REVIEWERS CHOICE, SCRIBESWORLD

A while back, SECOND GENERATION, one of my Amber Quill books, was a Reviewers Choice at ScribesWorld. That was wonderful to re-visit, since I was planning on telling y’all about this book anyway (you can read the first chapter here on my website) because of all the hoo-ha going on lately about whether or not a woman can, or even should, be elected President or Vice President of the US. Even women, who should definitely know better, sometimes oppose it, but then it’s always been my contention that we women are all too often our own worst enemies.

I think it’s more than possible, even desireable, and so did Leigh, my heroine, even way back in the eighties and in fact, earlier. She had thoughts about it as a very young girl. This book, which took me a long time to write because of all the historical events intertwined with Leigh’s personal life, was also one of the most fun, although definitely the most difficult to write to date, although I’ve just started writing a much more difficult new one.

Basically, Second Generation is about a woman with high political ambition and what all she had to go through to achieve success. On the way to her success she made a lot of serious personal mistakes, some of which come back to haunt her when she looks as though she might succeed all the way, and she finally has to make a choice.

Women today, as in the eighties, face a tremendous challenge when they try to break through that invisible ceiling called the Presidency of the United States. It’s difficult to overcome any of the challenges, much less all of them, and so these women become misunderstood and maligned–although to be honest, not much more maligned than men who enter politics today. It’s just harder for women because to rise to that level, women have to have a certain degree of toughness that woman are generally not expected to have.

In other words, they can’t act like women.

Aside from all the other negative things the media dreams up, how they dress seems to be fair game. We’ve seen Hillary Clinton ridiculed for wearing pants suits (sort of understandable, having seen some of them), Nancy Pilosi is constantly maligned because of her couture suits (which are actually quite beautiful and her jewelry always matches the outfit), and of course there was Condi Rice and her so-called dominatrix outfit, which was simply a slick black suit and black spike heeled f*** me boots, perfect, I thought, for a political conference trip to Russia.

I’m wondering just what the detractors want. A dress and an apron, maybe, and carrying a potholder? We rarely if ever see male politicians made fun of because of their clothes, with the possible exception of John Kerry and his water-ski outfit, but cheesh. Striped spandex?

We’ve fought long and hard for equality for a long, long time. Second Generation goes into the problems Leigh had to even graduate with a law degree back in the Sixties, when women were less than six percent of law school graduates in the US. We’ve come a long, long way, baby, and women of today shouldn’t forget the power struggles others before us had, to get
us where we are now. It was, and still is, tough.

Second Generation is the story of a woman who had to be tough. She was one of the first strugglers.

Here’s the full review I was telling you about:

“SECOND GENERATION by Beth Anderson is a riveting read. The story is multi-layered and Leigh Shaunnessy, the focus character, is a fascinating, strong and determined woman.

Twenty-three emeralds, Leigh Shaunnessy’s legacy from her murdered father and stored in a safety deposit box, provide Leigh with security and allow her to reach for her dream of a career in politics. Leigh doesn’t know the story behind the gems. They represent her father’s revenge against the father of the boy he believes raped his daughter.

“Twenty-three emeralds — a curse or a blessing?

“Three men, each Leigh’s lover and the father of one of her children. Girardo, her schoolgirl friend and crush and the father of the daughter born in secrecy and given up for adoption. Ted Montagne, her real love and father of the daughter who dances to her own music. Ted is an astute politician who loves Leigh, but is unable to make a commitment. Jason Montagne, the man Leigh marries, Ted’s younger brother and the father of her son. Three men who impact her life.

“As Leigh reaches for a political plum, a vice-presidential nomination, her world is threatened. Girardo, now a Colombian drug lord, wants the emeralds, which he believes belonged to his
father. He starts a campaign to ruin Leigh’s children. She is faced with the loss of her dreams and a choice.

“SECOND GENERATION is an excellent read. The writing flows smoothly. Beth Anderson weaves politics and love with accents of history deftly.” —J.L. Walters, ScribesWorld

I thank you, Janet, for this honor. I hope the rest of you will give this book a try.

On another note, we’ve seen, over this weekend, the demise of Miss Snark’s blog as she disappears into the ether, never to return, with no real reason given, alas. I’m going to miss her. I usually checked her blog once a week just to see what was going on, because it was fun to read and she often gave a lot of dynamite, astute advice to newbies. I’ve mentioned it in my blog a couple of times.

I’ve always had a secret theory about Miss Snark, though. Being the suspicious cuss I am anyhow (I can and often do invent conspiracies out of the most minor events), I have never believed Miss Snark was really a female agent. I’ve always thought that whole thing was the invention of a very brilliant male writer, just having fun with the torrents of mainly female new writer fans.

Whoever he/she is, I got a kick out of it anyway. I’m going to miss her/him.

Love you all, you KNOW I do, and I do hope you’ll forgive me for indulging in my little spurt of Blatant Self-Promotion. I promise not to do it often. (Until I sell my next book.) (Which, my GOD, I hope is soon) Please come back again soon, y’all hear me? I’ll leave the porch light on for you.

Beth, sitting in for Hotclue this week. I had to lock her in the closet so I could do it, but hey, it was for a good cause, right?

Invisible Shield

This time, as I promised (since Hotclue is now in Cannes but promises to return next week) I’m interviewing author Scarlett Dean, whom I’ve known for some time and who is one of the rising stars in the mystery field. But let’s let her tell you all about herself.

BA: Morning, Scarlett! Glad to have you aboard Hotclue Live. How about first telling us all about your new book. When is it out, what’s the title, where does it take place, what’s it about, who’s your publisher, where can we buy it?

SD: My new book with Five Star Publishing, INVISIBLE SHIELD will be available to order through bookstores and amazon.com on April 30. It’s a paranormal mystery involving a female homicide detective in N.W. Indiana who has to solve her own murder.

BA: I hope a lot of people buy it! How did you get your idea for this particular book? It certainly is unique and I was wowed when I read it. Talk about an original concept, and the execution was terrific!

SD: I’m not sure what triggered it, but I remember thinking, “What if a homicide detective had to solve her own murder?” Shortly afterward, the main character, Lindsay Frost, came to me and I knew I had to write her story.

BA: Good thing you did or she would have haunted you forever. Was it a struggle to write your first actual mystery, or did you just kick back and have fun with it?

SD: Although my books are primarily paranormal or horror, they all have a mystery of some sort. So it wasn’t a difficult switch to move to a book that is primarily a mystery with paranormal elements.

BA: I can believe that. I felt, when I read it, that you had definitely come into your own as well as invented your own genre. What was the hardest part of writing it?

SD: I don’t recall any part of the book as difficult to write. The characters were so clear in my mind that it felt like the story wrote itself. I had so much fun it really wasn’t work at all.

BA: It does read as though you were having loads of fun writing it. That was the first thing I noticed when I read it and I loved that. How about giving us a couple of excerpts from your favorite pre-publication reviews?

SD: “A provocative series kickoff that may inaugurate a new subgenre, the paranormal police procedural…Kirkus Reviews.” And “An exhilarating mystery with a paranormal twist. Dean has created a fascinating afterlife, and Lindsay’s journey through it kept me turning the pages…Kelly Armstrong, author of Women of the Otherworld Series.”

BA: Great reviews, especially the Kirkus one, since they do seem to love slicing and dicing at times. Are you going to continue with horror, or stick with mystery for a while?

SD: I’ve already written the follow up to INVISIBLE SHIELD and I have an idea for a standalone horror novel.

BA: I’ve read the follow up too, folks, and it’s every bit as good and as much fun to read as the first in this series. You’re really on a heckuva roll, Scarlett. What other books have you had published?

SD: My first three books were with Amber Quill Press :

UNFINISHED BUSINESS (Paranormal) A used furniture salesman discovers it’s not the house that’s haunted, but the furnishings inside.

DESTINY’S CALL (Dark Romantic Fantasy) DNA researcher, Dr. Arianne Brasov must find a way to reverse her vampire curse through DNA manipulation or be forced to join her family’s dark reign forever.

THE ACADEMY (Horror) When a demon takes up residence at the Knollwood Academy for boys, the students learn the ultimate lesson in fear.

BA: Tell us about your background and what started you writing.

SD: I’ve always loved reading and eventually wrote short stories as a teen. I started writing seriously about sixteen years ago and find I’m happiest when I’m in the middle of a book.

BA: Ha! You left out that you published a magazine for a while. (With a mind like she has, who knows what all she’s left out, folks.) How does your family feel about your new career, Scarlett?

SD: I’m fortunate in that they’ve all been incredibly supportive.

BA: That you definitely are! What was your low point during all this ‘getting published’ thing?

SD: When I realized I had enough rejection slips to wallpaper my kitchen. Then Amber Quill Press took a chance on me with UNFINISHED BUSINESS.

BA: Your rejection wallpapering days are over forever, we hope. So what was your high point?

SD: When a cancer patient told me she read my book when she was up at night unable to sleep, and it took her mind off of her discomfort.

BA: That IS wonderful to hear. Makes it all worthwhile, in my humble opinion. (Although when was I ever humble?) Do you have hobbies that keep you sane while you’re writing?

SD: Not really. Writing is what keeps me sane. I do work out regularly to keep the circulation going, taking advantage of the time to troubleshoot plot kinks.

BA: (I’m glad she thinks she’s sane, heh heh heh.) Please describe your writing room, or where you write most of the time, and how you write–are you a plotter or a pantser?

SD: For years I wrote in my home office, but no matter how many Johnny Depp posters I put up, it was still the same four walls. So over the past year I’ve been able to write in different areas of the house, (except my teenage son’s room–I’m not that brave), using a laptop. My muse is much happier. As for how I write, I’d say I’m a vague plotter. Every story starts out with “What if?”, and then I start seeing a vague, or simplified plot come to life. After that, the characters lead the way. I know there are certain things that have to happen in the story, but how I get there isn’t generally planned.

BA: Do you have any time-honored or weird traditions that you feel you MUST do while you’re writing? (Like, mine is, I can’t write with my shoes on.)

SD: I don’t know about things I MUST do when I’m writing, but I’ve learned what I SHOULDN’T do–cook. I always burn the green beans when I put them on to simmer and go write. It’s happened so often it’s a standing joke in my house. But in my opinion, burned beans are a sign that I’m in the zone.

BA: We all hope you visit that zone often and don’t forget about the green beans, or else try the microwave, that might work out a little better for your family. What are your plans for the future?

SD: I’d like to travel, in part for pleasure, and also for research for future books.

BA: Last question in my endless quest to probe the minds of writers and other oddities: Do you have any hints for upcoming writers? What do you think is the most important thing for them to do or learn as they’re trying to break in?

SD: Be a reader first. It will help develop your writer’s voice. Also, don’t take rejection personally. Learn from it, if possible.

BA: Good advice and I couldn’t agree more. Thank you, Scarlett! Be seeing you on the Bestseller lists!

Folks, if you’d like to learn more about Scarlett, her website is at Scarlett Dean.com .

Come back again next week, please. Hotclue SWEARS she’ll be back to liven up your life a little and I’m not letting her get away again for a while. That is, unless she really wants to. Y’all know how she is, the little twerp. We love you all, you KNOW we do!

Beth and Hotclue and Sarge, who will soon be dispensing her brand new Fur Ball of the Week. Stay tuned!

DUKIN’ IT OUT / HEY, WHERE’S THE CONFLICT?

I think we need to have a little talk about conflict, what it is and what it’s not, in fiction, so here goes.

First, there are two different kinds of conflict, as editors speak of it. There’s outer conflict, the things people other than your protags do, and events that happen that cause problems FOR your protags. Things like in-laws, kids, snowstorms, hurricanes, tornados, sinking ships, biting dogs, money. The list goes on and on. All of these conflicts are caused by someone else or conditions beyond the control of your protags, but which affect them just the same.

It’s often confusing for new writers when an editor says their book lacks conflict, because most often the editors are talking about inner conflict, the thing deep inside your protags, both of them, that drive the way they think, the way they feel, the things they do. These are things deep inside their own psyches with the roots in their childhoods that become firmly embedded in their minds without either of them realizing it, causing more often than not irrational responses to something the other protag has done. THAT is the conflict book editors are looking for.

The reason editors are looking for internal conflict is because internal conflict is what keeps people wanting to read, to see what happens. Put another way, to see if your protags will win whatever it is they’re looking for. Without internal conflict, it’s just another blah story.

The reason people who are reading your book want conflict is because they want something to take them out of their lives and into the protag’s lives, and nice-nice doesn’t cut it. People don’t want conflict in their own lives, but they do want it in the books they read because without it, the book is boring. As I said in one of my workshops, they want these things to happen to your protags because it’s not them, it’s people in a book. Readers don’t want to have to solve major problems in their own lives, but they love to read about them in others’ lives. They. Want. Conflict.

Take the Anna Nicole Smith debacle, for instance. Try to imagine a life (and death) more conflicted than that one. There’s the lawyer. There’s the boyfriend. There’s all the other boyfriends. There’s her mother. There’s the baby. There’s the court. There’s the money, big money. ALL conflicts.

But guess what. They’re all external conflicts. Each one of those people could be anybody else and it wouldn’t matter one little bit in the grand scheme of things, therefore they’re not that important, are they? Aggravating, yes, but vitally important?

Nope.

Guess what else again. Anna Nicole’s conflicts, the real ones that drove her life and ultimately her death, were all internal conflicts. What made her the way she was? What caused all the bad choices in her life? What made her so desparate for approval, anybody’s approval, that she’d outdo herself every time in her bid for attention? Why did she need that attention so badly? Why, eventually, did she think she needed so many drugs?

Not one of those things depended on any of those other people I mentioned earlier. The people were all, every one of them, props in her life, but whatever drove her actions every time came from deep inside of Anna Nicole’s mind, and nobody else’s.

Think about it.

Let’s take another example. A man and a woman are planning a wedding. (I have weddings on my mind right now because my daughter is getting married this weekend and yes, I DID find a beautiful outfit, thank you for asking.) (But please note, this is an imaginary bride and groom we’re going to talk about now.)

The bride has been looking for the perfect gown for months and can’t settle on one. The groom is getting frustrated with the whole gown thing and out of the goodness of his heart, goes out shopping himself. Since he knows she’s a perfect size eight, he finds a beautiful one, buys it and brings it home to her.

It really is a beautiful dress. Anybody would love it. Victorian in style, elegant in cut, just the right amount of pearls on the off-white satin. The perfect style for her because she’s small, elegant, and a bit old-fashioned. She wears many vintage outfits, which match her own style perfectly. He’s very proud of himself, spent a lot of money on it, opens the box and…

AND…

She freaks out, starts crying, cancels the wedding and heads for Jamaica, alone. Very alone.

What happened?

The gown had a bit of lace on the bosom, beautiful off-white lace, the perfect lace for that dress. It’s also the same lace that was on the dress on her grandmother at her own funeral.

Sounds silly, doesn’t it. Well, maybe it sounds silly, BUT she loved her grandmother very much, spent summers with her all through her childhood and still has nightmares about the funeral and still sees that lace, that cursed lace, which she has never told her groom-to-be.

Now to add to the conflict, THIS lace is why the groom bought THIS dress because it reminds him of his mother’s wedding gown. He loves his mother, which is fine, he should, and he really wants his wife-to-be to wear THAT dress with THAT EXACT lace. (He probably shouldn’t have told the bride that’s why he bought it, but he did because he loves his mother and wants to honor her.)

See what I’m getting at?

This may sound like a silly conflict, but it’s deep, deep internal conflict just the same and it has directly affected their wedding and their entire future, and will continue to do so until they resolve it. (And probably buy another dress sans lace.) But they can’t do that until they face their own inner conflicts and realize how deeply such a small thing has affected both of them.

It’s often (but not always) the little things that make up inner conflicts, and we usually don’t even realize they’re inside us until something happens to crack that thin protective shell and then Whammo!, there you go, instant panic and explosion.

I’ve read, and I believe, that there should be some kind of conflict on every page, or at least some indication of it. Conflict keeps the reader reading. That doesn’t mean they have to be fighting all the time, but each protag should very much want something they’re having a hard time getting at all times, in every scene.

That’s internal conflict.

It can be personal, it can be sexual, it can be almost anything but it has to be there or your reader will get bored and stop reading.

Make SURE your book is full of conflict.

That’s it for this week, folks, Hots and I are heading downstate day after tomorrow for The Wedding, and very happy to be doing so because we adore our son-in-law-to-be and we adore the bride, who chose her own wedding outfit herself and it sounds gorgeous. We’ll tell you all about it next week.

Meantime, we love you all, you KNOW we do, and we thank you so much for coming. Please come back soon. We’ll leave the light on for you.

Beth and Hotclue, who did, as a matter of fact, fight over the outfit we bought and I won because Hotclue wanted the leopard print one. (No, I’m not kidding, there was thirty minutes of indecision over the two outfits.) I almost, but didn’t, give in. Hotclue is just a little miffed because now she has to settle for cream and just a touch of black. Perfect for me, not at all what she wanted to wear, but sometimes, ya know, ya just gotta crack down.

FOCUS!

Recently, in Miss Snark’s Crap-O-Meter on plot hooks, I saw over and over in most of her comments the word, “FOCUS.”

Sometimes that was all she wrote when the hooks were all over the map; they were about this, a little of that. There was no cohesion anyone could see in many of the entries. They weren’t focusing on the job at hand, which, make no mistake about it, when you set out to write a book, it IS a job and you want to get paid for your time, am I right? Or are you still waffling around saying all you want is to ‘hold your book in your hands’? That’s a nice vision, but your attitude about the $$ will change once you get that first taste of blood.

How do you get that first $$ flavored taste?

In this blog and on my Workshop pages, I’ve previously written about several problems in constructing a novel, but up to now I haven’t talked much about focus, which is actually one of the the main things that separates a published novel from an unpublished one.

When I say focus, I’m talking about making sure your entire book is in sync, that everything blends smoothly, that it all makes sense according to what the book actually IS. Not an easy thing to do when a lot of people are telling you to just sit down and write what you love to read, is it? Write the book of your dreams? Sounds nice, right? Easy, right?

Well, by following only that advice, at least you’ll be interested in the book you’re writing.

But you have to be more than interested. You have to be aware, at the same time, of the pitfalls that can derail your book.

You have to maintain your focus in every sentence, every single word you write. You can’t let your book or your characters wander all over the place, you can’t write whole scenes where nothing happens to forward the plot, you can’t let your characters fill up pages with meaningless dialogue, or have them doing things that don’t further your plot just because you’re letting them do what they want. Can’t do that. You need to focus on your job.

First, for new authors, instead of just having a vague idea of what you want to write, you need to sit down and give some serious thought to the genre you’re aiming at AND THE TONE YOU WANT TO PORTRAY. Just deciding it’s a romance, or it’s a mystery, or whatever you choose isn’t enough. Too often we think it is, but it’s not. You need to be aware of the nuances throughout your book and make sure they’re all aiming at the same thing. Do you want funny? Poignant? Fast-paced? Lyrical? Haunting? Scary?

What, exactly, do you want this book to do for your readers? You need to think about that, because the answer to this question drives your book as long as you know what you want for your readers to feel when they read and then FOCUS ON THAT.

Here’s an example. You say you want to write a fast-paced mystery. You’re good at writing comedy. It starts out fine, the lines are snappy and funny, the book’s moving along, you’re halfway done with the book and suddenly one of your lead characters veers off into a completely different type of personality and problem than the one he started off with and you discover you really like how it’s going. Now, that is. You’re liking him better. Now. He’s got more depth, more humanity than you recognized at first. Now. You think he’s growing, the way everybody says your characters should do–and they should. But you can’t let them change enough that it starts your book off all over again in an entirely new genre.

Before, you had him racing around town looking for criminals who committed a particularly terrible crime, plus sorta kinda falling, temporarily, for every female he sees. No holds barred for this slick, wisecracking, basically romantically insincere guy. NOW he’s turned into a guy who WAS mainly looking for the killer, but suddenly THAT takes second place to a flaming romance with a woman who has turned him into a gauzy, daydreaming, waffling mass of Jello-O who is only thinking about picket fences and three-point-seven children.

What’s happened here?

You lost your focus. Changed his personality AND HIS GOALS midstream. Now most of the things he did in the first half of the book don’t make sense. Worse yet, you probably don’t recognize this because it’s hard to see these things in your own book, particularly if you’re a new, basically undisciplined writer. So you go on and finish the book the way he is NOW and then wonder why you’re collecting nothing but rejections.

You lost your focus.

You need to give him his goals at the beginning of the book and then stick with them. If he changes to any large degree, his goals are going to change because the thing that drove him at the beginning disappears when his personality and goals change. And there goes your plot. His initial goals are no longer relevant.

That may be okay if you’re really writing a romance. But you SAID you were writing a fast paced mystery with this wiseass guy, and you’ve already spent several months (if not years) with a mystery in mind. But now it’s turned into a romance, and now the romance takes precedence.

So you need to decide, at the beginning, whether this is going to be a romantic suspense OR a mystery, which are two entirely separate kinds of books with an entirely different set of reader expectations.

I have to say one thing right here that probably won’t gain me any votes when I decide to run for President of the USA. (Any day now. I’d love to see Maureen Dowd take out after me. I get weary, hearing mostly new writers blathering on and on about how “Oh, my characters just took over the book and did what they wanted and I couldn’t stop them because they wanted to do it this way, not that way…” and then you hear five hundred reasons why the writer can’t finish the book, when the real reason is, the author lost her focus. She forgot why she was writing the book. Forgot what emotions she wanted to evoke in her readers.

Face it, your characters come from inside you. If you lose your focus, so will they. Don’t blame it on them, not to me, anyway.

So what do you do with the romance you’ve wound up with, short-sheeting the murder mystery you started out with so that it barely matters anymore, but you’re STILL calling it a mystery? I can tell you right now, mystery readers will nab you sure as God made little green outer space men IF you even get out of the starting gate, which you won’t because agents and editors spot early on whether or not you have focus. They look for focus. If it’s not there, BEEP, get out of the box. Reject.

What you do is, you reconnect with your focus. You take a long, hard look at your book. What did you intend to write? What tone did you want to project? Did you do what you set out to do? If you’re not sure, ask someone with experience. They’ll spot it fast enough. And then you do a rewrite, probably one of many, and re-establish the focus you need for the genre you’re aiming at. (I think I just dropped a participle, please forgive me.)

I’m not saying everything you decide at first is cast in stone. Books can change and often do, but one thing you need to be aware of. The professional writer doesn’t want to lose weeks or months because she lost her focus and now has to rewrite before she even thinks of submitting. The professional writer picks her poison and then sticks with it. Even pro writers who don’t plot at all know pretty much where they’re going from the git-go and if they’re working, consistently selling writers, they go there. Period.

I once read a book written by a guy who was a fantastic writer, as far as writing the words and phrases went. He had written his book starting with one problem for his protagonist that he solved by chapter three, then his protagonist started off in chapter four trying to solve the big problem that was the real reason for his book. I can’t tell you how jarring that was to read because the first problem had nothing whatsoever to do with the protagonist’s main problem. Nothing. It was just there.

He lost his focus. He never found a major publisher willing to publish it.

You have to focus on the book’s main plot and make sure your protagonist/s jibe with the main plot, and this takes some concentration. If your plot is one genre, your protagonist can’t be a character who clearly belongs in another type of genre. If he/she is, then the book can’t have focus because the focus isn’t there. Tone of book, plot, and your lead characters, all three must jibe. If they don’t, something is out of kilter and you need to change it. This is really important, so I hope you’re paying attention to what I just said and think about it. Decide on what kind of book you’re writing, and make sure your characters are right for that type of book.

Focus.

As for focusing on finishing a book you’ve started and just can’t seem to finish, and I’m speaking from sad experience here, the holidays are over now. It’s hard to focus on writing when the holidays are upon us, we all know that, although the professional writer under deadline does it anyhow, so you might as well start training yourself now if you intend to be a professional author because sooner or later you’re going to have to do it. Your $$ may depend on being able to focus enough to do it.

One thing I can promise you. If you think about the tips in this blog and stick to them, it’ll make it a whole lot easier for you to keep on keeping on, because it will feel right to you and you’ll be more apt to finish a saleable book. That tiny feeling inside any author has, that something’s not quite right is always a signal from your inner self telling you something is off.

Don’t let it be your FOCUS.

Thank you for visiting our blog this week. We love y’all, you KNOW we do. Come back again next week, ya hear us?

Warm Hugs from Hotclue and Beth here in frigid Chicago, IL, USA, where it’s heading for below zero and we’re heading for a great book to read–Eileen Dreyer’s new one, SINNERS AND SAINTS. We’ll tell y’all next week how we liked it.

BUT–WHAT DO I DO NOW? I’VE NEVER BEEN THERE!

Beth Anderson here this week. My alter ego, Hotclue, became sick and tired of the warm, snowless weather we’ve been having in Chicago and a few days ago flew off to Aspen, in between snowstorms. Thankfully (I’m always grateful for the peace and quiet when she’s gone) she seems to be snowbound in some lodge there. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it when she gets back. Meantime, since I do the majority of the writing around here anyway, I thought I’d talk this week about research.

Every once in a while the subject of research comes up on various writers’ lists, and the general concensus seems to be that you should go to the location if you’re not familiar with it and do your research on the spot. Easy for them to say. Like, why not head on over to Bangkok for lunch today and take a look around? Most of us are not that fortunate.

So what do you do if you’ve never actually been there? If you do extensive, deep-down research on that location, does it matter that you’ve never been there?

I say no, not really. You can wing it successfully as long as you wing it carefully.

It helps if you can go there, of course, because you’ll pick up nuances, little bits and pieces of feelings and scenes that nobody else might notice, which always adds realism to your location. But does that help you get published? Not really, because while setting the scene is important and can, but not always does, keep you out of hot water with fans who keep every fact about every city on earth in their heads, characterization is a lot more important than where your protags are when they’re getting into whatever they’re getting into. Dwell too much on local color and you fall into dire danger of writing a travelogue, which is boring unless you keep it short and remember that your people, not your location, are your book.

Most of my books have been written without my ever having been there before I wrote the book. I’ve been heartened by letters and emails I’ve received telling me whichever book it was they’d read had sounded to them like I’d spent most of my life there. It takes extensive and careful research to do that. When or if I do go there later on, I always have to smile as I walk through the streets, or look down on them from a hotel room, because then I know I’ve got it right. And so can you.

Examples:
My first-ever published book, ALL THAT GLITTERS, came about because my youngest daughter had gone to Hollywood to try her luck. I was terrified about what might happen to her out there and one Saturday night I sat down to list what all I was afraid of. April popped into my mind. April and Jet, the boy she left behind when she went to Hollywood. I’d been trying for several years to get a book published, but as I sat there that Saturday night at my kitchen table, the hair on the back of my neck began to tingle and I knew this one was going to be published. I got a bunch of maps of Hollywood and L.A., talked to some people who did live there for local information, and off I went–not going there yet, but writing the book anyhow. Sure enough, that was my first contract. I had the location and the ambience and the characters and the story arc right. Some of that changed during the editorial process, but I had it right enough to sell it.

My second book published, DIAMONDS, was set in Vegas. I’d never been to Vegas but it seemed, now that I was interested in finding out about it, television shows set in Vegas or documentaries about Vegas were popping up everywhere. The Tennessee part, where the book briefly began, was easy enough because I’d spent time in Virginia when I was much younger and I remembered how that was. All the Tennessee scenes took part in a backwoods location, so it wasn’t too hard. Diamond was frantic to leave Tennessee and head for Vegas, looking for excitement. So between the maps of Vegas and television shows, where I took copious notes, I wrote the book. One part of that book also took place in Paris, where I’d also never been. But again, like magic, a television documentary gave me loads of local color, enough to be believable, and off I went to Paris in my book.

This happens a lot. If I need something and open my mind to it, it comes to me.

Third book, a Harlequin Superromance called COUNT ON ME, was set primarily in Illinois, in a town sort of like the one I live in now. Almost without effort, as far as the location went, mission accomplished because I could be totally authentic without being sued. I made the town up. The book itself, which was the first book written, third published, was not without effort, though. It took me eight years and many rewrites before I got the Superromance part of it down pat. But locationwise, I was set.

Fourth book, NIGHT SOUNDS, was my first murder mystery. I set it in Chicago, although I made most of the locations up except for Ravinia, the jazz venue in the opening scene, and the Gold Coast scenes. I had one scene I probably wouldn’t repeat but didn’t know any better then, of Joe, my male lead, driving from Chicago to Calumet City, and I listed places he passed as he drove. That’s pretty non-productive and I admit it. I put it there so it would make the scene more realistic. The scene itself could have been deleted and probably should have been. Live and learn. Readers familiar with Chicago liked it though, so all was not lost.

Fifth book, MURDER ONLINE, another murder mystery, was set in Chicago. I had seen a small article in the Sun Times about a young woman found strangled to death in her apartment and the police had no clues. That set my imagination off while I thought about how a killer could do that, kill someone and leave absolutely no clues. The research on this one was more on-site. I drove through the location I had chosen for her apartment and took lots of notes. Then I visited the police department in Area One, because Marty, the detective on my case, was going to be my co-protagonist and I had him working in Area One, a high-crime location. Everywhere we drove, I took notes. The small town Claire, the female lead, lived in was in downstate Illinois. I made that town up, taken from bits and pieces of towns downstate. You can do that. It’s fun. Make one up if you feel like it, but make sure you get the big cities right.

Sixth book out, SECOND GENERATION, was totally, completely research except for the Washington D.C, part, where I grew up and I remember well how it was at that time. But Bogota, Colombia? San Francisco? Never been there. However, because of, again, extensive research both online and in the library, maps, magazines (I did a lot of research with this book), I’ve had people tell me my opening scene, which took place in the Andes Mountains outside of Colombia was exactly the way it actually is. So it can be done. I’ve never had anything to do with running a cocaine cartel either, but there’s research on that everywhere you look, if you look in the right places. I did have a close relationship with politics because of my stepfather, so I could write with great authority there. The upshot of this weird research combination is that this book has won five unsolicited reviewer awards and many other great reviews both on my website and at Amazon.com.

The one I’m re-working right now because of a few structural and characterization flaws, pointed out by an independent editor, is called THE SCOUTMASTER’S WIFE. It takes place in Valdez, Alaska, and yes, I have been there. I spent three months in Valdez but the most awesome thing was on my first day there, as I stood watching fog rolling down the mountainsides instead of lifting like it does everywhere else I’ve ever been. I heard a voice inside of me whispering, “The voices of my ancestors call to me through that fog,” and suddenly I was transported into the head of a female Athabascan (Alaska Native) and the story grew from there. Even though I’d been there, I still brought back, and bought afterward, tons of research material on both Valdez and the Athabascan culture. I did meet a woman there who was an Alaska Native, Athabascan tribe, working in the white man’s world and basically straddling both cultures. She is a lovely, lovely young woman who inspired me to create my female lead, Raven.

So for me, research has been a hit-and-miss thing. Sometimes I write from experience and observation, the rest of the time I do a ton of research because I want my locations to be as realistic as possible. In SCOUTMASTER, the location, because of its extreme beauty and remoteness and uniqueness, is really a character in this book.

If you’ve been worrying about not being able to visit the places you want to write about, get on the Internet, go to the library, buy maps (you can order them online), talk to people, read books about it, watch television documentaries every chance you get and take notes right then and there and file them, because you never know which location you’re going to need information on in the future.

And good luck! This is a tough, tough occupation/career. Give yourself every possible chance to get it right, even if you’ve never been there. Loads of authors do the same thing I do–research. You’ll learn a lot of little things by doing that, which is also a good thing. I’ve found that things stick in my mind that other people never notice, but that’s what we do. We look, we feel, we learn, and then we write about it.

I just spoke to Hots on our cell phone and she said to be sure and tell you she LOVES you, you KNOW she does. We both do, we’re truly grateful for every one of you, so come back soon, ya hear us?

Beth, not-so-subtly subbing for Hotclue this week.