Working Outside Your Comfort Zone

The Venn diagram to the right represents my writing life for the last few weeks. No matter what I’ve done, those two circles simply aren’t intersecting for me on the new project we’re working on.

Ann and I now have two novels in our forensic mystery series under our belt. To keep things fresh and to expand our range, we’ve moved on to a proposal for a new standalone thriller. But it’s become very clear to me in the last few weeks that I’m having a major disconnect with this project.

I know exactly what my problem is, and a lot of it stems from my own process. When it came to learning the background for our forensics series, it took me years to learn the field of forensic anthropology to the point that I felt comfortable in my own knowledge base. I’m not a certified forensic anthropologist, but I play one in fiction. Also, by this time, the characters we crafted for the series are like old friends and practically write themselves. Ann and I often have conversations around current world news from the angle of what would Matt and Leigh think of this? They’re real people to us.

To make things worse, while working with a partner is amazing, there are some moments when Ann can’t help me, and this is one of them. Ann is an equal partner in research, story planning and editing/revising, but I do all the writing. So for me to feel comfortable in that role, I have to have all the required information in my head, and that’s where I’m hitting a wall. I’ve spent weeks researching, but the scope of what we’ve got planned is frankly scaring the heck out of me. The bottom line is that I need a solid basis or I can’t write. Currently, I’m not there yet and I know it. I know what the issues are—new material and characters, a huge story scope and, most of all, the fear of getting it wrong. So far this project feels like walking over broken glass and my gut instinct is to simply stop in my tracks (when I’d rather go weed the garden than write, I know I’ve got a problem!).

So what’s next?

Well, first of all, a serious kick in the pants is in order. Time to stop waffling and get my head in the game. Next, I need to give myself permission to get it wrong. This is a first draft, not the galleys. If I make a mistake, Ann will almost certainly catch it. In the meantime, getting some skilled people on board as technical consultants in areas where both of us could use some assistance is already in progress. Also, it’s a proposal, not the full manuscript. If we sell it, there are certain people I need to talk to, people that are too busy and important for me to bother until we make a sale; those people will absolutely have the information I may not have myself at this time. I need to give myself a break and get down to some serious work, keeping in mind that it really is a work in progress, and recognizing that sometimes the magic can happen outside of my current comfort zone, if I let it.

Have any of you had problems starting a new project? Is perfection an issue for you? How did you get over the hurdle of actually getting the ball rolling?

Forensic Case Files: Skeletons Unearthed at Toronto’s Old Don Jail

The Don Jail, circa 1864.Today’s forensic case file hits close to home for me as it’s a local tale, centered in Toronto, Ontario. Originally named the Don Gaol, the Old Don Jail was built in the early 1860’s in what is now just east of modern downtown Toronto. Conditions inside the jail were so abysmal, time served was typically padded by doubling or sometimes tripling the official number of days for each actual day served within its walls.

Since capital punishment wasn’t abolished in Canada until 1976, the Old Don Jail was the site of a number of hangings. In fact, Canada’s most notorious hangman, Arthur Ellis (from whom the annual awards for the Crime Writers of Canada take their name), carried out some of his three hundred hangings at the Old Don Jail. Originally held on an outdoor scaffold as part of a public spectacle, hangings were moved to a more modern and private indoor gallows in 1908. Thirty-four men were hanged at the jail, with a double hanging on December 11, 1962 being the last of Canada’s executions.

The Old Don Jail closed in 1977 and prisoners were moved to the new section of the penitentiary built in 1958. Officially named the Toronto Jail, it is still known to locals as the Don Jail.

In 2007, as renovations to the Old Don Jail building were underway, human remains were discovered beneath a parking lot north of the original building. For decades, stories of a hangman’s graveyard on the premises had persisted; finally there was irrefutable proof. After a full excavation, the remains of fifteen men were uncovered. Over time, forensic experts have identified many of the remains based on grave goods and research into historical newspaper articles and jail records. Grave artifacts showed that the men had been buried in plain pine coffins, all now lost to the weathering of time. Many of the skulls showed signs of a cranial autopsy, typically performed during those times on executed convicts, and many showed vertebral fractures from the hangman’s noose. At least one of the men also showed the significant ravages of syphilis on his skull.

The men were buried between 1870 and 1930. With one exception (where one of the fathers of Confederation, George Brown, fell victim to a gunshot to the leg), all the men had committed murder—from infant drowning, to violent robberies, to hatchet and knife attacks, to the murder of a police officer or a prison guard.

The Toronto Jail itself will soon be closed and demolished, its prisoners moved to the newly constructed South Toronto Detention Center. Fortunately, the Old Don building has been purchased by Bridgepoint Health. Slated to re-open in 2013 as the new administrative offices to the adjacent Bridgepoint Hospital, refurbishment plans include a full external restoration, restoring the skylight and glass floor of the central rotunda and maintaining as much of the original 19th-century architecture as possible.

But the building’s original history will not be forgotten. Several cells and the gallows in the basement will be preserved as part of a historical display and Bridgepoint intends to make it a publically accessible site, returning this piece of history back to Torontonians.

Photo credit: Canadian Heritage Gallery and CTV News

Gayle Lynds’ 9 Secrets to Bestselling Thrillers

Earlier this month, I attended Bloody Words 2012 in Toronto. New York Times bestselling thriller writer Gayle Lynds attended as the International Guest of Honour, speaking at the gala banquet and sitting on several panels. Gayle was wonderful to listen to—well-spoken and vivacious, she kept the audience both enraptured and laughing at her anecdotes.

Gayle spoke at a session called ‘9 Secrets to Bestselling Thrillers’. The session was excellent, especially from the point of view of an author who is settling into a thriller project herself.

So what are Gayle’s tried and true secrets?

1. Larger than life characters: Big characters that do big things. These characters don’t have to start out larger than life. Often taking ordinary people who then do extraordinary things will fulfill this concept in a much more satisfying way.
2. What’s the dramatic question?: Knowing what your book is about will help you determine which details aren’t needed in order to eliminate unnecessary confusion.
3. High stakes: Thriller stakes often tend to affect a group, rather than an individual. The group in question could be as big as a nation or state, or it could be smaller, like a school. But the protagonist must have not only a personal investment in those stakes, but an investment in the larger group as well. The stakes involved must also be significant enough to capture the reader’s imagination.
4. Riveting concept: Also known as ‘high concept’, this is essentially a catchy idea that makes a story bulletproof; a focusing concept that makes it larger than life. Michael Crichton was a great high concept thinker (i.e. The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park and many others).
5. Multiple viewpoints: Giving expression to multiple major characters helps thrillers have an expansive scope. As a thriller writer, you want your reader invested in every character, and to do that you not only need a fully fledged hero, but a fully fleshed villain as well.
6. Exotic setting: Thrillers are often an adventure in another world, but those surroundings don’t have to be a jungle to be considered ‘exotic’. It simply has to be a setting the average reader isn’t familiar with. When Arthur Hailey wrote Airport he set his novel in a familiar location, but then explored the unknowns of that locale to such a degree that it became an exotic setting.
7. Mood and tone: While mood and atmosphere are important in any book, in a thriller they need to be secondary to the story, at least in the beginning. Once the plot is moving, we can start to see description through the eyes of the POV characters.
8. Suspense: Jeopardy and malice are the cornerstones of a thriller—jeopardy for the protagonist and malice from the villain. The story needs to start as close to the end as possible, with maximum time compression. This means the author has to be very careful about choosing scenes, including only those that are truly necessary to the rising action. Another important point is to always give the reader small moments to breathe through the action or the story becomes exhausting.
9. Finale: A satisfying ending is imperative and all the key threads must be tied together. If you are left with a subplot thread that remains unresolved, then it likely wasn’t needed in the first place. The resolution must at least be for that moment; while perhaps not a happy ending, the finale must at least be grounded in realism.

It was an excellent session and definitely gave me some techniques to think about. Thank you, Gayle, for sharing your knowledge and experience with us!

Photo credit: Gayle Lynds

Plausible vs. Authentic Fiction

As a mystery/thriller writer who tries to write within the existing conventions of science and law enforcement, I want to write the world as accurately as possible. But when does that authenticity actually become a detriment to the story itself?

As fiction writers, we need to write plausible as opposed to authentic fiction. Authentic fiction is starkly realistic—yes, it really can take a minimum of six months for DNA results to come back from some state labs—but that kind detail can get in the way of writing a gripping story. Worse, if we wrote realistic details like a private investigator on surveillance duty for twenty days straight without a single lead, it would be boring for the reader (and the author). This is where plausible fiction comes into play.

Plausible fiction is realistic writing where the rules are bent just enough to allow for good storytelling. It’s been said that police work is 95% boredom and 5% sheer terror. Plausible storytelling concentrates on the more exciting aspects while downplaying the mundane.

As a crime writer, there are many aspects of real police work that impede drama:

• Cases that stall for long periods of time, or, worse, go cold.

• Charges that are withdrawn, or suspects who plead out to lesser charges before trial.

• Cases that are transferred to a different officer so the originating officer never knows the resolution of the case.

• Physical confrontations that end almost before they begin, with a clear winner that allows for almost no dramatic action.

• The reality of handgun accuracy in real situations—the shooter that is 95% accurate at the range will be only 18% accurate in a crisis.

One of the keys to writing mystery/crime fiction for me is the opportunity for a resolution that delivers dramatic emotional justice. But, in real life, there are many times when cases close with no closure for the victims. Emotional justice is important to readers, and it’s important to me as the writer. Writing plausible fiction allows us to craft a satisfying ending.

Authenticity isn’t all bad. There are ways to use the dictates of authenticity to give your story a heightened dramatic moment—guns that actually run out of bullets or wounds that put your hero at a serious physical disadvantage. These are opportunities to allow your protagonist to really stand above his or her disadvantage, all while remaining realistic.

Plausible fiction is not just for crime writers. There are many aspects to everyday life that never make their way into novels simply because they are too mundane to advance the plot at a rapid pace.

A question for other writers: Have you had to cut some authenticity from your own work to allow storytelling the advantage over realism? Did you feel you were successful?

Photo credit: Mythbusters