-
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
-
Novel Writing Courses and "Novel Writing on Edge" Work and Study Forums
-
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- 47
- posts
-
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
- 121
- posts
-
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- 24
- posts
-
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!
- 9
- posts
-
-
Quiet Hands, Unicorn Mech, Novel Writing Vid Reviews, and More
-
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
- posts
-
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!
- 18
- posts
-
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.
- 22
- posts
-
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,
- 3.4k
- posts
-
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.
- 41
- posts
-
-
New York Write to Pitch and Algonkian Writer Conferences 2024
-
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.
- 1.1k
- posts
-
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?- 243
- posts
-
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
- 15
- posts
-
-
Forum Statistics
16k
Total Topics12.8k
Total Posts
-
AAC Activity Items
-
4
Write to Pitch 2024 - June
The Act of Story Statement: Catherine, captain of a secret supernatural order, must defy divine authority and partner with an unknowing human to save Santa Ana Island - and the world - from the effects of climate change. -
0
10 New Books Coming Out This Week
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Kellye Garrett, Missing White Woman (Mulholland) “Juicy but shrewd, Missing White Woman is arguably a thriller for the TikTok age, its issues contemporary yet timeless. Kellye Garrett uses her staccato sentences to build pressure … [and] handles questions with depth and verve in this exciting new book.” –Elle Peter Nichols, Granite Harbor (Celadon Books) “Well-written, character-driven portrait of small-town New England meets Silence of the Lambs.” –Kirkus Reviews Catherine Mack, Every Time I Go On Vacation Someone Dies (Minotaur) “[A] fizzy series debut . . . Mack, a pseudonym for the veteran Canadian author Catherine McKenzie, gleefully pokes fun at genre tropes while evoking Eleanor’s zany world . . . hilarious.” –The New York Times Jeneva Rose, Home Is Where The Bodies Are (Blackstone) “Rose demonstrates a formidable command of character…Fans will enjoy the ride.” –Publishers Weekly Niklas Natt och Dag, Order of the Furies (Atria) “A brutal, satisfying end to a superior series.” –Publishers Weekly Jean-Luc Bannalec, Death of a Master Chef (Minotaur) “An intriguing and tasty mystery with surprising twists in a beautiful, charming setting that will appeal to Louise Penny fans.” –First Clue Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Oracle (Tor Nightfire) “Told in the style of an international thriller and featuring a huge cast of well-developed characters, the novel is a deep dive into how the tendrils of the past can reach out and force humanity to heed a warning.” –Library Journal Lee Geum-yi (trans. An Seonjae), Can’t I Go Instead (Forge) “Compelling and inspiring, this story speaks of resilience and determination to make the best out of the situation one has been dealt.” –Booklist Sean Patrick Cooper, The Shooter at Midnight (Penguin) “An arresting work of true crime. . . Cooper’s suspenseful narrative nimbly interweaves procedural beats and a vivid portrait of rural America in crisis.” –Publishers Weekly Jason Bell, Cracking the Nazi Code (Pegasus) “The investigative work the author has done has produced a biography suited to the best of the current-day spy novels. Well-written and interesting and deserves to be devoured.” –New York Journal of Books View the full article -
0
What a Series of Killings in Rural Georgia Revealed About Early 20th-Century America
They moved Route 36 in the years after the killings. Now the road runs straight where it used to dogleg through Newton County, an hour’s drive southeast of Atlanta, and most travelers don’t see that it was ever otherwise. Orphaned stretches of the old highway linger here and there, most of them dwindled to rough trails—hardwoods and high weeds pressing their flanks, yearling pines braving their unpaved crowns, thick weaves of vine plunging their remote twists into midday dusk. Leave anything for long in the Georgia heat and rain and, sure as the sunrise, nature will reclaim it. It does not take long. You have to look hard for one piece of the original roadbed, where it veers from modern blacktop into jungle at the county’s southern tip. Its passage into the trees has knitted shut, season by season, over a lifetime of disuse. A sign once warned off the curious; when it fell away, the opening had shrunk so small, so easily missed by passing traffic, that hanging a new one must have seemed a waste of effort. The revelations tore at America’s faith in its own virtue. They undermined its sense of modernity, challenged its grasp of history—resurrected sins thought dead and gone. The road beyond is an abstraction, a shallow groove carpeted in pine needles. But if you dare push through the tangle into the gloom, and follow the ghost of old Route 36 on its curving path among the trees, you soon reach the South River—and what’s left of the span that bore the abandoned highway to the far bank. Mann’s Bridge squats on rusting pylons a few feet over the drink, its wood-plank floor stripped away, its box-truss skeleton venturing only halfway across the water. Its bones are pitted, flaking, and brittle with age. It receives few visitors, this fossil of horse-drawn days. Barely visible from the modern concrete bridge a thousand feet downstream, it’s paid little mind by anyone. Yet here, unknown to most folks in Newton County and unmentioned by those aware of it, an event of powerful repercussion occurred. One winter’s Saturday night in 1921, an automobile chugged up the old highway to stop in the span’s middle, and one of its occupants dropped to the water below. Then, as now, the South River was shallow at the bridge, its bottom only eight to ten feet down. But when a man is bound by wire, with a hundred-pound sack of rocks chained to his neck, water need not run deep to do its work. Dark with tannins, clouded by mud, it swallowed him up. A minute later, it was back to running smooth and slow. On the same night a mile from here, where old Route 36 crossed another river, two different men, likewise trussed with wire and chain, were thrown off Allen’s Bridge, now all but vanished. In the space of a few nights, three more men were pitched off a third bridge five miles to the northeast. Many others died in the surrounding countryside, all of them Black and all at the hands of what seemed an unlikely killer. His arrest and trial would spawn front-page headlines from coast to coast about the virtual prison he ran on a plantation one county over, and about what lay behind the farm’s prosperity and the murders, both—a form of slavery that had survived in the South for generations after Appomattox. Each day’s paper brought new details of the slaughter, new glimpses of the brutal months and years the victims endured before meeting their ends. The revelations tore at America’s faith in its own virtue. They undermined its sense of modernity, challenged its grasp of history—resurrected sins thought dead and gone, put to rest by the Thirteenth Amendment. Provoked wonder: How could such things happen here, in the Empire State of the South? How could they happen now, amid the inventive dazzle of the twentieth century? How could they happen at all? A century on, you might ask the same questions. The whole business remains incredible, the more so because it has so faded from memory. No roadside marker calls it to mind out on the new Route 36. No town square monument honors the dead. Nothing commemorates the drama that brought a pernicious but largely unseen form of indentured servitude to widespread attention—and, by dragging it into the light, perhaps helped to hasten its decline. Neither do we have tangible reminders that Georgia’s governor at the time, a man vilified for his role in an earlier murder case, earned some measure of redemption through his response to these killings. Nor that, while doing so, he allied with two African American activists who rank among the twentieth century’s ablest generals in the long and continuing battle for racial justice. About the only memorial to those clamorous days is here, in an out-of-the-way corner of a sparsely populated county in central Georgia, at the end of an abandoned dirt road, at the decrepit remains of Mann’s Bridge. It seems too tranquil a setting for the lessons it offers. That the past lurks close. That we haven’t learned as much as we think we have. That maybe we never do. Crickets and birdsong fill the air. Fish leap. The bridge’s old metal bakes hot in the sun. The river swirls like syrup around its legs. * A January weekday at the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in downtown Atlanta—today the home of the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, but in 1921, a busy warren of federal offices. Two special agents of the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Investigation, the forerunner of today’s FBI, were working at their desks on the third floor when up walked a Black man named Gus Chapman. Thirty-nine years old and worn for his age, Chapman told the agents that he had been living in Atlanta the previous spring when he was picked up on a loitering charge. Fined five dollars, unable to pay it, he was facing hard labor on the chain gang when a young farmer approached him in the jail. Come home with me, he said, and you can work out your fine there. You’ll be happy you did. It’ll be like a home to you. And so Chapman accompanied Hulon Williams home to Jasper County, in the cotton country forty miles southeast of the city, and to a sprawling plantation owned by Williams’s father. He quickly saw that “Mr. Hulon” had oversold its charms. Chapman received no pay. He was forced at the end of a gun barrel to work from dawn to well past dark. He was forbidden to leave the premises under threat of death. He was locked up at night in a bunkhouse crowded with other prisoners, and whipped for any infraction, real or imagined. The Bureau agents recognized the conditions he described. Gus Chapman had been held in peonage. That word has fallen out of use, and today is unknown to many Americans, if not most. But throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, peonage claimed lives by the thousands and ruined untold others. It tore men from their wives and children, stole sons from their mothers, and helped fuel the Great Migration of southern Blacks to the industrial cities of the Northeast and Midwest in the years on either side of World War I. Chapman was typical of its victims. In one of its many forms, a man, usually Black, would be arrested for a trifling or trumped-up offense. Vagrancy—that is, having no job, or at least no ready proof of one—was a favorite, as was loitering. Conviction was pretty much automatic, and almost always carried a fine and fees beyond his means. A third party would then step forward to pay the fine in return for the prisoner’s labor until his debt was repaid. If, before he settled his account, he was prevented from leaving, that prisoner was a peon, trapped in what amounted to debt slavery. Ginned-up bills for his food and housing might be added to his fine, effectively turning a short jail term into a life sentence. His working and living conditions were often hellish. And if he tried to run, he’d be hunted down like an animal. Chapman knew that firsthand. The previous July, after three months on the farm, he had slipped away by night and struck off to the east. Roughly a dozen straight-line miles across forest and cottonfield, he found himself cornered. The farm’s owner, John Sims Williams—“Mr. Johnny” to his field hands—dragged him home and threatened to kill him. Chapman pleaded for his life until Williams softened. He decided instead to beat the prisoner with his fists, treat him to a savage whipping, then order him to chop firewood in the rain until the sun went down. Though Congress had outlawed peonage in 1867, it had endured in the hardscrabble back blocks of the rural South. The memory of that beating, and Mr. Johnny’s assurance that if he ran off again he’d be killed like a snake, dissuaded Chapman from another flight for more than four months—until, on or about December 1, 1920, he again snuck off the Williams place in the dark. This time he made it to Atlanta. He’d been in hiding since. Others had not been so lucky. Chapman told the agents that he knew of peons killed at the Williams place, and that he had witnessed one of their deaths. A prisoner nicknamed Blackstrap had run away the previous spring and was recaptured after several days on the lam. Back at the plantation, he was draped over a gasoline barrel, his hands and feet held by other field workers, and whipped by Mr. Hulon with such fury that he begged for the torture to stop, begged for the pain to end; cried and begged even as Mr. Hulon handed a revolver to another farmhand and ordered him to shoot. These Williams people were dangerous, Chapman told the agents. He lived in fear they would track him down in Atlanta. If they found him and took him back to Jasper County, it would be to kill him. It so happened that Gus Chapman was not the only peon to steal away from the Williams plantation and seek out Special Agents Adelbert J. Wismer and George W. Brown. A second man had been bailed out of jail by Mr. Hulon in February 1920 and had been held against his will until his escape the following September. He evaded capture, ghosting into neighboring Newton County and reaching its seat, Covington, before turning west to Atlanta. The record is vague on whether James Strickland spoke to Wismer and Brown before or after Chapman, but their visits came within weeks of each other, and the accounts they gave the agents dovetailed in their particulars. In exchange for the $5.25 fine that Mr. Hulon paid the jailers, Strickland worked from daybreak to night, without pay and under guard; Mr. Johnny, Mr. Hulon, and Hulon’s brothers, LeRoy and Marvin, carried pistols, as did two trusted Black hands who served as the plantation’s field bosses. Strickland was locked up at night with other men “bought” from the jails in Atlanta, Macon, and Monticello, the Jasper County seat. Like Chapman, he described seeing a fellow peon murdered. Strickland had not been on the farm long when a worker named Iron Jaw—who also went by Long John, and whom still others knew as Smart John—took off running. The Williamses hunted him down, brought him back, and whipped him. Three of the Williams boys took turns getting their licks in. On a Saturday morning not long after, the peons were building a hog enclosure, and Iron Jaw was dispatched to retrieve a coil of wire for the fence. He was unable to carry it, or was making a mess of rolling the wire—the exact nature of his offense wasn’t clear, but whatever the case, Mr. LeRoy decided he had earned another whipping. LeRoy was well into giving it to him when Iron Jaw asked him to stop. When Mr. LeRoy did not, Iron Jaw told him he would rather die than be treated so. Mr. LeRoy asked him: You want me to kill you, sure enough? Yes, came the reply. Mr. LeRoy shot him in the arm, then asked: You really want me to kill you? Iron Jaw nodded. Mr. LeRoy shot him dead. He turned to Strickland, standing a few feet away, and asked: Do you want some of this? The gun, he meant. No, Strickland recalled saying. I don’t want none of it. Wismer and Brown took it all down. Though Congress had outlawed peonage in 1867, it had endured in the hardscrabble back blocks of the rural South, and it was among the agents’ duties to investigate reports of its presence. It wasn’t the sort of work they savored. Victims were often too terrorized to say much, white juries tended to side with white defendants, and even if the government won a conviction, the penalties faced by the accused were meager. Still, the Bureau had other business in that part of the state, so on February 18, 1921, the agents drove to Jasper County. From their office they wove through a booming city of electric lights and elevators, grand movie and vaudeville houses, and office towers reaching higher than songbirds flew. They drove boulevards clogged with Model Ts, streetcars, and slow-rolling drays, past smoking factories and the tenements of the poor. Atlanta, the capital of the New South: a city of smarts and bustle and cosmopolitan style to match most any in the East. Out through its suburbs of fine homes they passed. Soon the houses fell away, and the cotton rose, and they were in the country. It was another Georgia out there. It was another century. __________________________________ Excerpted from Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America’s Second Slavery by Earl Swift. Copyright © 2024 by Earl Swift. From Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission. View the full article -
0
The Author as Protagonist
“People should be interested in books, not their authors.”—Agatha Christie A couple of years ago, on the sun-drenched Amalfi Coast when it was climate-change hot outside, I had a thought (Okay, I had many thoughts, but mostly—why did I think it was a good idea to go to Italy in July?). My husband and I were halfway through a ten-day tour and our conversation was wandering, as it tends to do when we’ve spent that much uninterrupted time together, into random topics. I talk a lot—maybe that’s why I’m a writer?—and my thoughts sometimes skip like stones across a flat pond. In between Coke Zero’s and Aperol Spritzes (By the time the trip was over I was half Coke Zero and half Aperol Spritz), my thoughts turned to Agatha Christie. And more specifically, why anyone would ever invite Miss Marple anywhere? Had no one noticed that every time she went on vacation, someone died? Oh! Now there was a book title! I stopped talking for an hour or so, my mind pulled inward, spinning through the various possibilities of what story I could tell with a title like Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies. Because I knew I had something, I just wasn’t sure what. After a couple of hours of internal monologue (Did you know that a huge percentage of people have no internal monologue? I am all internal monologue.) where I’m sure my husband thought I was having some kind of stroke that rendered me silent, I settled on a story about a writer surrounded by literary rivals and her all-too-real protagonist whom she wanted dead. It would be set in Italy, of course, and as the I in the title suggests, it would be written in very close first-person with fourth-wall breaking and footnotes. Once I got home and started writing it, the book came more easily than anything I’ve written before, even though it was quite different from the thrillers I’ve been writing for years, or the rom-com I wrote before that. I didn’t stop then to wonder then why that was, but I think I’ve found the root of it. I grew up in a house full of books. But not just any books—detective fiction lined our floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, tattered paperbacks that had been reread so many times the spines were starting to give. Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and Sue Grafton were my companions from age 12 after I graduated from L.M. Montgomery and Flowers in the Attic (It was the 70s. No, my parents did not monitor what I was reading.). Looking back there was a common thread that ran through my parents’ choices—many of these books featured a detective who was also a writer. Maybe it was because my father had writing aspirations (he eventually wrote a mystery and published it with a small press), or maybe it wasn’t as deliberate as that. I never asked. But it’s a fairly specific trait. One, that, after a quick Google search I learned has been present since the very first modern detective story—Edgar Allen Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue (Does this mean I haven’t read Poe? I’ll never tell.). In that short story, Poe established a template that would be followed by some of the most famous detective fiction authors in history—a narrator who acts as an assistant to a mercurial and brilliant detective as they solve baffling cases. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who read and admired Poe, adopted this format when he invented Holmes and Watson and gave them their first adventure in A Study in Scarlet in 1886. The Holmes novels are “case studies” written by Dr. Watson, a twist on the format influenced by Holmes’ medical career where case studies were used in teaching surgical techniques. Agatha Christie, too, was almost certainly influenced by Doyle’s choice of an author who is both part of the story but not the principal detective when she wrote The Mysterious Affair at Styles, where we meet Hercule Poirot through the eyes of his friend, Hastings (Hastings and Dr. Watson have many similarities in their personalities and backgrounds according to this Wikipedia article!). While Hastings doesn’t appear in all of Poirot’s novels, he helped introduce us to Poirot and set the tone for that series. Agatha was a fan of Doyle’s early novels and—fun fact!—he participated in the search for her when she went missing in 1926. Rex Stout used a similar device in Fer-de-lance, his first detective fiction novel (published in 1934) which introduced Nero Wolfe and his trusty guy Friday Archie Goodwin. I’m not the first person to point out that Stout followed a familiar path trod by Doyle in his creation—a quirky detective and his trusted assistant; they even both live in the same house. I’m sure there are many other examples, but I’m an author, not an academic. Besides, if I didn’t read them, could they have influenced my literary path? Yes, yes, I know they could have. Like Miranda Priestly points out in The Devil Wears Prada (the movie), that teal sweater you buy at the Gap had its birth on a runway in Paris whether you follow fashion or not. Put another way, and to (mis)quote someone (Shakespeare? I thought it was Shakespeare but I can’t find it on the interwebs), there are seven basic plots and one of them surely involves a writer stuck in their own murder mystery. I’m sure Sue Grafton would agree. In her alphabet series, which started in 1982 with A is for Alibi, she changed it up by introducing a female detective (Kinsey Milhone) and doing away with the sidekick—Kinsey narrates her own stories thank you very much, which she frames as case reports. Sound familiar? Interestingly, Grafton wrote screenplay adaptations of Christie’s A Caribbean Mystery (a Miss Marple story) and Sparkling Cyanide (a Colonel Race story), and was apparently groomed—in a good way!—by her father to write detective fiction. More recently, the writer as protagonist in mysteries has taken a different turn into an emerging genre of funny mysteries. Two of my favorite examples are Benjamin Stevenson’s Ernest Cunningham series (Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone) and the Finlay Donovan series by Elle Cosimano. Besides the fact that I am fairly certain that Benjamin Stevenson and I somehow share a brain though we’ve never met, both of these series involve a writer who is thrust into a murder mystery and are told in the first person. Finlay even has a sidekick—the enigmatic Vero who is part nanny and part partner-in-detecting-crime. So we know we do it. But that also begs the question—why? Is it a lack of imagination? I’d defend myself in that case. I’ve written many books and the main character is a writer in four. Okay, that’s still a big percentage. But no one would ever accuse Poe or Doyle or Christie of lacking in imagination. So the question remains. I have a theory because of course I do. And it’s this—writing is puzzle solving. Even if you’re in charge of the mystery in your book (and all books have mysteries regardless of genre, that’s why we read them, to find out) you still need to be able to put the pieces together and follow a trail of clues and see into the heart of people so their motivations are understandable. In short, writers are detectives. Who better, then, to narrate a murder mystery? *** View the full article -
36
Algonkian Retreats and Workshops - Assignments 2024
THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT To avoid the shame of being ‘Talent-blind’, 51-year old Seja works her farm and raises the children in solitude, until her grown son is kidnapped and she leaves everything to rescue him. During her search she learns of a dark Talent behind the kidnapping, who’s plotting world domination. She must find a way to unblock her elemental Talent and work with an overbearing dragon to thwart the dark Talent’s plans. THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT Kasiran of Ryemin, born in Arjenkaria, the eastern continent, to parents so poor they have not earned a surname. At 6 he’s tested in the annual Sweep for Talents. He’s highly gifted in four elements, something unknown for generations, so the Tester stops looking after finding Earth Talent. He’s taken from his family, his parents are paid a year’s wages and forced to sign a contract dis-owning him. At the state academy he’s outwardly a good student. Only allowed to specialize in 1 or 2 elements, he practices in secret, gradually falling into dark uses of Talent. At 14 he accidentally kills a classmate. The Head Teacher has him abducted from school and left in the wilderness. Taken from his family, betrayed by the school, he vows to never be controlled again. He believes four element Talent makes him invincible. He can take over the minds of his followers, and keeps slaves to draw life-force for healing himself after using dark Talent. In his late 20's he allies with extremists who believe Talents are entitled to rule, and others are lesser. They move to Riata, take over an abandoned fort at Ryemin, and begin taking steps to conquer the entire continent. CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE I'm still looking for other titles. These are just the first few I've thought of. The Fire that Reveals Child of Earth & Fire An Unwanted Dragon COMPARABLES FOR YOUR NOVEL Eye of the World, Robert Jordan I'm certainly not at the level of Robert Jordan, but the "magic" system is somewhat similar, in that it uses inborn gifts that rely on mental focus, and can be impossible or difficult to use if the practitioner has an emotional difficulty. (still looking for a newer novel as a second comp) FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound... Deserted by her husband and now Talent-blind, a middle-aged woman and an overbearing dragon must work together to defeat a dark Talent attempting to enslave their world. SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Why will they feel in turmoil? Conflicted? Anxious? Sketch out one hypothetical scenario in the story wherein this would be the case--consider the trigger and the reaction. (I'm taking "sketch" literally and writing this as a description of the scene, rather than an actual scene in the novel.) The main protagonist, Seja, as eldest daughter of her clan, is the “Dai”, or leader of the clan. The Dai is responsible for the clan members’ well-being, success, and their jointly-owned land. Raised by parents who valued self-control above displays of affection, Seja presents an invulnerable front to the world, of not needing love or help from anyone in her life. Her parents’ love was conditional on meeting their standards of behavior and achievement, so she learned she was not worthy of love unless she could do everything for herself to a very high standard. She is undemonstrative and uncomfortable when others show her affection. 16 years ago her husband Teral left her, and she believes it was her fault he was unhappy. Even though she's Talent-blind as a result, for her showing vulnerability, needing help, is to invite rejection from the people she cares about. Her emotional journey is learning that she’s worthy of love, it’s alright to need others, be vulnerable, and accept help without feeling like a failure. While searching for her kidnapped son, Seja is captured by a group of border raiders and discovers her long-lost husband is with them. He pretends not to know her, and she notices he is close to another woman in the group. This confirms her belief that she isn’t worthy of love, but seeing it with her own eyes is devastating. When Teral approaches her secretly one night, wanting to talk, she expresses her pain as rage, pouring out so much vitriol that he never gets a word in and has to leave before others notice. The next day she’s tortured by the group’s leader to find out what she knows about the border situation. That night Teral’s female companion comes to clean and heal Seja’s wounds. Bound hand and foot, Seja must allow it, but is angry and silent. As she works on Seja’s wounds, the woman quietly tells Seja what happened to Teral and that they’re both unwillingly trapped in this group. Seja refuses to respond and the woman leaves. But Seja considers what the woman said and begins to get the barest glimmer that it might not be all ‘her fault’. Maybe Teral’s discontent was partly due to his own dreams of what his life could be, and his failure to communicate with her. A few nights later, when nearly everyone else is asleep, Teral and the woman come to the tent where Seja is held. They untie her, give her food and water, and together they sneak out of camp. Their plan is to help Seja escape, and they will escape in another direction. They get away from camp but someone wakes up, notices Seja is gone, and the group comes after them. They run. Teral is seriously wounded by an arrow. They find a cave to hide in. Teral insists Seja leave and get away. Seja runs, but is torn with many conflicting emotions, including gratitude, anger, fear, regret. -
4
Write to Pitch 2024 - June
Shadows of Siphons // Young Adult Fantasy // 99,000 words Assignment 1: The Act of Story Statement Keep family safe while discovering potential within. Assignment 2: The Antagonist Plots the Point Within this novel, there are two antagonists, one being the main focus while the other lurks in the background. Griffin is a Vogullon, a dark, shadow-like human turned demon and subordinate to the Darkness Wielder (the “big bad”). The Darkness Wielder found him on the streets, nearly at death, and bestowed a fraction of his power on Griffin. After restoring his lifeforce, the dark energy allowed Griffin the ability to shift from his human body into one more demonic with black, bat-like wings, crimson eyes like blood, and skin covered with patchy green scales. He is one of hundreds of Vogullon, but is who the Darkness Wielder tasks with stalking the protagonist from a young age to capture and bring her to him so he can claim a power she unknowingly wields. Over the eighteen years he comes close to capturing her but is unsuccessful. Griffin learns of the protagonist’s capabilities and breaks free of his shackles from the Darkness Wielder to claim that power for himself. He aims to bring the same pain, suffering, darkness, and humiliation to mankind that was bestowed upon him in his mortal life. He allows his greed to consume him and attacks the protagonist in broad daylight, something he was forbidden from doing while under the Darkness Wielder’s control. Assignment 3: Conjuring Your Breakout Title -Shadows of Siphons -Destiny Written in Shadows -Irreverent Shadows Assignment 4: Deciding Your Genre and Approaching Comparables Young Adult Fantasy My first comp title is Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. Set in our modern, present day world, the protagonist finds herself surrounded by ancient magic and shadow creatures that hunt her, as well as others. She learns she has a power she was unaware of before. She also must uncover the secrets of an underground society which does not accept her, eventually discovering she’s tragically one of the main parts of that society. Similar themes include: self-discovery, facing one’s destiny head on, grief, uncovering and learning to control a hidden power. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo is my second comp title. The protagonist is discovered to have an uncovered and incredibly desirable power, one that the antagonist seeks to claim as his own. The antagonist wields shadows and plays a direct role in the protagonist’s journey to discovering her true potential. The story also includes volcra, shadow creatures that were once human, that feed off dark energy. Similar themes include: light and dark as opposing forces, the allure of power, and self-control. Assignment 5: Core Wounds and the Primary Conflict A young woman, after years of running, is filled with guilt after watching her friends become flooded with ancient magic and are now tasked with protecting the world from a shadow demon, all because of her. Assignment 6: Other Matters of Conflict: Two More Levels Inner Conflict - Meira is driven by fear and anxiety, as her whole life has been spent running from humanoid shadows of the night that always appear to want something from her. Her grandmother packs her and her twin sister up any time Meira reports a sighting and takes them across the country to a new place. This happens frequently, and so often that Meira has lost her sense of belonging anywhere. After the shadows are revealed to be real and attempt to take her away, she finds her sister and friends are flooded with ancient elemental magic, and it’s entirely her fault. The others are taken to a magical facility to hone their magic. Meira is also dragged along, but she’s forbidden from seeing the others. And while they are being put on a pedestal by those around them for their magic, Meira is ridiculed and dismissed as a threat. Because of all this, and the numerous characters who express their strong disinterest in her being there, Meira struggles with a lack of belonging within this “world” despite being the sole reason that she and the others are there to begin with. Scene - In a scene where Meira sees her sister and friends for the first time in weeks, after being isolated from them, a side character who despises Meira rips her apart from them and tells her to “go where she belongs.” After some arguing and the other characters leave her, as she feels they always do, she replays the character’s words in her mind and states that she would go where she belonged if she knew where that was. Secondary Conflict - Meira’s secondary conflict revolves around our sorcerer, Ryder. Ryder has known Meira and her sister since they were children, so upon his arrival, she anticipates their relationship to be the same as it has been; friendly, warm, genuine. Instead, she is met with a version of Ryder she’s unfamiliar with; one who is cold, standoffish, and can wield magic she had no idea existed before. She attempts to ask him questions about the things happening around her, but he is more concerned with the other four with magic. Upon arriving at their facility, Ryder casts Meira to the side and tells her he cannot help her. As the story progresses, Meira attempts to confront Ryder multiple times, growing frustrated and angry when she’s met with indifference. He even goes as far as to tell her he won’t speak to her as it’s for her own safety, which she doesn’t believe. After her own previously unknown powers awaken, she finds information on Ryder and thanks to her paranoia, believes him to be working with the villain. Ryder then informs her he’s going to take her away from where they are, separating her from those she cares about, which she believes is a way to keep her from stopping his plans to harm the Elementals. Scene - While looking for someone, Meira stumbles into Ryder’s office and finds missing pages of a book highlighting that the Elementals, our four characters with magic, were the ones who created the villain long ago. These pages were previously missing from books she found, and upon finding them, she’s immediately suspicious and wants to know why he is hiding them. She also finds notes within these pages with details about how the villain’s creation came to be, how it happened, and she starts to believe he’s hoping to recreate this process and that he’s secretly working with the villain. Ryder appears, and when she calls him on it, he responds by saying she doesn’t understand what she’s talking about, immediately followed by his announcement that he’s sending her away, permanently separating her from her sister and friends. Meira protests, but he gives her no choice, and then proceeds to tell her he has one reason for being in this world, and it’s to protect the Elementals from anyone, her included. Assignment 7: The Incredible Importance of Setting There are three main settings throughout the novel. The story begins in downtown Denver, Colorado in modern day. We see Meira’s apartment; a tiny apartment with creaking floors and chipped paint, a kitchen so small only one person can properly fit at a time, and a dining room table and three chairs as the only real furniture. With the constant moving, they hardly have anything big to take with them, and anything accumulated within the time frame of being there is often left with the exception of the clothing they can fit into one or two bags each. Meira’s grandmother, the caretaker of her and her twin sister, has just enough money to help them survive, so technology is not a luxury they possess though it is present in the timeframe we’re in. It’s night time and incredibly dark, which makes Meira even more paranoid, as all the signs of seeing the mysterious shadows that haunt her are all around. The second setting within our story is the setting found within a majority of the novel and comes following the catalyst events. Our sorcerer uses magic to transport our characters to Brooklyn, NY, and we find ourselves in a secret facility surrounded by followers of the Elementals. The magically warded facility is called the Center, and is one of our east coast locations for the Elemental’s Legion. The Center is a massive hexagonal training arena with halls leading down each side of the main arena. In its center we see multiple boxing rings and walls lined with weaponry the Legion uses in order to train and prepare to fight the Darkness. The ceiling is glass and allows the only access to the outside world, which later shows the dark clouds of the Darkness Wielder rolling inward as it closes in on the Center. All over the room Meira sees shields and banners with a golden six pointed star. Each member of the Legion, Meira included, wears gray and silver training suits with this symbol present, representing the elements. The Elementals wear similar suits but where there are silver accents on the Legion’s suits, the Elementals wear gold to match the symbol around the Center. Within the hallways around the hexagonal arena, each hall leads to something; sleeping quarters, the infirmary, the cafeteria. One hallway houses the Elementals and only captains or those of higher status are permitted to enter. This hall houses not only the living quarters for the four Elementals, it has an individualized training arena for each Elemental. The one we see most often is the water arena. This room is large and has pearl white walls and floors and water everywhere. The high ceilings are made of glass much like the main arena. Streams flow through the room and surround a central area for the water wielder to practice and train. Upon leaving the Center in the final leg of the novel, we return outside to the streets of Brooklyn, NY. The skies are dark and filled with black clouds that unnerve all below. Those clouds roll in and out of view as the fight with the antagonist persists, with them being more dominant as our protagonist is “losing,” and seeming to disappear as she is “winning.” All around we see destruction and debris from the Darkness, sirens from cars sound all around, and fire burns along multiple storefronts and buildings. Many structures are nearly flattened by the final battle. -
0
My Dream Star Trek Bridge Crew
As promised a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I'm now writing part 2 in my series of Star Trek posts. (And yes, I know the previous reference was Star Wars, but I couldn't resist.)Today I will be picking my dream crew, based not on my personal feelings about the characters, but based on how good I think they would actually be at the job. A lot of people talk about who their favorite Star Trek captain is (in the immortal words of Weird Al Yankovic, "Do you like Kirk or do you like Picard?”). Yet, there seems to be less consideration for how good would these captains actually be at their job. Same with the rest of the crew. So without further ado, here is my dream Trek bridge crew, selected for actual competence. Captain - Benjamin Sikso (DS9) It might be surprising to see that I chose neither Kirk nor Picard for the top honors. Kirk is a highly charismatic and inspiring leader, but he solves too many of his problems by punching. Likewise, Picard is an excellent peacetime diplomat, but he makes terrible decisions in times of war. Allowing the Crystalline Entity to destroy a planet just because it was alive? Refusing to upload the virus that could destroy the Borg into Hugh's brain because he was becoming conscious? On one hand, these seem like compassionate decisions, but on the other hand he is allowing the needs of the few to outweigh the needs of the many. Something my top choice knows not to do… I wasn't necessarily sold on Sisko as Captain Season 1 of DS9. He seemed much like Picard to be someone who let principles stand in the way of practical leadership decisions. For example, at one point he agrees to peacefully go into a torture box to avoid starting a violent conflict with a group of people who are clearly the aggressors in the situation. But by Season 6 we see Sisko's thinking change and evolve as a result of the prolonged conflict of the Dominion War. When he makes the difficult decision to allow Garak to destroy a Romulan ship and frame the Dominion to convince the Romulans to join the war efforts, we see a man who has properly learned how to deal with the weight of command. First Officer - Spock (Original Series) Yes, I know Spock was officially a science officer, not the First Officer, but his role as Kirk's right hand is what made him one of -- if not the most -- iconic characters in Star Trek history. He was not only able to temper Kirk's bravado with logic, but his distinct non-human perspective allowed Gene Rodenbury to express some of his most forward thinking ideas, including the fact that the Federation could often be overly interventionist, pushing for a sort of cultural relativism that wasn't often seen in mid-century media. Chief Engineer - Paul Stamets (Discovery) It can be argued whether Discovery is a worthy Trek spin off, but it can't be argued that Stamets isn't a good engineer. Not only did he invent the spore drive (an invention that no one else figured out for over a thousand years!), but he's also the only one who can pilot it. It would be silly to choose anyone else for this position given his shining qualifications. Doctor - The Doctor (Voyager) There are a lot of talented and memorable medical practitioners in Star Trek, but only the Doctor has instant access to the entire known history of medicine at his holographic fingertips. Over time as his program is left running, he develops not only an excellent bedside manner, but all the intuition and charisma one could expect from a human doctor. Tactical Officer - Worf (TNG/ DS9) Worf started out as a security officer on TNG, but the number of preventable security breaches on the Enterprise-D during his tenure shows this was not his true calling. Where he excelled was in tactical. He ran his missions on the Defiant both efficiently and intelligently, demonstrating why he is a fan favorite. Science Officer - Seven of Nine (TNG/ Picard) While Annika Hansen never officially held the title of science officer, her insight into a wide field of sciences from exo-biology to astrometrics was unparalleled. Not to mention her borg augmentations allowed her to pack a mean punch, which certainly comes in handy on away missions. Communications Officer - Hoshi Sato (Enterprise) Most communications officers have the universal translator to do the heavy lifting, but Hoshi Sato was still dealing with ironing the kinks of the new tech out in the early days. Hoshi's language learning skills were the stuff of legend. She was even able to pick up on Risian in a matter of weeks! Security Officer - Odo (DS9) As a changeling, Odo had the ability to shapeshift into whatever form he wanted, which is an obvious advantage for a security officer. Beyond his natural skillset, he also had his steely, inquisitive nature that made him a first rate detective. Helm - Erica Ortegas (Strange New Worlds) Erica Ortegas is a natural born pilot, proven by her ability to navigate through an asteroid storm outside Riegal XII thought by the rest of the crew to be impossible to survive. While Tom Parris may challenge Ortegas' claim as the ultimate hot shot pilot, Parris is also notoriously insubordinate, making him too high a risk to include. Ensigns - The Cast of Lower Decks I thought about giving this honor to Harry Kim from Voyager, the most multi-talented ensign of all time, but then I realized that would be doubling down on Janeway's insane decision to never promote him. Kim is far better served working with Seven in astrometrics or Stamets in engineering. Besides, I couldn't bring myself to make an ideal team without including the lovable hijinks of Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford. Afterall, somebody's gotta clean out the holodeck. -
0
The Three Types of Detective Duos You Find in Historical Mysteries
My cat has nothing in common with Maisie Dobbs. Let me back up. Picture the scene: it’s December 2021. My first nephew had just been born, and because of the pandemic, I couldn’t meet him in person or help my sister the way she’d helped me after my sons were born. I was feeling helpless, sad, and vulnerable as Christmas approached. So I did what any logical person would do. I went on PetFinder. Hear me out, though—we’d recently adopted a chihuahua, and my intention was to find contact information so that we could make a holiday donation to the organization that had rescued him. Instead, I saw a description of a cat who needed a home. I showed it to my husband, who raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Izzy wants a sister!” I informed him. He eyed the black cat we’d had for twelve years as she napped serenely on my favorite chair. “Izzy definitely does not want a sister.” And, okay, maybe he had a point. After all, with a mere hiss and a swat, Izzy had easily asserted her dominance first over our two beagles (may they rest in peace) and then over the chihuahua. All three dogs were terrified of her. Fast forward a week and I had convinced him; instead of a donation in honor of our dog, we made plans to adopt our second cat. Fast forward another week and our new kitty arrived on a transport van from Tennessee. I named her after my favorite fictional detective, Maisie Dobbs. Her entry into our household caused chaos. While her namesake is courageous, intelligent, and empathetic, Maisie the cat turned out to be none of these things. She’s flighty, nervous, and enjoys clawing my favorite chair—the same one Izzy loves to nap on. As my husband predicted, Izzy was less than thrilled about the arrival of her new sister. Much hissing and swatting ensued. Unlike the dogs, though, this new cat refused to submit entirely to Izzy’s dominance. Eventually, the prickly queen and the neurotic newcomer learned to co-exist. Now, they’ll curl up next to each other on my lap as I sit in my favorite chair, now decorated with festive stripes thanks to Maisie’s claws. Many fictional detectives are like Izzy used to be: happy to fly solo. After all, the trope of the lone investigator is appealing. Harry Bosch, one of my all-time favorites, embodies it. Even as I fret about Harry’s unhealthy work-life balance, I still find his all-consuming passion for justice inspiring—and very fun to read about. However, there’s an alternative to the “man on a mission” in crime fiction: the detective duo. And, boy, can it be fun to go along for the ride as a pair of detectives works together to solve murders. The first one that comes to my mind is Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. By pairing his ruthlessly intelligent investigator with a kinder, more sensitive partner, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created one of the most famous foils in all of literature—and gave readers a relatable character who could translate Holmes’s lightning-fast deductions for us, filling in the blanks that the brilliant detective would’ve been far too impatient to stop and explain himself. Duos’ dynamics vary. Sometimes—like my cats—they are thrown together by fate (or, ahem, by me) against their will. Other times, the partnership evolves naturally because the partners’ skills and attitudes complement each other. And sometimes, the only way for two people to overcome a shared trauma is to work together to solve a murder. In my debut historical mystery DEATH IN THE DETAILS, my main character, Maple, is an amateur sleuth who feels compelled to investigate a mysterious death in her small town. My decision to give her a partner was partly a practical one; she needed inside information, and Kenny—the sheriff’s deputy—could provide it. However, I also enjoyed forcing my prickly and somewhat jaded heroine into partnership with an idealistic young officer. Throughout the story, Maple helps Kenny see beyond his rose-colored glasses and he helps her reclaim some faith in humanity’s potential for good. So, in honor of Holmes and Watson, Maple and Kenny, and (to a lesser extent) my two cats, here are three types of detective duos found in historical mysteries. Agreeable Allies MAISIE DOBBS by Jacqueline Winspear (London, 1929) Maisie Dobbs and Billy Beale encounter each other in the first chapter of the first book in the series, when he arrives to help hang a sign outside the detective agency she just started… but it isn’t the first time they’ve met. Billy recognizes Maisie immediately as the nurse who saved his life in a casualty clearing station in France. Their shared history—they’ve both returned from the war with both physical and emotional wounds—and mutual respect grows into a strong friendship and partnership. Throughout the series, the former nurse and the former soldier become each other’s sounding boards, looking out for each other as they work increasingly dangerous cases and support each other through personal tragedies. Feisty Frenemies A CURIOUS BEGINNING by Deanna Raybourn (England, 1887) Veronica Speedwell and Mr. Stoker get on each other’s nerves immediately in this lively romp of a story. In Stoker’s defense, he has no idea why his beloved mentor shows up at his door unannounced with Veronica in tow and instructs him to protect her with his life. Veronica is also in the dark, but when the mentor is murdered and they fear Veronica is the next target, these two strangers must go on the run together. Both characters are passionate, strong-willed, and stubborn; as a reader, it’s great fun to watch them provoke each other and bicker enthusiastically as they hunt for a murderer and try to stay alive themselves. Bonding over Emotional Baggage A DEADLY ENDEAVOR by Jenny Adams (Philadelphia, 1921) On the surface, Edie and Gil have very little in common. She hails from one of Philly’s oldest and richest families, and he’s from the wrong side of the tracks. However, when their mutual connection to murdered girls throws them together, they find themselves hunting a serial killer. Gil’s living with shell shock from his wartime experience and mourning his wife’s death; Edie struggles with depression, the effects of a long illness, and the betrayal of someone close to her. Though their individual traumas are different, they turn out to share the same deepest fear: they don’t want to be cowards. Luckily (?), they have plenty of opportunities in this story to face their own demons—and also some very dangerous criminals. *** I find murder mysteries oddly comforting. When I open one, I know something bad has happened, but I also know I can trust the detective(s) to put everything right—or, as right as it can be put in the aftermath of brutal death. Veronica Speedwell sums up the detectives’ mission this way: “‘Murder is an act of chaos. It lies with us to bring order and method to the solution of the deed.’” Sometimes, we readers crave a lone wolf to restore order. But sometimes what we really need is connection. And sometimes—even if they may not always want to admit it—that’s what our fictional detectives need, too. View the full article -
4
Write to Pitch 2024 - June
FIRST ASSIGNMENT: write your story statement. To be free of the vampires and Empire that controls her homeland. SECOND ASSIGNMENT: sketch the antagonist. Set in a world where he did not die in 1476, Tsar Vlad the Impaler is the story's antagonist. Out of spite for the man who attempted to kill him (Sultan Mehmet), Vlad grew his empire to control most of the Asian continent, specifically its Muslim populations to fracture the empire Sultan Mehmet once had. With vast regions under his control, Vlad maintains subjugation of the people by use of vampires who feed on non-Russian citizens. Vlad, however, is not satisfied with the vampires and his thirst for power makes him use human bodies (from the colonized areas) to experiment and create a more lethal monster. Vlad's only fatal flaw is his pride: he believes he is immortal, which blinds him to underestimate the protagonist. THIRD ASSIGNMENT: create a breakout title Blood Eater Daughter of the Blood Hills FOURTH ASSIGNMENT: - Two smart comparables for your novel. Blood Eater Vampires of El Norte Vampires of El Norte Castlevania FIFTH ASSIGNMENT: write your own hook line (logline) with conflict and core wound. A young woman becomes a vampire slayer to kill the Russian tsar who has taken over South Asia to free herself and her people. SIXTH ASSIGNMENT: sketch out the conditions for the inner conflict your protagonist will have. Primary conflict: rid the land of vampires Inner conflict: in her desperation to be free, she relies on rage, which threatens her to lose her humanity (becoming something who only kills) Secondary conflict: her cousin is loyal to the empire, and some of the townspeople aren’t supportive of her revolutionary movement FINAL ASSIGNMENT: sketch out your setting in detail. The book takes place in pre-modern Bangladesh and India during the early 1800s. Vlad has wrested control of it from its predecessors, and calls the entire region (Indian Subcontinent) the Southern Orient of Vlad, or Soov. The Russian Empire extends across most of Asia but stops at Arabia and Turkey since the Ottoman Empire has blocked Vlad from expanding. Most of the setting is in townships and villages, including markets and hideouts for resistance. The time period includes an industrial revolution but is not as technologically driven. While there are automobiles and the introduction of electricity, most of the setting's advancements are replaced by a science-black magic combination instead. For example, Vlad's creation of the vampires is a mix of human enhancement and jinn possession. His later creation, a werewolf, is similar in vein. -
0
On the Invention of M. Dupin
This is a transcript of a talk that was given, by Dr. Olivia Rutigliano, at New York University Law School’s Poe Room Event, on May 19th, 2023. Briefly, from 1845-1846, Edgar Allan Poe lived in a building on the site where NYU Law’s Furman Hall now stands. The Poe Room Event is a twice-annual event, open to the public, that invites scholars and artists to put together a presentation honoring Poe’s legacy. This speech contains spoilers for the stories “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” and “The Purloined Letter.” * The subject of today’s talk takes us to Paris, in the 1840s. A gruesome double-murder has taken place one night in a home along the Rue Morgue, a street in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. The victims are two women, Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter, Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye. The body of the younger woman is found stuffed inside a chimney. She has marks on her neck from strangulation. Her mother’s body lies in the backyard, with numerous bones broken. Her face is badly mutilated, and a tuft of reddish hair is stuck in her fist. She has such a deep gash in her throat that when the police lift her body to carry it away, her head falls off. The residents of the street had been awoken at night by screams—about “eight or ten” neighbors and two gendarmes had, together, forced themselves inside to see if everyone in the home was all right. Running up the stairs, they still hear noises from somewhere above, but by the time they reach the fourth floor, everything has gone silent. The police determine that the murder took place there—on the fourth floor of the house, which has been thoroughly ransacked and where strange pieces of evidence remain: tufts of gray human hair on the fireplace, gold coins all over the floor, and a straight razor, which is by now caked in blood, lying on a chair. A safe is open. And complicating things is that the room is locked. The concerned neighbors and constables had needed to break down the door. The police speak to many witnesses, who explain that they heard several voices coming from the house. One voice was male and was speaking French (which they know because they heard the cry of “mon dieu”), but no one can agree on the language that the other speaker has used. The police are entirely stumped. But there is one man who is not. And his name is Le Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin. This is the premise of the mystery at the center of a short story called “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” It was published in Graham’s Magazine in 1841, written by the American author Edgar Allan Poe. And it is thought to be the first true, the first pure, the first modern detective story in history. Which makes Dupin the first modern detective. Dupin is a chevalier—which means he has been given the Légion d’honneur, a knighthood, at some point in the past. He is a young man, from a once wealthy family that has since ceased to be so. He is presented to us by the story’s unnamed narrator, an Englishman. And they meet in the most appropriate of settings: searching for a book. They meet in an “obscure library in the Rue Montmartre.” The narrator says that “the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion. We saw each other again and again.” Our narrator says of him, “This young gentleman was of an excellent, indeed of an illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy of his creditors, there remained in his possession a small remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this, he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in Paris these are easily obtained.” The two strike up a friendship, and since the Englishman does not have permanent lodgings for his stay, they agree to live together. Dupin moves into the narrator’s home, which is “a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain.” They live in a home full of books, decorated “in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common temper.” And it is there where Dupin and his friend open a newspaper, the Gazette des Tribunaux, one morning to learn about the ghastly horrors that took place in a home across the river, a home on a street called the Rue Morgue. The article, simply called “Extraordinary Murders,” chronicles the gruesome scene. For days, the papers will overflow with coverage into this mysterious, grisly circumstance—relaying interviews with twelve people who knew the deceased or lived nearby. No one can agree on the language being spoken in the room. And everyone confirms that no person had entered the house all night. The police arrest a young clerk named Adolphe Le Bon but have not explained why. And after reading everything—the testimonies, the descriptions— Dupin asks his friend what he has made of all of this. Dupin’s friend doesn’t believe that it’s possible to figure out the identity of the killer from any of the evidence. Dupin begs to differ. Friends with the prefect of police, he grants them both entry to the crime scene. The scene is the same as they have read in the papers. And Dupin walks around, narrating what he is seeing. He explains to his friend that what they are doing is unprecedented “in investigations such as we are now pursuing, it should not be so much asked ‘what has occurred,’ as ‘what has occurred that has never occurred before.’ Dupin does not see a mass of conflicting details, but a collection of details that all point to the same thing, in their conflict. The interviewed neighbors are people from all over Europe, and they all think they are hearing languages that others, speakers of those languages, think are other languages.” “Now, how strangely unusual must that voice have really been, about which such testimony as this could have been elicited!—in whose tones, even, denizens of the five great divisions of Europe could recognize nothing familiar!” This is because, with the exception of the Frenchman’s “mon dieu,” “…no words—no sounds resembling words—were by any witness mentioned as distinguishable,” he says. Dupin also divines that the murderer must have escaped via the windows—the back windows. It is the only explanation as to how all the doors could have been locked, and the home not entered from the street. Dupin and his friend stand there, trying to figure out the entity that might have been able to climb up and down the side of a building, make humanlike sounds without saying words, and be strong enough to do serious damage to two women. The mother has had her head nearly severed by the grip of a straight razor, while the daughter has thumbprints and fingernail gashes on her throat. Dupin’s friend thinks it must be a madman. But Dupin realizes that it is not a man at all. The handprint on the daughter’s neck is too wide. The hair in the mother’s fist is too coarse. The killer, Dupin divines, is an orangutan—an orangutan who must have been captured in the wild and brought to Paris in captivity, only to escape. Dupin puts an ad in the paper, claiming that he has found an ape. Someone answers the ad—a sailor. This is the Frenchman whose voice could be heard along with the unintelligible grunts of the ape—who had chased his escaped, and unfairly treated pet, as he fled away from the sailor, into another house. The man tells Dupin that the orangutan had attacked the two women he randomly encountered there in his frenzy, before escaping out the window again. Because Dupin has found the sailor who can recount the tale, he is able to convince the police to release the wrongfully imprisoned man. * Dupin was such a success that would appear again in two more stories, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,” published from 1842 to 1943, and “The Purloined Letter” in 1844. Readers were enchanted by his unique deductive abilities. His narrator begs him, “Tell me, for Heaven’s sake, the method—if method there is—by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this matter. Dupin practices a heightened method of analysis referred to as “ratiocination”—a purely intellectual method of observing things in great detail and being able to imagine how those things would have interacted. Some who do not understand it find it to be a little supernatural. In “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the narrator tries to put a pin in exactly what the process is. Here is some of his legwork: “The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis… As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension præternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition.” “The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyse.” Basically, he explains, “the extent of information obtained; lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the observation.” Poe would later refer to all three Dupin stories as his “tales of ratiocination.” Dupin is not a policeman, and he is not a private detective. He is a true amateur. But his gifts, and his insistence on using them to solve the puzzles that arise in life, cement his tale as literature’s first modern detective story. As literary critic A. E. Murch writes, the detective story is one in which the “primary interest lies in the methodical discovery, by rational means, of the exact circumstances of a mysterious event or series of events.” Critic Peter Thoms elaborates on this, defining the detective story as “chronicling a search for explanation and solution,” adding, “such fiction typically unfolds as a kind of puzzle or game, a place of play and pleasure for both detective and reader.” The well-heeled Dupin is an armchair detective who solves puzzles because he can and because he likes to. He sees things that no one else can see, draws conclusions that for many others are too far outside of the box. If Poe had not solidified the conventions that we recognize as marking the modern detective story, others likely would have done the same not long after. Literature was on its way to this discover; certainly, there had been a long lineage of characters who operated similarly, tracking down stolen objects and cracking impossible puzzles, and, like Dupin, doing so as private citizens, rather then as agents of the state. In 1747, Voltaire wrote a philosophical novella exploring the theme of problem-solving, Zadig ou la Destinée, featuring a wise young man in Babylonia whose knowledge gets him in trouble but often ultimately saves him. In William Godwin’s 1794 novel Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, a scathing indictment on the so-called justice system’s ability to ruin lives, state-sanctioned investigators are disavowed in favor of non-traditional problem-solvers. In 1819, the German novelist E. T. A. Hoffmann wrote Das Fräulein von Scuderi, in which a nosy woman named Mlle. de Scuderi (who might be considered a predecessor of Miss Marple) finds a stolen string of pearls. And no nineteenth-century detective lineage would be complete without Eugène-François Vidocq, a criminal-turned-criminologist who lived from 1775-1857 and who founded and ran France’s first national police, the Sûreté nationale, as well as France’s first private detection agency. His life inspired countless (swashbuckling) adaptations, including an American adaptation published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in 1828, entitled “Unpublished passages in the Life of Vidocq, the French Minister of Police,” which Poe very well might have read. Interestingly there’s a character in that story named “Dupin.” Ahem. Poe had been experimenting with the conventions of detective fiction, himself. Many of his horror stories had also relied on the kind of third-act reveal, a twist—but one that is not figured out. Poe seemed to discover that the difference between a detective story and a horror story was the inclusion of a character who could make sense of the mysterious events going on. Horror stories are mysteries without someone to explain them. I submit that in his stories leading up to the Dupin tales, Poe had been experimenting with “bad” or “failed” detectives, in this way. In 1839, he wrote the short story “William Wilson,” which features a man driven mad by the perception of his own doppelgänger, who does not realize until he fatally stabs him, that his doppelgänger was his own reflection—himself. In 1840, he wrote “The Man of the Crowd,” a story about a man who believes that there is a man walking around London who is able to change his appearance subtly to blend in with the different groups he encounters. The narrator believes that something about this ability is ambiguously criminal and he pursues that man until he cannot do it anymore, unable to figure out what it is that the man wants or has done. Thus, until his stories about a detective searching for clues, many of Poe’s stories come to act as clues in the mystery of an author searching for his detective. It is almost impossible to overstate the significance of Poe’s discovery—not only for his career, but also for history. Detective fiction is commonly regarded as decidedly non-academic. But academia would be nowhere without Poe or Dupin. The famed Columbia drama professor Brander Matthews wrote, “The true detective story as Poe conceived it is not in the mystery itself, but rather in the successive steps whereby the analytic observer is enabled to solve the problem that might be dismissed as beyond human elucidation.” It was not long—only about a century—before scholars began to become to drawn to Poe. Indeed, Dupin’s greatest impact might lay outside of mystery novels, and inside the broader, later field of literary criticism. Dupin’s ability to read extraordinary meaning into clues makes him rather the first semiotician (or scholar devoted to figuring out the relationship between language and meaning), elucidating the relationship between signs, signifiers, and ‘signifieds’ more than a century before Ferdinand de Saussure published his work on the subject in 1966—particularly because Dupin finds his clues through linguistics rather than physical objects. (For more on Poe and semiotics and much more, I recommend the edited collection The Purloined Poe: Lacan, Derrida, and Psychoanalytic Reading.) A reminder that, in “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” he deduces the whole solution because of two words allegedly spoken during the crime; “Upon these two words [‘mon Dieu!’]…I have mainly built my hopes of a full solution of the riddle.” Poe knew that he was onto something, with Dupin. So he wrote a sequel. By that “The Murder of Marie Roget” begins, Dupin is a minor celebrity. The story of how he solved the Murders in the Rue Morgue has catapulted him to fame. But domestic life has gone on as normal… as usual, Dupin regales his narrator friend with his ratiocination, all the time—often seeming to predict what his friend is thinking and finishing his sentences. His friend has remained astounded at the way Dupin has been able to solve the Rue Morgue murders but does not imagine that his friend’s parlor trick will ever be used in such a serious manner ever again. Until a year later. That’s when Dupin reads in the paper that the body of a beautiful young woman, a perfume saleswoman who had previously gone missing, has been found floating in the Seine. Dupin’s friend gets a detailed account of the police investigation from the prefecture and brings it home. Together, they read everything they can about it. ““I need scarcely tell you,” said Dupin, as he finished the perusal of my notes, “that this is a far more intricate case than that of the Rue Morgue; from which it differs in one important respect. This is an ordinary, although an atrocious instance of crime. There is nothing peculiarly outré about it. You will observe that, for this reason, the mystery has been considered easy, when, for this reason, it should have been considered difficult, of solution. And yet, despite its ordinariness and therefore its complexity, Dupin can solve the whole thing without leaving his home. From what he has read, he can recreate the entire affair in his mind—and names the murderer. Poe thought this was an even more interesting story than his previous detective tale—partially because he had based it on a real tragedy, the murder of a beautiful young woman, a tobacco store employee, named Mary Cecilia Rogers in 1941. Her body was found in the Hudson. Poe believed that, in fictionalizing her story, he was getting at the heart of the mystery, not unlike his detective. He attempted to sell it to magazines claiming that he had solved the mystery of Mary’s death, via his story. The impertinence of that claim aside, Poe believed that there was much more to represent, regarding an amateur detective, an armchair detective’s ability to think through a crime to the point of solving it. His final Dupin story, “The Purloined Letter,” is the epitome of this interest. By this time, Dupin is so well known that the police prefect asks for his help. The queen has had a letter stolen from her bedroom by a sneaky associate of hers, who has now been using it to blackmail her. The police have searched that man’s rooms but have found nothing. They are desperate. The prefect returns a while later, promising Dupin 50,000 francs if he can help them locate the letter. Dupin asks the prefect to write the check right there, and he does. At that moment, Dupin produces the letter, himself. Dupin’s friend is astounded—how had he found it? Dupin explains that he had divined that the blackmailer had anticipated that the police would search high and low for the note, and so hid it in plain sight. Dupin had visited the blackmailer and searched for a letter in an obvious place. He found it—noticing that it was disguised by having been folded inside out and re-sealed it with a new seal. He returns the next day, and, in time with a distraction he has arranged, switches out the letter for an imitation he has made himself. That year, in 1844, Poe wrote to a friend that “The Purloined Letter” was the best of his three tales of ratiocination. And he was right. The scholar Thomas Ollive Mabbit suggests that its superiority lies in its complete move away from the sensational towards the intellectual. Indeed, let’s observe the progress of the Dupin stories. The first one, a true “sensation” story, was designed to shock as much as amaze. The second combines the sensation of the first (the surprising, gruesome discovery of the corpse of a beautiful woman) with tremendous mental gymnastics. And finally, “The Purloined Letter” is purely an intellectual exercise—the epitome of the detective story as a puzzle, a riddle, a game. It is because of this final story, more than the others, that Dupin changed the course of mystery fiction. There were several mediocre film adaptations of the first two stories, but that’s not what I mean. Not only did he create the gentleman sleuth archetype which would become so ubiquitous in mystery fiction’s Golden Age during the first half of the twentieth century, but he also provided a model for the detective story to be, first and foremost, more concerned with the puzzle of the mystery, than the material concerns of the associated crime or death. Most obviously, though, Dupin provided a template for what the intellectual sleuth would look like—a template that was borrowed, time and time again. Dupin is a brilliant man whose roommate chronicles his incredible feats of crime-solving, most of which he does not need to leave his home to complete. Years later, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, “Each [of Poe’s detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed… Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?” Indeed, Doyle construed his detective Sherlock Holmes as an intellectual descendant of Holmes, having Watson (who also participates in a lineage offered by the Dupin stories, but of Dupin’s supportive narrator/chronicler and friend) cite Dupin upon first witnessing Holmes’s deductive genius.’‘You remind me of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin,’” he tells Sherlock Holmes in their inaugural novella, A Study in Scarlet, in 1887. ‘“I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories.”’ And yet Holmes is snide about this bit of praise: “No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin. Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.” Except, of course, that he was. Holmes doesn’t know it, but he, himself, wouldn’t have existed without Dupin. Virtually none of the detectives in the stories we know today would have existed without him. Thank you. View the full article -
0
The Best Reviewed Books of the Month: April 2024
A look at the month’s best new releases in crime fiction, mystery, and thrillers, via Bookmarks. * Don Winslow, City in Ruins (William Morrow) “Winslow has written a near-perfect saga: He’s created great characters who grow and develop while remaining true to their essence, and a sweeping story that morphs and expands over time, with the stakes escalating until they reach nosebleed heights at the end.” –Alma Katsu (Washington Post) Karen Jennings, Crooked Seeds (Hogarth) “It’s been years since I read a book that strained the Likability Principle so viscerally … This novel couldn’t be any more overwhelming if it came in a scratch ’n’ sniff edition … The real artistry of Crooked Seeds lies in Jennings’s ability to make this story feel so propulsive … Urgent.” –Ron Charles (Washington Post) Dervla McTiernan, What Happened to Nina? (William Morrow) “Painfully gripping … Despite its title, the central question posed by this disturbing, enthralling book is less concerned with what happened to Nina (you’ll find out soon enough), but how the parents — all broken, terrified and desperate in their own ways — respond to the exigencies of the moment. The last scene will make your blood run cold.” –Sarah Lyall (New York Times Book Review) Nicholas Shakespeare, Ian Fleming: The Complete Man (Harper) “A monumental edifice of a book that at first glance seems somewhat daunting … Entire eras materialize in artful sketches while the portrait of Fleming acquires texture and shade with each trial and triumph.” –Anna Mundow (Wall Street Journal) Rena Peterson, The King of Diamonds (Pegasus) “As much a sociological study of upper-crust Dallas society as a true crime story, enlivened by [Pederson’s] sprightly writing style … King of Diamonds is an enjoyable read, in large measure because of Pederson’s extensive, high-quality research, obtaining compelling info from and about her subjects.” –Curt Schleier (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) View the full article -
0
The Five Best Novels About Hauntings
My theory is that everyone has one of these stories. Perhaps it was a place you grew up in where random objects would vanish – you swore you put your keys on the sideboard and now there’s just a blank space where they were. Maybe your girlfriend lived in a house that produced unexplainable sounds – ‘no, there’s no one upstairs, it just sounds like someone is walking up there sometimes.’ Or perhaps it was a tiny but powerful thing – you walked into the ruin of an old church on a fiercely sunny day only to feel a chill settle over your bones. You’re not supposed to be here. This place is bad. For me, stories about hauntings have two key ingredients. The first is one often shared with crime and thriller novels: the past encroaching on the present. Usually, someone in the past has done something unforgivable and not experienced any consequences, and it has ramifications in the present. In your classic crime or thriller novel, a detective, amateur sleuth or unreliable narrator will be the agent looking to uncover what happened, and ultimately bring those consequences to bear. In a novel about a haunting, it’s usually a ghost who fulfils this role. Or a whole team of ghosts. The second ingredient is location, location, location. Hauntings are often about places, and it was this idea that was the seed of The Hungry Dark. We’re familiar with haunted houses, haunted hotels – haunted graveyards, naturally – but what if the Bad Place was a wild place, a place of nature? The idea of the Bad Place is one that has intrigued and excited me since I picked up my first Stephen King book (Needful Things, I was ten) and I personally find that the greatest scary books really understand this idea. Here are my five favourite books about Hauntings (which are really books about Bad Places, and Terrible People): The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson It is probably illegal to have a list about hauntings without including the grandmother of the modern horror novel. Shirley Jackson was the undisputed queen of the unsettling undercurrent, and by the time Eleanor arrives at Hill House with all her mental baggage, we already know that something is terribly wrong, and that the house is going to draw it out of her like a poison. Except it won’t be a healing experience. The Haunting of Hill House also contains probably the greatest opening lines in a novel ever: ‘No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.’ Please read that and tell me you are not terrified of Hill House. I still wake up in a sweat sometimes with the words ‘Hill House, not sane’ bouncing around my head. Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel Now you could say that I am throwing out my thesis in my second example, because surely Hilary Mantel’s wonderful book about a genuine psychic haunted by the ghosts of her past is not about place at all, but about Alison herself, a woman slowly run ragged by the diabolical men, long dead, who made her childhood a living hell. I would argue that it is still very much about place. In Beyond Black, the very landscape of England feels haunted as Alison flits between pubs and working men’s clubs, plying her trade. Here, you feel, you can’t walk down the road without being accosted by some dreadful little spirit. And the idea of England being thick with spirits and strangeness is present in Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall trilogy too. I think Mantel understood the nature of haunting better than any of us. The Shining by Stephen King The Overlook hotel might be the ultimate Bad Place novel. You know the story already: Jack Torrance agrees to be the winter caretaker at an isolated hotel, bringing his wife and young son with him. Only there are dark forces at work in the Overlook, and they want Jack to stay forever, and ever, and ever… Stephen King is probably the master of the Bad Place novel, and I’ve no doubt that my love for them comes from an early exposure to his work. From Castle Rock, the chaotic New England town that draws weirdness to it like a magnet, to Derry, home to a psychotic child-eating cosmic clown, King delights in creating locations that bring out the very worst in people. Dark Matter by Michelle Paver In the 1930s, a young working-class man called Jack signs up for an expedition to the arctic region of Svalberd and through a series of unfortunate events finds himself manning an outpost there alone, through the unending darkness of an arctic winter. And of course, he isn’t quite alone, after all… If you’re afraid of the dark and you feel like scaring yourself silly, Dark Matter is the novel for you. Here, the intensely logical Jack tells himself there is nothing to fear – the darkness never hurt anyone, right? – but he hasn’t contended with the bloody history of the bay of Gruhuken, and the fact that some Bad Places never forget. Cold and claustrophobic and genuinely haunting. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters The Little Stranger feels like your classic haunted house story, one that could perhaps rub shoulders with M. R. James or Charles Dickens (when Dickens was in a spooky mood). A country doctor befriends the well-to-do family at Hundreds Hall, a rambling country house long since past it’s best, and is on hand when strange happenings start to make the place unliveable. It feels like a classic haunting, but being Sarah Waters, it’s much more complicated than that. Under the surface the tensions of class, sexuality and trauma pull at the narrator until tragedy strikes, and the reader is left wondering: what exactly was the malevolent force at Hundreds Hall? *** View the full article
-