Good Tippers

 

In these days of rising costs and financial funk, writers are having to take a harder look at the bottom line, which often means cutting out trips to conferences, especially far-flung ones like the Maui Writers Conference earlier this month. In case you did miss it, Lee Pletzers has kindly listed the "10 Basic Ingredients of a Successful Thriller," which author Gary Braver (Flashback, Gray Matter) discussed at the conference. A lot of these are similar to what other writers in other crime fiction genres will tell you, but they're important enough to reiterate, especially #1, which really is number one, "You need to have a good story."

Another thriller writer at the same conference, Steve Berry (The Venetian Betrayal, The Templar Legacy), had a different take on the craft with his "8 Rules of Writing." The first is the both the most frustrating and the most liberating, "There are no rules. You can do anything you want as long as it works." The problem, of course, is learning how to write "what works," and realizing that the definition of that concept can vary from one reader, one agent, one editor, and one publisher to another.

A third thriller writer, Patrick Lennon (Steel Witches, Corn Dolls), was one of the many authors appearing at the first ever Reading (UK) Festival of Crime Writing last week. You can both listen to and read some of his writing tips on the BBC's web site.

Writer's Digest is also helping out with its Writers Sessions On Demand. They've collected instructional sessions, workshops, panel discussions and interviews from ThrillerFest and the Maui Writers Conference (coming soon). They're not free, as you have to purchase the streaming videos individually or in a bundle, but it's still much less expensive than what it would cost to attend the conference (especially factoring in airfare, hotel, food, etc.).

Ultimately, nothing can replace the face-to-face contacts a writer makes at a conference, but it's nice to know there are a few options to help out while you're waiting for that winning lottery ticke

Let's Hear It For the Boys

 

Yesterday I posted links to some recent profiles of female crime fiction authors appearing in the press, and today's it's time for the men to get their just due.

The Australian interviewed stand-up comedian and author Mark Billingham, creator of seven Detective Inspector Tom Thorne novels and his most recent offering, the standalone thriller In the Dark. "People ask me where I get my twisted ideas from and I always say that it's the exact same place that everyone gets them from. Who hasn't been cut off in traffic and wanted to exact some horrible revenge? I just get it out on the page, which is better than running around McDonald's with a machine gun."

The Chicago Times profiled author Michael A. Black, a 6-1, 255-pound black belt in tae kwon do who also wears the hat of Sgt. Michael Black of the Matteson Police Department, by day. "Being a police officer as long as I have [29 years], it's really fascinating the kind of people I meet on the job," he says. "I've always been a student of human nature."

The UK Times featured the venerable Dick Francis, the octagenarian author of dozens of horse-racing-themed mysteries. Last year Francis had a triple heart bypass and a foot amputated, yet as the interviewer noted, "he’s still the most commanding person in the room" and signs his postcards "Legless Dick."

Paul Johnston is another crime fiction author who has cheated death, suffering two bouts of cancer within five years, although like Dick Francis, he maintains a sense of humor: "A tennis ball," he snorts, "the tumour they found in my bowel was the size of a tennis ball. Quite what Roger Federer was doing hitting an ace up there, I have no idea." Best known for his Quint Dalrymple series set in a futuristic independent state of Edinburgh, he had the idea for a new series with hacked-off crime writer Matt Wells, the result of which was The Death List, a book he hammered out in just over a month, in a massive outpouring of 5000 words a day, driven by his battered emotional state.

Barry Forshaw of The Times Online wrote a tribute to Steig Larsson who died in Stockholm of a massive heart attack in 2004. Controversial life aside, Larsson will be best remembered by most (especially outside of his native Sweden) for his crime fiction trilogy, not yet published at his death, although they were under contract at the time. The first, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was released in 2005 in Swedish and will hit the U.S. in its English translation this month. His publisher talks of his overriding feeling for the writer being one of loss—the loss of a man who was both a crusader for honourable causes and a writer of exuberant skill.

Dennis Lehane was the subject of a Wall Street Journal account, taking a look at his latest novel which is a historical work titled The Given Day, centered on the Boston police riots of 1919. When asked if his career as a writer of crime fiction gave him skills to help move a story along, especially in a long literary like this one, he replied, "I think the first law of all writing is to keep things moving. It doesn't mean it has to move like a bullet train, it can be Dostoyevsky, but things keep moving. That's what the death of interesting fiction is: people sitting in rooms talking about their mothers."

A Dallas Morning News article titled "Cuban writer Leonardo Padura uses crime fiction to write about political realities" discusses how well the author's characters deal with constant hardships of life in modern Cuba, including shortages of food, limited opportunities and a heavy-handed government bureaucracy. As to why Padura chose crime stories as his backdrop, he said "I decided a long time ago to write them because from the time I was a simple reader I really liked police novels. I decided to utilize the police novel because it seemed to me that it was a good vehicle to show the Cuban social reality."

Daniel Silva, author of ten bestsellers, is known for using real-world scenarios as a backdrop and for incorporating serious research into the plotting of his stories. "The research is a joy. I love researching and spending time developing characters. For the year a book is running around in my head, I am probably reading 100 books, soaking their information into my head. No one else can do that for me."

The South Florida Sun Sentinel featured debut writer Rich Wicklifee (Tropical Windfall) who manages a team of insurance investigators, which provides good fodder for his writing. "There is no shortage of crazy stories. I walk around with fresh ideas every day. I started writing two years ago, but it is not easy when you have a family and a job. It took me a year and a half to finish the novel. My contacts in law enforcement, DEA, Border Patrol and legal experts helped me keep things as accurate as possible."