Writers in the Storm

By Barbara Claypole White

Before the launch of my debut novel, THE UNFINISHED GARDEN, I lost 5lbs to performance terror. Painfully shy as a teenager, my mother and music teacher once had to conspire to sneak Valium backstage so I could perform a solo in the high school band. (It’s okay, we’re talking about the seventies.) Bottom line? I was never having a career that involved podiums or microphones.

The day of my first author reading, I attained a catatonic state of anxiety so complete that I believed my heart would stop as I opened my mouth to whisper, “Hello, I’m Barbara.” For someone with high blood pressure and a family history of heart troubles, that’s not an irrational fear.

Three months ago I launched my second novel, THE IN-BETWEEN HOUR, with an extra 5lbs and a normal case of the jitters. What had changed from one book to the next? Endless exposure to my fear, which is standard treatment for an anxiety disorder? A slew of polished performances? Nope. Acceptance was the key.

I learned to accept that my flaws are part of my performance. Peel back my nerves about author events and you reveal the underlying fear—that instead of projecting the professional author persona, I would crack jokes, loose track of my thoughts, rumble off on tangents, and speak from the heart. Maybe even get a little tearful or start talking about my favorite gin. I routinely do all these things in my author events and they seem to work. As I open myself up to strangers, they open up to me. The comment I hear most often is, “You’re so real.” (And then we have great discussions about my favorite topic: invisible disabilities.)

Does this mean I’m a flake who doesn’t prepare her talks? Au contraire, my friends. I prepare the heck out of every event, but I leave enough wiggle room so that I can be me—so that I can veer off on tangents and go wherever the mood takes me. I like to think of it as prepared spontaneity.

Back to basics, how do I achieve a non-catatonic state of performance being?

(1)  I go to loads of readings and watch A-list authors. I take notes and time their presentations. (I like to figure out how long they spend discussing the book, how long they read for, how long they leave for questions, etc.)

(2) I practice, practice, practice…. (Often I do this in the car, which means I get very strange looks at stoplights.)

(3) When I’ve figure out what I want to say, I give a dummy performance to the toughest critic I know: my husband. I’m cheating a little here, since my beloved is an internationally-renowned academic and a master performer. Really, I couldn’t pick a better coach.

(4) After my husband has told me what works and what doesn’t, I create a crib sheet with bullet points. As long as I cover those bullet points, I can be loosey-goosey. Also, if I get too far off track, I can glance down to see what I haven’t covered and rein myself it.

(5) Then I close my office door and using my crib sheet, I practice with a timer until the presentation works. This gives me a sense of how much I can talk around one particular point (for example, why I write about mental illness).

(6) I prepare several presentations of different length. This is key for book clubs. Some book clubs want a real performance; others want a brief introduction before discussion time. Again, if you’re prepared, you can seem spontaneous (even though you’re really not).

(7) I devote a huge chunk of time to practicing the reading portion of my event, marking words I stumble over or places where I want to pause to give backstory, inject an aside, or simply make use of silence.

(8) When my brain does implode mid-flow, which it did twice in a recent event, I turn it over to the audience and say, “There goes my middle-aged woman’s brain. What was I talking about?” When people shout out answers, you get to play twenty questions. :-)

(9) If the nerves return to haunt me, I remind myself that I AM the leading expert in the world on my novel. Yes, we all make mistakes in research, but nothing you say about your characters or why you wrote the story can ever be wrong. You are performing your book. This is your passion, your creation, your baby. Be yourself and be proud.

What tricks do you have for getting through author events or other speaking engagements?

About Barbara

Barbara Claypole White writes and gardens in the forests of North Carolina. English born and educated, she’s married to an internationally-acclaimed academic. Their son, an award-winning poet/musician, attends college in the Midwest. His battles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have inspired her to write love stories about damaged people. THE UNFINISHED GARDEN, a love story about grief, OCD, and dirt, won the 2013 Golden Quill for Best First Book. Barbara’s second novel, THE IN-BETWEEN HOUR, a story of two broken families released on December 31.

Connect with Barbara on her website, Facebook or Twitter

by Susan Spann

Sherlock Holmes. Jane Marple. Jack Reacher.

Three famous names with something important in common … aside from the fact that each of them solves crimes in mystery or thriller novels.

What is this common element?

Readers love them.

The key to writing successful mysteries and thrillers doesn’t lie in careful plotting, clever crimes, or sneaky suspects. The heart of these stories beats in the chest of the sleuth.

Everyone enjoys a puzzle, and a tightly-woven plot is important, but readers return to a mystery (or thriller) series because they want to spend more time with a favorite hero(ine). Solving the puzzle is much more fun when you “ride along” with a friend, and a well-written sleuth is a reader’s friend indeed.

So before you sit down to commit—and solve—the initial crime in your manuscript, hunt down a compelling hero (or heroine) your readers will remember long after they turn the final page.

How do you “find” such a person? Let’s look at a few of the characteristics that most successful sleuths (and thriller-heroes) have in common:

1. Unusual Occupations. Many authors assume a sleuth must be a professional. The mystery and thriller shelves are filled with FBI agents, police, and forensic specialists doing their best to catch the killer and save the world.

But with so many “standard” crime solvers already in circulation, sometimes readers like to see a different kind of sleuth.

Brother Cadfael is a monk. Miss Marple, a widow. My own detective, Hiro Hattori, is a ninja.

Giving your hero a lesser-known occupation opens new worlds for the reader and also allows you a different range of crime-solving skills. Be creative! Your readers will love the change.

2. A Limp, An Eyepatch, and Battle Scars. In his popular screenwriting how-to, SAVE THE CAT, Blake Snyder recommends giving every character “a limp and an eyepatch” to distinguish him (or her) from the other characters in the scene. The idea applies to novels, too, and a good detective always has an unusual physical characteristic (or “tell”).

The characteristic can either relate your sleuth’s physical appearance—Is he missing an eye or a finger? Does she dye her eyebrows green?—or you can use it to establish a mood or reaction. My detective, Hiro Hattori, has a tendency to raise an eyebrow for ironic effect. His sidekick, Father Mateo, runs a hand through his hair when distressed or upset.

In addition to adding uniqueness and depth of character, physical characteristics can become an effective shorthand for a character’s mood or thought.

3. And Also, a Trunk Full of Baggage. Special Agent Gibbs (of NCIS) lost his wife and daughter (they were murdered by a drug lord). Jack Reacher has a shadowed past, and lives like he’s on the run. Miss Marple never married, and she’s crotchety as the day is long.

Nobody’s perfect, and your sleuth should not be, either. Every person has experienced disappointment, injury, and unresolved issues (or broken dreams). Your hero needs to suffer, too.

Whether the suffering happens onstage (for example, the death of a family member) or off (a tragedy or problem in the past) is up to you. But you must do something. Readers respond to damaged heroes. Watching a character overcome her own problems to help someone else is compelling on many levels.

Take a hammer to your sleuth’s emotional kneecaps. Use your plot or series to help him recover.

Your readers will love you—and your detective—for it.

4. Keep the Skeletons IN the Closet (Mostly). A good detective or thriller hero must feel like a real person, which almost always involves an extensive and detailed backstory.

Readers hate backstory. Flights of memory, or fancy, interrupt the flow of the narrative and distract from the sleuth’s objective: solving the crime.

The answer? Treat your detective’s backstory like a good mystery: drop some clues, but don’t reveal the entire thing. Spread the story across the series. Hide it in the stories like an Easter bunny dropping chocolate eggs. (Don’t spend too long on that metaphor. You don’t want to think about where those “chocolates” come from…)

By keeping your hero’s skeletons IN the closet, except for occasional peeks, you’ll keep your readers engaged, intrigued, and eager for the next reveal.

5. It’s Dangerous to Go Alone ... Some sleuths do solve crimes alone, but most of them have a sidekick, a pet, or both. Sidekicks serve an important purpose (which, hopefully, I’ll get to share in more detail next month). Pets do too. They humanize the hero(ine) and draw the reader closer. Incorporating one, or both, allows the writer to bring the reader right into the story, alongside the sleuth, and to see the sleuth behaving like a human being as well as a hero.

The choices are limitless, and the options as wide as your imagination.

You don’t have to integrate all of these tips to create a fantastic, compelling sleuth. Select the ones that work for you, and ignore the ones that don’t. Even if you work with only one or two of these options, you’ll find your hero becoming increasingly three-dimensional and intriguing … characteristics that keep your readers coming back for more.

Have you ever thought about writing a mystery? How about a thriller? Do you use some or all of these elements when creating your protagonists? (They work in other genres too, you know!)

About Susan

Susan Spann is a California publishing and business attorney who also writes the Shinobi Mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori. Her debut novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT (Minotaur Books, 2013), was a Library Journal Mystery Debut of the Month. Her second novel, BLADE OF THE SAMURAI, releases July 15, 2014. Susan’s legal practice focuses on publishing law and business. When not writing or practicing law, she raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium. You can find her online at her website, http://www.SusanSpann.com, and on Twitter (@SusanSpann).

 

We’re excited to announce that Writers In The Storm was named in the 15th Annual Writer's Digest "101 Top Blogs for Writers" list! And to show our thanks to our amazing guest bloggers and readers, we're throwing open the comments today for a little “Pimp and Promote.”

How does this work?

To quote Genie in Aladdin, "There are a few provisos, a couple of quid-pro-quos" ...

• Pimp out somebody else’s work – this can be a favorite author, blogger, post or book you’ve read, a wonderful teacher or just someone who had profound influence on you as a writer or a person.
  
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• Promote one of your projects that you’re excited about – a hobby, a blog, a book, a new direction your writing is taking you. You decide. Just tell us all about it in the comments! The rest of us will jump in and “ooooh and coo” at you, and likely promote your project even further (because we're just so darn excited today).

Better yet, do one of each! And please peruse the comments. You might find something else you like in the plethora of pimping that’s about to ensue.

Thanks again for making WITS one of the top writer's blogs! We appreciate you.

~ Fae, Jenny, Laura, Orly and Sharla