The LadyKillers

Looking Back, Looking Forward--and Thank You

By Margaret Lucke

I'm the last act to be on the stage before we bring down the curtain on the LadyKillers. I want to say what a pleasure and privilege it has been to be part of this group of wonderful writers for the past seven-and-a-half years. I have enjoyed sharing my thoughts on writing, life, and chocolate chip cookies with you, our readers, and I've been delighted to get to know my fellow LadyKillers and to benefit from everyone's wisdom and wit.

As I look back on 2017, I find that it's been a somewhat tumultuous year for the nation and world. For me personally it has had its ups and downs. The downs I'm willing to put behind me, but I'm happy to remember the ups, which include many good times with family and friends, as well as these highlights:

* A trip to Hawaii in March for an excellent Left Coast Crime conference.

* A week in Beijing, from which I've just returned. We went for a celebration of our friend Diana Lu's milestone birthday and the Beijing opening of her fashion design business. We did a bit of sightseeing too -- the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, and the 798 Art Area. (That's me on the Great Wall, bundled up against the frigid weather. Photo by Charles Lucke.)

* The publication of my mystery novel, Snow Angel, and the warm reception it has received. The story: On the eve of a high-profile murder trial, the star witness's seven-year-old daughter disappears. PI Jess Randolph's desperate search for the missing girl takes her from San Francisco to the snowbound Sierra -- and deep into the hearts of two shattered families. I hope you'll check it out if you haven't yet read it. Let me know what you think.        

Now we're hovering on the brink of 2018. I'm looking forward to the new year, hoping that the U.S. and the world will move toward peace, justice, and acceptance of all people.

What will my own 2018 look like? Here's a preview:

* A new book -- House of Desire, in which real estate agent Claire Scanlan teams up with a time-traveling "soiled dove" from the 1890s to solve a murder in a San Francisco Victorian mansion.

* A Mystery Writing class, which I'll be teaching for UC Berkeley Extension this spring. It's on Wednesday evenings, February 21-May 2, with no class on March 22 because I'll be going to:

* Left Coast Crime in Reno, which promises to be another outstanding conference.

To the contributors to the LadyKillers blog, and to all of our readers, thank you for your attention, your comments on my posts, and your friendship. Please keep in touch. You can reach me:

By email: [email protected]

On my website: www.margaretlucke.com

On Facebook: www.facebook.com/margaret.lucke

As my favorite New Year's toast goes, may the year to come be better than any that came before it, and worse than any that shall come after it. For 2018 I wish all of you happiness, health, prosperity, and peace. And of course, many good books.

Inflicting Pain on Your Characters

by Margaret Lucke

Fiction writers are mean. They are cruel. They do not hesitate when it comes to inflicting pain on people.

Not real people, of course.

I'm referring to their characters.

It's been said that the writer's job is to get the characters up a tree and then to throw rocks at them. Or as a writer friend puts it, to get them into trouble and then into worse trouble. This is how plots get made.

This can be hard to do. Most authors I know are kind, warmhearted and friendly. By nature they are disinclined to being deliberately hurtful. So making characters a target for suffering can present a real challenge.

In my work as a developmental editor and a teacher of fiction writing classes, I've had the opportunity to read a great many manuscripts. One common failing I've noticed in the stories of the aspiring writers I've worked with stems from the author's reluctance to subject their characters to the kind of harsh treatment that good fiction requires.

This is perfectly understandable. As writers, we like our characters -- the good guys certainly but, truth be told, we even have a certain fondness for our villains. We often have special affection for our protagonist. While writing a book we live in the skin of our main character, and we come to regard her as a friend. She may be the author in thin disguise.

If you're a writer, you are no doubt a kind, gentle soul, and your instinct is to protect your friend and yourself from sorrow and suffering. You flinch from deliberately hurting anyone.

Tough -- do it anyway. If you pull your punches or soften your blows, you undermine the story's conflict. Tension sags and issues go unresolved, and readers close the book dissatisfied.

For the story is to succeed, you must let your characters confront the physical, mental, and emotional challenges that beset them, no matter how difficult or painful.

One of the best pieces of advice about writing that I've ever received is this: Trust your characters. They know the story, and they are willing to determine their own fates, if only you will let them.

Note: Portions of this post are adapted from my book Writing Mysteries, published by Self-Counsel Press.

"An Activity Engaged in for Pleasure"

By Margaret Lucke

Jess Randolph, the protagonist of my new mystery novel, Snow Angel, doesn't think of painting as a hobby. To her, it's a vocation -- a profession equal in weight and importance to her work as a private investigator. But if a hobby can be defined as "an activity engaged in for pleasure," Jess's art definitely qualifies.

When Jess first arrived in my mind, she was already an artist. It was not a choice that I consciously made for her. But it was natural fit of author and character -- writers often imbue their protagonists with traits and talents we wish we had ourselves. I once attended a panel of mystery writers who confessed that their heroines all were younger, thinner, smarter and braver than their creators. To that list, I'd add that mine possesses an aptitude for art that I lack.

I love art. I'm drawn to colors and lines and forms. I admire a well-wrought painting or sculpture or an object finely crafted from clay or glass. But as much as I wish it were otherwise, my own efforts to produce art are clumsy at best. So for me, it's an interest but not really a hobby.

It's an interest I come by naturally. I come from a family of artists. My grandfather made his living as a commercial artist in the days when ads and magazine articles were illustrated with paintings rather than photos. My grandmother was also a prolific painter. As a child I loved to visit their home, where they both maintained their studios, because it was filled with creative energy. My mom painted and drew and made amazing costumes, and my sister is a graphic designer. But the visual arts gene was not passed along to me, so I'm delighted that Jess possesses it.

I think of Jess's paintings at semi-abstract, often inspired by nature. The one she's working on in Snow Angel is "a wintry swirl of snow and sky—azure, ice blue and indigo." But I don't describe her art in detail. Better to let the reader paint the pictures for themselves in their minds.

When I'm at an art fair or gallery, I'll sometimes study the paintings and ask myself, "Could that be one that Jess might have done?" I rarely answer "yes," though occasionally I see one that comes close. Like any artist, she has her own distinctive style.

Art and private investigation may seem like very different enterprises, but Jess doesn't think so. To her, they are both a means for discovering something that is true about life, the world, the human condition. To me, they are both integral parts of her, blending into a character that I'm delighted to be getting to know.

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Margaret Lucke

Jess Randolph, who stars in my new mystery Snow Angel, tells me that one of her favorite foods is chocolate chip cookies. Especially those that she buys from Irma's Deli near her office, which she assures me are wonderful.

My reaction: Who doesn’t include chocolate chip cookies amongst their favorite foods?

I don't have Irma's recipe, but fortunately I have this one, which was given to me by my mother-in-law.

They are truly delicious -- and you can eat as many as you want. That's because they contain oatmeal, which means they count as health food. :-)

Agness Lucke's Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

1 stick butter
2 eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1-1/4 cup whole wheat flour
2-1/2 cups quick oats
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
12 oz. package of chocolate chips
1/2 cup walnuts

1.  Mix butter and sugar.
2.  Add eggs, then oil. Beat well.
3.  Add vanilla, dry ingredients, and chocolate chips.
4.  Drop by the spoonful onto cookie sheet.
5.  Bake at 350° for approximately 10 minutes.
6.  Remove from cookie sheet onto a cooling rack.
7.  Eat and enjoy.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Variations: Lately when we've made these cookies, we've added 1/2 cup of dried cranberries or chopped candied ginger. Or both. The additions give the cookies a festive and unexpected twist.

The cookies are best fresh out of the oven, but in case you don't scarf down the whole batch at once, they freeze beautifully. And they are almost as tasty when they're still frozen.

The holiday season almost upon us, and a couple dozen of these in a pretty tin make a fine gift. And don't forget to give yourself a present, too!

Writers' Thoughts on the Witching Hour

By Margaret Lucke

This is the week that includes Halloween. On that evening small witches and warlocks and all matter of costumed creatures go up to homes where jack-o-lanterns glow on the doorstep. They ring the doorbell and ask for candy. At our house the witching hour on this past Tuesday night ran from around six pm, when a tiny Spiderman arrived, to about nine, when the last crew of witches departed, the candles in the pumpkins sputtered out, and we turned the porch light off. I wasn't sure whether to be glad or sorry that we still had some candy left.

Most nights, though, the witching hour comes later and the forces it unleashes are more mysterious. It comes into play in the book I'm currently writing, whose working title is House of Shadows. The subject comes up at the opening of chapter two:

Three a.m. The witching hour.

Claire Scanlan slid open the glass door to her apartment balcony and stepped into the cold, still air.

Some folks claimed midnight was the witching hour, but Claire preferred the tradition that said it was three in the morning. Plenty of people were still awake and active at midnight, and by six a.m. they were rising to greet the new day. Three o'clock, the deepest point in the night, the moment when almost everyone had surrendered to sleep and was paying the least attention—this was when the forces of magic seemed most likely to emerge and do their work.

The witching hour has long intrigued authors. Here are the thoughts of a few of them.

* * *

"The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment
in the middle of the nightwhen every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep,
and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves."

— Roald Dahl, The BFG

* * *

Tis the witching hour of night,
Or bed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen—
For what listen they?

   — John Keats, A Prophecy

* * *

"It's the witching hour once more–
When the Muse comes out to play.
He calls me through that magic door–
Where galaxies of worlds await!"

— Belle Whittington, Cicada

* * *

"At the witching hour, the city was totally silent. Only the wind of portent blew
through the gathered council of whispering brick chimneys on the rooftops,
delivering the hand that would write upon the wall."

— Wyatt Michael, Revenge of the Wolf

* * *

"The witching hour, people used to call it, that dark time when restless spirits
reached for freedom."

— Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song

What does the term "the witching hour" evoke for you?

NEWS and Graphic Violence

NEWS

Ann Parker tossed her draft for Book 6 in her series over the electronic transom, and it was tossed back four days later with a shorter title (A DYING NOTE) and a request for smallish changes. She's going to fix what needs fixing as quickly as possible and lob it back.

Ellen Kirschman rates Mystery Week  a big success with a good turnout for Motives for Murder at the Santa Clara library and a packed house (see the photo) at the Latin American Club for Noir at the Bar.  The Santa Clara panel, Left to Right, is Susan Bickford, Susan Wolfe, Ellen, Robin Stuart and John Bilheimer who was thinking hard. Noir at the Bar authors included Laurie R. King, Cara Black, Tony Broadbent, Jacqueline Winspear, Jerry Kenneally, Kelli Stanley and Ellen. Rather than read from one of her books, Ellen interviewed her protagonist, Dr. Dot Meyerhoff. Here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMc95N-6aDo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HALLOWEEN HI-JINKS

Priscilla Royal: For Hallowe'en, I have a skeleton sitting on my tax papers. As for candy, my favorite is anything chocolate that my internist won't let me eat....

Margaret Lucke: Favorite Halloween candy? Chocolate, of course. Dark chocolate preferred, but if trick-or-treating brings me a treat involving milk chocolate and peanuts -- Reese's PB cups, Mr. Goodbars, peanut M&Ms -- you'll hear no complaints.

Camille Minichino: Here’s a photo of me as a camper one Halloween. A friend dressed me. Those who know me even a little, know how incongruous this is!

Ann Parker: The decorations are going up, slowly but surely. By October 31, I'm calling it done, no matter what.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

So, how much violence can you take in the stories you read? And, if you are a writer, how much do you dish out? We'll be talking about graphic violence and its place in fiction plus more, this upcoming week.

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Who Knew? A Few Fun Facts about Words, Writers, and Literature

By Margaret Lucke

I enjoy doing research for my books I'm writing and for classes I'm teaching because it leads me to all kinds of fun facts I wouldn't otherwise know. Once I get started, one interesting fact leads to another, and to another. Join me in meandering down a road of fun facts about words, writers, and literature.

>>    Do you know the longest word in the English-language dictionary? It is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanokoniosis, which is a lung disease contracted from inhaling volcanic particles. It contains 45 letters (I counted so you wouldn't have to). But its primacy is challenged by the chemical name of a giant protein known as titin, which has 189,819 letters and, it is estimated, would fill around 57 if printed in a typical book. A YouTube video of a man pronouncing the word runs almost as long as the film Gone with the Wind.

>>    That long p-word disease isn't much of a problem for writers, who are more likely to be afflicted with colygraphia, which sounds serious enough to earn us plenty of tea and sympathy. Most of us call this problem by its more common name -- writer's block.

>>    After you recover from your colygraphia, it's time to get back to work. Before you know it, you may find yourself complaining about mogigraphia, or writer's cramp.

>>    Someone who probably suffered from mogigraphia was Peter Bales, who earned fame in Elizabethan England for his skill as a scribe and calligrapher. In 1590 Bales transcribed a complete copy of the Bible so tiny it could fit inside a walnut shell.

>>    Although Bales was known to engage in contests and rivalries, I don't know if he produced his Bible to win a wager. But some have taken pen in hand in order to win a bet. For instance:

*  Editor and publisher Bennett Cerf bet Dr. Seuss $50 that he couldn't write a book using only 50 words. Seuss responded by writing Green Eggs and Ham.

*   Ernest Hemingway famously won a bar bet when his drinking buddies each put $10 in the pot and challenged him to write a story using only six words. Hemingway scribbled these words on a napkin -- "For sale: baby shoes, never worn" -- and collected the cash. This has led to an entire genre of six-word stories, some of which can be found at www.sixwordstories.net.

*   Agatha Christie wrote her first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, after her older sister bet her that she couldn't write a mystery novel in which the reader couldn't guess the murder even though given the same clues as the detective -- who in this case is Hercule Poirot.

>>    Christie's other famous sleuth is Miss Jane Marple. But Miss M. was from the first female detective. That honor may belong to the heroine of a novella by E.T.A Hoffman that was published in 1819, more than a century before Miss Marple made her appearance. Both the sleuth and the novella are named Mademoiselle de Scudéri. That's the same E.T.A. Hoffman, by the way, who wrote The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which formed the basis of Tchaikovsky's Christmastime ballet.

Who knew all these cool bits of trivia? Well, I know them, thanks to my research journey and the stops I made along the way. And now so do you.

News and Next Week: Why Do I Write?

News

• Friday, October 13, 12 to 3 PM, Camille Minichino will be teaching a brief class on Science, Technology, and Cultural Change. JFK in Pleasant Hill. 925-969-4600 to register.
• Sunday, October 15, 2 PM, Camille will moderate a mystery panel at the Castro Valley Library, with Ann Parker and others.

 

 

• Margaret Lucke will give a presentation on "7 Secret of Writing Great Fiction," followed by a brief talk about her new novel,  SNOW ANGEL, at Barnes & Noble, 1600 Gateway Blvd, Fairfield, CA, on Saturday, October 14, at 3 pm. Her appearance is part of the store's four-day Writer's Boot Camp program, being held October 12-15.

• Carole Price is still smiling over her soon-to-be-released Vineyard Prey. She thought it would never happen after her first publisher dropped their mystery line.
• Ann Parker is crawling to the edit finish line for her ms,  Fall on a Dying Note (or maybe it'll have a different title. Who knows?). By this time next week, the draft will be to the editor for scrutiny and she'll be "done" by definition (if not by inclination). Then, the waiting begins to hear what changes will be requested from on high.
• Ellen Kirschman has given three news interviews following the mass shooting in Las Vegas. If it had been a scene in her next mystery, no one would have believed it possible. She's participating in two upcoming events:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next Week

Writing is hard. And it doesn't usually pay well. Your family and your day job resent the time spent away from them in a little office nook, or neighborhood coffee shop, or library. So why bother, especially now that the big publishers are consolidating and Amazon owns everything?

Well...maybe there's nothing quite like writing a perfect sentence. Or scaring the bejesus out of a reader with a plot twist she never saw coming. Join us next week as the LadyKillers wax poetical and practical about why they write.

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Animals or No Animals? That Is the Question

By Margaret Lucke

Mystery author Betty Lucke (no relation that we've been able to discover) has two books out in her enjoyable Circle Sleuth mystery series, which features Airedale terriers. There is one dog, Gandalf, in the first book, Circle of Power. He also plays a role in book two, Family of the Heart, as do a couple of additional canines. The dogs get together in that way dogs and other creatures do, so by the end of the book there are puppies. There's no telling how many dogs the characters will be wrangling by the end of book three. Fortunately, the Circle Sleuths are a group of friends and dog lovers who can step up when one dog or another needs human attention.

Which is the challenge a writer of crime fiction faces when deciding to give pets to her characters. Animals need to be cared for. A dog must be fed, watered, exercised, played with, taken for walks, and cleaned up after. And what self-respecting detective has time for all of that? Cats are a bit more independent and require slightly lower maintenance, but even a cat can be left alone for only so long. Yet a detective must follow where the clues take her, which means she may not always be able to get home on the regular schedule that an animal in the household requires. It's hard for her to stay on the bad guy's trail if she's got to rush home to give Fido or Fluffy his kibble.

For that reason I'd advise any writer starting a new mystery series not to go the animal route. Sure, readers enjoy puppy and kitty antics, and being pet lovers themselves -- well over half of Americans share their home with a dog or cat, or both -- and they can easily relate to characters who love animals too. Circle Sleuth fans love Gandalf and his pals. But the logistics can be limiting. You don't want your readers to get deep into that suspenseful scene where, after chasing the villain all night, the detective finds herself in a trap -- only to have them pull back and think, "Wait -- did she remember to feed the dog?"

However, I've never been fond of taking advice, not even my own.

That's why in my new book, Snow Angel, there is not just one dog but two.

O'Meara, an Irish setter, is a partner in the private investigation firm that my heroine, Jess Randolph, works for. Her boss, Tyler Parks, finds it easier to have a colleague who can back up certain company policies -- "Yes, you're a good client and if it were up to me I'd give you a discount on our rates, but unfortunately my partner O'Meara says no. " (Interestingly, in my initial draft of A Relative Stranger, the first Jess Randolph mystery, O'Meara was a human being. Well, a lawyer. Almost the same thing. The story of how he evolved into a dog can be found here.)

Scruff, the result of a romantic fling that O'Meara had, is Jess's own dog, living with her in her San Francisco flat. Fortunately, her landlady lives in the flat below with foster son who loves Scruff dearly, and also loves the pocket money Jess pays him to take care of Scruff when she's tied up, literally or figuratively, in her work.

Even so, it gets tricky sometime to make sure that none of the characters, canine and otherwise, are neglected -- unless the plot demands it, that is. Which is why Claire Scanlan, heroine of my haunted house novels (House of Whispers and the forthcoming House of Desire), has no animals, just a ghost or two to keep things interesting.

Mentors: An Appreciation

By Margaret Lucke

Studies have shown that people who've had mentors in their field of endeavor are more likely to succeed than those who don't. Recognizing this, corporations often set up formal programs to foster mentor-mentee relationships. But the most valuable opportunities to teach and to learn often don't come from those kinds of structured situations but from school, from friendships, from moments spent in the company of people who take an interest, offer a word of encouragement, or provide a good example.

Here are a few of the many things I've learned as an aspiring writer (and I'm always aspiring to learn more), with deep appreciation to those who imparted these lessons to me.

>>  Miss Taylor, first grade teacher: Reading is fun, and is worth doing.

At age six, I was excited to finally being going to school, which I looked at as a huge adventure. I was fortunate to have Miss Taylor as my teacher because she reinforced that idea. I already knew the alphabet and how to spell and read a small selection of words. Under Miss Taylor's tutelage, it all came together and the world of books opened up to me in a whole new way.

>>  Mrs. Angell, sixth grade teacher: Creative writing is fun, and is worth doing.

Mrs. Angell believed it was more important for her students to learn how to stretch their imaginations than it was for them to score well on standardized tests. Each month, she had us produce a class magazine, which we called "Glimmerings." Every kid had to submit an original work to each issue -- a story, a poem, an essay, a puzzle. We wrote our entry in our best handwriting and added illustrations, and a student editorial board assembled everything into the current issue, which was displayed in the classroom for everyone to read. One month we carefully inscribed our work onto mimeograph masters and Mrs. Angell produced individual copies for each kid in the class. I still have mine.

>>  Mrs. Henderson, high school English teacher: Be willing to explore life and literature beyond the boundaries of what you'll learn in school. Also: If you want learn how to write clearly and cogently, read a lot and write a lot.

With her hair in a bun and her sensible shoes, Mrs. Henderson was the perfect image of a straitlaced, boring teacher. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. She truly enjoyed her students. She took us on field trips to the theater, maintained a library in her classroom of books we wouldn't find in the official school library, and encouraged us in all manner of intellectual explorations. She was also an excellent and enthusiastic instructor when it came to imparted writing skills. I was fortunate to have her as a teacher for three out four of my high school years.

>>  Larry Menkin, writer/producer/actor in the early decades of TV: Apply seat of pants.

This of course meant the seat of your own pants, which were to be applied to the seat of your chair -- because no matter how strong your desire or how good your intentions, it's only when you're actually writing that the writing gets done.

I took a writing seminar with Larry for more than a year. For much of that time I was the only student, because when the original seminar ended and the other students left, he invited me to stay. He offered to be my mentor and coach because I was what he called a "money player." Unfortunately he didn't mean that I was destined to earn a lot of money. A money player was someone who had the talent, drive, and determination to stay in the game and ultimately to succeed. I learned a great deal from Larry, including the value of sticking with the goal. Equally as important was knowing that someone who his kind of professional credentials believed in me and was confident that I, too, could achieve my dream of being a writer.

>>  My writer colleagues.

I'm not going to name names or single out any particular lessons because there are simply far too many of them -- my fellow members of Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime; the writers in my critique groups; the students in classes I've taught; my fellow LadyKillers; and all of the wonderful authors who, through their books, lectures, panels at conferences, and cocktail party conversations, have imparted advice, insight, encouragement, and inspiration.

To all of you, let me say thank you.