically used up by just keeping everybody alive and functioning. And so Trey has been figuring it out for herself up until Cal and Lena came on the scene. And this has led her to have quite an odd approach to the rest of the village, to morality, to the way she goes about things she wants. And that’s a lot of fun to write. I find that characters are the most fun to write when they’re somehow in transition, when they’re moving from one stage of life to another, from one viewpoint to another. Trey at 15—that’s a hugely transitional point. You’re starting to move away from a child’s perspective where everything is quite black and white, quite single-minded, you’re consumed by one thing at a time, but you can’t really hold multiple poles and nuances and layers in your head at once, towards a more complex, more mature viewpoint. And she does go through that transition basically in the course of the book. And that was one of the most fun things to write. JB: Cal, Lena, and Trey are somewhat external to the village community. In the first book, this draws them together. But in this one, they’re each drawn out of their comfort zone and toward the village. Doing what must be done forces them out of the boundaries they’ve labored to set for themselves. Did that lead to any surprises for you as their creator? TF: Yes, along the way, very much so. The Searcher had been about an outsider, but The Hunter is exactly as you say, it’s about people who are on the periphery. They’re not exactly outsiders. They’re not exactly insiders. Lena by her own choice has cut herself off from the village to some extent, as much as she can; Trey because she’s from this family that nobody even wants to acknowledge; and Cal because he just moved there a few years ago. But they’re not really outsiders, in that they are a part of this network of relationships that’s within the village. And that’s kind of a powerful place to be, because you’re not bound by the place’s rules in the way that a full insider would be. You’re not under an obligation to it, you don’t feel the pressure in the same way. But you do have a certain amount of influence, a certain amount of power, and at different points in the book, they all choose to use that power in very different ways. But for Lena in particular, it came with surprises. My editor is a genius and started asking questions about Lena’s perspective. And I suddenly went, oh my God, Lena is going to be blown away and delighted and proud and conflicted about the fact that Trey is basically giving the finger to everything about this place in a way that Lena herself never found an opportunity to do. So that’s going to be huge for her. I went back and reshaped it all with this in mind for her. JB: You get to flex your comedy chops in this book. There’s always humor in your books but this one had some hilarious one-liners and laugh-out-loud exchanges in the pub. Is humor a natural kind of writing for you, or more technical? And what kind of research did you do to write these scenes so convincingly? TF: Oh, I had to make a huge sacrifice for this kind of prep, of going to the pub! The Irish wit and humor and quick banter—I know this is a cliché; I know that Ireland has a reputation for this, but it is true. It’s one of the major currencies. Here the ability to go quickfire back and forth with your friends shows everything from hierarchy to affection to conflict. Everything is filtered through this lens of humor. That’s how they say, “I love you, man.” The operational mode for everyone in these settings is just to slag each other and throw these lines back and forth in this fast game of squash. So it was huge fun to write, because if you’ve been down the pub a bunch of times and if you have these rhythms and this humor in your head, you can just hit “play” mentally on those characters and let them keep going. JB: It was great fun to have these humorous breaks amid heavier themes. Your novels feature complex, psychologically astute plots. They tend to rely on characters’ impulses, instincts, and empathy and involve so many twists and turns. What is your process for plotting? How do you organize your writing? TF: Organization is, anyone who knows me will tell you, my weak point. I’m not good at this stuff. But I am good, I think, at characters. I come from an acting background. So for me, the natural thing is to see characters as three-dimensional as possible and to try to bring the reader to the point where they’re seeing this world through the characters’ fears and needs and biases and objectives. So that’s where I start from. I know there are writers who don’t work like this—I have friends who have every chapter plotted out and every beat mark before they start writing. But for me all the action springs from character, so it means that I can’t really structure in advance. I need to get to know the characters a bit before I understand their interactions and their dynamics. So I start with a basic premise, a main character, and a setting. And I kind of dive in and write for a while and things sort of develop like a Polaroid as I go. And this makes for a lot of rewriting, but it is the only way that works for me. And I kind of hope that because stuff has taken me by surprise all the time—like, I’ll be two thirds of the way to a book and go, oh my God, that’s who did the murder!—I hope some of that [spontaneity] comes across to the reader, the sense of things coming out organically. JB: Yes, it definitely does! Many books, TV shows, and films that historically have glorified police work are now turning more critical or at least nuanced. Has that trend affected your approach in writing crime novels? I think the mystery genre needed to start questioning that whole viewpoint that the detective is intrinsically heroic. TF: I definitely think that it’s a good movement within the mystery genre, to acknowledge that the detective’s point of view is not the only one, and is not necessarily the crucial one, and is not necessarily the heroic one. Because that’s, of course, where the genre started to a large extent—the detective as a hero who will reimpose order on society after the chaos caused by murder, and that detective is on the side of truth and justice. And many of those books are great, they’re wonderful. But I think the mystery genre needed to start questioning that whole viewpoint that the detective is intrinsically heroic. There have always been flawed detectives, with the bottle of whiskey in the drawer and the ex-wife who hates him and the tortured past, but that’s a different thing. That’s a detective being flawed, but the role’s still being heroic. And I think it’s only recently that there’s more of a drive towards the idea that the role itself is flawed and is dangerous, and is not intrinsically heroic, and comes with dangers built in. In The Witch Elm, that was one of the things I really wanted to do, because I realized that my first six books were all from the detective’s point of view. It was all about seeing the investigation from the perspective of somebody for whom it was a source of power, and a source of triumph, and a source of reimposing order. And that is not the only or the most important viewpoint in any investigation. There are also people for whom this is not a source of power, or of reordering the world, it is the opposite. It’s having your power taken away from you, having your life overturned, having everything smashed around you in ways that you may never be able to reconstruct. In The Witch Elm, the narrator tries at one point kind of pathetically to be the detective, but he’s also the victim, the suspect, the witness, all of those other viewpoints I thought were just as important and needed a voice. In The Searcher and The Hunter, Carl is a retired detective. He’s taking early retirement from Chicago PD, for that reason. In The Searcher, he says something about having realized that one of them, either he or the job, or both, cannot be trusted. And he doesn’t know which it is. He’s left the job behind and is trying to reject the whole notion of himself as detective when that is suddenly demanded of him again, and then it becomes a kind of crisis of conscience. And it’s the same here in The Hunter where people want to position him as a detective, as not a detective, as a tool for detectives, or as a tool against detectives. Being on that side of the law has become a much more complex thing, within the mystery genre. I think this was not just good, but really necessary to examine the moral complexity not of the individual character, but of the entire concept of detecting. JB: I do feel like we’re getting more variety in literary crime fiction, which is exciting. On a related note, you’ve previously written about cops on the job, but in these latest novels, as noted, Cal is retired. What kind of challenges do you encounter in writing mysteries when the sleuth doesn’t have access to institutional resources? TF: That was actually one of the most fun things about writing both The Searcher and The Hunter. Because I was trying to reexamine, what is it morally, mentally, emotionally to be a detective? What does it mean to people? And Cal is in this position where all those trappings have been stripped away. At several points in both books he’s going, if I were still on the job, I could have somebody dump this person’s phone, I could track this, I could pull info on every single suspected witness I’ve got, I could look at the forensics, and now I have nothing. So is he still a cop? Does he even want to still be a cop without any of the accoutrements, without any of the artillery, that are in a cop’s armory? He has none of that. But he still does have whatever instincts and skills he’s built up on the job. And that isn’t actually something he wants to have, he was trying to leave all that behind. That was the most interesting part of writing it, because on a technical level, it means he just goes and talks to people, and he can do it in slightly more subtle ways, he has a little bit more experience questioning people. But what’s the relationship between the individual and his sense of himself as detective? That becomes core to it. And that was one of the reasons I wrote a retired cop, rather than one that was still on the job and having doubts, which would also have been interesting. Because, with all the physical trappings stripped away, you get to see the direct relationship between him as an individual and what’s left of the detective in him—what are the tensions between those things? JB: I noticed that you avoid digital technology in this novel. Your characters mention Netflix and TikTok in passing, and they use phones sporadically, but they’re not googling for evidence or going down Facebook rabbit holes. Tell me about this narrative choice. TF: Technology is really boring to write about! There are some writers who can make conversations via text message leap off the page and make them vivid and interesting, but I like characters being face to face. And so luckily, with the characters I’ve got, that was actually a fairly natural choice, because these are people in a milieu where they’re going to go see each other. They’re going to talk face to face. Trey in particular doesn’t have a phone yet at this stage because her mother hasn’t been able to afford to buy one. So that made it much easier to go, alright, the main form of communication is not going to be phones and email. They’re living in a place where people assume that if you want to talk to somebody, you’re probably going to meet them down the pub. And I thought that technology would have gotten in the way of the character interactions. I’m worried about this, because I know that more and more interaction is, in fact, on screen and via text. What do I do? Do I go with that and try to find a way to make it interesting, or am I going to keep dodging Snapchat for the rest of my career? I’m not sure. So far I’m just dodging Snapchat, everybody’s just going to go meet up! So much of our interactions is when you look at somebody, when you see their movements, when you listen to the tone of their voice, when you catch the tiny nuances. So much nuance lies in the face to face. And I think real-life interaction is being impoverished by the fact that less and less face-to-face interaction happens. But I’m not going to do it in my books, because it would impoverish them too. JB: Your novels make beautiful use of setting, almost as a character. In The Searcher the mountain felt alive. Here in The Hunter, it’s the weather, oppressively hot with an apocalyptic sort of overtone, but also the townland which acts and reacts as a cohesive unit. How do you approach setting and atmosphere as narrative elements? TH: The Hunter in particular, but The Searcher as well, are very different from my earlier books, because the early ones are set in cities. And these two are rural, many of the characters are farmers. So for them, the land and the heat wave in The Hunter aren’t just atmosphere, these are crucial practical things that alter their lives on a very concrete level. The heat wave isn’t just, oh my god, it’s boiling, let’s go to the park and get ice cream—it’s a threat to their livelihoods. A heat wave like that messes with your feed for the winter; it messes with next year’s lamb crop. It has a knock-on effect in farming that lasts a long time and can threaten the farm’s very existence. This puts a lot of the characters in a position where they’re willing to listen to Johnny’s get-rich-quick scheme, which normally they wouldn’t have even given him the time of day. Normally they’d have laughed him out of the pub with that nonsense. But they’re made vulnerable by this heat wave. So the weather and the land and the terrain aren’t just setting and atmosphere; they play a solid role in the plot. JB: In The Searcher, Trey longed for the brother who’d disappeared. Here in The Hunter Trey wishes her father, who’s reappeared, would go away—sort of an opposite desire. Trey’s preference for estrangement feels so realistic. Family estrangement is a reality—and a choice—for many, but it remains taboo culturally. Reconciliation is usually encouraged or expected, and this trope shows up a lot in books, movies, TV. How did you navigate these difficult family dynamics without making Trey petulant? “There are situations where the only closure is via division, via literally closing that door forever.” TF: There is this expectation that closure or a happy ending must involve reconciliation in some way with your blood family. And I think it’s ridiculous, because that’s not how the reality works. There are situations where the only closure is via division, via literally closing that door forever. And there are situations where reconciliation would do more damage than healing. I had to be very careful so it didn’t just seem like a teenager going, well, my dad went off and left us, now he can get stuffed if he thinks he’s walking back into my life — which at the beginning of the book, there is a certain element of that, to the point where Trey blames Johnny for her brother’s loss. But gradually, that sense deepens, the more she gets to know him, the more mature and in-depth and complex that need to separate herself from him becomes. And she reaches a point where she’s only willing to maintain that connection, because she needs it in order to effect another form of revenge. She comes to the realization that her real family unit doesn’t in fact include Johnny in any way. She’s constructed her own family unit with Cal and Lena, and in other ways with her mother and siblings. And I thought that was a much more realistic and nuanced take on things than just going, well, he’s blood, you must all be happy ever after, or in some way, damaged by the loss. Because frankly, I don’t think Trey is damaged by her father being out of her life. She may be traumatized by the things he did along the way, but she’s not traumatized by him being gone because she, as an individual, has made her choices and constructed her family unit. And that is what I hope saves her from being a petulant teenager going, I hate you. This is coming from strongly thought-through choices, and from sacrifices that she’s been willing to make for this new sort of family. JB: Before we sign off, I have to ask: what’s next for you? TF: Well, to my deep surprise, this seems to be turning out to be a trilogy, which is just not what I thought. I thought The Searcher was a standalone! But it doesn’t feel like either the character arcs or the thematic arcs are really complete. So it seems like I’m writing the third in a trilogy about this village, and these people, and all the layers and stories and tensions and dynamics stored up there. I didn’t expect that. I’m always worried because I don’t plan in advance—what if I dive in there and there’s no book and the threads never tie up? But fingers crossed. It’s always been okay so far. View the full article -
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Looking Back on the 90s-Era Satanic Panic In a New Age of Conspiracy Theories
Remember Pizzagate? In 2016, a conspiracy theory that high-ranking Democrats were running a pedophile ring out of a D.C. pizzeria compelled a man to open fire inside the restaurant in an attempt to rescue the imprisoned children, who didn’t exist. The story dominated headlines for five minutes before fading into the category of “well, that happened.” The bamboozled gunman, Edgar Maddison Welch, was sent to jail and mostly forgotten, his identity blurring into an avatar for a certain set of social anxieties—that liberalism breeds perversion, that politicians lie, that modern life is emasculating. Any larger lessons which Pizzagate may have held for society were swiftly buried in the trash heap of yesterday’s news. Something that gets lost in our conversations about ‘unprecedented times’ is that many of our cultural uproars have happened before, often within our own lifetimes. I was born in 1985 during the rise of the ‘Satanic Panic,’ a phenomenon where people all over the country started to believe a conspiracy that daycare providers were committing Satanic ritual abuse on children. The hysteria can be traced back to the 1980 book Michelle Remembers by psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder. Pazder used the now discredited technique of ‘memory recovery therapy’ to spread a story that his patient (and later wife) Michelle Smith had been abused as a child at the hands of an underground Satanic organization. There was no evidence that any of Smith’s ‘recovered’ memories were real, but the book was a hit. Smith appeared on Oprah and stoked nation-wide fears that daycare providers were Satanic pedophiles. Looking back, it’s easy to connect the Satanic Panic to social anxieties over feminism threatening the traditional family unit. The increase of women in the workplace had increased the need for day care, shaping a community landscape in which children were being raised by strangers. This moral panic coincided with a key time in television history when the news was transitioning from the realm of sober information dissemination to that of entertainment, thanks in part to the abolishment of the FCC fairness doctrine in 1987. The fairness doctrine had required news outlets to present both sides of an issue for balanced coverage. Now, outlets could skip the boring bits of measured and fact-checked counterpoints in their reporting. And in a bewilderingly complex modern world, the notion of a secret, ancient conspiracy being the source of all evil held immense appeal to viewers. in a bewilderingly complex modern world, the notion of a secret, ancient conspiracy being the source of all evil held immense appeal… America’s Puritan settlers believed in a ‘world of wonders’ in which God and Satan meddled directly in everyday people’s lives like an ongoing chess game. The stakes of such a game could rapidly escalate into hysteria as people accused each other of being on the devil’s side, most famously exemplified by the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-1693. The lure of the moral panic is two-fold: a deep desire to purify society through scapegoating, and the irresistible drama of a witch hunt. What may begin with the earnest goal of rooting out evil becomes a grotesque and twisted form of entertainment, with very real consequences for the individuals wrapped up in it. In the case of the Satanic Panic, innocent pre-school teachers like the McMartin family in California were arrested and dragged through years of humiliating and expensive trials. The McMartins were eventually acquitted, but their business was destroyed, and their name would forever be associated with a child abuse scandal—if anyone remembered them at all. By the time I was a teenager in the late 90’s era of bubblegum pop and Beanie Babies, the dark madness of the Satanic Panic felt like a surreal, forgotten dream. When ‘fake news’ became a hot button issue during the 2016 presidential election, it was treated as a product of the internet, as if we hadn’t gone through an identical phenomenon before Facebook existed. In a culture where current events are served up as disposable entertainment, the recent past may as well be ancient history. Most of us know what it’s like to be a consumer of news-as-entertainment. It’s addictive, it’s bad for you, and it’s queasily delicious. During April and May of 2022, I gorged myself on the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial. Heard was a perfect target for Puritan moral panic with her bisexuality, the vixen-like roles she tended to be cast in, and the unnerving, almost supernatural quality of her beauty (Heard’s face is popularly thought to be a 91.85% match to the ‘Golden Ratio’). I watched the televised court proceedings every day as if it were a thrilling limited series. As I became swept away by the entertainment value of the trial, the truth that was supposedly being litigated seemed less and less important. The case for Heard’s victimhood was lost amid Depp’s antics, her team’s terrible legal strategy, and Heard’s own abysmal performance on the stand. The show of the trial eclipsed its function so totally I felt that watching it had left me with a worse grasp on the truth than someone who hadn’t tuned in at all. After the trial was over, more details about Depp’s alleged abuse emerged, but by then I was, frankly, over it. While this cultural practice of scapegoating-as-entertainment certainly leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, to criticize it falls into the trap of providing even more fodder for Puritanical outrage. It would be tempting, for instance, to issue a fiery sermon condemning anyone who gets any relish out of someone else’s public humiliation (the term ‘guilty pleasure’ is glaring evidence of the Puritan genetic code still present in our cultural DNA). But heaping more shame upon shame doesn’t seem like an effective way out of this trap to me. It would only continue the cycle in which we instigate witch hunts, enjoy doing it, then shame ourselves for our enjoyment. We would promise not to do it again but forget that promise as soon as the next juicy news item drops about someone doing something bad. My new novel Rainbow Black is about a young girl whose parents are targeted amid the Satanic Panic like the real life McMartins. It was important to me to center the story around a victim of hysteria, rather than a consumer of it. I wanted to explore the life-long trauma that our unlucky scapegoats carry with them long after the media machine has moved on. What happens to these people once their entertainment value has been sucked dry and we discard them like trash? As consumers, the rush of excitement over the next Satanic Panic can be enough to erase our memory that we went through all this before, and it only made us sick. The only way out of our toxic Puritan cycle is to remember that the people at the center of our moral panics aren’t representations of our sins. They are, simply and profoundly, people. *** View the full article -
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A Seventh-Generation Nebraskan On Turning Family Tales and Omaha History into Historical Fiction
As a writer of narratives, I’m leery of them. Especially historical ones. I’m not skeptical of events; I’m skeptical of wording and connective tissue. Of the clean causality. Take the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. (Seven men murdered in a garage, no one was ever convicted). Because speculating on whodunits is great fun, and because politicians at the time did what they do—spun the events to their advantage—and because that advantage played into anti-gangland sentiment that eventually, indirectly resulted in a RICO case against Al Capone (who was never connected, materially, to the murders), I wasted several hours of my youth waiting for Geraldo to open an empty vault. And then I learned just enough about chaos theory for it to make problems in my brain. Eleven or twelve years ago, I asked a very bearded and studious-looking professor, an author of historical narratives, about the problem. I figured he’d taught it in introductory courses, so I asked: How do history writers wrestle with knowing they’re streamlining a millisecond’s reaction to every variable that came before it? How do they omit and create seamless causality while trying to be true? I don’t remember the response. I remember the beard and the glare off the historian’s glasses, radiating silent but distinctly violent disdain. I walked away sure of only this: Historians possess the power to obliterate you completely. Omit you from having existed. I’d stick to fiction: the warm, pillowy comfort of plausible deniability. Then I wound up writing a book that needed a historical fiction disclaimer, and here I am. Writing as nonfictionally as I can make words. Before another sentence, understand that I am a simple yahoo—a fiction writer with no postsecondary education in history. My only provenance stems from obsessively researching genealogy. I’m sure the tendency came from growing up with eleven living, blood-related grandparents (parents of parents of parents of parents). One of them, a great-grandfather, fascinated me. They all did, but he was a bit fiery, a bit strange, and he had mesmerizing taste. Great-Grandpa bred horses before I was born and had a small den with loud but somehow matching red and green leather chairs and sofa, all embroidered with lassos or horse heads, all with wood arms shaped like wagon-wheels. Plastic horses—that were not toys—stood on the end tables beneath lamps whose shades were celluloid Western landscapes. Great-Grandpa listened to Hank Williams and Jim Reeves and Bob Wills. Not long before he died, when I was in high school, he said a coyote had been visiting each night, to eat junebugs under the lamppost between his and my grandparents’ houses. Grandma, his daughter I’d lived with next door, always said that whenever the old man finally died, he’d bolt up in the coffin and scream that she’d put him in the wrong shirt. In the end, he didn’t. But he was mercurial, in that particular way a person with many secrets can be mercurial. I know only one of those secrets, and I won’t spill it because Grandma taught me not to be a snitch. So, instead, I’ll tell an innocuous but illustrative anecdote: When my mother, pregnant with me, needed a job, Great-Grandpa apparently marched her into a regionally famous Omaha, Nebraska furniture store and demanded to speak with its regionally famous owner, a woman who was a lively character, one who exuded friendliness while commanding respect and instilling fear. She was not a person to whom one issued demands. And I suppose if what I’ve been told is correct, Great-Grandpa technically didn’t. He said a terse, “This is my granddaughter. She needs a job.” No “please,” no “thank you,” no “I would really appreciate it if.” That was it. And my mother had a job. Maybe a favor was owed. Maybe a sensitive matter was known. How the store owner and Great-Grandpa had developed that rapport, I don’t know. I can’t say much for certain because he did not leave much of a paper trail. If he did, I suppose Grandma would’ve burned it. She once warned me, “Unless it deals with money, never—ever—put it in writing.” (I’m aware of the irony, yes.) From what I have since gathered, this paper trail thing was a hard-learned family lesson. The voice of Great-Grandpa’s grandpa can be read in an old Supreme Court case (he was in a little trouble), and a couple of Great-Grandpa’s uncles were widely covered in local and regional newspapers. One was an ice man who was arrested at least four times I know about, twice for manslaughter. Neither was a disproven accusation. But he never spent more than a few nights in jail, and, somehow, the state historical society doesn’t have his booking photo. Neither does the society have a booking photo of his brother Jim, but that’s easily explained. Jim demanded its return during a court case completely unrelated to the booking photo. Like his father before him, Jim frequented court. When he wasn’t there to punch a judge or appear on larceny charges, he was a truant officer or cop. He worked at the courthouse in the first decade of the 1900s, too, until he may or may not have aided in the escape of four prisoners. He ran for low-level political offices, seemingly with the intention of splitting votes. Eventually, he operated his own private investigation agency. On the whole, the record suggests Jim had a vendetta against powerful people, which may or may not have been why he was committed to the State Hospital. (The Insanity Board was comprised of two political appointees and one doctor who seems to have been a real piece of work.) Jim died in the custody of the hospital roughly two years later. His brother the manslaughterer died about three years after that, all signs suggesting he was a manslaughter victim himself, but the coroner declined to pursue an inquest. Many people, for good reason, might avoid parading a particularly gnarled branch of family tree, but against sage advice, I decided to write a novel based on Great-Grandpa’s uncles—not about them—based on them. The end result was Little Underworld. I’d been researching for years already, but the book was a new excuse. At a point, I’d reread so many newspapers, my dreams were set in 1928. I needed to come up for air. I needed to see some shape that wasn’t laser-focused on the daily creep of time. I turned to what is probably the most influential book concerning the history of Omaha, Dr. Orville D. Menard’s River City Empire: Tom Dennison’s Omaha. Menard was widely loved as a great friend and mentor. I wish I’d had the chance to know him. I’d read his book once for fun, but as often happens with fun, I’d retained little I hadn’t heard or read elsewhere. River City Empire is a resource in books and newspapers, on the website of the state historical society, and, yes, throughout Wikipedia. I say the book concerns Omaha history because it’s not a history book. Menard says that in the preface: “A history of Omaha is not provided here, for such an endeavor is beyond the intent or purpose.” Instead, Menard was a political science professor. He transposed the theory of “political bossism” onto Omaha from the period of 1900-1933. The concept is what it sounds like—somebody (usually not an elected official) controls a city’s political power. Kansas City was known for Tom Pendergast; New York for Boss Tweed; Atlantic City for Nucky Johnson. River City Empire posits that Omaha had Tom Dennison. Now, Menard didn’t concoct this notion that Dennison ran Omaha. I could, with fair confidence, point to a few people who did concoct it, but I live in a place where descendants of powerful people are still around, and I’m the relative of a manslaughterer who was almost definitely manslaughtered. I don’t have much snitch-latitude. Dennison had long been cast as a political boss (when he wasn’t suing newspapers out of existence for libel). He was a thin, tall gambler who wore a bowler and a chunky diamond pin in his necktie—he looked the part. And he was involved in politics. That’s shady. Granted, nearly everyone involved in Omaha politics during (and before and after) Dennison’s alleged reign was shady, but there seems to be ample evidence he pulled some antics—maybe registered dead voters, probably registered voters whose addresses did not exist. Where things get tricky in Menard’s narrative—and much, much darker—is the possible degree of Dennison’s involvement in a mob’s racist, brutal murder of a man named Will Brown in September 1919. Will Brown was a black man accused of raping a white woman. While he was being held in the county courthouse, the mob set fire to the building. When Brown was turned over to them, they lynched, shot, burned, and dragged him through the streets. If you read about the murder, right here, you’ll find most writers note that a source said the accusation was untrue, that Brown was physically disabled. He was incapable of attacking anyone. That’s horrifying but also immaterial. Whether he did or didn’t commit a crime, a mob, comprised of thousands of people, burning a courthouse and demanding a man be turned over to them to be lynched, shot, burned, dragged, and photographed for posterity ranks as a fucking atrocity. Menard was (and was not) careful to avoid blaming Dennison directly for the murder. He writes, “There is no firm evidence the Dennison [political] machine actually instigated the particular events.” But, Menard does strongly suggest that Tom Dennison had such far-reaching control (and omniscience, it seems) that he’d actually thrown the preceding 1918 city election to his political opponents, thereby stoking what could, apparently, end only in the horrific nightmare of a person’s brutal murder. Menard quotes a nameless newspaper editor as recalling “a statement alleged to Dennison early in the campaign: ‘I think we better let the bastards have it their way for awhile [sic]; let’s lie low this next election—they’ll be glad to see us back.’” That reads like two things to me: a game of telephone and a trick of hindsight. But where I was ripped from the page so completely that I fact-checked Menard’s sources for months was when I came across a small, uncontroversial passage about Omaha Mayor James Dahlman. As the story goes, Mayor Dahlman was controlled by criminal mastermind Tom Dennison and was therefore elected continuously from 1900-1930 (aside from 1918-1920, when an unnamed newspaper editor suggested Dennison decided to teach the city a lesson). Menard writes this: “When the mayor needed transportation, he took a taxi or rode the streetcar. He neither owned an automobile nor accepted an official one (he said the city charter made no provision for it).” This is not true. And please know that, when I say something is true or not true, I say it as someone who knows narrative is a wobbly thing. We write symbols that carry meaning only because we agree on those meanings. We omit things we deem extraneous and create streamlined causality—“a temporary stay against confusion,” Robert Frost called it. Narratives are inherently imperfect constructions. But there is an actuality in the above statement. Specifically: A mayor had a car or didn’t. Dahlman did. Unless—I always go back to this—I am living inside the dream of a single cell of maybe an antelope or a cow. Or maybe the world has conspired to falsify hundreds of newspaper articles archived on the internet. Just for me. If neither of those is the case, I know that Mayor Dahlman drove a city-provided car, because Great-Grandpa’s uncle Jim, the PI, was hired to tail it in 1916. As a result, the mayor was enjoined from using it. Then, six more lawsuits were brought against Dahlman and five city commissioners, demanding their ouster and repayment of money used to maintain the vehicle from 1912 through 1917, an amount alleged to be $13,716.67. During that 1918 campaign, the one Dennison allegedly threw to his political opponents, “$13,716.67” featured prominently in political ads. When Dahlman gave stump speeches throughout the city, at least one newspaper noted that he didn’t address the subject. In other words, Mayor Dahlman’s use of a city car very likely factored into his failure to win reelection. The car wasn’t the sole reason (chaos theory). But I’m willing to bet that car was one of them. That seems to make a bit more sense than Dennison’s omniscience to me. Voters who lived hand-to-mouth, and most did, likely felt betrayed by an elected official out joyriding on their dime. Especially a guy was supposedly so beloved that a political science professor, born three years after that mayor’s death, dedicated nearly an entire chapter of a book to cleansing the mayor’s reputation. Right after associating him with an alleged criminal whose mastermind apparently far surpassed the level of Doyle’s Moriarty. If you’ve read this far, you’re surely saying, “So? An Omaha mayor had a car, and a poli-sci professor wrote a book. Why would that matter to anyone living in the here and now, especially outside of Omaha, Nebraska?” Because a theory, one of with a piece that is patently not true, is now referenced as fact. That is what narrative can do. Dr. Menard may have never intended his book to serve as a history, but it might as well be have carved into stone tablets. The big takeaway is that a very large chunk of an American city’s history, the one that’s taught in classrooms and cited by sources we should be able to trust, has been boiled down to this: A crime lord and puppeteer of local politics fixed elections and controlled the media. Through brainwashing and payoffs and cronyism, he engineered a mob to storm a courthouse and brutally murder a person. I wish it were true. I wish that was the only rational explanation behind Will Brown’s murder. I wish I could believe a single puppeteer was pulling the strings. I wish I could know that a collective of human beings, with consciousnesses, sensations, memories, even love for others in their lives—couldn’t do what they did. But I’m fairly sure they did. And I’m fairly sure if we keep saying they didn’t, not on their own, that is not great. If you’re curious about how the narrative ends—the Omaha one—justice saved the day. Not in the death of Will Brown—no one was ever convicted. But later, in 1932, Prosecutors claimed the city’s illegal liquor, prostitution, and gambling were controlled by a “syndicate,” a conspiratorial effort, headed by Tom Dennison. The lengthy trial effectively dismantled Dennison’s political machine. (Except no one was convicted in that trial, either. No proof.) Of course, one can’t let these things stop a good story. *** View the full article -
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A Brief List of Pitfalls to Avoid When You Write a Thriller
Here are some of the trickiest pitfalls to sidestep while crafting your novel. Remember, in each pitfall to be avoided is also an opportunity to be seized. Don’t set the stakes too low. Something vital has to be at risk. Anything from one person’s life to the survival of all humankind. Don’t wait. Hook your reader immediately. Maybe with a bang. My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. In newspaper photos of missing girls from the seventies, most looked like me: white girls with mousy brown hair. The beginning of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold draws you right in with a startling detail that throws you off balance. So does the iconic opening of 1984 by George Orwell: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. How can you start your thriller in a way? Don’t write one-dimensional protagonists. Jason Bourne doesn’t know where he is from nor how he became who he is. Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is complex, enigmatic, with a troubled past. Ditto Camille Preaker in Gillian Flynn’s debut novel, Sharp Objects. And then there is Stephen King’s Carrie: humiliated, vengeful, powerful. And dozens more. Which leads to… Don’t forget to give your protagonist an “arc.” The most satisfying arc is one that brings out some positive aspect of the protagonist that he/she has suppressed. How do you do this? By making the protagonist confront obstacles and choices. Screenwriting guru Robert McKee, in his great book Story, puts it this way: “True character us revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure—the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.” Don’t have mildly dangerous villains. Yes, whatever his or her flaws, the protagonist must be powerful enough to drive the story. But the villain must be—or at least seem to be—even more powerful. Hence Hannibal Lector. Hence Karla, the Soviet spymaster in many of John LeCarre’s novels. Hence Anton Chigurth, the hitman in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. (In the name Chigurth, I hear echoes of Cthulhu, the octopus-like monster created by H.P. Lovecraft.) Hence Michael Crichton’s velociraptors. They’re really powerful. Don’t forget: A human villain is still human. Hannibal Lector is intelligent and cultured, terrifying and captivating. He is a psychopathic serial killer and cannibal and he is a man who, as a boy, witnessed the murder of his sister. His evil actions come from this trauma. But remember; To understand all is not to forgive all. Hannibal Lector must pay for his crimes. Don’t be predictable. Upset expectations. William Goldman, novelist (The Princess Bride and Marathon Man) and Oscar-winning screenwriter (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men) said, “Give the reader what they want, just not the way they expect it.” Don’t be pedestrian. Make your language pop. There is something to be said for deadpan prose, especially if your hero is a classic, hardnose stoic. But wherever possible, liven up your prose. In Farewell, My Lovely, Raymond Chandler writes, “It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.” What a great mental picture: the window is colorful, the blonde is colorful. Write colorful. Don’t let your story drag or sag. Advice from Chandler: “When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.” Keep things coming at your characters. And keep your story suspenseful, a page-turner, make the reader think “I gotta know what happens.” So how do you create suspense? In an op-ed in the New York Times on December 8, 2012, Lee Childs answers this question. I urge you to find and read the whole piece. Here is the crux of it: “How do you create suspense?” has the same interrogatory shape as “How do you bake a cake?” And we all know – in theory or practice – how to bake a cake. We need ingredients…and we are led to believe that the more thoroughly and conscientiously we combine them, the better the cake will taste…So writers are taught to focus on ingredients and their combinations…sympathetic characters… (plunged) into situations of continuing peril… But it’s really much simpler than that that. “How do you bake a cake?” has the wrong structure. It’s too indirect. The right structure and the right question is: How do you make your family hungry? And the answer is: You make them wait four hours for dinner. Don’t let the twist be obvious. But don’t let it come out of left field. The reader should say, “Wow! I didn’t see that coming!” And then, “But, yeah, now that it’s happened…of course, makes perfect sense.” Don’t reliably be reliable. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl alternates between Nick and Amy Dunne each telling the story—and each is an unreliable narrator. Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train uses a first-person narrative from Rachel Watson (the chief protagonist), Anna Boyd/Watson and Megan Hipwell. All three are unreliable. In any thriller, the only person the reader should rely on is the author…rely on him or her to deliver a satisfying story. And remember, there is no such thing as a cookie-cutter unreliable narrator. Paula Hawkins says, “Amy Dunne is a psychopath, an incredibly controlling and manipulative, smart, cunning woman. (Rachel is) just a mess who can’t do anything right.” Consider creating your unreliable narrator(s). Don’t guess what you’re writing about. Know the place and its people. Elmore Leonard knew Detroit first-hand. But for his novels Pronto and Riding the Rap, set in Harlan County, Kentucky, he did a lot of research. How accurate is the F/X series Justified, based on those novels? The series creator gave his staff wrist bands bearing the initials WWED—meaning, “What Would Elmore Do?” Meaning, in times of doubt, trust the writer. Research and write so you earn the reader’s trust. Don’t settle for an overworked setting. Find a place that you can own. This is especially true if you’re writing a series. Tony Hillerman owns the Navaho lands. James Lee Burke owns the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. George Crumley owns Montana. Elmore Leonard owns Detroit. Elmore Leonard also owns Miami…Carl Hiassen owns bizarre Florida…Tim Dorsey owns even more bizarre Florida. Robert Parker owns Boston…Dennis Lehane owns the rougher, blue-collar Boston. Ralph Dennis (admittedly less well known) owns Atlanta seen by an unlicensed PI and his hired muscle…Karin Slaughter owns Atlanta seen by an agent in the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Martin Cruz Smith owns Moscow. Stieg Larsen owns Sweden. Jo Nesbo owns Norway. There are dozens more author-owned places but not every good place has been grabbed. For example, nobody yet really owns Las Vegas. Maybe you could try to? Or find a milieu that you can own. For example, within pre-World War II Europe, within the moral ambiguity of that time and place…In his Berlin Noir series, Philp Kerr owns Berlin. In his thrillers, Alan Furst owns all of pre-World War II Europe. Be ambitious. If you can’t find a place to own, create one. But base it on facts. In The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton created a secret underground laboratory to handle lethal microorganisms. He says, “A lot of Andromeda is…trying to create an imaginary world using recognizable techniques and real people.” In his Jurassic Park, Crichton created an environment based on what was known about dinosaurs a the time. In The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Michael Chabon created an alternate history in which there is a thriving (and threatened) Jewish territory in Alaska. Like The Andromeda Stain and Jurassic Park, what makes this fiction believable is Chabon’s skillful use of facts. Don’t forget other possible milieus. I’ve seized on biotechnology. Studying biotechnology at Columbia, I was struck by the philosophical, moral and legal questions it raised, its potential to usher in new paradigms in our lives and in society, and the life-and-death stakes it could create for characters in a novel. My first thriller, Living Proof, was about the implications of the criminalization of embryonic stem cell research. Now, in Baby X, I look at the implications of a medical breakthrough called IVG—in vitro gametogenesis—in which any two people on Earth could make a baby. What if a world-famous singer has some of his DNA stolen? From just a trace of saliva, left on a mic he sang into, could come sperm or eggs… And definitely a thriller! *** View the full article -
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Algonkian Pre-event Narrative Enhancement Guide - Opening Hook
Beginning of the opening scene: introduces antagonistic force, setting, tone, and foreshadows the primary conflict. Opening Quote: “There are rooms that wait for us. And someday we may be in that room and something may happen to us that may change our life forever.” –Gloria Vanderbilt (Nothing Left Unsaid/Anderson Cooper documentary) Word Count: 1003 (so far) Melly entered the room and heard a familiar refrain. “A closer inspection of this portrait, notwithstanding the cheery-yellow gown, will reveal clues to Elizabeth’s grief… the purple sash she holds and the urn to her left… can you see the word “farewell” written just there?” The guide pointed to the urn in the portrait as the tour-goers leaned in for a closer look. Melly walked quietly to the opposite side of the Withdrawing Room just in front of the west-facing windows full of bright late-afternoon light. “Waaaaittttt… I GOT IT!” A high-pitched squeal pierced the relative quiet of the room. From outside. Down below. Melly looked out to see her goddaughter laughing, being chased by Melly’s husband and nephew. Where on earth had they found a frisbee? She turned back to the room to find six faces staring directly at her. Five elderly ladies and an annoyed guide. He continued his well-rehearsed rhetoric. She tuned out his words. Melly knew them well enough. Nothing much had changed in the decade or so since she’d spent time here giving a somewhat similar tour herself. The same yellow and purple Wilton rug. The ensuite monochromatic yellow damask Lord Dunston Schumacher pattern used for upholstery, draperies, and wall hangings. The mis-matched collection of Queen Anne, Chippendale, and Hepplewhite furniture. Melly always believed Elizabeth would be mortified by the furnishings in this reproduction room. The room she is forced to look down upon from her portrait’s overmantel position. They had matched the room to the colors in her portrait. Her “mourning” portrait. What could be more dreadful than that? “Excuse me…” Melly heard the sound of a phlegmy throat clearing. It was the guide. She realized he was now standing directly behind her. Looking over her shoulder to the lawn down below. “Are those your children?” he asked. “I don’t have children.” He appeared crestfallen by the notion. “No? That’s a shame. Being a father, and especially a grandfather, has been such a highlight of my life.” He continued as if she cared to hear what he thought about anything. “Someone needs to tell that young miss to mind her manners. Screeching like that.” Melly turned abruptly to face the man. The color in her cheeks flared as she stared him down. “The tour has moved on to the Ballroom,” he continued, “please follow me. The rest of the group is waiting.” He was oblivious to her rage at what he’d said referencing her goddaughter. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. Now it was his turn to be perturbed with her. He was not a man who took well to anyone not following his direction. He stared back at her, as if to shame her into reconsidering. “I’m a former site manager,” she said. “I was told this is your last tour of the afternoon? So… I thought I’d be helpful… close the room down so the catering staff could start setting up for the party. MY party. It’s my birthday today. I’m hosting a dinner in the ballroom.” His grey eyes flickered with recognition. “The reason we’re closing early for tours today,” he said. “Yes. I was told this morning. Very well then.” He turned on his heels and slowly walked towards the ballroom entrance. Melly followed close behind. She could hear one of the ladies in the next room reading aloud from the letter written by Sally Bache, which sat on the music stand. Sally had written her “dear papa” Ben Franklin while he was performing his diplomatic duties as the first American Minister in France. “Just imagine,” the woman said, “she danced here in this room with George Washington on the occasion of his twentieth wedding anniversary!” Melly couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “George Washington danced here,” she thought to herself. Will we ever move on from that moment? She closed the door between the two rooms, then crossed back to close the door to the stair hall and reached over to extinguish the nondescript Ikea floor lamp in the corner. Then back to the window wall. She looked out to see that things had quieted down. The catering staff had started the set up for the pre-dinner garden cocktails. She carefully reached up for the cord to the Venetian blinds, dark wood with emerald green ribbons, the same as in every window of the museum. It was one of the most popular questions from visitors. Having only experienced the 20th-century aluminum version, they questioned the authenticity of such window treatments, having no idea the design was patented in the 1700s and popularized in Colonial Philadelphia. As the second blind dropped down, the room was suddenly gloomy. It took a moment for Melly’s eyes to adjust once she blocked out the late afternoon glare. Now the sun’s rays merely crept around the edges of the window blinds. And through the one broken slat. She was alone and the room was at rest. Well not really. Had it been Elizabeth’s era the English Dr. Wall-style blue and white porcelain tea set would have been removed. The Hepplewhite card table would have been folded down and placed against the wall along with its matching chairs. Every thing would have been put away by the servants. Melly sat on the floor, next to the tea table with a full view of Elizabeth’s portrait. Why had the familiarity never struck her before now? Her childhood tea parties with Snoopy, Pink bunny, and a well-dressed doll. The table set with petite linens made by a great-grandmother and a set of miniature Willow Blue china. The tea set she still owns. The tea set she’d always assumed would be passed onto her own children. She looked up at Elizabeth’s portrait. This was the exact place she’d first asked the question. If not motherhood? If not motherhood, then what? She’d moved into this house, Elizabeth’s house, not yet knowing the outcome. But questioning what her life would look like if she never got pregnant. If she never became a mother. -
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Algonkian Pre-event Narrative Enhancement Guide - Opening Hook
Police POV Opening Scene. Foreshadows police and jurisdiction conflicts. Hopi Reservation, Keams Canyon, Arizona. Its midnight at Keams Canyon’s Hopi Tribal Police Headquarters. Headquarters is one hundred and twenty-three miles away by car from Flagstaff, or ninety-two miles as the crow flies. Keams is on the Hopi Reservation, but not a recognized village. Hopi police enforce tribal and state law, but Keams is also the base of operations for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, responsible for conducting federal crime investigations and managing Hopi custody facilities. Hopi Police Chief Isaac Benge paces in front of the reservation map estimating distances, drawing several black marker circles. Then tapped a knuckle inside the largest one. “We need to begin our investigation here in the Coal Mine Canyon shrine location.” For over a century, this secret shrine’s held Hotevilla's traditional spiritual leaders’ most sacred ceremonial items. Earlier that evening, Hotevilla Village, on the third mesa of the reservation, was preparing for their WuWuchim Night of Washing of the Hair Ceremony. During that time, a village elder called Hopi Police to report an attack on one of their priests while retrieving ceremonial items from this shrine. Looters made off with all of their ceremonial items, including their most sacred Blue Kachina mask with supernatural powers. Deputy Juan Montoya, lost in thought, interrupts. “Coal Mine Canyon’s on the other side of the res, close to Navajo territory.” Fidgeting in a worn armchair, he stands to survey the map. “The drive time and investigation of the canyon trail and shrine will take a full day.” He monitors Benge’s response. But Benge remained silent, so he continues, “There are four deputies scheduled to work tomorrow, and we need two of them at the station to take care of emergency calls.” Benge, still studying the map, answers. “You know, Hotevilla priests are distressed because they had to stop the Washing of Hair Ceremony.” Hopi ceremonies must be carried out correctly to ward off bad luck, maintain balance, and please Masaw, the guardian of the Earth. “Let’s hope the stolen Blue Kachina won’t cause us any problems.” Hopi know proper devotion to Kachina’s, who have supernatural powers, will prevent Kachina revenge. His cell buzzes. “Chief Benge.” “Chief Benge, this is Sargent Niles from the Arizona State Police. We found a dead Native male near Flagstaff along Highway 89 North. He looks Hopi. We need someone from your reservation to make an identification.” “Not surprised.” Chief Benge casts a mournful glance at Montoya. “Tonight, we had a looting of one of the res’ most sacred shrines.” A sense of foreboding crept down his spine. “I’m on my way.” His face looks solemn after ending the call. “Looks like white man’s wicked thoughts may be our looting’s motive.” The Hopi believe they’re the caretakers of the Earth, but white man’s way of life: war, exploiting land and natural resources threatens their balance. “That means white man’s police are going to get involved.” Montoya looks like he just smelled something bad. “And the FBI.”
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